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Ethics reading list (Dr. Bowser)

Greetings!

This is the basic ethics reading list that I think everyone taking an introductory course in ethics should cover.

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  1: Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation [1823]

  Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/278 on 2009-03-30

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  Preface

  Note.—The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of 'A New Edition, corrected by the Author,' which was published in 1823.

  The following sheets were, as the note on the opposite page expresses, printed so long ago as the year 1780. The design, in pursuance of which they were written, was not so extensive as that announced by the present title. They had at that time no other destination than that of serving as an introduction to a plan of a penal code in terminus, designed to follow them, in the same volume.

  The body of the work had received its completion according to the then present extent of the author's views, when, in the investigation of some flaws he had discovered, he found himself unexpectedly entangled in an unsuspected corner of the metaphysical maze. A suspension, at first not apprehended to be more than a temporary one, necessarily ensued: suspension brought on coolness, and coolness, aided by other concurrent causes, ripened into disgust.

  Imperfections pervading the whole mass had already been pointed out by the sincerity of severe and discerning friends; and conscience had certified the justness of their censure. The inordinate length of some of the chapters, the apparent inutility of others, and the dry and metaphysical turn of the whole, suggested an apprehension, that, if published in its present form, the work would contend under great disadvantages for any chance, it might on other accounts possess, of being read, and consequently of being of use.

  But, though in this manner the idea of completing the present work slid insensibly aside, that was not by any means the case with the considerations which had led him to engage in it. Every opening, which promised to afford the lights he stood in need of, was still pursued: as occasion arose the several departments connected with that in which he had at first engaged, were successively explored; insomuch that, in one branch or other of the pursuit, his researches have nearly embraced the whole field of legislation.

  Several causes have conspired at present to bring to light, under this new title, a work which under its original one had been imperceptibly, but as it had seemed irrevocably, doomed to oblivion. In the course of eight years, materials for various works, corresponding to the different branches of the subject of legislation, had been produced, and some nearly reduced to shape: and, in every one of those works, the principles exhibited in the present publication had been found so necessary, that, either to transcribe them piece-meal, or to exhibit them somewhere where they could be referred to in the lump, was found unavoidable. The former course would have occasioned repetitions too bulky to be employed without necessity in the execution of a plan unavoidably so voluminous: the latter was therefore indisputably the preferable one.

  To publish the materials in the form in which they were already printed, or to work them up into a new one, was therefore the only alternative: the latter had all along been his wish, and, had time and the requisite degree of alacrity been at command, it would as certainly have been realised. Cogent considerations, however, concur, with the irksomeness of the task, in placing the accomplishment of it at present at an unfathomable distance.

  Another consideration is, that the suppression of the present work, had it been ever so decidedly wished, is no longer altogether in his power. In the course of so long an interval, various incidents have introduced copies into various hands, from some of which they have been transferred by deaths and other accidents, into others that are unknown to him. Detached, but considerable extracts, have even been published, without any dishonourable views (for the name of the author was very honestly subjoined to them), but without his privity, and in publications undertaken without his knowledge.

  It may perhaps be necessary to add, to complete his excuse for offering to the public a work pervaded by blemishes, which have not escaped even the author's partial eye, that the censure, so justly bestowed upon the form, did not extend itself to the matter.

  In sending it thus abroad into the world with all its imperfections upon its head, he thinks it may be of assistance to the few readers he can expect, to receive a short intimation of the chief particulars, in respect of which it fails of corresponding with his maturer views. It will thence be observed how in some respects it fails of quadrating with the design announced by its original title, as in others it does with that announced by the one it bears at present.

  An introduction to a work which takes for its subject the totality of any science, ought to contain all such matters, and such matters only, as belong in common to every particular branch of that science, or at least to more branches of it than one. Compared with its present title, the present work fails in both ways of being conformable to that rule.

  As an introduction to the principles of morals, in addition to the analysis it contains of the extensive ideas signified by the terms pleasure, pain, motive, and disposition, it ought to have given a similar analysis of the not less extensive, though much less determinate, ideas annexed to the terms emotion, passion, appetite, virtue, vice, and some others, including the names of the particular virtues and vices. But as the true, and, if he conceives right, the only true ground-work for the development of the latter set of terms, has been laid by the explanation of the former, the completion of such a dictionary, so to style it, would, in comparison of the commencement, be little more than a mechanical operation.

  Again, as an introduction to the principles of legislation in general, it ought rather to have included matters belonging exclusively to the civil branch, than matters more particularly applicable to the penal: the latter being but a means of compassing the ends proposed by the former. In preference therefore, or at least in priority, to the several chapters which will be found relative to punishment, it ought to have exhibited a set of propositions which have since presented themselves to him as affording a standard for the operations performed by government, in the creation and distribution of proprietary and other civil rights. He means certain axioms of what may be termed mental pathology, expressive of the connection betwixt the feelings of the parties concerned, and the several classes of incidents, which either call for, or are produced by, operations of the nature above mentioned.1

  The consideration of the division of offences, and every thing else that belongs to offences, ought, besides, to have preceded the consideration of punishment: for the idea of punishment presupposes the idea of offence: punishment, as such, not being inflicted but in consideration of offence.

  Lastly, the analytical discussions relative to the classification of offences would, according to his present views, be transferred to a separate treatise, in which the system of legislation is considered solely in respect of its form: in other words, in respect of its method and terminology.

  In these respects the performance fails of coming up to the author's own ideas of what should have been exhibited in a work, bearing the title he has now given it. viz. that of an Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. He knows however of no other that would be less unsuitable: nor in particular would so adequate an intimation of its actual contents have been given, by a title corresponding to the more limited design, with which it was written: viz. that of serving as an introduction to a penal code.

  Yet more. Dry and tedious as a great part of the discussions it contains must unavoidably be found by the bulk of readers, he knows not how to regret the having written them, nor even the having made them public. Under every head, the practical uses, to which the discussions contained under that head appeared applicable, are indicated: nor is there, he believes, a single proposition that he has not found occasion to build upon in the penning of some article or other of those provisions of detail, of which a body of law, authoritative or unauthoritative, must be composed. He will venture to specify particularly, in this view, the several chapters shortly characterized by the words Sensibility, Actions, Intentionality, Consciousness, Motives, Dispositions, Consequences. Even in the enormous chapter on the division of offenses, which, notwithstanding the forced compression the plan has undergone in several of its parts, in manner there mentioned, occupies no fewer than one hundred and four closely printed quarto pages,2 the ten concluding ones are employed in a statement of the practical advantages that may be reaped from the plan of classification which it exhibits. Those in whose sight the Defence of Usury has been fortunate enough to find favour, may reckon as one instance of those advantages the discovery of the principles developed in that little treatise. In the preface to an anonymous tract published so long ago as in 1776,3 he had hinted at the utility of a natural classification of offenses, in the character of a test for distinguishing genuine from spurious ones. The case of usury is one among a number of instances of the truth of that observation. A note at the end of Sect. XXXV. chap. XVI. of the present publication, may serve to show how the opinions, developed in that tract, owed their origin to the difficulty experienced in the attempt to find a place in his system for that imaginary offense. To some readers, as a means of helping them to support the fatigue of wading through an analysis of such enormous length, he would almost recommend the beginning with those ten concluding pages.

  One good at least may result from the present publication; viz. that the more he has trespassed on the patience of the reader on this occasion, the less need he will have so to do on future ones: so that this may do to those, the office which is done, by books of pure mathematics, to books of mixed mathematics and natural philosophy. The narrower the circle of readers is, within which the present work may be condemned to confine itself, the less limited may be the number of those to whom the fruits of his succeeding labours may be found accessible. He may therefore in this respect find himself in the condition of those philosophers of antiquity, who are represented as having held two bodies of doctrine, a popular and an occult one: but, with this difference, that in his instance the occult and the popular will, he hopes, be found as consistent as in those they were contradictory; and that in his production whatever there is of occultness has been the pure result of sad necessity, and in no respect of choice.

  Having, in the course of this advertisement, had such frequent occasion to allude to different arrangements, as having been suggested by more extensive and maturer views, it may perhaps contribute to the satisfaction of the reader, to receive a short intimation of their nature: the rather, as, without such explanation, references, made here and there to unpublished works, might be productive of perplexity and mistake. The following then are the titles of the works by the publication of which his present designs would be completed. They are exhibited in the order which seemed to him best fitted for apprehension, and in which they would stand disposed, were the whole assemblage ready to come out at once: but the order, in which they will eventually appear, may probably enough be influenced in some degree by collateral and temporary considerations.

  Part the 1st. Principles of legislation in matters of civil, more distinctively termed private distributive, or for shortness, distributive, law.

  Part the 2nd. Principles of legislation in matters of penal law.

  Part the 3rd. Principles of legislation in matters of procedure: uniting in one view the criminal and civil branches, between which no line can be drawn, but a very indistinct one, and that continually liable to variation.

  Part the 4th. Principles of legislation in matters of reward.

  Part the 5th. Principles of legislation in matters of public distributive, more concisely as well as familiarly termed constitutional, law.

  Part the 6th. Principles of legislation in matters of political tactics: or of the art of maintaining order in the proceedings of political assemblies, so as to direct them to the end of their institution: viz. by a system of rules, which are to the constitutional branch, in some respects, what the law of procedure is to the civil and the penal.

  Part the 7th. Principles of legislation in matters betwixt nation and nation, or, to use a new though not inexpressive appellation, in matters of international law.

  Part the 8th. Principles of legislation in matters of finance.

  Part the 9th. Principles of legislation in matters of political economy.

  Part the 10th. Plan of a body of law, complete in all its branches, considered in respect of its form; in other words, in respect of its method and terminology; including a view of the origination and connexion of the ideas expressed by the short list of terms, the exposition of which contains all that can be said with propriety to belong to the head of universal jurisprudence.4

  The use of the principles laid down under the above several heads is to prepare the way for the body of law itself exhibited in terminis; and which to be complete, with reference to any political state, must consequently be calculated for the meridian, and adapted to the circumstances, of some one such state in particular.

  Had he an unlimited power of drawing upon time, and every other condition necessary, it would be his wish to postpone the publication of each part to the completion of the whole. In particular, the use of the ten parts, which exhibit what appear to him the dictates of utility in every line, being no other than to furnish reasons for the several corresponding provisions contained in the body of law itself, the exact truth of the former can never be precisely ascertained, till the provisions, to which they are destined to apply, are themselves ascertained, and that in terminis. But as the infirmity of human nature renders all plans precarious in the execution, in proportion as they are extensive in the design, and as he has already made considerable advances in several branches of the theory, without having made correspondent advances in the practical applications, he deems it more than probable, that the eventual order of publication will not correspond exactly with that which, had it been equally practicable, would have appeared most eligible. Of this irregularity the unavoidable result will be, a multitude of imperfections, which, if the execution of the body of law in terminis had kept pace with the development of the principles, so that each part had been adjusted and corrected by the other, might have been avoided. His conduct however will be the less swayed by this inconvenience, from his suspecting it to be of the number of those in which the personal vanity of the author is much more concerned, than the instruction of the public: since whatever amendments may be suggested in the detail of the principles, by the literal fixation of the provisions to which they are relative, may easily be made in a corrected edition of the former, succeeding upon the publication of the latter.

  In the course of the ensuing pages, references will be found, as already intimated, some to the plan of a penal code to which this work was meant as an introduction, some to other branches of the above-mentioned general plan, under titles somewhat different from those, by which they have been mentioned here. The giving this warning is all which it is in the author's power to do, to save the reader from the perplexity of looking out for what has not as yet any existence. The recollection of the change of plan will in like manner account for several similar incongruities not worth particularizing.

  Allusion was made, at the outset of this advertisement, to some unspecified difficulties, as the causes of the original suspension, and unfinished complexion, of the present work. Ashamed of his defeat, and unable to dissemble it, he knows not how to reface himself the benefit of such an apology as a slight sketch of the nature of those difficulties may afford.

  The discovery of them was produced by the attempt to solve the questions that will be found at the conclusion of the volume: Wherein consisted the identity and completeness of a law? What the distinction, and where the separation, between a penal and a civil law? What the distinction, and where the separation, between the penal and other branches of the law?

  To give a complete and correct answer to these questions, it is but too evident that the relations and dependencies of every part of the legislative system, with respect to every other, must have been comprehended and ascertained. But it is only upon a view of these parts themselves, that such an operation could have been performed. To the accuracy of such a survey one necessary condition would therefore be, the complete existence of the fabric to be surveyed. To the performance of this condition no example is as yet to be met with any where. Common law, as it styles itself in England, judiciary law as it might aptly be styled every where, that fictitious composition which has no known person for its author, no known assemblage of words for its substance, forms every where the main body of the legal fabric: like that fancied ether, which, in default of sensible matter, fills up the measure of the universe. Shreds and scraps of real law, stuck on upon that imaginary ground, compose the furniture of every national code. What follows?—that he who, for the purpose just mentioned or for any other, wants an example of a complete body of law to refer to, must begin with making one.

  There is, or rather there ought to be a logic of the will, as well as of the understanding: the operations of the former faculty, are neither less susceptible, nor less worthy, then those of the latter, of being delineated by rules. Of these two branches of that recondite art, Aristotle saw only the latter: succeeding logicians, treading in the steps of their great founder, have concurred in seeing with no other eyes. Yet so far as a difference can be assigned between branches so intimately connected, whatever difference there is, in point of importance, is in favour of the logic of the will. Since it is only by their capacity of directing the operations of this faculty, that the operations of the understanding are of any consequence.

  Of this logic of the will, the science of law, considered in respect of its form, is the most considerable branch,—the most important application. It is, to the art of legislation, what the science of anatomy is to the art of medicine: with this difference, that the subject of it is what the artist has to work with, instead of being what he has to operate upon. Nor is the body politic less in danger from a want of acquaintance with the one science, than the body natural from ignorance in the other. One example, amongst a thousand that might be adduced in proof of this assertion, may be seen in the note which terminates this volume.

  Such then were the difficulties: such the preliminaries:—an unexampled work to achieve, and then a new science to create: a new branch to add to one of the most abstruse of sciences.

  Yet more: a body of proposed law, how complete soever, would be comparatively useless and uninstructive, unless explained and justified, and that in every tittle, by a continued accompaniment, a perpetual commentary of reasons:5 which reasons, that the comparative value of such as point in opposite directions may be estimated, and the conjunct force, of such as point in the same direction may be felt, must be marshalled, and put under subordination to such extensive and leading ones as are termed principles. There must be therefore, not one system only, but two parallel and connected systems, running on together. the one of legislative provisions, the other of political reasons, each affording to the other correction and support.

  Are enterprises like these achievable? He knows not. This only he knows, that they have been undertaken, proceeded in, and that some progress has been made in all of them. He will venture to add, if at all achievable, never at least by one, to whom the fatigue of attending to discussions, as arid as those which occupy the ensuing pages, would either appear useless, or feel intolerable. He will repeat it boldly (for it has been said before him), truths that form the basis of political and moral science are not to be discovered but by investigations as severe as mathematical ones, and beyond all comparison more intricate and extensive. The familiarity of the terms is a presumption, but is a most fallacious one, of the facility of the matter. Truths in general have been called stubborn things: the truths just mentioned are so in their own way. They are not to be forced into detached and general propositions, unincumbered with explanations and exceptions. They will not compress themselves into epigrams. They recoil from the tongue and the pen of the declaimer. They flourish not in the same soil with sentiment. They grow among thorns; and are not to be plucked, like daisies, by infants as they run. Labour, the inevitable lot of humanity, is in no track more inevitable than here. In vain would an Alexander bespeak a peculiar road for royal vanity, or a Ptolemy, a smoother one, for royal indolence. There is no King's Road, no Stadtholder's Gate, to legislative, any more than to mathematic science.

  Chapter I

  OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

  I. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility6 recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.

  But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved.

  II. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and determinate account of what is meant by it. By the principle7 of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.

  III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.

  IV. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this. The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what?—the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

  V. It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual.8 A thing is said to promote the interest, or to be for the interest, of an individual, when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures: or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the sum total of his pains.

  VI. An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility, or, for shortness sake, to utility, (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.

  VII. A measure of government (which is but a particular kind of action, performed by a particular person or persons) may be said to be conformable to or dictated by the principle of utility, when in like manner the tendency which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any which it has to diminish it.

  VIII. When an action, or in particular a measure of government, is supposed by a man to be conformable to the principle of utility, it may be convenient, for the purposes of discourse, to imagine a kind of law or dictate, called a law or dictate of utility: and to speak of the action in question, as being conformable to such law or dictate.

  IX. A man may be said to be a partizan of the principle of utility, when the approbation or disapprobation he annexes to any action, or to any measure, is determined by and proportioned to the tendency which he conceives it to have to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community: or in other words, to its conformity or unconformity to the laws or dictates of utility.

  X. Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility one may always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not one that ought not to be done. One may say also, that it is right it should be done; at least that it is not wrong it should be done: that it is a right action; at least that it is not a wrong action. When thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wrong and others of that stamp, have a meaning: when otherwise, they have none.

  XI. Has the rectitude of this principle been ever formally contested? It should seem that it had, by those who have not known what they have been meaning. Is it susceptible of any direct proof? it should seem not: for that which is used to prove every thing else, cannot itself be proved: a chain of proofs must have their commencement somewhere. To give such proof is as impossible as it is needless.

  XII. Not that there is or ever has been that human creature at breathing, however stupid or perverse, who has not on many, perhaps on most occasions of his life, deferred to it. By the natural constitution of the human frame, on most occasions of their lives men in general embrace this principle, without thinking of it: if not for the ordering of their own actions, yet for the trying of their own actions, as well as of those of other men. There have been, at the same time, not many perhaps, even of the most intelligent, who have been disposed to embrace it purely and without reserve. There are even few who have not taken some occasion or other to quarrel with it, either on account of their not understanding always how to apply it, or on account of some prejudice or other which they were afraid to examine into, or could not bear to part with. For such is the stuff that man is made of: in principle and in practice, in a right track and in a wrong one, the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.

  XIII. When a man attempts to combat the principle of utility, it is with reasons drawn, without his being aware of it, from that very principle itself.9 His arguments, if they prove any thing, prove not that the principle is wrong, but that, according to the applications he supposes to be made of it, it is misapplied. Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon.

  XIV. To disprove the propriety of it by arguments is impossible; but, from the causes that have been mentioned, or from some confused or partial view of it, a man may happen to be disposed not to relish it. Where this is the case, if he thinks the settling of his opinions on such a subject worth the trouble, let him take the following steps, and at length, perhaps, he may come to reconcile himself to it.

  1. Let him settle with himself, whether he would wish to discard this principle altogether; if so, let him consider what it is that all his reasonings (in matters of politics especially) can amount to?

  2. If he would, let him settle with himself, whether he would judge and act without any principle, or whether there is any other he would judge an act by?

  3. If there be, let him examine and satisfy himself whether the principle he thinks he has found is really any separate intelligible principle; or whether it be not a mere principle in words, a kind of phrase, which at bottom expresses neither more nor less than the mere averment of his own unfounded sentiments; that is, what in another person he might be apt to call caprice?

  4. If he is inclined to think that his own approbation or disapprobation, annexed to the idea of an act, without any regard to its consequences, is a sufficient foundation for him to judge and act upon, let him ask himself whether his sentiment is to be a standard of right and wrong, with respect to every other man, or whether every man's sentiment has the same privilege of being a standard to itself?

  5. In the first case, let him ask himself whether his principle is not despotical, and hostile to all the rest of human race?

  6. In the second case, whether it is not anarchial, and whether at this rate there are not as many different standards of right and wrong as there are men? and whether even to the same man, the same thing, which is right to-day, may not (without the least change in its nature) be wrong to-morrow? and whether the same thing is not right and wrong in the same place at the same time? and in either case, whether all argument is not at an end? and whether, when two men have said, 'I like this', and 'I don't like it', they can (upon such a principle) have any thing more to say?

  7. If he should have said to himself, No: for that the sentiment which he proposes as a standard must be grounded on reflection, let him say on what particulars the reflection is to turn? if on particulars having relation to the utility of the act, then let him say whether this is not deserting his own principle, and borrowing assistance from that very one in opposition to which he sets it up: or if not on those particulars, on what other particulars?

  8. If he should be for compounding the matter, and adopting his own principle in part, and the principle of utility in part, let him say how far he will adopt it?

  9. When he has settled with himself where he will stop, then let him ask himself how he justifies to himself the adopting it so far? and why he will not adopt it any farther?

  10. Admitting any other principle than the principle of utility to be a right principle, a principle that it is right for a man to pursue; admitting (what is not true) that the word right can have a meaning without reference to utility, let him say whether there is any such thing as a motive that a man can have to pursue the dictates of it: if there is, let him say what that motive is, and how it is to be distinguished from those which enforce the dictates of utility: if not, then lastly let him say what it is this other principle can be good for?

  Chapter II

  OF PRINCIPLES ADVERSE TO THAT OF UTILITY

  1. If the principle of utility be a right principle to be governed by, and that in all cases, it follows from what has been just observed, that whatever principle differs from it in any case must necessarily be a wrong one. To prove any other principle, therefore, to be a wrong one, there needs no more than just to show it to be what it is, a principle of which the dictates are in some point or other different from those of the principle of utility: to state it is to confute it.

  II. A principle may be different from that of utility in two ways: 1. By being constantly opposed to it: this is the case with a principle which may be termed the principle of asceticism.10 2. By being sometimes opposed to it, and sometimes not, as it may happen: this is the case with another, which may be termed the principle of sympathy and antipathy.

  III. By the principle of asceticism I mean that principle, which, like the principle of utility, approves or disapproves of any action, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; but in an inverse manner: approving of actions in as far as they tend to diminish his happiness; disapproving of them in as far as they tend to augment it.

  IV. It is evident that any one who reprobates any the least particle of pleasure, as such, from whatever source derived, is pro tanto a partizan of the principle of asceticism. It is only upon that principle, and not from the principle of utility, that the most abominable pleasure which the vilest of malefactors ever reaped from his crime would be to be reprobated, if it stood alone. The case is, that it never does stand alone; but is necessarily followed by such a quantity of pain (or, what comes to the same thing, such a chance for a certain quantity of pain) that the pleasure in comparison of it, is as nothing: and this is the true and sole, but perfectly sufficient, reason for making it a ground for punishment.

  V. There are two classes of men of very different complexions, by whom the principle of asceticism appears to have been embraced; the one a set of moralists, the other a set of religionists. Different accordingly have been the motives which appear to have recommended it to the notice of these different parties. Hope, that is the prospect of pleasure, seems to have animated the former: hope, the aliment of philosophic pride: the hope of honour and reputation at the hands of men. Fear, that is the prospect of pain, the latter: fear, the offspring of superstitious fancy: the fear of future punishment at the hands of a splenetic and revengeful Deity. I say in this case fear: for of the invisible future, fear is more powerful than hope. These circumstances characterize the two different parties among the partisans of the principle of asceticism; the parties and their motives different, the principle the same.

  VI. The religious party, however, appear to have carried it farther than the philosophical: they have acted more consistently and less wisely. The philosophical party have scarcely gone farther than to reprobate pleasure: the religious party have frequently gone so far as to make it a matter of merit and of duty to court pain. The philosophical party have hardly gone farther than the making pain a matter of indifference. It is no evil, they have said: they have not said, it is a good. They have not so much as reprobated all pleasure in the lump. They have discarded only what they have called the gross; that is, such as are organical, or of which the origin is easily traced up to such as are organical: they have even cherished and magnified the refined. Yet this, however, not under the name of pleasure: to cleanse itself from the sordes of its impure original, it was necessary it should change its name: the honourable, the glorious, the reputable, the becoming, the honestum, the decorum it was to be called: in short, any thing but pleasure.

  VII. From these two sources have flowed the doctrines from which the sentiments of the bulk of mankind have all along received a tincture of this principle; some from the philosophical, some from the religious, some from both. Men of education more frequently from the philosophical, as more suited to the elevation of their sentiments: the vulgar more frequently from the superstitious, as more suited to the narrowness of their intellect, undilated by knowledge: and to the abjectness of their condition, continually open to the attacks of fear. The tinctures, however, derived from the two sources, would naturally intermingle, insomuch that a man would not always know by which of them he was most influenced: and they would often serve to corroborate and enliven one another. It was this conformity that made a kind of alliance between parties of a complexion otherwise so dissimilar: and disposed them to unite upon various occasions against the common enemy, the partizan of the principle of utility, whom they joined in branding with the odious name of Epicurean.

  VIII. The principle of asceticism, however, with whatever warmth it may have been embraced by its partizans as a rule of private conduct, seems not to have been carried to any considerable length, when applied to the business of government. In a few instances it has been carried a little way by the philosophical party: witness the Spartan regimen. Though then, perhaps, it maybe considered as having been a measure of security: and an application, though a precipitate and perverse application, of the principle of utility. Scarcely in any instances, to any considerable length, by the religious: for the various monastic orders, and the societies of the Quakers, Dumplers, Moravians, and other religionists, have been free societies, whose regimen no man has been astricted to without the intervention of his own consent. Whatever merit a man may have thought there would be in making himself miserable, no such notion seems ever to have occurred to any of them, that it may be a merit, much less a duty, to make others miserable: although it should seem, that if a certain quantity of misery were a thing so desirable, it would not matter much whether it were brought by each man upon himself, or by one man upon another. It is true, that from the same source from whence, among the religionists, the attachment to the principle of asceticism took its rise, flowed other doctrines and practices, from which misery in abundance was produced in one man by the instrumentality of another: witness the holy wars, and the persecutions for religion. But the passion for producing misery in these cases proceeded upon some special ground: the exercise of it was confined to persons of particular descriptions: they were tormented, not as men, but as heretics and infidels. To have inflicted the same miseries on their fellow believers and fellow-sectaries, would have been as blameable in the eyes even of these religionists, as in those of a partizan of the principle of utility. For a man to give himself a certain number of stripes was indeed meritorious: but to give the same number of stripes to another man, not consenting, would have been a sin. We read of saints, who for the good of their souls, and the mortification of their bodies, have voluntarily yielded themselves a prey to vermin: but though many persons of this class have wielded the reins of empire, we read of none who have set themselves to work, and made laws on purpose, with a view of stocking the body politic with the breed of highwaymen, housebreakers, or incendiaries. If at any time they have suffered the nation to be preyed upon by swarms of idle pensioners, or useless placemen, it has rather been from negligence and imbecility, than from any settled plan for oppressing and plundering of the people. If at any time they have sapped the sources of national wealth, by cramping commerce, and driving the inhabitants into emigration, it has been with other views, and in pursuit of other ends. If they have declaimed against the pursuit of pleasure, and the use of wealth, they have commonly stopped at declamation: they have not, like Lycurgus, made express ordinances for the purpose of banishing the precious metals. If they have established idleness by a law, it has been not because idleness, the mother of vice and misery, is itself a virtue, but because idleness (say they) is the road to holiness. If under the notion of fasting, they have joined in the plan of confining their subjects to a diet, thought by some to be of the most nourishing and prolific nature, it has been not for the sake of making them tributaries to the nations by whom that diet was to be supplied, but for the sake of manifesting their own power, and exercising the obedience of the people. If they have established, or suffered to be established, punishments for the breach of celibacy, they have done no more than comply with the petitions of those deluded rigorists, who, dupes to the ambitious and deep-laid policy of their rulers, first laid themselves under that idle obligation by a vow.

  IX. The principle of asceticism seems originally to have been the reverie of certain hasty speculators, who having perceived, or fancied, that certain pleasures, when reaped in certain circumstances, have, at the long run, been attended with pains more than equivalent to them, took occasion to quarrel with every thing that offered itself under the name of pleasure. Having then got thus far, and having forgot the point which they set out from, they pushed on, and went so much further as to think it meritorious to fall in love with pain. Even this, we see, is at bottom but the principle of utility misapplied.

  X. The principle of utility is capable of being consistently pursued; and it is but tautology to say, that the more consistently it is pursued, the better it must ever be for human-kind. The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of this earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a hell.

  XI. Among principles adverse11 to that of utility, that which at this day seems to have most influence in matters of government, is what may be called the principle of sympathy and antipathy. By the principle of sympathy and antipathy, I mean that principle which approves or disapproves of certain actions, not on account of their tending to augment the happiness, nor yet on account of their tending to diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question, but merely because a man finds himself disposed to approve or disapprove of them: holding up that approbation or disapprobation as a sufficient reason for itself, and disclaiming the necessity of looking out for any extrinsic ground. Thus far in the general department of morals: and in the particular department of politics, measuring out the quantum (as well as determining the ground) of punishment, by the degree of the disapprobation.

  XII. It is manifest, that this is rather a principle in name than in reality: it is not a positive principle of itself, so much as a term employed to signify the negation of all principle. What one expects to find in a principle is something that points out some external consideration, as a means of warranting and guiding the internal sentiments of approbation and disapprobation: this expectation is but ill fulfilled by a proposition, which does neither more nor less than hold up each of those sentiments as a ground and standard for itself.

  XIII. In looking over the catalogue of human actions (says a partizan of this principle) in order to determine which of them are to be marked with the seal of disapprobation, you need but to take counsel of your own feelings: whatever you find in yourself a propensity to condemn, is wrong for that very reason. For the same reason it is also meet for punishment: in what proportion it is adverse to utility, or whether it be adverse to utility at all, is a matter that makes no difference. In that same proportion also is it meet for punishment: if you hate much, punish much: if you hate little, punish little: punish as you hate. If you hate not at all, punish not at all: the fine feelings of the soul are not to be overborne and tyrannized by the harsh and rugged dictates of political utility.

  XIV. The various systems that have been formed concerning the standard of right may all be reduced to the principle of sympathy and antipathy. One account may serve for all of them. They consist all of them in so many contrivances for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external standard, and for prevailing upon the reader to accept of the author's sentiment or opinion as a reason for itself. The phrases different, but the principle the same.12

  XV. It is manifest, that the dictates of this principle will frequently coincide with those of utility, though perhaps without intending any such thing. Probably more frequently than not: and hence it is that the business of penal justice is carried upon that tolerable sort of footing upon which we see it carried on in common at this day. For what more natural or more general ground of hatred to a practice can there be, than the mischievousness of such practice? What all men are exposed to suffer by, all men will be disposed to hate. It is far yet, however, from being a constant ground: for when a man suffers, it is not always that he knows what it is he suffers by. A man may suffer grievously, for instance, by a new tax, without being able to trace up the cause of his sufferings to the injustice of some neighbour, who has eluded the payment of an old one.

  XVI. The principle of sympathy and antipathy is most apt to err on the side of severity. It is for applying punishment in many cases which deserve none: in many cases which deserve some, it is for applying more than they deserve. There is no incident imaginable, be it ever so trivial, and so remote from mischief, from which this principle may not extract a ground of punishment. Any difference in taste: any difference in opinion: upon one subject as well as upon another. No disagreement so trifling which perseverance and altercation will not render serious. Each becomes in the other's eyes an enemy, and, if laws permit, a criminal.13 This is one of the circumstances by which the human race is distinguished (not much indeed to its advantage) from the brute creation.

  XVII. It is not, however, by any means unexampled for this principle to err on the side of lenity. A near and perceptible mischief moves antipathy. A remote and imperceptible mischief, though not less real, has no effect. Instances in proof of this will occur in numbers in the course of the work.14 It would be breaking in upon the order of it to give them here.

  XVIII. It may be wondered, perhaps, that in all this no mention has been made of the theological principle; meaning that principal which professes to recur for the standard of right and wrong to the will of God. But the case is, this is not in fact a distinct principle. It is never any thing more or less than one or other of the three before-mentioned principles presenting itself under another shape. The will of God here meant cannot be his revealed will, as contained in the sacred writings: for that is a system which nobody ever thinks of recurring to at this time of day, for the details of political administration: and even before it can be applied to the details of private conduct, it is universally allowed, by the most eminent divines of all persuasions, to stand in need of pretty ample interpretations; else to what use are the works of those divines? And for the guidance of these interpretations, it is also allowed, that some other standard must be assumed. The will then which is meant on this occasion, is that which may be called the presumptive will: that is to say, that which is presumed to be his will by virtue of the conformity of its dictates to those of some other principle. What then may be this other principle? it must be one or other of the three mentioned above: for there cannot, as we have seen, be any more. It is plain, therefore, that, setting revelation out of the question, no light can ever be thrown upon the standard of right and wrong, by any thing that can be said upon the question, what is God's will. We may be perfectly sure, indeed, that whatever is right is conformable to the will of God: but so far is that from answering the purpose of showing us what is right, that it is necessary to know first whether a thing is right, in order to know from thence whether it be conformable to the will of God.15

  XIX. There are two things which are very apt to be confounded, but which it imports us carefully to distinguish:—the motive or cause, which, by operating on the mind of an individual, is productive of any act: and the ground or reason which warrants a legislator, or other by-stander, in regarding that act with an eye of approbation. When the act happens, in the particular instance in question, to be productive of effects which we approve of, much more if we happen to observe that the same motive may frequently be productive, in other instances, of the like effects, we are apt to transfer our approbation to the motive itself, and to assume, as the just ground for the approbation we bestow on the act, the circumstance of its originating from that motive. It is in this way that the sentiment of antipathy has often been considered as a just ground of action. Antipathy, for instance, in such or such a case, is the cause of an action which is attended with good effects: but this does not make it a right ground of action in that case, any more than in any other. Still farther. Not only the effects are good, but the agent sees beforehand that they will be so. This may make the action indeed a perfectly right action: but it does not make antipathy a right ground of action. For the same sentiment of antipathy, if implicitly deferred to, may be, and very frequently is, productive of the very worst effects. Antipathy, therefore, can never be a right ground of action. No more, therefore, can resentment, which, as will be seen more particularly hereafter, is but a modification of antipathy. The only right ground of action, that can possibly subsist, is, after all, the consideration of utility which, if it is a right principle of action, and of approbation, in any one case, is so in every other. Other principles in abundance, that is, other motives, may be the reasons why such and such an act has been done: that is, the reasons or causes of its being done: but it is this alone that can be the reason why it might or ought to have been done. Antipathy or resentment requires always to be regulated, to prevent its doing mischief: to be regulated by what? always by the principle of utility. The principle of utility neither requires nor admits of any another regulator than itself.

  Chapter III

  OF THE FOUR SANCTIONS OR SOURCES OF PAIN AND PLEASURE

  I. It has been shown that the happiness of the individuals, of whom a community is composed, that is their pleasures and their security, is the end and the sole end which the legislator ought to have in view: the sole standard, in conformity to which each individual ought, as far as depends upon the legislator, to be made to fashion his behaviour. But whether it be this or any thing else that is to be done, there is nothing by which a man can ultimately be made to do it, but either pain or pleasure. Having taken a general view of these two grand objects (viz. pleasure, and what comes to the same thing, immunity from pain) in the character of final causes; it will be necessary to take a view of pleasure and pain itself, in the character of efficient causes or means.

  II. There are four distinguishable sources from which pleasure and pain are in use to flow: considered separately they may be termed the physical, the political, the moral and the religious: and inasmuch as the pleasures and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law or rule of conduct, they may all of them termed sanctions.16

  III. If it be in the present life, and from the ordinary course of nature, not purposely modified by the interposition of the will of any human being, nor by any extraordinary interposition of any superior invisible being, that the pleasure or the pain takes place or is expected, it may be said to issue from or to belong to the physical sanction.

  IV. If at the hands of a particular person or set of persons in the community, who under names correspondent to that of judge, are chosen for the particular purpose of dispensing it, according to the will of the sovereign or supreme ruling power in the state, it may be said to issue from the political sanction.

  V. If at the hands of such chance persons in the community, as the party in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with, according to each man's spontaneous disposition, and not according to any settled or concerted rule, it may be said to issue from the moral or popular sanction.17

  VI. If from the immediate hand of a superior invisible being, either in the present life, or in a future, it may be said to issue from the religious sanction.

  VII. Pleasures or pains which may be expected to issue from the physical, political, or moral sanctions, must all of them be expected to be experienced, if ever, in the present life: those which may be expected to issue from the religious sanction, may be expected to be experienced either in the present life or in a future.

  VIII. Those which can be experienced in the present life, can of course be no others than such as human nature in the course of the present life is susceptible of: and from each of these sources may flow all the pleasures or pains of which, in the course of the present life, human nature is susceptible. With regard to these then (with which alone we have in this place any concern) those of them which belong to any one of those sanctions, differ not ultimately in kind from those which belong to any one of the other three: the only difference there is among them lies in the circumstances that accompany their production. A suffering which befalls a man in the natural and spontaneous course of things, shall be styled, for instance, a calamity; in which case, if it be supposed to befall him through any imprudence of his, it may be styled a punishment issuing from the physical sanction. Now this same suffering, if inflicted by the law, will be what is commonly called a punishment; if incurred for want of any friendly assistance, which the misconduct, or supposed misconduct, of the sufferer has occasioned to be withholden, a punishment issuing from the moral sanction; if through the immediate interposition of a particular providence, a punishment issuing from the religious sanction.

  IX. A man's goods, or his person, are consumed by fire. If this happened to him by what is called an accident, it was a calamity: if by reason of his own imprudence (for instance, from his neglecting to put his candle out) it may be styled a punishment of the physical sanction: if it happened to him by the sentence of the political magistrate, a punishment belonging to the political sanction; that is, what is commonly called a punishment: if for want of any assistance which his neighbour withheld from him out of some dislike to his moral character, a punishment of the moral sanction: if by an immediate act of God's displeasure, manifested on account of some sin committed by him, or through any distraction of mind, occasioned by the dread of such displeasure, a punishment of the religious sanction.18

  X. As to such of the pleasures and pains belonging to the religious sanction, as regard a future life, of what kind these may be we cannot know. These lie not open to our observation. During the present life they are matter only of expectation: and, whether that expectation be derived from natural or revealed religion, the particular kind of pleasure or pain, if it be different from all those which lie open to our observation, is what we can have no idea of. The best ideas we can obtain of such pains and pleasures are altogether unliquidated in point of quality. In what other respects our ideas of them may be liquidated will be considered in another place.19

  XI. Of these four sanctions the physical is altogether, we may observe, the ground-work of the political and the moral: so is it also of the religious, in as far as the latter bears relation to the present life. It is included in each of those other three. This may operate in any case, (that is, any of the pains or pleasures belonging to it may operate) independently of them: none of them can operate but by means of this. In a word, the powers of nature may operate of themselves; but neither the magistrate, nor men at large, can operate, nor is God in the case in question supposed to operate, but through the powers of nature.

  XII. For these four objects, which in their nature have so much in common, it seemed of use to find a common name. It seemed of use, in the first place, for the convenience of giving a name to certain pleasures and pains, for which a name equally characteristic could hardly otherwise have been found: in the second place, for the sake of holding up the efficacy of certain moral forces, the influence of which is apt not to be sufficiently attended to. Does the political sanction exert an influence over the conduct of mankind? The moral, the religious sanctions do so too. In every inch of his career are the operations of the political magistrate liable to be aided or impeded by these two foreign powers: who, one or other of them, or both, are sure to be either his rivals or his allies. Does it happen to him to leave them out in his calculations? he will be sure almost to find himself mistaken in the result. Of all this we shall find abundant proofs in the sequel of this work. It behoves him, therefore, to have them continually before his eyes; and that under such a name as exhibits the relation they bear to his own purposes and designs.

  Chapter IV

  VALUE OF A LOT OF PLEASURE OR PAIN, HOW TO BE MEASURED

  I. Pleasures then, and the avoidance of pains, are the ends that the legislator has in view; it behoves him therefore to understand their value. Pleasures and pains are the instruments he has to work with: it behoves him therefore to understand their force, which is again, in other words, their value.

  II. To a person considered by himself, the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to the four following circumstances:20

  • 1. Its intensity.
  • 2. Its duration.
  • 3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
  • 4. Its propinquity or remoteness.

  III. These are the circumstances which are to be considered in estimating a pleasure or a pain considered each of them by itself. But when the value of any pleasure or pain is considered for the purpose of estimating the tendency of any act by which it is produced, there are two other circumstances to be taken into the account; these are,

  • 5. Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind: that is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure: pains, if it be a pain.
  • 6. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind: that is, pains, if it be a pleasure: pleasures, if it be a pain.

  These two last, however, are in strictness scarcely to be deemed properties of the pleasure or the pain itself; they are not, therefore, in strictness to be taken into the account of the value of that pleasure or that pain. They are in strictness to be deemed properties only of the act, or other event, by which such pleasure or pain has been produced; and accordingly are only to be taken into the account of the tendency of such act or such event.

  IV. To a number of persons, with reference to each of whom to the value of a pleasure or a pain is considered, it will be greater or less, according to seven circumstances: to wit, the six preceding ones; viz.

  • 1. Its intensity.
  • 2. Its duration.
  • 3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
  • 4. Its propinquity or remoteness.
  • 5. Its fecundity.
  • 6. Its purity.

  V. To take an exact account then of the general tendency of any act, by which the interests of a community are affected, proceed as follows. Begin with any one person of those whose interests seem most immediately to be affected by it: and take an account,

  1. Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.

  2. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.

  3. Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pleasure and the impurity of the first pain.

  4. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the first pleasure.

  5. Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that individual person; if on the side of pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole.

  6. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned; and repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum up the numbers expressive of the degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is bad upon the whole. Take the balance which if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good tendency of the act, with respect to the total number or community of individuals concerned; if on the side of pain,the general evil tendency, with respect to the same community.

  VI. It is not to be expected that this process should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgment, or to every legislative or judicial operation. It may, however, be always kept in view: and as near as the process actually pursued on these occasions approaches to it, so near will such process approach to the character of an exact one.

  VII. The same process is alike applicable to pleasure and pain, in whatever shape they appear: and by whatever denomination they are distinguished: to pleasure, whether it be called good (which is properly the cause or instrument of pleasure) or profit (which is distant pleasure, or the cause or instrument of distant pleasure,) or convenience, or advantage, benefit, emolument, happiness, and so forth: to pain, whether it be called evil, (which corresponds to good) or mischief, or inconvenience, or disadvantage, or loss, or unhappiness, and so forth.

  VIII. Nor is this a novel and unwarranted, any more than it is a useless theory. In all this there is nothing but what the practice of mankind, wheresoever they have a clear view of their own interest, is perfectly conformable to. An article of property, an estate in land, for instance, is valuable, on what account? On account of the pleasures of all kinds which it enables a man to produce, and what comes to the same thing the pains of all kinds which it enables him to avert. But the value of such an article of property is universally understood to rise or fall according to the length or shortness of the time which a man has in it: the certainty or uncertainty of its coming into possession: and the nearness or remoteness of the time at which, if at all, it is to come into possession. As to the intensity of the pleasures which a man may derive from it, this is never thought of, because it depends upon the use which each particular person may come to make of it; which cannot be estimated till the particular pleasures he may come to derive from it, or the particular pains he may come to exclude by means of it, are brought to view. For the same reason, neither does he think of the fecundity or purity of those pleasures.

  Thus much for pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness, in general. We come now to consider the several particular kinds of pain and pleasure.

  Chapter V

  PLEASURES AND PAINS, THEIR KINDS

  I. Having represented what belongs to all sorts of pleasures and pains alike, we come now to exhibit, each by itself, the several sorts of pains and pleasures. Pains and pleasures may be called by one general word, interesting perceptions. Interesting perceptions are either simple or complex. The simple ones are those which cannot any one of them be resolved into more: complex are those which are resolvable into divers simple ones. A complex interesting perception may accordingly be composed either, 1. Of pleasures alone: 2. Of pains alone: or, 3. Of a pleasure or pleasures, and a pain or pains together. What determines a lot of pleasure, for example, to be regarded as one complex pleasure, rather than as divers simple ones, is the nature of the exciting cause. Whatever pleasures are excited all at once by the action of the same cause, are apt to be looked upon as constituting all together but one pleasure.

  II. The several simple pleasures of which human nature is susceptible, seem to be as follows: 1. The pleasures of sense. 2. The pleasures of wealth. 3. The pleasures of skill. 4. The pleasures of amity. 5. The pleasures of a good name. 6. The pleasures of power. 7. The pleasures of piety. 8. The pleasures of benevolence. 9. The pleasures of malevolence. 10. The pleasures of memory. 11. The pleasures of imagination. 12. The pleasures of expectation. 13. The pleasures dependent on association. 14. The pleasures of relief.

  III. The several simple pains seem to be as follows: 1. The pains of privation. 2. The pains of the senses. 3. The pains of awkwardness. 4. The pains of enmity. 5. The pains of an ill name. 6. The pains of piety. 7. The pains of benevolence. 8. The pains of malevolence. 9. The pains of the memory. 10. The pains of the imagination. 11. The pains of expectation. 12. The pains dependent on association.21

  IV. 1. The pleasures of sense seem to be as follows: 1. The pleasures of the taste or palate; including whatever pleasures are experienced in satisfying the appetites of hunger and thirst. 2. The pleasure of intoxication. 3. The pleasures of the organ of smelling. 4. The pleasures of the touch. 5. The simple pleasures of the ear; independent of association. 6. The simple pleasures of the eye; independent of association. 7. The pleasure of the sexual sense. 8. The pleasure of health: or, the internal pleasureable feeling or flow of spirits (as it is called), which accompanies a state of full health and vigour; especially at times of moderate bodily exertion. 9. The pleasures of novelty: or, the pleasures derived from the gratification of the appetite of curiosity, by the application of new objects to any of the senses.22

  V. 2. By the pleasures of wealth may be meant those pleasures which a man is apt to derive from the consciousness of possessing any article or articles which stand in the list of instruments of enjoyment or security, and more particularly at the time of his first acquiring them; at which time the pleasure may be styled a pleasure of gain or a pleasure of acquisition: at other times a pleasure of possession.

  3. The pleasures of skill, as exercised upon particular objects, are those which accompany the application of such particular instruments of enjoyment to their uses, as cannot be so applied without a greater or less share of difficulty or exertion.23

  VI. 4. The pleasures of amity, or self-recommendation, are the pleasures that may accompany the persuasion of a man's being in the acquisition or the possession of the good-will of such or such assignable person or persons in particular: or, as the phrase is, of being upon good terms with him or them: and as a fruit of it, of his being in a way to have the benefit of their spontaneous and gratuitous services.

  VII. 5. The pleasures of a good name are the pleasures that accompany the persuasion of a man's being in the acquisition or the possession of the good-will of the world about him; that is, of such members of society as he is likely to have concerns with; and as a means of it, either their love or their esteem, or both: and as a fruit of it, of his being in the way to have the benefit of their spontaneous and gratuitous services. These may likewise be called the pleasures of good repute, the pleasures of honour, or the pleasures of the moral sanction.24

  VIII. 6. The pleasures of power are the pleasures that accompany the persuasion of a man's being in a condition to dispose people, by means of their hopes and fears, to give him the benefit of their services: that is, by the hope of some service, or by the fear of some disservice, that he may be in the way to render them.

  IX. 7. The pleasures of piety are the pleasures that accompany the belief of a man's being in the acquisition or in possession of the good-will or favour of the Supreme Being: and as a fruit of it, of his being in a way of enjoying pleasures to be received by God's special appointment, either in this life, or in a life to come. These may also be called the pleasures of religion, the pleasures of a religious disposition, or the pleasures of the religious sanction.25

  X. 8. The pleasures of benevolence are the pleasures resulting from the view of any pleasures supposed to be possessed by the beings who may be the objects of benevolence; to wit, the sensitive beings we are acquainted with; under which are commonly included, 1. The Supreme Being. 2. Human beings. 3. Other animals. These may also be called the pleasures of good-will, the pleasures of sympathy, or the pleasures of the benevolent or social affections.

  XI. 9. The pleasures of malevolence are the pleasures resulting from the view of any pain supposed to be suffered by the beings who may become the objects of malevolence: to wit, 1. Human beings. 2. Other animals. These may also be styled the pleasures of ill-will, the pleasures of the irascible appetite, the pleasures of antipathy, or the pleasures of the malevolent or dissocial affections.

  XII. 10. The pleasures of the memory are the pleasures which, after having enjoyed such and such pleasures, or even in some case after having suffered such and such pains, a man will now and then experience, at recollecting them exactly in the order and in the circumstances in which they were actually enjoyed or suffered. These derivative pleasures may of course be distinguished into as many species as there are of original perceptions, from whence they may be copied. They may also be styled pleasures of simple recollection.

  XIII. 11. The pleasures of the imagination are the pleasures which may be derived from the contemplation of any such pleasures as may happen to be suggested by the memory, but in a different order, and accompanied by different groups of circumstances. These may accordingly be referred to any one of the three cardinal points of time, present, past, or future. It is evident they may admit of as many distinctions as those of the former class.

  XIV. 12. The pleasures of expectation are the pleasures that result from the contemplation of any sort of pleasure, referred to time future, and accompanied with the sentiment of belief. These also may admit of the same distinctions.26

  XV. 13. The pleasures of association are the pleasures which certain objects or incidents may happen to afford, not of themselves, but merely in virtue of some association they have contracted in the mind with certain objects or incidents which are in themselves pleasurable. Such is the case, for instance, with the pleasure of skill, when afforded by such a set of incidents as compose a game of chess. This derives its pleasurable quality from its association partly with the pleasures of skill, as exercised in the production of incidents pleasurable of themselves: partly from its association with the pleasures of power. Such is the case also with the pleasure of good luck, when afforded by such incidents as compose the game of hazard, or any other game of chance, when played at for nothing. This derives its pleasurable quality from its association with one of the pleasures of wealth; to wit, with the pleasure of acquiring it.

  XVI. 14. Farther on we shall see pains grounded upon pleasures; in like manner may we now see pleasures grounded upon pains. To the catalogue of pleasures may accordingly be added the pleasures of relief: or, the pleasures which a man experiences when, after he has been enduring a pain of any kind for a certain time, it comes to cease, or to abate. These may of course be distinguished into as many species as there are of pains: and may give rise to so many pleasures of memory, of imagination, and of expectation.

  XVII. 1. Pains of privation are the pains that may result from the thought of not possessing in the time present any of the several kinds of pleasures. Pains of privation may accordingly be resolved into as many kinds as there are of pleasures to which they may correspond, and from the absence whereof they may be derived.

  XVIII. There are three sorts of pains which are only so many modifications of the several pains of privation. When the enjoyment of any particular pleasure happens to be particularly desired, but without any expectation approaching to assurance, the pain of privation which thereupon results takes a particular name, and is called the pain of desire, or of unsatisfied desire.

  XIX. Where the enjoyment happens to have been looked for with a degree of expectation approaching to assurance, and that expectation is made suddenly to cease, it is called a pain of disappointment.

  XX. A pain of privation takes the name of a pain of regret in two cases: 1. Where it is grounded on the memory of a pleasure, which having been once enjoyed, appears not likely to be enjoyed again: 2. Where it is grounded on the idea of a pleasure, which was never actually enjoyed, nor perhaps so much as expected,but which might have been enjoyed (it is supposed,) had such or such a contingency happened, which, in fact, did not happen.

  XXI. 2. The several pains of the senses seem to be as follows: 1. The pains of hunger and thirst: or the disagreeable sensations produced by the want of suitable substances which need at times to be applied to the alimentary canal. 2. The pains of the taste: or the disagreeable sensations produced by the application of various substances to the palate, and other superior parts of the same canal. 3. The pains of the organ of smell: or the disagreeable sensations produced by the effluvia of various substances when applied to that organ. 4. The pains of the touch: or the disagreeable sensations produced by the application of various substances to the skin. 5. The simple pains of the hearing: or the disagreeable sensations excited in the organ of that sense by various kinds of sounds: independently (as before,) of association. 6. The simple pains of the sight: or the disagreeable sensations if any such there be, that may be excited in the organ of that sense by visible images, independent of the principle of association. 7.27 The pains resulting from excessive heat or cold, unless these be referable to the touch. 8. The pains of disease: or the acute and uneasy sensations resulting from the several diseases and indispositions to which human nature is liable. 9. The pain of exertion, whether bodily or mental: or the uneasy sensation which is apt to accompany any intense effort, whether of mind or body.

  XXII. 3.28 The pains of awkwardness are the pains which sometimes result from the unsuccessful endeavour to apply any particular instruments of enjoyment or security to their uses, or from the difficulty a man experiences in applying them.29

  XXIII. 4. The pains of enmity are the pains that may accompany the persuasion of a man's being obnoxious to the ill-will of such or such an assignable person or persons in particular: or, as the phrase is, of being upon ill terms with him or them: and, in consequence, of being obnoxious to certain pains of some sort or other, of which he may be the cause.

  XXIV. 5. The pains of an ill-name, are the pains that accompany the persuasion of a man's being obnoxious, or in a way to be obnoxious to the ill-will of the world about him. These may likewise be called the pains of ill-repute, the pains of dishonour, or the pains of the moral sanction.30

  XXV. 6.31 The pains of piety are the pains that accompany the belief of a man's being obnoxious to the displeasure of the Supreme Being: and in consequence to certain pains to be inflicted by his especial appointment, either in this life or in a life to come. These may also be called the pains of religion; the pains of a religious disposition; or the pains of the religious sanction. When the belief is looked upon as well-grounded, these pains are commonly called religious terrors; when looked upon as ill-grounded, superstitious terrors.32

  XXVI. 7. The pains of benevolence are the pains resulting from the view of any pains supposed to be endured by other beings. These may also be called the pains of good-will, of sympathy, or the pains of the benevolent or social affections.

  XXVII. 8. The pains of malevolence are the pains resulting from the view of any pleasures supposed to be enjoyed by any beings who happen to be the objects of a man's displeasure. These may also be styled the pains of ill-will, of antipathy, or the pains of the malevolent or dissocial affections.

  XXVIII. 9. The pains of the memory may be grounded on every one of the above kinds, as well of pains of privation as of positive pains. These correspond exactly to the pleasures of the memory.

  XXIX. 10. The pains of the imagination may also be grounded on any one of the above kinds, as well of pains of privation as of positive pains: in other respects they correspond exactly to the pleasures of the imagination.

  XXX. 11. The pains of expectation may be grounded on each one of the above kinds, as well of pains of privation as of positive pains. These may be also termed pains of apprehension.33

  XXXI. 12. The pains of association correspond exactly to the pleasures of association.

  XXXII. Of the above list there are certain pleasures and pains which suppose the existence of some pleasure or pain, of some other person, to which the pleasure or pain of the person in question has regard: such pleasures and pains may be termed extra-regarding. Others do not suppose any such thing: these may be termed self-regarding.34 The only pleasures and pains of the extra-regarding class are those of benevolence and those of malevolence: all the rest35 are self-regarding.

  XXXIII. Of all these several sorts of pleasures and pains, there is scarce any one which is not liable, on more accounts than one, to come under the consideration of the law. Is an offense committed? It is the tendency which it has to destroy, in such or such persons, some of these pleasures, or to produce some of these pains, that constitutes the mischief of it, and the ground for punishing it. It is the prospect of some of these pleasures, or of security from some of these pains, that constitutes the motive or temptation, it is the attainment of them that constitutes the profit of the offense. Is the offender to be punished? It can be only by the production of one or more of these pains, that the punishment can be inflicted.36

  Chapter VI

  OF CIRCUMSTANCES INFLUENCING SENSIBILITY

  I. Pain and pleasure are produced in men's minds by the action of certain causes. But the quantity of pleasure and pain runs not uniformly in proportion to the cause; in other words, to the quantity of force exerted by such cause. The truth of this observation rests not upon any metaphysical nicety in the import given to the terms cause, quantity, and force: it will be equally true in whatsoever manner such force be measured.

  II. The disposition which any one has to feel such or such a quantity of pleasure or pain, upon the application of a cause of given force, is what we term the degree or quantum of his sensibility. This may be either general referring to the sum of the causes that act upon him during a given period: or particular, referring to the action of any one particular cause, or sort of cause.

  III. But in the same mind such and such causes of pain or pleasure will produce more pain or pleasure than such or such other causes of pain or pleasure: and this proportion will in different minds be different. The disposition which any one has to have the proportion in which he is affected by two such causes, different from that in which another man is affected by the same two causes, may be termed the quality or bias of his sensibility. One man, for instance, may be most affected by the pleasures of the taste; another by those of the ear. So also, if there be a difference in the nature or proportion of two pains or pleasures which they respectively experience from the same cause; a case not so frequent as the former. From the same injury, for instance, one man may feel the same quantity of grief and resentment together as another man: but one of them shall feel a greater share of grief than of resentment: the other, a greater share of resentment than of grief.

  IV. Any incident which serves as a cause, either of pleasure or of pain, may be termed an exciting cause: if of pleasure, a pleasurable cause: if of pain, a painful, afflictive, or dolorific cause.37

  V. Now the quantity of pleasure, or of pain, which a man is liable to experience upon the application of an exciting cause, since they will not depend altogether upon that cause, will depend in some measure upon some other circumstance or circumstances: these circumstances, whatsoever they be, maybe termed circumstances influencing sensibility.38

  VI. These circumstances will apply differently to different exciting causes; insomuch that to a certain exciting cause, a certain circumstance shall not apply at all, which shall apply with great force to another exciting cause. But without entering for the present into these distinctions, it may be of use to sum up all the circumstances which can be found to influence the effect of any exciting cause. These, as on a former occasion, it may be as well first to sum up together in the concisest manner possible, and afterwards to allot a few words to the separate explanation of each article. They seem to be as follows: 1. Health. 2. Strength. 3. Hardiness. 4. Bodily imperfection. 5. Quantity and quality of knowledge. 6. Strength of intellectual powers. 7. Firmness of mind. 8. Steadiness of mind. 9. Bent of inclination. 10. Moral sensibility. 11. Moral biases. 12. Religious sensibility. 13. Religious biases. 14. Sympathetic sensibility. 15. Sympathetic biases. 16. Antipathetic sensibility. 17. Antipathetic biases. 18. Insanity. 19. Habitual occupations. 20. Pecuniary circumstances. 21. Connexions in the way of sympathy. 22. Connexions in the way of antipathy. 23. Radical frame of body. 24. Radical frame of mind. 25. Sex. 26. Age. 27. Rank. 28. Education. 29. Climate. 30. Lineage. 31. Government. 32. Religious profession.39

  VII. 1. Health is the absence of disease, and consequently of all those kinds of pain which are among the symptoms of disease. A man may be said to be in a state of health when he is not conscious of any uneasy sensations, the primary seat of which can be perceived to be anywhere in his body.40 In point of of general sensibility, a man who is under the pressure of any bodily indisposition, or, as the phrase is, is in an ill state of health, is less sensible to the influence of any pleasurable cause, and more so to that of any afflictive one, than if he were well.

  VIII. 2. The circumstance of strength, though in point of causality closely connected with that of health, is perfectly distinguishable from it. The same man will indeed generally be stronger in a good state of health than in a bad one. But one man, even in a bad state of health, may be stronger than another even in a good one. Weakness is a common concomitant of disease: but in consequence of his radical frame of body, a man may be weak all his life long, without experiencing any disease. Health, as we have observed, is principally a negative circumstance: strength a positive one. The degree of a man's strength can be measured with tolerable accuracy.41

  IX. 3. Hardiness is a circumstance which, though closely connected with that of strength, is distinguishable from it. Hardiness is the absence of irritability. Irritability respects either pain, resulting from the action of mechanical causes; or disease, resulting from the action of causes purely physiological. Irritability, in the former sense, is the disposition to undergo a greater or less degree of pain upon the application of a mechanical cause; such as are most of those applications by which simple afflictive punishments are inflicted, as whipping, beating, and the like. In the latter sense, it is the disposition to contract disease with greater or less facility, upon the application of any instrument acting on the body by its physiological properties; as in the case of fevers, or of colds, or other inflammatory diseases, produced by the application of damp air: or to experience immediate uneasiness, as in the case of relaxation or chilliness produced by an over or under proportion of the matter of heat.

  Hardiness, even in the sense in which it is opposed to the action of mechanical causes, is distinguishable from strength. The external indications of strength are the abundance and firmness of the muscular fibres: those of hardiness, in this sense, are the firmness of the muscular fibres, and the callosity of the skin. Strength is more peculiarly the gift of nature: hardiness, of education. Of two persons who have had, the one the education of a gentleman, the other, that of a common sailor, the first may be the stronger, at the same time that the other is the hardier.

  X. 4. By bodily imperfection may be understood that condition which a person is in, who either stands distinguished by any remarkable deformity, or wants any of those parts or faculties, which the ordinary run of persons of the same sex and age are furnished with: who, for instance, has a hare-lip, is deaf, or has lost a hand. This circumstance, like that of ill-health, tends in general to diminish more or less the effect of any pleasurable circumstance, and to increase that of any afflictive one. The effect of this circumstance, however, admits of great variety: inasmuch as there are a great variety of ways in which a man may suffer in his personal appearance, and in his bodily organs and faculties: all which differences will be taken notice of in their proper places.42

  XI. 5. So much for circumstances belonging to the condition of the body: we come now to those which concern the condition of the mind: the use of mentioning these will be seen hereafter. In the first place may be reckoned the quantity and quality of the knowledge the person in question happens to possess: that is, of the ideas which he has actually in store, ready upon occasion to call to mind: meaning such ideas as are in some way or other of an interesting nature: that is, of a nature in some way or other to influence his happiness, or that of other men. When these ideas are many, and of importance, a man is said to be a man of knowledge; when few, or not of importance, ignorant.

  XII. 6. By strength of intellectual powers may be understood the degree of facility which a man experiences in his endeavours to call to mind as well such ideas as have been already aggregated to his stock of knowledge, as any others, which, upon any occasion that may happen, he may conceive a desire to place there. It seems to be on some such occasion as this that the words parts and talents are commonly employed. To this head may be referred the several qualities of readiness of apprehension, accuracy and tenacity of memory, strength of attention, clearness of discernment, amplitude of comprehension, vividity and rapidity of imagination. Strength of intellectual powers, in general, seems to correspond pretty exactly to general strength of body: as any of these qualities in particular does to particular strength.

  XIII. 7. Firmness of mind on the one hand, and irritability on the other, regard the proportion between the degrees of efficacy with which a man is acted upon by an exciting cause, of which the value lies chiefly in magnitude, and one of which the value lies chiefly in propinquity.43 A man may be said to be of a firm mind, when small pleasures or pains, which are present or near, do not affect him, in a greater proportion to their value, than greater pleasures or pains, which are uncertain or remote;44 of an irritable mind, when the contrary is the case.

  XIV. 8. Steadiness regards the time during which a given exciting cause of a given value continues to affect a man in nearly the same manner and degree as at first, no assignable external event or change of circumstances intervening to make an alteration in its force.45

  XV. 9. By the bent of a man's inclinations may be understood the propensity he has to expect pleasure or pain from certain objects, rather than from others. A man's inclinations may be said to have such or such a bent, when, amongst the several sorts of objects which afford pleasure in some degree to all men, he is apt to expect more pleasure from one particular sort, than from another particular sort, or more from any given particular sort, than another man would expect from that sort; or when, amongst the several sorts of objects, which to one man afford pleasure, whilst to another they afford none, he is apt to expect, or not to expect, pleasure from an object of such or such a sort: so also with regard to pains. This circumstance, though intimately connected with that of the bias of a man's sensibility, is not undistinguishable from it. The quantity of pleasure or pain, which on any given occasion a man may experience from an application of any sort, may be greatly influenced by the expectations he has been used to entertain of pleasure or pain from that quarter; but it will not be absolutely determined by them: for pleasure or pain may come upon him from a quarter from which he was not accustomed to expect it.

  XVI. 10. The circumstances of moral, religious, sympathetic, and antipathetic sensibility, when closely considered, will appear to be included in some sort under that of bent of inclination. On account of their particular importance they may, however, be worth mentioning apart. A man's moral sensibility may be said to be strong, when the pains and pleasures of the moral sanction46 show greater in his eyes, in comparison with other pleasures and pains (and consequently exert a stronger influence) than in the eyes of the persons he is compared with; in other words, when he is acted on with more than ordinary efficacy by the sense of honour: it may be said to be weak, when the contrary is the case.

  XVII. 11. Moral sensibility seems to regard the average effect or influence of the pains and pleasures of the moral sanction, upon all sorts of occasions to which it is applicable, or happens to be applied. It regards the average force or quantity of the impulses the mind receives from that source during a given period. Moral bias regards the particular acts on which, upon so many particular occasions, the force of that sanction is looked upon as attaching. It regards the quality or direction of those impulses. It admits of as many varieties, therefore, as there are dictates which the moral sanction may be conceived to issue forth. A man may be said to have such or such a moral bias, or to have a moral bias in favour of such or such an action, when he looks upon it as being of the number of those of which the performance is dictated by the moral sanction.

  XVIII. 12. What has been said with regard to moral sensibility, may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to religious.

  XIX. 13. What has been said with regard to moral biases, may also be applied, mutatis mutandis, to religious biases.

  XX. 14. By sympathetic sensibility is to be understood the propensity that a man has to derive pleasure from the happiness, and pain from the unhappiness, of other sensitive beings. It is the stronger, the greater the ratio of the pleasure or pain he feels on their account is to that of the pleasure or pain which (according to what appears to him) they feel for themselves.

  XXI. 15. Sympathetic bias regards the description of the parties who are the objects of a man's sympathy: and of the acts or other circumstances of or belonging to those persons, by which the sympathy is excited. These parties may be, 1. Certain individuals. 2. Any subordinate class of individuals. 3. The whole nation. 4. Human kind in general. 5. The whole sensitive creation. According as these objects of sympathy are more numerous, the affection, by which the man is biased, may be said to be the more enlarged.

  XXII. 16, 17. Antipathetic sensibility and antipathetic biases are just the reverse of sympathetic sensibility and sympathetic biases. By antipathetic sensibility is to be understood the propensity that a man has to derive pain from the happiness, and pleasure from the unhappiness, of other sensitive beings.

  XXIII. 18. The circumstance of insanity of mind corresponds to that of bodily imperfection. It admits, however, of much less variety, inasmuch as the soul is (for aught we can perceive) one indivisible thing, not distinguishable, like the body, into parts. What lesser degrees of imperfection the mind may be susceptible of, seem to be comprisable under the already-mentioned heads of ignorance, weakness of mind, irritability, or unsteadiness; or under such others as are reducible to them. Those which are here in view are those extraordinary species and degrees of mental imperfection, which, wherever they take place, are as conspicuous and as unquestionable as lameness or blindness in the body: operating partly, it should seem, by inducing an extraordinary degree of the imperfections above mentioned, partly by giving an extraordinary and preposterous bent to the inclinations.

  XXIV. 19. Under the head of a man's habitual occupations, are to be understood, on this occasion, as well those which he pursues for the sake of profit, as those which he pursues for the sake of present pleasure. The consideration of the profit itself belongs to the head of a man's pecuniary circumstances. It is evident, that if by any means a punishment, or any other exciting cause, has the effect of putting it out of his power to continue in the pursuit of any such occupation, it must on that account be much the more distressing. A man's habitual occupations, though intimately connected in point of causality with the bent of his inclinations, are not to be looked upon as precisely the same circumstance. An amusement, or channel of profit, may be the object of a man's inclinations, which has never been the subject of his habitual occupations: for it may be, that though he wished to betake himself to it, he never did, it not being in his power: a circumstance which may make a good deal of difference in the effect of any incident by which he happens to be debarred from it.

  XXV. 20. Under the head of pecuniary circumstances, I mean to bring to view the proportion which a man's means bear to his wants: the sum total of his means of every kind, to the sum total of his wants of every kind. A man's means depend upon three circumstances: 1. His property. 2. The profit of his labour. 3. His connexions in the way of support. His wants seem to depend upon four circumstances. 1. His habits of expense. 2. His connexions in the way of burthen. 3. Any present casual demand he may have. 4. The strength of his expectation. By a man's property is to be understood, whatever he has in store independent of his labour. By the profit of his labour is to be understood the growing profit. As to labour, it may be either of the body principally, or of the mind principally, or of both indifferently: nor does it matter in what manner, nor on what subject, it be applied, so it produce a profit. By a man's connexions in the way of support, are to be understood the pecuniary assistances, of whatever kind, which he is in a way of receiving from any persons who, on whatever account, and in whatever proportion, he has reason to expect should contribute gratis to his maintenance: such as his parents, patrons, and relations. It seems manifest, that a man can have no other means than these. What he uses, he must have either of his own, or from other people: if from other people, either gratis or for a price. As to habits of expense, it is well known, that a man's desires are governed in a great degree by his habits. Many are the cases in which desire (and consequently the pain of privation connected with it47 ) would not even subsist at all, but for previous enjoyment. By a man's connexions in the way of burthen, are to be understood whatever expense he has reason to look upon himself as bound to be at in the support of those who by law, or the customs of the world, are warranted in looking up to him for assistance; such as children, poor relations, superannuated servants, and any other dependents whatsoever. As to present casual demand, it is manifest, that there are occasions on which a given sum will be worth infinitely more to a man than the same sum would at another time: where, for example, in a case of extremity, a man stands in need of extraordinary medical assistance: or wants money to carry on a law-suit, on which his all depends: or has got a livelihood waiting for him in a distant country, and wants money for the charges of conveyance. In such cases, any piece of good or ill fortune, in the pecuniary way, might have a very different effect from what it would have at any other time. With regard to strength of expectation; when one man expects to gain or to keep a thing which another does not, it is plain the circumstance of not having it will affect the former very differently from the latter; who, indeed, commonly will not be affected by it at all.

  XXVI. 21. Under the head of a man's connexions in the way of sympathy, I would bring to view the number and description of the persons in whose welfare he takes such a concern, as that the idea of their happiness should be productive of pleasure, and that of their unhappiness of pain to him: for instance, a man's wife, his children, his parents, his near relations, and intimate friends. This class of persons, it is obvious, will for the most part include the two classes by which his pecuniary circumstances are affected: those, to wit, from whose means he may expect support, and those whose wants operate on him as a burthen. But it is obvious, that besides these, it may very well include others, with whom he has no such pecuniary connexion: and even with regard to these, it is evident that the pecuniary dependence, and the union of affections, are circumstances perfectly distinguishable. Accordingly, the connexions here in question, independently of any influence they may have on a man's pecuniary circumstances, have an influence on the effect of any exciting causes whatsoever. The tendency of them is to increase a man's general sensibility; to increase, on the one hand, the pleasure produced by all pleasurable causes; on the other, the pain produced by all afflictive ones. When any pleasurable incident happens to a man, he naturally, in the first moment, thinks of the pleasure it will afford immediately to himself: presently afterwards, however (except in a few cases, which is not worth while here to insist on) he begins to think of the pleasure which his friends will feel upon their coming to know of it: and this secondary pleasure is commonly no mean addition to the primary one. First comes the self-regarding pleasure: then comes the idea of the pleasure of sympathy, which you suppose that pleasure of yours will give birth to in the bosom of your friend: and this idea excites again in yours a new pleasure of sympathy, grounded upon his. The first pleasure issuing from your own bosom, as it were from a radiant point, illuminates the bosom of your friend: reverberated from thence, it is reflected with augmented warmth to the point from whence it first proceeded: and so it is with pains.48

  Nor does this effect depend wholly upon affection. Among near relations, although there should be no kindness, the pleasures and pains of the moral sanction are quickly propagated by a peculiar kind of sympathy: no article, either of honour or disgrace, can well fall upon a man, without extending to a certain distance within the circle of his family. What reflects honour upon the father, reflects honour upon the son: what reflects disgrace, disgrace. The cause of this singular and seemingly unreasonable circumstance (that is, its analogy to the rest of the phenomena of the human mind,) belongs not to the present purpose. It is sufficient if the effect be beyond dispute.

  XXVII. 22. Of a man's connexions in the way of antipathy, there needs not any thing very particular to be observed. Happily there is no primeval and constant source of antipathy in a human nature, as there is of sympathy. There are no permanent sets of persons who are naturally and of course the objects of antipathy to a man, as there are who are the objects of the contrary affection. Sources, however, but too many, of antipathy, are apt to spring up upon various occasions during the course of a man's life: and whenever they do, this circumstance may have a very considerable influence on the effects of various exciting causes. As on the one hand, a punishment, for instance, which tends to separate a man from those with whom he is connected in the way of sympathy, so on the other hand, one which tends to force him into the company of those with whom he is connected in the way of antipathy, will, on that account, be so much the more distressing. It is to be observed, that sympathy itself multiplies the sources of antipathy. Sympathy for your friend gives birth to antipathy on your part against all those who are objects of antipathy, as well as to sympathy for those who are objects of sympathy to him. In the same manner does antipathy multiply the sources of sympathy; though commonly perhaps with rather a less degree of efficacy. Antipathy against your enemy is apt to give birth to sympathy on your part towards those who are objects of antipathy, as well as to antipathy against those who are objects of sympathy, to him.

  XXVIII. 23. Thus much for the circumstances by which the effect of any exciting cause may be influenced, when applied upon any given occasion, at any given period. But besides these supervening incidents, there are other circumstances relative to a man, that may have their influence, and which are co-eval to his birth. In the first place, it seems to be universally agreed, that in the original frame or texture of every man's body, there is a something which, independently of all subsequently intervening circumstances, renders him liable to be affected by causes producing bodily pleasure or pain, in a manner different from that in which another man would be affected by the same causes. To the catalogue of circumstances influencing a man's sensibility, we may therefore add his original or radical frame, texture, constitution, or temperament of body.

  XXIX. 24. In the next place, it seems to be pretty well agreed, that there is something also in the original frame or texture of every man's mind, which, independently of all exterior and subsequently intervening circumstances, and even of his radical frame of body, makes him liable to be differently affected by the same exciting causes, from what another man would be. To the catalogue of circumstances influencing a man's sensibility, we may therefore further add his original or radical frame, texture, constitution or temperament of mind.49

  XXX. It seems pretty certain, all this while, that a man's sensibility to causes producing pleasure or pain, even of mind, may depend in a considerable degree upon his original and acquired frame of body. But we have no reason to think that it can depend altogether upon that frame: since, on the one hand, we see persons whose frame of body is as much alike as can be conceived, differing very considerably in respect of their mental frame: and, on the other hand, persons whose frame of mind is as much alike as can be conceived, differing very conspicuously in regard to their bodily frame.50

  XXXI. It seems indisputable also, that the different sets of a external occurrences that may befall a man in the course of his life, will make great differences in the subsequent texture of his mind at any given period: yet still those differences are not solely to be attributed to such occurrences. Equally far from the truth seems that opinion to be (if any such be maintained) which attributes all to nature, and that which attributes all to education. The two circumstances will therefore still remain distinct, as well from one another, as from all others.

  XXXII. Distinct however as they are, it is manifest, that at no period in the active part of a man's life can they either of them make their appearance by themselves. All they do is to constitute the latent ground-work which the other supervening circumstances have to work upon and whatever influence those original principles may have, is so changed and modified, and covered over, as it were, by those other circumstances, as never to be separately discernible. The effects of the one influence are indistinguishably blended with those of the other.

  XXXIII. The emotions of the body are received, and with reason, as probable indications of the temperature of the mind. But they are far enough from conclusive. A man may exhibit, for instance, the exterior appearances of grief, without really grieving at all, or at least in any thing near the proportion in which he appears to grieve. Oliver Cromwell, whose conduct indicated a heart more than ordinarily callous, was as remarkably profuse in tears.51 Many men can command the external appearances of sensibility with very little real feeling.52 The female sex commonly with greater facility than the male: hence the proverbial expression of a woman's tears. To have this kind of command over one's self, was the characteristic excellence of the orator of ancient times, and is still that of the player in our own.

  XXXIV. The remaining circumstances may, with reference to those already mentioned, be termed secondary influencing circumstances. These have an influence, it is true, on the quantum or bias of a man's sensibility, but it is only by means of the other primary ones. The manner in which these two sets of circumstances are concerned, is such that the primary ones do the business, while the secondary ones lie most open to observation. The secondary ones, therefore, are those which are most heard of; on which account it will be necessary to take notice of them: at the same time that it is only by means of the primary ones that their influence can be explained; whereas the influence of the primary ones will be apparent enough, without any mention of the secondary ones.

  XXXV. 25. Among such of the primitive modifications of the corporeal frame as may appear to influence the quantum and bias of sensibility, the most obvious and conspicuous are those which constitute the sex. In point of quantity, the sensibility of the female sex appears in general to be greater than that of the male. The health of the female is more delicate than that of the male: in point of strength and hardiness of body, in point of quantity and quality of knowledge, in point of strength of intellectual powers, and firmness of mind, she is commonly inferior: moral, religious, sympathetic, and antipathetic sensibility are commonly stronger in her than in the male. The quality of her knowledge, and the bent of her inclinations, are commonly in many respects different. Her moral biases are also, in certain respects, remarkably different: chastity, modesty, and delicacy, for instance, are prized more than courage in a woman: courage, more than any of those qualities, in a man. The religious biases in the two sexes are not apt to be remarkably different; except that the female is rather more inclined than the male to superstition; that is, to observances not dictated by the principle of utility; a difference that may be pretty well accounted for by some of the before-mentioned circumstances. Her sympathetic biases are in many respects different; for her own offspring all their lives long, and for children in general while young, her affection is commonly stronger than that of the male. Her affections are apt to be less enlarged: seldom expanding themselves so much as to take in the welfare of her country in general, much less that of mankind, or the whole sensitive creation: seldom embracing any extensive class or division, even of her own countrymen, unless it be in virtue of her sympathy for some particular individuals that belong to it. In general, her antipathetic, as well as sympathetic biases are apt to be less conformable to the principle of utility than those of the male; owing chiefly to some deficiency in point of knowledge, discernment, and comprehension. Her habitual occupations of the amusing kind are apt to be in many respects different from those of the male. With regard to her connexions in the way of sympathy, there can be no difference. In point of pecuniary circumstances, according to the customs of perhaps all countries, she is in general less independent.

  XXXVI. 26. Age is of course divided into divers periods, of which the number and limits are by no means uniformly ascertained. One might distinguish it, for the present purpose, into, 1. Infancy. 2. Adolescence. 3. Youth. 4. Maturity. 5. Decline. 6. Decrepitude. It were lost time to stop on the present occasion to examine it at each period, and to observe the indications it gives, with respect to the several primary circumstances just reviewed. Infancy and decrepitude are commonly inferior to the other periods, in point of health, strength, hardiness, and so forth. In infancy, on the part of the female, the imperfections of that sex are enhanced: on the part of the male, imperfections take place mostly similar in quality, but greater in quantity, to those attending the states of adolescence, youth, and maturity in the female. In the stage of decrepitude both sexes relapse into many of the imperfections of infancy. The generality of these observations may easily be corrected upon a particular review.

  XXXVII. 27. Station, or rank in life, is a circumstance, that, among a civilized people, will commonly undergo a multiplicity of variations. Cæteris paribus, the quantum of sensibility appears to be greater in the higher ranks of men than in the lower. The primary circumstances in respect of which this secondary circumstance is apt to induce or indicate a difference, seem principally to be as follows: 1. Quantity and Quality of knowledge. 2. Strength of mind. 3. Bent of inclination. 4. Moral sensibility. 5. Moral biases. 6. Religious sensibility. 7. Religious biases. 8. Sympathetic sensibility. 9. Sympathetic biases. 10. Antipathetic sensibility. 11. Antipathetic biases. 12. Habitual occupations. 13. Nature and productiveness of a man's means of livelihood. 14. Connexions importing profit. 15. Habit of expense. 16. Connexions importing burthen. A man of a certain rank will frequently have a number of dependents besides those whose dependency is the result of natural relationship. As to health, strength, and hardiness, if rank has any influence on these circumstances, it is but in a remote way chiefly by the influence it may have on its habitual occupations.

  XXXVIII. 28. The influence of education is still more extensive. Education stands upon a footing somewhat different from that of the circumstances of age, sex, and rank. These words, though the influence of the circumstances they respectively denote exerts itself principally, if not entirely, through the medium of certain of the primary circumstances before mentioned, present, however, each of them a circumstance which has a separate existence of itself. This is not the case with the word education: which means nothing any farther than as it serves to call up to view some one or more of those primary circumstances. Education may be distinguished into physical and mental; the education of the body and that of the mind: mental, again, into intellectual and moral; the culture of the understanding, and the culture of the affections. The education a man receives, is given to him partly by others, partly by himself. By education then nothing more can be expressed than the condition a man is in in respect of those primary circumstances, as resulting partly from the management and contrivance of others, principally of those who in the early periods of his life have had dominion over him, partly from his own. To the physical part of his education, belong the circumstances of health, strength, and hardiness: sometimes, by accident, that of bodily imperfection; as where by intemperance or negligence an irreparable mischief happens to his person. To the intellectual part, those of quantity and quality of knowledge, and in some measure perhaps those of firmness of mind and steadiness. To the moral part, the bent of his inclinations, the quantity and quality of his moral, religious, sympathetic, and antipathetic sensibility: to all three branches indiscriminately, but under the superior control of external occurrences, his habitual recreations, his property, his means of livelihood, his connexions in the way of profit and of burthen, and his habits of expense. With respect indeed to all these points, the influence of education is modified, in a manner more or less apparent, by that of exterior occurrences; and in a manner scarcely at all apparent, and altogether out of the reach of calculation, by the original texture and constitution as well of his body as of his mind.

  XXXIX. 29. Among the external circumstances by which the influence of education is modified, the principal are those which come under the head of climate. This circumstance places itself in front, and demands a separate denomination, not merely on account of the magnitude of its influence, but also on account of its being conspicuous to every body, and of its applying indiscriminately to great numbers at a time. This circumstance depends for its essence upon the situation of that part of the earth which is in question, with respect to the course taken by the whole planet in its revolution round the sun: but for its influence it depends upon the condition of the bodies which compose the earth's surface at that part, principally upon the quantities of sensible heat at different periods, and upon the density, and purity, and dryness or moisture of the circumambient air. Of the so often mentioned primary circumstances, there are few of which the production is not influenced by this secondary one; partly by its manifest effects upon the body; partly by its less perceptible effects upon the mind. In hot climates men's health is apt to be more precarious than in cold: their strength and hardiness less: their vigour, firmness, and steadiness of mind less: and thence indirectly their quantity of knowledge: the bent of their inclinations different: most remarkably so in respect of their superior propensity to sexual enjoyments, and in respect of the earliness of the period at which that propensity begins to manifest itself: their sensibilities of all kinds more intense: their habitual occupations savouring more of sloth than of activity: their radical frame of body less strong, probably, and less hardy: their radical frame of mind less vigorous, less firm, less steady.

  XL. 30. Another article in the catalogue of secondary circumstances, is that of race or lineage: the national race or lineage a man issues from. This circumstance, independently of that of climate, will commonly make some difference in point of radical frame of mind and body. A man of negro race, born in France or England, is a very different being, in many respects, from a man of French or English race. A man of Spanish race, born in Mexico or Peru, is at the hour of his birth a different sort of being, in many respects, from a man of the original Mexican or Peruvian race. This circumstance, as far as it is distinct from climate, rank, and education, and from the two just mentioned, operates chiefly through the medium of moral, religious, sympathetic, and antipathetic biases.

  XLI. 31. The last circumstance but one, is that of government: the government a man lives under at the time in question; or rather that under which he has been accustomed most to live. This circumstance operates principally through the medium of education: the magistrate operating in the character of a tutor upon all the members of the state, by the direction he gives to their hopes and to their fears. Indeed under a solicitous and attentive government, the ordinary preceptor, nay even the parent himself, is but a deputy, as it were, to the magistrate: whose controlling influence, different in this respect from that of the ordinary preceptor, dwells with a man to his life's end. The effects of the peculiar power of the magistrate are seen more particularly in the influence it exerts over the quantum and bias of men's moral, religious, sympathetic, and antipathetic sensibilities. Under a well-constituted, or even under a well-administered though ill-constituted government, men's moral sensibility is commonly stronger, and their moral biases more conformable to the dictates of utility: their religious sensibility frequently weaker, but their religious biases less unconformable to the dictates of utility: their sympathetic affections more enlarged, directed to the magistrate more than to small parties or to individuals, and more to the whole community than to either: their antipathetic sensibilities less violent, as being more obsequious to the influence of well-directed moral biases, and less apt to be excited by that of ill-directed religious ones: their antipathetic biases more conformable to well-directed moral ones, more apt (in proportion) to be grounded on enlarged and sympathetic than on narrow and self-regarding affections, and accordingly, upon the whole, more conformable to the dictates of utility.

  XLII. 32. The last circumstance is that of religious profession: the religious profession a man is of: the religious fraternity of which he is a member. This circumstance operates principally through the medium of religious sensibility and religious biases. It operates, however, as an indication more or less conclusive, with respect to several other circumstances. With respect to some, scarcely but through the medium of the two just mentioned: this is the case with regard to the quantum and bias of a man's moral, sympathetic, and antipathetic sensibility: perhaps in some cases with regard to quantity and quality of knowledge, strength of intellectual powers, and bent of inclination. With respect to others, it may operate immediately of itself: this seems to be the case with regard to a man's habitual occupations, pecuniary circumstances, and connexions in the way of sympathy and antipathy. A man who pays very little inward regard to the dictates of the religion which he finds it necessary to profess, may find it difficult to avoid joining in the ceremonies of it, and bearing a part in the pecuniary burthens it imposes.53 By the force of habit and example he may even be led to entertain a partiality for persons of the same profession, and a proportionable antipathy against those of a rival one. In particular, the antipathy against persons of different persuasions is one of the last points of religion which men part with. Lastly, it is obvious, that the religious profession a man is of cannot but have a considerable influence on his education. But, considering the import of the term education, to say this is perhaps no more than saying in other words what has been said already.

  XLIII. These circumstances, all or many of them, will need to be attended to as often as upon any occasion any account is taken of any quantity of pain or pleasure, as resulting from any cause. Has any person sustained an injury? they will need to be considered in estimating the mischief of the offense. Is satisfaction to be made to him? they will need to be attended to in adjusting the quantum of that satisfaction. Is the injurer to be punished? they will need to be attended to in estimating the force of the impression that will be made on him by any given punishment.

  XLIV. It is to be observed, that though they seem all of them, on some account or other, to merit a place in the catalogue, they are not all of equal use in practice. Different articles among them are applicable to different exciting causes. Of those that may influence the effect of the same exciting cause, some apply indiscriminately to whole classes of persons together; being applicable to all, without any remarkable difference in degree: these may be directly and pretty fully provided for by the legislator. This is the case, for instance, with the primary circumstances of bodily imperfection, and insanity: with the secondary circumstance of sex: perhaps with that of age: at any rate with those of rank, of climate, of lineage, and of religious profession. Others, however they may apply to whole classes of persons, yet in their application to different individuals are susceptible of perhaps an indefinite variety of degrees. These cannot be fully provided for by the legislator; but, as the existence of them, in every sort of case, is capable of being ascertained, and the degree in which they take place is capable of being measured, provision may be made for them by the judge, or other executive magistrate, to whom the several individuals that happen to be concerned may be made known. This is the case, 1. With the circumstance of health. 2. In some sort with that of strength. 3. Scarcely with that of hardiness: still less with those of quantity and quality of knowledge, strength of intellectual powers, firmness or steadiness of mind; except in as far as a man's condition, in respect of those circumstances, may be indicated by the secondary circumstances of sex, age, or rank: hardly with that of bent of inclination, except in as far as that latent circumstance is indicated by the more manifest one of habitual occupations: hardly with that of a man's moral sensibility or biases, except in as far as they may be indicated by his sex, age, rank, and education: not at all with his religious sensibility and religious biases, except in as far as they may be indicated by the religious profession he belongs to: not at all with the quantity or quality of his sympathetic or antipathetic sensibilities, except in as far as they may be presumed from his sex, age, rank, education, lineage, or religious profession. It is the case, however, with his habitual occupations, with his pecuniary circumstances, and with his connexions in the way of sympathy. Of others, again, either the existence cannot be ascertained, or the degree cannot be measured. These, therefore, cannot be taken into account, either by the legislator or the executive magistrate. Accordingly, they would have no claim to be taken notice of, were it not for those secondary circumstances by which they are indicated, and whose influence could not well be understood without them. What these are has been already mentioned.

  XLV. It has already been observed, that different articles in this list of circumstances apply to different exciting causes: the circumstance of bodily strength, for instance, has scarcely any influence of itself (whatever it may have in a roundabout way, and by accident) on the effect of an incident which should increase or diminish the quantum of a man's property. It remains to be considered, what the exciting causes are with which the legislator has to do. These may, by some accident or other, be any whatsoever: but those which he has principally to do, are those of the painful or afflictive kind. With pleasurable ones he has little to do, except now and then by accident: the reasons of which may be easily enough perceived, at the same time that it would take up too much room to unfold them here. The exciting causes with which he has principally to do, are, on the one hand, the mischievous acts, which it is his business to prevent; on the other hand, the punishments, by the terror of which it is his endeavour to prevent them. Now of these two sets of exciting causes, the latter only is of his production: being produced partly by his own special appointment, partly in conformity to his general appointment, by the special appointment of the judge. For the legislator, therefore, as well as for the judge, it is necessary (if they would know what it is they are doing when they are appointing punishment) to have an eye to all these circumstances. For the legislator, lest, meaning to apply a certain quantity of punishment to all persons who shall put themselves in a given predicament, he should unawares apply to some of those persons much more or much less than he himself intended; for the judge, lest, in applying to a particular person a particular measure of punishment, he should apply much more or much less than was intended, perhaps by himself, and at any rate by the legislator. They ought each of them, therefore, to have before him, on the one hand, a list of the several circumstances by which sensibility may be influenced; on the other hand, a list of the several species and degrees of punishment which they purpose to make use of: and then, by making a comparison between the two, to form a detailed estimate of the influence of each of the circumstances in question, upon the effect of each species and degree of punishment.

  There are two plans or orders of distribution, either of which might be pursued in the drawing up this estimate. The one is to make the name of the circumstance take the lead, and under it to represent the different influences it exerts over the effects of the several modes of punishment: the other is to make the name of the punishment take the lead, and under it to represent the different influences which are exerted over the effects of it by the several circumstances above mentioned. Now of these two sorts of objects, the punishment is that to which the intention of the legislator is directed in the first instance. This is of his own creation, and will be whatsoever he thinks fit to make it: the influencing circumstance exists independently of him, and is what it is whether he will or no. What he has occasion to do is to establish a certain species and degree of punishment: and it is only with reference to that punishment that he has occasion to make any inquiry concerning any of the circumstances here in question. The latter of the two plans therefore is that which appears by far the most useful and commodious. But neither upon the one nor the other plan can any such estimate be delivered here.54

  XLVI. Of the several circumstances contained in this catalogue, it may be of use to give some sort of analytic view; in order that it may be the more easily discovered if any which ought to have been inserted are omitted; and that, with regard to those which are inserted, it may be seen how they differ and agree.

  In the first place, they may be distinguished into primary and secondary: those may be termed primary, which operate immediately of themselves: those secondary, which operate not but by the medium of the former. To this latter head belong the circumstances of sex, age, station in life, education, climate, lineage, government, and religious profession: the rest are primary. These again are either connate or adventitious: those which are connate, are radical frame of body and radical frame of mind. Those which are adventitious, are either personal, or exterior. The personal, again, concern either a man's dispositions, or his actions. Those which concern his dispositions, concern either his body or his mind. Those which concern his body are health, strength, hardiness, and bodily imperfection. Those which concern his mind, again, concern either his understanding or his affections. To the former head belong the circumstances of quantity and quality of knowledge, strength of understanding, and insanity. To the latter belong the circumstances of firmness of mind, steadiness, bent of inclination, moral sensibility, moral biases, religious sensibility, religious biases, sympathetic sensibility, sympathetic biases, antipathetic sensibility, and antipathetic biases. Those which regard his actions, are his habitual occupations. Those which are exterior to him, regard either the things or the persons which he is concerned with; under the former head come his pecuniary circumstances;55 under the latter, his connexions in the way of sympathy and antipathy.

  Chapter VII

  OF HUMAN ACTIONS IN GENERAL

  I. The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding. That part of its business which consists in punishing, is more particularly the subject of penal law. In proportion as an act tends to disturb that happiness, in proportion as the tendency of it is pernicious, will be the demand it creates for punishment. What happiness consists of we have already seen: enjoyment of pleasures, security from pains.

  II. The general tendency of an act is more or less pernicious, according to the sum total of its consequences: that is, according to the difference between the sum of such as are good, and the sum of such as are evil.

  III. It is to be observed, that here, as well as henceforward, wherever consequences are spoken of, such only are meant as are material. Of the consequences of any act, the multitude and variety must needs be infinite: but such of them only as are material are worth regarding. Now among the consequences of an act, be they what they may, such only, by one who views them in the capacity of a legislator, can be said to be material,56 as either consist of pain or pleasure, or have an influence in the production of pain or pleasure.57

  IV. It is also to be observed, that into the account of the consequences of the act, are to be taken not such only as might have ensued, were intention out of the question, but such also as depend upon the connexion there may be between these first-mentioned consequences and the intention. The connexion there is between the intention and certain consequences is, as we shall see hereafter,58 a means of producing other consequences. In this lies the difference between rational agency and irrational.

  V. Now the intention, with regard to the consequences of an act, will depend upon two things: 1. The state of the will or intention, with respect to the act itself. And, 2. The state of the understanding, or perceptive faculties, with regard to the circumstances which it is, or may appear to be, accompanied with. Now with respect to these circumstances, the perceptive faculty is susceptible of three states: consciousness, unconsciousness, and false consciousness. Consciousness, when the party believes precisely those circumstances, and no others, to subsist, which really do subsist: unconsciousness, when he fails of perceiving certain circumstances to subsist, which, however, do subsist: false consciousness, when he believes or imagines certain circumstances to subsist, which in truth do not subsist.

  VI. In every transaction, therefore, which is examined with a view to punishment, there are four articles to be considered: 1. The act itself, which is done. 2. The circumstances in which it is done. 3. The intentionality that may have accompanied it. 4. The consciousness, unconsciousness, or false consciousness, that may have accompanied it.

  What regards the act and the circumstances will be the subject of the present chapter: what regards intention and consciousness, that of the two succeeding.

  VII. There are also two other articles on which the general tendency of an act depends: and on that, as well as on other accounts, the demand which it creates for punishment. These are, 1. The particular motive or motives which gave birth to it. 2. The general disposition which it indicates. These articles will be the subject of two other chapters.

  VIII. Acts may be distinguished in several ways, for several purposes.

  They may be distinguished, in the first place, into positive and negative. By positive are meant such as consist in motion or exertion: by negative, such as consist in keeping at rest; that is, in forbearing to move or exert one's self in such and such circumstances. Thus, to strike is a positive act: not to strike on a certain occasion, a negative one. Positive acts are styled also acts of commission; negative, acts of omission or forbearance.59

  IX. Such acts, again, as are negative, may either be absolutely so, or relatively: absolutely, when they import the negation of all positive agency whatsoever; for instance, not to strike at all: relatively, when they import the negation of such or such a particular mode of agency; for instance, not to strike such a person or such a thing, or in such a direction.

  X. It is to be observed, that the nature of the act, whether positive or negative, is not to be determined immediately by the form of the discourse made use of to express it. An act which is positive in its nature may be characterized by a negative expression: thus, not to be at rest, is as much as to say to move. So also an act, which is negative in its nature, may be characterized by a positive expression: thus, to forbear or omit to bring food to a person in certain circumstances, is signified by the single and positive term to starve.

  XI. In the second place, acts may be distinguished into external and internal. By external, are meant corporal acts; acts of the body: by internal, mental acts; acts of the mind. Thus, to strike is an external or exterior60 act: to intend to strike, an internal or interior one.

  XII. Acts of discourse are a sort of mixture of the two: external acts, which are no ways material, nor attended with any consequences, any farther than as they serve to express the existence of internal ones. To speak to another to strike, to write to him to strike, to make signs to him to strike, are all so many acts of discourse.

  XIII. Third, Acts that are external may be distinguished into transitive and intransitive. Acts may be called transitive, when the motion is communicated from the person of the agent to some foreign body: that is, to such a foreign body on which the effects of it are considered as being material; as where a man runs against you, or throws water in your face. Acts may be called intransitive, when the motion is communicated to no other body, on which the effects of it are regarded as material, than some part of the same person in whom it originated, as where a man runs, or washes himself.61

  XIV. An act of the transitive kind may be said to be in its commencement, or in the first stage of its progress, while the motion is confined to the person of the agent, and has not yet been communicated to any foreign body, on which the effects of it can be material. It may be said to be in its termination, or to be in the last stage of its progress, as soon as the motion or impulse has been communicated to some such foreign body. It may be said to be in the middle or intermediate stage or stages of its progress, while the motion, having passed from the person of the agent, has not yet been communicated to any such foreign body. Thus, as soon as a man has lifted up his hand to strike, the act he performs in striking you is in its commencement: as soon as his hand has reached you, it is in its termination. If the act be the motion of a body which is separated from the person of the agent before it reaches the object, it may be said, during that interval, to be in its intermediate progress,62 or in gradu mediativo: as in the case where a man throws a stone or fires a bullet at you.

  XV. An act of the intransitive kind may be said to be in its commencement, when the motion or impulse is as yet confined to the member or organ in which it originated; and has not yet been communicated to any member or organ that is distinguishable from the former. It may be said to be in its termination, as soon as it has been applied to any other part of the same person. Thus, where a man poisons himself, while he is lifting up the poison to his mouth, the act is in its commencement: as soon as it has reached his lips, it is in its termination.63

  XVI. In the third place, acts may be distinguished into transient and continued. Thus, to strike is a transient act: to lean, a continued one. To buy, a transient act: to keep in one's possession, a continued one.

  XVII. In strictness of speech there is a difference between a continued act and a repetition of acts. It is a repetition of acts, when there are intervals filled up by acts of different natures: a continued act, when there are no such intervals. Thus, to lean, is continued act: to keep striking, a repetition of acts.

  XVIII. There is a difference, again, between a repetition of acts, and a habit or practice. The term repetition of acts may be employed, let the acts in question be separated by ever such short intervals, and let the sum total of them occupy ever so short a space of time. The term habit is not employed but when the acts in question are supposed to be separated by long-continued intervals, and the sum total of them to occupy a considerable space of time. It is not (for instance) the drinking ever so many times, nor ever so much at a time, in the course of the same sitting, that will constitute a habit of drunkenness: it is necessary that such sittings themselves be frequently repeated. Every habit is a repetition of acts; or, to speak more strictly, when a man has frequently repeated such and such acts after considerable intervals, he is said to have persevered in or contracted a habit: but every repetition of acts is not a habit.64

  XIX. Fourth, acts may be distinguished into indivisible and divisible. Indivisible acts are merely imaginary: they may be easily conceived, but can never be known to be exemplified. Such as are divisible may be so, with regard either to matter or to motion. An act indivisible with regard to matter, is the motion or rest of one single atom of matter. An act indivisible, with regard to motion, is the motion of any body, from one single atom of space to the next to it.

  Fifth, acts may be distinguished into simple and complex: simple, such as the act of striking, the act of leaning, or the act of drinking, above instanced: complex, consisting each of a multitude of simple acts, which, though numerous and heterogeneous, derive a sort of unity from the relation they bear to some common design or end; such as the act of giving a dinner, the act of maintaining a child, the act of exhibiting a triumph, the act of bearing arms, the act of holding a court, and so forth.

  XX. It has been every now and then made a question, what it is in such a case that constitutes one act: where one act has ended, and another act has begun: whether what has happened has been one act or many.65 These questions, it is now evident, may frequently be answered, with equal propriety, in opposite ways: and if there be any occasions on which they can be answered only in one way, the answer will depend upon the nature of the occasion, and the purpose for which the question is proposed. A man is wounded in two fingers at one stroke—Is it one wound or several? A man is beaten at 12 o'clock, and again at 8 minutes after 12—Is it one beating or several? You beat one man, and instantly in the same breath you beat another—Is this one beating or several? In any of these cases it may be one, perhaps, as to some purposes, and several as to others. These examples are given, that men may be aware of the ambiguity of language: and neither harass themselves with unsolvable doubts, nor one another with interminable disputes.

  XXI. So much with regard to acts considered in themselves: we come now to speak of the circumstances with which they may have been accompanied. These must necessarily be taken into the account before any thing can be determined relative to the consequences. What the consequences of an act may be upon the whole can never otherwise be ascertained: it can never be known whether it is beneficial, or indifferent, or mischievous. In some circumstances even to kill a man may be a beneficial act: in others, to set food before him may be a pernicious one.

  XXII. Now the circumstances of an act, are, what? Any objects66 whatsoever. Take any act whatsoever, there is nothing in the nature of things that excludes any imaginable object from being a circumstance to it. Any given object may be a circumstance to any other.67

  XXIII. We have already had occasion to make mention for a moment of the consequences of an act: these were distinguished into material and immaterial. In like manner may the circumstances of it be distinguished. Now materiality is a relative term: applied to the consequences of an act, it bore relation to pain and pleasure: applied to the circumstances, it bears relation to the consequences. A circumstance may be said to be material, when it bears a visible relation in point of causality to the consequences: immaterial, when it bears no such visible relation.

  XXIV. The consequences of an act are events.68 A circumstance may be related to an event in point of causality in any one of four ways: 1. In the way of causation or production. 2. In the way of derivation. 3. In the way of collateral condition. 4. In the way of conjunct influence. It may be said to be related to the event in the way of causation, when it is of the number of those that contribute to the production of such event: in the way of derivation, when it is of the number of the events to the production of which that in question has been contributory: in the way of collateral connexion, where the circumstance in question, and the event in question, without being either of them instrumental in the production of the other, are related, each of them, to some common object, which has been concerned in the production of them both: in the way of conjunct influence, when, whether related in any other way or not, they have both of them concurred in the production of some common consequence.

  XXV. An example may be of use. In the year 1628, Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, favourite and minister of Charles I. of England, received a wound and died. The man who gave it him was one Felton, who, exasperated at the mal-administration of which that minister was accused, went down from London to Portsmouth, where Buckingham happened then to be, made his way into his anti-chamber, and finding him busily engaged in conversation with a number of people round him, got close to him, drew a knife and stabbed him. In the effort, the assassin's hat fell off, which was found soon after, and, upon searching him, the bloody knife. In the crown of the hat were found scraps of paper, with sentences expressive of the purpose he was come upon. Here then, suppose the event in question is the wound received by Buckingham: Felton's drawing out his knife, his making his way into the chamber, his going down to Portsmouth, his conceiving an indignation at the idea of Buckingham's administration, that administration itself, Charles's appointing such a minister, and so on, higher and higher without end, are so many circumstances, related to the event of Buckingham's receiving the wound, in the way of causation or production: the bloodiness of the knife, a circumstance related to the same event in the way of derivation: the finding of the hat upon the ground, the finding the sentences in the hat, and the writing them, so many circumstances related to it in the way of collateral connexion: and the situation and conversations of the people about Buckingham, were circumstances related to the circumstances of Felton's making his way into the room, going down to Portsmouth, and so forth, in the way of conjunct influence; inasmuch as they contributed in common to the event of Buckingham's receiving the wound, by preventing him from putting himself upon his guard upon the first appearance of the intruder.69

  XXVI. These several relations do not all of them attach upon an event with equal certainty. In the first place, it is plain, indeed, that every event must have some circumstance or other, and in truth, an indefinite multitude of circumstances, related to it in the way of production: it must of course have a still greater multitude of circumstances related to it in the way of collateral connexion. But it does not appear necessary that every event should have circumstances related to it in the way of derivation: nor therefore that it should have any related to it in the way of conjunct influence. But of the circumstances of all kinds which actually do attach upon an event, it is only a very small number that can be discovered by the utmost exertion of the human faculties: it is a still smaller number that ever actually do attract our notice: when occasion happens, more or fewer of them will be discovered by a man in proportion to the strength, partly of his intellectual powers, partly of his inclination.70 It appears therefore that the multitude and description of such of the circumstances belonging to an act, as may appear to be material, will be determined by two considerations: 1. By the nature of things themselves. 2. By the strength or weakness of the faculties of those who happen to consider them.

  XXVII. Thus much it seemed necessary to premise in general concerning acts, and their circumstances, previously to the consideration of the particular sorts of acts with their particular circumstances, with which we shall have to do in the body of the work. An act of some sort or other is necessarily included in the notion of every offense. Together with this act, under the notion of the same offense, are included certain circumstances: which circumstances enter into the essence of the offense, contribute by their conjunct influence to the production of its consequences, and in conjunction with the act are brought into view by the name by which it stands distinguished. These we shall have occasion to distinguish hereafter by the name of criminative circumstances.71 Other circumstances again entering into combination with the act and the former set of circumstances, are productive of still farther consequences. These additional consequences, if they are of the beneficial kind, bestow, according to the value they bear in that capacity, upon the circumstances to which they owe their birth the appellation of exculpative72 or extenuative circumstances:73 if of the mischievous kind, they bestow on them the appellation of aggravative circumstances.74 Of all these different sets of circumstances, the criminative are connected with the consequences of the original offence, in the way of production; with the act, and with one another, in the way of conjunct influence: the consequences of the original offense with them, and with the act respectively, in the way of derivation: the consequences of the modified offense, with the criminative, exculpative, and extenuative circumstances respectively, in the way also of derivation: these different sets of circumstances, with the consequences of the modified act or offense, in the way of production: and with one another (in respect of the consequences of the modified act or offense) in the way of conjunct influence. Lastly, whatever circumstances can be seen to be connected with the consequences of the offense, whether directly in the way of derivation, or obliquely in the way of collateral affinity (to wit, in virtue of its being connected, in the way of derivation, with some of the circumstances with which they stand connected in the same manner) bear a material relation to the offense in the way of evidence, they may accordingly be styled evidentiary circumstances, and may become of use, by being held forth upon occasion as so many proofs, indications, or evidences of its having been committed.75

  Chapter VIII

  OF INTENTIONALITY

  I. So much with regard to the two first of the articles upon which the evil tendency of an action may depend: viz. the act itself, and the general assemblage of the circumstances with which it may have been accompanied. We come now to consider the ways in which the particular circumstance of intention may be concerned in it.

  II. First, then, the intention or will may regard either of two objects: 1. The act itself: or, 2. Its consequences. Of these objects, that which the intention regards may be styled intentional. If it regards the act, then the act may be said to be intentional:76 if the consequences, so also then may the consequences. If it regards both the act and consequences, the whole action may be said to be intentional. Whichever of those articles is not the object of the intention, may of course be said to be unintentional.

  III. The act may very easily be intentional without the consequences; and often is so. Thus, you may intend to touch a man without intending to hurt him: and yet, as the consequences turn out, you may chance to hurt him.

  IV. The consequences of an act may also be intentional, without the act's being intentional throughout; that is, without its being intentional in every stage of it: but this is not so frequent a case as the former. You intend to hurt a man, suppose, by running against him, and pushing him down: and you run towards him accordingly: but a second man coming in on a sudden between you and the first man, before you can stop yourself, you run against the second man, and by him push down the first.

  V. But the consequences of an act cannot be intentional, without the act's being itself intentional in at least the first stage. If the act be not intentional in the first stage, it is no act of yours: there is accordingly no intention on your part to produce the consequences: that is to say, the individual consequences. All there can have been on your part is a distant intention to produce other consequences, of the same nature, by some act of yours, at a future time: or else, without any intention, a bare wish to see such event take place. The second man, suppose, runs of his own accord against the first, and pushes him down. You had intentions of doing a thing of the same nature: viz. To run against him, and push him down yourself; but you had done nothing in pursuance of those intentions: the individual consequences therefore of the act, which the second man performed in pushing down the first, cannot be said to have been on your part intentional.77

  VI. Second. A consequence, when it is intentional, may either be directly so, or only obliquely. It may be said to be directly or lineally intentional, when the prospect of producing it constituted one of the links in the chain of causes by which the person was determined to do the act. It may be said to be obliquely or collaterally intentional, when, although the consequence was in contemplation, and appeared likely to ensue in case of the act's being performed, yet the prospect of producing such consequence did not constitute a link in the aforesaid chain.

  VII. Third. An incident, which is directly intentional, may either be ultimately so, or only mediately. It may be said to be ultimately intentional, when it stands last of all exterior events in the aforesaid chain of motives; insomuch that the prospect of the production of such incident, could there be a certainty of its taking place, would be sufficient to determine the will, without the prospect of its producing any other. It may be said to be mediately intentional, and no more, when there is some other incident, the prospect of producing which forms a subsequent link in the same chain: insomuch that the prospect of producing the former would not have operated as a motive, but for the tendency which it seemed to have towards the production of the latter.

  VIII. Fourth. When an incident is directly intentional, it may either be exclusively so, or inexclusively. It may be said to be exclusively intentional, when no other but that very individual incident would have answered the purpose, insomuch that no other incident had any share in determining the will to the act in question. It may be said to have been inexclusively78 intentional, when there was some other incident, the prospect of which was acting upon the will at the same time.

  IX. Fifth. When an incident is inexclusively intentional, it may be either conjunctively so, disjunctively, or indiscriminately. It may be said to be conjunctively intentional with regard to such other incident, when the intention is to produce both: disjunctively, when the intention is to produce either the one or the other indifferently, but not both: indiscriminately, when the intention is indifferently to produce either the one or the other, or both, as it may happen.

  X. Sixth. When two incidents are disjunctively intentional, they may be so with or without preference. They may be said to be so with preference, when the intention is, that one of them in particular should happen rather than the other: without preference, when the intention is equally fulfilled, whichever of them happens.79

  XI. One example will make all this clear. William II. king of England, being out a stag-hunting, received from Sir Walter Tyrrel a wound, of which he died.80 Let us take this case, and diversify it with a variety of suppositions, correspondent to the distinctions just laid down.

  1. First then, Tyrrel did not so much as entertain a thought of the king's death; or, if he did, looked upon it as an event of which there was no danger. In either of these cases the incident of his killing the king was altogether unintentional.

  2. He saw a stag running that way, and he saw the king riding that way at the same time: what he aimed at was to kill the stag: he did not wish to kill the king: at the same time he saw, that if he shot, it was as likely he should kill the king as the stag: yet for all that he shot, and killed the king accordingly. In this case the incident of his killing the king was intentional, but obliquely so.

  3. He killed the king on account of the hatred he bore him, and for no other reason than the pleasure of destroying him. In this case the incident of the king's death was not only directly but ultimately intentional.

  4. He killed the king, intending fully so to do; not for any hatred he bore him, but for the sake of plundering him when dead. In this case the incident of the king's death was directly intentional, but not ultimately: it was mediately intentional.

  5. He intended neither more nor less than to kill the king. He had no other aim nor wish. In this case it was exclusively as well as directly intentional: exclusively, to wit, with regard to every other material incident.

  6. Sir Walter shot the king in the right leg, as he was plucking a thorn out of it with his left hand. His intention was, by shooting the arrow into his leg through his hand, to cripple him in both those limbs at the same time. In this case the incident of the king's being shot in the leg was intentional: and that conjunctively with another which did not happen; viz. his being shot in the hand.

  7. The intention of Tyrrel was to shoot the king either in the hand or in the leg, but not in both; and rather in the hand than in the leg. In this case the intention of shooting in the hand was disjunctively concurrent, with regard to the other incident, and that with preference.

  8. His intention was to shoot the king either in the leg or the hand, whichever might happen: but not in both. In this case the intention was inexclusive, but disjunctively so: yet that, however, without preference.

  9. His intention was to shoot the king either in the leg or the hand, or in both, as it might happen. In this case the intention was indiscriminately concurrent, with respect to the two incidents.

  XII. It is to be observed, that an act may be unintentional in any stage or stages of it, though intentional in the preceding: and, on the other hand, it may be intentional in any stage or stages of it, and yet unintentional in the succeeding.81 But whether it be intentional or no in any preceding stage, is immaterial, with respect to the consequences, so it be unintentional in the last. The only point, with respect to which it is material, is the proof. The more stages the act is unintentional in, the more apparent it will commonly be, that it was unintentional with respect to the last. If a man, intending to strike you on the cheek, strikes you in the eye, and puts it out, it will probably be difficult for him to prove that it was not his intention to strike you in the eye. It will probably be easier, if his intention was really not to strike you, or even not to strike at all.

  XIII. It is frequent to hear men speak of a good intention, of a bad intention; of the goodness and badness of a man's intention: a circumstance on which great stress is generally laid. It is indeed of no small importance, when properly understood: but the import of it is to the last degree ambiguous and obscure. Strictly speaking, nothing can be said to be good or bad, but either in itself; which is the case only with pain or pleasure: or on account of its effects; which the case only with things that are the causes or preventives of pain and pleasure. But in a figurative and less proper way of speech, a thing may also be styled good or bad, in consideration of its cause. Now the effects of an intention to do such or such an act, are the same objects which we have been speaking of under the appellation of its consequences: and the causes of intention are called motives. A man's intention then on any occasion may be styled good or bad, with reference either to the consequences of the act, or with reference to his motives. If it be deemed good or bad in any sense, it must be either because it is deemed to be productive of good or of bad consequences, or because it is deemed to originate from a good or from a bad motive. But the goodness or badness of the consequences depend upon the circumstances. Now the circumstances are no objects of the intention. A man intends the act: and by his intention produces the act: but as to the circumstances, he does not intend them: he does not, inasmuch as they are circumstances of it, produce them. If by accident there be a few which he has been instrumental in producing, it has been by former intentions, directed to former acts, productive of those circumstances as the consequences: at the time in question he takes them as he finds them. Acts, with their consequences, are objects of the will as well as of the understanding: circumstances, as such, are objects of the understanding only. All he can do with these, as such, is to know or not to know them: in other words, to be conscious of them, or not conscious. To the title of Consciousness belongs what is to be said of the goodness or badness of a man's intention, as resulting from the consequences of the act: and to the head of Motives, what is to be said of his intention, as resulting from the motive.

  Chapter IX

  OF CONSCIOUSNESS

  I. So far with regard to the ways in which the will or intention may be concerned in the production of any incident: we come now to consider the part which the understanding or perceptive faculty may have borne, with relation to such incident.

  II. A certain act has been done, and that intentionally: that act was attended with certain circumstances: upon these circumstances depended certain of its consequences; and amongst the rest, all those which were of a nature purely physical. Now then, take any one of these circumstances, it is plain, that a man, at the time of doing the act from whence such consequences ensued, may have been either conscious, with respect to this circumstance, or unconscious. In other words, he may either have been aware of the circumstance, or not aware: it may either have been present to his mind, or not present. In the first case, the act may be said to have been an advised act, with respect to that circumstance: in the other case, an unadvised one.

  III. There are two points, with regard to which an act may have been advised or unadvised: 1. The existence of the circumstance itself. 2. The materiality of it.82

  IV. It is manifest, that with reference to the time of the act, such circumstance may have been either present,past, or future.

  V. An act which is unadvised, is either heedless, or not heedless. It is termed heedless, when the case is thought to be such, that a person of ordinary prudence,83 if prompted by an ordinary share of benevolence, would have been likely to have bestowed such and so much attention and reflection upon the material circumstances, as would have effectually disposed him to prevent the mischievous incident from taking place: not heedless, when the case is not thought to be such as above mentioned.84

  VI. Again. Whether a man did or did not suppose the existence or materiality of a given circumstance, it may be that he did suppose the existence and materiality of some circumstance, which either did not exist, or which, though existing, was not material. In such case the act may be said to be mis-advised, with respect to such imagined circumstance: and it may be said, that there has been an erroneous supposition, or a mis-supposal in the case.

  VII. Now a circumstance, the existence of which is thus erroneously supposed, may be material either, 1. In the way of prevention: or, 2. In that of compensation. It may be said to be material in the way of prevention, when its effect or tendency, had it existed, would have been to prevent the obnoxious consequences: in the way of compensation, when that effect or tendency would have been to produce other consequences, the beneficialness of which would have out-weighed the mischievousness of the others.

  VIII. It is manifest that, with reference to the time of the act, such imaginary circumstance may in either case have been supposed either to be present,past, or future.

  IX. To return to the example exhibited in the preceding chapter.

  10. Tyrrel intended to shoot in the direction in which he shot; but he did not know that the king was riding so near that way. In this case the act he performed in shooting, the act of shooting, was unadvised, with respect to the existence of the circumstance of the king's being so near riding that way.

  11. He knew that the king was riding that way: but at the distance at which the king was, he knew not of the probability there was that the arrow would reach him. In this case the act was unadvised, with respect to the materiality of the circumstance.

  12. Somebody had dipped the arrow in poison, without Tyrrel's knowing of it. In this case the act was unadvised, with respect to the existence of a past circumstance.

  13. At the very instant that Tyrrel drew the bow, the king being screened from his view by the foliage of some bushes, was riding furiously, in such manner as to meet the arrow in a direct line: which circumstance was also more than Tyrrel knew of. In this case the act was unadvised, with respect to the existence of a present circumstance.

  14. The king being at a distance from court, could get nobody to dress his wound till the next day; of which circumstance Tyrrel was not aware. In this case the act was unadvised, with respect to what was then future circumstance.

  15. Tyrrel knew of the king's being riding that way, of his being so near, and so forth; but being deceived by the foliage of the bushes, he thought he saw a bank between the spot from which he shot, and that to which the king was riding. In this case the act was mis-advised, proceeding on the mis-supposal of a preventive circumstance.

  16. Tyrrel knew that every thing was as above, nor was he deceived by the supposition of any preventive circumstance. But he believed the king to be an usurper: and supposed he was coming up to attack a person whom Tyrrel believed to be the rightful king, and who was riding by Tyrrel's side. In this case the act was also mis-advised, but proceeded on the mis-supposal of a compensative circumstance.

  X. Let us observe the connexion there is between intentionality and consciousness. When the act itself is intentional, and with respect to the existence of all the circumstances advised, as also with respect to the materiality of those circumstances, in relation to a given consequence, and there is no mis-supposal with regard to any preventive circumstance, that consequence must also be intentional: in other words; advisedness, with respect to the circumstances, if clear from the mis-supposal of any preventive circumstance, extends the intentionality from the act to the consequences. Those consequences may be either directly intentional, or only obliquely so: but at any rate they cannot but be intentional.

  XI. To go on with the example. If Tyrrel intended to shoot in the direction in which the king was riding up, and knew that the king was coming to meet the arrow, and knew the probability there was of his being shot in that same part in which he was shot, or in another as dangerous, and with that same degree of force, and so forth, and was not misled by the erroneous supposition of a circumstance by which the shot would have been prevented from taking place, or any such other preventive circumstance, it is plain he could not but have intended the king's death. Perhaps he did not positively wish it; but for all that, in a certain sense he intended it.

  XII. What heedlessness is in the case of an unadvised act, rashness is in the case of a misadvised one. A misadvised act then may be either rash or not rash. It may be termed rash, when the case is thought to be such, that a person of ordinary prudence, if prompted by an ordinary share of benevolence, would have employed such and so much attention and reflection to the imagined circumstance, as, by discovering to him the nonexistence, improbability, or immateriality of it, would have effectually disposed him to prevent the mischievous incident from taking place.

  XIII. In ordinary discourse, when a man does an act of which the consequences prove mischievous, it is a common thing to speak of him as having acted with a good intention or, with a bad intention, of his intention's being a good one or a bad one. The epithets good and bad are all this while applied, we see, to the intention: but the application of them is most commonly governed by a supposition formed with regard to the nature of the motive. The act, though eventually it prove mischievous, is said to be done with a good intention, when it is supposed to issue from a motive which is looked upon as a good motive: with a bad intention, when it is supposed to be the result of a motive which is looked upon as a bad motive. But the nature of the consequences intended, and the nature of the motive which gave birth to the intention, are objects which, though intimately connected, are perfectly distinguishable. The intention might therefore with perfect propriety be styled a good one, whatever were the motive. It might be styled a good one, when not only the consequences of the act prove mischievous, but the motive which gave birth to it was what is called a bad one. To warrant the speaking of the intention as being a good one, it is sufficient if the consequences of the act, had they proved what to the agent they seemed likely to be, would have been of a beneficial nature. And in the same manner the intention may be bad, when not only the consequences of the act prove beneficial, but the motive which gave birth to it was a good one.

  XIV. Now, when a man has a mind to speak of your intention as being good or bad, with reference to the consequences, if he speaks of it at all he must use the word intention, for there is no other. But if a man means to speak of the motive from which your intention originated, as being a good or a bad one, he is certainly not obliged to use the word intention: it is at least as well to use the word motive. By the supposition he means the motive; and very likely he may not mean the intention. For what is true of the one is very often not true of the other. The motive may be good when the intention is bad: the intention may be good when the motive is bad: whether they are both good or both bad, or the one good and the other bad, makes, as we shall see hereafter, a very essential difference with regard to the consequences.85 It is therefore much better, when motive is meant, never to say intention.

  XV. An example will make this clear. Out of malice a man prosecutes you for a crime of which he believes you to be guilty, but of which in fact you are not guilty. Here the consequences of his conduct are mischievous: for they are mischievous to you at any rate, in virtue of the shame and anxiety which you are made to suffer while the prosecution is depending: to which is to be added, in case of your being convicted, the evil of the punishment. To you therefore they are mischievous; nor is there any one to whom they are beneficial. The man's motive was also what is called a bad one: for malice will be allowed by every body to be a bad motive. However, the consequences of his conduct, had they proved such as he believed them likely to be, would have been good: for in them would have been included the punishment of a criminal, which is a benefit to all who are exposed to suffer by a crime of the like nature. The intention therefore, in this case, though not in a common way of speaking the motive, might be styled a good one. But of motives more particularly in the next chapter.

  XVI. In the same sense the intention, whether it be positively good or no, so long as it is not bad, may be termed innocent. Accordingly, let the consequences have proved mischievous, and let the motive have been what it will, the intention may be termed innocent in either of two cases: 1. In the case of unadvisedness with respect to any of the circumstances on which the mischievousness of the consequences depended: 2. In the case of mis-advisedness with respect to any circumstance, which, had it been what it appeared to be, would have served either to prevent or to outweigh the mischief.

  XVII. A few words for the purpose of applying what has been said to the Roman law. Unintentionality, and innocence of intention, seem both to be included in the case of infortunium, where there is neither dolus nor culpa. Unadvisedness coupled with heedlessness, and mis-advisedness coupled with rashness, correspond to the culpa sine dolo. Direct intentionality corresponds to dolus. Oblique intentionality seems hardly to have been distinguished from direct; were it to occur, it would probably be deemed also to correspond to dolus. The division into culpa, lata, levis, and levissima, is such as nothing certain can correspond to. What is it that it expresses? A distinction, not in the case itself, but only in the sentiments which any person (a judge, for instance) may find himself disposed to entertain with relation to it: supposing it already distinguished into three subordinate cases by other means.

  The word dolus seems ill enough contrived: the word culpa as indifferently. Dolus, upon any other occasion, would be understood to imply deceit, concealment,86 clandestinity:87 but here it is extended to open force. Culpa, upon any other occasion, would be understood to extend to blame of every kind. It would therefore include dolus.88

  XVIII. The above-mentioned definitions and distinctions are far from being mere matters of speculation. They are capable of the most extensive and constant application, as well to moral discourse as to legislative practice. Upon the degree and bias of a man's intention, upon the absence or presence of consciousness or mis-supposal, depend a great part of the good and bad, more especially of the bad consequences of an act; and on this, as well as other grounds, a great part of the demand for punishment.89 The presence of intention with regard to such or such a consequence, and of consciousness with regard to such or such a circumstance, of the act, will form so many criminative circumstances,90 or essential ingredients in the composition of this or that offence: applied to other circumstances, consciousness will form a ground of aggravation, annexable to the like offence.91 In almost all cases, the absence of intention with regard to certain consequences and the absence of consciousness, or the presence of mis-supposal, with regard to certain circumstances, will constitute so many grounds of extenuation.92

  Chapter X

  OF MOTIVES

  § 1. Different senses of the word motive.1

  I. It is an acknowledged truth, that every kind of act whatever, and consequently every kind of offense, is apt to assume a different character, and be attended with different effects, according to the nature of the motive which gives birth to it. This makes it requisite to take a view of the several motives by which human conduct is liable to be influenced.

  II. By a motive, in the most extensive sense in which the word is ever used with reference to a thinking being, is meant any thing that can contribute to give birth to, or even to prevent, any kind of action. Now the actions of a thinking being is the act either of the body, or only of the mind: and an act of the mind is an act either of the intellectual faculty, or of the will. Acts of the intellectual faculty will sometimes rest in the understanding merely, without exerting any influence in the production of any acts of the will. Motives, which are not of a nature to influence any other acts than those, may be styled purely speculative motives, or motives resting in speculation. But as to these acts, neither do they exercise any influence over external acts, or over their consequences, nor consequently over any pain or any pleasure that may be in the number of such consequences. Now it is only on account of their tendency to produce either pain or pleasure, that any acts can be material. With acts, therefore, that rest purely in the understanding, we have not here any concern: nor therefore with any object, if any such there be, which, in the character of a motive, can have no influence on any other acts than those.

  III. The motives with which alone we have any concern are such as are of a nature to act upon the will. By a motive then, in this sense of the word, is to be understood any thing whatsoever, which, by influencing the will of a sensitive being, is supposed to serve as a means of determining him to act, or voluntarily to forbear to act,2 upon any occasion. Motives of this sort, in contradistinction to the former, may be styled practical motives, or motives applying to practice.

  IV. Owing to the poverty and unsettled state of language, the word motive is employed indiscriminately to denote two kinds of objects, which, for the better understanding of the subject, it is necessary should be distinguished. On some occasions it is employed to denote any of those really existing incidents from whence the act in question is supposed to take its rise. The sense it bears on these occasions may be styled its literal or unfigurative sense. On other occasions it is employed to denote a certain fictitious entity, a passion, an affection of the mind, an ideal being which upon the happening of any such incident is considered as operating upon the mind, and prompting it to take that course, towards which it is impelled by the influence of such incident. Motives of this class are Avarice, Indolence, Benevolence, and so forth; as we shall see more particularly farther on. This latter may be styled the figurative sense of the term motive.

  V. As to the real incidents to which the name of motive is also given, these too are of two very different kinds. They may be either, 1. The internal perception of any individual lot of pleasure or pain, the expectation of which is looked upon as calculated to determine you to act in such or such a manner; as the pleasure of acquiring such a sum of money, the pain of exerting yourself on such an occasion, and so forth: or, 2. Any external event, the happening whereof is regarded as having a tendency to bring about the perception of such pleasure or such pain; for instance, the coming up of a lottery ticket, by which the possession of the money devolves to you; or the breaking out of a fire in the house you are in, which makes it necessary for you to quit it. The former kind of motives may be termed interior, or internal: the latter exterior, or external.

  VI. Two other senses of the term motive need also to be distinguished. Motive refers necessarily to action. It is a pleasure, pain, or other event, that prompts to action. Motive then, in one sense of the word, must be previous to such event. But, for a man to be governed by any motive, he must in every case look beyond that event which is called his action; he must look to the consequences of it: and it is only in this way that the idea of pleasure, of pain, or of any other event, can give birth to it. He must look, therefore, in every case, to some event posterior to the act in contemplation: an event which as yet exists not, but stands only in prospect. Now, as it is in all cases difficult, and in most cases unnecessary, to distinguish between objects so intimately connected, as the posterior possible object which is thus looked forward to, and the present existing object or event which takes place upon a man's looking forward to the other, they are both of them spoken of under the same appellation, motive. To distinguish them, the one first mentioned may be termed a motive in prospect, the other a motive in esse: and under each of these denominations will come as well exterior as internal motives. A fire breaks out in your neighbour's house: you are under apprehension of its extending to your own: you are apprehensive, that if you stay in it, you will be burnt: you accordingly run out of it. This then is the act: the others are all motives to it. The event of the fire's breaking out in your neighbour's house is an external motive, and that in esse: the idea or belief of the probability of the fire's extending to your own house, that of your being burnt if you continue, and the pain you feel at the thought of such a catastrophe, are all so many internal events, but still in esse: the event of the fire's actually extending to your own house, and that of your being actually burnt by it, external motives in prospect: the pain you would feel at seeing your house a burning, and the pain you would feel while you yourself were burning, internal motives in prospect: which events, according as the matter turns out, may come to be in esse: but then of course they will cease to act as motives.

  VII. Of all these motives, which stand nearest to the act, to the production of which they all contribute, is that internal motive in esse which consists in the expectation of the internal motive in prospect: the pain or uneasiness you feel at the thoughts of being burnt.3 All other motives are more or less remote: the motives in prospect, in proportion as the period at which they are expected to happen is more distant from the period at which the act takes place, and consequently later in point of time: the motives in esse, in proportion as they also are more distant from that period, and consequently earlier in point of time.4

  VIII. It has already been observed, that with motives of which the influence terminates altogether in the understanding, we have nothing here to do. If then, amongst objects that are spoken of as motives with reference to the understanding, there be any which concern us here, it is only in as far as such objects may, through the medium of the understanding, exercise an influence over the will. It is in this way, and in this way only, that any objects, in virtue of any tendency they may have to influence the sentiment of belief, may in a practical sense act in the character of motives. Any objects, by tending to induce a belief concerning the existence, actual, or probable, of a practical motive; that is, concerning the probability of a motive in prospect, or the existence of a motive in esse; may exercise an influence on the will, and rank with those other motives that have been placed under the name of practical. The pointing out of motives such as these, is what we frequently mean when we talk of giving reasons. Your neighbour's house is on fire as before. I observe to you, that at the lower part of your neighbour's house is some wood-work, which joins on to yours; that the flames have caught this wood-work, and so forth; which I do in order to dispose you to believe as I believe, that if you stay in your house much longer you will be burnt. In doing this, then, I suggest motives to your understanding; which motives, by the tendency they have to give birth to or strengthen a pain, which operates upon you in the character of an internal motive in esse, join their force, and act as motives upon the will.

  § 2. No motives either constantly good or constantly bad.

  IX. In all this chain of motives, the principal or original link seems to be the last internal motive in prospect: it is to this that all the other motives in prospect owe their materiality: and the immediately acting motive its existence. This motive in prospect, we see, is always some pleasure, or some pain; some pleasure, which the act in question is expected to be a means of continuing or producing: some pain which it is expected to be a means of discontinuing or preventing. A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or pain, operating in a certain manner.

  X. Now, pleasure is in itself a good: nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good: pain is in itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure. It follows, therefore, immediately and incontestibly, that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one.5

  XI. It is common, however, to speak of actions as proceeding from good or bad motives: in which case the motives meant are such as are internal. The expression is far from being an accurate one; and as it is apt to occur in the consideration of most every kind of offence, it will be requisite to settle the precise meaning of it, and observe how far it quadrates with the truth of things.

  XII. With respect to goodness and badness, as it is with everything else that is not itself either pain or pleasure, so is it with motives. If they are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects: good, on account of their tendency to produce pleasure, or avert pain: bad, on account of their tendency to produce pain, or avert pleasure. Now the case is, that from one and the same motive, and from every kind of motive, may proceed actions that are good, others that are bad, and others that are indifferent. This we shall proceed to shew with respect to all the different kinds of motives, as determined by the various kinds of pleasures and pains.

  XIII. Such an analysis, useful as it is, will be found to be a matter of no small difficulty owing, in great measure, to a certain perversity of structure which prevails more or less throughout all languages. To speak of motives, as of anything else, one must call them by their names. But the misfortune is, that it is rare to meet with a motive of which the name expresses that and nothing more. Commonly along with the very name of the motive, is tacitly involved a proposition imputing to it a certain quality; a quality which, in many cases, will appear to include that very goodness or badness, concerning which we are here inquiring whether, properly speaking, it be or be not imputable to motives. To use the common phrase, in most cases, the name of the motive is a word which is employed either only in a good sense, or else only in a bad sense. Now, when a word is spoken of as being used in a good sense, all that is necessarily meant is this: that in conjunction with the idea of the object it is put to signify, it conveys an idea of approbation: that is, of a pleasure or satisfaction, entertained by the person who employs the term at the thoughts of such object. In like manner, when a word is spoken of as being used in a bad sense, all that is necessarily meant is this: that, in conjunction with the idea of the object it is put to signify, it conveys an idea of disapprobation: that is, of a displeasure entertained by the person who employs the term at the thoughts of such object. Now, the circumstance on which such approbation is grounded will, as naturally as any other, be the opinion of the goodness of the object in question, as above explained: such, at least, it must be, upon the principle of utility: so, on the other hand, the circumstance on which any such disapprobation is grounded, will, as naturally as any other, be the opinion of the badness of the object: such, at least, it must be, in as far as the principle of utility is taken for the standard.

  Now there are certain motives which, unless in a few particular cases, have scarcely any other name to be expressed by but such a word as is used only in a good sense. This is the case, for example, with the motives of piety and honour. The consequence of this is, that if, in speaking of such a motive, a man should have occasion to apply the epithet bad to any actions which he mentions as apt to result from it, he must appear to be guilty of a contradiction in terms. But the names of motives which have scarcely any other name to be expressed by, but such a word as is used only in a bad sense, are many more.6 This is the case, for example, with the motives of lust and avarice. And accordingly, if in speaking of any such motive, a man should have occasion to apply the epithets good or indifferent to any actions which he mentions as apt to result from it, he must here also appear to be guilty of a similar contradiction.7

  This perverse association of ideas cannot, it is evident, but throw great difficulties in the way of the inquiry now before us. Confining himself to the language most in use, a man can scarce avoid running, in appearance, into perpetual contradictions. His propositions will appear, on the one hand, repugnant to truth; and on the other hand, adverse to utility. As paradoxes, they will excite contempt: as mischievous paradoxes, indignation. For the truths he labours to convey, however important, and however salutary, his reader is never the better: and he himself is much the worse. To obviate this inconvenience, completely, he has but this one unpleasant remedy; to lay aside the old phraseology and invent a new one. Happy the man whose language is ductile enough to permit him this resource. To palliate the inconvenience, where that method of obviating it is impracticable, he has nothing left for it but to enter into a long discussion, to state the whole matter at large, to confess, that for the sake of promoting the purposes, he has violated the established laws of language, and to throw himself upon the mercy of his readers.8

  § 3. Catalogue of motives corresponding to that of Pleasures and Pains.

  XIV. From the pleasures of the senses, considered in the gross, results the motive which, in a neutral sense, maybe termed physical desire: in a bad sense, it is termed sensuality. Name used in a good sense it has none. Of this, nothing can be determined, till it be considered separately, with reference to the several species of pleasures to which it corresponds.

  XV. In particular, then, to the pleasures of the taste or palate corresponds a motive, which in a neutral sense having received no name that can serve to express it in all cases, can only be termed, by circumlocution, the love of the pleasures of the palate. In particular cases it is styled hunger: in others, thirst.9 The love of good cheer expresses this motive, but seems to go beyond: intimating, that the pleasure is to be partaken of in company, and involving a kind of sympathy. In a bad sense, it is styled in some cases greediness, voraciousness, gluttony: in others, principally when applied to children, lickerishness. It may in some cases also be represented by the word daintiness. Name used in a good sense it has none. 1. A boy, who does not want for victuals, steals a cake out of a pastry-cook's shop, and eats it. In this case his motive will be universally deemed a bad one: and if it be asked what it is, it may be answered, perhaps, lickerishness. 2. A boy buys a cake out of a pastry-cook's shop, and eats it. In this case his motive can scarcely be looked upon as either good or bad, unless his master should be out of humour with him; and then perhaps he may call it lickerishness, as before. In both cases, however, his motive is the same. It is neither more nor less than the motive corresponding to the pleasures of the palate.10

  XVI. To the pleasures of the sexual sense corresponds the motive which, in a neutral sense, may be termed sexual desire. In a bad sense, it is spoken of under the name of lasciviousness, and a variety of other names of reprobation. Name used in a good sense it has none.11

  1. A man ravishes a virgin. In this case the motive is, without scruple, termed by the name of lust, lasciviousness, and so forth; and is universally looked upon as a bad one. 2. The same man, at another time, exercises the rights of marriage with his wife. In this case the motive is accounted, perhaps, a good one, or at least indifferent: and here people would scruple to call it by any of those names. In both cases, however, the motive may be precisely the same. In both cases it may be neither more nor less than sexual desire.

  XVII. To the pleasures of curiosity corresponds the motive known by the same name: and which may be otherwise called the love of novelty, or the love of experiment; and, on particular occasions, sport, and sometimes play.

  1. A boy, in order to divert himself, reads an improving book: the motive is accounted, perhaps, a good one: at any rate not a bad one. 2. He sets his top a spinning: the motive is deemed, at any rate, not a bad one. 3. He sets loose a mad ox among a crowd; his motive is now, perhaps, termed an abominable one. Yet in all three cases the motive may be the very same: it may be neither more nor less than curiosity.

  XVIII. As to the other pleasures of sense they are of too little consequence to have given any separate denominations to the corresponding motives.

  XIX. To the pleasures of wealth corresponds the sort of motive which, in a neutral sense, may be termed pecuniary interest: in a bad sense, it is termed, in some cases, avarice, covetousness, rapacity, or lucre: in other cases, niggardliness: in a good sense, but only in particular cases, economy and frugality; and in some cases the word industry may be applied to it: in a sense nearly indifferent, but rather bad than otherwise, it is styled, though only in particular cases, parsimony.

  1. For money you gratify a man's hatred, by putting his adversary to death. 2. For money you plough his field for him.—In the first case your motive is termed lucre, and is accounted corrupt and abominable: and in the second, for want of a proper appellation, it is styled industry; and is looked upon as innocent at least, if not meritorious. Yet the motive is in both cases precisely the same: it is neither more nor less than pecuniary interest.

  XX. The pleasures of skill are neither distinct enough, nor of consequence enough, to have given any name to the corresponding motive.

  XXI. To the pleasures of amity corresponds a motive which, in a neutral sense, may be termed the desire of ingratiating one's self. In a bad sense it is in certain cases styled servility: in a good sense it has no name that is peculiar to it: in the cases in which it has been looked on with a favourable eye, it has seldom been distinguished from the motive of sympathy or benevolence, with which, in such cases, it is commonly associated.

  1. To acquire the affections of a woman before marriage, to preserve them afterwards, you do every thing, that is consistent with other duties, to make her happy: in this case your motive is looked upon as laudable, though there is no name for it. 2. For the same purpose, you poison a woman with whom she is at enmity: in this case your motive is looked upon as abominable, though still there is no name for it. 3. To acquire or preserve the favour of a man who is richer or more powerful than yourself, you make yourself subservient to his pleasures. Let them even be lawful pleasures, if people choose to attribute your behaviour to this motive, you will not get them to find any other name for it than servility. Yet in all three cases the motive is the same: it is neither more nor less than the desire of ingratiating yourself.

  XXII. To the pleasures of the moral sanction, or, as they may otherwise be called, the pleasures of a good name, corresponds a motive which, in a neutral sense, has scarcely yet obtained any adequate appellative. It may be styled, the love of reputation. It is nearly related to the motive last preceding: being neither more nor less than the desire of ingratiating one's self with, or, as in this case we should rather say, of recommending one's self to, the world at large. In a good sense, it is termed honour, or the sense of honour: or rather, the word honour is introduced somehow or other upon the occasion of its being brought to view: for in strictness the word honour is put rather to signify that imaginary object, which a man is spoken of as possessing upon the occasion of his obtaining a conspicuous share of the pleasures that are in question. In particular cases, it is styled the love of glory. In a bad sense, it is styled, in some cases, false honour; in others, pride; in others, vanity. In a sense not decidedly bad, but rather bad than otherwise, ambition. In an indifferent sense, in some cases, the love of fame: in others, the sense of shame. And, as the pleasures belonging to the moral sanction run undistinguishably into the pains derived from the same source,12 it may also be styled, in some cases, the fear of dishonour, the fear of disgrace, the fear of infamy, the fear of ignominy, or the fear of shame.

  1. You have received an affront from a man: according to the custom of the country, in order, on the one hand, to save yourself from the shame of being thought to bear it patiently;13 on the other hand, to obtain the reputation of courage; you challenge him to fight with mortal weapons. In this case your motive will by some people be accounted laudable, and styled honour: by others it will be accounted blameable, and these, if they call it honour, will prefix an epithet of improbation to it, and call it false honour. 2. In order to obtain a post of rank and dignity, and thereby to increase the respects paid you by the public, you bribe the electors who are to confer it, or the judge before whom the title to it is in dispute. In this case your motive is commonly accounted corrupt and abominable, and is styled, perhaps, by some such name as dishonest or corrupt ambition, as there is no single name for it. 3. In order to obtain the good-will of the public, you bestow a large sum in works of private charity or public utility. In this case people will be apt not to agree about your motive. Your enemies will put a bad colour upon it, and call it ostentation: your friends, to save you from this reproach, will choose to impute your conduct not to this motive but to some other: such as that of charity (the denomination in this case given to private sympathy) or that of public spirit. 4. A king, for the sake of gaining the admiration annexed to the name of conqueror (we will suppose power and resentment out of the question) engages his kingdom in a bloody war. His motive, by the multitude (whose sympathy for millions is easily overborne by the pleasure which their imagination finds in gaping at any novelty they observe in the conduct of a single person) is deemed an admirable one. Men of feeling and reflection, who disapprove of the dominion exercised by this motive on this occasion, without always perceiving that it is the same motive which in other instances meets with their approbation, deem it an abominable one; and because the multitude, who are the manufacturers of language, have not given them a simple name to call it by, they will call it by some such compound name as the love of false glory or false ambition. Yet in all four cases the motive is the same: it is neither more nor less than the love of reputation.

  XXIII. To the pleasures of power corresponds the motive which, in a neutral sense, may be termed the love of power. People, who are out of humour with it sometimes, call it the lust of power. In a good sense, it is scarcely provided with a name. In certain cases this motive, as well as the love of reputation, are confounded under the same name, ambition. This is not to be wondered at, considering the intimate connexion there is between the two motives in many cases: since it commonly happens, that the same object which affords the one sort of pleasure, affords the other sort at the same time: for instance, offices, which are at once posts of honour and places of trust: and since at any rate reputation is the road to power.

  1. If, in order to gain a place in administration, you poison the man who occupies it. 2. If, in the same view, you propose a salutary plan for the advancement of the public welfare; your motive is in both cases the same. Yet in the first case it is accounted criminal and abominable: in the second case allowable, and even laudable.

  XXIV. To the pleasures as well as to the pains of the religious sanction corresponds a motive which has, strictly speaking, no perfectly neutral name applicable to all cases, unless the word religion be admitted in this character: though the word religion, strictly speaking, seems to mean not so much the motive itself, as a kind of fictitious personage, by whom the motive is supposed to be created, or an assemblage of acts, supposed to be dictated by that personage: nor does it seem to be completely settled into a neutral sense. In the same sense it is also, in some cases, styled religious zeal: in other cases, the fear of God. The love of God, though commonly contrasted with the fear of God, does not come strictly under this head. It coincides properly with a motive of a different denomination; viz. a kind of sympathy or good-will, which has the Deity for its object. In a good sense, it is styled devotion, piety, and pious zeal. In a bad sense, it is styled, in some cases, superstition, or superstitious zeal: in other cases, fanaticism, or fanatic zeal: in a sense not decidedly bad, because not appropriated to this motive, enthusiasm, or enthusiastic zeal.

  1. In order to obtain the favour of the Supreme Being, a man assassinates his lawful sovereign. In this case the motive is now almost universally looked upon as abominable, and is termed fanaticism: formerly it was by great numbers accounted laudable, and was by them called pious zeal. 2. In the same view, a man lashes himself with thongs. In this case, in yonder house, the motive is accounted laudable, and is called pious zeal: in the next house it is deemed contemptible, and called superstition. 3. In the same view, a man eats a piece of bread (or at least what to external appearance is a piece of bread) with certain ceremonies. In this case, in yonder house, his motive is looked upon as laudable, and is styled piety and devotion: in the next house it is deemed abominable, and styled superstition, as before: perhaps even it is absurdly styled impiety. 4. In the same view, a man holds a cow by the tail while he is dying. On the Thames the motive would in this case be deemed contemptible, and called superstition. On the Ganges it is deemed meritorious, and called piety. 5. In the same view, a man bestows a large sum in works of charity, or public utility. In this case the motive is styled laudable, by those at least to whom the works in question appear to come under this description: and by these at least it would be styled piety. Yet in all these cases the motive is precisely the same: it is neither more nor less than the motive belonging to the religious sanction.14

  XXV. To the pleasures of sympathy corresponds the motive which, in a neutral sense, is termed good-will. The word sympathy may also be used on this occasion: though the sense of it seems to be rather more extensive. In a good sense, it is styled benevolence: and in certain cases, philanthropy; and, in a figurative way, brotherly love; in others, humanity; in others, charity; in others, pity and compassion; in others, mercy; in others, gratitude; in others, tenderness; in others, patriotism; in others, public spirit. Love is also employed in this as in so many other senses. In a bad sense, it has no name applicable to it in all cases: in particular cases it is styled partiality. The word zeal, with certain epithets prefixed to it, might also be employed sometimes on this occasion, though the sense of it be more extensive; applying sometimes to ill as well as to good will. It is thus we speak of party zeal, national zeal, and public zeal. The word attachment is also used with the like epithets: we also say family-attachment. The French expression, esprit de corps, for which as yet there seems to be scarcely any name in English, might be rendered, in some cases, though rather inadequately, by the terms corporation spirit, corporation attachment, or corporation zeal.

  1. A man who has set a town on fire is apprehended and committed: out of regard or compassion for him, you help him to break prison. In this case the generality of people will probably scarcely know whether to condemn your motive or to applaud it: those who condemn your conduct, will be disposed rather to impute it to some other motive: if they style it benevolence or compassion, they will be for prefixing an epithet, and calling it false benevolence or false compassion.15 2. The man is taken again, and is put upon his trial: to save him you swear falsely in his favour. People, who would not call your motive a bad one before, will perhaps call it so now. 3. A man is at law with you about an estate: he has no right to it: the judge knows this, yet, having an esteem or affection for your adversary, adjudges it to him. In this case the motive is by every body deemed abominable, and is termed injustice and partiality. 4. You detect a statesman in receiving bribes: out of regard to the public interest, you give information of it, and prosecute him. In this case, by all who acknowledge your conduct to have originated from this motive, your motive will be deemed a laudable one, and styled public spirit. But his friends and adherents will not choose to account for your conduct in any such manner: they will rather attribute it to party enmity. 5. You find a man on the point of starving: you relieve him; and save his life. In this case your motive will by every body be accounted laudable, and it will be termed compassion, pity, charity, benevolence. Yet in all these cases the motive is the same: it is neither more nor less than the motive of good-will.

  XXVI. To the pleasures of malevolence, or antipathy, corresponds the motive which, in a neutral sense, is termed antipathy or displeasure: and, in particular cases, dislike, aversion, abhorrence, and indignation: in a neutral sense, or perhaps a sense leaning a little to the bad side, ill-will: and, in particular cases, anger, wrath, and enmity. In a bad sense it is styled, in different cases, wrath, spleen, ill-humour, hatred, malice, rancour, rage, fury, cruelty, tyranny, envy, jealousy, revenge, misanthropy, and by other names, which it is hardly worth while to endeavour to collect.16 Like good-will, it is used with epithets expressive of the persons who are the objects of the affection. Hence we hear of party enmity, party rage, and so forth. In a good sense there seems to be no single name for it. In compound expressions it may be spoken of in such a sense, by epithets, such as just and laudable, prefixed to words that are used in a neutral or nearly neutral sense.

  1. You rob a man: he prosecutes you, and gets you punished: out of resentment you set upon him, and hang him with your own hands. In this case your motive will universally be deemed detestable, and will be called malice, cruelty, revenge, and so forth. 2. A man has stolen a little money from you: out of resentment you prosecute him, and get him hanged by course of law. In this case people will probably be a little divided in their opinions about your motive: your friends will deem it a laudable one, and call it a just or laudable resentment: your enemies will perhaps be disposed to deem it blameable, and call it cruelty, malice, revenge, and so forth: to obviate which, your friends will try perhaps to change the motive, and call it public spirit. 3. A man has murdered your father: out of resentment you prosecute him, and get him put to death in course of law. In this case your motive will be universally deemed a laudable one, and styled, as before, a just or laudable resentment: and your friends, in order to bring forward the more amiable principle from which the malevolent one, which was your immediate motive, took its rise, will be for keeping the latter out of sight, speaking of the former only, under some such name as filial piety. Yet in all these cases the motive is the same: it is neither more nor less than the motive of ill-will.

  XXVII. To the several sorts of pains, or at least to all such of them as are conceived to subsist in an intense degree, and to death, which, as far as we can perceive, is the termination of all the pleasures, as well as all the pains we are acquainted with, corresponds the motive, which in a neutral sense is styled, in general, self-preservation: the desire of preserving one's self from the pain or evil in question. Now in many instances the desire of pleasure, and the sense of pain, run into one another undistinguishably. Self-preservation, therefore, where the degree of the pain which it corresponds to is but slight will scarcely be distinguishable, by any precise line, from the motives corresponding to the several sorts of pleasures. Thus in the case of the pains of hunger and thirst: physical want will in many cases be scarcely distinguishable from physical desire. In some cases it is styled, still in a neutral sense, self-defence. Between the pleasures and the pains of the moral and religious sanctions, and consequently of the motives that correspond to them, as likewise between the pleasures of amity, and the pains of enmity, this want of boundaries has already been taken notice of.17 The case is the same between the pleasures of wealth, and the pains of privation corresponding to those pleasures. There are many cases, therefore, in which it will be difficult to distinguish the motive of self-preservation from pecuniary interest, from the desire of ingratiating one's self, from the love of reputation, and from religious hope: in which cases, those more specific and explicit names will naturally be preferred to this general and inexplicit one. There are also a multitude of compound names, which either are already in use, or might be devised, to distinguish the specific branches of the motive of self-preservation from those several motives of a pleasurable origin: such as the fear of poverty, the fear of losing such or such a man's regard, the fear of shame, and the fear of God. Moreover, to the evil of death corresponds, in a neutral sense, the love of life; in a bad sense, cowardice: which corresponds also to the pains of the senses, at least when considered as subsisting in an acute degree. There seems to be no name for the love of life that has a good sense; unless it be the vague and general name of prudence.

  1. To save yourself from being hanged, pilloried, imprisoned, or fined, you poison the only person who can give evidence against you. In this case your motive will universally be styled abominable: but as the term self-preservation has no bad sense, people will not care to make this use of it: they will be apt rather to change the motive, and call it malice. 2. A woman, having been just delivered of an illegitimate child, in order to save herself from shame, destroys the child, or abandons it. In this case, also, people will call the motive a bad one, and, not caring to speak of it under a neutral name, they will be apt to change the motive, and call it by some such name as cruelty. 3. To save the expense of a halfpenny, you suffer a man, whom you could preserve at that expense, to perish with want, before your eyes. In this case your motive will be universally deemed an abominable one; and, to avoid calling it by so indulgent a name as self-preservation, people will be apt to call it avarice and niggardliness, with which indeed in this case it indistinguishably coincides: for the sake of finding a more reproachful appellation, they will be apt likewise to change the motive, and term it cruelty. 4. To put an end to the pain of hunger, you steal a loaf of bread. In this case your motive will scarcely, perhaps, be deemed a very bad one; and, in order to express more indulgence for it, people will be apt to find a stronger name for it than self-preservation, terming it necessity. 5. To save yourself from drowning, you beat off an innocent man who has got hold of the same plank. In this case your motive will in general be deemed neither good nor bad, and it will be termed self-preservation, or necessity, or the love of life. 6. To save your life from a gang of robbers, you kill them in the conflict. In this case the motive may, perhaps, be deemed rather laudable than otherwise, and, besides self-preservation, is styled also self-defence. 7. A soldier is sent out upon a party against a weaker party of the enemy: before he gets up with them, to save his life, he runs away. In this case the motive will universally be deemed a contemptible one, and will be called cowardice. Yet in all these various cases, the motive is still the same. It is neither more nor less than self-preservation.

  XXVIII. In particular, to the pains of exertion corresponds the motive, which, in a neutral sense, may be termed the love of ease, or by a longer circumlocution, the desire of avoiding trouble. In a bad sense, it is termed indolence.18 It seems to have no name that carries with it a good sense.

  1. To save the trouble of taking care of it, a parent leaves his child to perish. In this case the motive will be deemed an abominable one, and, because indolence will seem too mild a name for it, the motive will, perhaps, be changed, and spoken of under some such term as cruelty. 2. To save yourself from an illegal slavery, you make your escape. In this case the motive will be deemed certainly not a bad one: and, because indolence, or even the love of ease, will be thought too unfavourable a name for it, it will, perhaps, be styled the love of liberty. 3. A mechanic, in order to save his labour, makes an improvement in his machinery. In this case, people will look upon his motive as a good one; and finding no name for it that carries a good sense, they will be disposed to keep the motive out of sight: they will speak rather of his ingenuity, than of the motive which was the means of his manifesting that quality. Yet in all these cases the motive is the same: it is neither more nor less than the love of ease.

  XXIX. It appears then that there is no such thing as any sort of motive which is a bad one in itself: nor, consequently, any such thing as a sort of motive, which in itself is exclusively a good one. And as to their effects, it appears too that these are sometimes bad, at other times either indifferent or good: and this appears to be the case with every sort of motive. If any sort of motive then is either good or bad on the score of its effects, this is the case only on individual occasions, and with individual motives; and this is the case with one sort of motive as well as with another. If any sort of motive then can, in consideration of its effects, be termed with any propriety a bad one, it can only be with reference to the balance of all the effects it may have had of both kinds within a given period, that is, of its most usual tendency.

  XXX. What then? (it will be said) are not lust, cruelty, avarice, bad motives? Is there so much as any one individual occasion, in which motives like these can be otherwise than bad? No, certainly: and yet the proposition, that there is no one sort of motive but what will on many occasions be a good one, is nevertheless true. The fact is, that these are names which, if properly applied, are never applied but in the cases where the motives they signify happen to be bad. The names of those motives, considered apart from their effects, are sexual desire, displeasure, and pecuniary interest. To sexual desire, when the effects of it are looked upon as bad, is given the name of lust. Now lust is always a bad motive. Why? Because if the case be such, that the effects of the motive are not bad, it does not go, or at least ought not to go, by the name of lust. The case is, then, that when I say, 'Lust is a bad motive,' it is a proposition that merely concerns the import of the word lust; and which would be false if transferred to the other word used for the same motive, sexual desire. Hence we see the emptiness of all those rhapsodies of common-place morality, which consist in the taking of such names as lust, cruelty, and avarice, and branding them with marks of reprobation: applied to the thing, they are false; applied to the name, they are true indeed, but nugatory. Would you do a real service to mankind, show them the cases in which sexual desire merits the name of lust; displeasure, that of cruelty; and pecuniary interest, that of avarice.

  XXXI. If it were necessary to apply such denominations as good, bad, and indifferent to motives, they might be classed in the following manner, in consideration of the most frequent complexion of their effects. In the class of good motives might be placed the articles of, 1. Good-will. 2. Love of reputation. 3. Desire of amity. And, 4. Religion. In the class of bad motives, 5. Displeasure. In the class of neutral or indifferent motives, 6. Physical desire. 7. Pecuniary interest. 8. Love of power. 9. Self-preservation; as including the fear of the pains of the senses, the love of ease, and the love of life.

  XXXII. This method of arrangement, however, cannot but be imperfect; and the nomenclature belonging to it is in danger of being fallacious. For by what method of investigation can a man be assured, that with regard to the motives ranked under the name of good, the good effects they have had, from the beginning of the world, have, in each of the four species comprised under this name, been superior to the bad? still more difficulty would a man find in assuring himself, that with regard to those which are ranked under the name of neutral or indifferent, the effects they have had have exactly balanced each other, the value of the good being neither greater nor less than that of the bad. It is to be considered, that the interests of the person himself can no more be left out of the estimate, than those of the rest of the community. For what would become of the species, if it were not for the motives of hunger and thirst, sexual desire, the fear of pain, and the love of life? Nor in the actual constitution of human nature is the motive of displeasure less necessary, perhaps, than any of the others: although a system, in which the business of life might be carried on without it, might possibly be conceived. It seems, therefore, that they could scarcely, without great danger of mistakes, be distinguished in this manner even with reference to each other.

  XXXIII. The only way, it should seem, in which a motive can with safety and propriety be styled good or bad, is with reference to its effects in each individual instance; and principally from the intention it gives birth to: from which arise, as will be shown hereafter, the most material part of its effects. A motive is good, when the intention it gives birth to is a good one; bad, when the intention is a bad one: and an intention is good or bad, according to the material consequences that are the objects of it. So far is it from the goodness of the intention's being to be known only from the species of the motive. But from one and the same motive, as we have seen, may result intentions of every sort of complexion whatsoever. This circumstance, therefore, can afford no clue for the arrangement of the several sorts of motives.

  XXXIV. A more commodious method, therefore, it should seem, would be to distribute them according to the influence which they appear to have on the interests of the other members of the community, laying those of the party himself out of the question: to wit, according to the tendency which they appear to have to unite, or disunite, his interests and theirs. On this plan they may be distinguished into social, dissocial, and self-regarding. In the social class may be reckoned, 1. Good-will. 2. Love of reputation. 3. Desire of amity. 4. Religion. In the dissocial may be placed, 5. Displeasure. In the self-regarding class, 6. Physical desire. 7. Pecuniary interest. 8. Love of power. 9. Self-preservation; as including the fear of the pains of the senses, the love of ease, and the love of life.

  XXXV. With respect to the motives that have been termed social, if any farther distinction should be of use, to that of good-will alone may be applied the epithet of purely-social; while the love of reputation, the desire of amity, and the motive of religion, may together be comprised under the division of semi-social: the social tendency being much more constant and unequivocal in the former than in any of the three latter. Indeed these last, social as they may be termed, are self-regarding at the same time.19

  § 4. Order of pre-eminence among motives.

  XXXVI. Of all these sorts of motives, good-will is that of which the dictates,20 taken in a general view, are surest of coinciding with those of the principle of utility. For the dictates of utility are neither more nor less than the dictates of the most extensive21 and enlightened (that is well-advised22 ) benevolence. The dictates of the other motives may be conformable to those of utility, or repugnant, as it may happen.

  XXXVII. In this, however, it is taken for granted, that in the case in question the dictates of benevolence are not contradicted by those of a more extensive, that is enlarged, benevolence. Now when the dictates of benevolence, as respecting the interests of a certain set of persons, are repugnant to the dictates of the same motive, as respecting the more important23 interests of another set of persons, the former dictates, it is evident, are repealed, as it were, by the latter: and a man, were he to be governed by the former, could scarcely, with propriety, be said to be governed by the dictates of benevolence. On this account were the motives on both sides sure to be alike present to a man's mind, the case of such a repugnancy would hardly be worth distinguishing, since the partial benevolence might be considered as swallowed up in the more extensive: if the former prevailed, and governed the action, it must be considered as not owing its birth to benevolence, but to some other motive: if the latter prevailed, the former might be considered as having no effect. But the case is, that a partial benevolence may govern the action, without entering into any direct competition with the more extensive benevolence, which would forbid it; because the interests of the less numerous assemblage of persons may be present to a man's mind, at a time when those of the more numerous are either not present, or, if present, make no impression. It is in this way that the dictates of this motive may be repugnant to utility, yet still be the dictates of benevolence. What makes those of private benevolence conformable upon the whole to the principle of utility, is, that in general they stand unopposed by those of public: if they are repugnant to them, it is only by accident. What makes them the more conformable, is, that in a civilized society, in most of the cases in which they would of themselves be apt to run counter to those of public benevolence, they find themselves opposed by stronger motives of the self-regarding class, which are played off against them by the laws; and that it is only in cases where they stand unopposed by the other more salutary dictates, that they are left free. An act of injustice or cruelty, committed by a man for the sake of his father or his son, is punished, and with reason, as much as if it were committed for his own.

  XXXVIII. After good-will, the motive of which the dictates seem to have the next best chance for coinciding with those of utility, is that of the love of reputation. There is but one circumstance which prevents the dictates of this motive from coinciding in all cases with those of the former. This is, that men in their likings and dislikings, in the dispositions they manifest to annex to any mode of conduct their approbation or their disapprobation, and in consequence to the person who appears to practice it, their good or their ill will, do not govern themselves exclusively by the principle of utility. Sometimes it is the principle of asceticism they are guided by: sometimes the principle of sympathy and antipathy. There is another circumstance, which diminishes, not their conformity to the principle of utility, but only their efficacy in comparison with the dictates of the motive of benevolence. The dictates of this motive will operate as strongly in secret as in public: whether it appears likely that the conduct which they recommend will be known or not: those of the love of reputation will coincide with those of benevolence only in proportion as a man's conduct seems likely to be known. This circumstance, however, does not make so much difference as at first sight might appear. Acts, in proportion as they are material, are apt to become known:24 and in point of reputation, the slightest suspicion often serves for proof. Besides, if an act be a disreputable one, it is not any assurance a man can have of the secrecy of the particular act in question, that will of course surmount the objections he may have against engaging in it. Though the act in question should remain secret, it will go towards forming a habit, which may give birth to other acts, that may not meet with the same good fortune. There is no human being, perhaps, who is at years of discretion, on whom considerations of this sort have not some weight: and they have the more weight upon a man, in proportion to the strength of his intellectual powers, and the firmness of his mind.25 Add to this, the influence which habit itself, when once formed, has in restraining a man from acts towards which, from the view of the disrepute annexed to them, as well as from any other cause, he has contracted an aversion. The influence of habit, in such cases, is a matter of fact, which, though not readily accounted for, is acknowledged and indubitable.26

  XXXIX. After the dictates of the love of reputation come, as it should seem, those of the desire of amity. The former are disposed to coincide with those of utility, inasmuch as they are disposed to coincide with those of benevolence. Now those of the desire of amity are apt also to coincide, in a certain sort, with those of benevolence. But the sort of benevolence with the dictates of which the love of reputation coincides, is the more extensive; that with which those of the desire of amity coincide, the less extensive. Those of the love of amity have still, however, the advantage of those of the self-regarding motives. The former, at one period or other of his life, dispose a man to contribute to the happiness of a considerable number of persons: the latter, from the beginning of life to the end of it, confine themselves to the care of that single individual. The dictates of the desire of amity, it is plain, will approach nearer to a coincidence with those of the love of reputation, and thence with those of utility, in proportion, cæteris paribus, to the number of the persons whose amity a man has occasion to desire: and hence it is, for example, that an English member of parliament, with all his own weaknesses, and all the follies of the people whose amity he has to cultivate, is probably, in general, a better character than the secretary of a visier at Constantinople, or of a naïb in Indostan.

  XL. The dictates of religion are, under the infinite diversity of religions, so extremely variable, that it is difficult to know what general account to give of them, or in what rank to place the motive they belong to. Upon the mention of religion, people's first thoughts turn naturally to the religion they themselves profess. This is a great source of miscalculation, and has a tendency to place this sort of motive in a higher rank than it deserves. The dictates of religion would coincide, in all cases, with those of utility, were the Being, who is the object of religion, universally supposed to be as benevolent as he is supposed to be wise and powerful; and were the notions entertained of his benevolence, at the same time, as correct as those which are entertained of his wisdom and his power. Unhappily, however, neither of these is the case. He is universally supposed to be all-powerful: for by the Deity, what else does any man mean than the Being, whatever he be, by whom every thing is done? And as to knowledge, by the same rule that he should know one thing he should know another. These notions seem to be as correct, for all material purposes, as they are universal. But among the votaries of religion (of which number the multifarious fraternity of Christians is but a small part) there seem to be but few (I will not say how few) who are real believers in his benevolence. They call him benevolent in words, but they do not mean that he is so in reality. They do not mean, that he is benevolent as man is conceived to be benevolent: they do not mean that he is benevolent in the only sense in which benevolence has a meaning. For if they did, they would recognize that the dictates of religion could be neither more nor less than the dictates of utility: not a tittle different: not a tittle less or more. But the case is, that on a thousand occasions they turn their backs on the principle of utility. They go astray after the strange principles its antagonists: sometimes it is the principle of asceticism: sometimes the principle of sympathy and antipathy.27 Accordingly, the idea they bear in their minds, on such occasions, is but too often the idea of malevolence; to which idea, stripping it of its own proper name, they bestow the specious appellation of the social motive.28 The dictates of religion, in short, are no other than the dictates of that principle which has been already mentioned under the name of the theological principle.29 These, as has been observed, are just as it may happen, according to the biases of the person in question, copies of the dictates of one or other of the three original principles: sometimes, indeed, of the dictates of utility: but frequently of those of asceticism, or those of sympathy and antipathy. In this respect they are only on a par with the dictates of the love of reputation: in another they are below it. The dictates of religion are in all places intermixed more or less with dictates unconformable to those of utility, deduced from tests, well or ill interpreted, of the writings held for sacred by each sect: unconformable, by imposing practices sometimes inconvenient to a man's self, sometimes pernicious to the rest of the community. The sufferings of uncalled martyrs, the calamities of holy wars and religious persecutions, the mischiefs of intolerant laws, (objects which can here only be glanced at, not detailed) are so many additional mischiefs over and above the number of those which were ever brought into the world by the love of reputation. On the other hand, it is manifest, that with respect to the power of operating in secret, the dictates of religion have the same advantage over those of the love of reputation, and the desire of amity, as is possessed by the dictates of benevolence.

  XLI. Happily, the dictates of religion seem to approach nearer and nearer to a coincidence with those of utility every day. But why? Because the dictates of the moral sanction do so: and those coincide with or are influenced by these. Men of the worst religions, influenced by the voice and practice of the surrounding world, borrow continually a new and a new leaf out of the book of utility: and with these, in order not to break with their religion, they endeavour, sometimes with violence enough, to patch together and adorn the repositories of their faith.

  XLII. As to the self-regarding and dissocial motives, the order that takes place among these, and the preceding one, in point of extra-regarding influence, is too evident to need insisting on. As to the order that takes place among the motives, of the self-regarding class, considered in comparison with one another, there seems to be no difference which on this occasion would be worth mentioning. With respect to the dissocial motive, it makes a difference (with regard to its extra-regarding effects) from which of two sources it originates; whether from self-regarding or from social considerations. The displeasure you conceive against a man may be founded either on some act which offends you in the first instance, or on an act which offends you no otherwise than because you look upon it as being prejudicial to some other party on whose behalf you interest yourself: which other party may be of course either a determinate individual, or any assemblage of individuals, determinate or indeterminate.30 It is obvious enough, that a motive, though in itself dissocial, may, by issuing from a social origin, possess a social tendency; and that its tendency, in this case, is likely to be the more social, the more enlarged the description is of the persons whose interests you espouse. Displeasure, venting itself against a man, on account of a mischief supposed to be done by him to the public, may be more social in its effects than any good-will, the exertions of which are confined to an individual.31

  § 5. Conflict among motives.

  XLIII. When a man has it in contemplation to engage in any action, he is frequently acted upon at the same time by the force of divers motives: one motive, or set of motives, acting in one direction; another motive, or set of motives, acting as it were in an opposite direction. The motives on one side disposing him to engage in the action: those on the other, disposing him not to engage in it. Now, any motive, the influence of which tends to dispose him to engage in the action in question, may be termed an impelling motive: any motive, the influence of which tends to dispose him not to engage in it, a restraining motive. But these appellations may of course be interchanged, according as the act is of the positive kind, or the negative.32

  XLIV. It has been shown, that there is no sort of motive but may give birth to any sort of action. It follows, therefore, that there are no two motives but may come to be opposed to one another. Where the tendency of the act is bad, the most common case is for it to have been dictated by a motive either of the self-regarding, or of the dissocial class. In such case the motive of benevolence has commonly been acting, though ineffectually, in the character of a restraining motive.

  XLV. An example may be of use, to show the variety of contending motives, by which a man may be acted upon at the same time. Crillon, a Catholic (at a time when it was generally thought meritorious among Catholics to extirpate Protestants), was ordered by his king, Charles IX. of France, to fall privately upon Coligny, a Protestant, and assassinate him: his answer was, 'Excuse me, Sire; but I'll fight him with all my heart.'33 Here, then, were all the three forces above mentioned, including that of the political sanction, acting upon him at once. By the political sanction, or at least so much of the force of it as such a mandate, from such a sovereign, issued on such an occasion, might be supposed to carry with it, he was enjoined to put Coligny to death in the way of assassination: by the religious sanction, that is, by the dictates of religious zeal, he was enjoined to put him to death in any way: by the moral sanction, or in other words, by the dictates of honour, that is, of the love of reputation, he was permitted (which permission, when coupled with the mandates of his sovereign, operated, he conceived, as an injunction) to fight the adversary upon equal terms: by the dictates of enlarged benevolence (supposing the mandate to be unjustifiable) he was enjoined not to attempt his life in any way, but to remain at peace with him: supposing the mandate to be unjustifiable, by the dictates of private benevolence he was enjoined not to meddle with him at any rate. Among this confusion of repugnant dictates, Crillon, it seems, gave the preference, in the first place, to those of honour: in the next place, to those of benevolence. He would have fought, had his offer been accepted; as it was not, he remained at peace.

  Here a multitude of questions might arise. Supposing the dictates of the political sanction to follow the mandate of the sovereign, of what kind were the motives which they afforded him for compliance? The answer is, of the self-regarding kind at any rate: inasmuch as, by the supposition, it was in the power of the sovereign to punish him for non-compliance, or reward him for compliance. Did they afford him the motive of religion (I mean independently of the circumstance of heresy above mentioned) the answer is, Yes, if his notion was, that it was God's pleasure he should comply with them; No, if it was not. Did they afford him the motive of the love of reputation? Yes, if it was his notion that the world would expect and require that he should comply with them: No, if it was not. Did they afford him that of benevolence? Yes, if it was his notion that the community would upon the whole be the better for his complying with them: No, if it was not. But did the dictates of the political sanction, in the case in question, actually follow the mandates of the sovereign: in other words, was such a mandate legal? This we see is a mere question of local jurisprudence, altogether foreign to the present purpose.

  XLVI. What is here said about the goodness and badness of motives, is far from being a mere matter of words. There will be occasion to make use of it hereafter for various important purposes. I shall have need of it for the sake of dissipating various prejudices, which are of disservice to the community, sometimes by cherishing the flame of civil dissensions,34 at other times, by obstructing the course of justice. It will be shown, that in the case of many offences,35 the consideration of the motive is a most material one: for that in the first place it makes a very material difference in the magnitude of the mischief:36 in the next place, that it is easy to be ascertained; and thence may be made a ground for a difference in the demand for punishment: but that in other cases it is altogether incapable of being ascertained; and that, were it capable of being ever so well ascertained, good or bad, it could make no difference in the demand for punishment: that in all cases, the motive that may happen to govern a prosecutor, is a consideration totally immaterial: whence may be seen the mischievousness of the prejudice that is so apt to be entertained against informers; and the consequence it is of that the judge, in particular, should be proof against the influence of such delusions.

  Lastly, The subject of motives is one with which it is necessary to be acquainted, in order to pass a judgment on any means that may be proposed for combating offenses in their source.37

  But before the theoretical foundation for these practical observations can be completely laid, it is necessary we should say something on the subject of disposition: which, accordingly, will furnish matter for the ensuing chapter.

  Chapter XI

  OF HUMAN DISPOSITIONS IN GENERAL

  I. In the foregoing chapter it has been shown at large, that goodness or badness cannot, with any propriety, be predicated of motives. Is there nothing then about a man that may properly be termed good or bad, when, on such or such an occasion; he suffers himself to be governed by such or such a motive? Yes, certainly: his disposition. Now disposition is a kind of fictitious entity, feigned for the convenience of discourse, in order to express what there is supposed to be permanent in a man's frame of mind, where, on such or such an occasion, he has been influenced by such or such a motive, to engage in an act, which, as it appeared to him, was of such or such a tendency.

  II. It is with disposition as with every thing else: it will be good or bad according to its effects: according to the effects it has in augmenting or diminishing the happiness of the community. A man's disposition may accordingly be considered in two points of view: according to the influence it has, either, 1. on his own happiness: or, 2. on the happiness of others. Viewed in both these lights together, or in either of them indiscriminately, it may be termed, on the one hand, good; on the other, bad; or, in flagrant cases, depraved.38 Viewed in the former of these lights, it has scarcely any peculiar name, which has as yet been appropriated to it. It might be termed, though but inexpressively, frail or infirm, on the one hand: sound or firm, on the other. Viewed in the other light, it might be termed beneficent, or meritorious, on the one hand: pernicious or mischievous, on the other. Now of that branch of a man's disposition, the effects of which regard in the first instance only himself, there needs not much to be said here. To reform it when bad, is the business rather of the moralist than the legislator: nor is it susceptible of those various modifications which make so material difference in the effects of the other. Again, with respect to that part of it, the effects whereof regard others in the first instance, it is only in as far as it is of a mischievous nature that the penal branch of law has any immediate concern with it: in as far as it may be of a beneficent nature, it belongs to a hitherto but little cultivated, and as yet unnamed branch of law, which might be styled the remuneratory.

  III. A man then is said to be of a mischievous disposition, when, by the influence of no matter what motives, he is presumed to be more apt to engage, or form intentions of engaging, in acts which are apparently of a pernicious tendency, than in such as are apparently of a beneficial tendency: of a meritorious or beneficent disposition in the opposite case.

  IV. I say presumed: for, by the supposition, all that appears is one single action, attended with one single train of circumstances: but from that degree of consistency and uniformity which experience has shown to be observable in the different actions of the same person, the probable existence (past or future) of a number of acts of a similar nature, is naturally and justly inferred from the observation of one single one. Under such circumstances, such as the motive proves to be in one instance, such is the disposition to be presumed to be in others.

  V. I say apparently mischievous: that is, apparently with regard to him: such as to him appear to possess that tendency: for from the mere event, independent of what to him it appears beforehand likely to be, nothing can be inferred on either side. If to him it appears likely to be mischievous, in such case, though in the upshot it should prove innocent, or even beneficial, it makes no difference; there is not the less reason for presuming his disposition to be a bad one: if to him it appears likely to be beneficial or innocent, in such case, though in the upshot it should prove pernicious, there is not the more reason on that account for presuming his disposition to be a good one. And here we see the importance of the circumstances of intentionality,39 consciousness,40 unconsciousness,40 and mis-supposal.40

  VI. The truth of these positions depends upon two others, both of them sufficiently verified by experience: The one is, that in the ordinary course of things the consequences of actions commonly turn out conformable to intentions. A man who sets up a butcher's shop, and deals in beef, when he intends to knock down an ox, commonly does knock down an ox; though by some unlucky accident he may chance to miss his blow and knock down a man: he who sets up a grocer's shop, and deals sugar, when he intends to sell sugar, commonly does sell sugar: though by some unlucky accident he may chance to sell arsenic in the room of it.

  VII. The other is, that a man who entertains intentions of doing mischief at one time is apt to entertain the like intentions at another.41

  VIII. There are two circumstances upon which the nature of the disposition, as indicated by any act, is liable to depend: 1. The apparent tendency of the act: 2. The nature of the motive which gave birth to it. This dependency is subject to different rules, according to the nature of the motive. In stating them, I suppose all along the apparent tendency of the act to be, as it commonly is, the same as the real.

  IX. 1. Where the tendency of the act is good, and the motive is of the self-regarding kind. In this case the motive affords no inference on either side. It affords no indication of a good disposition: but neither does it afford any indication of a bad one.

  A baker sells his bread to a hungry man who asks for it. This, we see, is one of those acts of which, in ordinary cases, the tendency is unquestionably good. The baker's motive is the ordinary commercial motive of pecuniary interest. It is plain, that there is nothing in the transaction, thus stated, that can afford the least ground for presuming that the baker is a better or a worse man than any of his neighbours.

  X. 2. Where the tendency of the act is bad, and the motive, as before, is of the self-regarding kind. In this case the disposition indicated is a mischievous one.

  A man steals bread out of a baker's shop: this is one of those acts of which the tendency will readily be acknowledged to be bad. Why, and in what respects it is so, will be stated farther on.42 His motive, we will say, is that of pecuniary interest; the desire of getting the value of the bread for nothing. His disposition, accordingly, appears to be a bad one: for every one will allow a thievish disposition to be a bad one.

  XI. 3. Where the tendency of the act is good, and the motive is the purely social one of good-will. In this case the disposition indicated is a beneficent one.

  A baker gives a poor man a loaf of bread. His motive is compassion; a name given to the motive of benevolence, in particular cases of its operation. The disposition indicated by the baker, in this case, is such as every man will be ready enough to acknowledge to be a good one.

  XII. 4. Where the tendency of the act is bad, and the motive is the purely social one of good-will. Even in this case the disposition which the motive indicates is dubious: it may be a mischievous or a meritorious one, as it happens; according as the mischievousness of the act is more or less apparent.

  XIII. It may be thought, that a case of this sort cannot exist; and that to suppose it, is a contradiction in terms. For the act is one, which, by the supposition, the agent knows to be a mischievous one. How then can it be, that good-will, that is, the desire of doing good, could have been the motive that led him into it? To reconcile this, we must advert to the distinction between enlarged benevolence and confined.43 The motive that led him into it, was that of confined benevolence. Had he followed the dictates of enlarged benevolence, he would not have done what he did. Now, although he followed the dictates of that branch of benevolence, which in any single instance of its exertion is mischievous, when opposed to the other, yet, as the cases which call for the exertion of the former are, beyond comparison, more numerous than those which call for the exertion of the latter, the disposition indicated by him, in following the impulse of the former, will often be such as in a man, of the common run of men, may be allowed to be a good one upon the whole.

  XIV. A man with a numerous family of children, on the point of starving, goes into a baker's shop, steals a loaf, divides it all among the children, reserving none of it for himself. It will be hard to infer that that man's disposition is a mischievous one upon the whole. Alter the case, give him but one child, and that hungry perhaps, but in no imminent danger of starving: and now let the man set fire to a house full of people, for the sake of stealing money out of it to buy the bread with. The disposition here indicated will hardly be looked upon as a good one.

  XV. Another case will appear more difficult to decide than either. Ravaillac assassinated one of the best and wisest of sovereigns, at a time when a good and wise sovereign, a blessing at all times so valuable to a state, was particularly precious: and that to the inhabitants of a populous and extensive empire. He is taken, and doomed to the most excruciating tortures. His son, well persuaded of his being a sincere penitent, and that mankind, in case of his being at large, would have nothing more to fear from him, effectuates his escape. Is this then a sign of a good disposition in the son, or of a bad one? Perhaps some will answer, of a bad one; for, besides the interest which the nation has in the sufferings of such a criminal, on the score of the example, the future good behaviour of such a criminal is more than any one can have sufficient ground to be persuaded of.

  XVI. Well then, let Ravaillac, the son, not facilitate his father's escape; but content himself with conveying poison to him, that at the price of an easier death he may escape his torments. The decision will now, perhaps, be more difficult. The act is a wrong one, let it be allowed, and such as ought by all means to be punished: but is the disposition manifested by it a bad one? Because the young man breaks the laws in this one instance, is it probable, that if let alone, he would break the laws in ordinary instances, for the satisfaction of any inordinate desires of his own? The answer of most men would probably be in the negative.

  XVII. 5. Where the tendency of the act is good, and the motive is a semi-social one, the love of reputation. In this case the disposition indicated is a good one.

  In a time of scarcity, a baker, for the sake of gaining the esteem of the neighbourhood, distributes bread gratis among the industrious poor. Let this be taken for granted: and let it be allowed to be a matter of uncertainty, whether he had any real feeling for the sufferings of those whom he has relieved, or no. His disposition, for all that, cannot, with any pretence of reason, be termed otherwise than a good and beneficent one. It can only be in consequence of some very idle prejudice, if it receives a different name.44

  XVIII. 6. Where the tendency of the act is bad, and the motive, as before, is a semi-social one, the love of reputation. In this case, the disposition which it indicates is more or less good or bad: in the first place, according as the tendency of the act is more or less mischievous: in the next place according as the dictates of the moral sanction, in the society in question, approach more or less to a coincidence with those of utility. It does not seem probable, that in any nation, which is in a state of tolerable civilization, in short, in any nation in which such rules as these can come to be consulted, the dictates of the moral sanction will so far recede from a coincidence with those of utility (that is, of enlightened benevolence) that the disposition indicated in this case can be otherwise than a good one upon the whole.

  XIX. An Indian receives an injury, real or imaginary, from an Indian of another tribe. He revenges it upon the person of his antagonist with the most excruciating torments: the case being, that cruelties inflicted on such an occasion, gain him reputation in his own tribe. The disposition manifested in such a case can never be deemed a good one, among a people ever so few degrees advanced, in point of civilization, above the Indians.

  XX. A nobleman (to come back to Europe) contracts a debt with a poor tradesman. The same nobleman, presently afterwards, contracts a debt, to the same amount, to another nobleman, at play. He is unable to pay both: he pays the whole debt to the companion of his amusements, and no part of it to the tradesman. The disposition manifested in this case can scarcely be termed otherwise than a bad one. It is certainly, however, not so bad as if he had paid neither. The principle of love of reputation, or (as it is called in the case of this partial application of it) honour, is here opposed to the worthier principle of benevolence, and gets the better of it. But it gets the better also of the self-regarding principle of pecuniary interest. The disposition, therefore, which it indicates, although not so good a one as that in which the principle of benevolence predominates, is better than one in which the principle of self-interest predominates. He would be the better for having more benevolence: but would he be the better for having no honour? This seems to admit of great dispute.45

  XXI. 7. Where the tendency of the act is good, and the motive is the semi-social one of religion. In this case, the disposition indicated by it (considered with respect to the influence of it on the man's conduct towards others) is manifestly a beneficent and meritorious one.

  A baker distributes bread gratis among the industrious poor. It is not that he feels for their distresses: nor is it for the sake of gaining reputation among his neighbours. It is for the sake of gaining the favour of the Deity: to whom, he takes for granted, such conduct will be acceptable. The disposition manifested by such conduct is plainly what every man would call a good one.

  XXII. 8. Where the tendency of the act is bad, and the motive is that of religion, as before. In this case the disposition is dubious. It is good or bad, and more or less good or bad, in the first place, as the tendency of the act is more or less mischievous; in the next place, according as the religious tenets of the person in question approach more or less to a coincidence with the dictates of utility.

  XXIII. It should seem from history, that even in nations in a tolerable state of civilization in other respects, the dictates of religion have been found so far to recede from a coincidence with those of utility; in other words, from those of enlightened benevolence; that the disposition indicated in this case may even be a bad one upon the whole. This however is no objection to the inference which it affords of a good disposition in those countries (such as perhaps are most of the countries of Europe at present) in which its dictates respecting the conduct of a man towards other men approach very nearly to a coincidence with those of utility. The dictates of religion, in their application to the conduct of a man in what concerns himself alone, seem in most European nations to savour a good deal of the ascetic principle: but the obedience to such mistaken dictates indicates not any such disposition as is likely to break out into acts of pernicious tendency with respect to others. Instances in which the dictates of religion lead a man into acts which are pernicious in this latter view, seem at present to be but rare: unless it be acts of persecution, or impolitic measures on the part of government, where the law itself is either the principal actor or an accomplice in the mischief. Ravaillac, instigated by no other motive than this, gave his country one of the most fatal stabs that a country ever received from a single hand: but happily the Ravaillacs are but rare. They have been more frequent, however, in France than in any other country during the same period: and it is remarkable, that in every instance it is this motive that has produced them. When they do appear, however, nobody, I suppose, but such as themselves, will be for terming a disposition, such as they manifest, a good one. It seems hardly to be denied, but that they are just so much the worse for their notions of religion; and that had they been left to the sole guidance of benevolence, and the love of reputation, without any religion at all, it would have been but so much the better for mankind. One may say nearly the same thing, perhaps, of those persons who, without any particular obligation, have taken an active part in the execution of laws made for the punishment of those who have the misfortune to differ with the magistrate in matters of religion, much more of the legislator himself, who has put it in their power. If Louis XIV. had had no religion, France would not have lost 800,000 of its most valuable subjects. The same thing may be said of the authors of the wars called holy ones; whether waged against persons called Infidels or persons branded with the still more odious name of Heretics. In Denmark, not a great many years ago, a sect is said to have arisen, who, by a strange perversion of reason, took it into their heads, that, by leading to repentance, murder, or any other horrid crime, might be made the road to heaven. It should all along, however, be observed, that instances of this latter kind were always rare: and that in almost all the countries of Europe, instances of the former kind, though once abundantly frequent, have for some time ceased. In certain countries, however, persecution at home, or (what produces a degree of restraint, which is one part of the mischiefs of persecution) I mean the disposition to persecute, whensoever occasion happens, is not yet at an end: insomuch that if there is no actual persecution, it is only because there are no heretics; and if there are no heretics, it is only because there are no thinkers.46

  XXIV. 9. Where the tendency of the act is good, and the motive (as before) is the dissocial one of ill-will. In this case the motive seems not to afford any indication on either side. It is no indication of a good disposition; but neither is it any indication of a bad one.

  You have detected a baker in selling short weight: you prosecute him for the cheat. It is not for the sake of gain that you engaged in the prosecution; for there is nothing to be got by it: it is not from public spirit: it is not for the sake of reputation; for there is no reputation to be got by it: it is not in the view of pleasing the Deity: it is merely on account of a quarrel you have with the man you prosecute. From the transaction, as thus stated, there does not seem to be any thing to be said either in favour of your disposition or against it. The tendency of the act is good: but you would not have engaged in it, had it not been from a motive which there seems no particular reason to conclude will ever prompt you to engage in an act of the same kind again. Your motive is of that sort which may, with least impropriety, be termed a bad one: but the act is of that sort, which, were it engaged in ever so often, could never have any evil tendency; nor indeed any other tendency than a good one. By the supposition, the motive it happened to be dictated by was that of ill-will: but the act itself is of such a nature as to have wanted nothing but sufficient discernment on your part in order to have been dictated by the most enlarged benevolence. Now, from a man's having suffered himself to be induced to gratify his resentment by means of an act of which the tendency is good, it by no means follows that he would be ready on another occasion, through the influence of the same sort of motive, to engage in any act of which the tendency is a bad one. The motive that impelled you was a dissocial one: but what social motive could there have been to restrain you? None, but what might have been outweighed by a more enlarged motive of the same kind. Now, because the dissocial motive prevailed when it stood alone, it by no means follows that it would prevail when it had a social one to combat it.

  XXV. 10. Where the tendency of the act is bad, and the motive is the dissocial one of malevolence. In this case the disposition it indicates is of course a mischievous one.

  The man who stole the bread from the baker, as before, did it with no other view than merely to impoverish and afflict him: accordingly, when he had got the bread, he did not eat, or sell it; but destroyed it. That the disposition, evidenced by such a transaction, is a bad one, is what every body must perceive immediately.

  XXVI. Thus much with respect to the circumstances from which the mischievousness or meritoriousness of a man's disposition is to be inferred in the gross: we come now to the measure of that mischievousness or meritoriousness, as resulting from those circumstances. Now with meritorious acts and dispositions we have no direct concern in the present work. All that penal law is concerned to do, is to measure the depravity of the disposition where the act is mischievous. To this object, therefore, we shall here confine ourselves.

  XXVII. It is evident, that the nature of a man's disposition must depend upon the nature of the motives he is apt to be influenced by: in other words, upon the degree of his sensibility to the force of such and such motives. For his disposition is, as it were, the sum of his intentions: the disposition he is of during a certain period, the sum or result of his intentions during that period. If, of the acts he has been intending to engage in during the supposed period, those which are apparently of a mischievous tendency, bear a large proportion to those which appear to him to be of the contrary tendency, his disposition will be of the mischievous cast: if but a small proportion, of the innocent or upright.

  XXVIII. Now intentions, like every thing else, are produced by the things that are their causes: and the causes of intentions are motives. If, on any occasion, a man forms either a good or a bad intention, it must be by the influence of some motive.

  XXIX. When the act, which a motive prompts a man to engage in, is of a mischievous nature, it may, for distinction's sake, be termed a seducing or corrupting motive: in which case also any motive which, in opposition to the former, acts in the character of a restraining motive, may be styled a tutelary, preservatory, or preserving motive.

  XXX. Tutelary motives may again be distinguished into standing or constant, and occasional. By standing tutelary motives, I mean such as act with more or less force in all, or at least in most cases, tending to restrain a man from any mischievous acts he may be prompted to engage in; and that with a force which depends upon the general nature of the act, rather than upon any accidental circumstance with which any individual act of that sort may happen to be accompanied. By occasional tutelary motives, I mean such motives as may chance to act in this direction or not, according to the nature of the act, and of the particular occasion on which the engaging in it is brought into contemplation.

  XXXI. Now it has been shown, that there is no sort of motive by which a man may not be prompted to engage in acts that are of a mischievous nature; that is, which may not come to act in the capacity of a seducing motive. It has been shown, on the other hand, that there are some motives which are remarkably less likely to operate in this way than others. It has also been shown, that the least likely of all is that of benevolence or good-will: the most common tendency of which, it has been shown, is to act in the character of a tutelary motive. It has also been shown, that even when by accident it acts in one way in the character of a seducing motive, still in another way it acts in the opposite character of a tutelary one. The motive of good-will, in as far as it respects the interests of one set of persons, may prompt a man to engage in acts which are productive of mischief to another and more extensive set: but this is only because his good-will is imperfect and confined: not taking into contemplation the interests of all the persons whose interests are at stake. The same motive, were the affection it issued from more enlarged, would operate effectually, in the character of a constraining motive, against that very act to which, by the supposition, it gives birth. This same sort of motive may therefore, without any real contradiction or deviation from truth, be ranked in the number of standing tutelary motives, notwithstanding the occasions in which it may act at the same time in the character of a seducing one.

  XXXII. The same observation, nearly, may be applied to the semi-social motive of love of reputation. The force of this, like that of the former, is liable to be divided against itself. As in the case of good-will, the interests of some of the persons, who may be the objects of that sentiment, are liable to be at variance with those of others: so in the case of love of reputation, the sentiments of some of the persons, whose good opinion is desired, may be at variance with the sentiments of other persons of that number. Now in the case of an act, which is really of a mischievous nature, it can scarcely happen that there shall be no persons whatever who will look upon it with an eye of disapprobation. It can scarcely ever happen, therefore, that an act really mischievous shall not have some part at least, if not the whole, of the force of this motive to oppose it; nor, therefore, that this motive should not act with some degree of force in the character of a tutelary motive. This, therefore, may be set down as another article in the catalogue of standing tutelary motives.

  XXXIII. The same observation may be applied to the desire of amity, though not in altogether equal measure. For, notwithstanding the mischievousness of an act, it may happen, without much difficulty, that all the persons for whose amity a man entertains any particular present desire which is accompanied with expectation, may concur in regarding it with an eye rather of approbation than the contrary. This is but too apt to be the case among such fraternities as those of thieves, smugglers, and many other denominations of offenders. This, however, is not constantly, nor indeed most commonly the case: insomuch, that the desire of amity may still be regarded, upon the whole, as a tutelary motive, were it only from the closeness of its connexion with the love of reputation. And it may be ranked among standing tutelary motives, since, where it does apply, the force with which it acts, depends not upon the occasional circumstances of the act which it opposes, but upon principles as general as those upon which depend the action of the other semi-social motives.

  XXXIV. The motive of religion is not altogether in the same case with the three former. The force of it is not, like theirs, liable to be divided against itself. I mean in the civilized nations of modern times, among whom the notion of the unity of the Godhead is universal. In times of classical antiquity it was otherwise. If a man got Venus on his side, Pallas was on the other: if Æolus was for him, Neptune was against him. Æneas, with all his piety, had but a partial interest at the court of heaven. That matter stands upon a different footing now-a-days. In any given person, the force of religion, whatever it be, is now all of it on one side. It may balance, indeed, on which side it shall declare itself: and it may declare itself, as we have seen already in but too many instances, on the wrong as well as on the right. It has been, at least till lately, perhaps is still, accustomed so much to declare itself on the wrong side, and that in such material instances, that on that account it seemed not proper to place it, in point of social tendency, on a level altogether with the motive of benevolence. Where it does act, however, as it does in by far the greatest number of cases, in opposition to the ordinary seducing motives, it acts, like the motive of benevolence, in an uniform manner, not depending upon the particular circumstances that may attend the commission of the act; but tending to oppose it, merely on account of its mischievousness; and therefore, with equal force, in whatsoever circumstances it may be proposed to be committed. This, therefore, may also be added to the catalogue of standing tutelary motives.

  XXXV. As to the motives which may operate occasionally in the character of tutelary motives, these, it has been already intimated, are of various sorts, and various degrees of strength in various offenses: depending not only upon the nature of the offence, but upon the accidental circumstances in which the idea of engaging in it may come in contemplation. Nor is there any sort of motive which may not come to operate in this character; as may be easily conceived. A thief, for instance, may be prevented from engaging in a projected scheme of house-breaking, by sitting too long over his bottle,47 by a visit from his doxy, by the occasion he may have to go elsewhere, in order to receive his dividend of a former booty;48 and so on.

  XXXVI. There are some motives, however, which seem more apt to act in this character than others; especially as things are now constituted, now that the law has every where opposed to the force of the principal seducing motives, artificial tutelary motives of its own creation. Of the motives here meant it will be necessary to take a general view. They seem to be reducible to two heads; viz. 1. The love of ease; a motive put into action by the prospect of the trouble of the attempt; that is, the trouble which it may be necessary to bestow, in overcoming the physical difficulties that may accompany it. 2. Self-preservation, as opposed to the dangers to which a man may be exposed in the prosecution of it.

  XXXVII. These dangers may be either, 1. Of a purely physical nature: or, 2. Dangers resulting from moral agency; in other words, from the conduct of any such persons to whom the act, if known, may be expected to prove obnoxious. But moral agency supposes knowledge with respect to the circumstances that are to have the effect of external motives in giving birth to it. Now the obtaining such knowledge, with respect to the commission of any obnoxious act, on the part of any persons who may be disposed to make the agent suffer for it, is called detection; and the agent concerning whom such knowledge is obtained, is said to be detected. The dangers, therefore, which may threaten an offender from this quarter, depend, whatever they may be, on the event of his detection; and may, therefore, be all of them comprised under the article of the danger of detection.

  XXXVIII. The danger depending upon detection may be divided again into two branches: 1. That which may result from any opposition that may be made to the enterprise by persons on the spot; that is, at the very time the enterprise is carrying on: 2. That which respects the legal punishment, or to other suffering, that may await at a distance upon the issue of the enterprise.

  XXXIX. It may be worth calling to mind on this occasion, that among the tutelary motives, which have been styled constant ones, there are two of which the force depends (though not so entirely as the force of the occasional ones which have been or just mentioned, yet in a great measure) upon the circumstance of detection. These, it may be remembered, are, the love of reputation, and the desire of amity. In proportion, therefore, as the chance of being detected appears greater, these motives will apply with the greater force: with the less force, as it appears less. This is not the case with the two other standing tutelary motives, that of benevolence, and that of religion.

  XL. We are now in a condition to determine, with some degree of precision, what is to be understood by the strength of a temptation, and what indication it may give of the degree of mischievousness in a man's disposition in the case of any offence. When a man is prompted to engage in any mischievous act, we will say, for shortness, in an offense, the strength of the temptation depends upon the ratio between the force of the seducing motives on the one hand, and such of the occasional tutelary ones, as the circumstances of the case call forth into action, on the other. The temptation, then, may be said to be strong, when the pleasure or advantage to be got from the crime is such as in the eyes of the offender must appear great in comparison of the trouble and danger that appear to him to accompany the enterprise: slight or weak, when that pleasure or advantage is such as must appear small in comparison of such trouble and such danger. It is plain the strength of the temptation depends not upon the force of the impelling (that is of the seducing) motives altogether: for let the opportunity be more favourable, that is, let the trouble, or any branch of the danger, be made less than before, it will be acknowledged, that the temptation is made so much the stronger: and on the other hand, let the opportunity become less favourable, or, in other words, let the trouble, or any branch of the danger, be made greater than before, the temptation will be so much the weaker.

  Now, after taking account of such tutelary motives as have been styled occasional, the only tutelary motives that can remain are those which have been termed standing ones. But those which have been termed the standing tutelary motives, are the same that we have been styling social. It follows, therefore, that the strength of the temptation, in any case, after deducting the force of the social motives, is as the sum of the forces of the seducing, to the sum of the forces of the occasional tutelary motives.

  XLI. It remains to be inquired, what indication concerning the mischievousness or depravity of a man's disposition is afforded by the strength of the temptation, in the case where any offense happens to have been committed. It appears, then, that the weaker the temptation is, by which a man has been overcome, the more depraved and mischievous it shows his disposition to have been. For the goodness of his disposition is measured by the degree of his sensibility to the action of the social motives:49 in other words, by the strength of the influence which those motives have over him: now, the less considerable the force is by which their influence on him has been overcome, the more convincing is the proof that has been given of the weakness of that influence.

  Again, The degree of a man's sensibility to the force of the social motives being given, it is plain that the force with which those motives tend to restrain him from engaging in any mischievous enterprise, will be as the apparent mischievousness of such enterprise, that is, as the degree of mischief with which it appears to him likely to be attended. In other words, the less mischievous the offence appears to him to be, the less averse he will be, as far as he is guided by social considerations, to engage in it; the more mischievous, the more averse. If then the nature of the offense is such as must appear to him highly mischievous, and yet he engages in it notwithstanding, it shows, that the degree of his sensibility to the force of the social motives is but slight; and consequently that his disposition is proportionably depraved. Moreover, the less the strength of the temptation was; the more pernicious and depraved does it show his disposition to have been. For the less the strength of the temptation was, the less was the force which the influence of those motives had to overcome: the clearer therefore is the proof that has been given of the weakness of that influence.

  XLII. From what has been said, it seems, that, for judging of the indication that is afforded concerning the depravity of a man's disposition by the strength of the temptation, compared with the mischievousness of the enterprise, the following rules may be laid down:

  Rule 1. The strength of the temptation being given, the mischievousness of the disposition manifested by the enterprise, is as the apparent mischievousness of the act.

  Thus, it would show a more depraved disposition, to murder a man for a reward of a guinea, or falsely to charge him with a robbery for the same reward, than to obtain the same sum from him by simple theft: the trouble he would have to take, and the risk he would have to run, being supposed to stand on the same footing in the one case as in the other.

  Rule 2. The apparent mischievousness of the act being given, a man's disposition is the more depraved, the slighter the temptation is by which he has been overcome.

  Thus, it shows a more depraved and dangerous disposition, if a man kill another out of mere sport, as the Emperor of Morocco, Muley Mahomet, is said to have done great numbers, than out of revenge, as Sylla and Marius did thousands, or in the view of self-preservation, as Augustus killed many, or even for lucre, as the same Emperor is said to have killed some. And the effects of such a depravity, on that part of the public which is apprized of it, run in the same proportion. From Augustus, some persons only had to fear, under some particular circumstances. From Muley Mahomet, every man had to fear at all times.

  Rule 3. The apparent mischievousness of the act being given, the evidence which it affords of the depravity of a man's disposition is the less conclusive, the stronger the temptation is by which he has been overcome.

  Thus, if a poor man, who is ready to die with hunger, steal a loaf of bread, it is a less explicit sign of depravity, than if a rich man were to commit a theft to the same amount. It will be observed, that in this rule all that is said is, that the evidence of depravity is in this case the less conclusive: it is not said that the depravity is positively the less. For in this case it is possible, for any thing that appears to the contrary, that the theft might have been committed, even had the temptation been not so strong. In this case, the alleviating circumstance is only a matter of presumption; in the former, the aggravating circumstance is a matter of certainty.

  Rule 4. Where the motive is of the dissocial kind, the apparent mischievousness of the act, and the strength of the temptation, being given, the depravity is as the degree of deliberation with which it is accompanied.

  For in every man, be his disposition ever so depraved, the social motives are those which, wherever the self-regarding ones stand neuter, regulate and determine the general tenor of his life. If the dissocial motives are put in action, it is only in particular circumstances, and on particular occasions; the gentle but constant force of the social motives being for a while subdued. The general and standing bias of every man's nature is, therefore, towards that side to which the force of the social motives would determine him to adhere. This being the case, the force of the social motives tends continually to put an end to that of the dissocial ones; as, in natural bodies, the force of friction tends to put an end to that which is generated by impulse. Time, then, which wears away the force of the dissocial motives, adds to that of the social. The longer, therefore, a man continues, on a given occasion, under the dominion of the dissocial motives, the more convincing is the proof that has been given of his insensibility to the force of the social ones.

  Thus, it shows a worse disposition, where a man lays a deliberate plan for beating his antagonist, and beats him accordingly, than if he were to beat him upon the spot, in consequence of a sudden quarrel: and worse again, if, after having had him a long while together in his power, he beats him at intervals, and at his leisure.50

  XLIII. The depravity of disposition, indicated by an act, is a material consideration in several respects. Any mark of extraordinary depravity, by adding to the terror already inspired by the crime, and by holding up the offender as a person from whom there may be more mischief to be apprehended in future, adds in that way to the demand for punishment. By indicating a general want of sensibility on the part of the offender, it may add in another way also to the demand for punishment. The article of disposition is of the more importance, inasmuch as, in measuring out the quantum of punishment, the principle of sympathy and antipathy is apt to look at nothing else. A man who punishes because he hates, and only because he hates, such a man, when he does not find any thing odious in the disposition, is not for punishing at all; and when he does, he is not for carrying the punishment further than his hatred carries him. Hence the aversion we find so frequently expressed against the maxim, that the punishment must rise with the strength of the temptation; a maxim, the contrary of which, as we shall see, would be as cruel to offenders themselves, as it would be subversive of the purposes of punishment.

  Chapter XII

  OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF A MISCHIEVOUS ACT

  §1. Shapes in which the mischief of an act may show itself.

  I. Hitherto we have been speaking of the various articles or objects on which the consequences or tendency of an act may depend: of the bare act itself: of the circumstances it may have been, or may have been supposed to be, accompanied with: of the consciousness a man may have had with respect to any such circumstances: of the intentions that may have preceded the act: of the motives that may have given birth to those intentions: and of the disposition that may have been indicated by the connexion between such intentions and such motives. We now come to speak of consequences or tendency: an article which forms the concluding link in all this chain of causes and effects, involving in it the materiality of the whole. Now, such part of this tendency as is of a mischievous nature, is all that we have any direct concern with; to that, therefore, we shall here confine ourselves.

  II. The tendency of an act is mischievous when the consequences of it are mischievous; that is to say, either the certain consequences or the probable. The consequences, how many and whatsoever they may be, of an act, of which the tendency is mischievous, may, such of them as are mischievous, be conceived to constitute one aggregate body, which may be termed the mischief of the act.

  III. This mischief may frequently be distinguished, as it were, into two shares or parcels: the one containing what may be called the primary mischief; the other, what may be called the secondary. That share may be termed the primary, which it sustained by an assignable individual, or a multitude of assignable individuals. That share may be termed the secondary, which, taking its origin from the former, extends itself either over the whole community, or over some other multitude of unassignable individuals.

  IV. The primary mischief of an act may again be distinguished into two branches: 1. The original: and, 2. The derivative. By the original branch, I mean that which alights upon and is confined to any person who is a sufferer in the first instance, and on his own account: the person, for instance, who is beaten, robbed, or murdered. By the derivative branch, I mean any share of mischief which may befall any other assignable persons in consequence of his being a sufferer, and no otherwise. These persons must, of course, be persons who in some way or other are connected with him. Now the ways in which one person may be connected with another, have been already seen: they may be connected in the way of interest (meaning self-regarding interest) or merely in the way of sympathy. And again, persons connected with a given person, in the way of interest, may be connected with him either by affording support to him, or by deriving it from him.51

  V. The secondary mischief, again, may frequently be seen to consist of two other shares or parcels: the first consisting of pain; the other of danger. The pain which it produces is a pain of apprehension: a pain grounded on the apprehension of suffering such mischiefs or inconveniences, whatever they may be, as it is the nature of the primary mischief to produce. It may be styled, in one word, the alarm. The danger is the chance, whatever it may be, which the multitude it concerns may in consequence of the primary mischief stand exposed to, of suffering such mischiefs or inconveniences. For danger is nothing but the chance of pain, or, what comes to the same thing, of loss of pleasure.

  VI. An example may serve to make this clear. A man attacks you on the road, and robs you. You suffer a pain on the occasion of losing so much money:52 you also suffered a pain at the thoughts of the personal ill-treatment you apprehended he might give you, in case of your not happening to satisfy his demands.53 These together constitute the original branch of the primary mischief, resulting from the act of robbery. A creditor of yours, who expected you to pay him with part of that money, and a son of yours, who expected you to have given him another part, are in consequence disappointed. You are obliged to have recourse to the bounty of your father, to make good part of the deficiency. These mischiefs together make up the derivative branch. The report of this robbery circulates from hand to hand, and spreads itself in the neighbourhood. It finds its way into the newspapers, and is propagated over the whole country. Various people, on this occasion, call to mind the danger which they and their friends, as it appears from this example, stand exposed to in travelling; especially such as may have occasion to travel the same road. On this occasion they naturally feel a certain degree of pain: slighter or heavier, according to the degree of ill-treatment they may understand you to have received; the frequency of the occasion each person may have to travel in that same road, or its neighbourhood; the vicinity of each person to the spot; his personal courage; the quantity of money he may have occasion to carry about with him; and a variety of other circumstances. This constitutes the first part of the secondary mischief, resulting from the act of robbery; viz. the alarm. But people of one description or other, not only are disposed to conceive themselves to incur a chance of being robbed, in consequence of the robbery committed upon you, but (as will be shown presently) they do really incur such a chance. And it is this chance which constitutes the remaining part of the secondary mischief of the act of robbery; viz. the danger.

  VII. Let us see what this chance amounts to; and whence it comes. How is it, for instance, that one robbery can contribute to produce another? In the first place, it is certain that it cannot create any direct motive. A motive must be the prospect of some pleasure, or other advantage, to be enjoyed in future: but the robbery in question is past: nor would it furnish any such prospect were it to come: for it is not one robbery that will furnish pleasure to him who may be about to commit another robbery. The consideration that is to operate upon a man, as a motive or inducement to commit a robbery, must be the idea of the pleasure he expects to derive from the fruits of that very robbery: but this pleasure exists independently of any other robbery.

  VIII. The means, then, by which one robbery tends, as it should seem, to produce another robbery, are two. 1. By suggesting to a person exposed to the temptation, the idea of committing such another robbery (accompanied, perhaps, with the belief of its facility). In this case the influence it exerts applies itself, in the first place, to the understanding. 2. By weakening the force of the tutelary motives which tend to restrain him from such an action, and thereby adding to the strength of the temptation.54 In this case the influence applies itself to the will. These forces are, 1. The motive of benevolence, which acts as a branch of the physical sanction.55 2. The motive of self-preservation, as against the punishment that may stand provided by the political sanction. 3. The fear of shame; a motive belonging to the moral sanction. 4. The fear of the divine displeasure; a motive belonging to the religious sanction. On the first and last of these forces it has, perhaps, no influence worth insisting on: but it has on the other two.

  IX. The way in which a past robbery may weaken the force with which the political sanction tends to prevent a future robbery, may be thus conceived. The way in which this sanction tends to prevent a robbery, is by denouncing some particular kind of punishment against any who shall be guilty of it: the real value of which punishment will of course be diminished by the real uncertainty: as also, if there be any difference, the apparent value by the apparent uncertainty. Now this uncertainty is proportionably increased by every instance in which a man is known to commit the offense, without undergoing the punishment. This, of course, will be the case with every offense for a certain time; in short, until the punishment allotted to it takes place. If punishment takes place at last, this branch of the mischief of the offense is then at last, but not till then, put a stop to.

  X. The way in which a past robbery may weaken the force with which the moral sanction tends to prevent a future robbery, may be thus conceived. The way in which the moral sanction tends to prevent a robbery, is by holding forth the indignation of mankind as ready to fall upon him who shall be guilty of it. Now this indignation will be the more formidable, according to the number of those who join in it: it will be the less so, the fewer they are who join in it. But there cannot be a stronger way of showing that a man does not join in whatever indignation may be entertained against a practice, than the engaging in it himself. It shows not only that he himself feels no indignation against it, but that it seems to him there is no sufficient reason for apprehending what indignation may be felt against it by others. Accordingly, where robberies are frequent, and unpunished, robberies are committed without shame. It was thus amongst the Grecians formerly.56 It is thus among the Arabs still.

  XI. In whichever way then a past offense tends to pave the way for the commission of a future offence, whether by suggesting the idea of committing it, or by adding to the strength of the temptation, in both cases it may be said to operate by the force or influence of example.

  XII. The two branches of the secondary mischief of an act, the alarm and the danger, must not be confounded: though intimately connected, they are perfectly distinct: either may subsist without the other. The neighbourhood may be alarmed with the report of a robbery, when, in fact, no robbery either has been committed or is in a way to be committed: a neighbourhood may be on the point of being disturbed by robberies, without knowing any thing of the matter. Accordingly, we shall soon perceive, that some acts produce alarm without danger: others, danger without alarm.

  XIII. As well the danger as the alarm may again be divided, each of them, into two branches: the first, consisting of so much of the alarm or danger as may be apt to result from the future behaviour of the same agent: the second, consisting of so much as may be apt to result from the behaviour of other persons: such others, to wit, as may come to engage in acts of the same sort and tendency.57

  XIV. The distinction between the primary and the secondary consequences of an act must be carefully attended to. It is so just, that the latter may often be of a directly opposite nature to be the former. In some cases, where the primary consequences of the act are attended with a mischief, the secondary consequences be may be beneficial, and that to such a degree, as even greatly to outweigh the mischief of the primary. This is the case, for instance, with all acts of punishment, when properly applied. Of these, the primary mischief being never intended to fall but upon such persons as may happen to have committed some act which it is expedient to prevent, the secondary mischief, that is, the alarm and the danger, extends no farther than to such persons as are under temptation to commit it: in which case, in as far as it tends to restrain them from committing such acts, it is of a beneficial nature.

  XV. Thus much with regard to acts that produce positive pain, and that immediately. This case, by reason of its simplicity, seemed the fittest to take the lead. But acts may produce mischief in various other ways; which, together with those already specified, may all be comprised by the following abridged analysis.

  Mischief may admit of a division in any one of three points of view. 1. According to its own nature. 2. According to its cause. 3. According to the person, or other party, who is the object of it.58 With regard to its nature, it may be either simple or complex:59 when simple, it may either be positive or negative: positive, consisting of actual pain: negative, consisting of the loss of pleasure. Whether simple or complex, and whether positive or negative, it may be either certain or contingent. When it is negative, it consists of the loss of some benefit or advantage: this benefit may be material in both or either of two ways: 1. By affording actual pleasure: or, 2. By averting pain or danger, which is the chance of pain: that is, by affording security. In as far, then, as the benefit which a mischief tends to avert, is productive of security, the tendency of such mischief is to produce insecurity. 2. With regard to its cause, mischief may be produced either by one single action, or not without the concurrence of other actions: if not without the concurrence of other actions, these others may be the actions either of the same person, or of other persons: in either case, they may be either acts of the same kind as that in question, or of other kinds. 3. Lastly, with regard to the party who is the object of the mischief, or, in other words, who is in a way to be affected by it, such party may be either an assignable60 individual, or assemblage of individuals, or else a multitude of unassignable individuals. When the object is an assignable individual, this individual may either be the person himself who is the author of the mischief, or some other person. When the individuals who are the objects of it, are an unassignable multitude, this multitude may be either the whole political community or state, or some subordinate division of it. Now when the object of the mischief is the author himself, it may be styled self-regarding: when any other party is the object, extra-regarding: when such other party is an individual, it may be styled private: when a subordinate branch of the community, semi-public: when the whole community, public. Here, for the present, we must stop. To pursue the subject through its inferior distinctions, will be the business of the chapter which exhibits the division of offenses.61

  The cases which have been already illustrated, are those in which the primary mischief is not necessarily otherwise than a simple one, and that positive: present, and therefore certain: producible by a single action, without any necessity of the concurrence of any other action, either on the part of the same agent, or of others; and having for its object an assignable individual, or, by accident an assemblage of assignable individuals: extra-regarding therefore, and private. This primary mischief is accompanied by a secondary: the first branch of which is sometimes contingent and sometimes certain, the other never otherwise than contingent: both extra-regarding and semi-public: in other respects, pretty much upon a par with the primary mischief: except that the first branch, viz. the alarm, though inferior in magnitude to the primary, is, in point of extent, and therefore, upon the whole, in point of magnitude, much superior.

  XVI. Two instances more will be sufficient to illustrate the most material of the modifications above exhibited.

  A man drinks a certain quantity of liquor, and intoxicates himself. The intoxication in this particular instance does him no sort of harm: or, what comes to the same thing, none that is perceptible. But it is probable, and indeed next to certain, that a given number of acts of the same kind would do him a very considerable degree of harm: more or less according to his constitution and other circumstances: for this is no more than what experience manifests every day. It is also certain, that one act of this sort, by one means or other, tends considerably to increase the disposition a man may be in to practise other acts of the same sort: for this also is verified by experience. This, therefore, is one instance where the mischief producible by the act is contingent? in other words, in which the tendency of the act is no otherwise mischievous than in virtue of its producing a chance of mischief. This chance depends upon the concurrence of other acts of the same kind; and those such as must be practiced by the same person. The object of the mischief is that very person himself who is the author of it, and he only, unless by accident. The mischief is therefore private and self-regarding.

  As to its secondary mischief, alarm, it produces none: it produces indeed a certain quantity of danger by the influence of example: but it is not often that this danger will amount to a quantity worth regarding.

  XVII. Again. A man omits paying his share to a public tax. This we see is an act of the negative kind.62 Is this then to be placed upon the list of mischievous acts? Yes, certainly. Upon what grounds? Upon the following. To defend the community against its external as well as its internal adversaries are tasks, not to mention others of a less indispensable nature which cannot be fulfilled but at a considerable expense. But whence is the money for defraying this expense to come? It can be obtained in no other manner than by contributions to be collected from individuals; in a word, by taxes. The produce then of these taxes is to be looked upon as a kind of benefit which it is necessary the governing part of the community should receive for the use of the whole. This produce, before it can be applied to its destination, requires that there should be certain persons commissioned to receive and to apply it. Now if these persons, had they received it, would have applied it to its proper destination, it would have been a benefit: the not putting them in a way to receive it, is then a mischief. But it is possible, that if received, it might not have been applied to its proper destination; or that the services, in consideration of which it was bestowed, might not have been performed. It is possible, that the under-officer, who collected the produce of the tax, might not have paid it over to his principal: it is possible that the principal might not have forwarded it on according to its farther destination; to the judge, for instance, who is to protect the community against its clandestine enemies from within, or the soldier, who is to protect it against its open enemies from without: it is possible that the judge, or the soldier, had they received it, would not however have been induced by it to fulfil their respective duties: it is possible, that the judge would not have sat for the punishment of criminals, and the decision of controversies: it is possible that the soldier would not have drawn his sword in the defense of the community. These, together with an infinity of other intermediate acts, which for the sake of brevity I pass over, form a connected chain of duties, the discharge of which is necessary to the preservation of the community. They must every one of them be discharged, ere the benefit to which they are contributory can be produced. If they are all discharged, in that case the benefit subsists, and any act, by tending to intercept that benefit, may produce a mischief. But if any of them are not, the benefit fails: it fails of itself: it would not have subsisted, although the act in question (the act of non-payment) had not been committed. The benefit is therefore contingent; and, accordingly, upon a certain supposition, the act which consists in the averting of it is not a mischievous one. But this supposition, in any tolerably-ordered government, will rarely indeed be verified. In the very worst-ordered government that exists, the greatest part of the duties that are levied are paid over according to their destination: and, with regard to any particular sum, that is attempted to be levied upon any particular person upon any particular occasion, it is therefore manifest, that, unless it be certain that it will not be so disposed of, the act of withholding it is a mischievous one.

  The act of payment, when referable to any particular sum, especially if it be a small one, might also have failed of proving beneficial on another ground: and, consequently, the act of nonpayment, of proving mischievous. It is possible that the same services, precisely, might have been rendered without the money as with it. If, then, speaking of any small limited sum, such as the greatest which any one person is called upon to pay at a time, a man were to say, that the non-payment of it would be attended with mischievous consequences; this would be far from certain: but what comes to the same thing as if it were, it is perfectly certain when applied to the whole. It is certain, that if all of a sudden the payment of all taxes was to cease, there would no longer be anything effectual done, either for the maintenance of justice, or for the defence of the community against its foreign adversaries: that therefore the weak would presently be oppressed and injured in all manner of ways, by the strong at home, and both together overwhelmed by oppressors abroad. Upon the whole, therefore, it is manifest, that in this case, though the mischief is remote and contingent, though in its first appearance it consists of nothing more than the interception of a benefit, and though the individuals, in whose favour that benefit would have been reduced into the explicit form of pleasure or security, are altogether unassignable, yet the mischievous tendency of the act is not on all these accounts the less indisputable. The mischief, in point of intensity and duration, is indeed unknown: it is uncertain: it is remote. But in point of extent it is immense; and in point of fecundity, pregnant to a degree that baffles calculation.

  XVIII. It may now be time to observe, that it is only in the case where the mischief is extra-regarding, and has an assignable person or persons for its object, that so much of the secondary branch of it as consists in alarm can have place. When the individuals it affects are uncertain, and altogether out of sight, no alarm can be produced: as there is nobody whose sufferings you can see, there is nobody whose sufferings you can be alarmed at. No alarm, for instance, is produced by nonpayment to a tax. If at any distant and uncertain period of time such offence should chance to be productive of any kind of alarm, it would appear to proceed, as indeed immediately it would proceed, from a very different cause. It might be immediately referable, for example, to the act of a legislator, who should deem it necessary to lay on a new tax, in order to make up for the deficiency occasioned in the produce of the old one. Or it might be referable to the act of an enemy, who, under favour of a deficiency thus created in the fund allotted for defense, might invade the country, and exact from it much heavier contributions than those which had been thus withholden from the sovereign.63

  As to any alarm which such an offence might raise among the few who might chance to regard the matter with the eyes of statesmen, it is of too slight and uncertain a nature to be worth taking into the account.

  § 2. How Intentionality, &c. may influence the mischief of an act.

  XIX. We have seen the nature of the secondary mischief, which is apt to be reflected, as it were, from the primary, in the cases where the individuals who are the objects of the mischief are assignable. It is now time to examine into the circumstances upon which the production of such secondary mischief depends. These circumstances are no others than the four articles which have formed the subjects of the four last preceding chapters: viz. 1. The intentionality, 2. The consciousness. 3. The motive. 4. The disposition. It is to be observed all along, that it is only the danger that is immediately governed by the real state of the mind in respect to those articles: it is by the apparent state of it that the alarm is governed. It is governed by the real only in as far as the apparent happens, as in most cases it may be expected to do, to quadrate with the real. The different influences of the articles of intentionality and consciousness may be represented in the several cases following.

  XX. Case 1. Where the act is so completely unintentional, as to be altogether involuntary. In this case it is attended with no secondary mischief at all.

  A bricklayer is at work upon a house: a passenger is walking in the street below. A fellow-workman comes and gives the bricklayer a violent push, in consequence of which he falls upon the passenger, and hurts him. It is plain there is nothing in this event that can give other people, who may happen to be in the street, the least reason to apprehend any thing in future on the part of the man who fell, whatever there may be with regard to the man who pushed him.

  XXI. Case 2. Where the act, though not unintentional, is unadvised, insomuch that the mischievous part of the consequences is unintentional, but the unadvisedness is attended with heedlessness. In this case the act is attended with some small degree of secondary mischief, in proportion to the degree of heedlessness.

  A groom being on horseback, and riding through a frequented street, turns a corner at a full pace, and rides over a passenger, who happens to be going by. It is plain, by this behaviour of the groom, some degree of alarm may be produced, less or greater, according to the degree of heedlessness betrayed by him: according to the quickness of his pace, the fullness of the street, and so forth. He has done mischief, it may be said, by his carelessness, already: who knows but that on other occasions the like cause may produce the like effect?

  XXII. Case 3. Where the act is misadvised with respect to a circumstance, which, had it existed, would fully have excluded or (what comes to the same thing) outweighed the primary mischief: and there is no rashness in the case. In this case the act is attended with no secondary mischief at all.

  It is needless to multiply examples any farther.

  XXIII. Case 4. Where the act is misadvised with respect to a circumstance which would have excluded or counterbalanced the primary mischief in part, but not entirely: and still there is no rashness. In this case the act is attended with some degree of secondary mischief, in proportion to that part of the primary which remains unexcluded or uncounterbalanced.

  XXIV. Case 5. Where the act is misadvised with respect to a circumstance, which, had it existed, would have excluded or counterbalanced the primary mischief entirely, or in part: and there is a degree of rashness in the supposal. In this case, the act is also attended with a farther degree of secondary mischief, in proportion to the degree of rashness.

  XXV. Case 6. Where the consequences are completely intentional, and there is no missupposal in the case. In this case the secondary mischief is at the highest.

  XXVI. Thus much with regard to intentionality and consciousness. We now come to consider in what manner the secondary mischief is affected by the nature of the motive.

  Where an act is pernicious in its primary consequences, the secondary mischief is not obliterated by the goodness of the motive; though the motive be of the best kind. For, notwithstanding the goodness of the motive, an act of which the primary consequences are pernicious, is produced by it in the instance in question, by the supposition. It may, therefore, in other instances: although this is not so likely to happen from a good motive as from a bad one.64

  XXVII. An act, which, though pernicious in its primary consequences, is rendered in other respects beneficial upon the whole, by virtue of its secondary consequences, is not changed back again, and rendered pernicious upon the whole by the badness of the motive: although the motive be of the worst kind.65

  XXVIII. But when not only the primary consequences of an act are pernicious, but, in other respects, the secondary likewise, the secondary mischief may be aggravated by the nature of the motive: so much of that mischief, to wit, as respects the future behaviour of the same person.

  XXIX. It is not from the worst kind of motive, however, that the secondary mischief of an act receives its greatest aggravation.

  XXX. The aggravation which the secondary mischief of an act, in as far as it respects the future behaviour of the same person, receives from the nature of a motive in an individual case, is as the tendency of the motive to produce, on the part of the same person, acts of the like bad tendency with that of the act in question.

  XXXI. The tendency of a motive to produce acts of the like kind, on the part of any given person, is as the strength and constancy of its influence on that person, as applied to the production of such effects.

  XXXII. The tendency of a species of motive to give birth to acts of any kind, among persons in general, is as the strength, constancy, and extensiveness66 of its influence, as applied to the production of such effects.

  XXXIII. Now the motives, whereof the influence is at once most powerful, most constant, and most extensive, are the motives of physical desire, the love of wealth, the love of ease, the love of life, and the fear of pain: all of them self-regarding motives. The motive of displeasure, whatever it may be in point of strength and extensiveness, is not near so constant in its influence (the case of mere antipathy excepted) as any of the other three. A pernicious act, therefore, when committed through vengeance, or otherwise through displeasure, is not near so mischievous as the same pernicious act, when committed by force of any one of those other motives.67

  XXXIV. As to the motive of religion, whatever it may sometimes prove to be in point of strength and constancy, it is not in point of extent so universal, especially in its application to acts of a mischievous nature, as any of the three preceding motives. It may, however, be as universal in a particular state, or in a particular district of a particular state. It is liable indeed to be very irregular in its operations. It is apt, however, to be frequently as powerful as the motive of vengeance, or indeed any other motive whatsoever. It will sometimes even be more powerful than any other motive. It is, at any rate, much more constant.68 A pernicious act, therefore, when committed through the motive of religion, is more mischievous than when committed through the motive of ill-will.

  XXXV. Lastly, The secondary mischief, to wit, so much of it as hath respect to the future behaviour of the same person, is aggravated or lessened by the apparent depravity or beneficence of his disposition: and that in the proportion of such apparent depravity or beneficence.

  XXXVI. The consequences we have hitherto been speaking of, are the natural consequences, of which the act, and the other articles we have been considering, are the causes: consequences that result from the behaviour of the individual, who is the offending agent, without the interference of political authority. We now come to speak of punishment: which, in the sense in which it is here considered, is an artificial consequence, annexed by political authority to an offensive act, in one instance, in the view of putting a stop to the production of events similar to the obnoxious part of its natural consequences, in other instances.

  Chapter XIII

  CASES UNMEET FOR PUNISHMENT

  § 1. General view of cases unmeet for punishment.

  I. The general object which all laws have, or ought to have, in common, is to augment the total happiness of the community; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to subtract from that happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief.

  II. But all punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.69

  III. It is plain, therefore, that in the following cases punishment ought not to be inflicted.

  • 1. Where it is groundless: where there is no mischief for it to prevent; the act not being mischievous upon the whole.
  • 2. Where it must be inefficacious: where it cannot act so as to prevent the mischief.
  • 3. Where it is unprofitable, or too expensive: where the mischief it would produce would be greater than what it prevented.
  • 4. Where it is needless: where the mischief may be prevented, or cease of itself, without it: that is, at a cheaper rate.

  § 2. Cases in which punishment is groundless.

  These are,

  IV. I. Where there has never been any mischief: where no mischief has been produced to any body by the act in question. Of this number are those in which the act was such as might, on a some occasions, be mischievous or disagreeable, but the person whose interest it concerns gave his consent to the performance of it. This consent, provided it be free, and fairly obtained,70 is the best proof that can be produced, that, to the person who gives it, no mischief, at least no immediate mischief, upon the whole, is done. For no man can be so good a judge as the man himself, what it is gives him pleasure or displeasure.

  V. 2. Where the mischief was outweighed: although a mischief was produced by that act, yet the same act was necessary to the production of a benefit which was of greater value71 than the mischief. This may be the case with any thing that is done in the way of precaution against instant calamity, as also with any thing that is done in the exercise of the several sorts of powers necessary to be established in every community, to wit, domestic, judicial, military, and supreme.72

  VI. 3. Where there is a certainty of an adequate compensation: and that in all cases where the offense can be committed. This supposes two things: 1. That the offence is such as admits of an adequate compensation: 2. That such a compensation is sure to be forthcoming. Of these suppositions, the latter will be found to be a merely ideal one: a supposition that cannot, in the universality here given to it, be verified by fact. It cannot, therefore, in practice, be numbered amongst the grounds of absolute impunity. It may, however, be admitted as a ground for an abatement of that punishment, which other considerations, standing by themselves, would seem to dictate.73

  § 3. Cases in which punishment must be inefficacious

  These are,

  VII. 1. Where the penal provision is not established until after the act is done. Such are the cases, 1. Of an ex-post-facto law; where the legislator himself appoints not a punishment till after the act is done. 2. Of a sentence beyond the law; where the judge, of his own authority, appoints a punishment which the legislator had not appointed.

  VIII. 2. Where the penal provision, though established, is not conveyed to the notice of the person on whom it seems intended that it should operate. Such is the case where the law has omitted to employ any of the expedients which are necessary, to make sure that every person whatsoever, who is within the reach of the law, be apprised of all the cases whatsoever, in which (being in the station of life he is in) he can be subjected to the penalties of the law.74

  IX. 3. Where the penal provision, though it were conveyed to a man's notice, could produce no effect on him, with respect to the preventing him from engaging in any act of the sort in question. Such is the case, 1. In extreme infancy; where a man has not yet attained that state or disposition of mind in which the prospect of evils so distant as those which are held forth by the law, has the effect of influencing his conduct. 2. In insanity; where the person, if he has attained to that disposition, has since been deprived of it through the influence of some permanent though unseen cause. 3. In intoxication; where he has been a deprived of it by the transient influence of a visible cause: such as the use of wine, or opium, or other drugs, that act in this manner on the nervous system: which condition is indeed neither more nor less than a temporary insanity produced by an assignable cause.75

  X. 4. Where the penal provision (although, being conveyed to the party's notice, it might very well prevent his engaging in acts of the sort in question, provided he knew that it related to those acts) could not have this effect, with regard to the individual act he is about to engage in: to wit, because he knows not that it is of the number of those to which the penal provision relates. This may happen, 1. In the case of unintentionality; where he intends not to engage, and thereby knows not that he is about to engage, in the act in which eventually he is about to engage.76 2. In the case of unconsciousness; where, although he may know that he is about to engage in the act itself, yet, from not knowing all the material circumstances attending it, he knows not of the tendency it has to produce that mischief, in contemplation of which it has been made penal in most instances. 3. In the case of missupposal; where, although he may know of the tendency the act has to produce that degree of mischief, he supposes it, though mistakenly, to be attended with some circumstance, or set of circumstances, which, if it had been attended with, it would either not have been productive of that mischief, or have been productive of such a greater degree of good, as has determined the legislator in such a case not to make it penal.77

  XI. 5. Where, though the penal clause might exercise a full and prevailing influence, were it to act alone, yet by the predominant influence of some opposite cause upon the will, it must necessarily be ineffectual; because the evil which he sets himself about to undergo, in the case of his not engaging in the act, is so great, that the evil denounced by the penal clause, in case of his engaging in it, cannot appear greater. This may happen, 1. In the case of physical danger; where the evil is such as appears likely to be brought about by the unassisted powers of nature. 2. In the case of a threatened mischief; where it is such as appears likely to be brought about through the intentional and conscious agency of man.78

  XII. 6. Where (though the penal clause may exert a full and prevailing influence over the will of the party) yet his physical faculties (owing to the predominant influence of some physical cause) are not in a condition to follow the determination of the will: insomuch that the act is absolutely involuntary. Such is the case of physical compulsion or restraint, by whatever means brought about; where the man's hand, for instance, is pushed against some object which his will disposes him not to touch; or tied down from touching some object which his will disposes him to touch.

  § 3. Cases where punishment is unprofitable.

  These are,

  XIII. 1. Where, on the one hand, the nature of the offense, on the other hand, that of the punishment, are, in the ordinary state of things, such, that when compared together, the evil of the latter will turn out to be greater than that of the former.

  XIV. Now the evil of the punishment divides itself into four branches, by which so many different sets of persons are affected. 1. The evil of coercion or restraint: or the pain which it gives a man not to be able to do the act, whatever it be, which by the apprehension of the punishment he is deterred from doing. This is felt by those by whom the law is observed. 2. The evil of apprehension: or the pain which a man, who has exposed himself to punishment, feels at the thoughts of undergoing it. This is felt by those by whom the law has been broken, and who feel themselves in danger of its being executed upon them. 3. The evil of sufferance:79 or the pain which a man feels, in virtue of the punishment itself, from the time when he begins to undergo it. This is felt by those by whom the law is broken, and upon whom it comes actually to be executed. 4. The pain of sympathy, and the other derivative evils resulting to the persons who are in connection with the several classes of original sufferers just mentioned.80 Now of these four lots of evil, the first will be greater or less, according to the nature of the act from which the party is restrained: the second and third according to the nature of the punishment which stands annexed to that offence.

  XV. On the other hand, as to the evil of the offense, this will also, of course, be greater or less, according to the nature of each offense. The proportion between the one evil and the other will therefore be different in the case of each particular offence. The cases, therefore, where punishment is unprofitable on this ground, can by no other means be discovered, than by an examination of each particular offense; which is what will be the business of the body of the work.

  XVI. 2. Where, although in the ordinary state of things, the evil resulting from the punishment is not greater than the benefit which is likely to result from the force with which it operates, during the same space of time, towards the excluding the evil of the offenses, yet it may have been rendered so by the influence of some occasional circumstances. In the number of these circumstances may be, 1. The multitude of delinquents at a particular juncture; being such as would increase, beyond the ordinary measure, the quantum of the second and third lots, and thereby also of a part of the fourth lot, in the evil of the punishment. 2. The extraordinary value of the services of some one delinquent; in the case where the effect of the punishment would be to deprive the community of the benefit of those services. 3. The displeasure of the people; that is, of an indefinite number of the members of the same community, in cases where (owing to of the influence of some occasional incident) they happen to conceive, that the offense or the offender ought not to be punished at all, or at least ought not to be punished in the way in question. 4. The displeasure of foreign powers; that is, of the governing body, or a considerable number of the members of some foreign community or communities, with which the community in question is connected.

  § 3. Cases where punishment is needless.

  These are,

  XVII. 1. Where the purpose of putting an end to the practice may be attained as effectually at a cheaper rate: by instruction, is for instance, as well as by terror: by informing the understanding, as well as by exercising an immediate influence on the will. This seems to be the case with respect to all those offenses which consist in the disseminating pernicious principles in matters of duty; of whatever kind the duty be; whether political, or moral, or religious. And this, whether such principles be disseminated under, or even without; a sincere persuasion of their being beneficial. I say, even without: for though in such a case it is not instruction that can prevent the writer from endeavouring to inculcate his principles, yet it may the readers from adopting them: without which, his endeavouring to inculcate them will do no harm. In such a case, the sovereign will commonly have little need to take an active part: if it be the interest of one individual to inculcate principles that are pernicious, it will as surely be the interest of other individuals to expose them. But if the sovereign must needs take a part in the controversy, the pen is the proper weapon to combat error with, not the sword.

  Chapter XIV

  OF THE PROPORTION BETWEEN PUNISHMENTS AND OFFENCES

  I. We have seen that the general object of all laws is to prevent mischief; that is to say, when it is worth while; but that, where there are no other means of doing this than punishment, there are four cases in which it is not worth while.

  II. When it is worth while, there are four subordinate designs or objects, which, in the course of his endeavours to compass, as far as may be, that one general object, a legislator, whose views are governed by the principle of utility, comes naturally to propose to himself.

  III. 1. His first, most extensive, and most eligible object, is to prevent, in as far as it is possible, and worth while, all sorts of offenses whatsoever:81 in other words, so to manage, that no offense whatsoever may be committed.

  IV. 2. But if a man must needs commit an offense of some kind or other, the next object is to induce him to commit an offense less mischievous, rather than one more mischievous: in other words, to choose always the least mischievous, of two offenses that will either of them suit his purpose.

  V. 3. When a man has resolved upon a particular offense, the next object is to dispose him to do no more mischief than is necessary to his purpose: in other words, to do as little mischief as is consistent with the benefit he has in view.

  VI. 4. The last object is, whatever the mischief be, which it is proposed to prevent, to prevent it at as cheap a rate as possible.

  VII. Subservient to these four objects, or purposes, must be the rules or canons by which the proportion of punishments82 to offenses is to be governed.

  VIII. Rule 1. The first object, it has been seen, is to prevent, in as far as it is worth while, all sorts of offenses; therefore,

  The value of the punishment must not less in any case than what is sufficient to outweigh that of the profit83 of the offense.84

  If it be, the offence (unless some other considerations, independent of the punishment should intervene and operate efficaciously in the character of tutelary motives85 ) will be sure to be to committed notwithstanding:86 the whole lot of punishment will be thrown away: it will be altogether inefficacious.87

  IX. The above rule has been often objected to, on account of its seeming harshness: but this can only have happened for want of its being properly understood. The strength of the temptation, cæteris paribus, is as the profit of the offense: the quantum of the punishment must rise with the profit of the offense: cæteris paribus, it must therefore rise with the strength of the temptation. This there is no disputing. True it is, that the stronger the temptation, the less conclusive is the indication which the act of delinquency affords of the depravity of the offender's disposition.88 So far then as the absence of any aggravation, arising from extraordinary depravity of disposition, may operate, or at the utmost, so far as the presence of a ground of extenuation, resulting from the innocence or beneficence of the offender's disposition, can operate, the strength of the temptation may operate in abatement of the demand for punishment. But it can never operate so far as to indicate the propriety of making the punishment ineffectual, which it is sure to be when brought below the level of the apparent profit of the offense.

  The partial benevolence which should prevail for the reduction of it below this level, would counteract as well those purposes which such a motive would actually have in view, as those more extensive purposes which benevolence ought to have in view: it would be cruelty not only to the public, but to the very persons in whose behalf it pleads: in its effects, I mean, however opposite in its intention. Cruelty to the public, that is cruelty to the innocent, by suffering them, for want of an adequate protection, to lie exposed to the mischief of the offense: cruelty even to the offender himself, by punishing him to no purpose, and without the chance of compassing that beneficial end, by which alone the introduction of the evil of punishment is to be justified.

  X. Rule 2. But whether a given offence shall be prevented in a given degree by a given quantity of punishment, is never any thing better than a chance; for the purchasing of which, whatever punishment is employed, is so much expended into advance. However, for the sake of giving it the better chance of outweighing the profit of the offence,

  The greater the mischief of the offense, the greater is the expense which it may be worth while to be at, in the way of punishment.89

  XI. Rule 3. The next object is, to induce a man to choose always the least mischievous of two offenses; therefore,

  Where two offences come in competition, the punishment for the greater offence must be sufficient to induce a man to prefer the less.90

  XII. Rule 4. When a man has resolved upon a particular offense, the next object is, to induce him to do no more mischief than what is necessary for his purpose: therefore

  The punishment should be adjusted in such manner to each particular offence, that for every part of the mischief there may be a motive to restrain the offender from giving birth to it.91

  XIII. Rule 5. The last object is, whatever mischief is guarded against, to guard against it at as cheap a rate as possible: therefore

  The punishment ought in no case to be more than what is necessary to bring it into conformity with the rules here given.

  XIV. Rule 6. It is further to be observed, that owing to the different manners and degrees in which persons under different circumstances are affected by the same exciting cause, a punishment which is the same in name will not always either really produce, or even so much as appear to others to produce, in two different persons the same degree of pain: therefore

  That the quantity actually indicted on each individual offender may correspond to the quantity intended for similar offenders in general, the several circumstances influencing sensibility ought always to be taken into account.92

  XV. Of the above rules of proportion, the first four, we may perceive, serve to mark out limits on the side of diminution; the limits below which a punishment ought not to be diminished: the fifth the limits on the side of increase; the limits above which it ought not to be increased. The five first are calculated to serve as guides to the legislator: the sixth is calculated in some measure, indeed, to the same purpose; but principally for guiding the judge in his endeavors to conform, on both sides, to the intentions of the legislator.

  XVI. Let us look back a little. The first rule, in order to render it more conveniently applicable to practice, may need perhaps to be a little more particularly unfolded. It is to be observed, then, that for the sake of accuracy, it was necessary, instead of the word quantity to make use of the less perspicuous term value. For the word quantity will not properly include the circumstances either of certainty or proximity: circumstances which, in estimating the value of a lot of pain or pleasure, must always be taken into the account.93 Now, on the one hand, a lot of punishment is a lot of pain; on the other hand, the profit of an offense is a lot of pleasure, or what is equivalent to it. But the profit of the offense is commonly more certain than the punishment, or, what comes to the same thing, appears so at least to the offender. It is at any rate commonly more immediate. It follows, therefore, that, in order to maintain its superiority over the profit of the offense, the punishment must have its value made up in some other way, in proportion to that whereby it falls short in the two points of certainty and proximity. Now there is no other way in which it can receive any addition to its value, but by receiving an addition in point of magnitude. Wherever then the value of the punishment falls short, either in point of certainty, or of proximity, of that of the profit of the offence, it must receive a proportionable addition in point of magnitude.94

  XVII. Yet farther. To make sure of giving the value of the punishment the superiority over that of the offence, it may be necessary, in some cases, to take into account the profit not only of the individual offence to which the punishment is to be annexed, but also of such other offences of the same sort as the offender is likely to have already committed without detection. This random mode of calculation, severe as it is, it will be impossible to avoid having recourse to, in certain cases: in such, to wit, in which the profit is pecuniary, the chance of detection very small, and the obnoxious act of such a nature as indicates a habit: for example, in the case of frauds against the coin. If it be not recurred to, the practice of committing the offence will be sure to be, upon the balance of the account, a gainful practice. That being the case, the legislator will be absolutely sure of not being able to suppress it, and the whole punishment that is bestowed upon it will be thrown away. In a word (to keep to the same expressions we set out with) that whole quantity of punishment will be inefficacious.

  XVIII. Rule 7. These things being considered, the three following rules may be laid down by way of supplement and explanation to Rule 1.

  To enable the value of the punishment to outweigh that of the profit of the offense, it must be increased, in point of magnitude, in proportion as it falls short in point of certainty.

  XIX. Rule 8. Punishment must be further increased in point of magnitude, in proportion as it falls short in point of proximity.

  XX. Rule 9. Where the act is conclusively indicative of a habit, such an increase must be given to the punishment as may enable it to outweigh the profit not only of the individual offence, but of such other like offenses as are likely to have been committed with impunity by the same offender.

  XXI. There may be a few other circumstances or considerations which may influence, in some small degree, the demand for punishment: but as the propriety of these is either not so demonstrable, or not so constant, or the application of them not so determinate, as that of the foregoing, it may be doubted whether they be worth putting on a level with the others.

  XXII. Rule 10. When a punishment, which in point of quality is particularly well calculated to answer its intention, cannot exist in less than a certain quantity, it may sometimes be of use, for the sake of employing it, to stretch a little beyond that quantity which, on other accounts, would be strictly necessary.

  XXIII. Rule 11. In particular, this may sometimes be the case, where the punishment proposed is of such a nature as to be particularly well calculated to answer the purpose of a moral lesson.95

  XXIV. Rule 12. The tendency of the above considerations is to dictate an augmentation in the punishment: the following rule operates in the way of diminution. There are certain cases (it has been seen96 ) in which, by the influence of accidental circumstances, punishment may be rendered unprofitable in the whole: in the same cases it may chance to be rendered unprofitable as to a part only. Accordingly,

  In adjusting the quantum of punishment, the circumstances, by which all punishment may be rendered unprofitable, ought to be attended to.

  XXV. Rule 13. It is to be observed, that the more various and minute any set of provisions are, the greater the chance is that any given article in them will not be borne in mind: without which, no benefit can ensue from it. Distinctions, which are more complex than what the conceptions of those whose conduct it is designed to influence can take in, will even be worse than useless. The whole system will present a confused appearance: and thus the effect, not only of the proportions established by the articles in question, but of whatever is connected with them, will be destroyed.97 To draw a precise line of direction in such case seems impossible. However, by way of memento, it may be of some use to subjoin the following rule.

  Among provisions designed to perfect the proportion between punishments and offences, if any occur, which, by their own particular good effects, would not make up for the harm they would do by adding to the intricacy of the Code, they should be omitted.98

  XXVI. It may be remembered, that the political sanction, being that to which the sort of punishment belongs, which in this chapter is all along in view, is but one of four sanctions, which may all of them contribute their share towards producing the same effects. It may be expected, therefore, that in adjusting the quantity of political punishment, allowance should be made for the assistance it may meet with from those other controlling powers. True it is, that from each of these several sources a very powerful assistance may sometimes be derived. But the case is, that (setting aside the moral sanction, in the case where the force of it is expressly adopted into and modified by the political99 ) the force of those other powers is never determinate enough to be depended upon. It can never be reduced, like political punishment, into exact lots, nor meted out in number, quantity, and value. The legislator is therefore obliged to provide the full complement of punishment, as if he were sure of not receiving any assistance whatever from any of those quarters. If he does, so much the better: but lest he should not, it is necessary he should, at all events, make that provision which depends upon himself.

  XXVII. It may be of use, in this place, to recapitulate the several circumstances, which, in establishing the proportion betwixt punishments and offenses, are to be attended to. These seem to be as follows:

  I. On the part of the offence:

  • 1. The profit of the offense;
  • 2. The mischief of the offense;
  • 3. The profit and mischief of other greater or lesser offences, of different sorts, which the offender may have to choose out of;
  • 4. The profit and mischief of other offenses, of the same sort, which the same offender may probably have been guilty of already.

  II. On the part of the punishment:

  • 5. The magnitude of the punishment: composed of its intensity and duration;
  • 6. The deficiency of the punishment in point of certainty;
  • 7. The deficiency of the punishment in point of proximity;
  • 8. The quality of the punishment;
  • 9. The accidental advantage in point of quality of a punishment, not strictly needed in point of quantity;
  • 10. The use of a punishment of a particular quality, in the character of a moral lesson.

  III. On the part of the offender:

  • 11. The responsibility of the class of persons in a way to offend;
  • 12. The sensibility of each particular offender;
  • 13. The particular merits or useful qualities of any particular offender, in case of a punishment which might deprive the community of the benefit of them;
  • 14. The multitude of offenders on any particular occasion.

  IV. On the part of the public, at any particular conjuncture:

  • 15. The inclinations of the people, for or against any quantity or mode of punishment;
  • 16. The inclinations of foreign powers.

  V. On the part of the law: that is, of the public for a continuance:

  • 17. The necessity of making small sacrifices, in point of proportionality, for the sake of simplicity.

  XXVIII. There are some, perhaps, who, at first sight, may look upon the nicety employed in the adjustment of such rules, as so much labour lost: for gross ignorance, they will say, never, troubles itself about laws, and passion does not calculate. But, the evil of ignorance admits of cure:100 and as to the proposition that passion does not calculate, this, like most of these very general and oracular propositions, is not true. When matters of such importance as pain and pleasure are at stake, and these in the highest degree (the only matters, in short, that can be of importance) who is there that does not calculate? Men calculate, some with less exactness, indeed, some with more: but all men calculate. I would not say, that even a madman does not calculate.101 Passion calculates, more or less, in every man: in different men, according to the warmth or coolness of their dispositions: according to the firmness or irritability of their minds: according to the nature of the motives by which they are acted upon. Happily, of all passions, that is the most given to calculation, from the excesses of which, by reason of its strength, constancy, and universality, society has most to apprehend:102 I mean that which corresponds to the motive of pecuniary interest: so that these niceties, if such they are to be called, have the best chance of being efficacious, where efficacy is of the most importance.

  Chapter XV

  OF THE PROPERTIES TO BE GIVEN TO A LOT OF PUNISHMENT

  I. It has been shown what the rules are, which ought to be observed in adjusting the proportion between the punishments and the offense. The properties to be given to a lot of punishment, in every instance, will of course be such as it stands in need of, in order to be capable of being applied, in conformity to those rules: the quality will be regulated by the quantity.

  II. The first of those rules, we may remember, was, that the quantity of punishment must not be less, in any case, than what is sufficient to outweigh the profit of the offence: since, as often as it is less, the whole lot (unless by accident the deficiency should be supplied from some of the other sanctions) is thrown away: it is inefficacious. The fifth was, that the punishment ought in no case to be more than what is required by the several other rules: since, if it be, all that is above that quantity is needless. The fourth was, that the punishment should be adjusted in such manner to each individual offence, that every part of the mischief of that offence may have a penalty (that is, a tutelary motive) to encounter it: otherwise, with respect to so much of the offense as has not a penalty to correspond to it, it is as if there were no punishment in the case. Now to none of those rules can a lot of punishment be conformable, unless, for every variation in point of quantity, in the mischief of the species of offense to which it is annexed, such lot of punishment admits of a correspondent variation. To prove this, let the profit of the offence admit of a multitude of degrees. Suppose it, then, at any one of these degrees: if the punishment be less than what is suitable to that degree, it will be inefficacious; it will be so much thrown away: if it be more, as far as the difference extends, it will be needless; it will therefore be thrown away also in that case.

  The first property, therefore, that ought to be given to a lot of punishment, is that of being variable in point of quantity, in conformity to every variation which can take place in either the profit or mischief of the offense. This property might, perhaps, be termed, in a single word, variability.

  III. A second property, intimately connected with the former, may be styled equability. It will avail but little, that a mode of punishment (proper in all other respects) has been established by the legislator; and that capable of being screwed up or let down to any degree that can be required; if, after all, whatever degree of it be pitched upon, that same degree shall be liable, according to circumstances, to produce a very heavy degree of pain, or a very slight one, or even none at all. In this case, as in the former, if circumstances happen one way, there will be a great deal of pain produced which will be needless: if the other way, there will be no pain at all applied, or none that will be efficacious. A punishment, when liable to this irregularity, may be styled an unequable one: when free from it, an equable one. The quantity of pain produced by the punishment will, it is true, depend in a considerable degree upon circumstances distinct from the nature of the punishment itself: upon the condition which the offender is in, with respect to the circumstances by which a man's sensibility is liable to be influenced. But the influence of these very circumstances will in many cases be reciprocally influenced by the nature of the punishment: in other words, the pain which is produced by any mode of punishment, will be the joint effect of the punishment which is applied to him, and the circumstances in which he is exposed to it. Now there are some punishments, of which the effect may be liable to undergo a greater alteration by the influence of such foreign circumstances, than the effect of other punishments is liable to undergo. So far, then, as this is the case, equability or unequability may be regarded as properties belonging to the punishment itself.

  IV. An example of a mode of punishment which is apt to be unequable, is that of banishment, when the locus a quo (or place the party is banished from) is some determinate place appointed by the law, which perhaps the offender cares not whether he ever see or no. This is also the case with pecuniary, or quasi-pecuniary punishment, when it respects some particular species of property, which the offender may have been possessed of, or not, as it may happen. All these punishments may be split down into parcels, and measured out with the utmost nicety: being divisible by time, at least, if by nothing else. They are not, therefore, any of them defective in point of variability: and yet, in many cases, this defect in point of equability may make them as unfit for use as if they were.103

  V. The third rule of proportion was, that where two offenses come in competition, the punishment for the greater offenses must be sufficient to induce a man to prefer the less. Now, to be sufficient for this purpose, it must be evidently and uniformly greater: greater, not in the eyes of some men only, but of all men who are liable to be in a situation to take their choice between the two offenses; that is, in effect, of all mankind. In other words, the two punishments must be perfectly commensurable. Hence arises a third property, which may be termed commensurability: to wit, with reference to other punishments.104

  VI. But punishments of different kinds are in very few instances uniformly greater one than another; especially when the lowest degrees of that which is ordinarily the greater, are compared with the highest degrees of that which is ordinarily the less: in other words, punishments of different kinds are in few instances uniformly commensurable. The only certain and universal means of making two lots of punishment perfectly commensurable, is by making the lesser an ingredient in the composition of the greater. This may be done in either of two ways. 1. By adding to the lesser punishment another quantity of punishment of the same kind. 2. By adding to it another quantity of a different kind. The latter mode is not less certain than the former: for though one cannot always be absolutely sure, that to the same person a given punishment will appear greater than another given punishment; yet one may be always absolutely sure, that any given punishment, so as it does but come into contemplation, will appear greater than none at all.

  VII. Again: Punishment cannot act any farther than in as far as the idea of it, and of its connection with the offense, is present in the mind. The idea of it, if not present, cannot act at all; and then the punishment itself must be inefficacious. Now, to be present, it must be remembered, and to be remembered it must have been learnt. But of all punishments that can be imagined, there are none of which the connection with the offense is either so easily learnt, or so efficaciously remembered, as those of which the idea is already in part associated with some part of the idea of the offense: which is the case when the one and the other have some circumstance that belongs to them in common. When this is the case with a punishment and an offense, the punishment is said to bear an analogy to, or to be characteristic of, the offence.105Characteristicalness is, therefore, a fourth property, which on this account ought to be given, whenever it can conveniently be given, to a lot of punishment.

  VIII. It is obvious, that the effect of this contrivance will be the greater, as the analogy is the closer. The analogy will be the closer, the more material106 that circumstance is, which is in common. Now the most material circumstance that can belong to an offense and a punishment in common, is the hurt or damage which they produce. The closest analogy, therefore, that can subsist between an offense and the punishment annexed to it, is that which subsists between them when the hurt or damage they produce is of the same nature: in other words, that which is constituted by the circumstance of identity in point of damage.107 Accordingly, the mode of punishment, which of all others bears the closest analogy to the offense, is that which in the proper and exact sense of the word is termed retaliation. Retaliation, therefore, in the few cases in which it is practicable, and not too expensive, will have one great advantage over every other mode of punishment.

  IX. Again: It is the idea only of the punishment (or, in other words, the apparent punishment) that really acts upon the mind; the punishment itself (the real punishment) acts not any farther than as giving rise to that idea. It is the apparent punishment, therefore, that does all the service, I mean in the way of example, which is the principal object.108 It is the real punishment that does all the mischief.109 Now the ordinary and obvious way of increasing the magnitude of the apparent punishment, is by increasing the magnitude of the real. The apparent magnitude, however, may to a certain degree be increased by other less expensive means: whenever, therefore, at the same time that these less expensive means would have answered that purpose, an additional real punishment is employed, this additional real punishment is needless. As to these less expensive means, they consist, 1. In the choice of a particular mode of punishment, a punishment of a particular quality, independent of the quantity.110 2. In a particular set of solemnities distinct from the punishment itself, and accompanying the execution of it.111

  X. A mode of punishment, according as the appearance of it bears a greater proportion to the reality, may be said to be the more exemplary. Now as to what concerns the choice of the punishment itself, there is not any means by which a given quantity of punishment can be rendered more exemplary, than by choosing it of such a sort as shall bear an analogy to the offense. Hence another reason for rendering the punishment analogous to, or in other words characteristic of, the offense.

  XI. Punishment, it is still to be remembered, is in itself an expense: it is in itself an evil.112 Accordingly the fifth rule of proportion is, not to produce more of it than what is demanded by the other rules. But this is the case as often as any particle of pain is produced, which contributes nothing to the effect proposed. Now if any mode of punishment is more apt than another to produce any such superfluous and needless pain, it may be styled unfrugal; if less, it may be styled frugal.Frugality, therefore, is a sixth property to be wished for in a mode of punishment.

  XII. The perfection of frugality, in a mode of punishment, is where not only no superfluous pain is produced on the part of the person punished, but even that same operation, by which he is subjected to pain, is made to answer the purpose of producing pleasure on the part of some other person. Understand a profit or stock of pleasure of the self-regarding kind: for a pleasure of the dissocial kind is produced almost of course, on the part of all persons in whose breasts the offence has excited the sentiment of ill-will. Now this is the case with pecuniary punishment, as also with such punishments of the quasi-pecuniary kind as consist in the subtraction of such a species of possession as is transferable from one party to another. The pleasure, indeed, produced by such an operation, is not in general equal to the pain:113 it may, however, be so in particular circumstances, as where he, from whom the thing is taken, is very rich, and he, to whom it is given, very poor: and, be it what it will, it is always so much more than can be produced by any other mode of punishment.

  XIII. The properties of exemplarity and frugality seem to pursue the same immediate end, though by different courses. Both are occupied in diminishing the ratio of the real suffering to the apparent: but exemplarity tends to increase the apparent; frugality to reduce the real.

  XIV. Thus much concerning the properties to be given to punishments in general, to whatsoever offenses they are to be applied. Those which follow are of less importance, either as referring only to certain offenses in particular, or depending upon the influence of transitory and local circumstances.

  In the first place, the four distinct ends into which the main and general end of punishment is divisible,114 may give rise to so many distinct properties, according as any particular mode of punishment appear to be more particularly adapted to the compassing of one or of another of those ends. To that of example, as being the principal one, a particular property has already been adapted. There remains the three inferior ones of reformation, disablement, and compensation.

  XV. A seventh property, therefore, to be wished for in a mode of punishment, is that of subserviency to reformation, or reforming tendency. Now any punishment is subservient to reformation in proportion to its quantity: since the greater the punishment a man has experienced, the stronger is the tendency it has to create in him an aversion towards the offense which was the cause of it: and that with respect to all offenses alike. But there are certain punishments which, with regard to certain offenses, have a particular tendency to produce that effect by reason of their quality: and where this is the case, the punishments in question, as applied to the offenses in question, will pro tanto have the advantage over all others. This influence will depend upon the nature of the motive which is the cause of the offence: the punishment most subservient to reformation will be the sort of punishment that is best calculated to invalidate the force of that motive.

  XVI. Thus, in offenses originating from the motive of ill-will,115 that punishment has the strongest reforming tendency, which is best calculated to weaken the force of the irascible affections. And more particularly, in that sort of offense which consists in an obstinate refusal, on the part of the offender, to do something which is lawfully required of him,116 and in which the obstinacy is in great measure kept up by his resentment against those who have an interest in forcing him to compliance, the most efficacious punishment seems to be that of confinement to spare diet.

  XVII. Thus, also, in offenses which owe their birth to the joint influence of indolence and pecuniary interest, that punishment seems to possess the strongest reforming tendency, which is best calculated to weaken the force of the former of those dispositions. And more particularly, in the cases of theft, embezzlement, and every species of defraudment, the mode of punishment best adapted to this purpose seems, in most cases, to be that of penal labour.

  XVIII. An eighth property to be given to a lot of punishment in certain cases, is that of efficacy with respect to disablement, or, as it might be styled more briefly, disabling efficacy. This is a property which may be given in perfection to a lot of punishment; and that with much greater certainty than the property of subserviency to reformation. The inconvenience is, that this property is apt, in general, to run counter to that of frugality: there being, in most cases, no certain way of disabling a man from doing mischief, without, at the same time, disabling him, in a great measure, from doing good, either to himself or others. The mischief therefore of the offense must be so great as to demand a very considerable lot of punishment, for the purpose of example, before it can warrant the application of a punishment equal to that which is necessary for the purpose of disablement.

  XIX. The punishment, of which the efficacy in this way is the greatest, is evidently that of death. In this case the efficacy of it is certain. This accordingly is the punishment peculiarly adapted to those cases in which the name of the offender, so long as he lives, may be sufficient to keep a whole nation in a flame. This will now and then be the case with competitors for the sovereignty, and leaders of the factions in civil wars: though, when applied to offenses of so questionable a nature, in which the question concerning criminality turns more upon success than any thing else; an infliction of this sort may seem more to savour of hostility than punishment. At the same time this punishment, it is evident, is in an eminent degree unfrugal; which forms one among the many objections there are against the use of it, in any but very extraordinary cases.117

  XX. In ordinary cases the purpose may be sufficiently answered by one or other of the various kinds of confinement and banishment: of which, imprisonment is the most strict and efficacious. For when an offense is so circumstanced that it cannot be committed but in a certain place, as is the case, for the most part, with offenses against the person, all the law has to do, in order to disable the offender from committing it, is to prevent his being in that place. In any of the offenses which consist in the breach or the abuse of any kind of trust, the purpose may be compassed at a still cheaper rate, merely by forfeiture of the trust: and in general, in any of those offenses which can only be committed under favour of some relation in which the offender stands with reference to any person, or sets of persons, merely by forfeiture of that relation: that is, of the right of continuing to reap the advantages belonging to it. This is the case, for instance, with any of those offences which consist in an abuse of the privileges of marriage, or of the liberty of carrying on any lucrative or other occupation.

  XXI. The ninth property is that of subserviency to compensation. This property of punishment, if it be vindictive compensation that is in view, will, with little variation, be in proportion to the quantity: if lucrative, it is the peculiar and characteristic property of pecuniary punishment.

  XXII. In the rear of all these properties may be introduced that of popularity; a very fleeting and indeterminate kind of property, which may belong to a lot of punishment one moment, and be lost by it the next. By popularity is meant the property of being acceptable, or rather not unacceptable, to the bulk of the people, among whom it is proposed to be established. In strictness of speech, it should rather be called absence of unpopularity: for it cannot be expected, in regard to such a matter as punishment, that any species or lot of it should be positively acceptable and grateful to the people: it is sufficient, for the most part, if they have no decided aversion to the thoughts of it. Now the property of characteristicalness, above noticed, seems to go as far towards conciliating the approbation of the people to a mode of punishment, as any; insomuch that popularity may be regarded as a kind of secondary quality, depending upon that of characteristicalness.118 The use of inserting this property in the catalogue, is chiefly to make it serve by way of memento to the legislator not to introduce, without a cogent necessity, any mode or lot of punishment, towards which he happens to perceive any violent aversion entertained by the body of the people.

  XXIII. The effects of unpopularity in a mode of punishment are analogous to those of unfrugality. The unnecessary pain which denominates a punishment unfrugal, is most apt to be that which is produced on the part of the offender. A portion of superfluous pain is in like manner produced when the punishment is unpopular: but in this case it is produced on the part of persons altogether innocent, the people at large. This is already one mischief; and another is, the weakness which it is apt to introduce into the law. When the people are satisfied with the law, they voluntarily lend their assistance in the execution: when they are dissatisfied, they will naturally withhold that assistance; it is well if they do not take a positive part in raising impediments. This contributes greatly to the uncertainty of the punishment; by which, in the first instance, the frequency of the offense receives an increase. In process of time that deficiency, as usual, is apt to draw on an increase in magnitude: an addition of a certain quantity which otherwise would be needless.119

  XXIV. This property, it is to be observed, necessarily supposes, on the part of the people, some prejudice or other, which it is the business of the legislator to endeavour to correct. For if the aversion to the punishment in question were grounded on, the principle of utility, the punishment would be such as, on other accounts, ought not to be employed: in which case its popularity or unpopularity would never be worth drawing into question. It is properly therefore a property not so much of the punishment as of the people: a disposition to entertain an unreasonable dislike against an object which merits their approbation. It is the sign also of another property, to wit. indolence or weakness, on the part of the legislator: in suffering the people for the want of some instruction, which ought to be and might be given them, to quarrel with their own interest. Be this as it may, so long as any such dissatisfaction subsists, it behoves the legislator to have an eye to it, as much as if it were ever so well grounded. Every nation is liable to have its prejudices and its caprices which it is the business of the legislator to look out for, to study, and to cure.120

  XXV. The eleventh and last of all the properties that seem to be requisite in a lot of punishment, is that of remissibility.121 The general presumption is, that when punishment is applied, punishment is needful: that it ought to be applied, and therefore cannot want to be remitted. But in very particular, and those always very deplorable cases, it may by accident happen otherwise. It may happen that punishment shall have been inflicted, where, according to the intention of the law itself, it ought not to have been inflicted: that is, where the sufferer is innocent of the offense. At the time of the sentence passed he appeared guilty: but since then, accident has brought his innocence to light. This being the case, so much of the destined punishment as he has suffered already, there is no help for. The business is then to free him from as much as is yet to come. But is there any yet to come? There is very little chance of there being any, unless it be so much as consists of chronical punishment: such as imprisonment, banishment, penal labour, and the like. So much as consists of acute punishment, to wit where the penal process itself is over presently, however permanent the punishment may be in its effects, may be considered as irremissible. This is the case, for example, with whipping, branding, mutilation, and capital punishment. The most perfectly irremissible of any is capital punishment. For though other punishments cannot, when they are over, be remitted, they may be compensated for; and although the unfortunate victim cannot be put into the same condition, yet possibly means may be found of putting him into as good a condition, as he would have been in if he had never suffered. This may in general be done very effectually where the punishment has been no other than pecuniary.

  There is another case in which the property of remissibility may appear to be of use: this is, where, although the offender has been justly punished, yet on account of some good behaviour of his, displayed at a time subsequent to that of the commencement of the punishment, it may seem expedient to remit a part of it. But this it can scarcely be, if the proportion of the punishment is, in other respects, what it ought to be. The purpose of example is the more important object, in comparison of that of reformation.122 It is not very likely, that less punishment should be required for the former purpose than for the latter. For it must be rather an extraordinary case, if a punishment, which is sufficient to deter a man who has only thought of it for a few moments, should not be sufficient to deter a man who has been feeling it all the time. Whatever, then, is required for the purpose of example, must abide at all events: it is not any reformation on the part of the offender, that can warrant the remitting of any part of it: if it could, a man would have nothing to do but to reform immediately, and so free himself from the greatest part of that punishment which was deemed necessary. In order, then, to warrant the remitting of any part of a punishment upon this ground, it must first be supposed that the punishment at first appointed was more than was necessary for the purpose of example, and consequently that a part of it was needless upon the whole. This, indeed, is apt enough to be the case, under the imperfect systems that are as yet on foot: and therefore, during the continuance of those systems, the property of remissibility may, on this second ground likewise, as well as on the former, be deemed a useful one. But this would not be the case in any new-constructed system, in which the rules of proportion above laid down should be observed. In such a system, therefore, the utility of this property would rest solely on the former ground.

  XXVI. Upon taking a survey of the various possible modes of punishment, it will appear evidently, that there is not any one of them that possesses all the above properties in perfection. To do the best that can be done in the way of punishment, it will therefore be necessary, upon most occasions, to compound them, and make them into complex lots, each consisting of a number of different modes of punishment put together: the nature and proportions of the constituent parts of each lot being different, according to the nature of the offence which it is designed to combat.

  XXVII. It may not be amiss to bring together, and exhibit in one view, the eleven properties above established. They are as follows:

  Two of them are concerned in establishing a proper proportion between a single offense and its punishment; viz.

  • 1. Variability.
  • 2. Equability.

  One, in establishing a proportion, between more offences than one, and more punishments than one; viz.

  • 3. Commensurability.

  A fourth contributes to place the punishment in that situation in which alone it can be efficacious; and at the same time to be bestowing on it the two farther properties of exemplarity and popularity; viz.

  • 4. Characteristicalness.

  Two others are concerned in excluding all useless punishment; the one indirectly, by heightening the efficacy of what is useful; the other in a direct way; viz.

  • 5. Exemplarity.
  • 6. Frugality.

  Three others contribute severally to the three inferior ends of punishment; viz.

  • 7. Subserviency to reformation.
  • 8. Efficacy in disabling.
  • 9. Subserviency to compensation.

  Another property tends to exclude a collateral mischief, which a particular mode of punishment is liable accidentally to produce; viz.

  • 10. Popularity.

  The remaining property tends to palliate a mischief, which all punishment, as such is liable accidentally to produce; viz.

  • 11. Remissibility.

  The properties of commensurability, characteristicalness, exemplarity, subserviency to reformation, and efficacy in disabling, are more particularly calculated to augment the profit which is to be made by punishment: frugality, subserviency to compensation, popularity, and remissibility, to diminish the expense: variability and equability are alike subservient to both those purposes.

  XXVIII. We now come to take a general survey of the system of offences: that is, of such acts to which, on account of the mischievous consequences they have a natural tendency to produce, and in the view of putting a stop to those consequences, it may be proper to annex a certain artificial consequence, consisting of punishment, to be inflicted on the authors of such acts according to the principles just established.

  Chapter XVI (Sections 1-2)

  DIVISION OF OFFENCES1

  §1. Classes of Offences.

  I. It is necessary, at the outset, to make a distinction between such acts as are or may be, and such as ought to be offences.

  Any act may be an offence, which they whom the community are in the habit of obeying shall be pleased to make one: that is, any act which they shall be pleased to prohibit or to punish. But, upon the principle of utility, such acts alone ought to be made offences, as the good of the community requires should be made so.

  II. The good of the community cannot require, that any act should be made an offence, which is not liable. in some way or other, to be detrimental to the community. For in the case of such an act, all punishment is groundless.2

  III. But if the whole assemblage of any number of individuals be considered as constituting an imaginary compound body, a community or political state; any act that is detrimental to any one or more of those members is, as to so much of its effects, detrimental to the state.

  IV. An act cannot be detrimental to a state, but by being detrimental to some one or more of the individuals that compose it. But these individuals may either be assignable3 or unassignable.

  V. When there is any assignable individual to whom an offence is detrimental, that person may either be a person other than the offender, or the offender himself.

  VI. Offences that are detrimental, in the first instance, to assignable persons other than the offender, may be termed by one common name, offences against individuals. And of these may be composed the 1st class of offences. To contrast them with offences of the 2nd and 4th classes, it may also sometimes be convenient to style them private offences. To contrast them at the same time with offences of the 3rd class, they may be styled private extra-regarding offences.

  VII. When it appears, in general, that there are persons to whom the act in question may be detrimental, but such persons cannot be individually assigned, the circle within which it appears that they may be found, is either of less extent than that which comprises the whole community, or not. If of less, the persons comprised within this lesser circle may be considered for this purpose as composing a body of themselves; comprised within, but distinguishable from, the greater body of the whole community. The circumstance that constitutes the union between the members of this lesser body, may be either their residence within a particular place, or, in short, any other less explicit principle of union, which may serve to distinguish them from the remaining members of the community. In the first case, the act may be styled an offence against a neighbourhood: in the second, an offence against a particular class of persons in the community. Offenses, then, against a class or neighbourhood, may, together, constitute the 2nd class of offences.4 To contrast them with private offences on the one hand, and public on the other, they may also be styled semi-public offences.

  VIII. Offences, which in the first instance are detrimental to the offender himself, and to no one else, unless it be by their being detrimental to himself, may serve to compose a third class. To contrast them the better with offences of the first, second, and fourth classes, all which are of a transitive nature, they might be styled intransitive5 offences; but still better, self-regarding.

  IX. The fourth class may be composed of such acts as ought to be made offences, on account of the distant mischief which they threaten to bring upon an unassignable indefinite multitude of the whole number of individuals, of which the community is composed: although no particular individual should appear more likely to be a sufferer by them than another. These may be called public offences, or offences against the state.

  X. A fifth class, or appendix, may be composed of such acts as, according to the circumstances in which they are committed, or and more particularly according to the purposes to which they are applied, may be detrimental in any one of the ways in which the act of one man can be detrimental to another. These may to be termed multiform, or heterogeneous6 offences. Offences that are in this case may be reduced to two great heads: 1. Offences by falsehood: and 2. Offenses against trust.

  § 2. Divisions and sub-divisions.

  XI. Let us see by what method these classes may be farther subdivided. First, then, with regard to offences against individuals.

  In the present period of existence, a man's being and wellbeing, his happiness and his security; in a word, his pleasures and his immunity from pains, are all dependent, more or less, in the first place, upon his own person; in the next place, upon the exterior objects that surround him. These objects are either things, or other persons. Under one or other of these classes must evidently be comprised every sort of exterior object, by means of which his interest can be affected. If then, by means of any offence, a man should on any occasion become a sufferer, it must be in one or other of two ways: 1. absolutely, to wit, immediately in his own person; in which case the offence may be said to be an offence against his person: or, 2. relatively, by reason of some material relation7 which the before mentioned exterior objects may happen to bear, in the way of causality (see ch. vii. Actions, par. 24) to his happiness. Now in as far as a man is in a way to derive either happiness or security from any object which belongs to the class of things, such thing is said to be his property, or at least he is said to have a property or an interest therein: an offence, therefore, which tends to lessen the facility he might otherwise have of deriving happiness or security from an object which belongs to the class of things may be styled an offence against his property. With regard to persons, in as far as, from objects of this class, a man is in a way to derive happiness or security, it is in virtue of their services: in virtue of some services, which, by one sort of inducement or another, they may be disposed to render him.8 Now, then, take any man, by way of example, and the disposition, whatever it may be, which he may be in to render you service, either has no other connection to give birth or support to it, than the general one which binds him to the whole species, or it has some other connection more particular. In the latter case, such a connection may be spoken of as constituting, in your favour, a kind of fictitious or incorporeal object of property, which is styled your condition. An offence, therefore, the tendency of which is to lessen the facility you might otherwise have of deriving happiness from the services of a person thus specially connected with you, may be styled an offence against your condition in life, or simply against your condition. Conditions in life must evidently be as various as the relations by which they are constituted. This will be seen more particularly farther on. In the mean time those of husband, wife, parent, child, master, servant, citizen of such or such a city, natural-born subject of such or such a country, may answer the purpose of examples.

  Where there is no such particular connection, or (what comes to the same thing) where the disposition, whatever it may be, which a man is in to render you service, is not considered as depending upon such connection, but simply upon the good-will he bears to you; in such case, in order to express what chance you have of deriving a benefit from his services, a kind of fictitious object of property is spoken of, as being constituted in your favour, and is called your reputation. An offence, therefore, the tendency of which is to lessen the facility you might otherwise have had of deriving happiness or security from the services of persons at large, whether connected with you or not by any special tie, may be styled an offence against your reputation. It appears, therefore, that if by any offence an individual becomes a sufferer, it must be in one or other of the four points above mentioned; viz. his person, his property, his condition in life, or his reputation. These sources of distinction, then, may serve to form so many subordinate divisions. If any offences should be found to affect a person in more than one of these points at the same time, such offences may respectively be put under so many separate divisions; and such compound divisions may be subjoined to the preceding simple ones. The several divisions (simple and compound together) which are hereinafter established, stand as follows: 1. Offenses against person. 2. Offenses against reputation. 3. Offenses against property. 4. Offenses against condition. 5. Offenses against person and property together. 6. Offenses against person and reputation together.9

  XII. Next with regard to semi-public offences. Pain, considered with reference to the time of the act from which it is liable to issue, must, it is evident, be either present, past, or future. In as far as it is either present or past, it cannot be the result of any act which comes under the description of a semi-public offence: for if it be present or past, the individuals who experience, or who have experienced, it are assignable.10 There remains that sort of mischief, which, if it ever come to exist at all, is as yet but future: mischief, thus circumstanced, takes the name of danger.11 Now, then, when by means of the act of any person a whole neighbourhood, or other class of persons, are exposed to danger, this danger must either be intentional on his part, or unintentional.12 If unintentional, such danger, when it is converted into actual mischief, takes the name of a calamity: offences, productive of such danger, may be styled semi-public offences operating through calamity; or, more briefly, offences through calamity. If the danger be intentional, insomuch that it might be produced, and might convert itself into actual mischief, without the concurrence of any calamity, it may be said to originate in mere delinquency: offences, then, which, without the concurrence of any calamity, tend to produce such danger as disturbs the security of a local, or other subordinate class of persons, may be styled semi-public offences operating merely by delinquency, or more briefly, offences of mere delinquency.

  XIII. With regard to any farther sub-divisions, offences through calamity will depend upon the nature of the several calamities to which man, and the several things that are of use to him, stand exposed. These will be considered in another place.13

  XIV. Semi-public offences of mere delinquency will follow the method of division applied to offences against individuals. It will easily be conceived, that whatever pain or inconvenience any given individual may be made to suffer, to the danger of that pain or inconvenience may any number of individuals, assignable or not assignable, be exposed. Now there are four points or articles, as we have seen, in respect to which an individual may be made to suffer pain or inconvenience. If then, with respect to any one of them, the connection of causes and effects is such, that to the danger of suffering in that article a number of persons, who individually are not assignable, may, by the delinquency of one person, be exposed, such article will form a ground of distinction on which a particular sub-division of semi-public offences may be established: if, with respect to any such article, no such effect can take place, that ground of distinction will lie for the present unoccupied: ready, however, upon any change of circumstances, or in the manner of viewing the subject, to receive a correspondent subdivision of offences, if ever it should seem necessary that any such offences should be created.

  XV. We come next to self-regarding offences; or, more properly, to acts productive in the first instance of no other than a self-regarding mischief: acts which, if in any instance it be thought fit to constitute them offences, will come under the denomination of offences against one's self. This class will not for the present give us much trouble. For it is evident, that in whatever points a man is vulnerable by the hand of another, in the same points may he be conceived to be vulnerable by his own. Whatever divisions therefore will serve for the first class, the same will serve for this. As to the questions, What acts are productive of a mischief of this stamp? and, among such as are, which it may, and which it may not, be worth while14 to treat upon the footing of offences? these are points, the latter of which at least is too unsettled, and too open to controversy, to be laid down with that degree of confidence which is implied in the exhibition of properties which are made use of as the groundwork of an arrangement. Properties for this purpose ought to be such as show themselves at first glance, and appear to belong to the subject beyond dispute.

  XVI. Public offences may be distributed under eleven divisions.15 1. Offences against external security. 2. Offences against justice. 3. Offences against the preventive branch of the police. 4. Offences against the public force. 5. Offences against the positive increase of the national felicity. 6. Offences against the public wealth. 7. Offences against population. 8. Offences against the national wealth. 9. Offences against the sovereignty. 10. Offences against religion. 11. Offences against the national interest in general. The way in which these several sorts of offences connect with one another, and with the interest of the public, that is, of an unassignable multitude of the individuals of which that body is composed, may be thus conceived.

  XVII. Mischief by which the interest of the public as above defined may be affected, must, if produced at all, be produced either by means of an influence exerted on the operations of government, or by other means, without the exertion of such influence.16 To begin with the latter case: mischief, be it what it will, and let it happen to whom it will, must be produced either by the unassisted powers of the agent in question, or by the instrumentality of some other agents. In the latter case, these agents will be either persons or things. Persons again must be either not members of the community in question, or members. Mischief produced by the instrumentality of persons, may accordingly be produced by the instrumentality either of external or of internal adversaries. Now when it is produced by the agent's own unassisted powers, or by the instrumentality of internal adversaries, or only by the instrumentality of things, it is seldom that it can show itself in any other shape (setting aside any influence it may exert on the operations of government) than either that of an offence against assignable individuals, or that of an offence against a local or other subordinate class of persons. If there should be a way in which mischief can be produced, by any of these means, to individuals altogether unassignable, it will scarcely be found conspicuous or important enough to occupy a title by itself: it may accordingly be referred to the miscellaneous head of offences against the national interest in general.17 The only mischief, of any considerable account, which can be made to impend indiscriminately over the whole number of members in the community, is that complex kind of mischief which results from a state of war, and is produced by the instrumentality of external adversaries; by their being provoked, for instance, or invited, or encouraged to invasion. In this way may a man very well bring down a mischief, and that a very heavy one, upon the whole community in general, and that without taking a part in any of the injuries which came in consequence to be offered to particular individuals.

  Next with regard to the mischief which an offence may bring upon the public by its influence on the operations of the government. This it may occasion either, 1. In a more immediate way, by its influence on those operations themselves: 2. In a more remote way, by its influence on the instruments by or by the help of which those operations should be performed: or 3. In a more remote way still, by its influence on the sources from whence such instruments are to be derived. First then, as to the operations of government, the tendency of these, in as far as it is conformable to what on the principle of utility it ought to be, is in every case either to avert mischief from the community, or to make an addition to the sum of positive good.18 Now mischief, we have seen, must come either from external adversaries, from internal adversaries, or from calamities. With regard to mischief from external adversaries, there requires no further division. As to mischief from internal adversaries, the expedients employed for averting it may be distinguished into such as may be applied before the discovery of any mischievous design in particular, and such as cannot be employed but in consequence of the discovery of some such design: the former of these are commonly referred to a branch which may be styled the preventive branch of the police: the latter to that of justice.19 Secondly, As to the instruments which government, whether in the averting of evil or in the producing of positive good, can have to work with, these must be either persons or things. Those which are destined to the particular function of guarding against mischief from adversaries in general, but more particularly from external adversaries,20 may be distinguished from the rest under the collective appellation of the public military force, and, for conciseness' sake, the military force. The rest may be characterised by the collective appellation of the public wealth. Thirdly, with regard to the sources or funds from whence these instruments, howsoever applied, must be derived, such of them as come under the denomination of persons must be taken out of the whole number of persons that are in the community, that is, out of the total population of the state: so that the greater the population, the greater may cæteris paribus be this branch of the public wealth; and the less, the less. In like manner, such as come under the denomination of things may be, and most of them commonly are, taken out of the sum total of those things which are the separate properties of the several members of the community: the sum of which properties may be termed the national wealth:21 so that the greater the national wealth, the greater cæteris paribus may be this remaining branch of the public wealth; and the less, the less. It is here to be observed, that if the influence exerted on any occasion by any individual over the operations of the government be pernicious, it must be in one or other of two ways: 1. By causing, or tending to cause, operations not to be performed which ought to be performed; in other words, by impeding the operations of government. Or, 2. By causing operations to be performed which ought not to be performed; in other words, by misdirecting them. Lastly, to the total assemblage of the persons by whom the several political operations above mentioned come to be performed, we set out with applying the collective appellation of the government. Among these persons there commonly22 is some one person, or body of persons whose office it is to assign and distribute to the rest their several departments, to determine the conduct to be pursued by each in the performance of the particular set of operations that belongs to him, and even upon occasion to exercise his function in his stead. Where there is any such person, or body of persons, he or it may, according as the turn of the phrase requires, be termed the sovereign, or the sovereignty. Now it is evident, that to impede or misdirect the operations of the sovereign, as here described, may be to impede or misdirect the operations of the several departments of government as described above.

  From this analysis, by which the connection between the several above-mentioned heads of offences is exhibited, we may now collect a definition for each article. By offences against external security, we may understand such offences whereof the tendency is to bring upon the public a mischief resulting from the hostilities of foreign adversaries. By offences against justice, such offences whereof the tendency is to impede or misdirect the operations of that power which is employed in the business of guarding the public against the mischiefs resulting from the delinquency of internal adversaries, as far as it is to be done by expedients, which do not come to be applied in any case till after the discovery of some particular design of the sort of those which they are calculated to prevent. By offences against the preventive branch of the police, such offences whereof the tendency is to impede or misdirect the operations of that power which is employed in guarding against mischiefs resulting from the delinquency of internal adversaries, by expedients that come to be applied beforehand; or of that which is employed in guarding against the mischiefs that might be occasioned by physical calamities. By offences against the public force, such offences whereof the tendency is to impede or misdirect the operations of that power which is destined to guard the public from the mischiefs which may result from the hostility of foreign adversaries, and, in case of necessity, in the capacity of ministers of justice, from mischiefs of the number of those which result from the delinquency of internal adversaries.

  By offences against the increase of the national felicity, such offences whereof the tendency is to impede or misapply the operations of those powers that are employed in the conducting of various establishments, which are calculated to make, in so many different ways, a positive addition to the stock of public happiness. By offences against the public wealth, such offences whereof the tendency is to diminish the amount or misdirect the application of the money, and other articles of wealth, which the government reserves as a fund, out of which the stock of instruments employed in the service above mentioned may be kept up. By offences against population, such offences whereof the tendency is to diminish the numbers or impair the political value of the sum total of the members of the community. By offences against the national wealth, such offences whereof the tendency is to diminish the quantity, or impair the value, of the things which compose the separate properties or estates of the several members of the community.

  XVIII. In this deduction, it may be asked, what place is left for religion? This we shall see presently. For combating the various kinds of offences above enumerated, that is, for combating all the offences (those not excepted which we are now about considering) which it is in man's nature to commit, the state has two great engines, punishment and reward: punishment, to be applied to all, and upon all ordinary occasions: reward, to be applied to a few, for particular purposes, and upon extraordinary occasions. But whether or no a man has done the act which renders him an object meet for punishment or reward, the eyes of those, whosoever they be, to whom the management of these engines is entrusted cannot always see, nor, where it is punishment that is to be administered, can their hands be always sure to reach him. To supply these deficiencies in point of power, it is thought necessary, or at least useful (without which the truth of the doctrine would be nothing to the purpose), to inculcate into the minds of the people the belief of the existence of a power applicable to the same purposes, and not liable to the same deficiencies: the power of a supreme invisible being, to whom a disposition of contributing to the same ends to which the several institutions already mentioned are calculated to contribute, must for this purpose be ascribed. It is of course expected that this power will, at one time or other, be employed in the promoting of those ends: and to keep up and strengthen this expectation among men, is spoken of as being the employment of a kind of allegorical personage, feigned, as before,23 for convenience of discourse, and styled religion. To diminish, then, or misapply the influence of religion, is pro tanto to diminish or misapply what power the state has of combating with effect any of the before-enumerated kinds of offences; that is, all kinds of offences whatsoever. Acts that appear to have this tendency may be styled offences against religion. Of these then may be composed the tenth division of the class of offences against the state.24

  XIX. If there be any acts which appear liable to affect the state in any one or more of the above ways, by operating in prejudice of the external security of the state, or of its internal security; of the public force; of the increase of the national felicity; of the public wealth; of the national population; of the national wealth; of the sovereignty; or of religion; at the same time that it is not clear in which of all these ways they will affect it most, nor but that, according to contingencies, they may affect it in one of these ways only or in another; such acts may be collected together under a miscellaneous division by themselves, and styled offences against the national interest in general. Of these then may be composed the eleventh and last division of the class of offences against the state.

  XX. We come now to class the fifth: consisting of multiform offences. These, as has been already intimated, are either offences by falsehood, or offences concerning trust. Under the head of offences by falsehood, may be comprehended, 1. Simple falsehoods. 2. Forgery. 3. Personation. 4. Perjury.25 Let us observe in what particulars these four kinds of falsehood agree, and in what they differ.

  XXI. Offences by falsehood, however diversified in other particulars, have this in common, that they consist in some abuse of the faculty of discourse, or rather, as we shall see hereafter, of the faculty of influencing the sentiment of belief in other men,26 whether by discourse or otherwise. The use of discourse is to influence belief, and that in such manner as to give other men to understand that things are as they are really. Falsehoods, of whatever kind they be, agree in this: that they give men to understand that things are otherwise than as in reality they are.

  XXII. Personation, forgery, and perjury, are each of them distinguished from other modes of uttering falsehood by certain special circumstances. When a falsehood is not accompanied by any of those circumstanees, it may be styled simple falsehood. These circumstances are, 1. The form in which the falsehood is uttered. 2. The circumstance of its relating or not to the identity of the person of him who utters it. 3. The solemnity of the occasion on which it is uttered.27 The particular application of these distinctive characters may more commodiously be reserved for another place.28

  XXIII. We come now to the sub-divisions of offences by falsehood. These will bring us back into the regular track of analysis, pursued, without deviation, through the four preceding classes.

  By whatever means a mischief is brought about, whether falsehood be or be not of the number, the individuals liable to be affected by it must either be assignable or unassignable. If assignable, there are but four material articles in respect to which they can be affected: to wit, their persons, their properties, their reputations, and their conditions in life. The case is the same, if, though unassignable, they are comprisable in any class subordinate to that which is composed of the whole number of members of the state. If the falsehood tend to the detriment of the whole state, it can only be by operating in one or other of the characters, which every act that is an offence against the state must assume; viz. that of an offence against external security, against justice, against the preventive branch of the police, against the public force, against the increase of the national felicity, against the public wealth, against the national population, against the national wealth, against the sovereignty of the state, or against its religion.

  XXIV. It is the common property, then, of the offences that belong to this division, to run over the same ground that is occupied by those of the preceding classes. But some of them, as we shall see, are apt, on various occasions, to drop or change the names which bring them under this division: this is chiefly the case with regard to simple falsehoods. Others retain their names unchanged; and even thereby supersede the names which would otherwise belong to the offences which they denominate: this is chiefly the case with regard to personation, forgery, and perjury. When this circumstance then, the circumstance of falsehood, intervenes, in some cases the name which takes the lead is that which indicates the offence by its effect; in other cases, it is that which indicates the expedient or instrument as it were by the help of which the offence is committed. Falsehood, take it by itself, consider it as not being accompanied by any other material circumstances, nor therefore productive of any material effects, can never, upon the principle of utility, constitute any offence at all. Combined with other circumstances, there is scarce any sort of pernicious effect which it may not be instrumental in producing. It is therefore rather in compliance with the laws of language, than in consideration of the nature of the things themselves, that falsehoods are made separate mention of under the name and in the character of distinct offences. All this would appear plain enough, if it were now a time for entering into particulars: but that is what cannot be done, consistently with any principle of order or convenience, until the inferior divisions of those other classes shall have been previously exhibited.

  XXV. We come now to offences against trust. A trust is, where there is any particular act which one party, in the exercise of some power, or some right,29 which is conferred on him, is bound to perform for the benefit of another. Or, more fully, thus: A party is said to be invested with a trust, when, being invested with a power, or with a right, there is a certain behaviour which, in the exercise of that power, or of that right, he is bound to maintain for the benefit of some other party. In such case, the party first mentioned is styled a trustee: for the other party, no name has ever yet been found: for want of a name, there seems to be no other resource than to give a new and more extensive sense to the word beneficiary, or to say at length the party to be benefited.30

  The trustee is also said to have a trust conferred or imposed upon him, to be invested with a trust, to have had a trust given him to execute, to perform, to discharge, or to fulfil. The party to be benefited, is said to have a trust established or created in his favour: and so on through a variety of other phrases.

  XXVI. Now it may occur, that a trust is oftentimes spoken of as a species of condition:31 that a trust is also spoken of as a species of property: and that a condition itself is also spoken of same light. It may be thought, therefore, that in the first class, the division of offences against condition should have been included under that of the offences against property: and that at any rate, so much of the fifth class now before us as contains offences against trust, should have been included under one or other of those two divisions of the first class. But upon examination it will appear, that no one of these divisions could with convenience, nor even perhaps with propriety, have been included under either of the other two. It will appear at the same time, that there is an intimate connection subsisting amongst them all: insomuch that of the lists of the offences to which they are respectively exposed, any one may serve in great measure as a model for any other. There are certain offences to which all trusts as such are exposed: to all these offences every sort of condition will be found exposed: at the same time that particular species of the offences against trust will, upon their application to particular conditions, receive different particular denominations. It will appear also, that of the two groups of offences into which the list of those against trust will be found naturally to divide itself, there is one, and but one, to which property, taken in its proper and more confined sense, stands exposed: and that these, in their application to the subject of property, will be found susceptible of distinct modifications, to which the usage of language, and the occasion there is for distinguishing them in point of treatment, make it necessary to find names.

  In the first place, as there are, or at least may be (as we shall see) conditions which are not trusts,32 so there are trusts of which the idea would not be readily and naturally understood to be included under the word condition: add to which, that of those conditions which do include a trust, the greater number include other ingredients along with it: so that the idea of a condition, if on the one hand it stretches beyond the idea of a trust, does on the other hand fall short of it. Of the several sorts of trusts, by far the most important are those in which it is the public that stands in the relation of beneficiary. Now these trusts, it should seem, would hardly present themselves at first view upon the mention of the word condition. At any rate, what is more material, the most important of the offences against these kinds of trust would not seem to be included under the denomination of offences against condition. The offences which by this latter appellation would be brought to view, would be such only as seemed to affect the interests of an individual: of him, for example, who is considered as being invested with that condition. But in offences against public trust, it is the influence they have on the interests of the public that constitutes by much the most material part of their pernicious tendency: the influence they have on the interests of any individual, the only part of their influence which would be readily brought to view by the appellation of offences against condition, is comparatively as nothing. The word trust directs the attention at once to the interests of that party for whom the person in question is trustee: which party, upon the addition of the epithet public, is immediately understood to be the body composed of the whole assemblage, or an indefinite portion of the whole assemblage of the members of the state. The idea presented by the words public trust is clear and unambiguous: it is but an obscure and ambiguous garb that that idea could be expressed in by the words public condition. It appears, therefore, that the principal part of the offences, included under the denomination of offences against trust, could not, commodiously at least, have been included under the head of offences against condition.

  It is evident enough, that for the same reasons neither could they have been included under the head of offences against property. It would have appeared preposterous, and would have argued a total inattention to the leading principle of the whole work, the principle of utility, to have taken the most mischievous and alarming part of the offences to which the public stands exposed, and forced them into the list of offences against the property of an individual: of that individual, to wit, who in that case would be considered as having in him the property of that public trust, which by the offences in question is affected.

  Nor would it have been less improper to have included conditions, all of them, under the head of property: and thereby the whole catalogue of offences against condition, under the catalogue of offences against property. True it is, that there are offences against condition, which perhaps with equal propriety, and without any change in their nature, might be considered in the light of offences against property: so extensive and so vague are the ideas that are wont to be annexed to both these objects. But there are other offences which though with unquestionable propriety they might be referred to the head of offences against condition, could not, without the utmost violence done to language, be forced under the appellation of offences against property. Property, considered with respect to the proprietor, implies invariably a benefit, and nothing else: whatever obligations or burthens may, by accident, stand annexed to it, yet in itself it can never be otherwise than beneficial. On the part of the proprietor, it is created not by any commands that are laid on him, but by his being left free to do with such or such an article as he likes. The obligations it is created by, are in every instance laid upon other people. On the other hand, as to conditions, there are several which are of a mixed nature, importing as well a burthen to him who stands invested with them as a benefit: which indeed is the case with those conditions which we hear most of under that name, and which make the greatest figure.

  There are even conditions which import nothing but burthen, without any spark of benefit. Accordingly, when between two parties there is such a relation, that one of them stands in the place of an object of property with respect to the other; the word property is applied only on one side; but the word condition is applied alike to both: it is but one of them that is said on that account to be possessed of property; but both of them are alike spoken of as being possessed of or being invested with a condition: it is the master alone that is considered as possessing a property, of which the servant, in virtue of the services he is bound to render, is the object: but the servant, not less than the master, is spoken of as possessing or being invested with a condition.

  The case is, that if a man's condition is ever spoken of as constituting an article of his property, it is in the same loose and indefinite sense of the word in which almost every other offence that could be imagined might be reckoned into the list of offences against property. If the language indeed were in every instance, in which it made use of the phrase, object of property, perspicuous enough to point out under that appellation the material and really existent body, the person or the thing in which those acts terminate, by the performance of which the property is said to be enjoyed; if, in short, in the import given to the phrase object of property, it made no other use of it than the putting it to signify what is now called a corporeal object, this difficulty and this confusion would not have occurred. But the import of the phrase object of property, and in consequence the import of the word property, has been made to take a much wider range. In almost every case in which the law does any thing for a man's benefit or advantage, men are apt to speak of it, on some occasion or other, as conferring on him a sort of property. At the same time, for one reason or other, it has in several cases been not practicable, or not agreeable, to bring to view, under the appellation of the object of his property, the thing in which the acts, by the performance of which the property is said to be enjoyed, have their termination, or the person in whom they have their commencement. Yet something which could be spoken of under that appellation was absolutely requisite.33 The expedient then has been to create, as it were, on every occasion, an ideal being, and to assign to a man this ideal being for the object of his property: and these are the sort of objects to which men of science, in taking a view of the operations of the law in this behalf, came, in process of time, to give the name of incorporeal. Now of these incorporeal objects of property the variety is prodigious. Fictitious entities of this kind have been fabricated almost out of every thing: not conditions only (that of a trustee included), but even reputation have been of the number. Even liberty has been considered in this same point of view: and though on so many occasions it is contrasted with property, yet on other occasions, being reckoned into the catalogue of possessions, it seems to have been considered as a branch of property. Some of these applications of the words property, object of property (the last, for instance), are looked upon, indeed, as more figurative, and less proper than the rest: but since the truth is, that where the immediate object is incorporeal, they are all of them improper, it is scarce practicable any where to draw the line.

  Notwithstanding all this latitude, yet, among the relations in virtue of which you are said to be possessed of a condition, there is one at least which can scarcely, by the most forced construction, be said to render any other man, or any other thing, the object of your property. This is the right of persevering in a certain course of action; for instance, in the exercising of a certain trade. Now to confer on you this right, in a certain degree at least, the law has nothing more to do than barely to abstain from forbidding you to exercise it. Were it to go farther, and, for the sake of enabling you to exercise your trade to the greater advantage, prohibit others from exercising the like, then, indeed, persons might be found, who in a certain sense, and by a construction rather forced than otherwise, might be spoken of as being the objects of your property: viz. by being made to render you that sort of negative service which consists in the forbearing to do those acts which would lessen the profits of your trade. But the ordinary right of exercising any such trade or profession, as is not the object of a monopoly, imports no such thing; and yet, by possessing this right, a man is said to possess a condition: and by forfeiting it, to forfeit his condition.

  After all, it will be seen, that there must be cases in which, according to the usage of language, the same offence may, with more or less appearance of propriety, be referred to the head of offences against condition, or that of offences against property, indifferently. In such cases the following rule may serve for drawing the line. Wherever, in virtue of your possessing a property, or being the object of a property possessed by another, you are characterised, according to the usage of language, by a particular name, such as master, servant, husband, wife, steward, agent, attorney, or the like, there the word condition may be employed in exclusion of the word property: and an offence in which, in virtue of your bearing such relation, you are concerned, either in the capacity of an offender, or in that of a party injured, may be referred to the head of offences against condition, and not to that of offences against property. To give an example: Being bound, in the capacity of land steward to a certain person, to oversee the repairing of a certain bridge, you forbear to do so: in this case, as the services you are bound to render are of the number of those which give occasion to the party, from whom they are due, to be spoken of under a certain generical name, viz. that of land steward, the offence of withholding them may be referred to the class of offences against condition. But suppose that, without being engaged in that general and miscellaneous course of service, which with reference to a particular person would denominate you his land steward, you were bound, whether by usage or by contract, to render him that single sort of service which consists in the providing, by yourself or by others, for the repairing of that bridge: in this case, as there is not any such current denomination to which, in virtue of your being bound to render this service, you stand aggregated (for that of architect, mason, or the like, is not here in question), the offence you commit by withholding such service cannot with propriety be referred to the class of offences against condition: it can only therefore be referred to the class of offences against property.

  By way of further distinction, it may be remarked, that where a man, in virtue of his being bound to render, or of others being bound to render him, certain services, is spoken of as possessing a condition, the assemblage of services is generally so considerable, in point of duration, as to constitute a course of considerable length, so as on a variety of occasions to come to be varied and repeated: and in most cases, when the condition is not of a domestic nature, sometimes for the benefit of one person, sometimes for that of another. Services which come to be rendered to a particular person on a particular occasion, especially if they be of short duration, have seldom the effect of occasioning either party to be spoken of as being invested with a condition. The particular occasional services which one man may come, by contract or otherwise, to be bound to render to another, are innumerably various: but the number of conditions which have names may be counted, and are, comparatively, but few.

  If after all, notwithstanding the rule here given for separating conditions from articles of property, any object should present itself which should appear to be referable, with equal propriety, to either head, the inconvenience would not be material; since in such cases, as will be seen a little farther on, whichever appellation were adopted, the list of the offences, to which the object stands exposed, would be substantially the same.

  These difficulties being cleared up, we now proceed to exhibit an analytical view of the several possible offences against trust.

  XXVII. Offences against trust may be distinguished, in the first place, into such as concern the existence of the trust in the hands of such or such a person, and such as concern the exercise of the functions that belong to it.34 First then, with regard to such as relate to its existence. An offence of this description, like one of any other description, if an offence it ought to be, must to some person or other import a prejudice. This prejudice may be distinguished into two branches: 1. That which may fall on such persons as are or should be invested with the trust: 2. That which may fall on the persons for whose sake it is or should be instituted, or on other persons at large. To begin with the former of these branches. Let any trust be conceived. The consequences which it is in the nature of it to be productive of to the possessor, must, in as far as they are material,35 be either of an advantageous or of a disadvantageous nature: in as far as they are advantageous, the trust may be considered as a benefit or privilege: in as far as they are disadvantageous, it may be considered as a burthen.36 To consider it then upon the footing of a benefit. The trust either is of the number of those which ought by law to subsist;37 that is, which the legislator meant should be established; or is not. If it is, the possession which at any time you may be deprived of, with respect to it, must at that time be either present or to come: if to come (in which case it may be regarded either as certain or as contingent), the investitive event, or event from whence your possession of it should have taken its commencement, was either an event in the production of which the will of the offender should have been instrumental, or any other event at large: in the former case, the offence may be termed wrongful non-investment of trust: in the latter case, wrongful interception of trust.38 If at the time of the offence whereby you are deprived of it, you were already in possession of it, the offence may be styled wrongful divestment of trust. In any of these cases, the effect of the offence is either to put somebody else into the trust, or not: if not, it is wrongful divestment, wrongful interception, or wrongful divestment, and nothing more: if it be, the person put in possession is either the wrong-doer himself, in which case it may be styled usurpation of trust; or some other person, in which case it may be styled wrongful investment, or attribution, of trust. If the trust in question is not of the number of those which ought to subsist, it depends upon the manner in which one man deprives another of it, whether such deprivation shall or shall not be an offence, and, accordingly, whether non-investment, interception, or divestment, shall or shall not be wrongful. But the putting any body into it must at any rate be an offence: and this offence may be either usurpation or wrongful investment, as before.

  In the next place, to consider it upon the footing of a burthen. In this point of view, if no other interest than that of the persons liable to be invested with it were considered, it is what ought not, upon the principle of utility, to subsist: if it ought, it can only be for the sake of the persons in whose favour it is established. If then it ought not on any account to subsist, neither non-investment, interception, nor divestment, can be wrongful with relation to the persons first mentioned, whatever they may be on any other account, in respect of the manner in which they happen to be performed: for usurpation, though not likely to be committed, there is the same room as before: so likewise is there for wrongful investment; which, in as far as the trust is considered as a burthen, may be styled wrongful imposition of trust. If the trust, being still of the burthensome kind, is of the number of those which ought to subsist, any offence that can be committed, with relation to the existence of it, must consist either in causing a person to be in possession of it, who ought not to be, or in causing a person not to be in possession of it who ought to be: in the former case, it must be either usurpation or wrongful divestment, as before: in the latter case, the person who is caused to be not in possession, is either the wrong-doer himself, or some other: if the wrong-doer himself, either at the time of the offence he was in possession of it, or he was not: if he was, it may be termed wrongful abdication of trust; if not, wrongful detrectation39 or non-assumption: if the person, whom the offence causes not to be in the trust, is any other person, the offence must be either wrongful divestment, wrongful non-investment, or wrongful interception, as before: in any of which cases to consider the trust in the light of a burthen, it might also be styled wrongful exemption from trust.

  Lastly, with regard to the prejudice which the persons for whose benefit the trust is instituted, or any other persons whose interests may come to be affected by its existing or not existing in such or such hands, are liable to sustain. Upon examination it will appear, that by every sort of offence whereby the persons who are or should be in possession of it are liable, in that respect, to sustain a prejudice, the persons now in question are also liable to sustain a prejudice. The prejudice, in this case, is evidently of a very different nature from what it was of in the other: but the same general names will be applicable in this case as in that. If the beneficiaries, or persons whose interests are at stake upon the exercise of the trust, or any of them, are liable to sustain a prejudice, resulting from the quality of the person by whom it may be filled, such prejudice must result from the one or the other of two causes: 1. From a person's having the possession of it who ought not to have it: or 2. From a person's not having it who ought: whether it be a benefit or burthen to the possessor, is a circumstance that to this purpose makes no difference. In the first of these cases the offences from which the prejudice takes its rise are those of usurpation of trust, wrongful attribution of trust, and wrongful imposition of trust: in the latter, wrongful non-investment of trust, wrongful interception of trust, wrongful divestment of trust, wrongful abdication of trust, and wrongful detrectation of trust.

  So much for the offences which concern the existence or possession of a trust: those which concern the exercise of the functions that belong to it may be thus conceived. You are in possession of a trust: the time then for your acting in it must, on any given occasion, (neglecting, for simplicity's sake, the then present instant) be either past or yet to come. If past, your conduct on that occasion must have been either conformable to the purposes for which the trust was instituted, or unconformable: if conformable, there has been no mischief in the case: if unconformable, the fault has been either in yourself alone, or in some other person, or in both: in as far as it has lain in yourself, it has consisted either in your not doing something which you ought to do, in which case it may be styled negative breach of trust; or in your doing something which you ought not to do: if in the doing something which you ought not to do, the party to whom the prejudice has accrued is either the same for whose benefit the trust was instituted, or some other party at large: in the former of these cases, the offence may be styled positive breach of trust; in the other, abuse of trust.40 In as far as the fault lies in another person, the offence on his part may be styled disturbance of trust. Supposing the time for your acting in the trust to be yet to come, the effect of any act which tends to render your conduct unconformable to the purposes of the trust, may be either to render it actually and eventually unconformable, or to produce a chance of its being so. In the former of these cases, it can do no otherwise than take one or other of the shapes that have just been mentioned. In the latter case, the blame must lie either in yourself alone, or in some other person, or in both together, as before. If in another person, the acts whereby he may tend to render your conduct unconformable, must be exercised either on yourself, or on other objects at large. If exercised on yourself, the influence they possess must either be such as operates immediately on your body, or such as operates immediately on your mind. In the latter case, again, the tendency of them must be to deprive you either of the knowledge, or of the power, or of the inclination,41 which would be necessary to your maintaining such a conduct as shall be conformable to the purposes in question. If they be such, of which the tendency is to deprive you of the inclination in question, it must be by applying to your will the force of some seducing motive.42 Lastly, This motive must be either of the coercive, or of the alluring kind; in other words, it must present itself either in the shape of a mischief or of an advantage. Now in none of all the cases that have been mentioned, except the last, does the offence receive any new denomination; according to the event it is either a disturbance of trust, or an abortive attempt to be guilty of that offence. In this last it is termed bribery; and it is that particular species of it which may be termed active bribery, or bribe-giving. In this case, to consider the matter on your part, either you accept of the bribe, or you do not: if not, and you do not afterwards commit, or go about to commit, either a breach or an abuse of trust, there is no offence, on your part, in the case: if you do accept it, whether you eventually do or do not commit the breach or the abuse which it is the bribe-giver's intention you should commit, you at any rate commit an offence which is also termed bribery: and which, for distinction sake, may be termed passive bribery, or bribe-taking.43 As to any farther distinctions, they will depend upon the nature of the particular sort of trust in question, and therefore belong not to the present place. And thus we have thirteen sub-divisions of offences against trust: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of trust. 2. Wrongful interception of trust. 3. Wrongful divestment of trust. 4. Usurpation of trust. 5. Wrongful investment or attribution of trust. 6. Wrongful abdication of trust. 7. Wrongful detrectation of trust. 8. Wrongful imposition of trust. 9. Negative breach of trust. 10. Positive breach of trust. 11. Abuse of trust. 12. Disturbance of trust. 13. Bribery.

  XXVIII. From what has been said, it appears that there cannot be any other offences, on the part of a trustee, by which a beneficiary can receive on any particular occasion any assignable specific prejudice. One sort of acts, however, there are by which a trustee may be put in some danger of receiving a prejudice, although neither the nature of the prejudice, nor the occasion on which he is in danger of receiving it, should be assignable. These can be no other than such acts, whatever they may be, as dispose the trustee to be acted upon by a given bribe with greater effect than any with which he could otherwise be acted upon: or in other words, which place him in such circumstances as have a tendency to increase the quantum of his sensibility to the action of any motive of the sort in question.44 Of these acts, there seem to be no others, that will admit of a description applicable to all places and times alike, than acts of prodigality on the part of the trustee. But in acts of this nature the prejudice to the beneficiary is contingent only and unliquidated; while the prejudice to the trustee himself is certain and liquidated. If therefore on any occasion it should be found advisable to treat it on the footing of an offence, it will find its place more naturally in the class of self-regarding ones.

  XXIX. As to the subdivisions of offences against trust, these are perfectly analogous to those of offences by falsehood. The trust may be private, semi-public, or public: it may concern property, person, reputation, or condition; or any two or more of those articles at a time: as will be more particularly explained in another place. Here too the offence, in running over the ground occupied by the three prior classes, will in some instances change its name, while in others it will not.

  XXX. Lastly, if it be asked, What sort of relation there subsists between falsehoods on one hand, and offences concerning trust on the other hand; the answer is, they are altogether disparate. Falsehood is a circumstance that may enter into the composition of any sort of offence, those concerning trust, as well as any other: in some as an accidental, in others as an essential instrument. Breach or abuse of trust are circumstances which, in the character of accidental concomitants, may enter into the composition of any other offences (those against falsehood included) besides those to which they respectively give name. Continue reading: Chapter XVI, Part 2.

  Chapter XVI (Sections 3-4)

  DIVISION OF OFFENCES1 (continued)

  § 3. Genera of Class I.

  XXXI. Returning now to class the first, let us pursue the distribution a step farther, and branch out the several divisions of that class, as above exhibited, into their respective genera, that is, into such minuter divisions as are capable of being characterised by denominations of which a great part are already current among the people.45 In this place the analysis must stop. To apply it in the same regular form to any of the other classes seems scarcely practicable: to semi-public, as also to public offences, on account of the interference of local circumstances: to self-regarding ones, on account of the necessity it would create of deciding prematurely upon points which may appear liable to controversy: to offences by falsehood, and offences against trust, on account of the dependence there is between this class and the three former. What remains to be done in this way, with reference to these four classes, will require discussion, and will therefore be introduced with more propriety in the body of the work, than in a preliminary part, of which the business is only to draw outlines.

  XXXII. An act, by which the happiness of an individual is disturbed, is either simple in its effects or complex. It may be styled simple in its effects, when it affects him in one only of the articles or points in which his interest, as we have seen, is liable to be affected: complex, when it affects him in several of those points at once. Such as are simple in their effects must of course be first considered.

  XXXIII. In a simple way, that is in one way at a time, a man's happiness is liable to be disturbed either 1. By actions referring to his own person itself; or 2. By actions referring to such external objects on which his happiness is more or less dependent. As to his own person, it is composed of two different parts, or reputed parts, his body and his mind. Acts which exert a pernicious influence on his person, whether it be on the corporeal or on the mental part of it, will operate thereon either immediately, and without affecting his will, or mediately, through the intervention of that faculty: viz. by means of the influence which they cause his will to exercise over his body. If with the intervention of his will, it must be by mental coercion: that is, by causing him to will to maintain, and thence actually to maintain, a certain conduct which it is disagreeable, or in any other way pernicious, to him to maintain. This conduct may either be positive or negative:46 when positive, the coercion is styled compulsion or constraint: when negative, restraint. Now the way in which the coercion is disagreeable to him, may be by producing either pain of body, or only pain of mind. If pain of body is produced by it, the offence will come as well under this as under other denominations, which we shall come to presently. Moreover, the conduct which a man, by means of the coercion, is forced to maintain, will be determined either specifically and originally, by the determination of the particular acts themselves which he is forced to perform or to abstain from, or generally and incidentally, by means of his being forced to be or not to be in such or such a place. But if he is prevented from being in one place, he is confined thereby to another. For the whole surface of the earth, like the surface of any greater or lesser body, may be conceived to be divided into two, as well as into any other number of parts or spots. If the spot then, which he is confined to, be smaller than the spot which he is excluded from, his condition may be called confinement: if larger, banishment.47 Whether an act, the effect of which is to exert a pernicious influence on the person of him who suffers by it operates with or without the intervention of an act of his will, the mischief it produces will either be mortal or not mortal. If not mortal, it will either be reparable, that is temporary, or irreparable, that is perpetual. If reparable, the mischievous act may be termed a simple corporal injury; if irreparable, an irreparable corporal injury. Lastly, a pain that a man experiences in his mind will either be a pain of actual sufferance, or a pain of apprehension. If a pain of apprehension, either the offender himself is represented as intending to bear a part in the production of it, or he is not. In the former case the offence may be styled menacement: in the latter case, as also where the pain is a pain of actual sufferance, a simple mental injury. And thus we have nine genera or kinds of personal injuries; which, when ranged in the order most commodious for examination, will stand as follows; viz. 1. Simple corporal injuries. 2. Irreparable corporal injuries. 3. Simple injurious restrainment. 4. Simple injurious compulsion.48 5. Wrongful confinement. 6. Wrongful banishment. 7. Wrongful homicide. 8. Wrongful menacement.49 9. Simple mental injuries.50

  XXXIV. We come now to offences against reputation merely. These require but few distinctions. In point of reputation there is but one way of suffering, which is by losing a portion of the good-will of others. Now, in respect of the good-will which others bear you, you may be a loser in either of two ways: 1. By the manner in which you are thought to behave yourself; and 2. By the manner in which others behave, or are thought to behave, towards you. To cause people to think that you yourself have so behaved, as to have been guilty of any of those acts which cause a man to possess less than he did before of the good-will of the community, is what may be styled defamation. But such is the constitution of human nature, and such the force of prejudice, that a man merely by manifesting his own want of good-will towards you, though ever so unjust in itself, and ever so unlawfully expressed, may in a manner force others to withdraw from you a part of theirs. When he does this by words, or by such actions as have no other effect than in as far as they stand in the place of words, the offence may be styled vilification. When it is done by such actions as, besides their having this effect, are injuries to the person, the offence may be styled a personal insult: if it has got the length of reaching the body, a corporal insult: if it stopped short before it reached that length, it may be styled insulting menacement. And thus we have two genera or kinds of offences against reputation merely; to wit, 1. Defamation: and, 2. Vilification, or Revilement.51 As to corporal insults, and insulting menacement, they belong to the compound title of offences against person and reputation both together.

  XXXV. If the property of one man suffers by the delinquency of another, such property either was in trust with the offender, or it was not: if it was in trust, the offence is a breach of trust, and of whatever nature it may be in other respects, may be styled dissipation in breach of trust, or dissipation of property in trust. This is a particular case: the opposite one is the more common: in such case the several ways in which property may, by possibility, become the object of an offence, may be thus conceived. Offences against property, of whatever kind it be, may be distinguished, as hath been already intimated,52 into such as concern the legal possession of it, or right to it, and such as concern only the enjoyment of it, or, what is the same thing, the exercise of that right. Under the former of these heads come, as hath been already intimated,53 the several offences of wrongful non-investment, wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful attribution. When in the commission of any of these offences a falsehood has served as an instrument, and that, as it is commonly called, a wilful, or as it might more properly be termed, an advised54 one, the epithet fraudulent may be prefixed to the name of the offence, or substituted in the room of the word wrongful. The circumstance of fraudulency then may serve to characterise a particular species, comprisable under each of those generic heads: in like manner the circumstance of force, of which more a little farther on, may serve to characterize another. With respect to wrongful interception in particular, the investitive event by which the title to the thing in question should have accrued to you, and for want of which such title is, through the delinquency of the offender, as it were, intercepted, is either an act of his own, expressing it as his will, that you should be considered by the law as the person who is legally in possession of it, or it is any other event at large: in the former case, if the thing, of which you should have been put into possession, is a sum of money to a certain amount, the offence is that which has received the name of insolvency; which branch of delinquency, in consideration of the importance and extent of it, may be treated on the footing of a distinct genus of itself.55

  Next, with regard to such of the offences against property as concern only the enjoyment of the object in question. This object must be either a service, or set of services,56 which should have been rendered by some person, or else an article belonging to the class of things. In the former ease, the offence may be styled wrongful withholding of services.57 In the latter case it may admit of farther modifications, which may be thus conceived: When any object which you have had the physical occupation or enjoyment of, ceases, in any degree, in consequence of the act of another man, and without any change made in so much of that power as depends upon the intrinsic physical condition of your person, to be subject to that power; this cessation is either owing to change in the intrinsic condition of the thing itself, or in its exterior situation with respect to you, that is, to its being situated out of your reach. In the former case, the nature of the change is either such as to put it out of your power to make any use of it at all, in which case the thing is said to be destroyed, and the offence whereby it is so treated may be termed wrongful destruction: or such only as to render the uses it is capable of being put to of less value than before, in which case it is said to be damaged, or to have sustained damage, and the offence may be termed wrongful endamagement. Moreover, in as far as the value which a thing is of to you is considered as being liable to be in some degree impaired, by any act on the part of any other person exercised upon that thing, although on a given occasion no perceptible damage should ensue, the exercise of any such act is commonly treated on the footing of an offence, which may be termed wrongful using or occupation.

  If the cause of the thing's failing in its capacity of being of use to you, lies in the exterior situation of it with relation to you, the offence may be styled wrongful detainment.58 Wrongful detainment, or detention, during any given period of time, may either be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever (that is for an indefinite time), or not: if it be, and if it be accompanied at the same time with the intention of not being amenable to law for what is done, it seems to answer to the idea commonly annexed to the word embezzlement, an offence which is commonly accompanied with breach of trust.59 In the case of wrongful occupation, the physical faculty of occupying may have been obtained with or without the assistance or consent of the proprietor, or other person appearing to have a right to afford such assistance or consent. If without such assistance or consent, and the occupation be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever, together with the intention of not being amenable to law for what is done, the offence seems to answer to the idea commonly annexed to the word theft or stealing. If in the same circumstances a force is put upon the body of any person who uses, or appears to be disposed to use, any endeavours to prevent the act, this seems to be one of the cases in which the offence is generally understood to come under the name of robbery.

  If the physical faculty in question was obtained with the assistance or consent of a proprietor or other person above spoken of, and still the occupation of the thing is an offence, it may have been either because the assistance or consent was not fairly or because it was not freely obtained. If not fairly obtained, it was obtained by falsehood, which, if advised, is in such a case termed fraud: and the offence, if accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, may be termed fraudulent obtainment or defraudment.60 If not freely obtained, it was obtained by force: to wit, either by a force put upon the body, which has been already mentioned, or by a force put upon the mind. If by a force put upon the mind, or in other words, by the application of coercive motives,61 it must be by producing the apprehension of some evil: which evil, if the act is an offence, must be some evil to which on the occasion in question the one person has no right to expose the other. This is one case in which, if the offence be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever, whether it be or be not accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, it seems to agree with the idea of what is commonly meant by extortion. Now the part a man takes in exposing another to the evil in question, must be either a positive or a negative part. In the former case, again, the evil must either be present or distant. In the case then where the assistance or consent is obtained by a force put upon the body, or where, if by a force put upon the mind, the part taken in the exposing a man to the apprehension of the evil is positive, the evil present, and the object of it his person, and if at any rate the extortion, thus applied, be accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, it seems to agree with the remaining case of what goes under the name of robbery.

  As to dissipation in breach of trust, this, when productive of a pecuniary profit to the trustee, seems to be one species of what is commonly meant by peculation. Another, and the only remaining one, seems to consist in acts of occupation exercised by the trustee upon the things which are the objects of the fiduciary property, for his own benefit, and to the damage of the beneficiary. As to robbery, this offence, by the manner in which the assistance or consent is obtained, becomes an offence against property and person at the same time. Dissipation in breach of trust, and peculation, may perhaps be more commodiously treated of under the head of offences against trust.62 After these exceptions, we have thirteen genera or principal kinds of offences against property, which, when ranged in the order most commodious for examination, may stand as follows, viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of property. 2. Wrongful interception of property. 3. Wrongful divestment of property. 4. Usurpation of property. 5. Wrongful investment of property. 6. Wrongful withholding of services. 7. Wrongful destruction or endamagement. 8. Wrongful occupation. 9. Wrongful detainment. 10. Embezzlement. 11. Theft. 12. Defraudment. 13. Extortion.63

  We proceed now to consider offences which are complex in their effects. Regularly, indeed, we should come to offences against condition; but it will be more convenient to speak first of offences by which a man's interest is affected in two of the preceding points at once.

  XXXVI. First, then, with regard to offences which affect person and reputation together. When any man, by a mode of treatment which affects the person, injures the reputation of another, his end and purpose must have been either his own immediate pleasure, or that sort of reflected pleasure, which in certain circumstances may be reaped from the suffering of another. Now the only immediate pleasure worth regarding, which any one can reap from the person of another, and which at the same time is capable of affecting the reputation of the latter, is the pleasure of the sexual appetite.64 This pleasure, then, if reaped at all, must have been reaped either against the consent of the party, or with consent. If with consent, the consent must have been obtained either freely and fairly both, or freely but not fairly, or else not even freely; in which case the fairness is out of the question. If the consent be altogether wanting, the offence is called rape: if not fairly obtained, seduction simply: if not freely, it may be called forcible seduction. In any case, either the offence has gone the length of consummation, or has stopped short of that period; if it has gone that length, it takes one or other of the names just mentioned: if not, it may be included alike in all cases under the denomination of a simple lascivious injury. Lastly, to take the case where a man injuring you in your reputation, by proceedings that regard your person, does it for the sake of that sort of pleasure which will sometimes result from the contemplation of another's pain. Under these circumstances either the offence has actually gone the length of a corporal injury, or it has rested in menacement: in the first case it may be styled a corporal insult; in the other, it may come under the name of insulting menacement. And thus we have six genera, or kind of offences, against person and reputation together; which, when ranged in the order most commodious for consideration, will stand thus: 1. Corporal insults. 2. Insulting menacement. 3. Seduction. 4. Rape. 5. Forcible seduction. 6. Simple lascivious injuries.65

  XXXVII. Secondly, with respect to those which affect person and property together. That a force put upon the person of a man may be among the means by which the title to property may be unlawfully taken away or acquired, has been already stated.66 A force of this sort then is a circumstance which may accompany the offences of wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment. But in these cases the intervention of this circumstance does not happen to have given any new denomination to the offence.67 In all or any of these cases, however, by prefixing the epithet forcible, we may have so many names of offences, which may either be considered as constituting so many species of the genera belonging to the division of offences against property, or as so many genera belonging to the division now before us. Among the offences that concern the enjoyment of the thing, the case is the same with wrongful destruction and wrongful endamagement; as also with wrongful occupation and wrongful detainment. As to the offence of wrongful occupation, it is only in the case where the thing occupied belongs to the class of immovables, that, when accompanied by the kind of force in question, has obtained a particular name which is in common use: in this case it is called forcible entry: forcible detainment, as applied also to immovables, but only to immovables, has obtained, among lawyers at least, the name of forcible detainer.68 And thus we may distinguish ten genera, or kinds of offences, against person and property together, which, omitting for conciseness' sake the epithet wrongful, will stand thus: 1. Forcible interception of property. 2. Forcible divestment of property. 3. Forcible usurpation. 4. Forcible investment. 5. Forcible destruction or endamagement. 6. Forcible occupation of movables. 7. Forcible entry. 8. Forcible detainment of movables. 9. Forcible detainment of immovables. 10. Robbery.69

  XXXVIII. We come now to offences against condition. A man's condition or station in life is constituted by the legal relation he bears to the persons who are about him; that is, as we have already had occasion to show,70 by duties, which, by being imposed on one side, give birth to rights or powers on the other. These relations, it is evident, may be almost infinitely diversified. Some means, however, may be found of circumscribing the field within which the varieties of them are displayed. In the first place, they must either be such as are capable of displaying themselves within the circle of a private family, or such as require a larger space. The conditions constituted by the former sort of relations may be styled domestic: those constituted by the latter, civil.

  XXXIX. As to domestic conditions, the legal relations by which they are constituted may be distinguished into 1. Such as are superadded to relations purely natural: and 2. Such as, without any such natural basis, subsist purely by institution. By relations purely natural, I mean those which may be said to subsist between certain persons in virtue of the concern which they themselves, or certain other persons, have had in the process which is necessary to the continuance of the species. These relations may be distinguished, in the first place, into contiguous and uncontiguous. The uncontiguous subsist through the intervention of such as are contiguous. The contiguous may be distinguished, in the first place, into connubial, and post-connubial.71 Those which may be termed connubial are two: 1. That which the male bears towards the female: 2. That which the female bears to the male.72 The post-connubial are either productive or derivative. The productive is that which the male and female above-mentioned bear each of them towards the children who are the immediate fruit of their union; this is termed the relation of parentality. Now as the parents must be, so the children may be, of different sexes. Accordingly the relation of parentality may be distinguished into four species: 1. That which a father bears to his son: this is termed paternity. 2. That which a father bears to his daughter: this also is termed paternity. 3. That which a mother bears to her son: this is called maternity. 4. That which a mother bears to her daughter: this also is termed maternity. Uncontiguous natural relations may be distinguished into immediate and remote. Such as are immediate, are what one person bears to another in consequence of their bearing each of them one simple relation to some third person. Thus the paternal grandfather is related to the paternal grandson by means of the two different kinds, which together they bear to the father: the brother on the father's side, to the brother, by means of the two relations of the same kind, which together they bear to the father. In the same manner we might proceed to find places in the system for the infinitely diversified relations which result from the combinations that may be formed by mixing together the several sorts of relationships by ascent, relationships by descent,collateral relationships, and relationships by affinity: which latter, when the union between the two parties through whom the affinity takes place is sanctioned by matrimonial solemnities, are termed relationships by marriage. But this, as it would be a most intricate and tedious task, so happily is it, for the present purpose, an unnecessary one. The only natural relations to which it will be necessary to pay any particular attention, are those which, when sanctioned by law, give birth to the conditions of husband and wife, the two relations comprised under the head of parentality, and the corresponding relations comprised under the head of filiality or filiation.

  What then are the relations of a legal kind which can be superinduced upon the above-mentioned natural relations? They must be such as it is the nature of law to give birth to and establish. But the relations which subsist purely by institution exhaust, as we shall see, the whole stock of relationships which it is in the nature of the law to give birth to and establish. The relations then which can be superinduced upon those which are purely natural, cannot be in themselves any other than what are of the number of those which subsist purely by institution: so that all the difference there can be between a legal relation of the one sort, and a legal relation of the other sort, is, that in the former case the circumstance which gave birth to the natural relation serves as a mark to indicate where the legal relation is to fix: in the latter case, the place where the legal relation is to attach is determined not by that circumstance but by some other. From these considerations it will appear manifestly enough, that for treating of the several sorts of conditions, as well natural as purely conventional, in the most commodious order, it will be necessary to give the precedence to the latter. Proceeding throughout upon the same principle, we shall all along give the priority, not to those which are first by nature, but to those which are most simple in point of description. There is no other way of avoiding perpetual anticipations and repetitions.

  XL. We come now to consider the domestic or family relations, which are purely of legal institution. It is to these in effect, that both kinds of domestic conditions, considered as the work of law, are indebted for their origin. When the law, no matter for what purpose, takes upon itself to operate, in a matter in which it has not operated before, it can only be by imposing obligation.73 Now when a legal obligation is imposed on any man, there are but two ways in which it can in the first instance be enforced. The one is by giving the power of enforcing it to the party in whose favour it is imposed: the other is by reserving that power to certain third persons, who, in virtue of their possessing it, are styled ministers of justice. In the first case, the party favoured is said to possess not only a right as against the party obliged, but also a power over him: in the second case, a right only, uncorroborated by power. In the first case, the party favoured may be styled a superior, and as they are both members of the same family, a domestic superior, with reference to the party obliged: who, in the same case, may be styled a domestic inferior, with reference to the party favoured. Now in point of possibility. it is evident, that domestic conditions, or a kind of fictitious possession analogous to domestic conditions, might have been looked upon as constituted, as well by rights alone, without powers on either side, as by powers. But in point of utility74 it does not seem expedient: and in point of fact, probably owing to the invariable perception which men must have had of the inexpediency, no such conditions seem ever to have been constituted by such feeble bands. Of the legal relationships then, which are capable of being made to subsist within the circle of a family, there remain those only in which the obligation is enforced by power. Now then, wherever any such power is conferred, the end or purpose for which it was conferred (unless the legislator can be supposed to act without a motive) must have been the producing of a benefit to somebody: in other words, it must have been conferred for the sake of somebody. The person then, for whose sake it is conferred, must either be one of the two parties just mentioned, or a third party: if one of these two, it must be either the superior or the inferior. If the superior, such superior is commonly called a master; and the inferior is termed his servant: and the power may be termed a beneficial one. If it be for the sake of the inferior that the power is established, the superior is termed a guardian; and the inferior his ward: and the power, being thereby coupled with a trust, may be termed a fiduciary one. If for the sake of a third party, the superior may be termed a superintendent; and the inferior his subordinate. This third party will either be an assignable individual or set of individuals, or a set of unassignable individuals. In this latter case the trust is either a public or a semi-public one: and the condition which it constitutes is not of the domestic, but of the civil kind. In the former case, this third party or principal, as he may be termed, either has a beneficial power over the superintendent, or he has not: if he has, the superintendent is his servant, and consequently so also is the subordinate: if not, the superintendent is the master of the subordinate; and all the advantage which the principal has over his superintendent, it that of possessing a set of rights, uncorroborated by power; and therefore, as we have seen,75 not fit to constitute a condition of the domestic kind. But be the condition what it may which is constituted by these rights, of what nature can the obligations be, to which the superintendent is capable of being subjected by means of them? They are neither more nor less than those which a man is capable of being subjected to by powers. It follows, therefore, that the functions of a principal and his superintendent coincide with those of a master and his servant; and consequently that the offences relative to the two former conditions will coincide with the offences relative to the two latter.

  XLI. Offences to which the condition of a master, like any other kind of condition, is exposed, may, as hath been already intimated76 be distinguished into such as concern the existence of the condition itself, and such as concern the performance of the functions of it, while subsisting. First then, with regard to such as affect its existence. It is obvious enough that the services of one man may be a benefit to another: the condition of a master may therefore be a beneficial one. It stands exposed, therefore, to the offences of wrongful non-investment, wrongful interception, usurpation, wrongful investment, and wrongful divestment. But how should it stand exposed to the offences of wrongful abdication, wrongful detrectation, and wrongful imposition? Certainly it cannot of itself; for services, when a man has the power of exacting them or not, as he thinks fit, can never be a burthen. But if to the powers, by which the condition of a master is constituted, the law thinks fit to annex any obligation on the part of the master; for instance, that of affording maintenance, or giving wages, to the servant, or paying money to anybody else; it is evident that in virtue of such obligation the condition may become a burthen. In this case, however, the condition possessed by the master will not properly speaking, be the pure and simple condition of a master: it will be a kind of complex object, resolvable into the beneficial condition of a master, and the burthensome obligation which is annexed to it. Still however, if the nature of the obligation lies within a narrow compass, and does not, in the manner of that which constitutes a trust, interfere with the exercise of those powers by which the condition of the superior is constituted, the latter, notwithstanding this foreign mixture, will still retain the name of mastership.77 In this case therefore, but not otherwise, the condition of a master may stand exposed to the offences of wrongful abdication,wrongful detrectation, and wrongful imposition. Next as to the behaviour of persons with reference to this condition, while considered as subsisting. In virtue of its being a benefit, it is exposed to disturbance. This disturbance will either be the offence of a stranger, or the offence of the servant himself. Where it is the offence of a stranger, and is committed by taking the person of the servant, in circumstances in which the taking of an object belonging to the class of things would be an act of theft, or (what is scarcely worth distinguishing from theft) an act of embezzlement: it may be termed servant-stealing. Where it is the offence of the servant himself, it is styled breach of duty. Now the most flagrant species of breach of duty, and that which includes indeed every other, is that which consists in the servant's withdrawing himself from the place in which the duty should be performed. This species of breach of duty is termed elopement. Again, in virtue of the power belonging to this condition, it is liable, on the part of the master to abuse. But this power is not coupled with a trust. The condition of a master is therefore not exposed to any offence which is analogous to breach of trust. Lastly, on account of its being exposed to abuse, it may be conceived to stand, in point of possibility, exposed to bribery. But considering how few, and how insignificant, the persons are who are liable to be subject to the power here in question, this is an offence which, on account of the want of temptation, there will seldom be any example of in practice. We may therefore reckon thirteen sorts of offences to which the condition of a master is exposed; viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of mastership. 2. Wrongful interception of mastership. 3. Wrongful divestment of mastership. 4. Usurpation of mastership. 5. Wrongful investment of mastership. 6. Wrongful abdication of mastership. 7. Wrongful detrectation of mastership. 8. Wrongful imposition of mastership. 9. Abuse of mastership. 10. Disturbance of mastership. 11. Breach of duty in servants. 12. Elopement of servants. 13. Servant-stealing.

  XLII. As to the power by which the condition of a master is constituted, this may be either limited or unlimited. When it is altogether unlimited, the condition of the servant is styled pure slavery. But as the rules of language are as far as can be conceived from being steady on this head, the term slavery is commonly made use of wherever the limitations prescribed to the power of the master are looked upon as inconsiderable. Whenever any such limitation is prescribed, a kind of fictitious entity is thereby created, and, in quality of an incorporeal object of possession, is bestowed upon the servant: this object is of the class of those which are called rights: and in the present case is termed, in a more particular manner, a liberty; and sometimes a privilege, an immunity, or an exemption. Now those limitations on the one hand, and these liberties on the other, may, it is evident, be as various as the acts (positive or negative) which the master may or may not have the power of obliging the servant to submit to or to perform. Correspondent then to the infinitude of these liberties, is the infinitude of the modifications which the condition of mastership (or, as it is more common to say in such a case, that of servitude) admits of. These modifications, it is evident, may, in different countries, be infinitely diversified. In different countries, therefore, the offences characterised by the above names will, if specifically considered, admit of very different descriptions. If there be a spot upon the earth so wretched as to exhibit the spectacle of pure and absolutely unlimited slavery, on that spot there will be no such thing as any abuse of mastership; which means neither more nor less than that no abuse of mastership will there be treated on the footing of an offence. As to the question, Whether any, and what, modes of servitude ought to be established or kept on foot? this is a question, the solution of which belongs to the civil branch of the art of legislation.

  XLIII. Next, with regard to the offences that may concern the condition of a servant. It might seem at first sight, that a condition of this kind could not have a spark of benefit belonging to it: that it could not be attended with any other consequences than such as rendered it a mere burthen. But a burthen itself may be a benefit, in comparison of a greater burthen. Conceive a man's situation then to be such, that he must, at any rate, be in a state of pure slavery. Still may it be material to him, and highly material, who the person is whom he has for his master. A state of slavery then, under one master, may be a beneficial state to him, in comparison with a state of slavery under another master. The condition of a servant then is exposed to the several offences to which a condition, in virtue of its being a beneficial one, is exposed.78 More than this, where the power of the master is limited, and the limitations annexed to it, and thence the liberties of the servant, are considerable, the servitude may even be positively eligible. For amongst those limitations may be such as are sufficient to enable the servant to possess property of his own: being capable then of possessing property of his own, he may be capable of receiving it from his master: in short, he may receive wages, or other emoluments, from his master; and the benefit resulting from these wages may be so considerable as to outweigh the burthen of the servitude, and, by that means, render that condition more beneficial upon the whole, and more eligible, than that of one who is not in any respect under the control of any such person as a master. Accordingly, by these means the condition of the servant may be so eligible, that his entrance into it, and his continuance in it, may have been altogether the result of his own choice. That the nature of the two conditions may be the more clearly understood, it may be of use to show the sort of correspondency there is between the offences which affect the existence of the one, and those which affect the existence of the other. That this correspondency cannot but be very intimate is obvious at first sight. It is not, however, that a given offence in the former catalogue coincides with an offence of the same name in the latter catalogue: usurpation of servantship with usurpation of mastership, for example. But the case is, that an offence of one denomination in the one catalogue coincides with an offence of a different denomination in the other catalogue. Nor is the coincidence constant and certain: but liable to contingencies, as we shall see. First, then, wrongful non-investment of the condition of a servant, if it be the offence of one who should have been the master, coincides with wrongful detrectation of mastership: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it non-investment of mastership, which, provided the mastership be in the eyes of him who should have been master a beneficial thing, but not otherwise, is wrongful. 2. Wrongful interception of the condition of a servant, if it be the offence of him who should have been master, coincides with wrongful detrectation of mastership: if it be the offence of a third person, and the mastership be a beneficial thing, it involves in it wrongful interception of mastership. 3. Wrongful divestment of servantship, if it be the offence of the master, but not otherwise, coincides with wrongful abdication of mastership: if it be the offence of a stranger, it involves in it divestment of mastership, which, in as far as the mastership is a beneficial thing, is wrongful. 4. Usurpation of servantship coincides necessarily with wrongful imposition of mastership: it will be apt to involve in it wrongful divestment of mastership: but this only in the case where the usurper, previously to the usurpation, was in a state of servitude under some other master. 5. Wrongful investment of servantship (the servantship being considered as a beneficial thing) coincides with imposition of mastership; which, if in the eyes of the pretended master the mastership should chance to be a burthen, will be wrongful. 6. Wrongful abdication of servantship coincides with wrongful divestment of mastership. 7. Wrongful detrectation of servantship, with wrongful non-investment of mastership. 8. Wrongful imposition of servantship, if it be the offence of the pretended master, coincides with usurpation of mastership: if it be the offence of a stranger, it involves in it imposition of mastership, which, if in the eyes of the pretended master the mastership should be a burthen, will be wrongful. As to abuse of mastership, disturbance of mastership, breach of duty in servants, elopement of servants, and servant-stealing, these are offences which, without any change of denomination, bear equal relation to both conditions. And thus we may reckon thirteen sorts of offences to which the condition of a servant stands exposed: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of servantship. 2. Wrongful interception of servantship. 3. Wrongful divestment of servantship. 4. Usurpation of servantship. 5. Wrongful investment of servantship. 6. Wrongful abdication of servantship. 7. Wrongful detrectation of servantship. 8. Wrongful imposition of servantship. 9. Abuse of mastership. 10. Disturbance of mastership. 11. Breach of duty in servants. 12. Elopement of servants. 13. Servant-stealing.

  XLIV. We now come to the offences to which the condition of a guardian is exposed. A guardian is one who is invested with power over another, living within the compass of the same family, and called a ward; the power being to be exercised for the benefit of the ward. Now then, what are the cases in which it can be for the benefit of one man, that another, living within the compass of the same family, should exercise power over him? Consider either of the parties by himself, and suppose him, in point of understanding, to be on a level with the other, it seems evident enough that no such cases can ever exist.79 To the production of happiness on the part of any given person (in like manner as to the production of any other effect which is the result of human agency) three things it is necessary should concur: knowledge, inclination, and physical power. Now as there is no man who is so sure of being inclined, on all occasions, to promote your happiness as you yourself are, so neither is there any man who upon the whole can have had so good opportunities as you must have had of knowing what is most conducive to that purpose. For who should know so well as you do what it is that gives you pain or pleasure?80 Moreover, as to power, it is manifest that no superiority in this respect, on the part of a stranger, could, for a constancy, make up for so great a deficiency as he must lie under in respect of two such material points as knowledge and inclination. If then there be a case where it can be for the advantage of one man to be under the power of another, it must be on account of some palpable and very considerable deficiency, on the part of the former, in point of intellects, or (which is the same thing in other words) in point of knowledge or understanding. Now there are two cases in which such palpable deficiency is known to take place. These are, 1. Where a man's intellect is not yet arrived at that state in which it is capable of directing his own inclination in the pursuit of happiness: this is the case of infancy.81 2. Where by some particular known or unknown circumstance his intellect has either never arrived at that state, or having arrived at it has fallen from it: which is the case of insanity.

  By what means then is it to be ascertained whether a man's intellect is in that state or no? For exhibiting the quantity of sensible heat in a human body we have a very tolerable sort of instrument, the thermometer; but for exhibiting the quantity of intelligence, we have no such instrument. It is evident, therefore, that the line which separates the quantity of intelligence which is sufficient for the purposes of self-government from that which is not sufficient, must be, in a great measure, arbitrary. Where the insufficiency is the result of want of age, the sufficient quantity of intelligence, be it what it may, does not accrue to all at the same period of their lives. It becomes therefore necessary for legislators to cut the gordian knot, and fix upon a particular period, at which and not before, truly or not, every person whatever shall be deemed, as far as depends upon age, to be in possession of this sufficient quantity.82 In this case then a line is drawn which may be the same for every man, and in the description of which, such as it is, whatever persons are concerned may be certain of agreeing: the circumstance of time affording a mark by which the line in question may be traced with the utmost degree of nicety. On the other hand, where the insufficiency is the result of insanity, there is not even this resource: so that here the legislator has no other expedient than to appoint some particular person or persons to give a particular determination of the question, in every instance in which it occurs, according to his or their particular and arbitrary discretion. Arbitrary enough it must be at any rate, since the only way in which it can be exercised is by considering whether the share of intelligence possessed by the individual in question does or does not come up to the loose and indeterminate idea which persons so appointed may chance to entertain with respect to the quantity which is deemed sufficient.

  XLV. The line then being drawn, or supposed to be so, it is expedient to a man who cannot, with safety to himself, be left in his own power, that he should be placed in the power of another. How long then should he remain so? Just so long as his inability is supposed to continue: that is, in the case of infancy, till he arrives at that period at which the law deems him to be of full age: in the case of insanity, till he be of sound mind and understanding. Now it is evident, that this period, in the case of infancy, may not arrive for a considerable time: and in the case of insanity, perhaps never. The duration of the power belonging to this trust must therefore, in the one case, be very considerable; in the other case, indefinite.

  XLVI. The next point to consider, is what may be the extent of it? for as to what ought to be, that is a matter to be settled, not in a general analytical sketch, but in a particular and circumstantial dissertation. By possibility, then, this power may possess any extent that can be imagined: it may extend to any acts which, physically speaking, it may be in the power of the ward to perform himself, or be the object of if exercised by the guardian. Conceive the power, for a moment, to stand upon this footing: the condition of the ward stands now exactly upon a footing with pure slavery. Add the obligation by which the power is turned into a trust: the limits of the power are now very considerably narrowed. What then is the purport of this obligation? Of what nature is the course of conduct it prescribes? It is such a course of conduct as shall be best calculated for procuring to the ward the greatest quantity of happiness which his faculties, and the circumstances he is in, will admit of: saving always, in the first place, the regard which the guardian is permitted to show to his own happiness; and, in the second place, that which he is obliged, as well as permitted, to show to that of other men. This is, in fact, no other than that course of conduct which the ward, did he but know how, ought, in point of prudence, to maintain of himself: so that the business of the former is to govern the latter precisely in the manner in which this latter ought to govern himself. Now to instruct each individual in what manner to govern his own conduct in the details of life, is the particular business of private ethics: to instruct individuals in what manner to govern the conduct of those whose happiness, during nonage, is committed to their charge, is the business of the art of private education. The details, therefore, of the rules to be given for that purpose, any more than the acts which are capable of being committed in violation of those rules, belong not to the art of legislation: since, as will be seen more particularly hereafter,83 such details could not, with any chance of advantage, be provided for by the legislator. Some general outlines might indeed be drawn by his authority: and, in point of fact, some are in every civilized state. But such regulations, it is evident, must be liable to great variation: in the first place, according to the infinite diversity of civil conditions which a man may stand invested with in any given state: in the next place, according to the diversity of local circumstances that may influence the nature of the conditions which may chance to be established in different states. On this account, the offences which would be constituted by such regulations could not be comprised under any concise and settled denominations, capable of a permanent and extensive application. No place, therefore, can be allotted to them here.

  XLVII. By what has been said, we are the better prepared for taking an account of the offences to which the condition in question stands exposed. Guardianship being a private trust, is of course exposed to those offences, and no others, by which a private trust is liable to be affected. Some of them, however, on account of the special quality of the trust, will admit of some further particularity of description. In the first place, breach of this species of trust may be termed mismanagement of guardianship: in the second place, of whatever nature the duties are which are capable of being annexed to this condition, it must often happen, that in order to fulfil them, it is necessary the guardian should be at a certain particular place. Mismanagement of guardianship, when it consists in the not being, on the occasion in question, at the place in question, may be termed desertion of guardianship. Thirdly, It is manifest enough, that the object which the guardian ought to propose to himself, in the exercise of the powers to which those duties are annexed, is to procure for the ward the greatest quantity of happiness which can be procured for him, consistently with the regard which is due to the other interests that have been mentioned: for this is the object which the ward would have proposed to himself, and might and ought to have been allowed to propose to himself, had he been capable of governing his own conduct. Now, in order to procure this happiness, it is necessary that he should possess a certain power over the objects on the use of which such happiness depends. These objects are either the person of the ward himself, or other objects that are extraneous to him. These other objects are either things or persons. As to things, then, objects of this class, insofar as a man's happiness depends upon the use of them, are styled his property. The case is the same with the services of any persons over whom he may happen to possess a beneficial power, or to whose services he may happen to possess a beneficial right. Now when property of any kind, which is in trust, suffers by the delinquency of him with whom it is in trust, such offence, of whatever nature it is in other respects, may be styled dissipation in breach of trust: and if it be attended with a profit to the trustee, it may be styled peculation.84 Fourthly, For one person to exercise a power of any kind over another, it is necessary that the latter should either perform certain acts, upon being commanded so to do by the former, or at least should suffer certain acts to be exercised upon himself. In this respect a ward must stand upon the footing of a servant: and the condition of a ward must, in this respect, stand exposed to the same offences to which that of a servant stands exposed: that is, on the part of a stranger, to disturbance, which, in particular circumstances, will amount to theft: on the part of the ward, to breach of duty: which, in particular circumstances, may be effected by elopement. Fifthly, There does not seem to be any offence concerning guardianship that corresponds to abuse of trust: I mean in the sense to which the last-mentioned denomination has been here confined.85 The reason is, that guardianship, being a trust of a private nature, does not, as such, confer upon the trustee any power, either over the persons or over the property of any party, other than the beneficiary himself. If by accident it confers on the trustee a power over any persons whose services constitute a part of the property of the beneficiary, the trustee becomes thereby, in certain respects, the master of such servants.86 Sixthly, Bribery also is a sort of offence to which, in this case, there is not commonly much temptation. It is an offence, however, which by possibility is capable of taking this direction: and must therefore be aggregated to the number of the offences to which the condition of a guardian stands exposed. And thus we have in all seventeen of these offences: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of guardianship. 2. Wrongful interception of guardianship. 3. Wrongful divestment of guardianship. 4. Usurpation of guardianship. 5. Wrongful investment of guardianship. 6. Wrongful abdication of guardianship. 7. Detrectation of guardianship. 8. Wrongful imposition of guardianship. 9. Mismanagement of guardianship. 10. Desertion of guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of wardship. 13. Disturbance of guardianship. 14. Breach of duty to guardians. 15. Elopement from guardians. 16. Ward-stealing. 17. Bribery in prejudice of wardship.

  XLVIII. Next, with regard to offences to which the condition of wardship is exposed. Those which first affect the existence of the condition itself are as follows: 1. Wrongful non-investment of the condition of a ward. This, if it be the offence of one who should have been guardian, coincides with wrongful detrectation of guardianship: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it non-investment of guardianship, which, provided the guardianship is, in the eyes of him who should have been guardian, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 2. Wrongful interception of wardship. This, if it be the offence of him who should have been guardian, coincides with wrongful detrectation of guardianship: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it interception of guardianship, which, provided the guardianship is, in the eyes of him who should have been guardian, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 3. Wrongful divestment of wardship. This, if it be the offence of the guardian, but not otherwise, coincides with wrongful abdication of guardianship: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it divestment of guardianship, which, if the guardianship is, in the eyes of the guardian, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 4. Usurpation of the condition of a ward: an offence not very likely to be committed. This coincides at any rate with wrongful imposition of guardianship; and if the usurper were already under the guardianship of another guardian, it will involve in it wrongful divestment of such guardianship.87 5. Wrongful investment of wardship (the wardship being considered as a beneficial thing): this coincides with imposition of guardianship, which, if in the eyes of the pretended guardian the guardianship should be a burthen, will be wrongful. 6. Wrongful abdication of wardship. This coincides with wrongful divestment of guardianship. 7. Wrongful detrectation of wardship. This coincides with wrongful interception of guardianship. 8. Wrongful imposition of wardship. This, if the offender be the pretended guardian, coincides with usurpation of guardianship: if a stranger, it involves in it wrongful imposition of guardianship. As to such of the offences relative to this condition, as concern the consequences of it while subsisting, they are of such a nature that, without any change of denomination, they belong equally to the condition of a guardian and that of a ward. We may therefore reckon seventeen sorts of offences relative to the condition of a ward: 1. Wrongful non-investment of wardship. 2. Wrongful interception of wardship. 3. Wrongful divestment of wardship. 4. Usurpation of wardship. 5. Wrongful investment of wardship. 6. Wrongful abdication of wardship. 7. Wrongful detrectation of wardship. 8. Wrongful imposition of wardship. 9. Mismanagement of guardianship. 10. Desertion of guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of wardship. 13. Disturbance of guardianship. 14. Breach of duty to guardians. 15. Elopement from guardians. 16. Ward-stealing. 17. Bribery in prejudice of wardship.

  XLIX. We come now to the offences to which the condition of a parent stands exposed: and first, with regard to those by which the very existence of the condition is affected. On this occasion, in order to see the more clearly into the subject, it will be necessary to distinguish between the natural relationship, and the legal relationship which is superinduced as it were upon the natural one. The natural one being constituted by a particular event, which, either on account of its being already past, or on some other account, is equally out of the power of the law neither is, nor can be made, the subject of an offence. Is a man your father? It is not any offence of mine that can make you not his son. Is he not your father? It is not any offence of mine that can render him so. But although he does in fact bear that relation to you, I, by an offence of mine, may perhaps so manage matters, that he shall not be thought to bear it: which, with respect to any legal advantages which either he or you could derive from such relationship, will be the same thing as if he did not. In the capacity of a witness, I may cause the judges to believe that he is not your father, and to decree accordingly: or, in the capacity of a judge, I may myself decree him not to be your father. Leaving then the purely natural relationship as an object equally out of the reach of justice and injustice, the legal condition, it is evident, will stand exposed to the same offences, neither more nor less, as every other condition, that is capable of being either beneficial or burthensome, stands exposed to. Next, with regard to the exercise of the functions belonging to this condition, considered as still subsisting. In parentality there must be two persons concerned, the father and the mother. The condition of a parent includes, therefore, two conditions; that of a father, and that of a mother, with respect to such or such a child. Now it is evident, that between these two parties, whatever beneficiary powers, and other rights, as also whatever obligations, are annexed to the condition of a parent, may be shared in any proportions that can be imagined. But if in these several objects of legal creation, each of these two parties have severally a share, and if the interests of all these parties are in any degree provided for, it is evident that each of the parents will stand, with relation to the child, in two several capacities: that of a master, and that of a guardian. The condition of a parent then, in as far as it is the work of law, may be considered as a complex condition, compounded of that of a guardian, and that of a master. To the parent then, in quality of guardian, results a set of duties, involving, as necessary to the discharge of them, certain powers: to the child, in the character of a ward, a set of rights corresponding to the parent's duties, and a set of duties corresponding to his powers. To the parent again, in quality of master, a set of beneficiary powers, without any other necessary limitation (so long as they last) than what is annexed to them by the duties incumbent on him in quality of a guardian: to the child, in the character of a servant, a set of duties corresponding to the parent's beneficiary powers, and without any other necessary limitation (so long as they last) than what is annexed to them by the rights which belong to the child in his capacity of ward. The condition of a parent will therefore be exposed to all the offences to which either that of a guardian or that of a master are exposed: and, as each of the parents will partake, more or less, of both those characters, the offences to which the two conditions are exposed may be nominally, as they will be substantially, the same. Taking them then all together, the offences to which the condition of a parent is exposed will stand as follows: 1. Wrongful non-investment of parentality.88 2. Wrongful interception of parentality. 3. Wrongful divestment of parentality. 4. Usurpation of parentality. 5. Wrongful investment of parentality. 6. Wrongful abdication of parentality. 7. Wrongful detrectation of parentality. 8. Wrongful imposition of parentality. 9. Mismanagement of parental guardianship. 10. Desertion of parental guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of filial wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of filial wardship. 13. Abuse of parental powers. 14. Disturbance of parental guardianship. 15. Breach of duty to parents. 16. Elopement from parents. 17. Child-stealing. 18. Bribery in prejudice of filial wardship.

  L. Next with regard to the offences to which the filial condition,89 the condition of a son or daughter, stands exposed. The principles to be pursued in the investigation of offences of this description have already been sufficiently developed. It will be sufficient, therefore, to enumerate them without further discussion. The only peculiarities by which offences relative to the condition in question stand distinguished from the offences relative to all the preceding conditions, depend upon this one circumstance; viz. that it is certain every one must have had a father and a mother: at the same time that it is not certain that every one must have had a master, a servant, a guardian, or a ward. It will be observed all along, that where a person, from whom, if alive, the benefit would be taken, or on whom the burthen would be imposed, be dead, so much of the mischief is extinct along with the object of the offence. There still, however, remains so much of the mischief as depends upon the advantage or disadvantage which might accrue to persons related, or supposed to be related, in the several remoter degrees, to him in question. The catalogue then of these offences stands as follows: 1. Wrongful non-investment of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should have been recognized as the parent, coincides with wrongful detrectation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it non-investment of parentality, which, provided the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should have been recognised as the parent, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 2. Wrongful interception of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should have been recognised as the parent, coincides with wrongful detrectation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it interception of parentality, which, provided the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should have been recognized as parent, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 3. Wrongful divestment of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should be recognized as parent, coincides with wrongful abdication of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it divestment of parentality; to wit, of paternity, or of maternity, or of both; which, if the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should be recognized as parent, a desirable thing, are respectively wrongful. 4. Usurpation of filiation. This coincides with wrongful imposition of parentality; to wit, either of paternity, or of maternity, or of both: and necessarily involves in it divestment of parentality, which, if the parentality thus divested were, in the eyes of him or her who are thus divested of it, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 5. Wrongful investment of filiation: (the filiation being considered as a beneficial thing.) This coincides with imposition of parentality, which, if in the eyes of the pretended father or mother the parentality should be an undesirable thing, will be wrongful. 6. Wrongful abdication of filiation. This necessarily coincides with wrongful divestment of parentality; it also is apt to involve in it wrongful imposition of parentality; though not necessarily either to the advantage or to the prejudice of any certain person. For if a man, supposed at first to be your son, appears afterwards not to be yours, it is certain indeed that he is the son of some other man, but it may not appear who that other man is. 7. Wrongful detrectation of filiation. This coincides with wrongful noninvestment or wrongful interception of parentality. 8. Wrongful imposition of filiation. This, if it be the offence of the pretended parent, coincides necessarily with usurpation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it necessarily involves imposition of parentality; as also divestment of parentality: either or both of which, according to the circumstance above mentioned, may or may not be wrongful. 9. Mismanagement of parental guardianship. 10. Desertion of parental guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of filial wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of filial wardship. 13. Abuse of parental power. 14. Disturbance of parental guardianship. 15. Breach of duty to parents. 16. Elopement from parents. 17. Child-stealing. 18. Bribery in prejudice of parental guardianship.

  LI. We shall now be able to apply ourselves with some advantage to the examination of the several offences to which the marital condition, or condition of a husband, stands exposed. A husband is a man, between whom and a certain woman, who in this case is called his wife, there subsists a legal obligation for the purpose of their living together, and in particular for the purpose of a sexual intercourse to be carried on between them. This obligation will naturally be considered in four points of view: 1. In respect of its commencement. 2. In respect of the placing of it. 3. In respect of the nature of it. 4. In respect of its duration. First then, it is evident, that in point of possibility, one method of commencement is as conceivable as another: the time of its commencement might have been marked by one sort of event (by one sort of signal, as it may here be called) as well as by another. But in practice the signal has usually been, as in point of utility it ought constantly to be, a contract entered into by the parties: that is, a set of signs, pitched upon by the law, as expressive of their mutual consent, to take upon them this condition. Secondly, and thirdly, with regard to the placing of the obligations which are the result of the contract, it is evident that they must rest either solely on one side, or mutually on both. On the first supposition, the condition is not to be distinguished from pure slavery. In this case, either the wife must be the slave of the husband, or the husband of the wife. The first of these suppositions has perhaps never been exemplified; the opposing influence of physical causes being too universal to have ever been surmounted: the latter seems to have been exemplified but too often; perhaps among the first Romans; at any rate, in many barbarous nations. Thirdly, with regard to the nature of the obligations. If they are not suffered to rest all on one side, certain rights are thereby given to the other. There must, therefore, be rights on both sides. Now, where there are mutual rights possessed by two persons, as against each other, either there are powers annexed to those rights, or not. But the persons in question are, by the supposition, to live together: in which case we have shown,90 that it is not only expedient, but in a manner necessary, that on one side there should be powers. Now it is only on one side that powers can be: for suppose them on both sides, and they destroy one another. The question is then, In which of the parties these powers shall be lodged? we have shown, that on the principle of utility they ought to be lodged in the husband. The powers then which subsist being lodged in the husband, the next question is, Shall the interest of one party only, or of both, be consulted in the exercise of them? it is evident, that on the principle of utility the interests of both ought alike to be consulted: since in two persons taken together, more happiness is producible than in one. This being the case, it is manifest, that the legal relation which the husband will bear to the wife will be a complex one: compounded of that of master and that of guardian.

  LII. The offences then to which the condition of a husband of will be exposed, will be the sum of those to which the two conditions of master and guardian are exposed. Thus far the condition of a husband, with respect to the general outlines of it, stands upon the same footing as that of a parent. But there are certain reciprocal services, which being the main subject of the matrimonial contract, constitute the essence of the two matrimonial relations, and which neither a master nor guardian, as such, nor a parent, at any rate, have usually been permitted to receive. These must of course have been distinguished from the indiscriminate train of services at large which the husband in his character of master is empowered to exact, and of those which in his character of guardian he is bound to render. Being thus distinguished, the offences relative to the two conditions have, in many instances, in as far as they have reference to these peculiar services, acquired particular denominations. In the first place, with regard to the contract, from the celebration of which the legal condition dates its existence. It is obvious that in point of possibility, this contract might, on the part of either sex, subsist with respect to several persons of the other sex at the same time: the husband might have any number of wives: the wife might have any number of husbands: the husband might enter into the contract with a number of wives at the same time: or, if with only one at a time, he might reserve to himself a right of engaging in a similar contract with any number, or with only such or such a number of other women afterwards, during the continuance of each former contract. This latter accordingly is the footing upon which, as is well known, marriage is and has been established in many extensive countries: particularly in all those which profess the Mahometan religion. In point of possibility, it is evident that the like liberty might be reserved on the part of the wife: though in point of practice no examples of such an arrangement seem ever to have occurred. Which of all these arrangements is in point of utility the most expedient, is a question which would require too much discussion to answer in the course of an analytical process like the present, and which belongs indeed to the civil branch of legislation, rather than to the penal.91 In Christian countries, the solemnization of any such contract is made to exclude the solemnization of any subsequent one during the continuance of a former: and the solemnization of any such subsequent contract is accordingly treated as an offence, under the name of Polygamy. Polygamy then is at any rate, on the part of the man, a particular modification of that offence which may be styled usurpation of the condition of a husband. As to its other effects, they will be different, according as it was the man only, or the woman only, or both, that were in a state of matrimony at the time of the commission of the offence. If the man only, then his offence involves in it pro tanto that of wrongful divestment of the condition of a wife, in prejudice of his prior wife.92 If the woman only, then it involves in it pro tanto that of wrongful divestment of the condition of a husband, in prejudice of her prior husband. If both were already married, it of course involves both the wrongful divestments which have just been mentioned. And on the other hand also, the converse of all this may be observed with regard to polygamy on the part of the woman. Secondly, As the engaging not to enter into any subsequent engagement of the like kind during the continuance of the first, is one of the conditions on which the law lends its sanction to the first; so another is, the inserting as one of the articles of this engagement an undertaking not to render to, or accept from, any other person the services which form the characteristic object of it: the rendering or acceptance of any such services is accordingly treated as an offence, under the name of adultery: under which name is also comprised the offence of the stranger, who, in the commission of the above offence, is the necessary accomplice. Thirdly, Disturbing either of the parties to this engagement, in the possession of these characteristic services, may, in like manner, be distinguished from the offence of disturbing them in the enjoyment of the miscellaneous advantages derivable from the same condition; and on whichever side the blame rests, whether that of the party, or that of a third person, may be termed wrongful withholding of connubial services. And thus we have one-and-twenty sorts of offences to which, as the law stands at present in Christian countries, the condition of a husband stands exposed: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of the condition of a husband. 2. Wrongful interception of the condition of a husband. 3. Wrongful divestment of the condition of a husband. 4. Usurpation of the condition of a husband. 5. Polygamy. 6. Wrongful investment of the condition of a husband. 7. Wrongful abdication of the condition of a husband. 8. Wrongful detrectation of the condition of a husband. 9. Wrongful imposition of the condition of a husband. 10. Mismanagement of marital guardianship. 11. Desertion of marital guardianship. 12. Dissipation in prejudice of matrimonial wardship. 13. Peculation in prejudice of matrimonial wardship. 14. Abuse of marital power. 15. Disturbance of marital guardianship. 16. Wrongful withholding of connubial services. 17. Adultery. 18. Breach of duty to husbands. 19. Elopement from husbands. 20. Wife-stealing. 21. Bribery in prejudice of marital guardianship.93

  LIII. Next with regard to the offences to which the condition of a wife stands exposed. From the patterns that have been exhibited already, the coincidences and associations that take place between the offences that concern the existence of this condition and those which concern the existence of the condition of a husband, may easily enough be apprehended without farther repetitions. The catalogue of those now under consideration will be precisely the same in every article as the catalogue last exhibited.

  LIV. Thus much for the several sorts of offences relative to the several sorts of domestic conditions: those which are constituted by such natural relations as are contiguous being included. There remain those which are uncontiguous: of which, after so much as has been said of the others, it will naturally be expected that some notice should be taken. These, however, do not afford any of that matter which is necessary to constitute a condition. In point of fact, no power seems ever to be annexed to any of them. A grandfather, perhaps, may be called by the law to take upon him the guardianship of his orphan grandson: but then the power he has belongs to him not as grandfather, but as guardian. In point of possibility, indeed, power might be annexed to these relations, just as it might to any other. But still no new sort of domestic condition would result from it: since it has been shown that there can be no others, that, being constituted by power, shall be distinct from those which have been already mentioned. Such as they are, however, they have this in common with the before-mentioned relations, that they are capable of importing either benefit or burthen: they therefore stand exposed to the several offences whereby those or any other relations are liable to be affected in point of existence. It might be expected, therefore, that in virtue of these offences, they should be added to the list of the relations which are liable to be objects of delinquency. But the fact is, that they already stand included in it: and although not expressly named, yet as effectually as if they were. On the one hand, it is only by affecting such or such a contiguous relation that any offence affecting uncontiguous relations can take place. On the other hand, neither can any offence affecting the existence of the contiguous relations be committed, without affecting the existence of an indefinite multitude of such as are uncontiguous. A false witness comes, and causes it to be believed that you are the son of a woman, who, in truth, is not your mother. What follows? An endless tribe of other false persuasions—that you are the grandson of the father and of the mother of this supposed mother: that you are the son of some husband of hers, or, at least, of some man with whom she has cohabited: the grandson of his father and his mother; and so on: the brother of their other children, if they have any: the brother-in-law of the husbands and wives of those children, if married: the uncle of the children of those children: and so on.—On the other hand, that you are not the son of your real mother, nor of your real father: that you are not the grandson of either of your real grandfathers or grandmothers; and so on without end: all which persuasions result from, and are included in, the one original false persuasion of your being the son of this your pretended mother.

  It should seem, therefore, at first sight, that none of the offences against these uncontiguous relations could ever come expressly into question: for by the same rule that one ought, so it might seem ought a thousand others: the offences against the uncontiguous being merged as it were in those which affect the contiguous relations. So far, however, is this from being the case, that in speaking of an offence of this stamp, it is not uncommon to hear a great deal said of this or that uncontiguous relationship which it affects, at the same time that no notice at all shall be taken of any of those which are contiguous. How happens this? Because, to the uncontiguous relation are annexed perhaps certain remarkable advantages or disadvantages, while to all the intermediate relations none shall be annexed which are in comparison worth noticing. Suppose Antony or Lepidus to have contested the relationship of Octavius (afterwards Augustus) to Caius Julius Cæsar. How could it have been done? It could only have been by contesting, either Octavius's being the son of Atia, or Atia's being the daughter of Julia, or Julia's being the daughter of Lucius Julius Cæsar, or Lucius Julius Cæsar's being the father of Caius. But to have been the son of Atia, or the grandson of Julia, or the great grandson of Lucius Julius Cæsar, was, in comparison, of small importance. Those intervening relationships were, comparatively speaking, of no other use to him than in virtue of their being so many necessary links in the genealogical chain which connected him with the sovereign of the empire.

  As to the advantages and disadvantages which may happen to be annexed to any of those uncontiguous relationships, we have seen already that no powers over the correlative person, nor any corresponding obligations, are of the number. Of what nature then can they be? They are, in truth, no other than what are the result either of local and accidental institutions, or of some spontaneous bias that has been taken by the moral sanction. It would, therefore, be to little purpose to attempt tracing them out a priori by any exhaustive process: all that can be done is, to pick up and lay together some of the principal articles in each catalogue by way of specimen. The advantages which a given relationship is apt to impart, seem to be referable chiefly to the following heads: 1. Chance of succession to the property, or a part of the property, of the correlative person. 2. Chance of pecuniary support, to be yielded by the correlative person, either by appointment of law, or by spontaneous donation. 3. Accession of legal rank; including any legal privileges which may happen to be annexed to it: such as capacity of holding such and such beneficial offices; exemption from such and such burthensome obligations; for instance, paying taxes, serving burthensome offices, &c. &c. 4. Accession of rank by courtesy; including the sort of reputation which is customarily and spontaneously annexed to distinguished birth and family alliance: whereon may depend the chance of advancement in the way of marriage, or in a thousand other ways less obvious. The disadvantages which a given relation is liable to impart, seem to be referable chiefly to the following heads: 1. Chance of being obliged, either by law, or by force of the moral sanction, to yield pecuniary support to the correlative party. 2. Loss of legal rank: including the legal disabilities, as well as the burthensome obligations, which the law is apt to annex, sometimes with injustice enough, to the lower stations. 3. Loss of rank by courtesy: including the loss of the advantages annexed by custom to such rank. 4. Incapacity of contracting matrimony with the correlative person, where the supposed consanguinity or affinity lies within the prohibited degrees.94

  LV. We come now to civil conditions: these, it may well be imagined, may be infinitely various: as various as the acts which a man may be either commanded or allowed, whether for his own benefit, or that of others, to abstain from or to perform. As many different denominations as there are of persons distinguished with a view to such commands and allowances (those denominations only excepted which relate to the conditions above spoken of under the name of domestic ones) so many civil conditions one might enumerate. Means however, more or less explicit, may be found out of circumscribing their infinitude.

  What the materials are, if so they may be called, of which conditions, or any other kind of legal possession, can be made up, we have already seen: beneficial powers, fiduciary powers, beneficial rights, fiduciary rights, relative duties, absolute duties. But as many conditions as import a power or right of the fiduciary kind, as possessed by the person whose condition is in question, belong to the head of trusts. The catalogue of the offences to which these conditions are exposed, coincides therefore exactly with the catalogue of offences against trust: under which head they have been considered in a general point of view under the head of offences against trust: and such of them as are of a domestic nature, in a more particular manner in the character of offences against the several domestic conditions. Conditions constituted by such duties of the relative kind, as have for their counterparts trusts constituted by fiduciary powers, as well as rights on the side of the correlative party, and those of a private nature, have also been already discussed under the appellation of domestic conditions. The same observation may be applied to the conditions constituted by such powers of the beneficial kind over persons as are of a private nature: as also to the subordinate correlative conditions constituted by the duties corresponding to those rights and powers. As to absolute duties, there is no instance of a condition thus created, of which the institution is upon the principle of utility to be justified; unless the several religious conditions of the monastic kind should be allowed of as examples. There remain, as the only materials out of which the conditions which yet remain to be considered can be composed, conditions constituted by beneficial powers over things; conditions constituted by beneficial rights to things (that is, rights to powers over things) or by rights to those rights, and so on; conditions constituted by rights to services; and conditions constituted by the duties corresponding to those respective rights. Out of these are to be taken those of which the materials are the ingredients of the several modifications of property, the several conditions of proprietorship. These are the conditions, if such for a moment they may be styled, which having but here and there any specific names, are not commonly considered on the footing of conditions: so that the acts which, if such conditions were recognised might be considered as offences against those conditions, are not wont to be considered in any other light than that of offences against property.

  Now the case is, as hath been already intimated,95 that of these civil conditions, those which are wont to be considered under that name, are not distinguished by any uniform and explicit line from those of which the materials are wont to be carried to the head of property: a set of rights shall, in one instance, be considered as constituting an article of property rather than a condition: while, in another instance, a set of rights of the same stamp is considered as constituting rather a condition than an article of property. This will probably be found to be the case in all languages: and the usage is different again in one language from what it is in another. From these causes it seems to be impracticable to subject the class of civil conditions to any exhaustive method: so that for making a complete collection of them there seems to be no other expedient than that of searching the language through for them, and taking them as they come. To exemplify this observation, it may be of use to lay open the structure as it were of two or three of the principal sorts or classes of conditions, comparing them with two or three articles of property which appear to be nearly of the same complexion: by this means the nature and generation, if one may so call it, of both these classes of ideal objects may be the more clearly understood.

  The several sorts of civil conditions that are not fiduciary may all, or at least the greater part of them, be comprehended under the head of rank, or that of profession; the latter word being taken in its most extensive sense, so as to include not only what are called the liberal professions, but those also which are exercised by the several sorts of traders, artists, manufacturers, and other persons of whatsoever station, who are in the way of making a profit by their labour. Among ranks then, as well as professions, let us, for the sake of perspicuity, take for examples such articles as stand the clearest from any mixture of either fiduciary or beneficial power. The rank of knighthood is constituted, how? by prohibiting all other persons from performing certain acts, the performance of which is the symbol of the order, at the same time that the knight in question, and his companions, are permitted: for instance, to wear a ribbon of a certain colour in a certain manner: to call himself by a certain title: to use an armorial seal with a certain mark on it. By laying all persons but the knight under this prohibition, the law subjects them to a set of duties: and since from the discharge of these duties a benefit results to the person in whose favour they are created, to wit, the benefit of enjoying such a share of extraordinary reputation and respect as men are wont to yield to a person thus distinguished, to discharge them is to render him a service: and the duty being a duty of the negative class, a duty consisting in the performance of certain acts of the negative kind,96 the service is what may be called a service of forbearance. It appears then, that to generate this condition there must be two sorts of services: that which is the immediate cause of it, a service of the negative kind, to be rendered by the community at large: that which is the cause again of this service, a service of the positive kind, to be rendered by the law.

  The condition of a professional man stands upon a narrower footing. To constitute this condition there needs nothing more than a permission given him on the part of the legislator to perform those acts, in the performance of which consists the exercise of his profession: to give or sell his advice or assistance in matters of law or physic: to give or sell his services as employed in the executing or overseeing of a manufacture or piece of work of such or such a kind: to sell a commodity of such or such a sort. Here then we see there is but one sort of service requisite; a service which may be merely of the negative kind, to be rendered by the law: the service of permitting him to exercise his profession: a service which, if there has been no prohibition laid on before, is rendered by simply forbearing to prohibit him.

  Now the ideal objects, which in the cases above specified are said to be conferred upon a man by the services that are respectively in question, are in both cases not articles of property but conditions. By such a behaviour on the part of the law, as shall be the reverse of that whereby they were respectively produced, a man may be made to forfeit them: and what he is then said to forfeit is in neither case his property; but in one case, his rank or dignity: in the other case, his trade or his profession: and in both cases, his condition.

  Other cases there are again in which the law, by a process of the same sort with that by which it constituted the former of the two above-mentioned conditions, confers on him an ideal object, which the laws of language have placed under the head of property. The law permits a man to sell books: that is, all sorts of books in general. Thus far all that it has done is to invest him with a condition: and this condition he would equally possess, although everybody else in the world were to sell books likewise. Let the law now take an active part in his favour, and prohibit all other persons from selling books of a certain description, he remaining at liberty to sell them as before. It therefore confers on him a sort of exclusive privilege or monopoly, which is called a copy-right. But by investing him with this right, it is not said to invest him with any new sort of condition: what it invests him with is spoken of as an article of property; to wit, of that sort of property which is termed incorporeal:97 and so on in the case of an engraving, a mechanical engine, a medicine; or, in short, of a saleable article of any other sort. Yet when it gave him an exclusive right of wearing a particular sort of ribbon, the object which it was then considered as conferring on him was not an article of property but a condition.

  By forbearing to subject you to certain disadvantages, to which it subjects an alien, the law confers on you the condition of a natural-born subject: by subjecting him to them, it imposes on him the condition of an alien: by conferring on you certain privileges or rights, which it denies to a roturier, the law confers on you the condition of a gentilhomme; by forbearing to confer on him those privileges, it imposes on him the condition of a roturier.98 The rights, out of which the two advantageous conditions here exemplified are both of them as it were composed, have for their counterpart a sort of services of forbearance, rendered, as we have seen, not by private individuals, but by the law itself. As to the duties which it creates in rendering you these services, they are to be considered as duties imposed by the legislator on the ministers of justice.

  It may be observed, with regard to the greater part of the conditions here comprised under the general appellation of civil, that the relations corresponding to those by which they are respectively constituted, are not provided with appellatives. The relation which has a name, is that which is borne by the party favoured to the party bound: that which is borne by the party bound to the party favoured has not any. This is a circumstance that may help to distinguish them from those conditions which we have termed domestic. In the domestic conditions, if on the one side the party to whom the power is given is called a master; on the other side, the party over whom that power is given, the party who is the object of that power, is termed a servant. In the civil conditions this is not the case. On the one side, a man, in virtue of certain services of forbearance, which the rest of the community are bound to render him, is denominated a knight of such or such an order: but on the other side, these services do not bestow any particular denomination on the persons from whom such services are due. Another man, in virtue of the legislator's rendering that sort of negative service which consists in the not prohibiting him from exercising a trade, invests him at his option with the condition of a trader: it accordingly denominates him a farmer, a baker, a weaver, and so on: but the ministers of the law do not, in virtue of their rendering the man this sort of negative service, acquire for themselves any particular name. Suppose even that the trade you have the right of exercising happens to be the object of a monopoly, and that the legislator, besides rendering you himself those services which you derive from the permission he bestows on you, obliges other persons to render you those farther services which you receive from their forbearing to follow the same trade; yet neither do they, in virtue of their being thus bound, acquire any particular name.

  After what has been said of the nature of the several sorts of civil conditions that have names, the offences to which they are exposed may, without much difficulty, be imagined. Taken by itself, every condition which is thus constituted by a permission granted to the possessor, is of course of a beneficial nature: it is, therefore, exposed to all those offences to which the possession of a benefit is exposed. But either on account of a man's being obliged to persevere when once engaged in it, or on account of such other obligations as may stand annexed to the possession of it, or on account of the comparative degree of disrepute which may stand annexed to it by the moral sanction, it may by accident be a burthen: it is on this account liable to stand exposed to the offences to which, as hath been seen, every thing that partakes of the nature of a burthen stands exposed. As to any offences which may concern the exercise of the functions belonging to it, if it happens to have any duties annexed to it, such as those, for instance, which are constituted by regulations touching the exercise of a trade, it will stand exposed to so many breaches of duty; and lastly, whatsoever are the functions belonging to it, it will stand exposed at any rate to disturbance.

  In the forming however of the catalogue of these offences, exactness is of the less consequence, inasmuch as an act, if it should happen not to be comprised in this catalogue, and yet is in any respect of a pernicious nature, will be sure to be found in some other division of the system of offences: if a baker sells bad bread for the price of good, it is a kind of fraud upon the buyer; and perhaps an injury of the simple corporal kind done to the health of an individual, or a neighbourhood: if a clothier sells bad cloth for good at home, it is a fraud; if to foreigners abroad, it may, over and above the fraud put upon the foreign purchaser, have pernicious effects perhaps in the prosperity of the trade at home, and become thereby an offence against the national wealth. So again with regard to disturbance: if a man be disturbed in the exercise of his trade, the offence will probably be a wrongful interception of the profit he might be presumed to have been in a way to make by it: and were it even to appear in any case that a man exercised a trade, or what is less unlikely, a liberal profession, without having profit in his view, the offence will still be reducible to the head of simple injurious restrainment, or simple injurious compulsion.

  § 4. Advantages of the present method.

  LVI. A few words, for the purpose of giving a general view of the method of division here pursued, and of the advantages which it possesses, may have their use. The whole system of offences, we may observe, is branched out into five classes. In the three first, the subordinate divisions are taken from the same source; viz. from the consideration of the different points, in respect whereof the interest of an individual is exposed to suffer. By this uniformity, a considerable degree of light seems to be thrown upon the whole system; particularly upon the offences that come under the third class: objects which have never hitherto been brought into any sort of order. With regard to the fourth class, in settling the precedence between its several subordinate divisions, it seemed most natural and satisfactory to place those first, the connection whereof with the welfare of individuals seemed most obvious and immediate. The mischievous effects of those offences, which tend in an immediate way to deprive individuals of the protection provided for them against the attacks of one another, and of those which tend to bring down upon them the attacks of foreign assailants, seem alike obvious and palpable. The mischievous quality of such as tend to weaken the force that is provided to combat those attacks, but particularly the latter, though evident enough, is one link farther off in the chain of causes and effects. The ill effects of such offences as are of disservice only by diminishing the particular fund from whence that force is to be extracted, such effects, I say, though indisputable, are still more distant and out of sight. The same thing may be observed with regard to such as are mischievous only by affecting the universal fund. Offences against the sovereignty in general would not be mischievous, if offences of the several descriptions preceding were not mischievous. Nor in a temporal view are offences against religion mischievous, except in as far as, by removing, or weakening, or misapplying one of the three great incentives to virtue, and checks to vice, they tend to open the door to the several mischiefs, which it is the nature of all those other offences to produce. As to the fifth class, this, as hath already been observed, exhibits, at first view, an irregularity, which however seems to be unavoidable. But this irregularity is presently corrected, when the analysis returns back, as it does after a step or two, into the path from which the tyranny of language had forced it a while to deviate.

  It was necessary that it should have two purposes in view: the one, to exhibit, upon a scale more or less minute, a systematical enumeration of the several possible modifications of delinquency, denominated or undenominated; the other, to find places in the list for such names of offences as were in current use: for the first purpose, nature was to set the law; for the other, custom. Had the nature of the things themselves been the only guide, every such difference in the manner of perpetration, and such only, should have served as a ground for a different denomination, as was attended with a difference in point of effect. This however of itself would never have been sufficient; for as on one hand the new language, which it would have been necessary to invent, would have been uncouth, and in a manner unintelligible: so on the other hand the names, which were before in current use, and which, in spite of all systems, good or bad, must have remained in current use, would have continued unexplained. To have adhered exclusively to the current language, would have been as bad on the other side; for in that case the catalogue of offences, when compared to that of the mischiefs that are capable of being produced, would have been altogether broken and uncomplete.

  To reconcile these two objects, in as far as they seemed to be reconcilable, the following course has therefore been pursued. The logical whole, constituted by the sum total of possible offences, has been bisected in as many different directions as were necessary, and the process in each direction carried down to that stage at which the particular ideas thus divided found names in current use in readiness to receive them. At that period I have stopped; leaving any minuter distinctions to be enumerated in the body of the work, as so many species of the genus characterised by such or such a name. If in the course of any such process I came to a mode of conduct which, though it required to be taken notice of, and perhaps had actually been taken notice of, under all laws, in the character of an offence, had hitherto been expressed under different laws, by different circumlocutions, without ever having received any name capable of occupying the place of a substantive in a sentence, I have frequently ventured so far as to fabricate a new name for it, such an one as the idiom of the language, and the acquaintance I happened to have with it, would admit of. These names consisting in most instances, and that unavoidably, of two or three words brought together, in a language too which admits not, like the German and the Greek, of their being melted into one, can never be upon a par, in point of commodiousness, with those univocal appellatives which make part of the established stock.

  In the choice of names in current use, care has been taken to avoid all such as have been grounded on local distinctions, ill founded perhaps in the nation in which they received their birth, and at any rate not applicable to the circumstances of other countries.

  The analysis, as far as it goes, is as applicable to the legal concerns of one country as of another: and where, if it had descended into further details, it would have ceased to be so, there I have taken care always to stop: and thence it is that it has come to be so much more particular in the class of offences against individuals, than in any of the other classes. One use then of this arrangement, if it should be found to have been properly conducted, will be its serving to point out in what it is that the legal interests of all countries agree, and in what it is that they are liable to differ: how far a rule that is proper for one, will serve, and how far it will not serve, for another. That the legal interests of different ages and countries have nothing in common, and that they have every thing, are suppositions equally distant from the truth.99

  LVII. A natural method, such as it hath been here attempted to exhibit, seems to possess four capital advantages; not to mention others of inferior note. In the first place, it affords such assistance to the apprehension and to the memory, as those faculties would in vain look for in any technical arrangement.100 That arrangement of the objects of any science may, it should seem, be termed a natural one, which takes such properties to characterise them by, as men in general are, by the common constitution of man's nature, independently of any accidental impressions they may have received from the influence of any local or other particular causes, accustomed to attend to: such, in a word, as naturally, that is readily and at first sight, engage, and firmly fix, the attention of any one to whom they have once been pointed out. Now by what other means should an object engage or fix a man's attention, unless by interesting him? and what circumstance belonging to any action can be more interesting, or rather what other circumstance belonging to it can be at all interesting to him, than that of the influence it promises to have on his own happiness, and the happiness of those who are about him? By what other mark then should he more easily find the place which any offence occupies in the system, or by what other clue should he more readily recall it?

  LVIII. In the next place, it not only gives at first glance a general intimation of the nature of each division of offences, in as far as that nature is determined by some one characteristic property, but it gives room for a number of general propositions to be formed concerning the particular offences that come under that division, in such manner as to exhibit a variety of other properties that may belong to them in common. It gives room therefore, for the framing of a number of propositions concerning them, which, though very general, because predicated of a great number of articles, shall be as generally true.101

  LIX. In the third place, it is so contrived, that the very place which any offence is made to occupy, suggests the reason of its being put there. It serves to indicate not only that such and such acts are made offences, but why they ought to be. By this means, while it addresses itself to the understanding, it recommends itself in some measure to the affections. By the intimation it gives of the nature and tendency of each obnoxious act, it accounts for, and in some measure vindicates, the treatment which it may be thought proper to bestow upon that act in the way of punishment. To the subject then it is a kind of perpetual apology: showing the necessity of every defalcation, which, for the security and prosperity of each individual, it is requisite to make from the liberty of every other. To the legislator it is a kind of perpetual lesson: serving at once as a corrective to his prejudices, and as a check upon his passions. Is there a mischief which has escaped him? in a natural arrangement, if at the same time an exhaustive one, he cannot fail to find it. Is he tempted ever to force innocence within the pale of guilt? the difficulty of finding a place for it advertises him of his error. Such are the uses of a map of universal delinquency, laid down upon the principle of utility: such the advantages, which the legislator as well as the subject may derive from it. Abide by it, and every thing that is arbitrary in legislation vanishes. An evil-intentioned or prejudiced legislator durst not look it in the face. He would proscribe it, and with reason: it would be a satire on his laws.

  LX. In the fourth place, a natural arrangement, governed as it is by a principle which is recognised by all men, will serve alike for the jurisprudence of all nations. In a system of proposed law, framed in pursuance of such a method, the language will serve as a glossary by which all systems of positive law might be explained, while the matter serves as a standard by which they might be tried. Thus illustrated, the practice of every nation might be a lesson to every other: and mankind might carry on a mutual interchange of experiences and improvements as easily in this as in every other walk of science. If any one of these objects should in any degree be attained, the labour of this analysis, severe as it has been, will not have been thrown away.

  § 5. Characters of the five classes

  LXI. It has been mentioned102 as an advantage possessed by this method, and not possessed by any other, that the objects comprised under it are cast into groups, to which a variety of propositions may be applied in common. A collection of these propositions, as applied to the several classes, may be considered as exhibiting the distinctive characters of each class. So many of these propositions as can be applied to the offences belonging to any given class, so many properties are they found to have in common: so many of these common properties as may respectively be attributed to them, so many properties may be set down to serve as characters of the class. A collection of these characters it may here be proper to exhibit. The more of them we can bring together, the more clearly and fully will the nature of the several classes, and of the offences they are composed of, be understood.

  LXII. Characters of Class 1; composed of PRIVATE offences, or offences against assignable individuals.

  • 1. When arrived at their last stage (the stage of consummation103 ) they produce, all of them, a primary mischief as well as a secondary.104
  • 2. The individuals whom they affect in the first instance105 are constantly assignable. This extends to all; to attempts and preparations, as well as to such as have arrived at the stage of consummation.106
  • 3. Consequently they admit of compensation:107 in which they differ from the offences of all the other classes, as such.
  • 4. They admit108 also of retaliation;109 in which also they differ from the offences of all the other classes.
  • 5. There is always some person who has a natural and peculiar interest to prosecute them. In this they differ from self-regarding offences: also from semi-public and public ones; except in as far as the two latter may chance to involve a private mischief.
  • 6. The mischief they produce is obvious: more so than that of semi-public offences: and still more so than that of self-regarding ones, or even public.
  • 7. They are every where, and must ever be, obnoxious to the censure of the world: more so than semi-public offences as such; and still more so than public ones.
  • 8. They are more constantly obnoxious to the censure of the world than self-regarding offences: and would be so universally, were it not for the influence of the two false principles; the principle of asceticism, and the principle of antipathy.110
  • 9. They are less apt than semi-public and public offences to require different descriptions111 in different states and countries: in which respect they are much upon a par with self-regarding ones.
  • 10. By certain circumstances of aggravation, they are liable to be transformed into semi-public offences; and by certain others, into public.
  • 11. There can be no ground for punishing them, until they can be proved to have occasioned, or to be about to occasion some particular mischief to some particular individual. In this they differ from semi-public offences, and from public.
  • 12. In slight cases, compensation given to the individual affected by them may be a sufficient ground for remitting punishment: for if the primary mischief has not been sufficient to produce any alarm, the whole of the mischief may be cured by compensation. In this also they differ from semi-public offences, and from public ones.

  LXIII. Characters of Class 2; composed of SEMI-PUBLIC offences, or offences affecting a whole subordinate class of persons.

  • 1. As such, they produce no primary mischief. The mischief they produce consists of one or other or both branches of the secondary mischief produced by offences against individuals, without the primary.
  • 2. In as far as they are to be considered as belonging to this class, the persons whom they affect in the first instance are not individually assignable.
  • 3. They are apt, however, to involve or terminate in some primary mischief of the first order; which when they do, they advance into the first class, and become private offences.
  • 4. They admit not, as such, of compensation.
  • 5. Nor of retaliation.
  • 6. As such, there is never any one particular individual whose exclusive interest it is to prosecute them: a circle of persons may, however, always be marked out, within which may be found some who have a greater interest to prosecute than any who are out of that circle have.
  • 7. The mischief they produce is in general pretty obvious: not so much so indeed as that of private offences, but more so upon the whole than that of self-regarding and public ones.
  • 8. They are rather less obnoxious to the censure of the world than private offences; but they are more so than public ones: they would also be more so than self-regarding ones, were it not for the influence of the two false principles, the principle of sympathy and antipathy, and that of asceticism.
  • 9. They are more apt than private and self-regarding offences to require different descriptions in different countries: but less so than public ones.
  • 10. There may be ground for punishing them before they have been proved to have occasioned, or to be about to occasion, mischief to any particular individual; which is not the case with private offences.
  • 11. In no cases can satisfaction given to any particular individual affected by them be a sufficient ground for remitting punishment: for by such satisfaction it is but a part of the mischief of them that is cured. In this they differ from private offences; but agree with public.

  LXIV. Characters of Class 3; consisting of SELF-REGARDING offences: offences against one's self.

  • 1. In individual instances it will often be questionable, whether they are productive of any primary112 mischief at all: secondary, they produce none.
  • 2. They affect not any other individuals, assignable or not assignable, except in as far as they affect the offender himself; unless by possibility in particular cases; and in a very slight and distant manner the whole state.
  • 3. They admit not, therefore, of compensation.
  • 4. Nor of retaliation.
  • 5. No person has naturally any peculiar interest to prosecute them: except in as far as in virtue of some connection he may have with the offender, either in point of sympathy or of interest,113 a mischief of the derivative kind114 may happen to devolve upon him.115
  • 6. The mischief they produce is apt to be unobvious and in general more questionable than that of any of the other classes.116
  • 7. They are however apt, many of them, to be more obnoxious to the censure of the world than public offences; owing to the influence of the two false principles; the principle of asceticism, and the principle of antipathy. Some of them more even than semi-public, or even than private offence.
  • 8. They are less apt than offences of any other class to require different descriptions in different states and countries.117
  • 9. Among the inducements118 to punish them, antipathy against the offender is apt to have a greater share than sympathy for the public.
  • 10. The best plea for punishing them is founded on a faint probability there may be of their being productive of a mischief, which, if real, will place them in the class of public ones: chiefly in those divisions of it which are composed of offences against population, and offences against the national wealth.

  LXV. Characters of Class 4; consisting of PUBLIC offences, or offences against the state in general.

  • 1. As such, they produce not any primary mischief; and the secondary mischief they produce, which consists frequently of danger without alarm, though great in value, is in specie very indeterminate.
  • 2. The individuals whom they affect, in the first instance, are constantly unassignable; except in as far as by accident they happen to involve or terminate in such or such offences against individuals.
  • 3. Consequently they admit not of compensation.
  • 4. Nor of retaliation.
  • 5. Nor is there any person who has naturally any particular interest to prosecute them; except in as far as they appear to affect the power, or in any other manner the private interest, of some person in authority.
  • 6. The mischief they produce, as such, is comparatively unobvious; much more so than that of private offences, and more so likewise, than that of semi-public ones.
  • 7. They are, as such, much less obnoxious to the censure of the world, than private offences; less even than semi-public, or even than self-regarding offences; unless in particular cases, through sympathy to certain persons in authority, whose private interests they may appear to affect.
  • 8. They are more apt than any of the other classes to admit of different descriptions, in different states and countries.
  • 9. They are constituted, in many cases, by some circumstances of aggravation superadded to a private offence: and therefore, in these cases, involve the mischief and exhibit the other characters belonging to both classes. They are however, even in such cases, properly enough ranked in the 4th class, inasmuch as the mischief they produce in virtue of the properties which aggregate them to that class, eclipses and swallows up that which they produce in virtue of those properties which aggregate them to the 1st.
  • 10. There may be sufficient ground for punishing them, without their being proved to have occasioned, or to be about to occasion, any particular mischief to any particular individual. In this they differ from private offences, but agree with semi-public ones. Here, as in semi-public offences, the extent of the mischief makes up for the uncertainty of it.
  • 11. In no case can satisfaction, given to any particular individual affected by them, be a sufficient ground for remitting punishment. In this they differ from private offences; but agree with semi-public.

  LXVI. Characters of Class 5, or appendix: composed of MULTIFORM or ANOMALOUS offences; and containing offences by FALSEHOOD, and offences concerning TRUST.

  • 1. Taken collectively, in the parcels marked out by their popular appellations, they are incapable of being aggregated to any systematical method of distribution, grounded upon the mischief of the offence.
  • 2. They may, however, be thrown into sub-divisions, which may be aggregated to such a method of distribution.
  • 3. These sub-divisions will naturally and readily rank under the divisions of the several preceding classes of this system.
  • 4. Each of the two great divisions of this class spreads itself in that manner over all the preceding classes.
  • 5. In some acts of this class, the distinguishing circumstance which constitutes the essential character of the offence, will in some instances enter necessarily, in the character of a criminative circumstance, into the constitution of the offence; insomuch that, without the intervention of this circumstance, no offence at all, of that denomination, can be committed.119 In other instances, the offence may subsist without it; and where it interferes, it comes in as an accidental independent circumstance, capable of constituting a ground of aggravation.120

  Chapter XVII

  OF THE LIMITS OF THE PENAL BRANCH OF JURISPRUDENCE

  § 1. Limits between Private Ethics and the Art of Legislation.

  I. So much for the division of offenses in general. Now an offense is an act prohibited, or (what comes to the same thing) an act of which the contrary is commanded, by the law: and what is it that the law can be employed in doing, besides prohibiting and commanding? It should seem then, according to this view of the matter, that were we to have settled what may be proper to be done with relation to offences, we should thereby have settled every thing that may be proper to be done in the way of law. Yet that branch which concerns the method of dealing with offences, and which is termed sometimes the criminal, sometimes the penal, branch, is universally understood to be but one out of two branches which compose the whole subject of the art of legislation; that which is termed the civil being the other.121 Between these two branches then, it is evident enough, there cannot but be a very intimate connection; so intimate is it indeed, that the limits between them are by no means easy to mark out. The case is the same in some degree between the whole business of legislation (civil and penal branches taken together) and that of private ethics. Of these several limits however it will be in a manner necessary to exhibit some idea: lest, on the one hand, we should seem to leave any part of the subject that does belong to as untouched, or, on the other hand, to deviate on any side into a track which does not belong to us.

  In the course of this enquiry, that part of it I mean which concerns the limits between the civil and the penal branch of law, it will be necessary to settle a number of points, of which the connection with the main question might not at first sight be suspected. To ascertain what sort of a thing a law is; what the parts are that are to be found in it; what it must contain in order to be complete; what the connection is between that part of a body of laws which belongs to the subject of procedure and the rest of the law at large:—all these, it will be seen, are so many problems, which must be solved before any satisfactory answer can be given to the main question above mentioned.

  Nor is this their only use: for it is evident enough, that the notion of a complete law must first be fixed, before the legislator can in any case know what it is he has to do, or when his work is done.

  II. Ethics at large may be defined, the art of directing men's actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness, on the part of those whose interest is in view.

  III. What then are the actions which it can be in a man's power to direct? They must be either his own actions, or those of other agents. Ethics, in as far as it is the art of directing a man's own actions, may be styled the art of self-government, or private ethics.

  IV. What other agents then are there, which, at the same time that they are under the influence of man's direction, are susceptible of happiness. They are of two sorts: 1. Other human beings who are styled persons. 2. Other animals, which, on account of their interests having been neglected by the insensibility of the ancient jurists, stand degraded into the class of things.122 As to other human beings, the art of directing their actions to the above end is what we mean, or at least the only thing which, upon the principle of utility, we ought to mean, by the art of government: which, in as far as the measures it displays itself in are of a permanent nature, is generally distinguished by the name of legislation: as it is by that of administration, when they are of a temporary nature, determined by the occurrences of the day.

  V. Now human creatures, considered with respect to the maturity of their faculties, are either in an adult, or in a non-adult state. The art of government, in as far as it concerns the direction of the actions of persons in a non-adult state, may be termed the art of education. In as far as this business is entrusted with those who, in virtue of some private relationship, are in the main the best disposed to take upon them, and the best able to discharge, this office, it may be termed the art of private education: in as far as it is exercised by those whose province it is to superintend the conduct of the whole community, it may be termed the art of public education.

  VI. As to ethics in general, a man's happiness will depend, in the first place, upon such parts of his behaviour as none but himself are interested in; in the next place, upon such parts of it as may affect the happiness of those about him. In as far as his happiness depends upon the first-mentioned part of his behaviour, it is said to depend upon his duty to himself. Ethics then, in as far as it is the art of directing a man's actions in this respect, may be termed the art of discharging one's duty to one's self: and the quality which a man manifests by the discharge of this branch of duty (if duty it is to be called) is that of prudence. In as far as his happiness, and that of any other person or persons whose interests are considered, depends upon such parts of his behaviour as may affect the interests of those about him, it may be said to depend upon his duty to others; or, to use a phrase now somewhat antiquated, his duty to his neighbour. Ethics then, in as far as it is the art of directing a man's actions in this respect, may be termed the art of discharging one's duty to one's neighbour. Now the happiness of one's neighbour may be consulted in two ways: 1. In a negative way, by forbearing to diminish it. 2. In a positive way, by studying to increase it. A man's duty to his neighbour is accordingly partly negative and partly positive: to discharge the negative branch of it, is probity: to discharge the positive branch, beneficence.

  VII. It may here be asked, How it is that upon the principle of private ethics, legislation and religion out of the question, a man's happiness depends upon such parts of his conduct as affect, immediately at least, the happiness of no one but himself: this is as much as to ask, What motives (independent of such as legislation and religion may chance to furnish) can one man have to consult the happiness of another by what motives, or, which comes to the same thing, by what obligations, can he be bound to obey the dictates of probity and beneficence? In answer to this, it cannot but be admitted, that the only interests which a man at all times and upon all occasions is sure to find adequate motives for consulting, are his own. Notwithstanding this, there are no occasions in which a man has not some motives for consulting the happiness of other men. In the first place, he has, on all occasions, the purely social motive of sympathy or benevolence: in the next place, he has, on most occasions, the semi-social motives of love of amity and love of reputation. The motive of sympathy will act upon him with more or less effect, according to the bias of his sensibility:123 the two other motives, according to a variety of circumstances, principally according to the strength of his intellectual powers, the firmness and steadiness of his mind, the quantum of his moral sensibility, and the characters of the people he has to deal with.

  VIII. Now private ethics has happiness for its end: and legislation can have no other. Private ethics concerns every member, that is, the happiness and the actions of every member, of any community that can be proposed; and legislation can concern no more. Thus far, then, private ethics and the art of legislation go hand in hand. The end they have, or ought to have, in view, is of the same nature. The persons whose happiness they ought to have in view, as also the persons whose conduct they ought to be occupied in directing, are precisely the same. The very acts they ought to be conversant about, are even in a great measure the same. Where then lies the difference? In that the acts which they ought to be conversant about, though in a great measure, are not perfectly and throughout the same. There is no case in which a private man ought not to direct his own conduct to the production of his own happiness, and of that of his fellow-creatures: but there are cases in which the legislator ought not (in a direct way at least, and by means of punishment applied immediately to particular individual acts) to attempt to direct the conduct of the several other members of the community. Every act which promises to be beneficial upon the whole to the community (himself included) each individual ought to perform of himself: but it is not every such act that the legislator ought to compel him to perform. Every act which promises to be pernicious upon the whole to the community (himself included) each individual ought to abstain from of him: but it is not every such act that the legislator ought to compel him to abstain from.

  IX. Where then is the line to be drawn?—We shall not have far to seek for it. The business is to give an idea of the cases in which ethics ought, and in which legislation ought not (in a direct manner at least) to interfere. If legislation interferes in a direct manner, it must be by punishment.124 Now the cases in which punishment, meaning the punishment of the political sanction, ought not to be inflicted, have been already stated.125 If then there be any of these cases in which, although legislation ought not, private ethics does or ought to interfere, these cases will serve to point out the limits between the two arts or branches of science. These cases, it may be remembered, are of four sorts: 1. Where punishment would be groundless. 2. Where it would be inefficacious. 3. Where it would be unprofitable. 4. Where it would be needless. Let us look over all these cases, and see whether in any of them there is room for the interference of private ethics, at the same time that there is none for the direct interference of legislation.

  X. 1. First then, as to the cases where punishment would be groundless. In these cases it is evident, that the restrictive interference of ethics would be groundless too. It is because, upon the whole, there is no evil in the act, that legislation ought not to endeavour to prevent it. No more, for the same reason, ought private ethics.

  XI. 2. As to the cases in which punishment would be inefficacious. These, we may observe, may be divided into two sets or classes. The first do not depend at all upon the nature of the act: they turn only upon a defect in the timing of the punishment. The punishment in question is no more than what, for any thing that appears, ought to have been applied to the act in question. It ought, however, to have been applied at a different time; viz. not till after it had been properly denounced. These are the cases of an ex-post-facto law; of a judicial sentence beyond the law; and of a law not sufficiently promulgated. The acts here in question then might, for anything that appears, come properly under the department even of coercive legislation: of course do they under that of private ethics. As to the other set of cases, in which punishment would be inefficacious; neither do these depend upon the nature of the act, that is, of the sort of act: they turn only upon some extraneous circumstances, with which an act of any sort may chance to be accompanied. These, however, are of such a nature as not only to exclude the application of legal punishment, but in general to leave little room for the influence of private ethics. These are the cases where the will could not be deterred from any act, even by the extraordinary force of artificial punishment: as in the cases of extreme infancy, insanity, and perfect intoxication: of course, therefore, it could not by such slender and precarious force as could be applied by private ethics. The case is in this respect the same, under the circumstances of unintentionality with respect to the event of the action, unconsciousness with regard to the circumstances, and mis-supposal with regard to the existence of circumstances which have not existed; as also where the force, even of extraordinary punishment, is rendered inoperative by the superior force of a physical danger or threatened mischief. It is evident, that in these cases, if the thunders of the law prove impotent, the whispers of simple morality can have but little influence.

  XII. 3. As to the cases where punishment would be unprofitable. These are the cases which constitute the great field for the exclusive interference of private ethics. When a punishment is unprofitable, or in other words too expensive, it is because the evil of the punishment exceeds that of the offence. Now the evil of the punishment, we may remember,126 is distinguishable into four branches: 1. The evil of coercion, including constraint or restraint, according as the act commanded is of the positive kind or the negative. 2. The evil of apprehension. 3. The evil of sufferance. 4. The derivative evils resulting to persons in connection with those by whom the three above-mentioned original evils are sustained. Now with respect to those original evils, the persons who lie exposed to them may be two very different sets of persons. In the first place, persons who may have actually committed, or been prompted to commit, the acts really meant to be prohibited. In the next place, persons who may have performed, or been prompted to perform, such other acts as they fear may be in danger of being involved in the punishment designed only for the former. But of these two sets of acts, it is the former only that are pernicious: it is, therefore, the former only that it can be the business of private ethics to endeavour to prevent. The latter being by the supposition not mischievous, to prevent them is what it can no more be the business of ethics to endeavour at, than of legislation. It remains to show how it may happen, that there should be acts really pernicious, which, although they may very properly come under the censure of private ethics, may yet be no fit objects for the legislator to control.

  XIII. Punishment then, as applied to delinquency, may be unprofitable in both or either of two ways: 1. By the expense it would amount to, even supposing the application of it to be confined altogether to delinquency: 2. By the danger there may be of its involving the innocent in the fate designed only for the guilty. First then, with regard to the cases in which the expense of the punishment, as applied to the guilty, would outweigh the profit to be made by it. These cases, it is evident, depend upon a certain proportion between the evil of the punishment and the evil of the offence. Now were the offence of such a nature, that a punishment which, in point of magnitude, should but just exceed the profit of it, would be sufficient to prevent it, it might be rather difficult perhaps to find an instance in which such punishment would clearly appear to be unprofitable. But the fact is, there are many cases in which a punishment, in order to have any chance of being efficacious, must, in point of magnitude, be raised a great deal above that level. Thus it is, wherever the danger of detection is, or, what comes to the same thing, is likely to appear to be, so small, as to make the punishment appear in a high degree uncertain. In this case it is necessary, as has been shown,127 if punishment be at all applied, to raise it in point of magnitude as much as it falls short in point of certainty. It is evident, however, that all this can be but guess-work: and that the effect of such a proportion will be rendered precarious, by a variety of circumstances: by the want of sufficient promulgation on the part of the law:128 by the particular circumstances of the temptation:129 and by the circumstances influencing the sensibility of the several individuals who are exposed to it.130 Let the seducing motives be strong, the offence then will at any rate be frequently committed. Now and then indeed, owing to a coincidence of circumstances more or less extraordinary, it will be detected, and by that means punished. But for the purpose of example, which is the principal one, an act of punishment, considered in itself, is of no use: what use it can be of, depends altogether upon the expectation it raises of similar punishment, in future cases of similar delinquency. But this future punishment, it is evident, must always depend upon detection. If then the want of detection is such as must in general (especially to eyes fascinated by the force of the seducing motives) appear too improbable to be reckoned upon, the punishment, though it should be inflicted, may come to be of no use. Here then will be two opposite evils running on at the same time, yet neither of them reducing the quantum of the other: the evil of the disease and the evil of the painful and inefficacious remedy. It seems to be partly owing to some such considerations, that fornication, for example, or the illicit commerce between the sexes, has commonly either gone altogether unpunished, or been punished in a degree inferior to that in which, on other accounts, legislators might have been disposed to punish it.

  XIV. Secondly, with regard to the cases in which political punishment, as applied to delinquency, may be unprofitable, in virtue of the danger there may be of its involving the innocent in the fate designed only for the guilty. Whence should this danger then arise? From the difficulty there may be of fixing the idea of the guilty action: that is, of subjecting it to such a definition as shall be clear and precise enough to guard effectively against misapplication. This difficulty may arise from either of two sources: the one permanent, to wit, the nature of the actions themselves: the other occasional, I mean the qualities of the men who may have to deal with those actions in the way of government. In as far as it arises from the latter of these sources, it may depend partly upon the use which the legislator may be able to make of language; partly upon the use which, according to the apprehension of the legislators the judge may be disposed to make of it. As far as legislation is concerned, it will depend upon the degree of perfection to which the arts of language may have been carried, in the first place, in the nation in general; in the next place, by the legislator in particular. It is to a sense of this difficulty, as it should seem, that we may attribute the caution with which most legislators have abstained from subjecting to censure, on the part of the law, such actions as come under the notion of rudeness, for example, or treachery, or ingratitude. The attempt to bring acts of so vague and questionable a nature under the control of law, will argue either a very immature age, in which the difficulties which give birth to that danger are not descried; or a very enlightened age, in which they are overcome.131

  XV. For the sake of obtaining the clearer idea of the limits between the art of legislation and private ethics, it may now be time to call to mind the distinctions above established with regard to ethics in general. The degree in which private ethics stands in need of the assistance of legislation is different in the three branches of duty above distinguished. Of the rules of moral duty, those which seem to stand least in need of the assistance of legislation are the rules of prudence. It can only be through some defect on the part of the understanding, if a man be ever deficient in point of duty to himself. If he does wrong, there is nothing else that it can be owing to but either some inadvertence or some mis-supposal132 with regard to the circumstances on which his happiness depends. It is a standing topic of complaint, that a man knows too little of himself. Be it so: but is it so certain that the legislator must know more?133 It is plain, that of individuals the legislator can know nothing: concerning those points of conduct which depend upon the particular circumstances of each individual, it is plain, therefore, that he can determine nothing to advantage. It is only with respect to those broad lines of conduct in which all persons, or very large and permanent descriptions of persons, may be in a way to engage, that he can have any pretense for interfering; and even here the propriety of his interference will, in most instances, lie very open to dispute. At any rate, he must never expect to produce a perfect compliance by the mere force of the sanction of which he is himself the author. All he can hope to do, is to increase the efficacy of private ethics, by giving strength and direction to the influence of the moral sanction. With what chance of success, for example, would a legislator go about to extirpate drunkenness and fornication by dint of legal punishment? Not all the tortures which ingenuity could invent would compass it: and, before he had made any progress worth regarding, such a mass of evil would be produced by the punishment, as would exceed, a thousand-fold, the utmost possible mischief of the offence. The great difficulty would be in the procuring evidence; an object which could not be attempted, with any probability of success, without spreading dismay through every family,134 tearing the bonds of sympathy asunder,135 and rooting out the influence of all the social motives. All that he can do then, against offences of this nature, with any prospect of advantage, in the way of direct legislation, is to subject them, in cases of notoriety, to a slight censure, so as thereby to cover them with a slight shade of artificial disrepute.

  XVI. It may be observed, that with regard to this branch of duty, legislators have, in general, been disposed to carry their interference full as far as is expedient. The great difficulty here is, to persuade them to confine themselves within bounds. A thousand little passions and prejudices have led them to narrow the liberty of the subject in this line, in cases in which the punishment is either attended with no profit at all, or with none that will make up for the expense.

  XVII. The mischief of this sort of interference is more particularly conspicuous in the article of religion. The reasoning, in this case, is of the following stamp. There are certain errors, in matters of belief, to which all mankind are prone: and for these errors in judgment, it is the determination of a Being of infinite benevolence, to punish them with an infinity of torments. But from these errors the legislator himself is necessarily free: for the men, who happen to be at hand for him to consult with, being men perfectly enlightened, unfettered, and unbiased, have such advantages over all the rest of the world, that when they sit down to enquire out the truth relative to points so plain and so familiar as those in question, they cannot fail to find it. This being the case, when the sovereign sees his people ready to plunge headlong into an abyss of fire, shall he not stretch out a hand to save them? Such, for example, seems to have been the train of reasoning, and such the motives, which led Lewis the XIVth into those coercive measures which he took for the conversion of heretics and the confirmation of true believers. The ground-work, pure sympathy and loving-kindness: the superstructure, all the miseries which the most determined malevolence could have devised.136 But of this more fully in another place.137

  XVIII. The rules of probity are those, which in point of expediency stand most in need of assistance on the part of the legislator, and in which, in point of fact, his interference has been most extensive. There are few cases in which it would be expedient to punish a man for hurting himself: but there are few cases, if any, in which it would not be expedient to punish a man for injuring his neighbour. With regard to that branch of probity which is opposed to offences against property, private ethics depends in a manner for its very existence upon legislation. Legislation must first determine what things are to be regarded as each man's property, before the general rules of ethics, on this head, can have any particular application. The case is the same with regard to offences against the state. Without legislation there would be no such thing as a state: no particular persons invested with powers to be exercised for the benefit of the rest. It is plain, therefore, that in this branch the interference of the legislator cannot any where be dispensed with. We must first know what are the dictates of legislation, before we can know what are the dictates of private ethics.138

  XIX. As to the rules of beneficence, these, as far as concerns matters of detail, must necessarily be abandoned in great measure to the jurisdiction of private ethics. In many cases the beneficial quality of the act depends essentially upon the disposition of the agent; that is, upon the motive by which he appears to have been prompted to perform it: upon their belonging to the head of sympathy, love of amity, or love of reputation; and not to any head of self-regarding motives, brought into play by the force of political constraint: in a word, upon their being such as denominate his conduct free and voluntary, according to one of the many senses given to those ambiguous expressions.139 The limits of the law on this head seem, however, to be capable of being extended a good deal farther than they seem ever to have been extended hitherto. In particular, in cases where the person is in danger, why should it not be made the duty of every man to save another from mischief, when it can be done without prejudicing himself, as well as to abstain from bringing it on him? This accordingly is the idea pursued in the body of the work.140

  XX. To conclude this section, let us recapitulate and bring to a point the difference between private ethics, considered as an art or science, on the one hand, and that branch of jurisprudence which contains the art or science of legislation, on the other. Private ethics teaches how each man may dispose himself to pursue the course most conducive to his own happiness, by means of such motives as offer of themselves: the art of legislation (which may be considered as one branch of the science of jurisprudence) teaches how a multitude of men, composing a community, may be disposed to pursue that course which upon the whole is the most conducive to the happiness of the whole community, by means of motives to be applied by the legislator.

  We come now to exhibit the limits between penal and civil jurisprudence. For this purpose it may be of use to give a distinct though summary view of the principal branches into which jurisprudence, considered in its utmost extent, is wont to be divided.

  § 2. Jurisprudence, its branches.

  XXI. Jurisprudence is a fictitious entity: nor can any meaning be found for the word, but by placing it in company with some word that shall be significative of a real entity. To know what is meant by jurisprudence, we must know, for example, what is meant by a book of jurisprudence. A book of jurisprudence can have but one or the other of two objects: 1. To ascertain what the law141 is: 2. to ascertain what it ought to be. In the former case it may be styled a book of expositoryjurisprudence; in the latter, a book of censorialjurisprudence: or, in other words, a book on the art of legislation.

  XXII. A book of expository jurisprudence, is either authoritative or unauthoritative. It is styled authoritative, when it is composed by him who, by representing the state of the law to be so and so, causeth it so to be; that is, of the legislator himself: unauthoritative, when it is the work of any other person at large.

  XXIII. Now law, or the law, taken indefinitely, is an abstract and collective term; which, when it means any thing, can mean neither more nor less than the sum total of a number of individual laws taken together.142 It follows, that of whatever other modifications the subject of a book of jurisprudence is susceptible, they must all of them be taken from some circumstance or other of which such individual laws, or the assemblages into which they may be sorted, are susceptible. The circumstances that have given rise to the principal branches of jurisprudence we are wont to hear of, seem to be as follows: 1. The extent of the laws in question in point of dominion. 2. The political quality of the persons whose conduct they undertake to regulate. 3. The time of their being in force. 4. The manner in which they are expressed. 5. The concern which they have with the article of punishment.

  XXIV. In the first place, in point of extent, what is delivered concerning the laws in question, may have reference either to the laws of such or such a nation or nations in particular, or to the laws of all nations whatsoever: in the first case, the book may be said to relate to local, in the other, to universal jurisprudence.

  Now of the infinite variety of nations there are upon the earth, there are no two which agree exactly in their laws: certainly not in the whole: perhaps not even in any single article: and let them agree today, they would disagree to-morrow. This is evident enough with regard to the substance of the laws: and it would be still more extraordinary if they agreed in point of form; that is, if they were conceived in precisely the same strings of words. What is more, as the languages of nations are commonly different, as well as their laws, it is seldom that, strictly speaking, they have so much as a single word in common. However, among the words that are appropriated to the subject of law, there are some that in all languages are pretty exactly correspondent to one another: which comes to the same thing nearly as if they were the same. Of this stamp, for example, are those which correspond to the words power,right,obligation,liberty, and many others.

  It follows, that if there are any books which can, properly speaking, be styled books of universal jurisprudence, they must be looked for within very narrow limits. Among such as are expository, there can be none that are authoritative: nor even, as far as the substance of the laws is concerned, any that are unauthoritative. To be susceptible of an universal application, all that a book of the expository kind can have to treat of, is the import of words: to be, strictly speaking, universal, it must confine itself to terminology. Accordingly the definitions which there has been occasion here and there to intersperse in the course of the present work, and particularly the definition hereafter given of the word law, may be considered as matter belonging to the head of universal jurisprudence. Thus far in strictness of speech: though in point of usage, where a man, in laying down what he apprehends to be the law, extends his views to a few of the nations with which his own is most connected, it is common enough to consider what he writes as relating to universal jurisprudence.

  It is in the censorial line that there is the greatest room for disquisitions that apply to the circumstances of all nations alike: and in this line what regards the substance of the laws in question is as susceptible of an universal application, as what regards the words. That the laws of all nations, or even of any two nations, should coincide in all points, would be as ineligible as it is impossible: some leading points, however, there seem to be, in respect of which the laws of all civilized nations might, without inconvenience, be the same. To mark out some of these points will, as far as it goes, be the business of the body of this work.

  XXV. In the second place, with regard to the political quality of the persons whose conduct is the object of the law. These may, on any given occasion, be considered either as members of the same state, or as members of different states: in the first ease, the law may be referred to the head of internal, in the second case, to that of international143 jurisprudence.

  Now as to any transactions which may take place between individuals who are subjects of different states, these are regulated by the internal laws, and decided upon by the internal tribunals, of the one or the other of those states: the case is the same where the sovereign of the one has any immediate transactions with a private member of the other: the sovereign reducing himself, pro re natâ, to the condition of a private person, as often as he submits his cause to either tribunal; whether by claiming a benefit, or defending himself against a burthen. There remain then the mutual transactions between sovereigns, as such, for the subject of that branch of jurisprudence which may be properly and exclusively termed international.144

  With what degree of propriety rules for the conduct of persons of this description can come under the appellation of laws, is a question that must rest till the nature of the thing called a law shall have been more particularly unfolded.

  It is evident enough, that international jurisprudence may, as well as internal, be censorial as well as expository, unauthoritative as well as authoritative.

  XXVI. Internal jurisprudence, again, may either concern all the members of a state indiscriminately, or such of them only as are connected in the way of residence, or otherwise, with a particular district. Jurisprudence is accordingly sometimes distinguished into national and provincial. But as the epithet provincial is hardly applicable to districts so small as many of those which have laws of their own are wont to be, such as towns, parishes, and manors; the term local (where universal jurisprudence is plainly out of the question) or the term particular, though this latter is not very characteristic, might either of them be more commodious.145

  XXVII. Thirdly, with respect to time. In a work of the expository kind, the laws that are in question may either be such as are still in force at the time when the book is writing, or such as have ceased to be in force. In the latter case the subject of it might be termed ancient; in the former, present or living jurisprudence: that is, if the substantive jurisprudence, and no other, must at any rate be employed, and that with an epithet in both cases. But the truth is, that a book of the former kind is rather a book of history than a book of jurisprudence; and, if the word jurisprudence be expressive of the subject, it is only with some such words as history or antiquities prefixed. And as the laws which are any where in question are supposed, if nothing appears to the contrary, to be those which are in force, no such epithet as that of present or living commonly appears.

  Where a book is so circumstanced, that the laws which form the subject of it, though in force at the time of its being written, are in force no longer, that book is neither a book of living jurisprudence, nor a book on the history of jurisprudence: it is no longer the former, and it never was the latter. It is evident that, owing to the changes which from time to time must take place, in a greater or less degree, in every body of laws, every book of jurisprudence, which is of an expository nature, must in the course of a few years, come to partake more or less of this condition.

  The most common and most useful object of a history of jurisprudence, is to exhibit the circumstances that have attended the establishment of laws actually in force. But the exposition of the dead laws which have been superseded, is inseparably interwoven with that of the living ones which have superseded them. The great use of both these branches of science, is to furnish examples for the art of legislation.146

  XXVIII. Fourthly, in point of expression, the laws in question may subsist either in the form of statute or in that of customary law.

  As to the difference between these two branches (which respects only the article of form or expression) it cannot properly be made appear till some progress has been made in the definition of a law.

  XXIX. Lastly, The most intricate distinction of all, and that which comes most frequently on the carpet, is that which is made between the civil branch of jurisprudence and the penal, which latter is wont, in certain circumstances, to receive the name of criminal.

  What is a penal code of laws? What a civil code? Of what nature are their contents? Is it that there are two sorts of laws, the one penal the other civil, so that the laws in a penal code are all penal laws, while the laws in a civil code are all civil laws? Or is it, that in every law there is some matter which is of a penal nature, and which therefore belongs to the penal code; and at the same time other matter which is of a civil nature, and which therefore belongs to the civil code? Or is it, that some laws belong to one code or the other exclusively, while others are divided between the two? To answer these questions in any manner that shall be tolerably satisfactory, it will be necessary to ascertain what a law is; meaning one entire but single law: and what are the parts into which a law, as such, is capable of being distinguished: or, in other words, to ascertain what the properties are that are to be found in every object which can with propriety receive the appellation of a law. This then will be the business of the third and fourth sections: what concerns the import of the word criminal, as applied to law, will be discussed separately in the fifth.

  Here ends the original work, in the state into which it was brought in 5 November, 1780. What follows is now added in January, 1789.

  The third, fourth, and fifth sections intended, as expressed in the text, to have been added to this chapter, will not here, nor now be given; because to give them in a manner tolerably complete and satisfactory, might require a considerable volume. This volume will form a work of itself, closing the series of works mentioned in the preface.

  What follows here may serve to give a slight intimation of the nature of the task, which such a work will have to achieve: it will at the same time furnish, not any thing like a satisfactory answer to the questions mentioned in the text, but a slight and general indication of the course to be taken for giving them such an answer.

  What is a law? What the parts of a law? The subject of these questions it is to be observed, is the logical, the ideal, the intellectual whole not the physical one: the law, and not the statute. An enquiry, directed to the latter sort of object, could neither admit of difficulty nor afford instruction. In this sense whatever is given for law by the person or persons recognized as possessing the power of making laws, is law. The Metamorphoses of Ovid, if thus given, would be law. So much as was embraced by one and the same act of authentication, so much as received the touch of the sceptre at one stroke, is one law: a whole law, and nothing more. A statute of George II. made to substitute an or instead of an and in a former statute is a complete law; a statute containing an entire body of laws, perfect in all its parts, would not be more so. By the word law then, as often as it occurs in the succeeding pages is meant that ideal object, of which the part, the whole, or the multiple, or an assemblage of parts, wholes, and multiples mixed together, is exhibited by a statute; not the statute which exhibits them.

  Every law, when complete, is either of a coercive or an uncoercive nature.

  A coercive law is a command.

  An uncoercive, or rather a discoercive, law is the revocation, in whole or in part, of a coercive law.

  What has been termed a declaratory law, sofar as it stands distinguished from either a coercive or a discoercive law, is not properly speaking a law. It is not the expression of an act of the will exercised at the time: it is a mere notification of the existence of a law, either of the coercive or the discoercive kind, as already subsisting: of the existence of some document expressive of some act of the will, exercised, not at the time, but at some former period. If it does any thing more than give information of this fact, viz. of the prior existence of a law of either the coercive or the discoercive kind, it ceases pro tanto to be what is meant by a declaratory law, and assuming either the coercive or the discoercive quality.

  Every coercive law creates an offence, that is, converts an act of some sort, or other into an offence. It is only by so doing that it can impose obligation, that it can produce coercion.

  A law confining itself to the creation of an offence, and a law commanding a punishment to be administered in case of the commission of such an offence, are two distinct laws, not parts (as they seem to have been generally accounted hitherto) of one and the same law. The acts they command are altogether different; the persons they are addressed to are altogether different. Instance, Let no man steal; and, Let the judge cause whoever is convicted of stealing to be hanged.

  They might be styled, the former, a simply imperative law; the other a punitory: but the punitory, if it commands the punishment to be inflicted, and does not merely permit it, is as truly imperative as the other: only it is punitory besides, which the other is not.

  A law of the discoercive kind, considered in itself, can have no punitory law belonging to it: to receive the assistance and support of a punitory in law, it must flrst receive that of a simply imperative or coercive law, and it is to this latter that the punitory law will attach itself, and not to the discoercive one. Example, discoercive law. The sheriff has power to hang all such as the judge, proceeding in due course of law, shall order him to hang. Example of a coercive law, made in support of the above discoereive one. Let no man hinder the sheriff from hanging such as the judge, proceeding in due course of law, shall order him to hang. Example of a punitory law, made in support of the above coercive one. Let the judge cause to be imprisoned whosoever attempts to hinder the sheriff from hanging one, whom the judge, proceeding in due course of law, has ordered him to hang.

  But though a simply imperative law, and the punitory law attached to it, are so far distinct laws, that the former contains nothing of the latter, and the latter, in its direct tenor, contains nothing of the former; yet by implication, and that a necessary one, the punitory does involve and include the import of the simply imperative law to which it is appended. To say to the judge Cause to be hanged whoever in due form of law is convicted of stealing, is, though not a direct, yet as intelligible a way of intimating to men in general that they must not steal, as to say to them directly, Do not steal: and one sees, how much more likely to be efficacious.

  It should seem then, that, wherever a simply imperative law is to have a punitory one appended to it, the former might be spared altogether: in, which case, saving the exception (which naturally should seem not likely to be a frequent one) of a law capable of answering its purpose without such an appendage, there should be no occasion in the whole body of the law for any other than punitory, or in other words than penal, laws. And this, perhaps, would be the case, were it not for the necessity of a large quantity of matter of the expository kind, of which we come now to speak.

  It will happen in the instance of many, probably of most, possibly of all commands endued with the force of a public law, that, in the expression given to such a command it shall be necessary to have recourse to terms too complex in their signification to exhibit the requisite ideas, without the assistance of a greater or less quantity of matter of an expository nature. Such terms, like the symbols used in algebraical notation, are rather substitutes and indexes to the terms capable of themselves of exhibiting the ideas in question, than the real and immediate representatives of those ideas.

  Take for instance the law, Thou shalt not steal. Such a command, were it to rest there, could never sufficiently answer the purpose of a law. A word of so vague and unexplicit a meaning cannot otherwise perform this office, than by giving a general intimation of a variety of propositions, each requiring, to convey it to the apprehension, a more particular and ample assemblage of terms. Stealing, for example (according to a definition not accurate enough for use, but sufficiently so for the present purpose), is the taking of a thing which is another's, by one who has no TITLE so to do, and is conscious of his having none. Even after this exposition, supposing it a correct one, can the law be regarded as completely expressed? Certainly not. For what is meant by a man's having a TITLE to take a thing? To be complete, the law must have exhibited, amongst a multitude of other things, two catalogues: the one of events to which it has given the quality of conferring title in such a case; the other of the events to which it has given the quality of taking it away. What follows? That for a man to have stolen, for a man to have had no title to what he took, either no one of the articles contained in the first of those lists must have happened in his favour, or if there has, some one of the number of those contained in the second must have happened to his prejudice.

  Such then is the nature of a general law, that while the imperative part of it, the punctum saliens as it may be termed, of this artificial body, shall not take up above two or three words, its expository appendage, without which that imperative part could not rightly perform its office, may occupy a considerable volume.

  But this may equally be the case with a private order given in a family. Take for instance one from a bookseller to his foreman. Remove, from this shop to my new one, my whole stock, according to this printed catalogue.—Remove, from this shop to my new one, my whole stock, is the imperative matter of this order; the catalogue referred to contains the expository appendage.

  The same mass of expository matter may serve in common for, may appertain in common to, many commands, many masses of imperative matter. Thus, amongst other things, the catalogue of collative and ablative events, with respect to titles above spoken of (see No. IX. of this note), will belong in common to all or most of the laws constitutive of the various offences against property. Thus, in mathematical diagrams, one and the same base shall serve for a whole cluster of triangles.

  Such expository matter, being of a complexion so different from the imperative it would be no wonder if the connection of the former with the latter should escape the observation: which, indeed, is perhaps pretty generally the case. And so long as any mass of legislative matter presents itself, which is not itself imperative or the contrary, or of which the connection with matter of one of those two descriptions is not apprehended, so long and so far the truth of the proposition, That every law is a command or its opposite, may remain unsuspected, or appear questionable; so long also may the incompleteness of the greater part of those masses of legislative matter, which wear the complexion of complete laws upon the face of them, also the method to be taken for rendering them really complete, remain undiscovered.

  A circumstance, that will naturally contribute to increase the difficulty of the discovery, is the great variety of ways in which the operation of a law may be conveyed—the great variety of forms which the imperative part of a law may indiscriminately assume: some more directly, some less directly expressive of the imperative quality. Thou shalt not steal. Let no man steal. Whoso stealeth shall be punished so and so. If any man steal, he shall be punished so and so. Stealing is where a man does so and so; the punishment for stealing is so and so. To judges so and so named, and so and so constituted, belong the cognizance of such and such offences; viz. stealing—and so on. These are but part of a multitude of forms of words, in any of which the command by which stealing is prohibited might equally be couched: and it is manifest to what a degree, in some of them, the imperative quality is clouded and concealed from ordinary apprehension.

  After this explanation, a general proposition or two, that may be laid down, may help to afford some little insight into the structure and contents of a complete body of laws.—So many different sorts of offences created, so many different laws of the coercive kind: so many exceptions taken out of the descriptions of those offences, so many laws of the discoercive kind.

  To class offences, as hath been attempted to be done in the preceding chapter, is therefore to class laws: to exhibit a complete catalogue of all the offences created by law, including the whole mass of expository matter necessary for fixing and exhibiting the import of the terms contained in the several laws, by which those offences are respectively created, would be to exhibit a complete collection of the laws in force: in a word a complete body of law; a pannomion, if so it might be termed.

  From the obscurity in which the limits of a law, and the distinction betwixt a law of the civil or simply imperative kind and a punitory law, are naturally involved, results the obscurity of the limits betwixt a civil and a penal code, betwixt a civil branch of the law and the penal.

  The question, What parts of the total mass of legislative matter belong to the civil branch, and what to the penal? supposes that divers political states, or at least that some one such state, are to be found, having as well a civil code as a penal code, each of them complete in its kind, and marked out by certain limits. But no one such state has ever yet existed.

  To put a question to which a true answer can be given, we must substitute to the foregoing question some such a one as that which follows:

  Suppose two masses of legislative matter to be drawn up at this time of day, the one under the name of a civil code, the other of a penal code, each meant to be complete in its kind—in what general way, is it natural to suppose, that the different sorts of matter, as above distinguished, would be distributed between them?

  To this question the following answer seems likely to come as near as any other to the truth.

  The civil code would not consist of a collection of civil laws, each complete in itself, as well as clear of all penal ones:

  Neither would the penal code (since we have seen that it could not) consist of a collection of punitive laws, each not only complete in itself, but clear of all civil ones. But

  The civil code would consist chiefly of mere masses of expository matter. The imperative matter, to which those masses of expository matter respectively appertained, would be found—not in that same code—not in the civil code—nor in a pure state, free from all admixture of punitory laws; but in the penal code—in a state of combination—involved, in manner as above explained, in so many correspondent punitory laws.

  The penal code then would consist principally of punitive laws, involving the imperative matter of the whole number of civil laws: along with which would probably also be found various masses of expository matter, appertaining not to the civil, but to the punitory laws. The body of penal law enacted by the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa, agrees pretty well with this account.

  The mass of legislative matter published in French as well as German, under the auspices of Frederic II. of Prussia, by the name of Code Frederic, but never established with force of law,147 appears, for example, to be almost wholly composed of masses of expository matter, the relation of which to any imperative matter appears to have been but very imperfectly apprehended.

  In that enormous mass of confusion and inconsistency, the ancient Roman, or, as it is termed by way of eminence, the civil law, the imperative matter, and even all traces of the imperative character, seem at last to have been smothered in the expository. Esto had been the language of primæval simplicity: esto had been the language of the twelve tables. By the time of Justinian (so thick was the darkness raised by clouds of commentators) the penal law had been crammed into an odd corner of the civil—the whole catalogue of offences, and even of crimes, lay buried under a heap of obligations—will was hid in opinion—and the original esto had transformed itself into videtur, in the mouths even of the most despotic sovereigns.

  Among the barbarous nations that grew up out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, Law, emerging from under the mountain of expository rubbish, reassumed for a while the language of command: and then she had simplicity at least, if nothing else, to recommend her.

  Besides the civil and the penal, every complete body of law must contain a third branch, the constitutional.

  The constitutional branch is chiefly employed in conferring, on particular classes of persons, powers, to be exercised for the good of the whole society, or of considerable parts of it, and prescribing duties to the persons invested with those powers.

  The powers are principally constituted, in the first instance, by discoercive or permissive laws operating as exceptions to certain laws of the coercive or imperative kind. Instance: A tax-gatherer, as such, may, on such and such an occasion, take such and such things, without any other TITLE.

  The duties are created by imperative laws, addressed to the persons on whom the powers are conferred. Instance: On such and such an occasion, such and such a tax-gatherer shall take such and such things. Such and such a judge shall, in such and such a case, cause persons so and so offending to be hanged.

  The parts which perform the function of indicating who the individuals are, who, in every case, shall be considered as belonging to those classes, have neither a permissive complexion, nor an imperative.

  They are so many masses of expository matter, appertaining in common to all laws, into the texture of which, the names of those classes of persons have occasion to be inserted. Instance; imperative matter:—Let the judge cause whoever, in due course of law, is convicted of stealing, to be hanged. Nature of the expository matter:—Who is the person meant by the word judge? He who has been invested with that office in such a manner: and in respect of whom no event has happened, of the number of those, to which the effect is given, of reducing him to the condition of one divested of that office.

  Thus it is, that one and the same law, one and the same command, will have its matter divided, not only between two great codes, or main branches of the whole body of the laws, the civil and the penal; but amongst three such branches, the civil, the penal and the constitutional.

  In countries, where a great part of the law exists in no other shape, than that of which in England is called common law but might be more expressively termed judiciary, there must be a great multitude of laws, the import of which cannot be sufficiently made out for practice, without referring to this common law, for more or less of the expository matter belonging to them. Thus in England the exposition of the word title, that basis of the of whole fabric of the laws of property, is nowhere else to be found. And, as uncertainty is of the very essence of every particle of law so denominated (for the instant it is clothed in a certain authoritative form of words it changes its nature, and passes over to the other denomination) hence it is that a great part of the laws in being in such countries remain uncertain and incomplete. What are those countries? To this hour, every one on the surface of the globe.

  Had the science of architecture no fixed nomenclature belonging to it—were there no settled names for distinguishing the different sorts of buildings nor the different parts of the same building from each other—what would it be? It would be what the science of legislation, considered with respect to its form, remains at present.

  Were there no architects who could distinguish a dwelling-house from a barn, or a side-wall from a ceiling, what would architects be? They would be what all legislators are at present.

  From this very slight and imperfect sketch, may be collected not an answer to the questions in the text but an intimation, and that but an imperfect one, of the course to be taken for giving such an answer; and, at any rate, some idea of the difficulty, as well as of the necessity, of the task.

  If it were thought necessary to recur to experience for proofs of this difficulty, and this necessity, they need not be long wanting.

  Take, for instance, so many well-meant endeavours on the part of popular bodies, and so many well-meant recommendations in ingenious books, to restrain supreme representative assemblies from making laws in such and such cases, or to such and such an effect. Such laws, to answer the intended purpose, require a perfect mastery in the science of law considered in respect of its form—in the sort of anatomy spoken of in the preface to this work: but a perfect, or even a moderate insight into that science, would prevent their being couched in those loose and inadequate terms, in which they may be observed so frequently to be conceived; as a perfect acquaintance with the dictates of utility on that head would, in many, if not in most, of those instances, discounsel the attempt. Keep to the letter, and in attempting to prevent the making of bad laws, you will find them prohibiting the making of the most necessary laws, perhaps even of all laws: quit the letter, and they express no more than if each man were to say, Your laws shall become ipso facto void, as often as they contain any thing which is not to my mind.

  Of such unhappy attempts, examples may be met with in the legislation of many nations: but in none more frequently than in that newly-created nation, one of the most enlightened, if not the most enlightened, at this day on the globe.

  Take for instance the Declaration of Rights, enacted by the State of North Carolina, in convention, in or about the month of September, 1788, and said to be copied, with a small exception, from one in like manner enacted by the State of Virginia.148

  The following, to go no farther, is the first and fundamental article:

  'That there are certain natural rights, of which men, when they form a social compact, cannot deprive or divest their posterity, among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.'

  Not to dwell on the oversight of confining to posterity the benefit of the rights thus declared, what follows? That—as against those whom the protection, thus meant to be afforded, includes—every law, or other order, divesting a man of the enjoyment of life or liberty, is void.

  Therefore this is the case, amongst others, with every coercive law.

  Therefore, as against the persons thus protected, every order, for example, to pay money on the score of taxation, or of debt from individual to individual, or otherwise, is void: for the effect of it, if complied with, is to 'deprive and divest him,' pro tanto, of the enjoyment of liberty, viz. the liberty of paying or not paying as he thinks proper: not to mention the species opposed to imprisonment, in the event of such a mode of coercion's being resorted to: likewise of property, which is itself a 'means of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.'

  Therefore also, as against such persons, every order to attack an armed enemy, in time of war, is also void: for, the necessary effect of such an order is to 'deprive some of them of the enjoyment of life.'

  The above-mentioned consequences may suffice for examples, amongst an endless train of similar ones.149

  Leaning on his elbow, in an attitude of profound and solemn meditation, 'What a multitude of things there are' (exclaimed the dancing-master Marcel) 'in a minuet!'—May we now add?—and in a law.

  [1.]For example.—It is worse to lose than simply not to gain.—A loss falls the lighter by being divided.—The suffering of a person hurt in gratification of enmity, is greater than the gratification produced lay the same cause.—These, and a few others which he will have occasion to exhibit at the head of another publication, have the same claim to the appellation of axioms as those given by mathematicians under that name; since, referring to universal experience as their immediate basis, they are incapable of demonstration, and require only to be developed and illustrated in order to be recognized as incontestable.

  [2.]The first edition was published in 1789, in quarto.

  [3.]A Fragment on Government, &c., reprinted in 1822.

  [4.]Such as obligation, right power, possession, title, exemption, immunity, franchise, privilege, nullity, validity, and the like.

  [5.]To the aggregate of them a common denomination has since been allotted—the rationale.

  [6.]Note by the Author, July 1822.
  
  To this denomination has of late been added, or substituted, the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle: this for shortness, instead of saying at length that principle which states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question, as being the right and proper, and only right and proper and universally desirable, end of human action: of human action in every situation, and in particular in that of a functionary or set of functionaries exercising the powers of Government. The word utility does not so clearly point to the ideas of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicity do: nor does it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests affected; to the number, as being the circumstance, which contributes, in the largest proportion, to the formation of the standard here in question; the standard of right and wrong, by which alone the propriety of human conduct, in every situation, can with propriety be tried. This want of a sufficiently manifest connexion between the ideas of happiness and pleasure on the one hand, and the idea of utility on the other, I have every now and then found operating, and with but too much efficiency, as a bar to the acceptance, that might otherwise have been given, to this principle.

  [7.]The word principle is derived from the Latin principium: which seems to be compounded of the two words primus, first, or chief, and cipium a termination which seems to be derived from capio, to take, as in mancipium,municipium; to which are analogous, auceps,forceps, and others. It is a term of very vague and very extensive signification: it is applied to any thing which is conceived to serve as a foundation or beginning to any series of operations: in some cases, of physical operations; but of mental operations in the present case.
  
  The principle here in question may be taken for an act of the mind; a sentiment; a sentiment of approbation; a sentiment which, when applied to an action, approves of its utility, as that quality of it by which the measure of approbation or disapprobation bestowed upon it ought to be governed.

  [8.]Interest is one of those words, which not having any superior genus, cannot in the ordinary way be defined.

  [9.]'The principle of utility, (I have heard it said) is a dangerous principle: it is dangerous on certain occasions to consult it.' This is as much as to say, what? that it is not consonant to utility, to consult utility: in short, that it is not consulting it, to consult it.
  
  Addition by the Author, July 1822.
  
  Not long after the publication of the Fragment on Government, anno 1776, in which, in the character of all-comprehensive and all-commanding principle, the principle of utility was brought to view, one person by whom observation to the above effect was made was Alexander Wedderburn, at that time Attorney or Solicitor General, afterwards successively Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Chancellor of England, under the successive titles of Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn. It was made—not indeed in my hearing, but in the hearing of a person by whom it was almost immediately communicated to me. So far from being self-contradictory, it was a shrewd and perfectly true one. By that distinguished functionary, the state of the Government was thoroughly understood: by the obscure individual, at that time not so much as supposed to be so: his disquisitions had not been as yet applied, with any thing like a comprehensive view, to the field of Constitutional Law, nor therefore to those features of the English Government, by which the greatest happiness of the ruling one with or without that of a favoured few, are now so plainly seen to be the only ends to which the course of it has at any time been directed. The principle of utility was an appellative, at that time employed by me, as it had been by others, to designate that which, in a more perspicuous and instructive manner, may, as above, be designated by the name of the greatest happiness principle. 'This principle (said Wedderburn) is a dangerous one.' Saying so, he said that which, to a certain extent, is strictly true: a principle, which lays down, as the only right and justifiable end of Government, the greatest happiness of the greatest number—how can it be denied to be a dangerous one? dangerous it unquestionably is, to every government which has for its actual end or object, the greatest happiness of a certain one, with or without the addition of some comparatively small number of others, whom it is matter of pleasure or accommodation to him to admit, each of them, to a share in the concern, on the footing of so many junior partners. Dangerous it therefore really was, to the interest—the sinister interest—of all those functionaries, himself included, whose interest it was, to maximize delay, vexation, and expense, in judicial and other modes of procedure, for the sake of the profit, extractible out of the expense. In a Government which had for its end in view the greatest happiness of the greatest number, Alexander Wedderburn might have been Attorney General and then Chancellor: but he would not have been Attorney General with £15,000 a year, nor Chancellor, with a peerage with a veto upon all justice, with £25,000 a year, and with 500 sinecures at his disposal, under the name of Ecclesiastical Benefices, besides et cæteras.

  [10.]Ascetic is a term that has been sometimes applied to Monks. It comes from a Greek word which signifies exercise. The practices by which Monks sought to distinguish themselves from other men were called their Exercises. These exercises consisted in so many contrivances they had for tormenting themselves. By this they thought to ingratiate themselves with the Deity. For the Deity, said they, is a Being of infinite benevolence: now a Being of the most ordinary benevolence is pleased to see others make themselves as happy as they can: therefore to make ourselves as unhappy as we can is the way to please the Deity. If any body asked them, what motive they could find for doing all this? Oh! said they, you are not to imagine that we are punishing ourselves for nothing: we know very well what we are about. You are to know, that for every grain of pain it costs us now, we are to have a hundred grains of pleasure by and by. The case is, that God loves to see us torment ourselves at present: indeed he has as good as told us so. But this is done only to try us, in order just to see how we should behave: which it is plain he could not know, without making the experiment. Now then, from the satisfaction it gives him to see us make ourselves as unhappy as we can make ourselves in this present life, we have a sure proof of the satisfaction it will give him to see us as happy as he can make us in a life to come.

  [11.]The following Note was first printed in January 1789.
  
  It ought rather to have been styled, more extensively, the principle of caprice. Where it applies to the choice of actions to be marked out for injunction or prohibition, for reward or punishment, (to stand, in a word, as subjects for obligations to be imposed,) it may indeed with propriety be termed, as in the text, the principle of sympathy and antipathy. But this appellative does not so well apply to it, when occupied in the choice of the events which are to serve as sources of title with respect to rights: where the actions prohibited and allowed the obligations and rights, being already fixed, the only question is, under what circumstances a man is to be invested with the one or subjected to the other? from what incidents occasion is to be taken to invest a man, or to refuse to invest him, with the one, or to subject him to the other? In this latter case it may more appositely be characterized by the name of the phantastic principle. Sympathy and antipathy are affections of the sensible faculty. But the choice of titles with respect to rights, especially with respect to proprietary rights, upon grounds unconnected with utility, has been in many instances the work not of the affections but of the imagination.
  
  When, in justification of an article of English Common Law calling uncles to succeed in certain cases in preference to fathers, Lord Coke produced a sort of ponderosity he had discovered in rights, disqualifying them from ascending in a straight line, it was not that he loved uncles particularly, or hated fathers, but because the analogy, such as it was, was what his imagination presented him with, instead of a reason, and because, to a judgment unobservant of the standard of utility, or unacquainted with the art of consulting it, where affection is out of the way, imagination is the only guide.
  
  When I know not what ingenious grammarian invented the proposition Delegatus non potest delegare, to serve as a rule of law, it was not surely that he had any antipathy to delegates of the second order, or that it was any pleasure to him to think of the ruin which, for want of a manager at home, may befall the affairs of a traveller whom an unforeseen accident has deprived of the object of his choice: it was, that the incongruity, of giving the same law to objects so contrasted as active and passive are, was not to be surmounted, and that -atus chimes, as well as it contrasts, with -are.
  
  When that inexorable maxim, (of which the dominion is no more to be defined, than the date of its birth, or the name of its father, is to be found,) was imported from England for the government of Bengal, and the whole fabric of judicature was crushed by the thunders of ex post facto justice, it was not surely that the prospect of a blameless magistracy perishing in prison afforded any enjoyment to the unoffended authors of their misery; but that the music of the maxim, absorbing the whole imagination, had drowned the cries of humanity along with the dictates of common sense.* Fiat Justitia, ruat cœlum, says another maxim, as full of extravagance as it is of harmony: Go heaven to wreck—so justice be but done:—and what is the ruin of kingdoms, in comparison of the wreck of heaven?
  
  So again, when the Prussian chancellor, inspired with the wisdom of I know not what Roman sage, proclaimed in good Latin, for the edification of German ears, Servitus servitutis non datur, [Cod. Fred. tom. ii. par. 2. liv. 2. tit. x. § 6. p. 308.] it was not that he had conceived any aversion to the life-holder who, during the continuance of his term, should wish to gratify a neighbour with a right of way or water, or to the neighbour who should wish to accept of the indulgence; but that, to a jurisprudential ear, -tus -tutis sound little less melodious than -atus -are. Whether the melody of the maxim was the real reason of the rule, is not left open to dispute: for it is ushered in by the conjunction quia, reason's appointed harbinger: quia servitus servitutis non datur.
  
  Neither would equal melody have been produced, nor indeed could similar melody have been called for, in either of these instances, by the opposite provision: it is only when they are opposed to general rules, and not when by their conformity they are absorbed in them, that more specific ones can obtain a separate existence. Delegatus potest delegare, and Servitus servitutis datur, provisions already included under the general adoption of contracts, would have been as unnecessary to the apprehension and the memory, as, in comparison of their energetic negatives, they are insipid to the ear.
  
  Were the inquiry diligently made, it would be found that the goddess of harmony has exercised more influence, however latent, over the dispensations of Themis, than her most diligent historiographers, or even her most passionate panegyrists, seem to have been aware of. Every one knows, how, by the ministry of Orpheus, it was she who first collected the sons of men beneath the shadow of the sceptre: yet, in the midst of continual experience, men seem yet to learn, with what successful diligence she has laboured to guide it in its course. Every one knows, that measured numbers were the language of the infancy of law: none seem to have observed with what imperious sway they have governed her maturer age. In English jurisprudence in particular, the connexion betwixt law and music, however less perceived than in Spartan legislation, is not perhaps less real nor less close. The music of the Office, though not of the same kind, is not less musical in its kind, than the music of the Theatre; that which hardens the heart, than that which softens it:—sostenutos as long, cadences as sonorous; and those governed by rules, though not yet promulgated, not less determinate. Search indictments, pleadings, proceedings in chancery, conveyances: whatever trespasses you may find against truth or common sense you will find none against the laws of harmony. The English Liturgy justly as this quality has been extolled in that sacred office, possesses not a greater measure of it, than is commonly to be found in an English Act of Parliament. Dignity, simplicity, brevity, precision, intelligibility, possibility of being retained or so much as apprehended, every thing yields to Harmony. Volumes might be filled, shelves loaded, with the sacrifices that are made to this insatiate power. Expletives, her ministers in Grecian poetry are not less busy, though in different shape and bulk, in English legislation: in the former, they are monosyllables:** in the latter, they are whole lines.***
  
  To return to the principle of sympathy and antipathy: a term preferred at first, on account of its impartiality, to the principle of caprice. The choice of an appellative, in the above respects too narrow, was owing to my not having, at that time, extended my views over the civil branch of law, any otherwise than as I had found it inseparably involved in the penal. But when we come to the former branch, we shall see the phantastic principle making at least as great a figure there, as the principle of sympathy and antipathy in the latter.
  
  In the days of Lord Coke, the light of utility can scarcely be said to have as yet shone upon the face of Common Law. If a faint ray of it, under the name of the argumentum ab inconvenienti, is to be found in a list of about twenty topics exhibited by that great lawyer as the co-ordinate leaders of that all-perfect system, the admission, so circumstanced, is as sure a proof of neglect, as, to the statues of Brutus and Cassius, exclusion was a cause of notice. It stands, neither in the front, nor in the rear, nor in any post of honour; but huddled in towards the middle, without the smallest mark of preference. [Coke, Littleton, II. a.] Nor is this Latin inconvenience by any means the same thing with the English one. It stands distinguished from mischief: and because by the vulgar it is taken for something less bad, it is given by the learned as something worse. The law prefers a mischief to an inconvenience, says an admired maxim, and the more admired, because as nothing is expressed by it, the more is supposed to be understood.
  
  Not that there is any avowed, much less a constant opposition, between the prescriptions of utility and the operations of the common law: such constancy we have seen to be too much even for ascetic fervor. From time to time instinct would unavoidably betray them into the paths of reason: instinct which, however it may be cramped, can never be killed by education. The cobwebs spun out of the materials brought together by 'the competition of opposite analogies,' can never have ceased being warped by the silent attraction of the rational principle: though it should have been, as the needle is by the magnet, without the privity of conscience.
  
  * Additional Note by the Author, July 1822.
  
  Add, and that the bad system, of Mahometan and other native law was to be put down at all events, to make way for the inapplicable and still more mischievous system of English Judge-made law, and, by the hand of his accomplice Hastings, was to be put into the pocket of Impey—Importer of this instrument of subversion, £8,000 a-year contrary to law, in addition to the £8,000 a-year lavished upon him, with the customary profusion, by the hand of law.—See the Account of the transaction in Mill's British India.
  
  To this Governor a statue is erecting by a vote of East India Directors and Proprietors: on it should be inscribed—Let it but put money into our pockets, no tyranny too flagitious to be worshipped by us.
  
  To this statue of the Arch-malefactor should be added, for a companion, that of the long-robed accomplice: the one lodging the bribe in the hand of the other. The hundred millions of plundered and oppressed Hindoos and Mahometans pay for the one: a Westminster Hall subscription might pay for the other.
  
  What they have done for Ireland with her seven millions of souls, the authorized deniers and perverters of justice have done for Hindostan with her hundred millions. In this there is nothing wonderful. The wonder is—that, under such institutions, men, though in ever such small number, should be found, whom the view of the injustices which, by English Judge-made law, they are compelled to commit, and the miseries they are thus compelled to produce, deprive of health and rest. Witness the Letter of an English Hindostan Judge, Sept. 1, 1819, which lies before me. I will not make so cruel a requital for his honesty, as to put his name in print: indeed the House of Commons' Documents already published leave little need of it.
  
  **
  
  *** And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that—Provided always, and it is hereby further enacted and declared that—&c. &c.

  [12.]It is curious enough to observe the variety of inventions men have hit upon, and the variety of phrases they have brought forward, in order to conceal from the world, and, if possible, from themselves, this very general and therefore very pardonable self-sufficiency.
  
  12. One man says, he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong; and that it is called a moral sense: and then he goes to work at his ease, and says, such a thing is right, and such a thing is wrong—why? 'because my moral sense tells me it is.'
  
  12. Another man comes and alters the phrase: leaving out moral, and putting in common, in the room of it. He then tells you, that his common sense teaches him what is right and wrong, as surely as the other's moral sense did: meaning by common sense, a sense of some kind or other, which he says, is possessed by all mankind: the sense of those, whose sense is not the same as the author's, being struck out of the account as not worth taking. This contrivance does better than the other, for a moral sense being a new thing, a man may feel about him a good while without being able to find it out: but common sense is as old as the creation, and there is no man but would be ashamed to be thought not to have as much of it as his neighbours. It has another great advantage: by appearing to share power, it lessens envy: for when a man gets up upon this ground, in order to anathematize those who differ from him, it is not by a sic volo sic jubeo, but by a velitis jubeatis.
  
  12. Another man comes, and says, that as to a moral sense indeed, he cannot find that he has any such thing: that however he has an understanding, which will do quite as well. This understanding, he says, is the standard of right and wrong: it tells him so and so. All good and wise men understand as he does: if other men's understandings differ in any point from his, so much the worse for them: it is a sure sign they are either defective or corrupt.
  
  12. Another man says, that there is an eternal and immutable Rule of Right: that that rule of right dictates so and so: and then he begins giving you his sentiments upon any thing that comes uppermost: and these sentiments (you are to take for granted) are so many branches of the eternal rule of right.
  
  12. Another man, or perhaps the same man (it's no matter) says, that there are certain practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the Fitness of Things; and then he tells you, at his leisure, what practices are conformable and what repugnant: just as he happens to like a practice or dislike it.
  
  12. A great multitude of people are continually talking of the Law of Nature; and then they go on giving you their sentiments about what is right and what is wrong: and these sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the Law of Nature.
  
  12. Instead of the phrase, Law of Nature, you have sometimes, Law of Reason, Right Reason, Natural Justice, Natural Equity, Good Order. Any of them will do equally well. This latter is most used in politics. The three last are much more tolerable than the others, because they do not very explicitly claim to be any thing more than phrases: they insist but feebly upon the being looked upon as so many positive standards of themselves, and seem content to be taken, upon occasion, for phrases expressive of the conformity of the thing in question to the proper standard, whatever that may be. On most occasions, however, it will be better to say utility:utility is clearer, as referring more explicitly to pain and pleasure.
  
  12. We have one philosopher, who says, there is no harm in any thing in the world but in telling a lie: and that if, for example, you were to murder your own father, this would only be a particular way of saying, he was not your father. Of course, when this philosopher sees any thing that he does not like, he says, it is a particular way of telling a lie. It is saying, that the act ought to be done, or may be done, when, in truth, it ought not to be done.
  
  12. The fairest and openest of them all is that sort of man who speaks out, and says, I am of the number of the Elect: now God himself takes care to inform the Elect what is right: and that with so good effect, and let them strive ever so, they cannot help not only knowing it but practicing it. If therefore a man wants to know what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do but to come to me.
  
  12. It is upon the principle of antipathy that such and such acts are often reprobated on the score of their being unnatural: the practice of exposing children, established among the Greeks and Romans, was an unnatural practice. Unnatural, when it means any thing, means unfrequent: and there it means something; although nothing to the present purpose. But here it means no such thing: for the frequency of such acts is perhaps the great complaint. It therefore means nothing; nothing, I mean, which there is in the act itself. All it can serve to express is, the disposition of the person who is talking of it: the disposition he is in to be angry at the thoughts of it. Does it merit his anger? Very likely it may: but whether it does or no is a question, which, to be answered rightly, can only be answered upon the principle of utility.
  
  Unnatural, is as good a word as moral sense, or common sense; and would be as good a foundation for a system. Such an act is unnatural; that is, repugnant to nature: for I do not like to practice it: and, consequently, do not practise it. It is therefore repugnant to what ought to be the nature of every body else.
  
  The mischief common to all these ways of thinking and arguing (which, in truth, as we have seen, are but one and the same method, couched in different forms of words) is then serving as a cloke, and pretense, and aliment, to despotism: if not a despotism in practice, a despotism however in disposition: which is but too apt, when pretense and power offer, to show itself in practice. The consequence is, that with intentions very commonly of the purest kind, a man becomes a torment either to himself or his fellow-creatures. If he be of the melancholy cast, he sits in silent grief, bewailing their blindness and depravity: if of the irascible, he declaims with fury and virulence against all who differ from him; blowing up the coals of fanaticism, and branding with the charge of corruption and insincerity, every man who does not think, or profess to think, as he does.
  
  If such a man happens to possess the advantages of style, his book may do a considerable deal of mischief before the nothingness of it is understood.
  
  These principles, if such they can be called, it is more frequent to see applied to morals than to politics: but their influence extends itself to both. In politics, as well as morals, a man will be at least equally glad of a pretense for deciding any question in the manner that best pleases him without the trouble of inquiry. If a man is an infallible judge of what is right and wrong in the actions of private individuals, why not in the measures to be observed by public men in the direction of those actions? accordingly (not to mention other chimeras) I have more than once known the pretended law of nature set up in legislative debates, in opposition to arguments derived from the principle of utility.
  
  'But is it never, then, from any other considerations than those of utility, that we derive our notions of right and wrong?' I do not know: I do not care. Whether a moral sentiment can be originally conceived from any other source than a view of utility, is one question: whether upon examination and reflection it can, in point of fact, be actually persisted in and justified on any other ground, by a person reflecting within himself, is another: whether in point of right it can properly be justified on any other ground, by a person addressing himself to the community, is a third. The two first are questions of speculation: it matters not, comparatively speaking, how they are decided. The last is a question of practice: the decision of it is of as much importance as that of any can be.
  
  'I feel in myself,' (say you) 'a disposition to approve of such or such an action in a moral view: but this is not owing to any notions I have of its being a useful one to the community. I do not pretend to know whether it be an useful one or not: it may be, for aught I know, a mischievous one.' 'But is it then,' (say I) 'a mischievous one? examine; and if you can make yourself sensible that it is so, then, if duty means any thing, that is, moral duty, is your duty at least to abstain from it: and more than that, if it is what lies in your power, and can be done without too great a sacrifice, to endeavour to prevent it. It is not your cherishing the notion of it in your bosom, and giving it the name of virtue, that will excuse you.'
  
  'I feel in myself,' (say you again) 'a disposition to detest such or such an action in a moral view; but this is not owing to any notions I have of its being a mischievous one to the community. I do not pretend to know whether it be a mischievous one or not: it may be not a mischievous one: it may be, for aught I know, an useful one.'—'May it indeed', (say I) 'an useful one? but let me tell you then, that unless duty, and right and wrong, be just what you please to make them, if it really be not a mischievous one, and any body has a mind to do it, it is no duty of yours, but, on the contrary, it would be very wrong in you, to take upon you to prevent him: detest it within yourself as much as you please; that may be a very good reason (unless it be also a useful one) for your not doing it yourself: but if you go about, by word or deed, to do any thing to hinder him, or make him suffer for it, it is you, and not he, that have done wrong: it is not your setting yourself to blame his conduct, or branding it with the name of vice, that will make him culpable, or you blameless. Therefore, if you can make yourself content that he shall be of one mind, and you of another, about that matter, and so continue, it is well: but if nothing will serve you, but that you and he must needs be of the same mind, I'll tell you what you have to do: it is for you to get the better of your antipathy, not for him to truckle to it.'

  [13.]King James the First of England had conceived a violent antipathy against Arians: two of whom he burnt.* This gratification he procured himself without much difficulty: the notions of the times were favourable to it. He wrote a furious book against Vorstius, for being what was called an Arminian: for Vorstius was at a distance. He also wrote a furious book, called 'A Counterblast to Tobacco,' against the use of that drug, which Sir Walter Raleigh had then lately introduced. Had the notions of the times co-operated with him, he would have burnt the Anabaptist and the smoker of tobacco in the same fire. However he had the satisfaction of putting Raleigh to death afterwards, though for another crime.
  
  Disputes concerning the comparative excellence of French and Italian music have occasioned very serious bickerings at Paris. One of the parties would not have been sorry (says Mr. D'Alembert**) to have brought government into the quarrel. Pretences were sought after and urged. Long before that, a dispute of like nature, and of at least equal warmth, had been kindled at London upon the comparative merits of two composers at London; where riots between the approvers and disapprovers of a new play are, at this day, not unfrequent. The ground of quarrel between the Big-endians and the Little-endians in the fable, was not more frivolous than many an one which has laid empires desolate. In Russia, it is said, there was a time when some thousands of persons lost their lives in a quarrel, in which the government had taken part, about the number of fingers to be used in making the sign of the cross. This was in days of yore: the ministers of Catherine II. are better instructed*** than to take any other part in such disputes, than that of preventing the parties concerned from doing one another a mischief.
  
  * Hume's Hist. vol. 6. ** Melanges Essai sur la Liberté de la Musique. *** Instruct. Art. 474, 475, 476.

  [14.]See ch. xvi. [Division], par. 42, 44.

  [15.]The principle of theology refers every thing to God's pleasure. But what is God's pleasure? God does not, he confessedly does not now, either speak or write to us. How then are we to know what is his pleasure? By observing what is our own pleasure, and pronouncing it to be his. Accordingly, what is called the pleasure of God, is and must necessarily be (revelation apart) neither more nor less than the good pleasure of the person whoever he be, who is pronouncing what he believes, or pretends, to be God's pleasure. How know you it to be God's pleasure that such or such an act should be abstained from? whence come you even to suppose as much? 'Because the engaging in it would, I imagine, be prejudicial upon the whole to the happiness of mankind;' says the partizan of the principle of utility: 'Because the commission of it is attended with a gross and sensual, or at least with a trifling and transient satisfaction;' says the partizan of the principle of asceticism: 'Because I detest the thoughts of it; and I cannot, neither ought I to be called upon to tell why;' says he who proceeds upon the principle of antipathy. In the words of one or other of these must that person necessarily answer (revelation apart) who professes to take for his standard the will of God.

  [16.]Sanctio, in Latin was used to signify the act of binding, and, by a common grammatical transition, any thing which serves to bind a man: to wit, to the observance of such or such a mode of conduct. According to a Latin grammarian,* the import of the word is derived by rather a far-fetched process (such as those commonly are, and in a great measure indeed must be, by which intellectual ideas are derived from sensible ones) from the word sanguis, blood: because, among the Romans, with a view to inculcate into the people a persuasion that such or such a mode of conduct would be rendered obligatory upon a man by the force of what I call the religious sanction (that is, that he would be made to suffer by the extraordinary interposition of some superior being, if he failed to observe the mode of conduct in question) certain ceremonies were contrived by the priests: in the course of which ceremonies the blood of victims was made use of.
  
  A Sanction then is a source of obligatory powers or motives: that is, of pains and pleasures; which, according as they are connected with such or such modes of conduct, operate, and are indeed the only things which can operate, as motives. See Chap. x. [Motives].
  
  * Servius. See Ainsworth's Dict. Ad verbum Sanctio.

  [17.]Better termed popular, as more directly indicative of its constituent cause; as likewise of its relation to the more common phrase public opinion, in French opinion publique, the name there given to that tutelary power, of which of late so much is said, and by which so much is done. The latter appellation is however unhappy and inexpressive; since if opinion is material, it is only in virtue of the influence it exercises over action, through the medium of the affections and the will.

  [18.]A suffering conceived to befall a man by the immediate act of God, as above, is often, for shortness' sake, called a judgment: instead of saying, a suffering inflicted on him in consequence of a special judgment formed, and resolution thereupon taken, by the Deity.

  [19.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet] par. 2. note.

  [20.]These circumstances have since been denominated elements or dimensions of value in a pleasure or a pain.
  
  Not long after the publication of the first edition, the following memoriter verses were framed, in the view of lodging more effectually, in the memory, these points, on which the whole fabric of morals and legislation may be seen to rest.

  • Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure—
  • Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
  • Such pleasures seek if private be thy end:
  • If it be public, wide let them extend.
  • Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:
  • If pains must come, let them extend to few.

  [21.]The catalogue here given, is what seemed to be a complete list of the several simple pleasures and pains of which human nature is susceptible: insomuch, that if, upon any occasion whatsoever, a man feels pleasure or pain, it is either referable at once to some one or other of these kinds, or resolvable into such as are. It might perhaps have been a satisfaction to the reader, to have seen an analytical view of the subject, taken upon an exhaustive plan, for the purpose of demonstrating the catalogue to be what it purports to be, a complete one. The catalogue is in fact the result of such an analysis which, however, I thought it better to discard at present as being of too metaphysical a cast, and not strictly within the limits of this design. See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], par. 2. Note.

  [22.]There are also pleasures of novelty, excited by the appearance of new ideas: these are pleasures of the imagination. See infra xiii.

  [23.]For instance, the pleasure of being able to gratify the sense of hearing, by singing, or performing upon any musical instrument. The pleasure thus obtained, is a thing superadded to, and perfectly distiguishable from, that which a man enjoys from hearing another person perform in the same manner.

  [24.] See ch. iii. [Sanctions].

  [25.]See ch. iii. [Sanctions].

  [26.]In contradistinction to these, all other pleasures may be termed pleasures of enjoyment.

  [27.]The pleasure of the sexual sense seems to have no positive pain to correspond to it: it has only a pain of privation, or pain of the mental class, the pain of unsatisfied desire. If any positive pain of body result from the want of such indulgence, it belongs to the head of pains of disease.

  [28.]The pleasures of novelty have no positive pains corresponding to them. The pain which a man experiences when he is in the condition of not knowing what to do with himself, that pain, which in French is expressed by a single word ennui, is a pain of privation: a pain resulting from the absence, not only of all the pleasures of novelty, but of all kinds of pleasure whatsoever.
  
  The pleasures of wealth have also no positive pains corresponding to them: the only pains opposed to them are pains of privation. If any positive pains result from the want of wealth, they are referable to some other class of positive pains; principally to those of the senses. From the want of food, for instance, result the pains of hunger; from the want of clothing, the pains of cold; and so forth.

  [29.]It may be a question, perhaps, whether this be a positive pain of itself, or whether it be nothing more than a pain of privation, resulting from the consciousness of a want of skill. It is, however, but a question of words, nor does it matter which way it be determined.

  [30.]In as far as a man's fellow-creatures are supposed to be determined by any event not to regard him with any degree of esteem or good will, or to regard him with a less degree of esteem or good will than they would otherwise; not to do him any sorts of good offices, or not to do him so many good offices as they would otherwise; the pain resulting from such consideration may be reckoned a pain of privation: as far as they are supposed to regard him with such a degree of aversion or disesteem as to be disposed to do him positive ill offices, it may be reckoned a positive pain. The pain of privation, and the positive pain, in this case run one into another indistinguishably.

  [31.]There seem to be no positive pains to correspond to the pleasures of power. The pains that a man may feel from the want or the loss of power in as far as power is distinguished from all other sources of pleasure, seem to be nothing more than pains of privation.

  [32.]The positive pains of piety, and the pains of privation, opposed to the pleasures of piety, run one into another in the same manner as the positive pains of enmity, or of an ill name, do with respect to the pains of privation, opposed to the pleasures of amity, and those of a good name. If what is apprehended at the hands of God is barely the not receiving pleasure, the pain is of the privative class if, moreover, actual pain be apprehended, it is of the class of positive pains.

  [33.]In contradistinction to these, all other pains may be termed pains of sufferance.

  [34.]See chap. x. [Motives].

  [35.]By this means the pleasures and pains of amity may be the more clearly distinguished from those of benevolence: and on the other hand, those of enmity from those of malevolence. The pleasures and pains of amity and enmity are of the self-regarding cast: those of benevolence and malevolence of the extra-regarding.

  [36.]It would be a matter not only of curiosity, but of some use, to exhibit a catalogue of the several complex pleasures and pains, analyzing them at the same time into the several simple ones, of which they are respectively composed. But such a disquisition would take up too much room to be admitted here. A short specimen, however, for the purpose of illustration, can hardly be dispensed with.
  
  The pleasures taken in at the eye and ear are generally very complex. The pleasures of a country scene, for instance, consist commonly, amongst others, of the following pleasures:
  
  I. Pleasures of the senses.
  
  36. The simple pleasures of sight, excited by the perception of agreeable colours and figures, green fields, waving foliage, glistening water, and the like. 36. The simple pleasures of the ear, excited by the perceptions of the chirping of birds, the murmuring of waters, the rustling of the wind among the trees. 36. The pleasures of the smell, excited by the perceptions of the fragrance of flowers, of new-mown hay, or other vegetable substances, in the first stages of fermentation. 36. The agreeable inward sensation, produced by a brisk circulation of the blood, and the ventilation of it in the lungs by a pure air, such as that in the country frequently is in comparison of that which is breathed in towns.
  
  II. Pleasures of the imagination produced by association.
  
  36. The idea of the plenty, resulting from the possession of the objects that are in view, and of the happiness arising from it. 36. The idea of the innocence and happiness of the birds, sheep, cattle, dogs, and other gentle or domestic animals. 36. The idea of the constant flow of health, supposed to be enjoyed by all these creatures: a notion which is apt to result from the occasional flow of health enjoyed by the supposed spectator. 36. The idea of gratitude, excited by the contemplation of the all-powerful and beneficent Being, who is looked up to as the author of these blessings.
  
  These four last are all of them, in some measure at least, pleasures of sympathy.
  
  The depriving a man of this group of pleasures is one of the evils apt to result from imprisonment; whether produced by illegal violence, or in the way of punishment, by appointment of the laws.

  [37.]The exciting cause, the pleasure or pain produced by it, and the intention produced by such pleasure or pain in the character of a motive, are objects so intimately connected, that, in what follows, I fear I have not, on every occasion, been able to keep them sufficiently distinct. I thought it necessary to give the reader this warning; after which, should there be found any such mistakes, it is to be hoped they will not be productive of much confusion.

  [38.]Thus, in physical bodies, the momentum of a ball put in motion by impulse, will be influenced by the circumstance of gravity: being in some directions increased, in others diminished by it. So in a ship, put in motion by the wind, the momentum and direction will be influenced not only by the attraction of gravity, but by the motion and resistance of the water, and several other circumstances.

  [39.]An analytical view of all these circumstances will be given at the conclusion of the chapter: to which place it was necessary to refer it, as it could not well have been understood, till some of them had been previously explained.
  
  To search out the vast variety of exciting or moderating causes, by which the degree or bias of a man's sensibility may be influenced, to define the boundaries of each, to extricate them from the entanglements in which they are involved, to lay the effect of each article distinctly before the reader's eye, is, perhaps, if not absolutely the most difficult task, at least one of the most difficult tasks, within the compass of moral physiology. Disquisitions on this head can never be completely satisfactory without examples. To provide a sufficient collection of such examples, would be a work of great labour as well as nicety: history and biography would need to be ransacked: a vast course of reading would need to be travelled through on purpose. By such a process the present work would doubtless have been rendered more amusing; but in point of bulk, so enormous that this single chapter would have been swelled into a considerable volume. Feigned cases, although they may upon occasion serve to render the general matter tolerably intelligible, can never be sufficient to render it palatable. On this therefore, as on so many other occasions, I must confine myself to dry and general instruction: discarding illustration, although sensible that without it instruction cannot manifest half its efficacy. The subject, however, is so difficult, and so new, that I shall think I have not ill succeeded, if without pretending to exhaust it, I shall have been able to mark out the principal points of view, and to put the matter in such amethod as may facilitate the researches of happier inquirers.
  
  The great difficulty lies in the nature of the words, which are not, like pain and pleasure, names of homogeneous real entities, but names of various fictitious entities, for which no common genus is to be found: and which therefore, without a vast and roundabout chain of investigation, can never be brought under any exhaustive plan of arrangement, but must be picked up here and there as they happen to occur.

  [40.]It may be thought, that in a certain degree of health, this negative account of the matter hardly comes up to the case. In a certain degree health, there is often such a kind of feeling diffused over the whole frame such a comfortable feel, or flow of spirits, as it is called, as may with propriety come under the head of positive pleasure. But without experiencing any such pleasurable feeling, if a man experience no painful one, he may be well enough said to be in health.

  [41.]The most accurate measure that can be given of a man's strength, seems to be that which is taken from the weight or number of pounds and ounces he can lift with his hands in a given attitude. This indeed relates immediately only to his arms: but these are the organs of strength which are most employed; of which the strength corresponds with most exactness to the general state of the body with regard to strength; and in which the quantum of strength is easiest measured. Strength may accordingly be distinguished into general and particular.
  
  Weakness is a negative term, and imports the absence of strength. It is, besides, a relative term, and accordingly imports the absence of such a quantity of strength as makes the share, possessed by the person in question, less than that of some person he is compared to. Weakness, when it is at such a degree as to make it painful for a man to perform the motions necessary to the going through the ordinary functions of life, such as to get up, to walk, to dress one's self, and so forth, brings the circumstance of health into question, and puts a man into that sort of condition in which he is said to be in ill health.

  [42.]See B. I. Tit. [Irrep. Corp. Injuries].

  [43.]See chap. iv. [Value].

  [44.]When, for instance, having been determined, by the prospect of some inconvenience, not to disclose a fact, although he should be put to the rack, he perseveres in such resolution after the rack is brought into his presence, and even applied to him.

  [45.]The facility with which children grow tired of their play-things, and throw them away, is an instance of unsteadiness: the perseverance with which a merchant applies himself to his traffic, or an author to his book may be taken for an instance of the contrary. It is difficult to judge of the quantity of pleasure or pain in these cases, but from the effects which it produces in the character of a motive: and even then it is difficult to pronounce, whether the change of conduct happens by the extinction of the old pleasure or pain, or by the intervention of a new one.

  [46.]See Chapter V. [Pleasures and Pains].

  [47.]See Chapter V. [Pleasures and Pains].

  [48.]This is one reason why legislators in general like better to have married people to deal with than single; and people that have children than such as are childless. It is manifest that the stronger and more numerous a man's connexions in the way of sympathy are, the stronger is the hold which the law has upon him. A wife and children are so many pledges a man gives to the world for his good behaviour.

  [49.]The characteristic circumstances whereby one man's frame of body or mind, considered at any given period, stands distinguished from that of another, have been comprised by metaphysicians and physiologists under the name idiosyncrasy, from , peculiar, and , composition.

  [50.]Those who maintain, that the mind and the body are one substance may here object, that upon that supposition the distinction between frame of mind and frame of body is but nominal, and that accordingly there is no such thing as a frame of mind distinct from the frame of body. But granting, for argument-sake, the antecedent, we may dispute the consequence. For if the mind be but a part of the body, it is at any rate of a nature very different from the other parts of the body.
  
  A man's frame of body cannot in any part of it undergo any considerable alteration without its being immediately indicated by phenomena discernible by the senses. A man's frame of mind may undergo very considerable alterations, his frame of body remaining the same to all appearance; that is, for any thing that is indicated to the contrary by phenomena cognizable to the senses: meaning those of other men.

  [51.]Hume's Hist.

  [52.]The quantity of the sort of pain, which is called grief, is indeed hardly to be measured by any external indications. It is neither to be measured for instance, by the quantity of the tears, nor by the number of moments spent in crying. Indications rather less equivocal may, perhaps, be afforded by the pulse. A man has not the motions of his heart at command as he has those of the muscles of his face. But the particular significancy of these indications is still very uncertain. All they can express is, that the man is affected; they cannot express in what manner, nor from what cause. To an affection resulting in reality from such or such a cause, he may give an artificial colouring, and attribute it to such or such another cause. To an affection directed in reality to such or such a person as its object, he may give an artificial bias, and represent it as if directed to such or such another object. Tears of rage he may attribute to contrition. The concern he feels at the thoughts of a punishment that awaits him, he may impute to a sympathetic concern for the mischief produced by his offense.
  
  A very tolerable judgment, however, may commonly be formed by a discerning mind, upon laying all the external indications exhibited by a man together, and at the same time comparing them with his actions.
  
  A remarkable instance of the power of the will, over the external indications of sensibility, is to be found in Tacitus's story of the Roman soldier, who raised a mutiny in the camp, pretending to have lost a brother by the lawless cruelty of the General. The truth was, he never had had a brother.

  [53.]The ways in which a religion may lessen a man's means, or augment his wants, are various. Sometimes it will prevent him from making a profit of his money: sometimes from setting his hand to labour. Sometimes it will oblige him to buy dearer food instead of cheaper: sometimes to purchase useless labour: sometimes to pay men for not labouring: sometimes to purchase trinkets, on which imagination alone has set a value: sometimes to purchase exemptions from punishment, or titles to felicity in the world to come.

  [54.]This is far from being a visionary proposal, not reducible to practice. I speak from experience, having actually drawn up such an estimate, though upon the least commodious of the two plans, and before the several circumstances in question had been reduced to the precise number and order in which they are here enumerated. This is a part of the matter destined for another work. See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], par. 2. Note. There are some of these circumstances that bestow particular denominations on the persons they relate to: thus, from the circumstance of bodily imperfections, persons are denominated deaf, dumb, blind, and so forth: from the circumstance of insanity, idiots, and maniacs: from the circumstance of age, infants: for all which classes of persons particular provision is made in the Code. See B. I. tit. [Exemptions]. Persons thus distinguished will form so many articles in the catalogus personarum privilegiatarum. See Appendix. tit. [Composition].

  [55.]As to a man's pecuniary circumstances, the causes on which those circumstances depend, do not come all of them under the same class. The absolute quantum of a man's property does indeed come under the same class with his pecuniary circumstances in general: so does the profit he makes from the occupation which furnishes him with the means of livelihood. But the occupation itself concerns his own person, and comes under the same head as his habitual amusements: as likewise his habits of expense: his connexions in the ways of profit and of burthen, under the same head as his connexions in the way of sympathy: and the circumstances of his present demand for money, and strength of expectation, come under the head of those circumstances relative to his person which regard his affections.

  [56.]Or of importance.

  [57.]In certain cases the consequences of an act may be material by serving as evidences indicating the existence of some other material fact, which is even antecedent to the act of which they are the consequences: but even here, they are material only because, in virtue of such their evidentiary quality, they have an influence, at a subsequent period of time, in the production of pain and pleasure: for example, by serving as grounds for conviction, and thence for punishment. See tit. [Simple Falsehoods], verbo [material].

  [69.]What follows, relative to the subject of punishment, ought regularly to be preceded by a distinct chapter on the ends of punishment. But having little to say on that particular branch of the subject, which has not been said before, it seemed better, in a work which will at any rate be but too voluminous, to omit this title, reserving it for another, hereafter to be published, intituled The Theory of Punishment.* To the same work I must refer the analysis of the several possible modes of punishment, a particular and minute examination of the nature of each, and of its advantages and disadvantages, and various other disquisitions, which did not seem absolutely necessary to be inserted here. A very few words, however, concerning the ends of punishment, can scarcely be dispensed with.
  
  The immediate principal end of punishment is to control action. This action is either that of the offender, or of others: that of the offender it controls by its influence, either on his will, in which case it is said to operate in the way of reformation; or on his physical power, in which case it is said to operate by disablement: that of others it can influence otherwise than by its influence over their wills, in which case it is said to operate in the way of example. A kind of collateral end, which it has a natural tendency to answer, is that of affording a pleasure or satisfaction to the party injured, where there is one, and, in general, to parties whose ill-will whether on a self-regarding account, or on the account of sympathy or antipathy, has been excited by the offense. This purpose, as far as it can be answered gratis, is a beneficial one. But no punishment ought to be allotted merely to this purpose, because (setting aside its effects in the way of control) no such pleasure is ever produced by punishment as can be equivalent to the pain. The punishment, however, which is allotted to the other purpose, ought, as far as it can be done without expense, to be accommodated to this. Satisfaction thus administered to a party injured, in the shape of a dissocial pleasure,** may be styled a vindictive satisfaction or compensation: as a compensation, administered in the shape of self-regarding profit, or stock of pleasure, may be styled a lucrative one. See B. I. tit. vi. [Compensation]. Example is the most important end of all, in proportion as the number of the persons under temptation to offend is to one.
  
  * This is the work which, from the Author's papers, has since been published by Mr. Dumont in French, in company with The Theory of Reward added to it, for the purpose of mutual illustration. It is in contemplation to publish them both in English, from the Author's manuscripts, with the benefit of any amendments that have been made by Mr. Dumont. [Note to the Edition of 1823.]
  
  ** See ch. x. [Motives].

  [70.]See B. I. tit. [Justifications].

  [71.]See supra, ch. iv. [Value].

  [72.]See Book I. tit. [Justifications].

  [73.]This, for example, seems to have been one ground, at least, of the favour shown by perhaps all systems of laws, to such offenders as stand upon a footing of responsibility: shown, not directly indeed to the persons themselves; but to such offenses as none but responsible persons are likely to have the opportunity of engaging in. In particular, this seems to be the reason why embezzlement, in certain cases, has not commonly been punished upon the footing of theft: nor mercantile frauds upon that of common sharping.*
  
  * See tit. [Simple merc. Defraudment].

  [74.]See B. II. Appendix, tit. iii. [Promulgation].

  [75.]Notwithstanding what is here said, the cases of infancy and intoxication (as we shall see hereafter) cannot be looked upon in practice as affording sufficient grounds for absolute impunity. But this exception in point of practice is no objection to the propriety of the rule in point of theory. The ground of the exception is neither more nor less than the difficulty there is of ascertaining the matter of fact: viz. whether at the requisite point of time the party was actually in the state in question; that is, whether a given case comes really under the rule. Suppose the matter of fact capable of being perfectly ascertained, without danger or mistake. the impropriety of punishment would be as indubitable in these cases as in any other.*
  
  The reason that is commonly assigned for the establishing an exemption from punishment in favour of infants, insane persons, and persons under intoxication, is either false in fact, or confusedly expressed. The phrase is that the will of these persons concurs not with the act; that they have no vicious will; or, that they have not the free use of their will. But suppose all this to be true? What is it to the purpose? Nothing: except in as far as it implies the reason given in the text.
  
  * See B. I. tit. iv. [Exemptions]. and tit. vii. [Extenuations].

  [76.]See ch. viii. [Intentionality].

  [77.]See ch. ix. [Consciousness].

  [78.]The influences of the moral and religious sanctions, or, in other words, of the motives of love of reputation and religion, are other causes, the force of which may, upon particular occasions, come to be greater than that of any punishment which the legislator is able, or at least which he will think proper, to apply. These, therefore, it will be proper for him to have his eye upon. But the force of these influences is variable and different in different times and places: the force of the foregoing influences is constant and the same, at all times and every where. These, therefore, it can never be proper to look upon as safe grounds for establishing absolute impunity: owing (as in the above-mentioned cases of infancy and intoxication) to the impracticability of ascertaining the matter of fact.

  [79.]See ch. v. [Pleasures and Pains].

  [80.]See ch. xii. [Consequences].

  [81.]By offences I mean, at present, acts which appear to him to have a tendency to produce mischief.

  [82.]The same rules (it is to be observed) may be applied, with little variation, to rewards as well as punishment: in short, to motives in general, which, according as they are of the pleasurable or painful kind, are of the nature of reward or punishment: and, according as the act they are applied to produce is of the positive or negative kind, are styled impelling or restraining. See ch. x. [Motives] xliii.

  [83.]By the profit of an offense, is to be understood, not merely the pecuniary profit, but the pleasure or advantage, of whatever kind it be, which as a man reaps, or expects to reap, from the gratification of the desire which prompted him to engage in the offense.*
  
  It is the profit (that is, the expectation of the profit) of the offence that constitutes the impelling motive, or, where there are several, the sum of the impelling motives, by which a man is prompted to engage in the offense. It is the punishment, that is, the expectation of the punishment, that constitutes the restraining motive, which, either by itself, or in conjunction with others, is to act upon him in a contrary direction, so as to induce him to abstain from engaging in the offense. Accidental circumstances apart, the strength of the temptation is as the force of the seducing, that is, of the impelling motive or motives. To say then, as authors of great merit and great name have said, that the punishment ought not to increase with the strength of the temptation, is as much as to say in mechanics, that the moving force or momentum of the power need not increase in proportion to the momentum of the burthen.
  
  * See ch. x. [Motives] § 1.

  [84.]Beccaria, dei diletti, § 6. id. trad. par. Morellet, § 23.

  [85.]See ch. xi. [Dispositions] xxix.

  [86.]It is a well-known adage, though it is to be hoped not a true one, that every man has his price. It is commonly meant of a man's virtue. This saying, though in a very different sense, was strictly verified by some of the Anglo-Saxon laws: by which a fixed price was set, not upon a man's virtue indeed, but upon his life: that of the sovereign himself among the rest. For 200 shillings you might have killed a peasant: for six times as much, a nobleman: for six-and-thirty times as much you might have killed the king.* A king in those days was worth exactly 7,200 shillings. If then the heir to the throne, for example, grew weary of waiting for it, he had a secure and legal way of gratifying his impatience: he had but to kill the king with one hand, and pay himself with the other, and all was right. An earl Godwin, or a duke Streon, could have bought the lives of a whole dynasty. It is plain, that if ever a king in those days died in his bed, he must have had something else, besides this law, to thank for it. This being the production of a remote and barbarous age, the absurdity of it is presently recognised: but, upon examination, it would be found, that the freshest laws of the most civilised nations are continually falling into the same error.** This, in short, is the ease wheresoever the punishment is fixed while the profit of delinquency is indefinite: or, to speak more precisely, where the punishment is limited to such a mark, that the profit of delinquency may reach beyond it.
  
  * Wilkins Leg. Anglo-Sax. p, 71, 72. See Hume, Vol. 1. App. 1. p. 219.
  
  ** See in particular the English Statue laws throughout, Bonaparte's Penal Code, and the recently enacted or not enacted Spanish Penal Code.—Note by the Author, July 1822.

  [87.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § 1.

  [88.]See ch. xi. [Dispositions], xlii.

  [89.]For example, if it can ever be worth while to be at the expense of so horrible a punishment as that of burning alive, it will be more so in the view of preventing such a crime as that of murder or incendiarism, than in the view of preventing the uttering of a piece of bad money. See B. I. tit. [Defraudment touching the Coin] and [Incendiarism].

  [90.]Espr. des Loix, L. vi. c. 16.

  [91.]If any one have any doubt of this, let him conceive the offence to be divided into as many separate offenses as there are distinguishable parcels of mischief that result from it. Let it consist, for example, in a man's giving you ten blows, or stealing from you ten shillings. If then, for giving you ten blows, he is punished no more than for giving you five, the giving you five of these ten blows is an offense for which there is no punishment at all: which being understood, as often as a man gives you five blows, he will be sure to give you five more, since he may have the pleasure of giving you these five for nothing. In like manner, if for stealing from you ten shillings, he is punished no more than for stealing five, the stealing of the remaining five of those ten shillings is an offense for which there is no punishment at all. This rule is violated in almost every page of every body of laws I have ever seen.
  
  The profit, it is to be observed, though frequently, is not constantly, proportioned to the mischief: for example, where a thief, along with the things he covets, steals others which are of no use to him. This may happen through wantonness, indolence, precipitation, &c. &c.

  [92.]See ch. vi. [Sensibility].

  [93.]See ch. iv. [Value].

  [94.]It is for this reason, for example, that simple compensation is never looked upon as sufficient punishment for theft or robbery.

  [95.]A punishment may be said to be calculated to answer the purpose of a moral lesson, when, by reason of the ignominy it stamps upon the offense, it is calculated to inspire the public with sentiments of aversion towards those pernicious habits and dispositions with which the offense appears to be connected; and thereby to inculcate the opposite beneficial habits and dispositions.
  
  It is this, for example, if any thing, that must justify the application of so severe a punishment as the infamy of a public exhibition, hereinafter proposed, for him who lifts up his hand against a woman, or against his father. See B. I. tit. [Simp. corporal injuries].
  
  It is partly on this principle, I suppose, that military legislators have justified to themselves the inflicting death on the soldier who lifts up his hand against his superior officer.

  [96.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § 4.

  [97.]See B. II. tit. [Purposes], Append. tit. [Composition].

  [98.]Notwithstanding this rule, my fear is, that in the ensuing model, I may be thought to have carried my endeavours at proportionality too far. Hitherto scarce any attention has been paid to it. Montesquieu seems to have been almost the first who has had the least idea of any such thing. In such a matter, therefore, excess seemed more eligible than defect. The difficulty is to invent: that done, if any thing seems superfluous, it is easy to retrench.

  [99.]See B. I. tit. [Punishments].

  [100.]See Append. tit. [Promulgation].

  [101.]There are few madmen but what are observed to be afraid of the strait waistcoat.

  [102.]See ch. xii. [Consequences], xxxiii.

  [103.]By the English law, there are several offenses which are punished by a total forfeiture of moveables, not extending to immoveables. This is the case with suicide, and with certain species of theft and homicide. In some cases, this is the principal punishment: in others, even the only one. The consequence is, that if a man's fortune happens to consist in moveables, he is ruined; if in immoveables, he suffers nothing.

  [104.]See View of the Hard-Labour Bill, Lond. 1778, p. 100.
  
  For the idea of this property, I must acknowledge myself indebted to an anonymous letter in the St. James's Chronicle, of the 27th of September 1777; the author of which is totally unknown to me. If any one should be disposed to think lightly of the instruction, on recount of the channel by which it was first communicated, let him tell me where I can find an idea more ingenious or original.

  [105.]See Montesq. Esp. des Loix, L. xii. ch. iv. He seems to have the property of characteristicalness in view; but that the idea he had of it was very indistinct, appears from the extravagant advantages he attributes to it.

  [106.]See ch. vii. [Actions], iii.

  [107.]Besides this, there are a variety of other ways in which the punishment may bear an analogy to the offence. This will be seen by looking over the table of punishments.

  [108.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet] § 1, 2. note.

  [109.]Ib. § 4. par. iii.

  [110.]See B. I. tit. [Punishments].

  [111.]See B. II. tit. [Execution].

  [112.]Ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], par. iii.

  [113.]Ib. note.

  [114.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], par. ii. note.

  [115.]See ch. x. [Motives].

  [116.]See B. I. tit. [Offences against Justice].

  [117.]See B. I. tit. [Punishments].

  [118.]The property of characteristicalness, therefore, is useful in a mode of punishment in three different ways: 1. It renders a mode of punishment, before infliction, more easy to be borne in mind: 2. It enables it, especially after infliction, to make the stronger impression, when it is there; that is, renders it the more exemplary: 3. It tends to render it more acceptable to the people, that is, it renders it the more popular.

  [119.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § v.

  [120.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § iv. par. iv.

  [121.]See View of the Hard Labour Bill, p. 109.

  [122.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], ii. note.

  [1.]This chapter is an attempt to put our ideas of offences into an exact method. The particular uses of method are various: but the general one is, to enable men to understand the things that are the subjects of it. To understand a thing, is to be acquainted with its qualities or properties. Of these properties, some are common to it with other things; the rest, peculiar. But the qualities which are peculiar to any one sort of thing are few indeed, in comparison with those which are common to it with other things. To make it known in respect of its difference, would therefore be doing little, unless it were made known also by its genus. To understand it perfectly, a man must therefore be informed of the points in which it agrees as well as of those in which it disagrees, with all other things. When a number of objects, composing a logical whole, are to be considered together all of these possessing with respect to one another a certain congruency or agreement denoted by a certain name, there is but one way of giving a perfect knowledge of their nature; and that is, by distributing them into a system of parcels, each of them a part, either of some other parcel, or, at any rate, of the common whole. This can only be done in the way of bipartition, dividing each superior branch into two, and but two, immediately subordinate ones; beginning with the logical whole, dividing that into two parts, then each of those parts into two others; and so on. These first-distinguished parts agree in respect of those properties which belong to the whole: they differ in respect of those properties which are peculiar to each. To divide the whole into more than two parcels at once, for example into three, would not answer the purpose; for, in fact, it is but two objects that the mind can compare together exactly at the same time. Thus then, let us endeavour to deal with offences; or rather, strictly speaking, with acts which possess such properties as seem to indicate them fit to be constituted offences. The task is arduous, and as yet at least, perhaps for ever, above our force. There is no speaking of objects but by their names: but the business of giving them names has always been prior to the true and perfect knowledge of their natures. Objects the most dissimilar have been spoken of and treated as if their properties were the same. Objects the most similar have been spoken of and treated as if they had scarce anything in common. Whatever discoveries may be made concerning them, how different soever their congruencies and disagreements may be found to be from those which are indicated by their names, it is not without the utmost difficulty that any means can be found out of expressing those discoveries by a conformable set of names. Change the import of the old names, and you are in perpetual danger of being misunderstood: introduce an entire new set of names, and you are sure not to be understood at all. Complete success then, is, as yet at least, unattainable. But an attempt, though imperfect, may have its use: and, at the worst, it may accelerate the arrival of that perfect system, the possession of which will be the happiness of some maturer age. Gross ignorance descries no difficulties; imperfect knowledge finds them out, and struggles with them: it must be perfect knowledge that overcomes them.

  [2.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § ii. 1.

  [3.]That is, either by name, or at least by description, in such manner as to be sufficiently distinguished from all others; for instance, by the circumstance of being the owner or occupier of such and such goods. See B. I. tit. [Personation], supra, ch. xii. [Consequences], xv.

  [4.]With regard to offences against a class or neighbourhood, it is evident, that the fewer the individuals are, of which such class is composed, and the narrower that neighbourhood is, the more likely are the persons, to whom the offense is detrimental, to become assignable, insomuch that, in some cases, it may be difficult to determine concerning a given offense, whether it be an offense against individuals, or against a class or neighbourhood. It is evident also, that the larger the class or neighbourhood is, the more it approaches to a coincidence with the great body of the state. The three classes, therefore, are liable to a certain degree, to run into one another, and be confounded. But this is no more than what is the case, more or less, with all those ideal compartments under which men are wont to distribute objects for the convenience of discourse.

  [5.]See ch. vii. [Actions], xiii.

  [6.]1. Offences by falsehood: 2. Offenses against trust. See also par. xx. to xxx. and par. lxvi. Maturer views have suggested the feasibility, and the means, of ridding the system of this anomalous excrescence. Instead of considering these as so many divisions of offences, divided into genera a correspondent and collateral to the several genera distinguished by other appellations, they may be considered as so many specific differences, respectively applicable to those genera. Thus, in the case of a simple personal injury, in the operation of which a plan of falsehood has been employed: it seems more simple and more natural, to consider the offense thus committed as a particular species or modification of the genus of offence termed a simple personal injury, than to consider the simple personal injury, when effected by such means, as a modification of the division of offences entitled Offences through falsehood. By this means the circumstances of the intervention of falsehood as an instrument, and of the existence of a particular obligation of the nature of a trust, will be reduced to a par with various other classes of circumstances capable of affording grounds of modification commonly of aggravation or extenuation, to various genera of offences: instance, Premeditation, and conspiracy, on the one hand; Provocation received, and intoxication, on the other. This class will appear, but too plainly, as a kind of botch in comparison of the rest. But such is the fate of science and more particularly of the moral branch; the distribution of things must in a great measure be dependent on their names: arrangement, the work of mature rejection, must be ruled by nomenclature, the work of popular caprice.
  
  In the book of the laws, offences must therefore be treated of as much as possible under their accustomed names. Generical terms, which are in continual use, and which express ideas for which there are no other terms in use, cannot safely be discarded. When any such occur, which cannot be brought to quadrate with such a plan of classification as appears to be most convenient upon the whole, what then is to be done? There seems to be but one thing, which is, to retain them, and annex them to the regular part of the system in the form of an appendix. Though they cannot, when entire, be made to rank under any of the classes established in the rest of the system, the divisions to which they give title may be broken down into lesser divisions, which may not be alike intractable. By this means, how discordant soever with the rest of the system they may appear to be at first sight, on a closer inspection they may be found conformable.
  
  This must inevitably be the case with the names of offences, which are so various and universal in their nature, as to be capable, each of them of doing whatever mischief can be done by any other kind or kinds of offences whatsoever. Offences of this description may well be called anomalous.
  
  Such offences, it is plain, cannot but show themselves equally intractable under every kind of system. Upon whatever principle the system be constructed, they cannot, any of them, with any degree of propriety, be confined to any one division. If, therefore, they constitute a blemish in the present system, it is such a blemish as could not be avoided but at the expense of a greater. The class they are here thrown into will traverse, in its subordinate ramifications, the other classes and divisions of the present system: true, but so would they of any other. An irregularity, and that but a superficial one, is a less evil than continual error and contradiction. But even this slight deviation, which the fashion of language seemed to render unavoidable at the outset, we shall soon find occasion to correct as we advance. For though the first great parcels into which the offences of this class are divided are not referable, any of them, to any of the former classes, yet the subsequent lesser subdivisions are.

  [7.]See ch. vii. [Actions], iii. and xxiii.
  
  If, by reason of the word relation, this part of the division should appear obscure, the unknown term may be got rid of in the following manner. Our ideas are derived, all of them, from the senses; pleasurable and painful ones, therefore, among the rest: consequently, from the operation of sensible objects upon our senses. A man's happiness, then, may be said to depend more or less upon the relation he bears to any sensible object, when such object is in a way that stands a chance, greater or less, of producing to him, or averting from him, pain or pleasure. Now this, if at all, it must do in one or other of two ways; 1. In an active way, properly so called; viz. by motion: or, 2. In a passive or quiescent way, by being moved to, or acted upon: and in either case, either, 1. in an immediate way, by acting upon, or being acted on by, the organs of sense, without the intervention of any other external object: or, 2. in a more or less remote way, by acting upon, or being acted on by, some other external object, which (with the intervention of a greater or less number of such objects, and at the end of more or less considerable intervals of time) will come at length to act upon, or be acted upon by, those organs. And this is equally true, whether the external objects in question be things or persons. It is also equally true of pains and pleasures of the mind, as of those of the body: all the difference is, that in the production of these, the pleasure or pain may result immediately from the perception which it accompanies: in the production of those of the mind, it cannot result from the action of an object of sense any otherwise than by association; to wit, by means of some connection which the perception has contracted with certain prior ones, lodged already in the memory.*
  
  * See ch. v. [Pleasures and Pains], xv, xxxi. Ch. x. [Motives], xxxviii, note.

  [8.]See ch. x. [Motives].

  [9.]Subsequent consideration has here suggested several alterations. The necessity of adding to property,power, in the character of a distinguishable as well as valuable object or subject-matter of possession, has presented itself to view: and in regard to the fictitious entity here termed condition (for shortness instead of saying condition in life), it has been observed to be a sort of composite object, compounded of property, reputation, power and right to services. For this composite object the more proper place was therefore at the tail of the several simple ones.—Note by the Editor,July, 1822.

  [10.]Supra, iv. note.

  [11.]See ch. xii. [Consequences].

  [12.]See ch. viii. [Intentionality].

  [13.]See B. I. tit. [Semi-public offences]. In the mean time that of pestilence may serve as an example. A man, without any intention of giving birth to such a calamity, may expose a neighbourhood to the danger of it, by breaking quarantine or violating any of those other preventive regulations which governments, at certain conjunctures, may find it expedient to have recourse to, for the purpose of guarding against such danger.

  [14.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § iv.

  [15.]In this part of the analysis, I have found it necessary to deviate in some degree from the rigid rules of the exhaustive method I set out with. By me, or by some one else, this method may, perhaps, be more strictly pursued at some maturer period of the science. At present, the benefit that might result from the unrelaxed observance of it, seemed so precarious that I could not help doubting whether it would pay for the delay and trouble. Doubtless such a method is eminently instructive: but the fatigue of following it out is so great, not only to the author, but probably also to the reader, that carried to its utmost length at the first attempt, it might perhaps do more disservice in the way of disgust, than service in the way of information. For knowledge, like physic, how salutary soever in itself, becomes no longer of any use, when made too unpalatable to be swallowed. Mean time, it cannot but be a mortifying circumstance to a writer, who is sensible of the importance of his subject, and anxious to do it justice, to find himself obliged to exhibit what he perceives to be faulty, with any view, how indistinct soever, of something more perfect before his eyes. If there be any thing new and original in this work, it is to the exhaustive method so often aimed at that I am indebted for it. It will, therefore, be no great wonder if I should not be able to quit it without reluctance. On the other hand, the marks of stiffness which will doubtless be perceived in a multitude of places, are chiefly owing to a solicitous, and not perfectly successful, pursuit of this same method. New instruments are seldom handled at first with perfect ease.

  [16.]The idea of government, it may be observed, is introduced here without any preparation. The fact of its being established, I assume as notorious, and the necessity of it as alike obvious and incontestable. Observations indicating that necessity, if any such should be thought worth looking at in this view, may be found by turning to a passage in a former chapter, where they were incidentally adduced for the purpose of illustration. See. Ch. xii. [Consequences], § xvii.

  [17.]See infra, liv. note. Even this head, ample as it is, and vague as it may seem to be, will not, when examined by the principle of utility, serve, any more than another, to secrete any offence which has no title to be placed there. To show the pain or loss of pleasure which is likely to ensue, is a problem, which before a legislator can justify himself in adding the act to the catalogue of offences, he may in this case, as in every other, be called upon to solve.

  [18.]For examples, see infra, liv. note. This branch of the business of government, a sort of work of supererogation, as it may be called, in the calendar of political duty, is comparatively but of recent date. It is not for this that the untutored many could have originally submitted themselves to the dominion of the few. It was the dread of evil, not the hope of good that first cemented societies together. Necessaries come always before luxuries. The state of language marks the progress of ideas. Time out of mind the military department has had a name: so has that of justice: the power which occupies itself in preventing mischief, not till lately, and that but a loose one, the police: for the power which takes for its object the introduction of positive good, no peculiar name, however inadequate, seems yet to have been devised.

  [19.]The functions of justice, and those of the police, must be apt in many points to run one into another: especially as the business would be very badly managed if the same persons, whose more particular duty it is to act as officers of the police, were not upon occasion to act in the capacity of officers of justice. The ideas, however, of the two functions may still be kept distinct: and I see not where the line of separation can be drawn, unless it be as above.
  
  As to the word police, though of Greek extraction, it seems to be of French growth: it is from France, at least, that it has been imported into Great Britain, where it still retains its foreign garb: in Germany, if it did not originate there, it has at least been naturalized. Taken all together, the idea belonging to it seems to be too multifarious to be susceptible of any single definition. Want of words obliged me to reduce the two branches here specified into one. Who would have endured in this place to have seen two such words as the phthano-paranomic or crime-preventing, and the phthano-symphoric or calamity-preventing, branches of the police? the inconveniences of uniting the two branches under the same denomination, are, however, the less, inasmuch as the operations requisite to be performed for the two purposes will in many cases be the same. Other functions, commonly referred to the head of police, may be referred either to the head of that power which occupies itself in promoting in a positive way the increase of the national felicity, or of that which employs itself in the management of the public wealth. See infra, liv. note.

  [20.]It is from abroad that those pernicious enterprises are most apt to originate, which come backed with a greater quantity of physical force than the persons who are in a more particular sense the officers of justice are wont to have at their command. Mischief the perpetration of which is ensured by a force of such magnitude, may therefore be looked upon in general as the work of external adversaries. Accordingly, when the persons by whom it is perpetrated are in such force as to bid defiance to the ordinary efforts of justice, they loosen themselves from their original denomination in proportion as they increase in force, till at length they are looked upon as being no longer members of the state, but as standing altogether upon a footing with external adversaries. Give force enough to robbery, and it swells into rebellion: give permanence enough to rebellion, and it settles into hostility.

  [21.]It must be confessed, that in common speech the distinction here established between the public wealth and the national wealth is but indifferently settled: nor is this to be wondered at; the ideas themselves, though here necessary to be distinguished, being so frequently convertible. But I am mistaken if the language will furnish any other two words that would express the distinction better. Those in question will, I imagine, be allowed to be thus far well chosen, that if they were made to change their places, the import given to them would not appear to be quite so proper as that which is given to them as they stand at present.

  [22.]I should have been afraid to have said necessarily. In the United Provinces, in the Helvetic, or even in the Germanic body, where is that one assembly in which an absolute power over the whole resides? where was there in the Roman Commonwealth? I would not undertake for certain to find an answer to all these questions.

  [23.]See par. xvii. with regard to justice.

  [24.]It may be observed, that upon this occasion I consider religion in no other light, than in respect of the influence it may have on the happiness of the present life. As to the effects it may have in assuring us of and preparing us for a better life to come, this is a matter which comes not within the cognizanoe of the legislator. See tit. [Offences against religion].
  
  I say offences against religion, the fictitious entity: not offences against God, the real being. For, what sort of pain should the act of a feeble mortal occasion to a being unsusceptible of pain? How should an offence affect him? Should it be an offence against his person, his property, his reputation, or his condition?
  
  It has commonly been the way to put offences against religion foremost. The idea of precedence is naturally enough connected with that of reverence. . But for expressing reverence, there are other methods enough that are less equivocal. And in point of method and perspicuity it is evident, that with regard to offences against religion, neither the nature of the mischief which it is their tendency to produce, nor the reason there may be for punishing them, can be understood, but from the consideration of the several mischiefs which result from the several other sorts of offences. In a political view, it is only because those others are mischievous, that offences against religion are so too.

  [25.]This division of falsehoods, it is to be observed, is not regularly drawn out: that being what the nature of the case will not here admit of. Falsehood may be infinitely diversified in other ways than these. In a particular case, for instance, simple falsehood when uttered by writing, is distinguished from the same falsehood when uttered by word of mouth, and has had a particular name given to it accordingly. I mean, where it strikes against reputation, in which case, the instrument it has been uttered by has been called a libel. Now it is obvious, that in the same manner it might have received a distinct name in all other cases where it is uttered by writing. But there has not happened to be any thing in particular that has disposed mankind in those cases to give it such a name. The case is, that among the infinity of circumstances by which it might have been diversified, those which constitute it a libel, happen to have engaged a peculiar share of attention on the part of the institutors of language; either in virtue of the influence which these circumstances have on the tendency of the act, or in virtue of any particular degree of force with which on any other account they may have disposed it to strike upon the imagination.

  [26.]See B. I. tit. [Falsehoods].

  [27.]There are two other circumstances still more material; viz. 1. The parties whose interest is affected by the falsehood: 2. The point or article in which that interest is affected. These circumstances, however, enter not into the composition of the generical character. Their use is, as we shall see, to characterize the several species of each genus. See B. I. tit. [Falsehoods].

  [28.]Ibid.

  [29.]Powers, though not a species of rights (for the two sorts of fictitious entities, termed a power and a right, are altogether disparate) are yet so far included under rights, that wherever the word power may be employed, the word right may also be employed: The reason is, that wherever you may speak of a person as having a power, you may also speak of him as having a right to such power: but the converse of this proposition does not hold good: there are cases in which, though you may speak of a man as having a right, you cannot speak of him as having a power or in any other way make any mention of that word. On various occasions you have a right for instance, to the services of the magistrate: but if you are a private person, you have no power over him: all the power is on his side. This being the case, as the word right was employed, the word power might perhaps, without any deficiency in the sense, have been omitted. On the present occasion however, as in speaking of trusts this word is commonly made more use of than the word right, it seemed most eligible, for the sake of perspicuity, to insert them both.
  
  It may be expected that, since the word trust has been here expounded, the words power and right, upon the meaning of which the exposition of the word trust is made to depend, should be expounded also: and certain it is, that no two words can stand more in need of it than these do. Such exposition I accordingly set about to give, and indeed have actually drawn up: but the details into which I found it necessary to enter for this purpose, were of such length as to take up more room than could consistently be allotted to them in this place. With respect to these words, therefore, and a number of others, such as possession, title, and the like, which in point of import are inseparably connected with them, instead of exhibiting the exposition itself, I must content myself with giving a general idea of the plan which I have pursued in framing it: and as to every thing else, I must leave the import of them to rest upon whatever footing it may happen to stand upon in the apprehension of each reader. Power and right, and the whole tribe of fictitious entities of this stamp, are all of them, in the sense which belongs to them in a book of jurisprudence, the results of some manifestation or other of the legislator's will with respect to such or such an act. Now every such manifestation is either a prohibition, a command, or their respective negations; viz. a permission, and the declaration which the legislator makes of his will when on any occasion he leaves an act uncommanded. Now, to render the expression of the rule more concise, the commanding of a positive act may be represented by the prohibition of the negative act which is opposed to it. To know then how to expound a right, carry your eye to the act which in the circumstances in question would be a violation of that right: the law creates the right by prohibiting that act. Power, whether over a man's own person, or over other persons or over things, is constituted in the first instance by permission: but in as far as the law takes an active part in corroborating it, it is created by prohibition, and by command: by prohibition of such acts (on the part of other persons) as are judged incompatible with the exercise of it; and upon occasion, by command of such acts as are judged to be necessary for the removal of such or such obstacles of the number of those which may occur to impede the exercise of it. For every right which the law confers on one party, whether that party be an individual, a subordinate class of individuals, or the public, it thereby imposes on some other party a duty or obligation. But there may be laws which command or prohibit acts, that is, impose duties, without any other view than the benefit of the agent: these generate no rights: duties, therefore, may be either extra-regarding or self-regarding: extra-regarding have rights to correspond to them: self-regarding, none.
  
  That the exposition of the words power and right must, in order to be correct, enter into a great variety of details, may be presently made appear. One branch of the system of rights and powers, and but one, are those of which property is composed: to be correct, then, it must, among other things, be applicable to the whole tribe of modifications of which property, is susceptible. But the commands and prohibitions, by which the powers and rights that compose those several modifications are created, are so many different forms: to comprise the exposition in question within the compass of a single paragraph, would therefore be impossible: to take as many paragraphs for it as would be necessary, in order to exhibit these different forms, would be to engage in a detail so ample, that the analysis of the several possible species of property would compose only a part of it. This labour, uninviting as it was, I have accordingly undergone: but the result of it, as may well be imagined, seemed too voluminous and minute to be exhibited in an outline like the present. Happily it is not necessary except only for the scientific purpose of arrangement, to the understanding of any thing that need be said on the penal branch of the art of legislation. In a work which should treat of the civil branch of that art, it would find its proper place: and in such a work, if conducted upon the plan of the present one, it would be indispensable. Of the limits which seem to separate the one of these branches from the other, a pretty ample description will be found in the next chapter: from which some further lights respecting the course to be taken for developing the notions to be annexed to the words right and power, may incidentally be collected. See in particular § 3 and 4. See also par. lv. of the present chapter.
  
  I might have cut this matter very short, by proceeding in the usual strain, and saying, that a power was a faculty, and that a right was a privilege, and so on, following the beaten track of definition. But the inanity of such a method, in cases like the present, has been already pointed out:* a power is not a—any thing: neither is a right a—any thing: the case is they have neither of them any superior genus: these, together with duty, obligation, and a multitude of others of the same stamp, being of the number of those fictitious entities, of which the import can by no other means be illustrated than by showing the relation which they bear to real ones.
  
  * See Fragment of Government, ch. v. § 6. note.

  [30.]The first of these parties is styled in the law language, as well as in common speech, by the name here given to him. The other is styled, in the technical language of the English law, a cestuy que trust: in common speech, as we have observed, there is, unfortunately, no name for him. As to the law phrase, it is antiquated French, and though complex, it is still elliptical, and to the highest degree obscure. The phrase in full length would run in some such manner as this: cestuy al use de qui le trust est créé: he to whose use the trust or benefit is created. In a particular case a cestuy que trust is called by the Roman law, fidei-commissarius. In imitation of this, I have seen him somewhere or other called in English a fide-committee. This term, however, seems not very expressive. A fide-committee, or, as it should have been, fidei-committee, seems, literally speaking, to mean one who is committed to the good faith of another. Good faith seems to consist in the keeping of a promise. But a trust may be created without any promise in the case. It is indeed common enough to exact a promise, in order the more effectually to oblige a man to do that which he is made to promise he will do. But this is merely an accidental circumstance. A trust may be created without any such thing. What is it that constitutes a legal obligation in any case? A command, express or virtual, together with punishment appointed for the breach of it. By the same means may an obligation be constituted in this case as well as any other. Instead of the word beneficiary, which I found it necessary to adopt, the sense would be better expressed by some such word as beneficiendary (a word analogous in its formation to referendary), were it such an one as the ear could bring itself to endure. This would put it more effectually out of doubt, that the party meant was the party who ought to receive the benefit, whether he actually receives it or no: whereas the word beneficiary might be understood to intimate, that the benefit was actually received: while in offences against trust the mischief commonly is, that such benefit is reaped not by the person it was designed for, but by some other: for instance, the trustee.

  [31.]It is for shortness' sake that the proposition is stated as it stands in the text. If critically examined, it might be found, perhaps, to be scarcely justifiable by the laws of language. For the fictitious entities, characterised by the two abstract terms, trust and condition, are not subalternate but disparate. To speak with perfect precision, we should say that he who is invested with a trust is, on that account, spoken of as being invested with a condition: viz. the condition of a trustee. We speak of the condition of a trustee as we speak of the condition of a husband or a father.

  [32.]Infra, lv.

  [33.]It is to be observed, that in common speech, in the phrase the object of a man's property, the words the object of are commonly left out; and by an ellipsis, which, violent as it is, is now become more familiar than the phrase at length, they have made that part of it which consists of the words a man's property perform the office of the whole. In some cases then it was only on a part of the object that the acts in question might be performed: and to say, on this account, that the object was a man's property, was as much as to intimate that they might be performed on any part. In other cases it was only certain particular acts that might be exercised on the object: and to say of the object that it was his property, was as much as to intimate that any acts whatever might be exercised on it. Sometimes the acts in question were not to be exercised but at a future time nor then, perhaps, but in the case of the happening of a particular event of which the happening was uncertain: and to say of an object that it was his property, was as much as to intimate that the acts in question might be exercised on it at any time. Sometimes the object on which the acts in question were to have their termination, or their commencement, was a human creature: and to speak of one human creature as being the property of another is what would shock the ear every where but where slavery is established, and even there, when applied to persons in any other condition than that of slaves. Among the first Romans, indeed, the wife herself was the property of her husband; the child, of his father; the servant, of his master. In the civilised nations of modern times, the two first kinds of property are altogether at an end: and the last, unhappily not yet at an end, but however verging, it is to be hoped, towards extinction. The husband's property is now the company* of his wife; the father's the guardianship and service of his child; the master's, the service of his servant.
  
  * The consortium, says the English law.

  [34.]We shall have occasion, a little farther on, to speak of the person in whose hands the trust exists, under the description of the person who possesses, or is in possession of it and thence of the possession of the trust abstracted from the consideration of the possessor. However different the expression, the import is in both cases the same. So irregular and imperfect is the structure of language on this head, that no one phrase can be made to suit the idea on all the occasions on which it is requisite it should be brought to view: the phrase must be continually shifted, or new modified: so likewise in regard to conditions, and in regard to property. The being invested with, or possessing a condition; the being in possession of an article of property, that is if the object of the property be corporeal; the having a legal title (defeasible or indefeasible) to the physical possession of it, answers to the being in possession of a trust, or the being the person in whose hands a trust exists. In like manner, to the exercise of the functions belonging to a trust, or to a condition, corresponds the enjoyment of an article of property; that is, if the object of it be corporeal, the occupation. These verbal discussions are equally tedious and indispensable. Striving to cut a new road through the wilds of jurisprudence, I find myself continually distressed, for want of tools that are fit to work with. To frame a complete set of new ones is impossible. All that can be done is, to make here and there a new one in cases of absolute necessity, and for the rest, to patch up from time to time the imperfections of the old.
  
  As to the bipartition which this paragraph sets out with, it must be acknowledged not to be of the nature of those which to a first glance afford a sort of intuitive proof of their being exhaustive. There is not that marked connection and opposition between the terms of it, which subsists between contradictory terms and between terms that have the same common genus. I imagine, however, that upon examination it would be found to be exhaustive notwithstanding: and that it might even be demonstrated so to be. But the demonstration would lead us too far out of the ordinary track of language.

  [35.]See ch. vii. [Actions], iii.

  [36.]If advantageous, it will naturally be on account of the powers or rights that are annexed to the trust: if disadvantageous, on account of the duties.

  [37.]It may seem a sort of anachronism to speak on the present occasion of a trust, condition, or other possession, as one of which it may happen that a man ought or ought not to have had possession given him by the law, for, the plan here set out upon is to give such a view all along of the laws that are proposed, as shall be taken from the reasons which there are for making them: the reason then it would seem should subsist before the law: not the law before the reason. Nor is this to be denied: for, unquestionably, upon the principle of utility, it may be said with equal truth of those operations by which a trust, or any other article of property, is instituted, as of any other operations of the law, that it never can be expedient they should be performed, unless some reason for performing them, deduced from that principle, can be assigned. To give property to one man, you must impose obligation on another: you must oblige him to do something which he may have a mind not to do, or to abstain from doing something which he may have a mind to do: in a word, you must in some way or other expose him to inconvenience. Every such law, therefore, must at any rate be mischievous in the first instance, and if no good effects can be produced to set against the bad, it must be mischievous upon the whole. Some reasons, therefore, in this case, as in every other, there ought to be. The truth is, that in the case before us, the reasons are of too various and complicated a nature to be brought to view in an analytical outline like the present. Where the offence is of the number of those by which person or reputation are affected, the reasons for prohibiting it lie on the surface, and apply to every man alike. But property, before it can be offended against, must be created, and at the instant of its creation distributed, as it were, into parcels of different sorts and sizes, which require to be assigned, some to one man and some to another, for reasons, of which many lie a little out of sight, and which being different in different cases, would take up more room than could consistently be allotted to them here. For the present purpose, it is sufficient if it appear, that for the carrying on of the several purposes of life, there are trusts, and conditions, and other articles of property, which must be possessed by somebody: and that it is not every article that can, nor every article that ought, to be possessed by every body. What articles ought to be created, and to what persons, and in what cases they ought to be respectively assigned, are questions which cannot be settled here. Nor is there any reason for wishing that they could, since the settling them one way or another is what would make no difference in the nature of any offence whereby any party may be exposed, on the occasion of any such institution, to sustain a detriment.

  [38.]In the former case, it may be observed, the act is of the negative kind: in the latter, it will commonly be of the positive kind.
  
  As to the expression non-investment of trust, I am sensible that it is not perfectly consonant to the idiom of the language: the usage is to speak of a person as being invested (that is clothed) with a trust, not of a trust as of a thing that is itself invested or put on. The phrase at length would be, the non-investment of a person with a trust: but this phrase is by much too long-winded to answer the purpose of an appellative. I saw therefore, no other resource than to venture upon the ellipsis here employed. The ancient lawyers, in the construction of their appellatives, have indulged themselves in much harsher ellipses without scruple. See above, xxv. note. It is already the usage to speak of a trust as a thing that vests, and as a thing that may be divested.

  [39.]I do not find that this word has yet been received into the English language. In the Latin, however, it is very expressive, and is used in a sense exactly suitable to the sense here given to it. Militiam detrectare, to endeavour to avoid serving in the army, is a phrase not unfrequently met with in the Roman writers.

  [40.]What is here meant by abuse of trust, is the exercise of a power usurped over strangers, under favour of the powers properly belonging to the trust. The distinction between what is here meant by breach of trust and what is here meant by abuse of trust, is not very steadily observed in common speech: and in regard to public trusts, it will even in many cases be imperceptible. The two offences are, however, in themselves perfectly distinct: since the persons, by whom the prejudice is suffered, are in many cases altogether different. It may be observed, perhaps, that with regard to abuse of trust, there is but one species here mentioned; viz. that which corresponds to positive breach of trust: none being mentioned as corresponding to negative breach of trust. The reason of this distinction will presently appear. In favour of the parties, for whose benefit the trust was created, the trustee is bound to act, and therefore merely by his doing nothing they may receive a prejudice: but in favour of other persons at large he is not bound to act: and therefore it is only from some positive act on his part that any prejudice can ensue to them.

  [41.]See infra, liv. note; and ch. xviii. [Indirect Legislation].

  [42.]See ch. xi. [Dispositions], xxix.

  [43.]To bribe a trustee, as such, is in fact neither more nor less than to suborn him to be guilty of a breach or an abuse of trust. Now subornation is of the number of those accessory offences which every principal offence, one as well as another, is liable to be attended with. See infra, xxxi. note, and B. I. tit. [Accessory offences]. This particular species of subornation however being one that, besides its having a specific name framed to express it, is apt to engage a peculiar share of attention, and to present itself to view in company with other offences against trust, it would have seemed an omission not to have included it in that catalogue.

  [44.]See ch. vi. [Sensibility] ii.

  [1.]This chapter is an attempt to put our ideas of offences into an exact method. The particular uses of method are various: but the general one is, to enable men to understand the things that are the subjects of it. To understand a thing, is to be acquainted with its qualities or properties. Of these properties, some are common to it with other things; the rest, peculiar. But the qualities which are peculiar to any one sort of thing are few indeed, in comparison with those which are common to it with other things. To make it known in respect of its difference, would therefore be doing little, unless it were made known also by its genus. To understand it perfectly, a man must therefore be informed of the points in which it agrees as well as of those in which it disagrees, with all other things. When a number of objects, composing a logical whole, are to be considered together all of these possessing with respect to one another a certain congruency or agreement denoted by a certain name, there is but one way of giving a perfect knowledge of their nature; and that is, by distributing them into a system of parcels, each of them a part, either of some other parcel, or, at any rate, of the common whole. This can only be done in the way of bipartition, dividing each superior branch into two, and but two, immediately subordinate ones; beginning with the logical whole, dividing that into two parts, then each of those parts into two others; and so on. These first-distinguished parts agree in respect of those properties which belong to the whole: they differ in respect of those properties which are peculiar to each. To divide the whole into more than two parcels at once, for example into three, would not answer the purpose; for, in fact, it is but two objects that the mind can compare together exactly at the same time. Thus then, let us endeavour to deal with offences; or rather, strictly speaking, with acts which possess such properties as seem to indicate them fit to be constituted offences. The task is arduous, and as yet at least, perhaps for ever, above our force. There is no speaking of objects but by their names: but the business of giving them names has always been prior to the true and perfect knowledge of their natures. Objects the most dissimilar have been spoken of and treated as if their properties were the same. Objects the most similar have been spoken of and treated as if they had scarce anything in common. Whatever discoveries may be made concerning them, how different soever their congruencies and disagreements may be found to be from those which are indicated by their names, it is not without the utmost difficulty that any means can be found out of expressing those discoveries by a conformable set of names. Change the import of the old names, and you are in perpetual danger of being misunderstood: introduce an entire new set of names, and you are sure not to be understood at all. Complete success then, is, as yet at least, unattainable. But an attempt, though imperfect, may have its use: and, at the worst, it may accelerate the arrival of that perfect system, the possession of which will be the happiness of some maturer age. Gross ignorance descries no difficulties; imperfect knowledge finds them out, and struggles with them: it must be perfect knowledge that overcomes them.

  [45.]In the enumeration of these genera, it is all along to be observed, that offences of an accessory nature are not mentioned; unless it be here and there where they have obtained current names which seemed too much in vogue to be omitted. Accessory offences are those which, without being the very acts from which the mischief in question takes its immediate rise, are, in the way of causality, connected with those acts. See ch. vii. [Actions] xxiv. and B. I. tit. [Accessory offences].

  [46.]Ch. vii. [Actions] viii.

  [47.]Of these, and the several other leading expressions which there is occasion to bring to view in the remaining part of this analysis, ample definitions will be found in the body of the work conceived in terminis legis. To give particular references to these definitions, would be encumbering the page to little purpose.

  [48.]Injurious restrainment at large, and injurious compulsion at large, are here styled simple, in order to distinguish them from confinement, banishment, robbery, and extortion, all which are, in many cases, but so many modifications of one or other of the two first-mentioned offences
  
  To constitute an offence an act of simple injurious restrainment, or simple injurious compulsion, it is sufficient if the influence it exerts be, in the first place, pernicious; in the next place, exerted on the person by the medium of the will: it is not necessary that that part of the person on which it is exerted be the part to which it is pernicious: it is not even necessary that it should immediately be pernicious to either of these parts, though to one or other of them it must be pernicious in the long-run, if it be pernicious at all. An act in which the body, for example, is concerned, may be very disagreeable, and thereby pernicious to him who performs it, though neither disagreeable nor pernicious to his body: for instance, to stand or sit in public with a label on his back, or under any other circumstances of ignominy.

  [49.]It may be observed, that wrongful menacement is included as well in simple injurious restrainment as in simple injurious compulsion, except in the rare case where the motives by which one man is prevented by another from doing a thing that would have been materially to his advantage, or induced to do a thing that is materially to his prejudice, are of the alluring kind.

  [50.]Although, for reasons that have been already given (supra xxxi), no complete catalogue, nor therefore any exhaustive view, of either semi-public or self-regarding offences, can be exhibited in this chapter, it may be a satisfaction, however, to the reader, to see some sort of list of them, if it were only for the sake of having examples before his eyes. Such lists cannot any where be placed to more advantage than under the heads of the several divisions of private extra-regarding offences, to which the semi-public and self-regarding offences in question respectively correspond. Concerning the two latter, however, and the last more particularly, it must be understood that all I mean by inserting them here, is to exhibit the mischief, if any, which it is of the nature of them respectively to produce, without deciding upon the question, whether it would be worth while [see ch. xiii. Cases unmeet] in every instance, for the sake of combating that mischief, to introduce the evil of punishment. In the course of this detail it will be observed, that there are several heads of extra-regarding private offences, to which the correspondent heads, either of semi-public or self-regarding offences, or of both, are wanting. The reasons of these deficiencies will probably, in most instances, be evident enough upon the face of them. Lest they should not, they are however specified in the body of the work. They would take up too much room were they to be inserted here.
  
  I. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES through calamity. Calamities, by which the persons or properties of men, or both, are liable to be affected, seem to be as follows: 1. Pestilence or contagion. 2. Famine, and other kinds of scarcity. 3. Mischiefs producible by persons deficient in point of understanding, such as infants, idiots, and maniacs, for want of their being properly taken care of. 4. Mischief producible by the ravages of noxious animals, such as beasts of prey, locusts, &c. &c. 5. Collapsion, or fall of large masses of solid matter, such as decayed buildings, or rocks, or masses of snow. 6. Inundation or submersion. 7. Tempest. 8. Blight. 9. Conflagration. 10. Explosion. In as far as a man may contribute, by any imprudent act of his, to give birth to any of the above calamities, such act may be an offence. In as far as a man may fail to do what is incumbent on him to do towards preventing them, such failure may be an offence.
  
  II. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES of mere delinquency. A whole neighbourhood may be made to suffer, 1. Simple corporal injuries: in other words they may be made to suffer in point of health, by offensive or dangerous trades or manufactures: by selling or falsely puffing off unwholesome medicines or provisions: by poisoning or drying up of springs, destroying of aqueducts, destroying woods, walls, or other fences against wind and rain: by any kinds of artificial scarcity; or by any other calamities intentionally produced. 2. and 3. Simple injurious restrainment, and simple injurious compulsion: for instance, by obliging a whole neighbourhood, by dint of threatening hand-bills or threatening discourses, publicly delivered, to join, or forbear to join, in illuminations, acclamations, outcries, invectives, subscriptions, undertakings, processions, or any other mode of expressing joy or grief, displeasure or approbation, or, in short, in any other course of conduct whatsoever. 4. and 5. Confinement and banishment: by the spoiling of roads, bridges, or ferry-boats: by destroying or unwarrantably pre-occupying public carriages, or houses of accommodation. 6. By menacement: as by incendiary letters, and tumultuous assemblies: by newspapers or hand-bills, denouncing vengeance against persons of particular denominations: for example, against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Scotchmen, Gascons, Catalonians, &c. 7. Simple mental injuries: as by distressful, terrifying, obscene, or irreligious exhibitions; such as exposure of sores by beggars, exposure of dead bodies, exhibitions or reports of counterfeit witchcrafts or apparitions, exhibition of obscene or blasphemous prints: obscene or blasphemous discourses held in public: spreading false news of public defeats in battle, or of other misfortunes.
  
  III. Self-regarding offences against person. 1. Fasting. Abstinence from venery, self-flagellation, self-mutilation, and other self-denying and self-tormenting practices. 2. Gluttony, drunkenness, excessive venery, and other species of intemperance. 3. Suicide.

  [51.]I. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES. 1. Calumniation and vilification of particular denominations of persons, such as Jews, Catholics, &c.
  
  II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENCES. 1. Incontinence in females. 2. Incest.

  [52.]Supra xxvii.

  [53.]Ib.

  [54.]See ch. ix. [Consciousness] ii.

  [55.]The light in which the offense of insolvency is here exhibited, may perhaps at first consideration be apt to appear not only novel but improper. It may naturally enough appear, that when a man owes you a sum of money, for instance, the right to the money is yours already, and that what he withholds from you by not paying you, is not the legal title to it, possession of it, or power over it, but the physical possession of it, or power over it, only. But upon a more accurate examination this will be found not to be the case. What is meant by payment, is always an act of investitive power, as above explained; an expression of an act of the will, and not a physical act: it is an act exercised with relation indeed to the thing said to be paid, but not in a physical sense exercised upon it. A man who owes you ten pounds, takes up a handful of silver to that amount, and lays it down on a table at which you are sitting. If then by words, or gestures, or any means whatever, addressing himself to you, he intimates it to be his will that you should take up the money, and do with it as you please, he is said to have paid you: but if the case was, that he laid it down not for that purpose, but for some other, for instance, to count it and examine it, meaning to take it up again himself, or leave it for somebody else, he has not paid you: yet the physical acts, exercised upon the pieces of money in question, are in both cases the same. Till he does express a will to that purport, what you have is not, properly speaking, the legal possession of the money, or a right to the money, but only a right to have him, or in his default perhaps a minister of justice, compelled to render you that sort of service, by the rendering of which he is said to pay you: that is, to express such will as above-mentioned, with regard to some corporeal article, or other of a certain species, and of value equal to the amount of what he owes you: or, in other words, to exercise in your favour an act of investitive power with relation to some such article
  
  True it is, that in certain cases a man may perhaps not be deemed according to common acceptation, to have paid you, without rendering you a further set of services, and those of another sort: a set of services, which are rendered by the exercising of certain acts of a physical nature upon the very thing with which he is said to pay you: to wit, by transferring the thing to a certain place where you may be sure to find it, and where it may be convenient for you to receive it. But these services, although the obligation of rendering them should be annexed by law to the obligation of rendering those other services in the performance of which the operation of payment properly consists, are plainly acts of a distinct nature: nor are they essential to the operation: by themselves they do not constitute it, and it may be performed without them. It must be performed without them wherever the thing to be transferred happens to be already as much within the reach, physically speaking, of the creditor, as by any act of the debtor it can be made to be.
  
  This matter would have appeared in a clearer light had it been practicable to enter here into a full examination of the nature of property, and the several modifications of which it is susceptible: but every thing cannot be done at once.

  [56.]Supra xxvi.

  [57.]Under wrongful withholding of services is included breach of contract: for the obligation to render services may be grounded either on contract, or upon other titles: in other words, the event of a man's engaging in a contract is one out of many other investitive events from which the right of receiving them may take its commencement. See ch. xvii. [Limits], § iv.
  
  Were the word services to be taken in its utmost latitude (negative included as well as positive) this one head would cover the whole law. To this place then are to be referred such services only, the withholding of which does not coincide with any of the other offenses, for which separate denominations have been provided.

  [58.]In the English law, detinue and detainer: detinue applied chiefly to movables; detainer, to immovables. Under detinue and detainer cases are also comprised, in which the offense consists in forbearing to transfer the legal possession of the thing: such oases may be considered as coming under the head of wrongful non-investment. The distinction between mere physical possession and legal possession, where the latter is short-lived and defeasible, seems scarcely hitherto to have been attended to. In a multitude of instances they are confounded under the same expressions. The cause is, that probably under all laws, and frequently for very good reasons, the legal possession, with whatever certainty defeasible upon the event of a trial, is, down to the time of that event, in many cases annexed to the appearance of the physical.

  [59.]In attempting to exhibit the import belonging to this and other names of offenses in common use, I must be understood to speak all along with the utmost diffidence. The truth is, the import given to them is commonly neither determinate nor uniform: so that in the nature of things, no definition that can be given of them by a private person can be altogether an exact one. To fix the sense of them belongs only to the legislator.

  [60.]The remaining cases come under the head of usurpation, or wrongful investment of property. The distinction seems hardly hitherto to have been attended to: it turns like another, mentioned above, upon the distinction between legal possession and physical. The same observation may be applied to the case of extortion hereafter following.

  [61.]Vide supra, xxvii.

  [62.]Usury, which, if it must be an offense, is an offense committed with consent, that is, with the consent of the party supposed to be injured, cannot merit a place in the catalogue of offenses, unless the consent were either unfairly obtained or unfreely: in the first case, it coincides with defraudment; in the other, with extortion.

  [63.]I. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES. 1. Wrongful divestment, interception, usurpation, &c. of valuables, which are the property of a corporate body; or which are in the indiscriminate occupation of a neighbourhood; such as parish churches, altars, relics, and other articles appropriated to the purposes of religion: or things which are in the indiscriminate occupation of the public at large; such as mile-stones, market-houses, exchanges, public gardens, and cathedrals. 2. Setting on foot what have been called bubbles or fraudulent partnership, or gaming adventures; propagating false news to raise or sink the value of stocks, or of any other denomination of property.
  
  II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENCES. 1. Idleness. 2. Gaming. 3. Other species of prodigality.

  [64.]See ch. v. [Pleasures and Pains].

  [65.]I. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES—none.
  
  II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENCES. 1. Sacrifice of virginity. 2. Indecencies not public.

  [66.]Supra.

  [67.]In the technical language of the English law, property so acquired is said to be acquired by duress.

  [68.]Applied to movables, the circumstance of force has never, at least by the technical part of the language, been taken into account: no such combination of terms as forcible occupation is in current use. The word detinue is applied to movables only: and (in the language of the law) the word forcible has never been combined with it. The word applied to immovables is detainer: this is combined with the word forcible: and what is singular, it is scarcely in use without that word. It was impossible to steer altogether clear of this technical nomenclature, on account of the influence which it has on the body of the language.

  [69.]I. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES, 1. Incendiarism. 2. Criminal inundation.
  
  II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENSES—none.

  [70.]Supra, xxv. note.

  [71.]By the terms connubial and post-connubial, all I mean at present to bring to view is, the mere physical union, apart from the ceremonies and legal engagements that will afterwards be considered as accompanying it.

  [72.]The vague and undetermined nature of the fictitious entity, called a relation, is, on occasions like the present, apt to be productive of a good deal of confusion. A relation is either said to be borne by one of the objects which are parties to it, to the other, or to subsist between them. The latter mode of phraseology is, perhaps, rather the more common. In such case the idea seems to be, that from the consideration of the two objects there results but one relation, which belongs as it were in common to them both. In some cases, this perhaps may answer the purpose very well: it will not, however, in the present case. For the present purpose it will be necessary we should conceive two relations as resulting from the two objects, and borne, since such is the phrase, by the one of them to or towards the other: one relation borne by the first object to the second: another relation borne by the second object to the first. This is necessary on two accounts: 1. Because for the relations themselves there are in many instances separate names: for example, the relations of guardianship and wardship: in which case, the speaking of them as if they were but one, may be productive of much confusion. 2. Because the two different relationships give birth to so many conditions: which conditions are so far different, that what is predicated and will hold good of the one, will, in various particulars, as we shall see, not hold good of the other.

  [73.]See ch. xvii. [Limits], § iii.

  [74.]Two persons, who by any means stand engaged to live together, can never live together long, but one of them will choose that some act or other should be done which the other will choose should not be done. When this is the case, how is the competition to be decided? Laying aside generosity and good-breeding, which are the tardy and uncertain fruits of long-established laws, it is evident that there can be no certain means of deciding it but physical power: which indeed is the very means by which family as well as other competitions must have been decided, long before any such office as that of legislator had existence. This then being the order of things which the legislator finds established by nature, how should he do better than to acquiesce in it? The persons who by the influence of causes that prevail every where, stand engaged to live together, are, 1. Parent and child, during the infancy of the latter: 2. Man and wife: 3. Children of the same parents. Parent and child, by necessity: since, if the child did not live with the parent (or with somebody standing in the place of the parent) it could not live at all: husband and wife, by a choice approaching to necessity: children of the same parents, by the necessity of their living each of them with the parents. As between parent and child, the necessity there is of a power on the part of the parent for the preservation of the child supersedes all farther reasoning. As between man and wife, that necessity does not subsist. The only reason that applies to this case is the necessity of putting an end to competition. The man would have the meat roasted, the woman boiled: shall they both fast till the judge comes in to dress it for them? The woman would have the child dressed in green; the man, in blue: shall the child be naked till the judge comes in to clothe it? This affords a reason for giving a power to one or other of the parties: but it affords none for giving the power to the one rather than to the other. How then shall the legislator determine? Supposing it equally easy to give it to either, let him look ever so long for a reason why he should give it to the one rather than to the other, and he may look in vain. But how does the matter stand already? for there were men and wives (or, what comes to the same thing, male and female living together as man and wife) before there were legislators. Looking round him then, he finds almost every where the male the stronger of the two; and therefore possessing already, by purely physical means, that power which he is thinking of bestowing on one of them by means of law. How then can he do so well as by placing the legal power in the same hands which are beyond comparison the more likely to be in possession of the physical? in this way, few transgressions, and few calls for punishment: in the other way, perpetual transgressions, and perpetual calls for punishment. Solon is said to have transferred the same idea to the distribution of state powers. Here then was generalization: here was the work of genius. But in the disposal of domestic power, every legislator, without any effort of genius, has been a Solon. So much for reasons:* add to which, in point of motives,** that legislators seem all to have been of the male sex, down to the days of Catherine. I speak here of those who frame laws, not of those who touch them with a sceptre.
  
  * Social motives: sympathy for the public: love of reputation, &c.
  
  ** Self-regarding motives: or social motives, which are social in a less extent: sympathy for persons of a particular description: persons of the same sex.

  [75.]Supra, note, page 259.

  [76.]Vide supra, xxvii.

  [77.]In most civilized nations there is a sort of domestic condition, in which the superior is termed a master, while the inferior is termed sometimes indeed a servant, but more particularly and more frequently an apprentice. In this case, though the superior is, in point of usage, known by no other name than that of a master, the relationship is in point of fact a mixed one, compounded of that of master and that of guardian.

  [78.]It may seem at first, that a person who is in the condition of a slave, could not have it in his power to engage in such course of proceeding as would be necessary, in order to give him an apparent title to be reckoned among the slaves of another master. But though a slave in point of right, it may happen that he has eloped for instance, and is not a slave in point of fact: or, suppose him a slave in point of fact, and ever so vigilantly guarded, still a person connected with him by the ties of sympathy, might do that for him which, though willing and assenting, he might not be able to do for himself: might forge a deed of donation, for example, from the one master to the other.

  [79.]Consider them together indeed, take the sum of the two interests, and the case, as we have seen (supra, xl), is then the reverse. That case, it is to be remembered, proceeds only upon the supposition that the two parties are obliged to live together; for suppose it to be at their option to part, the necessity of establishing the power ceases.

  [80.]Ch. xvii. [Limits], § i.

  [81.]Ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § iii.

  [82.]In certain nations, women, whether married or not, have been placed in a state of perpetual wardship: this has been evidently founded on the notion of a decided inferiority in point of intellects on the part of the female sex, analogous to that which is the result of infancy or insanity on the part of the male. This is not the only instance in which tyranny has taken advantage of its own wrong, alleging as a reason for the domination it exercises, an imbecility, which, as far as it has been real, has been produced by the abuse of that very power which it is brought to justify. Aristotle, fascinated by the prejudice of the times, divides mankind into two distinct species, that of freemen, and that of slaves. Certain men were born to be slaves, and ought to be slaves.—Why? Because they are so.

  [83.]See ch. xvii. [Limits], § i.

  [84.]Supra, xxxv.

  [85.]Vide supra, xxv.

  [86.]Vide supra, xl.

  [87.]This effect it may be thought will not necessarily take place: since a ward may have two guardians. One man then is guardian by right: another man comes and makes himself so by usurpation. This may very well be, and yet the former may continue guardian notwithstanding. How then (it may be asked) is he divested of his guardianship?—The answer is—Certainly not of the whole of it: but, however, of a part of it: of such part as is occupied, if one may so say, that is, of such part of the powers and rights belonging to it as are exercised, by the usurper.

  [88.]At first view it may seem a solecism to speak of the condition of parentality as one which a man can have need to be invested with. The reason is, that it is not common for any ceremony to be required as necessary to man's being deemed in law the father of such or such a child. But the institution of such ceremony, whether advisable or not, is at least perfectly conceivable. Nor are there wanting cases in which it has actually been exemplified. By an article in the Roman law, adopted by many modern nations, an illegitimate child is rendered legitimate by the subsequent marriage of his parents. If then a priest, or other person whose office it was were to refuse to join a man and woman in matrimony, such refusal, besides being a wrongful non-investment with respect to the two matrimonial conditions, would be a wrongful non-investment of parentality and filiation, to the prejudice of any children who should have been legitimated.

  [89.]In English we have no word that will serve to express with propriety the person who bears the relation opposed to that of parent. The word child is ambiguous being employed in another sense, perhaps more frequently than in this: more frequently in opposition to a person of full age, an adult, than in correlation to a parent. For the condition itself we have no other word than filiation: an ill-contrived term, not analogous to paternity and maternity: the proper term would have been filiality: the word filiation is as frequently, perhaps, and more consistently, put for the act of establishing a person in the possession of the condition of filiality.

  [90.]Supra, xl. note.

  [91.]See ch. xvii. [Limits], § iv.

  [92.]In this case also, if the woman knew not of the prior marriage, it is besides a species of seduction; and, in as far as it affects her, belongs to another division of the offences of this class. Vide supra, xxxvi.

  [93.]I. SEMI-PUBLIC offenses.—Falsehoods contesting, or offenses against justice destroying, the validity of the marriages of people of certain descriptions: such as Jews, Quakers, Hugonots, &c. &c.
  
  II. SELF-REGARDING offenses.—Improvident marriage on the part of minors.

  [94.]In pursuance of the plan adopted with relation to semi-public and self-regarding offences, it may here be proper to exhibit such a catalogue as the nature of the design will admit, of the several genera or inferior divisions of public offences.
  
  I. OFFENCES against the EXTERNAL SECURITY of the state. 1. Treason (in favour of foreign enemies). It may be positive or negative (negative consisting, for example, in the not opposing the commission of positive). 2. Espionage (in favour of foreign rivals not yet enemies). 3. Injuries to foreigners at large (including piracy). 4. Injuries to privileged foreigners (such as ambassadors).
  
  II. OFFENCES AGAINST JUSTICE. Offences against judicial trust: viz. Wrongful non-investment of judicial trust, wrongful interception of judicial trust, wrongful divestment of judicial trust, usurpation of judicial trust, wrongful investment of judicial trust, wrongful abdication of judicial trust, wrongful detrectation of judicial trust, wrongful imposition of judicial trust, breach of judicial trust, abuse of judicial trust, disturbance of judicial trust, and bribery in prejudice of judicial trust.
  
  Breach and abuse of judicial trust may be either intentional or unintentional. Intentional is culpable at any rate. Unintentional will proceed either from inadvertence, or from mis-supposal: if the inadvertence be coupled with heedlessness, or the mis-supposal with rashness, it is culpable: if not, blameless. For the particular acts by which the exercise of judicial trust may be disturbed see B. i. tit. [Offences against justice]. They are too multifarious, and too ill provided with names, to be exhibited here.
  
  If a man fails in fulfilling the duties of this trust, and thereby comes either to break or to abuse it, it must be through some deficiency in the three requisite and only requisite endowments, of knowledge, inclination, and power. [See supra, xxvii.] A deficiency in any of those points, if any person be in fault, may proceed either from his own fault, or from the fault of those who should act with or under him. If persons who are in fault are persons invested with judicial trust, the offence comes under the head of breach or abuse of trust: if other persons, under that of disturbance of trust.
  
  The ill effects of any breach, abuse, or disturbance of judicial trust, will consist in the production of some article or articles in the list of the mischiefs which it ought to be the original purpose of judicial procedure to remedy or avert, and of those which it ought to be the incidental purpose of it to avoid producing. These are either primary (that is immediate) or remote: remote are of the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th order, and so on. The primary are those which import actual pain to persons assignable, and are therefore mischievous in themselves: the secondary are mischievous on account of the tendency they have to produce some article or articles in the catalogue of those of the first order; and are therefore mischievous in their effects. Those of the 3rd order are mischievous only on account of the connection they have in the way of productive tendency, as before, with those of the 2nd order: and so on.
  
  Primary inconveniences, which it ought to be the object of procedure to provide against, are, 1. The continuance of the individual offence itself, and thereby the increase as well as continuance of the mischief of it. 2 The continuance of the whole mischief of the individual offence. 3. The continuance of a part of the mischief of the individual offence. 4. Total want of amends on the part of persons injured by the offence. 5. Partial want of amends on the part of persons injured by the offence. 6. Superfluous punishment of delinquents. 7. Unjust punishment of persons accused. 8. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of superior judicial officers. 9. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of ministerial or other subordinate judicial officers. 10. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of persons whose co-operation is requisite pro re natâ, in order to make up the necessary complement of knowledge and power on the part of judicial officers, who are such by profession. 11. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of persons at large, coming under the sphere of the operations of the persons above mentioned.
  
  Secondary inconveniences are, in the consultative, pre-interpretative (or purely civil) branch of procedure, 1. Misinterpretation or adjudication. In the executive (including the penal) branch. 2. Total impunity of delinquents: (as favouring the production of other offences of the like nature). 3. Partial impunity of delinquents. 4. Application of punishment improper in specie, though perhaps not in degree (this lessening the beneficial efficacy of the quantity employed). 5. Uneconomical application of punishment, though proper, perhaps, as well in specie as in degree. 6. Unnecessary pecuniary expense on the part of the state.
  
  Inconveniences of the 3rd order are, 1. Unnecessary delay. 2. Unnecessary intricacy.
  
  Inconveniences of the 4th order are, 1. Breach, 2. Abuse, 3. Disturbance, of judicial trust, as above: viz. in as far as these offences are preliminary to and distinct from those of the 2nd and 3rd orders.
  
  Inconveniences of the 5th order are, Breach of the several regulations of procedure, or other regulations, made in the view of obviating the inconveniences above enumerated: viz. if preliminary and distinct, as before.
  
  III. OFFENCES against the PREVENTIVE branch of the POLICE. I. Offences against phthano-paranomic trust: (, to prevent; , an offence). 2. Offences against phthano-symphoric trust: (, a calamity). The two trusts may be termed by the common appellation of prophylactic: (, beforehand, and , to guard against).
  
  IV. OFFENCES against the PUBLIC FORCE. 1. Offences against military trust, corresponding to those against judicial trust. Military desertion is a breach of military duty, or of military trust. Favouring desertion is a disturbance of it. 2. Offences against that branch of public trust which consists in the management of the several sorts of things appropriated to the purposes of war: such as arsenals, fortifications, dock-yards, ships of war, artillery, ammunition, military magazines, and so forth. It might be termed polemo-tamieutic: from , war; and , a steward.*
  
  V. OFFENCES against the POSITIVE increase of the NATIONAL FELICITY. 1. Offences against epistemo-threptic trust: , knowledge; and , to nourish or promote). 2. Offences against eupædagogic trust: (, well; and , to educate). 3. Offences against noso-comial trust: (, a disease; and , to take care of). 4. Offences against moro-comial trust: (, an insane person). 5. Offences against ptocho-comial trust: (, the poor). 6. Offences against antembletic trust: (, to bestow in reparation of a loss). 7. Offences against hedonarchic trust: (, pleasures; and , to preside over). The above are examples of the principal establishments which should or might be set on foot for the purpose of making, in so many different ways, a positive addition to the stock of national felicity. To exhibit an exhaustive analysis of the possible total of these establishments would not be a very easy task: nor on the present occasion is it a necessary one: for be they of what nature and in what number they may, the offences to which they stand exposed will, in as far as they are offences against trust, be in point of denomination the same: and as to what turns upon the particular nature of each trust, they will be of too local a nature to come within the present plan.
  
  All these trusts might be comprised under some such general name as that of agatho-poieutic trust: (, to do good to any one).
  
  VI. OFFENCES against the PUBLIC WEALTH. 1. Non-payment of forfeitures. 2. Non-payment of taxes, including smuggling. 3. Breach of the several regulations made to prevent the evasion of taxes. 4. Offences against fiscal trust: the same as offences against judicial and military trusts. Offences against the original revenue, not accruing either from taxes or forfeitures, such as that arising from the public demesnes, stand upon the same footing as offences against private property. 5. Offences against demosio-tamieutic trust: (, things belonging to the public; and , a steward) viz. against that trust, of which the object is to apply to their several destinations such articles of the public wealth as are provided for the indiscriminate accommodation of individuals: such as public roads and waters, public harbours, post-offices, and packet boats, and the stock belonging to them; market-places, and other such public buildings; race-grounds, public walks, and so forth. Offences of this description will be apt to coincide with offences against agatho-poieutic trust as above, or with offences against ethno-plutistic trust hereafter mentioned, according as the benefit in question is considered in itself, or as resulting from the application of such or such a branch or portion of the public wealth.
  
  VII. OFFENCES against POPULATION. 1. Emigration. 2. Suicide. 3. Procurement of impotence or barrenness. 4. Abortion. 5. Unprolific coition. 6. Celibacy.
  
  VIII. OFFENCES against the NATIONAL WEALTH. 1. Idleness. 2. Breach of the regulations made in the view of preventing the application of industry to purposes less profitable, in prejudice of purposes more profitable. 3. Offences against ethno-plutistic trust: (, the nation at large; , to enrich).
  
  IX. OFFENCES against the SOVEREIGNTY. 1. Offences against sovereign trust: corresponding to those against judicial, prophylactic, military, and fiscal trusts. Offensive rebellion includes wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment, of sovereign trust, with the offences accessory thereto. Where the trust is in a single person, wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment cannot, any of them, be committed without rebellion: abdication and detrectation can never be deemed wrongful: breach and abuse of sovereign trust can scarce be punished: no more can bribe-taking: wrongful imposition of it is scarce practicable. When the sovereignty is shared among a number, wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment, may be committed without rebellion: none of the offences against this trust are impracticable: nor is there any of them but might be punished. Defensive rebellion is disturbance of this trust. Political tumults, political defamation, and political vilification, are offences accessory to such disturbance.
  
  Sovereign power (which, upon the principle of utility, can never be other than fiduciary) is exercised either by rule or without rule: in the latter case it may be termed autocratic: in the former case it is divided into two branches, the legislative and the executive.** In either case, where the designation of the person by whom the power is to be possessed, depends not solely upon mere physical events, such as that of natural succession but in any sort upon the will of another person, the latter possesses an investitive power, or right of investiture, with regard to the power in question: in like manner may any person also possess a divestitive power. The powers above enumerated, such as judicial power, military power, and so forth, may therefore be exercisable by a man, either directly, propriâ manu; or indirectly, manu alienâ.*** Power to be exercised manu alienâ is investitive, which may or may not be accompanied by divestitive. Of sovereign power, whether autocratic, legislative, or executive, the several public trusts above mentioned form so many subordinate branches. Any of these powers may be placed, either, 1. in an individual; or, 2. in a body politic: who may be either supreme or subordinate. Subordination on the part of a magistrate may be established, 1. By the person's being punishable: 2. By his being removable: 3. By the orders being reversible.
  
  X. OFFENCES against RELIGION. 1. Offences tending to weaken the force of the religious sanction: including blasphemy and profaneness. 2. Offences tending to misapply the force of the religious sanction: including false prophecies, and other pretended revelations; also heresy, where the doctrine broached is pernicious to the temporal interests of the community. 3. Offences against religious trust, where any such is thought fit to be established.
  
  XI. OFFENCES against the NATIONAL INTEREST in general. 1. Immoral publications. 2. Offences against the trust of an ambassador; or, as it might be termed, presbeutic trust. 3. Offences against the trust of a privy-counsellor; or, as it might be termed, symbouleutic trust. 4. In pure or mixed monarchies, prodigality on the part of persons who are about the person of the sovereign, though without being invested with any specific trust. 5. Excessive gaming on the part of the same persons. 6. Taking presents from rival powers without leave.
  
  * A number of different branches of public trust, none of which have yet been provided with appellatives, have here been brought to view: which then were best? to coin new names for them out of the Greek; or, instead of a word to make use of a whole sentence? In English, and in French, there is no other alternative; no more than in any of the other southern languages. It rests with the reader to determine.
  
  ** See ch. xvii. [Limits], § iii.
  
  *** In the former case, the power might be termed in one word, autochirous: in the latter heterochirous. (, a man's own; , a hand; , another's).

  [95.]Supra, xvii.

  [96.]See ch. vii. [Actions] viii.

  [97.]The reason probably why an object of the sort here in question is referred to the head of property, is, that the chief value of it arises from its being capable of being made a source of property in the more ordinary acceptations of the word; that is, of money, consumable commodities, and so forth.

  [98.]The conditions themselves having nothing that corresponds to them in England, it was necessary to make use of foreign terms.

  [99.]The above hints are offered to the consideration of the few who may be disposed to bend their minds to disquisitions of this uninviting nature: to sift the matter to the bottom, and engage in the details of illustration, would require more room than could in this place be consistently allowed.

  [100.]See Fragment on Government, pref. p. xlv. edit. 1776.—pref. p. xlvii. edit. 1823.

  [101.]Imagine what a condition a science must be in, when as yet there shall be no such thing as forming any extensive proposition relative to it, that shall be at the same time a true one: where, if the proposition shall be true of some of the particulars contained under it, it shall be false with regard to others. What a state would botany, for example, be in, if the classes were so contrived, that no common characters could be found for them? Yet in this state, and no better, seems every system of penal law to be, authoritative or unauthoritative, that has ever yet appeared. Try if it be otherwise, for instance, with the delicta privata et publica, and with the publica ordinaria, and publica extra-ordinaria of the Roman law.* All this for want of method: and hence the necessity of endeavouring to strike out a new one.
  
  Nor is this want of method to be wondered at. A science so new as that of penal legislation, could hardly have been in any better state. Till objects are distinguished, they cannot be arranged. It is thus that truth and order go on hand in hand. It is only in proportion as the former is discovered, that the latter can be improved. Before a certain order is established, truth can be but imperfectly announced: but until a certain proportion of truth has been developed and brought to light, that order cannot be established. The discovery of truth leads to the establishment of order: and the establishment of order fixes and propagates the discovery of truth.
  
  * See Heinecc, Elem. p. vii, § 79, 80.

  [102.]Supra, lviii.

  [103.]Ch. vii. [Actions] xiv.

  [104.]See ch. xii. [Consequences] iii.

  [105.]That is, by their primary mischief.

  [106.]See supra, xxxi note, and B. I. tit. [Accessory offences].

  [107.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet] ii. note.

  [108.]I mean, that retaliation is capable of being applied in the cases in question, not that it ought always to be employed. Nor is it capable of being applied in every individual instance of each offence, but only in some individual instance of each species of offence.

  [109.]See ch. xv. [Properties] viii.

  [110.]Ch. ii. [Principles adverse].

  [111.]It seems to be from their possessing these three last properties, that the custom has arisen of speaking of them, or at least of many of them, under the name of offences against the law of nature: a vague expression, and productive of a multitude of inconveniences. See ch. ii. [Principles adverse] xiv. note.

  [112.]Because the person, who in general is most likely to be sensible to the mischief (if there is any) of the offence, viz. the person whom it most affects, shows by his conduct that he is not sensible of it.

  [113.]See ch. vi. [Sensibility] xxv. xxvi.

  [114.]See ch. xii. [Consequences] iv.

  [115.]Among the offences, however, which belong to this class there are some which in certain countries it is not uncommon for persons to be disposed to prosecute without any artificial inducement, and merely on account of an antipathy, which such acts are apt to excite. See ch. ii. [Principles adverse] xi.

  [116.]See note 1. in the preceding page. [In this edition, note 112.—Econlib Editor.]

  [117.]Accordingly, most of them are apt to be ranked among offences against the law of nature. Vide supra, Characters of the 1st class, lxii. note.

  [118.]I mean the considerations, right or wrong, which induce or dispose the legislator to treat them on the footing of offences.

  [119.]Instance, offences by falsehood, in the case of defraudment.

  [120.]Instance, offences by falsehood, in the case of simple corporeal injuries, and other offences against person.
  
  Chapter XVII.

  [121.]And the constitutional branch, what is become of it? Such is the question which many a reader will be apt to put. An answer that might be given is—that the matter of it might without much violence be distributed under the two other heads. But, as far as recollection serves, that branch notwithstanding its importance, and its capacity of being lodged separately from the other matter, had at that time scarcely presented itself to my view in the character of a distinct one: the thread of my enquiries had not as yet reached it. But in the concluding note of this same chapter, in paragraphs xxii. to the end, the omission may be seen in some measure supplied.

  [122.]Under the Gentoo and Mahometan religions, the interests of the rest of the animal creation seem to have met with some attention. Why have they not universally, with as much as those of human creatures, allowance made for the difference in point of sensibility? Because the laws that are have been the work of mutual fear; a sentiment which the less rational animals have not had the same means as man has of turning to account. Why ought they not? No reason can be given. If the being eaten were all, there is very good reason why we should be suffered to eat such of them as we like to eat: we are the better for it, and they are never the worse. They have none of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery which we have. The death they suffer in our hands commonly is, and always may be, a speedier, and by that means a less painful one, than that which would await them in the inevitable course of nature. If the being killed were all, there is very good reason why we should be suffered to kill such as molest us: we should be the worse for their living, and they are never the worse for being dead. But is there any reason why we should be suffered to torment them? Not any that I can see. Are there any why we should not be suffered to torment them? Yes, several. See B. I. tit. [Cruelty to animals]. The day has been, I grieve to say in many places it is not yet past, in which the greater part of the species, under the denomination of slaves, have been treated by the law exactly upon the same footing as, in England for example, the inferior races of animals are still. The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor.* It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
  
  * See Lewis XIV's Code Noir.

  [123.]Ch. vi. [Sensibility] iii.

  [124.]I say nothing in this place of reward: because it is only in a few extraordinary cases that it can be applied, and because even where it is applied, it may be doubted perhaps whether the application of it can, properly speaking, be termed an act of legislation.

  [125.]Ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet].

  [126.]See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet], § iv.

  [127.]Ch. xiv. [Proportion] xviii. Rule 7.

  [128.]Ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet] § iii. Append. tit. [Promulgation].

  [129.]Ch. xi. [Disposition] xxxv. &c.

  [130.]Ch. vi. [Sensibility].

  [131.]In certain countries, in which the voice of the people has a more especial control over the hand of the legislator, nothing can exceed the dread which they are under of seeing any effectual provision made against the offenses which come under the head of defamation, particularly that branch of it which may be styled the political. This dread seems to depend partly upon the apprehension they may think it prudent to entertain of a defect in point of ability or integrity on the part of the legislator, partly upon a similar apprehension of a defect in point of integrity on the part of the judge.

  [132.]See ch. ix. [Consciousness].

  [133.]Ch. xvi. [Division] lii.
  
  On occasions like this the legislator should never lose sight of the well-known story of the oculist and the sot. A countryman who had hurt his eyes by drinking, went to a celebrated oculist for advice. He found him at table, with a glass of wine before him. 'You must leave off drinking,' said the oculist. 'How so?' says the countryman. 'You don't, and yet me thinks your own eyes are none of the best.'—'That's very true friend,' replied the oculist: 'but you are to know, I love my bottle better than my eyes.'

  [134.]Evil of apprehension: third branch of the evil of a punishment. Ch. xiii. § iv.

  [135.]Derivative evils: fourth branch of the evil of a punishment. Ib.

  [136.]I do not mean but that other motives of a less social nature might have introduced themselves, and probably, in point of fact, did introduce themselves, in the progress of the enterprise. But in point of possibility, the motive above mentioned, when accompanied with such a thread of reasoning, is sufficient, without any other, to account for all the effects above alluded to. If any others interfere, their interference, how natural soever, may be looked upon as an accidental and inessential circumstance, not necessary to the production of the effect. Sympathy, a concern for the danger they appear to be exposed to, gives birth to the wish of freeing them from it: that wish shows itself in the shape of a command: this command produces disobedience: disobedience on the one part produces disappointment on the other: the pain of disappointment produces ill-will towards those who are the authors of it. The affections will often make this progress in less time than it would take to describe it. The sentiment of wounded pride, and other modifications of the love of reputation and the love of power, add fuel to the flame. A kind of revenge exasperates the severities of coercive policy.

  [137.]See B. I. tit. [Self-regarding offences].

  [138.]But suppose the dictates of legislation are not what they ought to be: what are then, or (what in this case comes to the same thing) what ought to be, the dictates of private ethics? Do they coincide with the dictates of legislation, or do they oppose them, or do they remain neuter? a very interesting question this, but one that belongs not to the present subject. It belongs exclusively to that of private ethics. Principles which may lead to the solution of it may be seen in A Fragment on Government, p. 150 Lond. edit. 1776—and p. 114, edit. 1823.

  [139.]If we may believe M. Voltaire,* there was a time when the French ladies who thought themselves neglected by their husbands, used to petition pour étre embesoignèes: the technical word, which, he says, was appropriated to this purpose. This sort of law-proceedings seems not very well calculated to answer the design: accordingly we hear nothing of them now-a-days. The French ladies of the present age seem to be under no such difficulties.
  
  * Quest. sur l'Encyclop. tom. 7. art. Impuissance.

  [140.]A woman's head-dress catches fire: water is at hand: a man, instead of assisting to quench the fire, looks on, and laughs at it. A drunken man, falling with his face downwards into a puddle, is in danger of suffocation: lifting his head a little on one side would save him: another man sees this and lets him lie. A quantity of gunpowder lies scattered about a room: a man is going into it with a lighted candle: another, knowing this, lets him go in without warning. Who is there that in any of these cases would think punishment misapplied?

  [141.]The word law itself which stands so much in need of a definition, must wait for it awhile (see § 3): for there is no doing every thing at once. In the mean time every reader will understand it according to the notion he has been accustomed to annex to it.

  [142.]In most of the European languages there are two different words for distinguishing the abstract and the concrete senses of the word law: which words are so wide asunder as not even to have any etymological affinity. In Latin, for example, there is lex for the concrete sense, jus for the abstract: in Italian, legge and diritto: in French, loi and droit: in Spanish ley and derecho: in German, gesetz and recht. The English is at present destitute of this advantage.
  
  In the Anglo-Saxon, besides lage, and several other words, for the concrete sense, there was the word right, answering to the German recht, for the abstract as may be seen in the compound folc-right, and in other instances. But the word right having long ago lost this sense, the modern English no longer possesses this advantage.

  [143.]The word international, it must be acknowledged, is a new one; though, it is hoped, sufficiently analogous and intelligible. It is calculated to express, in a more significant way, the branch of law which goes commonly under the name of the law of nations: an appellation so uncharacteristic, that, were it not for the force of custom, it would seem rather to refer to internal jurisprudence. The chancellor D'Aguesseau has already made, I find, a similar remark: he says that what is commonly called droit des gens, ought rather to be termed droit entre les gens.*
  
  * Œvres, Tom. ii. p. 337, edit. 1773, 12mo.

  [144.]In the times of James I. of England and Philip III. of Spain, certain merchants at London happened to have a claim upon Philip, which his ambassador Gondemar did not think fit to satisfy. They applied for counsel to Selden, who advised them to sue the Spanish monarch in the court of King's Bench, and prosecute him to an outlawry. They did so: and the sheriffs of London were accordingly commanded, in the usual form, to take the body of the defendant Philip, wherever it was to be found within their bailiwick. As to the sheriffs, Philip, we may believe, was in no great fear of them: but, what answered the same purpose, he happened on his part to have demands upon some other merchants, whom, so long as the outlawry remained in force, there was one proceeding against. Gondemar paid the money.* This was internal jurisprudence: if the dispute had been betwixt Philip and James himself, it would have been international.
  
  As to the word international, from this work, or the first of the works edited in French by A. Dumont, it has taken root in the language. Witness reviews and newspapers.
  
  * Selden's Table-Talk, tit. Law.

  [145.]The term municipal seemed to answer the purpose very well, till it was taken by an English author of the first eminence to signify internal law in general, in contradistinction to international law, and the imaginary law of nature. It might still be used in this sense, without scruple, in any other language.

  [146.]Of what stamp are the works of Grotius, Puffendorf, and Burlamaqui? Are they political or ethical, historical or juridical, expository or censorial?—Sometimes one thing, sometimes another: they seem hardly to have settled the matter with themselves. A defect this to which all books must almost unavoidably be liable, which take for their subject the pretended law of nature; an obscure phantom which, in the imaginations of those who go in chase of it, points sometimes to manners, sometimes to laws; sometimes to what law is, sometimes to what it ought to be.* Montesquieu sets out upon the censorial plan: but long before the conclusion, as if he had forgot his first design, he throws off the censor, and puts on the antiquarian. The Marquis Beccaria's book, the first of any account that is uniformly censorial, concludes as it sets out, with penal jurisprudence.
  
  * See Chap. II. [Principles Adverse] xiv.

  [147.]Mirabeau sur la Monarchie Prussienne, Tom. v. Liv. 8. p. 215.

  [148.]Recherches sur les Etats Unis, 8vo. 1788, vol. i. p. 158.

  [149.]The Virginian Declaration of Rights, said, in the French work above quoted, to have been enacted the 1st of June, 1776, is not inserted in the publication entitled 'The Constitutions of the several independent states of America, &c.' Published by order of Congress: Philadelphia printed. Reprinted for Stockdale and Walker, London, 1782: though that publication contains the form of government enacted in the same convention, between the 6th of May and the 5th of July in the same year.
  
  But in that same publication is contained a Declaration of Rights, of the province of Massachusetts, dated in the years 1779 and 1780, which in its first article is a little similar: also one of the province of Pennsylvania, dated between July 15th and September 28th, in which the similarity is rather more considerable.
  
  Moreover, the famous Declaration of Independence, published by Congress July 5th, 1776, after a preambular opening, goes on in these words: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal: that they are endued by the creator with certain unalienable rights: that amongst those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'
  
  The Virginian Declaration of Rights is that, it seems, which claims the honour of having served as a model to those of the other Provinces, and in respect of the above leading article at least, to the above-mentioned general Declaration of Independence. See Recherches, &c., i. 197.
  
  Who can help lamenting, that so rational a cause should be rested upon reasons, so much fitter to beget objections, than to remove them?
  
  But with men, who are unanimous and hearty about measures, nothing so weak but may pass in the character of a reason: nor is this the first instance in the world, where the conclusion has supported the premises, instead of the premises the conclusion.

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  2: Plato, Dialogues, vol. 3 - Republic, Timaeus, Critias [1892]

  Plato, The Dialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by B. Jowett, M.A. in Five Volumes. 3rd edition revised and corrected (Oxford University Press, 1892).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/767 on 2009-03-30

  The text is in the public domain.

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  THE REPUBLIC.

  INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

  Republic.Introduction.

  The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp. especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary—these and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep. 454 A; Polit. 261 E; Cratyl. 435, 436 ff.), although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings (e. g. Rep. 463 E). But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae,—logic is still veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to ‘contemplate all truth and all existence’ is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. Elenchi, 33. 18).

  Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the island of Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim. 25 C), intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathising with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws, iii. 698 ff.), singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus (v. 78) where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire—‘How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!’ or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the favour of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to Critias).

  Again, Plato may be regarded as the ‘captain’ (ἀρχηγὀς) or leader of a goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero’s De Republica, of St. Augustine’s City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognised, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his words when ‘repeated at second-hand’ (Symp. 215 D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.

  The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man—then discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus—then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates—reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which ‘no man calls anything his own,’1 and in which there is neither ‘marrying nor giving in marriage,’ and ‘kings are philosophers’ and ‘philosophers are kings;’ and there is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this world and quickly degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honour, this again declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When ‘the wheel has come full circle’ we do not begin again with a new period of human life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life.

  The division into books, like all similar divisions1 , is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number;—(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to p. 368, which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the question—What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another.

  Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books I-IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V-X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus (see Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole; the higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at last fades away into the heavens (592 B). Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement in the writer’s own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the work at different times—are questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from one work to another; and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognise the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another.

  The second title, ‘Concerning Justice,’ is not the one by which the Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the state is the reality of which justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom of God is within, and yet developes into a Church or external kingdom; ‘the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,’ is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions of states and in motions of the heavenly bodies (cp. Tim. 47). The Timaeus, which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature, and over man.

  Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author’s hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines himself to have found the true argument ‘in the representation of human life in a State perfected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good.’ There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one; nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To Plato himself, the enquiry ‘what was the intention of the writer,’ or ‘what was the principal argument of the Republic’ would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the Introduction to the Phaedrus, vol. i.).

  Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to Plato’s own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State? Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or ‘the day of the Lord,’ or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the ‘Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings’ only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which is the idea of good—like the sun in the visible world;—about human perfection, which is justice—about education beginning in youth and continuing in later years—about poets and sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind—about ‘the world’ which is the embodiment of them—about a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life. No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it easily passes from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth (v. 472 D); and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest ‘marks of design’—justice more than the external frame-work of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science of dialectic or the organisation of ideas has no real content; but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the ‘summit of speculation,’ and these, although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work.

  It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was held (the year 411 b.c. which is proposed by him will do as well as any other); for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously careless of chronology (cp. Rep. i. 336, Symp. 193 A, etc.), only aims at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas); and need not greatly trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer ‘which is still worth asking,’ because the investigation shows that we cannot argue historically from the dates in Plato; it would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C. F. Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato (cp. Apol. 34 A), or the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his Dialogues were written.

  The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides—these are mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts (340 A), where, as in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus.

  Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike (cp. i. 328 A), should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus in the Laches, 89).

  His ‘son and heir’ Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not ‘let him off’ (v. 449 B) on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph, Clouds, 1355 ff.) as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts (i. 333 E). From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth. p. 121) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens.

  The ‘Chalcedonian giant,’ Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in the Phaedrus (267 D), is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato’s conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next ‘move’ (to use a Platonic expression) will ‘shut him up’ (vi. 487 B). He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow up—they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with Plato’s description of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humour of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put ‘bodily into their souls’ his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks (v. 450 A, B). When attacked by Glaucon (vi. 498 C, D) he is humorously protected by Socrates ‘as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend.’ From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle’s Rhetoric (iii. 1. 7; ii. 23. 29) we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus (Aris. Rhet. ii. 23, 29), ‘thou wast ever bold in battle,’ seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude.

  When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy (cp. Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can ‘just never have enough of fechting’ (cp. the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love (v. 474 D); the ‘juvenis qui gaudet canibus,’ and who improves the breed of animals (v. 459 A); the lover of art and music (iii. 398 D, E) who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state of simplicity is ‘a city of pigs,’ who is always prepared with a jest (iii. 398 C, 407 A; v. 450, 451, 468 C; vi. 509 C; ix. 586) when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music (vii. 531 A), or in the lovers of theatricals (v. 475 D), or in the fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy (viii. 557 foll.). His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates (iii. 402 E; v. 474 D, 475 E), who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adeimantus (viii. 548 D, E). He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara (368 A, anno 456?). . . The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game; Adeimantus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent (iii. 376-398), but at p. 398 C, Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument (vi. 487 B), and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children (v. 449). It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. At p. 506 C, Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion (526 D, 527 D). Once more Adeimantus returns (viii. 548) with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book (ix. 576) he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end (x. 621 B).

  Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated.

  The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world (vi. 492 A). He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage (vi. 506 C) Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem. i. 4; Phaedo 97); and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem. i. 2, 51 foll.). The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of enquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown (iv. 432 C), and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another (v. 474 A; cp. 389 A).

  Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic (x. 608 D; cp. vi. 498 D, E; Apol. 40, 41); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favourite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself (vi. 496 C). A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration (τἁ ϕορτικὰ αὐτῳ̑ προσϕέροντες, iv. 442 E): ‘Let us apply the test of common instances.’ ‘You,’ says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, ‘are so unaccustomed to speak in images.’ And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog (ii. 375 A, D; iii. 404 A, 416 A; v. 451 D), or the marriage of the portionless maiden (vi. 495, 496), or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions.

  Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as ‘not of this world.’ And with this representation of him the ideal state and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable (vi. 494 foll.; ix. 589 D): for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth—words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra’s head (iv. 426 D, E). This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic (vi. 499-502). In all the different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and amid the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates.

  Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic, and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read.

  book i.

  Analysis.

  The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene—a festival in honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening. The whole work is supposed to be recited by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small party, consisting of Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another; this we learn from the first words of the Timaeus.

  Republic I.

  When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained, the attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience; nor is the reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of the numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion; nor are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or talked, as in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the 327conversation has arisen is described as follows:—Socrates and his companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained by a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain, promising them not only 328the torch-race, but the pleasure of conversation with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction. They return to the house of Cephalus, Polemarchus’ father, now in extreme old age, who is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. ‘You should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for conversation.’ Socrates asks him what he thinks of 329age, to which the old man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich. ‘And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they 330imagine—as Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, “Neither you, if you had been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Scriphian, would ever have been famous,” I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.’ Socrates remarks that Cephalus appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the belief in the world below grows upon you, and 331then to have done justice and never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to have deceived any one, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of the word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than this? Or must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when he was in his right mind? ‘There must be exceptions.’ ‘And yet,’ says Polemarchus, ‘the definition which has been given has the authority of Simonides.’ Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument to his heir, Polemarchus. . . . . .

  Introduction.

  The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has touched the key-note of the whole work in asking for the definition of justice, first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues respecting external goods, and preparing for the concluding mythus of the world below in the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just man is a natural frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which follows, and may perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature of justice, there is no difficulty in discerning ‘who is a just man.’ The first explanation has been supported by a saying of Simonides; and now Socrates has a mind to show that the resolution of justice into two unconnected precepts, which have no common principle, fails to satisfy the demands of dialectic.

  Analysis.

  332. . . . . He proceeds: What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? ‘No, not in that case, not if the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were to do what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.’ Every act does something to somebody; and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What is this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is answered that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in what way good or harm? ‘In making alliances with the one, and going to war with the other.’ Then in time of peace what is the 333good of justice? The answer is that justice is of use in contracts, and contracts are money partnerships. Yes; but how in such partnerships is the just man of more use than any other man? ‘When you want to have money safely kept and not used.’ Then justice will be useful when money is useless. And there is another difficulty: justice, like the art of war or any other art, must be of 334opposites, good at attack as well as at defence, at stealing as well as at guarding. But then justice is a thief, though a hero notwithstanding, like Autolycus, the Homeric hero, who was ‘excellent above all men in theft and perjury’—to such a pass have you and Homer and Simonides brought us; though I do not forget that the thieving must be for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. And still there arises another question: Are friends to be interpreted 335as real or seeming; enemies as real or seeming? And are our friends to be only the good, and our enemies to be the evil? The answer is, that we must do good to our seeming and real good friends, and evil to our seeming and real evil enemies—good to the good, evil to the evil. But ought we to render evil for evil at all, when to do so will only make men more evil? Can justice produce injustice any more than the art of horsemanship can make bad horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final conclusion is, that no sage or poet ever said that the just return evil for evil; this was a maxim of some rich and mighty man, Periander, 336Perdiccas, or Ismenias the Theban (about b.c. 398-381). . . . .

  Introduction.

  Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be inadequate to the wants of the age; the authority of the poets is set aside, and through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to the Christian precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are applied by the Persian mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning spirit is stirred within him:—‘If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by evil, what is the difference between Thee and me?’ In this both Plato and Khèyam rise above the level of many Christian (?) theologians. The first definition of justice easily passes into the second; for the simple words ‘to speak the truth and pay your debts’ is substituted the more abstract ‘to do good to your friends and harm to your enemies.’ Either of these explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions of morality. The ‘interrogation’ of moral ideas; the appeal to the authority of Homer; the conclusion that the maxim, ‘Do good to your friends and harm to your enemies,’ being erroneous, could not have been the word of any great man (cp. ii. 380 A, B), are all of them very characteristic of the Platonic Socrates.

  Analysis.

  . . . Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but has hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause and rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar. ‘Socrates,’ he says, ‘what folly is this?—Why do you agree to be vanquished by one another in a pretended argument?’ He then prohibits all the 337ordinary definitions of justice; to which Socrates replies that he cannot tell how many twelve is, if he is forbidden to say 2 × 6, or 3 × 4, or 6 × 2, or 4 × 3. At first Thrasymachus is reluctant 338to argue; but at length, with a promise of payment on the part of the company and of praise from Socrates, he is induced to open the game. ‘Listen,’ he says; ‘my answer is that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger: now praise me.’ Let me understand you first. Do you mean that because Polydamas the wrestler, who is stronger than we are, finds the eating of beef for his interest, the eating of beef is also for our interest, who are not so strong? Thrasymachus is indignant at the illustration, and in pompous words, apparently intended to restore dignity to the argument, he explains his meaning to be that the rulers make 339laws for their own interests. But suppose, says Socrates, that the ruler or stronger makes a mistake—then the interest of the stronger is not his interest. Thrasymachus is saved from this 340speedy downfall by his disciple Cleitophon, who introduces the word ‘thinks;’—not the actual interest of the ruler, but what he thinks or what seems to be his interest, is justice. The contradiction is escaped by the unmeaning evasion: for though his real and apparent interests may differ, what the ruler thinks to be his interest will always remain what he thinks to be his interest.

  Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new interpretation accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not disposed to quarrel about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his adversary has changed his mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact withdraw his admission that the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms that the ruler as a ruler is 341infallible. Socrates is quite ready to accept the new position, which he equally turns against Thrasymachus by the help of 342the analogy of the arts. Every art or science has an interest, but this interest is to be distinguished from the accidental interest of the artist, and is only concerned with the good of the things or persons which come under the art. And justice has an interest which is the interest not of the ruler or judge, but of those who come under his sway.

  Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, 343when he makes a bold diversion. ‘Tell me, Socrates,’ he says, ‘have you a nurse?’ What a question! Why do you ask? ‘Because, if you have, she neglects you and lets you go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never think of their own interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, whereas the truth is that they fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike. And experience proves that in every relation of life the just man is the loser and the unjust the gainer, 344especially where injustice is on the grand scale, which is quite another thing from the petty rogueries of swindlers and burglars and robbers of temples. The language of men proves this–our ‘gracious’ and ‘blessed’ tyrant and the like—all which tends to show (1) that justice is the interest of the stronger; and (2) that injustice is more profitable and also stronger than justice.’

  Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having deluged the company with words, has a mind 345to escape. But the others will not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. ‘And what can I do more for you?’ he says; ‘would you have me put the words bodily into your souls?’ God forbid! replies Socrates; but we want you to be consistent in the use of terms, and not to employ ‘physician’ in an exact sense, and then again ‘shepherd’ or ‘ruler’ in an inexact,—if the words are strictly taken, the ruler and the shepherd look only to the good of their people or flocks and not to their own: whereas you insist that rulers are solely actuated by love of office. ‘No doubt about it,’ replies Thrasymachus. 346Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that their interest is not comprehended in their art, and is therefore the concern of another art, the art of pay, which is common to the arts in general, and therefore not identical with any one of them? 347Nor would any man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment;—the reward is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State [or Church] were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by the last motive only; and there would be as much ‘nolo episcopari’ as there is at present of the opposite. . . .

  Introduction.

  The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not like being in office, and that therefore they demand pay.

  Analysis.

  . . . . . Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more important—that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. 348Now, as you and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but if we try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for us; we had better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the truth to one another.

  Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates to admit the still greater paradox that injustice 349is virtue and justice vice. Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is weaving a net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is elicited from him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage over either. Socrates, in order to test this statement, employs once more the favourite analogy of the 350arts. The musician, doctor, skilled artist of any sort, does not seek to gain more than the skilled, but only more than the unskilled (that is to say, he works up to a rule, standard, law, and does not exceed it), whereas the unskilled makes random efforts at excess. Thus the skilled falls on the side of the good, and the unskilled on the side of the evil, and the just is the skilled, and the unjust is the unskilled.

  There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point; the day was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in his life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was stronger than justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds to the consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus, he hopes to clear up; the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious hands 351of Socrates is soon restored to good-humour: Is there not honour among thieves? Is not the strength of injustice only a remnant of justice? Is not absolute injustice absolute weakness also? 352A house that is divided against itself cannot stand; two men who quarrel detract from one another’s strength, and he who is at war with himself is the enemy of himself and the gods. Not wickedness therefore, but semi-wickedness flourishes in states,—a remnant of good is needed in order to make union in action possible,—there is no kingdom of evil in this world.

  Another question has not been answered: Is the just or the 353unjust the happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or virtue by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul happiness, and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is attained? Justice 354and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the question whether the just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared.

  Thrasymachus replies: ‘Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the festival of Bendis.’ Yes; and a very good entertainment with which your kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not a good entertainment—but that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry, and then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly; and then the comparative advantages of just and unjust: and the sum of all is that I know not what justice is; how then shall I know whether the just is happy or not? . . .

  Introduction.

  Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to the analogy of the arts. ‘Justice is like the arts (1) in having no external interest, and (2) in not aiming at excess, and (3) justice is to happiness what the implement of the workman is to his work.’ At this the modern reader is apt to stumble, because he forgets that Plato is writing in an age when the arts and the virtues, like the moral and intellectual faculties, were still undistinguished. Among early enquirers into the nature of human action the arts helped to fill up the void of speculation; and at first the comparison of the arts and the virtues was not perceived by them to be fallacious. They only saw the points of agreement in them and not the points of difference. Virtue, like art, must take means to an end; good manners are both an art and a virtue; character is naturally described under the image of a statue (ii. 361 D; vii. 540 C); and there are many other figures of speech which are readily transferred from art to morals. The next generation cleared up these perplexities; or at least supplied after ages with a further analysis of them. The contemporaries of Plato were in a state of transition, and had not yet fully realized the common-sense distinction of Aristotle, that ‘virtue is concerned with action, art with production’ (Nic. Eth. vi. 4), or that ‘virtue implies intention and constancy of purpose,’ whereas ‘art requires knowledge only’ (Nic. Eth. ii. 3). And yet in the absurdities which follow from some uses of the analogy (cp. i. 333 E, 334 B), there seems to be an intimation conveyed that virtue is more than art. This is implied in the reductio ad absurdum that ‘justice is a thief,’ and in the dissatisfaction which Socrates expresses at the final result.

  The expression ‘an art of pay’ (i. 346 B) which is described as ‘common to all the arts’ is not in accordance with the ordinary use of language. Nor is it employed elsewhere either by Plato or by any other Greek writer. It is suggested by the argument, and seems to extend the conception of art to doing as well as making. Another flaw or inaccuracy of language may be noted in the words (i. 335 C) ‘men who are injured are made more unjust.’ For those who are injured are not necessarily made worse, but only harmed or ill-treated.

  The second of the three arguments, ‘that the just does not aim at excess,’ has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form. That the good is of the nature of the finite is a peculiarly Hellenic sentiment, which may be compared with the language of those modern writers who speak of virtue as fitness, and of freedom as obedience to law. The mathematical or logical notion of limit easily passes into an ethical one, and even finds a mythological expression in the conception of envy (ϕθόνος). Ideas of measure, equality, order, unity, proportion, still linger in the writings of moralists; and the true spirit of the fine arts is better conveyed by such terms than by superlatives.

  • ‘When workmen strive to do better than well,
  • They do confound their skill in covetousness.’

  • (King John, Act iv. Sc. 2.)

  The harmony of the soul and body (iii. 402 D), and of the parts of the soul with one another (iv. 442 C), a harmony ‘fairer than that of musical notes,’ is the true Hellenic mode of conceiving the perfection of human nature.

  In what may be called the epilogue of the discussion with Thrasymachus, Plato argues that evil is not a principle of strength, but of discord and dissolution, just touching the question which has been often treated in modern times by theologians and philosophers, of the negative nature of evil (cp. on the other hand x. 610). In the last argument we trace the germ of the Aristotelian doctrine of an end and a virtue directed towards the end, which again is suggested by the arts. The final reconcilement of justice and happiness and the identity of the individual and the State are also intimated. Socrates reassumes the character of a ‘know-nothing;’ at the same time he appears to be not wholly satisfied with the manner in which the argument has been conducted. Nothing is concluded; but the tendency of the dialectical process, here as always, is to enlarge our conception of ideas, and to widen their application to human life.

  book ii.

  Analysis.

  357Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on continuing the argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner in which, at the end of the last book, Socrates had disposed of the question ‘Whether the just or the unjust is the happier.’ He begins by dividing goods into three classes:—first, goods desirable in themselves; secondly, goods desirable in themselves and for their results; thirdly, goods desirable for their results only. He then asks Socrates in which of the three 358classes he would place justice. In the second class, replies Socrates, among goods desirable for themselves and also for their results. ‘Then the world in general are of another mind, for they say that justice belongs to the troublesome class of goods which are desirable for their results only. Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of Thrasymachus which he rejects. Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too ready to listen to the voice of the charmer, and proposes to consider the nature of justice and injustice in themselves and apart from the results and rewards of them which the world is always dinning in his ears. He will first of all speak of the nature and origin of justice; secondly, of the manner in which men view justice as a necessity and not a good; and thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of this view.

  Republic II.

  ‘To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil is discovered by experience to be greater than the 359good, the sufferers, who cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have neither, and this compact or mean is called justice, but is really the impossibility of doing injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let us suppose that the just and unjust have two rings, like that of Gyges 360in the well-known story, which make them invisible, and then no difference will appear in them, for every one will do evil if he can. And he who abstains will be regarded by the world as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in public out of fear for themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts. (Cp. Gorgias, 483 B.)

  ‘And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes 361and easily correcting them; having gifts of money, speech, strength—the greatest villain bearing the highest character: and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness and simplicity—being, not seeming—without name or reward—clothed in his justice only—the best of men who is thought to be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. I might add (but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of the panegyrists of injustice—they will tell you) that the just man will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last be crucified [literally impaled]—and all this because he ought to have preferred seeming 362to being. How different is the case of the unjust who clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a ruler; he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.’

  I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been omitted:—‘Men are taught to be just for 363the sake of rewards; parents and guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other advantages are promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy marriages and high offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of fat sheep and heavy fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with fruit, which the gods provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic poets add a similar picture of another. The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival, with garlands on their heads, enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal drunkenness. Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the third and fourth generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry water in a sieve: and in this life they attribute to them the infamy which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to be unjust.

  364‘Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose:—“Virtue,” as Hesiod says, “is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and profitable.” You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at rich men’s doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a small charge;—they appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise to “get souls out of purgatory;” and if we 365refuse to listen to them, no one knows what will happen to us.

  ‘When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his conclusion? “Will he,” in the language of Pindar, “make justice his high tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?” Justice, he reflects, without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the promise of a glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To appearance then I will turn,—I will put on the show of virtue and trail behind me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying that “wickedness is not easily concealed,” to which I reply that “nothing great is easy.” Union and force and rhetoric will do much; and if men say that they cannot prevail over the gods, still how do we know that there are gods? Only from the poets, who acknowledge 366that they may be appeased by sacrifices. Then why not sin and pay for indulgences out of your sin? For if the righteous are only unpunished, still they have no further reward, while the wicked may be unpunished and have the pleasure of sinning too. But what of the world below? Nay, says the argument, there are atoning powers who will set that matter right, as the poets, who are the sons of the gods, tell us; and this is confirmed by the authority of the State.

  ‘How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others; for he knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable of injustice.

  ‘The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets, instructors of youth, have always asserted “the temporal dispensation,” the honours and profits of justice. Had 367we been taught in early youth the power of justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen by any human or divine eye, we should not have needed others to be our guardians, but every one would have been the guardian of himself. This is what I want you to show, Socrates;—other men use arguments which rather tend to strengthen the position of Thrasymachus that “might is right;” but from you I expect better things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation; let the just be thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you still prove to us the superiority of justice.’ . . .

  Introduction.

  The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by Glaucon, is the converse of that of Thrasymachus—not right is the interest of the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the same premises he carries the analysis of society a step further back;—might is still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against the strength of the few.

  There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which have a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e. g. that power is the foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the natural state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point of view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine right of kings, or more generally of governments, is one of the forms under which this natural feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil which has not some accompaniment of good or pleasure; nor any good which is free from some alloy of evil; nor any noble or generous thought which may not be attended by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of self-interest or of self-love. We know that all human actions are imperfect; but we do not therefore attribute them to the worse rather than to the better motive or principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and false, like that opinion of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to be like himself (iii. 409 C). And theories of this sort do not represent the real nature of the State, which is based on a vague sense of right gradually corrected and enlarged by custom and law (although capable also of perversion), any more than they describe the origin of society, which is to be sought in the family and in the social and religious feelings of man. Nor do they represent the average character of individuals, which cannot be explained simply on a theory of evil, but has always a counteracting element of good. And as men become better such theories appear more and more untruthful to them, because they are more conscious of their own disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man a cynic; a great deal will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of the mixed nature of himself and his fellow men.

  The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy when they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily supposed to consist. Not that there is (1) any absurdity in the attempt to frame a notion of justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must always be a paradox when compared with the ordinary conditions of human life. Neither the Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact, but they may serve as a basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling influence. An ideal is none the worse because ‘some one has made the discovery’ that no such ideal was ever realized. (Cp. v. 472 D.) And in a few exceptional individuals who are raised above the ordinary level of humanity, the ideal of happiness may be realized in death and misery. This may be the state which the reason deliberately approves, and which the utilitarian as well as every other moralist may be bound in certain cases to prefer.

  Nor again, (2) must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing his own final conclusion, but rather seeking to dramatize one of the aspects of ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series of positions or situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time undergoing the Socratic interrogation. Lastly, (3) the word ‘happiness’ involves some degree of confusion because associated in the language of modern philosophy with conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not equally present to his mind.

  Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is the answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just; that is ‘the homage which vice pays to virtue.’ But now Adeimantus, taking up the hint which had been already given by Glaucon (ii. 358 C), proceeds to show that in the opinion of mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of rewards and reputation, and points out the advantage which is given to such arguments as those of Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional morality of mankind. He seems to feel the difficulty of ‘justifying the ways of God to man.’ Both the brothers touch upon the question, whether the morality of actions is determined by their consequences (cp. iv. 420 foll.); and both of them go beyond the position of Socrates, that justice belongs to the class of goods not desirable for themselves only, but desirable for themselves and for their results, to which he recalls them. In their attempt to view justice as an internal principle, and in their condemnation of the poets, they anticipate him. The common life of Greece is not enough for them; they must penetrate deeper into the nature of things.

  It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more truly say that the old-fashioned notion of justice is enlarged by Socrates, and becomes equivalent to universal order or well-being, first in the State, and secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to his old question (Protag. 329), ‘whether the virtues are one or many,’ viz. that one is the ordering principle of the three others. In seeking to establish the purely internal nature of justice, he is met by the fact that man is a social being, and he tries to harmonise the two opposite theses as well as he can. There is no more inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country; there is no use in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent. Plato does not give the final solution of philosophical questions for us; nor can he be judged of by our standard.

  The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the sons of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately follows:—First, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He does not say that happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of justice, and still less will he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox that the just man can be happy on the rack. But first he dwells on the difficulty of the problem and insists on restoring man to his natural condition, before he will answer the question at all. He too will frame an ideal, but his ideal comprehends not only abstract justice, but the whole relations of man. Under the fanciful illustration of the large letters he implies that he will only look for justice in society, and that from the State he will proceed to the individual. His answer in substance amounts to this,—that under favourable conditions, i. e. in the perfect State, justice and happiness will coincide, and that when justice has been once found, happiness may be left to take care of itself. That he falls into some degree of inconsistency, when in the tenth book (612 A) he claims to have got rid of the rewards and honours of justice, may be admitted; for he has left those which exist in the perfect State. And the philosopher ‘who retires under the shelter of a wall’ (vi. 496) can hardly have been esteemed happy by him, at least not in this world. Still he maintains the true attitude of moral action. Let a man do his duty first, without asking whether he will be happy or not, and happiness will be the inseparable accident which attends him. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’

  Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character of Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the individual. First ethics, then politics—this is the order of ideas to us; the reverse is the order of history. Only after many struggles of thought does the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not one, but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him; and he has no notion of good or evil apart from the law of his country or the creed of his church. And to this type he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the influence of custom, or of party spirit, or the recollection of the past becomes too strong for him.

  Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek speculation, and even in modern times retains a certain degree of influence. The subtle difference between the collective and individual action of mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action, whenever we either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics. The good man and the good citizen only coincide in the perfect State; and this perfection cannot be attained by legislation acting upon them from without, but, if at all, by education fashioning them from within.

  Analysis.

  368. . . Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, ‘inspired offspring of the renowned hero,’ as the elegiac poet terms them; but he does not understand how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their character shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He knows not how to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice in the hour of need. He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller, that is, he must look for justice in the State first, 369and will then proceed to the individual. Accordingly he begins to construct the State.

  Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food; his second a house; his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot; and this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent, although necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman, secondly a builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler. Four or five citizens at least are required to make 370a city. Now men have different natures, and one man will do one thing better than many: and business waits for no man. Hence there must be a division of labour into different employments; into wholesale and retail trade; into workers, and makers of workmen’s tools; into shepherds and husbandmen. A city which includes all this will have far exceeded the limit of four or five, and yet not be 371very large. But then again imports will be required, and imports necessitate exports, and this implies variety of produce in order to attract the taste of purchasers; also merchants and ships. In the city too we must have a market and money and retail trades; otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet, and the valuable time of the producers will be wasted in vain efforts at exchange. If we add hired servants the State will be complete. And we may guess that somewhere in the intercourse of 372the citizens with one another justice and injustice will appear.

  Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. ‘But,’ said Glaucon, interposing, ‘are they not to have a relish?’ Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ‘’Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.’ Why, I replied, what do you want more? ‘Only the comforts of life,—sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.’ I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then 373the fine arts must go to work—every conceivable instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbours’ land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes 374as other political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will 375be some warlike natures who have this aptitude—dogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests 376an answer. For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education?

  But what shall their education be? Is any better than the old-fashioned sort which is comprehended under the name of music 377and gymnastic? Music includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false. ‘What do you mean?’ he said. I mean that children hear stories before they learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn when they grow up; we must therefore have a censorship of nursery tales, banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper, as we may see in the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies but bad lies; stories 378about Uranus and Saturn, which are immoral as well as false, and which should never be spoken of to young persons, or indeed at all; or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal. Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife among the gods? Shall they listen to the narrative of Hephaestus binding his mother, and of Zeus sending him flying for helping her when she was beaten? Such tales may possibly have a mystical interpretation, but the young are incapable of understanding allegory. If any one asks what 379tales are to be allowed, we will answer that we are legislators and not book-makers; we only lay down the principles according to which books are to be written; to write them is the duty of others.

  And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is; not as the author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the poets to say that he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two casks full of destinies;—or that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to break the treaty; or that God 380caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of Pelops, or the Trojan war; or that he makes men sin when he wishes to destroy them. Either these were not the actions of the gods, or God was just, and men were the better for being punished. But that the deed was evil, and God the author, is a wicked, suicidal fiction which we will allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is our first and great principle—God is the author of good only.

  And the second principle is like unto it:—With God is no variableness or change of form. Reason teaches us this; for if we suppose a change in God, he must be changed either by another or by himself. By another?—but the best works of nature and 381art and the noblest qualities of mind are least liable to be changed by any external force. By himself?—but he cannot change for the better; he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who prowl about at night in strange disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be suppressed. 382But some one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take a form in relation to us. Why should he? For gods as well as men hate the lie in the soul, or principle of falsehood; and as for any other form of lying which is used for a purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain exceptional cases—what need have the gods of this? For they are not ignorant of antiquity like the poets, nor are they afraid of their 383enemies, nor is any madman a friend of theirs. God then is true, he is absolutely true; he changes not, he deceives not, by day or night, by word or sign. This is our second great principle—God is true. Away with the lying dream of Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis against Apollo in Aeschylus. . . .

  Introduction.

  In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds to trace the first principles of mutual need and of division of labour in an imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this community increases; the division of labour extends to countries; imports necessitate exports; a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit in the marketplace to save the time of the producers. These are the steps by which Plato constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the elements of political economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second or civilized State, the simple naturally comes before the complex. He indulges, like Rousseau, in a picture of primitive life—an idea which has indeed often had a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind, but he does not seriously mean to say that one is better than the other (cp. Politicus, p. 272); nor can any inference be drawn from the description of the first state taken apart from the second, such as Aristotle appears to draw in the Politics, iv. 4, 12 (cp. again Politicus, 272). We should not interpret a Platonic dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too literal or matter-of-fact a style. On the other hand, when we compare the lively fancy of Plato with the dried-up abstractions of modern treatises on philosophy, we are compelled to say with Protagoras, that the ‘mythus is more interesting’ (Protag. 320 D).

  Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of Plato: cp. especially Laws, v. 740, Population; viii. 847, Free Trade; xi. 916-7, Adulteration; 923-4, Wills and Bequests; 930, Begging; Eryxias, (though not Plato’s), Value and Demand; Republic, ii. 369 ff., Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic. But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never seems to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of the State and of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior sort of citizens (Rep. ii. 371; cp. Laws, viii. 847), though he remarks, quaintly enough (Laws, ix. 918 D), that ‘if only the best men and the best women everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on retail trade, etc., then we should know how pleasant and agreeable all these things are.’

  The disappointment of Glaucon at the ‘city of pigs,’ the ludicrous description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined State, and the afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the nature of the guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering some almost unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be celebrated, the behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his mother, are touches of humour which have also a serious meaning. In speaking of education Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child must be trained in falsehood first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is not very different from saying that children must be taught through the medium of imagination as well as reason; that their minds can only develope gradually, and that there is much which they must learn without understanding (cp. iii. 402 A). This is also the substance of Plato’s view, though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat differently from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood. To us, economies or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were required by the human faculties or necessary for the communication of knowledge to the simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was inseparable from the intention, and that we must not be ‘falsely true,’ i. e. speak or act falsely in support of what was right or true. But Plato would limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should have a good moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood should be employed by the rulers alone and for great objects.

  A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be conscious that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond Homer and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not seriously affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to suspect that they were fictions when they recognised them to be immoral. And so in all religions: the consideration of their morality comes first, afterwards the truth of the documents in which they are recorded, or of the events natural or supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times, and in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too much inclined to identify the historical with the moral; and some have refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient or religious history are amongst the most important of all facts; but they are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson which is to be gathered from them when we place ourselves above them. These reflections tend to show that the difference between Plato and ourselves, though not unimportant, is not so great as might at first sight appear. For we should agree with him in placing the moral before the historical truth of religion; and, generally, in disregarding those errors or misstatements of fact which necessarily occur in the early stages of all religions. We know also that changes in the traditions of a country cannot be made in a day; and are therefore tolerant of many things which science and criticism would condemn.

  We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ by Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and here, as in the Phaedrus (229-30), though for a different reason, was rejected by him. That anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men have reached another stage of civilization, should be got rid of by fictions is in accordance with universal experience. Great is the art of interpretation; and by a natural process, which when once discovered was always going on, what could not be altered was explained away. And so without any palpable inconsistency there existed side by side two forms of religion, the tradition inherited or invented by the poets and the customary worship of the temple; on the other hand, there was the religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of ideas, but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Æsculapius, or to be seen saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the antagonism between the popular and philosophical religion, never so great among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the difference between the religion of the educated and uneducated among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into the ‘royal mind’ of Plato (Philebus, 28); the giant Heracles became the knight-errant and benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and neo-Platonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ. The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of philosophy; having lost their ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry and morality; and probably were never purer than at the time of their decay, when their influence over the world was waning.

  A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering himself. For example, to represent God as false or immoral, or, according to Plato, as deluding men with appearances or as the author of evil; or again, to affirm with Protagoras that ‘knowledge is sensation,’ or that ‘being is becoming,’ or with Thrasymachus ‘that might is right,’ would have been regarded by Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness of the greatest untruth, e. g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John iv. 41), ‘he who was blind’ were to say ‘I see,’ is another aspect of the state of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in the soul may be further compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke xii. 10), allowing for the difference between Greek and Christian modes of speaking. To this is opposed the lie in words, which is only such a deception as may occur in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech, or in any sort of accommodation,—which though useless to the gods may be useful to men in certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question which he had himself raised (i. 331 C) about the propriety of deceiving a madman; and he is also contrasting the nature of God and man. For God is Truth, but mankind can only be true by appearing sometimes to be partial, or false. Reserving for another place the greater questions of religion or education, we may note further, (1) the approval of the old traditional education of Greece; (2) the preparation which Plato is making for the attack on Homer and the poets; (3) the preparation which he is also making for the use of economies in the State; (4) the contemptuous and at the same time euphemistic manner in which here as below (iii. 390) he alludes to the Chronique Scandaleuse of the gods.

  book iii.

  Analysis.Republic III.

  386There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to banish fear; for no man can be courageous who is afraid of death, or who believes the tales which are repeated by the poets concerning the world below. They must be gently requested not to abuse hell; they may be reminded that their stories are both untrue and discouraging. Nor must they be angry if we expunge obnoxious passages, such as the depressing words of Achilles—‘I would rather be a serving-man than rule over all the dead;’ and the verses which tell of the squalid mansions, the senseless shadows, the flitting soul mourning over 387lost strength and youth, the soul with a gibber going beneath the earth like smoke, or the souls of the suitors which flutter about like bats. The terrors and horrors of Cocytus and Styx, ghosts and sapless shades, and the rest of their Tartarean nomenclature, must vanish. Such tales may have their use; but they are not the proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric heroes:—Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him; and therefore lamentations over the dead should not be practised by 388men of note; they should be the concern of inferior persons only, whether women or men. Still worse is the attribution of such weakness to the gods; as when the goddesses say, ‘Alas! my travail!’ and worst of all, when the king of heaven himself laments his inability to save Hector, or sorrows over the impending doom of his dear Sarpedon. Such a character of God, if not ridiculed by our young men, is likely to be imitated by them. Nor should our citizens be given to excess of laughter—‘Such 389violent delights’ are followed by a violent re-action. The description in the Iliad of the gods shaking their sides at the clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. ‘Certainly not.’

  Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain.

  In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists in self-control and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer teaches in some places: ‘The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in silent awe of their leaders;’—but a very different one in other places: ‘O heavy with wine, who 390hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.’ Language of the latter kind will not impress self-control on the minds of youth. The same may be said about his praises of eating and drinking and his dread of starvation; also about the verses in which he tells of the rapturous loves of Zeus and Here, or of how Hephaestus once detained Ares and Aphrodite in a net on a similar occasion. There is a nobler strain heard in the words:—‘Endure, my soul, thou hast endured worse.’ Nor must we allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to say, ‘Gifts persuade the gods, gifts reverend kings;’ or to applaud the ignoble advice of Phoenix to Achilles that he should get money out of the Greeks before he assisted them; or the meanness of Achilles himself in taking gifts from 391Agamemnon; or his requiring a ransom for the body of Hector; or his cursing of Apollo; or his insolence to the river-god Scamander; or his dedication to the dead Patroclus of his own hair which had been already dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron’s pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by those who have the 392blood of heaven flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their example.

  Enough of gods and heroes;—what shall we say about men? What the poets and story-tellers say—that the wicked prosper and the righteous are afflicted, or that justice is another’s gain? Such misrepresentations cannot be allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition of justice, and had therefore better defer the enquiry.

  The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated; next follows style. Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come; and narrative is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of the two. An instance will 393make my meaning clear. The first scene in Homer is of the last or mixed kind, being partly description and partly dialogue. But if you throw the dialogue into the ‘oratio obliqua,’ the passage 394will run thus: The priest came and prayed Apollo that the Achaeans might take Troy and have a safe return if Agamemnon would only give him back his daughter; and the other Greeks assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and so on—The whole then becomes descriptive, and the poet is the only speaker left; or, if you omit the narrative, the whole becomes dialogue. These are the three styles—which of them is to be admitted into our State? ‘Do you ask whether tragedy and comedy are to be admitted?’ Yes, but also something more—Is it not doubtful whether our guardians are to be imitators at all? Or rather, has not the question been already answered, for we have decided that one man 395cannot in his life play many parts, any more than he can act both tragedy and comedy, or be rhapsodist and actor at once? Human nature is coined into very small pieces, and as our guardians have their own business already, which is the care of freedom, they will have enough to do without imitating. If they imitate they should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face. We cannot allow men to play the parts of women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the gods,—least of all when making love or in labour. They must not represent slaves, or 396bullies, or cowards, or drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or neighing horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea. A good or wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised; and he will prefer to employ the 397descriptive style with as little imitation as possible. The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. Now in the descriptive style there are few changes, but in the dramatic there are a great many. Poets and musicians use either, or a compound of both, and this compound is very attractive to youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our State in which one man 398plays one part only is not adapted for complexity. And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself and his poetry we will show him every observance of respect, but at the same time tell him that there is no room for his kind in our State; we prefer the rough, honest poet, and will not depart from our original models (ii. 379 foll.; cp. Laws, vii. 817).

  Next as to the music. A song or ode has three parts,—the subject, the harmony, and the rhythm; of which the two last are dependent upon the first. As we banished strains of lamentation, so we may now banish the mixed Lydian harmonies, which are the harmonies of lamentation; and as our citizens are to be temperate, we may also banish convivial harmonies, such as the 399Ionian and pure Lydian. Two remain—the Dorian and Phrygian, the first for war, the second for peace; the one expressive of courage, the other of obedience or instruction or religious feeling. And as we reject varieties of harmony, we shall also reject the many-stringed, variously-shaped instruments which give utterance to them, and in particular the flute, which is more complex than any of them. The lyre and the harp may be permitted in the town, and the Pan’s-pipe in the fields. Thus we have made a purgation of music, and will now make a purgation of metres. 400These should be like the harmonies, simple and suitable to the occasion. There are four notes of the tetrachord, and there are three ratios of metre, 3/2, 2/2, 2/1, which have all their characteristics, and the feet have different characteristics as well as the rhythms. But about this you and I must ask Damon, the great musician, who speaks, if I remember rightly, of a martial measure as well as of dactylic, trochaic, and iambic rhythms, which he arranges so as to equalize the syllables with one another, assigning to each the proper quantity. We only venture to affirm the general principle that the style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style; and that the simplicity and harmony of the soul should be reflected in them all. This principle of simplicity has to be learnt by every one in the days of his youth, and may 401be gathered anywhere, from the creative and constructive arts, as well as from the forms of plants and animals.

  Other artists as well as poets should be warned against meanness or unseemliness. Sculpture and painting equally with music must conform to the law of simplicity. He who violates it cannot be allowed to work in our city, and to corrupt the taste of our citizens. For our guardians must grow up, not amid images of deformity which will gradually poison and corrupt their souls, but in a land of health and beauty where they will drink in from every object sweet and harmonious influences. And of all these influences the greatest is the education given by music, which 402finds a way into the innermost soul and imparts to it the sense of beauty and of deformity. At first the effect is unconscious; but when reason arrives, then he who has been thus trained welcomes her as the friend whom he always knew. As in learning to read, first we acquire the elements or letters separately, and afterwards their combinations, and cannot recognize reflections of them until we know the letters themselves; in like manner we must first attain the elements or essential forms of the virtues, and then trace their combinations in life and experience. There is a music of the soul which answers to the harmony of the world; and the fairest object of a musical soul is the fair mind in the fair body. Some defect in the latter may be excused, but not in the former. 403True love is the daughter of temperance, and temperance is utterly opposed to the madness of bodily pleasure. Enough has been said of music, which makes a fair ending with love.

  Next we pass on to gymnastics; about which I would remark, that the soul is related to the body as a cause to an effect, and therefore if we educate the mind we may leave the education of the body in her charge, and need only give a general outline of the course to be pursued. In the first place the guardians must abstain from strong drink, for they should be the last persons to 404lose their wits. Whether the habits of the palaestra are suitable to them is more doubtful, for the ordinary gymnastic is a sleepy sort of thing, and if left off suddenly is apt to endanger health. But our warrior athletes must be wide-awake dogs, and must also be inured to all changes of food and climate. Hence they will require a simpler kind of gymnastic, akin to their simple music; and for their diet a rule may be found in Homer, who feeds his heroes on roast meat only, and gives them no fish although they are living at the sea-side, nor boiled meats which involve an apparatus of pots and pans; and, if I am not mistaken, he nowhere mentions sweet sauces. Sicilian cookery and Attic confections and Corinthian courtezans, which are to gymnastic what Lydian and Ionian melodies are to music, must be forbidden. 405Where gluttony and intemperance prevail the town quickly fills with doctors and pleaders; and law and medicine give themselves airs as soon as the freemen of a State take an interest in them. But what can show a more disgraceful state of education than to have to go abroad for justice because you have none of your own at home? And yet there is a worse stage of the same disease—when men have learned to take a pleasure and pride in the twists and turns of the law; not considering how much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician, not for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus after he has been wounded 406drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a heating nature; and yet the sons of Asclepius blame neither the damsel who gives him the drink, nor Patroclus who is attending on him. The truth is that this modern system of nursing diseases was introduced by Herodicus the trainer; who, being of a sickly constitution, by a compound of training and medicine tortured first himself and then a good many other people, and lived a great deal longer than he had any right. But Asclepius would not practise this art, because he knew that the citizens of a well-ordered State have no leisure to be ill, and therefore he adopted the ‘kill or cure’ method, which artisans and labourers employ. ‘They must be at their business,’ they say, ‘and have no time for coddling: if they 407recover, well; if they don’t, there is an end of them.’ Whereas the rich man is supposed to be a gentleman who can afford to be ill. Do you know a maxim of Phocylides—that ‘when a man begins to be rich’ (or, perhaps, a little sooner) ‘he should practise virtue’? But how can excessive care of health be inconsistent with an ordinary occupation, and yet consistent with that practice of virtue which Phocylides inculcates? When a student imagines that philosophy gives him a headache, he never does anything; he is always unwell. This was the reason why Asclepius and his sons practised no such art. They were acting in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve useless lives, or raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. Honest diseases they honestly 408cured; and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper remedies, and then let him eat and drink what he liked. But they declined to treat intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made large fortunes out of them. As to the story of Pindar, that Asclepius was slain by a thunderbolt for restoring a rich man to life, that is a lie—following our old rule we must say either that he did not take bribes, or that he was not the son of a god.

  Glaucon then asks Socrates whether the best physicians and the best judges will not be those who have had severally the greatest experience of diseases and of crimes. Socrates draws a distinction between the two professions. The physician should have had experience of disease in his own body, for he cures with his mind 409and not with his body. But the judge controls mind by mind; and therefore his mind should not be corrupted by crime. Where then is he to gain experience? How is he to be wise and also innocent? When young a good man is apt to be deceived by evil-doers, because he has no pattern of evil in himself; and therefore the judge should be of a certain age; his youth should have been innocent, and he should have acquired insight into evil not by the practice of it, but by the observation of it in others. This is the ideal of a judge; the criminal turned detective is wonderfully suspicious, but when in company with good men who have experience, he is at fault, for he foolishly imagines that every one is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of virtue, but cannot know virtue. This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of law which will prevail in our State; they will be healing 410arts to better natures; but the evil body will be left to die by the one, and the evil soul will be put to death by the other. And the need of either will be greatly diminished by good music which will give harmony to the soul, and good gymnastic which will give health to the body. Not that this division of music and gymnastic really corresponds to soul and body; for they are both equally concerned with the soul, which is tamed by the one and aroused and sustained by the other. The two together supply our guardians with their twofold nature. The passionate disposition when it has too much gymnastic is hardened and brutalized, the gentle or philosophic temper which has too much music becomes enervated. 411While a man is allowing music to pour like water through the funnel of his ears, the edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited element is melted out of him. Too little spirit is easily exhausted; too much quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid; he is like a wild beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy. There are two principles in man, reason and passion, 412and to these, not to the soul and body, the two arts of music and gymnastic correspond. He who mingles them in harmonious concord is the true musician,—he shall be the presiding genius of our State.

  The next question is, Who are to be our rulers? First, the elder must rule the younger; and the best of the elders will be the best guardians. Now they will be the best who love their subjects most, and think that they have a common interest with them in the welfare of the state. These we must select; but they must be watched at every epoch of life to see whether they have retained the same opinions and held out against force 413and enchantment. For time and persuasion and the love of pleasure may enchant a man into a change of purpose, and the force of grief and pain may compel him. And therefore our guardians must be men who have been tried by many tests, like gold in the refiner’s fire, and have been passed first through danger, then through pleasure, and at every age have come out of such trials victorious and without stain, in full command of themselves and their principles; having all their faculties in harmonious exercise for their country’s good. These shall 414receive the highest honours both in life and death. (It would perhaps be better to confine the term ‘guardians’ to this select class: the younger men may be called ‘auxiliaries.’)

  And now for one magnificent lie, in the belief of which, Oh that we could train our rulers!—at any rate let us make the attempt with the rest of the world. What I am going to tell is only a another version of the legend of Cadmus; but our unbelieving generation will be slow to accept such a story. The tale must be imparted, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, lastly to the people. We will inform them that their youth was a dream, and that during the time when they seemed to be undergoing their education they were really being fashioned in the earth, who sent them up when they were ready; and that they must protect and cherish her whose children they are, and regard each other as brothers and sisters. ‘I do not wonder at your being ashamed to propound such a fiction.’ There is more 415behind. These brothers and sisters have different natures, and some of them God framed to rule, whom he fashioned of gold; others he made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again to be husbandmen and craftsmen, and these were formed by him of brass and iron. But as they are all sprung from a common stock, a golden parent may have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son, and then there must be a change of rank; the son of the rich must descend, and the child of the artisan rise, in the social scale; for an oracle says ‘that the State will come to an end if governed by a man of brass or iron.’ Will our citizens ever believe all this? ‘Not in the present generation, but in the next, perhaps, Yes.’

  Now let the earthborn men go forth under the command of their rulers, and look about and pitch their camp in a high place, which will be safe against enemies from without, and likewise against insurrections from within. There let them sacrifice and 416set up their tents; for soldiers they are to be and not shopkeepers, the watchdogs and guardians of the sheep; and luxury and avarice will turn them into wolves and tyrants. Their habits and their dwellings should correspond to their education. They should have no property; their pay should only meet their expenses; and they should have common meals. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God, and this divine 417gift in their souls they must not alloy with that earthly dross which passes under the name of gold. They only of the citizens may not touch it, or be under the same roof with it, or drink from it; it is the accursed thing. Should they ever acquire houses or lands or money of their own, they will become householders and tradesmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of helpers, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and the rest of the State, will be at hand.

  Introduction.

  The religious and ethical aspect of Plato’s education will hereafter be considered under a separate head. Some lesser points may be more conveniently noticed in this place.

  1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave irony, Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a witness about ethics and psychology, as well as about diet and medicine; attempting to distinguish the better lesson from the worse (390), sometimes altering the text from design (388, and, perhaps, 389); more than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately (391, 406), after the manner of the early logographers turning the Iliad into prose (393), and delighting to draw farfetched inferences from his words, or to make ludicrous applications of them. He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage with Homer and Archilochus (Heracl. Frag. 119, ed. Bywater), but uses their words and expressions as vehicles of a higher truth; not on a system like Theagenes of Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times the Stoics, but as fancy may dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are sound, although the premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato’s style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech. They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations (i. 2, 58; ii. 6, 11). Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has been the art of interpretation.

  2. ‘The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.’ Notwithstanding the fascination which the word ‘classical’ exercises over us, we can hardly maintain that this rule is observed in all the Greek poetry which has come down to us. We cannot deny that the thought often exceeds the power of lucid expression in Æschylus and Pindar; or that rhetoric gets the better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides. Only perhaps in Sophocles is there a perfect harmony of the two; in him alone do we find a grace of language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is nothing to add or to take away; at least this is true of single plays or of large portions of them. The connection in the Tragic Choruses and in the Greek lyric poets is not unfrequently a tangled thread which in an age before logic the poet was unable to draw out. Many thoughts and feelings mingled in his mind, and he had no power of disengaging or arranging them. For there is a subtle influence of logic which requires to be transferred from prose to poetry, just as the music and perfection of language are infused by poetry into prose. In all ages the poet has been a bad judge of his own meaning (Apol. 22 B); for he does not see that the word which is full of associations to his own mind is difficult and unmeaning to that of another; or that the sequence which is clear to himself is puzzling to others. There are many passages in some of our greatest modern poets which are far too obscure; in which there is no proportion between style and subject; in which any half-expressed figure, any harsh construction, any distorted collocation of words any remote sequence of ideas is admitted; and there is no voice ‘coming sweetly from nature,’ or music adding the expression of feeling to thought. As if there could be poetry without beauty, or beauty without ease and clearness. The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the state of language and logic which existed in their age. They are not examples to be followed by us; for the use of language ought in every generation to become clearer and clearer. Like Shakespere, they were great in spite, not in consequence, of their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the infancy of literature. The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure; and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back to the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our own times has not outstripped language; a want of Plato’s ‘art of measuring’ is the real cause of the disproportion between them.

  3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a theory of art than anywhere else in Plato. His views may be summed up as follows:—True art is not fanciful and imitative, but simple and ideal,—the expression of the highest moral energy, whether in action or repose. To live among works of plastic art which are of this noble and simple character, or to listen to such strains, is the best of influences,—the true Greek atmosphere, in which youth should be brought up. That is the way to create in them a natural good taste, which will have a feeling of truth and beauty in all things. For though the poets are to be expelled, still art is recognized as another aspect of reason—like love in the Symposium, extending over the same sphere, but confined to the preliminary education, and acting through the power of habit (vii. 522 A); and this conception of art is not limited to strains of music or the forms of plastic art, but pervades all nature and has a wide kindred in the world. The Republic of Plato, like the Athens of Pericles, has an artistic as well as a political side.

  There is hardly any mention in Plato of the creative arts; only in two or three passages does he even allude to them (cp. Rep. iv. 420; Soph. 236 A). He is not lost in rapture at the great works of Phidias, the Parthenon, the Propylea, the statues of Zeus or Athene. He would probably have regarded any abstract truth of number or figure (529 E) as higher than the greatest of them. Yet it is hard to suppose that some influence, such as he hopes to inspire in youth, did not pass into his own mind from the works of art which he saw around him. We are living upon the fragments of them, and find in a few broken stones the standard of truth and beauty. But in Plato this feeling has no expression; he nowhere says that beauty is the object of art; he seems to deny that wisdom can take an external form (Phaedrus, 250 E); he does not distinguish the fine from the mechanical arts. Whether or no, like some writers, he felt more than he expressed, it is at any rate remarkable that the greatest perfection of the fine arts should coincide with an almost entire silence about them. In one very striking passage (iv. 420) he tells us that a work of art, like the State, is a whole; and this conception of a whole and the love of the newly-born mathematical sciences may be regarded, if not as the inspiring, at any rate as the regulating principles of Greek art (cp. Xen. Mem. iii. 10. 6; and Sophist, 235, 236).

  4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better not be in robust health; and should have known what illness is in his own person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil; he is to be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a judge should not be young, just as a young man according to Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad, on the other hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge of virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this train of reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws (xii. 950 B) it is acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it (cp. infra, ix. 582). There is a directness of aim in virtue which gives an insight into vice. And the knowledge of character is in some degree a natural sense independent of any special experience of good or evil.

  5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because un-Greek and also very different from anything which existed at all in his age of the world, is the transposition of ranks. In the Spartan state there had been enfranchisement of Helots and degradation of citizens under special circumstances. And in the ancient Greek aristocracies, merit was certainly recognized as one of the elements on which government was based. The founders of states were supposed to be their benefactors, who were raised by their great actions above the ordinary level of humanity; at a later period, the services of warriors and legislators were held to entitle them and their descendants to the privileges of citizenship and to the first rank in the state. And although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from the remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic state—or indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world—still the rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the guardians of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell short of a fixed standard were either removed from the governing body, or not admitted to it; and this ‘academic’ discipline did to a certain extent prevail in Greek states, especially in Sparta. He also indicates that the system of caste, which existed in a great part of the ancient, and is by no means extinct in the modern European world, should be set aside from time to time in favour of merit. He is aware how deeply the greater part of mankind resent any interference with the order of society, and therefore he proposes his novel idea in the form of what he himself calls a ‘monstrous fiction.’ (Compare the ceremony of preparation for the two ‘great waves’ in Book v.) Two principles are indicated by him: first, that there is a distinction of ranks dependent on circumstances prior to the individual: second, that this distinction is and ought to be broken through by personal qualities. He adapts mythology like the Homeric poems to the wants of the state, making ‘the Phoenician tale’ the vehicle of his ideas. Every Greek state had a myth respecting its own origin; the Platonic republic may also have a tale of earthborn men. The gravity and verisimilitude with which the tale is told, and the analogy of Greek tradition, are a sufficient verification of the ‘monstrous falsehood.’ Ancient poetry had spoken of a gold and silver and brass and iron age succeeding one another, but Plato supposes these differences in the natures of men to exist together in a single state. Mythology supplies a figure under which the lesson may be taught (as Protagoras says, ‘the myth is more interesting’), and also enables Plato to touch lightly on new principles without going into details. In this passage he shadows forth a general truth, but he does not tell us by what steps the transposition of ranks is to be effected. Indeed throughout the Republic he allows the lower ranks to fade into the distance. We do not know whether they are to carry arms, and whether in the fifth book they are or are not included in the communistic regulations respecting property and marriage. Nor is there any use in arguing strictly either from a few chance words, or from the silence of Plato, or in drawing inferences which were beyond his vision. Aristotle, in his criticism on the position of the lower classes, does not perceive that the poetical creation is ‘like the air, invulnerable,’ and cannot be penetrated by the shafts of his logic (Pol. 2, 5, 18 foll.).

  6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest degree fanciful and ideal, and which suggest to him many reflections, are to be found in the third book of the Republic: first, the great power of music, so much beyond any influence which is experienced by us in modern times, when the art or science has been far more developed, and has found the secret of harmony, as well as of melody: secondly, the indefinite and almost absolute control which the soul is supposed to exercise over the body.

  In the first we suspect some degree of exaggeration, such as we may also observe among certain masters of the art, not unknown to us, at the present day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there seems to mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and numerical proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound and number are to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not dependent on the variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a connecting link with the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is describing what to him appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple and characteristic melody on the impressible mind of the Greek is more than we can easily appreciate. The effect of national airs may bear some comparison with it. And, besides all this, there is a confusion between the harmony of musical notes and the harmony of soul and body, which is so potently inspired by them.

  The second paradox leads up to some curious and interesting questions—How far can the mind control the body? Is the relation between them one of mutual antagonism or of mutual harmony? Are they two or one, and is either of them the cause of the other? May we not at times drop the opposition between them, and the mode of describing them, which is so familiar to us, and yet hardly conveys any precise meaning, and try to view this composite creature, man, in a more simple manner? Must we not at any rate admit that there is in human nature a higher and a lower principle, divided by no distinct line, which at times break asunder and take up arms against one another? Or again, they are reconciled and move together, either unconsciously in the ordinary work of life, or consciously in the pursuit of some noble aim, to be attained not without an effort, and for which every thought and nerve are strained. And then the body becomes the good friend or ally, or servant or instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a wonderful and almost superhuman power of banishing disease and weakness and calling out a hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to form a single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting; and the identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most part unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the body through the appetites, we acknowledge the responsibility of the one to the other. There is a tendency in us which says ‘Drink.’ There is another which says, ‘Do not drink; it is not good for you.’ And we all of us know which is the rightful superior. We are also responsible for our health, although into this sphere there enter some elements of necessity which may be beyond our control. Still even in the management of health, care and thought, continued over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we do not exact too much of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that all human freedom is limited by the laws of nature and of mind.

  We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation which he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day, depreciates the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a definite character and capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of invalidism interfering with the business of life. He does not recognize that time is the great healer both of mental and bodily disorders; and that remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little are safer than those which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does he see that there is no way in which the mind can more surely influence the body than by the control of eating and drinking; or any other action or occasion of human life on which the higher freedom of the will can be more simply or truly asserted.

  7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked. (1) The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato’s way of expressing that he is passing lightly over the subject. (2) The tentative manner in which here, as in the second book, he proceeds with the construction of the State. (3) The description of the State sometimes as a reality (389 D; 416 B), and then again as a work of imagination only (cp. 534 C; 592 B); these are the arts by which he sustains the reader’s interest. (4) Connecting links (e. g. 408 C with 379), or the preparation (394 D) for the entire expulsion of the poets in Book x. (5) The companion pictures of the lover of litigation and the valetudinarian (405), the satirical jest about the maxim of Phocylides (407), the manner in which the image of the gold and silver citizens is taken up into the subject (416 E), and the argument from the practice of Asclepius (407), should not escape notice.

  book iv.

  Analysis.Republic IV.

  419Adeimantus said: ‘Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that you make your citizens miserable, and this by their own free-will; they are the lords of the city, and yet instead of having, like other men, lands and houses and money of their own, they live as mercenaries and are always mounting 420guard.’ You may add, I replied, that they receive no pay but only their food, and have no money to spend on a journey or a mistress. ‘Well, and what answer do you give?’ My answer is, that our guardians may or may not be the happiest of men,—I should not be surprised to find in the long-run that they were,—but this is not the aim of our constitution, which was designed for the good of the whole and not of any one part. If I went to a sculptor and blamed him for having painted the eye, which is the noblest feature of the face, not purple but black, he would reply: ‘The eye must be an eye, and you should look at the statue as a whole.’ ‘Now I can well imagine a fool’s paradise, in which everybody is eating and drinking, clothed in purple and fine linen, and potters lie on sofas and have their wheel at hand, that they may work a little when 421they please; and cobblers and all the other classes of a State lose their distinctive character. And a State may get on without cobblers; but when the guardians degenerate into boon companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not talking of peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is expected to do his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class, but in the State as a whole. I have another remark to make:—A middle condition is best for artisans; they should have money enough to buy tools, and not enough to be independent of business. 422And will not the same condition be best for our citizens? If they are poor, they will be mean; if rich, luxurious and lazy; and in neither case contented. ‘But then how will our poor city be able to go to war against an enemy who has money?’ There may be a difficulty in fighting against one enemy; against two there will be none. In the first place, the contest will be carried on by trained warriors against well-to-do citizens: and is not a regular athlete an easy match for two stout opponents at least? Suppose also, that before engaging we send ambassadors to one of the two cities, saying, ‘Silver and gold we have not; do you help us and take our share of the spoil;’—who would fight against the lean, wiry dogs, when they might join with them in preying upon the fatted sheep? ‘But if many states join their resources, shall we not be in danger?’ I am amused to hear you use the word ‘state’ of any but our own State. 423They are ‘states,’ but not ‘a state’—many in one. For in every state there are two hostile nations, rich and poor, which you may set one against the other. But our State, while she remains true to her principles, will be in very deed the mightiest of Hellenic states.

  To the size of the state there is no limit but the necessity of unity; it must be neither too larger nor too small to be one. This is a matter of secondary importance, like the principle of transposition which was intimated in the parable of the earthborn men. The meaning there implied was that every man should do that for which he was fitted, and be at one with himself, and then the whole city would be united. But all these things are secondary, 424if education, which is the great matter, be duly regarded. When the wheel has once been set in motion, the speed is always increasing; and each generation improves upon the preceding, both in physical and moral qualities. The care of the governors should be directed to preserve music and gymnastic from innovation; alter the songs of a country, Damon says, and you will soon end by altering its laws. The change appears innocent at first, and begins in play; but the evil soon becomes serious, working secretly upon the characters of individuals, then upon social and commercial relations, and lastly upon the institutions 425of a state; and there is ruin and confusion everywhere. But if education remains in the established form, there will be no danger. A restorative process will be always going on; the spirit of law and order will raise up what has fallen down. Nor will any regulations be needed for the lesser matters of life—rules of deportment or fashions of dress. Like invites like for good or for evil. Education will correct deficiencies and supply the power of self-government. Far be it from us to enter into the particulars of legislation; let the guardians take care of education, and education will take care of all other things.

  But without education they may patch and mend as they please; they will make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to cure himself by some favourite remedy and will not give up 426his luxurious mode of living. If you tell such persons that they must first alter their habits, then they grow angry; they are charming people. ‘Charming,—nay, the very reverse.’ Evidently these gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which is like them. And such states there are which first ordain under penalty of death that no one shall alter the constitution, and then suffer themselves to be flattered into and out of anything; and he who indulges them and fawns upon them, is their leader and saviour. ‘Yes, the men are as bad as the states.’ But do you not admire their cleverness? ‘Nay, some of them are stupid enough to believe what the people tell them.’ And when all the world is telling a man that he is six feet high, and he has no measure, how can he believe anything else? But don’t get into a passion: to see our statesmen trying their 427nostrums, and fancying that they can cut off at a blow the Hydra-like rogueries of mankind, is as good as a play. Minute enactments are superfluous in good states, and are useless in bad ones.

  And now what remains of the work of legislation? Nothing for us: but to Apollo the god of Delphi we leave the ordering of the greatest of all things—that is to say, religion. Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre and navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair of such magnitude. No foreign god shall be supreme in our realms. . . .

  Introduction.

  Here, as Socrates would say, let us ‘reflect on’ (σκοπω̂μεν) what has preceded: thus far we have spoken not of the happiness of the citizens, but only of the well-being of the State. They may be the happiest of men, but our principal aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They were to be guardians, not holiday-makers. In this pleasant manner is presented to us the famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy, touching the relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility.

  First duty, then happiness, is the natural order of our moral ideas. The utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of error, and shows to us a side of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further that right and utility are co-extensive, and that he who makes the happiness of mankind his object has one of the highest and noblest motives of human action. But utility is not the historical basis of morality; nor the aspect in which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest happiness of all is, as we believe, the far-off result of the divine government of the universe. The greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be of a divine purpose, that ‘all mankind should be saved;’ and we infer the one from the other. And the greatest happiness of the individual may be the reverse of the greatest happiness in the ordinary sense of the term, and may be realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary death. Further, the word ‘happiness’ has several ambiguities; it may mean either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness subjective or objective, in this world or in another, of ourselves only or of our neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the modern founder of Utilitarianism the self-regarding and disinterested motives of action are included under the same term, although they are commonly opposed by us as benevolence and self-love. The word happiness has not the definiteness or the sacredness of ‘truth’ and ‘right’; it does not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and conveniences of life; too little with ‘the goods of the soul which we desire for their own sake.’ In a great trial, or danger, or temptation, or in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these reasons ‘the greatest happiness’ principle is not the true foundation of ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is like unto it, and is often of easier application. For the larger part of human actions are neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend to the happiness of mankind (cp. Introd. to Gorgias and Philebus).

  The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For concerning political measures, we chiefly ask: How will they affect the happiness of mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term expediency is merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human society. Right and truth are the highest aims of government as well as of individuals; and we ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot directly enforce them. They appeal to the better mind of nations; and sometimes they are too much for merely temporal interests to resist. They are the watchwords which all men use in matters of public policy, as well as in their private dealings; the peace of Europe may be said to depend upon them. In the most commercial and utilitarian states of society the power of ideas remains. And all the higher class of statesmen have in them something of that idealism which Pericles is said to have gathered from the teaching of Anaxagoras. They recognise that the true leader of men must be above the motives of ambition, and that national character is of greater value than material comfort and prosperity. And this is the order of thought in Plato; first, he expects his citizens to do their duty, and then under favourable circumstances, that is to say, in a well-ordered State, their happiness is assured. That he was far from excluding the modern principle of utility in politics is sufficiently evident from other passages, in which ‘the most beneficial is affirmed to be the most honourable’ (v. 457 B), and also ‘the most sacred’ (v. 458 E).

  We may note (1) The manner in which the objection of Adeimantus here, as in ii. 357 foll., 363; vi. ad init. etc., is designed to draw out and deepen the argument of Socrates. (2) The conception of a whole as lying at the foundation both of politics and of art, in the latter supplying the only principle of criticism, which, under the various names of harmony, symmetry, measure, proportion, unity, the Greek seems to have applied to works of art. (3) The requirement that the State should be limited in size, after the traditional model of a Greek state; as in the Politics of Aristotle (vii. 4, etc.), the fact that the cities of Hellas were small is converted into a principle. (4) The humorous pictures of the lean dogs and the fatted sheep, of the light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen at least, of the ‘charming’ patients who are always making themselves worse; or again, the playful assumption that there is no State but our own; or the grave irony with which the statesman is excused who believes that he is six feet high because he is told so, and having nothing to measure with is to be pardoned for his ignorance—he is too amusing for us to be seriously angry with him. (5) The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over when provision has been made for two great principles,—first, that religion shall be based on the highest conception of the gods (ii. 377 foll.), secondly, that the true national or Hellenic type shall be maintained. . . . .

  Analysis.

  Socrates proceeds: But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston, tell me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother and the rest of our friends to help in seeking for her. ‘That won’t do,’ replied Glaucon, ‘you yourself promised to make the search and talked about the impiety of deserting justice.’ Well, I said, I will lead the way, but do you follow. My notion is, that our State being perfect will contain all the four virtues—wisdom, 428courage, temperance, justice. If we eliminate the three first, the unknown remainder will be justice.

  First then, of wisdom: the State which we have called into being will be wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of skill,—not the skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the husbandman, but the skill of him who advises about the interests of the whole State. Of such a kind is 429the skill of the guardians, who are a small class in number, far smaller than the blacksmiths; but in them is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if this small ruling class have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise.

  Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in another class—that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of salvation—the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or 430lye will ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and the laws are the colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them out. This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask you to call ‘courage,’ adding the epithet ‘political’ or ‘civilized’ in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a higher courage which may hereafter be discussed.

  Two virtues remain; temperance and justice. More than the 431preceding virtues temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown upon the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as ‘master of himself’—which has an absurd sound, because the master is also the servant. The expression really means that the better principle in a man masters the worse. There are in cities whole classes—women, slaves and the like—who correspond to the worse, and a few only to the better; and in our State the former class are held under control by the latter. Now to which of these classes does temperance belong? ‘To both of them.’ And our State if any will be the abode of temperance; and we were right in describing this virtue as a harmony which 432is diffused through the whole, making the dwellers in the city to be of one mind, and attuning the upper and middle and lower classes like the strings of an instrument, whether you suppose them to differ in wisdom, strength or wealth.

  And now we are hear the spot; let us draw in and surround the cover and watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell me, if you see the thicket move first. ‘Nay, I would have you lead.’ Well then, offer up a prayer and follow. The way is dark and difficult; but we must push on. I begin to see a track. ‘Good news.’ Why, Glaucon, our dulness of scent is quite ludicrous! While we are straining our eyes into the distance, justice is tumbling out at our feet. We are as bad as 433people looking for a thing which they have in their hands. Have you forgotten our old principle of the division of labour, or of every man doing his own business, concerning which we spoke at the foundation of the State—what but this was justice? Is there any other virtue remaining which can compete with wisdom and temperance and courage in the scale of political virtue? For ‘every one having his own’ is the great object of government; and 434the great object of trade is that every man should do his own business. Not that there is much harm in a carpenter trying to be a cobbler, or a cobbler transforming himself into a carpenter; but great evil may arise from the cobbler leaving his last and turning into a guardian or legislator, or when a single individual is trainer, warrior, legislator, all in one. And this evil is injustice, or every man doing another’s business. I do not say that as yet we are in a condition to arrive at a final conclusion. For the definition which we believe to hold good in states has still to be tested by the individual. Having read the large letters we will 435now come back to the small. From the two together a brilliant light may be struck out. . . .

  Introduction.

  Socrates proceeds to discover the nature of justice by a method of residues. Each of the first three virtues corresponds to one of the three parts of the soul and one of the three classes in the State, although the third, temperance, has more of the nature of a harmony than the first two. If there be a fourth virtue, that can only be sought for in the relation of the three parts in the soul or classes in the State to one another. It is obvious and simple, and for that very reason has not been found out. The modern logician will be inclined to object that ideas cannot be separated like chemical substances, but that they run into one another and may be only different aspects or names of the same thing, and such in this instance appears to be the case. For the definition here given of justice is verbally the same as one of the definitions of temperance given by Socrates in the Charmides (162 A), which however is only provisional, and is afterwards rejected. And so far from justice remaining over when the other virtues are eliminated, the justice and temperance of the Republic can with difficulty be distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only, and one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul. Yet on the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony, and in this respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from temperance in degree rather than in kind; whereas temperance is the harmony of discordant elements, justice is the perfect order by which all natures and classes do their own business, the right man in the right place, the division and co-operation of all the citizens. Justice, again, is a more abstract notion than the other virtues, and therefore, from Plato’s point of view, the foundation of them, to which they are referred and which in idea precedes them. The proposal to omit temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid monotony (cp. vii. 528).

  There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of Plato (Protagoras, 329, 330; cp. Arist. Nic. Ethics, vi. 13. 6), ‘Whether the virtues are one or many?’ This receives an answer which is to the effect that there are four cardinal virtues (now for the first time brought together in ethical philosophy), and one supreme over the rest, which is not like Aristotle’s conception of universal justice, virtue relative to others, but the whole of virtue relative to the parts. To this universal conception of justice or order in the first education and in the moral nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms ‘law,’ ‘order,’ ‘harmony;’ but while the idea of good embraces ‘all time and all existence,’ the conception of justice is not extended beyond man.

  Analysis.

  . . . Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But first he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul. His argument is as follows:—Quantity makes no difference in quality. The word ‘just,’ whether applied to the individual or to the State, has the same meaning. And the term ‘justice’ implied that the same three principles in the State and in the individual were doing their own business. But are they really three or one? The question is difficult, and one which can hardly be solved by the methods which we are now using; but the truer and longer way would take up too much of our time. ‘The shorter will satisfy me.’ Well then, you would admit that the qualities of states mean the qualities of the individuals who compose them? The Scythians and Thracians are passionate, 436our own race intellectual, and the Egyptians and Phoenicians covetous, because the individual members of each have such and such a character; the difficulty is to determine whether the several principles are one or three; whether, that is to say, we reason with one part of our nature, desire with another, are angry with another, or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action. This enquiry, however, requires a very exact definition of terms. The same thing in the same relation cannot be affected in two opposite ways. But there is no impossibility in a man standing still, yet moving his arms, or in a top which is fixed on one spot going round upon its axis. There is no 437necessity to mention all the possible exceptions; let us provisionally assume that opposites cannot do or be or suffer opposites in the same relation. And to the class of opposites belong assent and dissent, desire and avoidance. And one form of desire is thirst and hunger: and here arises a new point—thirst is thirst of drink, hunger is hunger of food; not of warm 438drink or of a particular kind of food, with the single exception of course that the very fact of our desiring anything implies that it is good. When relative terms have no attributes, their correlatives have no attributes; when they have attributes, their correlatives also have them. For example, the term ‘greater’ is simply relative to ‘less,’ and knowledge refers to a subject of knowledge. But on the other hand, a particular knowledge is of a particular subject. Again, every science has a distinct character, which is defined by an object; medicine, for example, is the science of 439health, although not to be confounded with health. Having cleared our ideas thus far, let us return to the original instance of thirst, which has a definite object—drink. Now the thirsty soul may feel two distinct impulses; the animal one saying ‘Drink;’ the rational one, which says ‘Do not drink.’ The two impulses are contradictory; and therefore we may assume that they spring from distinct principles in the soul. But is passion a third principle, or akin to desire? There is a story of a certain Leontius which throws some light on this question. He was coming up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, and he passed a spot where there were dead bodies lying by the executioner. He felt a longing desire to see them and also an abhorrence of them; at first he turned away 440and shut his eyes, then, suddenly tearing them open, he said,—‘Take your fill, ye wretches, of the fair sight.’ Now is there not here a third principle which is often found to come to the assistance of reason against desire, but never of desire against reason? This is passion or spirit, of the separate existence of which we may further convince ourselves by putting the following case:—When a man suffers justly, if he be of a generous nature he is not indignant at the hardships which he undergoes: but when he suffers unjustly, his indignation is his great support; hunger and thirst cannot tame him; the spirit within him must do or die, until the voice of the shepherd, that is, of reason, bidding his dog bark no more, is heard within. This shows 441that passion is the ally of reason. Is passion then the same with reason? No, for the former exists in children and brutes; and Homer affords a proof of the distinction between them when he says, ‘He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.’

  And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to infer that the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same. For wisdom and courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom and courage and justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the three classes will do the work of its own class in the State, and each part in the individual soul; 442reason, the superior, and passion, the inferior, will be harmonized by the influence of music and gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the head and the arm, will act together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the desires in proper subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality which preserves a right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and pains. The wisdom of the counsellor is that small part of the soul which has authority and reason. The virtue of temperance is the friendship of the ruling and the subject principles, both in the State and in the individual. Of justice we have already spoken; and the notion already given of it may be confirmed by common instances. 443Will the just state or the just individual steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of impiety to gods and men? ‘No.’ And is not the reason of this that the several principles, whether in the state or in the individual, do their own business? And justice is the quality which makes just men and just states. Moreover, our old division of labour, which required that there should be one man for one use, was a dream or anticipation of what was to follow; and that dream has now been realized in justice, which begins by binding together the three chords of the soul, and then acts 444harmoniously in every relation of life. And injustice, which is the insubordination and disobedience of the inferior elements in the soul, is the opposite of justice, and is inharmonious and unnatural, being to the soul what disease is to the body; for in the soul as well as in the body, good or bad actions produce good or bad habits. And virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul.

  445Again the old question returns upon us: Is justice or injustice the more profitable? The question has become ridiculous. For injustice, like mortal disease, makes life not worth having. Come up with me to the hill which overhangs the city and look down upon the single form of virtue, and the infinite forms of vice, among which are four special ones, characteristic both of states and of individuals. And the state which corresponds to the single form of virtue is that which we have been describing, wherein reason rules under one of two names—monarchy and aristocracy. Thus there are five forms in all, both of states and of souls. . . .

  Introduction.

  In attempting to prove that the soul has three separate faculties, Plato takes occasion to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the criterion which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties. The same faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly, no extraneous word must be introduced into either of the terms in which the contradictory proposition is expressed: for example, thirst is of drink, not of warm drink. He implies, what he does not say, that if, by the advice of reason, or by the impulse of anger, a man is restrained from drinking, this proves that thirst, or desire under which thirst is included, is distinct from anger and reason. But suppose that we allow the term ‘thirst’ or ‘desire’ to be modified, and say an ‘angry thirst,’ or a ‘revengeful desire,’ then the two spheres of desire and anger overlap and become confused. This case therefore has to be excluded. And still there remains an exception to the rule in the use of the term ‘good,’ which is always implied in the object of desire. These are the discussions of an age before logic; and any one who is wearied by them should remember that they are necessary to the clearing up of ideas in the first development of the human faculties.

  The psychology of Plato extends no further than the division of the soul into the rational, irascible, and concupiscent elements, which, as far as we know, was first made by him, and has been retained by Aristotle and succeeding ethical writers. The chief difficulty in this early analysis of the mind is to define exactly the place of the irascible faculty (θυμός), which may be variously described under the terms righteous indignation, spirit, passion. It is the foundation of courage, which includes in Plato moral courage, the courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting intellectual difficulties, as well as of meeting dangers in war. Though irrational, it inclines to side with the rational: it cannot be aroused by punishment when justly inflicted: it sometimes takes the form of an enthusiasm which sustains a man in the performance of great actions. It is the ‘lion heart’ with which the reason makes a treaty (ix. 589 B). On the other hand it is negative rather than positive; it is indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in the government of honour. It differs from anger (ὀργή), this latter term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle has retained the word, yet we may observe that ‘passion’ (θνμὁς) has with him lost its affinity to the rational and has become indistinguishable from ‘anger’ (ὀργή). And to this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert (ix. 836 B), though not always (v. 731 A). By modern philosophy too, as well as in our ordinary conversation, the words anger or passion are employed almost exclusively in a bad sense; there is no connotation of a just or reasonable cause by which they are aroused. The feeling of ‘righteous indignation’ is too partial and accidental to admit of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted also to doubt whether Plato is right in supposing that an offender, however justly condemned, could be expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence; this is the spirit of a philosopher or martyr rather than of a criminal.

  We may observe (p. 444 D, E) how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle’s famous thesis, that ‘good actions produce good habits.’ The words ‘as healthy practices (ἐπιτηδεύματα) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,’ have a sound very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental remark in Plato has become a far-reaching principle in Aristotle, and an inseparable part of a great Ethical system.

  There is a difficulty in understanding what Plato meant by ‘the longer way’ (435 D; cp. infra, vi. 504): he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and seventh books (compare Sophist and Parmenides) he has given us a sketch of such a metaphysic; but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the idea of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied the preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued about such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture. Perhaps he hoped to find some a priori method of developing the parts out of the whole; or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other ideas, and possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the ‘ego’ and the ‘universal.’ Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in some manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato the universal; and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or opinion, just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole of induction and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always tended to pass beyond the limits of human thought and language: they seem to have reached a height at which they are ‘moving about in worlds unrealized,’ and their conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own minds, become invisible or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore surprized to find that Plato himself has nowhere clearly explained his doctrine of ideas; or that his school in a later generation, like his contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were unable to follow him in this region of speculation. In the Sophist, where he is refuting the scepticism which maintained either that there was no such thing as predication, or that all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the conclusion that some ideas combine with some, but not all with all. But he makes only one or two steps forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any connected system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary relations of the sciences to one another (see infra).

  book v.

  Analysis.Republic V.

  449I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in states, when Polemarchus—he was sitting a little farther from me than Adeimantus—taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, ‘Shall we let him off?’ ‘Certainly not,’ said Adeimantus, raising his voice, Whom, I said, are you not going to let off? ‘You,’ he said. Why? ‘Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting women and children, of whom you have slily disposed under the general formula that friends have all things in common.’ And was I not right? ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but there are many sorts of communism or community, and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you have just heard, are resolved 450to have a further explanation.’ Thrasymachus said, ‘Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to hear you discourse?’ Yes, I said; but the discourse should be of a reasonable length. Glaucon added, ‘Yes, Socrates, and there is reason in spending the whole of life in such discussions; but pray, without more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and how the interval between birth and education is to be filled up.’ Well, I said, the subject has several difficulties—What is possible? is the first question. What is desirable? is the second. ‘Fear not,’ he replied, ‘for you are speaking among friends.’ That, I replied, is a sorry consolation; I shall destroy 451my friends as well as myself. Not that I mind a little innocent laughter; but he who kills the truth is a murderer. ‘Then,’ said Glaucon, laughing, ‘in case you should murder us we will acquit you beforehand, and you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.’

  Socrates proceeds:—The guardians of our state are to be watch-dogs, as we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes—we do not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look after their puppies. They have the same employments—the only difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same education—they must be taught music 452and gymnastics, and the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palæstra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment of the person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule.

  453The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with the division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on the difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women? Nay, are they not wholly different? There was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life; and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can.

  454The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is such an inference erroneous? Simply because the opposition between them is partial only, like the difference between a male physician and a female physician, not running through the whole nature, like the difference between a physician and a carpenter. And if the difference of the sexes is only that the one beget and the other bear children, this does not prove that they ought to have 455distinct educations. Admitting that women differ from men in capacity, do not men equally differ from one another? Has not nature scattered all the qualities which our citizens require indifferently up and down among the two sexes? and even in their peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though in some cases superior to men, ridiculously enough surpassed by them? Women are the same in kind as men, and have the same aptitude 456or want of aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or war, but in a less degree. One woman will be a good guardian, another not; and the good must be chosen to be the colleagues of our guardians. If however their natures are the same, the inference is that their education must also be the same; there is no longer anything unnatural or impossible in a woman learning music and gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be the very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best women, and nothing can be more advantageous to 457the State than this. Therefore let them strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in the toils of war and in the defence of their country; he who laughs at them is a fool for his pains.

  The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is rolling in—community of wives and children; is this either expedient or possible? The expediency I do not doubt; I am not so sure of the possibility. ‘Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.’ I meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have detected the little stratagem I must even 458submit. Only allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I will return to the question of what can be.

  In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as legislator, have already selected the men; and now you shall select the women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, holy marriage 459festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the mating? ‘Certainly.’ And there is no reason to suppose that less care is required in the marriage of human beings. But then our rulers must be skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime 460condition. Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those of inferior breed are paired with inferiors—the latter will ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers. And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children; care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring; and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants. ‘Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children.’ And quite right too, I said, that they should.

  The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty years—from twenty-five, when he 461has ‘passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,’ to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a woman—from twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety; also every one who forms a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers. This latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages, after which they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. ‘But how shall we know the degrees of affinity, when all things are common?’ The answer is, that brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or nine months after the espousals, and their parents those 462who are then espoused, and every one will have many children and every child many parents.

  Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity; the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or interests—where if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive; and the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to the soul. For the true State, like an individual, is injured as a whole when any part 463is affected. Every State has subjects and rulers, who in a democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters: but in our State they are called saviours and allies; and the subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And whereas in other States members of the same government regard one of their colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to another; for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding reality—brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in 464the ears of children, will not be mere words. Then again the citizens will have all things in common, and having common property they will have common pleasures and pains.

  Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend himself? The 465permission to strike when insulted will be an ‘antidote’ to the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with blessings greater still—they and their children having a better maintenance during life, and after death 466an honourable burial. Nor has the happiness of the individual been sacrificed to the happiness of the State (cp. iv. 419 E); our Olympic victor has not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any cobbler. At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that ‘half is better than the whole.’ ‘I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life.’

  But is such a community possible?—as among the animals, so also among men; and if possible, in what way possible? About war there is no difficulty; the principle of communism is adapted to military service. Parents will take their children to look on 467at a battle, just as potters’ boys are trained to the business by looking on at the wheel. And to the parents themselves, as to other animals, the sight of their young ones will prove a great incentive to bravery. Young warriors must learn, but they must not run into danger, although a certain degree of risk is worth incurring when the benefit is great. The young creatures should be placed under the care of experienced veterans, and they should have wings—that is to say, swift and tractable steeds on which 468they may fly away and escape. One of the first things to be done is to teach a youth to ride.

  Cowards and deserters shall be degraded to the class of husbandmen; gentlemen who allow themselves to be taken prisoners, may be presented to the enemy. But what shall be done to the hero? First of all he shall be crowned by all the youths in the army; secondly, he shall receive the right hand of fellowship; and thirdly, do you think that there is any harm in his being kissed? We have already determined that he shall have more wives than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with ‘long chines,’ which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the brave—may they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod’s 469guardian angels. He shall be worshipped after death in the manner prescribed by the oracle; and not only he, but all other benefactors of the State who die in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours.

  The next question is, How shall we treat our enemies? Shall Hellenes be enslaved? No; for there is too great a risk of the whole race passing under the yoke of the barbarians. Or shall the dead be despoiled? Certainly not; for that sort of thing is an excuse for skulking, and has been the ruin of many an army. There is meanness and feminine malice in making an enemy of the dead body, when the soul which was the owner has fled— like a dog who cannot reach his assailants, and quarrels with the stones which are thrown at him instead. Again, the arms of 470Hellenes should not be offered up in the temples of the Gods; they are a pollution, for they are taken from brethren. And on similar grounds there should be a limit to the devastation of Hellenic territory—the houses should not be burnt, nor more than the annual produce carried off. For war is of two kinds, civil and foreign; the first of which is properly termed ‘discord,’ and only the second ‘war;’ and war between Hellenes is in reality civil war—a quarrel in a family, which is ever to be regarded as 471unpatriotic and unnatural, and ought to be prosecuted with a view to reconciliation in a true phil-Hellenic spirit, as of those who would chasten but not utterly enslave. The war is not against a whole nation who are a friendly multitude of men, women, and children, but only against a few guilty persons; when they are punished peace will be restored. That is the way in which Hellenes should war against one another—and against barbarians, as they war against one another now.

  ‘But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question: Is such a State possible? I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of being one family—fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war together; but I want to 472ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.’ You are too unmerciful. The first wave and the second wave I have hardly escaped, and now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see the towering crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. ‘Not a whit.’

  Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after justice, and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all the worse for being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any the worse because no such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the idea? Nature 473will not allow words to be fully realized; but if I am to try and realize the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an approach may be made to the perfection of which I dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single one—the great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know that this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. ‘Socrates, all the world will take off his coat and rush upon you 474with sticks and stones, and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.’ You got me into the scrape, I said. ‘And I was right,’ he replied; ‘however, I will stand by you as a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning ally.’ Having the help of such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my position. And first, I must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these are who are to be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure, you will not have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments; they love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The snub-nosed youth is said to have a winning grace; the beak of another has a royal look; the featureless are faultless; the dark are manly, the fair angels; the sickly have a new term of endearment 475invented expressly for them, which is ‘honey-pale.’ Lovers of wine and lovers of ambition also desire the objects of their affection in every form. Now here comes the point:—The philosopher too is a lover of knowledge in every form; he has an insatiable curiosity. ‘But will curiosity make a philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their ears to every chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?’ They are not true philosophers, but only an imitation. ‘Then how are we to describe the true?’

  You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as 476justice, beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are philosophers; whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours, and understand their use in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or waking vision of absolute justice or beauty or truth; they have not the light of knowledge, but of opinion, and what they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of whom we say the last will be angry with us; can we pacify him without revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we say that, if he has knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of something which is, as ignorance is of 477something which is not; and there is a third thing, which both is and is not, and is matter of opinion only. Opinion and knowledge, then, having distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties. And by faculties I mean powers unseen and distinguishable only by the difference in their objects, as opinion and knowledge differ, since the one is liable to err, but the other is unerring and is the mightiest of all our faculties. If being is the object of knowledge, 478and not-being of ignorance, and these are the extremes, opinion must lie between them, and may be called darker than the one and brighter than the other. This intermediate or contingent matter is and is not at the same time, and partakes both of 479existence and of non-existence. Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract beauty and justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether everything he sees is not in some point of view different—the beautiful ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another? Everything is and is not, as in the old riddle—‘A man and not a man shot and did not shoot a bird and not a bird with a stone and not a stone.’ The mind cannot be fixed on either alternative; and these ambiguous, intermediate, erring, half-lighted objects, which have a disorderly movement in the region between being 480and not-being, are the proper matter of opinion, as the immutable objects are the proper matter of knowledge. And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only this uncertain perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion only. . . .

  Introduction.

  The fifth book is the new beginning of the Republic, in which the community of property and of family are first maintained, and the transition is made to the kingdom of philosophers. For both of these Plato, after his manner, has been preparing in some chance words of Book IV (424 A), which fall unperceived on the reader’s mind, as they are supposed at first to have fallen on the ear of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The ‘paradoxes,’ as Morgenstern terms them, of this book of the Republic will be reserved for another place; a few remarks on the style, and some explanations of difficulties, may be briefly added.

  First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme or plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and greatest wave come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can be said of the extravagance of Plato’s proposals is anticipated by himself. Nothing is more admirable than the hesitation with which he proposes the solemn text, ‘Until kings are philosophers,’ &c.; or the reaction from the sublime to the ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the new truth will be received by mankind.

  Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to the lower classes; nor is the table of prohibited degrees capable of being made out. It is quite possible that a child born at one hymeneal festival may marry one of its own brothers or sisters, or even one of its parents, at another. Plato is afraid of incestuous unions, but at the same time he does not wish to bring before us the fact that the city would be divided into families of those born seven and nine months after each hymeneal festival. If it were worth while to argue seriously about such fancies, we might remark that while all the old affinities are abolished, the newly prohibited affinity rests not on any natural or rational principle, but only upon the accident of children having been born in the same month and year. Nor does he explain how the lots could be so manipulated by the legislature as to bring together the fairest and best. The singular expression (460 E) which is employed to describe the age of five-and-twenty may perhaps be taken from some poet.

  In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of Glaucon, the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings (cp. V. 474, 475). They are partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth. That science is a whole, remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical philosophy; and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of the philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times.

  At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in the history of philosophy. He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a word must answer to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to invent ‘parallels and conjugates’ and to overlook facts. To us some of his difficulties are puzzling only from their simplicity: we do not perceive that the answer to them ‘is tumbling out at our feet.’ To the mind of early thinkers, the conception of not-being was dark and mysterious (Sophist, 254 A); they did not see that this terrible apparition which threatened destruction to all knowledge was only a logical determination. The common term under which, through the accidental use of language, two entirely different ideas were included was another source of confusion. Thus through the ambiguity of δοκεɩ̂ν, ϕαίνεται, ἔοικεν, κ.τ.λ. Plato, attempting to introduce order into the first chaos of human thought, seems to have confused perception and opinion, and to have failed to distinguish the contingent from the relative. In the Theaetetus the first of these difficulties begins to clear up; in the Sophist the second; and for this, as well as for other reasons, both these dialogues are probably to be regarded as later than the Republic.

  book vi.

  Analysis.

  484Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true being, and have no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and that philosophers have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or the many shall be rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers should be chosen, if 485they have the other qualities which are required in a ruler? For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth; they are haters of falsehood; their meaner desires are absorbed in the interests of knowledge; they are spectators of all time and all 486existence; and in the magnificence of their contemplation the life of man is as nothing to them, nor is death fearful. Also they are of a social, gracious disposition, equally free from cowardice and arrogance. They learn and remember easily; they have harmonious, well-regulated minds; truth flows to them sweetly by 487nature. Can the god of Jealousy himself find any fault with such an assemblage of good qualities?

  Republic VI.

  Here Adeimantus interposes:—‘No man can answer you, Socrates; but every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in argument. He is driven from one position to another, until he has nothing more to say, just as an unskilful player at draughts is reduced to his last move by a more skilled opponent. And yet all the time he may be right. He may know, in this very instance, that those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good. What do you say?’ I should say that he is quite right. ‘Then how is such an admission reconcileable with the doctrine that philosophers should be kings?’

  488I shall answer you in a parable which will also let you see how poor a hand I am at the invention of allegories. The relation of good men to their governments is so peculiar, that in order to defend them I must take an illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller by a head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind, and rather ignorant of the seaman’s art. The sailors want to steer, although they know nothing of the art; and they have a theory that it cannot be learned. If the helm is refused them, they drug the captain’s posset, bind him hand and foot, and take possession of the ship. He who joins in the mutiny is termed a good pilot and what not; they have no conception that the true pilot must observe the winds and the stars, and must be their master, whether they like it or not;—such an one would be called by them fool, prater, 489star-gazer. This is my parable; which I will beg you to interpret for me to those gentlemen who ask why the philosopher has such an evil name, and to explain to them that not he, but those who will not use him, are to blame for his uselessness. The philosopher should not beg of mankind to be put in authority over them. The wise man should not seek the rich, as the proverb bids, but every man, whether rich or poor, must knock at the door of the physician when he has need of him. Now the pilot is the philosopher—he whom in the parable they call star-gazer, and the mutinous sailors are the mob of politicians by whom he is rendered useless. Not that these are the worst enemies of philosophy, who is far more dishonoured by her own professing sons when they are corrupted 490by the world. Need I recall the original image of the philosopher! Did we not say of him just now, that he loved truth and hated falsehood, and that he could not rest in the multiplicity of phenomena, but was led by a sympathy in his own nature to the contemplation of the absolute? All the virtues as well as truth, who is the leader of them, took up their abode in his soul. But as you were observing, if we turn aside to view the reality, we see that the persons who were thus described, with the exception of a small and useless class, are utter rogues.

  The point which has to be considered, is the origin of this 491corruption in nature. Every one will admit that the philosopher, in our description of him, is a rare being. But what numberless causes tend to destroy these rare beings! There is no good thing which may not be a cause of evil—health, wealth, strength, rank, and the virtues themselves, when placed under unfavourable circumstances. For as in the animal or vegetable world the strongest seeds most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the best of human characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an unsuitable soil; whereas weak natures hardly ever do any considerable good or harm; they are not the stuff out of which 492either great criminals or great heroes are made. The philosopher follows the same analogy: he is either the best or the worst of all men. Some persons say that the Sophists are the corrupters of youth; but is not public opinion the real Sophist who is everywhere present—in those very persons, in the assembly, in the courts, in the camp, in the applauses and hisses of the theatre reechoed by the surrounding hills? Will not a young man’s heart leap amid these discordant sounds? and will any education save him from being carried away by the torrent? Nor is this all. For if he will not yield to opinion, there follows the gentle compulsion of exile or death. What principle of rival Sophists or anybody else can overcome in such an unequal contest? Characters there 493may be more than human, who are exceptions—God may save a man, but not his own strength. Further, I would have you consider that the hireling Sophist only gives back to the world their own opinions; he is the keeper of the monster, who knows how to flatter or anger him, and observes the meaning of his inarticulate grunts. Good is what pleases him, evil what he dislikes; truth and beauty are determined only by the taste of the brute. Such is the Sophist’s wisdom, and such is the condition of those who make public opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. The curse is laid upon them of being and doing what it approves, and when they attempt first principles the failure is ludicrous. Think of all this and ask yourself whether the world is more likely to be a believer in the unity of the idea, or in the multiplicity of phenomena. And the world if not a believer 494in the idea cannot be a philosopher, and must therefore be a persecutor of philosophers. There is another evil:—the world does not like to lose the gifted nature, and so they flatter the young [Alcibiades] into a magnificent opinion of his own capacity; the tall, proper youth begins to expand, and is dreaming of kingdoms and empires. If at this instant a friend whispers to him, ‘Now the gods lighten thee; thou art a great fool’ and must be educated—do you think that he will listen? Or suppose a better sort of man who is attracted towards philosophy, will they not 495make Herculean efforts to spoil and corrupt him? Are we not right in saying that the love of knowledge, no less than riches, may divert him? Men of this class [Critias] often become politicians—they are the authors of great mischief in states, and sometimes also of great good. And thus philosophy is deserted by her natural protectors, and others enter in and dishonour her. Vulgar little minds see the land open and rush from the prisons of the arts into her temple. A clever mechanic having a soul coarse as his body, thinks that he will gain caste by becoming her suitor. For philosophy, even in her fallen estate, has a dignity of her own—and he, like a bald little blacksmith’s apprentice as he is, having made some money and got out of durance, washes and dresses 496himself as a bridegroom and marries his master’s daughter. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard, devoid of truth and nature? ‘They will.’ Small, then, is the remnant of genuine philosophers; there may be a few who are citizens of small states, in which politics are not worth thinking of, or who have been detained by Theages’ bridle of ill health; for my own case of the oracular sign is almost unique, and too rare to be worth mentioning. And these few when they have tasted the pleasures of philosophy, and have taken a look at that den of thieves and place of wild beasts, which is human life, will stand aside from the storm under the shelter of a wall, and try to preserve their own innocence and to depart in peace. ‘A great work, too, will have been accomplished by them.’ Great, yes, but not the greatest; for man is a social being, and can only attain his highest development in the society which is best suited to him.

  497Enough, then, of the causes why philosophy has such an evil name. Another question is, Which of existing states is suited to her? Not one of them; at present she is like some exotic seed which degenerates in a strange soil; only in her proper state will she be shown to be of heavenly growth. ‘And is her proper state ours or some other?’ Ours in all points but one, which was left undetermined. You may remember our saying that some living mind or witness of the legislator was needed in states. But we were afraid to enter upon a subject of such difficulty, and now the question recurs and has not grown easier:—How may philosophy be safely studied? Let us bring her into the light of day, and make an end of the inquiry.

  In the first place, I say boldly that nothing can be worse than 498the present mode of study. Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth, and in the intervals of business, but they never master the real difficulty, which is dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a lecture on philosophy. Years advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike that of Heracleitus, sets never to rise again. This order of education should be reversed; it should begin with gymnastics in youth, and as the man strengthens, he should increase the gymnastics of his soul. Then, when active life is over, let him finally return to philosophy. ‘You are in earnest, Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest in withstanding you—no one more than Thrasymachus.’ Do not make a quarrel between Thrasymachus and me, who were never enemies and are now good friends enough. And I shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the truth of my words, or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another life, we may again take part in similar discussions. ‘That will be a long time hence.’ Not long in comparison with eternity. The many will probably remain incredulous, for they have never seen the natural unity of ideas, but only artificial juxtapositions; not free and generous thoughts, but tricks of controversy and quips 499of law;—a perfect man ruling in a perfect state, even a single one they have not known. And we foresaw that there was no chance of perfection either in states or individuals until a necessity was laid upon philosophers—not the rogues, but those whom we called the useless class—of holding office; or until the sons of kings were inspired with a true love of philosophy. Whether in the infinity of past time there has been, or is in some distant land, or ever will be hereafter, an ideal such as we have described, we stoutly maintain that there has been, is, and will be such a state whenever the Muse of philosophy rules. 500Will you say that the world is of another mind? O, my friend, do not revile the world! They will soon change their opinion if they are gently entreated, and are taught the true nature of the philosopher. Who can hate a man who loves him? or be jealous of one who has no jealousy? Consider, again, that the many hate not the true but the false philosophers—the pretenders who force their way in without invitation, and are always speaking of persons and not of principles, which is unlike the spirit of philosophy. For the true philosopher despises earthly strife; his eye is fixed on the eternal order in accordance with which he moulds himself into the Divine image (and not himself only, but other men), and is the creator of the virtues private as well as public. When mankind see that the happiness of states is only to be found in that image, will they be angry with us for attempting to delineate it? ‘Certainly not. But what will be the process 501of delineation?’ The artist will do nothing until he has made a tabula rasa; on this he will inscribe the constitution of a state, glancing often at the divine truth of nature, and from that deriving the godlike among men, mingling the two elements, rubbing out and painting in, until there is a perfect harmony or fusion of the divine and human. But perhaps the world will doubt the existence of such an artist. What will they doubt? That the philosopher is a lover of truth, having a nature akin to the best?—and if they admit this will they still quarrel with us for making philosophers our kings? ‘They will be less disposed to quarrel.’ 502Let us assume then that they are pacified. Still, a person may hesitate about the probability of the son of a king being a philosopher. And we do not deny that they are very liable to be corrupted; but yet surely in the course of ages there might be one exception—and one is enough. If one son of a king were a philosopher, and had obedient citizens, he might bring the ideal polity into being. Hence we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they are also possible, though not free from difficulty.

  I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that we must go to the bottom of another question: What is to be the education of our guardians? It was 503agreed that they were to be lovers of their country, and were to be tested in the refiner’s fire of pleasures and pains, and those who came forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the argument put on her veil and turned into another path. I hesitated to make the assertion which I now hazard,—that our guardians must be philosophers. You remember all the contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher—how difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit are not often combined with steadiness; the stolid, fearless, nature is averse to intellectual toil. And yet these opposite elements are all necessary, and therefore, as we were saying before, the aspirant must be tested in pleasures and dangers; and also, as 504we must now further add, in the highest branches of knowledge. You will remember, that when we spoke of the virtues mention was made of a longer road, which you were satisfied to leave unexplored. ‘Enough seemed to have been said.’ Enough, my friend; but what is enough while anything remains wanting? Of all men the guardian must not faint in the search after truth; he must be prepared to take the longer road, or he will never reach that higher region which is above the four virtues; and of the virtues too he must not only get an outline, but a clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so precise about trifles, so careless about the highest truths!) ‘And what are 505the highest?’ You to pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often heard me speak of the idea of good, about which we know so little, and without which though a man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some people imagine that the good is wisdom; but this involves a circle,—the good, they say, is wisdom, wisdom has to do with the good. According to others the good is pleasure: but then comes the absurdity that good is bad, for there are bad pleasures as well as good. Again, the good must have reality; a man may desire the appearance of virtue, but he will not desire the appearance of good. Ought our guardians then 506to be ignorant of this supreme principle, of which every man has a presentiment, and without which no man has any real knowledge of anything? ‘But, Socrates, what is this supreme principle, knowledge or pleasure, or what? You may think me troublesome, but I say that you have no business to be always repeating the doctrines of others instead of giving us your own.’ Can I say what I do not know? ‘You may offer an opinion.’ And will the blindness and crookedness of opinion content you when you might have the light and certainty of science? ‘I will only ask you to give such an explanation of the good as you have given already of temperance and justice.’ I wish that I could, but in my present mood I cannot reach to the height of the knowledge 507of the good. To the parent or principal I cannot introduce you, but to the child begotten in his image, which I may compare with the interest on the principal, I will. (Audit the account, and do not let me give you a false statement of the debt.) You remember our old distinction of the many beautiful and the one beautiful, the particular and the universal, the objects of sight and the objects of thought? Did you ever consider that the objects of sight imply a faculty of sight which is the most complex and costly of our senses, requiring not only objects of sense, but also a medium, which is light; without which the sight will not distinguish 508between colours and all will be a blank? For light is the noble bond between the perceiving faculty and the thing perceived, and the god who gives us light is the sun, who is the eye of the day, but is not to be confounded with the eye of man. This eye of the day or sun is what I call the child of the good, standing in the same relation to the visible world as the good to the intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees, and in the intellectual world where truth is, there is sight and light. Now that which is the sun of intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the cause of knowledge and truth, yet 509other and fairer than they are, and standing in the same relation to them in which the sun stands to light. O inconceivable height of beauty, which is above knowledge and above truth! (‘You cannot surely mean pleasure,’ he said. Peace, I replied.) And this idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause of growth, and the author not of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater far than either in dignity and power. ‘That is a reach of thought more than human; but, pray, go on with the image, for I suspect that there is more behind.’ There is, I said; and bearing in mind our two suns or principles, imagine further their corresponding worlds—one of the visible, the other of the intelligible; you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under the image of a line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide each part into two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge in either sphere. The lower portion of the lower or 510visible sphere will consist of shadows and reflections, and its upper and smaller portion will contain real objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the intelligible will also have two divisions,—one of mathematics, in which there is no ascent but all is descent; no inquiring into premises, but only drawing of inferences. In this division the mind works with figures and numbers, the images of which are taken not from the shadows, but from the objects, although the truth of them is seen only with the mind’s eye; and they are used as hypotheses 511without being analysed. Whereas in the other division reason uses the hypotheses as stages or steps in the ascent to the idea of good, to which she fastens them, and then again descends, walking firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas only, in her ascent as well as descent, and finally resting in them. ‘I partly understand,’ he replied; ‘you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical, metaphorical conceptions of geometry and the other arts or sciences, whichever is to be the name of them; and the latter conceptions you refuse to make subjects of pure intellect, because they have no first principle, although when resting on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.’ You understand me very well, I said. And now to those four divisions of knowledge you may assign four corresponding faculties—pure intelligence to the highest sphere; active intelligence to the second; to the third, faith; to the fourth, the perception of shadows—and the clearness of the several faculties will be in the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related. . . . .

  Introduction.

  Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the philosopher. In language which seems to reach beyond the horizon of that age and country, he is described as ‘the spectator of all time and all existence.’ He has the noblest gifts of nature, and makes the highest use of them. All his desires are absorbed in the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the graces of a beautiful soul are wanting in him; neither can he fear death, or think much of human life. The ideal of modern times hardly retains the simplicity of the antique; there is not the same originality either in truth or error which characterized the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in the unseen, nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance; nor does he regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by regular stages to the idea of good. The eagerness of the pursuit has abated; there is more division of labour and less of comprehensive reflection upon nature and human life as a whole; more of exact observation and less of anticipation and inspiration. Still, in the altered conditions of knowledge, the parallel is not wholly lost; and there may be a use in translating the conception of Plato into the language of our own age. The philosopher in modern times is one who fixes his mind on the laws of nature in their sequence and connexion, not on fragments or pictures of nature; on history, not on controversy; on the truths which are acknowledged by the few, not on the opinions of the many. He is aware of the importance of ‘classifying according to nature,’ and will try to ‘separate the limbs of science without breaking them’ (Phaedr. 265 E). There is no part of truth, whether great or small, which he will dishonour; and in the least things he will discern the greatest (Parmen. 130 C). Like the ancient philosopher he sees the world pervaded by analogies, but he can also tell ‘why in some cases a single instance is sufficient for an induction’ (Mill’s Logic, 3, 3, 3), while in other cases a thousand examples would prove nothing. He inquires into a portion of knowledge only, because the whole has grown too vast to be embraced by a single mind or life. He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and of their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients. Like Plato, he has a vision of the unity of knowledge, not as the beginning of philosophy to be attained by a study of elementary mathematics, but as the far-off result of the working of many minds in many ages. He is aware that mathematical studies are preliminary to almost every other; at the same time, he will not reduce all varieties of knowledge to the type of mathematics. He too must have a nobility of character, without which genius loses the better half of greatness. Regarding the world as a point in immensity, and each individual as a link in a never-ending chain of existence, he will not think much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of death.

  Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic reasoning, thus showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection of his own method. He brings the accusation against himself which might be brought against him by a modern logician—that he extracts the answer because he knows how to put the question. In a long argument words are apt to change their meaning slightly, or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with rather too much certainty or universality; the variation at each step may be unobserved, and yet at last the divergence becomes considerable. Hence the failure of attempts to apply arithmetical or algebraic formulae to logic. The imperfection, or rather the higher and more elastic nature of language, does not allow words to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this quality in language impairs the force of an argument which has many steps.

  The objection, though fairly met by Socrates in this particular instance, may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of reasoning. And here, as at p. 506 B, Plato seems to intimate that the time had come when the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be superseded by a positive and constructive one, of which examples are given in some of the later dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is wholly at variance with facts; for experience proves philosophers to be either useless or rogues. Contrary to all expectation (cp. p. 497 for a similar surprise) Socrates has no hesitation in admitting the truth of this, and explains the anomaly in an allegory, first characteristically depreciating his own inventive powers. In this allegory the people are distinguished from the professional politicians, and, as at pp. 499, 500, are spoken of in a tone of pity rather than of censure under the image of ‘the noble captain who is not very quick in his perceptions.’

  The uselessness of philosophers is explained by the circumstance that mankind will not use them. The world in all ages has been divided between contempt and fear of those who employ the power of ideas and know no other weapons. Concerning the false philosopher, Socrates argues that the best is most liable to corruption; and that the finer nature is more likely to suffer from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds of excellence which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution; as is evidently true of the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often seems to depend on impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a certain atmosphere. The man of genius has greater pains and greater pleasures, greater powers and greater weaknesses, and often a greater play of character than is to be found in ordinary men. He can assume the disguise of virtue or disinterestedness without having them, or veil personal enmity in the language of patriotism and philosophy,—he can say the word which all men are thinking, he has an insight which is terrible into the follies and weaknesses of his fellow-men. An Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a Napoleon the First, are born either to be the authors of great evils in states, or ‘of great good, when they are drawn in that direction.’

  Yet the thesis, ‘corruptio optimi pessima,’ cannot be maintained generally or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The allen conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of culture to another. In general a man can only receive his highest development in a congenial state or family, among friends or fellow-workers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms them. And while weaker or coarser characters will extract good out of evil, say in a corrupt state of the church or of society, and live on happily, allowing the evil to remain, the finer or stronger natures may be crushed or spoiled by surrounding influences—may become misanthrope and philanthrope by turns; or in a few instances, like the founders of the monastic orders, or the Reformers, owing to some peculiarity in themselves or in their age, may break away entirely from the world and from the church, sometimes into great good, sometimes into great evil, sometimes into both. And the same holds in the lesser sphere of a convent, a school, a family.

  Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are overpowered by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will make to get possession of them. The world, the church, their own profession, any political or party organization, are always carrying them off their legs and teaching them to apply high and holy names to their own prejudices and interests. The ‘monster’ corporation to which they belong judges right and truth to be the pleasure of the community. The individual becomes one with his order; or, if he resists, the world is too much for him, and will sooner or later be revenged on him. This is, perhaps, a one-sided but not wholly untrue picture of the maxims and practice of mankind when they ‘sit down together at an assembly,’ either in ancient or modern times.

  When the higher natures are corrupted by politics, the lower take possession of the vacant place of philosophy. This is described in one of those continuous images in which the argument, to use a Platonic expression, ‘veils herself,’ and which is dropped and reappears at intervals. The question is asked,—Why are the citizens of states so hostile to philosophy? The answer is, that they do not know her. And yet there is also a better mind of the many; they would believe if they were taught. But hitherto they have only known a conventional imitation of philosophy, words without thoughts, systems which have no life in them; a [divine] person uttering the words of beauty and freedom, the friend of man holding communion with the Eternal, and seeking to frame the state in that image, they have never known. The same double feeling respecting the mass of mankind has always existed among men. The first thought is that the people are the enemies of truth and right; the second, that this only arises out of an accidental error and confusion, and that they do not really hate those who love them, if they could be educated to know them.

  In the latter part of the sixth book, three questions have to be considered: 1st, the nature of the longer and more circuitous way, which is contrasted with the shorter and more imperfect method of Book IV; 2nd, the heavenly pattern or idea of the state; 3rd, the relation of the divisions of knowledge to one another and to the corresponding faculties of the soul.

  1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse. Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. He would probably have described his method as proceeding by regular steps to a system of universal knowledge, which inferred the parts from the whole rather than the whole from the parts. This ideal logic is not practised by him in the search after justice, or in the analysis of the parts of the soul; there, like Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues from experience and the common use of language. But at the end of the sixth book he conceives another and more perfect method, in which all ideas are only steps or grades or moments of thought, forming a connected whole which is self-supporting, and in which consistency is the test of truth. He does not explain to us in detail the nature of the process. Like many other thinkers both in ancient and modern times his mind seems to be filled with a vacant form which he is unable to realize. He supposes the sciences to have a natural order and connexion in an age when they can hardly be said to exist. He is hastening on to the ‘end of the intellectual world’ without even making a beginning of them.

  In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of absolute knowledge. In all science a priori and a posteriori truths mingle in various proportions. The a priori part is that which is derived from the most universal experience of men, or is universally accepted by them; the a posteriori is that which grows up around the more general principles and becomes imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that the synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method of science can anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision of a priori knowledge he is sufficiently justified, or at least his meaning may be sufficiently explained by the similar attempts of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of Bacon himself, in modern philosophy. Anticipations or divinations, or prophetic glimpses of truths whether concerning man or nature, seem to stand in the same relation to ancient philosophy which hypotheses bear to modern inductive science. These ‘guesses at truth’ were not made at random; they arose from a superficial impression of uniformities and first principles in nature which the genius of the Greek, contemplating the expanse of heaven and earth, seemed to recognize in the distance. Nor can we deny that in ancient times knowledge must have stood still, and the human mind been deprived of the very instruments of thought, if philosophy had been strictly confined to the results of experience.

  2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist will fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid up in heaven, or mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with wondering eye? The answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the omission of particulars, partly by imagination perfecting the form which experience supplies (Phaedo, 74). Plato represents these ideals in a figure as belonging to another world; and in modern times the idea will sometimes seem to precede, at other times to co-operate with the hand of the artist. As in science, so also in creative art, there is a synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man will have the whole in his mind before he begins; to another the processes of mind and hand will be simultaneous.

  3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato’s divisions of knowledge are based, first, on the fundamental antithesis of sensible and intellectual which pervades the whole pre-Socratic philosophy; in which is implied also the opposition of the permanent and transient, of the universal and particular. But the age of philosophy in which he lived seemed to require a further distinction;—numbers and figures were beginning to separate from ideas. The world could no longer regard justice as a cube, and was learning to see, though imperfectly, that the abstractions of sense were distinct from the abstractions of mind. Between the Eleatic being or essence and the shadows of phenomena, the Pythagorean principle of number found a place, and was, as Aristotle remarks, a conducting medium from one to the other. Hence Plato is led to introduce a third term which had not hitherto entered into the scheme of his philosophy. He had observed the use of mathematics in education; they were the best preparation for higher studies. The subjective relation between them further suggested an objective one; although the passage from one to the other is really imaginary (Metaph. 1, 6, 4). For metaphysical and moral philosophy has no connexion with mathematics; number and figure are the abstractions of time and space, not the expressions of purely intellectual conceptions. When divested of metaphor, a straight line or a square has no more to do with right and justice than a crooked line with vice. The figurative association was mistaken for a real one; and thus the three latter divisions of the Platonic proportion were constructed.

  There is more difficulty in comprehending how he arrived at the first term of the series, which is nowhere else mentioned, and has no reference to any other part of his system. Nor indeed does the relation of shadows to objects correspond to the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has been led by the love of analogy (cp. Timaeus, p. 32 B) to make four terms instead of three, although the objects perceived in both divisions of the lower sphere are equally objects of sense. He is also preparing the way, as his manner is, for the shadows of images at the beginning of the seventh book, and the imitation of an imitation in the tenth. The line may be regarded as reaching from unity to infinity, and is divided into two unequal parts, and subdivided into two more; each lower sphere is the multiplication of the preceding. Of the four faculties, faith in the lower division has an intermediate position (cp. for the use of the word faith or belief, πίστις, Timaeus, 29 C, 37 B), contrasting equally with the vagueness of the perception of shadows (εἰκασία) and the higher certainty of understanding (διάνοια) and reason (νον̂ς).

  The difference between understanding and mind or reason (νον̂ς) is analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the parts and the contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a whole, and is at rest; consistency and universality are the tests of truth. To this self-evidencing knowledge of the whole the faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But there is a knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in motion always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those ideas are called both images and hypotheses—images because they are clothed in sense, hypotheses because they are assumptions only, until they are brought into connexion with the idea of good.

  The general meaning of the passage 508-511, so far as the thought contained in it admits of being translated into the terms of modern philosophy, may be described or explained as follows:—There is a truth, one and self-existent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from above, the human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the sun in the heavens, the light by which all things are seen, the being by which they are created and sustained. It is the idea of good. And the steps of the ladder leading up to this highest or universal existence are the mathematical sciences, which also contain in themselves an element of the universal. These, too, we see in a new manner when we connect them with the idea of good. They then cease to be hypotheses or pictures, and become essential parts of a higher truth which is at once their first principle and their final cause.

  We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable passage, but we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of thought which are common to us and to Plato: such as (1) the unity and correlation of the sciences, or rather of science, for in Plato’s time they were not yet parted off or distinguished; (2) the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause or reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the Timaeus and elsewhere under the form of a person; (3) the recognition of the hypothetical and conditional character of the mathematical sciences, and in a measure of every science when isolated from the rest; (4) the conviction of a truth which is invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature, which permeates the intellectual rather than the visible world.

  The method of Socrates is hesitating and tentative, awaiting the fuller explanation of the idea of good, and of the nature of dialectic in the seventh book. The imperfect intelligence of Glaucon, and the reluctance of Socrates to make a beginning, mark the difficulty of the subject. The allusion to Theages’ bridle, and to the internal oracle, or demonic sign, of Socrates, which here, as always in Plato, is only prohibitory; the remark that the salvation of any remnant of good in the present evil state of the world is due to God only; the reference to a future state of existence, 498 D, which is unknown to Glaucon in the tenth book, 608 D, and in which the discussions of Socrates and his disciples would be resumed; the surprise in the answers at 487 E and 497 B; the fanciful irony of Socrates, where he pretends that he can only describe the strange position of the philosopher in a figure of speech; the original observation that the Sophists, after all, are only the representatives and not the leaders of public opinion; the picture of the philosopher standing aside in the shower of sleet under a wall; the figure of ‘the great beast’ followed by the expression of good-will towards the common people who would not have rejected the philosopher if they had known him; the ‘right noble thought’ that the highest truths demand the greatest exactness; the hesitation of Socrates in returning once more to his well-worn theme of the idea of good; the ludicrous earnestness of Glaucon; the comparison of philosophy to a deserted maiden who marries beneath her—are some of the most interesting characteristics of the sixth book.

  Yet a few more words may be added, on the old theme, which was so oft discussed in the Socratic circle, of which we, like Glaucon and Adeimantus, would fain, if possible, have a clearer notion. Like them, we are dissatisfied when we are told that the idea of good can only be revealed to a student of the mathematical sciences, and we are inclined to think that neither we nor they could have been led along that path to any satisfactory goal. For we have learned that differences of quantity cannot pass into differences of quality, and that the mathematical sciences can never rise above themselves into the sphere of our higher thoughts, although they may sometimes furnish symbols and expressions of them, and may train the mind in habits of abstraction and self-concentration. The illusion which was natural to an ancient philosopher has ceased to be an illusion to us. But if the process by which we are supposed to arrive at the idea of good be really imaginary, may not the idea itself be also a mere abstraction? We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied; they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and associations of the elder deities.

  The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God. The God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of good; they are aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression or language of mythology, the other of philosophy.

  This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good as conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony, development may also be said to enter into it. The paraphrase which has just been given of it goes beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better than he did himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some conception of the same kind, but higher than this, was the truth at which he was aiming, and the need which he sought to supply, he would gladly have recognized that more was contained in his own thoughts than he himself knew. As his words are few and his manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his interpreter be. We should not approach his meaning more nearly by attempting to define it further. In translating him into the language of modern thought, we might insensibly lose the spirit of ancient philosophy. It is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first principle of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in his writings except in this passage. Nor did it retain any hold upon the minds of his disciples in a later generation; it was probably unintelligible to them. Nor does the mention of it in Aristotle appear to have any reference to this or any other passage in his extant writings.

  book vii.

  Analysis.Republic VII.

  514And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or unenlightenment of our nature:—Imagine human beings living in an underground den which is open towards the light; they have been there from childhood, having their necks and legs chained, and can only see into the den. At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a raised way, and a low wall is built along the way, like the screen over which marionette players show their 515puppets. Behind the wall appear moving figures, who hold in their hands various works of art, and among them images of men and animals, wood and stone, and some of the passers-by are talking and others silent. ‘A strange parable,’ he said, ‘and strange captives.’ They are ourselves, I replied; and they see only the shadows of the images which the fire throws on the wall of the den; to these they give names, and if we add an echo which returns from the wall, the voices of the passengers will seem to proceed from the shadows. Suppose now that you suddenly turn them round and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at the real images; will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which they are able to behold without 516blinking? And suppose further, that they are dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the presence of the sun himself, will not their sight be darkened with the excess of light? Some time will pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all; and at first they will be able to perceive only shadows and reflections in the water; then they will recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the sun in his own proper place as he is. Last of all they will conclude:—This is he who gives us the year and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them will seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further, that they descend into their old habitations;—in that underground dwelling they will not see as well as their 517fellows, and will not be able to compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes, and if they find anybody trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death, if they can catch him. Now the cave or den is the world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with difficulty, but when seen is inferred to be the author of good and right—parent of the lord of light in this world, and of truth and understanding in the other. He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law; for his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they behold in them—he cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never in their lives understood the 518relation of the shadow to the substance. But blindness is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out of darkness into light or out of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish between them, and will not laugh equally at both of them, but the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem blessed, and pity the other; or if he laugh at the puzzled soul looking at the sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the inhabitants of the den at those who descend from above. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion; other virtues are almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same manner, but intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible, turning either to good 519or evil according to the direction given. Did you never observe how the mind of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the more evil he does? Now if you take such an one, and cut away from him those leaden weights of pleasure and desire which bind his soul to earth, his intelligence will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-educated as to be unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? We must choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light and knowledge of the good; but we must not allow them to remain in the region of light; they must be forced down again among the captives in the den to partake of their labours and honours. ‘Will they not think this a hardship?’ You should remember that our purpose in framing the State was not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve 520the State for the common good of all. May we not fairly say to our philosopher,—Friend, we do you no wrong; for in other States philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes nothing to the gardener, but you have been trained by us to be the rulers and kings of our hive, and therefore we must insist on your descending into the den. You must, each of you, take your turn, and become able to use your eyes in the dark, and with a little practice you will see far better than those who quarrel about the shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a waking reality. It may be that the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may also be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must no longer live in the heaven of 521ideas. And this will be the salvation of the State. For those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule; and, if you can offer to our citizens a better life than that of rulers generally is, there will be a chance that the rich, not only in this world’s goods, but in virtue and wisdom, may bear rule. And the only life which is better than the life of political ambition is that of philosophy, which is also the best preparation for the government of a State.

  Then now comes the question,—How shall we create our rulers; what way is there from darkness to light? The change is effected by philosophy; it is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the conversion of a soul from night to day, from becoming to being. And what training will draw the soul upwards? Our former education had two branches, gymnastic, which was occupied with the body, and music, the sister art, which infused a 522natural harmony into mind and literature; but neither of these sciences gave any promise of doing what we want. Nothing remains to us but that universal or primary science of which all the arts and sciences are partakers, I mean number or calculation. ‘Very true.’ Including the art of war? ‘Yes, certainly.’ Then there is something ludicrous about Palamedes in the tragedy, coming in and saying that he had invented number, and had counted the ranks and set them in order. For if Agamemnon could not count his feet (and without number how could he?) he must have been a pretty sort of general indeed. No man should be a soldier who cannot count, and indeed he is hardly to be called a man. But I am not speaking of these practical applications 523of arithmetic, for number, in my view, is rather to be regarded as a conductor to thought and being. I will explain what I mean by the last expression:—Things sensible are of two kinds; the one class invite or stimulate the mind, while in the other the mind acquiesces. Now the stimulating class are the things which suggest contrast and relation. For example, suppose that I hold up to the eyes three fingers—a fore finger, a middle finger, a little finger—the sight equally recognizes all three fingers, but without number cannot further distinguish them. Or again, suppose two objects to be relatively great and small, these ideas of greatness and smallness are supplied not by the sense, 524but by the mind. And the perception of their contrast or relation quickens and sets in motion the mind, which is puzzled by the confused intimations of sense, and has recourse to number in order to find out whether the things indicated are one or more than one. Number replies that they are two and not one, and are to be distinguished from one another. Again, the sight beholds great and small, but only in a confused chaos, and not until they are distinguished does the question arise of their respective natures; we are thus led on to the distinction between the visible and intelligible. That was what I meant when I spoke of stimulants to the intellect; I was thinking of the contradictions which arise in perception. The idea of unity, for example, like that of a finger, does not arouse thought unless involving some conception 525of plurality; but when the one is also the opposite of one, the contradiction gives rise to reflection; an example of this is afforded by any object of sight. All number has also an elevating effect; it raises the mind out of the foam and flux of generation to the contemplation of being, having lesser military and retail uses also. The retail use is not required by us; but as our guardian is to be a soldier as well as a philosopher, the military one may be retained. And to our higher purpose no science can be better adapted; but it must be pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, not of a shopkeeper. It is concerned, not with visible objects, but with abstract truth; for numbers are pure abstractions—the true arithmetician indignantly denies that his unit is capable of division. 526When you divide, he insists that you are only multiplying; his ‘one’ is not material or resolvable into fractions, but an unvarying and absolute equality; and this proves the purely intellectual character of his study. Note also the great power which arithmetic has of sharpening the wits; no other discipline is equally severe, or an equal test of general ability, or equally improving to a stupid person.

  Let our second branch of education be geometry. ‘I can easily see,’ replied Glaucon, ‘that the skill of the general will be doubled by his knowledge of geometry.’ That is a small matter; the use of geometry, to which I refer, is the assistance given by it in the contemplation of the idea of good, and the compelling the mind to look at true being, and not at generation only. Yet the present mode of pursuing these studies, as any one who is the least of a mathematician is aware, is mean and ridiculous; they are made to look downwards to the arts, and not upwards to eternal existence. 527The geometer is always talking of squaring, subtending, apposing, as if he had in view action; whereas knowledge is the real object of the study. It should elevate the soul, and create the mind of philosophy; it should raise up what has fallen down, not to speak of lesser uses in war and military tactics, and in the improvement of the faculties.

  Shall we propose, as a third branch of our education, astronomy? ‘Very good,’ replied Glaucon; ‘the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once for husbandry, navigation, military tactics.’ I like your way of giving useful reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a difficulty in proving to mankind that education is not only useful information but a purification of the eye of the soul, which is better than the bodily 528eye, for by this alone is truth seen. Now, will you appeal to mankind in general or to the philosopher? or would you prefer to look to yourself only? ‘Every man is his own best friend.’ Then take a step backward, for we are out of order, and insert the third dimension which is of solids, after the second which is of planes, and then you may proceed to solids in motion. But solid geometry is not popular and has not the patronage of the State, nor is the use of it fully recognized; the difficulty is great, and the votaries of the study are conceited and impatient. Still the charm of the pursuit wins upon men, and, if government would lend a little assistance, there might be great progress made. ‘Very true,’ replied Glaucon; ‘but do I understand you now to begin with plane geometry, and to place next geometry of solids, and thirdly, astronomy, or the motion of solids?’ Yes, I said; my hastiness has only hindered us.

  ‘Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which 529I am willing to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see that the contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.’ I am an exception, then; astronomy as studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Star-gazing is just looking up at the ceiling—no better; a man may lie on his back on land or on water—he may look up or look down, but there is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of which I speak is seen not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the magnificence of the heavens is but the embroidery of a copy which falls far short of the divine Original, and teaches nothing about the absolute harmonies or motions of things. Their beauty is like the beauty of figures drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other 530great artist, which may be used for illustration, but no mathematician would seek to obtain from them true conceptions of equality or numerical relations. How ridiculous then to look for these in the map of the heavens, in which the imperfection of matter comes in everywhere as a disturbing element, marring the symmetry of day and night, of months and years, of the sun and stars in their courses. Only by problems can we place astronomy on a truly scientific basis. Let the heavens alone, and exert the intellect.

  Still, mathematics admit of other applications, as the Pythagoreans say, and we agree. There is a sister science of harmonical motion, adapted to the ear as astronomy is to the eye, and there may be other applications also. Let us inquire of the Pythagoreans about them, not forgetting that we have an aim higher than theirs, which is the relation of these sciences to the idea of good. The error which pervades astronomy also pervades 531harmonics. The musicians put their ears in the place of their minds. ‘Yes,’ replied Glaucon, ‘I like to see them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours’ faces—some saying, “That’s a new note,” others declaring that the two notes are the same.’ Yes, I said; but you mean the empirics who are always twisting and torturing the strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the strings; I am referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost equally in error. For they investigate only the numbers of the consonances which are heard, and ascend no higher,—of the true numerical harmony which is unheard, and is only to be found in problems, they have not even a conception. ‘That last,’ he said, ‘must be a marvellous thing.’ A thing, I replied, which is only useful if pursued with a view to the good.

  All these sciences are the prelude of the strain, and are profitable if they are regarded in their natural relations to one another. ‘I dare say, Socrates,’ said Glaucon; ‘but such a study will be an endless business.’ What study do you mean—of the prelude, or what? For all these things are only the prelude, and you surely do not suppose that a mere mathematician is also a dialectician? 532‘Certainly not. I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.’ And yet, Glaucon, is not true reasoning that hymn of dialectic which is the music of the intellectual world, and which was by us compared to the effort of sight, when from beholding the shadows on the wall we arrived at last at the images which gave the shadows? Even so the dialectical faculty withdrawing from sense arrives by the pure intellect at the contemplation of the idea of good, and never rests but at the very end of the intellectual world. And the royal road out of the cave into the light, and the blinking of the eyes at the sun and turning to contemplate the shadows of reality, not the shadows of an image only—this progress and gradual acquisition of a new faculty of sight by the help of the mathematical sciences, is the elevation of the soul to the contemplation of the highest ideal of being.

  ‘So far, I agree with you. But now, leaving the prelude, let us proceed to the hymn. What, then, is the nature of dialectic, and 533what are the paths which lead thither?’ Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can be no revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in the previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am confident. For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and opinions; and the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of true being, and never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the upper world, with the help of the sciences which we have been describing—sciences, as they are often termed, although they require some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and this in our previous sketch was understanding. And so we get four names—two for intellect, and two for opinion,—reason or mind, understanding, faith, perception 534of shadows—which make a proportion—being: becoming:: intellect: opinion—and science: belief:: understanding: perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a sleepy dream; and many a man is in his grave before he is well waked up. And would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings, or stupid as posts? ‘Certainly not the latter.’ Then you must train them in dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the coping-stone of the sciences.

  535I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and the process of selection may be carried a step further:—As before, they must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely; not a maimed soul, which hates falsehood 536and yet unintentionally is always wallowing in the mire of ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb, and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic trial of the mind. Justice herself can find no fault with natures such as these; and they will be the saviours of our State; disciples of another sort would only make philosophy more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive my enthusiasm; I am becoming excited; but when I see her trampled under foot, I am angry at the authors of her disgrace. ‘I did not notice that you were more excited than you ought to have been.’ But I felt that I was. Now do not let us forget another point in the selection of our disciples—that they must be young and not old. For Solon is mistaken in saying that an old man can be always learning: youth is the time of study, and here we must remember that the mind is free and dainty, and, unlike the body, must not be made to work against the grain. 537Learning should be at first a sort of play, in which the natural bent is detected. As in training them for war, the young dogs should at first only taste blood; but when the necessary gymnastics are over which during two or three years divide life between sleep and bodily exercise, then the education of the soul will become a more serious matter. At twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the more promising disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin. The sciences which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be brought into relation with each other and with true being; for the power of combining them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And afterwards at thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to withdraw from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But at this point, judging from present experience, there is a danger that dialectic may be the source of many evils. The danger may be illustrated by a parallel case:—Imagine a person who has been brought up in wealth and luxury amid a crowd of flatterers, and who is suddenly informed that he is a supposititious 538son. He has hitherto honoured his reputed parents and disregarded the flatterers, and now he does the reverse. This is just what happens with a man’s principles. There are certain doctrines which he learnt at home and which exercised a parental authority over him. Presently he finds that imputations are cast upon them; a troublesome querist comes and asks, ‘What is the just and good?’ or proves that virtue is vice and vice virtue, and his mind becomes unsettled, and he ceases to love, honour, and 539obey them as he has hitherto done. He is seduced into the life of pleasure, and becomes a lawless person and a rogue. The case of such speculators is very pitiable, and, in order that our thirty years’ old pupils may not require this pity, let us take every possible care that young persons do not study philosophy too early. For a young man is a sort of puppy who only plays with an argument; and is reasoned into and out of his opinions every day; he soon begins to believe nothing, and brings himself and philosophy into discredit. A man of thirty does not run on in this way; he will argue and not merely contradict, and adds new honour to philosophy by the sobriety of his conduct. What time shall we allow for this second gymnastic training of the soul?—say, twice the time required for the gymnastics of the body; six, or perhaps five years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen years let the student go down into the den, and command armies, 540and gain experience of life. At fifty let him return to the end of all things, and have his eyes uplifted to the idea of good, and order his life after that pattern; if necessary, taking his turn at the helm of State, and training up others to be his successors. When his time comes he shall depart in peace to the islands of the blest. He shall be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the Pythian oracle approves.

  ‘You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our governors.’ Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all things with the men. And you will admit that our State is not a mere aspiration, but may really come into being when there shall arise philosopher-kings, one or more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will be the servants of 541justice only. ‘And how will they begin their work?’ Their first act will be to send away into the country all those who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are left. . . .

  Introduction.

  At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the previous discussion; at the same time casting a glance onward at the dialectical process, which is represented by the way leading from darkness to light. The shadows, the images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally correspond,—the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry,—the second, to the world of sense,—the third, to the abstractions or universals of sense, of which the mathematical sciences furnish the type,—the fourth and last to the same abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new meaning and power. The true dialectical process begins with the contemplation of the real stars, and not mere reflections of them, and ends with the recognition of the sun, or idea of good, as the parent not only of light but of warmth and growth. To the divisions of knowledge the stages of education partly answer:—first, there is the early education of childhood and youth in the fancies of the poets, and in the laws and customs of the State;—then there is the training of the body to be a warrior athlete, and a good servant of the mind;—and thirdly, after an interval follows the education of later life, which begins with mathematics and proceeds to philosophy in general.

  There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato,—first, to realize abstractions; secondly, to connect them. According to him, the true education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to a comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human mind the faculty of seeing the universal in all things; until at last the particulars of sense drop away and the universal alone remains. He then seeks to combine the universals which he has disengaged from sense, not perceiving that the correlation of them has no other basis but the common use of language. He never understands that abstractions, as Hegel says, are ‘mere abstractions’—of use when employed in the arrangement of facts, but adding nothing to the sum of knowledge when pursued apart from them, or with reference to an imaginary idea of good. Still the exercise of the faculty of abstraction apart from facts has enlarged the mind, and played a great part in the education of the human race. Plato appreciated the value of this faculty, and saw that it might be quickened by the study of number and relation. All things in which there is opposition or proportion are suggestive of reflection. The mere impression of sense evokes no power of thought or of mind, but when sensible objects ask to be compared and distinguished, then philosophy begins. The science of arithmetic first suggests such distinctions. There follow in order the other sciences of plain and solid geometry, and of solids in motion, one branch of which is astronomy or the harmony of the spheres,—to this is appended the sister science of the harmony of sounds. Plato seems also to hint at the possibility of other applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions, such as we employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and even Aristotle make use of in Ethics and Politics, e. g. his distinction between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics (Book V), or between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics (iii. 8, iv. 12, &c.).

  The modern mathematician will readily sympathise with Plato’s delight in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with him:—Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the possibility of working geometrical problems by a more general mode of analysis. He will remark with interest on the backward state of solid geometry, which, alas! was not encouraged by the aid of the State in the age of Plato; and he will recognize the grasp of Plato’s mind in his ability to conceive of one science of solids in motion including the earth as well as the heavens,—not forgetting to notice the intimation to which allusion has been already made, that besides astronomy and harmonics the science of solids in motion may have other applications. Still more will he be struck with the comprehensiveness of view which led Plato, at a time when these sciences hardly existed, to say that they must be studied in relation to one another, and to the idea of good, or common principle of truth and being. But he will also see (and perhaps without surprise) that in that stage of physical and mathematical knowledge, Plato has fallen into the error of supposing that he can construct the heavens a priori by mathematical problems, and determine the principles of harmony irrespective of the adaptation of sounds to the human ear. The illusion was a natural one in that age and country. The simplicity and certainty of astronomy and harmonics seemed to contrast with the variation and complexity of the world of sense; hence the circumstance that there was some elementary basis of fact, some measurement of distance or time or vibrations on which they must ultimately rest, was overlooked by him. The modern predecessors of Newton fell into errors equally great; and Plato can hardly be said to have been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort of prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, by the help of which most astronomical discoveries have been made.

  The metaphysical philosopher from his point of view recognizes mathematics as an instrument of education,—which strengthens the power of attention, developes the sense of order and the faculty of construction, and enables the mind to grasp under simple formulae the quantitative differences of physical phenomena. But while acknowledging their value in education, he sees also that they have no connexion with our higher moral and intellectual ideas. In the attempt which Plato makes to connect them, we easily trace the influences of ancient Pythagorean notions. There is no reason to suppose that he is speaking of the ideal numbers at p. 525 E; but he is describing numbers which are pure abstractions, to which he assigns a real and separate existence, which, as ‘the teachers of the art’ (meaning probably the Pythagoreans) would have affirmed, repel all attempts at subdivision, and in which unity and every other number are conceived of as absolute. The truth and certainty of numbers, when thus disengaged from phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the eyes of an ancient philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and fixedness may have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men, ‘who,’ in the words of the Timaeus, ‘might learn to regulate their erring lives according to them’ (47 C). It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical symbols still exist as figures of speech among ourselves. And those who in modern times see the world pervaded by universal law, may also see an anticipation of this last word of modern philosophy in the Platonic idea of good, which is the source and measure of all things, and yet only an abstraction. (Cp. Philebus, sub fin.)

  Two passages seem to require more particular explanations. First, that which relates to the analysis of vision. The difficulty in this passage may be explained, like many others, from differences in the modes of conception prevailing among ancient and modern thinkers. To us, the perceptions of sense are inseparable from the act of the mind which accompanies them. The consciousness of form, colour, distance, is indistinguishable from the simple sensation, which is the medium of them. Whereas to Plato sense is the Heraclitean flux of sense, not the vision of objects in the order in which they actually present themselves to the experienced sight, but as they may be imagined to appear confused and blurred to the half-awakened eye of the infant. The first action of the mind is aroused by the attempt to set in order this chaos, and the reason is required to frame distinct conceptions under which the confused impressions of sense may be arranged. Hence arises the question, ‘What is great, what is small?’ and thus begins the distinction of the visible and the intelligible.

  The second difficulty relates to Plato’s conception of harmonics. Three classes of harmonists are distinguished by him:—first, the Pythagoreans, whom he proposes to consult as in the previous discussion on music he was to consult Damon—they are acknowledged to be masters in the art, but are altogether deficient in the knowledge of its higher import and relation to the good; secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as experimenting by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds. Both of these fall short in different degrees of the Platonic idea of harmony, which must be studied in a purely abstract way, first by the method of problems, and secondly as a part of universal knowledge in relation to the idea of good.

  The allegory has a political as well as a philosophical meaning. The den or cave represents the narrow sphere of politics or law (cp. the description of the philosopher and lawyer in the Theaetetus, 172-176), and the light of the eternal ideas is supposed to exercise a disturbing influence on the minds of those who return to this lower world. In other words, their principles are too wide for practical application; they are looking far away into the past and future, when their business is with the present. The ideal is not easily reduced to the conditions of actual life, and may often be at variance with them. And at first, those who return are unable to compete with the inhabitants of the den in the measurement of the shadows, and are derided and persecuted by them; but after a while they see the things below in far truer proportions than those who have never ascended into the upper world. The difference between the politician turned into a philosopher and the philosopher turned into a politician, is symbolized by the two kinds of disordered eyesight, the one which is experienced by the captive who is transferred from darkness to day, the other, of the heavenly messenger who voluntarily for the good of his fellow-men descends into the den. In what way the brighter light is to dawn on the inhabitants of the lower world, or how the idea of good is to become the guiding principle of politics, is left unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and divisions of dialectic, of which Glaucon impatiently demands to be informed, perhaps he would have said that the explanation could not be given except to a disciple of the previous sciences. (Compare Symposium 210 A.)

  Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may be found in modern Politics and in daily life. For among ourselves, too, there have been two sorts of Politicians or Statesmen, whose eyesight has become disordered in two different ways. First, there have been great men who, in the language of Burke, ‘have been too much given to general maxims,’ who, like J. S. Mill or Burke himself, have been theorists or philosophers before they were politicians, or who, having been students of history, have allowed some great historical parallel, such as the English Revolution of 1688, or possibly Athenian democracy or Roman Imperialism, to be the medium through which they viewed contemporary events. Or perhaps the long projecting shadow of some existing institution may have darkened their vision. The Church of the future, the Commonwealth of the future, the Society of the future, have so absorbed their minds, that they are unable to see in their true proportions the Politics of to-day. They have been intoxicated with great ideas, such as liberty, or equality, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the brotherhood of humanity, and they no longer care to consider how these ideas must be limited in practice or harmonized with the conditions of human life. They are full of light, but the light to them has become only a sort of luminous mist or blindness. Almost every one has known some enthusiastic half-educated person, who sees everything at false distances, and in erroneous proportions.

  With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted another—of those who see not far into the distance, but what is near only; who have been engaged all their lives in a trade or a profession; who are limited to a set or sect of their own. Men of this kind have no universal except their own interests or the interests of their class, no principle but the opinion of persons like themselves, no knowledge of affairs beyond what they pick up in the streets or at their club. Suppose them to be sent into a larger world, to undertake some higher calling, from being tradesmen to turn generals or politicians, from being school-masters to become philosophers:—or imagine them on a sudden to receive an inward light which reveals to them for the first time in their lives a higher idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by this sudden conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset; and on the other hand will not many of their old prejudices and narrownesses still adhere to them long after they have begun to take a more comprehensive view of human things? From familiar examples like these we may learn what Plato meant by the eyesight which is liable to two kinds of disorders.

  Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a similar ‘aufklärung.’ We too observe that when young men begin to criticise customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are apt to lose hold of solid principle ([Editor: illegible character]παν τὸ βέβαιον αὐτω̂ν ἐξοἱχεται). They are like trees which have been frequently transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots reaching far into the soil. They ‘light upon every flower,’ following their own wayward wills, or because the wind blows them. They catch opinions, as diseases are caught—when they are in the air. Borne hither and thither, ‘they speedily fall into beliefs’ the opposite of those in which they were brought up. They hardly retain the distinction of right and wrong; they seem to think one thing as good as another. They suppose themselves to be searching after truth when they are playing the game of ‘follow my leader.’ They fall in love ‘at first sight’ with paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty or eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a time in their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The resolution of some philosophical or theological question seems to them more interesting and important than any substantial knowledge of literature or science or even than a good life. Like the youth in the Philebus, they are ready to discourse to any one about a new philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some eminent professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. They may be counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple truths which they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps, find to be worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws and which we only reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers which beset youth in times of transition, when old opinions are fading away and the new are not yet firmly established. Their condition is ingeniously compared by him to that of a supposititious son, who has made the discovery that his reputed parents are not his real ones, and, in consequence, they have lost their authority over him.

  The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the mathematician is quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense which recognizes and combines first principles (531 E). The contempt which he expresses at p. 533 for distinctions of words, the danger of involuntary falsehood, the apology which Socrates makes for his earnestness of speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic style and mode of thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the inventor of number Agamemnon could not have counted his feet; the art by which we are made to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only; the gravity with which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State, namely, the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age, in order to expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book (415 D), in which he expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the second generation.)

  book viii.

  Analysis.Republic VIII.

  543And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and the education and pursuits of men and women, both in war and peace, are to be common, and kings are to be philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the State are to live together, having all things in common; and they are to be warrior athletes, receiving no pay but only their food, from the other citizens. Now let us return to the point at which we digressed. ‘That is easily done,’ he replied: ‘You were speaking of the State which you had constructed, and of the individual who answered to this, 544both of whom you affirmed to be good; and you said that of inferior States there were four forms and four individuals corresponding to them, which although deficient in various degrees, were all of them worth inspecting with a view to determining the relative happiness or misery of the best or worst man. Then Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted you, and this led to another argument,—and so here we are.’ Suppose that we put ourselves again in the same position, and do you repeat your question. ‘I should like to know of what constitutions you were speaking?’ Besides the perfect State there are only four of any note in Hellas:—first, the famous Lacedaemonian or Cretan commonwealth; secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils; thirdly, democracy, which follows next in order; fourthly, tyranny, which is the disease or death of all government. Now, States are not made of ‘oak and rock,’ but of flesh and blood; and therefore as there are five States there must be five human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And first, there is the 545ambitious nature, which answers to the Lacedaemonian State; secondly, the oligarchical nature; thirdly, the democratical; and fourthly, the tyrannical. This last will have to be compared with the perfectly just, which is the fifth, that we may know which is the happier, and then we shall be able to determine whether the argument of Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing. And as before we began with the State and went on to the individual, so now, beginning with timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then proceed to the other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to them.

  But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came division? ‘Sing, heavenly Muses,’ as Homer says;—let them condescend to answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in jest. ‘And what will they 546say?’ They will say that human things are fated to decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny, when ‘the wheel comes full circle’ in a period short or long. Plants or animals have times of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by sense will not enable them to ascertain, and children will be born out of season. For whereas divine creations are in a perfect cycle or number, the human creation is in a number which declines from perfection, and has four terms and three intervals of numbers, increasing, waning, assimilating, dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with each other. The base of the number with a fourth added (or which is 3 : 4), multiplied by five and cubed, gives two harmonies:—The first a square number, which is a hundred times the base (or a hundred times a hundred); the second, an oblong, being a hundred squares of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which is five, subtracting one from each square or two perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This entire number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious; the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the rulers; the State will decline, and education fall into decay; gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold and 547silver and brass and iron will form a chaotic mass—thus division will arise. Such is the Muses’ answer to our question. ‘And a true answer, of course:—but what more have they to say?’ They say that the two races, the iron and brass, and the silver and gold, will draw the State different ways;—the one will take to trade and moneymaking, and the others, having the true riches and not caring for money, will resist them: the contest will end in a compromise; they will agree to have private property, and will enslave their fellow-citizens who were once their friends and nurturers. But they will retain their warlike character, and will be chiefly occupied in fighting and exercising rule. Thus arises timocracy, which is intermediate between aristocracy and oligarchy.

  The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers and contempt for trade, in having common meals, and in devotion to warlike and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into philosophy, and simplicity of character, which was once 548her note, is now looked for only in the military class. Arts of war begin to prevail over arts of peace; the ruler is no longer a philosopher; as in oligarchies, there springs up among them an extravagant love of gain—get another man’s and save your own, is their principle; and they have dark places in which they hoard their gold and silver, for the use of their women and others; they take their pleasures by stealth, like boys who are running away from their father—the law; and their education is not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm of power. The leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and ambition.

  And what manner of man answers to such a State? ‘In love of contention,’ replied Adeimantus, ‘he will be like our friend Glaucon.’ In that respect, perhaps, but not in others. He 549is self-asserting and ill-educated, yet fond of literature, although not himself a speaker,—fierce with slaves, but obedient to rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms,—fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian of men. His origin is as follows:—His father is a good man dwelling in an ill-ordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among other women; she is disgusted at her husband’s selfishness, and she expatiates to her son on the unmanliness and indolence of his father. The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:—‘When you grow up you must be 550more of a man than your father.’ All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his father’s words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes ambitious and a lover of honour.

  And now let us set another city over against another man. The next form of government is oligarchy, in which the rule is of the rich only; nor is it difficult to see how such a State arises. The decline begins with the possession of gold and silver; illegal modes of expenditure are invented; one draws another on, and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh virtue; 551lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of politicians; and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from violence in order to effect their purposes.

  Thus much of the origin,—let us next consider the evils of oligarchy. Would a man who wanted to be safe on a voyage take a bad pilot because he was rich, or refuse a good one because he was poor? And does not the analogy apply still more to the State? And there are yet greater evils: two nations are struggling together in one—the rich and the poor; and the rich dare not put arms into the hands of the poor, and are unwilling to pay for defenders out of their own money. And have we not 552already condemned that State in which the same persons are warriors as well as shopkeepers? The greatest evil of all is that a man may sell his property and have no place in the State; while there is one class which has enormous wealth, the other is entirely destitute. But observe that these destitutes had not really any more of the governing nature in them when they were rich than now that they are poor; they were miserable spend-thrifts always. They are the drones of the hive; only whereas the actual drone is unprovided by nature with a sting, the two-legged things whom we call drones are some of them without stings and some of them have dreadful stings; in other words, there are paupers and there are rogues. These are never far apart; and in oligarchical cities, where nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler, you will find abundance of both. And this evil state of society originates in bad education and bad government.

  553Like State, like man,—the change in the latter begins with the representative of timocracy; he walks at first in the ways of his father, who may have been a statesman, or general, perhaps; and presently he sees him ‘fallen from his high estate,’ the victim of informers, dying in prison or exile, or by the hand of the executioner. The lesson which he thus receives, makes him cautious; he leaves politics, represses his pride, and saves pence. Avarice is enthroned as his bosom’s lord, and assumes the style of the Great King; the rational and spirited elements sit humbly on the ground at either side, the one immersed in calculation, the other absorbed in the admiration of wealth. The love of honour turns to love of money; the conversion is instantaneous. The 554man is mean, saving, toiling, the slave of one passion which is the master of the rest: Is he not the very image of the State? He has had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear and not by reason. Hence he leads a divided existence; 555in which the better desires mostly prevail. But when he is contending for prizes and other distinctions, he is afraid to incur a loss which is to be repaid only by barren honour; in time of war he fights with a small part of his resources, and usually keeps his money and loses the victory.

  Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy; and they encourage expensive habits in order that they may gain by the ruin of extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose their property or rights of citizenship; but they remain in the city, full of hatred against the new owners of their estates and ripe for revolution. The usurer with stooping walk pretends not to see them; he passes by, and leaves his sting—that is, his money—in some other victim: and many a man has to pay the parent or principal sum multiplied into a 556family of children, and is reduced into a state of dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to limit a man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at his own risk. But the ruling class do not want remedies; they care only for money, and are as careless of virtue as the poorest of the citizens. Now there are occasions on which the governors and the governed meet together,—at festivals, on a journey, voyaging or fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of danger he is not despised; he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and draws the conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions,—‘that our people are not good for much;’ and as a sickly frame is made ill by a mere touch from without, or sometimes without external impulse is ready to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least cause, or with none at all, the city falls ill and 557fights a battle for life or death. And democracy comes into power when the poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the rest.

  The manner of life in such a State is that of democrats; there is freedom and plainness of speech, and every man does what is right in his own eyes, and has his own way of life. Hence arise the most various developments of character; the State is like a piece of embroidery of which the colours and figures are the manners of men, and there are many who, like women and children, prefer this variety to real beauty and excellence. The State is not one but many, like a bazaar at which you can buy anything. The great charm is, that you may do as you like; you may govern if you like, let it alone if you like; go to war 558and make peace if you feel disposed, and all quite irrespective of anybody else. When you condemn men to death they remain alive all the same; a gentleman is desired to go into exile, and he stalks about the streets like a hero; and nobody sees him or cares for him. Observe, too, how grandly Democracy sets her foot upon all our fine theories of education,—how little she cares for the training of her statesmen! The only qualification which she demands is the profession of patriotism. Such is democracy;—a pleasing, lawless, various sort of government, distributing equality to equals and unequals alike.

  Let us now inspect the individual democrat; and first, as in the case of the State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures. Perhaps I ought to explain 559this latter term:—Necessary pleasures are those which are good, and which we cannot do without; unnecessary pleasures are those which do no good, and of which the desire might be eradicated by early training. For example, the pleasures of eating and drinking are necessary and healthy, up to a certain point; beyond that point they are alike hurtful to body and mind, and the excess may be avoided. When in excess, they may be rightly called expensive pleasures, in opposition to the useful ones. And the drone, as we called him, is the slave of these unnecessary pleasures and desires, whereas the miserly oligarch is subject only to the necessary.

  The oligarch changes into the democrat in the following manner:—The youth who has had a miserly bringing up, gets a taste of the drone’s honey; he meets with wild companions, who introduce him to every new pleasure. As in the State, so in the individual, there are allies on both sides, temptations from without and passions from within; there is reason also and external influences of parents and friends in alliance with the 560oligarchical principle; and the two factions are in violent conflict with one another. Sometimes the party of order prevails, but then again new desires and new disorders arise, and the whole mob of passions gets possession of the Acropolis, that is to say, the soul, which they find void and unguarded by true words and works. Falsehoods and illusions ascend to take their place; the prodigal goes back into the country of the Lotophagi or drones, and openly dwells there. And if any offer of alliance or parley of individual elders comes from home, the false spirits shut the gates of the castle and permit no one to enter,—there is a battle, and they gain the victory; and straightway making alliance with the desires, they banish modesty, which they call folly, and send temperance over the border. When the house has been swept and garnished, they dress up the exiled vices, and, crowning them with garlands, bring them back under new names. Insolence they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, waste magnificence, 561impudence courage. Such is the process by which the youth passes from the necessary pleasures to the unnecessary. After a while he divides his time impartially between them; and perhaps, when he gets older and the violence of passion has abated, he restores some of the exiles and lives in a sort of equilibrium, indulging first one pleasure and then another; and if reason comes and tells him that some pleasures are good and honourable, and others bad and vile, he shakes his head and says that he can make no distinction between them. Thus he lives in the fancy of the hour; sometimes he takes to drink, and then he turns abstainer; he practises in the gymnasium or he does nothing at all; then again he would be a philosopher or a politician; or again, he would be a warrior or a man of business; he is

  ‘Every thing by starts and nothing long.’

  562There remains still the finest and fairest of all men and all States—tyranny and the tyrant. Tyranny springs from democracy much as democracy springs from oligarchy. Both arise from excess; the one from excess of wealth, the other from excess of freedom. ‘The great natural good of life,’ says the democrat, ‘is freedom.’ And this exclusive love of freedom and regardlessness of everything else, is the cause of the change from democracy to tyranny. The State demands the strong wine of freedom, and unless her rulers give her a plentiful draught, punishes and insults them; equality and fraternity of governors and governed is the approved principle. Anarchy is the law, not of the State only, but of private houses, and extends 563even to the animals. Father and son, citizen and foreigner, teacher and pupil, old and young, are all on a level; fathers and teachers fear their sons and pupils, and the wisdom of the young man is a match for the elder, and the old imitate the jaunty manners of the young because they are afraid of being thought morose. Slaves are on a level with their masters and mistresses, and there is no difference between men and women. Nay, the very animals in a democratic State have a freedom which is unknown in other places. The she-dogs are as good as their she-mistresses, and horses and asses march along with dignity and run their noses against anybody who comes in their way. ‘That has often been my experience.’ At last the citizens become so sensitive that they cannot endure the yoke of laws, written or unwritten; they would have no man call himself their master. Such is the glorious beginning of things out of which tyranny springs. ‘Glorious, indeed; but what is to follow?’ The ruin of oligarchy 564is the ruin of democracy; for there is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery. You will remember that in the oligarchy were found two classes—rogues and paupers, whom we compared to drones with and without stings. These two classes are to the State what phlegm and bile are to the human body; and the State-physician, or legislator, must get rid of them, just as the bee-master keeps the drones out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones, but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when 565the drones have need of their possessions; there is moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people. When the people meet, they are omnipotent, but they cannot be brought together unless they are attracted by a little honey; and the rich are made to supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves, giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist; they are driven mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in self-defence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is indicated in the old fable of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he who tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn into a wolf. Even so the protector, who tastes human blood, and slays some and exiles others with or without law, who hints at abolition of 566debts and division of lands, must either perish or become a wolf—that is, a tyrant. Perhaps he is driven out, but he soon comes back from exile; and then if his enemies cannot get rid of him by lawful means, they plot his assassination. Thereupon the friend of the people makes his well-known request to them for a body-guard, which they readily grant, thinking only of his danger and not of their own. Now let the rich man make to himself wings, for he will never run away again if he does not do so then. And the Great Protector, having crushed all his rivals, stands proudly erect in the chariot of State, a full-blown tyrant: Let us enquire into the nature of his happiness.

  In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody; he is not a ‘dominus,’ no, not he: he has only come to put an end to debt and the monopoly of land. Having got rid 567of foreign enemies, he makes himself necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus enabled to depress the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work; and he can get rid of bolder spirits by handing them over to the enemy. Then comes unpopularity; some of his old associates have the courage to oppose him. The consequence is, that he has to make a purgation of the State; but, unlike the physician who purges away the bad, he must get rid of the high-spirited, the wise and the wealthy; for he has no choice between death and a life of shame and dishonour. And the more hated he is, the more he will require trusty guards; but how will he obtain them? ‘They will come flocking like birds—for pay.’ Will he not rather obtain them on the spot? He will take the slaves from their owners 568and make them his body-guard; these are his trusted friends, who admire and look up to him. Are not the tragic poets wise who magnify and exalt the tyrant, and say that he is wise by association with the wise? And are not their praises of tyranny alone a sufficient reason why we should exclude them from our State? They may go to other cities, and gather the mob about them with fine words, and change commonwealths into tyrannies and democracies, receiving honours and rewards for their services; but the higher they and their friends ascend constitution hill, the more their honour will fail and become ‘too asthmatic to mount.’ To return to the tyrant—How will he support that rare army of his? First, by robbing the temples of their treasures, which will enable him to lighten the taxes; then he will take all his father’s property, and spend it on his companions, male or female. Now his father is the demus, and if the demus gets 569angry, and says that a great hulking son ought not to be a burden on his parents, and bids him and his riotous crew begone, then will the parent know what a monster he has been nurturing, and that the son whom he would fain expel is too strong for him. ‘You do not mean to say that he will beat his father?’ Yes, he will, after having taken away his arms. ‘Then he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.’ And the people have jumped from the fear of slavery into slavery, out of the smoke into the fire. Thus liberty, when out of all order and reason, passes into the worst form of servitude. . . .

  Introduction.

  In the previous books Plato has described the ideal State; now he returns to the perverted or declining forms, on which he had lightly touched at the end of Book iv. These he describes in a succession of parallels between the individuals and the States, tracing the origin of either in the State or individual which has preceded them. He begins by asking the point at which he digressed; and is thus led shortly to recapitulate the substance of the three former books, which also contain a parallel of the philosopher and the State.

  Of the first decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race. His ideal was not to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour from the head of the legislator. When good laws had been given, he thought only of the manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how they might be filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original spirit. He appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own words, ‘In the brief space of human life, nothing great can be accomplished’ (x. 608 B); or again, as he afterwards says in the Laws (iii. 676), ‘Infinite time is the maker of cities.’ The order of constitutions which is adopted by him represents an order of thought rather than a succession of time, and may be considered as the first attempt to frame a philosophy of history.

  The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State; this is a government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have disappeared. The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead. The individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature; and although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances of his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics; and his mother, who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him towards the life of political ambition. Such a character may have had this origin, and indeed Livy attributes the Licinian laws to a feminine jealousy of a similar kind (vii. 34). But there is obviously no connection between the manner in which the timocratic State springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident by which the timocratic man is the son of a retired statesman.

  The two next stages in the decline of constitutions have even less historical foundation. For there is no trace in Greek history of a polity like the Spartan or Cretan passing into an oligarchy of wealth, or of the oligarchy of wealth passing into a democracy. The order of history appears to be different; first, in the Homeric times there is the royal or patriarchal form of government, which a century or two later was succeeded by an oligarchy of birth rather than of wealth, and in which wealth was only the accident of the hereditary possession of land and power. Sometimes this oligarchical government gave way to a government based upon a qualification of property, which, according to Aristotle’s mode of using words, would have been called a timocracy; and this in some cities, as at Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy. But such was not the necessary order of succession in States; nor, indeed, can any order be discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the tides in the Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from monarchy to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be a similar inversion in the last step of the Platonic succession; for tyranny, instead of being the natural end of democracy, in early Greek history appears rather as a stage leading to democracy; the reign of Peisistratus and his sons is an episode which comes between the legislation of Solon and the constitution of Cleisthenes; and some secret cause common to them all seems to have led the greater part of Hellas at her first appearance in the dawn of history, e. g. Athens, Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, and nearly every State with the exception of Sparta, through a similar stage of tyranny which ended either in oligarchy or democracy. But then we must remember that Plato is describing rather the contemporary governments of the Sicilian States, which alternated between democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history of Athens or Corinth.

  The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later Greek delighted to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as in the lives of mediaeval saints or mythic heroes, the conduct and actions of one were attributed to another in order to fill up the outline. There was no enormity which the Greek was not ready to believe of them; the tyrant was the negation of government and law; his assassination was glorious; there was no crime, however unnatural, which might not with probability be attributed to him. In this, Plato was only following the common thought of his countrymen, which he embellished and exaggerated with all the power of his genius. There is no need to suppose that he drew from life; or that his knowledge of tyrants is derived from a personal acquaintance with Dionysius. The manner in which he speaks of them would rather tend to render doubtful his ever having ‘consorted’ with them, or entertained the schemes, which are attributed to him in the Epistles, of regenerating Sicily by their help.

  Plato in a hyperbolical and serio-comic vein exaggerates the follies of democracy which he also sees reflected in social life. To him democracy is a state of individualism or dissolution; in which every one is doing what is right in his own eyes. Of a people animated by a common spirit of liberty, rising as one man to repel the Persian host, which is the leading idea of democracy in Herodotus and Thucydides, he never seems to think. But if he is not a believer in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and more serious condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of wickedness and also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and suspiciousness is leading an almost impossible existence, without that remnant of good which, in Plato’s opinion, was required to give power to evil (Book i. p. 352). This ideal of wickedness living in helpless misery, is the reverse of that other portrait of perfect injustice ruling in happiness and splendour, which first of all Thrasymachus, and afterwards the sons of Ariston had drawn, and is also the reverse of the king whose rule of life is the good of his subjects.

  Each of these governments and individuals has a corresponding ethical gradation: the ideal State is under the rule of reason, not extinguishing but harmonizing the passions, and training them in virtue; in the timocracy and the timocratic man the constitution, whether of the State or of the individual, is based, first, upon courage, and secondly, upon the love of honour; this latter virtue, which is hardly to be esteemed a virtue, has superseded all the rest. In the second stage of decline the virtues have altogether disappeared, and the love of gain has succeeded to them; in the third stage, or democracy, the various passions are allowed to have free play, and the virtues and vices are impartially cultivated. But this freedom, which leads to many curious extravagances of character, is in reality only a state of weakness and dissipation. At last, one monster passion takes possession of the whole nature of man—this is tyranny. In all of them excess—the excess first of wealth and then of freedom, is the element of decay.

  The eighth book of the Republic abounds in pictures of life and fanciful allusions; the use of metaphorical language is carried to a greater extent than anywhere else in Plato. We may remark, (1), the description of the two nations in one, which become more and more divided in the Greek Republics, as in feudal times, and perhaps also in our own; (2), the notion of democracy expressed in a sort of Pythagorean formula as equality among unequals; (3), the free and easy ways of men and animals, which are characteristic of liberty, as foreign mercenaries and universal mistrust are of the tyrant; (4), the proposal that mere debts should not be recoverable by law is a speculation which has often been entertained by reformers of the law in modern times, and is in harmony with the tendencies of modern legislation. Debt and land were the two great difficulties of the ancient lawgiver: in modern times we may be said to have almost, if not quite, solved the first of these difficulties, but hardly the second.

  Still more remarkable are the corresponding portraits of individuals: there is the family picture of the father and mother and the old servant of the timocratical man, and the outward respectability and inherent meanness of the oligarchical; the uncontrolled licence and freedom of the democrat, in which the young Alcibiades seems to be depicted, doing right or wrong as he pleases, and who at last, like the prodigal, goes into a far country (note here the play of language by which the democratic man is himself represented under the image of a State having a citadel and receiving embassies); and there is the wild-beast nature, which breaks loose in his successor. The hit about the tyrant being a parricide; the representation of the tyrant’s life as an obscene dream; the rhetorical surprise of a more miserable than the most miserable of men in Book ix; the hint to the poets that if they are the friends of tyrants there is no place for them in a constitutional State, and that they are too clever not to see the propriety of their own expulsion; the continuous image of the drones who are of two kinds, swelling at last into the monster drone having wings (see infra, Book ix),—are among Plato’s happiest touches.

  There remains to be considered the great difficulty of this book of the Republic, the so-called number of the State. This is a puzzle almost as great as the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, and though apparently known to Aristotle, is referred to by Cicero as a proverb of obscurity (Ep. ad Att. vii. 13, 5). And some have imagined that there is no answer to the puzzle, and that Plato has been practising upon his readers. But such a deception as this is inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks of the number (Pol. v. 12, § 7), and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the Republic who was acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is there for supposing that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions; the obscurity arises from our want of familiarity with the subject. On the other hand, Plato himself indicates that he is not altogether serious, and in describing his number as a solemn jest of the Muses, he appears to imply some degree of satire on the symbolical use of number. (Cp. Cratylus, passim; Protag. 342 ff.)

  Our hope of understanding the passage depends principally on an accurate study of the words themselves; on which a faint light is thrown by the parallel passage in the ninth book. Another help is the allusion in Aristotle, who makes the important remark that the latter part of the passage (from [Editor: illegible character]ν ἐπἰτριτος πυθμἡν, κ.τ.λ.) describes a solid figure1 . Some further clue may be gathered from the appearance of the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the numbers 3, 4, 5, and in which, as in every right-angled triangle, the squares of the two lesser sides equal the square of the hypotenuse (3² + 4⁹ = 5², or 9 + 16 = 25).

  Plato begins by speaking of a perfect or cyclical number (cp. Tim. 39 D), i. e. a number in which the sum of the divisors equals the whole; this is the divine or perfect number in which all lesser cycles or revolutions are complete. He also speaks of a human or imperfect number, having four terms and three intervals of numbers which are related to one another in certain proportions; these he converts into figures, and finds in them when they have been raised to the third power certain elements of number, which give two ‘harmonies,’ the one square, the other oblong; but he does not say that the square number answers to the divine, or the oblong number to the human cycle; nor is any intimation given that the first or divine number represents the period of the world, the second the period of the state, or of the human race as Zeller supposes; nor is the divine number afterwards mentioned (cp. Arist.). The second is the number of generations or births, and presides over them in the same mysterious manner in which the stars preside over them, or in which, according to the Pythagoreans, opportunity, justice, marriage, are represented by some number of figure. This is probably the number 216.

  The explanation given in the text supposes the two harmonies to make up the number 8000. This explanation derives a certain plausibility from the circumstance that 8000 is the ancient number of the Spartan citizens (Herod. vii. 34), and would be what Plato might have called ‘a number which nearly concerns the population of a city’ (588 A); the mysterious disappearance of the Spartan population may possibly have suggested to him the first cause of his decline of States. The lesser or square ‘harmony,’ of 400, might be a symbol of the guardians,—the larger or oblong ‘harmony,’ of the people, and the numbers 3, 4, 5 might refer respectively to the three orders in the State or parts of the soul, the four virtues, the five forms of government. The harmony of the musical scale, which is elsewhere used as a symbol of the harmony of the state (Rep. iv. 443 D), is also indicated. For the numbers 3, 4, 5, which represent the sides of the Pythagorean triangle, also denote the intervals of the scale.

  The terms used in the statement of the problem may be explained as follows. NA A perfect number (τέλειος ἀριθμός), as already stated, is one which is equal to the sum of its divisors. Thus 6, which is the first perfect or cyclical number, = 1 + 2 + 3. The words [Editor: illegible character]ροι, ‘terms’ or ‘notes,’ and ἀποστάσεις, ‘intervals,’ are applicable to music as well as to number and figure. Πρώτῳ is the ‘base’ on which the whole calculation depends, or the ‘lowest term’ from which it can be worked out. The words δυνἁμεναί τε καὶ δυναστευόμεναι have been variously translated—‘squared and cubed’ (Donaldson), ‘equalling and equalled in power’ (Weber), ‘by involution and evolution,’ i. e. by raising the power and extracting the root (as in the translation). Numbers are called ‘like and unlike’ (όμοιον̂ντές τε καὶ ἀνομοιον̂ντες) when the factors or the sides of the planes and cubes which they represent are or are not in the same ratio: e. g. 8 and 27 = 2³ and 3³; and conversely. ‘Waxing’ (α[Editor: illegible character]ξοντες) numbers, called also ‘increasing’ (ὑπερτελε[Editor: illegible character]ς), are those which are exceeded by the sum of their divisors: e. g. 12 and 18 are less than 16 and 21. ‘Waning’ (ϕθἱνοντες) numbers, called also ‘decreasing’ (ἐλλιπε[Editor: illegible character]ς), are those which exceed the sum of their divisors: e. g. 8 and 27 exceed 7 and 13. The words translated ‘commensurable and agreeable to one another’ (προσήγορα καὶ [Editor: illegible character]ητά) seem to be different ways of describing the same relation, with more or less precision. They are equivalent to ‘expressible in terms having the same relation to one another,’ like the series 8, 12, 18, 27, each of which numbers is in the relation of 1½ to the preceding. The ‘base,’ or ‘fundamental number, which has ⅓ added to it’ (1⅓) = ⅓ or a musical fourth. Ἀρμον[Editor: illegible character]α is a ‘proportion’ of numbers as of musical notes, applied either to the parts or factors of a single number or to the relation of one number to another. The first harmony is a ‘square’ number ([Editor: illegible character]σην ἰσάκις); the second harmony is an ‘oblong’ number (προμήκη), i. e. a number representing a figure of which the opposite sides only are equal. Ἀριθμοἰ ὰπὸ διαμέτρων = ‘numbers squared from’ or ‘upon diameters’; ῥητω̂ν = ‘rational,’ i. e. omitting fractions, ἀῤῥήτων, ‘irrational,’ i. e. including fractions; e. g. 49 is a square of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which = 5 : 50, of an irrational diameter of the same. NA For several of the explanations here given and for a good deal besides I am indebted to an excellent article on the Platonic Number by Dr. Donaldson (Proc. of the Philol. Society, vol. i. p. 81 ff.).

  The conclusions which he draws from these data are summed up by him as follows. Having assumed that the number of the perfect or divine cycle is the number of the world, and the number of the imperfect cycle the number of the state, he proceeds: ‘The period of the world is defined by the perfect number 6, that of the state by the cube of that number or 216, which is the product of the last pair of terms in the Platonic Tetractys1 ; and if we take this as the basis of our computation, we shall have two cube numbers (αὐξήσεις δυνἀμεναἰ τε καὶ δυναστευόμεναι), viz. 8 and 27; and the mean proportionals between these, viz. 12 and 18, will furnish three intervals and four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one another in the sesqui-altera ratio, i. e. each term is to the preceding as 3/2. Now if we remember that the number 216 = 8 × 27 = 3³ + 4³ + 5³, and that 3² + 4² = 5², we must admit that this number implies the numbers 3, 4, 5, to which musicians attach so much importance. And if we combine the ratio 4/3 with the number 5, or multiply the ratios of the sides by the hypotenuse, we shall by first squaring and then cubing obtain two expressions, which denote the ratio of the two last pairs of terms in the Platonic Tetractys, the former multiplied by the square, the latter by the cube of the number 10, the sum of the first four digits which constitute the Platonic Tetractys.’ NA The two ἁρμονίαι he elsewhere explains as follows: ‘The first ἀρμονία is [Editor: illegible character]σην ὶσάκις [Editor: illegible character]κατὸν τοσαυτάάις, in other words (4/3 × 5)² = 100 × 2²/3². The second ἁρμον[Editor: illegible character]α, a cube of the same root, is described as 100 multiplied (α) by the rational diameter of 5 diminished by unity, i. e., as shown above, 48: (β) by two incommensurable diameters, i. e. the two first irrationals, or 2 and 3: and (γ) by the cube of 3, or 27. Thus we have (48 + 5 + 27) 100 = 1000 × 2³. This second harmony is to be the cube of the number of which the former harmony is the square, and therefore must be divided by the cube of 3. In other words, the whole expression will be: (1), for the first harmony, 400/9: (2), for the second harmony, 8000/27.’

  The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and also with Schleiermacher in supposing that 216 is the Platonic number of births are: (1) that it coincides with the description of the number given in the first part of the passage (ἐν [Editor: illegible character] πρώτῳ . . . ἀπέϕηναν): (2) that the number 216 with its permutations would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though unfamiliar to us: (3) that 216 is the cube of 6, and also the sum of 3³, 4⁵, 5⁵, the numbers 3, 4, 5 representing the Pythagorean triangle, of which the sides when squared equal the square of the hypotenuse (3² + 4² = 5²): (4) that it is also the period of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis: (5) the three ultimate terms or bases (3, 4, 5) of which 216 is composed answer to the third, fourth, fifth in the musical scale: (6) that the number 216 is the product of the cubes of 2 and 3, which are the two last terms in the Platonic Tetractys: (7) that the Pythagorean triangle is said by Plutarch (de Is. et Osir., 373 E), Proclus (super prima Eucl. iv. p. 111), and Quintilian (de Musica iii. p. 152) to be contained in this passage, so that the tradition of the school seems to point in the same direction: (8) that the Pythagorean triangle is called also the figure of marriage (γαμήλιον διάγραμμα).

  But though agreeing with Dr. Donaldson thus far, I see no reason for supposing, as he does, that the first or perfect number is the world, the human or imperfect number the state; nor has he given any proof that the second harmony is a cube. Nor do I think that ἀῤῥήτων δὲ δνεɩ̂ν can mean ‘two incommensurables,’ which he arbitrarily assumes to be 2 and 3, but rather, as the preceding clause implies, δυεɩ̂ν ἀριθμοɩ̂ν ἀπὸ ἀ[Editor: illegible character][Editor: illegible character]ήτων αιαμέτρων πεμπ[Editor: illegible character]δος, i. e. two square numbers based upon irrational diameters of a figure the side of which is 5 = 50 × 2.

  The greatest objection to the translation is the sense given to the words ἑπίτριτος πυθμήν κ.τ.λ., ‘a base of three with a third added to it, multiplied by 5.’ In this somewhat forced manner Plato introduces once more the numbers of the Pythagorean triangle. But the coincidences in the numbers which follow are in favour of the explanation. The first harmony of 400, as has been already remarked, probably represents the rulers; the second and oblong harmony of 7600, the people.

  And here we take leave of the difficulty. The discovery of the riddle would be useless, and would throw no light on ancient mathematics. The point of interest is that Plato should have used such a symbol, and that so much of the Pythagorean spirit should have prevailed in him. His general meaning is that divine creation is perfect, and is represented or presided over by a perfect or cyclical number; human generation is imperfect, and represented or presided over by an imperfect number or series of numbers. The number 5040, which is the number of the citizens in the Laws, is expressly based by him on utilitarian grounds, namely, the convenience of the number for division; it is also made up of the first seven digits multiplied by one another. The contrast of the perfect and imperfect number may have been easily suggested by the corrections of the cycle, which were made first by Meton and secondly by Callippus; (the latter is said to have been a pupil of Plato). Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be attributed to the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book ix. (729 = 365 × 2), and the slight correction of the error in the number 5040 ÷ 12 (Laws, 771 C), may furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising in the circumstance that those who were secking for order in nature and had found order in number, should have imagined one to give law to the other. Plato believes in a power of number far beyond what he could see realized in the world around him, and he knows the great influence which ‘the little matter of 1, 2, 3’ (vii. 522 C) exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers depend upon numbers; e. g.—in population, the numbers of births and the respective numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of parents, i. e. on other numbers.

  book ix.

  Analysis.Republic IX.

  571Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence is he, and how does he live—in happiness or in misery? There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful, and yet admit of being chastened and weakened in various degrees by the power of reason and law. ‘What appetites do you mean?’ I mean those which are awake when the reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and walk about naked without any self-respect or shame; and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however cruel or unnatural, of which, in imagination, they may not be guilty. ‘True,’ he said; ‘very true.’ But when a man’s pulse beats temperately; and he has supped on a feast of reason and come to a knowledge of himself 572before going to rest, and has satisfied his desires just enough to prevent their perturbing his reason, which remains clear and luminous, and when he is free from quarrel and heat,—the visions which he has on his bed are least irregular and abnormal. Even in good men there is such an irregular wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.

  To return:—You remember what was said of the democrat; that he was the son of a miserly father, who encouraged the saving desires and repressed the ornamental and expensive ones; presently the youth got into fine company, and began to entertain a dislike to his father’s narrow ways; and being a better man than the corrupters of his youth, he came to a mean, and led a life, not of lawless or slavish passion, but of regular and successive indulgence. Now imagine that the youth has become a father, and has a son who is exposed to the same temptations, and has companions who lead him into every sort of iniquity, and parents and friends 573who try to keep him right. The counsellors of evil find that their only chance of retaining him is to implant in his soul a monster drone, or love; while other desires buzz around him and mystify him with sweet sounds and scents, this monster love takes possession of him, and puts an end to every true or modest thought or wish. Love, like drunkenness and madness, is a tyranny; and the tyrannical man, whether made by nature or habit, is just a drinking, lusting, furious sort of animal.

  And how does such an one live? ‘Nay, that you must tell me.’ Well then, I fancy that he will live amid revelries and harlotries, and love will be the lord and master of the house. Many desires require much money, and so he spends all that he has and borrows more; and when he has nothing the young ravens are 574still in the nest in which they were hatched, crying for food. Love urges them on; and they must be gratified by force or fraud, or if not, they become painful and troublesome; and as the new pleasures succeed the old ones, so will the son take possession of the goods of his parents; if they show signs of refusing, he will defraud and deceive them; and if they openly resist, what then? ‘I can only say, that I should not much like to be in their place.’ But, O heavens, Adeimantus, to think that for some new-fangled and unnecessary love he will give up his old father and mother, best and dearest of friends, or enslave them to the fancies of the hour! Truly a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother! When there is no more to be got out of them, he turns burglar or pickpocket, or robs a temple. Love overmasters the thoughts of his youth, and he becomes in sober reality the monster that he 575was sometimes in sleep. He waxes strong in all violence and lawlessness; and is ready for any deed of daring that will supply the wants of his rabble-rout. In a well-ordered State there are only a few such, and these in time of war go out and become the mercenaries of a tyrant. But in time of peace they stay at home and do mischief; they are the thieves, footpads, cut-purses, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak, they turn false-witnesses and informers. ‘No small catalogue of crimes truly, even if the perpetrators are few.’ Yes, I said; but small and great are relative terms, and no crimes which are committed by them approach those of the tyrant, whom this class, growing strong and numerous, create out of themselves. If the people yield, well and good; but, if they resist, then, as before he beat his father and mother, so now he beats his fatherland and motherland, and places his mercenaries over them. Such men in their early days live with flatterers, and they themselves flatter 576others, in order to gain their ends; but they soon discard their followers when they have no longer any need of them; they are always either masters or servants,—the joys of friendship are unknown to them. And they are utterly treacherous and unjust, if the nature of justice be at all understood by us. They realize our dream; and he who is the most of a tyrant by nature, and leads the life of a tyrant for the longest time, will be the worst of them, and being the worst of them, will also be the most miserable.

  Like man, like State,—the tyrannical man will answer to tyranny, which is the extreme opposite of the royal State; for one is the best and the other the worst. But which is the happier? Great and terrible as the tyrant may appear enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask; and the answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical the most 577miserable of States. And may we not ask the same question about the men themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to penetrate the inner nature of man, and will not be panic-struck by the vain pomp of tyranny? I will suppose that he is one who has lived with him, and has seen him in family life, or perhaps in the hour of trouble and danger.

  Assuming that we ourselves are the impartial judge for whom we seek, let us begin by comparing the individual and State, and ask first of all, whether the State is likely to be free or enslaved—Will there not be a little freedom and a great deal of slavery? And the freedom is of the bad, and the slavery of the good; and this applies to the man as well as to the State; for his soul is full of meanness and slavery, and the better part is enslaved to the worse. He cannot do what he would, and his mind is full of confusion; 578he is the very reverse of a freeman. The State will be poor and full of misery and sorrow; and the man’s soul will also be poor and full of sorrows, and he will be the most miserable of men. No, not the most miserable, for there is yet a more miserable. ‘Who is that?’ The tyrannical man who has the misfortune also to become a public tyrant. ‘There I suspect that you are right.’ Say rather, ‘I am sure;’ conjecture is out of place in an enquiry of this nature. He is like a wealthy owner of slaves, only he has more of them than any private individual. You will say, ‘The owners of slaves are not generally in any fear of them.’ But why? Because the whole city is in a league which protects the individual. Suppose however that one of these owners and his household is carried off by a god into a wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him—will he not be in an agony of terror?—will 579he not be compelled to flatter his slaves and to promise them many things sore against his will? And suppose the same god who carried him off were to surround him with neighbours who declare that no man ought to have slaves, and that the owners of them should be punished with death. ‘Still worse and worse! He will be in the midst of his enemies.’ And is not our tyrant such a captive soul, who is tormented by a swarm of passions which he cannot indulge; living indoors always like a woman, and jealous of those who can go out and see the world?

  Having so many evils, will not the most miserable of men be still more miserable in a public station? Master of others when he is not master of himself; like a sick man who is compelled to be an athlete; the meanest of slaves and the most abject of flatterers; wanting all things, and never able to satisfy his desires; always in fear and distraction, like the State of which he is the representative. 580His jealous, hateful, faithless temper grows worse with command; he is more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous,—the most wretched of men, a misery to himself and to others. And so let us have a final trial and proclamation; need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result? ‘Make the proclamation yourself.’ The son of Ariston (the best) is of opinion that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal master of himself; and that the unjust man is he who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further—‘seen or unseen by gods or men.’

  This is our first proof. The second is derived from the three kinds of pleasure, which answer to the three elements of the soul—reason, 581passion, desire; under which last is comprehended avarice as well as sensual appetite, while passion includes ambition, party-feeling, love of reputation. Reason, again, is solely directed to the attainment of truth, and careless of money and reputation. In accordance with the difference of men’s natures, one of these three principles is in the ascendant, and they have their several pleasures corresponding to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The money-maker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour; whereas the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call other pleasures necessary rather than good. 582Now, how shall we decide between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and knowledge? And which of the three has the truest knowledge and the widest experience? The experience of youth makes the philosopher acquainted with the two kinds of desire, but the avaricious and the ambitious man never taste the pleasures of truth and wisdom. Honour he has equally with them; they are ‘judged of him,’ but he is ‘not judged of them,’ for they never attain to the knowledge of true being. And his instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only wealth and honour; and if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the truest. And so we arrive at the result that the pleasure of the rational part of the soul, and a life passed in such pleasure is the 583pleasantest. He who has a right to judge judges thus. Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the third place, that of money-making.

  Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust—once more, as in an Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let him try a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise are true and pure; all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this: is not pleasure opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which is neither? When a man is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found out while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain; on the other hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus rest or cessation is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither become both? Again, pleasure and pain 584are motions, and the absence of them is rest; but if so, how can the absence of either of them be the other? Thus we are led to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and witchery of the senses. And these are not the only pleasures, for there are others which have no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence of pain, nor pure pain the absence of pleasure; although most of the pleasures which reach the mind through the body are reliefs of pain, and have not only their reactions when they depart, but their anticipations before they come. They can be best described in a simile. There is in nature an upper, lower, and middle region, and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines that he is going up and is already in the upper world; and if he were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion happens with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. 585The man who compares grey with black, calls grey white; and the man who compares absence of pain with pain, calls the absence of pain pleasure. Again, hunger and thirst are inanitions of the body, ignorance and folly of the soul; and food is the satisfaction of the one, knowledge of the other. Now which is the purer satisfaction—that of eating and drinking, or that of knowledge? Consider the matter thus: The satisfaction of that which has more existence is truer than of that which has less. The invariable and immortal has a more real existence than the variable and mortal, and has a corresponding measure of knowledge and truth. The soul, again, has more existence and truth and knowledge than the body, and is therefore more really satisfied and has a more 586natural pleasure. Those who feast only on earthly food, are always going at random up to the middle and down again; but they never pass into the true upper world, or have a taste of true pleasure. They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (cp. Gorgias, 243 A, foll.). Their pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth.

  The same may be said of the passionate element:—the desires of the ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction. Only when under the guidance of reason do either of 587the other principles do their own business or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When not attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow of pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from philosophy and reason, the more distant they will be from law and order, and the more illusive will be their pleasures. The desires of love and tyranny are the farthest from law, and those of the king are nearest to it. There is one genuine pleasure, and two spurious ones: the tyrant goes beyond even the latter; he has run away altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure of his inferiority be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed from the oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the shadow of a shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from the king, and thus we get the formula 3 × 3, which is the number of a surface, representing the shadow which is the tyrant’s pleasure, and if you like to cube this ‘number of the beast,’ you will find that the measure of the difference amounts to 729; the king is 729 times more happy than the tyrant. And this extraordinary number is nearly equal to the number of days and nights in a year (365 × 2 = 730); and 588is therefore concerned with human life. This is the interval between a good and bad man in happiness only: what must be the difference between them in comeliness of life and virtue!

  Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the reputation of justice. Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us make an image of the soul, which will personify his words. First of all, fashion a multitudinous beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of animals, tame and wild, and able to produce and change them at pleasure. Suppose now another form of a lion, and another of a man; the second smaller than the first, the third than the second; join them together and cover them with a human skin, in which they are completely concealed. When this has been done, let us tell 589the supporter of injustice that he is feeding up the beasts and starving the man. The maintainer of justice, on the other hand, is trying to strengthen the man; he is nourishing the gentle principle within him, and making an alliance with the lion heart, in order that he may be able to keep down the many-headed hydra, and bring all into unity with each other and with themselves. Thus in every point of view, whether in relation to pleasure, honour, or advantage, the just man is right, and the unjust wrong.

  But now, let us reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the God in man; the ignoble, that which subjects the man to the beast? And if so, who would receive gold on condition that he was to degrade the noblest part of himself under the worst?—who would sell his son or daughter into the hands of brutal and evil men, for any amount of money? And will he sell his own fairer and diviner part without any compunction 590to the most godless and foul? Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband’s life for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. The real disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged in them have to flatter, instead of mastering their desires; therefore we say that they should be placed under the control of the better principle in another because they have none in themselves; not, as Thrasymachus imagined, to the injury of the subjects, but for their good. And our intention in educating the young, is to 591give them self-control; the law desires to nurse up in them a higher principle, and when they have acquired this, they may go their ways.

  ‘What, then, shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world’ and become more and more wicked? Or what shall he profit by escaping discovery, if the concealment of evil prevents the cure? If he had been punished, the brute within him would have been silenced, and the gentler element liberated; and he would have united temperance, justice, and wisdom in his soul—a union better far than any combination of bodily gifts. The man of understanding will honour knowledge above all; in the next place he will keep under his body, not only for the sake of health and strength, but in order to attain the most perfect harmony of body and soul. In the acquisition of riches, too, he will aim at order and harmony; he will not desire to heap up wealth without measure, but he will fear that the increase of wealth will disturb the constitution of his own soul. For the same 592reason he will only accept such honours as will make him a better man; any others he will decline. ‘In that case,’ said he, ‘he will never be a politician.’ Yes, but he will, in his own city; though probably not in his native country, unless by some divine accident. ‘You mean that he will be a citizen of the ideal city, which has no place upon earth.’ But in heaven, I replied, there is a pattern of such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image. Whether such a state is or ever will be matters not; he will act according to that pattern and no other. . . . .

  Introduction.

  The most noticeable points in the 9th Book of the Republic are:—(1) the account of pleasure; (2) the number of the interval which divides the king from the tyrant; (3) the pattern which is in heaven.

  1. Plato’s account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the circumstance that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he also remarks in the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the pleasures of hope and anticipation. In the previous book (pp. 558, 559) he had made the distinction between necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated by Aristotle, and he now observes that there are a further class of ‘wild beast’ pleasures, corresponding to Aristotle’s θηριότης. He dwells upon the relative and unreal character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which arises out of the contrast of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority of the pleasures of reason, which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of sense and emotion. The pre-eminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact that reason is able to form a judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two lower parts of the soul are incapable of judging the pleasures of reason. Thus, in his treatment of pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy of Plato is ‘sawn up into quantities’ by Aristotle; the analysis which was originally made by him became in the next generation the foundation of further technical distinctions. Both in Plato and Aristotle we note the illusion under which the ancients fell of regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality, and of confounding the permanence of the intellectual pleasures with the unchangeableness of the knowledge from which they are derived. Neither do we like to admit that the pleasures of knowledge, though more elevating, are not more lasting than other pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on the accidents of our bodily state (cp. Introd. to Philebus).

  2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant, and royal from tyrannical pleasures, is 729, the cube of 9, which Plato characteristically designates as a number concerned with human life, because nearly equivalent to the number of days and nights in the year. He is desirous of proclaiming that the interval between them is immeasurable, and invents a formula to give expression to his idea. Those who spoke of justice as a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot. 357 A), saw no inappropriateness in conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the pleasure of the tyrant as separated from the pleasure of the king by the numerical interval of 729. And in modern times we sometimes use metaphorically what Plato employed as a philosophical formula. ‘It is not easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except perhaps in this way,’ says Plato. So we might say, that although the life of a good man is not to be compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure the difference between them by valuing one minute of the one at an hour of the other (‘One day in thy courts is better than a thousand’), or you might say that ‘there is an infinite difference.’ But this is not so much as saying, in homely phrase, ‘They are a thousand miles asunder.’ And accordingly Plato finds the natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers; this arithmetical formula he draws out with the utmost seriousness, and both here and in the number of generation seems to find an additional proof of the truth of his speculation in forming the number into a geometrical figure; just as persons in our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it has been only thrown into an abstract form. In speaking of the number 729 as proper to human life, he probably intended to intimate that one year of the tyrannical = 12 hours of the royal life.

  The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in explaining the steps by which the number 729 is obtained; the oligarch is removed in the third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant in the third degree from the oligarchical; but we have to arrange the terms as the sides of a square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning them not as = 5 but as = 9. The square of 9 is passed lightly over as only a step towards the cube.

  3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more convinced of the ideal character of his own speculations. At the end of the 9th Book the pattern which is in heaven takes the place of the city of philosophers on earth. The vision which has received form and substance at his hands, is now discovered to be at a distance. And yet this distant kingdom is also the rule of man’s life (Bk. vii. 540 E). (‘Say not lo! here, or lo! there, for the kingdom of God is within you.’) Thus a note is struck which prepares for the revelation of a future life in the following Book. But the future life is present still; the ideal of politics is to be realized in the individual.

  book x.

  Analysis.Republic X.

  595Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was nothing which I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The division of the soul throws a new light on our exclusion of imitation. I do not mind telling you in confidence that all poetry is an outrage on the understanding, unless the hearers have that balm of knowledge which heals error. I have loved Homer ever since I was a boy, and even now he appears to me to be the great master of tragic poetry. But much as I love the man, I love truth more, and therefore I must speak out: and first of all, will you explain what is imitation, for really I do not understand? ‘How likely then that I 596should understand!’ That might very well be, for the duller often sees better than the keener eye. ‘True, but in your presence I can hardly venture to say what I think.’ Then suppose that we begin in our old fashion, with the doctrine of universals. Let us assume the existence of beds and tables. There is one idea of a bed, or of a table, which the maker of each had in his mind when making them; he did not make the ideas of beds and tables, but he made beds and tables according to the ideas. And is there not a maker of the works of all workmen, who makes not only vessels but plants and animals, himself, the earth and heaven, and things in heaven and under the earth? He makes the Gods also. ‘He must be a wizard indeed!’ But do you not see that there is a sense in which you could do the same? You have only to take a mirror, and catch the reflection of the sun, and the earth, or anything else—there now you have made them. ‘Yes, but only in appearance.’ Exactly so; and the painter is such a creator as you are with the mirror, and he is even more unreal than the carpenter; although neither 597the carpenter nor any other artist can be supposed to make the absolute bed. ‘Not if philosophers may be believed.’ Nor need we wonder that his bed has but an imperfect relation to the truth. Reflect:—Here are three beds; one in nature, which is made by God; another, which is made by the carpenter; and the third, by the painter. God only made one, nor could he have made more than one; for if there had been two, there would always have been a third—more absolute and abstract than either, under which they would have been included. We may therefore conceive God to be the natural maker of the bed, and in a lower sense the carpenter is also the maker; but the painter is rather the imitator of what the other two make; he has to do with a creation which is thrice removed from reality. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, like every other imitator, is thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The painter 598imitates not the original bed, but the bed made by the carpenter. And this, without being really different, appears to be different, and has many points of view, of which only one is caught by the painter, who represents everything because he represents a piece of everything, and that piece an image. And he can paint any other artist, although he knows nothing of their arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:—should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are 599under a similar delusion? they do not see that the poets are imitators, and that their creations are only imitations. ‘Very true.’ But if a person could create as well as imitate, he would rather leave some permanent work and not an imitation only; he would rather be the receiver than the giver of praise? ‘Yes, for then he would have more honour and advantage.’

  Let us now interrogate Homer and the poets. Friend Homer, say I to him, I am not going to ask you about medicine, or any art to which your poems incidentally refer, but about their main subjects—war, military tactics, politics. If you are only twice and not thrice removed from the truth—not an imitator or an image-maker, please to inform us what good you have ever done to mankind? Is there any city which professes to have received laws from you, as Sicily and Italy have from Charondas, 600Sparta from Lycurgus, Athens from Solon? Or was any war ever carried on by your counsels? or is any invention attributed to you, as there is to Thales and Anacharsis? Or is there any Homeric way of life, such as the Pythagorean was, in which you instructed men, and which is called after you? ‘No, indeed; and Creophylus [Flesh-child] was even more unfortunate in his breeding than he was in his name, if, as tradition says, Homer in his lifetime was allowed by him and his other friends to starve.’ Yes, but could this ever have happened if Homer had really been the educator of Hellas? Would he not have had many devoted followers? If Protagoras and Prodicus can persuade their contemporaries that no one can manage house or State without them, is it likely that Homer and Hesiod would have been allowed to go about as beggars—I mean if they had really been able to do the world any good?—would not men have compelled them to stay where they were, or have followed them about in order to get education? But they did not; and therefore we may infer that Homer and all the poets are only 601imitators, who do but imitate the appearances of things. For as a painter by a knowledge of figure and colour can paint a cobbler without any practice in cobbling, so the poet can delineate any art in the colours of language, and give harmony and rhythm to the cobbler and also to the general; and you know how mere narration, when deprived of the ornaments of metre, is like a face which has lost the beauty of youth and never had any other. Once more, the imitator has no knowledge of reality, but only of appearance. The painter paints, and the artificer makes a bridle and reins, but neither understands the use of them—the knowledge of this is confined to the horseman; and so of other things. Thus we have three arts: one of use, another of invention, a third of imitation; and the user furnishes the rule to the two others. The flute-player will know the good and bad flute, and the maker will put faith in him; but 602the imitator will neither know nor have faith—neither science nor true opinion can be ascribed to him. Imitation, then, is devoid of knowledge, being only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic and epic poets are imitators in the highest degree.

  And now let us enquire, what is the faculty in man which answers to imitation. Allow me to explain my meaning: Objects are differently seen when in the water and when out of the water, when near and when at a distance; and the painter or juggler makes use of this variation to impose upon us. And the art of measuring and weighing and calculating comes in to save our bewildered minds from the power of appearance; for, 603as we were saying, two contrary opinions of the same about the same and at the same time, cannot both of them be true. But which of them is true is determined by the art of calculation; and this is allied to the better faculty in the soul, as the arts of imitation are to the worse. And the same holds of the ear as well as of the eye, of poetry as well as painting. The imitation is of actions voluntary or involuntary, in which there is an expectation of a good or bad result, and present experience of pleasure and pain. But is a man in harmony with himself when he is the subject of these conflicting influences? Is there not rather a contradiction in him? Let me further ask, whether 604he is more likely to control sorrow when he is alone or when he is in company. ‘In the latter case.’ Feeling would lead him to indulge his sorrow, but reason and law control him and enjoin patience; since he cannot know whether his affliction is good or evil, and no human thing is of any great consequence, while sorrow is certainly a hindrance to good counsel. For when we stumble, we should not, like children, make an uproar; we should take the measures which reason prescribes, not raising a lament, but finding a cure. And the better part of us is ready to follow reason, while the irrational principle is full of sorrow and distraction at the recollection of our troubles. Unfortunately, however, this latter furnishes the chief materials of the imitative arts. Whereas reason is ever in repose and cannot easily be displayed, especially to a mixed 605multitude who have no experience of her. Thus the poet is like the painter in two ways: first he paints an inferior degree of truth, and secondly, he is concerned with an inferior part of the soul. He indulges the feelings, while he enfeebles the reason; and we refuse to allow him to have authority over the mind of man; for he has no measure of greater and less, and is a maker of images and very far gone from truth.

  But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictment—the power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet; and yet in our own sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and unmanly (cp. Ion, 535 E). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what he hates and abominates in himself? 606Is he not giving way to a sentiment which in his own case he would control?—he is off his guard because the sorrow is another’s; and he thinks that he may indulge his feelings without disgrace, and will be the gainer by the pleasure. But the inevitable consequence is that he who begins by weeping at the sorrows of others, will end by weeping at his own. The same is true of comedy,—you may often laugh at buffoonery which you would be ashamed to utter, and the love of coarse merriment on the stage will at last turn you into a buffoon at home. Poetry feeds and waters the passions and desires; she lets them rule instead of ruling them. And therefore, when we hear the encomiasts of Homer affirming that he is the educator 607of Hellas, and that all life should be regulated by his precepts, we may allow the excellence of their intentions, and agree with them in thinking Homer a great poet and tragedian. But we shall continue to prohibit all poetry which goes beyond hymns to the Gods and praises of famous men. Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall rule in our State.

  These are our grounds for expelling poetry; but lest she should charge us with discourtesy, let us also make an apology to her. We will remind her that there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, of which there are many traces in the writings of the poets, such as the saying of ‘the she-dog, yelping at her mistress,’ and ‘the philosophers who are ready to circumvent Zeus,’ and ‘the philosophers who are paupers.’ Nevertheless we bear her no ill-will, and will gladly allow her to return upon condition that she makes a defence of herself in verse; and her supporters who are not poets may speak in prose. We confess her charms; but if she cannot show that she is useful as well as delightful, like rational lovers, we must renounce our love, though endeared to us by early associations. 608Having come to years of discretion, we know that poetry is not truth, and that a man should be careful how he introduces her to that state or constitution which he himself is; for there is a mighty issue at stake—no less than the good or evil of a human soul. And it is not worth while to forsake justice and virtue for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the sake of honour or wealth. ‘I agree with you.’

  And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. ‘And can we conceive things greater still?’ Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life: but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity? ‘I do not understand what you mean?’ Do you not know that the soul is immortal? ‘Surely you are not prepared to prove that?’ Indeed I am. ‘Then let me hear this argument, of which you make so light.’

  609You would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In all things there is an inherent corruption; and if this cannot destroy them, nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy the soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be full of all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external affection of evil. The body, which 610is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body. Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence, or any other destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy and unjust. But no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust when they die. If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the answer is—Then why do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and not die of themselves? ‘Truly,’ he said, ‘injustice would not be very terrible if it brought a cessation of evil; but I rather believe that the injustice which murders others may tend to quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust.’ You are quite right. If sin which is her own natural and inherent evil cannot destroy the soul, hardly will anything else 611destroy her. But the soul which cannot be destroyed either by internal or external evil must be immortal and everlasting. And if this be true, souls will always exist in the same number. They cannot diminish, because they cannot be destroyed; nor yet increase, for the increase of the immortal must come from something mortal, and so all would end in immortality. Neither is the soul variable and diverse; for that which is immortal must be of the fairest and simplest composition. If we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice and injustice in their own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason pure as at birth, or as she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse with the divine and immortal and eternal. In her present condition we see her only like the sea-god Glaucus, bruised and 612maimed in the sea which is the world, and covered with shells and stones which are incrusted upon her from the entertainments of earth.

  Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards and honours which the poets attribute to justice; we have contented ourselves with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself, even if a man should put on a Gyges’ ring and have the helmet of Hades too. And now you shall repay me what you borrowed; and I will enumerate the rewards of justice in life and after death. I granted, for the sake of argument, as you will remember, that evil might perhaps escape the knowledge of Gods and men, although this was really impossible. And since I have shown that justice has reality, you must grant me also that she has the palm of appearance. In the first place, the just man is known to the 613Gods, and he is therefore the friend of the Gods, and he will receive at their hands every good, always excepting such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins. All things end in good to him, either in life or after death, even what appears to be evil; for the Gods have a care of him who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of men? Is not honesty the best policy? The clever rogue makes a great start at first, but breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in dishonour; whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the prize. And you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed to the fortunate unjust—they bear rule in the city, they marry and give in marriage to whom they will; and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence.

  614But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when compared with those which await good men after death. ‘I should like to hear about them.’ Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days afterwards his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for burial. On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below. He said that his soul went with a great company to a place, in which there were two chasms near together in the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in the heaven above. And there were judges sitting in the intermediate space, bidding the just ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand, having the seal of their judgment set upon them before, while the unjust, having the seal behind, were bidden to descend by the way on the left hand. Him they told to look and listen, as he was to be their messenger to men from the world below. And he beheld and saw the souls departing after judgment at either chasm; some who came from earth, were worn and travel-stained; others, who came from heaven, were clean and bright. They seemed glad to meet and rest awhile in the meadow; here they discoursed with 615one another of what they had seen in the other world. Those who came from earth wept at the remembrance of their sorrows, but the spirits from above spoke of glorious sights and heavenly bliss. He said that for every evil deed they were punished tenfold—now the journey was of a thousand years’ duration, because the life of man was reckoned as a hundred years—and the rewards of virtue were in the same proportion. He added something hardly worth repeating about infants dying almost as soon as they were born. Of parricides and other murderers he had tortures still more terrible to narrate. He was present when one of the spirits asked—Where is Ardiaeus the Great? (This Ardiaeus was a cruel tyrant, who had murdered his father, and his elder brother, a thousand years before.) Another spirit answered, ‘He comes not hither, and will never come. And I myself,’ he added, ‘actually saw this terrible sight. At the entrance of the chasm, as we were about to reascend, Ardiaeus appeared, and some other sinners—most of whom had been tyrants, but not all—and just as they fancied that they were returning to life, the chasm 616gave a roar, and then wild, fiery-looking men who knew the meaning of the sound, seized him and several others, and bound them hand and foot and threw them down, and dragged them along at the side of the road, lacerating them and carding them like wool, and explaining to the passers-by, that they were going to be cast into hell.’ The greatest terror of the pilgrims ascending was lest they should hear the voice, and when there was silence one by one they passed up with joy. To these sufferings there were corresponding delights.

  On the eighth day the souls of the pilgrims resumed their journey, and in four days came to a spot whence they looked down upon a line of light, in colour like a rainbow, only brighter and clearer. One day more brought them to the place, and they saw that this was the column of light which binds together the whole universe. The ends of the column were fastened to heaven, and from them hung the distaff of Necessity, on which all the heavenly bodies turned—the hook and spindle were of adamant, and the whorl of a mixed substance. The whorl was in form like a number of boxes fitting into one another with their edges turned upwards, making together a single whorl which was pierced by the spindle. The outermost had the rim broadest, and the inner whorls were smaller and smaller, and had their rims narrower. The largest (the fixed stars) was spangled—the seventh (the sun) was brightest—the eighth (the moon) shone by 617the light of the seventh—the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) were most like one another and yellower than the eighth—the third (Jupiter) had the whitest light—the fourth (Mars) was red—the sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The whole had one motion, but while this was revolving in one direction the seven inner circles were moving in the opposite, with various degrees of swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and a Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at equal intervals, singing of past, present, and future, responsive to the music of the Sirens; Clotho from time to time guiding the outer circle with a touch of her right hand; Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner circles; Lachesis in turn putting forth her hand from time to time to guide both of them. On their arrival the pilgrims went to Lachesis, and there was an interpreter who arranged them, and taking from her knees lots, and samples of lives, got up into a pulpit and said: ‘Mortal souls, hear the words of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. A new period of mortal life has begun, and you may choose what divinity you please; the responsibility of choosing 618is with you—God is blameless.’ After speaking thus, he cast the lots among them and each one took up the lot which fell near him. He then placed on the ground before them the samples of lives, many more than the souls present; and there were all sorts of lives, of men and of animals. There were tyrannies ending in misery and exile, and lives of men and women famous for their different qualities; and also mixed lives, made up of wealth and poverty, sickness and health. Here, Glaucon, is the great risk of human life, and therefore the whole of education should be directed to the acquisition of such a knowledge as will teach a man to refuse the evil and choose the good. He should know all the combinations which occur in life—of beauty with poverty or with wealth,—of knowledge with external goods,—and at last choose with reference to the nature of the soul, regarding that only as the better life which makes men better, and leaving the rest. And 619a man must take with him an iron sense of truth and right into the world below, that there too he may remain undazzled by wealth or the allurements of evil, and be determined to avoid the extremes and choose the mean. For this, as the messenger reported the interpreter to have said, is the true happiness of man; and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if he choose with understanding, have a good lot, even though he come last. ‘Let not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.’ He spoke; and when he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see that he was fated to devour his own children—and when he discovered his mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, and in his previous life had been a citizen of a well-ordered State, but he had only habit and no philosophy. Like many another, he made a bad choice, because he had no experience of life; whereas those who came from earth and had seen trouble were not in such a hurry to choose. But if a man had followed philosophy while upon earth, and had been moderately fortunate in his lot, he might not only be happy here, but his pilgrimage both from and to this world would be smooth and heavenly. Nothing was more curious than the spectacle of the choice, at once sad and laughable and wonderful; most of the souls only seeking to avoid their own 620condition in a previous life. He saw the soul of Orpheus changing into a swan because he would not be born of a woman; there was Thamyras becoming a nightingale; musical birds, like the swan, choosing to be men; the twentieth soul, which was that of Ajax, preferring the life of a lion to that of a man, in remembrance of the injustice which was done to him in the judgment of the arms; and Agamemnon, from a like enmity to human nature, passing into an eagle. About the middle was the soul of Atalanta choosing the honours of an athlete, and next to her Epeus taking the nature of a workwoman; among the last was Thersites, who was changing himself into a monkey. Thither, the last of all, came Odysseus, and sought the lot of a private man, which lay neglected and despised, and when he found it he went away rejoicing, and said that if he had been first instead of last, his choice would have been the same. Men, too, were seen passing into animals, and wild and tame animals changing into one another.

  When all the souls had chosen they went to Lachesis, who sent with each of them their genius or attendant to fulfil their lot. He first of all brought them under the hand of Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand; from her they were carried to Atropos, who made the threads irreversible; 621whence, without turning round, they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they moved on in scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness and rested at evening by the river Unmindful, whose water could not be retained in any vessel; of this they had all to drink a certain quantity—some of them drank more than was required, and he who drank forgot all things. Er himself was prevented from drinking. When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all driven divers ways, shooting like stars to their birth. Concerning his return to the body, he only knew that awaking suddenly in the morning he found himself lying on the pyre.

  Thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved, and will be our salvation, if we believe that the soul is immortal, and hold fast to the heavenly way of Justice and Knowledge. So shall we pass undefiled over the river of Forgetfulness, and be dear to ourselves and to the Gods, and have a crown of reward and happiness both in this world and also in the millennial pilgrimage of the other.

  Introduction.

  The Tenth Book of the Republic of Plato falls into two divisions: first, resuming an old thread which has been interrupted, Socrates assails the poets, who, now that the nature of the soul has been analyzed, are seen to be very far gone from the truth; and secondly, having shown the reality of the happiness of the just, he demands that appearance shall be restored to him, and then proceeds to prove the immortality of the soul. The argument, as in the Phaedo and Gorgias, is supplemented by the vision of a future life.

  Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to the dramatic poets; why he should not have seen that truth may be embodied in verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable lights and shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetry—some elements of imagination which always entwine with reason; why he should have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the impurities of the old Hellenic mythology; why he should try Homer and Hesiod by the unfair and prosaic test of utility,—are questions which have always been debated amongst students of Plato. Though unable to give a complete answer to them, we may show—first, that his views arose naturally out of the circumstances of his age; and secondly, we may elicit the truth as well as the error which is contained in them.

  He is the enemy of the poets because poetry was declining in his own lifetime, and a theatrocracy, as he says in the Laws (iii. 701 A), had taken the place of an intellectual aristocracy. Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic drama, and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the Sophist of tragedy. The old comedy was almost extinct; the new had not yet arisen. Dramatic and lyric poetry, like every other branch of Greek literature, was falling under the power of rhetoric. There was no ‘second or third’ to Æschylus and Sophocles in the generation which followed them. Aristophanes, in one of his later comedies (Frogs, 89 foll.), speaks of ‘thousands of tragedy-making prattlers,’ whose attempts at poetry he compares to the chirping of swallows; ‘their garrulity went far beyond Euripides,’—‘they appeared once upon the stage, and there was an end of them.’ To a man of genius who had a real appreciation of the godlike Æschylus and the noble and gentle Sophocles, though disagreeing with some parts of their ‘theology’ (Rep. ii. 380), these ‘minor poets’ must have been contemptible and intolerable. There is no feeling stronger in the dialogues of Plato than a sense of the decline and decay both in literature and in politics which marked his own age. Nor can he have been expected to look with favour on the licence of Aristophanes, now at the end of his career, who had begun by satirizing Socrates in the Clouds, and in a similar spirit forty years afterwards had satirized the founders of ideal commonwealths in his Eccleziazusae, or Female Parliament (cp. x. 606 C, and Laws ii. 658 ff.; 817).

  There were other reasons for the antagonism of Plato to poetry. The profession of an actor was regarded by him as a degradation of human nature, for ‘one man in his life’ cannot ‘play many parts;’ the characters which the actor performs seem to destroy his own character, and to leave nothing which can be truly called himself. Neither can any man live his life and act it. The actor is the slave of his art, not the master of it. Taking this view Plato is more decided in his expulsion of the dramatic than of the epic poets, though he must have known that the Greek tragedians afforded noble lessons and examples of virtue and patriotism, to which nothing in Homer can be compared. But great dramatic or even great rhetorical power is hardly consistent with firmness or strength of mind, and dramatic talent is often incidentally associated with a weak or dissolute character.

  In the Tenth Book Plato introduces a new series of objections. First, he says that the poet or painter is an imitator, and in the third degree removed from the truth. His creations are not tested by rule and measure; they are only appearances. In modern times we should say that art is not merely imitation, but rather the expression of the ideal in forms of sense. Even adopting the humble image of Plato, from which his argument derives a colour, we should maintain that the artist may ennoble the bed which he paints by the folds of the drapery, or by the feeling of home which he introduces; and there have been modern painters who have imparted such an ideal interest to a blacksmith’s or a carpenter’s shop. The eye or mind which feels as well as sees can give dignity and pathos to a ruined mill, or a straw-built shed [Rembrandt], to the hull of a vessel ‘going to its last home’ [Turner]. Still more would this apply to the greatest works of art, which seem to be the visible embodiment of the divine. Had Plato been asked whether the Zeus or Athene of Pheidias was the imitation of an imitation only, would he not have been compelled to admit that something more was to be found in them than in the form of any mortal; and that the rule of proportion to which they conformed was ‘higher far than any geometry or arithmetic could express?’ (Statesman, 257 A.)

  Again, Plato objects to the imitative arts that they express the emotional rather than the rational part of human nature. He does not admit Aristotle’s theory, that tragedy or other serious imitations are a purgation of the passions by pity and fear; to him they appear only to afford the opportunity of indulging them. Yet we must acknowledge that we may sometimes cure disordered emotions by giving expression to them; and that they often gain strength when pent up within our own breast. It is not every indulgence of the feelings which is to be condemned. For there may be a gratification of the higher as well as of the lower—thoughts which are too deep or too sad to be expressed by ourselves, may find an utterance in the words of poets. Every one would acknowledge that there have been times when they were consoled and elevated by beautiful music or by the sublimity of architecture or by the peacefulness of nature. Plato has himself admitted, in the earlier part of the Republic, that the arts might have the effect of harmonizing as well as of enervating the mind; but in the Tenth Book he regards them through a Stoic or Puritan medium. He asks only ‘What good have they done?’ and is not satisfied with the reply, that ‘They have given innocent pleasure to mankind.’

  He tells us that he rejoices in the banishment of the poets, since he has found by the analysis of the soul that they are concerned with the inferior faculties. He means to say that the higher faculties have to do with universals, the lower with particulars of sense. The poets are on a level with their own age, but not on a level with Socrates and Plato; and he was well aware that Homer and Hesiod could not be made a rule of life by any process of legitimate interpretation; his ironical use of them is in fact a denial of their authority; he saw, too, that the poets were not critics—as he says in the Apology, ‘Any one was a better interpreter of their writings than they were themselves’ (22 C). He himself ceased to be a poet when he became a disciple of Socrates; though, as he tells us of Solon, ‘he might have been one of the greatest of them, if he had not been deterred by other pursuits’ (Tim. 21 C). Thus from many points of view there is an antagonism between Plato and the poets, which was foreshadowed to him in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. The poets, as he says in the Protagoras (316 E), were the Sophists of their day; and his dislike of the one class is reflected on the other. He regards them both as the enemies of reasoning and abstraction, though in the case of Euripides more with reference to his immoral sentiments about tyrants and the like. For Plato is the prophet who ‘came into the world to convince men’—first of the fallibility of sense and opinion, and secondly of the reality of abstract ideas. Whatever strangeness there may be in modern times in opposing philosophy to poetry, which to us seem to have so many elements in common, the strangeness will disappear if we conceive of poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as equivalent to thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word ‘idea,’ which to Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is associated in our minds with an element of subjectiveness and unreality. We may note also how he differs from Aristotle who declares poetry to be truer than history, for the opposite reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like history, with particulars (Poet. c. 9, 3).

  The things which are seen are opposed in Scripture to the things which are unseen—they are equally opposed in Plato to universals and ideas. To him all particulars appear to be floating about in a world of sense; they have a taint of error or even of evil. There is no difficulty in seeing that this is an illusion; for there is no more error or variation in an individual man, horse, bed, etc., than in the class man, horse, bed, etc.; nor is the truth which is displayed in individual instances less certain than that which is conveyed through the medium of ideas. But Plato, who is deeply impressed with the real importance of universals as instruments of thought, attributes to them an essential truth which is imaginary and unreal; for universals may be often false and particulars true. Had he attained to any clear conception of the individual, which is the synthesis of the universal and the particular; or had he been able to distinguish between opinion and sensation, which the ambiguity of the words δόξα, ϕαίνεσθαι, εἰκὸς and the like, tended to confuse, he would not have denied truth to the particulars of sense.

  But the poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning in all departments of life and knowledge, like the sophists and rhetoricians of the Gorgias and Phaedrus; they are the false priests, false prophets, lying spirits, enchanters of the world. There is another count put into the indictment against them by Plato, that they are the friends of the tyrant, and bask in the sunshine of his patronage. Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of false ideas and false teachers at its service—in the history of Modern Europe as well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals—some appeal to the imagination of the masses—some pretence to the favour of heaven—some element of good giving power to evil (cp. i. 352), tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained. The Greek tyrants were not insensible to the importance of awakening in their cause a Pseudo-Hellenic feeling; they were proud of successes at the Olympic games; they were not devoid of the love of literature and art. Plato is thinking in the first instance of Greek poets who had graced the courts of Dionysius or Archelaus: and the old spirit of freedom is roused within him at their prostitution of the Tragic Muse in the praises of tyranny. But his prophetic eye extends beyond them to the false teachers of other ages who are the creatures of the government under which they live. He compares the corruption of his contemporaries with the idea of a perfect society, and gathers up into one mass of evil the evils and errors of mankind; to him they are personified in the rhetoricians, sophists, poets, rulers who deceive and govern the world.

  A further objection which Plato makes to poetry and the imitative arts is that they excite the emotions. Here the modern reader will be disposed to introduce a distinction which appears to have escaped him. For the emotions are neither bad nor good in themselves, and are not most likely to be controlled by the attempt to eradicate them, but by the moderate indulgence of them. And the vocation of art is to present thought in the form of feeling, to enlist the feelings on the side of reason, to inspire even for a moment courage or resignation; perhaps to suggest a sense of infinity and eternity in a way which mere language is incapable of attaining. True, the same power which in the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only, may be made to express the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan. But this only shows that art, like other outward things, may be turned to good and also to evil, and is not more closely connected with the higher than with the lower part of the soul. All imitative art is subject to certain limitations, and therefore necessarily partakes of the nature of a compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed for the sake of the representation, and something in the exactness of the representation is sacrificed to the ideal. Still, works of art have a permanent element; they idealize and detain the passing thought, and are the intermediates between sense and ideas.

  In the present stage of the human mind, poetry and other forms of fiction may certainly be regarded as a good. But we can also imagine the existence of an age in which a severer conception of truth has either banished or transformed them. At any rate we must admit that they hold a different place at different periods of the world’s history. In the infancy of mankind, poetry, with the exception of proverbs, is the whole of literature, and the only instrument of intellectual culture; in modern times she is the shadow or echo of her former self, and appears to have a precarious existence. Milton in his day doubted whether an epic poem was any longer possible. At the same time we must remember, that what Plato would have called the charms of poetry have been partly transferred to prose; he himself (Statesman 304) admits rhetoric to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes to find in the strain of law (Laws vii. 811) a substitute for the old poets. Among ourselves the creative power seems often to be growing weaker, and scientific fact to be more engrossing and overpowering to the mind than formerly. The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. But may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy be some day exhausted? The modern English novel which is the most popular of all forms of reading is not more than a century or two old: will the tale of love a hundred years hence, after so many thousand variations of the same theme, be still received with unabated interest?

  Art cannot claim to be on a level with philosophy or religion, and may often corrupt them. It is possible to conceive a mental state in which all artistic representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression, either of the religious ideal or of the philosophical ideal. The fairest forms may be revolting in certain moods of mind, as is proved by the fact that the Mahometans, and many sects of Christians, have renounced the use of pictures and images. The beginning of a great religion, whether Christian or Gentile, has not been ‘wood or stone,’ but a spirit moving in the hearts of men. The disciples have met in a large upper room or in ‘holes and caves of the earth’; in the second or third generation, they have had mosques, temples, churches, monasteries. And the revival or reform of religions, like the first revelation of them, has come from within and has generally disregarded external ceremonies and accompaniments.

  But poetry and art may also be the expression of the highest truth and the purest sentiment. Plato himself seems to waver between two opposite views—when, as in the third Book, he insists that youth should be brought up amid wholesome imagery; and again in Book x, when he banishes the poets from his Republic. Admitting that the arts, which some of us almost deify, have fallen short of their higher aim, we must admit on the other hand that to banish imagination wholly would be suicidal as well as impossible. For nature too is a form of art; and a breath of the fresh air or a single glance at the varying landscape would in an instant revive and reillumine the extinguished spark of poetry in the human breast. In the lower stages of civilization imagination more than reason distinguishes man from the animals; and to banish art would be to banish thought, to banish language, to banish the expression of all truth. No religion is wholly devoid of external forms; even the Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and images has a temple in which he worships the Most High, as solemn and beautiful as any Greek or Christian building. Feeling too and thought are not really opposed; for he who thinks must feel before he can execute. And the highest thoughts, when they become familiarized to us, are always tending to pass into the form of feeling.

  Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But he feels strongly the unreality of their writings; he is protesting against the degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the want of serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or extravagance of some of our poets or novelists, against the time-serving of preachers or public writers, against the regardlessness of truth which to the eye of the philosopher seems to characterize the greater part of the world. For we too have reason to complain that our poets and novelists ‘paint inferior truth’ and ‘are concerned with the inferior part of the soul’; that the readers of them become what they read and are injuriously affected by them. And we look in vain for that healthy atmosphere of which Plato speaks,—‘the beauty which meets the sense like a breeze and imperceptibly draws the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.’

  For there might be a poetry which would be the hymn of divine perfection, the harmony of goodness and truth among men: a strain which should renew the youth of the world, and bring back the ages in which the poet was man’s only teacher and best friend,—which would find materials in the living present as well as in the romance of the past, and might subdue to the fairest forms of speech and verse the intractable materials of modern civilization,—which might elicit the simple principles, or, as Plato would have called them, the essential forms, of truth and justice out of the variety of opinion and the complexity of modern society,—which would preserve all the good of each generation and leave the bad unsung,—which should be based not on vain longings or faint imaginings, but on a clear insight into the nature of man. Then the tale of love might begin again in poetry or prose, two in one, united in the pursuit of knowledge, or the service of God and man; and feelings of love might still be the incentive to great thoughts and heroic deeds as in the days of Dante or Petrarch; and many types of manly and womanly beauty might appear among us, rising above the ordinary level of humanity, and many lives which were like poems (Laws vii. 817 B), be not only written, but lived by us. A few such strains have been heard among men in the tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles, whom Plato quotes, not, as Homer is quoted by him, in irony, but with deep and serious approval,—in the poetry of Milton and Wordsworth, and in passages of other English poets,—first and above all in the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Shakespeare has taught us how great men should speak and act; he has drawn characters of a wonderful purity and depth; he has ennobled the human mind, but, like Homer (Rep. x. 599 foll.), he ‘has left no way of life.’ The next greatest poet of modern times, Goethe, is concerned with ‘a lower degree of truth’; he paints the world as a stage on which ‘all the men and women are merely players’; he cultivates life as an art, but he furnishes no ideals of truth and action. The poet may rebel against any attempt to set limits to his fancy; and he may argue truly that moralizing in verse is not poetry. Possibly, like Mephistopheles in Faust, he may retaliate on his adversaries. But the philosopher will still be justified in asking, ‘How may the heavenly gift of poesy be devoted to the good of mankind?’

  Returning to Plato, we may observe that a similar mixture of truth and error appears in other parts of the argument. He is aware of the absurdity of mankind framing their whole lives according to Homer; just as in the Phaedrus he intimates the absurdity of interpreting mythology upon rational principles; both these were the modern tendencies of his own age, which he deservedly ridicules. On the other hand, his argument that Homer, if he had been able to teach mankind anything worth knowing, would not have been allowed by them to go about begging as a rhapsodist, is both false and contrary to the spirit of Plato (cp. Rep. vi. 489 A foll.). It may be compared with those other paradoxes of the Gorgias, that ‘No statesman was ever unjustly put to death by the city of which he was the head’; and that ‘No Sophist was ever defrauded by his pupils’ (Gorg. 519 foll.). . . . . .

  The argument for immortality seems to rest on the absolute dualism of soul and body. Admitting the existence of the soul, we know of no force which is able to put an end to her. Vice is her own proper evil; and if she cannot be destroyed by that, she cannot be destroyed by any other. Yet Plato has acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the incrustations of earth as to lose her original form; and in the Timaeus he recognizes more strongly than in the Republic the influence which the body has over the mind, denying even the voluntariness of human actions, on the ground that they proceed from physical states (Tim. 86, 87). In the Republic, as elsewhere, he wavers between the original soul which has to be restored, and the character which is developed by training and education. . . . . .

  The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who is said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale has certainly an oriental character, and may be compared with the pilgrimages of the soul in the Zend Avesta (cp. Haug, Avesta, p. 197). But no trace of acquaintance with Zoroaster is found elsewhere in Plato’s writings, and there is no reason for giving him the name of Er the Pamphylian. The philosophy of Heracleitus cannot be shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster, and still less the myths of Plato.

  The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and mythology; the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a cylinder or box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed stars; this is suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of Necessity; the revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder are guided by the fates, and their harmonious motion produces the music of the spheres. Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the moon, is passed the spindle; but it is doubtful whether this is the continuation of the column of light, from which the pilgrims contemplate the heavens; the words of Plato imply that they are connected, but not the same. The column itself is clearly not of adamant. The spindle (which is of adamant) is fastened to the ends of the chains which extend to the middle of the column of light—this column is said to hold together the heaven; but whether it hangs from the spindle, or is at right angles to it, is not explained. The cylinder containing the orbits of the stars is almost as much a symbol as the figure of Necessity turning the spindle;—for the outer-most rim is the sphere of the fixed stars, and nothing is said about the intervals of space which divide the paths of the stars in the heavens. The description is both a picture and an orrery, and therefore is necessarily inconsistent with itself. The column of light is not the Milky Way—which is neither straight, nor like a rainbow—but the imaginary axis of the earth. This is compared to the rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to the undergirders of a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow to stern in which the undergirders meet.

  The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and they move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction: in the Republic as in the Timaeus (40 B) they are all moving round the axis of the world. But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the earth. No distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the same and other; although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion of the fixed stars is supposed to coincide with the motion of the whole. The relative thickness of the rims is perhaps designed to express the relative distances of the planets. Plato probably intended to represent the earth, from which Er and his companions are viewing the heavens, as stationary in place; but whether or not herself revolving, unless this is implied in the revolution of the axis, is uncertain (cp. Timaeus). The spectator may be supposed to look at the heavenly bodies, either from above or below. The earth is a sort of earth and heaven in one, like the heaven of the Phaedrus, on the back of which the spectator goes out to take a peep at the stars and is borne round in the revolution. There is no distinction between the equator and the ecliptic. But Plato is no doubt led to imagine that the planets have an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in order to account for their appearances in the heavens. In the description of the meadow, and the retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces of Homer.

  The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of the heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of the Fates. The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of them irreversible, which are ascribed to the three Fates—Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos, are obviously derived from their names. The element of chance in human life is indicated by the order of the lots. But chance, however adverse, may be overcome by the wisdom of man, if he knows how to choose aright; there is a worse enemy to man than chance; this enemy is himself. He who was moderately fortunate in the number of the lot—even the very last comer—might have a good life if he chose with wisdom. And as Plato does not like to make an assertion which is unproven, he more than confirms this statement a few sentences afterwards by the example of Odysseus, who chose last. But the virtue which is founded on habit is not sufficient to enable a man to choose; he must add to virtue knowledge, if he is to act rightly when placed in new circumstances. The routine of good actions and good habits is an inferior sort of goodness; and, as Coleridge says, ‘Common sense is intolerable which is not based on metaphysics,’ so Plato would have said, ‘Habit is worthless which is not based upon philosophy.’

  The freedom of the will to refuse the evil and to choose the good is distinctly asserted. ‘Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her.’ The life of man is ‘rounded’ by necessity; there are circumstances prior to birth which affect him (cp. Pol. 273 B). But within the walls of necessity there is an open space in which he is his own master, and can study for himself the effects which the variously compounded gifts of nature or fortune have upon the soul, and act accordingly. All men cannot have the first choice in everything. But the lot of all men is good enough, if they choose wisely and will live diligently.

  The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years, by the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before; the coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the meadow, and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of light; the precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the twentieth lot; the passing remarks that there was no definite character among the souls, and that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one rather than themselves; or that some of the souls drank more than was necessary of the waters of Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered from drinking; the desire of Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception of him in Dante and Tennyson; the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to the body, when the other souls went shooting like stars to their birth,—add greatly to the probability of the narrative. They are such touches of nature as the art of Defoe might have introduced when he wished to win credibility for marvels and apparitions.

  There still remain to be considered some points which have been intentionally reserved to the end: (I) the Janus-like character of the Republic, which presents two faces—one an Hellenic state, the other a kingdom of philosophers. Connected with the latter of the two aspects are (II) the paradoxes of the Republic, as they have been termed by Morgenstern: (α) the community of property; (β) of families; (γ) the rule of philosophers; (δ) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the Republic, is carried too far. We may then proceed to consider (III) the subject of education as conceived by Plato, bringing together in a general view the education of youth and the education of after-life; (IV) we may note further some essential differences between ancient and modern politics which are suggested by the Republic; (V) we may compare the Politicus and the Laws; (VI) we may observe the influence exercised by Plato on his imitators; and (VII) take occasion to consider the nature and value of political, and (VIII) of religious ideals.

  I. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State (Book v. 470 E). Many of his regulations are characteristically Spartan; such as the prohibition of gold and silver, the common meals of the men, the military training of the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The life of Sparta was the life of a camp (Laws ii. 666 E), enforced even more rigidly in time of peace than in war; the citizens of Sparta, like Plato’s, were forbidden to trade—they were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere else in Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State; the time when he was to marry, the education of his children, the clothes which he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law. Some of the best enactments in the Republic, such as the reverence to be paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of men with one another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also Spartan; in Sparta too a nearer approach was made than in any other Greek State to equality of the sexes, and to community of property; and while there was probably less of licentiousness in the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded more lightly than in the rest of Greece. The ‘suprema lex’ was the preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The coarse strength of a military government was not favourable to purity and refinement; and the excessive strictness of some regulations seems to have produced a reaction. Of all Hellenes the Spartans were most accessible to bribery; several of the greatest of them might be described in the words of Plato as having a ‘fierce secret longing after gold and silver.’ Though not in the strict sense communists, the principle of communism was maintained among them in their division of lands, in their common meals, in their slaves, and in the free use of one another’s goods. Marriage was a public institution: and the women were educated by the State, and sang and danced in public with the men.

  Many traditions were preserved at Sparta of the severity with which the magistrates had maintained the primitive rule of music and poetry; as in the Republic of Plato, the new-fangled poet was to be expelled. Hymns to the Gods, which are the only kind of music admitted into the ideal State, were the only kind which was permitted at Sparta. The Spartans, though an unpoetical race, were nevertheless lovers of poetry; they had been stirred by the Elegiac strains of Tyrtaeus, they had crowded around Hippias to hear his recitals of Homer; but in this they resembled the citizens of the timocratic rather than of the ideal State (548 E). The council of elder men also corresponds to the Spartan gerousia; and the freedom with which they are permitted to judge about matters of detail agrees with what we are told of that institution. Once more, the military rule of not spoiling the dead or offering arms at the temples; the moderation in the pursuit of enemies; the importance attached to the physical well-being of the citizens; the use of warfare for the sake of defence rather than of aggression—are features probably suggested by the spirit and practice of Sparta.

  To the Spartan type the ideal State reverts in the first decline; and the character of the individual timocrat is borrowed from the Spartan citizen. The love of Lacedaemon not only affected Plato and Xenophon, but was shared by many undistinguished Athenians; there they seemed to find a principle which was wanting in their own democracy. The εὐκοσμία of the Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the goodness of their laws, but the spirit of order and loyalty which prevailed. Fascinated by the idea, citizens of Athens would imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and manners; they were known to the contemporaries of Plato as ‘the persons who had their ears bruised,’ like the Roundheads of the Commonwealth. The love of another church or country when seen at a distance only, the longing for an imaginary simplicity in civilized times, the fond desire of a past which never has been, or of a future which never will be,—these are aspirations of the human mind which are often felt among ourselves. Such feelings meet with a response in the Republic of Plato.

  But there are other features of the Platonic Republic, as, for example, the literary and philosophical education, and the grace and beauty of life, which are the reverse of Spartan. Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of Athenian freedom as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline. His individual genius is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta; and he is something more than either—he has also a true Hellenic feeling. He is desirous of humanizing the wars of Hellenes against one another; he acknowledges that the Delphian God is the grand hereditary interpreter of all Hellas. The spirit of harmony and the Dorian mode are to prevail, and the whole State is to have an external beauty which is the reflex of the harmony within. But he has not yet found out the truth which he afterwards enunciated in the Laws (i. 628 D)—that he was a better legislator who made men to be of one mind, than he who trained them for war. The citizens, as in other Hellenic States, democratic as well as aristocratic, are really an upper class; for, although no mention is made of slaves, the lower classes are allowed to fade away into the distance, and are represented in the individual by the passions. Plato has no idea either of a social State in which all classes are harmonized, or of a federation of Hellas or the world in which different nations or States have a place. His city is equipped for war rather than for peace, and this would seem to be justified by the ordinary condition of Hellenic States. The myth of the earth-born men is an embodiment of the orthodox tradition of Hellas, and the allusion to the four ages of the world is also sanctioned by the authority of Hesiod and the poets. Thus we see that the Republic is partly founded on the ideal of the old Greek polis, partly on the actual circumstances of Hellas in that age. Plato, like the old painters, retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision of a city in the clouds.

  There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the texture of the work; for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, but a Pythagorean league. The ‘way of life’ which was connected with the name of Pythagoras, like the Catholic monastic orders, showed the power which the mind of an individual might exercise over his contemporaries, and may have naturally suggested to Plato the possibility of reviving such ‘mediaeval institutions.’ The Pythagoreans, like Plato, enforced a rule of life and a moral and intellectual training. The influence ascribed to music, which to us seems exaggerated, is also a Pythagorean feature; it is not to be regarded as representing the real influence of music in the Greek world. More nearly than any other government of Hellas, the Pythagorean league of three hundred was an aristocracy of virtue. For once in the history of mankind the philosophy of order or κόσμος, expressing and consequently enlisting on its side the combined endeavours of the better part of the people, obtained the management of public affairs and held possession of it for a considerable time (until about b. c. 500). Probably only in States prepared by Dorian institutions would such a league have been possible. The rulers, like Plato’s ϕύλακες, were required to submit to a severe training in order to prepare the way for the education of the other members of the community. Long after the dissolution of the Order, eminent Pythagoreans, such as Archytas of Tarentum, retained their political influence over the cities of Magna Græcia. There was much here that was suggestive to the kindred spirit of Plato, who had doubtless meditated deeply on the ‘way of life of Pythagoras’ (Rep. x. 600 B) and his followers. Slight traces of Pythagoreanism are to be found in the mystical number of the State, in the number which expresses the interval between the king and the tyrant, in the doctrine of transmigration, in the music of the spheres, as well as in the great though secondary importance ascribed to mathematics in education.

  But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom of Christ. Nothing actually existing in the world at all resembles Plato’s ideal State; nor does he himself imagine that such a State is possible. This he repeats again and again; e. g. in the Republic (ix. sub fin.), or in the Laws (Book v. 739), where, casting a glance back on the Republic, he admits that the perfect state of communism and philosophy was impossible in his own age, though still to be retained as a pattern. The same doubt is implied in the earnestness with which he argues in the Republic (v. 472 D) that ideals are none the worse because they cannot be realized in fact, and in the chorus of laughter, which like a breaking wave will, as he anticipates, greet the mention of his proposals; though like other writers of fiction, he uses all his art to give reality to his inventions. When asked how the ideal polity can come into being, he answers ironically, ‘When one son of a king becomes a philosopher’; he designates the fiction of the earth-born men as ‘a noble lie’; and when the structure is finally complete, he fairly tells you that his Republic is a vision only, which in some sense may have reality, but not in the vulgar one of a reign of philosophers upon earth. It has been said that Plato flies as well as walks, but this falls short of the truth; for he flies and walks at the same time, and is in the air and on firm ground in successive instants.

  Niebuhr has asked a trifling question, which may be briefly noticed in this place—Was Plato a good citizen? If by this is meant, Was he loyal to Athenian institutions?—he can hardly be said to be the friend of democracy: but neither is he the friend of any other existing form of government; all of them he regarded as ‘states of faction’ (Laws viii. 832 C); none attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects, which seems indeed more nearly to describe democracy than any other; and the worst of them is tyranny. The truth is, that the question has hardly any meaning when applied to a great philosopher whose writings are not meant for a particular age and country, but for all time and all mankind. The decline of Athenian politics was probably the motive which led Plato to frame an ideal State, and the Republic may be regarded as reflecting the departing glory of Hellas. As well might we complain of St. Augustine, whose great work ‘The City of God’ originated in a similar motive, for not being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel might be afforded by the first Christians, who cannot fairly be charged with being bad citizens because, though ‘subject to the higher powers,’ they were looking forward to a city which is in heaven.

  II. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of according to the ordinary notions of mankind. The paradoxes of one age have been said to become the commonplaces of the next; but the paradoxes of Plato are at least as paradoxical to us as they were to his contemporaries. The modern world has either sneered at them as absurd, or denounced them as unnatural and immoral; men have been pleased to find in Aristotle’s criticisms of them the anticipation of their own good sense. The wealthy and cultivated classes have disliked and also dreaded them; they have pointed with satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in practice. Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of human intelligences, and of one who has done most to elevate morality and religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment at our hands. We may have to address the public, as Plato does poetry, and assure them that we mean no harm to existing institutions. There are serious errors which have a side of truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful consideration: there are truths mixed with error of which we may indeed say, ‘The half is better than the whole.’ Yet ‘the half’ may be an important contribution to the study of human nature.

  (α) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is mentioned slightly at the end of the third Book, and seemingly, as Aristotle observes, is confined to the guardians; at least no mention is made of the other classes. But the omission is not of any real significance, and probably arises out of the plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering into details.

  Aristotle censures the community of property much in the spirit of modern political economy, as tending to repress industry, and as doing away with the spirit of benevolence. Modern writers almost refuse to consider the subject, which is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common opinion of mankind. But it must be remembered that the sacredness of property is a notion far more fixed in modern than in ancient times. The world has grown older, and is therefore more conservative. Primitive society offered many examples of land held in common, either by a tribe or by a township, and such may probably have been the original form of landed tenure. Ancient legislators had invented various modes of dividing and preserving the divisions of land among the citizens; according to Aristotle there were nations who held the land in common and divided the produce, and there were others who divided the land and stored the produce in common. The evils of debt and the inequality of property were far greater in ancient than in modern times, and the accidents to which property was subject from war, or revolution, or taxation, or other legislative interference, were also greater. All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred character. The early Christians are believed to have held their property in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost all ages of the Church. Nor have there been wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism; in every age of religious excitement notions like Wycliffe’s ‘inheritance of grace’ have tended to prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has appeared in politics. ‘The preparation of the Gospel of peace’ soon becomes the red flag of Republicanism.

  We can hardly judge what effect Plato’s views would have upon his own contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only an exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers would acknowledge that the right of private property is based on expediency, and may be interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any other mode of vesting property which was found to be more advantageous, would in time acquire the same basis of right; ‘the most useful,’ in Plato’s words, ‘would be the most sacred.’ The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages would have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they only meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount of resistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of the Church.

  When we consider the question, without any fear of immediate application to practice, in the spirit of Plato’s Republic, are we quite sure that the received notions of property are the best? Is the distribution of wealth which is customary in civilized countries the most favourable that can be conceived for the education and development of the mass of mankind? Can ‘the spectator of all time and all existence’ be quite convinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will not have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the very notion of property, beyond what is necessary for personal maintenance, may not have disappeared? This was a distinction familiar to Aristotle, though likely to be laughed at among ourselves. Such a change would not be greater than some other changes through which the world has passed in the transition from ancient to modern society, for example, the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, or the abolition of slavery in America and the West Indies; and not so great as the difference which separates the Eastern village community from the Western world. To accomplish such a revolution in the course of a few centuries, would imply a rate of progress not more rapid than has actually taken place during the last fifty or sixty years. The kingdom of Japan underwent more change in five or six years than Europe in five or six hundred. Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among ourselves quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have passed away; and the most untenable propositions respecting the right of bequests or entail have been maintained with as much fervour as the most moderate. Some one will be heard to ask whether a state of society can be final in which the interests of thousands are perilled on the life or character of a single person. And many will indulge the hope that our present condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a higher, in which property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the few, may also furnish the means of the highest culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the public generally, and also more under the control of public authority. There may come a time when the saying, ‘Have I not a right to do what I will with my own?’ will appear to be a barbarous relic of individualism;—when the possession of a part may be a greater blessing to cach and all than the possession of the whole is now to any one.

  Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman, but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of some individual, the notion of common property may or might have sunk as deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institution is not more than four or five thousand years old: may not the end revert to the beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on practical politics.

  The objections that would be generally urged against Plato’s community of property, are the old ones of Aristotle, that motives for exertion would be taken away, and that disputes would arise when each was dependent upon all. Every man would produce as little and consume as much as he liked. The experience of civilized nations has hitherto been adverse to Socialism. The effort is too great for human nature; men try to live in common, but the personal feeling is always breaking in. On the other hand it may be doubted whether our present notions of property are not conventional, for they differ in different countries and in different states of society. We boast of an individualism which is not freedom, but rather an artificial result of the industrial state of modern Europe. The individual is nominally free, but he is also powerless in a world bound hand and foot in the chains of economic necessity. Even if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become disinterested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization which fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The same forces which have revolutionized the political system of Europe, may effect a similar change in the social and industrial relations of mankind. And if we suppose the influence of some good as well as neutral motives working in the community, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the mass of mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the higher possibilities of human life, when they learn how much more is attainable for all than is at present the possession of a favoured few, may pursue the common interest with an intelligence and persistency which mankind have hitherto never seen.

  Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no longer held fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance; now that criticism has pierced the veil of tradition and the past no longer overpowers the present,—the progress of civilization may be expected to be far greater and swifter than heretofore. Even at our present rate of speed the point at which we may arrive in two or three generations is beyond the power of imagination to foresee. There are forces in the world which work, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio of increase. Education, to use the expression of Plato, moves like a wheel with an evermultiplying rapidity. Nor can we say how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal,—when it has been inherited by many generations,—when it is freed from the trammels of superstition and rightly adapted to the wants and capacities of different classes of men and women. Neither do we know how much more the co-operation of minds or of hands may be capable of accomplishing, whether in labour or in study. The resources of the natural sciences are not half-developed as yet; the soil of the earth, instead of growing more barren, may become many times more fertile than hitherto; the uses of machinery far greater, and also more minute than at present. New secrets of physiology may be revealed, deeply affecting human nature in its innermost recesses. The standard of health may be raised and the lives of men prolonged by sanitary and medical knowledge. There may be peace, there may be leisure, there may be innocent refreshments of many kinds. The ever-increasing power of locomotion may join the extremes of earth. There may be mysterious workings of the human mind, such as occur only at great crises of history. The East and the West may meet together, and all nations may contribute their thoughts and their experience to the common stock of humanity. Many other elements enter into a speculation of this kind. But it is better to make an end of them. For such reflections appear to the majority far-fetched, and to men of science, commonplace.

  (β) Neither to the mind of Plato nor of Aristotle did the doctrine of community of property present at all the same difficulty, or appear to be the same violation of the common Hellenic sentiment, as the community of wives and children. This paradox he prefaces by another proposal, that the occupations of men and women shall be the same, and that to this end they shall have a common training and education. Male and female animals have the same pursuits—why not also the two sexes of man?

  But have we not here fallen into a contradiction? for we were saying that different natures should have different pursuits. How then can men and women have the same? And is not the proposal inconsistent with our notion of the division of labour?—These objections are no sooner raised than answered; for, according to Plato, there is no organic difference between men and women, but only the accidental one that men beget and women bear children. Following the analogy of the other animals, he contends that all natural gifts are scattered about indifferently among both sexes, though there may be a superiority of degree on the part of the men. The objection on the score of decency to their taking part in the same gymnastic exercises, is met by Plato’s assertion that the existing feeling is a matter of habit.

  That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his own country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful independence of mind. He is conscious that women are half the human race, in some respects the more important half (Laws vi. 781 B); and for the sake both of men and women he desires to raise the woman to a higher level of existence. He brings, not sentiment, but philosophy to bear upon a question which both in ancient and modern times has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom or feeling. The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the goddesses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual life. The Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her husband; she was not the entertainer of his guests or the mistress of his house, but only his housekeeper and the mother of his children. She took no part in military or political matters; nor is there any instance in the later ages of Greece of a woman becoming famous in literature. ‘Hers is the greatest glory who has the least renown among men,’ is the historian’s conception of feminine excellence. A very different ideal of womanhood is held up by Plato to the world; she is to be the companion of the man, and to share with him in the toils of war and in the cares of government. She is to be similarly trained both in bodily and mental exercises. She is to lose as far as possible the incidents of maternity and the characteristics of the female sex.

  The modern antagonist of the equality of the sexes would argue that the differences between men and women are not confined to the single point urged by Plato; that sensibility, gentleness, grace, are the qualities of women, while energy, strength, higher intelligence, are to be looked for in men. And the criticism is just: the differences affect the whole nature, and are not, as Plato supposes, confined to a single point. But neither can we say how far these differences are due to education and the opinions of mankind, or physically inherited from the habits and opinions of former generations. Women have been always taught, not exactly that they are slaves, but that they are in an inferior position, which is also supposed to have compensating advantages; and to this position they have conformed. It is also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of generations through the mode of life; and the weakness or delicacy, which was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of society, and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes of man other than that which exists in animals, because all other differences may be conceived to disappear in other states of society, or under different circumstances of life and training.

  The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the second—community of wives and children. ‘Is it possible? Is it desirable?’ For, as Glaucon intimates, and as we far more strongly insist, ‘Great doubts may be entertained about both these points.’ Any free discussion of the question is impossible, and mankind are perhaps right in not allowing the ultimate bases of social life to be examined. Few of us can safely enquire into the things which nature hides, any more than we can dissect our own bodies. Still, the manner in which Plato arrived at his conclusions should be considered. For here, as Mr. Grote has remarked, is a wonderful thing, that one of the wisest and best of men should have entertained ideas of morality which are wholly at variance with our own. And if we would do Plato justice, we must examine carefully the character of his proposals. First, we may observe that the relations of the sexes supposed by him are the reverse of licentious: he seems rather to aim at an impossible strictness. Secondly, he conceives the family to be the natural enemy of the state; and he entertains the serious hope that an universal brotherhood may take the place of private interests—an aspiration which, although not justified by experience, has possessed many noble minds. On the other hand, there is no sentiment or imagination in the connections which men and women are supposed by him to form; human beings return to the level of the animals, neither exalting to heaven, nor yet abusing the natural instincts. All that world of poetry and fancy which the passion of love has called forth in modern literature and romance would have been banished by Plato. The arrangements of marriage in the Republic are directed to one object—the improvement of the race. In successive generations a great development both of bodily and mental qualities might be possible. The analogy of animals tends to show that mankind can within certain limits receive a change of nature. And as in animals we should commonly choose the best for breeding, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made of the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved.

  We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the belief, first, that the higher feelings of humanity are far too strong to be crushed out; secondly, that if the plan could be carried into execution we should be poorly recompensed by improvements in the breed for the loss of the best things in life. The greatest regard for the weakest and meanest of human beings—the infant, the criminal, the insane, the idiot, truly seems to us one of the noblest results of Christianity. We have learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has an endless value in the sight of God, and that we honour Him when we honour the darkened and disfigured image of Him (cp. Laws xi. 931 A). This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable when He said, ‘Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.’ Such lessons are only partially realized in any age; they were foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength in different countries or ages of the Christian world. To the Greek the family was a religious and customary institution binding the members together by a tie inferior in strength to that of friendship, and having a less solemn and sacred sound than that of country. The relationship which existed on the lower level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to the higher level of nature and reason; while from the modern and Christian point of view we regard him as sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles of morality.

  The great error in these and similar speculations is that the difference between man and the animals is forgotten in them. The human being is regarded with the eye of a dog- or bird-fancier (v. 459 A), or at best of a slave-owner; the higher or human qualities are left out. The breeder of animals aims chiefly at size or speed or strength; in a few cases at courage or temper; most often the fitness of the animal for food is the great desideratum. But mankind are not bred to be eaten, nor yet for their superiority in fighting or in running or in drawing carts. Neither does the improvement of the human race consist merely in the increase of the bones and flesh, but in the growth and enlightenment of the mind. Hence there must be ‘a marriage of true minds’ as well as of bodies, of imagination and reason as well as of lusts and instincts. Men and women without feeling or imagination are justly called brutes; yet Plato takes away these qualities and puts nothing in their place, not even the desire of a noble offspring, since parents are not to know their own children. The most important transaction of social life, he who is the idealist philosopher converts into the most brutal. For the pair are to have no relation to one another, except at the hymeneal festival; their children are not theirs, but the state’s; nor is any tie of affection to unite them. Yet here the analogy of the animals might have saved Plato from a gigantic error, if he had ‘not lost sight of his own illustration’ (ii. 375 D). For the ‘nobler sort of birds and beasts’ (v. 459 A) nourish and protect their offspring and are faithful to one another.

  An eminent physiologist thinks it worth while ‘to try and place life on a physical basis.’ But should not life rest on the moral rather than upon the physical? The higher comes first, then the lower; first the human and rational, afterwards the animal. Yet they are not absolutely divided; and in times of sickness or moments of self-indulgence they seem to be only different aspects of a common human nature which includes them both. Neither is the moral the limit of the physical, but the expansion and enlargement of it,—the highest form which the physical is capable of receiving. As Plato would say, the body does not take care of the body, and still less of the mind, but the mind takes care of both. In all human action not that which is common to man and the animals is the characteristic element, but that which distinguishes him from them. Even if we admit the physical basis, and resolve all virtue into health of body—‘la façon que notre sang circule,’ still on merely physical grounds we must come back to ideas. Mind and reason and duty and conscience, under these or other names, are always reappearing. There cannot be health of body without health of mind; nor health of mind without the sense of duty and the love of truth (cp. Charm. 156 D, E).

  That the greatest of ancient philosophers should in his regulations about marriage have fallen into the error of separating body and mind, does indeed appear surprising. Yet the wonder is not so much that Plato should have entertained ideas of morality which to our own age are revolting, but that he should have contradicted himself to an extent which is hardly credible, falling in an instant from the heaven of idealism into the crudest animalism. Rejoicing in the newly found gift of reflection, he appears to have thought out a subject about which he had better have followed the enlightened feeling of his own age. The general sentiment of Hellas was opposed to his monstrous fancy. The old poets, and in later time the tragedians, showed no want of respect for the family, on which much of their religion was based. But the example of Sparta, and perhaps in some degree the tendency to defy public opinion, seems to have misled him. He will make one family out of all the families of the state. He will select the finest specimens of men and women and breed from these only.

  Yet because the illusion is always returning (for the animal part of human nature will from time to time assert itself in the disguise of philosophy as well as of poetry), and also because any departure from established morality, even where this is not intended, is apt to be unsettling, it may be worth while to draw out a little more at length the objections to the Platonic marriage. In the first place, history shows that wherever polygamy has been largely allowed the race has deteriorated. One man to one woman is the law of God and nature. Nearly all the civilized peoples of the world at some period before the age of written records, have become monogamists; and the step when once taken has never been retraced. The exceptions occurring among Brahmins or Mahometans or the ancient Persians, are of that sort which may be said to prove the rule. The connexions formed between superior and inferior races hardly ever produce a noble offspring, because they are licentious; and because the children in such cases usually despise the mother and are neglected by the father who is ashamed of them. Barbarous nations when they are introduced by Europeans to vice die out; polygamist peoples either import and adopt children from other countries, or dwindle in numbers, or both. Dynasties and aristocracies which have disregarded the laws of nature have decreased in numbers and degenerated in stature; ‘mariages de convenance’ leave their enfeebling stamp on the offspring of them (cp. King Lear, Act i. Sc. 2). The marriage of near relations, or the marrying in and in of the same family tends constantly to weakness or idiocy in the children, sometimes assuming the form as they grow older of passionate licentiousness. The common prostitute rarely has any offspring. By such unmistakable evidence is the authority of morality asscrted in the relations of the sexes: and so many more elements enter into this ‘mystery’ than are dreamed of by Plato and some other philosophers.

  Recent enquirers have indeed arrived at the conclusion that among primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as of property, and that the captive taken by the spear was the only wife or slave whom any man was permitted to call his own. The partial existence of such customs among some of the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man two thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 years, when the majority of mankind were lower and nearer the animals than any tribe now existing upon the earth, we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (Laws iii. 676 foll.) and Aristotle (Metaph. xi. 8, §§ 19, 20) may have been more right than we imagine in supposing that some forms of civilization were discovered and lost several times over. If we cannot argue that all barbarism is a degraded civilization, neither can we set any limits to the depth of degradation to which the human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,—the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us.

  Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to show that an institution which was thought to be a revelation from heaven, is only the growth of history and experience. We ask what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We stand face to face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. We are compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest account of the origin of human society. But on the other hand we may truly say that every step in human progress has been in the same direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of marriage and of the family has been more and more defined and consecrated. The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage tribes; the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East; the Christian nations have been stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of the ancients. In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back with regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the future. We must consecrate that which we believe to be the most holy, and that ‘which is the most holy will be the most useful.’ There is more reason for maintaining the sacredness of the marriage tie, when we see the benefit of it, than when we only felt a vague religious horror about the violation of it. But in all times of transition, when established beliefs are being undermined, there is a danger that in the passage from the old to the new we may insensibly let go the moral principle, finding an excuse for listening to the voice of passion in the uncertainty of knowledge, or the fluctuations of opinion. And there are many persons in our own day who, enlightened by the study of anthropology, and fascinated by what is new and strange, some using the language of fear, others of hope, are inclined to believe that a time will come when through the self-assertion of women, or the rebellious spirit of children, by the analysis of human relations, or by the force of outward circumstances, the ties of family life may be broken or greatly relaxed. They point to societies in America and elsewhere which tend to show that the destruction of the family need not necessarily involve the overthrow of all morality. Whatever we may think of such speculations, we can hardly deny that they have been more rife in this generation than in any other; and whither they are tending, who can predict?

  To the doubts and queries raised by these ‘social reformers’ respecting the relation of the sexes and the moral nature of man, there is a sufficient answer, if any is needed. The difference between them and us is really one of fact. They are speaking of man as they wish or fancy him to be, but we are speaking of him as he is. They isolate the animal part of his nature; we regard him as a creature having many sides, or aspects, moving between good and evil, striving to rise above himself and to become ‘a little lower than the angels.’ We also, to use a Platonic formula, are not ignorant of the dissatisfactions and incompatibilities of family life, of the meannesses of trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of the impediments which the family throws in the way of lofty aims and aspirations. But we are conscious that there are evils and dangers in the background greater still, which are not appreciated, because they are either concealed or suppressed. What a condition of man would that be, in which human passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there was no shame or decency, no higher affection overcoming or sanctifying the natural instincts, but simply a rule of health! Is it for this that we are asked to throw away the civilization which is the growth of ages?

  For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired; there are the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. We know how human nature may be degraded; we do not know how by artificial means any improvement in the breed can be effected. The problem is a complex one, for if we go back only four steps (and these at least enter into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the same family—

  ‘Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat’;

  but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish children both from their parents and from one another. We are told of similar mental peculiarities running in families, and again of a tendency, as in the animals, to revert to a common or original stock. But we have a difficulty in distinguishing what is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and what is mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great men and great women have rarely had great fathers and mothers. Nothing that we know of in the circumstances of their birth or lineage will explain their appearance. Of the English poets of the last and two preceding centuries scarcely a descendant remains,—none have ever been distinguished. So deeply has nature hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the fancy which has been entertained by some that we might in time by suitable marriage arrangements or, as Plato would have said, ‘by an ingenious system of lots,’ produce a Shakespeare or a Milton. Even supposing that we could breed men having the tenacity of bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, ‘lacking the wit to run away in battle,’ would the world be any the better? Many of the noblest specimens of the human race have been among the weakest physically. Tyrtaeus or Aesop, or our own Newton, would have been exposed at Sparta; and some of the fairest and strongest men and women have been among the wickedest and worst. Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman 310 A), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized.

  Few persons would deny that we bring into the world an inheritance of mental and physical qualities derived first from our parents, or through them from some remoter ancestor, secondly from our race, thirdly from the general condition of mankind into which we are born. Nothing is commoner than the remark, that ‘So and so is like his father or his uncle’; and an aged person may not unfrequently note a resemblance in a youth to a long-forgotten ancestor, observing that ‘Nature sometimes skips a generation.’ It may be true also, that if we knew more about our ancestors, these similarities would be even more striking to us. Admitting the facts which are thus described in a popular way, we may however remark that there is no method of difference by which they can be defined or estimated, and that they constitute only a small part of each individual. The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have received from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a family may be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a future generation. The parent will be most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is most sensible within himself. The whole of life may be directed to their prevention or cure. The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be wholly effaced: the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be eradicated. And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a blessing. We acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there are previous circumstances which affect us. But upon this platform of circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have still the power of creating a life for ourselves by the informing energy of the human will.

  There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by ‘strong nurses one or more’ (Laws vii. 789 E). If Plato’s ‘pen’ was as fatal as the Crèches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves. So emphatically does nature protest against the destruction of the family.

  What Plato had heard or seen of Sparta was applied by him in a mistaken way to his ideal commonwealth. He probably observed that both the Spartan men and women were superior in form and strength to the other Greeks; and this superiority he was disposed to attribute to the laws and customs relating to marriage. He did not consider that the desire of a noble offspring was a passion among the Spartans, or that their physical superiority was to be attributed chiefly, not to their marriage customs, but to their temperance and training. He did not reflect that Sparta was great, not in consequence of the relaxation of morality, but in spite of it, by virtue of a political principle stronger far than existed in any other Grecian state. Least of all did he observe that Sparta did not really produce the finest specimens of the Greek race. The genius, the political inspiration of Athens, the love of liberty—all that has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting among the Spartans. They had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato. The individual was not allowed to appear above the state; the laws were fixed, and he had no business to alter or reform them. Yet whence has the progress of cities and nations arisen, if not from remarkable individuals, coming into the world we know not how, and from causes over which we have no control? Something too much may have been said in modern times of the value of individuality. But we can hardly condemn too strongly a system which, instead of fostering the scattered seeds or sparks of genius and character, tends to smother and extinguish them.

  Still, while condemning Plato, we must acknowledge that neither Christianity, nor any other form of religion and society, has hitherto been able to cope with this most difficult of social problems, and that the side from which Plato regarded it is that from which we turn away. Population is the most untameable force in the political and social world. Do we not find, especially in large cities, that the greatest hindrance to the amelioration of the poor is their improvidence in marriage?—a small fault truly, if not involving endless consequences. There are whole countries too, such as India, or, nearer home, Ireland, in which a right solution of the marriage question seems to lie at the foundation of the happiness of the community. There are too many people on a given space, or they marry too early and bring into the world a sickly and half-developed offspring; or owing to the very conditions of their existence, they become emaciated and hand on a similar life to their descendants. But who can oppose the voice of prudence to the ‘mightiest passions of mankind’ (Laws viii. 835 C), especially when they have been licensed by custom and religion? In addition to the influences of education, we seem to require some new principles of right and wrong in these matters, some force of opinion, which may indeed be already heard whispering in private, but has never affected the moral sentiments of mankind in general. We unavoidably lose sight of the principle of utility, just in that action of our lives in which we have the most need of it. The influences which we can bring to bear upon this question are chiefly indirect. In a generation or two, education, emigration, improvements in agriculture and manufactures, may have provided the solution. The state physician hardly likes to probe the wound: it is beyond his art; a matter which he cannot safely let alone, but which he dare not touch:

  ‘We do but skin and film the ulcerous place.’

  When again in private life we see a whole family one by one dropping into the grave under the Ate of some inherited malady, and the parents perhaps surviving them, do our minds ever go back silently to that day twenty-five or thirty years before on which under the fairest auspices, amid the rejoicings of friends and acquaintances, a bride and bridegroom joined hands with one another? In making such a reflection we are not opposing physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical; we are seeking to make the voice of reason heard, which drives us back from the extravagance of sentimentalism on common sense. The late Dr. Combe is said by his biographer to have resisted the temptation to marriage, because he knew that he was subject to hereditary consumption. One who deserved to be called a man of genius, a friend of my youth, was in the habit of wearing a black ribbon on his wrist, in order to remind him that, being liable to outbreaks of insanity, he must not give way to the natural impulses of affection: he died unmarried in a lunatic asylum. These two little facts suggest the reflection that a very few persons have done from a sense of duty what the rest of mankind ought to have done under like circumstances, if they had allowed themselves to think of all the misery which they were about to bring into the world. If we could prevent such marriages without any violation of feeling or propriety, we clearly ought; and the prohibition in the course of time would be protected by a ‘horror naturalis’ similar to that which, in all civilized ages and countries, has prevented the marriage of near relations by blood. Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a superstitious awe. But, living as we do far on in the world’s history, we are no longer able to stamp at once with the impress of religion a new prohibition. A free agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law; and the execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to the uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be forbidden. Who can weigh virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental qualities against bodily? Who can measure probabilities against certainties? There has been some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering; and there are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised a refining and softening influence on the character. Youth is too inexperienced to balance such nice considerations; parents do not often think of them, or think of them too late. They are at a distance and may probably be averted; change of place, a new state of life, the interests of a home may be the cure of them. So persons vainly reason when their minds are already made up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of individual attachment.

  Lastly, no one can have observed the first rising flood of the passions in youth, the difficulty of regulating them, and the effects on the whole mind and nature which follow from them, the stimulus which is given to them by the imagination, without feeling that there is something unsatisfactory in our method of treating them. That the most important influence on human life should be wholly left to chance or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform only to an external standard of propriety—cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory condition of human things. And still those who have the charge of youth may find a way by watchfulness, by affection, by the manliness and innocence of their own lives, by occasional hints, by general admonitions which every one can apply for himself, to mitigate this terrible evil which eats out the heart of individuals and corrupts the moral sentiments of nations. In no duty towards others is there more need of reticence and self-restraint. So great is the danger lest he who would be the counsellor of another should reveal the secret prematurely, lest he should get another too much into his power, or fix the passing impression of evil by demanding the confession of it.

  Nor is Plato wrong in asserting that family attachments may interfere with higher aims. If there have been some who ‘to party gave up what was meant for mankind,’ there have certainly been others who to family gave up what was meant for mankind or for their country. The cares of children, the necessity of procuring money for their support, the flatteries of the rich by the poor, the exclusiveness of caste, the pride of birth or wealth, the tendency of family life to divert men from the pursuit of the ideal or the heroic, are as lowering in our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer to look at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affections, the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of a family for the good of the others, which form one side of the picture, we must not quarrel with him, or perhaps ought rather to be grateful to him, for having presented to us the reverse. Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of morality, we may allow that there is an aspect of the world which has not unnaturally led him into error.

  We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, like all other abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. To us the State seems to be built up out of the family, or sometimes to be the framework in which family and social life is contained. But to Plato in his present mood of mind the family is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is needed except a political, which, regarded from another point of view, is a military one. The State is all-sufficing for the wants of man, and, like the idea of the Church in later ages, absorbs all other desires and affections. In time of war the thousand citizens are to stand like a rampart impregnable against the world or the Persian host; in time of peace the preparation for war and their duties to the State, which are also their duties to one another, take up their whole life and time. The only other interest which is allowed to them besides that of war, is the interest of philosophy. When they are too old to be soldiers they are to retire from active life and to have a second novitiate of study and contemplation. There is an element of monasticism even in Plato’s communism. If he could have done without children, he might have converted his Republic into a religious order. Neither in the Laws (v. 739 B), when the daylight of common sense breaks in upon him, does he retract his error. In the state of which he would be the founder, there is no marrying or giving in marriage: but because of the infirmity of mankind, he condescends to allow the law of nature to prevail.

  (γ) But Plato has an equal, or, in his own estimation, even greater paradox in reserve, which is summed up in the famous text, ‘Until kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill.’ And by philosophers he explains himself to mean those who are capable of apprehending ideas, especially the idea of good. To the attainment of this higher knowledge the second education is directed. Through a process of training which has already made them good citizens they are now to be made good legislators. We find with some surprise (not unlike the feeling which Aristotle in a well-known passage describes the hearers of Plato’s lectures as experiencing, when they went to a discourse on the idea of good, expecting to be instructed in moral truths, and received instead of them arithmetical and mathematical formulae) that Plato does not propose for his future legislators any study of finance or law or military tactics, but only of abstract mathematics, as a preparation for the still more abstract conception of good. We ask, with Aristotle, What is the use of a man knowing the idea of good, if he does not know what is good for this individual, this state, this condition of society? We cannot understand how Plato’s legislators or guardians are to be fitted for their work of statesmen by the study of the five mathematical sciences. We vainly search in Plato’s own writings for any explanation of this seeming absurdity.

  The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to ravish the mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes away the power of estimating its value. No metaphysical enquirer has ever fairly criticised his own speculations; in his own judgment they have been above criticism; nor has he understood that what to him seemed to be absolute truth may reappear in the next generation as a form of logic or an instrument of thought. And posterity have also sometimes equally misapprehended the real value of his speculations. They appear to them to have contributed nothing to the stock of human knowledge. The idea of good is apt to be regarded by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction; but he forgets that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and will hereafter be filled up by the divisions of knowledge. When mankind do not as yet know that the world is subject to law, the introduction of the mere conception of law or design or final cause, and the far-off anticipation of the harmony of knowledge, are great steps onward. Even the crude generalization of the unity of all things leads men to view the world with different eyes, and may easily affect their conception of human life and of politics, and also their own conduct and character (Tim. 90 A). We can imagine how a great mind like that of Pericles might derive elevation from his intercourse with Anaxagoras (Phaedr. 270 A). To be struggling towards a higher but unattainable conception is a more favourable intellectual condition than to rest satisfied in a narrow portion of ascertained fact. And the earlier, which have sometimes been the greater ideas of science, are often lost sight of at a later period. How rarely can we say of any modern enquirer in the magnificent language of Plato, that ‘He is the spectator of all time and of all existence!’

  Nor is there anything unnatural in the hasty application of these vast metaphysical conceptions to practical and political life. In the first enthusiasm of ideas men are apt to see them everywhere, and to apply them in the most remote sphere. They do not understand that the experience of ages is required to enable them to fill up ‘the intermediate axioms.’ Plato himself seems to have imagined that the truths of psychology, like those of astronomy and harmonics, would be arrived at by a process of deduction, and that the method which he has pursued in the Fourth Book, of inferring them from experience and the use of language, was imperfect and only provisional. But when, after having arrived at the idea of good, which is the end of the science of dialectic, he is asked, What is the nature, and what are the divisions of the science? he refuses to answer, as if intending by the refusal to intimate that the state of knowledge which then existed was not such as would allow the philosopher to enter into his final rest. The previous sciences must first be studied, and will, we may add, continue to be studied till the end of time, although in a sense different from any which Plato could have conceived. But we may observe, that while he is aware of the vacancy of his own ideal, he is full of enthusiasm in the contemplation of it. Looking into the orb of light, he sees nothing, but he is warmed and elevated. The Hebrew prophet believed that faith in God would enable him to govern the world; the Greek philosopher imagined that contemplation of the good would make a legislator. There is as much to be filled up in the one case as in the other, and the one mode of conception is to the Israelite what the other is to the Greek. Both find a repose in a divine perfection, which, whether in a more personal or impersonal form, exists without them and independently of them, as well as within them.

  There is no mention of the idea of good in the Timaeus, nor of the divine Creator of the world in the Republic; and we are naturally led to ask in what relation they stand to one another. Is God above or below the idea of good? Or is the Idea of Good another mode of conceiving God? The latter appears to be the truer answer. To the Greek philosopher the perfection and unity of God was a far higher conception than his personality, which he hardly found a word to express, and which to him would have seemed to be borrowed from mythology. To the Christian, on the other hand, or to the modern thinker in general, it is difficult, if not impossible, to attach reality to what he terms mere abstraction; while to Plato this very abstraction is the truest and most real of all things. Hence, from a difference in forms of thought, Plato appears to be resting on a creation of his own mind only. But if we may be allowed to paraphrase the idea of good by the words ‘intelligent principle of law and order in the universe, embracing equally man and nature,’ we begin to find a meeting-point between him and ourselves.

  The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a philosopher is one that has not lost interest in modern times. In most countries of Europe and Asia there has been some one in the course of ages who has truly united the power of command with the power of thought and reflection, as there have been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some kind of speculative power is necessary both in practical and political life; like the rhetorician in the Phaedrus, men require to have a conception of the varieties of human character, and to be raised on great occasions above the commonplaces of ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopher-statesman has never been popular with the mass of mankind; partly because he cannot take the world into his confidence or make them understand the motives from which he acts; and also because they are jealous of a power which they do not understand. The revolution which human nature desires to effect step by step in many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims he may disregard the common feelings of humanity. He is too apt to be looking into the distant future or back into the remote past, and unable to see actions or events which, to use an expression of Plato’s, ‘are tumbling out at his feet.’ Besides, as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these philosophical statesmen. Either ‘the native hue of resolution is sicklled o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ and at the moment when action above all things is required he is undecided, or general principles are enunciated by him in order to cover some change of policy; or his ignorance of the world has made him more easily fall a prey to the arts of others; or in some cases he has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys the luxury of holding liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a liberal action. No wonder that mankind have been in the habit of calling statesmen of this class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, visionaries. For, as we may be allowed to say, a little parodying the words of Plato, ‘they have seen bad imitations of the philosopher-statesman.’ But a man in whom the power of thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, reaching forward to the future, ‘such a one,’ ruling in a constitutional state, ‘they have never seen.’

  But as the philosopher is apt to fail in the routine of political life, so the ordinary statesman is also apt to fail in extraordinary crises. When the face of the world is beginning to alter, and thunder is heard in the distance, he is still guided by his old maxims, and is the slave of his inveterate party prejudices; he cannot perceive the signs of the times; instead of looking forward he looks back; he learns nothing and forgets nothing; with ‘wise saws and modern instances’ he would stem the rising tide of revolution. He lives more and more within the circle of his own party, as the world without him becomes stronger. This seems to be the reason why the old order of things makes so poor a figure when confronted with the new, why churches can never reform, why most political changes are made blindly and convulsively. The great crises in the history of nations have often been met by an ecclesiastical positiveness, and a more obstinate reassertion of principles which have lost their hold upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a reactionary statesman may be compared to madness; they grow upon him, and he becomes possessed by them; no judgement of others is ever admitted by him to be weighed in the balance against his own.

  (δ) Plato, labouring under what, to modern readers, appears to have been a confusion of ideas, assimilates the state to the individual, and fails to distinguish Ethics from Politics. He thinks that to be most of a state which is most like one man, and in which the citizens have the greatest uniformity of character. He does not see that the analogy is partly fallacious, and that the will or character of a state or nation is really the balance or rather the surplus of individual wills, which are limited by the condition of having to act in common. The movement of a body of men can never have the pliancy or facility of a single man; the freedom of the individual, which is always limited, becomes still more straitened when transferred to a nation. The powers of action and feeling are necessarily weaker and more balanced when they are diffused through a community; whence arises the often discussed question, ‘Can a nation, like an individual, have a conscience?’ We hesitate to say that the characters of nations are nothing more than the sum of the characters of the individuals who compose them; because there may be tendencies in individuals which react upon one another. A whole nation may be wiser than any one man in it; or may be animated by some common opinion or feeling which could not equally have affected the mind of a single person, or may have been inspired by a leader of genius to perform acts more than human. Plato does not appear to have analysed the complications which arise out of the collective action of mankind. Neither is he capable of seeing that analogies, though specious as arguments, may often have no foundation in fact, or of distinguishing between what is intelligible or vividly present to the mind, and what is true. In this respect he is far below Aristotle, who is comparatively seldom imposed upon by false analogies. He cannot disentangle the arts from the virtues — at least he is always arguing from one to the other. His notion of music is transferred from harmony of sounds to harmony of life: in this he is assisted by the ambiguities of language as well as by the prevalence of Pythagorean notions. And having once assimilated the state to the individual, he imagines that he will find the succession of states paralleled in the lives of individuals.

  Still, through this fallacious medium, a real enlargement of ideas is attained. When the virtues as yet presented no distinct conception to the mind, a great advance was made by the comparison of them with the arts; for virtue is partly art, and has an outward form as well as an inward principle. The harmony of music affords a lively image of the harmonies of the world and of human life, and may be regarded as a splendid illustration which was naturally mistaken for a real analogy. In the same way the identification of ethics with politics has a tendency to give definiteness to ethics, and also to elevate and ennoble men’s notions of the aims of government and of the duties of citizens; for ethics from one point of view may be conceived as an idealized law and politics; and politics, as ethics reduced to the conditions of human society. There have been evils which have arisen out of the attempt to identify them, and this has led to the separation or antagonism of them, which has been introduced by modern political writers. But we may likewise feel that something has been lost in their separation, and that the ancient philosophers who estimated the moral and intellectual wellbeing of mankind first, and the wealth of nations and individuals second, may have a salutary influence on the speculations of modern times. Many political maxims originate in a reaction against an opposite error; and when the errors against which they were directed have passed away, they in turn become errors.

  III. Plato’s views of education are in several respects remarkable; like the rest of the Republic they are partly Greek and partly ideal, beginning with the ordinary curriculum of the Greek youth, and extending to after-life. Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education begins again (vi. 498 D). This is the continuous thread which runs through the Republic, and which more than any other of his ideas admits of an application to modern life.

  He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught; and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws (cp. Protag. 345 foll., 352, 355; Apol. 25 E; Gorg. 468, 509 E). Nor do the so-called Platonic ideas recovered from a former state of existence affect his theory of mental improvement. Still we observe in him the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which is better than ten thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opinion, though admitted to be a shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education; the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do (v. 499 E). A faint allusion to the doctrine of reminiscence occurs in the Tenth Book (621 A); but Plato’s views of education have no more real connection with a previous state of existence than our own; he only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light.

  He treats first of music or literature, which he divides into true and false, and then goes on to gymnastics; of infancy in the Republic he takes no notice, though in the Laws he gives sage counsels about the nursing of children and the management of the mothers, and would have an education which is even prior to birth. But in the Republic he begins with the age at which the child is capable of receiving ideas, and boldly asserts, in language which sounds paradoxical to modern ears, that he must be taught the false before he can learn the true. The modern and ancient philosophical world are not agreed about truth and falsehood; the one identifies truth almost exclusively with fact, the other with ideas. This is the difference between ourselves and Plato, which is, however, partly a difference of words (cp. supra, p. xxxviii). For we too should admit that a child must receive many lessons which he imperfectly understands; he must be taught some things in a figure only, some too which he can hardly be expected to believe when he grows older; but we should limit the use of fiction by the necessity of the case. Plato would draw the line differently; according to him the aim of early education is not truth as a matter of fact, but truth as a matter of principle; the child is to be taught first simple religious truths, and then simple moral truths, and insensibly to learn the lesson of good manners and good taste. He would make an entire reformation of the old mythology; like Xenophanes and Heracleitus he is sensible of the deep chasm which separates his own age from Homer and Hesiod, whom he quotes and invests with an imaginary authority, but only for his own purposes. The lusts and treacheries of the gods are to be banished; the terrors of the world below are to be dispelled; the misbehaviour of the Homeric heroes is not to be a model for youth. But there is another strain heard in Homer which may teach our youth endurance; and something may be learnt in medicine from the simple practice of the Homeric age. The principles on which religion is to be based are two only: first, that God is true; secondly, that he is good. Modern and Christian writers have often fallen short of these; they can hardly be said to have gone beyond them.

  The young are to be brought up in happy surroundings, out of the way of sights or sounds which may hurt the character or vitiate the taste. They are to live in an atmosphere of health; the breeze is always to be wafting to them the impressions of truth and goodness. Could such an education be realized, or if our modern religious education could be bound up with truth and virtue and good manners and good taste, that would be the best hope of human improvement. Plato, like ourselves, is looking forward to changes in the moral and religious world, and is preparing for them. He recognizes the danger of unsettling young men’s minds by sudden changes of laws and principles, by destroying the sacredness of one set of ideas when there is nothing else to take their place. He is afraid too of the influence of the drama, on the ground that it encourages false sentiment, and therefore he would not have his children taken to the theatre; he thinks that the effect on the spectators is bad, and on the actors still worse. His idea of education is that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learnt the lessons of temperance and endurance, and the body and mind develope in equal proportions. The first principle which runs through all art and nature is simplicity; this also is to be the rule of human life.

  The second stage of education is gymnastic, which answers to the period of muscular growth and development. The simplicity which is enforced in music is extended to gymnastic; Plato is aware that the training of the body may be inconsistent with the training of the mind, and that bodily exercise may be easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give men a headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philosophy, and this they attribute not to the true cause, but to the nature of the subject. Two points are noticeable in Plato’s treatment of gymnastic:—First, that the time of training is entirely separated from the time of literary education. He seems to have thought that two things of an opposite and different nature could not be learnt at the same time. Here we can hardly agree with him; and, if we may judge by experience, the effect of spending three years between the ages of fourteen and seventeen in mere bodily exercise would be far from improving to the intellect. Secondly, he affirms that music and gymnastic are not, as common opinion is apt to imagine, intended, the one for the cultivation of the mind and the other of the body, but that they are both equally designed for the improvement of the mind. The body, in his view, is the servant of the mind; the subjection of the lower to the higher is for the advantage of both. And doubtless the mind may exercise a very great and paramount influence over the body, if exerted not at particular moments and by fits and starts, but continuously, in making preparation for the whole of life. Other Greek writers saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan discipline (Arist. Pol. viii. 4, § 1 foll.; Thuc. ii. 37, 39). But only Plato recognized the fundamental error on which the practice was based.

  The subject of gymnastic leads Plato to the sister subject of medicine, which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. The modern disbelief in medicine has led in this, as in some other departments of knowledge, to a demand for greater simplicity; physicians are becoming aware that they often make diseases ‘greater and more complicated’ by their treatment of them (Rep. iv. 426 A). In two thousand years their art has made but slender progress; what they have gained in the analysis of the parts is in a great degree lost by their feebler conception of the human frame as a whole. They have attended more to the cure of diseases than to the conditions of health; and the improvements in medicine have been more than counterbalanced by the disuse of regular training. Until lately they have hardly thought of air and water, the importance of which was well understood by the ancients; as Aristotle remarks, ‘Air and water, being the elements which we most use, have the greatest effect upon health’ (Polit, vii. 11, § 4). For ages physicians have been under the dominion of prejudices which have only recently given way; and now there are as many opinions in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepticism and some want of toleration about both. Plato has several good notions about medicine; according to him, ‘the eye cannot be cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the mind’ (Charm. 156 E). No man of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic; and we heartily sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that ‘the limbs of the rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor’ (vi. 761 C). But we can hardly praise him when, in obedience to the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet, or approve of the inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid and useless lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have considered that the ‘bridle of Theages’ might be accompanied by qualities which were of far more value to the State than the health or strength of the citizens; or that the duty of taking care of the helpless might be an important element of education in a State. The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle observation) should not be a man in robust health; he should have, in modern phraseology, a nervous temperament; he should have experience of disease in his own person, in order that his powers of observation may be quickened in the case of others.

  The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of law; in which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden rule of simplicity. Greater matters are to be determined by the legislator or by the oracle of Delphi, lesser matters are to be left to the temporary regulation of the citizens themselves. Plato is aware that laissez faire is an important element of government. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a hydra; they multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for them is not extirpation but prevention. And the way to prevent them is to take care of education, and education will take care of all the rest. So in modern times men have often felt that the only political measure worth having—the only one which would produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of national education. And in our own more than in any previous age the necessity has been recognized of restoring the ever-increasing confusion of law to simplicity and common sense.

  When the training in music and gymnastic is completed, there follows the first stage of active and public life. But soon education is to begin again from a new point of view. In the interval between the Fourth and Seventh Books we have discussed the nature of knowledge, and have thence been led to form a higher conception of what was required of us. For true knowledge, according to Plato, is of abstractions, and has to do, not with particulars or individuals, but with universals only; not with the beauties of poetry, but with the ideas of philosophy. And the great aim of education is the cultivation of the habit of abstraction. This is to be acquired through the study of the mathematical sciences. They alone are capable of giving ideas of relation, and of arousing the dormant energies of thought.

  Mathematics in the age of Plato comprehended a very small part of that which is now included in them; but they bore a much larger proportion to the sum of human knowledge. They were the only organon of thought which the human mind at that time possessed, and the only measure by which the chaos of particulars could be reduced to rule and order. The faculty which they trained was naturally at war with the poetical or imaginative; and hence to Plato, who is everywhere seeking for abstractions and trying to get rid of the illusions of sense, nearly the whole of education is contained in them. They seemed to have an inexhaustible application, partly because their true limits were not yet understood. These Plato himself is beginning to investigate; though not aware that number and figure are mere abstractions of sense, he recognizes that the forms used by geometry are borrowed from the sensible world (vi. 510, 511). He seeks to find the ultimate ground of mathematical ideas in the idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily explain the connexion between them; and in his conception of the relation of ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness attributed to him by Aristotle (Met. i. 8, § 24; ix. 17). But if he fails to recognize the true limits of mathematics, he also reaches a point beyond them; in his view, ideas of number become secondary to a higher conception of knowledge. The dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man (cp. vii. 526 D, 531 E). The one, the self-proving, the good which is the higher sphere of dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and in which they finally repose.

  This self-proving unity or idea of good is a mere vision of which no distinct explanation can be given, relative only to a particular stage in Greek philosophy. It is an abstraction under which no individuals are comprehended, a whole which has no parts (cf. Arist., Nic. Eth., i. 4). The vacancy of such a form was perceived by Aristotle, but not by Plato. Nor did he recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or more methods of investigation which are at variance with each other. He did not see that whether he took the longer or the shorter road, no advance could be made in this way. And yet such visions often have an immense effect; for although the method of science cannot anticipate science, the idea of science, not as it is, but as it will be in the future, is a great and inspiring principle. In the pursuit of knowledge we are always pressing forward to something beyond us; and as a false conception of knowledge, for example the scholastic philosophy, may lead men astray during many ages, so the true ideal, though vacant, may draw all their thoughts in a right direction. It makes a great difference whether the general expectation of knowledge, as this indefinite feeling may be termed, is based upon a sound judgment. For mankind may often entertain a true conception of what knowledge ought to be when they have but a slender experience of facts. The correlation of the sciences, the consciousness of the unity of nature, the idea of classification, the sense of proportion, the unwillingness to stop short of certainty or to confound probability with truth, are important principles of the higher education. Although Plato could tell us nothing, and perhaps knew that he could tell us nothing, of the absolute truth, he has exercised an influence on the human mind which even at the present day is not exhausted; and political and social questions may yet arise in which the thoughts of Plato may be read anew and receive a fresh meaning.

  The Idea of good is so called only in the Republic, but there are traces of it in other dialogues of Plato. It is a cause as well as an idea, and from this point of view may be compared with the creator of the Timaeus, who out of his goodness created all things. It corresponds to a certain extent with the modern conception of a law of nature, or of a final cause, or of both in one, and in this regard may be connected with the measure and symmetry of the Philebus. It is represented in the Symposium under the aspect of beauty, and is supposed to be attained there by stages of initiation, as here by regular gradations of knowledge. Viewed subjectively, it is the process or science of dialectic. This is the science which, according to the Phaedrus, is the true basis of rhetoric, which alone is able to distinguish the natures and classes of men and things; which divides a whole into the natural parts, and reunites the scattered parts into a natural or organized whole; which defines the abstract essences or universal ideas of all things, and connects them; which pierces the veil of hypotheses and reaches the final cause or first principle of all; which regards the sciences in relation to the idea of good. This ideal science is the highest process of thought, and may be described as the soul conversing with herself or holding communion with eternal truth and beauty, and in another form is the everlasting question and answer—the ceaseless interrogative of Socrates. The dialogues of Plato are themselves examples of the nature and method of dialectic. Viewed objectively, the idea of good is a power or cause which makes the world without us correspond with the world within. Yet this world without us is still a world of ideas. With Plato the investigation of nature is another department of knowledge, and in this he seeks to attain only probable conclusions (cp. Timaeus, 44 D).

  If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only half explains to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the answer is that in his mind the two sciences are not as yet distinguished, any more than the subjective and objective aspects of the world and of man, which German philosophy has revealed to us. Nor has he determined whether his science of dialectic is at rest or in motion, concerned with the contemplation of absolute being, or with a process of development and evolution. Modern metaphysics may be described as the science of abstractions, or as the science of the evolution of thought; modern logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere Aristotelian forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of both of them is contained in the Platonic dialectic; all metaphysicians have something in common with the ideas of Plato; all logicians have derived something from the method of Plato. The nearest approach in modern philosophy to the universal science of Plato, is to be found in the Hegelian ‘succession of moments in the unity of the idea.’ Plato and Hegel alike seem to have conceived the world as the correlation of abstractions; and not impossibly they would have understood one another better than any of their commentators understand them (cp. Swift’s Voyage to Laputa, c. 81 ). There is, however, a difference between them: for whereas Hegel is thinking of all the minds of men as one mind, which developes the stages of the idea in different countries or at different times in the same country, with Plato these gradations are regarded only as an order of thought or ideas; the history of the human mind had not yet dawned upon him.

  Many criticisms may be made on Plato’s theory of education. While in some respects he unavoidably falls short of modern thinkers, in others he is in advance of them. He is opposed to the modes of education which prevailed in his own time; but he can hardly be said to have discovered new ones. He does not see that education is relative to the characters of individuals; he only desires to impress the same form of the state on the minds of all. He has no sufficient idea of the effect of literature on the formation of the mind, and greatly exaggerates that of mathematics. His aim is above all things to train the reasoning faculties; to implant in the mind the spirit and power of abstraction; to explain and define general notions, and, if possible, to connect them. No wonder that in the vacancy of actual knowledge his followers, and at times even he himself, should have fallen away from the doctrine of ideas, and have returned to that branch of knowledge in which alone the relation of the one and many can be truly seen—the science of number. In his views both of teaching and training he might be styled, in modern language, a doctrinaire; after the Spartan fashion he would have his citizens cast in one mould; he does not seem to consider that some degree of freedom, ‘a little wholesome neglect,’ is necessary to strengthen and develope the character and to give play to the individual nature. His citizens would not have acquired that knowledge which in the vision of Er is supposed to be gained by the pilgrims from their experience of evil.

  On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philosophers and theologians when he teaches that education is to be continued through life and will begin again in another. He would never allow education of some kind to cease; although he was aware that the proverbial saying of Solon, ‘I grow old learning many things,’ cannot be applied literally. Himself ravished with the contemplation of the idea of good, and delighting in solid geometry (Rep. vii. 528), he has no difficulty in imagining that a lifetime might be passed happily in such pursuits. We who know how many more men of business there are in the world than real students or thinkers, are not equally sanguine. The education which he proposes for his citizens is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a time, by practical duties,—a life not for the many, but for the few.

  Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of application to our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which can never be realized, it may have a great effect in elevating the characters of mankind, and raising them above the routine of their ordinary occupation or profession. It is the best form under which we can conceive the whole of life. Nevertheless the idea of Plato is not easily put into practice. For the education of after life is necessarily the education which each one gives himself. Men and women cannot be brought together in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of age; and if they could the result would be disappointing. The destination of most men is what Plato would call ‘the Den’ for the whole of life, and with that they are content. Neither have they teachers or advisers with whom they can take counsel in riper years. There is no ‘schoolmaster abroad’ who will tell them of their faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty, or with the ambition of a true success in life; no Socrates who will convict them of ignorance; no Christ, or follower of Christ, who will reprove them of sin. Hence they have a difficulty in receiving the first element of improvement, which is self-knowledge. The hopes of youth no longer stir them; they rather wish to rest than to pursue high objects. A few only who have come across great men and women, or eminent teachers of religion and morality, have received a second life from them, and have lighted a candle from the fire of their genius.

  The want of energy is one of the main reasons why so few persons continue to improve in later years. They have not the will, and do not know the way. They ‘never try an experiment,’ or look up a point of interest for themselves; they make no sacrifices for the sake of knowledge; their minds, like their bodies, at a certain age become fixed. Genius has been defined as ‘the power of taking pains’; but hardly any one keeps up his interest in knowledge throughout a whole life. The troubles of a family, the business of making money, the demands of a profession destroy the elasticity of the mind. The waxen tablet of the memory which was once capable of receiving ‘true thoughts and clear impressions’ becomes hard and crowded; there is not room for the accumulations of a long life (Theaet. 194 ff.). The student, as years advance, rather makes an exchange of knowledge than adds to his stores. There is no pressing necessity to learn; the stock of Classics or History or Natural Science which was enough for a man at twenty-five is enough for him at fifty. Neither is it easy to give a definite answer to any one who asks how he is to improve. For self-education consists in a thousand things, commonplace in themselves,—in adding to what we are by nature something of what we are not; in learning to see ourselves as others see us; in judging, not by opinion, but by the evidence of facts; in seeking out the society of superior minds; in a study of the lives and writings of great men; in observation of the world and character; in receiving kindly the natural influence of different times of life; in any act or thought which is raised above the practice or opinions of mankind; in the pursuit of some new or original enquiry; in any effort of mind which calls forth some latent power.

  If any one is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic education of after-life, some such counsels as the following may be offered to him:—That he shall choose the branch of knowledge to which his own mind most distinctly inclines, and in which he takes the greatest delight, either one which seems to connect with his own daily employment, or, perhaps, furnishes the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the speculative side the profession or business in which he is practically engaged. He may make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Bacon the friends and companions of his life. He may find opportunities of hearing the living voice of a great teacher. He may select for enquiry some point of history or some unexplained phenomenon of nature. An hour a day passed in such scientific or literary pursuits will furnish as many facts as the memory can retain, and will give him ‘a pleasure not to be repented of’ (Timaeus, 59 D). Only let him beware of being the slave of crotchets, or of running after a Will o’ the Wisp in his ignorance, or in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts of a poet or assuming the air of a philosopher. He should know the limits of his own powers. Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, ‘This is part of another subject’ (Tim. 87 B); though we may also defend our digression by his example (Theaet, 72, 77).

  IV. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or the natural growth of institutions which fill modern treatises on political philosophy seem hardly ever to have attracted the attention of Plato and Aristotle. The ancients were familiar with the mutability of human affairs; they could moralize over the ruins of cities and the fall of empires (cp. Plato, Statesman 301, 302, and Sulpicius’ Letter to Cicero, Ad Fam. iv. 5); by them fate and chance were deemed to be real powers, almost persons, and to have had a great share in political events. The wiser of them like Thucydides believed that ‘what had been would be again,’ and that a tolerable idea of the future could be gathered from the past. Also they had dreams of a Golden Age which existed once upon a time and might still exist in some unknown land, or might return again in the remote future. But the regular growth of a state enlightened by experience, progressing in knowledge, improving in the arts, of which the citizens were educated by the fulfilment of political duties, appears never to have come within the range of their hopes and aspirations. Such a state had never been seen, and therefore could not be conceived by them. Their experience (cp. Aristot. Metaph. xi. 21; Plato, Laws iii. 676-9) led them to conclude that there had been cycles of civilization in which the arts had been discovered and lost many times over, and cities had been overthrown and rebuilt again and again, and deluges and volcanoes and other natural convulsions had altered the face of the earth. Tradition told them of many destructions of mankind and of the preservation of a remnant. The world began again after a deluge and was reconstructed out of the fragments of itself. Also they were acquainted with empires of unknown antiquity, like the Egyptian or Assyrian; but they had never seen them grow, and could not imagine, any more than we can, the state of man which preceded them. They were puzzled and awestricken by the Egyptian monuments, of which the forms, as Plato says, not in a figure, but literally, were ten thousand years old (Laws ii. 656 E), and they contrasted the antiquity of Egypt with their own short memories.

  The early legends of Hellas have no real connection with the later history: they are at a distance, and the intermediate region is concealed from view; there is no road or path which leads from one to the other. At the beginning of Greek history, in the vestibule of the temple, is seen standing first of all the figure of the legislator, himself the interpreter and servant of the God. The fundamental laws which he gives are not supposed to change with time and circumstances. The salvation of the state is held rather to depend on the inviolable maintenance of them. They were sanctioned by the authority of heaven, and it was deemed impiety to alter them. The desire to maintain them unaltered seems to be the origin of what at first sight is very surprising to us—the intolerant zeal of Plato against innovators in religion or politics (cp. Laws x. 907-9); although with a happy inconsistency he is also willing that the laws of other countries should be studied and improvements in legislation privately communicated to the Nocturnal Council (Laws xii. 951, 2). The additions which were made to them in later ages in order to meet the increasing complexity of affairs were still ascribed by a fiction to the original legislator; and the words of such enactments at Athens were disputed over as if they had been the words of Solon himself. Plato hopes to preserve in a later generation the mind of the legislator; he would have his citizens remain within the lines which he has laid down for them. He would not harass them with minute regulations, and he would have allowed some changes in the laws: but not changes which would affect the fundamental institutions of the state, such for example as would convert an aristocracy into a timocracy, or a timocracy into a popular form of government.

  Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress has been the exception rather than the law of human history. And therefore we are not surprised to find that the idea of progress is of modern rather than of ancient date; and, like the idea of a philosophy of history, is not more than a century or two old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the human mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church, and to be due to the political and social improvements which they introduced into the world; and still more in our own century to the idealism of the first French Revolution and the triumph of American Independence; and in a yet greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth of population in England and her colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed in a measure to the greater study of the philosophy of history. The optimist temperament of some great writers has assisted the creation of it, while the opposite character has led a few to regard the future of the world as dark. The ‘spectator of all time and of all existence’ sees more of ‘the increasing purpose which through the ages ran’ than formerly: but to the inhabitant of a small state of Hellas the vision was necessarily limited like the valley in which he dwelt. There was no remote past on which his eye could rest, nor any future from which the veil was partly lifted up by the analogy of history. The narrowness of view, which to ourselves appears so singular, was to him natural, if not unavoidable.

  V. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, the two other works of Plato which directly treat of politics, see the Introductions to the two latter; a few general points of comparison may be touched upon in this place.

  And first of the Laws. (1) The Republic, though probably written at intervals, yet speaking generally and judging by the indications of thought and style, may be reasonably ascribed to the middle period of Plato’s life: the Laws are certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of them at any rate seem to have been written in extreme old age. (2) The Republic is full of hope and aspiration: the Laws bear the stamp of failure and disappointment. The one is a finished work which received the last touches of the author: the other is imperfectly executed, and apparently unfinished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth: the other has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and knowledge of life which is characteristic of old age. (3) The most conspicuous defect of the Laws is the failure of dramatic power, whereas the Republic is full of striking contrasts of ideas and oppositions of character. (4) The Laws may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the Republic of a poem; the one is more religious, the other more intellectual. (5) Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of ideas, the government of the world by philosophers, are not found in the Laws; the immortality of the soul is first mentioned in xii. 959, 967; the person of Socrates has altogether disappeared. The community of women and children is renounced; the institution of common or public meals for women (Laws vi. 781) is for the first time introduced (Ar. Pol. ii. 6, § 5). (6) There remains in the Laws the old enmity to the poets (vii. 817), who are ironically saluted in highflown terms, and, at the same time, are peremptorily ordered out of the city, if they are not willing to submit their poems to the censorship of the magistrates (cp. Rep. iii. 398). (7) Though the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages in the Laws, such as v. 727 ff. (the honour due to the soul), viii. 835 ff. (the evils of licentious or unnatural love), the whole of Book x. (religion), xi. 918 ff. (the dishonesty of retail trade), and 923 ff. (bequests), which come more home to us, and contain more of what may be termed the modern element in Plato than almost anything in the Republic.

  The relation of the two works to one another is very well given:

  (i) by Aristotle in the Politics (ii. 6, §§ 1-5) from the side of the Laws:—

  ‘The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato’s later work, the Laws, and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution which is therein described. In the Republic, Socrates has definitely settled in all a few questions only; such as the community of women and children, the community of property, and the constitution of the state. The population is divided into two classes—one of husbandmen, and the other of warriors; from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of the state. But Socrates has not determined whether the husbandmen and artists are to have a share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms and share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with discussions about the education of the guardians. In the Laws there is hardly anything but laws; not much is said about the constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the exception of the community of women and property, he supposes everything to be the same in both states; there is to be the same education; the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to be common meals in both. The only difference is that in the Laws the common meals are extended to women, and the warriors number about 5000, but in the Republic only 1000.’

  (ii) by Plato in the Laws (Book v. 739 B-E), from the side of the Republic:—

  ‘The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying that “Friends have all things in common.” Whether there is now, or ever will be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and all men express praise and blame, and feel joy and sorrow, on the same occasions, and the laws unite the city to the utmost,—whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such a state, whether inhabited by Gods or sons of Gods, will make them blessed who dwell therein; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and, as far as possible, to seek for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and unity in the next degree; and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second.’

  The comparatively short work called the Statesman or Politicus in its style and manner is more akin to the Laws, while in its idealism it rather resembles the Republic. As far as we can judge by various indications of language and thought, it must be later than the one and of course earlier than the other. In both the Republic and Statesman a close connection is maintained between Politics and Dialectic. In the Statesman, enquiries into the principles of Method are interspersed with discussions about Politics. The comparative advantages of the rule of law and of a person are considered, and the decision given in favour of a person (Arist. Pol. iii. 15, 16). But much may be said on the other side, nor is the opposition necessary; for a person may rule by law, and law may be so applied as to be the living voice of the legislator. As in the Republic, there is a myth, describing, however, not a future, but a former existence of mankind. The question is asked, ‘Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, or a state like our own which possesses art and science and distinguishes good from evil, is the preferable condition of man.’ To this question of the comparative happiness of civilized and primitive life, which was so often discussed in the last century and in our own, no answer is given. The Statesman, though less perfect in style than the Republic and of far less range, may justly be regarded as one of the greatest of Plato’s dialogues.

  VI. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the vehicle of thoughts which they could not definitely express, or which went beyond their own age. The classical writing which approaches most nearly to the Republic of Plato is the ‘De Republica’ of Cicero; but neither in this nor in any other of his dialogues does he rival the art of Plato. The manners are clumsy and inferior; the hand of the rhetorician is apparent at every turn. Yet noble sentiments are constantly recurring: the true note of Roman patriotism—‘We Romans are a great people’—resounds through the whole work. Like Socrates, Cicero turns away from the phenomena of the heavens to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the ‘two Suns’ of which all Rome was talking, when he can converse about ‘the two nations in one’ which had divided Rome ever since the days of the Gracchi. Like Socrates again, speaking in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he should assume too much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal who is discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He would confine the terms King or State to the rule of reason and justice, and he will not concede that title either to a democracy or to a monarchy. But under the rule of reason and justice he is willing to include the natural superior ruling over the natural inferior, which he compares to the soul ruling over the body. He prefers a mixture of forms of government to any single one. The two portraits of the just and the unjust, which occur in the second book of the Republic, are transferred to the state—Philus, one of the interlocutors, maintaining against his will the necessity of injustice as a principle of government, while the other, Laelius, supports the opposite thesis. His views of language and number are derived from Plato; like him he denounces the drama. He also declares that if his life were to be twice as long he would have no time to read the lyric poets. The picture of democracy is translated by him word for word, though he has hardly shown himself able to ‘carry the jest’ of Plato. He converts into a stately sentence the humorous fancy about the animals, who ‘are so imbued with the spirit of democracy that they make the passers-by get out of their way’ (i. 42). His description of the tyrant is imitated from Plato, but is far inferior. The second book is historical, and claims for the Roman constitution (which is to him the ideal) a foundation of fact such as Plato probably intended to have given to the Republic in the Critias. His most remarkable imitation of Plato is the adaptation of the vision of Er, which is converted by Cicero into the ‘Somnium Scipionis’; he has ‘romanized’ the myth of the Republic, adding an argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the Phaedrus, and some other touches derived from the Phaedo and the Timaeus. Though a beautiful tale and containing splendid passages, the ‘Somnium Scipionis’ is very inferior to the vision of Er; it is only a dream, and hardly allows the reader to suppose that the writer believes in his own creation. Whether his dialogues were framed on the model of the lost dialogues of Aristotle, as he himself tells us, or of Plato, to which they bear many superficial resemblances, he is still the Roman orator; he is not conversing, but making speeches, and is never able to mould the intractable Latin to the grace and ease of the Greek Platonic dialogue. But if he is defective in form, much more is he inferior to the Greek in matter; he nowhere in his philosophical writings leaves upon our minds the impression of an original thinker.

  Plato’s Republic has been said to be a church and not a state; and such an ideal of a city in the heavens has always hovered over the Christian world, and is embodied in St. Augustine’s ‘De Civitate Dei,’ which is suggested by the decay and fall of the Roman Empire, much in the same manner in which we may imagine the Republic of Plato to have been influenced by the decline of Greek politics in the writer’s own age. The difference is that in the time of Plato the degeneracy, though certain, was gradual and insensible: whereas the taking of Rome by the Goths stirred like an earthquake the age of St. Augustine. Men were inclined to believe that the overthrow of the city was to be ascribed to the anger felt by the old Roman deities at the neglect of their worship. St. Augustine maintains the opposite thesis; he argues that the destruction of the Roman Empire is due, not to the rise of Christianity, but to the vices of Paganism. He wanders over Roman history, and over Greek philosophy and mythology, and finds everywhere crime, impiety and falsehood. He compares the worst parts of the Gentile religions with the best elements of the faith of Christ. He shows nothing of the spirit which led others of the early Christian Fathers to recognize in the writings of the Greek philosophers the power of the divine truth. He traces the parallel of the kingdom of God, that is, the history of the Jews, contained in their scriptures, and of the kingdoms of the world, which are found in gentile writers, and pursues them both into an ideal future. It need hardly be remarked that his use both of Greek and of Roman historians and of the sacred writings of the Jews is wholly uncritical. The heathen mythology, the Sybilline oracles, the myths of Plato, the dreams of Neo-Platonists are equally regarded by him as matter of fact. He must be acknowledged to be a strictly polemical or controversial writer who makes the best of everything on one side and the worst of everything on the other. He has no sympathy with the old Roman life as Plato has with Greek life, nor has he any idea of the ecclesiastical kingdom which was to arise out of the ruins of the Roman empire. He is not blind to the defects of the Christian Church, and looks forward to a time when Christian and Pagan shall be alike brought before the judgment-seat, and the true City of God shall appear. . . . The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of antiquarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Christian ethics, but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender knowledge of the Greek literature and language. He was a great genius, and a noble character, yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding anything external to his own theology. Of all the ancient philosophers he is most attracted by Plato, though he is very slightly acquainted with his writings. He is inclined to believe that the idea of creation in the Timaeus is derived from the narrative in Genesis; and he is strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato’s saying that ‘the philosopher is the lover of God,’ and the words of the Book of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses (Exod. iii. 14). He dwells at length on miracles performed in his own day, of which the evidence is regarded by him as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of the beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, which he conceives to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state and of the resurrection of the body. The book is not really what to most persons the title of it would imply, and belongs to an age which has passed away. But it contains many fine passages and thoughts which are for all time.

  The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable of mediæval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom Italy and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of an Universal Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary government of the world, having a divine authority distinct from the Papacy, yet coextensive with it. It is not ‘the ghost of the dead Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,’ but the legitimate heir and successor of it, justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and the beneficence of their rule. Their right to be the governors of the world is also confirmed by the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged by St. Paul when he appealed to Cæsar, and even more emphatically by Christ Himself, Who could not have made atonement for the sins of men if He had not been condemned by a divinely authorized tribunal. The necessity for the establishment of an Universal Empire is proved partly by a priori arguments such as the unity of God and the unity of the family or nation; partly by perversions of Scripture and history, by false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the classics, and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But a more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world, which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace for mankind until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single empire. The whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire was fixed in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was needed to maintain the truth of a theory which to his own contemporaries seemed so natural and congenial. He speaks, or rather preaches, from the point of view, not of the ecclesiastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he is willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the Empire must submit to the Church. The beginning and end of all his noble reflections and of his arguments, good and bad, is the aspiration, ‘that in this little plot of earth belonging to mortal man life may pass in freedom and peace.’ So inextricably is his vision of the future bound up with the beliefs and circumstances of his own age.

  The ‘Utopia’ of Sir Thomas More is a surprising monument of his genius, and shows a reach of thought far beyond his contemporaries. The book was written by him at the age of about 34 or 35, and is full of the generous sentiments of youth. He brings the light of Plato to bear upon the miserable state of his own country. Living not long after the Wars of the Roses, and in the dregs of the Catholic Church in England, he is indignant at the corruption of the clergy, at the luxury of the nobility and gentry, at the sufferings of the poor, at the calamities caused by war. To the eye of More the whole world was in dissolution and decay; and side by side with the misery and oppression which he has described in the First Book of the Utopia, he places in the Second Book the ideal state which by the help of Plato he had constructed. The times were full of stir and intellectual interest. The distant murmur of the Reformation was beginning to be heard. To minds like More’s, Greek literature was a revelation: there had arisen an art of interpretation, and the New Testament was beginning to be understood as it had never been before, and has not often been since, in its natural sense. The life there depicted appeared to him wholly unlike that of Christian commonwealths, in which ‘he saw nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the Commonwealth.’ He thought that Christ, like Plato, ‘instituted all things common,’ for which reason, he tells us, the citizens of Utopia were the more willing to receive his doctrines1 . The community of property is a fixed idea with him, though he is aware of the arguments which may be urged on the other side1 . We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, though veiled in another language and published in a foreign country, such speculations could have been endured.

  He is gifted with far greater dramatic invention than any one who succeeded him, with the exception of Swift. In the art of feigning he is a worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, starting from a small portion of fact, he founds his tale with admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must have been an eyewitness. We are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up real and imaginary persons; his boy John Clement and Peter Giles, the citizen of Antwerp, with whom he disputes about the precise words which are supposed to have been used by the (imaginary) Portuguese traveller, Raphael Hythloday. ‘I have the more cause,’ says Hythloday, ‘to fear that my words shall not be believed, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I myself would have believed another man telling the same, if I had not myself seen it with mine own eyes.’ Or again: ‘If you had been with me in Utopia, and had presently seen their fashions and laws as I did which lived there five years and more, and would never have come thence, but only to make the new land known here,’ etc. More greatly regrets that he forgot to ask Hythloday in what part of the world Utopia is situated; he ‘would have spent no small sum of money rather than it should have escaped him,’ and he begs Peter Giles to see Hythloday or write to him and obtain an answer to the question. After this we are not surprised to hear that a Professor of Divinity (perhaps ‘a late famous vicar of Croydon in Surrey,’ as the translator thinks) is desirous of being sent thither as a missionary by the High Bishop, ‘yea, and that he may himself be made Bishop of Utopia, nothing doubting that he must obtain this Bishopric with suit; and he counteth that a godly suit which proceedeth not of the desire of honour or lucre, but only of a godly zeal.’ The design may have failed through the disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have ‘very uncertain news’ after his departure. There is no doubt, however, that he had told More and Giles the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at the same moment More’s attention, as he is reminded in a letter from Giles, was drawn off by a servant, and one of the company from a cold caught on shipboard coughed so loud as to prevent Giles from hearing. And ‘the secret has perished’ with him; to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown.

  The words of Phaedrus (275 B), ‘O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or anything,’ are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the originality of thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and far more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him who believes not in the immortality of the soul to share in the administration of the state (cp. Laws x. 908 foll.), ‘howbeit they put him to no punishment, because they be persuaded that it is in no man’s power to believe what he list’; and ‘no man is to be blamed for reasoning in support of his own religion1 .’ In the public services ‘no prayers be used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.’ He says significantly (p. 143), ‘There be that give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far above the capacity and reach of man’s wit, dispersed throughout all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father of all. To Him alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine honours to any other than him.’ So far was More from sharing the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he does not in all respects agree with the customs and opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we should let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to conceal himself.

  Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and ‘sturdy and valiant beggars;’ that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers1 ; his remark that ‘although every one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find states that are well and wisely governed,’ are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life. There are many points in which he shows a modern feeling and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he maintains that civilized states have a right to the soil of waste countries; he is inclined to the opinion which places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but herein, as he thinks, not disagreeing from those other philosophers who define virtue to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea of happiness so as to include the happiness of others; and he argues ingeniously, ‘All men agree that we ought to make others happy; but if others, how much more ourselves!’ And still he thinks that there may be a more excellent way, but to this no man’s reason can attain unless heaven should inspire him with a higher truth. His ceremonies before marriage; his humane proposal that war should be carried on by assassinating the leaders of the enemy, may be compared to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming fancy, like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus, that the Utopians learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness because they were originally of the same race with them. He is penetrated with the spirit of Plato, and quotes or adapts many thoughts both from the Republic and from the Timaeus. He prefers public duties to private, and is somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. His citizens have no silver or gold of their own, but are ready enough to pay them to their mercenaries (cp. Rep. iv. 422, 423). There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous than the love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, and diamonds and pearls for children’s necklaces1 .

  Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments and princes; on the state of the world and of knowledge. The hero of his discourse (Hythloday) is very unwilling to become a minister of state, considering that he would lose his independence and his advice would never be heeded2 . He ridicules the new logic of his time; the Utopians could never be made to understand the doctrine of Second Intentions3 . He is very severe on the sports of the gentry; the Utopians count ‘hunting the lowest, the vilest, and the most abject part of butchery.’ He quotes the words of the Republic in which the philosopher is described ‘standing out of the way under a wall until the driving storm of sleet and rain be overpast,’ which admit of a singular application to More’s own fate; although, writing twenty years before (about the year 1514), he can hardly be supposed to have foreseen this. There is no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet remark that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more at variance with the lives of ordinary Christians than the discourse of Utopia1 .

  The ‘New Atlantis’ is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the ‘Utopia.’ The work is full of ingenuity, but wanting in creative fancy, and by no means impresses the reader with a sense of credibility. In some places Lord Bacon is characteristically different from Sir Thomas More, as, for example, in the external state which he attributes to the governor of Solomon’s House, whose dress he minutely describes, while to Sir Thomas More such trappings appear simply ridiculous. Yet, after this programme of dress, Bacon adds the beautiful trait, ‘that he had a look as though he pitied men.’ Several things are borrowed by him from the Timaeus; but he has injured the unity of style by adding thoughts and passages which are taken from the Hebrew Scriptures.

  The ‘City of the Sun,’ written by Campanella (1568–1639), a Dominican friar, several years after the ‘New Atlantis’ of Bacon, has many resemblances to the Republic of Plato. The citizens have wives and children in common; their marriages are of the same temporary sort, and are arranged by the magistrates from time to time. They do not, however, adopt his system of lots, but bring together the best natures, male and female, ‘according to philosophical rules.’ The infants until two years of age are brought up by their mothers in public temples; and since individuals for the most part educate their children badly, at the beginning of their third year they are committed to the care of the State, and are taught at first, not out of books, but from paintings of all kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls of the city. The city has six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall which is the seventh. On this outer wall are painted the figures of legislators and philosophers, and on each of the interior walls the symbols or forms of some one of the sciences are delineated. The women are, for the most part, trained, like the men, in warlike and other exercises; but they have two special occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the boys soothe and relieve the wounded warriors; also they encourage them with embraces and pleasant words (cp. Plato, Rep. v. 468). Some elements of the Christian or Catholic religion are preserved among them. The life of the Apostles is greatly admired by this people because they had all things in common; and the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught men is used in their worship. It is a duty of the chief magistrates to pardon sins, and therefore the whole people make secret confession of them to the magistrates, and they to their chief, who is a sort of Rector Metaphysicus; and by this means he is well informed of all that is going on in the minds of men. After confession, absolution is granted to the citizens collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There also exists among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed by a succession of priests, who change every hour. Their religion is a worship of God in Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but without any distinction of persons. They behold in the sun the reflection of His glory; mere graven images they reject, refusing to fall under the ‘tyranny’ of idolatry.

  Many details are given about their customs of eating and drinking, about their mode of dressing, their employments, their wars. Campanella looks forward to a new mode of education, which is to be a study of nature, and not of Aristotle. He would not have his citizens waste their time in the consideration of what he calls ‘the dead signs of things.’ He remarks that he who knows one science only, does not really know that one any more than the rest, and insists strongly on the necessity of a variety of knowledge. More scholars are turned out in the City of the Sun in one year than by contemporary methods in ten or fifteen. He evidently believes, like Bacon, that henceforward natural science will play a great part in education, a hope which seems hardly to have been realized, either in our own or in any former age; at any rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred.

  There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this work, and a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no charm of style, and falls very far short of the ‘New Atlantis’ of Bacon, and still more of the ‘Utopia’ of Sir Thomas More. It is full of inconsistencies, and though borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial acquaintance with his writings. It is a work such as one might expect to have been written by a philosopher and man of genius who was also a friar, and who had spent twenty-seven years of his life in a prison of the Inquisition. The most interesting feature of the book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the deep feeling which is shown by the writer, of the misery and ignorance prevailing among the lower classes in his own time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle’s answer to Plato’s community of property, that in a society where all things are common, no individual would have any motive to work (Arist. Pol. ii. 5, § 6): he replies, that his citizens being happy and contented in themselves (they are required to work only four hours a day), will have greater regard for their fellows than exists among men at present. He thinks, like Plato, that if he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public feeling will take their place.

  Other writings on ideal states, such as the ‘Oceana’ of Harrington, in which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was, but as he ought to have been; or the ‘Argenis’ of Barclay, which is an historical allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth mentioning. More interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot’s ‘Monarchy of Man,’ in which the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able ‘to be a politician in the land of his birth,’ turns away from politics to view ‘that other city which is within him,’ and finds on the very threshold of the grave that the secret of human happiness is the mastery of self. The change of government in the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this class. . . . The great original genius of Swift owes nothing to Plato; nor is there any trace in the conversation or in the works of Dr. Johnson of any acquaintance with his writings. He probably would have refuted Plato without reading him, in the same fashion in which he supposed himself to have refuted Bishop Berkeley’s theory of the non-existence of matter. If we except the so-called English Platonists, or rather Neo-Platonists, who never understood their master, and the writings of Coleridge, who was to some extent a kindred spirit, Plato has left no permanent impression on English literature.

  VII. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that they are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor the other are immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from them which tends to raise individuals above the common routine of society or trade, and to elevate States above the mere interests of commerce or the necessities of self-defence. Like the ideals of art they are partly framed by the omission of particulars; they require to be viewed at a certain distance, and are apt to fade away if we attempt to approach them. They gain an imaginary distinctness when embodied in a State or in a system of philosophy, but they still remain the visions of ‘a world unrealized.’ More striking and obvious to the ordinary mind are the examples of great men, who have served their own generation and are remembered in another. Even in our own family circle there may have been some one, a woman, or even a child, in whose face has shone forth a goodness more than human. The ideal then approaches nearer to us, and we fondly cling to it. The ideal of the past, whether of our own past lives or of former states of society, has a singular fascination for the minds of many. Too late we learn that such ideals cannot be recalled, though the recollection of them may have a humanizing influence on other times. But the abstractions of philosophy are to most persons cold and vacant; they give light without warmth; they are like the full moon in the heavens when there are no stars appearing. Men cannot live by thought alone; the world of sense is always breaking in upon them. They are for the most part confined to a corner of earth, and see but a little way beyond their own home or place of abode; they ‘do not lift up their eyes to the hills’; they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in Plato we have reached a height from which a man may look into the distance (Rep. iv. 445 C) and behold the future of the world and of philosophy. The ideal of the State and of the life of the philosopher; the ideal of an education continuing through life and extending equally to both sexes; the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge; the faith in good and immortality—are the vacant forms of light on which Plato is seeking to fix the eye of mankind.

  VIII. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek Philosophy, float before the minds of men in our own day; one seen more clearly than formerly, as though each year and each generation brought us nearer to some great change; the other almost in the same degree retiring from view behind the laws of nature, as if oppressed by them, but still remaining a silent hope of we know not what hidden in the heart of man. The first ideal is the future of the human race in this world; the second the future of the individual in another. The first is the more perfect realization of our own present life; the second, the abnegation of it: the one, limited by experience, the other, transcending it. Both of them have been and are powerful motives of action; there are a few in whom they have taken the place of all earthly interests. The hope of a future for the human race at first sight seems to be the more disinterested, the hope of individual existence the more egotistical, of the two motives. But when men have learned to resolve their hope of a future either for themselves or for the world into the will of God—‘not my will but Thine,’ the difference between them falls away; and they may be allowed to make either of them the basis of their lives, according to their own individual character or temperament. There is as much faith in the willingness to work for an unseen future in this world as in another. Neither is it inconceivable that some rare nature may feel his duty to another generation, or to another century, almost as strongly as to his own, or that living always in the presence of God, he may realize another world as vividly as he does this.

  The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived by us under similitudes derived from human qualities; although sometimes, like the Jewish prophets, we may dash away these figures of speech and describe the nature of God only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a positive meaning. It would be well, if when meditating on the higher truths either of philosophy or religion, we sometimes substituted one form of expression for another, lest through the necessities of language we should become the slaves of mere words.

  There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which has a place in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of Christ, and in which men seem to find a nearer and more familiar truth, the Divine man, the Son of Man, the Saviour of mankind, Who is the first-born and head of the whole family in heaven and earth, in Whom the Divine and human, that which is without and that which is within the range of our earthly faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither is this divine form of goodness wholly separable from the ideal of the Christian Church, which is said in the New Testament to be ‘His body,’ or at variance with those other images of good which Plato sets before us. We see Him in a figure only, and of figures of speech we select but a few, and those the simplest, to be the expression of Him. We behold Him in a picture, but He is not there. We gather up the fragments of His discourses, but neither do they represent Him as He truly was. His dwelling is neither in heaven nor earth, but in the heart of man. This is that image which Plato saw dimly in the distance, which, when existing among men, he called, in the language of Homer, ‘the likeness of God’ (Rep. vi. 501 B), the likeness of a nature which in all ages men have felt to be greater and better than themselves, and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture or nature, from the witness of history or from the human heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or without parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is and will always continue to be to mankind the idea of Good.

  BOOK I

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE

  Socrates,who is the narrator.

  Glaucon.

  Adelmantus.

  Polemarchus.

  Cephalus.

  Thrasymachus.

  Cleitophon.

  And others who are mute auditors.

  The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the Timaeus.

  Republic I.Socrates, Glaucon.Meeting of Socrates and Glaucon with Polemarchus at the Bendidean festival.

  327I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess1 ; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait.

  I turned round, and asked him where his master was.

  There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.

  Socrates, Polemarchus, Glaucon, Adeimantus, Cephalus.

  Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.

  Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and your companion are already on your way to the city.

  You are not far wrong, I said.

  But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?

  Of course.

  And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are.

  May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go?

  But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.

  Certainly not, replied Glaucon.

  Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.

  The equestrian torch-race.

  328Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?

  With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?

  Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.

  Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must.

  Very good, I replied.

  The gathering of friends at the house of Cephalus.

  Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:—

  Cephalus, Socrates.

  You don’t come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us.

  I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the ‘threshold of old age’—Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it?

  Old age is not to blame for the troubles of old men.The excellent saying of Sophocles.

  329I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is—I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles, — are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men’s characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

  It is admitted that the old, if they are to be comfortable, must have a fair share of external goods; neither virtue alone nor riches alone can make an old man happy.

  I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on — Yes, Cephalus, I said; but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

  You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he 330was an Athenian: ‘If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.’ And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself.

  May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you?

  Cephalus has inherited rather than made a fortune; he is therefore indifferent to money.

  Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received.

  That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.

  That is true, he said.

  The advantages of wealth.

  Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?—What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth?

  The fear of death and the consciousness of sin become more vivid in old age; and to be rich frees a man from many temptations.The admirable strain of Pindar.

  One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But 331to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age:

  ‘Hope,’ he says, ‘cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;—hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.’

  How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest.

  Cephalus, Socrates, Polemarchus.Justice to speak truth and pay your debts.

  Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it?—to speak the truth and to pay your debts—no more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition.

  You are quite right, he replied.

  But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice.

  This is the definition of Simonides. But you ought not on all occasions to do either. What then was his meaning?

  Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing.

  I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company.

  Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said.

  To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices.

  Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice?

  He said that the re-payment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right.

  I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it 332when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.

  True.

  Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return?

  Certainly not.

  When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case?

  Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil.

  Socrates, Polemarchus.

  You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,—that is what you would imagine him to say?

  Yes.

  And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?

  To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him—that is to say, evil.

  He may have meant to say that justice gives to friends what is good and to enemies what is evil.

  Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt.

  That must have been his meaning, he said.

  By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us?

  He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies.

  And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?

  Seasoning to food.

  And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?

  If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies.

  That is his meaning then?

  I think so.

  Illustrations.

  And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness?

  The physician.

  Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea?

  The pilot.

  And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend?

  In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other.

  But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician?

  No.

  And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot?

  No.

  Then in time of peace justice will be of no use?

  I am very far from thinking so.

  333You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war?

  Yes.

  Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn?

  Yes.

  Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,—that is what you mean?

  Yes.

  And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace?

  Justice is useful in contracts,

  In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use.

  And by contracts you mean partnerships?

  Exactly.

  But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts?

  The skilful player.

  And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder?

  Quite the reverse.

  Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man?

  In a money partnership.

  Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?

  Certainly.

  And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better?

  True.

  especially in the safe-keeping of deposits.

  Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred?

  When you want a deposit to be kept safely.

  You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie?

  Precisely.

  That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless?

  That is the inference.

  But not in the use of money: and if so, justice is only useful when money or anything else is useless.

  And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state; but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser?

  Clearly.

  And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician?

  Certainly.

  And so of all other things; justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful?

  That is the inference.

  Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow?

  Certainly.

  And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping1 from a disease is best able to create one?

  True?

  A new point of view: Is not he who is best able to do good best able to do evil?

  And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to 334steal a march upon the enemy?

  Certainly.

  Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?

  That, I suppose, is to be inferred.

  Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.

  That is implied in the argument.

  Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that

  He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.

  And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however ‘for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,’—that was what you were saying?

  No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words.

  Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming?

  Justice an art of theft to be practised for the good of friends and the harm of enemies, But who are friends and enemies?

  Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.

  Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?

  That is true.

  Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends?

  True.

  And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good?

  Clearly.

  But the good are just and would not do an injustice?

  True.

  Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong?

  Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral.

  Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust?

  I like that better.

  Mistakes will sometimes happen.

  But see the consequences:—Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides.

  Very true, he said; and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words ‘friend’ and ‘enemy.’

  What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked.

  We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good.

  Correction of the definition.

  And how is the error to be corrected?

  We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as 335seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.

  To appearance we must add reality. He is a friend who ‘is’ as well as ‘seems’ good, And we should do good to our good friends and harm to our bad enemies.

  You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?

  Yes.

  And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?

  Yes, that appears to me to be the truth.

  But ought the just to injure any one at all?

  Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies.

  When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated.

  To harm men is to injure them; and to injure them is to make them unjust. But justice cannot produce injustice.

  The latter.

  Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?

  Yes, of horses.

  And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?

  Of course.

  And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man?

  Certainly.

  And that human virtue is justice?

  To be sure.

  Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust?

  That is the result.

  Illustrations.

  But can the musician by his art make men unmusical?

  Certainly not.

  Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen?

  Impossible.

  And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad?

  Assuredly not.

  Any more than heat can produce cold?

  It cannot.

  Or drought moisture?

  Clearly not.

  Nor can the good harm any one?

  Socrates, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus.

  Impossible.

  And the just is the good?

  Certainly.

  Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust?

  I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates.

  Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,—to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just.

  I agree with you, said Polemarchus.

  The saying however explained is not to be attributed to any good or wise man.

  Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer?

  I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said.

  336Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be?

  Whose?

  I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is ‘doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.’

  Most true, he said.

  Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered?

  The brutality of Thrasymachus.

  Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him.

  Socrates, Thrasymachus.

  He roared out to the whole company: What folly, Socrates, has taken possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer, and you should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy.

  I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was therefore able to reply to him.

  Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don’t be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were ‘knocking under to one another,’ and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us.

  337How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh;—that’s your ironical style! Did I not foresee—have I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering?

  Socrates cannot give any answer if all true answers are excluded.Thrasymachus is assailed with his own weapons.

  You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, ‘for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,’ — then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, ‘Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one? — is that your meaning?’ — How would you answer him?

  Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said.

  Socrates, Thrasymachus, Glaucon.

  Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not?

  I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers?

  I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them.

  But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you?

  Done to me!—as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise—that is what I deserve to have done to me.

  The Sophist demands payment for his instructions. The company are very willing to contribute.

  What, and no payment! a pleasant notion!

  I will pay when I have the money, I replied.

  But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates.

  Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does—refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else.

  Socrates knows little or nothing: how can he answer? And he is deterred by the interdict of Thrasymachus.

  Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that 338the speaker should be some one like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the company and of myself?

  Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you.

  Socrates, Thrasymachus.

  That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have; and how ready I am to praise any one who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer well.

  The definition of Thrasymachus: ‘Justice is the interest of the stronger or ruler.’

  Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you won’t.

  Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just for us?

  That’s abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

  Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer.

  Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies?

  Yes, I know.

  And the government is the ruling power in each state?

  Certainly.

  Socrates compels Thrasymachus to explain his meaning.

  And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the 339government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.

  Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word ‘interest’ which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words ‘of the stronger’ are added.

  A small addition, you must allow, he said.

  Socrates, Thrasymachus, Polemarchus.

  Great or small, never mind about that: we must first enquire whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say ‘of the stronger’; about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further.

  Proceed.

  He is dissatisfied with the explanation; for rulers may err.

  I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers?

  I do.

  But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err?

  To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err.

  Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not?

  True.

  When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that?

  Yes.

  And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects,—and that is what you call justice?

  Doubtless.

  And then the justice which makes a mistake will turn out to be the reverse of the interest of the stronger.

  Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse?

  What is that you are saying? he asked.

  I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted?

  Yes.

  Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger?

  Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus.

  340Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness.

  Socrates, Cleitophon, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus.

  But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice.

  Cleitophon tries to make a way of escape for Thrasymachus by inserting the words ‘thought to be.’

  Yes, Polemarchus,—Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just.

  Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger.

  But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the stronger thought to be his interest,—this was what the weaker had to do; and this was affirmed by him to be justice.

  Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus.

  Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not?

  This evasion is repudiated by Thrasymachus;

  Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken?

  Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken.

  who adopts another line of defence: ‘No artist or ruler is ever mistaken qua artist or ruler.’Socrates, Thrasymachus.

  You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is unerring, and, 341being unerring, always commands that which is for his own interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger.

  Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an informer?

  Certainly, he replied.

  And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument?

  Nay, he replied, ‘suppose’ is not the word—I know it; but you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail.

  I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute—is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term?

  In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never.

  The essential meaning of words distinguished from their attributes.

  And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion.

  Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed.

  Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now speaking of the true physician.

  A healer of the sick, he replied.

  And the pilot—that is to say, the true pilot—is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor?

  A captain of sailors.

  The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors.

  Very true, he said.

  Now, I said, every art has an interest?

  Certainly.

  For which the art has to consider and provide?

  Yes, that is the aim of art.

  And the interest of any art is the perfection of it—this and nothing else?

  What do you mean?

  I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has wants, I should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers; and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right?

  342Quite right, he replied.

  Art has no imperfection to be corrected, and therefore no extraneous interest.

  But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing—has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?—having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true—that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right.

  Yes, clearly.

  Illustrations.

  Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body?

  True, he said.

  Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art?

  True, he said.

  But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects?

  To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance.

  Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?

  He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced.

  Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker; that has been admitted?

  Yes.

  And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor?

  That has been admitted.

  And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler’s interest?

  He gave a reluctant ‘Yes.’

  The disinterestedness of rulers.

  Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does.

  343When we had got to this point in the argument, and every one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said. Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse?

  The impudence of Thrasymachus.

  Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering?

  Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.

  What makes you say that? I replied.

  Thrasymachus dilates upon the advantages of injustice,especially when pursued on a great scale.Tyranny.

  Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another’s good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of 344injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable—that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace—they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit and interest.

  Thrasymachus having made his speech wants to run away, but is detained by the company.

  Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks! And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man’s life so small a matter in your eyes—to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage?

  And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry?

  You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus—whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter 345of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice.

  The swagger of Thrasymachus.

  And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls?

  Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banquetter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority.

  Think! Nay, I am sure of it.

  The arts have different functions and are not to be confounded with the art of payment which is common to them all.

  Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment, unless under the idea that 346they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little progress.

  Yes, that is the difference, he replied.

  And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one—medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on?

  Yes, he said.

  And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you, that navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language?

  Certainly not.

  Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine?

  I should not.

  Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing?

  Certainly not.

  And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially confined to the art?

  Yes.

  Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use?

  True, he replied.

  And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him?

  He gave a reluctant assent to this.

  Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well?

  I suppose not.

  But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing?

  Certainly, he confers a benefit.

  The true ruler or artist seeks, not his own advantage, but theSocrates, Glaucon.perfection of his art; and therefore he must be paid.

  Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger—to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. 347For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing.

  Three modes of paying rulers, money, honour, and a penalty for refusing to rule.

  What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment.

  You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace?

  Very true.

  The penalty is the evil of being ruled by an inferior.In a city composed wholly of good men there would be a great unwillingness to rule.Socrates, Glaucon, Thrasymachus.Thrasymachus maintains that the life of the unjust is better than the life of the just.

  And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable, Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help—not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of life, Glaucon, do you prefer?

  I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he answered.

  348Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing?

  Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me.

  Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is saying what is not true?

  Most certainly, he replied.

  If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our enquiry as we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons.

  Very good, he said.

  And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said.

  That which you propose.

  Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice?

  Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons.

  And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice?

  Certainly.

  I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice?

  A paradox still more extreme,

  What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not.

  What else then would you say?

  The opposite, he replied.

  Socrates, Thrasymachus.

  And would you call justice vice?

  No, I would rather say sublime simplicity.

  that injustice is virtue,

  Then would you call injustice malignity?

  No; I would rather say discretion.

  And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?

  Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing states and nations; but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cutpurses. Even this profession if undetected has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking.

  I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite.

  Certainly, I do so class them.

  Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that 349you will call injustice honourable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue.

  You have guessed most infallibly, he replied.

  Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at our expense.

  I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?—to refute the argument is your business.

  refuted by the analogy of the arts.

  Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just?

  Far otherwise; if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature which he is.

  And would he try to go beyond just action?

  He would not.

  And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust?

  The just tries to obtain an advantage over the unjust, but not over the just; the unjust over both just and unjust.

  He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would not be able.

  Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust?

  Yes, he would.

  And what of the unjust—does he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just?

  Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men.

  And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the unjust man or action, in order that he may have more than all?

  True.

  We may put the matter thus, I said—the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike?

  Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement.

  And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither?

  Good again, he said.

  And is not the unjust like the wise and good and the just unlike them?

  Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a certain nature; he who is not, not.

  Each of them, I said, is such as his like is?

  Certainly, he replied.

  Illustrations.

  Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician?

  Yes.

  And which is wise and which is foolish?

  Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish.

  And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish?

  Yes.

  And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician?

  Yes.

  And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings?

  I do not think that he would.

  But he would claim to exceed the non-musician?

  Of course.

  350And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of medicine?

  He would not.

  But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician?

  Yes.

  The artist remains within the limits of his art:

  And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his like in the same case?

  That, I suppose, can hardly be denied.

  And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either the knowing or the ignorant?

  I dare say.

  And the knowing is wise?

  Yes.

  And the wise is good?

  True.

  Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but more than his unlike and opposite?

  I suppose so.

  Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both?

  Yes.

  But did we not say. Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words?

  They were.

  and similarly the just man does

  And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like but his unlike?

  Yes.

  Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant?

  That is the inference.

  not exceed the limits of other just men.

  And each of them is such as his like is?

  That was admitted.

  Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant.

  Thrasymachus perspiring and even blushing.

  Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer’s day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point:

  Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not also saying that injustice had strength; do you remember?

  Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer ‘Very good,’ as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’

  Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion.

  Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else would you have?

  Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer.

  Proceed.

  Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in 351order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by any one. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: You would not deny that a state may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection?

  True, he replied; and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so.

  I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior state can exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice.

  At this point the temper of Thrasymachus begins to improve. Cp. 5. 450 A, 6. 498 C.

  If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice; but if I am right, then without justice.

  I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent.

  That is out of civility to you, he replied.

  You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another?

  No indeed, he said, they could not.

  But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better?

  Yes.

  And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus?

  Perfect injustice, whether in state or individuals, is destructive to them.

  I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you.

  How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action?

  Certainly.

  And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just?

  They will.

  And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power?

  Let us assume that she retains her power.

  Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body 352is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case?

  Yes, certainly.

  And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus?

  Yes.

  And O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just?

  Granted that they are.

  But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend?

  Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company.

  Recapitulation.

  Well then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action; nay more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half-villains in their enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life.

  Proceed.

  Illustrations of ends and excellences preparatory to the enquiry into the end and excellence of the soul.

  I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has some end?

  I should.

  And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?

  I do not understand, he said.

  Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye?

  Certainly not.

  Or hear, except with the ear?

  No.

  These then may be truly said to be the ends of these organs?

  They may.

  353But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in many other ways?

  Of course.

  And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose?

  True.

  May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook?

  We may.

  Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?

  I understand your meaning, he said, and assent.

  All things which have ends have also virtues and excellences by which they fulfil those ends.

  And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask again whether the eye has an end?

  It has.

  And has not the eye an excellence?

  Yes.

  And the ear has an end and an excellence also?

  True.

  And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and a special excellence?

  That is so.

  Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own proper excellence and have a defect instead?

  How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see?

  You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight; but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only enquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own defect?

  Certainly, he replied.

  I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end?

  True.

  And the same observation will apply to all other things?

  I agree.

  And the soul has a virtue and an end — the virtue justice, the end happiness.

  Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other?

  To no other.

  And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul?

  Assuredly, he said.

  And has not the soul an excellence also?

  Yes.

  And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that excellence?

  She cannot.

  Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler?

  Yes, necessarily.

  Hence justice and happiness are necessarily connected.

  And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul?

  That has been admitted.

  Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill?

  That is what your argument proves.

  354And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse of happy?

  Certainly.

  Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?

  So be it.

  But happiness and not misery is profitable.

  Of course.

  Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice.

  Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea.

  Socrates is displeased with himself and with the argument.

  For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy.

  BOOK II.

  Republic II.Socrates, Glaucon.

  357With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus’ retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?

  I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could.

  The threefold division of goods.

  Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:—How would you arrange goods—are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them?

  I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied.

  Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?

  Certainly, I said.

  And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician’s art; also the various ways of money-making—these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them?

  There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask?

  Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice?

  358In the highest class, I replied,—among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results.

  Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided.

  I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.

  Three heads of the argument:—1. The nature of justice: 2. Justice a necessity, but not a good: 3. The reasonableness of this notion.

  I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just—if what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal?

  Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse.

  Glaucon.

  I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice.

  Justice a compromise between doing and suffering evil.

  They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and 359have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.

  The story of Gyges.The application of the story of Gyges.

  Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian1 . According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the kind of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. 360He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result—when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this.

  The unjust to be clothed with power and reputation.The just to be unclothed of all but his virtue.

  Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or 361physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.

  Socrates, Glaucon.

  Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues.

  The just man will learn by each experience that he ought to seem and not to be just.

  I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.—Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound—will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he 362ought to seem only, and not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances—he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only:—

  • ‘His mind has a soil deep and fertile,
  • Out of which spring his prudent counsels1 .’

  The unjust who appears just will attain every sort of prosperity.

  In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice; and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just.

  I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged?

  Adeimantus, Socrates.

  Why, what else is there? I answered.

  The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied.

  Well, then, according to the proverb, ‘Let brother help brother’—if he fails in any part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice.

  Adeimantus takes up the argument. Justice is praised and injustice blamed, but only out of regard to their concequences.

  Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another side to Glaucon’s argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their 363wards that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just—

  • ‘To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle;
  • And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces1 ,’

  and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one whose fame is—

  • ‘As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god,
  • Maintains justice; to whom the black earth brings forth
  • Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit,
  • And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish2 .’

  The rewards andAdeimantus.punishments of another life.

  Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son3 vouchsafe to the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain; they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve; also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other.

  Men are always repeating that virtue is painful and vice pleasant.

  Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined 364to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men’s doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man’s own or his ancestor’s sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod:—

  ‘Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil1 ,’

  and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men; for he also says:—

  ‘The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed2 .’

  They are taught that sins may be easily expiated.

  And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses—that is what they say—according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter 365sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.

  The effects of all this upon the youthful mind.

  He proceeded: And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear Socrates,—those of them, I mean, who are quickwitted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they should walk if they would make the best of life? Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar—

  ‘Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?’

  The existence of the gods is only known to us through the poets, who likewise assure us that they may be bribed and that they are very ready to forgive.

  For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just, profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things—why in either case should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by ‘sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.’ Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had 366better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. ‘But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.’ Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare; and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony.

  All this, even if not absolutely true, affords great excuse for doing wrong.

  On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will: unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth — but no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be.

  Men should be taught that justice is in itself the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.Adeimantus, Socrates.

  The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justice—beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time—no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man’s soul which he has within him, justice is 367the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations; for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another’s good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man’s own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes—like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good—I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only; I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.

  I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, 368and said: Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara:—

  ‘Sons of Ariston,’ he sang, ‘divine offspring of an illustrious hero.’

  Glaucon and Adeimantus able to argue so well, but unconvinced by their own arguments.Socrates, Adeimantus.

  The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced—this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can.

  The large letters.

  Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger—if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser—this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune.

  Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry?

  I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State.

  True, he replied.

  And is not a State larger than an individual?

  It is.

  Justice to be seen in the State more easily than in the individual.

  Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as 369they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them.

  That, he said, is an excellent proposal.

  And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also.

  I dare say.

  When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered.

  Yes, far more easily.

  But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore.

  I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed.

  The State arises out of the wants of men.

  A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined?

  There can be no other.

  Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State.

  True, he said.

  And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good.

  Very true.

  Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.

  Of course, he replied.

  The four or five greater needs of life, and the four or five kinds of citizens who correspond to them.

  Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence.

  Certainly.

  The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like.

  True.

  And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver—shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants?

  Quite right.

  The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.

  Clearly.

  The division of labour.

  And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?—the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone 370a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants?

  Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything.

  Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations.

  Very true.

  And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one?

  When he has only one.

  Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time?

  No doubt.

  For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object.

  He must.

  And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.

  The first citizens are:—1. a husbandman,

  Undoubtedly.

  Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools—and he too needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker.

  True.

  2. a builder. 3. a weaver, 4. a shoemaker. To these must be added:—5. a carpenter, 6. a smith, etc., 7. merchants, 8. retailers.

  Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow?

  True.

  Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides,—still our State will not be very large.

  That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these.

  Then, again, there is the situation of the city—to find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible.

  Impossible.

  Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city?

  There must.

  371But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed.

  That is certain.

  And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied.

  Very true.

  Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required?

  They will.

  Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants?

  Yes.

  Then we shall want merchants?

  We shall.

  And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers?

  Yes, in considerable numbers.

  Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.

  Clearly they will buy and sell.

  Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of exchange.

  Certainly.

  The origin of retail trade.

  Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him,—is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place?

  Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy.

  This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not ‘retailer’ the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants?

  Yes, he said.

  And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour.

  True.

  Then hirelings will help to make up our population?

  Yes.

  And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?

  I think so.

  Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up?

  372Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else.

  I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the enquiry.

  Socrates, Glaucon.A picture of primitive life.

  Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war.

  But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.

  True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.

  Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?

  But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.

  Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.

  A luxurious State must be called into existence,

  Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be 373satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.

  True, he said.

  and in this many new callings will be required.

  Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music—poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women’s dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them.

  Certainly.

  And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before?

  Much greater.

  And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?

  Quite true.

  The territory of our State must be enlarged; and hence will arise war between us and our neighbours.

  Then a slice of our neighbours’ land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?

  That, Socrates, will be inevitable.

  And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?

  Most certainly, he replied.

  Then, without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.

  Undoubtedly.

  And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which 374will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above.

  Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?

  War is an art, and as no art can be pursued with success unless a man’s whole attention is devoted to it, a soldier cannot be allowed to exercise any calling but his own.

  No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success.

  Very true, he said.

  But is not war an art?

  Certainly.

  And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?

  Quite true.

  The warrior’s art requires a long apprenticeship and many natural gifts.

  And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder—in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops?

  Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

  And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him?

  No doubt, he replied.

  Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?

  Certainly.

  The selection of guardians.

  Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city?

  It will.

  And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best.

  We must.

  375Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching?

  What do you mean?

  I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him.

  All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.

  Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?

  Certainly.

  And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?

  I have.

  Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian.

  True.

  And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit?

  Yes.

  But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else?

  A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied.

  Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them.

  True, he said.

  What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?

  True.

  The guardian must unite the opposite qualities of gentleness and spirit.

  He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible.

  I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.

  Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.—My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us.

  What do you mean? he said.

  I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities.

  And where do you find them?

  Such a combination may be observed in the dog.

  Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers.

  Yes, I know.

  Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities?

  Certainly not.

  Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher?

  I do not apprehend your meaning.

  376The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal.

  What trait?

  The dog distinguishes

  Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious?

  Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus.

  The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark.

  friend and enemy by the criterion of knowing and not knowing:

  And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming;—your dog is a true philosopher.

  Why?

  Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?

  Most assuredly.

  whereby he is shown to be a philosopher.

  And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?

  They are the same, he replied.

  And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge?

  That we may safely affirm.

  Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength?

  Undoubtedly.

  How are our citizens to be reared and educated?

  Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an enquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is our final end—How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length.

  Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us.

  Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long.

  Certainly not.

  Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.

  By all means.

  And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort?—and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul.

  Socrates, Adeimantus.

  True.

  Education divided into gymnastic for the body and music for the soul. Music includes literature, which may be true or false.

  Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards?

  By all means.

  And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not?

  I do.

  And literature may be either true or false?

  Yes.

  377And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false?

  I do not understand your meaning, he said.

  You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics.

  Very true.

  That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics.

  Quite right, he said.

  The beginning the most important part of education.

  You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.

  Quite true.

  And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

  We cannot.

  Works of fiction to be placed under a censorship.

  Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded.

  Of what tales are you speaking? he said.

  You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.

  Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.

  Homer and Hesiod are tellers of bad lies, that is to say, they give false representations of the gods.

  Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind.

  But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them?

  A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.

  But when is this fault committed?

  Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,—as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.

  Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are the stories which you mean?

  First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,—I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and 378how Cronus retaliated on him1 . The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.

  Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.

  which have a bad effect on the minds of youth.

  Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods.

  I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated.

  The stories about the quarrels of the gods and their evil behaviour to one another are untrue.And allegorical interpretations of them are not understood by the young.

  Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit1 . But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer—these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.

  There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking—how shall we answer him?

  379I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business.

  Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean?

  God is to be represented as he truly is.

  Something of this kind, I replied:—God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given.

  Right.

  And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such?

  Certainly.

  And no good thing is hurtful?

  No, indeed.

  And that which is not hurtful hurts not?

  Certainly not.

  And that which hurts not does no evil?

  No.

  And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil?

  Impossible.

  And the good is advantageous?

  Yes.

  And therefore the cause of well-being?

  Yes.

  It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only?

  Assuredly.

  God, if he be good, is the author of good only.

  Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.

  That appears to me to be most true, he said.

  The fictions of the poets.

  Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks

  ‘Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots1 ,’

  and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two

  ‘Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;’

  but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,

  ‘Him wild hunger drives o’er the beauteous earth.’

  And again—

  ‘Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us.’

  And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus1 , was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus2 , he shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that

  380‘God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.’

  Only that evil which is of the nature of punishment to be attributed to God.

  And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe—the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur—or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking: he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery—the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.

  I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.

  Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,—that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.

  That will do, he said.

  And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another—sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?

  I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.

  Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing?

  Things must be changed either by another or by themselves.

  Most certainly.

  And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes.

  Of course.

  381And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence?

  True.

  And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things—furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances.

  Very true.

  Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without?

  True.

  But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?

  Of course they are.

  But God cannot be changed by other; and will not be changed by himself.

  Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?

  He cannot.

  But may he not change and transform himself?

  Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.

  And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?

  If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.

  Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?

  Impossible.

  Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form.

  That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.

  Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that

  ‘The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms1 ;’

  and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms

  ‘For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;’

  —let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths—telling how certain gods, as they say, ‘Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;’ but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.

  Heaven forbid, he said.

  But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms?

  Perhaps, he replied.

  Nor will he make any false representation of himself.

  Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?

  382I cannot say, he replied.

  Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men?

  What do you mean? he said.

  I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.

  Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.

  The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;—that, I say, is what they utterly detest.

  There is nothing more hateful to them.

  And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right?

  Perfectly right.

  The true lie is equally hated both by gods and men; the remedial or preventive lie is comparatively innocent, but God can have no need of it.

  The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men?

  Yes.

  Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies—that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking—because we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account.

  Very true, he said.

  But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention?

  That would be ridiculous, he said.

  Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God?

  I should say not.

  Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies?

  That is inconceivable.

  But he may have friends who are senseless or mad?

  But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God.

  Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie?

  None whatever.

  Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood?

  Yes.

  Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed1 ; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.

  383Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own.

  You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way.

  I grant that.

  Away then with the falsehoods of the poets!

  Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials

  ‘Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this—he it is who has slain my son2 .’

  These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them.

  I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.

  BOOK III.

  Republic III.Socrates, AdeimantusThe discouraging lessons of mythology.

  386Such then, I said, are our principles of theology—some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another.

  Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said.

  But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?

  Certainly not, he said.

  And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible?

  Impossible.

  The description of the world below in Homer.

  Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile, but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors.

  That will be our duty, he said.

  Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses,

  ‘I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought1 .’

  We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared,

  ‘Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals2 .’

  And again:—

  ‘O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all1 !’

  Again of Tiresias:—

  ‘[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades2 .’

  Again:—

  ‘The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth3 .’

  Again:—

  387‘And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth4 .’

  And,—

  ‘As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved5 .’

  Such tales to be rejected.

  And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death.

  Undoubtedly.

  Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below—Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them.

  There is a real danger, he said.

  Then we must have no more of them.

  True.

  Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.

  Clearly.

  And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men?

  The effeminate and pitiful strains of famous men, and yet more of the gods, must also be banished.

  They will go with the rest.

  But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade.

  Yes; that is our principle.

  And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible?

  He will not.

  Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.

  True, he said.

  And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible.

  Assuredly.

  And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him.

  Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.

  Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not 388even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like.

  That will be very right.

  Such are the laments of Achilles, and Priam,

  Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles1 , who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands2 and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,

  ‘Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name3 .’

  Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying,

  ‘Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow1 .’

  and of Zeus when he beholds the fate of Hector or Sarpedon.

  But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say—

  ‘O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful2 .’

  Or again:—

  ‘Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius3 .’

  For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions.

  Yes, he said, that is most true.

  Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better.

  It ought not to be.

  Neither are the guardians to be encouraged to laugh by the example of the gods.

  Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction.

  So I believe.

  Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed.

  389Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied.

  Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how

  ‘Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion4 .’

  On your views, we must not admit them.

  On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit them is certain.

  Our youth must be truthful,

  Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them.

  Clearly not, he said.

  Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors.

  Most true, he said.

  If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,

  ‘Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter1 ,’

  he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State.

  Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out2 .

  and also temperate.

  In the next place our youth must be temperate?

  Certainly.

  Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures?

  True.

  Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer,

  ‘Friend, sit still and obey my word3 ,’

  and the verses which follow,

  • ‘The Greeks marched breathing prowess1 ,
  • . . . . in silent awe of their leaders2 ,’

  and other sentiments of the same kind.

  We shall.

  What of this line,

  ‘O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag3 ,’

  390and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken?

  They are ill spoken.

  They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young men—you would agree with me there?

  Yes.

  The praises of eating and drinking, and the tale of the improper behaviour of Zeus and Here, are not to be repeated to the young.

  And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than

  ‘When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups4 ;’

  is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words? Or the verse

  ‘The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger5 ’?

  What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one another

  ‘Without the knowledge of their parents6 ;’

  or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite1 ?

  Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing.

  The indecent tale of Ares and Aphrodite.The opposite strain of endurance.

  But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses,

  • ‘He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart,
  • Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured2 !’

  Certainly, he said.

  In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money.

  Certainly not.

  Neither must we sing to them of

  ‘Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings3 .’

  Condemnation of Achilles and Phoenix.

  Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them4 ; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon’s gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so5 .

  391Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved.

  Loving Homer as I do6 , I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says,

  ‘Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power7 ;’

  The impious behaviour of Achilles to Apollo and the river-gods; his cruelty.

  or his insubordination to the river-god8 , on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair1 , which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus2 , and slaughtered the captives at the pyre3 ; of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron’s pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men.

  You are quite right, he replied.

  The tale of Theseus and Peirithous.

  And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;—both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than men—sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods.

  Assuredly not.

  The bad effect of these mythological tales upon the young.

  And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by—

  ‘The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,’

  and who have

  ‘the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins4 .’

  And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they 392engender laxity of morals among the young.

  By all means, he replied.

  But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down.

  Very true.

  Misstatements of the poets about men.

  And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject.

  Clearly so.

  But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend.

  Why not?

  Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man’s own loss and another’s gain—these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite.

  To be sure we shall, he replied.

  But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending.

  I grant the truth of your inference.

  That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not.

  Most true, he said.

  Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated.

  I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus.

  Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come?

  Certainly, he replied.

  And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two?

  That again, he said, I do not quite understand.

  Analysis of the dramatic element in Epic poetry.

  I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that 393Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines,

  ‘And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people,’

  the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey.

  Yes.

  And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages?

  Quite true.

  Epic poetry has an element of imitation in the speeches; the rest is simple narrative.

  But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak?

  Certainly.

  And this assimiliation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes?

  Of course.

  Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation?

  Illustrations from the beginning of the Iliad.

  Very true.

  Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, ‘I don’t understand,’ I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, ‘The priest came, having his daughter’s ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings;’ and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre), ‘The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should be of no avail to him—the daughter of Chryses should not be released, he said—she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in 394fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,’—and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative.

  I understand, he said.

  Tragedy and Comedy are wholly imitative; dithyrambic and some other kinds of poetry are devoid of imitation. Epic poetry is a combination of the two.

  Or you may suppose the opposite case—that the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left.

  That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy.

  You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative—instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only speaker—of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me?

  Yes, he said; I see now what you meant.

  I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the style.

  Yes, I remember.

  In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,—whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited?

  You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State?

  A hint about Homer (cp. infra, bk. x.)

  Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go.

  And go we will, he said.

  Our guardians ought not to be imitators, for one man can only do one thing well;

  Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any?

  Certainly.

  And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one?

  He cannot.

  395Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy—did you not just now call them imitations?

  Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both.

  Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?

  True.

  Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations.

  They are so.

  And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies.

  Quite true, he replied.

  he cannot even imitate many things.

  If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession—the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind?

  Yes, certainly, he said.

  Imitations which are of the degrading sort.

  Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labour.

  Very right, he said.

  Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves?

  They must not.

  And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as the manner of such 396is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated.

  Very true, he replied.

  Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like?

  How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these?

  Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing?

  Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behaviour of madmen.

  You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character and education.

  And which are these two sorts? he asked.

  Imitations which may be encouraged.

  Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,—I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it.

  So I should expect, he replied.

  Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree?

  Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker 397must necessarily take.

  Imitations which are to be prohibited.

  But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration.

  That, he said, will be his mode of speaking.

  These, then, are the two kinds of style?

  Yes.

  Two kinds of style—the one simple, the other multiplex. There is also a third which is a combination of the two.

  And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm?

  That is quite true, he said.

  Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes.

  That is also perfectly true, he replied.

  And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in both together.

  They include all, he said.

  The simple style alone is to be admitted in the State; the attractions of the mixed style are acknowledged, but it appears to be excluded.

  And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?

  I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.

  Yes, I said, Adeimantus; but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general.

  I do not deny it.

  But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only?

  Yes; quite unsuitable.

  Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon.

  And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?

  True, he said.

  The pantomimic artist is to receive great honours, but he is to be sent out of the country.

  398And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls’ health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers.

  We certainly will, he said, if we have the power.

  Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished; for the matter and manner have both been discussed.

  I think so too, he said.

  Next in order will follow melody and song.

  That is obvious.

  Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves.

  I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word ‘every one’ hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though I may guess.

  At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts—the words, the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose?

  Yes, he said; so much as that you may.

  And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words which are and which are not set to music; both will conform to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us?

  Socrates, Glaucon.

  Yes.

  Melody and rhythm.

  And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words?

  Certainly.

  We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow?

  True.

  And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me.

  The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like.

  These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.

  Certainly.

  In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians.

  Utterly unbecoming.

  The relaxed melodies or harmonies are the Ionian and the Lydian. These are to be banished.

  And which are the soft or drinking harmonies?

  399The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed ‘relaxed.’

  Well, and are these of any military use?

  Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left.

  I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.

  And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking.

  The Dorian and Phrygian are to be retained.

  Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale?

  I suppose not.

  Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed curiously-harmonised instruments?

  Certainly not.

  Musical instruments—which are to be rejected and which allowed?

  But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?

  Clearly not.

  There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country.

  That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.

  The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments is not at all strange, I said.

  Not at all, he replied.

  And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious.

  And we have done wisely, he replied.

  Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous 400and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your duty—you must teach me them, as you have already taught me the harmonies.

  Three kinds of rhythm as there are four notes of the tetrachord.

  But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes1 out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable to say.

  Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long quantities2 . Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know?

  Rather so, I should say.

  But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm.

  None at all.

  Rhythm and harmony follow style, and style is the expression of the soul.

  And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style; for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them.

  Just so, he said, they should follow the words.

  And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul?

  Yes.

  And everything else on the style?

  Yes.

  Simplicity the great first principle;

  Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly?

  Very true, he replied.

  And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim?

  They must.

  and a principle which is widely spread in nature and art.

  401And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,—weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,—in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness.

  That is quite true, he said.

  Our citizens must grow up to manhood amidst impressions of grace and beauty only; all ugliness and vice must be excluded.

  But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.

  There can be no nobler training than that, he replied.

  The power of imparting grace is possessed by harmony.

  And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, 402and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.

  Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention.

  Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations; not slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognise them wherever they are found1 :

  True—

  Or, as we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both:

  Exactly—

  The true musician must know the essential forms of virtue and vice.

  Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study.

  Most assuredly.

  The harmony of soul and body the fairest of sights.

  And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it?

  The fairest indeed.

  And the fairest is also the loveliest?

  That may be assumed.

  And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul?

  The true lover will not mind defects of the person.

  That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same.

  I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance?

  How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain.

  Or any affinity to virtue in general?

  403None whatever.

  Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance?

  Yes, the greatest.

  And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love?

  No, nor a madder.

  True love is temperate and harmonious.

  Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order—temperate and harmonious?

  Quite true, he said.

  Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true love?

  Certainly not.

  True love is free from sensuality and coarseness.

  Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort?

  No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them.

  Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other’s consent; and this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste.

  I quite agree, he said.

  Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty?

  I agree, he said.

  Gymnastic.

  After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained.

  Certainly.

  Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is,—and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,—not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say?

  Yes, I agree.

  The body to be entrusted to the mind.

  Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the body; and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject.

  Very good.

  That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is.

  Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed.

  But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training for the great contest of all—are they not?

  Yes, he said.

  404And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them?

  Why not?

  The usual training of athletes too gross and sleepy.

  I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen?

  Yes, I do.

  Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health.

  That is my view.

  The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing.

  How so?

  Military gymnastic.

  Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic.

  What do you mean?

  My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers’ fare; they have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans.

  True.

  And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular; all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind.

  Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them.

  Syracusan dinners and Corinthian courtezans are prohibited.

  Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of Sicilian cookery?

  I think not.

  Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend?

  Certainly not.

  Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionary?

  Certainly not.

  The luxurious style of living may be justly compared to the panharmonic strain of music.

  All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms.

  Exactly.

  There complexity engendered licence, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body.

  Most true, he said.

  405But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them.

  Of course.

  Every man should be his own doctor and lawyer.

  And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of the want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him?

  Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful.

  Bad as it is to go to law, it is still worse to be a lover of litigation.

  Would you say ‘most,’ I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?—in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful?

  Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful.

  Bad also to require the help of medicine.

  Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace?

  Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases.

  In the time of Asclepius and of Homer the practice of medicine was very simple.

  Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well 406besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case.

  Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition.

  The nursing of disease began with Herodicus.

  Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world.

  How was that? he said.

  By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age.

  A rare reward of his skill!

  Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort.

  How do you mean? he said.

  The working-man has no time for tedious remedies.

  I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,—these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble.

  Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only.

  407Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation?

  Quite true, he said.

  But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live.

  He is generally supposed to have nothing to do.

  Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue?

  Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.

  The slow cure equally an impediment to the mechanical arts, to the practice of virtue,

  Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides?

  Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue.

  and to any kind of study or thought.

  1 Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important of all, irreconcileable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection—there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body.

  Yes, likely enough.

  Asclepius would not cure diseased constitutions because they were of no use to the State.

  And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment; such as these he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion: he did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting weaker sons;—if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no use either to himself, or to the State.

  Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman.

  The case of Menelaus, who was attended by the sons of Asclepius.

  Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. 408Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they

  ‘Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies2 ,’

  but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus; the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was healthy and regular in his habits; and even though he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them.

  The offence of Asclepius.

  They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius.

  Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both;—if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or, if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god.

  All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question to you: Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures?

  Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good?

  Will you tell me?

  I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you join two things which are not the same.

  How so? he asked.

  The physician should have experience of illness in his own person;

  Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly; but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing.

  That is very true, he said.

  on the other hand, the judge should not learn to know evil by the practice of it, but by long observation of evil in others.

  409But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls.

  Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived.

  Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.

  Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge.

  Such a knowledge of human nature far better and truer than that of the adept in crime.

  Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke,—he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he cannot recognise an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish.

  Most true, he said.

  Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious man has wisdom—in my opinion.

  And in mine also.

  This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will sanction in your state. They will minister to 410better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves.

  That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State.

  And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law.

  Clearly.

  And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case.

  That I quite believe.

  The very exercises and toils which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength; he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develope his muscles.

  Very right, he said.

  Music and gymnastic are equally designed for the improvement of the mind.

  Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the body.

  What then is the real object of them?

  I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul.

  How can that be? he asked.

  Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music?

  In what way shown? he said.

  The mere athlete must be softened, and the philosophic nature prevented from becoming too soft.

  The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness and effeminacy, I replied.

  Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him.

  Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal.

  That I quite think.

  On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate.

  True.

  And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities?

  Assuredly.

  And both should be in harmony?

  Beyond question.

  411And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous?

  Yes.

  And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish?

  Very true.

  Music, if carried too far, renders the weaker nature effeminate, the stronger irritable.

  And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior.

  Very true.

  If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable; —on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable.

  Exactly.

  And in like manner the well-fed athlete, if he have no education,

  And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was.

  Certainly.

  degenerates into a wild beast,

  And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their mists?

  True, he said.

  And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,—he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace.

  That is quite true, he said.

  And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these 412two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized.

  That appears to be the intention.

  Music to be mingled with gymnastic, and both attempered to the individual soul.

  And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings.

  You are quite right, Socrates.

  And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the government is to last.

  Yes, he will be absolutely necessary.

  Enough of principles of education: who are to be our rulers?

  Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them.

  I dare say that there will be no difficulty.

  Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects?

  Certainly.

  There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger.

  Clearly.

  And that the best of these must rule.

  That is also clear.

  The elder must rule and the younger serve.

  Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry?

  Yes.

  And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians?

  Yes.

  And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State?

  True.

  Those are to be appointed rulers who have been tested in all the stages of their life;

  And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves?

  To be sure.

  And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own?

  Very true, he replied.

  Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests.

  Those are the right men.

  And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State.

  How cast off? he said.

  I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man’s mind either with his will or against his will; with 413his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth.

  I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn.

  Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth?

  Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will.

  And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment?

  Still, he replied, I do not understand you.

  and who are unchanged by the influence either of pleasure, or of fear,

  I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me?

  Yes.

  Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion.

  I understand, he said, and you are quite right.

  or of enchantments.

  And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear?

  Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

  Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way?

  Yes.

  And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities.

  Very right, he replied.

  If they stand the test they are to be honoured in life and after death.

  And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments—that is the third sort of test—and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed 414a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness.

  And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said.

  The title of guardians to be reserved for the elders, the young men to be called auxiliaries.

  And perhaps the word ‘guardian’ in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers.

  I agree with you, he said.

  How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke—just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city?

  What sort of lie? he said.

  The Phoenician tale.

  Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician1 tale of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did.

  How your words seem to hesitate on your lips!

  You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard.

  Speak, he said, and fear not.

  The citizens to be told that they are really autochthonous, sent up out of the earth,

  Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.

  You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell.

  and composed of metals of various quality.The noble quality to rise in the State, the ignoble to descend.

  415True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it?

  Is such a fiction credible?—Yes, in a future generation; not in the present.

  Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons’ sons, and posterity after them.

  The selection of a site for the warriors’ camp.

  I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings.

  Just so, he said.

  And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer.

  I suppose that you mean houses, he replied.

  Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers.

  What is the difference? he said.

  The warriors must be humanized by education.

  416That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd?

  Truly monstrous, he said.

  And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies?

  Yes, great care should be taken.

  And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard?

  But they are well-educated already, he replied.

  I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection.

  Very true, he replied.

  And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that.

  He must.

  Their way of life will be that of a camp.They must have no homes or property of their own.

  Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine 417by any such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for our guardians concerning their houses and all other matters?

  Yes, said Glaucon.

  BOOK IV.

  Republic IV.Adeimantus, Socrates.An objection that Socrates has made his citizens poor and miserable:

  419Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making1 these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard?

  and worst of all, adds Socrates, they have no money.

  420Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added.

  But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge.

  You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer?

  Yes.

  Yet very likely they may be the happiest of mankind.The State, like a statue, must be judged of as a whole.The guardians must be guardians, not boon companions.

  If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body—the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black—to him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy—and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads; for, 421if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them.

  I think that you are quite right.

  I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me.

  What may that be?

  There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts.

  What are they?

  Wealth, I said, and poverty.

  How do they act?

  When an artisan grows rich, he becomes careless: if he is very poor, he has no money to buy tools with. The city should be neither poor nor rich.

  The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art?

  Certainly not.

  He will grow more and more indolent and careless?

  Very true.

  And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter?

  Yes; he greatly deteriorates.

  But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well.

  Certainly not.

  Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate?

  That is evident.

  Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved.

  What evils?

  422Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

  Socrates, Adeimantus.But how, being poor, can she contend against a wealthy enemy?

  That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war.

  There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them.

  How so? he asked.

  Our wiry soldiers will be more than a match for their fat neighbours.

  In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men.

  That is true, he said.

  And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers?

  Hardly, if they came upon him at once.

  What, not, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage?

  Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that.

  And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practise of boxing than they have in military qualities.

  Likely enough.

  Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number?

  I agree with you, for I think you right.

  And they will have allies who will readily join on condition of receiving the spoil.

  And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities, telling them what is the truth: Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have, but you may; do you therefore come and help us in war, and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side, against fat and tender sheep?

  That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one.

  But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own!

  Why so?

  But many cities will conspire? No: they are divided in themselves.Many states are contained in one

  You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these 423are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater.

  That is most true, he said.

  The limit to the size of the State the possibility of unity.

  And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go?

  What limit would you propose?

  I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I think, is the proper limit.

  Very good, he said.

  Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians: Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and self-sufficing.

  And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them.

  The duty of adjusting the citizens to the rank forwhich nature intended them.

  And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still,—I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when naturally superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be one and not many; and so the whole city would be one and not many.

  Yes, he said; that is not so difficult.

  The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be taken, as the saying is, of the one great thing,—a thing, however, which I would rather call, not, great, but sufficient for our purpose.

  What may that be? he asked.

  Education, I said, and nurture: If our citizens are well educated, and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as other matters which I omit; such, for example, as marriage, the possession of 424women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says.

  That will be the best way of settling them.

  Good education has a cumulative force and affects the breed.

  Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals.

  Very possibly, he said.

  No innovations to be made either in music or gymnastic.

  Then to sum up: This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed,—that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one says that mankind most regard

  ‘The newest song which the singers have1 ,’

  Damon.

  they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him;—he says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.

  Yes, said Adelmantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon’s and your own.

  Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music?

  Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in.

  Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless.

  The spirit of lawlessness, beginning in music, gradually pervades the whole of life.

  Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public.

  Is that true? I said.

  That is my belief, he replied.

  Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, 425and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens.

  Very true, he said.

  The habit of order the basis of education.

  And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen places in the State will raise them up again.

  Very true, he said.

  If the citizens have the root of the matter in them, they will supply the details for themselves.

  Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected.

  What do you mean?

  I mean such things as these:—when the young are to be silent before their elders; how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit; what honour is due to parents; what garments or shoes are to be worn; the mode of dressing the hair; deportment and manners in general. You would agree with me?

  Yes.

  But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters,—I doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting.

  Impossible.

  It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like?

  To be sure.

  Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and may be the reverse of good?

  That is not to be denied.

  And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them.

  Naturally enough, he replied.

  The mere routine of administration may be omitted by us.

  Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements with artisans; about insult and injury, or the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and exactions of market and harbour dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets, police, harbours, and the like. But, oh heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars?

  I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves.

  Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them.

  And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection.

  Illustration of reformers of the law taken from invalids who are always doctoring themselves, but will

  You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance?

  Exactly.

  426Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try.

  Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort.

  never listen to the truth.

  Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail.

  Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right.

  These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces.

  Assuredly not.

  Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the citizens are forbidden under pain of death to alter the constitution; and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this régime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesman—do not these States resemble the persons whom I was describing?

  Yes, he said; the States are as bad as the men; and I am very far from praising them.

  But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption?

  Demagogues trying their hands at legislation may be excused for their ignorance of the world.

  Yes, he said, I do; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and these are not much to be admired.

  What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say?

  Nay, he said, certainly not in that case.

  Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra?

  427Yes, he said; that is just what they are doing.

  Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon.

  I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations.

  What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation?

  Nothing to us, I replied; but to Apollo, the god of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all.

  Which are they? he said.

  Religion to be left to the God of Delphi.

  The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind.

  You are right, and we will do as you propose.

  But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.

  Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety?

  I do not deny that I said so; and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word; but you must join.

  We will, he replied.

  Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect.

  Socrates, Glaucon.

  That is most certain.

  And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just.

  That is likewise clear.

  And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue?

  428Very good.

  If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there would be no further trouble; or we might know the other three first, and then the fourth would clearly be the one left.

  Very true, he said.

  And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number?

  Clearly.

  The place of the virtues in the State: (1) The wisdom of the statesman advises, not about particular arts or pursuits,

  First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity.

  What is that?

  The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel?

  Very true.

  And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well?

  Clearly.

  And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse?

  Of course.

  There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel?

  Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering.

  Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements?

  Certainly not.

  Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots, he said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge?

  Not by reason of any of them, he said.

  Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth; that would give the city the name of agricultural?

  Yes.

  but about the whole State.

  Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently-founded State among any of the citizens which advises, not about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with other States?

  There certainly is.

  And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked.

  It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians.

  And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge?

  The name of good in counsel and truly wise.

  The statesmen or guardians are the smallest of all classes in the State.

  And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths?

  The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous.

  Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge?

  Much the smallest.

  And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according 429to nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least.

  Most true.

  Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered.

  And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied.

  Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage, and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State.

  How do you mean?

  (2) The courage which makes the city courageous is found chiefly in the soldier.

  Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State’s behalf.

  No one, he replied, would ever think of any other.

  The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly, but their courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the other.

  Certainly not.

  It is the quality which preserves right opinion about things to be feared and not to be feared.

  The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them; and this is what you term courage.

  I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that I perfectly understand you.

  I mean that courage is a kind of salvation.

  Salvation of what?

  Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by the words ‘under all circumstances’ to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration?

  If you please.

  Illustration from the art of dyeing.

  You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white colour first; this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour.

  Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous appearance.

  Our soldiers must take the dye of the laws.

  Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was 430in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure—mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree.

  But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave—this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name.

  Most certainly.

  Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe?

  Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words ‘of a citizen,’ you will not be far wrong;—hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are seeking not for courage but justice; and for the purpose of our enquiry we have said enough.

  You are right, he replied.

  Two other virtues, temperance and justice, which must be considered in their proper order.

  Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State—first, temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search.

  Very true.

  Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance?

  I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first.

  Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request.

  Then consider, he said.

  Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding.

  How so? he asked.

  Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of ‘a man being his own master;’ and other traces of the same notion may be found in language.

  No doubt, he said.

  The temperate is master of himself, but the same person, when intemperate, is also the slave of himself.

  There is something ridiculous in the expression ‘master of 431himself;’ for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted.

  Certainly.

  The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse—in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled.

  Yes, there is reason in that.

  And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words ‘temperance’ and ‘self-mastery’ truly express the rule of the better part over the worse.

  Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true.

  Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class.

  Certainly, he said.

  Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated.

  Very true.

  The State which has the passions and desires of the many controlled

  These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few.

  That I perceive, he said.

  Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation?

  Certainly, he replied.

  It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons?

  by the few may be rightly called temperate.

  Yes.

  And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State?

  Undoubtedly.

  And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will temperance be found—in the rulers or in the subjects?

  In both, as I should imagine, he replied.

  Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony?

  Why so?

  Temperance resides in the whole State.

  Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the 432State wise and the other valiant; not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in states and individuals.

  I entirely agree with you.

  And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice, if we only knew what that was.

  The inference is obvious.

  Justice is not far off.

  The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know.

  Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show him—that is about as much as I am good for.

  Offer up a prayer with me and follow.

  I will, but you must show me the way.

  Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must push on.

  Let us push on.

  Here I saw something: Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape.

  Good news, he said.

  Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows.

  Why so?

  Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands—that was the way with us—we looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her.

  What do you mean?

  I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her.

  I grow impatient at the length of your exordium.

  We had already found her when we spoke of one man doing one thing only.

  433Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted;—now justice is this principle or a part of it.

  Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.

  Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one’s own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us.

  Yes, we said so.

  Then to do one’s own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference?

  I cannot, but I should like to be told.

  From another point of view Justice

  Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one.

  is the residue of the three others.

  That follows of necessity.

  If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,—the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm—the question is not so easily answered.

  Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which.

  Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage.

  Yes, he said.

  And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice?

  Exactly.

  Our idea is confirmed by the administration of justice in lawsuits. No man is to have what is not his own.

  Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law?

  Certainly.

  And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another’s, nor be deprived of what is his own?

  Yes; that is their principle.

  Which is a just principle?

  Yes.

  Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man’s own, and belongs to him?

  434Very true.

  Illustration: Classes,

  Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State?

  like individuals, should not meddle with one another’s occupations.

  Not much.

  But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State.

  Most true.

  Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing?

  Precisely.

  And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one’s own city would be termed by you injustice?

  Certainly.

  This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just.

  I agree with you.

  From the larger example of the State we will now return to the individual.

  We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet; but if, on trial, this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt; if it be not verified, we must have a fresh enquiry. First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual—if they agree, we shall be satisfied; or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will come back to the State and have another 435trial of the theory. The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls.

  That will be in regular course; let us do as you say.

  I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same?

  Like, he replied.

  The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just State?

  He will.

  And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes?

  True, he said.

  And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the State; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner?

  Certainly, he said.

  How can we decide whether or no the soul has three distinct principles?

  Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question—whether the soul has these three principles or not?

  An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good.

  Our method is inadequate, and for a better and longer one we have not at present time.

  Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous enquiry.

  May we not be satisfied with that? he said;—under the circumstances, I am quite content.

  I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied.

  Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said.

  Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?—how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit;—it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e. g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations; and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the 436love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians.

  Exactly so, he said.

  There is no difficulty in understanding this.

  None whatever.

  A digression in which an attempt is made to attain logical clearness.

  But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action—to determine that is the difficulty.

  Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty.

  Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different.

  How can we? he asked.

  The criterion of truth: Nothing can be and not be at the same time in the same relation.

  I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different.

  Good.

  For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part?

  Impossible.

  Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment —to such a mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest.

  Very true.

  Anticipation of objections to this ‘law of thought.’

  And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference; and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest.

  That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied.

  Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the 437same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways.

  Certainly not, according to my way of thinking.

  Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn.

  Yes, he said, that will be the best way.

  Likes and dislikes exist in many forms.

  Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition)?

  Yes, he said, they are opposites.

  Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing,—all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned. You would say—would you not?—that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desire; or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question?

  Very true.

  And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection?

  Certainly.

  Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them?

  Let us take that class, he said.

  The object of one is food, and of the other drink?

  Yes.

  There may be simple thirst or qualified thirst, having respectively a simple or a qualified object.

  And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example, warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger?

  Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object.

  Exception: The term good expresses, not a particular, but an universal relation.

  438But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the same is true of every other desire.

  Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say.

  Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their correlatives simple.

  I do not know what you mean.

  Illustration of the argument from the use of language about correlative terms.

  Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less?

  Certainly.

  And the much greater to the much less?

  Yes.

  And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be?

  Certainly, he said.

  And so of more and less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double and the half, or again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower; and of hot and cold, and of any other relatives; — is not this true of all of them?

  Yes.

  And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge; I mean, for example, that the science of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture.

  Certainly.

  Because it has a particular quality which no other has?

  Yes.

  And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind; and this is true of the other arts and sciences?

  Yes.

  Recapitulation.Anticipation of a possible confusion.

  Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the other is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil; but only that, when the term science is no longer used absolutely, but has a qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of medicine.

  I quite understand, and I think as you do.

  439Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation—

  Yes, thirst is relative to drink.

  And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only?

  Certainly.

  Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it?

  That is plain.

  The law of contradiction.

  And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same.

  Impossible.

  No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls.

  Exactly so, he replied.

  And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink?

  Yes, he said, it constantly happens.

  And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him?

  I should say so.

  The opposition of desire and reason.

  And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease?

  Clearly.

  Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions?

  Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different.

  Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding?

  I should be inclined to say—akin to desire.

  The third principle of spirit or passion illustrated by an example.

  Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; 440for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.

  I have heard the story myself, he said.

  The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things.

  Yes; that is the meaning, he said.

  Passion never takes part with desire against reason.

  And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a man’s desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;—but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed1 , is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else?

  Certainly not.

  Righteous indignation never felt by a person of noble character when he deservedly suffers.

  Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him—these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them.

  True, he said.

  But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more.

  The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds.

  I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider.

  What point?

  You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle.

  Most assuredly.

  Not two, but three principles in the soul, as in the State.

  But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, 441the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason?

  Yes, he said, there must be a third.

  Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason.

  But that is easily proved:—We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough.

  Appeal to Homer.

  Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us,

  ‘He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul1 ;’

  for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it.

  Very true, he said.

  The conclusion that the same three principles exist both in the State and in the individual applied to each of them.

  And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number.

  Exactly.

  Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise?

  Certainly.

  Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues?

  Assuredly.

  And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just?

  That follows of course.

  We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class?

  We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said.

  We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work?

  Yes, he said, we must remember that too.

  And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally?

  Certainly.

  Music and gymnastic will harmonize passion and reason. These two combined will control desire,

  And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating 442and soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony and rhythm?

  Quite true, he said.

  And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule1 over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man?

  Very true, he said.

  and will be the best defenders both of body and soul.

  Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels?

  True.

  The courageous.

  And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear?

  Right, he replied.

  The wise.

  And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole?

  Assuredly.

  The temperate.

  And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel?

  Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual.

  The just.

  And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what quality a man will be just.

  That is very certain.

  And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the State?

  There is no difference in my opinion, he said.

  Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying.

  The nature of justice illustrated by commonplace instances.

  What sort of instances do you mean?

  If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just 443State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this?

  No one, he replied.

  Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country?

  Never.

  Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements?

  Impossible.

  No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties?

  No one.

  And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled?

  Exactly so.

  Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice or do you hope to discover some other?

  Not I, indeed.

  We have realized the hope entertained in the first construction of the State.

  Then our dream has been realized; and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified?

  Yes, certainly.

  And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another’s, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use?

  Clearly.

  The three principles harmonize in one.The harmony of human life.

  But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,—he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals—when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any 444time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.

  You have said the exact truth, Socrates.

  Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood?

  Most certainly not.

  May we say so, then?

  Let us say so.

  And now, I said, injustice has to be considered.

  Clearly.

  Injustice the opposite of justice.

  Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles—a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,—what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice?

  Exactly so.

  And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear?

  What do you mean? he said.

  Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body.

  How so? he said.

  Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease.

  Yes.

  Analogy of body and soul.

  And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice?

  Health: disease: : justice: injustice.

  That is certain.

  And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order?

  True.

  And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order?

  Exactly so, he said.

  Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same?

  True.

  And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice?

  Assuredly.

  The old question, whether the just or the unjust is the happier, has become ridiculous.

  445Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed?

  In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described?

  Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way.

  Certainly not, he replied.

  Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at.

  I am following you, he replied: proceed.

  I said, The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are innumerable; there being four special ones which are deserving of note.

  What do you mean? he said.

  As many forms of the soul as of the State.

  I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State.

  How many?

  There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said.

  What are they?

  The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many.

  True, he replied.

  But I regard the two names as describing one form only; for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained.

  That is true, he replied.

  BOOK V.

  Republic V.Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus.The community of women and children.

  449Such is the good and true City or State, and the good and true man is of the same pattern; and if this is right every other is wrong; and the evil is one which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms.

  What are they? he said.

  I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him: stretching forth his hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him towards him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, ‘Shall we let him off, or what shall we do?’

  Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice.

  Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off?

  You, he said.

  I repeated1 , Why am I especially not to be let off?

  The saying ‘Friends have all things in common’ is an insufficient solution of the problem.

  Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children ‘friends have all things in common.’

  And was I not right, Adeimantus?

  Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon, Thrasymachus.

  Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens—how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children—for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not 450to let you go until you give an account of all this.

  To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed.

  And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed.

  The feigned surprise of Socrates.

  I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet’s nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it.

  The good-humour of Thrasymachus.

  For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus, — to look for gold, or to hear discourse?

  Yes, but discourse should have a limit.

  Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us; take heart yourself and answer the question in your own way: What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be.

  Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy; many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted; and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our aspiration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only.

  Socrates, Glaucon.

  Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you; they are not sceptical or hostile.

  I said: My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these words.

  Yes, he said.

  A friendly audience is more dangerous than a hostile one.

  Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse; the encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about: to declare the truth about matters of high interest which a man honours and loves among wise men who love him need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind; but to carry on an argument when you are yourself only a hesitating 451enquirer, which is my condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws1 . And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies than among friends, and therefore you do well to encourage me2 .

  Glaucon laughed and said: Well then, Socrates, in case you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the homicide, and shall not be held to be a deceiver; take courage then and speak.

  Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument.

  Then why should you mind?

  Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you.

  For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd.

  True.

  Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design.

  What do you mean?

  No distinction among the animals such as is made between men and women.

  What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them?

  No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker.

  But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way?

  You cannot.

  Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they 452must have the same nurture and education?

  Yes.

  The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic.

  Yes.

  Women must be taught music, gymnastic, and military exercises equally with men.

  Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men?

  That is the inference, I suppose.

  I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous.

  No doubt of it.

  Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia.

  Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous.

  But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women’s attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback!

  Very true, he replied.

  Convention should not be permitted to stand in the way of a higher good.

  Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation.

  No doubt.

  But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good1 .

  Very true, he replied.

  First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in 453earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion.

  That will be much the best way.

  Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves; in this manner the adversary’s position will not be undefended.

  Why not? he said.

  Objection: We were saying that every one should do his own work: Have not women and men severally a work of their own?

  Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: ‘Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.’ And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. ‘And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?’ And we shall reply: Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, ‘Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?’ Certainly they should. ‘But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?’—What defence will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections?

  That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side.

  These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children.

  By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy.

  Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same.

  Very true.

  And must not we swim and try to reach the shore: we will hope that Arion’s dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us?

  I suppose so, he said.

  Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged—did we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men’s and women’s natures are different. And now what are we saying?—that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,—this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us.

  Precisely.

  454Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction!

  Why do you say so?

  The seeming inconsistency arises out of a verbal opposition.

  Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion.

  Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument?

  A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition.

  In what way?

  When we assigned to different natures different pursuits, we meant only those differences of nature which affected the pursuits.

  Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures.

  Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us.

  I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely?

  That would be a jest, he said.

  Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician1 may be said to have the same nature.

  True.

  Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures?

  Certainly.

  And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits.

  Very true, he said.

  Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any 455of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man?

  That will be quite fair.

  And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on the instant is not easy; but after a little reflection there is no difficulty.

  Yes, perhaps.

  Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the State.

  By all means.

  The same natural gifts are found in both sexes, but they are possessed in a higher degree by men than women.

  Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question:—when you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance to him?—would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted?

  No one will deny that.

  And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd?

  You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true.

  And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.

  Very true.

  Men and women are to be governed by the same laws and to have the same pursuits.

  Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on women?

  That will never do.

  456One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and another has no music in her nature?

  Very true.

  And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics?

  Certainly.

  And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit?

  That is also true.

  Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this sort?

  Yes.

  Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness.

  Obviously.

  And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character?

  Very true.

  And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits?

  They ought.

  Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians—to that point we come round again.

  Certainly not.

  The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature.

  That appears to be true.

  We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial?

  Yes.

  And the possibility has been acknowledged?

  Yes.

  The very great benefit has next to be established?

  Quite so.

  There are different degrees of goodness both in women and in men.

  You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the same?

  Yes.

  I should like to ask you a question.

  What is it?

  Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another?

  The latter.

  And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling?

  What a ridiculous question!

  You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens?

  By far the best.

  And will not their wives be the best women?

  Yes, by far the best.

  And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible?

  There can be nothing better.

  457And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in such manner as we have described, will accomplish?

  Certainly.

  Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State?

  True.

  Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country; only in the distribution of labours the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking

  ‘A fruit of unripe wisdom,’

  The noble saying.

  and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about;—for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base.

  Very true.

  Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness.

  Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped.

  The second and greater wave.

  Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when you see the next.

  Go on; let me see.

  The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect,—‘that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.’

  Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable.

  I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed.

  I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both.

  The utility and possibility of a community of wives and children.

  You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility.

  But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both.

  The utility to be considered first, the possibility afterwards.

  Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little 458favour: let me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishes—that is a matter which never troubles them—they would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true—that is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of possibility.

  I have no objection; proceed.

  First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care.

  That is right, he said.

  The legislator will select guardians male and female, who will

  You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them;—they must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other—necessity is not too strong a word, I think?

  meet at common meals and exercises, and will be drawn to one another by an irresistible necessity.

  Yes, he said;—necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind.

  True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid.

  Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted.

  Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred?

  459Exactly.

  The breeding of human beings, as of animals, to be from the best and from those who are of a ripe age.

  And how can marriages be made most beneficial?—that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding?

  In what particulars?

  Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others?

  True.

  And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only?

  From the best.

  And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age?

  I choose only those of ripe age.

  And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate?

  Certainly.

  And the same of horses and of animals in general?

  Undoubtedly.

  Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!

  Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill?

  Useful lies ‘very honest knaveries.’

  Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man.

  That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding?

  I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage.

  And we were very right.

  And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births.

  How so?

  Arrangements for the improvement of the breed;

  Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion.

  Very true.

  and for the regulation of population.

  Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will 460be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small.

  Certainly, he replied.

  Pairing by lot.

  We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers.

  To be sure, he said.

  The brave deserve the fair.

  And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible.

  True.

  And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men—

  Yes—

  What is to be done with the children?

  The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be.

  Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure.

  They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognises her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants.

  You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children.

  Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life?

  Very true.

  And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman’s life, and thirty in a man’s?

  Which years do you mean to include?

  A woman to bear children from

  A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five.

  461Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour.

  twenty to forty; a man to beget them from twenty-five to fifty-five.

  Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priests and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust.

  Very true, he replied.

  And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated.

  Very true, he replied.

  After the prescribed age has been passed, more licence is allowed: but all who were born after certain hymeneal festivals at which their parents or grandparents came together must be kept separate.

  This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter’s daughter, or his mother or his mother’s mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son’s son or father’s father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly.

  That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on?

  They will never know. The way will be this:—dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and the tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to intermarry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters; if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them.

  Quite right, he replied.

  Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better—would you not?

  462Yes, certainly.

  Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State,—what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil?

  By all means.

  The greatest good of States, unity; the greatest evil, discord. The one the result of public, the other of private feelings.

  Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity?

  There cannot.

  And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains—where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow?

  No doubt.

  Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized—when you have one half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens?

  Certainly.

  Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’ ‘his’ and ‘not his.’

  Exactly so.

  And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ in the same way to the same thing?

  Quite true.

  The State like a living being which feels altogether when hurt in any part.

  Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual—as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering.

  Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe.

  Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him?

  Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State.

  How different are the terms which are applied to the rulers in other States and in our own!

  It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles.

  Very good.

  463Our State like every other has rulers and subjects?

  True.

  All of whom will call one another citizens?

  Of course.

  But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States?

  Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers.

  And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers?

  They are called saviours and helpers, he replied.

  And what do the rulers call the people?

  Their maintainers and foster-fathers.

  And what do they call them in other States?

  Slaves.

  And what do the rulers call one another in other States?

  Fellow-rulers.

  And what in ours?

  Fellow-guardians.

  Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend?

  Yes, very often.

  And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest?

  Exactly.

  But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger?

  Certainly he would not; for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him.

  The State one family.

  Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word ‘father,’ would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk?

  Using the same terms, they will have the same modes of thinking and acting, and this is to be attributed mainly to the community of women and children.

  These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them?

  Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any one is well or ill, the universal word will be ‘with me it is well’ or ‘it is ill.’

  464Most true.

  And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common?

  Yes, and so they will.

  And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call ‘my own,’ and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain?

  Yes, far more so than in other States.

  And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children?

  That will be the chief reason.

  And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain?

  That we acknowledged, and very rightly.

  Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State?

  Certainly.

  And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,—that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians.

  Right, he replied.

  There will be no private interests among them, and therefore no lawsuits or trials for assault or violence to elders.

  Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about ‘mine’ and ‘not mine;’ each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a common end.

  Certainly, he replied.

  And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion.

  Of course they will.

  Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to be honourable 465and right; we shall make the protection of the person a matter of necessity.

  That is good, he said.

  Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz. that if a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths.

  Certainly.

  To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the younger.

  Clearly.

  Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers.

  That is true, he replied.

  Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with one another?

  Yes, there will be no want of peace.

  From how many other evils will our citizens be delivered!

  And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one another.

  None whatever.

  I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep—the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of.

  Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that.

  And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed.

  How so?

  The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial.

  Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are.

  Answer to the charge of Adeimantus that we made our citizens unhappy for their own good.

  Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous 466discussion1 some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy—they had nothing and might have possessed all things—to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole?

  Yes, I remember.

  Their life not to be compared with that of citizens in ordinary States.

  And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors—is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it?

  Certainly not.

  He who seeks to be more than a guardian is naught.

  At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, ‘half is more than the whole.’

  If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when you have the offer of such a life.

  The common way of life includes common education, common children, common services and duties of men and women.

  You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have described—common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together like dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes.

  I agree with you, he replied.

  The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community will be found possible—as among other animals, so also among men—and if possible, in what way possible?

  You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest.

  There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them.

  How?

  The children to accompany their parents on military expeditions;

  Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan’s child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when 467they are grown up; and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters’ boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel?

  Yes, I have.

  And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians will be?

  The idea is ridiculous, he said.

  There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valour.

  That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which may often happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover.

  True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk?

  I am far from saying that.

  Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it?

  Clearly.

  but care must be taken that they do not run any serious risk.

  Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be incurred.

  Yes, very important.

  This then must be our first step,—to make our children spectators of war; but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger; then all will be well.

  True.

  Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are safe and what dangerous?

  That may be assumed.

  And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones?

  True.

  And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers?

  Very properly.

  Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of chance about them?

  True.

  Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape.

  What do you mean? he said.

  I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter 468to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape.

  I believe that you are right, he said.

  The coward is to be degraded into a lower rank.

  Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think?

  By all means, I should say.

  And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him.

  Certainly.

  The hero to receive honour from his comrades and favour from his beloved,

  But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say?

  I approve.

  And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship?

  To that too, I agree.

  But you will hardly agree to my next proposal.

  What is your proposal?

  That he should kiss and be kissed by them.

  Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour.

  Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible?

  Agreed.

  and to have precedence, and a larger share of meats and drinks;

  Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax1 , after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing.

  Most true, he said.

  Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with

  ‘seats of precedence, and meats and full cups1 ;’

  and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them.

  That, he replied, is excellent.

  Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race?

  To be sure.

  also to be worshipped after death.

  Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead

  469‘They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men’?2

  Yes; and we accept his authority.

  We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction; and we must do as he bids?

  By all means.

  And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age, or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours.

  That is very right, he said.

  Behaviour to enemies.

  Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this?

  In what respect do you mean?

  First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there is that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians?

  To spare them is infinitely better.

  Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe.

  No Hellene shall be made a slave.

  Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another.

  Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but their armour? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of plunder.

  Very true.

  Those who fall in battle are not to be despoiled.

  And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him,—is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead?

  Very like a dog, he said.

  Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial?

  Yes, he replied, we most certainly must.

  The arms of Hellenes are not to be offered at temples;

  Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, 470least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself?

  Very true.

  Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses, what is to be the practice?

  May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion?

  Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why?

  Pray do.

  nor Hellenic territory devastated.

  Why, you see, there is a difference in the names ‘discord’ and ‘war,’ and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war.

  That is a very proper distinction, he replied.

  And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians?

  Very good, he said.

  Hellenic warfare is only a kind of discord not intended to be lasting.

  And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; and such enmity is to be called discord.

  I agree.

  Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever.

  Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other.

  And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city?

  It ought to be, he replied.

  Then will not the citizens be good and civilized?

  Yes, very civilized.

  The lover of his own city will also be a lover of Hellas.

  And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples?

  Most certainly.

  And any difference which arises among them will be 471regarded by them as discord only—a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war?

  Certainly not.

  Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled?

  Certainly.

  They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies?

  Just so.

  Hellenes should deal mildly with Hellenes; and with barbarians as Hellenes now deal with one another.

  And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city—men, women, and children—are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction?

  I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another.

  Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:—that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses.

  Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous enactments, are very good.

  The complaint of Glaucon respecting the hesitation of Socrates.

  But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside:—Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible; and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge: but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them; assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means—the rest may be left.

  Socrates excuses himself and makes one or two remarks preparatory to a final effort.

  472If I loiter1 for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and investigate.

  The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible: speak out and at once.

  Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice.

  True, he replied; but what of that?

  I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men?

  The approximation will be enough.

  (1) The ideal is a standard only which can never be perfectly realized;

  We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact.

  True, he said.

  Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed?

  He would be none the worse.

  Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State?

  To be sure.

  And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described?

  Surely not, he replied.

  (2) but is none the worse for this.

  That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions.

  What admissions?

  473I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in language? Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say?

  I agree.

  Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility which you demand; and will be contented. I am sure that I should be contented—will not you?

  Yes, I will.

  (3) Although the ideal cannot be realized, one or two changes, or rather a single change, might revolutionize a State.

  Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or, if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible.

  Certainly, he replied.

  I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one.

  What is it? he said.

  Socrates goes forth to meet the wave.

  Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonour; and do you mark my words.

  Proceed.

  ‘Cities will never cease from ill until they are governed by philosophers.’

  I said: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,—no, nor the human race, as I believe,—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day. Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing.

  What will the world say to this?

  Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a 474figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don’t prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be ‘pared by their fine wits,’ and no mistake.

  You got me into the scrape, I said.

  And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out of it; but I can only give you good-will and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than another—that is all. And now, having such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right.

  But who is a philosopher?

  I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State; then we shall be able to defend ourselves: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders.

  Then now for a definition, he said.

  Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation.

  Proceed.

  Parallel of the lover.

  I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole.

  I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory.

  The lover of the fair loves them all;

  Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover’s breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet ‘honey pale,’ as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no 475excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth.

  If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the argument, I assent.

  the lover of wines all wines;

  And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine.

  Very good.

  the lover of honour all honour;

  And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people,—but honour of some kind they must have.

  Exactly.

  Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only?

  The whole.

  the philosopher, or lover of wisdom, all knowledge.

  And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole?

  Yes, of the whole.

  And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one?

  Very true, he said.

  Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right?

  Under knowledge, however, are not to be included sights and sounds, or under the lovers of knowledge, musical amateurs and the like.

  Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country—that makes no difference—they are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers?

  Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation.

  He said: Who then are the true philosophers?

  Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth.

  That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean?

  To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make.

  What is the proposition?

  That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two?

  Certainly.

  476And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one?

  True again.

  And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many?

  Very true.

  And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers.

  How do you distinguish them? he said.

  The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty.

  True, he replied.

  Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this.

  Very true.

  And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow—of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object?

  I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming.

  True knowledge is the ability to distinguish between the one and many, between the idea and the objects which partake of the idea.

  But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects—is he a dreamer, or is he awake?

  He is wide awake.

  And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion?

  Certainly.

  But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits?

  We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied.

  Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.)

  I answer that he knows something.

  Something that is or is not?

  Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known?

  There is an intermediate between being and not being, and a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge. This intermediate is a faculty termed opinion.

  477And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown?

  Nothing can be more certain.

  Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being?

  Yes, between them.

  And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such?

  Certainly.

  Do we admit the existence of opinion?

  Undoubtedly.

  As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty?

  Another faculty.

  Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties?

  Yes.

  And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division.

  What division?

  I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean?

  Yes, I quite understand.

  Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking?

  Yes.

  And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it?

  Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties.

  And is opinion also a faculty?

  Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion.

  And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion?

  Opinion differs from knowledge because the one errs and the other is unerring.

  478Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs?

  An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them.

  Yes.

  Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters?

  That is certain.

  Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being?

  Yes.

  And opinion is to have an opinion?

  Yes.

  And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge?

  Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same.

  Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion?

  Yes, something else.

  It also differs from ignorance, which is concerned with nothing.

  Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing?

  Impossible.

  He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing?

  Yes.

  And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing?

  True.

  Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge?

  True, he said.

  Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being?

  Not with either.

  And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge?

  That seems to be true.

  Its place is not to be sought without or beyond knowledge or ignorance, but between them.

  But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance?

  In neither.

  Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?

  Both; and in no small degree.

  And also to be within and between them?

  Yes.

  Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?

  No question.

  But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them?

  True.

  And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion?

  There has.

  Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty,—the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean.

  True.

  The absoluteness of the one and the relativeness of the many.

  479This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty—in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold—he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one—to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy?

  No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest.

  And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?—doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another?

  Quite true.

  And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names?

  True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them.

  And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this?

  He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or the children’s puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither.

  Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being.

  That is quite true, he said.

  Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing about in some region which is half-way between pure being and pure not-being?

  We have.

  Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty.

  Quite true.

  Opinion is the knowledge, not of the absolute, but of the many.

  Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,—such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge?

  That is certain.

  But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only?

  Neither can that be denied.

  The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare 480say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty.

  Yes, I remember.

  Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them?

  I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true.

  But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.

  Assuredly.

  BOOK VI.

  Republic VI.Socrates, Glaucom.

  484And thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view.

  I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened.

  If we had time, we might have a nearer view of the true and false philosopher.

  I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider.

  And what is the next question? he asked.

  Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State?

  And how can we rightly answer that question?

  Which of them shall be our guardians?

  Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State—let them be our guardians.

  Very good.

  A question hardly to be asked.

  Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes?

  There can be no question of that.

  And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter’s eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of them—are not such persons, I ask, simply blind?

  Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition.

  And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing?

  There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who 485have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect.

  Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences.

  By all means.

  The philosopher is a lover of truth and of all true being.

  In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State.

  What do you mean?

  Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption.

  Agreed.

  And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honourable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition.

  True.

  And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess?

  What quality?

  Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth.

  Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them.

  ‘May be,’ my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather, ‘must be affirmed:’ for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections.

  Right, he said.

  And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?

  How can there be?

  Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood?

  Never.

  The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth?

  Assuredly.

  But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel.

  True.

  He will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and therefore temperate and the reverse of covetous or mean.

  He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure—I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one.

  That is most certain.

  Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character.

  Very true.

  486Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered.

  What is that?

  There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human.

  Most true, he replied.

  In the magnificence of his contemplations he will not think much of human life.

  Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life?

  He cannot.

  Or can such an one account death fearful?

  No indeed.

  Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?

  Certainly not.

  Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward—can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings?

  Impossible.

  He will be of a gentle, sociable, harmonious nature; a lover of learning, having a good memory and moving spontaneously in the world of being.

  Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.

  True.

  There is another point which should be remarked.

  What point?

  Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress.

  Certainly not.

  And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel?

  That is certain.

  Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation?

  Yes.

  Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory?

  Certainly.

  And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion?

  Undoubtedly.

  And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion?

  To proportion.

  Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything.

  Certainly.

  Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being?

  487They are absolutely necessary, he replied.

  Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus.Conclusion: What a blameless study then is philosophy!

  And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,—noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred?

  The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study.

  And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State.

  Nay, says Adeimantus, you can prove anything, but your hearers are unconvinced all the same.Common opinion declares philosophers to be either rogues or useless.

  Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.

  Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong?

  I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your opinion.

  Socrates, instead of denying this statement, admits the truth of it.

  Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right.

  Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them?

  You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable.

  Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose.

  Socrates, Adeimantus.A parable.The noble captain whose senses are rather dull (the people in their better mind); the mutinous crew (the mob of politicians); and the pilot (the true philosopher).

  I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear 488the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering—every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not—the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part 489of their calling1 . Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?

  Of course, said Adeimantus.

  The interpretation.

  Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you understand already.

  Certainly.

  Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary.

  I will.

  The uselessness of philosophers arises out of the unwillingness of mankind to make use of them.

  Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him—that is not the order of nature; neither are ‘the wise to go to the doors of the rich’—the ingenious author of this saying told a lie—but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and stargazers.

  Precisely so, he said.

  The real enemies of philosophy her professing followers.

  For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed.

  Yes.

  And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained?

  True.

  The corruption of philosophy due to many causes.

  Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other?

  By all means.

  And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the 490description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy.

  Yes, that was said.

  Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance with present notions of him?

  Certainly, he said.

  But before considering this, let us re-enumerate the qualities of the philosopher:

  And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being—that is his nature; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on—the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail.

  Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him.

  his love of essence, of truth, of justice, besides his other virtues and natural gifts.

  And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher’s nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie?

  He will.

  And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads?

  Impossible.

  Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after?

  True, he replied.

  Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher’s virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher.

  Exactly.

  The reasons why philosophical natures so easily deteriorate.

  And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling—I am speaking of those who were said to be useless 491but not wicked—and, when we have done with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation of which we speak.

  What are these corruptions? he said.

  (1) There are but a few of them;

  I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men.

  Rare indeed.

  And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare natures!

  What causes?

  (2) and they may be distracted from philosophy by their own virtues;

  In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praiseworthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them.

  That is very singular, he replied.

  Then there are all the ordinary goods of life—beauty, wealth, strength, rank and great connections in the State—you understand the sort of things—these also have a corrupting and distracting effect.

  and also, (3), by the ordinary goods of life.

  I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean about them.

  Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer appear strange to you.

  And how am I to do so? he asked.

  Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not.

  Very true.

  (4) The finer natures more liable to injury than the inferior.

  There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is greater.

  Certainly.

  And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?

  There I think that you are right.

  (5) They are not corrupted by private sophists, but compelled by the opinion of the world meeting in the assembly or in some other place of resort.

  492And our philosopher follows the same analogy—he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts?

  When is this accomplished? he said.

  When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame—at such a time will not a young man’s heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have—he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be?

  Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him.

  (6) The other compulsion of violence and death.

  And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been mentioned.

  What is that?

  The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless.

  Indeed they do; and in right good earnest.

  Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest?

  None, he replied.

  They must be saved, if at all, by the power of God.

  No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character 1 which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion 1 —I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved 493by the power of God, as we may truly say.

  I quite assent, he replied.

  Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation.

  What are you going to say?

  The great brute; his behaviour and temper (the people looked at from their worse side).

  Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him—he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator?

  Indeed he would.

  He who associates with the people will conform to their tastes and will produce only what pleases them.

  And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges 1 when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not?

  No, nor am I likely to hear.

  You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty 494rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind?

  Certainly not.

  Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher?

  Impossible.

  And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world?

  They must.

  And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them?

  That is evident.

  Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence—these were admitted by us to be the true philosopher’s gifts.

  Yes.

  The youth who has great bodily and mental gifts will be flattered from his childhood,

  Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones?

  Certainly, he said.

  And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes?

  No question.

  Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day possess.

  That often happens, he said.

  And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride?

  To be sure he will.

  and being incapable of having

  Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen?

  Far otherwise.

  reason, will be easily drawn away from philosophy.

  And even if there be some one who through inherent goodness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions?

  495There can be no doubt of it.

  And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher?

  Impossible.

  The very qualities which make a man a philosopher may also divert him from philosophy.

  Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be illeducated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of life?

  We were quite right.

  Great natures alone are capable, either of great good, or great evil.

  Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States.

  That is most true, he said.

  And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment.

  That is certainly what people say.

  The attractiveness of philosophy to the vulgar.

  Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them—a land well stocked with fair names and showy titles—like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable?

  Yes.

  Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance and come into a fortune; he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master’s daughter, who is left poor and desolate?

  496A most exact parallel.

  What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard?

  There can be no question of it.

  The mésalliance of philosophy.

  And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them, what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? 1 Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear1 , having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom?

  No doubt, he said.

  Few are the worthy disciples:and these are unable to resist the madness of the world;they therefore in order to escape the storm take shelter behind a wall and live their own life.

  Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;—or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages’ bridle; for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts—he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.

  Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs.

  A great work—yes; but not the greatest, unless he find 497a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself.

  The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown—is there anything more which you wish to say?

  Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her.

  No existing State suited to philosophy.

  Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation which I bring against them—not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estranged;—as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human;—and now, I know, that you are going to ask, What that State is:

  No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question—whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other?

  Even our own State requires the addition of the living authority.

  Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws.

  That was said, he replied.

  Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult; and what still remains is the reverse of easy.

  What is there remaining?

  The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk; ‘hard is the good,’ as men say.

  Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete.

  I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit.

  In what manner?

  The superficial study of philosophy which exists in the present day.

  498At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus’ sun, inasmuch as they never light up again1 .

  But what ought to be their course?

  Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another.

  Thrasymachus once more.

  How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all.

  Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence.

  You are speaking of a time which is not very near.

  The people hate philosophy because they have only known bad and conventional imitations of it.

  Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue—such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them—do you think that they ever did?

  No indeed.

  No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society.

  They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak.

  And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them1 ; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right?

  Quite right.

  Somewhere, at some time, there may have been or may be a philosopher who is also the ruler of a State.

  If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and is—yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves.

  My opinion agrees with yours, he said.

  But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude?

  I should imagine not, he replied.

  O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of over-education, you show them your philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing 500their character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such as they supposed—if they view him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain1 . Who can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind.

  I quite agree with you, he said.

  The feeling against philosophy is really a feeling against pretended philosophers who are always talking about persons.

  And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this.

  It is most unbecoming.

  The true philosopher, who has his eye fixed upon immutable principles, will fashion States after the heavenly image.

  For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse?

  Impossible.

  And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction.

  Of course.

  And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue?

  Anything but unskilful.

  And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern?

  They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But 501how will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking?

  He will begin with a ‘tabula rasa’ and there inscribe his laws.

  They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,—they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves made, a clean surface.

  They will be very right, he said.

  Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the constitution?

  No doubt.

  And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy; and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God.

  Very true, he said.

  And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, until they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God?

  Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture.

  The enemies of philosophy, when they hear the truth, are gradually propitiated,

  And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such an one as we were praising; at whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard?

  Much calmer, if there is any sense in them.

  Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being?

  They would not be so unreasonable.

  Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest good?

  Neither can they doubt this.

  But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected?

  Surely not.

  Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realized?

  I think that they will be less angry.

  and at length become quite gentle.

  Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but 502quite gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms?

  By all means, he said.

  There may have been one son of a king a philosopher who has remained uncorrupted and has a State obedient to his will.

  Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers?

  Surely no man, he said.

  And when they have come into being will any one say that they must of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be saved is not denied even by us; but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escape—who will venture to affirm this?

  Who indeed!

  But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous.

  Yes, one is enough.

  The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them?

  Certainly.

  And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility?

  I think not.

  But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best.

  We have.

  Our constitution then is not unattainable.

  And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible.

  Very good.

  And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but more remains to be discussed;—how and by what studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies?

  Certainly.

  Recapitulation.

  I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their 503country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotism—he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner’s fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen.

  I perfectly remember, he said.

  Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold word; but now let me dare to say—that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher.

  Yes, he said, let that be affirmed.

  The guardian must be a philosopher, and a philosopher must be a person of rare gifts.

  And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found in shreds and patches.

  What do you mean? he said.

  The contrast of the quick and solid temperaments.

  You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them.

  Very true, he said.

  On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil.

  Quite true.

  They must be united.

  And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any office or command.

  Certainly, he said.

  And will they be a class which is rarely found?

  Yes, indeed.

  He who is to hold command must be tested in many kinds of knowledge.

  Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mention—he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, 504or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises.

  Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge?

  You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts; and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom?

  Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more.

  And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion of them1 ?

  To what do you refer?

  The shorter exposition of education, which has been already given, inadequate.

  We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for you to say.

  Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair measure of truth.

  But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further.

  Not an uncommon case when people are indolent.

  Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State and of the laws.

  True.

  The guardian must take the longer road of the higher learning,

  The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer circuit, and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling.

  What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this—higher than justice and the other virtues?

  Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline merely, as at present—nothing short of the most finished picture should satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy!

  A right noble thought2 ; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge?

  which leads upwards at last to the idea of good.

  Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be 505troublesome; for you have often been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness?

  Assuredly not.

  But what is the good? Some say pleasure, others knowledge, which they absurdly explain to mean knowledge of the good.

  You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge?

  Yes.

  And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good?

  How ridiculous!

  Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it—for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term ‘good’—this is of course ridiculous.

  Most true, he said.

  And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good.

  Certainly.

  And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same?

  True.

  There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved.

  There can be none.

  Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good—the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one.

  Very true, he said.

  Every man pursues the good, but without knowing the nature of it.

  Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the 506nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things, — of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?

  Certainly not, he said.

  I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them.

  That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours.

  And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered?

  The guardian ought to know these things.

  Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either?

  Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman1 like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters.

  True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own.

  Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know?

  Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion.

  And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road?

  Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon.

  Very true.

  And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty?

  Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied.

  We can only attain to the things of mind through the things of sense. The ‘child’ of the good.

  Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hear—otherwise, not.

  By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our debt for the account of the parent.

  507I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take, however, this latter by way of interest1 , and at the same time have a care that I do not render a false account, although I have no intention of deceiving you.

  Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed.

  Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at many other times.

  What?

  The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them the term ‘many’ is applied.

  True, he said.

  And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term ‘many’ is applied there is an absolute; for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each.

  Very true.

  The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen.

  Socrates, Glaucon.

  Exactly.

  And what is the organ with which we see the visible things?

  The sight, he said.

  And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense?

  True.

  Sight the most complex of the senses,

  But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived?

  No, I never have, he said.

  Then reflect: has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard?

  Nothing of the sort.

  No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other senses—you would not say that any of them requires such an addition?

  Certainly not.

  But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen?

  How do you mean?

  and, unlike the other senses, requires the addition of a third nature before it can be used. This third nature is light.

  Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible.

  Of what nature are you speaking?

  Of that which you term light, I replied.

  True, he said.

  508Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing?

  Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble.

  And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear?

  You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say.

  May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows?

  How?

  Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun?

  No.

  The eye like the sun, but not the same with it.

  Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun?

  By far the most like.

  And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun?

  Exactly.

  Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight?

  True, he said.

  And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind:

  Will you be a little more explicit? he said.

  Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them?

  Very true.

  Visible objects are to be seen only when the sun shines upon them; truth is only known when illuminated by the idea of good.

  But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them?

  Certainly.

  And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence?

  Just so.

  The idea of good higher than science or truth (the objective than the subjective).

  Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science1 , and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more 509beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honour yet higher.

  What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good?

  God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view?

  In what point of view?

  You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation?

  Certainly.

  As the sun is the cause of generation, so the good is the cause of being and essence.

  In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.

  Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven, how amazing!

  Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you made me utter my fancies.

  And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun.

  Yes, I said, there is a great deal more.

  Then omit nothing, however slight.

  I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will have to be omitted.

  I hope not, he said.

  You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name (οὐρανός, ὁρατός). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind?

  I have.

  The two spheres of sight and knowledge are represented by a line which is divided into two unequal parts.

  Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal1 parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the 510sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand?

  Yes, I understand.

  Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everthing that grows or is made.

  Very good.

  Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge?

  Most undoubtedly.

  Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual is to be divided.

  In what manner?

  Images and hypotheses.

  Thus:—There are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the soul uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images2 as in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves.

  I do not quite understand your meaning, he said.

  The hypotheses of mathematics.

  Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which they and every body are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others; but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion?

  Yes, he said, I know.

  In both spheres hypotheses are used, in the lower taking the form of images, but in the higher the soul ascends above hypotheses to the idea of good.

  And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on—the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind?

  511That is true.

  And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value.

  I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts.

  Dialectic by the help of hypotheses rises above hypotheses.

  And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses—that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.

  Return to psychology.

  I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason.

  Four faculties: Reason, understanding, faith, perception of shadows.

  You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul—reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last—and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth.

  I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement.

  BOOK VII.

  The den, the prisoners; the light at a distance;

  514And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

  I see.

  the low wall, and the moving figures of which the shadows are seen on the opposite wall of the den.

  And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals 515made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

  You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

  Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

  True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

  And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

  Yes, he said.

  And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them1 ?

  Very true.

  The prisoners would mistake the shadows for realities.

  And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

  No question, he replied.

  To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

  That is certain.

  And when released, they would still persist in maintaining the superior truth of the shadows.

  And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

  Far truer.

  And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

  True, he said.

  When dragged upwards, they would be dazzled by excess of light.

  And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be 516pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

  Not all in a moment, he said.

  He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

  Certainly.

  At length they will see the sun and understand his nature.

  Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

  Certainly.

  He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

  Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

  They would then pity their old companions of the den.

  And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

  Certainly, he would.

  And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

  ‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,’

  and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

  Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.

  Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

  To be sure, he said.

  But when they returned to the den they would see much worse than those who had never left it.

  And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never 517moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

  No question, he said.

  The prison is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun.

  This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

  I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.

  Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.

  Yes, very natural.

  Nothing extraordinary in the philosopher being unable to see in the dark.

  And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?

  Anything but surprising, he replied.

  The eyes may be blinded in two ways, by excess or by defect of light.

  518Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.

  That, he said, is a very just distinction.

  The conversion of the soul is the turning round the eye from darkness to light.

  But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.

  They undoubtedly say this, he replied.

  Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.

  Very true.

  And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth?

  Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.

  The virtue of wisdom has a divine power which may be turned either towards good or towards evil.

  And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other 519hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue—how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?

  Very true, he said.

  But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below—if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.

  Very likely.

  Neither the uneducated nor the overeducated will be good servants of the State.

  Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.

  Very true, he replied.

  Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all—they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.

  What do you mean?

  Men should ascend to the upper world, but they should also return to the lower.

  I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not.

  But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better?

  You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, 520and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.

  True, he said, I had forgotten.

  The duties of philosophers.Their obligations to their country will induce them to take part in her government.

  Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

  Quite true, he replied.

  And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light?

  They will be willing but not anxious to rule.

  Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.

  The statesman must be provided with a better life than that of a ruler; and then he will not covet office.

  Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You 521must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.

  Most true, he replied.

  And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?

  Indeed, I do not, he said.

  And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.

  No question.

  Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics?

  They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.

  And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,—as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?

  By all means, he replied.

  The training of the guardians.

  The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell1 , but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below2 , which we affirm to be true philosophy?

  Quite so.

  What knowledge will draw the soul upwards?

  And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of effecting such a change?

  Certainly.

  What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes?

  Yes, that was said.

  Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality?

  What quality?

  Usefulness in war.

  Yes, if possible.

  Recapitulation.

  There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not?

  The first education had two parts, music and gymnastic.

  Just so.

  There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption?

  True.

  522Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover?

  No.

  But what do you say of music, what also entered to a certain extent into our former scheme?

  Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science; and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking.

  You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature; since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us?

  Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the arts are also excluded, what remains?

  Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of universal application.

  What may that be?

  There remains for the second education, arithmetic;

  A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of education.

  What is that?

  The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three—in a word, number and calculation:—do not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of them?

  Yes.

  Then the art of war partakes of them?

  To be sure.

  Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of counting his own feet—how could he if he was ignorant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been?

  I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say.

  Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic?

  Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all.

  I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of this study?

  What is your notion?

  that being a study which leads naturally to reflection, for

  It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are 523seeking, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used; for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being.

  Will you explain your meaning? he said.

  I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the enquiry with me, and say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them.

  Explain, he said.

  reflection is aroused by contradictory impressions of sense.

  I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further enquiry is imperatively demanded.

  You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade.

  No, I said, that is not at all my meaning.

  Then what is your meaning?

  When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:—here are three fingers—a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger.

  Very good.

  You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the point.

  What is it?

  No difficulty in simple perception.

  Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin—it makes no difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger.

  True.

  And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which invites or excites intelligence.

  There is not, he said.

  But the same senses at the same time give different impressions which are at first indistinct and have to be distinguished by the mind.

  But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other senses; do they give perfect intimations of such 524matters? Is not their mode of operation on this wise—the sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft?

  You are quite right, he said.

  And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light?

  Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious and require to be explained.

  The aid of numbers is invoked in order to remove the confusion.

  Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects announced to her are one or two.

  True.

  And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different?

  Certainly.

  And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the two as in a state of division, for if they were undivided they could only be conceived of as one?

  True.

  The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused manner; they were not distinguished.

  Yes.

  The chaos then begins to be defined.

  Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and not confused.

  Very true.

  Was not this the beginning of the enquiry ‘What is great?’ and ‘What is small?’

  Exactly so.

  The parting of the visible and intelligible.

  And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible.

  Most true.

  This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the intellect, or the reverse—those which are simultaneous with opposite impressions, invite thought; those which are not simultaneous do not.

  I understand, he said, and agree with you.

  And to which class do unity and number belong?

  I do not know, he replied.

  Thought is aroused by the contradiction of the one and many.

  Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the answer; for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being; but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks ‘What is absolute unity?’ This is 525the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being.

  And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude?

  Yes, I said; and this being true of one must be equally true of all number?

  Certainly.

  And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number?

  Yes.

  And they appear to lead the mind towards truth?

  Yes, in a very remarkable manner.

  Arithmetic has a practical and also a philosophical use, the latter the higher.

  Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician.

  That is true.

  And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher?

  Certainly.

  Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe; and we must endeavour to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; nor again, like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being.

  That is excellent, he said.

  Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how charming the science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper!

  How do you mean?

  The higher arithmetic is concerned, not with visible or tangible objects, but with abstract numbers.

  I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You know how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule any one who attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide, they multiply1 , taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in fractions.

  That is very true.

  526Now, suppose a person were to say to them: O my friends, what are these wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible,—what would they answer?

  They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those numbers which can only be realized in thought.

  Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called necessary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the attainment of pure truth?

  Yes; that is a marked characteristic of it.

  The arithmetician is naturally quick, and the study of arithmetic gives him still greater quickness.

  And have you further observed, that those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would otherwise have been.

  Very true, he said.

  And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many as difficult.

  You will not.

  And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.

  I agree.

  Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we enquire whether the kindred science also concerns us?

  You mean geometry?

  Exactly so.

  Geometry has practical applications;

  Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manœuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician.

  these however are trifling in comparison with that greater part of the science which tends towards the good,

  Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough; the question relates rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometry—whether that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the idea of good; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold.

  True, he said.

  Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us?

  527Yes, that is what we assert.

  Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians.

  How so?

  They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like—they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science.

  Certainly, he said.

  Then must not a further admission be made?

  What admission?

  and is concerned with the eternal.

  That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient.

  That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true.

  Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down.

  Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect.

  Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover the science has indirect effects, which are not small.

  Of what kind? he said.

  There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said; and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not.

  Yes indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them.

  Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study?

  Let us do so, he replied.

  And suppose we make astronomy the third—what do you say?

  Astronomy, like the previous sciences, is at first praised by Glaucon for its practical uses.

  I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor.

  I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class 528to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive.

  I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf.

  Correction of the order.

  Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences.

  What was the mistake? he said.

  After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas after the second dimension the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed.

  That is true, Socrates; but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects.

  The pitiable condition of solid geometry.

  Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons:—in the first place, no government patronises them; this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult; in the second place, students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and even if he could, as matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director of these studies and gave honour to them; then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made; since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light.

  Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane surfaces?

  Yes, I said.

  And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward?

  The motion of solids.

  Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry; the ludicrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy, or motion of solids.

  True, he said.

  Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth.

  Glaucon grows sentimental about astronomy.

  The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy 529before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

  Every one but myself, I said; to every one else this may be clear, but not to me.

  And what then would you say?

  I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards.

  What do you mean? he asked.

  He is rebuked by Socrates,

  You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back.

  who explains that the higher astronomy is an abstract science.

  I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking?

  I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight.

  True, he replied.

  The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any 530other proportion.

  No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous.

  And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation—that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth.

  I quite agree, though I never thought of this before.

  The real knowledge of astronomy or geometry is to be attained by the use of abstractions.

  Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use.

  That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers.

  Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study?

  No, he said, not without thinking.

  Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons.

  But where are the two?

  There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named.

  And what may that be?

  What astronomy is to the eye, harmonics are to the ear.

  The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions; and these are sister sciences—as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them?

  Yes, he replied.

  But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object.

  What is that?

  They must be studied with a view to the good and not after the fashion of the empirics or even of the Pythagoreans.

  There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For 531in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labour, like that of the astronomers, is in vain.

  Yes, by heaven! he said; and ’tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbour’s wall1 —one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same—either party setting their ears before their understanding.

  You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems—that is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not.

  That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge.

  A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful; that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good; but if pursued in any other spirit, useless.

  Very true, he said.

  All these studies must be correlated with one another.

  Now, when all these studies reach the point of intercommunion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects; otherwise there is no profit in them.

  I suspect so; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work.

  What do you mean? I said; the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician?

  Want of reasoning power in mathematicians.

  Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

  But do you imagine that men who are unable to give 532and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them?

  Neither can this be supposed.

  Dialectic proceeds by reason only, without any help of sense.

  And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.

  Exactly, he said.

  Then this is the progress which you call dialectic?

  True.

  The gradual acquirement of dialectic by the pursuit of the arts anticipated in the allegory of the den.

  But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images1 in the water [which are divine], and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)—this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world—this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described.

  I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This however is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain1 , and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest.

  The nature of dialectic can only be revealed to those who have been students of the preliminary sciences,

  533Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen something like reality; of that I am confident.

  Doubtless, he replied.

  But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences.

  Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last.

  And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being—geometry and the like—they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science?

  Impossible, he said.

  which are her handmaids.

  Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider?

  Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness?

  Two divisions of the mind, intellect and opinion, each having two subdivisions.

  At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion 534being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a proportion:—

  As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion.

  And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.

  But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been.

  As far as I understand, he said, I agree.

  And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much?

  Yes, he said; how can I deny it?

  No truth which does not rest on the idea of good

  And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument—unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science;—dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus.

  In all that I should most certainly agree with you.

  And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educating—if the ideal ever becomes a reality—you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts1 , having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters?

  Certainly not.

  Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions?

  Yes, he said, you and I together will make it.

  ought to have a high place.

  Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go?

  I agree, he said.

  535But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered.

  Yes, clearly.

  You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before?

  Certainly, he said.

  The natural gifts which are required in the dialectician: a towardly understanding; a good memory;

  The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education.

  And what are these?

  Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind’s own, and is not shared with the body.

  Very true, he replied.

  strength of character;

  Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line; or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him.

  Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts.

  The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards.

  What do you mean?

  industry;

  In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry—I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness.

  Certainly, he said.

  love of truth;

  And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected?

  To be sure.

  the moral virtues.

  536And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities states and individuals unconsciously err; and the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard.

  That is very true, he said.

  All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present.

  That would not be creditable.

  Socrates plays a little with himself and his subject.

  Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous.

  In what respect?

  I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement.

  For the study of dialectic the young must be selected.

  Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so.

  But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things—for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil.

  Of course.

  The preliminary studies should be commenced in childhood, but never forced.

  And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education.

  Why not?

  Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

  Very true.

  Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but 537let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.

  That is a very rational notion, he said.

  Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them?

  Yes, I remember.

  The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things—labours, lessons, dangers—and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number.

  At what age?

  The necessary gymnastics must be completed first.

  At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected.

  Certainly, he replied.

  At twenty years of age the disciples will begin to be taught the correlation of the sciences.

  After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being.

  Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root.

  Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.

  I agree with you, he said.

  At thirty the most promising will be placed in a select class.

  These, I said, are the points which you must consider; and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are most steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty will have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being: And here, my friend, great caution is required.

  The growth of scepticism

  Why great caution?

  Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced?

  What evil? he said.

  The students of the art are filled with lawlessness.

  Quite true, he said.

  Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them?

  In what way make allowance?

  in the minds of the young illustrated by the case of a supposititious son,

  I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth; he 538is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you?

  If you please.

  who ceases to honour his father when he discovers that he is not his father.

  Then I should say, that while he is ignorant of the truth he will be likely to honour his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatterers; he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter.

  He will.

  But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations.

  Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy?

  In this way: you know that there are certain principles about justice and honour, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honouring them.

  That is true.

  There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers.

  True.

  So men who begin to analyse the first principles of morality cease to respect them.

  Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before?

  Impossible.

  And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural 539as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires?

  He cannot.

  And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it?

  Unquestionably.

  Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable.

  Yes, he said; and, I may add, pitiable.

  Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic.

  Certainly.

  Young men are fond of pulling truth to pieces and thus bring disgrace upon themselves and upon philosophy.

  There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early; for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them.

  Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better.

  And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world.

  Too true, he said.

  The dialectician and the eristic.

  But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honour of the pursuit.

  Very true, he said.

  And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder?

  Very true.

  Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercise—will that be enough?

  The study of philosophy to continue for five years; 30-35.

  Would you say six or four years? he asked.

  Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they must be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold: in this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch.

  540And how long is this stage of their lives to last?

  During fifteen years, 35-50, they are to hold office.At the end of that time they are to live chiefly in the contemplation of the good, but occasionally to return to politics.

  Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation: the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honour them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if not, as in any case blessed and divine.

  You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty.

  Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures can go.

  There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men.

  Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honour that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city?

  How will they proceed?

  Practical measures for the speedy foundation of the State.

  They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most.

  Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being.

  Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image—there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him.

  There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said.

  BOOK VIII.

  Republic VIII.Recapitulation of Book V.

  543And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings?

  That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged.

  Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you remember what we agreed?

  Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole State.

  True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path.

  Return to the end of Book IV.

  There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the State: you said that such a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more 544excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived.

  Your recollection, I said, is most exact.

  Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then.

  Yes, if I can, I will, I said.

  I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking.

  Four imperfect constitutions, the Cretan or Spartan, Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny.

  That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians.

  Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them.

  States are like men, because they are made up of men.

  Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of ‘oak and rock,’ and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them?

  Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.

  Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five?

  Certainly.

  Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly 545call just and good, we have already described.

  We have.

  Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice.

  Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.

  The State and the individual.

  Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honour?—I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant’s soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision.

  That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable.

  How timocracy arises out of aristocracy.

  First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved.

  Very true, he said.

  In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us ‘how discord first arose’? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?

  How would they address us?

  The intelligence which is alloyed with sense will not know how to regulate births and deaths in accordance with the number which controls them.

  546After this manner:—A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution:—In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth’s surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number,1 but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution [or squared and cubed] obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another.2 The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 = 4 × 100),3 and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong,4 consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i. e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 × 7 = 49 × 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by1 two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of three (27 × 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers’ places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the Muses, first by undervaluing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod’s, are of gold and silver 547and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.

  Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly.

  Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak falsely?

  And what do the Muses say next?

  Then discord arose and individual took the place of common property.

  When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual owners; and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them.

  I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change.

  And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy?

  Very true.

  Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities.

  True, he said.

  In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training—in all these respects this State will resemble the former.

  True.

  Timocracy will retain the military and reject the philosophical character of the perfect State.

  But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature 548fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars—this State will be for the most part peculiar.

  Yes.

  The soldier class miserly and covetous.

  Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please.

  That is most true, he said.

  Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus.

  And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man’s on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music.

  Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil.

  The spirit of ambition predominates in such States.

  Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen, — the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element.

  Assuredly, he said.

  Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outline only; the more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour.

  Very true, he replied.

  The timocratic man, uncultured, but fond of culture, ambitious, contentious, rough with slaves, and courteous to freemen; a soldier, athlete, hunter; a despiser of riches while young, fond of them when he grows old.

  Now what man answers to this form of government—how did he come into being, and what is he like?

  I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon.

  Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but there are other respects in which he is very different.

  In what respects?

  He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good 549listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase.

  Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy.

  Socrates, Adeimantus.

  Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian.

  Who was that? said Adeimantus.

  Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life.

  Good, he said.

  Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State.

  Exactly.

  His origin is as follows:—He is often the young son of a brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble.

  And how does the son come into being?

  The timocratic man often originates in a reaction against his father’s character, which is encouraged by his mother,

  The character of the son begins to develope when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing.

  Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves.

  and by the old servants of the household.

  And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son; and if they see any one who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that 550when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things—hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others—is drawn opposite ways: while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious.

  You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly.

  Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second type of character?

  We have.

  Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says,

  ‘Is set over against another State;’

  or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State.

  By all means.

  Oligarchy

  I believe that oligarchy follows next in order.

  And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?

  A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

  I understand, he replied.

  Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to oligarchy arises?

  Yes.

  Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other.

  How?

  arises out of increased accumulation and increased expenditure among the citizens.

  The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?

  Yes, indeed.

  And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.

  Likely enough.

  As riches increase, virtue decreases: the one is honoured, the other despised; the one cultivated, the other neglected.

  And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.

  True.

  551And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.

  Clearly.

  And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.

  That is obvious.

  And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.

  They do so.

  In an oligarchy a money qualification is established.

  They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work.

  Very true.

  And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established.

  Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking1 ?

  A ruler is elected because he is rich: Who would elect a pilot on this principle?

  First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot?

  You mean that they would shipwreck?

  Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything2 ?

  I should imagine so.

  Except a city?—or would you include a city?

  Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all.

  This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?

  Clearly.

  And here is another defect which is quite as bad.

  What defect?

  The extreme division of classes in such a State.

  The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another.

  That, surely, is at least as bad.

  They dare not go to war.

  Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.

  How discreditable!

  And, as we said before, under such a constitution the 552same persons have too many callings—they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?

  Anything but well.

  There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable.

  What evil?

  The ruined man, who has no occupation, once a spendthrift, now a pauper, still exists in the State.

  A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature.

  Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.

  The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.

  True.

  But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?

  As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift.

  May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive?

  Just so, Socrates.

  And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.

  Most true, he said.

  Where there are paupers, there are thieves

  Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighbourhood there are hidden away thieves and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.

  Clearly.

  Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers?

  Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler.

  and other criminals.

  And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force?

  Certainly, we may be so bold.

  The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State?

  True.

  Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils.

  Very likely.

  553Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State.

  By all means.

  Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise?

  The ruin of the timocratical man gives birth to the oligarchical.

  How?

  A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son: at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost; he may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death, or exiled, or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him.

  Nothing more likely.

  His son begins life a ruined man and takes to money-making.

  And the son has seen and known all this—he is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion headforemost from his bosom’s throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar?

  Most true, he replied.

  And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it.

  Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.

  And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?

  The oligarchical man and State resemble one another in their estimation of wealth:

  Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came.

  Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them.

  554Very good.

  First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth?

  Certainly.

  In their toiling and saving ways, in their want of cultivation.

  Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable.

  True.

  He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents?

  He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State.

  You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said.

  I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honour1 .

  Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life?

  True.

  Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries?

  Where must I look?

  The oligarchical man keeps up a fair outside, but he has only an enforced virtue and will cheat when he can.

  You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.

  Aye.

  It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions.

  To be sure.

  Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own.

  Yes, and they will be strong in him too.

  The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones.

  True.

  For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him.

  I should expect so.

  His meanness in a contest; he saves his money and loses the prize.

  555And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.

  Very true.

  Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State?

  There can be no doubt.

  Democracy arises out of the extravagance and indebtedness of men of family and position,

  Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment.

  That, he said, is our method.

  Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?—The good at which such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable?

  What then?

  The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance?

  To be sure.

  There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded.

  That is tolerably clear.

  And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary?

  Yes, often.

  who remain in the city, and form a dangerous class ready to head a revolution.

  And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution.

  That is true.

  On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their sting—that is, their money—into some one else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State.

  556Yes, he said, there are plenty of them—that is certain.

  Two remedies: (1) restrictions on the free use of property;

  The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man’s use of his own property, or by another remedy:

  What other?

  (2) contracts to be made at a man’s own risk.

  One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters:—Let there be a general rule that every one shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the State.

  Yes, they will be greatly lessened.

  At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain.

  Very true.

  They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue.

  Yes, quite as indifferent.

  The subjects discover the weakness of their rulers.

  Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another’s way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellow-sailors; aye and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger—for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich—and very likely the wiry sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh—when he sees such an one puffing and at his wits’-end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another ‘Our warriors are not good for much’?

  Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking.

  A slight cause, internal or external, may produce revolution.

  And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise within—in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and may 557be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause.

  Yes, surely.

  Such is the origin and nature of democracy.

  And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot.

  Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw.

  And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man.

  Clearly, he said.

  In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and frankness—a man may say and do what he likes?

  ’Tis said so, he replied.

  Democracy allows a man to do as he likes, and therefore contains the greatest variety of characters and constitutions.

  And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases?

  Clearly.

  Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures?

  There will.

  This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower1 . And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States.

  Yes.

  Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government.

  Why?

  Because of the liberty which reigns there—they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State.

  He will be sure to have patterns enough.

  The law falls into abeyance.

  And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or to go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed—there being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy—is not 558this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful?

  For the moment, yes.

  And is not their humanity to the condemned1 in some cases quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world—the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares?

  Yes, he replied, many and many a one.

  All principles of order and good taste are trampled under foot by democracy.

  See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the ‘don’t care’ about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city—as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study—how grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who professes to be the people’s friend.

  Yes, she is of a noble spirit.

  These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

  We know her well.

  Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being.

  Very good, he said.

  Is not this the way—he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father who has trained him in his own habits?

  Exactly.

  Which are the necessary and which the unnecessary pleasures?

  And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary?

  Obviously.

  Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures?

  I should.

  Necessary desires cannot be got rid of,

  Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it.

  559True.

  We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary?

  We are not.

  And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards—of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good—shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary?

  Yes, certainly.

  Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them?

  Very good.

  Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class?

  That is what I should suppose.

  The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life?

  Yes.

  but may be indulged to excess.

  But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health?

  Certainly.

  Illustration taken from eating and drinking.

  And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary?

  Very true.

  May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production?

  Certainly.

  And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good?

  True.

  And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical?

  Very true.

  Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process.

  What is the process?

  The young oligarch is led away by his wild associates.

  When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones’ honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure—then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical?

  Inevitably.

  There are allies to either part of his nature.

  And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and alike?

  Certainly.

  And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his 560soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself.

  It must be so.

  And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man’s soul and order is restored.

  Yes, he said, that sometimes happens.

  And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous.

  Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way.

  They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him.

  Very true.

  At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man’s soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels.

  None better.

  False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place.

  They are certain to do so.

  The progress of the oligarchic young man told in an allegory.

  And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters, and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men; and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king’s fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border.

  Yes, with a will.

  And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling 561them by sweet names; insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures.

  Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough.

  He becomes a rake; buthe also sometimes stops short in his career and gives way to pleasures good and bad indifferently.

  After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over—supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors—in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another; he despises none of them but encourages them all equally.

  Very true, he said.

  He rejects all advice,

  Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the others—whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another.

  Yes, he said; that is the way with him.

  passing his life in the alternation from one extreme to another.

  Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on.

  Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality.

  He is ‘not one, but all mankind’s epitome.’

  Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many;—he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him.

  Just so.

  562Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man.

  Let that be his place, he said.

  Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.

  Tyranny and the tyrant.

  Quite true, he said.

  Say then, my friend, In what manner does tyranny arise?—that it has a democratic origin is evident.

  Clearly.

  And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchy—I mean, after a sort?

  How?

  The insatiable desire of wealth creates a demand for democracy, the insatiable desire of freedom creates a demand for tyranny.

  The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth — am I not right?

  Yes.

  And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy?

  True.

  And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution?

  What good?

  Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of the State—and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell.

  Yes; the saying is in every body’s mouth.

  I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny.

  How so?

  When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cup-bearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs.

  Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence.

  Freedom in the end means anarchy.

  Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit?

  Certainly not.

  By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them.

  How do you mean?

  I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the 563stranger is quite as good as either.

  Yes, he said, that is the way.

  The inversion of all social relations.

  And these are not the only evils, I said—there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.

  Quite true, he said.

  The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other.

  Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips?

  Freedom among the animals.

  That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just ready to burst with liberty.

  When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing.

  No law, no authority.

  And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.

  Yes, he said, I know it too well.

  Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny.

  Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?

  The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy—the truth being that the excessive increase 564of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government.

  True.

  The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

  Yes, the natural order.

  And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty?

  As we might expect.

  The common evil of oligarchy and democracy is the class of idle spend-thrifts.

  That, however, was not, as I believe, your question—you rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both?

  Just so, he replied.

  Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spend-thrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings.

  A very just comparison.

  Illustration.

  These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible.

  Yes, by all means, he said.

  Altogether three classes in a democracy.

  Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes; for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State.

  That is true.

  And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.

  How so?

  (1) The drones or spend-thrifts who are more numerous and active than in the oligarchy.

  Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones.

  Very true, he said.

  Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass.

  What is that?

  (2) The orderly or wealthy class who are fed upon by the drones.

  They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest.

  Naturally so.

  They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones.

  Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little.

  And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.

  565That is pretty much the case, he said.

  (3) The working class who also get a share.

  The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.

  True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey.

  And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves?

  Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share.

  The well-to-do have to defend themselves against the people.

  And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best can?

  What else can they do?

  And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy?

  True.

  And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds revolution in them.

  That is exactly the truth.

  Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another.

  True.

  The people have a protector who, when once he tastes blood, is converted into a tyrant.

  The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness.

  Yes, that is their way.

  This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector.

  Yes, that is quite clear.

  How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus.

  What tale?

  The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it?

  O yes.

  And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizens; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what 566will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf—that is, a tyrant?

  Inevitably.

  This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich?

  The same.

  After a time he is driven out, but comes back a full-blown tyrant.

  After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown.

  That is clear.

  And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him.

  Yes, he said, that is their usual way.

  The body-guard.

  Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career—‘Let not the people’s friend,’ as they say, ‘be lost to them.’

  Exactly.

  The people readily assent; all their fears are for him—they have none for themselves.

  Very true.

  And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus,

  ‘By pebbly Hermus’ shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a coward1 .’

  And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again.

  But if he is caught he dies.

  Of course.

  The protector standing up in the chariot of State.

  And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not ‘larding the plain’ with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute.

  No doubt, he said.

  And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in which a creature like him is generated.

  Yes, he said, let us consider that.

  At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets;—he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one!

  Of course, he said.

  He stirs up wars, and impoverishes his subjects by the imposition of taxes.

  But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest 567or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

  To be sure.

  Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him?

  Clearly.

  And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war.

  He must.

  Now he begins to grow unpopular.

  A necessary result.

  Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done.

  Yes, that may be expected.

  He gets rid of his bravest and boldest followers.

  And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything.

  He cannot.

  And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State.

  Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.

  His purgation of the State.

  Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse.

  If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.

  What a blessed alternative, I said:—to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all!

  Yes, that is the alternative.

  And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require?

  Certainly.

  And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them?

  They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them.

  More drones.

  By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every land.

  Yes, he said, there are.

  But will he not desire to get them on the spot?

  How do you mean?

  He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol them in his body-guard.

  To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all.

  He puts to death his friends and lives with the slaves whom he has enfranchised.

  What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he 568has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends.

  Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort.

  Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him.

  Of course.

  Euripides and the tragedians

  Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian.

  Why so?

  Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying,

  ‘Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;’

  praise tyranny, which is an excellent reason for expelling them from our State.

  and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions.

  Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets.

  And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny.

  Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us.

  But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies.

  Very true.

  Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour—the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further.

  True.

  But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and enquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and ever-changing army of his.

  The tyrant seizes the treasures in the temples, and when these fail feeds upon the people.

  If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people.

  And when these fail?

  Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father’s estate.

  You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will maintain him and his companions?

  Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves.

  They rebel, and then he beats his own parent, i. e. the people.

  But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but 569that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates.

  By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong.

  Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him?

  Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.

  Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.

  True, he said.

  Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to tyranny?

  Yes, quite enough, he said.

  BOOK IX.

  Republic IX.

  571Last of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery?

  Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining.

  There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered.

  What question?

  A digression having a purpose.

  I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused.

  Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission.

  The wild beast latent in man peers forth in sleep.

  Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful; every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them—either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them.

  Which appetites do you mean?

  I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there is no conceivable folly or crime — not excepting incest or any other unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food—which at such a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit.

  Most true, he said.

  The contrast of the temperateman whose passions are under the control of reason.

  But when a man’s pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, collecting himself in meditation; after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments 572and pains from interfering with the higher principle—which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future: when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against any one—I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions.

  I quite agree.

  In saying this I have been running into a digression; but the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you agree with me.

  Yes, I agree.

  Recapitulation.

  And now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament?

  True.

  And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father’s meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch?

  Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still.

  And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father’s principles.

  I can imagine him.

  Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father:—he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and 573tyrant-makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts—a sort of monstrous winged drone—that is the only image which will adequately describe him.

  Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him.

  And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy; and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation1 , and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full.

  The tyrannical man is made up of lusts and appetites. Love, drink, madness are but different forms of tyranny.

  Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated.

  And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant?

  I should not wonder.

  Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant?

  He has.

  And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods?

  That he will.

  And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when, either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so?

  Assuredly.

  Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live?

  Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me.

  I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtezans, and all that sort of thing; Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul.

  That is certain.

  Yes; and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their demands are many.

  They are indeed, he said.

  His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent.

  True.

  Then comes debt and the cutting down of his property.

  Of course.

  His desires become greater and his means less.

  When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food; and 574he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them?

  Yes, that is sure to be the case.

  He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and pangs.

  He must.

  He will rob his father and mother.

  And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs.

  No doubt he will.

  And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and deceive them.

  Very true.

  And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them.

  Yes, probably.

  And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them?

  Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents.

  He will prefer the love of a girl or a youth to his aged parents, and may even be induced to strike them.

  But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some newfangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary connection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some newly-found blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable?

  Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would.

  Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother.

  He is indeed, he replied.

  He turns highwayman, robs temples, loses all his early principles, and becomes in waking reality the evil dream which he had in sleep.He gathers followers about him.

  He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the body-guard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of Love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. 575Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life?

  Yes, indeed, he said.

  And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and become the body-guard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city.

  What sort of mischief?

  For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cut-purses, foot-pads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak they turn informers, and bear false witness, and take bribes.

  A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in number.

  A private person can do but little harm in comparison of the tyrant.

  Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant.

  Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant.

  If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires.

  Exactly.

  The behaviour of the tyrant to his early supporters.

  When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of 576affection for them; but when they have gained their point they know them no more.

  Yes, truly.

  He is always either

  They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship.

  Certainly not.

  And may we not rightly call such men treacherous?

  Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon.

  No question.

  master or servant, always treacherous, unjust, the waking reality of our dream, a tyrant by nature, a tyrant in fact.

  Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice?

  Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right.

  Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man: he is the waking reality of what we dreamed.

  Most true.

  And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes.

  That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer.

  The wicked are also the most miserable.

  And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable; although this may not be the opinion of men in general?

  Yes, he said, inevitably.

  Like man, like State.

  And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical State, and the democratical man like the democratical State; and the same of the others?

  Certainly.

  And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to man?

  To be sure.

  The opposite of the king.

  Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue?

  They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst.

  There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him; but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion.

  A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as every one must, that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest.

  Socrates, Glaucon.

  And in estimating the men too, may I not fairly make a 577like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his daily life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger —he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men?

  That again, he said, is a very fair proposal.

  Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have before now met with such a person? We shall then have some one who will answer our enquiries.

  By all means.

  Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective conditions?

  What do you mean? he asked.

  The State is not free, but enslaved.

  Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved?

  No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved.

  And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State?

  Yes, he said, I see that there are—a few; but the people, speaking generally, and the best of them are miserably degraded and enslaved.

  Like a slave, the tyrant is full of meanness, and the ruling part of him is madness.

  Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity—the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest.

  Inevitably.

  And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave?

  He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion.

  And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily?

  Utterly incapable.

  The city which is subject to him is goaded by a gadfly;

  And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse?

  Certainly.

  And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor?

  Poor.

  poor;

  578And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable?

  True.

  And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear?

  Yes, indeed.

  full of misery.

  Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain?

  Certainly not.

  And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires?

  Impossible.

  Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States?

  And I was right, he said.

  Also the tyrannical man is most miserable.

  Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man, what do you say of him?

  I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men.

  Yet there is a still more miserable being, the tyrannical man who is a public tyrant.

  There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong.

  What do you mean?

  I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery.

  Then who is more miserable?

  One of whom I am about to speak.

  Who is that?

  He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant.

  From what has been said, I gather that you are right.

  Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest.

  Very true, he said.

  Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light upon this subject.

  What is your illustration?

  In cities there are many great slaveowners, and they help to protect one another.

  The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them you may form an idea of the tyrant’s condition, for they both have slaves; the only difference is that he has more slaves.

  Yes, that is the difference.

  You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants?

  What should they fear?

  Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this?

  Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual.

  But suppose a slaveowner and his slaves carried off into the wilderness, what will happen then? Such is the condition of the tyrant.

  Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him—will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves?

  579Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear.

  The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will—he will have to cajole his own servants.

  Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself.

  And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life?

  He is the daintiest of all men and has to endure the hardships of a prison;

  His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies.

  And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound—he who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest.

  Very true, he said.

  Miserable in himself, he is still more miserable if he be in a public station.

  And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own person—the tyrannical man, I mean—whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all—will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men.

  Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact.

  He then leads a life worse than the worst,

  Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst?

  Certainly.

  in unhappiness,

  He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance holds?

  Very true, he said.

  and in wickedness.

  580Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself.

  No man of any sense will dispute your words.

  The umpire decides that

  Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all—they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical.

  The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery.

  the best is the happiest and the worst is the most miserable. This is the proclamation of the son of Ariston.

  Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston [the best] has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State?

  Make the proclamation yourself, he said.

  And shall I add, ‘whether seen or unseen by gods and men’?

  Let the words be added.

  Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may also have some weight.

  What is that?

  Proof, derived from the three principles of the soul.

  The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration.

  Of what nature?

  It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers.

  How do you mean? he said.

  There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; 581also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money.

  That is true, he said.

  (1) The appetitive:

  If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion; and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money.

  I agree with you.

  Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame?

  True.

  (2) The ambitious;

  Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious—would the term be suitable?

  Extremely suitable.

  (3) The principle of knowledge and truth.

  On the other hand, every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame.

  Far less.

  ‘Lover of wisdom,’ ‘lover of knowledge,’ are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul?

  Certainly.

  One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in others, as may happen?

  Yes.

  Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain?

  Exactly.

  And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects?

  Very true.

  Each will depreciate the others, but only the philosopher has the power to judge,

  Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver?

  True, he said.

  And the lover of honour—what will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him?

  Very true.

  because he alone has experience of the highest pleasures and is also acquainted with the lower.

  And are we to suppose1 , I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them?

  There can be no doubt of that, he replied.

  Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or 582less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless—how shall we know who speaks truly?

  I cannot myself tell, he said.

  Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason?

  There cannot be a better, he said.

  Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain?

  The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted—or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted—the sweetness of learning and knowing truth.

  Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience?

  Yes, very great.

  Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom?

  Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only.

  His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one?

  Far better.

  The philosopher alone having both judgment and experience,

  And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience?

  Certainly.

  Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher?

  What faculty?

  Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest.

  Yes.

  And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument?

  Certainly.

  If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy?

  Assuredly.

  Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest?

  Clearly.

  the pleasures which he approves are the true pleasures: he places (1) the love of wisdom, (2) the love of honour, (3) and lowest the love of gain.

  But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges—

  The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest.

  And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the 583intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life.

  Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life.

  And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next?

  Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour; who is nearer to himself than the money-maker.

  Last comes the lover of gain?

  Very true, he said.

  True pleasure is not relative but absolute.

  Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure—all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls?

  Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself?

  I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions.

  Proceed.

  Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain?

  True.

  And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain?

  There is.

  A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either—that is what you mean?

  Yes.

  You remember what people say when they are sick?

  What do they say?

  That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill.

  Yes, I know, he said.

  The states intermediate between pleasure and pain are termed pleasures or pains only in relation to their opposites.

  And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain?

  I have.

  And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure?

  Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest.

  Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful?

  Doubtless, he said.

  Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain?

  So it would seem.

  But can that which is neither become both?

  I should say not.

  And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not?

  Yes.

  Pleasure and pain are said to be states of rest, but they are really motions.

  584But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion, and in a mean between them?

  Yes.

  How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain?

  Impossible.

  This then is an appearance only and not a reality; that is to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real but a sort of imposition?

  That is the inference.

  All pleasures are not merely cessations of pains, or pains of pleasures; e. g. the pleasures of smell are not.

  Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

  What are they, he said, and where shall I find them?

  There are many of them: take as an example the pleasures of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them.

  Most true, he said.

  Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

  No.

  Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort—they are reliefs of pain.

  That is true.

  And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature?

  Yes.

  Shall I give you an illustration of them?

  Let me hear.

  You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region?

  I should.

  Illustrations of the unreality of certain pleasures.

  And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world?

  To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise?

  But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending?

  No doubt.

  All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions?

  Yes.

  Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only being 585drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white—can you wonder, I say, at this?

  No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite.

  Look at the matter thus:—Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the bodily state?

  Yes.

  And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul?

  True.

  And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either?

  Certainly.

  The intellectual more real than the sensual.

  And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer?

  Clearly, from that which has more.

  What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgment—those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this way:—Which has a more pure being—that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal?

  Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable.

  And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence?

  Yes, of knowledge in the same degree.

  And of truth in the same degree?

  Yes.

  And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence?

  Necessarily.

  Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul?

  Far less.

  And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul?

  Yes.

  What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence and is less real?

  Of course.

  The pleasures of the sensual and also of the passionate element are unreal and mixed.

  And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure?

  Unquestionably.

  586Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.

  Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle.

  Their pleasures are mixed with pains—how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth.

  Something of that sort must inevitably happen.

  And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense?

  Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also.

  Both kinds of pleasures are attained in the highest degree when the desires which seek them are under the guidance of reason.

  Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him?

  Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural.

  And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, 587and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable?

  Exactly.

  But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own?

  True.

  And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure?

  Yes.

  And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order?

  Clearly.

  And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance?

  Yes.

  And the royal and orderly desires are nearest?

  Yes.

  Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least?

  Certainly.

  But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly?

  Inevitably.

  The measure of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant.

  Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them?

  Will you tell me?

  There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure.

  How do you mean?

  I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle?

  Yes.

  And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch?

  He will.

  And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal and aristocratical?

  Yes, he is third.

  Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three?

  Manifestly.

  expressed under the symbol of a cube corresponding to the number 729.

  The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure.

  Certainly.

  And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king.

  Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum.

  Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval.

  What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the 588distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain!

  which is nearly the number of days and nights in a year.

  Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and years1 .

  Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them.

  Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue?

  Immeasurably greater.

  Refutation of Thrasymachus.

  Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither: Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just?

  Yes, that was said.

  Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him.

  What shall we say to him?

  Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes.

  Of what sort?

  The triple animal who has outwardly the image of a man.

  An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one.

  There are said to have been such unions.

  Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many-headed monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will.

  You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose.

  Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second.

  That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say.

  And now join them, and let the three grow into one.

  That has been accomplished.

  Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human creature.

  I have done so, he said.

  Will any one say that we should strengthen the monster and the lion at the expense of the man?

  And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and 589the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another—he ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another.

  Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says.

  To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the entire human creature. He should watch over the manyheaded monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in common care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself.

  Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice will say.

  And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honour, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant?

  Yes, from every point of view.

  For the noble principle subjects the beast to the man, the ignoble the man to the beast.

  Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. ‘Sweet Sir,’ we will say to him, ‘what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?’ He can hardly avoid saying Yes—can he now?

  Not if he has any regard for my opinion.

  A man would not be the gainer if he sold his child: how much worse to sell his soul!

  But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question: ‘Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable 590caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband’s life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.’

  Yes, said Glaucon, far worse—I will answer for him.

  Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large?

  Clearly.

  Proofs:— (1) Men are blamed for the predominance of the lower nature,

  And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength?

  Yes.

  And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him?

  Very true.

  And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey?

  True, he said.

  as well as for the meanness of their employments and character:

  And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle; the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them.

  Such appears to be the reason.

  (2) It is admitted that every one should be the servant of a divine rule, or at any rate be kept under control by an external authority:

  And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine rules; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals.

  True, he said.

  (3) The care taken of children shows that we seek to establish in them a higher principle.

  And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle 591analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways.

  Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest.

  From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness?

  From no point of view at all.

  The wise man will employ his energies in freeing and harmonizing the nobler elements of his nature and in regulating his bodily habits.

  What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body.

  Certainly, he said.

  To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul, and will disregard others?

  Clearly, he said.

  His first aim not health but harmony of soul.

  In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul?

  Certainly he will, if he has true music in him.

  And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe; he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm?

  Certainly not, he said.

  He will not heap up riches,

  He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means.

  Very true.

  And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy 592such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man; but those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid?

  and he will only accept such political honours as will not deteriorate his character.

  Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman.

  By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call.

  He has a city of his own, and the ideal pattern of this will be the law of his life.

  I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth?

  In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order1 . But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.

  I think so, he said.

  BOOK X.

  Republic X.Socrates, Glaucon.

  595Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry.

  To what do you refer?

  To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received; as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished.

  What do you mean?

  Poetical imitations are ruinous to the mind of the hearer.

  Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe—but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them.

  Explain the purport of your remark.

  Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out.

  Very good, he said.

  Listen to me then, or rather, answer me.

  Put your question.

  The nature of imitation.

  Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know.

  A likely thing, then, that I should know.

  596Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener.

  Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you enquire yourself?

  Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form:— do you understand me?

  I do.

  The idea is one, but the objects comprehended under it are many.

  Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world—plenty of them, are there not?

  Yes.

  But there are only two ideas or forms of them—one the idea of a bed, the other of a table.

  True.

  And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea—that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances—but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he?

  Impossible.

  And there is another artist,—I should like to know what you would say of him.

  Who is he?

  The universal creator an extraordinary person. But note also that everybody is a creator in a sense. For all things may be made by the reflection of them in a mirror.

  One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen.

  What an extraordinary man!

  Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things—the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also.

  He must be a wizard and no mistake.

  Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself?

  What way?

  An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror.

  Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.

  But this is an appearance only: and the painter too is a maker of appearances.

  Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another—a creator of appearances, is he not?

  Of course.

  But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed?

  Yes, he said, but not a real bed.

  597And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed?

  Yes, I did.

  Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth.

  At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth.

  No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth.

  No wonder.

  Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is?

  If you please.

  Three beds and three makers of beds.

  Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say—for no one else can be the maker?

  No.

  There is another which is the work of the carpenter?

  Yes.

  And the work of the painter is a third?

  Yes.

  Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter?

  Yes, there are three of them.

  God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God.

  Why is that?

  (1) The creator. God could only make one bed; if he made two, a third would still appear behind them.

  Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and not the two others.

  Very true, he said.

  God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only.

  So we believe.

  Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed?

  Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things.

  (2) The human maker.

  And what shall we say of the carpenter—is not he also the maker of the bed?

  Yes.

  But would you call the painter a creator and maker?

  Certainly not.

  Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed?

  (3) The imitator, i. e. the painter or poet,

  I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.

  Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator?

  Certainly, he said.

  And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?

  That appears to be so.

  Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about 598the painter?—I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?

  The latter.

  As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this.

  What do you mean?

  whose art is one of imitation or appearance and a long way removed from the truth.

  I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things.

  Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent.

  Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be — an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear — of appearance or of reality?

  Of appearance.

  Any one who does all things does only a very small part of them.

  Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.

  Certainly.

  Any one who pretends to know all things is ignorant of the very nature of knowledge.

  And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man—whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

  Most true.

  And he who attributes such universal knowledge to the poets is similarly deceived.

  And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that 599these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well?

  The question, he said, should by all means be considered.

  He who could make the original would not make the image.

  Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him?

  I should say not.

  The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them.

  Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit.

  If Homer had been a legislator, or general, or inventor,

  Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at second-hand; but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. ‘Friend Homer,’ then we say to him, ‘if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third—not an image maker or imitator—and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you?’ Is there any city which he might name?

  I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator.

  600Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive?

  There is not.

  Or is there any invention1 of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him?

  There is absolutely nothing of the kind.

  But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him?

  Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive?

  or had done anything else for the improvement of mankind, he would not have been allowed to starve.

  Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind—if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator—can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries: ‘You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education’—and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough?

  Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true.

  The poets, like the painters, are but imitators;

  Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images 601of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures.

  Quite so.

  In like manner the poet with his words and phrases1 may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well—such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.

  Yes, he said.

  They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them?

  Exactly.

  they know nothing of true existence.

  Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right?

  Yes.

  Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation.

  Proceed.

  Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit?

  Yes.

  And the worker in leather and brass will make them?

  Certainly.

  The maker has more knowledge than the imitator, but less than the user. Three arts, using, making, imitating.

  But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form.

  Most true.

  And may we not say the same of all things?

  What?

  That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them?

  Yes.

  Goodness of things relative to use; hence the maker of them is instructed by the user.

  And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them.

  True.

  Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions?

  Of course.

  The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him?

  True.

  The maker has belief and not knowledge, the imitator neither.

  The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and 602being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge?

  True.

  But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw?

  Neither.

  Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations?

  I suppose not.

  The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations?

  Nay, very much the reverse.

  And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude?

  Just so.

  Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in Iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree?

  Very true.

  Imitation has been proved to be thrice removed from the truth.

  And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth?

  Certainly.

  And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed?

  What do you mean?

  I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance?

  True.

  And the same objects appear straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic.

  True.

  And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding—there is the beauty of them—and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight?

  Most true.

  The art of measuring given to man that he may correct the variety of appearances.

  And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul?

  To be sure.

  And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction?

  True.

  But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossible—the 603same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing?

  Very true.

  Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure?

  True.

  And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation?

  Certainly.

  And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul?

  No doubt.

  This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim.

  Exactly.

  The productions of the imitative arts are bastard and illegitimate.

  The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring.

  Very true.

  And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry?

  Probably the same would be true of poetry.

  Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting; but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad.

  By all means.

  We may state the question thus:—Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more?

  No, there is nothing else.

  They imitate opposites;

  But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself—or rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life? Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment?

  And we were right, he said.

  Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an omission which must now be supplied.

  What was the omission?

  Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another?

  Yes.

  they encourage weakness;

  But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow?

  The latter, he said, is the truer statement.

  604Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone?

  It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not.

  When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do?

  True.

  There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow?

  True.

  But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him?

  Certainly.

  One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law?

  How do you mean?

  they are at variance with the exhortations of philosophy;

  The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required.

  What is most required? he asked.

  That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art.

  Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune.

  Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason?

  Clearly.

  they recall trouble and sorrow;

  And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly?

  Indeed, we may.

  And does not the latter—I mean the rebellious principle—furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers.

  Certainly.

  605Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated?

  Clearly.

  they minister in an inferior manner to an inferior principle in the soul.

  And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth—in this, I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small—he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth1 .

  Exactly.

  But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation:—the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing?

  Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say.

  How can we be right in sympathizing with the sorrows of poetry when we would fain restrain those of real life?

  Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast—the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most.

  Yes, of course I know.

  But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality—we would fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman.

  Very true, he said.

  Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person?

  No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable.

  606Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view.

  What point of view?

  We fail to observe that a sentimental pity soon creates a real weakness.

  If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;—the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another’s; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own.

  How very true!

  In like manner the love of comedy may turn a man into a buffoon.

  And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;—the case of pity is repeated;—there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home.

  Quite true, he said.

  And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action—in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.

  I cannot deny it.

  We are lovers of Homer, but we must expel him from our State.

  Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should 607take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honour those who say these things—they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State.

  That is most true, he said.

  Apology to the poets.

  And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of ‘the yelping hound howling at her lord,’ or of one ‘mighty in the vain talk of fools,’ and ‘the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,’ and the ‘subtle thinkers who are beggars after all’; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation, that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her—we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she appears in Homer?

  Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed.

  Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon this condition only—that she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some other metre?

  Certainly.

  And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gainers—I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight?

  Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers.

  Poetry is attractive but not true.

  If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education 608of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware1 that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law.

  Yes, he said, I quite agree with you.

  Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue?

  Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been.

  And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue.

  What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness.

  The rewards of virtue extend not only to this little space of human life but to the whole of existence.

  Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity?

  Say rather ‘nothing,’ he replied.

  And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole?

  Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask?

  Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable?

  He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this?

  Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too—there is no difficulty in proving it.

  I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light.

  Listen then.

  I am attending.

  There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil?

  Yes, he replied.

  Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good?

  609Yes.

  Everything has a good and an evil, and if not destroyed by its own evil, will not be destroyed by that of another.

  And you admit that everything has a good and also an evil; as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron: in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease?

  Yes, he said.

  And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies?

  True.

  The vice and evil which is inherent in each is the destruction of each; and if this does not destroy them there is nothing else that will; for good certainly will not destroy them, nor again, that which is neither good nor evil.

  Certainly not.

  If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no destruction?

  That may be assumed.

  Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul?

  Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance.

  Therefore, if the soul cannot be destroyed by moral evil, she certainly will not be destroyed by physical evil.

  But does any of these dissolve or destroy her?—and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true?

  Yes.

  Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body?

  Certainly not.

  And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of its own?

  It is, he replied.

  Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body; although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body 610has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infection—this we shall absolutely deny?

  Very true.

  Evil means the contagion of evil, and the evil of the body does not infect the soul.

  And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another?

  Yes, he said, there is reason in that.

  Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the body; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man.

  And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust in consequence of death.

  But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds?

  Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer alive—aye, and well awake too; so far removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death.

  True, I said; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction.

  Yes, that can hardly be.

  But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether 611inherent or external, must exist for ever, and if existing for ever, must be immortal?

  Certainly.

  If the soul is indestructible, the number of souls can never increase or diminish.

  That is the conclusion, I said; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality.

  Very true.

  But this we cannot believe—reason will not allow us—any more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity.

  What do you mean? he said.

  The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements?

  Certainly not.

  The soul, if she is to be seen truly, should be stripped of the accidents of earth.

  Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look.

  Where then?

  Her true conversation is with the eternal.

  At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up 612around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough.

  True, he replied.

  Having put aside for argument’s sake the rewards of virtue, we may now claim to have them restored.

  And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument1 ; we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades.

  Very true.

  And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death.

  Certainly not, he said.

  Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument?

  What did I borrow?

  The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember?

  I should be much to blame if I had forgotten.

  Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us1 ; since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own.

  The demand, he said, is just.

  In the first place, I said—and this is the first thing which you will have to give back—the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods.

  Granted.

  The just man is the friend of the gods, and all things work together for his good.

  And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning?

  True.

  613And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins?

  Certainly.

  Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue?

  Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him.

  The unjust is the opposite.

  And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed?

  Certainly.

  Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just?

  That is my conviction.

  He may be compared to a runner who is only good at the start.

  And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal but not back again from the goal: they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow.

  True.

  Recapitulation of things unfit for ears polite which had been described by Glaucon in Book II.

  And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen; they are beaten and then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true?

  Certainly, he said, what you say is true.

  614These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides.

  Yes, he said; and they are fair and lasting.

  And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them.

  Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more gladly hear.

  The vision of Er.Socrates.The judgement.The two openings in heaven and the two in earth through which passed those who were beginning and those who had completed their pilgrimage.The meeting in the meadow.The punishment tenfold the sin.‘Unbaptized infants.’Ardiaeus the tyrant.Incurable sinners.

  Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing 615at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this:—He said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold; or once in a hundred years—such being reckoned to be the length of man’s life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behaviour, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers1 , there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, ‘Where is Ardiaeus the Great?’ (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er: he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was: ‘He comes not hither and will never come. And this,’ said he, ‘was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants; and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the 616sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that2 they were being taken away to be cast into hell.’ And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great.

  The whorls representing the spheres of the heavenly bodies.

  Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day’s journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the undergirders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions—the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest [or fixed stars] is spangled, and the seventh [or sun] is brightest; the eighth [or moon] 617coloured by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth [Saturn and Mercury] are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding; the third [Venus] has the whitest light; the fourth [Mars] is reddish; the sixth [Jupiter] is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion the fourth; the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens—Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other.

  The proclamation of the free choice.The complexity of circumstances,and their relation to the human soul.

  When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows: ‘Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser—God is justified.’ When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell 618near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant’s life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors; and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character in them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and they all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the supreme peril of our human state; and therefore the utmost care should be taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find some one who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue; he should know what the effect of beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all the natural and acquired gifts of the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined; he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this is 619the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villanies, he do irremediable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse himself; but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness.

  Habit not enough without philosophy when circumstances change.The spectacle of the election.

  And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time: ‘Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.’ And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle—sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls 620was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth1 lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures—the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations.

  All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made 621them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.

  And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.

  TIMAEUS.

  INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

  Timaeus.Introduction.

  Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatest influence over the ancient and mediaeval world. The obscurity arises in the infancy of physical science, out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions, out of the desire to conceive the whole of nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts, and from a greater perception of similarities which lie on the surface than of differences which are hidden from view. To bring sense under the control of reason; to find some way through the mist or labyrinth of appearances, either the highway of mathematics, or more devious paths suggested by the analogy of man with the world, and of the world with man; to see that all things have a cause and are tending towards an end—this is the spirit of the ancient physical philosopher. He has no notion of trying an experiment and is hardly capable of observing the curiosities of nature which are ‘tumbling out at his feet,’ or of interpreting even the most obvious of them. He is driven back from the nearer to the more distant, from particulars to generalities, from the earth to the stars. He lifts up his eyes to the heavens and seeks to guide by their motions his erring footsteps. But we neither appreciate the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected, nor have the ideas which fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon us. For he is hanging between matter and mind; he is under the dominion at the same time both of sense and of abstractions; his impressions are taken almost at random from the outside of nature; he sees the light, but not the objects which are revealed by the light; and he brings into juxtaposition things which to us appear wide as the poles asunder, because he finds nothing between them. He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and from ideas and numbers to persons,—from the heavens to man, from astronomy to physiology; he confuses, or rather does not distinguish, subject and object, first and final causes, and is dreaming of geometrical figures lost in a flux of sense. He contrasts the perfect movements of the heavenly bodies with the imperfect representation of them (Rep. vii. 519), and he does not always require strict accuracy even in applications of number and figure (Rep. ix. 587 D, E). His mind lingers around the forms of mythology, which he uses as symbols or translates into figures of speech. He has no implements of observation, such as the telescope or microscope; the great science of chemistry is a blank to him. It is only by an effort that the modern thinker can breathe the atmosphere of the ancient philosopher, or understand how, under such unequal conditions, he seems in many instances, by a sort of inspiration, to have anticipated the truth.

  The influence which the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is due partly to a misunderstanding. In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and out of them they elicited doctrines quite at variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired by the Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses, they seemed to find in his writings the Christian Trinity, the Word, the Church, the creation of the world in a Jewish sense, as they really found the personality of God or of mind, and the immortality of the soul. All religions and philosophies met and mingled in the schools of Alexandria, and the Neo-Platonists had a method of interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words. They were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another—between Aristotle and Plato, or between the serious thoughts of Plato and his passing fancies. They were absorbed in his theology and were under the dominion of his name, while that which was truly great and truly characteristic in him, his effort to realize and connect abstractions, was not understood by them at all. Yet the genius of Plato and Greek philosophy reacted upon the East, and a Greek element of thought and language overlaid and partly reduced to order the chaos of Orientalism. And kindred spirits, like St. Augustine, even though they were acquainted with his writings only through the medium of a Latin translation, were profoundly affected by them, seeming to find ‘God and his word everywhere insinuated’ in them (August. Confess. viii. c. 2).

  There is no danger of the modern commentators on the Timaeus falling into the absurdities of the Neo-Platonists. In the present day we are well aware that an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted from himself and by the contemporary history of thought. We know that mysticism is not criticism. The fancies of the Neo-Platonists are only interesting to us because they exhibit a phase of the human mind which prevailed widely in the first centuries of the Christian era, and is not wholly extinct in our own day. But they have nothing to do with the interpretation of Plato, and in spirit they are opposed to him. They are the feeble expression of an age which has lost the power not only of creating great works, but of understanding them. They are the spurious birth of a marriage between philosophy and tradition, between Hellas and the East—εὶκὸς γεννα̂ν ν[Editor: illegible character]θα καὶ ϕαν̂λα (Rep. vi. 496 A). Whereas the so-called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising out of his imperfect knowledge and high aspirations, and is the growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from poetry and mythology.

  A greater danger with modern interpreters of Plato is the tendency to regard the Timaeus as the centre of his system. We do not know how Plato would have arranged his own dialogues, or whether the thought of arranging any of them, besides the two ‘Trilogies’ which he has expressly connected, was ever present to his mind. But, if he had arranged them, there are many indications that this is not the place which he would have assigned to the Timaeus. We observe, first of all, that the dialogue is put into the mouth of a Pythagorean philosopher, and not of Socrates. And this is required by dramatic propriety; for the investigation of nature was expressly renounced by Socrates in the Phaedo (96 ff.). Nor does Plato himself attribute any importance to his guesses at science. He is not at all absorbed by them, as he is by the idea of good. He is modest and hesitating, and confesses that his words partake of the uncertainty of the subject (Tim. 29 C). The dialogue is primarily concerned with the animal creation, including under this term the heavenly bodies, and with man only as one among the animals. But we can hardly suppose that Plato would have preferred the study of nature to man, or that he would have deemed the formation of the world and the human frame to have the same interest which he ascribes to the mystery of being and not-being, or to the great political problems which he discusses in the Republic and the Laws. There are no speculations on physics in the other dialogues of Plato, and he himself regards the consideration of them as a rational pastime only (cp. 59 D, &c.). He is beginning to feel the need of further divisions of knowledge; and is becoming aware that besides dialectic, mathematics, and the arts, there is another field which has been hitherto unexplored by him. But he has not as yet defined this intermediate territory which lies somewhere between medicine and mathematics, and he would have felt that there was as great an impiety in ranking theories of physics first in the order of knowledge, as in placing the body before the soul.

  It is true, however, that the Timaeus is by no means confined to speculations on physics. The deeper foundations of the Platonic philosophy, such as the nature of God, the distinction of the sensible and intellectual, the great original conceptions of time and space, also appear in it. They are found principally in the first half of the dialogue. The construction of the heavens is for the most part ideal; the cyclic year serves as the connection between the world of absolute being and of generation, just as the number of population in the Republic (Book viii. 546) is the expression or symbol of the transition from the ideal to the actual state. In some passages we are uncertain whether we are reading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processes of the human mind (37 C), or of that divine mind (cp. Phil. 22 D) which in Plato is hardly separable from it. The characteristics of man are transferred to the world-animal, as for example when intelligence and knowledge are said to be perfected by the circle of the Same, and true opinion by the circle of the Other; and conversely the motions of the world-animal reappear in man; its amorphous state continues in the child (44), and in both disorder and chaos are gradually succeeded by stability and order. It is not however to passages like these that Plato is referring when he speaks of the uncertainty of his subject, but rather to the composition of bodies, to the relations of colours, the nature of diseases, and the like, about which he truly feels the lamentable ignorance prevailing in his own age.

  We are led by Plato himself to regard the Timaeus, not as the centre or inmost shrine of the edifice, but as a detached building in a different style, framed, not after the Socratic, but after some Pythagorean model. As in the Cratylus and Parmenides, we are uncertain whether Plato is expressing his own opinions, or appropriating and perhaps improving the philosophical speculations of others. In all three dialogues he is exerting his dramatic and imitative power; in the Cratylus mingling a satirical and humorous purpose with true principles of language; in the Parmenides overthrowing Megarianism by a sort of ultra-Megarianism, which discovers contradictions in the one as great as those which have been previously shown to exist in the ideas. There is a similar uncertainty about the Timaeus; in the first part he scales the heights of transcendentalism, in the latter part he treats in a bald and superficial manner of the functions and diseases of the human frame. He uses the thoughts and almost the words of Parmenides when he discourses of being and of essence, adopting from old religion into philosophy the conception of God, and from the Megarians the idea of good. He agrees with Empedocles and the Atomists in attributing the greater differences of kinds to the figures of the elements and their movements into and out of one another. With Heracleitus, he acknowledges the perpetual flux; like Anaxagoras, he asserts the predominance of mind, although admitting an element of necessity which reason is incapable of subduing; like the Pythagoreans he supposes the mystery of the world to be contained in number. Many, if not all the elements of the Pre-Socratic philosophy are included in the Timaeus. It is a composite or eclectic work of imagination, in which Plato, without naming them, gathers up into a kind of system the various elements of philosophy which preceded him.

  If we allow for the difference of subject, and for some growth in Plato’s own mind, the discrepancy between the Timaeus and the other dialogues will not appear to be great. It is probable that the relation of the ideas to God or of God to the world was differently conceived by him at different times of his life. In all his later dialogues we observe a tendency in him to personify mind or God, and he therefore naturally inclines to view creation as the work of design. The creator is like a human artist who frames in his mind a plan which he executes by the help of his servants. Thus the language of philosophy which speaks of first and second causes is crossed by another sort of phraseology: ‘God made the world because he was good, and the demons ministered to him.’ The Timaeus is cast in a more theological and less philosophical mould than the other dialogues, but the same general spirit is apparent; there is the same dualism or opposition between the ideal and actual (51 B ff.)—the soul is prior to the body (34 C), the intelligible and unseen to the visible and corporeal (28). There is the same distinction between knowledge and opinion (37 C) which occurs in the Theaetetus and Republic, the same enmity to the poets (19 D), the same combination of music and gymnastics (88 C). The doctrine of transmigration is still held by him (90 E ff.), as in the Phaedrus and Republic; and the soul has a view of the heavens in a prior state of being (41 E). The ideas also remain, but they have become types in nature, forms of men, animals, birds, fishes (39 E). And the attribution of evil to physical causes (86 D, E) accords with the doctrine which he maintains in the Laws (Book ix. 861) respecting the involuntariness of vice.

  The style and plan of the Timaeus differ greatly from that of any other of the Platonic dialogues. The language is weighty, abrupt, and in some passages sublime. But Plato has not the same mastery over his instrument which he exhibits in the Phaedrus or Symposium. Nothing can exceed the beauty or art of the introduction, in which he is using words after his accustomed manner. But in the rest of the work the power of language seems to fail him, and the dramatic form is wholly given up. He could write in one style, but not in another, and the Greek language had not as yet been fashioned by any poet or philosopher to describe physical phenomena. The early physiologists had generally written in verse; the prose writers, like Democritus and Anaxagoras, as far as we can judge from their fragments, never attained to a periodic style. And hence we find the same sort of clumsiness in the Timaeus of Plato which characterizes the philosophical poem of Lucretius. There is a want of flow and often a defect of rhythm; the meaning is sometimes obscure, and there is a greater use of apposition and more of repetition than occurs in Plato’s earlier writings. The sentences are less closely connected and also more involved; the antecedents of demonstrative and relative pronouns are in some cases remote and perplexing. The greater frequency of participles and of absolute constructions gives the effect of heaviness. The descriptive portion of the Timaeus retains traces of the first Greek prose composition; for the great master of language was speaking on a theme with which he was imperfectly acquainted, and had no words in which to express his meaning. The rugged grandeur of the opening discourse of Timaeus (Tim. 28-31) may be compared with the more harmonious beauty of a similar passage in the Phaedrus (245).

  To the same cause we may attribute the want of plan. Plato had not the command of his materials which would have enabled him to produce a perfect work of art. Hence there are several new beginnings and resumptions and formal or artificial connexions; we miss the ‘callida junctura’ of the earlier dialogues. His speculations about the Eternal, his theories of creation, his mathematical anticipations, are supplemented by desultory remarks on the one immortal and the two mortal souls of man, on the functions of the bodily organs in health and disease, on sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He soars into the heavens, and then, as if his wings were suddenly clipped, he walks ungracefully and with difficulty upon the earth. The greatest things in the world, and the least things in man, are brought within the compass of a short treatise. But the intermediate links are missing, and we cannot be surprised that there should be a want of unity in a work which embraces astronomy, theology, physiology, and natural philosophy in a few pages.

  It is not easy to determine how Plato’s cosmos may be presented to the reader in a clearer and shorter form; or how we may supply a thread of connexion to his ideas without giving greater consistency to them than they possessed in his mind, or adding on consequences which would never have occurred to him. For he has glimpses of the truth, but no comprehensive or perfect vision. There are isolated expressions about the nature of God which have a wonderful depth and power (29 E ff., 37 ff.); but we are not justified in assuming that these had any greater significance to the mind of Plato than language of a neutral and impersonal character. . . . With a view to the illustration of the Timaeus I propose to divide this Introduction into sections, of which the first will contain an outline of the dialogue: (2) I shall consider the aspects of nature which presented themselves to Plato and his age, and the elements of philosophy which entered into the conception of them: (3) the theology and physics of the Timaeus, including the soul of the world, the conception of time and space, and the composition of the elements: (4) in the fourth section I shall consider the Platonic astronomy, and the position of the earth. There will remain, (5) the psychology, (6) the physiology of Plato, and (7) his analysis of the senses to be briefly commented upon: (8) lastly, we may examine in what points Plato approaches or anticipates the discoveries of modern science.

  § 1.

  Analysis.

  17, 18Socrates begins the Timaeus with a summary of the Republic. He lightly touches upon a few points,—the division of labour and distribution of the citizens into classes, the double nature and training of the guardians, the community of property and of women and children. But he makes no mention of the second education, or of the government of philosophers.

  19And now he desires to see the ideal State set in motion; he would like to know how she behaved in some great struggle. But he is unable to invent such a narrative himself; and he is afraid that the poets are equally incapable; for, although he pretends to have nothing to say against them, he remarks that they are a tribe of imitators, who can only describe what they have seen. And he fears that the Sophists, who are plentifully supplied with graces of speech, in their erratic way of life having never had a city or house of their own, may through want of experience err in their conception of philosophers and statesmen. 20‘And therefore to you I turn, Timaeus, citizen of Locris, who are at once a philosopher and a statesman, and to you, Critias, whom all Athenians know to be similarly accomplished, and to Hermocrates, who is also fitted by nature and education to share in our discourse.’ Her. ‘We will do our best, and have been already preparing; for on our way home, Critias told us of an ancient tradition, which I wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates.’ ‘I will, if Timaeus approves.’ ‘I approve.’ Listen then, Socrates, to a tale of Solon’s, who, being the friend of Dropidas my great-grandfather, told it to my grandfather Critias, and he told me. The narrative related to ancient famous actions of the 21Athenian people, and to one especially, which I will rehearse in honour of you and of the goddess. Critias when he told this tale of the olden time, was ninety years old, I being not more than ten. The occasion of the rehearsal was the day of the Apaturia called the Registration of Youth, at which our parents gave prizes for recitation. Some poems of Solon were recited by the boys. They had not at that time gone out of fashion, and the recital of them led some one to say, perhaps in compliment to Critias, that Solon was not only the wisest of men but also the best of poets. The old man brightened up at hearing this, and said: Had Solon only had the leisure which was required to complete the famous legend which he brought with him from Egypt he would have been as distinguished as Homer and Hesiod. ‘And what was the subject of the poem?’ said the person who made the remark. The subject was a very noble one; he described the most famous action in which the Athenian people were ever engaged. But the memory of their exploits has passed away owing to the lapse of time and the extinction of the actors. ‘Tell us,’ said the other, ‘the whole story, and where Solon heard the story.’ He replied—There is at the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile divides, a city and district called Sais; the city was the birthplace of King Amasis, and is under the protection of the goddess Neith or Athene. The citizens have a friendly feeling towards the Athenians, believing themselves to be related to them. Hither 22came Solon, and was received with honour; and here he first learnt, by conversing with the Egyptian priests, how ignorant he and his countrymen were of antiquity. Perceiving this, and with the view of eliciting information from them, he told them the tales of Phoroneus and Niobe, and also of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and he endeavoured to count the generations which had since passed. Thereupon an aged priest said to him: ‘O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are ever young, and there is no old man who is a Hellene.’ ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘In mind,’ replied the priest, ‘I mean to say that you are children; there is no opinion or tradition of knowledge among you which is white with age; and I will tell you why. Like the rest of mankind you have suffered from convulsions of nature, which are chiefly brought about by the two great agencies of fire and water. The former is symbolized in the Hellenic tale of young Phaëthon who drove his father’s horses the wrong way, and having burnt up the earth was himself burnt up by a thunderbolt. For there occurs at long intervals a derangement of the heavenly bodies, and then the earth is destroyed by fire. At such times, and when fire is the agent, those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore are safer than those who dwell upon high and dry places, who in their turn are safer when the danger is from water. Now the Nile is our saviour from fire, and as there is little rain in Egypt, we are not harmed by water; whereas in other countries, when a deluge comes, the inhabitants are swept by the rivers into the sea. The memorials which your own and other nations have once had of the famous actions of mankind perish in the waters at certain periods; and the rude survivors in the mountains begin again, knowing nothing 23of the world before the flood. But in Egypt the traditions of our own and other lands are by us registered for ever in our temples. The genealogies which you have recited to us out of your own annals, Solon, are a mere children’s story. For in the first place, you remember one deluge only, and there were many of them, and you know nothing of that fairest and noblest race of which you are a seed or remnant. The memory of them was lost, because there was no written voice among you. For in the times before the great flood Athens was the greatest and best of cities and did the noblest deeds and had the best constitution of any under the face of heaven.’ Solon marvelled, and desired to be informed of the particulars. ‘You are welcome to hear them,’ said the priest, ‘both for your own sake and for that of the city, and above all for the sake of the goddess who is the common foundress of both our cities. Nine thousand years have elapsed since she founded yours, and eight thousand since she founded ours, as our annals record. Many laws exist among us which are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. 24I will briefly describe them to you, and you shall read the account of them at your leisure in the sacred registers. In the first place, there was a caste of priests among the ancient Athenians, and another of artisans; also castes of shepherds, hunters, and husbandmen, and lastly of warriors, who, like the warriors of Egypt, were separated from the rest, and carried shields and spears, a custom which the goddess first taught you, and then the Asiatics, and we among Asiatics first received from her. Observe again, what care the law took in the pursuit of wisdom, searching out the deep things of the world, and applying them to the use of man. The spot of earth which the goddess chose had the best of climates, and produced the wisest men; in no other was she herself, the philosopher and warrior goddess, so likely to have votaries. And there you dwelt as became the children of the gods, excelling all men in virtue, and many famous actions are recorded of you. The most famous of them all was the overthrow of the island of Atlantis. This great island lay over against the Pillars of Heracles, in extent greater than Libya 25and Asia put together, and was the passage to other islands and to a great ocean of which the Mediterranean sea was only the harbour; and within the Pillars the empire of Atlantis reached in Europe to Tyrrhenia and in Libya to Egypt. This mighty power was arrayed against Egypt and Hellas and all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Then your city did bravely, and won renown over the whole earth. For at the peril of her own existence, and when the other Hellenes had deserted her, she repelled the invader, and of her own accord gave liberty to all the nations within the Pillars. A little while afterwards there were great earthquakes and floods, and your warrior race all sank into the earth; and the great island of Atlantis also disappeared in the sea. This is the explanation of the shallows which are found in that part of the Atlantic ocean.’

  Such was the tale, Socrates, which Critias heard from Solon; and I noticed when listening to you yesterday, how close the resemblance was between your city and citizens and the ancient 26Athenian State. But I would not speak at the time, because I wanted to refresh my memory. I had heard the old man when I was a child, and though I could not remember the whole of our yesterday’s discourse, I was able to recall every word of this, which is branded into my mind; and I am prepared, Socrates, to rehearse to you the entire narrative. The imaginary State which you were describing may be identified with the reality of Solon, and our antediluvian ancestors may be your citizens. ‘That is excellent, Critias, and very appropriate to a Panathenaic festival; 27the truth of the story is a great advantage.’ Then now let me explain to you the order of our entertainment; first, Timaeus, who is a natural philosopher, will speak of the origin of the world, going down to the creation of man, and then I shall receive the men whom he has created, and some of whom will have been educated by you, and introduce them to you as the lost Athenian citizens of whom the Egyptian record spoke. As the law of Solon prescribes, we will bring them into court and acknowledge their claims to citizenship. ‘I see,’ replied Socrates, ‘that I shall be well entertained; and do you, Timaeus, offer up a prayer and begin.’

  Tim.

  All men who have any right feeling, at the beginning of any enterprise, call upon the Gods; and he who is about to speak of the origin of the universe has a special need of their aid. May my words be acceptable to them, and may I speak in the manner which will be most intelligible to you and will best express my own meaning!

  First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, 28and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense. All that becomes and is created is the work of a cause, and that is fair which the artificer makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever is fashioned after a created pattern is not fair. Is the world created or uncreated?—that is the first question. Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the 29ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype. For to imagine that the archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeing that the world is the noblest of creations, and God is the best of causes. And the world being thus created according to the eternal pattern is the copy of something; and we may assume that words are akin to the matter of which they speak. What is spoken of the unchanging or intelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief. And amid the variety of opinions which have arisen about God and the nature of the world we must be content to take probability for our rule, considering that I, who am the speaker, and you, who are the judges, are only men; to probability we may attain but no further.

  Soc.

  Excellent, Timaeus; I like your manner of approaching the subject—proceed.

  Tim.

  Why did the Creator make the world? . . . He was good, and therefore not jealous, and being free from jealousy he desired 30that all things should be like himself. Wherefore he set in order the visible world, which he found in disorder. Now he who is the best could only create the fairest; and reflecting that of visible things the intelligent is superior to the unintelligent, he put intelligence in soul and soul in body, and framed the universe to be the best and fairest work in the order of nature, and the world became a living soul through the providence of God.

  In the likeness of what animal was the world made?—that is the third question. . . . The form of the perfect animal was a whole, and contained all intelligible beings, and the visible animal, made after the pattern of this, included all visible creatures.

  31Are there many worlds or one only?—that is the fourth question. . . . One only. For if in the original there had been more than one they would have been the parts of a third, which would have been the true pattern of the world; and therefore there is, and will ever be, but one created world. Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal and visible and tangible,—visible and therefore made of fire,—tangible and therefore solid and made 32of earth. But two terms must be united by a third, which is a mean between them; and had the earth been a surface only, one mean would have sufficed, but two means are required to unite solid bodies. And as the world was composed of solids, between the elements of fire and earth God placed two other elements of air and water, and arranged them in a continuous proportion—

  fire : air : : air : water, and air : water : : water : earth,

  and so put together a visible and palpable heaven, having harmony and friendship in the union of the four elements; and being at unity with itself it was indissoluble except by the hand of the framer. Each of the elements was taken into the universe whole and entire; for he considered that the animal should be 33perfect and one, leaving no remnants out of which another animal could be created, and should also be free from old age and disease, which are produced by the action of external forces. And as he was to contain all things, he was made in the all-containing form of a sphere, round as from a lathe and every way equidistant from the centre, as was natural and suitable to him. He was finished and smooth, having neither eyes nor ears, for there was nothing without him which he could see or hear; and he had no need to carry food to his mouth, nor was there air for him to breathe; and he did not require hands, for there was nothing of which he could take hold, nor feet, with which to walk. 34All that he did was done rationally in and by himself, and he moved in a circle turning within himself, which is the most intellectual of motions; but the other six motions were wanting to him; wherefore the universe had no feet or legs.

  And so the thought of God made a God in the image of a perfect body, having intercourse with himself and needing no other, but in every part harmonious and self-contained and truly blessed. The soul was first made by him—the elder to rule the younger; not in the order in which our wayward fancy has led us to describe them, but the soul first and afterwards the body. 35God took of the unchangeable and indivisible and also of the divisible and corporeal, and out of the two he made a third nature, essence, which was in a mean between them, and partook of the same and the other, the intractable nature of the other being compressed into the same. Having made a compound of all the three, he proceeded to divide the entire mass into portions 36related to one another in the ratios of 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, and proceeded to fill up the double and triple intervals thus—

  ₁̄, 4/3, 3/2, ₂̄, 8/3, 3, ₄̄, 16/3, 6, ₈̄:

  ₁̄, 3/2, 2, ₃̄, 9/2, 6, ₉̄, 27/2, 18, ₂̅₅̅;

  in which double series of numbers are two kinds of means; the one exceeds and is exceeded by equal parts of the extremes, e. g. 1, 4/3, 2; the other kind of mean is one which is equidistant from the extremes—2, 4, 6. In this manner there were formed intervals of thirds, 3 : 2, of fourths, 4 : 3, and of ninths, 9 : 8. And next he filled up the intervals of a fourth with ninths, leaving a remnant which is in the ratio of 256 : 243. The entire compound was divided by him lengthways into two parts, which he united at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into an inner and outer circle or sphere, cutting one another again at a point over against the point at which they cross. The outer circle or sphere was named the sphere of the same—the inner, the sphere of the other or diverse; and the one revolved horizontally to the right, the other diagonally to the left. To the sphere of the same which was undivided he gave dominion, but the sphere of the other or diverse was distributed into seven unequal orbits, having intervals in ratios of twos and threes, three of either sort, and he bade the orbits move in opposite directions to one another—three of them, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, with equal swiftness, and the remaining four—the Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but all in due proportion.

  When the Creator had made the soul he made the body within her; and the soul interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, herself turning in herself, began a divine 37life of rational and everlasting motion. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and is the best of creations, being the work of the best. And being composed of the same, the other, and the essence, these three, and also divided and bound in harmonical proportion, and revolving within herself—the soul when touching anything which has essence, whether divided or undivided, is stirred to utter the sameness or diversity of that and some other thing, and to tell how and when and where individuals are affected or related, whether in the world of change or of essence. When reason is in the neighbourhood of sense, and the circle of the other or diverse is moving truly, then arise true opinions and beliefs; when reason is in the sphere of thought, and the circle of the same runs smoothly, then intelligence is perfected.

  When the Father who begat the world saw the image which he had made of the Eternal Gods moving and living, he rejoiced; and in his joy resolved, since the archetype was eternal, to make the creature eternal as far as this was possible. Wherefore he made an image of eternity which is time, having an uniform motion according to number, parted into months and days and years, and also having greater divisions of past, present, and future. These all apply to becoming in time, and have no meaning in relation to the eternal nature, which ever is and never was or will be; for the unchangeable is never older or 38younger, and when we say that he ‘was’ or ‘will be,’ we are mistaken, for these words are applicable only to becoming, and not to true being; and equally wrong are we in saying that what has become is become and that what becomes is becoming, and that the non-existent is non-existent. . . . These are the forms of time which imitate eternity and move in a circle measured by number.

  Thus was time made in the image of the eternal nature; and it was created together with the heavens, in order that if they were dissolved, it might perish with them. And God made the sun and moon and five other wanderers, as they are called, seven in all, and to each of them he gave a body moving in an orbit, being one of the seven orbits into which the circle of the other was divided. He put the moon in the orbit which was nearest to the earth, the sun in that next, the morning star and Mercury in the orbits which move opposite to the sun but with equal swiftness—this being the reason why they overtake and are overtaken by one another. All these bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began to move, 39the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. And since this was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to be overtaken by them. And God lighted a fire in the second orbit from the earth which is called the sun, to give light over the whole heaven, and to teach intelligent beings that knowledge of number which is derived from the revolution of the same. Thus arose day and night, which are the periods of the most intelligent nature; a month is created by the revolution of the moon, a year by that of the sun. Other periods of wonderful length and complexity are not observed by men in general; there is moreover a cycle or perfect year at the completion of which they all meet and coincide. . . . To this end the stars came into being, that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature.

  Thus far the universal animal was made in the divine image, but the other animals were not as yet included in him. And God created them according to the patterns or species of them 40which existed in the divine original. There are four of them: one of gods, another of birds, a third of fishes, and a fourth of animals. The gods were made in the form of a circle, which is the most perfect figure and the figure of the universe. They were created chiefly of fire, that they might be bright, and were made to know and follow the best, and to be scattered over the heavens, of which they were to be the glory. Two kinds of motion were assigned to them—first, the revolution in the same and around the same, in peaceful unchanging thought of the same; and to this was added a forward motion which was under the control of the same. Thus then the fixed stars were created, being divine and eternal animals, revolving on the same spot, and the wandering stars, in their courses, were created in the manner already described. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging around the pole extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. Vain would be the labour of telling all the figures of them, moving as in dance, and their juxta-positions and approximations, and when and where and behind what other stars they appear or disappear—to tell of all this without looking at a plan of them would be labour in vain.

  The knowledge of the other gods is beyond us, and we can only accept the traditions of the ancients, who were the children of the gods, as they said; for surely they must have known their own ancestors. Although they give no proof, we must believe them as is customary. They tell us that Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven; that Phorcys, Cronos, 41and Rhea came in the next generation, and were followed by Zeus and Here, whose brothers and children are known to everybody.

  When all of them, both those who show themselves in the sky, and those who retire from view, had come into being, the Creator addressed them thus:—‘Gods, sons of gods, my works, if I will, are indissoluble. That which is bound may be dissolved, but only an evil being would dissolve that which is harmonious and happy. And although you are not immortal you shall not die, for I will hold you together. Hear me, then:—Three tribes of mortal beings have still to be created, but if created by me they would be like gods. Do ye therefore make them; I will implant in them the seed of immortality, and you shall weave together the mortal and immortal, and provide food for them, and receive them again in death.’ Thus he spake, and poured the remains of the elements into the cup in which he had mingled the soul of the universe. They were no longer pure as before, but diluted; and the mixture he distributed into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each to a star—then having mounted them, as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and told them of their future birth and human lot. They were to be sown in the planets, and out of them was to come forth the most 42religious of animals, which would hereafter be called man. The souls were to be implanted in bodies, which were in a perpetual flux, whence, he said, would arise, first, sensation; secondly, love, which is a mixture of pleasure and pain; thirdly, fear and anger, and the opposite affections; and if they conquered these, they would live righteously, but if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who lived well would return to his native star, and would there have a blessed existence; but, if he lived ill, he would pass into the nature of a woman, and if he did not then alter his evil ways, into the likeness of some animal, until the reason which was in him reasserted her sway over the elements of fire, air, earth, water, which had engrossed her, and he regained his first and better nature. Having given this law to his creatures, that he might be guiltless of their future evil, he sowed them, some in the earth, some in the moon, and some in the other planets; and he ordered the younger gods to frame human bodies for them and to make the necessary additions to them, and to avert from them all but self-inflicted evil.

  Having given these commands, the Creator remained in his own nature. And his children, receiving from him the immortal principle, borrowed from the world portions of earth, air, fire, 43water, hereafter to be returned, which they fastened together, not with the adamantine bonds which bound themselves, but by little invisible pegs, making each separate body out of all the elements, subject to influx and efflux, and containing the courses of the soul. These swelling and surging as in a river moved irregularly and irrationally in all the six possible ways, forwards, backwards, right, left, up and down. But violent as were the internal and alimentary fluids, the tide became still more violent when the body came into contact with flaming fire, or the solid earth, or gliding waters, or the stormy wind; the motions produced by these impulses pass through the body to the soul and have the name of sensations. Uniting with the ever-flowing current, they shake the courses of the soul, stopping the revolution of the same and twisting in all sorts of ways the nature of the other, and the harmonical ratios of twos and threes and the mean terms which connect them, until the circles are bent and disordered and their motion becomes irregular. You may imagine a position of the body in which the head is resting upon the ground, and the legs are in the air, and the top is bottom and the left right. And something similar happens when the disordered motions of the soul come into contact with any external 44thing; they say the same or the other in a manner which is the very opposite of the truth, and they are false and foolish, and have no guiding principle in them. And when external impressions enter in, they are really conquered, though they seem to conquer.

  By reason of these affections the soul is at first without intelligence, but as time goes on the stream of nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul regain their proper motion, and apprehend the same and the other rightly, and become rational. The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man’s education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below. This, however, is an after-stage—at present, we are only concerned with the creation of the body and soul.

  The two divine courses were encased by the gods in a sphere which is called the head, and is the god and lord of us. And to this they gave the body to be a vehicle, and the members to be 45instruments, having the power of flexion and extension. Such was the origin of legs and arms. In the next place, the gods gave a forward motion to the human body, because the front part of man was the more honourable and had authority. And they put in a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of the soul. They first contrived the eyes, into which they conveyed a light akin to the light of day, making it to flow through the pupils. When the light of the eye is surrounded by the light of day, then like falls upon like, and they unite and form one body which conveys to the soul the motions of visible objects. But when the visual ray goes forth into the darkness, then unlike falls upon unlike—the eye no longer sees, and we go to sleep. The fire or light, when kept in by the eyelids, equalizes the inward motions, and there is rest 46accompanied by few dreams; only when the greater motions remain they engender in us corresponding visions of the night. And now we shall be able to understand the nature of reflections in mirrors. The fires from within and from without meet about the smooth and bright surface of the mirror; and because they meet in a manner contrary to the usual mode, the right and left sides of the object are transposed. In a concave mirror the top and bottom are inverted, but this is no transposition.

  These are the second causes which God used as his ministers in fashioning the world. They are thought by many to be the prime causes, but they are not so; for they are destitute of mind and reason, and the lover of mind will not allow that there are any prime causes other than the rational and invisible ones—these he investigates first, and afterwards the causes of things which are moved by others, and which work by chance and without order. Of the second or concurrent causes of sight I have already spoken, and I will now speak of the higher purpose of God in 47giving us eyes. Sight is the source of the greatest benefits to us; for if our eyes had never seen the sun, stars, and heavens, the words which we have spoken would not have been uttered. The sight of them and their revolutions has given us the knowledge of number and time, the power of enquiry, and philosophy, which is the great blessing of human life; not to speak of the lesser benefits which even the vulgar can appreciate. God gave us the faculty of sight that we might behold the order of the heavens and create a corresponding order in our own erring minds. To the like end the gifts of speech and hearing were bestowed upon us; not for the sake of irrational pleasure, but in order that we might harmonize the courses of the soul by sympathy with the harmony of sound, and cure ourselves of our irregular and graceless ways.

  Thus far we have spoken of the works of mind; and there are other works done from necessity, which we must now place 48beside them; for the creation is made up of both, mind persuading necessity as far as possible to work out good. Before the heavens there existed fire, air, water, earth, which we suppose men to know, though no one has explained their nature, and we erroneously maintain them to be the letters or elements of the whole, although they cannot reasonably be compared even to syllables or first compounds. I am not now speaking of the first principles of things, because I cannot discover them by our present mode of enquiry. But as I observed the rule of probability at first, I will begin anew, seeking by the grace of God to observe it still.

  In our former discussion I distinguished two kinds of being — 49the unchanging or invisible, and the visible or changing. But now a third kind is required, which I shall call the receptacle or nurse of generation. There is a difficulty in arriving at an exact notion of this third kind, because the four elements themselves are of inexact natures and easily pass into one another, and are too transient to be detained by any one name; wherefore we are compelled to speak of water or fire, not as substances, but as 50qualities. They may be compared to images made of gold, which are continually assuming new forms. Somebody asks what they are; if you do not know, the safest answer is to reply that they are gold. In like manner there is a universal nature out of which all things are made, and which is like none of them; but they enter into and pass out of her, and are made after patterns of the true in a wonderful and inexplicable manner. The containing principle may be likened to a mother, the source or spring to a father, the intermediate nature to a child; and we may also remark that the matter which receives every variety of form must be formless, like the inodorous liquids which are prepared to receive scents, or the smooth and soft materials on which figures 51are impressed. In the same way space or matter is neither earth nor fire nor air nor water, but an invisible and formless being which receives all things, and in an incomprehensible manner partakes of the intelligible. But we may say, speaking generally, that fire is that part of this nature which is inflamed, water that which is moistened, and the like.

  Let me ask a question in which a great principle is involved: Is there an essence of fire and the other elements, or are there only fires visible to sense? I answer in a word: If mind is one thing and true opinion another, then there are self-existent essences; but if mind is the same with opinion, then the visible and corporeal is most real. But they are not the same, and they have a different origin and nature. The one comes to us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is rational, the other is irrational; the one is movable by persuasion, the other immovable; the one is possessed by every man, the other by the gods and by very few men. And we must acknowledge that as there are two kinds of knowledge, so there are two kinds of being 52corresponding to them; the one uncreated, indestructible, immovable, which is seen by intelligence only; the other created, which is always becoming in place and vanishing out of place, and is apprehended by opinion and sense. There is also a third nature—that of space, which is indestructible, and is perceived by a kind of spurious reason without the help of sense. This is presented to us in a dreamy manner, and yet is said to be necessary, for we say that all things must be somewhere in space. For they are the images of other things and must therefore have a separate existence and exist in something (i. e. in space). But true reason assures us that while two things (i. e. the idea and the image) are different they cannot inhere in one another, so as to be one and two at the same time.

  To sum up: Being and generation and space, these three, existed before the heavens, and the nurse or vessel of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and taking the forms of air and earth, assumed various shapes. By the motion of the vessel, the elements were divided, and like grain winnowed by fans, the close and heavy particles settled in one 53place, the light and airy ones in another. At first they were without reason or measure, and had only certain faint traces of themselves, until God fashioned them by figure and number. In this, as in every other part of creation, I suppose God to have made things, as far as was possible, fair and good, out of things not fair and good.

  And now I will explain to you the generation of the world by a method with which your scientific training will have made you familiar. Fire, air, earth, and water are bodies and therefore solids, and solids are contained in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up of triangles. Of triangles there are two kinds; one having the opposite sides equal (isosceles), the other with unequal sides (scalene). These we may fairly assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; what principles are prior to these God only knows, and he of men whom God loves. Next, we must determine what are the four most beautiful figures which are unlike one another and yet sometimes capable 54of resolution into one another. . . . Of the two kinds of triangles the equal-sided has but one form, the unequal-sided has an infinite variety of forms; and there is none more beautiful than that which forms the half of an equilateral triangle. Let us then choose two triangles; one, the isosceles, the other, that form of scalene which has the square of the longer side three times as great as the square of the lesser side; and affirm that, out of these, fire and the other elements have been constructed.

  I was wrong in imagining that all the four elements could be generated into and out of one another. For as they are formed, three of them from the triangle which has the sides unequal, the fourth from the triangle which has equal sides, three can be resolved into one another, but the fourth cannot be resolved into them nor they into it. So much for their passage into one another: I must now speak of their construction. From the triangle of which the hypothenuse is twice the lesser side the three 55first regular solids are formed—first, the equilateral pyramid or tetrahedron; secondly, the octahedron; thirdly, the icosahedron; and from the isosceles triangle is formed the cube. And there is a fifth figure [which is made out of twelve pentagons], the dodecahedron—this God used as a model for the twelvefold division of the Zodiac.

  Let us now assign the geometrical forms to their respective elements. The cube is the most stable of them because resting on a quadrangular plane surface, and composed of isosceles triangles. To the earth then, which is the most stable of bodies 56and the most easily modelled of them, may be assigned the form of a cube; and the remaining forms to the other elements,—to fire the pyramid, to air the octahedron, and to water the icosahedron,—according to their degrees of lightness or heaviness or power, or want of power, of penetration. The single particles of any of the elements are not seen by reason of their smallness; they only become visible when collected. The ratios of their motions, numbers, and other properties, are ordered by the God, who harmonized them as far as necessity permitted.

  The probable conclusion is as follows:—Earth, when dissolved by the more penetrating element of fire, whether acting immediately or through the medium of air or water, is decomposed but not transformed. Water, when divided by fire or air, becomes one part fire, and two parts air. A volume of air divided becomes two of fire. On the other hand, when condensed, two volumes of fire make a volume of air; and two and a half parts of air condense 57into one of water. Any element which is fastened upon by fire is cut by the sharpness of the triangles, until at length, coalescing with the fire, it is at rest; for similars are not affected by similars. When two kinds of bodies quarrel with one another, then the tendency to decomposition continues until the smaller either escapes to its kindred element or becomes one with its conqueror. And this tendency in bodies to condense or escape is a source of motion. . . . Where there is motion there must be a mover, and where there is a mover there must be something to move. These cannot exist in what is uniform, and therefore 58motion is due to want of uniformity. But then why, when things are divided after their kinds, do they not cease from motion? The answer is, that the circular motion of all things compresses them, and as ‘nature abhors a vacuum,’ the finer and more subtle particles of the lighter elements, such as fire and air, are thrust into the interstices of the larger, each of them penetrating according to their rarity, and thus all the elements are on their way up and down everywhere and always into their own places. Hence there is a principle of inequality, and therefore of motion, in all time.

  In the next place, we may observe that there are different kinds of fire—(1) flame, (2) light that burns not, (3) the red heat of the embers of fire. And there are varieties of air, as for example, the pure aether, the opaque mist, and other nameless forms. Water, again, is of two kinds, liquid and fusile. The liquid is composed of small and unequal particles, the fusile of large and uniform particles and is more solid, but nevertheless melts at the 59approach of fire, and then spreads upon the earth. When the substance cools, the fire passes into the air, which is displaced, and forces together and condenses the liquid mass. This process is called cooling and congealment. Of the fusile kinds the fairest and heaviest is gold; this is hardened by filtration through rock, and is of a bright yellow colour. A shoot of gold which is darker and denser than the rest is called adamant. Another kind is called copper, which is harder and yet lighter because the interstices are larger than in gold. There is mingled with it a fine and small portion of earth which comes out in the form of rust. These are a few of the conjectures which philosophy forms, when, leaving the eternal nature, she turns for innocent recreation to consider the truths of generation.

  Water which is mingled with fire is called liquid because it rolls upon the earth, and soft because its bases give way. This becomes more equable when separated from fire and air, and then congeals into hail or ice, or the looser forms of hoar frost or 60snow. There are other waters which are called juices and are distilled through plants. Of these we may mention, first, wine, which warms the soul as well as the body; secondly, oily substances, as for example, oil or pitch; thirdly, honey, which relaxes the contracted parts of the mouth and so produces sweetness; fourthly, vegetable acid, which is frothy and has a burning quality and dissolves the flesh. Of the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes into stone; the water is broken up by the earth and escapes in the form of air—this in turn presses upon the mass of earth, and the earth, compressed into an indissoluble union with the remaining water, becomes rock. Rock, when it is made up of equal particles, is fair and transparent, but the reverse when of unequal. Earth is converted into pottery when the watery part is suddenly drawn away; or if moisture remains, the earth, when fused by fire, becomes, on cooling, a stone of a black colour. When the earth is finer and of a briny nature then two half-solid bodies are formed by separating the water,—soda and salt. The strong compounds of earth 61and water are not soluble by water, but only by fire. Earth itself, when not consolidated, is dissolved by water; when consolidated, by fire only. The cohesion of water, when strong, is dissolved by fire only; when weak, either by air or fire, the former entering the interstices, the latter penetrating even the triangles. Air when strongly condensed is indissoluble by any power which does not reach the triangles, and even when not strongly condensed is only resolved by fire. Compounds of earth and water are unaffected by water while the water occupies the interstices in them, but begin to liquefy when fire enters into the interstices of the water. They are of two kinds, some of them, like glass, having more earth, others, like wax, having more water in them.

  Having considered objects of sense, we now pass on to sensation. But we cannot explain sensation without explaining the nature of flesh and of the mortal soul; and as we cannot treat of both together, in order that we may proceed at once to the sensations we must assume the existence of body and soul.

  What makes fire burn? The fineness of the sides, the sharpness of the angles, the smallness of the particles, the quickness of 62the motion. Moreover, the pyramid, which is the figure of fire, is more cutting than any other. The feeling of cold is produced by the larger particles of moisture outside the body trying to eject the smaller ones in the body which they compress. The struggle which arises between elements thus unnaturally brought together causes shivering. That is hard to which the flesh yields, and soft which yields to the flesh, and these two terms are also relative to one another. The yielding matter is that which has the slenderest base, whereas that which has a rectangular base is compact and repellent. Light and heavy are wrongly explained with reference to a lower and higher in place. For in the universe, which is a sphere, there is no opposition of above or below, and that 63which is to us above would be below to a man standing at the antipodes. The greater or less difficulty in detaching any element from its like is the real cause of heaviness or of lightness. If you draw the earth into the dissimilar air, the particles of earth cling to their native element, and you more easily detach a small portion than a large. There would be the same difficulty in moving any of the upper elements towards the lower. The smooth and the rough are severally produced by the union of 64evenness with compactness, and of hardness with inequality.

  Pleasure and pain are the most important of the affections common to the whole body. According to our general doctrine of sensation, parts of the body which are easily moved readily transmit the motion to the mind; but parts which are not easily moved have no effect upon the patient. The bones and hair are of the latter kind, sight and hearing of the former. Ordinary affections are neither pleasant nor painful. The impressions of sight afford an example of these, and are neither violent nor 65sudden. But sudden replenishments of the body cause pleasure, and sudden disturbances, as for example cuttings and burnings, have the opposite effect.

  From sensations common to the whole body, we proceed to those of particular parts. The affections of the tongue appear to be caused by contraction and dilation, but they have more of roughness or smoothness than is found in other affections. Earthy particles, entering into the small veins of the tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt into and dry up the little veins are astringent if they are rough; or if not so rough, they are only harsh, and if excessively abstergent, like potash and soda, bitter. Purgatives of a weaker sort are called salt and, having no bitterness, are rather agreeable. Inflammatory bodies, 66which by their lightness are carried up into the head, cutting all that comes in their way, are termed pungent. But when these are refined by putrefaction, and enter the narrow veins of the tongue, and meet there particles of earth and air, two kinds of globules are formed—one of earthy and impure liquid, which boils and ferments, the other of pure and transparent water, which are called bubbles; of all these affections the cause is termed acid. When, on the other hand, the composition of the deliquescent particles is congenial to the tongue, and disposes the parts according to their nature, this remedial power in them is called sweet.

  Smells are not divided into kinds; all of them are transitional, and arise out of the decomposition of one element into another, for the simple air or water is without smell. They are vapours or mists, thinner than water and thicker than air: and hence in drawing in the breath, when there is an obstruction, the air 67passes, but there is no smell. They have no names, but are distinguished as pleasant and unpleasant, and their influence extends over the whole region from the head to the navel.

  Hearing is the effect of a stroke which is transmitted through the ears by means of the air, brain, and blood to the soul, beginning at the head and extending to the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute; that which moves slowly is grave; that which is uniform is smooth, and the opposite is harsh. Loudness depends on the quantity of the sound. Of the harmony of sounds I will hereafter speak (80).

  Colours are flames which emanate from all bodies, having particles corresponding to the sense of sight. Some of the particles are less and some larger, and some are equal to the parts of the sight. The equal particles appear transparent; the larger contract, and the lesser dilate the sight. White is produced by the dilation, black by the contraction, of the particles of sight. There 68is also a swifter motion of another sort of fire which forces a way through the passages of the eyes, and elicits from them a union of fire and water which we call tears. The inner fire flashes forth, and the outer finds a way in and is extinguished in the moisture, and all sorts of colours are generated by the mixture. This affection is termed by us dazzling, and the object which produces it is called bright. There is yet another sort of fire which mingles with the moisture of the eye without flashing, and produces a colour like blood—to this we give the name of red. A bright element mingling with red and white produces a colour which we call auburn. The law of proportion, however, according to which compound colours are formed, cannot be determined scientifically or even probably. Red, when mingled with black and white, gives a purple hue, which becomes umber when the colours are burnt and there is a larger admixture of black. Flame-colour is a mixture of auburn and dun; dun of white and black; yellow of white and auburn. White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark blue; dark blue mingling with white becomes a light blue; the union of flame-colour and black makes leek-green. There is no difficulty in seeing how other colours are probably composed. But he who should attempt to test the truth of this by experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divine nature. God only is able to compound and resolve substances; such experiments are impossible to man.

  These are the elements of necessity which the Creator received in the world of generation when he made the all-sufficient and perfect creature, using the secondary causes as his ministers, but himself fashioning the good in all things. For there are two sorts of causes, the one divine, the other necessary; and we should 69seek to discover the divine above all, and, for their sake, the necessary, because without them the higher cannot be attained by us.

  Having now before us the causes out of which the rest of our discourse is to be framed, let us go back to the point at which we began, and add a fair ending to our tale. As I said at first, all things were originally a chaos in which there was no order or proportion. The elements of this chaos were arranged by the Creator, and out of them he made the world. Of the divine he himself was the author, but he committed to his offspring the creation of the mortal. From him they received the immortal soul, but themselves made the body to be its vehicle, and constructed within another soul which was mortal, and subject to terrible affections—pleasure, the inciter of evil; pain, which deters from good; rashness and fear, foolish counsellors; anger hard to be appeased; hope easily led astray. These they mingled with irrational sense and all-daring love according to necessary laws and so framed man. And, fearing to pollute the divine element, they gave the mortal soul a separate habitation in 70the breast, parted off from the head by a narrow isthmus. And as in a house the women’s apartments are divided from the men’s, the cavity of the thorax was divided into two parts, a higher and a lower. The higher of the two, which is the seat of courage and anger, lies nearer to the head, between the midriff and the neck, and assists reason in restraining the desires. The heart is the house of guard in which all the veins meet, and through them reason sends her commands to the extremity of her kingdom. When the passions are in revolt, or danger approaches from without, then the heart beats and swells; and the creating powers, knowing this, implanted in the body the soft and bloodless substance of the lung, having a porous and springy nature like a sponge, and being kept cool by drink and air which enters through the trachea.

  The part of the soul which desires meat and drink was placed between the midriff and navel, where they made a sort of manger; and here they bound it down, like a wild animal, away from the council-chamber, and leaving the better principle undisturbed to 71advise quietly for the good of the whole. For the Creator knew that the belly would not listen to reason, and was under the power of idols and fancies. Wherefore he framed the liver to connect with the lower nature, contriving that it should be compact, and bright, and sweet, and also bitter and smooth, in order that the power of thought which originates in the mind might there be reflected, terrifying the belly with the elements of bitterness and gall, and a suffusion of bilious colours when the liver is contracted, and causing pain and misery by twisting out of its place the lobe and closing up the vessels and gates. And the converse happens when some gentle inspiration coming from intelligence mirrors the opposite fancies, giving rest and sweetness and freedom, and at night, moderation and peace accompanied with prophetic insight, when reason and sense are asleep. For the authors of our being, in obedience to their Father’s will and in order to make men as good as they could, gave to the liver the power of divination, which is never active when men are awake or in health; but when they are under the influence of some disorder or enthusiasm 72then they receive intimations, which have to be interpreted by others who are called prophets, but should rather be called interpreters of prophecy; after death these intimations become unintelligible. The spleen which is situated in the neighbourhood, on the left side, keeps the liver bright and clean, as a napkin does a mirror, and the evacuations of the liver are received into it; and being a hollow tissue it is for a time swollen with these impurities, but when the body is purged it returns to its natural size.

  The truth concerning the soul can only be established by the word of God. Still, we may venture to assert what is probable both concerning soul and body.

  73The creative powers were aware of our tendency to excess. And so when they made the belly to be a receptacle for food, in order that men might not perish by insatiable gluttony, they formed the convolutions of the intestines, in this way retarding the passage of food through the body, lest mankind should be absorbed in eating and drinking, and the whole race become impervious to divine philosophy.

  The creation of bones and flesh was on this wise. The foundation of these is the marrow which binds together body and soul, and the marrow is made out of such of the primary triangles as are adapted by their perfection to produce all the four elements. These God took and mingled them in due proportion, making as many kinds of marrow as there were hereafter to be kinds of souls. The receptacle of the divine soul he made round, and called that portion of the marrow brain, intending that the vessel containing this substance should be the head. The remaining part he divided into long and round figures, and to these as to anchors, fastening the mortal soul, he proceeded to make the rest of the body, first forming for both parts a covering of bone. The bone was formed by sifting pure smooth earth and wetting it with marrow. It was then thrust alternately into fire and water, and 74thus rendered insoluble by either. Of bone he made a globe which he placed around the brain, leaving a narrow opening, and around the marrow of the neck and spine he formed the vertebrae, like hinges, which extended from the head through the whole of the trunk. And as the bone was brittle and liable to mortify and destroy the marrow by too great rigidity and susceptibility to heat and cold, he contrived sinews and flesh—the first to give flexibility, the second to guard against heat and cold, and to be a protection against falls, containing a warm moisture, which in summer exudes and cools the body, and in winter is a defence against cold. Having this in view, the Creator mingled earth with fire and water and mixed with them a ferment of acid and salt, so as to form pulpy flesh. But the sinews he made of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, giving them a mean nature between the two, and a yellow colour. Hence they were more glutinous than flesh, but softer than bone. The bones which have most of the living soul within them he covered with the thinnest film of flesh, those which have least of it, he lodged deeper. At the joints he diminished the flesh in order not to impede the flexure of the limbs, and also to avoid clogging the perceptions of the mind. 75About the thighs and arms, which have no sense because there is little soul in the marrow, and about the inner bones, he laid the flesh thicker. For where the flesh is thicker there is less feeling, except in certain parts which the Creator has made solely of flesh, as for example, the tongue. Had the combination of solid bone and thick flesh been consistent with acute perceptions, the Creator would have given man a sinewy and fleshy head, and then he would have lived twice as long. But our creators were of opinion that a shorter life which was better was preferable to a longer which was worse, and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, and placed the sinews at the extremity of the head round the neck, and fastened the jawbones to them below the face. And they framed the mouth, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good; for food is a necessity, and the river of speech is the best of rivers. Still, the head could not be left a bare globe of bone on account of the extremes of heat and cold, nor be allowed to become dull and senseless by an overgrowth of flesh. Wherefore it was covered 76by a peel or skin which met and grew by the help of the cerebral humour. The diversity of the sutures was caused by the struggle of the food against the courses of the soul. The skin of the head was pierced by fire, and out of the punctures came forth a moisture, part liquid, and part of a skinny nature, which was hardened by the pressure of the external cold and became hair. And God gave hair to the head of man to be a light covering, so that it might not interfere with his perceptions. Nails were formed by combining sinew, skin, and bone, and were made by the creators with a view to the future when, as they knew, women and other animals who would require them would be framed out of man.

  77The gods also mingled natures akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions. Thus trees and plants were created, which were originally wild and have been adapted by cultivation to our use. They partake of that third kind of life which is seated between the midriff and the navel, and is altogether passive and incapable of reflection.

  When the creators had furnished all these natures for our sustenance, they cut channels through our bodies as in a garden, watering them with a perennial stream. Two were cut down the back, along the back bone, where the skin and flesh meet, one on the right and the other on the left, having the marrow of generation between them. In the next place, they divided the veins about the head and interlaced them with each other in order that they might form an additional link between the head and the body, and that the sensations from both sides might be diffused throughout the body. In the third place, they contrived the 78passage of liquids, which may be explained in this way:—Finer bodies retain coarser, but not the coarser the finer, and the belly is capable of retaining food, but not fire and air. God therefore formed a network of fire and air to irrigate the veins, having within it two lesser nets, and stretched cords reaching from both the lesser nets to the extremity of the outer net. The inner parts of the net were made by him of fire, the lesser nets and their cavities of air. The two latter he made to pass into the mouth; the one ascending by the air-pipes from the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes from the belly. The entrance to the first he divided into two parts, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the nose, that when the mouth was closed the passage connected with it might still be fed with air. The cavity of the network he spread around the hollows of the body, making the entire receptacle to flow into and out of the lesser nets and the lesser nets into and out of it, while the outer net found a way into and out of the pores of the body, and the internal heat followed the air to and fro. These, as we affirm, are the phenomena of respiration. And all this process takes place in order that the body may be watered and cooled and nourished, and the meat and 79drink digested and liquefied and carried into the veins.

  The causes of respiration have now to be considered. The exhalation of the breath through the mouth and nostrils displaces the external air, and at the same time leaves a vacuum into which through the pores the air which is displaced enters. Also the vacuum which is made when the air is exhaled through the pores is filled up by the inhalation of breath through the mouth and nostrils. The explanation of this double phenomenon is as follows:—Elements move towards their natural places. Now as every animal has within him a fountain of fire, the air which is inhaled through the mouth and nostrils, on coming into contact with this, is heated; and when heated, in accordance with the law of attraction, it escapes by the way it entered toward the place of fire. On leaving the body it is cooled and drives round the air which it displaces through the pores into the empty lungs. This again is in turn heated by the internal fire and escapes, as it entered, through the pores.

  80The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses, of swallowing, and of the hurling of bodies, are to be explained on a similar principle; as also sounds, which are sometimes discordant on account of the inequality of them, and again harmonious by reason of equality. The slower sounds reaching the swifter, when they begin to pause, by degrees assimilate with them: whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to the wise becomes a higher sense of delight, being an imitation of divine harmony in mortal motions. Streams flow, lightnings play, amber and the magnet attract, not by reason of attraction, but because ‘nature abhors a vacuum,’ and because things, when compounded or dissolved, move different ways, each to its own place.

  I will now return to the phenomena of respiration. The fire, entering the belly, minces the food, and as it escapes, fills the veins by drawing after it the divided portions, and thus the streams of nutriment are diffused through the body. The fruits or herbs which are our daily sustenance take all sorts of colours when intermixed, but the colour of red or fire predominates, and hence the liquid which we call blood is red, being the nurturing 81principle of the body, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled.

  The process of repletion and depletion is produced by the attraction of like to like, after the manner of the universal motion. The external elements by their attraction are always diminishing the substance of the body: the particles of blood, too, formed out of the newly digested food, are attracted towards kindred elements within the body and so fill up the void. When more is taken away than flows in, then we decay; and when less, we grow and increase.

  The young of every animal has the triangles new and closely locked together, and yet the entire frame is soft and delicate, being newly made of marrow and nurtured on milk. These triangles are sharper than those which enter the body from without in the shape of food, and therefore they cut them up. But as life advances, the triangles wear out and are no longer able to assimilate food; and at length, when the bonds which unite the triangles of the marrow become undone, they in turn unloose the bonds of the soul; and if the release be according to nature, she then flies away with joy. For the death which is natural is pleasant, but that which is caused by violence is painful.

  82Every one may understand the origin of diseases. They may be occasioned by the disarrangement or disproportion of the elements out of which the body is framed. This is the origin of many of them, but the worst of all owe their severity to the following causes: There is a natural order in the human frame according to which the flesh and sinews are made of blood, the sinews out of the fibres, and the flesh out of the congealed substance which is formed by separation from the fibres. The glutinous matter which comes away from the sinews and the flesh, not only binds the flesh to the bones, but nourishes the bones and waters the marrow. When these processes take place in regular order the body is in health.

  But when the flesh wastes and returns into the veins there is discoloured blood as well as air in the veins, having acid and salt qualities, from which is generated every sort of phlegm and bile. 83All things go the wrong way and cease to give nourishment to the body, no longer preserving their natural courses, but at war with themselves and destructive to the constitution of the body. The oldest part of the flesh which is hard to decompose blackens from long burning, and from being corroded grows bitter, and as the bitter element refines away, becomes acid. When tinged with blood the bitter substance has a red colour, and this when mixed with black takes the hue of grass; or again, the bitter substance has an auburn colour, when new flesh is decomposed by the internal flame. To all which phenomena some physician or philosopher who was able to see the one in many has given the name of bile. The various kinds of bile have names answering to their colours. Lymph or serum is of two kinds: first, the whey of blood, which is gentle; secondly, the secretion of dark and bitter bile, which, when mingled under the influence of heat with salt, is malignant and is called acid phlegm. There is also white phlegm, formed by the decomposition of young and tender flesh, and covered with little bubbles, separately invisible, but becoming visible when collected. The water of tears and perspiration and similar substances is also the watery part of fresh phlegm. All these humours become sources of disease when the blood is replenished in irregular ways and not by food or drink. 84The danger, however, is not so great when the foundation remains, for then there is a possibility of recovery. But when the substance which unites the flesh and bones is diseased, and is no longer renewed from the muscles and sinews, and instead of being oily and smooth and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, then the fleshy parts fall away and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh gets back again into the circulation of the blood, and makes the previously mentioned disorders still greater. There are other and worse diseases which are prior to these; as when the bone through the density of the flesh does not receive sufficient air, and becomes stagnant and gangrened, and crumbling away passes into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh returns again into the blood. Worst of all and most fatal is the disease of the marrow, by which the whole course of the body is reversed. There is a third class of diseases which are produced, some by wind and some by phlegm and some by bile. When the lung, which is the steward of the air, is obstructed by rheums, and in one part no air, and in another too much, enters in, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, and other parts are distorted by the excess of air; and in this manner painful diseases are produced. The most painful are caused by wind generated within the body, which gets about the great sinews of the shoulders—these are termed tetanus. The cure of them is 85difficult, and in most cases they are relieved only by fever. White phlegm, which is dangerous if kept in, by reason of the air bubbles, is not equally dangerous if able to escape through the pores, although it variegates the body, generating divers kinds of leprosies. If, when mingled with black bile, it disturbs the courses of the head in sleep, there is not so much danger; but if it assails those who are awake, then the attack is far more dangerous, and is called epilepsy or the sacred disease. Acid and salt phlegm is the source of catarrh.

  Inflammations originate in bile, which is sometimes relieved by boils and swellings, but when detained, and above all when mingled with pure blood, generates many inflammatory disorders, disturbing the position of the fibres which are scattered about in the blood in order to maintain the balance of rare and dense which is necessary to its regular circulation. If the bile, which is only stale blood, or liquefied flesh, comes in little by little, it is congealed by the fibres and produces internal cold and shuddering. But when it enters with more of a flood it overcomes the fibres by its heat and reaches the spinal marrow, and burning up the cables of the soul sets her free from the body. When on the other hand the body, though wasted, still holds out, then the bile 86is expelled, like an exile from a factious state, causing diarrhœas and dysenteries and similar disorders. The body which is diseased from the effects of fire is in a continual fever; when air is the agent, the fever is quotidian; when water, the fever intermits a day; when earth, which is the most sluggish element, the fever intermits three days and is with difficulty shaken off.

  Of mental disorders there are two sorts, one madness, the other ignorance, and they may be justly attributed to disease. Excessive pleasures or pains are among the greatest diseases, and deprive men of their senses. When the seed about the spinal marrow is too abundant, the body has too great pleasures and pains; and during a great part of his life he who is the subject of them is more or less mad. He is often thought bad, but this is a mistake; for the truth is that the intemperance of lust is due to the fluidity of the marrow produced by the loose consistency of the bones. And this is true of vice in general, which is commonly regarded as disgraceful, whereas it is really involuntary and arises from a bad habit of the body and evil education. In like manner the soul is often made vicious by the influence of bodily pain; the briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander over the body and find no exit, but are compressed within, and mingle 87their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are carried to the three places of the soul, creating infinite varieties of trouble and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, of forgetfulness and stupidity. When men are in this evil plight of body, and evil forms of government and evil discourses are superadded, and there is no education to save them, they are corrupted through two causes; but of neither of them are they really the authors. For the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators and not the educated. Still, we should endeavour to attain virtue and avoid vice; but this is part of another subject.

  Enough of disease—I have now to speak of the means by which the mind and body are to be preserved, a higher theme than the other. The good is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the symmetrical, and there is no greater or fairer symmetry than that of body and soul, as the contrary is the greatest of deformities. A leg or an arm too long or too short is at once ugly and unserviceable, and the same is true if body and soul are disproportionate. 88For a strong and impassioned soul may ‘fret the pigmy body to decay,’ and so produce convulsions and other evils. The violence of controversy, or the earnestness of enquiry, will often generate inflammations and rheums which are not understood, or assigned to their true cause by the professors of medicine. And in like manner the body may be too much for the soul, darkening the reason, and quickening the animal desires. The only security is to preserve the balance of the two, and to this end the mathematician or philosopher must practice gymnastics, and the gymnast must cultivate music. The parts of the body too must be treated in the same way—they should receive their appropriate exercise. For the body is set in motion when it is heated and cooled by the elements which enter in, or is dried up and moistened by external things; and, if given up to these processes when at rest, it is liable to destruction. But the natural motion, as in the world, so also in the human frame, produces harmony 89and divides hostiles powers. The best exercise is the spontaneous motion of the body, as in gymnastics, because most akin to the motion of mind; not so good is the motion of which the source is in another, as in sailing or riding; least good when the body is at rest and the motion is in parts only, which is a species of motion imparted by physic. This should only be resorted to by men of sense in extreme cases; lesser diseases are not to be irritated by medicine. For every disease is akin to the living being and has an appointed term, just as life has, which depends on the form of the triangles, and cannot be protracted when they are worn out. And he who, instead of accepting his destiny, endeavours to prolong his life by medicine, is likely to multiply and magnify his diseases. Regimen and not medicine is the true cure, when a man has time at his disposal.

  Enough of the nature of man and of the body, and of training and education. The subject is a great one and cannot be adequately treated as an appendage to another. To sum up all in a word: there are three kinds of soul located within us, and any one of them, if remaining inactive, becomes very weak; if exercised, 90very strong. Wherefore we should duly train and exercise all three kinds.

  The divine soul God lodged in the head, to raise us, like plants which are not of earthly origin, to our kindred; for the head is nearest to heaven. He who is intent upon the gratification of his desires and cherishes the mortal soul, has all his ideas mortal, and is himself mortal in the truest sense. But he who seeks after knowledge and exercises the divine part of himself in godly and immortal thoughts, attains to truth and immortality, as far as is possible to man, and also to happiness, while he is training up within him the divine principle and indwelling power of order. There is only one way in which one person can benefit another; and that is by assigning to him his proper nurture and motion. To the motions of the soul answer the motions of the universe, and by the study of these the individual is restored to his original nature.

  Thus we have finished the discussion of the universe, which, according to our original intention, has now been brought down to the creation of man. Completeness seems to require that something should be briefly said about other animals: first of women, who are probably degenerate and cowardly men. And 91when they degenerated, the gods implanted in men the desire of union with them, creating in man one animate substance and in woman another in the following manner:—The outlet for liquids they connected with the living principle of the spinal marrow, which the man has the desire to emit into the fruitful womb of the woman; this is like a fertile field in which the seed is quickened and matured, and at last brought to light. When this desire is unsatisfied the man is over-mastered by the power of the generative organs, and the woman is subjected to disorders from the obstruction of the passages of the breath, until the two meet and pluck the fruit of the tree.

  The race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded men, who thought to pursue the study of the heavens by sight; these were transformed into birds, and grew feathers instead of hair. The race of wild animals were men who had no philosophy, and never looked up to heaven or used the courses of the head, but followed only the influences of passion. Naturally they turned to their kindred earth, and put their forelegs to the ground, 92and their heads were crushed into strange oblong forms. Some of them have four feet, and some of them more than four,—the latter, who are the more senseless, drawing closer to their native element; the most senseless of all have no limbs and trail their whole body on the ground. The fourth kind are the inhabitants of the waters; these are made out of the most senseless and ignorant and impure of men, whom God placed in the uttermost parts of the world in return for their utter ignorance, and caused them to respire water instead of the pure element of air. Such are the laws by which animals pass into one another.

  And so the world received animals, mortal and immortal, and was fulfilled with them, and became a visible God, comprehending the visible, made in the image of the Intellectual, being the one perfect only-begotten heaven.

  § 2.

  Introduction.

  Nature in the aspect which she presented to a Greek philosopher of the fourth century before Christ is not easily reproduced to modern eyes. The associations of mythology and poetry have to be added, and the unconscious influence of science has to be subtracted, before we can behold the heavens or the earth as they appeared to the Greek. The philosopher himself was a child and also a man—a child in the range of his attainments, but also a great intelligence having an insight into nature, and often anticipations of the truth. He was full of original thoughts, and yet liable to be imposed upon by the most obvious fallacies. He occasionally confused numbers with ideas, and atoms with numbers; his a priori notions were out of all proportion to his experience. He was ready to explain the phenomena of the heavens by the most trivial analogies of earth. The experiments which nature worked for him he sometimes accepted, but he never tried experiments for himself which would either prove or disprove his theories. His knowledge was unequal; while in some branches, such as medicine and astronomy, he had made considerable proficiency, there were others, such as chemistry, electricity, mechanics, of which the very names were unknown to him. He was the natural enemy of mythology, and yet mythological ideas still retained their hold over him. He was endeavouring to form a conception of principles, but these principles or ideas were regarded by him as real powers or entities, to which the world had been subjected. He was always tending to argue from what was near to what was remote, from what was known to what was unknown, from man to the universe, and back again from the universe to man. While he was arranging the world, he was arranging the forms of thought in his own mind; and the light from within and the light from without often crossed and helped to confuse one another. He might be compared to a builder engaged in some great design, who could only dig with his hands because he was unprovided with common tools; or to some poet or musician, like Tynnichus (Ion 534 D), obliged to accommodate his lyric raptures to the limits of the tetrachord or of the flute.

  The Hesiodic and Orphic cosmogonies were a phase of thought intermediate between mythology and philosophy and had a great influence on the beginnings of knowledge. There was nothing behind them; they were to physical science what the poems of Homer were to early Greek history. They made men think of the world as a whole; they carried the mind back into the infinity of past time; they suggested the first observation of the effects of fire and water on the earth’s surface. To the ancient physics they stood much in the same relation which geology does to modern science. But the Greek was not, like the enquirer of the last generation, confined to a period of six thousand years; he was able to speculate freely on the effects of infinite ages in the production of physical phenomena. He could imagine cities which had existed time out of mind (States. 302 A; Laws iii. 676), laws or forms of art and music which had lasted, ‘not in word only, but in very truth, for ten thousand years’ (Laws ii. 656 E; cp. also vii. 799 A); he was aware that natural phenomena like the Delta of the Nile might have slowly accumulated in long periods of time (cp. Hdt. ii. 5, 10). But he seems to have supposed that the course of events was recurring rather than progressive. To this he was probably led by the fixedness of Egyptian customs and the general observation that there were other civilizations in the world more ancient than that of Hellas.

  The ancient philosophers found in mythology many ideas which, if not originally derived from nature, were easily transferred to her—such, for example, as love or hate, corresponding to attraction or repulsion; or the conception of necessity allied both to the regularity and irregularity of nature; or of chance, the nameless or unknown cause; or of justice, symbolizing the law of compensation; or of the Fates and Furies, typifying the fixed order or the extraordinary convulsions of nature. Their own interpretations of Homer and the poets were supposed by them to be the original meaning. Musing in themselves on the phenomena of nature, they were relieved at being able to utter the thoughts of their hearts in figures of speech which to them were not figures, and were already consecrated by tradition. Hesiod and the Orphic poets moved in a region of half-personification in which the meaning or principle appeared through the person. In their vaster conceptions of Chaos, Erebus, Aether, Night, and the like, the first rude attempts at generalization are dimly seen. The Gods themselves, especially the greater Gods, such as Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Athené, are universals as well as individuals. They were gradually becoming lost in a common conception of mind or God. They continued to exist for the purposes of ritual or of art; but from the sixth century onwards or even earlier there arose and gained strength in the minds of men the notion of ‘one God, greatest among Gods and men, who was all sight, all hearing, all knowing’ (Xenophanes).

  Under the influence of such ideas, perhaps also deriving from the traditions of their own or of other nations scraps of medicine and astronomy, men came to the observation of nature. The Greek philosopher looked at the blue circle of the heavens and it flashed upon him that all things were one; the tumult of sense abated, and the mind found repose in the thought which former generations had been striving to realize. The first expression of this was some element, rarefied by degrees into a pure abstraction, and purged from any tincture of sense. Soon an inner world of ideas began to be unfolded, more absorbing, more overpowering, more abiding than the brightest of visible objects, which to the eye of the philosopher looking inward, seemed to pale before them, retaining only a faint and precarious existence. At the same time, the minds of men parted into the two great divisions of those who saw only a principle of motion, and of those who saw only a principle of rest, in nature and in themselves; there were born Heracliteans or Eleatics, as there have been in later ages born Aristotelians or Platonists. Like some philosophers in modern times, who are accused of making a theory first and finding their facts afterwards, the advocates of either opinion never thought of applying either to themselves or to their adversaries the criterion of fact. They were mastered by their ideas and not masters of them. Like the Heraclitean fanatics whom Plato has ridiculed in the Theaetetus (179 E, 180), they were incapable of giving a reason of the faith that was in them, and had all the animosities of a religious sect. Yet, doubtless, there was some first impression derived from external nature, which, as in mythology, so also in philosophy, worked upon the minds of the first thinkers. Though incapable of induction or generalization in the modern sense, they caught an inspiration from the external world. The most general facts or appearances of nature, the circle of the universe, the nutritive power of water, the air which is the breath of life, the destructive force of fire, the seeming regularity of the greater part of nature and the irregularity of a remnant, the recurrence of day and night and of the seasons, the solid earth and the impalpable aether, were always present to them.

  The great source of error and also the beginning of truth to them was reasoning from analogy; they could see resemblances, but not differences; and they were incapable of distinguishing illustration from argument. Analogy in modern times only points the way, and is immediately verified by experiment. The dreams and visions, which pass through the philosopher’s mind, of resemblances between different classes of substances, or between the animal and vegetable world, are put into the refiner’s fire, and the dross and other elements which adhere to them are purged away. But the contemporary of Plato and Socrates was incapable of resisting the power of any analogy which occurred to him, and was drawn into any consequences which seemed to follow. He had no methods of difference or of concomitant variations, by the use of which he could distinguish the accidental from the essential. He could not isolate phenomena, and he was helpless against the influence of any word which had an equivocal or double sense.

  Yet without this crude use of analogy the ancient physical philosopher would have stood still; he could not have made even ‘one guess among many’ without comparison. The course of natural phenomena would have passed unheeded before his eyes, like fair sights or musical sounds before the eyes and ears of an animal. Even the fetichism of the savage is the beginning of reasoning; the assumption of the most fanciful of causes indicates a higher mental state than the absence of all enquiry about them. The tendency to argue from the higher to the lower, from man to the world, has led to many errors, but has also had an elevating influence on philosophy. The conception of the world as a whole, a person, an animal, has been the source of hasty generalizations; yet this general grasp of nature led also to a spirit of comprehensiveness in early philosophy, which has not increased, but rather diminished, as the fields of knowledge have become more divided. The modern physicist confines himself to one or perhaps two branches of science. But he comparatively seldom rises above his own department, and often falls under the narrowing influence which any single branch, when pursued to the exclusion of every other, has over the mind. Language, too, exercised a spell over the beginnings of physical philosophy, leading to error and sometimes to truth; for many thoughts were suggested by the double meanings of words (cp. στοιχεɩ̂ον, συλλαβή, μουσική, ἁρμονία, κόσμος), and the accidental distinctions of words sometimes led the ancient philosopher to make corresponding differences in things (cp. βούλεσθαι, ἐπιθυμεɩ̂ν, ϕόβος, δέος, αἰδώς, αὶσχύνη). ‘If they are the same, why have they different names; or if they are different, why have they the same name?’—is an argument not easily answered in the infancy of knowledge. The modern philosopher has always been taught the lesson which he still imperfectly learns, that he must disengage himself from the influence of words. Nor are there wanting in Plato, who was himself too often the victim of them, impressive admonitions that we should regard not words but things (cp. States. 261 E). But upon the whole, the ancients, though not entirely dominated by them, were much more subject to the influence of words than the moderns. They had no clear divisions of colours or substances; even the four elements were undefined; the fields of knowledge were not parted off. They were bringing order out of disorder, having a small grain of experience mingled in a confused heap of a priori notions. And yet, probably, their first impressions, the illusions and mirages of their fancy, created a greater intellectual activity and made a nearer approach to the truth than any patient investigation of isolated facts, for which the time had not yet come, could have accomplished.

  There was one more illusion to which the ancient philosophers were subject, and against which Plato in his later dialogues seems to be struggling—the tendency to mere abstractions; not perceiving that pure abstraction is only negation, they thought that the greater the abstraction the greater the truth. Behind any pair of ideas a new idea which comprehended them—the τρίτος ἄνθρωπος, as it was technically termed—began at once to appear. Two are truer than three, one than two. The words ‘being,’ or ‘unity,’ or ‘essence,’ or ‘good,’ became sacred to them. They did not see that they had a word only, and in one sense the most unmeaning of words. They did not understand that the content of notions is in inverse proportion to their universality—the element which is the most widely diffused is also the thinnest; or, in the language of the common logic, the greater the extension the less the comprehension. But this vacant idea of a whole without parts, of a subject without predicates, a rest without motion, has been also the most fruitful of all ideas. It is the beginning of a priori thought, and indeed of thinking at all. Men were led to conceive it, not by a love of hasty generalization, but by a divine instinct, a dialectical enthusiasm, in which the human faculties seemed to yearn for enlargement. We know that ‘being’ is only the verb of existence, the copula, the most general symbol of relation, the first and most meagre of abstractions; but to some of the ancient philosophers this little word appeared to attain divine proportions, and to comprehend all truth. Being or essence, and similar words, represented to them a supreme or divine being, in which they thought that they found the containing and continuing principle of the universe. In a few years the human mind was peopled with abstractions; a new world was called into existence to give law and order to the old. But between them there was still a gulf, and no one could pass from the one to the other.

  Number and figure were the greatest instruments of thought which were possessed by the Greek philosopher; having the same power over the mind which was exerted by abstract ideas, they were also capable of practical application. Many curious and, to the early thinker, mysterious properties of them came to light when they were compared with one another. They admitted of infinite multiplication and construction; in Pythagorean triangles or in proportions of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8 and 1 : 3 : 9 : 27, or compounds of them, the laws of the world seemed to be more than half revealed. They were also capable of infinite subdivision—a wonder and also a puzzle to the ancient thinker (cp. Rep. vii. 525 E). They were not, like being or essence, mere vacant abstractions, but admitted of progress and growth, while at the same time they confirmed a higher sentiment of the mind, that there was order in the universe. And so there began to be a real sympathy between the world within and the world without. The numbers and figures which were present to the mind’s eye became visible to the eye of sense; the truth of nature was mathematics; the other properties of objects seemed to reappear only in the light of number. Law and morality also found a natural expression in number and figure. Instruments of such power and elasticity could not fail to be ‘a most gracious assistance’ to the first efforts of human intelligence.

  There was another reason why numbers had so great an influence over the minds of early thinkers—they were verified by experience. Every use of them, even the most trivial, assured men of their truth; they were everywhere to be found, in the least things and the greatest alike. One, two, three, counted on the fingers was a ‘trivial matter’ (Rep. vii. 522 C), a little instrument out of which to create a world; but from these and by the help of these all our knowledge of nature has been developed. They were the measure of all things, and seemed to give law to all things; nature was rescued from chaos and confusion by their power; the notes of music, the motions of the stars, the forms of atoms, the evolution and recurrence of days, months, years, the military divisions of an army, the civil divisions of a state, seemed to afford a ‘present witness’ of them—what would have become of man or of the world if deprived of number (Rep. vii. 522 E)? The mystery of number and the mystery of music were akin. There was a music of rhythm and of harmonious motion everywhere; and to the real connexion which existed between music and number, a fanciful or imaginary relation was superadded. There was a music of the spheres as well as of the notes of the lyre. If in all things seen there was number and figure, why should they not also pervade the unseen world, with which by their wonderful and unchangeable nature they seemed to hold communion?

  Two other points strike us in the use which the ancient philosophers made of numbers. First, they applied to external nature the relations of them which they found in their own minds; and where nature seemed to be at variance with number, as for example in the case of fractions, they protested against her (Rep. vii. 525; Arist. Metaph. i. 6). Having long meditated on the properties of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8, or 1 : 3 : 9 : 27, or of 3, 4, 5, they discovered in them many curious correspondences and were disposed to find in them the secret of the universe. Secondly, they applied number and figure equally to those parts of physics, such as astronomy or mechanics, in which the modern philosopher expects to find them, and to those in which he would never think of looking for them, such as physiology and psychology. For the sciences were not yet divided, and there was nothing really irrational in arguing that the same laws which regulated the heavenly bodies were partially applied to the erring limbs or brain of man. Astrology was the form which the lively fancy of ancient thinkers almost necessarily gave to astronomy. The observation that the lower principle, e. g. mechanics, is always seen in the higher, e. g. in the phenomena of life, further tended to perplex them. Plato’s doctrine of the same and the other ruling the courses of the heavens and of the human body is not a mere vagary, but is a natural result of the state of knowledge and thought at which he had arrived.

  When in modern times we contemplate the heavens, a certain amount of scientific truth imperceptibly blends, even with the cursory glance of an unscientific person. He knows that the earth is revolving round the sun, and not the sun around the earth. He does not imagine the earth to be the centre of the universe, and he has some conception of chemistry and the cognate sciences. A very different aspect of nature would have been present to the mind of the early Greek philosopher. He would have beheld the earth a surface only, not mirrored, however faintly, in the glass of science, but indissolubly connected with some theory of one, two, or more elements. He would have seen the world pervaded by number and figure, animated by a principle of motion, immanent in a principle of rest. He would have tried to construct the universe on a quantitative principle, seeming to find in endless combinations of geometrical figures or in the infinite variety of their sizes a sufficient account of the multiplicity of phenomena. To these a priori speculations he would add a rude conception of matter and his own immediate experience of health and disease. His cosmos would necessarily be imperfect and unequal, being the first attempt to impress form and order on the primaeval chaos of human knowledge. He would see all things as in a dream.

  The ancient physical philosophers have been charged by Dr. Whewell and others with wasting their fine intelligences in wrong methods of enquiry; and their progress in moral and political philosophy has been sometimes contrasted with their supposed failure in physical investigations. ‘They had plenty of ideas,’ says Dr. Whewell, ‘and plenty of facts; but their ideas did not accurately represent the facts with which they were acquainted.’ This is a very crude and misleading way of describing ancient science. It is the mistake of an uneducated person—uneducated, that is, in the higher sense of the word—who imagines every one else to be like himself and explains every other age by his own. No doubt the ancients often fell into strange and fanciful errors: the time had not yet arrived for the slower and surer path of the modern inductive philosophy. But it remains to be shown that they could have done more in their age and country; or that the contributions which they made to the sciences with which they were acquainted are not as great upon the whole as those made by their successors. There is no single step in astronomy as great as that of the nameless Pythagorean who first conceived the world to be a body moving round the sun in space: there is no truer or more comprehensive principle than the application of mathematics alike to the heavenly bodies, and to the particles of matter. The ancients had not the instruments which would have enabled them to correct or verify their anticipations, and their opportunities of observation were limited. Plato probably did more for physical science by asserting the supremacy of mathematics than Aristotle or his disciples by their collections of facts. When the thinkers of modern times, following Bacon, undervalue or disparage the speculations of ancient philosophers, they seem wholly to forget the conditions of the world and of the human mind, under which they carried on their investigations. When we accuse them of being under the influence of words, do we suppose that we are altogether free from this illusion? When we remark that Greek physics soon became stationary or extinct, may we not observe also that there have been and may be again periods in the history of modern philosophy which have been barren and unproductive? We might as well maintain that Greek art was not real or great, because it had nihil simile aut secundum, as say that Greek physics were a failure because they made no subsequent progress.

  The charge of premature generalization which is often urged against ancient philosophers is really an anachronism. For they can hardly be said to have generalized at all. They may be said more truly to have cleared up and defined by the help of experience ideas which they already possessed. The beginnings of thought about nature must always have this character. A true method is the result of many ages of experiment and observation, and is ever going on and enlarging with the progress of science and knowledge. At first men personify nature, then they form impressions of nature, at last they conceive ‘measure’ or laws of nature. They pass out of mythology into philosophy. Early science is not a process of discovery in the modern sense; but rather a process of correcting by observation, and to a certain extent only, the first impressions of nature, which mankind, when they began to think, had received from poetry or language or unintelligent sense. Of all scientific truths the greatest and simplest is the uniformity of nature; this was expressed by the ancients in many ways, as fate, or necessity, or measure, or limit. Unexpected events, of which the cause was unknown to them, they attributed to chance (cp. Thucyd. i. 140). But their conception of nature was never that of law interrupted by exceptions,—a somewhat unfortunate metaphysical invention of modern times, which is at variance with facts and has failed to satisfy the requirements of thought.

  § 3.

  Plato’s account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative, and partly literal. Not that either he or we can draw a line between them, or say, ‘This is poetry, this is philosophy’; for the transition from the one to the other is imperceptible. Neither must we expect to find in him absolute consistency. He is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground. In such passages we have to interpret his meaning by the general spirit of his writings. To reconcile his inconsistencies would be contrary to the first principles of criticism and fatal to any true understanding of him.

  There is a further difficulty in explaining this part of the Timaeus—the natural order of thought is inverted. We begin with the most abstract, and proceed from the abstract to the concrete. We are searching into things which are upon the utmost limit of human intelligence, and then of a sudden we fall rather heavily to the earth. There are no intermediate steps which lead from one to the other. But the abstract is a vacant form to us until brought into relation with man and nature. God and the world are mere names, like the Being of the Eleatics, unless some human qualities are added on to them. Yet the negation has a kind of unknown meaning to us. The priority of God and of the world, which he is imagined to have created, to all other existences, gives a solemn awe to them. And as in other systems of theology and philosophy, that of which we know least has the greatest interest to us.

  There is no use in attempting to define or explain the first God in the Platonic system, who has sometimes been thought to answer to God the Father; or the world, in whom the Fathers of the Church seemed to recognize ‘the firstborn of every creature.’ Nor need we discuss at length how far Plato agrees in the later Jewish idea of creation, according to which God made the world out of nothing. For his original conception of matter as something which has no qualities is really a negation. Moreover in the Hebrew Scriptures the creation of the world is described, even more explicitly than in the Timaeus, not as a single act, but as a work or process which occupied six days. There is a chaos in both, and it would be untrue to say that the Greek, any more than the Hebrew, had any definite belief in the eternal existence of matter. The beginning of things vanished into the distance. The real creation began, not with matter, but with ideas. According to Plato in the Timaeus, God took of the same and the other, of the divided and undivided, of the finite and infinite, and made essence, and out of the three combined created the soul of the world. To the soul he added a body formed out of the four elements. The general meaning of these words is that God imparted determinations of thought, or, as we might say, gave law and variety to the material universe. The elements are moving in a disorderly manner before the work of creation begins (30 A); and there is an eternal pattern of the world, which, like the ‘idea of good,’ is not the Creator himself, but not separable from him. The pattern too, though eternal, is a creation, a world of thought prior to the world of sense, which may be compared to the wisdom of God in the book of Ecclesiasticus, or to the ‘God in the form of a globe’ of the old Eleatic philosophers. The visible, which already exists, is fashioned in the likeness of this eternal pattern. On the other hand, there is no truth of which Plato is more firmly convinced than of the priority of the soul to the body, both in the universe and in man. So inconsistent are the forms in which he describes the works which no tongue can utter—his language, as he himself says (29 C), partaking of his own uncertainty about the things of which he is speaking.

  We may remark in passing, that the Platonic compared with the Jewish description of the process of creation has less of freedom or spontaneity. The Creator in Plato is still subject to a remnant of necessity which he cannot wholly overcome (cp. 35 A). When his work is accomplished he remains in his own nature. Plato is more sensible than the Hebrew prophet of the existence of evil, which he seeks to put as far as possible out of the way of God (cp. 42 D). And he can only suppose this to be accomplished by God retiring into himself and committing the lesser works of creation to inferior powers. (Compare, however, Laws x. 903 for another solution of the difficulty.)

  Nor can we attach any intelligible meaning to his words when he speaks of the visible being in the image of the invisible (28). For how can that which is divided be like that which is undivided? or that which is changing be the copy of that which is unchanging? All the old difficulties about the ideas come back upon us in an altered form. We can imagine two worlds, one of which is the mere double of the other, or one of which is an imperfect copy of the other, or one of which is the vanishing ideal of the other; but we cannot imagine an intellectual world which has no qualities—‘a thing in itself’—a point which has no parts or magnitude, which is nowhere, and nothing. This cannot be the archetype according to which God made the world, and is in reality, whether in Plato or in Kant, a mere negative residuum of human thought.

  There is another aspect of the same difficulty which appears to have no satisfactory solution. In what relation does the archetype stand to the Creator himself? For the idea or pattern of the world is not the thought of God, but a separate, self-existent nature, of which creation is the copy. We can only reply, (1) that to the mind of Plato subject and object were not yet distinguished; (2) that he supposes the process of creation to take place in accordance with his own theory of ideas; and as we cannot give a consistent account of the one, neither can we of the other. He means (3) to say that the creation of the world is not a material process of working with legs and arms, but ideal and intellectual; according to his own fine expression, ‘the thought of God made the God that was to be’ (34 A). He means (4) to draw an absolute distinction between the invisible or unchangeable which is or is the place of mind or being, and the world of sense or becoming which is visible and changing. He means (5) that the idea of the world is prior to the world, just as the other ideas are prior to sensible objects; and like them may be regarded as eternal and self-existent, and also, like the idea of good, may be viewed apart from the divine mind.

  There are several other questions which we might ask and which can receive no answer, or at least only an answer of the same kind as the preceding. How can matter be conceived to exist without form? Or, how can the essences or forms of things be distinguished from the eternal ideas, or essence itself from the soul? Or, how could there have been motion in the chaos when as yet time was not? Or, how did chaos come into existence, if not by the will of the Creator? Or, how could there have been a time when the world was not, if time was not? Or, how could the Creator have taken portions of an indivisible same? Or, how could space or anything else have been eternal when time is only created? Or, how could the surfaces of geometrical figures have formed solids? We must reply again that we cannot follow Plato in all his inconsistencies, but that the gaps of thought are probably more apparent to us than to him. He would, perhaps, have said that ‘the first things are known only to God and to him of men whom God loves.’ How often have the gaps in Theology been concealed from the eye of faith! And we may say that only by an effort of metaphysical imagination can we hope to understand Plato from his own point of view; we must not ask for consistency. Everywhere we find traces of the Platonic theory of knowledge expressed in an objective form, which by us has to be translated into the subjective, before we can attach any meaning to it. And this theory is exhibited in so many different points of view, that we cannot with any certainty interpret one dialogue by another; e. g. the Timaeus by the Parmenides or Phaedrus or Philebus.

  The soul of the world may also be conceived as the personification of the numbers and figures in which the heavenly bodies move. Imagine these as in a Pythagorean dream, stripped of qualitative difference and reduced to mathematical abstractions. They too conform to the principle of the same, and may be compared with the modern conception of laws of nature. They are in space, but not in time, and they are the makers of time. They are represented as constantly thinking of the same; for thought in the view of Plato is equivalent to truth or law, and need not imply a human consciousness, a conception which is familiar enough to us, but has no place, hardly even a name, in ancient Greek philosophy. To this principle of the same is opposed the principle of the other—the principle of irregularity and disorder, of necessity and chance, which is only partially impressed by mathematical laws and figures. (We may observe by the way, that the principle of the other, which is the principle of plurality and variation in the Timaeus, has nothing in common with the ‘other’ of the Sophist, which is the principle of determination.) The element of the same dominates to a certain extent over the other—the fixed stars keep the ‘wanderers’ of the inner circle in their courses (36 C), and a similar principle of fixedness or order appears to regulate the bodily constitution of man (89 A, 90 D). But there still remains a rebellious seed of evil derived from the original chaos, which is the source of disorder in the world, and of vice and disease in man.

  But what did Plato mean by essence, οὐσία, which is the intermediate nature compounded of the Same and the Other, and out of which, together with these two, the soul of the world is created? It is difficult to explain a process of thought so strange and unaccustomed to us, in which modern distinctions run into one another and are lost sight of. First, let us consider once more the meaning of the Same and the Other. The Same is the unchanging and indivisible, the heaven of the fixed stars, partaking of the divine nature, which, having law in itself, gives law to all besides and is the element of order and permanence in man and on the earth. It is the rational principle, mind regarded as a work, as creation—not as the creator. The old tradition of Parmenides and of the Eleatic Being, the foundation of so much in the philosophy of Greece and of the world, was lingering in Plato’s mind. The Other is the variable or changing element, the residuum of disorder or chaos, which cannot be reduced to order, nor altogether banished, the source of evil, seen in the errors of man and also in the wanderings of the planets, a necessity which protrudes through nature. Of this too there was a shadow in the Eleatic philosophy in the realm of opinion, which, like a mist, seemed to darken the purity of truth in itself.—So far the words of Plato may perhaps find an intelligible meaning. But when he goes on to speak of the Essence which is compounded out of both, the track becomes fainter and we can only follow him with hesitating steps. But still we find a trace reappearing of the teaching of Anaxagoras: ‘All was confusion, and then mind came and arranged things.’ We have already remarked that Plato was not acquainted with the modern distinction of subject and object, and therefore he sometimes confuses mind and the things of mind—νον̂ς and νοητά. By οὐσἰα he clearly means some conception of the intelligible and the intelligent; it belongs to the class of νοητά. Matter, being, the Same, the eternal,—for any of these terms, being almost vacant of meaning, is equally suitable to express indefinite existence,—are compared or united with the Other or Diverse, and out of the union or comparison is elicited the idea of intelligence, the ‘One in many,’ brighter than any Promethean fire (cp. Phil. 16 C), which co-existing with them and so forming a new existence, is or becomes the intelligible world. . . . So we may perhaps venture to paraphrase or interpret or put into other words the parable in which Plato has wrapped up his conception of the creation of the world. The explanation may help to fill up with figures of speech the void of knowledge.

  The entire compound was divided by the Creator in certain proportions and reunited; it was then cut into two strips, which were bent into an inner circle and an outer, both moving with an uniform motion around a centre, the outer circle containing the fixed, the inner the wandering stars. The soul of the world was diffused everywhere from the centre to the circumference. To this God gave a body, consisting at first of fire and earth, and afterwards receiving an addition of air and water; because solid bodies, like the world, are always connected by two middle terms and not by one. The world was made in the form of a globe, and all the material elements were exhausted in the work of creation.

  The proportions in which the soul of the world as well as the human soul is divided answer to a series of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, composed of the two Pythagorean progressions 1, 2, 4, 8 and 1, 3, 9, 27, of which the number 1 represents a point, 2 and 3 lines, 4 and 8, 9 and 27 the squares and cubes respectively of 2 and 3. This series, of which the intervals are afterwards filled up, probably represents (1) the diatonic scale according to the Pythagoreans and Plato; (2) the order and distances of the heavenly bodies; and (3) may possibly contain an allusion to the music of the spheres, which is referred to in the myth at the end of the Republic. The meaning of the words that ‘solid bodies are always connected by two middle terms’ or mean proportionals has been much disputed. The most received explanation is that of Martin, who supposes that Plato is only speaking of surfaces and solids compounded of prime numbers (i. e. of numbers not made up of two factors, or, in other words, only measurable by unity). The square of any such number represents a surface, the cube a solid. The squares of any two such numbers (e. g. 2², 3² = 4, 9), have always a single mean proportional (e. g. 4 and 9 have the single mean 6), whereas the cubes of primes (e. g. 3³ and 5³) have always two mean proportionals (e. g. 27 : 45 : 75 : 125). But to this explanation of Martin’s it may be objected, (1) that Plato nowhere says that his proportion is to be limited to prime numbers; (2) that the limitation of surfaces to squares is also not to be found in his words; nor (3) is there any evidence to show that the distinction of prime from other numbers was known to him. What Plato chiefly intends to express is that a solid requires a stronger bond than a surface; and that the double bond which is given by two means is stronger than the single bond given by one. Having reflected on the singular numerical phenomenon of the existence of one mean proportional between two square numbers or rather perhaps only between the two lowest squares; and of two mean proportionals between two cubes, perhaps again confining his attention to the two lowest cubes, he finds in the latter symbol an expression of the relation of the elements, as in the former an image of the combination of two surfaces. Between fire and earth, the two extremes, he remarks that there are introduced, not one, but two elements, air and water, which are compared to the two mean proportionals between two cube numbers. The vagueness of his language does not allow us to determine whether anything more than this was intended by him.

  Leaving the further explanation of details, which the reader will find discussed at length in Boeckh and Martin, we may now return to the main argument: Why did God make the world? Like man, he must have a purpose; and his purpose is the diffusion of that goodness or good which he himself is. The term ‘goodness’ is not to be understood in this passage as meaning benevolence or love, in the Christian sense of the term, but rather law, order, harmony, like the idea of good in the Republic. The ancient mythologers, and even the Hebrew prophets, had spoken of the jealousy of God; and the Greek had imagined that there was a Nemesis always attending the prosperity of mortals. But Plato delights to think of God as the author of order in his works, who, like a father, lives over again in his children, and can never have too much of good or friendship among his creatures. Only, as there is a certain remnant of evil inherent in matter which he cannot get rid of, he detaches himself from them and leaves them to themselves, that he may be guiltless of their faults and sufferings.

  Between the ideal and the sensible Plato interposes the two natures of time and space. Time is conceived by him to be only the shadow or image of eternity which ever is and never has been or will be, but is described in a figure only as past or future. This is one of the great thoughts of early philosophy, which are still as difficult to our minds as they were to the early thinkers; or perhaps more difficult, because we more distinctly see the consequences which are involved in such an hypothesis. All the objections which may be urged against Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space and time at once press upon us. If time is unreal, then all which is contained in time is unreal—the succession of human thoughts as well as the flux of sensations; there is no connecting link between ϕαινόμενα and ὄντα. Yet, on the other hand, we are conscious that knowledge is independent of time, that truth is not a thing of yesterday or to-morrow, but an ‘eternal now.’ To the ‘spectator of all time and all existence’ the universe remains at rest. The truths of geometry and arithmetic in all their combinations are always the same. The generations of men, like the leaves of the forest, come and go, but the mathematical laws by which the world is governed remain, and seem as if they could never change. The ever-present image of space is transferred to time—succession is conceived as extension. (We remark that Plato does away with the above and below in space, as he has done away with the absolute existence of past and future.) The course of time, unless regularly marked by divisions of number, partakes of the indefiniteness of the Heraclitean flux. By such reflections we may conceive the Greek to have attained the metaphysical conception of eternity, which to the Hebrew was gained by meditation on the Divine Being. No one saw that this objective was really a subjective, and involved the subjectivity of all knowledge. ‘Non in tempore sed cum tempore finxit Deus mundum,’ says St. Augustine, repeating a thought derived from the Timaeus, but apparently unconscious of the results to which his doctrine would have led.

  The contradictions involved in the conception of time or motion, like the infinitesimal in space, were a source of perplexity to the mind of the Greek, who was driven to find a point of view above or beyond them. They had sprung up in the decline of the Eleatic philosophy and were very familiar to Plato, as we gather from the Parmenides. The consciousness of them had led the great Eleatic philosopher to describe the nature of God or Being under negatives. He sings of ‘Being unbegotten and imperishable, unmoved and never-ending, which never was nor will be, but always is, one and continuous, which cannot spring from any other; for it cannot be said or imagined not to be.’ The idea of eternity was for a great part a negation. There are regions of speculation in which the negative is hardly separable from the positive, and even seems to pass into it. Not only Buddhism, but Greek as well as Christian philosophy, show that it is quite possible that the human mind should retain an enthusiasm for mere negations. In different ages and countries there have been forms of light in which nothing could be discerned and which have nevertheless exercised a lifegiving and illumining power. For the higher intelligence of man seems to require, not only something above sense, but above knowledge, which can only be described as Mind or Being or Truth or God or the unchangeable and eternal element, in the expression of which all predicates fail and fall short. Eternity or the eternal is not merely the unlimited in time but the truest of all Being, the most real of all realities, the most certain of all knowledge, which we nevertheless only see through a glass darkly. The passionate earnestness of Parmenides contrasts with the vacuity of the thought which he is revolving in his mind.

  Space is said by Plato to be the ‘containing vessel or nurse of generation.’ Reflecting on the simplest kinds of external objects, which to the ancients were the four elements, he was led to a more general notion of a substance, more or less like themselves, out of which they were fashioned. He would not have them too precisely distinguished. Thus seems to have arisen the first dim perception of [Editor: illegible character]λη or matter, which has played so great a part in the metaphysical philosophy of Aristotle and his followers. But besides the material out of which the elements are made, there is also a space in which they are contained. There arises thus a second nature which the senses are incapable of discerning and which can hardly be referred to the intelligible class. For it is and it is not, it is nowhere when filled, it is nothing when empty. Hence it is said to be discerned by a kind of spurious or analogous reason, partaking so feebly of existence as to be hardly perceivable, yet always reappearing as the containing mother or nurse of all things. It had not that sort of consistency to Plato which has been given to it in modern times by geometry and metaphysics. Neither of the Greek words by which it is described are so purely abstract as the English word ‘space’ or the Latin ‘spatium.’ Neither Plato nor any other Greek would have spoken of χρόνος καὶ τόπος or χώρα in the same manner as we speak of ‘time’ and ‘space.’

  Yet space is also of a very permanent or even eternal nature; and Plato seems more willing to admit of the unreality of time than of the unreality of space; because, as he says, all things must necessarily exist in space. We, on the other hand, are disposed to fancy that even if space were annihilated time might still survive. He admits indeed that our knowledge of space is of a dreamy kind, and is given by a spurious reason without the help of sense. (Cp. the hypotheses and images of Rep. vi. 511.) It is true that it does not attain to the clearness of ideas. But like them it seems to remain, even if all the objects contained in it are supposed to have vanished away. Hence it was natural for Plato to conceive of it as eternal. We must remember further that in his attempt to realize either space or matter the two abstract ideas of weight and extension, which are familiar to us, had never passed before his mind.

  Thus far God, working according to an eternal pattern, out of his goodness has created the same, the other, and the essence (compare the three principles of the Philebus—the finite, the infinite, and the union of the two), and out of them has formed the outer circle of the fixed stars and the inner circle of the planets, divided according to certain musical intervals; he has also created time, the moving image of eternity, and space, existing by a sort of necessity and hardly distinguishable from matter. The matter out of which the world is formed is not absolutely void, but retains in the chaos certain germs or traces of the elements. These Plato, like Empedocles, supposed to be four in number—fire, air, earth, and water. They were at first mixed together; but already in the chaos, before God fashioned them by form and number, the greater masses of the elements had an appointed place. Into the confusion (μɩ̂γμα) which preceded Plato does not attempt further to penetrate. They are called elements, but they are so far from being elements (στοιχεɩ̂α) or letters in the higher sense that they are not even syllables or first compounds. The real elements are two triangles, the rectangular isosceles which has but one form, and the most beautiful of the many forms of scalene, which is half of an equilateral triangle. By the combination of these triangles which exist in an infinite variety of sizes, the surfaces of the four elements are constructed.

  That there were only five regular solids was already known to the ancients; and out of the surfaces which he has formed Plato proceeds to generate the four first of the five. He perhaps forgets that he is only putting together surfaces and has not provided for their transformation into solids. The first solid is a regular pyramid, of which the base and sides are formed by four equilateral or twenty-four scalene triangles. Each of the four solid angles in this figure is a little larger than the largest of obtuse angles. The second solid is composed of the same triangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles, and make one solid angle out of four plane angles—six of these angles form a regular octahedron. The third solid is a regular icosahedron, having twenty triangular equilateral bases, and therefore 120 rectangular scalene triangles. The fourth regular solid, or cube, is formed by the combination of four isosceles triangles into one square and of six squares into a cube. The fifth regular solid, or dodecahedron, cannot be formed by a combination of either of these triangles, but each of its faces may be regarded as composed of thirty triangles of another kind. Probably Plato notices this as the only remaining regular polyhedron, which from its approximation to a globe, and possibly because, as Plutarch remarks, it is composed of 12 × 30 = 360 scalene triangles (Platon. Quaest. 5), representing thus the signs and degrees of the Zodiac, as well as the months and days of the year, God may be said to have ‘used in the delineation of the universe.’ According to Plato earth was composed of cubes, fire of regular pyramids, air of regular octahedrons, water of regular icosahedrons. The stability of the last three increases with the number of their sides.

  The elements are supposed to pass into one another, but we must remember that these transformations are not the transformations of real solids, but of imaginary geometrical figures; in other words, we are composing and decomposing the faces of substances and not the substances themselves—it is a house of cards which we are pulling to pieces and putting together again (cp. however Laws x. 894 A). Yet perhaps Plato may regard these sides or faces as only the forms which are impressed on pre-existent matter. It is remarkable that he should speak of each of these solids as a possible world in itself, though upon the whole he inclines to the opinion that they form one world and not five. To suppose that there is an infinite number of worlds, as Democritus (Hippolyt. Ref. Haer. I. 13) had said, would be, as he satirically observes, ‘the characteristic of a very indefinite and ignorant mind’ (55 C, D).

  The twenty triangular faces of an icosahedron form the faces or sides of two regular octahedrons and of a regular pyramid (20 = 8 × 2 + 4); and therefore, according to Plato, a particle of water when decomposed is supposed to give two particles of air and one of fire. So because an octahedron gives the sides of two pyramids (8 = 4 × 2), a particle of air is resolved into two particles of fire.

  The transformation is effected by the superior power or number of the conquering elements. The manner of the change is (1) a separation of portions of the elements from the masses in which they are collected; (2) a resolution of them into their original triangles; and (3) a reunion of them in new forms. Plato himself proposes the question, Why does motion continue at all when the elements are settled in their places? He answers that although the force of attraction is continually drawing similar elements to the same spot, still the revolution of the universe exercises a condensing power, and thrusts them again out of their natural places. Thus want of uniformity, the condition of motion, is produced (57 D ff.). In all such disturbances of matter there is an alternative for the weaker element: it may escape to its kindred, or take the form of the stronger—becoming denser, if it be denser, or rarer, if rarer. This is true of fire, air, and water, which, being composed of similar triangles, are interchangeable; earth, however, which has triangles peculiar to itself, is capable of dissolution, but not of change (56 D ff.). Of the interchangeable elements, fire, the rarest, can only become a denser, and water, the densest, only a rarer: but air may become a denser or a rarer. No single particle of the elements is visible, but only the aggregates of them are seen. The subordinate species depend, not upon differences of form in the original triangles, but upon differences of size. The obvious physical phenomena from which Plato has gathered his views of the relations of the elements seem to be the effect of fire upon air, water, and earth, and the effect of water upon earth. The particles are supposed by him to be in a perpetual process of circulation caused by inequality. This process of circulation does not admit of a vacuum, as he tells us in his strange account of respiration (79 B).

  Of the phenomena of light and heavy he speaks afterwards, when treating of sensation, but they may be more conveniently considered by us in this place. They are not, he says, to be explained by ‘above’ and ‘below,’ which in the universal globe have no existence (62 D), but by the attraction of similars towards the great masses of similar substances; fire to fire, air to air, water to water, earth to earth. Plato’s doctrine of attraction implies not only (1) the attraction of similar elements to one another, but also (2) of smaller bodies to larger ones. Had he confined himself to the latter he would have arrived, though, perhaps, without any further result or any sense of the greatness of the discovery, at the modern doctrine of gravitation. He does not observe that water has an equal tendency towards both water and earth. So easily did the most obvious facts which were inconsistent with his theories escape him.

  The general physical doctrines of the Timaeus may be summed up as follows: (1) Plato supposes the greater masses of the elements to have been already settled in their places at the creation: (2) they are four in number, and are formed of rectangular triangles variously combined into regular solid figures: (3) three of them, fire, air, and water, admit of transformation into one another; the fourth, earth, cannot be similarly transformed: (4) different sizes of the same triangles form the lesser species of each element: (5) there is an attraction of like to like—smaller masses of the same kind being drawn towards greater: (6) there is no void, but the particles of matter are ever pushing one another round and round (περίωσις). Like the atomists, Plato attributes the differences between the elements to differences in geometrical figures. But he does not explain the process by which surfaces become solids; and he characteristically ridicules Democritus for not seeing that the worlds are finite and not infinite.

  § 4.

  The astronomy of Plato is based on the two principles of the same and the other, which God combined in the creation of the world. The soul, which is compounded of the same, the other, and the essence, is diffused from the centre to the circumference of the heavens. We speak of a soul of the universe; but more truly regarded, the universe of the Timaeus is a soul, governed by mind, and holding in solution a residuum of matter or evil, which the author of the world is unable to expel, and of which Plato cannot tell us the origin. The creation, in Plato’s sense, is really the creation of order; and the first step in giving order is the division of the heavens into an inner and outer circle of the other and the same, of the divisible and the indivisible, answering to the two spheres, of the planets and of the world beyond them, all together moving around the earth, which is their centre. To us there is a difficulty in apprehending how that which is at rest can also be in motion, or that which is indivisible exist in space. But the whole description is so ideal and imaginative, that we can hardly venture to attribute to many of Plato’s words in the Timaeus any more meaning than to his mythical account of the heavens in the Republic and in the Phaedrus. (Cp. his denial of the ‘blasphemous opinion’ that there are planets or wandering stars; all alike move in circles—Laws vii. 821, 2.) The stars are the habitations of the souls of men, from which they come and to which they return. In attributing to the fixed stars only the most perfect motion—that which is on the same spot or circling around the same—he might perhaps have said that to ‘the spectator of all time and all existence,’ to borrow once more his own grand expression, or viewed, in the language of Spinoza, ‘sub specie aeternitatis,’ they were still at rest, but appeared to move in order to teach men the periods of time. Although absolutely in motion, they are relatively at rest; or we may conceive of them as resting, while the space in which they are contained, or the whole anima mundi, revolves.

  The universe revolves around a centre once in twenty-four hours, but the orbits of the fixed stars take a different direction from those of the planets. The outer and the inner sphere cross one another and meet again at a point opposite to that of their first contact; the first moving in a circle from left to right along the side of a parallelogram which is supposed to be inscribed in it, the second also moving in a circle along the diagonal of the same parallelogram from right to left; or, in other words, the first describing the path of the equator, the second, the path of the ecliptic. The motion of the second is controlled by the first, and hence the oblique line in which the planets are supposed to move becomes a spiral. The motion of the same is said to be undivided, whereas the inner motion is split into seven unequal orbits—the intervals between them being in the ratio of two and three, three of either:—the Sun, moving in the opposite direction to Mercury and Venus, but with equal swiftness; the remaining four, Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the former three and to one another. Thus arises the following progression:—Moon 1, Sun 2, Venus 3, Mercury 4, Mars 8, Jupiter 9, Saturn 27. This series of numbers is the compound of the two Pythagorean ratios, having the same intervals, though not in the same order, as the mixture which was originally divided in forming the soul of the world.

  Plato was struck by the phenomenon of Mercury, Venus, and the Sun appearing to overtake and be overtaken by one another. The true reason of this, namely, that they lie within the circle of the earth’s orbit, was unknown to him, and the reason which he gives—that the two former move in an opposite direction to the latter—is far from explaining the appearance of them in the heavens. All the planets, including the sun, are carried round in the daily motion of the circle of the fixed stars, and they have a second or oblique motion which gives the explanation of the different lengths of the sun’s course in different parts of the earth. The fixed stars have also two movements—a forward movement in their orbit which is common to the whole circle; and a movement on the same spot around an axis, which Plato calls the movement of thought about the same. In this latter respect they are more perfect than the wandering stars, as Plato himself terms them in the Timaeus, although in the Laws (loc. cit.) he condemns the appellation as blasphemous.

  The revolution of the world around the earth, which is accomplished in a single day and night, is described as being the most perfect or intelligent. Yet Plato also speaks of an ‘annus magnus’ or cyclical year, in which periods wonderful for their complexity are found to coincide in a perfect number, i. e. a number which equals the sum of its factors, as 6 = 1 + 2 + 3. This, although not literally contradictory, is in spirit irreconcileable with the perfect revolution of twenty-four hours. The same remark may be applied to the complexity of the appearances and occultations of the stars, which, if the outer heaven is supposed to be moving around the centre once in twenty-four hours, must be confined to the effects produced by the seven planets. Plato seems to confuse the actual observation of the heavens with his desire to find in them mathematical perfection. The same spirit is carried yet further by him in the passage already quoted from the Laws, in which he affirms their wanderings to be an appearance only, which a little knowledge of mathematics would enable men to correct.

  We have now to consider the much discussed question of the rotation or immobility of the earth. Plato’s doctrine on this subject is contained in the following words:—‘The earth, which is our nurse, compacted [or revolving] around the pole which is extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven’ (40 B, C). There is an unfortunate doubt in this passage (1) about the meaning of the word ἰλλομένην, which is translated either ‘compacted’ or ‘revolving,’ and is equally capable of both explanations. A doubt (2) may also be raised as to whether the words ‘artificer of day and night’ are consistent with the mere passive causation of them, produced by the immobility of the earth in the midst of the circling universe. We must admit, further, (3) that Aristotle attributed to Plato the doctrine of the rotation of the earth on its axis. On the other hand it has been urged that if the earth goes round with the outer heaven and sun in twenty-four hours, there is no way of accounting for the alternation of day and night; since the equal motion of the earth and sun would have the effect of absolute immobility. To which it may be replied that Plato never says that the earth goes round with the outer heaven and sun; although the whole question depends on the relation of earth and sun, their movements are nowhere precisely described. But if we suppose, with Mr. Grote, that the diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis and the revolution of the sun and outer heaven precisely coincide, it would be difficult to imagine that Plato was unaware of the consequence. For though he was ignorant of many things which are familiar to us, and often confused in his ideas where we have become clear, we have no right to attribute to him a childish want of reasoning about very simple facts, or an inability to understand the necessary and obvious deductions from geometrical figures or movements. Of the causes of day and night the pre-Socratic philosophers, and especially the Pythagoreans, gave various accounts, and therefore the question can hardly be imagined to have escaped him. On the other hand it may be urged that the further step, however simple and obvious, is just what Plato often seems to be ignorant of, and that as there is no limit to his insight, there is also no limit to the blindness which sometimes obscures his intelligence (cp. the construction of solids out of surfaces in his account of the creation of the world, or the attraction of similars to similars). Further, Mr. Grote supposes, not that ἰλλομένην means ‘revolving,’ or that this is the sense in which Aristotle understood the word, but that the rotation of the earth is necessarily implied in its adherence to the cosmical axis. But (α) if, as Mr. Grote assumes, Plato did not see that the rotation of the earth on its axis and of the sun and outer heavens around the earth in equal times was inconsistent with the alternation of day and night, neither need we suppose that he would have seen the immobility of the earth to be inconsistent with the rotation of the axis. And (β) what proof is there that the axis of the world revolves at all? (γ) The comparison of the two passages quoted by Mr. Grote (see p. 19 of his pamphlet on ‘The Rotation of the Earth’) from Aristotle De Coelo, Book II (c. 13, ἔνιοι—γέγραπται, and c. 14, ἡμεɩ̂ς—μέσον) clearly shows, although this is a matter of minor importance, that Aristotle, as Proclus and Simplicius supposed, understood [Editor: illegible character]λλεσθαι in the Timaeus to mean ‘revolving.’ For the second passage, in which motion on an axis is expressly mentioned, refers to the first, but this would be unmeaning unless [Editor: illegible character]λλεσθαι in the first passage meant rotation on an axis. (4) The immobility of the earth is more in accordance with Plato’s other writings than the opposite hypothesis. For in the Phaedo the earth is described as the centre of the world, and is not said to be in motion. In the Republic the pilgrims appear to be looking out from the earth upon the motions of the heavenly bodies; in the Phaedrus, Hestia, who remains immovable in the house of Zeus while the other gods go in procession, is called the first and eldest of the gods, and is probably the symbol of the earth. The silence of Plato in these and in some other passages (cp. Laws x. 893 B) in which he might be expected to speak of the rotation of the earth, is more favourable to the doctrine of its immobility than to the opposite. If he had meant to say that the earth revolves on its axis, he would have said so in distinct words, and have explained the relation of its movements to those of the other heavenly bodies. (5) The meaning of the words ‘artificer of day and night’ is literally true according to Plato’s view. For the alternation of day and night is not produced by the motion of the heavens alone, or by the immobility of the earth alone, but by both together; and that which has the inherent force or energy to remain at rest when all other bodies are moving, may be truly said to act, equally with them. (6) We should not lay too much stress on Aristotle or the writer De Caelo having adopted the other interpretation of the words, although Alexander of Aphrodisias thinks that he could not have been ignorant either of the doctrine of Plato or of the sense which he intended to give to the word ἰλλομένην. For the citations of Plato in Aristotle are frequently misinterpreted by him; and he seems hardly ever to have had in his mind the connection in which they occur. In this instance the allusion is very slight, and there is no reason to suppose that the diurnal revolution of the heavens was present to his mind. Hence we need not attribute to him the error from which we are defending Plato.

  After weighing one against the other all these complicated probabilities, the final conclusion at which we arrive is that there is nearly as much to be said on the one side of the question as on the other, and that we are not perfectly certain, whether, as Böckh and the majority of commentators, ancient as well as modern, are inclined to believe, Plato thought that the earth was at rest in the centre of the universe, or, as Aristotle and Mr. Grote suppose, that it revolved on its axis. Whether we assume the earth to be stationary in the centre of the universe, or to revolve with the heavens, no explanation is given of the variation in the length of days and nights at different times of the year. The relations of the earth and heavens are so indistinct in the Timaeus and so figurative in the Phaedo, Phaedrus and Republic, that we must give up the hope of ascertaining how they were imagined by Plato, if he had any fixed or scientific conception of them at all.

  § 5.

  The soul of the world is framed on the analogy of the soul of man, and many traces of anthropomorphism blend with Plato’s highest flights of idealism. The heavenly bodies are endowed with thought; the principles of the same and other exist in the universe as well as in the human mind. The soul of man is made out of the remains of the elements which had been used in creating the soul of the world; these remains, however, are diluted to the third degree; by this Plato expresses the measure of the difference between the soul human and divine. The human soul, like the cosmical, is framed before the body, as the mind is before the soul of either (30 B)—this is the order of the divine work—and the finer parts of the body, which are more akin to the soul, such as the spinal marrow, are prior to the bones and flesh. The brain, the containing vessel of the divine part of the soul, is (nearly) in the form of a globe, which is the image of the gods, who are the stars, and of the universe.

  There is, however, an inconsistency in Plato’s manner of conceiving the soul of man; he cannot get rid of the element of necessity which is allowed to enter. He does not, like Kant, attempt to vindicate for men a freedom out of space and time; but he acknowledges him to be subject to the influence of external causes, and leaves hardly any place for freedom of the will. The lusts of men are caused by their bodily constitution (86 C), though they may be increased by bad education and bad laws, which implies that they may be decreased by good education and good laws. He appears to have an inkling of the truth that to the higher nature of man evil is involuntary. This is mixed up with the view which, while apparently agreeing with it, is in reality the opposite of it, that vice is due to physical causes (86 D). In the Timaeus, as well as in the Laws, he also regards vices and crimes as simply involuntary; they are diseases analogous to the diseases of the body, and arising out of the same causes. If we draw together the opposite poles of Plato’s system, we find that, like Spinoza, he combines idealism with fatalism (see infra, p. 425).

  The soul of man is divided by him into three parts, answering roughly to the charioteer and steeds of the Phaedrus, and to the λόγος, θυμός, and ἐπιθυμία of the Republic and Nicomachean Ethics. First, there is the immortal nature of which the brain is the seat, and which is akin to the soul of the universe. This alone thinks and knows and is the ruler of the whole. Secondly, there is the higher mortal soul which, though liable to perturbations of her own, takes the side of reason against the lower appetites. The seat of this is the heart, in which courage, anger, and all the nobler affections are supposed to reside. There the veins all meet; it is their centre or house of guard whence they carry the orders of the thinking being to the extremities of his kingdom. There is also a third or appetitive soul, which receives the commands of the immortal part, not immediately but mediately, through the liver, which reflects on its surface the admonitions and threats of the reason.

  The liver is imagined by Plato to be a smooth and bright substance, having a store of sweetness and also of bitterness, which reason freely uses in the execution of her mandates. In this region, as ancient superstition told, were to be found intimations of the future. But Plato is careful to observe that although such knowledge is given to the inferior parts of man, it requires to be interpreted by the superior. Reason, and not enthusiasm, is the true guide of man; he is only inspired when he is demented by some distemper or possession. The ancient saying, that ‘only a man in his senses can judge of his own actions,’ is approved by modern philosophy too. The same irony which appears in Plato’s remark, that ‘the men of old time must surely have known the gods who were their ancestors, and we should believe them as custom requires,’ is also manifest in his account of divination.

  The appetitive soul is seated in the belly, and there imprisoned like a wild beast, far away from the council chamber, as Plato graphically calls the head, in order that the animal passions may not interfere with the deliberations of reason. Though the soul is said by him to be prior to the body, yet we cannot help seeing that it is constructed on the model of the body—the threefold division into the rational, passionate, and appetitive corresponding to the head, heart and belly. The human soul differs from the soul of the world in this respect, that it is enveloped and finds its expression in matter, whereas the soul of the world is not only enveloped or diffused in matter, but is the element in which matter moves. The breath of man is within him, but the air or aether of heaven is the element which surrounds him and all things.

  Pleasure and pain are attributed in the Timaeus to the suddenness of our sensations—the first being a sudden restoration, the second a sudden violation, of nature (cp. Phileb. 31 D). The sensations become conscious to us when they are exceptional. Sight is not attended either by pleasure or pain, but hunger and the appeasing of hunger are pleasant and painful because they are extraordinary.

  § 6.

  I shall not attempt to connect the physiological speculations of Plato either with ancient or modern medicine. What light I can throw upon them will be derived from the comparison of them with his general system.

  There is no principle so apparent in the physics of the Timaeus, or in ancient physics generally, as that of continuity. The world is conceived of as a whole, and the elements are formed into and out of one another; the varieties of substances and processes are hardly known or noticed. And in a similar manner the human body is conceived of as a whole, and the different substances of which, to a superficial observer, it appears to be composed—the blood, flesh, sinews—like the elements out of which they are formed, are supposed to pass into one another in regular order, while the infinite complexity of the human frame remains unobserved. And diseases arise from the opposite process—when the natural proportions of the four elements are disturbed, and the secondary substances which are formed out of them, namely, blood, flesh, sinews, are generated in an inverse order.

  Plato found heat and air within the human frame, and the blood circulating in every part. He assumes in language almost unintelligible to us that a network of fire and air envelopes the greater part of the body. This outer net contains two lesser nets, one corresponding to the stomach, the other to the lungs; and the entrance to the latter is forked or divided into two passages which lead to the nostrils and to the mouth. In the process of respiration the external net is said to find a way in and out of the pores of the skin: while the interior of it and the lesser nets move alternately into each other. The whole description is figurative, as Plato himself implies (79 D) when he speaks of a ‘fountain of fire which we compare to the network of a creel.’ He really means by this what we should describe as a state of heat or temperature in the interior of the body. The ‘fountain of fire’ or heat is also in a figure the circulation of the blood. The passage is partly imagination, partly fact.

  He has a singular theory of respiration for which he accounts solely by the movement of the air in and out of the body; he does not attribute any part of the process to the action of the body itself. The air has a double ingress and a double exit, through the mouth or nostrils, and through the skin. When exhaled through the mouth or nostrils, it leaves a vacuum which is filled up by other air finding a way in through the pores, this air being thrust out of its place by the exhalation from the mouth and nostrils. There is also a corresponding process of inhalation through the mouth or nostrils, and of exhalation through the pores. The inhalation through the pores appears to take place nearly at the same time as the exhalation through the mouth; and conversely. The internal fire is in either case the propelling cause outwards—the inhaled air, when heated by it, having a natural tendency to move out of the body to the place of fire; while the impossibility of a vacuum is the propelling cause inwards.

  Thus we see that this singular theory is dependent on two principles largely employed by Plato in explaining the operations of nature, the impossibility of a vacuum and the attraction of like to like. To these there has to be added a third principle, which is the condition of the action of the other two,—the interpenetration of particles in proportion to their density or rarity. It is this which enables fire and air to permeate the flesh.

  Plato’s account of digestion and the circulation of the blood is closely connected with his theory of respiration. Digestion is supposed to be effected by the action of the internal fire, which in the process of respiration moves into the stomach and minces the food. As the fire returns to its place, it takes with it the minced food or blood; and in this way the veins are replenished. Plato does not enquire how the blood is separated from the faeces.

  Of the anatomy and functions of the body he knew very little,—e. g. of the uses of the nerves in conveying motion and sensation, which he supposed to be communicated by the bones and veins; he was also ignorant of the distinction between veins and arteries;—the latter term he applies to the vessels which conduct air from the mouth to the lungs;—he supposes the lung to be hollow and bloodless; the spinal marrow he conceives to be the seed of generation; he confuses the parts of the body with the states of the body—the network of fire and air is spoken of as a bodily organ; he has absolutely no idea of the phenomena of respiration, which he attributes to a law of equalization in nature, the air which is breathed out displacing other air which finds a way in; he is wholly unacquainted with the process of digestion. Except the general divisions into the spleen, the liver, the belly, and the lungs, and the obvious distinctions of flesh, bones, and the limbs of the body, we find nothing that reminds us of anatomical facts. But we find much which is derived from his theory of the universe, and transferred to man, as there is much also in his theory of the universe which is suggested by man. The microcosm of the human body is the lesser image of the macrocosm. The courses of the same and the other affect both; they are made of the same elements and therefore in the same proportions. Both are intelligent natures endued with the power of self-motion, and the same equipoise is maintained in both. The animal is a sort of ‘world’ to the particles of the blood which circulate in it. All the four elements entered into the original composition of the human frame; the bone was formed out of smooth earth; liquids of various kinds pass to and fro; the network of fire and air irrigates the veins. Infancy and childhood is the chaos or first turbid flux of sense prior to the establishment of order; the intervals of time which may be observed in some intermittent fevers correspond to the density of the elements. The spinal marrow, including the brain, is formed out of the finest sorts of triangles, and is the connecting link between body and mind. Health is only to be preserved by imitating the motions of the world in space, which is the mother and nurse of generation. The work of digestion is carried on by the superior sharpness of the triangles forming the substances of the human body to those which are introduced into it in the shape of food. The freshest and acutest forms of triangles are those that are found in children, but they become more obtuse with advancing years; and when they finally wear out and fall to pieces, old age and death supervene.

  As in the Republic, Plato is still the enemy of the purgative treatment of physicians, which, except in extreme cases, no man of sense will ever adopt. For, as he adds, with an insight into the truth, ‘every disease is akin to the nature of the living being and is only irritated by stimulants.’ He is of opinion that nature should be left to herself, and is inclined to think that physicians are in vain (cp. Laws vi. 761 C—where he says that warm baths would be more beneficial to the limbs of the aged rustic than the prescriptions of a not over-wise doctor). If he seems to be extreme in his condemnation of medicine and to rely too much on diet and exercise, he might appeal to nearly all the best physicians of our own age in support of his opinions, who often speak to their patients of the worthlessness of drugs. For we ourselves are sceptical about medicine, and very unwilling to submit to the purgative treatment of physicians. May we not claim for Plato an anticipation of modern ideas as about some questions of astronomy and physics, so also about medicine? As in the Charmides (156, 7) he tells us that the body cannot be cured without the soul, so in the Timaeus he strongly asserts the sympathy of soul and body; any defect of either is the occasion of the greatest discord and disproportion in the other. Here too may be a presentiment that in the medicine of the future the interdependence of mind and body will be more fully recognized, and that the influence of the one over the other may be exerted in a manner which is not now thought possible.

  § 7.

  In Plato’s explanation of sensation we are struck by the fact that he has not the same distinct conception of organs of sense which is familiar to ourselves. The senses are not instruments, but rather passages, through which external objects strike upon the mind. The eye is the aperture through which the stream of vision passes, the ear is the aperture through which the vibrations of sound pass. But that the complex structure of the eye or the ear is in any sense the cause of sight and hearing he seems hardly to be aware.

  The process of sight is the most complicated (cp. Rep. vi. 507, 508), and consists of three elements—the light which is supposed to reside within the eye, the light of the sun, and the light emitted from external objects. When the light of the eye meets the light of the sun, and both together meet the light issuing from an external object, this is the simple act of sight. When the particles of light which proceed from the object are exactly equal to the particles of the visual ray which meet them from within, then the body is transparent. If they are larger and contract the visual ray, a black colour is produced; if they are smaller and dilate it, a white. Other phenomena are produced by the variety and motion of light. A sudden flash of fire at once elicits light and moisture from the eye, and causes a bright colour. A more subdued light, on mingling with the moisture of the eye, produces a red colour. Out of these elements all other colours are derived. All of them are combinations of bright and red with white and black. Plato himself tells us that he does not know in what proportions they combine, and he is of opinion that such knowledge is granted to the gods only. To have seen the affinity of them to each other and their connection with light, is not a bad basis for a theory of colours. We must remember that they were not distinctly defined to his, as they are to our eyes; he saw them, not as they are divided in the prism, or artificially manufactured for the painter’s use, but as they exist in nature, blended and confused with one another.

  We can hardly agree with him when he tells us that smells do not admit of kinds. He seems to think that no definite qualities can attach to bodies which are in a state of transition or evaporation; he also makes the subtle observation that smells must be denser than air, though thinner than water, because when there is an obstruction to the breathing, air can penetrate, but not smell.

  The affections peculiar to the tongue are of various kinds, and, like many other affections, are caused by contraction and dilation. Some of them are produced by rough, others by abstergent, others by inflammatory substances,—these act upon the testing instruments of the tongue, and produce a more or less disagreeable sensation, while other particles congenial to the tongue soften and harmonize them. The instruments of taste reach from the tongue to the heart. Plato has a lively sense of the manner in which sensation and motion are communicated from one part of the body to the other, though he confuses the affections with the organs. Hearing is a blow which passes through the ear and ends in the region of the liver, being transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood to the soul. The swifter sound is acute, the sound which moves slowly is grave. A great body of sound is loud, the opposite is low. Discord is produced by the swifter and slower motions of two sounds, and is converted into harmony when the swifter motions begin to pause and are overtaken by the slower.

  The general phenomena of sensation are partly internal, but the more violent are caused by conflict with external objects. Proceeding by a method of superficial observation, Plato remarks that the more sensitive parts of the human frame are those which are least covered by flesh, as is the case with the head and the elbows. Man, if his head had been covered with a thicker pulp of flesh, might have been a longer-lived animal than he is, but could not have had as quick perceptions. On the other hand, the tongue is one of the most sensitive of organs; but then this is made, not to be a covering to the bones which contain the marrow or source of life, but with an express purpose, and in a separate mass (75 A).

  § 8.

  We have now to consider how far in any of these speculations Plato approximated to the discoveries of modern science. The modern physical philosopher is apt to dwell exclusively on the absurdities of ancient ideas about science, on the hap-hazard fancies and a priori assumptions of ancient teachers, on their confusion of facts and ideas, on their inconsistency and blindness to the most obvious phenomena. He measures them not by what preceded them, but by what has followed them. He does not consider that ancient physical philosophy was not a free enquiry, but a growth, in which the mind was passive rather than active, and was incapable of resisting the impressions which flowed in upon it. He hardly allows to the notions of the ancients the merit of being the stepping-stones by which he has himself risen to a higher knowledge. He never reflects, how great a thing it was to have formed a conception, however imperfect, either of the human frame as a whole, or of the world as a whole. According to the view taken in these volumes the errors of ancient physicists were not separable from the intellectual conditions under which they lived. Their genius was their own; and they were not the rash and hasty generalizers which, since the days of Bacon, we have been apt to suppose them. The thoughts of men widened to receive experience; at first they seemed to know all things as in a dream: after a while they look at them closely and hold them in their hands. They begin to arrange them in classes and to connect causes with effects. General notions are necessary to the apprehension of particular facts, the metaphysical to the physical. Before men can observe the world, they must be able to conceive it.

  To do justice to the subject, we should consider the physical philosophy of the ancients as a whole; we should remember, (1) that the nebular theory was the received belief of several of the early physicists; (2) that the developement of animals out of fishes who came to land, and of man out of the animals, was held by Anaximander in the sixth century before Christ (cp. Plut. Symp. Quaest. viii. 8. 4; Plac. Phil. v. 19. 1); (3) that even by Philolaus and the early Pythagoreans, the earth was held to be a body like the other stars revolving in space around the sun or a central fire; (4) that the beginnings of chemistry are discernible in the ‘similar particles’ of Anaxagoras. Also they knew or thought (5) that there was a sex in plants as well as in animals; (6) they were aware that musical notes depended on the relative length or tension of the strings from which they were emitted, and were measured by ratios of number; (7) that mathematical laws pervaded the world; and even qualitative differences were supposed to have their origin in number and figure; (8) the annihilation of matter was denied by several of them, and the seeming disappearance of it held to be a transformation only. For, although one of these discoveries might have been supposed to be a happy guess, taken together they seem to imply a great advance and almost maturity of natural knowledge.

  We should also remember, when we attribute to the ancients hasty generalizations and delusions of language, that physical philosophy and metaphysical too have been guilty of similar fallacies in quite recent times. We by no means distinguish clearly between mind and body, between ideas and facts. Have not many discussions arisen about the Atomic theory in which a point has been confused with a material atom? Have not the natures of things been explained by imaginary entities, such as life or phlogiston, which exist in the mind only? Has not disease been regarded, like sin, sometimes as a negative and necessary, sometimes as a positive or malignant principle? The ‘idols’ of Bacon are nearly as common now as ever; they are inherent in the human mind, and when they have the most complete dominion over us, we are least able to perceive them. We recognize them in the ancients, but we fail to see them in ourselves.

  Such reflections, although this is not the place in which to dwell upon them at length, lead us to take a favourable view of the speculations of the Timaeus. We should consider not how much Plato actually knew, but how far he has contributed to the general ideas of physics, or supplied the notions which, whether true or false, have stimulated the minds of later generations in the path of discovery. Some of them may seem old-fashioned, but may nevertheless have had a great influence in promoting system and assisting enquiry, while in others we hear the latest word of physical or metaphysical philosophy. There is also an intermediate class, in which Plato falls short of the truths of modern science, though he is not wholly unacquainted with them. (1) To the first class belongs the teleological theory of creation. Whether all things in the world can be explained as the result of natural laws, or whether we must not admit of tendencies and marks of design also, has been a question much disputed of late years. Even if all phenomena are the result of natural forces, we must admit that there are many things in heaven and earth which are as well expressed under the image of mind or design as under any other. At any rate, the language of Plato has been the language of natural theology down to our own time, nor can any description of the world wholly dispense with it. The notion of first and second or co-operative causes, which originally appears in the Timaeus, has likewise survived to our own day, and has been a great peace-maker between theology and science. Plato also approaches very near to our doctrine of the primary and secondary qualities of matter (61 ff.). (2) Another popular notion which is found in the Timaeus, is the feebleness of the human intellect—‘God knows the original qualities of things; man can only hope to attain to probability.’ We speak in almost the same words of human intelligence, but not in the same manner of the uncertainty of our knowledge of nature. The reason is that the latter is assured to us by experiment, and is not contrasted with the certainty of ideal or mathematical knowledge. But the ancient philosopher never experimented: in the Timaeus Plato seems to have thought that there would be impiety in making the attempt; he, for example, who tried experiments in colours would ‘forget the difference of the human and divine natures’ (68 D). Their indefiniteness is probably the reason why he singles them out, as especially incapable of being tested by experiment. (Compare the saying of Anaxagoras—Sext. Pyrrh. i. 33—that since snow is made of water and water is black, snow ought to be black.)

  The greatest ‘divination’ of the ancients was the supremacy which they assigned to mathematics in all the realms of nature; for in all of them there is a foundation of mechanics. Even physiology partakes of figure and number; and Plato is not wrong in attributing them to the human frame, but in the omission to observe how little could be explained by them. Thus we may remark in passing that the most fanciful of ancient philosophies is also the most nearly verified in fact. The fortunate guess that the world is a sum of numbers and figures has been the most fruitful of anticipations. The ‘diatonic’ scale of the Pythagoreans and Plato suggested to Kepler that the secret of the distances of the planets from one another was to be found in mathematical proportions. The doctrine that the heavenly bodies all move in a circle is known by us to be erroneous; but without such an error how could the human mind have comprehended the heavens? Astronomy, even in modern times, has made far greater progress by the high a priori road than could have been attained by any other. Yet, strictly speaking—and the remark applies to ancient physics generally—this high a priori road was based upon a posteriori grounds. For there were no facts of which the ancients were so well assured by experience as facts of number. Having observed that they held good in a few instances, they applied them everywhere; and in the complexity, of which they were capable, found the explanation of the equally complex phenomena of the universe. They seemed to see them in the least things as well as in the greatest; in atoms, as well as in suns and stars; in the human body as well as in external nature. And now a favourite speculation of modern chemistry is the explanation of qualitative difference by quantitative, which is at present verified to a certain extent and may hereafter be of far more universal application. What is this but the atoms of Democritus and the triangles of Plato? The ancients should not be wholly deprived of the credit of their guesses because they were unable to prove them. May they not have had, like the animals, an instinct of something more than they knew?

  Besides general notions we seem to find in the Timaeus some more precise approximations to the discoveries of modern physical science. First, the doctrine of equipoise. Plato affirms, almost in so many words, that nature abhors a vacuum. Whenever a particle is displaced, the rest push and thrust one another until equality is restored. We must remember that these ideas were not derived from any definite experiment, but were the original reflections of man, fresh from the first observation of nature. The latest word of modern philosophy is continuity and development, but to Plato this is the beginning and foundation of science; there is nothing that he is so strongly persuaded of as that the world is one, and that all the various existences which are contained in it are only the transformations of the same soul of the world acting on the same matter. He would have readily admitted that out of the protoplasm all things were formed by the gradual process of creation; but he would have insisted that mind and intelligence—not meaning by this, however, a conscious mind or person—were prior to them, and could alone have created them. Into the workings of this eternal mind or intelligence he does not enter further; nor would there have been any use in attempting to investigate the things which no eye has seen nor any human language can express.

  Lastly, there remain two points in which he seems to touch great discoveries of modern times—the law of gravitation, and the circulation of the blood.

  (1) The law of gravitation, according to Plato, is a law, not only of the attraction of lesser bodies to larger ones, but of similar bodies to similar, having a magnetic power as well as a principle of gravitation. He observed that earth, water, and air had settled down to their places, and he imagined fire or the exterior aether to have a place beyond air. When air seemed to go upwards and fire to pierce through air—when water and earth fell downward, they were seeking their native elements. He did not remark that his own explanation did not suit all phenomena; and the simpler explanation, which assigns to bodies degrees of heaviness and lightness proportioned to the mass and distance of the bodies which attract them, never occurred to him. Yet the affinities of similar substances have some effect upon the composition of the world, and of this Plato may be thought to have had an anticipation. He may be described as confusing the attraction of gravitation with the attraction of cohesion. The influence of such affinities and the chemical action of one body upon another in long periods of time have become a recognized principle of geology.

  (2) Plato is perfectly aware—and he could hardly be ignorant—that blood is a fluid in constant motion. He also knew that blood is partly a solid substance consisting of several elements, which, as he might have observed in the use of ‘cupping-glasses’ (79 E), decompose and die, when no longer in motion. But the specific discovery that the blood flows out on one side of the heart through the arteries and returns through the veins on the other, which is commonly called the circulation of the blood, was absolutely unknown to him.

  A further study of the Timaeus suggests some after-thoughts which may be conveniently brought together in this place. The topics which I propose briefly to reconsider are (a) the relation of the Timaeus to the other dialogues of Plato and to the previous philosophy; (b) the nature of God and of creation: (c) the morality of the Timaeus:—

  (a) The Timaeus is more imaginative and less scientific than any other of the Platonic dialogues. It is conjectural astronomy, conjectural natural philosophy, conjectural medicine. The writer himself is constantly repeating that he is speaking what is probable only. The dialogue is put into the mouth of Timaeus, a Pythagorean philosopher, and therefore here, as in the Parmenides, we are in doubt how far Plato is expressing his own sentiments. Hence the connexion with the other dialogues is comparatively slight. We may fill up the lacunae of the Timaeus by the help of the Republic or Phaedrus: we may identify the same and other with the πέρας and ἄπειρον of the Philebus. We may find in the Laws or in the Statesman parallels with the account of creation and of the first origin of man. It would be possible to frame a scheme in which all these various elements might have a place. But such a mode of proceeding would be unsatisfactory, because we have no reason to suppose that Plato intended his scattered thoughts to be collected in a system. There is a common spirit in his writings, and there are certain general principles, such as the opposition of the sensible and intellectual, and the priority of mind, which run through all of them; but he has no definite forms of words in which he consistently expresses himself. While the determinations of human thought are in process of creation he is necessarily tentative and uncertain. And there is least of definiteness, whenever either in describing the beginning or the end of the world, he has recourse to myths. These are not the fixed modes in which spiritual truths are revealed to him, but the efforts of imagination, by which at different times and in various manners he seeks to embody his conceptions. The clouds of mythology are still resting upon him, and he has not yet pierced ‘to the heaven of the fixed stars’ which is beyond them. It is safer then to admit the inconsistencies of the Timaeus, or to endeavour to fill up what is wanting from our own imagination, inspired by a study of the dialogue, than to refer to other Platonic writings,—and still less should we refer to the successors of Plato,—for the elucidation of it.

  More light is thrown upon the Timaeus by a comparison of the previous philosophies. For the physical science of the ancients was traditional, descending through many generations of Ionian and Pythagorean philosophers. Plato does not look out upon the heavens and describe what he sees in them, but he builds upon the foundations of others, adding something out of the ‘depths of his own self-consciousness.’ Socrates had already spoken of God the creator, who made all things for the best. While he ridiculed the superficial explanations of phenomena which were current in his age, he recognised the marks both of benevolence and of design in the frame of man and in the world. The apparatus of winds and waters is contemptuously rejected by him in the Phaedo, but he thinks that there is a power greater than that of any Atlas in the ‘Best’ (Phaedo 97 ff.; cp. Arist. Met. i. 4, 5). Plato, following his master, affirms this principle of the best, but he acknowledges that the best is limited by the conditions of matter. In the generation before Socrates, Anaxagoras had brought together ‘Chaos’ and ‘Mind’; and these are connected by Plato in the Timaeus, but in accordance with his own mode of thinking he has interposed between them the idea or pattern according to which mind worked. The circular impulse (περίωσις) of the one philosopher answers to the circular movement (περιχώρησις) of the other. But unlike Anaxagoras, Plato made the sun and stars living beings and not masses of earth or metal. The Pythagoreans again had framed a world out of numbers, which they constructed into figures. Plato adopted their speculations and improved upon them by a more exact knowledge of geometry. The Atomists too made the world, if not out of geometrical figures, at least out of different forms of atoms, and these atoms resembled the triangles of Plato in being too small to be visible. But thought the physiology of the Timaeus is partly borrowed from them, they are either ignored by Plato or referred to with a secret contempt and dislike. He looks with more favour on the Pythagoreans, whose intervals of number applied to the distances of the planets reappear in the Timaeus. It is probable that among the Pythagoreans living in the fourth century b.c., there were already some who, like Plato, made the earth their centre. Whether he obtained his circles of the Same and Other from any previous thinker is uncertain. The four elements are taken from Empedocles; the interstices of the Timaeus may also be compared with his πόροι. The passage of one element into another is common to Heracleitus and several of the Ionian philosophers. So much of a syncretist is Plato, though not after the manner of the Neoplatonists. For the elements which he borrows from others are fused and transformed by his own genius. On the other hand we find fewer traces in Plato of early Ionic or Eleatic speculation. He does not imagine the world of sense to be made up of opposites or to be in a perpetual flux, but to vary within certain limits which are controlled by what he calls the principle of the same. Unlike the Eleatics, who relegated the world to the sphere of not-being, he admits creation to have an existence which is real and even eternal, although dependent on the will of the creator (41 A, B). Instead of maintaining the doctrine that the void has a necessary place in the existence of the world, he rather affirms the modern thesis that nature abhors a vacuum, as in the Sophist he also denies the reality of not-being (cp. Aristot. Metaph. i. 4, § 9). But though in these respects he differs from them, he is deeply penetrated by the spirit of their philosophy; he differs from them with reluctance, and gladly recognizes the ‘generous depth’ of Parmenides (Theaet. 183 E).

  There is a similarity between the Timaeus and the fragments of Philolaus, which by some has been thought to be so great as to create a suspicion that they are derived from it. Philolaus is known to us from the Phaedo of Plato as a Pythagorean philosopher residing at Thebes in the latter half of the fifth century b.c., after the dispersion of the original Pythagorean society. He was the teacher of Simmias and Cebes, who became disciples of Socrates. We have hardly any other information about him. The story that Plato had purchased three books of his writings from a relation is not worth repeating; it is only a fanciful way in which an ancient biographer dresses up the fact that there was supposed to be a resemblance between the two writers. Similar gossiping stories are told about the sources of the Republic and the Phaedo. That there really existed in antiquity a work passing under the name of Philolaus there can be no doubt. Fragments of this work are preserved to us, chiefly in Stobaeus, a few in Boethius and other writers. They remind us of the Timaeus, as well as of the Phaedrus and Philebus. When the writer says (Stob. Eclog. i. 22, 7) that all things are either finite (definite) or infinite (indefinite), or a union of the two, and that this antithesis and synthesis pervades all art and nature, we are reminded of the Philebus (23 ff.). When he calls the centre of the world ἑστία, we have a parallel to the Phaedrus (247 A). His distinction between the world of order, to which the sun and moon and the stars belong, and the world of disorder, which lies in the region between the moon and the earth, approximates to Plato’s sphere of the Same and of the Other. Like Plato (Tim. 62 C ff.), he denied the above and below in space, and said that all things were the same in relation to a centre. He speaks also of the world as one and indestructible: ‘for neither from within nor from without does it admit of destruction’ (cp. Tim. 33). He mentions ten heavenly bodies, including the sun and moon, the earth and the counter-earth (ἀντίχθων), and in the midst of them all he places the central fire, around which they are moving—this is hidden from the earth by the counter-earth. Of neither is there any trace in Plato, who makes the earth the centre of his system. Philolaus magnifies the virtues of particular numbers, especially of the number 10 (Stob. Eclog. i. 2, 3), and descants upon odd and even numbers, after the manner of the later Pythagoreans. It is worthy of remark that these mystical fancies are nowhere to be found in the writings of Plato, although the importance of number as a form and also an instrument of thought is ever present to his mind. Both Philolaus and Plato agree in making the world move in certain numerical ratios according to a musical scale: though Böckh is of opinion that the two scales, of Philolaus and of the Timaeus, do not correspond . . . . We appear not to be sufficiently acquainted with the early Pythagoreans to know how far the statements contained in these fragments corresponded with their doctrines; and we therefore cannot pronounce, either in favour of the genuineness of the fragments, with Böckh and Zeller, or, with Valentine Rose and Schaarschmidt, against them. But it is clear that they throw but little light upon the Timaeus, and that their resemblance to it has been exaggerated.

  That there is a degree of confusion and indistinctness in Plato’s account both of man and of the universe has been already acknowledged. We cannot tell (nor could Plato himself have told) where the figure or myth ends and the philosophical truth begins; we cannot explain (nor could Plato himself have explained to us) the relation of the ideas to appearance, of which one is the copy of the other, and yet of all things in the world they are the most opposed and unlike. This opposition is presented to us in many forms, as the antithesis of the one and many, of the finite and infinite, of the intelligible and sensible, of the unchangeable and the changing, of the indivisible and the divisible, of the fixed stars and the planets, of the creative mind and the primeval chaos. These pairs of opposites are so many aspects of the great opposition between ideas and phenomena—they easily pass into one another; and sometimes the two members of the relation differ in kind, sometimes only in degree. As in Aristotle’s matter and form, the connexion between them is really inseparable; for if we attempt to separate them they become devoid of content and therefore indistinguishable; there is no difference between the idea of which nothing can be predicated, and the chaos or matter which has no perceptible qualities—between Being in the abstract and Nothing. Yet we are frequently told that the one class of them is the reality and the other appearance; and one is often spoken of as the double or reflection of the other. For Plato never clearly saw that both elements had an equal place in mind and in nature; and hence, especially when we argue from isolated passages in his writings, or attempt to draw what appear to us to be the natural inferences from them, we are full of perplexity. There is a similar confusion about necessity and free-will, and about the state of the soul after death. Also he sometimes supposes that God is immanent in the world, sometimes that he is transcendent. And having no distinction of objective and subjective, he passes imperceptibly from one to the other; from intelligence to soul, from eternity to time. These contradictions may be softened or concealed by a judicious use of language, but they cannot be wholly got rid of. That an age of intellectual transition must also be one of inconsistency; that the creative is opposed to the critical or defining habit of mind or time, has been often repeated by us. But, as Plato would say, ‘there is no harm in repeating twice or thrice’ (Laws vi. 754 C) what is important for the understanding of a great author.

  It has not, however, been observed, that the confusion partly arises out of the elements of opposing philosophies which are preserved in him. He holds these in solution, he brings them into relation with one another, but he does not perfectly harmonize them. They are part of his own mind, and he is incapable of placing himself outside of them and criticizing them. They grow as he grows; they are a kind of composition with which his own philosophy is overlaid. In early life he fancies that he has mastered them; but he is also mastered by them; and in language (cp. Sophist, 243 B) which may be compared with the hesitating tone of the Timaeus, he confesses in his later years that they are full of obscurity to him. He attributes new meanings to the words of Parmenides and Heracleitus; but at times the old Eleatic philosophy appears to go beyond him; then the world of phenomena disappears, but the doctrine of ideas is also reduced to nothingness. All of them are nearer to one another than they themselves supposed, and nearer to him than he supposed. All of them are antagonistic to sense and have an affinity to number and measure and a presentiment of ideas. Even in Plato they still retain their contentious or controversial character, which was developed by the growth of dialectic. He is never able to reconcile the first causes of the pre-Socratic philosophers with the final causes of Socrates himself. There is no intelligible account of the relation of numbers to the universal ideas, or of universals to the idea of good. He found them all three, in the Pythagorean philosophy and in the teaching of Socrates and of the Megarians respectively; and, because they all furnished modes of explaining and arranging phenomena, he is unwilling to give up any of them, though he is unable to unite them in a consistent whole.

  Lastly, Plato, though an idealist philosopher, is Greek and not Oriental in spirit and feeling. He is no mystic or ascetic; he is not seeking in vain to get rid of matter or to find absorption in the divine nature, or in the Soul of the Universe. And therefore we are not surprised to find that his philosophy in the Timaeus returns at last to a worship of the heavens, and that to him, as to other Greeks, nature, though containing a remnant of evil, is still glorious and divine. He takes away or drops the veil of mythology, and presents her to us in what appears to him to be the form—fairer and truer far—of mathematical figures. It is this element in the Timaeus, no less than its affinity to certain Pythagorean speculations, which gives it a character not wholly in accordance with the other dialogues of Plato.

  (b) The Timaeus contains an assertion perhaps more distinct than is found in any of the other dialogues (cp. Rep. ii. 379 A; Laws x. 901, 2) of the goodness of God. ‘He was good himself, and he fashioned the good everywhere.’ He was not ‘a jealous God,’ and therefore he desired that all other things should be equally good. He is the idea of good who has now become a person, and speaks and is spoken of as God. Yet his personality seems to appear only in the act of creation. In so far as he works with his eye fixed upon an eternal pattern he is like the human artificer in the Republic (vi. 501 B; x. 597). Here the theory of Platonic ideas intrudes upon us. God, like man, is supposed to have an ideal of which Plato is unable to tell us the origin. He may be said, in the language of modern philosophy, to resolve the divine mind into subject and object.

  The first work of creation is perfected, the second begins under the direction of inferior ministers. The supreme God is withdrawn from the world and returns to his own accustomed nature (Tim. 42 E). As in the Statesman (272 E), he retires to his place of view. So early did the Epicurean doctrine take possession of the Greek mind, and so natural is it to the heart of man, when he has once passed out of the stage of mythology into that of rational religion. For he sees the marks of design in the world; but he no longer sees or fancies that he sees God walking in the garden or haunting stream or mountain. He feels also that he must put God as far as possible out of the way of evil, and therefore he banishes him from an evil world. Plato is sensible of the difficulty; and he often shows that he is desirous of justifying the ways of God to man. Yet on the other hand, in the Tenth Book of the Laws (899, 900 ff.) he passes a censure on those who say that the Gods have no care of human things.

  The creation of the world is the impression of order on a previously existing chaos. The formula of Anaxagoras—‘all things were in chaos or confusion, and then mind came and disposed them’—is a summary of the first part of the Timaeus. It is true that of a chaos without differences no idea could be formed. All was not mixed but one; and therefore it was not difficult for the later Platonists to draw inferences by which they were enabled to reconcile the narrative of the Timaeus with the Mosaic account of the creation. Neither when we speak of mind or intelligence, do we seem to get much further in our conception than circular motion, which was deemed to be the most perfect. Plato, like Anaxagoras, while commencing his theory of the universe with ideas of mind and of the best, is compelled in the execution of his design to condescend to the crudest physics.

  (c) The morality of the Timaeus is singular, and it is difficult to adjust the balance between the two elements of it. The difficulty which Plato feels, is that which all of us feel, and which is increased in our own day by the progress of physical science, how the responsibility of man is to be reconciled with his dependence on natural causes. And sometimes, like other men, he is more impressed by one aspect of human life, sometimes by the other. In the Republic he represents man as freely choosing his own lot in a state prior to birth—a conception which, if taken literally, would still leave him subject to the dominion of necessity in his after life; in the Statesman he supposes the human race to be preserved in the world only by a divine interposition; while in the Timaeus the supreme God commissions the inferior deities to avert from him all but self-inflicted evils—words which imply that all the evils of men are really self-inflicted. And here, like Plato (54 B;—the insertion of a note in the text of an ancient writer is a literary curiosity worthy of remark), we may take occasion to correct an error which occurred at p. 408. For there we too hastily said that Plato in the Timaeus regarded all ‘vices and crimes as involuntary.’ But the fact is that he is inconsistent with himself; in one and the same passage (86) vice is attributed to the relaxation of the bodily frame, and yet we are exhorted to avoid it and pursue virtue. It is also admitted that good and evil conduct are to be attributed respectively to good and evil laws and institutions. These cannot be given by individuals to themselves; and therefore human actions, in so far as they are dependent upon them, are regarded by Plato as involuntary rather than voluntary. Like other writers on this subject, he is unable to escape from some degree of self-contradiction. He had learned from Socrates that vice is ignorance, and suddenly the doctrine seems to him to be confirmed by observing how much of the good and bad in human character depends on the bodily constitution. So in modern times the speculative doctrine of necessity has often been supported by physical facts.

  The Timaeus also contains an anticipation of the stoical life according to nature. Man contemplating the heavens is to regulate his erring life according to them. He is to partake of the repose of nature and of the order of nature, to bring the variable principle in himself into harmony with the principle of the same. The ethics of the Timaeus may be summed up in the single idea of ‘law.’ To feel habitually that he is part of the order of the universe, is one of the highest ethical motives of which man is capable. Something like this is what Plato means when he speaks of the soul ‘moving about the same in unchanging thought of the same.’ He does not explain how man is acted upon by the lesser influences of custom or of opinion; or how the commands of the soul watching in the citadel are conveyed to the bodily organs. But this perhaps, to use once more expressions of his own, ‘is part of another subject’ (87 B) or ‘may be more suitably discussed on some other occasion’ (38 B).

  There is no difficulty, by the help of Aristotle and later writers, in criticizing the Timaeus of Plato, in pointing out the inconsistencies of the work, in dwelling on the ignorance of anatomy displayed by the author, in showing the fancifulness or unmeaningness of some of his reasons. But the Timaeus still remains the greatest effort of the human mind to conceive the world as a whole which the genius of antiquity has bequeathed to us.

  One more aspect of the Timaeus remains to be considered—the mythological or geographical. Is it not a wonderful thing that a few pages of one of Plato’s dialogues have grown into a great legend, not confined to Greece only, but spreading far and wide over the nations of Europe and reaching even to Egypt and Asia? Like the tale of Troy, or the legend of the Ten Tribes (cp. Ewald, Hist. of Isr., vol. v), which perhaps originated in a few verses of II Esdras, c. xiii, it has become famous, because it has coincided with a great historical fact. Like the romance of King Arthur, which has had so great a charm, it has found a way over the seas from one country and language to another. It inspired the navigators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; it foreshadowed the discovery of America. It realized the fiction so natural to the human mind, because it answered the enquiry about the origin of the arts, that there had somewhere existed an ancient primitive civilization. It might find a place wherever men chose to look for it; in North, South, East, or West; in the Islands of the Blest; before the entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar, in Sweden or in Palestine. It mattered little whether the description in Plato agreed with the locality assigned to it or not. It was a legend so adapted to the human mind that it made a habitation for itself in any country. It was an island in the clouds, which might be seen anywhere by the eye of faith. It was a subject especially congenial to the ponderous industry of certain French and Swedish writers, who delighted in heaping up learning of all sorts but were incapable of using it.

  M. Martin has written a valuable dissertation on the opinions entertained respecting the Island of Atlantis in ancient and modern times. It is a curious chapter in the history of the human mind. The tale of Atlantis is the fabric of a vision, but it has never ceased to interest mankind. It was variously regarded by the ancients themselves. The stronger heads among them, like Strabo and Longinus, were as little disposed to believe in the truth of it as the modern reader in Gulliver or Robinson Crusoe. On the other hand there is no kind or degree of absurdity or fancy in which the more foolish writers, both of antiquity and of modern times, have not indulged respecting it. The Neo-Platonists, loyal to their master, like some commentators on the Christian Scriptures, sought to give an allegorical meaning to what they also believed to be an historical fact. It was as if some one in our own day were to convert the poems of Homer into an allegory of the Christian religion, at the same time maintaining them to be an exact and veritable history. In the Middle Ages the legend seems to have been half-forgotten until revived by the discovery of America. It helped to form the Utopia of Sir Thomas More and the New Atlantis of Bacon, although probably neither of those great men were at all imposed upon by the fiction. It was most prolific in the seventeenth or in the early part of the eighteenth century, when the human mind, seeking for Utopias or inventing them, was glad to escape out of the dulness of the present into the romance of the past or some ideal of the future. The later forms of such narratives contained features taken from the Edda, as well as from the Old and New Testament; also from the tales of missionaries and the experiences of travellers and of colonists.

  The various opinions respecting the Island of Atlantis have no interest for us except in so far as they illustrate the extravagances of which men are capable. But this is a real interest and a serious lesson, if we remember that now as formerly the human mind is liable to be imposed upon by the illusions of the past, which are ever assuming some new form.

  When we have shaken off the rubbish of ages, there remain one or two questions of which the investigation has a permanent value:—

  i. Did Plato derive the legend of Atlantis from an Egyptian source? It may be replied that there is no such legend in any writer previous to Plato; neither in Homer, nor in Pindar, nor in Herodotus is there any mention of an Island of Atlantis, nor any reference to it in Aristotle, nor any citation of an earlier writer by a later one in which it is to be found. Nor have any traces been discovered hitherto in Egyptian monuments of a connexion between Greece and Egypt older than the eighth or ninth century b.c. It is true that Proclus, writing in the fifth century after Christ, tells us of stones and columns in Egypt on which the history of the Island of Atlantis was engraved. The statement may be false—there are similar tales about columns set up ‘by the Canaanites whom Joshua drove out’ (Procop.); but even if true, it would only show that the legend, 800 years after the time of Plato, had been transferred to Egypt, and inscribed, not, like other forgeries, in books, but on stone. Probably in the Alexandrian age, when Egypt had ceased to have a history and began to appropriate the legends of other nations, many such monuments were to be found of events which had become famous in that or other countries. The oldest witness to the story is said to be Crantor, a Stoic philosopher who lived a generation later than Plato, and therefore may have borrowed it from him. The statement is found in Proclus; but we require better assurance than Proclus can give us before we accept this or any other statement which he makes.

  Secondly, passing from the external to the internal evidence, we may remark that the story is far more likely to have been invented by Plato than to have been brought by Solon from Egypt. That is another part of his legend which Plato also seeks to impose upon us. The verisimilitude which he has given to the tale is a further reason for suspecting it; for he could easily ‘invent Egyptian or any other tales’ (Phaedrus 275 B). Are not the words, ‘The truth of the story is a great advantage,’ if we read between the lines, an indication of the fiction? It is only a legend that Solon went to Egypt, and if he did he could not have conversed with Egyptian priests or have read records in their temples. The truth is that the introduction is a mosaic work of small touches which, partly by their minuteness, and also by their seeming probability, win the confidence of the reader. Who would desire better evidence than that of Critias, who had heard the narrative in youth when the memory is strongest (26 B) at the age of ten from his grandfather Critias, an old man of ninety, who in turn had heard it from Solon himself? Is not the famous expression—‘You Hellenes are ever children and there is no knowledge among you hoary with age,’ really a compliment to the Athenians who are described in these words as ‘ever young’? And is the thought expressed in them to be attributed to the learning of the Egyptian priest, and not rather to the genius of Plato? Or when the Egyptian says—‘Hereafter at our leisure we will take up the written documents and examine in detail the exact truth about these things’—what is this but a literary trick by which Plato sets off his narrative? Could any war between Athens and the Island of Atlantis have really coincided with the struggle between the Greeks and Persians, as is sufficiently hinted though not expressly stated in the narrative of Plato? And whence came the tradition to Egypt? or in what does the story consist except in the war between the two rival powers and the submersion of both of them? And how was the tale transferred to the poem of Solon? ‘It is not improbable,’ says Mr. Grote, ‘that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem’ (Plato, vol. iii. p. 295). But are probabilities for which there is not a title of evidence, and which are without any parallel, to be deemed worthy of attention by the critic? How came the poem of Solon to disappear in antiquity? or why did Plato, if the whole narrative was known to him, break off almost at the beginning of it?

  While therefore admiring the diligence and erudition of M. Martin, we cannot for a moment suppose that the tale was told to Solon by an Egyptian priest, nor can we believe that Solon wrote a poem upon the theme which was thus suggested to him—a poem which disappeared in antiquity; or that the Island of Atlantis or the antediluvian Athens ever had any existence except in the imagination of Plato. Martin is of opinion that Plato would have been terrified if he could have foreseen the endless fancies to which his Island of Atlantis has given occasion. Rather the would have been infinitely amused if he could have known that his gift of invention would have deceived M. Martin himself into the belief that the tradition was brought from Egypt by Solon and made the subject of a poem by him (Tome i. p. 323). M. Martin may also be gently censured for citing without sufficient discrimination ancient authors having very different degrees of authority and value.

  ii. It is an interesting and not unimportant question which is touched upon by Martin, whether the Atlantis of Plato in any degree held out a guiding light to the early navigators. He is inclined to think that there is no real connexion between them. But surely the discovery of the New World was preceded by a prophetic anticipation of it, which, like the hope of a Messiah, was entering into the hearts of men? And this hope was nursed by ancient tradition, which had found expression from time to time in the celebrated lines of Seneca and in many other places. This tradition was sustained by the great authority of Plato, and therefore the legend of the Island of Atlantis, though not closely connected with the voyages of the early navigators, may be truly said to have contributed indirectly to the great discovery.

  The Timaeus of Plato, like the Protagoras and several portions of the Phaedrus and Republic, was translated by Cicero into Latin. About a fourth, comprehending with lacunae the first portion of the dialogue, is preserved in several MSS. These generally agree, and therefore may be supposed to be derived from a single original. The version is very faithful, and is a remarkable monument of Cicero’s skill in managing the difficult and intractable Greek. In his treatise De Naturâ Deorum, i. 8. 12, ii. 12, he also refers to the Timaeus, which, speaking in the person of Velleius the Epicurean, he severely criticises.

  The commentary of Proclus (fl. c. 440 a.d.) on the Timaeus is a wonderful monument of the silliness and prolixity of the Alexandrian Age. It extends to about thirty pages of the book, and is thirty times the length of the original. It is surprising that this voluminous work should have found a translator (Thomas Taylor, a kindred spirit, who was himself a Neo-Platonist, after the fashion, not of the fifth or sixteenth, but of the nineteenth century a.d.). The commentary is of little or no value, either in a philosophical or philological point of view. The writer is unable to explain particular passages in any precise manner, and he is equally incapable of grasping the whole. He does not take words in their simple meaning or sentences in their natural connexion. He is thinking, not of the context in Plato, but of the contemporary Pythagorean philosophers and their wordy strife. He finds nothing in the text which he does not bring to it. He is full of Porphyry, Iamblichus and Plotinus, of misapplied logic, of misunderstood grammar, and of the Orphic theology.

  Although such a work can contribute little or nothing to the understanding of Plato, it throws an interesting light on the Alexandrian times; it realizes how a philosophy made up of words only may create a deep and widespread enthusiasm, how the forms of logic and rhetoric may usurp the place of reason and truth, how all philosophies grow faded and discoloured, and are patched and made up again like worn-out garments, and retain only a second-hand existence. He who would study this degeneracy of philosophy and of the Greek mind in the original cannot do better than devote a few of his days and nights to the commentary of Proclus on the Timaeus.

  A very different account must be given of the short work entitled ‘Timaeus Locrus,’ which is a brief but clear analysis of the Timaeus of Plato, omitting the introduction or dialogue and making a few small additions. It does not allude to the original from which it is taken; it is quite free from mysticism and Neo-Platonism. In length it does not exceed a fifth part of the Timaeus. It is written in the Doric dialect, and contains several words which do not occur in classical Greek. No other indication of its date, except this uncertain one of language, appears in it. In several places the writer has simplified the language of Plato, in a few others he has embellished and exaggerated it. He generally preserves the thought of the original, but does not copy the words. On the whole this little tract faithfully reflects the meaning and spirit of the Timaeus.

  From the garden of the Timaeus, as from the other dialogues of Plato, we may still gather a few flowers and present them at parting to the reader. There is nothing in Plato grander and simpler than the conversation between Solon and the Egyptian priest, in which the youthfulness of Hellas is contrasted with the antiquity of Egypt. Here are to be found the famous words, ‘O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are ever young, and there is not an old man among you’—which may be compared to the lively saying of Hegel, that ‘Greek history began with the youth Achilles and left off with the youth Alexander.’ The numerous arts of verisimilitude by which Plato insinuates into the mind of the reader the truth of his narrative have been already referred to. Here occur a sentence or two not wanting in Platonic irony (ϕωνα̂ντα συνετοɩ̂σι—a word to the wise). 40 D ff.: ‘To know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us, and we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm themselves to be the offspring of the Gods—that is what they say—and they must surely have known their own ancestors. How can we doubt the word of the children of the Gods? Although they give no probable or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of what took place in their own family, we must conform to custom and believe them.’ 76 E: ‘Our creators well knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails.’ Or once more, let us reflect on two serious passages in which the order of the world is supposed to find a place in the human soul and to infuse harmony into it. 37 A ff.: ‘The soul, when touching anything that has essence, whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred through all her powers to declare the sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same,—in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved,—when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world, and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected;’ where, proceeding in a similar path of contemplation, he supposes the inward and the outer world mutually to imply each other. And 47 B: ‘God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries.’ Or let us weigh carefully some other profound thoughts, such as the following. 44 C: ‘He who neglects education walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below.’ 28 C: ‘The father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible.’ Or, lastly, 29 D: ‘Let me tell you then why the Creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.’ This is the leading thought in the Timaeus, just as the idea of Good is the leading thought of the Republic, the one expression describing the personal, the other the impersonal Good or God, differing in form rather than in substance, and both equally implying to the mind of Plato a divine reality. The slight touch, perhaps ironical, contained in the words, ‘as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men,’ is very characteristic of Plato.

  TIMAEUS.

  persons of the dialogue.

  Socrates.

  Timaeus.

  Critias.

  Hermocrates.

  Socrates.

  Timaeus.Socrates. Timaeus.

  17One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of those who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers to-day?

  Timaeus.

  The appointed meeting.

  He has been taken ill, Socrates; for he would not willingly have been absent from this gathering.

  Soc.

  Then, if he is not coming, you and the two others must supply his place.

  Tim.

  Certainly, and we will do all that we can; having been handsomely entertained by you yesterday, those of us who remain should be only too glad to return your hospitality.

  Soc.

  The chief points in the Republic:—

  Do you remember what were the points of which I required you to speak?

  Tim.

  We remember some of them, and you will be here to remind us of anything which we have forgotten: or rather, if we are not troubling you, will you briefly recapitulate the whole, and then the particulars will be more firmly fixed in our memories?

  Soc.

  To be sure I will: the chief theme of my yesterday’s discourse was the State—how constituted and of what citizens composed it would seem likely to be most perfect.

  Tim.

  Yes, Socrates; and what you said of it was very much to our mind.

  Soc.

  (1) Separation of classes.

  Did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the artisans from the class of defenders of the State?

  Tim.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  (2) Division of labour.

  And when we had given to each one that single employment and particular art which was suited to his nature, we spoke of those who were intended to be our warriors, and said that they were to be guardians of the city against attacks from within as well as from without, and to 18have no other employment; they were to be merciful in judging their subjects, of whom they were by nature friends, but fierce to their enemies, when they came across them in battle.

  Tim.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  (3) The double character of the guardians.

  We said, if I am not mistaken, that the guardians should be gifted with a temperament in a high degree both passionate and philosophical; and that then they would be as they ought to be, gentle to their friends and fierce with their enemies.

  Tim.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  (4) Their education.

  And what did we say of their education? Were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge which were proper for them1 ?

  Tim.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  (5) Community of goods.

  And being thus trained they were not to consider gold or silver or anything else to be their own private property; they were to be like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard from those who were protected by them—the pay was to be no more than would suffice for men of simple life; and they were to spend in common, and to live together in the continual practice of virtue, which was to be their sole pursuit.

  Tim.

  That was also said.

  Soc.

  (6) The women to share in the pursuits of the men.

  Neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared, that their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with those of the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned to them both in time of war and in their ordinary life.

  Tim.

  That, again, was as you say.

  Soc.

  (7) Community of wives and children.

  And what about the procreation of children? Or rather was not the proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and children were to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his own child, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents, and those of a younger, children and grandchildren.

  Tim.

  Yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say.

  Soc.

  (8) The nuptial lots.

  And do you also remember how, with a view of securing as far as we could the best breed, we said that the chief magistrates, male and female, should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so to arrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be no quarrelling on this account, for they would imagine that the union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot?

  Tim.

  I remember.

  Soc.

  (9) Transposition of good and bad citizens.

  And you remember how we said that the children of 19the good parents were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens; and while they were all growing up the rulers were to be on the look-out, and to bring up from below in their turn those who were worthy, and those among themselves who were unworthy were to take the places of those who came up?

  Tim.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then have I now given you all the heads of our yesterday’s discussion? Or is there anything more, my dear Timaeus, which has been omitted?

  Tim.

  Nothing, Socrates; it was just as you have said.

  Soc.

  Socrates desires to breathe life into his state; he would like to describe its infant struggles. But he has not the gift of description himself, and he finds the poetsequally incapable. The Sophists have no state of their own, and therefore are not politicians.He turns to Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates.

  I should like, before proceeding further, to tell you how I feel about the State which we have described. I might compare myself to a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by the painter’s art, or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with a desire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some struggle or conflict to which their forms appear suited; this is my feeling about the State which we have been describing. There are conflicts which all cities undergo, and I should like to hear some one tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities a result worthy of her training and education. Now I, Critias and Hermocrates, am conscious that I myself should never be able to celebrate the city and her citizens in a befitting manner, and I am not surprised at my own incapacity; to me the wonder is rather that the poets present as well as past are no better—not that I mean to depreciate them; but every one can see that they are a tribe of imitators, and will imitate best and most easily the life in which they have been brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man’s education he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harder adequately to represent in language. I am aware that the Sophists have plenty of brave words and fair conceits, but I am afraid that being only wanderers from one city to another, and having never had habitations of their own, they may fail in their conception of philosophers and statesmen, and may not know what they do and say in time of war, when they are fighting or holding parley with their enemies. And thus people of your class are the only ones remaining who are fitted by nature and education to take part at once both in politics and philosophy. Here is Timaeus, of Locris 20in Italy, a city which has admirable laws, and who is himself in wealth and rank the equal of any of his fellow-citizens; he has held the most important and honourable offices in his own state, and, as I believe, has scaled the heights of all philosophy; and here is Critias, whom every Athenian knows to be no novice in the matters of which we are speaking; and as to Hermocrates, I am assured by many witnesses that his genius and education qualify him to take part in any speculation of the kind. And therefore yesterday when I saw that you wanted me to describe the formation of the State, I readily assented, being very well aware, that, if you only would, none were better qualified to carry the discussion further, and that when you had engaged our city in a suitable war, you of all men living could best exhibit her playing a fitting part. When I had completed my task, I in return imposed this other task upon you. You conferred together and agreed to entertain me to-day, as I had entertained you, with a feast of discourse. Here am I in festive array, and no man can be more ready for the promised banquet.

  Her.

  Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias.Hermocrates tells Socrates how Critias had narrated a story which may satisfy his demands.

  And we too, Socrates, as Timaeus says, will not be wanting in enthusiasm; and there is no excuse for not complying with your request. As soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber of Critias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither, we talked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition, which I wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates, so that he may help us to judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or not.

  Crit.

  I will, if Timaeus, who is our other partner, approves.

  Tim.

  I quite approve.

  Crit.

  Critias consents to repeat it. He had heard the tale from his grandfather, who received it from Solon. It told of the glories of ancient Athens.

  Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great and marvellous actions 21of the Athenian city, which have passed into oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse. It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival.

  Soc.

  Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of the Athenians,1 which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be not a mere legend, but an actual fact1 ?

  Crit.

  Critias.Solon brought it from Egypt,—

  I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was, as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.

  And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.

  About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.

  Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition.

  from Sais, a city founded by Neith, the Greek Athene.The priests of Sais declared the traditions of Egypt to be far older than those of Hellas,because Greek history had been frequently interrupted by deluges.Athens one thousand years more ancient than Sais. The goddess Athene was the foundress of both: this explains the similarity of their institutions.

  He replied:—In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received 22there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world—about Phoroneus, who is called ‘the first man,’ and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaëthon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our neverfailing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient. The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in 23lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed — if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, and is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven. Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours1 , receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be 8000 years old. As touching your citizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform 24you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters1 , as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health; out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods.

  The most glorious act of ancient Athens was the deliverance of Europe and Libya from the power of Atlantis.Soon afterwards both empires disappeared.

  Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and 25Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was preeminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

  The arrangements of the ideal state recalled to Critias’ mind the narrative of Solon.

  I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. 26For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided.

  And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole of it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make a wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago. I listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man’s narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end of my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonize, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to execute the task which you have imposed upon us. Consider then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead.

  Soc.

  Socrates is satisfied that the rehearsal of this narrative will be a suitable continuation of the discussion. But Timaeus will begin the feast by describing the generation of the

  And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction? How or where shall we find another if we abandon this? We cannot, and therefore you must tell 27the tale, and good luck to you; and I in return for my yesterday’s discourse will now rest and be a listener.

  Crit.

  Universe down to the creation of man: Critias will follow him.

  Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in which we have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, I am to receive the men whom he has created, and of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon, and equally with his law, we will bring them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those very Athenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has recovered from oblivion, and thenceforward we will speak of them as Athenians and fellow-citizens.

  Soc.

  I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendid feast of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should speak next, after duly calling upon the Gods.

  Tim.

  At the commencement Timaeus invokes the gods.

  All men, Socrates, who have any degree of right feeling, at the beginning of every enterprise, whether small or great, always call upon God. And we, too, who are going to discourse of the nature of the universe, how created or how existing without creation, if we be not altogether out of our wits, must invoke the aid of Gods and Goddesses and pray that our words may be acceptable to them and consistent with themselves. Let this, then, be our invocation of the Gods, to which I add an exhortation of myself to speak in such manner as will be most intelligible to you, and will most accord with my own intent.

  The world was created, and is therefore apprehended by sense.God was the cause of it, and he fashioned it after the eternal pattern.The eternal pattern can be spoken of with certainty; the created copy can only be described in the language of probability.

  First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is 28always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name—assuming the name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything—was the world, I say, always in existence and without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and an sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created. Now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible. And there is still a question to be asked about him: Which of the patterns had the artificer in view when he made the world,—the pattern of the unchangeable, 29or of that which is created? If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal; but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to the created pattern. Every one will see that he must have looked to the eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something. Now it is all-important that the beginning of everything should be according to nature. And in speaking of the copy and the original we may assume that words are akin to the matter which they describe; when they relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible, they ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature allows, irrefutable and immovable—nothing less. But when they express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real words. As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further.

  Soc.

  Excellent, Timaeus; and we will do precisely as you bid us. The prelude is charming, and is already accepted by us — may we beg of you to proceed to the strain?

  Tim.

  God made the world good, wishing everything to be like himself. To this end he brought order into it and endowed it with soul and intelligence.

  Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could 30be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God.

  The original of the universe is a perfect animal, which comprehends all intelligible animals, just as the copy contains all visible animals.

  This being supposed, let us proceed to the next stage: In the likeness of what animal did the Creator make the world? It would be an unworthy thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a part only; for nothing can be beautiful which is like any imperfect thing; but let us suppose the world to be the very image of that whole of which all other animals both individually and in their tribes are portions. For the original of the universe contains in itself all intelligible beings, just as this world comprehends us and all other visible creatures. For the Deity, intending to make this world like the fairest and most perfect of intelligible beings, framed one visible animal comprehending within itself all 31other animals of a kindred nature. Are we right in saying that there is one world, or that they are many and infinite? There must be one only, if the created copy is to accord with the original. For that which includes all other intelligible creatures cannot have a second or companion; in that case there would be need of another living being which would include both, and of which they would be parts, and the likeness would be more truly said to resemble not them, but that other which included them. In order then that the world might be solitary, like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them; but there is and ever will be one only-begotten and created heaven.

  The world is visible and tangible, and therefore composed of fire and earth. These elements, being solids, required two means to unite them, water and air.

  Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and also visible and tangible. And nothing is visible where there is no fire, or tangible which has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth. Wherefore also God in the beginning of creation made the body of the universe to consist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be rightly put together without a third; there must be some bond of union between them. And the fairest bond is that which makes the most complete fusion of itself and the things which it combines; and proportion is best adapted to effect such a union. For whenever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first term 32is to it; and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is to the mean,—then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last both becoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having become the same with one another will be all one. If the universal frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, a single mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the other terms; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are always compacted not by one mean but by two, God placed water and air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same proportion so far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to water, and as air is to water so is water to earth); and thus he bound and put together a visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons, and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonized by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the framer.

  All the four elements were included entire in the composition of the world, which was therefore perfect and not subject to decay; for nothing was left outside which could hurt or destroy it.It received a spherical form,—without eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, and was made to revolve in a circle on the same spot.

  Now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements; for the Creator compounded the world out of all the fire and all the water and all the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them nor any power of them outside. His intention was, in the first place, that the animal should be as far as possible a perfect whole and of perfect 33parts: secondly, that it should be one, leaving no remnants out of which another such world might be created: and also that it should be free from old age and unaffected by disease. Considering that if heat and cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attack them from without when they are unprepared, they decompose them, and by bringing diseases and old age upon them, make them waste away—for this cause and on these grounds he made the world one whole, having every part entire, and being therefore perfect and not liable to old age and disease. And he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural. Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike. This he finished off, making the surface smooth all round for many reasons; in the first place, because the living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need 34of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet.

  In the centre was placed the soul, which pervaded the whole, and even surrounded it.

  Such was the whole plan of the eternal God about the god that was to be, to whom for this reason he gave a body, smooth and even, having a surface in every direction equidistant from the centre, a body entire and perfect, and formed out of perfect bodies. And in the centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the body, making it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he made the universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in view he created the world a blessed god.

  Though posterior to the body in the order of our exposition, in the order of creation it is prior to it.It was created thus. First out of the indivisible (i. e. the Same) and the divisible (i. e. the Other) God made Essence. He then mingledthese three elements and divided the whole mixture into parts, according to the proportions of the Pythagorean Tetractys and of the Diatonic scale.The compound was cut into two strips, which were crossed and then bent round into an outer circle, revolving to the right (i. e. the circle of the Same), and an inner, revolving diagonallyto the left (i. e. the circle of the Other). The latter was subdivided into seven unequal circles (i. e. the orbits of the seven planets).

  Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject. And he made her out of the 35following elements and on this wise: Out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisible and has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence, partaking of the nature of the same1 and of the other, and this compound he placed accordingly in a mean between the indivisible, and the divisible and material. He took the three elements of the same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the other into the same. When he had mingled them with the essence and out of three made one, he again divided this whole into as many portions as was fitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other, and the essence. And he proceeded to divide after this manner:—First of all, he took away one part of the whole [1], and then he separated a second part which was double the first [2], and then he took away a third part which was half as much again as the second and three times as much as the first [3], and then he took a fourth part which was twice as much as the second [4], and a fifth part which was three times the third [9], and a sixth part which was eight times the first [8], and a seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first [27]. After this 36he filled up the double intervals [i. e. between 1, 2, 4, 8] and the triple [i. e. between 1, 3, 9, 27], cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placing them in the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds of means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes [as for example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1 more than 1, and one-third of 2 less than 2], the other being that kind of mean which exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number1 . Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of 9/8, made by the connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the intervals of 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over; and the interval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of 256 to 2432 . And thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was all exhausted by him. This entire compound he divided length-ways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle. Now the motion of the outer circle he called the motion of the same, and the motion of the inner circle the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the same he carried round by the side1 to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally2 to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion of the same and like, for that he left single and undivided; but the inner motion he divided in six places and made seven unequal circles having their intervals in ratios of two and three, three of each, and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one another; and three [Sun, Mercury, Venus] he made to move with equal swiftness, and the remaining four [Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter] to move with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but in due proportion.

  After framing the soul, God formed within her the body of the universe.The soul, being compounded of the Same, the Other, and the Essence, is moved to utter the sameness or otherness of any essence which she touches. When contemplating the sensible world, she attains to true opinion; when the rational, to knowledge.

  Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will, he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of which also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in herself, began a divine beginning of never-ceasing and rational life enduring throughout 37all time. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created. And because she is composed of the same and of the other and of the essence, these three, and is divided and united in due proportion, and in her revolutions returns upon herself, the soul, when touching anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same—in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved—when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected. And if any one affirms that in which these two are found to be other than the soul, he will say the very opposite of the truth.

  God, to make creation more perfect, endowed it with the immortality of which it is capable. To this end he made time,—a moving image of eternity, which is immoveable. The modes of time are not to be applied to the eternal essence.

  When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original; and as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so far as might be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time. For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he ‘was,’ he ‘is,’ he ‘will be,’ but the truth is 38that ‘is’ alone is properly attributed to him, and that ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause. These are the forms of time, which imitates eternity and revolves according to a law of number. Moreover, when we say that what has become is become and what becomes is becoming, and that what will become is about to become and that the non-existent is non-existent,—all these are inaccurate modes of expression1 . But perhaps this whole subject will be more suitably discussed on some other occasion.

  The seven planets were intended to preserve the numbers of time.

  Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving (cp. 36 D),—in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other. To enumerate the places which he assigned to the other stars, and to give all the reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary matter, would give more trouble than the primary. These things at some future time, when we are at leisure, may have the consideration which they deserve, but not at present.

  The circle of the Same controls the circle of the Other, which moves diagonally to it. Thus the planets in their revolutions describe spirals, and the slowest seem to overtake the fastest.The sun was created to afford a visible measure of the swiftness of the planets. Night and day. The month and year.The cyclic year.

  Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time had attained a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their appointed task, moving in the motion 39of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes through and is governed by the motion of the same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a lesser orbit,—those which had the lesser orbit revolving faster, and those which had the larger more slowly. Now by reason of the motion of the same, those which revolved fastest appeared to be overtaken by those which moved slower although they really overtook them; for the motion of the same made them all turn in a spiral, and, because some went one way and some another, that which receded most slowly from the sphere of the same, which was the swiftest, appeared to follow it most nearly. That there might be some visible measure of their relative swiftness and slowness as they proceeded in their eight courses, God lighted a fire, which we now call the sun, in the second from the earth of these orbits, that it might give light to the whole of heaven, and that the animals, as many as nature intended, might participate in number, learning arithmetic from the revolution of the same and the like. Thus, then, and for this reason the night and the day were created, being the period of the one most intelligent revolution. And the month is accomplished when the moon has completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the sun has completed his own orbit. Mankind, with hardly an exception, have not remarked the periods of the other stars, and they have no name for them, and do not measure them against one another by the help of number, and hence they can scarcely be said to know that their wanderings, being infinite in number and admirable for their variety, make up time. And yet there is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their relative degrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time, measured by the rotation of the same and equally moving. After this manner, and for these reasons, came into being such of the stars as in their heavenly progress received reversals of motion, to the end that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature, and be as like as possible to the perfect and intelligible animal.

  After the creation of time God fashions in the created animal four species like those which exist in the ideal: e. g. the gods of heaven (i. e. fixed stars and planets), birds, sea and land animals.The fixed stars revolve on their axes and are carried round in the sphere of the Same. The motions of the planets have been already (38 ff.) described. The earth is the immoveable(?) centre of the universe.

  Thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was made in the likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals were not yet comprehended therein, it was still unlike. What remained, the creator then proceeded to fashion after the nature of the pattern. Now as in the ideal animal the mind perceives ideas or species of a certain nature and number, he thought that this created animal ought to have species of a like nature and number. There 40are four such; one of them is the heavenly race of the gods; another, the race of birds whose way is in the air; the third, the watery species; and the fourth, the pedestrian and land creatures. Of the heavenly and divine, he created the greater part out of fire, that they might be the brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and he fashioned them after the likeness of the universe in the figure of a circle, and made them follow the intelligent motion of the supreme, distributing them over the whole circumference of heaven, which was to be a true cosmos or glorious world spangled with them all over. And he gave to each of them two movements: the first, a movement on the same spot after the same manner, whereby they ever continue to think consistently the same thoughts about the same things; the second, a forward movement, in which they are controlled by the revolution of the same and the like; but by the other five motions they were unaffected (cp. 43 B), in order that each of them might attain the highest perfection. And for this reason the fixed stars were created, to be divine and eternal animals, ever-abiding and revolving after the same manner and on the same spot; and the other stars which reverse their motion and are subject to deviations of this kind, were created in the manner already described. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging1 around the pole which is extended through the universe, he framed to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. Vain would be the attempt to tell all the figures of them circling as in dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of them in their revolutions upon themselves, and their approximations, and to say which of these deities in their conjunctions meet, and which of them are in opposition, and in what order they get behind and before one another, and when they are severally eclipsed to our sight and again reappear, sending terrors and intimations of the future to those who cannot calculate their movements—to attempt to tell of all this without a visible representation of the heavenly system2 would be labour in vain. Enough on this head; and now let what we have said about the nature of the created and visible gods have an end.

  As for the Gods of mythology, we mustaccept the statements of their children about them.

  To know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us, and we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm themselves to be the offspring of the gods—that is what they say—and they must surely have known their own ancestors. How can we doubt the word of the children of the gods? Although they give no probable or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of what took place in their own family, we must conform to custom and believe them. In this manner, then, according to them, the genealogy of these gods is to be received and set forth.

  Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven, and from these sprang Phorcys and Cronos and Rhea, and all that generation; and from Cronos and Rhea 41sprang Zeus and Herè, and all those who are said to be their brethren, and others who were the children of these.

  The creator of the universe bids the created gods fashion the mortal bodies of man and of the lower animals: he himself will furnish the immortal principle of the soul.

  Now, when all of them, both those who visibly appear in their revolutions as well as those other gods who are of a more retiring nature, had come into being, the creator of the universe addressed them in these words: ‘Gods, children of gods, who are my works, and of whom I am the artificer and father, my creations are indissoluble, if so I will. All that is bound may be undone, but only an evil being would wish to undo that which is harmonious and happy. Wherefore, since ye are but creatures, ye are not altogether immortal and indissoluble, but ye shall certainly not be dissolved, nor be liable to the fate of death, having in my will a greater and mightier bond than those with which ye were bound at the time of your birth. And now listen to my instructions:—Three tribes of mortal beings remain to be created—without them the universe will be incomplete, for it will not contain every kind of animal which it ought to contain, if it is to be perfect. On the other hand, if they were created by me and received life at my hands, they would be on an equality with the gods. In order then that they may be mortal, and that this universe may be truly universal, do ye, according to your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of animals, imitating the power which was shown by me in creating you. The part of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine and is the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice and you—of that divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made a beginning, I will hand the work over to you. And do ye then interweave the mortal with the immortal, and make and beget living creatures, and give them food, and make them to grow, and receive them again in death.’

  He makes the human soul of the same elements as the universal; and having distributed it into souls equal in number to the stars, sets one soul in each star and reveals to them their future life on the planets, when they will have mortal bodies.Those who then live well will return to their original star; those who live badly will take a lower form at their next birth.

  Thus he spake, and once more into the cup in which he had previously mingled the soul of the universe he poured the remains of the elements, and mingled them in much the same manner; they were not, however, pure as before, but diluted to the second and third degree. And having made it he divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which their first birth would be one and the same for all,—no one should suffer a disadvantage at his hands; they were to be sown in the instruments of time severally adapted to them, and to come forth the most religious 42of animals; and as human nature was of two kinds, the superior race would hereafter be called man. Now, when they should be implanted in bodies by necessity, and be always gaining or losing some part of their bodily substance, then in the first place it would be necessary that they should all have in them one and the same faculty of sensation, arising out of irresistible impressions; in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and the like within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better state. Having given all these laws to his creatures, that he might be guiltless of future evil in any of them, the creator sowed some of them in the earth, and some in the moon, and some in the other instruments of time; and when he had sown them he committed to the younger gods the fashioning of their mortal bodies, and desired them to furnish what was still lacking to the human soul, and having made all the suitable additions, to rule over them, and to pilot the mortal animal in the best and wisest manner which they could, and avert from him all but self-inflicted evils.

  The created gods provide for the human soul bodies compounded of earth, air, fire and water.The courses of the soul, when placed in them, are so disturbed by the ebbing and flowing stream of nutriment and by external sensations, that the revolution of the same is stopped,and the mean terms which unite the sphere of the other are disordered. Thus at first the soul does not attain to truth and wisdom.

  When the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his own accustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to their father’s word, and receiving from him the immortal principle of a mortal creature, in imitation of their own creator they borrowed portions of fire, and earth, and water, and air from the world, which were hereafter 43to be restored—these they took and welded them together, not with the indissoluble chains by which they were themselves bound, but with little pegs too small to be visible, making up out of all the four elements each separate body, and fastening the courses of the immortal soul in a body which was in a state of perpetual influx and efflux. Now these courses, detained as in a vast river, neither overcame nor were overcome; but were hurrying and hurried to and fro, so that the whole animal was moved and progressed, irregularly however and irrationally and anyhow, in all the six directions of motion, wandering backwards and forwards, and right and left, and up and down, and in all the six directions. For great as was the advancing and retiring flood which provided nourishment, the affections produced by external contact caused still greater tumult—when the body of any one met and came into collision with some external fire, or with the solid earth or the gliding waters, or was caught in the tempest borne on the air, and the motions produced by any of these impulses were carried through the body to the soul. All such motions have consequently received the general name of ‘sensations,’ which they still retain. And they did in fact at that time create a very great and mighty movement; uniting with the ever-flowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking the courses of the soul, they completely stopped the revolution of the same by their opposing current, and hindered it from predominating and advancing; and they so disturbed the nature of the other or diverse, that the three double intervals [i. e. between 1, 2, 4, 8], and the three triple intervals [i. e. between 1, 3, 9, 27], together with the mean terms and connecting links which are expressed by the ratios of 3 : 2, and 4 : 3, and of 9 : 8, — these, although they cannot be wholly undone except by him who united them, were twisted by them in all sorts of ways, and the circles were broken and disordered in every possible manner, so that when they moved they were tumbling to pieces, and moved irrationally, at one time in a reverse direction, and then again obliquely, and then upside down, as you might imagine a person who is upside down and has his head leaning upon the ground and his feet up against something in the air; and when he is in such a position, both he and the spectator fancy that the right of either is his left, and the left right. If, when powerfully experiencing these and similar effects, the revolutions of the soul come in contact 44with some external thing, either of the class of the same or of the other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner the very opposite of the truth; and they become false and foolish, and there is no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directing power; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without and drag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses of the soul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered.

  As the stream of nutriment abates, the courses of the soul regain their proper motions, and the man becomes a rational creature. True education renders him perfect.

  And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a mortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without intelligence; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of them to become a rational being. And if these combine in him with any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all; but if he neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below. This, however, is a later stage; at present we must treat more exactly the subject before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry into the generation of the body and its members, and as to how the soul was created,—for what reason and by what providence of the gods; and holding fast to probability, we must pursue our way.

  These courses were encased in the head, which, like the universe, is in the form of a sphere. The body, with its four limbs, is the vehicle of the head; it moves forward because the front part of us is the more honourable.In the front part of the head the face was inserted, and in the face, eyes. Sight arises thus:—The light from the eyes and the light of day, which is akin to it, combine; and when they meet with thelight from an object, all three form one body, which transmits to the soul the motions of the object.In the case of reflections in plane mirrors, the transposition of right and left is due to the fact that the light from the eye and the object meet in an unusual manner. In a concavemirror, if held horizontally, there is no transposition; but if it be held vertically.

  First, then, the gods, imitating the spherical shape of the universe, enclosed the two divine courses in a spherical body, that, namely, which we now term the head, being the most divine part of us and the lord of all that is in us: to this the gods, when they put together the body, gave all the other members to be servants, considering that it partook of every sort of motion. In order then that it might not tumble about among the high and deep places of the earth, but might be able to get over the one and out of the other, they provided the body to be its vehicle and means of locomotion; which consequently had length and was furnished with four limbs extended and flexible; these God contrived to be instruments of locomotion with which it might take hold and find 45support, and so be able to pass through all places, carrying on high the dwelling-place of the most sacred and divine part of us. Such was the origin of legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to every man; and the gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourable and more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly in a forward direction. Wherefore man must needs have his front part unlike and distinguished from the rest of his body. And so in the vessel of the head, they first of all put a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of the soul, and they appointed this part, which has authority, to be by nature the part which is in front. And of the organs they first contrived the eyes to give light, and the principle according to which they were inserted was as follows: So much of fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed into a substance akin to the light of every-day life; and the pure fire which is within us and related thereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure element. When the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and they coalesce, and one body is formed by natural affinity in the line of vision, wherever the light that falls from within meets with an external object. And the whole stream of vision, being similarly affected in virtue of similarity, diffuses the motions of what it touches or what touches it over the whole body, until they reach the soul, causing that perception which we call sight. But when night comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then the stream of vision is cut off; for going forth to an unlike element it is changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with the surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire; and so the eye no longer sees, and we feel disposed to sleep. For when the eyelids, which the gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed, they keep in the internal fire; and the power of the fire diffuses and equalizes the inward motions; when they are equalized, there is rest, and when the rest is profound, sleep comes over us 46scarce disturbed by dreams; but where the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and in whatever locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, which are remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world. And now there is no longer any difficulty in understanding the creation of images in mirrors and all smooth and bright surfaces. For from the communion of the internal and external fires, and again from the union of them and their numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the face coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface. And right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come into contact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner contrary to the usual mode of meeting; but the right appears right, and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring lights is reversed; and this happens when the mirror is concave and its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision to the left side, and the left to the right1 . Or if the mirror be turned vertically, then the concavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down, and the lower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards.

  the image is inverted. Enough of the secondary or irrational causes of sight; the first or intelligent cause is the purpose for which God gave it.From sight we derive number and philosophy;and the observation of the intelligent motions of the heavensenables us to correct the erring courses of our souls.Speech, hearing, harmony, and rhythm have the same object in view.

  All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative causes which God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as far as possible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because they freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like. But they are not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect; the only being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible bodies. The lover of intellect and knowledge ought to explore causes of intelligent nature first of all, and, secondly, of those things which, being moved by others, are compelled to move others. And this is what we too must do. Both kinds of causes should be acknowledged by us, but a distinction should be made between those which are endowed with mind and are the workers of things fair and good, and those which are deprived of intelligence and always produce chance effects without order or design. Of the second or co-operative causes of sight, which help to give to the eyes the power which they now possess, enough has been said. I will therefore now proceed to speak of the higher use and purpose for 47which God has given them to us. The sight in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to mortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight: and of the lesser benefits why should I speak? even the ordinary man if he were deprived of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much let me say however: God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries. The same may be affirmed of speech and hearing: they have been given by the gods to the same end and for a like reason. For this is the principal end of speech, whereto it most contributes. Moreover, so much of music as is adapted to the sound of the voice1 and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of harmony; and harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony and agreement with herself; and rhythm too was given by them for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them.

  So far we have spoken chiefly of the works of mind; now we must tell of the works of necessity and of the variable cause.Thus we are led to consider the nature of the four elements.

  Thus far in what we have been saying, with small exceptions, the works of intelligence have been set forth; and now we must place by the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being through necessity—for the 48creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. Mind, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and after this manner in the beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was created. But if a person will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he must include the other influence of the variable cause as well. Wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning, as about the former matters, so also about these. To which end we must consider the nature of fire, and water, and air, and earth, such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was happening to them in this previous state2 ; for no one has as yet explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire and the rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures, and we maintain them to be the first principles and letters or elements of the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by a man of any sense even to syllables or first compounds. And let me say thus much: I will not now speak of the first principle or principles of all things, or by whatever name they are to be called, for this reason,—because it is difficult to set forth my opinion according to the method of discussion which we are at present employing. Do not imagine, any more than I can bring myself to imagine, that I should be right in undertaking so great and difficult a task. Remembering what I said at first about probability, I will do my best to give as probable an explanation as any other,—or rather, more probable; and I will first go back to the beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all1 . Once more, then, at the commencement of my discourse, I call upon God, and beg him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted enquiry, and to bring us to the haven of probability. So now let us begin again.

  At the beginning of our discourse we assumed two natures: (1) an intelligible pattern; (2) a created copy. Now we must add a third—(3) the receptacle of all generation. i. e. space.

  This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a fuller division than the former; for then we made two classes, now a third must be revealed. The two sufficed for the former discussion: one, which we assumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the same; and the second 49was only the imitation of the pattern, generated and visible. There is also a third kind which we did not distinguish at the time, conceiving that the two would be enough. But now the argument seems to require that we should set forth in words another kind, which is difficult of explanation and dimly seen. What nature are we to attribute to this new kind of being? We reply, that it is the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse, of all generation. I have spoken the truth; but I must express myself in clearer language, and this will be an arduous task for many reasons, and in particular because I must first raise questions concerning fire and the other elements, and determine what each of them is; for to say, with any probability or certitude, which of them should be called water rather than fire, and which should be called any of them rather than all or some one of them, is a difficult matter. How, then, shall we settle this point, and what questions about the elements may be fairly raised?

  Since the elements are perpetually changing into and out of one another and have in them nothing permanent, they should be called, not ‘this’ or ‘that,’ but always ‘such.’ Unchanging space is the only fixed nature.An illustration.Space is that which, being without form, can receive any form, i. e. the impress of any ideaThe three natures which have been assumed may be likened to a father, child, and mother.The elements are only affections of space, produced by the impression of ideas.

  In the first place, we see that what we just now called water, by condensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. Air, again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once more, air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist; and from these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water comes earth and stones once more; and thus generation appears to be transmitted from one to the other in a circle. Thus, then, as the several elements never present themselves in the same form, how can any one have the assurance to assert positively that any of them, whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another? No one can. But much the safest plan is to speak of them as follows:—Anything which we see to be continually changing, as, for example, fire, we must not call ‘this’ or ‘that,’ but rather say that it is ‘of such a nature;’ nor let us speak of water as ‘this,’ but always as ‘such;’ nor must we imply that there is any stability in any of those things which we indicate by the use of the words ‘this’ and ‘that,’ supposing ourselves to signify something thereby; for they are too volatile to be detained in any such expressions as ‘this,’ or ‘that,’ or ‘relative to this,’ or any other mode of speaking which represents them as permanent. We ought not to apply ‘this’ to any of them, but rather the word ‘such;’ which expresses the similar principle circulating in each and all of them; for example, that should be called ‘fire’ which is of such a nature always, and so of everything that has generation. That in which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is alone to be called by the name 50‘this’ or ‘that;’ but that which is of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything which admits of opposite qualities, and all things that are compounded of them, ought not to be so denominated. Let me make another attempt to explain my meaning more clearly. Suppose a person to make all kinds of figures of gold and to be always transmuting one form into all the rest;—somebody points to one of them and asks what it is. By far the safest and truest answer is, That is gold; and not to call the triangle or any other figures which are formed in the gold ‘these,’ as though they had existence, since they are in process of change while he is making the assertion; but if the questioner be willing to take the safe and indefinite expression, ‘such,’ we should be satisfied. And the same argument applies to the universal nature which receives all bodies—that must be always called the same; for, while receiving all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and never in any way, or at any time, assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different from time to time by reason of them. But the forms which enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner, which we will hereafter investigate. For the present we have only to conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that in which the generation takes place; and thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a resemblance. And we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a father, and the intermediate nature to a child; and may remark further, that if the model is to take every variety of form, then the matter in which the model is fashioned will not be duly prepared, unless it is formless, and free from the impress of any of those shapes which it is hereafter to receive from without. For if the matter were like any of the supervening forms, then whenever any opposite or entirely different nature was stamped upon its surface, it would take the impression badly, because it would intrude its own shape. Wherefore, that which is to receive all forms should have no form; as in making perfumes they first contrive that the liquid substance which is to receive the scent shall be as inodorous as possible; or as those who wish to impress figures on soft substances do not allow any previous impression to remain, but 51begin by making the surface as even and smooth as possible. In the same way that which is to receive perpetually and through its whole extent the resemblances of all eternal beings ought to be devoid of any particular form. Wherefore, the mother and receptacle of all created and visible and in any way sensible things, is not to be termed earth, or air, or fire, or water, or any of their compounds, or any of the elements from which these are derived, but is an invisible and formless being which receives all things and in some mysterious way partakes of the intelligible, and is most incomprehensible. In saying this we shall not be far wrong; as far, however, as we can attain to a knowledge of her from the previous considerations, we may truly say that fire is that part of her nature which from time to time is inflamed, and water that which is moistened, and that the mother substance becomes earth and air, in so far as she receives the impressions of them.

  But have ideas any existence?

  Let us consider this question more precisely. Is there any self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? And is all that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name? Here is a question which we must not leave unexamined or undetermined, nor must we affirm too confidently that there can be no decision; neither must we interpolate in our present long discourse a digression equally long, but if it is possible to set forth a great principle in a few words, that is just what we want.

  We must admit that they have, if, as is the case, mind and true opinion differ; for corresponding to the difference between these mental states, there must be a differencebetween the objects apprehended by them.Space is not perceived by sense, but by a kind of spurious reason.

  Thus I state my view:—If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm them to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and 52indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. And there is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence. Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth about them. For an image, since the reality, after which it is modelled, does not belong to it1 , and it exists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another [i. e. in space], grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all. But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two things [i. e. the image and space] are different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be one and also two at the same time.

  Space, being, and generation existed before the heaven. Space, on taking the forms of the elements, was filled with dissimilarforces, which swayed her to and fro. Thus earth, air, fire and water, were sifted into their proper places, while they were yet in a rudimentary state, before God perfected them by form and number.

  Thus have I concisely given the result of my thoughts; and my verdict is that being and space and generation, these three, existed in their three ways before the heaven; and that the nurse of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and receiving the forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the affections which accompany these, presented a strange variety of appearances; and being full of powers which were neither similar nor equally balanced, was never in any part in a state of equipoise, but swaying unevenly evenly hither and thither, was shaken by them, and by its motion again shook them; and the elements when moved were separated and carried continually, some one way, some another; as, when grain is shaken and winnowed by fans and other instruments used in the threshing of corn, the 53close and heavy particles are borne away and settle in one direction, and the loose and light particles in another. In this manner, the four kinds or elements were then shaken by the receiving vessel, which, moving like a winnowing machine, scattered far away from one another the elements most unlike, and forced the most similar elements into close contact. Wherefore also the various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe. At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by form and number. Let it be consistently maintained by us in all that we say that God made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair and good. And now I will endeavour to show you the disposition and generation of them by an unaccustomed argument, which I am compelled to use; but I believe that you will be able to follow me, for your education has made you familiar with the methods of science.

  The manner of their generation was as follows:— The four elements are solid bodies, and all solids are made up of plane surfaces, and all plane surfaces of triangles. All trianglesare ultimately of two kinds,—i. e. the rectangular isosceles, and the rectangular scalene.The rectangular isosceles, which has but one form, and that one of the many forms of scalene which is half of an equilateral triangle were chosen for making the elements.

  In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth and water and air are bodies. And every sort of body possesses solidity, and every solid must necessarily be contained in planes; and every plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles; and all triangles are originally of two kinds, both of which are made up of one right and two acute angles; one of them has at either end of the base the half of a divided right angle, having equal sides, while in the other the right angle is divided into unequal parts, having unequal sides. These, then, proceeding by a combination of probability with demonstration, we assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; but the principles which are prior to these God only knows, and he of men who is the friend of God. And next we have to determine what are the four most beautiful bodies which are unlike one another, and of which some are capable of resolution into one another; for having discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of earth and fire and of the proportionate and intermediate elements. And then we shall not be willing to allow that there are any distinct kinds of visible bodies fairer than these. Wherefore we must endeavour to construct the four forms of bodies which excel in beauty, and then we shall be able to say that we have sufficiently apprehended 54their nature. Now of the two triangles, the isosceles has one form only; the scalene or unequal-sided has an infinite number. Of the infinite forms we must select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and any one who can point out a more beautiful form than ours for the construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a friend. Now, the one which we maintain to be the most beautiful of all the many triangles (and we need not speak of the others) is that of which the double forms a third triangle which is equilateral; the reason of this would be long to tell; he who disproves what we are saying, and shows that we are mistaken, may claim a friendly victory. Then let us choose two triangles, out of which fire and the other elements have been constructed, one isosceles, the other having the square of the longer side equal to three times the square of the lesser side.

  Three of them are generated out of the latter: the fourth alone from the former. Therefore only three can pass into each other.The first and simplest solid, the pyramid, has four equilateral triangular surfaces, each formed by the union of six rectangular scalene triangles.The second species, the octahedron, has eight such surfaces, and the third, the icosahedron, twenty.The fourth, the cube, has six square surfaces, each formed of four rectangular isosceles triangles. There is also a fifth species. Although there are five elementary solids, there is but one world.

  Now is the time to explain what was before obscurely said: there was an error in imagining that all the four elements might be generated by and into one another; this, I say, was an erroneous supposition, for there are generated from the triangles which we have selected four kinds—three from the one which has the sides unequal; the fourth alone is framed out of the isosceles triangle. Hence they cannot all be resolved into one another, a great number of small bodies being combined into a few large ones, or the converse. But three of them can be thus resolved and compounded, for they all spring from one, and when the greater bodies are broken up, many small bodies will spring up out of them and take their own proper figures; or, again, when many small bodies are dissolved into their triangles, if they become one, they will form one large mass of another kind. So much for their passage into one another. I have now to speak of their several kinds, and show out of what combinations of numbers each of them was formed. The first will be the simplest and smallest construction, and its element is that triangle which has its hypothenuse twice the lesser side. When two such triangles are joined at the diagonal, and this is repeated three times, and the triangles rest their diagonals and shorter sides on the same point as a centre, a single equilateral triangle is formed out of six triangles; and four equilateral triangles, if put together, make out of every three plane angles one solid angle, being 55that which is nearest to the most obtuse of plane angles; and out of the combination of these four angles arises the first solid form which distributes into equal and similar parts the whole circle in which it is inscribed. The second species of solid is formed out of the same triangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles and form one solid angle out of four plane angles, and out of six such angles the second body is completed. And the third body is made up of 120 triangular elements, forming twelve solid angles, each of them included in five plane equilateral triangles, having altogether twenty bases, each of which is an equilateral triangle. The one element [that is, the triangle which has its hypothenuse twice the lesser side] having generated these figures, generated no more; but the isosceles triangle produced the fourth elementary figure, which is compounded of four such triangles, joining their right angles in a centre, and forming one equilateral quadrangle. Six of these united form eight solid angles, each of which is made by the combination of three plane right angles; the figure of the body thus composed is a cube, having six plane quadrangular equilateral bases. There was yet a fifth combination which God used in the delineation of the universe.

  Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the worlds are to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will be of opinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is characteristic of a sadly indefinite and ignorant mind. He, however, who raises the question whether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes up a more reasonable position. Arguing from probabilities, I am of opinion that they are one; another, regarding the question from another point of view, will be of another mind. But, leaving this enquiry, let us proceed to distribute the elementary forms, which have now been created in idea, among the four elements.

  We have now to assign to the four elements their respective forms,—to earth the cube, to water the icosahedron, to air the octahedron, to fire the pyramid.Individual particles cannot be seen: masses of each kind are visible.

  To earth, then, let us assign the cubical form; for earth is the most immoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies, and that which has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a nature. Now, of the triangles which we assumed at first, that which has two equal sides is by nature more firmly based than that which has unequal sides; and of the compound figures which are formed out of either, the plane equilateral quadrangle has necessarily a more stable basis than the equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in 56the parts. Wherefore, in assigning this figure to earth, we adhere to probability; and to water we assign that one of the remaining forms which is the least moveable; and the most moveable of them to fire; and to air that which is intermediate. Also we assign the smallest body to fire, and the greatest to water, and the intermediate in size to air; and, again, the acutest body to fire, and the next in acuteness to air, and the third to water. Of all these elements, that which has the fewest bases must necessarily be the most moveable, for it must be the acutest and most penetrating in every way, and also the lightest as being composed of the smallest number of similar particles: and the second body has similar properties in a second degree, and the third body in the third degree. Let it be agreed, then, both according to strict reason and according to probability, that the pyramid is the solid which is the original element and seed of fire; and let us assign the element which was next in the order of generation to air, and the third to water. We must imagine all these to be so small that no single particle of any of the four kinds is seen by us on account of their smallness: but when many of them are collected together their aggregates are seen. And the ratios of their numbers, motions, and other properties, everywhere God, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and harmonized in due proportion.

  Of the three elements, fire, air, water, a denser, if overpowered by a rarer, is forced to change into a rarer, and vice versa. Earth, however, which is the densest of all, cannot change, because its component triangles are unlike those of the other elements.Change of nature is accompanied by change of place.

  From all that we have just been saying about the elements or kinds, the most probable conclusion is as follows:—earth, when meeting with fire and dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take place in the fire itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is borne hither and thither, until its parts, meeting together and mutually harmonizing, again become earth; for they can never take any other form. But water, when divided by fire or by air, on re-forming, may become one part fire and two parts air; and a single volume of air divided becomes two of fire. Again, when a small body of fire is contained in a larger body of air or water or earth, and both are moving, and the fire struggling is overcome and broken up, then two volumes of fire form one volume of air; and when air is overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a half parts of air are condensed into one part of water. Let us consider the matter in another way. When one of the other elements is 57fastened upon by fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides, it coalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any longer. For no element which is one and the same with itself can be changed by or change another of the same kind and in the same state. But so long as in the process of transition the weaker is fighting against the stronger, the dissolution continues. Again, when a few small particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of decomposition and extinction, they only cease from their tendency to extinction when they consent to pass into the conquering nature, and fire becomes air and air water. But if bodies of another kind go and attack them [i. e. the small particles], the latter continue to be dissolved until, being completely forced back and dispersed, they make their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and assimilated to the conquering power, they remain where they are and dwell with their victors, and from being many become one. And owing to these affections, all things are changing their place, for by the motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each class is distributed into its proper place; but those things which become unlike themselves and like other things, are hurried by the shaking into the place of the things to which they grow like.

  The varieties of the four elements are due to differences in the size of the elementary triangles.

  Now all unmixed and primary bodies are produced by such causes as these. As to the subordinate species which are included in the greater kinds, they are to be attributed to the varieties in the structure of the two original triangles. For either structure did not originally produce the triangle of one size only, but some larger and some smaller, and there are as many sizes as there are species of the four elements. Hence when they are mingled with themselves and with one another there is an endless variety of them, which those who would arrive at the probable truth of nature ought duly to consider.

  How is it that the elements are perpetually moving?—i. e. How is absence of uniformity, the condition of motion, secured for them?We have seen that there is a continual tendency to produce uniformity, due to the motion of the receiving vessel. There is also a tendency to destroy it, due to the revolution of the universe, which trusts the elements into each other.

  Unless a person comes to an understanding about the nature and conditions of rest and motion, he will meet with many difficulties in the discussion which follows. Something has been said of this matter already, and something more remains to be said, which is, that motion never exists in what is uniform. For to conceive that anything can be moved without a mover is hard or indeed impossible, and equally impossible to conceive that there can be a mover unless there be something which can be moved;—motion cannot exist where either of these are wanting, and for these to be uniform is impossible; wherefore we must assign rest 58to uniformity and motion to the want of uniformity. Now inequality is the cause of the nature which is wanting in uniformity; and of this we have already described the origin. But there still remains the further point—why things when divided after their kinds do not cease to pass through one another and to change their place—which we will now proceed to explain. In the revolution of the universe are comprehended all the four elements, and this being circular and having a tendency to come together, compresses everything and will not allow any place to be left void. Wherefore, also, fire above all things penetrates everywhere, and air next, as being next in rarity of the elements; and the two other elements in like manner penetrate according to their degrees of rarity. For those things which are composed of the largest particles have the largest void left in their compositions, and those which are composed of the smallest particles have the least. And the contraction caused by the compression thrusts the smaller particles into the interstices of the larger. And thus, when the small parts are placed side by side with the larger, and the lesser divide the greater and the greater unite the lesser, all the elements are borne up and down and hither and thither towards their own places; for the change in the size of each changes its position in space. And these causes generate an inequality which is always maintained, and is continually creating a perpetual motion of the elements in all time.

  Kinds of fire:—(i) flame; (ii) light; (iii) red heat. Kinds of air:—(i) æther; (ii) mist. There are also other kinds without names. Kinds of water:—(i) liquid; (ii) fusile. The former is mobile; the latter is solid, but melts when heated,—congealing again as it cools.Of the fusile kind are(1) gold, (2) adamant,(3) copper.The phenomenon of rust.To natural science the student of the eternal may turn for recreation.

  In the next place we have to consider that there are divers kinds of fire. There are, for example, first, flame; and secondly, those emanations of flame which do not burn but only give light to the eyes; thirdly, the remains of fire, which are seen in red-hot embers after the flame has been extinguished. There are similar differences in the air; of which the brightest part is called the aether, and the most turbid sort mist and darkness; and there are various other nameless kinds which arise from the inequality of the triangles. Water, again, admits in the first place of a division into two kinds; the one liquid and the other fusile. The liquid kind is composed of the small and unequal particles of water; and moves itself and is moved by other bodies owing to the want of uniformity and the shape of its particles; whereas the fusile kind, being formed of large and uniform particles, is more stable than the other, and is heavy and compact by reason of its uniformity. But when fire gets in and dissolves the particles and destroys the uniformity, it has greater mobility, and becoming fluid is thrust forth by the neighbouring air and spreads upon the earth; and this dissolution of the solid masses is called melting, and their spreading out 59upon the earth flowing. Again, when the fire goes out of the fusile substance, it does not pass into a vacuum, but into the neighbouring air; and the air which is displaced forces together the liquid and still moveable mass into the place which was occupied by the fire, and unites it with itself. Thus compressed the mass resumes its equability, and is again at unity with itself, because the fire which was the author of the inequality has retreated; and this departure of the fire is called cooling, and the coming together which follows upon it is termed congealment. Of all the kinds termed fusile, that which is the densest and is formed out of the finest and most uniform parts is that most precious possession called gold, which is hardened by filtration through rock; this is unique in kind, and has both a glittering and a yellow colour. A shoot of gold, which is so dense as to be very hard, and takes a black colour, is termed adamant. There is also another kind which has parts nearly like gold, and of which there are several species; it is denser than gold, and it contains a small and fine portion of earth, and is therefore harder, yet also lighter because of the great interstices which it has within itself; and this substance, which is one of the bright and denser kinds of water, when solidified is called copper. There is an alloy of earth mingled with it, which, when the two parts grow old and are disunited, shows itself separately and is called rust. The remaining phenomena of the same kind there will be no difficulty in reasoning out by the method of probabilities. A man may sometimes set aside meditations about eternal things, and for recreation turn to consider the truths of generation which are probable only; he will thus gain a pleasure not to be repented of, and secure for himself while he lives a wise and moderate pastime. Let us grant ourselves this indulgence, and go through the probabilities relating to the same subjects which follow next in order.

  From water of the liquid kind are formed(1) hail or ice,(2) snow,(3) hoar-frost,(4) juices in general and four in particular,—i. e.(a) wine, (b) oil,(c) honey,(d) vegetable acid.

  Water which is mingled with fire, so much as is fine and liquid (being so called by reason of its motion and the way in which it rolls along the ground), and soft, because its bases give way and are less stable than those of earth, when separated from fire and air and isolated, becomes more uniform, and by their retirement is compressed into itself; and if the condensation be very great, the water above the earth becomes hail, but on the earth, ice; and that which is congealed in a less degree and is only half solid, when above the earth is called snow, and when upon the earth, and condensed from dew, hoar-frost. Then, again, there are the numerous kinds of water which have been mingled with one another, and are distilled through plants which grow in the earth; and this whole class is called by the name of juices 60or saps. The unequal admixture of these fluids creates a variety of species; most of them are nameless, but four which are of a fiery nature are clearly distinguished and have names. First, there is wine, which warms the soul as well as the body: secondly, there is the oily nature, which is smooth and divides the visual ray, and for this reason is bright and shining and of a glistening appearance, including pitch, the juice of the castor berry, oil itself, and other things of a like kind: thirdly, there is the class of substances which expand the contracted parts1 of the mouth, until they return to their natural state, and by reason of this property create sweetness;—these are included under the general name of honey: and, lastly, there is a frothy nature, which differs from all juices, having a burning quality which dissolves the flesh; it is called opos (a vegetable acid).

  Kinds of earth:—(i) rock, of which there are two species;(ii) earthenware;(iii) a certain stone of a black colour;(iv) soda;(v) salt;(vi) compounds of earth andwater, including a. glass and fusile stones, and b. wax and incense.—These compounds, like compressed earth or water, are soluble by fire only, which penetrates the water in them. Earth and water, however, in their natural state are soluble, the former by water only, the latter by fire and air.

  As to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes into stone in the following manner:—The water which mixes with the earth and is broken up in the process changes into air, and taking this form mounts into its own place. But as there is no surrounding vacuum it thrusts away the neighbouring air, and this being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced, having been poured around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and drives it into the vacant space whence the new air had come up; and the earth when compressed by the air into an indissoluble union with water becomes rock. The fairer sort is that which is made up of equal and similar parts and is transparent; that which has the opposite qualities is inferior. But when all the watery part is suddenly drawn out by fire, a more brittle substance is formed, to which we give the name of pottery. Sometimes also moisture may remain, and the earth which has been fused by fire becomes, when cool, a certain stone of a black colour. A like separation of the water which had been copiously mingled with them may occur in two substances composed of finer particles of earth and of a briny nature; out of either of them a half-solid body is then formed, soluble in water—the one, soda, which is used for purging away oil and earth, the other, salt, which harmonizes so well in combinations pleasing to the palate, and is, as the law testifies, a substance dear to the gods. The compounds of earth and water are not soluble by water, but by fire only, and for this reason:—Neither fire nor air melt masses of earth; for their particles, being smaller than the interstices in its structure, have plenty of room to move without forcing their way, and so they leave the earth unmelted and undissolved; but particles of water, which are larger, force 61a passage, and dissolve and melt the earth. Wherefore earth when not consolidated by force is dissolved by water only; when consolidated, by nothing but fire; for this is the only body which can find an entrance. The cohesion of water again, when very strong, is dissolved by fire only—when weaker, then either by air or fire—the former entering the interstices, and the latter penetrating even the triangles. But nothing can dissolve air, when strongly condensed, which does not reach the elements or triangles; or if not strongly condensed, then only fire can dissolve it. As to bodies composed of earth and water, while the water occupies the vacant interstices of the earth in them which are compressed by force, the particles of water which approach them from without, finding no entrance, flow around the entire mass and leave it undissolved; but the particles of fire, entering into the interstices of the water, do to the water what water does to earth and fire to air1 , and are the sole causes of the compound body of earth and water liquefying and becoming fluid. Now these bodies are of two kinds; some of them, such as glass and the fusible sort of stones, have less water than they have earth; on the other hand, substances of the nature of wax and incense have more of water entering into their composition.

  From objects of sense we pass on to consider flesh, which perceives sensations, and sensations themselves.

  I have thus shown the various classes of bodies as they are diversified by their forms and combinations and changes into one another, and now I must endeavour to set forth their affections and the causes of them. In the first place, the bodies which I have been describing are necessarily objects of sense. But we have not yet considered the origin of flesh, or what belongs to flesh, or of that part of the soul which is mortal. And these things cannot be adequately explained without also explaining the affections which are concerned with sensation, nor the latter without the former: and yet to explain them together is hardly possible; for which reason we must assume first one or the other and afterwards examine the nature of our hypothesis1 . In order, then, that the affections may follow regularly after the elements, let us presuppose the existence of body and soul.

  i. Sensations common to the whole body:—(1) Heat, due to the sharpness of fire, which cuts the flesh.(2) Cold, due to contraction.(3) Hardness, and (4) Softness, the qualities in things which make them resist or yield. (5) Lightness, and (6) Heaviness, are not to beexplained by dividing the world into an upper and a lower region. For the universe is shaped like a globe, and its extremes, being similarly related to the centre, cannot have opposite predicates applied to them.Lightness and heaviness are really due to attraction. Bodies are drawn towards the mass of their kindred with a force proportionate to their size. The greater this force, the greater the weight.(7) Roughness; and(8) Smoothness.

  First, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot; and about this we may reason from the dividing or cutting power which it exercises on our bodies. We all of us feel that fire is sharp; and we may further consider the fineness of the sides, and the sharpness of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and the swiftness of the motion;—all this makes the action of fire violent and sharp, so that 62it cuts whatever it meets. And we must not forget that the original figure of fire [i. e. the pyramid], more than any other form, has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into small pieces (κερματίζει), and thus naturally produces that affection which we call heat; and hence the origin of the name (θερμὸς, κέρμα). Now, the opposite of this is sufficiently manifest; nevertheless we will not fail to describe it. For the larger particles of moisture which surround the body, entering in and driving out the lesser, but not being able to take their places, compress the moist principle in us; and this from being unequal and disturbed, is forced by them into a state of rest, which is due to equability and compression. But things which are contracted contrary to nature are by nature at war, and force themselves apart; and to this war and convulsion the name of shivering and trembling is given; and the whole affection and the cause of the affection are both termed cold. That is called hard to which our flesh yields, and soft which yields to our flesh; and things are also termed hard and soft relatively to one another. That which yields has a small base; but that which rests on quadrangular bases is firmly posed and belongs to the class which offers the greatest resistance; so too does that which is the most compact and therefore most repellent. The nature of the light and the heavy will be best understood when examined in connexion with our notions of above and below; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is parted into two regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the one a lower to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper to which things only ascend against their will. For as the universe is in the form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from the centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of them all. Such being the nature of the world, when a person says that any of these points is above or below, may he not be justly charged with using an improper expression? For the centre of the world cannot be rightly called either above or below, but is the centre and nothing else; and the circumference is not the centre, and has in no one part of itself a different relation to the centre from what it has in any of the opposite parts. Indeed, when it is in every direction similar, how can one rightly give to it names which imply opposition? For if 63there were any solid body in equipoise at the centre of the universe, there would be nothing to draw it to this extreme rather than to that, for they are all perfectly similar; and if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he would often, when standing at the antipodes of his former position, speak of the same point as above and below; for, as I was saying just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globe as having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man. The reason why these names are used, and the circumstances under which they are ordinarily applied by us to the division of the heavens, may be elucidated by the following supposition:—If a person were to stand in that part of the universe which is the appointed place of fire, and where there is the great mass of fire to which fiery bodies gather—if, I say, he were to ascend thither, and, having the power to do this, were to abstract particles of fire and put them in scales and weigh them, and then, raising the balance, were to draw the fire by force towards the uncongenial element of the air, it would be very evident that he could compel the smaller mass more readily than the larger; for when two things are simultaneously raised by one and the same power, the smaller body must necessarily yield to the superior power with less reluctance than the larger; and the larger body is called heavy and said to tend downwards, and the smaller body is called light and said to tend upwards. And we may detect ourselves who are upon the earth doing precisely the same thing. For we often separate earthy natures, and sometimes earth itself, and draw them into the uncongenial element of air by force and contrary to nature, both clinging to their kindred elements. But that which is smaller yields to the impulse given by us towards the dissimilar element more easily than the larger; and so we call the former light, and the place towards which it is impelled we call above, and the contrary state and place we call heavy and below respectively. Now the relations of these must necessarily vary, because the principal masses of the different elements hold opposite positions; for that which is light, heavy, below or above in one place will be found to be and become contrary and transverse and every way diverse in relation to that which is light, heavy, below or above in an opposite place. And about all of them this has to be considered:—that the tendency of each towards its kindred element makes the body which is moved heavy, and the place towards which the motion tends below, but things which have an opposite tendency we call by an opposite name. Such are the causes which we assign to these phenomena. As to the smooth and the rough, any one who sees them can explain the reason of them to another. For roughness is hardness mingled with 64irregularity, and smoothness is produced by the joint effect of uniformity and density.

  How is it that sensations are accompanied by pleasure and pain? Sensations arise thus. An object comes into contact with an organ of sense. This, if composed of fine particles, like the eye or ear.readily transmits the motion to the soul; if of larger, like the bones, less readily. The result is sensation.—As regards pleasure and pain—an organ consisting of large particles is more liable to them than an organ of the opposite kind. Pain arises when the particles are suddenly disturbed, pleasure when they are suddenly restored to their natural state.

  The most important of the affections which concern the whole body remains to be considered,—that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in the perceptions of which I have been speaking, and in all other things which are perceived by sense through the parts of the body, and have both pains and pleasures attendant on them. Let us imagine the causes of every affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished between the nature which is easy and which is hard to move; for this is the direction in which we must hunt the prey which we mean to take. A body which is of a nature to be easily moved, on receiving an impression however slight, spreads abroad the motion in a circle, the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the principle of mind, they announce the quality of the agent. But a body of the opposite kind, being immobile, and not extending to the surrounding region, merely receives the impression, and does not stir any of the neighbouring parts; and since the parts do not distribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effect of motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on the patient. This is true of the bones and hair and other more earthy parts of the human body; whereas what was said above relates mainly to sight and hearing, because they have in them the greatest amount of fire and air. Now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in this way. An impression produced in us contrary to nature and violent, if sudden, is painful; and, again, the sudden return to nature is pleasant; but a gentle and gradual return is imperceptible and vice versa. On the other hand the impression of sense which is most easily produced is most readily felt, but is not accompanied by pleasure or pain; such, for example, are the affections of the sight, which, as we said above, is a body naturally uniting with our body in the day-time (45); for cuttings and burnings and other affections which happen to the sight do not give pain, nor is there pleasure when the sight returns to its natural state; but the sensations are clearest and strongest according to the manner in which the eye is affected by the object, and itself strikes and touches it; there is no violence either in the contraction or dilation of the eye. But bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent only with a struggle; and then they impart their motions to the whole and cause pleasure and pain—pain when alienated from their natural conditions, 65and pleasure when restored to them. Things which experience gradual withdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and great and sudden replenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but are sensible of the replenishment; and so they occasion no pain, but the greatest pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is manifest in the case of perfumes. But things which are changed all of a sudden, and only gradually and with difficulty return to their own nature, have effects in every way opposite to the former, as is evident in the case of burnings and cuttings of the body.

  ii. Affections of particular organs:—(1) of the tongue,—produced by contraction and dilation of the veins. They are as follows: a. Astringency. b. Harshness. c. Bitterness. d. Saltness.e. Pungency.f. Acidity.g. Sweetness.

  Thus have we discussed the general affections of the whole body, and the names of the agents which produce them. And now I will endeavour to speak of the affections of particular parts, and the causes and agents of them, as far as I am able. In the first place let us set forth what was omitted when we were speaking of juices, concerning the affections peculiar to the tongue. These too, like most of the other affections, appear to be caused by certain contractions and dilations, but they have besides more of roughness and smoothness than is found in other affections; for whenever earthy particles enter into the small veins which are the testing instruments of the tongue, reaching to the heart, and fall upon the moist, delicate portions of flesh — when, as they are dissolved, they contract and dry up the little veins, they are astringent if they are rougher, but if not so rough, then only harsh. Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter. But the particles which are deficient in the alkaline quality, and which cleanse only moderately, are called salt, and having no bitterness or roughness, are regarded as rather agreeable than otherwise. Bodies which share in and are made smooth by the heat of the mouth, and which are inflamed, and again in turn inflame that which heats them, and which are so light that they are carried upwards to the sensations of the head, and cut all 66that comes in their way, by reason of these qualities in them, are all termed pungent. But when these same particles, refined by putrefaction, enter into the narrow veins, and are duly proportioned to the particles of earth and air which are there, they set them whirling about one another, and while they are in a whirl cause them to dash against and enter into one another, and so form hollows surrounding the particles that enter—which watery vessels of air (for a film of moisture, sometimes earthy, sometimes pure, is spread around the air) are hollow spheres of water; and those of them which are pure, are transparent, and are called bubbles, while those composed of the earthy liquid, which is in a state of general agitation and effervescence, are said to boil or ferment;—of all these affections the cause is termed acid. And there is the opposite affection arising from an opposite cause, when the mass of entering particles, immersed in the moisture of the mouth, is congenial to the tongue, and smooths and oils over the roughness, and relaxes the parts which are unnaturally contracted, and contracts the parts which are relaxed, and disposes them all according to their nature;—that sort of remedy of violent affections is pleasant and agreeable to every man, and has the name sweet. But enough of this.

  (2) Of the nostrils. Smells can only be distinguished as pleasant or the reverse. The substances which emit them, vapour and mist, are halfformed, being intermediate between water and air.

  The faculty of smell does not admit of differences of kind; for all smells are of a half-formed nature, and no element is so proportioned as to have any smell. The veins about the nose are too narrow to admit earth and water, and too wide to detain fire and air; and for this reason no one ever perceives the smell of any of them; but smells always proceed from bodies that are damp, or putrefying, or liquefying, or evaporating, and are perceptible only in the intermediate state, when water is changing into air and air into water; and all of them are either vapour or mist. That which is passing out of air into water is mist, and that which is passing from water into air is vapour; and hence all smells are thinner than water and thicker than air. The proof of this is, that when there is any obstruction to the respiration, and a man draws in his breath by force, then no smell filters through, but the air without the smell alone penetrates. 67Wherefore the varieties of smell have no name, and they have not many, or definite and simple kinds; but they are distinguished only as painful and pleasant, the one sort irritating and disturbing the whole cavity which is situated between the head and the navel, the other having a soothing influence, and restoring this same region to an agreeable and natural condition.

  (3) Of the ear. Sounds are blows which pass through the ears to the soul. They are acute and grave, smooth and harsh, &c.

  In considering the third kind of sense, hearing, we must speak of the causes in which it originates. We may in general assume sound to be a blow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing is the vibration of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in the region of the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute, and the sound which moves slowly is grave, and that which is regular is equable and smooth, and the reverse is harsh. A great body of sound is loud, and a small body of sound the reverse. Respecting the harmonies of sound I must hereafter speak.

  (4) Of the eye. Colours are flames emitted by objects.

  There is a fourth class of sensible things, having many intricate varieties, which must now be distinguished. They are called by the general name of colours, and are a flame which emanates from every sort of body, and has particles corresponding to the sense of sight. I have spoken already, in what has preceded, of the causes which generate sight, and in this place it will be natural and suitable to give a rational theory of colours.

  Simple colours are:a. Transparent.b. White. c. Black. d. Bright.c. Red.The compound colours are: a. Auburn.b. Purple. c. Umber.d. Flamecolour. e. Dun. f. Pale yellow. g. Dark blue. h. Light blue. i. Leek green.

  Of the particles coming from other bodies which fall upon the sight, some are smaller and some are larger, and some are equal to the parts of the sight itself. Those which are equal are imperceptible, and we call them transparent. The larger produce contraction, the smaller dilation, in the sight, exercising a power akin to that of hot and cold bodies on the flesh, or of astringent bodies on the tongue, or of those heating bodies which we termed pungent. White and black are similar effects of contraction and dilation in another sphere, and for this reason have a different appearance. Wherefore, we ought to term white that which dilates the visual ray, and the opposite of this black. There is also a swifter motion of a different sort of fire which strikes and dilates the ray of sight until it reaches the eyes, forcing a 68way through their passages and melting them, and eliciting from them a union of fire and water which we call tears, being itself an opposite fire which comes to them from an opposite direction—the inner fire flashes forth like lightning, and the outer finds a way in and is extinguished in the moisture, and all sorts of colours are generated by the mixture. This affection is termed dazzling, and the object which produces it is called bright and flashing. There is another sort of fire which is intermediate, and which reaches and mingles with the moisture of the eye without flashing; and in this, the fire mingling with the ray of the moisture, produces a colour like blood, to which we give the name of red. A bright hue mingled with red and white gives the colour called auburn (ξανθόν). The law of proportion, however, according to which the several colours are formed, even if a man knew he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable or probable explanation of them. Again, red, when mingled with black and white, becomes purple, but it becomes umber (ὄρϕνινον) when the colours are burnt as well as mingled and the black is more thoroughly mixed with them. Flamecolour (πυρρὸν) is produced by a union of auburn and dun (ϕαιὸν), and dun by an admixture of black and white; pale yellow (ὠχρὸν), by an admixture of white and auburn. White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark blue (κυανον̂ν), and when dark blue mingles with white, a light blue (γλαυκὸν) colour is formed, as flame-colour with black makes leek green (πράσιον). There will be no difficulty in seeing how and by what mixtures the colours derived from these are made according to the rules of probability. He, however, who should attempt to verify all this by experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divine nature. For God only has the knowledge and also the power which are able to combine many things into one and again resolve the one into many. But no man either is or ever will be able to accomplish either the one or the other operation.

  These are the necessary causes which God used in creating the universe. They are subservient to the divine, which we must seek, if we wish to attain bliss.

  These are the elements, thus of necessity then subsisting, which the creator of the fairest and best of created things associated with himself, when he made the self-sufficing and most perfect God, using the necessary causes as his ministers in the accomplishment of his work, but himself contriving the good in all his creations. Wherefore we may distinguish two sorts of causes, the one divine and the other necessary, and may seek for the divine in all things, as far as our nature 69admits, with a view to the blessed life; but the necessary kind only for the sake of the divine, considering that without them and when isolated from them, these higher things for which we look cannot be apprehended or received or in any way shared by us.

  We must complete our account of creation.

  Seeing, then, that we have now prepared for our use the various classes of causes which are the material out of which the remainder of our discourse must be woven, just as wood is the material of the carpenter, let us revert in a few words to the point at which we began, and then endeavour to add on a suitable ending to the beginning of our tale.

  As we have seen, God, by reducing chaos to order, made the world-animal, which contains all other animals, mortal and immortal. The immortal soul of man was created by God, the mortal by his children: the former was set in the head, the latter in the breast and thorax.Of the mortal soul there are two parts:—(1) Passion, seated between the midriff and the neck, and intended to assist reason against desire.

  As I said at first, when all things were in disorder God created in each thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation to each other, all the measures and harmonies which they could possibly receive. For in those days nothing had any proportion except by accident; nor did any of the things which now have names deserve to be named at all—as, for example, fire, water, and the rest of the elements. All these the creator first set in order, and out of them he constructed the universe, which was a single animal comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and immortal. Now of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the mortal he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him, received from him the immortal principle of the soul; and around this they proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and made it to be the vehicle of the soul, and constructed within the body a soul of another nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible affections,—first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil; then, pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two foolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led astray;—these they mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring love1 according to necessary laws, and so framed man. Wherefore, fearing to pollute the divine any more than was absolutely unavoidable, they gave to the mortal nature a separate habitation in another part of the body, placing the neck between them to be the isthmus and boundary, which they constructed between the head and breast, to keep them apart. And in the breast, and in what is termed the thorax, they encased the mortal soul; and as the one part of this was superior and the other inferior they divided the 70cavity of the thorax into two parts, as the women’s and men’s apartments are divided in houses, and placed the midriff to be a wall of partition between them. That part of the inferior soul which is endowed with courage and passion and loves contention they settled nearer the head, midway between the midriff and the neck, in order that it might be under the rule of reason and might join with it in controlling and restraining the desires when they are no longer willing of their own accord to obey the word of command issuing from the citadel.

  The heart acts as herald and executive of reason, carrying its commands throughout the body.It is sustained and refreshed by the softness and coolness of the lung.

  The heart, the knot1 of the veins and the fountain of the blood which races through all the limbs, was set in the place of guard, that when the might of passion was roused by reason making proclamation of any wrong assailing them from without or being perpetrated by the desires within, quickly the whole power of feeling in the body, perceiving these commands and threats, might obey and follow through every turn and alley, and thus allow the principle of the best to have the command in all of them. But the gods, foreknowing that the palpitation of the heart in the expectation of danger and the swelling and excitement of passion was caused by fire, formed and implanted as a supporter to the heart the lung, which was, in the first place, soft and bloodless, and also had within hollows like the pores of a sponge, in order that by receiving the breath and the drink, it might give coolness and the power of respiration and alleviate the heat. Wherefore they cut the air-channels leading to the lung, and placed the lung about the heart as a soft spring, that, when passion was rife within, the heart, beating against a yielding body, might be cooled and suffer less, and might thus become more ready to join with passion in the service of reason.

  (2) Desire, chained up between the midriff and the navel, far away from the council-chamber.Knowing that this part would be guidedby images alone, God constructed the liver with its mirror-like surface, in which are imaged the intimations of reason.These intimations are given to men when asleep or demented, but can only be interpreted by the sane man who is awake.

  The part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other things of which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they placed between the midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving in all this region a sort of manger for the food of the body; and there they bound it down like a wild animal which was chained up with man, and must be nourished if man was to exist. They appointed this lower creation his place here in order that he might be always feeding at the manger, and have his dwelling as far as might be from the council-chamber, making as little noise 71and disturbance as possible, and permitting the best part to advise quietly for the good of the whole. And knowing that this lower principle in man would not comprehend reason, and even if attaining to some degree of perception would never naturally care for rational notions, but that it would be led away by phantoms and visions night and day,—to be a remedy for this, God combined with it the liver, and placed it in the house of the lower nature, contriving that it should be solid and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitter quality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from the mind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses of objects and gives back images of them to the sight; and so might strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and rough; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and closing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and loathing. And the converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures images of an opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them to be right and smooth and free, and renders the portion of the soul which resides about the liver happy and joyful, enabling it to pass the night in peace, and to practise divination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in mind and reason. For the authors of our being, remembering the command of their father when he bade them create the human race as good as they could, that they might correct our inferior parts and make them to attain a measure of truth, placed in the liver the seat of divination. And herein is a proof that God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word, either his intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to have been 72said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford to this man or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must first recover his wits. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very true, that ‘only a man who has his wits can act or judge about himself and his own affairs.’ And for this reason it is customary to appoint interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. Some persons call them prophets; they are quite unaware that they are only the expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy.

  The spleen, like a napkin, keeps the liver clean.

  Such is the nature of the liver, which is placed as we have described in order that it may give prophetic intimations. During the life of each individual these intimations are plainer, but after his death the liver becomes blind, and delivers oracles too obscure to be intelligible. The neighbouring organ [the spleen] is situated on the left-hand side, and is constructed with a view of keeping the liver bright and pure,—like a napkin, always ready prepared and at hand to clean the mirror. And hence, when any impurities arise in the region of the liver by reason of disorders of the body, the loose nature of the spleen, which is composed of a hollow and bloodless tissue, receives them all and clears them away, and when filled with the unclean matter, swells and festers, but, again, when the body is purged, settles down into the same place as before, and is humbled.

  Our account of the soul is probable: God only knows if it is true.

  Concerning the soul, as to which part is mortal and which divine, and how and why they are separated, and where located, if God acknowledges that we have spoken the truth, then, and then only, can we be confident; still, we may venture to assert that what has been said by us is probable, and will be rendered more probable by investigation. Let us assume thus much.

  The creation of the rest of the body follows next in order, and this we may investigate in a similar manner. And it appears to be very meet that the body should be framed on the following principles:—

  The bowels intended to prevent the food from passingaway too quickly, that men might not be perpetually occupied in eating and drinking.

  The authors of our race were aware that we should be intemperate in eating and drinking, and take a good deal more than was necessary or proper, by reason of gluttony. In order then that disease might not quickly destroy us, and lest our mortal race should perish without fulfilling its end—intending to provide against this, the gods made what is called the lower belly, to be a receptacle for the superfluous meat and drink, and formed the convolution of the bowels; so that the food might be prevented from passing quickly through and compelling the body to require more food, thus producing insatiable gluttony, and making the whole race an enemy to philosophy and music, and rebellious against the divinest element within us.

  Bone, flesh, and similar substances are all formed from marrow. Marrow is composed of the most perfect of the elementary triangles, mingled in due proportion. To the marrow of the head the divine soul is fastened, to the marrow of the spine the mortal soul.

  The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as follows. The first principle of all of them was the generation of the marrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials: God took such of the primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and were adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air and earth—these, I say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of them to be a universal seed of the whole race of mankind; and in this seed he then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the original distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms as the different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. That which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be the head; but that which was intended to contain the remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures at once round and elongated, and he called them all by the name ‘marrow;’ and to these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our body, constructing for the marrow, first of all, a complete covering of bone.

  Bone is made of fine earth, kneaded with marrow, and dipped repeatedlyin fire and water. Of bone were fashioned coverings for the brain and the spinal marrow, i. e. the skull and vertebrae. Joints were inserted to give flexion; the sinews were intended to hold the bones together, the flesh to protect them.Flesh was formed by blending earth, fire and water, and then mingling with them a ferment of acid and salt; the sinews by mixing bone and unfermented flesh.The most sensitive of the bones, as well as the joints, are thinlycovered with flesh; the least sensitive are thickly covered.Flesh, however, without bone, is sometimes highly sensitive: e. g. the tongue. But this is exceptional; for the chief purpose of the flesh is to give protection, not sensation. And because God wished us to live a rational and not a long life, the head was not covered with flesh.The mouth was constructed with a view to the necessary and the good.The skull was not left bare, but enveloped with skin (= the film which forms on flesh as it dries).The sutures and their diversity.Out of punctures in the skin of the head grew the hair.Nails are compounded of sinew, skin and bone; they were made with a view to the time when women and animals shouldspring from man.

  Bone was composed by him in the following manner. Having sifted pure and smooth earth he kneaded it and wetted it with marrow, and after that he put it into fire and then into water, and once more into fire and again into water—in this way by frequent transfers from one to the other he made it insoluble by either. Out of this he fashioned, as in a lathe, 74a globe made of bone, which he placed around the brain, and in this he left a narrow opening; and around the marrow of the neck and back he formed vertebrae which he placed under one another like pivots, beginning at the head and extending through the whole of the trunk. Thus wishing to preserve the entire seed, he enclosed it in a stone-like casing, inserting joints, and using in the formation of them the power of the other or diverse as an intermediate nature, that they might have motion and flexure. Then again, considering that the bone would be too brittle and inflexible, and when heated and again cooled would soon mortify and destroy the seed within—having this in view, he contrived the sinews and the flesh, that so binding all the members together by the sinews, which admitted of being stretched and relaxed about the vertebrae, he might thus make the body capable of flexion and extension, while the flesh would serve as a protection against the summer heat and against the winter cold, and also against falls, softly and easily yielding to external bodies, like articles made of felt; and containing in itself a warm moisture which in summer exudes and makes the surface damp, would impart a natural coolness to the whole body; and again in winter by the help of this internal warmth would form a very tolerable defence against the frost which surrounds it and attacks it from without. He who modelled us, considering these things, mixed earth with fire and water and blended them; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled it with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. As for the sinews, he made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so as to be in a mean, and gave them a yellow colour; wherefore the sinews have a firmer and more glutinous nature than flesh, but a softer and moister nature than the bones. With these God covered the bones and marrow, binding them together by sinews, and then enshrouded them all in an upper covering of flesh. The more living and sensitive of the bones he enclosed in the thinnest film of flesh, and those which had the least life within them in the thickest and most solid flesh. So again on the joints of the bones, where reason indicated that no more was required, he placed only a thin covering of flesh, that it might not interfere with the flexion of our bodies and make them unwieldy because difficult to move; and also that it might not, by being crowded and pressed and matted together, destroy sensation by reason of its hardness, and 75impair the memory and dull the edge of intelligence. Wherefore also the thighs and the shanks and the hips, and the bones of the arms and the forearms, and other parts which have no joints, and the inner bones, which on account of the rarity of the soul in the marrow are destitute of reason — all these are abundantly provided with flesh; but such as have mind in them are in general less fleshy, except where the creator has made some part solely of flesh in order to give sensation, — as, for example, the tongue. But commonly this is not the case. For the nature which comes into being and grows up in us by a law of necessity, does not admit of the combination of solid bone and much flesh with acute perceptions. More than any other part the framework of the head would have had them, if they could have co-existed, and the human race, having a strong and fleshy and sinewy head, would have had a life twice or many times as long as it now has, and also more healthy and free from pain. But our creators, considering whether they should make a longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race which was better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer a shorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which was worse; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not with flesh and sinews, since it had no joints; and thus the head was added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the body, but also being in every man far weaker. For these reasons and after this manner God placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a circle round the neck, and glued them together by the principle of likeness and fastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below the face, and the other sinews he dispersed throughout the body, fastening limb to limb. The framers of us framed the mouth, as now arranged, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good, contriving the way in for necessary purposes, the way out for the best purposes; for that is necessary which enters in and gives food to the body; but the river of speech, which flows out of a man and ministers to the intelligence, is the fairest and noblest of all streams. Still the head could neither be left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremes of heat and cold in the different seasons, nor yet be allowed to be wholly covered, and so become dull and senseless by reason of an overgrowth of flesh. The fleshy nature was not therefore 76wholly dried up, but a large sort of peel was parted off and remained over, which is now called the skin. This met and grew by the help of the cerebral moisture, and became the circular envelopment of the head. And the moisture, rising up under the sutures, watered and closed in the skin upon the crown, forming a sort of knot. The diversity of the sutures was caused by the power of the courses of the soul and of the food, and the more these struggled against one another the more numerous they became, and fewer if the struggle were less violent. This skin the divine power pierced all round with fire, and out of the punctures which were thus made the moisture issued forth, and the liquid and heat which was pure came away, and a mixed part which was composed of the same material as the skin, and had a fineness equal to the punctures, was borne up by its own impulse and extended far outside the head, but being too slow to escape, was thrust back by the external air, and rolled up underneath the skin, where it took root. Thus the hair sprang up in the skin, being akin to it because it is like threads of leather, but rendered harder and closer through the pressure of the cold, by which each hair, while in process of separation from the skin, is compressed and cooled. Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the causes which I have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard, which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time would not impede our quickness of perception. From the combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard skin partaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these second causes, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eye to the future. For our creators well knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the extremities of the limbs.

  Seeing that mankind would need food, trees and plants were created. These are animals and have life, being endowed with the lower mortal soul.

  And now that all the parts and members of the mortal 77animal had come together, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy: They mingled a nature akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kind of animal. These are the trees and plants and seeds which have been improved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us; anciently there were only the wild kinds, which are older than the cultivated. For everything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and the animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of soul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. For this nature is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repelling the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is not endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living being, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power of self-motion.

  Next the gods cut two channels down the back, one on either side of the spine. After this they diverted the veins on the right of the head to the left of the body, and vice versa.The underlying principle of the irrigation of the body is that finer elements can penetrate larger, but not larger elements finer.

  Now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be food for us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various channels through the body as through a garden, that it might be watered as from a running stream. In the first place, they cut two hidden channels or veins down the back where the skin and the flesh join, which answered severally to the right and left side of the body. These they let down along the backbone, so as to have the marrow of generation between them, where it was most likely to flourish, and in order that the stream coming down from above might flow freely to the other parts, and equalize the irrigation. In the next place, they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing them, they sent them in opposite directions; those coming from the right side they sent to the left of the body, and those from the left they diverted towards the right, so that they and the skin might together form a bond which should fasten the head to the body, since the crown of the head was not encircled by sinews; and also in order that the sensations from both sides might be distributed over the whole body. And next, they ordered the water-courses of the body in a manner which 78I will describe, and which will be more easily understood if we begin by admitting that all things which have lesser parts retain the greater, but the greater cannot retain the lesser. Now of all natures fire has the smallest parts, and therefore penetrates through earth and water and air and their compounds, nor can anything hold it. And a similar principle applies to the human belly; for when meats and drinks enter it, it holds them, but it cannot hold air and fire, because the particles of which they consist are smaller than its own structure.

  So the surface of the trunk was made like a weel of fire and air, containing within itself two lesser weels (the chest and belly) of air. Alternately the interior of the greater weel which consists of fire flows into the lesser weels, and the lesser weels into it. The outer weel also finds its way in and out of the body,—the fire withinfollowing the air in either direction. The motion of the fire into and out of the belly dissolves the food and pumps the blood into the veins.

  These elements, therefore, God employed for the sake of distributing moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving together a network of fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance two lesser weels; further he constructed one of these with two openings, and from the lesser weels he extended cords reaching all round to the extremities of the network. All the interior of the net he made of fire, but the lesser weels and their cavity, of air. The network he took and spread over the newly-formed animal in the following manner:—He let the lesser weels pass into the mouth; there were two of them, and one he let down by the air-pipes into the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes into the belly. The former he divided into two branches, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the nose, so that when the way through the mouth did not act, the streams of the mouth as well were replenished through the nose. With the other cavity (i. e. of the greater weel) he enveloped the hollow parts of the body, and at one time he made all this to flow into the lesser weels, quite gently, for they are composed of air, and at another time he caused the lesser weels to flow back again; and the net he made to find a way in and out through the pores of the body, and the rays of fire which are bound fast within followed the passage of the air either way, never at any time ceasing so long as the mortal being holds together. This process, as we affirm, the name-giver named inspiration and expiration. And all this movement, active as well as passive, takes place in order that the body, being watered and cooled, may receive nourishment and life; for when the respiration is going in and out, and the fire, which is fast bound within, follows it, and ever and anon moving to 79and fro, enters through the belly and reaches the meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small portions and guiding them through the passages where it goes, pumps them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins, and makes the stream of the veins flow through the body as through a conduit.

  Expiration and inspiration take place through the pores as well as through the mouth and nostrils. Expiration is due to the attraction of similars: the air on entering the body is heated, and then moves outward, seeking the place of fire. Inspiration is due to the impossibility of a vacuum; thus while air is breathed out of the body, other air must enter to fill the vacancy.

  Let us once more consider the phenomena of respiration, and enquire into the causes which have made it what it is. They are as follows:—Seeing that there is no such thing as a vacuum into which any of those things which are moved can enter, and the breath is carried from us into the external air, the next point is, as will be clear to every one, that it does not go into a vacant space, but pushes its neighbour out of its place, and that which is thrust out in turn drives out its neighbour; and in this way everything of necessity at last comes round to that place from whence the breath came forth, and enters in there, and following the breath, fills up the vacant space; and this goes on like the rotation of a wheel, because there can be no such thing as a vacuum. Wherefore also the breast and the lungs, when they emit the breath, are replenished by the air which surrounds the body and which enters in through the pores of the flesh and is driven round in a circle; and again, the air which is sent away and passes out through the body forces the breath inwards through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils. Now the origin of this movement may be supposed to be as follows. In the interior of every animal the hottest part is that which is around the blood and veins; it is in a manner an internal fountain of fire, which we compare to the network of a creel, being woven all of fire and extended through the centre of the body, while the outer parts are composed of air. Now we must admit that heat naturally proceeds outward to its own place and to its kindred element; and as there are two exits for the heat, the one out through the body, and the other through the mouth and nostrils, when it moves towards the one, it drives round the air at the other, and that which is driven round falls into the fire and becomes warm, and that which goes forth is cooled. But when the heat changes its place, and the particles at the other exit grow warmer, the hotter air inclining in that direction and carried towards its native element, fire, pushes round the air at the other; and this being affected in the same way and communicating the same impulse, a circular motion swaying to and fro is produced by the double process, which we call inspiration and expiration.

  Other phenomena to be explained on a similar principle:—Cupping-glasses, swallowing of drink, projection of bodies, sounds swift and slow, flowing of water, fall of thunderbolts, magnetic stones.

  The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses and of the 80swallowing of drink and of the projection of bodies, whether discharged in the air or bowled along the ground, are to be investigated on a similar principle; and swift and slow sounds, which appear to be high and low, and are sometimes discordant on account of their inequality, and then again harmonical on account of the equality of the motion which they excite in us. For when the motions of the antecedent swifter sounds begin to pause and the two are equalized, the slower sounds overtake the swifter and then propel them. When they overtake them they do not intrude a new and discordant motion, but introduce the beginnings of a slower, which answers to the swifter as it dies away, thus producing a single mixed expression out of high and low, whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to the wise becomes a higher sort of delight, being an imitation of divine harmony in mortal motions. Moreover, as to the flowing of water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels that are observed about the attraction of amber and the Heraclean stones,—in none of these cases is there any attraction; but he who investigates rightly, will find that such wonderful phenomena are attributable to the combination of certain conditions,—the non-existence of a vacuum, the fact that objects push one another round, and that they change places, passing severally into their proper positions as they are divided or combined.

  The red colour of blood is due to the action of fire.

  Such, as we have seen, is the nature and such are the causes of respiration,—the subject in which this discussion originated. For the fire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire and breath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out of the belly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food; and so the streams of food are kept flowing through the whole body in all animals. And fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which God planted to be our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their intermixture; but red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist substance; and hence the liquid which circulates in the body has a colour such as we have described. The liquid itself we call blood, which nourishes 81the flesh and the whole body, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled.

  The bodily processes of repletion and evacuation are caused by attraction.

  Now the process of repletion and evacuation is effected after the manner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are drawn towards one another. For the external elements which surround us are always causing us to consume away, and distributing and sending off like to like; the particles of blood, too, which are divided and contained within the frame of the animal as in a sort of heaven, are compelled to imitate the motion of the universe. Each, therefore, of the divided parts within us, being carried to its kindred nature, replenishes the void. When more is taken away than flows in, then we decay, and when less, we grow and increase.

  When the body is young, the triangles of which it is composed are new and strong, and overcome the triangles of the food; but in old age they are overcome by them.Death takes place when the triangles of the marrow, becoming disunited, loosen the soul’s bonds. A natural death is pleasant, a violent, painful.

  The frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of each kind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is just off the stocks; they are locked firmly together and yet the whole mass is soft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and nurtured on milk. Now when the triangles out of which meats and drinks are composed come in from without, and are comprehended in the body, being older and weaker than the triangles already there, the frame of the body gets the better of them and its newer triangles cut them up, and so the animal grows great, being nourished by a multitude of similar particles. But when the roots of the triangles are loosened by having undergone many conflicts with many things in the course of time, they are no longer able to cut or assimilate the food which enters, but are themselves easily divided by the bodies which come in from without. In this way every animal is overcome and decays, and this affection is called old age. And at last, when the bonds by which the triangles of the marrow are united no longer hold, and are parted by the strain of existence, they in turn loosen the bonds of the soul, and she, obtaining a natural release, flies away with joy. For that which takes place according to nature is pleasant, but that which is contrary to nature is painful. And thus death, if caused by disease or produced by wounds, is painful and violent; but that sort of death which comes with old age and fulfils the debt of nature is the easiest of deaths, and is accompanied with pleasure rather than with pain.

  Diseases of the body arise (i) when any of the four elements is out of place or there is too much or too little of them in any part:and (ii) when blood, flesh, and sinews are produced in a wrong order.The proper order is that flesh and sinew should be formed from blood, flesh from the liquid and sinew from the fibrous part of it; and that from these should exude a glutinous matter which nourishes bone and marrow. When this order is reversed, all sorts of bile and phlegm are generated.The various kinds of bile.Of phlegm there is an acid and a white sort.Stages of the disease:—(1) When the flesh is attacked, if the foundations remain sound, there is less danger. (2) There is more when the flesh falls away from the sinews and bones. (3) Worse still are the prior disorders, such as crumbling away and gangrene of the bones; and (4) worst of all is disease of the spinal marrow.

  Now every one can see whence diseases arise. There are 82four natures out of which the body is compacted, earth and fire and water and air, and the unnatural excess or defect of these, or the change of any of them from its own natural place into another, or—since there are more kinds than one of fire and of the other elements—the assumption by any of these of a wrong kind, or any similar irregularity, produces disorders and diseases; for when any of them is produced or changed in a manner contrary to nature, the parts which were previously cool grow warm, and those which were dry become moist, and the light become heavy, and the heavy light; all sorts of changes occur. For, as we affirm, a thing can only remain the same with itself, whole and sound, when the same is added to it, or subtracted from it, in the same respect and in the same manner and in due proportion; and whatever comes or goes away in violation of these laws causes all manner of changes and infinite diseases and corruptions. Now there is a second class of structures which are also natural, and this affords a second opportunity of observing diseases to him who would understand them. For whereas marrow and bone and flesh and sinews are composed of the four elements, and the blood, though after another manner, is likewise formed out of them, most diseases originate in the way which I have described; but the worst of all owe their severity to the fact that the generation of these substances proceeds in a wrong order; they are then destroyed. For the natural order is that the flesh and sinews should be made of blood, the sinews out of the fibres to which they are akin, and the flesh out of the clots which are formed when the fibres are separated. And the glutinous and rich matter which comes away from the sinews and the flesh, not only glues the flesh to the bones, but nourishes and imparts growth to the bone which surrounds the marrow; and by reason of the solidity of the bones, that which filters through consists of the purest and smoothest and oiliest sort of triangles, dropping like dew from the bones and watering the marrow. Now when each process takes place in this order, health commonly results; when in the opposite order, disease. For when the flesh becomes decomposed and sends back the wasting substance into the veins, then an oversupply of blood of diverse kinds, mingling with air in the veins, having variegated colours and bitter properties, as well as acid and saline qualities, contains all sorts of bile and serum and phlegm. For all things go the wrong way, and having 83become corrupted, first they taint the blood itself, and then ceasing to give nourishment to the body they are carried along the veins in all directions, no longer preserving the order of their natural courses, but at war with themselves, because they receive no good from one another, and are hostile to the abiding constitution of the body, which they corrupt and dissolve. The oldest part of the flesh which is corrupted, being hard to decompose, from long burning grows black, and from being everywhere corroded becomes bitter, and is injurious to every part of the body which is still uncorrupted. Sometimes, when the bitter element is refined away, the black part assumes an acidity which takes the place of the bitterness; at other times the bitterness being tinged with blood has a redder colour; and this, when mixed with black, takes the hue of grass1 ; and again, an auburn colour mingles with the bitter matter when new flesh is decomposed by the fire which surrounds the internal flame;—to all which symptoms some physician perhaps, or rather some philosopher, who had the power of seeing in many dissimilar things one nature deserving of a name, has assigned the common name of bile. But the other kinds of bile are variously distinguished by their colours. As for serum, that sort which is the watery part of blood is innocent, but that which is a secretion of black and acid bile is malignant when mingled by the power of heat with any salt substance, and is then called acid phlegm. Again, the substance which is formed by the liquefaction of new and tender flesh when air is present, if inflated and encased in liquid so as to form bubbles, which separately are invisible owing to their small size, but when collected are of a bulk which is visible, and have a white colour arising out of the generation of foam—all this decomposition of tender flesh when intermingled with air is termed by us white phlegm. And the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm is sweat and tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which the body is purified. Now all these become causes of disease when the blood is not replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but gains bulk from opposite 84sources in violation of the laws of nature. When the several parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the foundation remains, the power of the disorder is only half as great, and there is still a prospect of an easy recovery; but when that which binds the flesh to the bones is diseased, and no longer being separated from the muscles and sinews1 , ceases to give nourishment to the bone and to unite flesh and bone, and from being oily and smooth and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, owing to bad regimen, then all the substance thus corrupted crumbles away under the flesh and the sinews, and separates from the bone, and the fleshy parts fall away from their foundation and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh again gets into the circulation of the blood and makes the previously-mentioned disorders still greater. And if these bodily affections be severe, still worse are the prior disorders; as when the bone itself, by reason of the density of the flesh, does not obtain sufficient air, but becomes mouldy and hot and gangrened and receives no nutriment, and the natural process is inverted, and the bone crumbling passes into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh again falling into the blood makes all maladies that may occur more virulent than those already mentioned. But the worst case of all is when the marrow is diseased, either from excess or defect; and this is the cause of the very greatest and most fatal disorders, in which the whole course of the body is reversed.

  (iii) A third class of diseases is produced a. by wind—i. e. disorders of the lungs,tetanus and opisthotonus;b. by phlegm—i. e. leprosy,epilepsy,and catarrh;

  There is a third class of diseases which may be conceived of as arising in three ways; for they are produced sometimes by wind, and sometimes by phlegm, and sometimes by bile. When the lung, which is the dispenser of the air to the body, is obstructed by rheums and its passages are not free, some of them not acting, while through others too much air enters, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, while in other parts the excess of air forcing its way through the veins distorts them and decomposing the body is enclosed in the midst of it and occupies the midriff; thus numberless painful diseases are produced, accompanied by copious sweats. And oftentimes when the flesh is dissolved in the body, wind, generated within and unable to escape, is the source of quite as much pain as the air coming in from without; but the greatest pain is felt when the wind gets about the sinews and the veins of the shoulders, and swells them up, and so twists back the great tendons and the sinews which are connected with them. These disorders are called tetanus and opisthotonus, by reason of the tension which accompanies them. The cure of them is difficult; relief is in most cases 85given by fever supervening. The white phlegm, though dangerous when detained within by reason of the air-bubbles, yet if it can communicate with the outside air, is less severe, and only discolours the body, generating leprous eruptions and similar diseases. When it is mingled with black bile and dispersed about the courses of the head, which are the divinest part of us, the attack if coming on in sleep, is not so severe; but when assailing those who are awake it is hard to be got rid of, and being an affection of a sacred part, is most justly called sacred. An acid and salt phlegm, again, is the source of all those diseases which take the form of catarrh, but they have many names because the places into which they flow are manifold.

  c. by bile—i. e. tumours andinflammations,chills and shuddering,disease of the marrow,diarrhoea and dysentery.Excess of fire causes continuous fever, of air quotidian, of water tertian, of earth quartan.

  Inflammations of the body come from burnings and inflamings, and all of them originate in bile. When bile finds a means of discharge, it boils up and sends forth all sorts of tumours; but when imprisoned within, it generates many inflammatory diseases, above all when mingled with pure blood; since it then displaces the fibres which are scattered about in the blood and are designed to maintain the balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so liquefied by heat as to exude from the pores of the body, nor again become too dense and thus find a difficulty in circulating through the veins. The fibres are so constituted as to maintain this balance; and if any one brings them all together when the blood is dead and in process of cooling, then the blood which remains becomes fluid, but if they are left alone, they soon congeal by reason of the surrounding cold. The fibres having this power over the blood, bile, which is only stale blood, and which from being flesh is dissolved again into blood, at the first influx coming in little by little, hot and liquid, is congealed by the power of the fibres; and so congealing and made to cool, it produces internal cold and shuddering. When it enters with more of a flood and overcomes the fibres by its heat, and boiling up throws them into disorder, if it have power enough to maintain its supremacy, it penetrates the marrow and burns up what may be termed the cables of the soul, and sets her free; but when there is not so much of it, and the body though wasted still holds out, the bile is itself mastered, and is either utterly banished, or is thrust through the veins into the lower or upper belly, and is driven out of the body like an exile from 86a state in which there has been civil war; whence arise diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and all such disorders. When the constitution is disordered by excess of fire, continuous heat and fever are the result; when excess of air is the cause, then the fever is quotidian; when of water, which is a more sluggish element than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian; when of earth, which is the most sluggish of the four, and is only purged away in a four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever, which can with difficulty be shaken off.

  There are two kinds of mental disease,madness and ignorance. Vice is due to an ill-disposition of the body,and is involuntary.Bad education and bad government increase the evil.

  Such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise; the disorders of the soul, which depend upon the body, originate as follows. We must acknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of intelligence; and of this there are two kinds; to wit, madness and ignorance. In whatever state a man experiences either of them, that state may be called disease; and excessive pains and pleasures are justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases to which the soul is liable. For a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his unseasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is not able to see or to hear anything rightly; but he is mad, and is at the time utterly incapable of any participation in reason. He who has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing, like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains many pleasures in his desires and their offspring, and is for the most part of his life deranged, because his pleasures and pains are so very great; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his body; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. The truth is that the intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to the moisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by the loose consistency of the bones. And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the body, and find no exit or escape, but are pent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of 87the soul, and are blended, with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity; and being carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite varieties of illtemper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when to this evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is part of another subject.

  The great means of preventing disease is to preserve the due proportion of mind and body.The soul should not be allowed to wear out the body;nor the body to embrute the soul.Both should be equally exercised: the mathematician should practise gymnastic, and the gymnast should study music.Motion, as in the universe, so in the body, produces order and harmony.The best exercise and purification is the spontaneousmotion of the body, as in gymnastic; less good is an external motion, as in sailing; least good the external motion of a part only produced by medicine. The last should be employed only in extreme cases.

  There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment by which the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it is meet and right that I should say a word in turn; for it is more our duty to speak of the good than of the evil. Everything that is good is fair, and the fair is not without proportion, and the animal which is to be fair must have due proportion. Now we perceive lesser symmetries or proportions and reason about them, but of the highest and greatest we take no heed; for there is no proportion or disproportion more productive of health and disease, and virtue and vice, than that between soul and body. This however we do not perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little soul is encased in a large body, then the whole animal is not fair, for it lacks the most important of all symmetries; but the due proportion of mind and body is the fairest and loveliest of all sights to him who has the seeing eye. Just as a body which has a leg too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other respect, is an unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self—in like manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call the living being; and when in this compound there is an impassioned soul more powerful 88than the body, that soul, I say, convulses and fills with disorders the whole inner nature of man; and when eager in the pursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting; or again, when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and strifes and controversies arise, inflames and dissolves the composite frame of man and introduces rheums; and the nature of this phenomenon is not understood by most professors of medicine, who ascribe it to the opposite of the real cause. And once more, when a body large and too strong for the soul is united to a small and weak intelligence, then inasmuch as there are two desires natural to man,—one of food for the sake of the body, and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner part of us—then, I say, the motions of the stronger, getting the better and increasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of diseases. There is one protection against both kinds of disproportion:—that we should not move the body without the soul or the soul without the body, and thus they will be on their guard against each other, and be healthy and well balanced. And therefore the mathematician or any one else whose thoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow his body also to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic; and he who is careful to fashion the body, should in turn impart to the soul its proper motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would deserve to be called truly fair and truly good. And the separate parts should be treated in the same manner, in imitation of the pattern of the universe; for as the body is heated and also cooled within by the elements which enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened by external things, and experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of motions, the result is that the body if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the foster-mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the body ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which form the natural defence against other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their affinities the particles and affections which are wandering about the body, as we have already said when speaking of the universe1 , he will not allow enemy placed by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders in the body, but he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to create health. Now of all motions that is the best which 89is produced in a thing by itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of the universe; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good, and worst of all is that which moves the body, when at rest, in parts only and by some external agency. Wherefore of all modes of purifying and re-uniting the body the best is gymnastic; the next best is a surging motion, as in sailing or any other mode of conveyance which is not fatiguing; the third sort of motion may be of use in a case of extreme necessity, but in any other will be adopted by no man of sense: I mean the purgative treatment of physicians; for diseases unless they are very dangerous should not be irritated by medicines, since every form of disease is in a manner akin to the living being, whose complex frame has an appointed term of life. For not the whole race only, but each individual—barring inevitable accidents—comes into the world having a fixed span, and the triangles in us are originally framed with power to last for a certain time, beyond which no man can prolong his life. And this holds also of the constitution of diseases; if any one regardless of the appointed time tries to subdue them by medicine, he only aggravates and multiplies them. Wherefore we ought always to manage them by regimen, as far as a man can spare the time, and not provoke a disagreeable enemy by medicines.

  Enough of the body. The soul, which trains it, must be tended with the utmost care.

  Enough of the composite animal, and of the body which is a part of him, and of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by himself so as to live most according to reason: and we must above and before all provide that the element which is to train him shall be the fairest and best adapted to that purpose. A minute discussion of this subject would be a serious task; but if, as before, I am to give only an outline, the subject may not unfitly be summed up as follows.

  The three parts of the soul should be duly exercised,

  I have often remarked that there are three kinds of soul located within us, having each of them motions, and I must now repeat in the fewest words possible, that one part, if remaining inactive and ceasing from its natural motion, must necessarily become very weak, but that which is trained and exercised, very strong. Wherefore we should take care that 90the movements of the different parts of the soul should be in due proportion.

  especially the divine part.For if a man neglects it and is the slave of desire and ambition, he cannot attain to immortality.The motions of reason are akin to the thoughts and revolutions of the universe.

  And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the human soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the body, and inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in heaven. And in this we say truly; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole body upright. When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy. Now there is only one way of taking care of things, and this is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it. And the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. These each man should follow, and correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the future.

  We have spoken of the origin of man. Women and the other animals were generated on this wise. Cowardly and unjust men became women in the second generation.

  Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to the creation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity; in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. On the subject of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered. Of the men who came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation. 91And this was the reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in the following manner. The outlet for drink by which liquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives and then by the pressure of the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to penetrate also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse we have named the seed. And the seed having life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation. Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway; and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together1 and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form; these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is completed.

  Simple-minded men passed into birds;those who were the slaves of passion into beasts;the most foolish into reptiles;the most ignorant and impure into fish.

  Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight; these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair. The race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses of the head, but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which are in the breast. In consequence of these habits of theirs they had their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the soul were crushed by reason of disuse. And this was the reason why they were 92created quadrupeds and polypods: God gave the more senseless of them the more support that they might be more attracted to the earth. And the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he made without feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the inhabitants of the water: these were made out of the most entirely senseless and ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression; and instead of the subtle and pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be their element of respiration; and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their outlandish ignorance. These are the laws by which animals pass into one another, now, as ever, changing as they lose or gain wisdom and folly.

  Our task is now completed.

  We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe has an end. The world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and is fulfilled with them, and has become a visible animal containing the visible—the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual1 , the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect—the one only-begotten heaven.

  CRITIAS.

  INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

  Critias.Introduction.

  The Critias is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. It was designed to be the second part of a trilogy, which, like the other great Platonic trilogy of the Sophist, Statesman, Philosopher, was never completed. Timaeus had brought down the origin of the world to the creation of man, and the dawn of history was now to succeed the philosophy of nature. The Critias is also connected with the Republic. Plato, as he has already told us (Tim. 19, 20), intended to represent the ideal state engaged in a patriotic conflict. This mythical conflict is prophetic or symbolical of the struggle of Athens and Persia, perhaps in some degree also of the wars of the Greeks and Carthaginians, in the same way that the Persian is prefigured by the Trojan war to the mind of Herodotus, or as the narrative of the first part of the Aeneid is intended by Virgil to foreshadow the wars of Carthage and Rome. The small number of the primitive Athenian citizens (20,000), ‘which is about their present number’ (Crit. 112 D), is evidently designed to contrast with the myriads and barbaric array of the Atlantic hosts. The passing remark in the Timaeus (25 C) that Athens was left alone in the struggle, in which she conquered and became the liberator of Greece, is also an allusion to the later history. Hence we may safely conclude that the entire narrative is due to the imagination of Plato, who has used the name of Solon and introduced the Egyptian priests to give verisimilitude to his story. To the Greek such a tale, like that of the earth-born men, would have seemed perfectly accordant with the character of his mythology, and not more marvellous than the wonders of the East narrated by Herodotus and others: he might have been deceived into believing it. But it appears strange that later ages should have been imposed upon by the fiction. As many attempts have been made to find the great island of Atlantis, as to discover the country of the lost tribes. Without regard to the description of Plato, and without a suspicion that the whole narrative is a fabrication, interpreters have looked for the spot in every part of the globe, America, Arabia Felix, Ceylon, Palestine, Sardinia, Sweden.

  Analysis.

  106Timaeus concludes with a prayer that his words may be acceptable to the God whom he has revealed, and Critias, whose 107turn follows, begs that a larger measure of indulgence may be conceded to him, because he has to speak of men whom we know 108and not of gods whom we do not know. Socrates readily grants his request, and anticipating that Hermocrates will make a similar petition, extends by anticipation a like indulgence to him.

  Critias returns to his story, professing only to repeat what Solon was told by the priests. The war of which he was about to speak had occurred 9000 years ago1 . One of the combatants was the city of Athens, the other was the great island of Atlantis. 109Critias proposes to speak of these rival powers first of all, giving to Athens the precedence; the various tribes of Greeks and barbarians who took part in the war will be dealt with as they successively appear on the scene.

  In the beginning the gods agreed to divide the earth by lot in a friendly manner, and when they had made the allotment they settled their several countries, and were the shepherds or rather the pilots of mankind, whom they guided by persuasion, and not by force. Hephaestus and Athena, brother and sister deities, in mind and art united, obtained as their lot the land of Attica, a land suited to the growth of virtue and wisdom; and there they settled a brave race of children of the soil, and taught them how to order the state. Some of their names, such as Cecrops, Erechtheus, Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, were preserved and adopted in later times, but the memory of their deeds has passed away; for there have since been many deluges, and the remnant who survived in the mountains were ignorant of the art of writing, and during many generations were wholly devoted to acquiring 110the means of life. . . . And the armed image of the goddess which was dedicated by the ancient Athenians is an evidence to other ages that men and women had in those days, as they ought always to have, common virtues and pursuits. There were various classes of citizens, including handicraftsmen and husbandmen and a superior class of warriors who dwelt apart, and were educated, and had all things in common, like our guardians. Attica in those days extended southwards to the Isthmus, and 111inland to the heights of Parnes and Cithaeron, and between them and the sea included the district of Oropus. The country was then, as what remains of it still is, the most fertile in the world, and abounded in rich plains and pastures. But in the course of ages much of the soil was washed away and disappeared in the deep sea. And the inhabitants of this fair land were endowed with intelligence and the love of beauty.

  112The Acropolis of the ancient Athens extended to the Ilissus and Eridanus, and included the Pnyx, and the Lycabettus on the opposite side to the Pnyx, having a level surface and deep soil. The side of the hill was inhabited by craftsmen and husbandmen; and the warriors dwelt by themselves on the summit, around the temples of Hephaestus and Athene, in an enclosure which was like the garden of a single house. In winter they retired into houses on the north of the hill, in which they held their syssitia. These were modest dwellings, which they bequeathed unaltered to their children’s children. In summer time the south side was inhabited by them, and then they left their gardens and dining-halls. In the midst of the Acropolis was a fountain, which gave an abundant supply of cool water in summer and warm in winter; of this there are still some traces. They were careful to preserve the number of fighting men and women at 20,000, which is equal to that of the present military force. And so they passed their lives as guardians of the citizens and leaders of the Hellenes. They were a just and famous race, celebrated for their beauty and virtue all over Europe and Asia.

  113And now I will speak to you of their adversaries, but first I ought to explain that the Greek names were given to Solon in an Egyptian form, and he enquired their meaning and translated them. His manuscript was left with my grandfather Dropides, and is now in my possession. . . . In the division of the earth Poseidon obtained as his portion the island of Atlantis, and there he begat children whose mother was a mortal. Towards the sea and in the centre of the island there was a very fair and fertile plain, and near the centre, about fifty studia from the plain, there was a low mountain in which dwelt a man named Evenor and his wife Leucippe, and their daughter Cleito, of whom Poseidon became enamoured. He to secure his love enclosed the mountain with rings or zones varying in size, two of land and three of sea, which his divine power readily enabled him to excavate and fashion, and, as there was no shipping in those days, no man could get into the place. To the interior island he conveyed under the earth springs of water hot and cold, and supplied the 114land with all things needed for the life of man. Here he begat a family consisting of five pairs of twin male children. The eldest was Atlas, and him he made king of the centre island, while to his twin brother, Eumelus, or Gadeirus, he assigned that part of the country which was nearest the Straits. The other brothers he made chiefs over the rest of the island. And their kingdom extended as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a fair posterity, and great treasures derived from mines—among them that precious metal orichalcum; and there was abundance of 115wood, and herds of elephants, and pastures for animals of all kinds, and fragrant herbs, and grasses, and trees bearing fruit. These they used, and employed themselves in constructing their temples, and palaces, and harbours, and docks, in the following manner:—First, they bridged over the zones of sea, and made a way to and from the royal palace which they built in the centre island. This ancient palace was ornamented by successive generations; and they dug a canal which passed through the zones of land from the 116island to the sea. The zones of earth were surrounded by walls made of stone of divers colours, black and white and red, which they sometimes intermingled for the sake of ornament; and as they quarried they hollowed out beneath the edges of the zones double docks having roofs of rock. The outermost of the walls was coated with brass, the second with tin, and the third, which was the wall of the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum. In the interior of the citadel was a holy temple, dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, and surrounded by an enclosure of gold, and there was Poseidon’s own temple, which was covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. The roof was of ivory, adorned with gold and silver and orichalcum, and the rest of the interior was lined with orichalcum. Within was an image of the god standing in a chariot drawn by six winged horses, and touching the roof with his head; around him were a hundred Nereids, riding on dolphins. Outside the temple were placed golden statues of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their wives; 117there was an altar too, and there were palaces, corresponding to the greatness and glory both of the kingdom and of the temple.

  Also there were fountains of hot and cold water, and suitable buildings surrounding them, and trees, and there were baths both of the kings and of private individuals, and separate baths for women, and also for cattle. The water from the baths was carried to the grove of Poseidon, and by aqueducts over the bridges to the outer circles. And there were temples in the zones, and in the larger of the two there was a racecourse for horses, which ran all round the island. The guards were distributed in the zones according to the trust reposed in them; the most trusted of them were stationed in the citadel. The docks were full of triremes and stores. The land between the harbour and the sea was surrounded by a wall, and was crowded with dwellings, and the harbour and canal resounded with the din of human voices.

  118The plain around the city was highly cultivated and sheltered from the north by mountains; it was oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch, which was of an incredible depth. This depth received the streams which came down from the mountains, as well as the canals of the 119interior, and found a way to the sea. The entire country was divided into sixty thousand lots, each of which was a square of ten studia; and the owner of a lot was bound to furnish the sixth part of a war-chariot, so as to make up ten thousand chariots, two horses and riders upon them, a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, and an attendant and charioteer, two hoplites, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters, three javelin-men, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships.

  Each of the ten kings was absolute in his own city and kingdom. The relations of the different governments to one another were determined by the injunctions of Poseidon, which had been inscribed by the first kings on a column of orichalcum in the temple of Poseidon, at which the kings and princes gathered together and held a festival every fifth and every sixth year alternately. Around the temple ranged the bulls of Poseidon, one of which the ten kings caught and sacrificed, shedding the blood of the victim over the inscription, and vowing not to transgress the laws of their 120father Poseidon. When night came, they put on azure robes and gave judgment against offenders. The most important of their laws related to their dealings with one another. They were not to take up arms against one another, and were to come to the rescue if any of their brethren were attacked. They were to deliberate in common about war, and the king was not to have the power of life and death over his kinsmen, unless he had the assent of the majority.

  For many generations, as tradition tells, the people of Atlantis were obedient to the laws and to the gods, and practised gentleness and wisdom in their intercourse with one another. They knew that they could only have the true use of riches by not 121caring about them. But gradually the divine portion of their souls became diluted with too much of the mortal admixture, and they began to degenerate, though to the outward eye they appeared glorious as ever at the very time when they were filled with all iniquity. The all-seeing Zeus, wanting to punish them, held a council of the gods, and when he had called them together, he spoke as follows:—

  Introduction.

  No one knew better than Plato how to invent ‘a noble lie.’ Observe (1) the innocent declaration of Socrates, that the truth of the story is a great advantage: (2) the manner in which traditional names and indications of geography are intermingled (‘Why, here be truths!’): (3) the extreme minuteness with which the numbers are given, as in the Old Epic poetry: (4) the ingenious reason assigned for the Greek names occurring in the Egyptian tale (113 A): (5) the remark that the armed statue of Athena indicated the common warrior life of men and women (110 B): (6) the particularity with which the third deluge before that of Deucalion is affirmed to have been the great destruction (112 A): (7) the happy guess that great geological changes have been effected by water: (8) the indulgence of the prejudice against sailing beyond the Columns, and the popular belief of the shallowness of the ocean in that part: (9) the confession that the depth of the ditch in the Island of Atlantis was not to be believed, and ‘yet he could only repeat what he had heard’ (118 C), compared with the statement made in an earlier passage that Poseidon, being a God, found no difficulty in contriving the water-supply of the centre island (113 E): (10) the mention of the old rivalry of Poseidon and Athene, and the creation of the first inhabitants out of the soil. Plato here, as elsewhere, ingeniously gives the impression that he is telling the truth which mythology had corrupted.

  The world, like a child, has readily, and for the most part unhesitatingly, accepted the tale of the Island of Atlantis. In modern times we hardly seek for traces of the submerged continent; but even Mr. Grote is inclined to believe in the Egyptian poem of Solon of which there is no evidence in antiquity; while others, like Martin, discuss the Egyptian origin of the legend, or like M. de Humboldt, whom he quotes, are disposed to find in it a vestige of a widely-spread tradition. Others, adopting a different vein of reflection, regard the Island of Atlantis as the anticipation of a still greater island—the Continent of America. ‘The tale,’ says M. Martin, ‘rests upon the authority of the Egyptian priests; and the Egyptian priests took a pleasure in deceiving the Greeks.’ He never appears to suspect that there is a greater deceiver or magician than the Egyptian priests, that is to say, Plato himself, from the dominion of whose genius the critic and natural philosopher of modern times are not wholly emancipated. Although worthless in respect of any result which can be attained by them, discussions like those of M. Martin (Timée, tome i. pp. 257-332) have an interest of their own, and may be compared to the similar discussions regarding the Lost Tribes (2 Esdras xiii. 40), as showing how the chance word of some poet or philosopher has given birth to endless religious or historical enquiries. (See Introduction to the Timaeus, pp. 429-33.)

  In contrasting the small Greek city numbering about twenty thousand inhabitants with the barbaric greatness of the island of Atlantis, Plato probably intended to show that a state, such as the ideal Athens, was invincible, though matched against any number of opponents (cp. Rep. iv. 423 B). Even in a great empire there might be a degree of virtue and justice, such as the Greeks believed to have existed under the sway of the first Persian kings. But all such empires were liable to degenerate, and soon incurred the anger of the gods. Their Oriental wealth, and splendour of gold and silver, and variety of colours, seemed also to be at variance with the simplicity of Greek notions. In the island of Atlantis, Plato is describing a sort of Babylonian or Egyptian city, to which he opposes the frugal life of the true Hellenic citizen. It is remarkable that in his brief sketch of them, he idealizes the husbandmen ‘who are lovers of honour and true husbandmen’ (111 E), as well as the warriors who are his sole concern in the Republic; and that though he speaks of the common pursuits of men and women, he says nothing of the community of wives and children.

  It is singular that Plato should have prefixed the most detested of Athenian names to this dialogue, and even more singular that he should have put into the mouth of Socrates a panegyric on him (Tim. 20 A). Yet we know that his character was accounted infamous by Xenophon, and that the mere acquaintance with him was made a subject of accusation against Socrates. We can only infer that in this, and perhaps in some other cases, Plato’s characters have no reference to the actual facts. The desire to do honour to his own family, and the connexion with Solon, may have suggested the introduction of his name. Why the Critias was never completed, whether from accident, or from advancing age, or from a sense of the artistic difficulty of the design, cannot be determined.

  CRITIAS.

  persons of the dialogue.

  Critias.

  Hermocrates.

  Timaeus.

  Socrates.

  Timaeus.

  Critias.Timaeus, Critias.Timaeus prays to the ‘ancient of days’ that the truth of his words may endure, and for enlightenment where he has erred.

  106How thankful I am, Socrates, that I have arrived at last, and, like a weary traveller after a long journey, may be at rest! And I pray the being who always was of old, and has now been by me revealed, to grant that my words may endure in so far as they have been spoken truly and acceptably to him; but if unintentionally I have said anything wrong, I pray that he will impose upon me a just retribution, and the just retribution of him who errs is that he should be set right. Wishing, then, to speak truly in future concerning the generation of the gods, I pray him to give me knowledge, which of all medicines is the most perfect and best. And now having offered my prayer I deliver up the argument to Critias, who is to speak next according to our agreement1 .

  Critias.

  Critias asks for greater indulgence than was shown to Timaeus on the ground that it is easier to speak well of the Gods, whom we do notCritias, Socrates.know, than of men, whom we do. An illustration.

  And I, Timaeus, accept the trust, and as you at first said that you were going to speak of high matters, and begged that some forbearance might be shown to you, I too ask the same or greater forbearance for what I am about to 107say. And although I very well know that my request may appear to be somewhat ambitious and discourteous, I must make it nevertheless. For will any man of sense deny that you have spoken well? I can only attempt to show that I ought to have more indulgence than you, because my theme is more difficult; and I shall argue that to seem to speak well of the gods to men is far easier than to speak well of men to men: for the inexperience and utter ignorance of his hearers about any subject is a great assistance to him who has to speak of it, and we know how ignorant we are concerning the gods. But I should like to make my meaning clearer, if you will follow me. All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation. For if we consider the likenesses which painters make of bodies divine and heavenly, and the different degrees of gratification with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are satisfied with the artist who is able in any degree to imitate the earth and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is required is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them forth. But when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick at finding out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges of any one who does not render every point of similarity. And we may observe the same thing to happen in discourse; we are satisfied with a picture of divine and heavenly things which has very little likeness to them; but we are more precise in our criticism of mortal and human things. Wherefore if at the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses of human things is the 108reverse of easy. This is what I want to suggest to you, and at the same time to beg, Socrates, that I may have not less, but more indulgence conceded to me in what I am about to say. Which favour, if I am right in asking, I hope that you will be ready to grant.

  Socrates.

  Socrates grants the indulgence, and, not to have the same request repeated, extends it to Hermocrates.Socrates, Critias, Hermocrates.

  Certainly, Critias, we will grant your request, and we will grant the same by anticipation to Hermocrates, as well as to you and Timaeus; for I have no doubt that when his turn comes a little while hence, he will make the same request which you have made. In order, then, that he may provide himself with a fresh beginning, and not be compelled to say the same things over again, let him understand that the indulgence is already extended by anticipation to him. And now, friend Critias, I will announce to you the judgment of the theatre. They are of opinion that the last performer was wonderfully successful, and that you will need a great deal of indulgence before you will be able to take his place.

  Hermocrates.

  The warning, Socrates, which you have addressed to him, I must also take to myself. But remember, Critias, that faint heart never yet raised a trophy; and therefore you must go and attack the argument like a man. First invoke Apollo and the Muses, and then let us hear you sound the praises and show forth the virtues of your ancient citizens.

  Crit.

  Critias invokes the aid of Mnemosyne.

  Friend Hermocrates, you, who are stationed last and have another in front of you, have not lost heart as yet; the gravity of the situation will soon be revealed to you; meanwhile I accept your exhortations and encouragements. But besides the gods and goddesses whom you have mentioned, I would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part of my discourse is dependent on her favour, and if I can recollect and recite enough of what was said by the priests and brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I shall satisfy the requirements of this theatre. And now, making no more excuses, I will proceed.

  The subject is the war between Athens and Atlantis.He proposes to speak first of Athens.Critias.

  Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean. The 109progress of the history will unfold the various nations of barbarians and families of Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must describe first of all the Athenians of that day, and their enemies who fought with them, and then the respective powers and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the precedence to Athens.

  When the Gods divided the earth, the land of Attica was allotted to Hephaestus and Athene, who implanted there brave children of the soil. Of these the history was lost, but their names remained.The men and women had military pursuits in common.

  In the days of old, the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment1 . There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and people their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;—thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order. Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government; their names are preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their children; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew only by obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect of 110events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and the enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they begin to have leisure1 , and when they see that the necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before. And this is the reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess in full armour, to be a testimony that all animals which associate together, male as well as female, may, if they please, practise in common the virtue which belongs to them without distinction of sex.

  Castes.Common property among the warriors.Boundaries of antediluvian Attica.The productiveness of the soil still equal tothat of any country;although the land is a mere skeleton from which the richer and softer parts have been washed away.

  Now the country was inhabited in those days by various classes of citizens;—there were artisans, and there were husbandmen, and there was also a warrior class originally set apart by divine men. The latter dwelt by themselves, and had all things suitable for nurture and education; neither had any of them anything of their own, but they regarded all that they had as common property; nor did they claim to receive of the other citizens anything more than their necessary food. And they practised all the pursuits which we yesterday described as those of our imaginary guardians. Concerning the country the Egyptian priests said what is not only probable but manifestly true, that the boundaries were in those days fixed by the Isthmus, and that in the direction of the continent they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes; the boundary line came down in the direction of the sea, having the district of Oropus on the right, and with the river Asopus as the limit on the left. The land was the best in the world, and was therefore able in those days to support a vast army, raised from the surrounding people. Even the remnant of Attica which now exists may compare with any region in the world for the 111variety and excellence of its fruits and the suitableness of its pastures to every sort of animal, which proves what I am saying; but in those days the country was fair as now and yielded far more abundant produce. How shall I establish my words? and what part of it can be truly called a remnant of the land that then was? The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the shore. Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left. But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills covered with soil, and the plains, as they are termed by us, of Phelleus were full of rich earth, and there was abundance of wood in the mountains. Of this last the traces still remain, for although some of the mountains now only afford sustenance to bees, not so very long ago there were still to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I am saying.

  The extent of the Acropolis.On its slopes dwelt artisans and husbandmen; on its summit the warrior class.Their winter and summer habitations.The fountain on the Acropolis.The numberof the population the same then as now.

  Such was the natural state of the country, which was cultivated, as we may well believe, by true husbandmen, who made husbandry their business, and were lovers of honour, and of a noble nature, and had a soil the best in the world, and abundance of water, and in the heaven above an excellently attempered climate. Now the city in those days was arranged on this wise. In the first place the Acropolis was 112not as now. For the fact is that a single night of excessive rain washed away the earth and laid bare the rock; at the same time there were earthquakes, and then occurred the extraordinary inundation, which was the third before the great destruction of Deucalion. But in primitive times the hill of the Acropolis extended to the Eridanus and Ilissus, and included the Pnyx on one side, and the Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite side to the Pnyx, and was all well covered with soil, and level at the top, except in one or two places. Outside the Acropolis and under the sides of the hill there dwelt artisans, and such of the husbandmen as were tilling the ground near; the warrior class dwelt by themselves around the temples of Athene and Hephaestus at the summit, which moreover they had enclosed with a single fence like the garden of a single house. On the north side they had dwellings in common and had erected halls for dining in winter, and had all the buildings which they needed for their common life, besides temples, but there was no adorning of them with gold and silver, for they made no use of these for any purpose; they took a middle course between meanness and ostentation, and built modest houses in which they and their children’s children grew old, and they handed them down to others who were like themselves, always the same. But in summer-time they left their gardens and gymnasia and dining halls, and then the southern side of the hill was made use of by them for the same purpose. Where the Acropolis now is there was a fountain, which was choked by the earthquake, and has left only the few small streams which still exist in the vicinity, but in those days the fountain gave an abundant supply of water for all and of suitable temperature in summer and in winter. This is how they dwelt, being the guardians of their own citizens and the leaders of the Hellenes, who were their willing followers. And they took care to preserve the same number of men and women through all time, being so many as were required for warlike purposes, then as now,—that is to say, about twenty thousand. Such were the ancient Athenians, and after this manner they righteously administered their own land and the rest of Hellas; they were renowned all over Europe and Asia for the beauty of their persons and for the many virtues of their souls, and of all men who lived in those days they were the most illustrious. And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when I was a child, I will impart to you the character and origin of their adversaries. For friends should not keep their stories to themselves, but have them in common.

  Explanation of the occurrence of Greek names in the narrative.The originals still in existence.

  113Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to warn you, that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem, enquired into the meaning of the names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our language. My great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced. The tale, which was of great length, began as follows:—

  Atlantis the lot of Poseidon.His love for Cleito. He surrounded the hill in which she lived with alternate zones of sea and land.Their children, Atlas and his brothers, were the princes of the island. The extent of their dominion.Their vast wealth.Mines.Forests.Animals tame and wild.Fruits and flowers.

  I have before remarked in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into portions differing in extent, and made for themselves temples and instituted sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe. Looking towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side. In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only daughter who was called Cleito. The maiden had already reached womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her and had intercourse with her, and breaking the ground, inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe, each having its circumference equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin male children; and dividing the island of 114Atlantis into ten portions, he gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother’s dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many men, and a large territory. And he named them all; the eldest, who was the first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island towards the pillars of Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of the second pair of twins he called one Ampheres, and the other Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus, and Autochthon to the one who followed him. Of the fourth pair of twins he called the elder Elasippus, and the younger Mestor. And of the fifth pair he gave to the elder the name of Azaes, and to the younger that of Diaprepes. All these and their descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held sway in our direction over the country within the pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a numerous and honourable family, and they retained the kingdom, the eldest son handing it on to his eldest for many generations; and they had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and is not likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they needed, both in the city and country. For because of the greatness of their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, solid as well as fusile, and that which is now only a name and was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood for carpenter’s work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants 115in the island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for food—we call them all by the common name of pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement, and are fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating—all these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their temples and palaces and harbours and docks. And they arranged the whole country in the following manner:—

  The bridges over the zones. The royal palace.The great canal.The harbour.Size of the zones,and of the centre island.The walls surrounding the zones: their variegated appearance.The temple of Cleito and Poseidon.Splendour of Poseidon’s own temple.

  First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who went before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for size and for beauty. And beginning from the sea they bored a canal of three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided at the bridges the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, leaving room for a single trireme to pass out of one zone into another, and they covered over the channels so as to leave a way underneath for the ships; for the banks were raised considerably above the water. Now the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth, and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two zones, the one of water, the other of land, were two stadia, and the one which surrounded the central island was a 116stadium only in width. The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia. All this including the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall on every side, placing towers and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from underneath the centre island, and from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side. One kind was white, another black, and a third red, and as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put together different stones, varying the colour to please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on this wise:—In the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot where the family of the ten princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, to be an offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon’s own temple which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars and floor, they coated with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot—the charioteer of six winged horses—and of such a size that he touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them by the men of those days. There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of private persons, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, 117and the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory of the temple.

  Springs.Baths.The grove of Poseidon.Aqueducts.Temples.Gardens.Hippodromes.Guardhouses.Docks.

  In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of their waters1 . They constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees; also they made cisterns, some open to the heaven, others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the kings’ baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle, and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable. Of the water which ran off they carried some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil, while the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts along the bridges to the outer circles; and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and others for horses in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was set apart a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in. Also there were guard-houses at intervals for the guards, the more trusted of whom were appointed to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, near the persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal palace.

  Between the outermost wall and the great harbour was the mercantile quarter.

  Leaving the palace and passing out across the three harbours, you came to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and din and clatter of all sorts night and day.

  The city lay in an oblong plain, surrounded by mountains, which descended abruptly into the sea.

  I have described the city and the environs of the ancient palace nearly in the words of Solon, and now I must 118endeavour to represent to you the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.

  The great foss, 100 feet in depth, 600 in width, and 10,000 stadia in length.The cross canals.Two harvests.

  I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth—in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from the canals.

  60,000 lots and 60,000 officers.Military strength: 10,000 chariots, 1,200 ships, &c.

  As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had 119to find a leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of a lot was a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them according to their districts and villages. The leader was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed soldiers, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelinmen, who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal city—the order of the other nine governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their several differences.

  Laws affecting the kings inscribed on a column of orichalcum.Administration of these laws by the ten kings in the temple of Poseidon, after sacrifice and prayer.They put on azure robes when they gave judgment, and recorded their decisions on golden tablets.

  As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any one had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment, and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:—There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had burnt 120its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups, and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial.

  The kings were not to take up arms against one another, but were to unite for mutual defence.

  There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following: They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if any one in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the royal house; like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten.

  The virtues of the people of Atlantis were great so long as the divine elementlasted in them; but when this grew weaker, they degenerated.Intimation of the overthrow of Atlantis.

  Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated 121by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see, grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their1 most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows:—

  [1 ]Cp. Sir G. C. Lewis in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p. 1.

  [1 ]Cp. Sir G. C. Lewis in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p. 1.

  [1 ]Pol. v. 12, § 8 :—‘He only says that nothing is abiding, but that all things change in a certain cycle; and that the origin of the change is a base of numbers which are in the ratio of 4 : 3; and this when combined with a figure of five gives two harmonies; he means when the number of this figure becomes solid.’

  [1 ]The Platonic Tetractys consisted of a series of seven terms, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27.

  [1 ]‘Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators; but these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the tailer and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, “That these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of these authors to posterity.” I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramns, as I presented them to him; and he asked them “whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves?” ’

  [1 ]‘Howbeit, I think this was no small help and furtherance in the matter, that they heard us say that Christ instituted among his, all things common, and that the same community doth yet remain in the rightest Christian communities’ (Utopia, English Reprints, p. 144).

  [1 ]‘These things (I say), when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refused those laws, whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the wise man did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a community, if equality of all things should be brought in and established’ (Utopia, English Reprints, pp. 67, 68).

  [1 ]‘One of our company in my presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptised, began, against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom, to reason of Christ’s religion, and began to wax so hot in his matter, that he did not only prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish, and the children of everlasting damnation. When he had thus long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people’ (p. 145).

  [1 ]Compare his satirical observation: ‘They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few’ (p. 150).

  [1 ]When the ambassadors came arrayed in gold and peacocks’ feathers ‘to the eyes of all the Utopians except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful. In so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords—passing over the ambassadors themselves without any honour, judging them by their wearing of golden chains to be bondmen. You should have seen children also, that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon the ambassadors’ caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them “Look, mother, how great a lubber doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as though he were a little child still.” But the mother; yea and that also in good earnest: “Peace, son,” saith she. “I think he be some of the ambassadors’ fools”’ (p. 102).

  [2 ]Cp. an exquisite passage nt p. 25 of which the conclusion is as follows: ‘And verily it is naturally given . . . suppressed and ended.’

  [3 ]‘For they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions, very wittily invented in the small Logicals, which here our children in every place do learn. Furthermore, they were never yet able to find out the second intentions; insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as they call him, though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant, yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger’ (p. 105).

  [1 ]‘And yet the most part of them is more dissident from the manners of the world now a days, than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wilymen men, following your counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to frame their manners to Christ’s rule, they have wrested and wried his doctrine, and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men’s manners, that by some means at the least way, they might agree together’ (p. 66).

  [1 ]Bendls, the Thracian Artemis.

  [1 ]Reading ϕυλάξασθαι καὶ λαθεɩ̂ν, ο[Editor: illegible character]τος, κ.τ.λ.

  [1 ]Reading Γὐγ[Editor: illegible character] τῳ̑ Κροίσου τον̂ Λν[Editor: illegible character]ον̂ προγόνῳ.

  [1 ]Seven against Thebes, 574.

  [1 ]Hesiod, Works and Days, 230.

  [2 ]Homer, Od. xix. 109.

  [3 ]Eumolpus.

  [1 ]Hesiod, Works and Days, 287.

  [2 ]Homer, Iliad, ix. 493.

  [1 ]Hesiod, Theogony, 154, 459.

  [1 ]Placing the comma after γρανσί, and not after γιγνομένοις.

  [1 ]Iliad xxiv. 527.

  [1 ]Iliad ii. 69.

  [2 ]Ib. xx.

  [1 ]Hom. Od. xvii. 485.

  [1 ]Omitting κατὰ ϕαντασίας.

  [2 ]From a lost play.

  [1 ]Od. xi. 489.

  [2 ]Il. xx. 64.

  [1 ]Il. xxiii. 103.

  [2 ]Od. x. 495.

  [3 ]Il. xvi. 856.

  [4 ]Ib. xxiii. 100.

  [5 ]Od. xxiv. 6.

  [1 ]Il. xxiv. 10.

  [2 ]Ib. xviii. 23.

  [3 ]Ib. xxii. 414.

  [1 ]Il. xviii. 54.

  [2 ]Ib. xxii. 168.

  [3 ]Ib. xvi. 433.

  [4 ]Ib. i. 599.

  [1 ]Od. xvii. 383 sq.

  [2 ]Or, ‘if his words are accompanied by actions.’

  [3 ]Il. iv. 412.

  [1 ]Od. iii. 8.

  [2 ]Ib. iv. 431.

  [3 ]Ib. i. 225.

  [4 ]Ib. ix. 8.

  [5 ]Ib. xii. 342.

  [6 ]Il. xiv. 281.

  [1 ]Od. viii. 266.

  [2 ]Ib. xx. 17.

  [3 ]Quoted by Suidas as attributed to Hesiod.

  [4 ]Il. ix. 515.

  [5 ]Ib. xxiv. 175.

  [6 ]Cf. infra, x. 595.

  [7 ]Il. xxii. 15 sq.

  [8 ]Ib. xxi. 130, 223 sq.

  [1 ]Il. xxiii. 151.

  [2 ]Ib. xxii. 394.

  [3 ]Ib. xxiii. 175.

  [4 ]From the Niobe of Aeschylus.

  [1 ]i. e. the four notes of the tetrachord.

  [2 ]Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of 3/2 in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/1; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of ½ or 2/1.

  [1 ]Cp. supra, II. 368 D.

  [1 ]Making the answer of Socrates begin at καὶ γὰρ πρὸς κ.τ.λ.

  [2 ]Iliad iv. 218.

  [1 ]Cp. Laws, 663 E.

  [1 ]Or, ‘that for their own good you are making these people miserable.’

  [1 ]Od. i. 352.

  [1 ]Reading μὴ δεɩ̂ν ἀντιπράττειν, without a comma after δεɩ̂ν.

  [1 ]Od. xx. 17, quoted supra, III. 390 D.

  [1 ]Reading προστατήσετον with Bekker; or, if the reading προστήσετον, which is found in the MSS., be adopted, then the nominative must be supplied from the previous sentence: ‘Music and gymnastic will place in authority over . . .’ This is very awkward, and the awkwardness is increased by the necessity of changing the subject at τηρήσετον.

  [1 ]Reading [Editor: illegible character]τι ἐγὼ ε[Editor: illegible character]πον.

  [1 ]Or inserting καὶ before νομίμων: ‘a deceiver about beauty or goodness or principles of justice or law.’

  [2 ]Reading [Editor: illegible character]στε ε[Editor: illegible character] με παραμνθεɩ̂.

  [1 ]Reading with Paris A. καὶ καλον̂ . . .

  [1 ]Reading ἰατ[Editor: illegible character]ὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν τὴν ψυχὴν ὄντα.

  [1 ]Pages 419, 420 ff.

  [1 ]Iliad, vii. 321.

  [1 ]Iliad, viii. 162.

  [2 ]Probably Works and Days, 121 foll.

  [1 ]Reading στραγγευομένῳ.

  [1 ]Or, applying ὅπως δὲ κνβερνήσει to the mutineers, ‘But only understanding (ἐπα[Editor: illegible character]οντας) that he (the mutinous pilot) must rule in spite of other people, never considering that there is an art of command which may be practised in combination with the pilot’s art.’

  [1 ]Or, taking παρὰ in another sense, ‘trained to virtue on their principles.’

  [1 ]Or, taking παρὰ in another sense, ‘trained to virtue on their principles.’

  [1 ]Putting a comma after τ[Editor: illegible character]ν ἀναγκαίων.

  [1 ]Or ‘will they not deserve to be called sophisms,’ . . . .

  [1 ]Or ‘will they not deserve to be called sophisms,’ . . . .

  [1 ]Heracleitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.

  [1 ]Reading κατηκόῳ or κατηκόοις.

  [1 ]Reading η̑̓ καὶ ἐὰν ο[Editor: illegible character]τω θεω̂νται without a question, and ἀλλοίαν τοι: or, retaining the question and taking ἀλλοίαν δόξαν in a new sense: ‘Do you mean to say really that, viewing him in this light, they will be of another mind from yours, and answer in another strain?’

  [1 ]Cp. IV. 435 D.

  [2 ]Or, separating καὶ μάλα from [Editor: illegible character]ξι[Editor: illegible character]ν, ‘True, he said, and a noble thought’: or [Editor: illegible character]ξιον τὸ διανόημα may be a gloss.

  [1 ]Reading ἀνὴρ καλός: or reading ἀνὴρ καλω̂ς, ‘I quite well knew from the very first, that you, &c.’

  [1 ]A play upon τόκος, which means both ‘offspring’ and ‘interest.’

  [1 ]Reading διανοον̂.

  [1 ]Reading ἄνισα.

  [2 ]Reading [Editor: illegible character]ν[Editor: illegible character]ερ ἐκεɩ̂νο εἰκόνων.

  [1 ]Reading παρόντα.

  [1 ]In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.

  [2 ]Reading οὐ̑σαν ἐπάνοδον.

  [1 ]Meaning either (1) that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of fractions; or (2) that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the fractions of one continue to be units.

  [1 ]Or, ‘close alongside of their neighbour’s instruments, as if to catch a sound from them.’

  [1 ]Omitting ἐνταν̂θα δὲ πρὸς ϕαντάσματα. The word θεɩ̂α is bracketed by Stallbaum.

  [1 ]A play upon the word νόμος, which means both ‘law’ and ‘strain.’

  [1 ]γραμμάς, literally ‘lines,’ probably the starting-point of a race-course.

  [1 ]i. e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.

  [2 ]Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 32, 43, 53, which together = 63 = 216.

  [3 ]Or the first a square which is 100 × 100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100, and an oblong of 100 by 75.

  [4 ]Reading προμήκη δέ.

  [1 ]Or, ‘consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters,’ &c. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see Introduction.

  [1 ]Cp. supra. 544 C.

  [2 ]Omitting [Editor: illegible character] τινος.

  [1 ]Reading καὶ ἐτίμα μἀλιστα. Ε[Editor: illegible character] [Editor: illegible character]ν δ’ ἐγώ, according to Schneider’s excellent emendation.

  [1 ]Omitting τί μήν; [Editor: illegible character]ϕη.

  [1 ]Or, ‘the philosophical temper of the condemned.’

  [1 ]Herod. i. 55.

  [1 ]Or, ‘opinions or appetites such as are deemed to be good.’

  [1 ]Reading with Grasere and Hermann τί οἰώμεθα, and omitting οὺδὲν, which is not found in the best MSS.

  [1 ]729 nearly equals the number of days and nights in the year.

  [1 ]Or ‘take up his abode there.’

  [1 ]Omitting εἰς.

  [1 ]Or, ‘with his nouns and verbs.’

  [1 ]Reading εἰδωλοποιον̂ντα . . . ἀϕεστω̂τα.

  [1 ]Or, if we accept Madvig’s ingenious but unnecessary emendation ᾀσόμεθα, ‘At all events we will sing, that’ &c.

  [1 ]Reading ἀπελυσάμεθα.

  [1 ]Reading ἡμω̂ν.

  [1 ]Reading αὐτόχειρας.

  [2 ]Reading καὶ ὅτι.

  [1 ]Reading εἰκοστήν.

  [1 ]Or ‘which are akin to these;’ or τούτοις may be taken with ἐν ἅπασι.

  [1 ]Or ‘which, though unrecorded in history, Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be an actual fact?’

  [1 ]Or ‘which, though unrecorded in history, Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be an actual fact?’

  [1 ]Observe that Plato gives the same date (9000 years ago) for the foundation of Athens and for the repulse of the invasion from Atlantis. (Crit. 108 E).

  [1 ]Reading τὸ τω̂ν θηρευτω̂ν.

  [1 ]Omitting αὐ̑ πέρι.

  [1 ]e. g. ₁̄, 4/3, [Editor: illegible character], ₂̄, 5/3, 3, ₄̄, 16/8, 8, ₈̄; and ₁̄, 3/2, 2, ₃̄, [Editor: illegible character], 6, ₉̄, [Editor: illegible character], 18, ₂̅₅̅.

  [2 ]e. g. 243 : 256 :: [Editor: illegible character] : ⅘ :: 245/128 : 2 :: [Editor: illegible character] : [Editor: illegible character] :: 248/64 : 4 :: [Editor: illegible character] : [Editor: illegible character] :: 242/32 : 8. (Martin.)

  [1 ]i. e. of the rectangular figure supposed to be inscribed in the circle of the Same.

  [2 ]i. e. across the rectangular figure from corner to corner.

  [1 ]Cp. Parmen. 141.

  [1 ]Or ‘circling.’

  [2 ]Reading τοɩ̂ς οὐ δυν, and τούτων αὐτω̂ν.

  [1 ]He is speaking of two kinds of mirrors, first the plane, secondly the concave; and the latter is supposed to be placed, first horizontally, and then vertically.

  [1 ]Reading ϕωνῃ̂ and placing the comma after ἀκοήν.

  [2 ]Cp. infra, 53 A.

  [1 ]Putting the comma after μα̂λλον δὲ; or, following Stallbaum and omitting the comma, ‘or rather, before entering on this probable discussion, we will begin again, and try to speak of each thing and of all.’

  [1 ]Or, ‘since in its very intention it is not self-existent’—which, though obscure, avoids any inaccuracy of construction.

  [1 ]Cp. 65 C, 66 C.

  [1 ]The text seems to be corrupt.

  [1 ]Omitting [Editor: illegible character]στερα

  [1 ]Putting a colon after εὐπαράγωγον and reading αἰσθήσει δἐ ἀλόγῳ.

  [1 ]Reading [Editor: illegible character]μμα.

  [1 ]Reading χλοω̂[Editor: illegible character]ες.

  [1 ]Reading αὐτό for α[Editor: illegible character] τό and [Editor: illegible character]μα for α[Editor: illegible character]μα.

  [1 ]Supra, 33 A.

  [1 ]Reading ξυνδνάζοντες (conj. Hermann).

  [1 ]Or reading ποιητον̂—‘of his maker.’

  [1 ]Cp. supra, p. 444, footnote.

  [1 ]Tim. 27 A.

  [1 ]Cp. Polit. 271 ff.

  [1 ]Cp. Arist. Metaphys. I. 1, § 16.

  [1 ]Reading ἑκατέρου πρὸς τὴν χρη̂σιν.

  [1 ]Reading αὐτω̂ν.

• Back to Top

  3: Plato, Dialogues, vol. 2 - Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Gorgias, Appendix I - Lesser, Hippias, Alcibiades I, Menexenus, Appendix II - Alcibiades II, Eryxias [1892]

  Plato, The Dialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by B. Jowett, M.A. in Five Volumes. 3rd edition revised and corrected (Oxford University Press, 1892).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/766 on 2009-03-30

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  Oxford University Press

  Amen House, E.C. 4

  London Edinburgh Glasgow Leipzig New York Toronto Melbourne Capetown Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai

  Humphrey Milford Publisher to the University

  MENO.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Meno.Analysis.

  70This Dialogue begins abruptly with a question of Meno, who asks ‘whether virtue can be taught.’ Socrates replies that he 71does not as yet know what virtue is, and has never known any one who did. ‘Then he cannot have met Gorgias when he was at Athens.’ Yes, Socrates had met him, but he has a bad memory, and has forgotten what Gorgias said. Will Meno tell him his own notion, which is probably not very different from 72that of Gorgias? ‘O yes—nothing easier: there is the virtue of a man, of a woman, of an old man, and of a child; there is a virtue of every age and state of life, all of which may be easily described.’

  73Socrates reminds Meno that this is only an enumeration of the virtues and not a definition of the notion which is common to them all. In a second attempt Meno defines virtue to be ‘the power of command.’ But to this, again, exceptions are taken. For there must be a virtue of those who obey, as well as of those who command; and the power of command must be justly or not unjustly exercised. Meno is very ready to admit that justice is virtue: ‘Would you say virtue or a virtue, for there are other 74virtues, such as courage, temperance, and the like; just as round is a figure, and black and white are colours, and yet there are other figures and other colours. Let Meno take the examples of figure and colour, and try to define them.’ Meno confesses his inability, and after a process of interrogation, in which Socrates 75explains to him the nature of a ‘simile in multis,’ Socrates himself defines figure as ‘the accompaniment of colour.’ But some one may object that he does not know the meaning of the word ‘colour;’ and if he is a candid friend, and not a mere disputant, Socrates is willing to furnish him with a simpler and more philosophical definition, into which no disputed word is allowed to intrude: ‘Figure is the limit of form.’ Meno imperiously 76insists that he must still have a definition of colour. Some raillery follows; and at length Socrates is induced to reply, ‘that colour is the effluence of form, sensible, and in due proportion to the sight.’ This definition is exactly suited to the taste of Meno, who welcomes the familiar language of Gorgias and Empedocles. Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract or dialectical definition of figure is far better.

  Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of a general definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman, and in the words of a poet, ‘that virtue is to delight in 77things honourable, and to have the power of getting them.’ This is a nearer approximation than he has yet made to a complete definition, and, regarded as a piece of proverbial or popular morality, is not far from the truth. But the objection is urged, ‘that the honourable is the good,’ and as every one equally desires the good, the point of the definition is contained in the words, 78‘the power of getting them.’ ‘And they must be got justly or with justice.’ The definition will then stand thus: ‘Virtue is the power of getting good with justice.’ But justice is a part of 79virtue, and therefore virtue is the getting of good with a part of virtue. The definition repeats the word defined.

  Meno complains that the conversation of Socrates has the effect 80of a torpedo’s shock upon him. When he talks with other persons he has plenty to say about virtue; in the presence of Socrates, his thoughts desert him. Socrates replies that he is only the cause of perplexity in others, because he is himself perplexed. He proposes to continue the enquiry. But how, asks Meno, can he enquire either into what he knows or into what he does not know? This is a sophistical puzzle, which, 81as Socrates remarks, saves a great deal of trouble to him who accepts it. But the puzzle has a real difficulty latent under it, to which Socrates will endeavour to find a reply. The difficulty is the origin of knowledge:—

  He has heard from priests and priestesses, and from the poet Pindar, of an immortal soul which is born again and again in successive periods of existence, returning into this world when she has paid the penalty of ancient crime, and, having wandered over all places of the upper and under world, and seen and known all things at one time or other, is by association out of one thing capable of recovering all. For nature is of one kindred; and 82every soul has a seed or germ which may be developed into all knowledge. The existence of this latent knowledge is further proved by the interrogation of one of Meno’s slaves, who, in the skilful hands of Socrates, is made to acknowledge some elementary relations of geometrical figures. The theorem that 83the square of the diagonal is double the square of the side—that famous discovery of primitive mathematics, in honour of which the legendary Pythagoras is said to have sacrificed a hecatomb—is elicited from him. The first step in the process of teaching has made him conscious of his own ignorance. He has had the ‘torpedo’s shock’ given him, and is the better for the operation. 86But whence had the uneducated man this knowledge? He had never learnt geometry in this world; nor was it born with him; he must therefore have had it when he was not a man. And as he always either was or was not a man, he must have always had it. (Cp. Phaedo, 73 B.)

  After Socrates has given this specimen of the true nature of teaching, the original question of the teachableness of virtue is renewed. Again he professes a desire to know ‘what virtue is’ 87first. But he is willing to argue the question, as mathematicians say, under an hypothesis. He will assume that if virtue is knowledge, 88then virtue can be taught. (This was the stage of the argument at which the Protagoras concluded.)

  Socrates has no difficulty in showing that virtue is a good, and that goods, whether of body or mind, must be under the direction of knowledge. Upon the assumption just made, then, 89virtue is teachable. But where are the teachers? There are none to be found. This is extremely discouraging. Virtue is no sooner discovered to be teachable, than the discovery follows that it is not taught. Virtue, therefore, is and is not teachable.

  90In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and well-to-do citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno, 91who happens to be present. He is asked ‘whether Meno shall 92go to the Sophists and be taught.’ The suggestion throws him into 93a rage. ‘To whom, then, shall Meno go?’ asks Socrates. To any Athenian gentleman—to the great Athenian statesmen of past times. Socrates replies here, as elsewhere (Laches, 179 C foll.; Prot. 319 foll.), that Themistocles, Pericles, and other great men, 94had sons to whom they would surely, if they could have done so, have imparted their own political wisdom; but no one ever heard that these sons of theirs were remarkable for anything except riding and wrestling and similar accomplishments. Anytus is angry at the imputation which is cast on his favourite statesmen, and on a class to which he supposes himself to belong (cp. 95 A); he breaks off with a significant hint. The mention of 95another opportunity of talking with him (99 E), and the suggestion that Meno may do the Athenian people a service by pacifying him (100), are evident allusions to the trial of Socrates.

  Socrates returns to the consideration of the question ‘whether virtue is teachable,’ which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the 96rest of the world do not profess to teach). But there is another point which we failed to observe, and in which Gorgias has never instructed Meno, nor Prodicus Socrates. This is the nature of right opinion. For virtue may be under the guidance of right 97opinion as well as of knowledge; and right opinion is for practical purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of being taught, and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to ‘walk off,’ 98because not bound by the tie of the cause. This is the sort of instinct which is possessed by statesmen, who are not wise or knowing persons, but only inspired or divine. The higher virtue, 99which is identical with knowledge, is an ideal only. If the statesman had this knowledge, and could teach what he knew, he would be like Tiresias in the world below,—‘he alone has wisdom, 100but the rest flit like shadows.’

  Introduction.

  This Dialogue is an attempt to answer the question, Can virtue be taught? No one would either ask or answer such a question in modern times. But in the age of Socrates it was only by an effort that the mind could rise to a general notion of virtue as distinct from the particular virtues of courage, liberality, and the like. And when a hazy conception of this ideal was attained, it was only by a further effort that the question of the teachableness of virtue could be resolved.

  The answer which is given by Plato is paradoxical enough, and seems rather intended to stimulate than to satisfy enquiry. Virtue is knowledge, and therefore virtue can be taught. But virtue is not taught, and therefore in this higher and ideal sense there is no virtue and no knowledge. The teaching of the Sophists is confessedly inadequate, and Meno, who is their pupil, is ignorant of the very nature of general terms. He can only produce out of their armoury the sophism, ‘that you can neither enquire into what you know nor into what you do not know;’ to which Socrates replies by his theory of reminiscence.

  To the doctrine that virtue is knowledge, Plato has been constantly tending in the previous Dialogues. But the new truth is no sooner found than it vanishes away. ‘If there is knowledge, there must be teachers; and where are the teachers?’ There is no knowledge in the higher sense of systematic, connected, reasoned knowledge, such as may one day be attained, and such as Plato himself seems to see in some far off vision of a single science. And there are no teachers in the higher sense of the word; that is to say, no real teachers who will arouse the spirit of enquiry in their pupils, and not merely instruct them in rhetoric or impart to them ready-made information for a fee of ‘one’ or of ‘fifty drachms.’ Plato is desirous of deepening the notion of education, and therefore he asserts the paradox that there are no educators. This paradox, though different in form, is not really different from the remark which is often made in modern times by those who would depreciate either the methods of education commonly employed, or the standard attained—that ‘there is no true education among us.’

  There remains still a possibility which must not be overlooked. Even if there be no true knowledge, as is proved by ‘the wretched state of education,’ there may be right opinion, which is a sort of guessing or divination resting on no knowledge of causes, and incommunicable to others. This is the gift which our statesmen have, as is proved by the circumstance that they are unable to impart their knowledge to their sons. Those who are possessed of it cannot be said to be men of science or philosophers, but they are inspired and divine.

  There may be some trace of irony in this curious passage, which forms the concluding portion of the Dialogue. But Plato certainly does not mean to intimate that the supernatural or divine is the true basis of human life. To him knowledge, if only attainable in this world, is of all things the most divine. Yet, like other philosophers, he is willing to admit that ‘probability is the guide. of life1 ;’ and he is at the same time desirous of contrasting the wisdom which governs the world with a higher wisdom. There are many instincts, judgments, and anticipations of the human mind which cannot be reduced to rule, and of which the grounds cannot always be given in words. A person may have some skill or latent experience which he is able to use himself and is yet unable to teach others, because he has no principles, and is incapable of collecting or arranging his ideas. He has practice, but not theory; art, but not science. This is a true fact of psychology, which is recognized by Plato in this passage. But he is far from saying, as some have imagined, that inspiration or divine grace is to be regarded as higher than knowledge. He would not have preferred the poet or man of action to the philosopher, or the virtue of custom to the virtue based upon ideas.

  Also here, as in the Ion and Phaedrus, Plato appears to acknowledge an unreasoning element in the higher nature of man. The philosopher only has knowledge, and yet the statesman and the poet are inspired. There may be a sort of irony in regarding in this way the gifts of genius. But there is no reason to suppose that he is deriding them, any more than he is deriding the phenomena of love or of enthusiasm in the Symposium, or of oracles in the Apology, or of divine intimations when he is speaking of the daemonium of Socrates. He recognizes the lower form of right opinion, as well as the higher one of science, in the spirit of one who desires to include in his philosophy every aspect of human life; just as he recognizes the existence of popular opinion as a fact, and the Sophists as the expression of it.

  This Dialogue contains the first intimation of the doctrine of reminiscence and of the immortality of the soul. The proof is very slight, even slighter than in the Phaedo and Republic. Because men had abstract ideas in a previous state, they must have always had them, and their souls therefore must have always existed (86 A). For they must always have been either men or not men. The fallacy of the latter words is transparent. And Socrates himself appears to be conscious of their weakness; for he adds immediately afterwards, ‘I have said some things of which I am not altogether confident.’ (Cp. Phaedo 114 D, 115 D.) It may be observed, however, that the fanciful notion of pre-existence is combined with a true but partial view of the origin and unity of knowledge, and of the association of ideas. Knowledge is prior to any particular knowledge, and exists not in the previous state of the individual, but of the race. It is potential, not actual, and can only be appropriated by strenuous exertion.

  The idealism of Plato is here presented in a less developed form than in the Phaedo and Phaedrus. Nothing is said of the pre-existence of ideas of justice, temperance, and the like. Nor is Socrates positive of anything but the duty of enquiry (86 B). The doctrine of reminiscence too is explained more in accordance with fact and experience as arising out of the affinities of nature (ἅτε τη̂ς ϕύσεως ὅλης συγγενον̂ς οὔσης). Modern philosophy says that all things in nature are dependent on one another; the ancient philosopher had the same truth latent in his mind when he affirmed that out of one thing all the rest may be recovered. The subjective was converted by him into an objective; the mental phenomenon of the association of ideas (cp. Phaedo 73 foll.) became a real chain of existences. The germs of two valuable principles of education may also be gathered from the ‘words of priests and priestesses:’ (1) that true knowledge is a knowledge of causes (cp. Aristotle’s theory of ἐπιστήμη); and (2) that the process of learning consists not in what is brought to the learner, but in what is drawn out of him.

  Some lesser points of the dialogue may be noted, such as (1) the acute observation that Meno prefers the familiar definition, which is embellished with poetical language, to the better and truer one (76 D); or (2) the shrewd reflection, which may admit of an application to modern as well as to ancient teachers, that the Sophists having made large fortunes; this must surely be a criterion of their powers of teaching, for that no man could get a living by shoemaking who was not a good shoemaker (91 C); or (3) the remark conveyed, almost in a word, that the verbal sceptic is saved the labour of thought and enquiry (οὐδὲν δεɩ̂ τᾡ τοιούτῳ ζητήσεως, 80 E). Characteristic also of the temper of the Socratic enquiry is, (4) the proposal to discuss the teachableness of virtue under an hypothesis, after the manner of the mathematicians (87 A); and (5) the repetition of the favourite doctrine which occurs so frequently in the earlier and more Socratic Dialogues, and gives a colour to all of them—that mankind only desire evil through ignorance (77, 78 foll.); (6) the experiment of eliciting from the slave-boy the mathematical truth which is latent in him, and (7) the remark (84 B) that he is all the better for knowing his ignorance.

  The character of Meno, like that of Critias, has no relation to the actual circumstances of his life. Plato is silent about his treachery to the ten thousand Greeks, which Xenophon has recorded, as he is also silent about the crimes of Critias. He is a Thessalian Alcibiades, rich and luxurious—a spoilt child of fortune, and is described as the hereditary friend of the great king. Like Alcibiades he is inspired with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally willing to learn of Socrates and of the Sophists. He may be regarded as standing in the same relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the other great Sophist. He is the sophisticated youth on whom Socrates tries his cross-examining powers, just as in the Charmides, the Lysis, and the Euthydemus, ingenuous boyhood is made the subject of a similar experiment. He is treated by Socrates in a half-playful manner suited to his character; at the same time he appears not quite to understand the process to which he is being subjected. For he is exhibited as ignorant of the very elements of dialectics, in which the Sophists have failed to instruct their disciple. His definition of virtue as ‘the power and desire of attaining things honourable,’ like the first definition of justice in the Republic, is taken from a poet. His answers have a sophistical ring, and at the same time show the sophistical incapacity to grasp a general notion.

  Anytus is the type of the narrow-minded man of the world, who is indignant at innovation, and equally detests the popular teacher and the true philosopher. He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new opinions, whether of Socrates or the Sophists, as fatal to Athenian greatness. He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of a different variety; the immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles are not attributed to him. The moderation with which he is described is remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated by his parting words. Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men’s minds. Or he may have been regardless of the historical truth of the characters of his dialogue, as in the case of Meno and Critias. Like Chaerephon (Apol. 21) the real Anytus was a democrat, and had joined Thrasybulus in the conflict with the thirty.

  The Protagoras arrived at a sort of hypothetical conclusion, that if ‘virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.’ In the Euthydemus, Socrates himself offered an example of the manner in which the true teacher may draw out the mind of youth; this was in contrast to the quibbling follies of the Sophists. In the Meno the subject is more developed; the foundations of the enquiry are laid deeper, and the nature of knowledge is more distinctly explained. There is a progression by antagonism of two opposite aspects of philosophy. But at the moment when we approach nearest, the truth doubles upon us and passes out of our reach. We seem to find that the ideal of knowledge is irreconcilable with experience. In human life there is indeed the profession of knowledge, but right opinion is our actual guide. There is another sort of progress from the general notions of Socrates, who asked simply, ‘what is friendship?’ ‘what is temperance?’ ‘what is courage?’ as in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches, to the transcendentalism of Plato, who, in the second stage of his philosophy, sought to find the nature of knowledge in a prior and future state of existence.

  The difficulty in framing general notions which has appeared in this and in all the previous Dialogues recurs in the Gorgias and Theaetetus as well as in the Republic. In the Gorgias too the statesmen reappear, but in stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to have a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men and good speakers, are denounced as ‘blind leaders of the blind.’ The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being made the foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine of rewards and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge to virtue is described in a manner more consistent with modern distinctions. The existence of the virtues without the possession of knowledge in the higher or philosophical sense is admitted to be possible. Right opinion is again introduced in the Theaetetus as an account of knowledge, but is rejected on the ground that it is irrational (as here, because it is not bound by the tie of the cause), and also because the conception of false opinion is given up as hopeless. The doctrines of Plato are necessarily different at different times of his life, as new distinctions are realized, or new stages of thought attained by him. We are not therefore justified, in order to take away the appearance of inconsistency, in attributing to him hidden meanings or remote allusions.

  There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the Meno. There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato were written before the death of Socrates; the Meno, which appears to be one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by the allusion of Anytus (94 E, 95 A. Cp. also 80 B, 100 B).

  We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has done, of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already seen, in the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in Plato are very far from resembling the same characters in history. The repulsive picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon (ii. 6), where he also appears as the friend of Aristippus ‘and a fair youth having lovers,’ has no other trait of likeness to the Meno of Plato.

  The place of the Meno in the series is doubtfully indicated by internal evidence. The main character of the Dialogue is Socrates; but to the ‘general definitions’ of Socrates is added the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence. The problems of virtue and knowledge have been discussed in the Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and Protagoras; the puzzle about knowing and learning has already appeared in the Euthydemus. The doctrines of immortality and pre-existence are carried further in the Phaedrus and Phaedo; the distinction between opinion and knowledge is more fully developed in the Theaetetus. The lessons of Prodicus, whom he facetiously calls his master, are still running in the mind of Socrates. Unlike the later Platonic Dialogues, the Meno arrives at no conclusion. Hence we are led to place the Dialogue at some point of time later than the Protagoras, and earlier than the Phaedrus and Gorgias. The place which is assigned to it in this work is due mainly to the desire to bring together in a single volume all the Dialogues which contain allusions to the trial and death of Socrates.

  On the Ideas of Plato.

  Plato’s doctrine of ideas has attained an imaginary clearness and definiteness which is not to be found in his own writings. The popular account of them is partly derived from one or two passages in his Dialogues interpreted without regard to their poetical environment. It is due also to the misunderstanding of him by the Aristotelian school; and the erroneous notion has been further narrowed and has become fixed by the realism of the schoolmen. This popular view of the Platonic ideas may be summed up in some such formula as the following: ‘Truth consists not in particulars, but in universals, which have a place in the mind of God, or in some far-off heaven. These were revealed to men in a former state of existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (ἀνάμνησις) or association from sensible things. The sensible things are not realities, but shadows only, in relation to the truth.’ These unmeaning propositions are hardly suspected to be a caricature of a great theory of knowledge, which Plato in various ways and under many figures of speech is seeking to unfold. Poetry has been converted into dogma; and it is not remarked that the Platonic ideas are to be found only in about a third of Plato’s writings and are not confined to him. The forms which they assume are numerous, and if taken literally, inconsistent with one another. At one time we are in the clouds of mythology, at another among the abstractions of mathematics or metaphysics; we pass imperceptibly from one to the other. Reason and fancy are mingled in the same passage. The ideas are sometimes described as many, coextensive with the universals of sense and also with the first principles of ethics; or again they are absorbed into the single idea of good, and subordinated to it. They are not more certain than facts, but they are equally certain (Phaedo 100 A). They are both personal and impersonal. They are abstract terms: they are also the causes of things; and they are even transformed into the demons or spirits by whose help God made the world. And the idea of good (Rep. vi. 505 ff.) may without violence be converted into the Supreme Being, who ‘because He was good’ created all things (Tim. 29 E).

  It would be a mistake to try and reconcile these differing modes of thought. They are not to be regarded seriously as having a distinct meaning. They are parables, prophecies, myths, symbols, revelations, aspirations after an unknown world. They derive their origin from a deep religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great diversity shows the tentative character of early endeavours to think. They have not yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them, though he also criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others are always talking about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and that they are not peculiar to himself (Phaedo 100 B; Rep. vi. 505; Soph. 248 ff.). But in his later writings he seems to have laid aside the old forms of them. As he proceeds he makes for himself new modes of expression more akin to the Aristotelian logic.

  Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common meaning or spirit which pervades his writings, both those in which he treats of the ideas and those in which he is silent about them. This is the spirit of idealism, which in the history of philosophy has had many names and taken many forms, and has in a measure influenced those who seemed to be most averse to it. It has often been charged with inconsistency and fancifulness, and yet has had an elevating effect on human nature, and has exercised a wonderful charm and interest over a few spirits who have been lost in the thought of it. It has been banished again and again, but has always returned. It has attempted to leave the earth and soar heavenwards, but soon has found that only in experience could any solid foundation of knowledge be laid. It has degenerated into pantheism, but has again emerged. No other knowledge has given an equal stimulus to the mind. It is the science of sciences, which are also ideas, and under either aspect require to be defined. They can only be thought of in due proportion when conceived in relation to one another. They are the glasses through which the kingdoms of science are seen, but at a distance. All the greatest minds, except when living in an age of reaction against them, have unconsciously fallen under their power.

  The account of the Platonic ideas in the Meno is the simplest and clearest, and we shall best illustrate their nature by giving this first and then comparing the manner in which they are described elsewhere, e.g. in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic; to which may be added the criticism of them in the Parmenides, the personal form which is attributed to them in the Timaeus, the logical character which they assume in the Sophist and Philebus, and the allusion to them in the Laws (xii. 964). In the Cratylus they dawn upon him with the freshness of a newly-discovered thought (439).

  The Meno (81 ff.) goes back to a former state of existence, in which men did and suffered good and evil, and received the reward or punishment of them until their sin was purged away and they were allowed to return to earth. This is a tradition of the olden time, to which priests and poets bear witness. The souls of men returning to earth bring back a latent memory of ideas, which were known to them in a former state. The recollection is awakened into life and consciousness by the sight of the things which resemble them on earth. The soul evidently possesses such innate ideas before she has had time to acquire them. This is proved by an experiment tried on one of Meno’s slaves, from whom Socrates elicits truths of arithmetic and geometry, which he had never learned in this world. He must therefore have brought them with him from another.

  The notion of a previous state of existence is found in the verses of Empedocles and in the fragments of Heracleitus. It was the natural answer to two questions, ‘Whence came the soul? What is the origin of evil?’ and prevailed far and wide in the East. It found its way into Hellas probably through the medium of Orphic and Pythagorean rites and mysteries. It was easier to think of a former than of a future life, because such a life has really existed for the race though not for the individual, and all men come into the world, if not ‘trailing clouds of glory,’ at any rate able to enter into the inheritance of the past. In the Phaedrus (245 ff.), as well as in the Meno, it is this former rather than a future life on which Plato is disposed to dwell. There the Gods, and men following in their train, go forth to contemplate the heavens, and are borne round in the revolutions of them. There they see the divine forms of justice, temperance, and the like, in their unchangeable beauty, but not without an effort more than human. The soul of man is likened to a charioteer and two steeds, one mortal, the other immortal. The charioteer and the mortal steed are in fierce conflict; at length the animal principle is finally overpowered, though not extinguished, by the combined energies of the passionate and rational elements. This is one of those passages in Plato which, partaking both of a philosophical and poetical character, is necessarily indistinct and inconsistent. The magnificent figure under which the nature of the soul is described has not much to do with the popular doctrine of the ideas. Yet there is one little trait in the description which shows that they are present to Plato’s mind, namely, the remark that the soul, which had seen truths in the form of the universal (248 C, 249 C), cannot again return to the nature of an animal.

  In the Phaedo, as in the Meno, the origin of ideas is sought for in a previous state of existence. There was no time when they could have been acquired in this life, and therefore they must have been recovered from another. The process of recovery is no other than the ordinary law of association, by which in daily life the sight of one thing or person recalls another to our minds, and by which in scientific enquiry from any part of knowledge we may be led on to infer the whole. It is also argued that ideas, or rather ideals, must be derived from a previous state of existence because they are more perfect than the sensible forms of them which are given by experience (74 ff.). But in the Phaedo the doctrine of ideas is subordinate to the proof of the immortality of the soul. ‘If the soul existed in a previous state, then it will exist in a future state, for a law of alternation pervades all things.’ And, ‘If the ideas exist, then the soul exists; if not, not.’ It is to be observed, both in the Meno and the Phaedo, that Socrates expresses himself with diffidence. He speaks in the Phaedo (114 D, 115 D) of the words with which he has comforted himself and his friends, and will not be too confident that the description which he has given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true, but he ‘ventures to think that something of the kind is true.’ And in the Meno, after dwelling upon the immortality of the soul, he adds, ‘Of some things which I have said I am not altogether confident’ (cp. 86 C, and Apology, pp. 40 ff.; Gorgias 527 B). From this class of uncertainties he exempts the difference between truth and appearance, of which he is absolutely convinced (98 B).

  In the Republic the ideas are spoken of in two ways, which though not contradictory are different. In the tenth book (596 ff.) they are represented as the genera or general ideas under which individuals having a common name are contained. For example, there is the bed which the carpenter makes, the picture of the bed which is drawn by the painter, the bed existing in nature of which God is the author. Of the latter all visible beds are only the shadows or reflections. This and similar illustrations or explanations are put forth, not for their own sake, or as an exposition of Plato’s theory of ideas, but with a view of showing that poetry and the mimetic arts are concerned with an inferior part of the soul and a lower kind of knowledge. On the other hand, in the 6th and 7th books of the Republic we reach the highest and most perfect conception, which Plato is able to attain, of the nature of knowledge. The ideas are now finally seen to be one as well as many, causes as well as ideas, and to have a unity which is the idea of good and the cause of all the rest. They seem, however, to have lost their first aspect of universals under which individuals are contained, and to have been converted into forms of another kind, which are inconsistently regarded from the one side as images or ideals of justice, temperance, holiness and the like; from the other as hypotheses, or mathematical truths or principles.

  In the Timaeus, which in the series of Plato’s works immediately follows the Republic, though probably written some time afterwards, no mention occurs of the doctrine of ideas. Geometrical forms and arithmetical ratios furnish the laws according to which the world is created. But though the conception of the ideas as genera or species is forgotten or laid aside, the distinction of the visible and intellectual is as firmly maintained as ever (30, 37). The idea of good likewise disappears and is superseded by the conception of a personal God, who works according to a final cause or principle of goodness which he himself is. No doubt is expressed by Plato, either in the Timaeus or in any other dialogue, of the truths which he conceives to be the first and highest. It is not the existence of God or the idea of good which he approaches in a tentative or hesitating manner, but the investigations of physiology. These he regards, not seriously, as a part of philosophy, but as an innocent recreation (Tim. 59 D).

  Passing on to the Parmenides (128–136), we find in that dialogue not an exposition or defence of the doctrine of ideas, but an assault upon them, which is put into the mouth of the veteran Parmenides, and might be ascribed to Aristotle himself, or to one of his disciples. The doctrine which is assailed takes two or three forms, but fails in any of them to escape the dialectical difficulties which are urged against it. It is admitted that there are ideas of all things, but the manner in which individuals partake of them, whether of the whole or of the part, and in which they become like them, or how ideas can be either within or without the sphere of human knowledge, or how the human and divine can have any relation to each other, is held to be incapable of explanation. And yet, if there are no universal ideas, what becomes of philosophy? (Parmenides 130–135). In the Sophist the theory of ideas is spoken of as a doctrine held not by Plato, but by another sect of philosophers, called ‘the Friends of Ideas,’ probably the Megarians, who were very distinct from him, if not opposed to him (Sophist 242 ff.). Nor in what may be termed Plato’s abridgement of the history of philosophy (Soph. 241 ff.), is any mention made such as we find in the first book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, of the derivation of such a theory or of any part of it from the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the Heracleiteans, or even from Socrates. In the Philebus, probably one of the latest of the Platonic Dialogues, the conception of a personal or semi-personal deity expressed under the figure of mind, the king of all, who is also the cause, is retained. The one and many of the Phaedrus and Theaetetus is still working in the mind of Plato, and the correlation of ideas, not of ‘all with all,’ but of ‘some with some,’ is asserted and explained. But they are spoken of in a different manner, and are not supposed to be recovered from a former state of existence. The metaphysical conception of truth passes into a psychological one, which is continued in the Laws, and is the final form of the Platonic philosophy, so far as can be gathered from his own writings (see especially Laws v. 727 ff.). In the Laws he harps once more on the old string, and returns to general notions:—these he acknowledges to be many, and yet he insists that they are also one. The guardian must be made to recognize the truth, for which he has contended long ago in the Protagoras, that the virtues are four, but they are also in some sense one (Laws xii. pp. 965–966; cp. Protagoras 329.).

  So various, and if regarded on the surface only, inconsistent, are the statements of Plato respecting the doctrine of ideas. If we attempted to harmonize or to combine them, we should make out of them, not a system, but the caricature of a system. They are the ever-varying expression of Plato’s Idealism. The terms used in them are in their substance and general meaning the same, although they seem to be different. They pass from the subject to the object, from earth (diesseits) to heaven (jenseits) without regard to the gulf which later theology and philosophy have made between them. They are also intended to supplement or explain each other. They relate to a subject of which Plato himself would have said that ‘he was not confident of the precise form of his own statements, but was strong in the belief that something of the kind was true.’ It is the spirit, not the letter, in which they agree—the spirit which places the divine above the human, the spiritual above the material, the one above the many, the mind before the body.

  The stream of ancient philosophy in the Alexandrian and Roman times widens into a lake or sea, and then disappears underground to reappear after many ages in a distant land. It begins to flow again under new conditions, at first confined between high and narrow banks, but finally spreading over the continent of Europe. It is and is not the same with ancient philosophy. There is a great deal in modern philosophy which is inspired by ancient. There is much in ancient philosophy which was ‘born out of due time’ and before men were capable of understanding it. To the fathers of modern philosophy, their own thoughts appeared to be new and original, but they carried with them an echo or shadow of the past, coming back by recollection from an elder world. Of this the enquirers of the seventeenth century, who to themselves appeared to be working out independently the enquiry into all truth, were unconscious. They stood in a new relation to theology and natural philosophy, and for a time maintained towards both an attitude of reserve and separation. Yet the similarities between modern and ancient thought are greater far than the differences. All philosophy, even that part of it which is said to be based upon experience, is really ideal; and ideas are not only derived from facts, but they are also prior to them and extend far beyond them, just as the mind is prior to the senses.

  Early Greek speculation culminates in the ideas of Plato, or rather in the single idea of good. His followers, and perhaps he himself, having arrived at this elevation, instead of going forwards went backwards from philosophy to psychology, from ideas to numbers. But what we perceive to be the real meaning of them, an explanation of the nature and origin of knowledge, will always continue to be one of the first problems of philosophy.

  Plato also left behind him a most potent instrument, the forms of logic—arms ready for use, but not yet taken out of their armoury. They were the late birth of the early Greek philosophy, and were the only part of it which has had an uninterrupted hold on the mind of Europe. Philosophies come and go; but the detection of fallacies, the framing of definitions, the invention of methods still continue to be the main elements of the reasoning process.

  Modern philosophy, like ancient, begins with very simple conceptions. It is almost wholly a reflection on self. It might be described as a quickening into life of old words and notions latent in the semi-barbarous Latin, and putting a new meaning into them. Unlike ancient philosophy, it has been unaffected by impressions derived from outward nature: it arose within the limits of the mind itself. From the time of Descartes to Hume and Kant it has had little or nothing to do with facts of science. On the other hand, the ancient and mediaeval logic retained a continuous influence over it, and a form like that of mathematics was easily impressed upon it; the principle of ancient philosophy which is most apparent in it is scepticism; we must doubt nearly every traditional or received notion, that we may hold fast one or two. The being of God in a personal or impersonal form was a mental necessity to the first thinkers of modern times: from this alone all other ideas could be deduced. There had been an obscure presentiment of ‘cogito, ergo sum’ more than 2000 years previously. The Eleatic notion that being and thought were the same was revived in a new form by Descartes. But now it gave birth to consciousness and self-reflection: it awakened the ‘ego’ in human nature. The mind naked and abstract has no other certainty but the conviction of its own existence. ‘I think, therefore I am;’ and this thought is God thinking in me, who has also communicated to the reason of man his own attributes of thought and extension—these are truly imparted to him because God is true (cp. Rep. ii. 382 ff.). It has been often remarked that Descartes, having begun by dismissing all presuppositions, introduces several: he passes almost at once from scepticism to dogmatism. It is more important for the illustration of Plato to observe that he, like Plato, insists that God is true and incapable of deception (Rep. ii. 382)—that he proceeds from general ideas, that many elements of mathematics may be found in him. A certain influence of mathematics both on the form and substance of their philosophy is discernible in both of them. After making the greatest opposition between thought and extension, Descartes, like Plato, supposes them to be reunited for a time, not in their own nature but by a special divine act (cp. Phaedrus 246 C), and he also supposes all the parts of the human body to meet in the pineal gland, that alone affording a principle of unity in the material frame of man. It is characteristic of the first period of modern philosophy, that having begun (like the Presocratics) with a few general notions, Des Cartes first falls absolutely under their influence, and then quickly discards them. At the same time he is less able to observe facts, because they are too much magnified by the glasses through which they are seen. The common logic says ‘the greater the extension, the less the comprehension,’ and we may put the same thought in another way and say of abstract or general ideas, that the greater the abstraction of them, the less are they capable of being applied to particular and concrete natures.

  Not very different from Descartes in his relation to ancient philosophy is his successor Spinoza, who lived in the following generation. The system of Spinoza is less personal and also less dualistic than that of Descartes. In this respect the difference between them is like that between Xenophanes and Parmenides. The teaching of Spinoza might be described generally as the Jewish religion reduced to an abstraction and taking the form of the Eleatic philosophy. Like Parmenides, he is overpowered and intoxicated with the idea of Being or God. The greatness of both philosophies consists in the immensity of a thought which excludes all other thoughts; their weakness is the necessary separation of this thought from actual existence and from practical life. In neither of them is there any clear opposition between the inward and outward world. The substance of Spinoza has two attributes, which alone are cognizable by man, thought and extension; these are in extreme opposition to one another, and also in inseparable identity. They may be regarded as the two aspects or expressions under which God or substance is unfolded to man. Here a step is made beyond the limits of the Eleatic philosophy. The famous theorem of Spinoza, ‘Omnis determinatio est negatio,’ is already contained in the ‘negation is relation’ of Plato’s Sophist. The grand description of the philosopher in Republic vi, as the spectator of all time and all existence, may be paralleled with another famous expression of Spinoza, ‘Contemplatio rerum sub specie eternitatis.’ According to Spinoza finite objects are unreal, for they are conditioned by what is alien to them, and by one another. Human beings are included in the number of them. Hence there is no reality in human action and no place for right and wrong. Individuality is accident. The boasted freedom of the will is only a consciousness of necessity. Truth, he says, is the direction of the reason towards the infinite, in which all things repose; and herein lies the secret of man’s well-being. In the exaltation of the reason or intellect, in the denial of the voluntariness of evil (Timaeus 86 C, D; Laws, ix. 860) Spinoza approaches nearer to Plato than in his conception of an infinite substance. As Socrates said that virtue is knowledge, so Spinoza would have maintained that knowledge alone is good and what contributes to knowledge useful. Both are equally far from any real experience or observation of nature. And the same difficulty is found in both when we seek to apply their ideas to life and practice. There is a gulf fixed between the infinite substance and finite objects or individuals of Spinoza, just as there is between the ideas of Plato and the world of sense.

  Removed from Spinoza by less than a generation is the philosopher Leibnitz, who after deepening and intensifying the opposition between mind and matter, reunites them by his preconcerted harmony (cp. again Phaedrus 246 C). To him all the particles of matter are living beings which reflect on one another, and in the least of them the whole is contained. Here we catch a reminiscence both of the ὁμοιομερη̂ or similar particles of Anaxagoras, and of the world-animal of the Timaeus.

  In Bacon and Locke we have another development in which the mind of man is supposed to receive knowledge by a new method and to work by observation and experience. But we may remark that it is the idea of experience, rather than experience itself, with which the mind is filled. It is a symbol of knowledge rather than the reality which is vouchsafed to us. The Organon of Bacon is not much nearer to actual facts than the Organon of Aristotle or the Platonic idea of good. Many of the old rags and ribbons which defaced the garment of philosophy have been stripped off, but some of them still adhere. A crude conception of the ideas of Plato survives in the ‘forms’ of Bacon. And on the other hand, there are many passages of Plato in which the importance of the investigation of facts is as much insisted upon as by Bacon. Both are almost equally superior to the illusions of language, and are constantly crying out against them, as against other idols.

  Locke cannot be truly regarded as the author of sensationalism any more than of idealism. His system is based upon experience, but with him experience includes reflection as well as sense. His analysis and construction of ideas has no foundation in fact; it is only the dialectic of the mind ‘talking to herself.’ The philosophy of Berkeley is but the transposition of two words. For objects of sense he would substitute sensations. He imagines himself to have changed the relation of the human mind towards God and nature; they remain the same as before, though he has drawn the imaginary line by which they are divided at a different point. He has annihilated the outward world, but it instantly reappears governed by the same laws and described under the same names.

  A like remark applies to David Hume, of whose philosophy the central principle is the denial of the relation of cause and effect. He would deprive men of a familiar term which they can ill afford to lose; but he seems not to have observed that this alteration is merely verbal and does not in any degree affect the nature of things. Still less did he remark that he was arguing from the necessary imperfection of language against the most certain facts. And here, again, we may find a parallel with the ancients. He goes beyond facts in his scepticism, as they did in their idealism. Like the ancient Sophists, he relegates the more important principles of ethics to custom and probability. But crude and unmeaning as this philosophy is, it exercised a great influence on his successors, not unlike that which Locke exercised upon Berkeley and Berkeley upon Hume himself. All three were both sceptical and ideal in almost equal degrees. Neither they nor their predecessors had any true conception of language or of the history of philosophy. Hume’s paradox has been forgotten by the world, and did not any more than the scepticism of the ancients require to be seriously refuted. Like some other philosophical paradoxes, it would have been better left to die out. It certainly could not be refuted by a philosophy such as Kant’s, in which, no less than in the previously mentioned systems, the history of the human mind and the nature of language are almost wholly ignored, and the certainty of objective knowledge is transferred to the subject; while absolute truth is reduced to a figment, more abstract and narrow than Plato’s ideas, of ‘thing in itself,’ to which, if we reason strictly, no predicate can be applied.

  The question which Plato has raised respecting the origin and nature of ideas belongs to the infancy of philosophy; in modern times it would no longer be asked. Their origin is only their history, so far as we know it; there can be no other. We may trace them in language, in philosophy, in mythology, in poetry, but we cannot argue à priori about them. We may attempt to shake them off, but they are always returning, and in every sphere of science and human action are tending to go beyond facts. They are thought to be innate, because they have been familiar to us all our lives, and we can no longer dismiss them from our mind. Many of them express relations of terms to which nothing exactly or nothing at all in rerum naturâ corresponds. We are not such free agents in the use of them as we sometimes imagine. Fixed ideas have taken the most complete possession of some thinkers who have been most determined to renounce them, and have been vehemently affirmed when they could be least explained and were incapable of proof. The world has often been led away by a word to which no distinct meaning could be attached. Abstractions such as ‘authority,’ ‘equality,’ ‘utility,’ ‘liberty,’ ‘pleasure,’ ‘experience,’ ‘consciousness,’ ‘chance,’ ‘substance,’ ‘matter,’ ‘atom,’ and a heap of other metaphysical and theological terms, are the source of quite as much error and illusion and have as little relation to actual facts as the ideas of Plato. Few students of theology or philosophy have sufficiently reflected how quickly the bloom of a philosophy passes away; or how hard it is for one age to understand the writings of another; or how nice a judgment is required of those who are seeking to express the philosophy of one age in the terms of another. The ‘eternal truths’ of which metaphysicians speak have hardly ever lasted more than a generation. In our own day schools or systems of philosophy which have once been famous have died before the founders of them. We are still, as in Plato’s age, groping about for a new method more comprehensive than any of those which now prevail; and also more permanent. And we seem to see at a distance the promise of such a method, which can hardly be any other than the method of idealized experience, having roots which strike far down into the history of philosophy. It is a method which does not divorce the present from the past, or the part from the whole, or the abstract from the concrete, or theory from fact, or the divine from the human, or one science from another, but labours to connect them. Along such a road we have proceeded a few steps, sufficient, perhaps, to make us reflect on the want of method which prevails in our own day. In another age, all the branches of knowledge, whether relating to God or man or nature, will become the knowledge of ‘the revelation of a single science’ (Symp. 210, 211), and all things, like the stars in heaven, will shed their light upon one another.

  MENO.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Meno.

  Socrates.

  A Slave of Meno.

  Anytus.

  Meno.

  Meno.Socrates, Meno.

  Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor by practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?

  Socrates.

  Meno asks Socrates ‘How virtue can be acquired?’ Before giving an answer Socrates must enquire ‘What is virtue?’

  O Meno, there was a time when the Thessalians were famous among the other Hellenes only for their riches and their riding; but now, if I am not mistaken, they are equally famous for their wisdom, especially at Larisa, which is the native city of your friend Aristippus. And this is Gorgias’ doing; for when he came there, the flower of the Aleuadae, among them your admirer Aristippus, and the other chiefs of the Thessalians, fell in love with his wisdom. And he has taught you the habit of answering questions in a grand and bold style, which becomes those who know, and is the style in which he himself answers all comers; and any 71Hellene who likes may ask him anything. How different is our lot! my dear Meno. Here at Athens there is a dearth of the commodity, and all wisdom seems to have emigrated from us to you. I am certain that if you were to ask any Athenian whether virtue was natural or acquired, he would laugh in your face, and say: ‘Stranger, you have far too good an opinion of me, if you think that I can answer your question. For I literally do not know what virtue is, and much less whether it is acquired by teaching or not.’ And I myself, Meno, living as I do in this region of poverty, am as poor as the rest of the world; and I confess with shame that I know literally nothing about virtue; and when I do not know the ‘quid’ of anything how can I know the ‘quale’? How, if I knew nothing at all of Meno, could I tell if he was fair, or the opposite of fair; rich and noble, or the reverse of rich and noble? Do you think that I could?

  Men.

  No, indeed. But are you in earnest, Socrates, in saying that you do not know what virtue is? And am I to carry back this report of you to Thessaly?

  Soc.

  He does not know, and never met with any one who did.

  Not only that, my dear boy, but you may say further that I have never known of any one else who did, in my judgment.

  Men.

  Then you have never met Gorgias when he was at Athens?

  Soc.

  Yes, I have.

  Men.

  And did you not think that he knew?

  Soc.

  I have not a good memory, Meno, and therefore I cannot now tell what I thought of him at the time. And I dare say that he did know, and that you know what he said: please, therefore, to remind me of what he said; or, if you would rather, tell me your own view; for I suspect that you and he think much alike.

  Men.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Then as he is not here, never mind him, and do you tell me: By the gods, Meno, be generous, and tell me what you say that virtue is; for I shall be truly delighted to find that I have been mistaken, and that you and Gorgias do really have this knowledge; although I have been just saying that I have never found anybody who had.

  Men.

  Meno describes the different kinds of virtue, but is unable to give a common notion of them.

  There will be no difficulty, Socrates, in answering your question. Let us take first the virtue of a man—he should know how to administer the state, and in the administration of it to benefit his friends and harm his enemies; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm himself. A woman’s virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also be easily described: her duty is to order her house, and keep what is indoors, and obey her husband. Every age, every condition of life, young or old, male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there are virtues numberless, 72and no lack of definitions of them; for virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. And the same may be said of vice, Socrates1 .

  Soc.

  Meno, not without difficulty and by help of many illustrations, is made to understand the nature of common notions.

  How fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue, you present me with a swarm of them2 which are in your keeping. Suppose that I carry on the figure of the swarm, and ask of you, What is the nature of the bee? and you answer that there are many kinds of bees, and I reply: But do bees differ as bees, because there are many and different kinds of them; or are they not rather to be distinguished by some other quality, as for example beauty, size, or shape? How would you answer me?

  Men.

  I should answer that bees do not differ from one another, as bees.

  Soc.

  And if I went on to say: That is what I desire to know, Meno; tell me what is the quality in which they do not differ, but are all alike; would you be able to answer?

  Men.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And so of the virtues, however many and different they may be, they have all a common nature which makes them virtues; and on this he who would answer the question, ‘What is virtue?’ would do well to have his eye fixed: Do you understand?

  Men.

  I am beginning to understand; but I do not as yet take hold of the question as I could wish.

  Soc.

  When you say, Meno, that there is one virtue of a man, another of a woman, another of a child, and so on, does this apply only to virtue, or would you say the same of health, and size, and strength? Or is the nature of health always the same, whether in man or woman?

  Men.

  I should say that health is the same, both in man and woman.

  Soc.

  Health and strength, and virtue and temperance and justice are the same both in men and women.

  And is not this true of size and strength? If a woman is strong, she will be strong by reason of the same form and of the same strength subsisting in her which there is in the man. I mean to say that strength, as strength, whether of man or woman, is the same. Is there any difference?

  Men.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  And will not virtue, as virtue, be the same, whether 73in a child or in a grown-up person, in a woman or in an man?

  Men.

  I cannot help feeling, Socrates, that this case is different from the others.

  Soc.

  But why? Were you not saying that the virtue of a man was to order a state, and the virtue of a woman was to order a house?

  Men.

  I did say so.

  Soc.

  And can either house or state or anything be well ordered without temperance and without justice?

  Men.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Then they who order a state or a house temperately or justly order them with temperance and justice?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then both men and women, if they are to be good men and women, must have the same virtues of temperance and justice?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And can either a young man or an elder one be good, if they are intemperate and unjust?

  Men.

  They cannot.

  Soc.

  They must be temperate and just?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then all men are good in the same way, and by participation in the same virtues?

  Men.

  Such is the inference.

  Soc.

  And they surely would not have been good in the same way, unless their virtue had been the same?

  Men.

  They would not.

  Soc.

  Then what is virtue? Gorgias and Meno reply, ‘The power of governing mankind.’

  Then now that the sameness of all virtue has been proven, try and remember what you and Gorgias say that virtue is.

  Men.

  Will you have one definition of them all?

  Soc.

  That is what I am seeking.

  Men.

  If you want to have one definition of them all, I know not what to say, but that virtue is the power of governing mankind.

  Soc.

  And does this definition of virtue include all virtue? Is virtue the same in a child and in a slave, Meno? Can the child govern his father, or the slave his master; and would he who governed be any longer a slave?

  Men.

  But this cannot apply to all persons.

  I think not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  No, indeed; there would be small reason in that. Yet once more, fair friend; according to you, virtue is ‘the power of governing;’ but do you not add ‘justly and not unjustly’?

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates; I agree there; for justice is virtue.

  Soc.

  Would you say ‘virtue,’ Meno, or ‘a virtue’?

  Men.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  I mean as I might say about anything; that a round, for example, is ‘a figure’ and not simply ‘figure,’ and I should adopt this mode of speaking, because there are other figures.

  Men.

  Quite right; and that is just what I am saying about virtue—that there are other virtues as well as justice.

  Soc.

  74What are they? tell me the names of them, as I would tell you the names of the other figures if you asked me.

  Men.

  Meno names the virtues, but is unable to get at the common notion of them.

  Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues; and there are many others.

  Soc.

  Yes, Meno; and again we are in the same case: in searching after one virtue we have found many, though not in the same way as before; but we have been unable to find the common virtue which runs through them all.

  Men.

  Why, Socrates, even now I am not able to follow you in the attempt to get at one common notion of virtue as of other things.

  Soc.

  No wonder; but I will try to get nearer if I can, for you know that all things have a common notion. Suppose now that some one asked you the question which I asked before: Meno, he would say, what is figure? And if you answered ‘roundness,’ he would reply to you, in my way of speaking, by asking whether you would say that roundness is ‘figure’ or ‘a figure;’ and you would answer ‘a figure.’

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And for this reason—that there are other figures?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if he proceeded to ask, What other figures are there? you would have told him.

  Men.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And if he similarly asked what colour is, and you answered whiteness, and the questioner rejoined, Would you say that whiteness is colour or a colour? you would reply, A colour, because there are other colours as well.

  Men.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And if he had said, Tell me what they are?—you would have told him of other colours which are colours just as much as whiteness.

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  He has a similar difficulty about the nature of Figure.

  And suppose that he were to pursue the matter in my way, he would say: Ever and anon we are landed in particulars, but this is not what I want; tell me then, since you call them by a common name, and say that they are all figures, even when opposed to one another, what is that common nature which you designate as figure—which contains straight as well as round, and is no more one than the other—that would be your mode of speaking?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in speaking thus, you do not mean to say that the round is round any more than straight, or the straight any more straight than round?

  Men.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  You only assert that the round figure is not more a figure than the straight, or the straight than the round?

  Men.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  To what then do we give the name of figure? Try and answer. Suppose that when a person asked you this question either about figure or colour, you were to reply, Man, I do not understand what you want, or know what you 75are saying; he would look rather astonished and say: Do you not understand that I am looking for the ‘simile in multis’? And then he might put the question in another form: Meno, he might say, what is that ‘simile in multis’ which you call figure, and which includes not only round and straight figures, but all? Could you not answer that question, Meno? I wish that you would try; the attempt will be good practice with a view to the answer about virtue.

  Men.

  I would rather that you should answer, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Shall I indulge you?

  Men.

  By all means.

  Soc.

  And then you will tell me about virtue?

  Men.

  I will.

  Soc.

  Then I must do my best, for there is a prize to be won.

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Figure is defined by Socrates to be that which always follows colour.

  Well, I will try and explain to you what figure is. What do you say to this answer?—Figure is the only thing which always follows colour. Will you be satisfied with it, as I am sure that I should be, if you would let me have a similar definition of virtue?

  Men.

  But, Socrates, it is such a simple answer.

  Soc.

  Why simple?

  Men.

  Because, according to you, figure is that which always follows colour.

  (Soc. Granted).

  Men.

  But if a person were to say that he does not know what colour is, any more than what figure is—what sort of answer would you have given him?

  Soc.

  I should have told him the truth. And if he were a philosopher of the eristic and antagonistic sort, I should say to him: You have my answer, and if I am wrong, your business is to take up the argument and refute me. But if we were friends, and were talking as you and I are now, I should reply in a milder strain and more in the dialectician’s vein; that is to say, I should not only speak the truth, but I should make use of premisses which the person interrogated would be willing to admit. And this is the way in which I shall endeavour to approach you. You will acknowledge, will you not, that there is such a thing as an end, or termination, or extremity?—all which words I use in the same sense, although I am aware that Prodicus might draw distinctions about them: but still you, I am sure, would speak of a thing as ended or terminated—that is all which I am saying—not anything very difficult.

  Men.

  Yes, I should; and I believe that I understand your meaning.

  Soc.

  76And you would speak of a surface and also of a solid, as for example in geometry.

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Well then, you are now in a condition to understand my definition of figure. I define figure to be that in which the solid ends; or, more concisely, the limit of solid.

  Men.

  And now, Socrates, what is colour?

  Soc.

  And now, what is colour?

  You are outrageous, Meno, in thus plaguing a poor old man to give you an answer, when you will not take the trouble of remembering what is Gorgias’ definition of virtue.

  Men.

  When you have told me what I ask, I will tell you, Socrates.

  Soc.

  A man who was blindfolded has only to hear you talking, and he would know that you are a fair creature and have still many lovers.

  Men.

  Why do you think so?

  Soc.

  Why, because you always speak in imperatives: like all beauties when they are in their prime, you are tyrannical; and also, as I suspect, you have found out that I have a weakness for the fair, and therefore to humour you I must answer.

  Men.

  Please do.

  Soc.

  Would you like me to answer you after the manner of Gorgias, which is familiar to you?

  Men.

  I should like nothing better.

  Soc.

  Meno, Gorgias, and Empedocles are all agreed that colour is an effluence of existence, proportioned to certain passages.

  Do not he and you and Empedocles say that there are certain effluences of existence?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And passages into which and through which the effluences pass?

  Men.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  And some of the effluences fit into the passages, and some of them are too small or too large?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And there is such a thing as sight?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And now, as Pindar says, ‘read my meaning:’—colour is an effluence of form, commensurate with sight, and palpable to sense.

  Men.

  That, Socrates, appears to me to be an admirable answer.

  Soc.

  Why, yes, because it happens to be one which you have been in the habit of hearing: and your wit will have discovered, I suspect, that you may explain in the same way the nature of sound and smell, and of many other similar phenomena.

  Men.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  The answer, Meno, was in the orthodox solemn vein, and therefore was more acceptable to you than the other answer about figure.

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And yet, O son of Alexidemus, I cannot help thinking that the other was the better; and I am sure that you would be of the same opinion, if you would only stay and be initiated, and were not compelled, as you said yesterday, to go away before the mysteries.

  Men.

  But I will stay, Socrates if you will give me many 77such answers.

  Soc.

  Virtue, according to Meno, is the desire of the honourable and the good. His definition is analysed by Socrates.

  Well then, for my own sake as well as for yours, I will do my very best; but I am afraid that I shall not be able to give you very many as good: and now, in your turn, you are to fulfil your promise, and tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a singular into a plural, as the facetious say of those who break a thing, but deliver virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a number of pieces: I have given you the pattern.

  Men.

  Well then, Socrates, virtue, as I take it, is when he, who desires the honourable, is able to provide it for himself; so the poet says, and I say too—

  • ‘Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.’

  Soc.

  And does he who desires the honourable also desire the good.

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?

  Men.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  There are some who desire evil?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to be good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?

  Men.

  Both, I think.

  Soc.

  And do you really imagine, Meno, that a man knows evils to be evils and desires them notwithstanding?

  Men.

  Certainly I do.

  Soc.

  And desire is of possession?

  Men.

  Yes, of possession.

  Soc.

  Men desire evil, but not what they think to be evil.

  And does he think that the evils will do good to him who possesses them, or does he know that they will do him harm?

  Men.

  There are some who think that the evils will do them good, and others who know that they will do them harm.

  Soc.

  And, in your opinion, do those who think that they will do them good know that they are evils?

  Men.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Is it not obvious that those who are ignorant of their nature do not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be goods although they are really evils; and if they are mistaken and suppose the evils to be goods they really desire goods?

  Men.

  Yes, in that case.

  Soc.

  Well, and do those who, as you say, desire evils, and think that evils are hurtful to the possessor of them, know that they will be hurt by them?

  Men.

  They must know it.

  Soc.

  And must they not suppose that those who are hurt 78are miserable in proportion to the hurt which is inflicted upon them?

  Men.

  How can it be otherwise?

  Soc.

  But are not the miserable ill-fated?

  Men.

  Yes, indeed.

  Soc.

  And does any one desire to be miserable and ill-fated?

  Men.

  I should say not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is no one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and possession of evil?

  Men.

  That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody desires evil.

  Soc.

  And yet, were you not saying just now that virtue is the desire and power of attaining good?

  Men.

  Yes, I did say so.

  Soc.

  But if this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to all, and one man is no better than another in that respect?

  Men.

  The desire of good is really common to all of them.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if one man is not better than another in desiring good, he must be better in the power of attaining it?

  Men.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  Virtue is the power of attaining good with justice.

  Then, according to your definition, virtue would appear to be the power of attaining good?

  Men.

  I entirely approve, Socrates, of the manner in which you now view this matter.

  Soc.

  Then let us see whether what you say is true from another point of view; for very likely you may be right:—You affirm virtue to be the power of attaining goods?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the goods which you mean are such as health and wealth and the possession of gold and silver, and having office and honour in the state—those are what you would call goods?

  Men.

  Yes, I should include all those.

  Soc.

  Then, according to Meno, who is the hereditary friend of the great king, virtue is the power of getting silver and gold; and would you add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to be of no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust or dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?

  Men.

  Not virtue, Socrates, but vice.

  Soc.

  Then justice or temperance or holiness, or some other part of virtue, as would appear, must accompany the acquisition, and without them the mere acquisition of good will not be virtue.

  Men.

  Why, how can there be virtue without these?

  Soc.

  And the non-acquisition of gold and silver in a dishonest manner for oneself or another, or in other words the want of them, may be equally virtue?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then the acquisition of such goods is no more virtue than the non-acquisition and want of them, but whatever is accompanied by justice or honesty is virtue, and whatever 79is devoid of justice is vice.

  Men.

  It cannot be otherwise, in my judgment.

  Soc.

  And were we not saying just now that justice, temperance, and the like, were each of them a part of virtue?

  Men.

  But this definition repeats the thing defined:—virtue=the power of attaining good with a part of virtue.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And so, Meno, this is the way in which you mock me.

  Men.

  Why do you say that, Socrates?

  Soc.

  Why, because I asked you to deliver virtue into my hands whole and unbroken, and I gave you a pattern according to which you were to frame your answer; and you have forgotten already, and tell me that virtue is the power of attaining good justly, or with justice; and justice you acknowledge to be a part of virtue.

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then it follows from your own admissions, that virtue is doing what you do with a part of virtue; for justice and the like are said by you to be parts of virtue.

  Men.

  What of that?

  Soc.

  But if we do not know the nature of virtue as a whole, how can we know what a part of virtue is?

  What of that! Why, did not I ask you to tell me the nature of virtue as a whole? And you are very far from telling me this; but declare every action to be virtue which is done with a part of virtue; as though you had told me and I must already know the whole of virtue, and this too when frittered away into little pieces. And, therefore, my dear Meno, I fear that I must begin again and repeat the same question: What is virtue? for otherwise, I can only say, that every action done with a part of virtue is virtue; what else is the meaning of saying that every action done with justice is virtue? Ought I not to ask the question over again; for can any one who does not know virtue know a part of virtue?

  Men.

  No; I do not say that he can.

  Soc.

  Do you remember how, in the example of figure, we rejected any answer given in terms which were as yet unexplained or unadmitted?

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates; and we were quite right in doing so.

  Soc.

  But then, my friend, do not suppose that we can explain to any one the nature of virtue as a whole through some unexplained portion of virtue, or anything at all in that fashion; we should only have to ask over again the old question, What is virtue? Am I not right?

  Men.

  I believe that you are.

  Soc.

  Then begin again, and answer me, What, according to you and your friend Gorgias, is the definition of virtue?

  Men.

  Meno compares Socrates to a torpedo whose touch has taken away his sense and speech.

  O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that 80you were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits’ end. And if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer you; and though I have been delivered of an infinite variety of speeches about virtue before now, and to many persons—and very good ones they were, as I thought—at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is. And I think that you are very wise in not voyaging and going away from home, for if you did in other places as you do in Athens, you would be cast into prison as a magician.

  Soc.

  You are a rogue, Meno, and had all but caught me.

  Men.

  What do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I can tell why you made a simile about me.

  Men.

  Why?

  Soc.

  Socrates is the cause of dulness in others because he is himself dull.

  In order that I might make another simile about you. For I know that all pretty young gentlemen like to have pretty similes made about them—as well they may—but I shall not return the compliment. As to my being a torpedo, if the torpedo is torpid as well as the cause of torpidity in others, then indeed I am a torpedo, but not otherwise; for I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself. And now I know not what virtue is, and you seem to be in the same case, although you did once perhaps know before you touched me. However, I have no objection to join with you in the enquiry.

  Men.

  And how will you enquire, Socrates, into that which you do not know? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?

  Soc.

  How can you enquire about what you do not know, and if you know why should you enquire?

  I know, Meno, what you mean; but just see what a tiresome dispute you are introducing. You argue that a man cannot enquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to enquire1 .

  Men.

  Well, Socrates, and is not the argument sound? 81

  Soc.

  I think not.

  Men.

  Why not?

  Soc.

  I will tell you why: I have heard from certain wise men and women who spoke of things divine that—

  Men.

  What did they say?

  Soc.

  They spoke of a glorious truth, as I conceive.

  Men.

  What was it? and who were they?

  Soc.

  The ancient poets tell us that the soul of man is immortal and has a recollection of all that she has ever known in former states of being.Socrates, Meno, Meno’s Slave.

  Some of them were priests and priestesses, who had studied how they might be able to give a reason of their profession: there have been poets also, who spoke of these things by inspiration, like Pindar, and many others who were inspired. And they say—mark, now, and see whether their words are true—they say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live always in perfect holiness. ‘For in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of those from whom she has received the penalty of ancient crime back again from beneath into the light of the sun above, and these are they who become noble kings and mighty men and great in wisdom and are called saintly heroes in after ages.’ The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection. And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about the impossibility of enquiry: for it will make us idle, and is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and inquisitive. In that confiding, I will gladly enquire with you into the nature of virtue.

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection? Can you teach me how this is?

  Soc.

  I told you, Meno, just now that you were a rogue, and now you ask whether I can teach you, when I am saying that 82there is no teaching, but only recollection; and thus you imagine that you will involve me in a contradiction.

  Men.

  Indeed, Socrates, I protest that I had no such intention. I only asked the question from habit; but if you can prove to me that what you say is true, I wish that you would.

  Soc.

  A Greek slave is introduced, from whom certain mathematical conclusions which he has never learned are elicited by Socrates.

  It will be no easy matter, but I will try to please you to the utmost of my power. Suppose that you call one of your numerous attendants, that I may demonstrate on him.

  Men.

  Certainly. Come hither, boy.

  Soc.

  He is Greek, and speaks Greek, does he not?

  Men.

  Yes, indeed; he was born in the house.

  Soc.

  Attend now to the questions which I ask him, and observe whether he learns of me or only remembers.

  Men.

  I will.

  Soc.

  Tell me, boy, do you know that a figure like this is a square?

  Boy.

  I do.

  Soc.

  And you know that a square figure has these four lines equal?

  Boy.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And these lines which I have drawn through the middle of the square are also equal?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  A square may be of any size?

  Boy.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And if one side of the figure be of two feet, and the other side be of two feet, how much will the whole be? Let me explain: if in one direction the space was of two feet, and in the other direction of one foot, the whole would be of two feet taken once?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But since this side is also of two feet, there are twice two feet?

  Boy.

  There are.

  Soc.

  Then the square is of twice two feet?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And how many are twice two feet? count and tell me.

  Boy.

  Four, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And might there not be another square twice as large as this, and having like this the lines equal?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And of how many feet will that be?

  Boy.

  Of eight feet.

  Soc.

  And now try and tell me the length of the line which forms the side of that double square: this is two feet—what will that be?

  Boy.

  Clearly, Socrates, it will be double.

  Soc.

  He is partly guessing.

  Do you observe, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything, but only asking him questions; and now he fancies that he knows how long a line is necessary in order to produce a figure of eight square feet; does he not?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And does he really know?

  Men.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  He only guesses that because the square is double, the line is double.

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  Observe him while he recalls the steps in regular order. (To the Boy.) Tell me, boy, do you assert that a 83double space comes from a double line? Remember that I am not speaking of an oblong, but of a figure equal every way, and twice the size of this—that is to say of eight feet; and I want to know whether you still say that a double square comes from a double line?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But does not this line become doubled if we add another such line here?

  Boy.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And four such lines will make a space containing eight feet?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Meno’s Slave.

  Let us describe such a figure: Would you not say that this is the figure of eight feet?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And are there not these four divisions in the figure, each of which is equal to the figure of four feet?

  

  Boy.

  True.

  Soc.

  And is not that four times four?

  Boy.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And four times is not double?

  Boy.

  No, indeed.

  Soc.

  But how much?

  Boy.

  Four times as much.

  Soc.

  Therefore the double line, boy, has given a space, not twice, but four times as much.

  Boy.

  True.

  Soc.

  Four times four are sixteen—are they not?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  What line would give you a space of eight feet, as this gives one of sixteen feet;—do you see?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the space of four feet is made from this half line?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Good; and is not a space of eight feet twice the size of this, and half the size of the other?

  Boy.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Such a space, then, will be made out of a line greater than this one, and less than that one?

  Boy.

  Yes; I think so.

  Soc.

  Very good; I like to hear you say what you think. And now tell me, is not this a line of two feet and that of four?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  He has now learned to realize his own ignorance, and therefore will endeavour to remedy it.

  Then the line which forms the side of eight feet ought to be more than this line of two feet, and less than the other of four feet?

  Boy.

  It ought.

  Soc.

  Try and see if you can tell me how much it will be.

  Boy.

  Three feet.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Meno, Meno’s Slave.

  Then if we add a half to this line of two, that will be the line of three. Here are two and there is one; and on the other side, here are two also and there is one: and that makes the figure of which you speak?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But if there are three feet this way and three feet that way, the whole space will be three times three feet?

  Boy.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  And how much are three times three feet?

  Boy.

  Nine.

  Soc.

  And how much is the double of four?

  Boy.

  Eight.

  Soc.

  Then the figure of eight is not made out of a line of three?

  Boy.

  No.

  Soc.

  But from what line?—tell me exactly; and if you 84would rather not reckon, try and show me the line.

  Boy.

  Indeed, Socrates, I do not know.

  Soc.

  Do you see, Meno, what advances he has made in his power of recollection? He did not know at first, and he does not know now, what is the side of a figure of eight feet: but then he thought that he knew, and answered confidently as if he knew, and had no difficulty; now he has a difficulty, and neither knows nor fancies that he knows.

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  Is he not better off in knowing his ignorance?

  Men.

  I think that he is.

  Soc.

  If we have made him doubt, and given him the ‘torpedo’s shock,’ have we done him any harm?

  Men.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  We have certainly, as would seem, assisted him in some degree to the discovery of the truth; and now he will wish to remedy his ignorance, but then he would have been ready to tell all the world again and again that the double space should have a double side.

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  But do you suppose that he would ever have enquired into or learned what he fancied that he knew, though he was really ignorant of it, until he had fallen into perplexity under the idea that he did not know, and had desired to know?

  Men.

  I think not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Then he was the better for the torpedo’s touch?

  Men.

  I think so.

  Soc.

  The boy arrives at another true conclusion:

  Mark now the farther development. I shall only ask him, and not teach him, and he shall share the enquiry with me: and do you watch and see if you find me telling or explaining anything to him, instead of eliciting his opinion. Tell me, boy, is not this a square of four feet which I have drawn?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And now I add another square equal to the former one?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And a third, which is equal to either of them?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Suppose that we fill up the vacant corner?

  Boy.

  Very good.

  Soc.

  Here, then, there are four equal spaces?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  which is, that the square of the diagonal is double the square of the side.

  And how many times larger is this space than this other?

  Boy.

  Four times.

  Soc.

  But it ought to have been twice only, as you will remember.

  Boy.

  True.

  Soc.

  And does not this line, reaching from corner to corner, 85bisect each of these spaces?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And are there not here four equal lines which contain this space?

  Boy.

  There are.

  Soc.

  Look and see how much this space is.

  Boy.

  I do not understand.

  Soc.

  Has not each interior line cut off half of the four spaces?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And how many such spaces are there in this section?

  Boy.

  Four.

  Soc.

  And how many in this?

  Boy.

  Two.

  Soc.

  And four is how many times two?

  Boy.

  Twice.

  Soc.

  And this space is of how many feet?

  Boy.

  Of eight feet.

  Soc.

  And from what line do you get this figure?

  Boy.

  From this.

  Soc.

  That is, from the line which extends from corner to corner of the figure of four feet?

  Boy.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And that is the line which the learned call the diagonal. And if this is the proper name, then you, Meno’s slave, are prepared to affirm that the double space is the square of the diagonal?

  Boy.

  Certainly, Socrates.

  Soc.

  What do you say of him, Meno? Were not all these answers given out of his own head?

  Men.

  Yes, they were all his own.

  Soc.

  And yet, as we were just now saying, he did not know?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  But still he had in him those notions of his—had he not?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then he who does not know may still have true notions of that which he does not know?

  Men.

  He has.

  Soc.

  At present he is in a dream; he will soon grow clearer.

  And at present these notions have just been stirred up in him, as in a dream; but if he were frequently asked the same questions, in different forms, he would know as well as any one at last?

  Men.

  I dare say.

  Soc.

  Without any one teaching him he will recover his knowledge for himself, if he is only asked questions?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And this spontaneous recovery of knowledge in him is recollection?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And this knowledge which he now has must he not either have acquired or always possessed?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Meno.Either this knowledge was acquired by him in a former state of existence, or was always known to him.

  But if he always possessed this knowledge he would always have known; or if he has acquired the knowledge he could not have acquired it in this life, unless he has been taught geometry; for he may be made to do the same with all geometry and every other branch of knowledge. Now, has any one ever taught him all this? You must know about him, if, as you say, he was born and bred in your house.

  Men.

  And I am certain that no one ever did teach him.

  Soc.

  And yet he has the knowledge?

  Men.

  The fact, Socrates, is undeniable.

  Soc.

  But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life, 86then he must have had and learned it at some other time?

  Men.

  Clearly he must.

  Soc.

  Which must have been the time when he was not a man?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if there have been always true thoughts in him, both at the time when he was and was not a man, which only need to be awakened into knowledge by putting questions to him, his soul must have always possessed this knowledge, for he always either was or was not a man?

  Men.

  Obviously.

  Soc.

  And if the truth of all things always existed in the soul, then the soul is immortal. Wherefore be of good cheer, and try to recollect what you do not know, or rather what you do not remember.

  Men.

  I feel, somehow, that I like what you are saying.

  Soc.

  Better to enquire than to fancy that there is no such thing as enquiry and no use in it.

  And I, Meno, like what I am saying. Some things I have said of which I am not altogether confident. But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;—that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

  Men.

  There again, Socrates, your words seem to me excellent.

  Soc.

  Then, as we are agreed that a man should enquire about that which he does not know, shall you and I make an effort to enquire together into the nature of virtue?

  Men.

  By all means, Socrates. And yet I would much rather return to my original question, Whether in seeking to acquire virtue we should regard it as a thing to be taught, or as a gift of nature, or as coming to men in some other way?

  Soc.

  Socrates cannot enquire whether virtue can be taught until he knows what virtue is, except upon an hypothesis, such as geometricians sometimes employ: e. g. can a triangle of given area be inscribed in a given circle, if when the side of it is produced this or that consequence follows? [The hypothesis appears to be rather trivial and to have no mathematical value.]Upon the hypothesis ‘that virtue is knowledge,’ can it be taught?

  Had I the command of you as well as of myself, Meno, I would not have enquired whether virtue is given by instruction or not, until we had first ascertained ‘what it is.’ But as you think only of controlling me who am your slave, and never of controlling yourself,—such being your notion of freedom, I must yield to you, for you are irresistible. And therefore I have now to enquire into the qualities of a thing of which I do not as yet know the nature. At any rate, will you condescend a little, and allow the question ‘Whether virtue is given by instruction, or in any other way,’ to be argued upon hypothesis? As the geometrician, when he is asked 1 whether 87a certain triangle is capable of being inscribed in a certain circle1 , will reply: ‘I cannot tell you as yet; but I will offer a hypothesis which may assist us in forming a conclusion: If the figure be such that 2 when you have produced a given side of it2 , the given area of the triangle falls short by an area 3 corresponding to the part produced3 , then one consequence follows, and if this is impossible then some other; and therefore I wish to assume a hypothesis before I tell you whether this triangle is capable of being inscribed in the circle:’—that is a geometrical hypothesis. And we too, as we know not the nature and qualities of virtue, must ask, whether virtue is or is not taught, under a hypothesis: as thus, if virtue is of such a class of mental goods, will it be taught or not? Let the first hypothesis be that virtue is or is not knowledge,—in that case will it be taught or not? or, as we were just now saying, ‘remembered’? For there is no use in disputing about the name. But is virtue taught or not? or rather, does not every one see that knowledge alone is taught?

  Men.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  Then if virtue is knowledge, virtue will be taught?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then now we have made a quick end of this question: if virtue is of such a nature, it will be taught; and if not, not?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Of course.

  The next question is, whether virtue is knowledge or of another species?

  Men.

  Yes, that appears to be the question which comes next in order.

  Soc.

  But is virtue knowledge?

  Do we not say that virtue is a good?—This is a hypothesis which is not set aside.

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Virtue is a good, and profitable: and all profitable things are either profitable or the reverse according as they are or are not under the guidance of knowledge.

  Now, if there be any sort of good which is distinct from knowledge, virtue may be that good; but if knowledge embraces all good, then we shall be right in thinking that virtue is knowledge?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And virtue makes us good?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if we are good, then we are profitable; for all good things are profitable?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then virtue is profitable?

  Men.

  That is the only inference.

  Soc.

  Then now let us see what are the things which severally profit us. Health and strength, and beauty and wealth—these, and the like of these, we call profitable?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  88And yet these things may also sometimes do us harm: would you not think so?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And what is the guiding principle which makes them profitable or the reverse? Are they not profitable when they are rightly used, and hurtful when they are not rightly used?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Next, let us consider the goods of the soul: they are temperance, justice, courage, quickness of apprehension, memory, magnanimity, and the like?

  Men.

  Surely.

  Soc.

  And such of these as are not knowledge, but of another sort, are sometimes profitable and sometimes hurtful; as, for example, courage wanting prudence, which is only a sort of confidence? When a man has no sense he is harmed by courage, but when he has sense he is profited?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And the same may be said of temperance and quickness of apprehension; whatever things are learned or done with sense are profitable, but when done without sense they are hurtful?

  Men.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And in general, all that the soul attempts or endures, when under the guidance of wisdom, ends in happiness; but when she is under the guidance of folly, in the opposite?

  Men.

  That appears to be true.

  Soc.

  And so all virtue must be a sort of wisdom or knowledge.

  If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be profitable, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of the soul are either profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are all made profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therefore if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?

  Men.

  I quite agree.

  Soc.

  And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil, do not they also become profitable or hurtful, accordingly as the soul guides and uses them rightly or wrongly; just as the things of the soul herself are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by folly?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And the wise soul guides them rightly, and the foolish soul wrongly?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And is not this universally true of human nature? All other things hang upon the soul, and the things of the soul herself hang upon wisdom, if they are to be good; and 89so wisdom is inferred to be that which profits—and virtue, as we say, is profitable?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Virtue is either wholly or partly wisdom.

  And thus we arrive at the conclusion that virtue is either wholly or partly wisdom?

  Men.

  I think that what you are saying, Socrates, is very true.

  Soc.

  But if this is true, then the good are not by nature good?

  Men.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  If this is true, virtue must be taught; but then where are the teachers?

  If they had been, there would assuredly have been discerners of characters among us who would have known our future great men; and on their showing we should have adopted them, and when we had got them, we should have kept them in the citadel out of the way of harm, and set a stamp upon them far rather than upon a piece of gold, in order that no one might tamper with them; and when they grew up they would have been useful to the state?

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates, that would have been the right way.

  Soc.

  But if the good are not by nature good, are they made good by instruction?

  Men.

  There appears to be no other alternative, Socrates. On the supposition that virtue is knowledge, there can be no doubt that virtue is taught.

  Soc.

  Yes, indeed; but what if the supposition is erroneous?

  Men.

  I certainly thought just now that we were right.

  Soc.

  Yes, Meno; but a principle which has any soundness should stand firm not only just now, but always.

  Men.

  Well; and why are you so slow of heart to believe that knowledge is virtue?

  Soc.

  I will try and tell you why, Meno. I do not retract the assertion that if virtue is knowledge it may be taught; but I fear that I have some reason in doubting whether virtue is knowledge: for consider now and say whether virtue, and not only virtue but anything that is taught, must not have teachers and disciples?

  Men.

  Surely.

  Soc.

  And conversely, may not the art of which neither teachers nor disciples exist be assumed to be incapable of being taught?

  Men.

  True; but do you think that there are no teachers of virtue?

  Soc.

  Can Anytus tell us who they are?

  I have certainly often enquired whether there were any, and taken great pains to find them, and have never succeeded; and many have assisted me in the search, and they were the persons whom I thought the most likely to know. 90Here at the moment when he is wanted we fortunately have sitting by us Anytus, the very person of whom we should make enquiry; to him then let us repair. In the first place, he is the son of a wealthy and wise father, Anthemion, who acquired his wealth, not by accident or gift, like Ismenias the Theban (who has recently made himself as rich as Polycrates), but by his own skill and industry, and who is a well-conditioned, modest man, not insolent, or overbearing, or annoying; moreover, this son of his has received a good education, as the Athenian people certainly appear to think, for they choose him to fill the highest offices. And these are the sort of men from whom you are likely to learn whether there are any teachers of virtue, and who they are. Please, Anytus, to help me and your friend Meno in answering our question, Who are the teachers? Consider the matter thus: If we wanted Meno to be a good physician, to whom should we send him? Should we not send him to the physicians?

  Any.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Or if we wanted him to be a good cobbler, should we not send him to the cobblers?

  Any.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And so forth?

  Any.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The arts are taught by the professors of them. And have we not heard of those who profess to teach virtue at a fixed price?

  Let me trouble you with one more question. When we say that we should be right in sending him to the physicians if we wanted him to be a physician, do we mean that we should be right in sending him to those who profess the art, rather than to those who do not, and to those who demand payment for teaching the art, and profess to teach it to any one who will come and learn? And if these were our reasons, should we not be right in sending him?

  Any.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And might not the same be said of flute-playing, and of the other arts? Would a man who wanted to make another a flute-player refuse to send him to those who profess to teach the art for money, and be plaguing other persons to give him instruction, who are not professed teachers and who never had a single disciple in that branch of knowledge which he wishes him to acquire—would not such conduct be the height of folly?

  Any.

  Yes, by Zeus, and of ignorance too.

  Soc.

  Very good. And now you are in a position to advise with me about my friend Meno. He has been telling me, Anytus, that he desires to attain that kind of wisdom and virtue by which men order the state or the house, and honour their parents, and know when to receive and when to send away citizens and strangers, as a good man should. Now, to whom should he go in order that he may learn this virtue? Does not the previous argument imply clearly that we should send him to those who profess and avouch that they are the common teachers of all Hellas, and are ready to impart instruction to any one who likes, at a fixed price?

  Any.

  Whom do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  You surely know, do you not, Anytus, that these are the people whom mankind call Sophists?

  Any.

  Anytus inveighs against the corrupting influence of the Sophists.

  By Heracles, Socrates, forbear! I only hope that no friend or kinsman or acquaintance of mine, whether citizen or stranger, will ever be so mad as to allow himself to be corrupted by them; for they are a manifest pest and corrupting influence to those who have to do with them.

  Soc.

  Why surely they cannot really be corrupters? See what fortunes they make, and what an excellent reputation many of them bear!

  What, Anytus? Of all the people who profess that they know how to do men good, do you mean to say that these are the only ones who not only do them no good, but positively corrupt those who are entrusted to them, and in return for this disservice have the face to demand money? Indeed, I cannot believe you; for I know of a single man, Protagoras, who made more out of his craft than the illustrious Pheidias, who created such noble works, or any ten other statuaries. How could that be? A mender of old shoes, or patcher up of clothes, who made the shoes or clothes worse than he received them, could not have remained thirty days undetected, and would very soon have starved; whereas during more than forty years, Protagoras was corrupting all Hellas, and sending his disciples from him worse than he received them, and he was never found out. For, if I am not mistaken, he was about seventy years old at his death, forty of which were spent in the practice of his profession; and during all that time he had a good reputation, which to this day he retains: and not only Protagoras, but many others are well spoken of; some who lived before him, and others who are still living. Now, when you say that they deceived and 92corrupted the youth, are they to be supposed to have corrupted them consciously or unconsciously? Can those who were deemed by many to be the wisest men of Hellas have been out of their minds?

  Any.

  The wisest men in Hellas could not have been out of their minds? No:—the people who gave their money to them were out of their minds.

  Out of their minds! No, Socrates; the young men who gave their money to them were out of their minds, and their relations and guardians who entrusted their youth to the care of these men were still more out of their minds, and most of all, the cities who allowed them to come in, and did not drive them out, citizen and stranger alike.

  Soc.

  Has any of the Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so angry with them?

  Any.

  No, indeed, neither I nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor would I suffer them to have, anything to do with them.

  Soc.

  Then you are entirely unacquainted with them?

  Any.

  And I have no wish to be acquainted.

  Soc.

  How can Anytus know that they are bad, if he does not know them at all?

  Then, my dear friend, how can you know whether a thing is good or bad of which you are wholly ignorant?

  Any.

  Quite well; I am sure that I know what manner of men these are, whether I am acquainted with them or not.

  Soc.

  Then who will teach Meno virtue?

  You must be a diviner, Anytus, for I really cannot make out, judging from your own words, how, if you are not acquainted with them, you know about them. But I am not enquiring of you who are the teachers who will corrupt Meno (let them be, if you please, the Sophists); I only ask you to tell him who there is in this great city who will teach him how to become eminent in the virtues which I was just now describing. He is the friend of your family, and you will oblige him.

  Any.

  Why do you not tell him yourself?

  Soc.

  I have told him whom I supposed to be the teachers of these things; but I learn from you that I am utterly at fault, and I dare say that you are right. And now I wish that you, on your part, would tell me to whom among the Athenians he should go. Whom would you name?

  Any.

  Any Athenian gentleman who has learned of a previous generation of gentlemen.

  Why single out individuals? Any Athenian gentleman, taken at random, if he will mind him, will do far more good to him than the Sophists.

  Soc.

  And did those gentlemen grow of themselves; and without having been taught by any one, were they nevertheless 93able to teach others that which they had never learned themselves?

  Any.

  I imagine that they learned of the previous generation of gentlemen. Have there not been many good men in this city?

  Soc.

  Yes, certainly, Anytus; and many good statesmen also there always have been and there are still, in the city of Athens. But the question is whether they were also good teachers of their own virtue;—not whether there are, or have been, good men in this part of the world, but whether virtue can be taught, is the question which we have been discussing. Now, do we mean to say that the good men of our own and of other times knew how to impart to others that virtue which they had themselves; or is virtue a thing incapable of being communicated or imparted by one man to another? That is the question which I and Meno have been arguing. Look at the matter in your own way: Would you not admit that Themistocles was a good man?

  Any.

  Certainly; no man better.

  Soc.

  Good men may not have been good teachers. There never was a better man than Themistocles; but he did not make much of his own son.

  And must not he then have been a good teacher, if any man ever was a good teacher, of his own virtue?

  Any.

  Yes, certainly,—if he wanted to be so.

  Soc.

  But would he not have wanted? He would, at any rate, have desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not have been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from imparting to him his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son Cleophantus a famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on horseback and hurl a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things; and in anything which could be learned from a master he was well trained? Have you not heard from our elders of him?

  Any.

  I have.

  Soc.

  Then no one could say that his son showed any want of capacity?

  Any.

  Very likely not.

  Soc.

  But did any one, old or young, ever say in your hearing that Cleophantus, son of Themistocles, was a wise or good man, as his father was?

  Any.

  I have certainly never heard any one say so.

  Soc.

  He had him taught accomplishments because there was no one to teach virtue.

  And if virtue could have been taught, would his father Themistocles have sought to train him in these minor accomplishments, and allowed him who, as you must remember, was his own son, to be no better than his neighbours in those qualities in which he himself excelled?

  Any.

  Indeed, indeed, I think not.

  Soc.

  Here was a teacher of virtue whom you admit to be among the best men of the past. Let us take another,—Aristides, 94the son of Lysimachus: would you not acknowledge that he was a good man?

  Any.

  To be sure I should.

  Soc.

  Aristides was also a good man, and Pericles and Thucydides:—they made their sons good horsemen, and wrestlers, and the like, but they did not have them taught to be good, because virtue cannot be taught.

  And did not he train his son Lysimachus better than any other Athenian in all that could be done for him by the help of masters? But what has been the result? Is he a bit better than any other mortal? He is an acquaintance of yours, and you see what he is like. There is Pericles, again, magnificent in his wisdom; and he, as you are aware, had two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus.

  Any.

  I know.

  Soc.

  And you know, also, that he taught them to be unrivalled horsemen, and had them trained in music and gymnastics and all sorts of arts—in these respects they were on a level with the best—and had he no wish to make good men of them? Nay, he must have wished it. But virtue, as I suspect, could not be taught. And that you may not suppose the incompetent teachers to be only the meaner sort of Athenians and few in number, remember again that Thucydides had two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, whom, besides giving them a good education in other things, he trained in wrestling, and they were the best wrestlers in Athens: one of them he committed to the care of Xanthias, and the other of Eudorus, who had the reputation of being the most celebrated wrestlers of that day. Do you remember them?

  Any.

  I have heard of them.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Anytus, Meno.

  Now, can there be a doubt that Thucydides, whose children were taught things for which he had to spend money, would have taught them to be good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have been taught? Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many friends among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great family, and a man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if virtue could have been taught, he would have found out some Athenian or foreigner who would have made good men of his sons, if he could not himself spare the time from cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a thing which can be taught?

  Any.

  Anytus gives an angry warning to Socrates.

  Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful. Perhaps there is no city in which it is not easier to do men harm than to do them good, and 95this is certainly the case at Athens, as I believe that you know.

  Soc.

  O Meno, I think that Anytus is in a rage. And he may well be in a rage, for he thinks, in the first place, that I am defaming these gentlemen; and in the second place, he is of opinion that he is one of them himself. But some day he will know what is the meaning of defamation, and if he ever does, he will forgive me. Meanwhile I will return to you, Meno; for I suppose that there are gentlemen in your region too?

  Men.

  Certainly there are.

  Soc.

  And are they willing to teach the young? and do they profess to be teachers? and do they agree that virtue is taught?

  Men.

  The Thessalian gentry are not agreed about the possibility of teaching virtue.

  No indeed, Socrates, they are anything but agreed; you may hear them saying at one time that virtue can be taught, and then again the reverse.

  Soc.

  Can we call those teachers who do not acknowledge the possibility of their own vocation?

  Men.

  I think not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And what do you think of these Sophists, who are the only professors? Do they seem to you to be teachers of virtue?

  Men.

  Gorgias professes to teach rhetoric, but laughs at those who pretend to teach virtue.

  I often wonder, Socrates, that Gorgias is never heard promising to teach virtue: and when he hears others promising he only laughs at them; but he thinks that men should be taught to speak.

  Soc.

  Then do you not think that the Sophists are teachers?

  Men.

  Socrates, Meno.

  I cannot tell you, Socrates; like the rest of the world, I am in doubt, and sometimes I think that they are teachers and sometimes not.

  Soc.

  And are you aware that not you only and other politicians have doubts whether virtue can be taught or not, but that Theognis the poet says the very same thing?

  Men.

  Where does he say so?

  Soc.

  In these elegiac verses1 :—

  Theognis implies in one passage that virtue can, and in another that it cannot, be taught.

  ‘Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.’

  Do you observe that here he seems to imply that virtue can be taught?

  Men.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  But in some other verses he shifts about and says2 :—

  ‘If understanding could be created and put into a man, then they’ [who were able to perform this feat] ‘would have obtained great rewards.’

  And again:—

  ‘Never would a bad son have sprung from a good sire, for he would have 96heard the voice of instruction; but not by teaching will you ever make a bad man into a good one.’

  And this, as you may remark, is a contradiction of the other.

  Men.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  How can they be teachers who are so inconsistent with themselves?

  And is there anything else of which the professors are affirmed not only not to be teachers of others, but to be ignorant themselves, and bad at the knowledge of that which they are professing to teach? or is there anything about which even the acknowledged ‘gentlemen’ are sometimes saying that ‘this thing can be taught,’ and sometimes the opposite? Can you say that they are teachers in any true sense whose ideas are in such confusion?

  Men.

  I should say, certainly not.

  Soc.

  But if neither the Sophists nor the gentlemen are teachers, clearly there can be no other teachers?

  Men.

  No.

  Soc.

  And if there are no teachers, neither are there disciples?

  Men.

  Agreed.

  Soc.

  And we have admitted that a thing cannot be taught of which there are neither teachers nor disciples?

  Men.

  We have.

  Soc.

  If there are no teachers and no scholars, virtue cannot be taught.

  And there are no teachers of virtue to be found anywhere?

  Men.

  There are not.

  Soc.

  And if there are no teachers, neither are there scholars?

  Men.

  That, I think, is true.

  Soc.

  Then virtue cannot be taught?

  Men.

  Not if we are right in our view. But I cannot believe, Socrates, that there are no good men: And if there are, how did they come into existence?

  Soc.

  But were we not mistaken in our view? There may be another guide to good action as well as knowledge,

  I am afraid, Meno, that you and I are not good for much, and that Gorgias has been as poor an educator of you as Prodicus has been of me. Certainly we shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find some one who will help in some way or other to improve us. This I say, because I observe that in the previous discussion none of us remarked that right and good action is possible to man under other guidance than that of knowledge (ἐπιστήμη);—and indeed if this be denied, there is no seeing how there can be any good men at all.

  Men.

  How do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I mean that good men are necessarily useful or 97profitable. Were we not right in admitting this? It must be so.

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in supposing that they will be useful only if they are true guides to us of action—there we were also right?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he have knowledge (ϕρόνησις), in this we were wrong.

  Men.

  What do you mean by the word ‘right’?

  Soc.

  I will explain. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or anywhere else, and went to the place and led others thither, would he not be a right and good guide?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And a person who had a right opinion about the way, but had never been and did not know, might be a good guide also, might he not?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And while he has true opinion about that which the other knows, he will be just as good a guide if he thinks the truth, as he who knows the truth?

  Men.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  Right opinion is as good a guide to action as knowledge.

  Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the guide of right action; whereas there is also right opinion.

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge?

  Men.

  The difference, Socrates, is only that he who has knowledge will always be right; but he who has right opinion will sometimes be right, and sometimes not.

  Soc.

  What do you mean? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so long as he has right opinion?

  Men.

  I admit the cogency of your argument, and therefore, Socrates, I wonder that knowledge should be preferred to right opinion—or why they should ever differ.

  Soc.

  And shall I explain this wonder to you?

  Men.

  Do tell me.

  Soc.

  You would not wonder if you had ever observed the images of Daedalus1 ; but perhaps you have not got them in your country?

  Men.

  What have they to do with the question?

  Soc.

  Because they require to be fastened in order to keep them, and if they are not fastened they will play truant and run away.

  Men.

  Well, what of that?

  Soc.

  But right opinions are apt to walk away, like the images of Daedalus.

  I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves; but when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true opinions: while they abide 98with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie of the cause; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection, as you and I have agreed to call it. But when they are bound, in the first place, they have the nature of knowledge; and, in the second place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain.

  Men.

  What you are saying, Socrates, seems to be very like the truth.

  Soc.

  I too speak rather in ignorance; I only conjecture. And yet that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most certainly one of them.

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates; and you are quite right in saying so.

  Soc.

  And am I not also right in saying that true opinion leading the way perfects action quite as well as knowledge?

  Men.

  There again, Socrates, I think that you are right.

  Soc.

  Then right opinion is not a whit inferior to knowledge, or less useful in action; nor is the man who has right opinion inferior to him who has knowledge?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  And surely the good man has been acknowledged by us to be useful?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Seeing then that men become good and useful to states, not only because they have knowledge, but because they have right opinion, and that neither knowledge nor right opinion is given to man by nature or acquired by him—(do you imagine either of them to be given by nature?

  Men.

  Not I.)

  Soc.

  Then if they are not given by nature, neither are the good by nature good?

  Men.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And nature being excluded, then came the question whether virtue is acquired by teaching?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  If virtue was wisdom [or knowledge], then, as we thought, it was taught?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if it was taught it was wisdom?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And if there were teachers, it might be taught; and if there were no teachers, not?

  Men.

  True.

  Soc.

  But surely we acknowledged that there were no teachers of virtue?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then we acknowledged that it was not taught, and was not wisdom?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And yet we admitted that it was a good?

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the right guide is useful and good? 99

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  If virtue and knowledge cannot be taught, the only right guides of men are true opinions.

  And the only right guides are knowledge and true opinion—these are the guides of man; for things which happen by chance are not under the guidance of man: but the guides of man are true opinion and knowledge.

  Men.

  I think so too.

  Soc.

  But if virtue is not taught, neither is virtue knowledge.

  Men.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  Then of two good and useful things, one, which is knowledge, has been set aside, and cannot be supposed to be our guide in political life.

  Men.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  And therefore not by any wisdom, and not because they were wise, did Themistocles and those others of whom Anytus spoke govern states. This was the reason why they were unable to make others like themselves—because their virtue was not grounded on knowledge.

  Men.

  That is probably true, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Right opinion is in politics what divination is in religion; diviners, prophets, poets, statesmen, may all be truly called ‘divine men.

  But if not by knowledge, the only alternative which remains is that statesmen must have guided states by right opinion, which is in politics what divination is in religion; for diviners and also prophets say many things truly, but they know not what they say.

  Men.

  So I believe.

  Soc.

  And may we not, Meno, truly call those men ‘divine’ who, having no understanding, yet succeed in many a grand deed and word?

  Men.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then we shall also be right in calling divine those whom we were just now speaking of as diviners and prophets, including the whole tribe of poets. Yes, and statesmen above all may be said to be divine and illumined, being inspired and possessed of God, in which condition they say many grand things, not knowing what they say.

  Men.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the women too, Meno, call good men divine—do they not? and the Spartans, when they praise a good man, say ‘that he is a divine man.’

  Men.

  And I think, Socrates, that they are right; although very likely our friend Anytus may take offence at the word.

  Soc.

  I do not care; as for Anytus, there will be another opportunity of talking with him. To sum up our enquiry—the result seems to be, if we are at all right in our view, that virtue is neither natural nor acquired, but an instinct given 100by God to the virtuous. Nor is the instinct accompanied by reason, unless there may be supposed to be among statesmen some one who is capable of educating statesmen. And if there be such an one, he may be said to be among the living what Homer says that Tiresias was among the dead, ‘he alone has understanding; but the rest are flitting shades;’ and he and his virtue in like manner will be a reality among shadows.

  Men.

  That is excellent, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Virtue comes by the gift of God.

  Then, Meno, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the virtuous by the gift of God. But we shall never know the certain truth until, before asking how virtue is given, we enquire into the actual nature of virtue. I fear that I must go away, but do you, now that you are persuaded yourself, persuade our friend Anytus. And do not let him be so exasperated; if you can conciliate him, you will have done good service to the Athenian people.

  EUTHYPHRO.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Euthyphro.Introduction.

  In the Meno, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: ‘That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good’ (94 E); and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him (99 E). In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that very matter touching which Socrates is accused. An incident which may perhaps really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned Athenian diviner and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion.

  Analysis.

  This Euthyphro and Socrates are represented as meeting in the 2porch of the King Archon. (Cp. Theaet. sub fin.) Both have legal business in hand. Socrates is defendant in a suit for impiety 3which Meletus has brought against him (it is remarked by the way that he is not a likely man himself to have brought a suit against another); and Euthyphro too is plaintiff in an action for 4murder, which he has brought against his own father. The latter has originated in the following manner:—A poor dependant of the family had slain one of their domestic slaves in Naxos. The guilty person was bound and thrown into a ditch by the command of Euthyphro’s father, who sent to the interpreters of religion at Athens to ask what should be done with him. Before the messenger came back the criminal had died from hunger and exposure.

  This is the origin of the charge of murder which Euthyphro brings against his father. Socrates is confident that before he could have undertaken the responsibility of such a prosecution, he must have been perfectly informed of the nature of piety and 5impiety; and as he is going to be tried for impiety himself, he thinks that he cannot do better than learn of Euthyphro (who will be admitted by everybody, including the judges, to be an unimpeachable authority) what piety is, and what is impiety. What then is piety?

  Euthyphro, who, in the abundance of his knowledge, is very willing to undertake all the responsibility, replies: That piety is doing as I do, prosecuting your father (if he is guilty) on a charge of murder; doing as the gods do—as Zeus did to Cronos, and Cronos to Uranus.

  Socrates has a dislike to these tales of mythology, and he fancies 6that this dislike of his may be the reason why he is charged with impiety. ‘Are they really true?’ ‘Yes, they are;’ and Euthyphro will gladly tell Socrates some more of them. But Socrates would like first of all to have a more satisfactory answer to the question, ‘What is piety?’ ‘Doing as I do, charging a father with murder,’ may be a single instance of piety, but can hardly be regarded as a general definition.

  Euthyphro replies, that ‘Piety is what is dear to the gods, 7and impiety is what is not dear to them.’ But may there not be differences of opinion, as among men, so also among the gods? Especially, about good and evil, which have no fixed rule; and these are precisely the sort of differences which give rise to quarrels. And therefore what may be dear to one 8god may not be dear to another, and the same action may be both pious and impious; e. g. your chastisement of your father, Euthyphro, may be dear or pleasing to Zeus (who inflicted a similar chastisement on his own father), but not equally pleasing to Cronos or Uranus (who suffered at the hands of their sons).

  Euthyphro answers that there is no difference of opinion, either among gods or men, as to the propriety of punishing a murderer. Yes, rejoins Socrates, when they know him to be a murderer; but you are assuming the point at issue. If all the circumstances of the case are considered, are you able to show that your father 9was guilty of murder, or that all the gods are agreed in approving of our prosecution of him? And must you not allow that what is hated by one god may be liked by another? Waiving this last, however, Socrates proposes to amend the definition, and say that ‘what all the gods love is pious, and what they all hate is impious.’ To this Euthyphro agrees.

  10Socrates proceeds to analyze the new form of the definition. He shows that in other cases the act precedes the state; e.g. the act of being carried, loved, &c. precedes the state of being carried, loved, &c., and therefore that which is dear to the gods is dear to the gods because it is first loved of them, not loved of them because it is dear to them. But the pious or holy is loved by the gods because it is pious or holy, which is equivalent to saying, that it is loved by them because it is dear to them. Here 11then appears to be a contradiction,—Euthyphro has been giving an attribute or accident of piety only, and not the essence. Euthyphro acknowledges himself that his explanations seem to walk away or go round in a circle, like the moving figures of Daedalus, the ancestor of Socrates, who has communicated his art to his descendants.

  12Socrates, who is desirous of stimulating the indolent intelligence of Euthyphro, raises the question in another manner: ‘Is all the pious just?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is all the just pious?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then what part of justice is piety?’ Euthyphro replies that piety is that part of justice which ‘attends’ to the gods, as there is another 13part of justice which ‘attends’ to men. But what is the meaning of ‘attending’ to the gods? The word ‘attending,’ when applied to dogs, horses, and men, implies that in some way they are made better. But how do pious or holy acts make the gods any better? Euthyphro explains that he means by pious acts, acts of service or ministration. Yes; but the ministrations of the husbandman, the physician, and the builder have an end. To what end do 14we serve the gods, and what do we help them to accomplish? Euthyphro replies, that all these difficult questions cannot be resolved in a short time; and he would rather say simply that piety is knowing how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices. In other words, says Socrates, piety is ‘a 15science of asking and giving’—asking what we want and giving what they want; in short, a mode of doing business between gods and men. But although they are the givers of all good, how can we give them any good in return? ‘Nay, but we give them honour.’ Then we give them not what is beneficial, but what is pleasing or dear to them; and this is the point which has been already disproved.

  Socrates, although weary of the subterfuges and evasions of Euthyphro, remains unshaken in his conviction that he must know the nature of piety, or he would never have prosecuted his old father. He is still hoping that he will condescend to instruct him. But Euthyphro is in a hurry and cannot stay. And Socrates’ last 16hope of knowing the nature of piety before he is prosecuted for impiety has disappeared. As in the Euthydemus the irony is carried on to the end.

  Introduction.

  The Euthyphro is manifestly designed to contrast the real nature of piety and impiety with the popular conceptions of them. But when the popular conceptions of them have been overthrown, Socrates does not offer any definition of his own: as in the Laches and Lysis, he prepares the way for an answer to the question which he has raised; but true to his own character, refuses to answer himself.

  Euthyphro is a religionist, and is elsewhere spoken of, if he be the same person, as the author of a philosophy of names, by whose ‘prancing steeds’ Socrates in the Cratylus is carried away (p. 396). He has the conceit and self-confidence of a Sophist; no doubt that he is right in prosecuting his father has ever entered into his mind. Like a Sophist too, he is incapable either of framing a general definition or of following the course of an argument. His wrong-headedness, one-sidedness, narrowness, positiveness, are characteristic of his priestly office. His failure to apprehend an argument may be compared to a similar defect which is observable in the rhapsode Ion. But he is not a bad man, and he is friendly to Socrates, whose familiar sign he recognizes with interest. Though unable to follow him he is very willing to be led by him, and eagerly catches at any suggestion which saves him from the trouble of thinking. Moreover he is the enemy of Meletus, who, as he says, is availing himself of the popular dislike to innovations in religion in order to injure Socrates; at the same time he is amusingly confident that he has weapons in his own armoury which would be more than a match for him. He is quite sincere in his prosecution of his father, who has accidentally been guilty of homicide, and is not wholly free from blame. To purge away the crime appears to him in the light of a duty, whoever may be the criminal.

  Thus begins the contrast between the religion of the letter, or of the narrow and unenlightened conscience, and the higher notion of religion which Socrates vainly endeavours to elicit from him. ‘Piety is doing as I do’ is the idea of religion which first occurs to him, and to many others who do not say what they think with equal frankness. For men are not easily persuaded that any other religion is better than their own; or that other nations, e. g. the Greeks in the time of Socrates, were equally serious in their religious beliefs and difficulties. The chief difference between us and them is, that they were slowly learning what we are in process of forgetting. Greek mythology hardly admitted of the distinction between accidental homicide and murder: that the pollution of blood was the same in both cases is also the feeling of the Athenian diviner. He had not as yet learned the lesson, which philosophy was teaching, that Homer and Hesiod, if not banished from the state, or whipped out of the assembly, as Heracleitus more rudely proposed, at any rate were not to be appealed to as authorities in religion; and he is ready to defend his conduct by the examples of the gods. These are the very tales which Socrates cannot abide; and his dislike of them, as he suspects, has branded him with the reputation of impiety. Here is one answer to the question, ‘Why Socrates was put to death,’ suggested by the way. Another is conveyed in the words, ‘The Athenians do not care about any man being thought wise until he begins to make other men wise; and then for some reason or other they are angry:’ which may be said to be the rule of popular toleration in most other countries, and not at Athens only. In the course of the argument (7 A, B) Socrates remarks that the controversial nature of morals and religion arises out of the difficulty of verifying them. There is no measure or standard to which they can be referred.

  The next definition, ‘Piety is that which is loved of the gods,’ is shipwrecked on a refined distinction between the state and the act, corresponding respectively to the adjective (ϕίλον) and the participle (ϕιλούμενον), or rather perhaps to the participle and the verb (ϕιλούμενον and ϕιλεɩ̂ται). The act is prior to the state (as in Aristotle the ἐνέργεια precedes the δύναμις); and the state of being loved is preceded by the act of being loved. But piety or holiness is preceded by the act of being pious, not by the act of being loved; and therefore piety and the state of being loved are different. Through such subtleties of dialectic Socrates is working his way into a deeper region of thought and feeling. He means to say that the words ‘loved of the gods’ express an attribute only, and not the essence of piety.

  Then follows the third and last definition, ‘Piety is a part of justice.’ Thus far Socrates has proceeded in placing religion on a moral foundation. He is seeking to realize the harmony of religion and morality, which the great poets Æschylus, Sophocles, and Pindar had unconsciously anticipated, and which is the universal want of all men. To this the soothsayer adds the ceremonial element, ‘attending upon the gods.’ When further interrogated by Socrates as to the nature of this ‘attention to the gods,’ he replies, that piety is an affair of business, a science of giving and asking, and the like. Socrates points out the anthropomorphism of these notions. (Cp. Symp. 202 E; Rep. ii. 365 E; Politicus 290 C, D.) But when we expect him to go on and show that the true service of the gods is the service of the spirit and the co-operation with them in all things true and good, he stops short; this was a lesson which the soothsayer could not have been made to understand, and which every one must learn for himself.

  There seem to be altogether three aims or interests in this little Dialogue: (1) the dialectical development of the idea of piety; (2) the antithesis of true and false religion, which is carried to a certain extent only; (3) the defence of Socrates.

  The subtle connection with the Apology and the Crito; the holding back of the conclusion, as in the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, and other Dialogues; the deep insight into the religious world; the dramatic power and play of the two characters; the inimitable irony, are reasons for believing that the Euthyphro is a genuine Platonic writing. The spirit in which the popular representations of mythology are denounced recalls Republic II (378 ff.) The virtue of piety has been already mentioned as one of five in the Protagoras, but is not reckoned among the four cardinal virtues of Republic IV (428 ff.). The figure of Daedalus (15 C) has occurred in the Meno (97 D); that of Proteus (15 D) in the Euthydemus (288 B) and Io (541 E). The kingly science has already appeared in the Euthydemus, and will reappear in the Republic and Statesman. But neither from these nor any other indications of similarity or difference, and still less from arguments respecting the suitableness of this little work to aid Socrates at the time of his trial or the reverse, can any evidence of the date be obtained.

  EUTHYPHRO.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Socrates.

  Euthyphro.

  Scene:—The Porch of the King Archon.

  Euthyphro.

  Euthyphro.Socrates, Euthyphro.Euthyphro and Socrates meet at the Porch of the King Archon. Both have legal business on hand.

  2Why have you left the Lyceum, Socrates? and what are you doing in the Porch of the King Archon? Surely you cannot be concerned in a suit before the King, like myself?

  Socrates.

  Not in a suit, Euthyphro; impeachment is the word which the Athenians use.

  Euth.

  What! I suppose that some one has been prosecuting you, for I cannot believe that you are the prosecutor of another.

  Soc.

  Certainly not.

  Euth.

  Then some one else has been prosecuting you?

  Soc.

  Yes.

  Euth.

  And who is he?

  Soc.

  A young man who is little known, Euthyphro; and I hardly know him: his name is Meletus, and he is of the deme of Pitthis. Perhaps you may remember his appearance; he has a beak, and long straight hair, and a beard which is ill grown.

  Euth.

  No, I do not remember him, Socrates. But what is the charge which he brings against you?

  Soc.

  Meletus has brought a charge against Socrates.

  What is the charge? Well, a very serious charge, which shows a good deal of character in the young man, and for which he is certainly not to be despised. He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who are their corruptors. I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends. And of this our mother the state is to be the judge. Of all our political men he is the only one who seems to me to begin in the right way, with the cultivation of virtue in youth; like a good husbandman, he makes the young shoots his first 3care, and clears away us who are the destroyers of them. This is only the first step; he will afterwards attend to the elder branches; and if he goes on as he has begun, he will be a very great public benefactor.

  Euth.

  I hope that he may; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the opposite will turn out to be the truth. My opinion is that in attacking you he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state. But in what way does he say that you corrupt the young?

  Soc.

  The nature of the charge against Socrates.

  He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first hearing excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and that I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the ground of his indictment.

  Euth.

  I understand, Socrates; he means to attack you about the familiar sign which occasionally, as you say, comes to you. He thinks that you are a neologian, and he is going to have you up before the court for this. He knows that such a charge is readily received by the world, as I myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about divine things, and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and think me a madman. Yet every word that I say is true. But they are jealous of us all; and we must be brave and go at them.

  Soc.

  Their laughter, friend Euthyphro, is not a matter of much consequence. For a man may be thought wise; but the Athenians, I suspect, do not much trouble themselves about him until he begins to impart his wisdom to others; and then for some reason or other, perhaps, as you say, from jealousy, they are angry.

  Euth.

  I am never likely to try their temper in this way.

  Soc.

  I dare say not, for you are reserved in your behaviour, and seldom impart your wisdom. But I have a benevolent habit of pouring out myself to everybody, and would even pay for a listener, and I am afraid that the Athenians may think me too talkative. Now if, as I was saying, they would only laugh at me, as you say that they laugh at you, the time might pass gaily enough in the court; but perhaps they may be in earnest, and then what the end will be you soothsayers only can predict.

  Euth.

  I dare say that the affair will end in nothing, Socrates, and that you will win your cause; and I think that I shall win my own.

  Soc.

  And what is your suit, Euthyphro? are you the pursuer or the defendant?

  Euth.

  I am the pursuer.

  Soc.

  Of whom?

  Euth.

  4You will think me mad when I tell you.

  Soc.

  Why, has the fugitive wings?

  Euth.

  Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life.

  Soc.

  Who is he?

  Euth.

  My father.

  Soc.

  Your father! my good man?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And of what is he accused?

  Euth.

  Of murder, Socrates.

  Soc.

  The irony of Socrates.

  By the powers, Euthyphro! how little does the common herd know of the nature of right and truth. A man must be an extraordinary man, and have made great strides in wisdom, before he could have seen his way to bring such an action.

  Euth.

  Indeed, Socrates, he must.

  Soc.

  Euthyphro is under a sacred obligation to prosecute a homicide, even if he be his own father.

  I suppose that the man whom your father murdered was one of your relatives—clearly he was; for if he had been a stranger you would never have thought of prosecuting him.

  Euth.

  I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the pollution is the same in either case, if you knowingly associate with the murderer when you ought to clear yourself and him by proceeding against him. The real question is whether the murdered man has been justly slain. If justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone; but if unjustly, then even if the murderer lives under the same roof with you and eats at the same table, proceed against him. Now the man who is dead was a poor dependant of mine who worked for us as a field labourer on our farm in Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants and slew him. My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that no great harm would be done even if he did die. Now this was just what happened. For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon him, that before the messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead. And my father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my father. They say that he did not kill him, and that if he did, the dead man was but a murderer, and I ought not to take any notice, for that a son is impious who prosecutes a father. Which shows, Socrates, how little they know what the gods think about piety and impiety.

  Soc.

  Good heavens, Euthyphro! and is your knowledge of religion and of things pious and impious so very exact, that, supposing the circumstances to be as you state them, you are not afraid lest you too may be doing an impious thing in bringing an action against your father?

  Euth.

  The best of Euthyphro, and that which distinguishes him, Socrates, from other men, is his exact knowledge of all 5such matters. What should I be good for without it?

  Soc.

  Socrates, who is accused of false theology, thinks that he cannot do better than become the disciple of so great a theologian as Euthyphro.

  Rare friend! I think that I cannot do better than be your disciple. Then before the trial with Meletus comes on I shall challenge him, and say that I have always had a great interest in religious questions, and now, as he charges me with rash imaginations and innovations in religion, I have become your disciple. You, Meletus, as I shall say to him, acknowledge Euthyphro to be a great theologian, and sound in his opinions; and if you approve of him you ought to approve of me, and not have me into court; but if you disapprove, you should begin by indicting him who is my teacher, and who will be the ruin, not of the young, but of the old; that is to say, of myself whom he instructs, and of his old father whom he admonishes and chastises. And if Meletus refuses to listen to me, but will go on, and will not shift the indictment from me to you, I cannot do better than repeat this challenge in the court.

  Euth.

  Yes, indeed, Socrates; and if he attempts to indict me I am mistaken if I do not find a flaw in him; the court shall have a great deal more to say to him than to me.

  Soc.

  He asks, ‘What is piety?’

  And I, my dear friend, knowing this, am desirous of becoming your disciple. For I observe that no one appears to notice you—not even this Meletus; but his sharp eyes have found me out at once, and he has indicted me for impiety. And therefore, I adjure you to tell me the nature of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so well, and of murder, and of other offences against the gods. What are they? Is not piety in every action always the same? and impiety, again—is it not always the opposite of piety, and also the same with itself, having, as impiety, one notion which includes whatever is impious?

  Euth.

  To be sure, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And what is piety, and what is impiety?

  Euth.

  Piety is doing as I am doing;—like Zeus, I am proceeding against my father.

  Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime—whether he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be—that makes no difference; and not to prosecute them is impiety. And please to consider, Socrates, what a notable proof I will give you of the truth of my words, a proof which I have already given to others:—of the principle, I mean, that the impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished. For do not men regard 6Zeus as the best and most righteous of the gods?—and yet they admit that he bound his father (Cronos) because he wickedly devoured his sons, and that he too had punished his own father (Uranus) for a similar reason, in a nameless manner. And yet when I proceed against my father, they are angry with me. So inconsistent are they in their way of talking when the gods are concerned, and when I am concerned.

  Soc.

  Does Euthyphro believe these amazing stories about the gods?

  May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am charged with impiety—that I cannot away with these stories about the gods? and therefore I suppose that people think me wrong. But, as you who are well informed about them approve of them, I cannot do better than assent to your superior wisdom. What else can I say, confessing as I do, that I know nothing about them? Tell me, for the love of Zeus, whether you really believe that they are true.

  Euth.

  Yes, Socrates; and things more wonderful still, of which the world is in ignorance.

  Soc.

  And do you really believe that the gods fought with one another, and had dire quarrels, battles, and the like, as the poets say, and as you may see represented in the works of great artists? The temples are full of them; and notably the robe of Athene, which is carried up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaea, is embroidered with them. Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?

  Euth.

  Yes, and things more amazing still.

  Yes, Socrates; and, as I was saying, I can tell you, if you would like to hear them, many other things about the gods which would quite amaze you.

  Soc.

  I dare say; and you shall tell me them at some other time when I have leisure. But just at present I would rather hear from you a more precise answer, which you have not as yet given, my friend, to the question, What is ‘piety’? When asked, you only replied, Doing as you do, charging your father with murder.

  Euth.

  And what I said was true, Socrates.

  Soc.

  No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many other pious acts?

  Euth.

  There are.

  Soc.

  Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?

  Euth.

  I remember.

  Soc.

  Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.

  Euth.

  A more correct definition:—Piety is that which is dear to the gods.

  I will tell you, if you like.

  Soc.

  I should very much like.

  Euth.

  Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.

  Soc.

  Very good, Euthyphro; you have now given me the 7 sort of answer which I wanted. But whether what you say is true or not I cannot as yet tell, although I make no doubt that you will prove the truth of your words.

  Euth.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  Come, then, and let us examine what we are saying. That thing or person which is dear to the gods is pious, and that thing or person which is hateful to the gods is impious, these two being the extreme opposites of one another. Was not that said?

  Euth.

  It was.

  Soc.

  And well said?

  Euth.

  Yes, Socrates, I thought so; it was certainly said.

  Soc.

  And further, Euthyphro, the gods were admitted to have enmities and hatreds and differences?

  Euth.

  Yes, that was also said.

  Soc.

  Differences about numbers and figures create no ill-will because they can be settled by a sum or by a weighing machine, but enmities about the just and unjust are the occasions of quarrels, both among gods and men.

  And what sort of difference creates enmity and anger? Suppose for example that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number; do differences of this sort make us enemies and set us at variance with one another? Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end to them by a sum?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  Or suppose that we differ about magnitudes, do we not quickly end the difference by measuring?

  Euth.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And we end a controversy about heavy and light by resorting to a weighing machine?

  Euth.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided, and which therefore make us angry and set us at enmity with one another? I dare say the answer does not occur to you at the moment, and therefore I will suggest that these enmities arise when the matters of difference are the just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable. Are not these the points about which men differ, and about which when we are unable satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel, when we do quarrel1 ?

  Euth.

  Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we quarrel is such as you describe.

  Soc.

  And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur, are of a like nature?

  Euth.

  Certainly they are.

  Soc.

  They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences—would there now?

  Euth.

  You are quite right.

  Soc.

  Men and gods alike love the things which they deem noble and just, but they are not agreed what these are.

  Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them?

  Euth.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  But, as you say, people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust,—about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them. 8

  Euth.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Then the same things are hated by the gods and loved by the gods, and are both hateful and dear to them?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  And upon this view the same things, Euthyphro, will be pious and also impious?

  Euth.

  So I should suppose.

  Soc.

  Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them. And therefore, Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Herè, and there may be other gods who have similar differences of opinion.

  Euth.

  But I believe, Socrates, that all the gods would be agreed as to the propriety of punishing a murderer: there would be no difference of opinion about that.

  Soc.

  Well, but speaking of men, Euthyphro, did you ever hear any one arguing that a murderer or any sort of evil-doer ought to be let off?

  Euth.

  I should rather say that these are the questions which they are always arguing, especially in courts of law: they commit all sorts of crimes, and there is nothing which they will not do or say in their own defence.

  Soc.

  But do they admit their guilt, Euthyphro, and yet say that they ought not to be punished?

  Euth.

  No; they do not.

  Soc.

  Then there are some things which they do not venture to say and do: for they do not venture to argue that the guilty are to be unpunished, but they deny their guilt, do they not?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then they do not argue that the evil-doer should not be punished, but they argue about the fact of who the evil-doer is, and what he did and when?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  Neither God nor man will say that the doer of evil is not to be punished, but they are doubtful about particular acts. What proof is there that all the gods approve of the prosecution of your father?

  And the gods are in the same case, if as you assert they quarrel about just and unjust, and some of them say while others deny that injustice is done among them. For surely neither God nor man will ever venture to say that the doer of injustice is not to be punished?

  Euth.

  That is true, Socrates, in the main.

  Soc.

  But they join issue about the particulars—gods and men alike; and, if they dispute at all, they dispute about some act which is called in question, and which by some is affirmed to be just, by others to be unjust. Is not that true?

  Euth.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  9Well then, my dear friend Euthyphro, do tell me, for my better instruction and information, what proof have you that in the opinion of all the gods a servant who is guilty of murder, and is put in chains by the master of the dead man, and dies because he is put in chains before he who bound him can learn from the interpreters of the gods what he ought to do with him, dies unjustly; and that on behalf of such an one a son ought to proceed against his father and accuse him of murder. How would you show that all the gods absolutely agree in approving of his act? Prove to me that they do, and I will applaud your wisdom as long as I live.

  Euth.

  It will be a difficult task; but I could make the matter very clear indeed to you.

  Soc.

  I understand; you mean to say that I am not so quick of apprehension as the judges: for to them you will be sure to prove that the act is unjust, and hateful to the gods.

  Euth.

  Yes indeed, Socrates; at least if they will listen to me.

  Soc.

  Let us say then that what all the gods approve is pious and holy.

  But they will be sure to listen if they find that you are a good speaker. There was a notion that came into my mind while you were speaking; I said to myself: ‘Well, and what if Euthyphro does prove to me that all the gods regarded the death of the serf as unjust, how do I know anything more of the nature of piety and impiety? for granting that this action may be hateful to the gods, still piety and impiety are not adequately defined by these distinctions, for that which is hateful to the gods has been shown to be also pleasing and dear to them.’ And therefore, Euthyphro, I do not ask you to prove this; I will suppose, if you like, that all the gods condemn and abominate such an action. But I will amend the definition so far as to say that what all the gods hate is impious, and what they love pious or holy; and what some of them love and others hate is both or neither. Shall this be our definition of piety and impiety?

  Euth.

  Why not, Socrates?

  Soc.

  Why not! certainly, as far as I am concerned, Euthyphro, there is no reason why not. But whether this admission will greatly assist you in the task of instructing me as you promised, is a matter for you to consider.

  Euth.

  Yes, I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.

  Soc.

  Ought we to enquire into the truth of this, Euthyphro, or simply to accept the mere statement on our own authority and that of others? What do you say?

  Euth.

  We should enquire; and I believe that the statement will stand the test of enquiry.

  Soc.

  But does the state follow the act, or the act the state?

  We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it 10is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

  Euth.

  I do not understand your meaning, Socrates.

  Soc.

  I will endeavour to explain: we speak of carrying and we speak of being carried, of leading and being led, seeing and being seen. You know that in all such cases there is a difference, and you know also in what the difference lies?

  Euth.

  I think that I understand.

  Soc.

  And is not that which is beloved distinct from that which loves?

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Well; and now tell me, is that which is carried in this state of carrying because it is carried, or for some other reason?

  Euth.

  No; that is the reason.

  Soc.

  And the same is true of what is led and of what is seen?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely, visible because it is seen; nor is a thing led because it is in the state of being led, or carried because it is in the state of being carried, but the converse of this. And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a state of suffering because it suffers. Do you not agree?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Is not that which is loved in some state either of becoming or suffering?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The latter is the truer account, and therefore we can only say that what is loved by all the gods is in a state to be loved by them; but holiness has a wider meaning than this.

  And the same holds as in the previous instances; the state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state.

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro: is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?

  Euth.

  No, that is the reason.

  Soc.

  It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And that which is dear to the gods is loved by them, and is in a state to be loved of them because it is loved of them?

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then that which is dear to the gods, Euthyphro, is not holy, nor is that which is holy loved of God, as you affirm; but they are two different things.

  Euth.

  How do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I mean to say that the holy has been acknowledged by us to be loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved.

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But that which is dear to the gods is dear to them because it is loved by them, not loved by them because it is dear to them.

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  What is the essential meaning of holiness or piety?

  But, friend Euthyphro, if that which is holy is the same with that which is dear to God, and is loved because it is holy, then that which is dear to God would have been 11loved as being dear to God; but if that which is dear to God is dear to him because loved by him, then that which is holy would have been holy because loved by him. But now you see that the reverse is the case, and that they are quite different from one another. For one (θεοϕιλὲς) is of a kind to be loved because it is loved, and the other (ὅσιον) is loved because it is of a kind to be loved. Thus you appear to me, Euthyphro, when I ask you what is the essence of holiness, to offer an attribute only, and not the essence—the attribute of being loved by all the gods. But you still refuse to explain to me the nature of holiness. And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what holiness or piety really is, whether dear to the gods or not (for that is a matter about which we will not quarrel); and what is impiety?

  Euth.

  I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.

  Soc.

  Your words, Euthyphro, are like the handiwork of my ancestor Daedalus; and if I were the sayer or propounder of them, you might say that my arguments walk away and will not remain fixed where they are placed because I am a descendant of his. But now, since these notions are your own, you must find some other gibe, for they certainly, as you yourself allow, show an inclination to be on the move.

  Euth.

  Nay, Socrates, I shall still say that you are the Daedalus who sets arguments in motion; not I, certainly, but you make them move or go round, for they would never have stirred, as far as I am concerned.

  Soc.

  Then I must be a greater than Daedalus: for whereas he only made his own inventions to move, I move those of other people as well. And the beauty of it is, that I would rather not. For I would give the wisdom of Daedalus, and the wealth of Tantalus, to be able to detain them and keep them fixed. But enough of this. As I perceive that you are lazy, I will myself endeavour to show you how you might instruct me in the nature of piety; and I hope that you will not grudge your labour. Tell me, then,—Is not that which is pious necessarily just?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  All which is pious is just:—is therefore all which is just pious?

  And is, then, all which is just pious? or, is that which 12is pious all just, but that which is just, only in part and not all, pious?

  Euth.

  I do not understand you, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And yet I know that you are as much wiser than I am, as you are younger. But, as I was saying, revered friend, the abundance of your wisdom makes you lazy. Please to exert yourself, for there is no real difficulty in understanding me. What I mean I may explain by an illustration of what I do not mean. The poet (Stasinus) sings—

  • ‘Of Zeus, the author and creator of all these things,
  • You will not tell: for where there is fear there is also reverence.’

  Now I disagree with this poet. Shall I tell you in what respect?

  Euth.

  By all means.

  Soc.

  We may say, e.g., that wherever there is reverence there will be fear, but not that wherever there is fear there will be reverence.

  I should not say that where there is fear there is also reverence; for I am sure that many persons fear poverty and disease, and the like evils, but I do not perceive that they reverence the objects of their fear.

  Euth.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation.

  Euth.

  No doubt.

  Soc.

  Then we are wrong in saying that where there is fear there is also reverence; and we should say, where there is reverence there is also fear. But there is not always reverence where there is fear; for fear is a more extended notion, and reverence is a part of fear, just as the odd is a part of number, and number is a more extended notion than the odd. I suppose that you follow me now?

  Euth.

  Quite well.

  Soc.

  That was the sort of question which I meant to raise when I asked whether the just is always the pious, or the pious always the just; and whether there may not be justice where there is not piety; for justice is the more extended notion of which piety is only a part. Do you dissent?

  Euth.

  No, I think that you are quite right.

  Soc.

  Then, if piety is a part of justice, I suppose that we should enquire what part? If you had pursued the enquiry in the previous cases; for instance, if you had asked me what is an even number, and what part of number the even is, I should have had no difficulty in replying, a number which represents a figure having two equal sides. Do you not agree?

  Euth.

  Yes, I quite agree.

  Soc.

  Piety or holiness is that part of justice which attends upon the gods.

  In like manner, I want you to tell me what part of justice is piety or holiness, that I may be able to tell Meletus not to do me injustice, or indict me for impiety, as I am now adequately instructed by you in the nature of piety or holiness, and their opposites.

  Euth.

  Piety or holiness, Socrates, appears to me to be that part of justice which attends to the gods, as there is the other part of justice which attends to men.

  Soc.

  That is good, Euthyphro; yet still there is a little 13point about which I should like to have further information, What is the meaning of ‘attention’? For attention can hardly be used in the same sense when applied to the gods as when applied to other things. For instance, horses are said to require attention, and not every person is able to attend to them, but only a person skilled in horsemanship. Is it not so?

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  I should suppose that the art of horsemanship is the art of attending to horses?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Nor is every one qualified to attend to dogs, but only the huntsman?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  And I should also conceive that the art of the huntsman is the art of attending to dogs?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  As the art of the oxherd is the art of attending to oxen?

  Euth.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  In like manner holiness or piety is the art of attending to the gods?—that would be your meaning, Euthyphro?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Attention to others is designed to benefit and improve them. But how are the gods benefited or improved by the holy acts of men?

  And is not attention always designed for the good or benefit of that to which the attention is given? As in the case of horses, you may observe that when attended to by the horseman’s art they are benefited and improved, are they not?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  As the dogs are benefited by the huntsman’s art, and the oxen by the art of the oxherd, and all other things are tended or attended for their good and not for their hurt?

  Euth.

  Certainly, not for their hurt.

  Soc.

  But for their good?

  Euth.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  And does piety or holiness, which has been defined to be the art of attending to the gods, benefit or improve them? Would you say that when you do a holy act you make any of the gods better?

  Euth.

  No, no; that was certainly not what I meant.

  Soc.

  And I, Euthyphro, never supposed that you did. I asked you the question about the nature of the attention, because I thought that you did not.

  Euth.

  You do me justice, Socrates; that is not the sort of attention which I mean.

  Soc.

  The attention to the gods called piety is such as servants show their masters.

  Good: but I must still ask what is this attention to the gods which is called piety?

  Euth.

  It is such, Socrates, as servants show to their masters.

  Soc.

  I understand—a sort of ministration to the gods.

  Euth.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  Medicine is also a sort of ministration or service, having in view the attainment of some object—would you not say of health?

  Euth.

  I should.

  Soc.

  Again, there is an art which ministers to the ship-builder with a view to the attainment of some result?

  Euth.

  Yes, Socrates, with a view to the building of a ship.

  Soc.

  As there is an art which ministers to the house-builder with a view to the building of a house?

  Euth.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But in what way do men help the work of God?

  And now tell me, my good friend, about the art which ministers to the gods: what work does that help to accomplish? For you must surely know if, as you say, you are of all men living the one who is best instructed in religion.

  Euth.

  And I speak the truth, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Tell me then, oh tell me—what is that fair work which the gods do by the help of our ministrations?

  Euth.

  Many and fair, Socrates, are the works which they do.

  Soc.

  Why, my friend, and so are those of a general. But 14the chief of them is easily told. Would you not say that victory in war is the chief of them?

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Many and fair, too, are the works of the husbandman, if I am not mistaken; but his chief work is the production of food from the earth?

  Euth.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  And of the many and fair things done by the gods, which is the chief or principal one?

  Euth.

  I have told you already, Socrates, that to learn all these things accurately will be very tiresome. Let me simply say that piety or holiness is learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices. Such piety is the salvation of families and states, just as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, is their ruin and destruction.

  Soc.

  I think that you could have answered in much fewer words the chief question which I asked, Euthyphro, if you had chosen. But I see plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me—clearly not: else why, when we reached the point, did you turn aside? Had you only answered me I should have truly learned of you by this time the nature of piety. Now, as the asker of a question is necessarily dependent on the answerer, whither he leads I must follow; and can only ask again, what is the pious, and what is piety? Do you mean that they are a sort of science of praying and sacrificing?

  Euth.

  Yes, I do.

  Soc.

  And sacrificing is giving to the gods, and prayer is asking of the gods?

  Euth.

  Yes, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Upon this view, then, piety is a science of asking and giving?

  Euth.

  You understand me capitally, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Yes, my friend; the reason is that I am a votary of your science, and give my mind to it, and therefore nothing which you say will be thrown away upon me. Please then to tell me, what is the nature of this service to the gods? Do you mean that we prefer requests and give gifts to them?

  Euth.

  Yes, I do.

  Soc.

  Is not the right way of asking to ask of them what we want?

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Men give to the gods, and the gods give to men; they do business with one another.

  And the right way of giving is to give to them in return what they want of us. There would be no meaning in an art which gives to any one that which he does not want.

  Euth.

  Very true, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Then piety, Euthyphro, is an art which gods and men have of doing business with one another?

  Euth.

  That is an expression which you may use, if you like.

  Soc.

  But I have no particular liking for anything but the truth. I wish, however, that you would tell me what benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts. There is no doubt about 15what they give to us; for there is no good thing which they do not give; but how we can give any good thing to them in return is far from being equally clear. If they give everything and we give nothing, that must be an affair of business in which we have very greatly the advantage of them.

  Euth.

  And do you imagine, Socrates, that any benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts?

  Soc.

  But if not, Euthyphro, what is the meaning of gifts which are conferred by us upon the gods?

  Euth.

  What else, but tributes of honour; and, as I was just now saying, what pleases them?

  Soc.

  Piety, then, is pleasing to the gods, but not beneficial or dear to them?

  Euth.

  I should say that nothing could be dearer.

  Soc.

  Then once more the assertion is repeated that piety is dear to the gods?

  Euth.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Again, the argument walks away.

  And when you say this, can you wonder at your words not standing firm, but walking away? Will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them walk away, not perceiving that there is another and far greater artist than Daedalus who makes them go round in a circle, and he is yourself; for the argument, as you will perceive, comes round to the same point. Were we not saying that the holy or pious was not the same with that which is loved of the gods? Have you forgotten?

  Euth.

  I quite remember.

  Soc.

  And are you not saying that what is loved of the gods is holy; and is not this the same as what is dear to them—do you see?

  Euth.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then either we were wrong in our former assertion; or, if we were right then, we are wrong now.

  Euth.

  One of the two must be true.

  Soc.

  Nevertheless, Socrates is confident that Euthyphro knows the truth, but will not tell him.

  Then we must begin again and ask, What is piety? That is an enquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies; and I entreat you not to scorn me, but to apply your mind to the utmost, and tell me the truth. For, if any man knows, you are he; and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell. If you had not certainly known the nature of piety and impiety, I am confident that you would never, on behalf of a serf, have charged your aged father with murder. You would not have run such a risk of doing wrong in the sight of the gods, and you would have had too much respect for the opinions of men. I am sure, therefore, that you know the nature of piety and impiety. Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.

  Euth.

  Euthyphro is in a hurry to depart, and finally leaves Socrates to his fate.

  Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.

  Soc.

  Alas! my companion, and will you leave me in despair? I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment. I would have told 16him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life.

  APOLOGY.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Apology.Introduction.

  In what relation the Apology of Plato stands to the real defence of Socrates, there are no means of determining. It certainly agrees in tone and character with the description of Xenophon, who says in the Memorabilia (iv. 4, 4) that Socrates might have been acquitted ‘if in any moderate degree he would have conciliated the favour of the dicasts;’ and who informs us in another passage (iv. 8, 4), on the testimony of Hermogenes, the friend of Socrates, that he had no wish to live; and that the divine sign refused to allow him to prepare a defence, and also that Socrates himself declared this to be unnecessary, on the ground that all his life long he had been preparing against that hour. For the speech breathes throughout a spirit of defiance, ‘ut non supplex aut reus sed magister aut dominus videretur esse judicum’ (Cic. de Orat. i. 54); and the loose and desultory style is an imitation of the ‘accustomed manner’ in which Socrates spoke in ‘the agora and among the tables of the money-changers.’ The allusion in the Crito (45 B) may, perhaps, be adduced as a further evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts (37 C, D). But in the main it must be regarded as the ideal of Socrates, according to Plato’s conception of him, appearing in the greatest and most public scene of his life, and in the height of his triumph, when he is weakest, and yet his mastery over mankind is greatest, and his habitual irony acquires a new meaning and a sort of tragic pathos in the face of death. The facts of his life are summed up, and the features of his character are brought out as if by accident in the course of the defence. The conversational manner, the seeming want of arrangement, the ironical simplicity, are found to result in a perfect work of art, which is the portrait of Socrates.

  Yet some of the topics may have been actually used by Socrates; and the recollection of his very words may have rung in the ears of his disciple. The Apology of Plato may be compared generally with those speeches of Thucydides in which he has embodied his conception of the lofty character and policy of the great Pericles, and which at the same time furnish a commentary on the situation of affairs from the point of view of the historian. So in the Apology there is an ideal rather than a literal truth; much is said which was not said, and is only Plato’s view of the situation. Plato was not, like Xenophon, a chronicler of facts; he does not appear in any of his writings to have aimed at literal accuracy. He is not therefore to be supplemented from the Memorabilia and Symposium of Xenophon, who belongs to an entirely different class of writers. The Apology of Plato is not the report of what Socrates said, but an elaborate composition, quite as much so in fact as one of the Dialogues. And we may perhaps even indulge in the fancy that the actual defence of Socrates was as much greater than the Platonic defence as the master was greater than the disciple. But in any case, some of the words used by him must have been remembered, and some of the facts recorded must have actually occurred. It is significant that Plato is said to have been present at the defence (Apol. 38 B), as he is also said to have been absent at the last scene in the Phaedo (59 B). Is it fanciful to suppose that he meant to give the stamp of authenticity to the one and not to the other?—especially when we consider that these two passages are the only ones in which Plato makes mention of himself. The circumstance that Plato was to be one of his sureties for the payment of the fine which he proposed has the appearance of truth. More suspicious is the statement that Socrates received the first impulse to his favourite calling of cross-examining the world from the Oracle of Delphi; for he must already have been famous before Chaerephon went to consult the Oracle (Riddell, i. p. xvi), and the story is of a kind which is very likely to have been invented. On the whole we arrive at the conclusion that the Apology is true to the character of Socrates, but we cannot show that any single sentence in it was actually spoken by him. It breathes the spirit of Socrates, but has been cast anew in the mould of Plato.

  There is not much in the other Dialogues which can be compared with the Apology. The same recollection of his master may have been present to the mind of Plato when depicting the sufferings of the Just in the Republic (ii. 361 foll., vi. 500 A). The Crito may also be regarded as a sort of appendage to the Apology, in which Socrates, who has defied the judges, is nevertheless represented as scrupulously obedient to the laws. The idealization of the sufferer is carried still further in the Gorgias (476 foll.), in which the thesis is maintained, that ‘to suffer is better than to do evil;’ and the art of rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of self-accusation. The parallelisms which occur in the so-called Apology of Xenophon are not worth noticing, because the writing in which they are contained is manifestly spurious. The statements of the Memorabilia (i. 2; iv. 8) respecting the trial and death of Socrates agree generally with Plato; but they have lost the flavour of Socratic irony in the narrative of Xenophon.

  The Apology or Platonic defence of Socrates is divided into three parts: 1st. The defence properly so called; 2nd. The shorter address in mitigation of the penalty; 3rd. The last words of prophetic rebuke and exhortation.

  Analysis.

  17The first part commences with an apology for his colloquial style; he is, as he has always been, the enemy of rhetoric, and knows of no rhetoric but truth; he will not falsify his character by 18making a speech. Then he proceeds to divide his accusers into two classes; first, there is the nameless accuser—public opinion. All the world from their earliest years had heard that he was a corrupter of youth, and had seen him caricatured in the Clouds of Aristophanes. Secondly, there are the professed accusers, who are but the mouth-piece of the others. The accusations of both might be summed up in a formula. The first say, ‘Socrates is an evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven; and making the worse appear the better cause, and teaching all this to others.’ The second, ‘Socrates is an evil-doer and corrupter of the youth, who does not receive the gods whom the state receives, but introduces other new divinities.’ These last words appear to have been the actual indictment (cp. Xen. Mem. i. 1); and the previous formula, which is a summary of public opinion, assumes the same legal style.

  19The answer begins by clearing up a confusion. In the representations of the Comic poets, and in the opinion of the multitude, he had been identified with the teachers of physical science and with the Sophists. But this was an error. For both of them he professes a respect in the open court, which contrasts with his manner of speaking about them in other places. (Cp. for Anaxagoras, Phaedo 98 B, Laws xii. 967; for the Sophists, Meno 95 D, Rep. vi. 492, Tim. 19 E, Theaet. 154 E, Soph. 265 foll., etc.) But at the same time he shows that he is not one of them. Of natural philosophy he knows nothing; not that he despises such pursuits, but the fact is that he is ignorant of them, and never says a word about them. Nor is he paid for giving instruction—that is another mistaken notion:—he has nothing to teach. But he commends 20Evenus for teaching virtue at such a ‘moderate’ rate as five minae. Something of the ‘accustomed irony,’ which may perhaps be expected to sleep in the ear of the multitude, is lurking here.

  He then goes on to explain the reason why he is in such an evil name. That had arisen out of a peculiar mission which he had taken upon himself. The enthusiastic Chaerephon (probably in 21anticipation of the answer which he received) had gone to Delphi and asked the oracle if there was any man wiser than Socrates; and the answer was, that there was no man wiser. What could be the meaning of this—that he who knew nothing, and knew that he knew nothing, should be declared by the oracle to be the wisest of men? Reflecting upon the answer, he determined to refute it by finding ‘a wiser;’ and first he went to the politicians, and then to the poets, and then to the craftsmen, but 22always with the same result—he found that they knew nothing, or hardly anything more than himself; and that the little advantage which in some cases they possessed was more than counterbalanced by their conceit of knowledge. He knew nothing, and knew that he knew nothing: they knew little or nothing, and imagined that they knew all things. Thus he had passed his 23life as a sort of missionary in detecting the pretended wisdom of mankind; and this occupation had quite absorbed him and taken him away both from public and private affairs. Young men of the richer sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, ‘which was not unamusing.’ And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of knowledge had revenged themselves by calling him a villainous corrupter of youth, and by repeating the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and sophistry, 24which are the stock-accusations against all philosophers when there is nothing else to be said of them.

  The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who is present and can be interrogated. ‘If he is the corrupter, who is the improver of the citizens?’ (Cp. Meno 91 C.) ‘All men 25everywhere.’ But how absurd, how contrary to analogy is this! How inconceivable too, that he should make the citizens worse when he has to live with them. This surely cannot be intentional; 26and if unintentional, he ought to have been instructed by Meletus, and not accused in the court.

  But there is another part of the indictment which says that he teaches men not to receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new gods. ‘Is that the way in which he is supposed to corrupt the youth?’ ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘Has he only new gods, or none at all?’ ‘None at all.’ ‘What, not even the sun and moon?’ ‘No; why, he says that the sun is a stone, and the moon earth.’ That, replies Socrates, is the old confusion about Anaxagoras; the Athenian people are not so ignorant as to attribute to the influence of Socrates notions which have found their way into the drama, and may be learned at the theatre. Socrates undertakes 27to show that Meletus (rather unjustifiably) has been compounding a riddle in this part of the indictment: ‘There are no gods, but Socrates believes in the existence of the sons of gods, which is absurd.’

  28Leaving Meletus, who has had enough words spent upon him, he returns to the original accusation. The question may be asked, Why will he persist in following a profession which leads him to death? Why?—because he must remain at his post where the god has placed him, as he remained at Potidaea, and Amphipolis, 29and Delium, where the generals placed him. Besides, he is not so overwise as to imagine that he knows whether death is a good or an evil; and he is certain that desertion of his duty 30is an evil. Anytus is quite right in saying that they should never have indicted him if they meant to let him go. For he will certainly obey God rather than man; and will continue to preach to all men of all ages the necessity of virtue and improvement; and if they refuse to listen to him he will still persevere and reprove them. This is his way of corrupting the youth, which he will not cease to follow in obedience to the god, even if a thousand deaths await him.

  He is desirous that they should let him live—not for his own sake, but for theirs; because he is their heaven-sent friend (and 31they will never have such another), or, as he may be ludicrously described, he is the gadfly who stirs the generous steed into motion. Why then has he never taken part in public affairs? Because the familiar divine voice has hindered him; if he had been a public man, and had fought for the right, as he would certainly have fought against the many, he would not have lived, and could therefore have done no good. Twice in public matters 32he has risked his life for the sake of justice—once at the trial of the generals; and again in resistance to the tyrannical commands of the Thirty.

  But, though not a public man, he has passed his days in instructing the citizens without fee or reward—this was his mission. Whether his disciples have turned out well or ill, he cannot justly be charged with the result, for he never promised to teach them 33anything. They might come if they liked, and they might stay away if they liked: and they did come, because they found an amusement in hearing the pretenders to wisdom detected. If they have been corrupted, their elder relatives (if not themselves) might surely come into court and witness against him, and there is an opportunity still for them to appear. But their fathers 34and brothers all appear in court (including ‘this’ Plato), to witness on his behalf; and if their relatives are corrupted, at least they are uncorrupted; ‘and they are my witnesses. For they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is lying.’

  This is about all that he has to say. He will not entreat the judges to spare his life; neither will he present a spectacle of weeping children, although he, too, is not made of ‘rock or oak.’ 35Some of the judges themselves may have complied with this practice on similar occasions, and he trusts that they will not be angry with him for not following their example. But he feels that such conduct brings discredit on the name of Athens: he feels, too, that the judge has sworn not to give away justice; and he cannot be guilty of the impiety of asking the judge to break his oath, when he is himself being tried for impiety.

  36As he expected, and probably intended, he is convicted. And now the tone of the speech, instead of being more conciliatory, becomes more lofty and commanding. Anytus proposes death as the penalty: and what counter-proposition shall he make? He, the benefactor of the Athenian people, whose whole life has been spent in doing them good, should at least have the Olympic 37victor’s reward of maintenance in the Prytaneum. Or why should he propose any counter-penalty when he does not know whether death, which Anytus proposes, is a good or an evil? and he is certain that imprisonment is an evil, exile is an evil. Loss of money might be no evil, but then he has none to give; 38perhaps he can make up a mina. Let that be the penalty, or, if his friends wish, thirty minae; for which they will be excellent securities.

  [He is condemned to death.]

  He is an old man already, and the Athenians will gain nothing but disgrace by depriving him of a few years of life. Perhaps he could have escaped, if he had chosen to throw down his arms and entreat for his life. But he does not at all repent of the manner of his defence; he would rather die in his own fashion than live 39in theirs. For the penalty of unrighteousness is swifter than death; that penalty has already overtaken his accusers as death will soon overtake him.

  And now, as one who is about to die, he will prophesy to them. They have put him to death in order to escape the necessity of giving an account of their lives. But his death ‘will be the seed’ of many disciples who will convince them of their evil ways, and will come forth to reprove them in harsher terms, because they are younger and more inconsiderate.

  40He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to those who would have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that the divine sign never interrupted him in the course of his defence; the reason of which, as he conjectures, is that the death to which he is going is a good and not an evil. For either death is a long sleep, the best of sleeps, or a journey to another world in which the souls of the dead are gathered together, and in which 41there may be a hope of seeing the heroes of old—in which, too, there are just judges; and as all are immortal, there can be no fear of any one suffering death for his opinions.

  Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or death, and his own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was better for him to depart; and therefore he forgives his judges because they have done him no harm, although they never meant to do him any good.

  He has a last request to make to them—that they will trouble 42his sons as he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or to think themselves something when they are nothing.

  Introduction.

  ‘Few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended himself otherwise,’—if, as we must add, his defence was that with which Plato has provided him. But leaving this question, which does not admit of a precise solution, we may go on to ask what was the impression which Plato in the Apology intended to give of the character and conduct of his master in the last great scene? Did he intend to represent him (1) as employing sophistries; (2) as designedly irritating the judges? Or are these sophistries to be regarded as belonging to the age in which he lived and to his personal character, and this apparent haughtiness as flowing from the natural elevation of his position?

  For example, when he says that it is absurd to suppose that one man is the corrupter and all the rest of the world the improvers of the youth; or, when he argues that he never could have corrupted the men with whom he had to live; or, when he proves his belief in the gods because he believes in the sons of gods, is he serious or jesting? It may be observed that these sophisms all occur in his cross-examination of Meletus, who is easily foiled and mastered in the hands of the great dialectician. Perhaps he regarded these answers as good enough for his accuser, of whom he makes very light. Also there is a touch of irony in them, which takes them out of the category of sophistry. (Cp. Euthyph. 2.)

  That the manner in which he defends himself about the lives of his disciples is not satisfactory, can hardly be denied. Fresh in the memory of the Athenians, and detestable as they deserved to be to the newly restored democracy, were the names of Alcibiades, Critias, Charmides. It is obviously not a sufficient answer that Socrates had never professed to teach them anything, and is therefore not justly chargeable with their crimes. Yet the defence, when taken out of this ironical form, is doubtless sound: that his teaching had nothing to do with their evil lives. Here, then, the sophistry is rather in form than in substance, though we might desire that to such a serious charge Socrates had given a more serious answer.

  Truly characteristic of Socrates is another point in his answer, which may also be regarded as sophistical. He says that ‘if he has corrupted the youth, he must have corrupted them involuntarily.’ But if, as Socrates argues, all evil is involuntary, then all criminals ought to be admonished and not punished. In these words the Socratic doctrine of the involuntariness of evil is clearly intended to be conveyed. Here again, as in the former instance, the defence of Socrates is untrue practically, but may be true in some ideal or transcendental sense. The commonplace reply, that if he had been guilty of corrupting the youth their relations would surely have witnessed against him, with which he concludes this part of his defence, is more satisfactory.

  Again, when Socrates argues that he must believe in the gods because he believes in the sons of gods, we must remember that this is a refutation not of the original indictment, which is consistent enough—‘Socrates does not receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new divinities’—but of the interpretation put upon the words by Meletus, who has affirmed that he is a downright atheist. To this Socrates fairly answers, in accordance with the ideas of the time, that a downright atheist cannot believe in the sons of gods or in divine things. The notion that demons or lesser divinities are the sons of gods is not to be regarded as ironical or sceptical. He is arguing ‘ad hominem’ according to the notions of mythology current in his age. Yet he abstains from saying that he believed in the gods whom the State approved. He does not defend himself, as Xenophon has defended him, by appealing to his practice of religion. Probably he neither wholly believed, nor disbelieved, in the existence of the popular gods; he had no means of knowing about them. According to Plato (cp. Phaedo 118 B; Symp. 220 D), as well as Xenophon (Memor. i. 1, 30), he was punctual in the performance of the least religious duties; and he must have believed in his own oracular sign, of which he seemed to have an internal witness. But the existence of Apollo or Zeus, or the other gods whom the State approves, would have appeared to him both uncertain and unimportant in comparison of the duty of self-examination, and of those principles of truth and right which he deemed to be the foundation of religion. (Cp. Phaedr. 230; Euthyph. 6, 7; Rep. ii. 373 ff.).

  The second question, whether Plato meant to represent Socrates as braving or irritating his judges, must also be answered in the negative. His irony, his superiority, his audacity, ‘regarding not the person of man,’ necessarily flow out of the loftiness of his situation. He is not acting a part upon a great occasion, but he is what he has been all his life long, ‘a king of men.’ He would rather not appear insolent, if he could avoid it (οὐχ ὡς αὐθαδιζόμενος τον̂το λέγω). Neither is he desirous of hastening his own end, for life and death are simply indifferent to him. But such a defence as would be acceptable to his judges and might procure an acquittal, it is not in his nature to make. He will not say or do anything that might pervert the course of justice; he cannot have his tongue bound even ‘in the throat of death.’ With his accusers he will only fence and play, as he had fenced with other ‘improvers of youth,’ answering the Sophist according to his sophistry all his life long. He is serious when he is speaking of his own mission, which seems to distinguish him from all other reformers of mankind, and originates in an accident. The dedication of himself to the improvement of his fellow-citizens is not so remarkable as the ironical spirit in which he goes about doing good only in vindication of the credit of the oracle, and in the vain hope of finding a wiser man than himself. Yet this singular and almost accidental character of his mission agrees with the divine sign which, according to our notions, is equally accidental and irrational, and is nevertheless accepted by him as the guiding principle of his life. Socrates is nowhere represented to us as a freethinker or sceptic. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity when he speculates on the possibility of seeing and knowing the heroes of the Trojan war in another world. On the other hand, his hope of immortality is uncertain;—he also conceives of death as a long sleep (in this respect differing from the Phaedo), and at last falls back on resignation to the divine will, and the certainty that no evil can happen to the good man either in life or death. His absolute truthfulness seems to hinder him from asserting positively more than this; and he makes no attempt to veil his ignorance in mythology and figures of speech. The gentleness of the first part of the speech contrasts with the aggravated, almost threatening, tone of the conclusion. He characteristically remarks that he will not speak as a rhetorician, that is to say, he will not make a regular defence such as Lysias or one of the orators might have composed for him, or, according to some accounts, did compose for him. But he first procures himself a hearing by conciliatory words. He does not attack the Sophists; for they were open to the same charges as himself; they were equally ridiculed by the Comic poets, and almost equally hateful to Anytus and Meletus. Yet incidentally the antagonism between Socrates and the Sophists is allowed to appear. He is poor and they are rich; his profession that he teaches nothing is opposed to their readiness to teach all things; his talking in the marketplace to their private instructions; his tarry-at-home life to their wandering from city to city. The tone which he assumes towards them is one of real friendliness, but also of concealed irony. Towards Anaxagoras, who had disappointed him in his hopes of learning about mind and nature, he shows a less kindly feeling, which is also the feeling of Plato in other passages (Laws xii. 967 B). But Anaxagoras had been dead thirty years, and was beyond the reach of persecution.

  It has been remarked that the prophecy of a new generation of teachers who would rebuke and exhort the Athenian people in harsher and more violent terms was, as far as we know, never fulfilled. No inference can be drawn from this circumstances as to the probability of the words attributed to him having been actually uttered. They express the aspiration of the first martyr of philosophy, that he would leave behind him many followers, accompanied by the not unnatural feeling that they would be fiercer and more inconsiderate in their words when emancipated from his control.

  The above remarks must be understood as applying with any degree of certainty to the Platonic Socrates only. For, although these or similar words may have been spoken by Socrates himself, we cannot exclude the possibility, that like so much else, e.g. the wisdom of Critias, the poem of Solon, the virtues of Charmides, they may have been due only to the imagination of Plato. The arguments of those who maintain that the Apology was composed during the process, resting on no evidence, do not require a serious refutation. Nor are the reasonings of Schleiermacher, who argues that the Platonic defence is an exact or nearly exact reproduction of the words of Socrates, partly because Plato would not have been guilty of the impiety of altering them, and also because many points of the defence might have been improved and strengthened, at all more conclusive. (See English Translation, p. 137.) What effect the death of Socrates produced on the mind of Plato, we cannot certainly determine; nor can we say how he would or must have written under the circumstances. We observe that the enmity of Aristophanes to Socrates does not prevent Plato from introducing them together in the Symposium engaged in friendly intercourse. Nor is there any trace in the Dialogues of an attempt to make Anytus or Meletus personally odious in the eyes of the Athenian public.

  APOLOGY.

  Apology.Socrates.Socrates begs to be allowed to speak in his accustomed manner.The judges must excuse Socrates if he defends himself in his own fashion.

  17How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me;—I mean when they said that you should be upon your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless—unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth; for if such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have scarcely spoken the truth at all; but from me you shall hear the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their manner in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No, by heaven! but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am confident in the justice of my cause1 : at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before you, O men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator—let no one expect it of me. And I must beg of you to grant me a favour:—If I defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have been in the habit of using in the agora, at the tables of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. For I am more than seventy years of age, and appearing now for the first time in a court of law, I am quite a stranger to the language of the place; and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if 18he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his country:—Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

  He has to meet two sorts of accusers.

  And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my first accusers, and then I will go on to the later ones. For of old I have had many accusers, who have accused me falsely to you during many years; and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are the others, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. The disseminators of this tale are the accusers whom I dread; for their hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not believe in the existence of the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they were made by them in the days when you were more impressible than you are now—in childhood, or it may have been in youth—and the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And hardest of all, I do not know and cannot tell the names of my accusers; unless in the chance case of a Comic poet. All who from envy and malice have persuaded you—some of them having first convinced themselves—all this class of men are most difficult to deal with; for I cannot have them up here, and cross-examine them, and therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and argue when there is no one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with me, as I was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds; one recent, the other ancient: and I hope that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations you heard long before the others, and much oftener.

  Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavour to clear 19away in a short time, a slander which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to succeed be for my good and yours, or likely to avail me in my cause! The task is not an easy one; I quite understand the nature of it. And so leaving the event with God, in obedience to the law I will now make my defence.

  There is the accusation of the theatres; which declares that he is a student of natural philosophy.

  I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the accusation which has given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has encouraged Meletus to prefer this charge against me. Well, what do the slanderers say? They shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words in an affidavit: ‘Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.’ Such is the nature of the accusation: it is just what you have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes1 , who has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in air, and talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend to know either much or little—not that I mean to speak disparagingly of any one who is a student of natural philosophy. I should be very sorry if Meletus could bring so grave a charge against me. But the simple truth is, O Athenians, that I have nothing to do with physical speculations. Very many of those here present are witnesses to the truth of this, and to them I appeal. Speak then, you who have heard me, and tell your neighbours whether any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words or in many upon such matters. . . . You hear their answer. And from what they say of this part of the charge you will be able to judge of the truth of the rest.

  There is the report that he is a Sophist who receives money.The ironical question which Socrates put to Callias.

  As little foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and take money; this accusation has no more truth in it than the other. Although, if a man were really able to instruct mankind, to receive money for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an honour to him. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and are able to persuade the young men to leave their own citizens by whom 20they might be taught for nothing, and come to them whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they may be allowed to pay them. There is at this time a Parian philosopher residing in Athens, of whom I have heard; and I came to hear of him in this way:—I came across a man who has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him: ‘Callias,’ I said, ‘if your two sons were foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding some one to put over them; we should hire a trainer of horses, or a farmer probably, who would improve and perfect them in their own proper virtue and excellence; but as they are human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them? Is there any one who understands human and political virtue? You must have thought about the matter, for you have sons; is there any one?’ ‘There is,’ he said. ‘Who is he?’ said I; ‘and of what country? and what does he charge?’ ‘Evenus the Parian,’ he replied; ‘he is the man, and his charge is five minae.’ Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he really has this wisdom, and teaches at such a moderate charge. Had I the same, I should have been very proud and conceited; but the truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind.

  The accusations against me have arisen out of a sort of wisdom which I practise.My practice of it arose out of a declaration of the Delphian Oracle that I was the wisest of men.

  I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, ‘Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.’ Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom, which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early 21a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether any one was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying.

  I went about searching after a man who was wiser than myself: at first among the politicians; then among the philosophers; and found that I had an advantage over them, because I had no conceit of knowledge.

  Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, ‘Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.’ Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him—his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination—and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good. I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.

  I found that the poets were the worst possible interpreters of their own writings.

  Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me,—the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, 22by the dog I swear!—for I must tell you the truth—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the ‘Herculean’ labours, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them—thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. The poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.

  The artisans had some real knowledge, but they had also a conceit that they knew things which were beyond them.

  At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and here I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as I was.

  The oracle was intended to apply, not to Socrates, but to all men who know that their wisdom is worth nothing.

  This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of 23the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many calumnies. And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.

  There are my imitators who go about detecting pretenders, and the enmity which they arouse falls upon me.Socrates, Meletus.

  There is another thing:—young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like to hear the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and proceed to examine others; there are plenty of persons, as they quickly discover, who think that they know something, but really know little or nothing; and then those who are examined by them instead of being angry with themselves are angry with me: This confounded Socrates, they say; this villainous misleader of youth!—and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practise or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they may not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretence of knowledge has been detected—which is the truth; and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are drawn up in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies. And this is the reason why my three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon me; Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I said 24at the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of such a mass of calumny all in a moment. And this, O men of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet, I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth? Hence has arisen the prejudice against me; and this is the reason of it, as you will find out either in this or in any future enquiry.

  The second class of accusers.

  I have said enough in my defence against the first class of my accusers; I turn to the second class. They are headed by Meletus, that good man and true lover of his country, as he calls himself. Against these, too, I must try to make a defence:—Let their affidavit be read: it contains something of this kind: It says that Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities of his own. Such is the charge; and now let us examine the particular counts. He says that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth; but I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, in that he pretends to be in earnest when he is only in jest, and is so eager to bring men to trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he really never had the smallest interest. And the truth of this I will endeavour to prove to you.

  Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. You think a great deal about the improvement of youth?

  Yes, I do.

  All men are discovered to be improvers of youth with the single exception of Socrates.

  Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you must know, as you have taken the pains to discover their corrupter, and are citing and accusing me before them. Speak, then, and tell the judges who their improver is.—Observe, Meletus, that you are silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful, and a very considerable proof of what I was saying, that you have no interest in the matter? Speak up, friend, and tell us who their improver is.

  The laws.

  But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the person is, who, in the first place, knows the laws.

  The judges, Socrates, who are present in court.

  What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are able to instruct and improve youth?

  Certainly they are.

  What, all of them, or some only and not others?

  All of them.

  By the goddess Herè, that is good news! There are plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of the 25audience,—do they improve them?

  Yes, they do.

  And the senators?

  Yes, the senators improve them.

  But perhaps the members of the assembly corrupt them?—or do they too improve them?

  They improve them.

  Then every Athenian improves and elevates them; all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their corrupter? Is that what you affirm?

  That is what I stoutly affirm.

  But this rather unfortunate fact does not accord with the analogy of the animals.

  I am very unfortunate if you are right. But suppose I ask you a question: How about horses? Does one man do them harm and all the world good? Is not the exact opposite the truth? One man is able to do them good, or at least not many;—the trainer of horses, that is to say, does them good, and others who have to do with them rather injure them? Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or of any other animals? Most assuredly it is; whether you and Anytus say yes or no. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. But you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you never had a thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about the very things which you bring against me.

  And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question—by Zeus I will: Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or among good ones? Answer, friend, I say; the question is one which may be easily answered. Do not the good do their neighbours good, and the bad do them evil?

  Certainly.

  And is there any one who would rather be injured than benefited by those who live with him? Answer, my good friend, the law requires you to answer—does any one like to be injured?

  Certainly not.

  When I do harm to my neighbour I must do harm to myself: and therefore I cannot be supposed to injure them intentionally.

  And when you accuse me of corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally?

  Intentionally, I say.

  But you have just admitted that the good do their neighbours good, and the evil do them evil. Now, is that a truth which your superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him; and yet I corrupt him, and intentionally, too—so you say, although neither I nor any other human being is ever likely to be convinced by you. But either I do not corrupt them, or 26I corrupt them unintentionally; and on either view of the case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offences: you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally—no doubt I should; but you would have nothing to say to me and refused to teach me. And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but of punishment.

  It will be very clear to you, Athenians, as I was saying, that Meletus has no care at all, great or small, about the matter. But still I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the lessons by which I corrupt the youth, as you say.

  Yes, that I say emphatically.

  Socrates is declared by Meletus to be an atheist and to corrupt the religion of the young.

  Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean! for I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach other men to acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire atheist—this you do not lay to my charge,—but only you say that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes—the charge is that they are different gods. Or, do you mean that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?

  I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.

  What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think so, Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, like other men?

  I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon earth.

  Meletus has confounded Socrates with Anaxagoras;

  Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras: and you have but a bad opinion of the judges, if you fancy them illiterate to such a degree as not to know that these doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, which are full of them. And so, forsooth, the youth are said to be taught them by Socrates, when there are not unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre1 (price of admission one drachma at the most); and they might pay their money, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father these extraordinary views. And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any god?

  and he has contradicted himself in the indictment.

  I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.

  Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure that you do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking, men of Athens, that Meletus is reckless and impudent, and that he has written this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado. Has he not compounded a 27riddle, thinking to try me? He said to himself:—I shall see whether the wise Socrates will discover my facetious contradiction, or whether I shall be able to deceive him and the rest of them. For he certainly does appear to me to contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of believing in them—but this is not like a person who is in earnest.

  I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining what I conceive to be his inconsistency; and do you, Meletus, answer. And I must remind the audience of my request that they would not make a disturbance if I speak in my accustomed manner:

  How can Socrates believe in divine agencies and not believe in gods?

  Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human things, and not of human beings? . . . I wish, men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always trying to get up an interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not in flute-players? No, my friend; I will answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer for yourself. There is no man who ever did. But now please to answer the next question: Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies, and not in spirits or demigods?

  He cannot.

  How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by the assistance of the court! But then you swear in the indictment that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual agencies (new or old, no matter for that); at any rate, I believe in spiritual agencies,—so you say and swear in the affidavit; and yet if I believe in divine beings, how can I help believing in spirits or demigods;—must I not? To be sure I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent. Now what are spirits or demigods? are they not either gods or the sons of gods?

  Certainly they are.

  Apology.Socrates.

  But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented by you: the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that I do not believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods; that is, if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any other mothers, of whom they are said to be the sons—what human being will ever believe that there are no gods if they are the sons of gods? You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended by you to make trial of me. You have put this into the indictment because you had nothing real of which to accuse me. But no one who has a particle of understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same men can believe in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that 28there are gods and demigods and heroes.

  I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defence is unnecessary; but I know only too well how many are the enmities which I have incurred, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed;—not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.

  Let no man fear death or fear anything but disgrace.

  Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or of a bad. Whereas, upon your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much, and the son of Thetis above all, who altogether despised danger in comparison with disgrace; and when he was so eager to slay Hector, his goddess mother said to him, that if he avenged his companion Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die himself—‘Fate,’ she said, in these or the like words, ‘waits for you next after Hector;’ he, receiving this warning, utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonour, and not to avenge his friend. ‘Let me die forthwith,’ he replies, ‘and be avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the beaked ships, a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth.’ Had Achilles any thought of death and danger? For wherever a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying.

  Socrates, who has often faced death in battle, will not make any condition in order to save his own life; for he does not know whether death is a good or an evil.He must always be a preacher of philosophy.‘Necessity is laid upon me:’ ‘I must obey God rather than man.’

  Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death—if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear 29of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death, fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows what he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are:—that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonourable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. And therefore if you let me go now, and are not convinced by Anytus, who said that since I had been prosecuted I must be put to death; (or if not that I ought never to have been prosecuted at all); and that if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by listening to my words—if you say to me, Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and you shall be let off, but upon one condition, that you are not to enquire and speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing so again you shall die;—if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: You, my friend,—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens,—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? And if the person with whom I am arguing, says: Yes, but I do care; then I do not leave him or let him go at once; but I proceed to interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue in him, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the 30greater, and overvaluing the less. And I shall repeat the same words to every one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For know that this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whichever you do, understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.

  Neither you nor Meletus can ever injure me.

  Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was an understanding between us that you should hear me to the end: I have something more to say, at which you may be inclined to cry out; but I believe that to hear me will be good for you, and therefore I beg that you will not cry out. I would have you know, that if you kill such an one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than himself. I do not deny that Anytus may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is inflicting a great injury upon him: but there I do not agree. For the evil of doing as he is doing—the evil of unjustly taking away the life of another—is greater far.

  I am the gadfly of the Athenian people, given to them by God, and they will never have another, if they kill me.

  And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long 31and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a person who is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think that you might easily strike me dead as Anytus advises, and then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you sent you another gadfly. When I say that I am given to you by God, the proof of my mission is this:—if I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you individually like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue; such conduct, I say, would be unlike human nature. If I had gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in my doing so; but now, as you will perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of any one; of that they have no witness. And I have a sufficient witness to the truth of what I say—my poverty.

  The internal sign always forbade him to engage in politics; and if he had done so, he would have perished long ago.

  Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician. And rightly, as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself. And do not be offended at my telling you the truth: for the truth is, that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly striving against the many lawless and unrighteous 32deeds which are done in a state, will save his life; he who will fight for the right, if he would live even for a brief space, must have a private station and not a public one.

  He had shown that he would sooner die than commit injustice at the trial of the generals and under the tyranny of the Thirty.

  I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only, but what you value far more—actions. Let me relate to you a passage of my own life which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that ‘as I should have refused to yield’ I must have died at once. I will tell you a tale of the courts, not very interesting perhaps, but nevertheless true. The only office of state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of senator: the tribe Antiochis, which is my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Arginusae; and you proposed to try them in a body, contrary to law, as you all thought afterwards; but at the time I was the only one of the Prytanes who was opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote against you; and when the orators threatened to impeach and arrest me, and you called and shouted, I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death. This happened in the days of the democracy. But when the oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others into the rotunda, and bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted to put him to death. This was a specimen of the sort of commands which they were always giving with the view of implicating as many as possible in their crimes; and then I showed, not in word only but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my great and only care was lest I should do an unrighteous or unholy thing. For the strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong; and when we came out of the rotunda the other four went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home. For which I might have lost my life, had not the power of the Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end. And many will witness to my words.

  He is always talking to the citizens, but he teaches nothing; he takes no pay and has no secrets.

  Now do you really imagine that I could have survived all these years, if I had led a public life, supposing that like a good man I had always maintained the right and had made justice, as I ought, the first thing? No indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor any other man. But I have been 33always the same in all my actions, public as well as private, and never have I yielded any base compliance to those who are slanderously termed my disciples, or to any other. Not that I have any regular disciples. But if any one likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he is not excluded. Nor do I converse only with those who pay; but any one, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, neither result can be justly imputed to me; for I never taught or professed to teach him anything. And if any one says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, let me tell you that he is lying.

  The parents and kinsmen of those whom he is supposed to have corrupted do not come forward and testify against him.

  But I shall be asked, Why do people delight in continually conversing with you? I have told you already, Athenians, the whole truth about this matter: they like to hear the cross-examination of the pretenders to wisdom; there is amusement in it. Now this duty of cross-examining other men has been imposed upon me by God; and has been signified to me by oracles, visions, and in every way in which the will of divine power was ever intimated to any one. This is true, O Athenians; or, if not true, would be soon refuted. If I am or have been corrupting the youth, those of them who are now grown up and have become sensible that I gave them bad advice in the days of their youth should come forward as accusers, and take their revenge; or if they do not like to come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or other kinsmen, should say what evil their families have suffered at my hands. Now is their time. Many of them I see in the court. There is Crito, who is of the same age and of the same deme with myself, and there is Critobulus his son, whom I also see. Then again there is Lysanias of Sphettus, who is the father of Aeschines—he is present; and also there is Antiphon of Cephisus, who is the father of Epigenes; and there are the brothers of several who have associated with me. There is Nicostratus the son of Theosdotides, and the brother of Theodotus (now Theodotus himself is dead, and therefore he, at any rate, will not seek to stop him); and there is Paralus the son of Demodocus, who had a brother Theages; 34and Adeimantus the son of Ariston, whose brother Plato is present; and Aeantodorus, who is the brother of Apollodorus, whom I also see. I might mention a great many others, some of whom Meletus should have produced as witnesses in the course of his speech; and let him still produce them, if he has forgotten—I will make way for him. And let him say, if he has any testimony of the sort which he can produce. Nay, Athenians, the very opposite is the truth. For all these are ready to witness on behalf of the corrupter, of the injurer of their kindred, as Meletus and Anytus call me; not the corrupted youth only—there might have been a motive for that—but their uncorrupted elder relatives. Why should they too support me with their testimony? Why, indeed, except for the sake of truth and justice, and because they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is a liar.

  He is flesh and blood, but he will not appeal to the pity of his judges: or make a scene in the court such as he has often witnessed.

  Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is all the defence which I have to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be some one who is offended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself on a similar, or even a less serious occasion, prayed and entreated the judges with many tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together with a host of relations and friends; whereas I, who am probably in danger of my life, will do none of these things. The contrast may occur to his mind, and he may be set against me, and vote in anger because he is displeased at me on this account. Now if there be such a person among you,—mind, I do not say that there is,—to him I may fairly reply: My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature of flesh and blood, and not ‘of wood or stone,’ as Homer says; and I have a family, yes, and sons, O Athenians, three in number, one almost a man, and two others who are still young; and yet I will not bring any of them hither in order to petition you for an acquittal. And why not? Not from any self-assertion or want of respect for you. Whether I am or am not afraid of death is another question, of which I will not now speak. But, having regard to public opinion, I feel that such conduct would be discreditable to myself, and to you, and to the whole state. One who has reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, ought not to demean himself. Whether this opinion of me be deserved or not, at any rate the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other men. And if those 35among you who are said to be superior in wisdom and courage, and any other virtue, demean themselves in this way, how shameful is their conduct! I have seen men of reputation, when they have been condemned, behaving in the strangest manner: they seemed to fancy that they were going to suffer something dreadful if they died, and that they could be immortal if you only allowed them to live; and I think that such are a dishonour to the state, and that any stranger coming in would have said of them that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians themselves give honour and command, are no better than women. And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who have a reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them; you ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous, than him who holds his peace.

  The judge should not be influenced by his feelings, but convinced by reason.

  But, setting aside the question of public opinion, there seems to be something wrong in asking a favour of a judge, and thus procuring an acquittal, instead of informing and convincing him. For his duty is, not to make a present of justice, but to give judgment; and he has sworn that he will judge according to the laws, and not according to his own good pleasure; and we ought not to encourage you, nor should you allow yourselves to be encouraged, in this habit of perjury—there can be no piety in that. Do not then require me to do what I consider dishonourable and impious and wrong, especially now, when I am being tried for impiety on the indictment of Meletus. For if, O men of Athens, by force of persuasion and entreaty I could overpower your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, and in defending should simply convict myself of the charge of not believing in them. But that is not so—far otherwise. For I do believe that there are gods, and in a sense higher than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause, to be determined by you as is best for you and me.

  There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of 36Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I expected it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal; for I had thought that the majority against me would have been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I should have been acquitted. And I may say, I think, that I have escaped Meletus. I may say more; for without the assistance of Anytus and Lycon, any one may see that he would not have had a fifth part of the votes, as the law requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine of a thousand drachmae.

  Socrates all his life long has been seeking to do the greatest good to the Athenians.Should he not be rewarded with maintenance in the Prytaneum?

  And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for—wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to every one of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such an one? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, and who desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty fairly, I should say that maintenance in the Prytaneum 37is the just return.

  The consciousness of innocence gives him confidence.No alternative in his own judgment preferable to death.

  Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in what I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one, although I cannot convince you—the time has been too short; if there were a law at Athens, as there is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you. But I cannot in a moment refute great slanders; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil? Shall I say imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year—of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life, if I am so irrational as to expect that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you will have no more of them, others are likely to endure me. No indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, ever changing my place of exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the young men will flock to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their request; and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.

  For wherever he goes he must speak out.

  Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not 38believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to proportion the fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, and therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Let thirty minae be the penalty; for which sum they will be ample security to you.

  They will be accused of killing a wise man.Why could they not wait a few years?

  Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise, even although I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death. I am speaking now not to all of you, but only to those who have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: You think that I was convicted because I had no words of the sort which would have procured my acquittal—I mean, if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone or unsaid. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words—certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to do, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I maintain, are unworthy of me. I thought at the time that I ought not to do anything common or mean when in danger: nor do I now repent of the style of my defence; I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought I or any man to use every way of escaping death. 39Often in battle there can be no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death,—they too go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award—let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated,—and I think that they are well.

  They are about to slay Socrates because he has been their accuser: other accusers will rise up and denounce them more vehemently.

  And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and in the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my departure punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more inconsiderate with you, and you will be more offended at them. If you think that by killing men you can prevent some one from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honourable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure to the judges who have condemned me.

  He believes that what is happening to him will be good, because the internal oracle gives no sign of opposition.

  Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about the thing which has come to pass, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little, for we may as well talk 40with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges—for you I may truly call judges—I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the divine faculty of which the internal oracle is the source has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error in any matter; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when I was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was on my way to the court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I either said or did touching the matter in hand has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this silence? I will tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. For the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.

  Death either a good or nothing:=a profound sleep.How blessed to have a just judgment passed on us; to converse with Homer and Hesiod; to see the heroes of Troy, and to continue the search after knowledge in another world!

  Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things—either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors 41of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I myself, too, shall have a wonderful interest in there meeting and conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and any other ancient hero who has suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.

  Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die and be released from trouble; wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accusers; they have done me no harm, although they did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

  Do to my sons as I have done to you.

  Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really 42nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

  The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

  CRITO.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Crito.Introduction.

  The Crito seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one light only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and trusting in the will of heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who having been unjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in obedience to the laws of the state. . . . .

  Analysis.

  43The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship has been seen off Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and contemporary Crito, who visits him before the dawn has broken; he himself has been warned in a dream that on the 44third day he must depart. Time is precious, and Crito has come early in order to gain his consent to a plan of escape. This can be easily accomplished by his friends, who will incur no 45danger in making the attempt to save him, but will be disgraced for ever if they allow him to perish. He should think of his duty to his children, and not play into the hands of his enemies. Money is already provided by Crito as well as by Simmias and 46others, and he will have no difficulty in finding friends in Thessaly and other places.

  Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the opinions of the many: whereas, all his life long he has followed the dictates of reason only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled man. There was a time when Crito himself had allowed the propriety of this. And although some one will say ‘the many can kill us,’ that makes no difference; but a good life, in other words, a just and honourable life, is alone to be valued. All considerations of loss of reputation or injury to his children should be dismissed: the only question is whether he would be right in attempting to escape. Crito, who is a disinterested 47person not having the fear of death before his eyes, shall answer this for him. Before he was condemned they had often held discussions, in which they agreed that no man should either do evil, 48or return evil for evil, or betray the right. Are these principles to be altered because the circumstances of Socrates are altered? Crito admits that they remain the same. Then is his escape consistent 49with the maintenance of them? To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.

  Socrates proceeds:—Suppose the Laws of Athens to come 50and remonstrate with him: they will ask ‘Why does he seek to overturn them?’ and if he replies, ‘they have injured him,’ will not the Laws answer, ‘Yes, but was that the agreement? Has he any objection to make to them which would justify him in 51overturning them? Was he not brought into the world and educated by their help, and are they not his parents? He might 52have left Athens and gone where he pleased, but he has lived there for seventy years more constantly than any other citizen.’ Thus he has clearly shown that he acknowledged the agreement, which he cannot now break without dishonour to himself and danger to his friends. Even in the course of the trial he might have proposed exile as the penalty, but then he declared that he preferred death to exile. And whither will he direct his footsteps? In any well-ordered state the Laws will consider him as 53an enemy. Possibly in a land of misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the unseemly narrative of his escape will be regarded by the inhabitants as an amusing tale. But if he offends them he will have to learn another sort of lesson. Will he continue to give lectures in virtue? That would hardly be decent. And how will his children be the gainers if he takes them into Thessaly, and deprives them of Athenian citizenship? 54Or if he leaves them behind, does he expect that they will be better taken care of by his friends because he is in Thessaly? Will not true friends care for them equally whether he is alive or dead?

  Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life and children afterwards. He may now depart in peace and innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil. But if he breaks agreements, and returns evil for evil, they will be angry with him while he lives; and their brethren the Laws of the world below will receive him as an enemy. Such is the mystic voice which is always murmuring in his ears.

  Introduction.

  That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him during his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils, were still recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The fact that he had been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation, undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.

  Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more than that (Phaedr. 275 B); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley (Prose Works, p. 78) is of opinion that Socrates ‘did well to die,’ but not for the ‘sophistical’ reasons which Plato has put into his mouth. And there would be no difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform. ‘A rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point’ (50 B). It may be observed however that Plato never intended to answer the question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show his master maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not ‘the world,’ but the ‘one wise man,’ is still the paradox of Socrates in his last hours. He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may be fatal to him. The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral evil; in his own words, ‘they cannot make a man wise or foolish.’

  This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the ‘common principle’ (49 D), there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws in the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech which occur in Plato.

  CRITO.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Socrates.

  Crito.

  Scene:—The Prison of Socrates.

  Socrates.

  Crito.Socrates, Crito.

  43Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be quite early?

  Crito.

  Yes, certainly.

  Soc.

  Crito appears at break of dawn in the prison of Socrates, whom he finds asleep.

  What is the exact time?

  Cr.

  The dawn is breaking.

  Soc.

  I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you in.

  Cr.

  He knows me, because I often come, Socrates; moreover, I have done him a kindness.

  Soc.

  And are you only just arrived?

  Cr.

  No, I came some time ago.

  Soc.

  Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once awakening me?

  Cr.

  I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great trouble and unrest as you are—indeed I should not: I have been watching with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought you to be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy, tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.

  Soc.

  Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be repining at the approach of death.

  Cr.

  And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and age does not prevent them from repining.

  Soc.

  That is true. But you have not told me why you come at this early hour.

  Cr.

  The ship from Delos is expected.

  I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful; not, as I believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your friends, and saddest of all to me.

  Soc.

  What? Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of which I am to die?

  Cr.

  No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably be here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that they left her there; and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be the last day of your life.

  Soc.

  Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am willing; but my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.

  Cr.

  Why do you think so? 44

  Soc.

  I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the arrival of the ship.

  Cr.

  Yes; that is what the authorities say.

  Soc.

  A vision of a fair woman who prophesies in the language of Homer that Socrates will die on the third day.

  But I do not think that the ship will be here until to-morrow; this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or rather only just now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.

  Cr.

  And what was the nature of the vision?

  Soc.

  There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said: O Socrates,

  ‘The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go1 .’

  Cr.

  What a singular dream, Socrates!

  Soc.

  There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I think.

  Cr.

  Yes; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape. For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care. Now, can there be a worse disgrace than this—that I should be thought to value money more than the life of a friend? For the many will not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.

  Soc.

  But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.

  Cr.

  Crito by a variety of arguments tries to induce Socrates to make his escape. The means will be easily provided and without danger to any one.

  But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest evil to any one who has lost their good opinion.

  Soc.

  I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do the greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the greatest good—and what a fine thing this would be! But in reality they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.

  Cr.

  Well, I will not dispute with you; but please to tell me, Socrates, whether you are not acting out of regard to me and your other friends: are you not afraid that if you escape from prison we may get into trouble with the informers for having stolen you away, and lose either the whole or a great part of 45our property; or that even a worse evil may happen to us? Now, if you fear on our account, be at ease; for in order to save you, we ought surely to run this, or even a greater risk; be persuaded, then, and do as I say.

  Soc.

  Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no means the only one.

  Cr.

  He is not justified in throwing away his life; he will be deserting his children, and will bring the reproach of cowardice on his friends.

  Fear not—there are persons who are willing to get you out of prison at no great cost; and as for the informers, they are far from being exorbitant in their demands—a little money will satisfy them. My means, which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you have a scruple about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you the use of theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum of money for this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are prepared to spend their money in helping you to escape. I say, therefore, do not hesitate on our account, and do not say, as you did in the court1 , that you will have a difficulty in knowing what to do with yourself anywhere else. For men will love you in other places to which you may go, and not in Athens only; there are friends of mine in Thessaly, if you like to go to them, who will value and protect you, and no Thessalian will give you any trouble. Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates, in betraying your own life when you might be saved; in acting thus you are playing into the hands of your enemies, who are hurrying on your destruction. And further I should say that you are deserting your own children; for you might bring them up and educate them; instead of which you go away and leave them, and they will have to take their chance; and if they do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks to you. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nurture and education. But you appear to be choosing the easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been more becoming in one who professes to care for virtue in all his actions, like yourself. And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who are your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be attributed entirely to our want of courage. The trial need never have come on, or might have been managed differently; and this last act, or crowning folly, will seem to have occurred through our negligence and cowardice, who might have saved you, if we had been good for 46anything; and you might have saved yourself, for there was no difficulty at all. See now, Socrates, how sad and discreditable are the consequences, both to us and you. Make up your mind then, or rather have your mind already made up, for the time of deliberation is over, and there is only one thing to be done, which must be done this very night, and if we delay at all will be no longer practicable or possible; I beseech you therefore, Socrates, be persuaded by me, and do as I say.

  Soc.

  Socrates is one of those who must be guided by reason.Ought he to follow the opinion of the many or of the few, of the wise or of the unwise?

  Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger; and therefore we ought to consider whether I shall or shall not do as you say. For I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the best; and now that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my own words: the principles which I have hitherto honoured and revered I still honour, and unless we can at once find other and better principles, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors1 . What will be the fairest way of considering the question? Shall I return to your old argument about the opinions of men?—we were saying that some of them are to be regarded, and others not. Now were we right in maintaining this before I was condemned? And has the argument which was once good now proved to be talk for the sake of talking—mere childish nonsense? That is what I want to consider with your help, Crito:—whether, under my present circumstances, the argument appears to be in any way different or not; and is to be allowed by me or disallowed. That argument, which, as I believe, is maintained by many persons of authority, was to the effect, as I was saying, that the opinions of some men are to be regarded, and of other men not to be regarded. Now 47you, Crito, are not going to die to-morrow—at least, there is no human probability of this—and therefore you are disinterested and not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are placed. Tell me then, whether I am right in saying that some opinions, and the opinions of some men only, are to be valued, and that other opinions, and the opinions of other men, are not to be valued. I ask you whether I was right in maintaining this?

  Cr.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?

  Cr.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the unwise are evil?

  Cr.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And what was said about another matter? Is the pupil who devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to attend to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only—his physician or trainer, whoever he may be?

  Cr.

  Of one man only.

  Soc.

  And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of that one only, and not of the many?

  Cr.

  Clearly so.

  Soc.

  And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together?

  Cr.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding, will he not suffer evil?

  Cr.

  Certainly he will.

  Soc.

  And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting, in the disobedient person?

  Cr.

  Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the evil.

  Soc.

  The opinion of the one wise man is to be followed.

  Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? ought we not to fear and reverence him more than all the rest of the world: and if we desert him shall we not destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice;—there is such a principle?

  Cr.

  Certainly there is, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Take a parallel instance:—if, acting under the advice of those who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improved by health and is deteriorated by disease, would life be worth having? And that which has been destroyed is—the body?

  Cr.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?

  Cr.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it 48may be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body?

  Cr.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  More honourable than the body?

  Cr.

  Far more.

  Soc.

  No matter what the many say of us.

  Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable. — ‘Well,’ some one will say, ‘but the many can kill us.’

  Cr.

  Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.

  Soc.

  Not life, but a good life, to be chiefly valued.

  And it is true: but still I find with surprise that the old argument is unshaken as ever. And I should like to know whether I may say the same of another proposition—that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?

  Cr.

  Yes, that also remains unshaken.

  Soc.

  And a good life is equivalent to a just and honourable one—that holds also?

  Cr.

  Yes, it does.

  Soc.

  Admitting these principles, ought I to try and escape or not?

  From these premisses I proceed to argue the question whether I ought or ought not to try and escape without the consent of the Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The other considerations which you mention, of money and loss of character and the duty of educating one’s children, are, I fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready to restore people to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death—and with as little reason. But now, since the argument has thus far prevailed, the only question which remains to be considered is, whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape and paying them in money and thanks, or whether in reality we shall not do rightly; and if the latter, then death or any other calamity which may ensue on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter into the calculation.

  Cr.

  I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we proceed?

  Soc.

  Let us consider the matter together, and do you either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear friend, from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the Athenians: for I highly value your attempts to persuade me to do so, but I may not be persuaded against my own better judgement. And now please to consider my first position, and try how you can 49best answer me.

  Cr.

  I will.

  Soc.

  May we sometimes do evil that good may come?

  Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonourable, as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than children? Or, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonour to him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so or not?

  Cr.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then we must do no wrong?

  Cr.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we must injure no one at all1 ?

  Cr.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  Again, Crito, may we do evil?

  Cr.

  Surely not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  May we render evil for evil?

  And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many—is that just or not?

  Cr.

  Not just.

  Soc.

  For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?

  Cr.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Or is evil always to be deemed evil? Are you of the same mind as formerly about all this?

  Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premiss of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For so I have ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.

  Cr.

  Crito assents.

  You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.

  Soc.

  Then ought Socrates to desert or not?

  Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in the form of a question:—Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the right?

  Cr.

  He ought to do what he thinks right.

  Soc.

  But if this is true, what is the application? In 50leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the principles which were acknowledged by us to be just—what do you say?

  Cr.

  I cannot tell, Socrates; for I do not know.

  Soc.

  The Laws come and argue with him.—Can a State exist in which law is set aside?

  Then consider the matter in this way:—Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: ‘Tell us, Socrates,’ they say; ‘what are you about? are you not going by an act of yours to overturn us—the laws, and the whole state, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?’ What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue that this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply, ‘Yes; but the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.’ Suppose I say that?

  Cr.

  Very good, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Has he any fault to find with them?No man has any right to strike a blow at his country any more than at his father or mother.

  ‘And was that our agreement with you?’ the law would answer; ‘or were you to abide by the sentence of the state?’ And if I were to express my astonishment at their words, the law would probably add: ‘Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes—you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us,—What complaint have you to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the state? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage?’ None, I should reply. ‘Or against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not the laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?’ Right, I should reply. ‘Well then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to your father or your master, if you had one, because you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?—you would not say this? And because we think right to 51destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.’ What answer shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?

  Cr.

  I think that they do.

  Soc.

  The Laws argue that he has made an implied agreement with them which he is not at liberty to break at his pleasure.

  Then the laws will say: ‘Consider, Socrates, if we are speaking truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong; first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he 52will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us:—that is what we offer, and he does neither.

  ‘These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all other Athenians.’ Suppose now I ask, why I rather than anybody else? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. ‘There is clear proof,’ they will say, ‘Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love1 . For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our state; we were your special favourites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and here in this city you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile2 , and that you were not unwilling to die. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or not?’ How shall we answer, Crito? Must we not assent?

  Cr.

  We cannot help it, Socrates.

  Soc.

  This agreement he is now going to break.

  Then will they not say: ‘You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but after you have had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, both which states are often praised by you for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign state. Whereas you, 53above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the state, or, in other words, of us her laws (and who would care about a state which has no laws?), that you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.

  If he does he will injure his friends and will disgrace himself.

  ‘For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates? And what will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed states to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and licence, they will be charmed to hear the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the manner is of runaways; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you were not ashamed to violate the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?—as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?—eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments 54about justice and virtue? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children—you want to bring them up and educate them—will you take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the benefit which you will confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from them; for your friends will take care of them? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world that they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are good for anything, they will—to be sure they will.

  Let him think of justice first, and of life and children afterwards.

  ‘Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.’

  The mystic voice.

  This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will be vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.

  Cr.

  I have nothing to say, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, and to follow whither he leads.

  PHAEDO.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Phaedo.Analysis.

  57After an interval of some months or years, and at Phlius, a town of Peloponnesus, the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to Echecrates and other Phliasians by Phaedo the ‘beloved disciple.’ The Dialogue necessarily takes the form of a 58narrative, because Socrates has to be described acting as well as speaking. The minutest particulars of the event are interesting to distant friends, and the narrator has an equal interest in them.

  During the voyage of the sacred ship to and from Delos, which has occupied thirty days, the execution of Socrates has been deferred. (Cp. Xen. Mem. iv. 8. 2.) The time has been passed by 59him in conversation with a select company of disciples. But now the holy season is over, and the disciples meet earlier than usual in order that they may converse with Socrates for the last time. Those who were present, and those who might have been expected to be present, are mentioned by name. There are Simmias and Cebes (Crito 45 B), two disciples of Philolaus whom Socrates ‘by his enchantments has attracted from Thebes’ (Mem. iii. 11. 17), Crito the aged friend, the attendant of the prison, who is as good as a friend—these take part in the conversation. There are present also, Hermogenes, from whom Xenophon derived his information about the trial of Socrates (Mem. iv. 8. 4), the ‘madman’ Apollodorus (Symp. 173 D), Euclid and Terpsion from Megara (cp. Theaet. sub init.), Ctesippus, Antisthenes, Menexenus, and some other less-known members of the Socratic circle, all of whom are silent auditors. Aristippus, Cleombrotus, 60and Plato are noted as absent. Almost as soon as the friends of Socrates enter the prison Xanthippè and her children are sent home in the care of one of Crito’s servants. Socrates himself has just been released from chains, and is led by this circumstance to make the natural remark that ‘pleasure follows pain.’ (Observe that Plato is preparing the way for his doctrine of the alternation of opposites.) ‘Aesop would have represented them in a fable as a two-headed creature of the gods.’ The mention of Aesop reminds Cebes of a question which had been asked by Evenus the poet (cp. Apol. 20 A): ‘Why Socrates, who was not a poet, while in prison had been putting Aesop into verse?’—‘Because several times in his life he had been warned in dreams that 61he should practise music; and as he was about to die and was not certain of what was meant, he wished to fulfil the admonition in the letter as well as in the spirit, by writing verses as well as by cultivating philosophy. Tell this to Evenus; and say that I would have him follow me in death.’ ‘He is not at all the sort of man to comply with your request, Socrates.’ ‘Why, is he not a philosopher?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then he will be willing to die, although he will not take his own life, for that is held to be unlawful.’

  Cebes asks why suicide is thought not to be right, if death is to 62be accounted a good? Well, (1) according to one explanation, because man is a prisoner, who must not open the door of his prison and run away—this is the truth in a ‘mystery.’ Or (2) rather, because he is not his own property, but a possession of the gods, and has no right to make away with that which does not belong to him. But why, asks Cebes, if he is a possession of the gods, should he wish to die and leave them? for he is under their protection; and surely he cannot take better care of himself than they take of him. Simmias explains that Cebes is really 63referring to Socrates, whom they think too unmoved at the prospect of leaving the gods and his friends. Socrates answers that he is going to other gods who are wise and good, and perhaps to better friends; and he professes that he is ready to defend himself against the charge of Cebes. The company shall be his judges, and he hopes that he will be more successful in convincing them than he had been in convincing the court.

  The philosopher desires death—which the wicked world will 64insinuate that he also deserves: and perhaps he does, but not in any sense which they are capable of understanding. Enough of them: the real question is, What is the nature of that death which he desires? Death is the separation of soul and body—and the philosopher desires such a separation. He would like to be freed from the dominion of bodily pleasures and of the senses, 65which are always perturbing his mental vision. He wants to get rid of eyes and ears, and with the light of the mind only to behold the light of truth. All the evils and impurities and necessities 66of men come from the body. And death separates him from these corruptions, which in life he cannot wholly lay aside. Why 67then should he repine when the hour of separation arrives? Why, if he is dead while he lives, should he fear that other death, 68through which alone he can behold wisdom in her purity?

  Besides, the philosopher has notions of good and evil unlike those of other men. For they are courageous because they are 69afraid of greater dangers, and temperate because they desire greater pleasures. But he disdains this balancing of pleasures and pains, which is the exchange of commerce and not of virtue. All the virtues, including wisdom, are regarded by him only as purifications of the soul. And this was the meaning of the founders of the mysteries when they said, ‘Many are the wandbearers but few are the mystics.’ (Cp. Matt. xxii. 14: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’) And in the hope that he is one of these mystics, Socrates is now departing. This is his answer to any one who charges him with indifference at the prospect of leaving the gods and his friends.

  70Still, a fear is expressed that the soul upon leaving the body may vanish away like smoke or air. Socrates in answer appeals first of all to the old Orphic tradition that the souls of the dead are in the world below, and that the living come from them. This he attempts to found on a philosophical assumption that 71all opposites—e.g. less, greater; weaker, stronger; sleeping, waking; life, death—are generated out of each other. Nor can the process of generation be only a passage from living to dying, 72for then all would end in death. The perpetual sleeper (Endymion) would be no longer distinguished from the rest of mankind. The circle of nature is not complete unless the living come from the dead as well as pass to them.

  The Platonic doctrine of reminiscence is then adduced as a confirmation of the pre-existence of the soul. Some proofs of 73this doctrine are demanded. One proof given is the same as that of the Meno (82 foll.), and is derived from the latent knowledge of mathematics, which may be elicited from an unlearned person when a diagram is presented to him. Again, there is a power of association, which from seeing Simmias may remember Cebes, or from seeing a picture of Simmias may remember Simmias. The 74lyre may recall the player of the lyre, and equal pieces of wood or stone may be associated with the higher notion of absolute equality. But here observe that material equalities fall short of the conception of absolute equality with which they are compared, and which is the measure of them. And the measure or standard must be prior to that which is measured, the idea of 75equality prior to the visible equals. And if prior to them, then prior also to the perceptions of the senses which recall them, and therefore either given before birth or at birth. But all men have 76not this knowledge, nor have any without a process of reminiscence; which is a proof that it is not innate or given at birth, unless indeed it was given and taken away at the same instant. But if not given to men in birth, it must have been given before birth—this is the only alternative which remains. And if we had ideas in a former state, then our souls must have existed and must have had intelligence in a former state. The pre-existence 77of the soul stands or falls with the doctrine of ideas.

  It is objected by Simmias and Cebes that these arguments only prove a former and not a future existence. Socrates answers this objection by recalling the previous argument, in which he had shown that the living come from the dead. But the fear that the soul at departing may vanish into air (especially if there is a wind blowing at the time) has not yet been charmed away. He proceeds: 78When we fear that the soul will vanish away, let us ask ourselves what is that which we suppose to be liable to dissolution? Is it the simple or the compound, the unchanging or the changing, the invisible idea or the visible object of sense? Clearly the latter and not the former; and therefore not the soul, 79which in her own pure thought is unchangeable, and only when using the senses descends into the region of change. Again, the soul commands, the body serves: in this respect too the soul is 80akin to the divine, and the body to the mortal. And in every point of view the soul is the image of divinity and immortality, and the body of the human and mortal. And whereas the body is liable to speedy dissolution, the soul is almost if not quite indissoluble. (Cp. Tim. 41 A.) Yet even the body may be preserved for ages by the embalmer’s art: how unlikely, then, that the soul will perish and be dissipated into air while on her way to the good and wise God! She has been gathered into herself, holding 81aloof from the body, and practising death all her life long, and she is now finally released from the errors and follies and passions of men, and for ever dwells in the company of the gods.

  But the soul which is polluted and engrossed by the corporeal, and has no eye except that of the senses, and is weighed down by the bodily appetites, cannot attain to this abstraction. In her fear of the world below she lingers about the sepulchre, loath to leave the body which she loved, a ghostly apparition, saturated with sense, and therefore visible. At length entering into some 82animal of a nature congenial to her former life of sensuality or violence, she takes the form of an ass, a wolf or a kite. And of these earthly souls the happiest are those who have practised virtue without philosophy; they are allowed to pass into gentle and social natures, such as bees and ants. (Cp. Rep. x. 619 C, Meno 100 A.) But only the philosopher who departs pure is permitted to enter the company of the gods. (Cp. Phaedrus 249.) This is the reason why he abstains from fleshly lusts, and not because he fears loss or disgrace, which is the motive of other 83men. He too has been a captive, and the willing agent of his own captivity. But philosophy has spoken to him, and he has heard her voice; she has gently entreated him, and brought him out of the ‘miry clay,’ and purged away the mists of passion and the illusions of sense which envelope him; his soul has escaped from the influence of pleasures and pains, which are like nails 84fastening her to the body. To that prison-house she will not return; and therefore she abstains from bodily pleasures—not from a desire of having more or greater ones, but because she knows that only when calm and free from the dominion of the body can she behold the light of truth.

  Simmias and Cebes remain in doubt; but they are unwilling to raise objections at such a time. Socrates wonders at their reluctance. Let them regard him rather as the swan, who, 85having sung the praises of Apollo all his life long, sings at his death more lustily than ever. (Cp. 60 D.) Simmias acknowledges that there is cowardice in not probing truth to the bottom. ‘And if truth divine and inspired is not to be had, then let a man take the best of human notions, and upon this frail bark let him sail through life.’ He proceeds to state his difficulty: It has 86been argued that the soul is invisible and incorporeal, and therefore immortal, and prior to the body. But is not the soul acknowledged to be a harmony, and has she not the same relation to the body, as the harmony—which like her is invisible—has to the lyre? And yet the harmony does not survive the lyre. Cebes has also an objection, which like Simmias he expresses in a figure. He is willing to admit that the soul is more lasting than the body. But the more lasting nature of the soul 87does not prove her immortality; for after having worn out many bodies in a single life, and many more in successive births and deaths, she may at last perish, or, as Socrates afterwards restates the objection, the very act of birth may be the beginning of her death, and her last body may survive her, just as the coat of an old weaver is left behind him after he is dead, although a man is 88more lasting than his coat. And he who would prove the immortality of the soul, must prove not only that the soul outlives one or many bodies, but that she outlives them all.

  The audience, like the chorus in a play, for a moment interpret the feelings of the actors; there is a temporary depression, and 89then the enquiry is resumed. It is a melancholy reflection that arguments, like men, are apt to be deceivers; and those who have been often deceived become distrustful both of arguments and of friends. But this unfortunate experience should not make us either haters of men or haters of arguments. The want of 90health and truth is not in the argument, but in ourselves. Socrates, who is about to die, is sensible of his own weakness; 91he desires to be impartial, but he cannot help feeling that he has too great an interest in the truth of the argument. And therefore he would have his friends examine and refute him, if they think that he is in error.

  At his request Simmias and Cebes repeat their objections. They do not go to the length of denying the pre-existence of 92ideas. Simmias is of opinion that the soul is a harmony of the body. But the admission of the pre-existence of ideas, and therefore of the soul, is at variance with this. (Cp. a parallel difficulty in Theaet. 203, 204.) For a harmony is an effect, 93whereas the soul is not an effect, but a cause; a harmony follows, but the soul leads; a harmony admits of degrees, and the soul has no degrees. Again, upon the supposition that the soul is a harmony, why is one soul better than another? Are they more or less harmonized, or is there one harmony within another? 94But the soul does not admit of degrees, and cannot therefore be more or less harmonized. Further, the soul is often engaged in resisting the affections of the body, as Homer describes Odysseus 95‘rebuking his heart.’ Could he have written this under the idea that the soul is a harmony of the body? Nay rather, are we not contradicting Homer and ourselves in affirming anything of the sort?

  The goddess Harmonia, as Socrates playfully terms the argument of Simmias, has been happily disposed of; and now an answer has to be given to the Theban Cadmus. Socrates recapitulates 96the argument of Cebes, which, as he remarks, involves the whole question of natural growth or causation; about this he proposes to narrate his own mental experience. When he was young he had puzzled himself with physics: he had enquired into the growth and decay of animals, and the origin of thought, until at last he began to doubt the self-evident fact that growth is the result of eating and drinking; and so he arrived at the conclusion that he was not meant for such enquiries. Nor was he less perplexed with notions of comparison and number. At first he had imagined himself to understand differences of greater and less, and to know that ten is two more than eight, and the like. But now those very notions appeared to him to contain a 97contradiction. For how can one be divided into two? or two be compounded into one? These are difficulties which Socrates cannot answer. Of generation and destruction he knows nothing. But he has a confused notion of another method in which matters of this sort are to be investigated. (Cp. Rep. iv. 435 D; vii. 533 A; Charm. 170 foll.)

  Then he heard some one reading out of a book of Anaxagoras, that mind is the cause of all things. And he said to himself: If mind is the cause of all things, surely mind must dispose them all 98for the best. The new teacher will show me this ‘order of the best’ in man and nature. How great had been his hopes and how great his disappointment! For he found that his new friend was anything but consistent in his use of mind as a cause, and that he soon introduced winds, waters, and other eccentric notions. (Cp. Arist. Metaph. i. 4, 5.) It was as if a person had said that Socrates is sitting here because he is made up of bones and muscles, 99instead of telling the true reason—that he is here because the Athenians have thought good to sentence him to death, and he has thought good to await his sentence. Had his bones and muscles been left by him to their own ideas of right, they would long ago have taken themselves off. But surely there is a great confusion of the cause and condition in all this. And this confusion also leads people into all sorts of erroneous theories about the position and motions of the earth. None of them know how much stronger than any Atlas is the power of the best. But this ‘best’ is still undiscovered; and in enquiring after the cause, we can only hope to attain the second best.

  Now there is a danger in the contemplation of the nature of things, as there is a danger in looking at the sun during an eclipse, 100unless the precaution is taken of looking only at the image reflected in the water, or in a glass. (Cp. Laws x. 897 D; Rep. vii. 516 foll.) ‘I was afraid,’ says Socrates, ‘that I might injure the eye of the soul. I thought that I had better return to the old and safe method of ideas. Though I do not mean to say that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas sees only through a glass darkly, any more than he who contemplates actual effects.’

  If the existence of ideas is granted to him, Socrates is of opinion that he will then have no difficulty in proving the immortality of the soul. He will only ask for a further admission:—that beauty is the cause of the beautiful, greatness the cause of the great, smallness of the small, and so on of other things. This is a safe 101and simple answer, which escapes the contradictions of greater and less (greater by reason of that which is smaller!), of addition and subtraction, and the other difficulties of relation. These subtleties he is for leaving to wiser heads than his own; he prefers to test ideas by the consistency of their consequences, and, if asked to give an account of them, goes back to some higher idea or hypothesis which appears to him to be the best, until at last he arrives at a resting-place. (Rep. vi. 510 foll.; Phil. 16 foll.)

  The doctrine of ideas, which has long ago received the assent of 102the Socratic circle, is now affirmed by the Phliasian auditor to command the assent of any man of sense. The narrative is continued; Socrates is desirous of explaining how opposite ideas may appear to co-exist but do not really co-exist in the same thing or person. For example, Simmias may be said to have greatness and also smallness, because he is greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo. And yet Simmias is not really great and also small, but only when compared to Phaedo and Socrates. I use the illustration, says Socrates, because I want to show you not only that ideal opposites exclude one another, but also the opposites in us. I, for example, having the attribute of smallness remain small, and cannot become great: the smallness which is in me drives out 103greatness.

  One of the company here remarked that this was inconsistent with the old assertion that opposites generated opposites. But that, replies Socrates, was affirmed, not of opposite ideas either in us or in nature, but of opposition in the concrete—not of life and death, but of individuals living and dying. When this objection has been removed, Socrates proceeds: This doctrine of the mutual exclusion of opposites is not only true of the opposites themselves, but of things which are inseparable from them. For example, cold and heat are opposed; and fire, which is inseparable from heat, cannot co-exist with cold, or snow, which is inseparable from cold, with heat. Again, the number three excludes the 104number four, because three is an odd number and four is an even number, and the odd is opposed to the even. Thus we are able to proceed a step beyond ‘the safe and simple answer.’ We may say, not only that the odd excludes the even, but that the number 105three, which participates in oddness, excludes the even. And in like manner, not only does life exclude death, but the soul, of which life is the inseparable attribute, also excludes death. And that of which life is the inseparable attribute is by the force of the 106terms imperishable. If the odd principle were imperishable, then the number three would not perish but remove, on the approach of the even principle. But the immortal is imperishable; and therefore the soul on the approach of death does not perish but removes.

  107Thus all objections appear to be finally silenced. And now the application has to be made: If the soul is immortal, ‘what manner of persons ought we to be?’ having regard not only to time but to eternity. For death is not the end of all, and the wicked is not released from his evil by death; but every one carries with him into the world below that which he is or has become, and that only.

  For after death the soul is carried away to judgment, and when she has received her punishment returns to earth in the course of ages. The wise soul is conscious of her situation, and follows the 108attendant angel who guides her through the windings of the world below; but the impure soul wanders hither and thither without companion or guide, and is carried at last to her own place, as the pure soul is also carried away to hers. ‘In order that you may understand this, I must first describe to you the nature and conformation of the earth.’

  Now the whole earth is a globe placed in the centre of the heavens, and is maintained there by the perfection of balance. 109That which we call the earth is only one of many small hollows, wherein collect the mists and waters and the thick lower air; but the true earth is above, and is in a finer and subtler element. And if, like birds, we could fly to the surface of the air, in the same manner that fishes come to the top of the sea, then we should behold the true earth and the true heaven and the true stars. Our 110earth is everywhere corrupted and corroded; and even the land which is fairer than the sea, for that is a mere chaos or waste of water and mud and sand, has nothing to show in comparison of the other world. But the heavenly earth is of divers colours, sparkling with jewels brighter than gold and whiter than any snow, having flowers and fruits innumerable. And the inhabitants 111dwell some on the shore of the sea of air, others in ‘islets of the blest,’ and they hold converse with the gods, and behold the sun, moon and stars as they truly are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.

  The hollows on the surface of the globe vary in size and shape from that which we inhabit: but all are connected by passages and perforations in the interior of the earth. And there is one huge chasm or opening called Tartarus, into which streams of fire and water and liquid mud are ever flowing; of these small portions find their way to the surface and form seas and rivers and 112volcanoes. There is a perpetual inhalation and exhalation of the air rising and falling as the waters pass into the depths of the earth and return again, in their course forming lakes and rivers, but never descending below the centre of the earth; for on either side the rivers flowing either way are stopped by a precipice. These rivers are many and mighty, and there are four principal ones, Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus. Oceanus is the river which encircles the earth; Acheron takes an opposite direction, and after flowing under the earth through desert places, 113at last reaches the Acherusian lake,—this is the river at which the souls of the dead await their return to earth. Pyriphlegethon is a stream of fire, which coils round the earth and flows into the depths of Tartarus. The fourth river, Cocytus, is that which is called by the poets the Stygian river, and passes into and forms the lake Styx, from the waters of which it gains new and strange powers. This river, too, falls into Tartarus.

  The dead are first of all judged according to their deeds, and those who are incurable are thrust into Tartarus, from which they never come out. Those who have only committed venial sins are first purified of them, and then rewarded for the good which they 114have done. Those who have committed crimes, great indeed, but not unpardonable, are thrust into Tartarus, but are cast forth at the end of a year by way of Pyriphlegethon or Cocytus, and these carry them as far as the Acherusian lake, where they call upon their victims to let them come out of the rivers into the lake. And if they prevail, then they are let out and their sufferings cease: if not, they are borne unceasingly into Tartarus and back again, until they at last obtain mercy. The pure souls also receive their reward, and have their abode in the upper earth, and a select few in still fairer ‘mansions.’

  Socrates is not prepared to insist on the literal accuracy of this description, but he is confident that something of the kind is true. He who has sought after the pleasures of knowledge and rejected the pleasures of the body, has reason to be of good hope at the approach of death; whose voice is already speaking to him, and who will one day be heard calling all men.

  115The hour has come at which he must drink the poison, and not much remains to be done. How shall they bury him? That is a question which he refuses to entertain, for they are burying, not 116him, but his dead body. His friends had once been sureties that he would remain, and they shall now be sureties that he has run away. Yet he would not die without the customary ceremonies of washing and burial. Shall he make a libation of the poison? In 117the spirit he will, but not in the letter. One request he utters in the very act of death, which has been a puzzle to after ages. With a sort of irony he remembers that a trifling religious duty is still 118unfulfilled, just as above (60 E) he desires before he departs to compose a few verses in order to satisfy a scruple about a dream—unless, indeed, we suppose him to mean, that he was now restored to health, and made the customary offering to Asclepius in token of his recovery.

  Introduction.

  1. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has sunk deep into the heart of the human race; and men are apt to rebel against any examination of the nature or grounds of their belief. They do not like to acknowledge that this, as well as the other ‘eternal ideas’ of man, has a history in time, which may be traced in Greek poetry or philosophy, and also in the Hebrew Scriptures. They convert feeling into reasoning, and throw a network of dialectics over that which is really a deeply-rooted instinct. In the same temper which Socrates reproves in himself (91 B) they are disposed to think that even fallacies will do no harm, for they will die with them, and while they live they will gain by the delusion. And when they consider the numberless bad arguments which have been pressed into the service of theology, they say, like the companions of Socrates, ‘What argument can we ever trust again?’ But there is a better and higher spirit to be gathered from the Phaedo, as well as from the other writings of Plato, which says that first principles should be most constantly reviewed (Phaedo 107 B, and Crat. 436), and that the highest subjects demand of us the greatest accuracy (Rep. vi. 504 E); also that we must not become misologists because arguments are apt to be deceivers.

  2. In former ages there was a customary rather than a reasoned belief in the immortality of the soul. It was based on the authority of the Church, on the necessity of such a belief to morality and the order of society, on the evidence of an historical fact, and also on analogies and figures of speech which filled up the void or gave an expression in words to a cherished instinct. The mass of mankind went on their way busy with the affairs of this life, hardly stopping to think about another. But in our own day the question has been reopened, and it is doubtful whether the belief which in the first ages of Christianity was the strongest motive of action can survive the conflict with a scientific age in which the rules of evidence are stricter and the mind has become more sensitive to criticism. It has faded into the distance by a natural process as it was removed further and further from the historical fact on which it has been supposed to rest. Arguments derived from material things such as the seed and the ear of corn or transitions in the life of animals from one state of being to another (the chrysalis and the butterfly) are not ‘in pari materia’ with arguments from the visible to the invisible, and are therefore felt to be no longer applicable. The evidence to the historical fact seems to be weaker than was once supposed: it is not consistent with itself, and is based upon documents which are of unknown origin. The immortality of man must be proved by other arguments than these if it is again to become a living belief. We must ask ourselves afresh why we still maintain it, and seek to discover a foundation for it in the nature of God and in the first principles of morality.

  3. At the outset of the discussion we may clear away a confusion. We certainly do not mean by the immortality of the soul the immortality of fame, which whether worth having or not can only be ascribed to a very select class of the whole race of mankind, and even the interest in these few is comparatively shortlived. To have been a benefactor to the world, whether in a higher or a lower sphere of life and thought, is a great thing: to have the reputation of being one, when men have passed out of the sphere of earthly praise or blame, is hardly worthy of consideration. The memory of a great man, so far from being immortal, is really limited to his own generation:—so long as his friends or his disciples are alive, so long as his books continue to be read, so long as his political or military successes fill a page in the history of his country. The praises which are bestowed upon him at his death hardly last longer than the flowers which are strewed upon his coffin or the ‘immortelles’ which are laid upon his tomb. Literature makes the most of its heroes, but the true man is well aware that far from enjoying an immortality of fame, in a generation or two, or even in a much shorter time, he will be forgotten and the world will get on without him.

  4. Modern philosophy is perplexed at this whole question, which is sometimes fairly given up and handed over to the realm of faith. The perplexity should not be forgotten by us when we attempt to submit the Phaedo of Plato to the requirements of logic. For what idea can we form of the soul when separated from the body? Or how can the soul be united with the body and still be independent? Is the soul related to the body as the ideal to the real, or as the whole to the parts, or as the subject to the object, or as the cause to the effect, or as the end to the means? Shall we say with Aristotle, that the soul is the entelechy or form of an organized living body? or with Plato, that she has a life of her own? Is the Pythagorean image of the harmony, or that of the monad, the truer expression? Is the soul related to the body as sight to the eye, or as the boatman to his boat? (Arist. de Anim. ii. 1, 11, 12.) And in another state of being is the soul to be conceived of as vanishing into infinity, hardly possessing an existence which she can call her own, as in the pantheistic system of Spinoza? or as an individual informing another body and entering into new relations, but retaining her own character? (Cp. Gorgias, 524 B, C.) Or is the opposition of soul and body a mere illusion, and the true self neither soul nor body, but the union of the two in the ‘I’ which is above them? And is death the assertion of this individuality in the higher nature, and the falling away into nothingness of the lower? Or are we vainly attempting to pass the boundaries of human thought? The body and the soul seem to be inseparable, not only in fact, but in our conceptions of them; and any philosophy which too closely unites them, or too widely separates them, either in this life or in another, disturbs the balance of human nature. No thinker has perfectly adjusted them, or been entirely consistent with himself in describing their relation to one another. Nor can we wonder that Plato in the infancy of human thought should have confused mythology and philosophy, or have mistaken verbal arguments for real ones.

  5. Again, believing in the immortality of the soul, we must still ask the question of Socrates, ‘What is that which we suppose to be immortal?’ Is it the personal and individual element in us, or the spiritual and universal? Is it the principle of knowledge or of goodness, or the union of the two? Is it the mere force of life which is determined to be, or the consciousness of self which cannot be got rid of, or the fire of genius which refuses to be extinguished? Or is there a hidden being which is allied to the Author of all existence, who is because he is perfect, and to whom our ideas of perfection give us a title to belong? Whatever answer is given by us to these questions, there still remains the necessity of allowing the permanence of evil, if not for ever, at any rate for a time, in order that the wicked ‘may not have too good a bargain.’ For the annihilation of evil at death, or the eternal duration of it, seem to involve equal difficulties in the moral government of the universe. Sometimes we are led by our feelings, rather than by our reason, to think of the good and wise only as existing in another life. Why should the mean, the weak, the idiot, the infant, the herd of men who have never in any proper sense the use of reason, reappear with blinking eyes in the light of another world? But our second thought is that the hope of humanity is a common one, and that all or none will be partakers of immortality. Reason does not allow us to suppose that we have any greater claims than others, and experience may often reveal to us unexpected flashes of the higher nature in those whom we had despised. Why should the wicked suffer any more than ourselves? had we been placed in their circumstances should we have been any better than they? The worst of men are objects of pity rather than of anger to the philanthropist; must they not be equally such to divine benevolence? Even more than the good they have need of another life; not that they may be punished, but that they may be educated. These are a few of the reflections which arise in our minds when we attempt to assign any form to our conceptions of a future state.

  There are some other questions which are disturbing to us because we have no answer to them. What is to become of the animals in a future state? Have we not seen dogs more faithful and intelligent than men, and men who are more stupid and brutal than any animals? Does their life cease at death, or is there some ‘better thing reserved’ also for them? They may be said to have a shadow or imitation of morality, and imperfect moral claims upon the benevolence of man and upon the justice of God. We cannot think of the least or lowest of them, the insect, the bird, the inhabitants of the sea or the desert, as having any place in a future world, and if not all, why should those who are specially attached to man be deemed worthy of any exceptional privilege? When we reason about such a subject, almost at once we degenerate into nonsense. It is a passing thought which has no real hold on the mind. We may argue for the existence of animals in a future state from the attributes of God, or from texts of Scripture (‘Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing?’&c.), but the truth is that we are only filling up the void of another world with our own fancies. Again, we often talk about the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians, by which they frighten us into believing any superstition. What answer can be made to the old commonplace, ‘Is not God the author of evil, if he knowingly permitted, but could have prevented it?’ Even if we assume that the inequalities of this life are rectified by some transposition of human beings in another, still the existence of the very least evil if it could have been avoided, seems to be at variance with the love and justice of God. And so we arrive at the conclusion that we are carrying logic too far, and that the attempt to frame the world according to a rule of divine perfection is opposed to experience and had better be given up. The case of the animals is our own. We must admit that the Divine Being, although perfect himself, has placed us in a state of life in which we may work together with him for good, but we are very far from having attained to it.

  6. Again, ideas must be given through something; and we are always prone to argue about the soul from analogies of outward things which may serve to embody our thoughts, but are also partly delusive. For we cannot reason from the natural to the spiritual, or from the outward to the inward. The progress of physiological science, without bringing us nearer to the great secret, has tended to remove some erroneous notions respecting the relations of body and mind, and in this we have the advantage of the ancients. But no one imagines that any seed of immortality is to be discerned in our mortal frames. Most people have been content to rest their belief in another life on the agreement of the more enlightened part of mankind, and on the inseparable connection of such a doctrine with the existence of a God—also in a less degree on the impossibility of doubting about the continued existence of those whom we love and reverence in this world. And after all has been said, the figure, the analogy, the argument, are felt to be only approximations in different forms to an expression of the common sentiment of the human heart. That we shall live again is far more certain than that we shall take any particular form of life.

  7. When we speak of the immortality of the soul, we must ask further what we mean by the word immortality. For of the duration of a living being in countless ages we can form no conception; far less than a three years’ old child of the whole of life. The naked eye might as well try to see the furthest star in the infinity of heaven. Whether time and space really exist when we take away the limits of them may be doubted; at any rate the thought of them when unlimited is so overwhelming to us as to lose all distinctness. Philosophers have spoken of them as forms of the human mind, but what is the mind without them? As then infinite time, or an existence out of time, which are the only possible explanations of eternal duration, are equally inconceivable to us, let us substitute for them a hundred or a thousand years after death, and ask not what will be our employment in eternity, but what will happen to us in that definite portion of time; or what is now happening to those who passed out of life a hundred or a thousand years ago. Do we imagine that the wicked are suffering torments, or that the good are singing the praises of God, during a period longer than that of a whole life, or of ten lives of men? Is the suffering physical or mental? And does the worship of God consist only of praise, or of many forms of service? Who are the wicked, and who are the good, whom we venture to divide by a hard and fast line; and in which of the two classes should we place ourselves and our friends? May we not suspect that we are making differences of kind, because we are unable to imagine differences of degree?—putting the whole human race into heaven or hell for the greater convenience of logical division? Are we not at the same time describing them both in superlatives, only that we may satisfy the demands of rhetoric? What is that pain which does not become deadened after a thousand years? or what is the nature of that pleasure or happiness which never wearies by monotony? Earthly pleasures and pains are short in proportion as they are keen; of any others which are both intense and lasting we have no experience, and can form no idea. The words or figures of speech which we use are not consistent with themselves. For are we not imagining Heaven under the similitude of a church, and Hell as a prison, or perhaps a madhouse or chamber of horrors? And yet to beings constituted as we are, the monotony of singing psalms would be as great an infliction as the pains of hell, and might be even pleasantly interrupted by them. Where are the actions worthy of rewards greater than those which are conferred on the greatest benefactors of mankind? And where are the crimes which according to Plato’s merciful reckoning,—more merciful, at any rate, than the eternal damnation of so-called Christian teachers,—for every ten years in this life deserve a hundred of punishment in the life to come? We should be ready to die of pity if we could see the least of the sufferings which the writers of Infernos and Purgatorios have attributed to the damned. Yet these joys and terrors seem hardly to exercise an appreciable influence over the lives of men. The wicked man when old, is not, as Plato supposes (Rep. i. 330 D, E), more agitated by the terrors of another world when he is nearer to them, nor the good in an ecstasy at the joys of which he is soon to be the partaker. Age numbs the sense of both worlds; and the habit of life is strongest in death. Even the dying mother is dreaming of her lost children as they were forty or fifty years before, ‘pattering over the boards,’ not of reunion with them in another state of being. Most persons when the last hour comes are resigned to the order of nature and the will of God. They are not thinking of Dante’s Inferno or Paradiso, or of the Pilgrim’s Progress. Heaven and hell are not realities to them, but words or ideas; the outward symbols of some great mystery, they hardly know what. Many noble poems and pictures have been suggested by the traditional representations of them, which have been fixed in forms of art and can no longer be altered. Many sermons have been filled with descriptions of celestial or infernal mansions. But hardly even in childhood did the thought of heaven and hell supply the motives of our actions, or at any time seriously affect the substance of our belief.

  8. Another life must be described, if at all, in forms of thought and not of sense. To draw pictures of heaven and hell, whether in the language of Scripture or any other, adds nothing to our real knowledge, but may perhaps disguise our ignorance. The truest conception which we can form of a future life is a state of progress or education—a progress from evil to good, from ignorance to knowledge. To this we are led by the analogy of the present life, in which we see different races and nations of men, and different men and women of the same nation, in various states or stages of cultivation; some more and some less developed, and all of them capable of improvement under favourable circumstances. There are punishments too of children when they are growing up inflicted by their parents, of elder offenders which are imposed by the law of the land, of all men at all times of life, which are attached by the laws of nature to the performance of certain actions. All these punishments are really educational; that is to say, they are not intended to retaliate on the offender, but to teach him a lesson. Also there is an element of chance in them, which is another name for our ignorance of the laws of nature. There is evil too inseparable from good (cp. Lysis 220 E); not always punished here, as good is not always rewarded. It is capable of being indefinitely diminished; and as knowledge increases, the element of chance may more and more disappear.

  For we do not argue merely from the analogy of the present state of this world to another, but from the analogy of a probable future to which we are tending. The greatest changes of which we have had experience as yet are due to our increasing knowledge of history and of nature. They have been produced by a few minds appearing in three or four favoured nations, in a comparatively short period of time. May we be allowed to imagine the minds of men everywhere working together during many ages for the completion of our knowledge? May not the science of physiology transform the world? Again, the majority of mankind have really experienced some moral improvement; almost every one feels that he has tendencies to good, and is capable of becoming better. And these germs of good are often found to be developed by new circumstances, like stunted trees when transplanted to a better soil. The differences between the savage and the civilized man, or between the civilized man in old and new countries, may be indefinitely increased. The first difference is the effect of a few thousand, the second of a few hundred years. We congratulate ourselves that slavery has become industry; that law and constitutional government have superseded despotism and violence; that an ethical religion has taken the place of Fetichism. There may yet come a time when the many may be as well off as the few; when no one will be weighed down by excessive toil; when the necessity of providing for the body will not interfere with mental improvement; when the physical frame may be strengthened and developed; and the religion of all men may become a reasonable service.

  Nothing therefore, either in the present state of man or in the tendencies of the future, as far as we can entertain conjecture of them, would lead us to suppose that God governs us vindictively in this world, and therefore we have no reason to infer that he will govern us vindictively in another. The true argument from analogy is not, ‘This life is a mixed state of justice and injustice, of great waste, of sudden casualties, of disproportionate punishments, and therefore the like inconsistencies, irregularities, injustices are to be expected in another;’ but ‘This life is subject to law, and is in a state of progress, and therefore law and progress may be believed to be the governing principles of another.’ All the analogies of this world would be against unmeaning punishments inflicted a hundred or a thousand years after an offence had been committed. Suffering there might be as a part of education, but not hopeless or protracted; as there might be a retrogression of individuals or of bodies of men, yet not such as to interfere with a plan for the improvement of the whole (cp. Laws, x. 903).

  9. But some one will say: That we cannot reason from the seen to the unseen, and that we are creating another world after the image of this, just as men in former ages have created gods in their own likeness. And we, like the companions of Socrates, may feel discouraged at hearing our favourite ‘argument from analogy’ thus summarily disposed of. Like himself, too, we may adduce other arguments in which he seems to have anticipated us, though he expresses them in different language. For we feel that the soul partakes of the ideal and invisible; and can never fall into the error of confusing the external circumstances of man with his higher self; or his origin with his nature. It is as repugnant to us as it was to him to imagine that our moral ideas are to be attributed only to cerebral forces. The value of a human soul, like the value of a man’s life to himself, is inestimable, and cannot be reckoned in earthly or material things. The human being alone has the consciousness of truth and justice and love, which is the consciousness of God. And the soul becoming more conscious of these, becomes more conscious of her own immortality.

  10. The last ground of our belief in immortality, and the strongest, is the perfection of the divine nature. The mere fact of the existence of God does not tend to show the continued existence of man. An evil God or an indifferent God might have had the power, but not the will, to preserve us. He might have regarded us as fitted to minister to his service by a succession of existences,—like the animals, without attributing to each soul an incomparable value. But if he is perfect, he must will that all rational beings should partake of that perfection which he himself is. In the words of the Timaeus, he is good, and therefore he desires that all other things should be as like himself as possible. And the manner in which he accomplishes this is by permitting evil, or rather degrees of good, which are otherwise called evil. For all progress is good relatively to the past, and yet may be comparatively evil when regarded in the light of the future. Good and evil are relative terms, and degrees of evil are merely the negative aspect of degrees of good. Of the absolute goodness of any finite nature we can form no conception; we are all of us in process of transition from one degree of good or evil to another. The difficulties which are urged about the origin or existence of evil are mere dialectical puzzles, standing in the same relation to Christian philosophy as the puzzles of the Cynics and Megarians to the philosophy of Plato. They arise out of the tendency of the human mind to regard good and evil both as relative and absolute; just as the riddles about motion are to be explained by the double conception of space or matter, which the human mind has the power of regarding either as continuous or discrete.

  In speaking of divine perfection, we mean to say that God is just and true and loving, the author of order and not of disorder, of good and not of evil. Or rather, that he is justice, that he is truth, that he is love, that he is order, that he is the very progress of which we were speaking; and that wherever these qualities are present, whether in the human soul or in the order of nature, there is God. We might still see him everywhere, if we had not been mistakenly seeking for him apart from us, instead of in us; away from the laws of nature, instead of in them. And we become united to him not by mystical absorption, but by partaking, whether consciously or unconsciously, of that truth and justice and love which he himself is.

  Thus the belief in the immortality of the soul rests at last on the belief in God. If there is a good and wise God, then there is a progress of mankind towards perfection; and if there is no progress of men towards perfection, then there is no good and wise God. We cannot suppose that the moral government of God of which we see the beginnings in the world and in ourselves will cease when we pass out of life.

  11. Considering the ‘feebleness of the human faculties and the uncertainty of the subject,’ we are inclined to believe that the fewer our words the better. At the approach of death there is not much said; good men are too honest to go out of the world professing more than they know. There is perhaps no important subject about which, at any time, even religious people speak so little to one another. In the fulness of life the thought of death is mostly awakened by the sight or recollection of the death of others rather than by the prospect of our own. We must also acknowledge that there are degrees of the belief in immortality, and many forms in which it presents itself to the mind. Some persons will say no more than that they trust in God, and that they leave all to Him. It is a great part of true religion not to pretend to know more than we do. Others when they quit this world are comforted with the hope ‘That they will see and know their friends in heaven.’ But it is better to leave them in the hands of God and to be assured that ‘no evil shall touch them.’ There are others again to whom the belief in a divine personality has ceased to have any longer a meaning; yet they are satisfied that the end of all is not here, but that something still remains to us, ‘and some better thing for the good than for the evil.’ They are persuaded, in spite of their theological nihilism, that the ideas of justice and truth and holiness and love are realities. They cherish an enthusiastic devotion to the first principles of morality. Through these they see, or seem to see, darkly, and in a figure, that the soul is immortal.

  But besides differences of theological opinion which must ever prevail about things unseen, the hope of immortaility is weaker or stronger in men at one time of life than at another; it even varies from day to day. It comes and goes; the mind, like the sky, is apt to be overclouded. Other generations of men may have sometimes lived under an ‘eclipse of faith,’ to us the total disappearance of it might be compared to the ‘sun falling from heaven.’ And we may sometimes have to begin again and acquire the belief for ourselves; or to win it back again when it is lost. It is really weakest in the hour of death. For Nature, like a kind mother or nurse, lays us to sleep without frightening us; physicians, who are the witnesses of such scenes, say that under ordinary circumstances there is no fear of the future. Often, as Plato tells us, death is accompanied ‘with pleasure.’ (Tim. 81 D.) When the end is still uncertain, the cry of many a one has been, ‘Pray, that I may be taken.’ The last thoughts even of the best men depend chiefly on the accidents of their bodily state. Pain soon overpowers the desire of life; old age, like the child, is laid to sleep almost in a moment. The long experience of life will often destroy the interest which mankind have in it. So various are the feelings with which different persons draw near to death; and still more various the forms in which imagination clothes it. For this alternation of feeling cp. the Old Testament,—Psalm vi. 5, xvi. 10, xc; Isaiah xxxviii. 18; Eccles. viii. 8 ff., iii. 19, iv. 2.

  12. When we think of God and of man in his relation to God; of the imperfection of our present state and yet of the progress which is observable in the history of the world and of the human mind; of the depth and power of our moral ideas which seem to partake of the very nature of God Himself; when we consider the contrast between the physical laws to which we are subject and the higher law which raises us above them and is yet a part of them; when we reflect on our capacity of becoming the ‘spectators of all time and all existence,’ and of framing in our own minds the ideal of a perfect Being; when we see how the human mind in all the higher religions of the world, including Buddhism, notwithstanding some aberrations, has tended towards such a belief—we have reason to think that our destiny is different from that of animals; and though we cannot altogether shut out the childish fear that the soul upon leaving the body may ‘vanish into thin air,’ we have still, so far as the nature of the subject admits, a hope of immortality with which we comfort ourselves on sufficient grounds. The denial of the belief takes the heart out of human life; it lowers men to the level of the material. As Goethe also says, ‘He is dead even in this world who has no belief in another.’

  13. It is well also that we should sometimes think of the forms of thought under which the idea of immortality is most naturally presented to us. It is clear that to our minds the risen soul can no longer be described, as in a picture, by the symbol of a creature half bird, half-human, nor in any other form of sense. The multitude of angels, as in Milton, singing the Almighty’s praises, are a noble image, and may furnish a theme for the poet or the painter, but they are no longer an adequate expression of the kingdom of God which is within us. Neither is there any mansion, in this world or another, in which the departed can be imagined to dwell and carry on their occupations. When this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, no other habitation or building can take them in: it is in the language of ideas only that we speak of them.

  First of all there is the thought of rest and freedom from pain; they have gone home, as the common saying is, and the cares of this world touch them no more. Secondly, we may imagine them as they were at their best and brightest, humbly fulfilling their daily round of duties—selfless, childlike, unaffected by the world; when the eye was single and the whole body seemed to be full of light; when the mind was clear and saw into the purposes of God. Thirdly, we may think of them as possessed by a great love of God and man, working out His will at a further stage in the heavenly pilgrimage. And yet we acknowledge that these are the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard and therefore it hath not entered into the heart of man in any sensible manner to conceive them. Fourthly, there may have been some moments in our own lives when we have risen above ourselves, or been conscious of our truer selves, in which the will of God has superseded our wills, and we have entered into communion with Him, and been partakers for a brief season of the Divine truth and love, in which like Christ we have been inspired to utter the prayer, ‘I in them, and thou in me, that we may be all made perfect in one.’ These precious moments, if we have ever known them, are the nearest approach which we can make to the idea of immortality.

  14. Returning now to the earlier stage of human thought which is represented by the writings of Plato, we find that many of the same questions have already arisen: there is the same tendency to materialism; the same inconsistency in the application of the idea of mind; the same doubt whether the soul is to be regarded as a cause or as an effect; the same falling back on moral convictions. In the Phaedo the soul is conscious of her divine nature, and the separation from the body which has been commenced in this life is perfected in another. Beginning in mystery, Socrates, in the intermediate part of the Dialogue, attempts to bring the doctrine of a future life into connection with his theory of knowledge. In proportion as he succeeds in this, the individual seems to disappear in a more general notion of the soul; the contemplation of ideas ‘under the form of eternity’ takes the place of past and future states of existence. His language may be compared to that of some modern philosophers, who speak of eternity, not in the sense of perpetual duration of time, but as an ever-present quality of the soul. Yet at the conclusion of the Dialogue, having ‘arrived at the end of the intellectual world’ (Rep. vii. 532 B), he replaces the veil of mythology, and describes the soul and her attendant genius in the language of the mysteries or of a disciple of Zoroaster. Nor can we fairly demand of Plato a consistency which is wanting among ourselves, who acknowledge that another world is beyond the range of human thought, and yet are always seeking to represent the mansions of heaven or hell in the colours of the painter, or in the descriptions of the poet or rhetorician.

  15. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not new to the Greeks in the age of Socrates, but, like the unity of God, had a foundation in the popular belief. The old Homeric notion of a gibbering ghost flitting away to Hades; or of a few illustrious heroes enjoying the isles of the blest; or of an existence divided between the two; or the Hesiodic, of righteous spirits, who become guardian angels,—had given place in the mysteries and the Orphic poets to representations, partly fanciful, of a future state of rewards and punishments. (Laws ix. 870.) The reticence of the Greeks on public occasions and in some part of their literature respecting this ‘underground’ religion, is not to be taken as a measure of the diffusion of such beliefs. If Pericles in the funeral oration is silent on the consolations of immortality, the poet Pindar and the tragedians on the other hand constantly assume the continued existence of the dead in an upper or under world. Darius and Laius are still alive; Antigone will be dear to her brethren after death; the way to the palace of Cronos is found by those who ‘have thrice departed from evil.’ The tragedy of the Greeks is not ‘rounded’ by this life, but is deeply set in decrees of fate and mysterious workings of powers beneath the earth. In the caricature of Aristophanes there is also a witness to the common sentiment. The Ionian and Pythagorean philosophies arose, and some new elements were added to the popular belief. The individual must find an expression as well as the world. Either the soul was supposed to exist in the form of a magnet, or of a particle of fire, or of light, or air, or water; or of a number or of a harmony of number; or to be or have, like the stars, a principle of motion (Arist. de Anim. i. 1, 2, 3). At length Anaxagoras, hardly distinguishing between life and mind, or between mind human and divine, attained the pure abstraction; and this, like the other abstractions of Greek philosophy, sank deep into the human intelligence. The opposition of the intelligible and the sensible, and of God to the world, supplied an analogy which assisted in the separation of soul and body. If ideas were separable from phenomena, mind was also separable from matter; if the ideas were eternal, the mind that conceived them was eternal too. As the unity of God was more distinctly acknowledged, the conception of the human soul became more developed. The succession, or alternation of life and death, had occurred to Heracleitus. The Eleatic Parmenides had stumbled upon the modern thesis, that ‘thought and being are the same.’ The Eastern belief in transmigration defined the sense of individuality; and some, like Empedocles, fancied that the blood which they had shed in another state of being was crying against them, and that for thirty thousand years they were to be ‘fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth.’ The desire of recognizing a lost mother or love or friend in the world below (Phaedo 68) was a natural feeling which, in that age as well as in every other, has given distinctness to the hope of immortality. Nor were ethical considerations wanting, partly derived from the necessity of punishing the greater sort of criminals, whom no avenging power of this world could reach. The voice of conscience, too, was heard reminding the good man that he was not altogether innocent. (Rep. i. 330.) To these indistinct longings and fears an expression was given in the mysteries and Orphic poets: a ‘heap of books’ (Rep. ii. 364 E), passing under the names of Musaeus and Orpheus in Plato’s time, were filled with notions of an under-world.

  16. Yet after all the belief in the individuality of the soul after death had but a feeble hold on the Greek mind. Like the personality of God, the personality of man in a future state was not inseparably bound up with the reality of his existence. For the distinction between the personal and impersonal, and also between the divine and human, was far less marked to the Greek than to ourselves. And as Plato readily passes from the notion of the good to that of God, he also passes almost imperceptibly to himself and his reader from the future life of the individual soul to the eternal being of the absolute soul. There has been a clearer statement and a clearer denial of the belief in modern times than is found in early Greek philosophy, and hence the comparative silence on the whole subject which is often remarked in ancient writers, and particularly in Aristotle. For Plato and Aristotle are not further removed in their teaching about the immortality of the soul than they are in their theory of knowledge.

  17. Living in an age when logic was beginning to mould human thought, Plato naturally cast his belief in immortality into a logical form. And when we consider how much the doctrine of ideas was also one of words, it is not surprising that he should have fallen into verbal fallacies: early logic is always mistaking the truth of the form for the truth of the matter. It is easy to see that the alternation of opposites is not the same as the generation of them out of each other; and that the generation of them out of each other, which is the first argument in the Phaedo, is at variance with their mutual exclusion of each other, whether in themselves or in us, which is the last. For even if we admit the distinction which he draws at p. 103, between the opposites and the things which have the opposites, still individuals fall under the latter class; and we have to pass out of the region of human hopes and fears to a conception of an abstract soul which is the impersonation of the ideas. Such a conception, which in Plato himself is but half expressed, is unmeaning to us, and relative only to a particular stage in the history of thought. The doctrine of reminiscence is also a fragment of a former world, which has no place in the philosophy of modern times. But Plato had the wonders of psychology just opening to him, and he had not the explanation of them which is supplied by the analysis of language and the history of the human mind. The question, ‘Whence come our abstract ideas?’ he could only answer by an imaginary hypothesis. Nor is it difficult to see that his crowning argument is purely verbal, and is but the expression of an instinctive confidence put into a logical form:—‘The soul is immortal because it contains a principle of imperishableness.’ Nor does he himself seem at all to be aware that nothing is added to human knowledge by his ‘safe and simple answer,’ that beauty is the cause of the beautiful; and that he is merely reasserting the Eleatic being ‘divided by the Pythagorean numbers,’ against the Heracleitean doctrine of perpetual generation. The answer to the ‘very serious question’ of generation and destruction is really the denial of them. For this he would substitute, as in the Republic, a system of ideas, tested, not by experience, but by their consequences, and not explained by actual causes, but by a higher, that is, a more general notion. Consistency with themselves is the only test which is to be applied to them. (Rep. vi. 510 foll., and Phaedo 101 foll.)

  18. To deal fairly with such arguments, they should be translated as far as possible into their modern equivalents. ‘If the ideas of men are eternal, their souls are eternal, and if not the ideas, then not the souls.’ Such an argument stands nearly in the same relation to Plato and his age, as the argument from the existence of God to immortality among ourselves. ‘If God exists, then the soul exists after death; and if there is no God, there is no existence of the soul after death.’ For the ideas are to his mind the reality, the truth, the principle of permanence, as well as of intelligence and order in the world. When Simmias and Cebes say that they are more strongly persuaded of the existence of ideas than they are of the immortality of the soul, they represent fairly enough the order of thought in Greek philosophy. And we might say in the same way that we are more certain of the existence of God than we are of the immortality of the soul, and are led by the belief in the one to a belief in the other. The parallel, as Socrates would say, is not perfect, but agrees in as far as the mind in either case is regarded as dependent on something above and beyond herself. The analogy may even be pressed a step further: ‘We are more certain of our ideas of truth and right than we are of the existence of God, and are led on in the order of thought from one to the other.’ Or more correctly: ‘The existence of right and truth is the existence of God, and can never for a moment be separated from Him.’

  19. The main argument of the Phaedo is derived from the existence of eternal ideas of which the soul is a partaker; the other argument of the alternation of opposites is replaced by this. And there have not been wanting philosophers of the idealist school who have imagined that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is a theory of knowledge, and that in what has preceded Plato is accommodating himself to the popular belief. Such a view can only be elicited from the Phaedo by what may be termed the transcendental method of interpretation, and is obviously inconsistent with the Gorgias and the Republic. Those who maintain it are immediately compelled to renounce the shadow which they have grasped, as a play of words only. But the truth is, that Plato in his argument for the immortality of the soul has collected many elements of proof or persuasion, ethical and mythological as well as dialectical, which are not easily to be reconciled with one another; and he is as much in earnest about his doctrine of retribution, which is repeated in all his more ethical writings, as about his theory of knowledge. And while we may fairly translate the dialectical into the language of Hegel, and the religious and mythological into the language of Dante or Bunyan, the ethical speaks to us still in the same voice, and appeals to a common feeling.

  20. Two arguments of this ethical character occur in the Phaedo. The first may be described as the aspiration of the soul after another state of being. Like the Oriental or Christian mystic, the philosopher is seeking to withdraw from impurities of sense, to leave the world and the things of the world, and to find his higher self. Plato recognizes in these aspirations the foretaste of immortality; as Butler and Addison in modern times have argued, the one from the moral tendencies of mankind, the other from the progress of the soul towards perfection. In using this argument Plato has certainly confused the soul which has left the body, with the soul of the good and wise. (Cp. Rep. x. 611 C.) Such a confusion was natural, and arose partly out of the antithesis of soul and body. The soul in her own essence, and the soul ‘clothed upon’ with virtues and graces, were easily interchanged with one another, because on a subject which passes expression the distinctions of language can hardly be maintained.

  21. The other ethical proof of the immortality of the soul is derived from the necessity of retribution. The wicked would be too well off if their evil deeds came to an end. It is not to be supposed that an Ardiaeus, an Archelaus, an Ismenias could ever have suffered the penalty of their crimes in this world. The manner in which this retribution is accomplished Plato represents under the figures of mythology. Doubtless he felt that it was easier to improve than to invent, and that in religion especially the traditional form was required in order to give verisimilitude to the myth. The myth too is far more probable to that age than to ours, and may fairly be regarded as ‘one guess among many’ about the nature of the earth, which he cleverly supports by the indications of geology. Not that he insists on the absolute truth of his own particular notions: ‘no man of sense will be confident in such matters; but he will be confident that something of the kind is true’ (114 D). As in other passages (Gorg. 527 A, Tim. 29 D; cp. Crito, 107 B), he wins belief for his fictions by the moderation of his statements; he does not, like Dante or Swedenborg, allow himself to be deceived by his own creations.

  The Dialogue must be read in the light of the situation. And first of all we are struck by the calmness of the scene. Like the spectators at the time, we cannot pity Socrates; his mien and his language are so noble and fearless. He is the same that he ever was, but milder and gentler, and he has in no degree lost his interest in dialectics; he will not forego the delight of an argument in compliance with the jailer’s intimation that he should not heat himself with talking. At such a time he naturally expresses the hope of his life, that he has been a true mystic and not a mere routineer or wand-bearer: and he refers to passages of his personal history. To his old enemies the Comic poets, and to the proceedings on the trial, he alludes playfully; but he vividly remembers the disappointment which he felt in reading the books of Anaxagoras. The return of Xanthippe and his children indicates that the philosopher is not ‘made of oak or rock.’ Some other traits of his character may be noted; for example, the courteous manner in which he inclines his head to the last objector, or the ironical touch, ‘Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls;’ or the depreciation of the arguments with which ‘he comforted himself and them;’ or his fear of ‘misology;’ or his references to Homer; or the playful smile with which he ‘talks like a book’ about greater and less; or the allusion to the possibility of finding another teacher among barbarous races (cp. Polit. 262 D); or the mysterious reference to another science (mathematics?) of generation and destruction for which he is vainly feeling. There is no change in him; only now he is invested with a sort of sacred character, as the prophet or priest of Apollo the God of the festival, in whose honour he first of all composes a hymn, and then like the swan pours forth his dying lay. Perhaps the extreme elevation of Socrates above his own situation, and the ordinary interests of life (compare his jeu d’esprit about his burial, in which for a moment he puts on the ‘Silenus mask’), create in the mind of the reader an impression stronger than could be derived from arguments that such a one has in him ‘a principle which does not admit of death.’

  The other persons of the Dialogue may be considered under two heads: (1) private friends; (2) the respondents in the argument.

  First there is Crito, who has been already introduced to us in the Euthydemus and the Crito; he is the equal in years of Socrates, and stands in quite a different relation to him from his younger disciples. He is a man of the world who is rich and prosperous (cp. the jest in the Euthydemus, 304 C), the best friend of Socrates, who wants to know his commands, in whose presence he talks to his family, and who performs the last duty of closing his eyes. It is observable too that, as in the Euthydemus, Crito shows no aptitude for philosophical discussions. Nor among the friends of Socrates must the jailer be forgotten, who seems to have been introduced by Plato in order to show the impression made by the extraordinary man on the common. The gentle nature of the man is indicated by his weeping at the announcement of his errand and then turning away, and also by the words of Socrates to his disciples: ‘How charming the man is! since I have been in prison he has been always coming to me, and is as good as could be to me.’ We are reminded too that he has retained this gentle nature amid scenes of death and violence by the contrasts which he draws between the behaviour of Socrates and of others when about to die.

  Another person who takes no part in the philosophical discussion is the excitable Apollodorus, the same who, in the Symposium, of which he is the narrator, is called ‘the madman,’ and who testifies his grief by the most violent emotions. Phaedo is also present, the ‘beloved disciple’ as he may be termed, who is described, if not ‘leaning on his bosom,’ as seated next to Socrates, who is playing with his hair. He too, like Apollodorus, takes no part in the discussion, but he loves above all things to hear and speak of Socrates after his death. The calmness of his behaviour, veiling his face when he can no longer restrain his tears, contrasts with the passionate outcries of the other. At a particular point the argument is described as falling before the attack of Simmias. A sort of despair is introduced in the minds of the company. The effect of this is heightened by the description of Phaedo, who has been the eye-witness of the scene, and by the sympathy of his Phliasian auditors who are beginning to think ‘that they too can never trust an argument again.’ And the intense interest of the company is communicated not only to the first auditors, but to us who in a distant country read the narrative of their emotions after more than two thousand years have passed away.

  The two principal interlocutors are Simmias and Cebes, the disciples of Philolaus the Pythagorean philosopher of Thebes. Simmias is described in the Phaedrus (242 B) as fonder of an argument than any man living; and Cebes, although finally persuaded by Socrates, is said to be the most incredulous of human beings. It is Cebes who at the commencement of the Dialogue asks why ‘suicide is held to be unlawful,’ and who first supplies the doctrine of recollection in confirmation of the pre-existence of the soul. It is Cebes who urges that the pre-existence does not necessarily involve the future existence of the soul, as is shown by the illustration of the weaver and his coat. Simmias, on the other hand, raises the question about harmony and the lyre, which is naturally put into the mouth of a Pythagorean disciple. It is Simmias, too, who first remarks on the uncertainty of human knowledge, and only at last concedes to the argument such a qualified approval as is consistent with the feebleness of the human faculties. Cebes is the deeper and more consecutive thinker, Simmias more superficial and rhetorical; they are distinguished in much the same manner as Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Republic.

  Other persons, Menexenus, Ctesippus, Lysis, are old friends; Evenus has been already satirized in the Apology; Aeschines and Epigenes were present at the trial; Euclid and Terpsion will reappear in the Introduction to the Theaetetus, Hermogenes has already appeared in the Cratylus. No inference can fairly be drawn from the absence of Aristippus, nor from the omission of Xenophon, who at the time of Socrates’ death was in Asia. The mention of Plato’s own absence seems like an expression of sorrow, and may, perhaps, be an indication that the report of the conversation is not to be taken literally.

  The place of the Dialogue in the series is doubtful. The doctrine of ideas is certainly carried beyond the Socratic point of view; in no other of the writings of Plato is the theory of them so completely developed. Whether the belief in immortality can be attributed to Socrates or not is uncertain; the silence of the Memorabilia, and of the earlier Dialogues of Plato, is an argument to the contrary. Yet in the Cyropaedia Xenophon (viii. 7, 19 foll.) has put language into the mouth of the dying Cyrus which recalls the Phaedo, and may have been derived from the teaching of Socrates. It may be fairly urged that the greatest religious interest of mankind could not have been wholly ignored by one who passed his life in fulfilling the commands of an oracle, and who recognized a Divine plan in man and nature. (Xen. Mem. 1, 4.) And the language of the Apology and of the Crito confirms this view.

  The Phaedo is not one of the Socratic Dialogues of Plato; nor, on the other hand, can it be assigned to that later stage of the Platonic writings at which the doctrine of ideas appears to be forgotten. It belongs rather to the intermediate period of the Platonic philosophy, which roughly corresponds to the Phaedrus, Gorgias, Republic, Theaetetus. Without pretending to determine the real time of their composition, the Symposium, Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Phaedo may be conveniently read by us in this order as illustrative of the life of Socrates. Another chain may be formed of the Meno, Phaedrus, Phaedo, in which the immortality of the soul is connected with the doctrine of ideas. In the Meno the theory of ideas is based on the ancient belief in transmigration, which reappears again in the Phaedrus as well as in the Republic and Timaeus, and in all of them is connected with a doctrine of retribution. In the Phaedrus the immortality of the soul is supposed to rest on the conception of the soul as a principle of motion, whereas in the Republic the argument turns on the natural continuance of the soul, which, if not destroyed by her own proper evil, can hardly be destroyed by any other. The soul of man in the Timaeus (42 foll.) is derived from the Supreme Creator, and either returns after death to her kindred star, or descends into the lower life of an animal. The Apology expresses the same view as the Phaedo, but with less confidence; there the probability of death being a long sleep is not excluded. The Theaetetus also describes, in a digression, the desire of the soul to fly away and be with God—‘and to fly to him is to be like him’ (176 B). The Symposium may be observed to resemble as well as to differ from the Phaedo. While the first notion of immortality is only in the way of natural procreation or of posthumous fame and glory, the higher revelation of beauty, like the good in the Republic, is the vision of the eternal idea. So deeply rooted in Plato’s mind is the belief in immortality; so various are the forms of expression which he employs.

  As in several other Dialogues, there is more of system in the Phaedo than appears at first sight. The succession of arguments is based on previous philosophies; beginning with the mysteries and the Heracleitean alternation of opposites, and proceeding to the Pythagorean harmony and transmigration; making a step by the aid of Platonic reminiscence, and a further step by the help of the νο[Editor: illegible character]ς of Anaxagoras; until at last we rest in the conviction that the soul is inseparable from the ideas, and belongs to the world of the invisible and unknown. Then, as in the Gorgias or Republic, the curtain falls, and the veil of mythology descends upon the argument. After the confession of Socrates that he is an interested party, and the acknowledgment that no man of sense will think the details of his narrative true, but that something of the kind is true, we return from speculation to practice. He is himself more confident of immortality than he is of his own arguments; and the confidence which he expresses is less strong than that which his cheerfulness and composure in death inspire in us.

  Difficulties of two kinds occur in the Phaedo—one kind to be explained out of contemporary philosophy, the other not admitting of an entire solution. (1) The difficulty which Socrates says that he experienced in explaining generation and corruption; the assumption of hypotheses which proceed from the less general to the more general, and are tested by their consequences; the puzzle about greater and less; the resort to the method of ideas, which to us appear only abstract terms,—these are to be explained out of the position of Socrates and Plato in the history of philosophy. They were living in a twilight between the sensible and the intellectual world, and saw no way of connecting them. They could neither explain the relation of ideas to phenomena, nor their correlation to one another. The very idea of relation or comparison was embarrassing to them. Yet in this intellectual uncertainty they had a conception of a proof from results, and of a moral truth, which remained unshaken amid the questionings of philosophy. (2) The other is a difficulty which is touched upon in the Republic as well as in the Phaedo, and is common to modern and ancient philosophy. Plato is not altogether satisfied with his safe and simple method of ideas. He wants to have proved to him by facts that all things are for the best, and that there is one mind or design which pervades them all. But this ‘power of the best’ he is unable to explain; and therefore takes refuge in universal ideas. And are not we at this day seeking to discover that which Socrates in a glass darkly foresaw?

  Some resemblances to the Greek drama may be noted in all the Dialogues of Plato. The Phaedo is the tragedy of which Socrates is the protagonist and Simmias and Cebes the secondary performers, standing to them in the same relation as to Glaucon and Adeimantus in the Republic. No Dialogue has a greater unity of subject and feeling. Plato has certainly fulfilled the condition of Greek, or rather of all art, which requires that scenes of death and suffering should be clothed in beauty. The gathering of the friends at the commencement of the Dialogue, the dismissal of Xanthippè, whose presence would have been out of place at a philosophical discussion, but who returns again with her children to take a final farewell, the dejection of the audience at the temporary overthrow of the argument, the picture of Socrates playing with the hair of Phaedo, the final scene in which Socrates alone retains his composure—are masterpieces of art. And the chorus at the end might have interpreted the feeling of the play: ‘There can no evil happen to a good man in life or death.’

  ‘The art of concealing art’ is nowhere more perfect than in those writings of Plato which describe the trial and death of Socrates. Their charm is their simplicity, which gives them verisimilitude; and yet they touch, as if incidentally, and because they were suitable to the occasion, on some of the deepest truths of philosophy. There is nothing in any tragedy, ancient or modern, nothing in poetry or history (with one exception), like the last hours of Socrates in Plato. The master could not be more fitly occupied at such a time than in discoursing of immortality; nor the disciples more divinely consoled. The arguments, taken in the spirit and not in the letter, are our arguments; and Socrates by anticipation may be even thought to refute some ‘eccentric notions’ current in our own age. For there are philosophers among ourselves who do not seem to understand how much stronger is the power of intelligence, or of the best, than of Atlas, or mechanical force. How far the words attributed to Socrates were actually uttered by him we forbear to ask; for no answer can be given to this question. And it is better to resign ourselves to the feeling of a great work, than to linger among critical uncertainties.

  PHAEDO.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Phaedo,who is the narrator of the Dialogue to

  Echecrates of Phlius.

  Socrates.

  Attendant of the Prison.

  Apollodorus.

  Simmias.

  Cebes.

  Crito.

  Scene:—The Prison of Socrates.

  Place of the Narration:—Phlius.

  Echecrates.

  Phaedo.Echecrates, Phaedo.

  57Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on the day when he drank the poison?

  Phaedo.

  Yes, Echecrates, I was.

  Ech.

  I should so like to hear about his death. What did he say in his last hours? We were informed that he died by taking poison, but no one knew anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to Athens now, and it is a long time since any stranger from Athens has found his way hither; so that we had no clear account.

  Phaed.

  58Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial?

  Ech.

  Yes; some one told us about the trial, and we could not understand why, having been condemned, he should have been put to death, not at the time, but long afterwards. What was the reason of this?

  Phaed.

  The death of Socrates was deferred by the holy season of the mission to Delos.

  An accident, Echecrates: the stern of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos happened to have been crowned on the day before he was tried.

  Ech.

  What is this ship?

  Phaed.

  It is the ship in which, according to Athenian tradition, Theseus went to Crete when he took with him the fourteen youths, and was the saviour of them and of himself. And they are said to have vowed to Apollo at the time, that if they were saved they would send a yearly mission to Delos. Now this custom still continues, and the whole period of the voyage to and from Delos, beginning when the priest of Apollo crowns the stern of the ship, is a holy season, during which the city is not allowed to be polluted by public executions; and when the vessel is detained by contrary winds, the time spent in going and returning is very considerable. As I was saying, the ship was crowned on the day before the trial, and this was the reason why Socrates lay in prison and was not put to death until long after he was condemned.

  Ech.

  What was the manner of his death, Phaedo? What was said or done? And which of his friends were with him? Or did the authorities forbid them to be present—so that he had no friends near him when he died?

  Phaed.

  No; there were several of them with him.

  Ech.

  Phaedo is requested by Echecrates to give an account of the death of Socrates.

  If you have nothing to do, I wish that you would tell me what passed, as exactly as you can.

  Phaed.

  I have nothing at all to do, and will try to gratify your wish. To be reminded of Socrates is always the greatest delight to me, whether I speak myself or hear another speak of him.

  Ech.

  You will have listeners who are of the same mind with you, and I hope that you will be as exact as you can.

  Phaed.

  He describes his noble and fearless demeanour.

  I had a singular feeling at being in his company. For I could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and his words and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he appeared blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever 59was, when he arrived there; and therefore I did not pity him as might have seemed natural at such an hour. But I had not the pleasure which I usually feel in philosophical discourse (for philosophy was the theme of which we spoke). I was pleased, but in the pleasure there was also a strange admixture of pain; for I reflected that he was soon to die, and this double feeling was shared by us all; we were laughing and weeping by turns, especially the excitable Apollodorus—you know the sort of man?

  Ech.

  Yes.

  Phaed.

  He was quite beside himself; and I and all of us were greatly moved.

  Ech.

  Who were present?

  Phaed.

  The Socratic circle:—the absence of Plato is noted.

  Of native Athenians there were, besides Apollodorus, Critobulus and his father Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, Antisthenes; likewise Ctesippus of the deme of Paeania, Menexenus, and some others; Plato, if I am not mistaken, was ill.

  Ech.

  Were there any strangers?

  Phaed.

  Yes, there were; Simmias the Theban, and Cebes, and Phaedondes; Euclid and Terpsion, who came from Megara.

  Ech.

  And was Aristippus there, and Cleombrotus?

  Phaed.

  No, they were said to be in Aegina.

  Ech.

  Any one else?

  Phaed.

  I think that these were nearly all.

  Ech.

  Well, and what did you talk about?

  Phaed.

  The meeting at the prison.The friends are denied admission while the Eleven are with Socrates.Socrates, Cebes.Socrates, whose chains have now been taken off, is led by the feeling of relief to remark on the curious manner in which pleasure and pain are always conjoined.

  I will begin at the beginning, and endeavour to repeat the entire conversation. On the previous days we had been in the habit of assembling early in the morning at the court in which the trial took place, and which is not far from the prison. There we used to wait talking with one another until the opening of the doors (for they were not opened very early); then we went in and generally passed the day with Socrates. On the last morning we assembled sooner than usual, having heard on the day before when we quitted the prison in the evening that the sacred ship had come from Delos; and so we arranged to meet very early at the accustomed place. On our arrival the jailer who answered the door, instead of admitting us, came out and told us to stay until he called us. ‘For the Eleven,’ he said, ‘are now with Socrates; they are taking off his chains, and giving orders that he is to die to-day.’ He soon returned 60and said that we might come in. On entering we found Socrates just released from chains, and Xanthippè, whom you know, sitting by him, and holding his child in her arms. When she saw us she uttered a cry and said, as women will: ‘O Socrates, this is the last time that either you will converse with your friends, or they with you.’ Socrates turned to Crito and said: ‘Crito, let some one take her home.’ Some of Crito’s people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating herself. And when she was gone, Socrates, sitting up on the couch, bent and rubbed his leg, saying, as he was rubbing: How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they are never present to a man at the same instant, and yet he who pursues either is generally compelled to take the other; their bodies are two, but they are joined by a single head. And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had remembered them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and how, when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows: as I know by my own experience now, when after the pain in my leg which was caused by the chain pleasure appears to succeed.

  Upon this Cebes said: I am glad, Socrates, that you have mentioned the name of Aesop. For it reminds me of a question which has been asked by many, and was asked of me only the day before yesterday by Evenus the poet—he will be sure to ask it again, and therefore if you would like me to have an answer ready for him, you may as well tell me what I should say to him:—he wanted to know why you, who never before wrote a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are turning Aesop’s fables into verse, and also composing that hymn in honour of Apollo.

  Having been told in a dream that he should compose music, in order to satisfy a scruple about the meaning of the dream he has been writing verses while he was in prison.Socrates, Simmias, Cebes.Evenus the poet had been curious about the meaning of this behaviour of his, and Socrates gives him the explanation of it, bidding him be of good cheer, and come after him. ‘But he will not come.’

  Tell him, Cebes, he replied, what is the truth—that I had no idea of rivalling him or his poems; to do so, as I knew, would be no easy task. But I wanted to see whether I could purge away a scruple which I felt about the meaning of certain dreams. In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams ‘that I should compose music.’ The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: ‘Cultivate and make music,’ said the dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which 61has been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music. The dream was bidding me do what I was already doing, in the same way that the competitor in a race is bidden by the spectators to run when he is already running. But I was not certain of this; for the dream might have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, to compose a few verses before I departed. And first I made a hymn in honour of the god of the festival, and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet, should not only put together words, but should invent stories, and that I have no invention, I took some fables of Aesop, which I had ready at hand and which I knew—they were the first I came upon—and turned them into verse. Tell this to Evenus, Cebes, and bid him be of good cheer; say that I would have him come after me if he be a wise man, and not tarry; and that to-day I am likely to be going, for the Athenians say that I must.

  Simmias said: What a message for such a man! having been a frequent companion of his I should say that, as far as I know him, he will never take your advice unless he is obliged.

  Why, said Socrates,—is not Evenus a philosopher?

  I think that he is, said Simmias.

  Then he, or any man who has the spirit of philosophy, will be willing to die; but he will not take his own life, for that is held to be unlawful.

  Here he changed his position, and put his legs off the couch on to the ground, and during the rest of the conversation he remained sitting.

  Why do you say, enquired Cebes, that a man ought not to take his own life, but that the philosopher will be ready to follow the dying?

  Socrates replies that a philosopher like Evenus should be ready to die, though he must not take his own life.

  Socrates replied: And have you, Cebes and Simmias, who are the disciples of Philolaus, never heard him speak of this?

  Yes, but his language was obscure, Socrates.

  My words, too, are only an echo; but there is no reason why I should not repeat what I have heard: and indeed, as I am going to another place, it is very meet for me to be thinking and talking of the nature of the pilgrimage which I am about to make. What can I do better in the interval between this and the setting of the sun?

  Then tell me, Socrates, why is suicide held to be unlawful? as I have certainly heard Philolaus, about whom you were just now asking, affirm when he was staying with us at Thebes; and there are others who say the same, although I have never understood what was meant by any of them.

  This incidental remark leads to a discussion on suicide.

  Do not lose heart, replied Socrates, and the day may come 62when you will understand. I suppose that you wonder why, when other things which are evil may be good at certain times and to certain persons, death is to be the only exception, and why, when a man is better dead, he is not permitted to be his own benefactor, but must wait for the hand of another.

  Fery true, said Cebes, laughing gently and speaking in his native Boeotian.

  Man is a prisoner who has no right to run away; and he is also a possession of the gods and must not rob his masters.

  I admit the appearance of inconsistency in what I am saying; but there may not be any real inconsistency after all. There is a doctrine whispered in secret that man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I too believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we men are a possession of theirs. Do you not agree?

  Yes, I quite agree, said Cebes.

  And if one of your own possessions, an ox or an ass, for example, took the liberty of putting himself out of the way when you had given no intimation of your wish that he should die, would you not be angry with him, and would you not punish him if you could?

  Certainly, replied Cebes.

  Then, if we look at the matter thus, there may be reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as he is now summoning me.

  And why should he wish to leave the best of services?

  Yes, Socrates, said Cebes, there seems to be truth in what you say. And yet how can you reconcile this seemingly true belief that God is our guardian and we his possessions, with the willingness to die which you were just now attributing to the philosopher? That the wisest of men should be willing to leave a service in which they are ruled by the gods who are the best of rulers, is not reasonable; for surely no wise man thinks that when set at liberty he can take better care of himself than the gods take of him. A fool may perhaps think so—he may argue that he had better run away from his master, not considering that his duty is to remain to the end, and not to run away from the good, and that there would be no sense in his running away. The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself. Now this, Socrates, is the reverse of what was just now said; for upon this view the wise man should sorrow and the fool rejoice at passing out of life.

  63The earnestness of Cebes seemed to please Socrates. Here, said he, turning to us, is a man who is always enquiring, and is not so easily convinced by the first thing which he hears.

  You yourself, Socrates, are too ready to run away.

  And certainly, added Simmias, the objection which he is now making does appear to me to have some force. For what can be the meaning of a truly wise man wanting to fly away and lightly leave a master who is better than himself? And I rather imagine that Cebes is referring to you; he thinks that you are too ready to leave us, and too ready to leave the gods whom you acknowledge to be our good masters.

  Yes, replied Socrates; there is reason in what you say. And so you think that I ought to answer your indictment as if I were in a court?

  We should like you to do so, said Simmias.

  Socrates replies that he is going to other gods who are wise and good.

  Then I must try to make a more successful defence before you than I did before the judges. For I am quite ready to admit, Simmias and Cebes, that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded in the first place that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of which I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and secondly (though I am not so sure of this last) to men departed, better than those whom I leave behind; and therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead, and as has been said of old, some far better thing for the good than for the evil.

  But do you mean to take away your thoughts with you, Socrates? said Simmias. Will you not impart them to us?—for they are a benefit in which we too are entitled to share. Moreover, if you succeed in convincing us, that will be an answer to the charge against yourself.

  I will do my best, replied Socrates. But you must first let me hear what Crito wants; he has long been wishing to say something to me.

  Only this, Socrates, replied Crito:—the attendant who is to give you the poison has been telling me, and he wants me to tell you, that you are not to talk much; talking, he says, increases heat, and this is apt to interfere with the action of the poison; persons who excite themselves are sometimes obliged to take a second or even a third dose.

  Then, said Socrates, let him mind his business and be prepared to give the poison twice or even thrice if necessary; that is all.

  I knew quite well what you would say, replied Crito; but I was obliged to satisfy him.

  Never mind him, he said.

  The true philosopher is always dying:—why then should he avoid the death which he desires?

  And now, O my judges, I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to obtain the 64greatest good in the other world. And how this may be, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavour to explain. For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had the desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he repine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?

  ‘How the world will laugh when they hear this!’

  Simmias said laughingly: Though not in a laughing humour, you have made me laugh, Socrates; for I cannot help thinking that the many when they hear your words will say how truly you have described philosophers, and our people at home will likewise say that the life which philosophers desire is in reality death, and that they have found them out to be deserving of the death which they desire.

  Yes, they do not understand the nature of death, or why the philosopher desires or deserves it.Socrates, Simmias.

  And they are right, Simmias, in thinking so, with the exception of the words ‘they have found them out;’ for they have not found out either what is the nature of that death which the true philosopher deserves, or how he deserves or desires death. But enough of them:—let us discuss the matter among ourselves. Do we believe that there is such a thing as death?

  To be sure, replied Simmias.

  Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death?

  Just so, he replied.

  Life is best when the soul is most freed from the concerns of the body, and is alone and by herself.

  There is another question, which will probably throw light on our present enquiry if you and I can agree about it:—Ought the philosopher to care about the pleasures—if they are to be called pleasures—of eating and drinking?

  Certainly not, answered Simmias.

  And what about the pleasures of love—should he care for them?

  By no means.

  And will he think much of the other ways of indulging the body, for example, the acquisition of costly raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the body? Instead of caring about them, does he not rather despise anything more than nature needs? What do you say?

  I should say that the true philosopher would despise them.

  Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with the body? He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the body and to turn to the soul.

  Quite true.

  In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, 65may be observed in every sort of way to dissever the soul from the communion of the body.

  Very true.

  Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that to him who has no sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure, life is not worth having; and that he who is indifferent about them is as good as dead.

  That is also true.

  The senses are untrustworthy guides: they mislead the soul in the search for truth.

  What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge?—is the body, if invited to share in the enquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean to say, have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as the poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses? and yet, if even they are inaccurate and indistinct, what is to be said of the other senses?—for you will allow that they are the best of them?

  Certainly, he replied.

  Then when does the soul attain truth?—for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived.

  True.

  Then must not true existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?

  Yes.

  And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure,—when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being?

  Certainly.

  And therefore the philosopher runs away from the body.

  And in this the philosopher dishonours the body; his soul runs away from his body and desires to be alone and by herself?

  That is true.

  Another argument. The absolute truth of justice, beauty, and other ideas is not perceived by the senses, which only introduce a disturbing element.

  Well, but there is another thing, Simmias: Is there or is there not an absolute justice?

  Assuredly there is.

  And an absolute beauty and absolute good?

  Of course.

  But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes?

  Certainly not.

  Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense?—and I speak not of these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and of the essence or true nature of everything. Has the reality of them ever been perceived by you through the bodily organs? or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge of their several natures made by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception of the essence of each thing which he considers?

  Certainly.

  And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought sight or any other sense together with 66reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements which when they infect the soul hinder her from acquiring truth and knowledge—who, if not he, is likely to attain to the knowledge of true being?

  What you say has a wonderful truth in it, Socrates, replied Simmias.

  The soul in herself must perceive things in themselves.

  And when real philosophers consider all these things, will they not be led to make a reflection which they will express in words something like the following? ‘Have we not found,’ they will say, ‘a path of thought which seems to bring us and our argument to the conclusion, that while we are in the body, and while the soul is infected with the evils of the body, our desire will not be satisfied? and our desire is of the truth. For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power of thinking at all. Whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? Wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and by reason of all these impediments we have no time to give to philosophy; and, last and worst of all, even if we are at leisure and betake ourselves to some speculation, the body is always breaking in upon us, causing turmoil and confusion in our enquiries, and so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the truth. It has been proved to us by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body—the soul in herself must behold things in themselves: and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers; not while we live, but after death; for if while in company with the body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things follows—either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be parted 67from the body and exist in herself alone. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible intercourse or communion with the body, and are not surfeited with the bodily nature, but keep ourselves pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And thus having got rid of the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere, which is no other than the light of truth.’ For the impure are not permitted to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of knowledge cannot help saying to one another, and thinking. You would agree; would you not?

  Undoubtedly, Socrates.

  But, O my friend, if this be true, there is great reason to hope that, going whither I go, when I have come to the end of my journey, I shall attain that which has been the pursuit of my life. And therefore I go on my way rejoicing, and not I only, but every other man who believes that his mind has been made ready and that he is in a manner purified.

  Certainly, replied Simmias.

  Purification is the separation of the soul from the body.

  And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can;—the release of the soul from the chains of the body?

  Very true, he said.

  And this separation and release of the soul from the body is termed death?

  To be sure, he said.

  And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their especial study?

  That is true.

  And, as I was saying at first, there would be a ridiculous contradiction in men studying to live as nearly as they can in a state of death, and yet repining when it comes upon them.

  Clearly.

  And therefore the true philosopher who has been always trying to disengage himself from the body will rejoice in death.

  And the true philosophers, Simmias, are always occupied in the practice of dying, wherefore also to them least of all men is death terrible. Look at the matter thus:—if they have been in every way the enemies of the body, and are wanting to be alone with the soul, when this desire of theirs is granted, how inconsistent would they be if they trembled and repined, instead of rejoicing at their departure to that place where, when they arrive, they hope to gain that which 68in life they desired—and this was wisdom—and at the same time to be rid of the company of their enemy. Many a man has been willing to go to the world below animated by the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and conversing with them. And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is strongly persuaded in like manner that only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, O my friend, if he be a true philosopher. For he will have a firm conviction that there, and there only, he can find wisdom in her purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was saying, if he were afraid of death.

  He would indeed, replied Simmias.

  And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both?

  Quite so, he replied.

  And is not courage, Simmias, a quality which is specially characteristic of the philosopher?

  Certainly.

  He alone possesses the true secret of virtue, which in ordinary men is merely based on a calculation of lesser and greater evils.

  There is temperance again, which even by the vulgar is supposed to consist in the control and regulation of the passions, and in the sense of superiority to them—is not temperance a virtue belonging to those only who despise the body, and who pass their lives in philosophy?

  Most assuredly.

  For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider them, are really a contradiction.

  How so?

  Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in general as a great evil.

  Very true, he said.

  And do not courageous men face death because they are afraid of yet greater evils?

  That is quite true.

  Ordinary men are courageous only from cowardice; temperate from intemperance.

  Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.

  Very true.

  And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate because they are intemperate—which might seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures which they are afraid of losing; and in their desire to keep them, they abstain from some pleasures, because they are overcome by others; and although to be conquered by pleasure is called by men intemperance, to 69them the conquest of pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that, in a sense, they are made temperate through intemperance.

  Such appears to be the case.

  True virtue is inseparable from wisdom.Socrates, Cebes.The thyrsus-bearers and the mystics.

  Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were coins, is not the exchange of virtue. O my blessed Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are the purgation of them. The founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were not talking nonsense when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For ‘many,’ as they say in the mysteries, ‘are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,’—meaning, as I interpret the words, ‘the true philosophers.’ In the number of whom, during my whole life, I have been seeking, according to my ability, to find a place;—whether I have sought in a right way or not, and whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the other world—such is my belief. And therefore I maintain that I am right, Simmias and Cebes, in not grieving or repining at parting from you and my masters in this world, for I believe that I shall equally find good masters and friends in another world. But most men do not believe this saying; if then I succeed in convincing you by my defence better than I did the Athenian judges, it will be well.

  Fears are entertained lest the soul when she dies should be scattered to the winds.

  Cebes answered: I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of 70what you say. But in what concerns the soul, men are apt to be incredulous; they fear that when she has left the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may perish and come to an end—immediately on her release from the body, issuing forth dispersed like smoke or air and in her flight vanishing away into nothingness. If she could only be collected into herself after she has obtained release from the evils of which you were speaking, there would be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But surely it requires a great deal of argument and many proofs to show that when the man is dead his soul yet exists, and has any force or intelligence.

  True, Cebes, said Socrates; and shall I suggest that we converse a little of the probabilities of these things?

  I am sure, said Cebes, that I should greatly like to know your opinion about them.

  The discussion suited to the occasion.

  I reckon, said Socrates, that no one who heard me now, not even if he were one of my old enemies, the Comic poets, could accuse me of idle talking about matters in which I have no concern:—If you please, then, we will proceed with the enquiry.

  Suppose we consider the question whether the souls of men after death are or are not in the world below. There comes into my mind an ancient doctrine which affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and returning hither, are born again from the dead. Now if it be true that the living come from the dead, then our souls must exist in the other world, for if not, how could they have been born again? And this would be conclusive, if there were any real evidence that the living are only born from the dead; but if this is not so, then other arguments will have to be adduced.

  Very true, replied Cebes.

  All things which have opposites are generated out of opposites.

  Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only, but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier. Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust—and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show that in all opposites there is of necessity a similar alternation; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less.

  True.

  And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then have become less. 71

  Yes.

  And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the slower.

  Very true.

  And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.

  Of course.

  And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them are generated out of opposites?

  Yes.

  And there are intermediate processes or passages into and out of one another, such as increase and diminution, division and composition, and the like.

  And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other opposite, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?

  Yes, he said.

  And there are many other processes, such as division and composition, cooling and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one another. And this necessarily holds of all opposites, even though not always expressed in words—they are really generated out of one another, and there is a passing or process from one to the other of them?

  Very true, he replied.

  Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of waking?

  True, he said.

  And what is it?

  Death, he answered.

  And these, if they are opposites, are generated the one from the other, and have their two intermediate processes also?

  Of course.

  Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall analyze the other to me. One of them I term sleep, the other waking. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Do you agree?

  I entirely agree.

  Life is opposed to death, as waking is to sleeping, and in like manner they are generated from one another.

  Then, suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is not death opposed to life?

  Yes.

  And they are generated one from the other?

  Yes.

  What is generated from the living?

  The dead.

  And what from the dead?

  I can only say in answer—the living.

  Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the dead?

  That is clear, he replied.

  Then the inference is that our souls exist in the world below?

  That is true.

  And one of the two processes or generations is visible—for surely the act of dying is visible?

  Surely, he said.

  What then is to be the result? Shall we exclude the opposite process? and shall we suppose nature to walk on one leg only? Must we not rather assign to death some corresponding process of generation?

  Certainly, he replied.

  And what is that process?

  Return to life.

  And return to life, if there be such a thing, is the birth of the dead into the world of the living? 72

  Quite true.

  Then here is a new way by which we arrive at the conclusion that the living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and this, if true, affords a most certain proof that the souls of the dead exist in some place out of which they come again.

  Yes, Socrates, he said; the conclusion seems to flow necessarily out of our previous admissions.

  If there were no compensation or return in nature, all things would pass into the state of death.

  And that these admissions were not unfair, Cebes, he said, may be shown, I think, as follows: If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return of elements into their opposites, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state, and there would be no more generation of them.

  What do you mean? he said.

  The sleeping Endymion would be unmeaning in a world of sleepers.Socrates, Cebes, Simmias.

  A simple thing enough, which I will illustrate by the case of sleep, he replied. You know that if there were no alternation of sleeping and waking, the tale of the sleeping Endymion would in the end have no meaning, because all other things would be asleep too, and he would not be distinguishable from the rest. Or if there were composition only, and no division of substances, then the chaos of Anaxagoras would come again. And in like manner, my dear Cebes, if all things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive—what other result could there be? For if the living spring from any other things, and they too die, must not all things at last be swallowed up in death?1

  There is no escape, Socrates, said Cebes; and to me your argument seems to be absolutely true.

  Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have not been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.

  The doctrine of recollection implies a previous existence.

  Cebes added: Your favourite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our 73soul had been in some place before existing in the form of man; here then is another proof of the soul’s immortality.

  But tell me, Cebes, said Simmias, interposing, what arguments are urged in favour of this doctrine of recollection. I am not very sure at the moment that I remember them.

  You put a question to a person, and he answers out of his own mind.

  One excellent proof, said Cebes, is afforded by questions. If you put a question to a person in a right way, he will give a true answer of himself, but how could he do this unless there were knowledge and right reason already in him? And this is most clearly shown when he is taken to a diagram or to anything of that sort2 .

  But if, said Socrates, you are still incredulous, Simmias, I would ask you whether you may not agree with me when you look at the matter in another way;—I mean, if you are still incredulous as to whether knowledge is recollection?

  Incredulous I am not, said Simmias; but I want to have this doctrine of recollection brought to my own recollection, and, from what Cebes has said, I am beginning to recollect and be convinced: but I should still like to hear what you were going to say.

  Socrates, Simmias.

  This is what I would say, he replied:—We should agree, if I am not mistaken, that what a man recollects he must have known at some previous time.

  Very true.

  A person may recollect what he has never seen together with what he has seen. How is this?

  And what is the nature of this knowledge or recollection? I mean to ask, Whether a person who, having seen or heard or in any way perceived anything, knows not only that, but has a conception of something else which is the subject, not of the same but of some other kind of knowledge, may not be fairly said to recollect that of which he has the conception?

  What do you mean?

  I mean what I may illustrate by the following instance:—The knowledge of a lyre is not the same as the knowledge of a man?

  True.

  Recollection is the knowledge of some person or thing derived from some other person or thing which may be either like or unlike them.

  And yet what is the feeling of lovers when they recognize a lyre, or a garment, or anything else which the beloved has been in the habit of using? Do not they, from knowing the lyre, form in the mind’s eye an image of the youth to whom the lyre belongs? And this is recollection. In like manner any one who sees Simmias may remember Cebes; and there are endless examples of the same thing.

  Endless, indeed, replied Simmias.

  And recollection is most commonly a process of recovering that which has been already forgotten through time and inattention.

  Very true, he said.

  Well; and may you not also from seeing the picture of a horse or a lyre remember a man? and from the picture of Simmias, you may be led to remember Cebes;

  True.

  Or you may also be led to the recollection of Simmias himself?

  Quite so. 74

  And in all these cases, the recollection may be derived from things either like or unlike?

  It may be.

  And when the recollection is derived from like things, then another consideration is sure to arise, which is—whether the likeness in any degree falls short or not of that which is recollected?

  Very true, he said.

  The imperfect equality of pieces of wood or stone suggests the perfect idea of equality.

  And shall we proceed a step further, and affirm that there is such a thing as equality, not of one piece of wood or stone with another, but that, over and above this, there is absolute equality? Shall we say so?

  Say so, yes, replied Simmias, and swear to it, with all the confidence in life.

  And do we know the nature of this absolute essence?

  To be sure, he said.

  And whence did we obtain our knowledge? Did we not see equalities of material things, such as pieces of wood and stones, and gather from them the idea of an equality which is different from them? For you will acknowledge that there is a difference. Or look at the matter in another way:—Do not the same pieces of wood or stone appear at one time equal, and at another time unequal?

  That is certain.

  But are real equals ever unequal? or is the idea of equality the same as of inequality?

  Impossible, Socrates.

  Then these (so-called) equals are not the same with the idea of equality?

  I should say, clearly not, Socrates.

  And yet from these equals, although differing from the idea of equality, you conceived and attained that idea?

  Very true, he said.

  Which might be like, or might be unlike them?

  Yes.

  But that makes no difference: whenever from seeing one thing you conceived another, whether like or unlike, there must surely have been an act of recollection?

  Very true.

  But what would you say of equal portions of wood and stone, or other material equals? and what is the impression produced by them? Are they equals in the same sense in which absolute equality is equal? or do they fall short of this perfect equality in a measure?

  Yes, he said, in a very great measure too.

  But if the material equals when compared to the ideal equality fall short of it, the ideal equality with which they are compared must be prior to them, though only known through the medium of them.

  And must we not allow, that when I or any one, looking at any object, observes that the thing which he sees aims at being some other thing, but falls short of, and cannot be, that other thing, but is inferior, he who makes this observation must have had a previous knowledge of that to which the other, although similar, was inferior?

  Certainly.

  And has not this been our own case in the matter of equals and of absolute equality?

  Precisely.

  Then we must have known equality previously to the time when we first saw the material equals, and reflected that all 75these apparent equals strive to attain absolute equality, but fall short of it?

  Very true.

  And we recognize also that this absolute equality has only been known, and can only be known, through the medium of sight or touch, or of some other of the senses, which are all alike in this respect?

  Yes, Socrates, as far as the argument is concerned, one of them is the same as the other.

  From the senses then is derived the knowledge that all sensible things aim at an absolute equality of which they fall short?

  Yes.

  Then before we began to see or hear or perceive in any way, we must have had a knowledge of absolute equality, or we could not have referred to that standard the equals which are derived from the senses?—for to that they all aspire, and of that they fall short.

  No other inference can be drawn from the previous statements.

  And did we not see and hear and have the use of our other senses as soon as we were born?

  Certainly.

  That higher sense of equality must have been known to us before we were born, was forgotten at birth, and was recovered by the use of the senses.

  Then we must have acquired the knowledge of equality at some previous time?

  Yes.

  That is to say, before we were born, I suppose?

  True.

  And if we acquired this knowledge before we were born, and were born having the use of it, then we also knew before we were born and at the instant of birth not only the equal or the greater or the less, but all other ideas; for we are not speaking only of equality, but of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness, and of all which we stamp with the name of essence in the dialectical process, both when we ask and when we answer questions. Of all this we may certainly affirm that we acquired the knowledge before birth?

  We may.

  But if, after having acquired, we have not forgotten what in each case we acquired, then we must always have come into life having knowledge, and shall always continue to know as long as life lasts—for knowing is the acquiring and retaining knowledge and not forgetting. Is not forgetting, Simmias, just the losing of knowledge?

  Quite true, Socrates.

  What is called learning therefore is only a recollection of ideas which we possessed in a previous state.

  But if the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost by us at birth, and if afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered what we previously knew, will not the process which we call learning be a recovering of the knowledge which is natural to us, and may not this be rightly termed recollection?

  Very true.

  76So much is clear—that when we perceive something, either by the help of sight, or hearing, or some other sense, from that perception we are able to obtain a notion of some other thing like or unlike which is associated with it but has been forgotten. Whence, as I was saying, one of two alternatives follows:—either we had this knowledge at birth, and continued to know through life; or, after birth, those who are said to learn only remember, and learning is simply recollection.

  Yes, that is quite true, Socrates.

  And which alternative, Simmias, do you prefer? Had we the knowledge at our birth, or did we recollect the things which we knew previously to our birth?

  I cannot decide at the moment.

  At any rate you can decide whether he who has knowledge will or will not be able to render an account of his knowledge? What do you say?

  Certainly, he will.

  But do you think that every man is able to give an account of these very matters about which we are speaking?

  Would that they could, Socrates, but I rather fear that to-morrow, at this time, there will no longer be any one alive who is able to give an account of them such as ought to be given.

  Then you are not of opinion, Simmias, that all men know these things?

  Certainly not.

  They are in process of recollecting that which they learned before?

  Certainly.

  But when did our souls acquire this knowledge?—not since we were born as men?

  Certainly not.

  And therefore, previously?

  Yes.

  But if so, our souls must have existed before they were in the form of man; or if not the souls, then not the ideas.

  Then, Simmias, our souls must also have existed without bodies before they were in the form of man, and must have had intelligence.

  Unless indeed you suppose, Socrates, that these notions are given us at the very moment of birth; for this is the only time which remains.

  Yes, my friend, but if so, when do we lose them? for they are not in us when we are born—that is admitted. Do we lose them at the moment of receiving them, or if not at what other time?

  No, Socrates, I perceive that I was unconsciously talking nonsense.

  Then may we not say, Simmias, that if, as we are always repeating, there is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all things; and if to this, which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them, finding these ideas to be pre-existent and our inborn possession—then our souls must have had a prior existence, but if not, there would be no force in the argument? There is the same proof that these ideas must have existed before we were born, as that our souls existed before we were born; and if not the ideas, then not the souls.

  Socrates, Simmias, Cebes.

  Yes, Socrates; I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity for the one as for the other; and the argument 77retreats successfully to the position that the existence of the soul before birth cannot be separated from the existence of the essence of which you speak. For there is nothing which to my mind is so patent as that beauty, goodness, and the other notions of which you were just now speaking, have a most real and absolute existence; and I am satisfied with the proof.

  Well, but is Cebes equally satisfied? for I must convince him too.

  Simmias and Cebes are agreed in thinking that the previous existence of the soul is sufficiently proved, but not the future existence.

  I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied: although he is the most incredulous of mortals, yet I believe that he is sufficiently convinced of the existence of the soul before birth. But that after death the soul will continue to exist is not yet proven even to my own satisfaction. I cannot get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring—the feeling that when the man dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this may be the extinction of her. For admitting that she may have been born elsewhere, and framed out of other elements, and was in existence before entering the human body, why after having entered in and gone out again may she not herself be destroyed and come to an end?

  Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; about half of what was required has been proven; to wit, that our souls existed before we were born:—that the soul will exist after death as well as before birth is the other half of which the proof is still wanting, and has to be supplied; when that is given the demonstration will be complete.

  But if the soul passes from death to birth, she must exist after death as well as before birth.Socrates, Cebes.

  But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said Socrates, if you put the two arguments together—I mean this and the former one, in which we admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?—Surely the proof which you desire has been already furnished. Still I suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further. Like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her; especially if a man should happen to die in a great storm and not when the sky is calm.

  Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our fears—and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there is a child within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin: him too we must persuade not to be afraid when he is alone in the dark.

  The fear that the soul will vanish into air must be charmed away.

  Socrates said: Let the voice of the charmer be applied daily until you have charmed away the fear.

  And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, 78Socrates, when you are gone?

  Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and there are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far and wide, sparing neither pains nor money; for there is no better way of spending your money. And you must seek among yourselves too; for you will not find others better able to make the search.

  The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if you please, let us return to the point of the argument at which we digressed.

  By all means, replied Socrates; what else should I please?

  Very good.

  What is the element which is liable to be scattered?—Not the simple and unchangeable, but the composite and changing.

  Must we not, said Socrates, ask ourselves what that is which, as we imagine, is liable to be scattered, and about which we fear? and what again is that about which we have no fear? And then we may proceed further to enquire whether that which suffers dispersion is or is not of the nature of soul—our hopes and fears as to our own souls will turn upon the answers to these questions.

  Very true, he said.

  Now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable, as of being compounded, so also of being dissolved; but that which is uncompounded, and that only, must be, if anything is, indissoluble.

  Yes; I should imagine so, said Cebes.

  And the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging, whereas the compound is always changing and never the same.

  I agree, he said.

  The soul and the ideas belong to the class of the unchanging, which is also the unseen.

  Then now let us return to the previous discussion. Is that idea or essence, which in the dialectical process we define as essence or true existence—whether essence of equality, beauty, or anything else—are these essences, I say, liable at times to some degree of change? or are they each of them always what they are, having the same simple self-existent and unchanging forms, not admitting of variation at all, or in any way, or at any time?

  They must be always the same, Socrates, replied Cebes.

  And what would you say of the many beautiful—whether men or horses or garments or any other things which are named by the same names and may be called equal or beautiful,—are they all unchanging and the same always, or quite the reverse? May they not rather be described as almost always changing and hardly ever the same, either with themselves or with one another?

  The latter, replied Cebes; they are always in a state of change.

  79And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, but the unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind—they are invisible and are not seen?

  That is very true, he said.

  Well then, added Socrates, let us suppose that there are two sorts of existences—one seen, the other unseen.

  Let us suppose them.

  The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging?

  That may be also supposed.

  And, further, is not one part of us body, another part soul?

  To be sure.

  And to which class is the body more alike and akin?

  Clearly to the seen—no one can doubt that.

  And is the soul seen or not seen?

  Not by man, Socrates.

  And what we mean by ‘seen’ and ‘not seen’ is that which is or is not visible to the eye of man?

  Yes, to the eye of man.

  And is the soul seen or not seen?

  Not seen.

  Unseen then?

  Yes.

  Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen?

  That follows necessarily, Socrates.

  The soul which is unseen, when she makes use of the bodily senses, is dragged down into the region of the changeable, and must return into herself before she can attain to true wisdom.

  And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses)—were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change?

  Very true.

  But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?

  That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.

  And to which class is the soul more nearly alike and akin, as far as may be inferred from this argument, as well as from the preceding one?

  The soul is of the nature of the unchangeable, the body of the changing; the soul rules, the body serves; the soul is in the likeness of the divine, the body of the mortal.

  I think, Socrates, that, in the opinion of every one who follows the argument, the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable—even the most stupid person will not deny that.

  And the body is more like the changing?

  Yes.

  Yet once more consider the matter in another light: When the soul and the body are united, then nature orders 80the soul to rule and govern, and the body to obey and serve. Now which of these two functions is akin to the divine? and which to the mortal? Does not the divine appear to you to be that which naturally orders and rules, and the mortal to be that which is subject and servant?

  True.

  And which does the soul resemble?

  The soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal—there can be no doubt of that, Socrates.

  Then reflect, Cebes: of all which has been said is not this the conclusion?—that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and that the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintellectual, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied?

  It cannot.

  But if it be true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution? and is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?

  Certainly.

  Even from the body something may be learned about the soul; for the corpse of a man lasts for some time, and when embalmed, in a manner for ever.

  And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the body, or visible part of him, which is lying in the visible world, and is called a corpse, and would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and dissipated, is not dissolved or decomposed at once, but may remain for some time, nay even for a long time, if the constitution be sound at the time of death, and the season of the year favourable? For the body when shrunk and embalmed, as the manner is in Egypt, may remain almost entire through infinite ages; and even in decay, there are still some portions, such as the bones and ligaments, which are practically indestructible:—Do you agree?

  Yes.

  How unlikely then that the soul should at once pass away!

  And is it likely that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the place of the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go,—that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, will be blown away and destroyed immediately on quitting the body, as the many say? That can never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is, that the soul which is pure at departing and draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily during life had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself;—and making such abstraction her perpetual study—which means that she has been a true disciple of philosophy; 81and therefore has in fact been always engaged in the practice of dying? For is not philosophy the study of death?—

  Certainly—

  Rather when free from bodily impurity she departs to the seats of the blessed.

  That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world—to the divine and immortal and rational: thither arriving, she is secure of bliss and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and for ever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods1 . Is not this true, Cebes?

  Yes, said Cebes, beyond a doubt.

  But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste, and use for the purposes of his lusts,—the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy;—do you suppose that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed?

  Impossible, he replied.

  She is held fast by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant care of the body have wrought into her nature.

  Very true.

  But the souls of the wicked are dragged down by the corporeal element.

  And this corporeal element, my friend, is heavy and weighty and earthy, and is that element of sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the visible world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world below—prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and therefore visible1 .

  That is very likely, Socrates.

  Yes, that is very likely, Cebes; and these must be the souls, not of the good, but of the evil, which are compelled to wander about such places in payment of the penalty of their former evil way of life; and they continue to wander until through the craving after the corporeal which never leaves them, they are imprisoned finally in another body. And they may be supposed to find their prisons in the same natures which they have had in their former lives.

  What natures do you mean, Socrates?

  They wander into the bodies of the animals or of birds which are of a like nature with themselves.

  What I mean is that men who have followed after gluttony, and wantonness, and drunkenness, and have had no thought of avoiding them, would pass into asses and animals of that 82sort. What do you think?

  I think such an opinion to be exceedingly probable.

  And those who have chosen the portion of injustice, and tyranny, and violence, will pass into wolves, or into hawks and kites;—whither else can we suppose them to go?

  Yes, said Cebes; with such natures, beyond question.

  And there is no difficulty, he said, in assigning to all of them places answering to their several natures and propensities?

  There is not, he said.

  Some are happier than others; and the happiest both in themselves and in the place to which they go are those who have practised the civil and social virtues which are called temperance and justice, and are acquired by habit and attention without philosophy and mind1 .

  Why are they the happiest?

  Because they may be expected to pass into some gentle and social kind which is like their own, such as bees or wasps or ants, or back again into the form of man, and just and moderate men may be supposed to spring from them.

  Very likely.

  No one who has not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at the time of his departure is allowed to enter the company of the Gods, but the lover of knowledge only. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and hold out against them and refuse to give themselves up to them,—not because they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honour, because they dread the dishonour or disgrace of evil deeds.

  No, Socrates, that would not become them, said Cebes.

  No indeed, he replied; and therefore they who have any care of their own souls, and do not merely live moulding and fashioning the body, say farewell to all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not to resist her influence, and whither she leads they turn and follow.

  What do you mean, Socrates?

  The new consciousness which is awakened by philosophy.The philosopher considers not only the consequences of pleasures and pains, but, what is far worse, the false lights in which they show objects.

  I will tell you, he said. The lovers of knowledge are conscious that the soul was simply fastened and glued to the body—until philosophy received her, she could only view real existence through the bars of a prison, not in and through herself; she was wallowing in the mire of every sort of ignorance, and by reason of lust had become the principal accomplice in her own captivity. This was her original 83state; and then, as I was saying, and as the lovers of knowledge are well aware, philosophy, seeing how terrible was her confinement, of which she was to herself the cause, received and gently comforted her and sought to release her, pointing out that the eye and the ear and the other senses are full of deception, and persuading her to retire from them, and abstain from all but the necessary use of them, and be gathered up and collected into herself, bidding her trust in herself and her own pure apprehension of pure existence, and to mistrust whatever comes to her through other channels and is subject to variation; for such things are visible and tangible, but what she sees in her own nature is intelligible and invisible. And the soul of the true philosopher thinks that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and therefore abstains from pleasures and desires and pains and fears, as far as she is able; reflecting that when a man has great joys or sorrows or fears or desires, he suffers from them, not merely the sort of evil which might be anticipated—as for example, the loss of his health or property which he has sacrificed to his lusts—but an evil greater far, which is the greatest and worst of all evils, and one of which he never thinks.

  What is it, Socrates? said Cebes.

  The evil is that when the feeling of pleasure or pain is most intense, every soul of man imagines the objects of this intense feeling to be then plainest and truest: but this is not so, they are really the things of sight.

  Very true.

  And is not this the state in which the soul is most enthralled by the body?

  How so?

  Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and haunts, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always infected by the body; and so she sinks into another body and there germinates and grows, and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple.

  Most true, Socrates, answered Cebes.

  And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are temperate and brave; and not for the reason which the world gives.

  84Certainly not.

  Socrates, Cebes, Simmias.The soul which has been emancipated from pleasures and pains will not be blown away at death.

  Certainly not! The soul of a philosopher will reason in quite another way; she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains, doing a work only to be undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope’s web. But she will calm passion, and follow reason, and dwell in the contemplation of her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence deriving nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to that which is like her, and to be freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.

  Simmias and Cebes have their doubts, but think that this is not the time to express them.

  When Socrates had done speaking, for a considerable time there was silence; he himself appeared to be meditating, as most of us were, on what had been said; only Cebes and Simmias spoke a few words to one another. And Socrates observing them asked what they thought of the argument, and whether there was anything wanting? For, said he, there are many points still open to suspicion and attack, if any one were disposed to sift the matter thoroughly. Should you be considering some other matter I say no more, but if you are still in doubt do not hesitate to say exactly what you think, and let us have anything better which you can suggest; and if you think that I can be of any use, allow me to help you.

  Simmias said: I must confess, Socrates, that doubts did arise in our minds, and each of us was urging and inciting the other to put the question which we wanted to have answered but which neither of us liked to ask, fearing that our importunity might be troublesome at such a time.

  Socrates rebukes their want of confidence in him.What is the meaning of the swans’ singing?They do not lament, as men suppose, at their approaching death; but they rejoice because they are going to the God, whose servants they are.Socrates, who is their fellow-servant, will not leave the world less cheerily.

  Socrates replied with a smile: O Simmias, what are you saying? I am not very likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my present situation as a misfortune, if I cannot even persuade you that I am no worse off now than at any other time in my life. Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more lustily than ever, rejoicing 85in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are. But men, because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm of the swans that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird sings when cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor the swallow, nor yet the hoopoe; which are said indeed to tune a lay of sorrow, although I do not believe this to be true of them any more than of the swans. But because they are sacred to Apollo, they have the gift of prophecy, and anticipate the good things of another world; wherefore they sing and rejoice in that day more than ever they did before. And I too, believing myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from my master gifts of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily than the swans. Never mind then, if this be your only objection, but speak and ask anything which you like, while the eleven magistrates of Athens allow.

  Simmias insists that they must probe truth to the bottom.

  Very good, Socrates, said Simmias; then I will tell you my difficulty, and Cebes will tell you his. I feel myself (and I daresay that you have the same feeling), how hard or rather impossible is the attainment of any certainty about questions such as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them on every side. For he should persevere until he has achieved one of two things: either he should discover, or be taught the truth about them; or, if this be impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human theories, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him. And now, as you bid me, I will venture to question you, and then I shall not have to reproach myself hereafter with not having said at the time what I think. For when I consider the matter, either alone or with Cebes, the argument does certainly appear to me, Socrates, to be not sufficient.

  Socrates, Simmias.

  Socrates answered: I dare say, my friend, that you may be right, but I should like to know in what respect the argument is insufficient.

  The harmony does not survive the lyre; how then can the soul, which is also a harmony, survive the body?

  In this respect, replied Simmias:—Suppose a person to use the same argument about harmony and the lyre—might he not say that harmony is a thing invisible, incorporeal, perfect, divine, existing in the lyre which is harmonized, but 86that the lyre and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthy, and akin to mortality? And when some one breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings, then he who takes this view would argue as you do, and on the same analogy, that the harmony survives and has not perished—you cannot imagine, he would say, that the lyre without the strings, and the broken strings themselves which are mortal remain, and yet that the harmony, which is of heavenly and immortal nature and kindred, has perished—perished before the mortal. The harmony must still be somewhere, and the wood and strings will decay before anything can happen to that. The thought, Socrates, must have occurred to your own mind that such is our conception of the soul; and that when the body is in a manner strung and held together by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, then the soul is the harmony or due proportionate admixture of them. But if so, whenever the strings of the body are unduly loosened or overstrained through disease or other injury, then the soul, though most divine, like other harmonies of music or of works of art, of course perishes at once; although the material remains of the body may last for a considerable time, until they are either decayed or burnt. And if any one maintains that the soul, being the harmony of the elements of the body, is first to perish in that which is called death, how shall we answer him?

  Socrates looked fixedly at us as his manner was, and said with a smile: Simmias has reason on his side; and why does not some one of you who is better able than myself answer him? for there is force in his attack upon me. But perhaps, before we answer him, we had better also hear what Cebes has to say that we may gain time for reflection, and when they have both spoken, we may either assent to them, if there is truth in what they say, or if not, we will maintain our position. Please to tell me then, Cebes, he said, what was the difficulty which troubled you?

  A weaver may outlive many coats and himself be outlived by the last:so the soul which has passed through many bodies may in the end be worn out.Socrates, Cebes, Echecrates.

  Cebes said: I will tell you. My feeling is that the argument is where it was, and open to the same objections which 87were urged before; for I am ready to admit that the existence of the soul before entering into the bodily form has been very ingeniously, and, if I may say so, quite sufficiently proven; but the existence of the soul after death is still, in my judgment, unproven. Now my objection is not the same as that of Simmias; for I am not disposed to deny that the soul is stronger and more lasting than the body, being of opinion that in all such respects the soul very far excels the body. Well then, says the argument to me, why do you remain unconvinced?—When you see that the weaker continues in existence after the man is dead, will you not admit that the more lasting must also survive during the same period of time? Now I will ask you to consider whether the objection, which, like Simmias, I will express in a figure, is of any weight. The analogy which I will adduce is that of an old weaver, who dies, and after his death somebody says:—He is not dead, he must be alive;—see, there is the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which remains whole and undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of some one who is incredulous, whether a man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and wear; and when he is answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he has thus certainly demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because the less lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to remark, is a mistake; any one can see that he who talks thus is talking nonsense. For the truth is, that the weaver aforesaid, having woven and worn many such coats, outlived several of them; and was outlived by the last; but a man is not therefore proved to be slighter and weaker than a coat. Now the relation of the body to the soul may be expressed in a similar figure; and any one may very fairly say in like manner that the soul is lasting, and the body weak and shortlived in comparison. He may argue in like manner that every soul wears out many bodies, especially if a man live many years. While he is alive the body deliquesces and decays, and the soul always weaves another garment and repairs the waste. But of course, whenever the soul perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this will survive her; and then at length, when the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and quickly decompose and pass away. I would therefore rather not rely on the argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the soul after death. For granting 88even more than you affirm to be possible, and acknowledging not only that the soul existed before birth, but also that the souls of some exist, and will continue to exist after death, and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many times—nevertheless, we may be still inclined to think that she will weary in the labours of successive births, and may at last succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish; and this death and dissolution of the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of us, for no one of us can have had any experience of it: and if so, then I maintain that he who is confident about death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable. But if he cannot prove the soul’s immortality, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that when the body is disunited, the soul also may utterly perish.

  The despair of the audience at hearing the overthrow of the argument.

  All of us, as we afterwards remarked to one another, had an unpleasant feeling at hearing what they said. When we had been so firmly convinced before, now to have our faith shaken seemed to introduce a confusion and uncertainty, not only into the previous argument, but into any future one; either we were incapable of forming a judgment, or there were no grounds of belief.

  Ech.

  There I feel with you—by heaven I do, Phaedo, and when you were speaking, I was beginning to ask myself the same question: What argument can I ever trust again? For what could be more convincing than the argument of Socrates, which has now fallen into discredit? That the soul is a harmony is a doctrine which has always had a wonderful attraction for me, and, when mentioned, came back to me at once, as my own original conviction. And now I must begin again and find another argument which will assure me that when the man is dead the soul survives. Tell me, I implore you, how did Socrates proceed? Did he appear to share the unpleasant feeling which you mention? or did he calmly meet the attack? And did he answer forcibly or feebly? Narrate what passed as exactly as you can.

  Phaed.

  The wonderful manner in which Socrates soothes his disappointed hearers and rehabilitates the argument.

  Often, Echecrates, I have wondered at Socrates, 89but never more than on that occasion. That he should be able to answer was nothing, but what astonished me was, first, the gentle and pleasant and approving manner in which he received the words of the young men, and then his quick sense of the wound which had been inflicted by the argument, and the readiness with which he healed it. He might be compared to a general rallying his defeated and broken army, urging them to accompany him and return to the field of argument.

  Ech.

  What followed?

  Phaed.

  You shall hear, for I was close to him on his right hand, seated on a sort of stool, and he on a couch which was a good deal higher. He stroked my head, and pressed the hair upon my neck—he had a way of playing with my hair; and then he said: To-morrow, Phaedo, I suppose that these fair locks of yours will be severed.

  Yes, Socrates, I suppose that they will, I replied.

  Not so, if you will take my advice.

  What shall I do with them? I said.

  To-day, he replied, and not to-morrow, if this argument dies and we cannot bring it to life again, you and I will both shave our locks: and if I were you, and the argument got away from me, and I could not hold my ground against Simmias and Cebes, I would myself take an oath, like the Argives, not to wear hair any more until I had renewed the conflict and defeated them.

  Yes, I said; but Heracles himself is said not to be a match for two.

  Summon me then, he said, and I will be your Iolaus until the sun goes down.

  I summon you rather, I rejoined, not as Heracles summoning Iolaus, but as Iolaus might summon Heracles.

  That will do as well, he said. But first let us take care that we avoid a danger.

  Of what nature? I said.

  Socrates, Phaedo.The danger of becoming haters of ideas greater than of becoming haters of men.

  Lest we become misologists, he replied: no worse thing can happen to a man than this. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises out of the too great confidence of inexperience;—you trust a man and think him altogether true and sound and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially when it happens among those whom he deems to be his own most trusted and familiar friends, and he has often quarrelled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. You must have observed this trait of character?

  I have.

  There are few very bad or very good men; (although bad arguments may be more numerous than bad men); the main point is that he who has been often deceived by either is apt to lose faith in them.

  And is not the feeling discreditable? Is it not obvious that such an one having to deal with other men, was clearly without any experience of human nature; for experience would have taught him the true state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in 90the interval between them.

  What do you mean? I said.

  I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small—that nothing is more uncommon than a very large or very small man; and this applies generally to all extremes, whether of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white: and whether the instances you select be men or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes, but many are in the mean between them. Did you never observe this?

  Yes, I said, I have.

  And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition in evil, the worst would be found to be very few?

  Yes, that is very likely, I said.

  Yes, that is very likely, he replied; although in this respect arguments are unlike men—there I was led on by you to say more than I had intended; but the point of comparison was, that when a simple man who has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he has no longer any faith left, and great disputers, as you know, come to think at last that they have grown to be the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or indeed, of all things, which, like the currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.

  That is quite true, I said.

  Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and how melancholy, if there be such a thing as truth or certainty or possibility of knowledge—that a man should have lighted upon some argument or other which at first seemed true and then turned out to be false, and instead of blaming himself and his own want of wit, because he is annoyed, should at last be too glad to transfer the blame from himself to arguments in general: and for ever afterwards should hate and revile them, and lose truth and the knowledge of realities.

  Yes, indeed, I said; that is very melancholy.

  Socrates, who is soon to die, has too much at stake on the argument to be a fair judge. Simmias and Cebes must help him to consider the matter impartially.Socrates, Cebes, Simmias.

  Let us then, in the first place, he said, be careful of allowing or of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no health or soundness in any arguments at all. Rather say that we have not yet attained to soundness in ourselves, and that we must struggle manfully and do our best to gain health of mind—you and all other men having regard to the whole of your future life, and I myself in the prospect of death. For 91at this moment I am sensible that I have not the temper of a philosopher; like the vulgar, I am only a partisan. Now the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. And the difference between him and me at the present moment is merely this—that whereas he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is true, I am rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter with me. And do but see how much I gain by the argument. For if what I say is true, then I do well to be persuaded of the truth; but if there be nothing after death, still, during the short time that remains, I shall not distress my friends with lamentations, and my ignorance will not last, but will die with me, and therefore no harm will be done. This is the state of mind, Simmias and Cebes, in which I approach the argument. And I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and like the bee, leave my sting in you before I die.

  Simmias and Cebes are inclined to fear that the soul may perish before the body, but they still hold to the doctrine of reminiscence.

  And now let us proceed, he said. And first of all let me be sure that I have in my mind what you were saying. Simmias, if I remember rightly, has fears and misgivings whether the soul, although a fairer and diviner thing than the body, being as she is in the form of harmony, may not perish first. On the other hand, Cebes appeared to grant that the soul was more lasting than the body, but he said that no one could know whether the soul, after having worn out many bodies, might not perish herself and leave her last body behind her; and that this is death, which is the destruction not of the body but of the soul, for in the body the work of destruction is ever going on. Are not these, Simmias and Cebes, the points which we have to consider?

  They both agreed to this statement of them.

  He proceeded: And did you deny the force of the whole preceding argument, or of a part only?

  Of a part only, they replied.

  And what did you think, he said, of that part of the argument in which we said that knowledge was recollection, and hence inferred that the soul must have previously existed somewhere else before she was enclosed in the 92body?

  Cebes said that he had been wonderfully impressed by that part of the argument, and that his conviction remained absolutely unshaken. Simmias agreed, and added that he himself could hardly imagine the possibility of his ever thinking differently.

  The elements of harmony are prior to harmony, but the body is not prior to the soul.

  But, rejoined Socrates, you will have to think differently, my Theban friend, if you still maintain that harmony is a compound, and that the soul is a harmony which is made out of strings set in the frame of the body; for you will surely never allow yourself to say that a harmony is prior to the elements which compose it.

  Never, Socrates.

  Socrates, Simmias.

  But do you not see that this is what you imply when you say that the soul existed before she took the form and body of man, and was made up of elements which as yet had no existence? For harmony is not like the soul, as you suppose; but first the lyre, and the strings, and the sounds exist in a state of discord, and then harmony is made last of all, and perishes first. And how can such a notion of the soul as this agree with the other?

  Not at all, replied Simmias.

  And yet, he said, there surely ought to be harmony in a discourse of which harmony is the theme?

  There ought, replied Simmias.

  But there is no harmony, he said, in the two propositions that knowledge is recollection, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of them will you retain?

  Simmias acknowledges that his argument does not harmonize with the proposition that knowledge is recollection.

  I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the first of the two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in the latter, which has not been demonstrated at all, but rests only on probable and plausible grounds; and is therefore believed by the many. I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are impostors, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive—in geometry, and in other things too. But the doctrine of knowledge and recollection has been proven to me on trustworthy grounds: and the proof was that the soul must have existed before she came into the body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very name implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease to argue or allow others to argue that the soul is a harmony.

  Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point 93of view: Do you imagine that a harmony or any other composition can be in a state other than that of the elements, out of which it is compounded?

  Certainly not.

  Or do or suffer anything other than they do or suffer?

  He agreed.

  Then a harmony does not, properly speaking, lead the parts or elements which make up the harmony, but only follows them.

  He assented.

  For harmony cannot possibly have any motion, or sound, or other quality which is opposed to its parts.

  That would be impossible, he replied.

  And does not the nature of every harmony depend upon the manner in which the elements are harmonized?

  I do not understand you, he said.

  Harmony admits of degrees, but in the soul there are no degrees;

  I mean to say that a harmony admits of degrees, and is more of a harmony, and more completely a harmony, when more truly and fully harmonized, to any extent which is possible; and less of a harmony, and less completely a harmony, when less truly and fully harmonized.

  True.

  But does the soul admit of degrees? or is one soul in the very least degree more or less, or more or less completely, a soul than another?

  Not in the least.

  Yet surely of two souls, one is said to have intelligence and virtue, and to be good, and the other to have folly and vice, and to be an evil soul: and this is said truly?

  Yes, truly.

  and therefore there cannot be a soul or harmony within a soul.

  But what will those who maintain the soul to be a harmony say of this presence of virtue and vice in the soul?—will they say that here is another harmony, and another discord, and that the virtuous soul is harmonized, and herself being a harmony has another harmony within her, and that the vicious soul is inharmonical and has no harmony within her?

  I cannot tell, replied Simmias; but I suppose that something of the sort would be asserted by those who say that the soul is a harmony.

  And we have already admitted that no soul is more a soul than another; which is equivalent to admitting that harmony is not more or less harmony, or more or less completely a harmony?

  Quite true.

  And that which is not more or less a harmony is not more or less harmonized?

  True.

  And that which is not more or less harmonized cannot have more or less of harmony, but only an equal harmony?

  Yes, an equal harmony.

  Then one soul not being more or less absolutely a soul than another, is not more or less harmonized?

  Exactly.

  And therefore has neither more nor less of discord, nor yet of harmony?

  She has not.

  And having neither more nor less of harmony or of discord, one soul has no more vice or virtue than another, if vice be discord and virtue harmony?

  Not at all more.

  94Or speaking more correctly, Simmias, the soul, if she is a harmony, will never have any vice; because a harmony, being absolutely a harmony, has no part in the inharmonical.

  No.

  If the soul is a harmony, all souls must be equally good.

  And therefore a soul which is absolutely a soul has no vice?

  How can she have, if the previous argument holds?

  Then, if all souls are equally by their nature souls, all souls of all living creatures will be equally good?

  I agree with you, Socrates, he said.

  And can all this be true, think you? he said; for these are the consequences which seem to follow from the assumption that the soul is a harmony?

  It cannot be true.

  Once more, he said, what ruler is there of the elements of human nature other than the soul, and especially the wise soul? Do you know of any?

  Indeed, I do not.

  And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body? or is she at variance with them? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul incline us against drinking? and when the body is hungry, against eating? And this is only one instance out of ten thousand of the opposition of the soul to the things of the body.

  Very true.

  Socrates, Simmias, Cebes.

  But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them?

  It must be so, he replied.

  The soul leads and does not follow. She constrains and reprimands the passions.

  And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite—leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life, sometimes more violently with the pains of medicine and gymnastic; then again more gently; now threatening, now admonishing the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself, as Homer in the Odyssee represents Odysseus doing in the words—

  • ‘He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart:
  • Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!’

  Do you think that Homer wrote this under the idea that the soul is a harmony capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of a nature which should lead and master them—herself a far diviner thing than any harmony?

  Yes, Socrates, I quite think so.

  Then, my friend, we can never be right in saying that the soul is a harmony, for we should contradict the divine 95Homer, and contradict ourselves.

  True, he said.

  Thus much, said Socrates, of Harmonia, your Theban goddess, who has graciously yielded to us; but what shall I say, Cebes, to her husband Cadmus, and how shall I make peace with him?

  I think that you will discover a way of propitiating him, said Cebes; I am sure that you have put the argument with Harmonia in a manner that I could never have expected. For when Simmias was mentioning his difficulty, I quite imagined that no answer could be given to him, and therefore I was surprised at finding that his argument could not sustain the first onset of yours, and not impossibly the other, whom you call Cadmus, may share a similar fate.

  Socrates, Cebes.Recapitulation of the argument of Cebes.

  Nay, my good friend, said Socrates, let us not boast, lest some evil eye should put to flight the word which I am about to speak. That, however, may be left in the hands of those above; while I draw near in Homeric fashion, and try the mettle of your words. Here lies the point:—You want to have it proven to you that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and the philosopher who is confident in death appears to you to have but a vain and foolish confidence, if he believes that he will fare better in the world below than one who has led another sort of life, unless he can prove this: and you say that the demonstration of the strength and divinity of the soul, and of her existence prior to our becoming men, does not necessarily imply her immortality. Admitting the soul to be longlived, and to have known and done much in a former state, still she is not on that account immortal; and her entrance into the human form may be a sort of disease which is the beginning of dissolution, and may at last, after the toils of life are over, end in that which is called death. And whether the soul enters into the body once only or many times, does not, as you say, make any difference in the fears of individuals. For any man, who is not devoid of sense, must fear, if he has no knowledge and can give no account of the soul’s immortality. This, or something like this, I suspect to be your notion, Cebes; and I designedly recur to it in order that nothing may escape us, and that you may, if you wish, add or subtract anything.

  But, said Cebes, as far as I see at present, I have nothing to add or subtract: I mean what you say that I mean.

  Socrates paused awhile, and seemed to be absorbed in reflection. At length he said: You are raising a tremendous question, Cebes, involving the whole nature of 96generation and corruption, about which, if you like, I will give you my own experience; and if anything which I say is likely to avail towards the solution of your difficulty you may make use of it.

  I should very much like, said Cebes, to hear what you have to say.

  The speculations of Socrates about physics made him forget the commonest things.

  Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called the investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why a thing is and is created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty profession; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of questions such as these:—Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said? Is the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire? or perhaps nothing of the kind—but the brain may be the originating power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion when they have attained fixity. And then I went on to examine the corruption of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded myself to be utterly and absolutely incapable of these enquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things which I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; I forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g. such a fact as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes larger and the small man great. Was not that a reasonable notion?

  Yes, said Cebes, I think so.

  Difficulty of explaining relative notions.

  Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more than one, because two is the double of one.

  And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.

  Socrates.

  I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause of any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that, when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes two, or that the two 97units added together make two by reason of the addition. I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together, the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should be the cause of their becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of one is the way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same effect,—as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one to one was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied that I understand the reason why one or anything else is either generated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused notion of a new method, and can never admit the other.

  The great expectations which Socrates had from the doctrine of Anaxagoras, that all was Mind.

  Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras, that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was delighted at this notion, which appeared quite admirable, and I said to myself: If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best place; and I argued that if any one desired to find out the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of anything, he must find out what state of being or doing or suffering was best for that thing, and therefore a man had only to consider the best for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, since the same science comprehended both. And I rejoiced to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and whichever was true, he would proceed to explain the cause and the necessity of this being so, and then he would teach me the nature of the best and show that this was best; and if he said that the earth was in the centre, he would further explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied with the explanation 98given, and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go on and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and that he would explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, active and passive, and how all of them were for the best. For I could not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I thought that when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for each and what was good for all. These hopes I would not have sold for a large sum of money, and I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.

  The greatness of his disappointment.Socrates, Cebes.

  What expectations I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed! As I proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endeavoured to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones, as he would say, are hard and have joints which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the museles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture—that is what he would say; and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is, that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone 99off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, of enduring any punishment which the state inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. Any power which in arranging them as they are arranges them for the best never enters into their minds; and instead of finding any superior strength in it, they rather expect to discover another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good;—of the obligatory and containing power of the good they think nothing; and yet this is the principle which I would fain learn if any one would teach me. But as I have failed either to discover myself, or to learn of any one else, the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of enquiring into the cause.

  I should very much like to hear, he replied.

  The eye of the soul.The abstract as plain or plainer than the concrete.

  Socrates proceeded:—I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. So in my own case, I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried to apprehend them by the help of the senses. And I thought that I had better have recourse to the world of mind and 100seek there the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not perfect—for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existences through the medium of thought, sees them only ‘through a glass darkly,’ any more than he who considers them in action and operation. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning more clearly, as I do not think that you as yet understand me.

  No indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.

  If the ideas have an absolute existence the soul is immortal.

  There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only what I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous discussion and on other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that cause which has occupied my thoughts. I shall have to go back to those familiar words which are in the mouth of every one, and first of all assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.

  Cebes said: You may proceed at once with the proof, for I grant you this.

  Well, he said, then I should like to know whether you agree with me in the next step; for I cannot help thinking, if there be anything beautiful other than absolute beauty should there be such, that it can be beautiful only in so far as it partakes of absolute beauty—and I should say the same of everything. Do you agree in this notion of the cause?

  Yes, he said, I agree.

  All things exist by participation in general ideas.

  He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of those wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that the bloom of colour, or form, or any such thing is a source of beauty, I leave all that, which is only confusing to me, and simply and singly, and perhaps foolishly, hold and am assured in my own mind that nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner I am uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become beautiful. This appears to me to be the safest answer which I can give, either to myself or to another, and to this I cling, in the persuasion that this principle will never be overthrown, and that to myself or to any one who asks the question, I may safely reply, That by beauty beautiful things become beautiful. Do you not agree with me?

  I do.

  And that by greatness only great things become great and greater greater, and by smallness the less become less?

  True.

  We thus escape certain contradictions of relation.

  Then if a person were to remark that A is taller by a head than B, and B less by a head than A, you would refuse to 101admit his statement, and would stoutly contend that what you mean is only that the greater is greater by, and by reason of, greatness, and the less is less only by, and by reason of, smallness; and thus you would avoid the danger of saying that the greater is greater and the less less by the measure of the head, which is the same in both, and would also avoid the monstrous absurdity of supposing that the greater man is greater by reason of the head, which is small. You would be afraid to draw such an inference, would you not?

  Indeed, I should, said Cebes, laughing.

  In like manner you would be afraid to say that ten exceeded eight by, and by reason of, two; but would say by, and by reason of, number; or you would say that two cubits exceed one cubit not by a half, but by magnitude?—for there is the same liability to error in all these cases.

  Very true, he said.

  Socrates, Simmias, Cebes, Echecrates, Phaedo.

  Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of one to one, or the division of one, is the cause of two? And you would loudly asseverate that you know of no way in which anything comes into existence except by participation in its own proper essence, and consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two is the participation in duality—this is the way to make two, and the participation in one is the way to make one. You would say: I will let alone puzzles of division and addition—wiser heads than mine may answer them; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of a principle. And if any one assails you there, you would not mind him, or answer him, until you had seen whether the consequences which follow agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher principle, and a higher, until you found a resting-place in the best of the higher; but you would not confuse the principle and the consequences in your reasoning, like the Eristics—at least if you wanted to discover real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them, who never care or think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased with themselves however great may be the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are 102a philosopher, will certainly do as I say.

  What you say is most true, said Simmias and Cebes, both speaking at once.

  Ech.

  Yes, Phaedo; and I do not wonder at their assenting. Any one who has the least sense will acknowledge the wonderful clearness of Socrates’ reasoning.

  Phaed.

  Certainly, Echecrates; and such was the feeling of the whole company at the time.

  Ech.

  Yes, and equally of ourselves, who were not of the company, and are now listening to your recital. But what followed?

  Phaed.

  After all this had been admitted, and they had agreed that ideas exist, and that other things participate in them and derive their names from them, Socrates, if I remember rightly, said:—

  There may still remain the contradiction of the same person being both greater and less, but this is only because he has greatness or smallness relatively to another person.

  This is your way of speaking; and yet when you say that Simmias is greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo, do you not predicate of Simmias both greatness and smallness?

  Yes, I do.

  But still you allow that Simmias does not really exceed Socrates, as the words may seem to imply, because he is Simmias, but by reason of the size which he has; just as Simmias does not exceed Socrates because he is Simmias, any more than because Socrates is Socrates, but because he has smallness when compared with the greatness of Simmias?

  True.

  And if Phaedo exceeds him in size, this is not because Phaedo is Phaedo, but because Phaedo has greatness relatively to Simmias, who is comparatively smaller?

  That is true.

  And therefore Simmias is said to be great, and is also said to be small, because he is in a mean between them, exceeding the smallness of the one by his greatness, and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his smallness. He added, laughing, I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true.

  Simmias assented.

  Socrates, Cebes.The idea of greatness can never be small; and the greatness in us drives out smallness.

  I speak as I do because I want you to agree with me in thinking, not only that absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of being exceeded: instead of this, one of two things will happen, either the greater will fly or retire before the opposite, which is the less, or at the approach of the less has already ceased to exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting of smallness, be changed by that; even as I, having received and admitted smallness when compared with Simmias, remain just as I was, and am the same small person. And as the idea of greatness cannot condescend ever to be or become small, in like manner the smallness in us cannot be or become great; nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever 103be of become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.

  That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion.

  Yet the greater comes from the less, and the less from the greater.

  Hereupon one of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of them, said: In heaven’s name, is not this the direct contrary of what was admitted before—that out of the greater came the less and out of the less the greater, and that opposites were simply generated from opposites; but now this principle seems to be utterly denied.

  Distinguish:—The things in which the opposites inhere generate into and out of one another: never the opposites themselves.

  Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your courage, he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that there is a difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself: then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites are inherent and which are called after them, but now about the opposites which are inherent in them and which give their name to them; and these essential opposites will never, as we maintain, admit of generation into or out of one another. At the same time, turning to Cebes, he said: Are you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our friend’s objection?

  No, I do not feel so, said Cebes; and yet I cannot deny that I am often disturbed by objections.

  Then we are agreed after all, said Socrates, that the opposite will never in any case be opposed to itself?

  To that we are quite agreed, he replied.

  Snow may be converted into water at the approach of heat, but not cold into heat.

  Yet once more let me ask you to consider the question from another point of view, and see whether you agree with me:—There is a thing which you term heat, and another thing which you term cold?

  Certainly.

  But are they the same as fire and snow?

  Most assuredly not.

  Heat is a thing different from fire, and cold is not the same with snow?

  Yes.

  And yet you will surely admit, that when snow, as was before said, is under the influence of heat, they will not remain snow and heat; but at the advance of the heat, the snow will either retire or perish?

  Very true, he replied.

  And the fire too at the advance of the cold will either retire or perish; and when the fire is under the influence of the cold, they will not remain as before, fire and cold.

  That is true, he said.

  And in some cases the name of the idea is not only attached to the idea in an eternal connection, but anything else which, not being the idea, exists only in the form of the idea, may also lay claim to it. I will try to make this clearer by an example:—The odd number is always called by the name of odd?

  Very true.

  But is this the only thing which is called odd? Are there not other things which have their own name, and yet are 104called odd, because, although not the same as oddness, they are never without oddness?—that is what I mean to ask—whether numbers such as the number three are not of the class of odd. And there are many other examples: would you not say, for example, that three may be called by its proper name, and also be called odd, which is not the same with three? and this may be said not only of three but also of five, and of every alternate number—each of them without being oddness is odd; and in the same way two and four, and the other series of alternate numbers, has every number even, without being evenness. Do you agree?

  Of course.

  Not only essential opposites, but some concrete things which contain opposites, exclude each other.

  Then now mark the point at which I am aiming:—not only do essential opposites exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although not in themselves opposed, contain opposites; these, I say, likewise reject the idea which is opposed to that which is contained in them, and when it approaches them they either perish or withdraw. For example; Will not the number three endure annihilation or anything sooner than be converted into an even number, while remaining three?

  Very true, said Cebes.

  And yet, he said, the number two is certainly not opposed to the number three?

  It is not.

  Then not only do opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, but also there are other natures which repel the approach of opposites.

  Very true, he said.

  Suppose, he said, that we endeavour, if possible, to determine what these are.

  By all means.

  That is to say the opposites which give an impress to other things.

  Are they not, Cebes, such as compel the things of which they have possession, not only to take their own form, but also the form of some opposite?

  What do you mean?

  I mean, as I was just now saying, and as I am sure that you know, that those things which are possessed by the number three must not only be three in number, but must also be odd.

  Quite true.

  And on this oddness, of which the number three has the impress, the opposite idea will never intrude?

  No.

  And this impress was given by the odd principle?

  Yes.

  And to the odd is opposed the even?

  True.

  Then the idea of the even number will never arrive at three?

  No.

  Then three has no part in the even?

  None.

  Then the triad or number three is uneven?

  Very true.

  Natures may not be opposed, and yet may not admit of opposites; e. g. three is not opposed to two, and yet does not admit the even any more than two admits of the odd.

  To return then to my distinction of natures which are not opposed, and yet do not admit opposites—as, in the instance given, three, although not opposed to the even, does not any the more admit of the even, but always brings the opposite into play on the other side; or as two does not receive the odd, or fire the cold—from these examples (and 105there are many more of them) perhaps you may be able to arrive at the general conclusion, that not only opposites will not receive opposites, but also that nothing which brings the opposite will admit the opposite of that which it brings, in that to which it is brought. And here let me recapitulate—for there is no harm in repetition. The number five will not admit the nature of the even, any more than ten, which is the double of five, will admit the nature of the odd. The double has another opposite, and is not strictly opposed to the odd, but nevertheless rejects the odd altogether. Nor again will parts in the ratio 3:2, nor any fraction in which there is a half, nor again in which there is a third, admit the notion of the whole, although they are not opposed to the whole: You will agree?

  Yes, he said, I entirely agree and go along with you in that.

  The merely verbal truth may be replaced by a higher one.

  And now, he said, let us begin again; and do not you answer my question in the words in which I ask it: let me have not the old safe answer of which I spoke at first, but another equally safe, of which the truth will be inferred by you from what has been just said. I mean that if any one asks you ‘what that is, of which the inherence makes the body hot,’ you will reply not heat (this is what I call the safe and stupid answer), but fire, a far superior answer, which we are now in a condition to give. Or if any one asks you ‘why a body is diseased,’ you will not say from disease, but from fever; and instead of saying that oddness is the cause of odd numbers, you will say that the monad is the cause of them: and so of things in general, as I dare say that you will understand sufficiently without my adducing any further examples.

  Yes, he said, I quite understand you.

  Tell me, then, what is that of which the inherence will render the body alive?

  We may now say, not life makes alive, but the soul makes alive; and the soul has a life-giving power which does not admit of death and is therefore immortal.

  The soul, he replied.

  And is this always the case?

  Yes, he said, of course.

  Then whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life?

  Yes, certainly.

  And is there any opposite to life?

  There is, he said.

  And what is that?

  Death.

  Then the soul, as has been acknowledged, will never receive the opposite of what she brings.

  Impossible, replied Cebes.

  And now, he said, what did we just now call that principle which repels the even?

  The odd.

  And that principle which repels the musical or the just?

  The unmusical, he said, and the unjust.

  And what do we call that principle which does not admit of death?

  The immortal, he said.

  And does the soul admit of death?

  No.

  Then the soul is immortal?

  Yes, he said.

  And may we say that this has been proven?

  Yes, abundantly proven, Socrates, he replied.

  Illustrations.

  106Supposing that the odd were imperishable, must not three be imperishable?

  Of course.

  And if that which is cold were imperishable, when the warm principle came attacking the snow, must not the snow have retired whole and unmelted—for it could never have perished, nor could it have remained and admitted the heat?

  True, he said.

  Again, if the uncooling or warm principle were imperishable, the fire when assailed by cold would not have perished or have been extinguished, but would have gone away unaffected?

  Certainly, he said.

  And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the preceding argument shows that the soul will not admit of death, or ever be dead, any more than three or the odd number will admit of the even, or fire, or the heat in the fire, of the cold. Yet a person may say: ‘But although the odd will not become even at the approach of the even, why may not the odd perish and the even take the place of the odd?’ Now to him who makes this objection, we cannot answer that the odd principle is imperishable; for this has not been acknowledged, but if this had been acknowledged, there would have been no difficulty in contending that at the approach of the even the odd principle and the number three took their departure; and the same argument would have held good of fire and heat and any other thing.

  Very true.

  The immortal is imperishable, and therefore the soul is imperishable.

  And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also imperishable, then the soul will be imperishable as well as immortal; but if not, some other proof of her imperishableness will have to be given.

  No other proof is needed, he said; for if the immortal, being eternal, is liable to perish, then nothing is imperishable.

  Yes, replied Socrates, and yet all men will agree that God, and the essential form of life, and the immortal in general, will never perish.

  Yes, all men, he said—that is true; and what is more, gods, if I am not mistaken, as well as men.

  Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not the soul, if she is immortal, be also imperishable?

  Most certainly.

  Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed to die, but the immortal retires at the approach of death and is preserved safe and sound?

  True.

  At death the soul retires into another world.

  Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another 107world!

  Socrates, Cebes, Simmias.

  I am convinced, Socrates, said Cebes, and have nothing more to object; but if my friend Simmias, or any one else, has any further objection to make, he had better speak out, and not keep silence, since I do not know to what other season he can defer the discussion, if there is anything which he wants to say or to have said.

  But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor can I see any reason for doubt after what has been said. But I still feel and cannot help feeling uncertain in my own mind, when I think of the greatness of the subject and the feebleness of man.

  Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and I may add that first principles, even if they appear certain, should be carefully considered; and when they are satisfactorily ascertained, then, with a sort of hesitating confidence in human reason, you may, I think, follow the course of the argument; and if that be plain and clear, there will be no need for any further enquiry.

  Very true.

  ‘Wherefore, seeing all these things, what manner of persons ought we to be?’

  But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of his journey thither.

  The attendant genius of each brings him after death to the judgmentSocrates, Simmias.The different destinies of pure and impure souls.

  For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together, whence after judgment has been given they pass into the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have there received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. Now this way to the other world is not, as Aeschylus says in the Telephus, a 108single and straight path—if that were so no guide would be needed, for no one could miss it; but there are many partings of the road, and windings, as I infer from the rites and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul follows in the straight path and is conscious of her surroundings; but the soul which desires the body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant genius; and when she arrives at the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, whether foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works of brothers in crime—from that soul every one flees and turns away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper home.

  Description of the divers regions of earth.

  Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed in nature and extent very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the authority of one who shall be nameless.

  What do you mean, Socrates? said Simmias. I have myself heard many descriptions of the earth, but I do not know, and I should very much like to know, in which of these you put faith.

  And I, Simmias, replied Socrates, if I had the art of Glaucus would tell you; although I know not that the art of Glaucus could prove the truth of my tale, which I myself should never be able to prove, and even if I could, I fear, Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the argument was completed. I may describe to you, however, the form and regions of the earth according to my conception of them.

  That, said Simmias, will be enough.

  The earth is a round body kept in her place by equipoise and the equability of the surrounding element.

  Well then, he said, my conviction is, that the earth is a round body in the centre of the heavens, and therefore has 109no need of air or of any similar force to be a support, but is kept there and hindered from falling or inclining any way by the equability of the surrounding heaven and by her own equipoise. For that which, being in equipoise, is in the centre of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any way in any degree, but will always remain in the same state and not deviate. And this is my first notion.

  Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.

  Mankind lives only in a small portion of the earth at a distance from the surface.If, like fishes who now and then put their heads out of the water, we could rise to the top of the atmosphere, we should behold the true heaven and the true earth.

  Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who dwell in the region extending from the river Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles inhabit a small portion only about the sea, like ants or frogs about a marsh, and that there are other inhabitants of many other like places; for everywhere on the face of the earth there are hollows of various forms and sizes, into which the water and the mist and the lower air collect. But the true earth is pure and situated in the pure heaven—there are the stars also; and it is the heaven which is commonly spoken of by us as the ether, and of which our own earth is the sediment gathering in the hollows beneath. But we who live in these hollows are deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of the earth; which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the sea was the heaven through which he saw the sun and the other stars, he having never come to the surface by reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted up his head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, how much purer and fairer the world above is than his own. And such is exactly our case: for we are dwelling in a hollow of the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface; and the air we call the heaven, in which we imagine that the stars move. But the fact is, that owing to our feebleness and sluggishness we are prevented from reaching the surface of the air: for if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain the sight, he would acknowledge that this other world was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth. For our earth, and the stones, and the entire region which 110surrounds us, are spolit and corroded, as in the sea all things are corroded by the brine, neither is there any noble or perfect growth, but caverns only, and sand, and an endless slough of mud; and even the shore is not to be compared to the fairer sights of this world. And still less is this our world to be compared with the other. Of that upper earth which is under the heaven, I can tell you a charming tale, Simmias, which is well worth hearing.

  And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed to listen to you.

  The upper earth is in every respect far fairer than the lower. There is gold and purple, and pure light, and trees and flowers lovelier far than our own, and all the stones are more precious than our precious stones.Socrates.The blessed gods dwell there and hold converse with the inhabitants.

  The tale, my friend, he said, is as follows:—In the first place, the earth, when looked at from above, is in appearance streaked like one of those balls which have leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked with various colours, of which the colours used by painters on earth are in a manner samples. But there the whole earth is made up of them, and they are brighter far and clearer than ours; there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also the radiance of gold, and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow. Of these and other colours the earth is made up, and they are more in number and fairer than the eye of man has ever seen; the very hollows (of which I was speaking) filled with air and water have a colour of their own, and are seen like light gleaming amid the diversity of the other colours, so that the whole presents a single and continuous appearance of variety in unity. And in this fair region everything that grows—trees, and flowers, and fruits—are in a like degree fairer than any here; and there are hills, having stones in them in a like degree smoother, and more transparent, and fairer in colour than our highly-valued emeralds and sardonyxes and jaspers, and other gems, which are but minute fragments of them: for there all the stones are like our precious stones, and fairer still1 . The reason is, that they are pure, and not, like our precious stones, infected or corroded by the corrupt briny elements which coagulate among us, and which breed foulness and disease both in earth and stones, as well as in animals and plants. They are the jewels of the upper earth, which also 111shines with gold and silver and the like, and they are set in the light of day and are large and abundant and in all places, making the earth a sight to gladden the beholder’s eye. And there are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them what the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same proportion that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers, and are conscious of them and hold converse with them; and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they truly are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.

  Description of the interior of the earth and of the subterranean seas and rivers.

  Such is the nature of the whole earth, and of the things which are around the earth; and there are divers regions in the hollows on the face of the globe everywhere, some of them deeper and more extended than that which we inhabit, others deeper but with a narrower opening than ours, and some are shallower and also wider. All have numerous perforations, and there are passages broad and narrow in the interior of the earth, connecting them with one another; and there flows out of and into them, as into basins, a vast tide of water, and huge subterranean streams of perennial rivers, and springs hot and cold, and a great fire, and great rivers of fire, and streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like the rivers of mud in Sicily, and the lava streams which follow them), and the regions about which they happen to flow are filled up with them. And there is a swinging or see-saw in the interior of the earth which moves all this up and down, and is due to the following cause:—There is a chasm which is the vastest of them all, and pierces right 112through the whole earth; this is that chasm which Homer describes in the words,—

  ‘Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth;’

  and which he in other places, and many other poets, have called Tartarus. And the see-saw is caused by the streams flowing into and out of this chasm, and they each have the nature of the soil through which they flow. And the reason why the streams are always flowing in and out, is that the watery element has no bed or bottom, but is swinging and surging up and down, and the surrounding wind and air do the same; they follow the water up and down, hither and thither, over the earth—just as in the act of respiration the air is always in process of inhalation and exhalation;—and the wind swinging with the water in and out produces fearful and irresistible blasts: when the waters retire with a rush into the lower parts of the earth, as they are called, they flow through the earth in those regions, and fill them up like water raised by a pump, and then when they leave those regions and rush back hither, they again fill the hollows here, and when these are filled, flow through subterranean channels and find their way to their several places, forming seas, and lakes, and rivers, and springs. Thence they again enter the earth, some of them making a long circuit into many lands, others going to a few places and not so distant; and again fall into Tartarus, some at a point a good deal lower than that at which they rose, and others not much lower, but all in some degree lower than the point from which they came. And some burst forth again on the opposite side, and some on the same side, and some wind round the earth with one or many folds like the coils of a serpent, and descend as far as they can, but always return and fall into the chasm. The rivers flowing in either direction can descend only to the centre and no further, for opposite to the rivers is a precipice.

  Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Styx (or Cocytus).

  Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse, and there are four principal ones, of which the greatest and outermost is that called Oceanus, which flows round the earth in a circle; and in the opposite direction flows Acheron, which passes under the earth through desert places into the 113Acherusian lake: this is the lake to the shores of which the souls of the many go when they are dead, and after waiting an appointed time, which is to some a longer and to some a shorter time, they are sent back to be born again as animals. The third river passes out between the two, and near the place of outlet pours into a vast region of fire, and forms a lake larger than the Mediterranean Sea, boiling with water and mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid, and winding about the earth, comes, among other places, to the extremities of the Acherusian lake, but mingles not with the waters of the lake, and after making many coils about the earth plunges into Tartarus at a deeper level. This is that Pyriphlegethon, as the stream is called, which throws up jets of fire in different parts of the earth. The fourth river goes out on the opposite side, and falls first of all into a wild and savage region, which is all of a dark blue colour, like lapis lazuli; and this is that river which is called the Stygian river, and falls into and forms the Lake Styx, and after falling into the lake and receiving strange powers in the waters, passes under the earth, winding round in the opposite direction, and comes near the Acherusian lake from the opposite side to Pyriphlegethon. And the water of this river too mingles with no other, but flows round in a circle and falls into Tartarus over against Pyriphlegethon; and the name of the river, as the poets say, is Cocytus.

  The judgment of the dead.

  Such is the nature of the other world; and when the dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally guides them, first of all, they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not. And those who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to the river Acheron, and embarking in any vessels which they may find, are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and having suffered the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, they are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds, each of them according to his deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—such are hurled into Tartarus which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not irremediable—who in a moment of anger, for example, have done some violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or, who have taken 114the life of another under the like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and they are borne to the Acherusian lake, and there they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to be kind to them, and let them come out into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for that is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. Those too who have been pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and of these, such as have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer still, which may not be described, and of which the time would fail me to tell.

  Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize, and the hope great!

  These descriptions are not true to the letter, but something like them is true.Socrates, Crito.

  A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like these, which is the reason why I lengthen out the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who having cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him and working harm rather than good, has sought after the pleasures of knowledge; and has arrayed the soul, not in some foreign attire, but in her own proper jewels, temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—in these adorned she 115is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her hour comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as a tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison; and I think that I had better repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not have the trouble of washing my body after I am dead.

  When he had done speaking, Crito said: And have you any commands for us, Socrates—anything to say about your children, or any other matter in which we can serve you?

  Nothing particular, Crito, he replied: only, as I have always told you, take care of yourselves; that is a service which you may be ever rendering to me and mine and to all of us, whether you promise to do so or not. But if you have no thought for yourselves, and care not to walk according to the rule which I have prescribed for you, not now for the first time, however much you may profess or promise at the moment, it will be of no avail.

  We will do our best, said Crito: And in what way shall we bury you?

  The dead body which remains is not the true Socrates.Socrates, Crito, The Jailer.

  In any way that you like; but you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not run away from you. Then he turned to us, and added with a smile:—I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body—and he asks, How shall he bury me? And though I have spoken many words in the endeavour to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed,—these words of mine, with which I was comforting you and myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore I want you to be surety for me to him now, as at the trial he was surety to the judges for me: but let the promise be of another sort; for he was surety for me to the judges that I would remain, and you must be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that whatever is usual, and what you 116think best.

  He takes leave of his family.

  When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into a chamber to bathe; Crito followed him and told us to wait. So we remained behind, talking and thinking of the subject of discourse, and also of the greatness of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans. When he had taken the bath his children were brought to him—(he had two young sons and an elder one); and the women of his family also came, and he talked to them and gave them a few directions in the presence of Crito; then he dismissed them and returned to us.

  The humanity of the jailer.

  Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed while he was within. When he came out, he sat down with us again after his bath, but not much was said. Soon the jailer, who was the servant of the Eleven, entered and stood by him, saying:—To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me, when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison—indeed, I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are to blame. And so fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be—you know my errand. Then bursting into tears he turned away and went out.

  Socrates looked at him and said: I return your good wishes, and will do as you bid. Then turning to us, he said, How charming the man is: since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me, and was as good to me as could be, and now see how generously he sorrows on my account. We must do as he says, Crito; and therefore let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared: if not, let the attendant prepare some.

  Crito would detain Socrates a little while.

  Yet, said Crito, the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and I know that many a one has taken the draught late, and after the announcement has been made to him, he has eaten and drunk, and enjoyed the society of his beloved; do not hurry—there is time enough.

  Socrates thinks that there is nothing to be gained by delay.

  Socrates said: Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in so acting, for they think that they will be gainers by the delay; but I am right in not following their example, for I do not think that I should gain anything by 117drinking the poison a little later; I should only be ridiculous in my own eyes for sparing and saving a life which is already forfeit. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me.

  The poison is brought.He drinks the poison.The company of friends are unable to control themselves.Says Socrates, ‘A man should die in peace.’Socrates, Crito, Phaedo.The debt to Asclepius.

  Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing by; and he went out, and having been absent for some time, returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said: You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed. The man answered: You have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act. At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of colour or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not? The man answered: We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough. I understand, he said: but I may and must ask the gods to prosper my journey from this to the other world—even so—and so be it according to my prayer. Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend. Nor was I the first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud and passionate cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness: What is this strange outcry? he said. I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not misbehave in this way, for I have been told that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience. When we heard his words we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and asked him if he could feel; and he said, No; and then his leg, and so upwards and 118upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said: When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said—they were his last words—he said: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.

  Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.

  GORGIAS.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Gorgias.Introduction.

  In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus (177 C), that the digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the dialogues there is also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and references are interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confine the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (Cp. Introduction to the Phaedrus.)

  Two tendencies seem to have best the interpreters of Plato in this matter. First, they have endeavoured to hang the dialogues upon one another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and contradictory assertions respecting their order and sequence. The mantle of Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied his method with the most various results. The value and use of the method has been hardly, if at all, examined either by him or them. Secondly, they have extended almost indefinitely the scope of each separate dialogue; in this way they think that they have escaped all difficulties, not seeing that what they have gained in generality they have lost in truth and distinctness. Metaphysical conceptions easily pass into one another; and the simpler notions of antiquity, which we can only realize by an effort, imperceptibly blend with the more familiar theories of modern philosophers. An eye for proportion is needed (his own art of measuring) in the study of Plato, as well as of other great artists. We may readily admit that the moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of knowledge and opinion, being and appearance, are never far off in a Platonic discussion. But because they are in the background, we should not bring them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all the dialogues.

  There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines of the building; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural form and connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues are finished works of art, we may find a reason for everything, and lose the highest characteristic of art, which is simplicity. Most great works receive a new light from a new and original mind. But whether these new lights are true or only suggestive, will depend on their agreement with the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidence which can be urged in support of them. When a theory is running away with us, criticism does a friendly office in counselling moderation, and recalling us to the indications of the text.

  Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the appearance of two or more subjects. Under the cover of rhetoric higher themes are introduced; the argument expands into a general view of the good and evil of man. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain a sound definition of his art from Gorgias, Socrates assumes the existence of a universal art of flattery or simulation having several branches;—this is the genus of which rhetoric is only one, and not the highest species. To flattery is opposed the true and noble art of life which he who possesses seeks always to impart to others, and which at last triumphs, if not here, at any rate in another world. These two aspects of life and knowledge appear to be the two leading ideas of the dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in the treatment of the soul as well as of the body, are conceived under the forms of true and false art. In the development of this opposition there arise various other questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of Socrates (paradoxes as they are to the world in general, ideals as they may be more worthily called): (1) that to do is worse than to suffer evil; and (2) that when a man has done evil he had better be punished than unpunished; to which may be added (3) a third Socratic paradox or ideal, that bad men do what they think best, but not what they desire, for the desire of all is towards the good. That pleasure is to be distinguished from good is proved by the simultaneousness of pleasure and pain, and by the possibility of the bad having in certain cases pleasures as great as those of the good, or even greater. Not merely rhetoricians, but poets, musicians, and other artists, the whole tribe of statesmen, past as well as present, are included in the class of flatterers. The true and false finally appear before the judgment-seat of the gods below.

  The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles respectively correspond; and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Polus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles. In the first division the question is asked—What is rhetoric? To this there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple Polus, who rushes to the defence of his master. The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Polus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams or flatteries. When Polus finds his favourite art reduced to the level of cookery, he replies that at any rate rhetoricians, like despots, have great power. Socrates denies that they have any real power, and hence arise the three paradoxes already mentioned. Although they are strange to him, Polus is at last convinced of their truth; at least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises. Thus the second act of the dialogue closes. Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong. When he is confuted he withdraws from the argument, and leaves Socrates to arrive at the conclusion by himself. The conclusion is that there are two kinds of statesmanship, a higher and a lower—that which makes the people better, and that which only flatters them, and he exhorts Callicles to choose the higher. The dialogue terminates with a mythus of a final judgment, in which there will be no more flattery or disguise, and no further use for the teaching of rhetoric.

  The characters of the three interlocutors also correspond to the parts which are assigned to them. Gorgias is the great rhetorician, now advanced in years, who goes from city to city displaying his talents, and is celebrated throughout Greece. Like all the Sophists in the dialogues of Plato, he is vain and boastful, yet he has also a certain dignity, and is treated by Socrates with considerable respect. But he is no match for him in dialectics. Although he has been teaching rhetoric all his life, he is still incapable of defining his own art. When his ideas begin to clear up, he is unwilling to admit that rhetoric can be wholly separated from justice and injustice, and this lingering sentiment of morality, or regard for public opinion, enables Socrates to detect him in a contradiction. Like Protagoras, he is described as of a generous nature; he expresses his approbation of Socrates’ manner of approaching a question; he is quite ‘one of Socrates’ sort, ready to be refuted as well as to refute,’ and very eager that Callicles and Socrates should have the game out. He knows by experience that rhetoric exercises great influence over other men, but he is unable to explain the puzzle how rhetoric can teach everything and know nothing.

  Polus is an impetuous youth, a runaway ‘colt,’ as Socrates describes him, who wanted originally to have taken the place of Gorgias under the pretext that the old man was tired, and now avails himself of the earliest opportunity to enter the lists. He is said to be the author of a work on rhetoric (462 C), and is again mentioned in the Phaedrus (267 B), as the inventor of balanced or double forms of speech (cp. Gorg. 448 C, 467 C; Symp. 185 C). At first he is violent and ill-mannered, and is angry at seeing his master overthrown. But in the judicious hands of Socrates he is soon restored to good-humour, and compelled to assent to the required conclusion. Like Gorgias, he is overthrown because he compromises; he is unwilling to say that to do is fairer or more honourable than to suffer injustice. Though he is fascinated by the power of rhetoric, and dazzled by the splendour of success, he is not insensible to higher arguments. Plato may have felt that there would be an incongruity in a youth maintaining the cause of injustice against the world. He has never heard the other side of the question, and he listens to the paradoxes, as they appear to him, of Socrates with evident astonishment. He can hardly understand the meaning of Archelaus being miserable, or of rhetoric being only useful in self-accusation. When the argument with him has fairly run out,

  Callicles, in whose house they are assembled, is introduced on the stage: he is with difficulty convinced that Socrates is in earnest; for if these things are true, then, as he says with real emotion, the foundations of society are upside down. In him another type of character is represented; he is neither sophist nor philosopher, but man of the world, and an accomplished Athenian gentleman. He might be described in modern language as a cynic or materialist, a lover of power and also of pleasure, and unscrupulous in his means of attaining both. There is no desire on his part to offer any compromise in the interests of morality; nor is any concession made by him. Like Thrasymachus in the Republic, though he is not of the same weak and vulgar class, he consistently maintains that might is right. His great motive of action is political ambition; in this he is characteristically Greek. Like Anytus in the Meno, he is the enemy of the Sophists; but favours the new art of rhetoric, which he regards as an excellent weapon of attack and defence. He is a despiser of mankind as he is of philosophy, and sees in the laws of the state only a violation of the order of nature, which intended that the stronger should govern the weaker (cp. Rep. ii. 358–360). Like other men of the world who are of a speculative turn of mind, he generalizes the bad side of human nature, and has easily brought down his principles to his practice. Philosophy and poetry alike supply him with distinctions suited to his view of human life. He has a good will to Socrates, whose talents he evidently admires, while he censures the puerile use which he makes of them. He expresses a keen intellectual interest in the argument. Like Anytus, again, he has a sympathy with other men of the world; the Athenian statesmen of a former generation, who showed no weakness and made no mistakes, such as Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal of human character is a man of great passions and great powers, which he has developed to the utmost, and which he uses in his own enjoyment and in the government of others. Had Critias been the name instead of Callicles, about whom we know nothing from other sources, the opinions of the man would have seemed to reflect the history of his life.

  And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist or rhetorician, is concentrated the spirit of evil against which Socrates is contending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the many contending against the one wise man, of which the Sophists, as he describes them in the Republic, are the imitators rather than the authors, being themselves carried away by the great tide of public opinion. Socrates approaches his antagonist warily from a distance, with a sort of irony which touches with a light hand both his personal vices (probably in allusion to some scandal of the day) and his servility to the populace. At the same time, he is in most profound earnest, as Chaerephon remarks. Callicles soon loses his temper, but the more he is irritated, the more provoking and matter of fact does Socrates become. A repartee of his which appears to have been really made to the ‘omniscient’ Hippias, according to the testimony of Xenophon (Mem. iv. 4, 6, 10), is introduced (490 E). He is called by Callicles a popular declaimer, and certainly shows that he has the power, in the words of Gorgias, of being ‘as long as he pleases,’ or ‘as short as he pleases’ (cp. Protag. 336 D). Callicles exhibits great ability in defending himself and attacking Socrates, whom he accuses of trifling and word-splitting; he is scandalized (p. 494) that the legitimate consequences of his own argument should be stated in plain terms; after the manner of men of the world, he wishes to preserve the decencies of life. But he cannot consistently maintain the bad sense of words; and getting confused between the abstract notions of better, superior, stronger, he is easily turned round by Socrates, and only induced to continue the argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when Socrates is describing the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to identify himself with the people, he partially recognizes the truth of his words.

  The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the Protagoras and Meno. As in other dialogues, he is the enemy of the Sophists and rhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards as another variety of the same species. His behaviour is governed by that of his opponents; the least forwardness or egotism on their part is met by a corresponding irony on the part of Socrates. He must speak, for philosophy will not allow him to be silent. He is indeed more ironical and provoking than in any other of Plato’s writings: for he is ‘fooled to the top of his bent’ by the worldliness of Callicles. But he is also more deeply in earnest. He rises higher than even in the Phaedo and Crito: at first enveloping his moral convictions in a cloud of dust and dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in them. As in the Protagoras and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of irony, he makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his adversary has refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his own fate is hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher of politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to war with the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will be condemned. But he will be justified in the world below. Then the position of Socrates and Callicles will be reversed; all those things ‘unfit for ears polite’ which Callicles has prophesied as likely to happen to him in this life, the insulting language, the box on the ears, will recoil upon his assailant. (Compare Rep. x. 613, D, E, and the similar reversal of the position of the lawyer and the philosopher in the Theaetetus, 173–176.)

  There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of the generals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically attributes to his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the assembly should be taken (473 E). This is said to have happened ‘last year’ (b. c. 406), and therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been fixed at 405 b. c., when Socrates would already have been an old man. The date is clearly marked, but is scarcely reconcilable with another indication of time, viz. the ‘recent’ usurpation of Archelaus, which occurred in the year 413 (470 D); and still less with the ‘recent’ death (503 B) of Pericles, who really died twenty-four years previously (429 b. c.) and is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a past age (cp. 517 A); or with the mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spoken of as a living witness (472 A, B). But we shall hereafter have reason to observe, that although there is a general consistency of times and persons in the Dialogues of Plato, a precise dramatic date is an invention of his commentators (Preface to Republic, p. ix).

  The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly characteristic declaration of Socrates (p. 509 A) that he is ignorant of the true nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same time that no one can maintain any other view without being ridiculous. The profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more exclusively Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this ‘among the multitude of questions’ which agitate human life ‘as the principle which alone remains unshaken’ (527 B). He does not insist here, any more than in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for the next best thing to a man’s being just is that he should be corrected and become just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself or of others; and that rhetoric should be employed for the maintenance of the right only. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the argument in a figure.

  (2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, he disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be put to death before he had done any good to himself or others. Here he anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is ‘the only man of the present day who performs his public duties at all.’ The two points of view are not really inconsistent, but the difference between them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not in the ordinary sense, like Alcibiades or Pericles, but in a higher one; and this will sooner or later entail the same consequences on him. He cannot be a private man if he would; neither can he separate morals from politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a politician, although he foresees the dangers which await him; but he must first become a better and wiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity and uncertainty (527 D, E). And yet there is an inconsistency: for should not Socrates too have taught the citizens better than to put him to death (519)?

  And now, as he himself says (506 D), we will ‘resume the argument from the beginning.’

  Analysis.

  Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon, 447meets Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is informed that he has just missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because he was desirous, not of hearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning the nature of his art. Callicles proposes that they shall go with him to his own house, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great 448rhetorician and his younger friend and disciple Polus.

  Soc. Put the question to him, Chaerephon. Ch. What question? Soc. Who is he?—such a question as would elicit from a man the answer, ‘I am a cobbler.’ Polus suggests that Gorgias may be tired, and desires to answer for him. ‘Who is Gorgias?’ asks Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his master Socrates. ‘One of the best of men, and a proficient in the best and noblest of experimental arts,’ etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical and balanced phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and unmeaningness of the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that he has mistaken the quality for the nature of the art, and remarks to Gorgias, that Polus has learnt how to make a speech, but not how to answer a question. He wishes that Gorgias would answer him. Gorgias is willing enough, and replies to the question asked by Chaerephon,—that he is a rhetorician, and in Homeric language, ‘boasts 449himself to be a good one.’ At the request of Socrates he promises to be brief; for ‘he can be as long as he pleases, and as short as he pleases.’ Socrates would have him bestow his length on others, and proceeds to ask him a number of questions, which are answered by him to his own great satisfaction, and with a brevity which excites the admiration of Socrates. The result of the discussion may be summed up as follows:—

  450Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and other particular arts, are also concerned with discourse; in what way then does rhetoric differ from them? Gorgias draws a distinction between the arts which deal with words, and the arts which have to do with external actions. Socrates extends this distinction further, and divides all productive arts into two classes: (1) arts which may be carried on in silence; and (2) arts which have to do with words, or in which words are coextensive with action, such as arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric. But still 451Gorgias could hardly have meant to say that arithmetic was the same as rhetoric. Even in the arts which are concerned with words there are differences. What then distinguishes rhetoric from the other arts which have to do with words? ‘The words which rhetoric uses relate to the best and greatest of human things.’ But tell me, Gorgias, what are the best? ‘Health first, beauty next, wealth third,’ in the words of the old song, or how would you rank them? The arts will come to you in a body, each 452claiming precedence and saying that her own good is superior to that of the rest—How will you choose between them? ‘I should say, Socrates, that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to all men, and to individuals power in the state, is the greatest 453good.’ But what is the exact nature of this persuasion?—is the persevering retort: You could not describe Zeuxis as a painter, or even as a painter of figures, if there were other painters of figures; neither can you define rhetoric simply as an art of persuasion, because there are other arts which persuade, such as arithmetic, which is an art of persuasion about odd and even numbers. Gorgias is made to see the necessity of a further limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as the art of persuading in 454the law courts, and in the assembly, about the just and unjust. But still there are two sorts of persuasion: one which gives knowledge, and another which gives belief without knowledge; and knowledge is always true, but belief may be either true or 455false,—there is therefore a further question: which of the two sorts of persuasion does rhetoric effect in courts of law and assemblies? Plainly that which gives belief and not that which gives knowledge; for no one can impart a real knowledge of such matters to a crowd of persons in a few minutes. And there is another point to be considered:—when the assembly meets to advise about walls or docks or military expeditions, the rhetorician is not taken into counsel, but the architect, or the general. How would Gorgias explain this phenomenon? All who intend to become disciples, of whom there are several in the company, and not Socrates only, are eagerly asking:—About what then will rhetoric teach us to persuade or advise the state?

  Gorgias illustrates the nature of rhetoric by adducing the example of Themistocles, who persuaded the Athenians to build their docks and walls, and of Pericles, whom Socrates himself has heard speaking about the middle wall of the Piraeus. He adds 456that he has exercised a similar power over the patients of his brother Herodicus. He could be chosen a physician by the assembly if he pleased, for no physician could compete with a rhetorician in popularity and influence. He could persuade the multitude of anything by the power of his rhetoric; not that the rhetorician ought to abuse this power any more than a boxer 457should abuse the art of self-defence. Rhetoric is a good thing, but, like all good things, may be unlawfully used. Neither is the teacher of the art to be deemed unjust because his pupils are unjust and make a bad use of the lessons which they have learned from him.

  Socrates would like to know before he replies, whether Gorgias will quarrel with him if he points out a slight inconsistency into which he has fallen, or whether he, like himself, is one who loves 458to be refuted. Gorgias declares that he is quite one of his sort, but fears that the argument may be tedious to the company. The company cheer, and Chaerephon and Callicles exhort them to proceed. Socrates gently points out the supposed inconsistency into which Gorgias appears to have fallen, and which he is inclined to think may arise out of a misapprehension of his own. 459The rhetorician has been declared by Gorgias to be more persuasive to the ignorant than the physician, or any other expert. And he is said to be ignorant, and this ignorance of his is regarded by Gorgias as a happy condition, for he has escaped the trouble of learning. But is he as ignorant of just and unjust as he 460is of medicine or building? Gorgias is compelled to admit that if he did not know them previously he must learn them from his teacher as a part of the art of rhetoric. But he who has learned carpentry is a carpenter, and he who has learned music is a musician, and he who has learned justice is just. The rhetorician then must be a just man, and rhetoric is a just thing. But Gorgias has already admitted the opposite of this, viz. that rhetoric may be abused, and that the rhetorician may act unjustly. How is the 461inconsistency to be explained?

  The fallacy of this argument is twofold; for in the first place, a man may know justice and not be just—here is the old confusion of the arts and the virtues;—nor can any teacher be expected to counteract wholly the bent of natural character; and secondly, a man may have a degree of justice, but not sufficient to prevent him from ever doing wrong. Polus is naturally exasperated at the sophism, which he is unable to detect; of course, he says, the rhetorician, like every one else, will admit that he knows justice (how can he do otherwise when pressed by the interrogations of Socrates?), but he thinks that great want of manners is shown in bringing the argument to such a pass. Socrates ironically replies, that when old men trip, the young set 462them on their legs again; and he is quite willing to retract, if he can be shown to be in error, but upon one condition, which is that Polus studies brevity. Polus is in great indignation at not being allowed to use as many words as he pleases in the free state of Athens. Socrates retorts, that yet harder will be his own case, if he is compelled to stay and listen to them. After some altercation they agree (cp. Protag. 338), that Polus shall ask and Socrates answer.

  ‘What is the art of Rhetoric?’ says Polus. Not an art at all, replies Socrates, but a thing which in your book you affirm to have created art. Polus asks, ‘What thing?’ and Socrates answers, An experience or routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. ‘But is not rhetoric a fine thing?’ I have not yet told you what rhetoric is. Will you ask me another question—What is cookery? ‘What is cookery?’ An experience or routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. Then they are the same, or rather fall under the same class, and rhetoric 463has still to be distinguished from cookery. ‘What is rhetoric?’ asks Polus once more. A part of a not very creditable whole, which may be termed flattery, is the reply. ‘But what part?’ A shadow of a part of politics. This, as might be expected, is wholly unintelligible, both to Gorgias and Polus; and, in order 464to explain his meaning to them, Socrates draws a distinction between shadows or appearances and realities; e.g. there is real health of body or soul, and the appearance of them; real arts and sciences, and the simulations of them. Now the soul and body have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which attends on the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another art attending on the body, which has no generic name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of which is medicine and the other gymnastic. Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; 465rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of legislation.

  They may be summed up in an arithmetical formula:—

  Tiring : gymnastic : : cookery : medicine : : sophistic : legislation.

  And,

  Cookery : medicine : : rhetoric : the art of justice.

  And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by the gratification which they procure, they become jumbled together and return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the 466length of his speech, which was necessary to the explanation of the subject, and begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate on him.

  ‘Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed flatterers?’ They are not esteemed at all. ‘Why, have they not 467great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?’ They have no power, and they only do what they think best, and never what they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which is the good. ‘As if you, Socrates, would not envy the possessor of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any one whom he -469pleases.’ But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put any one to death; he who kills another, even justly, is not to be envied, and he who kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer than to do injustice. He does not consider that going about with a dagger and putting men out of the way, or setting a house on 470fire, is real power. To this Polus assents, on the ground that such acts would be punished, but he is still of opinion that evildoers, if they are unpunished, may be happy enough. He instances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia. 471Does not Socrates think him happy?—Socrates would like to know more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king to be happy, unless he knows his mental and moral condition. Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas king of Macedon—and he, by every species of crime, first murdering his uncle and then his cousin and half-brother, obtained the kingdom. This was very wicked, and yet all the world, including 472Socrates, would like to have his place. Socrates dismisses the appeal to numbers; Polus, if he will, may summon all the rich men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers, Aristocrates, the house of Pericles, or any other great family—this is the kind of evidence which is adduced in courts of justice, where truth depends upon numbers. But Socrates employs proof of another sort; his appeal is to one witness only,—that is to say, the person with whom he is speaking; him he will convict out of his own mouth. And he is prepared to show, after his manner, that Archelaus cannot be a wicked man and yet happy. 473

  The evil-doer is deemed happy if he escapes, and miserable if he suffers punishment; but Socrates thinks him less miserable if he suffers than if he escapes. Polus is of opinion that such a paradox as this hardly deserves refutation, and is at any rate sufficiently refuted by the fact. Socrates has only to compare the lot of the successful tyrant who is the envy of the world, and of the wretch who, having been detected in a criminal attempt against the state, is crucified or burnt to death. Socrates replies, that if they are both criminal they are both miserable, but that the unpunished is the more miserable of the two. At this Polus laughs outright, which leads Socrates to remark that laughter is a new species of refutation. Polus replies, that he is already refuted; for if he will take the votes of the company, he will find that no one agrees with 474him. To this Socrates rejoins, that he is not a public man, and (referring to his own conduct at the trial of the generals after the battle of Arginusae) is unable to take the suffrages of any company, as he had shown on a recent occasion; he can only deal with one witness at a time, and that is the person with whom he is arguing. But he is certain that in the opinion of any man to do is worse than to suffer evil.

  Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge that to do evil is considered the more foul or dishonourable of the two. But what is fair and what is foul; whether the terms are applied to bodies, colours, figures, laws, habits, studies, must they not be defined with reference to pleasure and utility? Polus 475assents to this latter doctrine, and is easily persuaded that the fouler of two things must exceed either in pain or in hurt. But the doing cannot exceed the suffering of evil in pain, and therefore must exceed in hurt. Thus doing is proved by the testimony of Polus himself to be worse or more hurtful than suffering.

  There remains the other question: Is a guilty man better off 476when he is punished or when he is unpunished? Socrates replies, that what is done justly is suffered justly: if the act is just, the effect is just; if to punish is just, to be punished is just, and therefore fair, and therefore beneficent; and the benefit is that the soul 477is improved. There are three evils from which a man may suffer, and which affect him in estate, body, and soul;—these are, poverty, disease, injustice; and the foulest of these is injustice, the evil of the soul, because that brings the greatest hurt. And there are 478three arts which heal these evils—trading, medicine, justice—and the fairest of these is justice. Happy is he who has never committed 479injustice, and happy in the second degree he who has been healed by punishment. And therefore the criminal should himself 480go to the judge as he would to the physician, and purge away his crime. Rhetoric will enable him to display his guilt in proper colours, and to sustain himself and others in enduring the necessary 481penalty. And similarly if a man has an enemy, he will desire not to punish him, but that he shall go unpunished and become worse and worse, taking care only that he does no injury to himself. These are at least conceivable uses of the art, and no others have been discovered by us.

  Here Callicles, who has been listening in silent amazement, asks Chaerephon whether Socrates is in earnest, and on receiving the assurance that he is, proceeds to ask the same question of Socrates himself. For if such doctrines are true, life must have been turned upside down, and all of us are doing the opposite of what we ought to be doing.

  Socrates replies in a style of playful irony, that before men can understand one another they must have some common feeling. And such a community of feeling exists between himself and Callicles, for both of them are lovers, and they have both a pair of 482loves; the beloved of Callicles are the Athenian Demos and Demos the son of Pyrilampes; the beloved of Socrates are Alcibiades and philosophy. The peculiarity of Callicles is that he can never contradict his loves; he changes as his Demos changes in all his opinions; he watches the countenance of both his loves, and repeats their sentiments, and if any one is surprised at his sayings and doings, the explanation of them is, that he is not a free agent, but must always be imitating his two loves. And this is the explanation of Socrates’ peculiarities also. He is always repeating what his mistress, Philosophy, is saying to him, who, unlike his other love, Alcibiades, is ever the same, ever true. Callicles must refute her, or he will never be at unity with himself; and discord in life is far worse than the discord of musical sounds.

  Callicles answers, that Gorgias was overthrown because, as Polus said, in compliance with popular prejudice he had admitted that if his pupil did not know justice the rhetorician must teach him; and Polus has been similarly entangled, because his modesty led him to admit that to suffer is more honourable than to do injustice. By custom ‘yes,’ but not by nature, says Callicles. And Socrates is 483always playing between the two points of view, and putting one in the place of the other. In this very argument, what Polus only meant in a conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a law of nature. For convention says that ‘injustice is dishonourable,’ but nature says that ‘might is right.’ And we are always taming down the nobler spirits among us to the conventional level. But sometimes a great man will rise up and reassert his original rights, trampling under foot all our formularies, and then the light 484of natural justice shines forth. Pindar says, ‘Law, the king of all, does violence with high hand;’ as is indeed proved by the example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon and never paid for them.

  This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little philosophy is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not ‘passed his metaphysics’ before he has grown up to manhood will never know the world. Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics, and I dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to philosophy: ‘Every man,’ as Euripides says, ‘is fondest of that in which he is best.’ Philosophy 485is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy, and should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up man lisps or studies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None of those over-refined natures ever come to any good; they avoid the busy haunts of men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few admiring youths, and never giving utterance to any noble sentiments.

  For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you, as Zethus says to Amphion in the play, that you have ‘a noble soul 486disguised in a puerile exterior.’ And I would have you consider the danger which you and other philosophers incur. For you would not know how to defend yourself if any one accused you in a law-court,—there you would stand, with gaping mouth and dizzy brain, and might be murdered, robbed, boxed on the ears with impunity. Take my advice, then, and get a little common sense; leave to others these frivolities; walk in the ways of the wealthy and be wise.

  Socrates professes to have found in Callicles the philosopher’s touchstone; and he is certain that any opinion in which they both agree must be the very truth. Callicles has all the three qualities 487which are needed in a critic—knowledge, good-will, frankness; Gorgias and Polus, although learned men, were too modest, and their modesty made them contradict themselves. But Callicles is well-educated; and he is not too modest to speak out (of this he has already given proof), and his good-will is shown both by his own profession and by his giving the same caution against philosophy to Socrates, which Socrates remembers hearing him give 488long ago to his own clique of friends. He will pledge himself to retract any error into which he may have fallen, and which Callicles may point out. But he would like to know first of all what he and Pindar mean by natural justice. Do they suppose that the rule of justice is the rule of the stronger or of the better? ‘There is no difference.’ Then are not the many superior to the one, and the opinions of the many better? And their opinion is that justice is equality, and that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer wrong. 489And as they are the superior or stronger, this opinion of theirs must be in accordance with natural as well as conventional justice. ‘Why will you continue splitting words? Have I not told you that the superior is the better?’ But what do you mean by the better? Tell me that, and please to be a little milder in your language, if 490you do not wish to drive me away. ‘I mean the worthier, the wiser.’ You mean to say that one man of sense ought to rule over ten thousand fools? ‘Yes, that is my meaning.’ Ought the physician then to have a larger share of meats and drinks? or the weaver to have more coats, or the cobbler larger shoes, or the 491farmer more seed? ‘You are always saying the same things, Socrates.’ Yes, and on the same subjects too; but you are never saying the same things. For, first, you defined the superior to be the stronger, and then the wiser, and now something else;—what do you mean? ‘I mean men of political ability, who ought to govern and to have more than the governed.’ Than themselves? ‘What do you mean?’ I mean to say that every man is his own governor. ‘I see that you mean those dolts, the temperate. But my doctrine is, that a man should let his desires grow, and take the means of satisfying them. To the many this is impossible, 492and therefore they combine to prevent him. But if he is a king, and has power, how base would he be in submitting to them! To invite the common herd to be lord over him, when he might have the enjoyment of all things! For the truth is, Socrates, that luxury and self-indulgence are virtue and happiness; all the rest is mere talk.’

  Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what other men only think. According to his view, those who want nothing are not happy. ‘Why,’ says Callicles, ‘if they were, stones and the dead would be happy.’ Socrates in reply is led into a half-serious, half-comic vein of reflection. ‘Who knows,’ as Euripides says, ‘whether life may not be death, and death life?’ Nay, there are philosophers who maintain that even in life we are 493dead, and that the body (σω̂μα) is the tomb (ση̂μα) of the soul. And some ingenious Sicilian has made an allegory, in which he represents fools as the uninitiated, who are supposed to be carrying water to a vessel, which is full of holes, in a similarly holey sieve, and this sieve is their own soul. The idea is fanciful, but nevertheless is a figure of a truth which I want to make you acknowledge, viz. that the life of contentment is better than the life of indulgence. Are you disposed to admit that? ‘Far otherwise.’ Then hear another parable. The life of self-contentment and self-indulgence may be represented respectively by two men, who are filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,—the jars of the one are sound, and the jars of the other leaky; the first fills his jars, and has no more trouble with them; the second is always filling 494them, and would suffer extreme misery if he desisted. Are you of the same opinion still? ‘Yes, Socrates, and the figure expresses what I mean. For true pleasure is a perpetual stream, flowing in and flowing out. To be hungry and always eating, to be thirsty and always drinking, and to have all the other desires and to satisfy them, that, as I admit, is my idea of happiness.’ And to be itching and always scratching? ‘I do not deny that there may be happiness even in that.’ And to indulge unnatural desires, if they are abundantly satisfied? Callicles is indignant at the introduction of such topics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are 495introduced, not by him, but by the maintainer of the identity of pleasure and good. Will Callicles still maintain this? ‘Yes, for the sake of consistency, he will.’ The answer does not satisfy Socrates, who fears that he is losing his touchstone. A profession of seriousness on the part of Callicles reassures him, and they proceed with the argument. Pleasure and good are the same, but knowledge and courage are not the same either with pleasure or good, or with one another. Socrates disproves the first of these statements by showing that two opposites cannot coexist, but must 496alternate with one another—to be well and ill together is impossible. But pleasure and pain are simultaneous, and the cessation of them is simultaneous; e.g. in the case of drinking and thirsting, 497whereas good and evil are not simultaneous, and do not cease simultaneously, and therefore pleasure cannot be the same as good.

  Callicles has already lost his temper, and can only be persuaded to go on by the interposition of Gorgias. Socrates, having already guarded against objections by distinguishing courage and knowledge from pleasure and good, proceeds:—The good are good by the presence of good, and the bad are bad by the presence of evil. 498And the brave and wise are good, and the cowardly and foolish are bad. And he who feels pleasure is good, and he who feels pain is bad, and both feel pleasure and pain in nearly the same degree, and sometimes the bad man or coward in a greater degree. 499Therefore the bad man or coward is as good as the brave or may be even better.

  Callicles endeavours now to avert the inevitable absurdity by affirming that he and all mankind admitted some pleasures to be good and others bad. The good are the beneficial, and the bad are the hurtful, and we should choose the one and avoid the other. But this, as Socrates observes, is a return to the old doctrine of himself and Polus, that all things should be done for the sake of the good.

  500Callicles assents to this, and Socrates, finding that they are agreed in distinguishing pleasure from good, returns to his old 501division of empirical habits, or shams, or flatteries, which study pleasure only, and the arts which are concerned with the higher interests of soul and body. Does Callicles agree to this division? Callicles will agree to anything, in order that he may get through the argument. Which of the arts then are flatteries? Flute-playing, harp-playing, choral exhibitions, the dithyrambics of Cinesias are all equally condemned on the ground that they give pleasure only; and Meles the harp-player, who was the father of 502Cinesias, failed even in that. The stately muse of Tragedy is bent upon pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry in general is only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women, and children. And the orators are very far from speaking with a view to what is best; their way is to humour the assembly as if they were children.

  Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others have a real regard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there are two species of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has a real regard for the citizens. But where are the orators among whom you find the latter? Callicles admits that there are none 503remaining, but there were such in the days when Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and the great Pericles were still alive. Socrates replies that none of these were true artists, setting before themselves the duty of bringing order out of disorder. The good man 504and true orator has a settled design, running through his life, to which he conforms all his words and actions; he desires to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all virtue and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the physician 505who will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites with a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising self-restraint. And this is good for the soul, and better than the unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.

  Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this point, turns restive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his own questions. ‘Then,’ says Socrates, ‘one man must do for two;’ and though he had hoped to have given Callicles an ‘Amphion’ in return for his ‘Zethus,’ he is willing to proceed; at the 506same time, he hopes that Callicles will correct him, if he falls into error. He recapitulates the advantages which he has already won:—

  The pleasant is not the same as the good—Callicles and I are agreed about that,—but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of the good, and the good is that of which the presence makes us good; we and all things good have acquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or soul, of things or persons, is not attained by accident, but is due to order and harmonious arrangement. 507And the soul which has order is better than the soul which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the perfection of goodness and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate whom you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. He therefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid intemperance, and if possible escape the necessity of punishment, but if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this 508way states and individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, as the wise tell us, is the bond of heaven and earth, of gods and men. Callicles has never discovered the power of geometrical proportion in both worlds; he would have men aim at disproportion and excess. But if he be wrong in this, and if self-control is the true secret of happiness, then the paradox is true that the only use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus was right in saying that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias was right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man. And you were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the ears with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is 509worse than to be stricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then is now made fast in adamantine bonds. I myself know not the true nature of these things, but I know that no one can deny my words and not be ridiculous. To do wrong is the greatest of evils, 510and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil. He who would avoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler; and to be the friend he must be the equal of the ruler, and must also resemble him. Under his protection he will suffer no evil, but will he also do no evil? Nay, will he not rather do all the evil which 511he can and escape? And in this way the greatest of all evils will befall him. ‘But this imitator of the tyrant,’ rejoins Callicles, ‘will kill any one who does not similarly imitate him.’ Socrates replies that he is not deaf, and that he has heard that repeated many times, and can only reply, that a bad man will kill a good one. ‘Yes, and that is the provoking thing.’ Not provoking to a man of sense who is not studying the arts which will preserve him from danger; and this, as you say, is the use of rhetoric in courts of justice. But how many other arts are there which also save men from death, and are yet quite humble in their pretensions—such as the art of swimming, or the art of the pilot? Does not the pilot do men at least as much service as the rhetorician, and yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does not charge more than two obols, and when he disembarks is quite unassuming in his demeanour? The reason is that he is not certain 512whether he has done his passengers any good in saving them from death, if one of them is diseased in body, and still more if he is diseased in mind—who can say? The engineer too will often save whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not allow your son to marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours. But what reason is there in this? For if virtue only means the saving of life, whether your own or another’s, you have no right to despise him or any practiser of saving arts. But is not virtue something different from saving and being saved? I would have 513you rather consider whether you ought not to disregard length of life, and think only how you can live best, leaving all besides to the will of Heaven. For you must not expect to have influence either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son of Pyrilampes, unless you become like them. What do you say to this?

  ‘There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not entirely believe you.’

  That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a little more conversation. You remember the two processes—one which was directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to making men as good as possible. And those who have the care of the city should make the citizens as good as possible. But who 514would undertake a public building, if he had never had a teacher of the art of building, and had never constructed a building before? or who would undertake the duty of state-physician, if he had never cured either himself or any one else? Should we not examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And as Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine him? Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that 515 this is the statesman’s proper business. And we must ask the same question about Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles. Whom did they make better? Nay, did not Pericles make the citizens worse? For he gave them pay, and at first he was very popular with them, but at last they condemned him to 516death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals who, having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only made him wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he could not have been a good statesman. The same tale might be repeated about Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades. But the 517charioteer who keeps his seat at first is not thrown out when he gains greater experience and skill. The inference is, that the statesman of a past age were no better than those of our own. They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and harbours, but they did not improve the character of the citizens. I have told you again and again (and I purposely use the same images) that the soul, like the body, may be treated in two ways—there is 518the meaner and the higher art. You seemed to understand what I said at the time, but when I ask you who were the really good statesmen, you answer—as if I asked you who were the good trainers, and you answered, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, the author of the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner. And you would be affronted if I told you that these are a parcel of cooks who make men fat only to make them thin. And those whom they have fattened applaud them, instead of finding fault with them, and lay the blame of their subsequent disorders on their physicians. In this respect, Callicles, you are like them; you applaud the statesmen of old, who pandered to the vices of the citizens, and filled the city with docks and harbours, but neglected 519virtue and justice. And when the fit of illness comes, the citizens who in like manner applauded Themistocles, Pericles, and others, will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors. The old story is always being repeated—‘after all his services, the ungrateful city banished him, or condemned him to death.’ As if the statesman should not have taught the city better! He surely cannot blame the state for having unjustly used him, any more than the sophist or teacher 520can find fault with his pupils if they cheat him. And the sophist and orator are in the same case; although you admire rhetoric and despise sophistic, whereas sophistic is really the higher of the two. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of virtue or politics takes no money, because this is the only kind of service which makes the disciple desirous of requiting his teacher.

  Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes of serving the state Callicles invites him:—‘to the inferior and ministerial one,’ is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of 521avoiding death, replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough, and would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill the good. But he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for him, because he remarks that he is the only person who teaches the true art of politics. And very probably, as in the case which 522he described to Polus, he may be the physician who is tried by a jury of children. He cannot say that he has procured the citizens any pleasure, and if any one charges him with perplexing them, or with reviling their elders, he will not be able to make them understand that he has only been actuated by a desire for their good. And therefore there is no saying what his fate may be. ‘And do you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a good condition?’ Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help, which is never to have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If I had not this kind of self-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die for want of your flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For death is no evil, but to go to the world below laden with offences is the worst of evils. In proof of which I will tell you a tale:—

  Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their 523death, and when judgment had been given upon them they departed—the good to the islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance. But as they were still living, and had their clothes on at the time when they were being judged, there was favouritism, and Zeus, when he came to the throne, was obliged to alter the mode of procedure, and try them after death, having first sent down Prometheus to take away from them the foreknowledge of death. Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed to be the 524judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and Minos was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separation of soul and body, but after death soul and body alike retain their characteristics; the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are all distinguishable. Some prince or potentate, perhaps even the great king himself, appears before Rhadamanthus, and he instantly 525detects him, though he knows not who he is; he sees the scars of perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to the house of torment.

  For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment—the curable and the incurable. The curable are those who are benefited by their punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus, who benefit others by becoming a warning to them. The latter class are generally kings and potentates; meaner persons, happily for themselves, have not the same power of doing injustice. Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are supposed by Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that there is anything to prevent a great man from being a good one, as is 526shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But to Rhadamanthus the souls are only known as good or bad; they are stripped of their dignities and preferments; he despatches the bad to Tartarus, labelled either as curable or incurable, and looks with love and admiration on the soul of some just one, whom he sends to the islands of the blest. Similar is the practice of Aeacus; and Minos overlooks them, holding a golden sceptre, as Odysseus in Homer saw him

  ‘Wielding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.’

  My wish for myself and my fellow-men is, that we may present our souls undefiled to the judge in that day; my desire in life is to 527be able to meet death. And I exhort you, and retort upon you the reproach which you cast upon me,—that you will stand before the judge, gaping, and with dizzy brain, and any one may box you on the ear, and do you all manner of evil.

  Perhaps you think that this is an old wives’ fable. But you, who are the three wisest men in Hellas, have nothing better to say, and no one will ever show that to do is better than to suffer evil. A man should study to be, and not merely to seem. If he is bad, he should become good, and avoid all flattery, whether of the many or of the few.

  Follow me, then; and if you are looked down upon, that will do you no harm. And when we have practised virtue, we will betake ourselves to politics, but not until we are delivered from the shameful state of ignorance and uncertainty in which we are at present. Let us follow in the way of virtue and justice, and not in the way to which you, Callicles, invite us; for that way is nothing worth.

  Introduction.

  We will now consider in order some of the principal points of the dialogue. Having regard (1) to the age of Plato and the ironical character of his writings, we may compare him with himself and with other great teachers, and we may note in passing the objections of his critics. And then (2) casting one eye upon him, we may cast another upon ourselves, and endeavour to draw out the great lessons which he teaches for all time, stripped of the accidental form in which they are enveloped.

  (1) In the Gorgias, as in nearly all the other dialogues of Plato, we are made aware that formal logic has as yet no existence. The old difficulty of framing a definition recurs. The illusive analogy of the arts and the virtues also continues. The ambiguity of several words, such as nature, custom, the honourable, the good, is not cleared up. The Sophists are still floundering about the distinction of the real and seeming. Figures of speech are made the basis of arguments. The possibility of conceiving a universal art or science, which admits of application to a particular subject-matter, is a difficulty which remains unsolved, and has not altogether ceased to haunt the world at the present day (cp. Charmides, 166 ff.). The defect of clearness is also apparent in Socrates himself, unless we suppose him to be practising on the simplicity of his opponent, or rather perhaps trying an experiment in dialectics. Nothing can be more fallacious than the contradiction which he pretends to have discovered in the answers of Gorgias (see Analysis). The advantages which he gains over Polus are also due to a false antithesis of pleasure and good, and to an erroneous assertion that an agent and a patient may be described by similar predicates;—a mistake which Aristotle partly shares and partly corrects in the Nicomachean Ethics, V. i. 4; xi. 2. Traces of a ‘robust sophistry’ are likewise discernible in his argument with Callicles (pp. 490, 496, 516).

  (2) Although Socrates professes to be convinced by reason only, yet the argument is often a sort of dialectical fiction, by which he conducts himself and others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may sometimes wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists, or pointed out to them the rocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous terms good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to examine his arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to criticise this ideal from a merely utilitarian point of view. If we say that the ideal is generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no means agree in thinking that the criminal is happier when punished than when unpunished, any more than they would agree to the stoical paradox that a man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted that the world is against him. Neither does he mean to say that Archelaus is tormented by the stings of conscience; or that the sensations of the impaled criminal are more agreeable than those of the tyrant drowned in luxurious enjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the Protagoras, of virtue as a calculation of pleasure, an opinion which he afterwards repudiates in the Phaedo. What then is his meaning? His meaning we shall be able to illustrate best by parallel notions, which, whether justifiable by logic or not, have always existed among mankind. We must remind the reader that Socrates himself implies that he will be understood or appreciated by very few.

  He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of happiness. When a martyr dies in a good cause, when a soldier falls in battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction. Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe that they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have crowns of glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates’ friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of another, ‘they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.’ We are not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of such a sentiment in the better part of human nature.

  The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain that in some sense or other truth and right are alone to be sought, and that all other goods are only desirable as means towards these. He is thought to have erred in ‘considering the agent only, and making no reference to the happiness of others, as affected by him.’ But the happiness of others or of mankind, if regarded as an end, is really quite as ideal and almost as paradoxical to the common understanding as Plato’s conception of happiness. For the greatest happiness of the greatest number may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which will procure the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of utility, like those of duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasant consequences. Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely self-regarding, considering that Socrates expressly mentions the duty of imparting the truth when discovered to others. Nor must we forget that the side of ethics which regards others is by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato and Aristotle, as well as in the Stoics, the social principle, though taking another form, is really far more prominent than in most modern treatises on ethics.

  The idealizing of suffering is one of the conceptions which have exercised the greatest influence on mankind. Into the theological import of this, or into the consideration of the errors to which the idea may have given rise, we need not now enter. All will agree that the ideal of the Divine Sufferer, whose words the world would not receive, the man of sorrows of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke, has sunk deep into the heart of the human race. It is a similar picture of suffering goodness which Plato desires to pourtray, not without an allusion to the fate of his master Socrates. He is convinced that, somehow or other, such an one must be happy in life or after death. In the Republic, he endeavours to show that his happiness would be assured here in a well-ordered state. But in the actual condition of human things the wise and good are weak and miserable; such an one is like a man fallen among wild beasts, exposed to every sort of wrong and obloquy.

  Plato, like other philosophers, is thus led on to the conclusion, that if ‘the ways of God’ to man are to be ‘justified,’ the hopes of another life must be included. If the question could have been put to him, whether a man dying in torments was happy still, even if, as he suggests in the Apology, ‘death be only a long sleep,’ we can hardly tell what would have been his answer. There have been a few, who, quite independently of rewards and punishments or of posthumous reputation, or any other influence of public opinion, have been willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of others. It is difficult to say how far in such cases an unconscious hope of a future life, or a general faith in the victory of good in the world, may have supported the sufferers. But this extreme idealism is not in accordance with the spirit of Plato. He supposes a day of retribution, in which the good are to be rewarded and the wicked punished (522 E). Though, as he says in the Phaedo, no man of sense will maintain that the details of the stories about another world are true, he will insist that something of the kind is true, and will frame his life with a view to this unknown future. Even in the Republic he introduces a future life as an afterthought, when the superior happiness of the just has been established on what is thought to be an immutable foundation. At the same time he makes a point of determining his main thesis independently of remoter consequences (x. 612 A).

  (3) Plato’s theory of punishment is partly vindictive, partly corrective. In the Gorgias, as well as in the Phaedo and Republic, a few great criminals, chiefly tyrants, are reserved as examples. But most men have never had the opportunity of attaining this pre-eminence of evil. They are not incurable, and their punishment is intended for their improvement. They are to suffer because they have sinned; like sick men, they must go to the physician and be healed. On this representation of Plato’s the criticism has been made, that the analogy of disease and injustice is partial only, and that suffering, instead of improving men, may have just the opposite effect.

  Like the general analogy of the arts and the virtues, the analogy of disease and injustice, or of medicine and justice, is certainly imperfect. But ideas must be given through something; the nature of the mind which is unseen can only be represented under figures derived from visible objects. If these figures are suggestive of some new aspect under which the mind may be considered, we cannot find fault with them for not exactly coinciding with the ideas represented. They partake of the imperfect nature of language, and must not be construed in too strict a manner. That Plato sometimes reasons from them as if they were not figures but realities, is due to the defective logical analysis of his age.

  Nor does he distinguish between the suffering which improves and the suffering which only punishes and deters. He applies to the sphere of ethics a conception of punishment which is really derived from criminal law. He does not see that such punishment is only negative, and supplies no principle of moral growth or development. He is not far off the higher notion of an education of man to be begun in this world, and to be continued in other stages of existence, which is further developed in the Republic. And Christian thinkers, who have ventured out of the beaten track in their meditations on the ‘last things,’ have found a ray of light in his writings. But he has not explained how or in what way punishment is to contribute to the improvement of mankind. He has not followed out the principle which he affirms in the Republic, that ‘God is the author of evil only with a view to good,’ and that ‘they were the better for being punished.’ Still his doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments may be compared favourably with that perversion of Christian doctrine which makes the everlasting punishment of human beings depend on a brief moment of time, or even on the accident of an accident. And he has escaped the difficulty which has often beset divines, respecting the future destiny of the meaner sort of men (Thersites and the like), who are neither very good nor very bad, by not counting them worthy of eternal damnation.

  We do Plato violence in pressing his figures of speech or chains of argument; and not less so in asking questions which were beyond the horizon of his vision, or did not come within the scope of his design. The main purpose of the Gorgias is not to answer questions about a future world, but to place in antagonism the true and false life, and to contrast the judgments and opinions of men with judgment according to the truth. Plato may be accused of representing a superhuman or transcendental virtue in the description of the just man in the Gorgias, or in the companion portrait of the philosopher in the Theaetetus; and at the same time may be thought to be condemning a state of the world which always has existed and always will exist among men. But such ideals act powerfully on the imagination of mankind. And such condemnations are not mere paradoxes of philosophers, but the natural rebellion of the higher sense of right in man against the ordinary conditions of human life. The greatest statesmen have fallen very far short of the political ideal, and are therefore justly involved in the general condemnation.

  Subordinate to the main purpose of the dialogue are some other questions, which may be briefly considered:—

  a. The antithesis of good and pleasure, which as in other dialogues is supposed to consist in the permanent nature of the one compared with the transient and relative nature of the other. Good and pleasure, knowledge and sense, truth and opinion, essence and generation, virtue and pleasure, the real and the apparent, the infinite and finite, harmony or beauty and discord, dialectic and rhetoric or poetry, are so many pairs of opposites, which in Plato easily pass into one another, and are seldom kept perfectly distinct. And we must not forget that Plato’s conception of pleasure is the Heracleitean flux transferred to the sphere of human conduct. There is some degree of unfairness in opposing the principle of good, which is objective, to the principle of pleasure, which is subjective. For the assertion of the permanence of good is only based on the assumption of its objective character. Had Plato fixed his mind, not on the ideal nature of good, but on the subjective consciousness of happiness, that would have been found to be as transient and precarious as pleasure.

  b. The arts or sciences, when pursued without any view to truth, or the improvement of human life, are called flatteries. They are all alike dependent upon the opinion of mankind, from which they are derived. To Plato the whole world appears to be sunk in error, based on self-interest. To this is opposed the one wise man hardly professing to have found truth, yet strong in the conviction that a virtuous life is the only good, whether regarded with reference to this world or to another. Statesmen, Sophists, rhetoricians, poets, are alike brought up for judgment. They are the parodies of wise men, and their arts are the parodies of true arts and sciences. All that they call science is merely the result of that study of the tempers of the Great Beast, which he describes in the Republic.

  c. Various other points of contact naturally suggest themselves between the Gorgias and other dialogues, especially the Republic, the Philebus, and the Protagoras. There are closer resemblances both of spirit and language in the Republic than in any other dialogue, the verbal similarity tending to show that they were written at the same period of Plato’s life. For the Republic supplies that education and training of which the Gorgias suggests the necessity. The theory of the many weak combining against the few strong in the formation of society (which is indeed a partial truth), is similar in both of them, and is expressed in nearly the same language. The sufferings and fate of the just man, the powerlessness of evil, and the reversal of the situation in another life, are also points of similarity. The poets, like the rhetoricians, are condemned because they aim at pleasure only, as in the Republic they are expelled the State, because they are imitators, and minister to the weaker side of human nature. That poetry is akin to rhetoric may be compared with the analogous notion, which occurs in the Protagoras, that the ancient poets were the Sophists of their day. In some other respects the Protagoras rather offers a contrast than a parallel. The character of Protagoras may be compared with that of Gorgias, but the conception of happiness is different in the two dialogues; being described in the former, according to the old Socratic notion, as deferred or accumulated pleasure, while in the Gorgias, and in the Phaedo, pleasure and good are distinctly opposed.

  This opposition is carried out from a speculative point of view in the Philebus. There neither pleasure nor wisdom are allowed to be the chief good, but pleasure and good are not so completely opposed as in the Gorgias. For innocent pleasures, and such as have no antecedent pains, are allowed to rank in the class of goods. The allusion to Gorgias’ definition of rhetoric (Philebus, 58 A, B; cp. Gorg. 452 D, E), as the art of persuasion, of all arts the best, for to it all things submit, not by compulsion, but of their own free will—marks a close and perhaps designed connection between the two dialogues. In both the ideas of measure, order, harmony, are the connecting links between the beautiful and the good.

  In general spirit and character, that is, in irony and antagonism to public opinion, the Gorgias most nearly resembles the Apology, Crito, and portions of the Republic, and like the Philebus, though from another point of view, may be thought to stand in the same relation to Plato’s theory of morals which the Theaetetus bears to his theory of knowledge.

  d. A few minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant irony in the reason which is assigned for the pilot’s modest charge (p. 512); and in the proposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of self-condemnation (p. 480); and in the mighty power of geometrical equality in both worlds (p. 508). (2) The reference of the mythus to the previous discussion should not be overlooked: the fate reserved for incurable criminals such as Archelaus (p. 525); the retaliation of the box on the ears (p. 527); the nakedness of the souls and of the judges who are stript of the clothes or disguises which rhetoric and public opinion have hitherto provided for them (p. 523; cp. Swift’s notion that the universe is a suit of clothes, Tale of a Tub, section 2). The fiction seems to have involved Plato in the necessity of supposing that the soul retained a sort of corporeal likeness after death (p. 524). (3) The appeal to the authority of Homer, who says that Odysseus saw Minos in his court ‘holding a golden sceptre,’ which gives verisimilitude to the tale (p. 526).

  It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing ‘both sides of the game,’ and that in criticising the characters of Gorgias and Polus, we are not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only attempting to analyze the ‘dramatis personae’ as they were conceived by him. Neither is it necessary to enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato is a dramatic writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed to be those which he puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who appears to have the best of the argument; or to repeat the observation that he is a poet as well as a philosopher; or to remark that he is not to be tried by a modern standard, but interpreted with reference to his place in the history of thought and the opinion of his time.

  It has been said that the most characteristic feature of the Gorgias is the assertion of the right of dissent, or private judgment. But this mode of stating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of Plato and of ancient philosophy generally. For Plato is not asserting any abstract right or duty of toleration, or advantage to be derived from freedom of thought; indeed, in some other parts of his writings (e. g. Laws, x), he has fairly laid himself open to the charge of intolerance. No speculations had as yet arisen respecting the ‘liberty of prophesying;’ and Plato is not affirming any abstract right of this nature: but he is asserting the duty and right of the one wise and true man to dissent from the folly and falsehood of the many. At the same time he acknowledges the natural result, which he hardly seeks to avert, that he who speaks the truth to a multitude, regardless of consequences, will probably share the fate of Socrates.

  The irony of Plato sometimes veils from us the height of idealism to which he soars. When declaring truths which the many will not receive, he puts on an armour which cannot be pierced by them. The weapons of ridicule are taken out of their hands and the laugh is turned against themselves. The disguises which Socrates assumes are like the parables of the New Testament, or the oracles of the Delphian God; they half conceal, half reveal, his meaning. The more he is in earnest, the more ironical he becomes; and he is never more in earnest or more ironical than in the Gorgias. He hardly troubles himself to answer seriously the objections of Gorgias and Polus, and therefore he sometimes appears to be careless of the ordinary requirements of logic. Yet in the highest sense he is always logical and consistent with himself. The form of the argument may be paradoxical; the substance is an appeal to the higher reason. He is uttering truths before they can be understood, as in all ages the words of philosophers, when they are first uttered, have found the world unprepared for them. A further misunderstanding arises out of the wildness of his humour; he is supposed not only by Callicles, but by the rest of mankind, to be jesting when he is profoundly serious. At length he makes even Polus (p. 468) in earnest. Finally, he drops the argument, and heedless any longer of the forms of dialectic, he loses himself in a sort of triumph, while at the same time he retaliates upon his adversaries. From this confusion of jest and earnest, we may now return to the ideal truth, and draw out in a simple form the main theses of the dialogue.

  First Thesis:—

  It is a greater evil to do than to suffer injustice.

  Compare the New Testament—

  ‘It is better to suffer for well doing than for evil doing.’—1 Pet. iii. 17.

  And the Sermon on the Mount—

  ‘Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.’—Matt. v. 10.

  The words of Socrates are more abstract than the words of Christ, but they equally imply that the only real evil is moral evil. The righteous may suffer or die, but they have their reward; and even if they had no reward, would be happier than the wicked. The world, represented by Polus, is ready, when they are asked, to acknowledge that injustice is dishonourable, and for their own sakes men are willing to punish the offender (cp. Rep. ii. 360 D). But they are not equally willing to acknowledge that injustice, even if successful, is essentially evil, and has the nature of disease and death. Especially when crimes are committed on the great scale—the crimes of tyrants, ancient or modern—after a while, seeing that they cannot be undone, and have become a part of history, mankind are disposed to forgive them, not from any magnanimity or charity, but because their feelings are blunted by time, and ‘to forgive is convenient to them.’ The tangle of good and evil can no longer be unravelled; and although they know that the end cannot justify the means, they feel also that good has often come out of evil. But Socrates would have us pass the same judgment on the tyrant now and always; though he is surrounded by his satellites, and has the applauses of Europe and Asia ringing in his ears; though he is the civilizer or liberator of half a continent, he is, and always will be, the most miserable of men. The greatest consequences for good or for evil cannot alter a hair’s breadth the morality of actions which are right or wrong in themselves. This is the standard which Socrates holds up to us. Because politics, and perhaps human life generally, are of a mixed nature we must not allow our principles to sink to the level of our practice.

  And so of private individuals—to them, too, the world occasionally speaks of the consequences of their actions:—if they are lovers of pleasure, they will ruin their health; if they are false or dishonest, they will lose their character. But Socrates would speak to them, not of what will be, but of what is—of the present consequence of lowering and degrading the soul. And all higher natures, or perhaps all men everywhere, if they were not tempted by interest or passion, would agree with him—they would rather be the victims than the perpetrators of an act of treachery or of tyranny. Reason tells them that death comes sooner or later to all, and is not so great an evil as an unworthy life, or rather, if rightly regarded, not an evil at all, but to a good man the greatest good. For in all of us there are slumbering ideals of truth and right, which may at any time awaken and develop a new life in us.

  Second Thesis:—

  It is better to suffer for wrong doing than not to suffer.

  There might have been a condition of human life in which the penalty followed at once, and was proportioned to the offence. Moral evil would then be scarcely distinguishable from physical; mankind would avoid vice as they avoid pain or death. But nature, with a view of deepening and enlarging our characters, has for the most part hidden from us the consequences of our actions, and we can only foresee them by an effort of reflection. To awaken in us this habit of reflection is the business of early education, which is continued in maturer years by observation and experience. The spoilt child is in later life said to be unfortunate—he had better have suffered when he was young, and been saved from suffering afterwards. But is not the sovereign equally unfortunate whose education and manner of life are always concealing from him the consequences of his own actions, until at length they are revealed to him in some terrible downfall, which may, perhaps, have been caused not by his own fault? Another illustration is afforded by the pauper and criminal classes, who scarcely reflect at all, except on the means by which they can compass their immediate ends. We pity them, and make allowances for them; but we do not consider that the same principle applies to human actions generally. Not to have been found out in some dishonesty or folly, regarded from a moral or religious point of view, is the greatest of misfortunes. The success of our evil doings is a proof that the gods have ceased to strive with us, and have given us over to ourselves. There is nothing to remind us of our sins, and therefore nothing to correct them. Like our sorrows, they are healed by time;

  • ‘While rank corruption, mining all within,
  • Infects unseen.’

  The ‘accustomed irony’ of Socrates adds a corollary to the argument:—‘Would you punish your enemy, you should allow him to escape unpunished’—this is the true retaliation. (Compare the obscure verse of Proverbs, xxv. 21, 22, ‘Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him,’ etc., quoted in Romans xii. 20.)

  Men are not in the habit of dwelling upon the dark side of their own lives: they do not easily see themselves as others see them. They are very kind and very blind to their own faults; the rhetoric of self-love is always pleading with them on their own behalf. Adopting a similar figure of speech, Socrates would have them use rhetoric, not in defence but in accusation of themselves. As they are guided by feeling rather than by reason, to their feelings the appeal must be made. They must speak to themselves; they must argue with themselves; they must paint in eloquent words the character of their own evil deeds. To any suffering which they have deserved, they must persuade themselves to submit. Under the figure there lurks a real thought, which, expressed in another form, admits of an easy application to ourselves. For do not we too accuse as well as excuse ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric of prayer and preaching, which the mind silently employs while the struggle between the better and the worse is going on within us. And sometimes we are too hard upon ourselves, because we want to restore the balance which self-love has overthrown or disturbed; and then again we may hear a voice as of a parent consoling us. In religious diaries a sort of drama is often enacted by the consciences of men ‘accusing or else excusing them.’ For all our life long we are talking with ourselves:—What is thought but speech? What is feeling but rhetoric? And if rhetoric is used on one side only we shall be always in danger of being deceived. And so the words of Socrates, which at first sounded paradoxical, come home to the experience of all of us.

  Third Thesis:—

  We do not what we will, but what we wish.

  Socrates would teach us a lesson which we are slow to learn—that good intentions, and even benevolent actions, when they are not prompted by wisdom, are of no value. We believe something to be for our good which we afterwards find out not to be for our good. The consequences may be inevitable, for they may follow an invariable law, yet they may often be the very opposite of what is expected by us. When we increase pauperism by almsgiving; when we tie up property without regard to changes of circumstances; when we say hastily what we deliberately disapprove; when we do in a moment of passion what upon reflection we regret; when from any want of self-control we give another an advantage over us—we are doing not what we will, but what we wish. All actions of which the consequences are not weighed and foreseen, are of this impotent and paralytic sort; and the author of them has ‘the least possible power’ while seeming to have the greatest. For he is actually bringing about the reverse of what he intended. And yet the book of nature is open to him, in which he who runs may read if he will exercise ordinary attention; every day offers him experiences of his own and of other men’s characters, and he passes them unheeded by. The contemplation of the consequences of actions, and the ignorance of men in regard to them, seems to have led Socrates to his famous thesis:—‘Virtue is knowledge;’ which is not so much an error or paradox as a half truth, seen first in the twilight of ethical philosophy, but also the half of the truth which is especially needed in the present age. For as the world has grown older men have been too apt to imagine a right and wrong apart from consequences; while a few, on the other hand, have sought to resolve them wholly into their consequences. But Socrates, or Plato for him, neither divides nor identifies them; though the time has not yet arrived either for utilitarian or transcendental systems of moral philosophy, he recognizes the two elements which seem to lie at the basis of morality1 .

  Fourth Thesis:—

  To be and not to seem is the end of life.

  The Greek in the age of Plato admitted praise to be one of the chief incentives to moral virtue, and to most men the opinion of their fellows is a leading principle of action. Hence a certain element of seeming enters into all things; all or almost all desire to appear better than they are, that they may win the esteem or admiration of others. A man of ability can easily feign the language of piety or virtue; and there is an unconscious as well as a conscious hypocrisy which, according to Socrates, is the worst of the two. Again, there is the sophistry of classes and professions. There are the different opinions about themselves and one another which prevail in different ranks of society. There is the bias given to the mind by the study of one department of human knowledge to the exclusion of the rest; and stronger far the prejudice engendered by a pecuniary or party interest in certain tenets. There is the sophistry of law, the sophistry of medicine, the sophistry of politics, the sophistry of theology. All of these disguises wear the appearance of the truth; some of them are very ancient, and we do not easily disengage ourselves from them; for we have inherited them, and they have become a part of us. The sophistry of an ancient Greek sophist is nothing compared with the sophistry of a religious order, or of a church in which during many ages falsehood has been accumulating, and everything has been said on one side, and nothing on the other. The conventions and customs which we observe in conversation, and the opposition of our interests when we have dealings with one another (‘the buyer saith, it is nought—it is nought,’ etc.), are always obscuring our sense of truth and right. The sophistry of human nature is far more subtle than the deceit of any one man. Few persons speak freely from their own natures, and scarcely any one dares to think for himself: most of us imperceptibly fall into the opinions of those around us, which we partly help to make. A man who would shake himself loose from them, requires great force of mind; he hardly knows where to begin in the search after truth. On every side he is met by the world, which is not an abstraction of theologians, but the most real of all things, being another name for ourselves when regarded collectively and subjected to the influences of society.

  Then comes Socrates, impressed as no other man ever was, with the unreality and untruthfulness of popular opinion, and tells mankind that they must be and not seem. How are they to be? At any rate they must have the spirit and desire to be. If they are ignorant, they must acknowledge their ignorance to themselves; if they are conscious of doing evil, they must learn to do well; if they are weak, and have nothing in them which they can call themselves, they must acquire firmness and consistency; if they are indifferent, they must begin to take an interest in the great questions which surround them. They must try to be what they would fain appear in the eyes of their fellow-men. A single individual cannot easily change public opinion; but he can be true and innocent, simple and independent; he can know what he does, and what he does not know; and though not without an effort, he can form a judgment of his own, at least in common matters. In his most secret actions he can show the same high principle (cp. Rep. viii. 554 D) which he shows when supported and watched by public opinion. And on some fitting occasion, on some question of humanity or truth or right, even an ordinary man, from the natural rectitude of his disposition, may be found to take up arms against a whole tribe of politicians and lawyers, and be too much for them.

  Who is the true and who the false statesman?—

  The true statesman is he who brings order out of disorder; who first organizes and then administers the government of his own country; and having made a nation, seeks to reconcile the national interests with those of Europe and of mankind. He is not a mere theorist, nor yet a dealer in expedients; the whole and the parts grow together in his mind; while the head is conceiving, the hand is executing. Although obliged to descend to the world, he is not of the world. His thoughts are fixed not on power or riches or extension of territory, but on an ideal state, in which all the citizens have an equal chance of health and life, and the highest education is within the reach of all, and the moral and intellectual qualities of every individual are freely developed, and ‘the idea of good’ is the animating principle of the whole. Not the attainment of freedom alone, or of order alone, but how to unite freedom with order is the problem which he has to solve.

  The statesman who places before himself these lofty aims has undertaken a task which will call forth all his powers. He must control himself before he can control others; he must know mankind before he can manage them. He has no private likes or dislikes; he does not conceal personal enmity under the disguise of moral or political principle: such meannesses, into which men too often fall unintentionally, are absorbed in the consciousness of his mission, and in his love for his country and for mankind. He will sometimes ask himself what the next generation will say of him; not because he is careful of posthumous fame, but because he knows that the result of his life as a whole will then be more fairly judged. He will take time for the execution of his plans; not hurrying them on when the mind of a nation is unprepared for them; but like the Ruler of the Universe Himself, working in the appointed time, for he knows that human life, ‘if not long in comparison with eternity’ (Rep. vi. 498 D), is sufficient for the fulfilment of many great purposes. He knows, too, that the work will be still going on when he is no longer here; and he will sometimes, especially when his powers are failing, think of that other ‘city of which the pattern is in heaven’ (Rep. ix. 592 B).

  The false politician is the serving-man of the state. In order to govern men he becomes like them; their ‘minds are married in conjunction;’ they ‘bear themselves’ like vulgar and tyrannical masters, and he is their obedient servant. The true politician, if he would rule men, must make them like himself; he must ‘educate his party’ until they cease to be a party; he must breathe into them the spirit which will hereafter give form to their institutions. Politics with him are not a mechanism for seeming what he is not, or for carrying out the will of the majority. Himself a representative man, he is the representative not of the lower but of the higher elements of the nation. There is a better (as well as a worse) public opinion of which he seeks to lay hold; as there is also a deeper current of human affairs in which he is borne up when the waves nearer the shore are threatening him. He acknowledges that he cannot take the world by force—two or three moves on the political chessboard are all that he can foresee—two or three weeks or months are granted to him in which he can provide against a coming struggle. But he knows also that there are permanent principles of politics which are always tending to the well-being of states—better administration, better education, the reconciliation of conflicting elements, increased security against external enemies. These are not ‘of to-day or yesterday,’ but are the same in all times, and under all forms of government. Then when the storm descends and the winds blow, though he knows not beforehand the hour of danger, the pilot, not like Plato’s captain in the Republic, half-blind and deaf, but with penetrating eye and quick ear, is ready to take command of the ship and guide her into port.

  The false politician asks not what is true, but what is the opinion of the world—not what is right, but what is expedient. The only measures of which he approves are the measures which will pass. He has no intention of fighting an uphill battle; he keeps the roadway of politics. He is unwilling to incur the persecution and enmity which political convictions would entail upon him. He begins with popularity, and in fair weather sails gallantly along. But unpopularity soon follows him. For men expect their leaders to be better and wiser than themselves: to be their guides in danger, their saviours in extremity; they do not really desire them to obey all the ignorant impulses of the popular mind; and if they fail them in a crisis they are disappointed. Then, as Socrates says, the cry of ingratitude is heard, which is most unreasonable; for the people, who have been taught no better, have done what might be expected of them, and their statesmen have received justice at their hands.

  The true statesman is aware that he must adapt himself to times and circumstances. He must have allies if he is to fight against the world; he must enlighten public opinion; he must accustom his followers to act together. Although he is not the mere executor of the will of the majority, he must win over the majority to himself. He is their leader and not their follower, but in order to lead he must also follow. He will neither exaggerate nor undervalue the power of a statesman, neither adopting the ‘laissez faire’ nor the ‘paternal government’ principle; but he will, whether he is dealing with children in politics, or with full-grown men, seek to do for the people what the government can do for them, and what, from imperfect education or deficient powers of combination, they cannot do for themselves. He knows that if he does too much for them they will do nothing; and that if he does nothing for them they will in some states of society be utterly helpless. For the many cannot exist without the few; if the material force of a country is from below, wisdom and experience are from above. It is not a small part of human evils which kings and governments make or cure. The statesman is well aware that a great purpose carried out consistently during many years will at last be executed. He is playing for a stake which may be partly determined by some accident, and therefore he will allow largely for the unknown element of politics. But the game being one in which chance and skill are combined, if he plays long enough he is certain of victory. He will not be always consistent, for the world is changing; and though he depends upon the support of a party, he will remember that he is the minister of the whole. He lives not for the present, but for the future, and he is not at all sure that he will be appreciated either now or then. For he may have the existing order of society against him, and may not be remembered by a distant posterity.

  There are always discontented idealists in politics who, like Socrates in the Gorgias, find fault with all statesmen past as well as present, not excepting the greatest names of history. Mankind have an uneasy feeling that they ought to be better governed than they are. Just as the actual philosopher falls short of the one wise man, so does the actual statesman fall short of the ideal. And so partly from vanity and egotism, but partly also from a true sense of the faults of eminent men, a temper of dissatisfaction and criticism springs up among those who are ready enough to acknowledge the inferiority of their own powers. No matter whether a statesman makes high professions or none at all—they are reduced sooner or later to the same level. And sometimes the more unscrupulous man is better esteemed than the more conscientious, because he has not equally deceived expectations. Such sentiments may be unjust, but they are widely spread; we constantly find them recurring in reviews and newspapers, and still oftener in private conversation.

  We may further observe that the art of government, while in some respects tending to improve, has in others a tendency to degenerate, as institutions become more popular. Governing for the people cannot easily be combined with governing by the people: the interests of classes are too strong for the ideas of the statesman who takes a comprehensive view of the whole. According to Socrates the true governor will find ruin or death staring him in the face, and will only be induced to govern from the fear of being governed by a worse man than himself (Rep. i. 347 C). And in modern times, though the world has grown milder, and the terrible consequences which Plato foretells no longer await an English statesman, any one who is not actuated by a blind ambition will only undertake from a sense of duty a work in which he is most likely to fail; and even if he succeed, will rarely be rewarded by the gratitude of his own generation.

  Socrates, who is not a politician at all, tells us that he is the only real politician of his time. Let us illustrate the meaning of his words by applying them to the history of our own country. He would have said that not Pitt or Fox, or Canning or Sir R. Peel, are the real politicians of their time, but Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, Ricardo. These during the greater part of their lives occupied an inconsiderable space in the eyes of the public. They were private persons; nevertheless they sowed in the minds of men seeds which in the next generation have become an irresistible power. ‘Herein is that saying true, One soweth and another reapeth.’ We may imagine with Plato an ideal statesman in whom practice and speculation are perfectly harmonized; for there is no necessary opposition between them. But experience shows that they are commonly divorced—the ordinary politician is the interpreter or executor of the thoughts of others, and hardly ever brings to the birth a new political conception. One or two only in modern times, like the Italian statesman Cavour, have created the world in which they moved. The philosopher is naturally unfitted for political life; his great ideas are not understood by the many; he is a thousand miles away from the questions of the day. Yet perhaps the lives of thinkers, as they are stiller and deeper, are also happier than the lives of those who are more in the public eye. They have the promise of the future, though they are regarded as dreamers and visionaries by their own contemporaries. And when they are no longer here, those who would have been ashamed of them during their lives claim kindred with them, and are proud to be called by their names. (Cp. Thucyd. vi. 16.)

  Who is the true poet?

  Plato expels the poets from his Republic because they are allied to sense; because they stimulate the emotions; because they are thrice removed from the ideal truth. And in a similar spirit he declares in the Gorgias that the statcly muse of tragedy is a votary of pleasure and not of truth. In modern times we almost ridicule the idea of poetry admitting of a moral. The poet and the prophet, or preacher, in primitive antiquity are one and the same; but in later ages they seem to fall apart. The great art of novel writing, that peculiar creation of our own and the last century, which, together with the sister art of review writing, threatens to absorb all literature, has even less of seriousness in her composition. Do we not often hear the novel writer censured for attempting to convey a lesson to the minds of his readers?

  Yet the true office of a poet or writer of fiction is not merely to give amusement, or to be the expression of the feelings of mankind, good or bad, or even to increase our knowledge of human nature. There have been poets in modern times, such as Goethe or Wordsworth, who have not forgotten their high vocation of teachers; and the two greatest of the Greek dramatists owe their sublimity to their ethical character. The noblest truths, sung of in the purest and sweetest language, are still the proper material of poetry. The poet clothes them with beauty, and has a power of making them enter into the hearts and memories of men. He has not only to speak of themes above the level of ordinary life, but to speak of them in a deeper and tenderer way than they are ordinarily felt, so as to awaken the feeling of them in others. The old he makes young again; the familiar principle he invests with a new dignity; he finds a noble expression for the common-places of morality and politics. He uses the things of sense so as to indicate what is beyond; he raises us through earth to heaven. He expresses what the better part of us would fain say, and the half-conscious feeling is strengthened by the expression. He is his own critic, for the spirit of poetry and of criticism are not divided in him. His mission is not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their own nature, and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True poetry is the remembrance of youth, of love, the embodiment in words of the happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the greatest deeds of the past. The poet of the future may return to his greater calling of the prophet or teacher; indeed, we hardly know what may not be effected for the human race by a better use of the poetical and imaginative faculty. The reconciliation of poetry, as of religion, with truth, may still be possible. Neither is the element of pleasure to be excluded. For when we substitute a higher pleasure for a lower we raise men in the scale of existence. Might not the novelist, too, make an ideal, or rather many ideals of social life, better than a thousand sermons? Plato, like the Puritans, is too much afraid of poetic and artistic influences. But he is not without a true sense of the noble purposes to which art may be applied (Rep. iii. 401).

  Modern poetry is often a sort of plaything, or, in Plato’s language, a flattery, a sophistry, or sham, in which, without any serious purpose, the poet lends wings to his fancy and exhibits his gifts of language and metre. Such an one seeks to gratify the taste of his readers; he has the ‘savoir faire,’ or trick of writing, but he has not the higher spirit of poetry. He has no conception that true art should bring order out of disorder (504 A); that it should make provision for the soul’s highest interest (501 C); that it should be pursued only with a view to ‘the improvement of the citizens’ (502, 503). He ministers to the weaker side of human nature (Rep. x. 603–605); he idealizes the sensual; he sings the strain of love in the latest fashion; instead of raising men above themselves he brings them back to the ‘tyranny of the many masters,’ from which all his life long a good man has been praying to be delivered. And often, forgetful of measure and order, he will express not that which is truest, but that which is strongest. Instead of a great and nobly-executed subject, perfect in every part, some fancy of a heated brain is worked out with the strangest incongruity. He is not the master of his words, but his words—perhaps borrowed from another—the faded reflection of some French or German or Italian writer, have the better of him. Though we are not going to banish the poets, how can we suppose that such utterances have any healing or life-giving influence on the minds of men?

  ‘Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:’ Art then must be true, and politics must be true, and the life of man must be true and not a seeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder, truth out of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest improvement of man. And so, having considered in what way ‘we can best spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God’ (512 E). Plato does not say that God will order all things for the best (cp. Phaedo, 97 C), but he indirectly implies that the evils of this life will be corrected in another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at present, Plato here, as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory or place of education for mankind in general, and for a very few a Tartarus or hell. The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the revelation, but rather, like all similar descriptions, whether in the Bible or Plato, the veil of another life. For no visible thing can reveal the invisible. Of this Plato, unlike some commentators on Scripture, is fully aware. Neither will he dogmatize about the manner in which we are ‘born again’ (Rep. vi. 498 D). Only he is prepared to maintain the ultimate triumph of truth and right, and declares that no one, not even the wisest of the Greeks, can affirm any other doctrine without being ridiculous.

  There is a further paradox of ethics, in which pleasure and pain are held to be indifferent, and virtue at the time of action and without regard to consequences is happiness. From this elevation or exaggeration of feeling Plato seems to shrink: he leaves it to the Stoics in a later generation to maintain that when impaled or on the rack the philosopher may be happy (cp. Rep. ii. 361 ff.). It is observable that in the Republic he raises this question, but it is not really discussed; the veil of the ideal state, the shadow of another life, are allowed to descend upon it and it passes out of sight. The martyr or sufferer in the cause of right or truth is often supposed to die in raptures, having his eye fixed on a city which is in heaven. But if there were no future, might he not still be happy in the performance of an action which was attended only by a painful death? He himself may be ready to thank God that he was thought worthy to do Him the least service, without looking for a reward; the joys of another life may not have been present to his mind at all. Do we suppose that the mediaeval saint, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Catharine of Sienna, or the Catholic priest who lately devoted himself to death by a lingering disease that he might solace and help others, was thinking of the ‘sweets’ of heaven? No; the work was already heaven to him and enough. Much less will the dying patriot be dreaming of the praises of man or of an immortality of fame: the sense of duty, of right, and trust in God will be sufficient, and as far as the mind can reach, in that hour. If he were certain that there were no life to come, he would not have wished to speak or act otherwise than he did in the cause of truth or of humanity. Neither, on the other hand, will he suppose that God has forsaken him or that the future is to be a mere blank to him. The greatest act of faith, the only faith which cannot pass away, is his who has not known, but yet has believed. A very few among the sons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances, past, present, or to come. He who has attained to such a temper of mind has already present with him eternal life; he needs no arguments to convince him of immortality; he has in him already a principle stronger than death. He who serves man without the thought of reward is deemed to be a more faithful servant than he who works for hire. May not the service of God, which is the more disinterested, be in like manner the higher? And although only a very few in the course of the world’s history—Christ himself being one of them—have attained to such a noble conception of God and of the human soul, yet the ideal of them may be present to us, and the remembrance of them be an example to us, and their lives may shed a light on many dark places both of philosophy and theology.

  The Myths of Plato.

  The myths of Plato are a phenomenon unique in literature. There are four longer ones: these occur in the Phaedrus (244–256), Phaedo (110–115), Gorgias (523–527), and Republic (x. 614–621). That in the Republic is the most elaborate and finished of them. Three of these greater myths, namely those contained in the Phaedo, the Gorgias and the Republic, relate to the destiny of human souls in a future life. The magnificent myth in the Phaedrus treats of the immortality, or rather the eternity of the soul, in which is included a former as well as a future state of existence. To these may be added, (1) the myth, or rather fable, occurring in the Statesman (268–274), in which the life of innocence is contrasted with the ordinary life of man and the consciousness of evil: (2) the legend of the Island of Atlantis, an imaginary history, which is a fragment only, commenced in the Timaeus (21–26) and continued in the Critias: (3) the much less artistic fiction of the foundation of the Cretan colony which is introduced in the preface to the Laws (iii. 702), but soon falls into the background: (4) the beautiful but rather artificial tale of Prometheus and Epimetheus narrated in his rhetorical manner by Protagoras in the dialogue called after him (320–328): (5) the speech at the beginning of the Phaedrus (231–234), which is a parody of the orator Lysias; the rival speech of Socrates and the recantation of it (237–241). To these may be added (6) the tale of the grasshoppers, and (7) the tale of Thamus and of Theuth, both in the Phaedrus (259 and 274–5): (8) the parable of the Cave (Rep. vii. ad init.), in which the previous argument is recapitulated, and the nature and degrees of knowledge having been previously set forth in the abstract are represented in a picture: (9) the fiction of the earthborn men (Rep. iii. 414; cp. Laws ii. 664), in which by the adaptation of an old tradition Plato makes a new beginning for his society: (10) the myth of Aristophanes respecting the division of the sexes, Sym. 189: (11) the parable of the noble captain, the pilot, and the mutinous sailors (Rep. vi. 488), in which is represented the relation of the better part of the world, and of the philosopher, to the mob of politicians: (12) the ironical tale of the pilot who plies between Athens and Aegina charging only a small payment for saving men from death, the reason being that he is uncertain whether to live or die is better for them (Gor. 511): (13) the treatment of freemen and citizens by physicians and of slaves by their apprentices,—a somewhat laboured figure of speech intended to illustrate the two different ways in which the laws speak to men (Laws iv. 720). There also occur in Plato continuous images; some of them extend over several pages, appearing and reappearing at intervals: such as the bees stinging and stingless (paupers and thieves) in the Eighth Book of the Republic (554), who are generated in the transition from timocracy to oligarchy: the sun, which is to the visible world what the idea of good is to the intellectual, in the Sixth Book of the Republic (508–9): the composite animal, having the form of a man, but containing under a human skin a lion and a many-headed monster (Rep. ix. 588–9): the great beast (vi. 493), i.e. the populace: and the wild beast within us, meaning the passions which are always liable to break out (ix. 571): the animated comparisons of the degradation of philosophy by the arts to the dishonoured maiden (vi. 495–6), and of the tyrant to the parricide, who ‘beats his father, having first taken away his arms’ (viii. 569): the dog, who is your only philosopher (ii. 376 B): the grotesque and rather paltry image of the argument wandering about without a head (Laws vi. 752), which is repeated, not improved, from the Gorgias (509 D): the argument personified as veiling her face (Rep. vi. 503 A), as engaged in a chase (iv. 427 C), as breaking upon us in a first, second and third wave (v. 457 C, 472 A, 473 C):—on these figures of speech the changes are rung many times over. It is observable that nearly all these parables or continuous images are found in the Republic; that which occurs in the Theaetetus (149 ff.), of the midwifery of Socrates, is perhaps the only exception. To make the list complete, the mathematical figure of the number of the state (Rep. viii. 546), or the numerical interval which separates king from tyrant (ix. 587–8), should not be forgotten.

  The myth in the Gorgias is one of those descriptions of another life which, like the Sixth Aeneid of Virgil, appear to contain reminiscences of the mysteries. It is a vision of the rewards and punishments which await good and bad men after death. It supposes the body to continue and to be in another world what it has become in this. It includes a Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno, like the sister myths of the Phaedo and the Republic. The Inferno is reserved for great criminals only. The argument of the dialogue is frequently referred to, and the meaning breaks through so as rather to destroy the liveliness and consistency of the picture. The structure of the fiction is very slight, the chief point or moral being that in the judgments of another world there is no possibility of concealment: Zeus has taken from men the power of foreseeing death, and brings together the souls both of them and their judges naked and undisguised at the judgment-seat. Both are exposed to view, stripped of the veils and clothes which might prevent them from seeing into or being seen by one another.

  The myth of the Phaedo is of the same type, but it is more cosmological, and also more poetical. The beautiful and ingenious fancy occurs to Plato that the upper atmosphere is an earth and heaven in one, a glorified earth, fairer and purer than that in which we dwell. As the fishes live in the ocean, mankind are living in a lower sphere, out of which they put their heads for a moment or two and behold a world beyond. The earth which we inhabit is a sediment of the coarser particles which drop from the world above, and is to that heavenly earth what the desert and the shores of the ocean are to us. A part of the myth consists of description of the interior of the earth, which gives the opportunity of introducing several mythological names and of providing places of torment for the wicked. There is no clear distinction of soul and body; the spirits beneath the earth are spoken of as souls only, yet they retain a sort of shadowy form when they cry for mercy on the shores of the lake; and the philosopher alone is said to have got rid of the body. All the three myths in Plato which relate to the world below have a place for repentant sinners, as well as other homes or places for the very good and very bad. It is a natural reflection which is made by Plato elsewhere, that the two extremes of human character are rarely met with, and that the generality of mankind are between them. Hence a place must be found for them. In the myth of the Phaedo they are carried down the river Acheron to the Acherusian lake, where they dwell, and are purified of their evil deeds, and receive the rewards of their good. There are also incurable sinners, who are cast into Tartarus, there to remain as the penalty of atrocious crimes; these suffer everlastingly. And there is another class of hardly-curable sinners who are allowed from time to time to approach the shores of the Acherusian lake, where they cry to their victims for mercy; which if they obtain they come out into the lake and cease from their torments.

  Neither this, nor any of the three greater myths of Plato, nor perhaps any allegory or parable relating to the unseen world, is consistent with itself. The language of philosophy mingles with that of mythology; abstract ideas are transformed into persons, figures of speech into realities. These myths may be compared with the Pilgrim’s Progress of Bunyan, in which discussions of theology are mixed up with the incidents of travel, and mythological personages are associated with human beings: they are also garnished with names and phrases taken out of Homer, and with other fragments of Greek tradition.

  The myth of the Republic is more subtle and also more consistent than either of the two others. It has a greater verisimilitude than they have, and is full of touches which recall the experiences of human life. It will be noticed by an attentive reader that the twelve days during which Er lay in a trance after he was slain coincide with the time passed by the spirits in their pilgrimage. It is a curious observation, not often made, that good men who have lived in a well-governed city (shall we say in a religious and respectable society?) are more likely to make mistakes in their choice of life than those who have had more experience of the world and of evil. It is a more familiar remark that we constantly blame others when we have only ourselves to blame; and the philosopher must acknowledge, however reluctantly, that there is an element of chance in human life with which it is sometimes impossible for man to cope. That men drink more of the waters of forgetfulness than is good for them is a poetical description of a familiar truth. We have many of us known men who, like Odysseus, have wearied of ambition and have only desired rest. We should like to know what became of the infants ‘dying almost as soon as they were born,’ but Plato only raises, without satisfying, our curiosity. The two companies of souls, ascending and descending at either chasm of heaven and earth, and conversing when they come out into the meadow, the majestic figures of the judges sitting in heaven, the voice heard by Ardiaeus, are features of the great allegory which have an indescribable grandeur and power. The remark already made respecting the inconsistency of the two other myths must be extended also to this: it is at once an orrery, or model of the heavens, and a picture of the Day of Judgment.

  The three myths are unlike anything else in Plato. There is an Oriental, or rather an Egyptian element in them, and they have an affinity to the mysteries and to the Orphic modes of worship. To a certain extent they are un-Greek; at any rate there is hardly anything like them in other Greek writings which have a serious purpose; in spirit they are mediaeval. They are akin to what may be termed the underground religion in all ages and countries. They are presented in the most lively and graphic manner, but they are never insisted on as true; it is only affirmed that nothing better can be said about a future life. Plato seems to make use of them when he has reached the limits of human knowledge; or, to borrow an expression of his own, when he is standing on the outside of the intellectual world. They are very simple in style; a few touches bring the picture home to the mind, and make it present to us. They have also a kind of authority gained by the employment of sacred and familiar names, just as mere fragments of the words of Scripture, put together in any form and applied to any subject, have a power of their own. They are a substitute for poetry and mythology; and they are also a reform of mythology. The moral of them may be summed up in a word or two: After death the Judgment; and ‘there is some better thing remaining for the good than for the evil.’

  All literature gathers into itself many elements of the past: for example, the tale of the earth-born men in the Republic appears at first sight to be an extravagant fancy, but it is restored to propriety when we remember that it is based on a legendary belief. The art of making stories of ghosts and apparitions credible is said to consist in the manner of telling them. The effect is gained by many literary and conversational devices, such as the previous raising of curiosity, the mention of little circumstances, simplicity, picturesqueness, the naturalness of the occasion, and the like. This art is possessed by Plato in a degree which has never been equalled.

  The myth in the Phaedrus is even greater than the myths which have been already described, but is of a different character. It treats of a former rather than of a future life. It represents the conflict of reason aided by passion or righteous indignation on the one hand, and of the animal lusts and instincts on the other. The soul of man has followed the company of some god, and seen truth in the form of the universal before it was born in this world. Our present life is the result of the struggle which was then carried on. This world is relative to a former world, as it is often projected into a future. We ask the question, Where were men before birth? as we likewise enquire, What will become of them after death? The first question is unfamiliar to us, and therefore seems to be unnatural; but if we survey the whole human race, it has been as influential and as widely spread as the other. In the Phaedrus it is really a figure of speech in which the ‘spiritual combat’ of this life is represented. The majesty and power of the whole passage—especially of what may be called the theme or proem (beginning ‘The mind through all her being is immortal’)—can only be rendered very inadequately in another language.

  The myth in the Statesman relates to a former cycle of existence, in which men were born of the earth, and by the reversal of the earth’s motion had their lives reversed and were restored to youth and beauty: the dead came to life; the old grew middle-aged, and the middle-aged young; the youth became a child, the child an infant, the infant vanished into the earth. The connection between the reversal of the earth’s motion and the reversal of human life is of course verbal only, yet Plato, like theologians in other ages, argues from the consistency of the tale to its truth. The new order of the world was immediately under the government of God; it was a state of innocence in which men had neither wants nor cares, in which the earth brought forth all things spontaneously, and God was to man what man now is to the animals. There were no great estates, or families, or private possessions, nor any traditions of the past, because men were all born out of the earth. This is what Plato calls the ‘reign of Cronos;’ and in like manner he connects the reversal of the earth’s motion with some legend of which he himself was probably the inventor.

  The question is then asked, under which of these two cycles of existence was man the happier,—under that of Cronos, which was a state of innocence, or that of Zeus, which is our ordinary life? For a while Plato balances the two sides of the serious controversy, which he has suggested in a figure. The answer depends on another question: What use did the children of Cronos make of their time? They had boundless leisure and the faculty of discoursing, not only with one another, but with the animals. Did they employ these advantages with a view to philosophy, gathering from every nature some addition to their store of knowledge? or, Did they pass their time in eating and drinking and telling stories to one another and to the beasts?—in either case there would be no difficulty in answering. But then, as Plato rather mischievously adds, ‘Nobody knows what they did,’ and therefore the doubt must remain undetermined.

  To the first there succeeds a second epoch. After another natural convulsion, in which the order of the world and of human life is once more reversed, God withdraws his guiding hand, and man is left to the government of himself. The world begins again, and arts and laws are slowly and painfully invented. A secular age succeeds to a theocratical. In this fanciful tale Plato has dropped, or almost dropped, the garb of mythology. He suggests several curious and important thoughts, such as the possibility of a state of innocence, the existence of a world without traditions, and the difference between human and divine government. He has also carried a step further his speculations concerning the abolition of the family and of property, which he supposes to have no place among the children of Cronos any more than in the ideal state.

  It is characteristic of Plato and of his age to pass from the abstract to the concrete, from poetry to reality. Language is the expression of the seen, and also of the unseen, and moves in a region between them. A great writer knows how to strike both these chords, sometimes remaining within the sphere of the visible, and then again comprehending a wider range and soaring to the abstract and universal. Even in the same sentence he may employ both modes of speech not improperly or inharmoniously. It is useless to criticise the broken metaphors of Plato, if the effect of the whole is to create a picture not such as can be painted on canvas, but which is full of life and meaning to the reader. A poem may be contained in a word or two, which may call up not one but many latent images; or half reveal to us by a sudden flash the thoughts of many hearts. Often the rapid transition from one image to another is pleasing to us: on the other hand, any single figure of speech if too often repeated, or worked out too much at length, becomes prosy and monotonous. In theology and philosophy we necessarily include both ‘the moral law within and the starry heaven above,’ and pass from one to the other (cp. for examples Psalm xviii. 1–25, xix. 1–9, etc.). Whether such a use of language is puerile or noble depends upon the genius of the writer or speaker, and the familiarity of the associations employed.

  In the myths and parables of Plato the ease and grace of conversation is not forgotten: they are spoken, not written words, stories which are told to a living audience, and so well told that we are more than half-inclined to believe them (cp. Phaedrus 274). As in conversation too, the striking image or figure of speech is not forgotten, but is quickly caught up, and alluded to again and again; as it would still be in our own day in a genial and sympathetic society. The descriptions of Plato have a greater life and reality than is to be found in any modern writing. This is due to their homeliness and simplicity. Plato can do with words just as he pleases; to him they are indeed ‘more plastic than wax’ (Rep. ix. 588 D). We are in the habit of opposing speech and writing, poetry and prose. But he has discovered a use of language in which they are united; which gives a fitting expression to the highest truths; and in which the trifles of courtesy and the familiarities of daily life are not overlooked.

  GORGIAS.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Callicles.

  Socrates.

  Chaerephon.

  Gorgias.

  Polus.

  Scene: The house of Callicles.

  Callicles.

  Gorgias.Socrates, Callicles. Chaerephon.

  447The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but not for a feast.

  Socrates.

  And are we late for a feast?

  Cal.

  Yes, and a delightful feast; for Gorgias has just been exhibiting to us many fine things.

  Soc.

  It is not my fault, Callicles; our friend Chaerephon is to blame; for he would keep us loitering in the Agora.

  Chaerephon.

  Never mind, Socrates; the misfortune of which I have been the cause I will also repair; for Gorgias is a friend of mine, and I will make him give the exhibition again either now, or, if you prefer, at some other time.

  Cal.

  What is the matter, Chaerephon—does Socrates want to hear Gorgias?

  Chaer.

  Yes, that was our intention in coming.

  Cal.

  Come into my house, then; for Gorgias is staying with me, and he shall exhibit to you.

  Soc.

  Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for I want to hear from him what is the nature of his art, and what it is which he professes and teaches; he may, as you [Chaerephon] suggest, defer the exhibition to some other time.

  Cal.

  Socrates, Gorgias, Chaerephon, Polus.

  There is nothing like asking him, Socrates; and indeed to answer questions is a part of his exhibition, for he was saying only just now, that any one in my house might put any question to him, and that he would answer.

  Soc.

  How fortunate! will you ask him, Chaerephon—?

  Chaer.

  What shall I ask him?

  Soc.

  Ask him who he is.

  Chaer.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  I mean such a question as would elicit from him, if he had been a maker of shoes, the answer that he is a cobbler. Do you understand?

  Chaer.

  I understand, and will ask him: Tell me, Gorgias, is our friend Callicles right in saying that you undertake to answer any questions which you are asked?

  Gorgias.

  Quite right, Chaerephon: I was saying as much only just now; and I may add, that many years have elapsed 448 since any one has asked me a new one.

  Chaer.

  Then you must be very ready, Gorgias.

  Gor.

  Of that, Chaerephon, you can make trial.

  Polus.

  Polus offers to take the place of Gorgias in the argument.

  Yes, indeed, and if you like, Chaerephon, you may make trial of me too, for I think that Gorgias, who has been talking a long time, is tired.

  Chaer.

  And do you, Polus, think that you can answer better than Gorgias?

  Pol.

  What does that matter if I answer well enough for you?

  Chaer.

  Not at all:—and you shall answer if you like.

  Pol.

  Ask:—

  Chaer.

  My question is this: If Gorgias had the skill of his brother Herodicus, what ought we to call him? Ought he not to have the name which is given to his brother?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Chaer.

  Then we should be right in calling him a physician?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Chaer.

  The question is asked, ‘What is Gorgias?’

  And if he had the skill of Aristophon the son of Aglaophon, or of his brother Polygnotus, what ought we to call him?

  Pol.

  Clearly, a painter.

  Chaer.

  But now what shall we call him—what is the art in which he is skilled?

  Pol.

  Socrates, Gorgias, Polus.Answer:—Gorgias is one of the best proficients in the noblest art.

  O Chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the best arts. And our friend Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is a proficient is the noblest.

  Soc.

  Polus has been taught how to make a capital speech, Gorgias; but he is not fulfilling the promise which he made to Chaerephon.

  Gor.

  What do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I mean that he has not exactly answered the question which he was asked.

  Gor.

  Then why not ask him yourself?

  Soc.

  But I would much rather ask you, if you are disposed to answer: for I see, from the few words which Polus has uttered, that he has attended more to the art which is called rhetoric than to dialectic.

  Pol.

  What makes you say so, Socrates?

  Soc.

  This is no answer.

  Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked you what was the art which Gorgias knows, you praised it as if you were answering some one who found fault with it, but you never said what the art was.

  Pol.

  Why, did I not say that it was the noblest of arts?

  Soc.

  Yes, indeed, but that was no answer to the question: nobody asked what was the quality, but what was the nature, of the art, and by what name we were to describe Gorgias. 449And I would still beg you briefly and clearly, as you answered Chaerephon when he asked you at first, to say what this art is, and what we ought to call Gorgias: Or rather, Gorgias, let me turn to you, and ask the same question,—what are we to call you, and what is the art which you profess?

  Gor.

  Better:—Gorgias is a rhetorician and a teacher of rhetoric.

  Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art.

  Soc.

  Then I am to call you a rhetorician?

  Gor.

  Yes, Socrates, and a good one too, if you would call me that which, in Homeric language, ‘I boast myself to be.’

  Soc.

  I should wish to do so.

  Gor.

  Then pray do.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Gorgias.

  And are we to say that you are able to make other men rhetoricians?

  Gor.

  Yes, that is exactly what I profess to make them, not only at Athens, but in all places.

  Soc.

  And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias, as we are at present doing, and reserve for another occasion the longer mode of speech which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise, and answer shortly the questions which are asked of you?

  Gor.

  Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do my best to make them as short as possible; for a part of my profession is that I can be as short as any one.

  Soc.

  That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method now, and the longer one at some other time.

  Gor.

  Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard a man use fewer words.

  Soc.

  Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned: I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would you not?), with the making of garments?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And music is concerned with the composition of melodies?

  Gor.

  It is.

  Soc.

  By Herè, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of your answers.

  Gor.

  Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that.

  Soc.

  And rhetoric is concerned with discourse.

  I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about rhetoric: with what is rhetoric concerned?

  Gor.

  With discourse.

  Soc.

  What sort of discourse, Gorgias?—such discourse as would teach the sick under what treatment they might get well?

  Gor.

  No.

  Soc.

  Then rhetoric does not treat of all kinds of discourse?

  Gor.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And to understand that about which they speak?

  Gor.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  But does not the art of medicine, which we were just 450now mentioning, also make men able to understand and speak about the sick?

  Gor.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then medicine also treats of discourse?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Of discourse concerning diseases?

  Gor.

  Just so.

  Soc.

  And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the good or evil condition of the body?

  Gor.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  But so are all the other arts.

  And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts:—all of them treat of discourse concerning the subjects with which they severally have to do.

  Gor.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of discourse, and all the other arts treat of discourse, do you not call them arts of rhetoric?

  Gor.

  Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to do with some sort of external action, as of the hand; but there is no such action of the hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only through the medium of discourse. And therefore I am justified in saying that rhetoric treats of discourse.

  Soc.

  I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare say I shall soon know better; please to answer me a question:—you would allow that there are arts?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned with doing, and require little or no speaking; in painting, and statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; and of such arts I suppose you would say that they do not come within the province of rhetoric.

  Gor.

  You perfectly conceive my meaning, Socrates.

  Soc.

  You mean to say that rhetoric belongs to that class of arts which is chiefly concerned with words.

  But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium of language, and require either no action or very little, as, for example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of playing draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly co-extensive with action, but in most of them the verbal element is greater—they depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power: and I take your meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter sort?

  Gor.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  And yet you would not call arithmetic rhetoric.

  And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of these arts rhetoric; although the precise expression which you used was, that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through the medium of discourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious might say, ‘And so, Gorgias, you call arithmetic rhetoric.’ But I do not think that you really call arithmetic rhetoric any more than geometry would be so called by you. 451

  Gor.

  You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my meaning.

  Soc.

  Illustrations.

  Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:—seeing that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:—Suppose that a person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now; he might say, ‘Socrates, what is arithmetic?’ and I should reply to him, as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which take effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask: ‘Words about what?’ and I should reply, Words about odd and even numbers, and how many there are of each. And if he asked again: ‘What is the art of calculation?’ I should say, That also is one of the arts which is concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, ‘Concerned with what?’ I should say, like the clerks in the assembly, ‘as aforesaid’ of arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers, but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another. And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only words—he would ask, ‘Words about what, Socrates?’ and I should answer, that astronomy tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their relative swiftness.

  Gor.

  You would be quite right, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about rhetoric: which you would admit (would you not?) to be one of those arts which act always and fulfil all their ends through the medium of words?

  Gor.

  Rhetoric has to do with words: about the greatest and best of human things.

  True.

  Soc.

  Words which do what? I should ask. To what class of things do the words which rhetoric uses relate?

  Gor.

  To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.

  Soc.

  That again, Gorgias, is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for which are the greatest and best of human things? I dare say that you have heard men singing at feasts the old drinking song, in which the singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next, thirdly, as the writer of the song says, wealth honestly obtained.

  Gor.

  452Yes, I know the song; but what is your drift?

  Soc.

  But which are they?

  I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the trainer, the money-maker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will say: ‘O Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned with the greatest good of men and not his.’ And when I ask, Who are you? he will reply, ‘I am a physician.’ What do you mean? I shall say. Do you mean that your art produces the greatest good? ‘Certainly,’ he will answer, ‘for is not health the greatest good? What greater good can men have, Socrates?’ And after him the trainer will come and say, ‘I too, Socrates, shall be greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more good of his art than I can show of mine.’ To him again I shall say, Who are you, honest friend, and what is your business? ‘I am a trainer,’ he will reply, ‘and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in body.’ When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the money-maker, and he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all. ‘Consider, Socrates,’ he will say, ‘whether Gorgias or any one else can produce any greater good than wealth.’ Well, you and I say to him, and are you a creator of wealth? ‘Yes,’ he replies. And who are you? ‘A money-maker.’ And do you consider wealth to be the greatest good of man? ‘Of course,’ will be his reply. And we shall rejoin: Yes; but our friend Gorgias contends that his art produces a greater good than yours. And then he will be sure to go on and ask, ‘What good? Let Gorgias answer.’ Now I want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question is asked of you by them and by me; What is that which, as you say, is the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator? Answer us.

  Gor.

  Freedom and power,

  That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the power of ruling over others in their several states.

  Soc.

  And what would you consider this to be?

  Gor.

  and the word which gives them.

  What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting?—if you have the power of uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to persuade the multitude.

  Soc.

  Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained what you conceive to be the art of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I am not mistaken, that rhetoric is the 453artificer of persuasion, having this and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you know any other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing persuasion?

  Gor.

  Rhetoric is the art of persuading, says Gorgias.

  No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.

  Soc.

  Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever was a man who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of you.

  Gor.

  What is coming, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I will tell you: I am very well aware that I do not know what, according to you, is the exact nature, or what are the topics of that persuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric; although I have a suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am going to ask—what is this power of persuasion which is given by rhetoric, and about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask instead of telling you? Not for your sake, but in order that the argument may proceed in such a manner as is most likely to set forth the truth. And I would have you observe, that I am right in asking this further question: If I asked, ‘What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?’ and you said, ‘The painter of figures,’ should I not be right in asking, ‘What kind of figures, and where do you find them?’

  Gor.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And the reason for asking this second question would be, that there are other painters besides, who paint many other figures?

  Gor.

  True.

  Soc.

  But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then you would have answered very well?

  Gor.

  Quite so.

  Soc.

  But so is arithmetic, so is painting.

  Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;—is rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the same effect? I mean to say—Does he who teaches anything persuade men of that which he teaches or not?

  Gor.

  He persuades, Socrates,—there can be no mistake about that.

  Soc.

  Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now speaking:—do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us the properties of number?

  Gor.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And therefore persuade us of them?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of persuasion?

  Gor.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about what,—we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd and even; and we shall be able to show that 454all the other arts of which we were just now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort, and about what.

  Gor.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Then rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?

  Gor.

  True.

  Soc.

  Of what persuasion is rhetoric the artificer?

  Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the artificer, and about what?—is not that a fair way of putting the question?

  Gor.

  I think so.

  Soc.

  Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the answer?

  Gor.

  Of persuasion in the courts and assemblies about the just and unjust.

  I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.

  Soc.

  And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your notion; yet I would not have you wonder if by-and-by I am found repeating a seemingly plain question; for I ask not in order to confute you, but as I was saying that the argument may proceed consecutively, and that we may not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting the meaning of one another’s words; I would have you develope your own views in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis.

  Gor.

  I think that you are quite right, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as ‘having learned’?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And there is also ‘having believed’?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Knowledge and belief are not the same things; for there may be a false belief, but not a false knowledge.

  And is the ‘having learned’ the same as ‘having believed,’ and are learning and belief the same things?

  Gor.

  In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.

  Soc.

  And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this way:—If a person were to say to you, ‘Is there, Gorgias, a false belief as well as a true?’—you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there is.

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Well, but is there a false knowledge as well as a true?

  Gor.

  No.

  Soc.

  No, indeed; and this again proves that knowledge and belief differ.

  Gor.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And yet those who have learned as well as those who have believed are persuaded?

  Gor.

  Just so.

  Soc.

  Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?

  Gor.

  By all means.

  Soc.

  And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts of law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives knowledge?

  Gor.

  455Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.

  Soc.

  And rhetoric is only the creator of a belief, but gives no instruction.

  Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction about them?

  Gor.

  True.

  Soc.

  And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief about them; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude about such high matters in a short time?

  Gor.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Neither is the rhetorician taken into counsel when anything has to be done.

  Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about rhetoric; for I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the assembly meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other craftsman, will the rhetorician be taken into counsel? Surely not. For at every election he ought to be chosen who is most skilled; and, again, when walls have to be built or harbours or docks to be constructed, not the rhetorician but the master workman will advise; or when generals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a position taken, then the military will advise and not the rhetoricians: what do you say, Gorgias? Since you profess to be a rhetorician and a maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do better than learn the nature of your art from you. And here let me assure you that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For likely enough some one or other of the young men present might desire to become your pupil, and in fact I see some, and a good many too, who have this wish, but they would be too modest to question you. And therefore when you are interrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them. ‘What is the use of coming to you, Gorgias?’ they will say—‘about what will you teach us to advise the state?—about the just and unjust only, or about those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned?’ How will you answer them?

  Gor.

  But, says Gorgias, he will persuade people to do it.

  I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, and I will endeavour to reveal to you the whole nature of rhetoric. You must have heard, I think, that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and the plan of the harbour were devised in accordance with the counsels, partly of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and not at the suggestion of the builders.

  Soc.

  Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I myself heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about the middle wall.

  Gor.

  And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision 456has to be given in such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the men who win their point.

  Soc.

  I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is the nature of rhetoric, which always appears to me, when I look at the matter in this way, to be a marvel of greatness.

  Gor.

  The rhetorician more than a match for a man of any other profession.His pupils may make a bad use of his instructions, but he is not to be blamed for this.

  A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric comprehends and holds under her sway all the inferior arts. Let me offer you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been with my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his patients, who would not allow the physician to give him medicine, or apply the knife or hot iron to him; and I have persuaded him to do for me what he would not do for the physician just by the use of rhetoric. And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city, and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to which of them should be elected state-physician, the physician would have no chance; but he who could speak would be chosen if he wished; and in a contest with a man of any other profession the rhetorician more than any one would have the power of getting himself chosen, for he can speak more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric! And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any other competitive art, not against everybody,—the rhetorician ought not to abuse his strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from the city;—surely not. For they taught their art for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, and others have perverted 457their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers bad, neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather say that those who make a bad use of the art are to blame. And the same argument holds good of rhetoric; for the rhetorician can speak against all men and upon any subject,—in short, he can persuade the multitude better than any other man of anything which he pleases, but he should not therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his reputation merely because he has the power; he ought to use rhetoric fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if after having become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation or banished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his instructor.

  Soc.

  If Gorgias, like Socrates, is one of those who rejoice in being refuted, he would like to cross-examine him; if not, not.Socrates, Gorgias, Chaerephon, Callicles.

  You, Gorglas, like myself, have had great experience of disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are apt to arise—somebody says that another has not spoken truly or clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another until the company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever listening to such fellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone. And what is my sort? 458you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about the matters of which we are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my sort, let us have the discussion out, but if you would rather have done, no matter;—let us make an end of it.

  Gor.

  I should say, Socrates, that I am quite the man whom you indicate; but, perhaps, we ought to consider the audience, for, before you came, I had already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed the argument may run on to a great length. And therefore I think that we should consider whether we may not be detaining some part of the company when they are wanting to do something else.

  Chaer.

  Delight of the audience at the prospect of an argument.

  You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which shows their desire to listen to you; and for myself, Heaven forbid that I should have any business on hand which would take me away from a discussion so interesting and so ably maintained.

  Cal.

  By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at many discussions, I doubt whether I was ever so much delighted before, and therefore if you go on discoursing all day I shall be the better pleased.

  Soc.

  I may truly say, Callicles, that I am willing, if Gorgias is.

  Gor.

  Socrates, Gorgias.

  After all this, Socrates, I should be disgraced if I refused, especially as I have promised to answer all comers; in accordance with the wishes of the company, then, do you begin, and ask of me any question which you like.

  Soc.

  Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your words; though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have misunderstood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will learn of you, a rhetorician?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the multitude on any subject, and this not by instruction 459but by persuasion?

  Gor.

  Quite so.

  Soc.

  The rhetorician has greater powers of persuasion with the mob than e. g. the physician.

  You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of health?

  Gor.

  Yes, with the multitude,—that is.

  Soc.

  You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know he cannot be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.

  Gor.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  The more ignorant therefore will have more power than he who knows.

  But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the physician, he will have greater power than he who knows?

  Gor.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Although he is not a physician:—is he?

  Gor.

  No.

  Soc.

  And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of what the physician knows.

  Gor.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge?—is not that the inference?

  Gor.

  In the case supposed:—yes.

  Soc.

  And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the other arts; the rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know?

  Gor.

  Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?—not to have learned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in no way inferior to the professors of them?

  Soc.

  And is the rhetorician as ignorant of good and evil, just and unjust, as about special arts; or will Gorgias teach him these things first?

  Whether the rhetorician is or is not inferior on this account is a question which we will hereafter examine if the enquiry is likely to be of any service to us; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he is or is not as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable, good and evil, as he is of medicine and the other arts; I mean to say, does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or honourable, just or unjust in them; or has he only a way with the ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to be esteemed to know more about these things than some one else who knows? Or must the pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can acquire the art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher of rhetoric will not teach him — it is not your business; but you will make him seem to the multitude to know them, when he does not know them; and seem to be a good man, when he is not. Or will you be unable to teach him rhetoric 460at all, unless he knows the truth of these things first? What is to be said about all this? By heaven, Gorgias, I wish that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were saying that you would.

  Gor.

  He must be taught.

  Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to know them, he will have to learn of me these things as well.

  Soc.

  Say no more, for there you are right; and so he whom you make a rhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust already, or he must be taught by you.

  Gor.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Well, and is not he who has learned carpentering a carpenter?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he who has learned music a musician?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he who has learned medicine is a physician, in like manner? He who has learned anything whatever is that which his knowledge makes him.

  Gor.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just?

  Gor.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  He who has learned what is just, is admitted to be just and to act justly. But if so, the rhetorician, having learned what is just, must act justly, and can never therefore make an ill use of rhetoric.

  And he who is just may be supposed to do what is just?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And must not1 the just man always desire to do what is just?

  Gor.

  That is clearly the inference.

  Soc.

  Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do injustice?

  Gor.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just man?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And will therefore never be willing to do injustice?

  Gor.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoric—he is to be banished—was not that said?

  Gor.

  Yes, it was.

  Soc.

  But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will never have done injustice at all?

  Gor.

  True.

  Soc.

  And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric treated of discourse, not [like arithmetic] about odd and even, but about just and unjust? Was not this said?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Polus.

  I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the rhetorician might make a bad use 461of rhetoric I noted with surprise the inconsistency into which you had fallen; and I said, that if you thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would leave off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an unjust use of rhetoric or of willingness to do injustice. By the dog, Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we get at the truth of all this.

  Polus.

  The paradoxes of Socrates arouse the ire of Polus.

  And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now saying about rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the good, and admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could teach them, and then out of this admission there arose a contradiction—the thing which you so dearly love, and to which not he, but you, brought the argument by your captious questions—[do you seriously believe that there is any truth in all this?] For will any one ever acknowledge that he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of justice? The truth is, that there is great want of manners in bringing the argument to such a pass.

  Soc.

  Socrates is willing enough to receive his correction, if he will only be brief.

  Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with friends and children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and in our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you who should raise us up; and I for my part engage to retract any error into which you may think that I have fallen—upon one condition:

  Pol.

  What condition?

  Soc.

  That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which you indulged at first.

  Pol.

  ‘Am I to be deprived of speech in a free state?’

  What! do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?

  Soc.

  ‘Am I to be compelled to listen?’

  Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to Athens, which is the most free-spoken state in Hellas, you when you got there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech—that would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:—shall not I be very hardly used, if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you, and may 462not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias—refute and be refuted: for I suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias knows—would you not?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything which he pleases, and you will know how to answer him?

  Pol.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And now, which will you do, ask or answer?

  Pol.

  I will ask; and do you answer me, Socrates, the same question which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer: What is rhetoric?

  Soc.

  Do you mean what sort of an art?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Socrates in his answer contrives to give Polus a lesson.

  To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my opinion.

  Pol.

  Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric?

  Soc.

  A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours, you say that you have made an art.

  Pol.

  What thing?

  Soc.

  I should say a sort of experience.

  Pol.

  Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?

  Soc.

  That is my view, but you may be of another mind.

  Pol.

  An experience in what?

  Soc.

  An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification.

  Pol.

  And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing?

  Soc.

  What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what rhetoric is?

  Pol.

  Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience?

  Soc.

  Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight gratification to me?

  Pol.

  I will.

  Soc.

  Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?

  Pol.

  What sort of an art is cookery?

  Soc.

  Not an art at all, Polus.

  Pol.

  Socrates, Polus, Gorgias.

  What then?

  Soc.

  I should say an experience.

  Pol.

  He puts rhetoric and cookery in the same class;

  In what? I wish that you would explain to me.

  Soc.

  An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification, Polus.

  Pol.

  Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?

  Soc.

  No, they are only different parts of the same profession.

  Pol.

  Of what profession?

  Soc.

  I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias should imagine that I am making fun of his own profession. For whether or no this is that art of rhetoric which Gorgias practises I 463really cannot tell:—from what he was just now saying, nothing appeared of what he thought of his art, but the rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.

  Gor.

  A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind me.

  Soc.

  and that class is flattery.

  In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word ‘flattery;’ and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and not an art:—another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first answered, ‘What is rhetoric?’ For that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?

  Pol.

  I will ask, and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?

  Soc.

  Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.

  Pol.

  Rhetoric is the shadow of a part of politics.

  And noble or ignoble?

  Soc.

  Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call what is bad ignoble:—though I doubt whether you understand what I was saying before.

  Gor.

  Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.

  Soc.

  I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt to run away1 .

  Gor.

  ‘But what in the world does this mean?’

  Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.

  Soc.

  I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and 464if I am mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the existence of bodies and of souls?

  Gor.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  Returning to first principles, Socrates assumes the existence of souls and bodies which may or may not be in a good condition, real or apparent.

  You would further admit that there is a good condition of either of them?

  Gor.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Which condition may not be really good, but good only in appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at first sight not to be in good health.

  Gor.

  True.

  Soc.

  And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul: in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and not the reality?

  Gor.

  Yes, certainly.

  Soc.

  To the soul corresponds the art of politics which has two parts, legislation and justice, and to the body corresponds another nameless art of training which has two parts, medicine and gymnastic; and these four have four shams corresponding to them.Socrates.

  And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men’s highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you 465I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them.

  Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is given by gymnastic.

  The shams are cooking, dressing up, sophistry, rhetoric.

  I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the manner of the geometricians, (for I think that by this time you will be able to follow,)

  as tiring : gymnastic : : cookery : medicine;

  or rather,

  as tiring : gymnastic : : sophistry : legislation;

  and

  Socrates, Polus.

  as cookery : medicine : : rhetoric : justice.

  Socrates excuses himself for the length at which he has spoken.

  And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: ‘Chaos’ would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore 466I had to enter into an explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer.

  Pol.

  What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery?

  Soc.

  Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?

  Pol.

  And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers?

  Soc.

  Is that a question or the beginning of a speech?

  Pol.

  I am asking a question.

  Soc.

  Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.

  Pol.

  Polus cannot be made to understand that rhetoricians have

  How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states?

  Soc.

  Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor.

  Pol.

  And that is what I do mean to say.

  Soc.

  Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens.

  Pol.

  no real power in a state, because they do not do what they ultimately will, but only what they think best.

  What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please.

  Soc.

  By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me.

  Pol.

  I am asking a question of you.

  Soc.

  Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.

  Pol.

  How two questions?

  Soc.

  Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they please?

  Pol.

  I did.

  Soc.

  Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one, and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what they think best.

  Pol.

  And is not that a great power?

  Soc.

  Polus has already said the reverse.

  Pol.

  Said the reverse! nay, that is what I assert.

  Soc.

  No, by the great—what do you call him?—not you, for you say that great power is a good to him who has the power.

  Pol.

  I do.

  Soc.

  And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?

  Pol.

  I should not.

  Soc.

  For a fool and a flatterer cannot know what is good.

  Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery—and so 467you will have refuted me; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if, as you say, power be indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil.

  Pol.

  Yes: I admit that.

  Soc.

  How then can the rhetoricians or the tyrants have great power in states, unless Polus can refute Socrates, and prove to him that they do as they will?

  Pol.

  This fellow—

  Soc.

  I say that they do not do as they will;—now refute me.

  Pol.

  Why, have you not already said that they do as they think best?

  Soc.

  And I say so still.

  Pol.

  Then surely they do as they will?

  Soc.

  I deny it.

  Pol.

  But they do what they think best?

  Soc.

  Aye.

  Pol.

  That, Socrates, is monstrous and absurd.

  Soc.

  Good words, good Polus, as I may say in your own peculiar style; but if you have any questions to ask of me, either prove that I am in error or give the answer yourself.

  Pol.

  Very well, I am willing to answer that I may know what you mean.

  Soc.

  Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or to will that further end for the sake of which they do a thing? when they take medicine, for example, at the bidding of a physician, do they will the drinking of the medicine which is painful, or the health for the sake of which they drink?

  Pol.

  Clearly, the health.

  Soc.

  And when men go on a voyage or engage in business, they do not will that which they are doing at the time; for who would desire to take the risk of a voyage or the trouble of business?—But they will, to have the wealth for the sake of which they go on a voyage.

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  A man cannot will unless he knows the ultimate good for the sake of which he acts.

  And is not this universally true? If a man does something for the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that for the sake of which he does it.

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate and indifferent?

  Pol.

  To be sure, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites evils?

  Pol.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And the things which are neither good nor evil, and 468which partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again, wood, stones, and the like:—these are the things which you call neither good nor evil?

  Pol.

  Exactly so.

  Soc.

  Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the indifferent?

  Pol.

  Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.

  Soc.

  When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for the sake of the good?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil him of his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the good?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other thing for the sake of which we do them?

  Pol.

  Most true.

  Soc.

  Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or to despoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces to our good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not will. Why are you silent, Polus? Am I not right?

  Pol.

  You are right.

  Soc.

  Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when really not for his own interests, he may be said to do what seems best to him?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do you not answer?

  Pol.

  No man does what he wills who does what is evil.

  Well, I suppose not.

  Soc.

  Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one have great power in a state?

  Pol.

  He will not.

  Soc.

  Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good to him in a state, and not have great power, and not do what he wills?

  Pol.

  As though you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of doing what seemed good to you in the state, rather than not; you would not be jealous when you saw any one killing or despoiling or imprisoning whom he pleased, Oh, no!

  Soc.

  469Justly or unjustly, do you mean?

  Pol.

  In either case is he not equally to be envied?

  Soc.

  Forbear, Polus!

  Pol.

  Why ‘forbear’?

  Soc.

  Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them.

  Pol.

  And are those of whom I spoke wretches?

  Soc.

  Yes, certainly they are.

  Pol.

  He who makes a bad use of power is not to be envied, but pitied.

  And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?

  Soc.

  No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he is to be envied.

  Pol.

  Were you not saying just now that he is wretched?

  Soc.

  Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case he is also to be pitied; and he is not to be envied if he killed him justly.

  Pol.

  At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death is wretched, and to be pitied?

  Soc.

  Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he who is justly killed.

  Pol.

  How can that be, Socrates?

  Soc.

  That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest of evils.

  Pol.

  But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil?

  Soc.

  Certainly not.

  Pol.

  Then would you rather suffer than do injustice?

  Soc.

  Better to suffer than to do injustice.

  I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do.

  Pol.

  Then you would not wish to be a tyrant?

  Soc.

  Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean.

  Pol.

  I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good to you in a state, killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like.

  Soc.

  A tyrant has no real power any more than a man who runs out into the Agora carrying a dagger.

  Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you reply to me. Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any one may have great power—he may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private—but can you believe that this mere doing as you think best is great power?

  Pol.

  Certainly not such doing as this.

  Soc.

  But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a 470power?

  Pol.

  I can.

  Soc.

  Why then?

  Pol.

  Why, because he who did as you say would be certain to be punished.

  Soc.

  And punishment is an evil?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power is a benefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an evil and is no power. But let us look at the matter in another way:—do we not acknowledge that the things of which we were speaking, the infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property are sometimes a good and sometimes not a good?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Even what we commonly call the evils of life may be goods in disguise.

  About that you and I may be supposed to agree?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when that they are evil—what principle do you lay down?

  Pol.

  I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask that question.

  Soc.

  Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me, I say that they are good when they are just, and evil when they are unjust.

  Pol.

  You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute that statement?

  Soc.

  Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my foolishness. And I hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing good to a friend.

  Pol.

  Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity; events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and to prove that many men who do wrong are happy.

  Soc.

  What events?

  Pol.

  You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia?

  Soc.

  At any rate I hear that he is.

  Pol.

  And do you think that he is happy or miserable?

  Soc.

  I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him.

  Pol.

  And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him, whether a man is happy?

  Soc.

  Most certainly not.

  Pol.

  Is the great king happy?

  Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whether the great king was a happy man?

  Soc.

  And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in the matter of education and justice.

  Pol.

  What! and does all happiness consist in this?

  Soc.

  Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil are miserable.

  Pol.

  Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus 471is miserable?

  Soc.

  Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.

  Pol.

  Polus attempts to prove the happiness of the unjust by the story of Archelaus, who has lately by many crimes gained the throne of Macedonia.

  That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas had usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander, who was his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk, he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew them, and got both of them out of the way; and when he had done all this wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of all men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? he had a younger brother, a child of seven years old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the kingdom belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought and restore the kingdom to him; that was not his notion of happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while running after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserable and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would rather be any other Macedonian than Archelaus!

  Soc.

  Socrates sees no force in such arguments.

  I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which you have been saying.

  Pol.

  That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do.

  Soc.

  The multitude of witnesses are nothing to him.He must convince his opponent and himself by argument.

  Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary 472has only a single one or none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my statement;—you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose;—they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another sort—let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and misery—that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  According to Polus the unjust man may be happy if he is unpunished: Socrates maintains that he is more happy, or less unhappy, if he meets with retribution.

  But I say that this is an impossibility—here is one point about which we are at issue:—very good. And do you mean to say also that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be happy?

  Pol.

  Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable.

  Soc.

  On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men. 473

  Pol.

  You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.

  Soc.

  I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a friend I regard you. Then these are the points at issue between us—are they not? I was saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice?

  Pol.

  Exactly so.

  Soc.

  And you said the opposite?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me?

  Pol.

  By Zeus I did.

  Soc.

  In your own opinion, Polus.

  Pol.

  Yes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right.

  Soc.

  You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be unpunished?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who are punished are less miserable—are you going to refute this proposition also?

  Pol.

  A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?

  Pol.

  What nonsense! Do you mean that the man who expires among tortures is happier than the successful tyrant?

  What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier than if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, the envy and admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which, as you say, cannot be refuted?

  Soc.

  There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But please to refresh my memory a little; did you say—‘in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant’?

  Pol.

  Yes, I did.

  Soc.

  Neither is to be called happy if both are wicked.

  Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the other,—neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,—when any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.

  Pol.

  Why refute what nobody believes? Ask the company.

  But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company.

  Soc.

  Socrates never could count heads. [This is his description of one of the noblest actions of his life.]Say rather, why affirm what every body knows?

  O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my tribe were serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their president to take the votes, there was a laugh at 474me, because I was unable to take them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial of the sort of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really believe, that to do is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not to be punished than to be punished.

  Pol.

  And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for example, suffer rather than do injustice?

  Soc.

  Yes, and you, too; I or any man would.

  Pol.

  Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man.

  Soc.

  But will you answer?

  Pol.

  To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have to say.

  Soc.

  Polus, while denying that to do injustice is worse than to suffer, acknowledges it to be more disgraceful. Hence the shipwreck of his argument.

  Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is the worst?—to do injustice or to suffer?

  Pol.

  I should say that suffering was worst.

  Soc.

  And which is the greater disgrace?—Answer.

  Pol.

  To do.

  Soc.

  And the greater disgrace is the greater evil?

  Pol.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?

  Pol.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other account of personal beauty?

  Pol.

  I cannot.

  Soc.

  And you would say of figures or colours generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of their use, or of both?

  Pol.

  Yes, I should.

  Soc.

  And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason?

  Pol.

  I should.

  Soc.

  Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or pleasant or both?

  Pol.

  I think not. 475

  Soc.

  And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?

  Pol.

  To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.

  Soc.

  All things may be measured by the standard of pleasure and utility or of pain and evil.

  And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is to say, in pleasure or utility or both?

  Pol.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But then again, what was the observation which you just now made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?

  Pol.

  I did.

  Soc.

  If to do is, as Polus admits, more disgraceful than to endure wrong, it must also be more evil.

  Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or both: does not that also follow?

  Pol.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer more than the injured?

  Pol.

  No, Socrates; certainly not.

  Soc.

  Then they do not exceed in pain?

  Pol.

  No.

  Soc.

  But if not in pain, then not in both?

  Pol.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Then they can only exceed in the other?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  That is to say, in evil?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?

  Pol.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And that is now discovered to be more evil?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician without shrinking, and either say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to me.

  Pol.

  I should say ‘No.’

  Soc.

  Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?

  Pol.

  No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Polus is refuted out of his own mouth.

  Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the greater evil of the two.

  Pol.

  That is the conclusion.

  Soc.

  The next question: Is it better for the guilty to suffer or not to suffer punishment?

  You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for me,—I have no need of any 476other; I take your suffrage, and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:—You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do wrong?

  Pol.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion.

  Pol.

  Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.

  Soc.

  Consider again:—Where there is an agent, must there not also be a patient?

  Pol.

  I should say so.

  Soc.

  And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does, and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is stricken?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struck will be struck violently or quickly?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as the act of him who strikes?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if a man burns, there is something which is burned?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same way?

  Pol.

  Truly.

  Soc.

  And if he cuts, the same argument holds—there will be something cut?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause pain, the cut will be of the same nature?

  Pol.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  Since the affection of the patient answers to the act of the agent, it follows that he who is punished justly suffers justly, and therefore honourably,

  Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition which I was just now asserting: that the affection of the patient answers to the act of the agent?

  Pol.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished is suffering or acting?

  Pol.

  Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that.

  Soc.

  And suffering implies an agent?

  Pol.

  Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher.

  Soc.

  And he who punishes rightly, punishes justly?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And therefore he acts justly?

  Pol.

  Justly.

  Soc.

  Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers justly?

  Pol.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished suffers what is honourable?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the honourable is either pleasant or useful? 477

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then he who is punished suffers what is good?

  Pol.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Then he is benefited?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term ‘benefited’? I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is improved.

  Pol.

  Surely.

  Soc.

  Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  and is delivered from the greatest of all evils, the evil of the soul, which, being the most disgraceful, is also the most painful or hurtful.

  And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at the matter in this way:—In respect of a man’s estate, do you see any greater evil than poverty?

  Pol.

  There is no greater evil.

  Soc.

  Again, in a man’s bodily frame, you would say that the evil is weakness and disease and deformity?

  Pol.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of her own?

  Pol.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice, and the like?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have pointed out three corresponding evils—injustice, disease, poverty?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?—Is not the most disgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the soul?

  Pol.

  By far the most.

  Soc.

  And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst?

  Pol.

  What do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I mean to say, that what is most disgraceful has been already admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both.

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted by us to be most disgraceful?

  Pol.

  It has been admitted.

  Soc.

  And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly and ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick?

  Pol.

  Polus stumbles at the notion which he has already admitted, that the evil of the soul is more painful than that of the body.

  Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow from your premises.

  Soc.

  Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil of the soul is of all evils the most disgraceful; and the excess of disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil.

  Pol.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the greatest of evils?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity of the soul, are the greatest of evils?

  Pol.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does not the art of making money?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of medicine?

  Pol.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  478And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to answer at once, ask yourself whither we go with the sick, and to whom we take them.

  Pol.

  To the physicians, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate?

  Pol.

  To the judges, you mean.

  Soc.

  —Who are to punish them?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in accordance with a certain rule of justice?

  Pol.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty; medicine from disease; and justice from intemperance and injustice?

  Pol.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  Which, then, is the best of these three?

  Pol.

  Will you enumerate them?

  Soc.

  Money-making, medicine, and justice.

  Pol.

  Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.

  Soc.

  And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or advantage or both?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who are being healed pleased?

  Pol.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  A useful thing, then?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Punishment is the deliverance from evil, and he who is punished, like him who is healed, is happier than he who is not punished or not healed.

  Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and this is the advantage of enduring the pain—that you get well?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who is healed, or who never was out of health?

  Pol.

  Clearly he who was never out of health.

  Soc.

  Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having had them.

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in their bodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil, and another is not healed, but retains the evil—which of them is the most miserable?

  Pol.

  Clearly he who is not healed.

  Soc.

  And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from the greatest of evils, which is vice?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the medicine of our vice?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  Happiest of all is he who is just;

  He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness who has never had vice in his soul; for this has been shown to be the greatest of evils.

  Pol.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And he has the second place, who is delivered from vice?

  Pol.

  happy in the second degree he who is delivered from injustice by punishment, most deluded and most unhappy of all he who lives on, enjoying the fruit of his crimes.

  True.

  Soc.

  That is to say, he who receives admonition and rebuke and punishment?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no deliverance from injustice?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  479That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes, and who, being the most unjust of men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or correction or punishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates1 ?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to the conduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases and yet contrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins against his constitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child, he is afraid of the pain of being burned or cut:—Is not that a parallel case?

  Pol.

  Yes, truly.

  Soc.

  He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and bodily vigour; and if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions, they are in a like case who strive to evade justice, which they see to be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not knowing how far more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than a diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and unholy. And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to avoid being released from the greatest of evils; they provide themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what follows, or shall we draw out the consequences in form?

  Pol.

  If you please.

  Soc.

  Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice, is the greatest of evils?

  Pol.

  That is quite clear.

  Soc.

  And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be released from this evil?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  And not to suffer, is to perpetuate the evil?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of evils; but to do wrong and not to be punished, is first and greatest of all?

  Pol.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Archelaus then is more miserable than his victims.

  Well, and was not this the point in dispute, my friend? You deemed Archelaus happy, because he was a very great criminal and unpunished: I, on the other hand, maintained that he or any other who like him has done wrong and has not been punished, is, and ought to be, the most miserable of all men; and that the doer of injustice is more miserable than the sufferer; and he who escapes punishment, more miserable than he who suffers.—Was not that what I said?

  Pol.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And it has been proved to be true?

  Pol.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use 480of rhetoric? If we admit what has been just now said, every man ought in every way to guard himself against doing wrong, for he will thereby suffer great evil?

  Pol.

  True.

  Soc.

  Injustice, if not removed, will become the cancer of the soul.

  And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does wrong, he ought of his own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that the disease of injustice may not be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of the soul; must we not allow this consequence, Polus, if our former admissions are to stand:—is any other inference consistent with them?

  Pol.

  To that, Socrates, there can be but one answer.

  Soc.

  The only use of rhetoric is that it enables a man toSocrates, Polus, Callicles.expose his own injustice and to petition for speedy punishment.

  Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to excuse his own injustice, or that of his parents or friends, or children or country; but may be of use to any one who holds that instead of excusing he ought to accuse—himself above all, and in the next degree his family or any of his friends who may be doing wrong; he should bring to light the iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrong-doer may suffer and be made whole; and he should even force himself and others not to shrink, but with closed eyes like brave men to let the physician operate with knife or searing iron, not regarding the pain, in the hope of attaining the good and the honourable; let him who has done things worthy of stripes, allow himself to be scourged, if of bonds, to be bound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of death, to die, himself being the first to accuse himself and his own relations, and using rhetoric to this end, that his and their unjust actions may be made manifest, and that they themselves may be delivered from injustice, which is the greatest evil. Then, Polus, rhetoric would indeed be useful. Do you say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to that?

  Pol.

  To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very strange, though probably in agreement with your premises.

  Soc.

  Is not this the conclusion, if the premises are not disproven?

  Pol.

  Yes; it certainly is.

  Soc.

  A slighter and secondary use of rhetoric in self-defence against an enemy, or in preventing the punishment of an enemy.

  And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our duty to harm another, whether an enemy or not—I except the case of self-defence—then I have to be upon my 481guard—but if my enemy injures a third person, then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I should try to prevent his being punished, or appearing before the judge; and if he appears, I should contrive that he should escape, and not suffer punishment: if he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep what he has stolen and spend it on him and his, regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness; or, if this is not possible, let him at any rate be allowed to live as long as he can. For such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if of any use to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at least, there was no such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.

  Cal.

  Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he joking?

  Chaer.

  Socrates, Callias, Chaerephon.

  I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound earnest; but you may as well ask him.

  Cal.

  Callicles asks in amazement whether Socrates really means what he says.

  By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in earnest, or only in jest? For if you are in earnest, and what you say is true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down; and are we not doing, as would appear, in everything the opposite of what we ought to be doing?

  Soc.

  I am only repeating the words of philosophy, whose lover I am. For as you love the Athenian people and their namesake Demus, so I have two loves, philosophy and Alcibiades.The son of Cleinias is inconstant, but philosophy is ever the same: she it is whom you have to refute: I am only her mouthpiece.Socrates, Callicles.

  O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings among mankind, however varying in different persons—I mean to say, if every man’s feelings were peculiar to himself and were not shared by the rest of his species—I do not see how we could ever communicate our impressions to one another. I make this remark because I perceive that you and I have a common feeling. For we are lovers both, and both of us have two loves apiece:—I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias, and of philosophy; and you of the Athenian Demus, and of Demus the son of Pyrilampes. Now, I observe that you, with all your cleverness, do not venture to contradict your favourite in any word or opinion of his; but as he changes you change, backwards and forwards. When the Athenian Demus denies anything that you are saying in the assembly, you go over to his opinion; and you do the same with Demus, the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resist the words and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time when under their influence, you would probably reply to 482him, if you were honest, that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are prevented; and that you can only be silent when they are. Now you must understand that my words are an echo too, and therefore you need not wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who is my love, for she is always telling me what I am now telling you, my friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son of Cleinias says one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, but philosophy is always true. She is the teacher at whose words you are now wondering, and you have heard her yourself. Her you must refute, and either show, as I was saying, that to do injustice and to escape punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if you leave her word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradict myself.

  Cal.

  Polus was vanquished because he refused to take a bold line.Callicles would return to the rule of nature in the lower sense of the term.Callicles.Convention was only introduced by the weak majority in order to protect themselves against the few strong.A man of courage would easily break down the guards of convention.

  O Socrates, you are a regular declaimer, and seem to be running riot in the argument. And now you are declaiming in this way because Polus has fallen into the same error himself of which he accused Gorgias:—for he said that when Gorgias was asked by you, whether, if some one came to him who wanted to learn rhetoric, and did not know justice, he would teach him justice, Gorgias in his modesty replied that he would, because he thought that mankind in general would be displeased if he answered ‘No;’ and then in consequence of this admission, Gorgias was compelled to contradict himself, that being just the sort of thing in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at you deservedly, as I think; but now he has himself fallen into the same trap. I cannot say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission which led to his being entangled by you; and because he was too modest to say what he thought, he had his mouth stopped. For the truth is, Socrates, that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to the popular and vulgar notions of right, which are not natural, but only conventional. Convention and nature are generally at variance with one another: and hence, if a person is too 483modest to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict himself; and you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be thereby gained, slyly ask of him who is arguing conventionally a question which is to be determined by the rule of nature; and if he is talking of the rule of nature, you slip away to custom: as, for instance, you did in this very discussion about doing and suffering injustice. When Polus was speaking of the conventionally dishonourable, you assailed him from the point of view of nature; for by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgrace because the greater evil; but conventionally, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more than his neighbours; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavour to have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice1 , whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). Nay, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions,—charming them with the sound 484of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honourable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem, that

  • Callicles.

  • ‘Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;’

  this, as he says,

  Pindar.

  ‘Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them—’1

  A little philosophy not a bad thing in youth.

  —I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior. And this is true, as you may ascertain, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought to know; he is inexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of philosophy. For, as Euripides says,

  Euripides.

  ‘Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest portion of the day to that in which he most excels2 ,’

  Callicles.But the study should not be continued into later life.

  485but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks that he will thus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them. Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate children. For I love to see a little child, who is not of an age to speak plainly, lisping at his play; there is an appearance of grace and freedom in his utterance, which is natural to his childish years. But when I hear some small creature carefully articulating its words, I am offended; the sound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of slavery. So when I hear a man lisping, or see him playing like a child, his behaviour appears to me ridiculous and unmanly and worthy of stripes. And I have the same feeling about students of philosophy; when I see a youth thus engaged,—the study appears to me to be in character, and becoming a man of a liberal education, and him who neglects philosophy I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspire to anything great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in later life, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as I was saying, such a one, even though he have good natural parts, becomes effeminate. He flies from the busy centre and the market-place, in which, as the poet says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner for the rest of his life, and talks in a whisper with three or four admiring youths, but never speaks out like a freeman in a satisfactory manner. Now I, Socrates, am very well inclined towards you, and my feeling may be compared with that of Zethus towards Amphion, in the play of Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now: for I am disposed to say to you much what Zethus said to his brother, that you, Socrates, are careless about the things of which you ought to be careful; and that you

  • ‘Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior; 486
  • Neither in a court of justice could you state a case, or give any reason or proof,
  • Or offer valiant counsel on another’s behalf.’

  Socrates, Callicles.

  And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out of good-will towards you, if I ask whether you are not ashamed of being thus defenceless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only but of all those who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose that some one were to take you, or any one of your sort, off to prison, declaring that you had done wrong when you had done no wrong, you must allow that you would not know what to do:—there you would stand giddy and gaping, and not having a word to say; and when you went up before the Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not good for much, you would die if he were disposed to claim the penalty of death. And yet, Socrates, what is the value of

  • ‘An art which converts a man of sense into a fool,’

  who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others, when he is in the greatest danger and is going to be despoiled by his enemies of all his goods, and has to live, simply deprived of his rights of citizenship?—he being a man who, if I may use the expression, may be boxed on the ears with impunity. Then, my good friend, take my advice, and refute no more:

  • ‘Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom.
  • But leave to others these niceties,’

  whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:

  • ‘For they will only
  • Give you poverty for the inmate of your dwelling.’

  Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only the man of substance and honour, who is well to do.

  Soc.

  Callicles the desired touchstone of Socrates.

  If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not rejoice to discover one of those stones with which they test gold, and the very best possible one to which I might bring my soul; and if the stone and I agreed in approving of her training, then I should know that I was in a satisfactory state, and that no other test was needed by me.

  Cal.

  What is your meaning, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desired touchstone.

  Cal.

  Why?

  Soc.

  Socrates.Other men have not the knowledge or frankness or good-will which is required; and they are too modest. His sincerity is shown by his consistency.Socrates, Callicles.But still he would ask, What Callicles means by the superior?

  Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. For I consider that if a man is to make a 487complete trial of the good or evil of the soul, he ought to have three qualities—knowledge, good-will, outspokenness, which are all possessed by you. Many whom I meet are unable to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are; others are wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because they have not the same interest in me which you have; and these two strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very good friends, but they are not outspoken enough, and they are too modest. Why, their modesty is so great that they are driven to contradict themselves, first one and then the other of them, in the face of a large company, on matters of the highest moment. But you have all the qualities in which these others are deficient, having received an excellent education; to this many Athenians can testify. And you are my friend. Shall I tell you why I think so? I know that you, Callicles, and Tisander of Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of the deme of Cholarges, studied together: there were four of you, and I once heard you advising with one another as to the extent to which the pursuit of philosophy should be carried, and, as I know, you came to the conclusion that the study should not be pushed too much into detail. You were cautioning one another not to be overwise; you were afraid that too much wisdom might unconsciously to yourselves be the ruin of you. And now when I hear you giving the same advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate friends, I have a sufficient evidence of your real good-will to me. And of the frankness of your nature and freedom from modesty I am assured by yourself, and the assurance is confirmed by your last speech. Well then, the inference in the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me in an argument about any point, that point will have been sufficiently tested by us, and will not require to be submitted to any further test. For you could not have agreed with me, either from lack of knowledge or from superfluity of modesty, nor yet from a desire to deceive me, for you are my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you and I are agreed, the result will be the attainment of perfect truth. Now there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you censure me for making,—What ought the character of a man to be, and what his pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in maturer years and in youth? For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err intentionally, 488but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call me ‘dolt,’ and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the worse, the noble have more than the mean? Am I not right in my recollection?

  Cal.

  Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver.

  Soc.

  And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? for I could not make out what you were saying at the time—whether you meant by the superior the stronger, and that the weaker must obey the stronger, as you seemed to imply when you said that great cities attack small ones in accordance with natural right, because they are superior and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better were the same; or whether the better may be also the inferior and weaker, and the superior the worse, or whether better is to be defined in the same way as superior:—this is the point which I want to have cleared up. Are the superior and better and stronger the same or different?

  Cal.

  I say unequivocally that they are the same.

  Soc.

  He means the better and stronger, and therefore the many who make the laws, which are noble because they are made by the better.

  Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against whom, as you were saying, they make the laws?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then the laws of the many are the laws of the superior?

  Cal.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior class are far better, as you were saying?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them are by nature good?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the many are also of opinion that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice.Socrates, Callicles.

  And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately 489saying, that justice is equality, and that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice?—is that so or not? Answer, Callicles, and let no modesty be found to come in the way1 ; do the many think, or do they not think thus?—I must beg of you to answer, in order that if you agree with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority.

  Cal.

  Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say.

  Soc.

  Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality; so that you seem to have been wrong in your former assertion, when accusing me you said that nature and custom are opposed, and that I, knowing this, was dishonestly playing between them, appealing to custom when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the argument is about custom?

  Cal.

  ‘Of course I don’t mean the mob.’

  This man will never cease talking nonsense. At your age, Socrates, are you not ashamed to be catching at words and chuckling over some verbal slip? do you not see—have I not told you already, that by superior I mean better: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble of slaves and nondescripts, who are of no use except perhaps for their physical strength, get together, their ipsissima verba are laws?

  Soc.

  Ho! my philosopher, is that your line?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must have been in your mind, and that is why I repeated the question,—What is the superior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant; for you surely do not think that two men are better than one, or that your slaves are better than you because they are stronger? Then please to begin again, and tell me who the better are, if they are not the stronger; and I will ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder in your instructions, or I shall have to run away from you.

  Cal.

  You are ironical.

  Soc.

  Then once more,—Who are the better?

  No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just now saying (486 A) many ironical things against me, I am not:—tell me, then, whom you mean by the better?

  Cal.

  I mean the more excellent.

  Soc.

  Do you not see that you are yourself using words which have no meaning and that you are explaining nothing?—will you tell me whether you mean by the better and superior the wiser, or if not, whom?

  Cal.

  490Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser.

  Soc.

  The wiser: the one wise among ten thousand fools,—he ought to rule.

  Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to ten thousand fools, and he ought to rule them, and they ought to be his subjects, and he ought to have more than they should. This is what I believe that you mean (and you must not suppose that I am word-catching), if you allow that the one is superior to the ten thousand?

  Cal.

  Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be natural justice—that the better and wiser should rule and have more than the inferior.

  Soc.

  But this is contrary to the analogy of the other arts.

  Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this case: Let us suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are several of us, and we have a large common store of meats and drinks, and there are all sorts of persons in our company having various degrees of strength and weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is wiser in the matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably stronger than some and not so strong as others of us—will he not, being wiser, be also better than we are, and our superior in this matter of food?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats and drinks, because he is better, or he will have the distribution of all of them by reason of his authority, but he will not expend or make use of a larger share of them on his own person, or if he does, he will be punished;—his share will exceed that of some, and be less than that of others, and if he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will have the smallest share of all, Callicles:—am I not right, my friend?

  Cal.

  Callicles is disgusted at the commonplace parallels of Socrates.

  You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other nonsense; I am not speaking of them.

  Soc.

  Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And ought not the better to have a larger share?

  Cal.

  Not of meats and drinks.

  Soc.

  I understand: then, perhaps, of coats—the skilfullest weaver ought to have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go about clothed in the best and finest of them?

  Cal.

  Fudge about coats!

  Soc.

  Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought to have the advantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them?

  Cal.

  Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking?

  Soc.

  Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that the wise and good and true husbandman should actually have a larger share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own land?

  Cal.

  How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates!

  Soc.

  Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things. 491

  Cal.

  Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with our argument.

  Soc.

  But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiser in order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a suggestion, nor offer one?

  Cal.

  I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand the administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul.

  Soc.

  Socrates is accused of always saying the same things: he accuses Callicles of never saying the same about the same.

  See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the better and the superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser, and now you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better are now declared by you to be the more courageous: I wish, my good friend, that you would tell me, once for all, whom you affirm to be the better and superior, and in what they are better?

  Cal.

  I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and courageous in the administration of a state—they ought to be the rulers of their states, and justice consists in their having more than their subjects.

  Soc.

  But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they not have more than themselves, my friend?

  Cal.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think that there is no necessity for him to rule himself; he is only required to rule others?

  Cal.

  What do you mean by his ‘ruling over himself’?

  Soc.

  A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a man should be temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own pleasures and passions.

  Cal.

  What innocence! you mean those fools,—the temperate?

  Soc.

  Certainly:—any one may know that to be my meaning.

  Cal.

  Callicles reasserts his doctrine that the esteem in which virtue and justice are held is due only to men’s fear for themselves. No man who has the power to enjoy himself practises self-control.

  Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how can a man be happy who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest 492he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than temperance—to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him?—must not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and temperance hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city? Nay, Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this:—that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happiness—all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth1 .

  Soc.

  There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of approaching the argument; for what you say is what the rest of the world think, but do not like to say. And I must beg of you to persevere, that the true rule of human life may become manifest. Tell me, then:—you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy them, and that this is virtue?

  Cal.

  Yes; I do.

  Soc.

  Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?

  Cal.

  To live without pleasure or passion is to be dead.

  No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest of all.

  Soc.

  But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and indeed I think that Euripides may have been right in saying,

  • ‘Who knows if life be not death and death life;’

  No; the true death, as Pythagorean philosophy tells us, is to pour water out of a vessel full of holes into a colander full of holes.

  and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher 493say that at this moment we are actually dead, and that the body (σω̂μα) is our tomb (ση̂μα2 ), and that the part of the soul which is the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soul—because of its believing and make-believe nature—a vessel3 , and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world (ἀειδὲς), these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander, as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if I can, I would fain prove to you; that you should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the intemperate? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of the same opinion still?

  Cal.

  The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.

  Soc.

  The temperate man is the sound, the intemperate the leaky vessel.

  Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the same school:—Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in a figure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling 494them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth?

  Cal.

  The life of desire and pleasure is not to be compared to a full vessel, but to an ever-running stream.

  You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.

  Soc.

  But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be hungering and eating?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he is to be thirsting and drinking?

  Cal.

  Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

  Soc.

  Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of shame: and first, will you tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your notion of happiness?

  Cal.

  What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular mob-orator.

  Soc.

  That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what they thought; but you will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a brave man. And now, answer my question.

  Cal.

  I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly.

  Soc.

  And if pleasantly, then also happily?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  Callicles professes a virtuous indignation at the very mention of the consequences of his own doctrine.

  But what if the itching is not confined to the head? Shall I pursue the question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too are happy, if they only get enough of what they want?

  Cal.

  Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into the argument?

  Soc.

  Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics, or he who says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction between good and bad pleasures? And I 495 would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a good?

  Cal.

  Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they are the same.

  Soc.

  You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.

  Cal.

  Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which have been darkly intimated must follow, and many others.

  Cal.

  That, Socrates, is only your opinion.

  Soc.

  And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you are saying?

  Cal.

  Indeed I do.

  Soc.

  Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with the argument?

  Cal.

  By all means1 .

  Soc.

  Callicles, having admitted that pleasure and good are the same, is led to make the further admission that pleasure and knowledge and courage are different.

  Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question for me:—There is something, I presume, which you would call knowledge?

  Cal.

  There is.

  Soc.

  And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied knowledge?

  Cal.

  I was.

  Soc.

  And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two things different from one another?

  Cal.

  Certainly I was.

  Soc.

  And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or not the same?

  Cal.

  Not the same, O man of wisdom.

  Soc.

  And would you say that courage differed from pleasure?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian, says that pleasure and good are the same; but that knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one another, or with the good.

  Cal.

  And what does our friend Socrates, of Foxton, say—does he assent to this, or not?

  Soc.

  He does not assent; neither will Callicles, when he sees himself truly. You will admit, I suppose, that good and evil fortune are opposed to each other?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if they are opposed to each other, then, like health and disease, they exclude one another; a man cannot have them both, or be without them both, at the same time?

  Cal.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  Take the case of any bodily affection:—a man may have the complaint in his eyes which is called ophthalmia?

  Cal.

  To be sure. 496

  Soc.

  But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and sound at the same time?

  Cal.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got rid of the health of his eyes too? Is the final result, that he gets rid of them both together?

  Cal.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  That would surely be marvellous and absurd?

  Cal.

  Very.

  Soc.

  A man may have good and evil by turns, but not at the same time.

  I suppose that he is affected by them, and gets rid of them in turns?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he may have strength and weakness in the same way, by fits?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Or swiftness and slowness?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And does he have and not have good and happiness, and their opposites, evil and misery, in a similar alternation1 ?

  Cal.

  Certainly he has.

  Soc.

  If then there be anything which a man has and has not at the same time, clearly that cannot be good and evil—do we agree? Please not to answer without consideration.

  Cal.

  I entirely agree.

  Soc.

  Go back now to our former admissions.—Did you say that to hunger, I mean the mere state of hunger, was pleasant or painful?

  Cal.

  I said painful, but that to eat when you are hungry is pleasant.

  Soc.

  I know; but still the actual hunger is painful: am I not right?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And thirst, too, is painful?

  Cal.

  Yes, very.

  Soc.

  Need I adduce any more instances, or would you agree that all wants or desires are painful?

  Cal.

  I agree, and therefore you need not adduce any more instances.

  Soc.

  Very good. And you would admit that to drink, when you are thirsty, is pleasant?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in the sentence which you have just uttered, the word ‘thirsty’ implies pain?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the word ‘drinking’ is expressive of pleasure, and of the satisfaction of the want?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  There is pleasure in drinking?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  When you are thirsty?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in pain?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But he may have pleasure and pain at the same time.

  Do you see the inference:—that pleasure and pain are simultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink? For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether of the soul or the body?—which of them is affected cannot be supposed to be of any consequence: Is not this true?

  Cal.

  It is.

  Soc.

  You said also, that no man could have good and evil fortune at the same time?

  Cal.

  Yes, I did.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Callicles, Gorgias.

  But you admitted, that when in pain a man might also 497have pleasure?

  Cal.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  Therefore pleasure and pain are not the same as good and evil.

  Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the same as evil fortune, and therefore the good is not the same as the pleasant?

  Cal.

  I wish I knew, Socrates, what your quibbling means.

  Soc.

  You know, Callicles, but you affect not to know.

  Cal.

  Well, get on, and don’t keep fooling: then you will know what a wiseacre you are in your admonition of me.

  Soc.

  Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in drinking at the same time?

  Cal.

  I do not understand what you are saying.

  Gor.

  Nay, Callicles, answer, if only for our sakes;—we should like to hear the argument out.

  Cal.

  Yes, Gorgias, but I must complain of the habitual trifling of Socrates; he is always arguing about little and unworthy questions.

  Gor.

  What matter? Your reputation, Callicles, is not at stake. Let Socrates argue in his own fashion.

  Cal.

  Well, then, Socrates, you shall ask these little peddling questions, since Gorgias wishes to have them.

  Soc.

  I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the great mysteries before you were initiated into the lesser. I thought that this was not allowable. But to return to our argument:—Does not a man cease from thirsting and from the pleasure of drinking at the same moment?

  Cal.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not cease from the desire and the pleasure at the same moment?

  Cal.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Then he ceases from pain and pleasure at the same moment?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment, as you have admitted:—do you still adhere to what you said?

  Cal.

  Yes, I do; but what is the inference?

  Soc.

  Socrates, Callicles.Another point of view.

  Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the same as the pleasant, or the evil the same as the painful; there is a cessation of pleasure and pain at the same moment; but not of good and evil, for they are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain as evil? And I would have you look at the matter in another light, which could hardly, I think, have been considered by you when you identified them: Are not the good good because they have good present with them, as the beautiful are those who have beauty present with them?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And do you call the fools and cowards good men? For you were saying just now that the courageous and the wise are the good—would you not say so?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And did you never see a foolish child rejoicing?

  Cal.

  Yes, I have.

  Soc.

  And a foolish man too?

  Cal.

  Yes, certainly; but what is your drift?

  Soc.

  498Nothing particular, if you will only answer.

  Cal.

  Yes, I have.

  Soc.

  And did you ever see a sensible man rejoicing or sorrowing?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Which rejoice and sorrow most—the wise or the foolish?

  Cal.

  They are much upon a par, I think, in that respect.

  Soc.

  Enough: And did you ever see a coward in battle?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And which rejoiced most at the departure of the enemy, the coward or the brave?

  Cal.

  I should say ‘most’ of both; or at any rate, they rejoiced about equally.

  Soc.

  No matter; then the cowards, and not only the brave, rejoice?

  Cal.

  Greatly.

  Soc.

  And the foolish; so it would seem?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And are only the cowards pained at the approach of their enemies, or are the brave also pained?

  Cal.

  Both are pained.

  Soc.

  And are they equally pained?

  Cal.

  I should imagine that the cowards are more pained.

  Soc.

  And are they not better pleased at the enemy’s departure?

  Cal.

  I dare say.

  Soc.

  Good is in proportion to pleasure, and the bad are often as much or more pleased than the good.

  Then are the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the brave all pleased and pained, as you were saying, in nearly equal degree; but are the cowards more pleased and pained than the brave?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But surely the wise and brave are the good, and the foolish and the cowardly are the bad?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then the good and the bad are pleased and pained in a nearly equal degree?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then are the good and bad good and bad in a nearly equal degree, or have the bad the advantage both in good and evil? [i. e. in having more pleasure and more pain.]

  Cal.

  I really do not know what you mean.

  Soc.

  Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good because good was present with them, and the evil because evil; and that pleasures were goods and pains evils?

  Cal.

  Yes, I remember.

  Soc.

  And are not these pleasures or goods present to those who rejoice—if they do rejoice?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then those who rejoice are good when goods are present with them?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And those who are in pain have evil or sorrow present with them?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And would you still say that the evil are evil by reason of the presence of evil?

  Cal.

  I should.

  Soc.

  Then those who rejoice are good, and those who are in pain evil?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The degrees of good and evil vary with the degrees of pleasure and of pain?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Have the wise man and the fool, the brave and the coward, joy and pain in nearly equal degrees? or would you say that the coward has more?

  Cal.

  I should say that he has.

  Soc.

  Help me then to draw out the conclusion which follows from our admissions; for it is good to repeat and 499review what is good twice and thrice over, as they say. Both the wise man and the brave man we allow to be good?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the foolish man and the coward to be evil?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And he who has joy is good?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he who is in pain is evil?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  The good and evil both have joy and pain, but, perhaps, the evil has more of them?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Therefore the bad man is as good as the good, or perhaps even better.

  Then must we not infer, that the bad man is as good and bad as the good, or, perhaps, even better?—is not this a further inference which follows equally with the preceding from the assertion that the good and the pleasant are the same:—can this be denied, Callicles?

  Cal.

  I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates; and I remark that if a person grants you anything in play, you, like a child, want to keep hold and will not give it back. But do you really suppose that I or any other human being denies that some pleasures are good and others bad?

  Soc.

  Socrates begins again with some obvious truisms.

  Alas, Callicles, how unfair you are! you certainly treat me as if I were a child, sometimes saying one thing, and then another, as if you were meaning to deceive me. And yet I thought at first that you were my friend, and would not have deceived me if you could have helped. But I see that I was mistaken; and now I suppose that I must make the best of a bad business, as they said of old, and take what I can get out of you.—Well, then, as I understand you to say, I may assume that some pleasures are good and others evil?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The beneficial are good, and the hurtful are evil?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the hurtful are those which do some evil?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking, which we were just now mentioning—you mean to say that those which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and their opposites evil?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And in the same way there are good pains and there are evil pains?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And ought we not to choose and use the good pleasures and pains?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  But not the evil?

  Cal.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  Because, if you remember, Polus and I have agreed that all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good;—and will you agree with us in saying, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good, and not the good for the sake of 500them?—will you add a third vote to our two?

  Cal.

  I will.

  Soc.

  Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the sake of that which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of pleasure?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are evil, or must he have art or knowledge of them in detail?

  Cal.

  He must have art.

  Soc.

  Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and Polus; I was saying, as you will not have forgotten, that there were some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And I considered that cookery, which I do not call an art, but only an experience, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure, and that the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I must beg you, Callicles, not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you; do not answer at random and contrary to your real opinion;—for you will observe that we are arguing about the way of human life; and to a man who has any sense at all, what question can be more serious than this?—whether he should follow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you call the manly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles now in vogue; or whether he should pursue the life of philosophy;—and in what the latter way differs from the former. But perhaps we had better first try to distinguish them, as I did before, and when we have come to an agreement that they are distinct, we may proceed to consider in what they differ from one another, and which of them we should choose. Perhaps, however, you do not even now understand what I mean?

  Cal.

  No, I do not.

  Soc.

  Then I will explain myself more clearly: seeing that you and I have agreed that there is such a thing as good, and that there is such a thing as pleasure, and that pleasure is not the same as good, and that the pursuit and process of acquisition of the one, that is pleasure, is different from the pursuit and process of acquisition of the other, which is good—I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with me thus far or not—do you agree?

  Cal.

  I do.

  Soc.

  Socrates repeats his distinction between true arts and flatteries or shams.

  Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree 501with me, and whether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience, and not an art at all; and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, cookery in attending upon pleasure never regards either the nature or reason of that pleasure to which she devotes herself, but goes straight to her end, nor ever considers or calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and just preserves the recollection of what she has usually done when producing pleasure. And first, I would have you consider whether I have proved what I was saying, and then whether there are not other similar processes which have to do with the soul—some of them processes of art, making a provision for the soul’s highest interest—others despising the interest, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how this may be acquired, but not considering what pleasures are good or bad, and having no other aim but to afford gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion, Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I term flattery, whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employed with a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us in this notion, or whether you differ.

  Cal.

  to which Callicles pretends to give assent.

  I do not differ; on the contrary, I agree; for in that way I shall soonest bring the argument to an end, and shall oblige my friend Gorgias.

  Soc.

  And is this notion true of one soul, or of two or more?

  Cal.

  Equally true of two or more.

  Soc.

  Then a man may delight a whole assembly, and yet have no regard for their true interests?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  There are arts which delight mankind but which never consider the soul’s higher interest.

  Can you tell me the pursuits which delight mankind—or rather, if you would prefer, let me ask, and do you answer, which of them belong to the pleasurable class, and which of them not? In the first place, what say you of flute-playing? Does not that appear to be an art which seeks only pleasure, Callicles, and thinks of nothing else?

  Cal.

  I assent.

  Soc.

  And is not the same true of all similar arts, as, for example, the art of playing the lyre at festivals?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And what do you say of the choral art and of dithyrambic poetry?—are not they of the same nature? Do you imagine that Cinesias the son of Meles cares about what 502will tend to the moral improvement of his hearers, or about what will give pleasure to the multitude?

  Cal.

  There can be no mistake about Cinesias, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And what do you say of his father, Meles the harp-player? Did he perform with any view to the good of his hearers? Could he be said to regard even their pleasure? For his singing was an infliction to his audience. And of harp-playing and dithyrambic poetry in general, what would you say? Have they not been invented wholly for the sake of pleasure?

  Cal.

  That is my notion of them.

  Soc.

  And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and august personage—what are her aspirations? Is all her aim and desire only to give pleasure to the spectators, or does she fight against them and refuse to speak of their pleasant vices, and willingly proclaim in word and song truths welcome and unwelcome?—which in your judgment is her character?

  Cal.

  There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face turned towards pleasure and the gratification of the audience.

  Soc.

  And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, which we were just now describing as flattery?

  Cal.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  Well now, suppose that we strip all poetry of song and rhythm and metre, there will remain speech1 ?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And this speech is addressed to a crowd of people?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then poetry is a sort of rhetoric?

  Cal.

  True.

  Soc.

  And do not the poets in the theatres seem to you to be rhetoricians?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Poetry is of the nature of flattery.

  Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves. And this is not much to our taste, for we have described it as having the nature of flattery.

  Cal.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  Oratory, too, as practised regards the interest of the speaker rather than the good of the people.

  Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which addresses the Athenian assembly and the assemblies of freemen in other states? Do the rhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best, and do they seek to improve the citizens by their speeches, or are they too, like the rest of mankind, bent upon giving them pleasure, forgetting the public good in the thought of their own interest, playing with the people as with children, and trying to amuse them, but never considering whether they are better or worse for this?

  Cal.

  I must distinguish. There are some who have a real 503care of the public in what they say, while others are such as you describe.

  Soc.

  There might be a higher style of oratory; and Callicles thinks that such really existed in the great days of old, the days of Miltiades and Themistocles and Pericles.

  I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts; one, which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation; the other, which is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the souls of the citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to the audience; but have you ever known such a rhetoric; or if you have, and can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he?

  Cal.

  But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such among the orators who are at present living.

  Soc.

  Well, then, can you mention any one of a former generation, who may be said to have improved the Athenians, who found them worse and made them better, from the day that he began to make speeches? for, indeed, I do not know of such a man.

  Cal.

  What! did you never hear that Themistocles was a good man, and Cimon and Miltiades and Pericles, who is just lately dead, and whom you heard yourself?

  Soc.

  Yet even these famous men had no ideal or standard.

  Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first, true virtue consists only in the satisfaction of our own desires and those of others; but if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to acknowledge, the satisfaction of some desires makes us better, and of others, worse, and we ought to gratify the one and not the other, and there is an art in distinguishing them,—can you tell me of any of these statesmen who did distinguish them?

  Cal.

  No, indeed, I cannot.

  Soc.

  Some standard needed other than a man’s interest.

  Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one. Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to it? The artist disposes all 504things in order, and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians, of whom we spoke before, give order and regularity to the body: do you deny this?

  Cal.

  No; I am ready to admit it.

  Soc.

  Order is good, disorder evil, in a ship, in a human body, in a human soul.

  Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good; that in which there is disorder, evil?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the same is true of a ship?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the same may be said of the human body?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be that in which disorder is prevalent, or that in which there is harmony and order?

  Cal.

  The latter follows from our previous admissions.

  Soc.

  What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and order in the body?

  Cal.

  I suppose that you mean health and strength?

  Soc.

  Yes, I do; and what is the name which you would give to the effect of harmony and order in the soul? Try and discover a name for this as well as for the other.

  Cal.

  Why not give the name yourself, Socrates?

  Soc.

  Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall say whether you agree with me, and if not, you shall refute and answer me. ‘Healthy,’ as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular order of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily excellence: is that true or not?

  Cal.

  True.

  Soc.

  From order and law spring temperance and justice.

  And ‘lawful’ and ‘law’ are the names which are given to the regular order and action of the soul, and these make men lawful and orderly:—and so we have temperance and justice: have we not?

  Cal.

  Granted.

  Soc.

  The true rhetorician will seek to implant these virtues, to implant justice and take away injustice.

  And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and understands his art have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words which he addresses to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in what he gives and in what he takes away? Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of his citizens and take away injustice, to implant temperance and take away intemperance, to implant every virtue and take away every vice? Do you not agree?

  Cal.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the body of a sick man who is in a bad state of health a quantity of the most delightful food or drink or any other pleasant thing, which may be really as bad for him as if you gave him 505nothing, or even worse if rightly estimated. Is not that true?

  Cal.

  I will not say No to it.

  Soc.

  The body of the sick and the soul of the wicked must be chastised and improved.

  For in my opinion there is no profit in a man’s life if his body is in an evil plight—in that case his life also is evil: am I not right?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  When a man is in health the physicians will generally allow him to eat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty, and to satisfy his desires as he likes, but when he is sick they hardly suffer him to satisfy his desires at all: even you will admit that?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir? While she is in a bad state and is senseless and intemperate and unjust and unholy, her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to be prevented from doing anything which does not tend to her own improvement.

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Such treatment will be better for the soul herself?

  Cal.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And to restrain her from her appetites is to chastise her?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul than intemperance or the absence of control, which you were just now preferring?

  Cal.

  I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would ask some one who does.

  Soc.

  Callicles does not wish to be improved.

  Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to subject himself to that very chastisement of which the argument speaks!

  Cal.

  I do not heed a word of what you are saying, and have only answered hitherto out of civility to Gorgias.

  Soc.

  What are we to do, then? Shall we break off in the middle?

  Cal.

  You shall judge for yourself.

  Soc.

  Well, but people say that ‘a tale should have a head and not break off in the middle,’ and I should not like to have the argument going about without a head1 ; please then to go on a little longer, and put the head on.

  Cal.

  How tyrannical you are, Socrates! I wish that you and your argument would rest, or that you would get some one else to argue with you.

  Soc.

  But who else is willing?—I want to finish the argument.

  Cal.

  Cannot you finish without my help, either talking straight on, or questioning and answering yourself?

  Soc.

  Socrates, Gorgias, Callicles.

  Must I then say with Epicharmus, ‘Two men spoke before, but now one shall be enough’? I suppose that there is absolutely no help. And if I am to carry on the enquiry by myself, I will first of all remark that not only I but all of us should have an ambition to know what is true and what is false in this matter, for the discovery of the truth is a common good. And now I will proceed to argue according to 506my own notion. But if any of you think that I arrive at conclusions which are untrue you must interpose and refute me, for I do not speak from any knowledge of what I am saying; I am an enquirer like yourselves, and therefore, if my opponent says anything which is of force, I shall be the first to agree with him. I am speaking on the supposition that the argument ought to be completed; but if you think otherwise let us leave off and go our ways.

  Gor.

  I think, Socrates, that we should not go our ways until you have completed the argument; and this appears to me to be the wish of the rest of the company; I myself should very much like to hear what more you have to say.

  Soc.

  I too, Gorgias, should have liked to. continue the argument with Callicles, and then I might have given him an ‘Amphion’ in return for his ‘Zethus’1 ; but since you, Callicles, are unwilling to continue, I hope that you will listen, and interrupt me if I seem to you to be in error. And if you refute me, I shall not be angry with you as you are with me, but I shall inscribe you as the greatest of benefactors on the tablets of my soul.

  Cal.

  My good fellow, never mind me, but get on.

  Soc.

  The pleasant not the same as the good, and is to be sought only for the sake of the good; and we are good when good is present in us, and good is the effect of order and truth and art.Socrates, Callicles.

  Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument:—Is the pleasant the same as the good? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good? or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued for the sake of the good. And that is pleasant at the presence of which we are pleased, and that is good at the presence of which we are good? To be sure. And we are good, and all good things whatever are good when some virtue is present in us or them? That, Callicles, is my conviction. But the virtue of each thing, whether body or soul, instrument or creature, when given to them in the best way comes to them not by chance but as the result of the order and truth and art which are imparted to them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtue of each thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes, I say. And that which makes a thing good is the proper order inhering in each thing? Such is my view. And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than that which has no order? Certainly. And the soul which has order is orderly? Of course. And that which is orderly is temperate? Assuredly. And the 507 temperate soul is good? No other answer can I give, Callicles dear; have you any?

  Cal.

  Go on, my good fellow.

  Soc.

  Then I shall proceed to add, that if the temperate soul is the good soul, the soul which is in the opposite condition, that is, the foolish and intemperate, is the bad soul. Very true.

  The temperate soul is the good soul, just in relation to men, and holy in relation to gods, and is therefore happy; and the intemperate is the reverse of all this.Socrates.If it be admitted that virtue is happiness and vice misery, then what Socrates said about the use of rhetoric in self-accusation turns out to be true.

  And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to the gods and to men;—for he would not be temperate if he did not? Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is just; and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy? Very true. And must he not be courageous? for the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity be happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable: now this latter is he whom you were applauding—the intemperate who is the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him: he had better order his life so as not to need punishment; but if either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire to satisfy them leading a robber’s life. Such a one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind together 508heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend. But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men; you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about geometry.—Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be the consequences? All the consequences which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his rhetoric—all those consequences are true. And that which you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz. that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree worse; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be true.

  Socrates, Callicles.The greatest evil to do injustice, but there is a greater still, not to be punished for doing injustice.

  And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next place to consider whether you are right in throwing in my teeth that I am unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them in the extremity of danger, and that I am in the power of another like an outlaw to whom any one may do what he likes,—he may box my ears, which was a brave saying of yours; or take away my goods or banish me, or even do his worst and kill me; a condition which, as you say, is the height of disgrace. My answer to you is one which has been already often repeated, but may as well be repeated once more. I tell you, Callicles, that to be boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worst evil which can befall a man, nor to have my purse or my body cut open, but that to smite and slay me and mine wrongfully is far more disgraceful and more evil; aye, and to despoil and enslave and pillage, or in any way at all to wrong me and mine, is far more disgraceful and evil to the doer of the wrong than to me who am the sufferer. 509These truths, which have been already set forth as I state them in the previous discussion, would seem now to have been fixed and riveted by us, if I may use an expression which is certainly bold, in words which are like bonds of iron and adamant; and unless you or some other still more enterprising hero shall break them, there is no possibility of denying what I say. For my position has always been, that I myself am ignorant how these things are, but that I have never met any one who could say otherwise, any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous. This is my position still, and if what I am saying is true, and injustice is the greatest of evils to the doer of injustice, and yet there is if possible a greater than this greatest of evils1 , in an unjust man not suffering retribution, what is that defence of which the want will make a man truly ridiculous? Must not the defence be one which will avert the greatest of human evils? And will not the worst of all defences be that with which a man is unable to defend himself or his family or his friends?—and next will come that which is unable to avert the next greatest evil; thirdly that which is unable to avert the third greatest evil; and so of other evils. As is the greatness of evil so is the honour of being able to avert them in their several degrees, and the disgrace of not being able to avert them. Am I not right, Callicles?

  Cal.

  Yes, quite right.

  Soc.

  Seeing then that there are these two evils, the doing injustice and the suffering injustice—and we affirm that to do injustice is a greater, and to suffer injustice a lesser evil—by what devices can a man succeed in obtaining the two advantages, the one of not doing and the other of not suffering injustice? must he have the power, or only the will to obtain them? I mean to ask whether a man will escape injustice if he has only the will to escape, or must he have provided himself with the power?

  Cal.

  He must have provided himself with the power; that is clear.

  Soc.

  And what do you say of doing injustice? Is the will only sufficient, and will that prevent him from doing injustice, or must he have provided himself with power and art; and if he have not studied and practised, will he be unjust still? Surely you might say, Callicles, whether you think that Polus and I were right in admitting the conclusion that no one does wrong voluntarily, but that all do wrong against their will?

  Cal.

  Granted, Socrates, if you will only have done. 510

  Soc.

  Then, as would appear, power and art have to be provided in order that we may do no injustice?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And what art will protect us from suffering injustice, if not wholly, yet as far as possible? I want to know whether you agree with me; for I think that such an art is the art of one who is either a ruler or even tyrant himself, or the equal and companion of the ruling power.

  Cal.

  Well said, Socrates; and please to observe how ready I am to praise you when you talk sense.

  Soc.

  Think and tell me whether you would approve of another view of mine: To me every man appears to be most the friend of him who is most like to him—like to like, as ancient sages say: Would you not agree to this?

  Cal.

  I should.

  Soc.

  The tyrant naturally hates both his superiors and inferiors: he likes only those who resemble him in character.

  But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected to fear any one who is his superior in virtue, and will never be able to be perfectly friendly with him.

  Cal.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his inferior, for the tyrant will despise him, and will never seriously regard him as a friend.

  Cal.

  That again is true.

  Soc.

  Then the only friend worth mentioning, whom the tyrant can have, will be one who is of the same character, and has the same likes and dislikes, and is at the same time willing to be subject and subservient to him; he is the man who will have power in the state, and no one will injure him with impunity:—is not that so?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the way to be a great man and not to suffer injury is to become like him. And there can be no greater evil to him than this.

  And if a young man begins to ask how he may become great and formidable, this would seem to be the way—he will accustom himself, from his youth upward, to feel sorrow and joy on the same occasions as his master, and will contrive to be as like him as possible?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in this way he will have accomplished, as you and your friends would say, the end of becoming a great man and not suffering injury?

  Cal.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  But will he also escape from doing injury? Must not the very opposite be true, if he is to be like the tyrant in his 511injustice, and to have influence with him? Will he not rather contrive to do as much wrong as possible, and not be punished?

  Cal.

  True.

  Soc.

  And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he thus acquires will not his soul become bad and corrupted, and will not this be the greatest evil to him?

  Cal.

  You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to invert everything: do you not know that he who imitates the tyrant will, if he has a mind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?

  Soc.

  But how provoking that the bad man should slay the good!

  Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have heard that a great many times from you and from Polus and from nearly every man in the city, but I wish that you would hear me too. I dare say that he will kill him if he has a mind—the bad man will kill the good and true.

  Cal.

  And is not that just the provoking thing?

  Soc.

  Nay, but we should not always study the arts which save us from death;—the art of swimming, the art of the pilot, &c.

  Nay, not to a man of sense, as the argument shows: do you think that all our cares should be directed to prolonging life to the uttermost, and to the study of those arts which secure us from danger always; like that art of rhetoric which saves men in courts of law, and which you advise me to cultivate?

  Cal.

  Yes, truly, and very good advice too.

  Soc.

  Well, my friend, but what do you think of swimming; is that an art of any great pretensions?

  Cal.

  No, indeed.

  Soc.

  Socrates.The pilot demands a very moderate payment as the fare of a passenger from Athens to Aegina, because he is not certain whether salvation from death be a good or an evil.

  And yet surely swimming saves a man from death, and there are occasions on which he must know how to swim. And if you despise the swimmers, I will tell you of another and greater art, the art of the pilot, who not only saves the souls of men, but also their bodies and properties from the extremity of danger, just like rhetoric. Yet his art is modest and unpresuming: it has no airs or pretences of doing anything extraordinary, and, in return for the same salvation which is given by the pleader, demands only two obols, if he brings us from Aegina to Athens, or for the longer voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at the utmost two drachmae, when he has saved, as I was just now saying, the passenger and his wife and children and goods, and safely disembarked them at the Piraeus,—this is the payment which he asks in return for so great a boon; and he who is the master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walks about on the sea-shore by his ship in an unassuming way. For he is able to reflect and is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow-passengers he has benefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be drowned. He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them as when they embarked, 512and not a whit better either in their bodies or in their souls; and he considers that if a man who is afflicted by great and incurable bodily diseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, and is in no way benefited by him in having been saved from drowning, much less he who has great and incurable diseases, not of the body, but of the soul, which is the more valuable part of him; neither is life worth having nor of any profit to the bad man, whether he be delivered from the sea, or the law-courts, or any other devourer;—and so he reflects that such a one had better not live, for he cannot live well1 .

  The engineer, too:—how much better than the pleader!Socrates, Callicles.He too is another of your saviours; but you despise him, whereas you ought to esteem him highly.I want you to consider whether you can possibly become great among the people unless you become like them.

  And this is the reason why the pilot, although he is our saviour, is not usually conceited, any more than the engineer, who is not at all behind either the general, or the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power, for he sometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison between him and the pleader? And if he were to talk, Callicles, in your grandiose style, he would bury you under a mountain of words, declaring and insisting that we ought all of us to be engine-makers, and that no other profession is worth thinking about; he would have plenty to say. Nevertheless you despise him and his art, and sneeringly call him an engine-maker, and you will not allow your daughters to marry his son, or marry your son to his daughters. And yet, on your principle, what justice or reason is there in your refusal? What right have you to despise the engine-maker, and the others whom I was just now mentioning? I know that you will say, ‘I am better, and better born.’ But if the better is not what I say, and virtue consists only in a man saving himself and his, whatever may be his character, then your censure of the engine-maker, and of the physician, and of the other arts of salvation, is ridiculous. O my friend! I want you to see that the noble and the good may possibly be something different from saving and being saved:—May not he who is truly a man cease to care about living a certain time?—he knows, as women say, that no man can escape fate, and therefore he is not fond of life; he leaves all that with God, and considers in what way he can best spend his appointed term;—whether by assimilating himself to the constitution under which he 513lives, as you at this moment have to consider how you may become as like as possible to the Athenian people, if you mean to be in their good graces, and to have power in the state; whereas I want you to think and see whether this is for the interest of either of us;—I would not have us risk that which is dearest on the acquisition of this power, like the Thessalian enchantresses, who, as they say, bring down the moon from heaven at the risk of their own perdition. But if you suppose that any man will show you the art of becoming great in the city, and yet not conforming yourself to the ways of the city, whether for better or worse, then I can only say that you are mistaken, Callicles; for he who would deserve to be the true natural friend of the Athenian Demus, aye, or of Pyrilampes’ darling who is called after them, must be by nature like them, and not an imitator only. He, then, who will make you most like them, will make you as you desire, a statesman and orator: for every man is pleased when he is spoken to in his own language and spirit, and dislikes any other. But perhaps you, sweet Callicles, may be of another mind. What do you say?

  Cal.

  Somehow or other your words, Socrates, always appear to me to be good words; and yet, like the rest of the world, I am not quite convinced by them1 .

  Soc.

  Callicles inclines for an instant to the Gospel of Socrates, but the love of the world and of popularity overcomes him.

  The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Demus which abides in your soul is an adversary to me; but I dare say that if we recur to these same matters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be convinced for all that. Please, then, to remember that there are two processes of training all things, including body and soul; in the one, as we said, we treat them with a view to pleasure, and in the other with a view to the highest good, and then we do not indulge but resist them: was not that the distinction which we drew?

  Cal.

  Two processes of training; one having a view to pleasure, the other to good.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And the one which had pleasure in view was just a vulgar flattery:—was not that another of our conclusions?

  Cal.

  Be it so, if you will have it.

  Soc.

  And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that which was ministered to, whether body or soul?

  Cal.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  And we must train our citizens with a view to their good; and, as in other arts, we must show that we can be trusted to improve them.

  And must we not have the same end in view in the treatment of our city and citizens? Must we not try and make them as good as possible? For we have already discovered that there is no use in imparting to them any other 514good, unless the mind of those who are to have the good, whether money, or office, or any other sort of power, be gentle and good. Shall we say that?

  Cal.

  Yes, certainly, if you like.

  Soc.

  Well, then, if you and I, Callicles, were intending2 to set about some public business, and were advising one another to undertake buildings, such as walls, docks or temples of the largest size, ought we not to examine ourselves, first, as to whether we know or do not know the art of building, and who taught us?—would not that be necessary, Callicles?

  Cal.

  True.

  Soc.

  In the second place, we should have to consider whether we had ever constructed any private house, either of our own or for our friends, and whether this building of ours was a success or not; and if upon consideration we found that we had had good and eminent masters, and had been successful in constructing many fine buildings, not only with their assistance, but without them, by our own unaided skill—in that case prudence would not dissuade us from proceeding to the construction of public works. But if we had no master to show, and only a number of worthless buildings or none at all, then, surely, it would be ridiculous in us to attempt public works, or to advise one another to undertake them. Is not this true?

  Cal.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And does not the same hold in all other cases? If you and I were physicians, and were advising one another that we were competent to practise as state-physicians, should I not ask about you, and would you not ask about me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good health? and was any one else ever known to be cured by him, whether slave or freeman? And I should make the same enquiries about you. And if we arrived at the conclusion that no one, whether citizen or stranger, man or woman, had ever been any the better for the medical skill of either of us, then, by Heaven, Callicles, what an absurdity to think that we or any human being should be so silly as to set up as state-physicians and advise others like ourselves to do the same, without having first practised in private, whether successfully or not, and acquired experience of the art! Is not this, as they say, to begin with the big jar when you are learning the potter’s art; which is a foolish thing?

  Cal.

  515True.

  Soc.

  And now, Callicles, what are you who are a public character doing for the improvement of the citizens?

  And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a public character, and are admonishing and reproaching me for not being one, suppose that we ask a few questions of one another. Tell me, then, Callicles, how about making any of the citizens better? Was there ever a man who was once vicious, or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and became by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there ever such a man, whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman? Tell me, Callicles, if a person were to ask these questions of you, what would you answer? Whom would you say that you had improved by your conversation? There may have been good deeds of this sort which were done by you as a private person, before you came forward in public. Why will you not answer?

  Cal.

  You are contentious, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Callicles makes no answer.Or how did Pericles and the great of old benefit the citizens?

  Nay, I ask you, not from a love of contention, but because I really want to know in what way you think that affairs should be administered among us—whether, when you come to the administration of them, you have any other aim but the improvement of the citizens? Have we not already admitted many times over that such is the duty of a public man? Nay, we have surely said so; for if you will not answer for yourself I must answer for you. But if this is what the good man ought to effect for the benefit of his own state, allow me to recall to you the names of those whom you were just now mentioning, Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles, and ask whether you still think that they were good citizens.

  Cal.

  I do.

  Soc.

  But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have made the citizens better instead of worse?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the assembly, the Athenians were not so good as when he spoke last?

  Cal.

  Very likely.

  Soc.

  Nay, my friend, ‘likely’ is not the word; for if he was a good citizen, the inference is certain.

  Cal.

  And what difference does that make?

  Soc.

  Pericles corrupted them by giving them pay.

  None; only I should like further to know whether the Athenians are supposed to have been made better by Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been corrupted by him; for I hear that he was the first who gave the people pay, and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in the love of talk and of money.

  Cal.

  You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set who bruise their ears.

  Soc.

  He made them worse instead of better, for they all but put him to death.

  But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but well known both to you and me: that at first, Pericles was glorious and his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians—this was during the time when 516they were not so good—yet afterwards, when they had been made good and gentle by him, at the very end of his life they convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the notion that he was a malefactor.

  Cal.

  Well, but how does that prove Pericles’ badness?

  Soc.

  Why, surely, you would say that he was a bad manager of asses or horses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor butting nor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage tricks? Would he not be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle, and made them fiercer than they were when he received them? What do you say?

  Cal.

  I will do you the favour of saying ‘yes.’

  Soc.

  And will you also do me the favour of saying whether man is an animal?

  Cal.

  Certainly he is.

  Soc.

  And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals who were his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, to have become more just, and not more unjust?

  Cal.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?—or are you of another mind?

  Cal.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  And yet he really did make them more savage than he received them, and their savageness was shown towards himself; which he must have been very far from desiring.

  Cal.

  Do you want me to agree with you?

  Soc.

  Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth:

  Cal.

  Granted then.

  Soc.

  And if they were more savage, must they not have been more unjust and inferior?

  Cal.

  Granted again.

  Soc.

  Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman?

  Cal.

  That is, upon your view.

  Soc.

  Cimon was ostracised;Themistocles was exiled; Miltiades was nearly thrown from the rock.

  Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving ostracize him, in order that they might not hear his voice for ten years? and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile; and they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis. And yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these things would never have happened to them. For the good charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and then, when they have broken-in their horses, and themselves become better charioteers, are thrown out—that is not the way either in charioteering or in any profession.—What do you think?

  Cal.

  I should think not.

  Soc.

  The older statesmen no better than the existing ones.

  Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, 517that in the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good statesman—you admitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but not true of former ones, and you preferred them to the others; yet they have turned out to be no better than our present ones; and therefore, if they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or of flattery, or they would not have fallen out of favour.

  Cal.

  But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near any one of them in his performances.

  Soc.

  The older statesmen not able really to elevate the state to a higher level, but more capable of gratifying its desires.Socrates.You might as well say that the cook or the baker is a good trainer as that they were great statesmen.Socrates.The statesman like the Sophist; neither has any right to accuse their followers of wronging them; they should have taught them better.Socrates, Callicles.

  O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as the serving-men of the State; and I do think that they were certainly more serviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify the wishes of the State; but as to transforming those desires and not allowing them to have their way, and using the powers which they had, whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of their fellow-citizens, which is the prime object of the truly good citizen, I do not see that in these respects they were a whit superior to our present statesmen, although I do admit that they were more clever at providing ships and walls and docks, and all that. You and I have a ridiculous way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we are always going round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstanding one another. If I am not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more than once, that there are two kinds of operations which have to do with the body, and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is ministerial, and if our bodies are hungry provides food for them, and if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are cold supplies them with garments, blankets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same images as before intentionally, in order that you may understand me the better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them either wholesale or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them,—the baker, or the cook, or the weaver, or the shoemaker, or the currier; and in so doing, being such as he is, he is naturally supposed by himself and every one to minister to the body. For none of them know that there is another art—an art of gymnastic and medicine which is the true minister of the body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to use their results according to the knowledge which she has and they have not, of the real good or bad effects of meats 518and drinks on the body. All other arts which have to do with the body are servile and menial and illiberal; and gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their mistresses. Now, when I say that all this is equally true of the soul, you seem at first to know and understand and assent to my words, and then a little while afterwards you come repeating, Has not the State had good and noble citizens? and when I ask you who they are, you reply, seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who are or have been good trainers?—and you had replied, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner: these are ministers of the body, first-rate in their art; for the first makes admirable loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third capital wine;—to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whom you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I said to you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics; those of whom you are speaking to me are only the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fattening men’s bodies and gaining their approval, although the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long run, and become thinner than they were before; and yet they, in their simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and loss of flesh to their entertainers; but when in after years the unhealthy surfeit brings the attendant penalty of disease, he who happens to be near them at the time, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if they could they would do him some harm; while they proceed to eulogize the men who have been the real authors of the mischief. And that, Callicles, is just what you are now doing. You praise the men who feasted the citizens and satisfied their desires, and people say that they have made the city great, not seeing that the swollen and ulcerated condition of the State is to be attributed to these elder statesmen; for they have filled the city full of harbours and docks and walls and revenues and all that, and have left no room for justice and temperance. And when the crisis of the disorder comes, 519the people will blame the advisers of the hour, and applaud Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real authors of their calamities; and if you are not careful they may assail you and my friend Alcibiades, when they are losing not only their new acquisitions, but also their original possessions; not that you are the authors of these misfortunes of theirs, although you may perhaps be accessories to them. A great piece of work is always being made, as I see and am told, now as of old, about our statesmen. When the State treats any of them as malefactors, I observe that there is a great uproar and indignation at the supposed wrong which is done to them; ‘after all their many services to the State, that they should unjustly perish,’—so the tale runs. But the cry is all a lie; for no statesman ever could be unjustly put to death by the city of which he is the head. The case of the professed statesman is, I believe, very much like that of the professed sophist; for the sophists, although they are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece of folly; professing to be teachers of virtue, they will often accuse their disciples of wronging them, and defrauding them of their pay, and showing no gratitude for their services. Yet what can be more absurd than that men who have become just and good, and whose injustice has been taken away from them, and who have had justice implanted in them by their teachers, should act unjustly by reason of the injustice which is not in them? Can anything be more irrational, my friend, than this? You, Callicles, compel me to be a mob-orator, because you will not answer.

  Cal.

  And you are the man who cannot speak unless there is some one to answer?

  Soc.

  I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the speeches which I am making are long enough because you refuse to answer me. But I adjure you by the god of friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether there does not appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying that you have made a man good, and then blaming him for being bad?

  Cal.

  Yes, it appears so to me.

  Soc.

  520Do you never hear our professors of education speaking in this inconsistent manner?

  Cal.

  Yes, but why talk of men who are good for nothing?

  Soc.

  Sophistry is much superior to rhetoric.

  I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers, and declare that they are devoted to the improvement of the city, and nevertheless upon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the city:—do you think that there is any difference between one and the other? My good friend, the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same; but you ignorantly fancy that rhetoric is a perfect thing, and sophistry a thing to be despised; whereas the truth is, that sophistry is as much superior to rhetoric as legislation is to the practice of law, or gymnastic to medicine. The orators and sophists, as I am inclined to think, are the only class who cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves from that which they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves of having done no good to those whom they profess to benefit. Is not this a fact?

  Cal.

  Certainly it is.

  Soc.

  He who teaches honesty ought to teach his pupils to pay him for the lesson.

  If they were right in saying that they make men better, then they are the only class who can afford to leave their remuneration to those who have been benefited by them. Whereas if a man has been benefited in any other way, if, for example, he has been taught to run by a trainer, he might possibly defraud him of his pay, if the trainer left the matter to him, and made no agreement with him that he should receive money as soon as he had given him the utmost speed; for not because of any deficiency of speed do men act unjustly, but by reason of injustice.

  Cal.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And he who removes injustice can be in no danger of being treated unjustly: he alone can safely leave the honorarium to his pupils, if he be really able to make them good—am I not right1 ?

  Cal.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonour in a man receiving pay who is called in to advise about building or any other art?

  Cal.

  Yes, we have found the reason.

  Soc.

  But when the point is, how a man may become best himself, and best govern his family and state, then to say that you will give no advice gratis is held to be dishonourable?

  Cal.

  True.

  Soc.

  And why? Because only such benefits call forth a desire to requite them, and there is evidence that a benefit has been conferred when the benefactor receives a return; otherwise not. Is this true?

  Cal.

  It is.

  Soc.

  Callicles advises Socrates to be the servant of the state, and not run the risk of popular enmity.

  Then to which service of the State do you invite me? determine for me. Am I to be the physician of the 521State who will strive and struggle to make the Athenians as good as possible; or am I to be the servant and flatterer of the State? Speak out, my good friend, freely and fairly as you did at first and ought to do again, and tell me your entire mind.

  Cal.

  I say then that you should be the servant of the State.

  Soc.

  The flatterer? well, sir, that is a noble invitation.

  Cal.

  The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please. For if you refuse, the consequences will be—

  Soc.

  Do not repeat the old story—that he who likes will kill me and get my money; for then I shall have to repeat the old answer, that he will be a bad man and will kill the good, and that the money will be of no use to him, but that he will wrongly use that which he wrongly took, and if wrongly, basely, and if basely, hurtfully.

  Cal.

  How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to harm! you seem to think that you are living in another country, and can never be brought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be brought by some miserable and mean person.

  Soc.

  Socrates has no fear of popular enmity, but is quite aware that he will incur it, because he is the only true politician of his time,

  Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know that in the Athenian State any man may suffer anything. And if I am brought to trial and incur the dangers of which you speak, he will be a villain who brings me to trial—of that I am very sure, for no good man would accuse the innocent. Nor shall I be surprised if I am put to death. Shall I tell you why I anticipate this?

  Cal.

  By all means.

  Soc.

  I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living who practises the true art of politics; I am the only politician of my time. Now, seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any view of gaining favour, and that I look to what is best and not to what is most pleasant, having no mind to use those arts and graces which you recommend, I shall have nothing to say in the justice court. And you might argue with me, as I was arguing with Polus:—I shall be tried just as a physician would be tried in a court of little boys at the indictment of the cook. What would he reply under such circumstances, if some one were to accuse him, saying, ‘O my boys, many evil things has this man done to you: he is the death of you, especially of the younger ones among you, cutting and 522burning and starving and suffocating you, until you know not what to do; he gives you the bitterest potions, and compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the variety of meats and sweets on which I feasted you!’ What do you suppose that the physician would be able to reply when he found himself in such a predicament? If he told the truth he could only say, ‘All these evil things, my boys, I did for your health,’ and then would there not just be a clamour among a jury like that? How they would cry out!

  Cal.

  I dare say.

  Soc.

  Would he not be utterly at a loss for a reply?

  Cal.

  He certainly would.

  Soc.

  and he has no defence against men such as his opponents:

  And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well know, if I am brought before the court. For I shall not be able to rehearse to the people the pleasures which I have procured for them, and which, although I am not disposed to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of them, are deemed by them to be benefits and advantages. And if any one says that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I speak evil of old men, and use bitter words towards them, whether in private or public, it is useless for me to reply, as I truly might:—‘All this I do for the sake of justice, and with a view to your interest, my judges, and to nothing else.’ And therefore there is no saying what may happen to me.

  Cal.

  And do you think, socrates, that a man who is thus defenceless is in a good position?

  Soc.

  that is to say, he has the defence of truth, but not such a defence as men ordinarily produce.

  Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you have often acknowledged he should have—if he be his own defence, and have never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or men; and this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of defence. And if any one could convict me of inability to defend myself or others after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and if I died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve me. But if I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure that you would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one’s soul full of injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what I say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.

  Cal.

  Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.

  Soc.

  The philosopher has no reason to dread death, as Socrates will prove by a relation of what happens in the world below.Socrates.Before the days of Zeus, the judgments of another world too much resembled the judgments of this.Zeus takes measures for the correction and improvement of them.

  Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty 523tale, which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer tells us1 , how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and still continues to be in Heaven,—that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the judgment was given on the very day on which the men were to die; the judges were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was that the judgments were not well given. The Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: ‘I shall put a stop to this; the judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have their clothes on, for they are alive; and there are many who, having evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. The judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged.—What is to be done? I will tell you:—In the first place, I will deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present: this power which they have Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them: in the second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge too shall be naked, that is to say, dead—he with his naked soul shall pierce into the other naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon the earth—conducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter before any of you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, 524Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment in the meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe. And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt:—then the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as possible.’

  As the body is, so is the soul after death; they both retain the traces of what they were in life,and they are punished accordingly.

  From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences:—Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and so on; and the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.—And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, 525and has no straightness, because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

  The proper office of punishment is either to improve or to deter.The meaner sort of men are incapable of great crimes.Great men have sometimes been good men but power is apt to corrupt them.

  Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly punished ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering; for there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the penalty of their sins—there they are, hanging up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous men who come thither. And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this; for they are always kings and potentates whom he has described as suffering everlasting punishment in the world below: such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites, or any private person who was a villain, as suffering everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not in his power, and he was happier than those who had the 526power. No, Callicles, the very bad men come from the class of those who have power1 . And yet in that very class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are, for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain to this. Such good and true men, however, there have been, and will be again, at Athens and in other states, who have fulfilled their trust righteously; and there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.

  The impartiality of the judges in another world.

  As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows nothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he knows only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and receives his proper recompense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and truth; he may have been a private man or not; and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopher who has done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of other men in his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and judge; but Minos alone has a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in Homer1 declares that he saw him:

  • ‘Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.’

  Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. And I retort your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and, when he has got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you 527will gape and your head will swim round, just as mine would in the courts of this world, and very likely some one will shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon you any sort of insult.

  Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife’s tale, which you will contemn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything better or truer: but now you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, are not able to show that we ought to live any life which does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well in public as in private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and be chastised and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric and any other art should be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a view to justice.

  Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let us, then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise justice and every virtue in life and death. This way let us go; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to which you trust and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way, Callicles, is nothing worth.

  APPENDIX I.

  Appendix I.

  It seems impossible to separate by any exact line the genuine writings of Plato from the spurious. The only external evidence to them which is of much value is that of Aristotle; for the Alexandrian catalogues of a century later include manifest forgeries. Even the value of the Aristotelian authority is a good deal impaired by the uncertainty concerning the date and authorship of the writings which are ascribed to him. And several of the citations of Aristotle omit the name of Plato, and some of them omit the name of the dialogue from which they are taken. Prior, however, to the enquiry about the writings of a particular author, general considerations which equally affect all evidence to the genuineness of ancient writings are the following: Shorter works are more likely to have been forged, or to have received an erroneous designation, than longer ones; and some kinds of composition, such as epistles or panegyrical orations, are more liable to suspicion than others; those, again, which have a taste of sophistry in them, or the ring of a later age, or the slighter character of a rhetorical exercise, or in which a motive or some affinity to spurious writings can be detected, or which seem to have originated in a name or statement really occurring in some classical author, are also of doubtful credit; while there is no instance of any ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with length. A really great and original writer would have no object in fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the ‘literary hack’ of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or genius. Further, in attempting to balance the evidence for and against a Platonic dialogue, we must not forget that the form of the Platonic writing was common to several of his contemporaries. Aeschines, Euclid, Phaedo, Antisthenes, and in the next generation Aristotle, are all said to have composed dialogues; and mistakes of names are very likely to have occurred. Greek literature in the third century before Christ was almost as voluminous as our own, and without the safeguards of regular publication, or printing, or binding, or even of distinct titles. An unknown writing was naturally attributed to a known writer whose works bore the same character; and the name once appended easily obtained authority. A tendency may also be observed to blend the works and opinions of the master with those of his scholars. To a later Platonist, the difference between Plato and his imitators was not so perceptible as to ourselves. The Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Plato are but a part of a considerable Socratic literature which has passed away. And we must consider how we should regard the question of the genuineness of a particular writing, if this lost literature had been preserved to us.

  These considerations lead us to adopt the following criteria of genuineness: (1) That is most certainly Plato’s which Aristotle attributes to him by name, which (2) is of considerable length, of (3) great excellence, and also (4) in harmony with the general spirit of the Platonic writings. But the testimony of Aristotle cannot always be distinguished from that of a later age (see above); and has various degrees of importance. Those writings which he cites without mentioning Plato, under their own names, e. g. the Hippias, the Funeral Oration, the Phaedo, etc., have an inferior degree of evidence in their favour. They may have been supposed by him to be the writings of another, although in the case of really great works, e. g. the Phaedo, this is not credible; those again which are quoted but not named, are still more defective in their external credentials. There may be also a possibility that Aristotle was mistaken, or may have confused the master and his scholars in the case of a short writing; but this is inconceivable about a more important work, e. g. the Laws, especially when we remember that he was living at Athens, and a frequenter of the groves of the Academy, during the last twenty years of Plato’s life. Nor must we forget that in all his numerous citations from the Platonic writings he never attributes any passage found in the extant dialogues to any one but Plato. And lastly, we may remark that one or two great writings, such as the Parmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly devoid of Aristotelian (1) credentials may be fairly attributed to Plato, on the ground of (2) length, (3) excellence, and (4) accordance with the general spirit of his writings. Indeed the greater part of the evidence for the genuineness of ancient Greek authors may be summed up under two heads only: (1) excellence; and (2) uniformity of tradition—a kind of evidence, which though in many cases sufficient, is of inferior value.

  Proceeding upon these principles we appear to arrive at the conclusion that nineteen-twentieths of all the writings which have ever been ascribed to Plato, are undoubtedly genuine. There is another portion of them, including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected by the ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal and external evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject. But there still remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either that they are genuine or spurious. They may have been written in youth, or possibly like the works of some painters, may be partly or wholly the compositions of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some contemporary transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master. Not that on grounds either of language or philosophy we should lightly reject them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected to think in the same manner during a period of authoriship extending over above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of political and literary transition? Certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculation as that which separates his later writings from Aristotle.

  The dialogues which have been translated in the first Appendix, and which appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonic writings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, the First Alcibiades. Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Oration are cited by Aristotle; the first in the Metaphysics, iv. 29, 5, the latter in the Rhetoric, iii. 14, 11. Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his citation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the extant dialogues. From the mention of ‘Hippias’ in the singular by Aristotle, we may perhaps infer that he was unacquainted with a second dialogue bearing the same name. Moreover, the mere existence of a Greater and Lesser Hippias, and of a First and Second Alcibiades, does to a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them. Though a very clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent. The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 21, and there is no similar instance of a ‘motive’ which is taken from Xenophon in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of the genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument ‘whither the wind blows.’ That no conclusion is arrived at is also in accordance with the character of the earlier dialogues. The resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot with certainty be adduced on either side of the argument. On the whole, more may be said in favour of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it.

  The Menexenus or Funeral Oration is cited by Aristotle, and is interesting as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators praised ‘the Athenians among the Athenians,’ falsifying persons and dates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history. It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and was, perhaps, intended to rival that great work. If genuine, the proper place of the Menexenus would be at the end of the Phaedrus. The satirical opening and the concluding words bear a great resemblance to the earlier dialogues; the oration itself is professedly a mimetic work, like the speeches in the Phaedrus, and cannot therefore be tested by a comparison of the other writings of Plato. The funeral oration of Pericles is expressly mentioned in the Phaedrus, and this may have suggested the subject, in the same manner that the Cleitophon appears to be suggested by the slight mention of Cleitophon and his attachment to Thrasymachus in the Republic, cp. 465 A; and the Theages by the mention of Theages in the Apology and Republic; or as the Second Alcibiades seems to be founded upon the text of Xenophon, Mem. i. 3, 1. A similar taste for parody appears not only in the Phaedrus, but in the Protagoras, in the Symposium, and to a certain extent in the Parmenides.

  To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the First Alcibiades, which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has the greatest merit, and is somewhat longer than any other of them, though not verified by the testimony of Aristotle, and in many respects at variance with the Symposium in the description of the relations of Socrates and Alcibiades. Like the Lesser Hippias and the Menexenus, it is to be compared to the earlier writings of Plato. The motive of the piece may, perhaps, be found in that passage of the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by the words of Socrates (216 B, C). For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more transparent than in the undoubted dialogues of Plato. We know, too, that Alcibiades was a favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues bearing this name passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to contemporaries of Socrates and Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real external evidence (for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we have express testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearing the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on the genuineness of the extant dialogue.

  Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw an absolute line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of Plato. They fade off imperceptibly from one class to another. There may have been degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as there are certainly degrees of evidence by which they are supported. The traditions of the oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may have formed the basis of semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be of the same mixed character which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates, although the form of them is different. But the writings of Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle, seem never to have been confused with the writings of his disciples: this was probably due to their definite form, and to their inimitable excellence. The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they may be altogether spurious;—that is an alternative which must be frankly admitted. Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the Parmenides, and the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection can be urged against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight (chiefly) of internal evidence in their favour. Nor, on the other hand, can we exclude a bare possibility that some dialogues which are usually rejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may be genuine. The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings require more careful study and more comparison of them with one another, and with forged writings in general, than they have yet received, before we can finally decide on their character. We do not consider them all as genuine until they can be proved to be spurious, as is often maintained and still more often implied in this and similar discussions; but should say of some of them, that their genuineness is neither proven nor disproven until further evidence about them can be adduced. And we are as confident that the Epistles are spurious, as that the Republic, the Timaeus, and the Laws are genuine.

  On the whole, not a twentieth part of the writings which pass under the name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients themselves and two or three other plausible inventions, can be fairly doubted by those who are willing to allow that a considerable change and growth may have taken place in his philosophy (see above). That twentieth debatable portion scarcely in any degree affects our judgment of Plato, either as a thinker or a writer, and though suggesting some interesting questions to the scholar and critic, is of little importance to the general reader.

  LESSER HIPPIAS.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Lesser Hippias.Introduction.

  The Lesser Hippias may be compared with the earlier dialogues of Plato, in which the contrast of Socrates and the Sophists is most strongly exhibited. Hippias, like Protagoras and Gorgias, though civil, is vain and boastful: he knows all things; he can make anything, including his own clothes; he is a manufacturer of poems and declamations, and also of seal-rings, shoes, strigils; his girdle, which he has woven himself, is of a finer than Persian quality. He is a vainer, lighter nature than the two great Sophists (cp. Protag. 314, 337), but of the same character with them, and equally impatient of the short cut-and-thrust method of Socrates, whom he endeavours to draw into a long oration. At last, he gets tired of being defeated at every point by Socrates, and is with difficulty induced to proceed (compare Thrasymachus, Protagoras, Callicles, and others, to whom the same reluctance is ascribed).

  Analysis.

  363Hippias like Protagoras has common sense on his side, when he argues, citing passages of the Iliad in support of his view, that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest, Odysseus the wisest of the Greeks. But he is easily overthrown by the superior dialectics of Socrates, who pretends to show that Achilles is not -369true to his word, and that no similar inconsistency is to be found in Odysseus. Hippias replies that Achilles unintentionally, but 370Odysseus intentionally, speaks falsehood. But is it better to do wrong intentionally or unintentionally? Socrates, relying on the analogy of the arts, maintains the former, Hippias the latter of the -372two alternatives. . . . All this is quite conceived in the spirit of Plato, who is very far from making Socrates always argue on the side of truth. The over-reasoning on Homer, which is of course satirical, is also in the spirit of Plato. Poetry turned logic is even more ridiculous than ‘rhetoric turned logic,’ and equally fallacious. There were reasoners in ancient as well as in modern times, who could never receive the natural impression of Homer, or of any other book which they read. The argument of Socrates, in which he picks out the apparent inconsistencies and discrepancies in the speech and actions of Achilles, and the final paradox, ‘that he who is true is also false,’ remind us of the interpretation by Socrates of Simonides in the Protagoras, and of similar reasonings in the first book of the Republic. The discrepancies which Socrates discovers in the words of Achilles are perhaps as great as those discovered by some of the modern separatists of the Homeric poems. . . .

  At last, Socrates having caught Hippias in the toils of the 376voluntary and involuntary, is obliged to confess that he is wandering about in the same labyrinth; he makes the reflection on himself which others would make upon him (cp. Protagoras, sub fin.). He does not wonder that he should be in a difficulty, but he wonders at Hippias, and he becomes sensible of the gravity of the situation, when ordinary men like himself can no longer go to the wise and be taught by them.

  Introduction.

  It may be remarked as bearing on the genuineness of this dialogue: (1) that the manners of the speakers are less subtle and refined than in the other dialogues of Plato; (2) that the sophistry of Socrates is more palpable and unblushing, and also more unmeaning; (3) that many turns of thought and style are found in it which appear also in the other dialogues:—whether resemblances of this kind tell in favour of or against the genuineness of an ancient writing, is an important question which will have to be answered differently in different cases. For that a writer may repeat himself is as true as that a forger may imitate; and Plato elsewhere, either of set purpose or from forgetfulness, is full of repetitions. The parallelisms of the Lesser Hippias, as already remarked, are not of the kind which necessarily imply that the dialogue is the work of a forger. The parallelisms of the Greater Hippias with the other dialogues, and the allusion to the Lesser 285, 286 A, B (where Hippias sketches the programme of his next lecture, and invites Socrates to attend and bring any friends with him who may be competent judges), are more than suspicious:—they are of a very poor sort, such as we cannot suppose to have been due to Plato himself. The Greater Hippias more resembles the Euthydemus than any other dialogue; but is immeasurably inferior to it. The Lesser Hippias seems to have more merit than the Greater, and to be more Platonic in spirit. The character of Hippias is the same in both dialogues, but his vanity and boasting are even more exaggerated in the Greater Hippias. His art of memory is specially mentioned in both. He is an inferior type of the same species as Hippodamus of Miletus (Arist. Pol. II. 8, § 1). Some passages in which the Lesser Hippias may be advantageously compared with the undoubtedly genuine dialogues of Plato are the following:—Less. Hipp. 369 B: cp. Rep. vi. 487 (Socrates’ cunning in argument): ∥ ib. D, E: cp. Laches 188 (Socrates’ feeling about arguments): ∥ 372 B, C: cp. Rep. i. 338 B (Socrates not unthankful): ∥ 373 B: cp. Rep. i. 340 D (Socrates dishonest in argument).

  The Lesser Hippias, though inferior to the other dialogues, may be reasonably believed to have been written by Plato, on the ground (1) of considerable excellence; (2) of uniform tradition beginning with Aristotle and his school. That the dialogue falls below the standard of Plato’s other works, or that he has attributed to Socrates an unmeaning paradox (perhaps with the view of showing that he could beat the Sophists at their own weapons; or that he could ‘make the worse appear the better cause’; or merely as a dialectical experiment)—are not sufficient reasons for doubting the genuineness of the work.

  LESSER HIPPIAS.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Eudicus, Socrates, Hippias.

  Eudicus.

  Socrates, Eudicus, Hippias.

  363Why are you silent, Socrates, after the magnificent display which Hippias has been making? Why do you not either refute his words, if he seems to you to have been wrong in any point, or join with us in commending him? There is the more reason why you should speak, because we are now alone, and the audience is confined to those who may fairly claim to take part in a philosophical discussion.

  Socrates.

  The Iliad of Homer a finer work than the Odyssey, because Achilles, the hero of the poem, is greater than Odysseus.

  I should greatly like, Eudicus, to ask Hippias the meaning of what he was saying just now about Homer. I have heard your father, Apemantus, declare that the Iliad of Homer is a finer poem than the Odyssey in the same degree that Achilles was a better man than Odysseus; Odysseus, he would say, is the central figure of the one poem and Achilles of the other. Now, I should like to know, if Hippias has no objection to tell me, what he thinks about these two heroes, and which of them he maintains to be the better; he has already told us in the course of his exhibition many things of various kinds about Homer and divers other poets.

  Eud.

  I am sure that Hippias will be delighted to answer anything which you would like to ask; tell me, Hippias, if Socrates asks you a question, will you answer him?

  Hippias.

  Socrates, Hippias.

  Indeed, Eudicus, I should be strangely inconsistent if I refused to answer Socrates, when at each Olympic festival, as I went up from my house at Elis to the temple of Olympia, where all the Hellenes were assembled, I continually professed my willingness to perform any of the exhibitions which I had prepared, and to answer any questions which any one had to ask.

  Soc.

  Truly, Hippias, you are to be congratulated, if at 364every Olympic festival you have such an encouraging opinion of your own wisdom when you go up to the temple. I doubt whether any muscular hero would be so fearless and confident in offering his body to the combat at Olympia, as you are in offering your mind.

  Hip.

  And with good reason, Socrates; for since the day when I first entered the lists at Olympia I have never found any man who was my superior in anything1 .

  Soc.

  What an ornament, Hippias, will the reputation of your wisdom be to the city of Elis and to your parents! But to return: what say you of Odysseus and Achilles? Which is the better of the two? and in what particular does either surpass the other? For when you were exhibiting and there was company in the room, though I could not follow you, I did not like to ask what you meant, because a crowd of people were present, and I was afraid that the question might interrupt your exhibition. But now that there are not so many of us, and my friend Eudicus bids me ask, I wish you would tell me what you were saying about these two heroes, so that I may clearly understand; how did you distinguish them?

  Hip.

  Achilles the bravest, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest of the Greeks at Troy.

  I shall have much pleasure, Socrates, in explaining to you more clearly than I could in public my views about these and also about other heroes. I say that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of the men who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest.

  Soc.

  O rare Hippias, will you be so good as not to laugh, if I find a difficulty in following you, and repeat my questions several times over? Please to answer me kindly and gently.

  Hip.

  I should be greatly ashamed of myself, Socrates, if I, who teach others and take money of them, could not, when I was asked by you, answer in a civil and agreeable manner.

  Soc.

  Thank you: the fact is, that I seemed to understand what you meant when you said that the poet intended Achilles to be the bravest of men, and also that he intended Nestor to be the wisest; but when you said that he meant Odysseus to be the wiliest, I must confess that I could not understand what you were saying. Will you tell me, and then I shall perhaps understand you better; has not Homer made Achilles wily?

  Hip.

  Certainly not, Socrates; he is the most straightforward of mankind, and when Homer introduces them talking with one another in the passage called the Prayers, Achilles is supposed by the poet to say to Odysseus:—

  365‘Son of Laertes, sprung from heaven, crafty Odysseus, I will speak out plainly the word which I intend to carry out in act, and which will, I believe, be accomplished. For I hate him like the gates of death who thinks one thing and says another. But I will speak that which shall be accomplished.’

  Now, in these verses he clearly indicates the character of the two men; he shows Achilles to be true and simple, and Odysseus to be wily and false; for he supposes Achilles to be addressing Odysseus in these lines.

  Soc.

  Wily means false:

  Now, Hippias, I think that I understand your meaning; when you say that Odysseus is wily, you clearly mean that he is false?

  Hip.

  Exactly so, Socrates; it is the character of Odysseus, as he is represented by Homer in many passages both of the Iliad and Odyssey.

  Soc.

  And Homer must be presumed to have meant that the true man is not the same as the false?

  Hip.

  Of course, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And is that your own opinion, Hippias?

  Hip.

  Certainly; how can I have any other?

  Soc.

  Well, then, as there is no possibility of asking Homer what he meant in these verses of his, let us leave him; but as you show a willingness to take up his cause, and your opinion agrees with what you declare to be his, will you answer on behalf of yourself and him?

  Hip.

  I will; ask shortly anything which you like.

  Soc.

  Do you say that the false, like the sick, have no power to do things, or that they have the power to do things?

  Hip.

  I should say that they have power to do many things, and in particular to deceive mankind.

  Soc.

  Then, according to you, they are both powerful and wily, are they not?

  Hip.

  And the false have the power of deceiving mankind; they are prudent and knowing and wise, and have the ability to speak falsely.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And are they wily, and do they deceive by reason of their simplicity and folly, or by reason of their cunning and a certain sort of prudence?

  Hip.

  By reason of their cunning and prudence, most certainly.

  Soc.

  Then they are prudent, I suppose?

  Hip.

  So they are—very.

  Soc.

  And if they are prudent, do they know or do they not know what they do?

  Hip.

  Of course, they know very well; and that is why they do mischief to others.

  Soc.

  And having this knowledge, are they ignorant, or are they wise?

  Hip.

  Wise, certainly; at least, in so far as they can deceive.

  Soc.

  Stop, and let us recall to mind what you are saying; 366are you not saying that the false are powerful and prudent and knowing and wise in those things about which they are false?

  Hip.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And the true differ from the false—the true and the false are the very opposite of each other?

  Hip.

  That is my view.

  Soc.

  Then, according to your view, it would seem that the false are to be ranked in the class of the powerful and wise?

  Hip.

  Assuredly.

  Soc.

  And when you say that the false are powerful and wise in so far as they are false, do you mean that they have or have not the power of uttering their falsehoods if they like?

  Hip.

  I mean to say that they have the power.

  Soc.

  In a word, then, the false are they who are wise and have the power to speak falsely?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then a man who has not the power of speaking falsely and is ignorant cannot be false?

  Hip.

  You are right.

  Soc.

  And every man has power who does that which he wishes at the time when he wishes. I am not speaking of any special case in which he is prevented by disease or something of that sort, but I am speaking generally, as I might say of you, that you are able to write my name when you like. Would you not call a man able who could do that?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And tell me, Hippias, are you not a skilful calculator and arithmetician?

  Hip.

  Yes, Socrates, assuredly I am.

  Soc.

  And if some one were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, you would tell him the true answer in a moment, if you pleased?

  Hip.

  Certainly I should.

  Soc.

  Is not that because you are the wisest and ablest of men in these matters?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And being as you are the wisest and ablest of men in these matters of calculation, are you not also the best?

  Hip.

  To be sure, Socrates, I am the best.

  Soc.

  And therefore you would be the most able to tell the truth about these matters, would you not?

  Hip.

  Yes, I should.

  Soc.

  They must truly know that about which they falsely speak or they will fall into the error of speaking the truth by mistake.

  And could you speak falsehoods about them equally well? I must beg, Hippias, that you will answer me with the same frankness and magnanimity which has hitherto characterized you. If a person were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, would not you be the best and most consistent teller of a falsehood, having always the power of speaking falsely as you have of speaking truly, about these same matters, if you wanted to tell a falsehood, 367and not to answer truly? Would the ignorant man be better able to tell a falsehood in matters of calculation than you would be, if you chose? Might he not sometimes stumble upon the truth, when he wanted to tell a lie, because he did not know, whereas you who are the wise man, if you wanted to tell a lie would always and consistently lie?

  Hip.

  Yes; there you are quite right.

  Soc.

  Does the false man tell lies about other things, but not about number, or when he is making a calculation?

  Hip.

  To be sure; he would tell as many lies about number as about other things.

  Soc.

  Then may we further assume, Hippias, that there are men who are false about calculation and number?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Who can they be? For you have already admitted that he who is false must have the ability to be false: you said, as you will remember, that he who is unable to be false will not be false?

  Hip.

  Yes, I remember; it was so said.

  Soc.

  And were you not yourself just now shown to be best able to speak falsely about calculation?

  Hip.

  Yes; that was another thing which was said.

  Soc.

  And are you not likewise said to speak truly about calculation?

  Hip.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then the same person is able to speak both falsely and truly about calculation? And that person is he who is good at calculation—the arithmetician?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Who, then, Hippias, is discovered to be false at calculation? Is he not the good man? For the good man is the able man, and he is the true man.

  Hip.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  Therefore the same man must be true if he is to be truly false, in astronomy, in geometry, and in all the sciences.

  Do you not see, then, that the same man is false and also true about the same matters? And the true man is not a whit better than the false; for indeed he is the same with him and not the very opposite, as you were just now imagining.

  Hip.

  Not in that instance, clearly.

  Soc.

  Shall we examine other instances?

  Hip.

  Certainly, if you are disposed.

  Soc.

  Are you not also skilled in geometry?

  Hip.

  I am.

  Soc.

  Well, and does not the same hold in that science also? Is not the same person best able to speak falsely or to speak truly about diagrams; and he is—the geometrician?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  He and no one else is good at it?

  Hip.

  Yes, he and no one else.

  Soc.

  Then the good and wise geometer has this double power in the highest degree; and if there be a man who is false about diagrams the good man will be he, for he is able to be false; whereas the bad is unable, and for this reason is not false, as has been admitted.

  Hip.

  True.

  Soc.

  Once more—let us examine a third case; that of the astronomer, in whose art, again, you, Hippias, profess to be a still greater proficient than in the preceding—do you not?

  Hip.

  368Yes, I am.

  Soc.

  And does not the same hold of astronomy?

  Hip.

  True, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And in astronomy, too, if any man be able to speak falsely he will be the good astronomer, but he who is not able will not speak falsely, for he has no knowledge.

  Hip.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  Then in astronomy also, the same man will be true and false?

  Hip.

  It would seem so.

  Soc.

  Socrates compliments Hippias on his skill in engraving gems, in making clothes and shoes and the finest fabrics, in writing poetry and prose of the most varied kind, and on the art of memory which he has invented.

  And now, Hippias, consider the question at large about all the sciences, and see whether the same principle does not always hold. I know that in most arts you are the wisest of men, as I have heard you boasting in the agora at the tables of the money-changers, when you were setting forth the great and enviable stores of your wisdom; and you said that upon one occasion, when you went to the Olympic games, all that you had on your person was made by yourself. You began with your ring, which was of your own workmanship, and you said that you could engrave rings; and you had another seal which was also of your own workmanship, and a strigil and an oil flask, which you had made yourself; you said also that you had made the shoes which you had on your feet, and the cloak and the short tunic; but what appeared to us all most extraordinary and a proof of singular art, was the girdle of your tunic, which, you said, was as fine as the most costly Persian fabric, and of your own weaving; moreover, you told us that you had brought with you poems, epic, tragic, and dithyrambic, as well as prose writings of the most various kinds; and you said that your skill was also pre-eminent in the arts which I was just now mentioning, and in the true principles of rhythm and harmony and of orthography; and if I remember rightly, there were a great many other accomplishments in which you excelled. I have forgotten to mention your art of memory, which you regard as your special glory, and I dare say that I have forgotten many other things; but, as I was saying, only look to your own arts—and there are plenty of them—and to those of others; and tell me, having regard to the admissions which you and I have made, whether you discover any department of art or any description of wisdom or cunning, whichever name you use, in which the true and false are different and not the same: tell me, if you can, of any. But 369you cannot.

  Hip.

  Not without consideration, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Nor will consideration help you, Hippias, as I believe; but then if I am right, remember what the consequence will be.

  Hip.

  Yet he who knows and remembers all things can call to mind no instance in which the false is not also true, although he was saying just now that Achilles is true and Odysseus false.

  I do not know what you mean, Socrates.

  Soc.

  I suppose that you are not using your art of memory, doubtless because you think that such an accomplishment is not needed on the present occasion. I will therefore remind you of what you were saying: were you not saying that Achilles was a true man, and Odysseus false and wily?

  Hip.

  I was.

  Soc.

  And now do you perceive that the same person has turned out to be false as well as true? If Odysseus is false he is also true, and if Achilles is true he is also false, and so the two men are not opposed to one another, but they are alike.

  Hip.

  O Socrates, you are always weaving the meshes of an argument, selecting the most difficult point, and fastening upon details instead of grappling with the matter in hand as a whole. Come now, and I will demonstrate to you, if you will allow me, by many satisfactory proofs, that Homer has made Achilles a better man than Odysseus, and a truthful man too; and that he has made the other crafty, and a teller of many untruths, and inferior to Achilles. And then, if you please, you shall make a speech on the other side, in order to prove that Odysseus is the better man; and this may be compared to mine, and then the company will know which of us is the better speaker.

  Soc.

  Socrates pays Hippias the compliment which he always pays to a wise man, of attending to him. He proves by example that Achilles, the true man, is always uttering falsehoods, Odysseus, the false man, never.

  O Hippias, I do not doubt that you are wiser than I am. But I have a way, when anybody else says anything, of giving close attention to him, especially if the speaker appears to me to be a wise man. Having a desire to understand, I question him, and I examine and analyse and put together what he says, in order that I may understand; but if the speaker appears to me to be a poor hand, I do not interrogate him, or trouble myself about him, and you may know by this who they are whom I deem to be wise men, for you will see that when I am talking with a wise man, I am very attentive to what he says; and I ask questions of him, in order that I may learn, and be improved by him. And I could not help remarking while you were speaking, that when you recited the verses in which Achilles, as you argued, attacks Odysseus as a deceiver, that you must be strangely mistaken, because Odysseus, the man of wiles, is never found to tell a lie; but 370Achilles is found to be wily on your own showing. At any rate he speaks falsely; for first he utters these words, which you just now repeated,—

  ‘He is hateful to me even as the gates of death who thinks one thing and says another:’—

  And then he says, a little while afterwards, he will not be persuaded by Odysseus and Agamemnon, neither will he remain at Troy; but, says he,—

  ‘To-morrow, when I have offered sacrifices to Zeus and all the Gods, having loaded my ships well, I will drag them down into the deep; and then you shall see, if you have a mind, and if such things are a care to you, early in the morning my ships sailing over the fishy Hellespont, and my men eagerly plying the oar; and, if the illustrious shaker of the earth gives me a good voyage, on the third day I shall reach the fertile Phthia.

  And before that, when he was reviling Agamemnon, he said,—

  ‘And now to Phthia I will go, since to return home in the beaked ships is far better, nor am I inclined to stay here in dishonour and amass wealth and riches for you.’

  But although on that occasion, in the presence of the whole army, he spoke after this fashion, and on the other occasion to his companions, he appears never to have made any preparation or attempt to draw down the ships, as if he had the least intention of sailing home; so nobly regardless was he of the truth. Now I, Hippias, originally asked you the question, because I was in doubt as to which of the two heroes was intended by the poet to be the best, and because I thought that both of them were the best, and that it would be difficult to decide which was the better of them, not only in respect of truth and falsehood, but of virtue generally, for even in this matter of speaking the truth they are much upon a par.

  Hip.

  Aye, but the falsehood of Achilles is accidental; that of Odysseus intentional.

  There you are wrong, Socrates; for in so far as Achilles speaks falsely, the falsehood is obviously unintentional. He is compelled against his will to remain and rescue the army in their misfortune. But when Odysseus speaks falsely he is voluntarily and intentionally false.

  Soc.

  You, sweet Hippias, like Odysseus, are a deceiver yourself.

  Hip.

  Certainly not, Socrates; what makes you say so? 371

  Soc.

  Because you say that Achilles does not speak falsely from design, when he is not only a deceiver, but besides being a braggart, in Homer’s description of him is so cunning, and so far superior to Odysseus in lying and pretending, that he dares to contradict himself, and Odysseus does not find him out; at any rate he does not appear to say anything to him which would imply that he perceived his falsehood.

  Hip.

  What do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  Did you not observe that afterwards, when he is speaking to Odysseus, he says that he will sail away with the early dawn; but to Ajax he tells quite a different story?

  Hip.

  Where is that?

  Soc.

  Where he says,—

  ‘I will not think about bloody war until the son of warlike Priam, illustrious Hector, comes to the tents and ships of the Myrmidons, slaughtering the Argives, and burning the ships with fire; and about my tent and dark ship, I suspect that Hector, although eager for the battle, will nevertheless stay his hand.’

  Now, do you really think, Hippias, that the son of Thetis, who had been the pupil of the sage Cheiron, had such a bad memory, or would have carried the art of lying to such an extent (when he had been assailing liars in the most violent terms only the instant before) as to say to Odysseus that he would sail away, and to Ajax that he would remain, and that he was not rather practising upon the simplicity of Odysseus, whom he regarded as an ancient, and thinking that he would get the better of him by his own cunning and falsehood?

  Hip.

  No, I do not agree with you, Socrates; but I believe that Achilles is induced to say one thing to Ajax, and another to Odysseus in the innocence of his heart, whereas Odysseus, whether he speaks falsely or truly, speaks always with a purpose.

  Soc.

  That proves Odysseus to be better than Achilles.

  Then Odysseus would appear after all to be better than Achilles?

  Hip.

  Certainly not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Why, were not the voluntary liars only just now shown to be better than the involuntary?

  Hip.

  And how, Socrates, can those who intentionally err, and voluntarily and designedly commit iniquities, be better 372than those who err and do wrong involuntarily? Surely there is a great excuse to be made for a man telling a falsehood, or doing an injury or any sort of harm to another in ignorance. And the laws are obviously far more severe on those who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.

  Soc.

  Socrates is convinced of his own ignorance because he never agrees with wise men. But he is willing to learn,Socrates, Hippias, Eudicus.and he desires to be cured by Hippias of his ignorance in as few words as possible.

  You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I am in asking questions of wise men. And I think that this is the only good point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some way or other. My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing. For speaking generally, I hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what proof of ignorance can be greater than to differ from wise men? But I have one singular good quality, which is my salvation; I am not ashamed to learn, and I ask and enquire, and am very grateful to those who answer me, and never fail to give them my grateful thanks; and when I learn a thing I never deny my teacher, or pretend that the lesson is a discovery of my own; but I praise his wisdom, and proclaim what I have learned from him. And now I cannot agree in what you are saying, but I strongly disagree. Well, I know that this is my own fault, and is a defect in my character, but I will not pretend to be more than I am; and my opinion, Hippias, is the very contrary of what you are saying. For I maintain that those who hurt or injure mankind, and speak falsely and deceive, and err voluntarily, are better far than those who do wrong involuntarily. Sometimes, however, I am of the opposite opinion; for I am all abroad in my ideas about this matter, a condition obviously occasioned by ignorance. And just now I happen to be in a crisis of my disorder at which those who err voluntarily appear to me better than those who err involuntarily. My present state of mind is due to our previous argument, which inclines me to believe that in general those who do wrong involuntarily are worse than those who do wrong voluntarily, and therefore I hope that you will be good to me, and not refuse to heal me; for you will do me a much greater benefit if you cure my soul of ignorance, than you would if you were to cure my body of disease. I must, however, tell you beforehand, that if you 373make a long oration to me you will not cure me, for I shall not be able to follow you; but if you will answer me, as you did just now, you will do me a great deal of good, and I do not think that you will be any the worse yourself. And I have some claim upon you also, O son of Apemantus, for you incited me to converse with Hippias; and now, if Hippias will not answer me, you must entreat him on my behalf.

  Eud.

  But I do not think, Socrates, that Hippias will require any entreaty of mine; for he has already said that he will refuse to answer no man.—Did you not say so, Hippias?

  Hip.

  Yes, I did; but then, Eudicus, Socrates is always troublesome in an argument, and appears to be dishonest1 .

  Soc.

  Excellent Hippias, I do not do so intentionally (if I did, it would show me to be a wise man and a master of wiles, as you would argue), but unintentionally, and therefore you must pardon me; for, as you say, he who is unintentionally dishonest should be pardoned.

  Eud.

  Yes, Hippias, do as he says; and for our sake, and also that you may not belie your profession, answer whatever Socrates asks you.

  Hip.

  I will answer, as you request me; and do you ask whatever you like.

  Soc.

  I am very desirous, Hippias, of examining this question, as to which are the better—those who err voluntarily or involuntarily? And if you will answer me, I think that I can put you in the way of approaching the subject: You would admit, would you not, that there are good runners?

  Hip.

  Socrates by citation of instances not ‘in pari materia’ proves that it is better to do evil intentionally;

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And there are bad runners?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he who runs well is a good runner, and he who runs ill is a bad runner?

  Hip.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And he who runs slowly runs ill, and he who runs quickly runs well?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  e. g. in running,

  Then in a race, and in running, swiftness is a good, and slowness is an evil quality?

  Hip.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  Which of the two then is a better runner? He who runs slowly voluntarily, or he who runs slowly involuntarily?

  Hip.

  He who runs slowly voluntarily.

  Soc.

  And is not running a species of doing?

  Hip.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And if a species of doing, a species of action?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then he who runs badly does a bad and dishonourable action in a race?

  Hip.

  Yes; a bad action, certainly.

  Soc.

  And he who runs slowly runs badly?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then the good runner does this bad and disgraceful action voluntarily, and the bad involuntarily?

  Hip.

  That is to be inferred.

  Soc.

  Then he who involuntarily does evil actions, is worse in a race than he who does them voluntarily?

  Hip.

  Yes, in a race.

  Soc.

  Well; but at a wrestling match—which is the better 374wrestler, he who falls voluntarily or involuntarily?

  Hip.

  Socrates, Hippias.

  He who falls voluntarily, doubtless.

  Soc.

  in wrestling,

  And is it worse or more dishonourable at a wrestling match, to fall, or to throw another?

  Hip.

  To fall.

  Soc.

  Then, at a wrestling match, he who voluntarily does base and dishonourable actions is a better wrestler than he who does them involuntarily?

  Hip.

  That appears to be the truth.

  Soc.

  And what would you say of any other bodily exercise—is not he who is better made able to do both that which is strong and that which is weak—that which is fair and that which is foul?—so that when he does bad actions with the body, he who is better made does them voluntarily, and he who is worse made does them involuntarily.

  Hip.

  Yes, that appears to be true about strength.

  Soc.

  in the action of the body,

  And what do you say about grace, Hippias? Is not he who is better made able to assume evil and disgraceful figures and postures voluntarily, as he who is worse made assumes them involuntarily?

  Hip.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then voluntary ungracefulness comes from excellence of the bodily frame, and involuntary from the defect of the bodily frame?

  Hip.

  True.

  Soc.

  in singing,

  And what would you say of an unmusical voice; would you prefer the voice which is voluntarily or involuntarily out of tune?

  Hip.

  That which is voluntarily out of tune.

  Soc.

  The involuntary is the worse of the two?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And would you choose to possess goods or evils?

  Hip.

  Goods.

  Soc.

  in the use of the feet,

  And would you rather have feet which are voluntarily or involuntarily lame?

  Hip.

  Feet which are voluntarily lame.

  Soc.

  But is not lameness a defect or deformity?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And is not blinking a defect in the eyes?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And would you rather always have eyes with which you might voluntarily blink and not see, or with which you might involuntarily blink?

  Hip.

  eyes,

  I would rather have eyes which voluntarily blink.

  Soc.

  Then in your own case you deem that which voluntarily acts ill, better than that which involuntarily acts ill?

  Hip.

  Yes, certainly, in cases such as you mention.

  Soc.

  ears,

  And does not the same hold of ears, nostrils, mouth, and of all the senses—those which involuntarily act ill are not to be desired, as being defective; and those which voluntarily act ill are to be desired as being good?

  Hip.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  of instruments.

  And what would you say of instruments;—which are the better sort of instruments to have to do with?—those with which a man acts ill voluntarily or involuntarily? For example, had a man better have a rudder with which he will steer ill, voluntarily or involuntarily?

  Hip.

  He had better have a rudder with which he will steer ill voluntarily.

  Soc.

  And does not the same hold of the bow and the lyre, the flute and all other things?

  Hip.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And would you rather have a horse of such a temper that you may ride him ill voluntarily or involuntarily?

  Hip.

  It is true also of animals,

  375I would rather have a horse which I could ride ill voluntarily.

  Soc.

  That would be the better horse?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then with a horse of better temper, vicious actions would be produced voluntarily; and with a horse of bad temper involuntarily?

  Hip.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And that would be true of a dog, or of any other animal?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  in the practice of archery,

  And is it better to possess the mind of an archer who voluntarily or involuntarily misses the mark?

  Hip.

  Of him who voluntarily misses.

  Soc.

  This would be the better mind for the purposes of archery?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then the mind which involuntarily errs is worse than the mind which errs voluntarily?

  Hip.

  Yes, certainly, in the use of the bow.

  Soc.

  of medicine,

  And what would you say of the art of medicine;—has not the mind which voluntarily works harm to the body, more of the healing art?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then in the art of medicine the voluntary is better than the involuntary?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Well, and in lute-playing and in flute-playing, and in all arts and sciences, is not that mind the better which voluntarily does what is evil and dishonourable, and goes wrong, and is not the worse that which does so involuntarily?

  Hip.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  in the characters of slaves.

  And what would you say of the characters of slaves? Should we not prefer to have those who voluntarily do wrong and make mistakes, and are they not better in their mistakes than those who commit them involuntarily?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And should we not desire to have our own minds in the best state possible?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And will our minds be better if they do wrong and make mistakes voluntarily or involuntarily?

  Hip.

  Hippias revolts at the conclusion.

  O, Socrates, it would be a monstrous thing to say that those who do wrong voluntarily are better than those who do wrong involuntarily!

  Soc.

  And yet that appears to be the only inference.

  Hip.

  I do not think so.

  Soc.

  Socrates recapitulates the argument.

  But I imagined, Hippias, that you did. Please to answer once more: Is not justice a power, or knowledge, or both? Must not justice, at all events, be one of these?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But if justice is a power of the soul, then the soul which has the greater power is also the more just; for that which has the greater power, my good friend, has been proved by us to be the better.

  Hip.

  Yes, that has been proved.

  Soc.

  And if justice is knowledge, then the wiser will be the juster soul, and the more ignorant the more unjust?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But if justice be power as well as knowledge—then will not the soul which has both knowledge and power be the more just, and that which is the more ignorant be the more unjust? Must it not be so?

  Hip.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And is not the soul which has the greater power and wisdom also better, and better able to do both good and evil in every action?

  Hip.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  376The soul, then, which acts ill, acts voluntarily by power and art—and these either one or both of them are elements of justice?

  Hip.

  That seems to be true.

  Soc.

  And to do injustice is to do ill, and not to do injustice is to do well?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And will not the better and abler soul when it does wrong, do wrong voluntarily, and the bad soul involuntarily?

  Hip.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And the good man is he who has the good soul, and the bad man is he who has the bad?

  Hip.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Hippias, who has admitted the previous deductions, rebels at the final one. Socrates is himself dissatisfied. What remains if Socrates and a wiser than Socrates are alike in doubt?Socrates,

  Then the good man will voluntarily do wrong, and the bad man involuntarily, if the good man is he who has the good soul?

  Hip.

  Which he certainly has.

  Soc.

  Then, Hippias, he who voluntarily does wrong and disgraceful things, if there be such a man, will be the good man?

  Hip.

  There I cannot agree with you.

  Soc.

  Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias; and yet that seems to be the conclusion which, as far as we can see at present, must follow from our argument. As I was saying before, I am all abroad, and being in perplexity am always changing my opinion. Now, that I or any ordinary man should wander in perplexity is not surprising; but if you wise men also wander, and we cannot come to you and rest from our wandering, the matter begins to be serious both to us and to you.

  ALCIBIADES I.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Alcibiades I.Introduction.

  The First Alcibiades is a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades. Socrates is represented in the character which he attributes to himself in the Apology of a know-nothing who detects the conceit of knowledge in others. The two have met already in the Protagoras and in the Symposium; in the latter dialogue, as in this, the relation between them is that of a lover and his beloved. But the narrative of their loves is told differently in different places; for in the Symposium Alcibiades is depicted as the impassioned but rejected lover; here, as coldly receiving the advances of Socrates, who, for the best of purposes, lies in wait for the aspiring and ambitious youth.

  Analysis.

  103Alcibiades, who is described as a very young man, is about to enter on public life, having an inordinate opinion of himself, and an extravagant ambition. Socrates, ‘who knows what is in man,’ -106astonishes him by a revelation of his designs. But has he the knowledge which is necessary for carrying them out? He is 107going to persuade the Athenians—about what? Not about any particular art, but about politics—when to fight and when to make peace. Now, men should fight and make peace on just grounds, and therefore the question of justice and injustice must enter into -109peace and war; and he who advises the Athenians must know the difference between them. Does Alcibiades know? If he does, he must either have been taught by some master, or he must have discovered the nature of them himself. If he has had a master, Socrates would like to be informed who he is, that he 110may go and learn of him also. Alcibiades admits that he has never learned. Then has he enquired for himself? He may have, if he was ever aware of a time when he was ignorant. But he never was ignorant; for when he played with other boys at dice, he charged them with cheating, and this implied a knowledge of just and unjust. According to his own explanation, he had learned of the multitude. Why, he asks, should he not learn of them the nature of justice, as he has learned the Greek language of them? To this Socrates answers, that they can teach Greek, but they 111cannot teach justice; for they are agreed about the one, but they are not agreed about the other: and therefore Alcibiades, who 112has admitted that if he knows he must either have learned from a master or have discovered for himself the nature of justice, is convicted out of his own mouth. 113

  Alcibiades rejoins, that the Athenians debate not about what is just, but about what is expedient; and he asserts that the two principles of justice and expediency are opposed. Socrates, by a 114series of questions, compels him to admit that the just and the expedient coincide. Alcibiades is thus reduced to the humiliating -117conclusion that he knows nothing of politics, even if, as he says, they are concerned with the expedient.

  However, he is no worse than other Athenian statesmen; and he will not need training, for others are as ignorant as he is. He is reminded that he has to contend, not only with his own countrymen, but with their enemies—with the Spartan kings and -120with the great king of Persia; and he can only attain this higher aim of ambition by the assistance of Socrates. Not that Socrates himself professes to have attained the truth, but the questions which he asks bring others to a knowledge of themselves, and this is the first step in the practice of virtue.

  The dialogue continues:—We wish to become as good as -124possible. But to be good in what? Alcibiades replies—‘Good in transacting business.’ But what business? ‘The business of the 125most intelligent men at Athens.’ The cobbler is intelligent in shoemaking, and is therefore good in that; he is not intelligent, and therefore not good, in weaving. Is he good in the sense which Alcibiades means, who is also bad? ‘I mean,’ replies Alcibiades, ‘the man who is able to command in the city.’ But to command what—horses or men? and if men, under what circumstances? ‘I mean to say, that he is able to command men living in social and political relations.’ And what is their aim? ‘The better preservation of the city.’ But when is a city better? 126‘When there is unanimity, such as exists between husband and 127wife.’ Then, when husbands and wives perform their own special duties, there can be no unanimity between them; nor can a city be well ordered when each citizen does his own work only. Alcibiades, having stated first that goodness consists in the unanimity of the citizens, and then in each of them doing his own separate work, is brought to the required point of self-contradiction, 128leading him to confess his own ignorance.

  But he is not too old to learn, and may still arrive at the truth, 129if he is willing to be cross-examined by Socrates. He must know himself; that is to say, not his body, or the things of the body, but his mind, or truer self. The physician knows the body, and the tradesman knows his own business, but they do not necessarily know themselves. Self-knowledge can be obtained only -132by looking into the mind and virtue of the soul, which is the diviner part of a man, as we see our own image in another’s eye. And if we do not know ourselves, we cannot know what belongs to ourselves or belongs to others, and are unfit to take a part in -134political affairs. Both for the sake of the individual and of the state, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth or power. The evil and unjust should have no power,—they should 135be the slaves of better men than themselves. None but the virtuous are deserving of freedom.

  And are you, Alcibiades, a freeman? ‘I feel that I am not; but I hope, Socrates, that by your aid I may become free, and from this day forward I will never leave you.’

  Introduction.

  The Alcibiades has several points of resemblance to the undoubted dialogues of Plato. The process of interrogation is of the same kind with that which Socrates practises upon the youthful Cleinias in the Euthydemus; and he characteristically attributes to Alcibiades the answers which he has elicited from him. The definition of good is narrowed by successive questions, and virtue is shown to be identical with knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, Socrates awakens the consciousness not of sin but of ignorance. Self-humiliation is the first step to knowledge, even of the commonest things. No man knows how ignorant he is, and no man can arrive at virtue and wisdom who has not once in his life, at least, been convicted of error. The process by which the soul is elevated is not unlike that which religious writers describe under the name of ‘conversion,’ if we substitute the sense of ignorance for the consciousness of sin.

  In some respects the dialogue differs from any other Platonic composition. The aim is more directly ethical and hortatory; the process by which the antagonist is undermined is simpler than in other Platonic writings, and the conclusion more decided. There is a good deal of humour in the manner in which the pride of Alcibiades, and of the Greeks generally, is supposed to be taken down by the Spartan and Persian queens; and the dialogue has considerable dialectical merit. But we have a difficulty in supposing that the same writer, who has given so profound and complex a notion of the characters both of Alcibiades and Socrates in the Symposium, should have treated them in so thin and superficial a manner in the Alcibiades, or that he would have ascribed to the ironical Socrates the rather unmeaning boast that Alcibiades could not attain the objects of his ambition without his help (105 D foll.); or that he should have imagined that a mighty nature like his could have been reformed by a few not very conclusive words of Socrates. For the arguments by which Alcibiades is reformed are not convincing; the writer of the dialogue, whoever he was, arrives at his idealism by crooked and tortuous paths, in which many pitfalls are concealed. The anachronism of making Alcibiades about twenty years old during the life of his uncle, Pericles, may be noted; and the repetition of the favourite observation, which occurs also in the Laches and Protagoras, that great Athenian statesmen, like Pericles, failed in the education of their sons. There is none of the undoubted dialogues of Plato in which there is so little dramatic verisimilitude.

  ALCIBIADES I.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Alcibiades, Socrates.

  Socrates.

  Alcibiades I.Socrates, Alcibiades.The pride of Alcibiades has been too much for his lovers.

  103I dare say that you may be surprised to find, O son of Cleinias, that I, who am your first lover, not having spoken to you for many years, when the rest of the world were wearying you with their attentions, am the last of your lovers who still speaks to you. The cause of my silence has been that I was hindered by a power more than human, of which I will some day explain to you the nature; this impediment has now been removed; I therefore here present myself before you, and I greatly hope that no similar hindrance will again occur. Meanwhile, I have observed that your pride has been too much for the pride of your admirers; they were numerous and high-spirited, but they have all run away, overpowered by your superior force of 104character; not one of them remains. And I want you to understand the reason why you have been too much for them. You think that you have no need of them or of any other man, for you have great possessions and lack nothing, beginning with the body, and ending with the soul. In the first place, you say to yourself that you are the fairest and tallest of the citizens, and this every one who has eyes may see to be true; in the second place, that you are among the noblest of them, highly connected both on the father’s and the mother’s side, and sprung from one of the most distinguished families in your own state, which is the greatest in Hellas, and having many friends and kinsmen of the best sort, who can assist you when in need; and there is one potent relative, who is more to you than all the rest, Pericles the son of Xanthippus, whom your father left guardian of you, and of your brother, and who can do as he pleases not only in this city, but in all Hellas, and among many and mighty barbarous nations. Moreover, you are rich; but I must say that you value yourself least of all upon your possessions. And all these things have lifted you up; you have overcome your lovers, and they have acknowledged that you were too much for them. Have you not remarked their absence? And now I know that you wonder why I, unlike the rest of them, have not gone away, and what can be my motive in remaining.

  Alcibiades.

  Perhaps, Socrates, you are not aware that I was just going to ask you the very same question—What do you want? And what is your motive in annoying me, and always, wherever I am, making a point of coming1 ? I do really wonder what you mean, and should greatly like to know.

  Soc.

  Then if, as you say, you desire to know, I suppose that you will be willing to hear, and I may consider myself to be speaking to an auditor who will remain, and will not run away?

  Al.

  Certainly, let me hear.

  Soc.

  You had better be careful, for I may very likely be as unwilling to end as I have hitherto been to begin.

  Al.

  Proceed, my good man, and I will listen.

  Soc.

  Alcibiades a lover, not of pleasure, but of ambition; and he requires the help of Socrates for the accomplishment of his designs.And this is the reason why Socrates has clung to him; he is hoping when Alcibiades has become the ruler of Athens to rule over him.

  I will proceed; and, although no lover likes to speak with one who has no feeling of love in him2 , I will make an effort, and tell you what I meant: My love, Alcibiades, which 105I hardly like to confess, would long ago have passed away, as I flatter myself, if I saw you loving your good things, or thinking that you ought to pass life in the enjoyment of them. But I shall reveal other thoughts of yours, which you keep to yourself; whereby you will know that I have always had my eye on you. Suppose that at this moment some God came to you and said: Alcibiades, will you live as you are, or die in an instant if you are forbidden to make any further acquisition?—I verily believe that you would choose death. And I will tell you the hope in which you are at present living: Before many days have elapsed, you think that you will come before the Athenian assembly, and will prove to them that you are more worthy of honour than Pericles, or any other man that ever lived, and having proved this, you will have the greatest power in the state. When you have gained the greatest power among us, you will go on to other Hellenic states, and not only to Hellenes, but to all the barbarians who inhabit the same continent with us. And if the God were then to say to you again: Here in Europe is to be your seat of empire, and you must not cross over into Asia or meddle with Asiatic affairs, I do not believe that you would choose to live upon these terms; but the world, as I may say, must be filled with your power and name—no man less than Cyrus and Xerxes is of any account with you. Such I know to be your hopes—I am not guessing only—and very likely you, who know that I am speaking the truth, will reply, Well, Socrates, but what have my hopes to do with the explanation which you promised of your unwillingness to leave me? And that is what I am now going to tell you, sweet son of Cleinias and Dinomachè. The explanation is, that all these designs of yours cannot be accomplished by you without my help; so great is the power which I believe myself to have over you and your concerns; and this I conceive to be the reason why the God has hitherto forbidden me to converse with you, and I have been long expecting his permission. For, as you hope to prove your own great value to the state, and having proved it, to attain at once to absolute power, so do I indulge a hope that I shall have the supreme power over you, if I am able to prove my own great value to you, and to show you that neither guardian, nor kinsman, nor any one is able to deliver into your hands the power which you desire, but I only, God being my helper. When you were young1 and your hopes were not yet matured, I should have wasted my time, and 106therefore, as I conceive, the God forbade me to converse with you; but now, having his permission, I will speak, for now you will listen to me.

  Al.

  Alcibiades does not deny the impeachment.

  Your silence, Socrates, was always a surprise to me. I never could understand why you followed me about, and now that you have begun to speak again, I am still more amazed. Whether I think all this or not, is a matter about which you seem to have already made up your mind, and therefore my denial will have no effect upon you. But granting, if I must, that you have perfectly divined my purposes, why is your assistance necessary to the attainment of them? Can you tell me why?

  Soc.

  You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way. I think, however, that I can prove to you the truth of what I am saying, if you will grant me one little favour.

  Al.

  Yes, if the favour which you mean be not a troublesome one.

  Soc.

  Will you be troubled at having questions to answer?

  Al.

  Alcibiades is willing to answer questions.

  Not at all.

  Soc.

  Then please to answer.

  Al.

  Ask me.

  Soc.

  Have you not the intention which I attribute to you?

  Al.

  I will grant anything you like, in the hope of hearing what more you have to say.

  Soc.

  You do, then, mean, as I was saying, to come forward in a little while in the character of an adviser of the Athenians? And suppose that when you are ascending the bema, I pull you by the sleeve and say, Alcibiades, you are getting up to advise the Athenians—do you know the matter about which they are going to deliberate, better than they?—How would you answer?

  Al.

  He is going to advise the Athenians about matters which he knows better than they.

  I should reply, that I was going to advise them about a matter which I do know better than they.

  Soc.

  Then you are a good adviser about the things which you know?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And do you know anything but what you have learned of others, or found out yourself?

  Al.

  That is all.

  Soc.

  And would you have ever learned or discovered anything, if you had not been willing either to learn of others or to examine yourself?

  Al.

  I should not.

  Soc.

  And would you have been willing to learn or to examine what you supposed that you knew?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Then there was a time when you thought that you did not know what you are now supposed to know?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  But when did he ever learn about these matters?

  I think that I know tolerably well the extent of your acquirements; and you must tell me if I forget any of them: according to my recollection, you learned the arts of writing, of playing on the lyre, and of wrestling; the flute you never would learn; this is the sum of your accomplishments, unless there were some which you acquired in secret; and I think that secrecy was hardly possible, as you could not have come out of your door, either by day or night, without my seeing you.

  Al.

  Yes, that was the whole of my schooling.

  Soc.

  107And are you going to get up in the Athenian assembly, and give them advice about writing?

  Al.

  No, indeed.

  Soc.

  Or about the touch of the lyre?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And they are not in the habit of deliberating about wrestling, in the assembly?

  Al.

  Hardly.

  Soc.

  Then what are the deliberations in which you propose to advise them? Surely not about building?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  For the builder will advise better than you will about that?

  Al.

  He will.

  Soc.

  Nor about divination?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  About that again the diviner will advise better than you will?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Whether he be little or great, good or ill-looking, noble or ignoble—makes no difference.

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  A man is a good adviser about anything, not because he has riches, but because he has knowledge?

  Al.

  Assuredly.

  Soc.

  Whether their counsellor is rich or poor, is not a matter which will make any difference to the Athenians when they are deliberating about the health of the citizens; they only require that he should be a physician.

  Al.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  Then what will be the subject of deliberation about which you will be justified in getting up and advising them?

  Al.

  About their own concerns, Socrates.

  Soc.

  You mean about shipbuilding, for example, when the question is what sort of ships they ought to build?

  Al.

  No, I should not advise them about that.

  Soc.

  I suppose, because you do not understand shipbuilding:—is that the reason?

  Al.

  It is.

  Soc.

  Then about that concerns of theirs will you advise them?

  Al.

  He will advise them about war and peace, and with whom they had better go to war, and when and how long.

  About war, Socrates, or about peace, or about any other concerns of the state.

  Soc.

  You mean, when they deliberate with whom they ought to make peace, and with whom they ought to go to war, and in what manner?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And they ought to go to war with those against whom it is better to go to war?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And when it is better?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And for as long a time as is better?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But suppose the Athenians to deliberate with whom they ought to close in wrestling, and whom they should grasp by the hand, would you, or the master of gymnastics, be a better adviser of them?

  Al.

  Clearly, the master of gymnastics.

  Soc.

  And can you tell me on what grounds the master of gymnastics would decide, with whom they ought or ought not to close, and when and how? To take an instance: Would he not say that they should wrestle with those against whom it is best to wrestle?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  108And as much as is best?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And at such times as are best?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Again; you sometimes accompany the lyre with the song and dance?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  When it is well to do so?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And as much as is well?

  Al.

  Just so.

  Soc.

  And as you speak of an excellence or art of the best in wrestling, and of an excellence in playing the lyre, I wish you would tell me what this latter is;—the excellence of wrestling I call gymnastic, and I want to know what you call the other.

  Al.

  I do not understand you.

  Soc.

  Then try to do as I do; for the answer which I gave is universally right, and when I say right, I mean according to rule.

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And was not the art of which I spoke gymnastic?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And I called the excellence in wrestling gymnastic?

  Al.

  You did.

  Soc.

  And I was right?

  Al.

  I think that you were.

  Soc.

  Alcibiades should learn to argue nicely.

  Well, now,—for you should learn to argue prettily—let me ask you in return to tell me, first, what is that art of which playing and singing, and stepping properly in the dance, are parts,—what is the name of the whole? I think that by this time you must be able to tell.

  Al.

  Indeed I cannot.

  Soc.

  Then let me put the matter in another way: what do you call the Goddesses who are the patronesses of art?

  Al.

  The Muses do you mean, Socrates?

  Soc.

  Yes, I do; and what is the name of the art which is called after them?

  Al.

  I suppose that you mean music.

  Soc.

  What is the meaning of ‘the better,’ ‘the more excellent.’

  Yes, that is my meaning; and what is the excellence of the art of music, as I told you truly that the excellence of wrestling was gymnastic—what is the excellence of music—to be what?

  Al.

  To be musical, I suppose.

  Soc.

  Very good; and now please to tell me what is the excellence of war and peace; as the more musical was the more excellent, or the more gymnastical was the more excellent, tell me, what name do you give to the more excellent in war and peace?

  Al.

  But I really cannot tell you.

  Soc.

  The term better, when applied to food, means more wholesome.

  But if you were offering advice to another and said to him—This food is better than that, at this time and in this quantity, and he said to you—What do you mean, Alcibiades, by the word ‘better’? you would have no difficulty in replying that you meant ‘more wholesome,’ although you do not profess to be a physician: and when the subject is one of which you profess to have knowledge, and about which you are ready to get up and advise as if you knew, are you not ashamed, when you are asked, not to be able to answer the question? Is it not disgraceful? 109

  Al.

  Very.

  Soc.

  Well, then, consider and try to explain what is the meaning of ‘better,’ in the matter of making peace and going to war with those against whom you ought to go to war? To what does the word refer?

  Al.

  I am thinking, and I cannot tell.

  Soc.

  But you surely know what are the charges which we bring against one another, when we arrive at the point of making war, and what name we give them?

  Al.

  Yes, certainly; we say that deceit or violence has been employed, or that we have been defrauded.

  Soc.

  And how does this happen? Will you tell me how? For there may be a difference in the manner.

  Al.

  Do you mean by ‘how,’ Socrates, whether we suffered these things justly or unjustly?

  Soc.

  Exactly.

  Al.

  There can be no greater difference than between just and unjust.

  Soc.

  And would you advise the Athenians to go to war with the just or with the unjust?

  Al.

  That is an awkward question; for certainly, even if a person did intend to go to war with the just, he would not admit that they were just.

  Soc.

  He would not go to war, because it would be unlawful?

  Al.

  Neither lawful nor honourable.

  Soc.

  Then you, too, would address them on principles of justice?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  In going to war or not going to war, the better is the more just.

  What, then, is justice but that better, of which I spoke, in going to war or not going to war with those against whom we ought or ought not, and when we ought or ought not to go to war?

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  But how is this, friend Alcibiades? Have you forgotten that you do not know this, or have you been to the schoolmaster without my knowledge, and has he taught you to discern the just from the unjust? Who is he? I wish you would tell me, that I may go and learn of him—you shall introduce me.

  Al.

  You are mocking, Socrates.

  Soc.

  But where did Alcibiades acquire this notion of just and unjust?

  No, indeed; I most solemnly declare to you by Zeus, who is the God of our common friendship, and whom I never will forswear, that I am not; tell me, then, who this instructor is, if he exists.

  Al.

  But, perhaps, he does not exist; may I not have acquired the knowledge of just and unjust in some other way?

  Soc.

  Yes; if you have discovered them.

  Al.

  But do you not think that I could discover them?

  Soc.

  I am sure that you might, if you enquired about them.

  Al.

  And do you not think that I would enquire?

  Soc.

  Yes; if you thought that you did not know them.

  Al.

  And was there not a time when I did so think?

  Soc.

  Very good; and can you tell me how long it is 110since you thought that you did not know the nature of the just and the unjust? What do you say to a year ago? Were you then in a state of conscious ignorance and enquiry? or did you think that you knew? And please to answer truly, that our discussion may not be in vain.

  Al.

  Well, I thought that I knew.

  Soc.

  And two years ago, and three years ago, and four years ago, you knew all the same?

  Al.

  I did.

  Soc.

  And more than four years ago you were a child—were you not?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And then I am quite sure that you thought you knew.

  Al.

  Why are you so sure?

  Soc.

  He always had them.

  Because I often heard you when a child, in your teacher’s house, or elsewhere, playing at dice or some other game with the boys, not hesitating at all about the nature of the just and unjust; but very confident—crying and shouting that one of the boys was a rogue and a cheat, and had been cheating. Is it not true?

  Al.

  But what was I to do, Socrates, when anybody cheated me?

  Soc.

  And how can you say, ‘What was I to do’? if at the time you did not know whether you were wronged or not?

  Al.

  To be sure I knew; I was quite aware that I was being cheated.

  Soc.

  Then you suppose yourself even when a child to have known the nature of just and unjust?

  Al.

  Certainly; and I did know then.

  Soc.

  And when did you discover them—not, surely, at the time when you thought that you knew them?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And when did you think that you were ignorant—if you consider, you will find that there never was such a time?

  Al.

  Really, Socrates, I cannot say.

  Soc.

  Then you did not learn them by discovering them?

  Al.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  But just before you said that you did not know them by learning; now, if you have neither discovered nor learned them, how and whence do you come to know them?

  Al.

  I suppose that I was mistaken in saying that I knew them through my own discovery of them; whereas, in truth, I learned them in the same way that other people learn.

  Soc.

  So you said before, and I must again ask, of whom? Do tell me.

  Al.

  Of the many.

  Soc.

  He learned them of the many.

  Do you take refuge in them? I cannot say much for your teachers.

  Al.

  Why, are they not able to teach?

  Soc.

  They could not teach you how to play at draughts, which you would acknowledge (would you not) to be a much smaller matter than justice?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And can they teach the better who are unable to teach the worse?

  Al.

  I think that they can; at any rate, they can teach many far better things than to play at draughts.

  Soc.

  111What things?

  Al.

  as he learned Greek;—of those who knew it.

  Why, for example, I learned to speak Greek of them, and I cannot say who was my teacher, or to whom I am to attribute my knowledge of Greek, if not to those good-for-nothing teachers, as you call them.

  Soc.

  Why, yes, my friend; and the many are good enough teachers of Greek, and some of their instructions in that line may be justly praised.

  Al.

  Why is that?

  Soc.

  Why, because they have the qualities which good teachers ought to have.

  Al.

  What qualities?

  Soc.

  Why, you know that knowledge is the first qualification of any teacher?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And if they know, they must agree together and not differ?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And would you say that they knew the things about which they differ?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  Then how can they teach them?

  Al.

  They cannot.

  Soc.

  Yes: the many can teach things about which they are agreed.

  Well, but do you imagine that the many would differ about the nature of wood and stone? are they not agreed if you ask them what they are? and do they not run to fetch the same thing, when they want a piece of wood or a stone? And so in similar cases, which I suspect to be pretty nearly all that you mean by speaking Greek.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  These, as we were saying, are matters about which they are agreed with one another and with themselves; both individuals and states use the same words about them; they do not use some one word and some another.

  Al.

  They do not.

  Soc.

  Then they may be expected to be good teachers of these things?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if we want to instruct any one in them, we shall be right in sending him to be taught by our friends the many?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  But if we wanted further to know not only which are men and which are horses, but which men or horses have powers of running, would the many still be able to inform us?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And you have a sufficient proof that they do not know these things and are not the best teachers of them, inasmuch as they are never agreed about them?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But could the many teach things about which they are disagreed?

  And suppose that we wanted to know not only what men are like, but what healthy or diseased men are like—would the many be able to teach us?

  Al.

  They would not.

  Soc.

  And you would have a proof that they were bad teachers of these matters, if you saw them at variance?

  Al.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And one of these things is justice.

  Well, but are the many agreed with themselves, or with one another, about the justice or injustice of men and 112things?

  Al.

  Assuredly not, Socrates.

  Soc.

  There is no subject about which they are more at variance?

  Al.

  None.

  Soc.

  I do not suppose that you ever saw or heard of men quarrelling over the principles of health and disease to such an extent as to go to war and kill one another for the sake of them?

  Al.

  No, indeed.

  Soc.

  Did not a question of justice cause the war between the Trojans and Achaeans, and between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians?

  But of the quarrels about justice and injustice, even if you have never seen them, you have certainly heard from many people, including Homer; for you have heard of the Iliad and Odyssey?

  Al.

  To be sure, Socrates.

  Soc.

  A difference of just and unjust is the argument of those poems?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Which difference caused all the wars and deaths of Trojans and Achaeans, and the deaths of the suitors of Penelope in their quarrel with Odysseus.

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And when the Athenians and Lacedaemonians and Boeotians fell at Tanagra, and afterwards in the battle of Coronea, at which your father Cleinias met his end, the question was one of justice—this was the sole cause of the battles, and of their deaths.

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And yet they did not know what they were fighting about?

  But can they be said to understand that about which they are quarrelling to the death?

  Al.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  And yet those whom you thus allow to be ignorant are the teachers to whom you are appealing.

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  But how are you ever likely to know the nature of justice and injustice, about which you are so perplexed, if you have neither learned them of others nor discovered them yourself?

  Al.

  From what you say, I suppose not.

  Soc.

  See, again, how inaccurately you speak, Alcibiades!

  Al.

  In what respect?

  Soc.

  In saying that I say so.

  Al.

  Why, did you not say that I know nothing of the just and unjust?

  Soc.

  No; I did not.

  Al.

  Did I, then?

  Soc.

  Yes.

  Al.

  How was that?

  Soc.

  Let me explain. Suppose I were to ask you which is the greater number, two or one; you would reply ‘two’?

  Al.

  I should.

  Soc.

  And by how much greater?

  Al.

  By one.

  Soc.

  Which of us now says that two is more than one?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  Did not I ask, and you answer the question?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then who is speaking? I who put the question, or 113you who answer me?

  Al.

  I am.

  Soc.

  The answerer, not the questioner, has been drawing these inferences.

  Or suppose that I ask and you tell me the letters which make up the name Socrates, which of us is the speaker?

  Al.

  I am.

  Soc.

  Now let us put the case generally: whenever there is a question and answer, who is the speaker,—the questioner or the answerer?

  Al.

  I should say, Socrates, that the answerer was the speaker.

  Soc.

  And have I not been the questioner all through?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And you the answerer?

  Al.

  Just so.

  Soc.

  Which of us, then, was the speaker?

  Al.

  The inference is, Socrates, that I was the speaker.

  Soc.

  Did not some one say that Alcibiades, the fair son of Cleinias, not understanding about just and unjust, but thinking that he did understand, was going to the assembly to advise the Athenians about what he did not know? Was not that said?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  How can you teach what you do not know?

  Then, Alcibiades, the result may be expressed in the language of Euripides. I think that you have heard all this ‘from yourself, and not from me’; nor did I say this, which you erroneously attribute to me, but you yourself, and what you said was very true. For indeed, my dear fellow, the design which you meditate of teaching what you do not know, and have not taken any pains to learn, is downright insanity.

  Al.

  But the expedient, not the just, is the subject about which men commonly debate.

  But, Socrates, I think that the Athenians and the rest of the Hellenes do not often advise as to the more just or unjust; for they see no difficulty in them, and therefore they leave them, and consider which course of action will be most expedient; for there is a difference between justice and expediency. Many persons have done great wrong and profited by their injustice; others have done rightly and come to no good.

  Soc.

  Well, but granting that the just and the expedient are ever so much opposed, you surely do not imagine that you know what is expedient for mankind, or why a thing is expedient?

  Al.

  Alcibiades insists that he will not have the old argument over again.

  Why not, Socrates?—But I am not going to be asked again from whom I learned, or when I made the discovery.

  Soc.

  What a way you have! When you make a mistake which might be refuted by a previous argument, you insist on having a new and different refutation; the old argument is a worn out garment which you will no longer put on, but some 114one must produce another which is clean and new. Now I shall disregard this move of yours, and shall ask over again,—Where did you learn and how do you know the nature of the expedient, and who is your teacher? All this I comprehend in a single question, and now you will manifestly be in the old difficulty, and will not be able to show that you know the expedient, either because you learned or because you discovered it yourself. But, as I perceive that you are dainty, and dislike the taste of a stale argument, I will enquire no further into your knowledge of what is expedient or what is not expedient for the Athenian people, and simply request you to say why you do not explain whether justice and expediency are the same or different? And if you like you may examine me as I have examined you, or, if you would rather, you may carry on the discussion by yourself.

  Al.

  But I am not certain, Socrates, whether I shall be able to discuss the matter with you.

  Soc.

  Then imagine, my dear fellow, that I am the demus and the ecclesia; for in the ecclesia, too, you will have to persuade men individually.

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And is not the same person able to persuade one individual singly and many individuals of the things which he knows? The grammarian, for example, can persuade one and he can persuade many about letters.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And about number, will not the same person persuade one and persuade many?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And this will be he who knows number, or the arithmetician?

  Al.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  He who can persuade many can persuade one. Alcibiades should therefore be able to persuade Socrates.

  And cannot you persuade one man about that of which you can persuade many?

  Al.

  I suppose so.

  Soc.

  And that of which you can persuade either is clearly what you know?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the only difference between one who argues as we are doing, and the orator who is addressing an assembly, is that the one seeks to persuade a number, and the other an individual, of the same things.

  Al.

  I suppose so.

  Soc.

  Well, then, since the same person who can persuade a multitude can persuade individuals, try conclusions upon me, and prove to me that the just is not always expedient.

  Al.

  You take liberties, Socrates.

  Soc.

  I shall take the liberty of proving to you the opposite of that which you will not prove to me.

  Al.

  Proceed.

  Soc.

  Answer my questions—that is all.

  Al.

  Nay, I should like you to be the speaker.

  Soc.

  What, do you not wish to be persuaded?

  Al.

  Certainly I do.

  Soc.

  And can you be persuaded better than out of your own mouth?

  Al.

  I think not.

  Soc.

  Then you shall answer; and if you do not hear the words, that the just is the expedient, coming from your own lips, never believe another man again.

  Al.

  I won’t; but answer I will, for I do not see how I can come to any harm.

  Soc.

  A man may do what is expedient and not just, but he cannot do what is honourable and not just and good.

  115A true prophecy! Let me begin then by enquiring of you whether you allow that the just is sometimes expedient and sometimes not?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And sometimes honourable and sometimes not?

  Al.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  I am asking if you ever knew any one who did what was dishonourable and yet just?

  Al.

  Never.

  Soc.

  All just things are honourable?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And are honourable things sometimes good and sometimes not good, or are they always good?

  Al.

  I rather think, Socrates, that some honourable things are evil.

  Soc.

  And are some dishonourable things good?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  You mean in such a case as the following:—In time of war, men have been wounded or have died in rescuing a companion or kinsman, when others who have neglected the duty of rescuing them have escaped in safety?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And to rescue another under such circumstances is honourable, in respect of the attempt to save those whom we ought to save; and this is courage?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But evil in respect of death and wounds?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the courage which is shown in the rescue is one thing, and the death another?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then the rescue of one’s friends is honourable in one point of view, but evil in another?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if honourable, then also good: Will you consider now whether I may not be right, for you were acknowledging that the courage which is shown in the rescue is honourable? Now is this courage good or evil? Look at the matter thus: which would you rather choose, good or evil?

  Al.

  Good.

  Soc.

  And the greatest goods you would be most ready to choose, and would least like to be deprived of them?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  What would you say of courage? At what price would you be willing to be deprived of courage?

  Al.

  I would rather die than be a coward.

  Soc.

  Then you think that cowardice is the worst of evils?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  As bad as death, I suppose?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And life and courage are the extreme opposites of death and cowardice?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And they are what you would most desire to have, and their opposites you would least desire?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Is this because you think life and courage the best, and death and cowardice the worst?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And you would term the rescue of a friend in battle honourable, in as much as courage does a good work?

  Al.

  I should.

  Soc.

  But good may contain an element of evil. Good and evil are to be judged of by their consequences.

  But evil because of the death which ensues?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Might we not describe their different effects as follows:—You may call either of them evil in respect of the evil which is the result, and good in respect of the good which is the result of either of them? 116

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And they are honourable in so far as they are good, and dishonourable in so far as they are evil?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then when you say that the rescue of a friend in battle is honourable and yet evil, that is equivalent to saying that the rescue is good and yet evil?

  Al.

  I believe that you are right, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Nothing honourable, regarded as honourable, is evil; nor anything base, regarded as base, good.

  Al.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  The honourable is identified with the good, and the good is the expedient,

  Look at the matter yet once more in a further light: he who acts honourably acts well?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And he who acts well is happy?

  Al.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  And the happy are those who obtain good?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And they obtain good by acting well and honourably?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then acting well is a good?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And happiness is a good?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then the good and the honourable are again identified.

  Al.

  Manifestly.

  Soc.

  Then, if the argument holds, what we find to be honourable we shall also find to be good?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And is the good expedient or not?

  Al.

  Expedient.

  Soc.

  Do you remember our admissions about the just?

  Al.

  Yes; if I am not mistaken, we said that those who acted justly must also act honourably.

  Soc.

  And the honourable is the good?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the good is expedient?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  and therefore the just which is the honourable is also the expedient. All this has been proved by Alcibiades himself.

  Then, Alcibiades, the just is expedient?

  Al.

  I should infer so.

  Soc.

  And all this I prove out of your own mouth, for I ask and you answer?

  Al.

  I must acknowledge it to be true.

  Soc.

  And having acknowledged that the just is the same as the expedient, are you not (let me ask) prepared to ridicule any one who, pretending to understand the principles of justice and injustice, gets up to advise the noble Athenians or the ignoble Peparethians, that the just may be the evil?

  Al.

  Yet he still finds himself in a perplexity,

  I solemnly declare, Socrates, that I do not know what I am saying. Verily, I am in a strange state, for when you put questions to me I am of different minds in successive instants.

  Soc.

  And are you not aware of the nature of this perplexity, my friend?

  Al.

  Indeed I am not.

  Soc.

  Do you suppose that if some one were to ask you whether you have two eyes or three, or two hands or four, or anything of that sort, you would then be of different minds in successive instants?

  Al.

  I begin to distrust myself, but still I do not suppose 117that I should.

  Soc.

  You would feel no doubt; and for this reason—because you would know?

  Al.

  I suppose so.

  Soc.

  And the reason why you involuntarily contradict yourself is clearly that you are ignorant?

  Al.

  Very likely.

  Soc.

  and this is because he thinks that he knows, but if he knew that he were ignorant he would be in no perplexity.

  And if you are perplexed in answering about just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, good and evil, expedient and inexpedient, the reason is that you are ignorant of them, and therefore in perplexity. Is not that clear?

  Al.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  But is this always the case, and is a man necessarily perplexed about that of which he has no knowledge?

  Al.

  Certainly he is.

  Soc.

  And do you know how to ascend into heaven?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And in this case, too, is your judgment perplexed?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  Do you see the reason why, or shall I tell you?

  Al.

  Tell me.

  Soc.

  The reason is, that you not only do not know, my friend, but you do not think that you know.

  Al.

  There again; what do you mean?

  Soc.

  Ask yourself; are you in any perplexity about things of which you are ignorant? You know, for example, that you know nothing about the preparation of food.

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And do you think and perplex yourself about the preparation of food: or do you leave that to some one who understands the art?

  Al.

  The latter.

  Soc.

  Or if you were on a voyage, would you bewilder yourself by considering whether the rudder is to be drawn inwards or outwards, or do you leave that to the pilot, and do nothing?

  Al.

  It would be the concern of the pilot.

  Soc.

  Then you are not perplexed about what you do not know, if you know that you do not know it?

  Al.

  I imagine not.

  Soc.

  The people who make mistakes are neither those who know, nor those who do not know, but those who think that they know and do not know.

  Do you not see, then, that mistakes in life and practice are likewise to be attributed to the ignorance which has conceit of knowledge?

  Al.

  Once more, what do you mean?

  Soc.

  I suppose that we begin to act when we think that we know what we are doing?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But when people think that they do not know, they entrust their business to others?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And so there is a class of ignorant persons who do not make mistakes in life, because they trust others about things of which they are ignorant?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Who, then, are the persons who make mistakes? They cannot, of course, be those who know?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  But if neither those who know, nor those who know 118that they do not know, make mistakes, there remain those only who do not know and think that they know.

  Al.

  Yes, only those.

  Soc.

  Then this is ignorance of the disgraceful sort which is mischievous?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And most mischievous and most disgraceful when having to do with the greatest matters?

  Al.

  By far.

  Soc.

  And can there be any matters greater than the just, the honourable, the good, and the expedient?

  Al.

  There cannot be.

  Soc.

  And these, as you were saying, are what perplex you?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But if you are perplexed, then, as the previous argument has shown, you are not only ignorant of the greatest matters, but being ignorant you fancy that you know them?

  Al.

  I fear that you are right.

  Soc.

  And you, like other statesmen, rush into politics without being trained. Pericles, alone of them all, associated with the philosophers.

  And now see what has happened to you, Alcibiades! I hardly like to speak of your evil case, but as we are alone I will: My good friend, you are wedded to ignorance of the most disgraceful kind, and of this you are convicted, not by me, but out of your own mouth and by your own argument; wherefore also you rush into politics before you are educated. Neither is your case to be deemed singular. For I might say the same of almost all our statesmen, with the exception, perhaps, of your guardian, Pericles.

  Al.

  Yes, Socrates; and Pericles is said not to have got his wisdom by the light of nature, but to have associated with several of the philosophers; with Pythocleides, for example, and with Anaxagoras, and now in advanced life with Damon, in the hope of gaining wisdom.

  Soc.

  Very good; but did you ever know a man wise in anything who was unable to impart his particular wisdom? For example, he who taught you letters was not only wise, but he made you and any others whom he liked wise.

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And you, whom he taught, can do the same?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And in like manner the harper and gymnastic-master?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  When a person is enabled to impart knowledge to another, he thereby gives an excellent proof of his own understanding of any matter.

  Al.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  Well, and did Pericles make any one wise; did he begin by making his sons wise?

  Al.

  But, Socrates, if the two sons of Pericles were simpletons, what has that to do with the matter?

  Soc.

  And even he could not teach his own sons, or your brother Cleinias, nor did any one ever grow wiser in his society.

  Well, but did he make your brother, Cleinias, wise?

  Al.

  Cleinias is a madman; there is no use in talking of him.

  Soc.

  But if Cleinias is a madman and the two sons of Pericles were simpletons, what reason can be given why he neglects you, and lets you be as you are?

  Al.

  I believe that I am to blame for not listening to him.

  Soc.

  But did you ever hear of any other Athenian or foreigner, bond or free, who was deemed to have grown 119wiser in the society of Pericles,—as I might cite Pythodorus, the son of Isolochus, and Callias, the son of Calliades, who have grown wiser in the society of Zeno, for which privilege they have each of them paid him the sum of a hundred minae1 to the increase of their wisdom and fame.

  Al.

  I certainly never did hear of any one.

  Soc.

  Well, and in reference to your own case, do you mean to remain as you are, or will you take some pains about yourself?

  Al.

  But if other statesmen are uneducated, what need has Alcibiades of education?

  With your aid, Socrates, I will. And indeed, when I hear you speak, the truth of what you are saying strikes home to me, and I agree with you, for our statesmen, all but a few, do appear to be quite uneducated.

  Soc.

  What is the inference?

  Al.

  Why, that if they were educated they would be trained athletes, and he who means to rival them ought to have knowledge and experience when he attacks them; but now, as they have become politicians without any special training, why should I have the trouble of learning and practising? For I know well that by the light of nature I shall get the better of them.

  Soc.

  The lover is pained at hearing from the lips of Alcibiades so unworthy a sentiment. He should have a higher ambition than this.

  My dear friend, what a sentiment! And how unworthy of your noble form and your high estate!

  Al.

  What do you mean, Socrates; why do you say so?

  Soc.

  I am grieved when I think of our mutual love.

  Al.

  At what?

  Soc.

  At your fancying that the contest on which you are entering is with people here.

  Al.

  Why, what others are there?

  Soc.

  Is that a question which a magnanimous soul should ask?

  Al.

  Do you mean to say that the contest is not with these?

  Soc.

  And suppose that you were going to steer a ship into action, would you only aim at being the best pilot on board? Would you not, while acknowledging that you must possess this degree of excellence, rather look to your antagonists, and not, as you are now doing, to your fellow combatants? You ought to be so far above these latter, that they will not even dare to be your rivals; and, being regarded by you as inferiors, will do battle for you against the enemy; this is the kind of superiority which you must establish over them, if you mean to accomplish any noble action really worthy of yourself and of the state.

  Al.

  That would certainly be my aim.

  Soc.

  Verily, then, you have good reason to be satisfied, if you are better than the soldiers; and you need not, when you are their superior and have your thoughts and actions fixed upon them, look away to the generals of the enemy.

  Al.

  Of whom are you speaking, Socrates?

  Soc.

  His rivals should be the Spartan and Persian kings, not any chance persons.

  Why, you surely know that our city goes to war 120now and then with the Lacedaemonians and with the great king?

  Al.

  True enough.

  Soc.

  And if you meant to be the ruler of this city, would you not be right in considering that the Lacedaemonian and Persian king were your true rivals?

  Al.

  I believe that you are right.

  Soc.

  Oh no, my friend, I am quite wrong, and I think that you ought rather to turn your attention to Midias the quail-breeder and others like him, who manage our politics; in whom, as the women would remark, you may still see the slaves’ cut of hair, cropping out in their minds as well as on their pates; and they come with their barbarous lingo to flatter us and not to rule us. To these, I say, you should look, and then you need not trouble yourself about your own fitness to contend in such a noble arena: there is no reason why you should either learn what has to be learned, or practise what has to be practised, and only when thoroughly prepared enter on a political career.

  Al.

  There, I think, Socrates, that you are right; I do not suppose, however, that the Spartan generals or the great king are really different from anybody else.

  Soc.

  But, my dear friend, do consider what you are saying.

  Al.

  What am I to consider?

  Soc.

  In the first place, will you be more likely to take care of yourself, if you are in a wholesome fear and dread of them, or if you are not?

  Al.

  Clearly, if I have such a fear of them.

  Soc.

  And do you think that you will sustain any injury if you take care of yourself?

  Al.

  No, I shall be greatly benefited.

  Soc.

  And this is one very important respect in which that notion of yours is bad.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  In the next place, consider that what you say is probably false.

  Al.

  How so?

  Soc.

  Let me ask you whether better natures are likely to be found in noble races or not in noble races?

  Al.

  Clearly in noble races.

  Soc.

  Are not those who are well born and well bred most likely to be perfect in virtue?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  We too have our pride of birth, but how inferior are we to those who are descended from Zeus through a line of kings!

  Then let us compare our antecedents with those of the Lacedaemonian and Persian kings; are they inferior to us in descent? Have we not heard that the former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus?

  Al.

  121Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and he to Zeus!

  Soc.

  The wealth and dignity of the Spartan kings is great, but it is as nothing compared with that of the Persians.The birth of the Persian princes is a world-famous event, and the utmost pains is taken with their education, which is entrusted to great and noble persons.When Alcibiades was born nobody knew or cared, and his education was handed over to a worn-out slave of his guardian’s.The country called the ‘queen’s girdle,’ the ‘queen’s veil,’ and the like.The queen of Persia or of Sparta, if they heard that a youth of twenty, without resources and without education, was going to attack their son or husband, would deem him mad.

  And mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and he to Hephaestus, son of Zeus. But, for all that, we are far inferior to them. For they are descended ‘from Zeus,’ through a line of kings—either kings of Argos and Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country which the descendants of Achaemenes have always possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns of Asia, as they now are; whereas, we and our fathers were but private persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes. You should consider how inferior we are to them both in the derivation of our birth and in other particulars. Did you never observe how great is the property of the Spartan kings? And their wives are under the guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and watch over them, in order to preserve as far as possible the purity of the Heracleid blood. Still greater is the difference among the Persians; for no one entertains a suspicion that the father of a prince of Persia can be any one but the king. Such is the awe which invests the person of the queen, that any other guard is needless. And when the heir of the kingdom is born, all the subjects of the king feast; and the day of his birth is for ever afterwards kept as a holiday and time of sacrifice by all Asia; whereas, when you and I were born, Alcibiades, as the comic poet says, the neighbours hardly knew of the important event. After the birth of the royal child, he is tended, not by a good-for-nothing woman-nurse, but by the best of the royal eunuchs, who are charged with the care of him, and especially with the fashioning and right formation of his limbs, in order that he may be as shapely as possible; which being their calling, they are held in great honour. And when the young prince is seven years old he is put upon a horse and taken to the riding-masters, and begins to go out hunting. And at fourteen years of age he is handed over to the royal schoolmasters, as they are termed: these are four chosen men, reputed to be the best among the Persians of a certain age; and one of them is the wisest, another the justest, a third the most temperate, and a fourth the most valiant. The first instructs him in the magianism of Zoroaster, the son of Oromasus, which is the worship of 122the Gods, and teaches him also the duties of his royal office; the second, who is the justest, teaches him always to speak the truth; the third, or most temperate, forbids him to allow any pleasure to be lord over him, that he may be accustomed to be a freeman and king indeed,—lord of himself first, and not a slave; the most valiant trains him to be bold and fearless, telling him that if he fears he is to deem himself a slave; whereas Pericles gave you, Alcibiades, for a tutor Zopyrus the Thracian, a slave of his who was past all other work. I might enlarge on the nurture and education of your rivals, but that would be tedious; and what I have said is a sufficient sample of what remains to be said. I have only to remark, by way of contrast, that no one cares about your birth or nurture or education, or, I may say, about that of any other Athenian, unless he has a lover who looks after him. And if you cast an eye on the wealth, the luxury, the garments with their flowing trains, the anointings with myrrh, the multitudes of attendants, and all the other bravery of the Persians, you will be ashamed when you discern your own inferiority; or if you look at the temperance and orderliness and ease and grace and magnanimity and courage and endurance and love of toil and desire of glory and ambition of the Lacedaemonians—in all these respects you will see that you are but a child in comparison of them. Even in the matter of wealth, if you value yourself upon that, I must reveal to you how you stand; for if you form an estimate of the wealth of the Lacedaemonians, you will see that our possessions fall far short of theirs. For no one here can compete with them either in the extent and fertility of their own and the Messenian territory, or in the number of their slaves, and especially of the Helots, or of their horses, or of the animals which feed on the Messenian pastures. But I have said enough of this: and as to gold and silver, there is more of them in Lacedaemon than in all the rest of Hellas, for during many generations gold has been always flowing in to them from the whole Hellenic world, and often from the barbarian also, and never going 123out, as in the fable of Aesop the fox said to the lion, ‘The prints of the feet of those going in are distinct enough;’ but who ever saw the trace of money going out of Lacedaemon? and therefore you may safely infer that the inhabitants are the richest of the Hellenes in gold and silver, and that their kings are the richest of them, for they have a larger share of these things, and they have also a tribute paid to them which is very considerable. Yet the Spartan wealth, though great in comparison of the wealth of the other Hellenes, is as nothing in comparison of that of the Persians and their kings. Why, I have been informed by a credible person who went up to the king [at Susa], that he passed through a large tract of excellent land, extending for nearly a day’s journey, which the people of the country called the queen’s girdle, and another, which they called her veil; and several other fair and fertile districts, which were reserved for the adornment of the queen, and are named after her several habiliments. Now, I cannot help thinking to myself, What if some one were to go to Amestris, the wife of Xerxes and mother of Artaxerxes, and say to her, There is a certain Dinomachè, whose whole wardrobe is not worth fifty minae—and that will be more than the value—and she has a son who is possessed of a three-hundred acre patch at Erchiae, and he has a mind to go to war with your son—would she not wonder to what this Alcibiades trusts for success in the conflict? ‘He must rely,’ she would say to herself, ‘upon his training and wisdom—these are the things which Hellenes value.’ And if she heard that this Alcibiades who is making the attempt is not as yet twenty years old, and is wholly uneducated, and when his lover tells him that he ought to get education and training first, and then go and fight the king, he refuses, and says that he is well enough as he is, would she not be amazed, and ask, ‘On what, then, does the youth rely?’ And if we replied: He relies on his beauty, and stature, and birth, and mental endowments, she would think that we were mad, Alcibiades, when she compared the advantages which you possess with those of her own people. And I believe that even Lampido, the daughter 124of Leotychides, the wife of Archidamus and mother of Agis, all of whom were kings, would have the same feeling; if, in your present uneducated state, you were to turn your thoughts against her son, she too would be equally astonished. But how disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required in us as our enemies’ wives and mothers have of the qualities which are required in their assailants! O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, ‘Know thyself’—not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and skill. And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything.

  Al.

  I entirely believe you; but what are the sort of pains which are required, Socrates,—can you tell me?

  Soc.

  I too need education; and God, who is my guardian, inspires me with the belief that I shall bring you to honour.

  Yes, I can; but we must take counsel together concerning the manner in which both of us may be most improved. For what I am telling you of the necessity of education applies to myself as well as to you; and there is only one point in which I have an advantage over you.

  Al.

  What is that?

  Soc.

  I have a guardian who is better and wiser than your guardian, Pericles.

  Al.

  Who is he, Socrates?

  Soc.

  God, Alcibiades, who up to this day has not allowed me to converse with you; and he inspires in me the faith that I am especially designed to bring you to honour.

  Al.

  You are jesting, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Perhaps; at any rate, I am right in saying that all men greatly need pains and care, and you and I above all men.

  Al.

  You are not far wrong about me.

  Soc.

  And certainly not about myself.

  Al.

  But what can we do?

  Soc.

  There must be no hesitation or cowardice, my friend.

  Al.

  That would not become us, Socrates.

  Soc.

  We must take counsel together, (not about equestrian or naval affairs), but about the things which occupy the minds of wise men.

  No, indeed, and we ought to take counsel together: for do we not wish to be as good as possible?

  Al.

  We do.

  Soc.

  In what sort of virtue?

  Al.

  Plainly, in the virtue of good men.

  Soc.

  Who are good in what?

  Al.

  Those, clearly, who are good in the management of affairs.

  Soc.

  What sort of affairs? Equestrian affairs?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  You mean that about them we should have recourse to horsemen?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Well; naval affairs?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  You mean that we should have recourse to sailors about them?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then what affairs? And who do them?

  Al.

  The affairs which occupy Athenian gentlemen. 125

  Soc.

  And when you speak of gentlemen, do you mean the wise or the unwise?

  Al.

  The wise.

  Soc.

  And a man is good in respect of that in which he is wise?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And evil in respect of that in which he is unwise?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  The shoemaker, for example, is wise in respect of the making of shoes?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then he is good in that?

  Al.

  He is.

  Soc.

  But in respect of the making of garments he is unwise?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then in that he is bad?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then upon this view of the matter the same man is good and also bad?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But would you say that the good are the same as the bad?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Then whom do you call the good?

  Al.

  And the wise are those who take counsel for the better order and improvement of the city.

  I mean by the good those who are able to rule in the city.

  Soc.

  Not, surely, over horses?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  But over men?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  When they are sick?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  Or on a voyage?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  Or reaping the harvest?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  When they are doing something or nothing?

  Al.

  When they are doing something, I should say.

  Soc.

  I wish that you would explain to me what this something is.

  Al.

  When they are having dealings with one another, and using one another’s services, as we citizens do in our daily life.

  Soc.

  Illustrations.

  Those of whom you speak are ruling over men who are using the services of other men?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Are they ruling over the signal-men who give the time to the rowers?

  Al.

  No; they are not.

  Soc.

  That would be the office of the pilot?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But, perhaps you mean that they rule over flute-players, who lead the singers and use the services of the dancers?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  That would be the business of the teacher of the chorus?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then what is the meaning of being able to rule over men who use other men?

  Al.

  I mean that they rule over men who have common rights of citizenship, and dealings with one another.

  Soc.

  And what sort of an art is this? Suppose that I ask you again, as I did just now, What art makes men know how to rule over their fellow-sailors,—how would you answer?

  Al.

  The art of the pilot.

  Soc.

  And, if I may recur to another old instance, what art enables them to rule over their fellow-singers?

  Al.

  The art of the teacher of the chorus, which you were just now mentioning.

  Soc.

  And what do you call the art of fellow-citizens?

  Al.

  I should say, good counsel, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And is the art of the pilot evil counsel?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  But good counsel?

  Al.

  Yes, that is what I should say,—good counsel, of which 126the aim is the preservation of the voyagers.

  Soc.

  True. And what is the aim of that other good counsel of which you speak?

  Al.

  The aim is the better order and preservation of the city.

  Soc.

  And what is that of which the absence or presence improves and preserves the order of the city? Suppose you were to ask me, what is that of which the presence or absence improves or preserves the order of the body? I should reply, the presence of health and the absence of disease. You would say the same?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if you were to ask me the same question about the eyes, I should reply in the same way, ‘the presence of sight and the absence of blindness;’ or about the ears, I should reply, that they were improved and were in better case, when deafness was absent, and hearing was present in them.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And this improvement is given by friendship and agreement,

  And what would you say of a state? What is that by the presence or absence of which the state is improved and better managed and ordered?

  Al.

  I should say, Socrates:—the presence of friendship and the absence of hatred and division.

  Soc.

  And do you mean by friendship agreement or disagreement?

  Al.

  Agreement.

  Soc.

  What art makes cities agree about numbers?

  Al.

  Arithmetic.

  Soc.

  And private individuals?

  Al.

  The same.

  Soc.

  And what art makes each individual agree with himself?

  Al.

  The same.

  Soc.

  And what art makes each of us agree with himself about the comparative length of the span and of the cubit? Does not the art of measure?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Individuals are agreed with one another about this; and states, equally?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the same holds of the balance?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But what is the other agreement of which you speak, and about what? what art can give that agreement? And does that which gives it to the state give it also to the individual, so as to make him consistent with himself and with another?

  Al.

  I should suppose so.

  Soc.

  But what is the nature of the agreement?—answer, and faint not.

  Al.

  such as exists between the members of a family, however they may differ in their qualities and accomplishments.

  I mean to say that there should be such friendship and agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife.

  Soc.

  But can a man, Alcibiades, agree with a woman about the spinning of wool, which she understands and he does not?

  Al.

  No, truly.

  Soc.

  Nor has he any need, for spinning is a female accomplishment.

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  127And would a woman agree with a man about the science of arms, which she has never learned?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  I suppose that the use of arms would be regarded by you as a male accomplishment?

  Al.

  It would.

  Soc.

  Then, upon your view, women and men have two sorts of knowledge?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then in their knowledge there is no agreement of women and men?

  Al.

  There is not.

  Soc.

  Nor can there be friendship, if friendship is agreement?

  Al.

  Plainly not.

  Soc.

  Then women are not loved by men when they do their own work?

  Al.

  I suppose not.

  Soc.

  Nor men by women when they do their own work?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  If everybody is doing his own business, how can this promote friendship? And yet when individuals are doing each his own work, they are doing what is just.

  Nor are states well administered, when individuals do their own work?

  Al.

  I should rather think, Socrates, that the reverse is the truth1 .

  Soc.

  What! do you mean to say that states are well administered when friendship is absent, the presence of which, as we were saying, alone secures their good order?

  Al.

  But I should say that there is friendship among them, for this very reason, that the two parties respectively do their own work.

  Soc.

  That was not what you were saying before; and what do you mean now by affirming that friendship exists when there is no agreement? How can there be agreement about matters which the one party knows, and of which the other is in ignorance?

  Al.

  Impossible.

  Soc.

  And when individuals are doing their own work, are they doing what is just or unjust?

  Al.

  What is just, certainly.

  Soc.

  And when individuals do what is just in the state, is there no friendship among them?

  Al.

  I suppose that there must be, Socrates.

  Soc.

  Then what do you mean by this friendship or agreement about which we must be wise and discreet in order that we may be good men? I cannot make out where it exists or among whom; according to you, the same persons may sometimes have it, and sometimes not.

  Al.

  But, indeed, Socrates, I do not know what I am saying; and I have long been, unconsciously to myself, in a most disgraceful state.

  Soc.

  Nevertheless, cheer up; at fifty, if you had discovered your deficiency, you would have been too old, and the time for taking care of yourself would have passed away, but yours is just the age at which the discovery should be made.

  Al.

  And what should he do, Socrates, who would make the discovery?

  Soc.

  The way to clear up difficulties is to answer questions. Alcibiades is willing to have recourse to this method of improvement.

  Answer questions, Alcibiades; and that is a process which, by the grace of God, if I may put any faith in my oracle, will be very improving to both of us.

  Al.

  If I can be improved by answering, I will answer.

  Soc.

  128And first of all, that we may not peradventure be deceived by appearances, fancying, perhaps, that we are taking care of ourselves when we are not, what is the meaning of a man taking care of himself? and when does he take care? Does he take care of himself when he takes care of what belongs to him?

  Al.

  I should think so.

  Soc.

  When does a man take care of his feet? Does he not take care of them when he takes care of that which belongs to his feet?

  Al.

  I do not understand.

  Soc.

  Let me take the hand as an illustration; does not a ring belong to the finger, and to the finger only?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the shoe in like manner to the foot?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And when we take care of our shoes, do we not take care of our feet?

  Al.

  I do not comprehend, Socrates.

  Soc.

  But you would admit, Alcibiades, that to take proper care of a thing is a correct expression?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And taking proper care means improving?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And what is the art which improves our shoes?

  Al.

  Shoemaking.

  Soc.

  Then by shoemaking we take care of our shoes?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And do we by shoemaking take care of our feet, or by some other art which improves the feet?

  Al.

  By some other art.

  Soc.

  And the same art improves the feet which improves the rest of the body?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Which is gymnastic?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then by gymnastic we take care of our feet, and by shoemaking of that which belongs to our feet?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And by gymnastic we take care of our hands, and by the art of graving rings of that which belongs to our hands?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And by gymnastic we take care of the body, and by the art of weaving and the other arts we take care of the things of the body?

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  It has been shown by examples that a man does not take care of himself, when he only takes care of what belongs to him.

  Then the art which takes care of each thing is different from that which takes care of the belongings of each thing?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then in taking care of what belongs to you, you do not take care of yourself?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  For the art which takes care of our belongings appears not to be the same as that which takes care of ourselves?

  Al.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  And now let me ask you what is the art with which we take care of ourselves?

  Al.

  I cannot say.

  Soc.

  At any rate, thus much has been admitted, that the art is not one which makes any of our possessions, but which makes ourselves better?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But should we ever have known what art makes a shoe better, if we did not know a shoe?

  Al.

  Impossible.

  Soc.

  Nor should we know what art makes a ring better, if we did not know a ring?

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  A man must know himself before he can improve himself or know what belongs to him.

  And can we ever know what art makes a man better, 129if we do not know what we are ourselves?

  Al.

  Impossible.

  Soc.

  And is self-knowledge such an easy thing, and was he to be lightly esteemed who inscribed the text on the temple at Delphi? Or is self-knowledge a difficult thing, which few are able to attain?

  Al.

  At times I fancy, Socrates, that anybody can know himself; at other times the task appears to be very difficult.

  Soc.

  But whether easy or difficult, Alcibiades, still there is no other way; knowing what we are, we shall know how to take care of ourselves, and if we are ignorant we shall not know.

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Well, then, let us see in what way the self-existent can be discovered by us; that will give us a chance of discovering our own existence, which otherwise we can never know.

  Al.

  You say truly.

  Soc.

  Come, now, I beseech you, tell me with whom you are conversing?—with whom but with me?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  As I am, with you?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  That is to say, I, Socrates, am talking?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And Alcibiades is my hearer?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And I in talking use words?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And talking and using words have, I suppose, the same meaning?

  Al.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And the user is not the same as the thing which he uses?

  Al.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  I will explain; the shoemaker, for example, uses a square tool, and a circular tool, and other tools for cutting?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But the tool is not the same as the cutter and user of the tool?

  Al.

  Of course not.

  Soc.

  And in the same way the instrument of the harper is to be distinguished from the harper himself?

  Al.

  It is.

  Soc.

  Now the question which I asked was whether you conceive the user to be always different from that which he uses?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  Then what shall we say of the shoemaker? Does he cut with his tools only or with his hands?

  Al.

  With his hands as well.

  Soc.

  He uses his hands too?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And does he use his eyes in cutting leather?

  Al.

  He does.

  Soc.

  He is distinct from what he uses; and therefore distinct from his own body.

  And we admit that the user is not the same with the things which he uses?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then the shoemaker and the harper are to be distinguished from the hands and feet which they use?

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And does not a man use the whole body?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And that which uses is different from that which is used?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then a man is not the same as his own body?

  Al.

  That is the inference.

  Soc.

  What is he, then?

  Al.

  I cannot say.

  Soc.

  Nay, you can say that he is the user of the body.

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And the user of the body is the soul? 130

  Al.

  Yes, the soul.

  Soc.

  And the soul rules?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Let me make an assertion which will, I think, be universally admitted.

  Al.

  But he must be one of three things:—

  What is it?

  Soc.

  That man is one of three things.

  Al.

  What are they?

  Soc.

  Soul, body, or both together forming a whole.

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  But did we not say that the actual ruling principle of the body is man?

  Al.

  Soul, body, or the union of the two. What is the ruling principle in him? Clearly the soul.

  Yes, we did.

  Soc.

  And does the body rule over itself?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  It is subject, as we were saying?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then that is not the principle which we are seeking?

  Al.

  It would seem not.

  Soc.

  But may we say that the union of the two rules over the body, and consequently that this is man?

  Al.

  Very likely.

  Soc.

  The most unlikely of all things; for if one of the members is subject, the two united cannot possibly rule.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But since neither the body, nor the union of the two, is man, either man has no real existence, or the soul is man?

  Al.

  Just so.

  Soc.

  Is anything more required to prove that the soul is man?

  Al.

  Certainly not; the proof is, I think, quite sufficient.

  Soc.

  There remains a question of absolute existence, which has not been considered by us, or rather is being considered by us when we speak of the soul.

  And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall be satisfied;—more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too much protracted.

  Al.

  What was that?

  Soc.

  What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly ourselves than the soul?

  Al.

  There is nothing.

  Soc.

  You and I are talking soul to soul.

  Then we may truly conceive that you and I are conversing with one another, soul to soul?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And that is just what I was saying before—that I, Socrates, am not arguing or talking with the face of Alcibiades, but with the real Alcibiades; or in other words, with his soul.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then he who bids a man know himself, would have him know his soul?

  Al.

  That appears to be true.

  Soc.

  But if the soul is the man, he who knows only the arts which concern man does not know himself.

  He whose knowledge only extends to the body, 131knows the things of a man, and not the man himself?

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Then neither the physician regarded as a physician, nor the trainer regarded as a trainer, knows himself?

  Al.

  He does not.

  Soc.

  The husbandmen and the other craftsmen are very far from knowing themselves, for they would seem not even to know their own belongings? When regarded in relation to the arts which they practise they are even further removed from self-knowledge, for they only know the belongings of the body, which minister to the body.

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Then if temperance is the knowledge of self, in respect of his art none of them is temperate?

  Al.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  And this is the reason why their arts are accounted vulgar, and are not such as a good man would practise?

  Al.

  Quite true.

  Soc.

  Again, he who cherishes his body cherishes not himself, but what belongs to him?

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  But he who cherishes his money, cherishes neither himself nor his belongings, but is in a stage yet further removed from himself?

  Al.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  Then the money-maker has really ceased to be occupied with his own concerns?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  The lover of the soul is the true lover.

  And if any one has fallen in love with the person of Alcibiades, he loves not Alcibiades, but the belongings of Alcibiades?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But he who loves your soul is the true lover?

  Al.

  That is the necessary inference.

  Soc.

  The lover of the body goes away when the flower of youth fades?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  He only remains and goes not away, so long as the soul of his beloved follows after virtue.

  But he who loves the soul goes not away, as long as the soul follows after virtue?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And I am the lover who goes not away, but remains with you, when you are no longer young and the rest are gone?

  Al.

  Yes, Socrates; and therein you do well, and I hope that you will remain.

  Soc.

  Then you must try to look your best.

  Al.

  I will.

  Soc.

  The fact is, that there is only one lover of Alcibiades the son of Cleinias; there neither is nor ever has been seemingly any other; and he is his darling,—Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And did you not say, that if I had not spoken first, you were on the point of coming to me, and enquiring why I only remained?

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  And Socrates will never desert Alcibiades so long as he is not spoiled by the Athenian people.

  The reason was that I loved you for your own sake, whereas other men love what belongs to you; and your 132beauty, which is not you, is fading away, just as your true self is beginning to bloom. And I will never desert you, if you are not spoiled and deformed by the Athenian people; for the danger which I most fear is that you will become a lover of the people and will be spoiled by them. Many a noble Athenian has been ruined in this way. For the demus of the great-hearted Erechtheus is of a fair countenance, but you should see him naked; wherefore observe the caution which I give you.

  Al.

  What caution?

  Soc.

  Practise yourself, sweet friend, in learning what you ought to know, before you enter on politics; and then you will have an antidote which will keep you out of harm’s way.

  Al.

  Good advice, Socrates, but I wish that you would explain to me in what way I am to take care of myself.

  Soc.

  Have we not made an advance? for we are at any rate tolerably well agreed as to what we are, and there is no longer any danger, as we once feared, that we might be taking care not of ourselves, but of something which is not ourselves.

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  And the next step will be to take care of the soul, and look to that?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Leaving the care of our bodies and of our properties to others?

  Al.

  Very good.

  Soc.

  He who would take care of himself must first of all know himself.

  But how can we have a perfect knowledge of the things of the soul?—For if we know them, then I suppose we shall know ourselves. Can we really be ignorant of the excellent meaning of the Delphian inscription, of which we were just now speaking?

  Al.

  What have you in your thoughts, Socrates?

  Soc.

  I will tell you what I suspect to be the meaning and lesson of that inscription. Let me take an illustration from sight, which I imagine to be the only one suitable to my purpose.

  Al.

  What do you mean?

  Soc.

  The eye which would see itself must look into the pupil of another, which is the divinest part of the eye, and will then behold itself.

  Consider; if some one were to say to the eye, ‘See thyself,’ as you might say to a man, ‘Know thyself,’ what is the nature and meaning of this precept? Would not his meaning be:—That the eye should look at that in which it would see itself?

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And what are the objects in looking at which we see ourselves?

  Al.

  Clearly, Socrates, in looking at mirrors and the like.

  Soc.

  Very true; and is there not something of the nature of a mirror in our own eyes?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Did you ever observe that the face of the person looking into the eye of another is reflected as in a mirror; and in the visual organ which is over against him, and which 133is called the pupil, there is a sort of image of the person looking?

  Al.

  That is quite true.

  Soc.

  Then the eye, looking at another eye, and at that in the eye which is most perfect, and which is the instrument of vision, will there see itself?

  Al.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  But looking at anything else either in man or in the world, and not to what resembles this, it will not see itself?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  Then if the eye is to see itself, it must look at the eye, and at that part of the eye where sight which is the virtue of the eye resides?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And the soul which would know herself must look especially at that part of herself in which she resembles the divine.

  And if the soul, my dear Alcibiades, is ever to know herself, must she not look at the soul; and especially at that part of the soul in which her virtue resides, and to any other which is like this?

  Al.

  I agree, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And do we know of any part of our souls more divine than that which has to do with wisdom and knowledge?

  Al.

  There is none.

  Soc.

  Then this is that part of the soul which resembles the divine; and he who looks at this and at the whole class of things divine, will be most likely to know himself?

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And self-knowledge we agree to be wisdom?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But if we have no self-knowledge and no wisdom, can we ever know our own good and evil?

  Al.

  How can we, Socrates?

  Soc.

  You mean, that if you did not know Alcibiades, there would be no possibility of your knowing that what belonged to Alcibiades was really his?

  Al.

  It would be quite impossible.

  Soc.

  He who knows not himself and his belongings, will not know others and their belongings, and therefore he will not know the affairs of states.

  Nor should we know that we were the persons to whom anything belonged, if we did not know ourselves?

  Al.

  How could we?

  Soc.

  And if we did not know our own belongings, neither should we know the belongings of our belongings?

  Al.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  Then we were not altogether right in acknowledging just now that a man may know what belongs to him and yet not know himself; nay, rather he cannot even know the belongings of his belongings; for the discernment of the things of self, and of the things which belong to the things of self, appear all to be the business of the same man, and of the same art.

  Al.

  So much may be supposed.

  Soc.

  And he who knows not the things which belong to himself, will in like manner be ignorant of the things which belong to others?

  Al.

  Very true.

  Soc.

  And if he knows not the affairs of others, he will not know the affairs of states?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Then such a man can never be a statesman?

  Al.

  He cannot.

  Soc.

  Nor an economist?

  Al.

  He cannot.

  Soc.

  He will not know what he is doing? 134

  Al.

  He will not.

  Soc.

  And will not he who is ignorant fall into error?

  Al.

  Assuredly.

  Soc.

  And, if he knows not what he is doing, he will be miserable and will make others miserable.

  And if he falls into error will he not fail both in his public and private capacity?

  Al.

  Yes, indeed.

  Soc.

  And failing, will he not be miserable?

  Al.

  Very.

  Soc.

  And what will become of those for whom he is acting?

  Al.

  They will be miserable also.

  Soc.

  Then he who is not wise and good cannot be happy?

  Al.

  He cannot.

  Soc.

  The bad, then, are miserable?

  Al.

  Yes, very.

  Soc.

  And if so, not he who has riches, but he who has wisdom, is delivered from his misery?

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  Cities, then, if they are to be happy, do not want walls, or triremes, or docks, or numbers, or size, Alcibiades, without virtue1 ?

  Al.

  Indeed they do not.

  Soc.

  And you must give the citizens virtue, if you mean to administer their affairs rightly or nobly?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  He must give the citizens wisdom and justice, and he cannot give what he has not got.

  But can a man give that which he has not?

  Al.

  Impossible.

  Soc.

  Then you or any one who means to govern and superintend, not only himself and the things of himself, but the state and the things of the state, must in the first place acquire virtue.

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  You have not therefore to obtain power or authority, in order to enable you to do what you wish for yourself and the state, but justice and wisdom.

  Al.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  If he acts wisely and justly he will act according to the will of God.

  You and the state, if you act wisely and justly, will act according to the will of God?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  As I was saying before, you will look only at what is bright and divine, and act with a view to them?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  In the mirror of the divine he will see his own good and will act rightly and be happy.

  In that mirror you will see and know yourselves and your own good?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And so you will act rightly and well?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  In which case, I will be security for your happiness.

  Al.

  I accept the security.

  Soc.

  But if you act unrighteously, your eye will turn to the dark and godless, and being in darkness and ignorance of yourselves, you will probably do deeds of darkness.

  Al.

  Very possibly.

  Soc.

  For if a man, my dear Alcibiades, has the power to do what he likes, but has no understanding, what is likely to 135be the result, either to him as an individual or to the state—for example, if he be sick and is able to do what he likes, not having the mind of a physician—having moreover tyrannical power, and no one daring to reprove him, what will happen to him? Will he not be likely to have his constitution ruined?

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  Or again, in a ship, if a man having the power to do what he likes, has no intelligence or skill in navigation, do you see what will happen to him and to his fellow-sailors?

  Al.

  Yes; I see that they will all perish.

  Soc.

  And in like manner, in a state, and where there is any power and authority which is wanting in virtue, will not misfortune, in like manner, ensue?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Not power, but virtue, should be the aim both of individuals and of states: and he only is a freeman who has virtue.

  Not tyrannical power, then, my good Alcibiades, should be the aim either of individuals or states, if they would be happy, but virtue.

  Al.

  That is true.

  Soc.

  And before they have virtue, to be commanded by a superior is better for men as well as for children1 ?

  Al.

  That is evident.

  Soc.

  And that which is better is also nobler?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And what is nobler is more becoming?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Then to the bad man slavery is more becoming, because better?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then vice is only suited to a slave?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And virtue to a freeman?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And, O my friend, is not the condition of a slave to be avoided?

  Al.

  Certainly, Socrates.

  Soc.

  And are you now conscious of your own state? And do you know whether you are a freeman or not?

  Al.

  I think that I am very conscious indeed of my own state.

  Soc.

  And do you know how to escape out of a state which I do not even like to name to my beauty?

  Al.

  Yes, I do.

  Soc.

  How?

  Al.

  By your help, Socrates.

  Soc.

  That is not well said, Alcibiades.

  Al.

  What ought I to have said?

  Soc.

  By the help of God.

  Al.

  I agree; and I further say, that our relations are likely to be reversed. From this day forward, I must and will follow you as you have followed me; I will be the disciple, and you shall be my master.

  Soc.

  O that is rare! My love breeds another love: and so like the stork I shall be cherished by the bird whom I have hatched.

  Al.

  Strange, but true; and henceforward I shall begin to think about justice.

  Soc.

  And I hope that you will persist; although I have fears, not because I doubt you; but I see the power of the state, which may be too much for both of us.

  MENEXENUS.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Menexenus.Introduction.

  The Menexenus has more the character of a rhetorical exercise than any other of the Platonic works. The writer seems to have wished to emulate Thucydides, and the far slighter work of Lysias. In his rivalry with the latter, to whom in the Phaedrus Plato shows a strong antipathy, he is entirely successful, but he is not equal to Thucydides. The Menexenus, though not without real Hellenic interest, falls very far short of the rugged grandeur and political insight of the great historian. The fiction of the speech having been invented by Aspasia is well sustained, and is in the manner of Plato, notwithstanding the anachronism which puts into her mouth an allusion to the peace of Antalcidas, an event occurring forty years after the date of the supposed oration. But Plato, like Shakespeare, is careless of such anachronisms, which are not supposed to strike the mind of the reader. The effect produced by these grandiloquent orations on Socrates, who does not recover after having heard one of them for three days and more, is truly Platonic.

  Such discourses, if we may form a judgment from the three which are extant (for the so-called Funeral Oration of Demosthenes is a bad and spurious imitation of Thucydides and Lysias), conformed to a regular type. They began with Gods and ancestors, and the legendary history of Athens, to which succeeded an almost equally fictitious account of later times. The Persian war usually formed the centre of the narrative; in the age of Isocrates and Demosthenes the Athenians were still living on the glories of Marathon and Salamis. The Menexenus veils in panegyric the weak places of Athenian history. The war of Athens and Boeotia is a war of liberation; the Athenians gave back the Spartans taken at Sphacteria out of kindness—indeed, the only fault of the city was too great kindness to their enemies, who were more honoured than the friends of others (cp. Thucyd. ii. 41, which seems to contain the germ of the idea); we democrats are the aristocracy of virtue, and the like. These are the platitudes and falsehoods in which history is disguised. The taking of Athens is hardly mentioned.

  The author of the Menexenus, whether Plato or not, is evidently intending to ridicule the practice, and at the same time to show that he can beat the rhetoricians in their own line, as in the Phaedrus he may be supposed to offer an example of what Lysias might have said, and of how much better he might have written in his own style. The orators had recourse to their favourite loci communes, one of which, as we find in Lysias, was the shortness of the time allowed them for preparation. But Socrates points out that they had them always ready for delivery, and that there was no difficulty in improvising any number of such orations. To praise the Athenians among the Athenians was easy,—to praise them among the Lacedaemonians would have been a much more difficult task. Socrates himself has turned rhetorician, having learned of a woman, Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles; and any one whose teachers had been far inferior to his own—say, one who had learned from Antiphon the Rhamnusian—would be quite equal to the task of praising men to themselves. When we remember that Antiphon is described by Thucydides as the best pleader of his day, the satire on him and on the whole tribe of rhetoricians is transparent.

  The ironical assumption of Socrates, that he must be a good orator because he had learnt of Aspasia, is not coarse, as Schleiermacher supposes, but is rather to be regarded as fanciful. Nor can we say that the offer of Socrates to dance naked out of love for Menexenus, is any more un-Platonic than the threat of physical force which Phaedrus uses towards Socrates (286 C). Nor is there any real vulgarity in the fear which Socrates expresses that he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia: this is the natural exaggeration of what might be expected from an imperious woman. Socrates is not to be taken seriously in all that he says, and Plato, both in the Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow to admit a sort of Aristophanic humour. How a great original genius like Plato might or might not have written, what was his conception of humour, or what limits he would have prescribed to himself, if any, in drawing the picture of the Silenus Socrates, are problems which no critical instinct can determine.

  On the other hand, the dialogue has several Platonic traits, whether original or imitated may be uncertain. Socrates, when he departs from his character of a ‘know nothing’ and delivers a speech, generally pretends that what he is speaking is not his own composition. Thus in the Cratylus he is run away with (410 E); in the Phaedrus he has heard somebody say something (235 C)—is inspired by the genius loci (238 D); in the Symposium he derives his wisdom from Diotima of Mantinea, and the like. But he does not impose on Menexenus by his dissimulation. Without violating the character of Socrates, Plato, who knows so well how to give a hint, or some one writing in his name, intimates clearly enough that the speech in the Menexenus like that in the Phaedrus is to be attributed to Socrates. The address of the dead to the living at the end of the oration may also be compared to the numerous addresses of the same kind which occur in Plato, in whom the dramatic element is always tending to prevail over the rhetorical. The remark has been often made, that in the Funeral Oration of Thucydides there is no allusion to the existence of the dead. But in the Menexenus a future state is clearly, although not strongly, asserted.

  Whether the Menexenus is a genuine writing of Plato, or an imitation only, remains uncertain. In either case, the thoughts are partly borrowed from the Funeral Oration of Thucydides; and the fact that they are so, is not in favour of the genuineness of the work. Internal evidence seems to leave the question of authorship in doubt. There are merits and there are defects which might lead to either conclusion. The form of the greater part of the work makes the enquiry difficult; the introduction and the finale certainly wear the look either of Plato or of an extremely skilful imitator. The excellence of the forgery may be fairly adduced as an argument that it is not a forgery at all. In this uncertainty the express testimony of Aristotle, who quotes, in the Rhetoric1 , the well-known words, ‘It is easy to praise the Athenians among the Athenians,’ from the Funeral Oration, may perhaps turn the balance in its favour. It must be remembered also that the work was famous in antiquity, and is included in the Alexandrian catalogues of Platonic writings.

  MENEXENUS.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Socrates and Menexenus.

  Socrates.

  Menexenus.Socrates, Menexenus.

  234Whence come you, Menexenus? Are you from the Agora?

  Menexenus.

  Yes, Socrates; I have been at the Council.

  Soc.

  And what might you be doing at the Council? And yet I need hardly ask, for I see that you, believing yourself to have arrived at the end of education and of philosophy, and to have had enough of them, are mounting upwards to things higher still, and, though rather young for the post, are intending to govern us elder men, like the rest of your family, which has always provided some one who kindly took care of us.

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates, I shall be ready to hold office, if you allow and advise that I should, but not if you think otherwise. I went to the council chamber because I heard that the Council was about to choose some one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is to be a public funeral?

  Soc.

  Yes, I know. And whom did they choose?

  Men.

  No one; they delayed the election until to-morrow, but I believe that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.

  Soc.

  The gain of dying in battle.The effect upon Socrates of panegyrical oratory.

  O Menexenus! death in battle is certainly in many respects a noble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although he may have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise man who has long ago prepared what he has to say, although he who is praised may not have been good for much. The speakers praise him for what he has done and for what he has not done—that is the beauty of them—and they steal away our souls with their embellished words; in every conceivable form they praise 235the city; and they praise those who died in war, and all our ancestors who went before us; and they praise ourselves also who are still alive, until I feel quite elevated by their laudations, and I stand listening to their words, Menexenus, and become enchanted by them, and all in a moment I imagine myself to have become a greater and nobler and finer man than I was before. And if, as often happens, there are any foreigners who accompany me to the speech, I become suddenly conscious of having a sort of triumph over them, and they seem to experience a corresponding feeling of admiration at me, and at the greatness of the city, which appears to them, when they are under the influence of the speaker, more wonderful than ever. This consciousness of dignity lasts me more than three days, and not until the fourth or fifth day do I come to my senses and know where I am; in the meantime I have been living in the Islands of the Blest. Such is the art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does the sound of their words keep ringing in my ears.

  Men.

  Socrates always making fun of the rhetoricians.

  You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; this time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen will not have much to say, for he has been called upon to speak at a moment’s notice, and he will be compelled almost to improvise.

  Soc.

  But why, my friend, should he not have plenty to say? Every rhetorician has speeches ready made; nor is there any difficulty in improvising that sort of stuff. Had the orator to praise Athenians among Peloponnesians, or Peloponnesians among Athenians, he must be a good rhetorician who could succeed and gain credit. But there is no difficulty in a man’s winning applause when he is contending for fame among the persons whom he is praising.

  Men.

  Do you think not, Socrates?

  Soc.

  Certainly ‘not.’

  Men.

  Could Socrates himself make a funeral oration?

  Do you think that you could speak yourself if there should be a necessity, and if the Council were to choose you?

  Soc.

  That I should be able to speak is no great wonder, Menexenus, considering that I have an excellent mistress in the art of rhetoric,—she who has made so many good speakers, and one who was the best among all the Hellenes—Pericles, the son of Xanthippus.

  Men.

  And who is she? I suppose that you mean Aspasia.

  Soc.

  Yes; for he is a pupil of Aspasia.

  Yes, I do; and besides her I had Connus, the son of 236Metrobius, as a master, and he was my master in music, as she was in rhetoric. No wonder that a man who has received such an education should be a finished speaker; even the pupil of very inferior masters, say, for example, one who had learned music of Lamprus, and rhetoric of Antiphon the Rhamnusian, might make a figure if he were to praise the Athenians among the Athenians.

  Men.

  And what would you be able to say if you had to speak?

  Soc.

  The funeral oration composed by Aspasia.

  Of my own wit, most likely nothing; but yesterday I heard Aspasia composing a funeral oration about these very dead. For she had been told, as you were saying, that the Athenians were going to choose a speaker, and she repeated to me the sort of speech which he should deliver, partly improvising and partly from previous thought, putting together fragments of the funeral oration which Pericles spoke, but which, as I believe, she composed.

  Men.

  And can you remember what Aspasia said?

  Soc.

  I ought to be able, for she taught me, and she was ready to strike me because I was always forgetting.

  Men.

  Then why will you not rehearse what she said?

  Soc.

  Because I am afraid that my mistress may be angry with me if I publish her speech.

  Men.

  Nay, Socrates, let us have the speech, whether Aspasia’s or any one else’s, no matter. I hope that you will oblige me.

  Soc.

  But I am afraid that you will laugh at me if I continue the games of youth in old age.

  Men.

  Far otherwise, Socrates; let us by all means have the speech.

  Soc.

  Truly I have such a disposition to oblige you, that if you bid me dance naked I should not like to refuse, since we are alone. Listen then: If I remember rightly, she began as follows, with the mention of the dead1 :—

  Socrates.

  There is a tribute of deeds and of words. The departed have already had the first, when going forth on their destined journey they were attended on their way by the state and by their friends; the tribute of words remains to be given to them, as is meet and by law ordained. For noble words are a memorial and a crown of noble actions, which are given to the doers of them by the hearers. A word is needed which will duly praise the dead and gently admonish the living, exhorting the brethren and descendants of the departed to imitate their virtue, and consoling their fathers and mothers and the survivors, if any, who may chance to be alive of the 237previous generation. What sort of a word will this be, and how shall we rightly begin the praises of these brave men? In their life they rejoiced their own friends with their valour, and their death they gave in exchange for the salvation of the living. And I think that we should praise them in the order in which nature made them good, for they were good because they were sprung from good fathers. Wherefore let us first of all praise the goodness of their birth; secondly, their nurture and education; and then let us set forth how noble their actions were, and how worthy of the education which they had received.

  The departed were the children of the soil;

  And first as to their birth. Their ancestors were not strangers, nor are these their descendants sojourners only, whose fathers have come from another country; but they are the children of the soil, dwelling and living in their own land. And the country which brought them up is not like other countries, a stepmother to her children, but their own true mother; she bore them and nourished them and received them, and in her bosom they now repose. It is meet and right, therefore, that we should begin by praising the land which is their mother, and that will be a way of praising their noble birth.

  and their country is dear to the Gods, who contended for the possession of her.She first brought forth man, and proved her true motherhood by providing food for her own offspring.The Gods were the rulers of primitive men, and gave them arts.

  The country is worthy to be praised, not only by us, but by all mankind; first, and above all, as being dear to the Gods. This is proved by the strife and contention of the Gods respecting her. And ought not the country which the Gods praise to be praised by all mankind? The second praise which may be fairly claimed by her, is that at the time when the whole earth was sending forth and creating diverse animals, tame and wild, she our mother was free and pure from savage monsters, and out of all animals selected and brought forth man, who is superior to the rest in understanding, and alone has justice and religion. And a great proof that she brought forth the common ancestors of us and of the departed, is that she provided the means of support for her offspring. For as a woman proves her motherhood by giving milk to her young ones (and she who has no fountain of milk is not a mother), so did this our land prove that she was the mother of men, for in those days she alone and first of all brought forth wheat and barley for human 238food, which is the best and noblest sustenance for man, whom she regarded as her true offspring. And these are truer proofs of motherhood in a country than in a woman, for the woman in her conception and generation is but the imitation of the earth, and not the earth of the woman. And of the fruit of the earth she gave a plenteous supply, not only to her own, but to others also; and afterwards she made the olive to spring up to be a boon to her children, and to help them in their toils. And when she had herself nursed them and brought them up to manhood, she gave them Gods to be their rulers and teachers, whose names are well known, and need not now be repeated. They are the Gods who first ordered our lives, and instructed us in the arts for the supply of our daily needs, and taught us the acquisition and use of arms for the defence of the country.

  We have a good government, which is sometimes called a democracy, but is really an aristocracy, for the best rule with the consent of the many.The principle of our government is equality; the only superiority is that of virtue and wisdom.

  Thus born into the world and thus educated, the ancestors of the departed lived and made themselves a government, which I ought briefly to commemorate. For government is the nurture of man, and the government of good men is good, and of bad men bad. And I must show that our ancestors were trained under a good government, and for this reason they were good, and our contemporaries are also good, among whom our departed friends are to be reckoned. Then as now, and indeed always, from that time to this, speaking generally, our government was an aristocracy—a form of government which receives various names, according to the fancies of men, and is sometimes called democracy, but is really an aristocracy or government of the best which has the approval of the many. For kings we have always had, first hereditary and then elected, and authority is mostly in the hands of the people, who dispense offices and power to those who appear to be most deserving of them. Neither is a man rejected from weakness or poverty or obscurity of origin, nor honoured by reason of the opposite, as in other states, but there is one principle—he who appears to be wise and good is a governor and ruler. The basis of this our government is equality of birth; for other states are made up of all sorts and unequal conditions of men, and therefore their governments are unequal; there are tyrannies and there are oligarchies, in which the one party are slaves and the others masters. But we and our citizens are brethren, the children all of one 239mother, and we do not think it right to be one another’s masters or servants; but the natural equality of birth compels us to seek for legal equality, and to recognize no superiority except in the reputation of virtue and wisdom.

  The greatness of Persia.Yet at Marathon the army of Darius was overcome by the Athenians almost single-handed.The men of Marathon should have the first place: those who followed in the war were their disciples, except the men who defeated the Persians at Salamis and first made proof of them at sea: these have the second place.And the third place is to be assigned to those who fought at Plataea.Eurymedon; Cyprus; Egypt.

  And so their and our fathers, and these, too, our brethren, being nobly born and having been brought up in all freedom, did both in their public and private capacity many noble deeds famous over the whole world. They were the deeds of men who thought that they ought to fight both against Hellenes for the sake of Hellenes on behalf of freedom, and against barbarians in the common interest of Hellas. Time would fail me to tell of their defence of their country against the invasion of Eumolpus and the Amazons, or of their defence of the Argives against the Cadmeians, or of the Heracleids against the Argives; besides, the poets have already declared in song to all mankind their glory, and therefore any commemoration of their deeds in prose which we might attempt would hold a second place. They already have their reward, and I say no more of them; but there are other worthy deeds of which no poet has worthily sung, and which are still wooing the poet’s muse. Of these I am bound to make honourable mention, and shall invoke others to sing of them also in lyric and other strains, in a manner becoming the actors. And first I will tell how the Persians, lords of Asia, were enslaving Europe, and how the children of this land, who were our fathers, held them back. Of these I will speak first, and praise their valour, as is meet and fitting. He who would rightly estimate them should place himself in thought at that time, when the whole of Asia was subject to the third king of Persia. The first king, Cyrus, by his valour freed the Persians, who were his countrymen, and subjected the Medes, who were their lords, and he ruled over the rest of Asia, as far as Egypt; and after him came his son, who ruled all the accessible part of Egypt and Libya; the third king was Darius, who extended the land boundaries of the empire to 240Scythia, and with his fleet held the sea and the islands. None presumed to be his equal; the minds of all men were enthralled by him—so many and mighty and warlike nations had the power of Persia subdued. Now Darius had a quarrel against us and the Eretrians, because, as he said, we had conspired against Sardis, and he sent 500,000 men in transports and vessels of war, and 300 ships, and Datis as commander, telling him to bring the Eretrians and Athenians to the king, if he wished to keep his head on his shoulders. He sailed against the Eretrians, who were reputed to be amongst the noblest and most warlike of the Hellenes of that day, and they were numerous, but he conquered them all in three days; and when he had conquered them, in order that no one might escape, he searched the whole country after this manner: his soldiers, coming to the borders of Eretria and spreading from sea to sea, joined hands and passed through the whole country, in order that they might be able to tell the king that no one had escaped them. And from Eretria they went to Marathon with a like intention, expecting to bind the Athenians in the same yoke of necessity in which they had bound the Eretrians. Having effected one-half of their purpose, they were in the act of attempting the other, and none of the Hellenes dared to assist either the Eretrians or the Athenians, except the Lacedaemonians, and they arrived a day too late for the battle; but the rest were panic-stricken and kept quiet, too happy in having escaped for a time. He who has present to his mind that conflict will know what manner of men they were who received the onset of the barbarians at Marathon, and chastened the pride of the whole of Asia, and by the victory which they gained over the barbarians first taught other men that the power of the Persians was not invincible, but that hosts of men and the multitude of riches alike yield to valour. And I assert that those men are the fathers not only of ourselves, but of our liberties and of the liberties of all who are on the continent, for that was the action to which the Hellenes looked back when they ventured to fight for their own safety in the battles which ensued: they became disciples of the men of Marathon. To them, therefore, I assign in my speech the first place, and the second to those 241who fought and conquered in the sea fights at Salamis and Artemisium; for of them, too, one might have many things to say—of the assaults which they endured by sea and land, and how they repelled them. I will mention only that act of theirs which appears to me to be the noblest, and which followed that of Marathon and came nearest to it; for the men of Marathon only showed the Hellenes that it was possible to ward off the barbarians by land, the many by the few; but there was no proof that they could be defeated by ships, and at sea the Persians retained the reputation of being invincible in numbers and wealth and skill and strength. This is the glory of the men who fought at sea, that they dispelled the second terror which had hitherto possessed the Hellenes, and so made the fear of numbers, whether of ships or men, to cease among them. And so the soldiers of Marathon and the sailors of Salamis became the schoolmasters of Hellas; the one teaching and habituating the Hellenes not to fear the barbarians at sea, and the others not to fear them by land. Third in order, for the number and valour of the combatants, and third in the salvation of Hellas, I place the battle of Plataea. And now the Lacedaemonians as well as the Athenians took part in the struggle; they were all united in this greatest and most terrible conflict of all; wherefore their virtues will be celebrated in times to come, as they are now celebrated by us. But at a later period many Hellenic tribes were still on the side of the barbarians, and there was a report that the great king was going to make a new attempt upon the Hellenes, and therefore justice requires that we should also make mention of those who crowned the previous work of our salvation, and drove and purged away all barbarians from the sea. These were the men who fought by sea at the river Eurymedon, and who went on the expedition to Cyprus, and who sailed to Egypt and divers other places; and they should be gratefully remembered by us, because they compelled the king in fear for himself to look to his own safety instead of plotting the destruction of Hellas.

  Tanagra; Oenophyta.Sphacteria.The Sicilian expedition.Cyzicus.Hellas betrayed to the Persian.Arginusae.The taking of the city is obscurely intimated.The great reconciliation of kindred.Change in the relation of the Athenians (1) to the other Hellenes; (2) to the Persian king.

  242And so the war against the barbarians was fought out to the end by the whole city on their own behalf, and on behalf of their countrymen. There was peace, and our city was held in honour; and then, as prosperity makes men jealous, there succeeded a jealousy of her, and jealousy begat envy, and so she became engaged against her will in a war with the Hellenes. On the breaking out of war, our citizens met the Lacedaemonians at Tanagra, and fought for the freedom of the Boeotians; the issue was doubtful, and was decided by the engagement which followed. For when the Lacedaemonians had gone on their way, leaving the Boeotians, whom they were aiding, on the third day after the battle of Tanagra, our countrymen conquered at Oenophyta, and righteously restored those who had been unrighteously exiled. And they were the first after the Persian war who fought on behalf of liberty in aid of Hellenes against Hellenes; they were brave men, and freed those whom they aided, and were the first too who were honourably interred in this sepulchre by the state. Afterwards there was a mighty war, in which all the Hellenes joined, and devastated our country, which was very ungrateful of them; and our countrymen, after defeating them in a naval engagement and taking their leaders, the Spartans, at Sphagia, when they might have destroyed them, spared their lives, and gave them back, and made peace, considering that they should war with their fellow-countrymen only until they gained a victory over them, and not because of the private anger of the state destroy the common interest of Hellas; but that with barbarians they should war to the death. Worthy of praise are they also who waged this war, and are here interred; for they proved, if any one doubted the superior prowess of the Athenians in the former war with the barbarians, that their doubts had no foundation—showing by their victory in the civil war with Hellas, in which they subdued the other chief state of the Hellenes, that they could conquer single-handed those with whom they had been allied in the war against the barbarians. After the peace there followed a third war, which was of a terrible and desperate nature, and in this many brave men who are here interred lost their lives—many of them had won victories in Sicily, whither they had gone over the seas 243to fight for the liberties of the Leontines, to whom they were bound by oaths; but, owing to the distance, the city was unable to help them, and they lost heart and came to misfortune, their very enemies and opponents winning more renown for valour and temperance than the friends of others. Many also fell in naval engagements at the Hellespont, after having in one day taken all the ships of the enemy, and defeated them in other naval engagements. And what I call the terrible and desperate nature of the war, is that the other Hellenes, in their extreme animosity towards the city, should have entered into negotiations with their bitterest enemy, the king of Persia, whom they, together with us, had expelled;—him, without us, they again brought back, barbarian against Hellenes, and all the hosts, both of Hellenes and barbarians, were united against Athens. And then shone forth the power and valour of our city. Her enemies had supposed that she was exhausted by the war, and our ships were blockaded at Mitylene. But the citizens themselves embarked, and came to the rescue with sixty other ships, and their valour was confessed of all men, for they conquered their enemies and delivered their friends. And yet by some evil fortune they were left to perish at sea, and therefore are1 not interred here. Ever to be remembered and honoured are they, for by their valour not only that sea-fight was won for us, but the entire war was decided by them, and through them the city gained the reputation of being invincible, even though attacked by all mankind. And that reputation was a true one, for the defeat which came upon us was our own doing. We were never conquered by others, and to this day we are still unconquered by them; but we were our own conquerors, and received defeat at our own hands. Afterwards there was quiet and peace abroad, but there sprang up war at home; and, if men are destined to have civil war, no one could have desired that his city should take the disorder in a milder form. How joyful and natural was the reconciliation of those who came from the Piraeus and those who came from the city; with what moderation did they order the war against the tyrants in Eleusis, and in a manner how unlike what the other 244Hellenes expected! And the reason of this gentleness was the veritable tie of blood, which created among them a friendship as of kinsmen, faithful not in word only, but in deed. And we ought also to remember those who then fell by one another’s hands, and on such occasions as these to reconcile them with sacrifices and prayers, praying to those who have power over them, that they may be reconciled even as we are reconciled. For they did not attack one another out of malice or enmity, but they were unfortunate. And that such was the fact we ourselves are witnesses, who are of the same race with them, and have mutually received and granted forgiveness of what we have done and suffered. After this there was perfect peace, and the city had rest; and her feeling was that she forgave the barbarians, who had severely suffered at her hands and severely retaliated, but that she was indignant at the ingratitude of the Hellenes, when she remembered how they had received good from her and returned evil, having made common cause with the barbarians, depriving her of the ships which had once been their salvation, and dismantling our walls, which had preserved their own from falling. She thought that she would no longer defend the Hellenes, when enslaved either by one another or by the barbarians, and did accordingly. This was our feeling, while the Lacedaemonians were thinking that we who were the champions of liberty had fallen, and that their business was to subject the remaining Hellenes. And why should I say more? for the events of which I am speaking happened not long ago and we can all of us remember how the chief peoples of Hellas, Argives and Boeotians and Corinthians, came to feel the need of us, and, what is the greatest miracle of all, the Persian king himself was driven to such extremity as to come round to the opinion, that from this city, of which he was the destroyer, and from no other, his salvation would proceed.

  And if a person desired to bring a deserved accusation against our city, he would find only one charge which he could justly urge—that she was too compassionate and too favourable to the weaker side. And in this instance she was not able to hold out or keep her resolution of refusing aid to 245her injurers when they were being enslaved, but she was softened, and did in fact send out aid, and delivered the Hellenes from slavery, and they were free until they afterwards enslaved themselves. Whereas, to the great king she refused to give the assistance of the state, for she could not forget the trophies of Marathon and Salamis and Plataea; but she allowed exiles and volunteers to assist him, and they were his salvation. And she herself, when she was compelled, entered into the war, and built walls and ships, and fought with the Lacedaemonians on behalf of the Parians. Now the king fearing this city and wanting to stand aloof, when he saw the Lacedaemonians growing weary of the war at sea, asked of us, as the price of his alliance with us and the other allies, to give up the Hellenes in Asia, whom the Lacedaemonians had previously handed over to him, he thinking that we should refuse, and that then he might have a pretence for withdrawing from us. About the other allies he was mistaken, for the Corinthians and Argives and Boeotians, and the other states, were quite willing to let them go, and swore and covenanted, that, if he would pay them money, they would make over to him the Hellenes of the continent, and we alone refused to give them up and swear. Such was the natural nobility of this city, so sound and healthy was the spirit of freedom among us, and the instinctive dislike of the barbarian, because we are pure Hellenes, having no admixture of barbarism in us. For we are not like many others, descendants of Pelops or Cadmus or Egyptus or Danaus, who are by nature barbarians, and yet pass for Hellenes, and dwell in the midst of us; but we are pure Hellenes, uncontaminated by any foreign element, and therefore the hatred of the foreigner has passed unadulterated into the life-blood of the city. And so, notwithstanding our noble sentiments, we were again isolated, because we were unwilling to be guilty of the base and unholy act of giving up Hellenes to barbarians. And we were in the same case as when we were subdued before; but, by the favour of Heaven, we managed better, for we ended the war without the loss of our ships or walls or colonies; the enemy was only too glad to be quit of us. Yet in this war we lost many brave men, such as were those who fell owing to the ruggedness of the ground at the battle of Corinth, or by treason at Lechaeum. Brave men, too; were those who delivered the Persian king, and drove the Lacedaemonians 246from the sea. I remind you of them, and you must celebrate them together with me, and do honour to their memories.

  Such were the actions of the men who are here interred, and of others who have died on behalf of their country; many and glorious things I have spoken of them, and there are yet many more and more glorious things remaining to be told—many days and nights would not suffice to tell of them. Let them not be forgotten, and let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. Even as I exhort you this day, and in all future time, whenever I meet with any of you, shall continue to remind and exhort you, O ye sons of heroes, that you strive to be the bravest of men. And I think that I ought now to repeat what your fathers desired to have said to you who are their survivors, when they went out to battle, in case anything happened to them. I will tell you what I heard them say, and what, if they had only speech, they would fain be saying, judging from what they then said. And you must imagine that you hear them saying what I now repeat to you:—

  ‘Sons, the event proves that your fathers were brave men; for we might have lived dishonourably, but have preferred to die honourably rather than bring you and your children into disgrace, and rather than dishonour our own fathers and forefathers; considering that life is not life to one who is a dishonour to his race, and that to such a one neither men nor Gods are friendly, either while he is on the earth or after death in the world below. Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil. For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice. And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, 247if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us. And we shall most likely be defeated, and you will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of his ancestors. The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable. And if you follow our precepts you will be received by us as friends, when the hour of destiny brings you hither; but if you neglect our words and are disgraced in your lives, no one will welcome or receive you. This is the message which is to be delivered to our children.

  ‘Some of us have fathers and mothers still living, and we would urge them, if, as is likely, we shall die, to bear the calamity as lightly as possible, and not to condole with one another; for they have sorrows enough, and will not need any one to stir them up. While we gently heal their wounds, let us remind them that the Gods have heard the chief part of their prayers; for they prayed, not that their children might live for ever, but that they might be brave and renowned. And this, which is the greatest good, they have attained. A mortal man cannot expect to have everything in his own life turning out according to his will; and they, if they bear their misfortunes bravely, will be truly deemed brave fathers of the brave. But if they give way to their sorrows, either they will be suspected of not being our parents, or we of not being such as our panegyrists declare. Let not either of the two alternatives happen, but rather let them be our chief and true panegyrists, who show in their lives that they are true men, and had men for their sons. Of old the saying, “Nothing too much,” appeared to be, and really was, well said. For he whose happiness rests with 248himself, if possible, wholly, and if not, as far as is possible,—who is not hanging in suspense on other men, or changing with the vicissitude of their fortune,—has his life ordered for the best. He is the temperate and valiant and wise; and when his riches come and go, when his children are given and taken away, he will remember the proverb—“Neither rejoicing overmuch nor grieving overmuch,” for he relies upon himself. And such we would have our parents to be—that is our word and wish, and as such we now offer ourselves, neither lamenting overmuch, nor fearing overmuch, if we are to die at this time. And we entreat our fathers and mothers to retain these feelings throughout their future life, and to be assured that they will not please us by sorrowing and lamenting over us. But, if the dead have any knowledge of the living, they will displease us most by making themselves miserable and by taking their misfortunes too much to heart, and they will please us best if they bear their loss lightly and temperately. For our life will have the noblest end which is vouchsafed to man, and should be glorified rather than lamented. And if they will direct their minds to the care and nurture of our wives and children, they will soonest forget their misfortunes, and live in a better and nobler way, and be dearer to us.

  ‘This is all that we have to say to our families: and to the state we would say—Take care of our parents and of our sons: let her worthily cherish the old age of our parents, and bring up our sons in the right way. But we know that she will of her own accord take care of them, and does not need any exhortation of ours.’

  Socrates, Menexenus.

  This, O ye children and parents of the dead, is the message which they bid us deliver to you, and which I do deliver with the utmost seriousness. And in their name I beseech you, the children, to imitate your fathers, and you, parents, to be of good cheer about yourselves; for we will nourish your age, and take care of you both publicly and privately in any place in which one of us may meet one of you who are the parents of the dead. And the care of you which the city shows, you know yourselves; for she has made provision by law concerning the parents and children of those who die in war; the highest authority is specially entrusted with the 249duty of watching over them above all other citizens, and they will see that your fathers and mothers have no wrong done to them. The city herself shares in the education of the children, desiring as far as it is possible that their orphanhood may not be felt by them; while they are children she is a parent to them, and when they have arrived at man’s estate she sends them to their several duties, in full armour clad; and bringing freshly to their minds the ways of their fathers, she places in their hands the instruments of their fathers’ virtues; for the sake of the omen, she would have them from the first begin to rule over their own houses arrayed in the strength and arms of their fathers. And as for the dead, she never ceases honouring them, celebrating in common for all rites which become the property of each; and in addition to this, holding gymnastic and equestrian contests, and musical festivals of every sort. She is to the dead in the place of a son and heir, and to their sons in the place of a father, and to their parents and elder kindred in the place of a guardian—ever and always caring for them. Considering this, you ought to bear your calamity the more gently; for thus you will be most endeared to the dead and to the living, and your sorrows will heal and be healed. And now do you and all, having lamented the dead in common according to the law, go your ways.

  You have heard, Menexenus, the oration of Aspasia the Milesian.

  Men.

  This speech, Socrates, was not composed by Aspasia, but by yourself.

  Truly, Socrates, I marvel that Aspasia, who is only a woman, should be able to compose such a speech; she must be a rare one.

  Soc.

  Well, if you are incredulous, you may come with me and hear her.

  Men.

  I have often met Aspasia, Socrates, and know what she is like.

  Soc.

  Well, and do you not admire her, and are you not grateful for her speech?

  Men.

  Yes, Socrates, I am very grateful to her or to him who told you, and still more to you who have told me.

  Soc.

  Very good. But you must take care not to tell of me, and then at some future time I will repeat to you many other excellent political speeches of hers.

  Men.

  Fear not; only let me hear them, and I will keep the secret.

  Soc.

  Then I will keep my promise.

  APPENDIX II. ALCIBIADES II. ERYXIAS.

  Appendix II.

  The two dialogues which are translated in the second appendix are not mentioned by Aristotle, or by any early authority, and have no claim to be ascribed to Plato. They are examples of Platonic dialogues to be assigned probably to the second or third generation after Plato, when his writings were well known at Athens and Alexandria. They exhibit considerable originality, and are remarkable for containing several thoughts of the sort which we suppose to be modern rather than ancient, and which therefore have a peculiar interest for us. The Second Alcibiades shows that the difficulties about prayer which have perplexed Christian theologians were not unknown among the followers of Plato. The Eryxias was doubted by the ancients themselves: yet it may claim the distinction of being, among all Greek or Roman writings, the one which anticipates in the most striking manner the modern science of political economy and gives an abstract form to some of its principal doctrines.

  For the translation of these two dialogues I am indebted to my friend and secretary, Mr. Knight.

  That the Dialogue which goes by the name of the Second Alcibiades is a genuine writing of Plato will not be maintained by any modern critic, and was hardly believed by the ancients themselves. The dialectic is poor and weak. There is no power over language, or beauty of style; and there is a certain abruptness and ἀγροικία in the conversation, which is very un-Platonic. The best passage is probably that about the poets, p. 147:—the remark that the poet, who is of a reserved disposition, is uncommonly difficult to understand, and the ridiculous interpretation of Homer, are entirely in the spirit of Plato (cp. Protag. 339 foll.; Ion 534; Apol. 22 D). The characters are ill-drawn. Socrates assumes the ‘superior person’ and preaches too much, while Alcibiades is stupid and heavy-in-hand. There are traces of Stoic influence in the general tone and phraseology of the Dialogue (cp. 138 B, ὅπως μὴ λήσει τις . . . κακά: 139 C, ὅτι πα̂ς ἄϕρων μαίνεται): and the writer seems to have been acquainted with the ‘Laws’ of Plato (cp. Laws 3. 687, 688; 7. 801; 11. 931 B). An incident from the Symposium (213 E) is rather clumsily introduced (151 A), and two somewhat hackneyed quotations (Symp. 174 D, Gorg. 484 E) recur at 140 A and 146 A. The reference to the death of Archelaus as having occurred ‘quite lately’ (141 D) is only a fiction, probably suggested by the Gorgias, 470 D, where the story of Archelaus is told, and a similar phrase occurs,—τὰ γὰρ ἐχθὲς καὶ πρώην γεγονότα ταν̂τα, κ.τ.λ. There are several passages which are either corrupt or extremely ill-expressed (see pp. 144, 145, 146, 147, 150). But there is a modern interest in the subject of the dialogue; and it is a good example of a short spurious work, which may be attributed to the second or third century before Christ.

  ALCIBIADES II.

  INTRODUCTION

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Socrates and Alcibiades.

  Soc.

  Alcibiades II.

  138Are you going, Alcibiades, to offer prayer to Zeus?

  Al.

  Yes, Socrates, I am.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Alcibiades.

  You seem to be troubled and to cast your eyes on the ground, as though you were thinking about something.

  Al.

  Of what do you suppose that I am thinking?

  Soc.

  Of the greatest of all things, as I believe. Tell me, do you not suppose that the Gods sometimes partly grant and partly reject the requests which we make in public and private, and favour some persons and not others?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  The danger of a prayer which is ill-advised.

  Do you not imagine, then, that a man ought to be very careful, lest perchance without knowing it he implore great evils for himself, deeming that he is asking for good, especially if the Gods are in the mood to grant whatever he may request? There is the story of Oedipus, for instance, who prayed that his children might divide their inheritance between them by the sword: he did not, as he might have done, beg that his present evils might be averted, but called down new ones. And was not his prayer accomplished, and did not many and terrible evils thence arise, upon which I need not dilate?

  Al.

  Yes, Socrates, but you are speaking of a madman: surely you do not think that any one in his senses would venture to make such a prayer?

  Soc.

  Madness, then, you consider to be the opposite of discretion?

  Al.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  And some men seem to you to be discreet, and others the contrary?

  Al.

  They do.

  Soc.

  Well, then, let us discuss who these are. We acknowledge that some are discreet, some foolish, and that some are mad?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And again, there are some who are in health?

  Al.

  There are.

  Soc.

  While others are ailing?

  Al.

  Yes. 139

  Soc.

  And they are not the same?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Nor are there any who are in neither state?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  A man must either be sick or be well?

  Al.

  That is my opinion.

  Soc.

  Alcibiades first desires and afterwards admits that differences of kind do not exclude differences of degree.

  Very good: and do you think the same about discretion and want of discretion?

  Al.

  How do you mean?

  Soc.

  Do you believe that a man must be either in or out of his senses; or is there some third or intermediate condition, in which he is neither one nor the other?

  Al.

  Decidedly not.

  Soc.

  He must be either sane or insane?

  Al.

  So I suppose.

  Soc.

  Did you not acknowledge that madness was the opposite of discretion?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And that there is no third or middle term between discretion and indiscretion?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And there cannot be two opposites to one thing?

  Al.

  There cannot.

  Soc.

  Then madness and want of sense are the same?

  Al.

  That appears to be the case.

  Soc.

  We shall be in the right, therefore, Alcibiades, if we say that all who are senseless are mad. For example, if among persons of your own age or older than yourself there are some who are senseless,—as there certainly are,—they are mad. For tell me, by heaven, do you not think that in the city the wise are few, while the foolish, whom you call mad, are many?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  But how could we live in safety with so many crazy people? Should we not long since have paid the penalty at their hands, and have been struck and beaten and endured every other form of ill-usage which madmen are wont to inflict? Consider, my dear friend: may it not be quite otherwise?

  Al.

  Why, Socrates, how is that possible? I must have been mistaken.

  Soc.

  So it seems to me. But perhaps we may consider the matter thus:—

  Al.

  How?

  Soc.

  I will tell you. We think that some are sick; do we not?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The sick may have many kinds of sickness; so there are different kinds of want of sense.

  And must every sick person either have the gout, or be in a fever, or suffer from ophthalmia? Or do you believe that a man may labour under some other disease, even although he has none of these complaints? Surely, they are not the only maladies which exist?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And is every kind of ophthalmia a disease?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And every disease ophthalmia?

  Al.

  Surely not. But I scarcely understand what I mean myself.

  Soc.

  140Perhaps, if you give me your best attention, ‘two of us’ looking together, we may find what we seek.

  Al.

  I am attending, Socrates, to the best of my power.

  Soc.

  We are agreed, then, that every form of ophthalmia is a disease, but not every disease ophthalmia?

  Al.

  We are.

  Soc.

  And so far we seem to be right. For every one who suffers from a fever is sick; but the sick, I conceive, do not all have fever or gout or ophthalmia, although each of these is a disease, which, according to those whom we call physicians, may require a different treatment. They are not all alike, nor do they produce the same result, but each has its own effect, and yet they are all diseases. May we not take an illustration from the artizans?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  There are cobblers and carpenters and sculptors and others of all sorts and kinds, whom we need not stop to enumerate. All have their distinct employments and all are workmen, although they are not all of them cobblers or carpenters or sculptors.

  Al.

  No, indeed.

  Soc.

  And in like manner men differ in regard to want of sense. Those who are most out of their wits we call ‘madmen,’ while we term those who are less far gone ‘stupid’ or ‘idiotic,’ or, if we prefer gentler language, describe them as ‘romantic’ or ‘simple-minded,’ or, again, as ‘innocent’ or ‘inexperienced’ or ‘foolish.’ You may even find other names, if you seek for them; but by all of them lack of sense is intended. They only differ as one art appeared to us to differ from another or one disease from another. Or what is your opinion?

  Al.

  I agree with you.

  Soc.

  Then let us return to the point at which we digressed. We said at first that we should have to consider who were the wise and who the foolish. For we acknowledged that there are these two classes? Did we not?

  Al.

  To be sure.

  Soc.

  And you regard those as sensible who know what ought to be done or said?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The senseless are those who do not know this?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  The latter will say or do what they ought not without their own knowledge?

  Al.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  Men often, like Oedipus, pray unadvisedly.

  Oedipus, as I was saying, Alcibiades, was a person of 141this sort. And even now-a-days you will find many who [have offered inauspicious prayers], although, unlike him, they were not in anger nor thought that they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that he sought for good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I believe that if the God whom you are about to consult should appear to you, and, in anticipation of your request, enquired whether you would be contented to become tyrant of Athens, and if this seemed in your eyes a small and mean thing, should add to it the dominion of all Hellas; and seeing that even then you would not be satisfied unless you were ruler of the whole of Europe, should promise, not only that, but, if you so desired, should proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, was tyrant:—in such a case, I imagine, you would depart full of joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.

  Al.

  And not only I, Socrates, but any one else who should meet with such luck.

  Soc.

  Yet you would not accept the dominion and lordship of all the Hellenes and all the barbarians in exchange for your life?

  Al.

  Certainly not: for then what use could I make of them?

  Soc.

  And would you accept them if you were likely to use them to a bad and mischievous end?

  Al.

  I would not.

  Soc.

  Archelaus and his beloved.Men never refuse the goods of fortune, however great the evils which may attend them.

  You see that it is not safe for a man either rashly to accept whatever is offered him, or himself to request a thing, if he is likely to suffer thereby or immediately to lose his life. And yet we could tell of many who, having long desired and diligently laboured to obtain a tyranny, thinking that thus they would procure an advantage, have nevertheless fallen victims to designing enemies. You must have heard of what happened only the other day, how Archelaus of Macedonia was slain by his beloved1 , whose love for the tyranny was not less than that of Archelaus for him. The tyrannicide expected by his crime to become tyrant and afterwards to have a happy life; but when he had held the tyranny three or four days, he was in his turn conspired against and slain. Or look at certain of our own citizens,—and of their actions we have been not hearers, but eyewitnesses,—who have desired to obtain military command: of 142those who have gained their object, some are even to this day exiles from the city, while others have lost their lives. And even they who seem to have fared best, have not only gone through many perils and terrors during their office, but after their return home they have been beset by informers worse than they once were by their foes, insomuch that several of them have wished that they had remained in a private station rather than have had the glories of command. If, indeed, such perils and terrors were of profit to the commonwealth, there would be reason in undergoing them; but the very contrary is the case. Again, you will find persons who have prayed for offspring, and when their prayers were heard, have fallen into the greatest pains and sufferings. For some have begotten children who were utterly bad, and have therefore passed all their days in misery, while the parents of good children have undergone the misfortune of losing them, and have been so little happier than the others that they would have preferred never to have had children rather than to have had them and lost them. And yet, although these and the like examples are manifest and known of all, it is rare to find any one who has refused what has been offered him, or, if he were likely to gain aught by prayer, has refrained from making his petition. The mass of mankind would not decline to accept a tyranny, or the command of an army, or any of the numerous things which cause more harm than good: but rather, if they had them not, would have prayed to obtain them. And often in a short space of time they change their tone, and wish their old prayers unsaid. Wherefore also I suspect that men are entirely wrong when they blame the gods as the authors of the ills which befall them1 : ‘their own presumption,’ or folly (whichever is the right word)—

  ‘Has brought these unmeasured woes upon them2 .’

  He must have been a wise poet, Alcibiades, who, seeing as I believe, his friends foolishly praying for and doing things which would not really profit them, offered up a common prayer in behalf of them all:—

  • ‘King Zeus, grant us good whether prayed for or unsought by us; 143
  • But that which we ask amiss, do thou avert3 .’

  In my opinion, I say, the poet spoke both well and prudently; but if you have anything to say in answer to him, speak out.

  Al.

  It is difficult, Socrates, to oppose what has been well said. And I perceive how many are the ills of which ignorance is the cause, since, as would appear, through ignorance we not only do, but what is worse, pray for the greatest evils. No man would imagine that he would do so; he would rather suppose that he was quite capable of praying for what was best: to call down evil seems more like a curse than a prayer.

  Soc.

  But perhaps, my good friend, some one who is wiser than either you or I will say that we have no right to blame ignorance thus rashly, unless we can add what ignorance we mean and of what, and also to whom and how it is respectively a good or an evil?

  Al.

  How do you mean? Can ignorance possibly be better than knowledge for any person in any conceivable case?

  Soc.

  So I believe:—you do not think so?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Orestes and Alcmaeon.

  And yet surely I may not suppose that you would ever wish to act towards your mother as they say that Orestes and Alcmaeon and others have done towards their parent.

  Al.

  Good words, Socrates, prithee.

  Soc.

  Ignorance of the best is bad: ignorance of the bad good.

  You ought not to bid him use auspicious words, who says that you would not be willing to commit so horrible a deed, but rather him who affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be mentioned. Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and knew what was best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on such a crime?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  Nor would any one else, I fancy?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the best and does not know what is best?

  Al.

  So I think, at least.

  Soc.

  And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Let us take another case. Suppose that you were suddenly to get into your head that it would be a good thing 144to kill Pericles, your kinsman and guardian, and were to seize a sword and, going to the doors of his house, were to enquire if he were at home, meaning to slay only him and no one else:—the servants reply, ‘Yes’: (Mind, I do not mean that you would really do such a thing; but there is nothing, you think, to prevent a man who is ignorant of the best, having occasionally the whim that what is worst is best?

  Al.

  No.)

  Soc.

  A man might be prevented from committing murder by ignorance of the person whom he was going to murder.

  —If, then, you went indoors, and seeing him, did not know him, but thought that he was some one else, would you venture to slay him?

  Al.

  Most decidedly not 1 [it seems to me]1 .

  Soc.

  For you designed to kill, not the first who offered, but Pericles himself?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And if you made many attempts, and each time failed to recognize Pericles, you would never attack him?

  Al.

  Never.

  Soc.

  Well, but if Orestes in like manner had not known his mother, do you think that he would ever have laid hands upon her?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  He did not intend to slay the first woman he came across, nor any one else’s mother, but only his own?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  Ignorance, then, is better for those who are in such a frame of mind, and have such ideas?

  Al.

  Obviously.

  Soc.

  You acknowledge that for some persons in certain cases the ignorance of some things is a good and not an evil, as you formerly supposed?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  2 And there is still another case which will also perhaps appear strange to you, if you will consider it?2

  Al.

  What is that, Socrates?

  Soc.

  All knowledge if unaccompanied by a knowledge of the best is hurtful.

  It may be, in short, that the possession of all the sciences, if unaccompanied by the knowledge of the best, will more often than not injure the possessor. Consider the matter thus:—Must we not, when we intend either to do or say anything, suppose that we know or ought to know that which we propose so confidently to do or say?

  Al.

  Yes, in my opinion.

  Soc.

  We may take the orators for an example, who from 145time to time advise us about war and peace, or the building of walls and the construction of harbours, whether they understand the business in hand, or only think that they do. Whatever the city, in a word, does to another city, or in the management of her own affairs, all happens by the counsel of the orators.

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But now see what follows, if I can 1 [make it clear to you]1 . You would distinguish the wise from the foolish?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The many are foolish, the few wise?

  Al.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And you use both the terms, ‘wise’ and ‘foolish,’ in reference to something?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  Examples.

  Would you call a person wise who can give advice, but does not know whether or when it is better to carry out the advice?

  Al.

  Decidedly not.

  Soc.

  Nor again, I suppose, a person who knows the art of war, but does not know whether it is better to go to war or for how long?

  Al.

  No.

  Soc.

  Nor, once more, a person who knows how to kill another or to take away his property or to drive him from his native land, but not when it is better to do so or for whom it is better?

  Al.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  But he who understands anything of the kind and has at the same time the knowledge of the best course of action:—and the best and the useful are surely the same?—

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  —Such an one, I say, we should call wise and a useful adviser both of himself and of the city. What do you think?

  Al.

  I agree.

  Soc.

  And if any one knows how to ride or to shoot with the bow or to box or to wrestle, or to engage in any other sort of contest or to do anything whatever which is in the nature of an art,—what do you call him who knows what is best according to that art? Do you not speak of one who knows what is best in riding as a good rider?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in a similar way you speak of a good boxer or a good flute-player or a good performer in any other art?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  But is it necessary that the man who is clever in any of these arts should be wise also in general? Or is there a difference between the clever artist and the wise man?

  Al.

  All the difference in the world.

  Soc.

  A state would be bad which was composed only of skilful artists and clever politicians, but where no one had the knowledge of the best.

  And what sort of a state do you think that would be which was composed of good archers and flute-players and athletes and masters in other arts, and besides them of those others about whom we spoke, who knew how to go to war and how to kill, as well as of orators puffed up with political pride, but in which not one of them all had this knowledge of the best, and there was no one who could tell when it was better to apply any of these arts or in regard to 146whom?

  Al.

  I should call such a state bad, Socrates.

  Soc.

  You certainly would when you saw each of them rivalling the other and esteeming that of the greatest importance in the state,

  ‘Wherein he himself most excelled1 .’

  —I mean that which was best in any art, while he was entirely ignorant of what was best for himself and for the state, because, as I think, he trusts to opinion which is devoid of intelligence. In such a case should we not be right if we said that the state would be full of anarchy and lawlessness?

  Al.

  Decidedly.

  Soc.

  But ought we not then, think you, either to fancy that we know or really to know, what we confidently propose to do or say?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And if a person does that which he knows or supposes that he knows, and the result is beneficial, he will act advantageously both for himself and for the state?

  Al.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if he do the contrary, both he and the state will suffer?

  Al.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Well, and are you of the same mind, as before?

  Al.

  I am.

  Soc.

  But were you not saying that you would call the many unwise and the few wise?

  Al.

  I was.

  Soc.

  And have we not come back to our old assertion that the many fail to obtain the best because they trust to opinion which is devoid of intelligence?

  Al.

  That is the case.

  Soc.

  It is good, then, for the many, if they particularly desire to do that which they know or suppose that they know, neither to know nor to suppose that they know, in cases where if they carry out their ideas in action they will be losers rather than gainers?

  Al.

  What you say is very true.

  Soc.

  Do you not see that I was really speaking the truth when I affirmed that the possession of any other kind of knowledge was more likely to injure than to benefit the possessor, unless he had also the knowledge of the best?

  Al.

  I do now, if I did not before, Socrates.

  Soc.

  The soul requires this knowledge of the best before she sets sail on the voyage of life.

  The state or the soul, therefore, which wishes to have a right existence must hold firmly to this knowledge, just as the sick man clings to the physician, or the passenger 147depends for safety on the pilot. And if the soul does not set sail until she have obtained this she will be all the safer in the voyage through life. But when she rushes in pursuit of wealth or bodily strength or anything else, not having the knowledge of the best, so much the more is she likely to meet with misfortune. And he who has the love of learning1 , and is skilful in many arts, and does not possess the knowledge of the best, but is under some other guidance, will make, as he deserves, a sorry voyage:—he will, I believe, hurry through the brief space of human life, pilotless in mid-ocean, and the words will apply to him in which the poet blamed his enemy:—

  • ‘ . . . . . Full many a thing he knew;
  • But knew them all badly2 .’

  Al.

  How in the world, Socrates, do the words of the poet apply to him? They seem to me to have no bearing on the point whatever.

  Soc.

  The poets spoke in riddles a hidden truth.

  Quite the contrary, my sweet friend: only the poet is talking in riddles after the fashion of his tribe. For all poetry has by nature an enigmatical character, and it is by no means everybody who can interpret it. And if, moreover, the spirit of poetry happen to seize on a man who is of a begrudging temper and does not care to manifest his wisdom but keeps it to himself as far as he can, it does indeed require an almost superhuman wisdom to discover what the poet would be at. You surely do not suppose that Homer, the wisest and most divine of poets, was unaware of the impossibility of knowing a thing badly: for it was no less a person than he who said of Margites that ‘he knew many things, but knew them all badly.’ The solution of the riddle is this, I imagine:—By ‘badly’ Homer meant ‘bad’ and ‘knew’ stands for ‘to know.’ Put the words together;—the metre will suffer, but the poet’s meaning is clear;—‘Margites knew all these things, but it was bad for him to know so many things, he must have been a good-for-nothing, unless the argument has played us false.

  Al.

  But I do not think that it has, Socrates: at least, if the argument is fallacious, it would be difficult for me to find another which I could trust.

  Soc.

  And you are right in thinking so.

  Al.

  Well, that is my opinion.

  Soc.

  Alcibiades is too unstable to be able to trust his own prayers.

  But tell me, by Heaven:—you must see now the nature and greatness of the difficulty in which you, like others, have your part. For you change about in all directions, and never come to rest anywhere: what you once most strongly inclined to suppose, you put aside again and 148quite alter your mind. If the God to whose shrine you are going should appear at this moment, and ask before you made your prayer, ‘Whether you would desire to have one of the things which we mentioned at first, or whether he should leave you to make your own request:’—what in either case, think you, would be the best way to take advantage of the opportunity?

  Al.

  Indeed, Socrates, I could not answer you without consideration. It seems to me to be a wild thing1 to make such a request; a man must be very careful lest he pray for evil under the idea that he is asking for good, when shortly after he may have to recall his prayer, and, as you were saying, demand the opposite of what he at first requested.

  Soc.

  And was not the poet whose words I originally quoted wiser than we are, when he bade us [pray God] to defend us from evil even though we asked for it?

  Al.

  I believe that you are right.

  Soc.

  The Lacedaemonians, too, whether from admiration of the poet or because they have discovered the idea for themselves, are wont to offer the prayer alike in public and private, that the Gods will give unto them the beautiful as well as the good:—no one is likely to hear them make any further petition. And yet up to the present time they have not been less fortunate than other men; or if they have sometimes met with misfortune, the fault has not been due to their prayer. For surely, as I conceive, the Gods have power either to grant our requests, or to send us the contrary of what we ask.

  Socrates.The silent prayer of the Lacedaemonians better than all the offerings of the other Hellenes.

  And now I will relate to you a story which I have heard from certain of our elders. It chanced that when the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were at war, our city lost every battle by land and sea and never gained a victory. The Athenians being annoyed and perplexed how to find a remedy for their troubles, decided to send and enquire at the shrine of Ammon. Their envoys were also to ask, ‘Why the Gods always granted the victory to the Lacedaemonians?’ ‘We,’ (they were to say,) ‘offer them more and finer sacrifices than any other Hellenic state, and adorn their temples with gifts, as nobody else does; moreover, we make the most solemn and costly processions to them every year, and spend more money in their service than all the rest of the Hellenes put together. But the Lacedaemonians 149take no thought of such matters, and pay so little respect to the Gods that they have a habit of sacrificing blemished animals to them, and in various ways are less zealous than we are, although their wealth is quite equal to ours.’ When they had thus spoken, and had made their request to know what remedy they could find against the evils which troubled them, the prophet made no direct answer,—clearly because he was not allowed by the God to do so;—but he summoned them to him and said: ‘Thus saith Ammon to the Athenians: “The silent worship of the Lacedaemonians pleaseth me better than all the offerings of the other Hellenes.” ’ Such were the words of the God, and nothing more. He seems to have meant by ‘silent worship’ the prayer of the Lacedaemonians, which is indeed widely different from the usual requests of the Hellenes. For they either bring to the altar bulls with gilded horns or make offerings to the Gods, and beg at random for what they need, good or bad. When, therefore, the Gods hear them using words of ill omen they reject these costly processions and sacrifices of theirs. And we ought, I think, to be very careful and consider well what we should say and what leave unsaid. Homer, too, will furnish us with similar stories. For he tells us how the Trojans in making their encampment,

  ‘Offered up whole hecatombs to the immortals,’

  Socrates, Alcibiades.

  and how the ‘sweet savour’ was borne ‘to the heavens by the winds;

  • ‘But the blessed Gods were averse and received it not.
  • For exceedingly did they hate the holy Ilium,
  • Both Priam and the people of the spear-skilled king.’

  So that it was in vain for them to sacrifice and offer gifts, seeing that they were hateful to the Gods, who are not, like vile usurers, to be gained over by bribes. And it is foolish for us to boast that we are superior to the Lacedaemonians by reason of our much worship. The idea is inconceivable 150that the Gods have regard, not to the justice and purity of our souls, but to costly processions and sacrifices, which men may celebrate year after year, although they have committed innumerable crimes against the Gods or against their fellowmen or the state. For the Gods, as Ammon and his prophet declare, are no receivers of gifts, and they scorn such unworthy service. Wherefore also it would seem that wisdom and justice are especially honoured both by the Gods and by men of sense; and they are the wisest and most just who know how to speak and act towards Gods and men. But I should like to hear what your opinion is about these matters.

  Al.

  I agree, Socrates, with you and with the God, whom, indeed, it would be unbecoming for me to oppose.

  Soc.

  Do you not remember saying that you were in great perplexity, lest perchance you should ask for evil, supposing that you were asking for good?

  Al.

  I do.

  Soc.

  Alcibiades cannot tell whether he is asking for good or evil. ‘Therefore let his words be few.’

  You see, then, that there is a risk in your approaching the God in prayer, lest haply he should refuse your sacrifice when he hears the blasphemy which you utter, and make you partake of other evils as well. The wisest plan, therefore, seems to me that you should keep silence; for your ‘highmindedness’—to use the mildest term which men apply to folly—will most likely prevent you from using the prayer of the Lacedaemonians. You had better wait until we find out how we should behave towards the Gods and towards men.

  Al.

  And how long must I wait, Socrates, and who will be my teacher? I should be very glad to see the man.

  Soc.

  It is he who takes an especial interest in you. But first of all, I think, the darkness must be taken away in which your soul is now enveloped, just as Athene in Homer removes the mist from the eyes of Diomede that

  ‘He may distinguish between God and mortal man.’

  Afterwards the means may be given to you whereby you may distinguish between good and evil. At present, I fear, this is beyond your power.

  Al.

  Only let my instructor take away the impediment, whether it pleases him to call it mist or anything else! I care not who he is; but I am resolved to disobey none of his commands, if I am likely to be the better for them.

  Soc.

  And surely he has a wondrous care for you. 151

  Al.

  It seems to be altogether advisable to put off the sacrifice until he is found.

  Soc.

  You are right: that will be safer than running such a tremendous risk.

  Al.

  But how shall we manage, Socrates?—At any rate I will set this crown of mine upon your head, as you have given me such excellent advice, and to the Gods we will offer crowns and perform the other customary rites when I see that day approaching: nor will it be long hence, if they so will.

  Soc.

  I accept your gift, and shall be ready and willing to receive whatever else you may proffer. Euripides makes Creon say in the play, when he beholds Teiresias with his crown and hears that he has gained it by his skill as the first-fruits of the spoil:—

  • ‘An auspicious omen I deem thy victor’s wreath:
  • For well thou knowest that wave and storm oppress us.’

  And so I count your gift to be a token of good-fortune; for I am in no less stress than Creon, and would fain carry off the victory over your lovers.

  ERYXIAS.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Eryxias.Introduction.

  Much cannot be said in praise of the style or conception of the Eryxias. It is frequently obscure; like the exercise of a student, it is full of small imitations of Plato:—Phaeax returning from an expedition to Sicily (cp. Socrates in the Charmides from the army at Potidaea), the figure of the game at draughts, 395 B, borrowed from Rep. vi. 487, etc. It has also in many passages the ring of sophistry. On the other hand, the rather unhandsome treatment which is exhibited towards Prodicus is quite unlike the urbanity of Plato.

  Yet there are some points in the argument which are deserving of attention. (1) That wealth depends upon the need of it or demand for it, is the first anticipation in an abstract form of one of the great principles of modern political economy, and the nearest approach to it to be found in an ancient writer. (2) The resolution of wealth into its simplest implements going on to infinity is a subtle and refined thought. (3) That wealth is relative to circumstances is a sound conception. (4) That the arts and sciences which receive payment are likewise to be comprehended under the notion of wealth, also touches a question of modern political economy. (5) The distinction of post hoc and propter hoc, often lost sight of in modern as well as in ancient times. These metaphysical conceptions and distinctions show considerable power of thought in the writer, whatever we may think of his merits as an imitator of Plato.

  ERYXIAS.

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

  Socrates.

  Eryxias.

  Erasistratus.

  Critias.

  Scene:—The portico of a temple of Zeus.

  Eryxias.Socrates, Erasistratus.

  392It happened by chance that Eryxias the Steirian was walking with me in the Portico of Zeus the Deliverer, when there came up to us Critias and Erasistratus, the latter the son of Phaeax, who was the nephew of Erasistratus. Now Erasistratus had just arrived from Sicily and that part of the world. As they approached, he said, Hail, Socrates!

  Soc.

  The same to you, I said; have you any good news from Sicily to tell us?

  Eras.

  Most excellent. But if you please, let us first sit down; for I am tired with my yesterday’s journey from Megara.

  Soc.

  Gladly, if that is your desire.

  Eras.

  The troublesome Sicilians.Socrates, Erasistratus.

  What would you wish to hear first? he said. What the Sicilians are doing, or how they are disposed towards our city? To my mind, they are very like wasps: so long as you only cause them a little annoyance they are quite unmanageable; you must destroy their nests if you wish to get the better of them. And in a similar way, the Syracusans, unless we set to work in earnest, and go against them with a great expedition, will never submit to our rule. The petty injuries which we at present inflict merely irritate them enough to make them utterly intractable. And now they have sent ambassadors to Athens, and intend, I suspect, to play us some trick.—While we were talking, the Syracusan envoys chanced to go by, and Erasistratus, pointing to one of them, said to me, That, Socrates, is the richest man in all Italy and Sicily. For who has larger estates or more land at his disposal to cultivate if he please? And they are of a quality, too, finer than any other land in Hellas. Moreover, he has all the things which go to make up wealth, slaves and horses innumerable, gold and silver without end.

  I saw that he was inclined to expatiate on the riches of the man; so I asked him, Well, Erasistratus, and what sort of character does he bear in Sicily?

  Eras.

  The wicked millionaire.

  He is esteemed to be, and really is, the wickedest of 393all the Sicilians and Italians, and even more wicked than he is rich; indeed, if you were to ask any Sicilian whom he thought to be the worst and the richest of mankind, you would never hear any one else named.

  I reflected that we were speaking, not of trivial matters, but about wealth and virtue, which are deemed to be of the greatest moment, and I asked Erasistratus whom he considered the wealthier,—he who was the possessor of a talent of silver or he who had a field worth two talents?

  Eras.

  The owner of the field.

  Soc.

  And on the same principle he who had robes and bedding and such things which are of greater value to him than to a stranger would be richer than the stranger?

  Eras.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if any one gave you a choice, which of these would you prefer?

  Eras.

  That which was most valuable.

  Soc.

  Wealth consists of things which are valuable.

  In which way do you think you would be the richer?

  Eras.

  By choosing as I said.

  Soc.

  And he appears to you to be the richest who has goods of the greatest value?

  Eras.

  He does.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Erasistratus, Eryxias.

  And are not the healthy richer than the sick, since health is a possession more valuable than riches to the sick? Surely there is no one who would not prefer to be poor and well, rather than to have all the King of Persia’s wealth and to be ill. And this proves that men set health above wealth, else they would never choose the one in preference to the other.

  Eras.

  True.

  Soc.

  And if anything appeared to be more valuable than health, he would be the richest who possessed it?

  Eras.

  He would.

  Soc.

  Suppose that some one came to us at this moment and were to ask, Well, Socrates and Eryxias and Erasistratus, can you tell me what is of the greatest value to men? Is it not that of which the possession will best enable a man to advise how his own and his friends’ affairs should be administered?—What will be our reply?

  Eras.

  I should say, Socrates, that happiness was the most precious of human possessions.

  Soc.

  Not a bad answer. But do we not deem those men who are most prosperous to be the happiest?

  Eras.

  That is my opinion.

  Soc.

  And are they not most prosperous who commit the fewest errors in respect either of themselves or of other men?

  Eras.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And they who know what is evil and what is good; what should be done and what should be left undone;—these 394behave the most wisely and make the fewest mistakes?

  Erasistratus agreed to this.

  Soc.

  Then the wisest and those who do best and the most fortunate and the richest would appear to be all one and the same, if wisdom is really the most valuable of our possessions?

  Of what use would wisdom be, if a man had not the necessaries of life?

  Yes, said Eryxias, interposing, but what use would it be if a man had the wisdom of Nestor and wanted the necessaries of life, food and drink and clothes and the like? Where would be the advantage of wisdom then? Or how could he be the richest of men who might even have to go begging, because he had not wherewithal to live?

  Socrates, Eryxias.

  I thought that what Eryxias was saying had some weight, and I replied, Would the wise man really suffer in this way, if he were so ill-provided; whereas if he had the house of Polytion, and the house were full of gold and silver, he would lack nothing?

  Eryx.

  Yes; for then he might dispose of his property and obtain in exchange what he needed, or he might sell it for money with which he could supply his wants and in a moment procure abundance of everything.

  Soc.

  The wisdom of Nestor better and even more saleable than the house of Polytion.And in the arts is not wisdom better than riches?

  True, if he could find some one who preferred such a house to the wisdom of Nestor. But if there are persons who set great store by wisdom like Nestor’s and the advantages accruing from it, to sell these, if he were so disposed, would be easier still. Or is a house a most useful and necessary possession, and does it make a great difference in the comfort of life to have a mansion like Polytion’s instead of living in a shabby little cottage, whereas wisdom is of small use and it is of no importance whether a man is wise or ignorant about the highest matters? Or is wisdom despised of men and can find no buyers, although cypress wood and marble of Pentelicus are eagerly bought by numerous purchasers? Surely the prudent pilot or the skilful physician, or the artist of any kind who is proficient in his art, is more worth than the things which are especially reckoned among riches; and he who can advise well and prudently for himself and others is able also to sell the product of his art, if he so desire.

  Eryxias looked askance, as if he had received some unfair 395treatment, and said, I believe, Socrates, that if you were forced to speak the truth, you would declare that you were richer than Callias the son of Hipponicus. And yet, although you claimed to be wiser about things of real importance, you would not any the more be richer than he.

  Eryxias is supposed to reply that arguments can prove anything and convince no one.Socrates, Eryxias, Critias.

  I dare say, Eryxias, I said, that you may regard these arguments of ours as a kind of game; you think that they have no relation to facts, but are like the pieces in the game of draughts which the player can move in such a way that his opponents are unable to make any countermove1 . And perhaps, too, as regards riches you are of opinion that while facts remain the same, there are arguments, no matter whether true or false, which enable the user of them to prove that the wisest and the richest are one and the same, although he is in the wrong and his opponents are in the right. There would be nothing strange in this; it would be as if two persons were to dispute about letters, one declaring that the word Socrates began with an S, the other that it began with an A, and the latter could gain the victory over the former.

  Eryxias disclaims the answer which is attributed to him.

  Eryxias glanced at the audience, laughing and blushing at once, as if he had had nothing to do with what had just been said, and replied,—No, indeed, Socrates, I never supposed that our arguments should be of a kind which would never convince any one of those here present or be of advantage to them. For what man of sense could ever be persuaded that the wisest and the richest are the same? The truth is that we are discussing the subject of riches, and my notion is that we should argue respecting the honest and dishonest means of acquiring them, and, generally, whether they are a good thing or a bad.

  The argument is renewed from a fresh point of view. Eryxias declares riches to be a good; Critias maintains that they are sometimes an evil.

  Very good, I said, and I am obliged to you for the hint: in future we will be more careful. But why do not you yourself, as you introduced the argument, and do not think that the former discussion touched the point at issue, tell us whether you consider riches to be a good or an evil?

  I am of opinion, he said, that they are a good. He was about to add something more, when Critias interrupted him:—Do you really suppose so, Eryxias?

  Certainly, replied Eryxias; I should be mad if I did not: and I do not fancy that you would find any one else of a contrary opinion.

  And I, retorted Critias, should say that there is no one whom I could not compel to admit that riches are bad for 396some men. But surely, if they were a good, they could not appear bad for any one?

  Socrates encourages the two disputants to follow up the argument.

  Here I interposed and said to them: If you two were having an argument about equitation and what was the best way of riding, supposing that I knew the art myself, I should try to bring you to an agreement. For I should be ashamed if I were present and did not do what I could to prevent your difference. And I should do the same if you were quarrelling about any other art and were likely, unless you agreed on the point in dispute, to part as enemies instead of as friends. But now, when we are contending about a thing of which the usefulness continues during the whole of life, and it makes an enormous difference whether we are to regard it as beneficial or not,—a thing, too, which is esteemed of the highest importance by the Hellenes:—(for parents, as soon as their children are, as they think, come to years of discretion, urge them to consider how wealth may be acquired, since by riches the value of a man is judged):—When, I say, we are thus in earnest, and you, who agree in other respects, fall to disputing about a matter of such moment, that is, about wealth, and not merely whether it is black or white, light or heavy, but whether it is a good or an evil, whereby, although you are now the dearest of friends and kinsmen, the most bitter hatred may arise betwixt you, I must hinder your dissension to the best of my power. If I could, I would tell you the truth, and so put an end to the dispute; but as I cannot do this, and each of you supposes that you can bring the other to an agreement, I am prepared, as far as my capacity admits, to help you in solving the question. Please, therefore, Critias, try to make us accept the doctrines which you yourself entertain.

  Crit.

  I should like to follow up the argument, and will ask Eryxias whether he thinks that there are just and unjust men?

  Eryx.

  Most decidedly.

  Crit.

  And does injustice seem to you an evil or a good?

  Eryx.

  An evil.

  Crit.

  Do you consider that he who bribes his neighbour’s wife and commits adultery with her, acts justly or unjustly, and this although both the state and the laws forbid?

  Eryx.

  Unjustly.

  Crit.

  Wealth may furnish the opportunity of crime.

  And if the wicked man has wealth and is willing to 397spend it, he will carry out his evil purposes? whereas he who is short of means cannot do what he fain would, and therefore does not sin? In such a case, surely, it is better that a person should not be wealthy, if his poverty prevents the accomplishment of his desires, and his desires are evil? Or, again, should you call sickness a good or an evil?

  Eryx.

  An evil.

  Crit.

  Well, and do you think that some men are intemperate?

  Eryx.

  Yes.

  Crit.

  Socrates, Eryxias, Critias, Erasistratus.

  Then, if it is better for his health that the intemperate man should refrain from meat and drink and other pleasant things, but he cannot owing to his intemperance, will it not also be better that he should be too poor to gratify his lust rather than that he should have a superabundance of means? For thus he will not be able to sin, although he desire never so much.

  Eryxias takes offence at Critias, whose argument, as Socrates pretends, is only the repetition of one which had been used by Prodicus of Ceos on the day before,

  Critias appeared to be arguing so admirably that Eryxias, if he had not been ashamed of the bystanders, would probably have got up and struck him. For he thought that he had been robbed of a great possession when it became obvious to him that he had been wrong in his former opinion about wealth. I observed his vexation, and feared that they would proceed to abuse and quarrelling: so I said,—I heard that very argument used in the Lyceum yesterday by a wise man, Prodicus of Ceos; but the audience thought that he was talking mere nonsense, and no one could be persuaded that he was speaking the truth. And when at last a certain talkative young gentleman came in, and, taking his seat, began to laugh and jeer at Prodicus, tormenting him and demanding an explanation of his argument, he gained the ear of the audience far more than Prodicus.

  Can you repeat the discourse to us? said Erasistratus.

  Soc.

  If I can only remember it, I will. The youth began by asking Prodicus, In what way did he think that riches were a good and in what an evil? Prodicus answered, as you did just now, that they were a good to good men and to those who knew in what way they should be employed, while to the bad and the ignorant they were an evil. The same is true, he went on to say, of all other things; men make them to be what they are themselves. The saying of Archilochus is true:—

  ‘Men’s thoughts correspond to the things which they meet with.’

  and had been refuted by an impertinent youth.Socrates.

  398Well, then, replied the youth, if any one makes me wise in that wisdom whereby good men become wise, he must also make everything else good to me. Not that he concerns himself at all with these other things, but he has converted my ignorance into wisdom. If, for example, a person teach me grammar or music, he will at the same time teach me all that relates to grammar or music, and so when he makes me good, he makes things good to me.

  Prodicus did not altogether agree: still he consented to what was said.

  And do you think, said the youth, that doing good things is like building a house,—the work of human agency; or do things remain what they were at first, good or bad, for all time?

  Prodicus began to suspect, I fancy, the direction which the argument was likely to take, and did not wish to be put down by a mere stripling before all those present:—(if they two had been alone, he would not have minded):—so he answered, cleverly enough: I think that doing good things is a work of human agency.

  And is virtue in your opinion, Prodicus, innate or acquired by instruction?

  The latter, said Prodicus.

  Then you would consider him a simpleton who supposed that he could obtain by praying to the Gods the knowledge of grammar or music or any other art, which he must either learn from another or find out for himself?

  Prodicus agreed to this also.

  And when you pray to the Gods that you may do well and receive good, you mean by your prayer nothing else than that you desire to become good and wise:—if, at least, things are good to the good and wise and evil to the evil. But in that case, if virtue is acquired by instruction, it would appear that you only pray to be taught what you do not know.

  Hereupon I said to Prodicus that it was no misfortune to him if he had been proved to be in error in supposing that the Gods immediately granted to us whatever we asked:—if, I added, whenever you go up to the Acropolis you earnestly entreat the Gods to grant you good things, although you know not whether they can yield your request, it is as though you went to the doors of the grammarian and begged him, although you had never made a study of the art, to give you a knowledge of grammar which would enable you forthwith to do the business of a grammarian.

  Socrates, Erasistratus.Prodicus is desired to leave the gymnasium because he is disturbing the minds of youth.

  While I was speaking, Prodicus was preparing to retaliate 399upon his youthful assailant, intending to employ the argument of which you have just made use; for he was annoyed to have it supposed that he offered a vain prayer to the Gods. But the master of the gymnasium came to him and begged him to leave because he was teaching the youths doctrines which were unsuited to them, and therefore bad for them.

  I have told you this because I want you to understand how men are circumstanced in regard to philosophy. Had Prodicus been present and said what you have said, the audience would have thought him raving, and he would have been ejected from the gymnasium. But you have argued so excellently well that you have not only persuaded your hearers, but have brought your opponent to an agreement. For just as in the law courts, if two witnesses testify to the same fact, one of whom seems to be an honest fellow and the other a rogue, the testimony of the rogue often has the contrary effect on the judges’ minds to what he intended, while the same evidence if given by the honest man at once strikes them as perfectly true. And probably the audience have something of the same feeling about yourself and Prodicus; they think him a Sophist and a braggart, and regard you as a gentleman of courtesy and worth. For they do not pay attention to the argument so much as to the character of the speaker.

  Socrates jesting professes to be in earnest.

  But truly, Socrates, said Erasistratus, though you may be joking, Critias does seem to me to be saying something which is of weight.

  Soc.

  I am in profound earnest, I assure you. But why, as you have begun your argument so prettily, do you not go on with the rest? There is still something lacking, now you have agreed that [wealth] is a good to some and an evil to others. It remains to enquire what constitutes wealth; for unless you know this, you cannot possibly come to an understanding as to whether it is a good or an evil. I am ready to assist you in the enquiry to the utmost of my power: but first let him who affirms that riches are a good, tell us what, in his opinion, is wealth.

  Eras.

  Indeed, Socrates, I have no notion about wealth beyond that which men commonly have. I suppose that wealth is a quantity of money1 ; and this, I imagine, would also be Critias’ definition.

  Soc.

  What is money? It is observed that different kinds of money pass current in different countries,—Carthage, Lacedaemon, Ethiopia, Scythia.

  Then now we have to consider, What is money? Or else later on we shall be found to differ about the question. For instance, the Carthaginians use money of this sort. Something which is about the size of a stater is tied up in a 400small piece of leather: what it is, no one knows but the makers. A seal is next set upon the leather, which then passes into circulation, and he who has the largest number of such pieces is esteemed the richest and best off. And yet if any one among us had a mass of such coins he would be no wealthier than if he had so many pebbles from the mountain. At Lacedaemon, again, they use iron by weight which has been rendered useless: and he who has the greatest mass of such iron is thought to be the richest, although elsewhere it has no value. In Ethiopia engraved stones are employed, of which a Lacedaemonian could make no use. Once more, among the Nomad Scythians a man who owned the house of Polytion would not be thought richer than one who possessed Mount Lycabettus among ourselves. And clearly those things cannot all be regarded as possessions; for in some cases the possessors would appear none the richer thereby: but, as I was saying, some one of them is thought in one place to be money, and the possessors of it are the wealthy, whereas in some other place it is not money, and the ownership of it does not confer wealth; just as the standard of morals varies, and what is honourable to some men is dishonourable to others. And if we wish to enquire why a house is valuable to us but not to the Scythians, or why the Carthaginians value leather which is worthless to us, or the Lacedaemonians find wealth in iron and we do not, can we not get an answer in some such way as this: Would an Athenian, who had a thousand talents weight of the stones which lie about in the Agora and which we do not employ for any purpose, be thought to be any the richer?

  Eras.

  He certainly would not appear so to me.

  Soc.

  But if he possessed a thousand talents weight of some precious stone, we should say that he was very rich?

  Eras.

  Of course.

  Soc.

  The reason is that the one is useless and the other useful?

  Eras.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  And in the same way among the Scythians a house has no value because they have no use for a house, nor would a Scythian set so much store on the finest house in the world as on a leather coat, because he could use the one and not the other. Or again, the Carthaginian coinage is not wealth in our eyes, for we could not employ it, as we can silver, to procure what we need, and therefore it is of no use to us.

  Eras.

  True.

  Soc.

  Wealth is useful, but other things are useful besides wealth.

  What is useful to us, then, is wealth, and what is useless to us is not wealth?

  But how do you mean, Socrates? said Eryxias, interrupting. 401Do we not employ in our intercourse with one another speech and violence (?) and various other things? These are useful and yet they are not wealth.

  Soc.

  Clearly we have not yet answered the question, What is wealth? That wealth must be useful, to be wealth at all,—thus much is acknowledged by every one. But what particular thing is wealth, if not all things? Let us pursue the argument in another way; and then we may perhaps find what we are seeking. What is the use of wealth, and for what purpose has the possession of riches been invented,—in the sense, I mean, in which drugs have been discovered for the cure of disease? Perhaps in this way we may throw some light on the question. It appears to be clear that whatever constitutes wealth must be useful, and that wealth is one class of useful things; and now we have to enquire, What is the use of those useful things which constitute wealth? For all things probably may be said to be useful which we use in production, just as all things which have life are animals, but there is a special kind of animal which we call ‘man.’ Now if any one were to ask us, What is that of which, if we were rid, we should not want medicine and the instruments of medicine, we might reply that this would be the case if disease were absent from our bodies and either never came to them at all or went away again as soon as it appeared; and we may therefore conclude that medicine is the science which is useful for getting rid of disease. But if we are further asked, What is that from which, if we were free, we should have no need of wealth? can we give an answer? If we have none, suppose that we restate the question thus:—If a man could live without food or drink, and yet suffer neither hunger nor thirst, would he want either money or anything else in order to supply his needs?

  Eryx.

  He would not.

  Soc.

  If the body had no wants or feelings there would be no need of money.

  And does not this apply in other cases? If we did not want for the service of the body the things of which we now stand in need, and heat and cold and the other bodily sensations were unperceived by us, there would be no use in this so-called wealth, if no one, that is, had any necessity for those things which now make us wish for wealth in order that we may satisfy the desires and needs of the body in respect of our various wants. And therefore if the possession of wealth is useful in ministering to our bodily wants, and bodily wants were unknown to us, we should not need wealth, and possibly there would be no such thing as wealth.

  Eryx.

  Clearly not.

  Soc.

  Then our conclusion is, as would appear, that wealth is what is useful to this end?

  Eryxias once more gave his assent, but the small argument considerably troubled him.

  Soc.

  And what is your opinion about another question:—Would 402you say that the same thing can be at one time useful and at another useless for the production of the same result?

  Eryx.

  I cannot say more than that if we require the same thing to produce the same result, then it seems to me to be useful; if not, not.

  Soc.

  Then if without the aid of fire we could make a brazen statue, we should not want fire for that purpose; and if we did not want it, it would be useless to us? And the argument applies equally in other cases.

  Eryx.

  Clearly.

  Soc.

  And therefore conditions which are not required for the existence of a thing are not useful for the production of it?

  Eryx.

  Of course not.

  Soc.

  And if without gold or silver or anything else which we do not use directly for the body in the way that we do food and drink and bedding and houses,—if without these we could satisfy the wants of the body, they would be of no use to us for that purpose?

  Eryx.

  They would not.

  Soc.

  They would no longer be regarded as wealth, because they are useless, whereas that would be wealth which enabled us to obtain what was useful to us?

  Eryx.

  O Socrates, you will never be able to persuade me that gold and silver and similar things are not wealth. But I am very strongly of opinion that things which are useless to us are not wealth, and that the money which is useful for this purpose is of the greatest use; not that these things are not useful towards life, if by them we can procure wealth.

  Soc.

  The arts too are wealth, for by them the needs of life are satisfied.

  And how would you answer another question? There are persons, are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus procure those things of which they stand in need?

  Eryx.

  There are.

  Soc.

  And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of gold and silver?

  Eryx.

  True.

  Soc.

  Then if they procure by this means what they want for the purposes of life, that art will be useful towards life? For do we not say that silver is useful because it enables us to supply our bodily needs?

  Eryx.

  We do.

  Soc.

  Then if these arts are reckoned among things useful, the arts are wealth for the same reason as gold and silver are, for, clearly, the possession of them gives wealth. Yet a little while ago we found it difficult to accept the argument which 403proved that the wisest are the wealthiest. But now there seems no escape from this conclusion. Suppose that we are asked, ‘Is a horse useful to everybody?’ will not our reply be, ‘No, but only to those who know how to use a horse?’

  Eryx.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And so, too, physic is not useful to every one, but only to him who knows how to use it?

  Eryx.

  Socrates, Eryxias, Critias.

  True.

  Soc.

  And the same is the case with everything else?

  Eryx.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  Then gold and silver and all the other elements which are supposed to make up wealth are only useful to the person who knows how to use them?

  Eryx.

  Exactly.

  Soc.

  And were we not saying before that it was the business of a good man and a gentleman to know where and how anything should be used?

  Eryx.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  The good only know how to use things.

  The good and gentle, therefore, will alone have profit from these things, supposing at least that they know how to use them. But if so, to them only will they seem to be wealth. It appears, however, that where a person is ignorant of riding, and has horses which are useless to him, if some one teaches him that art, he makes him also richer, for what was before useless has now become useful to him, and in giving him knowledge he has also conferred riches upon him.

  Eryx.

  That is the case.

  Soc.

  Yet I dare be sworn that Critias will not be moved a whit by the argument.

  Crit.

  No, by heaven, I should be a madman if I were. But why do you not finish the argument which proves that gold and silver and other things which seem to be wealth are not real wealth? For I have been exceedingly delighted to hear the discourses which you have just been holding.

  Soc.

  My argument, Critias (I said), appears to have given you the same kind of pleasure which you might have derived from some rhapsode’s recitation of Homer; for you do not believe a word of what has been said. But come now, give me an answer to this question. Are not certain things useful to the builder when he is building a house?

  Crit.

  They are.

  Soc.

  Socrates, Critias.

  And would you say that those things are useful which are employed in house building,—stones and bricks and beams and the like, and also the instruments with which the builder built the house, the beams and stones which they provided, and again the instruments by which these were obtained?

  Crit.

  It seems to me that they are all useful for building.

  Soc.

  And is it not true of every art, that not only the materials but the instruments by which we procure them and without which the work could not go on, are useful for that art?

  Crit.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  And further, the instruments by which the instruments 404are procured, and so on, going back from stage to stage ad infinitum,—are not all these, in your opinion, necessary in order to carry out the work?

  Crit.

  We may fairly suppose such to be the case.

  Soc.

  A sophism. Gold and silver would be useless if they were not needed to obtain food; and things cannot be at one time useless, at another time useful, in the same actions.

  And if a man has food and drink and clothes and the other things which are useful to the body, would he need gold or silver or any other means by which he could procure that which he now has?

  Crit.

  I do not think so.

  Soc.

  Then you consider that a man never wants any of these things for the use of the body?

  Crit.

  Certainly not.

  Soc.

  And if they appear useless to this end, ought they not always to appear useless? For we have already laid down the principle that things cannot be at one time useful and at another time not, in the same process.

  Crit.

  But in that respect your argument and mine are the same. For you maintain if they are useful to a certain end, they can never become useless; whereas I say that in order to accomplish some results bad things are needed, and good for others.

  Soc.

  But can a bad thing be used to carry out a good purpose?

  Crit.

  I should say not.

  Soc.

  And we call those actions good which a man does for the sake of virtue?

  Crit.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  But can a man learn any kind of knowledge which is imparted by word of mouth if he is wholly deprived of the sense of hearing?

  Crit.

  Certainly not, I think.

  Soc.

  And will not hearing be useful for virtue, if virtue is taught by hearing and we use the sense of hearing in giving instruction?

  Crit.

  Yes.

  Soc.

  There are indirect means towards ends.

  And since medicine frees the sick man from his disease, that art too may sometimes appear useful in the acquisition of virtue, e. g. when hearing is procured by the aid of medicine.

  Crit.

  Very likely.

  Soc.

  But if, again, we obtain by wealth the aid of medicine, shall we not regard wealth as useful for virtue?

  Crit.

  True.

  Soc.

  And also the instruments by which wealth is procured?

  Crit.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  Wealth may be gained discreditably, but spent in the acquisition of virtue.

  Then you think that a man may gain wealth by bad and disgraceful means, and, having obtained the aid of medicine which enables him to acquire the power of hearing, may use that very faculty for the acquisition of virtue?

  Crit.

  Yes, I do.

  Soc.

  But can that which is evil be useful for virtue?

  Crit.

  No.

  Soc.

  It is not therefore necessary that the means by which we obtain what is useful for a certain object should always be useful for the same object: for it seems that bad actions may sometimes serve good purposes? The matter will be still 405plainer if we look at it in this way:—If things are useful towards the several ends for which they exist, which ends would not come into existence without them, how would you regard them? Can ignorance, for instance, be useful for knowledge, or disease for health, or vice for virtue?

  Crit.

  Never.

  Soc.

  And yet we have already agreed—have we not?—that there can be no knowledge where there has not previously been ignorance, nor health where there has not been disease, nor virtue where there has not been vice?

  Crit.

  Difference between causes and antecedents.

  I think that we have.

  Soc.

  But then it would seem that the antecedents without which a thing cannot exist are not necessarily useful to it. Otherwise ignorance would appear useful for knowledge, disease for health, and vice for virtue.

  Critias still showed great reluctance to accept any argument which went to prove that all these things were useless. I saw that it was as difficult to persuade him as (according to the proverb) it is to boil a stone, so I said: Let us bid ‘good-bye’ to the discussion, since we cannot agree whether these things are useful and a part of wealth or not. But what shall we say to another question: Which is the happier and better man,—he who requires the greatest quantity of necessaries for body and diet, or he who requires only the fewest and least? The answer will perhaps become more obvious if we suppose some one, comparing the man himself at different times, to consider whether his condition is better when he is sick or when he is well?

  Crit.

  That is not a question which needs much consideration.

  Soc.

  Health is a better condition than disease; and it needs less.

  Probably, I said, every one can understand that health is a better condition than disease. But when have we the greatest and the most various needs, when we are sick or when we are well?

  Crit.

  When we are sick.

  Soc.

  And when we are in the worst state we have the greatest and most especial need and desire of bodily pleasures?

  Crit.

  True.

  Soc.

  So he is best off who has fewest desires.

  And seeing that a man is best off when he is least in need of such things, does not the same reasoning apply to the case of any two persons, of whom one has many and great wants and desires, and the other few and moderate? For instance, some men are gamblers, some drunkards, and some gluttons: and gambling and the love of drink and greediness are all desires?

  Crit.

  Certainly.

  Soc.

  But desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none or very slight ones?

  Crit.

  406Certainly I consider that those who have such wants are bad, and that the greater their wants the worse they are.

  Soc.

  And do we think it possible that a thing should be useful for a purpose unless we have need of it for that purpose?

  Crit.

  No.

  Soc.

  Then if these things are useful for supplying the needs of the body, we must want them for that purpose?

  Crit.

  That is my opinion.

  Soc.

  And he to whom the greatest number of things are useful for his purpose, will also want the greatest number of means of accomplishing it, supposing that we necessarily feel the want of all useful things?

  Crit.

  It seems so.

  Soc.

  The argument proves then that he who has great riches has likewise need of many things for the supply of the wants of the body; for wealth appears useful towards that end. And the richest must be in the worst condition, since they seem to be most in want of such things.

  [1 ]Butler’s Analogy.

  [1 ]Cp. Arist. Pol. i. 13, § 10.

  [2 ]Cp. Theaet. 146 D.

  [1 ]Cp. Aristot. Post. Anal. I. i. 6.

  [1 ]Or, whether a certain area is capable of being inscribed as a triangle in a certain circle.

  [1 ]Or, whether a certain area is capable of being inscribed as a triangle in a certain circle.

  [2 ]Or, when you apply it to the given line, i. e. the diameter of the circle (αὐτον̂).

  [2 ]Or, when you apply it to the given line, i. e. the diameter of the circle (αὐτον̂).

  [3 ]Or, similar to the area so applied.

  [3 ]Or, similar to the area so applied.

  [1 ]Theog. 33 ff.

  [2 ]Theog. 435 ff.

  [1 ]Cp. Euthyphro 11 B.

  [1 ]Cp. 1 Alcib. 111 foll.

  [1 ]Or, I am certain that I am right in taking this course.

  [1 ]Aristoph., Clouds, 225 ff.

  [1 ]Probably in allusion to Aristophanes who caricatured, and to Euripides who borrowed the notions of Anaxagoras, as well as to other dramatic poets.

  [1 ]Homer, Il. ix. 363.

  [1 ]Cp. Apol. 37 C, D.

  [1 ]Cp. Apol. 30 C.

  [1 ]e.g. cp. Rep. i. 335 E.

  [1 ]Cp. Phaedr. 230 C.

  [2 ]Cp. Apol. 37 D.

  [1 ]But cp. Rep. x. 611 A.

  [2 ]Cp. Meno 83 ff.

  [1 ]Cp. Apol. 40 E.

  [1 ]Compare Milton, Comus, 463 foll.:—

  • ‘But when lust,
  • By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
  • But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
  • Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
  • The soul grows clotted by contagion,
  • Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose,
  • The divine property of her first being.
  • Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
  • Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
  • Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
  • As loath to leave the body that it lov’d,
  • And linked itself by carnal sensuality
  • To a degenerate and degraded state.’

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. x. 619 C.

  [1 ]Cp. Rev., esp. c. xxi. v. 18 ff.

  [1 ]Compare the following: ‘Now, and for us, it is a time to Hellenize and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraized too much and have overvalued doing. But the habits and discipline received from Hebraism remain for our race an eternal possession. And as humanity is constituted, one must never assign the second rank to-day without being ready to restore them to the first to-morrow.’ Sir William W. Hunter, Preface to Orissa.

  [1 ]Omitting the words τὸν ῥητορικὸν δίκαιον ε[Editor: illegible character]ναι and δὲ in next clause.

  [1 ]There is an untranslatable play on the name ‘Polus,’ which means ‘a colt.’

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. ix. 579, 580.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. ii. 359.

  [1 ]Fragm. Incert. 151 (Böckh).

  [2 ]Antiope, fragm. 20 (Dindorf).

  [1 ]Cp. what is said of Gorgias by Callicles at p. 482.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. i. 348.

  [2 ]Cp. Phaedr. 250 C.

  [3 ]An untranslateable pun,—διὰ τὸ πιθανόν τε καὶ πιστικὸν ὠνόμασε πίθον.

  [1 ]Or, ‘I am in profound earnest.’

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. iv. 436.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. iii. 392 foll.

  [1 ]Cp. Laws vi. 752 A.

  [1 ]p. 485.

  [1 ]Cp. Republic, 9. 578 ff.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. iii. 407 E.

  [1 ]Cp. Symp. 216: 1 Alcib. 135.

  [2 ]Reading with the majority of MSS. πράξοντες.

  [1 ]Cp. Protag. 328.

  [1 ]Il. xv. 187. foll.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. x. 615 E.

  [1 ]Odyss. xi. 569.

  [1 ]Cp. Gorgias 448 A.

  [1 ]Cp. Gorgias 499, 505; Rep. vi. 487.

  [1 ]Cp. Symp. 213 C.

  [2 ]Cp. Symp. 217 E ff.

  [1 ]Cp. Symp. 181 E.

  [1 ]About £406.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. i. 332 foll.

  [1 ]Cp. Arist. Pol. vii. 1. § 5.

  [1 ]Cp. Arist. Pol. i. 5. § 7.

  [1 ]i. 9, 30; iii. 14, 11.

  [1 ]Thucyd. ii. 35–46.

  [1 ]Reading οὐ κεɩ̂νται, or taking οὐκ before ἀναιρεθέντες with κεɩ̂νται.

  [1 ]Cp. Aristotle, Pol. v. 10, § 17.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. x. 619 C.

  [2 ]Hom. Odyss. i. 32.

  [3 ]The author of these lines, which are probably of Pythagorean origin, is unknown. They are found also in the Anthology (Anth. Pal. 10. 108).

  [1 ]These words are omitted in several MSS.

  [1 ]These words are omitted in several MSS.

  [2 ]The reading is here uncertain.

  [2 ]The reading is here uncertain.

  [1 ]Some words appear to have dropped out here.

  [1 ]Some words appear to have dropped out here.

  [1 ]Euripides, Antiope, fr. 20 (Dindorf).

  [1 ]Or, reading πολυμάθειαν, ‘abundant learning.’

  [2 ]A fragment from the pseudo-Homeric poem, ‘Margites.’

  [1 ]The Homeric word μάργος is said to be here employed in allusion to the quotation from the ‘Margites’ which Socrates has just made; but it is not used in the sense which it has in Homer.

  [1 ]Cp. Rep. vi. 487.

  [1 ]Cp. Arist. Pol. i. 9. §§ 10, 14.

• Back to Top

  4: Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Ethics [1796]

  Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Ethics by Immanuel Kant, trans. J.W. Semple, ed. with Iintroduction by Rev. Henry Calderwood (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1886) (3rd edition).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1443 on 2009-03-30

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  LIST OF WORKS COMPRISING KANT’S SYSTEM.

  I.Critik der reinen Vernunft; that is, Inquiry into the Reach and Extent of the à priori Operations of the Human Understanding: first published at Riga in 1781.

  II. In 1783 Kant published a defence of the Critik, entitled Metaphysical Prolegomena. At the same time the first part of the Ethics appeared, under the title of Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; i.e., Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Ethics. Both works have been translated into English: the first by Mr. Richardson, in 1819; the second by an anonymous writer, who published two miscellaneous volumes in 1799, under the title of Kant’s Essays. The work of Mr. Richardson is to be had at any bookseller’s. The Essays are apparently rendered by a foreigner, and printed abroad, although graced with a London title-page. The only copy of this Miscellany I have been ever able to procure, is the copy in the Advocates’ Library. No translation of any other part of Kant’s Philosophy has hitherto been attempted in this country.

  III. In 1786, The Metaphysic of Physics. This expounds the metaphysical foundations of natural philosophy.

  IV. In 1788, Critik der Praktischen Vernunft; that is, Inquiry into the à priori Functions and Operations of the Will, or, as we might say, a Dissertation on the Active and Moral Powers of Man. This is the superstructure reared upon the groundwork. It treats of the Causality and Spring of the Will, and of the Summum Bonum. Three chapters in this work will be found in the following sheets, under the title of “Inquiry into the à priori Operations of the Will.”

  V.Critik der Urtheilskraft, at Berlin, in 1790; which is a Dissertation on the Emotions of Beauty and Sublimity, and on the Adaptation of the Material Universe to itself, and to the Logical Functions of the Human Intellect.

  VI. In 1796-97 there appeared the Metaphysic of Ethics—a work which bears evident traces of the great age of the author. He died seven years afterwards, at the advanced age of eighty. In translating this book, I have derived great assistance from the Latin translation of König, 1799, and from the French version of M. Tissot, 1833.

  These six works constitute all that, in strict propriety of speech, can be called Kant’s System of Philosophy.

  In intimate connection with this system, however, stand—

  VII. His Theory of Religion. Religion innerhalb der Gränzen der reinen Vernunft, Königsberg, 1793.

  VIII.Der Streit der Facultäten, Königsberg, 1798.

  These two works contain the germ of the Rationalism of Germany.

  Lastly—

  IX.Anthropologie, 1799.

  The extreme abstruseness and difficulty of Kant’s speculations afforded ample room for the ingenuity of commentators, who with various success have alternately elucidated and darkened the text. Some comments are mere catchpennies and barefaced impositions on the public. Others may be consulted with great advantage. The best expositions are those of Beck, Kiesewetter, and Buhle.1 To their labours I have been much indebted in preparing the Synopsis of the Critik prefixed to this version of the Ethic. I have taken from them, without scruple, whatever seemed needful for my purpose.—Tr.

  PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

  A Third Edition of Kant’s Metaphysic of Ethics being called for within two years from the publication of the former, opportunity has been taken to make the book increasingly suitable for students.

  Mr. Semple’s translation is given as before, with only slight verbal alterations, his lengthy Introduction and his Appendix being withheld as formerly.

  The brief Introduction here supplied has been recast, to admit of the insertion of an outline of the intellectual system of Kant, and also of a Plan of Study. Other parts have been abbreviated to secure space for these additions.

  Throughout the text, leading terms have been printed in capitals, and also the more important propositions.

  Finally, a series of notes has been given, to facilitate the work of the student in instituting a careful comparison of passages.

  H. C.

  • University of Edinburgh,

  16th October 1871.

  INTRODUCTION.

  THE special value of the writings of Kant is so fully acknowledged, that there is no need to insist upon it here. In the literature of Moral Philosophy there is certainly nothing more important than the contributions which Kant has made to Ethical Science. Even those who hold a Utilitarian theory of morals, must wish to see the works of the great upholder of Intuitionalism placed within the reach of students. This may be readily believed when a leading representative, Mr. John S. Mill, allows that Kant “has become one of the turning-points in the history of Philosophy.”

  The chief significance of the ethical writings of Kant is found in the prominence given to these two positions:—the à priori source of Moral Law,—and Freedom of Will, as essential to morality.

  In making such a work as the present accessible to students, a few introductory observations, explanatory of Kant’s system, may be desirable, for the guidance of those who are just beginning the study of Moral Philosophy.

  I.

  STRUCTURE OF KANT’S PHILOSOPHY.

  Kant’s Philosophy is known as critical and transcendental. The former designation has reference to the method; the latter applies to the matter or materials of the system. As he insists that philosophy must proceed by a critique of the mental powers, the result is a critical philosophy; and as, in prosecuting this critique, he finds everywhere certain elements superior to experience which constitute the main features of his philosophy, it is denominated transcendental. Thus, in the terminology of Kant, the transcendental is that which transcends experience, being à priori in origin, in contrast to empirical.

  When from these general features we pass to a more minute examination of the philosophic system, there is a marked distinction between the Intellectual, or theoretic part, and the Moral, or practical part. The system is not a unity, which must be wholly accepted or entirely rejected. If one part of the system fall, the whole is not thereby laid in ruins. In this will be found the permanent gain to philosophy which attends upon the use of the critical method, in contrast to the dialectic. The speculative or theoretic part of Kant’s philosophy, full as it is of the most valuable contributions to mental philosophy, ends in a negative result. The moral or practical part takes a form altogether different, and ends in high positive results, affording to the Kantian system the only deliverance from scepticism. Nothing more than a bare outline of the intellectual system can be given here.

  The main feature of Kant’s philosophy is the affirmation of the presence of an à priori element in all knowledge. He holds that while all knowledge begins with experience, it always includes what is superior to experience. Knowledge thus involves two elements, the one empirical, the other pure or à priori,—the one the matter, the other the form. Knowledge is obtained through the senses, through the understanding, or through the reason; and there is an à priori element connected with all the three. The product of the sensory is intuition; of the understanding, conception; of the reason, idea. The à priori form belonging to the senses are the intuitions of space and time; the à priori element belonging to the understanding consists in pure conceptions, which are the categories; and highest of all are the ideas of pure reason. Beginning, then, with the lowest, the senses give us empirical knowledge, but this they do only under the à priori forms of time and space provided by the intellect. Rising above this, we come to judgments, among which there is an essential distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments. Analytic judgments may be described as identical judgments, gained by explication or analysis of a knowledge already possessed, as all body is extended, the notion body clearly involving the notion extended. Synthetical judgments are such as add to our knowledge, and are either à posteriori or à priori, that is to say, they are obtained either from a wider experience, e.g., some body is heavy, or from the pure reason, e.g., the law of causality. In all this it is apparent to what admirable purpose Kant has employed the critical method.

  When, however, we consider the bearing of this theory on the grand question as to the certainty of our knowledge, the negative and sceptical result is painfully evident. Holding that knowledge cannot be obtained except under the forms which reason supplies, Kant accounts this as proving that knowledge is only what appears to us as beings subjected to these conditions, that is, knowledge is only of the phenomenal. What we regard as objects of our experience have no existence apart from our experience. Consequently, we can have no knowledge of things-in-themselves (noumena). Even the à priori discoveries of pure reason are only regulative of thought, not assertive of reality. Essential as they are for the exercise of human intellect, they lead into a series of paralogisms and antinomies from which there is no escape. These are the avowed negative results of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

  From this Critique, Kant passes to another, the Critique of Practical Reason, by means of which he reaches a certainty unattained in the earlier. Practical Reason reveals the Moral Law as a categorical imperative, discovering the dignity of man as a Person. From this Categorical Imperative, by transcendental deduction, and not as a thing known in conscious ness, he reaches the Freedom of the Will. In this relation it is discovered that man is both phenomenon and noumenon,—he belongs at once to the sensible state, and to the supersensible or cogitable,—in the former he is necessitated, in the latter he is free,—a moral being,—a personality. In all this we have a philosophy rich in critical results, and full of the most suggestive thought, though not cleared of the evil influence of those negative elements which cling to the preceding intellectual system. Into this Practical Philosophy of Kant, the student is here introduced.

  II.

  CHARACTER OF KANT’S ETHICAL WRITINGS.

  The tone of Kant’s ethical writings is of the loftiest kind. A perusal of the present volume may explain how it should have happened, that in his own country he was charged with writing in a manner too abstruse, and at the same time developing a system of morals too lofty and stern. The general character of his Moral Philosophy may be inferred from such affirmations as these:—A good will is the only thing which is absolutely and altogether good. Nothing is dutifully done which is not done under a regard to duty. The moral law is a categorical imperative, leaving no option to the will. The moral law has no exceptions. The moral law makes self-esteem dependent on morality; it elevates our worth as intelligences, and yet derogates infinitely from self-conceit, inevitably humbling every man.

  The fundamental positions of Kant’s Moral Philosophy may be stated in these three propositions:—First, Goodness of Will is the only absolute good on earth; Second, Practical Reason, as the revealer of moral law, is the governor of will to constitute it good; Third, Will is essentially free in order to goodness. From these positions it will be seen, that with Kant freedom of will is the grand essential for morality.

  III.

  CONTENTS OF THE PRESENT VOLUME.

  The work now reprinted under the name of Metaphysic of Ethics was not published by Kant in the form in which the translator presented it to English readers. The first part, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Ethics (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Sämmtliche Werke, Rosencranz, Th. viii.), was published in 1785. The second portion of the book, that on the Will, constitutes part of the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft, Sämmtliche Werke, Rosencranz, Th. viii.), published in 1788. The third part is the Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Jurisprudence (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre, S. W. Rosencranz, Th. ix.) published in 1797. The last portion is the Metaphysical Elements of the Doctrine of Virtue (Metaphysische Anfansgründe der Tugundlehre, S. W. Rosencranz, Th. ix.), also published in 1797.

  As a consequence of gathering into one volume portions of the writings of Kant, published so far apart from each other, there will be found at times a repetition of arguments and doctrines. This, which is apt to be disagreeable to a mere reader, will not prove unsatisfactory to students who wish to compare different statements made by the same author on the same questions.

  The translation is reprinted as it at first appeared, with the exception of slight verbal alterations.

  IV.

  KANT’S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

  The position of Kant in the history of philosophy may be briefly indicated.

  In the seventeenth century Hobbes had reduced morality to political expediency, and Locke, despite the valuable labours of Descartes, regarded all knowledge as empirical. On the other hand, Malebranche, stimulated by the writings of Descartes, was developing a higher philosophy, in which work he was followed by Leibnitz, who rejected the philosophy of Locke. The systems of Malebranche and Leibnitz were, however, burdened with hypotheses which ensured their downfall.

  In the early part of the eighteenth century the philosophy of Locke was triumphant in Britain. Condillac was promulgating the same philosophy in France; while Leibnitz, under serious and self-created difficulties, was supporting in Germany a philosophy of a different type. In Britain, Shaftesbury, Butler, and Hutcheson maintained a Moral Philosophy based on a foundation antagonistic to the psychology of Locke. But the writings of these philosophers contained little more than a protest from the ethical side of mental science, against the results of Locke’s system. Then it was that Hume appeared to apply sceptical tests to the popular philosophy. Hume’s success occasioned temporary dismay. Scepticism proved potent to raze the Sensational Philosophy to its foundations. Occasioning thus, however, a demand for something more durable, it prepared the way for the most important contributions to mental science of which recent times can boast. Reid set himself in a plain, common-sense way to meet the claim. With philosophical caution, high ability, and much sagacity, to which the criticisms of Kant hardly do justice, he performed his task, though within a limited area, and in a manner singularly unsystematic. Kant, according to his own express acknowledgment, was awakened from dogmatic slumber by Hume’s criticism of the common philosophic faith. Thus awakened, he gave himself to profound thought, the results of which were poured from the press with amazing rapidity. In a series of volumes, wonderful for their rigidly philosophic style, and far-reaching insight, Kant has given us at once more to be rejected, and more to be retained, both in method and in doctrine, than any other thinker of modern times.

  In the line of antagonism to a philosophy based exclusively on experience, there have followed, Stewart, Hamilton, and Cousin,—Stewart expounding and amplifying the teaching of Reid; Hamilton blending the doctrines of Reid and Kant, there by complicating the discussion, as by independent research he has cleared it; Cousin supporting Reid, and at one time criticising, at another time upholding, both Kant and Hamilton. In the line taken by Kant in his speculative writings as to the relation of the subjective and objective, and specially as to the absolute, there have followed him in Germany, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The theories of these philosophers come directly and visibly as developments out of the speculative philosophy of Kant. In these successive theories, as I venture to think, philosophy runs itself out, by running up to abstractions in the effort to attain a philosophy of real existence. Germany, in order to make a fresh start in philosophy, must return upon the way by which she has recently advanced, and abandon the dialectic method of Hegel, notwithstanding the splendid combinations which the Hegelian Logic presents. From Hegel, we must, I think, still return upon Kant, seeking fresh hope for Philosophy in a continued use of the critical method.

  V.

  QUESTIONS SUGGESTED BY THE WRITINGS OF KANT.

  The leading questions which the student of Kant’s works must endeavour to answer are these:—How far has Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, been successful in seeking a philosophy capable of resisting the assaults of scepticism? In the search for a Moral Philosophy, how far has he escaped the negative result of his intellectual system? Is Practical Reason not also Pure Reason; and if it be, how does the ethical theory of Kant stand related to the speculative? (v. pp. 130-132.) If Freedom of Will is by Kant set in its proper place in Moral Philosophy, is the doctrine legitimately established by him? And, as fundamental to all, what is the true doctrine of Consciousness? Such questions as these remain to be answered by the student, who may set to work on the writings of Kant, with the assurance of being amply repaid for all the labour required in subjecting them to rigid scrutiny.

  VI.

  PLAN OF STUDY FOR THIS VOLUME.

  For explanation of terms, and general guidance towards an accurate understanding of the author, the student may turn first to the Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of the Doctrine of Virtue, from page 158 to page 176; and, in conjunction with this, to the Prerequisites of a Moral Nature, from page 215 to page 220. In the last-named passage, special attention should be given to the explanation of the nature of Moral Sense and of Conscience.

  After these preliminary portions have been taken, the main points in the theoretic part of the work are the Categorical Imperative, or the Moral Law; and the Freedom of the Will, as the essential feature of a moral nature. These are to be studied as developed first in the Groundwork, Book I.; next in the extract from the Critique of Practical Reason, Book II.; and lastly, in the Metaphysical Elements of the Doctrine of Virtue, Book IV., 193-231. These should be taken successively in the order named; and, as they were published at different dates, it will be of consequence to compare carefully the statements bearing on the leading features of the theory.

  After these parts, with the addition of the portion treating of Law and Jurisprudence, the more simple and popular division of the book, dealing with Applied Ethics, under the heads Elementology and Methodology, will be found very valuable, not in only itself, but as throwing fresh light on the more abstruse theoretical dissertations.

  H. C.

  BOOK I.

  GROUNDWORK OF THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.1

  CHAPTER I.

  TRANSIT FROM THE COMMON POPULAR NOTIONS OF MORALITY TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL.

  THERE is nothing in the world which can be termed absolutely and altogether good, a good will alone excepted. Intellectual endowments, wit, and extent of fancy, as also courage, determination, and constancy in adhering to purposes once formed, are undeniably good in many points of view; but they are so far from being absolutely good, that they are qualities capable of being rendered bad and hurtful, when the will, under whose control they stand, is not itself absolutely good. With the bounties of fortune it is no otherwise: power, wealth, honours, even health, and those various elements which go to constitute what is called happiness, are occasionally seen to fill the mind with arrogance, and to beget a lordly and assuming spirit, when there is not a good will to control their influence, and to subordinate them, by stable maxims of conduct, to the final scope and end of reasonable agents. Nay, so paramount is the value of a good will, that it ought not to escape without notice, that an impartial spectator cannot be expected to share any emotion of delight from contemplating the uninterrupted prosperity of a being whom no trait of a good will adorns. And thus it would appear, that reason being judge, a good will constitutes a prior condition, without which no one is deemed worthy to be happy.

  There are qualities which greatly aid and strengthen a good will; but they have not any inward worth of their own, and will be found always to presuppose a good will, which limits the praise they deservedly carry, and prevents us from regarding them as absolutely and in every respect good. Temperance, self-command, and calm consideration are not only good for many things, but even seem to compose part of the worth of personal character. There is, however, much awanting to enable us to designate them altogether good, notwithstanding the encomiums passed upon them by the ancients. For, apart from the maxims of a good will, they may be perverted; and a calm, resolute, calculating villain is rendered at once more dangerous and more detestable by possessing such qualities.

  1st,A good will is esteemed to be so, not by the effects which it produces, nor by its fitness for accomplishing any given end, but by its mere good volition,i.e.,it is good in itself; and is therefore to be prized incomparably higher for its own sake, than anything whatsoever which can be produced at the call of appetite or inclination. Even if it should happen that, owing to an unhappy conjuncture of events, this good will were deprived of power to execute its benign intent, still this good will (by which is not meant a wish) would, like a diamond, shine in itself, and by virtue of its native lustre. Utility or uselessness could neither enhance nor prejudice this internal splendour: they resemble the setting of a gem, whereby the brilliant is more easily taken in the hand, and offered to the attention of those not otherwise judges, but which would not be required by any skilled lapidary to enable him to form his opinion of its worth.

  Still this idea of an absolutely good will, and the statement just advanced of its unconditioned worth, quite irrespective of any considerations of its expediency or conduciveness to use, startles the mind a little, and gives birth to the suspicion that these opinions may be founded only on some fantastic conceit; and that we mistake the end proposed by nature, when we imagine that reason is given to man as the governor of his will,* by its sway to constitute it altogether good.

  To make this matter as clear as possible, let it be remembered that it is a fundamental position in all philosophy, that no means are employed except those only most appropriate and conducive to the end and aim proposed. If, then, the final aim of nature in the constitution of man (i.e., a being endowed with intelligence and will) had been merely his general welfare and felicity, then we must hold her to have taken very bad steps indeed in selecting reason for the conduct of his life; for the whole rule and line of action necessary to procure happiness would have been more securely gained by instinct than we observe it to be by reason. And should her favoured creature have received reason over and above, and in superaddition to its instincts, such gift could only have answered the purpose of enabling it to observe, admire, and feel grateful for the fortunate arrangement and disposition of the parts of its system, but never of subjecting the appetitive faculties to the weak and uncertain guidance of the contemplative. In a single word, nature would have taken care to guard against reason’s straying into any practical department, and would have prevented it from daring with its scanty insights, to project any schemes of happiness, and to sketch plans for attaining them. Both end and means behoved, on this supposition, to have been determined exclusively by nature, and to have been intrusted to instinctive impulses implanted by herself.

  So far is this, however, from what is in fact observed, that the more a man of refined and cultivated mind addicts himself to the enjoyment of life and his own studied gratification, the farther he is observed to depart from true contentment; and this holds true to so great an extent, that some have acknowledged they felt a certain hatred of reason, because they could not conceal from themselves, that upon a deliberate calculation of the advantages arising from the most exquisite luxuries, not of the sensory merely, but likewise of the understanding (for in many cases science is no more than an intellectual luxury), they had rather increased their sources of uneasiness than really made progress in satisfactory enjoyment, and felt inclined rather to envy than think lightly of those inferior conditions of life, where man comes nearer to the tutelage of instinct, and is not much embarrassed by suggestions of reason as to what ought to be pursued or avoided,—a circumstance furnishing us with a key to explain the sentiments of those who state at zero the pretences of reason to afford satisfaction and enjoyment, and enabling us to understand that they do so, not out of spite or ingratitude towards the benign Governor of the world, but that there lies at the bottom of so rigid and severe a reckoning, the idea of a far higher and nobler end aimed at in man’s existence; and that this it is, not happiness, for which reason is bestowed, and in exchange for which all private ends are to be renounced.

  For, since Reason is insufficient to guide the Will so as to obtain adequate objects of enjoyment and the satisfaction of all our wants, and innate instinct would have reached this end more effectually, and yet Reason2 is bestowed on man as a practical faculty of action, i.e., such a faculty as influences his will and choice, it remains that the true end for which reason is implanted, is to produce a will good, not as a mean toward some ulterior end, but good in itself.* This will is to be considered, not the only and whole good, but as the highest good, and the condition limiting every other good, even happiness; and in this case it quite coincides with the intentions of nature, that a high cultivation of reason should fail in producing happiness, this last being under the condition, i.e., subordinated to the production, of the first, viz., a good will, which is the absolute and unconditional scope and end of man; and yet, that in so failing, there should be no inconsistency in the general plan of nature, because reason, recognising its destined use to consist in the foundation of a good will, is only susceptible of a peculiar satisfaction, viz., the satisfaction resulting from the attainment of a final end, given alone by reason, and given independently and without respect to the objects proposed by inclination. In order to explain the conception of a good will, so highly to be prized in and for itself (and it is a notion common to the most uncultivated understanding), which it is alone that makes actions of any worth, we shall analyse the notion duty;—a notion comprehending under it that of a good will, considered, however, as affected by certain inward hindrances. But these last, so far from obscuring the radical goodness of the volition, render it more conspicuous by the contrast.

  In proceeding to examine the cognate notion Duty, I omit all actions confessedly at variance with it, how expedient soever, and useful, and conducive to this or that end; for, with regard to them, no question can be made, whether they have been performed out of duty, it being already admitted that they collide with it. I also leave out of this investigation actions which are in accordance with duty, but are performed from some by-views or oblique incentives of appetite and inclination: the difference cannot be overlooked when an action is performed upon motives of private interest, and when upon a disinterested principle of duty; but the difference is not so easily detected when an action is in harmony with the requirements of duty, and the agent is likewise at the same time strongly biassed by the constitution of his nature to its performance. Thus it is consonant to duty that a merchant do not overcharge his customers; and wherever trade flourishes, every prudent trader has one fixed price, and a child can buy as cheaply as any other person. In this way the public are honestly dealt by; but that does not entitle us to hold that the trader so acted out of duty, and from maxims of honesty,—his own private advantage called for this line of conduct; and it were too much to suppose that he was so charitable as to deal fairly with all comers out of pure benevolence: in which case his conduct resulted neither from a principle of duty, nor from affection towards his customers, but from self-love and a view to his own advantage.

  Again, to preserve one’s life is a duty; and independently of this, every man is, by the constitution of his system, strongly inclined to do so; and upon this very account, that anxious care shown by most men for their own safety is void of any internal worth; and the maxim from which such care arises is destitute of any moral import (i.e., has no ethic content). Men in so far preserve their lives conformably to what is duty, but they do it not because it is so; whereas, when distress and secret sorrow deprive a man of all relish for life, and the sufferer, strong in soul, and rather indignant at his destiny than dejected or timorous, would fain seek death, and yet eschews it, neither biassed by inclination nor by fear, but swayed by duty only, then his maxim of conduct possesses genuine ethic content. To be beneficent when in one’s power is a duty; and besides this, some few are so sympathetically constituted, that they, apart from any motives of vanity or self-interest, take a serene pleasure in spreading joy around them, and find a reflex delight in that satisfaction which they observe to spring from their kindness. I maintain, however, that in such a case the action, how lovely soever, and outwardly coincident with the call of duty, is entirely devoid of true moral worth, and rises no higher than actions founded on other affections, e.g., a thirst for glory, which, happening to concur with public advantage and a man’s own duty, entitles certainly to praise and high encouragement, but not to ethic admiration. For the inward maxims of the man are void of ethical content, viz., the inward cast and bent of the volition to act and to perform these, not from inclination, but from duty only. Again, to take a further case, let us suppose the mind of some one clouded by sorrow, so as to extinguish sympathy,—and that though it still remained in his power to assist others, yet that he were not moved by the consideration of foreign distress, his mind being wholly occupied by his own,—and that in this condition he, with no appetite as an incentive, should rouse himself from this insensibility, and act beneficently purely out of duty,—then would such action have real moral worth; and yet, further, had nature given this or that man little of sympathy in his temperament, leaving him callous to the miseries of others, but instead endowed him with force of mind to support his own sorrows, and so induced him to consider himself entitled to presuppose the same qualities in others, would it not be possible for such a man to give himself a far higher worth than that of mere good nature? Certainly it would; for just at this point all worth of character begins which is moral and the highest, viz., to act beneficently, irrespective of inclination, because it is a duty.

  To secure one’s own happiness is indirectly a duty; for dissatisfaction with one’s lot, and exposure to want and penury, might easily become occasions of temptation to overstep the limits prescribed by duty; but, prior to and apart from all considerations of duty, mankind have a strong and powerful appetency to their own happiness (happiness being in fact the gratification of all the appetites whatsoever), only the access to this happiness is so rugged and toilsome, that in passing along it, many appetites, with their gratifications, have to be surrendered; and the sum total of the gratification of all the appetites called happiness is a notion so vague and indeterminate, that we cannot wonder how one definite and given appetite should, at such time as its inebriate gratification is possible, entirely outweigh a faint conception (of happiness) only obscurely depicted in the mind. Hence we understand why a patient with gout chooses to satiate his appetite, and then to suffer as he best can; for in his general estimate the present enjoyment appears equal to his expectation (perhaps groundless) of some general happiness called health. But even in such a case as this, where the bent of inclination does not excite to secure happiness as consisting mainly in health, still the command of reason remains to promote one’s own health, not because man likes it, but because it is his duty; in which last case alone his actions have any moral worth.

  It is thus, without all question, that we are to understand those passages of Scripture where it is ordained that we love our neighbour, even our enemy; for, as an affection, love cannot be commanded or enforced, but to act kindly from a principle of duty can, not only where there is no natural desire, but also where aversion irresistibly thrusts itself upon the mind; and this would be a practical love, not a pathological liking,* and would consist in the original volition, and not in any sensation or emotion of the sensory;—a practical love, resulting from maxims of practical conduct, and not from ebullitions and overflowings of the heart.

  2nd, The second position is, that an action done out of duty has its moral worth, not from any purpose it may subserve, but from the maxim according to which it is determined on; it depends not on the effecting any given end, but on the principle of volition singly. That the end aimed at in a given action cannot impart to it absolute moral worth, is, from the foregoing, plain. Wherein, then, consists this value, if it is not to be placed in the relation of the will to its effected action? It can consist only in the relation betwixt the will and the principle or maxim according to which the volition was constructed, and this apart from all regard had to any ends attainable by the action, for the will lies in the midst betwixt its formal principle à priori, and the material appetites à posteriori;* and since the choice must be determined by something, the principle à priori alone remains, all à posteriori considerations being taken away when actions are to be performed from duty only.

  3rd, The third position results from the two preceding. Duty is the necessity of an act, out of reverence felt for law. Towards an object, as effect of my own will, I may have inclination, but never reverence; for it is an effect, not an activity of will. Nay, I cannot venerate any inclination, whether my own or another’s. At the utmost, I can approve or like. That alone which is the basis and not the effect of my will can I revere; and what subserves not my inclinations, but altogether outweighs them, i.e., the law alone, is an object of reverence, and so fitted to be a commandment. Now, an action performed out of (propter) duty has to be done irrespective of all appetite whatsoever; and hence there remains nothing present to the will, except objectively law, and subjectively pure reverence* for it, inducing man to adopt this unchanging maxim to yield obedience to the law, renouncing all excitements and emotions to the contrary.

  The moral worth of an action consists, therefore, not in the effect resulting from it, and consequently in no principle of acting taken from such effect; for since all these effects (e.g., amenity of life, and advancing the welfare of our fellow-men) might have been produced by other causes, there were no sufficient reason calling for the intervention of the will of a reasonable agent, wherein, however, alone is to be found the chief and unconditional good. It is therefore nothing else than the representation of the law itself— a thing possible singly by Intelligents—which, and not the expected effect, determining the will, constitutes that especial good, we call moral, which resides in the person, and is not waited for until the action follow.

  But the question now presents itself, What kind of law is that, the representation of which must alone determine the will, if this last is to be denominated absolutely and altogether good? Since I have deprived the will of every spring resulting from obedience to any one given particular law, there remains nothing except the form of law in general which can serve as the mobile of the will; which ideal legality reduced to words, is couched in the following formula:—“Act from a maxim at all times fit for law universal.” Here nothing is expressed except general legality (dispensing with any particular law pointing to any given act), which serves the will for its determining principle, and which must in truth do so, unless the whole notion of duty is to be abandoned as chimerical and absurd. The above position is in entire unison with the notices of the most untutored reason; and the principle of universal fitness is, however darkly, ever present to the mind. A few examples will set this beyond doubt.

  Let the question be put, if, when in difficulty, I may not promise, although determined to act otherwise than I say,—and every one will at once see the vast distinction betwixt an inquiry, whether or no it be prudent, and whether it be right (i.e., conformable to laws of duty), to promise deceitfully. That it were cleverly done is quite conceivable; nay, it would require much adroitness, since it were not enough by this evasion to secure for once my by-ends and interests, but it would be requisite to ponder the posterior disadvantages, and to study whether the consequences of this deceit might not issue in depriving mankind of all confidence in me,—an evil perhaps greater than that from which I proposed rescuing myself. So that it might be needful to consider if it were not, even in point of prudence, better to act from a maxim possessed of universal fitness, which could serve me for ever, and to adopt the principle never to promise apart from the intention to perform. But still, in this latter event, it is obvious that the maxim were based on an apprehension of the troublesome consequences attendant on deception; and it is quite different to adhere to truth out of a principle of duty, and to adhere to it from an apprehension of unpleasant sequents. In the former case, the very notion of speaking truth involves in it its own law, commanding how to act; the second compels me to look beyond the action, to ascertain how I may be affected by it. For when I swerve from the principle of duty, I know for certain my action to be evil; but if a maxim of prudence (expediency) only be departed from, I cannot tell whether the result may not fall out highly conducive to my advantage, although the safer plan were to abide by it. Now, in order to know whether a deceitful promise consists with duty, I put the question, Can I will my maxim (to free myself from embarrassment by a false promise) law, in a code or system of universal moral legislation? and the answer is, that the thing is impossible; for it were then vain for any one to say what he would do, others not believing the declaration, and repaying one another after the same fashion; consequently my maxim, if elevated to the rank of law, would become self-destructive and inconsistent, i.e., unfit for law universal.

  What, therefore, I have to do in order that my volition be morally good, requires no great acuteness. How inexperienced soever in the course of external nature, I only ask, Canst thou will thy maxim to become law universal? If not, it is to be rejected, and that not on account of any disadvantages emerging to thyself and others, but because it is unfit for law in a system of universal moral legislation. For this potential legislation, reason forces me to entertain immediate disinterested reverence. And though we do not yet descry on what this emotion is founded, still we understand thus much of it, that it is the representing a worth far transcending the value of whatever is addressed to appetite and inclination; and that the necessity of an act out of pure reverence for the law is that which constitutes duty, before the representation of which law every other mobile recedes,—that being the condition of a will good in itself, the worth of which is above all.

  And now we have evolved the principle whereon depend the common ethic notices we find mankind generally possessed of; a principle not of course cogitated in this abstract form, but which is notwithstanding, how darkly soever, always at hand, and made use of daily by all mankind in their common practical opinions and judgments. The task were easy to show how, with the aid of this principle for a compass, reason can in every instance steer for good and evil, and all this without teaching mankind anything new or unknown, provided only, as Socrates did, we made reason attentive to her own latent operations; and consequently, how we stand in no need of science or philosophy to know what it behoves us to do that we may become honest and good, nay, even wise and virtuous. This might have been surmised from the nature of the case, that an acquaintance with what was to be done, which for that reason it concerned every man to know, would have lain at the door of the most common person. Nor can we sufficiently admire how the practical and active powers of man are so much more easily exercised than we find the same powers to be in their theoretic and speculative use; for whenever untutored reason ventures upon this last, and quits the field of experience and observation, she gets involved on the instant in the incomprehensible, and becomes entangled in her own operations, or, however, errs through a labyrinth of inextricable doubt and uncertainty. But as soon as man has, for a practical end, excluded all à posteriori motives (every mobile taken from experience and observation) from the action of the moral law, then it is that his reason, all untutored as it may be, shows itself in the greatest vigour; it becomes even subtle, and chicanes with its own conscience as to the demands of duty, or sometimes may seek for its own instruction to determine accurately the worth of actions, and, what is the point to be observed, may expect to do so as successfully as any sage,—nay, may solve such practical questions better; for the philosopher can, after all, have no other principles to proceed on than what the unlettered and vulgar have; and his decision stands in hazard of being biassed by a multitude of foreign considerations, and so of deflecting from the right road to truth. And this leads us again to the further question, if, since all this is so, it were not better to leave these ethic notions unphilosophized upon,—at least to bring in the aid of science only to make the system more complete, or to assign rules for the purpose of polemical debate, but not to employ it for any practical behoof, and so distort the common sense of mankind from its native innocence and simplicity.

  Innocence is indeed invaluable, but then it does not know how to defend itself, and is easily seduced. Hence it comes that even wisdom (which consists not in knowledge, so much as in what man practically pursues and avoids) stands in need of aid from science, not to learn anything, but to procure an inlet and stable foundation for her decrees. Man feels within him a mighty counterpoise against those edicts of duty which reason represents to be so highly august and venerable;—a counterpoise arising from his physical wants and instincts, the aggregate gratification of all which he calls happiness. Reason, however, unremittingly issues her inexorable command, and holds out to the appetencies no prospect or promise of any sort; and so seems to disregard and hold for nought their tumultuous and yet plausible claims, although these are not put to silence by the law. From this there results a dialectic within a man’s own self, i.e., a propensity or proneness to quibble away these rigid laws of duty,—at least to raise doubts as to their extent and severity, and to shape them, if possible, into a form coinciding with man’s appetites and wants; that is, in other words, to corrupt at the source the fountain of duty, and to tarnish and cloud all its dignity, which, however, again reason comes to revolt at, and disapproves.

  We see, then, how it happens that even unlettered and vulgar reason is forced to step from home, and enter the fields of practical philosophy; not certainly to satisfy a speculation (by no fit of which the reason of the vulgar, so long as he is sane, is at any time invaded), but in order to be resolved as to her practical doubts, and to gain information there as to the origin and foundation of our own principles, and to be enabled to fix their weight and importance, when contrasted with those other maxims which rest singly on appetite and want, and so to be extricated from the double embarrass caused by these twofold claims, and shun the hazard of making peril of genuine ethic principles. And as reason, in its speculative use, fell into a dialectic with itself, in the same way we find that the practical reason, even of the unlettered, arrives unawares at the same antagonism with itself. Nor can either the one or other hope to attain security and repose, except by instituting an accurate inquiry into the reach and extent of their own à priori functions and operations.

  CHAPTER II.

  TRANSIT FROM COMMON MORAL PHILOSOPHY TO THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.

  HITHERTO we have investigated the notion Duty, as we found it occurring in everyday practice; but it must not on that account be fancied that we have been occupied with a mere à posteriori notion. On the contrary, when we attend to what experience teaches of the conduct of mankind, we hear many complaints, the justice of which we must admit, that no certain instance can be adduced of actions flowing from the inward bent of the will, to act singly out of regard to duty; since, even in the cases where an action is quite in accordance with what duty would demand, experience and observation leave it entirely in doubt how far the action emanated from a principle of duty, and so possessed any moral worth. Accordingly, philosophers have at all times been found who denied the real existence of such inward dutiful intent, and who have insisted on ascribing all to self-love; not that they called in question the accuracy of the idea of morality, but regretted rather the frailty and improbity of human nature, which, while so noble as to start from the contemplation of so highly reverent an idea, was at the same time too weak to keep moving in its track, and employed reason, the legislator and governor of the will, to no other end than to adjust and settle the discordant claims of appetite and passion.

  So little, in fact, is this notion borrowed from experience and observation, that it is utterly impossible to assign any instance where the maxims of an action outwardly conformable to duty rested singly upon moral grounds, and flowed directly from the representation of its law; and although there are unquestionably cases where, after the severest self-examination, we can discover nothing but the ethic sway of duty sufficiently mighty to have moved the will to this or that action, and to such vast self-denials, still we are unable to conclude that self-love may not have co-operated with the law, or that, somewhat assuming the place and likeness of duty, may not, after all, have been the real determining ground of acting; whereupon we falsely ascribe to ourselves the nobler motive, although, in point of fact, the most sifting scrutiny cannot carry us into those secret springs: since, where question is made of the moral worth of a person, the question turns not on what we see, but on the inward principle regulating the causality of the will; and to this no experience and observation can extend.

  It is impossible to do a greater service to those who laugh to scorn the idea of absolute morality as fantastical and absurd, than to admit that duty and its cognate notions are à posteriori, and taken from observation and experience (a position extended by some, out of sheer indolence, to all perceptions whatsoever); for then we prepare for them a certain triumph. I am ready to grant that the major part of our actions coincide with duty: on examining, however, the aim and designs of mankind, self is generally found predominant, and actions spring from self, not from the stern law, which in most cases ordains self-denial. Nor need he be deemed an enemy to virtue, but a calm observer simply—not inclined to mistake his good hopes of mankind for the reality he wishes—who may at times be led to doubt whether genuine virtue is anywhere to be found throughout the world; and in such a state of things, nowhat can guard against our total apostasy from the idea Duty, and uphold in our soul reverence for its law, except the clear insight, that even although there never yet were actions emanating from this pure source, that cannot affect the question: since we do not now inquire what phenomena may in fact happen, but whether or not reason, irrespective of all phenomena, legislate for herself, and ordain what ought to happen? i.e., whether reason do not unremittingly call for conduct, whereof perhaps the world never yet saw an example, and the practicability of which would be doubted or denied by those who advance singly on experience and observation?—and the consequent conviction, that disinterested friendship (for example) is not the less justly expected from mankind, although possibly there may never yet have been any moral friends; friendship being a duty indicated as such, independently of and prior to all experience, and given with the idea of a will determined à priori upon grounds of reason.*

  Again, when it is added, that unless where morality is totally denied, no one doubts that its law is figured to be of catholic extent, and valid, not adventitiously or contingently, but absolutely and necessarily, and that not merely for man, but for every intelligent nature, such universality and necessity reminds us at once, that no experiment or observation could even suggest to us the possibility of thinking such an apodictic legislation. Nor could we have any right to bring into unlimited reverence, as an edict addressed to every Rational, a law dependent on the particular and accidental structure of humanity; nor could we hold laws determining our will, for laws determining all wills, regarding them in fact on this last account alone as likewise laws for us, were their origin in experience and observation, and were they not entirely originated by the pure à priori spontaneity of practical reason.

  Nor can morality fall into the hands of worse defenders than when it happens into the hands of those who attempt to found it on examples; for every example given to me of it must first be compared with the principle and standard of morality, to know if it be worthy of being elevated to the rank of an archetype or pattern, and so of course cannot originate in us the notion. Even the Holy One in the gospel is only recognised to be so when compared with our ideal of moral excellence. So much is this the case, that He Himself said, Why call ye me (whom ye see) good? there is none good (the archetype of it), but God only (whom ye do not see). Whence this idea God, as the supreme archetypal good? Singly from that idea of ethical perfection, evolved by reason à priori, and connected by it indissolubly to the notion of a free will. Imitation has no place in morals. Examples serve only to encourage to moral practice—to put beyond doubt the possibility of performing those duties unremittingly commanded by the law,—and to exhibit to sense, in a tangible and outward substance, what the legislation of reason expresses only in the abstract and general; but their use is perverted when their original in reason is overlooked, and conduct regulated upon the model of the example.

  If there be no genuine and supreme principle of morality given apart from all observation and experience, and resting upon reason only, then I think it were idle so much as to inquire if it were good to treat these à priori notions, and to deliver their principles in the abstract; unless indeed we merely wished to separate betwixt the common ethic notions of the unlettered, and a system of them which might aspire to be called philosophical. And yet in the present age this last may well be necessary; for were we to collect voices as to whether a popular practical philosophy or metaphysic of ethics (i.e., rational cognition divested of every à posteriori part)* were more eligible, I know full well on which side I should find most votes.

  To accommodate a science to the common conceptions of the people is highly laudable, when once the science has been established on first principles; and that, in the present case, would amount to founding ethics on their true basis, metaphysics; after which a popular dress may carry and spread the science more widely: but to attempt such a thing in a first investigation is folly. Not only would such procedure have no claim to the signal and rare merit of true philosophic popularity, but it would lie open to the objection of amounting to no more than an odious and revolting mixture of random remarks, crude and half-fledged opinions,—a mad attempt, which would furnish the shallow with materials to talk of and quote in conversation, but which could only embarrass the more profound, who, dissatisfied, avert their eyes, and remain unaided; although those who see through the illusion are little listened to when they insist on the abandonment of a futile popularity, in order to become then only popular when clear and definite insight has been attained.

  To illustrate this remark, it were only requisite to examine popular modern treatises which have been got up in this taste, and we find at one time the destiny of man, which is particular, at another, the idea of an intelligent nature, which is general,—here perfection, there happiness,—then somewhat of the moral sense, and of the fear of God,—all mixed up in one huge heterogeneous mass. But nowhere do the authors seem to have impinged upon the cardinal question, whether principles of morality were to be sought for in the psychology of human nature? (which we know only from experience and observation,)—or whether, if this be not the case, they are not to be met with wholly à priori in pure ideas of reason, and nowhere else? Nor did it ever occur to them, in this last event, to commence an investigation of these first principles, as a particular and separate department of philosophic science, called, if I may be allowed the expression, “metaphysic* of ethics,”—to isolate and keep it by itself, in order to exhaust and complete its entire circuit and extent,—diverting in the meantime a public impatient for popularity till the issue and conclusion of the investigation.

  Such a system of metaphysic ethics, isolated and cleared of all theology, anthropology, physics, hyperphysics, and occult qualities, which I may call hypophysics, is not merely a substratum indispensable for all theoretic knowledge in the department of duty, but is likewise a main desideratum towards the actual fulfilment of its law; for the naked representation Duty, unadulterated with any foreign charms,—in short, the moral law itself,—is so much stronger a mobile to the will than any other motive, that reason first learns by this method her own causal-force and independency on every sensitive determinator; until at length, awaking fully to the consciousness of her own supremacy and dignity, she scorns to act from any such, and comes in the sequel to be able to control and to command them: which things a system of ethics, not distinguished from the emotions of the sensory, cannot effect; for there the mind is at once perturbed by opposing causes, and is forced to waver betwixt feelings and ideas which cannot be reduced to any common principle, and is accordingly, owing to its instability and uncertainty, led sometimes wrong, sometimes right.

  From the above it is clear that all ethical ideas have their origin and seat altogether à priori in reason (in the reason of the unlettered, of course, as much as in that of the most finished sage); that they are not susceptible of explanation upon any à posteriori system; that in this high priori source consists their dignity and title to be supreme practical principles of life; that the addition of any posteriori motive lessens their native force upon the will, and destroys to that extent the absolute unconditioned worth of the action; and that it is absolutely necessary, in adjusting the speculative theory of ethics, as well as of the last practical importance in the conduct of life, to deduce the laws and ideas of morality from naked reason, to deliver these pure and unmixed, and to examine and exhaust the whole circuit of this originary science of reason (i.e., to investigate the à priori functions and operations of reason, as a practical faculty of action): in which investigation we cannot, as in speculative philosophy, examine the particular operations of the human reason, but are forced to examine reason as such, abstractedly and apart from the nature of man; the moral law having ethical virtue to oblige all will whatsoever, and so demanding a deduction from the abstract notion of intelligent existence. And in this way alone can ethics (which in their application to man stand in need of anthropology) be fully cleared and purged of this last, rendered a pure philosophy, and so fit to be prelected on as an entire metaphysic science; bearing the while well in mind, that, apart from possessing such metaphysic, not only is it vain to attempt to detect speculatively the ethical part of given actions, but that it is impossible, in ethical instruction (i.e., in the most common practical case), to base morality on its true foundation, to effectuate genuine moral sentiments, and determine the mind, by the idea of the summum bonum, to exert itself onwards toward the advancement of the general welfare of humanity.

  Now, to advance in this investigation from the common opinions—which are highly venerable—to the philosophical, as was done in the former chapter, and from that popular tentative philosophy which I have just denounced, up to a system of metaphysics containing no à posteriori part, and rising in its course even to ideas where all examples fall away, it is needful to pursue reason in its active function, from its general law of determination up to that point where the notion Duty is evolved.

  Everything in the world acts according to law; an Intelligent alone has the prerogative of acting according to the representation of laws,i.e.,has a will: and since, to deduce actions from laws, reason is required, it follows that will is nothing else than practical reason.3* When reason invariably determines the will, then the agent’s actions which are recognised as objectively necessary, are subjectively necessary too; that is, the will is then a faculty to choose that only which reason, independently on appetite, recognises to be practically necessary, i.e., good.† But if reason do not itself alone determine the will, and the will be subjected to inward impediments and stimuli not always in unison with the law,—in one word, if reason and the will do not exactly tally (as is the case with man),—then are the actions recognised as objectively necessary, subjectively contingent; and the determination of such a will, conformably to objective laws, is necessitation; that is, the relation obtaining betwixt objective laws and a will not altogether good is represented as the determining an Intelligent’s will upon grounds of reason, but to which the will is not by its nature necessarily conformed.

  The representation of an objective principle, so far as it necessitates the will, is called a commandment (of reason); and a formula expressing such is called an imperative.

  All imperatives are expressed by the words “shall or ought,” and thus denote the relation obtaining betwixt an objective law of reason, and a will so constituted as not to be necessarily determined by it (necessitation). They say that somewhat were good to be pursued or avoided, but they say so to a will not always acting because it is represented to him that somewhat is good. That is practically good which determines the will by the intervention of a representation of reason; i.e., not by force of subjective stimulants, but objectively, i.e., upon grounds valid for every Intelligent as such. In this respect the good differs from the agreeable;* which last affects the will by means of subjective sensations, valid for the particular taste of individuals only,—not like a principle of reason, which is possessed of universal validity.

  A perfectly good will would, equally with a defective one, come to stand under objective laws (of good); but with this difference, that it cannot be regarded as necessitated by the law to the legal action,—its very nature being such as to render it capable of determination only by the representation of what is good. Hence no imperative is valid for the Divine Will, nor indeed for any will figured to be Holy. Thou shalt were misapplied to such a will,—the will being already spontaneously in harmony with the law. An imperative is then no more than a formula, expressing the relation betwixt objective laws of volition and the subjective imperfection of particular wills (e.g., the human).

  An imperative commands either hypothetically or categorically. The former expresses that an action is necessary as a mean toward somewhat further; but the latter is such an imperative as represents an action to be in itself necessary, and without regard to anywhat out of and beyond it, i.e., objectively necessary.

  Because every practical law represents some action or another as good, it represents it to a being determinable by reason, as in so far necessary; and hence, upon this account, an imperative may be further explained to be a formula potentially determining an action deemed necessary by a will good in any sort of way. If the action be good only for somewhat else, i.e., as a mean, then the imperative is hypothetical; but if represented as good in itself, i.e., necessary according to the principles of a will self-conformed to its own reason, then it is categorical.

  An imperative, then, declares, which of the actions I may have it in my power to perform is good; and it presents to view a practical rule taken in connection with a will, not constantly choosing an action because it is good, and this for two reasons: in part, that it often does not know what action is good; and also in part, because, when it knows this, its maxims militate against the law objected to the mind by reason.

  A hypothetical imperative expresses merely the relative goodness of an act, viz., as good for some ulterior end, regarded either as in posse or in esse. In the prior case it is a problematic, in the latter an assertive, position. But the categorical imperative which propounds an act as in itself objectively necessary, independently of every further end or aim, is an apodictic practical position.

  But as it may be needful to investigate more in detail the nature and constitution of these three kinds of imperatives, I observe—

  First, We may consider whatever the power of an agent may accomplish as the potential end of his will; whence there spring as many principles of action as ends, which the being may regard as necessary in order to gain some given purposes. Even the sciences have a practical part, consisting of problems demanding a solution, and of imperatives announcing how such solution (the end) is to be effected; and imperatives of this kind are imperatives of art. Whether the end be good or rational is no element of the investigation, but simply this: what it is requisite to do in order to reach it. The recipe of a physician for thoroughly re-establishing his patient, and that of an assassin for poisoning him, have this value in common, viz., that of teaching surely how each may gain his end; and since mankind do not know what ends may occur in life, youth is taught as many things as possible, and care is taken to advance his skill and accomplishments so as to facilitate the practice of various ends, though no end can yet be fixed on as the fit choice of the youth himself,—among which ends he is left to choose, since it may be presumed that some one of them will be his. Nay, this care is frequently so great, that mankind neglect to instruct their youth how to estimate the worth of those things they have ultimately to accept or decline as ends.

  Secondly, There is, however, one end, which we conclude that every finite being has, and that by the physical necessity of his nature, viz., the end and aim called happiness. The hypothetical imperative announcing the practical necessity of an act as a mean for advancing one’s own happiness is assertive. The imperative is necessary, not for any vague, indefinite, unknown end, but for one which we can certainly presuppose in the case of every man, such end being engrafted into his very being. Now, adroitness in choosing the means conducing to the greatest amount of one’s personal happiness is prudence (in the limited sense of that term); whence it follows that the imperative of prudence, referring to the choice of such means, is hypothetical, i.e., the action is ordained, not absolutely on its own account, but as a mean toward somewhat ulterior.

  Lastly,There is an imperative, which, irrespective of every ulterior end or aim, commands categorically. Such imperative concerns not the matter of action, nor that which may flow from it, but its form and principle; and the act’s essential goodness consists in the formality of its intent, be the result what it may. This last imperative may be called one of morality.

  The difference of the volition in these threefold imperatives is perceptible when we attend to the dissimilar grades of necessitation expressed by the imperative; and in this point of view they might, I think, be fitly called, 1. Rules of art; 2. Dictates of prudence; 3. Laws (commandments) of morality: for law alone involves the conception of an unconditionate, and objective, and universally valid necessity; and a commandment is a law to which, even with violence to inclination, obedience must be yielded. A dictate expresses likewise a necessity, but then it is no more than a subjective and conditioned one; whereas the categorical imperative is restrained to no condition, and it can alone, as absolutely necessary, be a commandment. The first sort are technical, the second pragmatic, the third ethical imperatives.

  This brings us to the question, how all these imperatives are possible,—a question which asks, not how they may be reduced to practice, but how the necessitation expressed in each imperative can be depicted to the mind. How an imperative of art is possible, requires no further explanation. Whoso wills the end aimed at, wills also the means indispensably requisite for attaining it. This position is analytic, for in willing an object as my own effect, I represent my own causality as employing the means toward it; and the imperative merely develops the conception of acts necessary to this end, out of the conception “willing that end itself.” To determine the means requisite for attaining the end, may no doubt be difficult, and will require synthetic propositions; but these do not concern the ground, the originary act of will, but respect singly the act of realization of its object. That in order to bisect a line with certainty I must describe from its extremities segments of intersecting circles, is taught in the mathematics by synthetic propositions only; but when I know that these steps must take place in order to that end, then it is an analytic proposition to say, that when I will the end, I will also the intervening steps; for to represent somewhat as an effect possible by me in a given way, and to represent myself as acting in that way toward the effect, are quite identical.

  The imperatives of prudence would stand exactly in the same situation with those of art, were it alike easy to frame a definite conception of what is happiness; and in either case we should say, he who wills the end, wills likewise all the means toward it which are within his power. But unfortunately the conception Happiness is so vague, that although all wish to attain it, yet no one is ever able to state distinctly to himself what the object willed is; the reason whereof is, that the elements constituting the conception happiness are cognisable à posteriori only, and must be inferred inductively from experience and observation; while at the same time, as an ideal of imagination, happiness demands an absolute whole, i.e., a maximum of well-being, both in my present and every future state; and what this may in real fact and event amount to, no finite Intelligent can explain, nor can he tell what it is he chooses in such a volition. Is wealth the object of his desire? how much envy and detraction may that not entail upon him? in what perturbations may that not involve him? Are superior parts and vast learning the object of his choice? Such advantages might prove but a sad eminence whence to descry evils at present hidden from his sight, or they might become a source of new and previously unknown wants; and he who should increase in knowledge might eminently increase in sorrow. Does he choose long life? what if it should turn out a long misery? Or even if health were his chosen object, must he not admit that indisposition has often guarded from excess and screened from temptations, into which exuberant health might have misled him? In short, it is quite beyond man’s power to determine with certainty what would make him happy. Omniscience alone could solve this question for him. In these circumstances, man can fix on no determinate principles of conduct issuing in happiness, but is forced to adopt such dictates of prudence, i.e., such maxims of economy, politeness, and reserve, as experience and observation show on an average to promote the greatest quantum of well-being. From all which we infer that, strictly speaking, imperatives of prudence do not command, actions not being represented by them as objectively necessary; and that they are rather to be regarded as suggestions (consilia) than as decrees of reason. The question, what action would infallibly promote the happiness of a reasonable agent, is altogether unanswerable; and there can consequently be no imperative at all with regard to it. However, if the mean toward happiness could be successfully assigned, the imperative of prudence would, like the technical, be an analytic proposition; for it differs from the imperative of art in this singly, that in the latter the end is potential, in the former, given,—both enjoining merely the means necessary for reaching somewhat already willed as end; but where this is done, the position is analytic: there can therefore be no difficulty in comprehending how this imperative is possible.

  But how the imperative of morality comes to be possible, is beyond doubt a very difficult question, and is in fact the only problem requiring a solution; the imperative not being hypothetic, and its objective, absolute necessity, not admitting any explanation from suppositions. Neither can we in this investigation aid ourselves by examples; for experience and observation would always leave us in doubt whether the imperative were not hypothetic, although appearing apodictic: thus, when it is said, “Thou shalt not make any false promise,” and the necessity announced in such an imperative is understood to be unconditional, so that it could not have been expressed thus, “Make no false promise, lest thou destroy thy credit,” then it is plain that no example can make exhibitive such categoric determination of will; for the example cannot satisfy us that every other mobile was excluded from the will, and that the law was itself alone, abstracted from all other considerations, the only spring of action; and it is quite conceivable that some secret fear of shame, or apprehension of other evils, may have co-operated with it. Nor can we establish the non-existence of such motive causes by any experience, this showing nowhat further than that we have not observed them; and should this turn out to be the case with our example, then the ethic imperative, while apparently categorical and unconditional, would be at bottom no more than a dictate of expediency, making us attentive to our own advantage, and teaching how to keep it in view.

  The possibility of a categorical imperative must therefore be investigated altogether à priori, its reality not being susceptible of illustration by examples;—a circumstance rendering the theory of its possibility requisite, not only for its explanation, but a preliminary indispensable for its establishment. This, however, is plain, that the categorical imperative alone announces itself as law; the other imperatives may be principles, but they never can be laws of volition; and what is necessary to attain some given end may yet in itself be contingent, and man may detach himself from the imperative whenever he renounces the end it rests upon, whereas the unconditioned command leaves no option to the will, and has alone that necessity which is of the essence of a law.

  Again, the ground of the difficulty of comprehending the possibility of the categorical imperative, i.e., of the moral law, is very great: the imperative is a synthetical proposition à priori; and as we felt so much difficulty in comprehending the possibility of this kind of proposition in speculative metaphysics, we may presume the difficulty will be no less in the practical.

  In this inquiry we shall examine whether or not the mere conception of a categorical imperative may not involve in it a general formula, furnishing us with that expression which can alone be valid as a categorical imperative; for how such an absolute commandment can be possible, even after we know its tenor, will demand a peculiar and laborious disquisition, which we defer till the third chapter.

  When I represent to myself a hypothetical imperative, I do not know beforehand what it contains, till the ulterior condition on which it rests is put in my possession; but with the very conception of a categorical imperative is given also its contents, for the imperative can in this case contain only the law ordaining the necessity of a maxim to be conformed to this law; and since the law is attached to no condition which could particularize it, there remains nowhat except the form of law in genere, to which the maxim of an act is to be conformed; and this conformity is, properly speaking, what the imperative represents as necessary.

  The categorical imperative is therefore single and one: “Act from that maxim only which thou canst will law universal.”

  If, then, we are in a condition, from this single imperative, to derive all imperatives of duty, then we have ascertained the import and content of the idea, and understand what it is we think of when we name it; although we still, for the present, leave undecided whether duty may not, after all, turn out an imaginary and blank idea.

  Because the unvariedness of the laws by which events take place is the formal notion of what is called Nature, i.e., an order of things determined according to an unvaried, universal law, the formula of the ethical imperative might be expressed thus: “Act as if the maxim of thy will were to become, by thy adopting it, a universal law of nature.”

  In illustration of this last formula, I shall take a few examples, according to the popular and received division of duties into that of duties of determinate and indeterminate obligation toward ourselves and others.*

  1. An individual harassed by a series of evils, and sickened with the tedium of life, proposes to commit self-murder; but first inquires within himself to know if the maxim regulating such an act would be fit for law universal. His intended maxim would be, to deprive himself of life whenever existence promised more of misery than of pleasure; and the question is, Can such a principle of self-love be regarded as fit for a universal law of nature? and it is instantly observable, that an order of things whose law it were to destroy life, by force of the sensation intended for its continuance, could not be upheld, but must return to chaos. Whence it results that such maxim cannot possibly be regarded as fit for an unvaried law of nature, but is repugnant to the supreme principle of duty.

  2. A second finds himself under the necessity of borrowing money. He knows he cannot repay; but he foresees that nothing will be lent to him if he do not stoutly promise to repay within a given time. He intends giving such a promise, but has so much conscience left as to put the question, whether it be not inconsistent with his duty to have recourse to such shifts for his relief? Suppose, however, that he notwithstanding adopts this resolution, then his maxim would sound as follows: “As soon as I fancy myself in want of money, I will borrow it upon a promise to repay, although I well know I never will or can.” Such a principle of self-love may be easily brought into accommodation with one’s other desires and wishes. But when the question is put as to the integrity of such conduct, I convert my maxim into law universal, and inquire how it would suit if such a principle were everywhere adopted? Whereupon I immediately observe, that it is quite unfit for a universal law of nature, and would become contradictory to itself, and self-destructive, if made so; for a uniform practice, by which every one should be entitled to promise what he liked, and not to keep it, would defeat the intent and end for which such promises might be made—these becoming by such a law incredible, and not possible to be acted on.

  3. A third finds himself possessed of certain powers of mind, which, with some slight culture, might render him a highly useful member of society; but he is in easy circumstances, and prefers amusement to the thankless toil of cultivating his understanding and perfecting his nature. But suppose him to put the question, whether this sluggish maxim, so much in harmony with his appetite for pleasure, harmonize equally with duty; and he observes that an order of things might continue to exist under a law enjoining men to let their talents rust, and to devote their lives to amusement. But it is impossible for any one to will that such should become a universal law of nature, or were by an instinct implanted in his system; for he, as Intelligent, of necessity wills all his faculties to become developed, such being given him in order that they may subserve his various and manifold ends and purposes.

  4. A fourth, possessing wealth, observes others struggling with difficulties; and though he might easily assist them, he says, What concern is it of mine? Let every one be as happy as he can. I neither hinder nor envy any one; nor can I take the trouble to exert myself to advance his welfare, nor to redress his sorrows. Now, unquestionably, were such sentiments constituted universal laws of nature, our species might still continue to exist, and in fact might advance better than when people merely talk of sympathy and charity, or even than when they exercise such virtues, but at the same time, and by the by, deceive and otherways invade the rights of man. Now, although an order of things might subsist under such a universal law, yet reason cannot will that this should be the case; for a will ordaining such would contradict itself, when, in the course of events, it would willingly avail itself of the compassion and kindness of others, and yet would see itself deprived of these by the harsh law emanating from its own maxim.

  These are some few of what man deems his duties, evolved clearly from the foregoing formula. An Intelligent must be able to will his maxims of conduct laws of catholic extent. Such is the canon of ethical volition. Some actions are of such a stamp that they cannot be presented to the mind even in thought, without their unfitness for law being flagrant; and in other cases, where no such internal impropriety existed, it was out of the question that an Intelligent should will his maxim to become a universal law of nature. The first kind of duties are those of strict and determinate obligation, the second those which are indeterminate, and admit a certain latitude; whence we see that all kinds of duties are exhibited by the above examples in their connection and dependence on the single principle previously stated.

  When we attend to what passes in our own minds when we overstep the bounds of duty, we find that we do not really will our maxim to become a law of catholic extent; for that is impossible, and the contrary is inevitably willed: however, we sometimes assume the licence, for a single time as we think, to make an exception from this universality. And were we to examine things singly from the vantage-ground of reason, we should descry contradiction in our own will in not adhering to duty, viz., that a certain principle should be regarded as a law objectively necessary and of catholic extent, and yet at the same time as subjectively not of universal validity, but admitting exceptions; the reason whereof is, that in the one case reason guides our choice, in the other our will is biassed by an appetite; so that in truth there is no contradiction in the mind itself, but only an opposition from the part of inclination against the dictates of reason: by all which the universality of the law is frittered down to a mere generality, and reason constrained to meet the appetites half way. But, on impartial self-examination, we cannot justify to ourselves this departure; which shows that the mind does in fact recognise and acknowledge the categorical imperative as possessing ethical virtue to oblige its will; and it is in spite of all our reverence for it that we allow ourselves a few occasional exceptions.

  We have pursued this investigation so far as to establish, that if duty be a conception of any import, and contain laws applicable to human conduct, these laws are expressed in categorical imperatives, not in hypothetical. We have likewise, which is no small matter, determined the expression of the formula of the categorical imperative, which ought to be susceptible of expansion in terms applicable to every duty (if there be at all any such). But we have not yet been able to show à priori that there is any such imperative, that there is a practical law commanding absolutely and independently of every sensitive determinator, and that the observance of this law is duty.

  In prosecuting our attempt to achieve such a demonstration, it is of the last moment to bear constantly in mind that the reality of this law cannot be deduced from any peculiarities incident to human nature; for duty is to be the unconditionate necessity of an act, and must have force to oblige all Intelligents whatsoever, and upon this account alone, therefore, also man. But whatever is derived from the particular structure of human nature—from given feelings or emotions, or from any bias adhering to our reason, but not essentially biassing all wills whatever—may be a maxim for conduct, but never can be a law, i.e., may be a subjective principle we like to follow, but never can be an objective law, ordaining how to act, even although appetite, the vis inertiæ of our constitution, and an original bias in the will itself, were all thwarting its behest; which opposing circumstances would in fact only show the high supremacy and internal dignity of the law of duty, the less they proved able to effect any diminution of its ethical necessitation.

  And now philosophy seems placed in a very perilous situation, since she is allowed no peg either in heaven or in earth from which to suspend her principles. Now she has to show her integrity, as self-upholder of her own laws, not as the herald of those which some innate sense or guardian nature had whispered in her ear, and which, though better than nothing, never afford statutes of conduct, ordained by reason from a source altogether à priori: statutes which have thence alone their authority to command mankind, to expect nowhat from the solicitations of his sensory, but all from the supremacy of the law and the reverence he owes it, or, if he fail to do so, to hand him over to his own contempt and inward detestation.

  Any à posteriori part, added to the principle of morality, is not only no improvement, but is in fact highly detrimental to the purity of morals; for the proper worth of an absolutely good will consists just in this, that the principles of action are thoroughly abstracted from every admixture of foreign and adventitious grounds. Nor can I sufficiently warn against the sluggishness, or, I would even say, low cast of thinking, which seeks its motives of action à posteriori, whereon reason, when fatigued, willingly reclines, and substitutes to morality a changeling bastard, which looks like anything you please, except virtue, in the eye of him who has once beheld her in her true form.*

  The question amounts, then, to this: Is it a law incumbent upon every rational nature whatsoever, to order and arrange its actions conformably to such maxims as it could will elevated to the rank of law in a system of general moral legislation? If this be so, then such a law must needs be inseparably connected à priori with the very idea of the will of a reasonable agent; but to obtain a view of this connection, we must enter the domain of metaphysic reason, and, quitting speculative philosophy, betake ourselves to a disquisition in the metaphysic of ethics. In practical philosophy we have not to do with that which happens, nor to take our principles from it, but with an objective practical law, announcing what ought and should happen, although in fact and event it may never be so. Accordingly we do not here inquire why something pleases or displeases, as in the case of taste, nor yet whether this satisfaction may differ from a complacency of reason; neither do we investigate on what the feeling of pleasure and pain may depend, nor how desire and its concurring with reason may give birth to maxims; for these all belong to psychology, and are à posteriori, and to be solved by an induction. But we are going to inquire of objective necessary laws, i.e., regarding the relation of the will to itself, in so far as it is determined by reason, and where everything relating to experience and observation is overlooked; because, if reason of itself determine the practical conduct of life, it must needs do so altogether à priori, the possibility whereof we now set ourselves to examine.

  The will is cogitated as a faculty to determine itself to act conformably to the representation of given laws; and such a power can be met with in reasonable agents only. Now what serves the will for the ground of its self-determination is called the end; and such end, if presented by reason only, must extend equally to every reasonable being.4 What, on the other hand, contains no more than the ground of the possibility of an act, the ulterior effect of which last is the end, is called the mean. The subjective ground of desire is a spring, the objective ground of volition is law: hence the distinction betwixt subjective ends which rest upon springs, and objective ones which attach themselves to laws, and are valid for every Intelligent whatsoever. Practical principles are formal when they abstract from all subjective ends; they are material when they presuppose these last and their springs. The ends which an Intelligent may regard as the product of his own activity, and which it is in his option to pursue or to decline, are not absolute ends, but relative and adventitious merely; for their value depends upon the relation obtaining betwixt them and the appetitive faculty of the thinking subject, and so they cannot found necessary principles of volition, nor laws of catholic extent: thus relative ends can be the ground of hypothetical imperatives singly.

  Let there, however, be granted somewhat whose existence has in itself an absolute worth, and which, as in itself an end, is itself the ground of its own given laws. Then herein, and here alone, would lie the ground of the possibility of a categorical imperative, i.e., of a practical law.

  Now I say that man and every reasonable agent exists as an end in himself, and not as a mere mean or instrumental to be employed by any will whatsoever, not even by his own, but must in every action regard his existence, and that of every other Intelligent, as an end in itself. Objects of appetite and inclination have a conditioned value only; for, apart from the appetite, and the want felt as springing from it, its object would be regarded as entirely worthless; and appetite itself, so far from possessing any absolute worth to make it desirable, is, on the contrary, as the source of all our wants, what every Intelligent must wish to be freed from. Upon this account the value of everything produced by our own exertions is conditioned. Even those external things whereof the existence rests not on our will, but depends on nature, have, as irrationals, a relative value only, and are used as means and instruments for our behoof, and are therefore called things; whereas an Intelligent is called a person, he being by the constitution of his system distinguished as an end in himself, i.e., as somewhat which may not be used as a mere mean, and as restraining to this extent the arbitrary use which other wills might make of him, and becoming, by force of such restraint, an object of reverence. Persons are therefore not subjective ends, whose existence is valued by us as an effect resulting from our active exertion; but are objective ends, whose very existence is itself an end, and that too of so eminent a sort, that no other end can be assigned to which they could be subordinated as means. For if this were not the case, then were no absolute and unconditioned value given; and if all value were merely hypothetic and fortuitous, it would be impossible to discover any supreme practical position on which to ground the operations of reason.

  Thus it is seen, that if there is to be a supreme practical position, and in respect of the human will a categorical imperative, it must be such a principle as may constitute a law by the bare representation of that which is an end for every man because it is an end in itself; the ground of the principle is, “Every intelligent nature exists as an end in itself.”* All mankind must of necessity thus figure to themselves their own existence, and to this extent it is a subjective principle of conduct. Again, in the very same way, all other rationals thus cogitate their own existence, by force of the same grounds of reason which determine man to think so; wherefore the above is likewise an objective principle, and from it, as the supreme practical position, all laws of the will must be capable of being deduced. In this way the practical imperative may sound as follows: “So act that humanity, both in thy own person and that of others, be used as an end in itself, and never as a mere mean.”

  This formula we shall now illustrate, to see how it holds, and whether it tallies with the former. We shall instance again in the above examples.

  First, In the case of duty owed toward ourselves. He who proposes to commit suicide, has to ask himself if his action be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. The man who destroys his organic system to escape from sorrow and distress, makes use of his person as a mean toward the supporting himself in a state of comfort and ease until the end of life. But humanity is not a thing, i.e., is not that which can be dealt with as a mean singly, but is that which must at all times be regarded as an end in itself. I am therefore not at liberty to dispose of that humanity which constitutes my person, either by killing, maiming, or mutilating it.

  Second, In reference to the duty owed to others. He who intends to promise deceitfully, must at once perceive that he makes use of his neighbour as a mere mean, not regarding him as an end in himself (not making him, at the same time, the end and aim of his conduct); for he who is thus misused to a private and by-end, cannot possibly approve of such a line of conduct, nor can be contain in himself the end of such a promise. This repugnancy to the position that humanity is its own end, comes out more prominently when we take examples of inroads made on personal freedom or property. In such cases it is palpable that the violator of the rights of man serves himself of the personality of his fellow as a mere mean, not taking into account that an Intelligent must, if a mean, be notwithstanding the end of any given action (i.e., be regarded as such a mean as may also be the end of the action).

  Thirdly, In respect of the indeterminate duties we owe to ourselves it is not enough that the action do not subvert one’s own humanity; it must coincide with it, so as to advance it as its own end. Now, every person possesses sundry dispositions and endowments capable of being indefinitely perfected, and which obviously belong and conduce to the end aimed at by nature, in constituting the humanity of our person: to disregard these indications might no doubt consist with the physical preservation of mankind, but not with its advancement as an end.

  Fourthly, With regard to the indeterminate obligations due from us to others, the physical end which all men have is happiness. Now, it cannot be doubted that humanity could consist, although each man left indifferent the happiness of his fellow, and was concerned merely not to offer to it any detriment; but then this would be a mere negative, and no positive coincidence of actions with humanity as an end in itself, so long as no one endeavoured to advance the ends and interests of others; for the ends of that subject who is in himself an end, must of necessity be my ends too if the representation of humanity as an end in itself is the all-effective mobile of my will.

  This position, that humanity and every Intelligent is an end in itself, is not established by any observation or experience, as is seen, first, from the generality by which we have extended it to every rational whatsoever; and, second, because humanity was exhibited, not as a subjective end of mankind (i.e., not as an object which it stood in their option to pursue or to decline), but as their objective end, which, whatever other ends mankind may have, does, as law, constitute the supreme limiting condition of such subjective ends, and which must consequently take its rise from reason à priori. Now, the ground of all practical legislation lies objectively in the rule, and its form of universality, whereby it is fitted for law, agreeably to the first formula. But subjectively in the end; and the subject of all ends is each Intelligent himself, as an ultimate or last end, according to the second formula; from which two, when combined, there emerges a third expression, which comprises at once the form and the matter of the supreme practical law, and presents us with the idea of the will of every Intelligent as universally legislative.

  Agreeably to this formula, all maxims are objectionable which do not harmonize with the universal legislation of man’s own will. His will is therefore to be regarded as not subjected to the law simply, but so subjected as to be self-legislative, and, upon this account alone, subjected to the law of which himself is the author.

  The imperative, as above represented, viz., as importing a uniform sequence of actions similar to the uniformity of events in the physic system, or as founded on that prerogative of an Intelligent whereby he is an end in himself, excluded from its authority the co-operation of any interest as a spring; an exclusion understood from the very categorical exhibition of it. The imperative was postulated as categorical, since without this the idea Duty could not be explained; but that there really are practical principles à priori, containing a categorical commandment, could not yet be proved, nor can we attempt it in this chapter; but this one thing still remained to be done, to show that (self-detachment from interest) disinterestedness is, in a duteous volition, that which constitutes the specific difference betwixt a categorical and hypothetical imperative, a notion which ought to be denoted by the imperative itself; and this is now done in the last formula, viz., the idea of the will of every Intelligent as a will universally legislative.5

  For when we figure to ourselves a will supremely legislative, it is clear that it cannot be dependent upon any interest (although a will subjected to a law simply may be attached to it by the intervention of an interest); for then the will universally legislative, and yet dependent, would require a further law, restricting its private interest to the condition of being fit for law in a system of universal moral legislation.

  It is now obvious that the position of a will, universally legislative by all its maxims (supposing such a thing were established), would suit very well for a categorical imperative; because, being rested on the idea of a universal legislation, it is not founded on any interest; and thus, amidst many imperatives, is the only unconditioned one. Or, by converting the proposition, if there be a categorical imperative, it can only ordain to act according to that maxim of a will which could at the same time regard itself as universally legislative; for then the practical principle and imperative which it obeys are unconditional, being founded upon no interest.

  And now we may cease to wonder how all former attempts to investigate the ultimate principle of morals should have proved unsuccessful. The inquirers saw that man was bound to law by the idea Duty; but it did not occur to them that he was bound singly by his own law universal, the prerogative of his nature fitting him for a universal legislator, and so subjecting him to the law emanating from his own will. For, as soon as we regard him subjected to law simply (no matter of what sort), then this law must have carried some interest, whereby either to allure or to co-act; for, not springing from his own will, the will was legally necessitated by somewhat else to act in a given manner. This inevitable conclusion rendered fruitless and abortive every attempt to establish a supreme principle of duty; for there resulted, never duty, but the necessity of an action conformably to some given interest. This might be either a proper or a foreign interest, but in either case the imperative was conditioned; and this, we have seen, is invalid for a moral law. I shall therefore call this fundamental position the principle of the autonomy of the will, in contradistinction to every other, which I call heteronomy.

  This principle, that every Intelligent ought to regard himself as legislating (by his maxims) throughout the universe of Intelligents, in order, from this vantage-ground, to pass judgment upon himself and his own actions, leads to this very important and fruitful consideration,—the representation of all things whatsoever, under this character of ends, constituting one vast whole of ends, which, from its analogy to what we call “the realm of nature,” may be styled “the realm of ends.”

  By a realm I understand the systematic conjunction of all intelligent nature under a uniform and common law. But since the law admits those ends singly which be valid universally as ends for all, we shall have, by abstracting from the personal difference which may exist between Intelligents, and also from their peculiar and personal ends, an aggregate of ends (comprising both the Intelligents as ends in themselves, and likewise their own further ends) in systematic union; that is, a realm of ends is cogitable, and is, by virtue of the foregoing principles, possible.

  For Intelligents stand one and all under this common law: “Never to employ himself or others as a mean, but always as an end in himself.” But from this common objective law arises a systematic conjunction of Intelligents, i.e., a realm, which, though extant in idea only, may, because these laws regard the relation of Intelligents to one another as means and ends, be called “the realm of ends.”

  An Intelligent is a member of the realm of ends, when he is, in addition to being universally legislative, himself subjected to these laws. But he belongs to it as its sovereign, when, in legislating, he is not subjected to the will of any other.

  Every Intelligent must therefore at all times regard himself as legislating in a potential realm of ends, realizable by his freedom of will, and that too either as its member or as its sovereign; but the room of this last he cannot occupy merely by force of the maxims of his will, but only then, when he is altogether independent, exempt from wants, and endowed with power commensurate to his will.

  Morality, therefore, consists in referring all action to that legislation whereby the realm of ends is possible. This legislation, however, must be met with in every Intelligent, and take its rise from his will whose principle is, never to act from any maxim which it could not will a universal law; or this, always so to act that the will may regard itself as enouncing its maxim a universal law, i.e., as universally legislative. When an Intelligent’s maxims are not, by the constitution of his system, necessarily conformed to this principle, then is the necessity of acting agreeably to this principle, practical necessitation, i.e., duty. Duty cannot be predicated of the sovereign in the realm of ends; but it can of every member, and of all equally in degree.

  The practical necessity of acting conformably to this principle, i.e., duty, rests not on feelings, interests, or inclination, but singly on the relation betwixt Intelligents, where the will of each must be regarded as universally legislative, apart from which he could not be figured as an end in himself. Reason applies every maxim of will as universally legislative to every other will, and also to every action whereby it is affected; and this not out of any regard had to its own future advantage, or to any other private end, but singly on account of its idea of the dignity of an Intelligent, obeying no law except that which itself originates.

  Everything in the realm of ends has either a “price” or a “dignity.” That has a price in the room of which something as an equivalent may be put; but that which is above all price, and admits not substitution by an equivalent, has a dignity.

  What is subservient to human wants and wishes has a market-price; and what, when there is no want, serves only to gratify a taste (i.e., a complacency in stimulating the aimless play of fancy), has a fancy-price. But that which constitutes the condition, under which alone anywhat can be an end in itself, has not merely a relative value, i.e., a price, but has an inward worth, i.e., a dignity.

  Now, morality is the condition under which alone an Intelligent can be figured as an end in himself, since by it alone can he become a legislator in the realm of ends. Wherefore morality, and humanity in so far as it is susceptible of that morality, is alone that which has the dignity. Diligence, attention, and adroitness have their market-price; wit, gaiety, and good temper have a price of affection; but incorruptible justice, charity, and unbroken faith have an inward worth. Neither nature nor art contain, in their vast domain, what, if those were awanting, could be brought to supply the void; for their worth consists not in their conduciveness to any end, not in their profit or advantage, but in the sentiments, i.e., in the maxims of the will in which they are causally inseated, although opportunity should now prevent such will from stepping forth to act. Actions of this sort need no recommendation from the part of taste, nor do they require any propensity or sense to cause them to be beheld with inward favour and approbation, nor do they address themselves to any adventitious whim or caprice: they exhibit the will giving them birth as the object of an immediate reverence, and are actions to which reason summons up, demanding them from the will,—whereto she invites, by no flattery or blandishment, which last militate with the very idea of a duty. Such reverence enables us to estimate the inward worth of such a frame of mind as a dignity, as incomputably advanced above all price; nor can we compare or liken it to such barter without in a manner violating its sanctity.

  What, then, is it which entitles the morally good sentiment, i.e., virtue, to make a claim so lofty? It is nothing else than the share imparted thereby to the Intelligent in the universal legislation, making him fit to become a member of the realm of ends, for which indeed the constitution of his nature destined him, making him an end in himself, and upon that account a legislator in that realm—absolved from every physical law, and obedient to those only which he gives himself—by which laws also his maxims may pertain to that universal legislation, whereunto at the same time he subjects himself; for nothing has any worth except that assigned to it by the law. But that law which determines, and is the standard of all worth, must upon that account have a dignity, i.e., an unconditioned, incomparable worth; and reverence is the only beseeming expression whereby to state that estimation in which an Intelligent ought to hold it. Autonomy is therefore the ground of the dignity of humanity, and also of every other intelligent nature whatsoever.

  The three expressions just adopted, enouncing the principle of morality, are no more than three formulæ of one and the same law, each involving in it the other two; and any difference is subjectively, not objectively, practical. They vary by giving a sensible delineation, according to different analogies, to an idea of reason, approaching it thereby to the mental vision and its feelings. Accordingly all maxims have—

  I. A form, consisting in their universality; and here the tenor of the categorical imperative was, “All maxims shall be such only as are fit for law universal.”

  II. A matter,i.e., an end; where the formula ordained that each Intelligent, being by his nature an end in himself, should subordinate to this end the maxims of all his causal and arbitrary ends.

  III. An aggregate determination, by the formula that all maxims of the self-legislative will must be totally subordinated to and resolved into the potential idea of the realm of ends, like as if it were the realm of nature. The three formulæ advance in the order of the categories, from the unity of the form of the will (i.e., its universality) to the plurality of its matter (i.e., of the objects willed—the ends), and thence to the aggregate or totality of the system of its ends. It is better, however, to adhere to the stricter formula of the categorical imperative: “Act according to that maxim which thou couldst at the same time will an universal law.” But when the law has to be conveyed into the mind, it is extremely useful to avail one’s self of these different expressions.

  And now we have arrived at the point from which we first set out,—namely, the conception of a good will. That, we now know, is a good will whose maxim, if made law universal, would not be repugnant to itself. This principle is its supreme law: “Act according to that maxim whose universality, as law, thou canst at the same time will.” This is the sole condition upon which a will can never contradict itself; and this imperative is categoric. And since such a will, if considered as realizing its maxims, is analogous to that uniform and systematic order of events in the physical system which we call nature, the categorical imperative might be couched thus: “Act from maxims fit to be regarded as universal laws of nature.” These are the formulæ indicating what an absolutely good will is.

  An Intelligent has this prerogative over every other being, that he can assign to himself and fix his own end. Such end would be the matter chosen by every good will; but since, in the idea of a will absolutely and unconditionally good, we must abstract from all ends to be effectuated (which ends could make a will relatively good only), this end must be cogitated, not as one to be effected, but as an independent self-subsisting end, that is, negatively only; in other words, as an end against which no action dare militate, and which must, in every volition, be stated, not as a bare instrumental or means, but always as an end. This, however, can be nothing else than the subject of all possible ends himself; he being likewise the potential subject of an absolutely good will, which will cannot be postponed to any other object without an inconsistency. And the position, “So act in reference to all Intelligents (thyself and others), that they may enter as ends into the constitution of thy maxim,” is virtually identic with the former, “Act according to a maxim possessed of universal validity for all Intelligents;” for that I ought, when employing means to any end, so to limit and condition my maxim that it may be valid to oblige as law every thinking subject, says exactly the same thing with this, that the subject of all ends, i.e., the Intelligent himself, may never be employed as a means, but must, as the supreme condition limiting all use of means, enter as end into the constitution of all maxims of acting.

  From all this we infer that every Intelligent must, as end in himself, be able to regard himself as universally legislative, in respect of all laws to which he may at the same time be subjected,—this fitness of his maxims for law universal being exactly that which indicates him to be an end in himself; and we infer further, that this his dignity and excellency above every other creature forces him to construct his maxims, from the consideration of himself and other Intelligents as legislators (called upon this account persons). In this way, a world of Intelligents (mundus intelligibilis) may be cogitated,—and that ideal, which we have denominated “the realm of ends,” is possible by the self-legislation of all its members. Consequently, every Intelligent ought so to act as if he were by his maxims a person legislating for the universal empire of ends in themselves. The formal principle of these maxims is, “Act as if thy maxim were to become law universal” (for a universe of Intelligents). The realm of ends can only be figured as possible from its analogy to the realm of nature,—that proceeding upon maxims, i.e., self-imposed laws, this by virtue of the law of the necessary-nexus; and yet this physical system itself, although, so far as we know, a mere machine, is, when viewed in its connection with Intelligents, as the end why it is there, called, upon this very account, the realm of nature. The realm of ends would likewise really come into existence were every Intelligent to adhere to the maxims dictated by the categorical imperative; and although an Intelligent cannot infer that, even were he punctually to adhere to the categoric maxims, all others would do so too; nor yet, that the realm of nature, and the uniformity of its sequences, might be so found in harmony with his endeavours to realize the realm of ends, as to answer his expectation of happiness: the law does nevertheless ordain with undiminished force, for the command is categorical, “Act agreeably to the maxims of a person ordaining law universal in the realm of ends.” Nor can this paradox cease to astonish us, that the mere dignity of humanity as an Intelligent entity, abstracted from all by-views or ulterior considerations, that is, in other words, that reverence for a bare idea, should furnish the will with an unchanging and inexorable law, and that just in this independency of the will’s maxim on all such outward motives should consist its majesty and augustness, and the worthiness of every thinking subject to occupy the station of a legislator in the realm of ends,—since, apart from this independency, the Intelligent must needs be subjected to the mechanic law of his physical wants. And even if we were to figure to ourselves the realms of nature brought into union with the realms of ends under the sovereignty of a Supreme Head, whereby the latter state would cease to be a mere idea, but would become reality, then would the idea Dignity gain force from the addition of so strong a spring, but it could receive no augmentation of its intrinsic worth; for, notwithstanding all this, the Sovereign Lawgiver must Himself be cogitated as judging of the worth of Intelligents only according to their disinterested adherence to the line of conduct prescribed to them by that idea. The essence of things cannot be altered by any external circumstance; and that which, independently of this last, constitutes the absolute worth of man, must serve as the standard by which to judge him. Morality is, then, the relation obtaining betwixt action and the autonomy of the will: actions in harmony with autonomy of will are allowed and lawful; what actions are incompatible with it are disallowed and unlawful. A will whose maxims coincide of necessity with the laws of autonomy, is a Holy Will, or an absolutely good will; the dependency of a will not altogether good, on the principle of autonomy, is ethical necessitation, and is called obligation. Obligation cannot, upon this account, be predicated of a Holy Will; the objective necessity of an action, on account of this obligation, is what is called duty.

  These observations enable us to understand how, while the idea Duty imports subordination to law, we yet conceive a certain elevation and dignity to belong to that Intelligent who discharges all his duties; for to this extent there is no ground of elevation that the will is subjected to law; but herein consists the elevation, that the person is himself the legislator, and on this account alone bound to subject himself to it. We likewise explained above, how neither fear, nor inclination, but only reverence for the law, could be the spring conferring on any action moral worth. Our own will, in so far as it acts only under the condition required to fit its maxims for law universal—such potential state of will—is, I say, the proper object of reverence; and the dignity of man just consists in the ability to be universally legislative, although upon this condition to be at the same time subjected to his own legislation.

  Autonomy of Will is the Supreme Principle of Morality.

  Autonomy of Will is that quality of will by which a will (independently of any object willed) is a law to itself.* The principle of autonomy, therefore, is to choose such maxims singly as may be willed law universal. That this practical rule is an imperative—i.e., that the will of every Intelligent is necessarily attached to this condition—cannot be evinced by merely analyzing the notions contained in the position, for it is a synthetic à priori proposition. We must, in short, pass from the investigation of the object to an investigation of the subject—i.e., to an inquiry into the functions of practical reason itself; for this synthetic position, which commands apodictically, must be cognisable altogether à priori. But this inquiry is not within the limits of the present chapter. However, that this principle of autonomy is the alone principle of ethics, can be sufficiently evinced from a bare analysis of the current notions regarding morality; and we found that its supreme principle must needs be a categorical imperative, and that the imperative again ordained just this autonomy. How such a synthetic practical position à priori is possible, and why it is necessary, is a problem beyond the limits of the Metaphysic of Ethics. However, whoso admits morality to be anywhat, and not a mere fantastical conceit, must admit at the same time the above principle. But that morality is no chimera, will follow, then, when the categorical imperative, and the autonomy it enjoins, is true, and absolutely necessary as a position à priori. But this requires a potential synthetic use of practical reason à priori,—an assertion we cannot hazard, without first premising an inquiry into the causal functions of that faculty, which we shall now do in the next chapter, at least so far as to satisfy this purpose.

  CHAPTER III.

  TRANSIT FROM THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS TO AN INQUIRY INTO THE À PRIORI OPERATIONS OF THE WILL.

  The Idea Freedom explains that of Autonomy of Will.

  WILL*is that kind of causality attributed to living agents, in so far as they are possessed of reason; and freedom is such a property of that causality as enables them to originate events, independently of foreign determining causes; as, on the other hand (mechanical), necessity is that property of the causality of irrationals, whereby their activity is excited and determined by the influence of foreign causes.

  This explanation of freedom is negative, and therefore unavailing to aid our insight into its essence and nature; but there emerges from it a positive idea of freedom, much more fruitful: for since causality brings with it the notion of law, conformably to which an antecedent gives of necessity the existence of somewhat else, its sequent; the idea freedom, though unconnected with mechanic laws, is not cogitated for that reason as altogether devoid of law, but merely as a causality different in kind, and carrying with it laws suited to that generic difference; for if otherwise, a free will were a chimera.6 The mechanical necessity observed in the physical system is heteronomy in causation, where each event happens only by virtue of somewhat else foreign to the cause determining its efficiency. On the contrary, freedom of will is autonomy,i.e.,that property of will by which it determines its own causality, and gives itself its own law. But the position, the will is in every action a law to itself, is equivalent to the position that it acts from no maxim unfit to be objectively regarded as law universal. This, however, tallies with the formula of the categorical imperative, i.e., with the supreme principle of morality. Whence it results that a free will, and a will subjected to the moral law, are one and identic.

  Upon the hypothesis, then, of freedom of will, morality and its formula are arrived at by a mere analysis of the idea. The formula is, however, a pure synthetic proposition à priori, viz., a good will is one whose maxim can always be regarded as law universal; and no analysis of the notion Good Will can guide to this further one of that property of the maxim. Such synthetic propositions are alone possible when there is a common and middle term combining the extremes which meet in the synthesis. The positive idea Freedom is this middle term, which cannot, as in physic causes, be any part of the system presented to the sensory. Now, what this is to which freedom points, and of which we have an idea à priori, requires elucidation; and to make comprehensible the deduction of the idea Freedom, together with the grounds of the possibility of freedom and a categorical Imperative, requires still a little preparation.

  Freedom must be postulated as a Property of the Will of every Intelligent whatsoever.

  It is not enough to attribute freedom to our will, unless we have sufficient grounds to ascribe it likewise to every reasonable being; for, since morality is our law, only in so far as we are Intelligents, it must be so also for every other being endowed with reason: and since it can be evolved only from the idea Freedom, freedom must be represented as the property of every Intelligent’s will whatsoever. It is not enough to deduce it from experience of human nature (although this is impossible, for it demands an investigation à priori); but it must be evinced as indissolubly attached to the energy of all beings possessed of reason and will. Now, I say that every being who can only act under the idea Freedom, is for that reason to all practical ends really free;i.e., all laws bind him, which go hand in hand with the idea Freedom, just as much as if his will had been in speculative philosophy ascertained to be free; and I assert further, that we must ascribe to every Intelligent possessed of will the idea Freedom, under which idea he can alone act. For in such Intelligent we figure to ourselves a reason which is practical, i.e., has causality in respect of its objects. Now, it is impossible to figure to ourselves any reason conscious of receiving any foreign bias in constituting its judgments and notions; for then the person would ascribe the determination of his judgments, not to his reason, but to an extraneous impulse. Reason must therefore regard herself as the author of her own principles, independently of foreign influences: consequently she has a practical reason, i.e., as will of an Intelligent, to regard herself as free; that is to say, the will of an Intelligent can be his own will only by presupposing freedom; and this must therefore, for a practical behoof, be ascribed to all Intelligents whatsoever.

  Of the Interest indissolubly connected with the Idea of Morality.

  We have now reduced the idea of morality to that of freedom of will; but we have not yet shown such freedom to exist as real in human nature. We only saw that we must presuppose freedom when we try to figure to ourselves an Intelligent conscious of its own causality with reference to its own actions, i.e., endowed with will. Upon the same grounds, it was requisite to attribute to every agent endowed with intelligence and will a property of determining its own agency by virtue of the idea of its own freedom.

  Upon the presupposition of those ideas, there resulted further the consciousness of a law making it imperative how to act, viz., that the subjective rules of conduct ought always to be so constituted as to be objectively, i.e., universally valid, and so fit for proper catholic legislation. But still a question may be raised, Why am i bound to subject myself to this principle? and that too so sheerly as Intelligent, that every other Intelligent must be figured as standing in the same situation. I admit that no interest urges to this subjection; otherwise the categorical imperative were abrogated. Still I cannot be devoid of all interest to do so, nor without interest to comprehend on what such interest is based; for this word shall denotes properly a state of will valid for all Intelligents, which would alone obtain, if reason, unimpeded, were the alone actor. For beings like ourselves, affected by sensitive excitements, totally different in kind from the causal laws of reason, and whose actions fall out, vastly discrepant from what naked unimpeded reason would have done, such abstract necessity of acting is spoken of as what one should or ought, and the subjective is distinguished from the objective necessity.

  It looks very like as if we set out with the idea Freedom for a vehicle to the moral law, and the principle of the autonomy of the will, but could not, apart from this presupposition, prove the law’s reality and proper objective necessity. However, even were it so, we should gain a very considerable end, viz., the fixing more closely than heretofore the true foundation of morality, even although we should not yet have succeeded in establishing its validity, and the practical necessity incumbent on man to subject himself to it. And this really has been done, although we should never be able to answer satisfactorily the question why the universal validity of our maxims for laws should be a condition limitary of our conduct; nor yet be able to tell whereon we base that worth, figured to attach to this mode of conduct, and which is alleged to run so high, that no higher interest is at all conceivable; nor whence it happens that man in these circumstances alone learns to feel his personal worth, in exchange with which a painful or a happy state shrinks equally to nothing.

  It is found, indeed, that mankind are susceptible of an interest in a personal property, unconnected with any pleasurable state, provided such personal qualification may make us capable of the latter, in the event of a reason coming to distribute it; i.e., that the mere worthiness to become happy has an interest abstracted from any regard had to such happiness itself. But then this judgment and this susceptibility is itself a product of the admitted weight and importance of the moral law (when we, by force of the idea Freedom, detach ourselves from every sensitive excitement and emotion); but how we are at all able thus to detach ourselves, i.e., to cogitate ourselves as free, and why, in doing so, we ought to find an increased worth in our personality, requiting us for every loss we otherwise undergo, i.e., upon what grounds the moral law has virtue to oblige, cannot be comprehended by dint of the foregoing remarks.

  It seems, I confess, as if the whole argument moved in a circle, from which there is no escaping. We assume ourselves free to explain our subjection to the moral law, and then we figure ourselves subjected to this law, because we have attributed to ourselves this property of freedom; for freedom and self-legislation issue both in autonomy of will, and so are convertible ideas; from which cause it comes that the one cannot be used to explain the other, nor can be assigned as its ground, but at the furthest may be put to the logical use of reducing seemingly different representations of the same object to one single notion (as in the mathematics, fractions equal, but with different denominators, are reduced to similar expressions by their common measure).

  Only one escape remains to us from this labyrinth, namely, to inquire if we do not occupy an entirely different station, when we regard ourselves, as by means of freedom, spontaneous á priori causes, from that station which we hold when we represent to ourselves our actions as events in the system we see presented to our senses.

  It is a remark, not calling for much subtle penetration, but one made from yore by the most common understanding, that the representations we are possessed of through the intervention of the sensory, never teach knowledge of objects otherwise than how they affect us; and so, what they are in themselves remains latent and undiscovered: consequently that, notwithstanding the greatest efforts of the understanding with regard to such representations, we arrive at knowledge of the appearances of things only, and can attain none of things in themselves. So soon as this distinction has been made (even did it merely spring from the observed difference between the representations given us from without, and in receiving which we are passive, and those which we produce entirely within ourselves, and exert our own self-activity upon them), it follows at once that something must be assumed, lying at the bottom of phenomena, which cannot itself again be a phenomenon, viz., the thing itself, although we are at the same time perfectly aware that, since we never can know it further than how we are affected by it, we can come no nearer to it, nor detect its real nature and being. This may be the first separation made by man betwixt a cogitable world and the world presented to his senses, which sensible system may differ continually with the differing sensories of different percipients, although the supersensible system, its groundwork, remain unaltered and the same.* Nay, even what man knows of his own nature and constitution by his inward senses, is an appearance only, and no acquaintance with what he is in himself; for his perception of himself coming through the sensory is a mere phenomenon in nature, and can only take notice of the mode in which his consciousness is affected; and yet at the same time he must of necessity pass from this phenomenal composition of himself to that which lies at the bottom of it, viz., his I, figured as a thing in itself. This man, in regard of his sensory and receptive faculties, deems himself a part of the sensible system; but in regard of that within him, which may be his own pure spontaneity (i.e., that which is immediately present to consciousness, without any modification of the sensory), he deems himself likewise a member of a cogitable and unseen system, of which he has, however, no knowledge.

  This conclusion must follow and hold with regard to everything presenting itself to man: probably it obtains to some extent in every human understanding; for the most untutored have always been inclined to figure to themselves an invisible and unknown at the back of the objects impinging on the sensory, and have expected to find there, somewhat self-active; but then they immediately ruin this discovery by giving this invisible an external and tangible configuration, and so halt on the threshold of discovery.

  Now, in point of fact, man finds himself endowed with a function, by which he distinguishes himself from all other objects, nay, even from himself, in so far as he is affectable through the sensory; and this function or power is reason.* This, as pure self-activity, transcends in excellence even the faculty of understanding; for though this last is likewise self-activity, and does not, like the sensory, contain mere representations which result from its reaction, when impressed by things, yet it begets no conceptions, excepting only such as serve to regulate and order the impressions of the sensory, and so to combine them in the identity of self-consciousness, without which union and combination of perceptibles the intellect could furnish no thought. Whereas reason, in supplying the ideas, shows so original and high a power of pure spontaneity, that it passes altogether beyond the field of the sensory, and has for its most principal and chief function, to separate and disjoin the sensible and cogitable system; and, by assigning the limits and boundaries of these respectively, to fix at the same time those laws beyond which the understanding cannot pass.

  Hence it happens, that a reasonable agent must, as Intelligent, cogitate himself a member, not so much of the sensible, but rather of the supersensible system.† He has therefore two stations from which to regard himself, and a twofold set of laws regulating the conduct and exercise of his powers. The one kind of laws import heteronomy, and subjection to the mechanism and necessity of the physical system. The second connect him with a cogitable system, are quite independent on mechanic influences, and have their grounds in nowise in the physical system, but in reason only.

  As Intelligent, and member of a cogitable world, man can represent to himself his proper causality only by force of the idea Freedom; for independence on the determining causes of the physical system (which independency reason must always attribute to itself) is freedom; but to the idea Freedom that of autonomy is indissolubly attached; and with this last there goes hand in hand the principle of morality, which does in idea lie at the bottom of the actions of every rational, in exactly the same way as laws of nature lie at the bottom and are the groundwork of all phenomena.

  And now the suspicion previously stated is removed, as if there were a latent and vicious circle in our concluding from freedom upon autonomy, and from autonomy upon the moral law; as if we set out with the idea Freedom merely for the sake of the moral law, and in order to deduce this law from it, and so could give no account, and could assign no grounds for this idea, but had begged it merely as a principle, which the charitable might kindly grant us, but which could never be set up as a position resting on its own independent grounds. For now we see that, cogitated as free, we transplant ourselves into a supersensible system, whereof we recognise the law of autonomy, and its sequel morality; but that again, when we figure ourselves obliged or beholden to an act, we regard ourselves as members at once both of the sensible and of the cogitable systems.

  How is a Categorical Imperative possible?

  Every reasonable being reckons himself on the one hand as Intelligent in a cogitable system; and merely as an efficient in this system does he call his causality a will. On the other hand, he is conscious that he is a part of the physical or sensible system into which actions step forth, as the mere appearances or phenomena of that causality, the possibility of which, however, cannot be understood, as they have a descent from sources we know nothing of; but which appearances must, on the contrary, be regarded as determined by other and antecedent phenomena, namely, appetites and desires obtaining in the physical system. Regarded purely as an inhabitant of the cogitable world, all man’s actions would exactly tally with the autonomy of a pure will; while, again, regarded as a mere link in the chain of causes and events, all human actions are locked up under mechanic laws (heteronomy), and would ensue exactly according to the physical impulses given by instincts and solicitations in the sensory. But because the world of Noumena contains within it the last ground, not only of the world of Phenomena, but also of this last’s laws, I, as Intelligent, though likewise a phenomenon, must recognise myself as immediately attached to the intellectual law of the first, i.e., of reason, which by the idea Freedom gives a law, and ordains autonomy of will; from which it follows, that the laws of the cogitable and noumenal world are immediate and categorical imperatives; and the actions flowing from these principles it behoves me to judge of as duties.

  Thus categorical imperatives are seen and comprehended to be possible, the idea Freedom making me an inhabitant of a cogitable system; where, were I such alone, my every action would fall out in harmony with autonomy of will, and, so far as I am likewise connected with a different but dependent system, ought and should so harmonize; which categorical “should,” expresses a synthetic proposition à priori; the constitution and origin of which synthesis is understood and comprehended, when we understand, that over and above my consciousness* of a will, stimulated by sensitive instincts and wants, there is superadded an idea of the very same will, but figured to be in a cogitable system, as pure self-active will, which likewise contains in it the last grounds and supreme conditions of the other,—pretty much as where, over and above the intuitions of the sensory, there are superadded notions of the understanding, which notions are in themselves nothing but legislative forms, and yet constitute, by the conjunction, synthetic propositions à priori, on which all knowledge of physics and of the laws of nature rests.

  The practical use of the plainest understanding corroborates the accuracy of this investigation. No one, not even the most hardened ruffian, can fail to wish a change of state and character, when he has laid before his mental vision examples of sincerity and plain dealing, of unwavering steadfastness in adhering to good resolutions, of active sympathy, of inward good will, and universal benevolence. Such he too would willingly become; but he finds he cannot, in consequence of appetites and perturbations obtaining in his sensory; and this forces from him the further wish that he were disenthralled from the bondage of a servitude now felt to be intolerable. He therefore demonstrates that he, by force of the idea of a will separated from the perturbations of the sensory, does in thought waft himself into an order of things where none such intrude, and where he expects no real or imaginary gratification, but expects singly an advancement of the inward worth of his personality. This better person, however, man figures himself to be, when he regards himself, in his station, as an inhabitant of the cogitable system, whitherwards the idea Freedom (i.e., independency on the determinators of the physical system) must of necessity transplant him. There he is conscious of a good will,7 and recognises it as the law and standard for his wayward and phenomenal one. What he therefore morally should and ought, he sees to be his own proper necessary will, as member of a cogitable world; and he speaks of this his necessary will under the term shall, when, recognising its authority, he considers himself at the same time as residing in the system presented to his senses.

  Of the Extreme Verge of all Practical Philosophy.

  All men regard themselves,quoadtheir wills, as free:* hence come those judgments passed with regard to actions, that they ought to have happened, although in fact and event they happen not. This freedom is no conception taken from experience and observation, for it remains unaltered, even while all experience exhibits the very contrary of what, according to laws of freedom, ought to be; and yet, on the other hand, it is equally necessary to think of every event as inevitably determined by laws of nature. And this necessity in the physical sequences is no conception either, borrowed from observation and experience; for it is the notion of a necessity, and is part of knowledge à priori. Now this conception of a necessary-nexus in the physical system is substantiated by experience, nay, behoved to be presupposed if experience and observation (i.e., regular and uniform knowledge of the objects of sense) are to be possible. Hence freedom is only an idea of reason, and the objective reality of it is doubtful, but the mechanic nexus is a notion of the understanding, and proves its reality in experience and observation, and must prove it.*

  Thus reason finds itself involved in a dialectic, for the freedom attributed to it seems to collide with the necessity obtaining in the physical system. And although, in this dilemma, reason, for speculative purposes, finds the path of mechanical necessity much smoother, and more unimpeded, yet, for all practical ends, she finds the narrow path of freedom the alone and single, along which she can exert herself in action. Hence the most subtle philosophy and the plainest understanding have both found it alike impossible to quibble themselves out of freedom: they have therefore been both conscious at bottom, that there was no real contradiction betwixt freedom and the laws of nature, considered both as regulating human actions; for reason can no more give up the notion of nature, than she can divest herself of the idea of freedom.

  But at any rate, the appearance of contradiction must be removed, although how freedom is possible remains totally incomprehensible;* for if the idea Freedom be repugnant to itself, or the causal laws of nature, which are just as necessary, it must be abandoned for the sake of the latter.

  But this contradiction cannot be avoided, unless the subject attributing to itself freedom thinks itself under different relations, when it at one time calls itself free, and yet regards the same action as fixed and subjected to the causal mechanic law determining phenomena. The problem is one which cannot be declined by reason, at least to show that the deceptive appearance of contradiction consists in this, that we cogitate mankind in a totally different point of view when we deem him free from what we regard him in when, as a phenomenon in space of time, we deem him subjected to their laws. Nay, to show further, that these two are not only consistent, but must of necessity be combined in the same subject, since we could not otherwise assign a ground why reason is to be embarrassed with an idea, not perhaps giving the lie direct to an old and well-established notion, but which idea exposes her to a very unnecessary and needless dilemma. This duty is incumbent on speculative philosophy, that it may prepare the way for the practical: there is therefore no option left to the philosopher, whether he will solve this seeming enigma, or leave it uninvestigated; for if he do this last, he leaves the theory concerning freedom a bonum vacans, which the first coming fatalist may seize on as unoccupied, and expels morals, as usurping grounds to which she can show no title.

  However, it is not here the outer verge and border of practical philosophy is descried, for the difficulty just mentioned does not fall under its province, but is for speculative reason to make an end of, that it may warrant to practical reason secure and easy possession against all assailants of the domain on which she intends to erect her seat.

  The legal title on which reason claims her freedom of will is grounded on the consciousness* and admitted presupposition of reason’s independency on merely subjectively determined causes, which aggregately compose whatever is of the nature of sensation, and passes under the general name of sensory. Man, considered as thus independent and intelligent, wafts himself, when he does so, into another order of things, and into a relationship with determining grounds of quite another kind (as intelligence endowed with will, i.e., causality) from those with which he is connected when he perceives himself a phenomenon objected to his senses (which likewise he most certainly is), and finds his causality subjected to foreign determinators, according to mechanic laws. Now he immediately becomes aware that both states may co-exist, nay, that in point of fact they must do so; for that a thing as it appears, and as part of sensible phenomena, is affected by certain laws, on which it, the same thing, not as appearance, but as a real, actual thing in itself, is independent, is in nowise a contradiction; and that man must reflect of himself in this twofold light, rests first on his consciousness of his being an object in the sensible system, and then, second, on his consciousness of himself as Intelligent, i.e., as in his originary use of reason, independent on sensitive impressions, i.e., detached from them, and in a cogitable state.*

  Hence also it happens that man deems himself the potential possessor of a will which tramples under foot whatever is the mere progeny of appetite and want, and represents actions to be by it not only possible, but necessary, which can alone be performed by casting behind-back and discarding every inclination and excitement of the sensory. This will’s causality resides within him as Intelligent, and has its origin and seat in the laws of a cogitable world; of which world, however, man knows nothing further than that therein reason, naked reason, i.e., reason separated from every perturbation of the sensory, has alone the sway; and since it is there alone that, as Intelligent, man is properly himself (whereas here he is but an appearance of that self), that sway and dominion of reason concern him immediately and categorically. Nor can the whole stimulants in the phenomenal system affect or impair in any way the laws of his intellectual will; so much so, that he counts not these stimulants as his, but acquits himself of them as irresponsible. These he imputes not to his proper self, i.e., his will; but to himself alone any indulgence whereby he may incline to them, and allow them any influence derogatory to the authority of the law presented by reason to his will.*

  Nor does reason overstep her bounds, in cogitating herself into a supersensible state; but she would then, when she pretended to feel herself into it, or by intuition to envisage herself there. Such supersensible is a mere idea, negative of the sensible world, which gives no laws to determine reason; and is in this point alone positive, that freedom, although a negative quality, carries with it a positive function and causality of reason called will,† enabling man so to act that the principle of his conduct may tally with the essential constitution of all causal reasons; i.e., the condition, that a reasonable agent’s maxims of conduct should be at all times fit for law universal. But when reason attempts to draw down an object of will from the cogitable world, then she oversteps her limits, and affects a knowledge where she knows nothing. The notion of a cogitable system is a mere station which reason needs for a fulerum to lift itself out of the mass of appearances, and cogitate itself as suiactive. This, however, mankind could not at all do, if sensitive excitements necessarily determined the human will; but which he must inevitably do, unless self-consciousness, as intelligent and spontaneous reason, is to be denied.* This conception leads, no doubt, to the idea of a different order of things, and of a legislation totally diverse from laws obtaining over the mechanic events in nature, and renders the representation of a cogitable world (i.e., the aggregate of Intelligents as things-in-themselves) necessary and inevitable. But all this takes place without the smallest pretence to know anything of the laws obtaining there, excepting only the formal condition of them, viz., the potential universality of the maxims of their wills for law—that is, their autonomy, which alone can consist with freedom; whereas all laws whatsoever grounded on an object beget heteronomy, and can take place singly in mechanic nexus and a physical system.

  But reason would indeed overstep all bounds and limits were she to undertake an explanation, how pure reason can be spontaneous and self-practical? — a problem perfectly identic with this one, to explain how freedom of will is possible.†

  For we can explain nothing which we cannot reduce to laws, the object of which is given, or at least may be given, in observation and experience; whereas freedom is a bare idea, and its objective reality cannot be exhibited or explained by laws of the physical system, i.e., is nowhere found in observation and experience; and since no example or analogy can be supplied to it, its reality can never become either comprehended or understood. It is valid merely as a necessary hypothesis for that reason which believes itself possessed of will, i.e., of a function superior to mere powers of desire;* namely, a function to determine itself to act as pure intelligence upon grounds of reason, and independently on physical instincts. Now, where events cease to be regulated by physic laws, there explanation is at end; and all that remains is to defend our possession of the idea, that is, to repel the attacks of those who pretend to see further into the nature of things than others, and who boldly pronounce freedom an absurdity. And we can show them, that the contradiction they imagine they have found out lies only in their refusing to regard man in his twofold character; and that when, in order to support the unvariedness of the causal law in respect of human actions, they consider man of necessity as a phenomenon in the physical system, and are then further required to figure to themselves man as Intelligent, and not as an appearance, but a thing in itself, they still persist in regarding him as in space and time: in which case, indeed, to separate his causality (i.e., his will) from the laws obtaining there, is impossible, and an absurdity; which difficulty vanishes entirely if they would bethink themselves, as reason calls on them to do, that beyond phenomena must needs be things-in-themselves, although latent,—the laws of which last cannot be expected to turn out identic with the laws under which their appearances rank.

  This subjective impossibility to explain the freedom of the will is identic with the impossibility to investigate or explain the interest† mankind takes in the moral law; and although he has such interest, the groundwork of which is called the moral sense, no further account of it can be given. The feeling itself has been falsely declared to be the standard and guide of our ethical judgments, whereas it is the inward effect exercised by the law upon the will, the objective grounds of which reside in reason.

  In order to will what reason ordains* that man ought and should, this last must have a function enabling it to beget a feeling of amenity, in the carrying its law into execution—in other words, in discharging duty; consequently, reason must have a causality of its own, adapted for determining the sensory according to its own principles. It is, however, altogether impossible to comprehend how a naked thought, containing in it nothing of the sensory, can bring forth an emotion of pleasure or pain; for it is a peculiar kind of causality, and of it, like every other kind of causality, we can predicate nothing à priori, but see ourselves compelled to interrogate experience. Observation and experience, however, teach no other relation betwixt cause and effect, than the relation obtaining betwixt one phenomenon and another; and in the case we are considering, reason is, by its ideas (which no experience reaches), the cause of an effect, which last alone lies within observation and experience; whence we see that an explanation, how and why the universal validity of a maxim for law (i.e.,morality) should interest mankind, is quite unattainable. Only thus much is certain, that morality is not valid for man because it interests him (for that were heteronomy and dependency of the will on sense), but that it interests because it has validity for man—because its law springs from our very intellectual being, and from what is man’s proper self: now, whatever (e.g., the interest) is among the appearances, must needs be subordinated by reason to the essential constitution of the thing itself.

  The question, how a categorical imperative is possible, may therefore be thus far replied to, that we can assign the alone hypothesis on which such imperative can be founded, viz., freedom; and it is replied to, in so far as we can comprehend the necessity of this postulate freedom, which is sufficient for the practical conduct of reason, i.e., to a practical conviction of the authority and validity of the imperative, that is, generally of the moral law. But how the hypothesis itself comes to be possible, is what no human reason can comprehend. Upon the hypothesis of freedom of will, autonomy, the formal condition of its determination was inferred as a necessary sequel; to postulate which freedom of will, is not only possible, but is unconditionally necessary, for a being conscious of its intellectual causality, that is, of a will, which it distinguishes from its desires;* which postulate it must likewise apply to the practical use of every voluntary action. But how naked reason, independently of every other spring, can be itself active and spontaneous, i.e., how the mere principle of the validity of its maxims for universal laws, independently on every object man may be interested in, can be itself a spring to action, and beget an interest which is purely ethical; to explain this, I say, how reason can be thus practical, is quite beyond the reach and grasp of all human thought, and the labour and toil bestowed on any such inquiry is fruitless, and thrown away.

  An inquiry instituted to this effect would be just the same as if I were to try to fathom how freedom is, as a causality of will, possible; for I then quit all philosophic grounds of explanation, and have none other. I might no doubt give my fancy reins, and let it run riot through a cogitable region which still remains. But though I have a well-grounded idea of such a state, I have no knowledge of it whatever, and can acquire none by any stretch of thought. The idea denotes a mere somewhat (cogitable) which remains when every sensitive excitement is excluded from the will; and this exclusion is had recourse to, in order to show that the sensible system is not all in all, but that beyond lies somewhat ulterior. But this ulterior is a vast unknown and blank. When reason thinks of such an ideal state, and abstracts from all known objects, there remains nothing except the form (of reason itself), viz., the law of the universal validity of its maxims; and in harmony with this, reason, as therein an agent, i.e., a cause determining volition. Every spring is here awanting and abstracted from, unless indeed the idea of this cogitable state be itself the spring, i.e., that in which reason takes its original interest; but to make this comprehensible, is just the problem we have declared insoluble.

  Here, then, is the utmost verge of all ethical inquiry, to fix the just bounds and limits of which is of very great importance; for it provides reason with a guard against seeking in the sensible system for its last determinator, and finding there, to the utter ruin of all morality, a physical and comprehensible interest; and it likewise furnishes a guard whereby reason is prevented from impotently flapping its wings and attempting to soar in the blank void of impossible ideas, and, without moving from the spot, disorienting itself amid chimeras. The idea of a pure cogitable world, as an aggregate of reasonable beings, to which ourselves belong (although still parts in a physical system), is a most fertile and allowed idea for the behoof of a reasonable faith, all knowledge falling short on this side of it. Nor can the august ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves fail to excite in man a lively interest in the moral law, since mankind can only then figure themselves its inhabitants, when they most industriously adhere to the imperatives of freedom, as if they were necessary laws of the physical system.

  Conclusion of the Groundwork.

  Speculative reason, when examining the physical system, arrived at the idea of an absolute necessity contained in some last and supreme cause of the world. Practical reason, reflecting on its actions, arrives also at an absolute necessity (in freedom),—a necessity extending no farther than to the laws of the actions of a reasonable being considered as such. Now it is a fundamental principle of all use of reason, to carry back all knowledge to a consciousness of its necessity (and where this is not done, the knowledge does not rest on grounds of reason); and yet it is a limit as invariably put to it, that it cannot comprehend this necessity, either of what happens, or of what ought to happen, unless it is able to assign some condition as a ground upon which somewhat either is or ought to be. In this way, by continually requiring further and further conditions, the insight and satisfaction of reason is postponed. In this restless state reason is driven on the unconditionally necessary, and is forced upon it, although it cannot by any means comprehend such unconditionate necessity, and deems itself happy when it impinges on an idea able to support the load of such a hypothesis. It is therefore no fault of this deduction and inquiry into the supreme and last principle of morality, but an objection which it behoved to make to human reason itself, that it cannot make comprehensible the absolute necessity of an unconditioned practical law, which unconditionate necessity the categorical imperative must have; for that reason refuses to explain it by adopting the further condition of an interest attaching to it, can be no reproach to reason, since in such event the imperative would cease to be a moral, i.e., supreme law of freedom, and so we cannot comprehend the unconditionate practical necessity of the ethical imperative, but we comprehend why it is incomprehensible; and this is as much as can be reasonably demanded from a system of philosophy which has for its object to investigate the reach and extent of the faculty of reason.

  BOOK II.

  INQUIRY INTO THE À PRIORI OPERATIONS OF THE WILL.
  
  (Extracted from the “Critik of Practical Reason.”)

  CHAPTER I.

  ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES.

  PRACTICAL principles are propositions containing different rules, subordinate to them, which may be grounds of determining the Will. They are either subjective, and are called maxims, when the rule is considered as of force only in reference to the thinking subject himself; or they are objective, and are called laws, when reason pronounces the rule to have an ethical virtue of obliging all reasonable beings.*

  Remark.

  If it be admitted that reason contains in itself practical grounds sufficient for determining the will, then there are practical laws; but if otherwise, then are there no more than practical maxims. Where a will is pathologically affected, there a collision of maxims is conceivable; nay, they may even militate against laws which the thinking subject himself admits to be presented to his will by reason. Thus, an individual may adopt the maxim to let no injury pass unavenged, and at the same time he may see very clearly that that principle is no law, but simply a maxim of his own; and that if such a maxim were raised to the rank of a law in a general code or system of moral legislation, it would become self-destructory, and inconsistent with itself. In natural philosophy, principles regulating what happens (events) (e.g., the principle of the equality of action and reaction in communicating motion) are also laws of nature; for in physics the use of reason is theoretic, and determined by the nature of the object. But in moral philosophy, where determinators of volition are alone inquired into, the rules or principles which a person may adopt to regulate what happens (actions) are not in any sense laws inevitably put upon him; for reason is here practical, and has to do with the appetitive faculty of the subject, according to the nature and qualities of which, the rule may be variously modified. Every practical rule is a product of reason, for it prescribes an act as a mean toward an end, which is intended. But such a rule is, in the case of a being whose reason is not the sole determinator of his choice, an imperative,i.e., a rule expressed by the word shall or ought, and it denotes the objective necessity of an action, and implies that, if the will were guided by reason singly, the action would follow according to the rule. Imperatives have therefore an objective import, and so differ totally from maxims, which are subjective singly. They determine the causality of an agent either in regard of the effect or purpose to be reached, or they determine the causality simpliciter. In the first case, the imperatives are hypothetical, and are no more than rules of art; but, in the second, they are categoric and absolute, and these alone are practical laws regulating conduct. While, then, maxims may be regarded as rules, they never can be considered as imperatives. Even imperatives, when no more than conditional determinators of the will, i.e., when they determine the will, not as such simply, but as a mean toward some desired effect, are not laws, but practical precepts only. Laws must determine the will, as will, and do not even depend on the question whether the subject possess the power requisite for some desired end: they are equally independent of the particular line of conduct conducive to it, i.e., they are categoric; and if they were not so, they would not be laws, being deficient in necessity,—a practical necessity, being only possible to be conceived where the will is separated thoroughly from all pathological and contingent circumstances which may attach to it. When it is said that a man must exert himself in youth, and be thrifty, that he may not starve when he is old, a true and important rule of conduct is advanced; but what is to be observed with regard to this rule is, that the will is referred to somewhat out of and beyond itself, of which it is presumed it makes a choice; and it must be left to the individual himself whether he so choose or no; whether he may expect funds from other sources than his own industry; whether he think he may live to old age; or whether he may keep himself by stealing when he comes to want. Reason, from which alone a rule expressive of necessity can emanate, lends a necessity to the foregoing precept (for, apart from its necessity, it were no imperative); but such necessity is subjectively conditional, and cannot be supposed of all thinking beings equally. But for a legislation of reason, nothing further can be required than that it presuppose itself, since in this event alone can a rule be objectively and universally valid, no subjective contingent circumstances being introduced distinguishing one reasonable being from another. Now, let it be said that none ought to promise deceitfully, and we have a rule which respects the will singly, and takes no cognisance of any ulterior aim or intention which a man may have, and is hence independent of the consideration of any such aim being attainable or not. It is the naked volition which is given as determined à priori by the rule. Again, suppose that the above rule be correct and true, then it is law; for the imperative it expresses is categoric. All practical laws refer to will, quite irrespective of any effects which its causality may produce, whence abstracting from “those,” we may consider “this” as it is à priori.

  Sec. 2.—

  Position I.

  All practical principles which presuppose an object, or matter chosen, as a determinator of the will, are one and all of them taken from experience and observation, and, being à posteriori, cannot supply a law of acting.

  Remarks.

  By the matter of a choice, I understand an object, the existence of which is desired. When the desire of this object goes before the practical rule, and is the condition determining it, then I say, first, such rule is always à posteriori; for the determinator of choice is then the representation of an object, and the relation subsisting between the representation and the subject, whereby the choice is determined to realise the object. This relation, however, is called pleasure in the existence of the object. This pleasure must therefore be presupposed as a condition precedent to the possibility of such determination of the choice. Now, it is impossible to know à priori, in any case, whether the representation of an object is to be accompanied with pleasure or not; whence it follows that the determinator of the choice is à posteriori in such event, as is likewise the material principle of acting which rests on it as a condition.

  Again, I say, secondly, that since a principle which is based on the susceptibility of an individual for pleasure or pain is known only by an induction à posteriori, and cannot be extended to other agents perhaps not endowed with any similar or the same capacity, it may become a maxim, but can never be law, not even for this individual; for it is devoid of objective necessity, which is always à priori. A material principle can therefore never yield a practical law regulating conduct.

  Sec. 3.—

  Position II.

  All material practical principles, however different, agree in this, that they belong to one general system of Eudaimonism, and rest on self-love.

  The pleasure arising from the representation of the existence of a thing, when a determinator of the choice towards that thing, rests on the susceptibility of the individual, and depends on the existence of the thing, and belongs for this reason to the sensory and not to the understanding, because this last refers a representation to the object by the intervention of a notion, and does not refer it to the subject by the intervention of a feeling. The pleasure is consequently only in so far practical, as the agreeable sensation expected by the individual from the object determines his choice. But the consciousness of agreeable sensations, regarded as uninterrupted through the whole course of life, constitutes happiness; and the ruling principle to make regard to one’s own happiness the supreme and single determination to action, is the principle which is justly called self-love: consequently all material principles which put the determinator of choice in the pleasure or pain resulting from the existence of an object, are to this extent all of the same kind—that they belong to a system of Eudaimonism, and rest on one’s own self-love.

  Corollary.—Every material rule assigns a determination of choice taken from the lower powers of desire singly; and were there no formal law of the will sufficient to determine it, it would needs follow that there existed no superior power of desire at all.

  Remark I.

  It is quite surprising that men, otherwise acute, should have imagined that they had detected the difference betwixt the higher and inferior powers of desire, by observing whether the representation productive of pleasure sprang from the sensory, or from the understanding; for when inquiry is made as to the determinator of a choice, and the grounds of that determination be put in the agreeable sensation expected from an object, it is of no moment from what faculty the representation springs, but this alone is to be considered, how much the representation pleases or delights. If a representation, which may have its seat in the understanding, is only able to determine the choice by presupposing a pleasurable sensation in the subject, then it is clear that the determination depends on the peculiar constitution of the sensory, and its susceptibility for an emotion of delight. It is of no consequence to insist that the representations of objects are widely different, according as they are of the understanding, of reason, or of the sensory; for the feeling of pleasure, by which the will is put into motion, is in either of these three cases exactly of the same kind, both by being known only à posteriori, and by its stimulating the same vital function. The different agreeable sensations which may therefore determine the will, differ merely in degree; and if this were not so, it were impossible that any man could compare different representations, springing from different faculties, so as to prefer one before the other; and yet an individual may throw aside a useful book not to neglect a hunting match; the very same man may quit listening to a most pathetic harangue, not to be too late for dinner, or leave a most interesting party, and for whom he has the highest esteem, to adjourn to a gaming table; nay, a benevolent man, otherwise fond of giving alms, may turn away a poor object because he has just so much money in his pocket as will pay his entrance into the theatre. If the motive determining the will turn on the pleasure or pain expected from a representation, it must be quite indifferent to the individual what kind of representation affects him; his sole concern in determining his choice must be how intense, how durable, how easily acquired and repeated, may be the gratification,—just as it is indifferent to the man who is about to pay away his money, whether the gold of which his coin consists has been dug out of a mine or washed from the sand, provided it pass current in either case for the same value. A man, therefore, whose concern rises no further than to pass happily through life, is perfectly indifferent whether a representation of the sensory or of the understanding delight him, provided the enjoyment be equally great and equally durable in both cases. But, clear though this be, those who deny the power of reason to determine by itself the will, have continually embarrassed this matter by their bad definitions,—first holding certain sensations to be pleasures, and then pronouncing them somewhat totally diverse. Thus they observe that sustained exertion, that consciousness of force of will in overcoming great obstacles presented to the execution of our resolves, that the culture of the mind, impart high degrees of gratification; and that mankind deem them more refined, because they are more in our own power, do not wear out by usage, but rather strengthen our susceptibility for such enjoyment, and so expand the mind while they delight it: upon these grounds, they conclude that such pleasures determine the will in a totally different manner from the pleasure of the senses, and support themselves in this belief by inventing a peculiar sense (a moral sense, or sense of taste) for their vehicle;—a style this of arguing, which reminds one of those metaphysic quacks who keep cogitating at matter till it becomes so fine and suprafine, that they at length fancy it subtilized into spirit. If, like Epicurus, we rest virtue on the pleasure it may promise us, it is quite inconsistent to tax that philosopher with sottishness when he holds the pleasures of virtue as exactly the same in kind with the coarsest sensual enjoyment. And it is mistaking his system altogether to say, that the representations by which he expected to be delighted have their origin alone in the organs of the body. On the contrary, so far as we can understand him, he placed many pleasures in the culture and use of the intellectual powers; but this ought not, and did not, hinder him from regarding pleasures, when stimulating the will, as exactly alike and the same in nature. To be rigidly consistent, is the highest duty of a philosopher; and of this we find better examples in the old Greek schools than nowadays, when the most discordant systems are often forced, by the shallowness of their abettors, into a disgraceful coalition, in the hope of pleasing the public by giving them a little of everything. A system the principles of which turn on one’s own happiness, no matter how intellectually soever the understanding may be employed on it, can never furnish any further motive than such as excite and stimulate the inferior powers of desire. Either, then, a superior power of desire is to be abandoned, or else reason must itself be a practical or active faculty; i.e., such a one as can by the bare form of its rule determine a volition, and that abstracted from all feelings of the agreeable or disagreeable which may follow or compose the matter of a choice. And if reason be such a faculty, then it is not in anywise in the service of the sensory, but does itself alone determine a volition, and is a superior or supreme power of desire, generically distinct from the lower, and claiming the supremacy over it. To adulterate the legislation of reason with motives borrowed from the sensory, is to impair its strength, and derogate from its pre-eminence, in the same way as a geometric demonstration would be ruined if attempted to be assisted by an induction; for instead of being supported, it would lose its certainty and self-evidencing power.

  Reason determines the will simpliciter by its law,* and not indirectly by the intervention of an emotion,—not even by means of pleasure felt in the contemplation of the law itself; and it is only because reason is an active faculty, that it is possible for it to legislate over the will.

  Remark II.

  To be happy, is a desire entertained of necessity by every finite intelligence, and is therefore inevitably a determinator of choice. Contentment with our state of existence is no birthright of man. If it were, it would be fitly termed blessedness, and would consist in the consciousness of man’s all-sufficiency and independent self-contentment. On the contrary, happiness is a problem urged upon man’s notice by the wants and insufficiency of his finite nature. These wants point to the matter of desire, i.e., to something affecting man’s subjective feelings of pleasure and pain; and these feelings determine what a man considers wanting for his happiness and contentment with his situation. But because such a material determinator is subjective singly, and known only by observation and experience, it is impossible to regard this question of happiness as founding any law or obligation; a law being, as we have seen, objective, and containing a determinator of will, valid for all cases and for all intelligents whatever. And though the notion Happiness establishes a connection and relation betwixt objects and the powers of desire, still happiness is only a general denomination for all subjective determinators, and nothing is fixed by it specifically, which, however, is indispensable towards the solution of any problem, and therefore also toward the solution of the question of happiness. What different individuals may find conducive to their happiness, depends entirely on their peculiar tastes and feelings; and even in the same individual his conceptions of happiness vary and alter with circumstances, and with the emotions stimulating his sensory. So that such subjective laws (although necessary as parts of the physical system) are subjectively contingent (considered as practical principles of conduct), and unfit for law universal, in so far as the appetite for happiness disregards entirely the formal fitness, and considers singly the material fitness of an action to produce the greatest amount of pleasure. Principles of self-love contain general rules for adapting means to an end, and so are merely theoretic or technical principles; e.g., how he who would like to eat bread has to construct a mill. But no practical principle founded on them can be necessary, or of catholic extent; for when the will acts from maxims or self-love, the determinator of choice is based on feelings in the sensory; and it is uncertain that these feelings are universal, not even certain that they are unalterable in respect of the same external objects.

  But even supposing that finite Intelligents were at one as to their opinions of the agreeable and unpleasant, and that they coincided as to the lines of conduct expedient to be taken in order to compass the one and avoid the other, still the principle of self-love could not be announced as a law for practical conduct; for this uniformity would itself be contingent; the determinator of choice would be given and known from observation and experience singly, and could not contain that necessity which is of the essence of law, i.e., a necessity presented to the mind by reason à priori: at least, if such principles were called laws, their necessity must be understood to mean, not a practical, but a physical necessitation, and would import that human actions followed on the appetites and passions by a determinate and fixed mechanism of our frame. But, rather than take refuge in such a baseless absurdity, it would be more judicious to maintain that there were no practical laws at all; for the utilitarian position elevates subjective principles to the rank of objective laws: in which case, however, their objective necessity behoved to be understood from grounds of reason à priori. Even in the physical system, the uniform sequences of its phenomena are alone called laws, because seen to be so à priori; or when, as in chemistry, they are postulated as such, because it is presumed they should be so recognised if our faculties reached further. But in the case of principles taken from the conceptions of self-love (one’s own happiness), no such hypothesis or postulate is admissible, since it is of the very essence of the theory that it rests on subjective and not on objective conditions: consequently, that the principles it yields can never be more than maxims, and are not, without contradiction, cogitable as laws. This may seem to a hasty reader a mere subtilizing upon words; however, it concerns the assigning in terms an exact formula for the most important distinction which enters into the consideration of ethical philosophy.

  Sec. 4.—

  Position III.

  If an Intelligent cogitate his maxims as practical laws of catholic extent, he can do so singly when his maxim is, not by its matter, but by its form, the determinator of volition.

  The matter of any practical principle is the object or end willed; and this end either determines the will, or it does not. If the matter chosen regulate the choice, then the rule depends on the relation subsisting betwixt the feelings of pleasure and pain, and the end represented, i.e., on a à posteriori condition; and so the rule is unfit for a practical law. But when the matter of a law is taken away, there remains nothing except the form of law in general: therefore an Intelligent either cannot in any event cogitate his maxims as fit for laws in a code of general moral legislation, or he must figure to himself that the bare form of law by which his maxims fit and are suited for catholic legislation, is what can alone render them practical laws.

  Remark.

  What kind of maxim is fit for law universal, and what not, is plain to the most untutored understanding: for instance, a man resolves (i.e., adopts as maxim) to augment his income in every secure way. He holds in his hands a deposit intrusted to him by one who has just died intestate; and he proposes to apply his maxim to the sum in his trust. I now put the question, and ask if such maxim would be valid for a law of catholic extent, i.e., if his maxim can be announced in the form of a law; and it is directly perceptible that a law, ordaining every one to detain sums committed to his trust, when he safely can do so, is absurd and self-destructory; for it would tend to this issue, that no deposit would at any time be made, and so the law to break trust would effect its own avoidance. What reason recognises as a practical law, however, must be fit for law universal (for all agents). The proposition is identic, and cannot be made plainer. So that, if the will be subjected to a practical law, the depository cannot found on his appetite for hoarding as a determinator of choice fit for law universal. For, so far from being fit for that, it was seen, when considered under the form of a universal law, to be incompatible with itself, and self-annihilating.

  Although the tendency to happiness is universal, as is also the maxim by which that tendency is made a determinator of choice, yet it is surprising that men of understanding should for that reason announce this want, as a foundation for a universal practical law. For while every other law effects uniformity as its result, the law taken from a maxim to make one’s self happy would not only exhibit the veriest counterpart of such harmony, but would annihilate the maxim itself, and frustrate the end designed, in making it a law. In the case of utilitarian (greatest happiness) principles, all wills have not the same end, but each will has its own (its own welfare), which may perhaps accord with others, perhaps not, but which at any rate gives no certain determinate law, the possible exceptions being innumerable; and that sort of harmony might emerge which a satiric poet describes as the concord of spouses who mutually ruin one another by their extravagance—

  • “How wonderful their harmony!
  • For what he wills, that wills eke she;”

  or that sort expressed by the message from Francis I. to Charles V.: “Whatever my brother Charles chooses (Lombardy), that assure him I choose also.” In short, principles founded on observation and experience never can become the groundwork of any law; for, to invent one capable of reducing to harmony all the appetites and by-ends of mankind, and at the same time founded on them, is altogether impossible.

  Sec. 5.—

  Problem I.

  Upon the hypothesis that a maxim is, by its legislative form singly, the alone valid determinator of choice,—to find the nature of a will so determinable.

  Since the abstract form of law in genere is cogitable by the force of reason singly, it is nowhat presented to the senses, and so no phenomenon occurring in space and time; and the idea of it, considered as a determinator of will, is wholly different in kind, from the determinators of phenomena in the physical system, because in this last the determinator of a phenomenon is, by the law of the causal-nexus, itself also always a phenomenon. Again, since by hypothesis no determinator of will was valid as law, except the universal legislative form, it follows that such a will is quite independent of the causal law by which phenomena are regulated. But to be independent of the law of cause and effect, and of the mechanism of the physical system, is freedom, in the strictest sense of the word. A will, therefore, whose alone law is the legislative form of its maxims, is a free will.

  Sec. 6.—

  Problem II.

  Conversely: Upon the hypothesis that a will is free, to find the law, alone fit for its necessary determinator.

  Since the matter of any practical law (i.e., the object of a maxim) can only be given à posteriori, and the will is, by the supposition, unaffected by any conditions à posteriori, and free, and yet cannot be cogitated as devoid of all law, it remains that a free will must find in the law somewhat fit for its regulation, irrespective of the matter of the law. But when the matter of a law is taken away, there remains nothing except its legislative form. The legislative form, therefore, contained in a maxim, is that which can alone determine a free will.

  Remark.

  Freedom, and an imperative practical law, reciprocally point to one another. I do not here raise the question if they really differ, or if the unconditioned law is not identically the same with self-consciousness of pure practical reason, and this last again identic with the positive idea Freedom; but I only examine from what our knowledge of an unconditioned practical necessity takes its rise,—if from the idea Freedom, or from the law. That it should begin from the former is impossible; for we are conscious of it not immediately, as is seen by our first conception of it being negative only.* Neither do we know our freedom from observation and experience, experience teaching only that mechanic law of the causal-nexus which is the veriest anti-part of freedom. It is therefore from the moral law alone that its original is to be deduced; for of it we are instantly conscious, as soon as we adopt maxims or resolutions of conduct;* and reason, by representing this as a determinator, far outweighing all sensitive considerations, and totally unconnected and independent of them, leads to the idea Freedom.† And if the question is further put, How do we arrive at the consciousness of the moral law? the answer is the same as in the case of any other proposition à priori,—that we are conscious of a practical law à priori, as we are conscious of theoretic ones, by attending to the necessity with which reason obtrudes them on the mind; and by separating from them all à posteriori conditions, we arrive, from the first, at the idea of a pure will, as, from the last, at the notion of a pure understanding. That this is indeed the order in which these ideas are ushered into the mind, and that morality first reveals to man his inward freedom, and that practical reason first proposes to speculative reason its insoluble problems, is plain from this, that since no phenomenon can be explained by help of the idea Freedom, and since speculative reason was lost in the embarrass arising from its Antinomies, no one could have hazarded the introduction of such an idea into science, had not the moral law obtruded and flung it before the mind. This opinion is further strengthened by its consistency with what experience teaches; for let any one allege that his sexual appetite is so strong as to be quite ungovernable, and put the case to him, whether he could not refuse to give his passions vent if he knew he were to be led to instant execution if he did so, and there can be no doubt as to what his love of life would prompt him to answer; but ask him further, if his sovereign were to order him, upon pain of the same death, falsely to swear away the life of an obnoxious noble, whether his love of life would induce him to do so, or if he thought he could disobey the unjust mandate. Whether he would do so or not, he might not have confidence in himself to assert, but that he could, must be admitted by him without hesitation; that is, man judges it possible for him to do an act because he is conscious that he ought to do it; and so recognises his inward freedom, which, apart from the moral law, would have remained latent and undiscovered.

  Sec. 7.—

  Fundamental law of Reason.

  So act that thy maxims of will might become law in a system of universal moral legislation.

  Remark.

  Geometry begins with postulates concerning the drawing of lines and the fixing of points, and these are practical propositions, containing nothing further than the supposition that an operation may be performed when science requires it; and they are the sole propositions of the mathematics which refer to the existence or non-existence of a phenomenon. They are therefore practical positions, standing under a problematic state of will. But in Ethics the practical rule is absolute, and ordains somewhat to be done, whereby the will is objectively determined. Pure self-active (spontaneous) reason being immediately legislative, the will is cogitated as independent on conditions à posteriori; i.e., as pure will determinable by the bare form of law. The fact is startling, and without any parallel; for the à priori idea of a potential legislation is unconditionally announced as law, without having its possibility established from any observation or experience, or supported by the fiat of any foreign or exterior will.

  Our consciousness of this fundamental law is an ultimate fact of reason, for it issues from no preceding data, e.g., the consciousness of freedom, but is thrust upon the mind directly as a synthetic à priori proposition, and is bottomed on no intuition whatsoever, whether à priori or à posteriori. But if the idea Freedom were given, then would the law be analytic. But the idea is in the first instance negative singly; and if it were positive, would require an intellectual intuition, as to which there can be no question. Lastly, when it is said that this law is given, I beg it may be understood that it is not known by observation and experience, but that it is the single isolated fact of practical reason, announcing itself as originally legislative. Sic volo, sic jubeo.

  Corollary.—Reason is spontaneously practical, and gives that universal law (to man) which is called the moral law.

  Remark.

  This fact is undoubted. One needs only to analyze the judgments passed by mankind on the lawfulness of their own actions, in order to become aware with what unchanging necessity reason contrasts every maxim of conduct with the idea of a pure will, i.e., holds up, as a standard, itself represented as à priori causal. The above principle of morality is authentically announced by reason as law for all Intelligents, i.e., for all who have a faculty of determining their own causality by the representation of a rule, i.e., in so far as they are susceptible of actions upon system, and so susceptible of practical principles à priori; which last have alone that necessity which reason demands in an ultimate position. The moral law is therefore not confined to man, but extends over all, even to the Most High and Supreme Himself; but, in the former case, the law is expressed in the formula of an imperative; for although man is cogitated as the possessor of a pure will, yet, since he is susceptible of emotions and wants, inseparable from his finite state, he has by no means a holy will, i.e., a will incapable of adopting maxims incompatible with the law. The moral law is hence to finite Intelligents an imperative, expressing a categoric command.

  The relation of such a will to the law is called obligation, which signifies necessitation by reason to an act, which act, again, is called duty. A will pathologically affected is in the state of wish, a state springing from subjective emotions, and therefore often not in harmony with the objective determinator, and so requires an inward intellectual co-action, i.e., moral necessitation. In the case, however, of the Most High and Supreme, His will is rightly cogitated as incapable of any maxim not fit for law universal. And the idea Holiness, which therefore becomes His attribute, excludes all limitary or negative laws, and so exalts Him far beyond the conceptions of obligation and duty. This Holiness of Will is, however, nothing more than a practical idea,—an infinite approximation towards which is all that is possible for man or any other finite being, and which ideal standard is constantly held up to man by the Moral Law, called for that reason itself Holy. Steadfastness in this continual advancement, and Hope in the unchangeableness of a man’s resolves to do so, or, in one word, virtue, is the utmost a finite reason can accomplish; and since this practical power is developed by exercise, and known by observation and experience, it can never be fully attained or secured, and the confident over-persuasion of such would militate to the prejudice of morality.

  Sec. 8.—

  Position IV.

  Autonomy of will is the alone foundation of morality, and of the duties springing from it; and every other principle whatsoever, not only cannot found laws of necessary obligation and catholic extent, but is in fact subversive of morality. In being independent of the matter of any law (a desired object), and being determinable by the legislative form of his own maxims, consists the ethical nature of man, and that which renders him a subject for morality; that independence is freedom negatively, while this self-legislation is freedom positively. The moral law expresses, therefore, nothing else than just the autonomy of reason, i.e., of a man’s freedom or spontaneity;* and this autonomy or freedom is a condition which must qualify every maxim, if these last are to harmonize with the moral law itself. On the contrary, when the matter of a volition, which can be nothing else than the object of a desire, is made of the practical law, and represented as a condition prerequisite to its possibility, then Heteronomy (a false principle of morals) results; and the will ceases to prescribe to itself its own law, and is left exposed to laws taken from pathological phenomena. In this case, however, the maxim adopted by the will is formally unfit for law universal, and not only founds no obligation, but goes to subvert the principles of practical reason itself, and so militates against genuine moral sentiments, even while the actions emanating from such heteronomy are not wanting in conformity to the law.

  Remark I.

  Practical rules, based on accidental and contingent circumstances, can never be regarded as laws for conduct. The will’s proper law wafts it from this visible system into another order of things; and that necessity it expresses, having no common part with the mechanic necessity expressed by laws of nature, can consist alone in the formal conditions requisite to the possibility of law in general. The matter of every practical rule depends on subjective facts not extending to all agents whatsoever, and hinges on the principle of one’s own happiness. And although it cannot be questioned that every volition has an end aimed at (i.e., a matter), yet that by no means warrants the conclusion that such matter is the condition and determinator of the maxim; for if so, then maxims could not be elevated to the rank of law in a system of universal moral legislation, as they would rest on accidental, and not on necessary circumstances. Thus it is quite possible that the happiness of others may be the object of the will of an Intelligent; but if regarded as the determinator of the maxim, then it must be supposed that we not merely feel a secret gratification on perceiving the happiness of others, but that we are stimulated by a physical want or appetite to act towards it, as in the case of compassion; and so there would be no law of benevolence, that physical feeling not reaching all persons whatever (e.g., God). However, there may be a law enjoining universal love, and the matter of benevolent maxims may remain, provided it is not figured as their prerequisite condition; and it is the form of law which, by moulding the matter chosen, is the ground of adding such matter to the will. To make this as clear as may be, let the object-matter of my choice be my own happiness, then a maxim expressing such volition can only be fit for law universal (i.e., be moral), when I involve in it the happiness of every other Intelligent throughout the universe. And a law ordaining me to promote universal happiness is therefore quite independent of the supposition that happiness is the choice of all wills, and rests singly on its own formal universality. This satisfies the demands of reason, and gives to what would else be a mere selfish maxim, a qualification fitting it for law. In this way it is observable that a pure will is not determined by a desire of happiness, but is so singly by the form of legality; this form again—adapting the maxim founded on the appetite for happiness for law universal—is that alone which allows me to act upon it, for on no other condition can this appetite be brought into harmony with the requisitions of reason. On this is based the obligation to extend my private selfish choice of happiness, so as to include at the same time that of others.

  Remark II.

  The antipart of this principle of morality is that of self-love, on which, I have already shown, every system must be based, when the determinator regulating the choice is sought for elsewhere than in the legislative form of the maxim; and this contrariety is not logical merely, but practical, and would infallibly overthrow all morality, were not the voice of reason at all times too audible, and its native force to determine the will too strong to be affected by dark and deceitful subtleties of the schools, as may be made palpable by the following examples:—

  If a person were to attempt to justify his having borne false witness, by alleging to his friend the sacred obligation he lay under of consulting his own happiness, by enumerating the profits and advantages accruing from this falsehood; and if he were, in conclusion, to point out the extreme cunning he had employed in the whole matter, to fortify himself against detection, and to add, that although he now intrusted to his friend this secret, yet he was ready to deny it stoutly at any future occasion, and that in all this he was discharging a humane and reasonable duty,—certainly his friend must either laugh him to scorn, or turn from him with disgust; although, if maxims are to be constructed singly with respect to one’s own advantage, nothing of moment can be urged against such a line of conduct. Or, however, to take a second case, if somebody were to recommend an overseer or factor to you, and were to say that he was an exceedingly clever man,—most restlessly active in securing his own interest, quite unembarrassed by any scruples as to any mode conducive to this end, and perfectly indifferent whether the money he had occasion to disburse was his own or another’s,—you would either conclude that there was an attempt to make a fool of you, or that the person who could give such a recommendation had lost his understanding. Thus widely separated are the confines of self-love from those of morality. A gulf impassable lies betwixt their maxims. Self-love (prudence) advises by its maxims, but the moral law commands; and the difference is unspeakably great betwixt what is expedient and what is imperative to be done.

  The action called for by autonomy is always known and undoubted, but that demanded by a heteronomous principle is uncertain, and requires extended experience and acquaintance with the world; in other words, every man knows within himself what is “duty;” but what is to found one’s prosperity and happiness is matter of inextricable doubt, and it demands extreme dexterity, even to apply such selfish rules to the conduct of life, for the exceptions they make upon one another are endless. The moral law has no exceptions, but demands from every one punctual observance, and must therefore be so plain and obvious in its requirements, that the most common understanding can advance along it, without any study of the intricate ways of the world.

  To obey the categorical law of morals, is at all times in every one’s power; but it is not practicable for all to act upon dictates of expediency: the reason is, that the first demands singly a pure and unadulterated will (maxim), but the latter calls further for ability and physical power to gain the end aimed at. A law to pursue one’s own happiness were absurd; for it is superfluous to ordain any one to choose what the constitution of his nature inevitably forces him to will, and it were more fit to instruct him as to those measures calculated to carry his choice into effect. But to command morality and the name of duty is quite rational, for we do not willingly yield obedience to its law; and as to the steps requisite to be taken in order to adhere to it, that is explained in the methodology of ethics. What is here wanted, is alone the original bent or cast of the volition to do so; for whenever any one wills, that also gives him the power to carry the law into effect, i.e., to act upon it.

  To carry as far as may be this difference between principles of utilitarianism and morality, I observe further:

  He who has lost at play may be vexed at his imprudence and want of skill; but he who is conscious within himself of having cheated, must despise himself as soon as he compares his conduct with the moral law, and that too, although he have won treasures. The moral law must therefore be somewhat widely distinct from principles of self-aggrandizement. And for any one to be obliged to say to himself, I am worthless and a villain, though wealthy, and to say, I am clever and cunning, for I have amassed riches, are judgments founded on standards of conduct totally imcompatible.

  Again, the idea of blameworthiness and punishment, which reason invariably attaches to that of guilt, makes a singular contrast with the Eudaimonistic system; for although he who appoints a punishment may do so with a view to the ulterior happiness of the delinquent, yet punishment, as actual pain or evil added to the offender, must be justified as such, so as to constrain even the guilty to acknowledge that the severity is just, and that his evil lot answers to his ill desert. Every punishment must be rigidly just, for justice is of the very essence of this idea. Benignity is not contrary to justice, and may in union with justice deal out punishment; but for kindness or mercy, the blameworthy has no claim: and so it is clear that punishment is a physical evil, which it behoved should be annexed to moral evil (according to the ethical legislation of reason), even if it were not already so. If, then, every crime is a fit object of punishment, and infers to some extent a forfeiture of happiness, it is a contradiction and absurdity to say that a crime requires punishment, because the transgressor has injured his own happiness; for this is the whole conception of crime according to the Utilitarian System; for then physical evil, i.e., punishment, would be the ground and reason of considering any action as a transgression, and justice would come to consist in avoiding all pains and penalties (threatened by law), and in preventing those which come of themselves, which, when fully done, there would cease to be any evil in an action,—those evils consequent on a bad action, and which alone make it so, being henceforward removed. It were idle to examine the statement that rewards and punishments are stimulant forces applied by a supreme power to man, in order to lead him towards true felicity; the fancy of such mechanism of will being quite destructory of all freedom.

  The intervention of a moral sense, as a foundation for ethic science, is a somewhat more refined theory, but as untrue as the former; for it alleges that this feeling, not reason, promulgates the moral law; and further, since the consciousness of virtue is immediately connected, owing to this feeling, with enjoyment and pleasure, and that of vice with uneasiness and pain, it virtually runs up into a suifelicity or greatest-happiness system. Not to insist again on those objections which are amply set forth in former paragraphs, I merely stop to point out a mistake which pervades the whole theory. Before we can figure to ourselves the vicious as haunted with an uneasy recollection of his misdeeds, he must be cogitated as already in some degree morally good; as must likewise he who is to be gratified from reflecting on the integrity of his conduct. So that the ideas of morality and duty are presupposed to explain the existence of such a feeling, and cannot be derived from it. It is absolutely necessary that a person have estimated the high importance of duty, the authority of the moral law, and the immediate unconditioned worth which the observance of it imparts to man in his own eyes, antecedently to his being able to feel that contentment springing from the consciousness of a moral character, or that bitter reproach springing from the conviction of the want of it. This moral felicity cannot precede the idea Obligation, much less found it; and it is requisite that an individual have some notions of morality and honour before he can ever figure to himself what is meant by such emotions. This, however, is so far from inclining me to deny that a standing determination to act upon the representation of the moral law, and unswerving constancy in doing so, will eventually establish this feeling of self-contentment, that I rather deem it a duty to cultivate such a state of mind, which state alone ought rigidly to be termed “a moral sense.” However, to deduce thence the idea Duty is impossible, for we would require a feeling of the law as such, so as to make that an object of sensation which can be represented to the mind by reason singly; a statement which, if not a downright contradiction, goes to substitute in the room of duty a mechanic play of refined and more subtilized emotions, sometimes thwarting, sometimes harmonizing with the coarser feelings of our system.

  We are now in a condition to exhibit and contrast our formal position, the autonomy of the will, with every other material principle of morals hitherto advanced, and so to make it evident from a glance that these, and through them every other conceivable foundation, are exhausted, and that henceforth the attempt must be fruitless to base morality on any other ground than the one on which it has been now rested. Every possible determinator of the will is either subjective, and borrowed from observation and experience, or else objective, and based on reason; and these, again, whether rational or inductive, are either external or internal.

  Material Determinators in Ethical Systems are—

  SUBJECTIVE.				OBJECTIVE.
  External.		Internal.		Internal.	External.
  Education as founding Morality. Montaigne.	Civil Polity. Mandeville.	Physical feeling. Epicurus.	Moral feeling. Hutcheson.	Perfection. Wolf and the Stoics.	Will of God. Crusius and Theological Moralists.

  Those on the left are all inductive, and plainly unfit for founding laws of catholic extent. Those on the right hand, however, have their origin and seat in reason (for perfection as a quality, and supreme perfection cogitated in substance, i.e., God, can only be figured to the mind by reason). But the first notion can mean only either perfection in a theoretic or in a practical sense: in the first it signifies completeness (i.e., quantitative perfectness), which can have no reference to what we are here talking of; or else it signifies (qualitative perfection) the practical fitness of man for accomplishing all possible variety of ends. Such an inward perfection is talent; and whatever adds to or serves as complement to that is called skill.

  Supreme perfection hypostatized, or in substance (i.e., God), consequently external perfection considered practically, is the all-sufficiency of the Supreme Being for every end whatsoever.

  Now, if ends must be given in order to fix the notion of perfection, so that the representation of a perfection in ourselves, or an external perfection in God, may determine a volition towards them; then, since such matter of choice precedes the volition, and is the condition of its practical rule, it follows that the will is determined as on the Epicurean system. For the notion Perfection determines the will by the gratification expected from our own accomplishments; and the will of God, when harmony with it is chosen, apart from any prior investigation of what is a perfect and absolutely good will, can only move the will by an expectation of happiness awaited from Him.

  Therefore, 1st, All principles in this schedule are material; 2ndly, they represent all such conceivable principles whatsoever; and, 3rdly, because material principles are quite unfit for law universal, it results that the formal practical principle of reason (according to which the bare form of a potential legislation served for the supreme and immediate determinator of choice) is the alone possible which can found categorical imperatives, i.e., practical laws, and is thus at once the sole standard for estimating deportment, and the sole ethical determinator of the will.

  CHAPTER II.

  ON THE À PRIORI SPRING OF THE WILL.

  THE essence of all moral worth in acting consists in this, that the moral law be the immediate determinator of the will. If the will be determined so as to be in harmony with the law, but only mediately, and by the intervention of an emotion or feeling, no matter of what kind soever this last may be, which emotion must be presupposed before the law becomes the sufficient determinator; i.e., when the determination is not out of single reverence for the law, then the action is possessed of legality, but it contains no morality. Further, if by a spring is meant the subjective determinator of the will of an Intelligent, who is not of necessity conformed to the objective law, then, from such explanation we conclude, first, that to a divine will no springs can be figured as attached; and, second, that in the case of the human, or of any other being, these can be none other than the moral law itself, i.e., that the objective determinator must be also at the same time the always and single subjectively-sufficient determinator of an act,—if the act is to fulfil, not the bare letter, but likewise the spirit of the law.*

  Since, then, no further spring is to be sought for as a medium to the moral law, in procuring it control and purchase on the will, which would be a dispensing with and supplanting of the moral law, and could produce nothing but an unstable hypocrisy,—nay, since it were even hazardous to call on any other spring for aid (e.g., utilitarian incitements), to work alongside of and co-operate with the law,—we can have no further task than carefully to inquire, how the ethical law acts as spring? and what changes of state happen in the mind and man’s powers of desire, as effects of its determining causality? For how a law should be itself the alone and immediate determinator of the will (wherein the essence of all morality consists), is a problem not solvable by human reason, and quite identic with the question, how a free will is possible? What we therefore have to show à priori, is not the ground, by force of which the moral law is a spring, but merely, when it is so, what it effects, and indeed must effect, upon the mind.

  The essence of all determination of will by the moral law lies in this, that it, as free will, be determined, not only without any co-operations from sensitive excitements, but that it even cast all such behind-back, and discard them, in so far as they may infringe upon the law, and be determined by it singly. Thus far the action of the moral law, as a spring, is no more than negative, and is known as such à priori. For every appetite and every sensitive excitement is based on feeling, and the negative action of the law on the sensory (when casting out all appetitive stimuli) is again itself a feeling. Consequently we understand à priori, that the moral law, the ground determining the will, must produce a feeling when it circumscribes and discards the solicitations of the sensory. This feeling may be called pain, and is the first, probably the only case, where we have been able to assign upon grounds à priori, the relation obtaining betwixt knowledge (here of pure practical reason) and a feeling of pleasure or pain. The aggregate of the appetites (which easily admit of being brought into a very tolerable system, and whereof the gratification is then one’s own happiness) make up and compose what is called selfishness or solipsism; and this selfishness is either that of self-love or that of self-conceit: the solipsism of the first resides in overstrained fondness and good will to a man’s own self, and is sometimes called vanity; the solipsism of the other is an extravagant self-complacency, and is particularized by the name of arrogance or vainglory.* Practical reason circumscribes the claims of self-love, but allows them to be plausible, as they are astir in the mind even before the law itself; and limits them to the condition of being in harmony with the law, after which self-love is equitable; but the high thoughts of self-conceit it overthrows entirely, and declares all pretensions to self-esteem, prior to conformity with the law, void and empty; because the certain consciousness of being so conformed is the supreme condition fixing all moral worth of the person; and all assumption of any—where there is not yet such conformity—is false and illegal. Now, the propensity to esteem one’s self is one of those appetitive instincts infringed upon by reason to this extent, that it makes self-esteem depend upon morality. Thus the moral law casts down all self-conceit; but since the law is in fact somewhat positive,—namely, the form of an intellectual causality, i.e., of freedom,—it becomes, by contrast with the appetites it weakens and invades, an object of reverence; and in so far as it altogether prostrates self-conceit—i.e., humbles—an object of the most awful reverence, that is, that it is the ground of a positive feeling, not begotten by anywhat sensitive, and which can be recognised à priori.Reverence for the moral law is therefore a feeling of emotion, caused by an intellectual ground, and is the only feeling capable of being recognised à priori, and the necessity of which we are able to comprehend.

  In the former chapter* it was shown that everything which could be presented as an object to the will before the moral law, was excluded by that law from the grounds determining a will which is to be unconditionally good; and that nothing but the naked practical form, which consists in the fitness of maxims for law universal, establishes what is in itself absolutely good, and founds maxims of a will good at all points. But we now find that our system is so constituted, that the matter of desire first obtrudes itself on the sensory; and our pathological à posterioriself, although its maxims are quite unfit for law universal, immediately endeavours, as if it were our whole and proper self, to make its claim valid, as the originary and prior. This deflective tendency† to make a man’s subjective self the objective terminator of his will, may be called self-love; and when dominant and elevated to the rank of an unconditional practical law, may be styled self-conceit. The moral law excludes, as the alone true objective law, the influence of self-love from any share in the legislation, and derogates infinitely from self-conceit, when it announces the subjective conditions of the other as laws; but whatsoever does diminution in man’s own eyes to his self-conceit, humbles. The moral law, therefore, inevitably humbles every man, when he compares with it the deflective tendency of his sensitive system; again, that which, when represented as the determinator of the will, humbles man in his own consciousness, does, in so far as it is positive, and a determinator, beget for itself reverence. The moral law is therefore subjectively the ground of reverence; and since all the parts of self-love belong and refer to appetite and inclination, and these latter rest on feeling, and anything which curbs and reins up the impetuosity of self-love must, by doing so, of necessity take effect upon the feelings, we thoroughly comprehend how it is that we know à priori that the moral law exercises an effect on the sensory, by excluding appetite, and the bias to elevate it to the rank of a supreme practical condition; which effect, in one point of view, is negative only (humility); but in another, and when regard is had to the limitary ground—pure spontaneity of reason—is positive (reverence); and this effect does not admit or require us to assume any particular kind of feeling under the name of a practical or moral or internal sense, as if it were antecedent to the moral law, and the groundwork of it.

  The negative effect wrought upon the sensory (displacency) is, like every other action on the feelings, and indeed, as is also every feeling, pathological. Considered, however, as the effect springing from the consciousness of the moral law, i.e., considered in reference to its intellectual cause—a personality of pure practical reason as supreme legislatrix—this feeling of a reasonable subject, perturbed by appetite and inclination, is called, no doubt, humility: but again, when referred to its positive ground—the law—it is called reverence felt toward it; which law itself cannot be felt indeed; but when impediments in the sensory, which hindered the law from being carried into effect, are cleared out of the way, Reason deems the removal of such obstacle tantamount to a positive advancement of her causality; and hence this feeling may be further called a feeling or emotion of reverence toward the law, and, upon both these grounds together, may be called the moral sense.

  Hence, as the moral law is at once the formal determinator of an act by pure practical reason, and is likewise the material and yet objective determinator of the object-matter of an act as good or evil, so it becomes at the same time the subjective determinator to such an act, by operating upon the morality of the subject, and effectuating an emotion which advances the force of the law upon the will. But in all this there is no antecedent feeling given in the subject himself, pointing to morality; which last hypothesis is a downright impossibility, every feeling being of the sensory; whereas the spring of ethical volitions must be quite abstracted from every sensitive condition. Nay, that sensitive state—feeling—which lies at the bottom of all appetite and emotion, is the condition of that specific state of mind we have called reverence; but the cause of such state lies in pure practical reason; and the emotion in this respect, and on account of whence it has its origin, cannot be regarded as a pathognomonic, but ought to be regarded as a practical or active emotion; an emotion practically effectuated, when the representation of the law, having curbed the licentiousness of self-love, and beaten down the overweenings of self-conceit, takes away the hindrance obstructing the action of pure practical reason, and exhibits the superiority of her objective law to the solicitations of the sensory, and so gives, in the scales of reason, weight to the former, by removing the counterpoise pressing upon the will from the latter. Reverence toward the law is therefore not a spring advancing morality, but is morality itself considered subjectively as a spring;i.e., in so far as in this state of mind the appetencies of the sensory are silenced, and an inlet is afforded for advancing the authority of the law. To all which is to be added, that since such reverence is an effect wrought upon the sensory, it involves the supposition of the sensitive, and so of the finite nature of those Intelligents whom the moral law thus inspires with reverence; but in the case of a Supreme Intelligent, or even of one not percipient by the intervention of a sensory—where, therefore, no obstacle is presented to practical reason—no reverence can exist.

  This feeling (called the Moral Sense) is the pure product and effect of reason. It is of no service in judging of conduct, nor yet in founding the moral law, but is a mere spring, making the law man’s practical maxim in life; nor is there any name more appropriate for so strange a feeling, which has no analogy to any pathological emotion, but is entirely of its own kind, and seems to stand at the command of pure practical reason only.

  Reverence is bestowed on Persons only, never on Things. The latter may be objects of affection; and when they are animals, may awaken in us even love or fear. Volcanoes and the ocean may be regarded with dread, but cannot with reverence. What approaches nearer to this last, is wonder, which, when impassioned, may rise to admiration, astonishment, or amazement; as when we contemplate the summits of lofty mountains, storms, the extent of the firmament, the strength and velocity of some animals, etc., and so of the rest; but all this is not reverence. A man may be an object of my love, my fear, or my admiration, up to the highest grade of wonder, and still he may be no object of reverence. His jocose humour, his strength and courage, his power and authority, from the rank he has, may give me such emotions, but they all fall short of reverence. Fontelle says, “It is my body, not my mind, which bows to my superior.” I may add, that to any plain man in whom I may discover probity of manners in a grade superior to my own, my mind must bow whether I will or not. To what is this owing? His example presents to me a law which casts down my self-conceit when it is compared with my own deportment; the execution of which law—that is, its practicability—I see proved to me by real fact and event. Nay, even if I were conscious of like honesty to his, my reverence for him would continue; the reason whereof is, that all good in man being defective, the law, made exhibitive by an example, prostrates my conceit, which exemplar is furnished by a person whose imperfections—which must still attach to him—I do not know as I do my own, and who therefore appears to me in a better light. Reverence is a tribute which cannot be refused to merit, whether we choose or not. We may decline outwardly to express it, but we cannot avoid inwardly to feel it.

  So far is reverence from being a pleasurable feeling, that we entertain it unwillingly toward any man, and begin instantly to cast about for some fault which may lighten us from its burden, and give indemnity against the humiliation otherwise put upon us by his example. Even the dead, especially when their example seems to surpass all power of imitation, are not exempt from this sifting scrutiny. Nay, the moral law itself, in its solemn majesty, is open to this endeavour to screen one’s self from the reverence owed it; or do we think that it is upon some other account that mankind would fain have the law frittered down to an object of his love, and that it is upon quite different and contrary grounds that he exerts himself to find in it nothing more than the amiable precepts of his own well-understood advantage; and not upon this single and only one, that he would willingly be rid of that deterring reverence which unremittingly shows him his own unworthiness? And yet there is in reverence so little of dislike or disinclination, that when once mankind has laid aside his self-conceit, and allowed that reverence to take its practical effect, he cannot become sated with contemplating the glory of the law, and his soul believes itself exalted in proportion as he sees the holy law advanced above him and the frailty of his system. Unquestionably great talents, when accompanied by commensurate and suitable activity, beget reverence, or a feeling bearing a strong likeness to it; and it is in truth quite becoming and decorous to show them such; and here it would seem that wonder and reverence were the same. But, on stricter analysis, it is observed, that since we do not know how much innate force of talent, and how much study and industrious self-culture, conduce to the effect wondered at and admired, reason represents this last as probably the fruit of study, i.e., as a kind of merit which strikes directly at one’s own self-conceit, hands the bystander over to his own reproach, or imposes on him an obligation to follow such example. This reverence or admiration is, then, not mere wonder, but is reverence toward the person (or, properly speaking, toward the law exhibited in his example). A matter confirmed by this, that when the general mass of admirers discover, from some quarter or another, the depravity of their admired’s morals (e.g., Voltaire), all reverence for him is immediately abandoned. But one who is a member of the literary republic continues to feel some regard still when weighing his talents, because he finds himself engaged in a profession and calling which makes it imperative upon him to imitate in some respect his example.

  Reverence toward the moral law is, then, the only and undoubted ethic spring, and is an emotion directed to no object except upon grounds of the law. First, the moral law determines objectively and immediately the will. Freedom, whose causality is alone determinable by the law, consists in this very matter, that all appetite and emotion, and so also the affection of self-esteem, is restrained by it to the prior condition of having executed its pure law. This control takes effect upon the sensory, and produces there a feeling of pain or displacency, which can be recognised à priori, when eyed from the vantage-ground of the moral law. But since this is a negative effect only, resulting from the agency of reason (i.e., the spontaneity of the person when he withstands the solicitations of his sensory, and strips off the overweening fancy of his personal worth, which, where there is no harmony with the law, shrinks at once to zero), such action of the law begets no more than a feeling of humility, which we comprehend à priori; but in this we do not see wherein consists the force of the pure practical law as spring, but only its withstanding the springs of the sensory. But, second, since this same law is further objectively (i.e., according to the representation of pure reason) an immediate determinator of will, and this humiliation is effected only relatively to the purity of the law, it follows that this depression of man’s claim to his own ethical reverence (i.e., his humiliation from the part of his sentient economy) is an exaltation (from his intelligent part) of the ethical, i.e., practical reverence for the law itself,—in other words, is just that reverence itself; consequently a positive feeling considered with respect to its intellectual ground, which feeling also is cognisable à priori. For every diminution of the obstacles opposed to an activity is in plain fact an advancement of that activity itself. The acknowledgment of the moral law, however, is the consciousness of an activity of pure reason from objective grounds: which activity does not always pass into action, merely because subjective causes stop and hinder it. Reverence for the moral law must therefore be regarded as the law’s positive though indirect effect upon the sensory, when it weakens the impeding forces of appetite and inclination, by casting down all self-conceit; that is, reverence is the subjective ground of such activity, or, in other words, is the spring towards the executing of the law, and the ground of adopting maxims of conduct which harmonize with its requirements. Upon this notion of a spring rests this further one of an interest, which cannot be attributed to any being not endowed with reason; and it denotes a spring towards volition, in so far as that spring is begotten by reason only. Again, because the law must be the spring where the will is morally good, the ethical interest is a pure insensitive interest of naked practical reason. Upon this notion of an interest rests again that of a maxim; and this is only truly genuine when it is based on the naked interest taken by man in the execution of the law. These three notions, however—spring, interest, and maxim—are applicable only to finite beings; they all presuppose bounds and limits put to the nature of the person, and intimate that the subjective structure of his choice does not spontaneously and of its own accord harmonize with the objective law of practical reason, and imply a need to be urged by somewhat to activity, that activity being obstructed by an inward hindrance.

  There is somewhat so strange in this unbounded reverence for the pure moral law, divested of all by-views of advantage or expediency, and exhibited as practical reason holds it up to mankind for his execution, whose voice makes the most daring scoffer tremble, and forces him to hide himself from his own view, that one ought not to be surprised at finding this energy of a naked intellectual idea upon the sensory quite uninvestigable by reason, and that man must content himself with comprehending à priori thus much, that such a feeling attaches inseparably to the representation of the law by every finite Intelligent. Were this emotion of reverence pathologic, and bottomed to the internal sense of pleasure, then were it vain to attempt to track out the alliance obtaining betwixt it and an idea à priori. But an emotion pointed only to a practical end, and attached to the bare, formal representation of a law, quite abstractedly from any object, and which therefore pertains neither to pleasure nor pain, and yet establishes an interest in that law’s execution, is what we properly call a moral one; and the susceptibility to take such an interest in the law—in other words, to have reverence for the moral law itself—is what we, properly speaking, call the moral sense.

  The consciousness of man’s free submission of his will to the law, going, however, hand in hand with a necessary control and constraint put by reason on every appetite and inclination, is reverence toward the law.* The law, which at once calls for and inspires this reverence, is, as we have seen, no other than the moral, no other law excluding appetite and inclination from the immediateness of its own action on the will. An act objectively incumbent to be done in conformity with this law, and with the postponement of every appetitive determinator, is what is called duty, and involves in the very conception of it, on account of this postponement, practical necessitation,i.e., determination to an act, how unwillingly soever,—the emotion arising from the consciousness of this co-action or necessitation is not pathological (is unlike those effected by an object of sense), but is practical, i.e., is only possible by an antecedent causality of reason and objective determination of will. It contains, therefore, as subordination to law (i.e., a commandment which announces restraint to a person affected by a sensory), no pleasure, but rather dislike to that extent to the act itself; while yet, on the other hand, since this restraint is enforced singly by the legislation of man’s own reason, it brings with it exaltation; and the subjective effect upon the sensory, when pure practical reason produces it, can be called no more than self-approbation in respect of such exaltation, mankind disinterestedly recognising himself destined by the law to such subordination, and becoming then aware of a new and another interest purely practical and free; to take which disinterested interest in acts of duty no appetite invites, but reason, by its practical law, imperatively ordains, and also produces, upon which accounts the interest bears a quite peculiar name—that of Reverence.

  Upon these accounts, therefore, the notion Duty demands, in the act, objectively, Conformity to the Law, and subjectively, in the maxim, from which it flows, Reverence for the Law, such being the only method of determining the will by it; and on this rests the difference betwixt those states of consciousness,—that of acting in harmony with what is duty, and doing so from a principle of duty, i.e., out of reverence for the law. The first case (legality) is possible when mere appetites determine to volition; but the second (morality), the moral worth, can be placed in this only, that the act has been performed out of duty, i.e., out of naked regard had to the law.

  It is of the greatest consequence, in all ethical judgments, to attend with most scrupulous exactness to the subjective principle of the maxims, in order that the whole morality of an act be put in the necessity of it, out of duty and out of reverence for the law, not in love and inclination towards what may be consequent upon the act: for man and every created Intelligent, the ethical necessity is necessitation, i.e., obligation, and every act proceeding thereupon is duty, and cannot be represented as a way of conduct already near to us; or which may in time become endeared to us, as if man could at any time ever get the length of dispensing with reverence towards the law (which emotion is attended always with dread, or at least with active apprehension, lest he transgress); and so, like the independent Godhead, find himself—as it were, by force of an unchanging harmony of will with the law, now at length grown into a second nature—in possession of a holy will; which would be the case, the law having ceased to be a commandment, when man could be no longer tempted to prove untrue to it.

  The moral law is, for the will of the Supreme Being, a law of holiness; but for the will of every finite Intelligent, a law of duty, a law of ethical constraint and determination of his actions by reverence toward the law, and out of awe for what is duty. No other subjective principle can be assumed as a spring; for while the act then falls out as the law requires, and is outwardly in conformity with the law, yet it is not done out of duty; the bent and ply of the mind is not moral, which, however, is of the essence of this legislation.

  It is very well to show kindness to mankind from love and compassionate benevolence, as it is likewise to act justly from a love of order and method; but such cannot be the genuine ethic principles regulating man’s deportment: nor is it quite congruous and suited to our station among the ranks of Intelligents as men, when we presume to propose ourselves as volunteers, and set ourselves loftily above the idea Duty; and when, as if mankind were independent on the law, he proposes to do out of his own good pleasure what he needs no commandment to enjoin. Man stands, however, under a discipline and probation of reason, and ought never to forget his subjection to its authority,—never to withdraw anywhat from it, or impair the supremacy of the law (although announced by his own reason), by the fond and vain imagination that he can put the ground determining his will elsewhere than in the law and reverence toward it. Duty, and what we owe, are the only denominations under which to state our relation to the moral law. We are, no doubt, legislative members of an ethical kingdom, realizable by freedom of will, and held up by practical reason to our reverence; but in it we are subjects, not the sovereign; and to mistake our lower rank as creatures, and to back our self-conceit against the authority of the holy law, is already to swerve from its spirit, even while its letter is not unfulfilled.

  With all this the commandment is in perfect unison. Love God above all, and thy neighbour as thyself; for, being a commandment, it calls for reverence toward a law enjoining love, and leaves man no option whether or not to make such love a principle of active conduct. Love to God, however, as an affection (pathognomic liking), is an impossibility, God being no object of sense; and although, in the case of mankind, such pathological excitement is possible, yet it cannot be commanded, for it stands in no one’s power to love upon command. It is, therefore, practical benevolence alone which is intended in that sum of all commandments. Understood in this signification, to love God means cheerfully to obey His law; to love our neighbour, to perform willingly all duties towards him. The commandment, however, establishing such a rule cannot enjoin us to have this sentiment in discharging our incumbent duties, but can enjoin only to endeavour after it; for a commandment to do anywhat willingly is self-contradictory: for if we are once let know what is suitable for us to do, and are conscious we should like to do so, a commandment to such effect would be superfluous; and do we the act notwithstanding, but only unwillingly and out of reverence toward the law, a commandment making such reverence the spring of the will, would thereby subvert and overturn the desiderated sentiment love. That summary of the moral law does therefore, like every other precept in the Gospel, represent the perfection of the moral sentiment in an ideal of holiness not attainable by any creature, but which is the archetype toward which it behoves us to approximate, and to exert ourselves onward thitherward in an unbroken and perpetual progression. Could at any time any intelligent creature ever attain this point of discharging willingly all moral laws, then that would imply that he felt no longer within himself the possibility of a desire seducing him to swerve from them (for the overcoming any such incentive always costs the subject some sacrifice, and stands in need of self-constraint, i.e., inward necessitation toward somewhat done not altogether willingly). But this grade of ethic sentiment no creature can at any time attain; for, being a creature, and so dependent in regard of what he wants to make him thoroughly contented with his situation, he can never be fully disenthralled from appetite and want, which rest on physical causes not always harmonizing with the moral law; the physical and moral system proceeding on causalities of different kinds,—a circumstance making it always necessary to establish the posture of a man’s maxims with regard to the former, upon ethical constraint, not upon free-willed devotedness,—upon reference calling for the execution of the law, how unwillingly soever, not upon love, which apprehends no inward demurring of the will against the law, although this last, the mere love of the law (which would then cease to be a commandment, and morality, now subjectively transformed into holiness, would cease to be virtue), is to be the unremitting although unattainable aim of exertion; for toward that which we ethically admire, and yet (upon account of the consciousness of our defects) partly dread, such reverential dread passes, with the increasing ease whereby we become conformed to the standard dreaded, into affection, and the reverence into love; at least this would be the completent of a sentiment fully devoted to the law, if to attain it were at any time possible for any creature.

  These remarks are not intended so much to explain the above precept of the Gospel, with a view to guard against religious fanaticism upon the question of the love of God, but rather to fix exactly the moral sentiments with which we ought to discharge our duties toward our fellow-men, and to guard against, and if possible cut up by the roots, a kind of ethical fanaticism, wherewith the heads of many are besotted. The grade on the ethic scale where mankind finds himself (as is also the case with every created Intelligent, so far as we can comprehend) is that of reverence toward the law. The sentiment incumbent upon him to entertain in obeying, is to do so out of regard to duty; not, as a volunteer, from affection, to go through uncommanded and spontaneously undertaken tasks; and his moral state, wherein he always must be found, is virtue,i.e.,the moral sentiment militant, not holiness, where he would be in possession of full purity in the sentiment of his will. It is nothing but downright ethical fanaticism, and an advancement of self-conceit, when the mind is spirited on to actions as were they noble, sublime, or magnanimous, whereby men fall into the imagination that it is not duty (whose yoke, which, though easy, because put upon us by our own reason, must be borne, however unwillingly) that claims to be the ground determinative of conduct, and which, even while they obey, always humbles, but that actions are expected from them, not out of duty, but as parts of merit. For, not to insist on this, that by imitating such deeds, i.e., performing them upon such a principle, no satisfaction is given to the spirit of the law, which consists in the subordinating of the will to the law, and not in the legality of the act, when the act proceeds upon other grounds (be these what they may), this fanaticism does, by putting the spring of action pathologically in sympathy or solipsism, and not ethically in the law, beget in this way a windy, overweening, and fantastical cast of thought, which flatters itself with having so spontaneously good-natured a temperament, as to require neither spur nor rein, and to be able to dispense altogether with a commandment; by all which, duty is lost sight of, although it ought to be more thought upon than merit should. Other people’s actions, when performed with great sacrifices, and out of naked reverence for duty, may very fitly be praised as noble and exalted deeds; which, however, can only be done in so far as there is no ground to think that they flowed from any fits and starts of sensitive excitement, but proceeded singly from reverence for duty; and if these deeds are to be held up to any one as exemplars to be followed, reverence for duty, as the alone genuine moral emotion, must indispensably be employed as the spring. The solemn holy precept does not allow our frivolous self-love to toy with pathognomic excitement, which may bear some likeness to morality, and to plume ourselves upon meritorious worth. Very little investigation will suffice to find for any praiseworthy action a law of duty which commands, and takes away all option, whether it fall in with our propensities or not; this is the only method of exhibition capable of giving an ethic training to the soul, it being alone capable of fixed and rigidly defined maxims.

  Fanaticism, in its most extensive sense, may be defined an overstepping, upon system, of the limits and barriers of human reason; and if this be so, then ethical fanaticism will be the overstepping of those limits put by pure practical reason to humanity, when she forbids man to place the subjective determinator of his will, i.e., the ethical spring to dutiful actions, anywhere else than in the law, or to entertain sentiments in his maxims other than reverence toward this law: consequently ordaining man not to forget to make duty his supreme practical principle of conduct,—a conception which at once dashes both arrogance and self-love.

  Upon this same account, not only novel-writers and sentimental pedagogues (however these last declaim at sentimentalism), but even philosophers, nay, the most rigid of all the Stoic sages, have helped to introduce ethical fanaticism instead of a sober and wise gymnastic discipline of ethics; nor can we here regard this distinction, that the fanaticism of these sages was heroic, whereas that of the others was of a more effeminate and shallow kind; and it can be affirmed without the least hypocrisy, that the moral precepts of the Gospel were what first introduced purity of moral principle, and that they did at the same time, by their adaptation and fitness to the limits of finite beings, in placing all good conduct in man’s subordination and subjection of his will to the discipline and training of a duty laid before his mental vision, first prevent him from fanatically disorienting himself among imagined moral excellences; and did, by thus putting a stop to ethical fanaticism, first assign limits of humility (i.e., of self-knowledge), equally to self-love and to self-conceit, both of which are apt to overstep their barriers.

  Duty! Thou great, thou exalted name! Wondrou thought, that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always reverence, if not always obedience,—before whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they rebel,—whence thy original? and where find we the root of thy august descent, thus loftily disclaiming all kindred with appetite and want? to be in like manner descended from which root, is the unchanging condition of that worth which mankind can alone impart to themselves?

  Verily it can be nothing less than what advances man, as part of the physical system, above himself,—connecting him with an order of things unapproached by sense, into which the force of reason can alone pierce; which supersensible has beneath it the phenomenal system, wherewith man has only a fortuitous and contingent connection, and so along with it the whole of his adventitiously determinable existence in space and time. It is in fact nothing else than personality,i.e., freedom and independency on the mechanism of the whole physical system,—always, however, considered as the property of a being subjected to peculiar laws emerging from his own reason, where the person, as belonging to the sensitive system, has imposed on him his own personality, in so far as this last is figured to reside in a cogitable system; upon which account we need not wonder how man, an inhabitant of both systems, cannot fail to venerate his higher nature, and to regard its laws with the greatest reverence.

  On this celestial descent are founded many expressions denoting the worth of the objects of ethical ideas. The moral law is holy. Man no doubt is unholy enough, but the humanity inhabiting his person must be holy. In the whole creation everything may be used as a mean, man alone excepted. He is alone an end-in-himself. He is the subject of the moral law, by force of the autonomy of his freedom, which law is holy. Upon the same account, every will, nay, every person’s will when referring merely to himself, is restrained to the condition of its coincidence with the autonomy of an Intelligent Being, viz., that it be subjected to no end not possible under a law fit to emanate from the will of the subject himself, consequently to the condition of never using himself as a mean, but always as an end. Such a condition is ascribed even to the divine will in respect of the Intelligents in this world, who are His creatures, in so far as that condition rests on their personality, by force of which alone they are ends-in-themselves.

  This reverence-arousing idea of Personality, showing us the august and sublime of our natural destiny, but showing us also the want of the adaptation of our deportment to it, and so casting down all self-conceit, is natural, and thrusts itself upon the most untutored reason, and is easily observable. Every tolerably honest man must at some time or another have felt that he eschewed a harmless untruth, singly not to despise himself in his own eyes, although that lie might have produced signal advantages to a dear and well-deserving friend; and in the extremest exigencies of life, an upright, straightforward man, conscience sustains, by telling him that he declined to avoid these miseries by bartering his duty, that he never prostituted his humanity, that he honoured the inhabitancy of reason in his own person, so that he needs not to blush before himself, and has no cause to shun his own inward self-examination. This consolation is not happiness,—is nothing like happiness,—and no one would wish to be so situated, nor for a life in such conjunctures. But so long as man lives, he cannot endure to be in his own eyes unworthy of life. This inward peace is therefore merely negative, and contains nowhat positive to make life happy; it is merely a defence, warding off the danger man runs of sinking in the worth of his person, long after he has been despoiled of all worth in situation. This peace is the effect of reverence for somewhat quite different from life, in comparison and contrast with which, life, with all its amenities, has no value. Man in such case continues to live singly out of duty, not because he has the least taste for life.

  Thus does the genuine spring of pure practical reason act. The spring is no other than the law itself letting us have a vista of the loftiness of our own supersensible existence, and so subjectively effecting in man, who is conscious of his sensitively affected and dependent nature, reverence for his higher destiny. Along with this spring may no doubt be combined so many graces and amenities of life, that, for the sake of these last alone, the most prudent choice of a judicious Epicurean might be given in favour of ethical deportment. And it may be advisable to combine the prospect of enjoying life with that other and prior and singly sufficient determinator of the will: and yet, merely in order to counterbalance the incentives which vice ceases not to offer, not to use it as a spring, no, not in any wise, when question is made as to duty; for if otherwise, then is the moral sentiment polluted in its source. The awe of duty has nowhat in common with the enjoyment of life; and although they were to be taken and well shaken, and so handed mixed as an opiate for the sick soul, yet they would soon separate; or were this last not to happen, the former part would take no effect; and while man’s physical existence might gain in force, his ethical would without stop fade away.

  CHAPTER III.

  DILUCIDATION OF THE FOREGOING ANALYTIC.—ON FREEDOM AND NECESSITY.

  BY the critical dilucidation of a science, or of a portion of it, I understand the inquiring and showing why it must assume precisely this and no other form when contrasted with some other system based on a like power of knowledge. Now the Practical Reason and Speculative are at bottom identic, in so far as both are pure reason; whence it will result, that the difference obtaining betwixt their systematic forms will be found, as to its last ground, by comparing them both together.

  The analytic of pure Theoretic Reason was conversant with the knowledge of objects given to the understanding, and so began at the intuitions; and since intuition is always sensitive, it started with the sensory, and arrived next at the notions (of the objects of intuition), and so, after premising both, ended with the principles. But since, on the contrary, Practical Reason is not occupied about the knowledge of objects, but about her own power to make such objects real, i.e., with a will, which is a cause so far forth as reason contains in itself the ground of its determination, and so has consequently to treat of no object of intuition, but of a law (because it is of the very essence of the notion causality to refer to law, fixing and determining the relative existence of the multifarious), a Critique of Practical Reason has, upon these grounds (if it is to be a practical reason at all), to set out with the possibility of practical principles à priori. Thence we descended to notions of the objects of a practical reason, viz., to the notions of the good and evil,* in order to assign them conformably to those principles (for it is impossible, prior to such principles, to fix by any power of knowledge what is good or evil); and then, only then, could the last chapter conclude by investigating the relation obtaining betwixt pure practical reason and the sensory, and the necessary effect, cognisable à priori thereon, which effect we called the moral sense. Thus the analytic of pure practical reason is divided quite analogously to the theoretical, throughout the whole extent of the conditions of its use, but in a reverse order. The analytic of pure theoretic reason was divided into Æsthetics and Logic; that of practical, again, invertedly into Logic and Æsthetics of Pure Practical Reason, if I may be allowed to misapply these words, merely for the sake of the analogy: there, Logic branched out into the analytic of notions and then of principles; but here, into that of principles and then of notions. There Æsthetics had two parts, owing to the twofold sorts of sensitive intuition; here the sensory is not regarded as the intuitive faculty, but as a bare feeling (fit to become the subjective ground of desire), which, however, is not susceptible of any further subdivision.

  Further, that this division into two under-parts (as might have been expected, from the instance of the former Critique) was not attempted by me in this work, arose from this special ground. For since it is practical reason we are talking of, which begins with a principle à priori, and not with experimental determinators, it follows that the division of the analytic of pure practical reason will be like that of a syllogism, viz., first, the universal in the major (the moral principle); second, a subsumption in the minor, of possible acts, as good or bad; and then, lastly, the conclusion, when we advance to the subjective determinator of the will (an interest in the practically-possible good, and the maxim based on such interest). Such comparisons will infallibly gratify those who are convinced of the truth of the position laid down in the analytic; for they nourish the expectation that we may one day attain a thorough insight into the unity of the whole rational faculty, and be able to deduce it all from one principle, an unavoidable demand made by human reason, which finds only in a completely systematic unity of its knowledge, rest and satisfaction.

  If now we consider further the content of the knowledge we possess, either concerning, or by means of pure practical reason, as just expounded in the analytic, then there are observable, notwithstanding the marvellous analogy obtaining betwixt them, no less extraordinary and signal differences. Theoretic reason was able to exhibit the power of pure rational knowledge à priori, easily and evidently by examples of the sciences; but that pure reason, without any admixture of experimental grounds, could be for itself practical, behoved to be exhibited by the common practical use of every man’s reason, whereby to authenticate the supreme practical principle, as one which every common reason recognised as quite à priori, independent on any sensitive data, and the supreme law of the will. It was necessary to this end, first to establish and evince this principle, quoad the purity of its origin, by the judgment of the most common reason, before science could receive it, or make any use of it; just like a fact, antecedent to all quibbling about its possibility, or about the results possible to be extracted from it. This circumstance, however, could easily be explained from what has been just alleged, since practical reason must of necessity begin with principles, which, as data, were to lie at the bottom of all science, and so could not be derived from it; and the justification of the moral principles, as positions of pure reason, could very well be managed by an appeal to the judgment of mankind’s common sense; because everything experimental, which could insinuate itself as a determinator into our maxims, becomes forthwith perceptible by the feeling of pleasure or pain, inevitably attaching to it, so far forth as it excites desire; whereas that pure practical principle directly counterworks all such, and refuses to adopt any feeling, as a condition, into its principle. The dissimilarity of the determinators (experimental or rational) is pointed out so prominently, and in such relief—when this antagonism of a practically-legislative reason withstands every appetite—by a peculiar kind of sensation, not antecedent to the legislation of practical reason, but rather effectuated alone by it, viz., the feeling of reverence, the which no man has for any appetite, be they of what kind they may, but has invariably for law, that no one of the most common understanding can fail, on the instant, to become aware, in any example, that he may indeed be advised to follow an experimental stimulant of volition, but that it cannot be expected he should be required to obey anywhat except reason’s pure practical law.

  To distinguish betwixt utilitarianism and morality, where experimental principles are the foundation of the first, and no part at all of the foundation of the second, is the prime and the weighty business of the analytic of pure practical reason, and imposes on the author a procedure as punctual and painful as is the method in geometry. And here the philosopher stands in pretty much the same situation as the chemist, for he institutes at all times an experiment with every man’s practical reason, in order to separate the pure (moral) determinator from the experimental. Suppose that he superadd to the will of one sensitively affected (who would like to lie, because somewhat may be earned by it), the moral law. Then it is as when the experimenter adds an alkali to a solution of muriate of lime: the acid deserts the lime, combines with the alkali, and the earth is precipitated. In like manner, present to an honest man the moral law, by which standard he observes the vileness of a liar, and his practical reason deserts straightway the prospect of advantage, and combines itself with that which upholds for him the reverence for his own person.

  But this distinction betwixt utility and morality is not in anywise their contrariety; and pure practical reason does not by any means demand that the claim to happiness be abandoned, but only, whenever question is made as to duty, that then no account at all be made of it. Nay, it in some cases may be a duty to look sharp after one’s own happiness, partly because the elements of happiness (skill, health, wealth) contain means toward the execution of duty, partly because the want of them (e.g., poverty) may present temptations to transgress the law. However, to study one’s own happiness never can be dutiful directly and still less a principle of duty. Again, since every determinator of will, except the single moral law, is experimental, and as such pertains to the utilitarian system, it results that all these must be detached from the supreme ethical principle, and never welded up with it as a condition; since this would destroy all moral worth, just as any tentative experimenting with geometric theorems would annihilate their self-evidencing certainty—the chief pre-eminency (according to Plato) which the mathematics have; an excellency to be prized higher than any utility to which geometry may accidentally conduce.

  Out of and beyond a deduction of the supreme principle of pure practical reason, i.e., the explanation of the possibility of such à priori knowledge, nothing further could be done except to state, that if we could comprehend the possibility of the freedom of an active cause, then we should comprehend not only the possibility, but likewise the very necessity of the moral law, i.e., of the supreme practical law of Intelligents, to whom freedom of causality of will is ascribed; both notions being so inseparably linked together, that freedom might be defined by saying that it is independency on everything except the moral law itself. But the freedom of an active cause, especially of a cause acting in upon the world of phenomena, cannot be comprehended, even as to its possibility; and we must deem ourselves happy that its impossibility cannot be evinced, and that we are necessitated by the law which postulates this freedom, and so entitled, to assume it.* But as there are some who still think they can explain this freedom by help of observation and experience, like any other physical energy, and regard it as a mere psychological quality, whereof the exposition rests singly on a more sifting scrutiny into the springs of will, not as the unconditioned and supersensible predicate of the causality of an agent appertaining at the same time to the sensible world (on which last it alone depends); and since these philosophasters do by such assumption cut short the vista gloriously afforded us by pure practical reason, through the intervention of the moral law (viz., the vista into a cogitable world,—alone realizing to us the otherwise transcendent notion Freedom, and by consequence the moral law itself), it will be requisite to adduce a few remarks, as a guard against this quackery, and to show it up in its full nakedness and deformity.

  The notion Causality, considered as involving that of necessary mechanism, and contradistinguished from the same notion as that of freedom, concerns only the existence of things, so far forth as they are determinable in time, i.e., as phenomena, and so is different from their causation, as things-in-themselves; so that if now we mistake (as is most commonly done) the determinations of the existence of things-in-time, for determinations of the existence of things-in-themselves, then the necessity cogitated in the causal-nexus can never be brought into harmony with freedom, but they remain stated the one contrary to the other; for from the first can be inferred, that every event, and therefore every action, exhibitive in time, is necessary, under the conditions of what happened in some prior time: and since time elapsed, and its contents are no longer within my power, it will follow that every action which I perform is necessary by force of determining grounds no longer within my power, i.e., I am, at any point of time wherein I act, never free. Nay, even were I to assume my whole existence, as independent on any foreign grounds (e.g., God), so that the determinators of my causality, and even of my whole existence, did not lie out of and beyond myself, still all this could not transmute the mechanical necessity of the physical system into freedom. For at each point of time I should always stand under the necessity of being determined to act, by somewhat no longer within my power, and the à parte priori infinite series of events would still be a standing chain of natural sequents which I could only continue, not commence; and so my causality never would be free.

  If, then, we ascribe to an Intelligent, whose existence is determined in time, freedom, still we cannot upon that account exempt him from the law of physical necessity regulating all events in his existence, and so also all his actions, for that would be to hand them over to blind chance; but since this law infallibly refers to all causality of things, so far as their existence is determinable in time, it would follow that freedom behoved to be rejected as a blank and impossible idea, were this the mode according to which we had to cogitate the existence of these things-in-themselves. Are we then seriously intent on rescuing this freedom, there remains this only mode, to attribute to the existence of things-in-time, i.e., to the phenomenon, a causality according to the law of the mechanic-nexus, and to attribute to it freedom as a thing-in-itself; and this is our inevitable ultimatum, if we wish to preserve the two contrary notions; although even then there present themselves very formidable difficulties, when we try to explain how they can be combined in one and the same action; nay, difficulties so great as would seem to lead us to infer that any such combination must be impracticable.*

  If I say of any man who has just perpetrated a theft, that the act was a necessary result, from determinators contained in the antecedent time, according to the law of the causal-nexus, then it was impossible that the act should not have happened; how then can any judgment, according to the moral law, change this opinion, and beget the supposition that the act might nevertheless have been left undone, simply because the law says it ought so to have been avoided? i.e., how can any man, at the very same point of time, and with regard to the same action, be quite free, when he is under an inevitable necessity of nature? To seek an evasion in this, by fitting on a comparative notion of freedom to the mode in which man’s causality is determined by the laws of nature, is a wretched subterfuge, by which, however, some still suffer themselves to be deluded; and an intricate problem, at whose solution centuries have laboured, is not to be figured as solved by a mere jargon of words, since it is not likely, in any event, that the solution lies so near the surface. The inquiry after that freedom, which lies at the bottom of the moral law, and of our accountability, does not depend on this,—whether the causality governed by a law of nature be determined by grounds within or without the person? nor yet on this, whether—on the former supposition—the determination be necessary by force of instinct or of reason? so long as, agreeably to the confession of such supposers, these determining representations have the ground of their existence in time, and in its elapsed state, and so backwards to prior and antecedent states of time. For, be those determinations ever so inward, and be their causality called ever so psychological instead of mechanical, i.e., though such causality produce its act by dint of perceptions, and not by motion or matter, still such are determinations of the causality of an agent, so far forth as his existence is determinable in time: consequently, determinations rendered necessary by conditions contained in prior times, which are therefore, when the subject comes to act, no longer in his power; and such psychological freedom is in nowise to be distinguished from physical necessity. No room is left for transcendental freedom, which must be cogitated as independency on the whole physical system, whether as object of the internal senses merely in time, or as also object of the external senses both in space and time at once; apart from which freedom, which alone is à priori practical, no moral law and no responsibility can be supported. On these accounts, the necessity of events in time, agreeably to the law of the causal-nexus, is part of the mechanism of nature, although we do not assert that the things affected by such necessary nexus are material machines. Regard is in such denomination had only to the sequences of events in time, whether the subject in which such flux occur be automaton materiale, or, as Leibnitz had it, spirituale, impelled by perceptions; for, in truth, were the freedom of our will of this comparative and psychological sort only, then it were no more than the freedom of a turnspit, which, once wound up, continues of itself in motion.

  Now, to clear up this seeming antagonism between the mechanism of nature, and freedom in one and the same given action, we must refer to what was advanced in the Critique of Pure Reason, or what at least is a corollary from it, viz., that that necessity of nature, which may not consort with the freedom of the subject, attaches singly to the modifications of a thing standing under conditions of time,i.e.,to the modifications of the acting subject as phenomenon; and that, therefore, so far (i.e., as phenomenon) the determinators of each act lie in the foregoing elapsed time, and are quite beyond his power (part of which are the actions man has already performed, and the phenomenal character he has given himself in his own eyes), yet, e contra,the self-same subject, being self-conscious of itself as a thing in itself, considers its existence as somewhat, detached from conditions of time, and itself, so far forth, as only determinable by laws given it by its own reason; and in this existence nothing precedes its own voluntary act, every action, and generally every determination of its being, changing conformably to its internal sense; nay, the entire series of its existence as a sensible being, is, in its consciousness of an intelligible cogitable existence, nothing but a mere sequent of its causality, never its determinator, as noumenon.* Under this aspect, an Intelligent may rightly say of every illegal act he perpetrates, he could very well have omitted it, although such act is as phenomenon sufficiently determined by the elapsed in time, and so far forth infallibly necessary; for this act, together with all prior ones, belong to one single phenomenon, his character, which character he has begotten for himself, and by force of which he, as a cause, independent on all sense, imputes to himself the causality of these phenomena.

  In accordance with this are the decrees of that marvellous power within us which we call Conscience. A man may try never so much to paint some immoral conduct, which memory reminds him of, as unpremeditated accident, as a mere incaution, never at all times to be avoided, and so as somewhat where he was hurried forward by the stream of necessity, and wherein by consequence he was guiltless; but still, notwithstanding, he finds that the advocate who pleads in his behalf can by no means bring his inward accuser into silence, so long as he is conscious that at the time when he perpetrated the injustice he was master of his senses (i.e., free): although he even then explains to himself his crime from sundry bad habits entailed through want of active attention to himself,—habits which he had suffered to augment up to that degree that he can regard the act as their natural result, without being able thereby to escape the self-reproach and blame he is forced to put upon himself. On this part of our nature is bottomed the contrition felt for a long-committed deed, on every recollection of it; which compunction is a painful feeling, begotten by the moral sentiment, and is so far practically void, as it cannot serve to make the done undone, and would even be absurd (as Priestley, like a consistent fatalist, has asserted), were it not that it, as pain, is quite legitimate,—reason knowing no relations of time, when question is made as to the law (moral) of our cogitable existence, but inquiring singly if the event belongs to me as my act, and then connecting with it ethically just the same sensation whether it happened now or long ago. For a man’s sentient existence is, in respect of his intelligible consciousness of existence (freedom), the absolute unity of one phenomenon, which, so far forth as it contains what are only phenomena of his sentiments, he judges of, not according to that necessity he is fettered by, as a part of the physical system, but according to the absolute spontaneity of his freedom. It may therefore be very well admitted, that could we have so deep an insight into a man’s cast of thinking, as it exhibits itself in inward and outward act,—that could we know every the smallest spring, and at the same time every external circumstance impinging upon such spring, — that then we could calculate a man’s future conduct with the same exactness with which we now compute eclipses, and still affirm that such man was free.

  Were we capable of an intellectual intuition of this self-same subject, we should then observe, that this whole chain of appearances, so far forth as the moral law is concerned, emanates from the spontaneity of the subject, as a thing-in-himself, of whose determinations no physical explanation is at all possible. In default, however, of such intuition, the moral law assures us of the actuality of this distinction, when we refer our acts as phenomena to the sensitive existence of the subject, and when, on the other hand, we refer the sensitive itself to the cogitable substratum within us. A reference to this distinction which is natural to reason, although quite inexplicable, enables us to justify opinions uttered with the greatest conscientiousness, and which yet, at their first appearance, seem repugnant to all equity. There are cases where individuals from youth up, notwithstanding an education whereby others have been benefited, show so early a wickedness, and persist in it up to man’s estate, that one may be led to deem them innate villains, and declare their whole cast of thinking unsusceptible of any amelioration; and yet, at the same time, so condemn them in everything they compass or avoid, as if they continued as responsible as any other person, notwithstanding that hopeless quality of mind attributed to them. But this could not happen, did we not suppose that everything arising from man’s choice depended on a free causality at bottom, which causality impresses, from youth up, its character upon the phenomena: these phenomena do by their uniformity make a sequence in the physical system visible, but do not make the wicked quality of will necessary, but rather such sequence follows the freely adopted evil and unchanging maxims, which do therefore make him the more reprobate and the more blameworthy.

  But another difficulty attends freedom, so far as it is to be regarded as combined in harmony with the mechanism of the physical system, in the person of a being who is himself a part of that system; a difficulty so great, as even, when all the foregoing is admitted, threatens freedom with its entire destruction. But, notwithstanding this danger, there is a circumstance which gives hope of an exit issuing in favour of freedom, viz., the circumstance that the same difficulty presses upon every other, nay, as we shall soon see, presses alone upon that theory which takes the entities in time and space for existences of things in themselves; and so we need not depart from our main theory regarding the ideality of time as a mere form of sensitive intuition, i.e., as a mere mode of perceiving, peculiar to a person who is part of a sensible world, but need only to unite the idea Freedom with this other part of the theory.

  When it is admitted that the intelligible person may, in regard of any given act, be free, even while he, as a person belonging in part to the world of sense, is mechanically conditioned, it still seems as if we must admit that the actions of mankind have their determining ground in somewhat entirely beyond their power, so soon as we admit that God, as the author of all things, is the cause of the existence of substance (a position which cannot be deserted without abandoning all theology). Here it would seem that all man’s actions have their last ground in the causality of a Supreme Being different from himself; and in truth, if the actions of man, which belong to his modifications in time, be not mere determinations of him as phenomena, but of him as a thing-in-itself, then freedom would irrecoverably be lost,—man would be an automaton, wound up and set agoing by some supreme artist. His self-consciousness would no doubt make him a thinking automaton, where, however, the consciousness of his spontaneity, if deemed freedom, were illusory, as it could only be called so, comparatively speaking, since the next determinators of his movements and their series up to their last cause would, it is true, be internal, but the last and highest would be met with in a different hand. In consequence of this, I cannot see how they who insist on regarding space and time as modes pertaining to the existence of the things in themselves, can escape the fatality of actions. Or if (as Mendelssohn did) they declare them requisite only to the existence of finite and derived beings, but no conditions of an Infinite and Illimitable Supreme, then, first, it is incomprehensible upon what title this distinction is asserted; and second, how they propose to escape the contradiction of making existence in time a necessary modification of Finites; God being the cause of their existence, while He yet cannot be the cause of the existence of time and space, these being, on this assumption, necessary à priori conditions of the existence of things themselves. And so His causality would be conditioned in regard of the existence of things; after which, all the objections to God’s Infinitude and Independency must again enter; whereas, on the contrary, the determining the Divine Existence as independent on any conditions of time, as contradistinguished from that of a being of the sensible world, is quite easy upon our theory, as it is just the discriminating betwixt the existence of a being-in-itself, and its existence phenomenally. So that if the Ideality of space and time be not admitted, Spinozism is the only alternative, where space and time are taken for essential modes of the Supreme Being; and the things which depend on Him (i.e., we ourselves) are not substances, but accidents inhering in Him, because, if these things exist only as His effects in time, which time conditions their existence-in-itself, then all actions of such a product would be just actions of this Supreme, which He performed somewhere and somewhen. Spinozism, therefore, notwithstanding the absurdity of its main idea, concludes more logically than the creationtheory can, when beings in time are stated as substances, and as effects of Supreme Cause, and yet denied to belong to God and His actions.

  The solution of the said difficulty can be effected shortly and clearly as follows:—If existence-in-time is a mere sensitive kind of representing, appertaining to the thinking subjects in the world, and so quite unrelated to things-in-themselves, then the creating of these latter beings is a creating of things-in-themselves, because the notion of creation has nowhat to do with the sensitive representing of an entity, but refers to Noumena. When, then, I say of beings in the sensible world, “they are created,” so far I regard them as Noumena. And as it would import a contradiction to affirm that God is the originator of the Phenomena, so it is likewise a contradiction to affirm that He is, as Creator, cause of the actions which, as phenomena, are exhibited in the sensible world, although He is cause of the existence of the agent as a Noumenon. And if now it is possible to assert freedom without prejudice to the mechanism of the system of actions as phenomena, then it cannot make the least difference that the agent is regarded as created, since creation refers to intelligible, not to sensible existence, and so cannot be figured as a ground of the determination of phenomena; which result, however, would fall out the other way if the finite beings existed in time as things-in-themselves, since then the Creator of the substance would be the author of all the machinery attaching to the substance.

  Of so vast importance is the separation of time from the existence of real entities, effected in the Critique.

  The solution of this difficulty here advanced is exceedingly difficult itself, it will be said, and appears hardly susceptible of a lucid explanation; but is there any other which has been yet attempted more easy and more comprehensible? It would be better to say, and more true, that the dogmatic teachers of metaphysic rather showed their cunning than their sincerity, by removing this difficulty out of sight, in the hope that, if they said nothing of it, it would occur to nobody. But if effective aid is to be given to science, every difficulty must be exposed, and even sought for, if peradventure any lurk in secret; for every difficulty evokes a mean of help, which cannot be found without giving science an increase in extent or in precision; and so difficulties advance the groundworks of science. But when difficulties are disingenuously concealed, or obviated by palliatives, they burst out by and by into incurable evils, and science is lost in absolute scepticism.

  Since it is, properly speaking, the idea Freedom which alone procures us (of all ideas of pure speculative reason) so great an extension in the fields of the supersensible, although only in order to a practical behoof, I ask how it has exclusively so great and signal a fertility, while the rest denote undoubtedly the vacant spot for possible objects of the understanding, but cannot determine by anywhat the notion of them. I soon comprehend that since I can think nothing without a category, this category must first of all be sought, even for the idea Freedom. Here it is the category Causality; and I am aware that I cannot give to the idea Freedom, as a transcendent one, any corresponding intuition, yet that to the representation Causality a sensible intuition must first of all be given, in order that objective reality may be secured to it. Again, all the categories fall into two classes—the mathematic, which tend only to the unity of the synthesis in the representing of objects, and the dynamic, which refer to the unity in the representing the existence of objects. The first kind, those of quantity and quality, contain always a synthesis of the homogeneous, where the unconditioned, belonging to the given conditioned in a sensible intuition in space and time, could not at all be found, as it behoved itself to belong to space and time, and so was always still conditioned. Hence, too, it came, that in this part of the dialectic of speculative reason, the antagonistic modes of finding the unconditionate, and the totality of their conditions, were both false. The categories of the second class (those of the causality and of the necessity of a thing) demanded not in their synthesis this homogeneousness of the conditioned and unconditionate, because here, not the intuition, and how it was originated and compounded out of the multifarious, behoves to be represented, but only how the existence of the conditioned object corresponding to the intuition was added to the existence of the condition; and there it was allowable to place the unconditioned of the every-way-conditioned in the sensible world (both in regard of the causality and the contingent existence of the things) in the cogitable world, and to make the synthesis transcendent: and so we found, in the dialectic of pure reason, that both the “seemingly” antagonist modes of finding the unconditioned for the conditioned—e.g., in the synthesis of causality for the conditioned sequences of causation and effect in the sensible world—did not contradict one another, when a causality was cogitated no longer sensitively conditioned, and that the very same action, which, as pertaining to the sensible world was always sensitively conditioned, i.e., mechanically necessary, could yet have at bottom a causality independent on the sensory, as causality of the actor, so far forth as he belonged to the intelligible world, and so be cogitated as free. All depended upon this, to change this can into existence, which, as it were, one could prove in some one instance by a fact, and to show that certain actions presupposed such a causality (viz., the intellectual, unconditioned by sense), whether such actions were actual or commanded,i.e., were objectively and practically necessary. In actually experienced and observed actions, as events in the sensible world, we never could hope to attain this connection, because the causality of freedom must be sought always beyond the sensible world, in the cogitable. But nowhat is presented to our perception, except sensible entities. There remained by consequence no alternative, except that an incontrovertible and objective law of the causality, secluding all sensitive conditions from its determinators, should be found; i.e., such a law, wherein reason appealed, to nowhat else and ulterior, as a determinator of causation, but which determinator reason herself contains by means of that law, and where she is accordingly as pure reason self-practical. But this principle needs no seeking and no finding, but is from days of yore interwoven with the reason and substance of all men, and this is the principle of morality. Consequently, an unconditioned causality, and our power of having it, freedom, and along with it, my being, belonging to the sensible world, and also at the same time to the cogitable, is not merely indefinitely and problematically thought, but is, in regard of the law of its causality, precisely and assertively known; and this fixes for us, and states, the reality of the cogitable world in a practical point of view; and this fixing, which in a theoretic point of view would be transcendent,* is, in a practical, immanent. But this step we could not take in reference to the second dynamical idea, viz., that of a Necessary Being; we could not arrive at him beyond the sensible world, without the intermediation of the first dynamic idea.8 For had we hazarded any such step, we must have quitted all data, and soared up to that, whereof nothing was given, by means of which we might make out the connection of such an intelligible person with the world of phenomena (since the Unoriginated and Necessary behoved to be known as given without us), while yet this was quite possible in regard of our own subject, so far as, on the one hand, it determines itself by the moral law as a cogitable being by means of freedom, and, on the other hand, recognises itself as acting in the sensible world, conformably to this destination, as indeed every day’s experience may prove.

  The idea Freedom alone permits that we quit not the datum self, to find the unconditioned and cogitable for the conditioned and sensible. Yet it is our reason itself, which, by its supreme and unconditioned practical law, recognises itself, and the being conscious of this law (our own person), as pertaining to the cogitable system, and that too with a determination of the mode how it as such may be active. Thus we understand how it is the practical faculties alone which can help us beyond the sensible world, and procure us a knowledge of a supersensible order and combination of things; which knowledge can, however, be extended only so far as is just requisite for a pure practical purpose.

  There is only one remark behind, viz., that every step taken by pure reason, even in a practical department where regard is not had to subtlety of speculation, does of itself most minutely coincide with the whole progress and march of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason,—nay, as exactly as if each step were taken just to procure this establishment and confirmation. Such an unsought and self-presenting arrival of the most important passages of pure practical reason at the same goal, with the exceeding subtle and often needless-seeming remarks in the critique of pure speculative, surprises and corroborates and reinforces, the maxim already known and lauded by others, to prosecute with all frankness and exactness a man’s research in every scientific undertaking, without caring in the least against what extraneous matters it may offend or collide, but to go on to execute it completely by and for itself alone. Repeated observation has shown me, that when a work of this sort is ended, some things which in the middle of the investigation looked exceedingly doubtful, came, notwithstanding, to a final coincidence and harmony in the most unexpected manner, with dogmas obtained without any reference to these results, or any partiality or fondness for them. Writers might spare themselves many blunders, and much lost toil (since they aimed at a dazzling result), could they but resolve to go more openly to work.

  BOOK III.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF JURISPRUDENCE.

  PREFACE.

  THE Metaphysic of Ethics was intended to follow the dissertation on the à priori operations of the will. It divides itself into the metaphysical elements of law and the metaphysical elements of morals (ethics in the stricter sense), and constitutes the anti-part to my previous work, the metaphysical elements of natural philosophy.

  Jurisprudence is the first part of general ethics. The desideratum with regard to it, is to have a system evolved by pure reason from principles à priori, and such a system would be the metaphysic of law. But since law, although a pure notion, is intended to apply to cases presented in observation and experience, a metaphysic system of it must embrace the à posteriori diversities of such cases, to render it complete. Again, since no classification of what is merely à posteriori and contingent can be complete or certainly pronounced such, and an approximation only to systematic unity is possible, the à posteriori conceptions cannot be introduced as integral parts of the system, but can only be adduced by way of example in notes. This circumstance, however, induces me to term the first part of the Metaphysic of Ethics, the Metaphysical elements of Law only, because, in reference to such practical cases, no system, but merely an approximation to it, is to be looked for. I shall therefore here, as formerly in the Metaphysic Elements of Natural Philosophy, print in the text that part of law which is strictly systematic and à priori; and that part which regards given cases in experience, I shall discuss in notes, since otherwise it would not be clear what ought to be considered as metaphysics, and what as practical law.

  I do not know how I can remove, or how better anticipate, the reproach of obscurity with which I am so often taunted, and not simply of obscurity, but of a studied and affected depth of thought, than by using the words of Professor Garve, a philosopher in the true sense of the word, in whose opinion I heartily concur, and whose rule I will endeavour to follow, in so far as the nature of my subject may permit.

  Professor Garve desires (Vermischte Aufsätze, p. 352) that every philosophic doctrine be made capable of a popular exposition, otherwise the author is to be deemed chargeable with confusion in his own ideas. This I willingly admit, except with regard to an investigation into the reach and extent of the faculty of reason itself, and of such cognate inquiries as rest on the originary function and use of reason; for there the inquiry always turns on exactly discriminating betwixt the sensible and the supersensible, in so far as this last may be the product of reason. Distinctions like these can never be made popular, nor indeed any formal metaphysic, although the results and conclusions arrived at may be made quite apparent to every sound understanding. In such an investigation, popularity, i.e., talking to the people in their own language and way of thinking, is quite out of the question. Scholastic exactness is indispensable, for the author is talking in the Schools; and, without such rigid terminology, we cannot advance a step in an analysis of reason.

  But when pedants have the effrontery to address the public from the pulpit or the chair, in technical phraseology, calculated singly for the school, that cannot be properly charged on any philosophic system, any more than the follies of a logodædalist are to be charged on grammar. The absurdity attaches to the individual, not to the science he perverts.

  It is objected that it is extremely arrogant, egotistical, nay, contemptuous, to the followers of the old systems, to assert, that, previous to the publication of my own system, there was no metaphysic science. But, to give due weight to this plausible objection, I desire that it be considered, “Whether or no there can be more than one single system of metaphysic science.” There are no doubt different modes of philosophizing, and various ways of retracing the first principles of thought, upon which afterwards, with more or less success, systems are erected, all which prepare the way, and have contributed to the establishment, of my own. But since, in the nature of things, human reason is but one, there cannot be various systems of philosophy. In other words, there is in the nature of things only one true system possible, however different and contradictory the assertions may have been with regard to each proposition in it. In the same way, the moralist asserts, and with justice, there is but one virtue, and only one doctrine of it, i.e., a single and alone system, establishing all virtues on one common principle. In like manner, the chemist maintains that there is but one chemistry; the physician, there is one alone principle of classifying diseases (that according to Brown); and each of these, although excluding the prior and elder systems, does not deny the intrinsic merits of former moralists, chemists, and physicians,—since, without their discoveries and unsuccessful essays at system, no one could have arrived at a true principle, giving systematic unity to the whole philosophy. Whenever, therefore, any one announces a system of metaphysic as the result of his own excogitation, it is exactly the same thing as if he were to say, hitherto there has been no true system; for, were he to admit a second and true system, then would there be two systems of opinion on the same subject;—different and yet true propositions—which is a contradiction. So that, when the Kantic system announces itself as that before which there was no real true philosophy, it is merely in the situation of every new system, and pretends to no more than every person must in fact pretend to, who projects a system according to his own plan.

  There is an objection of still less moment, and yet not entirely to be passed over, that one of the leading features of the Kantic system is not its own, but borrowed from some cognate system of philosophy (or mathematics); for such is the discovery proclaimed by the Tübingen reviewer concerning the author’s definition of philosophy, which he had proposed as his own, and as very important, but which, it seems, had been given long ago by another in almost the same words.* I must here leave it to the private judgment of each, whether or not the words intellectualis quædam constructio could have suggested my doctrine of Time and Space, by which I distinguish so broadly betwixt mathematics and philosophy. I am confident Hausen would himself have refused to acknowledge this interpretation of his words; for the possibility of intuitions à priori, and that space is such intuition, are positions he would willingly have avoided, as, in consequence, he would have felt himself entangled in labyrinthic questions of unknown and sight-outrunning extent and intricacy. A representation made, as it were, by the understanding, was intended by this learned mathematician to signify nothing else than the drawing of lines corresponding to the conception,—where the rule alone is attended to, and the trivial errors which must be made in the actual construction are totally abstracted from, as every one may understand who considers the making lines equal in geometry.

  Least of all is that objection worthy of regard which attacks the spirit of my system, by considerations drawn from the confusion wrought by those who attempt to ape it, by using some of those peculiar words which are really not capable of being supplied by any others in more common use; for the using them in common conversation deserves high reprehension, and such castigation has been administered by Mr. Nicolai, although I cannot agree with his remark, that they are to be dispensed with even in their proper field, as being a mere disguise for poverty of thought. However, the unpopular pedant is a better object of sarcasm than an ignorant dogmatist; for, in truth, the metaphysician who is strictly wedded to his system, belongs to the latter class, even though he is willingly ignorant of everything not belonging to his own school. But if, according to Shaftesbury, it is no small test of truth, that a system, particularly a practical one, can hold out against the assaults of ridicule, then, I think, the time will come when the Kantic system may laugh in turn, and with the greater justice, when it beholds the fair but airy castles of its opponents crumble to pieces at its touch, and their defenders taking fright amidst the ruins,—a destiny which inevitably awaits them.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.

  I.—

  OF THE RELATION SUBSISTING BETWIXT THE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND AND THE MORAL LAW.

  THE power of desire, or appetitive faculty, is the power man has of becoming, by his representations, the cause of the existence of the object represented. The ability of any being to act conformably to its representations, is called life.

  With desire or aversion is invariably connected, first, pleasure or dislike, the susceptibility for which is called feeling; but these last may be unattended by the former; for there are pleasures (e.g., of taste) independent of desire, originating from the bare representation, formed in the mind, of an object, while the percipient may be indifferent to its existence. Secondly, the liking or dislike of an object desired need not precede the desire, and cannot always be regarded as the cause, but must sometimes as the effect, of the appetition.

  Pleasure or dislike accompanying a representation is, for this reason, called feeling, that it is merely subjective, and has no relation to an object so as to beget any knowledge of it, nay, not even a knowledge of our own state; whereas even sensations, when considered apart from the peculiar modifications of our own subject (as red, sweet, etc.), refer, as elements of knowledge, to an object. But the pleasure or dislike we have at red or sweet denotes nothing whatever with regard to the object,* but simply its relation to my own subject. This is also the reason why the phenomena, pleasure and dislike, admit of no further explanation; and the utmost that can be done is to register and classify the consequences they may produce, in order to apply these to use in practice.

  That pleasure which is necessarily connected with desiring, may be called practical pleasure, irrespective of its being cause or effect of the desire. On the other hand, that pleasure which is not necessarily connected with the desire of the object represented, and which, therefore, is no pleasure in the existence of the object of the representation, but singly in the representation itself, may be called contemplative pleasure, or inactive complacency. A pleasurable feeling of this latter sort is called taste: this last is properly no part of a practical system, but may episodically be introduced. The practical pleasure, however, which, as a cause, precedes and determines the power of desire, is itself called desire in the strictest sense. A habitual desire is called appetite or inclination; and since the combination of pleasure with the power of desire is called (in so far as this conjunction is deemed by the understanding subjectively valid according to a general rule) interest, the practical pleasure is in such a case an appetitive interest. But, on the contrary, when pleasure is of such a sort as can follow solely upon a previous determination of the appetitive faculty, it is intellectual, and not sensitive; and the interest taken in the object represented is an interest of reason; for, were the interest sensitive, and did it not rest exclusively on principles of reason, then sensation must be connected with the pleasure, so as to determine the power of appetition. Further, although, when a pure interest of reason is granted, no appetitive interest is allowed to be surreptitiously introduced, yet we may, out of compliance with common parlance, speak of an inclination,—a habitual desire,—even towards that which can alone be an object of intellectual complacency: yet such habitual desire must not be mistaken for the cause, but must be taken for the effect, of the rational interest; in which case, the appetite is liberal and free, and is called a pure insensitive inclination.*

  Concupiscence—or lusting after—is different from desiring, and is a stimulus tending to awaken it; it is always sensitive, but is a state of mind short of producing any act on the part of the appetitive faculty.

  The power of desiring, conformably to intellectual representations, is, in so far as the grounds of the determination to act exist in the mind itself, and not in the object, called a power of optional pursuit or avoidance. When the appetitive faculty is combined with the consciousness of this ability of its own act to produce the object represented, it is called choice; if such consciousness is awanting, the act of the faculty is a mere wish. Appetition, when its inward ground of determination, consequently when the option, depends upon the reason of the subject himself, is called will.* Will is therefore the appetitive faculty, not so much in respect of the action (that was choice), as in respect of the ground determining the choice of the action; and it has itself no prior determinative, but is, in so far as it determines choice, practical reason itself.

  Subordinate to Will, may be classed choice and wish, in so far as reason can determine the power of desire. Choice, when determined by pure reason, is a liberal, a free choice; whereas that determinable singly by sensitive excitement is a mechanical or brute choice. The human choice is one affected by such stimuli, but not determined by them, and is therefore in itself, although it may be determined to actions emanating from pure will, prior to such acquired facility, impure.†Freedom of choice is the independency of its determination on sensitive stimulants. This is the negative conception of freedom; the positive, the power of pure reason to be itself practical or active. But this is no otherwise possible than by subordinating the maxim of every action to the condition of its fitness for law universal; and since the maxims of men do not always coincide with this requisition, reason can only prescribe this law by an imperative ordaining or forbidding.

  This Law of Freedom is, in contradistinction to physical laws of nature, called moral. When directed to external actions and their legitimateness, it founds jurisprudence; but when this law is applied to human conduct, and is itself the ground determining an action, so as to ascertain and fix its inward, and therefore also its outward, conformity to the law, then the knowledge à priori resulting from this formal determination of the maxims of the will is the science of ethics; and this is what is meant when it is said that actions in harmony with the first are legal, while actions in harmony with the last are moral. The freedom regarded in the first is external, i.e., personal liberty, singly; but that freedom concerned in the last, embraces both a man’s external freedom (of body) and internal freedom (of choice), in so far as both his phenomenal and real freedom are subjected to a law of reason. Thus, in our inquiry into the reach and extent of the faculty of reason, we said objects of the external senses are in Space, but in Time, all whatever, whether of the internal or external senses, the representations of both being perceptions embraced under the conditions of the faculty of internal intuitions. In the same way may freedom be regarded as modifying the external or internal use of choice; but still its law, as a pure practical principle, must be always valid as its inward determinator, although not always contemplated in that particular point of view.

  II.—

  ON THE IDEA AND THE NECESSITY OF HAVING A METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.

  That a system of the metaphysical principles of natural philosophy is possible à priori, and that such a system should precede that mixed physics which is applied to observation and experience, has been shown elsewhere. But natural philosophy can receive many propositions, on the evidence of experience, as quite general, and admitting no exception, although such universality of extent ought strictly to be deduced from positions à priori. As an instance of this, Newton adopted, as founded on experience, the principle of the equality of action and reaction, and yet he extended it over the whole material universe. Chemistry goes still further, and founds its laws of combination and solution singly on experience, and yet relies on their universality and necessity so as to apprehend error impossible.

  But with the laws of morals the case is different,—they are valid as laws only in so far as they are foundedà priori,and are seen to be so; nay, our judgments and opinions of ourselves and our actions are quite devoid of ethic import if they contain singly what experience teaches of them; and if any one allowed himself to make anything taken from experience a moral rule of acting, he would be in danger of the most ruinous errors.

  If Ethics were a mere doctrine of Eudaimonism, then it would be absurd to support it on principles à priori. For how plausible soever it may seem to say that reason could have investigated beforehand the means of attaining a permanent enjoyment of real happiness and of the amenities of life, still experience has shown that all theories à priori on that subject are either tautological, or void of foundation. Experience and observation alone show in what delight is taken. The natural instincts—the desire of rest—of motion—the love of fame—of knowledge—teach each individual separately what he is to look to for his chief gratification; and from these instincts he learns the means of reaching what he likes. All reasoning à priori towards founding a theory of general happiness is, when narrowly examined, no more than general observations founded on induction; and since generals are not universals, the propositions admit of so many exceptions in order to adapt the choice to each man’s likings that, after all, the individual is left to grow wise by experience of his own or his neighbour’s damage.

  The constitution of the precepts of morals is totally different: they are laws for every one, and have no respect for his appetites or inclinations; and that simply because man is free, and reason is practical. The instruction given in its laws is not drawn from inductive observations of himself and his animal part—not from considering the causes of the physical system, or taking heed to that which happens and is acted. But reason commands how man is to act, although no example of such action could be adduced. It also disregards the advantage resulting from our conduct, which indeed experience can alone teach. For although reason allows and approves our seeking our advantage in every possible way, and does, moreover, supported by experience, lead us to hope, especially if we go hand in hand with prudence, upon the whole, for greater advantages than can probably be counted on from violating her laws; still the authority of her behests, as Law, does not depend on any such contingency, and she uses such facts merely as a counterpoise to weigh against the inducements leading to an opposite course, in order, by thus adjusting the equilibrium of an otherwise undue balance, to secure for herself the full weight of her à priori reason.

  And since a system of à priori knowledge deduced from notions is called metaphysic,* Practical Philosophy, which treats not of the physical system, but of the cogitable, would require and presuppose a metaphysic of freedom, or of the moral system. To have such a system is therefore itself a duty; nor is any man destitute of this first Philosophy, however darkly conscious of it he may be to himself; for how could he, if destitute of à priori principles, fancy himself possessed of the ground of a law fit for all Intelligents? But as, in the metaphysic of the physical system, there were principles required for applying the supreme à priori positions to objects of experience; so, in the metaphysic of the moral system, the particular nature of man comes to be considered, which is known singly from experience, in order, on it, to indicate the conclusions resulting from the supreme moral law; by all which the purity of this last is noways affected, nor is its à priori original rendered at all doubtful: in other words, the metaphysic of ethics cannot rest on anthropology, but it must apply to it.

  The anti-part of a metaphysic of ethics, as the second member of a division of practical philosophy in general, would be moral anthropology, which would contain the subjective obstacles or assistances the moral law might meet with in the human constitution. It would treat of the founding moral maxims in the individual; of propagating them, and strengthening their action among the people; and such other matters as rest on experience, and indeed cannot be dispensed with, but which must not precede the first elements, or be mixed up with them: since then great risk is run of extracting false or at least indulgent moral laws, which give out that to be unattainable which for this very reason is not attained, the law not being held up in its purity, in which alone its strength consists; or is not attained, because ungenuine and sophisticated motives towards good and duty are employed, which ultimately sap and overthrow morality. Moral Anthropology dare not, therefore, be employed as any standard of judging in morals, nor as a discipline for the mind in assisting it to discharge its duty. Here the law itself must be resorted to, as it emanates directly from pure reason.

  With regard to the division, just mentioned, of philosophy into theoretical and practical, and that this last could be no other than moral science, I have elsewhere explained myself at length (Disquisition on the à priori Functions of the Judgment). Every practical investigation, teaching what may possibly be reached, by help of the physical system, is art, and depends singly on mechanic forces and their laws; only those practical investigations which rest on laws of freedom can have principles independent on any prior theory. For as to what transcends nature, there is no theory. Philosophy, therefore, can contain no technical, but singly a moral-practical part; and if the acquired facility of the choice, conformable to laws of freedom, should, in contradistinction to nature, be here called art, it would be such art as behoved to be establishable in a system of freedom analogous to that of nature; and, in truth, a divine art, were we always to exactly perform what reason enjoins, and to realize its Ideal.

  III.—

  OF THE DIVISION OF A SYSTEM OF THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.*

  To all legislation (which may prescribe inward or outward actions, and these either à priori by pure reason, or by the will of another), there are two things requisite: first, a Law representing the action as objectively necessary, i.e., making it a duty; secondly, a spring of action, which subjectively connects the determination of the choice with the representation of the law. By the first, the action is represented as duty, and is a mere theoretic acquaintance with a possible determination of choice; but, by the second, the obligation so to act is conjoined with a subjective ground of the determination of choice.

  Every legislation, therefore (no matter whether the action prescribed be the same or not), may be divided, in respect of the spring of action employed. That legislation, constituting an action Duty, and making the representation Duty itself the spring, is ethical. But that legislation which does not include this last in the law, and admits of other springs than the naked idea Duty, is juridical. As to what such springs may be, it is quite obvious, that since they differ from the idea Duty, they must be taken from pathological inclinations and aversions bearing on the human choice, and more particularly from the latter, singly because the legislation necessitates, and does not persuade.

  The coincidence of an action with the law, abstracted from any regard to the motive whence it sprang, is its legality. But such coincidence—when the idea Duty, founded on the law, is at the same time the inward spring—forms its morality.

  The duties of forensic obligation are outward only; for the juridical legislation does not require that the idea Duty, which is inward, should become likewise the determinator of the choice of the agent; and yet, since a motive is required, adequate, and calculated to give purchase to the law, the motives to be combined with the law can, from the nature of the case, be external singly. The ethical legislation takes under its cognisance inward mental acts; but it comprehends also all outward ones, and so is extended over everything that can be called Duty. But, upon this very account, since ethical legislation includes in its law the inward spring of acting (viz. the idea Duty), a particular noway entering into any external legislation, it follows that ethical legislation cannot be external9 (not even that of a divine will), although it may adopt actions prescribed by other systems of legislation into its own, as duties, and make the consideration of them, as such, a spring of conduct.

  From this it is evident that all duties must fall under the head of Ethics, even while the law giving them birth may not. Thus ethic requires that I fulfil a promise, although the other party could not compel me to do so. Ethics adopts the law pacta sunt servanda, and adopts also the thence arising duty. It is therefore not in ethics, but in law, that the legislation enjoining fidelity to one’s promise is contained. Ethics only teaches that, even if the external coercion connected juridically with the action were awanting, the idea of its being duty were still sufficient as a spring; for, were it not so, and the legislation not juridical, and the duty not one of law, but one of conscience, then fidelity in adhering to engagements would come to be classed with duties of benevolence, which is very wide of truth. It is essentially a legal obligation to which a man can be externally compelled; yet it is a virtuous action (a proof of virtuous sentiments) to act in that manner, even when no force can be apprehended. Law and morals are therefore not so much distinguished by the duties they enjoin, as by the different genius of the legislation connecting this or the other motive with the injunction.

  Ethical legislation is that which cannot be external, although the duties may be so. Juridical is that which can also be external. Thus it is an external duty to keep one’s promise; but the commandment to do so singly because it is duty, and disregarding every other motive, belongs simply to an inward legislation. It is therefore not as a particular act of duty (a peculiar kind of act, to which we are bound),—for, both in ethics and law, question is made of external duties,—but because in the given case the legislation is inward, and can have no external lawgiver, that therefore the obligation is deemed ethical. For the same reason, the duties of benevolence, in so far as they consist of external actions (or rather of obligations thereunto), are reckoned to belong to ethics,—the legislation being internal singly. Ethics has no doubt its peculiar duties, e.g., those towards one’s self; but it has also several in common with law, only the mode of the obligation is different; for to do actions barely because they are duties, and to make the principle of duty, no matter whence that duty spring, the all-sufficient spring of the will, is the peculiar characteristic of ethical obligation. Hence there are direct-ethical duties, but indirectly all others come to be so too.

  IV.—

  PRELIMINARY IDEAS ENTERING INTO THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.
  
  (Philosophia practica universalis.)

  The idea Freedom is a product of pure reason,* and, owing to that very circumstance, transcends the grasp of speculative philosophy; i.e., is such a conception as has no example in the course of experience and observation,—is therefore no object of theoretic knowledge: it is not a constitutive, but simply regulative, and, moreover, negative principle of speculative reason. But, in the use of reason as a practical or active faculty, the reality of this idea is evinced in practical propositions, which, being laws, point to a causality of reason, independent on any sensitive condition—determine the choice—and show a pure will, in which the moral ideas and laws have their seat.†

  Upon this idea of freedom, which is positive in so far as practice is concerned, are founded unconditional practical laws, called moral, which, in respect of us, who are affected by sensitive determinatives, and whose choice therefore swerves from pure will, are imperatives (categorical commands or prohibitions); and this it is which distinguishes them from mere technical rules, which last are valid on certain conditions singly. By these imperatives some actions are allowed or disallowed,i.e., are morally possible or impossible; others, again, are morally necessary, i.e., obligatory, whence arises the idea of duty, the adhering to or transgressing which is connected with a peculiar feeling of pain or pleasure (the moral sense): this feeling, however, since it is not the foundation of the practical laws, but only an effect produced in our mind when the choice is determined by them, which may be very different in different individuals, without affecting the truth of any moral judgment, cannot be taken notice of in a system treating of the mere practical laws of reason.

  The following notions are common to both parts of ethics.

  Obligation is the necessity of a free action, falling under a categorical imperative of reason.

  An imperative is a practical rule, by which an action, in itself contingent, is rendered necessary, and differs in this point from a practical law, that whereas this last represents the necessity of an action, yet it does so irrespective of the consideration that such action may, of inward necessity, belong to an agent (e.g., a holy one), and yet, in the case of man, be merely fortuitous; for, where the action is already necessary, there no imperative can be expressed. An imperative is therefore a rule making necessary a subjectively contingent action, and thereby representing the subject affected by it as one who must necessitate his actions to harmonize with the rule. The categorical (i.e., absolute or unconditional) imperative is not one which commands mediately, or by the representation of any ulterior end whitherward the action might point, but is one which, by the bare representation of the act, cogitates it as immediately-incumbent, and makes it objectively-necessary. Imperatives of this sort, no practical doctrine, which treats of obligations, save Ethic singly, can present. All other imperatives are technical and conditioned. The ground of the possibility of categorical imperatives is this, that they rest on no determinator of choice, which would require an ulterior end to be had in view, but on its originary freedom singly.

  An action is allowed which is not contrary to obligation; and this freedom, limited by no opposing imperative, is a moral title or faculty: from this is obvious what is disallowed.

  Duty is that action to which a person is bound. Duty is hence the matter of obligation; and there may be one duty, in so far as the act is concerned, although different modes in which the obligation may be constituted, i.e., juridical or ethical.

  The Categorical Imperative, expressing obligation in regard of a given action, is a moral practical law. But since obligation implies not merely practical necessity (that being expressed by all law), but necessitation, the imperative is either a command or a prohibition, as it may happen. An action neither commanded nor forbidden is allowed, merely because, with regard to it, there exists no law limiting the freedom of the subject, and therefore no duty: such an action is morally indifferent. A further question may be moved, If there are any such adiaphorous actions? and if so, is it open to any one to will or eschew them at pleasure, without a particular permissive law? Were this question answered negatively, then would the faculty of acting not respect an action indifferent, for to such, morally considered, no particular law can be required.

  A deed or action is an event falling under the laws of obligation, i.e., it is called an act, when regard is had to its originator,—the freedom of the acting subject. The actor is considered the author of the event; and when he is supposed to know the law applying to his conduct, and by virtue of which law he is bound, both the act and its consequences can be imputed to him.

  He to whom actions can be imputed is called person; moral personality, man’s independent individuality, is nothing else than the freedom of agent-intelligents, who rank under moral laws. Whence it is evident that a person is subjected to no law except such as he, either alone, or sometimes in conjunction with others, imposes on himself.

  That is called a thing to which no event can be imputed as an action. Hence every object devoid of freedom is regarded as a thing.

  Right, wrong, denote actions consistent or inconsistent with duty; and these terms are so applied in whatever way the duty may have been constituted: an act repugnant to duty is called transgression.

  An unintentional transgression is called (for it is imputable) a fault; but a deliberate transgression (e.g., one accompanied with the consciousness of its being so) is a crime or sin: whatever coincides juridically with the external requirements of law is called just; what is not so, unjust.

  A collision of duties would imply such a condition of ethical obligation, that one duty annihilated the other. But because duty and obligation are ideas involving the objective practical necessity of certain actions, and since two contradictory and inconsistent imperatives cannot both be necessary, it follows that a collision of duties is perfectly inconceivable. There may, however, be different grounds towards an obligation, one or other or all of which may be insufficient to beget a perfect obligation (rationes obligandi non obligantes), and one and the same individual may come to be affected by the rule prescribed by them, but duty is not established in such a case. Whence practical philosophers express themselves by saying, not that the major obligation retains its place, but the more extensive ground towards that obligation takes precedence of the less.

  External Laws are understood to comprehend and include these obligations which are recognised by reason à priori; and although not promulgated, they are held to be so, and compose what is called the law of nature. Those, again, which, until promulgated, have no force, and which could not oblige but by reason of their proceeding from the legislator, are, in contradistinction, called positive or statutable law. An external legislation is therefore possible, containing simply the law of nature; but then this natural law must antecede and establish the authority of the lawgiver (i.e., his title to oblige).*

  An ultimate principle of reason, binding us to certain actions, is a practical law. The rule an agent chooses himself to follow is his peculiar maxim of conduct, and of such maxims the variety is plainly endless.

  The categorical imperative, which is merely a general formula expressing what obligation is, announced the necessity of adopting such maxims as might serve for common laws for all. Conduct is therefore to be examined so as to detect the private maxim from which it sprang; and whether it be a principle possessed of objective validity, can only be recognised by inquiring if reason can represent itself as pronouncing law universal by means of it.

  The simplicity of this law, contrasted with the variety and gravity of the consequences following upon it, as also its majesty and supremacy, unattended by any visible sanctions, is at first exceedingly surprising. But when, in the midst of this admiration, the power of reason is pointed out to sway our choice by the idea of a formal law, and we are guided by it to the further cogitation of that property of will, its freedom, which no force of speculation, no train of experience, could have reached, we then observe how it is that this law should, like mathematic postulates, be indemonstrable, and yet most apodictically certain, and, like them, open up a vista into a long and spacious field of scientific practical propositions,—a field where, theoretically, reason found every avenue barred up, and saw the idea Freedom, together with every other idea of the supersensible, removed to a distance altogether inaccessible.

  The harmony of an action with the Law of Duty is its legality; that of its maxim with the law is its morality. Maxim is the subjective principle of acting, and is made by the Subject his own rule, viz., how he wills to act; whereas, on the contrary, the Law of Duty commands objectively, viz., how he ought to act.

  The supreme principle of ethics therefore is: Act upon a maxim at all times fit for law universal. Every maxim repugnant to the above is immoral.

  The law proceeds from will, maxims from choice, which in mankind is free.*Will, with respect singly to the relation obtaining betwixt it and the law, is, properly speaking, neither free nor unfree, for it does not regard actions, but the ideal legislation itself, i.e., is itself practical reason.†Choice alone is, strictly speaking, free.

  Liberty of choice cannot be explained to be a power of adhering to or deserting the law, although, as phenomenon, this is often the fact; we only mean by liberty that negative property of our thinking frame not to be determined to act by physical excitements. What it is really, and how freedom positively co-acts the sensory, is beyond the bounds of human speculation; and the phenomenal observance or transgression of the law can never serve to give any insight into the nature and essence of a supersensible object.* It is one thing to note as true that experience has taught; another to make such experience and observation the principle of a definition, and the mark and general criterion by which to distinguish free and mechanic choice; for experience and observation do not inform us that the mark defined by, necessarily adheres to the notion, which, however, is essential for a sound and unerring criterion. Finally, liberty cogitated as an ability of acting on the representation of the law, is alone a power, and to swerve from the law is not a power, but weakness; and it is clearly absurd to explain the former by the latter,—a power by the want of it.

  A law is a proposition enouncing a categorical imperative. He who commands by law is a lawgiver, and is the author of juridical obligation, although not necessarily the author of the law itself; for if he is, then it is a positive and arbitrary enactment. That law which imposes on us its unconditioned obligation à priori, may be cogitated as emanating from the will of a supreme lawgiver, i.e., of God (to whom rights are owed, but of whom no duty can be predicated); but this is merely the idea of a moral agent, whose will is law for all, and does not mean that he is the author of the law itself.

  Imputation, in a moral sense, is that judgment whereby some one is stated to be the author of an event, which is then called his act or deed; and if such judgment is accompanied by legal sequents, then the imputation is judiciary. If no legal effects follow, then the judgment is no more than a private judgment, and the imputation is invalid or dijudicatory only. That person who has a title to pronounce judiciary imputation is called the judge or court (forum, tribunal).

  What any one does over and above what he can be compelled to, is meritorious, or of well-desert; what actions do no more than tally with the legal standard are of debt singly, and when they fall short of it are of demerit or ill-desert. The legal consequence of demerit or guilt is punishment; that of merit is reward, provided the reward promised in the law was the motive inciting to action. Conduct precisely exhaustive of what we were indebted to, is unattended by any judicial effect. Benignity or favour stands in no legal relationship to any action.

  The good or evil results consequent on an indebted action, likewise the consequences of neglecting a meritorious, cannot be imputed to the agent. They may tell upon the actor, but cannot be deemed effects of the law.

  The good springing from an action of well-desert, and the evil following on an unjust action, are imputable.

  However, subjectively, the grade of the imputability of an action is to be estimated by the magnitude of the obstacles overcome. The greater hindrance from without, and the less the hindrance to duty from within, so much the higher rises the moral honesty and well-deservingness of the act; e.g., if I rescue from great wretchedness one who is a stranger and unknown to me, and that at great personal inconvenience to myself.

  Conversely: The less the impediment is from without, and the greater the obstacles are within, so much greater is the demerit in the scale of guilt. The state of mind, therefore, in which a bad action is perpetrated, whether unagitated or inflamed, will greatly change the imputation both of the deed and its consequences.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF LAW.

  SEC. A.—

  WHAT THE SCIENCE OF LAW IS.

  THE aggregate of those laws which may be externally promulgated is law (jus). If really so announced by a lawgiver, such legislation becomes real, and composes positive law (jus scriptum). He who knows this, is a jurisconsult; and is even jurisperitus when he can dexterously apply the law to occurring cases,—a skill which, if great, may even entitle a man to rank among the jurisprudents. When, however, we abstract from such jurisperitia and jurisprudentia, what remains is merely the scientific theory of law. By the science of law is meant the systematic knowledge of the principles of the law of nature (from which positive law takes its rise), which is for ever the same, and carries its sure and unchanging obligations over all nations and throughout all ages.

  SEC. B.—

  WHAT IS LAW?

  This is a question which may embarrass the lawyer as much as the celebrated question, “What is truth?” does the logician; for he must avoid tautology, and give a general explanation abstracted from the particular legislation obtaining in any one country. What the law in any instance is (quid sit juris), the jurisconsult can easily tell; but whether it is right or just that it should be so, is what he wants a criterion to determine. But this criterion can only then be found when, abandoning all posteriori principles, he ascends to the sources of reason, and discovers on what all legislation whatsoever can alone be based; in which analysis positive law is doubtless a great help and guide. But laws founded singly on experience, are like the mask in the fable, beautiful, but hollow.

  The notion of law, in so far as it imports obligation—i.e., annexes the predicate, “forbidden” or “allowed,” to an action—regards, first, the external practical relation of person to person, in so far as the actions of one may affect or influence another; second, it does not regard the relation betwixt the choice of one and the wishes or wants of another, as in deeds of benevolence or severity, but merely respects the relationship of choice to choice; thirdly, in this reciprocal relationship of choices, no question is made as to the matter chosen. The form of the choice, i.e., the choice considered as free, is alone regarded, i.e., whether the action of one man is consistent with, and does not impair, the free choice of another.

  Law—the rule of right—is therefore the aggregate of those conditions, according to which personal choices may harmonize and not destroy one another by being subordinated to freedom’s law universal.

  SEC. C.—

  SUPREME PRINCIPLE OF LAW.

  Every action isright and just,the maxim of which allows the agents freedom of choice to harmonize with the freedom of every other,according to a universal law.

  If, therefore, my deportment, or, generally, my condition is not inconsistent with the universal freedom of every other person, he does me a wrong who hinders such state, or obstructs my actions; for such obstruction is inconsistent with a universal law of liberty.

  From this it follows, that no one is legally entitled to demand that I make this principle of universal legality the maxim or spring of my conduct. Another’s freedom may be indifferent to me,—nay, I may wish to evade it; but so long as I do it not, I am juridically just. That justice should be itself my maxim, belongs to the second part of Ethics.

  The law or universal rule of right is, So act that the use of thy freedom may not circumscribe the freedom of any other (i.e. if thy act or maxim were made imperative on all),—a law imposing no doubt obligation, but which does not exact the determination of choice by the contemplation of the obligation. Reason singly announces, that it in idea so limits freedom, and that others may in real fact and event co-act such limitation; and this it announces as a postulate incapable of further proof. As we here treat not of offices of virtue, but explain what is just and right, it is impossible to represent this law as the spring moving us to action.

  SEC. D.—

  LAW CARRIES WITH IT A TITLE OF CO-ACTION.

  An obstacle opposed to that which hinders an effect, advances that effect, and tends to that end. But everything unjust is a hindrance to freedom, according to law universal. Again, co-action is a hindrance put upon freedom. Therefore, if a certain use of freedom is a hindrance to freedom universal, i.e., unjust and wrong, then co-action preventing such misuse of freedom goes to establish freedom according to a universal law, i.e., is just or right; and consequently law has in itself a right to co-act him who attempts to violate it.

  SEC. E. —

  LAW MAY LIKEWISE BE STRICTLY DEFINED AS THAT BY WHICH MUTUAL CO-ACTION IS MADE CONSISTENT WITH UNIVERSAL FREEDOM.

  The purport of this sentence is, that Law is not to be regarded as made up of two parts, the one obligation, the other a title to co-act; but that the very notion of law consists in that of the possibility of combining universal mutual co-action with every person’s freedom.

  For since law respects that only which is external and phenomenal in an action, strict law, i.e., law in which no ethical consideration is introduced, can require no internal, but merely external, determinators of choice, even although co-action be required to do so. All law whatever rests, it is true, on the consciousness of obligation under the moral law itself; but pure or strict law, in the sense now taken, does not expect that this consciousness should be the spring of conduct; but supports itself as a legislation for external actions, on its principle of co-action. When, therefore, it is said a creditor is entitled to demand payment from his debtor, that never implies that he may represent to the latter that his own reason imposes that obligation; but it signifies that external co-action physically forcing the payment of debt consists with universal freedom, and so even with the debtor’s. This position of reciprocal action and co-action throughout the whole system of Intelligents, gives, if I may so speak, a lively image of the notion Law in a sensible figure à priori, and carries us by analogy to the law of action and reaction in the communicating of external motion; and as by virtue of it the quantity of motion remained undiminished, so here, by virtue of this reciprocal co-active mechanism, the quantum of personal freedom is preserved undiminished throughout the system, in the intercourse and exchange of man with man.

  Again, as in the Mathematics, the truths of that science are not deduced from the naked notion, but by help of the configurations of space answering to the given notion; so it is not so much the notion Law, as that equal and mutual co-action corresponding to the idea, by means of which a deduction, and, as I may say, delineation of its truths are possible (i.e., the propositions are not taken from the originary moral idea of the law, but from this subjected mechanism). (Beck. Com. 107.) And because to this dynamic notion co-action three corresponds a formal one, taken from the Mathematics previously spoken of, it comes to pass, that what is right is cogitated and spoken of as we do of right lines, where “right,” the rectilineal, are opposed to “curves” and oblique lines. That kind of rightness which is opposed to “curve,” is that inward property of a line, whereby it is the only one possible betwixt two points; and that rightness opposed to obliquity takes place where, betwixt two intersecting segments, one only perpendicular can be drawn, inclining to neither segment, but dividing equally the enclosed space.

  In like manner, law insists that there be rigidly and equally given to every man his own; a mathematical precision not exigible in the offices of virtue, these last often admitting a certain latitude of application. However, without wandering into the domain of Ethics, there are two cases demanding solution, but which no Œdipus seems willing to resolve, and look as if they belonged to the “Intermundia” of Epicurus. Such two stumbling blocks1 must forthwith be removed from the domain of jurisprudence proper, lest their uncertainties should be imagined to have any common part with the firm and stable principles of law.

  APPENDIX TO THE INTRODUCTION.
  
  OF LAW EQUIVOCAL.

  Law, strictly so called, always implies the power to co-act. But people have fancied to themselves law in some broader sense, where the title to co-act is indefinite, and quite indeterminable. Of this kind there have been usurped two sorts, equity and necessity: the former is alleged to be a law which has no co-action, but the latter is a co-action (necessity) which has no law; and the difficulty springs from this, that they are cases of opaque law, to decide which no judge can be constituted.

  I.—

  EQUITY.

  Equity, considered in itself, does not in any wise address itself to the ethical duty of another; for he who vindicates his property on this head, stands upon his own right; but he is unable to assign the data which would empower the judge to decide his cause: for example, a servant who has contracted with his superior for a certain hire, may, at the expiry of his service, come to receive wages in coin greatly depreciated, though nominally the same in value; and the same would occur in loans, or in any other money contract, where the debtor holds himself entitled to exact payment higher in proportion to the depreciation of the currency; but he has no claim in law, and sees himself forced to call on equity for aid, a mute goddess, who returns no response: and unless parties have guarded against contingencies by the specific stipulations of their contract, a judge can give no relief, for he cannot pronounce sentence upon vague and indefinite conditions.

  Hence it follows, that a court of equity (in a question about the rights of man) is a contradiction and absurdity. There alone, where the proper rights of the judge are involved, ought he to give ear to the dictates of equity. Thus the Crown may equitably take upon itself the losses sustained by others on its behalf, and ought, when called upon to do so, to indemnify the subject; although, in point of law, the Crown might urge that the subject had, at his own risk singly, undertaken its defence.

  The motto of equity is, Summum jus summa injuria, extreme law is extreme injustice; but this inconvenience cannot be remedied by law, although the claim is a claim of right. The other part of Ethic alone teaches, to deem the rights of man sacred and inviolable.

  II.—

  NECESSITY.

  This alleged right is that title which a man is supposed to have, of killing another who has done him no harm, provided he cannot otherwise extricate himself from danger. And here it seems that law is repugnant to itself. For this is not the case of an assassin whom I am allowed to anticipate, by consigning him to death; but of alleged violence which I am entitled to use against another from whom I have received no wrong.

  This assertion, it is plain, does not refer to any given law, but respects the sentence which judges must pronounce when such a case of necessity is carried before them; for there can be no law adjudging death to him who in a case of shipwreck knocks another from an oar, which is barely sufficient to save himself. The punishment threatened by the law cannot be made higher than the loss of life, already impending over him. A statute can, therefore, have no effect in such a crisis; for the punishment being uncertain, cannot outweigh the dread of death, which is instant and certain. The law sees itself in this way forced to consider violent self-preservation, not as devoid of blame, but as incapable of being punished. And this impunity, resulting entirely from the accidental nature of the case, has been constantly mistaken by jurists for an impunity founded in the nature of the law itself, i.e., the action has been regarded as just and blameless.

  The motto of necessity is, Necessity has no law. However, there never can be any case, making the unjust and wrong justifiable before the law.

  GENERAL DIVISION OF JURISPRUDENCE.

  A.—

  DIVISION OF JURIDICAL OFFICES.

  In this division we may follow Ulpian, by slightly modifying our understanding of his legal formulæ,—a meaning perhaps darkly present to his own mind, and which can be evolved from them with great ease and elegance.

  1. Honeste vive—(be an honest man).—Juridical honesty or uprightness consists in upholding one’s personal worth, as a man, against all others,—an obligation capable of being expressed by the following formula:—“Suffer thyself not to become the bare mean of others; and if thou serve them, be also their end.” This obligation is afterwards explained, as founded on the rights of humanity in a man’s own person—(lex justi).

  2. Neminem læde—(do no man wrong)—even though as a consequence thou must abandon all connections with others, and go out of society—(lex juridica.)

  3. Suum cuique tribue—(give each man his own).—Understood literally, these words are void of meaning, for that cannot be given to another which he already has. The formula can therefore alone signify, Enter with thy fellow-men into that state—society—where each man’s own is defended from the violence of his neighbour—(lex justitiæ).

  These three classical formulæ make up one entire division of the principles of law, and found a division of juridical obligation into internal—external—and that composite obligation, which is constituted by subsuming the second under the principle of the first.

  B.—

  DIVISION OF RIGHTS.

  A system of rights is called law, and is either natural, or statutable and positive. In the first case, law rests entirely on pure principles à priori; in the latter, it is considered as based on the will of a lawgiver.

  2. Right is the ethical faculty or title of obliging another, and is the legal ground on which the latter sort of law is based; and of such right there are two kinds, originary and derived: the first is that birthright of man which subsists independently of any legal act; the second is that which is acquired to him by such an act.

  The congenital mine and thine may be also called the inward or intrinsic right, for external right must always be acquired.

  There is but one Birthright, Freedom.

  Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independence on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person’s freedom. Subordinate to this supreme idea, and included under it, are the rights,—1. of Equality,i.e., the title not to be held bound to others beyond what they are in their turn bound to; consequently the right of every one to be his own master (sui juris): 2. The right to be regarded as legally innocent and guiltless, in so far as no one has been injured by his use of his freedom: 3. Lastly, the right to do to every man whatever implies nothing derogatory to that other’s rights, as, for example, to exchange one’s ideas and opinions with another, to tell or promise somewhat, and that whether true or untrue, whether sincerely or insincerely; for it is the province of the other to believe or discredit what is said—to accept or decline what is promised.* The reason why this division, breaking up the conception Freedom into its subordinate parts, has obtained among systems of natural law, is this, that when a question arises as to any derived right, and the question arises on whom the burden lies to prove either the fact, or to establish the law of his case, the party who declines the obligation, and asserts it to be with the other, does in fact appeal to his birthright, and so declares, that to impute to him an obligation to prove, is inconsistent with some part or other (e.g., equality, innocence) of his character freedom; and this may be carried through all the different relations into which freedom can specifically enter.

  Further, because this birthright is one and indivisible, the division of rights consists of two members of most unequal dimensions; and therefore this right is discussed now in the introduction, and the subdivisions of natural law restrained to the external rights of mine and thine.

  FUNDAMENTAL DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS.

  I. All obligations incumbent on man to fulfil, are either juridical, for which outward laws are admissible to co-act their observance, or ethical, where no such legislation is conceivable; and these ethical offices cannot fall under any outward co-active legislation, because such offices depend on certain ends and designs which it is the imperative duty of man to propose to himself. But no outward compulsion can give any person certain intentions, for these depend on himself alone; for even though outward actions can be extorted, tending to that end, still the subject himself may be disinclined to it.

  II. Man, as a subject of obligation, is considered singly with reference to his freedom, which is supersensible, that is, his humanity, in which consists his personality, exempting him from every phenomenal determinator (homo noumenon), and requires to be contradistinguished from himself, as the same person subjected to the conditions of time and space (homo phenomenon); and these, when applied to those two kinds of offices, resting on the notions right and end, give birth to the following division of all moral science, and is a division founded on the relations subsisting betwixt the law and the matter of obligation.

  Offices owed by man to himself.	Offices of perfect or determinate obligation.			Offices owed by man to others.
  	I.		II.
  	The rights of humanity in a man’s own person.	Juridical offices.	The rights of man.
  	III.		IV.
  	The ends of humanity in one’s own person.	Ethical offices.	The ends of other men.
  	Offices of indeterminate obligation.

  Besides the above division, the subjects mutually obliging one another may stand in different relations, and these relationships would afford the ground-plan of another division, according to the relation betwixt the obliger and the obliged.

  i.	ii.
  The legal relation betwixt man and beings possessed neither of rights nor obligations.	The legal relation of man to beings possessed both of rights and subjected to obligation.
  vacat.	adest.
  For these are irrational beings, devoid of power to oblige, and towards whom no obligation can be constituted.	For that is a relation betwixt man and man.
  iii.	iv.
  The legal relation subsisting betwixt man and beings subjected to obligations, but devoid of rights.	The relation betwixt man and that being who has rights, but is subjected to no duties.
  vacat.	vacat.
  For these would be men devoid of personality (slaves).	In a system of pure philosophy; for such a being is no object of possible experience.

  Division of Ethic as a general System of Human Offices or Duties.

  Elementology.			Methodology.
  Juridical offices.		Ethical offices.	Didactics.	Ascetics.
  Private law.	Public law.

  Where we have exhibited at once the materials and the architectonic form of the science.

  The law of nature ought not to be divided, as is often done, into natural and social, but into natural and civil or municipal: the first is called private, the second public law; for to the state of nature, not social institutions, but the civil or municipal, are to be opposed. In the state of nature, society need not be awanting, but only that civil society, securing by public institutions the rights of man; and that is the reason why the natural is called private law (jus privatum).*

  BOOK IV.

  THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE.

  INTRODUCTION.

  ETHICS signified of old the whole of Moral Philosophy in general, and this was also called the system of the offices (de officiis). But in modern times the name Ethics came to be confined to that part of Moral Philosophy which treats of duties not cognisable by an external and positive legislation. Whence it has come that the general system of the offices falls into Jurisprudence, treating of law external; and into Moral Philosophy, which is independent on any outward legislation.

  I.—

  EXPOSITION OF THE NOTION “VIRTUE.”

  The notion Duty implies, in the very essence of it, the further notion Necessitation, i.e., co-action exercised by the law upon the choice; and this co-action may be either foreign or proper (self-command). The ethical imperative announced, by its categorical behest (an absolutely unconditioned shall), this co-action, which, however, cannot be extended to all Intelligents whatsoever (for of these some may be “holy”); but is valid for mankind only, as physical beings endowed with reason, who are unholy* enough to be seduced into the transgression of the law, even while they recognise and acknowledge its authority, and, when they do obey it, obey unwillingly (i.e., by withstanding inclination); in which point indeed self co-action properly consists. But since man is at the same time a free (moral) agent, the notion “duty” can involve no more than self-co-action (i.e., by the naked representation of the law), at least when regard is had to the inward mobile of the will; for, if the case were otherwise, it would be impossible to reconcile any such co-action with man’s liberty of choice. But where the constraint is inward, the notion “duty” comes within the sphere of morals.

  The instincts of man’s physical nature give birth to obstacles which hinder and impede him in the execution of his duty. They are in fact mighty opposing forces, which he has to go forth and encounter: these he must deem himself able to overcome by his reason, and that not at some future period, but even now,—not bit by bit, but to beat all down at one single blow. He must judge that he can do, what things soever the law ordains that he ought and should.

  But the consciousness of the power, and the predeterminate resolve, to withstand a strong and unjust enemy, is valour; and, in regard of that which opposes the advancement of the moral sentiments within us, moral valour,i.e.,virtue. Whence it has resulted, that the general system of the offices is, in that part which brings not the outward but the inward freedom under control, a doctrine or theory of virtue.

  Jurisprudence treated singly of the formal conditions of man’s outward freedom (viz., that freedom should remain consistent with itself, in the event of its maxims being elevated to the rank of law universal), i.e., it investigated Law only. But Ethic presents matter to man’s free choice, an end given by pure reason for him to aim at, and which is represented as an objectively-necessary end, and so, consequently, as a “duty.” For since the appetites and instincts of the sensory mislead the will to ends subversive of morality, legislative reason can in no other manner guard against their inroad, than by presenting to the will an opposite and contrary and moral end, given independently of the sensory, and so à priori.*

  An end is the object of the choice of a reasonable being; by the representation of which, the Intelligent is determined to an act tending to obtain and realize such object. Now, it is undoubted that I may be forced to act so as to be merely an instrument towards some ulterior and foreign end; but I never can in any event be constrained to propose to myself my end. I alone can assign and fix to myself the end I will to aim at. But, on the hypothesis that I stand under an obligation to constitute, as my end, somewhat presented by reason to my intellectual regards, that is, that I ought, over and above the formal determination of will (treated of in law), to superadd to it a material determinator, i.e., an end, contrary and opposed to the ends brought forth by sensitive excitement; then there emerges the notion of an end, which is in itself a ground of duty; and the doctrine of such an end cannot fall under the sphere of law, but it belongs to morals, which alone involve in their very notion that of self-co-action, according to ethic laws.

  Upon this account Ethics may, in this part, be defined to be the system of the ends of pure practical reason. Physical co-action and self-co-action mark or determine the boundary obtaining betwixt Law and Morals, the two grand stems of the science of Ethics; and that Ethics must comprehend duty, to observe which, no one can be constrained physically by others, is just a corollary from the position, that it is a doctrine of the ends of reason; it being absurd to talk of force, when question is made of the practical autonomy of the agent himself.

  Again, that Ethics is a doctrine of the offices of virtue, results from the definition given above of virtue, taken in conjunction with that peculiar obligation, the nature of which has just been stated. In fact, there is no other determination of will, except the determination and design to adopt an end, which carries already in the very notion of it, that the person cannot be co-acted to it physically by the will of another. No doubt another person may force me to do what is contrary to my own design, and such deed may be a mere mean or instrumental toward gaining the ends of that other person; but this he cannot force me to, that I should make his ends my own; and it is clear that no end can be mine, unless I make it so by proposing it to myself. Indeed, an end imposed by any other would be a contradiction—an act of freedom devoid of liberty: but there is no contradiction in designing an end, to have which end is the person’s duty; for here I co-act myself, and this is quite consistent with my freedom.

  But now the question arises, How is such an end possible? for the logical possibility of the notion of a thing is insufficient to enable us to conclude upon the objective reality of the thing itself.*

  II.—

  EXPOSITION OF THE NOTION OF AN END WHICH IS AT THE SAME TIME A DUTY.

  The relation of an end to duty may be cogitated in a twofold manner,—either beginning with the end to assign the maxim of actions in harmony with duty, or beginning with the maxim to determine that end, which it is a duty incumbent on mankind to propose to himself. Jurisprudence advances by the first method. Every one is free to give his actions what end he will, but the principle regulating the causality of the will is fixed à priori, viz., that the freedom of the agent must be exercised in such a manner as to consist with the freedom of every other person, conformably to law universal.

  But Moral Philosophy strikes into an opposite march: here we cannot commence with the ends man may design, and from them determine and statute the maxims he has to take, i.e., statute the duty he has to follow; for in this latter event the grounds of his maxims would be experimental, which we know beget no obligation, the idea Duty and its categorical imperative taking their rise in pure reason only. Nor could we indeed even talk of duty, were the will’s inward principles based on tentative and experimental ends, these being all selfish and egotistical. In this branch of Ethics, then, the idea Obligation must guide to ends which we ought to aim at, and constitute maxims pointing to those ends conformably to ethic laws.

  Postponing for the present the investigation into what these ends are which man ought to propose to himself, and how such ends come to be possible, we must remark, that a material duty of this kind is called a moral duty or virtuous office; and it may be requisite to state upon what accounts it is so.

  To every duty there corresponds a right, considered as a title in general; but every duty does not import that the other has a right (a legal title) juridically to co-act the execution of duty from the obliged; but where duties are coercible, they are, strictly speaking, legal duties (duty-in-law). Exactly in the same way, to every obligation there corresponds the notion Virtue; but every ethic duty is not upon that account one of the offices of virtue: that obligation, for instance, is not, which abstracts from all given ends, and regards the bare formal of the will’s determination, viz., that the incumbent action be performed out of regard had to duty. It is only in the case where an action is at once both an end and a duty, that a virtuous office can be constituted: of this latter sort there may be several, and so different virtues; whereas of the former, as there can be but one ethical obligement, so only one duty, i.e., one virtuous sentiment extending to all actions, of whatever kind.

  Further, another essential distinction obtaining betwixt juridical and moral obligements is, that the former are coercible, whereas the latter depend singly upon free self-co-action. Further, for finite holy beings (incapable of being tempted to swerve from duty), there can be no Doctrine of Virtue, but a Science of Ethics singly, which is an autonomy of practical reason; whereas a system of virtues treats not only of the autonomy, but also, at the same time, of the autokraty of the will,i.e., is a doctrine of the force reason has to vanquish and beat down all the appetites which oppose the execution of the law. A force not, indeed, immediately given in an intuition, but rightly inferred from the categorical imperative. Whence it results, that man’s morality is, at its highest grade, nothing more than virtue, even admitting that such morality were altogether pure (i.e., separated thoroughly from every admixture of foreign springs); a state and tone of soul which fancy has impersonated in the character of the sage, an ideal whitherwards mankind ought in unremitting progression to advance.

  Nor can virtue be explained to be a habit, as Cochius has done in his prize essay, where he treats of it as an aptitude in morally good actions, acquired by long-continued custom; for when such use and wont is not effectuated by stable, firm, and ever more and more clarified first principles, then is the habitude—like any other mechanism brought about by technical reason—neither fortified against all assailants, nor has it any guard against the sudden fits and starts new enticements and unforeseen circumstances may occasion.

  Remark.—Virtue = +a, is opposed to non-virtue (moral weakness) = 0, as its logical antipart; but to vice = -a, as its real antagonist. And it is a question not only devoid of meaning, but even offensive, to inquire if great crimes may not demand and display more strength of soul than even great virtues; for by strength of soul we understand the steadfastness of man’s will, as a being endowed with freedom, i.e., in so far as he is in a healthy state of intellect, and retains his command over himself. Great crimes are on the contrary paroxysms, at whose aspect the same part of mankind stand aghast. In fine, this sort of question may be compared to the question, whether a person may not have greater physical power in a fit of frenzy, than when in his right wits; and this question may be answered in the affirmative, without allowing him upon that account to be possessed of greater strength of soul: for as crimes take their rise from the inverted domination of the passions and appetites over reason, where no strength of soul is at all conceivable, this question is like asking if a man in a fever may not exhibit more strength than when in health, which may unhesitatingly be denied, because the want of health, which last consists in the due equilibrium and adjustment of all a man’s bodily powers, is a weakening of the system of his forces, according to which system only it is, however, that we can state any estimate of his absolute health.

  III.—

  OF THE GROUND UPON WHICH MAN REPRESENTS TO HIMSELF AN END WHICH IS AT THE SAME TIME A DUTY.

  End is an object of free choice, which determines itself by the representation of this object to an action whereby this end is brought forth. Every action has consequently its own end; and since no one can design an end except by himself constituting the object chosen his end, it results that man’s aiming at any particular end is an act of his own freedom, and no effect operated by constitutional mechanism of his system. But because an act fixing an end is a practical principle, ordaining not a means (which were a hypothetical commandment), but the end itself (i.e., unconditionally), it follows that there is a categorical imperative of pure practical reason, connecting the idea Duty with that of an End in general.

  That there must be such an end, and a categorical imperative corresponding to it, is apparent from this, that where there are free actions, there must also be ends, whitherwards they tend, as their object; and among these ends, there must be some, whereof it is of the very essence to be duties. For were none such given, then, because no action can be aimless, would every end be only valid in the eye of reason as a means instrumental and conducive towards some further end, and a categorical imperative would be impossible; a position which would overthrow all Ethics.

  Accordingly we do not here treat of ends which mankind proposes to himself by force of the physical instincts of his system, but of such ends as he ought to aim at. The former might found a technical (subjective) doctrine of ends, and would contain the dictates of prudence in choosing one’s ends; but the latter must be called the ethical (objective) doctrine of ends,—a distinction which we do not insist upon, because the science of ethics is in its very notion contradistinguished from anthropology, the latter rising upon experimental principles, the former again, i.e., the ethical doctrine of ends, treating of duties founded upon à priori principles of pure practical reason.

  IV.—

  WHAT ENDS THEY ARE, THE VERY ESSENCE WHEREOF IT IS TO BE DUTIES.

  Such ends are one’s own perfection,—our neighbour’s happiness.

  These ends cannot be inverted, and we cannot state as such,—one’s own happiness,—our neighbour’s perfection.

  For his own happiness is an end which all mankind has by force of the physical constitution of his system; consequently this end cannot be regarded as a duty, without stating a contradiction. What every one inevitably wills, cannot fall under the notion duty,—duty importing necessitation to an end unwillingly adopted. So that it is a contradiction to say a man is obliged to advance his own happiness with all his might.

  And there is the like contradiction in saying that we ought to design the perfection of another, and to hold ourselves obliged to further it; for the perfectness of another, when considered as a person, consists in this, that he can impose upon himself his own end, agreeably to his own understanding of his duty; and it is a repugnancy to impose on me, as a duty, the doing that which singly the other person can accomplish.

  V.—

  EXPLANATION OF THESE TWO NOTIONS.

  (a.)

  One’s own Perfection.

  The word perfection is open to many an interpretation. Thus, when used in ontology, perfection denotes the totality of the multifarious, which, taken together, do in the aggregate compose one thing. Then, again, when used in teleology, it is so understood as to signify the exact proportionateness of means to ends. Perfection, taken in the first sense, might be called quantitative, in the second qualitative (formal). The material and quantitative perfection is one only (for the total of the parts of anywhat is one whole); but of the formal there may be many sorts in the same thing, and it is of this last alone that we here treat.

  When it is said that the perfecting of his nature is an end which it is man’s duty to propose to himself, this perfection must be placed in that which is the effect of his own activity, not any gift of nature, upon which account this duty can be nothing else than the culture of his natural faculties, the principal whereof is the understanding, as the power of dealing with notions and ideas, — among others, with the ideas of duty; and then, next, of his will to discharge all his duty.

  It is, then, a duty incumbent upon mankind,—

  I. To develop himself more and more from the animal characters stamped upon him by his brute nature, and to advance and evolve his humanity, which alone renders him capable of designing anywhat as his end. He ought to strip off his ignorance, by learning to correct and renounce his errors; and this is not a counsel given him by technically practical reason, but ethico-active reason ordains it unconditionally, in order that he may be worthy of the humanity he represents.

  II. To clarify, and to carry the culture of his will to the purest grade of ethic sentiment, a state and tone of soul where the law itself is the immediate mobile of the will, and where duty is discharged because it is so. And this state and tone of soul is an inward ethical perfection, and is called the moral sense, because it is a feeling of the effect wrought by legislative reason upon man’s active power of conforming to the law. And although this feeling has been too often fanatically abused, as if it were a peculiar emotion astir in the mind antecedently to reason, and able (like the genius of Socrates) to dispense with her tardy determinations, it is notwithstanding an ethical accomplishment, enabling mankind to make every end his own, when that end is also his duty.

  (b.)

  My Neighbour’s Happiness.

  Happiness, i.e., contentment and satisfaction with one’s external lot, in so far as its permanence is secured, is the inevitable desire and wish of every human nature; but it is not upon that account an end affording the groundwork of any duty. Again, since a distinction has been made by some, betwixt what they term physical and moral happiness, whereof the former is stated to consist in man’s enjoyment and acquiescence in the goods and bounties bestowed on him, in free gift, by nature, but the latter in his own self-contentment and acquiescence in his own ethical deportment, it is needful for me to remark (omitting all censure of the misuse of such terms, which enclose a contradiction) that the latter kind of state belongs to the other head, that of perfection; for he who is to be happy in the bare consciousness of his honesty, possesses that very perfection treated of in the former title, as that end which it was man’s duty to pursue.

  That happiness, then, which it is my end and my duty to further, can be the happiness of another singly, whose ends and interests I ought to make my own. What others may deem most conducive to their interests and happiness, rests upon their determination; it stands, however, always at my option to decline the pursuit of ends others would willingly obtain, if I hold them hurtful and pernicious. But to resist or evade this virtuous office of beneficence, by alleging a pretended obligation incumbent on me to study my own physical happiness, is in plain fact just to convert my private and subjective end into an objective one; and yet such pretended obligation has repeatedly been urged as an objection to the foregoing division of duties (No. IV.): the objection is merely plausible and apparent, and the following remark may serve to clear the matter up.

  Grief, poverty, want, and pain, are unquestionably mighty temptations to the transgression of one’s duty; and hence it seems as if wealth, strength, health, which keep out the inroad of the first, were ends incumbent on mankind to pursue, i.e., it looks very like as if it were his duty to advance and study his own interests as much as those of others. But what is overlooked is this, that in such event a man’s general welfare is not the end aimed at, but is no more than a meansallowed as instrumental towards removing the obstacles which might stand in the way of the person’s own morality; and this last it is which is the true and real end of his exertions, and must needs be permitted, no one having a right to demand that I should sacrifice for him my proper end. To acquire wealth is thence directly and in itself no duty; but indirectly it may become so, viz., in order to guard against poverty, and that wretchedness which might come accompanied by vice. But then it is not my happiness, but my morality, which, to uphold in its integrity, is at once my end and my duty.

  VI.—

  MORALS CONTAIN NO LAW FOR ACTIONS (THAT WERE JURISPRUDENCE), BUT ONLY FOR THE MAXIMS WHENCE ACTIONS TAKE THEIR RISE.

  The notion Duty relates immediately to Law, even when I abstract from every end which might become the matter of it. This indeed was indicated by the supreme formal principle of ethics expressed in the categorical imperative: “So act that the maxim of thy conduct might be announced as law universal.” But in this part of ethics this formula denotes the law of thy own special individual will, not the law emanating from willin genere; in which latter case there would be room for the will of some other person, and the duty resulting from it would be a juridical obligation, and so fall beyond the domain of morals. In this part of ethics the maxims are regarded as such subjective principles as are not unfit to be elevated to the rank of law in a system of universal moral legislation; but this gives them only a negative character,* viz., not to be repugnant to lawin genere. The question, therefore, is, How can there be a law ordaining positive maxims of conduct?

  The notion of an end in itself a duty—peculiar to this branch of ethics—is what founds a law commanding maxims of conduct, by subordinating the ends which all mankind have to the objective ends which all mankind ought to have. The imperative, Thou shalt make to thyself, this or that, thy end, points to the matter (the object) of choice; and since no free action is possible, where the agent does not design by it some end as the object chosen, a maxim tending to such end need only be fit for law universal; whereas, if that end be in itself a duty, such end-duty would found a law ordaining me to adopt the maxim taken from and belonging to it. For man’s practical maxims may be adopted arbitrarily, and it is always in his option to execute them or not, they being no otherwise fettered than by standing under the restrictive condition of being fit for law universal, this being the formal principle regulating the whole conduct of life. But a law takes away the whole optional part of action, and so differs widely from all expediential dictates, which counsel what means conduce best to certain ends.

  VII.—

  MORAL DUTY IS OF INDETERMINATE OBLIGATION, BUT THE JURIDICAL OFFICES ARE STRICT.

  This position is a corollary from the foregoing (No. VI.); for where the law ordains not the action, but its maxim only, that implies that it leaves to free choice a latitude in the execution of it, that is to say, that the law does not rigidly determine how much ought to be done toward the end which is our duty, but an indeterminate obligation must not be so understood as if it left a space open for exceptions from the maxim itself; it means only our title to limit one rule of duty by another (e.g., to limit the general social duty by the fraternal or filial), which virtually enlarges the field for the practical exercise of virtue. The more an obligation is extensive, the more indeterminate is the person’s obligement to act; nevertheless, the more he narrows the maxim of its observance, so as to make it approach to the nature of a strict and forensic obligation, the more complete is the virtue of his conduct.

  Duties of indeterminate obligation are therefore the only offices of virtue. To discharge them is merit = +a; their transgression is not straightway guilt = -a, but simply moral unworth = 0. Unless, indeed, the person omitted upon system the observance of these duties. Steadfastness of purpose in carrying the first of these into action is what is properly styled virtue. Weakness in the second is not so much vice, as rather non-virtue,i.e., want of moral strength (defectus moralis). Every action repugnant to duty is transgression; but deliberate transgression, done upon system, is that only which properly is to be termed vice.

  Although the conformity of a man’s actions to the law is nothing meritorious, yet to observe one’s juridical obligations as duties is; i.e., reverence for the rights of mankind is meritorious, for hereby a person makes the rights of man his end, and so extends his notion of obligation beyond that of mere debt (officium debiti). Another may, in consequence of his rights, demand from me actions tallying with the law, but he cannot likewise insist that the representation of the law should itself be the ground determining my will to action. A similar remark holds good of that more general ethic precept, Act duteously out of regard had to duty. To engrave such a sentiment deep in one’s heart, and often to revivify its impression, is meritorious, for it goes beyond the mere act incumbent to be done, and makes the law itself the spring of conduct.

  Upon the same account, those duties must be reckoned as of indeterminate obligation, which are observed to be attended by an inward ethical reward; or rather, to bring the parallel yet nearer to the case of forensic obligations,—followed by a susceptibility for such rewards according to the moral law; viz., a susceptibility for an ethical complacency, surpassing the mere simple self-approbation (which is only negative) consequent on the fulfilment of the law; and this complacency it is which is meant when it is said that virtue is by such a consciousness her own reward.

  This merit, which a man may have in regard of his kind, by advancing their common and known ends, and so making their happiness constitute his, may be called a sweet merit, and the consciousness of it brings forth an ethical delight, at which ecstatic banquet others may even sympathetically feast. Whereas the bitter merit of advancing the true weal of the ignorant and unthankful has in general no such reaction, and brings forth no more than self-approbation, although this last is in such a case likely to be more pure and more exalted.

  VIII.—

  EXPOSITION OF THE MORAL DUTIES AS DUTIES OF INDETERMINATE OBLIGATION.

  1.

  My own Perfection, as End and Duty.

  A. Physical Perfection,i.e., culture of all our faculties in general, in order to attain the ends presented to us by reason. That this is our duty, and an end of our being, and that this culture rises on an unconditionate imperative, independently of any advantages to which such culture may perhaps conduce, may appear from what follows. The ability to propose to one’s self an end, is the characteristic of humanity, and distinguishes it from his brute nature. Along with the ends of the humanity subsisting in our person, goes hand in hand the rational will, and, together with that, the obligation to make one’s self well-deserving of mankind by general culture, in carrying to higher and higher degrees of perfection the powers intrusted to him, i.e., to develop the latent energies dormant in the unhewn substratum of his nature, whereby the brute animal is first of all changed and transformed into the man; all which is in itself an imperative duty.

  But this duty is simply moral, i.e., of indeterminate obligation: how far any one ought to carry the improvement and the progression of his faculties, is left undetermined by reason. Besides, the difference of occasions and circumstances one may come into, renders quite arbitrary the choice of the kind of calling to which he will devote his talent; so that there can be no commandment of reason ordaining given actions, but ordaining only a maxim regulative of conduct; the tenor of which principle may be thus conceived: “Evolve betimes thy corporeal and mental faculties, that thou mayest be fitted for any kind of ends, it being uncertain which of them may come one day to be adopted by thee.”

  B. Ethical perfection. The highest grade of ethical perfection possible to be attained by man, is to discharge his duty because it is so,—where the law is at once the rule and the mobile of the will. Now, at first sight, it seems as if this were a strict obligation, and that the supreme principle of duty called, not only for the legality, but likewise for the morality of every act, and that it must do so with the whole rigour and severity of law. But in fact the law concerns itself only with the maxims of conduct, and ordains man to seek the ground of his practical maxims in the law itself, not in any sensitive instinct or by-views and ends of prejudice and advantage. No individual act, then, is specially ordained. Besides, it is impossible for any one so to behold or fathom the abysses of his heart as to become fully convinced of the purity of his moral intentions, and of his sincerity, even in one single act, however clear he may be as to its legality. Imbecility, oftener than any other cause, deters a man from the hardihood of crime, and so passes with him for virtue, which, however, implies a certain grade of strength. And how many may there be who have long lived lives blameless and unrebukable, who are, after all, only lucky in having escaped temptation? How much ethical content may belong to any action, cannot be explored even by themselves.

  We infer, then, that the duty of estimating the worth of one’s actions, not legally simply, but likewise according to their morality, is one of indeterminate obligation; that, in other words, the law does not ordain any such inward mental act, but merely that it ought to be our maxim to endeavour, by unremitted assiduity, to make the consciousness of duty sufficient by itself to stir the will to action.

  2.

  My Neighbour’s Happiness as End and Duty.

  A. Physical wellbeing. General benevolence may be unlimited, for in all this nothing need be done; but the case is different when we come to beneficence, more especially when actions have to be performed, not out of love to others, but out of duty, with the mortification and sacrifice of our own ends. That this beneficence is duty, results from this, 1st, That because our self-love goes inseparably linked hand in hand with the appetite to be loved by others, and, in case of need, to be assisted by them,—a state of things in which we make ourselves the end of others; and, 2nd, That since a maxim of this kind can only have ethical virtue to oblige the will of others, when it is potentially fitted for law universal: it follows that we must state others as the ends of our will, in adopting our maxims of practical conduct; i.e., the happiness of others is an end incumbent on us as a duty.

  It is my duty, then, to yield a part of my wellbeing in sacrifice for others, without hoping any indemnity, because it is my duty; and it is impossible to assign indefinite boundaries, whither and how far this duty shall extend. Its extent will always rest on the peculiar wants of each, and these wants and needs each particular must determine for himself. Nor can it, in any event, be expected that I should abandon my own real happiness and proper needs, in order to study that of another; for a maxim containing such a rule would be found repugnant to itself, if elevated to the rank of law universal. This duty, then, is indeterminate only, and there is a latitude of doing more or less towards discharging it. The law embraces the maxim only,—it cannot be extended to special actions.

  B. The moral welfare of our neighbour is no doubt an integral part of his general felicity (prosperity), and it is incumbent on us to promote it; but this obligation begets a negative duty only. The compunction a man feels from the stings of conscience is, although of ethical origin, yet physical in its results, just like grief, fear, and every other sickly habitude of mind. To take heed, that no one fall under his own contempt, cannot indeed be my duty, for that exclusively in his concern. However, I ought to do nothing which I know may, from the constitution of our nature, become a temptation, seducing others to deeds which conscience may afterwards condemn them for. There are, however, no limits assignable, within which our care of the moral tranquillity of our neighbour is to range; the obligation consequently is indeterminate.

  IX.—

  WHAT A MORAL DUTY (OR VIRTUOUS OFFICE) IS.

  Virtue is the strength of the human will in the execution of duty. All strength is ascertained singly by the obstacles it is able to overcome. Virtue has to combat against the physical instincts of our system, when these thwart and collide with man’s ethical resolves. And because it is the person himself who lays these impediments in the way of his own maxims, virtue is not only a self co-action (for then one physical instinct might wage war upon another), but a command conducted upon a principle of inward freedom; that is, a self co-action, by force of the naked idea Duty, and the law.

  Every duty, of whatever kind, involves the notion of necessitation by law; and the moral, that necessitation which an inward legislation can alone effect; but the juridical, one possible also by an external and foreign legislation. Either kind imports the notion of a co-active power, and this co-action may be proper or foreign. The ethical force of the former is virtue; and the action rising upon such a sentiment (reverence for law) may be fitly termed an act of virtue, even although the law should announce a juridical duty only; for morals alone teach to keep inviolate the rights of mankind.

  But that, the practice whereof is virtue, is not upon that account one of the offices of virtue—in the proper sense of the words—the first referring to the formal of the maxims, the second to their matter, that is, to an end which is cogitated as duty. But because the ethical obligement to ends, whereof there may be several, is indefinite,—the law ordaining a rule of deportment only,—it results that there may be (differing with the nature of the legitimate ends they tend to) several different duties, which may all be called duties in morality, or offices of virtue, because they are subjected to voluntary self-co-action only, are unsusceptible of coercive measures from without, and spring from ends which are in themselves duties.

  Virtue, considered as the will’s unshaken constancy in adhering to the decrees of duty, can, like every formal, be only one, identic, and always the same with itself; but in respect of the incumbent ends of action, i.e., the materials man has to work upon, there may be several virtues; and since the obligement to adopt maxims or rules of life, resting on such materials, was called a moral duty or virtuous office, it follows that the offices of virtue may be several and distinct.

  The supreme principle of this division of Ethics therefore is, “Adopt such ends in thy maxims as may be made imperative on all mankind to design.” By force of this principle, each man is stated as his own and every other’s end; and it is now not enough to abstain from employing them or himself as means to his own end,—a case which would leave him quite indifferent to his fellows,—but he is beholden to make all mankind his end.

  This position in morals admits, being a categorical imperative, of no proof; but some account may be given of it, i.e., a deduction from the nature of pure practical reason itself. What thing soever stands so related to humanity, one’s self or others, as possibly to be an end, must be declared an end, reason being judge, for practical reason is the power of designing ends; and to assert that reason were indifferent in regard of any such, i.e., to maintain that reason took no interest in them, is an absurdity; for then reason would miss of her function in determining the maxims and rules of life, which maxims rest always on an end; that is, in other words, would be no practical reason at all. But when pure reason announces any end à priori, it announces at the same time that end as a duty incumbent on all mankind; and this is the kind of duty termed a virtuous office or moral duty.

  X.—

  THE SUPREME PRINCIPLE OF LAW WAS ANALYTIC—THAT OF MORALS IS SYNTHETIC.

  It was evinced in Law that the outward co-active power, so far forth as it withstands whatever would let and hinder the mutual freedom of the subject, could be made consistent with ends in general; and that this position holds good, results from the principle of contradiction. I need not quit the idea of Freedom, but need only to evolve the principle analytically out of it, while the end each person may propose to himself may be what it will: so then the supreme principle of law was analytical.

  On the contrary, the principle of Morals goes out of and beyond the notion of external freedom, and conjoins with it, conformably to law universal, an end which it constitutes a duty; and this principle is synthetic: the possibility of the synthesis of the notions contained in it is explored in the deduction at the close of No. IX.

  This extension of the notion Duty beyond that of outward liberty, and the limiting of this last to the bare formal condition of constantly harmonizing with every other person’s freedom, depends upon the fact that here ends are drawn into consideration from which Law altogether abstracts, and inward freedom put in room of outward co-action; and the power of self-command not by force of other instincts, but by force of pure practical reason, which disdains all such intermediaries.

  To constitute the juridical imperative, the law, the power to execute it, and the will regulating the maxims, were the elements required. But whoso prescribes to himself a moral duty, has, over and above the notion of his self-co-action, the further notion of an end, not which he already has, but which he ought to have; which end, therefore, goes hand in hand with practical reason, whose last, chief, and unconditioned end (which, however, never ceases to be duty) consists in this, that virtue is its own end, and is, by its own good desert, its own reward. By all which, virtue so shines, that it seems even to eclipse the lustre of holiness itself, which cannot so much as be solicited to swerve from the law. This, however, is a deception, and arises in this manner, that, owing to our having no standard whereby to measure the grades of a strength except the magnitude of the obstacles (in us the appetites and instincts of the sensory) it has been able to subdue and overcome, we are led into the mistake of holding the subjective conditions, whereby we estimate a force, tantamount to the objective grounds of the force itself. But when virtue is compared with other human ends, each of which may have its own several obstacles to overcome, it is quite true that the inward worth of virtue as its own end far outweighs the value of all utilitarian and experimental ends, which last may notwithstanding go hand in hand with it.

  It is quite a correct expression to say that man is under an obligement to virtue, as ethic strength; for although the power of mastering every opposing excitement of the sensory may, and indeed must, be absolutely postulated—the will’s causality being free—nevertheless this power is in its strength (robur) a matter of acquisition, viz., where the force of the ethical spring has been advanced by the contemplation of the dignity of our pure rational law, and at the same time by unremittingly carrying its decrees into execution.

  XI.—

  TABLE OF MORAL DUTIES.

  A table of all moral duties may, agreeably to what has been just advanced, be drawn out in the following manner:—

  Internal moral duty.	The matter of moral duty.		External moral duty.
  	I.	II.
  	My own end, which is likewise my duty.	Other’s ends, to advance which is my duty.
  	(The perfecting of my nature.)	(My neighbour’s happiness.)
  	III.	IV.
  	The law, which is likewise the mobile of action.	The end, which is the determinator of the will to act.
  	Whereon depends all the morality	Whereon depends all the legality
  	Of all free determination of will.
  	The formal of duty.

  XII.—

  PREREQUISITES TOWARDS CONSTITUTING MAN A MORAL AGENT.

  There are such ethical predispositions, that where a man has them not, neither can he be obliged to acquire them. These are—(1) the moral sense; (2) conscience; (3) love of our neighbour; and (4) reverence for one’s self. There can exist no obligation to endeavour to acquire these, because they are subjective conditions of man’s susceptibility for ethical conceptions, not objective grounds of morality. They are every one of them æsthetical, and given antecedently in the mind, as natural predispositions, fitting man for becoming a partaker of ethic notions,—predispositions given and subsisting in the substratum of his person, which therefore cannot be said to be any one’s duty to acquire; for it is first of all by these that he is rendered the subject of ethical obligement. Man’s consciousness of them is not originated by experience and observation, but they must be deemed the effects of the moral law itself upon the mind.

  A. The moral sense. This feeling is the susceptibility for pleasure or displacency, upon the bare consciousness of the harmony or of the discrepancy of our actions with the law. All determination of choice whatsoever begins with the representation of the intended act, and passes through the feeling of pleasure or pain, by taking an interest in the act, or its ulterior end, and so becomes event; and this internal determination of the sensory (liking or disliking) is either a pathognomic or an ethical emotion: the former is that sensation of pleasure which may exist antecedently to the representation of the law; the latter is that complacency brought forth by its representation, and which can only follow after it.

  Now there can be no duty either to have or to acquire any such feeling; for all consciousness of obligation presupposes it, and, apart from it, no man could feel the necessitation accompanying the idea Duty; and every one must, as a moral being, have such originarily within him: an obligement in regard to it can only ordain that this sensible effect of the law be cultivated and invigorated by the admiration of its unknown and inscrutable original, which can be effected by showing that this emotion, when separated from all admixture of pathognomic attractions, is then most enlivened by the naked energies of reason.

  No man is destitute of this feeling; and were he deprived of all capacity for being thus affected, he would be ethically dead; and when, to speak in medical language, his moral vitality could no longer stimulate this feeling, then would his humanity be decomposed, and resolved into his animality, and he could not be distinguished from the common herd of brute natures. We have no specific and individual sense of moral good and evil, any more than we have a sense of truth, although such expressions are not unfrequently employed; but we have an original susceptibility for having our free choice impelled by pure practical reason and her law; and this it is which is termed the moral feeling.

  B. Of conscience. Conscience is original, and no additamentum to our person; and there can be no duty to procure one; but every man has, as a moral being, a conscience. To be obliged to have a conscience, would be tantamount to saying, man stands under the obligation of acknowledging that he is obliged. Conscience is man’s practical reason, which does, in all circumstances, hold before him his law of duty, in order to absolve or to condemn him. It has accordingly no objective import; and refers only to the subject, affecting his moral sense by its own intrinsic action. The phenomenon of conscience is accordingly an inevitable event, and no obligement or duty; and when it is said in common parlance, that such a one has no conscience, that means merely that he disregards its dictates; for had he none in real fact, then he could impute to himself no action, as either conformable or repugnant to the law, and so would be unable to cogitate to himself the duty of having conscience.

  Omitting all the various divisions of conscience, I remark merely that an erring conscience is a chimera; for although, in the objective judgment, whether or not anything be a duty, mankind may very easily go wrong,—yet, subjectively, whether I have compared an action with my practical (here judiciary) reason, for the behoof of such objective judgment, does not admit of any mistake; and if there were any, then would no practical judgment have been pronounced,—a case excluding alike the possibility of error or of truth. He who knows within himself that he has conducted himself agreeably to his conscience, has done all that can be demanded of him, relatively to guilt or innocence. His obligement can extend only to the illuminating his understanding as to what things are duty, what not. But when it comes to the act, or when a man has acted, conscience speaks inevitably. We cannot, for these reasons, say that man ought to obey his conscience; a case where he would require a supplemental conscience to control, and take cognisance of the acts of the first.

  The only duty there is here room for, is to cultivate one’s conscience, and to quicken the attention due to the voice of a man’s inward monitor, and to strain every exertion (i.e., indirectly a duty) to procure obedience to what he says.

  C. Love of our neighbour. Love is an affair of sentiment, not of will; and I cannot love when I will, and still less when I ought. A duty to love is therefore chimerical. Benevolence, however, considered as practical, may very well stand under a law of duty. Sometimes disinterested wishes for the good of our neighbour is called love; but this is improper. Sometimes even when the welfare of the other person is not concerned, but when we devotedly surrender all our ends to the ends of another (superhuman even), love is talked of, and said to be our duty; but all duty is necessitation, i.e., co-action, even where it is self-co-action, conformably to a law; but whatsoever is done by constraint and co-action, that is not performed out of love.

  Acting beneficently to our fellows, according to our ability, is our duty, and that, too, whether we love them or not; and this duty loses nothing of its importance, even although we are forced to make the sad remark that our species is but little amiable when we come to know them better. Misanthropy is, however, at all times hateful, even when, shunning hostile actions, it merely induces the man-hater to isolate and separate himself from commerce with his kind. Beneficence is at all times incumbent upon us as a duty even toward a misanthrope, whom we cannot assuredly love, but towards whom we can deal kindly.

  To hate the vices of other people is neither our duty nor the reverse, but simply the feeling of detestation for them; a sentiment unrelated, and standing in no connection to the will, and vice versa. Beneficence is a duty: he who is often engaged in the discharge of this duty, and beholds the success of his beneficent designs, comes in the end to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, that is not to be understood, thou shalt first love thy neighbour, and then, by means of this love, act kindly towards him; but, contrariwise, do good to thy fellow-men, and this beneficence will work in thee philanthropy, i.e., a habitude or inclination to be beneficent.

  Benevolent love is upon these accounts only indirectly a duty; but the love of complacency would be immediate and direct. To be constrained by duty to this is, however, a contradiction; for the pleasure of complacency is immediately attached to the perception of the existence of the beloved object; and to be obliged to be necessitated to this is absurd.

  D. Of reverence. In like manner, reverence is somewhat altogether subjective, an emotion of its own kind,—no judgment referring to any object which might make it incumbent on us to produce and establish this emotion; for were this the case, such a duty could be represented only by the reverence felt towards it; and to say that it is our duty to have this reverence, would be tantamount to saying, we were obliged to an obligation. So that when it is said man ought to reverence himself, that is improperly said, and it should rather be thus couched, The law within him inevitably extorts reverence from him for his own being, and this peculiar and unique emotion, which is of its own kind, is the ground of certain duties, i.e., certain actions comporting with the duty owed by man to himself. But it is ill expressed to say, we have a duty of reverencing ourselves; for mankind must first of all revere the law, before he can so much as cogitate anything as his duty.

  XIII.—

  GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A PURE MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

  I. First: A single duty can rise upon only one ground of obligation; and when two or several arguments are adduced to support it, that indicates for certain, either that as yet no valid reason has been assigned, or else that they are several and distinct duties, which, by mistake, have come to be regarded as one.

  For since every ethic argumentation is philosophical, it is a rational knowledge arising out of notions, and not as the mathematics are, raised upon the construction of notions. These last admit of several different demonstrations, because, in an à priori intuition, there may be given several determinations of the nature of an object, the whole of which carry the cogitation backwards to one and the same common ground. Put the case, that we wish to prove that veracity is a duty, and argue first from the detriment inflicted on others by the lie, and then support this argument by urging the internal vileness of the liar, and the violation of his own self-reverence,—and it is observable, that the first argument proves a duty of benevolence, not one of veracity, i.e., is no proof at all of the virtue desiderated. To flatter one’s self, that by adducing several bad arguments in support of one position, their number may make up what is wanting in their cogency, is a most unphilosophic stratagem, and betrays at once guile and dishonesty,—because a series of insufficient reasons, aggregated together, cannot eke out the certainty which each wants; nay, they do not even beget a probability amongst them,—and yet this is the common artifice of the rhetorician.

  II. Secondly: The difference obtaining betwixt virtue and vice cannot be stated to consist in the grade of adhering to given maxims and rules of life; but must be sought for in their specific qualities,i.e., in their relation to the law: that is, in other words, the lauded principle of Aristotle is false: “Virtue is the mean betwixt extremes.” For instance, let frugality be taken as a mean betwixt the two vices, prodigality and avarice, and it is clear that its origin as a virtue cannot be explained by gradually decreasing and abating the first of these vices; neither can it by gradually enlarging the expenses of the miser,—these vices being incapable of being so taken, as if they came from diametrically opposite directions, and met in the point of frugality; but each vice has its own proper maxim, and these have qualities making them inconsistent with one another. Upon the same account, no vice can, generally speaking, be explained by saying that it is a practice carried to excess; as when it is said, Prodigality is excess in the consumption of wealth: nor yet, that it is a defect, or falling short in practice, Avarice is the failing to expend one’s wealth. For since the grade is here left undetermined, and yet everything is made to depend on this degree, whether conduct fall in with duty or otherwise, it is plain that such explanations can serve no purpose.

  III. Thirdly: Duties are to be judged of, not by the power man attributes to himself of being able to fulfil them; but, contrariwise, his power is to be concluded upon from the law, which commands categorically; that is, we go, not by the experimental acquaintance taught us of mankind by observation, but by the intellectual apprehension we have of what we ought to be, as conformed to the idea of humanity. These three positions towards a scientific treatise on morals are pointed against these old apophthegms.

  I. There is one only virtue, and one only vice.

  II. Virtue is the keeping of the due mean betwixt extremes.

  III. Virtue must, like prudence, be taught us by experience and observation.

  XIV.—

  OF VIRTUE IN GENERE.

  Virtue signifies ethic strength of will; but this does not exhaust the whole notion of it: for a like strength may belong to a holy (superhuman) being, in whom no instinct reacts against the law, and who, therefore, executes the whole law willingly. Virtue is therefore the ethic strength of man in the fulfilment of his duty, a strength which is an ethical co-action, by force of one’s own legislative reason, so far forth as this last constitutes itself also at the same time the executive of the law. This ethico-active reason is not itself a duty, nor is it incumbent on us to procure it; but it announces its behest, and makes this commandment go hand in hand with an ethical co-action, possible according to laws of inward freedom; but because this co-action has to be irresistible, strength is indispensable, and the grade of this force can only be estimated by the magnitude of the obstacles springing from the person’s own appetites and instincts, and to which reason has to rise superior. Vice, the offspring of illicit passion, is the Hydra which man has to encounter and to overcome; upon which account this ethic strength, as valour (fortitudo moralis), constitutes the highest, and indeed the only martial glory of the brave; and this it is which has been rightly styled wisdom, because this wisdom makes her own the ends of man’s existence here below, and by possessing this alone, is any one rendered

  Liber, pulcher, honoratus, Rex denique Regum,

  and enabled to stand invincible against all assaults of chance or fate; because man cannot be shaken from his own self-possession, nor can the virtuous be stormed out of the inexpugnable fortress of his own virtue.

  The encomiums passed upon the Ideal of Humanity in his ethical perfection are not in anywise invalidated by showing how contrary mankind are, have been, and very likely will be; nor can anthropology, which gives but a tentative and experimental knowledge of man, at all affect or impair that anthroponomy which is reared upon our unconditionately legislative reason; and although virtue may from time to time be well-deserving of our fellow-men (never in respect of the law), and may merit a reward, yet it ought to be considered, as it is, its own end, so also to be in itself its own reward.

  Virtue represented in its entire perfection, is to be regarded as if it held possession of man, and not as if he had appropriated or were the proprietor of it; in which last case, it would seem as if man had the option to accept or to decline her, and so would need an interior virtue to induce him to make his election of the latter. To acknowledge several virtues, as we inevitably must, is merely to cogitate different moral objects, towards which the will is guided and led by the one and single principle of virtue; and the same remark holds of the contrary vices. Expressions which impersonate the one or other of them are æsthetic engines, which typify a moral import. An æsthetic of ethics is, by consequence, no part, but it is a subjective exposition, of the metaphysic of ethics; and such a Critique of moral taste would make sensible in outward delineation those emotions effected by the co-active force of the law upon the sensory. Horror, disgust, etc. etc., depict in lively and vivid colours the ethical antagonism of the will, and would aid in counteracting the false allurements of sensitive excitement.

  XV.—

  OF THE PRINCIPLE DISTINGUISHING BETWIXT MORALS AND LAW.

  This separation, obtaining betwixt the two main branches of Ethics, is grounded on this, that the idea Freedom, common to both these, renders necessary a distinction of duties into the offices of outward and those of inward liberty, whereof the latter alone are moral. Whence it results that we must now state some preparatory remarks on inward freedom as the condition precedent of all moral duty, exactly as we previously, in No. XII., held a preliminary discourse on conscience as the condition precedent of all obligement whatsoever.

  Of Virtue according to the Principles of Inward Freedom.

  Readiness or aptitude is a facility in acting in a particular way, and is a subjective perfection of choice; but every readiness of this sort is not necessarily a free or liberal facility; for when it degenerates into habit,i.e., when the uniformity of custom slides into mechanical necessity, by the too frequent iteration of an act, such inveterate aptitude is no product of freedom, and is by consequence no ethical facility; and this is the reason why virtue, as we have said, cannot be defined to be a readiness or facility in acting conformably to the law; although it might be so defined, were we to add that it was an aptitude of determining one’s self so to act by the representation of the law, for then the habitude would cease to be a quality of choice, and would become one of will, which is a function of desire, announcing law universal, by the maxims of conduct it adopts; and such a readiness alone can be deemed and taken for a part of a virtue.

  This inward freedom demands two things: the first, that mankind, in any unforeseen emergency, remain master of himself; and, second, that he suffer not the empire of his own reason to be usurped by his appetites and passions. The state and tone of soul is, by such inward freedom, noble and erect; by the contrary, abject, servile.

  XVI.—

  VIRTUE, SO FAR AS IT IS BASED UPON A PRINCIPLE OF INWARD FREEDOM, DEMANDS, FIRST (POSITIVELY), MAN’S SELF-COMMAND.

  Emotions and passions differ essentially: the former are seated in the sensory; and as these feelings are astir in the mind, prior to all thought and reflection, they hinder and obstruct the exercise of reason, or even render it for the time impossible. The emotions are often called transports or tempests of soul; and reason promulgates to us, by the idea Virtue, the law of self-command. However, imbecility in the exercise of reflection, coupled with the headlong impetuosity of emotion, is merely non-virtue. It is silly and childish, and is not inconsistent with a good will, and has this advantage peculiar to such a frame of mind, that the storm soon blows over: a propensity to an emotion, e.g., to wrath, is therefore not merely so much allied to vice as a passion and affection is. These last denote permanent states of desire; e.g.,hatred, revenge, as contradistinguished from anger and wrath. The calm and composure wherewith mankind incline to those admit of reflection, forethought, and predetermination, and allow the mind to adopt maxims of conduct tending to the gratification of those affections; and so, by brooding over them, allow the hate to strike deep root; by all which, evil is deliberately determined on, which, as aggravated wickedness, is a true crime.

  It results, therefore, that virtue, in so far as it depends upon man’s inward freedom, addresses to mankind an affirmative commandment, ordaining him to bring all his feelings and passions under the dominion and government of his reason—i.e.,ordains self-command; and this it superadds to the prohibitive commandment the duty of apathy, whereby it ordains (negatively) man not to allow himself to have it lorded over him either by his appetites or instincts; for when reason does not take into her own hands the administration of self-government, those revolting, subject her to their thraldom.

  XVII.—

  VIRTUE, AS BASED ON A PRINCIPLE OF INWARD FREEDOM, DEMANDS, SECOND (i.e., NEGATIVELY), APATHY, CONSIDERED AS FORCE OF WILL.

  The term apathy, as if it meant bluntness or want of feeling, i.e., listlessness or indifference in regard of the objects of choice, has fallen into bad repute. People have mistaken it for a weakness; a misunderstanding which may be obviated by denominating this dispassionateness, which has no common part with indifference, the ethic apathy, a freedom from passion, which takes place then only when the increasing reverence for the Law has so awed and ballasted the mind, that it ceases to tumble to and fro, and to be agitated by the storms and hurricane emotions which threaten to shipwreck its morality. It is but the seeming strength of one distempered, to allow one’s interest, even in what is good, to degenerate into passion. An affection of this kind is called enthusiasm, and so gives occasion for that just medium which is recommended even in the practice of virtue.

  • Insani Sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui
  • “Ultra quam satis est,” virtutem si petat ipsam.

  • — Hor.

  For it were ridiculous to fancy that any one could be too wise or too virtuous. An emotion is always of the sensory, by what object soever it may be excited. The true strength of virtue is the mind at tranquillity, established upon a well-pondered and steadfast determination to put the law into execution. This is the “health” of the ethic life. While, on the contrary, enthusiastic feelings, even when engendered by the representation of good, sparkle but with momentary lustre, and leave the mind chill and exhausted. He, again, might be called chimerically virtuous, who admits, in his system of morality, of no indifferent things, and who is beset at every step with duties strewed along his path, like spring-guns; and deems it of moment whether he dine on fish or fowl, whether he drink beer or wine, although they all agree alike well with his constitution. But if the doctrine of virtue were to deal with such infinitesimal duties, her empire would be transmuted to a tyranny.

  Virtue is constantly progressive, and yet it has always to begin again, of new, from the beginning. The first part of this position results from this, that morality, considered objectively, is an ideal, and unattainable, although it is our incumbent duty to press with advancing footstep unremittingly toward it: the second, that virtue has always to start afresh, arises subjectively from its relation to the nature of man,—a nature ever lying so open to the perturbations of appetite and instinct, that virtue can, in its combat with them, never find a truce, but must infallibly, if she keep not herself in the van, and on the advance, be driven to the rear, and forced to retrograde: ethical maxims not being, like the technical, based on habit (which last refers to the physical part of voluntary determination)—so much so indeed, that were the exercise of virtue to become habit, the agent would thereby undergo the loss of freedom; which, however, is of the very essence of all actions performed out of duty.

  XVIII.—

  PRELIMINARY. OF THE SUBDIVISION OF MORALS.

  The principle of subdividing ought to comprehend—

  First, As to the formal of duty, all conditions serving to distinguish this part of general ethics from the science of law, a desideratum attained by the following: (1) That no moral duty admits of any outward legislation; (2) That while all duty, of whatever kind, must rest upon the law, yet, in morals, the commandment of duty ordains no given action, but only maxims and rules of life tending to given ends; (3) which follows from the second, That moral duty is of indeterminate, and never of strict obligation.

  Second, As to its matter, Ethic has to be represented, not as a system of duties merely, but likewise as the system of the ends and scope of practical reason,—where man is shown as obliged to cogitate himself and all his fellow-men as his ends, which some moralists have talked of as duties of self-love, and of the love of our neighbour; but such expression is inaccurate, there being no direct obligation to “love” of any sort, although there are to such actions as state one’s self and others as their ends.

  Thirdly, As for the distinction betwixt the form and the matter of morals (i.e., betwixt an action’s conformity to law and its conformity to its end), we have to remind the reader that not every ethical obligation is a moral duty; in other words, that reverence for law begets of itself no end which can be represented as a duty, this last alone being a moral duty. There is the one only ethical obligement, but several moral duties, there being many objects which for us are ends that we are obliged to propose to ourselves. There can, however, be but one ethical intent, as the inward ground of a man’s determination to fulfil his duty; an intention extending even to his juridical duties, though these last must not on this account be held or reputed moral duties. Every subdivision of morals will therefore have respect only to moral duties. The knowledge of the ground whereon the law has its ethical virtue to oblige the will, is the science of ethics itself,formally considered.

  Remark.—But why, it will be asked, have I divided morals into an elementary and a methodic part, seeing this mode of division has been dispensed with in law? The reason is, because the former treats of duties of indeterminate obligation, the latter of those of strict; whence it happens, that the latter is in its nature rigid and precise, and requires, no more than the mathematics, general directions (a method) for judging, but shows its method to be true, by real fact and event. Moral Philosophy, on the contrary, on account of the latitude admissible in its duties of indeterminate obligation, conducts inevitably to questions, calling upon the judgment to determine what maxim ought to be applied in any given case; and this maxim may come attended by its secondary or subordinate maxim, of which last we equally demand a principle for applying it to different occurring cases. Thus morals fall into a sort of casuistry which law is quite ignorant of.

  Casuistry is, then, neither a science nor a part of any science; for, were it scientific, it would be dogmatic: and it is not so much a method for finding truth, as a mere exercise of judgment in searching for it. Cases of casuistry are therefore interwoven, not systematically, but fragmentarily, into morals, and come in, under the form of scholia, as addenda to the system. But when it is no exercise of the judgment that engages us, but the exercise of reason itself, and that both in the theory and in the practice of her duty, then does this last belong appropriately to ethics, being the methodologyof pure practical reason. Its methodic, in the first sort of exercise, viz., in the theory of its duty, is called didactics; and this last is either akroamatic or erotematic. The erotetic method is the art of interrogating out of the pupil the notions of duty he already is possessed of; and these his notions may be extracted by the question, either out of his memory or out of his reason: from his memory, when he has been previously taught how to answer, where the method is catechetic: from his reason, when it is fancied that what is asked him, lies, although latent, in his mind, and needs only to be developed; and this is the dialogic or socratic method.

  To the didactics, as the method of theoretic exercise, corresponds, as antipart, the ascetic exercise, which is that part of the methodology, where it is taught not only how the notion Virtue, but likewise how man’s active and moral powers, his will, may be gymnasticized by the ascetic exercise, and cultivated.

  Agreeably to these principles, we shall divide the whole system into two parts,—the Elementology and the Methodology of Ethics. Each part will have its chapters and divisions. In the former part, the order of the chapters will be regulated upon the diversity of the persons toward whom obligations may be constituted; in the second, upon the different ends reason ordains man to have, and according to his capacity for these ends.

  XIX. The division established by practical reason toward an architectonic of the system of her ethical conceptions, may be regulated upon a twofold principle, either conjoined or separate: the one represents, materially, the subjective relation obtaining betwixt the obliged and the obligors; the other, formally, the objective relation obtaining betwixt ethic laws and the offices they enjoin. The first division proceeds upon that of the different living beings in relation to whom ethical obligement may be thought as subsisting; but the last would be the order of the conceptions of pure ethico-active reason, which conceptions correspond to each duty made imperative by reason, and belong to Ethics regarded barely as a science, and are therefore indispensable for the methodical contexture and arrangement of those propositions which the former division may throw into our hands.

  The former division of morals, agreeably to difference of the persons, contains

  Duties
  Of man to mankind.		Of man towards beings of another kind.
  To himself.	To others.	Towards beings inferior to man.	Towards superhuman beings.

  The latter division of ethics, according to principles of a system of pure practical reason.

  Ethical.
  Elementology.		Methodology.
  Dogmatics.	Casuistics.	Didactics.	Ascetics.

  Which second division exhibits the form of the science, and must, as its ground-plan, go before the other.

  ELEMENTOLOGY OF ETHICS.
  
  OF THE DUTIES OWED BY MAN TO HIMSELF.

  INTRODUCTION.

  Sec. 1.—The Notion of a Duty owed by Mankind to himself appears at first sight to involve a contradiction.

  WHEN the obligating “I” is taken in exactly the same sense with the “I” obliged, then undoubtedly duty owed to myself imports an absurdity: for the idea Duty brings along with it the notion of passive necessitation (I am obliged or beholden); whereas in a matter of debt owed to myself, I figure myself to be the obliger, that is, in a state of active necessitation (I, the very same person with the former, am the Obligor). And a position announcing a duty owed by mankind to himself (I ought to oblige myself), would state an obligement to become obliged, i.e., a passive obligation, which were, notwithstanding, at the same time and in the same terms, an active one; a statement repugnant to itself, and contradictory. The contradiction contained in such a proposition may be set under a yet clearer light, by showing that the author of the obligation could always grant a dispensation to the obliged from the obligement; that is, by consequence, when the Author and the Subject of the obligation are the same, then, in such case, the obliger would not be at all beholden to any duty imposed by him upon himself; and this, again, is just the contradiction above insisted on.

  Sec. 2.—There are Duties owed by Man to himself.

  For, put the case, that there were in effect no such self-incumbent duties, then would all other duties, even the outward ones, be abolished; for I only acknowledge myself beholden and obliged to others, so far forth as I at the same time, along with the other, put that obligation upon myself; the law, by dint whereof alone I can recognise myself to be obliged, emanating in every instance from my own practical reason. By this reason I am necessitated, and so am at the same time my own necessitator.*

  Sec. 3.—Solution of this Apparent Antinomy.

  Man regards himself, when conscious of a duty to himself, in a twofold capacity: first, as a sensible being, i.e.,as a man, where he ranks only as one among other sorts of animals; but, second, he regards himself not only as an intelligent being, but as a very reason (for the theoretic function of reason may perhaps be a property of animated matter), resident in a region inscrutable to sense, and manifesting itself only in morally practical relations, where that amazing quality of man’s nature—freedom—is revealed by the influence reason exerts upon the determination of the will.†

  Mankind, then, as an intelligent physical being (homo phenomenon), is susceptible of voluntary determination to active conduct by the suggestions of his reason; but in all this the idea of obligation does not enter. The very same being, however, considered in respect of his personality (homo noumenon), i.e., cogitated as one invested with inward freedom, is a being capable of having obligation imposed upon him, and, in particular, of becoming obligated and beholden to himself, i.e., to the humanity subsisting in his person; and, so considered in this twofold character, mankind can acknowledge the obligations he stands under to himself, without incurring any contradiction, the notion man being now understood to be taken in a twofold sense.

  Sec. 4.—On the Principle of subdividing the Duties owed by Man to himself.

  This division can take place only according to the different objects incumbent on him, for there can be no room for it in respect of the self-obliging subject. The obliger and the obligated is always just one and the same person; and although we may theoretically distinguish betwixt man’s soul and his body, as distinct qualities of his system and known nature, yet it is quite disallowed to regard them as different substances, founding distinct obligations in respect of them, and so we cannot be entitled to divide our duties into those owed to the body, and those due to the soul. Neither experience nor the deductions of reason afford us any ground to hold that man has a soul (meaning by soul a spiritual substance dwelling in his material framework, distinct from the last, and independent of it); and we do not know whether life may or may not be a property of matter. However, even on the hypothesis that man had a soul, still a duty owed by man to his body (as the subject obliging) would be quite incogitable.

  First. There can obtain, therefore, only one objective division, extending at once to the form and to the matter of the duties owed by man to himself,—the first whereof, the formal duties, are limitary or negative duties; the second, the material, are extensive and positive duties owed by man to himself. The former forbid mankind to act contrary to the ends and purposes of his being, and so concerns simply his ethical self-preservation; the latter ordain him to make a given object of choice his end, and command the perfecting of his own nature. Both these, as moral duties, are elements of virtue; the one as duties of omission (sustine et abstine), the other as duties of commission (viribus concessis utere). The first go to constitute man’s ethic health (ad esse), and to the preservation of the entireness of his system, both as objected to his exterior and to his interior senses (i.e., support his receptivity); the second constitute his ethic opulence (ad melius esse)—a wealth consisting in the possession of functions adapted for the realization of all ends, in so far as these powers and functions are matters of acquisition, and belong to self-culture as an active and attained perfection. The first principle of duty is couched in the adage, “Naturæ convenienter vive,” i.e., “Maintain thyself in the original perfection of thy nature;” the second, in the position, “Perfice te ut finem, perfice te ut medium”—Study to perfect and advance thy being.

  But second. There is, however, a subjective division of the duties owed by man to himself; that is, such a one, where mankind, the subject of the obligement, regards himself as an animal, though also at the same time moral being, or as a moral being singly.

  Now, the instincts of man’s animal nature are threefold, viz. (1) the instinctive love of life, whereby nature preserves the individual; (2) that instinct whereby nature aims at the preservation of the kind; and (3), and lastly, those appetites of hunger and thirst which are intended for enlivening the frame,—keeping it fitted for its ends,—and at the same time for securing an agreeable, though only animal enjoyment of existence. The vices which are here subversive of the duty owed by man to himself, are (1) self-murder; (2) the unnatural use of the appetite for sex; (3) that excess in meat or drink which checks and lames the functions of the soul. As for the duty owed by man to himself as a moral being singly, it is formal, and consists in the coincidence of the maxims of his will with the dignity of the humanity subsisting in his person; by consequence, in the prohibition not to renounce the pre-eminence of his rank, which consists in his power of acting upon systematic principles and rules of life; that is, in the injunction not to despoil himself of his inward freedom,—that he become not thereby the toy and football of his own appetites and instincts, and so a mere thing. The vices subversive of this duty are lying, avarice, and spurious humility. These vices rest on maxims diametrically opposed, even already by their form, to the characters of mankind as a moral being; that is, they are formally repugnant to and subversive of the inborn dignity of man’s nature, his inward freedom, and make it, as it were, a man’s maxim to have none, and so no character; that is, to slattern himself down to zero, and so to sink beneath contempt. The virtue opposed to all these vices is self-reverence, and might be called the love of one’s own inward honour; a cast of thought having no common part with pride, which last is a love and ambition of outward honours, and may be, as it often is, abject and vile. This pride (superbia) is particularly treated of in the sequel, under this title, as a vice.

  PART I.

  OF THE DUTIES OF PERFECT AND DETERMINATE OBLIGATION.

  CHAPTER I.

  OF THE DUTY OWED BY MANKIND TO HIMSELF IN RESPECT OF HIS ANIMAL PART.

  Sec. 5.

  The first if not chiefest duty incumbent upon mankind, in respect of his brute nature, is his self-conservation in his animal estate. The antipart of this obligation is the deliberate and forethought destruction of his animality; and this may be considered as either total or partial. The total we call self-murder; the partial, again, is either material or formal,—material, when a man bereaves himself of any integrant part or organ of his body, by demembration or mutilation; formal, when by excess man suffers himself to be bereft, for a while or for ever, of the use of the physical functions of his system, and so likewise indirectly of his ethic rationality, self-obstupefaction.

  Sec. 6.—Of Self-murder.

  The voluntary divestiture of man’s animal part can be called self-murder, only then when it is shown that such an act is criminal. A crime which may be perpetrated, either simply on our own person, or also at the same time and by consequence upon the person of another, e.g., as when one in pregnancy kills herself.

  Self-destruction is a crime—murder. Suicide may no doubt be considered as the transgression of the duty owed by any one to his fellow-men; as a violation of the conjugal obligations incumbent upon spouses; as a disregard of the duty owed by a subject to his government (the state); or, lastly, as a dereliction of one’s duty to God, the person quitting, without His permission, the post intrusted to him by God in the world. But none of these amount to the crime of murder; and the question at present to be considered is, whether or not deliberate self-destruction is a violation of man’s duty toward himself, even when abstraction is made from all those other considerations; that is, whether man ought to acknowledge himself beholden to the self-conservation of his animal part (nay, most strictly and exactly beholden so to act, and that too by force singly of his personality). That a man can injure himself, appears absurd (volenti non fit injuria); and this was the reason why the Stoics considered it to be a prerogative of the sage to walk with undisturbed soul out of life as out of a smoky room, not urged by any present or apprehended evils, but simply because he could no longer sustain with effect his part in life; and yet this very courage, this strength of soul to advance undauntedly to death, arguing his recognition of somewhat prized by him far higher than life, ought to have taught him not to despoil a being of existence possessing so mighty a mastery and control over the strongest forces in his physic system.

  Mankind, so long as duty is at stake, cannot renounce his personality; that is, by consequence, never,—duty being always his incumbent debt; and it is a contradiction to hold that any one were entitled to withdraw himself from his obligations, and to act free, in such sense as to need no ground of warrant for his conduct. To abolish, then, in his own person the subject of morality, is tantamount to expunging with all his might the very being of morality from the world, which morality is, however, an end in itself. Whence we conclude, that to dispose of one’s life for some fancied end, is to degrade the humanity subsisting in his person (homo noumenon), and intrusted to him (homo phenomenon) to the end that he might uphold and preserve it.

  For any one to deprive himself of an integral part of his frame, to dismember or mutilate his organs,—as when, for instance, any one sells or gifts a tooth to be transplanted into the jaw of another, or to submit to emasculation to gain an easier livelihood as a singer, and so on,—are acts of partial self-murder. The like observation, however, does not hold of the amputation of a decayed or mortified member, which it might be even dangerous to keep. Neither can we say that it is a violation of one’s person to remove what is a part and pertinent, but still no organ of the body, e.g., to cut one’s hair; but were this done with a view to making gain by the sale of one’s tresses, such an act could not be regarded as altogether devoid of blame.

  Casuistics.—Is it self-murder to devote one’s self, like Curtius, to certain death for the liberation of his country? Is martyrdom—the deliberate offering of one’s self up for the benefit of mankind at large—capable of being regarded like the former, as a trait of a heroic character?

  Is it allowed to anticipate an unjust sentence of death by suicide? Even were the sovereign to grant this permission, as Nero to Seneca?

  Can we regard it as a crime, on the part of our late great monarch,* that he always bore about with him a poison, probably in order that if he should be taken in war, which he always carried on in person, he might not be compelled to accept conditions of ransom too burdensome to his country? A motive we are entitled to ascribe to him, as it is not likely he was impelled to it by mere arrogancy.

  A patient, feeling decided symptoms of hydrophobia, after the bite of a mad dog, declared that as this complaint was incurable, he would destroy himself, lest, as he stated in his testament, he should, in a paroxysm of the disease, occasion some disaster to his fellow-men. It is demanded if he did wrong?

  He who inoculates himself for smallpox, hazards his life on an uncertainty, even although he does so with a view to its more effectual preservation, and places himself in a much more ambiguous relation to the law, than the mariner, who does not excite the storm which he encounters, whereas this other is himself the cause of his running the risk of death. Is such inoculation lawful?

  Sec. 7.—Of Self-defilement.

  As the love of life is bestowed upon us for the preservation of our person, so the love of sex for the continuance of our kind. Either appetite is a last end purposed by nature; by end is to be understood that connection obtaining betwixt a cause and its effect, where the cause, although unintelligent, is nevertheless cogitated according to the analogy it bears to an understanding, that is, is spoken of and taken as if it intentionally and of design tended to the education of its own effect. In this way a question arises, if the power of propagating one’s species stands under a restrictive law; or if a person who exercises such a faculty may, without subverting any duty by doing so, overlook that end of nature, and employ his intersexual organs as the mere engine of brute pleasure.

  In the elementary principles of law, we took occasion to show that mankind could not serve himself of the person of another, in order to this enjoyment, except subject to the limitary conditions of a particular legal contract (marriage), in which event two persons become mutually obliged to one another. But the question ethics undertakes is this, Whether there be or not a duty owed by man to himself, in respect of this appetite, the violation whereof attains (not merely degrades), the humanity inhabiting his person. The appetite itself is called lust, and the vice it gives birth to is called impurity. The virtue, again, raised upon this instinct of the sensory is termed chastity; and this chastity is now to be represented as a duty owed by man to himself. A lust is said to be unnatural, when a man is impelled to it, not by a real given matter objected to his sensory, but by the productive power of his imagination, depicting to him in fancy the object, contrary to the end aimed at by nature; for the power of appetition is then put into operation in such a manner as to evade or subvert the ends of nature; and, in truth, an end yet more important than the end proposed by nature in the instinctive love of life,—this tending only to the conservation of the individual, that to the upholding uninterrupted the succession of the species.

  That this unnatural use (and so abuse) of one’s sexual organs is a violation, in the highest degree, of the duty owed by any to himself, is manifest to everybody; and is a thought so revolting, that even the naming this vice by its own name is regarded as a kind of immorality, which is not the case, however, with self-murder, which no one hesitates to detail in all its horrors, and publish to the world in specie facti; just as if mankind at large felt ashamed at knowing himself capable of an act sinking him so far beneath the brutes.

  And yet, to prove upon grounds of reason the inadmissibility of that unnatural excess, and even the disallowedness of a mere irregular use of one’s sexual part, so far forth as they are violations (and in regard of the former, even in the highest possible degree) of the duty owed by man to himself, is a task of no slight or common difficulty. The ground of proving is to be sought, no doubt, in this, that man meanly abdicates his personality, when he attempts to employ himself as a bare means to satisfy a brutal lust. At the same time, the high and prodigious enormity of the violation perpetrated by man against the humanity subsisting in his person, by so unnatural and portentous a lust, which seems, as we have said, formally to transcend in magnitude the guilt of self-murder, remains unexplained upon this argument; unless, perhaps, it might be urged that the headlong obstinacy of the suicide, who casts away life as a burden, is no effeminate surrender to sensitive excitement, but shows valour, and so leaves ground for reverencing the humanity he represents; while this other resigns himself an abandoned outcast to brutality, enjoying his own self-abuse—that is, he makes himself an object of abomination, and stands bereft of all reverence of any kind.

  Sec. 8.—Of Self-obstupefaction by Excessive Indulgence in Meats and Drinks.

  The vice existing in this species of intemperance is not estimated by the prejudice or bodily pains mankind may entail upon himself as the sequents of his excess; for then we should regulate our judgment upon a principle of conveniency (i.e., on a system of eudaimonism), which, however, affords no ground of duty, but only of a dictate of expediency; at least such principle gives birth to no direct obligations.

  The inordinate gratification of our bodily wants is that abuse of aliments which blunts the operations of the intellect: drunkenness and gluttony are the two vices falling under this head. The drunkard renounces, for the seductive goblet, that rationality which alone proclaims the superiority of his rank; and is, while in his state of intoxication, to be dealt with as a brute only, not as a person. The glutton, gorged with viands, blunts his powers for a while, and is incapacitated for such exercises as demand suppleness of body, or the reflections of the understanding. That the putting one’s self into such a situation is a grave violation of what a man owes to himself, is self-evident. The former state of degradation, abject even beneath the beasts, is commonly brought about by the excessive use of fermented liquors, or of stupefying drugs, such as opium, and other products of the vegetable kingdom; the betraying power whereof lies in this, that for a while a dreamy happiness, and freedom from solicitude, or perhaps a fancied fortitude, is begotten, which, after all, concludes in despondency and sadness, and so unawares, and by insensible and unsuspected steps, introduces the need and want to repeat and to augment the stupefying dose. Gluttony must be reputed still lower in the scale of animal enjoyment; for it is purely passive, and does not waken to life the energies of fancy,—a faculty susceptible for a long time of an active play of its perceptions during the obstupefaction of the former, upon which account gluttony is the more beastly vice.

  Casuistics.—Can we, if not as the panegyrists, yet as the apologists of wine, accord to it a use bordering on intoxication, so far forth as it animates conversation, and combines the society by the frankness it produces? Can we, in any event, say of wine what Seneca has said when talking of Cato: Virtus ejus incaluit mero? But who is he who will assign a measure to one who stands on the brink of passing into a state, where all eyesight fails him to measure anything, nay, whose disposition is in full march to go beyond it? To employ opium or ardent spirits as instruments of one’s animal gratification, is very much akin to meanness; because these, by their soporific welfare, render the individual mute, reserved, and unsocial; upon which accounts it is that these are allowed only in medicine. Mahometanism has made but an injudicious selection, when it forbids wine, and allows the use of opium in its stead.

  A banquet (Lord Mayor’s feast) is a formal invitation to a double intemperance in both kinds, although it has, over and above the stimulating of one’s physical existence, a reference to a moral end, viz., the advancing of man’s social intercourse with his species. Yet because, whenever the number of the guests exceeds, as Chesterfield says, the number of the muses, the very multitude obstructs the social exchange, and admits only the talking to one’s immediate neighbours,—i.e., since a feast is an institution subverting its own end,—it remains to be regarded only as a seduction to excess, i.e., to immorality, and to a violation of the duty owed by man to himself. To what extent is mankind ethically entitled to give ear to such invitations?

  CHAPTER II.

  OF THE DUTY OWED BY MAN TO HIMSELF, AS A MORAL BEING SINGLY.

  THIS duty is opposed to the vices of lying, avarice, and false humility.

  Sec. 9.—Of Lying.

  The highest violation of the duty owed by man to himself, considered as a moral being singly (owed to the humanity subsisting in his person), is a departure from truth, or lying. That every deliberate untruth in uttering one’s thoughts must bear this name in ethics, is of itself evident, although in law it was only styled fraud or falsehood when it violated the rights of others—ethics giving no title to vice on account of its harmlessness; for the dishonour (i.e., to be an object of ethical disdain) it entails, accompanies the liar like his shadow. A lie may be either external or internal: by means of the former he falls under the contempt of others; but by means of the latter, falls, which is much worse, under his own, and violates the dignity of humanity in his own person. We say nothing here of the damage he may occasion to other people, the damage being no characteristic of the vice; for it would then be turned into a violation of the duty owed to others: nor yet of the damage done by the liar to himself; for then the lie, as a mere error in prudence, would contradict only the hypothetical, not the categorical imperative, and could not be held as violating duty at all. A lie is the abandonment, and, as it were, the annihilation, of the dignity of a man. He who does not himself believe what he states to another person (were it but an ideal person), has a still less value than if he were a mere thing; for of the qualities of this last some use may be made, these being determinate and given; but for any one to communicate thoughts to another by words intended to convey the contrary of what the speaker really thinks, is an end subversive of the purpose and design for which nature endowed us with a faculty of interchanging thought, and is upon these accounts a renunciation of one’s personality, after which the liar goes about, not as truly a man, but as the deceptive appearance of one only. Veracity in one’s statements is called candour; if such statements contain promises, fidelity: both together make up what is called sincerity.

  A lie, in the ethical signification of the word, considered as intentional falsehood, need not be prejudicial to others in order to be reprobated, for then it would be a violation of the rights of others. Levity, nay, even good-nature, may be its cause, or some good end may be aimed at by it. However, the giving way to such a thing is by its bare form a crime perpetrated by man against his own person, and a meanness, making a man contemptible in his own eyes.

  The reality of many an inward lie, the guilt whereof man entails upon himself, is easily set forth; but to explain the possibility of such a thing is not so easy; and it looks like as if a second person were required, whom we intended to deceive, since deliberately to deceive one’s self sounds like a contradiction.

  Man as a moral being (homo noumenon) cannot use himself as a physical being (homo phenomenon), as a mere instrument of speech, nowise connected with the internal end of communicating his thoughts; but he is bound to the condition, under his second point of view, of making his declaration harmonize with his inward man, and so is obliged to veracity towards himself. Mankind thus perverts himself, when he bubbles himself into the belief in a future judge, although he find none such within himself, in the persuasion that it can do no harm, but may, on the contrary, be of service, inwardly to confess such faith before the Searcher of his Heart, in order, in any event, to insinuate himself into His favour. Or otherwise, supposing him to entertain no doubts on this point, still he may flatter himself that he is an inward reverer of His law, although he knows no other incentive than the fear of hell.

  Insincerity is just want of conscientiousness, i.e., of sincerity in a man’s avowals to his inward judge, cogitated as a person different from himself. To take this matter quite rigidly, this would be insincerity, to hold a wish framed by self-love for the deed, because the end aimed at by it is good; and the inward lie told by a man to himself, although a violation of his duty towards himself, commonly goes under the name of, and is taken for, a weakness, pretty much in the same way as the wish of a lover to find only good qualities in his adored, seals his eyes to her most glaring defects. However, this insincerity in the statements declared by man to himself, deserves the most serious reprehension; for, from this rotten spot (which seems to taint the vitals of humanity), the evil of insincerity spreads into one’s intercourse with one’s fellow-men, the maxim of truth being once broken up.

  Remark.—It is exceedingly remarkable that holy writ dates the original of evil, not from the fratricide of Cain (against which nature revolts), but from the first lie; and states the author of all evil under the denomination of the Liar from the beginning, and the Father of lies; although reason can give no account of this proneness of mankind to hypocrisy; which deflective tendency must, however, have preceded man’s actual lapse, an act of freedom not admitting, as physical effects do, a deduction and explanation from the law of cause and effect, this last law referring singly to phenomena.

  Casuistical Questions.—Are falsehoods out of pure politeness (the most obedient servant at the end of a letter), lying? No one is deceived by them. An author asks, “How do you like my new work?” Now the answer might be given illusorily, by jesting upon the captiousness of such a question; but who has wit enough always ready? The smallest tarrying in replying must of itself mortify the author. Is it, then, allowed to pay him compliments?

  If I lie, in matters of importance, in the actual business of life, must I bear all the consequences resulting from my falsehood? One gives orders to his servant, if any call for him, to say he is not at home: the domestic does so, and becomes in this way the cause of his master’s finding opportunity to commit a crime, which would otherwise have been prevented by the messenger-at-arms, who came to execute his warrant. On whom, according to ethic principles, does the blame fall? Unquestionably, in part upon the servant, who violated by his lie a duty owed by him to himself, the consequences of which, also, will he imputed to him by his own conscience.

  Sec. 10.—Of Avarice.

  I understand in this chapter not rapacious avarice, the propensity to extend one’s gains beyond one’s needs, in order to sumptuous fare; but the avarice of hoarding, which, when sordid, makes a man a miser, not so much because it disregards the obligations of charity, as because it narrows and contracts the proper enjoyment of the goods of life within the measure of one’s real wants, and so is repugnant to the duty owed by man to himself.

  It is in the exposition of this vice that we can best display the inaccuracy of all those accounts of virtue and vice which make them differ in “degree,” and show clearly at the same time the applicability of Aristotle’s famous principle, that virtue is the mean betwixt two extremes of vice.

  Thus, when for instance I regard frugality as the mean betwixt prodigality and avarice, and state this medium as one of degree, then the one vice could not pass into its opposite and contrary (which, however, is not unfrequent), except by passing through the intermediate virtue, and in this way virtue would come to be a diminishing vice, i.e., a vice at its vanishing quantity; and the true inference from this would be, in the present instance, that the perfect point of moral duty would consist in making no use at all of the bounties of fortune.

  Neither the measure nor the quantum of acting upon a maxim, but that maxim’s objective principle, is what constitutes the act a vice or a virtue. The maxim of the avaricious and rapacious prodigal is to accumulate wealth, in order that he may enjoy it; that of the sordidly avaricious, or miser, is, on the contrary, to acquire and to keep accumulated his wealth, where he makes the bare possession of it his end, and dispense with the enjoyment.

  The peculiar characteristic of the miser is this, that he adopts the principle of hoarding up the means conducive to many ends, with the inward reservation, never to apply such means to their destined uses, and so to bereave himself of all the amenities and sweets of life; a maxim utterly subversive of the duty a man owes to himself. Profusion and hoarding, then, differ not in degree, but they are specifically distinct in respect of their contrary and inconsistent maxims.1

  Casuistical Question.—Since we treat here only of duties owed to one’s self, and rapacious avarice (insatiable cupidity of wealth), and the avarice of hoarding, rest on the common ground of self-love, and seem both objectionable, merely because they conclude in poverty, in the case of the former, issuing in unexpected, in that of the latter, in a voluntary indigence (by force of the determination to live in poverty)—since, I say, all this is the case, the question might be raised, if they are either of them at all vices, and not rather mere imprudences, and so not falling within the sphere of the duties owed by man to himself; but the sordid avarice is not a mere misunderstood economy,—it is an abject and servile enthralling of a man’s self to the dominion of money, and is a submitting to cease to be its master, which is a violation of the duty owed by man to himself: it is the opposite of that generous liberality of sentiment (not of munificent liberality, which is no more than a particular case of the former) which determines to shake itself free from every consideration whatever, the law alone excepted, and is a defraudation committed by man against himself. And yet, what kind of law is that, whereof the very inward legislator knows not the application? Ought I to retrench the outlays of my table, or the expenses of my dress? Should I in youth, or in my old age? Or is there, generally speaking, any such virtue as that of thrift?

  Sec. 11.—Of False and Spurious Humility.

  Man, as a part of the physical system (homo phenomenon, animal rationale), is an animal of very little moment, and has but a common value with beasts, and the other products of the soil. Even that he is superior to those by force of his understanding, gives him only a higher external value in exchange, when brought to the market along with other cattle, and sold as wares.

  But man considered as a person, i.e., as the subject of ethico-active reason, is exalted beyond all price; for as such (homo noumenon), he cannot be taken for a bare means, conducive either to his own or to other persons’ ends, but must be esteemed an end in himself; that is to say, he is invested with an internal dignity (an absolute worth), in name of which he extorts reverence for his person from every other finite Intelligent throughout the universe, and is entitled to compare himself with all such, and to deem himself their equal.

  The humanity of our common nature is the object of that reverence exigible by each man from his fellow, which reverence, however, he must study not to forfeit. He may, and indeed he ought, to estimate himself by a measure at once great and small, according as he contemplates his physical existence as an animal, or his cogitable being, according to the ethical substratum of his nature. Again, since he has to consider himself not merely as a person, but also as a man, that is, as such a person as has imposed upon him duties put upon him by his own reason, his insignificance as an animal ought neither to impair nor affect his consciousness of his dignity as a rational, and he ought not to forget his ethical self-reverence springing from his latter nature; that is to say, he ought not to pursue those ends which are his duties servilely, or as if he sought for the favour of any other person: he ought not to renounce his dignity, but always to uphold, in its integrity, his consciousness of the loftiness of the ethical substratum of his nature; and this self-reverence is a duty owed by man to himself.

  The consciousness and feeling of one’s little worth, when compared with the law, is ethical humility: the over-persuasion that a man has a great deal of moral worth, owing only to his neglecting to quadrate himself with the law, is ethical arrogancy, and might be called self-righteousness. But to renounce all claim to any moral worth, in the hope of thereby acquiring a borrowed and another, is false ethical humility, and may be called spiritual hypocrisy.

  Humility, understood as a low opinion of one’s self, when compared with other persons, is no duty (nor, generally speaking, in comparison with any finite being, although a seraph): the active endeavour, in such comparison, to find one’s self equal or superior to others, in the imagination of thereby augmenting his inward worth, is ambition,—a vice diametrically opposed to the duty we owe to others; but the studied declinature of all one’s proper ethic worth, considered as a mean for ingratiating one’s self into the favour of another (be that other who he may), is false and counterfeit humility—(hypocrisy, flattery)—and a degradation of one’s personality, subverting the duty he owes to himself.

  Upon an exact and sincere comparison of a man’s self with the moral law (its holiness and rigour), true humility must infallibly result; but from the very circumstance that we can know ourselves capable of such an inward legislation, and that the physical man finds himself compelled to stand in awe of the ethical man in his own person, there results also at the same time a feeling of exaltation, and the highest possible self-estimation, as the consciousness of one’s inward worth, by force of which he is raised far beyond all price, and sees himself invested with an inalienable dignity, inspiring him with reverence for himself.

  Sec. 12.

  This duty, in respect of the dignity of our humanity, can be rendered more sensible by such precepts as the following.

  Become not the slaves of other men. Suffer not thy rights to be trampled under foot by others with impunity. Make no debts thou mayest be unable to discharge. Receive no favours thou canst dispense with, and be neither parasites nor flatterers nor—for they differ but in degree—beggars. Live, then, frugally, lest one day thou come to beggary. Howling and groaning, nay, a mere scream at a bodily pain, is beneath thy dignity as a man, more especially when conscious that thou hast thyself merited it. Hence the ennoblement of (averting of ignominy from) the death of a malefactor, by the constancy with which he meets his fate. To kneel or prostrate thyself upon the earth, in order to depicture in a more lively image to thy fancy thy adoration of celestial objects, derogates from thy dignity as a man; as does also the worshipping of them by images: for then thou humblest thyself, not before an ideal, the handiwork of thy reason, but beneath an idol, the workmanship of thy hands.

  Casuistics.—Is not the elation of mind in self-reverence, considered as a consciousness of the lofty destiny of man, too much akin to arrogance, i.e., to self-conceit, to make it advisable to summon up to it, not only in respect of the moral law, but even in respect of other men? or would not self-denial in this particular invite others to despise our person, and so be a violation of what is due by man to himself? Fawning and scraping to another is in any event unworthy of a man.

  Are not the different styles of address, and the especial marks of respect, denoting, with such painful anxiety, difference of rank in society,—all which differs widely from politeness, a thing indispensable for mutually reverencing one another,—the thou, he, they, your high wisdom, your reverence, etc. etc., in which pedantry the Germans go beyond all nations on the earth, the Indian castes alone excepted,—are not, I say, these proofs of a widely-spread tendency among mankind to false and spurious humility? (hæ nugæ in seria ducunt.)—However, he who first makes himself a worm, does not complain when he is trampled under foot.

  CHAPTER III.

  OF THE DUTY OWED BY MAN TO HIMSELF AS HIS OWN JUDGE.

  Sec. 13.

  The idea Duty always involves and presents to the mind that of necessitation by law (law being an ethical imperative limiting our freedom), and belongs to our moral understanding which prescribes the rule. The inward imputation of an act, however, as of an event falling under the law, belongs to the judgment, which being the subjective principle of the imputation of an act, utters its verdict whether or not any given deed (i.e., act subsumible under law) has been done or not, after which reason pronounces sentence, i.e., connects the act with its legal consequences, and so absolves or condemns; all which is carried on before a court of justice, as if in the presence of an ethical person sitting to give effect to the law. The consciousness of an internal tribunal in man, before which his thoughts accuse or excuse him, is what is called Conscience.

  Every man has Conscience, and finds himself inspected by an inward censor, by whom he is threatened and kept in awe (reverence mingled with dread); and this power watching over the law, is nothing arbitrarily (optionally) adopted by himself, but is interwoven with his substance. It follows him like his shadow, however he may try to flee from it. He may indeed deafen himself by pleasure or by business, or he may lull himself into a lethargy; but this is only for a while, and he must inevitably come now and then to himself: nor can he hinder himself from ever and anon awakening, whereupon he hears his dreadful and appalling voice. In the last stage of reprobation man may indeed have ceased to heed him, but not to hear him, is impossible.

  This originary intellectual and ethical (for it refers to duty) disposition of our nature, called conscience, has this peculiarity, that although this whole matter is an affair of man with himself, he notwithstanding finds his reason constrained to carry on the suit, as if it were at the instigation of another person; for the procedure is the conduct of a cause before a court. Now, that he who is the accused by his conscience should be figured to be just the same person as his judge, is an absurd representation of a tribunal; since in such event the accuser would always lose his suit. Conscience must therefore represent to itself always some one other than itself as judge, unless it is to arrive at a contradiction with itself. This other may be either a real—or an ideal person the product of reason.*

  Such an ideal person, authorized to sit as judge in the court of conscience, must be a searcher of the heart, for the tribunal is erected in the interior of man. Further, he must hold all-obligatory power,i.e., be such a person, or at least be figured as if he were a person, in respect of whom all duty may be represented as his commandments, because conscience is judge over all free actions. Lastly, he must have all power (in heaven and in earth) to absolve and to condemn, these properties being of the very essence of the functions of a judge: apart from his being endowed wherewith, he could give no effect to the law. But since he who searches the heart, and, having all-obligatory power, is able to absolve and condemn, is called God, it follows that conscience must be regarded as a subjective principle implanted in the reason of man, calling for an account of every action before God. Nay, this notion of responsibility is at all times involved, however darkly, in every act of moral self-consciousness.

  This is not by any means to say that man is entitled, and still less that he is bound, to believe in, as real, any such Supreme Being, answering to the idea, to which conscience inevitably points; for the idea is given him not objectively by speculative reason, but subjectively only, by practical reason obliging itself to act conformably to this representation. And mankind is, by means of this idea, but merely from its analogy to that of a sovereign lawgiver of the universe, led to figure to himself conscientiousness (in the old language of the empire, religio), as a responsibility owed to a most holy being, different from ourselves, and yet most intimately present to our substance (moral legislative reason), and to submit ourselves to His will as if it were a law of righteousness. The notion of religionin genere is therefore just this, that it is a principle of esteeming of all our duties as if they were divine commandments.

  1. In an affair of conscience, man figures to himself a preadmonitory or warning conscience before he decides on acting; and here the minutest scruple, when it refers to an idea of duty (somewhat in itself moral), and over which conscience is the alone judge, is of weight, nor is it ever regarded as a trifle; nor can what would be a real transgression be declared, according to the saying of minima non curat prætor, a bagatelle or peccadillo, and so left for an arbitrary and random determination. Hence, having a large conscience is the same with having none.

  2. As soon as an act is determined on and completed, the accuser immediately presents himself in the court of conscience, and along with him there appears a defender, and the suit is never decided amicably, but according to the rigour of the law. After which follows—

  3. The sentence of conscience upon the man, either absolving or condemning, which concludes the cause. As to which final judgment, we remark that the former sentence never decrees a reward as the gaining of something which was not there before, but leaves room only for satisfaction at escaping condemnation. The bliss, therefore, announced by the consoling voice of conscience is not positive (as joy), but only negative (tranquillization after previous apprehension); a blessedness capable of being ascribed to virtue only, as a warfare with the influences of the evil principle in man.

  Sec. 14.—The first commandment of all Duties owed by Man to himself.

  This is, know thyself, not after thy physical perfection, but after thy ethical, in reference to thy duty. Search, try thy heart, whether it be good or evil, whether the springs of thy conduct be pure or impure; and how much, either as originally belonging to thy substance or as acquired by thee, may be imputable to thy account, and may go to make up thy moral state.

  This self-examination, which seeks to fathom the scarcely penetrable abysses of the human heart, and the self-knowledge springing from it, is the beginning of all human wisdom. For this wisdom, which consists in the accordance of the will of an Intelligent with the last end of his existence, requires in man, first, that he disembarrass himself of an inward impediment (an evil will, nestled in his person); and second, the unremitted effort to develop his originary inamissible substratum for a good one. Only the Avernan descent of self-knowledge paves a way to self-apotheosis.

  Sec. 15.

  This ethical self-knowledge guards, first, against the fanatical detestation of one’s self as a man, and against a disdain of the whole human race in general. It is only by force of the glorious substratum for morality within us—which substratum it is that renders man venerable—that we are enabled to find any man despicable, or to hand ourselves over to our own contempt, when seen to fall short of this august standard; an ethical disregard attaching to this or that man singly, never to humanity in general. And then it guards, secondly, against the fond and fatal self-delusion of taking a bare wish, however ardent, for any index of a good heart; and obviates irregular self-estimation. Even prayer is no more than a wish, inwardly uttered in the presence of a Searcher of the Heart. Impartiality, in judging of ourselves, when compared with the law, and sincerity in a man’s own self-confession of his own inward ethical worth or unworth, are the duties owed by man to himself, immediately founded on this first commandment of self-knowledge.

  EPISODE.

  Sec. 16.—Of an Amphiboly of the Reflex Moral Notions; whereby Mankind is led to regard what is only a Duty to wards himself, as if it were a Duty owed by him to others.

  To judge on grounds of naked reason, man has no duties imposed upon him, except those owed by him to humanity in general (himself or others); for his obligement towards any person imports ethical necessitation by that person’s will. The necessitating (obliging) subject must then, in every instance, be, first, a person; and must, second, be a person presented to our knowledge in experience and observation; for, since man has to work towards the end of that person’s will, this is a relation possible only betwixt two given existing beings, no imaginary or barely cogitable persons becoming the final cause and scope of any one’s actions. But experience and observation teach a knowledge of no other being, except our fellow-men, capable of obligation, whether active or passive. Mankind can, therefore, have no duty toward any being other than his fellow-men, and when he figures to himself that there are such, this arises singly from an amphiboly of his reflex moral notions; and this fancied duty owed by him to others is no more than a duty to himself, he being misled to this misunderstanding by confounding what is duty to himself in regard of other beings, with a duty toward those others.

  This fancied duty may extend, either to impersonals, or if to personal, yet to invisible beings, not presented to our sensory. The former will be either the physical matter of the universe, or else its organized but impercipient products; or, lastly, that part of nature which we see endowed with choice, motion, and perception (1. minerals, 2. plants, 3. animals). The latter will have a reference to superhuman beings, cogitated as spiritual substances (God, angels). And we now ask, does there obtain, betwixt these different kinds of beings and man, any relation of duty? and if so, what is the nature and extent of this obligation?

  Sec. 17.

  In regard of the beautiful but lifeless objects in nature, to indulge a propensity to destroy them, is subversive of the duty owed by man to himself. For this spirit of destruction lays waste that feeling in man, which, though not itself ethical, is yet akin to it, and aids and supports, or even prepares a way for a determination of the sensory, not unfavourable to morality, viz., the emotion of disinterested complacency in somewhat quite apart from any view of its utility, e.g., as when we find delight in contemplating a fine crystallization, or the unutterable beauties of the vegetable kingdom.

  In regard of the animated but irrational part of the creation, it is undoubted that a savage and cruel treatment of them is yet more inly repugnant to what man owes to himself; for it blunts and obtunds our natural sympathy with their pangs, and so lays waste, gradually, the physical principle which is of service to morality, and assists greatly the discharge of our duty towards other men. But to kill them or to set them on work not beyond their strength (which labour man himself must undertake), is in nowise disallowed; although to torture them, with a view to recondite experiments subserving a mere speculation, which could be dispensed with, is detestable. Nay, gratitude for the services of an old horse or house-dog is indirectly, a duty, namely, an indirect duty in regard of these animals; for, directly, it is no more than what a man owes to himself.

  Sec. 18.

  In regard of a Being transcending all bounds of knowledge, but whose existence is notwithstanding given to us in idea, viz., the Godhead, we have in like manner a duty called religion, which is the duty of recognising all our duties as if they were divine commandments. But this is not the consciousness of a duty toward God. For since this idea rises singly upon our own reason, and is made by ourselves for the behoof of explaining theoretically the symmetry and fitness of means to ends observed in the fabric of the universe, or practically to give added force to the mainspring of action, it is manifest that we have nowhat given, toward whom an obligation could be constituted; and his reality would first need to be established by experience (or revealed). And the duty we have here is to apply this indispensable idea of reason to the moral law within us, where it proves of the greatest ethical fertility. In this practical sense it may be asserted, that to have religion is a duty owed by man to himself.

  PART II.

  OF THE INDETERMINATE MORAL DUTIES OWED BY MAN TO HIMSELF IN REGARD OF HIS END.

  Sec. 19.—Of the Duty owed by him to himself of advancing his Physical Perfection.

  The culture of all the different resources of mind, soul, and body, as means conducive to many ends, is a duty owed by man to himself. Man owes it to himself as a reasonable being, not to allow to go to rust and lie dormant the latent energies and native elements of his system, whereof his reason might one day make use. And even were he to rest contented with the measure of talent nature had endowed him with as his birthright, still it ought to be upon grounds of reason, that he should instruct such a remaining satisfied without so moderate a share of capacity; for, being a person capable of designing ends, or of proposing himself to others as an end, he ought to stand indebted for the development and amelioration of his powers, not to any physical instinct of his system, but to his own liberty, whereby he freely decides how far he will carry them. This duty, then, is altogether independent on any advantages the culture of his faculties as means to ends may procure to him,—for perhaps the advantage, according to Rousseau’s views, might lie in the uncultivated roughness of a savage life,—but is founded on a commandment of ethico-active reason, and a duty imposed on man by himself to advance and ameliorate the condition of his humanity, according to the diversity of the ends assigned him, and to make himself, in a practical point of view, adapted to the final destinies of his being.

  Powers of mind we call those faculties whose exercise is possible by force of reason singly. They are creative, so far forth as their use is independent on experience and observation, and rests on principles à priori. Some of their products are, the mathematics, logic, and metaphysic of ethics, which two last fall under the head of philosophy, viz., the speculative philosophy, where this word is taken, not to signify wisdom, as it ought to do, but only science; which last, however, may be subservient to advancing the ends of practical wisdom.

  Powers of soul, again, are those which stand at the command of the understanding, and of the rule this last prescribes in order to attain the end it designs, and so depend to a certain extent on observation and experience. Instances of such powers are, memory, imagination, and the like, from which learning, taste, the graces of outward and inward accomplishments take their rise, and which can be employed as instrumental to a vast variety of ends.

  Lastly, the culture of our bodily powers (gymnastic properly so called) is the caring for the stuff and materials of the man, apart from which instrument and engine his ends could not be exerted into acts; consequently, the intentional and regular revivifying of man’s animal part is a duty owed by mankind to himself.

  Sec. 20.

  Which of these natural perfections may be the more eligible, and in what proportion, when compared with the remainder, it may be his duty to design them as his ends, must be left to the private reflection of each individual, who will decide according to his taste for this or that kind of life, and according to the estimate he may make of his ability, whether he should follow some handicraft, or a mercantile employment, or become a member of a learned profession. Because, over and above the necessity man stands in of providing for his livelihood, a necessity which never can of itself beget any obligation, it is a duty owed by man to himself to make himself of use to the world; this belonging to the worth of the humanity he represents, and which, therefore, he ought not to degrade.

  But this duty owed by man to himself in regard of his physical perfection, is only of indeterminate obligation. Because the law ordains only the maxims of the action, not the act itself; and, in regard of this last, determines neither its kind nor its degree, but leaves a vast latitude for man’s free choice to roam or settle in.

  Sec. 21.—Of the Duty owed by Man to himself of advancing his Ethical Perfection.

  This consists, first of all, subjectively, in the purity of his moral sentiments, where, freed from all admixture of sensitive excitement, the law is itself alone the spring of conduct; and actions are not only conformable to what is duty, but are performed because it is so, — Be ye holy is here the commandment; and, second,objectively, consists in attaining his whole and entire moral end, i.e., the execution of his whole duty, and the final reaching of the goal placed before him as his mark,—the commandment here is Be ye perfect. The endeavour after this end is, in the case of mankind, never more than an advancement from one grade of ethical perfection to another. If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, that study and pursue.

  Sec. 22.

  The duty towards one’s self is, in its quality, determinate and strict; but in degree it is of indeterminate obligation, and that on account of the frailty of human nature; for that perfection which it is our constant and incumbent duty to pursue, but never (at least in this life) to attain, and the obeying which can by consequence consist only in urging after it with an unfaltering and progressive step, is no doubt, in regard of the object (the idea to realize which is end), determinate, strict, and given; but in regard of the subject, is but a duty of indeterminate obligation owed by mankind to himself.

  The depths of the human heart are inscrutable. Who has such an exact of self-knowledge as to be able to say, when he feels the impelling force of duty, that the mobile of his will is swayed singly by the naked idea of the law, and to declare that other sensitive excitements may not work alongside of it and pollute it,—such as by-views of advantage, or of avoiding harm?—considerations which on occasion might serve the turn of vice. Again, as for that perfection which concerns the accomplishment of one’s end, there can, it is true, be only one virtue objectively in idea,—the ethical strength of one’s practical principles; but subjectively, in point of real fact and event, a vast number of virtues, of the most heterogeneous nature, amongst which it is not impossible some vice may lurk, although it escapes observation, and is not so called, on account of the virtues in whose company it appears. But a sum of virtues, the completeness or defects of which no self-knowledge can accurately detect, can beget only an indeterminate obligation to perfect our moral nature.

  Whence we conclude, that all the moral duties, in respect of the ends of the humanity subsisting in our person, are duties of indeterminate obligation only.

  OF THE MORAL DUTIES OWED BY MANKIND TOWARD HIS FELLOW-MEN.

  CHAPTER I.

  OF THE DUTY OWED TO OTHERS, CONSIDERED SIMPLY AS MEN.

  PART I.

  OF THE OFFICES OF CHARITY.

  Sec. 23.

  THE principal division of these obligations may be made into such duties as oblige our fellow-men, when we discharge them; and second, into those which, when observed, entail upon the other no obligation of any sort. To fulfil the former is, in respect of others, meritorious; to fulfil the latter, of debt only. Love and reverence are the emotions which go hand in hand with our discharge of these two kinds of offices. These emotions may be considered separately, and in practice they may subsist, each for itself and apart from the other. Love of our neighbour may take place even while he deserves but little reverence; as, on the contrary, reverence is due to every man, although deemed hardly worth our love. But, properly speaking, they are at bottom inseparably united by the law, in every duty owed by us, to our neighbour; but this in such a manner, that sometimes the one emotion is the leading principle of the duty of the person, along with which the other follows as its accessory. Thus we regard ourselves obliged to benefit the poor; but because this favour would imply his dependence for his welfare on my generosity, a case which would be humiliating for the other, it becomes my further duty so to behave to him who accepts my gift, as to represent this benefit either as a bare incumbent duty upon my part, or as a trifling mark of friendship, and to spare the other such humiliation, and to uphold his self-reverence in its integrity.

  Sec. 24.

  When we speak, not of laws of nature, but of laws of duty as regulating the external relation of man to man, we then regard ourselves in a cogitable ethic world, where, by analogy to the physical system, the combination of Intelligents is figured to be effected by the joint action and reaction of attractive and repellant forces. By the principle of mutual love, they are destined for ever to approach, and by that of reverence, to preserve their due elongation from one another; and were either of these mighty moral principles to be suspended, the moral system could not be upheld, and, unable to sustain itself against its own fury, would retrovert to chaos.

  Sec. 25.

  But love must not be here understood to mean an emotion of complacency in the perfection of other people, there being no obligation to entertain feelings; but this love must be understood as the practical maxim of goodwill issuing in beneficence as its result.

  The same remark holds of the reverence to be demonstrated towards others, which cannot be understood simply to mean a feeling emerging from contrasting our own worth with that of another,—such as a child may feel for its parents, a pupil for his ward, or an inferior for his superior in rank,—but must be taken to mean the practical maxim of circumscribing our own self-esteem, by the representation of the dignity of the humanity resident in the person of another—that is, a practical reverence.

  This duty of the free reverence owed to other men is properly negative only, viz., not to exalt ourselves above others. It is in this way analogous to the juridical duty “to do no wrong,” and so might be taken for a strict and determinate obligation; but, regarded as a moral duty, and a branch of the offices of charity, it is a duty of indeterminate obligation.

  The duty of loving my neighbour may be thus expressed,—that it is the duty of making my own the ends and interests of others, in so far as these ends are not immoral. The duty of reverencing my neighbour is expressed in the formula, to lower no man to be a bare means instrumental towards the attaining my own ends, i.e., not to expect from any man that he should abase himself to be the footstool of my views.

  By discharging the former duty, I at the same time oblige the other; I make myself well-deserving of him. But by the observance of the latter, I oblige only myself, and keep myself within my own bounds, so as not to withdraw from the other any of that worth he is entitled as a man to put upon himself.

  Sec. 26.—Of Philanthropy in general.

  The love of our fellow-men must, because we understand by it practical benevolence, be understood, not as a love of complacency in our species, but as a maxim actively to befriend them. He who takes delight in the welfare of his fellows, considered merely as belonging to his own species, is a philanthropist,—a Friend of Mankind in general. He who alone finds delight in the misery and woes of his neighbour, is a misanthrope. An egotist is he who beholds with indifference the good or the bad fortunes of his neighbour. While that person who shuns society because he is unable to regard his fellows with complacency, although he wishes them all well, would be an æsthetic misanthrope; and his aversion from his kind might be called anthropophoby.

  Sec. 27.

  Whether mankind be found worthy of love or not, a practical principle of goodwill (active philanthropy) is a duty mutually owed by all men to one another, according to the ethical precept of perfection, Love thy neighbour as thyself; for every ethical relation obtaining between man and man is a relation subsisting in the representation of pure reason, i.e., is a relation of mankind’s free actions, according to maxims potentially fit for law universal, which maxims can therefore, in no event, be founded on an emotion of selfishness. The constitution of my nature forces me to desire and will every other person’s benevolence; wherefore, conversely, I am beholden to entertain goodwill towards others; but, again, because all others, except myself, are not all mankind, a maxim expressing my active goodwill towards all others would want the absolute universality whereby alone the law has ethical virtue to oblige; consequently the ethical law of benevolence must include my own person likewise with others, as the object of the commandment announced by practical reason;—which is not to say, that I thereby become obliged to love myself, such self-love obtaining of its own accord, and inevitably, but states, that legislative reason, which embraces in its idea of humanity the whole race (i.e., me likewise), includes in its universal legislation myself likewise, under the duty of reciprocal benevolence; and so renders it allowed for me to wish well to myself, under the condition that I cherish goodwill towards every other person; my maxim being thus alone fitted for law universal, whereon is based every law of duty whatsoever.

  Sec. 28.

  The goodwill expressed in universal philanthropy is extensively the greatest possible, but intensively (in degree) the most contracted; and to say of any one that he is interested in the welfare of his neighbour, as a general philanthropist is to say that the interest he takes in him is just the smallest possible,—he is merely not indifferent.

  But of my fellows, one stands nearer to me than another; and, so far as goodwill is concerned, I am nearest to myself: how does this harmonize with the formula, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”? If one is more my neighbour (nearer to me in the obligation of benevolence) than another, and I thus am bound to more benevolence toward one person than toward another, and am, moreover, nearer to myself than to any other person; then it would appear that it cannot without contradiction be asserted that I ought to love all others as myself,—this measure, self-love, admitting no difference of degree. The smallest reflection, however, shows that the benevolence here intended is not a bare wish, which last is properly an acquiescence in the happiness of my neighbour, while I myself contribute nothing towards it, according to the adage, “Every one for himself, God for us all;” but that we have to understand an active practical beneficence, which makes the welfare of others its end: and so in wishes I may have an equal kind intent to all, while actively the degree may be carried to any extent or measure, according to the difference of the beloved persons, some of whom may stand nearer to me than others, and all this without violating the absolute universality of the maxim.

  THE OFFICES OF CHARITY ARE: A. BENEFICENCE; B. GRATITUDE; C. SYMPATHY.

  Sec. 29.

  A.

  Of the Duty of Beneficence.

  To enjoy the bounties of fortune, so far as may be needful to find life agreeable, and to take care of one’s animal part, but short of effeminacy and luxury, is a duty incumbent on us to ourselves; the contrary of which would be, sottishly to deprive one’s self of the bounties of fortune,—either out of avarice, servilely, or out of an outrageous discipline of one’s natural appetities, fanatically,—things both of which are repugnant to the duty owed by mankind to himself.

  But how comes it that, over and above the benevolent wish, which costs me nothing, my fellows are entitled to expect that this wish should become practical, and be exerted into action,—that is, how can we evince that beneficence is due to the necessitous, from him who is possessed of means empowering him to become kind? Benevolence or goodwill is the pleasure we take in the prosperity and happiness of our neighbour: beneficence, again, would be the maxim to make that happiness our end; and the duty to do so is necessitation by the subject’s own reason, to adopt this maxim as his universal law.

  It is by no means evident that any such law is originated by reason; on the contrary, it would seem that the maxim, “Every one for himself, God for us all,” were far more natural.

  Sec. 30.

  To deal kindly toward our brethren of mankind who are in distress, without hoping for anything in return, and to aid them in extricating themselves out of it, is a mutual duty incumbent on us all.

  For every one who himself is in difficulties, desires to be aided by other men; but if, on the contrary, he were to make the rule general, not to succour others when distressed, then would every one refuse, or at least be entitled, when such a law were announced as of catholic extent, to refuse to him all assistance; that is, a selfish principle of this kind would, when elevated to the rank of law universal, be self-contradictory and self-destructive, that is, would be contrary to duty; whence, conversely, we hold the social principle of mutual and joint assistance to one another in case of need a universal duty owed by man to man; for, as fellow-beings, i.e., necessitous (by the finite constitution of their natures), they ought to consider themselves as stationed in this one dwelling to be fellow-workers to one another.

  Sec. 31.

  Beneficence, where a man is rich, i.e., enjoys the means of happiness to superfluity and beyond his own wants, is to be looked upon by the benefactor, not even as a meritorious duty, although his neighbour be obliged by it. The pleasure which he procures to himself, and which, after all, costs him no sacrifice, is a kind of moral luxury. He must, likewise, studiously avoid all appearance of intending to oblige the other by this means, because, otherwise, it would not be truly a benefit done to, but an obligation thrust upon his neighbour, to come under which must needs make the latter stand a grade lower in his own eyes. He ought rather so to carry himself, as if he were the obliged and honoured by his neighbour’s acceptance of his kindness; that is, he ought so to figure to himself, and so to represent the favour, as if it were of mere debt, and rather, when possible, exercise his good deeds quite in private. This virtue might deserve a yet greater name, when the ability to give benefits is curtailed, and the soul of the benefactor is so strong as to take upon himself, in silence, the evils which he spares the other from undergoing; a case where he must be deemed ethically wealthy.

  Casuistics.—How far ought the outlay expended by any one in deeds of charity to be carried? Surely not till we ourselves came to stand in need of our friends’ generosity? What may a benefit be worth, offered to us by a dead hand in his testament? Does he who uses the right conferred upon him by the law of the land, of robbing some one of his freedom, and then making the other happy, according to his own notions of enjoyment,—can, I say, such a man be regarded as a benefactor, in consequence of the parental care he may take of his slave’s welfare? or is not the unrighteousness of bereaving any one of his freedom so grave a violation of the rights of man, that all the advantages his master could bestow would cease to deserve the name of kindness? or can he become so well-deserving of his slave by kindness, as to counteract and redeem the violation committed by him against his slave’s person? It is impossible that I can act kindly toward any other (infants and madmen excepted) by force of my idea of his happiness, but only by studying his ideas of welfare, to whom I wish to exhibit my affection, no kindness being truly shown when I thrust upon him a present without his will.

  Sec. 32.

  B.

  Of the Duty of Gratitude.

  Gratitude is the venerating of another on account of a benefit we have received from him: the sentiment or emotion which goes hand in hand with such a judgment is that of reverence toward the benefactor we are beholden to; whereas this other stands toward the receiver in the relationship of love. A mere heartfelt, generous goodwill toward another, for a kindness shown us, even apart from any demonstrated regard, deserves the name of a moral duty; and this would indicate a distinction betwixt an affectionate gratitude and an active thankfulness for a favour.

  Gratitude is a duty, i.e., not a mere maxim of prudence, to engage my benefactor to yet greater degrees of kindness, by professing my obligation for what he has already done; for that would be to use him as a means toward my by-ends; but gratitude is immediately made necessary by the moral law, i.e., it is a duty.

  But gratitude must be regarded still further as a sacred duty, i.e., as such a duty, which to violate, would be to extinguish the moral principles of benevolence, even in their source; for that ethical object is sacred and holy, in regard of whom the obligation can never be adequately acquitted and discharged (that is, where the person who is indebted must always stand under the obligation). All other is only ordinary and vulgar duty. But there is no retribution which can acquit a person of a conferred benefit, the benefactor having always the good desert of being first in the benevolence, an advantage which the receiver cannot take away However, even without any active returns, a bare cordial goodwill toward the benefactor is of itself a kind of gratitude; in this state of mind, we say that a person is grateful.

  Sec. 33.

  As for the extent of gratitude, it is not by any means confined to contemporaries, but goes back to our ancestors, even to those whom we cannot certainly name. And this is the reason why it is considered indecorous not to defend the ancients as much as possible against all attacks, invective, and slights—the ancients being here considered as our teachers; although it were a ridiculous opinion to grant to them any superiority over the moderns, merely on account of their antiquity, either in their talents or in their kind intentions toward humanity, and to disregard what is new, in comparison of what is old, as if the world were continually declining from its primitive perfection.

  Sec. 34.

  But as to the intensity of this duty, i.e., the degree in which we may be obliged to this virtue, that is to be estimated by the advantage we have derived from the benefit, and the disinterestedness which prompted the benefactor to bestow it on us, the least degree of gratitude would be, when our benefactor is alive, to repay to him the identic service performed for us, or, when he is no more, to show like services to others. In all which, we must take good heed not to regard the benefit as a burden we would willingly be rid of and discharge, but rather to hold and to accept of the occasion as an ethical advantage, i.e., as an opportunity afforded us to exercise and practise this virtue of gratitude, which does, by combining the ardour of benevolence with its tenderness (perpetual unremitted attention to the minutest shades of this duty), invigorate the growth of philanthropy.

  C.

  Of the Duty of Sympathy.

  To have a fellow-feeling with the joys and sorrows of our friends, is no doubt a physical emotion only; and is an æsthetic susceptibility of pleasure or pain, on perceiving these states obtain in another. There arises, however, from this disposition of our nature, a particular, but only conditionate duty, called humanity, to cultivate and employ these physical springs as means of advancing an effective and rational benevolence. The duty is called humanity, man being now regarded, not as a reasonable being, but as an animal endowed with reason. This sympathy may be regarded either as seated in the will and the ability to communicate to one another what we feel, or as seated in that physical susceptibility, which nature has implanted in us, for feeling in common the delights or misery of our neighbour. The former is free or liberal, and depends on practical reason; the second is unfree and illiberal, as in pity, and may be called contagious,—like a susceptibility for heat or for distempers. The obligation extends to the former only.

  It was a lofty cogitation of the Stoic sages when they said, I would wish I had a friend, not to assist me in poverty, sickness, captivity, and so on, but whom I might be able to assist and rescue; and yet this very Sage again thus speaks, when the case of his friend is gone past remedy—What concern is it of mine? i.e., he rejected pity.

  And, in truth, when another suffers, and I allow myself to be infected by his sorrow, which, however, I cannot mitigate nor avert, then two persons suffer, although naturally the evil affects one singly; and it is quite inconceivable that it can be any one’s duty to augment the physical evils in the world; and consequently there can be no obligation to act kindly out of pity. There is likewise an offensive variety of this pity called mercy, by which is meant that kind of benevolence shown to the unworthy; but such an expression of benevolence ought never to take place betwixt man and man, no one being entitled to boast of his worthiness to be happy.

  Sec. 35.

  But although it is no direct duty to take a part in the joy or grief of others, yet to take an active part in their lot is; and so by consequence an indirect duty, to cultivate the sympathetic affections, and to make them serve as instruments enabling us to discharge the offices of a humane mind, upon ethical principles. Thus it is a duty not to avoid the receptacles of the poor, in order to save ourselves an unpleasant feeling, but rather to seek them out. Neither ought we to desert the chambers of the sick nor the cells of the debtor, in order to escape the painful sympathy we might be unable to repress, this emotion being a spring implanted in us by nature, prompting to the discharge of duties, which the naked representations of reason might be unable to accomplish.

  Casuistical Question.—Would it not be better for the world if all morality and obligation were restricted to the forensic duties, and charity left among the adiaphora? It is not easy to foresee what effect such a rule might have on human happiness. But, in this event, the world would want its highest ethical decoration—charity—which does by itself alone, even abstractedly from all its advantages, represent the world as one fair moral whole.

  OF THE VICES SPRINGING FROM THE HATRED OF OUR FELLOWS, AND WHICH ARE OPPOSED TO THE DUTIES OF PHILANTHROPY.

  Sec. 36.

  These vices form the detestable family of envy, ingratitude, and malice; but the hate is in these vices not open and violent, but veiled and secret; and so, to the forgetfulness of one’s duty toward one’s neighbour, superadds meanness, that is, a violation of what a man owes to himself.

  A. Envy is the propensity to perceive the welfare of our neighbour with a grudge, even though our own happiness does not suffer by it; and, when it rises to the extreme of tempting any one actively to diminish his neighbour’s happiness, is the highest and most aggravated kind of envy, although otherwise it is most commonly no more than jealousy, and is only indirectly a wicked sentiment, viz., an ill-will at finding our own happiness cast into the shade by the surpassing prosperity of our neighbour; and is a displeasure arising from not knowing how to estimate our own advantages by their own intrinsic worth, but singly by comparing them with those enjoyed by others: from hence come the expressions, the enviable concord and happiness of a married pair, or of a family, just as if these were cases where it were quite allowed to envy. The movements of envy are implanted in the human heart, and it is only their utterance which can raise it to the shocking and disgraceful spectacle of a peevish, self-tormenting passion, which aims, in its inward wish, at the destruction and ruin of the good fortune of another,—a vice alike contrary to what is due from us to our neighbour and to ourselves.

  B. Ingratitude towards one’s benefactor is, according to the common judgment of mankind, one of the most odious and hateful vices; and yet our species is so notorious for it, that every one holds it for likely that he may create himself enemies by his benefits. The ground of the possibility of such a vice lies in the misunderstood duty owed to one’s self, not to come to need, or to summon up, others to assist us, which lays us under obligation to them; but rather to support alone the calamities of life, than to pester our friends with them, and so to stand in their debt, which places us to others in the relation of clients to a patron, a state subversive of a man’s proper self-estimation. And this is the reason why gratitude to those who have been by necessity before us and our antecessors, is always generously expressed,—but scantily to our contemporaries; or why even sometimes we invert the latter relation, and show the contrary of gratitude, to make insensible the unequal obligation. However, this is a vice at which humanity always revolts, not only on account of the prejudice which such an example must entail, by deterring mankind from benevolence (for this benevolence would, when the ethic sentiment is pure, be only so much the more worth, when disdaining even this hope of recompense), but because the duties of philanthropy are inverted, and the want of love is transmuted to a title to hate those by whom we have been first beloved.

  C. Malice is the exact counterpart of sympathy, and denotes joy at the sorrow of another; nor is it any stranger to our frame; but it is only when it goes so far as to do ill, or to assist the miscreant in executing his nefarious designs, that it appears in all its horrors, and presents the finished form of misanthropy, or the hatred of our species. It is quite inevitable, by the laws of imagination, not to feel more vividly our own welfare or good deportment, when the miseries or the scandalous behaviour of others serve as a foil to set off the brighter hues of our own state; but to find immediate joy in the existence of such portentous disasters as subvert the general welfare of our kind, or to wish that such enormities should happen, is an inward hate of mankind, and the veriest antipart of the offices of charity which are incumbent on us. The insolence of some upon uninterrupted prosperity, and their arrogancy upon their good deportment (properly upon their good fortune to have escaped seduction to any public vice), both which advantages the selfish imputes to himself as his deserts, are the causes productive of this miserable joy on their reverse of fortune,—a joy quite opposed to the sympathetic maxim of honest Chremes: “I am a man, and I take an interest in all that relates to mankind.”

  Of this joy in the misery of another, there is a sort which is at once the sweetest, and which seems even to rest on some title of justice, nay, where it would appear that we stood under an obligation to pursue the misery of another as our end, abstracting from all views of our own advantage; and that is the case of the desire for vengeance.

  Every act violating the rights of man deserves punishment, by which the sufferer is not only indemnified, but where the crime itself is avenged upon the transgressor. Punishment, however, is no act emanating from the private authority of the injured, but from that of a tribunal different from himself, which gives effect to the Laws of a Sovereign to whom all are subject; so that when we consider mankind as in a society (as Ethic demands of us) combined, not by civil laws, but by laws of reason singly, it remains that no one can be entitled to discern a punishment, and to avenge the insults received from mankind, except He who is the Supreme moral Lawgiver; and He alone, i.e.,God, can say, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Upon this account it is a moral duty, not only not to pursue with avenging hatred the aggressions of another, but even not to summon up the Judge of the World to Vengeance,—partly because man has himself so much guilt as to stand too much in need of pardon, and also partly and principally because no vengeance or punishment ought to be inflicted out of hatred. Placability is therefore a duty owed by man to man, which, however, is not to be confounded with a soft tolerance of injuries. This last consists in abstaining from employing rigorous means to obviate the continued provocations offered us by others; and would be an abandonment of one’s rights, and a violation of the duty owed by man to himself.

  Remark.—All those vices which make human nature hateful when they are practised upon system, are objectively inhuman; but, subjectively, experience teaches us that they belong to our species. So that though some people may, from their extreme horror of them, have called such vices devilish, and the opposite virtues angelic, yet such notions express only a maximum, used as a standard in order to compare the particular grade of morality an action has, by assigning to man his place in heaven or in hell, without allowing a middle station betwixt either for him to occupy. Whether Haller has hit it better, when he speaks of man being an ambiguous mongrel betwixt angel and brute, I shall here leave undecided; but to halve or strike averages when comparing heterogeneous things, gives birth to no definite conception; and nothing can assist us in classifying beings according to the unknown differences of their ranks. The first division into angelic virtues and devilish vices is exaggerated,—the second is objectionable; for though mankind do, alas! sometimes fall into brutal vices, yet that is no ground for assigning to their vices a root peculiar to our species, as little as the stunting of some trees in the forest justifies us in taking them for a particular kind of shrub.

  PART II.

  OF THE DUTY OF REVERENCE OWED TO OTHERS.

  Moderation in one’s pretensions, i.e., the voluntary circumscription of a man’s own self-love by the self-love of others is modesty or discreetness. The want of this moderation in regard of the demands we make to be loved by others, is self-love; but this indiscreetness in pretending to the consideration of others, is self-conceit. The reverence I entertain toward any one, or that observance which another may demand from me, is the recognition and acknowledgment of a dignity in the person of another; i.e., of a worth exalted beyond all price, and admitting no equivalent, in exchange for which the object of my estimation could be bartered. The judgment that somewhat is possessed of no worth at all, is contempt.

  Sec. 38.

  Every man may justly pretend to be reverenced by his fellows, and he ought in turn to accord to them his. Humanity is itself a Dignity; for no man can be employed, neither by others nor by himself, as a mere instrument, but is always to be regarded as an end; in which point, in fact, his Dignity, i.e., his Personality, consists, and where he stands pre-eminent over all other creatures in the world,—not of his kind, and which yet may be used, and stand at his command. And as he cannot dispose of himself for any price (which would be subversive of his own self-reverence), neither is he at liberty to derogate from the equally necessary self-reverence of others as men, i.e., he is obliged practically to recognise the dignity of every other man’s Humanity, and so stands under a duty based on that reverential observance, which is necessarily to be demonstrated towards every other person.

  Sec. 39.

  To despise others, i.e., to refuse them that reverence we owe to mankind at large, is, in any event, contrary to duty: to think but little of them, when compared with others, is sometimes inevitable; but externally to demonstrate such disregard, is at all times offensive. What thing soever is dangerous is no object of disregard, and consequently the vicious is not so; and if my superiority to his attacks should authorize me to say I despise him, the only meaning such words can have is, that there is no danger to be apprehended from him, even though I take no precautions, because he shows himself in his full deformity. Nevertheless, I am not entitled to refuse, even to the vicious, all consideration in his capacity as a man, this last being inalienable, although the other make himself unworthy of it. Hence it comes that some punishments are to be reprobated, as dishonouring Humanity (such are drawing and quartering, to be devoured by wild beasts, demembration of the eyes and ears), which are often more grievous to the unhappy sufferer than the loss of goods and life, on account of the afflicting degradation they import (and impending his pretending to the reverence of others, which indeed every man must do); and they also make the spectator blush, to know that he belongs to a race which some dare to treat in such a manner.

  Note.—Upon this is founded a duty of reverence for man, even in the logical use of reason; viz., not to reprehend his blunders under the name of absurdities, not to say that they are inept, but rather to suppose that there must be something true at bottom in them, and to endeavour to find out what this is; to which would be attached the still further duty of exerting ourselves to discover the false appearance by which the other was misled (i.e., the subjective of the judgment, which by mistake was taken for objective), and thus, by explaining to him the ground of his error, to uphold for him his reverence for his own understanding. And truly, when we deny all sense to an adversary, how can we expect to convince him that he is in the wrong? The same remark holds of the reproach of vice, which ought never to be allowed to rise to a complete contempt of the vicious, so as to refuse him all moral worth; this being a hypothesis according to which he never could redintegrate his moral character,—a statement repugnant to the very idea of a man, who being, as such, a moral being, can never lose the ordinary substratum for a good will.

  Sec. 40.

  Reverence for law, which subjectively was styled the moral sense, is identic with what is called the sense of duty; and this is the reason why the demonstration of reverence toward mankind as a moral agent (highly venerating the Law) is a duty owed by others towards him, and, in his case, a right which he cannot abdicate. The standing upon this right is called the love of honour, and the expression of it, in one’s external conduct, is decorum,—the infraction whereof is what is called “scandal,” and is a disregard of this right, which may be followed as an example by others, whence it is highly reprehensible to give any such; although, to take such scandal at what is merely paradoxical and a mere deviation from the common fashion, is a mere fantastic whim mistaking the uncommon for the disallowed, and an error highly prejudicial and perilous to virtue. For the reverence due to others, who display by their conduct an example, ought never to degenerate into a mere servile copying of their manners (which would be to raise a custom into the authority of a law), a tyranny of the popular use and wont, altogether subversive of the duty owed by man to himself.

  Sec. 41.

  To omit the offices of charity is merely non-virtue (a fault); but to neglect the duties founded on the incumbent reverence due to every man whatsoever, is a vice. When the first are disregarded, no one is offended; but by the breach of the latter, the just rights of mankind are affected: the one is merely negative of virtue; but that which not only is no moral acquisition, but which abolishes that worth which ought otherwise to belong to the subject, is vice. Upon this account, the duties owed toward one’s neighbour in respect of the reverence he is entitled to challenge, admit of a negative enunciation only; i.e., this moral duty is expressed indirectly, by forbidding its opposite.

  Sec. 42.—Of the Vice subversive of the Reverence owed by us to others.

  These Vices are: A. Pride; B. Backbiting; C. Sneering.

  Pride (superbia), i.e.,the thirst to be always uppermost, is a kind of ambition, where we impute to others that they will think meanly of themselves when contrasted with us, and is a vice subverting that reverence for which every man has a legal claim.

  Pride differs entirely from “fierté,” considered as a love of honour, i.e., care to abate nothing of one’s dignity as a man when compared with others; and which fierté is on that account often spoken of as noble, for the proud demands from others a reverence which he refuses to return them. But this fierté becomes faulty, and even insulting, when it presumes that others will occupy themselves with its importance.

  That pride is unjust is manifest of itself; for it is a courting of followers by the ambitious, whom he deems himself entitled to handle contemptuously, and so is repugnant to the reverence due to humanity in general. It is also folly, since it uses means to attain somewhat as an end, which is nowise worth being followed as such. Nay, it is even stupidity, i.e., an insult upon common sense, to use such means as must produce directly the contrary effect; since every man refuses his reverence to the proud, the more the haughty endeavours after it. But it is perhaps not quite so obvious that the proud is always, at the bottom of his soul, mean and abject; for he never could impute to others that they would think lightly of themselves in comparison with him, were he not inwardly conscious that, on a reverse of fortune, he would have no difficulty to sneak in his turn, and to renounce every pretension to be reverenced by others.

  Sec. 43.—B. Detraction.

  To speak evil of one’s neighbour, or backbiting,—by which I do not mean calumny, a verbal injury which might be prosecuted before a court of justice, but by which I understand the appetite (apart from any particular purpose) to spread about reports to the disparagement of the reverence due to others,—is contrary to the reverence owed to mankind in general; because every scandal we give weakens this reverence, on which emotion, however, depends the spring toward the moral good, and in fact tends to make people disbelieve in its existence.

  The studied and wilful propagation of anywhat impeaching the honour of another (not made judicially before a court), even allowing it were quite true, diminishes the reverence due to mankind at large, and goes to throw upon our species a shadow of worthlessness, and tends finally to make misanthropy or contempt the ruling cast of thinking, which mankind entertain for one another, and blunts away the moral sense, by habituating the person to the contemplation of scenes and anecdotes of his neighbour’s vileness. It is, therefore, a duty, instead of a malignant joy, in exposing the faults of others, so as thereby to establish one’s self in the opinion of being as good, at least not worse than others, to cast, on the contrary, a veil of charity over the faults of others, not merely by softening our judgments, but by altogether suppressing them; because examples of reverence bestowed on others may excite the endeavour to deserve it. Upon this selfsame account, the spying and prying into the customs and manners of others is an insulting pretext to a knowledge of the world and of mankind, against which every man may justly set himself, as violating the reverence due him.

  Sec. 44.—C. Scorn.

  The propensity to exhibit others as objects of ridicule, sneering (persiflage), i.e.,the making the faults of others the immediate object of one’s amusement, is wickedness, and quite different from jesting, where, amid familiar friends, certain peculiarities of one of their number are laughed at, but not to scorn; but to exhibit, as the object of ridicule, one’s real faults, or, still more, alleged faults, as were they real, with the intent of depriving any one of the reverence due to his person, and the propensity to do so by biting sarcasm, is a sort of diabolic pleasure, and is so much the graver violation of the duty of reverence owed toward other people.

  Contradistinguished from this, is the jocose retortion, nay, even the sarcastic retortion, of the insolent attacks of an adversary, where the sneerer (or generally a malicious but impotent antagonist) is sneered down in return, and is a just defence of that reverence we are entitled to exact from the other. But when the topic is no object of wit, and one in which reason takes an ethical interest, then it is better, no matter how much soever the adversary may have sneered, and so have exposed many points for ridicule and sarcasm, and is also more conformable to the dignity of the matter, and to the reverence due toward humanity, either to make no defence at all against the attack, or otherwise to conduct it with dignity and seriousness.

  Note.—It will be observed that in the foregoing chapter it is not virtues that are insisted on, but rather the contrary vices which have been represented; and this arises from the very notion of reverence, which, as we are bound to demonstrate it towards others, is but a negative duty singly: I am not obliged to revere others (regarded simply as men), i.e., to pay them positive veneration. The whole reverence to which I am naturally beholden is toward the law; to observe which law and its reverence, in my intercourse with my fellow-men, is a universal and unconditionate duty, although it is not to entertain positive reverence toward other men in general, nor to bestow upon them any such; whereas the other, viz., the negative, is the originary reverence owed to and challengeable from whomsoever. The reverence to be demonstrated to others according to their different qualities and various accidental relations, such as age, sex, descent, strength, or fragility, and those things which mainly rest on arbitrary institutions, cannot be expounded at length, nor classed in the metaphysic principles of ethics, since here we study singly the pure principles of reason.

  CHAPTER II.

  Sec. 45.—Of the Ethical Duties owed by Mankind toward one another in regard of their State and Condition.

  This chapter, consisting of a single paragraph, is omitted as immaterial.

  CONCLUSION OF THE ELEMENTOLOGY.

  OF FRIENDSHIP.

  Sec. 46.—Of the intimate Blending of Love with Reverence in Friendship.

  Friendship, regarded in its perfection, is the union of two persons by mutual equal love and reverence. It is then an ideal of sympathy and of fellow-feeling, in weal or woe, betwixt the reciprocally united by their ethical goodwill; and if it do not effectuate the whole happiness of life, still the adopting such a double of goodwill into both their sentiments comprehends in it a worthiness to become so; whence it results, that to seek friendship is a duty.

  But although friendship, as a maximum of reciprocal kind intent, is no vulgar and common, but an honourable duty, proposed to us by reason, still it is easy to see that an entire friendship is a naked although a practically necessary idea, and unattainable in any given circumstances. For how can any man exactly measure and adjust the due proportion obtaining between the duty of Reverence and that of Love toward his friend? For, should the one party become more fervent in love, then he must dread lest he sink upon that very account in the reverence of the other. How can it, then, be reasonably expected that both the friends should bring into a due equipoise that love and esteem which are required to constitute this virtue? The one principle is attractive, the other repellent; so that the former ordains approximation, while the latter demands that a decorous distance be maintained, a limitation of intimacy expressed in the well-known rule, “that even the very best friends must not make themselves too familiar;” and which conveys a maxim, valid not only for the superior towards the inferior, but also vice versa; for the superior finds his dignity encroached on unadvisedly, and might perhaps willingly wish the reverence of his inferior suspended for the instant, but never abrogated, which, if once injured, is irrecoverably gone for ever, even though the old ceremonial be re-established on the former footing.

  Friendship, therefore, in its purity and entirety, figured to be attainable, as between Orestes and Pylades, Theseus and Pirithous, is the hobby of novel-writers; whereas Aristotle has said, “Alas! my friends, there is no friendship.” The following remarks may serve to point out the difficulties encumbering it.

  Viewed ethically, it is doubtless a duty that one friend make the other aware of his faults, for that is for his good, and so is one of the offices of charity; but his other half discovers in this a want of reverence, and fears that he has already sunk in this esteem, or at least is apprehensive, since he is scrutinized and censured, that this danger is close at hand; nay, that he is watched and observed by his friend, appears to him already akin to insult.

  A friend in need, how desirable is he not? that is, when he is an active friend, ready to help out of his own resources and exertion. It is, however, a grievous burden to be chained to the destiny of another, and to go laden with a foreign sorrow. Upon this account, friendship is not a union intended for mutual and reciprocal advantage; but this union must be purely moral; and the assistance either may count upon from the other in case of need, cannot be held the end and motive towards it, for then the one party would forfeit the reverence of the other: this help can only be understood to signify and denote the outward mark of their inward hearty goodwill, without ever suffering it to be put to trial, which is dangerous, — each friend magnanimously endeavouring to spare his counterpart any burden, and not only to support it all alone himself, but, further, altogether to hide and conceal it from his view, while he at the same time can always flatter himself that in an exigency he could confidently call for aid on the other. But when the one accepts a benefit from the other, then he may count on an equality in their love, but not in their reverence; for he plainly stands one grade lower, being indebted and unable to oblige in return.

  Friendship is, on account of the sweetness of the sensation arising from the mutual possession of one another, approaching indeed almost to a melting together, somewhat so exceedingly tender, that when it is hung upon feelings, it is not secure a single instant from interruption, but demands for its guard that the mutual surrender and confidence be conducted upon principles or firm rules, circumscribing love by demands of reverence. Such interruptions are frequent among the uneducated, which yet do not produce any rupture (for biting and scratching is common folks’ wooing); they cannot let each other alone, and yet cannot bring themselves into harmony, the very rupture being wanted to sustain the intimacy, and give a relish to the sweetness of reconciliation. At all events, the love of friendship cannot be impassioned; for this is blind, and in the sequel evaporates.

  Sec. 47.

  Moral friendship, as contradistinguished from the æsthetical, is the entire confidence of two people, who reciprocally impart to one another their private opinions and emotions, so far as such surrender can consist with the reverence due from one to the other.

  Man is destined for society, although in part unsocial; and in his progress through life he feels the mighty need to confide himself to others, and that without having any further end in view. On the other hand he is warned to fear the misuse others might make of this disclosure of his sentiments, and so sees himself compelled to lock up within himself a good deal of the judgments he forms, particularly with regard to other men. He would fain converse with others relative to their opinions of the government, religion, and what they think of the society he mixes in; but he dare not hazard it, for others, by cautiously concealing their sentiments, might employ his to his disadvantage. he would willingly unbosom to another his wants, defects, errors, and faults; but he must dread that that other would conceal his, and that he might forfeit that other’s reverence, were he to disclose his situation candidly.

  So that if he find a man who has good sentiments and understanding, and to whom he can open up his heart unreservedly, without apprehending that danger, and who generally falls in with his way of thinking, then he may give vent to his thoughts. He is no longer alone, imprisoned with his opinions, but goes forth to enjoy freedom, which he is precluded from, amidst the great mass of people. Every one has secrets, and dare not blindly intrust himself to others, partly owing to the ignoble cast of thinking of the most, who would abuse the secret against his interest, and partly owing to the want of understanding of many, i.e., their indiscretion, and being unable to discriminate betwixt what things are fit to be repeated, and what not. Now, it is exceedingly seldom we find those qualities together in the same Subject, especially since friendship demands that this intelligent and intimate friend deem himself obliged not to communicate the secret he has been intrusted with to any other, how trustworthy soever he may think him, at least without the consent of the other.

  Notwithstanding all this, the pure moral friendship is no ideal, but is to be found extant here and there, in its perfection. But that intermeddling friendship which molests itself with the ends of other men, even though it does so out of love, can have neither the purity nor that entireness which is indispensable towards a defined maxim, and is only an ideal in wish, which, in cogitation, it is true, has no bounds, but must in observation and experience shrink within a very narrow compass.

  A friend of man is he who takes an æsthetic participation in the welfare of his race, and who never will disturb it but with inward regret. This phrase, however, friend of man, is more limited than that of a philanthropist, for the friend cherishes the representation of the equality of his species, and has at least the idea of becoming indebted to them, even while he obliges them, where he figures to himself all mankind as brethren under a common Father, who wills their joint and common happiness. For the relation of protector, as benefactor, relatively to the protected, is no doubt one of love, but not of friendship, the reverence due from each to other not being alike. The duty to cherish goodwill to mankind as their friend (a necessary condescension), and the laying to heart of this duty, serves as a guard against pride, which is too apt to invade the prosperous, who possess the resources of good deeds.

  APPENDIX.

  Sec. 48.—Of the Social Virtues.

  It is a duty both to one’s self and to others to bring his ethical accomplishments into Society, and not to isolate himself,—to make, no doubt, himself still the immoveable centre of his own principles, but then he ought to regard this circle which he has drawn around him as capable of expansion, till it swell to the size of the most cosmopolitical spirit, not in order immediately to advance the end of the whole world, but only to advance the means which indirectly tend thitherwards, viz., urbanity of manners, sociability, affability, and decorum, and so to accompany the Graces with the Virtues; to establish which companionship, is itself one of the offices of virtue.

  All these are, it is true, no more than mere by-work (parerga), or accessory virtues, giving a fair virtuous appearance. These, however, never deceive, as everybody knows for how much they are to pass current. They are valid only as small coin, and yet conduce to strengthen man’s virtuous sentiments, were it even merely by awakening the endeavour to bring this outward form as near as possible to a reality, in rendering us accessible, conversable, polite, hospitable, and engaging in our daily intercourse; which things, although one and all of them no more than a mere manner of behaviour, do, by being obligatory forms of sociability, at the same time oblige others, and promote the cause of virtue, by making it beloved.

  A question may, however, be raised, whether we may venture to frequent the society of the wicked? But we cannot avoid meeting with them, unless by withdrawing from the world; and besides, our judgment as to their characters is incompetent. But whenever vice is a scandal, i.e., is an openly given example of unblushing contempt for strict laws of duty, and does therefore entail the infamy of dishonour, then all former intercourse must be broken up, or at least carried on as sparingly as possible, even should the law of the land annex no punishment to the crime; for, to continue in society with such a person, is to throw a stain on honour, and to prostitute the virtues of sociability, to whomsoever is rich enough to bribe his parasites with the voluptuousnesses of luxury.

  METHODOLOGY OF ETHICS.

  PART I.

  DIDACTIC OF ETHICS.

  Sec. 49.

  THAT virtue must be acquired, and is not innate, results from the very notion of it, and does not need that we should recur to what observation and experience teach in Anthropology; for the ethic strength were not virtue, unless it were brought forth by the firmness of man’s resolution when combating against such mighty withstanding appetites. It is the product of pure practical reason, so far forth as this last does, by the consciousness of her superiority in freedom, gain the mastery over those.

  That Ethics therefore can, and needs must, be taught, is corollary only from the position, that it is not born with us. It is accordingly a Science (a doctrine, i.e., a demonstrated theory); but since, by the mere knowledge how we ought to behave, no power is gained of exerting that knowledge into act, the old Stoics were of opinion that virtue could not be taught hortatively by the naked representation Duty, but behoved to be cultivated by the ascetic exercise of encountering the inward enemy in man. For no man can straightway do anywhat he wills to do, unless he have first tried his powers, and practised them; to which, however, the determination must be taken all at once. And in the case of virtue, any intention to capitulate with vice, or parley as to the gradual evacuation of its territory, would be itself impure, and even vicious; and the product of such a sentiment could not be virtue, this last depending on one only principle.

  Sec. 50.

  Now, as to virtue’s scientific method,—and every scientific doctrine must be methodic if it is not to be tumultuary,—this method cannot be fragmentary, but must be systematic, if Ethics is to be represented as a science. But the treatment of it may be either acroamatic, or it may be erotematic. In the former case, those whom we address are auditors simply; in the latter, we interrogate the pupil. This erotematic method, again, is subdivided into the dialogical, where the science is questioned out of the pupil’s reason, and into the catechetic, where, out of his memory. When we intend to evolve anywhat out of the reason of another, it can be done only by the dialogue, the master and the disciple mutually interrogating and responding. The master conducts by his questions the pupil’s train of thinking, by merely laying before him certain select instances, adapted for starting the substratum of given notions. The disciple is thus aroused to the consciousness of his own ability to think, and even does, by his reinterrogation (called forth by the obscurity or the doubtfulness of his master’s tenets), teach the teacher how best to frame the dialogue: as the old proverb has it, docendo discimus.

  Sec. 51.

  The first and most necessary instrumental for conveying ethical information to the altogether untutored, would be an ethical catechism. It ought to go before the religious catechism, and to be taught separately, and quite independent of it, and not, as is too often done, taught along with it, and thrust into it, as it were, by parentheses; for it is singly on pure ethic principles that a transit can be made from virtue to religion; and when the case is otherwise, the confessions are insincere. Upon this account it is that our most celebrated theological dignitaries have hesitated to compose a catechism for the statutable faith (creed), and thereby to stand, as it were, surety for it; whereas, one might have thought that so scanty a service was the very least we were entitled to expect from the vast stores of their learning.

  On the contrary, the composition of a pure moral catechism as a ground-sketch of the moral duties, does not lie open to the like scruple or to the same difficulty; the whole matter of it admitting of being evolved out of every person’s common sense, and its form only requiring adaptation to the didactic rules of an elementary instruction. The formal principle, however, of this kind of instruction does not admit of the dialogo-Socratic method, the pupil not yet knowing what he has to ask. The teacher, therefore, alone catechises; and the answers, which are to be methodically elicited from the reason of the pupil, should be drawn up in definite, unchanging terms, and then intrusted for conversation to his memory. In which latter point it is, that the catechetic method differs from the acroamatic, where the teacher alone speaks; as also from the dialogic, where the interrogatories are mutual.

  Sec. 52.

  The experimental mean, the technique of moral education, is the good example of the teacher himself, his own conduct being exemplary, and the warning one of others; for copying is what first starts the causality of the will of the unlearned, and induces him to project those maxims which, in the sequel, he adopts. Habit is the establishment of a continual and permanent appetite, apart from any maxim, and springs from abandonment to repeated gratification, and is merely a mechanism of the sensory, and not any principle of cogitation; and to wean one’s self from it, is usually more difficult than to bring it forth. But as to the power of examples (whether to good or to evil) offered to our propensity for copying, it is to be noted, that the conduct of no one can become the rule of ours, so as to found any maxims and principles of virtue; these consisting always just in the subjective autonomy of every man’s own practical reason, where no external behaviour but only the law is the standard whereon we regulate the determinations of our will. The instructor will, for this reason, never say to an ill-thriving pupil, Take an example from that good, orderly, studious boy; for the pupil can only take occasion to hate his model, from seeing himself placed by him in so disadvantageous a light. A good example ought not to be made a copy, but should be used to serve in showing the practicability of our duty. It is not a comparison with any other man “as he is,” but with the idea of humanity “as he ought to be,” i.e., with the law, that must supply the preceptor with an infallible standard of education.

  OBSERVATION.

  FRAGMENT OF SUCH A MORAL CATECHISM.

  The preceptor questions out of the reason of his scholar what he wishes to teach him; and if, by hazard, this last cannot answer, then the other dexterously suggests to him the responses.

  Preceptor. What is thy chief desire in life?

  Scholar remains silent.

  P. That everything should succeed and prosper with thee, according to thy whole heart and wish,—how is such a situation called?

  S.is silent.

  P. It is called happiness (welfare, comfort, entire felicity). Now, suppose that thou hadst confided to thee all the happiness which is at all possible,—wouldst thou keep it to thyself, or wouldst thou impart some of it to others?

  S. I would share it with my fellows, that they also might be happy and contented.

  P. Good: that says somewhat for thy heart. Let us now see how it stands with thy head. Wouldst thou give the sluggard cushions to while away his time in sloth? wouldst thou allow the drunkard wine, and the occasions of excess; or give the deceiver captivating form and manners, that he might entrap others? wouldst thou give the robber intrepidity and strength? These are some means, whereby each of the above hope to become happy after a manner.

  S. Oh no; not at all.

  P. So that if thou hadst at thy disposal all possible happiness, and hadst likewise the completely goodwill to bestow it, thou wouldst not unreflectingly confer it on the first comer, but wouldst previously inquire how far he might be worthy of such happiness as he aspired after? but as for thyself, thou wouldst probably, without hesitation, provide for thee whatever would conduce to thy welfare?

  S. Yes.

  P. But would not then the question occur to thee, to inquire if thou thyself wert altogether worthy of such happiness?

  S. Yes, it would.

  P. That within thee which pants for happiness, is appetite; that, again, which limits and restricts this appetite for happiness to the prior condition of thy being worthy of it, is thy reason and that thou by force of thy reason canst contain and conquer thy appetites, that is the freedom of thy will.* And in order to know what is to be done to partake of happiness, and at the same time not to become unworthy of it, the rule and the instruction lie all alone in thy reason; that is to say, it is not needful for thee to learn the rule of thy conduct from observation and experience, nor from others in education. Thy own reason teaches and commands thee forthwith what thou hast to do: e.g., suppose the case were put, that by a dexterous lie thou couldst extricate thyself or thy friend from some near embarrassment, and that without prejudice to any other,—what would thy reason say to such a matter?

  S. Reason says that I ought not to lie, be the advantages of falsehood ever so great. Lying is mean, and makes man unworthy to be happy. Here is an unconditionate injunction of reason to be obeyed, in the face of which all appetite and inclination must be silent.

  P. How dost thou call this absolute necessity of acting conformably to a law of reason?

  S. Duty.

  P. The observance, then, of a man’s duty is the only and the unchanging condition of his worthiness to be made happy; and these two are identic and the same. But admitting that thou wert conscious of such a good and effective will, whereby thou mightest deem thyself worthy, at least not unworthy, of felicity, canst thou ground upon that any certain hope of becoming one day happy?

  S. No, not upon that alone; for it is neither in our own power to secure our welfare, nor is the course of nature so adjusted as to fall in with good desert; and the chances of life depend on events over which we have no control. Our happiness must remain a bare wish, and cannot even convert itself to hope, unless some foreign power undertake it for us.

  P. Has reason any grounds for believing in, as real, any such supreme power, dealing out happiness and misery according to desert and guilt, having sway over the whole physical system, and governing the world with the extremest wisdom; i.e., to hold that god is?

  S.Yes; for we discover in those works of nature we can judge of, manifested, the traces of a wisdom so vast and profound, that we can account for it only by ascribing it to the unsearchable skill of a Creator,* from whom we deem ourselves entitled to expect a no less admirable adjustment of the world’s moral order, which latter is indeed its highest harmony; that is to say, we may one day hope to become partakers of happiness, if we do not, by our forgetfulness of duty, make ourselves unworthy of it.†

  Sec. 53.

  In this catechism, which ought to go in detail over all the virtues and vices, it is of the most vital moment that the behests of duty be not based on any advantages or inconveniences springing from their observance, to the man who stands obliged by them, no, not even on the good results accruing to others; but that abstraction being made from all such, those behests be immediately grounded on the pure moral law itself, the others may indeed be mentioned, but only by-the-by and as superfluities. It is the shame and not the damage that goes hand in hand with vice, that is at all points to be insisted on. For when the dignity of virtue in action is not extolled beyond everything, then is the very idea Duty thawed down and resolved into a mere dictate of expediency. That which ennobles and gives state to man fades out of his consciousness, and he, despoiled of the enchantment that would have guided him unscathed through life, stands venal for any price his seductive appetites may bid for him.

  When these instructions have been exactly and wisely evolved, from the reason of the pupil, according to the different stages of rank, age, or sex mankind may be presented in, then there remains yet somewhat which inly searches and shakes the soul to its foundation, and places man in a position where he can only behold himself, struck with unbounded admiration at the aspect of the originary substratum of his nature,—an impression no time can ever afterwards deface. When all his duties are briefly recapitulated to him in their order, and he is made observant at each one of them that no evils, nor tribulations, nor ills of life, no, not even imminent death, which may be threatened, if he adhere faithful to his duty, are able to lessen, or to take away his consciousness of being independent on all such, and their master: then the question lies very near him, What is that within thee that dare trust itself to go forth to encounter and to brave every vicissitude in the physical system, within thee and without thee; in the confident conviction that thou canst surmount the whole of them, if they come into collision with thy ethical resolves? When this question, which presents itself of its own accord, but which far transcends all ability of speculative reason to investigate or explore,—when this question, I say, is once laid properly to heart, then must even the incomprehensible of the might retected in this part of self-knowledge, fire the soul to unsheath a yet keener energy of reason, and prompt her to the more inly hallowing of her law, the more temptation solicits to forsake it.

  In this ethic catechetical instruction, it would conduce not a little to facilitate the advancement of the pupil, to propose, at the analysis of each duty, a few questions in casuistry, and then let the whole scholars try their skill in disentangling themselves from the puzzle. Not alone because this manner of sharpening the judgment is the very best adapted to the capacity of beginners, but especially because it is man’s nature to acquire a liking and relish for studies he is at length well versant in, and has urged to the grade of science; and thus the pupil is unawares drawn over, by unsuspected steps, to the interests of morality.

  But it is of the very last moment, in all education, not to mix up and amalgamate the religious with the moral catechism; and yet of higher, not to suffer that to precede this, but always to endeavour, with the greatest diligence and detail, to bring the understanding to the clearest insight in ethical topics; for, when the case is otherwise, religion slides imperceptibly, and in the sequel, into hypocrisy; and mankind is driven by fear, to lie in the face of his own conscience, an acknowledgment of duties in which his heart takes no share.

  PART II.

  THE ASCETIC EXERCISE OF ETHICS.

  Sec. 54.

  The rules for the exercise of virtue are intended to bring about and establish these two moods or frames of mind, viz., to make it (1) hardy and (2) cheerful in the discharge of duty. Virtue has to combat obstacles, for the vanquishing of which she has to rally all her forces; and is also sometimes summoned to quit and yield up the joys of life, the loss of which may well sadden the soul, and might even make it dark and sulky. But he who does not do what he has to do with alacrity, but renders the servile services of bondage, finds no inward worth in the obeying of the law, but dislikes it; and will shun as much as possible all occasions of observing it.

  The culture of virtue, i.e., the ethical ascetics, has, in regard of its first element, i.e., for the valiant, dauntless, indefatigable practice of virtue, no other than the old watchword of the Stoa (ἀνέχου και ἀπέχου, bear and forbear). Bear,endure the evils of life without complaint;forbear,abstain from its superfluous enjoyments. This is a kind of dietetics, enabling man to keep himself ethically in health. Health, however, is, after all, only a negative satisfaction, and is not itself capable of being made sensible. Something must be superadded (viz., the second element) to make us taste the sweet amenity of life, and which must still be only moral. This is the having a serene, gay, and ever-joyous heart, according to the sentiment of the virtuous Epicurus. And who indeed can have more reason to be contented with himself, and gay—nay, who so able, even to regard it as a duty owed by him to himself, to transplant himself into a serene and joyous frame of mind and to make it habitual—as he who is aware of no wilful transgression, and knows himself secured against a lapse (hic murus aheneus esto)? the antipart of all this, however, is the ascetic exercise of the monasteries,* which inspired by superstitious fear, and the hypocritical disesteem of a man’s own self, sets to work with self-reproaches, whimpering, compunction, and a torturing of the body, and is intended not to result in virtue, but to make expurgation for sins, where, by self-imposed punishment, the sinners expect to do penance, instead of ethically repenting of them (i.e., merely forsaking them by the undecaying energy of the representation of the law); but this custom of imposing and executing punishment upon a man’s own self (which encloses a contradiction—punishment demanding the sentence of another) cannot beget that hilarity which goes hand in hand with virtue, and would rather tend to engender a covert hatred of the behests of duty. All ethical gymnastic consists, therefore, singly in the subjugating the instincts and appetites of our physical system, in order that we remain their master in any and all circumstances hazardous to morality; a gymnastic exercise rendering the will hardy and robust, and which, by the consciousness of regained freedom, makes the heart glad. To feel compunction is inevitable on the remembrance of former sins,—it is even a duty not to suffer it to fade on such reminiscence; but this compunction, and the infliction of a penance, such as fasting, are totally distinct and disparate ethical operations, the latter whereof, understood not in a dietetical but pious sense, is cheerless, sad, and gloomy, makes virtue hateful, and scares away her supporters. The discipline exercised by man upon himself can only by its attendant hilarity and alacrity become welcome and exemplary.

  CONCLUSION OF THE ETHICS.
  
  RELIGION, AS A DOCTRINE OF THE DUTIES OWED TO GOD, FALLS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF PURE MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

  Although the last result obtained in our inquiry into the reach and extent of the à priori operations of human understanding was, that speculative reason declared the existence of God problematical; yet the belief in God being here admitted, and it being further admitted that the doctrine of religion is an integral part of the general system of the offices,* the question now raised respects the determining the boundary of the science whereof it is part. Are we to regard it as belonging to morals (to law in no event, for the rights of man cannot comprehend it)? or is it to be considered as falling out of and beyond the domains of pure moral philosophy?

  The formal of religion, explained to be “the aggregate of our duties,as if they weredivine commandments,” belongs to the philosophy of morals; since it expresses singly the relation obtaining betwixt reason and that idea of God itself evolves, and the duty to have religion is not thereby made any duty owed by us toward God, as a being existing out of and beyond our own ideas; for we expressly abstract from such existence.* That all human duties must be cogitated agreeably to this form (by referring them to a divine à priori Will), rests on a ground subjectively logical only. We cannot easily depicture to ourselves in thought, obligation (ethical necessitation), except by figuring to ourselves another and His will—God, whose vicegerent is our universally legislative reason;* but this duty in relation to the Divinity (strictly in relation to the idea we frame to ourselves of such a Being), is a duty owed by mankind to himself; i.e., is not an objective duty to perform certain services to another, but a subjective obligation only, to strengthen the ethic springs of our own legislative reason.

  As for the matter of religion, as a whole of duties toward God, and of the worship to be rendered Him, such obligations would be particular, not emanating from universally legislative reason. They could not upon this account be cognisable à priori, but could be known by experience and observation singly, that is, they would be duties of revealed religion, rested on divine commandments in the proper sense of the words; and such duties would require to set forth, not the bare idea of the Godhead for our practical behoof, but the existence of this Being as given mediately or immediately in observation and experience. A religion of this kind, however, how well founded soever it may be, can never constitute a part of pure moral philosophy.

  Religion, therefore, considered as the doctrine of the duties owed toward God, falls far beyond all limits of pure ethics; and these remarks are subjoined here in justification of the present treatise, where the author has not, with a view to its completeness, inserted, as is usual, any religious duties.

  There may undoubtedly be a doctrine of “religion within the limits of pure reason,” where it is not affirmed that the positions were originated at first by reason (for this might be too much presumption, p. 8, Vorrede Streit d. Facultäten, T.), but rest in part on historical documents and the tenets of a revelation, and where we treat only of the harmony of this last with what is taught by pure practical reason. But neither is this kind of doctrine of religion pure, but is mixed and applied to the Critique of a given document; and for this, ethics, as pure practical philosophy, can afford no room.

  Remark.—All the ethical relations obtaining betwixt Intelligents, and involving a principle of the mutual harmony of their wills with one another, may be reduced and classed along with the emotions of love and reverence; and where the principle is practical, the will’s determination upon the former points to the end of the other person, but upon the latter to his right. If now there be such a Person as to have rights only, and no duties, toward others (God), and the others, conversely, owe merely duties and have no rights, then is the principle of the ethic relation betwixt them transcendent; whereas that of man to man, whose wills reciprocally limit one another, is immanent.

  The end of the Godhead in creating, and His providence of man, we can only depicture to ourselves as an end of love, i.e., that He wills their happiness; but the principle of His will in regard of the reverence (awe) we owe Him, which limits the operations of the principle pointing to the end willed, i.e., the principle of His divine rights, can be no more than that of justice; we might, speaking as we must do after the fashion of men, lay down this position, that God created His intelligent universe that He might have somewhat to love or be loved by in turn. But then, again, as extensive, nay, more so (for the principle is restrictive, and conditions the end), is the demand, which, even our own reason tells us, divine justice, as punitive, may challenge. A reward cannot be expected, on the score of justice, from the Supreme Being, by Intelligents who have no rights, but only duties: they can only hope for it from His benignity and Love; for wages there can be no claim; and a remunerative justice is a contradiction in the relation of God to man.

  There is, however, in the idea of the judiciary function of a Being exalted beyond the possibility of any infraction of His ends, somewhat hard to be reconciled with the relation of man to God, viz., the idea of a lesion committed against the Sovereign Majesty of the Governor of the World, where the question is not of the violations of the rights of man, perpetrated by mankind upon one another, and which God might as Judge avenge; but of a lesion which, it would seem, affected the rights of God Himself; an idea altogether transcendent, i.e., which goes quite beyond the range of any punitive justice we as men can instance, and presents surd and impossible principles not capable of being brought to coincide with those employed in everyday life, and which, therefore, are for our reason blank and empty.

  This idea of divine punitive justice has been personified. It is not a particular being who dispenses it, for then it would be found contrary to the principles of justice; but justice itself cogitated in substance (called eternal justice), which, like fate in the old poets, is even above Jupiter, announces her law with an iron indeflectible necessity, the grounds of which we are unable to explore.—Of this, examples. Punishment, according to Horace, never leaves out of her sight the culprit who stalks audaciously away before her, but limps unremittingly after him until she overtake him.—Innocent blood cries for vengeance.—Crime cannot remain unavenged; and if the transgressor suffer not, yet his iniquities are visited on his posterity; or if vengeance is not in this life inflicted, it must in another, after death, which is expressly postulated and believed in, that the demand of eternal justice may be satisfied.—I will tolerate no blood-guiltiness to come over my land, said once a well-thinking prince, by granting pardon to a malignant assassinating duellist, for whom ye entreat my grace.—The debt of sins must be discharged, even though an innocent were required for a sacrifice (in which event his sorrows could not be called punishment, he having transgressed no law): hence we see, that the justice to which we attribute such decrees, is not a person administering a judiciary function (for he could not speak thus without violating the rights of others), but that bare justice as a transcendent principle, and cogitated to an invisible subject, defines the right of this personified Being. All which is in harmony, no doubt, with the formal of the principle of creation, but is contrary to its matter, the end, which must still be the happiness of mankind; for, on account of the vast multitude of criminals who allow their catalogue of sins to run on increasing, this principle of punitive justice would come to put the end of creation, not in the love of the Creator (as we cannot but think it), but in the rigid maintenance of his right (i.e., would make his right itself the end of the creation, called—the glory of God); and yet, since this justice is only a negative principle limitary of the other (benevolence), to affirm this, is contrary to the principles of practical reason, or seems to be so; for in such event, practical reason would hold that there could have been no room for creation, leading to results so contrary to the design and intention of the Author, whose end we can only depicture to ourselves to have been that of love.

  Ethics then can, as pure practical philosophy, based on man’s own inward legislation, treat singly of the relation obtaining betwixt man and man, and this is for us the alone comprehensible; but as for relations obtaining betwixt God and man, these far transcend all our powers of knowledge, and are absolutely incomprehensible: and this confirms what we advanced above, that Ethics could not extend itself beyond the boundary of the duties owed by mankind to one another.

  morrison and gibb, edinburgh, printers to her majesty’s stationery office.

  [1 ]Beck, Einzig-möglicher Standpunkt zur Beurtheilung der Critischen Philosophie, Riga, 1796.
  
  Kiesewetter, Darstellung der wichtigsten Wahrheiten der Kritischen Philosophie, Berlin, v. y.
  
  Buhle, Entwurf der Transscendental Philosophie, Göttingen, 1798, reproduced in the eighth volume of his History of Philosophy, 1804.

  [1 ]For Kant’s use of the term Metaphysic, v. p. 164; and for his definition of Metaphysic of Ethics, pp. 21 and 23, note.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [2 ]For Kant’s distinction between Reason, and other faculties of mind, v. p. 64.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from page 40.—C.

  [* ]See pp. 26 (note), 99, and 113.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]Perhaps some may think that I take refuge behind an obscure feeling, under the name of Reverence, instead of throwing light upon the subject by an idea of reason. But although reverence is a feeling, it is no passive feeling received from without, but an active emotion generated in the mind by an idea of reason, and so specifically distinct from all feelings of the former sort, which are reducible to either love or fear. What I immediately apprehend to be my law, I recognise to be so with reverence; which word denotes merely the consciousness of the immediate, unconditional, and unreserved subordination of my will to the law. The immediate determination of the will by the law, and the consciousness of it, is called reverence, and is regarded, not as the cause, but as the effect, of the law upon the person. Strictly speaking, reverence is the representation of a worth before which self-love falls; it cannot, therefore, be regarded as the object of either love or fear, although it bears analogy to both. The object of reverence is therefore alone the law, and in particular that law which, though put by man upon himself, is yet, notwithstanding, in itself necessary. As law, we find ourselves subjected to it without interrogating self-love; yet as imposed upon us by ourselves, it springs from our own will; and in the former way resembles fear, in the latter love. Reverence, even when felt for a person, results from the law whereof that person gives us the example (Cato, of integrity). If to cultivate talents be a duty, then we figure to ourselves a learned man, as if he presented to our view the image of law, enjoining us to be conformed to his example; and thus our reverence for him arises. What is called a moral interest, is based solely on this emotion.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 1, from p. 3.—C.

  [* ]As pure mathematics and logic are distinguished from the same sciences when mixed, the pure philosophy of morals (metaphysic of ethics) may be distinguished from the “mixed,” i.e., when applied to human nature and its phenomena. Such an appellative reminds us that the principles of ethics cannot be founded on any peculiarity in man’s nature, but must demand an establishment à priori, whence will flow a practical rule of life valid for all Intelligents, and so for man likewise.—(Ref. 1, from p. 3.—C.)

  [3 ]One of the greatest difficulties in the study of Kant’s Practical Philosophy is, to determine how far he distinguishes Reason from Will, and how far he identifies them. References are given on p. 40, and on p. 45.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [† ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]The dependency of the will on sense is called appetite, and it always indicates a want or need; but the dependency of the will on principles of reason is called an interest. This last obtains, therefore, only in a dependent will, not spontaneously conformed to reason. To the Divine Will no interest can be ascribed; the human will may take an interest in an action, without on that account acting out of interest: the first is the practical interest taken in an action; the second would be the pathological interest taken in the end aimed at by the action. The former indicates merely the dependency of the will on reason as such; the second, dependency on rational principles subserving an appetite, i.e., where reason assigns a rule how the wants of appetite may be best appeased. In the first case, the action interests me; in the second, the object of the action (in so far as agreeable). We saw, in the former section, that in an action out of duty the interest lay not in the object and end attained by the action, but singly in the act itself, and its principle in reason (i.e., the law).

  [* ]The systematic division of the duties I postpone to the metaphysic of ethics, and the above division is merely adopted in order to arrange my examples. By a determinate duty, however, I understand such a one as admits of no exceptions in favour of appetite; whence I arrive at both external and internal determinate obligations: and though this run counter to the common terminology of the schools, it is immaterial to my present purpose whether this be conceded to me or not.

  [* ]To behold virtue in her proper form, is just to exhibit morality divested of all false ornaments of reward or self-love. How she then eclipses whatever seems charming to sense, every man of uncorrupted reason at once perceives.

  [4 ]For evidence that Kant seems often to distinguish Reason from Will, as in this case, compare the following passages, pp. 5, 7, 11, 20, 25, 74, 81, 89, 120, 192, 230. The explanation of the nature of Reason on p. 64, may be taken for guidance in the comparison—C.

  [* ]This position is here stated as a postulate. Its ground is assigned in the next chapter.

  [5 ]As examples of passages in which Kant seems to identify Reason and Will, take pp. 25, 55, 57, 71, 72, 100, 169, 174. The description of Will, given in p. 57, may be taken as guiding the comparison.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [6 ]For a full view of Kant’s theory of the Freedom of the Will, the passage on pp. 63, 64, distinguishing between the sensible and supersensible or cogitable systems, must be taken as fundamental. Then compare pp. 63, 64, 68, 69, 72, 73, 95, 135, 137, 139, 161, 169, 175.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from page 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 2, from p. 6; and Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [† ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]See note on next page.—C.

  [7 ]For such occasional references to Consciousness as occur in discussing the Freedom of the Will, v. pp. 70, 72, 75, 95, with which, by way of contrast, may be taken p. 175.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 7, from p. 67.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 7, from p. 67.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [† ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 7, from p. 67.—C.

  [† ]Ref. 5, from p. 45; and Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [† ]Interest is that whereby reason becomes a cause practically determining the will. Hence we say of rationals only, that they have an interest in anywhat; irrationals have no more than an appetite or instinct. Reason takes an immediate interest in an action only then, when the universal validity of its maxim is the exclusive determinative of the will.* Such an interest is the alone pure. Again, the interest taken by reason in an action is then indirect and oblique, when some object of desire or particular feeling of the subject is pre-required to determine the choice; and since abstract reason cannot assign any objects of desire, nor beget any feeling pointing to such object, but these arise from observation and experience singly, such latter interest is no pure interest of reason, but is one adulterated with à posteriori grounds. Even the logical interest of reason is not immediate, but rests on the end and aim it may have of advancing its speculative extent.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 7, from p. 67.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 7, from p. 67.—C.

  [† ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [* ]It may be said of every act outwardly in harmony with the law, but which has not been performed out of naked regard had to it, that it is morally good after the letter, but not so according to the spirit, of the law.

  [* ]Pride (superbia) differs from all these. It is treated of as a vice, Met. Eth.

  [* ]Not translated.

  [† ]Although the will deflect originally from the law, it is not necessary to say anything of such causality here; for the duties imposed by the law remain the same, whatever bias a will may labour under.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]In the chapter not translated.—Tr.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57, taken with all that follows in this chapter.—C.

  [* ]Kant distinguishes between transcendental and transcendent. The former is that which, as à priori, transcends experience; the latter is that which transcends all knowledge, or, according to the terminology of his system, transcends both the sensible and the cogitable.—C.

  [8 ]For Kant’s views as to recognition of God, compare with this passage pp. 301, 306, 307.—C.

  [* ]Porro de actuali constructione hic non quæritur, cum ne possint quidem sensibiles figuræ ad rigorem definitionum effingi; sed requiritur cognitio eorum, quibus absolvitur formatio, quæ intellectualis quædam constructio est.—(C. A. Hausen, Elem. Mathem. pars i. p. 86, a. 1734.)

  [* ]The sensory may be defined the subjective of our representations, for it is the understanding which refers these representations to an object, i.e., it alone thinks to itself somewhat by means of them. Now, the subjective of a representation may be of such a sort as to be capable of being referred to an object, so as to constitute knowledge of it, and that with respect either to the form, or to the matter. In the first case it is called intuition à priori; in the second, sensation. In these cases, the receptivity is called the sensory, and is divided into the internal sense and the external. Or, otherwise, the subjective of a representation cannot become any element of knowledge, but refers singly to the subject, in which case the receptivity is called feeling. Feeling, then, is the effect of a representation, and is of the sensory, no matter whether or not the representation causing it belong to the intellect or the sensory.

  [* ]Inclination is here obviously used figuratively, and a distinction may be taken betwixt physical and ethical inclination (Neigung). An inclination to do what the law commands is no doubt morally possible, but then it must not be figured as antecedent to the law; it can only follow upon the representation of the law, when the law has determined the will.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.

  [† ]Not morally, but psychologically, as mixed.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 1, from p. 3.—C.

  [* ]The deduction of the division of a system, i.e., the proof of its completeness, and also of its continuity, i.e., that the transition from the divided notion to its subdivisions be not per saltum, is one of the most difficult tasks imposed on the architect of a system. And there is room for hesitation as to the ultimate notion, which is divided into right and wrong. It is, however, that of an act of free choice in general. Teachers of ontology generally begin with the representations, something,—nothing,—not adverting to the circumstance that these opposed conceptions are already members of a division, and presuppose a higher notion, which can be no other than that of any object whatsoever.

  [9 ]As to the possibility of external legislation, v. p. 173.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.

  [† ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 9, from p. 167.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.

  [† ]The meaning is, practical reason or pure will is the substratum of man’s moral nature, i.e., is the ground of the possibility of his freedom and independency on every sensitive determinator, and therefore freedom is not so much a predicate, as a consequence, of will. (Ref. 5, from p. 45.—C.)

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57; and Ref. 7, from p. 67.—C.

  [1 ]Viz., Equity and Necessity.

  [* ]To utter a deliberate untruth is in common speech called lying or falsehood; for it may injure the person to whom it is told, if he good-naturedly repeat it, and so render himself the laughing-stock of others. But, juridically, that alone is falsehood which directly violates the rights of man, e.g., the false narrative of a contract, instituted for the purpose of attaching the property of another. Nor is this distinction between these two kindred conceptions ill-founded; for, in any statement made by one man to another, it is entirely at the option of this last what weight he will give to what he hears. And yet, to say of any one that he is a man not to be believed, borders so near on the charge that he is a liar, that the line marking out what falls within the domain of law and what within that of ethics, is all but imperceptible.

  [* ]After this follows a course of theoretic law, which omitting, we arrive at ethics or morals strictly so called.—Tr.

  [* ]And yet man, as a moral being, does, when he considers himself objectively, and beholds in an intellectual apprehension the destiny whitherward his reason calls him, deem himself enough holy, to violate his law only unwillingly and with compunction: nor can there exist any one so irrecoverably far gone and decayed in ethical apostasy, as not to feel, in any instance of transgression, an inward warfare and self-dislike, against which he is compelled to struggle. This phenomenon, that mankind should at this conjuncture (where the fable represents Hercules betwixt Virtue and Voluptuousness) give ear rather to his appetites than to the law, is quite inexplicable; for we can explain events only by assigning a cause agreeably to the laws regulating the mechanism of the physical system; and were we to do so here, then were the will not free. Whereas it is just this double and contrary self co-action, and its inevitability, that first of all reveals to mankind that amazing quality of his nature, moral freedom.

  [* ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]This principle carries the refutation of much of the later German speculation, closely connected with the system of Kant.—C.

  [* ]Duty is a negative conception only, i.e., it expresses that the will is limited to the condition of not being repugnant to a potential legislation universal; but since no will can be devoid of ends, the assigning of an end à priori, upon grounds of practical reason, is the ordaining of a maxim to act toward such end.—Tr.

  [* ]Even in common speech we say, This is what I owe to myself.

  [† ]Ref. 4, from p. 40.—C.

  [* ]Frederick II.

  [1 ]The position, one ought never to overdo or underdo anything, says nothing, for it is tautological. What is it to overdo?Ans. To do more than is right. What is it to underdo?Ans. To do less than is right. What is meant byone ought?Ans. It is not right to do more or less than is right. If this be the wisdom to be pumped from Aristotle, we have made a bad choice in our fountain.
  
  There is betwixt truth and falsehood no mean, although there is betwixt frankness and reserve: the reserved takes care that everything he says is true; but he does not tell the whole truth, and a medium may be assigned. Now it is quite natural to ask the moralist to indicate this golden mean; which, however, cannot be done, for both virtues admit of a certain latitude, and the bounds put to candour and reserve is a matter for a man’s judgment, and so is a question falling under the pragmatic rules of prudence, and not under the imperative of morality; that is to say, the solution affects a question of indeterminate obligation, and must not be handled as if it were strict and definite. He, therefore, who obeys the laws of duty, nay, if he do more than prudence would prescribe, in a given conjuncture, commits in so far a fault; but he commits none, in so far as he rigidly adheres to his moral maxims, much less a vice in so doing; and Horace’s lines,

  • Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui
  • Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam,

  contain downright falsehood, if taken to the letter. Sapiens seems to mean a good, dog-trot, prudent man, who does not feed his imagination with any fantastic idea of perfection, which is to be aspired to, though not attained, which last exceeds man’s power, and would run up ethics into an absurdity. But to be too virtuous, i.e., too attached and devoted to duty, is as much as drawing a right line too straight, or a circle too round.

  [* ]The twofold personality in which the man who accuses and judges himself has to cogitate himself, this double self, forced on the one hand to appear trembling at the bar of a tribunal, where, on the other hand, he sits as judge, invested as his birthright with such authority, needs some explanation, lest reason seem to be involved in a contradiction with itself. I, at once accused and accuser, am numerically one and the same person, but, as the subject of the moral legislation, based on the idea Freedom (homo noumenon), I must be considered, though only for a practical behoof, as diverse from the phenomenal man endowed with reason. For a practical behoof only, we say, because speculation gives no theory, of the relation obtaining betwixt the cogitable and the sensible system. And this specific difference betwixt the real and the phenomenal man is the difference of the superior and inferior faculties by which man is characterized. The former accuse, the latter appear in defence: after closing the record, the inward judge, as he who is invested with judiciary authority, utters the doom of bliss or woe, as ethical sequents of the deed; but in this capacity (which is that of a sovereign governor) we are unable to investigate any further the sources of its power, but are constrained to stand in awe of the unconditionate jubeo or veto of our reason.

  [* ]Ref. 6, from p. 57.—C.

  [* ]This does not contradict what was said at p. 140. There the question was of à prioriknowledge. Here Kant only talks of belief.—(Tr.)

  [† ]Ref. 8, from p. 147.—C.

  [* ]A reply made by Kant to Schiller may belong to this place. The common objection in Germany to Kant’s Ethics is, that it is too rigoristical; and the poet, in his paper on grace and decorum, affirms that Kant’s ideas of duty and obligation are best fitted to produce monastic manners, being subversive of all physical grace, and proper only for slaves. Here is the answer of the philosopher. He distinguishes betwixt the idea Duty and the beneficial effects of virtue. The first admits of no grace, on account of the awe and sense of the sublime, which follow on its representation—the sublime disdaining charms and embellishment as only proper to the beautiful; but permanent effects of active virtue on him who has fulfilled his duty, may be, and often are, advantageous, and appear as graceful and decorous.
  
  “So that were the question put, Which, then, is the right determination of the Sensory wherewith duty is to be obeyed? i.e., what is the temperament of virtue?—Valiant, and by consequence joyous?—Or Anxious and dejected?—scarce any answer would be needed; so slavish a state and tone of soul never can be where the law itself is not hated; and the glad and joyous heart, on the execution of duty (not complacency in recognising it) betokens that the virtuous sentiments are genuine,—nay, is the test that piety is real,—piety consisting not in the self-reproachings of a whining sinner (a state of mind I look upon as exceedingly equivocal, and which is, for the most part, the man’s inward upbraidings at having erred against a dictate of prudential expediency), but in the steadfast, unfaltering determination to make the matter better in all time to come. And this purpose gaining in life and force by the constancy wherewith the ascetic knows he has adhered to it, must needs effectuate a joyful disposition. Apart from which, no one can be certain that he loves good, i.e., has adopted it into his maxims.”—Kant’s Religion, p. 11.—Tr.

  [* ]Ref. 8, from p. 147.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 8, from p. 147.—C.

  [* ]Ref. 8, from p. 147.—C.

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  5: Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics [1785]

  Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, B.D., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin, 4th revised ed. (London: Kongmans, Green and Co., 1889).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/360 on 2009-03-30

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE to THIRD EDITION.

  This volume contains the whole of Kant’s works on the General Theory of Ethies. It consists of four parts:—

  • I. A complete translation of the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. This work was first published in 1785.
  • II. A complete translation of the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft (first published in 1788).
  • III. A translation of the General Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Moral Philosophy (Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Sittenlehre), and of the Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (Metaph. Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre).
  • IV. The first portion of Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft,1 otherwise named Philosophische Religionslehre. This portion was first published by Kant himself separately (in 1792), and it appears to me to be indispensable to a complete view of Kant’s Ethics. The remainder of the work (first edition, 1793) does not come within the sphere of Ethics proper.

  I have added, in an appendix, a translation of Kant’s essay—Ueber ein vermeintes Recht aus Menschenliebe zu lügen (1797): Werke, ed. Rosenkr., vol. vii., which is interesting as throwing further light on Kant’s application of his principles.

  The first of these treatises and half of the second were translated by Mr. Semple (Edinburgh, 1836; reprinted 1869) in connexion with the greater part of the Metaphysik der Sitten (which is concerned with the discussion of particular virtues and vices). Mr. Semple has also translated (in a distinct volume) the Religion u. s. w.

  The edition which I have used is that of Kant’s whole works, by Rosenkranz and Schubert, vol. viii. of which contains the Grundlegung and the Kritik, and vol. x. the Religion. For convenience of reference to the original, I have given at the top of each page the corresponding pages of Rosenkranz’ edition. It is not very accurately printed; and, where the errors are obvious, I have silently corrected them; others I have noticed in foot-notes. Many of these errors seem to have been handed down through all editions from the first. Hartenstein’s edition is more carefully revised, and I have referred to it and to Kirchmann’s in cases of doubt. Kant’s grammatical errors, partly provincialisms, partly due to his age, are usually corrected by Hartenstein, but silently, which is a somewhat questionable proceeding in an editor. Amongst these errors are: uncertainty in the use of the indicative and conjunctive; “an almost thoroughgoing misuse of prepositions” (Hartenstein), and irregularities in the gender of substantives. His use of “vor” for “für” has been generally corrected by editors: where “vor” remains, the reader must remember that its retention is a matter of judgment.

  I have to express my obligation to Professor Selss for his kindness in revising the proofs, and for many valuable suggestions.

  The Memoir prefixed will, it is hoped, prove interesting.

  In the present (fourth) edition some corrections have been made.

  The Portrait prefixed is from a photograph of an oil-painting in the possession of Gräfe and Unzer, booksellers, of Königsberg. It is inferior, as a work of art, to the portrait engraved in the former edition; but as it represents Kant in the vigour of his age, and, unlike the former, has never appeared in any book, readers will probably be pleased with the substitution. I possess also a copy of a rare full-length silhouette, photographic copies of which can be supplied.

  My notes are in square brackets.

  MEMOIR OF KANT.

  Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg on the 22nd of April, 1724, thirteen years after Hume, and fourteen after Reid. His family was of Scottish origin, his grandfather having been one of the many Scotchmen who emigrated from Scotland at the end of the seventeenth century, some settling in Prussia, and some in Sweden; and he is said to have been himself the first to change the spelling of the name from Cant, which he did in order to avoid the mispronunciation Zant. His father was a saddler in modest, if not humble, circumstances. Both parents were persons of simple and sincere piety. Kant himself, although he did not sympathize with their religious views, bears the strongest testimony to the practical effect of their religion on their life. “Although,” said he, speaking warmly, “the religious ideas of that time, and the notions of what was called virtue and piety were far from being distinct and satisfactory, yet such persons had the root of the matter in them. Let men decry pietism as they may, the people who were in earnest with it were honourably distinguished. They possessed the highest that man can possess—that calm, that serenity, that inward peace which is not disturbed by any passion. No trouble, no persecution dismayed them; no contest had the power to stir them up to anger or hostility: in a word, even the mere observer was involuntarily compelled to respect them. I still remember,” added he, “how a quarrel once broke out between the harnessmakers and the saddlers about their respective privileges. My father suffered considerably; nevertheless, even in conversation amongst his own family he spoke about this quarrel with such forbearance and love towards his opponents, and with such firm trust in Providence, that although I was then only a boy, I shall never forget it.” Of his mother, especially, he ever retained a tender and grateful memory, saying, “I shall never forget my mother, for she planted and fostered the first germ of good in me: she opened my heart to the impressions of nature, she awoke and enlarged my thoughts, and her teaching has always had an enduring and wholesome influence on my life.” She died when he was only thirteen, and even in his later years he could scarcely restrain his emotion, when he related to his intimate friends how she had sacrificed her own life through her devotion to a friend. 1 Kant strongly resembled his mother in features and in his singularly contracted chest.

  At ten years of age Kant was sent to the Collegium Fridericianum, where he continued for seven years. Here he applied himself chiefly to classical studies, and learned to write Latin with ease and fluency. Of Greek he does not seem to have ever read much.

  Amongst his schoolfellows was David Ruhnken, and these two, with a third, named Kunde, read their favourite authors together and laid their plans for the future, all three proposing to devote themselves to classical literature. Ruhnken actually attained high distinction in this field. At the age of sixteen Kant passed to the University, where he applied himself chiefly to mathematics and philosophy, the instruction in his favourite subject, the ancient classics, being inadequate. He had entered himself as a theological student, and, as was then the practice with such students in Prussia, he occasionally preached in the neighbouring churches. Indeed, he had completed his theological course when he finally gave up that line of study. No doubt his tastes had been long turning in a different direction; but the immediate cause of his decision seems to have been the failure of his application for a subordinate post in a school, such posts being usually the first step to ecclesiastical appointments.

  During the latter part of his residence at the University he had been obliged to eke out his scanty means by giving instruction in classics, mathematics, and natural philosophy to some of his fellow-students, for whom the lectures of the professors were too difficult; but the little that he could earn in this way was insufficient for his support, when by his father’s death (1746) he was thrown altogether on his own resources. He therefore sought and obtained employment as a resident tutor in families of distinction. He was thus engaged for nine years, and, according to his own candid confession in later years, there was hardly ever a tutor with a better theory or a worse practice. However that may be, he certainly gained the affection of his pupils, and the respect of their parents. At the beginning of this period he published his first work—an Essay on the estimation of vis viva; and towards the end of it his second—a brief discussion of the question whether the length of the day has undergone any change, a question which had been proposed by the Berlin Academy as the subject for a prize essay. Kant argues that the tides must have the effect of retarding the earth’s rotation, and he enters into a rough calculation of the amount of this retardation, his first step to a conjectural approximation being an estimate of the effect of the impulse of the water on the whole east coast of the American continent. His suggestion was sound 1 and sagacious; but he overrated vastly the amount of the effect. He inferred that the day had lengthened by about 1½^s in two thousand years. According to Delaunay, the actual amount of retardation is 1^s in 200,000 years. This result is based on historical facts (the record of eclipses). Kant’s was a purely physical calculation, and for this he did not possess sufficient data. On account of this inevitable lack of precision, he did not offer his essay in competition for the prize.

  The same essay contained another very remarkable suggestion in explanation of the fact, that the moon always presents the same face to the earth. In fact, if the moon were originally in a fluid state the tides produced in it by the earth (which would be very great) would similarly retard its rotation until the fluid surface attained a position of equilibrium relatively to the earth, i. e. until the moon rotated round its axis in the same time that it revolved round the earth. This speculation has been recently brought forward as novel.

  The conjecture as to the moon’s original fluidity was no isolated one in Kant’s mind; on the contrary, he speaks of it as part of a general theory of the heavens, which he was about to publish. In the following year (1755), accordingly, he published (anonymously) an important work of about 200 pages, entitled, A General Theory of the Heavens; or, Essay on the Mechanical Origin of the Structure of the Universe, on the Principles of Newton. This work is an elaborate exposition of the Nebular Theory, commonly called by the name of Laplace, although Laplace’s Système du Monde was not published till forty years later (1796). The only considerable differences are, first, that Laplace supposes the condensation of the diffused matter to be the result of cooling; and, secondly, that he postulates an original movement of rotation; whereas Kant thought he could account for both condensation and rotation from the two elementary forces of attraction and repulsion. It is not easy to say whether Laplace was aware of Kant’s priority. He asserts, indeed, that he was not aware of any theory except Buffon’s (a rather extravagant one); but then Laplace never did acknowledge that he borrowed anything from anybody else. Even when he used the mathematical discoveries of contemporary Frenchmen, he introduces them as if they were his own; how much more if he adopted a suggestion of an anonymous German philosopher. If he really did calculate on the ignorance of his reader, the event has justified his expectation; for even those writers who mention Kant’s priority speak as if Kant had merely thrown out a hint, while Laplace had developed a theory; whereas, in fact, Kant wrote a treatise on the subject, and Laplace only a few pages. 1

  Kant begins by defending his attempt against the possible objections of those who might regard it as an endeavour to dispense with the necessity for a Divine Author. Such persons, he says, appear to suppose that nature, left to its own laws, would produce only disorder, and that the adaptations we admire indicate the interference of a compelling hand, as if nature were a rebellious subject that could be reduced to order only by compulsion, or else were an independent principle, whose properties are uncaused, and which God strives to reduce into the plan of His purposes. But, answers he, if the general laws of matter are themselves a result of supreme wisdom, must they not be fitted to carry out its wise design? In fact, we have here a powerful weapon in aid of Theism. When we trace certain beneficial effects to the regular working of the laws of nature, we see that these effects are not produced by chance, but that these laws can work in no other way. But if the nature of things were independent and necessary, what an astounding accident, or rather what an impossibility, would it not be that they should fit together just as a wise and good choice would have made them fit! As this applies to such reasoning in general, so it applies also to the present undertaking. We shall find that matter had certain laws imposed on it, by virtue of which it necessarily produced the finest combinations. That there is a God is proved even by this, that Nature, even in chaos, could only proceed with regularity and order.

  He proceeds to work out in detail the problem of the formation of the planets out of the originally diffused matter, taking into consideration the eccentricities, inclinations, &c., of the planets, the rings of Saturn, the satellites, the comets. It is noticeable that he does not, like Laplace, regard the rings of Saturn as an illustration of his theory. On account of their large inclination to the ecliptic (28°), he thought it necessary to assign to them a different origin. His hypothesis was, that they were produced by emanations from the planet itself, and he showed further (as Laplace afterwards did) that the ring must have a movement of rotation, and that in consequence of the different velocities belonging to different distances from the planet, its stability required that it should consist of several distinct rings. This conjecture, or rather deduction, has been verified. He also conjectured, as a result of his hypothesis regarding the formation of the ring, that the great velocity of rotation of particles of the inner ring would be the same as that of the planet’s equator. From this consideration, combined with the assumption that the ring conforms to Kepler’s third law, he deduced the time of the planet’s rotation. He drew particular attention to this as the first prediction of the kind. His deduction, however, has not been verified. Saturn’s time of rotation is nearly double what it ought to be on Kant’s theory. 1 Another conjecture of his, subsequently verified, was, that there are planets beyond Saturn. Later, he conjectured also the existence of a planet between Mars and Jupiter. 2

  Kant then extends his view to the sidereal system. He states that the first to suggest to him that the fixed stars constituted a system was Wright, of Durham. 3 Kant develops this conception. If gravitation is a universal property of matter, we cannot suppose the sun’s attractive force limited to our system; but if it extends to the nearest fixed star, and if the fixed stars, like suns, exercise a similar force around them, then they would, sooner or later, fall together if not prevented (like the planets) by a centrifugal force. Hence we may conclude that all the stars of the firmament have their own orbital motion. If we conceive our planetary system multiplied a thousand-fold, and the several bodies in it to be self-luminous, the appearance, as seen from the earth, would resemble that of the Milky Way. The form of the heaven of the fixed stars then is in great an effect of the same systematic arrangement as our system in little; our sun with the other stars are, in short, the planets of a vaster system, which is, in fact, the Milky Way. 1 There may be many such systems, and some of these may appear to us as nebulæ, and these being seen obliquely would present an elliptic form. The Milky Way seen from a sufficient distance would appear like one of these elliptic nebulæ. But these systems, again, may be mutually related, and constitute together a still more immeasurable system. This opens to us a view into the infinite field of creation, and gives us a conception of the work of God suitable to the infinity of the great Creator. If the magnitude of a planetary system in which the earth is as a grain of sand fills our understanding with wonder, with what amazement are we seized when we consider the vast multitude of worlds and systems which constitute the Milky Way; and how is this amazement increased again when we learn that all these immeasurable star systems are in their turn only a unit in a number whose limit we know not, and which is perhaps as inconceivably great as the former, while it is itself the unit of a new combination. 1 There is here a veritable abyss of immensity in which all human power of conception is lost. The wisdom, the goodness, the power, that are revealed are infinite, and in the same degree fruitful and active; the plan of its revelation must, therefore, be equally infinite. He ventures upon the conjecture (giving his reasons) that nature may in course of time be again reduced to chaos, and again emerge like a phœnix from its ashes. When we contemplate nature in these successive changes, carrying out the plan by which God reveals Himself in wonders that fill space and eternity, the mind is overwhelmed with astonishment; but not satisfied with this vast yet perishable object, the soul desires to know more nearly that Being whose intelligence and whose greatness are the source of that light which spreads as from a centre over all nature. With what awe must not the soul regard even its own nature, when it reflects that it shall outlive all these changes. “O happy,” he exclaims, “when amid the tumult of the elements and the ruin of nature it is placed on a height from whence it can, as it were, see beneath its feet the desolation of all perishable things of the world. Reason could not even dare to wish for such happiness, but Revelation teaches us to hope for it with confidence. When the fetters that have bound us to the vanity of the creature have fallen off, the immortal spirit will find itself in the enjoyment of true happiness in communion with the Infinite Being. The contemplation of the harmony of universal nature with the will of God must fill with ever-increasing satisfaction the rational creature who finds himself united to this source of all perfection. 1 Viewed from this centre, nature will show on all sides nothing but stability and fitness; its changes cannot interfere with the happiness of a creature who has reached this height. In sweet foretaste of this condition the soul can exercise its mouth in those songs of praise with which all eternity shall ring:—

  • “When nature fails, and day and night
  • Divide Thy works no more,
  • My ever-grateful heart, O Lord,
  • Thy mercy shall adore.
  • Through all eternity to Thee
  • A joyful song I’ll raise;
  • For, oh! eternity’s too short
  • To utter all Thy praise.” 2

  • Addison.

  Discussing the question, whether the planets are inhabited, he states his opinion that it would be absurd to deny this as to all or even most of them. But in the wealth of nature, in which worlds and systems are to the whole creation only sundust, there may well be waste and uninhabited places as there are uninhabited waste on our own earth. Perhaps, indeed, he adds, some of the planets are not yet brought into a state fit for habitation; it may take thousands of years to bring the matter of a great planet into a steady condition. Jupiter appears to be in this transition state. One planet may come to its perfection thousands of years later than another. 1 We may be sure that most of the planets are inhabited, and those that are not will be so in due time. He imagines that the further the planets are from the sun the more the inhabitants excel in liveliness and distinctness of thought. Indulging in fancy, he asks, Does sin exist in those worlds? and suggests that perhaps the beings in the inferior planets may be too low to be responsible; those in the superior planets too wise and too elevated to fall into sin, with the exception, perhaps, of Mars. Perhaps, he adds, some of these bodies may be preparing for our future habitation: who knows whether the satellites which revolve round Jupiter are destined one day to illumine us? “No one, however, will base his hopes of the future on such uncertain fancies. When corruption has claimed its part in human nature, then shall the immortal spirit swiftly soar above all that is finite, and continue its existence in a new relation to the whole of nature arising from its nearer relation to the Supreme Being. When we gaze on the starry heavens with our mind filled with such thoughts as have here been expressed, while all nature is at rest and our senses also in repose, the hidden faculties of the immortal soul speak in a language unutterable, and give us conceptions which can be felt but not described. If there are on this planet thinking beings so base as to bind themselves to the service of corruption, in spite of all that draws them away from it, how unhappy is this globe to produce such miserable creatures! but how happy, on the other hand, that under conditions worthy of all acceptation a way is opened to them to attain to a happiness and a dignity infinitely beyond all the advantages which the most favourable arrangements of nature can reach in all the bodies of the universe!”

  The reader who is interested in Kant himself will readily pardon this long notice of a work to which he attached some importance. At its first publication it was dedicated to the king, Frederick the Great, and the theory developed in it is frequently referred to by Kant in his subsequent writings, 1 for he never ceased to take an interest in these subjects. So late as 1785 he wrote an essay on the volcanoes in the moon, with reference to an observation of Herschel. In this Paper he suggests a mode of accounting for the great heat of the sun, and (originally) of the planets. His suggestion is based on the discovery of Crawford, that heat is developed by condensation. On the hypothesis then that the sun and planets were formed by the condensation of matter originally diffused through the whole space, this heat would be a direct consequence of the condensation. Still later, in 1794, writing on the influence of the moon on the weather, he throws out the suggestion that the moon’s centre of gravity may (for reasons which he gives) lie beyond its centre of figure: 1 a consequence of which would be that any air and water which might be upon its surface would be collected at the side remote from us.

  In another instance, both Kant and Laplace might have had reason to say, “Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.” In 1756 Kant wrote a short Paper on the theory of the winds, in which, for the first time, as he believed, he gave the true account of the trade winds and monsoons. Halley had shown that the effect of the sun in heating the atmosphere at the equator would be to cause an indraught towards the equator from north and south. This indraught, according to him, naturally followed the daily course of the sun, and hence the easting. 2 Kant showed that this theory was untenable. In fact, the wind would tend rather to meet the sun, the region to the west being the cooler. Nor could a wind from such a cause extend with nearly equal force all round the earth. Kant showed further, that owing to the difference in the velocity of rotation between the parts near the equator and those near the poles, all winds that move from the poles towards the equator tend to become more and more easterly, and those that move from the equator towards the poles become more and more westerly. 1 Hence, in the northern hemisphere every north wind tends to become a north-east, and every south wind a south-west wind. In the southern hemisphere, on the contrary, south winds tend to become south-east, and north winds north-west. He follows out in some detail the general principles of this circulation of the atmosphere. We can thus explain, for instance, the monsoons of the Indian Ocean, &c., which blow from April to September from the south-west; for when the sun is north of the equator the wind blows from the equator towards these parts, and therefore takes a south-westerly direction. Again, the current from the poles towards the equator is balanced by a counter current, the heated air in the upper strata at the equator overflowing as it were towards the poles. When this descends, or overcomes the weaker motion of the lower strata, it becomes in the northern hemisphere a westerly wind, such as prevail between the 28th and 40th degrees of latitude. Kant subsequently introduced this theory into his course of lectures on Physical Geography, which was very numerously attended. Laplace propounded the same theory forty years later.

  In 1763, Kant published his Essay On the only possible Demonstrative Proof of the Existence of God. The proof developed in this Essay is founded on the principle that every possibility of existence presupposes an actually existing thing on which it depends. This he characterizes as a more thoroughly à priori argument than any other that has been proposed, since it does not assume any actual fact of existence. I need not explain how he develops step by step the attributes of Unity, Intelligence, &c. At a later period he himself abandoned this line of argument. However, the greater part of the Essay is occupied with remarks on design in the constitution of nature, and with an exposition of the theory developed in the above-mentioned treatise on the structure of the heavens. We may, he observes, argue from design, either as exhibited in a contingent arrangement, for example, in the body of an animal or in a plant; or we may argue from the necessary results of the constitution of matter, the laws of motion, &c. The latter method has the great advantage of presenting the First Cause not merely as an architect, but as a creator. From this point of view he instances first the simplicity and harmony resulting from the geometrical conditions of space, e. g. that if we seek all the paths which a falling body would traverse either to or from the same point in the same time, they are found to be chords of the same circle. Again, he takes the manifold and harmonious benefits resulting by necessary laws from the mere fact of the existence of an atmosphere. There may be many reasons for its existence: if we suppose its primary purpose to be that it should serve for respiration, we find that its existence leads to other important beneficial results. It makes clouds possible which intercept excessive heat, prevents too rapid cooling and drying, and keeps the land supplied with the necessary moisture from the great reservoir of the sea. By causing twilight it prevents the strain on the eyes which would be caused by the sudden change from day to night. Its existence prevents rain from dropping with too great force, and its pressure makes sucking possible. If it occurs to anyone to say—Oh, these are all the necessary results of the nature of matter, &c., he answers: Yes; it is just this that shows that they proceed from a wise Creator. He treats of the laws of motion from the same point of view, and then takes occasion to show how the laws of the planetary motions result from the simplest laws of matter, attraction, and repulsion.

  In conclusion, he remarks that while it is of the greatest consequence to be convinced of the existence of God, it is by no means necessary to have a demonstration of it, and those who cannot grasp the demonstrative proof are advised to hold fast by the more easily apprehended proof from design. Hardly, indeed, he observes, would anyone stake his whole happiness on the correctness of a metaphysical proof, especially if it were opposed to the convictions of sense. The argument from design is more striking and vivid, as well as easy to the common understanding, and more natural than any other. It also gives an idea of the wisdom and providence, &c., of God, which comes home and has the greatest effect in producing awe and humility; and it is in fine more practical than any other, even in the view of a philosopher. It does not, indeed, give a definite abstract idea of Divinity, nor does it claim mathematical certainty; but so many proofs, each of great force, take possession of the soul, and the speculation may calmly follow since conviction has preceded—a conviction far above the force of any subtile objections.

  In the same year in which Kant published his Theory of the Heavens, he issued his first metaphysical treatise, Principiorum Primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicœ Nova Dilucidatio, and publicly defended it as an exercise prior to his obtaining permission to deliver lectures in the University as a “Privat-docent.” He forthwith commenced lecturing on mathematics and physics; to these subjects he afterwards added lectures on philosophy, natural theology, physical geography, anthropology, and fortification. He had already so great a reputation, that at his first lecture the room (in his own house) was filled literally to overflowing, the students crowding even on the stairs. His lectures are thus described by the celebrated Herder, who attended them in the years 1762-1764; “I have had the good fortune to know a philosopher who was my teacher; he had the happy sprightliness of a youth, and this I believe he retains even in old age. His open, thoughtful brow was the seat of unruffled calmness and joy; discourse full of thought flowed from his lips; jest and wit and humour were at his command, and his lecture was the most entertaining conversation. With the same genius with which he criticised Leibnitz, Wolf, Crusius, Hume, and expounded the laws of Newton and Kepler, he would also take up the writings of Rousseau, or any recent discovery in nature, give his estimate of them, and come back again to the knowledge of nature and to the moral worth of man. Natural history, natural philosophy, the history of nations and human nature, mathematics, and experience—these were the sources from which he enlivened his lecture and his conversation. Nothing worth knowing was indifferent to him; no party, no sect, no desire of fame or profit had the smallest charm for him compared with the advancement and elucidation of the truth. He encouraged and urged to independent thought, and was far from wishing to dominate. This man, whom I name with the greatest gratitude and reverence, is Immanuel Kant; his image stands pleasantly before me.” His lectures attracted many hearers of mature age, and visitors to Königsberg even prolonged their stay for the purpose of attending them. At the same time he continued to act as tutor to young men specially entrusted to his care, who lived with him.

  He had to wait fifteen years in the position of “Privat-docent” before obtaining a professorship. He had, indeed, been offered a professorship by the Government before this, but it was almost the only chair which he felt he could not worthily fill—the Chair of Poetry. This involved not only the censorship of new poems, but the composition of poems for academic celebrations, and Kant declined the office. In the following year he was appointed sub-librarian at the modest salary of 62 thalers. This was his first official appointment (œt. 42). Four years later he was nominated to the professorship of Logic and Metaphysics 1 , with an income (from all sources) of 400 thalers. This was ultimately increased to 620. This was of course exclusive of fees from students. He inaugurated his professorship by defending his essay, De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis. In this he distinguishes the sensible apprehension of phenomena from the Concept of the Understanding, just as in the Critique of Pure Reason. He shows, precisely as in the latter work, that space and time are forms of the intuitions of sense.

  As professor, he continued to lecture in the same wide circle of subjects as before. The lectures on physical geography and anthropology were especially popular. He was fond of studying nature, but especially human nature in all its phases, and took great pleasure in reading books of travel, although he never travelled. Having an excellent memory and a lively power of imagination, he could distinctly picture to himself, even in minute detail, the several objects described. On one occasion he described Westminster Bridge, its form, dimensions, &c., with such detail and distinctness, that an Englishman who was present thought he was an architect, and had spent some years in London. At another time he spoke of Italy as if he had known it from long personal acquaintance. So popular were his lectures, that we find Von Zedlitz, the Prussian Minister, writing from Berlin to say that he is reading with pleasure an imperfect manuscript report of the lectures on Physical Geography, and requesting Kant to favour him with a correct copy. These lectures were published in 1802. The lectures on Anthropology had appeared in 1798. Both works are written in an extremely interesting and popular style, and those on Anthropology are full of entertaining remarks and illustrative anecdotes, not without humour. Thus speaking of the emotions that nature employs for the promotion of health, which are chiefly laughing and weeping, he remarks that anger also conduces to health, if one can indulge in a good scolding without fear of opposition; and in fact many a housewife gets no hearty exercise, except in scolding her children and servants, and provided these take it patiently, a pleasant feeling of fatigue spreads itself through the organism. This sort of exercise, however, he adds, is not without danger, as the objects of the scolding may possibly resist. Even when lecturing on Metaphysics, Kant is said to have been lucid and interesting. When the difficulty of his writings was complained of, he used to say that he wrote for thinkers by profession, and with these technical expressions had the advantage of brevity. Besides, said he, it flatters the vanity of the reader to find perplexities and obscurities here and there, which he can solve by his own acuteness. But in his lectures he endeavoured to be clear and intelligible. He sought, as he expressed it, to teach “not philosophy, but to philosophize.” In one of his letters he states that he was unceasingly observant of phenomena and their laws, even in common life, so that, from first to last, his hearers should not have to listen to a dry exposition, but be interested by being led to compare his remarks with their own observations.

  It was his custom to keep his eyes fixed on some particular student sitting near him, perhaps in order to judge from the hearer’s countenance whether he was making himself understood. So Arago, in his popular lectures, used to select for the same purpose the most stupid-looking person in the audience, continuing his explanations until the person “fixed” showed signs of intelligence. With Kant, however, the consequences were disastrous if the student happened to have any peculiarity or defect, either in person or dress. One day the student thus selected happened to have lost a button from his coat. Kant’s glance recurred to the vacant spot, and during the whole lecture his thoughts were distracted, and even confused, in a manner inexplicable to those who were not in the secret.

  He did not like to see his hearers taking notes; but would say, “Put up your pencils, gentlemen,” and would not begin until they had done so. The reason of this was that he thought such attempts at reporting interfered with their attention to the matter of the lecture, by fixing it on the words. Some of his hearers took full notes, nevertheless.

  In 1772 he formed the design of writing a Critical Examination of Pure Reason, Theoretical and Practical, the former part of which he hoped to complete in three months. The months grew to years. Six years later he writes that he expects it to appear “this summer,” and that it would not be a large volume. It did not see the light, however, until 1781, nine years after he had announced that it would be ready in three months. When this master-work was produced, Kant was fifty-seven years of age. He states himself that it was Hume that roused him from his dogmatic slumber, and compelled him to seek a solid barrier against scepticism. 1

  It is stated on Kant’s own authority that he did not commit to writing a single sentence in this work, on which he had not first asked the judgment of his friend Green. A man to whom Kant showed such deference deserves a brief notice. He was an English merchant, and during the American War of Independence happened to be present when Kant, who sympathized with the Americans, denounced the conduct of England in strong terms. Green sprang up in a rage, declared that Kant’s words were a personal insult to him as an Englishman, and demanded satisfaction. Kant replied so calmly and persuasively that Green shook hands with him, and they became fast friends, and continued so until the death of Green in 1784, a loss which Kant deeply felt.

  Of the Critique of Pure Reason I need not here speak. Suffice it to say, that as Locke’s attempt to keep the mind from “going beyond its tether” was followed at no long interval by the Idealism of Berkeley, and the annihilating Scepticism of Hume, so Kant’s analogous attempt led in a still shorter space to the most complete idealism and transcendentalism. Indeed his reviewers not unnaturally mistook him for an idealist, and Hamann called him the Prussian Hume. The work excited a lively controversy in the philosophical world, but most of the publications to which it gave rise have been long forgotten. Kant’s fame, however, rose to the highest, and Königsberg became a shrine to which students and tourists made pilgrimages.

  The Critique of Pure Reason was to be followed by the Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy and of Moral Philosophy. The former appeared in 1786, under the title Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft.1 The views respecting motion with which this treatise commences had, however, already been published as a programme of lectures in 1758. Motion is only relative to the surrounding space. While I sit with a ball on the table before me in the cabin of a ship moored in a river, I say that the ball is at rest; I look out and see that the ship has been unmoored, and is drifting westward; the ball then is moving. But I reflect that the earth is rotating with greater velocity eastward; the ball then is moving eastward. Nay; for the earth in its orbit is moving westward with still higher speed. The orbit itself is moving, I cannot tell how rapidly, nor do I know in what direction. In any case then it is the same thing whether I regard a point as moving in its space, or regard the space as moving and the point as at rest. Hence the law of the composition of motions results directly; for if A be a point having a motion of one foot per second westward, and two feet per second southward, I can regard it as having only the southward motion, while the space in which it is, is moving one foot per second eastward. At the end, therefore, of one second, the point will be found two feet to the south; and as its space in moving east has left it one foot behind, it will also be one foot west, relatively to its surrounding space. This is the same as if it had moved in the diagonal of the parallelogram. Kant claimed as an advantage of this proof, that it represented the resultant motion, not as an effect of the two motions, but as actually including them. It is incomparably simpler and more philosophical than the proof given by D’Alembert, and other contemporary mathematicians. When we treat of collision of bodies, this mode of viewing the matter becomes absolutely indispensable. If the body A is approaching the body B (equal to it) with a velocity of two degrees, we regard A as moving with a speed of one degree, while B and its space move one degree in the opposite direction. The motions being equal and opposite, the result of their contact is mutual rest; but, as the space is moving, this rest is equivalent to a motion of the two bodies in contact, relative to the surrounding space, and in amount one degree. If the bodies are unequal and have unequal velocities, we have only to divide the velocities in the inverse proportion of the masses, and assign to the space the motion which we take from one to add to the other, and the result will again be mutual rest, which is equivalent to a motion of the bodies in contact, with a velocity equal and opposite to what we have assigned to the space. We can in this way banish altogether the notion of vis inertiœ.

  Matter could not exist unless there were both a repulsive force and an attractive force. If attraction only existed, matter would be condensed into a point; if repulsion only, it would be dispersed infinitely. The relative incompressibility of matter is nothing but the repulsive force emanating from points, which increases as the distance diminishes (perhaps inversely as the cube), and would therefore require an infinite pressure to overcome it altogether. Physical contact is the immediate action and reaction of incompressibility. The action of matter on matter without contact is what is called actio in distans, and the attraction of gravitation is of this kind. Both attraction and repulsion being elementary forces, are inexplicable, but the force of attraction is not a whit more incomprehensible than the original repulsive force. Incompressibility appears more comprehensible, solely because it is immediately presented to the senses, whereas attraction is only inferred. It seems at first sight a contradiction to say that a body can act where it is not; but in fact we might rather say, that everything in space acts where it is not; for to act where it is, it should occupy the very same space as the thing acted on. To say that there can be no action without physical contact is as much as to say that matter can act only by the force of incompressibility: in other words, that repulsive forces are either the only forces of matter or the conditions of all its action, which is a groundless assertion. The ground of the mistake is a confusion between mathematical contact and physical contact. That bodies attract one another without contact, means that they approach one another according to a certain law, without any force of repulsion being required as a condition; and this is just as conceivable as that they should separate from one another without an attractive force being supposed as a condition. 1

  Kant, however, thought it conceivable that in the case of chemical solution there might be complete interpenetration or “intussusception.” On this view of matter we may, he remarks, regard matter as infinitely divisible.

  The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals had appeared the year before the last-mentioned work, and was followed in 1788 by the Critical Examination of Practical Reason. Both these are translated in the present volume. The few remarks I have to offer on them will be found at the end of the Memoir. In 1790 was published the Critical Examination of the Faculty of Judgment.

  The essay on the corruption of human nature, which forms the third part of this volume, appeared in 1792 in a Berlin magazine. Four years before this an edict had been issued, limiting the freedom of the Press, and appointing special censors, whose business was to examine as to the orthodoxy, not only of books, but of professors, lecturers, and theological candidates. The magazine in question was printed in Jena; but in order to avoid any appearance of underhand dealing, Kant expressly desired that his essay should be submitted to the Berlin licensing authority, who gave his imprimatur, on the ground that only deep thinkers read Kant’s works. The second part of the work on the Theory of Religion was referred to the theological censor, who refused his imprimatur. Kant accordingly submitted his essay to the censorship of the theological faculty of Königsberg, and this unanimously sanctioned the publication, which reached a second edition in the following year. The Berlin censors were naturally annoyed at this way of escaping their decision, and the severe remarks in the preface did not tend to conciliate them. A few months afterwards Kant received an order from the King (Frederick William II.), forbidding him to teach or write anything further in this manner. Kant did not mention the order even to his intimate friends. A slip of paper, found after his death, contained this reflection: “To deny one’s inner conviction is mean, but in such a case as this silence is the duty of a subject; and, although a man must say only what is true, it is not always a duty to say all the truth publicly.” He therefore, in his reply to the King, declared that to avoid all suspicion, he, “as his Majesty’s most loyal subject,” solemnly engaged to refrain from writing or lecturing on religion, natural or revealed. The words, “as your Majesty’s most loyal subject,” were inserted with the intention of limiting his engagement to the life of the King, and on the death of Frederick William in 1797, Kant regarded himself as free, and published his Contest of the Faculties (i. e. of the Academical Faculties).

  In 1797 Kant ceased to lecture publicly. In the same year he published his Metaphysical Elements of Morals, which treats of the several virtues and vices in detail, 1 and Metaphysical Elements of Law. After the publication of these, he seems to have been regarded as a counsellor to be consulted in all difficulties, and an authority in all questions of conscience. The pains he took to give real assistance in such cases, both by his own reflection, and by inquiring from his colleagues, are attested by his written and often corrected memoranda. As an example may be mentioned the question whether inoculation was morally allowable or not. This question was addressed to him at the same time by a Professor of Medicine in Halle, and by a young nobleman who was going to be married, and whose bride wished to be inoculated. Kant’s reply is not known, although some memoranda for it exist.

  After this time he began to feel the burden of age, and his powers, mental and bodily, gradually failed. He was quite aware of his condition, and resigned. “Gentlemen,” said he one day, “I do not fear to die. I assure you, as in the presence of God, that if on this very night, suddenly the summons to death were to reach me, I should bear it with calmness, should raise my hands to heaven, and say, ‘Blessed be God!’ Were it indeed possible that such a whisper as this could reach my ear—‘Fourscore years thou hast lived, in which time thou hast inflicted much evil upon thy fellow-men,’ the case would be otherwise.” This was spoken, says Wasianski, in a tone of earnest sincerity. Two days after his seventy-ninth birthday he wrote in his memoranda: “According to the Bible our life lasts seventy years, and if very long, fourscore years, and though it was pleasant, it has been labour and sorrow.” 1 Up to this time he was able to read the smallest print without spectacles, although he had lost the sight of one eye nearly twenty years before. But soon after he had written this memorandum his sight also failed, and he died in February, 1804, in his eightieth year. His body was so dried up that the physicians said they had hardly ever seen so wasted a body. Indeed he had himself said jestingly some years before, that he thought he had reached the minimum of muscular substance. 2

  Kant was of weak frame, and still weaker muscular power; he was barely five feet in height. 3 His chest was flat, almost concave, the right shoulder slightly crooked, his complexion fresh, his forehead high, square, and broad, while his piercing blue eyes made so lively an impression that it was long remembered by some of his pupils. Even after he had lost the sight of one eye, the defect was not visible to a stranger. In consequence of his contracted chest he suffered from a feeling of oppression, which early in life caused a tendency to hypochondria, to such an extent as even to make him feel weary of life. This, however, he overcame by force of thought. When engaged on the Kritik, in 1771, he speaks of his health being seriously impaired, and some years later he says that it is unceasingly broken; yet by dint of careful attention and great regularity he was able, without medical aid, to maintain such good health on the whole, that at a later period he used to say to himself on going to bed, “Is it possible to conceive any human being enjoying better health than I do?” His maxim for preserving health was, sustine et abstine. His practice illustrated this. The two indulgences of which he was found were tobacco and coffee. But of the former he limited himself to a single pipe in the morning, whilst he altogether abstained from the latter until far advanced in life, thinking it injurious to health. At the age of seventy he wrote an essay, On the Power of the Mind to Master the Feeling of Illness by Force of Resolution.1 The essay was originally addressed to Hufeland, the celebrated author of the treatise on the Art of Prolonging Life, and the principles contained in it are exemplified from Kant’s own experience. He attached great importance to the habit of breathing through the nostrils instead of through the mouth, and asserted that he had by this means overcome a tendency to cough and cold in the head. There is more truth in this than is perhaps generally thought. 2 Kant, however, is said to have regarded it as of so much importance that he did not like to have a companion in his daily walk, lest he should have to open his mouth. The true reason of this preference (in later life only) for solitary walks was, beyond doubt, that which is mentioned in this essay, that it is undesirable to exercise the limbs and the brain (or the brain and the stomach) at the same time.

  His punctilious attention to health is amusingly illustrated by the artifice he used for suspending his stockings. Thinking that garters injuriously impeded the circulation, he had a couple of bands attached to each stocking, and passing through a hole in the pocket of his breeches. Inside the pocket they were connected with a spring enclosed in a box, and this spring regulated the tension. That he might not be without some exercise in his study, he habitually left his handkerchief at the other side of the room, so that now and then he should have to get up and walk to it. On the same principle his hours of sleep, &c., were adhered to with the utmost regularity. He went to bed punctually at ten, and rose punctually at five. His servant had orders not to let him sleep longer on any account; and on being asked once by Kant, in presence of guests, testified that for thirty years his master had never once indulged beyond the appointed hour. On rising he took a cup (indefinite cups) of tea, but no solid food. The early hours were devoted to preparation for his lectures, which in his earlier years occupied four or five hours, but subsequently only two. At seven o’clock precisely, or eight, as the case might be, he entered his lecture-room. Lectures ended, at nine or ten, he returned to his study, and applied himself to preparing his books for the press. He worked thus without interruption until one o’clock, the hour for dinner. This was his only meal, and he liked to have pleasant company, and to prolong the meal (ducere cœnam) with lively, sometimes brilliant conversation, for three or four hours. Kant had no Boswell, and nothing is preserved of these conversations, in which he is said to have often thrown out profound and suggestive remarks with extraordinary richness. 1 Until his sixty-third year, not having a house of his own, he dined at a public restaurant, which, however, he occasionally found it necessary to change, in consequence of persons coming for the purpose of discussing philosophical questions with him. He considered that meal-time ought to be a time of perfect mental relaxation, and was not disposed to turn the dinner table into a lecture pulpit. His afternoons were, however, often spent at the houses of his friends, where he enjoyed meeting foreign merchants, sea captains, and travelled scholars, from whom he might learn much about foreign nations and countries. His instructive and entertaining conversation, flavoured with mild satiric humour, made him a welcome guest, and even with the children he was a favourite. After he became famous he declined invitations if he thought he was to be made a lion of.

  When he had a house of his own, he had every day a few friends to dine with him. He liked to have a mixed company—merchants, professional men, and especially a few younger men. After dinner followed regularly his daily walk for an hour or more, along what was from him named “The Philosopher’s Walk,” until he was driven from it by the number of beggars whom his habit of almsgiving had attracted there. 1 Even the severest weather did not interfere with this daily walk, in which in his earlier years he usually had companions; after sixty years of age he walked alone, for the reason already mentioned.

  He had on one occasion a narrow escape from assassination. A lunatic, who had made up his mind to kill some one, waylaid Kant for the purpose, and followed him for three miles, but on reflection, thinking it a pity to kill an old professor who must have so many sins on his head, the unfortunate madman killed a child instead.

  The evening was devoted to lighter reading and meditation. He would read over and over again such books as Don Quixote, Hudibras, Swift’s Tale of a Tub, Juvenal, and Horace. In his later years he was especially fond of reading books on physical science, and books of travel. Purely speculative works he cared little for, but liked to read Locke, Hutcheson, Pope, Hume, Montaigne, Rousseau.

  How unwilling Kant was to depart from his regular routine appears from a characteristic anecdote. One day as he was returning from his walk, a nobleman who was driving came up with him, and politely invited him to take a drive with him as the evening was fine. Kant yielded to the first impulse of politeness, and consented. The Count, after driving over some of his property near the city, proposed to visit a friend some miles from the town, and Kant of course could not refuse. At last Kant was set down at his own door near ten o’clock, full of vexation at this violation of his regular habits. He thereupon made it a fixed rule never to get into a carriage that he had not hired himself, so that he could manage it as he pleased. When once he had made such a resolution, he was satisfied that he could not be taken by surprise, and nothing would make him depart from it.

  So his life passed, says one of his biographers, like the most regular of regular verbs.

  Punctual, however, as he was, his punctuality did not come up to the standard of his friend Green. One evening Kant had promised that he would accompany Green in a drive the next morning at eight. At a quarter before eight Green was walking up and down his room, watch in hand; at fifty minutes past seven he put on his coat, at fifty-five he took his stick, and at the first stroke of eight entered his carriage and drove off; and although he met Kant, who was a couple of minutes late, he would not stop for him, because this was against the agreement and against his rule. This gentleman, for whom Kant had a great esteem, served as the model for the description of the English character in the Anthropologie. Kant’s savings were invested with this Mr. Green, and allowed to accumulate at 6 per cent. interest.

  Kant is said to have been on two occasions on the point of marrying, or at least of making a proposal, but he took so long to calculate his incomings and outgoings with exactness, in order to see whether he could afford it, that the lady in the first case was married, and in the second had left Königsberg before he had made up his mind. When he was seventy years of age, an officious friend actually printed a dialogue on marriage, with a view to persuade the philosopher to marry. Kant reimbursed him for the expense of printing, but at that age, not unnaturally, thought the advice rather too late. How sensible he was to the charms of female society appears from the Essay On the Sublime and Beautiful, p. 426 ff, where he discusses the difference between the sublime and beautiful in the natural relations of the sexes.

  Kant’s personal character is described, by those who knew him best, as truly childlike. He was kind-hearted and actively benevolent; of rare candour in estimating the abilities of other men, with high respect for every thing that was noble or deserving; always disposed to recognise the good rather than the bad in men’s characters. He was always ready with counsel and assistance for the young. His modesty towards scholars of great fame almost degenerated into shyness.

  As may be supposed from the regularity of his habits, he never allowed himself to run into debt. When a student at the University, with very narrow means, his only coat had once become so shabby, that some friends subscribed a sum of money, which was offered to him in the most delicate manner possible for the purchase of a new one. Kant, however, preferred to retain his shabby coat rather than incur debt or lose his independence. 1 In his old age he boasted that he had never owed any man a penny, so that when a knock came to his door he was never afraid to say, “Come in.” When his means had increased (chiefly through the profits on his writings), he assisted such of his relatives as were in want in the most liberal manner. On the death of his brother, he assigned to the widow a pension of 200 thalers. Many poor persons also received a weekly allowance from him, and Wasianski, who in later years managed Kant’s affairs for him, states that his charitable expenses amounted to about 400 thalers annually.

  His kindness was shown in his last will, in which he left an annual sum to a servant who had treated him shamefully, but who had served him (not indeed faithfully) for thirty years. Kant had dismissed him two years before, with a pension, on condition of his never setting foot inside the house again. After some other small legacies, the residue was left to the children of his brother and sisters. The whole amount was under four thousand pounds.

  The principal questions on the Theory of Morals may, with sufficient accuracy for the present purpose, be said to be these: First, the purely speculative question, What is the essential nature of moral rightness? Secondly, the practical questions, What is to man the criterion of his duty? and what is the foundation of obligation? The additional question, By what faculty do we discern right and wrong? is properly a psychological one.

  If we had only to do with a being in whom Reason was irresistibly dominant, we should not need to raise any further questions; but having to treat of a being with affections and appetites distinct from Reason, and not of themselves dependent on it, we must answer the further question: How is Reason to maintain its authority in spite of these resisting forces? i.e. What is the Motive? Lastly, since we have to deal with a corrupt creature, a new question arises: How is such a creature to be reformed?

  Now how does Kant deal with these questions? His categorical imperative—Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of Nature—gives perhaps not the essence of virtue, but a property of it, which may indeed serve as a subjective criterion. That this criterion is formal only, and therefore empty, is hardly of itself a valid objection. The test of valid reasoning, the syllogism, is equally empty. The categorical imperative is, however, rather negative than positive, and it is far from being sufficiently clear as a test of the morality of actions. This appears even in the examples which Kant himself gives. For example, treating of Compassion, he supposes that if a man refuses aid to the distressed, it is out of selfishness, and then shows that if selfishness was the ruling principle, it would contradict itself. But why assume a motive for refusing help? What we want is a motive for giving help. There is nothing contradictory in willing that none should help others. So in the case of gratitude, there is no contradiction in willing that those who receive benefits should entertain no peculiar feeling toward their benefactor. It is true we should look for it ourselves, but this implies that such a feeling is natural to man, and that we approve it. Again, put the case of self-sacrifice of a man giving his life to save his friend; it would seem as easy on Kant’s principle to prove this a vice as a virtue.

  Kant has in fact treated human nature too abstractly. In eliminating the “matter” he has eliminated that on which frequently the whole question turns. Indeed, in some of the instances he himself chooses, he elicits a contradiction only by bringing in a teleological consideration; e. g. as to suicide, he brings in the end for which self-love was given. The will to destroy one’s own life is not contradictory of the will to sustain it, unless the circumstances be supposed the same.

  These remarks, however, only show that the formula is not a mechanical rule of conduct; they do not disprove its scientific value. In fact precisely similar objections have been alleged against the logical analysis of speculative reasoning, that it leaves untouched what in practice is the most difficult part of the problem. If all poisonous substances could be brought under a single chemical formula, the generalization would be of value both theoretically and practically, although its application to particular cases might be difficult and uncertain. Kant never attempted “to deduce a complete code of duty from a purely formal principle;” 1 he expressly states that this is only a negative principle, and that the matter of practical maxims is to be derived from a different source (cf. the present work, p. 299). Nor is it to be supposed that Kant was not fully aware of the difficulty of applying his formula to the complex circumstances of actual life. In his Metaphysic of Morals he states a great number of questions of casuistry, which he leaves undecided, as puzzles or exercises to the reader. And indeed similar difficulties might be raised, from a speculative point of view, respecting the rule, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them”—a rule of which we may nevertheless say that in practice it probably never misled anyone, for everyone sees that the essence of it is the elimination of self-partiality and inward dishonesty. The scientific basis of it is stated by Clarke in language nearly equivalent to Kant’s. The reason of it, says the former, is the same as that which forces us in speculation to affirm that if one line or number be equal to another, that other is equal to it. “Whatever relation or proportion one man in any case bears to another, the same that other, when put in like circumstances, bears to him. Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable for another to do for me, that, by the same judgment, I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I in the like case should do for him.” 1 Kant’s rule is a generalization of this, so as to include duties to ourselves as well as to others. As such it has a real scientific value. Practically, its value consists, like that of the golden rule, in the elimination of inward dishonesty.

  Mr. Mill’s criticism on Kant’s formula is, that when we speak of a maxim being “fit” to be a universal law, it is obvious that some test of fitness is required, and that Kant, in fact, tests the maxims by their consequences; as if the whole gist of Kant’s argument were not that the only test of this fitness is logical possibility; or as if this were not the one thing expressed in his formula. As to testing maxims by consequences, he does so in the same sense in which Euclid in indirect demonstrations tests a hypothesis by its consequences, and in no other, i. e. by the logical consequences, not the practical. Take the case of a promise. In Kant’s view, the argument against the law permitting unfaithfulness is not that it would be attended with consequences injurious to society, but that it would annihilate all promises (the present included), and therefore annihilate itself. Of inconvenience to society not a word is said or implied. Hence Kant’s objection rests wholly on the absolute universality of the supposed law, whereas the Utilitarian objection from practical consequences would be applicable in a proportionate degree to a law not supposed universal. Hence, also, Kant’s test would hold even if the present promise were never to be followed by another; nay, it would be of equal force even though it should be proved that it would be better for society that there should be no verbal promises.

  It has been said 1 that in applying Kant’s formula we must qualify it by introducing the consideration of the probability that our example or rule will be generally followed; and the instance of celibacy has been suggested, which, it is said, would be necessarily condemned as a crime if tested by Kant’s rule, pure and simple; for if all men practised celibacy there would be an end of the race, and, on the “greatest happiness” principle, to effect this would be the worst of crimes. Now, if a qualification were required, or admissible, Kant’s formula would be deprived of all scientific significance, and its application made dependent on private and uncertain opinion. As to the example of celibacy, Kant has himself indicated how he would dispose of it by the way in which he treats suicide. He does not show its unlawfulness by alleging that if everyone committed suicide the human race would come to an end, but by exposing the inconsistency in the principle of action which would lead to suicide. In every case it is the mental principle which is to be tested, not the mere external action. Bearing this in mind, we shall find no difficulty in the case of celibacy. It may proceed from motives which there would be no absurdity in supposing universal, because the circumstances which give them this particular direction could only be exceptional. But, suppose celibacy recommended on grounds which are in their own nature universal, e.g. as a condition of moral perfection, then Kant’s formula would properly apply, for moral perfection is an end to be aimed at by all. One might just as well say that Kant’s rule would make all killing criminal, whereas Kant would obviously require us to take into account the motive, self-defence, or other. On the other hand, apply Mr. Sidgwick’s qualification, and what would result? Why, that we might innocently kill, provided the action were not likely to be generally imitated! If occasional celibacy is justified only because there exists a natural passion which is sure to be usually powerful enough to prevent the example being followed, then we may equally justify occasional violence or murder on the ground that fear or benevolence will naturally prevent the action from being extensively imitated.

  Kant’s view of the source of obligation in the Autonomy of the will appears to require qualification if we would avoid a contradiction. A law must be above the nature to which it is a law, and which is subject to it. A being which gave itself the moral law, and whose freedom, therefore, is Autonomy, would not be conscious of obligation or duty, since the moral law would coincide with its will. Kant draws the apparently self-contradictory conclusion that we, though willing the law, yet resist it. Even if this be granted, it would follow, not that we should feel obliged, but that either no action at all would follow, or the more powerful side would prevail. That we condemn ourselves when we have violated the law is an important fact, on which Kant very strongly insists, but which his theory fails to explain. Is it not a far simpler and truer explanation to say that this self-condemnation, this humiliation in the presence of an unbending judge, is a proof that we have not given ourselves the law; that we are subjects of a higher power? 1 There is, indeed, a sense in which Autonomy may be truly vindicated to man. The moral law is not a mere precept imposed upon us from without, nor is it forced upon us by our sensitive nature; it is a law prescribed to us, or, more correctly speaking, revealed to us, by our own Reason. But Reason is not our own in the sense in which our appetites or sensations are our own; it is not under our own control; it bears the stamp of universality and authority. Thus it declares itself impersonal: in other words, what Reason reveals we regard as valid for all beings possessed of intelligence, equal or superior to our own. Hence, many ethical writers, both ancient and modern, have insisted as strongly as Kant that the moral law is common to man with all rational creatures. 2 And when Kant speaks of Autonomy, this is all that his argument requires. Accordingly, he sometimes speaks of rational creatures as the subjects of Reason, which is the supreme legislator.

  As regards the sanctions of the moral law, which practically to imperfect creatures furnish the motive, these consist, according to Kant, in the happiness and misery which are the natural consequences of virtue and vice, and he thinks that when they are regarded as natural consequences, the dread of the misery will have more effect than if it were thought to be an arbitrary punishment. “The view into an illimitable future of happiness or misery is sufficient to serve as a motive to the virtuous to continue steadfast in well-doing, and to arouse in the vicious the condemning voice of conscience to check his evil course.” 1 In this Kant agrees with Cumberland. Kant’s argument for immortality is in substance that it is necessary for a continued indefinite approximation to the ideal of the moral law. But since, as he maintains, we have ourselves to blame for not having attained this ideal, what right have we to expect such an opportunity? Having missed the true moment in his argument, which led to the existence of a Supreme Lawgiver, he arrived at this fundamental truth by a roundabout way, through the conception of the summum bonum. But this introduces a quite heterogeneous notion, viz., that of happiness. Happiness belongs to a man as a sensible creature, and all that he has a right to say is, that if Practical Reason had happiness to confer, it would confer it on virtue. How much more direct and convincing is the argument suggested by Butler’s brief words: “Consciousness of a rule or guide of action, in creatures who are capable of considering it as given them by their Maker, not only raises immediately a sense of duty, but also a sense of security in following it, and of danger in deviating from it. A direction of the Author of Nature, given to creatures capable of looking upon it as such, is plainly a command from him; and a command from him necessarily includes in it at least an implicit promise in case of obedience, or threatening in case of disobedience;” and since “his method of government is to reward and punish actions, his having annexed to some actions an inseparable sense of good desert, and to others of ill, this surely amounts to declaring upon whom his punishments shall be inflicted, and his rewards bestowed.”

  Kant sees no mode of reconciling morality with the law of Causality, except by his distinction of noumena and phenomena. When the law of Causality is rightly understood there is no inconsistency. For the cause which it demands is an efficient cause, and the idea of an efficient cause involves the idea of mind. 1 It is involved in the idea of matter, that it cannot originate (this Kant himself adopts as a first principle in his Metaphysics of Natural Philosophy); whereas it is the very idea of mind with will that it does originate. When we seek the cause of motion we are satisfied when we trace it to a will. True, we may then ask for the motive; but the nature of motive and that of efficient cause are heterogeneous.

  Kant’s view of Freedom, however, does not involve anything of caprice or indeterminateness. Freedom, according to him, is not independence on law which we can consciously follow, but independence on the physical relation of causality, the not being determined by physical or sensible causes. On this view the contradiction, which to Hobbes and others seemed to exist between the conception of freedom and that of the divine foreknowledge, would have little weight. A short consideration suffices to show that there is a fallacy involved in Hobbes’ argument. Suppose a being perfectly wise and good, and at the same time free, then we should only require perfect knowledge of the circumstances of a particular case in order to predict his conduct, and that infallibly. If he were not free we could not do so. And the more nearly a being approaches such perfection, the more certainly could we predict his actions. If his goodness were perfect, but his knowledge imperfect, and if we knew how far his knowledge extended, we could still predict. It would be absurd to say that this would be a contradiction.

  It is worthy of notice that Cudworth’s conception of liberty corresponds closely with that of Kant. “The true liberty of a man, as it speaks pure perfection, is when by the right use of the faculty of free will, together with the assistance of Divine grace, he is habitually fixed in moral good;” “but when by the abuse of that faculty of free will men come to be habitually fixed in evil and sinful inclinations, then are they, as Boëthius well expresses it, propriæ libertati captivi—made captive and brought into bondage by their own free will.” It may have been suggested to both of them by St. Paul, who represents sin as slavery, righteousness as freedom.

  Kant is by no means happy in his treatment of the corruption of human nature. In order to escape the difficulty of reconciling responsibility with the innate corruption on which he so strongly dwells, he has recourse (as in the case of freedom) to the distinction between man noumenon and man phenomenon. The innate evil of human nature rests on an inversion of the natural order, the legislative will being subordinated to the sensibility. But how can this be reconciled with the self-given, and therefore self-willed law which makes good a duty? It is inconceivable that the pure supersensible essence could invest the sensational nature (the objects of which have for it no reality) with a preponderance over itself. A further contradiction appears to be involved in the relation of evil to freedom; for he states that freedom is as inseparably connected with the law of Practical Reason as the physical cause with the law of nature, so that freedom without the law of Practical Reason is a causality without law, which would be absurd; and yet, on the other hand, he regards freedom as an ability from which proceeds contradiction to the moral law.

  A still more insuperable difficulty meets him when he attempts to answer the question, Is reformation possible? He replies: Yes; for it is a duty. You ought, therefore you can. How the return from evil to good is possible cannot indeed be comprehended, but the original fall from good to evil is equally incomprehensible, and yet is a fact. Now, freedom which belongs to the supersensible sphere (the sphere of noumena) cannot be determined by anything in the phenomenal world; consequently, if freedom has, apart from time, given the man a determination, then no event in time can produce a change. Nay, it would be a contradiction to suppose the removal of an act in the noumenal (supersensible) world by a succeeding act. Contrary or contradictory attributes cannot be attributed to the same subject except under the condition of time. If, therefore, the intelligent being is timeless, we cannot possibly attribute to it two decisions, of which one annuls the other. He is not even consistent, for he argues that it is not possible to destroy this radical corruption by human power, but only to overcome it. Why does he not conclude here, I ought to destroy it, therefore I can? Lastly, even if this “I can” were granted, it would be only a theoretical, not a practical possibility. If the man endowed with the faculties in their true subordination, with reason supreme, has yet not had strength or purity of will to remain so, what practical possibility is there that having this subordination perverted he can restore it? There is obviously an external aid necessary here. Not that anything wholly external could effect the change, which can only be produced by something operating on man’s own moral nature; but there must be a moral leverage, an external fulcrum, a πονˆ στωˆ. Such aid, such leverage are provided by the Christian religion. It has introduced a new motive, perfectly original and unique, the overpowering force of which has been proved in many crucial instances; and no more complete theoretical proof of the absolute necessity of some such revelation could be given than is supplied by the attempts of the profoundest philosopher of modern times to dispense with it.

  Kant’s own position with respect to Christianity is that of a Rationalist. He accepts the whole moral and spiritual teaching of the New Testament, because he finds it in accordance with reason, and this being so, he judges that it is a matter of no practical consequence whether its introduction was supernatural or not. He did not deny that Divine aid was required to make reformation possible, but he thought that no intellectual belief or knowledge of ours could be a condition of this aid, and, therefore, that all historical questions were adiaphora. But this is to take for granted, that if God gives such aid at all, it must be in a particular way. Butler’s argument from analogy is conclusive against such assumptions. And, indeed, it is certain that the moral and the positive in Christianity cannot be thus kept apart. It is to the facts that the doctrines owe their life and motive power. It is these that supply the leverage, without which the most perfect moral teaching will fall dead on the ears at least of the masses of mankind.

  Besides, as Butler shows, revealed facts may be the foundation of moral duties to those to whom the revelation has come.

  It is remarkable that, although Kant was fond of reading English authors, and was influenced in his moral discussions by English moralists, Butler (who had written half a century before the publication of the Kritik) was wholly unknown to him. What is more remarkable is, that Butler has remained equally unknown to German writers up to the present day. Whilst German historians of moral philosophy are careful to note the merits of even Wollaston and Ferguson, they pass over Butler’s name in silence. The reason of this silence, doubtless, is to be found in the title of his work. But although foreign philosophers could not be expected to look for a treatise on moral philosophy in a book called Fifteen Sermons, how is it that attention was not called to him by the notices in Mackintosh (who is largely cited, e. g. by I. H. Fichte), which showed the high estimation in which the work was held in England? It is certainly a curious and suggestive fact that writers, professedly and learnedly treating of English moral philosophers, should be wholly ignorant of the writer who holds by far the highest rank among them, whose work is the classical work, the text-book of the Universities, and with a wider circulation, probably, than the works of all the other moralists put together.

  The most striking peculiarity of Kant’s moral theory is its connexion with his metaphysical system. It is in the moral law that he finds the means of establishing the existence, and to some extent the nature, of the supersensible reality. He has been charged with inconsistency in this. What he pulls down in the Critique of the Speculative Reason, he restores illogically, it is said, in that of the Practical Reason. The fact appears to be, that readers of the former work are apt to fall into two mistakes. First, they suppose that they have before them a complete system instead of a portion only; and secondly, they mistake the attitude of suspense with regard to the supersensible reality for a dogmatic negation of all knowledge thereof. When they come to the Practical works, they find the impression thus formed respecting Kant’s attitude towards the supersensible contradicted. But the inconsistency is not between the two parts of Kant’s system, but between his system as a whole and the impression derived from a partial view of it. That he limits his affirmation of the supersensible to its practical aspect is quite in accordance with the spirit of his philosophy. Nor is this limitation so very unlike that of the common-sense philosopher, Locke, who, in speaking of the limits of our faculties, says that men have reason to be well satisfied, since God hath given them “whatever is necessary for the conveniences of life, and the information of virtue;” adding, “How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties.” (Essay, bk. 1. ch. i. § 5.)

  Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

  PREFACE.

  ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY was divided into three sciences: Physics, Ethics, and Logic. This division is perfectly suitable to the nature of the thing, and the only improvement that can be made in it is to add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy ourselves of its completeness, and also be able to determine correctly the necessary subdivisions.

  All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects. Formal philosophy is called Logic. Material philosophy, however, which has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject, is again two-fold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of freedom. The science of the former is Physics, that of the latter, Ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy respectively.

  Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the universal and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken from experience; otherwise it would not be logic, i.e. a canon for the understanding or the reason, valid for all thought, and capable of demonstration (4). Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen. 1 Ethics, however, must also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not.

  We may call all philosophy empirical, so far as it is based on grounds of experience: on the other hand, that which delivers its doctrines from à priori principles alone we may call pure philosophy. When the latter is merely formal it is logic; if it is restricted to definite objects of the understanding it is metaphysic.

  In this way there arises the idea of a two-fold metaphysic—a metaphysic of nature and a metaphysic of morals. Physics will thus have an empirical and also a rational part. It is the same with Ethics; but here the empirical part might have the special name of practical anthropology, the name morality being appropriated to the rational part.

  All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of labour, namely, when, instead of one man doing everything, each confines himself to a certain kind of work distinct from others in the treatment it requires, so as to be able to perform it with greater facility and in the greatest perfection. Where the different kinds of work are not so distinguished and divided, where everyone is a jack-of-all-trades, there manufactures remain still in the greatest barbarism. It might deserve to be considered whether pure philosophy in all its parts does not require a man specially devoted to it, and whether it would not be better for the whole business of science if those who, to please the tastes of the public, are wont to blend the rational and empirical elements together, mixed in all sorts of proportions unknown to themselves (5), and who call themselves independent thinkers, giving the name of minute philosophers to those who apply themselves to the rational part only—if these, I say, were warned not to carry on two employments together which differ widely in the treatment they demand, for each of which perhaps a special talent is required, and the combination of which in one person only produces bunglers. But I only ask here whether the nature of science does not require that we should always carefully separate the empirical from the rational part, and prefix to Physics proper (or empirical physics) a metaphysic of nature, and to practical anthropology a metaphysic of morals, which must be carefully cleared of everything empirical, so that we may know how much can be accomplished by pure reason in both cases, and from what sources it draws this its à priori teaching, and that whether the latter inquiry is conducted by all moralists (whose name is legion), or only by some who feel a calling thereto.

  As my concern here is with moral philosophy, I limit the question suggested to this: Whether it is not of the utmost necessity to construct a pure moral philosophy, perfectly cleared of everything which is only empirical, and which belongs to anthropology? for that such a philosophy must be possible is evident from the common idea of duty and of the moral laws. Everyone must admit that if a law is to have moral force, i. e. to be the basis of an obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example, the precept, ‘Thou shalt not lie,’ is not valid for men alone, as if other rational beings had no need to observe it; and so with all the other moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the basis of obligation must not be sought in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, but à priori simply in the conceptions of (6) pure reason; and although any other precept which is founded on principles of mere experience may be in certain respects universal, yet in as far as it rests even in the least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to a motive, such a precept, while it may be a practical rule, can never be called a moral law.

  Thus not only are moral laws with their principles essentially distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives laws à priori to him as a rational being. No doubt these laws require a judgment sharpened by experience, in order on the one hand to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other to procure for them access to the will of the man, and effectual influence on conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations that, though capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily able to make it effective in concreto in his life.

  A metaphysic of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely for speculative reasons, in order to investigate the sources of the practical principles which are to be found à priori in our reason, but also because morals themselves are liable to all sorts of corruption, as long as we are without that clue and supreme canon by which to estimate them correctly. For in order that an action should be morally good, it is not enough that it conform to the moral law, but it must also be done for the sake of the law, otherwise that conformity is only very contingent and uncertain; since a principle which is not moral, although it may now and then produce actions conformable to the law, will also often produce actions which contradict it (7). Now it is only in a pure philosophy that we can look for the moral law in its purity and genuineness (and, in a practical matter, this is of the utmost consequence): we must, therefore, begin with pure philosophy (metaphysic), and without it there cannot be any moral philosophy at all. That which mingles these pure principles with the empirical does not deserve the name of philosophy (for what distinguishes philosophy from common rational knowledge is, that it treats in separate sciences what the latter only comprehends confusedly); much less does it deserve that of moral philosophy, since by this confusion it even spoils the purity of morals themselves, and counteracts its own end.

  Let it not be thought, however, that what is here demanded is already extant in the propædeutic prefixed by the celebrated Wolf 1 to his moral philosophy, namely, his so-called general practical philosophy, and that, therefore, we have not to strike into an entirely new field. Just because it was to be a general practical philosophy, it has not taken into consideration a will of any particular kind—say one which should be determined solely from à priori principles without any empirical motives, and which we might call a pure will, but volition in general, with all the actions and conditions which belong to it in this general signification. By this it is distinguished from a metaphysic of morals, just as general logic, which treats of the acts and canons of thought in general, is distinguished from transcendental philosophy, which treats of the particular acts and canons of pure thought, i.e. that whose cognitions are altogether à priori. For the metaphysic of morals has to examine the idea and the principles of a possible pure will, and not the acts and conditions of human volition generally, which for the most part are drawn from psychology (8). It is true that moral laws and duty are spoken of in the general practical philosophy (contrary indeed to all fitness). But this is no objection, for in this respect also the authors of that science remain true to their idea of it; they do not distinguish the motives which are prescribed as such by reason alone altogether à priori, and which are properly moral, from the empirical motives which the understanding raises to general conceptions merely by comparison of experiences; but without noticing the difference of their sources, and looking on them all as homogeneous, they consider only their greater or less amount. It is in this way they frame their notion of obligation, which, though anything but moral, is all that can be asked for in a philosophy which passes no judgment at all on the origin of all possible practical concepts, whether they are à priori, or only à posteriori.

  Intending to publish hereafter a metaphysic of morals, I issue in the first instance these fundamental principles. Indeed there is properly no other foundation for it than the critical examination of a pure practical reason; just as that of metaphysics is the critical examination of the pure speculative reason, already published. But in the first place the former is not so absolutely necessary as the latter, because in moral concerns human reason can easily be brought to a high degree of correctness and completeness, even in the commonest understanding, while on the contrary in its theoretic but pure use it is wholly dialectical; and in the second place if the critique of a pure practical reason is to be complete, it must be possible at the same time to show its identity with the speculative reason in a common principle, for it can ultimately be only one and the same reason which has to be distinguished merely in its application. I could not, however, bring it to such completeness here, without introducing considerations of a wholly different kind, which would be perplexing to the reader (9). On this account I have adopted the title of Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, instead of that of a Critical Examination of the pure practical Reason.

  But in the third place, since a metaphysic of morals, in spite of the discouraging title, is yet capable of being presented in a popular form, and one adapted to the common understanding, I find it useful to separate from it this preliminary treatise on its fundamental principles, in order that I may not hereafter have need to introduce these necessarily subtle discussions into a book of a more simple character.

  The present treatise is, however, nothing more than the investigation and establishment of the supreme principle of morality, and this alone constitutes a study complete in itself, and one which ought to be kept apart from every other moral investigation. No doubt my conclusions on this weighty question, which has hitherto been very unsatisfactorily examined, would receive much light from the application of the same principle to the whole system, and would be greatly confirmed by the adequacy which it exhibits throughout; but I must forego this advantage, which indeed would be after all more gratifying than useful, since the easy applicability of a principle and its apparent adequacy give no very certain proof of its soundness, but rather inspire a certain partiality, which prevents us from examining and estimating it strictly in itself, and without regard to consequences.

  I have adopted in this work the method which I think most suitable, proceeding analytically from common knowledge to the determination of its ultimate principle, and again descending synthetically from the examination of this principle and its sources to the common knowledge in which we find it employed. The division will, therefore, be as follows (10):—

  • 1. First section.—Transition from the common rational knowledge of morality to the philosophical.
  • 2. Second section.—Transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals.
  • 3. Third section.—Final step from the metaphysic of morals to the critique of the pure practical reason.

  FIRST SECTION.

  transition from the common rational knowledge of morality to the philosophical.

  Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one’s condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting, and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator (12). Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.

  There are even some qualities which are of service to this good will itself, and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them, and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good. Moderation in the affections and passions, self-control and calm deliberation are not only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be called good without qualification, although they have been so unconditionally praised by the ancients. For without the principles of a good will, they may become extremely bad, and the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it.

  A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition, that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay, even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the summoning of all means in our power), then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself (13). Its usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add to nor take away anything from this value. It would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it the more conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet connoisseurs, but not to recommend it to true connoisseurs, or to determine its value.

  There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility, that notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to the idea, yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the product of mere high-flown fancy, and that we may have misunderstood the purpose of nature in assigning reason as the governor of our will. Therefore we will examine this idea from this point of view.

  In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now in a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of nature were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose, and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained thereby much more certainly than it ever can be by reason. Should reason have been communicated to this favoured creature over and above, it must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of its nature (14), to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance, and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into practical exercise, nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself the plan of happiness, and of the means of attaining it. Nature would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends, but also of the means, and with wise foresight would have entrusted both to instinct.

  And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction. And from this circumstance there arises in many, if they are candid enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology, that is, hatred of reason, especially in the case of those who are most experienced in the use of it, because after calculating all the advantages they derive, I do not say from the invention of all the arts of common luxury, but even from the sciences (which seem to them to be after all only a luxury of the understanding), they find that they have, in fact, only brought more trouble on their shoulders, rather than gained in happiness; and they end by envying, rather than despising, the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct, and do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct. And this we must admit, that the judgment of those who would very much lower the lofty eulogies of the advantages which reason gives us in regard to the happiness and satisfaction of life, or who would even reduce them below zero, is by no means morose or ungrateful to the goodness with which the world is governed, but that there lies at the root of these judgments the idea (15) that our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly intended, and which must, therefore, be regarded as the supreme condition to which the private ends of man must, for the most part, be postponed.

  For as reason is not competent to guide the will with certainty in regard to its objects and the satisfaction of all our wants (which it to some extent even multiplies), this being an end to which an implanted instinct would have led with much greater certainty; and since, nevertheless, reason is imparted to us as a practical faculty, i.e. as one which is to have influence on the will, therefore, admitting that nature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the end, its true destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to something else, but good in itself, for which reason was absolutely necessary. This will then, though not indeed the sole and complete good, must be the supreme good and the condition of every other, even of the desire of happiness. Under these circumstances, there is nothing inconsistent with the wisdom of nature in the fact that the cultivation of the reason, which is requisite for the first and unconditional purpose, does in many ways interfere, at least in this life, with the attainment of the second, which is always conditional, namely, happiness. Nay, it may even reduce it to nothing, without nature thereby failing of her purpose. For reason recognises the establishment of a good will as its highest practical destination, and in attaining this purpose is capable only of a satisfaction of its own proper kind, namely, that from the attainment of an end, which end again is determined by reason only, notwithstanding that this may involve many a disappointment to the ends of inclination (16).

  We have then to develop the notion of a will which deserves to be highly esteemed for itself, and is good without a view to anything further, a notion which exists already in the sound natural understanding, requiring rather to be cleared up than to be taught, and which in estimating the value of our actions always takes the first place, and constitutes the condition of all the rest. In order to do this we will take the notion of duty, which includes that of a good will, although implying certain subjective restrictions and hindrances. These, however, far from concealing it, or rendering it unrecognisable, rather bring it out by contrast, and make it shine forth so much the brighter.

  I omit here all actions which are already recognised as inconsistent with duty, although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for with these the question whether they are done from duty cannot arise at all, since they even conflict with it. I also set aside those actions which really conform to duty, but to which men have no direct inclination, performing them because they are impelled thereto by some other inclination. For in this case we can readily distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from duty, or from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this distinction when the action accords with duty, and the subject has besides a direct inclination to it. For example, it is always a matter of duty that a dealer should not overcharge an inexperienced purchaser, and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for everyone, so that a child buys of him as well as any other. Men are thus honestly served; but this is not enough to make us believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty and from principles of honesty: his own advantage required it; it is out of the question in this case to suppose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favour of the buyers, so that (17), as it were, from love he should give no advantage to one over another. Accordingly the action was done neither from duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view.

  On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one’s life; and, in addition, every one has also a direct inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious care which most men take for it has no intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no moral import. They preserve their life as duty requires, no doubt, but not because duty requires. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it—not from inclination or fear, but from duty—then his maxim has a moral worth.

  To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations, e. g. the inclination to honour, which, if it is happily directed to that which is in fact of public utility and accordant with duty, and consequently honourable, deserves praise and encouragement, but not esteem. For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. Put the case that the mind of that philanthropist were clouded by sorrow of his own (18), extinguishing all sympathy with the lot of others, and that while he still has the power to benefit others in distress, he is not touched by their trouble because he is absorbed with his own; and now suppose that he tears himself out of this dead insensibility, and performs the action without any inclination to it, but simply from duty, then first has his action its genuine moral worth. Further still; if nature has put little sympathy in the heart of this or that man; if he, supposed to be an upright man, is by temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others, perhaps because in respect of his own he is provided with the special gift of patience and fortitude, and supposes, or even requires, that others should have the same—and such a man would certainly not be the meanest product of nature—but if nature had not specially framed him for a philanthropist, would he not still find in himself a source from whence to give himself a far higher worth than that of a good-natured temperament could be? Unquestionably. It is just in this that the moral worth of the character is brought out which is incomparably the highest of all, namely, that he is beneficent, not from inclination, but from duty.

  To secure one’s own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly; for discontent with one’s condition, under a pressure of many anxieties and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily become a great temptation to transgression of duty. But here again, without looking to duty, all men have already the strongest and most intimate inclination to happiness, because it is just in this idea that all inclinations are combined in one total. But the precept of happiness is often of such a sort that it greatly interferes with some inclinations, and yet a man cannot form any definite and certain conception of the sum of satisfaction of all of them which is called happiness (19). It is not then to be wondered at that a single inclination, definite both as to what it promises and as to the time within which it can be gratified, is often able to overcome such a fluctuating idea, and that a gouty patient, for instance, can choose to enjoy what he likes, and to suffer what he may, since, according to his calculation, on this occasion at least, he has [only] not sacrificed the enjoyment of the present moment to a possibly mistaken expectation of a happiness which is supposed to be found in health. But even in this case, if the general desire for happiness did not influence his will, and supposing that in his particular case health was not a necessary element in this calculation, there yet remains in this, as in all other cases, this law, namely, that he should promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty, and by this would his conduct first acquire true moral worth.

  It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to understand those passages of Scripture also in which we are commanded to love our neighbour, even our enemy. For love, as an affection, cannot be commanded, but beneficence for duty’s sake may; even though we are not impelled to it by any inclination—nay, are even repelled by a natural and unconquerable aversion. This is practical love, and not pathological—a love which is seated in the will, and not in the propensions of sense—in principles of action and not of tender sympathy; and it is this love alone which can be commanded.

  The second 1 proposition is: That an action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire (20). It is clear from what precedes that the purposes which we may have in view in our actions, or their effects regarded as ends and springs of the will, cannot give to actions any unconditional or moral worth. In what, then, can their worth lie, if it is not to consist in the will and in reference to its expected effect? It cannot lie anywhere but in the principle of the will without regard to the ends which can be attained by the action. For the will stands between its à priori principle, which is formal, and its à posteriori spring, which is material, as between two roads, and as it must be determined by something, it follows that it must be determined by the formal principle of volition when an action is done from duty, in which case every material principle has been withdrawn from it.

  The third proposition, which is a consequence of the two preceding, I would express thus: Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law. I may have inclination for an object as the effect of my proposed action, but I cannot have respect for it, just for this reason, that it is an effect and not an energy of will. Similarly, I cannot have respect for inclination, whether my own or another’s; I can at most, if my own, approve it; if another’s, sometimes even love it; i. e. look on it as favourable to my own interest. It is only what is connected with my will as a principle, by no means as an effect—what does not subserve my inclination, but overpowers it, or at least in case of choice excludes it from its calculation—in other words, simply the law of itself, which can be an object of respect, and hence a command. Now an action done from duty must wholly exclude the influence of inclination, and with it every object of the will, so that nothing remains which can determine the will except objectively the law, and subjectively pure respect (21) for this practical law, and consequently the maxim 1 that I should follow this law even to the thwarting of all my inclinations.

  Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected from it, nor in any principle of action which requires to borrow its motive from this expected effect. For all these effects—agreeableness of one’s condition, and even the promotion of the happiness of others—could have been also brought about by other causes, so that for this there would have been no need of the will of a rational being; whereas it is in this alone that the supreme and unconditional good can be found. The pre-eminent good which we call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational being, in so far as this conception, and not the expected effect, determines the will. This is a good which is already present in the person who acts accordingly, and we have not to wait for it to appear first in the result 2 (22).

  But what sort of law can that be, the conception of which must determine the will, even without paying any regard to the effect expected from it, in order that this will may be called good absolutely and without qualification? As I have deprived the will of every impulse which could arise to it from obedience to any law, there remains nothing but the universal conformity of its actions to law in general, which alone is to serve the will as a principle, i. e. I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law. Here now, it is the simple conformity to law in general, without assuming any particular law applicable to certain actions, that serves the will as its principle, and must so serve it, if duty is not to be a vain delusion and a chimerical notion. The common reason of men in its practical judgments perfectly coincides with this, and always has in view the principle here suggested. Let the question be, for example: May I when in distress make a promise with the intention not to keep it? I readily distinguish here between the two significations which the question may have: Whether it is prudent (23), or whether it is right, to make a false promise. The former may undoubtedly often be the case. I see clearly indeed that it is not enough to extricate myself from a present difficulty by means of this subterfuge, but it must be well considered whether there may not hereafter spring from this lie much greater inconvenience than that from which I now free myself, and as, with all my supposed cunning, the consequences cannot be so easily foreseen but that credit once lost may be much more injurious to me than any mischief which I seek to avoid at present, it should be considered whether it would not be more prudent to act herein according to a universal maxim, and to make it a habit to promise nothing except with the intention of keeping it. But it is soon clear to me that such a maxim will still only be based on the fear of consequences. Now it is a wholly different thing to be truthful from duty, and to be so from apprehension of injurious consequences. In the first case, the very notion of the action already implies a law for me; in the second case, I must first look about elsewhere to see what results may be combined with it which would affect myself. For to deviate from the principle of duty is beyond all doubt wicked; but to be unfaithful to my maxim of prudence may often be very advantageous to me, although to abide by it is certainly safer. The shortest way, however, and an unerring one, to discover the answer to this question whether a lying promise is consistent with duty, is to ask myself, Should I be content that my maxim (to extricate myself from difficulty by a false promise) should hold good as a universal law, for myself as well as for others? and should I be able to say to myself, “Every one may make a deceitful promise when he finds himself in a difficulty from which he cannot otherwise extricate himself”? (24) Then I presently become aware that while I can will the lie, I can by no means will that lying should be a universal law. For with such a law there would be no promises at all, since it would be in vain to allege my intention in regard to my future actions to those who would not believe this allegation, or if they over-hastily did so would pay me back in my own coin. Hence my maxim, as soon as it should be made a universal law, would necessarily destory itself.

  I do not, therefore, need any far-reaching penetration to discern what I have to do in order that my will may be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for all its contingencies, I only ask myself: Canst thou also will that thy maxim should be a universal law? If not, then it must be rejected, and that not because of a disadvantage accruing from it to myself or even to others, but because it cannot enter as a principle into a possible universal legislation, and reason extorts from me immediate respect for such legislation. I do not indeed as yet discern on what this respect is based (this the philosopher may inquire), but at least I understand this, that it is an estimation of the worth which far outweighs all worth of what is recommended by inclination, and that the necessity of acting from pure respect for the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other motive must give place, because it is the condition of a will being good in itself, and the worth of such a will is above everything.

  Thus, then, without quitting the moral knowledge of common human reason, we have arrived at its principle. And although, no doubt, common men do not conceive it in such an abstract and universal form, yet they always have it really before their eyes, and use it as the standard of their decision. Here it would be easy to show how, with this compass in hand (25), men are well able to distinguish, in every case that occurs, what is good, what bad, conformably to duty or inconsistent with it, if, without in the least teaching them anything new, we only, like Socrates, direct their attention to the principle they themselves employ; and that therefore we do not need science and philosophy to know what we should do to be honest and good, yea, even wise and virtuous. Indeed we might well have conjectured beforehand that the knowledge of what every man is bound to do, and therefore also to know, would be within the reach of every man, even the commonest. 1 Here we cannot forbear admiration when we see how great an advantage the practical judgment has over the theoretical in the common understanding of men. In the latter, if common reason ventures to depart from the laws of experience and from the perceptions of the senses it falls into mere inconceivabilities and self-contradictions, at least into a chaos of uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. But in the practical sphere it is just when the common understanding excludes all sensible springs from practical laws that its power of judgment begins to show itself to advantage. It then becomes even subtle, whether it be that it chicanes with its own conscience or with other claims respecting what is to be called right, or whether it desires for its own instruction to determine honestly the worth of actions; and, in the latter case, it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more sure of doing so, because the philosopher cannot have any other principle, while he may easily perplex his judgment by a multitude of considerations foreign to the matter, and so turn aside from the right way. Would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgment of common reason (26), or at most only to call in philosophy for the purpose of rendering the system of morals more complete and intelligible, and its rules more convenient for use (especially for disputation), but not so as to draw off the common understanding from its happy simplicity, or to bring it by means of philosophy into a new path of inquiry and instruction?

  Innocence is indeed a glorious thing, only, on the other hand, it is very sad that it cannot well maintain itself, and is easily seduced. On this account even wisdom—which otherwise consists more in conduct than in knowledge—yet has need of science, not in order to learn from it, but to secure for its precepts admission and permanence. Against all the commands of duty which reason represents to man as so deserving of repect, he feels in himself a powerful counterpoise in his wants and inclinations, the entire satisfaction of which he sums up under the name of happiness. Now reason issues its commands unyieldingly, without promising anything to the inclinations, and, as it were, with disregard and contempt for these claims, which are so impetuous, and at the same time so plausible, and which will not allow themselves to be suppressed by any command. Hence there arises a natural dialectic, i. e. a disposition, to argue against these strict laws of duty and to question their validity, or at least their purity and strictness; and, if possible, to make them more accordant with our wishes and inclinations, that is to say, to corrupt them at their very source, and entirely to destroy their worth—a thing which even common practical reason cannot ultimately call good.

  Thus is the common reason of man compelled to go out of its sphere, and to take a step into the field of a practical philosophy, not to satisfy any speculative want (which never occurs to it as long as it is content to be mere sound reason), but even on practical grounds (27), in order to attain in it information and clear instruction respecting the source of its principle, and the correct determination of it in opposition to the maxims which are based on wants and inclinations, so that it may escape from the perplexity of opposite claims, and not run the risk of losing all genuine moral principles through the equivocation into which it easily falls. Thus, when practical reason cultivates itself, there insensibly arises in it a dialectic which forces it to seek aid in philosophy, just as happens to it in its theoretic use; and in this case, therefore, as well as in the other, it will find rest nowhere but in a thorough critical examination of our reason.

  SECOND SECTION.

  transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals.

  If we have hitherto drawn our notion of duty from the common use of our practical reason, it is by no means to be inferred that we have treated it as an empirical notion. On the contrary, if we attend to the experience of men’s conduct, we meet frequent and, as we ourselves allow, just complaints that one cannot find a single certain example of the disposition to act from pure duty. Although many things are done in conformity with what duty prescribes, it is nevertheless always doubtful whether they are done strictly from duty, so as to have a moral worth. Hence there have, at all times, been philosophers who have altogether denied that this disposition actually exists at all in human actions, and have ascribed everything to a more or less refined self-love. Not that they have on that account questioned the soundness of the conception of morality; on the contrary, they spoke with sincere regret of the frailty and corruption of human nature, which though noble enough to take as its rule an idea so worthy of respect, is yet too weak to follow it, and employs reason, which ought to give it the law (29) only for the purpose of providing for the interest of the inclinations, whether singly or at the best in the greatest possible harmony with one another.

  In fact, it is absolutely impossible to make out by experience with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action, however right in itself, rested simply on moral grounds and on the conception of duty. Sometimes it happens that with the sharpest self-examination we can find nothing beside the moral principle of duty which could have been powerful enough to move us to this or that action and to so great a sacrifice; yet we cannot from this infer with certainty that it was not really some secret impulse of self-love, under the false appearance of duty, that was the actual determining cause of the will. We like then to flatter ourselves by falsely taking credit for a more noble motive; whereas in fact we can never, even by the strictest examination, get completely behind the secret springs of action; since when the question is of moral worth, it is not with the actions which we see that we are concerned, but with those inward principles of them which we do not see.

  Moreover, we cannot better serve the wishes of those who ridicule all morality as a mere chimera of human imagination overstepping itself from vanity, than by conceding to them that notions of duty must be drawn only from experience (as from indolence, people are ready to think is also the case with all other notions); for this is to prepare for them a certain triumph. I am willing to admit out of love of humanity that even most of our actions are correct, but if we look closer at them we everywhere come upon the dear self which is always prominent, and it is this they have in view, and not the strict command of duty which would often require self-denial (30). Without being an enemy of virtue, a cool observer, one that does not mistake the wish for good, however lively, for its reality, may sometimes doubt whether true virtue is actually found anywhere in the world, and this especially as years increase and the judgment is partly made wiser by experience, and partly also more acute in observation. This being so, nothing can secure us from falling away altogether from our ideas of duty, or maintain in the soul a well-grounded respect for its law, but the clear conviction that although there should never have been actions which really sprang from such pure sources, yet whether this or that takes place is not at all the question; but that reason of itself, independent on all experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the feasibility even of which might be very much doubted by one who founds everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by reason; that, ex. gr. even though there might never yet have been a sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in friendship required of every man, because, prior to all experience, this duty is involved as duty in the idea of a reason determining the will by à priori principles.

  When we add further that, unless we deny that the notion of morality has any truth or reference to any possible object, we must admit that its law must be valid, not merely for men, but for all rational creatures generally, not merely under certain contingent conditions or with exceptions, but with absolute necessity, then it is clear that no experience could enable us to infer even the possibility of such apodictic laws (31). For with what right could we bring into unbounded respect as a universal precept for every rational nature that which perhaps holds only under the contingent conditions of humanity? Or how could laws of the determination of our will be regarded as laws of the determination of the will of rational beings generally, and for us only as such, if they were merely empirical, and did not take their origin wholly à priori from pure but practical reason?

  Nor could anything be more fatal to morality than that we should wish to derive it from examples. For every example of it that is set before me must be first itself tested by principles of morality, whether it is worthy to serve as an original example, i. e. as a pattern, but by no means can it authoritatively furnish the conception of morality. Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognise Him as such; and so He says of Himself, “Why call ye Me (whom you see) good; none is good (the model of good) but God only (whom ye do not see)?” But whence have we the conception of God as the supreme good? Simply from the idea of moral perfection, which reason frames à priori, and connects inseparably with the notion of a free-will. Imitation finds no place at all in morality, and examples serve only for encouragement, i. e. they put beyond doubt the feasibility of what the law commands, they make visible that which the practical rule expresses more generally, but they can never authorize us to set aside the true original which lies in reason, and to guide ourselves by examples.

  If then there is no genuine supreme principle of morality but what must rest simply on pure reason, independent on all experience, I think it is not necessary even to put the question, whether it is good (32) to exhibit these concepts in their generality (in abstracto) as they are established à priori along with the principles belonging to them, if our knowledge is to be distinguished from the vulgar, and to be called philosophical. In our times indeed this might perhaps be necessary; for if we collected votes, whether pure rational knowledge separated from everything empirical, that is to say, metaphysic of morals, or whether popular practical philosophy is to be preferred, it is easy to guess which side would preponderate.

  This descending to popular notions is certainly very commendable, if the ascent to the principles of pure reason has first taken place and been satisfactorily accomplished. This implies that we first found Ethics on Metaphysics, and then, when it is firmly established, procure a hearing for it by giving it a popular character. But it is quite absurd to try to be popular in the first inquiry, on which the soundness of the principles depends. It is not only that this proceeding can never lay claim to the very rare merit of a true philosophical popularity, since there is no art in being intelligible if one renounces all thoroughness of insight; but also it produces a disgusting medley of compiled observations and half-reasoned principles. Shallow pates enjoy this because it can be used for every-day chat, but the sagacious find in it only confusion, and being unsatisfied and unable to help themselves, they turn away their eyes, while philosophers, who see quite well through this delusion, are little listened to when they call men off for a time from this pretended popularity, in order that they might be rightfully popular after they have attained a definite insight.

  We need only look at the attempts of moralists in that favourite fashion, and we shall find at one time the special constitution of human nature (33) (including, however, the idea of a rational nature generally), at one time perfection, at another happiness, here moral sense, there fear of God, a little of this, and a little of that, in marvellous mixture without its occurring to them to ask whether the principles of morality are to be sought in the knowledge of human nature at all (which we can have only from experience); and, if this is not so, if these principles are to be found altogether à priori free from everything empirical, in pure rational concepts only, and nowhere else, not even in the smallest degree; then rather to adopt the method of making this a separate inquiry, as pure practical philosophy, or (if one may use a name so decried) as metaphysic of morals, 1 to bring it by itself to completeness, and to require the public, which wishes for popular treatment, to await the issue of this undertaking.

  Such a metaphysic of morals, completely isolated, not mixed with any anthropology, theology, physics, or hyperphysics, and still less with occult qualities (which we might call hypophysical), is not only an indispensable substratum of all sound theoretical knowledge of duties, but is at the same time a desideratum of the highest importance to the actual fulfilment of their precepts. For the pure conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of empirical attractions (34), and, in a word, the conception of the moral law, exercises on the human heart, by way of reason alone (which first becomes aware with this that it can of itself be practical), an influence so much more powerful than all other springs 2 which may be derived from the field of experience, that in the consciousness of its worth, it despises the latter, and can by degrees become their master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations, and partly also of conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be brought under any principle, which lead to good only by mere accident, and very often also to evil.

  From what has been said, it is clear that all moral conceptions have their seat and origin completely à priori in the reason, and that, moreover, in the commonest reason just as truly as in that which is in the highest degree speculative; that they cannot be obtained by abstraction from any empirical, and therefore merely contingent knowledge; that it is just this purity of their origin that makes them worthy to serve as our supreme practical principle (35), and that just in proportion as we add anything empirical, we detract from their genuine influence, and from the absolute value of actions; that it is not only of the greatest necessity, in a purely speculative point of view, but is also of the greatest practical importance to derive these notions and laws from pure reason, to present them pure and unmixed, and even to determine the compass of this practical or pure rational knowledge, i. e. to determine the whole faculty of pure practical reason; and, in doing so, we must not make its principles dependent on the particular nature of human reason, though in speculative philosophy this may be permitted, or may even at times be necessary; but since moral laws ought to hold good for every rational creature, we must derive them from the general concept of a rational being. In this way, although for its application to man morality has need of anthropology, yet, in the first instance, we must treat it independently as pure philosophy, i. e. as metaphysic, complete in itself (a thing which in such distinct branches of science is easily done); knowing well that unless we are in possession of this, it would not only be vain to determine the moral element of duty in right actions for purposes of speculative criticism, but it would be impossible to base morals on their genuine principles, even for common practical purposes, especially of moral instruction, so as to produce pure moral dispositions, and to engraft them on men’s minds to the promotion of the greatest possible good in the world.

  But in order that in this study we may not merely advance by the natural steps from the common moral judgment (in this case very worthy of respect) to the philosophical, as has been already done, but also from a popular philosophy, which goes no further than it can reach by groping with the help of examples, to metaphysic (which does not allow itself to be checked by anything empirical (36), and as it must measure the whole extent of this kind of rational knowledge, goes as far as ideal conceptions, where even examples fail us), we must follow and clearly describe the practical faculty of reason, from the general rules of its determination to the point where the notion of duty springs from it.

  Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings alone have the faculty of acting according to the conception of laws, that is according to principles, i. e. have a will. Since the deduction of actions from principles requires reason, the will is nothing but practical reason. If reason infallibly determines the will, then the actions of such a being which are recognised as objectively necessary are subjectively necessary also, i. e. the will is a faculty to choose that only which reason independent on inclination recognises as practically necessary, i. e. as good. But if reason of itself does not sufficiently determine the will, if the latter is subject also to subjective conditions (particular impulses) which do not always coincide with the objective conditions; in a word, if the will does not in itself completely accord with reason (which is actually the case with men), then the actions which objectively are recognised as necessary are subjectively contingent, and the determination of such a will according to objective laws is obligation, that is to say, the relation of the objective laws to a will that is not thoroughly good is conceived as the determination of the will of a rational being by principles of reason, but which the will from its nature does not of necessity follow.

  The conception of an objective principle, in so far as it is obligatory for a will, is called a command (of reason), and the formula of the command is called an Imperative.

  All imperatives are expressed by the word ought [or shall], and thereby indicate the relation of an objective law (37) of reason to a will, which from its subjective constitution is not necessarily determined by it (an obligation). They say that something would be good to do or to forbear, but they say it to a will which does not always do a thing because it is conceived to be good to do it. That is practically good, however, which determines the will by means of the conceptions of reason, and consequently not from subjective causes, but objectively, that is on principles which are valid for every rational being as such. It is distinguished from the pleasant, as that which influences the will only by means of sensation from merely subjective causes, valid only for the sense of this or that one, and not as a principle of reason, which holds for every one. 1

  A perfectly good will would therefore be equally subject to objective laws (viz. laws of good), but could not be conceived as obliged thereby to act lawfully, because of itself from its subjective constitution it can only be determined by the conception of good (38). Therefore no imperatives hold for the Divine will, or in general for a holy will; ought is here out of place, because the volition is already of itself necessarily in unison with the law. Therefore imperatives are only formulæ to express the relation of objective laws of all volition to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that rational being, e. g. the human will.

  Now all imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. The former represent the practical necessity of a possible action as means to something else that is willed (or at least which one might possibly will). The categorical imperative would be that which represented an action as necessary of itself without reference to another end, i.e. as objectively necessary.

  Since every practical law represents a possible action as good, and on this account, for a subject who is practically determinable by reason, necessary, all imperatives are formulæ determining an action which is necessary according to the principle of a will good in some respects. If now the action is good only as a means to something else, then the imperative is hypothetical; if it is conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily the principle of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is categorical.

  Thus the imperative declares what action possible by me would be good, and presents the practical rule in relation to a will which does not forthwith perform an action simply because it is good, whether because the subject does not always know that it is good, or because, even if it know this, yet its maxims might be opposed to the objective principles of practical reason.

  Accordingly the hypothetical imperative only says that the action is good for some purpose, possible or actual (39). In the first case it is a Problematical, in the second an Assertorial practical principle. The categorical imperative which declares an action to be objectively necessary in itself without reference to any purpose, i.e. without any other end, is valid as an Apodictic (practical) principle.

  Whatever is possible only by the power of some rational being may also be conceived as a possible purpose of some will; and therefore the principles of action as regards the means necessary to attain some possible purpose are in fact infinitely numerous. All sciences have a practical part, consisting of problems expressing that some end is possible for us, and of imperatives directing how it may be attained. These may, therefore, be called in general imperatives of Skill. Here there is no question whether the end is rational and good, but only what one must do in order to attain it. The precepts for the physician to make his patient thoroughly healthy, and for a poisoner to ensure certain death, are of equal value in this respect, that each serves to effect its purpose perfectly. Since in early youth it cannot be known what ends are likely to occur to us in the course of life, parents seek to have their children taught a great many things, and provide for their skill in the use of means for all sorts of arbitrary ends, of none of which can they determine whether it may not perhaps hereafter be an object to their pupil, but which it is at all events possible that he might aim at; and this anxiety is so great that they commonly neglect to form and correct their judgment on the value of the things which may be chosen as ends (40).

  There is one end, however, which may be assumed to be actually such to all rational beings (so far as imperatives apply to them, viz. as dependent beings), and therefore, one purpose which they not merely may have, but which we may with certainty assume that they all actually have by a natural necessity, and this is happiness. The hypothetical imperative which expresses the practical necessity of an action as means to the advancement of happiness is Assertorial. We are not to present it as necessary for an uncertain and merely possible purpose, but for a purpose which we may presuppose with certainty and à priori in every man, because it belongs to his being. Now skill in the choice of means to his own greatest well-being may be called prudence,1 in the narrowest sense. And thus the imperative which refers to the choice of means to one’s own happiness, i. e. the precept of prudence, is still always hypothetical; the action is not commanded absolutely, but only as means to another purpose.

  Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is Categorical. It concerns not the matter of the action, or its intended result, but its form and the principle of which it is itself a result (41); and what is essentially good in it consists in the mental disposition, let the consequence be what it may. This imperative may be called that of Morality.

  There is a marked distinction also between the volitions on these three sorts of principles in the dissimilarity of the obligation of the will. In order to mark this difference more clearly, I think they would be most suitably named in their order if we said they are either rules of skill, or counsels of prudence, or commands (laws) of morality. For it is law only that involves the conception of an unconditional and objective necessity, which is consequently universally valid; and commands are laws which must be obeyed, that is, must be followed, even in opposition to inclination. Counsels, indeed, involve necessity, but one which can only hold under a contingent subjective condition, viz. they depend on whether this or that man reckons this or that as part of his happiness; the categorical imperative, on the contrary, is not limited by any condition, and as being absolutely, although practically, necessary, may be quite properly called a command. We might also call the first kind of imperatives technical (belonging to art), the second pragmatic1 (to welfare), the third moral (belonging to free conduct generally, that is, to morals).

  Now arises the question, how are all these imperatives possible? This question does not seek to know how we can conceive the accomplishment of the action which the imperative ordains, but merely how we can conceive the obligation of the will (42) which the imperative expresses. No special explanation is needed to show how an imperative of skill is possible. Whoever wills the end, wills also (so far as reason decides his conduct) the means in his power which are indispensably necessary thereto. This proposition is, as regards the volition, analytical; for, in willing an object as my effect, there is already thought the causality of myself as an acting cause, that is to say, the use of the means; and the imperative educes from the conception of volition of an end the conception of actions necessary to this end. Synthetical propositions must no doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end; but they do not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and its realization. Ex. gr., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle I must draw from its extremities two interesecting ares; this no doubt is taught by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something as an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as acting in this way.

  If it were only equally easy to give a definite conception of happiness, the imperatives of prudence would correspond exactly with those of skill, and would likewise be analytical. For in this case as in that, it could be said, whoever wills the end, wills also (according to the dictate of reason necessarily) the indispensable means thereto which are in his power. But, unfortunately, the notion of happiness is so indefinite that although every man wishes to attain it, yet he never can say definitely and consistently what it is that he really wishes and wills (43). The reason of this is that all the elements which belong to the notion of happiness are altogether empirical, i.e. they must be borrowed from experience, and nevertheless the idea of happiness requires an absolute whole, a maximum of welfare in my present and all future circumstances. Now it is impossible that the most clear-sighted, and at the same time most powerful being (supposed finite) should frame to himself a definite conception of what he really wills in this. Does he will riches, how much anxiety, envy, and snares might he not thereby draw upon his shoulders? Does he will knowledge and discernment, perhaps it might prove to be only an eye so much the sharper to show him so much the more fearfully the evils that are now concealed from him, and that cannot be avoided, or to impose more wants on his desires, which already give him concern enough. Would he have long life, who guarantees to him that it would not be a long misery? would he at least have health? how often has uneasiness of the body restrained from excesses into which perfect health would have allowed one to fall? and so on. In short he is unable, on any principle, to determine with certainty what would make him truly happy; because to do so he would need to be omniscient. We cannot therefore act on any definite principles to secure happiness, but only on empirical counsels, ex. gr. of regimen, frugality, courtesy, reserve, &c., which experience teaches do, on the average, most promote well-being. Hence it follows that the imperatives of prudence do not, strictly speaking, command at all, that is, they cannot present actions objectively as practically necessary; that they are rather to be regarded as counsels (consilia) than precepts (præcepta) of reason, that the problem to determine certainly and universally (44) what action would promote the happiness of a rational being is completely insoluble, and consequently no imperative respecting it is possible which should, in the strict sense, command to do what makes happy; because happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination, resting solely on empirical grounds, and it is vain to expect that these should define an action by which one could attain the totality of a series of consequences which is really endless. This imperative of prudence would however be an analytical proposition if we assume that the means to happiness could be certainly assigned; for it is distinguished from the imperative of skill only by this, that in the latter the end is merely possible, in the former it is given; as however both only ordain the means to that which we suppose to be willed as an end, it follows that the imperative which ordains the willing of the means to him who wills the end is in both cases analytical. Thus there is no difficulty in regard to the possibility of an imperative of this kind either.

  On the other hand the question, how the imperative of morality is possible, is undoubtedly one, the only one, demanding a solution, as this is not at all hypothetical, and the objective necessity which it presents cannot rest on any hypothesis, as is the case with the hypothetical imperatives. Only here we must never leave out of consideration that we cannot make out by any example, in other words empirically, whether there is such an imperative at all; but it is rather to be feared that all those which seem to be categorical may yet be at bottom hypothetical. For instance, when the precept is: Thou shalt not promise deceitfully; and it is assumed that the necessity of this is not a mere counsel to avoid some other evil, so that it should mean: thou shalt not make a lying promise, lest if it become known thou shouldst destroy thy credit (45), but that an action of this kind must be regarded as evil in itself, so that the imperative of the prohibition is categorical; then we cannot show with certainty in any example that the will was determined merely by the law, without any other spring of action, although it may appear to be so. For it is always possible that fear of disgrace, perhaps also obscure dread of other dangers, may have a secret influence on the will. Who can prove by experience the non-existence of a cause when all that experience tells us is that we do not perceive it? But in such a case the so-called moral imperative, which as such appears to be categorical and unconditional, would in reality be only a pragmatic precept, drawing our attention to our own interests, and merely teaching us to take these into consideration.

  We shall therefore have to investigate à priori the possibility of a categorical imperative, as we have not in this case the advantage of its reality being given in experience, so that [the elucidation of] its possibility should be requisite only for its explanation, not for its establishment. In the meantime it may be discerned beforehand that the categorical imperative alone has the purport of a practical law: all the rest may indeed be called principles of the will but not laws, since whatever is only necessary for the attainment of some arbitrary purpose may be considered as in itself contingent, and we can at any time be free from the precept if we give up the purpose: on the contrary, the unconditional command leaves the will no liberty to choose the opposite; consequently it alone carries with it that necessity which we require in a law.

  Secondly, in the case of this categorical imperative or law of morality, the difficulty (of discerning its possibility) is a very profound one (46). It is an à priori synthetical practical proposition; 1 and as there is so much difficulty in discerning the possibility of speculative propositions of this kind, it may readily be supposed that the difficulty will be no less with the practical.

  In this problem we will first inquire whether the mere conception of a categorical imperative may not perhaps supply us also with the formula of it, containing the proposition which alone can be a categorical imperative; for even if we know the tenor of such an absolute command, yet how it is possible will require further special and laborious study, which we postpone to the last section.

  When I conceive a hypothetical imperative in general I do not know beforehand what it will contain until I am given the condition. But when I conceive a categorical imperative I know at once what it contains. For as the imperative contains besides the law only the necessity that the maxims 1 shall conform to this law, while the law contains no conditions restricting it, there remains nothing but the general statement that the maxim of the action should conform to a universal law (47), and it is this conformity alone that the imperative properly represents as necessary. 2

  There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely this: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

  Now if all imperatives of duty can be deduced from this one imperative as from their principle, then, although it should remain undecided whether what is called duty is not merely a vain notion, yet at least we shall be able to show what we understand by it and what this notion means.

  Since the universality of the law according to which effects are produced constitutes what is properly called nature in the most general sense (as to form), that is the existence of things so far as it is determined by general laws, the imperative of duty may be expressed thus: Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a Universal Law of Nature.

  We will now enumerate a few duties, adopting the usual division of them into duties to ourselves and to others, and into perfect and imperfect duties. 1 (48).

  1. A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty. 1

  2. Another finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing will be lent to him, unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a definite time. He desires to make this promise, but he has still so much conscience as to ask himself: Is it not unlawful and inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this way? Suppose however that he resolves to do so, then the maxim of his action would be expressed thus: When I think myself in want of money, I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I never can do so. Now this principle of self-love or of one’s own advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare; but the question now is, Is it right? I change then the suggestion of self-love into a universal law, and state the question thus (49): How would it be if my maxim were a universal law? Then I see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a universal law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would consider that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such statements as vain pretences.

  3. A third finds in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances, and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however, whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with his inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law although men (like the South Sea islanders) should let their talents rust, and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and propagation of their species—in a word, to enjoyment; but he cannot possibly will that this should be a universal law of nature, or be implanted in us as such by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him, and have been given him, for all sorts of possible purposes.

  4. A fourth, who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to contend with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks: What concern is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy (50) as heaven pleases, or as he can make himself; I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to contribute anything to his welfare or to his assistance in distress! Now no doubt if such a mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race might very well subsist, and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to put it into practice, but on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays the rights of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.

  These are a few of the many actual duties, or at least what we regard as such, which obviously fall into two classes on the one principle that we have laid down. We must be able to will that a maxim of our action should be a universal law. This is the canon of the moral appreciation of the action generally. Some actions are of such a character that their maxim cannot without contradiction be even conceived as a universal law of nature, far from it being possible that we should will that it should be so. In others this intrinsic impossibility is not found, but still it is impossible to will that their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law of nature, since such a will would contradict itself. It is easily seen that the former violate strict or rigorous (inflexible) duty (51); the latter only laxer (meritorious) duty. Thus it has been completely shown by these examples how all duties depend as regards the nature of the obligation (not the object of the action) on the same principle.

  If now we attend to ourselves on occasion of any transgression of duty, we shall find that we in fact do not will that our maxim should be a universal law, for that is impossible for us; on the contrary we will that the opposite should remain a universal law, only we assume the liberty of making an exception in our own favour or (just for this time only) in favour of our inclination. Consequently if we considered all cases from one and the same point of view, namely, that of reason, we should find a contradiction in our own will, namely, that a certain principle should be objectively necessary as a universal law, and yet subjectively should not be universal, but admit of exceptions. As however we at one moment regard our action from the point of view of a will wholly conformed to reason, and then again look at the same action from the point of view of a will affected by inclination, there is not really any contradiction, but an antagonism of inclination to the precept of reason, whereby the universality of the principle is changed into a mere generality, so that the practical principle of reason shall meet the maxim half way. Now, although this cannot be justified in our own impartial judgment, yet it proves that we do really recognise the validity of the categorical imperative and (with all respect for it) only allow ourselves a few exceptions, which we think unimportant and forced from us.

  We have thus established at least this much, that if duty is a conception which is to have any import and real legislative authority for our actions (52), it can only be expressed in categorical, and not at all in hypothetical imperatives. We have also, which is of great importance, exhibited clearly and definitely for every practical application the content of the categorical imperative, which must contain the principle of all duty if there is such a thing at all. We have not yet, however, advanced so far as to prove à priori that there actually is such an imperative, that there is a practical law which commands absolutely of itself, and without any other impulse, and that the following of this law is duty.

  With the view of attaining to this it is of extreme importance to remember that we must not allow ourselves to think of deducing the reality of this principle from the particular attributes of human nature. For duty is to be a practical, unconditional necessity of action; it must therefore hold for all rational beings (to whom an imperative can apply at all) and for this reason only be also a law for all human wills. On the contrary, whatever is deduced from the particular natural characteristics of humanity, from certain feelings and propensions, 1 nay even, if possible, from any particular tendency proper to human reason, and which need not necessarily hold for the will of every rational being; this may indeed supply us with a maxim, but not with a law; with a subjective principle on which we may have a propension and inclination to act, but not with an objective principle on which we should be enjoined to act, even though all our propensions, inclinations, and natural dispositions were opposed to it. In fact the sublimity and intrinsic dignity of the command in duty are so much the more evident, the less the subjective impulses favour it and the more they oppose it, without being able in the slighest degree to weaken the obligation of the law or to diminish its validity (53).

  Here then we see philosophy brought to a critical position, since it has to be firmly fixed, notwithstanding that it has nothing to support it either in heaven or earth. Here it must show its purity as absolute dictator of its own laws, not the herald of those which are whispered to it by an implanted sense or who knows what tutelary nature. Although these may be better than nothing, yet they can never afford principles dictated by reason, which must have their source wholly à priori and thence their commanding authority, expecting everything from the supremacy of the law and the due respect for it, nothing from inclination, or else condemning the man to self-contempt and inward abhorrence.

  Thus every empirical element is not only quite incapable of being an aid to the principle of morality, but is even highly prejudicial to the purity of morals, for the proper and inestimable worth of an absolutely good will consists just in this, that the principle of action is free from all influence of contingent grounds, which alone experience can furnish. We cannot too much or too often repeat our warning against this lax and even mean habit of thought which seeks for its principle amongst empirical motives and laws; for human reason in its weariness is glad to rest on this pillow, and in a dream of sweet illusions (in which, instead of Juno, it embraces a cloud) it substitutes for morality a bastard patched up from limbs of various derivation, which looks like anything one chooses to see in it; only not like virtue to one who has once beheld her in her true form. 1

  (54) The question then is this: Is it a necessary law for all rational beings that they should always judge of their actions by maxims of which they can themselves will that they should serve as universal laws? If it is so, then it must be connected (altogether à priori) with the very conception of the will of a rational being generally. But in order to discover this connexion we must, however reluctantly, take a step into metaphysic, although into a domain of it which is distinct from speculative philosophy, namely, the metaphysic of morals. In a practical philosophy, where it is not the reasons of what happens that we have to ascertain, but the laws of what ought to happen, even although it never does, i. e. objective practical laws, there it is not necessary to inquire into the reasons why anything pleases or displeases, how the pleasure of mere sensation differs from taste, and whether the latter is distinct from a general satisfaction of reason; on what the feeling of pleasure or pain rests, and how from it desires and inclinations arise, and from these again maxims by the co-operation of reason: for all this belongs to an empirical psychology, which would constitute the second part of physics, if we regard physics as the philosophy of nature, so far as it is based on empirical laws. But here we are concerned with objective practical laws, and consequently with the relation of the will to itself so far as it is determined by reason alone, in which case whatever has reference to anything empirical is necessarily excluded; since if reason of itself alone determines the conduct (55) (and it is the possibility of this that we are now investigating), it must necessarily do so à priori.

  The will is conceived as a faculty of determining oneself to action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a faculty can be found only in rational beings. Now that which serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determination is the end, and if this is assigned by reason alone, it must hold for all rational beings. On the other hand, that which merely contains the ground of possibility of the action of which the effect is the end, this is called the means. The subjective ground of the desire is the spring, the objective ground of the volition is the motive; hence the distinction between subjective ends which rest on springs, and objective ends which depend on motives valid for every rational being. Practical principles are formal when they abstract from all subjective ends, they are material when they assume these, and therefore particular springs of action. The ends which a rational being proposes to himself at pleasure as effects of his actions (material ends) are all only relative, for it is only their relation to the particular desires of the subject that gives them their worth, which therefore cannot furnish principles universal and necessary for all rational beings and for every volition, that is to say practical laws. Hence all these relative ends can give rise only to hypothetical imperatives.

  Supposing, however, that there were something whose existence has in itself an absolute worth, something which, being an end in itself, could be a source of definite laws, then in this and this alone would lie the source of a possible categorical imperative, i.e. a practical law (56).

  Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must be always regarded at the same time as an end. All objects of the inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the wants founded on them did not exist, then their object would be without value. But the inclinations themselves being sources of want, are so far from having an absolute worth for which they should be desired, that on the contrary it must be the universal wish of every rational being to be wholly free from them. Thus the worth of any object which is to be acquired by our action is always conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature’s, have nevertheless, if they are irrational beings, only a relative value as means, and are therefore called things; rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons, because their very nature points them out as ends in themselves, that is as something which must not be used merely as means, and so far therefore restricts freedom of action (and is an object of respect). These, therefore, are not merely subjective ends whose existence has a worth for us as an effect of our action, but objective ends, that is things whose existence is an end in itself: an end moreover for which no other can be substituted, which they should subserve merely as means, for otherwise nothing whatever would possess absolute worth; but if all worth were conditioned and therefore contingent, then there would be no supreme practical principle of reason whatever.

  If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the human will, a categorical imperative, it must be one which (57), being drawn from the conception of that which is necessarily an end for every one because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of will, and can therefore serve as a universal practical law. The foundation of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily conceives his own existence as being so: so far then this is a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being regards its existence similarly, just on the same rational principle that holds for me: 1 so that it is at the same time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical law all laws of the will must be capable of being deduced. Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only. We will now inquire whether this can be practically carried out.

  To abide by the previous examples:

  Firstly, under the head of necessary duty to oneself: He who contemplates suicide should ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. If he destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he uses a person merely as a mean to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life. But a man is not a thing, that is to say, something which can be used merely as means, but must in all his actions be always considered as an end in himself. I cannot, therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him (58). (It belongs to ethics proper to define this principle more precisely so as to avoid all misunderstanding, e.g. as to the amputation of the limbs in order to preserve myself; as to exposing my life to danger with a view to preserve it, &c. This question is therefore omitted here.)

  Secondly, as regards necessary duties, or those of strict obligation, towards others; he who is thinking of making a lying promise to others will see at once that he would be using another man merely as a mean, without the latter containing at the same time the end in himself. For he whom I propose by such a promise to use for my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting towards him, and therefore cannot himself contain the end of this action. This violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more obvious if we take in examples of attacks on the freedom and property of others. For then it is clear that he who transgresses the rights of men, intends to use the person of others merely as means, without considering that as rational beings they ought always to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as beings who must be capable of containing in themselves the end of the very same action. 1

  Thirdly, as regards contingent (meritorious) duties to oneself; is not enough that the action does not violate humanity in our own person as an end in itself, it must also harmonise with it (59). Now there are in humanity capacities of greater perfection, which belong to the end that nature has in view in regard to humanity in ourselves as the subject: to neglect these might perhaps be consistent with the maintenance of humanity as an end in itself, but not with the advancement of this end.

  Fourthly, as regards meritorious duties towards others: the natural end which all men have is their own happiness. Now humanity might indeed subsist, although no one should contribute anything to the happiness of others, provided he did not intentionally withdraw anything from it; but after all this would only harmonise negatively not positively with humanityas an end in itself, if every one does not also endeavour, as far as in him lies, to forward the ends of others. For the ends of any subject which is an end in himself, ought as far as possible to be my ends also, if that conception is to have its full effect with me.

  This principle, that humanity and generally every rational nature is an end in itself (which is the supreme limiting condition of every man’s freedom of action), is not borrowed from experience, firstly, because it is universal, applying as it does to all rational beings whatever, and experience is not capable of determining anything about them; secondly, because it does not present humanity as an end to men (subjectively), that is as an object which men do of themselves actually adopt as an end; but as an objective end, which must as a law constitute the supreme limiting condition of all our subjective ends, let them be what we will; it must therefore spring from pure reason. In fact the objective principle of all practical legislation lies (according to the first principle) in the rule and its form of universality which makes it capable of being a law (say, e. g., a law of nature); but the subjective principle is in the end; now by the second principle the subject of all ends is each rational being (60), inasmuch as it is an end in itself. Hence follows the third practical principle of the will, which is the ultimate condition of its harmony with the universal practical reason, viz.: the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislative will.

  On this principle all maxims are rejected which are inconsistent with the will being itself universal legislator. Thus the will is not subject simply to the law, but so subject that it must be regarded as itself giving the law, and on this ground only, subject to the law (of which it can regard itself as the author).

  In the previous imperatives, namely, that based on the conception of the conformity of actions to general laws, as in a physical system of nature, and that based on the universal prerogative of rational beings as ends in themselves—these imperatives just because they were conceived as categorical, excluded from any share in their authority all admixture of any interest as a spring of action; they were however only assumed to be categorical, because such an assumption was necessary to explain the conception of duty. But we could not prove independently that there are practical propositions which command categorically, nor can it be proved in this section; one thing however could be done, namely, to indicate in the imperative itself by some determinate expression, that in the case of volition from duty all interest is renounced, which is the specific criterion of categorical as distinguished from hypothetical imperatives. This is done in the present (third) formula of the principle, namely, in the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will.

  (61) For although a will which is subject to laws may be attached to this law by means of an interest, yet a will which is itself a supreme lawgiver so far as it is such cannot possibly depend on any interest, since a will so dependent would itself still need another law restricting the interest of its self-love by the condition that it should be valid as universal law.

  Thus the principle that every human will is a will which in all its maxims gives universal laws1 , provided it be otherwise justified, would be very well adapted to be the categorical imperative, in this respect, namely, that just because of the idea of universal legislation it is not based on any interest, and therefore it alone among all possible imperatives can be unconditional. Or still better, converting the proposition, if there is a categorical imperative (i. e., a law for the will of every rational being), it can only command that everything be done from maxims of one’s will regarded as a will which could at the same time will that it should itself give universal laws, for in that case only the practical principle and the imperative which it obeys are unconditional, since they cannot be based on any interest.

  Looking back now on all previous attempts to discover the principle of morality, we need not wonder why they all failed. It was seen that man was bound to laws by duty, but it was not observed that the laws to which he is subject are only those of his own giving, though at the same time they are universal (62), and that he is only bound to act in conformity with his own will; a will, however, which is designed by nature to give universal laws. For when one has conceived man only as subject to a law (no matter what), then this law required some interest, either by way of attraction or constraint, since it did not originate as a law from his own will, but this will was according to a law obliged by something else to act in a certain manner. Now by this necessary consequence all the labour spent in finding a supreme principle of duty was irrevocably lost. For men never elicited duty, but only a necessity of acting from a certain interest. Whether this interest was private or otherwise, in any case the imperative must be conditional, and could not by any means be capable of being a moral command. I will therefore call this the principle of Autonomy of the will, in contrast with every other which I accordingly reckon as Heteronomy.1

  The conception of every rational being as one which must consider itself as giving in all the maxims of its will universal laws, so as to judge itself and its actions from this point of view—this conception leads to another which depends on it and is very fruitful, namely, that of a kingdom of ends.

  By a kingdom I understand the union of different rational beings in a system by common laws. Now since it is by laws that ends are determined as regards their universal validity, hence, if we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings, and likewise from all the content of their private ends, we shall be able to conceive all ends combined in a systematic whole (including both rational beings as ends in themselves, and also the special ends which each may propose to himself), that is to say, we can conceive a kingdom of ends, which on the preceding principles is possible.

  (63) For all rational beings come under the law that each of them must treat itself and all others never merely as means, but in every case at the same time as ends in themselves. Hence results a systematic union of rational beings by common objective laws, i.e., a kingdom which may be called a kingdom of ends, since what these laws have in view is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means. It is certainly only an ideal.

  A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when, although giving universal laws in it, he is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, while giving laws, he is not subject to the will of any other.

  A rational being must always regard himself as giving laws either as member or as sovereign in a kingdom of ends which is rendered possible by the freedom of will. He cannot, however, maintain the latter position merely by the maxims of his will, but only in case he is a completely independent being without wants and with unrestricted power adequate to his will.

  Morality consists then in the reference of all action to the legislation which alone can render a kingdom of ends possible. This legislation must be capable of existing in every rational being, and of emanating from his will, so that the principle of this will is, never to act on any maxim which could not without contradiction be also a universal law, and accordingly always so to act that the will could at the same time regard itself as giving in its maxims universal laws. If now the maxims of rational beings are not by their own nature coincident with this objective principle, then the necessity of acting on it is called practical necessitation (64), i.e., duty. Duty does not apply to the sovereign in the kingdom of ends, but it does to every member of it and to all in the same degree.

  The practical necessity of acting on this principle, i.e., duty, does not rest at all on feelings, impulses, or inclinations, but solely on the relation of rational beings to one another, a relation in which the will of a rational being must always be regarded as legislative, since otherwise it could not be conceived as an end in itself. Reason then refers every maxim of the will, regarding it as legislating universally, to every other will and also to every action towards oneself; and this not on account of any other practical motive or any future advantage, but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being, obeying no law but that which he himself also gives.

  In the kingdom of ends everything has either Value or Dignity. Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.

  Whatever has reference to the general inclinations and wants of mankind has a market value; whatever, without presupposing a want, corresponds to a certain taste, that is to a satisfaction in the mere purposeless play of our faculties, has a fancy value; but that which constitutes the condition under which alone anything can be an end in itself, this has not merely a relative worth, i.e., value, but an intrinsic worth, that is dignity.

  Now morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be an end in himself, since by this alone is it possible that he should be a legislating member in the kingdom of ends. Thus morality, and humanity as capable of it, is that which alone has dignity (65). Skill and diligence in labour have a market value; wit, lively imagination, and humour, have fancy value; on the other hand, fidelity to promises, benevolence from principle (not from instinct), have an intrinsic worth. Neither nature nor art contains anything which in default of these it could put in their place, for their worth consists not in the effects which spring from them, not in the use and advantage which they secure, but in the disposition of mind, that is, the maxims of the will which are ready to manifest themselves in such actions, even though they should not have the desired effect. These actions also need no recommendation from any subjective taste or sentiment, that they may be looked on with immediate favour and satisfaction: they need no immediate propension or feeling for them; they exhibit the will that performs them as an object of an immediate respect, and nothing but reason is required to impose them on the will; not to flatter it into them, which, in the case of duties, would be a contradiction. This estimation therefore shows that the worth of such a disposition is dignity, and places it infinitely above all value, with which it cannot for a moment be brought into comparison or competition without as it were violating its sanctity.

  What then is it which justifies virtue or the morally good disposition, in making such lofty claims? It is nothing less than the privilege it secures to the rational being of participating in the giving of universal laws, by which it qualifies him to be a member of a possible kingdom of ends, a privilege to which he was already destined by his own nature as being an end in himself, and on that account legislating in the kingdom of ends; free as regards all laws of physical nature, and obeying those only which he himself gives, and by which his maxims can belong to a system of universal law, to which at the same time he submits himself. For nothing has any worth except (66) what the law assigns it. Now the legislation itself which assigns the worth of everything, must for that very reason possess dignity, that is an unconditional incomparable worth, and the word respect alone supplies a becoming expression for the esteem which a rational being must have for it. Autonomy then is the basis of the dignity of human and of every rational nature.

  The three modes of presenting the principle of morality that have been adduced are at bottom only so many formulæ of the very same law, and each of itself involves the other two. There is, however, a difference in them, but it is rather subjectively than objectively practical, intended namely to bring an idea of the reason nearer to intuition (by means of a certain analogy), and thereby nearer to feeling. All maxims, in fact, have—

  1. A form, consisting in universality; and in this view the formula of the moral imperative is expressed thus, that the maxims must be so chosen as if they were to serve as universal laws of nature.

  2. A matter,1 namely, an end, and here the formula says that the rational being, as it is an end by its own nature and therefore an end in itself, must in every maxim serve as the condition limiting all merely relative and arbitrary ends.

  3. A complete characterisation of all maxims by means of that formula, namely, that all maxims ought by their own legislation to harmonise with a possible kingdom of ends as with a kingdom of nature 2 (67). There is a progress here in the order of the categories of unity of the form of the will (its universality), plurality of the matter (the objects, i.e., the ends), and totality of the system of these. In forming our moral judgment of actions it is better to proceed always on the strict method, and start from the general formula of the categorical imperative: Act according to a maxim which can at the same time make itself a universal law. If, however, we wish to gain an entrance for the moral law, it is very useful to bring one and the same action under the three specified conceptions, and thereby as far as possible to bring it nearer to intuition.

  We can now end where we started at the beginning, namely, with the conception of a will unconditionally good. That will is absolutely good which cannot be evil, in other words, whose maxim, if made a universal law, could never contradict itself. This principle then is its supreme law: Act always on such a maxim as thou canst at the same time will to be a universal law; this is the sole condition under which a will can never contradict itself; and such an imperative is categorical. Since the validity of the will as a universal law for possible actions is analogous to the universal connexion of the existence of things by general laws, which is the formal notion of nature in general, the categorical imperative can also be expressed thus: Act on maxims which can at the same time have for their object themselves as universal laws of nature. Such then is the formula of an absolutely good will.

  Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by this, that it sets before itself an end. This end would be the matter of every good will (68). But since in the idea of a will that is absolutely good without being limited by any condition (of attaining this or that end) we must abstract wholly from every end to be effected (since this would make every will only relatively good), it follows that in this case the end must be conceived, not as an end to be effected, but as an independently existing end. Consequently it is conceived only negatively, i. e., as that which we must never act against, and which, therefore, must never be regarded merely as means, but must in every volition be esteemed as an end likewise. Now this end can be nothing but the subject of all possible ends, since this is also the subject of a possible absolutely good will; for such a will cannot without contradiction be postponed to any other object. The principle: So act in regard to every rational being (thyself and others), that he may always have place in thy maxim as an end in himself, is accordingly essentially identical with this other: Act upon a maxim which, at the same time, involves its own universal validity for every rational being. For that in using means for every end I should limit my maxim by the condition of its holding good as a law for every subject, this comes to the same thing as that the fundamental principle of all maxims of action must be that the subject of all ends, i.e., the rational being himself, be never employed merely as means, but as the supreme condition restricting the use of all means, that is in every case as an end likewise.

  It follows incontestably that, to whatever laws any rational being may be subject, he being an end in himself must be able to regard himself as also legislating universally in respect of these same laws, since it is just this fitness of his maxims for universal legislation that distinguishes him as an end in himself; also it follows that this implies his dignity (prerogative) above all mere physical beings, that he must always take his (69) maxims from the point of view which regards himself, and likewise every other rational being, as lawgiving beings (on which account they are called persons). In this way a world of rational beings (mundus intelligibilis) is possible as a kingdom of ends, and this by virtue of the legislation proper to all persons as members. Therefore every rational being must so act as if he were by his maxims in every case a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends. The formal principle of these maxims is: So act as if thy maxim were to serve likewise as the universal law (of all rational beings). A kingdom of ends is thus only possible on the analogy of a kingdom of nature, the former however only by maxims, that is self-imposed rules, the latter only by the laws of efficient causes acting under necessitation from without. Nevertheless, although the system of nature is looked upon as a machine, yet so far as it has reference to rational beings as its ends, it is given on this account the name of a kingdom of nature. Now such a kingdom of ends would be actually realised by means of maxims conforming to the canon which the categorical imperative prescribes to all rational beings, if they were universally followed. But although a rational being, even if he punctually follows this maxim himself, cannot reckon upon all others being therefore true to the same, nor expect that the kingdom of nature and its orderly arrangements shall be in harmony with him as a fitting member, so as to form a kingdom of ends to which he himself contributes, that is to say, that it shall favour his expectation of happiness, still that law: Act according to the maxims of a member of a merely possible kingdom of ends legislating in it universally, remains in its full force, inasmuch as it commands categorically. And it is just in this that the paradox lies; that the mere dignity of man as a rational creature (70), without any other end or advantage to be attained thereby, in other words, respect for a mere idea, should yet serve as an inflexible precept of the will, and that it is precisely in this independence of the maxim on all such springs of action that its sublimity consists; and it is this that makes every rational subject worthy to be a legislative member in the kingdom of ends: for otherwise he would have to be conceived only as subject to the physical law of his wants. And although we should suppose the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of ends to be united under one sovereign, so that the latter kingdom thereby ceased to be a mere idea and acquired true reality, then it would no doubt gain the accession of a strong spring, but by no means any increase of its intrinsic worth. For this sole absolute lawgiver must, notwithstanding this, be always conceived as estimating the worth of rational beings only by their disinterested behaviour, as prescribed to themselves from that idea [the dignity of man] alone. The essence of things is not altered by their external relations, and that which abstracting from these, alone constitutes the absolute worth of man, is also that by which he must be judged, whoever the judge may be, and even by the Supreme Being. Morality then is the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to the potential universal legislation by its maxims. An action that is consistent with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does not agree therewith is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily coincide with the laws of autonomy is a holy will, good absolutely. The dependence of a will not absolutely good on the principle of autonomy (moral necessitation) is obligation. This then cannot be applied to a holy being. The objective necessity of actions from obligation is called duty.

  (71) From what has just been said, it is easy to see how it happens that although the conception of duty implies subjection to the law, we yet ascribe a certain dignity and sublimity to the person who fulfils all his duties. There is not, indeed, any sublimity in him, so far as he is subject to the moral law; but inasmuch as in regard to that very law he is likewise a legislator, and on that account alone subject to it, he has sublimity. We have also shown above that neither fear nor inclination, but simply respect for the law, is the spring which can give actions a moral worth. Our own will, so far as we suppose it to act only under the condition that its maxims are potentially universal laws, this ideal will which is possible to us is the proper object of respect, and the dignity of humanity consists just in this capacity of being universally legislative, though with the condition that it is itself subject to this same legislation.

  The Autonomy of the Will as the Supreme Principle of Morality.

  Autonomy of the will is that property of it by which it is a law to itself (independently on any property of the objects of volition). The principle of autonomy then is: Always so to choose that the same volition shall comprehend the maxims of our choice as a universal law. We cannot prove that this practical rule is an imperative, i.e., that the will of every rational being is necessarily bound to it as a condition, by a mere analysis of the conceptions which occur in it, since it is a synthetical proposition (72); we must advance beyond the cognition of the objects to a critical examination of the subject, that is of the pure practical reason, for this synthetic proposition which commands apodictically must be capable of being cognised wholly à priori. This matter, however, does not belong to the present section. But that the principle of autonomy in question is the sole principle of morals can be readily shown by mere analysis of the conceptions of morality. For by this analysis we find that its principle must be a categorical imperative, and that what this commands is neither more nor less than this very autonomy.

  Heteronomy of the Will as the Source of all spurious Principles of Morality.

  If the will seeks the law which is to determine it anywhere else than in the fitness of its maxims to be universal laws of its own dictation, consequently if it goes out of itself and seeks this law in the character of any of its objects, there always results heteronomy. The will in that case does not give itself the law, but it is given by the object through its relation to the will. This relation whether it rests on inclination or on conceptions of reason only admits of hypothetical imperatives: I ought to do something because I wish for something else. On the contrary, the moral, and therefore categorical, imperative says: I ought to do so and so, even though I should not wish for anything else. Ex. gr., the former says: I ought not to lie if I would retain my reputation; the latter says: I ought not to lie although it should not bring me the least discredit. The latter therefore must so far abstract from all objects that they shall have no influence on the will, in order that practical reason (will) may not be restricted to administering an interest not belonging to it (73), but may simply show its own commanding authority as the supreme legislation. Thus, ex. gr., I ought to endeavour to promote the happiness of others, not as if its realization involved any concern of mine (whether by immediate inclination or by any satisfaction indirectly gained through reason), but simply because a maxim which excludes it cannot be comprehended as a universal law 1 in one and the same volition.

  classification
  Of all Principles of Morality which can be founded on the Conception of Heteronomy.

  Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways before it succeeded in finding the one true way.

  All principles which can be taken from this point of view are either empirical or rational. The former, drawn from the principle of happiness, are built on physical or moral feelings; the latter, drawn from the principle of perfection, are built either on the rational conception of perfection as a possible effect, or on that of an independent perfection (the will of God) as the determining cause of our will.

  Empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation for moral laws. For the universality with which these should hold for all rational beings without distinction, the unconditional practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them is lost when their foundation is taken from the particular constitution of human nature, or the accidental (74) circumstances in which it is placed. The principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable, not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct, nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment of morality—since it is quite a different thing to make a prosperous man and a good man, or to make one prudent and sharp-sighted for his own interests, and to make him virtuous—but because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives to virtue and to vice in the same class, and only teach us to make a better calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice being entirely extinguished. On the other hand, as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, 1 the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings: nevertheless this moral feeling is nearer to morality and its dignity in this respect, that it pays virtue the honour of ascribing to her immediately the satisfaction and esteem we have for her, and does not, as it were, tell her to her face that we are not attached to her by her beauty but by profit.

  (75) Amongst the rational principles of morality, the ontological conception of perfection, notwithstanding its defects, is better than the theological conception which derives morality from a Divine absolutely perfect will. The former is, no doubt, empty and indefinite, and consequently useless for finding in the boundless field of possible reality the greatest amount suitable for us; moreover, in attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of which we are now speaking from every other, it inevitably tends to turn in a circle, and cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality which it is to explain; it is nevertheless preferable to the theological view, first, because we have no intuition of the Divine perfection, and can only deduce it from our own conceptions, the most important of which is that of morality, and our explanation would thus be involved in a gross circle; and, in the next place, if we avoid this, the only notion of the Divine will remaining to us is a conception made up of the attributes of desire of glory and dominion, combined with the awful conceptions of might and vengeance, and any system of morals erected on this foundation would be directly opposed to morality.

  However, if I had to choose between the notion of the moral sense and that of perfection in general (two systems which at least do not weaken morality, although they are totally incapable of serving as its foundation), then I should decide for the latter, because it at least withdraws the decision of the question from the sensibility and brings it to the court of pure reason; and although even here it decides nothing, it at all events preserves the indefinite idea (of a will good in itself) free from corruption, until it shall be more precisely defined.

  For the rest I think I may be excused here from a detailed refutation of all these doctrines; that would only be superfluous labour, since it is so easy, and is probably so well seen even by those whose office requires them to decide for one of these theories (because their hearers would not tolerate suspension of judgment) (76). But what interests us more here is to know that the prime foundation of morality laid down by all these principles is nothing but heteronomy of the will, and for this reason they must necessarily miss their aim.

  In every case where an object of the will has to be supposed, in order that the rule may be prescribed which is to determine the will, there the rule is simply heteronomy; the imperative is conditional, namely, if or because one wishes for this object, one should act so and so: hence it can never command morally, that is categorically. Whether the object determines the will by means of inclination, as in the principle of private happiness, or by means of reason directed to objects of our possible volition generally, as in the principle of perfection, in either case the will never determines itself immediately by the conception of the action, but only by the influence which the foreseen effect of the action has on the will; I ought to do something, on this account, because I wish for something else; and here there must be yet another law assumed in me as its subject, by which I necessarily will this other thing, and this law again requires an imperative to restrict this maxim. For the influence which the conception of an object within the reach of our faculties can exercise on the will of the subject in consequence of its natural properties, depends on the nature of the subject, either the sensibility (inclination and taste), or the understanding and reason, the employment of which is by the peculiar constitution of their nature attended with satisfaction. It follows that the law would be, properly speaking, given by nature, and as such, it must be known and proved by experience, and would consequently be contingent, and therefore incapable of being an apodictic practical rule, such as the moral rule must be. Not only so, but it is inevitably only heteronomy (77); the will does not give itself the law, but it is given by a foreign impulse by means of a particular natural constitution of the subject adapted to receive it. An absolutely good will then, the principle of which must be a categorical imperative, will be indeterminate as regards all objects, and will contain merely the form of volition generally, and that as autonomy, that is to say, the capability of the maxims of every good will to make themselves a universal law, is itself the only law which the will of every rational being imposes on itself, without needing to assume any spring or interest as a foundation.

  How such a synthetical practical à priori proposition is possible and why it is necessary, is a problem whose solution does not lie within the bounds of the metaphysic of morals; and we have not here affirmed its truth, much less professed to have a proof of it in our power. We simply showed by the development of the universally received notion of morality that an autonomy of the will is inevitably connected with it, or rather is its foundation. Whoever then holds morality to be anything real, and not a chimerical idea without any truth, must likewise admit the principle of it that is here assigned. This section then, like the first, was merely analytical. Now to prove that morality is no creation of the brain, which it cannot be if the categorical imperative and with it the autonomy of the will is true, and as an à priori principle absolutely necessary, this supposes the possibility of a synthetic use of pure practical reason, which however we cannot venture on without first giving a critical examination of this faculty of reason. In the concluding section we shall give the principal outlines of this critical examination as far as is sufficient for our purpose.

  THIRD SECTION.

  transition from the metaphysic of morals to the critique of pure practical reason.

  The Concept of Freedom is the Key that explains the Autonomy of the Will.

  Thewill is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far as they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such causality that it can be efficient, independently on foreign causes determining it; just as physical necessity is the property that the causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to activity by the influence of foreign causes.

  The preceding definition of freedom is negative, and therefore unfruitful for the discovery of its essence; but it leads to a positive conception which is so much the more full and fruitful. Since the conception of causality involves that of laws, according to which, by something that we call cause, something else, namely, the effect, must be produced [laid down]; 1 hence, although freedom is not a property of the will depending on physical laws, yet it is not for that reason lawless; on the contrary it must be a causality acting according to immutable laws, but of a peculiar kind; otherwise a free will would be an absurdity. Physical necessity (79) is a heteronomy of the efficient causes, for every effect is possible only according to this law, that something else determines the efficient cause to exert its causality. What else then can freedom of the will be but autonomy, that is the property of the will to be a law to itself? But the proposition: The will is in every action a law to itself, only expresses the principle, to act on no other maxim than that which can also have as an object itself as a universal law. Now this is precisely the formula of the categorical imperative and is the principle of morality, so that a free will and a will subject to moral laws are one and the same.

  On the hypothesis then of freedom of the will, morality together with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of the conception. However the latter is still a synthetic proposition; viz., an absolutely good will is that whose maxim can always include itself regarded as a universal law; for this property of its maxim can never be discovered by analysing the conception of an absolutely good will. Now such synthetic propositions are only possible in this way: that the two cognitions are connected together by their union with a third in which they are both to be found. The positive concept of freedom furnishes this third cognition, which cannot, as with physical causes, be the nature of the sensible world (in the concept of which we find conjoined the concept of something in relation as cause to something else as effect). We cannot now at once show what this third is to which freedom points us, and of which we have an idea à priori, nor can we make intelligible how the concept of freedom is shown to be legitimate from principles of pure practical reason, and with it the possibility of a categorical imperative; but some further preparation is required.

  freedom
  Must be presupposed as a Property of the Will of all Rational Beings.

  It is not enough to predicate freedom of our own will, from whatever reason, if we have not sufficient grounds for predicating the same of all rational beings. For as morality serves as a law for us only because we are rational beings, it must also hold for all rational beings; and as it must be deduced simply from the property of freedom, it must be shown that freedom also is a property of all rational beings. It is not enough then to prove it from certain supposed experiences of human nature (which indeed is quite impossible, and it can only be shown à priori), but we must show that it belongs to the activity of all rational beings endowed with a will. Now I say every being that cannot act except under the idea of freedom is just for that reason in a practical point of view really free, that is to say, all laws which are inseparably connected with freedom have the same force for him as if his will had been shown to be free in itself by a proof theoretically conclusive. 1 Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being (81) which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its judgments, for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its judgment not to its own reason, but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independent on foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of view be ascribed to every rational being.

  Of the Interest attaching to the Ideas of Morality.

  We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i. e., as endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its freedom.

  Now it resulted also from the presupposition of this idea that we became aware of a law that the subjective principles of action, i. e., maxims, must always be so assumed that they can also hold as objective (82), that is, universal principles, and so serve as universal laws of our own dictation. But why then should I subject myself to this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also subjecting to it all other beings endowed with reason? I will allow that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and discern how this comes to pass; for this “I ought” is properly an “I would,” valid for every rational being, provided only that reason determined his actions without any hindrance. But for beings that are in addition affected as we are by springs of a different kind, namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not always done which reason alone would do, for these that necessity is expressed only as an “ought,” and the subjective necessity is different from the objective.

  It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of autonomy of the will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the idea of freedom, and as if we could not prove its reality and objective necessity independently. In that case we should still have gained something considerable by at least determining the true principle more exactly than had previously been done; but as regards its validity and the practical necessity of subjecting oneself to it, we should not have advanced a step. For if we were asked why the universal validity of our maxim as a law must be the condition restricting our actions, and on what we ground the worth which we assign to this manner of acting—a worth so great that there cannot be any higher interest; and if we were asked further how it happens that it is by this alone a man believes he feels his own personal worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable condition is to be regarded as nothing, to these questions we could give no satisfactory answer.

  (83) We find indeed sometimes that we can take an interest 1 in a personal quality which does not involve any interest of external condition, provided this quality makes us capable of participating in the condition in case reason were to effect the allotment; that is to say, the mere being worthy of happiness can interest of itself even without the motive of participating in this happiness. This judgment, however, is in fact only the effect of the importance of the moral law which we before presupposed (when by the idea of freedom we detach ourselves from every empirical interest); but that we ought to detach ourselves from these interests, i.e., to consider ourselves as free in action and yet as subject to certain laws, so as to find a worth simply in our own person which can compensate us for the loss of everything that gives worth to our condition; this we are not yet able to discern in this way, nor do we see how it is possible so to act—in other words, whence the moral law derives its obligation.

  It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here from which it seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient causes we assume ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends we may conceive ourselves as subject to moral laws: and we afterwards conceive ourselves as subject to these laws, because we have attributed to ourselves freedom of will: for freedom and self-legislation of will are both autonomy, and therefore are reciprocal conceptions, and for this very reason one must not be used to explain the other or give the reason of it, but at most only for logical purposes to reduce apparently different notions of the same object to one single concept (as we reduce different fractions of the same value to the lowest terms).

  One resource remains to us, namely, to inquire whether we do not occupy different points of view when by means of freedom (84) we think ourselves as causes efficient à priori, and when we form our conception of ourselves from our actions as effects which we see before our eyes.

  It is a remark which needs no subtle reflection to make, but which we may assume that even the commonest understanding can make, although it be after its fashion by an obscure discernment of judgment which it calls feeling, that all the “ideas” 1 that come to us involuntarily (as those of the senses) do not enable us to know objects otherwise than as they affect us; so that what they may be in themselves remains unknown to us, and consequently that as regards “ideas” of this kind even with the closest attention and clearness that the understanding can apply to them, we can by them only attain to the knowledge of appearances, never to that of things in themselves. As soon as this distinction has once been made (perhaps merely in consequence of the difference observed between the ideas given us from without, and in which we are passive, and those that we produce simply from ourselves, and in which we show our own activity), then it follows of itself that we must admit and assume behind the appearance something else that is not an appearance, namely, the things in themselves; although we must admit that as they can never be known to us except as they affect us, we can come no nearer to them, nor can we ever know what they are in themselves. This must furnish a distinction, however crude, between a world of sense and the world of understanding, of which the former may be different according to the difference of the sensuous impressions in various observers, while the second which is its basis always remains the same. Even as to himself, a man cannot pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he has by internal sensation (85). For as he does not as it were create himself, and does not come by the conception of himself à priori but empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge even of himself only by the inner sense, and consequently only through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his consciousness is affected. At the same time beyond these characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be. Thus in respect to mere perception and receptivity of sensations he must reckon himself as belonging to the world of sense, but in respect of whatever there may be of pure activity in him (that which reaches consciousness immediately and not through affecting the senses) he must reckon himself as belonging to the intellectual world, of which however he has no further knowledge. To such a conclusion the reflecting man must come with respect to all the things which can be presented to him: it is probably to be met with even in persons of the commonest understanding, who, as is well known, are very much inclined to suppose behind the objects of the senses something else invisible and acting of itself. They spoil it however by presently sensualizing this invisible again; that is to say, wanting to make it an object of intuition, so that they do not become a whit the wiser.

  Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he distinguishes himself from everything else, even from himself as affected by objects, and that is Reason. This being pure spontaneity is even elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive), yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under rules (86), and thereby to unite them in one consciousness, and without this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the contrary, Reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I call Ideas [Ideal Conceptions] that it thereby far transcends everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding itself.

  For this reason a rational being must regard himself qua intelligence (not from the side of his lower faculties) as belonging not to the world of sense, but to that of understanding; hence he has two points of view from which he can regard himself, and recognise laws of the exercise of his faculties, and consequently of all his actions: first, so far as he belongs to the world of sense, he finds himself subject to laws of nature (heteronomy); secondly, as belonging to the intelligible world, under laws which being independent on nature have their foundation not in experience but in reason alone.

  As a rational being, and consequently belonging to the intelligible world, man can never conceive the causality of his own will otherwise than on condition of the idea of freedom, for independence on the determining causes of the sensible world (an independence which Reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom. Now the idea of freedom is inseparably connected with the conception of autonomy, and this again with the universal principle of morality which is ideally the foundation of all actions of rational beings, just as the law of nature is of all phenomena.

  Now the suspicion is removed which we raised above, that there was a latent circle involved in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy, and from this to the moral law, viz.: that we laid down the idea of freedom because of the moral law only that we might afterwards in turn infer the latter from freedom (87), and that consequently we could assign no reason at all for this law, but could only [present] 1 it as a petitio principii which well disposed minds would gladly concede to us, but which we could never put forward as a provable proposition. For now we see that when we conceive ourselves as free we transfer ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it, and recognise the autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality; whereas, if we conceive ourselves as under obligation we consider ourselves as belonging to the world of sense, and at the same time to the world of understanding.

  How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?

  Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will. On the other side he is also conscious of himself as a part of the world of sense in which his actions which are mere appearances [phenomena] of that causality are displayed; we cannot however discern how they are possible from this causality which we do not know; but instead of that, these actions as belonging to the sensible world must be viewed as determined by other phenomena, namely, desires and inclinations. If therefore I were only a member of the world of understanding, then all my actions would perfectly conform to the principle of autonomy of the pure will; if I were only a part of the world of sense they would necessarily be assumed to conform wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations, in other words, to the heteronomy of nature. (The former would rest on morality as the supreme principle, the latter on happiness.) Since however the world of understanding contains the foundation of the world of sense, and consequently of its laws also, and accordingly gives the law to my will (which belongs wholly to the world of understanding) directly (88), and must be conceived as doing so, it follows that, although on the one side I must regard myself as a being belonging to the world of sense, yet on the other side I must recognise myself as subject as an intelligence to the law of the world of understanding, i.e., to reason, which contains this law in the idea of freedom, and therefore as subject to the autonomy of the will: consequently I must regard the laws of the world of understanding as imperatives for me, and the actions which conform to them as duties.

  And thus what makes categorical imperatives possible is this, that the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in consequence of which if I were nothing else all my actions would always conform to the autonomy of the will; but as I at the same time intuite myself as a member of the world of sense, they ought so to conform, and this categorical “ought” implies a synthetic à priori proposition, inasmuch as besides my will as affected by sensible desires there is added further the idea of the same will but as belonging to the world of the understanding, pure and practical of itself, which contains the supreme condition according to Reason of the former will; precisely as to the intuitions of sense there are added concepts of the understanding which of themselves signify nothing but regular form in general, and in this way synthetic à priori propositions become possible, on which all knowledge of physical nature rests.

  The practical use of common human reason confirms this reasoning. There is no one, not even the most consummate villain, provided only that he is otherwise accustomed to the use of reason, who, when we set before him examples of honesty of purpose, of steadfastness in following good maxims, of sympathy and general benevolence (even combined with great sacrifices of advantages and comfort), does not wish that he might also possess these qualities. Only on account of his inclinations and impulses he cannot attain this in himself (89), but at the same time he wishes to be free from such inclinations which are bundensome to himself. He proves by this that he transfers himself in thought with a will free from the impulses of the sensibility into an order of things wholly different from that of his desires in the field of the sensibility; since he cannot expect to obtain by that wish any gratification of his desires, nor any position which would satisfy any of his actual or supposable inclinations (for this would destroy the pre-eminence of the very idea which wrests that wish from him): he can only expect a greater intrinsic worth of his own person. This better person, however, he imagines himself to be when he transfers himself to the point of view of a member of the world of the understanding, to which he is involuntarily forced by the idea of freedom, i.e., of independence on determining causes of the world of sense; and from this point of view he is conscious of a good will, which by his own confession constitutes the law for the bad will that he possesses as a member of the world of sense—a law whose authority he recognises while transgressing it. What he morally “ought” is then what he necessarily “would” as a member of the world of the understanding, and is conceived by him as an “ought” only inasmuch as he likewise considers himself as a member of the world of sense.

  On the Extreme Limits of all Practical Philosophy.

  All men attribute to themselves freedom of will. Hence come all judgments upon actions as being such as ought to have been done, although they have not been done. However this freedom is not a conception of experience, nor can it be so, since it still remains (90), even though experience shows the contrary of what on supposition of freedom are conceived as its necessary consequences. On the other side it is equally necessary that everything that takes place should be fixedly determined according to laws of nature. This necessity of nature is likewise not an empirical conception, just for this reason, that it involves the motion of necessity and consequently of à priori cognition. But this conception of a system of nature is confirmed by experience, and it must even be inevitably presupposed if experience itself is to be possible, that is, a connected knowledge of the objects of sense resting on general laws. Therefore freedom is only an Idea [Ideal Conception] of Reason, and its objective reality in itself is doubtful, while nature is a concept of the understanding which proves, and must necessarily prove, its reality in examples of experience.

  There arises from this a dialectic of Reason, since the freedom attributed to the will appears to contradict the necessity of nature, and placed between these two ways Reason for speculative purposes finds the road of physical necessity much more beaten and more appropriate than that of freedom; yet for practical purposes the narrow footpath of freedom is the only one on which it is possible to make use of reason in our conduct; hence it is just as impossible for the subtlest philosophy as for the commonest reason of men to argue away freedom. Philosophy must then assume that no real contradiction will be found between freedom and physical necessity of the same human actions, for it cannot give up the conception of nature any more than that of freedom.

  Nevertheless, even though we should never be able to comprehend how freedom is possible, we must at least remove this apparent contradiction in a convincing manner. For if the thought of freedom contradicts either itself or nature, which is equally necessary (91), it must in competition with physical necessity be entirely given up.

  It would, however, be impossible to escape this contradiction if the thinking subject, which seems to itself free, conceived itself in the same sense or in the very same relation when it calls itself free as when in respect of the same action it assumes itself to be subject to the law of nature. Hence it is an indispensable problem of speculative philosophy to show that its illusion respecting the contradiction rests on this, that we think of man in a different sense and relation when we call him free, and when we regard him as subject to the laws of nature as being part and parcel of nature. It must therefore show that not only can both these very well co-exist, but that both must be thought as necessarily united in the same subject, since otherwise no reason could be given why we should burden reason with an idea which, though it may possibly without contradiction be reconciled with another that is sufficiently established, yet entangles us in a perplexity which sorely embarrasses Reason in its theoretic employment. This duty, however, belongs only to speculative philosophy, in order that it may clear the way for practical philosophy. The philosopher then has no option whether he will remove the apparent contradiction or leave it untouched; for in the latter case the theory respecting this would be bonum vacans into the possession of which the fatalist would have a right to enter, and chase all morality out of its supposed domain as occupying it without title.

  We cannot, however, as yet say that we are touching the bounds of practical philosophy. For the settlement of that controversy does not belong to it; it only demands from speculative reason that it should put an end to the discord in which it entangles itself in theoretical questions, so that practical reason may have rest and security from external attacks (92) which might make the ground debatable on which it desires to build.

  The claims to freedom of will made even by common reason are founded on the consciousness and the admitted supposition that reason is independent on merely subjectively determined causes which together constitute what belongs to sensation only, and which consequently come under the general designation of sensibility. Man considering himself in this way as an intelligence, places himself thereby in a different order of things and in a relation to determining grounds of a wholly different kind when on the one hand he thinks of himself as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, and when on the other he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense (as he really is also), and affirms that his causality is subject to external determination according to laws of nature. 1 Now he soon becomes aware that both can hold good, nay, must hold good at the same time. For there is not the smallest contradiction in saying that a thing in appearance (belonging to the world of sense) is subject to certain laws, on which the very same as a thing or being in itself is independent; and that he must conceive and think of himself in this two-fold way, rests as to the first on the consciousness of himself as an object affected through the senses, and as to the second on the consciousness of himself as an intelligence, i. e., as independent on sensible impressions in the employment of his reason (in other words as belonging to the world of understanding).

  Hence it comes to pass that man claims the possession of a will which takes no account of anything that comes under the head of desires and inclinations, and on the contrary conceives actions as possible to him, nay, even as necessary, which can only be done by disregarding all desires and sensible inclinations. The causality of such actions 1 lies in him as an intelligence and in the laws of effects and actions [which depend] on the principles (93) of an intelligible world, of which indeed he knows nothing more than that in it pure reason alone independent on sensibility gives the law; moreover since it is only in that world, as an intelligence, that he is his proper self (being as man only the appearance of himself) those laws apply to him directly and categorically, so that the incitements of inclinations and appetites (in other words the whole nature of the world of sense) cannot impair the laws of his volition as an intelligence. Nay, he does not even hold himself responsible for the former or ascribe them to his proper self, i. e., his will: he only ascribes to his will any indulgence which he might yield them if he allowed them to influence his maxims to the prejudice of the rational laws of the will.

  When practical Reason thinks itself into a world of understanding it does not thereby transcend its own limits, as it would if it tried to enter it by intuition or sensation. The former is only a negative thought in respect of the world of sense, which does not give any laws to reason in determining the will, and is positive only in this single point that this freedom as a negative characteristic is at the same time conjoined with a (positive) faculty and even with a causality of reason, which we designate a will, namely, a faculty of so acting that the principle of the actions shall conform to the essential character of a rational motive, i. e., the condition that the maxim have universal validity as a law. But were it to borrow an object of will, that is, a motive, from the world of understanding, then it would overstep its bounds and pretend to be acquainted with something of which it knows nothing. The conception of a world of the understanding is then only a point of view which Reason finds itself compelled to take outside the appearances in order to conceive itself as practical, which would not be possible if the influences of the sensibility had a determining power on man (94), but which is necessary unless he is to be denied the consciousness of himself as an intelligence, and consequently as a rational cause, energizing by reason, that is, operating freely. This thought certainly involves the idea of an order and a system of laws different from that of the mechanism of nature which belongs to the sensible world, and it makes the conception of an intelligible world necessary (that is to say, the whole system of rational beings as things in themselves). But it does not in the least authorize us to think of it further than as to its formal condition only, that is, the universality of the maxims of the will as laws, and consequently the autonomy of the latter, which alone is consistent with its freedom; whereas, on the contrary, all laws that refer to a definite object give heteronomy, which only belongs to laws of nature, and can only apply to the sensible world.

  But Reason would overstep all its bounds if it undertook to explain how pure reason can be practical, which would be exactly the same problem as to explain how freedom is possible.

  For we can explain nothing but that which we can reduce to laws, the object of which can be given in some possible experience. But freedom is a mere Idea [Ideal Conception], the objective reality of which can in no wise be shown according to laws of nature, and consequently not in any possible experience; and for this reason it can never be comprehended or understood, because we cannot support it by any sort of example or analogy. It holds good only as a necessary hypothesis of reason in a being that believes itself conscious of a will, that is, of a faculty distinct from mere desire (namely a faculty of determining itself to action as an intelligence, in other words, by laws of reason independently on natural instincts) (95). Now where determination according to laws of nature ceases, there all explanation ceases also, and nothing remains but defence, i. e., the removal of the objections of those who pretend to have seen deeper into the nature of things, and thereupon boldly declare freedom impossible. We can only point out to them that the supposed contradiction that they have discovered in it arises only from this, that in order to be able to apply the law of nature to human actions, they must necessarily consider man as an appearance: then when we demand of them that they should also think of him qua intelligence as a thing in itself, they still persist in considering him in this respect also as an appearance. In this view it would no doubt be a contradiction to suppose the causality of the same subject (that is, his will) to be withdrawn from all the natural laws of the sensible world. But this contradiction disappears, if they would only bethink themselves and admit, as is reasonable, that behind the appearances there must also lie at their root (although hidden) the things in themselves, and that we cannot expect the laws of these to be the same as those that govern their appearances.

  The subjective impossibility of explaining the freedom of the will is identical with the impossibility of discovering and explaining an interest 1 which (96) man can take in the moral law. Nevertheless he does actually take an interest in it, the basis of which in us we call the moral feeling, which some have falsely assigned as the standard of our moral judgment, whereas it must rather be viewed as the subjective effect that the law exercises on the will, the objective principle of which is furnished by Reason alone.

  In order indeed that a rational being who is also affected through the senses should will what Reason alone directs such beings that they ought to will, it is no doubt requisite that reason should have a power to infuse a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction in the fulfilment of duty, that is to say, that it should have a causality by which it determines the sensibility according to its own principles. But it is quite impossible to discern, i. e. to make it intelligible à priori, how a mere thought, which itself contains nothing sensible, can itself produce a sensation of pleasure or pain; for this is a particular kind of causality of which as of every other causality we can determine nothing whatever à priori; we must only consult experience about it. But as this cannot supply us with any relation of cause and effect except between two objects of experience, whereas in this case, although indeed the effect produced lies within experience, yet the cause is supposed to be pure reason acting through mere ideas which offer no object to experience, it follows that for us men it is quite impossible to explain how and why the universality of the maxim as a law, that is, morality, interests. This only is certain, that it is not because it interests us that it has validity for us (for that would be heteronomy and dependence of practical reason on sensibility, namely, on a feeling as its principle, in which case it could never give moral laws) (97), but that it interests us because it is valid for us as men, inasmuch as it had its source in our will as intelligences, in other words in our proper self, and what belongs to mere appearance is necessarily subordinated by reason to the nature of the thing in itself.

  The question then: How a categorical imperative is possible can be answered to this extent that we can assign the only hypothesis on which it is possible, namely, the idea of freedom; and we can also discern the necessity of this hypothesis, and this is sufficient for the practical exercise of reason, that is, for the conviction of the validity of this imperative, and hence of the moral law; but how this hypothesis itself is possible can never be discerned by any human reason. On the hypothesis, however, that the will of an intelligence is free, its autonomy, as the essential formal condition of its determination, is a necessary consequence. Moreover, this freedom of will is not merely quite possible as a hypothesis (not involving any contradiction to the principle of physical necessity in the connexion of the phenomena of the sensible world) as speculative philosophy can show: but further, a rational being who is conscious of a causality 1 through reason, that is to say, of a will (distinct from desires), must of necessity make it practically, that is, in idea, the condition of all his voluntary actions. But to explain how pure reason can be of itself practical without the aid of any spring of action that could be derived from any other source, i. e. how the mere principle of the universal validity of all its maxims as laws (which would certainly be the form of a pure practical reason) can of itself supply a spring, without any matter (object) of the will in which one could antecedently take any interest (98); and how it can produce an interest which would be called purely moral; or in other words, how pure reason can be practical—to explain this is beyond the power of human reason, and all the labour and pains of seeking an explanation of it are lost.

  It is just the same as if I sought to find out how freedom itself is possible as the causality of a will. For then I quit the ground of philosophical explanation, and I have no other to go upon. I might indeed revel in the world of intelligences which still remains to me, but although I have an idea of it which is well founded, yet I have not the least knowledge of it, nor can I ever attain to such knowledge with all the efforts of my natural faculty of reason. It signifies only a something that remains over when I have eliminated everything belonging to the world of sense from the actuating principles of my will, serving merely to keep in bounds the principle of motives taken from the field of sensibility; fixing its limits and showing that it does not contain all in all within itself, but that there is more beyond it; but this something more I know no further. Of pure reason which frames this ideal, there remains after the abstraction of all matter, i. e. knowledge of objects, nothing but the form, namely, the practical law of the universality of the maxims, and in conformity with this the conception of reason in reference to a pure world of understanding as a possible efficient cause, that is a cause determining the will. There must here be a total absence of springs; unless this idea of an intelligible world is itself the spring, or that in which reason primarily takes an interest; but to make this intelligible is precisely the problem that we cannot solve.

  Here now is the extreme limit of all moral inquiry (99), and it is of great importance to determine it even on this account, in order that reason may not on the one hand, to the prejudice of morals, seek about in the world of sense for the supreme motive and an interest comprehensible but empirical; and on the other hand, that it may not impotently flap its wings without being able to move in the (for it) empty space of transcendent concepts which we call the intelligible world, and so lose itself amidst chimeras. For the rest, the idea of a pure world of understanding as a system of all intelligences, and to which we ourselves as rational beings belong (although we are likewise on the other side members of the sensible world), this remains always a useful and legitimate idea for the purposes of rational belief, although all knowledge stops at its threshold, useful, namely, to produce in us a lively interest in the moral law by means of the noble ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (rational beings), to which we can belong as members then only when we carefully conduct ourselves according to the maxims of freedom as if they were laws of nature.

  Concluding Remark.

  The speculative employment of reason with respect to nature leads to the absolute necessity of some supreme cause of the world: the practical employment of reason with a view to freedom leads also to absolute necessity, but only of the laws of the actions of a rational being as such. Now it is an essential principle of reason, however employed, to push its knowledge to a consciousness of its necessity (without which it would not be rational knowledge). It is however an equally essential restriction of the same reason that it can neither discern the necessity (100) of what is or what happens, nor of what ought to happen, unless a condition is supposed on which it is or happens or ought to happen. In this way, however, by the constant inquiry for the condition, the satisfaction of reason is only further and further postponed. Hence it unceasingly seeks the unconditionally necessary, and finds itself forced to assume it, although without any means of making it comprehensible to itself, happy enough if only it can discover a conception which agrees with this assumption. It is therefore no fault in our deduction of the supreme principle of morality, but an objection that should be made to human reason in general, that it cannot enable us to conceive the absolute necessity of an unconditional practical law (such as the categorical imperative must be). It cannot be blamed for refusing to explain this necessity by a condition, that is to say, by means of some interest assumed as a basis, since the law would then cease to be a moral law, i. e. a supreme law of freedom. And thus while we do not comprehend the practical unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, we yet comprehend its incomprehensibility, and this is all that can be fairly demanded of a philosophy which strives to carry its principles up to the very limit of human reason.

  CRITICAL EXAMINATION of PRACTICAL REASON.

  PREFACE.

  THIS WORK is called the “Critical Examination of Practical Reason,” not of the pure practical reason, although its parallelism with the speculative critique would seem to require the latter term. The reason of this appears sufficiently from the treatise itself. Its business is to show that there is pure practical reason, and for this purpose it criticises the entire practical faculty of reason. If it succeeds in this it has no need to criticise the pure faculty itself in order to see whether reason in making such a claim does not presumptuously overstep itself (as is the case with the speculative reason). For if, as pure reason, it is actually practical, it proves its own reality and that of its concepts by fact, and all disputation against the possibility of its being real is futile.

  With this faculty, transcendental freedom is also established; freedom, namely, in that absolute sense in which speculative reason required it in its use of the concept of causality in order to escape the antinomy into which it inevitably falls, when in the chain of cause and effect it tries to think the unconditioned. Speculative reason could only exhibit this concept (of freedom) problematically as not impossible to thought, without assuring it any objective reality, and merely lest the supposed impossibility of what it must at least allow to be thinkable (106) should endanger its very being and plunge it into an abyss of scepticism.

  Inasmuch as the reality of the concept of freedom is proved by an apodictic law of practical reason, it is the keystone of the whole system of pure reason, even the speculative, and all other concepts (those of God and immortality) which, as being mere ideas, remain in it unsupported, now attach themselves to this concept, and by it obtain consistence and objective reality; that is to say, their possibility is proved by the fact that freedom actually exists, for this idea is revealed by the moral law.

  Freedom, however, is the only one of all the ideas of the speculative reason of which we know the possibility à priori (without, however, understanding it), because it is the condition of the moral law which we know. 1 The ideas of God and Immortality, however, are not conditions of the moral law, but only conditions of the necessary object of a will determined by this law: that is to say, conditions of the practical use of our pure reason. Hence with respect to these ideas we cannot affirm that we know and understand, I will not say the actuality, but even the possibility of them. However they are the conditions of the application of the morally (107) determined will to its object, which is given to it à priori, viz. the summum bonum. Consequently in this practical point of view their possibility must be assumed, although we cannot theoretically know and understand it. To justify this assumption it is sufficient, in a practical point of view, that they contain no intrinsio impossibility (contradiction). Here we have what, as far as speculative Reason is concerned, is a merely subjective principle of assent, which, however, is objectively valid for a Reason equally pure but practical, and this principle, by means of the concept of freedom, assures objective reality and authority to the ideas of God and Immortality. Nay, there is a subjective necessity (a need of pure reason) to assume them. Nevertheless the theoretical knowledge of reason is not hereby enlarged, but only the possibility is given, which heretofore was merely a problem, and now becomes assertion, and thus the practical use of reason is connected with the elements of theoretical reason. And this need is not a merely hypothetical one for the arbitrary purposes of speculation, that we must assume something if we wish in speculation to carry reason to its utmost limits, but it is a need which has the force of law to assume something without which that cannot be which we must inevitably set before us as the aim of our action.

  It would certainly be more satisfactory to our speculative reason if it could solve these problems for itself without this circuit, and preserve the solution for practical use as a thing to be referred to, but in fact our faculty of speculation is not so well provided. Those who boast of such high knowledge ought not to keep it back, but to exhibit it publicly that it may be tested and appreciated. They want to prove: very good, let them prove; and the critical philosophy lays its arms at their feet as the victors. “Quid statis? Nolint. Atqui licet esse beatis.” As they then do not in fact choose to do so, probably because (108) they cannot, we must take up these arms again in order to seek in the mortal use of reason, and to base on this, the notions of God, freedom, and immortality, the possibility of which speculation cannot adequately prove.

  Here first is explained the enigma of the oritical philosophy, viz. how we deny objective reality to the supersensible use of the categories in speculation, and yet admit this reality with respect to the objects of pure practical reason. This must at first seem inconsistent as long as this practical use is only nominally known. But when, by a thorough analysis of it, one becomes aware that the reality spoken of does not imply any theoretical determination of the categories, and extension of our knowledge to the supersensible; but that what is meant is that in this respect an object belongs to them, because either they are contained in the necessary determination of the will à priori, or are inseparably connected with its object; then this inconsistency disappears, because the use we make of these concepts is different from what speculative reason requires. On the other hand, there now appears an unexpected and very satisfactory proof of the consistency of the speculative critical philosophy. For whereas it insisted that the objects of experience as such, including our own subject, have only the value of phenomena, while at the same time things in themselves must be supposed as their basis, so that not everything supersensible was to be regarded as a fiction and its concepts as empty; so now practical reason itself, without any concert with the speculative, assures reality to a supersensible object of the category of causality, viz. Freedom, although (as becomes a practical concept) (109) only for practical use; and this establishes on the evidence of a fact that which in the former case could only be conceived. By this the strange but certain doctrine of the speculative critical philosophy, that the thinking subject is to itself in internal intuition only a phenomenon, obtains in the critical examination of the practical reason its full confirmation, and that so thoroughly that we should be compelled to adopt this doctrine, even if the former had never proved it at all. 1

  By this also I can understand why the most considerable objections which I have as yet met with against the Critique turn about these two points, namely, on the one side, the objective reality of the categories as applied to noumena, which is in the theoretical department of knowledge denied, in the practical affirmed; and on the other side, the paradoxical demand to regard oneself quâ subject of freedom as a noumenon, and at the same time from the point of view of physical nature as a phenomenon in one’s own empirical consciousness; for as long as one has formed no definite notions of morality and freedom, one could not conjecture on the one side what was intended to be the noumenon, the basis of the alleged phenomenon, and on the other side it seemed doubtful whether it was at all possible to form any notion of it, seeing that we had previously assigned all the notions of the pure understanding in its theoretical use exclusively to phenomena. Nothing but a detailed criticism of the practical reason can remove all this misapprehension, and set in a clear light the consistency which constitutes its greatest merit.

  (110) So much by way of justification of the proceeding by which, in this work, the notions and principles of pure speculative reason which have already undergone their special critical examination, are, now and then, again subjected to examination. This would not in other cases be in accordance with the systematic process by which a science is established, since matters which have been decided ought only to be cited and not again discussed. In this case, however, it was not only allowable but necessary, because Reason is here considered in transition to a different use of these concepts from what it had made of them before. Such a transition necessitates a comparison of the old and the new usage, in order to distinguish well the new path from the old one, and, at the same time, to allow their connexion to be observed. Accordingly considerations of this kind, including those which are once more directed to the concept of freedom in the practical use of the pure reason, must not be regarded as an interpolation serving only to fill up the gaps in the critical system of speculative reason (for this is for its own purpose complete), or like the props and buttresses which in a hastily constructed building are often added afterwards; but as true members which make the connexion of the system plain, and show us concepts, here presented as real, which there could only be presented problematically. This remark applies especially to the concept of freedom, respecting which one cannot but observe with surprise, that so many boast of being able to understand it quite well, and to explain its possibility, while they regard it only psychologically, whereas if they had studied it in a transcendental point of view, they must have recognised that it is not only indispensable as a problematical concept, in the complete use of speculative reason, but also quite incomprehensible (111); and if they afterwards came to consider its practical use, they must needs have come to the very mode of determining the principles of this, to which they are now so loth to assent. The concept of freedom is the stone of stumbling for all empiricists, but at the same time the key to the loftiest practical principles for critical moralists, who perceive by its means that they must necessarily proceed by a rational method. For this reason I beg the reader not to pass lightly over what is said of this concept at the end of the Analytic.

  I must leave it to those who are acquainted with works of this kind to judge whether such a system as that of the practical reason, which is here developed from the critical examination of it, has cost much or little trouble, especially in seeking not to miss the true point of view from which the whole can be rightly sketched. It presupposes, indeed, the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, but only in so far as this gives a preliminary acquaintance with the principle of duty, and assigns and justifies a definite formula thereof; in other respects it is independent. 1 It results from the nature of this practical faculty itself that the complete classification of all practical sciences cannot be added, as in the critique of the speculative reason (112). For it is not possible to define duties specially, as human duties, with a view to their classification, until the subject of this definition (viz. man) is known according to his actual nature, at least so far as is necessary with respect to duty; this, however, does not belong to a critical examination of the practical reason, the business of which is only to assign in a complete manner the principles of its possibility, extent, and limits, without special reference to human nature. The classification then belongs to the system of science, not to the system of criticism.

  In the second part of the Analytic I have given, as I trust, a sufficient answer to the objection of a truth-loving and acute critic 1 of the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals—a critic always worthy of respect—the objection, namely, that the notion of good was not established before the moral principle, as he thinks it ought to have been 2 (113). I have also had regard to many of the objections which have reached me from men who show that they have at heart the discovery of the truth, and I shall continue to do so (for those who have only their old system before their eyes, and who have already settled what is to be approved or disapproved, do not desire any explanation which might stand in the way of their own private opinion).

  When we have to study a particular faculty of the human mind in its sources, its content, and its limits; then from the nature of human knowledge we must begin with its parts, with an accurate and complete exposition of them; complete, namely, so far as is possible in the present state of our knowledge of its elements. But there is another thing to be attended to which is of a more philosophical and architectonic character, namely, to grasp correctly the idea of the whole, and from thence to get a view of all those parts as mutually related by the aid of pure reason, and by means of their derivation from the concept of the whole (114). This is only possible through the most intimate acquaintance with the system; and those who find the first inquiry too troublesome, and do not think it worth their while to attain such an acquaintance, cannot reach the second stage, namely, the general view, which is a synthetical return to that which had previously been given analytically. It is no wonder then if they find inconsistencies everywhere, although the gaps which these indicate are not in the system itself, but in their own incoherent train of thought.

  I have no fear, as regards this treatise, of the reproach that I wish to introduce a new language, since the sort of knowledge here in question has itself somewhat of an everyday character. Nor even in the case of the former critique could this reproach occur to any one who had thought it through, and not merely turned over the leaves. To invent new words where the language has no lack of expressions for given notions is a childish effort to distinguish oneself from the crowd, if not by new and true thoughts, yet by new patches on the old garment. If, therefore, the readers of that work know any more familiar expressions which are as suitable to the thought as those seem to me to be, or if they think they can show the futility of these thoughts themselves, and hence that of the expression, they would, in the first case, very much oblige me, for I only desire to be understood; and, in the second case, they would deserve well of philosophy. But, as long as these thoughts stand, I very much doubt that suitable, and yet more common, expressions for them can be found. 1

  (115) In this manner then the à priori principles of two faculties of the mind, the faculty of cognition and (116) that of desire, would be found and determined as to the conditions, extent, and limits of their use, and thus a sure foundation be laid for a scientific system of philosophy, both theoretic and practical.

  Nothing worse could happen to these labourers than that anyone should make the unexpected discovery that there neither is, nor can be, any à priori knowledge at all. But there is no danger of this. This would be the same thing as if one sought to prove by Reason that there is no Reason. For we only say that we know something by Reason, when we are conscious that we could have known it, even if it had not been given to us in experience; hence rational knowledge and knowledge à priori are one and the same. It is a clear contradiction to try to extract necessity from a principle of experience (ex pumice aquam), and to try by this to give a judgment true universality (without which there is no rational inference, not even inference from analogy, which is at least a presumed universality and objective necessity). To substitute subjective necessity, that is, custom, for objective, which exists only in à priori judgments, is to deny to Reason the power of judging about the object, i.e. of knowing it, and what belongs to it. It implies, for example, that we must not say of something which often or always follows a certain antecedent state, that we can conclude from this to that (for this would imply objective necessity and the notion of an à priori connexion), but only that we may expect similar cases (just as animals do), that is, that we reject the notion of cause altogether as false and a mere delusion. As to attempting to remedy this want of objective, and consequent universal, validity by saying that we can see no ground (117) for attributing any other sort of knowledge to other rational beings, if this reasoning were valid, our ignorance would do more for the enlargement of our knowledge than all our meditation. For, then, on this very ground that we have no knowledge of any other rational beings besides man, we should have a right to suppose them to be of the same nature as we know ourselves to be: that is, we should really know them. I omit to mention that universal assent does not prove the objective validity of a judgment (i.e. its validity as a cognition), and although this universal assent should accidentally happen, it could furnish no proof of agreement with the object; on the contrary, it is the objective validity which alone constitutes the basis of a necessary universal consent.

  Hume would be quite satisfied with this system of universal empiricism, for, as is well known, he desired nothing more than that instead of ascribing any objective meaning to the necessity in the concept of cause, a merely subjective one should be assumed, viz. custom, in order to deny that reason could judge about God, freedom, and immortality; and if once his principles were granted he was certainly well able to deduce his conclusions therefrom, with all logical coherence. But even Hume did not make his empiricism so universal as to include mathematics. He holds the principles of mathematics to be analytical, and if this were correct they would certainly be apodictic also; but we could not infer from this that reason has the faculty of forming apodictic judgments in philosophy also—that is to say, those which are synthetical judgments, like the judgment of causality. But if we adopt a universal empiricism, then mathematics will be included.

  Now if this science is in contradiction with a reason that admits only empirical principles (118), as it inevitably is in the antinomy in which mathematics prove the infinite divisibility of space, which empiricism cannot admit; then the greatest possible evidence of demonstration is in manifest contradiction with the alleged conclusions from experience, and we are driven to ask, like Cheselden’s blind patient, “Which deceives me, sight or touch?” (for empiricism is based on a necessity felt, rationalism on a necessity seen). And thus universal empiricism reveals itself as absolute scepticism. It is erroneous to attribute this in such an unqualified sense to Hume,1 since he left at least one certain touchstone of experience, namely, mathematics; whereas thorough scepticism admits no such touchstone (which can only be found in à priori principles), although experience consists not only of feelings, but also of judgments.

  However, as in this philosophical and critical age such empiricism can scarcely be serious, and it is probably put forward only as an intellectual exercise, and for the purpose of putting in a clearer light, by contrast, the necessity of rational à priori principles, we can only be grateful to those who employ themselves in this otherwise uninstructive labour.

  INTRODUCTION.

  OF THE IDEA OF A CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON.

  THE theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the cognitive faculty only, and a critical examination of it with reference to this use applied properly only to the pure faculty of cognition; because this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards confirmed, that it might easily pass beyond its limits, and be lost among unattainable objects, or even contradictory notions. It is quite different with the practical use of reason. In this, reason is concerned with the grounds of determination of the will, which is a faculty either to produce objects corresponding to ideas, or to determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects (whether the physical power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine our causality. For here, reason can at least attain so far as to determine the will, and has always objective reality in so far as it is the volition only that is in question. The first question here then is, whether pure reason of itself alone suffices to determine the will, or whether it can be a ground of determination only as dependent on empirical conditions (120). Now, here there comes in a notion of causality justified by the critique of the pure reason, although not capable of being presented empirically, viz. that of freedom; and if we can now discover means of proving that this property does in fact belong to the human will (and so to the will of all rational beings), then it will not only be shown that pure reason can be practical, but that it alone, and not reason empirically limited, is indubitably practical; consequently, we shall have to make a critical examination, not of pure practical reason, but only of practical reason generally. For when once pure reason is shown to exist it needs no critical examination. For reason itself contains the standard for the critical examination of every use of it. The critique, then, of practical reason generally is bound to prevent the empirically conditioned reason from claiming exclusively to furnish the ground of determination of the will. If it is proved that there is a [practical] 1 reason, its employment is alone immanent; the empirically conditioned use, which claims supremacy, is on the contrary transcendent, and expresses itself in demands and precepts which go quite beyond its sphere. This is just the opposite of what might be said of pure reason in its speculative employment.

  However, as it is still pure reason, the knowledge of which is here the foundation of its practical employment, the general outline of the classification of a critique of practical reason must be arranged in accordance with that of the speculative. We must then have the Elements and the Methodology of it; and in the former an Analytic as the rule of truth, and a Dialectic as the exposition and dissolution of the illusion in the judgments of practical reason (121). But the order in the subdivision of the Analytic will be the reverse of that in the critique of the pure speculative reason. For, in the present case, we shall commence with the principles and proceed to the concepts, and only then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the case of the speculative reason we began with the senses, and had to end with the principles. The reason of this lies again in this: that now we have to do with a will, and have to consider reason, not in its relation to objects, but to this will and its causality. We must, then, begin with the principles of a causality not empirically conditioned, after which the attempt can be made to establish our notions of the determining grounds of such a will, of their application to objects, and finally to the subject and its sense faculty. We necessarily begin with the law of causality from freedom, that is, with a pure practical principle, and this determines the objects to which alone it can be applied.

  PART FIRST.

  ELEMENTS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON.

  BOOK I.

  THE ANALYTIC OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON.

  CHAPTER I.

  of the principles of pure practical reason.

  § I. —

  Definition.

  PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES are propositions which contain a general determination of the will, having under it several practical rules. They are subjective, or Maxims, when the condition is regarded by the subject as valid only for his own will, but are objective, or practical laws, when the condition is recognised as objective, that is, valid for the will of every rational being.

  remark.

  Supposing that pure reason contains in itself a practical motive (126), that is, one adequate to determine the will, then there are practical laws; otherwise all practical principles will be mere maxims. In case the will of a rational being is pathologically affected, there may occur a conflict of the maxims with the practical laws recognised by itself. For example, one may make it his maxim to let no injury pass unrevenged, and yet he may see that this is not a practical law, but only his own maxim; that, on the contrary, regarded as being in one and the same maxim a rule for the will of every rational being, it must contradict itself. In natural philosophy the principles of what happens (e.g. the principle of equality of action and reaction in the communication of motion) are at the same time laws of nature; for the use of reason there is theoretical, and determined by the nature of the object. In practical philosophy, i.e. that which has to do only with the grounds of determination of the will, the principles which a man makes for himself are not laws by which one is inevitably bound; because reason in practical matters has to do with the subject, namely, with the faculty of desire, the special character of which may occasion variety in the rule. The practical rule is always a product of reason, because it prescribes action as a means to the effect. But in the case of a being with whom reason does not of itself determine the will, this rule is an imperative, i. e. a rule characterised by “shall,” which expresses the objective necessitation of the action, and signifies that if reason completely determined the will, the action would inevitably take place according to this rule. Imperatives, therefore, are objectively valid, and are quite distinct from maxims, which are subjective principles. The former either determine the conditions of the causality of the rational being as an efficient cause, i. e. merely in reference to the effect and the means of attaining it; or they determine the will only, whether it is adequate to the effect or not (127). The former would be hypothetical imperatives, and contain mere precepts of skill; the latter, on the contrary, would be categorical, and would alone be practical laws. Thus maxims are principles, but not imperatives. Imperatives themselves, however, when they are conditional (i. e. do not determine the will simply as will, but only in respect to a desired effect, that is, when they are hypothetical imperatives), are practical precepts but not laws. Laws must be sufficient to determine the will as will, even before I ask whether I have power sufficient for a desired effect, or the means necessary to produce it; hence they are categorical: otherwise they are not laws at all, because the necessity is wanting, which, if it is to be practical, must be independent on conditions which are pathological, and are therefore only contingently connected with the will. Tell a man, for example, that he must be industrious and thrifty in youth, in order that he may not want in old age; this is a correct and important practical precept of the will. But it is easy to see that in this case the will is directed to something else which it is presupposed that it desires; and as to this desire, we must leave it to the actor himself whether he looks forward to other resources than those of his own acquisition, or does not expect to be old, or thinks that in case of future necessity he will be able to make shift with little. Reason, from which alone can spring a rule involving necessity, does, indeed, give necessity to this precept (else it would not be an imperative), but this is a necessity dependent on subjective conditions, and cannot be supposed in the same degree in all subjects. But that reason may give laws it is necessary that it should only need to presuppose itself, because rules are objectively and universally valid only when they hold without any contingent subjective conditions, which distinguish one rational being from another. Now tell a man that he should never make a deceitful promise, this is a rule which only concerns his will, whether the purposes he may have can be attained thereby or not (128); it is the volition only which is to be determined à priori by that rule. If now it is found that this rule is practically right, then it is a law, because it is a categorical imperative. Thus, practical laws refer to the will only, without considering what is attained by its causality, and we may disregard this latter (as belonging to the world of sense) in order to have them quite pure.

  § II. —

  Theorem I.

  All practical principles which presuppose an object (matter) of the faculty of desire as the ground of determination of the will are empirical, and can furnish no practical laws.

  By the matter of the faculty of desire I mean an object the realization of which is desired. Now, if the desire for this object precedes the practical rule, and is the condition of our making it a principle, then I say (in the first place) this principle is in that case wholly empirical, for then what determines the choice is the idea of an object, and that relation of this idea to the subject by which its faculty of desire is determined to its realization. Such a relation to the subject is called the pleasure in the realization of an object. This, then, must be presupposed as a condition of the possibility of determination of the will. But it is impossible to know à priori of any idea of an object whether it will be connected with pleasure or pain, or be indifferent. In such cases, therefore, the determining principle of the choice must be empirical, and, therefore, also the practical material principle which presupposes it as a condition.

  (129) In the second place, since susceptibility to a pleasure or pain can be known only empirically, and cannot hold in the same degree for all rational beings, a principle which is based on this subjective condition may serve indeed as a maxim for the subject which possesses this susceptibility, but not as a law even to him (because it is wanting in objective necessity, which must be recognised à priori); it follows, therefore, that such a principle can never furnish a practical law.

  § III. —

  Theorem II.

  All material practical principles as such are of one and the same kind, and come under the general principle of self-love or private happiness.

  Pleasure arising from the idea of the existence of a thing, in so far as it is to determine the desire of this thing, is founded on the susceptibility of the subject, since it depends on the presence of an object; hence it belongs to sense (feeling), and not to understanding, which expresses a relation of the idea to an object according to concepts, not to the subject according to feelings. It is then practical only in so far as the faculty of desire is determined by the sensation of agreeableness which the subject expects from the actual existence of the object. Now, a rational being’s consciousness of the pleasantness of life uninterruptedly accompanying his whole existence is happiness, and the principle which makes this the supreme ground of determination of the will is the principle of self-love. All material principles, then, which place the determining ground of the will in the pleasure or pain to be received from the existence of any object are all of the same kind (130), inasmuch as they all belong to the principle of self-love or private happiness.

  corollary.

  All material practical rules place the determining principle of the will in the lower desires, and if there were no purely formal laws of the will adequate to determine it, then we could not admit any higher desire at all.

  remark i.

  It is surprising that men, otherwise acute, can think it possible to distinguish between higher and lower desires, according as the ideas which are connected with the feeling of pleasure have their origin in the senses or in the understanding; for when we inquire what are the determining grounds of desire, and place them in some expected pleasantness, it is of no consequence whence the idea of this pleasing object is derived, but only how much it pleases. Whether an idea has its seat and source in the understanding or not, if it can only determine the choice by presupposing a feeling of pleasure in the subject, it follows that its capability of determining the choice depends altogether on the nature of the inner sense, namely, that this can be agreeably affected by it. However dissimilar ideas of objects may be, though they be ideas of the understanding, or even of the reason in contrast to ideas of sense, yet the feeling of pleasure, by means of which they constitute the determining principle of the will (the expected satisfaction which impels the activity to the production of the object) (131), is of one and the same kind, not only inasmuch as it can be only known empirically, but also inasmuch as it affects one and the same vital force which manifests itself in the faculty of desire, and in this respect can only differ in degree from every other ground of determination. Otherwise, how could we compare in respect of magnitude two principles of determination, the ideas of which depend upon different faculties, so as to prefer that which affects the faculty of desire in the highest degree. The same man may return unread an instructive book which he cannot again obtain, in order not to miss a hunt; he may depart in the midst of a fine speech, in order not to be late for dinner; he may leave a rational conversation, such as he otherwise values highly, to take his place at the gaming-table; he may even repulse a poor man whom he at other times takes pleasure in benefiting, because he has only just enough money in his pocket to pay for his admission to the theatre. If the determination of his will rests on the feeling of the agreeableness or disagreeableness that he expects from any cause, it is all the same to him by what sort of ideas he will be affected. The only thing that concerns him, in order to decide his choice, is, how great, how long continued, how easily obtained, and how often repeated, this agreeableness is. Just as to the man who wants money to spend, it is all the same whether the gold was dug out of the mountain or washed out of the sand, provided it is everywhere accepted at the same value; so the man who cares only for the enjoyment of life does not ask whether the ideas are of the understanding or the senses, but only how much and how great pleasure they will give for the longest time. It is only those that would gladly deny to pure reason the power of determining the will, without the presupposition of any feeling, who could deviate so far from their own exposition as to describe as quite heterogeneous what they have themselves previously brought under one and the same principle (132). Thus, for example, it is observed that we can find pleasure in the mere exercise of power, in the consciousness of our strength of mind in overcoming obstacles which are opposed to our designs, in the culture of our mental talents, etc.; and we justly call these more refined pleasures and enjoyments, because they are more in our power than others; they do not wear out, but rather increase the capacity for further enjoyment of them, and while they delight they at the same time cultivate. But to say on this account that they determine the will in a different way, and not through sense, whereas the possibility of the pleasure presupposes a feeling for it implanted in us, which is the first condition of this satisfaction; this is just as when ignorant persons that like to dabble in metaphysics imagine matter so subtle, so super-subtle, that they almost make themselves giddy with it, and then think that in this way they have conceived it as a spiritual and yet extended being. If with Epicurus we make virtue determine the will only by means of the pleasure it promises, we cannot afterwards blame him for holding that this pleasure is of the same kind as those of the coarsest senses. For we have no reason whatever to charge him with holding that the ideas by which this feeling is excited in us belong merely to the bodily senses. As far as can be conjectured, he sought the source of many of them in the use of the higher cognitive faculty; but this did not prevent him, and could not prevent him, from holding on the principle above stated, that the pleasure itself which those intellectual ideas give us, and by which alone they can determine the will, is just of the same kind. Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher, and yet the most rarely found. The ancient Greek schools give us more examples of it than we find in our syncretistic age, in which a certain shallow and dishonest system of compromise of contradictory principles is devised, because it commends itself better to a public (133) which is content to know something of everything and nothing thoroughly, so as to please every party. 1

  The principle of private happiness, however much understanding and reason may be used in it, cannot contain any other determining principles for the will than those which belong to the lower desires; and either there are no [higher] 2 desires at all, or pure reason must of itself alone be practical: that is, it must be able to determine the will by the mere form of the practical rule without supposing any feeling, and consequently without any idea of the pleasant or unpleasant, which is the matter of the desire, and which is always an empirical condition of the principles. Then only, when reason of itself determines the will (not as the servant of the inclination), it is really a higher desire to which that which is pathologically determined is subordinate, and is really, and even specifically, distinct from the latter, so that even the slightest admixture of the motives of the latter impairs its strength and superiority; just as in a mathematical demonstration the least empirical condition would degrade and destroy its force and value. Reason, with its practical law, determines the will immediately, not by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or pain, not even of pleasure in the law itself, and it is only because it can, as pure reason, be practical, that it is possible for it to be legislative.

  remark ii.

  To be happy is necessarily the wish of every finite rational being, and this, therefore, is inevitably a determining principle of its faculty of desire. For we are not in possession originally of satisfaction with our whole existence—a bliss which would imply a consciousness of our own independent self-sufficiency—this is a problem imposed upon us by our own finite nature, because we have wants, and these wants regard (134) the matter of our desires, that is, something that is relative to a subjective feeling of pleasure or pain, which determines what we need in order to be satisfied with our condition. But just because this material principle of determination can only be empirically known by the subject, it is impossible to regard this problem as a law; for a law being objective must contain the very same principle of determination of the will in all cases and for all rational beings. For, although the notion of happiness is in every case the foundation of the practical relation of the objects to the desires, yet it is only a general name for the subjective determining principles, and determines nothing specifically; whereas this is what alone we are concerned with in this practical problem, which cannot be solved at all without such specific determination. For it is every man’s own special feeling of pleasure and pain that decides in what he is to place his happiness, and even in the same subject this will vary with the difference of his wants according as this feeling changes, and thus a law which is subjectively necessary (as a law of nature) is objectively a very contingent practical principle, which can and must be very different in different subjects, and therefore can never furnish a law; since, in the desire for happiness it is not the form of conformity to law that is decisive, but simply the matter, namely, whether I am to expect pleasure in following the law, and how much. Principles of self-love may, indeed, contain universal precepts of skill (how to find means to accomplish one’s purposes), but in that case they are merely theoretical principles; 1 as, for example, how he who would like to eat bread (135) should contrive a mill; but practical precepts founded on them can never be universal, for the determining principle of the desire is based on the feeling of pleasure and pain, which can never be supposed to be universally directed to the same objects.

  Even supposing, however, that all finite rational beings were thoroughly agreed as to what were the objects of their feelings of pleasure and pain, and also as to the means which they must employ to attain the one and avoid the other; still, they could by no means set up the principle of self-love as a practical law, for this unanimity itself would be only contingent. The principle of determination would still be only subjectively valid and merely empirical, and would not possess the necessity which is conceived in every law, namely, an objective necessity arising from à priori grounds; unless, indeed, we hold this necessity to be not at all practical, but merely physical, viz. that our action is as inevitably determined by our inclination, as yawning when we see others yawn. It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws at all, but only counsels for the service of our desires, than to raise merely subjective principles to the rank of practical laws, which have objective necessity, and not merely subjective, and which must be known by reason à priori, not by experience (however empirically universal this may be). Even the rules of corresponding phenomena are only called laws of nature (e. g. the mechanical laws), when we either know them really à priori, or (as in the case of chemical laws) suppose that they would be known à priori from objective grounds if our insight reached further. But in the case of merely subjective practical principles, it is expressly made a condition (136) that they rest not on objective but on subjective conditions of choice, and hence that they must always be represented as mere maxims; never as practical laws. This second remark seems at first sight to be mere verbal refinement, but it defines 1 the terms of the most important distinction which can come into consideration in practical investigations.

  § IV. —

  Theorem III.

  A rational being cannot regard his maxims as practical universal laws, unless he conceives them as principles which determine the will, not by their matter, but by their form only.

  By the matter of a practical principle I mean the object of the will. This object is either the determining ground of the will or it is not. In the former case the rule of the will is subjected to an empirical condition (viz. the relation of the determining idea to the feeling of pleasure and pain), consequently it cannot be a practical law. Now, when we abstract from a law all matter, i. e. every object of the will (as a determining principle), nothing is left but the mere form of a universal legislation. Therefore, either a rational being cannot conceive his subjective practical principles, that is, his maxims, as being at the same time universal laws, or he must suppose that their mere form, by which they are fitted for universal legislation, is alone what makes them practical laws.

  remark.

  The commonest understanding can distinguish without instruction what form of maxim is adapted for universal legislation, and what is not. Suppose, for example, that I have made it my maxim to increase my fortune by every safe means. Now, I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which is dead and has left no writing about it. This is just the case for my maxim. I desire then to know whether that maxim can also hold good as a universal practical law. I apply it, therefore, to the present case, and ask whether it could take the form of a law, and consequently whether I can by my maxim at the same time give such a law as this, that everyone may deny a deposit of which no one can produce a proof. I at once become aware that such a principle, viewed as a law, would annihilate itself, because the result would be that there would be no deposits. A practical law which I recognize as such must be qualified for universal legislation; this is an identical proposition, and therefore self-evident. Now, if I say that my will is subject to a practical law, I cannot adduce my inclination (e. g. in the present case my avarice) as a principle of determination fitted to be a universal practical law; for this is so far from being fitted for a universal legislation that, if put in the form of a universal law, it would destroy itself.

  It is, therefore, surprising that intelligent men could have thought of calling the desire of happiness a universal practical law on the ground that the desire is universal, and, therefore, also the maxim by which everyone makes this desire determine his will. For whereas in other cases a universal law of nature makes everything harmonious; here, on the contrary, if we attribute to the maxim the universality of a law, the extreme opposite of harmony will follow, the greatest opposition, and the complete (138) destruction of the maxim itself, and its purpose. For, in that case, the will of all has not one and the same object, but everyone has his own (his private welfare), which may accidentally accord with the purposes of others which are equally selfish, but it is far from sufficing for a law; because the occasional exceptions which one is permitted to make are endless, and cannot be definitely embraced in one universal rule. In this manner, then, results a harmony like that which a certain satirical poem depicts as existing between a married couple bent on going to ruin, “O, marvellous harmony, what he wishes, she wishes also;” or like what is said of the pledge of Francis I. to the emperor Charles V., “What my brother Charles wishes that I wish also” (viz. Milan). Empirical principles of determination are not fit for any universal external legislation, but just as little for internal; for each man makes his own subject the foundation of his inclination, and in the same subject sometimes one inclination, sometimes another, has the preponderance. To discover a law which would govern them all under this condition, namely, bringing them all into harmony, is quite impossible.

  § V. —

  Problem I.

  Supposing that the mere legislative form of maxims is alone the sufficient determining principle of a will, to find the nature of the will which can be determined by it alone.

  Since the bare form of the law can only be conceived by reason, and is, therefore, not an object of the senses, and consequently does not belong to the class of phenomena, it follows that the idea of it (139), which determines the will, is distinct from all the principles that determine events in nature according to the law of causality, because in their case the determining principles must themselves be phenomena. Now, if no other determining principle can serve as a law for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will must be conceived as quite independent on the natural law of phenomena in their mutual relation, namely, the law of causality; such independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is in the transcendental sense; consequently, a will which can have its law in nothing but the mere legislative form of the maxim is a free will.

  § VI. —

  Problem II.

  Supposing that a will is free, to find the law which alone is competent to determine it necessarily.

  Since the matter of the practical law, i. e. an object of the maxim, can never be given otherwise than empirically, and the free will is independent on empirical conditions (that is, conditions belonging to the world of sense) and yet is determinable, consequently a free will must find its principle of determination in the law, and yet independently of the matter of the law. But, besides the matter of the law, nothing is contained in it except the legislative form. It is the legislative form, then, contained in the maxim, which can alone constitute a principle of determination of the [free] will.

  remark.

  Thus freedom and an unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other. Now I do not ask here whether they are in fact distinct, or whether an unconditioned law is not rather merely the consciousness of a pure practical reason, and the latter identical with the positive concept of freedom; I only ask, whence begins our knowledge of the unconditionally practical, whether it is from freedom or from the practical law? Now it cannot begin from freedom, for of this we cannot be immediately conscious, since the first concept of it is negative; nor can we infer it from experience, for experience gives us the knowledge only of the law of phenomena, and hence of the mechanism of nature, the direct opposite of freedom. It is therefore the moral law, of which we become directly conscious (as soon as we trace for ourselves maxims of the will), that first presents itself to us, and leads directly to the concept of freedom, inasmuch as reason presents it as a principle of determination not to be outweighed by any sensible conditions, nay, wholly independent of them. But how is the consciousness of that moral law possible? We can become conscious of pure practical laws just as we are conscious of pure theoretical principles, by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them, and to the elimination of all empirical conditions, which it directs. The concept of a pure will arises out of the former, as that of a pure understanding arises out of the latter. That this is the true subordination of our concepts, and that it is morality that first discovers to us the notion of freedom, hence that it is practical reason which, with this concept, first proposes to speculative reason the most insoluble problem, thereby placing it in the greatest perplexity, is evident from the following consideration:—Since nothing in phenomena can be explained by the concept of freedom, but the mechanism of nature must constitute the only clue (141); moreover, when pure reason tries to ascend in the series of causes to the unconditioned, it falls into an antinomy which is entangled in incomprehensibilities on the one side as much as the other; whilst the latter (namely, mechanism) is at least useful in the explanation of phenomena, therefore no one would ever have been so rash as to introduce freedom into science, had not the moral law, and with it practical reason, come in and forced this notion upon us. Experience, however, confirms this order of notions. Suppose some one asserts of his lustful appetite that, when the desired object and the opportunity are present, it is quite irresistible. [Ask him]—if a gallows were erected before the house where he finds this opportunity, in order that he should be hanged thereon immediately after the gratification of his lust, whether he could not then control his passion; we need not be long in doubt what he would reply. Ask him, however—if his sovereign ordered him, on pain of the same immediate execution, to bear false witness against an honourable man, whom the prince might wish to destroy under a plausible pretext, would he consider it possible in that case to overcome his love of life, however great it may be. He would perhaps not venture to affirm whether he would do so or not, but he must unhesitatingly admit that it is possible to do so. He judges, therefore, that he can do a certain thing because he is conscious that he ought, and he recognizes that he is free, a fact which but for the moral law he would never have known.

  § VII. —

  Fundamental Law of the Pure Practical Reason.

  Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation.

  remark.

  Pure geometry has postulates which are practical propositions, but contain nothing further than the assumption that we can do something if it is required that we should do it, and these are the only geometrical propositions that concern actual existence. They are, then, practical rules under a problematical condition of the will; but here the rule says:—We absolutely must proceed in a certain manner. The practical rule is, therefore, unconditional, and hence it is conceived à priori as a categorically practical proposition by which the will is objectively determined absolutely and immediately (by the practical rule itself, which thus is in this case a law); for pure reason practical of itself is here directly legislative. The will is thought as independent on empirical conditions, and, therefore, as pure will determined by the mere form of the law, and this principle of determination is regarded as the supreme condition of all maxims. The thing is strange enough, and has no parallel in all the rest of our practical knowledge. For the à priori thought of a possible universal legislation which is therefore merely problematical, is unconditionally commanded as a law without borrowing anything from experience or from any external will. This, however, is not a precept to do something by which some desired effect can be attained (for then the will would depend on physical conditions), but a rule that determines the will à priori only so far as regards the forms of its maxims; and thus it is at least not impossible to conceive that a law, which only applies to the subjective form of principles, yet serves as a principle of determination by means of the objective form of law in general. We may call the consciousness of this fundamental law a fact of reason, because we cannot reason it out from antecedent data of reason, e. g. the consciousness of freedom (for this is not antecedently given), but it forces itself on us as a synthetic à priori proposition (143), which is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical. It would, indeed, be analytical if the freedom of the will were presupposed, but to presuppose freedom as a positive concept would require an intellectual intuition, which cannot here be assumed; however, when we regard this law as given, it must be observed, in order not to fall into any misconception that it is not an empirical fact, but the sole fact of the pure reason, which thereby announces itself as originally legislative (sic volo, sic jubeo).

  corollary.

  Pure reason is practical of itself alone, and gives (to man) a universal law which we call the Moral Law.

  remark.

  The fact just mentioned is undeniable. It is only necessary to analyse the judgment that men pass on the lawfulness of their actions, in order to find that, whatever inclination may say to the contrary, reason, incorruptible and self-constrained, always confronts the maxim of the will in any action with the pure will, that is, with itself, considering itself as à priori practical. Now this principle of morality, just on account of the universality of the legislation which makes it the formal supreme determining principle of the will, without regard to any subjective differences, is declared by the reason to be a law for all rational beings, in so far as they have a will, that is, a power to determine their causality by the conception of rules; and, therefore, so far as they are capable of acting according to principles, and consequently also according to practical à priori principles (for these alone have the necessity that reason requires in a principle). It is, therefore, not limited to men only, but applies to all finite beings that possess reason and will (144); nay, it even includes the Infinite Being as the supreme intelligence. In the former case, however, the law has the form of an imperative, because in them, as rational beings, we can suppose a pure will, but being creatures affected with wants and physical motives, not a holy will, that is, one which would be incapable of any maxim conflicting with the moral law. In their case, therefore, the moral law is an imperative, which commands categorically, because the law is unconditioned; the relation of such a will to this law is dependence under the name of obligation, which implies a constraint to an action, though only by reason and its objective law; and this action is called duty, because an elective will, subject to pathological affections (though not determined by them, and therefore still free), implies a wish that arises from subjective causes, and therefore may often be opposed to the pure objective determining principle; whence it requires the moral constraint of a resistance of the practical reason, which may be called an internal, but intellectual compulsion. In the supreme intelligence the elective will is rightly conceived as incapable of any maxim which could not at the same time be objectively a law; and the notion of holiness, which on that account belongs to it, places it, not indeed above all practical laws, but above all pratically restrictive laws, and consequently above obligation and duty. This holiness of will is, however, a practical idea, which must necessarily serve as a type to which finite rational beings can only approximate indefinitely, and which the pure moral law, which is itself on this account called holy, constantly and rightly holds before their eyes. The utmost that finite practical reason can effect is to be certain of this indefinite progress of one’s maxims, and of their steady disposition to advance. This is virtue, and virtue, at least as a naturally acquired faculty, can never be perfect, because assurance in such a case never becomes apodictic certainty, and when it only amounts to persuasion is very dangerous.

  § VIII. —

  Theorem IV.

  The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws, and of all duties which conform to them; on the other hand, heteronomy of the elective will not only cannot be the basis of any obligation, but is, on the contrary, opposed to the principle thereof, and to the morality of the will.

  In fact the sole principle of morality consists in the independence on all matter of the law (namely, a desired object), and in the determination of the elective will by the mere universal legislative form of which its maxim must be capable. Now this independence is freedom in the negative sense, and this self-legislation of the pure, and, therefore, practical reason, is freedom in the positive sense. Thus the moral law expresses nothing else than the autonomy of the pure practical reason; that is, freedom; and this is itself the formal condition of all maxims, and on this condition only can they agree with the supreme practical law. If therefore the matter of the volition, which can be nothing else than the object of a desire that is connected with the law, enters into the practical law, as the condition of its possibility, there results heteronomy of the elective will, namely, dependence on the physical law that we should follow some impulse or inclination. In that case the will does not give itself the law, but only the precept how rationally to follow pathological law; and the maxim which, in such a case, never contains the universally legislative form, not only produces no obligation, but is itself opposed to the principle of a pure practical reason, and, therefore, also to the moral disposition, even though the resulting action may be conformable to the law.

  remark i.

  Hence a practical precept, which contains a material (and therefore empirical) condition, must never be reckoned a practical law. For the law of the pure will, which is free, brings the will into a sphere quite different from the empirical; and as the necessity involved in the law is not a physical necessity, it can only consist in the formal conditions of the possibility of a law in general. All the matter of practical rules rests on subjective conditions, which give them only a conditional universality (in case I desire this or that, what I must do in order to obtain it), and they all turn on the principle of private happiness. Now, it is indeed undeniable that every volition must have an object, and therefore a matter; but it does not follow that this is the determining principle, and the condition of the maxim; for, if it is so, then this cannot be exhibited in a universally legislative form, since in that case the expectation of the existence of the object would be the determining cause of the choice, and the volition must presuppose the dependence of the faculty of desire on the existence of something; but this dependence can only be sought in empirical conditions, and therefore can never furnish a foundation for a necessary and universal rule. Thus, the happiness of others may be the object of the will of a rational being. But if it were the determining principle of the maxim, we must assume that we find not only a rational satisfaction in the welfare of others, but also a want such as the sympathetic disposition in some men occasions. But I cannot assume the existence of this want in every rational being (not at all in God). The matter then of the maxim may remain, but it must not be the condition of it, else the maxim could not be fit for a law. Hence, the mere form of law, which limits the matter, must also be a reason (147) for adding this matter to the will, not for presupposing it. For example, let the matter be my own happiness. This (rule), if I attribute it to everyone (as, in fact, I may, in the case of every finite being), can become an objective practical law only if I include the happiness of others. Therefore, the law that we should promote the happiness of others does not arise from the assumption that this is an object of everyone’s choice, but merely from this, that the form of universality which reason requires as the condition of giving to a maxim of self-love the objective validity of a law, is the principle that determines the will. Therefore it was not the object (the happiness of others) that determined the pure will, but it was the form of law only, by which I restricted my maxim, founded on inclination, so as to give it the universality of a law, and thus to adapt it to the practical reason; and it is this restriction alone, and not the adddition of an external spring, that can give rise to the notion of the obligation to extend the maxim of my self-love to the happiness of others.

  remark ii.

  The direct opposite of the principle of morality is, when the principle of private happiness is made the determining principle of the will, and with this is to be reckoned, as I have shown above, everything that places the determining principle which is to serve as a law anywhere but in the legislative form of the maxim. This contradiction, however, is not merely logical, like that which would arise between rules empirically conditioned, if they were raised to the rank of necessary principles of cognition, but is practical, and would ruin morality altogether were not the voice of reason in reference to the will so clear, so irrepressible, so distinctly audible even, to the commonest men. It can only, indeed, be maintained in the perplexing (148) speculations of the schools, which are bold enough to shut their ears against that heavenly voice, in order to support a theory that costs no trouble.

  Suppose that an acquaintance whom you otherwise liked were to attempt to justify himself to you for having borne false witness, first by alleging the, in his view, sacred duty of consulting his own happiness; then by enumerating the advantages which he had gained thereby, pointing out the prudence he had shown in securing himself against detection, even by yourself, to whom he now reveals the secret, only in order that he may be able to deny it at any time; and suppose he were then to affirm, in all seriousness, that he has fulfilled a true human duty; you would either laugh in his face, or shrink back from him with disgust; and yet, if a man has regulated his principles of action solely with a view to his own advantage, you would have nothing whatever to object against this mode of proceeding. Or suppose some one recommends you a man as steward, as a man to whom you can blindly trust all your affairs; and, in order to inspire you with confidence, extols him as a prudent man who thoroughly understands his own interest, and is so indefatigably active that he lets slip no opportunity of advancing it; lastly, lest you should be afraid of finding a vulgar selfishness in him, praises the good taste with which he lives; not seeking his pleasure in money-making, or in coarse wantonness, but in the enlargement of his knowledge, in instructive intercourse with a select circle, and even in relieving the needy; while as to the means (which, of course, derive all their value from the end) he is not particular, and is ready to use other people’s money for the purpose as if it were his own, provided only he knows that he can do so safely, and without discovery; you would either believe that the recommender was mocking you, or that he had lost his senses. So sharply and clearly marked are the boundaries of morality and self-love that even the commonest eye (149) cannot fail to distinguish whether a thing belongs to the one or the other. The few remarks that follow may appear superfluous where the truth is so plain, but at least they may serve to give a little more distinctness to the judgment of common sense.

  The principle of happiness may, indeed, furnish maxims, but never such as would be competent to be laws of the will, even if universal happiness were made the object. For since the knowledge of this rests on mere empirical data, since every man’s judgment on it depends very much on his particular point of view, which is itself moreover very variable, it can supply only general rules, not universal; that is, it can give rules which on the average will most frequently fit, but not rules which must hold good always and necessarily; hence, no practical laws can be founded on it. Just because in this case an object of choice is the foundation of the rule, and must therefore precede it; the rule can refer to nothing but what is [felt] 1 , and therefore it refers to experience and is founded on it, and then the variety of judgment must be endless. This principle, therefore, does not prescribe the same practical rules to all rational beings, although the rules are all included under a common title, namely, that of happiness. The moral law, however, is conceived as objectively necessary, only because it holds for everyone that has reason and will.

  The maxim of self-love (prudence) only advises; the law of morality commands. Now there is a great difference between that which we are advised to do and that to which we are obliged.

  The commonest intelligence can easily and without hesitation see what, on the principle of autonomy of the will, requires to be done; but on supposition of heteronomy of the will, it is hard and requires knowledge of the world to see what is to be done. That is to say, what duty is, in plain of itself to everyone; but what is to bring true durable advantage, such as will extend to the whole of one’s existence (150), is always veiled in impenetrable obscurity; and much prudence is required to adapt the practical rule founded on it to the ends of life, even tolerably, by making proper exceptions. But the moral law commands the most punctual obedience from everyone; it must, therefore, not be so difficult to judge what it requires to be done, that the commonest unpractised understanding, even without worldly prudence, should fail to apply it rightly.

  It is always in everyone’s power to satisfy the categorical command of morality; whereas it is but seldom possible, and by no means so to everyone, to satisfy the empirically conditioned precept of happiness, even with regard to a single purpose. The reason is, that in the former case there is question only of the maxim, which must be genuine and pure; but in the latter case there is question also of one’s capacity and physical power to realise a desired object. A command that everyone should try to make himself happy would be foolish, for one never commands anyone to do what he of himself infallibly wishes to do. We must only command the means, or rather supply them, since he cannot do everything that he wishes. But to command morality under the name of duty is quite rational; for, in the first place, not everyone is willing to obey its precepts if they oppose his inclinations; and as to the means of obeying this law, these need not in this case be taught, for in this respect whatever he wishes to do he can do.

  He who has lost at play may be vexed at himself and his folly, but if he is conscious of having cheated at play (although he has gained thereby), he must despise himself as soon as he compares himself with the moral law. This must, therefore, be something different from the principle of private happiness. For a man must have a different criterion when he is compelled to say to himself: I am a worthless fellow, though I have filled my purse; and when he approves himself (151), and says: I am a prudent man, for I have enriched my treasure.

  Finally, there is something further in the idea of our practical reason, which accompanies the transgression of a moral law—namely, its ill desert. Now the notion of punishment, as such, cannot be united with that of becoming a partaker of happiness; for although he who inflicts the punishment may at the same time have the benevolent purpose of directing this punishment to this end, yet it must first be justified in itself as punishment, i. e. as mere harm, so that if it stopped there, and the person punished could get no glimpse of kindness hidden behind this harshness, he must yet admit that justice was done him, and that his reward was perfectly suitable to his conduct. In every punishment, as such, there must first be justice, and this constitutes the essence of the notion. Benevolence may, indeed, be united with it, but the man who has deserved punishment has not the least reason to reckon upon this. Punishment, then, is a physical evil, which, though it be not connected with moral evil as a natural consequence, ought to be connected with it as a consequence by the principles of a moral legislation. Now, if every crime, even without regarding the physical consequence with respect to the actor, is in itself punishable, that is, forfeits happiness (at least partially), it is obviously absurd to say that the crime consisted just in this, that he has drawn punishment on himself, thereby injuring his private happiness (which, on the principle of self-love, must be the proper notion of all crime). According to this view the punishment would be the reason for calling anything a crime, and justice would, on the contrary, consist in omitting all punishment, and even preventing that which naturally follows; for, if this were done, there would no longer be any evil in the action, since the harm which otherwise followed it, and on account of which alone the action was called evil, would now be prevented. To look, however, on all rewards and punishments as merely the machinery in the hand (152) of a higher power, which is to serve only to set rational creatures striving after their final end (happiness), this is to reduce the will to a mechanism destructive of freedom; this is so evident that it need not detain us.

  More refined, though equally false, is the theory of those who suppose a certain special moral sense, which sense and not reason determines the moral law, and in consequence of which the consciousness of virtue is supposed to be directly connected with contentment and pleasure; that of vice, with mental dissatisfaction and pain; thus reducing the whole to the desire of private happiness. Without repeating what has been said above, I will here only remark the fallacy they fall into. In order to imagine the vicious man as tormented with mental dissatisfaction by the consciousness of his transgressions, they must first represent him as in the main basis of his character, at least in some degree, morally good; just as he who is pleased with the consciousness of right conduct must be conceived as already virtuous. The notion of morality and duty must, therefore, have preceded any regard to this satisfaction, and cannot be derived from it. A man must first appreciate the importance of what we call duty, the authority of the moral law, and the immediate dignity which the following of it gives to the person in his own eyes, in order to feel that satisfaction in the consciousness of his conformity to it, and the bitter remorse that accompanies the consciousness of its transgression. It is, therefore, impossible to feel this satisfaction or dissatisfaction prior to the knowledge of obligation, or to make it the basis of the latter. A man must be at least half honest in order even to be able to form a conception of these feelings. I do not deny that as the human will is, by virtue of liberty capable of being immediately determined by the moral law, so frequent practice in accordance with this principle of determination can, at last, produce subjectively a feeling of satisfaction (153); on the contrary, it is a duty to establish and to cultivate this, which alone deserves to be called properly the moral feeling; but the notion of duty cannot be derived from it, else we should have to suppose a feeling for the law as such, and thus make that an object of sensation which can only be thought by the reason; and this, if it is not to be a flat contradiction, would destroy all notion of duty, and put in its place a mere mechanical play of refined inclinations sometimes contending with the coarser.

  If now we compare our formal supreme principle of pure practical reason (that of autonomy of the will) with all previous material principles or morality, we can exhibit them all in a table in which all possible cases are exhausted, except the one formal principle; and thus we can show visibly that it is vain to look for any other principle than that now proposed. In fact all possible principles of determination of the will are either merely subjective, and therefore empirical, or are also objective and rational; and both are either external or internal.

  (154) Practical Material Principles of Determination taken as the Foundation of Morality, are:—

  SUBJECTIVE.		OBJECTIVE.
  EXTERNAL.		INTERNAL.		INTERNAL.		EXTERNAL.
  Education.	Physical feeling.	Perfection.	Will of God.
  (Montaigne).	(Epicurus).	(Wolf and the Stoics).	(Crusius and other theological Moralists).
  The civil Constitution	Moral feeling.
  	(Hutcheson).
  (Mandeville).

  (155) Those at the left hand are all empirical, and evidently incapable of furnishing the universal principle of morality; but those on the right hand are based on reason (for perfection as a quality of things, and the highest perfection conceived as substance, that is, God, can only be thought by means of rational concepts). But the former notion, namely, that of perfection, may either be taken in a theoretic signification, and then it means nothing but the completeness of each thing in its own kind (transcendental), or that of a thing, merely as a thing (metaphysical); and with that we are not concerned here. But the notion of perfection in a practical sense is the fitness or sufficiency of a thing for all sorts of purposes. This perfection, as a quality of man, and consequently internal, is nothing but talent, and, what strengthens or completes this, skill. Supreme perfection conceived as substance, that is God, and consequently external (considered practically), is the sufficiency of this being for all ends. Ends then must first be given, relatively to which only can the notion of perfection (whether internal in ourselves or external in God) be the determining principle of the will. But an end—being an object which must precede the determination of the will by a practical rule, and contain the ground of the possibility of this determination, and therefore contain also the matter of the will, taken as its determining principle—such an end is always empirical, and, therefore, may serve for the Epicurean principle of the happiness theory, but not for the pure rational principle of morality and duty. Thus, talents and the improvement of them, because they contribute to the advantages of life; or the will of God, if agreement with it be taken as the object of the will, without any antecedent independent practical principle, can be motives only by reason of the happiness expected therefrom. Hence it follows, first, that all the principles here stated are material; secondly, that they include all possible material principles (156); and, finally, the conclusion, that since material principles are quite incapable of furnishing the supreme moral law (as has been shown), the formal practical principle of the pure reason (according to which the mere form of a universal legislation must constitute the supreme and immediate determining principle of the will) is the only one possible which is adequate to furnish categorical imperatives; that is, practical laws (which make actions a duty); and in general to serve as the principle of morality, both in criticising conduct and also in its application to the human will to determine it.

  I.

  —Of the Deduction of the Fundamental Principles of the Pure Practical Reason.

  This Analytic shows that pure reason can be practical, that is, can of itself determine the will independently of anything empirical; and this it proves by a fact in which pure reason in us proves itself actually practical, namely, the autonomy shown in the fundamental principle of morality, by which reason determines the will to action.

  It shows at the same time that this fact is inseparably connected with the consciousness of freedom of the will; nay, is identical with it; and by this the will of a rational being, although as belonging to the world of sense, it recognises itself as necessarily subject to the laws of causality like other efficient causes; yet, at the same time, on another side, namely, as a being in itself, is conscious of existing in and being determined by an intelligible order of things; conscious not (157) by virtue of a specal intuition of itself, but by virtue of certain dynamical laws which determine its causality in the sensible world; for it has been elsewhere proved that if freedom is predicated of us, it transports us into an intelligible order of things.

  Now, if we compare with this the analytical part of the critique of pure speculative reason, we shall see a remarkable contrast. There it was not fundamental principles, but pure, sensible intuition (space and time), that was the first datum that made à priori knowledge possible, though only of objects of the senses. Synthetical principles could not be derived from mere concepts without intuition; on the contrary, they could only exist with reference to this intuition, and therefore to objects of possible experience, since it is the concepts of the understanding, united with this intuition, which alone make that knowledge possible which we call experience. Beyond objects of experience, and therefore with regard to things as noumena, all positive knowledge was rightly disclaimed for speculative reason. This reason, however, went so far as to establish with certainty the concept of noumena; that is, the possibility, nay the necessity, of thinking them; for example, it showed against all objections that the supposition of freedom, negatively considered, was quite consistent with those principles and limitations of pure theoretic reason. But it could not give us any definite enlargement of our knowledge with respect to such objects, but, on the contrary, cut off all view of them altogether.

  On the other hand, the moral law, although it gives no view, yet gives us a fact absolutely inexplicable from any data of the sensible world, and the whole compass of our theoretical use of reason, a fact which points to a pure world of the understanding (158), nay, even defines it positively, and enables us to know something of it, namely, a law.

  This law (as far as rational beings are concerned) gives to the world of sense, which is a sensible system of nature, the form of a world of the understanding, that is, of a supersensible system of nature, without interfering with its mechanism. Now, a system of nature, in the most general sense, is the existence of things under laws. The sensible nature of rational beings in general is their existence under laws empirically conditioned, which, from the point of view of reason, is heteronomy. The supersensible nature of the same beings, on the other hand, is their existence according to laws which are independent on every empirical condition, and therefore belong to the autonomy of pure reason. And, since the laws by which the existence of things depends on cognition are practical, supersensible nature, so far as we can form any notion of it, is nothing else than a system of nature under the autonomy of pure practical reason. Now, the law of this autonomy is the moral law, which, therefore, is the fundamental law of a supersensible nature, and of a pure world of understanding, whose counterpart must exist in the world of sense, but without interfering with its laws. We might call the former the archetypal world (natura archetypa), which we only know in the reason; and the latter the ectypal world (natura ectypa), because it contains the possible effect of the idea of the former which is the determining principle of the will. For the moral law, in fact, transfers us ideally into a system in which pure reason, if it were accompanied with adequate physical power, would produce the summum bonum, and it determines our will to give the sensible world the form of a system of rational beings. 1

  The least attention to oneself proves that this idea really serves as the model for the determinations of our will.

  (159) When the maxim which I am disposed to follow in giving testimony is tested by the practical reason, I always consider what it would be if it were to hold as a universal law of nature. It is manifest that in this view it would oblige everyone to speak the truth. For it cannot hold as a universal law of nature that statements should be allowed to have the force of proof, and yet to be purposely untrue. Similarly, the maxim which I adopt with respect to disposing freely of my life is at once determined, when I ask myself what it should be, in order that a system, of which it is the law, should maintain itself. It is obvious that in such a system no one could arbitrarily put an end to his own life, for such an arrangement would not be a permanent order of things. And so in all similar cases. Now, in nature, as it actually is an object of experience, the free will is not of itself determined to maxims which could of themselves be the foundation of a natural system of universal laws, or which could even be adapted to a system so constituted; on the contrary, its maxims are private inclinations which constitute, indeed, a natural whole in conformity with pathological (physical) laws, but could not form part of a system of nature, which would only be possible through our will acting in accordance with pure practical laws. Yet we are, through reason, conscious of a law to which all our maxims are subject, as though a natural order must be originated from our will. This law, therefore, must be the idea of a natural system not given in experience, and yet possible through freedom; a system, therefore, which is supersensible, and to which we give objective reality, at least in a practical point of view, since we look on it as an object of our will as pure rational beings.

  Hence the distinction between the laws of a natural system to which the will is subject, and of a natural system which is subject to a will (as far as its relation to its free actions is concerned) (160) rests on this, that in the former the objects must be causes of the ideas which determine the will; whereas in the latter the will is the cause of the objects; so that its causality has its determining principle solely in the pure faculty of reason, which may therefore be called a pure practical reason.

  There are therefore two very distinct problems: how, on the one side, pure reason can cognise objects à priori, and how on the other side it can be an immediate determining principle of the will, that is, of the causality of the rational being with respect to the reality of objects (through the mere thought of the universal validity of its own maxims as laws).

  The former, which belongs to the critique of the pure speculative reason, requires a previous explanation, how intuitions, without which no object can be given, and, therefore, none known synthetically, are possible à priori; and its solution turns out to be that these are all only sensible, and therefore do not render possible any speculative knowledge which goes further than possible experience reaches; and that therefore all the principles of that pure speculative 1 reason avail only to make experience possible; either experience of given objects or of those that may be given ad infinitum, but never are completely given.

  The latter, which belongs to the critique of practical reason, requires no explanation how the objects of the faculty of desire are possible, for that being a problem of the theoretical knowledge of nature, is left to the critique of the speculative reason, but only how reason can determine the maxims of the will; whether this takes place only by means of empirical ideas as principles of determination, or whether pure reason can be practical and be the law of a possible order of nature, which is not empirically knowable (161). The possibility of such a supersensible system of nature, the conception of which can also be the ground of its reality through our own free will, does not require any à priori intuition (of an intelligible world) which, being in this case supersensible, would be impossible for us. For the question is only as to the determining principle of volition in its maxims, namely, whether it is empirical, or is a conception of the pure reason (having the legal character belonging to it in general), and how it can be the latter. It is left to the theoretic principles of reason to decide whether the causality of the will suffices for the realization of the objects or not, this being an inquiry into the possibility of the objects of the volition. Intuition of these objects is therefore of no importance to the practical problem. We are here concerned only with the determination of the will and the determining principles of its maxims as a free will, not at all with the result. For, provided only that the will conforms to the law of pure reason, then let its power in execution be what it may, whether according to these maxims of legislation of a possible system of nature any such system really results or not, this is no concern of the critique, which only inquires whether, and in what way, pure reason can be practical, that is, directly determine the will.

  In this inquiry criticism may and must begin with pure practical laws and their reality. But instead of intuition it takes as their foundation the conception of their existence in the intelligible world, namely, the concept of freedom. For this concept has no other meaning, and these laws are only possible in relation to freedom of the will; but freedom being supposed, they are necessary; or conversely, freedom is necessary because those laws are necessary, being practical postulates. It cannot be further explained how this consciousness of the moral law, or, what is the same thing, of freedom, is possible; but that it is admissible is well established in the theoretical critique.

  (162) The Exposition of the supreme principle of practical reason is now finished; that is to say, it has been shown first, what it contains, that it subsists for itself quite à priori and independent on empirical principles; and next, in what it is distinguished from all other practical principles. With the deduction, that is, the justification of its objective and universal validity, and the discernment of the possibility of such a synthetical proposition à priori, we cannot expect to succeed so well as in the case of the principles of pure theoretical reason. For these referred to objects of possible experience, namely, to phenomena, and we could prove that these phenomena could be known as objects of experience only by being brought under the categories in accordance with these laws; and consequently that all possible experience must conform to these laws. But I could not proceed in this way with the deduction of the moral law. For this does not concern the knowledge of the properties of objects, which may be given to the reason from some other source; but a knowledge which can itself be the ground of the existence of the objects, and by which reason in a rational being has causality, i. e. pure reason, which can be regarded as a faculty immediately determining the will.

  Now all our human insight is at an end as soon as we have arrived at fundamental powers or faculties, for the possibility of these cannot be understood by any means, and just as little should it be arbitrarily invented and assumed. Therefore, in the theoretic use of reason, it is experience alone that can justify us in assuming them. But this expedient of adducing empirical proofs, instead of a deduction from à priori sources of knowledge, is denied us here in respect to the pure practical faculty of reason (163). For whatever requires to draw the proof of its reality from experience must depend for the grounds of its possibility on principles of experience; and pure, yet practical, reason by its very notion cannot be regarded as such. Further, the moral law is given as a fact of pure reason of which we are à priori conscious, and which is apodictically certain, though it be granted that in experience no example of its exact fulfilment can be found. Hence, the objective reality of the moral law cannot be proved by any deduction by any efforts of theoretical reason, whether speculative or empirically supported, and therefore, even if we renounced its apodictic certainty, it could not be proved à posteriori by experience, and yet it is firmly established of itself.

  But instead of this vainly sought deduction of the moral principle, something else is found which was quite unexpected, namely, that this moral principle serves conversely as the principle of the deduction of an inscrutable faculty which no experience could prove, but of which speculative reason was compelled at least to assume the possibility (in order to find amongst its cosmological ideas the unconditioned in the chain of causality, so as not to contradict itself)—I mean the faculty of freedom. The moral law, which itself does not require a justification, proves not merely the possibility of freedom, but that it really belongs to beings who recognise this law as binding on themselves. The moral law is in fact a law of the causality of free agents, and therefore of the possibility of a supersensible system of nature, just as the metaphysical law of events in the world of sense was a law of causality of the sensible system of nature; and it therefore determines what speculative philosophy was compelled to leave undetermined, namely, the law for a causality, the concept of which in the latter was only negative; and therefore for the first time gives this concept objective reality.

  (164) This sort of credential of the moral law, viz. that it is set forth as a principle of the deduction of freedom, which is a causality of pure reason, is a sufficient substitute for all à priori justification, since theoretic reason was compelled to assume at least the possibility of freedom, in order to satisfy a want of its own. For the moral law proves its reality, so as even to satisfy the critique of the speculative reason, by the fact that it adds a positive definition to a causality previously conceived only negatively, the possibility of which was incomprehensible to speculative reason, which yet was compelled to suppose it. For it adds the notion of a reason that directly determines the will (by imposing on its maxims the condition of a universal legislative form); and thus it is able for the first time to give objective, though only practical, reality to reason, which always became transcendent when it sought to proceed speculatively with its ideas. It thus changes the transcendent use of reason into an immanent1 use (so that reason is itself, by means of ideas, an efficient cause in the field of experience).

  The determination of the causality of beings in the world of sense, as such, can never be unconditioned; and yet for every series of conditions there must be something unconditioned, and therefore there must be a causality which is determined wholly by itself. Hence, the idea of freedom as a faculty of absolute spontaneity was not found to be a want, but as far as its possibility is concerned, an analytic principle of pure speculative reason. But as it is absolutely impossible to find in experience any example in accordance with this idea, because amongst the causes of things as phenomena, it would be impossible to meet with any absolutely unconditioned determination of causality, we were only able to defend our supposition that a freely acting cause might be a being in the world of sense, in so far as it is considered in the other point of view as a noumenon (165), showing that there is no contradiction in regarding all its actions as subject to physical conditions so far as they are phenomena, and yet regarding its causality as physically unconditioned, in so far as the acting being belongs to the world of understanding, 2 and in thus making the concept of freedom the regulative principle of reason. By this principle I do not indeed learn what the object is to which that sort of causality is attributed; but I remove the difficulty; for, on the one side, in the explanation of events in the world, and consequently also of the actions of rational beings, I leave to the mechanism of physical necessity the right of ascending from conditioned to condition ad infinitum, while on the other side I keep open for speculative reason the place which for it is vacant, namely, the intelligible, in order to transfer the unconditioned thither. But I was not able to verify this supposition; that is, to change it into the knowledge of a being so acting, not even into the knowledge of the possibility of such a being. This vacant place is now filled by pure practical reason with a definite law of causality in an intelligible world (causality with freedom), namely, the moral law. Speculative reason does not hereby gain anything as regards its insight, but only as regards the certainty of its problematical notion of freedom, which here obtains objective reality, which, though only practical, is nevertheless undoubted. Even the notion of causality—the application, and consequently the signification of which holds properly only in relation to phenomena, so as to connect them into experiences (as is shown by the critique of pure reason)—is not so enlarged as to extend its use beyond these limits. For if reason sought to do this it would have to show how the logical relation of principle and consequence can be used synthetically in a different sort of intuition from the sensible; that is how a causa noumenon is possible (166). This it can never do; and, as practical reason, it does not even concern itself with it, since it only places the determining principle of causality of man as a sensible creature (which is given) in pure reason (which is therefore called practical); and therefore it employs the notion of cause, not in order to know objects, but to determine causality in relation to objects in general. It can abstract altogether from the application of this notion to objects with a view to theoretical knowledge (since this concept is always found à priori in the understanding, even independently on any intuition). Reason then employs it only for a practical purpose, and hence we can transfer the determining principle of the will into the intelligible order of things, admitting, at the same time, that we cannot understand how the notion of cause can determine the knowledge of these things. But reason must cognise causality with respect to the actions of the will in the sensible world in a definite manner; otherwise, practical reason could not really produce any action. But as to the notion which it forms of its own causality as noumenon, it need not determine it theoretically with a view to the cognition of its supersensible existence, so as to give it significance in this way. For it acquires significance apart from this, though only for practical use, namely, through the moral law. Theoretically viewed, it remains always a pure à priori concept of the understanding, which can be applied to objects whether they have been given sensibly or not, although in the latter case it has no definite theoretical significance or application, but is only a formal, though essential, conception of the understanding relating to an object in general. The significance which reason gives it through the moral law is merely practical, inasmuch as the idea of the law of causality (of the will) has self causality, or is its determining principle.

  II.

  —Of the right that Pure Reason in its practical use has to an extension which is not possible to it in its speculative use.

  We have in the moral principle set forth a law of causality, the determining principle of which is set above all the conditions of the sensible world; we have it conceived how the will, as belonging to the intelligible world, is determinable, and therefore we have its subject (man) not merely conceived as belonging to a world of pure understanding, and in this respect unknown (which the critique of speculative reason enabled us to do), but also defined as regards his causality by means of a law which cannot be reduced to any physical law of the sensible world; and therefore our knowledge is extended beyond the limits of that world, a pretension which the critique of the pure reason declared to be futile in all speculation. Now, how is the practical use of pure reason here to be reconciled with the theoretical, as to the determination of the limits of its faculty?

  David Hume, of whom we may say that he commenced the assault on the claims of pure reason, which made a thorough investigation of it necessary, argued thus: the notion of cause is a notion that involves the necessity of the connexion of the existence of different things, and that, in so far as they are different, so that, given A, I know that something quite distinct therefrom, namely B, must necessarily also exist (168). Now necessity can be attributed to a connexion, only in so far as it is known à priori, for experience would only enable us to know of such a connexion that it exists, not that it necessarily exists. Now, it is impossible, says he, to know à priori and as necessary the connexion between one thing and another (or between one attribute and another quite distinct) when they have not been given in experience. Therefore the notion of a cause is fictitious and delusive, and, to speak in the mildest way, is an illusion, only excusable inasmuch as the custom (a subjective necessity) of perceiving certain things, or their attributes as often associated in existence along with or in succession to one another, is insensibly taken for an objective necessity of supposing such a connexion in the objects themselves, and thus the notion of a cause has been acquired surreptitiously and not legitimately; nay, it can never be so acquired or authenticated, since it demands a connexion in itself vain, chimerical, and untenable in presence of reason, and to which no object can ever correspond. In this way was empiricism first introduced as the sole source of principles, as far as all knowledge of the existence of things is concerned (mathematics therefore remaining excepted); and with empiricism the most thorough scepticism, even with regard to the whole science of nature (as philosophy). For on such principles we can never conclude from giving attributes of things as existing to a consequence (for this would require the notion of cause, which involves the necessity of such a connexion); we can only, guided by imagination, except similar cases—an expectation which is never certain, however often it has been fulfilled. Of no event could we say: a certain thing must have preceded it (169), on which it necessarily followed; that is, it must have a cause; and therefore, however frequent the cases we have known in which there was such an antecedent, so that a rule could be derived from them, yet we never could suppose it as always and necessarily so happening; we should, therefore, be obliged to leave its share to blind chance, with which all use of reason comes to an end; and this firmly establishes scepticism in reference to arguments ascending from effects to causes, and makes it impregnable.

  Mathematics escaped well, so far, because Hume thought that its propositions were analytical; that is, proceeded from one property to another, by virtue of identity, and consequently according to the principle of contradiction. This, however, is not the case, since, on the contrary, they are synthetical; and although geometry, for example, has not to do with the existence of things, but only with their à priori properties in a possible intuition, yet it proceeds just as in the case of the causal notion, from one property (A) to another wholly distinct (B), as necessarily connected with the former. Nevertheless, mathematical science, so highly vaunted for its apodictic certainty, must at last fall under this empiricism for the same reason for which Hume put custom in the place of objective necessity in the notion of cause, and in spite of all its pride must consent to lower its bold pretention of claiming assent à priori, and depend for assent to the universality of its propositions on the kindness of observers, who, when called as witnesses, would surely not hesitate to admit that what the geometer propounds as a theorem they have always perceived to be the fact, and, consequently, although it be not necessarily true, yet they would permit us to expect it to be true in the future. In this manner Hume’s empiricism leads inevitably to scepticism, even with regard (170) to mathematics, and consequently in every scientific theoretical use of reason (for this belongs either to philosophy or mathematics). Whether with such a terrible overthrow of the chief branches of knowledge common reason will escape better, and will not rather become irrecoverably involved in this destruction of all knowledge, so that from the same principles a universal scepticism should follow (affecting, indeed, only the learned), this I will leave everyone to judge for himself.

  As regards my own labours in the critical examination of pure reason, which were occasioned by Hume’s sceptical teaching, but went much farther, and embraced the whole field of pure theoretical reason in its synthetic use, and, consequently, the field of what is called metaphysics in general; I proceeded in the following manner with respect to the doubts raised by the Scottish philosopher touching the notion of causality. If Hume took the objects of experience for things in themselves (as is almost always done), he was quite right in declaring the notion of cause to be a deception and false illusion; for as to things in themselves, and their attributes as such, it is impossible to see why because A is given, B, which is different, must necessarily be also given, and therefore he could by no means admit such an à priori knowledge of things in themselves. Still less could this acute writer allow an empirical origin of this concept, since this is directly contradictory to the necessity of connexion which constitutes the essence of the notion of causality; hence the notion was proscribed, and in its place was put custom in the observation of the course of perceptions.

  It resulted, however, from my inquiries, that the objects with which we have to do in experience (171) are by no means things in themselves, but merely phenomena; and that although in the case of things in themselves it is impossible to see how, if A is supposed, it should be contradictory that B, which is quite different from A, should not also be supposed (i. e. to see the necessity of the connexion between A as cause and B as effect); yet it can very well be conceived that, as phenomena, they may be necessarily connected in one experience in a certain way (e. g. with regard to time-relations); so that they could not be separated without contradicting that connexion, by means of which this experience is possible in which they are objects, and in which alone they are cognisable by us. And so it was found to be in fact; so that I was able not only to prove the objective reality of the concept of cause in regard to objects of experience, but also to deduce it as an à priori concept by reason of the necessity of the connexion it implied; that is, to show the possibility of its origin from pure understanding without any empirical sources; and thus, after removing the source of empiricism, I was able also to overthrow the inevitable consequence of this, namely, scepticism, first with regard to physical science, and then with regard to mathematics (in which empiricism has just the same grounds), both being sciences which have reference to objects of possible experience; herewith overthrowing the thorough doubt of whatever theoretic reason professes to discern.

  But how is it with the application of this category of causality (and all the others; for without them there can be no knowledge of anything existing) to things which are not objects of possible experience, but lie beyond its bounds? For I was able to deduce the objective reality of these concepts only with regard to objects of possible experience (172). But even this very fact, that I have saved them, only in case I have proved that objects may by means of them be thought, though not determined à priori; this it is that gives them a place in the pure understanding, by which they are referred to objects in general (sensible or not sensible). If anything is still wanting, it is that which is the condition of the application of these categories, and especially that of causality, to objects, namely, intuition; for where this is not given, the application with a view to theoretic knowledge of the object, as a noumenon, is impossible; and therefore if anyone ventures on it, is (as in the critique of the pure reason) absolutely forbidden. Still, the objective reality of the concept (of causality) remains, and it can be used even of noumena, but without our being able in the least to define the concept theoretically so as to produce knowledge. For that this concept, even in reference to an object, contains nothing impossible, was shown by this, that even while applied to objects of sense, its seat was certainly fixed in the pure understanding; and although, when referred to things in themselves (which cannot be objects of experience), it is not capable of being determined so as to represent a definite object for the purpose of theoretic knowledge; yet for any other purpose (for instance a practical) it might be capable of being determined so as to have such application. This could not be the case if, as Hume maintained, this concept of causality contained something absolutely impossible to be thought.

  In order now to discover this condition of the application of the said concept to noumena, we need only recall why we are not content with its application to objects of experience, but desire also to apply it to things in themselves. It will appear, then, that it is not a theoretic but a practical purpose (173) that makes this a necessity. In speculation, even if we were successful in it, we should not really gain anything in the knowledge of nature, or generally with regard to such objects as are given, but we should make a wide step from the sensibly conditioned (in which we have already enough to do to maintain ourselves, and to follow carefully the chain of causes) to the supersensible, in order to complete our knowledge of principles and to fix its limits: whereas there always remains an infinite chasm unfilled between those limits and what we know: and we should have hearkened to a vain curiosity rather than a solid desire of knowledge.

  But, besides the relation in which the understanding stands to objects (in theoretical knowledge), it has also a relation to the faculty of desire, which is therefore called the will, and the pure will, inasmuch as pure understanding (in this case called reason) is practical through the mere conception of a law. The objective reality of a pure will, or, what is the same thing, of a pure practical reason, is given in the moral law à priori, as it were, by a fact, for so we may name a determination of the will which is inevitable, although it does not rest on empirical principles. Now, in the notion of a will the notion of causality is already contained, and hence the notion of a pure will contains that of a causality accompanied with freedom, that is, one which is not determinable by physical laws, and consequently is not capable of any empirical intuition in proof of its reality, but, nevertheless, completely justifies its objective reality à priori in the pure practical law; not, indeed (as is easily seen) for the purposes of the theoretical, but of the practical use of reason. Now the notion of a being that has free will is the notion of a causa noumenon, and that this notion involves no contradiction (174) we are already assured by the fact—that inasmuch as the concept of cause has arisen wholly from pure understanding, and has its objective reality assured by the Deduction, as it is moreover in its origin independent on any sensible conditions, it is, therefore, not restricted to phenomena (unless we wanted to make a definite theoretic use of it), but can be applied equally to things that are objects of the pure understanding. But, since this application cannot rest on any intuition (for intuition can only be sensible), therefore, causa noumenon, as regards the theoretic use of reason, although a possible and thinkable, is yet an empty notion. Now, I do not desire by means of this to understand theoretically the nature of a being, in so far as it has a pure will; it is enough for me to have thereby designated it as such, and hence to combine the notion of causality with that of freedom (and what is inseparable from it, the moral law, as its determining principle). Now this right I certainly have by virtue of the pure, not-empirical, origin of the notion of cause, since I do not consider myself entitled to make any use of it except in reference to the moral law which determines its reality, that is, only a practical use.

  If, with Hume, I had denied to the notion of causality all objective reality in its [theoretic 1 ] use, not merely with regard to things in themselves the (supersensible), but also with regard to the objects of the senses, it would have lost all significance, and being a theoretically impossible notion would have been declared to be quite useless; and since what is nothing cannot be made any use of, the practical use of a concept theoretically null would have been absurd. But, as it is, the concept of a causality free from empirical conditions, although empty (i. e. without any appropriate intuition), is yet theoretically possible (175), and refers to an indeterminate object, but in compensation significance is given to it in the moral law, and consequently in a practical sense. I have, indeed, no intuition which should determine its objective theoretic reality, but not the less it has a real application, which is exhibited in concreto in intentions or maxims; that is, it has a practical reality which can be specified, and this is sufficient to justify it even with a view to noumena.

  Now, this objective reality of a pure concept of the understanding in the sphere of the supersensible, once brought in, gives an objective reality also to all the other categories, although only so far as they stand in necessary connexion with the determining principle of the will (the moral law); a reality only of practical application, which has not the least effect in enlarging our theoretical knowledge of these objects, or the discernment of their nature by pure reason. So we shall find also in the sequel that these categories refer only to beings as intelligences, and in them only to the relation of reason to the will; consequently, always only to the practical, and beyond this cannot pretend to any knowledge of these beings; and whatever other properties belonging to the theoretical representation of supersensible things may be brought into connexion with these categories, this is not to be reckoned as knowledge, but only as a right (in a practical point of view, however, it is a necessity) to admit and assume such beings, even in the case where we [conceive 1 ] supersensible beings (e. g. God) according to analogy, that is, a purely rational relation, of which we make a practical use with reference to what is sensible; and thus the application to the supersensible solely in a practical point of view does not give pure theoretic reason the least encouragement to run riot into the transcendent.

  CHAPTER II.

  of the concept of an object of pure practical reason.

  By a concept of the practical reason I understand the idea of an object as an effect possible to be produced through freedom. To be an object of practical knowledge, as such, signifies, therefore, only the relation of the will to the action by which the object or its opposite would be realized; and to decide whether something is an object of pure practical reason or not, is only to discern the possibility or impossibility of willing the action by which, if we had the required power (about which experience must decide), a certain object would be realized. If the object be taken as the determining principle of our desire, it must first be known whether it is physically possible by the free use of our powers, before we decide whether it is an object of practical reason or not. On the other hand, if the law can be considered à priori as the determining principle of the action, and the latter therefore as determined by pure practical reason; the judgment, whether a thing (177) is an object of pure practical reason or not does not depend at all on the comparison with our physical power; and the question is only whether we should will an action that is directed to the existence of an object, if the object were in our power; hence the previous question is only as to the moral possibility of the action, for in this case it is not the object, but the law of the will, that is the determining principle of the action. The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

  If the notion of good is not to be derived from an antecedent practical law, but, on the contrary, is to serve as its foundation, it can only be the notion of something whose existence promises pleasure, and thus determines the causality of the subject to produce it, that is to say, determines the faculty of desire. Now, since it is impossible to discern à priori what idea will be accompanied with pleasure, and what with pain, it will depend on experience alone to find out what is primarily 1 good or evil. The property of the subject, with reference to which alone this experiment can be made, is the feeling of pleasure and pain, a receptivity belonging to the internal sense; thus that only would be primarily good with which the sensation of pleasure is immediately connected, and that simply evil which immediately excites pain. Since, however, this is opposed even to the usage of language, which distinguishes the pleasant from the good, the unpleasant from the evil, and requires that good and evil shall always be judged by reason, and, therefore, by concepts which can be communicated to everyone, and not by mere sensation, which is limited to individual subjects 2 and their susceptibility (178); and, since nevertheless, pleasure or pain cannot be connected with any idea of an object à priori, the philosopher who thought himself obliged to make a feeling of pleasure the foundation of his practical judgments would call that good which is a means to the pleasant, and evil what is a cause of unpleasantness and pain; for the judgment on the relation of means to ends certainly belongs to reason. But, although reason is alone capable of discerning the connexion of means with their ends (so that the will might even be defined as the faculty of ends, since these are always determining principles of the desires), yet the practical maxims which would follow from the aforesaid principle of the good being merely a means, would never contain as the object of the will anything good in itself, but only something good for something; the good would always be merely the useful, and that for which it is useful must always lie outside the will, in sensation. Now if this as a pleasant sensation were to be distinguished from the notion of good, then there would be nothing primarily good at all, but the good would have to be sought only in the means to something else, namely, some pleasantness.

  It is an old formula of the schools: Nihil appetimus nisi sub ratione boni; Nihil aversamur nisi sub ratione mali, and it is used often correctly, but often also in a manner injurious to philosophy, because the expressions boni and mali are ambiguous, owing to the poverty of language, in consequence of which they admit a double sense, and, therefore, inevitably bring the practical laws into ambiguity; and philosophy, which in employing them becomes aware of the different meanings in the same word, but can find no special expressions for them, is driven to subtile distinctions about which there is subsequently no unanimity, because the distinction (179) could not be directly marked by any suitable expression. 1

  The German language has the good fortune to possess expressions which do not allow this difference to be overlooked. It possesses two very distinct concepts, and especially distinct expressions, for that which the Latins express by a single word, bonum. For bonum it has “das Gute” [good], and “das Wohl” [well, weal], for malum “das Böse” [evil], and “das Übel” [ill, bad], or “das Weh” [woe]. So that we express two quite distinct judgments when we consider in an action the good and evil of it, or our weal and woe (ill). Hence it already follows that the above quoted psychological proposition is at least very doubtful if it is translated; “we desire nothing except with a view to our weal or woe”; on the other hand, if we render it thus: “under the direction of reason we desire nothing except so far as we esteem it good or evil,” it is indubitably certain, and at the same time quite clearly expressed. 1

  Well or ill always implies only a reference to our condition, as pleasant or unpleasant, as one of pleasure or pain, and if we desire or avoid an object on this account, it is only so far as it is referred to our sensibility and to the feeling of pleasure or pain that it produces. But good or evil always implies a reference to the will, as determined by the law of reason, to make something its object (180); for it is never determined directly by the object and the idea of it, but is a faculty of taking a rule of reason for the motive of an action (by which an object may be realized). Good and evil therefore are properly referred to actions, not to the sensations of the person, and if anything is to be good or evil absolutely (i. e. in every respect and without any further condition), or is to be so esteemed, it can only be the manner of acting, the maxim of the will, and consequently the acting person himself as a good or evil man that can be so called, and not a thing.

  However, then, men may laugh at the Stoic, who in the severest paroxysms of gout cried out: Pain, however thou tormentest me, I will never admit that thou art an evil (κακόν, malum): he was right. A bad thing it certainly was, and his cry betrayed that; but that any evil attached to him thereby, this he had no reason whatever to admit, for pain did not in the least diminish the worth of his person, but only that of his condition. If he had been conscious of a single lie it would have lowered his pride, but pain served only to raise it, when he was conscious that he had not deserved it by any unrighteous action by which he had rendered himself worthy of punishment.

  What we call good must be an object of desire in the judgment of every rational man, and evil an object of aversion in the eyes of everyone; therefore, in addition to sense, this judgment requires reason. So it is with truthfulness, as opposed to lying; so with justice, as opposed to violence, &c. But we may call a thing a bad [or ill] thing, which yet everyone must at the same time acknowledge to be good, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly (181). The man who submits to a surgical operation feels it no doubt as a bad [ill] thing, but by their reason he and everyone acknowledge it to be good. If a man who delights in annoying and vexing peaceable people at last receives a right good beating, this is no doubt a bad [ill] thing, but everyone approves it and regards it as a good thing, even though nothing else resulted from it; nay, even the man who receives it must in his reason acknowledge that he has met justice, because he sees the proportion between good conduct and good fortune, which reason inevitably places before him, here put into practice.

  No doubt our weal and woe are of very great importance in the estimation of our practical reason, and as far as our nature as sensible beings is concerned, our happiness is the only thing of consequence, provided it is estimated as reason especially requires, not by the transitory sensation, but by the influence that this has on our whole existence, and on our satisfaction therewith; but it is not absolutely the only thing of consequence. Man is a being who, as belonging to the world of sense, has wants, and so far his reason has an office which it cannot refuse, namely, to attend to the interest of his sensible nature, and to form practical maxims, even with a view to the happiness of this life, and if possible even to that of a future. But he is not so completely an animal as to be indifferent to what reason says on its own account, and to use it merely as an instrument for the satisfaction of his wants as a sensible being. For the possession of reason would not raise his worth above that of the brutes, if it is observe serve him only for the same purpose that instinct serves in them; it would in that case be only a particular method which nature had employed to equip man for the same ends (182) for which it has qualified brutes, without qualifying him for any higher purpose. No doubt once this arrangement of nature has been made for him he requires reason in order to take into consideration his weal and woe, but besides this he possesses it for a higher purpose also, namely, not only to take into consideration what is good or evil in itself, about which only pure reason, uninfluenced by any sensible interest, can judge, but also to distinguish this estimate thoroughly from the former, and to make it the supreme condition thereof.

  In estimating what is good or evil in itself, as distinguished from what can be so called only relatively, the following points are to be considered. Either a rational principle is already conceived, as of itself the determining principle of the will, without regard to possible objects of desire (and therefore by the mere legislative form of the maxim), and in that case that principle is a practical à priori law, and pure reason is supposed to be practical of itself. The law in that case determines the will directly; the action conformed to it is good in itself; a will whose maxim always conforms to this law is good absolutely in every respect, and is the supreme condition of all good. Or the maxim of the will is consequent on a determining principle of desire which presupposes an object of pleasure or pain, something therefore that pleases or displeases, and the maxim of reason that we should pursue the former and avoid the latter determines our actions as good relatively to our inclination, that is, good indirectly (i. e. relatively to a different end to which they are means), and in that case these maxims can never be called laws, but may be called rational practical precepts. The end itself, the pleasure that we seek, is in the latter case not a good but a welfare; not a concept of reason (183), but an empirical concept of an object of sensation; but the use of the means thereto, that is, the action, is nevertheless called good (because rational deliberation is required for it), not however good absolutely, but only relatively to our sensuous nature, with regard to its feelings of pleasure and displeasure; but the will whose maxim is affected thereby is not a pure will; this is directed only to that in which pure reason by itself can be practical.

  This is the proper place to explain the paradox of method in a critique of Practical Reason, namely, that the concept of good and evil must not be determined before the moral law (of which it seems as if it must be the foundation), but only after it and by means of it. In fact even if we did not know that the principle of morality is a pure à priori law determining the will, yet, that we may not assume principles quite gratuitously, we must, at least at first, leave it undecided, whether the will has merely empirical principles of determination, or whether it has not also pure à priori principles; for it is contrary to all rules of philosophical method to assume as decided that which is the very point in question. Supposing that we wished to begin with the concept of good, in order to deduce from it the laws of the will, then this concept of an object (as a good) would at the same time assign to us this object as the sole determining principle of the will. Now, since this concept had not any practical à priori law for its standard, the criterion of good or evil could not be placed in anything but the agreement of the object with our feeling of pleasure or pain; and the use of reason could only consist in determining in the first place this pleasure or pain in connexion with all the sensations of my existence, and in the second place the means of securing to myself the object of the pleasure (184). Now, as experience alone can decide what conforms to the feeling of pleasure, and by hypothesis the practical law is to be based on this as a condition, it follows that the possibility of à priori practical laws would be at once excluded, because it was imagined to be necessary first of all to find an object the concept of which, as a good, should constitute the universal though empirical principle of determination of the will. But what it was necessary to inquire first of all was whether there is not an à priori determining principle of the will (and this could never be found anywhere but in a pure practical law, in so far as this law prescribes to maxims merely their form without regard to an object). Since, however, we laid the foundation of all practical law in an object determined by our conceptions of good and evil, whereas without a previous law that object could only be conceived by empirical concepts, we have deprived ourselves beforehand of the possibility of even conceiving a pure practical law. On the other hand, if we had first investigated the latter analytically, we should have found that it is not the concept of good as an object that determines the moral law, and makes it possible, but that, on the contrary, it is the moral law that first determines the concept of good, and makes it possible, so far as it deserves the name of good absolutely.

  This remark, which only concerns the method of ultimate Ethical inquiries, is of importance. It explains at once the occasion of all the mistakes of philosophers with respect to the supreme principle of morals. For they sought for an object of the will which they could make the matter and principle of a law (which consequently could not determine the will directly but by means of that object referred to the feeling of pleasure or pain (185); whereas they ought first to have searched for a law that would determine the will à priori and directly, and afterwards determine the object in accordance with the will). Now, whether they placed this object of pleasure, which was to supply the supreme conception of goodness, in happiness, in perfection, in moral [feeling 1 ], or in the will of God, their principle in every case implied heteronomy, and they must inevitably come upon empirical conditions of a moral law, since their object, which was to be the immediate principle of the will, could not be called good or bad except in its immediate relation to feeling, which is always empirical. It is only a formal law—that is, one which prescribes to reason nothing more than the form of its universal legislation as the supreme condition of its maxims—that can be à priori a determining principle of practical reason. The ancients avowed this error without concealment by directing all their moral inquiries to the determination of the notion of the summum bonum, which they intended afterwards to make the determining principle of the will in the moral law; whereas it is only far later, when the moral law has been first established for itself, and shown to be the direct determining principle of the will, that this object can be presented to the will, whose form is now determined à priori; and this we shall undertake in the Dialectic of the pure practical reason. The moderns, with whom the question of the summum bonum has gone out of fashion, or at least seems to have become a secondary matter, hide the same error under vague expressions (as in many other cases). It shows itself, nevertheless, in their systems, as it always produces heteronomy of practical reason; and from this can never be derived a moral law giving universal commands.

  (186) Now, since the notions of good and evil, as consequences of the à priori determination of the will, imply also a pure practical principle, and therefore a causality of pure reason; hence they do not originally refer to objects (so as to be, for instance, special modes of the synthetic unity of the manifold of given intuitions in one consciousness 1 ) like the pure concepts of the understanding or categories of reason in its theoretic employment; on the contrary, they presuppose that objects are given; but they are all modes (modi) of a single category, namely, that of causality, the determining principle of which consists in the rational conception of a law, which as a law of freedom reason gives to itself, thereby à priori proving itself practical. However, as the actions on the one side come under a law which is not a physical law, but a law of freedom, and consequently belong to the conduct of beings in the world of intelligence, yet on the other side as events in the world of sense they belong to phenomena; hence the determinations of a practical reason are only possible in reference to the latter, and therefore in accordance with the categories of the understanding; not indeed with a view to any theoretic employment of it, i.e. so as to bring the manifold of (sensible) intuition under one consciousness à priori; but only to subject the manifold of desires to the unity of consciousness of a practical reason, giving it commands in the moral law, i. e. to a pure will à priori.

  These categories of freedom—for so we choose to call them in contrast to those theoretic categories which are categories of physical nature—have an obvious advantage over the latter, inasmuch as the latter are only forms of thought which designate objects in an indefinite manner by means of universal concepts for every possible intuition; the former, on the contrary, refer to the determination of a free elective will (to which indeed no exactly corresponding intuition can be assigned (187), but which has as its foundation a pure practical à priori law, which is not the case with any concepts belonging to the theoretic use of our cognitive faculties); hence, instead of the form of intuition (space and time), which does not lie in reason itself, but has to be drawn from another source, namely, the sensibility, these being elementary practical concepts have as their foundation the form of a pure will, which is given in reason, and therefore in the thinking faculty itself. From this it happens that as all precepts of pure practical reason have to do only with the determination of the will, not with the physical conditions (of practical ability) of the execution of one’s purpose, the practical à priori principles in relation to the supreme principle of freedom are at once cognitions, and have not to wait for intuitions in order to acquire significance, and that for this remarkable reason, because they themselves produce the reality of that to which they refer (the intention of the will), which is not the case with theoretical concepts. Only we must be careful to observe that these categories only apply to the practical reason; and thus they proceed in order from those which are as yet subject to sensible conditions and morally indeterminate to those which are free from sensible conditions, and determined merely by the moral law.

  • (188) Table of the Categories of Freedom relatively to the Notions of Good and Evil.
  • I. —QUANTITY. Subjective, according to maxims (practical opinions of the individual).Objective, according to principles (precepts).A priori both objective and subjective principles of freedom (laws).
  • II. —QUALITY. Practical rules of action (præceptivæ).Practical rules of omission (prohibitivæ).Practical rules of exceptions (exceptivæ).
  • III. —RELATION. To personality.To the condition of the person.Reciprocal, of one person to the condition of the others.
  • IV. —MODALITY. The permitted and the forbidden.Duty and the contrary to duty.Perfect and imperfect duty.

  (189) It will at once be observed that in this table freedom is considered as a sort of causality not subject to empirical principles of determination, in regard to actions possible by it, which are phenomena in the world of sense, and that consequently it is referred to the categories which concern its physical possibility, whilst yet each category is taken so universally that the determining principle of that causality can be placed outside the world of sense in freedom as a property of a being in the world of intelligence; and finally the categories of modality introduce the transition from practical principles generally to those of morality, but only problematically. These can be established dogmatically only by the moral law.

  I add nothing further here in explanation of the present table, since it is intelligible enough of itself. A division of this kind based on principles is very useful in any science, both for the sake of thoroughness and intelligibility. Thus, for instance, we know from the preceding table and its first number what we must begin from in practical inquiries, namely, from the maxims which everyone founds on his own inclinations; the precepts which hold for a species of rational beings so far as they agree in certain inclinations; and finally the law which holds for all without regard to their inclinations, &c. In this way we survey the whole plan of what has to be done, every question of practical philosophy that has to be answered, and also the order that is to be followed.

  Of the Typic of the Pure Practical Judgment.

  It is the notions of good and evil that first determine an object of the will. They themselves, however (190), are subject to a practical rule of reason, which, if it is pure reason, determines the will à priori relatively to its object. Now, whether an action which is possible to us in the world of sense, comes under the rule or not, is a question to be decided by the practical Judgment, by which what is said in the rule universally (in abstracto) is applied to an action in concreto. But since a practical rule of pure reason in the first place as practical concerns the existence of an object, and in the second place as a practical rule of pure reason, implies necessity as regards the existence of the action, and therefore is a practical law, not a physical law depending on empirical principles of determination, but a law of freedom by which the will is to be determined independently on anything empirical (merely by the conception of a law and its form), whereas all instances that can occur of possible actions can only be empirical, that is, belong to the experience of physical nature; hence, it seems absurd to expect to find in the world of sense a case which, while as such it depends only on the law of nature, yet admits of the application to it of a law of freedom, and to which we can apply the supersensible idea of the morally good which is to be exhibited in it in concreto. Thus, the Judgment of the pure practical reason is subject to the same difficulties as that of the pure theoretical reason. The latter, however, had means at hand of escaping from these difficulties, because, in regard to the theoretical employment, intuitions were required to which pure concepts of the understanding could be applied, and such intuitions (though only of objects of the senses) can be given à priori, and therefore, as far as regards the union of the manifold in them, conforming to the pure à priori concepts of the understanding as schemata. On the other hand, the morally good is something whose object is supersensible; for which, therefore, nothing corresponding can be found in any sensible intuition (191). Judgment depending on laws of pure practical reason seems, therefore, to be subject to special difficulties arising from this, that a law of freedom is to be applied to actions, which are events taking place in the world of sense, and which, so far, belong to physical nature.

  But here again is opened a favourable prospect for the pure practical Judgment. When I subsume under a pure practical law an action possible to me in the world of sense, I am not concerned with the possibility of the action as an event in the world of sense. This is a matter that belongs to the decision of reason in its theoretic use according to the law of causality, which is a pure concept of the understanding, for which reason has a schema in the sensible intution. Physical causality, or the condition under which it takes place, belongs to the physical concepts, the schema of which is sketched by transcendental imagination. Here, however, we have to do, not with the schema of a case that occurs according to laws, but with the schema of a law itself (if the word is allowable here), since the fact that the will (not the action relatively to its effect) is determined by the law alone without any other principle, connects the notion of causality with quite different conditions from those which constitute physical connexion.

  The physical law being a law to which the objects of sensible intuition, as such, are subject, must have a schema corresponding to it—that is, a general procedure of the imagination (by which it exhibits à priori to the senses the pure concept of the understanding which the law determines). But the law of freedom (that is, of a causality not subject to sensible conditions), and consequently the concept of the unconditionally good, cannot have any intuition, nor consequently any schema supplied to it for the purpose of its application in concreto. Consequently the moral law has no faculty (192) but the understanding to aid its application to physical objects (not the imagination); and the understanding for the purposes of the Judgment can provide for an idea of the reason, not a schema of the sensibility, but a law, though only as to its form as law; such a law, however, as can be exhibited in concreto in objects of the senses, and therefore a law of nature. We can therefore call this law the Type of the moral law.

  The rule of the Judgment according to laws of pure practical reason is this: ask yourself whether, if the action you propose were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your own will. Everyone does, in fact, decide by this rule whether actions are morally good or evil. Thus, people say: If everyone permitted himself to deceive, when he thought it to his advantage; or thought himself justified in shortening his life as soon as he was thoroughly weary of it; or looked with perfect indifference on the necessity of others; and if you belonged to such an order of things, would you do so with the assent of your own will? Now everyone knows well that if he secretly allows himself to deceive, it does not follow that everyone else does so; or if, unobserved, he is destitute of compassion, others would not necessarily be so to him; hence, this comparison of the maxim of his actions with a universal law of nature is not the determining principle of his will. Such a law is, nevertheless, a type of the estimation of the maxim on moral principles. If the maxim of the action is not such as to stand the test of the form of a universal law of nature, then it is morally impossible. This is the judgment even of common sense; for its ordinary judgments, even those of experience, are always based on the law of nature. It has it therefore always at hand, only that in cases (193) where causality from freedom is to be criticised, it makes that law of nature only the type of a law of freedom, because without something which it could use as an example in a case of experience, it could not give the law of a pure practical reason its proper use in practice.

  It is therefore allowable to use the system of the world of sense as the type of a supersensible system of things, provided I do not transfer to the latter the intuitions, and what depends on them, but merely apply to it the form of law in general (the notion of which occurs even in the [commonest] 1 use of reason, but cannot be definitely known à priori for any other purpose than the pure practical use of reason); for laws, as such, are so far identical, no matter from what they derive their determining principles.

  Further, since of all the supersensible absolutely nothing [is known] except freedom (through the moral law), and this only so far as it is inseparably implied in that law, and moreover all supersensible objects to which reason might lead us, following the guidance of that law, have still no reality for us, except for the purpose of that law, and for the use of mere practical reason; and as Reason is authorized and even compelled to use physical nature (in its pure form as an object of the understanding) as the type of the Judgment; hence, the present remark will serve to guard against reckoning amongst concepts themselves that which belongs only to the typic of concepts. This, namely, as a typic of the Judgment, guards against the empiricism of practical reason, which founds the practical notions of good and evil merely on experienced consequences (so called happiness). No doubt happiness and the infinite advantages which would result from a will determined by self-love, if this will at the same time erected itself into a universal law of nature (194), may certainly serve as a perfectly suitable type for the morally Good, but it is not identical with it. The same typic guards also against the mysticism of practical reason, which turns what served only as a symbol into a schema, that is, proposes to provide for the moral concepts actual intuitions, which, however, are not sensible (intuitions of an invisible Kingdom of God), and thus plunges into the transcendent. What is befitting the use of the moral concepts is only the rationalism of the Judgment, which takes from the sensible system of nature only what pure reason can also conceive of itself, that is, conformity to law, and transfers into the supersensible nothing but what can conversely be actually exhibited by actions in the world of sense according to the formal rule of a law of nature. However, the caution against empiricism of practical reason is much more important; for 1mysticism is quite reconcilable with the purity and sublimity of the moral law, and, besides, it is not very natural or agreeable to common habits of thought to strain one’s imagination to supersensible intuitions; and hence the danger on this side is not so general. Empiricism, on the contrary, cuts up at the roots the morality of intentions (in which, and not in actions only, consists the high worth that men can and ought to give to themselves), and substitutes for duty something quite different, namely, an empirical interest, with which the inclinations generally are secretly leagued; and empiricism, moreover, being on this account allied with all the inclinations which (no matter what fashion they put on) degrade humanity when they are raised to the dignity of a supreme practical principle; and as these nevertheless are so favourable to everyone’s feelings, it is for that reason much more dangerous than mysticism, which can never constitute a lasting condition of any great number of persons.

  CHAPTER III.

  of the motives of pure practical reason.

  What is essential in the moral worth of actions is that the moral law should directly determine the will. If the determination of the will takes place in conformity indeed to the moral law, but only by means of a feeling, no matter of what kind, which has to be presupposed in order that the law may be sufficient to determine the will, and therefore not for the sake of the law, then the action will possess legality but not morality. Now, if we understand by motive [or spring] (elater animi) the subjective ground of determination of the will of a being whose Reason does not necessarily conform to the objective law, by virtue of its own nature, then it will follow, first, that no motives can be attributed to the Divine will, and that the motives of the human will (as well as that of every created rational being) can never be anything else than the moral law, and consequently that the objective principle of determination must always and alone be also the subjectively sufficient determining principle of the action (196), if this is not merely to fulfil the letter of the law, without containing its spirit.1

  Since, then, for the purpose of giving the moral law influence over the will, we must not seek for any other motives that might enable us to dispense with the motive of the law itself, because that would produce mere hypocrisy, without consistency; and it is even dangerous to allow other motives (for instance, that of interest) even to co-operate along with the moral law; hence nothing is left us but to determine carefully in what way the moral law becomes a motive, and what effect this has upon the faculty of desire. For as to the question how a law can be directly and of itself a determining principle of the will (which is the essence of morality), this is, for human reason, an insoluble problem and identical with the question: how a free will is possible. Therefore what we have to show à priori is, not why the moral law in itself supplies a motive, but what effect it, as such, produces (or, more correctly speaking, must produce) on the mind.

  The essential point in every determination of the will by the moral law is that being a free will it is determined simply by the moral law, not only without the co-operation of sensible impulses, but even to the rejection of all such, and to the checking of all inclinations so far as they might be opposed to that law. So far, then, the effect of the moral law as a motive is only negative, and this motive can be known à priori to be such. For all inclination and every sensible impulse is founded on feeling, and the negative effect (197) produced on feeling (by the check on the inclinations) is itself feeling; consequently, we can see à priori that the moral law, as a determining principle of the will, must by thwarting all our inclinations produce a feeling which may be called pain; and in this we have the first, perhaps the only instance, in which we are able from à priori considerations to determine the relation of a cognition (in this case of pure practical reason) to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. All the inclinations together (which can be reduced to a tolerable system, in which case their satisfaction is called happiness) constitute self-regard (solipsismus). This is either the self-love that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself (philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The former is called particularly selfishness; the latter self-conceit. Pure practical reason only checks selfishness, looking on it as natural and active in us even prior to the moral law, so far as to limit it to the condition of agreement with this law, and then it is called rational self-love. But self-conceit Reason strikes down altogether, since all claims to self-esteem which precede agreement with the moral law are vain and unjustifiable, for the certainty of a state of mind that coincides with this law is the first condition of personal worth (as we shall presently show more clearly), and prior to this conformity any pretension to worth is false and unlawful. Now the propensity to self-esteem is one of the inclinations which the moral law checks, inasmuch as that esteem rests only on morality. Therefore the moral law breaks down self-conceit. But as this law is something positive in itself, namely, the form of an intellectual causality, that is, of freedom, it must be an object of respect; for by opposing the subjective antagonism of the inclinations (198) it weakens self-conceit; and since it even breaks down, that is, humiliates this conceit, it is an object of the highest respect, and consequently is the foundation of a positive feeling which is not of empirical origin, but is known à priori. Therefore respect for the moral law is a feeling which is produced by an intellectual cause, and this feeling is the only one that we know quite à priori, and the necessity of which we can perceive.

  In the preceding chapter we have seen that everything that presents itself as an object of the will prior to the moral law is by that law itself, which is the supreme condition of practical reason, excluded from the determining principles of the will which we have called the unconditionally good; and that the mere practical form which consists in the adaptation of the maxims to universal legislation first determines what is good in itself and absolutely, and is the basis of the maxims of a pure will, which alone is good in every respect. However, we find that our nature as sensible beings is such that the matter of desire (objects of inclination, whether (of hope or fear) first presents itself to us; and our pathologically affected self, although it is in its maxims quite unfit for universal legislation; yet, just as if it constituted our entire self, strives to put its pretensions forward first, and to have them acknowledged as the first and original. This propensity to make ourselves in the subjective determining principles of our choice serve as the objective determining principle of the will generally may be called self-love; and if this pretends to be legislative as an unconditional practical principle it may be called self-conceit. Now the moral law, which alone is truly objective (namely, in every respect), entirely excludes the influence of self-love on the supreme practical principle, and indefinitely checks the self-conceit that prescribes the subjective conditions of the former as laws (199). Now whatever checks our self-conceit in our own judgment humiliates; therefore the moral law inevitably humbles every man when he compares with it the physical propensities of his nature. That, the idea of which as a determining principle of our will humbles us in our self-consciousness, awakes respect for itself, so far as it is itself positive, and a determining principle. Therefore the moral law is even subjectively a cause of respect. Now since everything that enters into self-love belongs to inclination, and all inclination rests on feelings, and consequently whatever checks all the feelings together in self-love has necessarily, by this very circumstance, an influence on feeling; hence we comprehend how it is possible to perceive à priori that the moral law can produce an effect on feeling, in that it excludes the inclinations and the propensity to make them the supreme practical condition, i. e. self-love, from all participation in the supreme legislation. This effect is on one side merely negative, but on the other side, relatively to the restricting principle of pure practical reason, it is positive. No special kind of feeling need be assumed for this under the name of a practical or moral feeling as antecedent to the moral law, and serving as its foundation.

  The negative effect on feeling (unpleasantness) is pathological, like every influence on feeling, and like every feeling generally. But as an effect of the consciousness of the moral law, and consequently in relation to a supersensible cause, namely, the subject of pure practical reason which is the supreme lawgiver, this feeling of a rational being affected by inclinations is called humiliation (intellectual self-depreciation); but with reference to the positive source of this humiliation, the law, it is respect for it. There is indeed no feeling for this law (200); but inasmuch as it removes the resistance out of the way, this removal of an obstacle is, in the judgment of reason esteemed equivalent to a positive help to its causality. Therefore this feeling may also be called a feeling of respect for the moral law, and for both reasons together a moral feeling.

  While the moral law, therefore, is a formal determining principle of action by practical pure reason, and is moreover a material though only objective determining principle of the objects of action as called good and evil, it is also a subjective determining principle, that is, a motive to this action, inasmuch as it has influence on the morality of the subject, and produces a feeling conducive to the influence of the law on the will. There is here in the subject no antecedent feeling tending to morality. For this is impossible, since every feeling is sensible, and the motive of moral intention must be free from all sensible conditions. On the contrary, while the sensible feeling which is at the bottom of all our inclinations is the condition of that impression which we call respect, the cause that determines it lies in the pure practical reason; and this impression therefore, on account of its origin, must be called, not a pathological, but a practical effect. For by the fact that the conception of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence, and self-conceit of its allusion, it lessons the obstacle to pure practical reason, and produces the conception of the superiority of its objective law to the impulses of the sensibility; and thus, by removing the counterpoise, it gives relatively greater weight to the law in the judgment of reason (in the case of a will affected by the aforesaid impulses). Thus the respect for the law is not a motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively considered as a motive, inasmuch as pure practical reason (201), by rejecting all the rival pretensions of self-love, gives authority to the law which now alone has influence. Now it is to be observed that as respect is an effect on feeling, and therefore on the sensibility, of a rational being, it presupposes this sensibility, and therefore also the finiteness of such beings on whom the moral law imposes respect; and that respect for the law cannot be attributed to a supreme being, or to any being free from all sensibility, and in whom, therefore, this sensibility cannot be an obstacle to practical reason.

  This feeling [sentiment] (which we call the moral feeling) is therefore produced simply by reason. It does not serve for the estimation of actions nor for the foundation of the objective moral law itself, but merely as a motive to make this of itself a maxim. But what name could we more suitably apply to this singular feeling which cannot be compared to any pathological feeling? It is of such a peculiar kind that it seems to be at the disposal of reason only, and that pure practical reason.

  Respect applies always to persons only—not to things. The latter may arouse inclination, and if they are animals (e. g. horses, dogs, &c.), even love or fear, like the sea, a volcano, a beast of prey; but never respect. Something that comes nearer to this feeling is admiration, and this, as an affection, astonishment, can apply to things also, e. g. lofty mountains, the magnitude, number, and distance of the heavenly bodies, the strength and swiftness of many animals, &c. But all this is not respect. A man also may be an object to me of love, fear, or admiration, even to astonishment, and yet not be an object of respect. His jocose humour, his courage and strength, his power from the rank he has amongst others (202), may inspire me with sentiments of this kind, but still inner respect for him is wanting. Fontenelle says, “I bow before a great man, but my mind does not bow.” I would add, before an humble, plain man, in whom I perceive uprightness of character in a higher degree than I am conscious of in myself, my mind bows whether I choose it or not, and though I bear my head never so high that he may not forget my superior rank. Why is this? Because his example exhibits to me a law that humbles my self-conceit when I compare it with my conduct: a law, the practicability of obedience to which I see proved by fact before my eyes. Now, I may even be conscious of a like degree of uprightness, and yet the respect remains. For since in man all good is defective, the law made visible by an example still humbles my pride, my standard being furnished by a man whose imperfections, whatever they may be, are not known to me as my own are, and who therefore appears to me in a more favourable light. Respect is a tribute which we cannot refuse to merit, whether we will or not; we may indeed outwardly withhold it, but we cannot help feeling it inwardly.

  Respect is so far from being a feeling of pleasure that we only reluctantly give way to it as regards a man. We try to find out something that may lighten the burden of it, some fault to compensate us for the humiliation which such an example causes. Even the dead are not always secure from this criticism, especially if their example appears inimitable. Even the moral law itself in its solemn majesty is exposed to this endeavour to save oneself from yielding it respect (203). Can it be thought that it is for any other reason that we are so ready to reduce it to the level of our familiar inclination, or that it is for any other reason that we all take such trouble to make it out to be the chosen precept of our own interest well understood, but that we want to be free from the deterrent respect which shows us our own unworthiness with such severity? Nevertheless, on the other hand, so little is there pain in it that if once one has laid aside self-conceit and allowed practical influence to that respect, he can never be satisfied with contemplating the majesty of this law, and the soul believes itself elevated in proportion as it sees the holy law elevated above it and its frail nature. No doubt great talents and activity proportioned to them may also occasion respect or an analogous feeling. It is very proper to yield it to them, and then it appears as if this sentiment were the same thing as admiration. But if we look closer we shall observe that it is always uncertain how much of the ability is due to native talent, and how much to diligence in cultivating it. Reason represents it to us as probably the fruit of cultivation, and therefore as meritorious, and this notably reduces our self-conceit, and either casts a reproach on us or urges us to follow such an example in the way that is suitable to us. This respect then which we show to such a person (properly speaking, to the law that his example exhibits) is not mere admiration; and this is confirmed also by the fact, that when the common run of admirers think they have learned from any source the badness of such a man’s character (for instance Voltaire’s) they give up all respect for him; whereas the true scholar still feels it at least with regard to his talents, because he is himself engaged in a business and a vocation (204) which make imitation of such a man in some degree a law.

  Respect for the moral law is therefore the only and the undoubted moral motive, and this feeling is directed to no object, except on the ground of this law. The moral law first determines the will objectively and directly in the judgment of reason; and freedom, whose causality can be determined only by the law, consists just in this, that it restricts all inclinations, and consequently self-esteem, by the condition of obedience to its pure law. This restriction now has an effect on feeling, and produces the impression of displeasure which can be known à priori from the moral law. Since it is so far only a negative effect which, arising from the influence of pure practical reason, checks the activity of the subject, so far as it is determined by inclinations, and hence checks the opinion of his personal worth (which, in the absence of agreement with the moral law, is reduced to nothing); hence, the effect of this law on feeling is merely humiliation. We can, therefore, perceive this à priori, but cannot know by it the force of the pure practical law as a motive, but only the resistance to motives of the sensibility. But since the same law is objectively, that is, in the conception of pure reason, an immediate principle of determination of the will, and consequently this humiliation takes place only relatively to the purity of the law; hence, the lowering of the pretensions of moral self-esteem, that is, humiliation on the sensible side, is an elevation of the moral, i. e. practical, esteem for the law itself on the intellectual side; in a word, it is respect for the law, and therefore, as its cause is intellectual, a positive feeling which can be known à priori. For whatever diminishes the obstacles to an activity, furthers this activity itself (205). Now the recognition of the moral law is the consciousness of an activity of practical reason from objective principles, which only fails to reveal its effect in actions because subjective (pathological) causes hinder it. Respect for the moral law then must be regarded as a positive, though indirect effect of it on feeling, inasmuch as this respect 1 weakens the impeding influence of inclinations by humiliating self-esteem; and hence also as a subjective principle of activity, that is, as a motive to obedience to the law, and as a principle of the maxims of a life conformable to it. From the notion of a motive arises that of an interest, which can never be attributed to any being unless it possesses reason, and which signifies a motive of the will in so far as it is conceived by the reason. Since in a morally good will the law itself must be the motive, the moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, independent on sense. On the notion of an interest is based that of a maxim. This, therefore, is morally good only in case it rests simply on the interest taken in obedience to the law. All three notions, however, that of a motive, of an interest, and of a maxim, can be applied only to finite beings. For they all suppose a limitation of the nature of the being, in that the subjective character of his choice does not of itself agree with the objective law of a practical reason; they suppose that the being requires to be impelled to action by something, because an internal obstacle opposes itself. Therefore they cannot be applied to the Divine will.

  There is something so singular in the unbounded esteem for the pure moral law, apart from all advantage, as it is presented for our obedience by practical reason, the voice of which makes even the boldest sinner tremble, and compels him to hide himself from it (206), that we cannot wonder if we find this influence of a mere intellectual idea on the feelings quite incomprehensible to speculative reason, and have to be satisfied with seeing so much of this à priori, that such a feeling is inseparably connected with the conception of the moral law in every finite rational being. If this feeling of respect were pathological, and therefore were a feeling of pleasure based on the inner sense, it would be in vain to try to discover a connexion of it with any idea à priori. But [it 1 ] is a feeling that applies merely to what is practical, and depends on the conception of a law, simply as to its form, not on account of any object, and therefore cannot be reckoned either as pleasure or pain, and yet produces an interest in obedience to the law, which we call the moral interest, just as the capacity of taking such an interest in the law (or respect for the moral law itself) is properly the moral feeling [or sentiment].

  The consciousness of a free submission of the will to the law, yet combined with an inevitable constraint put upon all inclinations, though only by our own reason, is respect for the law. The law that demands this respect and inspires it is clearly no other than the moral (for no other precludes all inclinations from exercising any direct influence on the will). An action which is objectively practical according to this law, to the exclusion of every determining principle of inclination, is duty, and this by reason of that exclusion includes in its concept practical obligation, that is, a determination to actions, however reluctantly they may be done. The feeling that arises from the consciousness of this obligation is not pathological, as would be a feeling produced by an object of the senses, but practical only, that is, it is made possible by a preceding (207) (objective) determination of the will and a causality of the reason. As submission to the law, therefore, that is, as a command (announcing constraint for the sensibly affected subject), it contains in it no pleasure, but on the contrary, so far, pain in the action. On the other hand, however, as this constraint is exercised merely by the legislation of our own reason, it also contains something elevating, and this subjective effect on feeling, inasmuch as pure practical reason is the sole cause of it, may be called in this respect self-approbation, since we recognize ourselves as determined thereto solely by the law without any interest, and are now conscious of a quite different interest subjectively produced thereby, and which is purely practical and free; and our taking this interest in an action of duty is not suggested by any inclination, but is commanded and actually brought about by reason through the practical law; whence this feeling obtains a special name, that of respect.

  The notion of duty, therefore, requires in the action, objectively, agreement with the law, and, subjectively in its maxim, that respect for the law shall be the sole mode in which the will is determined thereby. And on this rests the distinction between the consciousness of having acted according to duty and from duty, that is, from respect for the law. The former (legality) is possible even if inclinations have been the determining principles of the will; but the latter (morality), moral worth, can be placed only in this, that the action is done from duty, that is, simply for the sake of the law. 1

  (208) It is of the greatest importance to attend with the utmost exactness in all moral judgments to the subjective principle of all maxims, that all the morality of actions may be placed in the necessity of acting from duty and from respect for the law, not from love and inclination for that which the actions are to produce. For men and all created rational beings moral necessity is constraint, that is obligation, and every action based on it is to be conceived as a duty, not as a proceeding previously pleasing, or likely to be pleasing to us of our own accord. As if indeed we could ever bring it about that without respect for the law, which implies fear, or at least apprehension of transgression, we of ourselves, like the independent Deity, could ever come into possession of holiness of will by the coincidence of our will with the pure moral law becoming as it were part of our nature, never to be shaken (in which case the law would cease to be a command for us, as we could never be tempted to be untrue to it).

  The moral law is in fact for the will of a perfect being a law of holiness, but for the will of every finite rational being a law of duty, of moral constraint, and of the determination of its actions by respect for this law and reverence for its duty. No other subjective principle must be assumed as a motive, else while the action might chance to be such as the law prescribes, yet as it does not proceed from duty, the intention, which is the thing properly in question in this legislation, is not moral.

  (209) It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men from love to them and from sympathetic good will, or to be just from love of order; but this is not yet the true moral maxim of our conduct which is suitable to our position amongst rational beings as men, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves above the thought of duty, like volunteers, and, as if we were independent on the command, to want to do of our own good pleasure what we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason, and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption diminish aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect for this law. Duty and obligation are the only names that we must give to our relation to the moral law. We are indeed legislative members of a moral kingdom rendered possible by freedom, and presented to us by reason as an object of respect; but yet we are subjects in it, not the sovereign, and to mistake our inferior position as creatures and presumptuously to reject the authority of the moral law is already to revolt from it in spirit, even though the letter of it is fulfilled.

  With this agrees very well the possibility of such a command as: Love God above everything, and thy neighbour as thyself1 . For as a command it requires respect for a law (210) which commands love and does not leave it to our own arbitrary choice to make this our principle. Love to God, however, considered as an inclination (pathological love), is impossible, for He is not an object of the senses. The same affection towards men is possible no doubt, but cannot be commanded, for it is not in the power of any man to love anyone at command; therefore it is only practical love that is meant in that pith of all laws. To love God means, in this sense, to like to do His commandments; to love one’s neighbour means to like to practise all duties towards him. But the command that makes this a rule cannot command us to have this disposition in actions conformed to duty, but only to endeavour after it. For a command to like to do a thing is in itself contradictory, because if we already know of ourselves what we are bound to do, and if further we are conscious of liking to do it, a command would be quite needless; and if we do it not willingly, but only out of respect for the law, a command that makes this respect the motive of our maxim would directly counteract the disposition commanded. That law of all laws, therefore, like all the moral precepts of the Gospel, exhibits the moral disposition in all its perfection, in which, viewed as an Ideal of holiness, it is not attainable by any creature, but yet is the pattern which we should strive to approach, and in an uninterrupted but infinite progress become like to. In fact, if a rational creature could ever reach this point, that he thoroughly likes to do all moral laws, this would mean that there does not exist in him even the possibility of a desire that would tempt him to deviate from them; for to overcome such a desire always costs the subject some sacrifice, and therefore requires self-compulsion, that is, inward constraint to something that one does not quite like to do; and no creature can ever reach this stage of moral disposition (211). For, being a creature, and therefore always dependent with respect to what he requires for complete satisfaction, he can never be quite free from desires and inclinations, and as these rest on physical causes, they can never of themselves coincide with the moral law, 1 the sources of which are quite different; and therefore they make it necessary to found the mental disposition of one’s maxims on moral obligation, not on ready inclination, but on respect, which demands obedience to the law, even though one may not like it; not on love, which apprehends no inward reluctance of the will towards the law. Nevertheless, this latter, namely, love to the law (which would then cease to be a command, and then morality, which would have passed subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue), must be the constant though unattainable goal of his endeavours. For in the case of what we highly esteem, but yet (on account of the consciousness of our weakness) dread, the increased facility of satisfying it changes the most reverential awe into inclination, and respect into love: at least this would be the perfection of a disposition devoted to the law, if it were possible for a creature to attain it. 2

  This reflection is intended not so much to clear up the evangelical command just cited, in order to prevent religious fanaticism in regard to love of God, but to define accurately the moral disposition with regard directly to our duties towards men, and to check, or if possible prevent, a merely moral fanaticism which infects many persons. The stage of morality on which man (and, as far as we can see, every rational creature) stands is respect for the moral law. The disposition that he ought to have in obeying this is to obey it from duty, not from spontaneous (212) inclination, or from an endeavour taken up from liking and unbidden; and this proper moral condition in which he can always be is virtue, that is, moral disposition militant, and not holiness in the fancied possession of a perfect purity of the disposition of the will. It is nothing but moral fanaticism and exaggerated self-conceit that is infused into the mind by exhortation to actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous, by which men are led into the delusion that it is not duty, that is, respect for the law, whose yoke (an easy yoke, indeed, because reason itself imposes it on us) they must bear, whether they like it or not, that constitutes the determining principle of their actions, and which always humbles them while they obey it; fancying that those actions are expected from them, not from duty, but as pure merit. For not only would they, in imitating such deeds from such a principle not have fulfilled the spirit of the law in the least, which consists not in the legality of the action (without regard to principle), but in the subjection of the mind to the law; not only do they make the motives pathological (seated in sympathy or self-love), not moral (in the law), but they produce in this way a vain high-flying fantastic way of thinking, flattering themselves with a spontaneous goodness of heart that needs neither spur nor bridle, for which no command is needed, and thereby forgetting their obligation, which they ought to think of rather than merit. Indeed actions of others which are done with great sacrifice, and merely for the sake of duty, may be praised as noble and sublime, but only so far as there are traces which suggest that they were done wholly out of respect for duty and not from excited feelings (213). If these, however, are set before anyone as examples to be imitated, respect for duty (which is the only true moral feeling) must be employed as the motive—this severe holy precept which never allows our vain self-love to dally with pathological impulses (however analogous they may be to morality) and to take a pride in meritorious worth. Now if we search we shall find for all actions that are worthy of praise a law of duty which commands, and does not leave us to choose what may be agreeable to our inclinations. This is the only way of representing things that can give a moral training to the soul, because it alone is capable of solid and accurately defined principles.

  If fanaticism in its most general sense is a deliberate overstepping of the limits of human reason, then moral fanaticism is such an overstepping of the bounds that practical pure reason sets to mankind, in that it forbids us to place the subjective determining principle of correct actions, that is, their moral motive, in anything but the law itself, or to place the disposition which is thereby brought into the maxims in anything but respect for this law, and hence commands us to take as the supreme vital principle of all morality in men the thought of duty, which strikes down all arrogance as well as vain self-love.

  If this is so, it is not only writers of romance or sentimental educators (although they may be zealous opponents of sentimentalism), but sometimes even philosophers; nay, even the severest of all, the Stoics, that have brought in moral fanaticism instead of a sober but wise moral discipline, although the fanaticism of the latter was more heroic, that of the former of an insipid, effeminate character; and we may, without hypocrisy, say of the moral teaching of the Gospel (214), that it first, by the purity of its moral principle, and at the same time by its suitability to the limitations of finite beings, brought all the good conduct of men under the discipline of a duty plainly set before their eyes, which does not permit them to indulge in dreams of imaginary moral perfections; and that it also set the bounds of humility (that is, self-knowledge) to self-conceit as well as to self-love, both which are ready to mistake their limits.

  Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not to move the will by threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, and yet gains reluctant reverence (though not always obedience), a law before which all inclinations are dumb, even though they secretly counter-work it; what origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations; a root to be derived from which is the indispensable condition of the only worth which men can give themselves?

  It can be nothing less than a power which elevates man above himself (as a part of the world of sense), a power which connects him with an order of things that only the understanding can conceive, with a world which at the same time commands the whole sensible world, and with it the empirically determinable existence of man in time, as well as the sum total of all ends (which totality alone suits such unconditional practical laws as the moral). This power is nothing but personality, that is, freedom and independence on the mechanism of nature, yet, regarded also as a faculty of a being which is subject to special laws, namely, pure practical laws given by its own reason (215); so that the person as belonging to the sensible world is subject to his own personality as belonging to the intelligible [supersensible] world. It is then not to be wondered at that man, as belonging to both worlds, must regard his own nature in reference to its second and highest characteristic only with reverence, and its laws with the highest respect.

  On this origin are founded many expressions which designate the worth of objects according to moral ideas. The moral law is holy (inviolable). Man is indeed unholy enough, but he must regard humanity in his own person as holy. In all creation every thing one chooses, and over which one has any power, may be used merely as means; man alone, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself. By virtue of the autonomy of his freedom he is the subject of the moral law, which is holy. Just for this reason every will, even every person’s own individual will, in relation to itself, is restricted to the condition of agreement with the autonomy of the rational being, that is to say, that it is not to be subject to any purpose which cannot accord with a law which might arise from the will of the passive subject himself; the latter is, therefore, never to be employed merely as means, but as itself also, concurrently, an end. We justly attribute this condition even to the Divine will, with regard to the rational beings in the world, which are His creatures, since it rests on their personality, by which alone they are ends in themselves.

  This respect-inspiring idea of personality which sets before our eyes the sublimity of our nature (in its higher aspect), while at the same time it shows us the want of accord of our conduct with it, and thereby strikes down self-conceit, is even natural to the commonest reason, and easily observed (216). Has not every even moderately honourable man sometimes found that, where by an otherwise inoffensive lie he might either have withdrawn himself from an unpleasant business, or even have procured some advantages for a loved and well-deserving friend, he has avoided it solely lest he should despise himself secretly in his own eyes? When an upright man is in the greatest distress, which he might have avoided if he could only have disregarded duty, is he not sustained by the consciousness that he has maintained humanity in its proper dignity in his own person and honoured it, that he has no reason to be ashamed of himself in his own sight, or to dread the inward glance of self-examination? This consolation is not happiness, it is not even the smallest part of it, for no one would wish to have occasion for it, or would, perhaps, even desire a life in such circumstances. But he lives, and he cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes unworthy of life. This inward peace is therefore merely negative as regards what can make life pleasant; it is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in personal worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is the effect of a respect for something quite different from life, something in comparison and contrast with which life with all its enjoyment has no value. He still lives only because it is his duty, not because he finds anything pleasant in life.

  Such is the nature of the true motive of pure practical reason; it is no other than the pure moral law itself, inasmuch as it makes us conscious of the sublimity of our own supersensible existence, and subjectively (217) produces respect for their higher nature in men who are also conscious of their sensible existence and of the consequent dependence of their pathologically very susceptible nature. Now with this motive may be combined so many charms and satisfactions of life, that even on this account alone the most prudent choice of a rational Epicurean reflecting on the greatest advantage of life would declare itself on the side of moral conduct, and it may even be advisable to join this prospect of a cheerful enjoyment of life with that supreme motive which is already sufficient of itself; but only as a counterpoise to the attractions which vice does not fail to exhibit on the opposite side, and not so as, even in the smallest degree, to place in this the proper moving power when duty is in question. For that would be just the same as to wish to taint the purity of the moral disposition in its source. The majesty of duty has nothing to do with enjoyment of life; it has its special law and its special tribunal, and though the two should be never so well shaken together to be given well mixed, like medicine, to the sick soul, yet they will soon separate of themselves, and if they do not the former will not act; and although physical life might gain somewhat in force, the moral life would fade away irrecoverably.

  critical examination of the analytic of pure practical reason.

  By the critical examination of a science, or of a portion of it, which constitutes a system by itself, I understand the inquiry and proof why it must have this and no other systematic form (218), when we compare it with another system which is based on a similar faculty of knowledge. Now practical and speculative reason are based on the same faculty, so far as both are pure reason. Therefore the difference in their systematic form must be determined by the comparison of both, and the ground of this must be assigned.

  The Analytic of pure theoretic reason had to do with the knowledge of such objects as may have been given to the understanding, and was obliged therefore to begin from intuition, and consequently (as this is always sensible) from sensibility; and only after that could advance to concepts (of the objects of this intuition), and could only end with principles after both these had preceded. On the contrary, since practical reason has not to do with objects so as to know them, but with its own faculty of realizing them (in accordance with the knowledge of them), that is, with a will which is a causality, inasmuch as reason contains its determining principle; since consequently it has not to furnish an object of intuition, but as practical reason has to furnish only a law (because the notion of causality always implies the reference to a law which determines the existence of the many in relation to one another); hence a critical examination of the Analytic of reason, if this is to be practical reason (and this is properly the problem), must begin with the possibility of practical principles à priori. Only after that can it proceed to concepts of the objects of a practical reason, namely, those of absolute good and evil, in order to assign them in accordance with those principles (for prior to those principles they cannot possibly be given as good and evil by any faculty of knowledge, and only then could the section be concluded with the last chapter, that, namely, which treats of the relation of the pure practical reason to the sensibility (219) and of its necessary influence thereon, which is à priori cognisable, that is, of the moral sentiment. Thus the Analytic of the practical pure reason has the whole extent of the conditions of its use in common with the theoretical, but in reverse order. The Analytic of pure theoretic reason was divided into transcendental Aesthetic and transcendental Logic, that of the practical reversely into Logic and Aesthetic of pure practical reason (if I may, for the sake of analogy merely, use these designations, which are not quite suitable). This logic again was there divided into the Analytic of concepts and that of principles: here into that of principles and concepts. The Aesthetic also had in the former case two parts, on account of the two kinds of sensible intuition; here the sensibility is not considered as a capacity of intuition at all, but merely as feeling (which can be a subjective ground of desire), and in regard to it pure practical reason admits no further division.

  It is also easy to see the reason why this division into two parts with its subdivision was not actually adopted here (as one might have been induced to attempt by the example of the former critique). For since it is pure reason that is here considered in its practical use, and consequently as proceeding from à priori principles, and not from empirical principles of determination, hence the division of the analytic of pure practical reason must resemble that of a syllogism, namely, proceeding from the universal in the major premiss (the moral principle), through a minor premiss containing a subsumption of possible actions (as good or evil) under the former, to the conclusion, namely, the subjective determination of the will (an interest in the possible practical good, and in the maxim founded on it). He who has been able to convince himself of the truth of the positions occurring in the Analytic (220) will take pleasure in such comparisons; for they justly suggest the expectation that we may perhaps some day be able to discern the unity of the whole faculty of reason (theoretical as well as practical), and be able to derive all from one principle, which is what human reason inevitably demands, as it finds complete satisfaction only in a perfectly systematic unity of its knowledge.

  If now we consider also the contents of the knowledge that we can have of a pure practical reason, and by means of it, as shown by the Analytic, we find, along with a remarkable analogy between it and the theoretical, no less remarkable differences. As regards the theoretical, the faculty of a pure rational cognition à priori could be easily and evidently proved by examples from sciences (in which, as they put their principles to the test in so many ways by methodical use, there is not so much reason as in common knowledge to fear a secret mixture of empirical principles of cognition). But, that pure reason without the admixture of any empirical principle is practical of itself, this could only be shown from the commonest practical use of reason by verifying the fact, that every man’s natural reason acknowledges the supreme practical principle as the supreme law of his will, a law completely à priori, and not depending on any sensible data. It was necessary first to establish and verify the purity of its origin, even in the judgment of this common reason, before science could take it in hand to make use of it as a fact, that is, prior to all disputation about its possibility, and all the consequences that may be drawn from it. But this circumstance may be readily explained from what has just been said (221); because practical pure reason must necessarily begin with principles, which therefore must be the first data, the foundation of all science, and cannot be derived from it. It was possible to effect this verification of moral principles as principles of a pure reason quite well, and with sufficient certainty, by a single appeal to the judgment of common sense, for this reason, that anything empirical which might slip into our maxims as a determining principle of the will can be detected at once by the feeling of pleasure or pain which necessarily attaches to it as exciting desire; whereas pure practical reason positively refuses to admit this feeling into its principle as a condition. The heterogeneity of the determining principles (the empirical and rational) is clearly detected by this resistance of a practically legislating reason against every admixture of inclination, and by a peculiar kind of sentiment, which, however, does not precede the legislation of the practical reason, but, on the contrary, is produced by this as a constraint, namely, by the feeling of a respect such as no man has for inclinations of whatever kind but for the law only; and it is detected in so marked and prominent a manner that even the most uninstructed cannot fail to see at once in an example presented to him, that empirical principles of volition may indeed urge him to follow their attractions, but that he can never be expected to obey anything but the pure practical law of reason alone.

  The distinction between the doctrine of happiness and the doctrine of morality [ethics], in the former of which empirical principles constitute the entire foundation, while in the second they do not form the smallest part of it, is the first and most important office of the analytic of pure practical reason; and it must proceed in it with as much exactness (222) and, so to speak, scrupulousness, as any geometer in his work. The philosopher, however, has greater difficulties to contend with here (as always in rational cognition by means of concepts merely without construction), because he cannot take any intuition as a foundation (for a pure noumenon). He has, however, this advantage that, like the chemist, he can at any time make an experiment with every man’s practical reason for the purpose of distinguishing the moral (pure) principle of determination from the empirical, namely, by adding the moral law (as a determining principle) to the empirically affected will (e.g. that of the man who would be ready to lie because he can gain something thereby). It is as if the analyst added alkali to a solution of lime in hydrochloric acid, the acid at once forsakes the lime, combines with the alkali, and the lime is precipitated. Just in the same way, if to a man who is otherwise honest (or who for this occasion places himself only in thought in the position of an honest man), we present the moral law by which he recognizes the worthlessness of the liar, his practical reason (in forming a judgment of what ought to be done) at once forsakes the advantage, combines with that which maintains in him respect for his own person (truthfulness), and the advantage after it has been separated and washed from every particle of reason (which is altogether on the side of duty) is easily weighed by everyone, so that it can enter into combination with reason in other cases, only not where it could be opposed to the moral law, which reason never forsakes, but most closely unites itself with.

  But it does not follow that this distinction between the principle of happiness and that of morality is an opposition between them, and pure practical reason does not require that we should renounce all claim to happiness, but only that the moment duty is in question we should take no account of happiness (223). It may even in certain respects be a duty to provide for happiness; partly, because (including skill, wealth, riches) it contains means for the fulfilment of our duty; partly, because the absence of it (e. g. poverty) implies temptations to transgress our duty. But it can never be an immediate duty to promote our happiness, still less can it be the principle of all duty. Now, as all determining principles of the will, except the law of pure practical reason alone (the moral law), are all empirical, and therefore, as such, belong to the principle of happiness, they must all be kept apart from the supreme principle of morality, and never be incorporated with it as a condition; since this would be to destroy all moral worth just as much as any empirical admixture with geometrical principles would destroy the certainty of mathematical evidence, which in Plato’s opinion is the most excellent thing in mathematics, even surpassing their utility.

  Instead, however, of the Deduction of the supreme principle of pure practical reason, that is, the explanation of the possibility of such a knowledge à priori, the utmost we were able to do was to show that if we saw the possibility of the freedom of an efficient cause, we should also see not merely the possibility, but even the necessity of the moral law as the supreme practical law of rational beings, to whom we attribute freedom of causality of their will; because both concepts are so inseparably united, that we might define practical freedom as independence of the will on anything but the moral law. But we cannot perceive the possibility of the freedom of an efficient cause, especially in the world of sense; we are fortunate if only we can be sufficiently assured that there is no proof of its impossibility, and are now by the moral law which postulates it compelled (224), and therefore authorized to assume it. However, there are still many who think that they can explain this freedom on empirical principles, like any other physical faculty, and treat it as a psychological property, the explanation of which only requires a more exact study of the nature of the soul and of the motives of the will, and not as a transcendental predicate of the causality of a being that belongs to the world of sense (which is really the point). They thus deprive us of the grand revelation which we obtain through practical reason by means of the moral law, the revelation, namely, of a supersensible world by the realization of the otherwise transcendent concept of freedom, and by this deprive us also of the moral law itself, which admits no empirical principle of determination. Therefore it will be necessary to add something here as a protection against this delusion, and to exhibit empiricism in its naked superficiality.

  The notion of causality as physical necessity, in opposition to the same notion as freedom, concerns only the existence of things so far as it is determinable in time, and, consequently, as phenomena, in opposition to their causality as things in themselves. Now if we take the attributes of existence of things in time for attributes of things in themselves (which is the common view), then it is impossible to reconcile the necessity of the causal relation with freedom; they are contradictory. For from the former it follows that every event, and consequently every action that takes place at a certain point of time, is a necessary result of what existed in time preceding. Now as time past is no longer in my power, hence every action that I perform must be the necessary result of certain determining grounds which are not in my power, that is, at the moment in which I am acting I am never free (225). Nay, even if I assume that my whole existence is independent on any foreign cause (for instance, God), so that the determining principles of my causality, and even of my whole existence, were not outside myself, yet this would not in the least transform that physical necessity into freedom. For at every moment of time I am still under the necessity of being determined to action by that which is not in my power, and the series of events infinite a parte priori which I only continue according to a pre-determined order, and could never begin of myself, would be a continuous physical chain, and therefore my causality would never be freedom.

  If then we would attribute freedom to a being whose existence is determined in time, we cannot except him from the law of necessity as to all events in his existence, and consequently as to his actions also; for that would be to hand him over to blind chance. Now as this law inevitably applies to all the causality of things, so far as their existence is determinable in time, it follows that if this were the mode in which we had also to conceive the existence of these things in themselves, freedom must be rejected as a vain and impossible conception. Consequently, if we would still save it, no other way remains but to consider that the existence of a thing, so far as it is determinable in time, and therefore its causality, according to the law of physical necessity, belong to appearance, and to attribute freedom to the same being as a thing in itself. This is certainly inevitable, if we would retain both these contradictory concepts together; but in application when we try to explain their combination in one and the same action, great difficulties present themselves which seem to render such a combination impracticable.

  (226) When I say of a man who commits a theft that, by the physical law of causality, this deed is a necessary result of the determining causes in preceding time, then it was impossible that it could not have happened; how then can the judgment, according to the moral law, make any change, and suppose that it could have been omitted, because the law says that it ought to have been omitted: that is, how can a man be called quite free at the same moment, and with respect to the same action in which he is subject to an inevitable physical necessity? Some try to evade this by saying that the causes that determine his causality are of such a kind as to agree with a comparative notion of freedom. According to this, that is sometimes called a free effect, the determining physical cause of which lies within in the acting thing itself, e.g. that which a projectile performs when it is in free motion, in which case we use the word freedom, because while it is in flight it is not urged by anything external; or as we call the motion of a clock a free motion, because it moves its hands itself, which therefore do not require to be pushed by external force; so although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which precede in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are wrought according to our own pleasure. This is a wretched subterfuge with which some persons still let themselves be put off, and so think they have solved, with a petty word jugglery, that difficult problem, at the solution of which centuries have laboured in vain, and which can therefore scarcely be found so completely on the surface. In fact, in the question about the freedom which must be the foundation of all moral laws and the consequent responsibility (227), it does not matter whether the principles which necessarily determine causality by a physical law reside within the subject or without him, or in the former case whether these principles are instinctive or are conceived by reason, if, as is admitted by these men themselves, these determining ideas have the ground of their existence in time and in the antecedent state, and this again in an antecedent, &c. Then it matters not that these are internal; it matters not that they have a psychological and not a mechanical causality, that is, produce actions by means of ideas, and not by bodily movements; they are still determining principles of the causality of a being whose existence is determinable in time, and therefore under the necessitation of conditions of past time, which therefore, when the subject has to act, are no longer in his power. This may imply psychological freedom (if we choose to apply this term to a merely internal chain of ideas in the mind), but it involves physical necessity, and therefore leaves no room for transcendental freedom, which must be conceived as independence on everything empirical, and, consequently, on nature generally, whether it is an object of the internal sense considered in time only, or of the external in time and space. Without this freedom (in the latter and true sense), which alone is practical à priori, no moral law and no moral imputation are possible. Just for this reason the necessity of events in time, according to the physical law of causality, may be called the mechanism of nature, although we do not mean by this that things which are subject to it must be really material machines. We look here only to the necessity of the connexion of events in a timeseries as it is developed according to the physical law, whether the subject in which (228) this development takes place is called automaton materiale when the mechanical being is moved by matter, or with Leibnitz spirituale when it is impelled by ideas; and if the freedom of our will were no other than the latter (say the psychological and comparative, not also transcendental, that is, absolute), then it would at bottom be nothing better than the freedom of a turnspit, which, when once it is wound up, accomplishes its motions of itself.

  Now, in order to remove in the supposed case the apparent contradiction between freedom and the mechanism of nature in one and the same action, we must remember what was said in the Critique of Pure Reason, or what follows therefrom, viz. that the necessity of nature, which cannot co-exist with the freedom of the subject, appertains only to the attributes of the thing that is subject to time-conditions, consequently only to those 1 of the acting subject as a phenomenon; that therefore in this respect the determining principles of every action of the same reside in what belongs to past time, and is no longer in his power (in which must be included his own past actions and the character that these may determine for him in his own eyes as a phenomenon). But the very same subject being on the other side conscious of himself as a thing in himself, considers his existence also in so far as it is not subject to time-conditions, and regards himself as only determinable by laws which he gives himself through reason; and in this his existence nothing is antecedent to the determination of his will, but every action, and in general every modification of his existence, varying according to his internal sense, even the whole series of his existence as a sensible being, is in the consciousness of his supersensible existence nothing but the result, and never to be regarded as the determining principle, of his causality as a noumenon. In this view now the rational being can justly say of every unlawful action that he performs (229), that he could very well have left it undone; although as appearance it is sufficiently determined in the past, and in this respect is absolutely necessary; for it, with all the past which determines it, belongs to the one single phenomenon of his character which he makes for himself, in consequence of which he imputes the causality of those appearances to himself as a cause independent on sensibility.

  With this agree perfectly the judicial sentences of that wonderful faculty in us which we call conscience. 1 A man may use as much art as he likes in order to paint to himself an unlawful act that he remembers, as an unintentional error, a mere oversight, such as one can never altogether avoid, and therefore as something in which he was carried away by the stream of physical necessity, and thus to make himself out innocent, yet he finds that the advocate who speaks in his favour can by no means silence the accuser within, if only he is conscious that at the time when he did this wrong he was in his senses, that is, in possession of his freedom; and, nevertheless, he accounts for his error from some bad habits, which by gradual neglect of attention he has allowed to grow upon him to such a degree that he can regard his error as its natural consequence, although this cannot protect him from the blame and reproach which he casts upon himself. This is also the ground of repentance for a long past action at every recollection of it; a painful feeling produced by the moral sentiment, and which is practically void in so far as it cannot serve to undo what has been done. (Hence Priestley, as a true and consistent fatalist, declares it absurd, and he deserves to be commended for this candour more than those who, while they maintain the mechanism of the will in fact, and its freedom in words only (230), yet wish it to be thought that they include it in their system of compromise, although they do not explain the possibility of such moral imputation.) But the pain is quite legitimate, because when the law of our intelligible [supersensible] existence (the moral law) is in question, reason recognizes no distinction of time, and only asks whether the event belongs to me, as my act, and then always morally connects the same feeling with it, whether it has happened just now or long ago. For in reference to the supersensible consciousness of its existence (i. e. freedom) the life of sense is but a single phenomenon, which, inasmuch as it contains merely manifestations of the mental disposition with regard to the moral law (i. e. of the character), must be judged not according to the physical necessity that belongs to it as phenomenon, but according to the absolute spontaneity of freedom. It may therefore be admitted that if it were possible to have so profound an insight into a man’s mental character as shown by internal as well as external actions, as to know all its motives, even the smallest, and likewise all the external occasions that can influence them, we could calculate a man’s conduct for the future with as great certainty as a lunar or solar eclipse; and nevertheless we may maintain that the man is free. In fact, if we were capable of a further glance, namely, an intellectual intuition of the same subject (which indeed is not granted to us, and instead of it we have only the rational concept), then we should perceive that this whole chain of appearances in regard to all that concerns the moral laws depends on the spontaneity of the subject as a thing in itself, of the determination of which no physical explanation can be given. In default of this intuition the moral law assures us of this distinction between the relation of our actions (231) as appearances to our sensible nature, and the relation of this sensible nature to the supersensible substratum in us. In this view, which is natural to our reason, though inexplicable, we can also justify some judgments which we passed with all conscientiousness, and which yet at first sight seem quite opposed to all equity. There are cases in which men, even with the same education which has been profitable to others, yet show such early depravity, and so continue to progress in it to years of manhood, that they are thought to be born villains, and their character altogether incapable of improvement; and nevertheless they are judged for what they do or leave undone, they are reproached for their faults as guilty; nay, they themselves (the children) regard these reproaches as well founded, exactly as if in spite of the hopeless natural quality of mind ascribed to them, they remained just as responsible as any other man. This could not happen if we did not suppose that whatever springs from a man’s choice (as every action intentionally performed undoubtedly does) has as its foundation a free causality, which from early youth expresses its character in its manifestations (i. e. actions). These, on account of the uniformity of conduct, exhibit a natural connexion, which however does not make the vicious quality of the will necessary, but, on the contrary, is the consequence of the evil principles voluntarily adopted and unchangeable, which only make it so much the more culpable and deserving of punishment. There still remains a difficulty in the combination of freedom with the mechanism of nature in a being belonging to the world of sense: a difficulty which, even after all the foregoing is admitted, threatens freedom with complete destruction (232). But with this danger there is also a circumstance that offers hope of an issue still favourable to freedom, namely, that the same difficulty presses much more strongly (in fact as we shall presently see, presses only) on the system that holds the existence determinable in time and space to be the existence of things in themselves; it does not therefore oblige us to give up 1 our capital supposition of the ideality of time as a mere form of sensible intuition, and consequently as a mere manner of representation which is proper to the subject as belonging to the world of sense; and therefore it only requires that this view be reconciled with this idea [of freedom].

  The difficulty is as follows:—Even if it is admitted that the supersensible subject can be free with respect to a given action, although as a subject also belonging to the world of sense, he is under mechanical conditions with respect to the same action; still, as soon as we allow that God as universal first cause is also the cause of the existence of substance (a proposition which can never be given up without at the same time giving up the notion of God as the Being of all beings, and therewith giving up his all sufficiency, on which everything in theology depends), it seems as if we must admit that a man’s actions have their determining principle in something which is wholly out of hispower, namely, in the causality of a Supreme Being distinct from himself, and on whom his own existence and the whole determination of his causality are absolutely dependent. In point of fact, if a man’s actions as belonging to his modifications in time were not merely modifications of him as appearance, but as a thing in itself, freedom could not be saved. Man would be a marionette or an automaton, like Vaucanson’s, 1 prepared and wound up by the Supreme Artist. Self-consciousness would indeed make him a thinking automaton; but the consciousness of his own spontaneity would be mere delusion if this were mistaken for freedom (233), and it would deserve this name only in a comparative sense, since, although the proximate determining causes of its motion, and a long series of their determining causes are internal, yet the last and highest is found in a foreign hand. Therefore I do not see how those who still insist on regarding time and space as attributes belonging to the existence of things in themselves, can avoid admitting the fatality of actions; or if (like the otherwise acute Mendelssohn) 2 they allow them to be conditions necessarily belonging to the existence of finite and derived beings, but not to that of the infinite Supreme Being, I do not see on what ground they can justify such a distinction, or, indeed, how they can avoid the contradiction that meets them, when they hold that existence in time is an attribute necessarily belonging to finite things in themselves, whereas God is the cause of this existence, but cannot be the cause of time (or space) itself (since this must [on this hypothesis] be presupposed as a necessary à priori condition of the existence of things); and consequently as regards the existence of these things his causality must be subject to conditions, and even to the condition of time; and this would inevitably bring in everything contradictory to the notions of his infinity and independence. On the other hand, it is quite easy for us to draw the distinction between the attribute of the divine existence of being independent on all time-conditions, and that of a being of the world of sense, the distinction being that between the existence of a being in itself and that of a thing in appearance. Hence, if this ideality of time and space is not adopted, nothing remains but Spinozism, in which space and time are essential attributes of the Supreme Being Himself, and the things dependent on Him (ourselves, therefore, included) are not substances, but merely accidents inhering in Him; since, if these things as his effects (234) exist in time only, this being the condition of their existence in themselves, then the actions of these beings must be simply his actions which he performs in some place and time. Thus, Spinozism, in spite of the absurdity of its fundamental idea, argues more consistently than the creation theory can, when beings assumed to be substances, and beings in themselves existing in time, are regarded as effects of a supreme cause, and yet as not [belonging] to Him and his action, but as separate substances.

  The above-mentioned difficulty is resolved briefly and clearly as follows:—If existence in time is a mere sensible mode of representation belonging to thinking beings in the world, and consequently does not apply to them as things in themselves, then the creation of these beings is a creation of things in themselves, since the notion of creation does not belong to the sensible form of representation of existence or to causality, but can only be referred to noumena. Consequently, when I say of beings in the world of sense that they are created, I so far regard them as noumena. As it would be a contradiction, therefore, to say that God is a creator of appearances, so also it is a contradiction to say that as creator He is the cause of actions in the world of sense, and therefore as appearances, although He is the cause of the existence of the acting beings (which are noumena). If now it is possible to affirm freedom in spite of the natural mechanism of actions as appearances (by regarding existence in time as something that belongs only to appearances, not to things in themselves), then the circumstance that the acting beings are creatures cannot make the slightest difference, since creation concerns their supersensible and not their sensible existence, and therefore cannot be regarded as the determining principle of the appearances. It would be quite different if the beings in the world as things in themselves (235) existed in time, since in that case the creator of substance would be at the same time the author of the whole mechanism of this substance.

  Of so great importance is the separation of time (as well as space) from the existence of things in themselves which was effected in the Critique of the Pure Speculative Reason.

  It may be said that the solution here proposed involves great difficulty in itself, and is scarcely susceptible of a lucid exposition. But is any other solution that has been attempted, or that may be attempted, easier and more intelligible? Rather might we say that the dogmatic teachers of metaphysics have shown more shrewdness than candour in keeping this difficult point out of sight as much as possible, in the hope that if they said nothing about it, probably no one would think of it. If science is to be advanced, all difficulties must be laid open, and we must even search for those that are hidden, for every difficulty calls forth a remedy, which cannot be discovered without science gaining either in extent or in exactness; and thus even obstacles become means of increasing the thoroughness of science. On the other hand, if the difficulties are intentionally concealed, or merely removed by palliatives, then sooner or later they burst out into incurable mischiefs, which bring science to ruin in an absolute scepticism.

  Since it is, properly speaking, the notion of freedom alone amongst all the ideas of pure speculative reason that so greatly enlarges our knowledge in the sphere of the supersensible (236), though only of our practical knowledge, I ask myself why itexclusively possesses so great fertility, whereas the others only designate the vacant space for possible beings of the pure understanding, but are unable by any means to define the concept of them. I presently find that as I cannot think anything without a category, I must first look for a category for the Rational Idea of freedom with which I am now concerned; and this is the category of causality; and although freedom, a concept of the reason, being a transcendent concept, cannot have any intuition corresponding to it, yet the concept of the understanding—for the synthesis of which the former1 demands the unconditioned—(namely, the concept of causality) must have a sensible intuition given, by which first its objective reality is assured. Now, the categories are all divided into two classes—the mathematical, which concern the unity of synthesis in the conception of objects, and the dynamical, which refer to the unity of synthesis in the conception of the existence of objects. The former (those of magnitude and quality) always contain a synthesis of the homogeneous, and it is not possible to find in this the unconditioned antecedent to what is given in sensible intuition as conditioned in space and time, as this would itself have to belong to space and time, and therefore be again still conditioned. 2 Whence it resulted in the Dialectic of Pure Theoretic Reason that the opposite methods of attaining the unconditioned and the totality of the conditions were both wrong. The categories of the second class (those of causality and of the necessity of a thing) did not require this homogeneity (of the conditioned and the condition in synthesis), since here what we have to explain is not how the intuition is compounded from a manifold in it, but only how the existence of the conditioned object corresponding to it is added to the existence of the condition (237) (added, namely, in the understanding as connected therewith); and in that case it was allowable to suppose in the supersensible world the unconditioned antecedent to the altogether conditioned in the world of sense (both as regards the causal connexion and the contingent existence of things themselves), although this unconditioned remained indeterminate, and to make the synthesis transcendent. Hence, it was found in the dialectic of the pure speculative reason that the two apparently opposite methods of obtaining for the conditioned the unconditioned were not really contradictory, e. g. in the synthesis of causality to conceive for the conditioned in the series of causes and effects of the sensible world, a causality which has no sensible condition, and that the same action which, as belonging to the world of sense, is always sensibly conditioned, that is mechanically necessary, yet at the same time may be derived from a causality not sensibly conditioned—being the causality of the acting being as belonging to the supersensible world—and may consequently be conceived as free. Now, the only point in question was to change this may be into is; that is, that we should be able to show in an actual case, as it were by a fact, that certain actions imply such a causality (namely, the intellectual, sensibly unconditioned), whether they are actual or only commanded, that is, objectively necessary in a practical sense. We could not hope to find this connexion in actions actually given in experience as events of the sensible world, since causality with freedom must always be sought outside the world of sense in the world of intelligence. But things of sense are the only things offered to our perception and observation. Hence, nothing remained but to find an inconstestable objective principle of causality which excludes all sensible conditions: that is, a principle in which reason does not appeal further to something else as a determining ground of its causality (238), but contains this determining ground itself by means of that principle, and in which therefore it is itself as pure reason practical. Now, this principle had not to be searched for or discovered; it had long been in the reason of all men, and incorporated in their nature, and is the principle of morality. Therefore, that unconditioned causality, with the faculty of it, namely, freedom, is no longer merely indefinitely and problematically thought (this speculative reason could prove to be feasible), but is even as regards the law of its causality definitely and assertorially known; and with it the fact that a being (I myself) belonging to the world of sense, belongs also to the supersensible world, this is also positively known, and thus the reality of the supersensible world is established, and in practical respects definitely given, and this definiteness, which for theoretical purposes would be transcendent, is for practical purposes immanent. We could not, however, make a similar step as regards the second dynamical idea, namely, that of a necessary being. We could not rise to it from the sensible world without the aid of the first dynamical idea. For if we attempted to do so, we should have ventured to leave at a bound all that is given to us, and to leap to that of which nothing is given us that can help us to effect the connexion of such a supersensible being with the world of sense (since the necessary being would have to be known as given outside ourselves). On the other hand, it is now obvious that this connexion is quite possible in relation to our own subject, inasmuch as I know myself to be on the one side as an intelligible [supersensible] being determined by the moral law (by means of freedom), and on the other side as acting in the world of sense. It is the concept of freedom alone that enables us to find the unconditioned and intelligible [supersensible] for the conditioned and sensible without going out of ourselves (239). For it is our own reason that by means of the supreme and unconditional practical law knows that itself, and the being that is conscious of this law (our own person) belongs to the pure world of understanding, and moreover defines the manner in which, as such, it can be active. In this way it can be understood why in the whole faculty of reason it is the practical reason only that can help us to pass beyond the world of sense, and give us knowledge of a supersensible order and connexion, which, however, for this very reason cannot be extended further than is necessary for pure practical purposes.

  Let me be permitted on this occasion to make one more remark, namely, that every step that we make with pure reason, even in the practical sphere where no attention is paid to subtile speculation, nevertheless accords with all the material points of the Critique of the Theoretical Reason as closely and directly as if each step had been thought out with deliberate purpose to establish this confirmation. Such a thorough agreement, wholly unsought for, and quite obvious (as any one can convince himself, if he will only carry moral inquiries up to their principles) between the most important propositions of practical reason, and the often seemingly too subtile and needless remarks of the Critique of the Speculative Reason, occasions surprise and astonishment, and confirms the maxim already recognized and praised by others, namely, that in every scientific inquiry we should pursue our way steadily with all possible exactness and frankness, without caring for any objections that may be raised from outside its sphere, but, as far as we can, to carry out our inquiry truthfully and completely by itself. Frequent observation has convinced me that when such researches are concluded, that which in one part of them appeared to me very questionable (240), considered in relation to other extraneous doctrines, when I left this doubtfulness out of sight for a time, and only attended to the business in hand until it was completed, at last was unexpectedly found to agree perfectly with what had been discovered separately without the least regard to those doctrines, and without any partiality or prejudice for them. Authors would save themselves many errors and much labour lost (because spent on a delusion), if they could only resolve to go to work with more frankness.

  BOOK II.

  DIALECTIC OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON.

  CHAPTER I.

  of a dialectic of pure practical reason generally.

  PURE reason always has its dialectic, whether it is considered in its speculative or its practical employment; for it requires the absolute totality of the conditions of what is given conditioned, and this can only be found in things in themselves. But as all conceptions of things in themselves must be referred to intuitions, and with us men these can never be other than sensible, and hence can never enable us to know objects as things in themselves but only as appearances, and since the unconditioned can never be found in this chain of appearances which consists only of conditioned and conditions; thus from applying this rational idea of the totality of the conditions (in other words of the unconditioned) to appearances there arises an inevitable illusion, as if these latter were things in themselves (242) (for in the absence of a warning critique they are always regarded as such). This illusion would never be noticed as delusive if it did not betray itself by a conflict of reason with itself, when it applies to appearances its fundamental principle of presupposing the unconditioned to everything conditioned. By this, however, reason is compelled to trace this illusion to its source, and search how it can be removed, and this can only be done by a complete critical examination of the whole pure faculty of reason; so that the antinomy of the pure reason which is manifest in its dialectic is in fact the most beneficial error into which human reason could never have fallen, since it at last drives us to search for the key to escape from this labyrinth; and when this key is found, it further discovers that which we did not seek but yet had need of, namely, a view into a higher and an immutable order of things, in which we even now are, and in which we are thereby enabled by definite precepts to continue to live according to the highest dictates of reason.

  It may be seen in detail in the Critique of Pure Reason how in its speculative employment this natural dialectic is to be solved, and how the error which arises from a very natural illusion may be guarded against. But reason in its practical use is not a whit better off. As pure practical reason, it likewise seeks to find the unconditioned for the practically conditioned (which rests on inclinations and natural wants), and this not as the determining principle of the will, but even when this is given (in the moral law) it seeks the unconditioned totality of the object of pure practical reason under the name of the Summum Bonum.

  To define this idea practically, i. e. sufficiently for the maxims of our rational conduct (243), is the business of practical wisdom [Weisheitslehre], and this again as a science is philosophy, in the sense in which the word was understood by the ancients, with whom it meant instruction in the conception in which the summum bonum was to be placed, and the conduct by which it was to be obtained. It would be well to leave this word in its ancient signification as a doctrine of the summum bonum, so far as reason endeavours to make this into a science. For on the one hand the restriction annexed would suit the Greek expression (which signifies the love of wisdom), and yet at the same time would be sufficient to embrace under the name of philosophy the love of science: that is to say, of all speculative rational knowledge, so far as it is serviceable to reason, both for that conception and also for the practical principle determining our conduct, without letting out of sight the main end, on account of which alone it can be called a doctrine of practical wisdom. On the other hand, it would be no harm to deter the self-conceit of one who ventures to claim the title of philosopher by holding before him in the very definition a standard of self-estimation which would very much lower his pretensions. For a teacher of wisdom would mean something more than a scholar who has not come so far as to guide himself, much less to guide others, with certain expectation of attaining so high an end: it would mean a master in the knowledge of wisdom, which implies more than a modest man would claim for himself. Thus philosophy as well as wisdom would always remain an ideal, which objectively is presented complete in reason alone, while subjectively for the person it is only the goal of his unceasing endeavours, and no one would be justified in professing to be in possession of it so as to assume the name of philosopher, who could not also show its infallible effects in his own person as an example (244) (in his self-mastery and the unquestioned interest that he takes pre-eminently in the general good), and this the ancients also required as a condition of deserving that honourable title.

  We have another preliminary remark to make respecting the dialectic of the pure practical reason, on the point of the definition of the summum bonum (a successful solution of which dialectic would lead us to expect, as in case of that of the theoretical reason, the most beneficial effects, inasmuch as the self-contradictions of pure practical reason honestly stated, and not concealed, force us to undertake a complete critique of this faculty).

  The moral law is the sole determining principle of a pure will. But since this is merely formal (viz. as prescribing only the form of the maxim as universally legislative), it abstracts as a determining principle from all matter—that is to say, from every object of volition. Hence, though the summum bonum may be the whole object of a pure practical reason, i. e. a pure will, yet it is not on that account to be regarded as its determining principle; and the moral law alone must be regarded as the principle on which that and its realization or promotion are aimed at. This remark is important in so delicate a case as the determination of moral principles, where the slightest misinterpretation perverts men’s minds. For it will have been seen from the Analytic, that if we assume any object under the name of a good as a determining principle of the will prior to the moral law, and then deduce from it the supreme practical principle, this would always introduce heteronomy, and crush out the moral principle.

  It is, however, evident that if the notion of the summum bonum includes that of the moral law (245) as its supreme condition, then the summum bonum would not merely be an object, but the notion of it and the conception of its existence as possible by our own practical reason would likewise be the determining principle of the will, since in that case the will is in fact determined by the moral law which is already included in this conception, and by no other object, as the principle of autonomy requires. This order of the conceptions of determination of the will must not be lost sight of, as otherwise we should misunderstand ourselves, and think we had fallen into a contradiction, while everything remains in perfect harmony.

  CHAPTER II.

  of the dialectic of pure reason in defining the conception of the “summum bonum.”

  The conception of the summum itself contains an ambiguity which might occasion needless disputes if we did not attend to it. The summum may mean either the supreme (supremum) or the perfect (consummatum). The former is that condition which is itself unconditioned, i. e. is not subordinate to any other (originarium); the second is that whole which is not a part of a greater whole of the same kind (perfectissimum). It has been shown in the Analytic that virtue (as worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of all that can appear to us desirable, and consequently of all our pursuit of happiness, and is therefore the supreme good. But it does not follow that it is the whole and perfect good as the object of the desires of rational finite beings; for this requires happiness also, and that not merely in the partial eyes of the person who makes himself an end, but even in the judgment of an impartial reason, which regards persons in general as ends in themselves. For to need happiness, to deserve it (247), and yet at the same time not to participate in it, cannot be consistent with the perfect volition of a rational being possessed at the same time of all power, if, for the sake of experiment, we conceive such a being. Now inasmuch as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the summum bonum in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact proportion to morality (which is the worth of the person, and his worthiness to be happy) constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world; hence this summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good, in which, however, virtue as the condition is always the supreme good, since it has no condition above it; whereas happiness, while it is pleasant to the possessor of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all respects good, but always presupposes morally right behaviour as its condition.

  When two elements are necessarily united in one concept they must be connected as reason and consequence, and this either so that their unity is considered as analytical (logical connexion), or as synthetical (real connexion)—the former following the law of identity, the latter that of causality. The connexion of virtue and happiness may therefore be understood in two ways: either the endeavour to be virtuous and the rational pursuit of happiness are not two distinct actions, but absolutely identical, in which case no maxim need be made the principle of the former, other than what serves for the latter; or the connexion consists in this, that virtue produces happiness as something distinct from the consciousness of virtue, as a cause produces an effect.

  The ancient Greek schools were, properly speaking, only two, and in determining the conception of the summum bonum these followed in fact one and the same method, inasmuch as they did not allow virtue and happiness to be regarded as two distinct elements of the summum bonum, and consequently sought (248) the unity of the principle by the rule of identity; but they differed as to which of the two was to be taken as the fundamental notion. The Epicurean said: To be conscious that one’s maxims lead to happiness is virtue; the Stoic said: To be conscious of one’s virtue is happiness. With the former, Prudence was equivalent to morality; with the latter, who chose a higher designation for virtue, morality alone was true wisdom.

  While we must admire the men who in such early times tried all imaginable ways of extending the domain of philosophy, we must at the same time lament that their acuteness was unfortunately misapplied in trying to trace out identity between two extremely heterogeneous notions, those of happiness and virtue. But it agreed with the dialectical spirit of their times (and subtle minds are even now sometimes misled in the same way) to get rid of irreconcilable differences in principle by seeking to change them into a mere contest about words, and thus apparently working out the identity of the notion under different names, and this usually occurs in cases where the combination of heterogeneous principles lies so deep or so high, or would require so complete a transformation of the doctrines assumed in the rest of the philosophical system, that men are afraid to penetrate deeply into the real difference, and prefer treating it as a difference in matters of form.

  While both schools sought to trace out the identity of the practical principles of virtue and happiness, they were not agreed as to the way in which they tried to force this identity, but were separated infinitely from one another, the one placing its principle on the side of sense, the other on that of reason; the one in the consciousness of sensible wants, the other in the independence of practical reason (249) on all sensible grounds of determination. According to the Epicurean the notion of virtue was already involved in the maxim: To promote one’s own happiness; according to the Stoics, on the other hand, the feeling of happiness was already contained in the consciousness of virtue. Now whatever is contained in another notion is identical with part of the containing notion, but not with the whole, and moreover two wholes may be specifically distinct, although they consist of the same parts, namely, if the parts are united into a whole in totally different ways. The Stoic maintained that virtue was the whole summum bonum, and happiness only the consciousness of possessing it, as making part of the state of the subject. The Epicurean maintained that happiness was the whole summum bonum, and virtue only the form of the maxim for its pursuit, viz. the rational use of the means for attaining it.

  Now it is clear from the Analytic that the maxims of virtue and those of private happiness are quite heterogeneous as to their supreme practical principle; and although they belong to one summum bonum which together they make possible, yet they are so far from coinciding that they restrict and check one another very much in the same subject. Thus the question, How is the summum bonum practically possible? still remains an unsolved problem, notwithstanding all the attempts at coalition that have hitherto been made. The Analytic has, however, shown what it is that makes the problem difficult to solve; namely, that happiness and morality are two specifically distinct elements of the summum bonum, and therefore their combination cannot be analytically cognised (as if the man that seeks his own happiness should find by mere analysis of his conception that in so acting he is virtuous, or as if the man that follows virtue should in the consciousness of such conduct find that he is already happy ipso facto) (250), but must be a synthesis of concepts. Now since this combination is recognised as à priori, and therefore as practically necessary, and consequently not as derived from experience, so that the possibility of the summum bonum does not rest on any empirical principle, it follows that the deduction [legitimation] of this concept must be transcendental. It is à priori (morally) necessary to produce the summum bonum by freedom of will: therefore the condition of its possibility must rest solely on à priori principles of cognition.

  I.

  —The Antinomy of Practical Reason.

  In the summum bonum which is practical for us, i. e. to be realised by our will, virtue and happiness are thought as necessarily combined, so that the one cannot be assumed by pure practical reason without the other also being attached to it. Now this combination (like every other) is either analytical or synthetical. It has been shown that it cannot be analytical; it must then be synthetical, and, more particularly, must be conceived as the connexion of cause and effect, since it concerns a practical good, i. e. one that is possible by means of action; consequently either the desire of happiness must be the motive to maxims of virtue, or the maxim of virtue must be the efficient cause of happiness. The first is absolutely impossible, because (as was proved in the Analytic) maxims which place the determining principle (251) of the will in the desire of personal happiness are not moral at all, and no virtue can be founded on them. But the second is also impossible, because the practical connexion of causes and effects in the world, as the result of the determination of the will, does not depend upon the moral dispositions of the will, but on the knowledge of the laws of nature and the physical power to use them for one’s purposes; consequently we cannot expect in the world by the most punctilious observance of the moral laws any necessary connexion of happiness with virtue adequate to the summum bonum. Now as the promotion of this summum bonum, the conception of which contains this connexion, is à priori a necessary object of our will, and inseparably attached to the moral law, the impossibility of the former must prove the falsity of the latter. If then the supreme good is not possible by practical rules, then the moral law also which commands us to promote it is directed to vain imaginary ends, and must consequently be false.

  II.

  —Critical Solution of the Antinomy of Practical Reason.

  The antinomy of pure speculative reason exhibits a similar conflict between freedom and physical necessity in the causality of events in the world. It was solved by showing that there is no real contradiction when the events and even the world in which they occur are regarded (as they ought to be) merely as appearances; since one and the same acting being, as an appearance (even to his own inner sense) (252) has a causality in the world of sense that always conforms to the mechanism of nature, but with respect to the same events, so far as the acting person regards himself at the same time as a noumenon (as pure intelligence in an existence not dependent on the condition of time), he can contain a principle by which that causality acting according to laws of nature is determined, but which is itself free from all laws of nature.

  It is just the same with the foregoing antinomy of pure practical reason. The first of the two propositions—That the endeavour after happiness produces a virtuous mind, is absolutely false; but the second, That a virtuous mind necessarily produces happiness, is not absolutely false, but only in so far as virtue is considered as a form of causality in the sensible world, and consequently only if I suppose existence in it to be the only sort of existence of a rational being; it is then only conditionally false. But as I am not only justified in thinking that I exist also as a noumenon in a world of the understanding, but even have in the moral law a purely intellectual determining principle of my causality (in the sensible world), it is not impossible that morality of mind should have a connexion as cause with happiness (as an effect in the sensible world) if not immediate yet mediate (viz.: through an intelligent author of nature), and moreover necessary; while in a system of nature which is merely an object of the senses this combination could never occur except contingently, and therefore could not suffice for the summum bonum.

  Thus, notwithstanding this seeming conflict of practical reason with itself, the summum bonum, which is the necessary supreme end of a will morally determined, is a true object thereof; for it is practically possible, and the maxims of the will which as regards their matter refer to it, have objective reality, which at first was threatened by the antinomy that appeared in the connexion (253) of morality with happiness by a general law; but this was merely from a misconception, because the relation between appearances was taken for a relation of the things in themselves to these appearances.

  When we find ourselves obliged to go so far, namely, to the connexion with an intelligible world, to find the possibility of the summum bonum, which reason points out to all rational beings as the goal of all their moral wishes, it must seem strange that, nevertheless, the philosophers both of ancient and modern times have been able to find happiness in accurate proportion to virtue even in this life (in the sensible world), or have persuaded themselves that they were conscious thereof. For Epicurus as well as the Stoics extolled above everything the happiness that springs from the consciousness of living virtuously; and the former was not so base in his practical precepts as one might infer from the principles of his theory, which he used for explanation and not for action, or as they were interpreted by many who were misled by his using the term pleasure for contentment; on the contrary, he reckoned the most disinterested practice of good amongst the ways of enjoying the most intimate delight, and his scheme of pleasure (by which he meant constant cheerfulness of mind) included the moderation and control of the inclinations, such as the strictest moral philosopher might require. He differed from the Stoics chiefly in making this pleasure the motive, which they very rightly refused to do. For, on the one hand, the virtuous Epicurus, like many well-intentioned men of this day, who do not reflect deeply enough on their principles, fell into the error of pre-supposing the virtuous disposition in the persons for whom he wished to provide the springs to virtue (and indeed the upright man cannot be happy (254) if he is not first conscious of his uprightness; since with such a character the reproach that his habit of thought would oblige him to make against himself in case of transgression, and his moral self-condemnation would rob him of all enjoyment of the pleasantness which his condition might otherwise contain). But the question is, How is such a disposition possible in the first instance, and such a habit of thought in estimating the worth of one’s existence, since prior to it there can be in the subject no feeling at all for moral worth? If a man is virtuous without being conscious of his integrity in every action, he will certainly not enjoy life, however favourable fortune may be to him in its physical circumstances; but can we make him virtuous in the first instance, in other words, before he esteems the moral worth of his existence so highly, by praising to him the peace of mind that would result from the consciousness of an integrity for which he has no sense?

  On the other hand, however, there is here an occasion of a vitium subreptionis, and as it were of an optical illusion, in the self-consciousness of what one does as distinguished from what one feels, an illusion which even the most experienced cannot altogether avoid. The moral disposition of mind is necessarily combined with a consciousness that the will is determined directly by the law. Now the consciousness of a determination of the faculty of desire is always the source of a satisfaction in the resulting action; but this pleasure, this satisfaction in oneself, is not the determining principle of the action; on the contrary, the determination of the will directly by reason is the source of the feeling of pleasure, and this remains a pure practical not sensible determination of the faculty of desire. Now as this determination has exactly the same effect within (255) in impelling to activity, that a feeling of the pleasure to be expected from the desired action would have had, we easily look on what we ourselves do as something which we merely passively feel, and take the moral spring for a sensible impulse, just as it happens in the so-called illusion of the senses (in this case the inner sense). It is a sublime thing in human nature to be determined to actions immediately by a purely rational law; sublime even is the illusion that regards the subjective side of this capacity of intellectual determination as something sensible, and the effect of a special sensible feeling (for an intellectual feeling would be a contradiction). It is also of great importance to attend to this property of our personality, and as much as possible to cultivate the effect of reason on this feeling. But we must beware lest by falsely extolling this moral determining principle as a spring, making its source lie in particular feelings of pleasure (which are in fact only results), we degrade and disfigure the true genuine spring, the law itself, by putting as it were a false foil upon it. Respect, not pleasure or enjoyment of happiness, is something for which it is not possible that reason should have any antecedent feeling as its foundation (for this would always be sensible and pathological); [and] 1 consciousness of immediate obligation of the will by the law is by no means analogous to the feeling of pleasure, although in relation to the faculty of desire it produces the same effect, but from different sources: it is only by this mode of conception, however, that we can attain what we are seeking, namely, that actions be done not merely in accordance with duty (as a result of pleasant feelings), but from duty, which must be the true end of all moral cultivation.

  Have we not, however, a word which does not express enjoyment, as happiness does (256), but indicates a satisfaction in one’s existence, an analogue of the happiness which must necessarily accompany the consciousness of virtue? Yes! this word is self-contentment, which in its proper signification always designates only a negative satisfaction in one’s existence, in which one is conscious of needing nothing. Freedom and the consciousness of it as a faculty of following the moral law with unyielding resolution is independence on inclinations, at least as motives determining (though not as affecting) our desire, and so far as I am conscious of this freedom in following my moral maxims, it is the only source of an unaltered contentment which is necessarily connected with it and rests on no special feeling. This may be called intellectual contentment. The sensible contentment (improperly so-called) which rests on the satisfaction of the inclinations, however delicate they may be imagined to be, can never be adequate to the conception of it. For the inclinations change, they grow with the indulgence shown them, and always leave behind a still greater void than we had thought to fill. Hence they are always burdensome to a rational being, and although he cannot lay them aside, they wrest from him the wish to be rid of them. Even an inclination to what is right (e. g. to beneficence), though it may much facilitate the efficacy of the moral maxims, cannot produce any. For in these all must be directed to the conception of the law as a determining principle, if the action is to contain morality and not merely legality. Inclination is blind and slavish whether it be of a good sort or not, and when morality is in question, reason must not play the part merely of guardian to inclination, but, disregarding it altogether, must attend simply to its own interest as pure practical reason (257). This very feeling of compassion and tender sympathy, if it precedes the deliberation on the question of duty and becomes a determining principle, is even annoying to right-thinking persons, brings their deliberate maxims into confusion, and makes them wish to be delivered from it and to be subject to law-giving reason alone.

  From this we can understand how the consciousness of this faculty of a pure practical reason produces by action (virtue) a consciousness of mastery over one’s inclinations, and therefore of independence on them, and consequently also on the discontent that always accompanies them, and thus a negative satisfaction with one’s state, i. e. contentment, which is primarily contentment with one’s own person. Freedom itself becomes in this way (namely indirectly) capable of an enjoyment which cannot be called happiness, because it does not depend on the positive concurrence of a feeling, nor is it, strictly speaking, bliss, since it does not include complete independence on inclinations and wants, but it resembles bliss in so far as the determination of one’s will at least can hold itself free from their influence; and thus, at least in its origin, this enjoyment is analogous to the self-sufficiency which we can ascribe only to the Supreme Being.

  From this solution of the antinomy of pure practical reason it follows that in practical principles we may at least conceive as possible a natural and necessary connexion between the consciousness of morality and the expectation of a proportionate happiness as its result, though it does not follow that we can know or perceive this connexion; that, on the other hand, principles of the pursuit of happiness cannot possibly produce morality; that, therefore, morality is the supreme good (as the first condition of the summum bonum), while happiness constitutes its second element, but only in such a way that it is the morally conditioned, but necessary consequence of the former (258). Only with this subordination is the summum bonum the whole object of pure practical reason, which must necessarily conceive it as possible, since it commands us to contribute to the utmost of our power to its realization. But since the possibility of such connexion of the conditioned with its condition belongs wholly to the supersensual relation of things, and cannot be given according to the laws of the world of sense, although the practical consequences of the idea belong to the world of sense, namely, the actions that aim at realizing the summum bonum; we will therefore endeavour to set forth the grounds of that possibility, first in respect of what is immediately in our power, and then secondly in that which is not in our power, but which reason presents to us as the supplement of our impotence, for the realization of the summum bonum (which by practical principles is necessary).

  III.

  —Of the Primacy of Pure Practical Reason in its Union with the Speculative Reason.

  By primacy between two or more things connected by reason, I understand the prerogative belonging to one, of being the first determining principle in the connexion with all the rest. In a narrower practical sense it means the prerogative of the interest of one in so far as the interest of the other is subordinated to it, while it is not postponed to any other. To every faculty of the mind we can attribute an interest, that is a principle that contains the condition on which alone the former is called into exercise. Reason, as the faculty of principles, determines (260) the interest of all the powers of the mind, and is determined by its own. The interest of its speculative employment consists in the cognition of the object pushed to the highest à priori principles: that of its practical employment, in the determination of the will in respect of the final and complete end. As to what is necessary for the possibility of any employment of reason at all, namely, that its principles and affirmations should not contradict one another, this constitutes no part of its interest, but is the condition of having reason at all; it is only its development, not mere consistency with itself, that is reckoned as its interest.

  If practical reason could not assume or think as given, anything further than what speculative reason of itself could offer it from its own insight, the latter would have the primacy. But supposing that it had of itself original à priori principles with which certain theoretical positions were inseparably connected, while these were withdrawn from any possible insight of speculative reason (which, however, they must not contradict); then the question is, which interest is the superior (not which must give way, for they are not necessarily conflicting), whether speculative reason, which knows nothing of all that the practical offers for its acceptance, should take up these propositions, and (although they transcend it) try to unite them with its own concepts as a foreign possession handed over to it, or whether it is justified in obstinately following its own separate interest, and according to the canonic of Epicurus rejecting as vain subtlety everything that cannot accredit its objective reality by manifest examples to be shown in experience, even though it should be never so much interwoven with the interest of the practical (pure) use of reason, and in itself not contradictory to the theoretical, merely because it infringes on the interest of the speculative reason to this extent (261), that it removes the bounds which this latter had set to itself, and gives it up to every nonsense or delusion of imagination?

  In fact, so far as practical reason is taken as dependent on pathological conditions, that is, as merely regulating the inclinations under the sensible principle of happiness, we could not require speculative reason to take its principles from such a source. Mohammed’s paradise, or the absorption into the Deity of the theosophists and mystics, would press their monstrosities on the reason according to the taste of each, and one might as well have no reason as surrender it in such fashion to all sorts of dreams. But if pure reason of itself can be practical and is actually so, as the consciousness of the moral law proves, then it is still only one and the same reason which, whether in a theoretical or a practical point of view, judges according to à priori principles; and then it is clear that although it is in the first point of view incompetent to establish certain propositions positively, which, however, do not contradict it, then as soon as these propositions are inseparably attached to the practical interest of pure reason, then it must accept them, though it be as something offered to it from a foreign source, something that has not grown on its own ground, but yet is sufficiently authenticated; and it must try to compare and connect them with everything that it has in its power as speculative reason. It must remember, however, that these are not additions to its insight, but yet are extensions of its employment in another, namely, a practical aspect; and this is not in the least opposed to its interest, which consists in the restriction of wild speculation.

  Thus, when pure speculative and pure practical reason are combined in one cognition, the latter has the primacy, provided namely, that this combination is not contingent and arbitrary, but founded à priori on reason itself and therefore necessary (262). For without this subordination there would arise a conflict of reason with itself; since if they were merely co-ordinate, the former would close its boundaries strictly and admit nothing from the latter into its domain, while the latter would extend its bounds over everything, and when its needs required would seek to embrace the former within them. Nor could we reverse the order, and require pure practical reason to be subordinate to the speculative, since all interest is ultimately practical, and even that of speculative reason is conditional, and it is only in the practical employment of reason that it is complete.

  IV.

  —The Immortality of the Soul as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.

  The realization of the summum bonum in the world is the necessary object of a will determinable by the moral law. But in this will the perfect accordance of the mind with the moral law is the supreme condition of the summum bonum. This then must be possible, as well as its object, since it is contained in the command to promote the latter. Now, the perfect accordance of the will with the moral law is holiness, a perfection of which no rational being of the sensible world is capable at any moment of his existence. Since, nevertheless, it is required as practically necessary, it can only be found in a progress in infinitum towards that perfect accordance, and on the principles of pure practical reason it is necessary (263) to assume such a practical progress as the real object of our will.

  Now, this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of the existence and personality of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul). The summum bonum, then, practically is only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently this immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason) by which I mean a theoretical proposition, not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result of an unconditional à priori practical law). 1

  This principle of the moral destination of our nature, namely, that it is only in an endless progress that we can attain perfect accordance with the moral law, is of the greatest use, not merely for the present purpose of supplementing the impotence of speculative reason, but also with respect to religion. In default of it, either the moral law is quite degraded from its holiness, being made out to be indulgent, and conformable to our convenience, or else men strain their notions of their vocation and their expectation to an unattainable goal, hoping to acquire complete holiness of will, and so they lose themselves in fanatical theosophic dreams, which wholly contradict self-knowledge. In both cases the unceasing effort to obey punctually and thoroughly a strict and inflexible command of reason, which yet is not ideal but real, is only hindered. For a rational but finite being, the only thing possible is an endless progress from the lower to higher degrees of moral perfection. The Infinite Being, to whom the condition of time is nothing (264), sees in this to us endless succession a whole of accordance with the moral law; and the holiness which His command inexorably requires, in order to be true to His justice in the share which He assigns to each in the summum bonum, is to be found in a single intellectual intuition of the whole existence of rational beings. All that can be expected of the creature in respect of the hope of this participation would be the consciousness of his tried character, by which, from the progress he has hitherto made from the worse to the morally better, and the immutability of purpose which has thus become known to him, he may hope for a further unbroken continuance of the same, however long his existence may last, even beyond this life, 1 and thus he may hope, not indeed here, nor at any imaginable point of his future existence, but only in the endlessness of his duration (which God alone can survey) (265) to be perfectly adequate to his will (without indulgence or excuse, which do not harmonize with justice).

  V.

  —The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.

  In the foregoing analysis the moral law led to a practical problem which is prescribed by pure reason alone, without the aid of any sensible motives, namely, that of the necessary completeness of the first and principal element of the summum bonum, viz. Morality; and as this can be perfectly solved only in eternity, to the postulate of immortality. The same law must also lead us to affirm the possibility of the second element of the summum bonum, viz. Happiness proportioned to that morality, and this on grounds as disinterested as before, and solely from impartial reason; that is, it must lead to the supposition of the existence of a cause adequate to this effect; in other words, it must postulate the existence of God, as the necessary condition of the possibility of the summum bonum (an object of the will which is necessarily connected with the moral legislation of pure reason). We proceed to exhibit this connexion in a convincing manner.

  Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes according to his wish and will; it rests, therefore, on the harmony of physical nature with his whole end, and likewise with the essential determining principle of his will. Now the moral law as a law of freedom commands by determining principles (266), which ought to be quite independent on nature and on its harmony with our faculty of desire (as springs). But the acting rational being in the world is not the cause of the world and of nature itself. There is not the least ground, therefore, in the moral law for a necessary connexion between morality and proportionate happiness in a being that belongs to the world as part of it, and therefore dependent on it, and which for that reason cannot by his will be a cause of this nature, nor by his own power make it thoroughly harmonize, as far as his happiness is concerned, with his practical principles. Nevertheless, in the practical problem of pure reason, i.e. the necessary pursuit of the summum bonum, such a connexion is postulated as necessary: we ought to endeavour to promote the summum bonum, which, therefore, must be possible. Accordingly, the existence of a cause of all nature, distinct from nature itself and containing the principle of this connexion, namely, of the exact harmony of happiness with morality, is also postulated. Now, this supreme cause must contain the principle of the harmony of nature, not merely with a law of the will of rational beings, but with the conception of this law, in so far as they make it the supreme determining principle of the will, and consequently not merely with the form of morals, but with their morality as their motive, that is, with their moral character. Therefore, the summum bonum is possible in the world only on the supposition of a supreme Being 1 having a causality corresponding to moral character. Now a being that is capable of acting on the conception of laws is an intelligence (a rational being), and the causality of such a being according to this conception of laws is his will; therefore the supreme cause of nature, which must be presupposed as a condition of the summum bonum (267), is a being which is the cause of nature by intelligence and will, consequently its author, that is God. It follows that the postulate of the possibility of the highest derived good (the best world) is likewise the postulate of the reality of a highest original good, that is to say, of the existence of God. Now it was seen to be a duty for us to promote the summum bonum; consequently it is not merely allowable, but it is a necessity connected with duty as a requisite, that we should presuppose the possibility of this summum bonum; and as this is possible only on condition of the existence of God, it inseparably connects the supposition of this with duty; that is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God.

  It must be remarked here that this moral necessity is subjective, that is, it is a want, and not objective, that is, itself a duty, for there cannot be a duty to suppose the existence of anything (since this concerns only the theoretical employment of reason). Moreover it is not meant by this that it is necessary to suppose the existence of God as a basis of all obligation in general (for this rests, as has been sufficiently proved, simply on the autonomy of reason itself). What belongs to duty here is only the endeavour to realize and promote the summum bonum in the world, the possibility of which can therefore be postulated; and as our reason finds it not conceivable except on the supposition of a supreme intelligence, the admission of this existence is therefore connected with the consciousness of our duty, although the admission itself belongs to the domain of speculative reason. Considered in respect of this alone, as a principle of explanation, it may be called a hypothesis, but in reference to the intelligibility of an object given us by the moral law (the summum bonum), and consequently of a requirement for practical purposes, it may be called faith, that is to say a pure rational faith, since pure reason (268) (both in its theoretical and its practical use) is the sole source from which it springs.

  From this deduction it is now intelligible why the Greek schools could never attain the solution of their problem of the practical possibility of the summum bonum, because they made the rule of the use which the will of man makes of his freedom the sole and sufficient ground of this possibility, thinking that they had no need for that purpose of the existence of God. No doubt they were so far right that they established the principle of morals of itself independently on this postulate, from the relation of reason only to the will, and consequently made it the supreme practical condition of the summum bonum; but it was not therefore the whole condition of its possibility. The Epicureans had indeed assumed as the supreme principle of morality a wholly false one, namely that of happiness, and had substituted for a law a maxim of arbitrary choice according to every man’s inclination; they proceeded, however, consistently enough in this, that they degraded their summum bonum likewise just in proportion to the meanness of their fundamental principle, and looked for no greater happiness than can be attained by human prudence (including temperance and moderation of the inclinations), and this as we know would be scanty enough and would be very different according to circumstances; not to mention the exceptions that their maxims must perpetually admit and which make them incapable of being laws. The Stoics, on the contrary, had chosen their supreme practical principle quite rightly, making virtue the condition of the summum bonum; but when they represented the degree of virtue required by its pure law as fully attainable in this life, they not only strained the moral powers of the man whom they called the wise beyond all the limits of his nature, and assumed (269) a thing that contradicts all our knowledge of men, but also and principally they would not allow the second element of the summum bonum, namely, happiness, to be properly a special object of human desire, but made their wise man, like a divinity in his consciousness of the excellence of his person, wholly independent on nature (as regards his own contentment); they exposed him indeed to the evils of life, but made him not subject to them (at the same time representing him also as free from moral evil). They thus in fact left out the second element of the summum bonum, namely, personal happiness, placing it solely in action and satisfaction with one’s own personal worth, thus including it in the consciousness of being morally minded, in which they might have been sufficiently refuted by the voice of their own nature.

  The doctrine of Christianity, 1 even if we do not yet consider it as a religious doctrine, gives, touching this point (269), a conception of the summum bonum (the kingdom of God), which alone satisfies the strictest demand of practical reason. The moral law is holy (unyielding) and demands holiness of morals, although all the moral perfection to which man can attain is still only virtue, that is, a rightful disposition arising from respect for the law, implying consciousness of a constant propensity to transgression, or at least a want of purity, that is, a mixture of many spurious (not moral) motives of obedience to the law, consequently a self-esteem combined with humility. In respect then of the holiness which the Christian law requires, this leaves the creature nothing but a progress in infinitum, but for that very reason it justifies him in hoping for an endless duration of his existence. The worth of a character perfectly accordant with the moral law is infinite, since (270) the only restriction on all possible happiness in the judgment of a wise and all-powerful distributor of it is the absence of conformity of rational beings to their duty. But the moral law of itself does not promise any happiness, for according to our conceptions of an order of nature in general, this is not necessarily connected with obedience to the law. Now Christian morality supplies this defect (of the second indispensable element of the summum bonum) by representing the world, in which rational beings devote themselves with all their soul to the moral law, as a kingdom of God, in which nature and morality are brought into a harmony foreign to each of itself, by a holy Author who makes the derived summum bonum possible. Holiness of life is prescribed to them as a rule even in this life, while the welfare proportioned to it, namely, bliss, is represented as attainable only in an eternity; because the former must always be the pattern of their conduct in every state, and progress towards it is already possible and necessary in this life; while the latter, under the name of happiness, cannot be attained at all in this world (so far as our own power is concerned), and therefore is made simply an object of hope. Nevertheless, the Christian principle of morality itself is not theological (so as to be heteronomy) but is autonomy of pure practical reason, since it does not make the knowledge of God and his will the foundation of these laws, but only of the attainment of the summum bonum, on condition of following these laws, and it does not even place the proper spring of this obedience in the desired results, but solely in the conception of duty, as that of which the faithful observance alone constitutes the worthiness to obtain those happy consequences.

  In this manner the moral laws lead through the conception of the summum bonum as the object and final end of pure practical reason to religion (271), that is, to the recognition of all duties as divine commands, not as sanctions,1that is to say, arbitrary ordinances of a foreign will and contingent in themselves, but as essential laws of every free will in itself, which, nevertheless, must be regarded as commands of the Supreme Being, because it is only from a morally perfect (holy and good) and at the same time all-powerful will, and consequently only through harmony with this will that we can hope to attain the summum bonum which the moral law makes it our duty to take as the object of our endeavours. Here again, then, all remains disinterested and founded merely on duty; neither fear nor hope being made the fundamental springs, which if taken as principles would destroy the whole moral worth of actions. The moral law commands me to make the highest possible good in a world the ultimate object of all my conduct. But I cannot hope to effect this otherwise than by the harmony of my will with that of a holy and good Author of the world; and although the conception of the summum bonum as a whole, in which the greatest happiness is conceived as combined in the most exact proportion with the highest degree of moral perfection (possible in creatures), includes my own happiness, yet it is not this that is the determining principle of the will which is enjoined to promote the summum bonum, but the moral law, which on the contrary limits by strict conditions my unbounded desire of happiness.

  Hence also morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness. It is only when religion is added that there also comes in the hope of participating some day in happiness in proportion as we have endeavoured to be not unworthy of it.

  [272] A man is worthy to possess a thing or a state when his possession of it is in harmony with the summum bonum. We can now easily see that all worthiness depends on moral conduct, since in the conception of the summum bonum this constitutes the condition of the rest (which belongs to one’s state), namely, the participation of happiness. Now it follows from this that morality should never be treated as a doctrine of happiness, that is, an instruction how to become happy; for it has to do simply with the rational condition (conditio sine qua non) of happiness, not with the means of attaining it. But when morality has been completely expounded (which merely imposes duties instead of providing rules for selfish desires), then, first, after the moral desire to promote the summum bonum (to bring the kingdom of God to us) has been awakened, a desire founded on a law, and which could not previously arise in any selfish mind, and when for the behoof of this desire the step to religion has been taken, then this ethical doctrine may be also called a doctrine of happiness, because the hope of happiness first begins with religion only.

  We can also see from this that, when we ask what is God’s ultimate end in creating the world, we must not name the happiness of the rational beings in it, but the summum bonum, which adds a further condition to that wish of such beings, namely, the condition of being worthy of happiness, that is, the morality of these same rational beings, a condition which alone contains the rule by which only they can hope to share in the former at the hand of a wise Author. For as wisdom theoretically considered signifies the knowledge of the summum bonum, and practically the accordance of the will with the summum bonum, we cannot attribute to a supreme independent wisdom an end based merely on goodness (273). For we cannot conceive the action of this goodness (in respect of the happiness of rational beings) as suitable to the highest original good, except under the restrictive conditions of harmony with the holiness 1 of his will. Therefore those who placed the end of creation in the glory of God (provided that this is not conceived anthropomorphically as a desire to be praised) have perhaps hit upon the best expression. For nothing glorifies God more than that which is the most estimable thing in the world, respect for His command, the observance of the holy duty that His law imposes on us, when there is added thereto His glorious plan of crowning such a beautiful order of things with corresponding happiness. If the latter (to speak humanly) makes Him worthy of love, by the former He is an object of adoration. Even men can never acquire respect by benevolence alone, though they may gain love, so that the greatest beneficence only procures them honour when it is regulated by worthiness.

  That in the order of ends, man (and with him every rational being) is an end in himself, that is, that he can never be used merely as a means by any (274) (not even by God) without being at the same time an end also himself, that therefore humanity in our person must be holy to ourselves, this follows now of itself because he is the subject1of the moral law, in other words, of that which is holy in itself, and on account of which and in agreement with which alone can anything be termed holy. For this moral law is founded on the autonomy of his will, as a free will which by its universal laws must necessarily be able to agree with that to which it is to submit itself.

  VI.

  —Of the Postulates of Pure Practical Reason in General.

  They all proceed from the principle of morality, which is not a postulate but a law, by which reason determines the will directly, which will, because it is so determined as a pure will, requires these necessary conditions of obedience to its precept. These postulates are not theoretical dogmas, but suppositions practically necessary; while then they do [not] 2 extend our speculative knowledge, they give objective reality to the ideas of speculative reason in general (by means of their reference to what is practical), and give it a right to concepts, the possibility even of which it could not otherwise venture to affirm.

  These postulates are those of immortality, freedom positively considered (as the causality of a being so far as he belongs to the intelligible world), and the existence of God. The first results from the practically necessary condition of a duration (275) adequate to the complete fulfilment of the moral law; the second from the necessary supposition of independence on the sensible world, and of the faculty of determining one’s will according to the law of an intelligible world, that is, of freedom; the third from the necessary condition of the existence of the summum bonum in such an intelligible world, by the supposition of the supreme independent good, that is, the existence of God.

  Thus the fact that respect for the moral law necessarily makes the summum bonum an object of our endeavours, and the supposition thence resulting of its objective reality, lead through the postulates of practical reason to conceptions which speculative reason might indeed present as problems, but could never solve. Thus it leads—1. To that one in the solution of which the latter could do nothing but commit paralogisms (namely, that of immortality), because it could not lay hold of the character of permanence, by which to complete the psychological conception of an ultimate subject necessarily ascribed to the soul in self-consciousness, so as to make it the real conception of a substance, a character which practical reason furnishes by the postulate of a duration required for accordance with the moral law in the summum bonum, which is the whole end of practical reason. 2. It leads to that of which speculative reason contained nothing but antinomy, the solution of which it could only found on a notion problematically conceivable indeed, but whose objective reality it could not prove or determine, namely, the cosmological idea of an intelligible world and the consciousness of our existence in it, by means of the postulate of freedom (the reality of which it lays down by virtue of the moral law), and with it likewise the law of an intelligible world, to which speculative reason could only point, but could not define its conception. 3. What speculative reason was able to think, but was obliged to leave undetermined as a mere transcendental ideal (276), viz. the theological conception of the first Being, to this it gives significance (in a practical view, that is, as a condition of the possibility of the object of a will determined by that law), namely, as the supreme principle of the summum bonum in an intelligible world, by means of moral legislation in it invested with sovereign power.

  Is our knowledge, however, actually extended in this way by pure practical reason, and is that immanent in practical reason which for the speculative was only transcendent? Certainly, but only in a practical point of view. For we do not thereby take knowledge of the nature of our souls, nor of the intelligible world, nor of the Supreme Being, with respect to what they are in themselves, but we have merely combined the conceptions of them in the practical concept of the summum bonum as the object of our will, and this altogether à priori, but only by means of the moral law, and merely in reference to it, in respect of the object which it commands. But how freedom is possible, and how we are to conceive this kind of causality theoretically and positively, is not thereby discovered; but only that there is such a causality is postulated by the moral law and in its behoof. It is the same with the remaining ideas, the possibility of which no human intelligence will ever fathom, but the truth of which, on the other hand, no sophistry will ever wrest from the conviction even of the commonest man.

  VII.

  —How is it possible to conceive an extension of Pure Reason in a Practical point of view, without its Knowledge as Speculative being enlarged at the same time?

  In order not to be too abstract, we will answer this question at once in its application to the present case. In order to extend a pure cognition practically, there must be an à priori purpose given, that is, an end as object (of the will), which independently on all theological principle is presented as practically necessary by an imperative which determines the will directly (a categorical imperative), and in this case that is the summum bonum. This, however, is not possible without presupposing three theoretical conceptions (for which, because they are mere conceptions of pure reason, no corresponding intuition can be found, nor consequently by the path of theory any objective reality); namely, freedom, immortality, and God. Thus by the practical law which commands the existence of the highest good possible in a world, the possibility of those objects of pure speculative reason is postulated, and the objective reality which the latter could not assure them. By this the theoretical knowledge of pure reason does indeed obtain an accession; but it consists only in this, that those concepts which otherwise it had to look upon as problematical (merely thinkable) concepts, are now shown assertorially to be such as actually have objects; because practical reason indispensably requires their existence for the possibility of its object, the summum bonum, which practically is absolutely necessary, and this justifies theoretical reason in assuming them. But this extension of theoretical reason (278) is no extension of speculative, that is, we cannot make any positive use of it in a theoretical point of view. For as nothing is accomplished in this by practical reason, further than that these concepts are real and actually have their (possible) objects, and nothing in the way of intuition of them is given thereby (which indeed could not be demanded), hence the admission of this reality does not render any synthetical proposition possible. Consequently this discovery does not in the least help us to extend this knowledge of ours in a speculative point of view, although it does in respect of the practical employment of pure reason. The above three ideas of speculative reason are still in themselves not cognitions; they are however (transcendent) thoughts, in which there is nothing impossible. Now, by help of an apodictic practical law, being necessary conditions of that which it commands to be made an object, they acquire objective reality: that is, we learn from it that they have objects, without being able to point out how the conception of them is related to an object, and this, too, is still not a cognition of these objects; for we cannot thereby form any synthetical judgment about them, nor determine their application theoretically; consequently we can make no theoretical rational use of them at all, in which use all speculative knowledge of reason consists. Nevertheless, the theoretical knowledge, not indeed of these objects, but of reason generally, is so far enlarged by this, that by the practical postulates objects were given to those ideas, a merely problematical thought having by this means first acquired objective reality. There is therefore no extension of the knowledge of given supersensible objects, but an extension of theoretical reason and of its knowledge in respect of the supersensible generally; inasmuch as it is compelled to admit that there are such objects (279), although it is not able to define them more closely, so as itself to extend this knowledge of the objects (which have now been given it on practical grounds, and only for practical use). For this accession, then, pure theoretical reason, for which all those ideas are transcendent and without object, has simply to thank its practical faculty. In this they become immanent and constitutive, being the source of the possibility of realizing the necessary object of pure practical reason (the summum bonum); whereas apart from this they are transcendent, and merely regulative principles of speculative reason, which do not require it to assume a new object beyond experience, but only to bring its use in experience nearer to completeness. But when once reason is in possession of this accession, it will go to work with these ideas as speculative reason (properly only to assure the certainty of its practical use) in a negative manner: that is, not extending but clearing up its knowledge so as on one side to keep off anthropomorphism, as the source of superstition, or seeming extension of these conceptions by supposed experience; and on the other side fanaticism, which promises the same by means of supersensible intuition or feelings of the like kind. All these are hindrances to the practical use of pure reason, so that the removal of them may certainly be considered an extension of our knowledge in a practical point of view, without contradicting the admission that for speculative purposes reason has not in the least gained by this.

  Every employment of reason in respect of an object requires pure concepts of the understanding (categories), without which no object can be conceived. These can be applied to the theoretical employment of reason, i. e. to that kind of knowledge, only in case an intuition (which is always sensible) is taken as a basis, and therefore merely in order (280) to conceive by means of them an object of possible experience. Now here what have to be thought by means of the categories, in order to be known, are ideas of reason, which cannot be given in any experience. Only we are not here concerned with the theoretical knowledge of the objects of these ideas, but only with this, whether they have objects at all. This reality is supplied by pure practical reason, and theoretical reason has nothing further to do in this but to think those objects by means of categories. This, as we have elsewhere clearly shown, can be done well enough without needing any intuition (either sensible or supersensible), because the categories have their seat and origin in the pure understanding, simply as the faculty of thought, before and independently on any intuition, and they always only signify an object in general, no matter in what way it may be given to us. Now when the categories are to be applied to these ideas, it is not possible to give them any object in intuition; but that such an object actually exists, and consequently that the category as a mere form of thought is here not empty but has significance, this is sufficiently assured them by an object which practical reason presents beyond doubt in the concept of the summum bonum, namely, the reality of the conceptions which are required for the possibility of the summum bonum, without, however, effecting by this accession the least extension of our knowledge on theoretical principles.

  When these ideas of God, of an intelligible world (the kingdom of God), and of immortality are further determined by predicates taken from our own nature, we must not regard this determination as a sensualizing of those pure rational ideas (281) (anthropomorphism), nor as a transcendent knowledge of supersensible objects; for these predicates are no others than understanding and will, considered too in the relation to each other in which they must be conceived in the moral law, and therefore only so far as a pure practical use is made of them. As to all the rest that belongs to these conceptions psychologically, that is, so far as we observe these faculties of ours empirically in their exercise (e.g. that the understanding of man is discursive, and its notions therefore not intuitions but thoughts, that these follow one another in time, that his will has its satisfaction always dependent on the existence of its object, &c., which cannot be the case in the Supreme Being), from all this we abstract in that case, and then there remains of the notions by which we conceive a pure intelligence nothing more than just what is required for the possibility of conceiving a moral law. There is then a knowledge of God indeed, but only for practical purposes, and if we attempt to extend it to a theoretical knowledge we find an understanding that has intuitions, not thoughts, a will that is directed to objects on the existence of which its satisfaction does not in the least depend (not to mention the transcendental predicates, as, for example, a magnitude of existence, that is duration, which, however, is not in time, the only possible means we have of conceiving existence as magnitude). Now these are all attributes of which we can form no conception that would help to the knowledge of the object, and we learn from this that they can never be used for a theory of supersensible beings, so that on this side they are quite incapable of being the foundation of a speculative knowledge, and their use is limited simply to the practice of the moral law.

  (282) This last is so obvious, and can be proved so clearly by fact, that we may confidently challenge all pretended natural theologians (a singular name) 1 to specify (over and above the merely ontological predicates) one single attribute, whether of the understanding or of the will, determining this object of theirs, of which we could not show incontrovertibly that if we abstract from it everything anthropomorphic, nothing would remain to us but the mere word, without our being able to connect with it the smallest notion by which we could hope for an extension of theoretical knowledge. But as to the practical, there still remains to us of the attributes of understanding and will the conception of a relation to which objective reality is given by the practical law (which determines à priori precisely this relation of the understanding to the will). When once this is done, then reality is given to the conception of the object of a will morally determined (the conception of the summum bonum), and with it to the conditions of its possibility, the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, but always only relatively to the practice of the moral law (and not for any speculative purpose).

  According to these remarks it is now easy to find the answer to the weighty question: whether the notion of God is one belonging to Physics (and therefore also to Metaphysics (283), which contains the pure à priori principles of the former in their universal import) or to morals. If we have recourse to God as the Author of all things, in order to explain the arrangements of nature or its changes, this is at least not a physical explanation, and is a complete confession that our philosophy has come to an end, since we are obliged to assume something of which in itself we have otherwise no conception, in order to be able to frame a conception of the possibility of what we see before our eyes. Metaphysics, however, cannot enable us to attain by certain inference from the knowledge of this world to the conception of God and to the proof of his existence, for this reason, that in order to say that this world could be produced only by a God (according to the conception implied by this word) we should know this world as the most perfect whole possible; and for this purpose should also know all possible worlds (in order to be able to compare them with this); in other words, we should be omniscient. It is absolutely impossible, however, to know the existence of this Being from mere concepts, because every existential proposition, that is every proposition that affirms the existence of a being of which I frame a concept, is a synthetic proposition, that is, one by which I go beyond that conception and affirm of it more than was thought in the conception itself, namely, that this concept in the understanding has an object corresponding to it outside the understanding, and this it is obviously impossible to elicit by any reasoning. There remains, therefore, only one single process possible for reason to attain this knowledge, namely, to start from the supreme principle of its pure practical use (which in every case is directed simply to the existence of something as a consequence of reason), and thus determine its object. Then its inevitable problem, namely, the necessary direction of the will to the summum bonum, discovers to us not only the necessity of assuming such a First Being (284) in reference to the possibility of this good in the world, but what is most remarkable, something which reason in its progress on the path of physical nature altogether failed to find, namely, an accurately defined conception of this First Being. As we can know only a small part of this world, and can still less compare it with all possible worlds, we may indeed from its order, design, and greatness, infer a wise, good, powerful, &c., Author of it, but not that He is all-wise, all-good, all-powerful, &c. It may indeed, very well be granted that we should be justified in supplying this inevitable defect by a legitimate and reasonable hypothesis, namely, that when wisdom, goodness, &c., are displayed in all the parts that offer themselves to our nearer knowledge, it is just the same in all the rest, and that it would therefore be reasonable to ascribe all possible perfections to the Author of the world, but these are not strict logical inferences in which we can pride ourselves on our insight, but only permitted conclusions in which we may be indulged, and which require further recommendation before we can make use of them. On the path of empirical inquiry then (physics) the conception of God remains always a conception of the perfection of the First Being not accurately enough determined to be held adequate to the conception of Deity. (With metaphysic in its transcendental part nothing whatever can be accomplished).

  When I now try to test this conception by reference to the object of practical reason, I find that the moral principle admits as possible only the conception of an Author of the world possessed of the highest perfection. He must be omniscient, in order to know my conduct up to the inmost root of my mental state in all possible cases and into all future time; omnipotent, in order to allot to it its fitting consequences; similarly He must be omnipresent, eternal, &c. Thus the moral law, by means of the conception of the summum bonum (285) as the object of a pure practical reason, determines the concept of the First Being as the Supreme Being; a thing which the physical (and in its higher development the metaphysical); in other words, the whole speculative course of reason, was unable to effect. The conception of God, then, is one that belongs originally not to physics, i. e. to speculative reason, but to morals. The same may be said of the other conceptions of reason of which we have treated above as postulates of it in its practical use.

  In the history of Grecian philosophy we find no distinct traces of a pure rational theology earlier than Anaxagoras, but this is not because the older philosophers had not intelligence or penetration enough to raise themselves to it by the path of speculation, at least with the aid of a thoroughly reasonable hypothesis. What could have been easier, what more natural, than the thought which of itself occurs to every one, to assume instead of several causes of the world, instead of an indeterminate degree of perfection, a single rational cause having all perfection? But the evils in the world seemed to them to be much too serious objections to allow them to feel themselves justified in such a hypothesis. They showed intelligence and penetration then in this very point, that they did not allow themselves to adopt it, but on the contrary looked about amongst natural causes to see if they could not find in them the qualities and power required for a First Being. But when this acute people had advanced so far in their investigations of nature as to treat even moral questions philosophically, on which other nations had never done anything but talk, then first they found a new and practical want, which did not fail to give definiteness to their conception of the First Being: and in this the speculative reason played the part of spectator, or at best had the merit of embellishing a conception that had not grown on its own ground, and of applying a series of confirmations (286) from the study of nature now brought forward for the first time, not indeed to strengthen the authority of this conception (which was already established), but rather to make a show with a supposed discovery of theoretical reason.

  From these remarks the reader of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason will be thoroughly convinced how highly necessary that laborious deduction of the categories was, and how fruitful for theology and morals. For if, on the one hand, we place them in the pure understanding, it is by this deduction alone that we can be prevented from regarding them, with Plato, as innate, and founding on them extravagant pretensions to theories of the supersensible, to which we can see no end, and by which we should make theology a magic lantern of chimera: on the other hand, if we regard them as acquired, this deduction saves us from restricting, with Epicurus, all and every use of them, even for practical purposes, to the objects and motives of the senses. But now that the Critique has shown by that deduction, first, that they are not of empirical origin, but have their seat and source à priori in the pure understanding; secondly, that as they refer to objects in general independently on the intuition of them, hence, although they cannot effect theoretical knowledge, except in application to empirical objects, yet when applied to an object given by pure practical reason they enable us to conceive the supersensible definitely, only so far, however, as it is defined by such predicates as are necessarily connected with the pure practical purpose given à priori and with its possibility. The speculative restriction of pure reason and its practical extension bring it into that (287) relation of equality in which reason in general can be employed suitably to its end, and this example proves better than any other that the path to wisdom, if it is to be made sure and not to be impassable or misleading, must with us men inevitably pass through science; but it is not till this is completed that we can be convinced that it leads to this goal.

  VIII.

  —Of Belief from a Requirement of Pure Reason.

  A want or requirement of pure reason in its speculative use leads only to a hypothesis; that of pure practical reason to a postulate; for in the former case I ascend from the result as high as I please in the series of causes, not in order to give objective reality to the result (e. g. the causal connexion of things and changes in the world), but in order thoroughly to satisfy my inquiring reason in respect of it. Thus I see before me order and design in nature, and need not resort to speculation to assure myself of their reality, but to explain them I have to pre-suppose a Deity as their cause; and then since the inference from an effect to a definite cause is always uncertain and doubtful, especially to a cause so precise and so perfectly defined as we have to conceive in God, hence the highest degree of certainty to which this pre-supposition can be brought is, that it is the most rational opinion for us men 1 (288). On the other hand, a requirement of pure practical reason is based on a duty, that of making something (the summum bonum) the object of my will so as to promote it with all my powers; in which case I must suppose its possibility, and consequently also the conditions necessary thereto, namely, God, freedom, and immortality; since I cannot prove these by my speculative reason, although neither can I refute them. This duty is founded on something that is indeed quite independent on these suppositions, and is of itself apodictically certain, namely, the moral law; and so far it needs no further support by theoretical views as to the inner constitution of things, the secret final aim of the order of the world, or a presiding ruler thereof, in order to bind me in the most perfect manner to act in unconditional conformity to the law. But the subjective effect of this law, namely, the mental disposition conformed to it and made necessary by it, to promote the practically possible summum bonum, this pre-supposes at least that the latter is possible, for it would be practically impossible to strive after the object of a conception which at bottom was empty and had no object. Now the above-mentioned postulates concern only the physical or metaphysical conditions of the possibility of the summum bonum (289); in a word, those which lie in the nature of things; not, however, for the sake of an arbitrary speculative purpose, but of a practically necessary end of a pure rational will, which in this case does not choose, but obeys an inexorable command of reason, the foundation of which is objective, in the constitution of things as they must be universally judged by pure reason, and is not based on inclination; for we are in nowise justified in assuming, on account of what we wish on merely subjective grounds, that the means thereto are possible or that its object is real. This then is an absolutely necessary requirement, and what it pre-supposes is not merely justified as an allowable hypothesis, but as a postulate in a practical point of view; and admitting that the pure moral law inexorably binds every man as a command (not as a rule of prudence), the righteous man may say: I will that there be a God, that my existence in this world be also an existence outside the chain of physical causes, and in a pure world of the understanding, and lastly, that my duration be endless; I firmly abide by this, and will not let this faith be taken from me; for in this instance alone my interest, because I must not relax anything of it, inevitably determines my judgment, without regarding sophistries, however unable I may be to answer them or to oppose them with others more plausible. 1

  (290) In order to prevent misconception in the use of a notion as yet so unusual as that of a faith of pure practical reason, let me be permitted to add one more remark. It might almost seem as if this rational faith were here announced as itself a command, namely, that we should assume the summum bonum as possible. But a faith that is commanded is nonsense. Let the preceding analysis, however, be remembered of what is required to be supposed in the conception of the summum bonum, and it will be seen that it cannot be commanded to assume this possibility, and no practical disposition of mind is required to admit it; but that speculative reason must concede it without being asked, for no one can affirm that it is impossible in itself that rational beings in the world should at the same time be worthy of happiness in conformity with the moral law, and also possess this happiness proportionately. Now in respect of the first element of the summum bonum, namely, that which concerns morality, the moral law gives merely a command, and to doubt the possibility of that element would be the same as to call in question the moral law itself (291). But as regards the second element of that object, namely, happiness perfectly proportioned to that worthiness, it is true that there is no need of a command to admit its possibility in general, for theoretical reason has nothing to say against it; but the manner in which we have to conceive this harmony of the laws of nature with those of freedom has in it something in respect of which we have a choice, because theoretical reason decides nothing with apodictic certainty about it, and in respect of this there may be a moral interest which turns the scale.

  I had said above that in a mere course of nature in the world an accurate correspondence between happiness and moral worth is not to be expected, and must be regarded as impossible, and that therefore the possibility of the summum bonum cannot be admitted from this side except on the supposition of a moral Author of the world. I purposely reserved the restriction of this judgment to the subjective conditions of our reason, in order not to make use of it until the manner of this belief should be defined more precisely. The fact is that the impossibility referred to is merely subjective, that is, our reason finds it impossible for it to render conceivable in the way of a mere course of nature a connexion so exactly proportioned and so thoroughly adapted to an end, between two sets of events happening according to such distinct laws; although, as with everything else in nature that is adapted to an end, it cannot prove, that is, show by sufficient objective reasons, that it is not possible by universal laws of nature.

  Now, however, a deciding principle of a different kind comes into play to turn the scale in this uncertainty of speculative reason. The command to promote the summum bonum is established on an objective basis (in practical reason); the possibility of the same in general is likewise established on an objective basis (292) (in theoretical reason, which has nothing to say against it). But reason cannot decide objectively in what way we are to conceive this possibility; whether by universal laws of nature without a wise Author presiding over nature, or only on supposition of such an Author. Now here there comes in a subjective condition of reason; the only way theoretically possible for it, of conceiving the exact harmony of the kingdom of nature with the kingdom of morals, which is the condition of the possibility of the summum bonum; and at the same time the only one conducive to morality (which depends on an objective law of reason). Now since the promotion of this summum bonum, and therefore the supposition of its possibility, are objectively necessary (though only as a result of practical reason), while at the same time the manner in which we would conceive it rests with our own choice, and in this choice a free interest of pure practical reason decides for the assumption of a wise Author of the world; it is clear that the principle that herein determines our judgment, though as a want it is subjective, yet at the same time being the means of promoting what is objectively (practically) necessary, is the foundation of a maxim of belief in a moral point of view, that is, a faith of pure practical reason. This, then, is not commanded, but being a voluntary determination of our judgment, conducive to the moral (commanded) purpose, and moreover harmonizing with the theoretical requirement of reason, to assume that existence and to make it the foundation of our further employment of reason, it has itself sprung from the moral disposition of mind; it may therefore at times waver even in the well-disposed, but can never be reduced to unbelief.

  IX.

  —Of the Wise Adaptation of Man’s Cognitive Faculties to his Practical Destination.

  If human nature is destined to endeavour after the summum bonum, we must suppose also that the measure of its cognitive faculties, and particularly their relation to one another, is suitable to this end. Now the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason proves that this is incapable of solving satisfactorily the most weighty problems that are proposed to it, although it does not ignore the natural and important hints received from the same reason, nor the great steps that it can make to approach to this great goal that is set before it, which, however, it can never reach of itself, even with the help of the greatest knowledge of nature. Nature then seems here to have provided us only in a step-motherly fashion with the faculty required for our end.

  Suppose now that in this matter nature had conformed to our wish, and had given us that capacity of discernment or that enlightenment which we would gladly possess, or which some imagine they actually possess, what would in all probability be the consequence? Unless our whole nature were at the same time changed, our inclinations, which always have the first word, would first of all demand their own satisfaction, and, joined with rational reflection, the greatest possible and most lasting satisfaction, under the name of happiness; the moral law (294) would afterwards speak, in order to keep them within their proper bounds, and even to subject them all to a higher end, which has no regard to inclination. But instead of the conflict that the moral disposition has now to carry on with the inclinations, in which, though after some defeats, moral strength of mind may be gradually acquired, God and eternity with their awful majesty would stand unceasingly before our eyes (for what we can prove perfectly is to us as certain as that of which we are assured by the sight of our eyes). Transgression of the law would, no doubt, be avoided; what is commanded would be done; but the mental disposition, from which actions ought to proceed, cannot be infused by any command, and in this case the spur of action is ever active and external, so that reason has no need to exert itself in order to gather strength to resist the inclinations by a lively representation of the dignity of the law: hence most of the actions that conformed to the law would be done from fear, a few only from hope, and none at all from duty, and the moral worth of actions, on which alone in the eyes of supreme wisdom the worth of the person and even that of the world depends, would cease to exist. As long as the nature of man remains what it is, his conduct would thus be changed into mere mechanism, in which, as in a puppet show, everything would gesticulate well, but there would be no life in the figures. Now, when it is quite otherwise with us, when with all the effort of our reason we have only a very obscure and doubtful view into the future, when the Governor of the world allows us only to conjecture his existence and his majesty, not to behold them or prove them clearly; and on the other hand, the moral law within us, without promising or threatening anything with certainty, demands of us disinterested respect; and only when this respect has become active (295) and dominant does it allow us by means of it a prospect into the world of the supersensible, and then only with weak glances: all this being so, there is room for true moral disposition, immediately devoted to the law, and a rational creature can become worthy of sharing in the summum bonum that corresponds to the worth of his person and not merely to his actions. Thus what the study of nature and of man teaches us sufficiently elsewhere may well be true here also; that the unsearchable wisdom by which we exist is not less worthy of admiration in what it has denied than in what it has granted.

  PART SECOND.

  METHODOLOGY OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON.

  METHODOLOGY of PURE PRACTICAL REASON.

  BY the methodology of pure practical reason we are not to understand the mode of proceeding with pure practical principles (whether in study or in exposition), with a view to a scientific knowledge of them, which alone is what is properly called method elsewhere in theoretical philosophy (for popular knowledge requires a manner, science a method, i. e. a process according to principles of reason by which alone the manifold of any branch of knowledge can become a system). On the contrary, by this methodology is understood the mode in which 1 we can give the laws of pure practical reason access to the human mind, and influence on its maxims, that is, by which we can make the objectively practical reason subjectively practical also.

  Now it is clear enough that those determining principles of the will which alone make maxims properly moral and give them a moral worth, namely, the direct conception of the law and the objective necessity of obeying it as our duty, must be regarded as the proper springs of actions, since otherwise legality of actions might be produced, but not morality of character. But it is not so clear: on the contrary, it must at first sight seem to everyone very improbable that, even subjectively, that exhibition of pure virtue can have more power over the human mind, and supply a far stronger spring even for effecting that legality of actions, and can produce more powerful resolutions (300) to prefer the law, from pure respect for it, to every other consideration, than all the deceptive allurements of pleasure or of all that may be reckoned as happiness, or even than all threatenings of pain and misfortune. Nevertheless, this is actually the case, and if human nature were not so constituted, no mode of presenting the law by roundabout ways and indirect recommendations would ever produce morality of character. All would be simple hypocrisy; the law would be hated, or at least despised, while it was followed for the sake of one’s own advantage. The letter of the law (legality) would be found in our actions, but not the spirit of it in our minds (morality); and as with all our efforts we could not quite free ourselves from reason in our judgment, we must inevitably appear in our own eyes worthless, depraved men, even though we should seek to compensate ourselves for this mortification before the inner tribunal, by enjoying the pleasure that a supposed natural or divine law might be imagined to have connected with a sort of police machinery, regulating its operations by what was done without troubling itself about the motives for doing it.

  It cannot indeed be denied that in order to bring an uncultivated or degraded mind into the track of moral goodness some preparatory guidance is necessary, to attract it by a view of its own advantage, or to alarm it by fear of loss; but as soon as this mechanical work, these leading-strings, have produced some effect, then we must bring before the mind the pure moral motive, which, not only because it is the only one that can be the foundation of a character (a practically consistent habit of mind with unchangeable maxims) (301), but also because it teaches a man to feel his own dignity, gives the mind a power unexpected even by himself, to tear himself from all sensible attachments so far as they would fain have the rule, and to find a rich compensation for the sacrifice he offers, in the independence of his rational nature and the greatness of soul to which he sees that he is destined. We will therefore show, by such observations as every one can make, that this property of our minds, this receptivity for a pure moral interest, and consequently the moving force of the pure conception of virtue, when it is properly applied to the human heart, is the most powerful spring, and, when a continued and punctual observance of moral maxims is in question, the only spring of good conduct. It must, however, be remembered that if these observations only prove the reality of such a feeling, but do not show any moral improvement brought about by it, this is no argument against the only method that exists of making the objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical, through the mere force of the conception of duty; nor does it prove that this method is a vain delusion. For as it has never yet come into vogue, experience can say nothing of its results; one can only ask for proofs of the receptivity for such springs, and these I will now briefly present, and then sketch the method of founding and cultivating genuine moral dispositions.

  When we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies, consisting not merely of learned persons and subtle reasoners, but also of men of business or of women, we observe that, besides story-telling and jesting, another kind of entertainment finds a place in them, namely, argument; for stories, if they are to have novelty and interest, are soon exhausted, and jesting is likely to become insipid (302). Now of all argument there is none in which persons are more ready to join who find any other subtle discussion tedious, none that brings more liveliness into the company, than that which concerns the moral worth of this or that action by which the character of some person is to be made out. Persons, to whom in other cases anything subtle and speculative in theoretical questions is dry and irksome, presently join in when the question is to make out the moral import of a good or bad action that has been related, and they display an exactness, a refinement, a subtlety, in excogitating everything that can lessen the purity of purpose, and consequently the degree of virtue in it, which we do not expect from them in any other kind of speculation. In these criticisms persons who are passing judgment on others often reveal their own character: some, in exercising their judicial office, especially upon the dead, seem inclined chiefly to defend the goodness that is related of this or that deed against all injurious charges of insincerity, and ultimately to defend the whole moral worth of the person against the reproach of dissimulation and secret wickedness; others, on the contrary, turn their thoughts more upon attacking this worth by accusation and fault-finding. We cannot always, however, attribute to these latter the intention of arguing away virtue altogether out of all human examples in order to make it an empty name; often, on the contrary, it is only well-meant strictness in determining the true moral import of actions according to an uncompromising law. Comparison with such a law, instead of with examples, lowers self-conceit in moral matters very much, and not merely teaches humility, but makes everyone feel it when he examines himself closely. Nevertheless, we can for the most part observe in those who defend the purity of purpose in giving examples, that where there is the presumption of uprightness (303) they are anxious to remove even the least spot, lest, if all examples had their truthfulness disputed, and if the purity of all human virtue were denied, it might in the end be regarded as a mere phantom, and so all effort to attain it be made light of as vain affectation and delusive conceit.

  I do not know why the educators of youth have not long since made use of this propensity of reason to enter with pleasure upon the most subtle examination of the practical questions that are thrown up; and why they have not, after first laying the foundation of a purely moral catechism, searched through the biographies of ancient and modern times with the view of having at hand instances of the duties laid down, in which, especially by comparison of similar actions under different circumstances, they might exercise the critical judgment of their scholars in remarking their greater or less moral significance. This is a thing in which they would find that even early youth, which is still unripe for speculation of other kinds, would soon become very acute and not a little interested, because it feels the progress of its faculty of judgment; and what is most important, they could hope with confidence that the frequent practice of knowing and approving good conduct in all its purity, and on the other hand of remarking with regret or contempt the least deviation from it, although it may be pursued only as a sport in which children may compete with one another, yet will leave a lasting impression of esteem on the one hand and disgust on the other; and so, by the mere habit of looking on such actions as deserving approval or blame, a good foundation would be laid for uprightness in the future course of life (304). Only I wish they would spare them the example of so-called noble (super-meritorious) actions in which our sentimental books so much abound, and would refer all to duty merely, and to the worth that a man can and must give himself in his own eyes by the consciousness of not having transgressed it, since whatever runs up into empty wishes and longings after inaccessible perfection produces mere heroes of romance, who, while they pique themselves on their feeling for transcendent greatness, release themselves in return from the observance of common and every-day obligations, which then seem to them petty and insignificant. 1

  But if it is asked, what then is really pure morality, by which as a touchstone we must test the moral significance of every action, then I must admit that it is only philosophers that can make the decision of this question doubtful, for to common sense it has been decided long ago, not indeed by abstract general formulæ, but by habitual use, like the distinction between the right and left hand. We will then point out the criterion of pure virtue in an example first, and imagining that it is set before a boy of, say ten years old, for his judgment, we will see whether (305) he would necessarily judge so of himself without being guided by his teacher. Tell him the history of an honest man whom men want to persuade to join the calumniators of an innocent and powerless person (say Anne Boleyn, accused by Henry VIII. of England). He is offered advantages, great gifts, or high rank; he rejects them. This will excite mere approbation and applause in the mind of the hearer. Now begins the threatening of loss. Amongst these traducers are his best friends, who now renounce his friendship; near kinsfolk, who threaten to disinherit him (he being without fortune); powerful persons, who can persecute and harass him in all places and circumstances; a prince who threatens him with loss of freedom, yea, loss of life. Then to fill the measure of suffering, and that he may feel the pain that only the morally good heart can feel very deeply, let us conceive his family threatened with extreme distress and want, entreating him to yield; conceive himself, though upright, yet with feelings not hard or insensible either to compassion or to his own distress; conceive him, I say, at the moment when he wishes that he had never lived to see the day that exposed him to such unutterable anguish, yet remaining true to his uprightness of purpose, without wavering or even doubting; then will my youthful hearer be raised gradually from mere approval to admiration, from that to amazement, and finally to the greatest veneration, and a lively wish that he himself could be such a man (though certainly not in such circumstances). Yet virtue is here worth so much only because it costs so much, not because it brings any profit. All the admiration, and even the endeavour to resemble this character, rest wholly on the purity of the moral principle, which can only be strikingly shown (306) by removing from the springs of action everything that men may regard as part of happiness. Morality then must have the more power over the human heart the more purely it is exhibited. Whence it follows that if the law of morality and the image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any influence at all on our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in their purity as motives, unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it is in suffering that they display themselves most nobly. Now that whose removal strengthens the effect of a moving force must have been a hindrance, consequently every admixture of motives taken from our own happiness is a hindrance to the influence of the moral law on the heart. I affirm further, that even in that admired action, if the motive from which it was done was a high regard for duty, then it is just this respect for the law that has the greatest influence on the mind of the spectator, not any pretension to a supposed inward greatness of mind or noble meritorious sentiments; consequently duty, not merit, must have not only the most definite, but, when it is represented in the true light of its inviolability, the most penetrating influence on the mind.

  It is more necessary than ever to direct attention to this method in our times, when men hope to produce more effect on the mind with soft, tender feelings, or high-flown, puffing-up pretensions, which rather wither the heart than strengthen it, than by a plain and earnest representation of duty, which is more suited to human imperfection and to progress in goodness. To set before children, as a pattern, actions that are called noble, magnanimous, meritorious, with the notion of captivating them by infusing an enthusiam for such actions, is to defeat our end (307). For as they are still so backward in the observance of the commonest duty, and even in the correct estimation of it, this means simply to make them fantastical romancers betimes. But, even with the instructed and experienced part of mankind, this supposed spring has, if not an injurious, at least no genuine moral effect on the heart, which, however, is what it was desired to produce.

  All feelings, especially those that are to produce unwonted exertions, must accomplish their effect at the moment they are at their height, and before they calm down; otherwise they effect nothing; for as there was nothing to strengthen the heart, but only to excite it, it naturally returns to its normal moderate tone, and thus falls back into its previous languor. Principles must be built on conceptions; on any other basis there can only be paroxysms, which can give the person no moral worth, nay, not even confidence in himself, without which the highest good in man, consciousness of the morality of his mind and character, cannot exist. Now if these conceptions are to become subjectively practical, we must not rest satisfied with admiring the objective law of morality, and esteeming it highly in reference to humanity, but we must consider the conception of it in relation to man as an individual, and then this law appears in a form indeed that is highly deserving of respect, but not so pleasant as if it belonged to the element to which he is naturally accustomed, but on the contrary as often compelling him to quit this element, not without self-denial, and to betake himself to a higher, in which he can only maintain himself with trouble and with unceasing apprehension of a relapse. In a word, the moral law demands (308) obedience, from duty not from predilection, which cannot and ought not to be pre-supposed at all.

  Let us now see in an example whether the conception of an action as a noble and magnanimous one, has more subjective moving power than if the action is conceived merely as duty in relation to the solemn law of morality. The action by which a man endeavours at the greatest peril of life to rescue people from shipwreck, at last losing his life in the attempt, is reckoned on one side as duty, but on the other and for the most part as a meritorious action, but our esteem for it is much weakened by the notion of duty to himself, which seems in this case to be somewhat infringed. More decisive is the magnanimous sacrifice of life for the safety of one’s country; and yet there still remains some scruple whether it is a perfect duty to devote one’s self to this purpose spontaneously and unbidden, and the action has not in itself the full force of a pattern and impulse to imitation. But if an indispensable duty be in question, the transgression of which violates the moral law itself, and without regard to the welfare of mankind, and as it were tramples on its holiness (such as are usually called duties to God, because in Him we conceive the ideal of holiness in substance), then we give our most perfect esteem to the pursuit of it at the sacrifice of all that can have any value for the dearest inclinations, and we find our soul strengthened and elevated by such an example, when we convince ourselves by contemplation of it that human nature is capable of so great an elevation above every motive that nature can oppose to it. Juvenal describes such an example in a climax which makes the reader feel vividly the force of the spring that is contained in the pure law of duty, as duty:

  • (309) Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem
  • Integer; ambiguae si quando citabere testis
  • Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis
  • Falsus, et admoto dictet periuria tauro,
  • Summum crede nefas animam præferre pudori,
  • Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

  When we can bring any flattering thought of merit into our action, then the motive is already somewhat alloyed with self-love, and has therefore some assistance from the side of the sensibility. But to postpone everything to the holiness of duty alone, and to be conscious that we can because our own reason recognises this as its command and says that we ought to do it, this is, as it were, to raise ourselves altogether above the world of sense, and there is inseparably involved in the same a consciousness of the law, as a spring of a faculty that controls the sensibility; and although this is not always attended with effect, yet frequent engagement with this spring, and the at first minor attempts at using it, give hope that this effect may be wrought, and that by degrees the greatest, and that a purely moral interest in it may be produced in us.

  The method then takes the following course. At first we are only concerned to make the judging of actions by moral laws a natural employment accompanying all our own free actions, as well as the observation of those of others, and to make it, as it were, a habit, and to sharpen this judgment, asking first whether the action conforms objectively to the moral law, and to what law; and we distinguish the law that merely furnishes a principle of obligation from that which is really obligatory (leges obligandi a legibus obligantibus); as for instance the law of what men’s wants require from me, as contrasted with that which their rights demand, the latter of which prescribes (310) essential, the former only non-essential duties; and thus we teach how to distinguish different kinds of duties which meet in the same action. The other point to which attention must be directed is the question whether the action was also (subjectively) done for the sake of the moral law, so that it not only is morally correct as a deed, but also by the maxim from which it is done has moral worth as a disposition. Now there is no doubt that this practice, and the resulting culture of our reason in judging merely of the practical, must gradually produce a certain interest even in the law of reason, and consequently in morally good actions. For we ultimately take a liking for a thing, the contemplation of which makes us feel that the use of our cognitive faculties is extended, and this extension is especially furthered by that in which we find moral correctness, since it is only in such an order of things that reason, with its faculty of determining à priori on principle what ought to be done, can find satisfaction. An observer of nature takes liking at last to objects that at first offended his senses, when he discovers in them the great adaptation of their organization to design, so that his reason finds food in its contemplation. So Leibnitz spared an insect that he had carefully examined with the microscope, and replaced it on its leaf, because he had found himself instructed by the view of it, and had as it were received a benefit from it.

  But this employment of the faculty of judgment, which makes us feel our own cognitive powers, is not yet the interest in actions and in their morality itself. It merely causes us to take pleasure in engaging in such criticism, and it gives to virtue or the disposition that conforms to moral laws a form of beauty, which is admired, but not on that account sought after (laudatur et alget); as everything the contemplation of which produces a consciousness of the harmony (311) of our powers of conception, and in which we feel the whole of our faculty of knowledge (understanding and imagination) strengthened, produces a satisfaction, which may also be communicated to others, while nevertheless the existence of the object remains indifferent to us, being only regarded as the occasion of our becoming aware of the capacities in us which are elevated above mere animal nature. Now, however, the second exercise comes in, the living exhibition of morality of character by examples, in which attention is directed to purity of will, first only as a negative perfection, in so far as in an action done from duty no motives of inclination have any influence in determining it. By this the pupil’s attention is fixed upon the consciousness of his freedom, and although this renunciation at first excites a feeling of pain, nevertheless, by its withdrawing the pupil from the constraint of even real wants, there is proclaimed to him at the same time a deliverance from the manifold dissatisfaction in which all these wants entangle him, and the mind is made capable of receiving the sensation of satisfaction from other sources. The heart is freed and lightened of a burden that always secretly presses on it, when instances of pure moral resolutions reveal to the man an inner faculty of which otherwise he has no right knowledge, the inward freedom to release himself from the boisterous importunity of inclinations, to such a degree that none of them, not even the dearest, shall have any influence on a resolution, for which we are now to employ our reason. Suppose a case where I alone know that the wrong is on my side, and although a free confession of it and the offer of satisfaction are so strongly opposed by vanity, selfishness, and even an otherwise not illegitimate antipathy to the man whose rights are impaired by me, I am nevertheless able to discard all these considerations (312); in this there is implied a consciousness of independence on inclinations and circumstances, and of the possibility of being sufficient for myself, which is salutary to me in general for other purposes also. And now the law of duty, in consequence of the positive worth which obedience to it makes us feel, finds easier access through the respect for ourselves in the consciousness of our freedom. When this is well established, when a man dreads nothing more than to find himself, on self-examination, worthless and contemptible in his own eyes, then every good moral disposition can be grafted on it, because this is the best, nay, the only guard that can keep off from the mind the pressure of ignoble and corrupting motives.

  I have only intended to point out the most general maxims of the methodology of moral cultivation and exercise. As the manifold variety of duties requires special rules for each kind, and this would be a prolix affair, I shall be readily excused if in a work like this, which is only preliminary, I content myself with these outlines.

  conclusion.

  Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence. The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges (313) my connexion therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connexion, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the planet it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent on animality and even on the whole sensible world—at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into the infinite.

  But though admiration and respect may excite to inquiry, they cannot supply the want of it. What, then, is to be done in order to enter on this in a useful manner and one adapted to the loftiness of the subject? Examples may serve in this as a warning, and also for imitation. The contemplation of the world began from the noblest spectacle that the human senses present to us, and that our understanding can bear to follow in their vast reach; and it ended—in astrology. Morality began with the noblest attribute of human nature, the development and cultivation of which give a prospect of infinite utility; and ended—in fanaticism or superstition (314). So it is with all crude attempts where the principal part of the business depends on the use of reason, a use which does not come of itself, like the use of the feet, by frequent exercise, especially when attributes are in question which cannot be directly exhibited in common experience. But after the maxim had come into vogue, though late, to examine carefully beforehand all the steps that reason purposes to take, and not to let it proceed otherwise than in the track of a previously well-considered method, then the study of the structure of the universe took quite a different direction, and thereby attained an incomparably happier result. The fall of a stone, the motion of a sling, resolved into their elements and the forces that are manifested in them, and treated mathematically, produced at last that clear and henceforward unchangeable insight into the system of the world, which as observation is continued may hope always to extend itself, but need never fear to be compelled to retreat.

  This example may suggest to us to enter on the same path in treating of the moral capacities of our nature, and may give us hope of a like good result. We have at hand the instances of the moral judgment of reason. By analysing these into their elementary conceptions, and in default of mathematics adopting a process similar to that of chemistry, the separation of the empirical from the rational elements that may be found in them, by repeated experiments on common sense, we may exhibit both pure, and learn with certainty what each part can accomplish of itself, so as to prevent on the one hand the errors of a still crude untrained judgment, and on the other hand (what is far more necessary) the extravagances of genius, by which, as by the adepts of the philosopher’s stone, without any methodical study or knowledge of nature, visionary treasures are promised (315) and the true are thrown away. In one word, science (critically undertaken and methodically directed) is the narrow gate that leads to the true doctrine of practical wisdom,1 if we understand by this not merely what one ought to do, but what ought to serve teachers as a guide to construct well and clearly the road to wisdom which everyone should travel, and to secure others from going astray. Philosophy must always continue to be the guardian of this science; and although the public does not take any interest in its subtle investigations, it must take an interest in the resulting doctrines, which such an examination first puts in a clear light.

  INTRODUCTION to THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS; and PREFACE to the METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS.

  INTRODUCTION to THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS.

  I.

  of the relation of the faculties of the human mind to the moral laws.

  THE appetitive faculty is the faculty of being by means of one’s ideas the cause of the objects of these ideas. 1 The faculty which a being has of acting according to its ideas is Life. Firstly—Desire or aversion has always connected with it pleasure or displeasure, the susceptibility to which is called feeling. But the converse does not always hold; for a pleasure may exist which is not connected with any desire of the object, but with the mere idea which one frames to one’s self of an object, no matter whether its object exists or not. Secondly—The pleasure or displeasure in the object of the desire does not always precede the desire, and cannot always be regarded as its cause, but must sometimes be looked on as the effect thereof.

  Now, the capability of having pleasure or displeasure in an idea is called feeling, because both contain what is merely subjective in relation to our idea (10), and have no relation to an object so as to contribute to the possible cognition of it 1 (not even the cognition of our own state); whereas in other cases sensations, apart from the quality which belongs to them in consequence of the nature of the subject (ex. gr. red, sweet, etc.), may yet have relation to an object, and constitute part of our knowledge; but pleasure or displeasure (in the red or sweet) expresses absolutely nothing in the object, but simply a relation to the subject. Pleasure and displeasure cannot be more closely defined, for the reason just given. We can only specify what consequences they have in certain circumstances so as to make them cognizable in practice. The pleasure which is necessarily connected with the desire of the object whose idea affects feeling may be called practical pleasure, whether it is cause or effect of the desire. On the contrary, the pleasure which is not necessarily connected with the desire of the object, and which, therefore, is at bottom not a pleasure in the existence of the object of the idea, but clings to the idea only, may be called mere contemplative pleasure or passive satisfaction (11). The feeling of the latter kind of pleasure we call taste. Accordingly, in a practical philosophy we can treat this only episodically, not as a notion properly belonging to that philosophy. But as regards the practical pleasure, the determination of the appetitive faculty which is caused, and therefore necessarily preceded by this pleasure, is called appetite in the strict sense, and habitual appetite is called inclination. The connexion of pleasure with the appetitive faculty, in so far as this connexion is judged by the understanding to hold good by a general rule (though only for the subject), is called interest, and hence in this case the practical pleasure is an interest of inclination. On the other hand, if the pleasure can only follow an antecedent determination of the appetitive faculty, it is an intellectual pleasure, and the interest in the object must be called an interest of reason. For if the interest were one of sense, and not merely founded on pure principles of reason, sensation must be joined with pleasure, and thus be able to determine the appetitive faculty. Although where a merely pure interest of reason must be assumed, no interest of inclination can be substituted for it, yet in order to accommodate ourselves to common speech, we may admit an inclination even to that which can only be the object of an intellectual pleasure—that is to say, a habitual desire from a pure interest of reason. This, however, would not be the cause but the effect of the latter interest, and we might call it the sense-free inclination (propensio intellectualis). Further, concupiscence is to be distinguished from the desire itself as being the stimulus to its determination. It is always a sensible state of mind, but one which has not yet arrived at an act of the appetitive faculty.

  The appetitive faculty which depends on concepts, in so far as the ground of its determination to action is found in itself (12), not in the object, is called a faculty of doing or forbearing as we please. In so far as it is combined with the consciousness of the power of its action to produce its object, it is called “elective will” [Willkühr = arbitrium]; if not so combined, its act is called a wish.1 The appetitive faculty, whose inner determining principle, and, consequently, even its “good pleasure” (Belieben), is found in the reason of the subject, is called the Rational Will [Wille]. Accordingly the Rational Will is the appetitive faculty, not (like the elective will) in relation to the action, but rather in relation to what determines the elective will [Willkühr] to the action; and it has properly itself no determining ground; but in so far as it can determine the elective will, it is practical reason itself.

  Under the will may be included the elective will [Willkühr], and even mere wish, inasmuch as reason can determine the appetitive faculty; and the elective will, which can be determined by pure reason, is called free elective will. That which is determinable only by inclination would be animal elective will (arbitrium brutum). Human elective will, on the contrary, is one which is affected but not determined by impulses. It is accordingly in itself (apart from acquired practice of reason) not pure; but it can be determined to actions by the pure will. Freedom of the elective will is just that independence of its determination on sensible impulses: this is the negative concept of it. The positive is: the power of pure reason to be of itself practical. Now this is possible only by the subordination of the maxim of every action to the condition of fitness for universal law. For being pure reason it is directed to the elective will, irrespective of the object of this will. Now it is the faculty of principles (in this case practical principles, so that it is a legislative faculty) (13); and since it is not provided with the matter of the law, there is nothing which it can make the supreme law and determining ground of the elective will except the form, consisting in the fitness of the maxim of the elective will to be a universal law. And since from subjective causes the maxims of men do not of themselves coincide with those objective maxims, it can only prescribe this law as an imperative of command or prohibition.

  These laws of freedom are called, in contradistinction to physical laws, moral laws. In so far as they are directed to mere external actions and their lawfulness, they are called judicial; but when they demand that these laws themselves shall be the determining ground of the actions, they are ethical, and in this case we say—the agreement with the former constitutes the legality, agreement with the latter the morality of the action. The freedom to which the former laws relate can only be freedom in its external exercise; but the freedom to which the latter refer is freedom both in the internal and external exercise of the elective will in as far, namely, as this elective will is determined by laws of reason. Similarly, in theoretic philosophy we say, that only the objects of the outer senses are in space, while the objects both of the external and of the internal sense are in time; because the ideas of both are still ideas, and for this reason all belong to the inner sense. Just so, whether we regard freedom in the external or the internal exercise of the elective will, in either case its laws, being pure practical laws of reason governing free elective will generally, must be also its internal grounds of determination; although they need not always be considered in this point of view.

  II.

  of the conception and the necessity of a metaphysic of ethics.

  (14) It has been shown elsewhere that for physical science which has to do with the objects of the external senses we must have à priori principles; and that it is possible—nay, even necessary—to prefix a system of these principles under the name of metaphysical principles of natural philosophy to physics, which is natural philosophy applied to special phenomena of experience. The latter, however (at least when the question is to guard its propositions from error), may assume many principles as universal on the testimony of experience, although the former, if it is to be in the strict sense universal, must be deduced from à priori grounds; just as Newton adopted the principle of the equality of action and reaction as based on experience, and yet extended it to all material nature. The chemists go still further, and base their most universal laws of combination and dissociation of substances by their own forces entirely on experience, and yet they have such confidence in their universality and necessity that, in the experiments they make with them, they have no apprehension of error.

  It is otherwise with the moral laws. These are valid as laws only so far as they have an à priori basis and can be seen to be necessary; nay, the concepts and judgments about ourselves and our actions and omissions have no moral significance at all, if they contain only what can be learned from experience; and should one be so misled as to make into a moral principle anything derived from this source, he would be in danger of the grossest and most pernicious errors.

  If the science of morals were nothing but the science of happiness, it would be unsuitable to look out for à priori principles on which to rest it. For however plausible it may sound to say that reason could discern, even before experience, by what means one might attain a lasting enjoyment of the true pleasures of life, yet everything which is taught on this subject à priori is either tautological or assumed without any foundation. It is experience alone that can teach us what gives us pleasure (15). The natural impulses to nutrition, to the propagation of the species, the desire of rest, of motion, and (in the development of our natural capacities) the desire of honour, of knowledge, &c., can alone teach, and moreover teach each individual in his own special way, in what to place those pleasures; and it is these also that can teach him the means by which he must seek them. All plausible à priori reasoning is here at bottom nothing but experience raised to generality by induction: a generality, too, so meagre that everyone must be allowed many exceptions, in order to make the choice of his mode of life suitable to his special inclination and his susceptibility for pleasure; so that after all he must become wise only by his own or others’ loss. It is not so with the doctrines of morality. They are imperative for everyone without regard to his inclinations, solely because and so far as he is free, and has practical reason. Instruction in its laws is not drawn from observation of himself and his animal part; not from perception of the course of the world, from that which happens and from the way in which men act (although the German word “sitten,” like the Latin mores, signifies only manners and mode of life); but reason commands how men should act, even although no instance of such action could be found; moreover, it pays no regard to the advantage which we may hereby attain, which certainly can only be learned by experience. For although it allows us to seek our advantage in every way that we can; and in addition, pointing to the testimony of experience, can promise us, probably and on the whole, greater advantages from following its commands than from transgression of them, especially if obedience is accompanied by prudence, yet the authority of its precepts as commands does not rest on this (16). Reason uses such facts only (by way of counsel) as a counterpoise to the temptations to the opposite, in order, first of all, to compensate the error of an unfair balance, so that it may then assure a due preponderance to the à priori grounds of a pure practical reason.

  If, therefore, we give the name Metaphysic to a system of à priori knowledge derived from mere concepts, then a practical philosophy, which has for its object not nature but freedom of choice, will presuppose and require a metaphysic of morals: that is, to have it is itself a duty, and, moreover, every man has it in himself, though commonly only in an obscure way; for without à priori principles how could he believe that he has in him a universal law-giving? Moreover, just as in the metaphysic of natural philosophy there must be principles touching the application to objects of experience of those supreme universal laws of a physical system generally: so also a metaphysic of morals cannot dispense with similar principles; and we shall often have to take the special nature of man, which can only be known by experience, as our object, in order to exhibit in it the consequences of the universal moral principles; but this will not detract from the purity of the latter nor cast any doubt on their à priori origin—that is to say, a Metaphysic of Morals cannot be founded on anthropology, but may be applied to it.

  The counterpart of a metaphysic of morals, namely, the second subdivision of practical philosophy generally, would be moral anthropology, which would contain the subjective conditions favourable and unfavourable to carrying out the laws of the power in human nature. It would treat of the production, the propagation, and strengthening of moral principles (in education, school and popular instruction) (17), and other like doctrines and precepts based on experience, which cannot be dispensed with, but which must not come before the metaphysic, nor be mixed with it. For to do so would be to run the risk of eliciting false, or at least indulgent moral laws, which would represent that as unattainable which has only not been attained because the law has not been discerned and proclaimed in its purity (the very thing in which its strength consists); or else because men make use of spurious or mixed motives to what is itself good and dutiful, and these allow no certain moral principles to remain; but this anthropology is not to be used as a standard of judgment, nor as a discipline of the mind in its obedience to duty; for the precept of duty must be given solely by pure reason à priori.

  Now with respect to the division to which that just mentioned is subordinate, namely, the division of philosophy into theoretical and practical, I have explained myself sufficiently elsewhere (in the Critical Examination of the Faculty of Judgment), 1 and have shown that the latter branch can be nothing else than moral philosophy. Everything practical which concerns what is possible according to physical laws (the proper business of Art) depends for its precept on the theory of physical nature; that only which is practical in accordance with laws of freedom can have principles that do not depend on any theory; for there can be no theory of that which transcends the properties of physical nature. Hence by the practical part of philosophy (co-ordinate with its theoretical part) we are to understand not any technical doctrine, but a morally practical doctrine; and if the habit of choice, according to laws of freedom, in contrast to physical laws, is here also to be called art, we must understand thereby such an art as would make a system of freedom like a system of nature possible; truly a divine art, were we in a condition to fulfil by means of reason the precepts of reason, and to carry its Ideal into actuality.

  III.

  of the subdivision of a metaphysic of morals.1

  All legislation (whether it prescribes internal or external actions, and these either à priori by pure reason or by the will of another) involves two things: first, a law, which objectively presents the action that is to be done as necessary, i. e. makes it a duty; secondly, a spring, which subjectively connects with the idea of the law the motive determining the elective will to this action; hence, the second element is this, that the law makes duty the spring. By the former the action is presented as duty, and this is a mere theoretical knowledge of the possible determination of the elective will, i. e. of practical rules; by the latter, the obligation so to act is connected with a motive which determines the elective will generally in the agent.

  Accordingly, all legislation may be divided into two classes in respect of the springs employed (and this whether the actions prescribed are the same or not: as, for instance, the actions might be in all cases external) (19). That legislation which at once makes an action a duty, and makes this duty the spring, is ethical. That which does not include the latter in the law, and therefore admits a spring different from the idea of duty itself, is juridical. As regards the latter, it is easily seen that this spring, which is distinct from the idea of duty, must be derived from the pathological motives of choice, namely, the inclinations and aversions, and amongst these from the latter, since it is a legislation, which must be constraining, not an invitation, which is persuasive.

  The mere agreement or disagreement of an action with the law, without regard to the motive from which the action springs, is called legality; but when the idea of duty arising from the law is also the motive of the action, the agreement is called the morality of the action.

  Duties arising from forensic legislation can only be external duties, because this legislation does not require that the idea of this duty, which is internal, shall be of itself the motive of the elective will of the agent; and as it, nevertheless, requires a suitable spring, it can only connect external springs with the law. On the other hand, ethical legislation, while it makes internal actions duties, does not exclude external actions, but applies generally to everything that is duty. But just because ethical legislation includes in its law the inner spring of the action (the idea of duty), a property which cannot belong to the external legislation; hence ethical legislation cannot be external (not even that of a divine will), although it may adopt duties which rest on external legislation, and take them regarded as duties into its own legislation as springs of action.

  (20) From hence we may see that all duties belong to Ethics, simply because they are duties; but it does not follow that their legislation is always included in Ethics: in the case of many duties it is quite outside Ethics. Thus Ethics requires that I should fulfil my pledged word, even though the other party could not compel me to do so; but the law (pacta sunt servanda) and the corresponding duty are taken by Ethics from jurisprudence. Accordingly, it is not in Ethics but in Jus that the legislation is contained which enjoins that promises be kept. Ethics teaches only that even if the spring were absent which is connected by forensic legislation with that duty, namely, external compulsion, yet the idea of duty would alone be sufficient as a spring. For if this were not so, and if the legislation itself were not forensic, and the duty arising from it not properly a legal duty (in contrast to a moral duty), then faithfulness to one’s engagements would be put in the same class as actions of benevolence and the obligation to them, which cannot be admitted. It is not an ethical duty to keep one’s promise, but a legal duty, one that we can be compelled to perform. Nevertheless, it is a virtuous action (a proof of virtue) to do so, even where no compulsion is to be apprehended. Law and morals, therefore, are distinguished not so much by the diversity of their duties, but rather by the diversity of the legislation which connects this or that motive with the law.

  Ethical legislation is that which cannot be external (although the duties may be external); forensic legislation is that which can be external. Thus to keep one’s contract is an external duty; but the command (21) to do this merely because it is a duty, without regard to any other motive, belongs only to the internal legislation. Accordingly, the obligation is reckoned as belonging to Ethics, not as being a special kind of duty (a special kind of actions to which one is bound)—for in Ethics as well as in law we have external duties—but because in the supposed case the legislation is an internal one, and can have no external lawgiver. For the same reason duties of benevolence, although they are external duties (obligations to external actions), are yet reckoned as belonging to Ethics because the legislation imposing them can only be internal. No doubt Ethics has also duties peculiar to itself (ex. gr. duties to ourselves), but it also has duties in common with law, only the kind of obligation is different. For it is the peculiarity of ethical legislation to perform actions solely because they are duties, and to make the principle of duty itself the adequate spring of the will, no matter whence the duty may be derived. Hence, while there are many directly ethical duties, the internal legislation makes all others indirectly ethical.

  IV.

  preliminary notions belonging to the metaphysic of morals.
  (Philosophia practica universalis.)

  The concept of Freedom is a pure concept of the reason, and on this account it is as regards theoretical philosophy transcendent, that is, a concept for which there is no corresponding example in any possible experience, which therefore forms no object of any theoretic knowledge possible to us, and is valid not as a constitutive, but simply as a regulative principle of pure speculative reason, and that a negative one; but in the practical exercise of reason it proves its reality by practical principles (22), which, being laws of a causality of pure reason, determine the elective will independently on all empirical conditions (sensible conditions generally), and prove the existence of a pure will in us in which the moral concepts and laws have their origin.

  On this concept of freedom, which (in a practical aspect) is positive, are founded unconditional practical laws which are called moral, and these, in respect of us, whose elective will is sensibly affected, and therefore does not of itself correspond with the pure will, but often opposes it, are imperatives (commands or prohibitions), and, moreover, are categorical (unconditional) imperatives, by which they are distinguished from technical imperatives (precepts of art), which always give only conditional commands. By these imperatives certain actions are permitted or not permitted, that is, are morally possible or impossible; some, however, or their opposites, are morally necessary, that is, obligatory. Hence arises the notion of a duty, the obeying or transgressing of which is, indeed, connected with a pleasure or displeasure of a peculiar kind (that of a moral feeling), of which, however, we can take no account in the practical laws of reason, since they do not concern the foundation of the practical laws, but only the subjective effect in the mind when our elective will is determined by these; and they may be very different in different persons without adding to or taking from the validity or influence of these laws objectively, that is, in the judgment of the reason.

  The following notions are common to both parts of the Metaphysic of Morals:—

  Obligation is the necessity of a free action under a categorical imperative of reason. The Imperative is a practical rule by which an action in itself contingent is made necessary; it is distinguished from a practical law by this (23), that while the latter exhibits the necessity of the action, it takes no account of the consideration whether this already inheres by an internal necessity in the agent (say, a holy being), or whether, as in man, it is contingent; for where the former is the case there is no imperative. Accordingly, the imperative is a rule, the conception of which makes necessary an action that is subjectively contingent, and hence represents the subject as one who must be constrained (necessitated) to agreement with this rule. The categorical (unconditional) imperative is one that does not command indirectly through the idea of an end that can be attained by the action, but immediately, through the mere conception of this action itself (its form), thinks it as objectively necessary and makes it necessary.

  No example of an imperative of this kind can be supplied by any other practical doctrine but that which prescribes obligation (the doctrine of morals). All other imperatives are technical and conditioned. The ground of the possibility of categorical imperatives lies in this, that they refer to no other property of the elective will (by which any purpose could be ascribed to it), but only to its freedom. An action is allowed (licitum) which is not contrary to obligation; and this freedom which is not limited by any opposed imperative is called right of action (facultas moralis) [Befugniss]. Hence it is obvious what is meant by disallowed (illicitum).

  Duty is the action to which a person is bound. It is therefore the matter of obligation, and it may be one and the same duty (as to the action), although the obligation to it may be of different kinds.

  The categorical imperative, since it expresses an obligation in respect of certain actions, is a moral practical law. But since obligation contains not only practical necessity (24) (which law in general expresses), but also constraint, the imperative mentioned is either a law of command or of prohibition, according as the performance or omission is represented as duty. An action which is neither commanded nor forbidden is merely allowed, because in respect of it there is no law limiting freedom (right of action), and therefore also no duty. Such an action is called morally indifferent (indifferens, adiaphoron, res meræ facultatis). It may be asked: are there any such, and if there are, then in order that one may be free to do or forbear a thing as he pleases, must there be, besides the law of command (lex præceptiva, lex mandati) and the law of prohibition (lex prohibitiva, lex vetiti), also a law of permission (lex permissiva)? If this is the case, then the right of action would not be concerned with an indifferent action (adiaphoron); for if such an action is considered according to moral laws, it could not require any special law.

  An action is called a deed, in so far as it comes under laws of obligation, and, consequently, in so far as the subject is regarded in it according to the freedom of his elective will, the agent is regarded as by such an act the author of the effect, and this, along with the action itself, may be imputed to him if he is previously acquainted with the law by virtue of which an obligation rests on him.

  A Person is the subject whose actions are capable of imputation. Hence moral personality is nothing but the freedom of a rational being under moral laws (whereas psychological personality is merely the power of being conscious to oneself of the identity of one’s existence in different circumstances). Hence it follows that a person is subject to no other laws than those which he (either alone or jointly with others) gives to himself.

  (25) That which is not capable of any imputation is called a Thing. Every object of free elective will which is not itself possessed of freedom is, therefore, called a thing (res corporalis).

  A deed is Right or Wrong in general (rectum aut minus rectum), according as it is consistent or inconsistent with duty (factum licitum aut illicitum), no matter what the content or the origin of the duty may be. A deed inconsistent with duty is called transgression (reatus).

  An unintentional transgression, which, however, may be imputed, is called mere fault (culpa). An intentional transgression (that is, one which is accompanied by the consciousness that it is transgression) is called crime (dolus). That which is right according to external laws is called just (justum); what is not so is unjust (injustum).

  A conflict of duties (collisio officiorum seu obligationum) would be such a relation between them that one would wholly or partially abolish the other. Now as duty and obligation are notions which express the objective practical necessity of certain actions, and as two opposite rules cannot be necessary at the same time, but if it is a duty to act according to one of them, it is then not only not a duty but inconsistent with duty to act according to the other; it follows that a conflict of duties and obligations is inconceivable (obligationes non colliduntur). It may, however, very well happen, that in the same subject and the rule which he prescribes to himself there are conjoined two grounds of obligation (rationes obligandi), of which, however, one or the other is inadequate to oblige (rationes obligandi non obligantes), and then one of them is not a duty. When two such grounds are in conflict, practical philosophy does not say that the stronger obligation prevails (fortior obligatio vincit), but the stronger ground of obligation prevails (fortior obligandi ratio vincit).

  (26) Binding laws, for which an external lawgiving is possible, are called in general external laws (leges externæ). Amongst these the laws, the obligation to which can be recognized by reason à priori even without external legislation, are natural though external laws; those on the contrary which, without actual external legislation, would not bind at all (and, therefore, would not be laws), are called positive laws. It is possible, therefore, to conceive an external legislation which would only contain [positive] 1 laws; but then a natural law must precede, which should supply the ground of the authority of the lawgiver (that is, his right to bind others by his mere will).

  The principle which makes certain actions a duty is a practical law. The rule which the agent adopts from subjective grounds as his principle is called his Maxim; hence with the same laws the maxims of the agents may be very different.

  The categorical imperative, which only expresses in general what obligation is, is this: Act according to a maxim which can at the same time hold good as a universal law. You must, therefore, examine your actions in the first place as to their subjective principle; but whether this principle is also objectively valid can only be recognized by this, that when your reason puts it to the test of conceiving yourself as giving therein a universal law, it is found to be adapted to this universal legislation.

  The simplicity of this law, compared with the great and manifold requirements which can be drawn from it, must at first appear surprising, as must also the authoritative dignity it presents, without carrying with it perceptibly any motive.

  (27) But when, in this astonishment at the power of our reason to determine choice by the mere idea of the fitness of a maxim for the universality of a practical law, we learn that it is just these practical (moral) laws that first make known a property of the will which speculative reason could never have arrived at, either from à priori grounds or from experience—and if it did arrive at it could by no means prove its possibility, whereas those practical laws incontestably prove this property, namely, freedom—then we shall be less surprised to find these laws, like mathematical axioms, undemonstrable and yet apodictic, and at the same time to see a whole field of practical cognitions opened before us, in which reason in its theoretic exercise, with the same idea of freedom, nay, with any other of its supersensible ideas, must find everything absolutely closed to it. The agreement of an action with the law of duty is its legality (legalitas); that of the maxim with the law is its morality (moralitas). Maxim is the subjective principle of action, which the subject makes a rule to itself (namely, how he chooses to act). On the contrary, the principle of duty is that which Reason commands him absolutely and therefore objectively (how he ought to act). The supreme principle of the order is therefore: Act on a maxim which can also hold good as a universal law. Every maxim which is not capable of being so is contrary to morality.

  Laws proceed from the Rational Will; maxims from the elective will. The latter is in man a free elective will. The Rational Will, which is directed to nothing but the law only, cannot be called either free or unfree, because it is not directed to actions, but immediately to the legislation for the maxims of actions (and is therefore practical reason itself). Consequently it is absolutely necessary, and is even incapable of constraint. (28) It is therefore only the elective will that can be called free.

  Freedom of elective will, however, cannot be defined as the power of choosing to act for or against the law (libertas indifferentiæ) as some have attempted to define it; although the elective will as a phenomenon gives many examples of this in experience. For freedom (as it becomes known to us first through the moral law) is known to us only as a negative property in us, namely, the property of not being constrained to action by any sensible motives. Considered as a noumenon, however, that is, as to the faculty of man merely as an intelligence, we are quite unable to explain theoretically how it has a constraining power in respect of the sensible elective will—that is, we cannot explain it in its positive character. Only this we can very readily understand: that although experience tells us that man as an object in the sensible world shows a power of choosing not only according to the law but also in opposition to it, nevertheless his freedom as a being in the intelligible world cannot be thus defined, since phenomena can never enable us to comprehend any supersensible object (such as free elective will is). We can see also that freedom can never be placed in this, that the rational subject is able to choose in opposition to his (legislative) reason, even though experience proves often enough that this does happen (a thing, however, the possibility of which we cannot comprehend). For it is one thing to admit a fact (of experience); it is another to make it the principle of a definition (in the present case, of the concept of free elective will) and the universal criterion between this and arbitrium brutum seu servum; since in the former case we do not assert that the mark necessarily belongs to the concept, which we must do in the latter case. Freedom in relation to the inner legislation of the reason is alone properly a power; the possibility of deviating from this is an impotence. How then can the former be defined from the latter? (29) A definition which over and above the practical concept adds the exercise of it as learned from experience is a bastard definition (definitio hybrida) which puts the notion in a false light.

  A Law (a moral practical law) is a proposition which contains a categorical imperative (a command). He who gives commands by a law (imperans) is the lawgiver (legislator). He is the author (auctor) of the obligation imposed by the law, but not always author of the law. If he were so, the law would be positive (contingent) and arbitrary. The law which binds us à priori and unconditionally by our own reason may also be expressed as proceeding from the will of a Supreme Lawgiver, that is of one who has only rights and no duties (namely, from the Divine Will). But this only involves the idea of a moral being whose will is law for all, without his being conceived as the author of it.

  Imputation (imputatio) in the moral sense is the judgment by which any one is regarded as the author (causa libera) of an action, which is then called a deed (factum), and to which laws are applicable; and if this judgment brings with it the legal consequences of this deed it is a judicial imputation (imputatio judiciaria s. valida), otherwise it is only discriminating imputation (imputatio dijudicatoria). The person (whether physical or moral (who has right to exercise judicial imputation is called the judge or the court (judex s. forum).

  What anyone does in accordance with duty beyond what he can be compelled to by the law is meritorious (meritum); what he does only just in accordance with the law is duty owed (debitum); lastly, what he does less than the law demands is moral demerit (demeritum). The legal effect of demerit is punishment (pæna); that of a meritorious act, reward (præmium) (30), provided that this, promised in the law, was the motive). Conduct which agrees with duty owed has no legal effect. Fair recompense (remuneratio s. repensio benefica) stands in no legal relation to the deed.

  The good or bad consequences of an obligatory action, or the consequences of omitting a meritorious action, cannot be imputed to the agent (modus imputationis tollens).

  The good consequences of a meritorious action, and the bad consequences of an unlawful action, can be imputed (modus imputationis ponens).

  Subjectively considered, the degree of imputability (imputabilitas) of actions must be estimated by the greatness of the hindrances which have to be overcome. The greater the natural hindrances (of sensibility) and the less the moral hindrance (of duty), the higher the imputation of merit in a good deed. For example, if at a considerable sacrifice I rescue from great necessity one who is a complete stranger to myself.

  On the other hand, the less the natural hindrance, and the greater the hindrance from reasons of duty, so much the more is transgression imputed (as ill desert). Hence the state of mind of the agent, whether he acted in the excitement of passion or with cool deliberation, makes an important difference in imputation.

  PREFACE to the METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS.

  IF there exists on any subject a philosophy (that is, a system of rational knowledge based on concepts), then there must also be for this philosophy a system of pure rational concepts, independent on any condition of intuition—in other words, a Metaphysic. It may be asked whether metaphysical elements are required also for every practical philosophy, which is the doctrine of duties [deontology], and therefore also for Ethics, in order to be able to present it as a true science (systematically), not merely as an aggregate of separate doctrines (fragmentarily). As regards pure jurisprudence no one will question this requirement; for it concerns only what is formal in the elective will, which has to be limited in its external relations according to laws of freedom; without regarding any end which is the matter of this will. Here, therefore, deontology is a mere scientific doctrine (doctrina scientiæ). 1

  (218) Now in this philosophy (of Ethics) it seems contrary to the idea of it that we should go back to metaphysical elements in order to make the notion of duty purified from everything empirical (from every feeling) a motive of action. For what sort of notion can we form of the mighty power and herculean strength which would be sufficient to overcome the vice-breeding inclinations, if Virtue is to borrow her “arms from the armoury of metaphysics,” which is a matter of speculation that only few men can handle. Hence all ethical teaching in lecture-rooms, pulpits, and popular books, when it is decked out with fragments of metaphysics, becomes ridiculous. But it is not, therefore, useless, much less ridiculous, to trace in metaphysics the first principles of Ethics; for it is only as a philosopher than any one can reach the first principles of this conception of duty, otherwise we could not look for either certainty or purity in the ethical teaching. To rely for this reason on a certain feeling [or sense], which on account of the effect expected from it is called moral, may, perhaps, even satisfy the popular teacher, provided he desires as the criterion of a moral duty to consider the problem: “if everyone in every case made your maxim the universal law, how could this law be consistent with itself?” (219) But if it were merely feeling that made it our duty to take this principle as a criterion, then this would not be dictated by reason, but only adopted instinctively, and therefore blindly.

  But in fact, whatever men imagine, no moral principle is based on any feeling, but such a principle is really nothing else than an obscurely conceived metaphysic which inheres in every man’s reasoning faculty; as the teacher will easily find who tries to catechize his pupil in the Socratic method about the imperative of duty and its application to the moral judgment of his actions. The mode of stating it need not be always metaphysical, and the language need not necessarily be scholastic, unless the pupil is to be trained to be a philosopher. But the thought must go back to the elements of metaphysics, without which we cannot expect any certainty or purity, or even motive power in Ethics.

  If we deviate from this principle and begin from pathological, or purely sensitive, or even moral feeling (from what is subjectively practical instead of what is objective), that is, from the matter of the will, the End, not from its form, that is the law, in order from thence to determine duties; then, certainly, there are no metaphysical elements of Ethics, for feeling by whatever it may be excited is always physical. But then ethical teaching, whether in schools, or lecture-rooms, &c., is corrupted in its source. For it is not a matter of indifference by what motives or means one is led to a good purpose (the obedience to duty). However disgusting, then, metaphysics may appear to those pretended philosophers who dogmatize oracularly, or even brilliantly, about the doctrine of duty, it is, nevertheless, an indispensable duty for those who oppose it to go back to its principles, even in Ethics, and to begin by going to school on its benches.

  (220) We may fairly wonder how, after all previous explanations of the principles of duty, so far as it is derived from pure reason, it was still possible to reduce it again to a doctrine of Happiness—in such a way, however, that a certain moral happiness not resting on empirical causes was ultimately arrived at, a self-contradictory nonentity. In fact, when the thinking man has conquered the temptations to vice, and is conscious of having done his (often hard) duty, he finds himself in a state of peace and satisfaction which may well be called happiness, in which Virtue is her own reward. Now, says the Eudaemonist, this delight, this happiness, is the real motive of his acting virtuously. The notion of duty, says he, does not immediately determine his will; it is only by means of the happiness in prospect that he is moved to do his duty. Now, on the other hand, since he can promise himself this reward of virtue only from the consciousness of having done his duty, it is clear that the latter must have preceded: that is, he must feel himself bound to do his duty before he thinks, and without thinking, that happiness will be the consequence of obedience to duty. He is thus involved in a circle in his assignment of cause and effect. He can only hope to be happy if he is conscious of his obedience to duty; 1 and he can only be moved to obedience to duty if he foresees that he will thereby become happy. But in this reasoning there is also a contradiction. For, on the one side, he must obey his duty, without asking what effect this will have on his happiness, consequently, from a moral principle (221); on the other side, he can only recognize something as his duty when he can reckon on happiness which will accrue to him thereby, and consequently on a pathological principle, which is the direct opposite of the former.

  I have in another place (the Berlin “Monatsschrift” 2 ), reduced, as I believe, to the simplest expressions the distinction between pathological and moral pleasure. The pleasure, namely, which must precede the obedience to the law in order that one may act according to the law, is pathological, and the process follows the physical order of nature; that which must be preceded by the law in order that it may be felt is in the moral order. If this distinction is not observed; if eudaemonism (the principle of happiness) is adopted as the principle instead of eleutheronomy (the principle of freedom of the inner legislation), the consequence is the euthanasia (quiet death) of all morality.

  The cause of these mistakes is no other than the following: Those who are accustomed only to physiological explanations will not admit into their heads the categorical imperative from which these laws dictatorially proceed, notwithstanding that they feel themselves irresistibly forced by it. Dissatisfied at not being able to explain what lies wholly beyond that sphere, namely, freedom of the elective will, elevating as is this privilege that man has of being capable of such an idea, they are stirred up by the proud claims of speculative reason, which feels its power so strongly in other fields, just as if they were allies leagued in defence of the omnipotence of theoretical reason, and roused by a general call to arms to resist that idea; and thus at present, and perhaps for a long time to come, though ultimately in vain, to attack the moral concept of freedom, and if possible render it doubtful.

  Introduction to Ethics.

  Ethics in ancient times signified moral philosophy (philosophia moralis) [sittenlehre] generally, which was also called the doctrine of duties [deontology]. Subsequently it was found advisable to confine this name to a part of moral philosophy, namely, to the doctrine of duties which are not subject to external laws (for which in German the name Tugendlehre was found suitable). Thus the system of general deontology is divided into that of Jurisprudence (Jurisprudentia), which is capable of external laws, and of Ethics, which is not thus capable, and we may let this division stand.

  I.

  —Exposition of the Conception of Ethics.

  The notion of duty is in itself already the notion of a constraint of the free elective will by the law; whether this constraint be an external one or be self-constraint. The moral imperative, by its categorical (the unconditional “ought”), announces this constraint, which therefore does not apply to all rational beings (for there may also be holy beings), but applies to men as rational physical beings (223) who are unholy enough to be seduced by pleasure to the transgression of the moral law, although they themselves recognize its authority; and when they do obey it, to obey it unwillingly (with resistance of their inclination); and it is in this that the constraint properly consists. 1 Now, as man is a free (moral) being, the notion of duty can contain only self-constraint (by the idea of the law itself), when we look to the internal determination of the will (the spring), for thus only is it possible to combine that constraint (even if it were external) with the freedom of the elective will. The notion of duty then must be an ethical one.

  The impulses of nature then contain hindrances to the fulfilment of duty in the mind of man, and resisting forces, some of them powerful; and he must judge himself able to combat these and to conquer them by means of reason, not in the future, but in the present, simultaneously with the thought; he must judge that he can do what the law unconditionally commands that he ought.

  Now the power and resolved purpose to resist a strong but unjust opponent is called fortitude (fortitudo) (224), and when concerned with the opponent of the moral character within us, it is virtue (virtus, fortitudo moralis). Accordingly, general deontology, in that part which brings not external, but internal, freedom under laws, is the doctrine of virtue [ethics].

  Jurisprudence had to do only with the formal condition of external freedom (the condition of consistency with itself, if its maxim became a universal law), that is, with law. Ethics, on the contrary, supplies us with a matter (an object of the free elective will), an end of pure reason which is at the same time conceived as an objectively necessary end, i. e. as duty for all men. For, as the sensible inclinations mislead us to ends (which are the matter of the elective will) that may contradict duty, the legislating reason cannot otherwise guard against their influence than by an opposite moral end, which therefore must be given à priori independently on inclination.

  An end is an object of the elective will (of a rational being), by the idea of which this will is determined to an action for the production of this object. Now I may be forced by others to actions which are directed to an end as means, but I cannot be forced to have an end; I can only make something an end to myself. If, however, I am also bound to make something which lies in the notions of practical reason an end to myself, and therefore besides the formal determining principle of the elective will (as contained in law) to have also a material principle, an end which can be opposed to the end derived from sensible impulses; then this gives the notion of an end which is in itself a duty. The doctrine of this cannot belong to jurisprudence, but to Ethics, since this alone includes in its conception self-constraint according to moral laws.

  (225) For this reason Ethics may also be defined as the system of the Ends of the pure practical reason. The two parts of moral philosophy are distinguished as treating respectively of Ends and of Duties of Constraint. That Ethics contains duties to the observance of which one cannot be (physically) forced by others is merely the consequence of this, that it is a doctrine of Ends, since to be forced to have ends or to set them before one’s self is a contradiction.

  Now that Ethics is a doctrine of virtue (doctrina officiorum virtutis) follows from the definition of virtue given above compared with the obligation, the peculiarity of which has just been shown. There is in fact no other determination of the elective will, except that to an end, which in the very notion of it implies that I cannot even physically be forced to it by the elective will of others. Another may indeed force me to do something which is not my end (but only means to the end of another), but he cannot force me to make it my own end, and yet I can have no end except of my own making. The latter supposition would be a contradiction—an act of freedom which yet at the same time would not be free. But there is no contradiction in setting before one’s self an end which is also a duty; for in this case I constrain myself, and this is quite consistent with freedom. 1 But how is such an end possible? That is now the question. (226) For the possibility of the notion of the thing (viz., that it is not self-contradictory) is not enough to prove the possibility of the thing itself (the objective reality of the notion).

  II.

  —Exposition of the Notion of an End which is also a Duty.

  We can conceive the relation of end to duty in two ways; either starting from the end to find the maxim of the dutiful actions; or conversely, setting out from this to find the end which is also duty. Jurisprudence proceeds in the former way. It is left to every one’s free elective will what end he will choose for his action. But its maxim is determined à priori; namely, that the freedom of the agent must be consistent with the freedom of every other according to a universal law.

  Ethics, however, proceeds in the opposite way. It cannot start from the ends which the man may propose to himself, and hence give directions as to the maxims he should adopt, that is, as to his duty; for that would be to take empirical principles of maxims, and these could not give any notion of duty; since this, the categorical “ought,” has its root in pure reason alone. Indeed, if the maxims were to be adopted in accordance with those ends (which are all selfish) we could not properly speak of the notion of duty at all. Hence in Ethics the notion of duty must lead to ends, and must on moral principles give the foundation of maxims with respect to the ends which we ought to propose to ourselves.

  Setting aside the question what sort of end that is which is in itself a duty, and how such an end is possible (227), it is here only necessary to show that a duty of this kind is called a duty of virtue, and why it is so called.

  To every duty corresponds a right of action (facultas moralis generatim), but all duties do not imply a corresponding right (facultas juridica) of another to compel any one, but only the duties called legal duties. Similarly to all ethical obligation corresponds the notion of virtue, but it does not follow that all ethical duties are duties of virtue. Those, in fact, are not so which do not concern so much a certain end (matter, object of the elective will), but merely that which is formal in the moral determination of the will (ex. gr. that the dutiful action must also be done from duty). It is only an end which is also duty that can be called a duty of virtue. Hence there are several of the latter kind (and thus there are distinct virtues); on the contrary, there is only one duty of the former kind, but it is one which is valid for all actions (only one virtuous disposition).

  The duty of virtue is essentially distinguished from the duty of justice in this respect; that it is morally possible to be externally compelled to the latter, whereas the former rests on free self-constraint only. For finite holy beings (which cannot even be tempted to the violation of duty) there is no doctrine of virtue, but only moral philosophy, the latter being an autonomy of practical reason, whereas the former is also an autocracy of it. That is, it includes a consciousness—not indeed immediately perceived, but rightly concluded from the moral categorical imperative—of the power to become master of one’s inclinations which resist the law; so that human morality in its highest stage can yet be nothing more than virtue; even if it were quite pure (perfectly free from the influence of a spring foreign to duty), (228) a state which is poetically personified under the name of the wise man (as an ideal to which one should continually approximate).

  Virtue, however, is not to be defined and esteemed merely as habit, and (as it is expressed in the prize essay of Cochius) 1 as a long custom acquired by practice of morally good actions. For, if this is not an effect of well resolved and firm principles ever more and more purified, then, like any other mechanical arrangement brought about by technical practical reason, it is neither armed for all circumstances, nor adequately secured against the change that may be wrought by new allurements.

  remark.

  To virtue = + a is opposed as its logical contradictory (contradictorie oppositum) the negative lack of virtue (moral weakness) = 0: but vice = - a is its contrary (contrarie s. realiter oppositum); and it is not merely a needless question but an offensive one to ask whether great crimes do not perhaps demand more strength of mind than great virtues. For by strength of mind we understand the strength of purpose of a man, as a being endowed with freedom, and consequently so far as he is master of himself (in his senses) and therefore in a healthy condition of mind. But great crimes are paroxysms, the very sight of which makes the man of healthy mind shudder. The question would therefore be something like this: whether a man in a fit of madness can have more physical strength than if he is in his senses; and we may admit this, without on that account ascribing to him more strength of mind, if by mind we understand the vital principle of man in the free use of his powers. For since those crimes have their ground merely in the power of the inclinations that weaken reason, which does not prove strength of mind, this question would be nearly the same as the question whether a man (229) in a fit of illness can show more strength than in a healthy condition; and this may be directly denied, since the want of health, which consists in the proper balance of all the bodily forces of the man, is a weakness in the system of these forces, by which system alone we can estimate absolute health.

  III.

  —Of the Reason for conceiving an End which is also a Duty.

  An end is an object of the free elective will, the idea of which determines this will to an action by which the object is produced. Accordingly every action has its end, and as no one can have an end without himself making the object of his elective will his end, hence to have some end of actions is an act of the freedom of the agent, not an effect of physical nature. Now, since this act which determines an end is a practical principle which commands not the means (therefore not conditionally) but the end itself (therefore unconditionally), hence it is a categorical imperative of pure practical reason, and one therefore which combines a concept of duty with that of an end in general.

  Now there must be such an end and a categorical imperative corresponding to it. For since there are free actions, there must also be ends to which as an object those actions are directed. Amongst these ends there must also be some which are at the same time (that is, by their very notion) duties. For if there were none such, then since no actions can be without an end, all ends which practical reason might have would be valid only as means to other ends, and a categorical imperative would be impossible; a supposition which destroys all moral philosophy.

  (230) Here, therefore, we treat not of ends which man actually makes to himself in accordance with the sensible impulses of his nature, but of objects of the free elective will under its own laws, objects which he ought to make his end. We may call the former technical (subjective), properly pragmatical, including the rules of prudence in the choice of its ends; but the latter we must call the moral (objective) doctrine of ends. This distinction is, however, superfluous here, since moral philosophy already by its very notion is clearly separated from the doctrine of physical nature (in the present instance, anthropology); the latter resting on empirical principles, whereas the moral doctrine of ends which treats of duties rests on principles given à priori in pure practical reason.

  IV.

  —What are the Ends which are also Duties?

  They are—Our own Perfection; The Happiness of Others.

  We cannot invert these, and make on one side our own happiness, and on the other the perfection of others, ends which should be in themselves duties for the same person.

  For one’s own happiness is, no doubt, an end that all men have (by virtue of the impulse of their nature), but this end cannot without contradiction be regarded as a duty. What a man of himself inevitably wills does not come under the notion of duty, for this is a constraint to an end reluctantly adopted. It is, therefore, a contradiction to say that a man is in duty bound to advance his own happiness with all his power.

  It is likewise a contradiction to make the perfection of another my end, and to regard myself as in duty bound to promote it (231). For it is just in this that the perfection of another man as a person consists, namely, that he is able of himself to set before him his own end according to his own notions of duty; and it is a contradiction to require (to make it a duty for me) that I should do something which no other but himself can do.

  V.

  —Explanation of these two Notions.

  (A.)

  —Our own Perfection.

  The word Perfection is liable to many misconceptions. It is sometimes understood as a notion belonging to transcendental philosophy; viz., the notion of the totality of the manifold which taken together constitutes a Thing; sometimes, again, it is understood as belonging to teleology, so that it signifies the correspondence of the properties of a thing to an end. Perfection in the former sense might be called quantitative (material), in the latter qualitative (formal) perfection. The former can be one only, for the whole of what belongs to the one thing is one. But of the latter there may be several in one thing; and it is of the latter property that we here treat.

  When it is said of the perfection that belongs to man generally (properly speaking, to humanity), that it is in itself a duty to make this our end, it must be placed in that which may be the effect of one’s deed, not in that which is merely an endowment for which we have to thank nature; for otherwise it would not be duty. Consequently, it can be nothing else than the cultivation of one’s power (or natural capacity) and also of one’s will [Wille] (moral disposition) to satisfy the requirement of duty in general. The supreme element in the former (the power) is the Understanding, it being the faculty of concepts, and, therefore, also of those concepts which refer to duty. (232) First it is his duty to labour to raise himself out of the rudeness of his nature, out of his animal nature more and more to humanity, by which alone he is capable of setting before him ends, to supply the defects of his ignorance by instruction, and to correct his errors; he is not merely counselled to do this by reason as technically practical, with a view to his purposes of other kinds (as art), but reason, as morally practical, absolutely commands him to do it, and makes this end his duty, in order that he may be worthy of the humanity that dwells in him. Secondly, to carry the cultivation of his will up to the purest virtuous disposition, that, namely, in which the law is also the spring of his dutiful actions, and to obey it from duty, for this is internal morally practical perfection. This is called the moral sense (as it were a special sense, sensus moralis), because it is a feeling of the effect which the legislative will within himself exercises on the faculty of acting accordingly. This is, indeed, often misused fanatically, as though (like the genius of Socrates) it preceded reason, or even could dispense with judgment of reason; but still it is a moral perfection, making every special end, which is also a duty, one’s own end. 1

  (B.)

  —Happiness of Others.

  It is inevitable for human nature that a man should wish and seek for happiness, that is, satisfaction with his condition, with certainty of the continuance of this satisfaction. But for this very reason it is not an end that is also a duty. Some writers still make a distinction between moral and physical happiness (the former consisting in satisfaction with one’s person (233) and moral behaviour, that is, with what one does; the other in satisfaction with that which nature confers, consequently with what one enjoys as a foreign gift). Without at present censuring the misuse of the word (which even involves a contradiction), it must be observed that the feeling of the former belongs solely to the preceding head, namely, perfection. For he who is to feel himself happy in the mere consciousness of his uprightness already possesses that perfection which in the previous section was defined as that end which is also duty.

  If happiness, then, is in question, which it is to be my duty to promote as my end, it must be the happiness of other men whose (permitted) end I hereby make also mine. It still remains left to themselves to decide what they shall reckon as belonging to their happiness; only that it is in my power to decline many things which they so reckon, but which I do not so regard, supposing that they have no right to demand it from me as their own. A plausible objection often advanced against the division of duties above adopted consists in setting over against that end a supposed obligation to study my own (physical) happiness, and thus making this, which is my natural and merely subjective end, my duty (and objective end). This requires to be cleared up.

  Adversity, pain and want, are great temptations to transgression of one’s duty; accordingly it would seem that strength, health, a competence, and welfare generally, which are opposed to that influence, may also be regarded as ends that are also duties; that is, that it is a duty to promote our own happiness, not merely to make that of others our end. But in that case the end is not happiness but the morality of the agent; and happiness is only the means of removing the hindrances to morality; permitted means (234), since no one has a right to demand from me the sacrifice of my not immoral ends. It is not directly a duty to seek a competence for one’s self; but indirectly it may be so; namely, in order to guard against poverty, which is a great temptation to vice. But then it is not my happiness but my morality, to maintain which in its integrity is at once my aim and my duty.

  VI.

  —Ethics does not supply Laws for Actions (which is done by Jurisprudence), but only for the Maxims of Action.

  The notion of duty stands in immediate relation to a law (even though I abstract from every end which is the matter of the law), as is shown by the formal principle of duty in the categorical imperative: “Act so that the maxims of thy action might become a universal law.” But in Ethics this is conceived as the law of thy own will, not of will in general, which might be that of others; for in the latter case it would give rise to a judicial duty which does not belong to the domain of Ethics. In Ethics, maxims are regarded as those subjective laws which merely have the specific character of universal legislation, which is only a negative principle (not to contradict a law in general). How, then, can there be further a law for the maxims of actions?

  It is the notion of an end which is also a duty, a notion peculiar to Ethics, that alone is the foundation of a law for the maxims of actions; by making the subjective end (that which every one has) subordinate to the objective end (that which every one ought to make his own). The imperative: “Thou shalt make this or that thy end (ex. gr. the happiness of others)” (235) applies to the matter of the elective will (an object). Now since no free action is possible, without the agent having in view in it some end (as matter of his elective will), it follows that if there is an end which is also a duty, the maxims of actions, which are means to ends, must contain only the condition of fitness for a possible universal legislation; on the other hand, the end which is also a duty can make it a law that we should have such a maxim, whilst for the maxim itself the possibility of agreeing with a universal legislation is sufficient.

  For maxims of actions may be arbitrary, and are only limited by the condition of fitness for a universal legislation, which is the formal principle of actions. But a law abolishes the arbitrary character of actions, and is by this distinguished from recommendation (in which one only desires to know the best means to an end).

  VII.

  —Ethical Duties are of indeterminate, Juridical Duties of strict, Obligation.

  This proposition is a consequence of the foregoing; for if the law can only command the maxim of the actions, not the actions themselves, this is a sign that it leaves in the observance of it a latitude (latitudo) for the elective will; that is, it cannot definitely assign how and how much we should do by the action towards the end which is also duty. But by an indeterminate duty is not meant a permission to make exceptions from the maxim of the actions, but only the permission to limit one maxim of duty by another (236) (ex. gr. the general love of our neighbour by the love of parents); and this in fact enlarges the field for the practice of virtue. The more indeterminate the duty, and the more imperfect accordingly the obligation of the man to the action, and the closer he nevertheless brings this maxim of obedience thereto (in his own mind) to the strict duty (of justice) [des Rechts], so much the more perfect is his virtuous action.

  Hence it is only imperfect duties that are duties of virtue. The fulfilment of them is merit (meritum) = + a; but their transgression is not necessarily demerit (demeritum) = - a, but only moral unworth = 0, unless the agent made it a principle not to conform to those duties. The strength of purpose in the former case is alone properly called Virtue [Tugend] (virtus); the weakness in the latter case is not vice (vitium), but rather only lack of virtue [Untugend], a want of moral strength (defectus moralis). (As the word ‘Tugend’ is derived from ‘taugen’ [to be good for something], ‘Untugend’ by its etymology signifies good for nothing). 1 Every action contrary to duty is called transgression (peccatum). Deliberate transgression which has become a principle is what properly constitutes what is called vice (vitium).

  Although the conformity of actions to justice [Recht] (i. e. to be an upright [rechtlicher] man) is nothing meritorious, yet the conformity of the maxim of such actions regarded as duties, that is, Reverence for justice, is meritorious. For by this the man makes the right of humanity or of men his own end, and thereby enlarges his notion of duty beyond that of indebtedness (officium debiti), since although another man by virtue of his rights can demand that my actions shall conform to the law, he cannot demand that the law shall also contain the spring of these actions. The same thing is true of the general ethical command, “Act dutifully from a sense of duty.” To fix this disposition firmly in one’s mind and to quicken it is, as in the former case, meritorious (237), because it goes beyond the law of duty in actions, and makes the law in itself the spring.

  But just for this reason those duties also must be reckoned as of indeterminate obligation, in respect of which there exists a subjective principle which ethically rewards them; or to bring them as near as possible to the notion of a strict obligation, a principle of susceptibility of this reward according to the law of virtue; namely, a moral pleasure which goes beyond mere satisfaction with one’s self (which may be merely negative), and of which it is proudly said that in this consciousness virtue is its own reward.

  When this merit is a merit of the man in respect of other men of promoting their natural ends, which are recognized as such by all men (making their happiness his own), we might call it the sweet merit, the consciousness of which creates a moral enjoyment in which men are by sympathy inclined to rerel; whereas the bitter merit of promoting the true welfare of other men, even though they should not recognize it as such (in the case of the unthankful and ungrateful), has commonly no such reaction, but only produces a satisfaction with one’s self, although in the latter case this would be even greater.

  VIII.

  —Exposition of the Duties of Virtue as Indeterminate Duties.

  (1)

  Our own Perfection as an end which is also a duty.

  (a) Physical perfection; that is, cultivation of all our faculties generally for the promotion of the ends set before us by reason. That this is a duty, and therefore an end in itself, and that the effort to effect this even without regard (238) to the advantage that it secures us, is based, not on a conditional (pragmatic), but an unconditional (moral) imperative, may be seen from the following consideration. The power of proposing to ourselves an end is the characteristic of humanity (as distinguished from the brutes). With the end of humanity in our own person is therefore combined the rational will [Vernunftwille], and consequently the duty of deserving well of humanity by culture generally, by acquiring or advancing the power to carry out all sorts of possible ends, so far as this power is to be found in man; that is, it is a duty to cultivate the crude capacities of our nature, since it is by that cultivation that the animal is raised to man, therefore it is a duty in itself.

  This duty, however, is merely ethical, that is, of indeterminate obligation. No principle of reason prescribes how far one must go in this effort (in enlarging or correcting his faculty of understanding, that is, in acquisition of knowledge or technical capacity); and besides the difference in the circumstances into which men may come makes the choice of the kind of employment for which he should cultivate his talent very arbitrary. Here, therefore, there is no law of reason for actions, but only for the maxim of actions, viz.: “Cultivate thy faculties of mind and body so as to be effective for all ends that may come in thy way, uncertain which of them may become thy own.”

  (b) Cultivation of Morality in ourselves. The greatest moral perfection of man is to do his duty, and that from duty (that the law be not only the rule but also the spring of his actions). Now at first sight this seems to be a strict obligation, and as if the principle of duty commanded not merely the legality of every action, but also the morality, i. e. the mental disposition, with the exactness and strictness of a law; but in fact the law commands even here only the maxim of the action (239), namely, that we should seek the ground of obligation, not in the sensible impulses (advantage or disadvantage), but wholly in the law; so that the action itself is not commanded. For it is not possible to man to see so far into the depth of his own heart that he could ever be thoroughly certain of the purity of his moral purpose and the sincerity of his mind even in one single action, although he has no doubt about the legality of it. Nay, often the weakness which deters a man from the risk of a crime is regarded by him as virtue (which gives the notion of strength). And how many there are who may have led a long blameless life, who are only fortunate in having escaped so many temptations. How much of the element of pure morality in their mental disposition may have belonged to each deed remains hidden even from themselves.

  Accordingly, this duty to estimate the worth of one’s actions not merely by their legality, but also by their morality (mental disposition), is only of indeterminate obligation; the law does not command this internal action in the human mind itself, but only the maxim of the action, namely, that we should strive with all our power that for all dutiful actions the thought of duty should be of itself an adequate spring.

  (2)

  Happiness of Others as an end which is also a duty.

  (a) Physical Welfare.—Benevolent wishes may be unlimited, for they do not imply doing anything. But the case is more difficult with benevolent action, especially when this is to be done, not from friendly inclination (love) to others, but from duty, at the expense of the sacrifice and mortification of many of our appetites. That this beneficence is a duty results from this: that since our self-love cannot be separated from the need to be loved by others (to obtain help from them in case of necessity) (240), we therefore make ourselves an end for others; and this maxim can never be obligatory except by having the specific character of a universal law, and consequently by means of a will that we should also make others our ends. Hence the happiness of others is an end that is also a duty. 1

  I am only bound then to sacrifice to others a part of my welfare without hope of recompense; because it is my duty, and it is impossible to assign definite limits how far that may go. Much depends on what would be the true want of each according to his own feelings, and it must be left to each to determine this for himself. For that one should sacrifice his own happiness, his true wants, in order to promote that of others, would be a self-contradictory maxim if made a universal law. This duty, therefore, is only indeterminate; it has a certain latitude within which one may do more or less without our being able to assign its limits definitely. The law holds only for the maxims, not for definite actions.

  (b) Moral well-being of others (salus moralis) also belongs to the happiness of others, which it is our duty to promote, but only a negative duty. The pain that a man feels from remorse of conscience, although its origin is moral, is yet in its operation physical, like grief, fear, and every other diseased condition. To take care that he should not be deservedly smitten by this inward reproach is not indeed my duty but his business; nevertheless, it is my duty to do nothing which by the nature of man might seduce him to that for which his conscience may hereafter torment him, that is, it is my duty not to give him occasion of stumbling [Skandal]. But there are no definite limits within which this care for the moral satisfaction of others must be kept; therefore it involves only an indeterminate obligation.

  IX.

  —What is a Duty of Virtue?

  Virtue is the strength of the man’s maxim in his obedience to duty. All strength is known only by the obstacles that it can overcome; and in the case of virtue the obstacles are the natural inclinations which may come into conflict with the moral purpose; and as it is the man who himself puts these obstacles in the way of his maxims, hence virtue is not merely a self-constraint (for that might be an effort of one inclination to constrain another), but is also a constraint according to a principle of inward freedom, and therefore by the mere idea of duty, according to its formal law. 1

  All duties involve a notion of necessitation by the law, and ethical duties involve a necessitation for which only an internal legislation is possible; juridical duties, on the other hand, one for which external legislation also is possible. Both, therefore, include the notion of constraint, either self-constraint or constraint by others. The moral power of the former is virtue, and the action springing from such a disposition (from reverence for the law) may be called a virtuous action (ethical), although the law expresses a juridical duty. For it is the doctrine of virtue that commands us to regard the rights of men as holy.

  But it does not follow that everything the doing of which is virtue is, properly speaking, a duty of virtue. The former may concern merely the form of the maxims; the latter applies to the matter of them, namely, to an end which is also conceived as duty. Now, as the ethical obligation to ends, of which there may be many, is only indeterminate, because it contains only a law for the maxim of actions (242), and the end is the matter (object) of elective will; hence there are many duties, differing according to the difference of lawful ends, which may be called duties of virtue (officia honestatis), just because they are subject only to free self-constraint, not to the constraint of other men, and determine the end which is also a duty.

  Virtue being a coincidence of the rational will, with every duty firmly settled in the character, is, like everything formal, only one and the same. But, as regards the end of actions, which is also duty, that is, as regards the matter which one ought to make an end, there may be several virtues; and as the obligation to its maxim is called a duty of virtue, it follows that there are also several duties of virtue.

  The supreme principle of Ethics (the doctrine of virtue) is: “Act on a maxim, the ends of which are such as it might be a universal law for everyone to have.” On this principle a man is an end to himself as well as others, and it is not enough that he is not permitted to use either himself or others merely as means (which would imply that he might be indifferent to them), but it is in itself a duty of every man to make mankind in general his end.

  This principle of Ethics being a categorical imperative does not admit of proof, but it admits of a justification [Deduction] 1 from principles of pure practical reason. Whatever in relation to mankind, to one’s self, and others can be an end, that is an end for pure practical reason; for this is a faculty of assigning ends in general; and to be indifferent to them, that is, to take no interest in them, is a contradiction; since in that case it would not determine the maxims of actions (which always involve an end), and consequently would cease to be practical reason (243). Pure reason, however, cannot command any ends à priori, except so far as it declares the same to be also a duty, which duty is then called a duty of virtue.

  X.

  —The Supreme Principle of Jurisprudence was Analytical; that of Ethics is Synthetical.

  That external constraint, so far as it withstands that which hinders the external freedom that agrees with general laws (is an obstacle of the obstacle thereto), can be consistent with ends generally is clear on the principle of Contradiction, and I need not go beyond the notion of freedom in order to see it, let the end which each may be what he will. Accordingly, the supreme principle of jurisprudence is an analytical principle. 1 On the contrary, the principle of Ethics goes beyond the notion of external freedom, and by general laws connects further with it an end which it makes a duty. This principle, therefore, is synthetic. The possibility of it is contained in the Deduction (§ ix.)

  This enlargement of the notion of duty beyond that of external freedom and of its limitation by the merely formal condition of its constant harmony; this, I say, in which instead of constraint from without, there is set up freedom within, the power of self-constraint, and that not by the help of other inclinations, but by pure practical reason (which scorns all such help), consists in this fact, which raises it above juridical duty; that by it ends are proposed from which jurisprudence altogether abstracts. In the case of the moral imperative, and the supposition of freedom which it necessarily involves, the law, the power (to fulfil it) (244) and the rational will that determines the maxim, constitute all the elements that form the notion of juridical duty. But in the imperative, which commands the duty of virtue, there is added, besides the notion of self-constraint, that of an end; not one that we have, but that we ought to have, which, therefore, pure practical reason has in itself, whose highest, unconditional end (which, however, continues to be duty) consists in this: that virtue is its own end, and by deserving well of men is also its own reward. Herein it shines so brightly as an ideal that to human perceptions it seems to cast in the shade even holiness itself, which is never tempted to transgression. 1 This, however, is an illusion arising from the fact that as we have no measure for the degree of strength except the greatness of the obstacles which might have been overcome (which in our case are the inclinations), we are led to mistake the subjective conditions of estimation of a magnitude for the objective conditions of the magnitude in itself. But when compared with human ends, all of which have their obstacles to be overcome, it is true that the worth of virtue itself, which is its own end, far outweighs the worth of all the utility and all the empirical ends and advantages which it may have as consequences.

  We may, indeed, say that man is obliged to virtue (as a moral strength). For, although the power (facultas) to overcome all opposing sensible impulses by virtue of his freedom can and must be presupposed, yet this power regarded as strength (robur) is something that must be acquired by the moral spring (245) (the idea of the law) being elevated by contemplation of the dignity of the pure law of reason in us, and at the same time also by exercise.

  XI.

  —According to the preceding Principles, the Scheme of Duties of Virtue may be thus exhibited.

  

  >The Material Element of the Duty of Virtue.

  External Duty of Virtue.

  The Formal Element of the Duty of Virtue.

  Internal Duty of Virtue.

  XII.

  —Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for Notions of Duty generally.

  These are such moral qualities as, when a man does not possess them, he is not bound to acquire them. They are: the moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbour, and respect for ourselves (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, since they are subjective conditions of susceptibility for the notion of duty, not objective conditions of morality. They are all sensitive and antecedent, but natural capacities of mind (prædisposito) to be affected by notions of duty; capacities which it cannot be regarded as a duty to have, but which every man has, and by virtue of which he can be brought under obligation. The consciousness of them is not of empirical origin, but can only follow on that of a moral law, as an effect of the same on the mind.

  (A.)

  —The Moral Feeling.

  This is the susceptibility for pleasure or displeasure, merely from the consciousness of the agreement or disagreement of our action with the law of duty. Now, every determination of the elective will proceeds from the idea of the possible action through the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in taking an interest in it or its effect to the deed; and here the sensitive state (the affection of the internal sense) is either a pathological or a moral feeling. The former is the feeling that precedes the idea of the law, the latter that which may follow it.

  (247) Now it cannot be a duty to have a moral feeling, or to acquire it; for all consciousness of obligation supposes this feeling in order that one may become conscious of the necessitation that lies in the notion of duty; but every man (as a moral being) has it originally in himself; the obligation then can only extend to the cultivation of it and the strengthening of it even by admiration of its inscrutable origin; and this is effected by showing how it is just by the mere conception of reason that it is excited most strongly, in its own purity and apart from every pathological stimulus; and it is improper to call this feeling a moral sense; for the word sense generally means a theoretical power of perception directed to an object; whereas the moral feeling (like pleasure and displeasure in general) is something merely subjective, which supplies no knowledge. No man is wholly destitute of moral feeling, for if he were totally unsusceptible of this sensation he would be morally dead; and, to speak in the language of physicians, if the moral vital force could no longer produce any effect on this feeling, then his humanity would be dissolved (as it were by chemical laws) into mere animality, and be irrevocably confounded with the mass of other physical beings. But we have no special sense for (moral) good and evil any more than for truth, although such expressions are often used; but we have a susceptibility of the free elective will for being moved by pure practical reason and its law; and it is this that we call the moral feeling.

  (B.)

  —Of Conscience.

  Similarly, conscience is not a thing to be acquired, and it is not a duty to acquire it (248); but every man, as a moral being, has it originally within him. To be bound to have a conscience would be as much as to say to be under a duty to recognise duties. For conscience is practical reason which, in every case of law, holds before a man his duty for acquittal or condemnation; consequently it does not refer to an object, but only to the subject (affecting the moral feeling by its own act); so that it is an inevitable fact, not an obligation and duty. When, therefore, it is said: this man has no conscience, what is meant is, that he pays no heed to its dictates. For if he really had none, he would not take credit to himself for anything done according to duty, nor reproach himself with violation of duty, and therefore he would be unable even to conceive the duty of having a conscience.

  I pass by the manifold subdivisions of conscience, and only observe what follows from what has just been said, namely, that there is no such thing as an erring conscience. No doubt it is possible sometimes to err in the objective judgment whether something is a duty or not; but I cannot err in the subjective whether I have compared it with my practical (here judicially acting) reason for the purpose of that judgment; for if I erred I would not have exercised practical judgment at all, and in that case there is neither truth nor error. Unconscientiousness is not want of conscience, but the propensity not to heed its judgment. But when a man is conscious of having acted according to his conscience, then, as far as regards guilt or innocence, nothing more can be required of him, only he is bound to enlighten his understanding as to what is duty or not; but when it comes or has come to action, then conscience speaks involuntarily and inevitably. To act conscientiously can therefore not be a duty, since otherwise it would be necessary to have a second conscience, in order to be conscious of the act of the first.

  (249) The duty here is only to cultivate our conscience, to quicken our attention to the voice of the internal judge, and to use all means to secure obedience to it, and is thus our indirect duty. 1

  (C.)

  —Of Love to Men.

  Love is a matter of feeling, not of will or volition, and I cannot love because I will to do so, still less because I ought (I cannot be necessitated to love); hence there is no such thing as a duty to love. Benevolence, however (amor benevolentiæ), as a mode of action, may be subject to a law of duty. Disinterested benevolence is often called (though very improperly) love; even where the happiness of the other is not concerned, but the complete and free surrender of all one’s own ends to the ends of another (even a superhuman) being, love is spoken of as being also our duty. But all duty is necessitation, or constraint, although it may be self-constraint according to a law. But what is done from constraint is not done from love.

  It is a duty to do good to other men according to our power, whether we love them or not, and this duty loses nothing of its weight, although we must make the sad remark that our species, alas! is not such as to be found particularly worthy of love when we know it more closely. Hatred of men, however, is always hateful: even though without any active hostility it consists only in complete aversion from mankind (the solitary misanthropy). For benevolence still remains a duty even towards the manhater, whom one cannot love, but to whom we can show kindness.

  To hate vice in men is neither duty nor against duty, but a mere feeling of horror of vice, the will having no influence on the feeling (250) nor the feeling on the will. Beneficence is a duty. He who often practises this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, this does not mean: Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of this love (in the next place) do him good; but: Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence).

  The love of complacency (amor complacentiæ) would therefore alone be direct. This is a pleasure immediately connected with the idea of the existence of an object, and to have a duty to this, that is, to be necessitated to find pleasure in a thing, is a contradiction.

  (D.)

  —Of Respect.

  Respect (reverentia) is likewise something merely subjective; a feeling of a peculiar kind, not a judgment about an object which it would be a duty to effect or to advance. For if considered as duty it could only be conceived as such by means of the respect which we have for it. To have a duty to this, therefore, would be as much as to say, to be bound in duty to have a duty. When, therefore, it is said: Man has a duty of self-esteem, this is improperly stated, and we ought rather to say: The law within him inevitably forces from him respect for his own being, and this feeling (which is of a peculiar kind) is a basis of certain duties, that is, of certain actions which may be consistent with his duty to himself. But we cannot say that he has a duty of respect for himself; for he must have respect for the law within himself, in order to be able to conceive duty at all.

  XIII.

  —General Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals in the treatment of Pure Ethics.

  First. A duty can have only a single ground of obligation; and if two or more proofs of it are adduced, this is a certain mark that either no valid proof has yet been given, or that there are several distinct duties which have been regarded as one.

  For all moral proofs, being philosophical, can only be drawn by means of rational knowledge from concepts, not like mathematics, through the construction of concepts. The latter science admits a variety of proofs of one and the same theorem; because in intuition à priori there may be several properties of an object, all of which lead back to the very same principle. If, for instance, to prove the duty of veracity, an argument is drawn first from the harm that a lie causes to other men; another from the worthlessness of a liar, and the violation of his own self-respect, what is proved in the former argument is a duty of benevolence, not of veracity, that is to say, not the duty which required to be proved, but a different one. Now, if in giving a variety of proofs for one and the same theorem, we flatter ourselves that the multitude of reasons will compensate the lack of weight in each taken separately, this is a very unphilosophical resource, since it betrays trickery and dishonesty; for several insufficient proofs placed beside one another do not produce certainty, nor even probability. (252) They should advance as reason and consequence in a series, up to the sufficient reason, and it is only in this way that they can have the force of proof. Yet the former is the usual device of the rhetorician.

  Secondly. The difference between virtue and vice cannot be sought in the degree in which certain maxims are followed, but only in the specific quality of the maxims (their relation to the law). In other words, the vaunted principle of Aristotle, that virtue is the mean between two vices, is false. 1 For instance, suppose that good management is given as the mean between two vices, prodigality and avarice; then its origin as a virtue can neither be defined as the gradual diminution of the former vice (by saving) nor as the increase of the expenses of the miserly. These vices, in fact, cannot be viewed as if they, proceeding as it were in opposite directions, met together in good management; but each of them has its own maxim, which necessarily contradicts that of the other.

  (253) For the same reason, no vice can be defined as an excess in the practice of certain actions beyond what is proper (e. g. Prodigalitas est excessus in consumendis opibus); or, as a less exercise of them than is fitting (Avaritia est defectus, &c.). For since in this way the degree is left quite undefined, and the question whether conduct accords with duty or not, turns wholly on this, such an account is of no use as a definition. 1

  Thirdly. Ethical virtue must not be estimated by the power we attribute to man of fulfilling the law; but conversely, the moral power must be estimated by the law, which commands categorically; not, therefore, by the empirical knowledge that we have of men as they are, but by the rational knowledge how, according to the idea of humanity, they ought to be. These three maxims of the scientific treatment of Ethics are opposed to the older apophthegms:—

  • 1. There is only one virtue and only one vice.
  • 2. Virtue is the observance of the mean path between two opposite vices.
  • 3. Virtue (like prudence) must be learned from experience.

  XIV.

  —Of Virtue in General.

  Virtue signifies a moral strength of Will [Wille]. But this does not exhaust the notion; for such strength might also belong to a holy (superhuman) being, in whom no opposing impulse counteracts the law of his rational Will; who therefore willingly does everything in accordance with the law. Virtue then is the moral strength of a man’s Will [Wille] in his obedience to duty; and this is a moral necessitation by his own law giving reason (254), inasmuch as this constitutes itself a power executing the law. It is not itself a duty, nor is it a duty to possess it (otherwise we should be in duty bound to have a duty), but it commands, and accompanies its command with a moral constraint (one possible by laws of internal freedom). But since this should be irresistible, strength is requisite, and the degree of this strength can be estimated only by the magnitude of the hindrances which man creates for himself by his inclinations. Vices, the brood of unlawful dispositions, are the monsters that he has to combat; wherefore this moral strength as fortitude (fortitudo moralis) constitutes the greatest and only true martial glory of man; it is also called the true wisdom, namely, the practical, because it makes the ultimate end [= final cause] of the existence of man on earth its own end. Its possession alone makes man free, healthy, rich, a king, &c., nor can either chance or fate deprive him of this, since he possesses himself, and the virtuous cannot lose his virtue.

  All the enconiums bestowed on the ideal of humanity in its moral perfection can lose nothing of their practical reality by the examples of what men now are, have been, or will probably be hereafter; Anthropology which proceeds from mere empirical knowledge cannot impair anthroponomy which is erected by the unconditionally legislating reason; and although virtue may now and then be called meritorious (in relation to men, not to the law), and be worthy of reward, yet in itself, as it is its own end, so also it must be regarded as its own reward.

  Virtue considered in its complete perfection is therefore regarded not as if man possessed virtue, but as if virtue possessed the man (255), since in the former case it would appear as though he had still had the choice (for which he would then require another virtue, in order to select virtue from all other wares offered to him). To conceive a plurality of virtues (as we unavoidably must) is nothing else but to conceive various moral objects to which the (rational) will is led by the single principle of virtue; and it is the same with the opposite vices. The expression which personifies both is a contrivance for affecting the sensibility, pointing, however, to a moral sense. Hence it follows that an Aesthetic of Morals is not a part, but a subjective exposition, of the Metaphysic of Morals, in which the emotions that accompany the necessitating force of the moral law make the efficiency of that force to be felt; for example: disgust, horror, &c., which give a sensible form to the moral aversion in order to gain the precedence from the merely sensible incitement.

  XV.

  —Of the Principle on which Ethics is separated from Jurisprudence.

  This separation, on which the subdivision of moral philosophy in general rests, is founded on this: that the notion of Freedom, which is common to both, makes it necessary to divide duties into those of external and those of internal freedom; the latter of which alone are ethical. Hence this internal freedom which is the condition of all ethical duty must be discussed as a preliminary (discursus præliminaris), just as above the doctrine of conscience was discussed as the condition of all duty.

  remarks.
  Of the Doctrine of Virtue on the Principle of Internal Freedom.

  Habit (habitus) is a facility of action and a subjective perfection of the elective will. But not every such facility is a free habit (habitus libertatis); for if it is custom (assuetudo) that is a uniformity of action which, by frequent repetition, has become a necessity, then it is not a habit proceeding from freedom, and therefore not a moral habit. Virtue therefore cannot be defined as a habit of free law-abiding actions, unless indeed we add “determining itself in its action by the idea of the law”; and then this habit is not a property of the elective will, but of the Rational Will, which is a faculty that in adopting a rule also declares it to be a universal law, and it is only such a habit that can be reckoned as virtue. Two things are required for internal freedom: to be master of one’s self in a given case (animus sui compos), and to have command over one’s self (imperium in semetipsum), that is to subdue his emotions and to govern his passions. With these conditions the character (indoles) is noble (erecta); in the opposite case it is ignoble (indoles abjecta serva).

  XVI.

  —Virtue requires, first of all, Command over One’s Self.

  Emotions and Passions are essentially distinct; the former belong to feeling in so far as this coming before reflection makes it more difficult or even impossible. Hence emotion is called hasty [jäh] (animus præceps) (257). And reason declares through the notion of virtue that a man should collect himself; but this weakness in the life of one’s understanding, joined with the strength of a mental excitement, is only a lack of virtue (Untugend), and as it were a weak and childish thing, which may very well consist with the best will, and has further this one good thing in it, that this storm soon subsides. A propensity to emotion (ex. gr. resentment) is therefore not so closely related to vice as passion is. Passion, on the other hand, is the sensible appetite grown into a permanent inclination (ex. gr. hatred in contrast to resentment). The calmness with which one indulges it leaves room for reflection and allows the mind to frame principles thereon for itself; and thus when the inclination falls upon what contradicts the law, to brood on it, to allow it to root itself deeply, and thereby to take up evil (as of set purpose) into one’s maxim; and this is then specifically evil, that is, it is a true vice.

  Virtue therefore, in so far as it is based on internal freedom, contains a positive command for man, namely, that he should bring all his powers and inclinations under his rule (that of reason); and this is a positive precept of command over himself which is additional to the prohibition, namely, that he should not allow himself to be governed by his feelings and inclinations (the duty of apathy); since, unless reason takes the reins of government into its own hands, the feelings and inclinations play the master over the man.

  XVII.

  —Virtue necessarily presupposes Apathy (considered as Strength).

  This word (apathy) has come into bad repute, just as if it meant want of feeling, and therefore subjective indifference with respect to the objects of the elective will (258); it is supposed to be a weakness. This misconception may be avoided by giving the name moral apathy to that want of emotion which is to be distinguished from indifference. In the former the feelings arising from sensible impressions lose their influence on the moral feeling only because the respect for the law is more powerful than all of them together. It is only the apparent strength of a fever patient that makes even the lively sympathy with good rise to an emotion, or rather degenerate into it. Such an emotion is called enthusiasm, and it is with reference to this that we are to explain the moderation which is usually recommended in virtuous practices—

  • “Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui
  • Ultra quam satis est virtutem si petat ipsam.”

  • —Hor.

  For otherwise it is absurd to imagine that one could be too wise or too virtuous. The emotion always belongs to the sensibility, no matter by what sort of object it may be excited. The true strength of virtue is the mind at rest, with a firm, deliberate resolution to bring its law into practice. That is the state of health in the moral life; on the contrary, the emotion, even when it is excited by the idea of the good, is a momentary glitter which leaves exhaustion after it. We may apply the term fantastically virtuous to the man who will admit nothing to be indifferent in respect of morality (adiaphora), and who strews all his steps with duties, as with traps, and will not allow it to be indifferent whether a man eat fish or flesh, drink beer or wine, when both agree with him—a micrology which, if adopted into the doctrine of virtue, would make its rule a tyranny.

  remark.

  Virtue is always in progress, and yet always begins from the beginning. The former follows from the fact that, objectively considered, it is an ideal and unattainable, and yet it is a duty constantly to approximate to it. The second [characteristic] is founded subjectively on the nature of man which is affected by inclinations, under the influence of which virtue, with its maxims adopted once for all, can never settle in a position of rest; but if it is not rising, inevitably falls; because moral maxims cannot, like technical, be based on custom (for this belongs to the physical character of the determination of will); but even if the practice of them become a custom, the agent would thereby lose the freedom in the choice of his maxims, which freedom is the character of an action done from duty.

  [The two remaining sections discuss the proper division of Ethics, and have no interest apart from the treatise to which they are introductory. They are therefore not translated. I add some remarks on Conscience, taken from the “Tugendlehre” itself.]

  On Conscience.

  The consciousness of an internal tribunal in man (before which “his thoughts accuse or excuse one another”) is Conscience.

  Every man has a conscience, and finds himself observed by an inward judge which threatens and keeps him in awe (reverence combined with fear); and this power which watches over the laws within him is not something which he himself (arbitrarily) makes, but it is incorporated in his being. It follows him like his shadow, when he thinks to escape. He may indeed stupefy himself with pleasures and distractions, but cannot avoid now and then coming to himself or awaking, and then he at once perceives its awful voice. In his utmost depravity he may, indeed, pay no attention to it, but he cannot avoid hearing it.

  Now this original intellectual and (as a conception of duty) moral capacity, called conscience, has this peculiarity in it, that although its business is a business of man with himself, yet he finds himself compelled by his reason to transact it as if at the command of another person. For the transaction here is the conduct of a trial (causa) before a tribunal. But that he who is accused by his conscience should be conceived as one and the same person with the judge is an absurd conception of a judicial court; for then the complainant would always lose his case. Therefore in all duties the conscience of the man must regard another than himself as the judge of his actions, if it is to avoid self-contradiction. Now this other may be an actual or a merely ideal person which reason frames to itself. 1 Such an idealized person (the authorized judge of conscience) must be one who knows the heart; for the tribunal is set up in the inward part of man; at the same time he must also be all-obliging, that is, must be or be conceived as a person in respect of whom all duties are to be regarded as his commands; since conscience is the inward judge of all free actions. Now, since such a moral being must at the same time possess all power (in heaven and earth), since otherwise he could not give his commands their proper effect (which the office of judge necessarily requires), and since such a moral being possessing power over all is called God, hence conscience must be conceived as the subjective principle of a responsibility for one’s deeds before God; nay, this latter concept is contained (though it be only obscurely) in every moral self-consciousness.”—Tugendlehre, p. 293, ff.

  FIRST PART of THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF RELIGION.

  OF THE INDWELLING of the BAD PRINCIPLE ALONG WITH THE GOOD; or, ON THE RADICAL EVIL IN HUMAN NATURE.

  THAT the world lieth in wickedness is a complaint as old as history, even as what is still older, poetry; indeed, as old as the oldest of all poems, sacerdotal religion. All alike, nevertheless, make the world begin from good; with the golden age, with life in paradise, or one still more happy in communion with heavenly beings. But they represent this happy state as soon vanishing like a dream, and then they fall into badness (moral badness, which is always accompanied by physical), as hastening to worse and worse with accelerated steps; 1 so that we are now living (this now being however as old as history) in the last times, the last day and the destruction of the world are at the door; and in some parts of Hindostan (20) the judge and destroyer of the world, Rudra (otherwise called Siva), is already worshipped as the God that is at present in power; the preserver of the world, namely, Vishnu, having centuries ago laid down his office, of which he was weary, and which he had received from the creator of the world, Brahma.

  Later, but much less general, is the opposite heroic opinion, which has perhaps obtained currency only amongst philosophers, and in our times chiefly amongst instructors of youth; that the world is constantly advancing in precisely the reverse direction, namely, from worse to better (though almost insensibly): at least, that the capacity for such advance exists in human nature. This opinion, however, is certainly not founded on experience, if what is meant is moral good or evil (not civilization), for the history of all times speaks too powerfully against it, but it is probably a good-natured hypothesis of moralists from Seneca to Rousseau, so as to urge man to the unwearied cultivation of the germ of good that perhaps lies in us, if one can reckon on such a natural foundation in man. 1 There is also the consideration that as we must assume that man is by nature (that is, as he is usually born) sound in body, there is thought to be no reason why we should not assume that he is also by nature sound in soul, so that nature itself helps us to develop this moral capacity for good within us. “Sanabilibus ægrotamus malis, nosque in rectum genitos natura, si sanari velimus, adjuvat,” says Seneca.

  But since it may well be that there is error in the supposed experience on both sides, the question is, whether a mean is not at least possible, namely, that man as a species may be neither good nor bad, or at all events that he is as much one as the other, partly good, partly bad? (21) We call a man bad, however, not because he performs actions that are bad (violating law), but because these are of such a kind that we may infer from them bad maxims in him. Now although we can in experience observe that actions violate laws, and even (at least in ourselves) that they do so consciously; yet we cannot observe the maxims themselves, not even always in ourselves: consequently, the judgment that the doer of them is a bad man cannot with certainty be founded on experience. In order then to call a man bad, it should be possible to argue à priori from some actions, or from a single consciously bad action, to a bad maxim as its foundation, and from this to a general source in the actor of all particular morally bad maxims, this source again being itself a maxim.

  Lest any difficulty should be found in the expression nature, which, if it meant (as usual) the opposite of the source of actions from freedom, would be directly contradictory to the predicates morally good or evil, it is to be observed, that by the nature of man we mean here only the subjective ground of the use of his freedom in general (under objective moral laws) which precedes every act that falls under the senses, wherever this ground lies. This subjective ground, however, must itself again be always an act of freedom (else the use or abuse of man’s elective will in respect of the moral law could not be imputed to him nor the good or bad in him be called moral). Consequently, the source of the bad cannot lie in any object that determines the elective will through inclination, or in any natural impulse, but only in a rule that the elective will makes for itself for the use of its freedom, that is, in a maxim. Now we cannot go on to ask concerning this, What is the subjective ground why it is adopted, and not the opposite maxim? (22) For if this ground were ultimately not now a maxim but a mere natural impulse, then the use of freedom would be reduced to determination by natural causes, which is contradictory to its conception. When we say then, man is by nature good, or, he is by nature bad, this only means that he contains a primary source (to us inscrutable) 1 of the adoption of good or of the adoption of bad (law violating) maxims: and this generally as man, and consequently so that by this he expresses the character of his species.

  We shall say then of one of these characters (which distinguishes man from other possible rational beings, it is innate, and yet we must always remember that Nature is not to bear the blame of it (if it is bad), or the credit (if it is good), but that the man himself is the author of it. But since the primary source of the adoption of our maxims, which itself must again always lie in the free elective will, cannot be a fact of experience, hence the good or bad in man (as the subjective primary source of the adoption of this or that maxim in respect of the moral law) is innate merely in this sense, that it is in force before any use of freedom is experienced (23) (in the earliest childhood back to birth) so that it is conceived as being present in man at birth, not that birth is the cause of it.

  remark.

  The conflict between the two above-mentioned hypotheses rests on a disjunctive proposition; man is (by nature) either morally good or morally bad. But it readily occurs to every one to ask whether this disjunction is correct, and whether one might not affirm that man is by nature neither, or another that he is both at once, namely, in some parts good, in others bad. Experience seems even to confirm this mean between the two extremes.

  It is in general, however, important for Ethics to admit, as far as possible, no intermediates, either in actions (adiaphora) or in human characters; since with such ambiguity all maxims would run the risk of losing all definiteness and firmness. Those who are attached to this strict view are commonly called rigourists (a name that is meant as a reproach, but which is really praise): and their antipodes may be called latitudinarians. The latter are either latitudinarians of neutrality, who may be called indifferentists, or of compromise, who may be called syncretists.1

  (24) The answer given to the above question by the rigourists 1 is founded on the important consideration: (25) That freedom of elective will has the peculiar characteristic that it cannot be determined to action by any spring except only so far as the man has taken it up into his maxim (has made it the universal rule of his conduct); only in his way can a spring, whatever it may be, co-exist with the absolute spontaneity of the elective will (freedom). Only the moral law is of itself in the judgment of reason a spring, and whoever makes it his maxim is morally good. Now if the law does not determine a man’s elective will in respect of an action which has reference to it, an opposite spring must have influence on his elective will; and since by hypothesis this can only occur by the man taking it (and consequently deviation from the moral law) into his maxim (in which case he is a bad man), it follows that his disposition in respect of the moral law is never indifferent (is always one of the two, good or bad.)

  (26) Nor can he be partly good and partly bad at the same time. For if he is in part good, he has taken the moral law into his maxim; if then he were at the same time in another part bad, then, since the moral law of obedience to duty is one and universal, the maxim referring to it would be universal, and at the same time only particular, which is a contradiction. 1

  When it is said that a man has the one or the other disposition as an innate natural quality, it is not meant that it is not acquired by him, that is, that he is not the author of it, but only that it is not acquired in time (that from youth up he has been always the one or the other). The disposition, that is, the primary subjective source of the adoption of maxims can be but one, and applies generally to the whole use of freedom. But it must have been itself adopted by free elective will, for otherwise it could not be imputed. Now the subjective ground or cause of its adoption cannot be further known (although we cannot help asking for it); since otherwise another maxim would have to be adduced, into which this disposition has been adopted, and this again must have its reason. (27) Since, then, we cannot deduce this disposition, or rather its ultimate source, from any first act of the elective will in time, we call it a characteristic of the elective will, attaching to it by nature (although in fact it is founded in freedom). Now that when we say of a man that he is by nature good or bad, we are justified in applying this not to the individual (in which case one might be assumed to be by nature good, another bad), but to the whole race, this can only be proved when it has been shown in the anthropological inquiry that the reasons which justify us in ascribing one of the two characters to a man as innate are such that there is no reason to except any man from them, and that therefore it holds of the race.

  I.

  of the original incapacity for good in human nature.

  We may conveniently regard this capacity [Anlage] under three heads divided in reference to their end, as elements in the purpose for which man exists:—

  • 1. The capacities belonging to the animal nature of man as a living being.
  • 2. To his humanity as a living and at the same time rational being.
  • 3. To his personality as a rational and at the same time responsible being [capable of imputation]. 1

  (28) 1. The capacities belonging to the Animal Nature of man may be brought under the general title of physical and merely mechanical self-love, that is, such as does not require reason. It is threefold:—first, for the maintenance of himself; secondly, for the propagation of his kind, and the maintenance of his offspring; thirdly, for communion with other men, that is, the impulse to society. All sorts of vices may be grafted on it, but they do not proceed from that capacity itself as a root. They may be called vices of coarseness of nature, and in their extreme deviation from the end of nature become brutal vices: intemperance, sensuality, and wild lawlessness (in relation to other men).

  2. The capacities belonging to his Humanity may be brought under the general title of comparative, though physical, self-love (which requires reason), namely, estimating one’s self as happy or unhappy only in comparison with others. From this is derived the inclination to obtain a worth in the opinion of others, and primarily only that of equality: to allow no one a superiority over one’s self, joined with a constant apprehension (29) that others might strive to attain it, and from this there ultimately arises an unjust desire to gain superiority for ourselves over others. On this, namely, jealousy and rivalry, the greatest vices may be grafted, secret and open hostilities against all whom we look upon as not belonging to us. These, however, do not properly spring of themselves from nature as their root, but apprehending that others endeavour to gain a hated superiority over us, these are inclinations to secure this superiority for ourselves as a defensive measure, whereas Nature would use the idea of such competition (which in itself does not exclude mutual love) only as a motive to culture. The vices that are grafted on this inclination may therefore be called vices of culture, and in their highest degree of malignancy (in which they are merely the idea of a maximum of badness surpassing humanity), ex. gr. in envy, in ingratitude, malice, &c., are called devilish vices.

  3. The capacity belonging to Personality is the capability of respect for the moral law as a spring of the elective will adequate in itself. The capability of mere respect for the moral law in us would be moral feeling, which does not of itself constitute an end of the natural capacity, but only so far as it is a spring of the elective will. Now as this is only possible by free will adopting it into its maxim, hence the character of such an elective will is the good character, which, like every character of free elective will, is something that can only be acquired, the possibility of which, however, requires the presence of a capacity in our nature on which absolutely nothing bad can be grafted. The idea of the moral law alone, with the respect inseparable from it, cannot properly be called a capacity belonging to personality; (30) it is personality itself (the idea of humanity considered altogether intellectually). But that we adopt this respect into our maxims as a spring, this seems to have a subjective ground additional to personality, and so this ground seems therefore to deserve the name of a capacity belonging to personality.

  If we consider these three capacities according to the conditions of their possibility, we find that the first requires no reason; the second is based on reason which, though practical, is at the service of other motives; the third has as its root reason, which is practical of itself, that is, unconditionally legislative: all these capacities in man are not only (negatively) good (not resisting the moral law), but are also capacities for good (promoting obedience to it). They are original, for they appertain to the possibility of human nature. Man can use the two former contrary to their end, but cannot destory them. By the capacities of a being, we understand both its constituent elements and also the forms of their combination which make it such and such a being. They are original if they are essentially necessary to the possibility of such a being; contingent if the being would be in itself possible without them. It is further to be observed that we are speaking here only of those capacities which have immediate reference to the faculty of desire and to the use of the elective will.

  II.

  of the propensity to evil in human nature.

  By propensity (propensio) I understand the subjective source of possibility of an inclination (habitual desire, concupiscentia) so far as this latter is, as regards man generally, contingent. 1 (31) It is distinguished from a capacity by this, that although it may be innate, it need not be conceived as such, but may be regarded as acquired (when it is good), or (when it is bad) as drawn by the person on himself. Here, however, we are speaking only of the propensity to what is properly, i.e. morally bad, which, as it is possible only as a determination of free elective will, and this can be adjudged to be good or bad only by its maxims, must consist in the subjective ground of the possibility of a deviation of the maxims from the moral law, and if this propensity may be assumed as belonging to man universally (and therefore to the characteristics of his race) will be called a natural propensity of man to evil. We may add further that the capability or incapability of the elective will to adopt the moral law into its maxims or not, arising from natural propensity, is called a good or bad heart.

  We may conceive three distinct degrees of this:—first, it is the weakness of the human heart in following adopted maxims generally, (32) or the frailty of human nature; secondly, the propensity to mingle non-moral motives with the moral (even when it is done with a good purpose and under maxims of good), that is impurity; thirdly, the propensity to adopt bad maxims, that is the depravity of human nature or of the human heart.

  First, the frailty (fragilitas) of human nature is expressed even in the complaint of an apostle: “To will is present with me, but how to perform I find not;” that is, I adopt the good (the law) into the maxim of my elective will; but this, which, objectively in its ideal conception (in thesi) is an irresistible spring, is subjectively (in hypothesi), when the maxim is to be carried out, weaker than inclination.

  Secondly, the impurity (impuritas, improbitas) of the human heart consists in this, that although the maxim is good in its object (the intended obedience to the law), and perhaps also powerful enough for practice, yet it is not purely moral, that is, does not, as ought to be the case, involve the law alone as its sufficient spring, but frequently (perhaps always) has need of other springs beside it, to determine the elective will to what duty demands. In other words, that dutiful actions are not done purely from duty.

  Thirdly, the depravity (vitiositas, pravitas), or if it is preferred, the corruption (corruptio), of the human heart, is the propensity of the elective will to maxims which prefer other (not moral) springs to that which arises from the moral law. It may also be called the perversity (perversitas) of the human heart, because it reverses the moral order in respect of the springs of a free elective will; and although legally good actions may be consistent with this, the moral disposition is thereby corrupted in its root, and the man is therefore designated bad.

  (33) It will be remarked that the propensity to evil in man is here ascribed even to the best (best in action), which must be the case if it is to be proved that the propensity to evil amongst men is universal, or what here signifies the same thing, that it is interwoven with human nature.

  However, a man of good morals (bene moratus) and a morally good man (moraliter bonus) do not differ (or at least ought not to differ) as regards the agreement of their actions with the law; only that in the one these actions have not always the law for their sole and supreme spring; in the other it is invariably so. We may say of the former that he obeys the law in the letter (that is, as far as the act is concerned which the law commands), but of the latter, that he observes it in the spirit (the spirit of the moral law consists in this, that it is alone an adequate spring). Whatever is not done from this faith is sin (in the disposition of mind). For if other springs beside the law itself are necessary to determine the elective will to actions conforming to the law (ex. gr. desire of esteem, self-love in general, or even good-natured instinct, such as compassion), then it is a mere accident that they agree with the law, for they might just as well urge to its transgression. The maxim, then, the goodness of which is the measure of all moral worth in the person, is in this case opposed to the law, and while the man’s acts are all good, he is nevertheless bad.

  The following explanation is necessary in order to define the conception of this propensity. Every propensity is either physical, that is, it appertains to man’s will as a physical being; or it is moral, that is, appertaining to his elective will as a moral being. In the first sense, there is no propensity to moral evil, for this must spring from freedom; (34) and a physical propensity (founded on sensible impulses) to any particular use of freedom, whether for good or evil, is a contradiction. A propensity to evil, then, can only attach to the elective will as a moral faculty. Now, nothing is morally bad (that is, capable of being imputed) but what is our own act. On the other hand, by the notion of a propensity we understand a subjective ground of determination of the elective will antecedent to any act, and which is consequently not itself an act. Hence there would be a contradiction in the notion of a mere propensity to evil, unless indeed this word “act” could be taken in two distinct senses, both reconcilable with the notion of freedom. Now the term “act” in general applies to that use of freedom by which the supreme maxim is adopted into one’s elective will (conformably or contrary to the law), as well as to that in which actions themselves (as to their matter, that is, the objects of the elective will) are performed in accordance with that maxim. The propensity to evil is an act in the former sense (peccatum originarium), and is at the same time the formal source of every act in the second sense, which in its matter violates the law and is called vice (peccatum derivativum); and the first fault remains, even though the second may be often avoided (from motives other than the law itself). The former is an intelligible act only cognizable by reason, apart from any condition of time; the latter sensible, empirical, given in time (factum phœnomenon). The former is especially called, in comparison with the second, a mere propensity; and innate, because it cannot be extirpated (since this would require that the supreme maxim should be good, whereas by virtue of that propensity itself it is supposed to be bad); (35) and especially because, although the corruption of our supreme maxim is our own act, we cannot assign any further cause for it, any more than for any fundamental attribute of our nature. What has just been said will show the reason why we have, at the beginning of this section, sought the three sources of moral evil simply in that which by laws of freedom affects the ultimate ground of our adopting or obeying this or that maxim, not in what affects the sensibility (as receptivity).

  III.

  man is by nature bad.

  “Vitiis nemo sine nascitur.”

  —Horat.

  According to what has been said above, the proposition: Man is bad can only mean: He is conscious of the moral law, and yet has adopted into his maxim (occasional) deviation therefrom. He is by nature bad is equivalent to saying: This holds of him considered as a species; not as if such a quality could be inferred from the specific conception of man (that of man in general) (for then it would be necessary); but by what is known of him through experience he cannot be otherwise judged, or it may be presupposed as subjectively necessary in every man, even the best.

  Now this propensity itself must be considered as morally bad, and consequently not as a natural property, but as something that can be imputed to the man, and consequently must consist in maxims of the elective will which are opposed to the law; but on account of freedom these must be looked upon as in themselves contingent, which is inconsistent with the universality of this badness, unless the ultimate subjective ground of all maxims is, by whatever means, interwoven with humanity, and, as it were, rooted in it; hence we call this a natural propensity to evil; and as the man must, nevertheless, always incur the blame of it, (36) it may be called even a radical badness in human nature, innate (but not the less drawn upon us by ourselves).

  Now that there must be such a corrupt propensity rooted in men need not be formally proved in the face of the multitude of crying examples which experience sets before one’s eyes in the acts of man. If examples are desired from that state in which many philosophers hoped to find pre-eminently the natural goodness of human nature, namely, the so-called state of nature, we need only look at the instances of unprovoked cruelty in the scenes of murder in Tofoa, New Zealand, the NavigatorIslands, and the never-ceasing instances in the wide wastes of North-West America (mentioned by Captain Hearne), 1 where no one has even the least advantage from it; 2 and comparing these with that hypothesis, we have vices of savage life more than enough to make us abandon that opinion. On the other hand, if one is disposed to think that human nature can be better known in a civilized condition (in which its characteristic properties can be more perfectly developed), then one must listen to a long melancholy litany of complaints of humanity; (37) of secret falsehood, even in the most intimate friendship, so that it is reckoned a general maxim of prudence that even the best friends should restrain their confidence in their mutual intercourse; of a propensity to hate the man to whom one is under an obligation, for which a benefactor must always be prepared; of a hearty good-will, which nevertheless admits the remark that “in the misfortunes of our best friends there is something which is not altogether displeasing to us”; 3 and of many other vices concealed under the appearance of virtue, not to mention the vices of those who do not conceal them, because we are satisfied to call a man good who is a bad man of the average class. This will give one enough of the vices of culture and civilization (the most mortifying of all) to make him turn away his eye from the conduct of men, lest he should fall into another vice, namely, misanthropy. If he is not yet satisfied, however, he need only take into consideration a condition strangely compounded of both, namely, the external condition of nations—for the relation of civilized nations to one another is that of a rude state of nature (a state of perpetual preparation for war), and they are also firmly resolved never to abandon it—and he will become aware of principles adopted by the great societies called States,1 (38) which directly contradict the public profession, and yet are never to be laid aside, principles which no philsopher has yet been able to bring into agreement with morals, nor (sad to say) can they propose any better which would be reconcilable with human nature; so that the philosophical millennium, which hopes for a state of perpetual peace founded on a union of nations as a republic of the world, is generally ridiculed as visionary, just as much as the theological, which looks for the complete moral improvement of the whole human race.

  Now the source of this badness (1) cannot, as is usually done, be placed in the sensibility of man and the natural inclinations springing therefrom. For not only have these no direct reference to badness (on the contrary, they afford the occasion for the moral character to show its power, occasion for virtue), but further we are not responsible for their existence (we cannot be, for being implanted in us they have not us for their authors), whereas we are accountable for the propensity to evil; for as this concerns the morality of the subject, and is consequently found in him as a freely acting being, it must be imputed to him as his own fault, notwithstanding its being so deeply rooted in the elective will that it must be said to be found in man by nature. The source of this evil (2) cannot be placed in a corruption of Reason which gives the moral law (39), as if Reason could abolish the authority of the law in itself and disown its obligation; for this is absolutely impossible. To conceive one’s self as a freely acting being, and yet released from the law which is appropriate to such a being (the moral law), would be the same as to conceive a cause operating without any law (for determination by natural laws is excluded by freedom), and this would be a contradiction. For the purpose then of assigning a source of the moral evil in man, sensibility contains too little, for in taking away the motives which arise from freedom it makes him a mere animal being; on the other hand, a Reason releasing from the moral law, a malignant reason, as it were (a simply bad Rational Will, [“Wille”] involves too much, for by this antagonism to the law would itself be made a spring of action (for the elective will cannot be determined without some spring), so that the subject would be made a devilish being. Neither of these views, however, is applicable to man.

  Now although the existence of this propensity to evil in human nature can be shown by experience, from the actual antagonism in time between human will and the law, yet this proof does not teach us its proper nature and the source of this antagonism. This propensity concerns a relation of the free elective will (an elective will, therefore, the conception of which is not empirical) to the moral law as a spring (the conception of which is likewise purely intellectual); its nature then must be cognized à priori from the concept of the Bad, so far as the laws of freedom (obligation and accountability) bear upon it. The following is the development of the concept:—

  Man (even the worst) does not in any maxim, as it were, rebelliously abandon the moral law (and renounce obedience to it). (40) On the contrary, this forces itself upon him irresistibly by virtue of his moral nature, and if no other spring opposed it he would also adopt it into his ultimate maxim as the adequate determining principle of his elective will, that is, he would be morally good. But by reason of his physical nature, which is likewise blameless, he also depends on sensible springs of action, and adopts them also into his maxim (by the subjective principle of self-love). If, however, he adopted them into his maxim as adequate of themselves alone to determine his will without regarding the moral law (which he has within), then he would be morally bad. Now as he naturally adopts both into his maxim, and as he would find each, if it were alone, sufficient to determine his will, it follows that if the distinction of the maxims depended merely on the distinction of the springs (the matter of the maxims), namely, according as they were furnished by the law or by an impulse of sense, he would be morally good and bad at once, which (as we saw in the Introduction) is a contradiction. Hence the distinction whether the man is good or bad must lie, not in the distinction of the springs that he adopts into his maxim, but in the subordination, i. e. which of the two he makes the condition of the other (that is, not in the matter of the maxim but in its form). Consequently a man (even the best) is bad only by this, that he reverses the moral order of the springs in adopting them into his maxims; he adopts, indeed, the moral law along with that of self-love; but perceiving that they cannot subsist together on equal terms, but that one must be subordinate to the other as its supreme condition, he makes the spring of self-love and its inclinations the condition of obedience to the moral law; whereas, on the contrary, the latter ought to be adopted into the general maxims of the elective will as the sole spring, being the supreme condition of the satisfaction of the former.

  (41) The springs being thus reversed by his maxim, contrary to the moral order, his actions may, nevertheless, conform to the law just as though they had sprung from genuine principles: provided reason employs the unity of maxims in general, which is proper to the moral law, merely for the purpose of introducing into the springs of inclination a unity that does not belong to them, under the name of happiness (ex. gr. that truthfulness, if adopted as a principle, relieves us of the anxiety to maintain consistency in our lies and to escape being entangled in their serpent coils). In which case the empirical character is good, but the intelligible character bad.

  Now if there is in human nature a propensity to this, then there is in man a natural propensity to evil; and since this propensity itself must ultimately be sought in a free elective will, and therefore can be imputed, it is morally bad. This badness is radical, because it corrupts the source of all maxims; and at the same time being a natural propensity, it cannot be destroyed by human powers, since this could only be done by good maxims; and when by hypothesis the ultimate subjective source of all maxims is corrupt, these cannot exist; nevertheless, it must be possible to overcome it, since it is found in man as a freely acting being.

  The depravity of human nature, then, is not so much to be called badness, if this word is taken in its strict sense, namely, as a disposition (subjective principle of maxims) to adopt the bad, as bad, into one’s maxims as a spring (for that is devilish); but rather perversity of heart, which, on account of the result, is also called a bad heart. (42) This may co-exist with a Will [“Wille”] good in general, and arises from the frailty of human nature, which is not strong enough to follow its adopted principles, combined with its impurity in not distinguishing the springs (even of well-intentioned actions) from one another by moral rule. So that ultimately it looks at best only to the conformity of its actions with the law, not to their derivation from it, that is, to the law itself as the only spring. Now although this does not always give rise to wrong actions and a propensity thereto, that is, to vice, yet the habit of regarding the absence of vice as a conformity of the mind to the law of duty (as virtue) must itself be designated a radical perversity of the human heart (since in this case the spring in the maxims is not regarded at all, but only the obedience to the letter of the law).

  This is called innate guilt (reatus), because it can be perceived as soon as ever the use of freedom manifests itself in man, and nevertheless must have arisen from freedom, and therefore may be imputed. It may in its two first degrees (of frailty and impurity) be viewed as unintentional guilt (culpa), but in the third as intentional (dolus), and it is characterized by a certain malignancy of the human heart (dolus malus), deceiving itself as to its own good or bad dispositions, and provided only its actions have not the bad result which by their maxims they might well have, then not disquieting itself about its dispositions, but, on the contrary, holding itself to be justified before the law. Hence comes the peace of conscience of so many (in their own opinion conscientious) men, when amidst actions in which the law was not taken into counsel, (43) or at least was not the most important consideration, they have merely had the good fortune to escape bad consequences. Perhaps they even imagine they have merit, not feeling themselves guilty of any of the transgressions in which they see others involved; without inquiring whether fortune is not to be thanked for this, and whether the disposition which, if they would, they could discover within, would not have led them to the practice of the like vices, had they not been kept away from them by want of power, by temperament, education, circumstances of time and place which lead into temptation (all things that cannot be imputed to us). This dishonesty in imposing on ourselves, which hinders the establishment of genuine moral principle in us, extends itself then outwardly also to falsehood and deception of others which, if it is not to be called badness, at least deserves to be called worthlessness, and has its root in the radical badness of human nature, which (inasmuch as it perverts the moral judgment in respect of the estimation to be formed of a man, and renders imputation quite uncertain both internally and externally) constitutes the corrupt spot in our nature, which, as long as we do not extirpate it, hinders the source of good from developing itself as it otherwise would.

  A member of the English Parliament uttered in the heat of debate the declaration, “Every man has his price.” 1 If this is true (which every one may decide for himself)—if there is no virtue for which a degree of temptation cannot be found which is capable of overthrowing it—if the question whether the good or the bad spirit shall gain us to its side only depends on which bids highest and offers most prompt payment—then what the Apostle says might well be true of men universally: “There is no difference, they are altogether sinners; there is none that doeth good (according to the spirit of the law), no not one.” 2

  IV.

  on the origin of the evil in human nature.

  Origin (primary) is the derivation of an effect from its primary cause, that is, one which is not in its turn an effect of another cause of the same kind. It may be considered either as a rational or a temporal origin. In the former signification, it is only the existence of the effect that is considered; in the latter, its occurrence, so that it is referred as an event to its cause in time. When the effect is referred to a cause which is connected with it by laws of freedom, as is the case with moral evil, then the determination of the elective will to the production of it is not regarded as connected with its determining principle in time, but merely in the conception of the reason, (45) and cannot be deduced as from any antecedent state, which on the other hand must be done when the bad action, considered as an event in the world, is referred to its physical cause. It is a contradiction then to seek for the time-origin of free actions as such (as we do with physical effects); or of the moral character of man, so far as it is regarded as contingent, because this is the principle of the use of freedom, and this (as well as the determining principle of free will generally) must be sought for simply in conceptions of reason.

  But whatever may be the origin of the moral evil in man, the most unsuitable of all views that can be taken of its spread and continuance through all the members of our race and in all generations is, to represent it as coming to us by inheritance from our first parents; for we can say of moral evil what the poet says of good:

  . . . Genus et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostro puto. . . . 1

  (46) It is to be observed, further, that when we inquire into the origin of evil, we do not at first take into account the propensity to it (as peccatum in potentia), but only consider the actual evil of given actions, in its inner possibility, and in what must concur to determine the will to the doing of them.

  Every bad action, when we inquire into its rational origin, must be viewed as if the man had fallen into it directly from the state of innocence. For whatever may have been his previous conduct, and of whatever kind the natural causes influencing him may be, whether moreover they are internal or external, his action is still free, and not determined by any causes, and therefore it both can and must be always judged as an original exercise of his elective will. He ought to have left it undone, in whatever circumstances he may have been; for by no cause in the world can he cease to be a freely acting being. It is said indeed, and justly, that the man is accountable for the consequences, of his previous free but wrong actions; but by this is only meant, that one need not have recourse to the subterfuge of deciding whether the later actions are free or not, because there is sufficient ground for the accountability in the admittedly free action which was their cause. But if a man had been never so bad up to the very moment of an impending free action (even so that custom had become second nature), yet not only has it been his duty to be better, but it is now still his duty to improve himself; (47) he must then be also able to do so, and if he does not, he is just as accountable at the moment of acting as if, endowed with the natural capacity for good (which is inseparable from freedom), he had stepped into evil from the state of innocence. We must not inquire then what is the origin in time of this act, but what is its origin in reason, in order to define thereby the propensity, that is to say, the general subjective principle by which a transgression is adopted into our maxim, if there is such a propensity, and if possible to explain it.

  With this agrees very well the mode of representation which the Scriptures employ in depicting the origin of evil as a beginning of it in the human race, inasmuch as they exhibit it in a history in which that which must be conceived as first in the nature of the thing (without regard to the condition of time) appears as first in time. According to the Scriptures, evil does not begin from a fundamental propensity to it—otherwise its beginning would not spring from freedom—but from sin (by which is understood the transgression of the moral law as a divine command); while the state of man before all propensity to evil is called the state of innocence. The moral law preceded as a prohibition, as must be the case with man as a being not pure, but tempted by inclinations (Gen. ii. 16, 17). Instead now of following this law directly as an adequate spring (one which alone is unconditionally good, and in respect of which no scruple can occur), the man looked about for other springs (iii. 6), which could only be conditionally good (namely, so far as the law is not prejudiced thereby), and made it his maxim—if we conceive the action as consciously arising from freedom—to obey the law of duty not from duty, but from regard to other considerations. (48) Hence he began with questioning the strictness of the law, which excludes the influence of every other spring; then he reasoned down 1 obedience to it to the mere conditional conformity to means (subject to the principle of self-love), whence, finally, the predominance of sensible motives above the spring of the law was adopted into the maxim of action, and so sin was committed (iii. 6). Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. That we all do just the same, consequently “have all sinned in Adam, 1 ” and still sin, is clear from what has preceded; only that in us an innate propensity to sin is presupposed in time, but in the first man, on the contrary, innocence, so that in him the transgression is called a fall; whereas in us it is conceived as following from the innate depravity of our nature. What is meant, however, by this propensity is no more than this, that if we wish to apply ourselves to the explanation of evil as to its beginning in time, we must in the case of every intentional transgression pursue its causes in a previous period of our life, going backwards till we reach a time when the use of reason was not yet developed: in other words, we must trace the source of evil to a propensity towards it (as a foundation in nature) which, on this account, is called innate. In the case of the first man, who is represented as already possessing the full power of using his reason, this is not necessary, nor indeed possible; (49) since otherwise that natural foundation (the evil propensity) must have been created in him; therefore his sin is represented as produced directly from a state of innocence. But we must not seek for an origin in time of a moral character for which we are to be accountable, however inevitable this is when we try to explain its contingent existence (hence Scripture may have so represented it to us in accommodation to this our weakness).

  The rational origin, however, of this perversion of our elective will in respect of the way in which it adopts subordinate springs into its maxims as supreme, i. e. the origin of this propensity to evil, remains inscrutable to us; for it must itself be imputed to us, and consequently that ultimate ground of all maxims would again require the assumption of a bad maxim. 1 What is bad could only have sprung from what is morally bad (not the mere limits of our nature); and yet the original constitution is adapted to good (nor could it be corrupted by any other than man himself, if he is to be accountable for this corruption); there is not then any source conceivable to us from which moral evil could have first come into us. Scripture, 2 in its historical narrative, expresses this inconceivability, at the same time that it defines the depravity of our race more precisely (50) by representing evil as pre-existing at the beginning of the world, not however in man, but in a spirit originally destined for a lofty condition. The first beginning of all evil in general is thus represented as inconceivable to us (for whence came the evil in that spirit?), and man as having fallen into evil only by seduction, and therefore as not fundamentally corrupt (i. e. even in his primary capacity for good), but as still capable of an improvement; in contrast to a seducing spirit, that is, a being in whom the temptation of the flesh cannot be reckoned as alleviating his guilt; so that the former, who, notwithstanding his corrupt heart, continues to have a good Rational Will [“Wille”], has still left the hope of a return to the good from which he has gone astray,

  General Remark.1
  on the restoration of the original capacity for good to its full power.

  What man is or ought to be in a moral sense he must make or must have made himself. Both must be the effect of his free elective will, otherwise it could not be imputed to him, and, consequently, he would be morally neither good nor bad. When it is said he is created good, that can only mean that he is created for good, and the original constitution in man is good; (51) but this does not yet make the man himself good, but according as he does or does not adopt into his maxim the springs which this constitution contains (which must be left altogether to his own free choice), he makes himself become good or bad. Supposing that a supernatural co-operation is also necessary to make a man good or better, whether this consists only in the diminution of the obstacles or in a positive assistance, the man must previously make himself worthy to receive it and to accept this aid (which is no small thing), that is, to adopt into his maxim the positive increase of power, in which way alone it is possible that the good should be imputed to him, and that he should be recognised as a good man.

  Now how it is possible that a man naturally bad should make himself a good man transcends all our conceptions; for how can a bad tree bring forth good fruit? But since it is already admitted that a tree originally good (as to its capacities) has brought forth bad fruit, 1 and the fall from good to bad (when it is considered that it arises from freedom) is not more conceivable than a rising again from bad to good, the possibility of the latter cannot be disputed. For notwithstanding that fall, the command “we ought to become better men,” resounds with undiminished force in our soul; consequently, we must be able to do so, even though what we ourselves can do should be insufficient of itself, and though we should thereby only make ourselves susceptible of an inscrutable higher assistance. It must, however, be presupposed that a germ of good has remained in its complete purity, which could not be destroyed or corrupted— (52) a germ that certainly cannot be self-love, 2 which, when taken as the principle of all our maxims, is in fact the source of all evil.

  (53) The restoration of the original capacity for good in us is then not the acquisition of a lost spring towards good; for this, which consists in respect for the moral law, we could never lose, and, were it possible to do so, we could never recover it. It is then only the restoration of its purity, as the supreme principle of all our maxims, by which it is adopted into these not merely in combination with other springs or as subordinate to these (the inclinations) as conditions, but in its entire purity as a spring sufficient of itself to determine the elective will. The original good is holiness of maxims in following one’s duty, by which the man who adopts this purity into his maxims, although he is not himself as yet on that account holy (for there is still a long interval between maxim and act), nevertheless is on the way to approximate to holiness by an endless progress. Firmness of purpose in following duty, when it has become a habit, is called also virtue, as far as legality is concerned, which is its empirical character (virtus phenomenon). It has then the steady maxim of conformity of actions to the law, whatever may be the source of the spring required for this. (54) Hence virtue in this sense is gradually acquired, and is described by some as a long practice (in observing the law) by which a man has passed from the propensity to vice, by gradual reform of his conduct and strengthening of his maxims, into an opposite propensity. This does not require any change of heart, but only a change of morals. A man regards himself as virtuous when he feels himself confirmed in the maxims of observance of duty, although this be not from the supreme principle of all maxims; but the intemperate man, for instance, returns to temperance for the sake of health; the liar to truth for the sake of reputation; the unjust man to common fairness for the sake of peace or of gain, &c., all on the much-lauded principle of happiness. But that a man should become not merely a legally but a morally good (Godpleasing) man, that is, virtuous in his intelligible character (virtus noumenon), a man who, when he recognises a thing as his duty, needs no other spring than this conception of duty itself; this is not to be effected by gradual reform, as long as the principle of his maxims remains impure, but requires a revolution in the mind (a transition to the maxim of holiness of mind), and he can only become a new man by a kind of new birth, as it were by a new creation (Gospel of John, iii. 5, compared with Gen. i. 2) and a change of heart.

  But if a man is corrupt in the very foundation of his maxims, how is it possible that he should effect this revolution by his own power and become a good man of himself? And yet duty commands it, and duty commands nothing that is not practicable for us. The only way this difficulty can be got over is, that a revolution is necessary for the mental disposition, but a gradual reform for the sensible temperament, which opposes obstacles to the former; and being necessary, must therefore be possible; that is, when a man reverses the ultimate principle of his maxims by which he is a bad man by a single immutable resolution (55) (and in so doing puts on a new man); then so far he is in principle and disposition a subject susceptible of good; but it is only in continued effort and growth that he is a good man, that is, he may hope with such purity of the principle that he has taken as the supreme maxim of his elective will, and by its stability, that he is on the good (though narrow) road of a constant progress from bad to better. In the eyes of one who penetrates the intelligible principle of the heart (of all maxims of elective will), and to whom therefore this endless progress is a unity, that is, in the eyes of God, this comes to the same as being actually a good man (pleasing to Him), and in so far this change may be considered as a revolution; but in the judgment of men, who can estimate themselves and the strength of their maxims only by the superiority which they gain over sensibility in time, it is only to be viewed as an ever continuing struggle for improvement; in other words, as a gradual reform of the perverse disposition, the propensity to evil.

  Hence it follows that the moral culture of man must begin, not with improvement in morals, but with a transformation of the mind and the foundation of a character, although men usually proceed otherwise, and contend against vices singly, leaving the general root of them untouched. Now even a man of the most limited intellect is capable of the impression of an increased respect for an action conformable to duty, in proportion as he withdraws from it in thought all other springs which could have influenced the maxim of the action by means of self-love; and even children are capable of finding out even the least trace of a mixture of spurious springs of action, in which case the action instantly loses all moral worth in their eyes. This capacity for good is admirably cultivated by adducing the example of even good men (good as regards their conformity to law), and allowing one’s moral pupils to estimate the impurity of many maxims from the actual springs of their actions; (56) and it gradually passes over into the character, so that duty simply of itself commences to acquire considerable weight in their hearts. But to teach them to admire virtuous actions, however great the sacrifice they may cost, is not the right way to maintain the feeling of the pupil for moral good. For however virtuous anyone may be, all the good he can ever do is only duty; and to do his duty is no more than to do what is in the common moral order, and therefore does not deserve to be admired. On the contrary, this admiration is a lowering of our feeling for duty, as if obedience to it were something extraordinary and meritorious.

  There is, however, one thing in our soul which, when we take a right view of it, we cannot cease to regard with the highest astonishment, and in regard to which admiration is right or even elevating, and that is the original moral capacity in us generally. What is that in us (we may ask ourselves) by which we, who are constantly dependent on nature by so many wants, are yet raised so far above it in the idea of an original capacity (in us) that we regard them all as nothing, and ourselves as unworthy of existence, if we were to indulge in their satisfaction in opposition to a law which our reason authoritatively prescribes; although it is this enjoyment alone that can make life desirable, while reason neither promises anything nor threatens. The importance of this question must be deeply felt by every man of the most ordinary ability, who has been previously instructed as to the holiness that lies in the idea of duty, but who has not yet ascended to the investigation of the notion of freedom, which first arises from this law; 1 (57) and even the incomprehensibility of this capacity, a capacity which proclaims a Divine origin, must rouse his spirit to enthusiasm, and strengthen it for any sacrifices which respect for this duty may impose on him. The frequent excitement of this feeling of the sublimity of a man’s moral constitution is especially to be recommended as a means of awaking moral sentiments, since it operates in direct opposition to the innate propensity to pervert the springs in the maxims of our elective will, (58) and tends to make unconditional respect for the law the ultimate condition of the admission of all maxims, and so restores the original moral subordination of the springs of action, and the capacity for good in the human heart in its primitive purity.

  But is not this restoration by one’s own strength directly opposed to the thesis of the innate corruption of man for everything good? Undoubtedly, as far as conceivability is concerned, that is to say, our discernment of its possibility, just as with everything which has to be regarded as an event in time (change), and as such necessarily determined by laws of nature, whilst its opposite must yet be regarded as possible by freedom in accordance with moral laws; but it is not opposed to the possibility of this restoration itself. For if the moral law commands that we shall now be better men, it follows inevitably that we also can be better. The thesis of innate evil has no application in dogmatic morality; for its precepts contain the very same duties, and continue in the same force, whether there is in us an innate propensity to transgression or not. In the culture of morality this thesis has more significance, but still it means no more than this, that in the moral cultivation of the moral capacity for good created in us, we cannot begin from a natural state of innocence, but must start from the supposition of a depravity of the elective will in assuming maxims that are contrary to the original moral capacity, and, since the propensity thereto is ineradicable, with an unceasing effort against it. Now, as this only leads to a progress in infinitum from bad to better, it follows that the transformation of the disposition of a bad into that of a good man is to be placed in the change of the supreme inner principle of all his maxims, in accordance with the moral law, provided that this new principle (the new heart) be itself immutable. A man cannot, however, naturally attain the conviction [that it is immutable], either by immediate consciousness, (59) or by the proof derived from the course of life he has hitherto pursued, for the bottom of his heart (the subjective first principle of his maxims) is inscrutable to himself; but unto the path that leads to it, and which is pointed out to him by a fundamentally improved disposition, he must be able to hope to arrive by his own efforts, since he ought to become a good man and can only be esteemed morally good by virtue of that which can be imputed to him as done by himself.

  Now reason, which is naturally disinclined to moral effort, opposes to this expectation of self-improvement all sorts of corrupt ideas of religion, under the pretext of natural impotence (among which is to be reckoned, attributing to God Himself the adoption of the principle of happiness as the supreme condition of His commands). Now we may divide all religions into two classes—favour-seeking religion (mere worship), and moral religion, that is, the religion of a good life. By the former a man either flatters himself that God can make him eternally happy (by remission of his demerits), without his having any need to become a better man, or if this does not seem possible to him, that God can make him a better man, without his having to do anything in the matter himself except to ask for it; which, as before an all-seeing being asking is no more than wishing, would in fact be doing nothing; for if the mere wish were sufficient, every man would be good. But in the moral religion (and amongst all the public religions that have ever existed the Christian alone is moral) it is a fundamental principle that everyone must do as much as lies in his power to become a better man, and that it is only when he has not buried his innate talent (Luke xix. 12-16), when he has used the original capacity for good so as to become a better man, that he can hope that what is not in his power will be supplied by a higher co-operation. But it is not absolutely necessary that man should know in what this co-operation consists; (60) perhaps it is even inevitable that if the way in which it happens had been revealed at a certain time, different men at another time should form different conceptions of it, and that with all honesty. But then the principle holds good: “it is not essential, and therefore not necessary for everyone to know what God does or has done for his salvation,” but it is essential to know what he himself has to do in order to be worthy of this assistance. 1

  APPENDIX.

  I.

  —ON A SUPPOSED RIGHT TO TELL LIES FROM BENEVOLENT MOTIVES. 1

  In the work called France, for the year 1797, Part VI. No. 1, on Political Reactions, by Benjamin Constant, the following passage occurs, p. 123:—

  “The moral principle that it is one’s duty to speak the truth, if it were taken singly and unconditionally, would make all society impossible. We have the proof of this in the very direct consequences which have been drawn from this principle by a German philosopher, who goes so far as to affirm that to tell a falsehood to a murderer who asked us whether our friend, of whom he was in pursuit, had not taken refuge in our house, would be a crime.” 2

  The French philosopher opposes this principle in the following manner, p. 124:—“It is a duty to tell the truth. The notion of duty is inseparable from the notion of right. A duty is what in one being corresponds to the right of another. Where there are no rights there are no duties. To tell the truth then is a duty, but only towards him who has a right to the truth. But no man has a right to a truth that injures others.” The πρωˆτον ψενˆδος here lies in the statement that “To tell the truth is a duty, but only towards him who has a right to the truth.”

  It is to be remarked, first, that the expression “to have a right to the truth” is unmeaning. We should rather say, a man has a right to his own truthfulness (veracitas), that is, to subjective truth in his own person. For to have a right objectively to truth would mean that, as in meum and tuum generally, it depends on his will whether a given statement shall be true or false, which would produce a singular logic.

  Now, the first question is whether a man—in cases where he cannot avoid answering Yes or No—has the right to be untruthful. The second question is whether, in order to prevent a misdeed that threatens him or some one else, he is not actually bound to be untruthful in a certain statement to which an unjust compulsion forces him.

  Truth in utterances that cannot be avoided is the formal duty of a man to everyone, 1 however great the disadvantage that may arise from it to him or any other; and although by making a false statement I do no wrong to him who unjustly compels me to speak, yet I do wrong to men in general in the most essential point of duty, so that it may be called a lie (though not in the jurist’s sense), that is, so far as in me lies I cause that declarations in general find no credit, and hence that all rights founded on contract should lose their force; and this is a wrong which is done to mankind.

  If, then, we define a lie merely as an intentionally false declaration towards another man, we need not add that it must injure another; as the jurists think proper to put in their definition (mendacium est falsiloquium in præjudicium alterius). For it always injures another; if not another individual, yet mankind generally, since it vitiates the source of justice. This benevolent lie may, however, by accident (casus) become punishable even by civil laws; and that which escapes liability to punishment only by accident may be condemned as a wrong even by external laws. For instance, if you have by a lie hindered a man who is even now planning a murder, you are legally responsible for all the consequences. But if you have strictly adhered to the truth, public justice can find no fault with you, be the unforeseen consequence what it may. It is possible that whilst you have honestly answered Yes to the murderer’s question, whether his intended victim is in the house, the latter may have gone out unobserved, and so not have come in the way of the murderer, and the deed therefore have not been done; whereas, if you lied and said he was not in the house, and he had really gone out (though unknown to you) so that the murderer met him as he went, and executed his purpose on him, then you might with justice be accused as the cause of his death. For, if you had spoken the truth as well as you knew it, perhaps the murderer while seeking for his enemy in the house might have been caught by neighbours coming up and the deed been prevented. Whoever then tells a lie, however good his intentions may be, must answer for the consequences of it, even before the civil tribunal, and must pay the penalty for them, however unforeseen they may have been; because truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties founded on contract, the laws of which would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted.

  To be truthful (honest) in all declarations is therefore a sacred unconditional command of reason, and not to be limited by any expediency.

  M. Constant makes a thoughtful and sound remark on the decrying of such strict principles, which it is alleged lose themselves in impracticable ideas, and are therefore to be rejected (p. 123):—“In every case in which a principle proved to be true seems to be inapplicable, it is because we do not know the middle principle which contains the medium of its application.” He adduces (p. 121) the doctrine of equality as the first link forming the social chain (p. 121); “namely, that no man can be bound by any laws except those to the formation of which he has contributed. In a very contracted society this principle may be directly applied and become the ordinary rule without requiring any middle principle. But in a very numerous society we must add a new principle to that which we here state. This middle principle is, that the individuals may contribute to the formation of the laws either in their own person or by representatives. Whoever would try to apply the first principle to a numerous society without taking in the middle principle would infallibly bring about its destruction. But this circumstance, which would only show the ignorance or incompetence of the lawgiver, would prove nothing against the principle itself.” He concludes (p. 125) thus: “A principle recognised as truth must, therefore, never be abandoned, however obviously danger may seem to be involved in it.” (And yet the good man himself abandoned the unconditional principle of veracity on account of the danger to society, because he could not discover any middle principle would serve to prevent this danger; and, in fact, no such principle is to be interpolated here.)

  Retaining the names of the persons as they have been here brought forward, “the French philosopher” confounds the action by which one does harm (nocet) to another by telling the truth, the admission of which he cannot avoid, with the action by which he does him wrong (lædit). It was merely an accident (casus) that the truth of the statement did harm to the inhabitant of the house; it was not a free deed (in the juridicial sense). For to admit his right to require another to tell a lie for his benefit would be to admit a claim opposed to all law. Every man has not only a right, but the strictest duty to truthfulness in statements which he cannot avoid, whether they do harm to himself or others. He himself, properly speaking, does not do harm to him who suffers thereby; but this harm is caused by accident. For the man is not free to choose, since (if he must speak at all) veracity is an unconditional duty. The “German philosopher” will therefore not adopt as his principle the proposition (p. 124): “It is a duty to speak the truth, but only to him who has a right to the truth,” first on account of the obscurity of the expression, for truth is not a possession, the right to which can be granted to one, and refused to another; and next and chiefly, because the duty of veracity (of which alone we are speaking here) makes no distinction between persons towards whom we have this duty, and towards whom we may be free from it; but is an unconditional duty which holds in all circumstances.

  Now, in order to proceed from a metaphysic of Right (which abstracts from all conditions of experience) to a principle of politics (which implies these notions to cases of experience), and by means of this to the solution of a problem of the latter in accordance with the general principle of right, the philosopher will enunciate:—1. An Axiom, that is, an apodictically certain proposition, which follows directly from the definition of external right (harmony of the freedom of each with the freedom of all by a universal law). 2. A Postulate of external public law as the united will of all on the principle of equality, without which there could not exist the freedom of all. 3. A problem; how it is to be arranged that harmony may be maintained in a society, however large, on principles of freedom and equality (namely by means of a representative system); and this will then become a principle of the political system, the establishment and arrangement of which will contain enactments which, drawn from practical knowledge of men, have in view only the mechanism of administration of justice, and how this is to be suitably carried out. Justice must never be accommodated to the political system, but always the political system to justice.

  “A principle recognised as true (I add, recognised à priori, and therefore apodictic) must never be abandoned, however obviously danger may seem to be involved in it,” says the author. Only here we must not understand the danger of doing harm (accidentally), but of doing wrong; and this would happen if the duty of veracity, which is quite unconditional, and constitutes the supreme condition of justice in utterances, were made conditional and subordinate to other considerations; and, although by a certain lie I in fact do no wrong to any person, yet I infringe the principle of justice in regard to all indispensably necessary statements generally (I do wrong formally, though not materially; and this is much worse than to commit an injustice to any individual, because such a deed does not presuppose any principle leading to it in the subject. The man who, when asked whether in the statement he is about to make he intends to speak truth or not, does not receive the question with indignation at the suspicion thus expressed towards him that he might be a liar, but who asks permission first to consider possible exceptions, is already a liar (in potentia), since he shows that he does not recognize veracity as a duty in itself, but reserves exceptions from a rule which in its nature does not admit of exceptions, since to do so would be self-contradictory.

  All practical principles of justice must contain strict truths, and the principles here called middle principles can only contain the closer definition of their application to actual cases (according to the rules of politics), and never exceptions from them, since exceptions destroy the universality, an account of which alone they bear the name of principles.

  II.

  —ON THE SAYING “NECESSITY HAS NO LAW”.

  There is no casus necessitatis except in the case where an unconditional duty conflicts with a duty which, though perhaps great, is yet conditional; e. g. if the question is about preserving the State from disaster by betraying a person who stands towards another in a relation such as, for example, that of father and son. To save the State from harm is an unconditional duty; to save an individual is only a conditional duty, namely, provided he has not been guilty of a crime against the State. The information given to the authorities may be given with the greatest reluctance, but it is given under pressure, namely, moral necessity. But if a shipwrecked man thrusts another from his plank in order to save his own life, and it is said that he had the right of necessity (i. e. physical necessity) to do so, this is wholly false. For to maintain my own life is only a conditional duty (viz. if it can be done without crime), but it is an unconditional duty not to take the life of another who does not injure me, nay, does not even bring me into peril of losing it. However, the teachers of general civil right proceed quite consistently in admitting this right of necessity. For the sovereign power could not connect any punishment with the prohibition; for this punishment would necessarily be death, but it would be an absurd law that would threaten death to a man if when in danger he did not voluntarily submit to death.—From “Das mag in der Theorie richtig seyn, u. s. w.” (Rosenkr., vii., p. 211.)

  [The two cases here considered were probably suggested by Cicero, who quotes them from Hecato, a disciple of Panætius.—De Off. iii. 23.]

  Printed byPonsonby and Weldrick,Dublin.

  [1]
  
  I. e. “Religion, so far as it lies within the limits of Reason alone”; not “pure Reason,” as some German, and perhaps all English, writers on the history of philosophy have it. Kant himself, indeed, writes “reiner” in one place (p. 60, note); but this is, doubtless, a slip, if not a printer’s error. Slips of the same kind are frequent, us my foot-notes show.

  [1]
  
  The circumstances are worth recording here: This friend had fallen into a fever in consequence of being abandoned by her betrothed lover, to whom she was deeply attached. She could not be induced to swallow the nauseous draughts prescribed for her, and Kant’s mother, who nursed her, having failed in her attempt at persuasion, thought to succeed by setting the example of taking the medicine herself. When she had done so, she was seized with nausea and shivering, and at the same time observing spots on her friend’s body, which she took for fever-spots or petechiæ, her imagination was excited, thinking that she had caught the infection. She was seized with fever the same day, and died a few days after.

  [1]
  
  See an Essay by the present writer on the Theory of the Tides in the Philosophical Magazine, January, 1870; February, 1871; and January, 1872; and in the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, March, 1872; and on the amount of the retardation, Hermathena, 1882. (These Essays have now been published in a volume.) Kant subsequently thought of another cause, which might operate in the opposite direction, viz. the condensation of the interior parts of the earth. He did not, however, publish the suggestion.

  [1]
  
  I do not suppose it likely that Laplace should have seen Kant’s anonymous book, but it must be remembered that Kant mentioned his theory in several publications, and probably referred to it in his lectures.

  [1]
  
  Kant assumed too hastily that Kepler’s third law applies to the particles of the ring, which amounts to supposing that their mutual disturbances are negligible. Yet, considering the form of the rings, this is not a violent hypothesis.

  [2]
  
  Phys. Geogr., p. 449.

  [3]
  
  Wright’s work was entitled, An Original Theory; or, a New Hypothesis of the Universe founded on the Laws of Nature. By Thomas Wright, of Durham. London, 1750. It is singular that the speculations of this ingenious and original writer have been saved from oblivion in his own country by Kant, who was indebted for his knowledge of them to a German periodical. Prof. De Morgan has described Wright’s work at some length in the Philosophical Magazine for April, 1848; but De Morgan’s attention was drawn to it by Arago’s notice in the Annuaire for 1842; and Arago, who had not seen the book, only knew it through Kant’s reference. There is an account of Wright in the Gentleman’s Magazine, p. 1793, vol. 63.

  [1]
  
  This suggestion of Kant’s anticipated Lambert’s similar suggestion by six years.

  [1]
  
  This conception is alluded to in the Critique of Practical Reason, p. 376. Humboldt erroneously identifies Kant’s view of the nebulæ with that of Lambert and Halley: Cosmos (Sabine’s transl.), vol. iii., p. 223.

  [1]
  
  Compare Bishop Butler’s second Sermon on the Love of God, where he speaks of viewing the scheme of the universe in the mind that projected it.

  [2]
  
  Quoted by Kant from a German translation.

  [1]
  
  This suggestion also has been lately developed in a popular manner, as a novelty.

  [1]
  
  In 1763 he repeated the substance of it in the treatise, Der einsig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseyns Gottes. He there mentions that the former work was comparatively little known, as it had been published anonymously. In 1791 he caused an extract from it (containing what he thought worth preserving) to be appended to Sommer’s translation of Herschel: “On the Structure of the Heavens.”

  [1]
  
  This conjecture also has been confirmed.

  [2]
  
  Philos. Trans., vol. xvi. A short time previously one Dr. Lister propounded the singular theory that the trade winds were caused by the breath of the marine plant Sargasso.—(Ibid., vol. xiv.)

  [1]
  
  Kant himself says that, as far as he knew, no previous writer had stated this principle, and he was well read in such subjects at that time. It had, however, been stated by Geo. Hadley (not “Sextant” Hadley) in 1735 (Phil. Trans., vol. xxxix., pub. 1738). But Hadley’s paper attracted no attention; and D’Alembert, in his Reflections on the Causes of the Winds (1747), which obtained the prize offered by the Berlin Academy, rejects the heat of the sun as a cause, and makes all the phenomena depend on the attraction of the sun and moon. In the French Encyclopédie (1765, nine years after Kant’s Paper, thirty after Hadley’s), this is combined with Halley’s theory, and it is suggested further that the monsoons may be due to the melting of snow, the exhalations from mountains, &c.

  [1]
  
  Not of Mathematics, as is sometimes stated. The Chair of Mathematics was offered to Kant, but Buck, the professor of Logic and Metaphysics, desired it, and Kant himself preferred the latter chair. Buck, therefore, became professor of Mathematics, and Kant took his place.

  [1]
  
  It may perhaps be interesting to note that both Berkeley and Hume produced their greatest philosophical works before the age of thirty. Fichte wrote his “Wissenschaftslehre” at thirty-three. On the other hand, Locke and Reid, whose object was, like Kant’s, to raise a barrier against scepticism, and to ascertain the extent and limits of the powers of the mind, both published their first philosophical treatises after fifty.

  [1]
  
  Translated by Mr. Bax, in Bohn’s Library, 1883.

  [1]
  
  Before reading this work of Kant’s, I had made a remark to the same effect in Sight and Touch, p. 76, with reference to the statement of Hamilton and others, that Sight is a modification of Touch. “Contact is usually understood to mean the approach of two bodies, so that no space intervenes between them; but in this sense there is probably no such thing as contact in nature. Physically speaking, bodies in contact are only at such a distance that there is a sensible resistance to nearer approach. Sensation by contact then is sensation by resistance; to say then that sight is a modification of touch, is to say that the antecedent of vision is the exercise or feeling of the same repulsive force, which is a physical hypothesis, and, considered as such, is in fact absurd. Between ponderable substances and light, contact, in the sense just specified, is either impossible or is the normal condition.”

  [1]
  
  Translated by Mr. Semple. Edinburgh, 1836. Re-issued 1869.

  [1]
  
  Luther’s translation.

  [2]
  
  An interesting account of “The Last Days of Kant,” taken from Wasianski, may be found in De Quincey’s works, vol. iii.

  [3]
  
  Five German feet would be less than five feet two inches English.

  [1]
  
  Afterwards included in the “Streit der Facultäten.” This essay has had a circulation of over 50,000 in Germany, and a new edition has lately appeared.

  [2]
  
  See an amusing book, by George Catlin, Shut your Mouth. London, 1869.

  [1]
  
  Some of his critical biographers thought he ate too much, forgetting that this was his only meal in the twenty-four hours. “It is believed,” says De Quincey, “that his critics ate their way ‘from morn to dewy eve,’ through the following course of meals:— 1st, Breakfast early in the morning; 2nd, Breakfast à la fourchette, about 10 a.m.; 3rd, Dinner at 1 or 2; 4th, Vesper Brod; 5th, Abend Brod; all which does seem a very fair allowance for a man who means to lecture on abstinence at night.”

  [1]
  
  Yet some of his biographers state that he never gave alms to beggars.

  [1]
  
  The reader will be reminded of the similar story of Dr. Johnson and the boots.

  [1]
  
  Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, page 181; 3rd ed., page 207. In his third edition, Mr. Sidgwick appeals, in defence of his view, to Kant’s statements in pp. 38-42 of the present book. The passage on p. 299 was, he remarks, written ten years later. But I think it will be found that in each of his hypothetical cases he does not deduce the maxim from the imperative. What he does is to test the maxim by the imperative, just as he might test an argument by the rules of syllogism.

  [1]
  
  Discourse on the Attributes, &c. Ed. 1728, p. 200.

  [1]
  
  Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, page 450; 3rd ed., page 482. Mr. Sidgwick’s argument involves the assumption, that the sum of human happiness is certainly known to exceed that of human misery. Even on his own statement, a man who doubted or disbelieved this would be justified in adopting celibacy. Nay, in the latter case, he might regard it as a duty.

  [1]
  
  Kant appears to recognise this in the passage quoted p. 322.

  [2]
  
  For instance, Cicero de Legibus argues that there is “communio juris inter deos et homines.” Dr. Adams (in his celebrated sermon On the Obligation of Virtue), like Kant, remarks that to found the obligation of virtue on any good affections, or on a moral sense (as this is generally understood), is to make its nature wholly precarious, to suppose that men might have been intelligent beings without such sentiments, or with the very reverse. So Clarke had insisted that the eternal relations of things, with their consequent fitnesses, must appear the same to the understandings of all intelligent beings. In fact, this is a commonplace of English moralists.

  [1]
  
  Religion, p. 80.

  [1]
  
  This has been recognised by philosophers of all periods who have not begun with a particular theory as to the origin of the idea and the principle. Thus, to take only non-metaphysical writers, Sir J. Herschel says: “It is our own immediate consciousness of effort which we exert to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force, which gives us this internal conviction of power and causation, so far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that whenever we see material objects put in motion . . . it is in consequence of such an effort, somehow exerted, though not accompanied with our consciousness.” (Astronomy, 10th ed., sec. 439.) Dubois Reymond makes a similar statement, deriving the principle from “an irresistible tendency to personify.” It is somewhat singular that the philosophers who most strenuously deny that the principle of causality has any basis other than our observation of the phenomena of passive matter yet insist most strongly on extending it to those of active will.

  [1]
  
  [The word “law” is here used in two different senses, on which see Whately’s Logic, Appendix, Art. “Law.”]

  [1]
  
  [Johann Christian Von Wolf (1679-1728) was the author of treatises on philosophy, mathematics, &c., which were for a long time the standard text-books in the German Universities. His philosophy was founded on that of Leibnitz.]

  [1]
  
  [The first proposition was that to have moral worth an action must be done from duty.]

  [1]
  
  A maxim is the subjective principle of volition. The objective principle (i.e. that which would also serve subjectively as a practical principle to all rational beings if reason had full power over the faculty of desire) is the practical law.

  [2]
  
  It might be here objected to me that I take refuge behind the word respect in an obscure feeling, instead of giving a distinct solution of the question by a concept of the reason. But although respect is a feeling, it is not a feeling received through influence, but is self-wrought by a rational concept, and, therefore, is specifically distinct from all feelings of the former kind, which may be referred either to inclination or fear. What I recognise immediately as a law for me, I recognise with respect. This merely signifies the consciousness that my will is subordinate to a law, without the intervention of other influences on my sense. The immediate determination of the will by the law, and the consciousness of this is called respect, so that this is regarded as an effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause of it. Respect is properly the (22) conception of a worth which thwarts my self-love. Accordingly it is something which is considered neither as an object of inclination nor of fear, although it has something analogous to both. The object of respect is the law only, and that, the law which we impose on ourselves, and yet recognise as necessary in itself. As a law, we are subjected to it without consulting self-love; as imposed by us on ourselves, it is a result of our will. In the former aspect it has an analogy to fear, in the latter to inclination. Respect for a person is properly only respect for the law (of honesty, &c.), of which he gives us an example. Since we also look on the improvement of our talents as a duty, we consider that we see in a person of talents, as it were, the example of a law (viz. to become like him in this by exercise), and this constitutes our respect. All so-called moral interest consists simply in respect for the law.

  [1]
  
  [Compare the note to the Preface to the Critique of the Practical Reason, p. 111. A specimen of Kant’s proposed application of the Socratic method may be found in Mr. Semple’s translation of the Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 290.]

  [1]
  
  Just as pure mathematics are distinguished from applied, pure logic from applied, so if we choose we may also distinguish pure philosophy of morals (metaphysic) from applied (viz. applied to human nature). By this designation we are also at once reminded that moral principles are not based on properties of human nature, but must subsist à priori of themselves, while from such principles practical rules must be capable of being deduced for every rational nature, and accordingly for that of man.

  [2]
  
  I have a letter from the late excellent Sulzer, in which he asks me what can be the reason that moral instruction, although containing much that is convincing for the reason, yet accomplishes so little? My answer was postponed in order that I might make it complete. But it is simply this, that the teachers themselves have not got their own notions clear, and when they endeavour to make up for this by raking up motives of moral goodness from every quarter, trying to make their physic right strong, they spoil it. For the commonest understanding shows that if we imagine, on the one hand, an act of honesty done with steadfast mind, apart from every view to advantage of any kind in this world or another, and even under the greatest temptations of necessity or allurement, and, on the other hand, a similar act which was affected, in however low a degree, by a foreign motive, the former leaves far behind and eclipses the second; it elevates the soul, and inspires the wish to be able to act in like manner oneself. Even moderately young children feel this impression, and one should never represent duties to them in any other light.

  [1]
  
  The dependence of the desires on sensations is called inclination, and this accordingly always indicates a want. The dependence of a contingently determinable will on principles of reason is called an interest. This therefore is found only in the case of a dependent will, which does not always of itself conform to reason; in the Divine will we cannot conceive any interest. But the human will can also take an interest in a thing without therefore acting from interest. The former signifies the practical interest in the action, the latter the pathological in the object of the action. The former indicates only dependence of the will on principles of reason in themselves; the second, dependence on principles of reason for the sake of inclination, reason supplying only the practical rules how the requirement of the inclination may be satisfied. In the first case the action interests me; in the second the object of the action (because it is pleasant to me). We have seen in the first section that in an action done from duty we must look not to the interest in the object, but only to that in the action itself, and in its rational principle (viz. the law).

  [1]
  
  The word prudence is taken in two senses: in the one it may bear the name of knowledge of the world, in the other that of private prudence. The former is a man’s ability to influence others so as to use them for his own purposes. The latter is the sagacity to combine all these purposes for his own lasting benefit. This latter is properly that to which the value even of the former is reduced, and when a man is prudent in the former sense, but not in the latter, we might better say of him that he is clever and cunning, but, on the whole, imprudent. [Compare on the difference between klug and gescheu here alluded to, Anthropologie, § 45, ed. Schubert, p. 110.]

  [1]
  
  It seems to me that the proper signification of the word pragmatic may be most accurately defined in this way. For sanctions [see Cr. of Pract. Reas., p. 271] are called pragmatic which flow properly not from the law of the states as necessary enactments, but from precaution for the general welfare. A history is composed pragmatically when it teaches prudence, i. e. instructs the world how it can provide for its interests better, or at least as well, as the men of former time.

  [1]
  
  I connect the act with the will without presupposing any condition resulting from any inclination, but à priori, and therefore necessarily (though only objectively, i. e. assuming the idea of a reason possessing full power over all subjective motives). This is accordingly a practical proposition which does not deduce the willing of an action by mere analysis from another already presupposed (for we have not such a perfect will), but connects it immediately with the conception of the will of a rational being, as something not contained in it.

  [1]
  
  A maxim is a subjective principle of action, and must be distinguished from the objective principle, namely, practical law. The former contains the practical rule set by reason according to the conditions of the subject (often its ignorance or its inclinations), so that it is the principle on which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and is the principle on which it ought to act that is an imperative.

  [2]
  
  [I have no doubt that “den” in the original before “Imperativ” is a misprint for “der,” and have translated accordingly. Mr. Semple has done the same. The editions that I have seen agree in reading “den,” and M. Barni so translates. With this reading, it is the conformity that presents the imperative as necessary.]

  [1]
  
  It must be noted here that I reserve the division of duties for a future metaphysic of morals; so that I give it here only as an arbitrary one (in order to arrange my examples). For the rest, I understand by a perfect duty one that admits no exception in favour of inclination, and then I have not merely external, but also internal perfect duties. This is contrary to the use of the word adopted in the schools; but I do not intend to justify it here, as it is all one for my purpose whether it is admitted or not. [Perfect duties are usually understood to be those which can be enforced by external law; imperfect, those which cannot be enforced. They are also called respectively determinate and indeterminate, officia juris and officia virtutis.]

  [1]
  
  [On suicide cf. further Metaphysik der Sitten, p. 274.]

  [1]
  
  [Kant distinguishes “Hang (propensio)” from “Neigung (inclinatio)” as follows:—“Hang” is a predisposition to the desire of some enjoyment; in other words, it is the subjective possibility of excitement of a certain desire, which precedes the conception of its object. When the enjoyment has been experienced, it produces a “Neigung” (inclination) to it, which accordingly is defined “habitual sensible desire.”—Anthropologie, §§ 72, 79; Religion, p. 31.]

  [1]
  
  To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing else but to contemplate morality stripped of all admixture of sensible things (54) and of every spurious ornament of reward or self-love. How much she then eclipses everything else that appears charming to the affections, every one may readily perceive with the least exertion of his reason, if it be not wholly spoiled for abstraction.

  [1]
  
  This proposition is here stated as a postulate. The grounds of it will be found in the concluding section.

  [1]
  
  Let it not be thought that the common: quod tibi non vis fieri, &c., could serve here as the rule or principle. For it is only a deduction from the former, though with several limitations; it cannot be a universal law, for it does not contain the principle of duties to oneself, nor of the duties of benevolence to others (for many a one would gladly consent that others should not benefit him, provided only that he might be excused from showing benevolence to them), nor finally that of duties of strict obligation to one another, for on this principle the criminal might argue against the judge who punishes him, and so on.

  [1]
  
  I may be excused from adducing examples to elucidate this principle, as those which have already been used to elucidate the categorical imperative and its formula would all serve for the like purpose here.

  [1]
  
  [Cp. Critical Examination of Practical Reason, p. 184.]

  [1]
  
  [The reading “Maxime,” which is that both of Rosenkranz and Hartenstein, is obviously an error for “Materie.”]

  [2]
  
  Teleology considers nature as a kingdom of ends; Ethics regards a possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature. In the first case, the kingdom of ends is a theoretical idea, adopted to explain what actually is. In the latter it is a practical idea, adopted to bring about that which is not yet, but which can be realised by our conduct, namely, if it conforms to this idea.

  [1]
  
  [I read allgemeines instead of allgemeinem.]

  [1]
  
  I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness, because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our well-being by the agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be immediately and without a view to profit, or whether profit be regarded. We must likewise, with Hutcheson, class the principle of sympathy with the happiness of others under his assumed moral sense.

  [1]
  
  [Gesetzt.—There is in the original a play on the etymology of Gesetz, which does not admit of reproduction in English. It must be confessed that without it the statement is not self-evident.

  [1]
  
  I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which presses on the theory. [Compare Butler’s treatment of the question of liberty in his Analogy, part I., ch. vi.]

  [1]
  
  [“Interest” means a spring of the will, in so far as this spring is presented by Reason. See note, p. 80.]

  [1]
  
  [The common understanding being here spoken of, I use the word “idea” in its popular sense.]

  [1]
  
  [The verb is wanting in the original.]

  [1]
  
  [The punctuation of the original gives the following sense: “Submits his causality, as regards its external determination, to laws of nature.” I have ventured to make what appears to be a necessary correction, by simply removing a comma.]

  [1]
  
  [M. Barni translates as if he read desselben instead of derselben, “the causality of this will.” So also Mr. Semple.]

  [1]
  
  Interest is that by which reason becomes practical, i.e., a cause determining the will. Hence we say of rational beings only that they take an interest in a thing; irrational beings only feel sensual appetites. Reason takes a direct interest in action then only when the universal validity of its maxims is alone sufficient to determine the will. Such an interest alone is pure. But if it can determine the will only by means of another object of desire or on the suggestion of a particular feeling of the subject, then Reason takes only an indirect interest in the action, and as Reason by itself without experience cannot discover either objects of the will or a special feeling actuating it, this latter interest would only be empirical, and not a pure rational interest. The logical interest of Reason (namely, to extend its insight) is never direct, but presupposes purposes for which reason is employed.

  [1]
  
  [Reading ‘einer’ for ‘seiner.’]

  [1]
  
  Lest any one should imagine that he finds an inconsistency here when I call freedom the condition of the moral law, and hereafter maintain in the treatise itself that the moral law is the condition under which we can first become conscious of freedom, I will merely remark that freedom is the ratio essendi of the moral law, while the moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of freedom. For had not the moral law been previously distinctly thought in our reason, we should never consider ourselves justified in assuming such a thing as freedom, although it be not contradictory. But were there no freedom it would be impossible to trace the moral law in ourselves at all.

  [1]
  
  The union of causality as freedom with causality as rational mechanism, the former established by the moral law, the latter by the law of nature in the same subject, namely, man, is impossible, unless we conceive him with reference to the former as a being in himself, and with reference to the latter as a phenomenon—the former in pure consciousness, the latter in empirical consciousness. Otherwise reason inevitably contradicts itself.

  [1]
  
  A reviewer who wanted to find some fault with this work has hit the truth better, perhaps, than he thought, when he says that no new principle of morality is set forth in it, but only a new formula. But who would think of introducing a new principle of all morality, and making himself as it were the first discoverer of it, just as if all the world before him were ignorant what duty was or had been in thorough-going error? But whoever knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula is, which defines accurately what is to be done to work a problem, will not think that a formula is insignificant and useless which does the same for all duty in general.

  [1]
  
  [Probably Professor Garve. See Kant’s ‘Das mag in Der Theorie richtig seyn, etc.’ Werke, vol. vii. p. 182.]

  [2]
  
  It might also have been objected to me that I have not first defined the notion of the faculty of desire, or of the feeling of pleasure, although this reproach would be unfair, because this definition might reasonably be presupposed as given in psychology. However, the definition there given might be such as to found the determination of the faculty of desire on the feeling of pleasure (as is commonly done), and thus the supreme principle of practical philosophy would be necessarily made empirical, which, however, remains to be proved, and in this critique is altogether refuted. I will, therefore, give this definition here in such a manner as it ought to be given, in order to leave this contested point open at the beginning, as it should be. Life is the faculty a being has of acting according to laws of the faculty of desire. The faculty ofDesire is the being’s faculty of becoming by means of its ideas the cause of the actual existence of the objects of these ideas.Pleasureis the idea of the agreement of the object, or the action with the subjective conditions of life, i.e. with the faculty of causality of an idea in respect of the actuality of its object (or with the determination of the forces of the subject to the action which produces it) (113). I have no further need for the purposes of this critique of notions borrowed from psychology; the critique itself supplies the rest. It is easily seen that the question, whether the faculty of desire is always based on pleasure, or whether under certain conditions pleasure only follows the determination of desire, is by this definition left undecided, for it is composed only of terms belonging to the pure understanding, i.e. of categories which contain nothing empirical. Such precaution is very desirable in all philosophy, and yet is often neglected; namely, not to prejudge questions by adventuring definitions before the notion has been completely analysed, which is often very late. It may be observed through the whole course of the critical philosophy (of the theoretical as well as the practical reason) that frequent opportunity offers of supplying defects in the old dogmatic method of philosophy, and of correcting errors which are not observed until we make such rational use of these notions viewing them as a whole.

  [1]
  
  I am more afraid in the present treatise of occasional misconception in respect of some expressions which I have chosen with the greatest care (115), in order that the notion to which they point may not be missed. Thus, in the table of categories of the practical reason under the title of Modality, the permitted and forbidden (in a practical objective point of view, Possible and Impossible) have almost the same meaning in common language as the next category, Duty and Contrary to Duty. Here, however, the former means what coincides with, or contradicts, a merely possible practical precept (for example the solution of all problems of geometry and mechanics); the latter, what is similarly related to a law actually present in the reason; and this distinction is not quite foreign even to common language, although somewhat unusual. For example, it is forbidden to an orator, as such, to forge new words or constructions; in a certain degree this is permitted to a poet; in neither case is there any question of duty. For if anyone chooses to forfeit his reputation as an orator, no one can prevent him. We have here only to do with the distinction of imperatives into problematical, assertorial, and apodictic. Similarly in the note in which I have compared the moral ideas of practical perfection in different philosophical schools, I have distinguished the idea of wisdom from that of holiness, although I have stated that essentially and objectively they are the same. But in that place I understand by the former only that wisdom to which man (the Stoic) lays claim; therefore I take it subjectively as an attribute alleged to belong to man. (Perhaps the expression virtue, with which also the Stoic made great show, would better mark the characteristic of his school.) The expression of a postulate of pure practical reason might give most occasion to misapprehension in case the reader confounded it with the signification of the postulates in pure mathematics, which carry apodictic certainty with them. These, however, postulate the possibility of an action, the object of which has been previously recognised à priori in theory as possible, and that with perfect certainty. But the former postulates the possibility of an object itself (God and the immortality of the soul) from apodictic practical laws, and therefore only for the purposes of a practical reason. This certainty of the postulated possibility then is not at all theoretic, and consequently not apodictic, that is to say, it is not a known necessity as regards the object, but a necessary supposition as regards the subject, necessary for the obedience to its objective but practical laws. It is, therefore, merely a necessary hypothesis. I could find no better expression for this rational necessity, which is subjective, but yet true and unconditional.

  [1]
  
  Names that designate the followers of a sect have always been accompanied with much injustice; just as if one said, N is an Idealist. For although he not only admits, but even insists, that our ideas of external things have actual objects of external things corresponding to them, yet he holds that the form of the intuition does not depend on them but on the human mind. [N is clearly Kant himself.]

  [1]
  
  [The original has “pure,” an obvious error.]

  [1]
  
  [Literally, “to have a firm seat in any saddle.” It may be noted that Kant’s father was a saddler.].

  [2]
  
  [Not in the original text.]

  [1]
  
  Propositions which in mathematics or physics are called practical ought properly to be called technical. For they have nothing to do with the determination of the will; they only point out how a certain effect is to be produced, and are therefore just as theoretical as any propositions which express the connexion of a cause with an effect. Now whoever chooses the effect must also choose the cause.

  [1]
  
  [The original sentence is defective; Hartenstein supplies ‘enthält.’]

  [1]
  
  [Reading “empfindet” instead of “empfiehlt.”]

  [1]
  
  [The original text is, I think, corrupt.]

  [1]
  
  [The original text has “practical,” obviously an error.]

  [1]
  
  [By “immanent” Kant means what is strictly confined within the limits of experience; by “transcendent” what pretends to overpass these bounds. Cf. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. Rosenkr., p. 240. Meiklejohn’s transl., p. 210.]

  [2]
  
  [Is a “Verstandeswesen.”]

  [1]
  
  [The original has “practical;” clearly an error.]

  [1]
  
  [The verb, indispensable to the sense, is absent from the original text.]

  [1]
  
  [Or “immediately,” i. e. without reference to any ulterior result.]

  [2]
  
  [The original has “objects” [objecte], which makes no sense. I have therefore ventured to correct it.]

  [1]
  
  Besides this, the expression sub ratione boni is also ambiguous. For it may mean: We represent something to ourselves as good, when and because we desire (will) it; or, we desire something because we represent it to ourselves as good, so that either the desire determines the notion of the object as a good, or the notion of good determines the desire (the will); so that in the first case sub ratione boni would mean we will something under the idea of the good; in the second, in consequence of this idea, which, as determining the volition, must precede it.

  [1]
  
  [The English language marks the distinction in question, though not perfectly. “Evil” is not absolutely restricted to moral evil; we speak also of physical evils, but certainly when not so qualified it applies usually (as an adjective, perhaps exclusively) to moral evil. “Bad” is more general, but when used with a word connoting moral qualities, it expresses moral evil; for example, a “bad man,” a “bad scholar.” These words are etymologically the same as the German “übel” and “böse” respectively. “Good” is ambiguous, being opposed to “bad,” as well as to “evil,” but the corresponding German word is equally ambiguous.]

  [1]
  
  [Rosenkranz’ text has “law”—certainly an error (“Gesetz” for “Gefühl”); Hartenstein corrects it.]

  [1]
  
  [For the meaning of this expression, see the Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by Meiklejohn, p. 82.]

  [1]
  
  [Adopting Hartenstein’s conjecture “gemeinste,” for “reinste,” “purest.”]

  [1]
  
  [Read “weil” with Hartenstein, not “womit.”]

  [1]
  
  We may say of every action that conforms to the law, but is not done for the sake of the law, that it is morally good in the letter, not in the spirit (the intention).

  [1]
  
  [“Jener,” in Rosenkranz’s text is an error. We must read either “jene,” “this respect,” or “jenes,” “this feeling.” Hartenstein adopts “jenes.”]

  [1]
  
  [The original sentence is incomplete. I have completed it in what seems the simplest way.]

  [1]
  
  If we examine accurately the notion of respect for persons as it has been already laid down, we shall perceive that it always rests on the consciousness of a duty which an example shows us, and that respect therefore can never have any but a moral ground, and that it is very good and even, in a psychological point of view, very useful for the knowledge of mankind, that whenever we use this expression we should attend to this secret and marvellous, yet often recurring, regard which men in their judgment pay to the moral law.

  [1]
  
  This law is in striking contrast with the principle of private happiness which some make the supreme principle of morality. This would be expressed thus: Love thyself above everything, and God and thy neighbour for thine own sake.

  [1]
  
  [Compare Butler:—“Though we should suppose it impossible for particular affections to be absolutely coincident with the moral principle, and consequently should allow that such creatures . . . would for ever remain defectible; yet their danger of actually deviating from right may be almost infinitely lessened, and they fully fortified against what remains of it—if that may be called danger against which there is an adequate effectual security.”—Analogy, Fitzgerald’s Ed., p. 100.]

  [2]
  
  [What renders this discussion not irrelevant is the fact that the German language, like the English, possesses but oneword to express ϕιλεɩ̂ν, ἀγαπα̂ν, and ἐρα̂ν. The first, ϕιλεɩ̂ν, expresses the love of affection. The general good-will due from man to man had no name in classical Greek; it is described in one aspect of it by Aristotle as ϕιλία ἄνεν πἀτους καὶ τονˆ στέργειν (Eth. Nic. iv. 6, 5); elsewhere, however, he calls it simply ϕιλία (viii. 11, 7). The verb ἀγαπάω was used by the LXX in the precept quoted in the text, though elsewhere they employed it as = ἐρα̂ν. But in the New Test. the verb, and with it the noun ἀγάπη (which is not found in classical writers), were appropriated to this state of mind. Aristotle, it may be observed, uses ἀγαπάω, of love to one’s own better part (ix. 8, 6). Ἐρα̂ν does not occur in the New Test. at all. Butler’s Sermons on Love of our Neighbour, and Love of God, may be usefully compared with these observations of Kant.]

  [1]
  
  [Read “denen” not “dem.”]

  [1]
  
  [See note on Conscience.]

  [1]
  
  [Reading “aufzugeben.”]

  [1]
  
  [Vaucanson constructed an automaton flute-player, which imitated accurately the movements and the effects of a genuine performer, and subsequently a mechanical duck which swam, dived, quacked, took barley from the hand, ate, drank, digested, dressed its wings, etc., quite naturally. This was exhibited in Paris in 1741. These automata are described by D’Alembert in the Encyclopédie, Arts. Androïde and Automata: cf. also Condorcet, Éloges, tom. i., p. 643, ed. 1847.]

  [2]
  
  [Moses Mendelssohn, a distinguished philosopher, grandfather of the musical composer. He is said to have been the prototype of Lessing’s Nathan der Weise.]

  [1]
  
  [The original is somewhat ambiguous; it has been suggested, that ‘the former’ refers to the Understanding (‘Verstand’ in ‘Verstandesbegriff’). I am satisfied that it refers to ‘Vernunftbegriff,’ for it is not the Understanding, but the Reason that seeks the unconditioned. Compare Kritik der R. V., p. 262 (326). ‘The transcendental concept of the reason always aims at absolute totality in the synthesis of the conditions, and never rests except in the absolutely unconditioned.’ (Meiklejohn, p. 228.)]

  [2]
  
  [Rosenkranz erroneously reads ‘unbedingt’ ‘unconditioned’; and ‘musste’ for ‘müsste.’]

  [1]
  
  [The original has not ‘und,’ but ‘als,’ which does not give any satisfactory sense. I have, therefore, adopted Hartenstein’s emendation, which seems at least to give the meaning intended.]

  [1]
  
  [See Preface, p. 115, note.]

  [1]
  
  It seems, nevertheless, impossible for a creature to have the conviction of his unwavering firmness of mind in the progress towards goodness. On this account the Christian religion makes it come only from the same Spirit that works sanctification, that is, this firm purpose, and with it the consciousness of steadfastness * in the moral progress. But naturally one who is conscious that he has persevered through a long portion of his life up to the end in the progress to the better, and this from genuine moral motives, may well have the comforting hope, though not the certainty, that even in an existence prolonged beyond this life he will continue steadfast in these principles; and although he is never justified here in his own eyes, nor can ever hope to be so in the increased perfection of his nature, to which he looks forward, together with an increase of duties, nevertheless in this progress which, though it is directed to a goal infinitely remote, yet is in God’s sight regarded as equivalent to possession, he may have a prospect of a blessed future; for this is the word that reason employs to designate perfect well-being independent on all contingent causes of the world, and which, like holiness, is an idea that can be contained only in an endless progress and its totality, and consequently is never fully attained by a creature.

  [1]
  
  [The original has “a Supreme Nature.” “Natur,” however, almost invariably means “physical nature”; therefore Hartenstein supplies the words “cause of” before “nature.” More probably “Natur” is a slip for “Ursache,” “cause.”]

  [1]
  
  It is commonly held that the Christian precept of morality has no advantage in respect of purity over the moral conceptions of the Stoics; the distinction between them is, however, very obvious. The Stoic system made the consciousness of strength of mind the pivot on which all moral dispositions should turn; and although its disciples spoke of duties and even defined them very well, yet they placed the spring and proper determining principle of the will in an elevation of the mind above the lower springs of the senses, which owe their power only to weakness of mind. With them, therefore, virtue was a sort of heroism in the wise man who, raising himself above the animal nature of man, is sufficient for himself, and while he prescribes duties to others is himself raised above them, and is not subject to any temptation to transgress the moral law. All this, however, they could not have done if they had conceived this law in all its purity and strictness, as the precept of the Gospel does. When I give the name idea to a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given in experience, it does not follow that the moral ideas are something transcendent, that is something of which we could not even determine the concept adequately, or of which it is uncertain whether there is any object corresponding to it at all (270), as is the case with the ideas of speculative reason; on the contrary, being types of practical perfection, they serve as the indispensable rule of conduct and likewise as the standard of comparison. Now if I consider Christian morals on their philosophical side, then compared with the ideas of the Greek schools they would appear as follows: the ideas of the Cynics, the Epicureans the Stoics, and the Christians, are: simplicity of nature, prudence, wisdom, and holiness. In respect of the way of attaining them, the Greek schools were distinguished from one another thus, that the Cynics only required common sense, the others the path of science, but both found the mere use of natural powers sufficient for the purpose. Christian morality, because its precept is framed (as a moral precept must be) so pure and unyielding, takes from man all confidence that he can be fully adequate to it, at least in this life, but again sets it up by enabling us to hope that if we act as well as it is in our power to do, then what is not in our power will come in to our aid from another source, whether we know how this may be or not. Aristotle and Plato differed only as to the origin of our moral conceptions. [See Preface, p. 115, note.]

  [1]
  
  [The word ‘sanction’ is here used in the technical German sense, which is familiar to students of history in connexion with the ‘Pragmatic Sanction.’]

  [1]
  
  In order to make these characteristics of these conceptions clear, I add the remark that whilst we ascribe to God various attributes, the quality of which we also find applicable to creatures, only that in Him they are raised to the highest degree, e.g. power, knowledge, presence, goodness, &c., under the designations of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, &c., there are three that are ascribed to God exclusively, and yet without the addition of greatness, and which are all moral. He is the only holy, the only blessed, the only wise, because these conceptions already imply the absence of limitation. In the order of these attributes He is also the holy lawgiver (and creator), the good governor (and preserver) and the just judge, three attributes which include everything by which God is the object of religion, and in conformity with which the metaphysical perfections are added of themselves in the reason.

  [1]
  
  [That the ambiguity of the word subject may not mislead the reader, it may be remarked that it is here used in the psychological sense: subjectum legis, not subjectus legi.]

  [2]
  
  [Absent from the original text.]

  [1]
  
  [This remarks, as well as the following note, applies to the etymological form of the German word, which is God-learned.] Learning is properly only the whole content of the historical sciences. Consequently it is only the teacher of revealed theology that can be called a learned theologian [God-learned]. If, however, we choose to call a man learned who is in possession of the rational sciences (mathematics and philosophy), although even this would be contrary to the signification of the word (which always counts as learning only that which one must be ‘learned’ [taught], and which, therefore, he cannot discover of himself by reason), even in that case the philosopher would make too poor a figure with his knowledge of God as a positive science to let himself be called on that account a learned man.

  [1]
  
  But even here we should not be able to allege a requirement of reason, if we had not before our eyes a problematical, but yet inevitable, conception of reason, namely, that of an absolutely necessary being. This conception now seeks to be defined, and this, in addition to the tendency to extend itself, is the objective ground of a requirement of speculative reason, namely, to have a more precise definition of the conception of a necessary being which is to serve as the first cause of other beings, so as to make these * latter knowable by some means. Without such antecedent necessary problems there are no requirements—at least not of pure reason—the rest are requirements of inclination.

  [1]
  
  In the Deutsches Museum, February, 1787, there is a dissertation by a very subtle and clear-headed man, the late Wizenmann, whose early death is to be lamented, in which he disputes the right to argue from a want to the objective reality of its object, and illustrates the point by the example of a man in love, who having fooled himself into an idea of beauty, which is merely a chimera of his own brain, would fain conclude that such an object really exists somewhere (290). I quite agree with him in this, in all cases where the want is founded on inclination, which cannot necessarily postulate the existence of its object even for the man that is affected by it, much less can it contain a demand valid for everyone, and therefore it is merely a subjective ground of the wish. But in the present case we have a want of reason springing from an objective determining principle of the will, namely, the moral law, which necessarily binds every rational being, and therefore justifies him in assuming à priori in nature the conditions proper for it, and makes the latter inseparable from the complete practical use of reason. It is a duty to realize the summum bonum to the utmost of our power, therefore it must be possible, consequently it is unavoidable for every rational being in the world to assume what is necessary for its objective possibility. The assumption is as necessary as the moral law, in connexion with which alone it is valid.

  [1]
  
  [Read ‘wie’ for ‘die.’]

  [1]
  
  It is quite proper to extol actions that display a great, unselfish, sympathizing mind or humanity. But in this case we must fix attention not so much on the elevation of soul, which is very fleeting and transitory, as on the subjection of the heart to duty, from which a more enduring impression may be expected, because this implies principle (whereas the former only implies ebullitions). One need only reflect a little and he will always find a debt that he has by some means incurred towards the human race (even if it were only this, that by the inequality of men in the civil constitution he enjoys advantages on account of which others must be the more in want), which will prevent the thought of duty from being repressed by the self-complacent imagination of merit.

  [1]
  
  [Weisheitslehre, vernacular German for Philosophy. See p. 203.]

  [1]
  
  [To this definition it has been objected, that “it comes to nothing as soon as we abstract from external conditions of the result of the desire. Yet even to the Idealist the appetitive faculty is something, although to him the external world is nothing.” Answer: Is there not such a thing as an earnest longing which yet we are conscious is in vain (ex. gr. Would to God that man were still living!), and which, though it leads to no deed, is yet not without results, and has a powerful effect not indeed on outward things, but within the subject himself (making him ill)? A desire being an effort (nisus) to be, by means of one’s ideas, a cause, still, even though the subject perceives the inadequacy of these to produce the desired effect, is always a causality at least within the subject. What causes the mistake here is this: that since the consciousness of our power generally (in the given case) is at the same time a consciousness of our powerlessness in respect to the outer world, the definition is not applicable to the Idealist, although as here we are speaking only of the relation of a cause (the idea) to the effect (feeling), the causality of the idea in respect of its object (whether that causality be internal or external) must inevitably be included in the conception of the appetitive faculty.”—Rechtslehre, Anhang (to second edition), p. 130.]

  [1]
  
  We might define sensibility as the subjective element in our ideas; for it is the understanding that first refers the ideas to an object; i. e. it alone thinks somewhat by means thereof. Now the subjective element of our idea may be of such a kind that it can also be referred to an object as contributory to the knowledge of it (either as to the form or the matter, being called in the former case intuition, in the latter sensation). In this case sensibility, which is the susceptibility to the idea in question, is Sense. Or again, the subjective element of the idea may be such that it cannot become a piece of knowledge, inasmuch as it contains merely the relation of this idea to the subject, and nothing that is useful for the knowledge of the object; and in this case this susceptibility to the idea is called Feeling, which contains the effect of the idea (whether sensible or intellectual) on the subject, and this belongs to the sensibility, even though the idea itself may belong to the understanding or the reason.

  [1]
  
  [This important distinction is here explicitly made for the first time. In the earlier treatises, the word “Wille” covers both significations. In writing the “Kritik,” Kant saw that much confusion of thought was traceable to the use of the same word for two very different things, and in that treatise he sometimes uses “Willkühr.” His use of the term is, of course, his own. In the last treatise in the present volume the word “Wille” occurs only once or twice. In default of an English word suitable to be appropriated to the signification of Kant’s “Willkühr,” I have adopted the compound term “elective will,” reserving “rational will” for “Wille.” Although the distinction has not been fixed in appropriate terms, it has been felt and more or less obscurely indicated by many moralists. Indeed it is implied in S. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, ch. vii., where, for instance, in v. 15, the subject of θέλω is I as “Wille,” while that of ποιωˆ is I as “Willkühr.” Compare the words of Kant on the corrupt heart coexisting with the good “Wille,” p. 352.]

  [1]
  
  [“When Philosophy, as containing principles of the rational knowledge of things through concepts (not merely as Logic does, principles of the form of thought in general without distinction of its objects), is divided into theoretical and practical, this is quite right; but, then, the concepts which assign to the principles of this rational knowledge their object must be specifically distinct, otherwise they would not justify a division which always presupposes a contrast of the principles of the rational knowledge belonging to the different parts of a science.

  Now there are only two kinds of concepts, and these admit as many distinct principles of possibility of their object, namely, physical concepts and the concept of freedom. Now as the former make possible a theoretical knowledge on à priori principles, whereas in respect of these the latter only conveys in its concept a negative principle (that of mere contrast); while on the other hand it establishes principles for the determination of the will, which, therefore, are called practical; hence philosophy is rightly divided into two parts, with quite distinct principles—the theoretical, which is natural philosophy, and the practical, which is moral philosophy (for so we name the practical legislation of reason according to the concept of freedom). Hitherto, however, there has prevailed a gross misuse of these expressions in the division of the different principles, and consequently also of philosophy; inasmuch as what is practical according to physical concepts has been assumed to be of the same kind as what is practical according to the concept of freedom; and thus with the same denominations of ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ philosophy, a division is made by which nothing is really divided (since both parts might have principles of the same kind).”—Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Einl, p. 8.]

  [1]
  
  The deduction of the division of a system: that is, the proof of its completeness as well as of its continuity, namely, that the transition from the notion divided to each member of the division in the whole series of subdivisions does not take place per saltum, is one of the most difficult tasks of the constructor of a system. It is even difficult to say what is the ultimate notion of which right and wrong (fas aut nefas) are divisions. It is the act of free choice in general. So teachers of ontology begin with the notions of something and nothing, without being aware that these are already members of a division of a higher notion which is not given, but which, in fact, can only be the notion of an object in general.

  [1]
  
  [The original has ‘natural.’ The emendation, which is clearly necessary, was suggested to me by Mr. Philip Sandford.]

  [1]
  
  One who is acquainted with practical philosophy is not, therefore, a practical philosopher. The latter is he who makes the rational end the principle of his actions, while at the same time he joins with this the necessary knowledge which, as it aims at action, must not be spun out into the most subtle threads of metaphysic, unless a legal duty is in question; in which case meum and tuum must be accurately determined in the balance of justice (218), on the principle of equality of action and reaction, which requires something like mathematical proportion, but not in the case of a mere ethical duty. For in this case the question is not only to know what it is a duty to do (a thing which on account of the ends that all men naturally have can be easily decided), but the chief point is the inner principle of the will, namely, that the consciousness of this duty be also the spring of action, in order that we may be able to say of the man who joins to his knowledge this principle of wisdom, that he is a practical philosopher.

  [1]
  
  [Compare the remarks of Dr. Adams: “The pleasures of self-approbation and esteem which follow virtue certainly arise from a conscious sense of having made virtue and not pleasure our choice; not from preferring one interest or pleasure to another, but from acting according to right without any other consideration whatsoever. It seems essential to this pleasure that no motive of interest have any part in the choice or intention of the agent. And (2) To make this pleasure an object to the mind, the virtue whose principle we are seeking after must be already formed. For, let it be observed, that the pleasures we are speaking of are themselves virtuous pleasures; such as none but virtuous minds are capable of proposing to themselves or of enjoying. To the sensual or voluptuous, the pleasures that arise from denying our appetites or passions have no existence. These cannot, therefore, be the motive to that virtue which is already presupposed. . . . It is the same love of virtue which makes it first the object of our pursuit, and, when acquired, the subject of our triumph and joy. To do a virtuous action for the sake of these virtuous pleasures is to choose virtue for the sake of being virtuous, which is to rest in it as an end, or to pursue it without regard to any other object or interest.”—Sermon on the Obligation of Virtue (1754), Note 2.]

  [2]
  
  [The essay referred to is that “On the Radical Evil in Human Nature.”]

  [1]
  
  Man, however, as at the same time a moral being, when he considers himself objectively, which he is qualified to do by his pure practical reason (i.e. according to humanity in his own person), finds himself holy enough to transgress the law only unwillingly; for there is no man so depraved who in this transgression would not feel a resistance and an abhorrence of himself, so that he must put a force on himself. It is impossible to explain the phenomenon that at this parting of the ways (where the beautiful fable places Hercules between virtue and sensuality) man shows more propensity to obey inclination than the law. For, we can only explain what happens, by tracing it to a cause according to physical laws; but then we should not be able to conceive the elective will as free. Now this mutually opposed self-constraint and the inevitability of it makes us recognize the incomprehensible property of freedom.

  [1]
  
  The less a man can be physically forced, and the more he can be morally forced (by the mere idea of duty), so much the freer he is. The man, for example, who is of sufficiently firm resolution and strong mind not to give up an enjoyment which he has resolved on, however much loss is shown as resulting therefrom, and who yet desists from his purpose unhesitatingly, though very reluctantly, when he finds that it would cause him to neglect an official duty or a sick father; this man proves his freedom in the highest degree by this very thing that he cannot resist the voice of duty.

  [1]
  
  [Leonhard Cochius, court preacher, who obtained the prize of the Berlin Academy for his essay, “Über die Neigungen,” Berlin, 1769.]

  [1]
  
  [“Object,” first ed.]

  [1]
  
  [Usage gives it a strong meaning, perhaps from euphemism.]

  [1]
  
  [“Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable for another to do for Me: That, by the same judgment, I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I in the like case do for Him.”—Clarke’s Discourse, etc., p. [Editor: illegible number] ed. 1728].

  [1]
  
  [This agrees with Dr. Adams’ definition of virtue, which, he says, implies trial and conflict. He defines it, “the conformity of imperfect beings to the dictates of reason.” Other English moralists use “virtue” in the sense of Aristotle’s ἀρετή. Hence a difference more verbal than real as to the relation of virtue to self-denial.]

  [1]
  
  [Kant here and elsewhere uses “Deduction” in a technical legal sense. There is deductio facti, and deductio juris; Kant’s Deduction is exclusively the latter.]

  [1]
  
  [The supreme principle of jurisprudence is: “Act externally so that the free use of thy elective will may not interfere with the freedom of any man so far as it agrees with universal law.”—Rechtslehre, p. 33.]

  [1]
  
  So that one might vary two well-known lines of Haller thus:—

  • “With all his failings, man is still
  • Better than angels void of will.”

  [Haller’s lines occur in the poem, “Ueber den Urfprung bes Uebels”—

  • “Dann Gott liebt seinen Zwang; die Welt mit ihren Mangeln
  • Ift besser als ein Reich von willenlofen Engeln.”]

  [1]
  
  [On Conscience, compare the note at the end of this Introduction.]

  [1]
  
  The common classical formulæ of Ethics—medio tutissimus ibis; omne nimium vertitur in vitium; est modus in rebus, &c.; medium tenuere beati: virtus est medium vitiorum et utrinque reductum—contain a poor sort of wisdom, which has no definite principles: for this mean between two extremes, who will assign it for me? Avarice (as a vice) is not distinguished from frugality (as a virtue) by merely being the latter pushed too far; but has a quite different principle (maxim), namely, placing the end of economy not in the enjoyment of one’s means, but in the mere possession of them, renouncing enjoyment; just as the vice of prodigality is not to be sought in the excessive enjoyment of one’s means, but in the bad maxim which makes the use of them, without regard to their maintenance, the sole end.

  [1]
  
  [“The assertion that we should do nothing either too little or too much means nothing, for it is tautological. What is it to do too much? Answer—More than is right. What is it to do too little? Answer—To do less than is right. What is the meaning of, I ought (to do something, or leave it undone)? Answer—It is not right (against duty) to do more or less than is right. If that is the wisdom for which we must go back to the ancients (to Aristotle), as if they were nearer the source, we have chosen ill in turning to their oracle. Between truth and falsehood (which are contradictories) there is no mean; there may be, however, between frankness and reserve (which are contraries). In the case of the man who declares his opinion, all that he says is true, but he does not say all the truth. Now, it is very natural to ask the moral teacher to point out to me this mean. This, however, he cannot do, for both duties have a certain latitude in their application, and the right thing to do can only be decided by the judgment, according to rules of prudence (pragmatical rules), not those of morality (moral rules), that is to say, not as strict duty (officium strictum), but as indeterminate (officium latum). Hence the man who follows the principles of virtue may indeed commit a fault (peccatum) in his practice, in doing more or less than prudence prescribes; but adhering strictly to these principles, he does not commit a vice (vitium), and the verse of Horace—

  • Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui,
  • Ultra quam satis est virtutem si petat ipsam—

  literally understood, is fundamentally false. But perhaps sapiens here means only a prudent man, who does not form a chimerical notion of virtuous perfection. This perfection being an Ideal, demands approximation to this end, but not the complete attainment of it, which surpasses human powers, and introduces absurdity (chimerical imagination) into its principle. For to be quite too virtuous, that is, to be quite too devoted to duty, would be about the same as to speak of making a circle quite too round, or a straight line quite too straight.”—Tugendlehre, p. 287, note.]

  [1]
  
  [In a footnote, Kant explains this double personality of a man as both the accuser and the judge, by reference to the homo noumenon, and its specific difference from the rationally endowed homo sensibilis.]

  [1]

  • Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
  • Nos nequiores, mox daturos
  • Progeniem vitiosiorem.
  • Horatius.

  [1]
  
  [One of Rousseau’s earliest literary efforts was on this subject, which had been proposed for discussion by the Academy of Dijon. He defended the thesis that the advance in science and arts was not favourable to morals. Kant’s own view is stated thus in the treatise: “Das mag in der Theorie, u. s. w.,” publ. in 1793. He is commenting on Mendelssohn, who had treated Lessing’s hypothesis of a divine education of mankind as a delusion, saying that the human race never made a few steps forward without presently after slipping back with redoubled velocity into its former position. This, says Kant, is like the stone of Sisyphus, and this view makes the earth a sort of purgatory for old and forgotten sins. He proceeds thus: “I shall venture to assume that, as the human race is constantly advancing in respect of culture, as it is designed to do, so also, as regards the moral end of its existence, it is constantly progressing, and this progress is never broken off, although it may be sometimes interrupted. It is not necessary for me to prove this; it is for those who take the opposite view to prove their case,” viz. because it is my duty to strive to promote this improvement (p. 222). “Many proofs, too, may be given that the human race, on the whole, especially in our own, as compared with all preceding times, has made considerable advances morally for the better (temporary checks do not prove anything against this); and that the cry of the continually-increasing degradation of the race arises just from this, that when one stands on a higher step of morality he sees further before him, and his judgment on what men are as compared with what they ought to be is more strict. Our self-blame is, consequently, more severe the more steps of morality we have already ascended in the whole course of the world’s history as known to us” (p. 224).]

  [1]
  
  That the primary subjective source of the adoption of moral maxims is inscrutable may be seen even from this, that as this adoption is free, its source (the reason why, ex. gr., I have adopted a bad and not rather a good maxim) must not be looked for in any natural impulse, but always again in a maxim; and as this also must have its ground, and maxims are the only determining principles of the free elective will that can or ought to be adduced, we are always driven further back ad infinitum in the series of subjective determining principles, without being able to reach the primary source.

  [1]
  
  If good = a, its contradictory is the not-good. This is the result either of the mere absence of a principle of good = 0, or of a positive principle of the opposite = - a. In the latter case the not-good may be called the positively bad. (In respect of pleasure and pain there is a mean of this kind, so that pleasure = a, pain = - a, and the state of absence of both is indifference, = 0.) (24) Now if the moral law were not a spring of the elective will in us, then moral good (harmony of the will with the law) would = a, not-good = 0, and the latter would be merely the result of the absence of a moral spring = a + 0. But the law is in us as a spring = a; therefore the want of harmony of the elective will with it (= 0) is only possible as a result of a really opposite determination of elective will, that is a resistance to it, = - a, that is to say, only by a bad elective will; there is, therefore, no mean between a bad and a good disposition (inner principle of maxims) by which the morality of the action must be determined. A morally indifferent action (adiaphoron morale) would be an action resulting merely from natural laws, and standing therefore in no relation to the moral law, which is a law of freedom; inasmuch as it is not a deed, and in respect of it neither command nor prohibition, nor even legal permission, has any place or is necessary.

  [1]
  
  Professor Schiller, in his masterly treatise (Thalia, 1793, pt. 3) on pleasantness [grace] and dignity in morals, finds fault with this way of presenting obligation, as if it implied a Carthusian spirit; but as we are agreed in the most important principles, I cannot admit that there is any disagreement in this, if we could only come to a mutual understanding. I admit that I cannot associate any pleasantness with the conception of duty, just because of its dignity. For it involves unconditional obligation, which is directly contrary to pleasantness. The majesty of the law (like that on Sinai) inspires (not dread, which repels, nor yet a charm which invites to familiarity, but) awe, which awakes respect of the subject for his lawgiver, and in the present case the latter being within ourselves, a feeling of the sublimity of our own destiny, which attracts us more than any beauty. But virtue, i. e. the firmly-rooted disposition to fulfil our duty punctually, is in its results beneficent also, more than anything in the world that can be done by nature or art; and the noble picture of humanity exhibited in this form admits very well the accompaniments of the Graces, but as long as duty alone is in question, they keep at a respectful distance. If however, we regard the pleasant results which virtue would spread in the world if it found access everywhere, then morally-directed reason draws the sensibility into play (by means of the imagination). (25) It is only after vanquishing monsters that Hercules becomes Musagetes, before which labour those good sisters draw back. These companions of Venus Urania are lewd followers of Venus Dione as soon as they interfere in the business of the determination of duty, and want to supply the springs thereof. If it is now asked, Of what sort is the emotional characteristic, the temperament as it were of virtue: is it spirited and cheerful, or anxiously depressed and dejected? an answer is hardly necessary. The latter slavish spirit can never exist without a secret hatred of the law, and cheerfulness of heart in the performance of one’s duty (not complacency in the recognition of it) is a mark of the genuineness of the virtuous disposition, even in devoutness, which does not consist in the self-tormenting of the penitent sinner (which is very ambiguous, and commonly is only an inward reproach for having offended against the rules of prudence), but in the firm purpose to do better in the future, which, animated by good progress, must produce a cheerful spirit, without which one is never certain that he has taken a liking to good, that is to say, adopted it into his maxim.

  [1]
  
  The ancient moral philosophers, who nearly exhausted all that can be said about virtue, have not omitted to consider the two questions above mentioned. The first they expressed thus: Whether virtue must be learned (so that man is by nature indifferent to it and vice)? The second was: Whether there is more than one virtue (in other words, whether it is possible that a man should be partly virtuous and partly vicious)? To both they replied with rigorous decision in the negative, and justly; for they contemplated virtue in itself as an idea of the reason (as man ought to be). But if we are to form a moral judgment of this moral being, man in appearance, that is, as we learn to know him by experience, then we may answer both questions in the affirmative; for then he is estimated not by the balance of pure reason (before a Divine tribunal), but by an empirical standard (before a human judge). We shall treat further of this in the sequel.

  [1]
  
  This must not be considered as contained in the conception of the preceding, but must necessarily be regarded as a special capacity. For it does not follow that because a being has reason, this includes a faculty of determining the elective will unconditionally by the mere conception of the qualification of its maxims to be universal laws, so as to be of itself practical: at least so far as we can see. (28) The most rational being in the world might still have need of certain springs coming to him from objects of inclination, to determine his elective will; and might apply to these the most rational calculation, both as regards the greatest sum of the springs and also as to the means of attaining the object determined thereby; without every suspecting the possibility of anything like the moral law, issuing its commands absolutely, and which announces itself as a spring, and that the highest. Were this law not given in us, we should not be able to find it out as such by reason or to talk the elective will into it; and yet this law is the only one that makes us conscious of the independence of our elective will on determination by any other springs (our freedom), and at the same time of the imputability of our actions.

  [1]
  
  Propensity (“Hang”) is properly only the predisposition to the desire of an enjoyment, which when the subject has had experience of it produces an inclination to it. Thus all uncivilized men have a propensity to intoxicating things; for, although many of them are not acquainted with intoxication, so that they cannot have any desire for things that produce it, one need only let them once try such things to produce an almost inextinguishable desire for them. Between propensity and inclination, which presupposes acquaintance with the object, is instinct, which is a felt want to do or enjoy something of which one has as yet no conception (such as the mechanical instinct in animals or the sexual impulse). There is a still further step in the faculty of desire beyond inclination, namely, passions (not affections, for these belong to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure), which are inclinations that exclude self-control.

  [1]
  
  [Hearne’s Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean in 1769-72. London: 1795.]

  [2]
  
  As the perpetual war between the Athapescaw and the Dog Rib Indians, which has no other object than slaughter. Bravery in war is the highest virtue of savages, in their opinion. Even in a state of civilization, it is an object of admiration and a ground of the peculiar respect demanded by that profession in which this is the only merit, and this not altogether without good reason. For that a man can have something that he values more than life, and which he can make his object (namely, honour, renouncing all self-interest), proves a certain sublimity in his nature. But we see by the complacency with which conquerors extol their achievements (massacre, unsparing butchery, &c.), that it is only their own superiority and the destruction they can effect without any other object in which they properly take satisfaction.

  [3]
  
  [Compare Stewart, Active and Moral Powers, bk. I. ch iii, sec. 3, who gives an optimist explanation of this saying.]

  [1]
  
  If we look at the history of these merely as a phenomenon of the inner nature of man, which is in great part concealed from us, we may become aware of a certain mechanical process of nature directed to ends which are not those of the nations but of Nature. As long as any State has another near it which it can hope to subdue, it endeavours to aggrandize itself by the conquest, striving thus to attain universal monarchy—a constitution in which all freedom would be extinguished, and with it virtue, taste, and sciences (which are its consequences). (39) But this monster (in which all laws gradually lose their force), after it has swallowed up its neighbours, finally dissolves of itself, and by rebellion and discord is divided into several smaller States, which, instead of endeavouring to form a States-union (a republic of free united nations), begin the same game over again, each for itself, so that war (that scourge of the human race) may not be allowed to cease. War, indeed, is not so incurably bad as the deadness of a universal monarchy (or even a union of nations to ensure that despotism shall not be discontinued in any State), yet, as an ancient observed, it makes more bad men than it takes away. [Compare on this subject Kant’s Essay, Zum ewigen Frieden; Werke, vii. Thl., 1 Abth., p. 229; also Das mag in der Theorie, &c., No. 3, ibid. p. 220.]

  [1]
  
  [The saying was Sir Robert Walpole’s, but was not so general as in the text. He said it (not in debate) of the members of the House of Commons, adding that he knew the price of each].

  [2]
  
  The proper proof of this condemnation pronounced by the morally judging reason is not contained in this section, but in the preceding; this contains only the confirmation of it by experience, which, however, could never discover the root of the evil, in the supreme maxim of free elective will in relation to the law, this being an intelligible act, which is antecedent to all experience. From this, that is, from the unity of the supreme maxim, the law to which it refers being one, it may also be seen why, in forming a purely intellectual judgment of men, the principle of exclusion of a mean between good and bad must be assumed; whereas in forming the empirical judgment from sensible acts (actual conduct), the principle may be assumed that there is a mean between these extremes: on one side a negative mean of indifference previous to all cultivation, and on the other side a positive mean of mixture, so as to be partly good and partly bad. But the latter is only an estimation of the morality of man in appearance, and is in the final judgment subject to the former.

  [1]
  
  The three so-called higher Faculties would explain this inheritance each in its own way, namely, as a hereditary malady, or hereditary guilt, or hereditary sin. 1. The medical faculty would regard hereditary evil as something like the tapeworm, respecting which some naturalists are actually of opinion that, as it is not found in any element outside us nor (of the same kind) in any other animal, it must have been present in our first parents. 2. The legal faculty would regard it as the legitimate consequence of entering on an inheritance left to us by them, but burdened with a heavy crime (for to be born is nothing else but to obtain the use of the goods of earth, so far as they are indispensable to our subsistence). We must therefore pay the debt (expiate), and shall in the end be dispossessed (by death). Right, legally! 3. The theological faculty would view this evil as a personal participation of our first parents in the revolt of a reprobate rebel, either that we (though now unconscious of it), did then co-operate in it ourselves, (46) or that now being born under his dominion (as prince of this world), we prefer its goods to the command of the heavenly Ruler, and have not loyalty enough to tear ourselves from them, for which we must hereafter share his lot with him.

  [1]
  
  As long as the moral law is not allowed the predominance in one’s maxims above all other determining principles of the elective will, as the spring sufficient of itself, all profession of respect for it is feigned, and the propensity to this is inward falsehood, that is, a propensity to deceive one’s self to the prejudice of the moral law in interpreting it (iii. 5); on which account the Bible (Christian part) calls the author of evil (residing in ourselves) the liar from the beginning, and thus characterizes man in respect of what appears to be the main principle of evil in him.

  [1]
  
  [Rom. v. 12; Vulgate. Luther’s version is correct. Jerome also gives the correct interpretation, although he retains the “in quo” of the old version. Probably this was meant by the original translator as a literal rendering of the Greek ἐϕ’ [Editor: illegible character] “in that.”]

  [1]
  
  [“It is a very common supposition of moral philosophy that it is very easy to explain the existence of moral evil in man, namely, that it arises from the strength of the sensible springs of action on the one hand, and the feebleness of the rational spring (respect for the law) on the other, that is, from weakness. But in that case it should be still easier to explain the moral good in man (in his moral capacity); for one cannot be conceived to be comprehensible without the other. But the faculty of reason to become master over all opposing springs of action by the mere idea of the law is absolutely inexplicable; it is then equally incomprehensible how the sensible springs can become masters of a reason which commands with such authority. For if all the world acted according to the precept of the law, it would be said that everything was going on in the natural order, and it would not occur to anyone to inquire the cause.”—Religion, &c., pp. 67, 68, note.]

  [2]
  
  These remarks must not be regarded as intended to be an interpretation of Scripture—a thing that lies outside the province of mere reason. We explain the manner in which a moral use may be made of a historical statement without deciding whether this was the meaning of the writer, or whether we only introduce it: provided only that it is true in itself, without needing any historical proof, and that it is at the same time the only way in which we can derive something for our own improvement from a passage of Scripture which would otherwise be only an unprofitable addition to our historical knowledge. We must not without necessity contend about the historical authority of a matter which, whether it be understood in this way or in that, does not help us to become better men (50), when what does help can and must be known without historical proof. Historical knowledge, which has no such inner reference, that can hold good for every man, belongs to the adiaphora, with respect to which everyone may judge as he finds most edifying for himself.

  [1]
  
  [In the first edition this appears simply as No. V.]

  [1]
  
  The tree that is good as to its capacities is not yet so in fact; for if it were so it certainly could not bring forth bad fruit; it is only when the man has adopted into his maxim the spring which is placed in him for the moral law that he is called a good man (the tree is then absolutely a good tree).

  [2]
  
  Words that admit of two totally different senses often retard conviction for a long time when the principles are perfectly clear. Love in general, and self-love in particular, may be divided into that of good will and that of complacency (benevolentiœ et complacentiœ), and both (as is evident) must be rational. It is natural to adopt the former into one’s maxim (for who would not wish that it should always fare well with himself?). It is rational, inasmuch as in the first place, in respect of the end only that is chosen which is consistent with the greatest and most lasting welfare, and in the next as the most fitting means are chosen for each of these elements of happiness. Reason here occupies the place of a minister to natural inclination, and the maxim which is assumed on that account has no reference whatever to morality. If, however, it is made the unconditional principle of choice, then it is the source of an immeasurably great conflict with morality. Now a rational love of complacency in one’s self may either be understood thus, that we have complacency in the above-mentioned maxims directed to the satisfaction of natural inclinations (so far as that end is attained by following them); and then it is the same thing as complacency towards one’s self; one is pleased with one’s self, as a merchant whose trading speculations succeed, and who congratulates himself on his insight in respect of the maxims he has adopted. But the maxim of self-love, of unconditional complacency in one’s self (not depending on gain or loss as the results of the action) would be the inward principle of a satisfaction which is only possible to us on condition of the subordination of our maxims to the moral law. No man to whom morality is not indifferent can have complacency in himself, or indeed can be free from a bitter dissatisfaction with himself, who is conscious of maxims that do not agree with the moral law within. We might call this rational self-love, which prevents him from mixing with the springs of his will any other causes of satisfaction drawn from the consequences of his actions (under the name of happiness to be procured thereby). Now as the latter indicates unconditional respect for the law, why should a difficulty be put in the way of the clear understanding of the principle, by using the expression a rational self-love, which is moral only on the condition just mentioned, whereby we are involved in a circle (53) (for a man can love himself in a moral way only so far as he is conscious that his maxim is to make respect for the law the supreme spring of his will)? For us, as beings dependent on objects of the sensibility, happiness is by our [physical] nature the first and unconditional object of our desire. But (if we give the name of nature in general to all that is innate in us, then) as beings endowed with reason and freedom, happiness is by our nature far from being the first or unconditional object of our maxims; this character belongs to worthiness of happiness, that is, the coincidence of all our maxims with the moral law. Herein consists the whole precept of morality, that this is the objective condition under which alone the wish for the former can coincide with the legislation of reason, and the moral character consists in the state of mind which admits only such a conditional wish.

  [1]
  
  That the conception of freedom of the elective will does not precede the consciousness of the moral law in us, but is only inferred from the determinability of our will by this law, as an unconditional command, anyone may readily be convinced (57) by asking himself whether he is immediately certain of a faculty enabling him by firmness of purpose to overcome every motive to transgression however powerful (Phalaris licet imperet ut sis Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tauro). Everyone must confess that he does not know whether in such a case he would not be shaken in his purpose. Nevertheless, duty commands him unconditionally; thou shalt remain true to it; and hence he justly concludes that he must also be able, and that accordingly his will is free. Those who fullaciously represent this inscrutable property as quite comprehensible create an illusion by the word determinism (the thesis that the elective will is determined by internal sufficient reasons), as if the difficulty consisted in reconciling this with freedom, which no one supposes; the difficulty is, how predeterminism, by which voluntary actions as events have their determining causes in preceding time (which with what it contains is no longer in our power), can be consistent with freedom, by which both the action itself and its opposite must be in the power of the subject at the moment of its taking place; this is what men want to discern and never will be able to discern.

  There is no difficulty in reconciling the conception of freedom with the idea of God as a necessary being; for freedom does not consist in the contingency of the action (that it is not determined by reasons at all), that is, not in indeterminism (that it must be equally possible for God to do good or evil, if his action is to be called free), but in absolute spontaneity, which alone is endangered by predeterminism, which places the determining principle of the action in preceding time, so that the action is now no longer in my power, but in the hands of nature, and I am irresistibly determined; and since succession in time is not to be conceived in God, this difficulty disappears.

  [1]
  
  [There is appended in the original a long note (first added in the second edition) on the relation between the preceding general remark and the corresponding remarks appended to the other three sections of the Philosophical Theory of Religion. As these sections are not here translated, the note has been omitted.]

  [1]
  
  [Rozenkranz, vol. vii., p. 295. This Essay was published in a Berlin periodical in 1797.]

  [2]
  
  “J. D. Michaelis, in Göttingen, propounded the same strange opinion even before Kant. That Kant is the philosopher here referred to, I have been informed by the ruthor of this work himself.”—K. F. Cramer.*

  [1]
  
  I do not wish here to press this principle so far as to say that “falsehood is a violation of duty to one’s self.” For this principle belongs to Ethics, and here we are speaking only of a duty of justice. Ethics look in this transgression only to the worthlessness, the reproach of which the liar draws on himself.

  [1]
  
  It seems, nevertheless, impossible for a creature to have the conviction of his unwavering firmness of mind in the progress towards goodness. On this account the Christian religion makes it come only from the same Spirit that works sanctification, that is, this firm purpose, and with it the consciousness of steadfastness * in the moral progress. But naturally one who is conscious that he has persevered through a long portion of his life up to the end in the progress to the better, and this from genuine moral motives, may well have the comforting hope, though not the certainty, that even in an existence prolonged beyond this life he will continue steadfast in these principles; and although he is never justified here in his own eyes, nor can ever hope to be so in the increased perfection of his nature, to which he looks forward, together with an increase of duties, nevertheless in this progress which, though it is directed to a goal infinitely remote, yet is in God’s sight regarded as equivalent to possession, he may have a prospect of a blessed future; for this is the word that reason employs to designate perfect well-being independent on all contingent causes of the world, and which, like holiness, is an idea that can be contained only in an endless progress and its totality, and consequently is never fully attained by a creature.

  [1]
  
  But even here we should not be able to allege a requirement of reason, if we had not before our eyes a problematical, but yet inevitable, conception of reason, namely, that of an absolutely necessary being. This conception now seeks to be defined, and this, in addition to the tendency to extend itself, is the objective ground of a requirement of speculative reason, namely, to have a more precise definition of the conception of a necessary being which is to serve as the first cause of other beings, so as to make these * latter knowable by some means. Without such antecedent necessary problems there are no requirements—at least not of pure reason—the rest are requirements of inclination.

  [2]
  
  “J. D. Michaelis, in Göttingen, propounded the same strange opinion even before Kant. That Kant is the philosopher here referred to, I have been informed by the ruthor of this work himself.”—K. F. Cramer.*

  []
  
  [The ὐπομονή of the N. T.]

  []
  
  I read ‘diese’ with the ed. of 1791. Rosenkranz and Hartenstein both read ‘dieses,’ ‘This being.’

  []
  
  I hereby admit that I have really said this in some place which I cannot now recollect.—I. Kant.

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  6: Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics [1893]

  Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle, trans. F.H. Peters, M.A. 5th edition (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., 1893).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/903 on 2009-03-30

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

  Many more or less important alterations have been made in this translation, which was first published in 1881, as new editions have from time to time been called for. The present edition in particular has been revised throughout, and brought into accordance with Bywater’s text (Oxford, 1890),* which is coming to be recognized, not in Oxford only, as the received text of the Nicomachean Ethics. I wish gratefully to acknowledge the debt which, in common with all lovers of Aristotle, I owe to Mr. Bywater, both for his edition and for his “Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Nicomachean Ethics” (Oxford, 1892).

  To Mr. Stewart also I wish to express my gratitude, not only for much assistance derived from his admirable “Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics” (Oxford, 1892), but also for much kindly and helpful criticism in that work and in a review of my first edition (Mind, July, 1881). My old friends Mr. A. C. Bradley and Mr. J. Cook Wilson (Professors now at Glasgow and Oxford respectively) will allow me to repeat my thanks for the valuable help they gave me when the first edition was passing through the press. To Mr. F. H. Hall of Oriel, and Mr. L. A. Selby Bigge of my own College, I am indebted for some corrections in a subsequent edition. To other translators and commentators I am also under many obligations, which I can only acknowledge in general terms.

  When I have inserted in the text explanatory words of my own, I have enclosed them in square brackets thus [ ]. A short Index of leading terms and proper names has been added to this edition (in preparing which I have found Mr. Bywater’s Index of the greatest service). This Index makes no pretension to completeness or anything approaching to completeness (except in regard to proper names). Its aim is merely, in conjunction with the Table of Contents, to help the reader to find the more important passages bearing on the questions in which he may be specially interested.

  F. H. PETERS.

  Oxford,May, 1893.

  BOOK I.

  THE END.

  1.

  In all he does man seeks same good as end or means.

  Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act and purpose, seems to aim at some good: and so it has been well said that the good is that at which everything aims.

  But a difference is observable among these aims or ends. What is aimed at is sometimes the exercise of a faculty, sometimes a certain result beyond that exercise. And where there is an end beyond the act, there the result is better than the exercise of the faculty.

  Now since there are many kinds of actions and many arts and sciences, it follows that there are many ends also; e.g. health is the end of medicine, ships of shipbuilding, victory of the art of war, and wealth of economy.

  But when several of these are subordinated to some one art or science,—as the making of bridles and other trappings to the art of horsemanship, and this in turn, along with all else that the soldier does, to the art of war, and so on,* —then the end of the master-art is always more desired than the ends of the subordinate arts, since these are pursued for its sake. And this is equally true whether the end in view be the mere exercise of a faculty or something beyond that, as in the above instances.

  2.

  THE end is THE good; our subject is this and its science Politics.

  If then in what we do there be some end which we wish for on its own account, choosing all the others as means to this, but not every end without exception as a means to something else (for so we should go on ad infinitum, and desire would be left void and objectless),—this evidently will be the good or the best of all things. And surely from a practical point of view it much concerns us to know this good; for then, like archers shooting at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.

  If this be so, we must try to indicate roughly what it is, and first of all to which of the arts or sciences it belongs.

  It would seem to belong to the supreme art or science, that one which most of all deserves the name of master-art or master-science.

  Now Politics† seems to answer to this description. For it prescribes which of the sciences a state needs, and which each man shall study, and up to what point; and to it we see subordinated even the highest arts, such as economy, rhetoric, and the art of war.

  Since then it makes use of the other practical sciences, and since it further ordains what men are to do and from what to refrain, its end must include the ends of the others, and must be the proper good of man.

  For though this good is the same for the individual and the state, yet the good of the state seems a grander and more perfect thing both to attain and to secure; and glad as one would be to do this service for a single individual, to do it for a people and for a number of states is nobler and more divine.

  This then is the aim of the present inquiry, which is a sort of political inquiry.*

  3.

  Exactness not permitted by subject nor to be expected by student, who needs experience and training.

  We must be content if we can attain to so much precision in our statement as the subject before us admits of; for the same degree of accuracy is no more to be expected in all kinds of reasoning than in all kinds of handicraft.

  Now the things that are noble and just (with which Politics deals) are so various and so uncertain, that some think these are merely conventional and not natural distinctions.

  There is a similar uncertainty also about what is good, because good things often do people harm: men have before now been ruined by wealth, and have lost their lives through courage.

  Our subject, then, and our data being of this nature, we must be content if we can indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and if, in dealing with matters that are not amenable to immutable laws, and reasoning from premises that are but probable, we can arrive at probable conclusions.*

  The reader, on his part, should take each of my statements in the same spirit; for it is the mark of an educated man to require, in each kind of inquiry, just so much exactness as the subject admits of: it is equally absurd to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician, and to demand scientific proof from an orator.

  But each man can form a judgment about what he knows, and is called “a good judge” of that—of any special matter when he has received a special education therein, “a good judge” (without any qualifying epithet) when he has received a universal education. And hence a young man is not qualified to be a student of Politics; for he lacks experience of the affairs of life, which form the data and the subject-matter of Politics.

  Further, since he is apt to be swayed by his feelings, he will derive no benefit from a study whose aim is not speculative but practical.

  But in this respect young in character counts the same as young in years; for the young man’s disqualification is not a matter of time, but is due to the fact that feeling rules his life and directs all his desires. Men of this character turn the knowledge they get to no account in practice, as we see with those we call incontinent; but those who direct their desires and actions by reason will gain much profit from the knowledge of these matters.

  So much then by way of preface as to the student, and the spirit in which he must accept what we say, and the object which we propose to ourselves.

  4.

  Men agree that the good is happiness, but differ as to what this is.

  4. Since—to resume—all knowledge and all purpose aims at some good, what is this which we say is the aim of Politics; or, in other words, what is the highest of all realizable goods?

  As to its name, I suppose nearly all men are agreed; for the masses and the men of culture alike declare that it is happiness, and hold that to “live well” or to “do well” is the same as to be “happy.”

  But they differ as to what this happiness is, and the masses do not give the same account of it as the philosophers.

  The former take it to be something palpable and plain, as pleasure or wealth or fame; one man holds it to be this, and another that, and often the same man is of different minds at different times,—after sickness it is health, and in poverty it is wealth; while when they are impressed with the consciousness of their ignorance, they admire most those who say grand things that are above their comprehension.

  Some philosophers, on the other hand, have thought that, beside these several good things, there is an “absolute” good which is the cause of their goodness.

  As it would hardly be worth while to review all the opinions that have been held, we will confine ourselves to those which are most popular, or which seem to have some foundation in reason.

  We must reason from facts accepted without question by the man of trained character.

  But we must not omit to notice the distinction that is drawn between the method of proceeding from your starting-points or principles, and the method of working up to them. Plato used with fitness to raise this question, and to ask whether the right way is from or to your starting-points, as in the race-course you may run from the judges to the boundary, or vice versâ.

  Well, we must start from what is known.

  But “what is known” may mean two things: “what is known to us,” which is one thing, or “what is known” simply, which is another.

  I think it is safe to say that we must start from what is known to us.

  And on this account nothing but a good moral training can qualify a man to study what is noble and just—in a word, to study questions of Politics. For the undemonstrated fact is here the starting-point, and if this undemonstrated fact be sufficiently evident to a man, he will not require a “reason why.” Now the man who has had a good moral training either has already arrived at starting-points or principles of action, or will easily accept them when pointed out. But he who neither has them nor will accept them may hear what Hesiod says* —

  • “The best is he who of himself doth know;
  • Good too is he who listens to the wise;
  • But he who neither knows himself nor heeds
  • The words of others, is a useless man.”

  5.

  The good cannot be pleasure, nor honour, nor virtue.

  Let us now take up the discussion at the point from which we digressed.

  It seems that men not unreasonably take their notions of the good or happiness from the lives actually led, and that the masses who are the least refined suppose it to be pleasure, which is the reason why they aim at nothing higher than the life of enjoyment.

  For the most conspicuous kinds of life are three: this life of enjoyment, the life of the statesman, and, thirdly, the contemplative life.

  The mass of men show themselves utterly slavish in their preference for the life of brute beasts, but their views receive consideration because many of those in high places have the tastes of Sardanapalus.

  Men of refinement with a practical turn prefer honour; for I suppose we may say that honour is the aim of the statesman’s life.

  But this seems too superficial to be the good we are seeking: for it appears to depend upon those who give rather than upon those who receive it; while we have a presentiment that the good is something that is peculiarly a man’s own and can scarce be taken away from him.

  Moreover, these men seem to pursue honour in order that they may be assured of their own excellence,—at least, they wish to be honoured by men of sense, and by those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue or excellence. It is plain, then, that in their view, at any rate, virtue or excellence is better than honour; and perhaps we should take this to be the end of the statesman’s life, rather than honour.

  But virtue or excellence also appears too incomplete to be what we want; for it seems that a man might have virtue and yet be asleep or be inactive all his life, and, moreover, might meet with the greatest disasters and misfortunes; and no one would maintain that such a man is happy, except for argument’s sake. But we will not dwell on these matters now, for they are sufficiently discussed in the popular treatises.

  The third kind of life is the life of contemplation: we will treat of it further on.*

  As for the money-making life, it is something quite contrary to nature; and wealth evidently is not the good of which we are in search, for it is merely useful as a means to something else. So we might rather take pleasure and virtue or excellence to be ends than wealth; for they are chosen on their own account. But it seems that not even they are the end, though much breath has been wasted in attempts to show that they are.

  6.

  Various arguments to show against the Platonists that there cannot be one universal good.

  Dismissing these views, then, we have now to consider the “universal good,” and to state the difficulties which it presents; though such an inquiry is not a pleasant task in view of our friendship for the authors of the doctrine of ideas. But we venture to think that this is the right course, and that in the interests of truth we ought to sacrifice even what is nearest to us, especially as we call ourselves philosophers. Both are dear to us, but it is a sacred duty to give the preference to truth.

  In the first place, the authors of this theory themselves did not assert a common idea in the case of things of which one is prior to the other; and for this reason they did not hold one common idea of numbers. Now the predicate good is applied to substances and also to qualities and relations. But that which has independent existence, what we call “substance,” is logically prior to that which is relative; for the latter is an offshoot as it were, or [in logical language] an accident of a thing or substance. So [by their own showing] there cannot be one common idea of these goods.

  Secondly, the term good is used in as many different ways as the term “is” or “being:” we apply the term to substances or independent existences, as God, reason; to qualities, as the virtues; to quantity, as the moderate or due amount; to relatives, as the useful; to time, as opportunity; to place, as habitation, and so on. It is evident, therefore, that the word good cannot stand for one and the same notion in all these various applications; for if it did, the term could not be applied in all the categories, but in one only.

  Thirdly, if the notion were one, since there is but one science of all the things that come under one idea, there would be but one science of all goods; but as it is, there are many sciences even of the goods that come under one category; as, for instance, the science which deals with opportunity in war is strategy, but in disease is medicine; and the science of the due amount in the matter of food is medicine, but in the matter of exercise is the science of gymnastic.

  Fourthly, one might ask what they mean by the “absolute:” in “absolute man” and “man” the word “man” has one and the same sense; for in respect of manhood there will be no difference between them; and if so, neither will there be any difference in respect of goodness between “absolute good” and “good.”

  Fifthly, they do not make the good any more good by making it eternal; a white thing that lasts a long while is no whiter than what lasts but a day.

  There seems to be more plausibility in the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, who [in their table of opposites] place the one on the same side with the good things [instead of reducing all goods to unity]; and even Speusippus* seems to follow them in this.

  However, these points may be reserved for another occasion; but objection may be taken to what I have said on the ground that the Platonists do not speak in this way of all goods indiscriminately, but hold that those that are pursued and welcomed on their own account are called good by reference to one common form or type, while those things that tend to produce or preserve these goods, or to prevent their opposites, are called good only as means to these, and in a different sense.

  It is evident that there will thus be two classes of goods: one good in themselves, the other good as means to the former. Let us separate then from the things that are merely useful those that are good in themselves, and inquire if they are called good by reference to one common idea or type.

  Now what kind of things would one call “good in themselves”?

  Surely those things that we pursue even apart from their consequences, such as wisdom and sight and certain pleasures and certain honours; for although we sometimes pursue these things as means, no one could refuse to rank them among the things that are good in themselves.

  If these be excluded, nothing is good in itself except the idea; and then the type or form will be meaningless.*

  If however, these are ranked among the things that are good in themselves, then it must be shown that the goodness of all of them can be defined in the same terms, as white has the same meaning when applied to snow and to white lead.

  But, in fact, we have to give a separate and different account of the goodness of honour and wisdom and pleasure.

  Good, then, is not a term that is applied to all these things alike in the same sense or with reference to one common idea or form.

  But how then do these things come to be called good? for they do not appear to have received the same name by chance merely. Perhaps it is because they all proceed from one source, or all conduce to one end; or perhaps it is rather in virtue of some analogy, just as we call the reason the eye of the soul because it bears the same relation to the soul that the eye does to the body, and so on.

  But we may dismiss these questions at present; for to discuss them in detail belongs more properly to another branch of philosophy.

  Even if there were, it would not help us here.

  And for the same reason we may dismiss the further consideration of the idea; for even granting that this term good, which is applied to all these different things, has one and the same meaning throughout, or that there is an absolute good apart from these particulars, it is evident that this good will not be anything that man can realize or attain: but it is a good of this kind that we are now seeking.

  It might, perhaps, be thought that it would nevertheless be well to make ourselves acquainted with this universal good, with a view to the goods that are attainable and realizable. With this for a pattern, it may be said, we shall more readily discern our own good, and discerning achieve it.

  There certainly is some plausibility in this argument, but it seems to be at variance with the existing sciences; for though they are all aiming at some good and striving to make up their deficiencies, they neglect to inquire about this universal good. And yet it is scarce likely that the professors of the several arts and sciences should not know, nor even look for, what would help them so much.

  And indeed I am at a loss to know how the weaver or the carpenter would be furthered in his art by a knowledge of this absolute good, or how a man would be rendered more able to heal the sick or to command an army by contemplation of the pure form or idea. For it seems to me that the physician does not even seek for health in this abstract way, but seeks for the health of man, or rather of some particular man, for it is individuals that he has to heal.

  7.

  The good is the final end, and happiness is this.

  Leaving these matters, then, let us return once more to the question, what this good can be of which we are in search.

  It seems to be different in different kinds of action and in different arts,—one thing in medicine and another in war, and so on. What then is the good in each of these cases? Surely that for the sake of which all else is done. And that in medicine is health, in war is victory, in building is a house,—a different thing in each different case, but always, in whatever we do and in whatever we choose, the end. For it is always for the sake of the end that all else is done.

  If then there be one end of all that man does, this end will be the realizable good,—or these ends, if there be more than one.

  By this generalization our argument is brought to the same point as before.* This point we must try to explain more clearly.

  We see that there are many ends. But some of these are chosen only as means, as wealth, flutes, and the whole class of instruments. And so it is plain that not all ends are final.

  But the best of all things must, we conceive, be something final.

  If then there be only one final end, this will be what we are seeking,—or if there be more than one, then the most final of them.

  Now that which is pursued as an end in itself is more final than that which is pursued as means to something else, and that which is never chosen as means than that which is chosen both as an end in itself and as means, and that is strictly final which is always chosen as an end in itself and never as means.

  Happiness seems more than anything else to answer to this description: for we always choose it for itself, and never for the sake of something else; while honour and pleasure and reason, and all virtue or excellence, we choose partly indeed for themselves (for, apart from any result, we should choose each of them), but partly also for the sake of happiness, supposing that they will help to make us happy. But no one chooses happiness for the sake of these things, or as a means to anything else at all.

  We seem to be led to the same conclusion when we start from the notion of self-sufficiency.

  The final good is thought to be self-sufficing [or all-sufficing]. In applying this term we do not regard a man as an individual leading a solitary life, but we also take account of parents, children, wife, and, in short, friends and fellow-citizens generally, since man is naturally a social being. Some limit must indeed be set to this; for if you go on to parents and descendants and friends of friends, you will never come to a stop. But this we will consider further on: for the present we will take self-sufficing to mean what by itself makes life desirable and in want of nothing. And happiness is believed to answer to this description.

  And further, happiness is believed to be the most desirable thing in the world, and that not merely as one among other good things: if it were merely one among other good things [so that other things could be added to it], it is plain that the addition of the least of other goods must make it more desirable; for the addition becomes a surplus of good, and of two goods the greater is always more desirable.

  Thus it seems that happiness is something final and self-sufficing, and is the end of all that man does.

  To find it we ask, What is man’s junction?

  But perhaps the reader thinks that though no one will dispute the statement that happiness is the best thing in the world, yet a still more precise definition of it is needed.

  This will best be gained, I think, by asking, What is the function of man? For as the goodness and the excellence of a piper or a sculptor, or the practiser of any art, and generally of those who have any function or business to do, lies in that function, so man’s good would seem to lie in his function, if he has one.

  But can we suppose that, while a carpenter and a cobbler has a function and a business of his own, man has no business and no function assigned him by nature? Nay, surely as his several members, eye and hand and foot, plainly have each his own function, so we must suppose that man also has some function over and above all these.

  What then is it?

  Life evidently he has in common even with the plants, but we want that which is peculiar to him. We must exclude, therefore, the life of mere nutrition and growth.

  Next to this comes the life of sense; but this too he plainly shares with horses and cattle and all kinds of animals.

  There remains then the life whereby he acts—the life of his rational nature,* with its two sides or divisions, one rational as obeying reason, the other rational as having and exercising reason.

  But as this expression is ambiguous,† we must be understood to mean thereby the life that consists in the exercise of the faculties; for this seems to be more properly entitled to the name.

  The function of man, then, is exercise of his vital faculties [or soul] on one side in obedience to reason, and on the other side with reason.

  But what is called the function of a man of any profession and the function of a man who is good in that profession are generically the same, e.g. of a harper and of a good harper; and this holds in all cases without exception, only that in the case of the latter his superior excellence at his work is added; for we say a harper’s function is to harp, and a good harper’s to harp well.

  (Man’s function then being, as we say, a kind of life—that is to say, exercise of his faculties and action of various kinds with reason—the good man’s function is to do this well and beautifully [or nobly]. But the function of anything is done well when it is done in accordance with the proper excellence of that thing.)‡

  Resulting definition of happiness.

  If this be so the result is that the good of man is exercise of his faculties in accordance with excellence or virtue, or, if there be more than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue.*

  But there must also be a full term of years for this exercise;† for one swallow or one fine day does not make a spring, nor does one day or any small space of time make a blessed or happy man.

  This, then, may be taken as a rough outline of the good; for this, I think, is the proper method,—first to sketch the outline, and then to fill in the details. But it would seem that, the outline once fairly drawn, any one can carry on the work and fit in the several items which time reveals to us or helps us to find. And this indeed is the way in which the arts and sciences have grown; for it requires no extraordinary genius to fill up the gaps.

  We must bear in mind, however, what was said above, and not demand the same degree of accuracy in all branches of study, but in each case so much as the subject-matter admits of and as is proper to that kind of inquiry. The carpenter and the geometer both look for the right angle, but in different ways: the former only wants such an approximation to it as his work requires, but the latter wants to know what constitutes a right angle, or what is its special quality; his aim is to find out the truth. And so in other cases we must follow the same course, lest we spend more time on what is immaterial than on the real business in hand.

  Nor must we in all cases alike demand the reason why; sometimes it is enough if the undemonstrated fact be fairly pointed out, as in the case of the starting-points or principles of a science. Undemonstrated facts always form the first step or starting-point of a science; and these starting-points or principles are arrived at some in one way, some in another—some by induction, others by perception, others again by some kind of training. But in each case we must try to apprehend them in the proper way, and do our best to define them clearly; for they have great influence upon the subsequent course of an inquiry. A good start is more than half the race, I think, and our starting-point or principle, once found, clears up a number of our difficulties.

  8.

  This view harmonizes various current views.

  We must not be satisfied, then, with examining this starting-point or principle of ours as a conclusion from our data, but must also view it in its relation to current opinions on the subject; for all experience harmonizes with a true principle, but a false one is soon found to be incompatible with the facts.

  Now, good things have been divided into three classes, external goods on the one hand, and on the other goods of the soul and goods of the body; and the goods of the soul are commonly said to be goods in the fullest sense, and more good than any other.

  But “actions and exercises of the vital faculties or soul” may be said to be “of the soul.” So our account is confirmed by this opinion, which is both of long standing and approved by all who busy themselves with philosophy.

  But, indeed, we secure the support of this opinion by the mere statement that certain actions and exercises are the end; for this implies that it is to be ranked among the goods of the soul, and not among external goods.

  Our account, again, is in harmony with the common saying that the happy man lives well and does well; for we may say that happiness, according to us, is a living well and doing well.

  And, indeed, all the characteristics that men expect to find in happiness seem to belong to happiness as we define it.

  Some hold it to be virtue or excellence, some prudence, others a kind of wisdom; others, again, hold it to be all or some of these, with the addition of pleasure, either as an ingredient or as a necessary accompaniment; and some even include external prosperity in their account of it.

  Now, some of these views have the support of many voices and of old authority; others have few voices, but those of weight; but it is probable that neither the one side nor the other is entirely wrong, but that in some one point at least, if not in most, they are both right.

  First, then, the view that happiness is excellence or a kind of excellence harmonizes with our account; for “exercise of faculties in accordance with excellence” belongs to excellence.

  But I think we may say that it makes no small difference whether the good be conceived as the mere possession of something, or as its use—as a mere habit or trained faculty, or as the exercise of that faculty. For the habit or faculty may be present, and yet issue in no good result, as when a man is asleep, or in any other way hindered from his function; but with its exercise this is not possible, for it must show itself in acts and in good acts. And as at the Olympic games it is not the fairest and strongest who receive the crown, but those who contend (for among these are the victors), so in life, too, the winners are those who not only have all the excellences, but manifest these in deed.

  And, further, the life of these men is in itself pleasant. For pleasure is an affection of the soul, and each man takes pleasure in that which he is said to love,—he who loves horses in horses, he who loves sight-seeing in sight-seeing, and in the same way he who loves justice in acts of justice, and generally the lover of excellence or virtue in virtuous acts or the manifestation of excellence.

  And while with most men there is a perpetual conflict between the several things in which they find pleasure, since these are not naturally pleasant, those who love what is noble take pleasure in that which is naturally pleasant. For the manifestations of excellence are naturally pleasant, so that they are both pleasant to them and pleasant in themselves.

  Their life, then, does not need pleasure to be added to it as an appendage, but contains pleasure in itself.

  Indeed, in addition to what we have said, a man is not good at all unless he takes pleasure in noble deeds. No one would call a man just who did not take pleasure in doing justice, nor generous who took no pleasure in acts of generosity, and so on.

  If this be so, the manifestations of excellence will be pleasant in themselves. But they are also both good and noble, and that in the highest degree—at least, if the good man’s judgment about them is right, for this is his judgment.

  Happiness, then, is at once the best and noblest and pleasantest thing in the world, and these are not separated, as the Delian inscription would have them to be:—

  • “What is most just is noblest, health is best,
  • Pleasantest is to get your heart’s desire.”

  For all these characteristics are united in the best exercises of our faculties; and these, or some one of them that is better than all the others, we identify with happiness.

  But nevertheless happiness plainly requires external goods too, as we said; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to act nobly without some furniture of fortune. There are many things that can only be done through instruments, so to speak, such as friends and wealth and political influence: and there are some things whose absence takes the bloom off our happiness, as good birth, the blessing of children, personal beauty; for a man is not very likely to be happy if he is very ugly in person, or of low birth, or alone in the world, or childless, and perhaps still less if he has worthless children or friends, or has lost good ones that he had.

  As we said, then, happiness seems to stand in need of this kind of prosperity; and so some identify it with good fortune, just as others identify it with excellence.

  9.

  It happiness acquired, or the gift of Gods or of chance?

  This has led people to ask whether happiness is attained by learning, or the formation of habits, or any other kind of training, or comes by some divine dispensation or even by chance.

  Well, if the Gods do give gifts to men, happiness is likely to be among the number, more likely, indeed, than anything else, in proportion as it is better than all other human things.

  This belongs more properly to another branch of inquiry; but we may say that even if it is not heavensent, but comes as a consequence of virtue or some kind of learning or training, still it seems to be one of the most divine things in the world; for the prize and aim of virtue would appear to be better than anything else and something divine and blessed.

  Again, if it is thus acquired it will be widely accessible; for it will then be in the power of all except those who have lost the capacity for excellence to acquire it by study and diligence.

  And if it be better that men should attain happiness in this way rather than by chance, it is reasonable to suppose that it is so, since in the sphere of nature all things are arranged in the best possible way, and likewise in the sphere of art, and of each mode of causation, and most of all in the sphere of the noblest mode of causation. And indeed it would be too absurd to leave what is noblest and fairest to the dispensation of chance.

  But our definition itself clears up the difficulty;* for happiness was defined as a certain kind of exercise of the vital faculties in accordance with excellence or virtue. And of the remaining goods [other than happiness itself], some must be present as necessary conditions, while others are aids and useful instruments to happiness. And this agrees with what we said at starting. We then laid down that the end of the art political is the best of all ends; but the chief business of that art is to make the citizens of a certain character—that is, good and apt to do what is noble. It is not without reason, then, that we do not call an ox, or a horse, or any brute happy; for none of them is able to share in this kind of activity.

  For the same reason also a child is not happy; he is as yet, because of his age, unable to do such things. If we ever call a child happy, it is because we hope he will do them. For, as we said, happiness requires not only perfect excellence or virtue, but also a full term of years for its exercise. For our circumstances are liable to many changes and to all sorts of chances, and it is possible that he who is now most prosperous will in his old age meet with great disasters, as is told of Priam in the tales of Troy; and a man who is thus used by fortune and comes to a miserable end cannot be called happy.

  10.

  Can no man be called happy during life?

  Are we, then, to call no man happy as long as he lives, but to wait for the end, as Solon said?

  And, supposing we have to allow this, do we mean that he actually is happy after he is dead? Surely that is absurd, especially for us who say that happiness is a kind of activity or life.

  But if we do not call the dead man happy, and if Solon meant not this, but that only then could we safely apply the term to a man, as being now beyond the reach of evil and calamity, then here too we find some ground for objection. For it is thought that both good and evil may in some sort befall a dead man (just as they may befall a living man, although he is unconscious of them), e.g. honours rendered to him, or the reverse of these, and again the prosperity or the misfortune of his children and all his descendants.

  But this, too, has its difficulties; for after a man has lived happily to a good old age, and ended as he lived, it is possible that many changes may befall him in the persons of his descendants, and that some of them may turn out good and meet with the good fortune they deserve, and others the reverse. It is evident too that the degree in which the descendants are related to their ancestors may vary to any extent. And it would be a strange thing if the dead man were to change with these changes and become happy and miserable by turns. But it would also be strange to suppose that the dead are not affected at all, even for a limited time, by the fortunes of their posterity.

  But let us return to our former question; for its solution will, perhaps, clear up this other difficulty.

  The saying of Solon may mean that we ought to look for the end and then call a man happy, not because he now is, but because he once was happy.

  But surely it is strange that when he is happy we should refuse to say what is true of him, because we do not like to apply the term to living men in view of the changes to which they are liable, and because we hold happiness to be something that endures and is little liable to change, while the fortunes of one and the same man often undergo many revolutions: for, it is argued, it is plain that, if we follow the changes of fortune, we shall call the same man happy and miserable many times over, making the happy man “a sort of chameleon and one who rests on no sound foundation.”

  We reply that it cannot be right thus to follow fortune. For it is not in this that our weal or woe lies; but, as we said, though good fortune is needed to complete man’s life, yet it is the excellent employment of his powers that constitutes his happiness, as the reverse of this constitutes his misery.

  But the discussion of this difficulty leads to a further confirmation of our account. For nothing human is so constant as the excellent exercise of our faculties. The sciences themselves seem to be less abiding. And the highest of these exercises* are the most abiding, because the happy are occupied with them most of all and most continuously (for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget how to do them† ).

  The happy man, then, as we define him, will have this required property of permanence, and all through life will preserve his character; for he will be occupied continually, or with the least possible interruption, in excellent deeds and excellent speculations; and, whatever his fortune be, he will take it in the noblest fashion, and bear himself always and in all things suitably, since he is truly good and “foursquare without a flaw.”

  But the dispensations of fortune are many, some great, some small. The small ones, whether good or evil, plainly are of no weight in the scale; but the great ones, when numerous, will make life happier if they be good; for they help to give a grace to life themselves, and their use is noble and good; but, if they be evil, will enfeeble and spoil happiness; for they bring pain, and often impede the exercise of our faculties.

  But nevertheless true worth shines out even here, in the calm endurance of many great misfortunes, not through insensibility, but through nobility and greatness of soul. And if it is what a man does that determines the character of his life, as we said, then no happy man will become miserable; for he will never do what is hateful and base. For we hold that the man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances, as a good general will turn the forces at his command to the best account, and a good shoemaker will make the best shoe that can be made out of a given piece of leather, and so on with all other crafts.

  If this be so, the happy man will never become miserable, though he will not be truly happy if he meets with the fate of Priam.

  But yet he is not unstable and lightly changed: he will not be moved from his happiness easily, nor by any ordinary misfortunes, but only by many heavy ones; and after such, he will not recover his happiness again in a short time, but if at all, only in a considerable period, which has a certain completeness, and in which he attains to great and noble things.

  We shall meet all objections, then, if we say that a happy man is “one who exercises his faculties in accordance with perfect excellence, being duly furnished with external goods, not for any chance time, but for a full term of years:” to which perhaps we should add, “and who shall continue to live so, and shall die as he lived,” since the future is veiled to us, but happiness we take to be the end and in all ways perfectly final or complete.

  If this be so, we may say that those living men are blessed or perfectly happy who both have and shall continue to have these characteristics, but happy as men only.

  11.

  Cannot the fortunes of survivors affect the dead?

  Passing now from this question to that of the fortunes of descendants and of friends generally, the doctrine that they do not affect the departed at all seems too cold and too much opposed to popular opinion. But as the things that happen to them are many and differ in all sorts of ways, and some come home to them more and some less, so that to discuss them all separately would be a long, indeed an endless task, it will perhaps be enough to speak of them in general terms and in outline merely.

  Now, as of the misfortunes that happen to a man’s self, some have a certain weight and influence on his life, while others are of less moment, so is it also with what happens to any of his friends. And, again, it always makes much more difference whether those who are affected by an occurrence are alive or dead than it does whether a terrible crime in a tragedy be enacted on the stage or merely supposed to have already taken place. We must therefore take these differences into account, and still more, perhaps, the fact that it is a doubtful question whether the dead are at all accessible to good and ill. For it appears that even if anything that happens, whether good or evil, does come home to them, yet it is something unsubstantial and slight to them if not in itself; or if not that, yet at any rate its influence is not of that magnitude or nature that it can make happy those who are not, or take away their happiness from those that are.

  It seems then—to conclude—that the prosperity, and likewise the adversity, of friends does affect the dead, but not in such a way or to such an extent as to make the happy unhappy, or to do anything of the kind.

  12.

  Happiness as absolute end is above praise.

  These points being settled, we may now inquire whether happiness is to be ranked among the goods that we praise, or rather among those that we revere; for it is plainly not a mere potentiality, but an actual good.

  What we praise seems always to be praised as being of a certain quality and having a certain relation to something. For instance, we praise the just and the courageous man, and generally the good man, and excellence or virtue, because of what they do or produce; and we praise also the strong or the swiftfooted man, and so on, because he has a certain gift or faculty in relation to some good and admirable thing.

  This is evident if we consider the praises bestowed on the Gods. The Gods are thereby made ridiculous by being made relative to man; and this happens because, as we said, a thing can only be praised in relation to something else.

  If, then, praise be proper to such things as we mentioned, it is evident that to the best things is due, not praise, but something greater and better, as our usage shows; for the Gods we call blessed and happy, and “blessed” is the term we apply to the most godlike men.

  And so with good things: no one praises happiness as he praises justice, but calls it blessed, as something better and more divine.

  On these grounds Eudoxus is thought to have based a strong argument for the claims of pleasure to the first prize: for he maintained that the fact that it is not praised, though it is a good thing, shows that it is higher than the goods we praise, as God and the good are higher; for these are the standards by reference to which we judge all other things,—giving praise to excellence or virtue, since it makes us apt to do what is noble, and passing encomiums on the results of virtue, whether these be bodily or psychical.

  But to refine on these points belongs more properly to those who have made a study of the subject of encomiums; for us it is plain from what has been said that happiness is one of the goods which we revere and count as final.

  And this further seems to follow from the fact that it is a starting-point or principle: for everything we do is always done for its sake; but the principle and cause of all good we hold to be something divine and worthy of reverence.

  13.

  Division of the faculties and resulting division of the virtues.

  Since happiness is an exercise of the vital faculties in accordance with perfect virtue or excellence, we will now inquire about virtue or excellence; for this will probably help us in our inquiry about happiness.

  And indeed the true statesman seems to be especially concerned with virtue, for he wishes to make the citizens good and obedient to the laws. Of this we have an example in the Cretan and the Lacedæmonian lawgivers, and any others who have resembled them. But if the inquiry belongs to Politics or the science of the state, it is plain that it will be in accordance with our original purpose to pursue it.

  The virtue or excellence that we are to consider is, of course, the excellence of man; for it is the good of man and the happiness of man that we started to seek. And by the excellence of man I mean excellence not of body, but of soul; for happiness we take to be an activity of the soul.

  If this be so, then it is evident that the statesman must have some knowledge of the soul, just as the man who is to heal the eye or the whole body must have some knowledge of them, and that the more in proportion as the science of the state is higher and better than medicine. But all educated physicians take much pains to know about the body.

  As statesmen [or students of Politics], then, we must inquire into the nature of the soul, but in so doing we must keep our special purpose in view and go only so far as that requires; for to go into minuter detail would be too laborious for the present undertaking.

  Now, there are certain doctrines about the soul which are stated elsewhere with sufficient precision, and these we will adopt.

  Two parts of the soul are distinguished, an irrational and a rational part.

  Whether these are separated as are the parts of the body or any divisible thing, or whether they are only distinguishable in thought but in fact inseparable, like concave and convex in the circumference of a circle, makes no difference for our present purpose.

  Of the irrational part, again, one division seems to be common to all things that live, and to be possessed by plants—I mean that which causes nutrition and growth; for we must assume that all things that take nourishment have a faculty of this kind, even when they are embryos, and have the same faculty when they are full grown; at least, this is more reasonable than to suppose that they then have a different one.

  The excellence of this faculty, then, is plainly one that man shares with other beings, and not specifically human.

  And this is confirmed by the fact that in sleep this part of the soul, or this faculty, is thought to be most active, while the good and the bad man are undistinguishable when they are asleep (whence the saying that for half their lives there is no difference between the happy and the miserable; which indeed is what we should expect; for sleep is the cessation of the soul from those functions in respect of which it is called good or bad), except that they are to some slight extent roused by what goes on in their bodies, with the result that the dreams of the good man are better than those of ordinary people.

  However, we need not pursue this further, and may dismiss the nutritive principle, since it has no place in the excellence of man.

  But there seems to be another vital principle that is irrational, and yet in some way partakes of reason. In the case of the continent and of the incontinent man alike we praise the reason or the rational part, for it exhorts them rightly and urges them to do what is best; but there is plainly present in them another principle besides the rational one, which fights and struggles against the reason. For just as a paralyzed limb, when you will to move it to the right, moves on the contrary to the left, so is it with the soul; the incontinent man’s impulses run counter to his reason. Only whereas we see the refractory member in the case of the body, we do not see it in the case of the soul. But we must nevertheless, I think, hold that in the soul too there is something beside the reason, which opposes and runs counter to it (though in what sense it is distinct from the reason does not matter here).

  It seems, however, to partake of reason also, as we said: at least, in the continent man it submits to the reason; while in the temperate and courageous man we may say it is still more obedient; for in him it is altogether in harmony with the reason.

  The irrational part, then, it appears, is twofold. There is the vegetative faculty, which has no share of reason; and the faculty of appetite or of desire in general, which in a manner partakes of reason or is rational as listening to reason and submitting to its sway,—rational in the sense in which we speak of rational obedience to father or friends, not in the sense in which we speak of rational apprehension of mathematical truths. But all advice and all rebuke and exhortation testify that the irrational part is in some way amenable to reason.

  If then we like to say that this part, too, has a share of reason, the rational part also will have two divisions: one rational in the strict sense as possessing reason in itself, the other rational as listening to reason as a man listens to his father.

  Now, on this division of the faculties is based the division of excellence; for we speak of intellectual excellences and of moral excellences; wisdom and understanding and prudence we call intellectual, liberality and temperance we call moral virtues or excellences. When we are speaking of a man’s moral character we do not say that he is wise or intelligent, but that he is gentle or temperate. But we praise the wise man, too, for his habit of mind or trained faculty; and a habit or trained faculty that is praiseworthy is what we call an excellence or virtue.

  BOOK II.

  MORAL VIRTUE.

  1.

  Moral virtue is acquired by the repetition of the corresponding acts.

  Excellence, then, being of these two kinds, intellectual and moral intellectual excellence owes its birth and growth mainly to instruction, and so requires time and experience, while moral excellence is the result of habit or custom (ἔθος), and has accordingly in our language received a name formed by a slight change from ἔθος.*

  From this it is plain that none of the moral excellences or virtues is implanted in us by nature; for that which is by nature cannot be altered by training. For instance, a stone naturally tends to fall downwards, and you could not train it to rise upwards, though you tried to do so by throwing it up ten thousand times, nor could you train fire to move downwards, nor accustom anything which naturally behaves in one way to behave in any other way.

  The virtues,† then, come neither by nature nor against nature, but nature gives the capacity for acquiring them, and this is developed by training.

  Again, where we do things by nature we get the power first, and put this power forth in act afterwards: as we plainly see in the case of the senses; for it is not by constantly seeing and hearing that we acquire those faculties, but, on the contrary, we had the power first and then used it, instead of acquiring the power by the use. But the virtues we acquire by doing the acts, as is the case with the arts too. We learn an art by doing that which we wish to do when we have learned it; we become builders by building, and harpers by harping. And so by doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate and courageous.

  This is attested, too, by what occurs in states; for the legislators make their citizens good by training; i.e. this is the wish of all legislators, and those who do not succeed in this miss their aim, and it is this that distinguishes a good from a bad constitution.

  Again, both the moral virtues and the corresponding vices result from and are formed by the same acts; and this is the case with the arts also. It is by harping that good harpers and bad harpers alike are produced: and so with builders and the rest; by building well they will become good builders, and bad builders by building badly. Indeed, if it were not so, they would not want anybody to teach them, but would all be born either good or bad at their trades. And it is just the same with the virtues also. It is by our conduct in our intercourse with other men that we become just or unjust, and by acting in circumstances of danger, and training ourselves to feel fear or confidence, that we become courageous or cowardly. So, too, with our animal appetites and the passion of anger; for by behaving in this way or in that on the occasions with which these passions are concerned, some become temperate and gentle, and others profligate and ill-tempered. In a word, acts of any kind produce habits or characters of the same kind.

  Hence we ought to make sure that our acts be of a certain kind; for the resulting character varies as they vary. It makes no small difference, therefore, whether a man be trained from his youth up in this way or in that, but a great difference, or rather all the difference.

  2.

  These acts must be such as reason prescribes; they can’t be defined exactly, but must be neither too much nor too little.

  But our present inquiry has not, like the rest, a merely speculative aim; we are not inquiring merely in order to know what excellence or virtue is, but in order to become good; for otherwise it would profit us nothing. We must ask therefore about these acts, and see of what kind they are to be; for, as we said, it is they that determine our habits or character.

  First of all, then, that they must be in accordance with right reason is a common characteristic of them, which we shall here take for granted, reserving for future discussion* the question what this right reason is, and how it is related to the other excellences.

  But let it be understood, before we go on, that all reasoning on matters of practice must be in outline merely, and not scientifically exact: for, as we said at starting, the kind of reasoning to be demanded varies with the subject in hand; and in practical matters and questions of expediency there are no invariable laws, any more than in questions of health.

  And if our general conclusions are thus inexact, still more inexact is all reasoning about particular cases; for these fall under no system of scientifically established rules or traditional maxims, but the agent must always consider for himself what the special occasion requires, just as in medicine or navigation.

  But though this is the case we must try to render what help we can.

  First of all, then, we must observe that, in matters of this sort, to fall short and to exceed are alike fatal. This is plain (to illustrate what we cannot see by what we can see) in the case of strength and health. Too much and too little exercise alike destroy strength, and to take too much meat and drink, or to take too little, is equally ruinous to health, but the fitting amount produces and increases and preserves them. Just so, then, is it with temperance also, and courage, and the other virtues. The man who shuns and fears everything and never makes a stand, becomes a coward; while the man who fears nothing at all, but will face anything, becomes foolhardy. So, too, the man who takes his fill of any kind of pleasure, and abstains from none, is a profligate, but the man who shuns all (like him whom we call a “boor”) is devoid of sensibility.* Thus temperance and courage are destroyed both by excess and defect, but preserved by moderation.

  But habits or types of character are not only produced and preserved and destroyed by the same occasions and the same means, but they will also manifest themselves in the same circumstances. This is the case with palpable things like strength. Strength is produced by taking plenty of nourishment and doing plenty of hard work, and the strong man, in turn, has the greatest capacity for these. And the case is the same with the virtues: by abstaining from pleasure we become temperate, and when we have become temperate we are best able to abstain. And so with courage: by habituating ourselves to despise danger, and to face it, we become courageous; and when we have become courageous, we are best able to face danger.

  3.

  Virtue is in various ways concerned with pleasure and pain.

  The pleasure or pain that accompanies the acts must be taken as a test of the formed habit or character.

  He who abstains from the pleasures of the body and rejoices in the abstinence is temperate, while he who is vexed at having to abstain is profligate; and again, he who faces danger with pleasure, or, at any rate, without pain, is courageous, but he to whom this is painful is a coward.

  For moral virtue or excellence is closely concerned with pleasure and pain. It is pleasure that moves us to do what is base, and pain that moves us to refrain from what is noble. And therefore, as Plato says, man needs to be so trained from his youth up as to find pleasure and pain in the right objects. This is what sound education means.

  Another reason why virtue has to do with pleasure and pain, is that it has to do with actions and passions or affections; but every affection and every act is accompanied by pleasure or pain.

  The fact is further attested by the employment of pleasure and pain in correction; they have a kind of curative property, and a cure is effected by administering the opposite of the disease.

  Again, as we said before, every type of character [or habit or formed faculty] is essentially relative to, and concerned with, those things that form it for good or for ill; but it is through pleasure and pain that bad characters are formed—that is to say, through pursuing and avoiding the wrong pleasures and pains, or pursuing and avoiding them at the wrong time, or in the wrong manner, or in any other of the various ways of going wrong that may be distinguished.

  And hence some people go so far as to define the virtues as a kind of impassive or neutral state of mind. But they err in stating this absolutely, instead of qualifying it by the addition of the right and wrong manner, time, etc.

  We may lay down, therefore, that this kind of excellence [i.e. moral excellence] makes us do what is best in matters of pleasure and pain, while vice or badness has the contrary effect. But the following considerations will throw additional light on the point.*

  There are three kinds of things that move us to choose, and three that move us to avoid them: on the one hand, the beautiful or noble, the advantageous, the pleasant; on the other hand, the ugly or base, the hurtful, the painful. Now, the good man is apt to go right, and the bad man to go wrong, about them all, but especially about pleasure: for pleasure is not only common to man with animals, but also accompanies all pursuit or choice; since the noble, and the advantageous also, are pleasant in idea.

  Again, the feeling of pleasure has been fostered in us all from our infancy by our training, and has thus become so engrained in our life that it can scarce be washed out.* And, indeed, we all more or less make pleasure our test in judging of actions. For this reason too, then, our whole inquiry must be concerned with these matters; since to be pleased and pained in the right or the wrong way has great influence on our actions.

  Again, to fight with pleasure is harder than to fight with wrath (which Heraclitus says is hard), and virtue, like art, is always more concerned with what is harder; for the harder the task the better is success. For this reason also, then, both [moral] virtue or excellence and the science of the state must always be concerned with pleasures and pains; for he that behaves rightly with regard to them will be good, and he that behaves badly will be bad.

  We will take it as established, then, that [moral] excellence or virtue has to do with pleasures and pains; and that the acts which produce it develop it, and also, when differently done, destroy it; and that it manifests itself in the same acts which produced it.

  4.

  The conditions of virtuous action as distinct from artistic production.

  But here we may be asked what we mean by saying that men can become just and temperate only by doing what is just and temperate: surely, it may be said, if their acts are just and temperate, they themselves are already just and temperate, as they are grammarians and musicians if they do what is grammatical and musical.

  We may answer, I think, firstly, that this is not quite the case even with the arts. A man may do something grammatical [or write something correctly] by chance, or at the prompting of another person: he will not be grammatical till he not only does something grammatical, but also does it grammatically [or like a grammatical person], i.e. in virtue of his own knowledge of grammar.

  But, secondly, the virtues are not in this point analogous to the arts. The products of art have their excellence in themselves, and so it is enough if when produced they are of a certain quality; but in the case of the virtues, a man is not said to act justly or temperately [or like a just or temperate man] if what he does merely be of a certain sort—he must also be in a certain state of mind when he does it; i.e., first of all, he must know what he is doing; secondly, he must choose it, and choose it for itself; and, thirdly, his act must be the expression of a formed and stable character. Now, of these conditions, only one, the knowledge, is necessary for the possession of any art; but for the possession of the virtues knowledge is of little or no avail, while the other conditions that result from repeatedly doing what is just and temperate are not a little important, but all-important.

  The thing that is done, therefore, is called just or temperate when it is such as the just or temperate man would do; but the man who does it is not just or temperate, unless he also does it in the spirit of the just or the temperate man.

  It is right, then, to say that by doing what is just a man becomes just, and temperate by doing what is temperate, while without doing thus he has no chance of ever becoming good.

  But most men, instead of doing thus, fly to theories, and fancy that they are philosophizing and that this will make them good, like a sick man who listens attentively to what the doctor says and then disobeys all his orders. This sort of philosophizing will no more produce a healthy habit of mind than this sort of treatment will produce a healthy habit of body.

  5.

  Virtue not an emotion, nor a faculty, but a trained faculty or habit.

  We have next to inquire what excellence or virtue is.

  A quality of the soul is either (1) a passion or emotion, or (2) a power or faculty, or (3) a habit or trained faculty; and so virtue must be one of these three. By (1) a passion or emotion we mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hate, longing, emulation, pity, or generally that which is accompanied by pleasure or pain; (2) a power or faculty is that in respect of which we are said to be capable of being affected in any of these ways, as, for instance, that in respect of which we are able to be angered or pained or to pity; and (3) a habit or trained faculty is that in respect of which we are well or ill regulated or disposed in the matter of our affections; as, for instance, in the matter of being angered, we are ill regulated if we are too violent or too slack, but if we are moderate in our anger we are well regulated. And so with the rest.

  Now, the virtues are not emotions, nor are the vices—(1) because we are not called good or bad in respect of our emotions, but are called so in respect of our virtues or vices; (2) because we are neither praised nor blamed in respect of our emotions (a man is not praised for being afraid or angry, nor blamed for being angry simply, but for being angry in a particular way), but we are praised or blamed in respect of our virtues or vices; (3) because we may be angered or frightened without deliberate choice, but the virtues are a kind of deliberate choice, or at least are impossible without it; and (4) because in respect of our emotions we are said to be moved, but in respect of our virtues and vices we are not said to be moved, but to be regulated or disposed in this way or in that.

  For these same reasons also they are not powers or faculties; for we are not called either good or bad for being merely capable of emotion, nor are we either praised or blamed for this. And further, while nature gives us our powers or faculties, she does not make us either good or bad. (This point, however, we have already treated.)

  If, then, the virtues be neither emotions nor faculties, it only remains for them to be habits or trained faculties.

  6.

  viz., the habit of choosing the mean.

  We have thus found the genus to which virtue belongs; but we want to know, not only that it is a trained faculty, but also what species of trained faculty it is.

  We may safely assert that the virtue or excellence of a thing causes that thing both to be itself in good condition and to perform its function well. The excellence of the eye, for instance, makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see well. So the proper excellence of the horse makes a horse what he should be, and makes him good at running, and carrying his rider, and standing a charge.

  If, then, this holds good in all cases, the proper excellence or virtue of man will be the habit or trained faculty that makes a man good and makes him perform his function well.

  How this is to be done we have already said, but we may exhibit the same conclusion in another way, by inquiring what the nature of this virtue is.

  Now, if we have any quantity, whether continuous or discrete,* it is possible to take either a larger [or too large], or a smaller [or too small], or an equal [or fair] amount, and that either absolutely or relatively to our own needs.

  By an equal or fair amount I understand a mean amount, or one that lies between excess and deficiency.

  By the absolute mean, or mean relatively to the thing itself, I understand that which is equidistant from both extremes, and this is one and the same for all.

  By the mean relatively to us I understand that which is neither too much nor too little for us; and this is not one and the same for all.

  For instance, if ten be larger [or too large] and two be smaller [or too small], if we take six we take the mean relatively to the thing itself [or the arithmetical mean]; for it exceeds one extreme by the same amount by which it is exceeded by the other extreme: and this is the mean in arithmetical proportion.

  But the mean relatively to us cannot be found in this way. If ten pounds of food is too much for a given man to eat, and two pounds too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order him six pounds: for that also may perhaps be too much for the man in question, or too little; too little for Milo, too much for the beginner. The same holds true in running and wrestling.

  And so we may say generally that a master in any art avoids what is too much and what is too little, and seeks for the mean and chooses it—not the absolute but the relative mean.

  If, then, every art or science perfects its work in this way, looking to the mean and bringing its work up to this standard (so that people are wont to say of a good work that nothing could be taken from it or added to it, implying that excellence is destroyed by excess or deficiency, but secured by observing the mean; and good artists, as we say, do in fact keep their eyes fixed on this in all that they do), and if virtue, like nature, is more exact and better than any art, it follows that virtue also must aim at the mean—virtue of course meaning moral virtue or excellence; for it has to do with passions and actions, and it is these that admit of excess and deficiency and the mean. For instance, it is possible to feel fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally to be affected pleasantly and painfully, either too much or too little, in either case wrongly; but to be thus affected at the right times, and on the right occasions, and towards the right persons, and with the right object, and in the right fashion, is the mean course and the best course, and these are characteristics of virtue. And in the same way our outward acts also admit of excess and deficiency, and the mean or due amount.

  Virtue, then, has to deal with feelings or passions and with outward acts, in which excess is wrong and deficiency also is blamed, but the mean amount is praised and is right—both of which are characteristics of virtue.

  Virtue, then, is a kind of moderation (μεσότης τις),* inasmuch as it aims at the mean or moderate amount (τὸ μέσον).

  Again, there are many ways of going wrong (for evil is infinite in nature, to use a Pythagorean figure, while good is finite), but only one way of going right; so that the one is easy and the other hard—easy to miss the mark and hard to hit. On this account also, then, excess and deficiency are characteristic of vice, hitting the mean is characteristic of virtue:

  “Goodness is simple, ill takes any shape.”

  Virtue, then, is a habit or trained faculty of choice, the characteristic of which lies in moderation or observance of the mean relatively to the persons concerned, as determined by reason, i.e. by the reason by which the prudent man would determine it. And it is a moderation, firstly, inasmuch as it comes in the middle or mean between two vices, one on the side of excess, the other on the side of defect; and, secondly, inasmuch as, while these vices fall short of or exceed the due measure in feeling and in action, it finds and chooses the mean, middling, or moderate amount.

  Regarded in its essence, therefore, or according to the definition of its nature, virtue is a moderation or middle state, but viewed in its relation to what is best and right it is the extreme of perfection.

  But it is not all actions nor all passions that admit of moderation; there are some whose very names imply badness, as malevolence, shamelessness, envy, and, among acts, adultery, theft, murder. These and all other like things are blamed as being bad in themselves, and not merely in their excess or deficiency. It is impossible therefore to go right in them; they are always wrong: rightness and wrongness in such things (e.g. in adultery) does not depend upon whether it is the right person and occasion and manner, but the mere doing of any one of them is wrong.

  It would be equally absurd to look for moderation or excess or deficiency in unjust cowardly or profligate conduct; for then there would be moderation in excess or deficiency, and excess in excess, and deficiency in deficiency.

  The fact is that just as there can be no excess or deficiency in temperance or courage because the mean or moderate amount is, in a sense, an extreme, so in these kinds of conduct also there can be no moderation or excess or deficiency, but the acts are wrong however they be done. For, to put it generally, there cannot be moderation in excess or deficiency, nor excess or deficiency in moderation.

  7.

  This must be applied to the several virtues.

  But it is not enough to make these general statements [about virtue and vice]: we must go on and apply them to particulars [i.e. to the several virtues and vices]. For in reasoning about matters of conduct general statements are too vague,* and do not convey so much truth as particular propositions. It is with particulars that conduct is concerned:† our statements, therefore, when applied to these particulars, should be found to hold good.

  These particulars then [i.e. the several virtues and vices and the several acts and affections with which they deal], we will take from the following table.‡

  Moderation in the feelings of fear and confidence is courage: of those that exceed, he that exceeds in fearlessness has no name (as often happens), but he that exceeds in confidence is foolhardy, while he that exceeds in fear, but is deficient in confidence, is cowardly.

  Moderation in respect of certain pleasures and also (though to a less extent) certain pains is temperance, while excess is profligacy. But defectiveness in the matter of these pleasures is hardly ever found, and so this sort of people also have as yet received no name: let us put them down as “void of sensibility.”

  In the matter of giving and taking money, moderation is liberality, excess and deficiency are prodigality and illiberality. But both vices exceed and fall short in giving and taking in contrary ways: the prodigal exceeds in spending, but falls short in taking; while the illiberal man exceeds in taking, but falls short in spending. (For the present we are but giving an outline or summary, and aim at nothing more; we shall afterwards treat these points in greater detail.)

  But, besides these, there are other dispositions in the matter of money: there is a moderation which is called magnificence (for the magnificent is not the same as the liberal man: the former deals with large sums, the latter with small), and an excess which is called bad taste or vulgarity, and a deficiency which is called meanness; and these vices differ from those which are opposed to liberality: how they differ will be explained later.

  With respect to honour and disgrace, there is a moderation which is high-mindedness, an excess which may be called vanity, and a deficiency which is little-mindedness.

  But just as we said that liberality is related to magnificence, differing only in that it deals with small sums, so here there is a virtue related to high-mindedness, and differing only in that it is concerned with small instead of great honours. A man may have a due desire for honour, and also more or less than a due desire: he that carries this desire to excess is called ambitious, he that has not enough of it is called unambitious, but he that has the due amount has no name. There are also no abstract names for the characters, except “ambition,” corresponding to ambitious. And on this account those who occupy the extremes lay claim to the middle place. And in common parlance, too, the moderate man is sometimes called ambitious and sometimes unambitious, and sometimes the ambitious man is praised and sometimes the unambitious. Why this is we will explain afterwards; for the present we will follow out our plan and enumerate the other types of character.

  In the matter of anger also we find excess and deficiency and moderation. The characters themselves hardly have recognized names, but as the moderate man is here called gentle, we will call his character gentleness; of those who go into extremes, we may take the term wrathful for him who exceeds, with wrathfulness for the vice, and wrathless for him who is deficient, with wrathlessness for his character.

  Besides these, there are three kinds of moderation, bearing some resemblance to one another, and yet different. They all have to do with intercourse in speech and action, but they differ in that one has to do with the truthfulness of this intercourse, while the other two have to do with its pleasantness—one of the two with pleasantness in matters of amusement, the other with pleasantness in all the relations of life. We must therefore speak of these qualities also in order that we may the more plainly see how, in all cases, moderation is praiseworthy, while the extreme courses are neither right nor praiseworthy, but blamable.

  In these cases also names are for the most part wanting, but we must try, here as elsewhere, to coin names ourselves, in order to make our argument clear and easy to follow.

  In the matter of truth, then, let us call him who observes the mean a true [or truthful] person, and observance of the mean truth [or truthfulness]: pretence, when it exaggerates, may be called boasting, and the person a boaster; when it understates, let the names be irony and ironical.

  With regard to pleasantness in amusement, he who observes the mean may be called witty, and his character wittiness; excess may be called buffoonery, and the man a buffoon; while boorish may stand for the person who is deficient, and boorishness for his character.

  With regard to pleasantness in the other affairs of life, he who makes himself properly pleasant may be called friendly, and his moderation friendliness; he that exceeds may be called obsequious if he have no ulterior motive, but a flatterer if he has an eye to his own advantage; he that is deficient in this respect, and always makes himself disagreeable, may be called a quarrelsome or peevish fellow.

  Moreover, in mere emotions* and in our conduct with regard to them, there are ways of observing the mean; for instance, shame (αἰδώς), is not a virtue, but yet the modest (αἰδήμων) man is praised. For in these matters also we speak of this man as observing the mean, of that man as going beyond it (as the shame-faced man whom the least thing makes shy), while he who is deficient in the feeling, or lacks it altogether, is called shameless; but the term modest (αἰδήμων) is applied to him who observes the mean.

  Righteous indignation, again, hits the mean between envy and malevolence. These have to do with feelings of pleasure and pain at what happens to our neighbours. A man is called righteously indignant when he feels pain at the sight of undeserved prosperity, but your envious man goes beyond him and is pained by the sight of any one in prosperity, while the malevolent man is so far from being pained that he actually exults in the misfortunes of his neighbours.

  But we shall have another opportunity of discussing these matters.

  As for justice, the term is used in more senses than one; we will, therefore, after disposing of the above questions, distinguish these various senses, and show how each of these kinds of justice is a kind of moderation.

  And then we will treat of the intellectual virtues in the same way.

  8.

  The two vicious extremes are opposed to one another and to the intermediate virtue.

  There are, as we said, three classes of disposition, viz. two kinds of vice, one marked by excess, the other by deficiency, and one kind of virtue, the observance of the mean. Now, each is in a way opposed to each, for the extreme dispositions are opposed both to the mean or moderate disposition and to one another, while the moderate disposition is opposed to both the extremes. Just as a quantity which is equal to a given quantity is also greater when compared with a less, and less when compared with a greater quantity, so the mean or moderate dispositions exceed as compared with the defective dispositions, and fall short as compared with the excessive dispositions, both in feeling and in action; e.g. the courageous man seems foolhardy as compared with the coward, and cowardly as compared with the foolhardy; and similarly the temperate man appears profligate in comparison with the insensible, and insensible in comparison with the profligate man; and the liberal man appears prodigal by the side of the illiberal man, and illiberal by the side of the prodigal man.

  And so the extreme characters try to displace the mean or moderate character, and each represents him as falling into the opposite extreme, the coward calling the courageous man foolhardy, the foolhardy calling him coward, and so on in other cases.

  But while the mean and the extremes are thus opposed to one another, the extremes are strictly contrary to each other rather than to the mean; for they are further removed from one another than from the mean, as that which is greater than a given magnitude is further from that which is less, and that which is less is further from that which is greater, than either the greater or the less is from that which is equal to the given magnitude.

  Sometimes, again, an extreme, when compared with the mean, has a sort of resemblance to it, as foolhardiness to courage, or prodigality to liberality; but there is the greatest possible dissimilarity between the extremes.

  Again, “things that are as far as possible removed from each other” is the accepted definition of contraries, so that the further things are removed from each other the more contrary they are.

  In comparison with the mean, however, it is sometimes the deficiency that is the more opposed, and sometimes the excess; e.g. foolhardiness, which is excess, is not so much opposed to courage as cowardice, which is deficiency; but insensibility, which is lack of feeling, is not so much opposed to temperance as profligacy, which is excess.

  The reasons for this are two. One is the reason derived from the nature of the matter itself: since one extreme is, in fact, nearer and more similar to the mean, we naturally do not oppose it to the mean so strongly as the other; e.g. as foolhardiness seems more similar to courage and nearer to it, and cowardice more dissimilar, we speak of cowardice as the opposite rather than the other: for that which is further removed from the mean seems to be more opposed to it.

  This, then, is one reason, derived from the nature of the thing itself. Another reason lies in ourselves: and it is this—those things to which we happen to be more prone by nature appear to be more opposed to the mean: e.g. our natural inclination is rather towards indulgence in pleasure, and so we more easily fall into profligate than into regular habits: those courses, then, in which we are more apt to run to great lengths are spoken of as more opposed to the mean; and thus profligacy, which is an excess, is more opposed to temperance than the deficiency is.

  9.

  The mean hard to hit, and is a matter of perception, not of reasoning.

  We have sufficiently explained, then, that moral virtue is moderation or observance of the mean, and in what sense, viz. (1) as holding a middle position between two vices, one on the side of excess, and the other on the side of deficiency, and (2) as aiming at the mean or moderate amount both in feeling and in action.

  And on this account it is a hard thing to be good; for finding the middle or the mean in each case is a hard thing, just as finding the middle or centre of a circle is a thing that is not within the power of everybody, but only of him who has the requisite knowledge.

  Thus any one can be angry—that is quite easy; any one can give money away or spend it: but to do these things to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right object, and in the right manner, is not what everybody can do, and is by no means easy; and that is the reason why right doing is rare and praiseworthy and noble.

  He that aims at the mean, then, should first of all strive to avoid that extreme which is more opposed to it, as Calypso* bids Ulysses—

  “Clear of these smoking breakers keep thy ship.”

  For of the extremes one is more dangerous, the other less. Since then it is hard to hit the mean precisely, we must “row when we cannot sail,” as the proverb has it, and choose the least of two evils; and that will be best effected in the way we have described.

  And secondly we must consider, each for himself, what we are most prone to—for different natures are inclined to different things—which we may learn by the pleasure or pain we feel. And then we must bend ourselves in the opposite direction; for by keeping well away from error we shall fall into the middle course, as we straighten a bent stick by bending it the other way.

  But in all cases we must be especially on our guard against pleasant things, and against pleasure; for we can scarce judge her impartially. And so, in our behaviour towards her, we should imitate the behaviour of the old counsellors towards Helen,* and in all cases repeat their saying: if we dismiss her we shall be less likely to go wrong.

  This then, in outline, is the course by which we shall best be able to hit the mean.

  But it is a hard task, we must admit, especially in a particular case. It is not easy to determine, for instance, how and with whom one ought to be angry, and upon what grounds, and for how long; for public opinion sometimes praises those who fall short, and calls them gentle, and sometimes applies the term manly to those who show a harsh temper.

  In fact, a slight error, whether on the side of excess or deficiency, is not blamed, but only a considerable error; for then there can be no mistake. But it is hardly possible to determine by reasoning how far or to what extent a man must err in order to incur blame; and indeed matters that fall within the scope of perception never can be so determined. Such matters lie within the region of particulars, and can only be determined by perception.

  So much then is plain, that the middle character is in all cases to be praised, but that we ought to incline sometimes towards excess, sometimes towards deficiency; for in this way we shall most easily hit the mean and attain to right doing.

  BOOK III.

  CHAPTERS 1–5.

  THE WILL.

  1.

  An act is involuntary when done (a) under compulsion, or (b) through ignorance: (a) means not originated by doer, (b) means through ignorance of the circumstances: voluntary then means originated with knowledge of circumstances.

  Virtue, as we have seen, has to do with feelings and actions. Now, praise* or blame is given only to what is voluntary; that which is involuntary receives pardon, and sometimes even pity.

  It seems, therefore, that a clear distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary is necessary for those who are investigating the nature of virtue, and will also help legislators in assigning rewards and punishments.

  That is generally held to be involuntary which is done under compulsion or through ignorance.

  “Done under compulsion” means that the cause is external, the agent or patient contributing nothing towards it; as, for instance, if he were carried somewhere by a whirlwind or by men whom he could not resist.

  But there is some question about acts done in order to avoid a greater evil, or to obtain some noble end; e.g. if a tyrant were to order you to do something disgraceful, having your parents or children in his power, who were to live if you did it, but to die if you did not—it is a matter of dispute whether such acts are involuntary or voluntary.

  Throwing a cargo overboard in a storm is a somewhat analogous case. No one voluntarily throws away his property if nothing is to come of it,* but any sensible person would do so to save the life of himself and the crew.

  Acts of this kind, then, are of a mixed nature, but they more nearly resemble voluntary acts. For they are desired or chosen at the time when they are done, and the end or motive of an act is that which is in view at the time. In applying the terms voluntary and involuntary, therefore, we must consider the state of the agent’s mind at the time. Now, he wills the act at the time; for the cause which sets the limbs going lies in the agent in such cases, and where the cause lies in the agent, it rests with him to do or not to do.

  Such acts, then, are voluntary, though in themselves [or apart from these qualifying circumstances] we may allow them to be involuntary; for no one would choose anything of this kind on its own account.

  And, in fact, for actions of this sort men are sometimes praised,†e.g. when they endure something disgraceful or painful in order to secure some great and noble result: but in the contrary case they are blamed; for no worthy person would endure the extremity of disgrace when there was no noble result in view, or but a trifling one.

  But in some cases we do not praise, but pardon, i.e. when a man is induced to do a wrong act by pressure which is too strong for human nature and which no one could bear. Though there are some cases of this kind, I think, where the plea of compulsion is inadmissible,* and where, rather than do the act, a man ought to suffer death in its most painful form; for instance, the circumstances which “compelled” Alcmæon in Euripides† to kill his mother seem absurd.

  It is sometimes hard to decide whether we ought to do this deed to avoid this evil, or whether we ought to endure this evil rather than do this deed; but it is still harder to abide by our decisions: for generally the evil which we wish to avoid is something painful, the deed we are pressed to do is something disgraceful; and hence we are blamed or praised according as we do or do not suffer ourselves to be compelled.

  What kinds of acts, then, are to be called compulsory?

  I think our answer must be that, in the first place, when the cause lies outside and the agent has no part in it, the act is called, without qualification, “compulsory” [and therefore involuntary]; but that, in the second place, when an act that would not be voluntarily done for its own sake is chosen now in preference to this given alternative, the cause lying in the agent, such an act must be called “involuntary in itself,” or “in the abstract,” but “now, and in preference to this alternative, voluntary.” But an act of the latter kind is rather of the nature of a voluntary act: for acts fall within the sphere of particulars; and here the particular thing that is done is voluntary.

  It is scarcely possible, however, to lay down rules for determining which of two alternatives is to be preferred; for there are many differences in the particular cases.

  It might, perhaps, be urged that acts whose motive is something pleasant or something noble are compulsory, for here we are constrained by something outside us.

  But if this were so,* all our acts would be compulsory; for these are the motives of every act of every man.†

  Again, acting under compulsion and against one’s will is painful, but action whose motive is something pleasant or noble involves pleasure.‡ It is absurd, then, to blame things outside us instead of our own readiness to yield to their allurements, and, while we claim our noble acts as our own, to set down our disgraceful actions to “pleasant things outside us.”

  Compulsory, then, it appears, is that of which the cause is external, the person compelled contributing nothing thereto.

  What is done through ignorance is always “not-voluntary,” but is “involuntary”* when the agent is pained afterwards and sorry when he finds what he has done.† For when a man, who has done something through ignorance, is not vexed at what he has done, you cannot indeed say that he did it voluntarily, as he did not know what he was doing, but neither can you say that he did it involuntarily or unwillingly, since he is not sorry.

  A man who has acted through ignorance, then, if he is sorry afterwards, is held to have done the deed involuntarily or unwillingly; if he is not sorry afterwards we may say (to mark the distinction) he did the deed “not-voluntarily;” for, as the case is different, it is better to have a distinct name.

  Acting through ignorance, however, seems to be different from acting in ignorance. For instance, when a man is drunk or in a rage he is not thought to act through ignorance, but through intoxication or rage, and yet not knowingly, but in ignorance.

  Every vicious man, indeed, is ignorant of* what ought to be done and what ought not to be done, and it is this kind of error that makes men unjust and bad generally. But the term “involuntary” is not properly applied to cases in which a man is ignorant of what is fitting.† The ignorance that makes an act involuntary is not this ignorance of the principles which should determine preference (this constitutes vice),—not, I say, this ignorance of the universal (for we blame a man for this), but ignorance of the particulars, of the persons and things affected by the act. These are the grounds of pity and pardon; for he who is ignorant of any of these particulars acts involuntarily.

  It may be as well, then, to specify what these particulars are, and how many. They are—first, the doer; secondly, the deed; and, thirdly, the object or person affected by it; sometimes also that wherewith (e.g. the instrument with which) it is done, and that for the sake of which it is done (e.g. for protection), and the way in which it is done (e.g. gently or violently.)

  Now, a man cannot (unless he be mad) be ignorant of all these particulars; for instance, he evidently cannot be ignorant of the doer: for how can he not know himself?

  But a man may be ignorant of what he is doing; e.g. a man who has said something will sometimes plead that the words escaped him unawares, or that he did not know that the subject was forbidden (as Æschylus pleaded in the case of the Mysteries); or a man might plead that when he discharged the weapon he only intended to show the working of it, as the prisoner did in the catapult case. Again, a man might mistake his son for an enemy, as Merope does,* or a sharp spear for one with a button, or a heavy stone for a pumice-stone. Again, one might kill a man with a drug intended to save him, or hit him hard when one wished merely to touch him (as boxers do when they spar with open hands).

  Ignorance, then, being possible with regard to all these circumstances, he who is ignorant of any of them is held to have acted involuntarily, and especially when he is ignorant of the most important particulars; and the most important seem to be the persons affected and the result.†

  Besides this, however, the agent must be grieved and sorry for what he has done, if the act thus ignorantly committed is to be called involuntary [not merely not-voluntary].

  But now, having found that an act is involuntary when done under compulsion or through ignorance, we may conclude that a voluntary act is one which is originated by the doer with knowledge of the particular circumstances of the act.

  For I venture to think that it is incorrect to say that acts done through anger or desire are involuntary.

  In the first place, if this be so we can no longer allow that any of the other animals act voluntarily, nor even children.

  Again, does the saying mean that none of the acts which we do through desire or anger are voluntary, or that the noble ones are voluntary and the disgraceful ones involuntary? Interpreted in the latter sense, it is surely ridiculous, as the cause of both is the same. If we take the former interpretation, it is absurd, I think, to say that we ought to desire a thing, and also to say that its pursuit is involuntary; but, in fact, there are things at which we ought to be angry, and things which we ought to desire, e.g. health and learning.

  Again, it seems that what is done unwillingly is painful, while what is done through desire is pleasant.

  Again, what difference is there, in respect of involuntariness, between wrong deeds done upon calculation and wrong deeds done in anger? Both alike are to be avoided, but the unreasoning passions or feelings seem to belong to the man just as much as does the reason, so that the acts that are done under the impulse of anger or desire are also the man’s acts.* To make such actions involuntary, therefore, would be too absurd.

  2.

  Purpose, a mode of will, means choice after deliberation.

  Now that we have distinguished voluntary from involuntary acts, our next task is to discuss choice or purpose. For it seems to be most intimately connected with virtue, and to be a surer test of character than action itself.

  It seems that choosing is willing, but that the two terms are not identical, willing being the wider. For children and other animals have will, but not choice or purpose; and acts done upon the spur of the moment are said to be voluntary, but not to be done with deliberate purpose.

  Those who say that choice is appetite, or anger, or wish, or an opinion of some sort, do not seem to give a correct account of it.

  In the first place, choice is not shared by irrational creatures, but appetite and anger are.

  Again, the incontinent man acts from appetite and not from choice or purpose, the continent man from purpose and not from appetite.

  Again, appetite may be contrary to purpose, but one appetite can not be contrary to another appetite.*

  Again, the object of appetite [or aversion] is the pleasant or the painful, but the object of purpose [as such] is neither painful nor pleasant.

  Still less can purpose be anger (θυμός); for acts done in anger seem to be least of all done of purpose or deliberate choice.

  Nor yet is it wish, though it seem very like; for we cannot purpose or deliberately choose the impossible, and a man who should say that he did would be thought a fool; but we may wish for the impossible, e.g. to escape death.

  Again, while we may wish what never could be effected by our own agency (e.g. the success of a particular actor or athlete), we never purpose or deliberately choose such things, but only those that we think may be effected by our own agency.

  Again, we are more properly said to wish the end, to choose the means; e.g. we wish to be healthy, but we choose what will make us healthy: we wish to be happy, and confess the wish, but it would not be correct to say we purpose or deliberately choose to be happy; for we may say roundly that purpose or choice deals with what is in our power.

  Nor can it be opinion; for, in the first place, anything may be matter of opinion—what is unalterable and impossible no less than what is in our power; and, in the second place, we distinguish opinion according as it is true or false, not according as it is good or bad, as we do with purpose or choice.

  We may say, then, that purpose is not the same as opinion in general; nor, indeed, does any one maintain this.

  But, further, it is not identical with a particular kind of opinion. For our choice of good or evil makes us morally good or bad, holding certain opinions does not.

  Again, we choose to take or to avoid a good or evil thing; we opine what its nature is, or what it is good for, or in what way; but we cannot opine to take or to avoid.

  Again, we commend a purpose for its rightness or correctness, an opinion for its truth.

  Again, we choose a thing when we know well that it is good; we may have an opinion about a thing of which we know nothing.

  Again, it seems that those who are best at choosing are not always the best at forming opinions, but that some who have an excellent judgment fail, through depravity, to choose what they ought.

  It may be said that choice or purpose must be preceded or accompanied by an opinion or judgment; but this makes no difference: our question is not that, but whether they are identical.

  What, then, is choice or purpose, since it is none of these?

  It seems, as we said, that what is chosen or purposed is willed, but that what is willed is not always chosen or purposed.

  The required differentia, I think, is “after previous deliberation.” For choice or purpose implies calculation and reasoning. The name itself, too, seems to indicate this, implying that something is chosen before or in preference to other things.*

  3.

  We deliberate on what we can do—not on ends, but means.

  Now, as to deliberation, do we deliberate about everything, and may anything whatever be matter for deliberation, or are there some things about which deliberation is impossible?

  By “matter for deliberation” we should understand, I think, not what a fool or a maniac, but what a rational being would deliberate about.

  Now, no one deliberates about eternal or unalterable things, e.g. the system of the heavenly bodies, or the incommensurability of the side and the diagonal of a square.

  Again, no one deliberates about things which change, but always change in the same way (whether the cause of change be necessity, or nature, or any other agency), e.g. the solstices and the sunrise;* nor about things that are quite irregular, like drought and wet; nor about matters of chance, like the finding of a treasure.

  Again, even human affairs are not always matter of deliberation; e.g. what would be the best constitution for Scythia is a question that no Spartan would deliberate about.

  The reason why we do not deliberate about these things is that none of them are things that we can ourselves effect.

  But the things that we do deliberate about are matters of conduct that are within our control. And these are the only things that remain; for besides nature and necessity and chance, the only remaining cause of change is reason and human agency in general. Though we must add that men severally deliberate about what they can themselves do.

  A further limitation is that where there is exact and absolute knowledge, there is no room for deliberation; e.g. writing: for there is no doubt how the letters should be formed.

  We deliberate, then, about things that are brought about by our own agency, but not always in the same way; e.g. about medicine and money-making, and about navigation more than about gymnastic, inasmuch as it is not yet reduced to so perfect a system, and so on; but more about matters of art than matters of science, as there is more doubt about them.

  Matters of deliberation, then, are matters in which there are rules that generally hold good, but in which the result cannot be predicted, i.e. in which there is an element of uncertainty. In important matters we call in advisers, distrusting our own powers of judgment.

  It is not about ends, but about means that we deliberate. A physician does not deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall make a good system of laws, nor a man in any other profession about his end; but, having the proposed end in view, we consider how and by what means this end can be attained; and if it appear that it can be attained by various means, we further consider which is the easiest and best; but if it can only be attained by one means, we consider how it is to be attained by this means, and how this means itself is to be secured, and so on, until we come to the first link in the chain of causes, which is last in the order of discovery.

  For in deliberation we seem to inquire and to analyze in the way described, just as we analyze a geometrical figure in order to learn how to construct it* (and though inquiry is not always deliberation—mathematical inquiry, for instance, is not—deliberation is always inquiry); that which is last in the analysis coming first in the order of construction.

  If we come upon something impossible, we give up the plan; e.g. if it needs money, and money cannot be got: but if it appear possible, we set to work. By possible I mean something that can be done by us; and what can be done by our friends can in a manner be done by us; for it is we who set our friends to work.

  Sometimes we have to find out instruments, sometimes how to use them; and so on with the rest: sometimes we have to find out what agency will produce the desired effect, sometimes how or through whom this agency is to be set at work.

  It appears, then, that a man, as we have already said, originates his acts; but that he deliberates about that which he can do himself, and that what he does is done for the sake of something else.† For he cannot deliberate about the end, but about the means to the end; nor, again, can he deliberate about particular facts, e.g. whether this be a loaf, or whether it be properly backed: these are matters of immediate perception. And if he goes on deliberating for ever he will never come to a conclusion.

  But the object of deliberation and the object of choice or purpose are the same, except that the latter is already fixed and determined; when we say, “this is chosen” or “purposed,” we mean that it has been selected after deliberation. For we always stop in our inquiry how to do a thing when we have traced back the chain of causes to ourselves, and to the commanding part of ourselves; for this is the part that chooses.

  This may be illustrated by the ancient constitutions which Homer describes; for there the kings announce to the people what they have chosen.

  Since, then, a thing is said to be chosen or purposed when, being in our power, it is desired after deliberation, choice or purpose may be defined as deliberate desire for something in our power; for we first deliberate, and then, having made our decision thereupon, we desire in accordance with deliberation.

  Let this stand, then, for an account in outline of choice or purpose, and of what it deals with, viz. means to ends.

  4.

  We wish for

  Wish, we have already said, is for the end; but whereas some hold that the object of wish is the good others hold that it is what seems good.

  Those who maintain that the object of wish* is the good have to admit that what those wish for who choose wrongly is not object of wish (for if so it would be good; but it may so happen that it was bad); on the other hand, those who maintain that the object of wish is what seems good have to admit that there is nothing which is naturally object of wish, but that each wishes for what seems good to him—different and even contrary things seeming good to different people.

  As neither of these alternatives quite satisfies us, perhaps we had better say that the good is the real object of wish (without any qualifying epithet), but that what seems good is object of wish to each man. The good man, then, wishes for the real object of wish; but what the bad man wishes for may be anything whatever; just as, with regard to the body, those who are in good condition find those things healthy that are really healthy, while those who are diseased find other things healthy (and it is just the same with things bitter, sweet, hot, heavy, etc.): for the good or ideal man judges each case correctly, and in each case what is true seems true to him.

  For, corresponding to each of our trained faculties, there is a special form of the noble and the pleasant, and perhaps there is nothing so distinctive of the good or ideal man as the power he has of discerning these special forms in each case, being himself, as it were, their standard and measure.

  What misleads people seems to be in most cases pleasure; it seems to be a good thing, even when it is not. So they choose what is pleasant as good, and shun pain as evil.

  5.

  Virtue and vice are alike voluntary, our acts are our own; for we are punished for them; if this be our character, we have made it by repeated acts; even bodily vices are blamable when thus formed. We cannot plead that our notion of good depends on our nature; for (1) vice would still be as voluntary as virtue, (2) we help to make ourselves what we are.

  We have seen that, while we wish for the end, we deliberate upon and choose the means thereto.

  Actions that are concerned with means, then, will be guided by choice, and so will be voluntary.

  But the acts in which the virtues are manifested are concerned with means.*

  Therefore virtue depends upon ourselves: and vice likewise. For where it lies with us to do, it lies with us not to do. Where we can say no, we can say yes. If then the doing a deed, which is noble, lies with us, the not doing it, which is disgraceful, lies with us; and if the not doing, which is noble, lies with us, the doing, which is disgraceful, also lies with us. But if the doing and likewise the not doing of noble or base deeds lies with us, and if this is, as we found, identical with being good or bad, then it follows that it lies with us to be worthy or worthless men.

  And so the saying—

  “None would be wicked, none would not be blessed,”

  seems partly false and partly true: no one indeed is blessed against his will; but vice is voluntary.

  If we deny this, we must dispute the statements made just now, and must contend that man is not the originator and the parent of his actions, as of his children.

  But if those statements commend themselves to us, and if we are unable to trace our acts to any other sources than those that depend upon ourselves, then that whose source is within us must itself depend upon us and be voluntary.

  This seems to be attested, moreover, by each one of us in private life, and also by the legislators; for they correct and punish those that do evil (except when it is done under compulsion, or through ignorance for which the agent is not responsible), and honour those that do noble deeds, evidently intending to encourage the one sort and discourage the other. But no one encourages us to do that which does not depend on ourselves, and which is not voluntary: it would be useless to be persuaded not to feel heat or pain or hunger and so on, as we should feel them all the same.

  I say “ignorance for which the agent is not responsible,” for the ignorance itself is punished by the law, if the agent appear to be responsible for his ignorance, e.g. for an offence committed in a fit of drunkenness the penalty is doubled: for the origin of the offence lies in the man himself; he might have avoided the intoxication, which was the cause of his ignorance. Again, ignorance of any of the ordinances of the law, which a man ought to know and easily can know, does not avert punishment. And so in other cases, where ignorance seems to be the result of negligence, the offender is punished, since it lay with him to remove this ignorance; for he might have taken the requisite trouble.

  It may be objected that it was the man’s character not to take the trouble.

  We reply that men are themselves responsible for acquiring such a character by a dissolute life, and for being unjust or profligate in consequence of repeated acts of wrong, or of spending their time in drinking and so on. For it is repeated acts of a particular kind that give a man a particular character.

  This is shown by the way in which men train themselves for any kind of contest or performance: they practise continually.

  Not to know, then, that repeated acts of this or that kind produce a corresponding character or habit, shows an utter want of sense.

  Moreover, it is absurd to say that he who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust, or that he who behaves profligately does not wish to be profligate.

  But if a man knowingly does acts which must make him unjust, he will be voluntarily unjust; though it does not follow that, if he wishes it, he can cease to be unjust and be just, any more than he who is sick can, if he wishes it, be whole. And it may be that he is voluntarily sick, through living incontinently and disobeying the doctor. At one time, then, he had the option not to be sick, but he no longer has it now that he has thrown away his health. When you have discharged a stone it is no longer in your power to call it back; but nevertheless the throwing and casting away of that stone rests with you; for the beginning of its flight depended upon you.*

  Just so the unjust or the profligate man at the beginning was free not to acquire this character, and therefore he is voluntarily unjust or profligate; but now that he has acquired it, he is no longer free to put it off.

  But it is not only our mental or moral vices that are voluntary; bodily vices also are sometimes voluntary, and then are censured. We do not censure natural ugliness, but we do censure that which is due to negligence and want of exercise. And so with weakness and infirmity: we should never reproach a man who was born blind, or had lost his sight in an illness or by a blow—we should rather pity him; but we should all censure a man who had blinded himself by excessive drinking or any other kind of profligacy.

  We see, then, that of the vices of the body it is those that depend on ourselves that are censured, while those that do not depend on ourselves are not censured. And if this be so, then in other fields also those vices that are blamed must depend upon ourselves.

  Some people may perhaps object to this.

  “All men,” they may say, “desire that which appears good to them, but cannot control this appearance; a man’s character, whatever it be, decides what shall appear to him to be the end.”

  If, I answer, each man be in some way responsible for his habits or character, then in some way he must be responsible for this appearance also.

  But if this be not the case, then a man is not responsible for, or is not the cause of, his own evil doing, but it is through ignorance of the end that he does evil, fancying that thereby he will secure the greatest good: and the striving towards the true end does not depend on our own choice, but a man must be born with a gift of sight, so to speak, if he is to discriminate rightly and to choose what is really good: and he is truly well-born who is by nature richly endowed with this gift; for, as it is the greatest and the fairest gift, which we cannot acquire or learn from another, but must keep all our lives just as nature gave it to us, to be well and nobly born in this respect is to be well-born in the truest and completest sense.

  Now, granting this to be true, how will virtue be any more voluntary than vice?

  For whether it be nature or anything else that determines what shall appear to be the end, it is determined in the same way for both alike, for the good man as for the bad, and both alike refer all their acts of whatever kind to it.

  And so whether we hold that it is not merely nature that decides what appears to each to be the end (whatever that be), but that the man himself contributes something; or whether we hold that the end is fixed by nature, but that virtue is voluntary, inasmuch as the good man voluntarily takes the steps to that end—in either case vice will be just as voluntary as virtue; for self is active in the bad man just as much as in the good man, in choosing the particular acts at least, if not in determining the end.

  If then, as is generally allowed, the virtues are voluntary (for we do, in fact, in some way help to make our character, and, by being of a certain character, give a certain complexion to our idea of the end), the vices also must be voluntary; for all this applies equally to them.

  We have thus described in outline the nature of the virtues in general, and have said that they are forms of moderation or modes of observing the mean, and that they are habits or trained faculties, and that they show themselves in the performance of the same acts which produce them, and that they depend on ourselves and are voluntary, and that they follow the guidance of right reason. But our particular acts are not voluntary in the same sense as our habits: for we are masters of our acts from beginning to end when we know the particular circumstances; but we are masters of the beginnings only of our habits or characters, while their growth by gradual steps is imperceptible, like the growth of disease. Inasmuch, however, as it lay with us to employ or not to employ our faculties in this way, the resulting characters are on that account voluntary.

  Now let us take up each of the virtues again in turn, and say what it is, and what its subject is, and how it deals with it; and in doing this, we shall at the same time see how many they are. And, first of all, let us take courage.

  CHAPTER 6.—

  THE SEVERAL MORAL VIRTUES AND VICES.

  6.

  Of courage and the opposite vices.

  We have already said that courage is moderation or observance of the mean with respect to feelings of fear and confidence.

  Now, fear evidently is excited by fearful things, and these are, roughly speaking, evil things; and so fear is sometimes defined as “expectation of evil.”

  Fear, then, is excited by evil of any kind, e g by disgrace, poverty, disease, friendlessness, death; but it does not appear that every kind gives scope for courage. There are things which we actually ought to fear, which it is noble to fear and base not to fear, e.g. disgrace. He who fears disgrace is an honourable man, with a due sense of shame, while he who fears it not is shameless (though some people stretch the word courageous so far as to apply it to him; for he has a certain resemblance to the courageous man, courage also being a kind of fearlessness). Poverty, perhaps, we ought not to fear, nor disease, nor generally those things that are not the result of vice, and do not depend upon ourselves. But still to be fearless in regard to these things is not strictly courage; though here also the term is sometimes applied in virtue of a certain resemblance. There are people, for instance, who, though cowardly in the presence of the dangers of war, are yet liberal and bold in the spending of money.

  On the other hand, a man is not to be called cowardly for fearing outrage to his children or his wife, or for dreading envy and things of that kind, nor courageous for being unmoved by the prospect of a whipping.

  In what kind of terrors, then, does the courageous man display his quality? Surely in the greatest; for no one is more able to endure what is terrible. But of all things the most terrible is death; for death is our limit, and when a man is once dead it seems that there is no longer either good or evil for him.

  It would seem, however, that even death does not on all occasions give scope for courage, e.g. death by water or by disease.

  On what occasions then? Surely on the noblest occasions: and those are the occasions which occur in war; for they involve the greatest and the noblest danger.

  This is confirmed by the honours which courage receives in free states and at the hands of princes.

  The term courageous, then, in the strict sense, will be applied to him who fearlessly faces an honourable death and all sudden emergencies which involve death; and such emergencies mostly occur in war.

  Of course the courageous man is fearless in the presence of illness also, and at sea, but in a different way from the sailors; for the sailors, because of their experience, are full of hope when the landsmen are already despairing of their lives and filled with aversion at the thought of such a death.

  Moreover, the circumstances which especially call out courage are those in which prowess may be displayed, or in which death is noble; but in these forms of death there is neither nobility nor room for prowess.

  7.

  Fear is not excited in all men by the same things, but yet we commonly speak of fearful things that surpass man’s power to face. Such things, then, inspire fear in every rational man. But the fearful things that a man may face differ in importance and in being more or less fearful (and so with the things that inspire confidence). Now, the courageous man always keeps his presence of mind (so far as a man can). So though he will fear these fearful things, he will endure them as he ought and as reason bids him, for the sake of that which is noble;* for this is the end or aim of virtue.

  But it is possible to fear these things too much or too little, and again to take as fearful what is not really so. And thus men err sometimes by fearing the wrong things, sometimes by fearing in the wrong manner or at the wrong time, and so on.

  And all this applies equally to things that inspire confidence.

  He, then, that endures and fears what he ought from the right motive, and in the right manner, and at the right time, and similarly feels confidence, is courageous.

  For the courageous man regulates both his feeling and his action according to the merits of each case and as reason bids him.

  But the end or motive of every manifestation of a habit or exercise of a trained faculty is the end or motive of the habit or trained faculty itself.

  Now, to the courageous man courage is essentially a fair or noble thing.

  Therefore the end or motive of his courage is also noble; for everything takes its character from its end.

  It is from a noble motive, therefore, that the courageous man endures and acts courageously in each particular case.*

  Of the characters that run to excess, he that exceeds in fearlessness has no name (and this is often the case, as we have said before); but a man would be either a maniac or quite insensible to pain who should fear nothing, not even earthquakes and breakers, as they say is the case with the Celts.

  He that is over-confident in the presence of fearful things is called foolhardy. But the foolhardy man is generally thought to be really a braggart, and to pretend a courage which he has not: at least he wishes to seem what the courageous man really is in the presence of danger; so he imitates him where he can. And so your foolhardy man is generally a coward at bottom: he blusters so long as he can do so safely,* but turns tail when real danger comes.

  He who is over-fearful is a coward; for he fears what he ought not, and as he ought not, etc.

  He is also deficient in confidence; but his character rather displays itself in excess of fear in the presence of pain.

  The coward is also despondent, for he is frightened at everything. But it is the contrary with the courageous man; for confidence implies hopefulness.

  Thus the coward and the foolhardy and the courageous man display their characters in the same circumstances, behaving differently under them: for while the former exceed or fall short, the latter behaves moderately and as he ought; and while the foolhardy are precipitate and eager before danger comes, but fall away in its presence, the courageous are keen in action, but quiet enough beforehand.

  Courage then, as we have said, is observance of the mean with regard to things that excite confidence or fear, under the circumstances which we have specified, and chooses its course and sticks to its post because it is noble to do so, or because it is disgraceful not to do so.

  But to seek death as a refuge from poverty, or love, or any painful thing, is not the act of a brave man, but of a coward. For it is effeminacy thus to fly from vexation; and in such a case death is accepted not because it is noble, but simply as an escape from evil.

  8.

  Of courage improperly so called.

  Courage proper, then, is something of this sort. But besides this there are five other kinds of courage so called.

  First, “political courage,” which most resembles true courage.

  Citizens seem often to face dangers because of legal pains and penalties on the one hand, and honours on the other. And on this account the people seem to be most courageous in those states where cowards are disgraced and brave men honoured.

  This, too, is the kind of courage which inspires Homer’s characters, e.g. Diomede and Hector.

  “Polydamas will then reproach me first,”*

  says Hector; and so Diomede:

  • “Hector one day will speak among his folk
  • And say, ‘The son of Tydeus at my hand—‘”†

  This courage is most like that which we described above, because its impulse is a virtuous one, viz-a sense of honour (αἰδώς), and desire for a noble thing (glory), and aversion to reproach, which is disgraceful.

  We might, perhaps, put in the same class men who are forced to fight by their officers; but they are inferior, inasmuch as what impels them is not a sense of honour, but fear, and what they shun is not disgrace, but pain. For those in authority compel them in Hector’s fashion—

  • “Whoso is seen to skulk and shirk the fight
  • Shall nowise save his carcase from the dogs.”‡

  And the same thing is done by commanders who order their men to stand, and flog them if they run, or draw them up with a ditch in their rear, and so on: all alike, I mean, employ compulsion.

  But a man ought to be courageous, not under compulsion, but because it is noble to be so.

  Secondly, experience in this or that matter is sometimes thought to be a sort of courage; and this indeed is the ground of the Socratic notion that courage is knowledge.

  This sort of courage is exhibited by various persons in various matters, but notably by regular troops in military affairs; for it seems that in war there are many occasions of groundless alarm, and with these the regulars are better acquainted; so they appear to be courageous, simply because the other troops do not understand the real state of the case.

  Again, the regular troops by reason of their experience are more efficient both in attack and defence; for they are skilled in the use of their weapons, and are also furnished with the best kind of arms for both purposes. So they fight with the advantage of armed over unarmed men, or of trained over untrained men; for in athletic contests also it is not the bravest men that can fight best, but those who are strongest and have their bodies in the best order.

  But these regular troops turn cowards whenever the danger rises to a certain height and they find themselves inferior in numbers and equipment; then they are the first to fly, while the citizen-troops stand and are cut to pieces, as happened at the temple of Hermes.* For the citizens deem it base to fly, and hold death preferable to saving their lives on these terms; but the regulars originally met the danger only because they fancied they were stronger, and run away when they learn the truth, fearing death more than disgrace. But that is not what we mean by courageous.

  Thirdly, people sometimes include rage within the meaning of the term courage.

  Those who in sheer rage turn like wild beasts on those who have wounded them are taken for courageous, because the courageous man also is full of rage; for rage is above all things eager to rush on danger; so we find in Homer, “Put might into his rage,” and “roused his wrath and rage,” and “fierce wrath breathed through his nostrils,” and “his blood boiled.” For all these expressions seem to signify the awakening and the bursting out of rage.

  The truly courageous man, then, is moved to act by what is noble, rage helping him: but beasts are moved by pain, i.e. by blows or by fear; for in a wood or a marsh they do not attack man. And so beasts are not courageous, since it is pain and rage that drives them to rush on danger, without foreseeing any of the terrible consequences. If this be courage, then asses must be called courageous when they are hungry; for though you beat them they will not leave off eating. Adulterers also are moved to do many bold deeds by their lust.

  Being driven to face danger by pain or rage, then, is not courage proper. However, this kind of courage, whose impulse is rage, seems to be the most natural, and, when deliberate purpose and the right motive are added to it, to become real courage.

  Again, anger is a painful state, the act of revenge is pleasant; but those who fight from these motives [i.e. to avoid the pain or gain the pleasure] may fight well, but are not courageous: for they do not act because it is noble to act so, or as reason bids, but are driven by their passions; though they bear some resemblance to the courageous man.

  Fourthly, the sanguine man is not properly called courageous: he is confident in danger because he has often won and has defeated many adversaries. The two resemble one another, since both are confident; but whereas the courageous man is confident for the reasons specified above, the sanguine man is confident because he thinks he is superior and will win without receiving a scratch. (People behave in the same sort of way when they get drunk; for then they become sanguine.) But when he finds that this is not the case, he runs away; while it is the character of the courageous man, as we saw, to face that which is terrible to a man even when he sees the danger, because it is noble to do so and base not to do so.

  And so (it is thought) it needs greater courage to be fearless and cool in sudden danger than in danger that has been foreseen; for behaviour in the former case must be more directly the outcome of formed character, since it is less dependent on preparation. When we see what is coming we may choose to meet it, as the result of calculation and reasoning, but when it comes upon us suddenly we must choose according to our character.

  Fifthly, those who are unaware of their danger sometimes appear to be courageous, and in fact are not very far removed from the sanguine persons we last spoke of, only they are inferior in that they have not necessarily any opinion of themselves, which the sanguine must have. And so while the latter hold their ground for some time, the former, whose courage was due to a false belief, run away the moment they perceive or suspect that the case is different; as the Argives did when they engaged the Spartans under the idea that they were Sicyonians.*

  Thus we have described the character of the courageous man, and of those who are taken for courageous.

  But there is another point to notice.

  9.

  How courage involves both pain and pleasure.

  Courage is concerned, as we said, with feelings both of confidence and of fear, yet it is not equally concerned with both, but more with occasions of fear: it is the man who is cool and behaves as he ought on such occasions that is called courageous, rather than he who behaves thus on occasions that inspire confidence.

  And so, as we said, men are called courageous for enduring painful things.

  Courage, therefore, brings pain, and is justly praised; for it is harder to endure what is painful than to abstain from what is pleasant.

  I do not, of course, mean to say that the end of courage is not pleasant, but that it seems to be hidden from view by the attendant circumstances, as is the case in gymnastic contests also. Boxers, for instance, have a pleasant end in view, that for which they strive, the crown and the honours; but the blows they receive are grievous to flesh and blood, and painful, and so are all the labours they undergo; and as the latter are many, while the end is small, the pleasantness of the end is hardly apparent.

  If, then, the case of courage is analogous, death and wounds will be painful to the courageous man and against his will, but he endures them because it is noble to do so or base not to do so.

  And the more he is endowed with every virtue, and the happier he is, the more grievous will death be to him; for life is more worth living to a man of his sort than to any one else, and he deprives himself knowingly of the very best things; and it is painful to do that. But he is no less courageous because he feels this pain; nay, we may say he is even more courageous, because in spite of it he chooses noble conduct in battle in preference to those good things.

  Thus we see that the rule that the exercise of a virtue is pleasant* does not apply to all the virtues, except in so far as the end is attained.

  Still there is, perhaps, no reason why men of this character should not be less efficient as soldiers than those who are not so courageous, but have nothing good to lose; for such men are reckless of risk, and will sell their lives for a small price.

  Here let us close our account of courage; it will not be hard to gather an outline of its nature from what we have said.

  10.

  Of temperance.

  After courage, let us speak of temperance, for these two seem to be the virtues of the irrational parts of our nature.

  We have already said that temperance is moderation or observance of the mean with regard to pleasures (for it is not concerned with pains so much, nor in the same manner); profligacy also manifests itself in the same field.

  Let us now determine what kind of pleasures these are.

  First, let us accept as established the distinction between the pleasures of the body and the pleasures of the soul, such as the pleasures of gratified ambition or love of learning.

  When he who loves honour or learning is delighted by that which he loves, it is not his body that is affected, but his mind. But men are not called either temperate or profligate for their behaviour with regard to these pleasures; nor for their behaviour with regard to any other pleasures that are not of the body. For instance, those who are fond of gossip and of telling stories, and spend their days in trifles, are called babblers, but not profligate; nor do we apply this term to those who are pained beyond measure at the loss of money or friends.

  Temperance, then, will be concerned with the pleasures of the body, but not with all of these even: for those who delight in the use of their eyesight, in colours and forms and painting, are not called either temperate or profligate; and yet it would seem that it is possible to take delight in these things too as one ought, and also more or less than one ought.

  And so with the sense of hearing: a man is never called profligate for taking an excessive delight in music or in acting, nor temperate for taking a proper delight in them.

  Nor are these terms applied to those who delight (unless it be accidentally) in smells. We do not say that those who delight in the smell of fruit or roses or incense are profligate, but rather those who delight in the smell of unguents and savoury dishes; for the profligate delights in these smells because they remind him of the things that he lusts after.

  You may, indeed, see other people taking delight in the smell of food when they are hungry; but only a profligate takes delight in such smells [constantly], as he alone is [constantly] lusting after such things.

  The lower animals, moreover, do not get pleasure through these senses, except accidentally. It is not the scent of a hare that delights a dog, but the eating of it; only the announcement comes through his sense of smell. The lion rejoices not in the lowing of the ox, but in the devouring of him; but as the lowing announces that the ox is near, the lion appears to delight in the sound itself. So also, it is not seeing a stag or a wild goat that pleases him, but the anticipation of a meal.

  Temperance and profligacy, then, have to do with those kinds of pleasure which are common to the lower animals, for which reason they seem to be slavish and brutal; I mean the pleasures of touch and taste.

  Taste, however, seems to play but a small part here, or perhaps no part at all. For it is the function of taste to distinguish flavours, as is done by winetasters and by those who season dishes; but it is by no means this discrimination of objects that gives delight (to profligates, at any rate), but the actual enjoyment of them, the medium of which is always the sense of touch, alike in the pleasures of eating, of drinking, and of sexual intercourse.

  And hence a certain gourmand wished that his throat were longer than a crane’s, thereby implying that his pleasure was derived from the sense of touch.

  That sense, then, with which profligacy is concerned is of all senses the commonest or most widespread; and so profligacy would seem to be deservedly of all vices the most censured, inasmuch as it attaches not to our human, but to our animal nature.

  To set one’s delight in things of this kind, then, and to love them more than all things, is brutish.

  And further, the more manly sort even of the pleasures of touch are excluded from the sphere of profligacy, such as the pleasures which the gymnast finds in rubbing and the warm bath; for the profligate does not cultivate the sense of touch over his whole body, but in certain parts only.

  11.

  Now, of our desires or appetites some appear to be common to the race, others to be individual and acquired.

  Thus the desire of food is natural [or common to the race]; every man when he is in want desires meat or drink, or sometimes both, and sexual intercourse, as Homer says, when he is young and vigorous.

  But not all men desire to satisfy their wants in this or that particular way, nor do all desire the same things; and therefore such desire appears to be peculiar to ourselves, or individual.

  Of course it is also partly natural: different people are pleased by different things, and yet there are some things which all men like better than others.

  Firstly, then, in the matter of our natural or common desires but few err, and that only on one side, viz. on the side of excess; e.g. to eat or drink of whatever is set before you till you can hold no more is to exceed what is natural in point of quantity, for natural desire or appetite is for the filling of our want simply. And so such people are called “belly-mad,” implying that they fill their bellies too full.

  It is only utterly slavish natures that acquire this vice.

  Secondly, with regard to those pleasures that are individual [i.e. which attend the gratification of our individual desires] many people err in various ways.

  Whereas people are called fond of this or that because they delight either in wrong things, or to an unusual degree, or in a wrong fashion, profligates exceed in all these ways. For they delight in some things in which they ought not to delight (since they are hateful things), and if it be right to delight in any of these things they delight in them more than is right and more than is usual.

  It is plain, then, that excess in these pleasures is profligacy, and is a thing to be blamed.

  But in respect of the corresponding pains the case is not the same here as it was with regard to courage: a man is not called temperate for bearing them, and profligate for not bearing them; but the profligate man is called profligate for being more pained than he ought at not getting certain pleasant things (his pain being caused by his pleasure* ), and the temperate man is called temperate because the absence of these pleasant things or the abstinence from them is not painful to him.

  The profligate, then, desires all pleasant things or those that are most intensely pleasant, and is led by his desire so as to choose these in preference to all other things. And so he is constantly pained by failing to get them and by lusting after them: for all appetite involves pain; but it seems a strange thing to be pained for the sake of pleasure.

  People who fall short in the matter of pleasure, and take less delight than they ought in these things, are hardly found at all; for this sort of insensibility is scarcely in human nature. And indeed even the lower animals discriminate kinds of food, and delight in some and not in others; and a being to whom nothing was pleasant, and who found no difference between one thing and another, would be very far removed from being a man. We have no name for such a being, because he does not exist.

  But the temperate man observes the mean in these things. He takes no pleasure in those things that the profligate most delights in (but rather disdains them), nor generally in the wrong things, nor very much in any of these things,* and when they are absent he is not pained, nor does he desire them, or desires them but moderately, not more than he ought, nor at the wrong time, etc.; but those things which, being pleasant, at the same time conduce to health and good condition, he will desire moderately and in the right manner, and other pleasant things also, provided they are not injurious, or incompatible with what is noble, or beyond his means; for he who cares for them then, cares for them more than is fitting, and the temperate man is not apt to do that, but rather to be guided by right reason.

  12.

  How profligacy is more voluntary than cowardice.

  Profligacy seems to be more voluntary than cowardice.

  For a man is impelled to the former by pleasure, to the latter by pain; but pleasure is a thing we choose, while pain is a thing we avoid. Pain puts us beside ourselves and upsets the nature of the sufferer, while pleasure has no such effect. Profligacy, therefore, is more voluntary.

  Profligacy is for these reasons more to be blamed than cowardice, and for another reason too, viz. that it is easier to train one’s self to behave rightly on these occasions [i.e. those in which profligacy is displayed]; for such occasions are constantly occurring in our lives, and the training involves no risk; but with occasions of fear the contrary is the case.

  Again, it would seem that the habit of mind or character called cowardice is more voluntary than the particular acts in which it is exhibited. It is not painful to be a coward, but the occasions which exhibit cowardice put men beside themselves through fear of pain, so that they throw away their arms and altogether disgrace themselves; and hence these particular acts are even thought to be compulsory.

  In the case of the profligate, on the contrary, the particular acts are voluntary (for they are done with appetite and desire), but the character itself less so; for no one desires to be a profligate.

  The term “profligacy” we apply also to childish faults,* for they have some sort of resemblance. It makes no difference for our present purpose which of the two is named after the other, but it is plain that the later is named after the earlier.

  And the metaphor, I think, is not a bad one: what needs “chastening” or “correction”† is that which inclines to base things and which has great powers of expansion. Now, these characteristics are nowhere so strongly marked as in appetite and in childhood; children too [as well as the profligate] live according to their appetites, and the desire for pleasant things is most pronounced in them. If then this element be not submissive and obedient to the governing principle, it will make great head: for in an irrational being the desire for pleasant things is insatiable and ready to gratify itself in any way, and the gratification of the appetite increases the natural tendency, and if the gratifications are great and intense they even thrust out reason altogether. The gratifications of appetite, therefore, should be moderate and few, and appetite should be in no respect opposed to reason (this is what we mean by submissive and “chastened”), but subject to reason as a child should be subject to his tutor.

  And so the appetites of the temperate man should be in harmony with his reason; for the aim of both is that which is noble: the temperate man desires what he ought, and as he ought, and when he ought; and this again is what reason prescribes.

  This, then, may be taken as an account of temperance.

  BOOK IV.

  THE SEVERAL MORAL VIRTUES AND VICES—Continued.

  1.

  Of liberality.

  Liberality, of which we will next speak, seems to be moderation in the matter of wealth. What we commend in a liberal man is his behaviour, not in war, nor in those circumstances in which temperance is commended, nor yet in passing judgment, but in the giving and taking of wealth, and especially in the giving—wealth meaning all those things whose value can be measured in money.

  But both prodigality and illiberality are at once excess and defect in the matter of wealth.

  Illiberality always means caring for wealth more than is right; but prodigality sometimes stands for a combination of vices. Thus incontinent people, who squander their money in riotous living, are called prodigals. And so prodigals are held to be very worthless individuals, as they combine a number of vices.

  But we must remember that this is not the proper use of the term; for the term “prodigal” (ἄσωτος) is intended to denote a man who has one vice, viz. that of wasting his substance: for he is ἄσωτος,* or “prodigal,” who is destroyed through his own fault, and the wasting of one’s substance is held to be a kind of destruction of one’s self, as one’s life is dependent upon it. This, then, we regard as the proper sense of the term “prodigality.”

  Anything that has a use may be used well or ill.

  Now, riches is abundance of useful things (τὰ χρήσιμα).

  But each thing is best used by him who has the virtue that is concerned with that thing.

  Therefore he will use riches best who has the virtue that is concerned with wealth* (τὰ χρήματα), i.e. the liberal man.

  Now, the ways of using wealth are spending and giving, while taking and keeping are rather the ways of acquiring wealth. And so it is more distinctive of the liberal man to give to the right people than to take from the right source and not to take from the wrong source. For it is more distinctive of virtue to do good to others than to have good done to you, and to do what is noble than not to do what is base. And here it is plain that doing good and noble actions go with the giving, while receiving good and not doing what is base goes with the taking.

  Again, we are thankful to him who gives, not to him who does not take; and so also we praise the former rather than the latter.

  Again, it is easier not to take than to give; for we are more inclined to be too stingy with our own goods than to take another’s.

  Again, it is those who give that are commonly called liberal; while those who abstain from taking are not praised for their liberality especially, but rather for their justice; and those who take are not praised at all.

  Again, of all virtuous characters the liberal man is perhaps the most beloved, because he is useful; but his usefulness lies in his giving.

  But virtuous acts, we said, are noble, and are done for the sake of that which is noble. The liberal man, therefore, like the others, will give with a view to, or for the sake of, that which is noble, and give rightly; i.e. he will give the right things to the right persons at the right times—in short, his giving will have all the characteristics of right giving.

  Moreover, his giving will be pleasant to him, or at least painless; for virtuous acts are always pleasant or painless—certainly very far from being painful.

  He who gives to the wrong persons, or gives from some other motive than desire for that which is noble, is not liberal, but must be called by some other name.

  Nor is he liberal who gives with pain; for that shows that he would prefer* the money to the noble action, which is not the feeling of the liberal man.

  The liberal man, again, will not take from wrong sources; for such taking is inconsistent with the character of a man who sets no store by wealth.

  Nor will he be ready to beg a favour; for he who confers benefits on others is not usually in a hurry to receive them.

  But from right sources he will take (e.g. from his own property), not as if there were anything noble in taking, but simply as a necessary condition of giving. And so he will not neglect his property, since he wishes by means of it to help others. But he will refuse to give to any casual person, in order that he may have wherewithal to give to the right persons, at the right times, and where it is noble to give.

  It is very characteristic of the liberal man* to go even to excess in giving, so as to leave too little for himself; for disregard of self is part of his character.

  In applying the term liberality we must take account of a man’s fortune; for it is not the amount of what is given that makes a gift liberal, but the liberal habit or character of the doer; and this character proportions the gift to the fortune of the giver. And so it is quite possible that the giver of the smaller sum may be the more liberal man, if his means be smaller.

  Those who have inherited a fortune seem to be more liberal than those who have made one; for they have never known want; and all men are particularly fond of what themselves have made, as we see in parents and poets.

  It is not easy for a liberal man to be rich, as he is not apt to take or to keep, but is apt to spend, and cares for money not on its own account, but only for the sake of giving it away.

  Hence the charge often brought against fortune, that those who most deserve wealth are least blessed with it. But this is natural enough; for it is just as impossible to have wealth without taking trouble about it, as it is to have anything else.

  Nevertheless the liberal man will not give to the wrong people, nor at the wrong times; for if he did, he would no longer be displaying true liberality, and, after spending thus, would not have enough to spend on the right occasions. For, as we have already said, he is liberal who spends in proportion to his fortune, on proper objects, while he who exceeds this is prodigal. And so princes* are not called prodigal, because it does not seem easy for them to exceed the measure of their possessions in gifts and expenses.

  Liberality, then, being moderation in the giving and taking of wealth, the liberal man will give and spend the proper amount on the proper objects, alike in small things and in great, and that with pleasure; and will also take the proper amount from the proper sources. For since the virtue is moderation in both giving and taking, the man who has the virtue will do both rightly. Right taking is consistent with right giving, but any other taking is contrary to it. Those givings and takings, then, that are consistent with one another are found in the same person, while those that are contrary to one another manifestly are not.

  But if a liberal man happen to spend anything in a manner contrary to what is right and noble, he will be pained, but moderately and in due measure; for it is a characteristic of virtue to be pleased and pained on the right occasions and in due measure.

  The liberal man, again, is easy to deal with in money matters; it is not hard to cheat him, as he does not value wealth, and is more apt to be vexed at having failed to spend where he ought, than to be pained at having spent where he ought not—the sort of man that Simonides would not commend.*

  The prodigal, on the other hand, errs in these points also; he is not pleased on the right occasions nor in the right way, nor pained: but this will be clearer as we go on.

  We have already said that both prodigality and illiberality are at once excess and deficiency, in two things, viz. giving and taking (expenditure being included in giving). Prodigality exceeds in giving and in not taking, but falls short in taking; illiberality falls short in giving, but exceeds in taking—in small things, we must add.

  Now, the two elements of prodigality are not commonly united in the same person:† it is not easy for a man who never takes to be always giving; for private persons soon exhaust their means of giving, and it is to private persons that the name is generally applied.‡

  A prodigal of this kind [i.e. in whom both the elements are combined], we must observe, would seem to be not a little better than an illiberal man. For he is easily cured by advancing years and by lack of means, and may come to the middle course. For he has the essential points of the liberal character; he gives and abstains from taking, though he does neither well nor as he ought. If then he can be trained to this, or if in any other way this change in his nature can be effected, he will be liberal; for then he will give to whom he ought, and will not take whence he ought not. And so he is generally thought to be not a bad character; for to go too far in giving and in not taking does not show a vicious or ignoble nature so much as a foolish one.

  A prodigal of this sort, then, seems to be much better than an illiberal man, both for the reasons already given, and also because the former does good to many, but the latter to no one, not even to himself.

  But most prodigals, as has been said, not only give wrongly, but take from wrong sources, and are in this respect illiberal. They become grasping because they wish to spend, but cannot readily do so, as their supplies soon fail. So they are compelled to draw from other sources. At the same time, since they care nothing for what is noble, they will take quite recklessly from any source whatever; for they long to give, but care not a whit how the money goes or whence it comes.

  And so their gifts are not liberal; for they are not noble, nor are they given with a view to that which is noble, nor in the right manner. Sometimes they enrich those who ought to be poor, and will give nothing to men of well-regulated character, while they give a great deal to those who flatter them, or furnish them with any other pleasure. And thus the greater part of them are profligates; for, being ready to part with their money, they are apt to lavish it on riotous living, and as they do not shape their lives with a view to that which is noble, they easily fall away into the pursuit of pleasure.

  The prodigal, then, if he fail to find guidance, comes to this, but if he get training he may be brought to the moderate and right course.

  But illiberality is incurable; for old age and all loss of power seems to make men illiberal.

  It also runs in the blood more than prodigality; the generality of men are more apt to be fond of money than of giving.

  Again, it is far-reaching, and has many forms; for there seem to be many ways in which one can be illiberal.

  It consists of two parts—deficiency in giving, and excess of taking; but it is not always found in its entirety; sometimes the parts are separated, and one man exceeds in taking, while another falls short in giving. Those, for instance, who are called by such names as niggardly, stingy, miserly, all fall short in giving, but do not covet other people’s goods, or wish to take them.

  Some are impelled to this conduct by a kind of honesty, or desire to avoid what is disgraceful—I mean that some of them seem, or at any rate profess, to be saving, in order that they may never be compelled to do anything disgraceful; e.g. the cheeseparer* (and those like him), who is so named because of the extreme lengths to which he carries his unwillingness to give.

  But others are moved to keep their hands from their neighbours’ goods only by fear, believing it to be no easy thing to take the goods of others, without having one’s own goods taken in turn; so they are content with neither taking nor giving.

  Others, again, exceed in the matter of taking so far as to make any gain they can in any way whatever, e.g. those who ply debasing trades, brothel-keepers and such like, and usurers who lend out small sums at a high rate. For all these make money from improper sources to an improper extent.

  The common characteristic of these last seems to be the pursuit of base gain; for all of them endure reproach for the sake of gain, and that a small gain. For those who make improper gains in improper ways on a large scale are not called illiberal, e.g. tyrants who sack cities and pillage temples; they are rather called wicked, impious, unjust. The dice-sharper, however, and the man who steals clothes at the bath, or the common thief, are reckoned among the illiberal; for they all make base gains; i.e. both the thief and the sharper ply their trade and endure reproach for gain, and the thief for the sake of his booty endures the greatest dangers, while the sharper makes gain out of his friends, to whom he ought to give. Both then, wishing to make gain in improper ways, are seekers of base gain; and all such ways of making money are illiberal.

  But illiberality is rightly called the opposite of liberality; for it is a worse evil than prodigality, and men are more apt to err in this way than in that which we have described as prodigality.

  Let this, then, be taken as our account of liberality, and of the vices that are opposed to it.

  2.

  Of magnificence.

  Our next task would seem to be an examination of magnificence. For this also seems to be a virtue that is concerned with wealth.

  But it does not, like liberality, extend over the whole field of money transactions, but only over those that involve large expenditure; and in these it goes beyond liberality in largeness. For, as its very name (μεγαλοπρέπεια) suggests, it is suitable expenditure on a large scale. But the largeness is relative: the expenditure that is suitable for a man who is fitting out a war-ship is not the same as that which is suitable for the chief of a sacred embassy.

  What is suitable, then, is relative to the person, and the occasion, and the business on hand. Yet he who spends what is fitting on trifling or moderately important occasions is not called magnificent; e.g. the man who can say, in the words of the poet—

  “To many a wandering beggar did I give;”

  but he who spends what is fitting on great occasions. For the magnificent man is liberal, but a man may be liberal without being magnificent.

  The deficiency of this quality is called meanness; the excess of it is called vulgarity, bad taste, etc.; the characteristic of which is not spending too much on proper objects, but spending ostentatiously on improper objects and in improper fashion. But we will speak of them presently.

  But the magnificent man is like a skilled artist; he can see what a case requires, and can spend great sums tastefully. For, as we said at the outset, a habit or type of character takes its complexion from the acts in which it issues and the things it produces. The magnificent man’s expenses, therefore, must be great and suitable.

  What he produces then will also be of the same nature; for only thus will the expense be at once great and suitable to the result.

  The result, then, must be proportionate to the expenditure, and the expenditure proportionate to the result, or even greater.

  Moreover, the magnificent man’s motive in thus spending his money will be desire for that which is noble; for this is the common characteristic of all the virtues.

  Further, he will spend gladly and lavishly; for a minute calculation of cost is mean. He will inquire how the work can be made most beautiful and most elegant, rather than what its cost will be, and how it can be done most cheaply.

  So the magnificent man must be liberal also; for the liberal man, too, will spend the right amount in the right manner; only, both the amount and the manner being right, magnificence is distinguished from liberality (which has the same* sphere of action) by greatness—I mean by actual magnitude of amount spent: and secondly, where the amount spent is the same, the result of the magnificent man’s expenditure will be more magnificent.*

  For the excellence of a possession is not the same as the excellence of a product or work of art: as a possession, that is most precious or estimable which is worth most, e.g. gold; as a work of art, that is most estimable which is great and beautiful: for the sight of such a work excites admiration, and a magnificent thing is always admirable; indeed, excellence of work on a great scale is magnificence.

  Now, there is a kind of expenditure which is called in a special sense estimable or honourable, such as expenditure on the worship of the gods (e.g. offerings, temples, and sacrifices), and likewise all expenditure on the worship of heroes, and again all public service which is prompted by a noble ambition; e.g. a man may think proper to furnish a chorus or a war-ship, or to give a public feast, in a handsome style.

  But in all cases, as we have said, we must have regard to the person who spends, and ask who he is, and what his means are; for expenditure should be proportionate to circumstances, and suitable not only to the result but to its author.

  And so a poor man cannot be magnificent: he has not the means to spend large sums suitably: if he tries, he is a fool; for he spends disproportionately and in a wrong way; but an act must be done in the right way to be virtuous. But such expenditure is becoming in those who have got the requisite means, either by their own efforts or through their ancestors or their connections, and who have birth and reputation, etc.; for all these things give a man a certain greatness and importance.

  The magnificent man, then, is properly a man of this sort, and magnificence exhibits itself most properly in expenditure of this kind, as we have said; for this is the greatest and most honourable kind of expenditure: but it may also be displayed on private occasions, when they are such as occur but once in a man’s life, e.g. a wedding or anything of that kind; or when they are of special interest to the state or the governing classes, e.g. receiving strangers and sending them on their way, or making presents to them and returning their presents; for the magnificent man does not lavish money on himself, but on public objects; and gifts to strangers bear some resemblance to offerings to the gods.

  But a magnificent man will build his house too in a style suitable to his wealth; for even a fine house is a kind of public ornament. And he will spend money more readily on things that last; for these are the noblest. And on each occasion he will spend what is suitable—which is not the same for gods as for men, for a temple as for a tomb.

  And since every expenditure may be great after its kind, great expenditure on a great occasion being most magnificent,* and then in a less degree that which is great for the occasion, whatever it be (for the greatness of the result is not the same as the greatness of the expense; e.g. the most beautiful ball or the most beautiful bottle that can be got is a magnificent present for a child, though its price is something small and mean), it follows that it is characteristic of the magnificent man to do magnificently that which he does, of whatever kind it be (for such work cannot easily be surpassed), and to produce a result proportionate to the expense.

  This, then, is the character of the magnificent man.

  The man who exceeds (whom we call vulgar) exceeds, as we said, in spending improperly. He spends great sums on little objects, and makes an unseemly display; e.g. if he is entertaining the members of his club, he will give them a wedding feast; if he provides the chorus for a comedy, he will bring his company on the stage all dressed in purple, as they did at Megara. And all this he will do from no desire for what is noble or beautiful, but merely to display his wealth, because he hopes thereby to gain admiration, spending little where he should spend much, and much where he should spend little.

  But the mean man will fall short on every occasion, and, even when he spends very large sums, will spoil the beauty of his work by niggardliness in a trifle, never doing anything without thinking twice about it, and considering how it can be done at the least possible cost, and bemoaning even that, and thinking he is doing everything on a needlessly large scale.

  Both these characters, then, are vicious, but they do not bring reproach, because they are neither injurious to others nor very offensive in themselves.

  3.

  Of high-mindedness

  High-mindedness would seem from its very name (μεγαλοψυχία) to have to do with great things; let us first ascertain what these are.

  It will make no difference whether we consider the quality itself, or the man who exhibits the quality.

  By a high-minded man we seem to mean one who claims much and deserves much: for he who claims much without deserving it is a fool; but the possessor of a virtue is never foolish or silly. The man we have described, then, is high-minded.

  He who deserves little and claims little is temperate [or modest], but not high-minded: for high-mindedness [or greatness of soul] implies greatness, just as beauty implies stature; small men may be neat and well proportioned, but cannot be called beautiful.

  He who claims much without deserving it is vain (though not every one who claims more than he deserves is vain).

  He who claims less than he deserves is little-minded, whether his deserts be great or moderate, or whether they be small and he claims still less: but the fault would seem to be greatest in him whose deserts are great; for what would he do if his deserts were less than they are?

  The high-minded man, then, in respect of the greatness of his deserts occupies an extreme position, but in that he behaves as he ought, observes the mean; for he claims that which he deserves, while all the others claim too much or too little.

  If, therefore, he deserves much and claims much, and most of all deserves and claims the greatest things, there will be one thing with which he will be especially concerned. For desert has reference to external good things. Now, the greatest of external good things we may assume to be that which we render to the Gods as their due, and that which people in high stations most desire, and which is the prize appointed for the noblest deeds. But the thing that answers to this description is honour, which, we may safely say, is the greatest of all external goods. Honours and dishonours, therefore, are the field in which the high-minded man behaves as he ought.

  And indeed we may see, without going about to prove it, that honour is what high-minded men are concerned with; for it is honour that they especially claim and deserve.

  The little-minded man falls short, whether we compare his claims with his own deserts or with what the high-minded man claims for himself.

  The vain or conceited man exceeds what is due to himself, though he does not exceed the high-minded man in his claims.*

  But the high-minded man, as he deserves the greatest things, must be a perfectly good or excellent man; for the better man always deserves the greater things, and the best possible man the greatest possible things. The really high-minded man, therefore, must be a good or excellent man. And indeed greatness in every virtue or excellence would seem to be necessarily implied in being a high-minded or great-souled man.

  It would be equally inconsistent with the highminded man’s character to run away swinging his arms, and to commit an act of injustice; for what thing is there for love of which he would do anything unseemly, seeing that all things are of little account to him?

  Survey him point by point and you will find that the notion of a high-minded man that is not a good or excellent man is utterly absurd. Indeed, if he were not good, he could not be worthy of honour; for honour is the prize of virtue, and is rendered to the good as their due.

  High-mindedness, then, seems to be the crowning grace, as it were, of the virtues; it makes them greater, and cannot exist without them. And on this account it is a hard thing to be truly high-minded; for it is impossible without the union of all the virtues.

  The high-minded man, then, exhibits his character especially in the matter of honours and dishonours and at great honour from good men he will be moderately pleased, as getting nothing more than his due, or even less; for no honour can be adequate to complete virtue; but nevertheless he will accept it, as they have nothing greater to offer him. But honour from ordinary men and on trivial grounds he will utterly despise; for that is not what he deserves. And dishonour likewise he will make light of; for he will never merit it.

  But though it is especially in the matter of honours, as we have said, that the high-minded man displays his character, yet he will also observe the mean in his feelings with regard to wealth and power and all kinds of good and evil fortune, whatever may befall him, and will neither be very much exalted by prosperity, nor very much cast down by adversity; seeing that not even honour affects him as if it were a very important thing. For power and wealth are desirable for honour’s sake (at least, those who have them wish to gain honour by them). But he who thinks lightly of honour must think lightly of them also.

  And so high-minded men seem to look down upon everything.

  But the gifts of fortune also are commonly thought to contribute to high-mindedness. For those who are well born are thought worthy of honour, and those who are powerful or wealthy; for they are in a position of superiority, and that which is superior in any good thing is always held in greater honour. And so these things do make people more high-minded in a sense; for such people find honour from some. But in strictness it is only the good man that is worthy of honour, though he that has both goodness and good fortune is commonly thought to be more worthy of honour. Those, however, who have these good things without virtue, neither have any just claim to great things, nor are properly to be called high-minded; for neither is possible without complete virtue.

  But those who have these good things readily come to be supercilious and insolent. For without virtue it is not easy to bear the gifts of fortune becomingly; and so, being unable to bear them, and thinking themselves superior to everybody else, such people look down upon others, and yet themselves do whatever happens to please them. They imitate the high-minded man without being really like him, and they imitate him where they can; that is to say, they do not exhibit virtue in their acts, but they look down upon others. For the high-minded man never looks down upon others without justice (for he estimates them correctly), while most men do so for quite irrelevant reasons.

  The high-minded man is not quick to run into petty dangers, and indeed does not love danger, since there are few things that he much values; but he is ready to incur a great danger, and whenever he does so is unsparing of his life, as a thing that is not worth keeping at all costs.

  It is his nature to confer benefits, but he is ashamed to receive them; for the former is the part of a superior, the latter of an inferior. And when he has received a benefit, he is apt to confer a greater in return; for thus his creditor will become his debtor and be in the position of a recipient of his favour.

  It seems, moreover, that such men remember the benefits which they have conferred better than those which they have received (for the recipient of a benefit is inferior to the benefactor, but such a man wishes to be in the position of a superior), and that they like to be reminded of the one, but dislike to be reminded of the other; and this is the reason why we read* that Thetis would not mention to Zeus the services she had done him, and why the Lacedæmonians, in treating with the Athenians, reminded them of the benefits received by Sparta rather than of those conferred by her.

  It is characteristic of the high-minded man, again, never or reluctantly to ask favours, but to be ready to confer them, and to be lofty in his behaviour to those who are high in station and favoured by fortune, but affable to those of the middle ranks; for it is a difficult thing and a dignified thing to assert superiority over the former, but easy to assert it over the latter. A haughty demeanour in dealing with the great is quite consistent with good breeding, but in dealing with those of low estate is brutal, like showing off one’s strength upon a cripple.

  Another of his characteristics is not to rush in wherever honour is to be won, nor to go where others take the lead, but to hold aloof and to shun an enterprise, except when great honour is to be gained, or a great work to be done—not to do many things, but great things and notable.

  Again, he must be open in his hate and in his love (for it is cowardly to dissemble your feelings and to care less for truth than for what people will think of you), and he must be open in word and in deed (for his consciousness of superiority makes him outspoken, and he is truthful except in so far as he adopts an ironical tone in his intercourse with the masses), and he must be unable to fashion his life to suit another, except he be a friend; for that is servile: and so all flatterers or hangers on of great men are of a slavish nature, and men of low natures become flatterers.

  Nor is he easily moved to admiration; for nothing is great to him.

  He readily forgets injuries; for it is not consistent with his character to brood on the past, especially on past injuries, but rather to overlook them.

  He is no gossip; he will neither talk about himself nor about others; for he cares not that men should praise him, nor that others should be blamed (though, on the other hand, he is not very ready to bestow praise); and so he is not apt to speak evil of others, not even of his enemies, except with the express purpose of giving offence.

  When an event happens that cannot be helped or is of slight importance, he is the last man in the world to cry out or to beg for help; for that is the conduct of a man who thinks these events very important.

  He loves to possess beautiful things that bring no profit, rather than useful things that pay; for this is characteristic of the man whose resources are in himself.

  Further, the character of the high-minded man seems to require that his gait should be slow, his voice deep, his speech measured; for a man is not likely to be in a hurry when there are few things in which he is deeply interested, nor excited when he holds nothing to be of very great importance: and these are the causes of a high voice and rapid movements.

  This, then, is the character of the high-minded man.

  But he that is deficient in this quality is called little-minded; he that exceeds, vain or conceited.

  Now these two also do not seem to be bad—for they do no harm—though they are in error.

  For the little-minded man, though he deserves good things, deprives himself of that which he deserves, and so seems to be the worse for not claiming these good things, and for misjudging himself; for if he judged right he would desire what he deserves, as it is good. I do not mean to say that such people seem to be fools, but rather too retiring But a misjudgment of this kind does seem actually to make them worse; for men strive for that which they deserve, and shrink from noble deeds and employments of which they think themselves unworthy, as well as from mere external good things.

  But vain men are fools as well as ignorant of themselves, and make this plain to all the world; For they undertake honourable offices for which they are unfit, and presently stand convicted of incapacity; they dress in fine clothes and put on fine airs and so on; they wish everybody to know of their good fortune; they talk about themselves, as if that were the way to honour.

  But little-mindedness is more opposed to high-mindedness than vanity is; for it is both commoner and worse.

  High-mindedness, then, as we have said, has to do with honour on a large scale.

  4.

  Of a similar virtue in smaller matters.

  But it appears (as we said at the outset) that there is also a virtue concerned with honour, which bears the same relation to high-mindedness that liberality bears to magnificence; i.e. both the virtue in question and liberality have nothing to do with great things, but cause us to behave properly in matters of moderate or of trifling importance. Just as in the taking and giving of money it is possible to observe the mean, and also to exceed or fall short of it, so it is possible in desire for honour to go too far or not far enough, or, again, to desire honour from the right source and in the right manner.

  A man is called ambitious or fond of honour (ϕιλότιμος) in reproach, as desiring honour more than he ought, and from wrong sources; and a man is called unambitious, or not fond of honour (ἀϕιλότιμος) in reproach, as not desiring to be honoured even for noble deeds.

  But sometimes a man is called ambitious or fond of honour in praise, as being manly and fond of noble things; and sometimes a man is called unambitious or not fond of honour in praise, as being moderate and temperate (as we said at the outset).

  It is plain, then, that there are various senses in which a man is said to be fond of a thing, and that the term fond of honour has not always the same sense, but that as a term of praise it means fonder than most men, and as a term of reproach it means fonder than is right. But, as there is no recognized term for the observance of the mean, the extremes fight, so to speak, for what seems an empty place. But wherever there is excess and defect there is also a mean: and honour is in fact desired more than is right, and less: therefore* it may also be desired to the right degree: this character then is praised, being observance of the mean in the matter of honour, though it has no recognized name. Compared with ambition, it seems to be lack of ambition; compared with lack of ambition, it seems to be ambition; compared with both at once, it seems in a way to be both at once. This, we may observe, also happens in the case of the other virtues. But in this case the extreme characters seem to be opposed to one another [instead of to the moderate character], because the character that observes the mean has no recognized name.

  5.

  Of gentleness.

  Gentleness is moderation with respect to anger. But it must be noted that we have no recognized name for the mean, and scarcely any recognized names for the extremes. And so the term gentleness, which properly denotes an inclination towards deficiency in anger (for which also we have no recognized name), is applied to the mean.*

  The excess may be called wrathfulness; for the emotion concerned is wrath or anger, though the things that cause it are many and various.

  He then who is angry on the right occasions and with the right persons, and also in the right manner, and at the right season, and for the right length of time, is praised; we will call him gentle, therefore, since gentleness is used as a term of praise. For the man who is called gentle wishes not to lose his balance, and not to be carried away by his emotions or passions, but to be angry only in such manner, and on such occasions, and for such period as reason shall prescribe. But he seems to err rather on the side of deficiency; he is loth to take vengeance and very ready to forgive.

  But the deficiency—call it wrathlessness or what you will—is censured. Those who are not angered by what ought to anger them seem to be foolish, and so do those who are not angry as and when and with whom they ought to be; for such a man seems to feel nothing and to be pained by nothing, and, as he is never angered, to lack spirit to defend himself. But to suffer one’s self to be insulted, or to look quietly on while one’s friends are being insulted, shows a slavish nature.

  It is possible to exceed in all points, i.e. to be angry with persons with whom one ought not, and at things at which one ought not to be angry, and more than one ought, and more quickly, and for a longer time. All these errors, however, are not found in the same person. That would be impossible; for evil is self-destructive, and, if it appears in its entirety, becomes quite unbearable.

  So we find that wrathful men get angry very soon, and with people with whom and at things at which they ought not, and more than they ought; but they soon get over their anger, and that is a very good point in their character. And the reason is that they do not keep in their anger, but, through the quickness of their temper, at once retaliate, and so let what is in them come to light, and then have done with it.

  But those who are called choleric are excessively quick-tempered, and apt to be angered at anything and on any occasion; whence the name (ἀκρόχολοι).

  Sulky men are hard to appease and their anger lasts long, because they keep it in. For so soon as we retaliate we are relieved: vengeance makes us cease from our anger, substituting a pleasant for a painful state. But the sulky man, as he does not thus relieve himself, bears the burden of his wrath about with him; for no one even tries to reason him out of it, as he does not show it, and it takes a long time to digest one’s anger within one’s self. Such men are exceedingly troublesome to themselves and their dearest friends.

  Lastly, hard (χαλεπός) is the name we give to those who are offended by things that ought not to offend them, and more than they ought, and for a longer time, and who will not be appeased without vengeance or punishment.

  Of the two extremes the excess is the more opposed to gentleness; for it is commoner (as men are naturally more inclined to vengeance); and a hard-tempered person is worse to live with [than one who is too easy-tempered].

  What we said some time ago* is made abundantly manifest by what we have just been saying; it is not easy to define how, and with whom, and at what, and for how long one ought to be angry—how far it is right to go, and at what point misconduct begins. He who errs slightly from the right course is not blamed, whether it be on the side of excess or of deficiency; for sometimes we praise those who fall short and call them gentle, and sometimes those who behave hardly are called manly, as being able to rule. But what amount and kind of error makes a man blamable can scarcely be defined; for it depends upon the particular circumstances of each case, and can only be decided by immediate perception.

  But so much at least is manifest, that on the one hand the habit which observes the mean is to be praised, i.e. the habit which causes us to be angry with the right persons, at the right things, in the right manner, etc.; and that, on the other hand, all habits of excess or deficiency deserve censure—slight censure if the error be trifling, graver censure if it be considerable, and severe censure if it be great.

  It is evident, therefore, that we must strive for the habit which observes the mean.

  This then may be taken as our account of the habits which have to do with anger.

  6.

  Of agreeableness.

  In the matter of social intercourse, i.e. the living with others and joining with them in conversation and in common occupations, some men show themselves what is called obsequious — those who to please you praise everything, and never object to anything, but think they ought always to avoid giving pain to those whom they meet. Those who take the opposite line, and object to everything and never think for a moment what pain they may give, are called cross and contentious.

  It is sufficiently plain that both these habits merit censure, and that the habit which takes the middle course between them is to be commended—the habit which makes a man acquiesce in what he ought and in the right manner, and likewise refuse to acquiesce. This habit or type of character has no recognized name, but seems most nearly to resemble friendliness (ϕιλία). For the man who exhibits this moderation is the same sort of man that we mean when we speak of an upright friend, except that then affection also is implied. This differs from friendliness in that it does not imply emotion and affection for those with whom we associate; for he who has this quality acquiesces when he ought, not because he loves or hates, but because that is his character. He will behave thus alike to those whom he knows and to those whom he does not know, to those with whom he is intimate and to those with whom he is not intimate, only that in each case he will behave as is fitting; for we are not bound to show the same consideration to strangers as to intimates, nor to take the same care not to pain them.

  We have already said in general terms that such a man will behave as he ought in his intercourse with others, but we must add that, while he tries to contribute to the pleasure of others and to avoid giving them pain, he will always be guided by reference to that which is noble and fitting. It seems to be with the pleasures and pains of social intercourse that he is concerned. Now, whenever he finds that it is not noble, or is positively hurtful to himself, to contribute to any of these pleasures, he will refuse to acquiesce and will prefer to give pain. And if the pleasure is such as to involve discredit, and no slight discredit, or some injury to him who is the source of it, while his opposition will give a little pain, he will not acquiesce, but will set his face against it. But he will behave differently according as he is in the company of great people or ordinary people, of intimate friends or mere acquaintances, and so on, rendering to each his due; preferring, apart from other considerations, to promote pleasure, and loth to give pain, but regulating his conduct by consideration of the consequences, if they be considerable—by consideration, I mean, of what is noble and fitting. And thus for the sake of great pleasure in the future he will inflict a slight pain now.

  The man who observes the mean, then, is something of this sort, but has no recognized name.

  The man who always makes himself pleasant, if he aims simply at pleasing and has no ulterior object in view, is called obsequious; but if he does so in order to get some profit for himself, either in the way of money or of money’s worth, he is a flatterer.

  But he who sets his face against everything is, as we have already said, cross and contentious.

  But the extremes seem here to be opposed to one another [instead of to the mean], because there is no name for the mean.

  7.

  Of truthfulness.

  The moderation which lies between boastfulness and irony (which virtue also lacks a name) seems to display itself in almost the same field.

  It will be as well to examine these qualities also; for we shall know more about human character, when we have gone through each of its forms; and we shall be more fully assured that the virtues are modes of observing the mean, when we have surveyed them all and found that this is the case with every one of them.

  We have already spoken of the characters that are displayed in social intercourse in the matter of pleasure and pain; let us now go on to speak in like manner of those who show themselves truthful or untruthful in what they say and do, and in the pretensions they put forward.

  First of all, then, the boaster seems to be fond of pretending to things that men esteem, though he has them not, or not to such extent as he pretends; the ironical man, on the other hand, seems to disclaim what he has, or to depreciate it; while he who observes the mean, being a man who is “always himself” (αὐθέκαστός τις), is truthful in word and deed, confessing the simple facts about himself, and neither exaggerating nor diminishing them.

  Now, each of these lines of conduct may be pursued either with an ulterior object or without one.

  When he has no ulterior object in view, each man speaks and acts and lives according to his character.

  But falsehood in itself is vile and blamable; truth is noble and praiseworthy in itself.

  And so the truthful man, as observing the mean, is praiseworthy, while the untruthful characters are both blamable, but the boastful more than the ironical.

  Let us speak then of each of them, and first of the truthful character.

  We must remember that we are not speaking of the man who tells the truth in matters of business, or in matters which come within the sphere of injustice and justice (for these matters would belong to another virtue); the man we are considering is the man who in cases where no such important issues are involved is truthful in his speech and in his life, because that is his character.

  Such a man would seem to be a good man (ἐπιεικής). For he who loves truth, and is truthful where nothing depends upon it, will still more surely tell the truth where serious interests are involved; he will shun falsehood as a base thing here, seeing that he shunned it elsewhere, apart from any consequences: but such a man merits praise.

  He inclines rather towards under-statement than over-statement of the truth; and this seems to be the more suitable course, since all exaggeration is offensive.

  On the other hand, he who pretends to more than he has with no ulterior object [the boaster proper] seems not to be a good character (for if he were he would not take pleasure in falsehood), but to be silly rather than bad.

  But of boasters who have an ulterior object, he whose object is reputation or honour is not very severely censured (just as the boaster proper is not), but he whose object is money, or means of making money, is held in greater reproach.

  But we must observe that what distinguishes the boaster proper from the other kinds of boasters, is not his faculty of boasting, but his preference for boasting: the boaster proper is a boaster by habit, and because that is his character; just as there is on the one hand the liar proper, who delights in falsehood itself, and on the other hand the liar who lies through desire of honour or gain.

  Those who boast with a view to reputation pretend to those things for which a man is commended or is thought happy; those whose motive is gain pretend to those things which are of advantage to others, and whose absence may escape detection, e.g. to skill in magic or in medicine. And so it is usually something of this sort that men pretend to and boast of; for the conditions specified are realized in them.

  Ironical people, on the other hand, with their depreciatory way of speaking of themselves, seem to be of a more refined character; for their motive in speaking thus seems to be not love of gain, but desire to avoid parade: but what they disclaim seems also* to be especially that which men esteem—of which Socrates was an instance.

  But those who disclaim† petty advantages which they evidently possess are called affected (βαυκοπανο[Editor: illegible character]ργοι), and are more easily held in contempt. And sometimes this self-depreciation is scarcely distinguishable from boasting, as for instance dressing like a Spartan; for there is something boastful in extreme depreciation as well as in exaggeration.

  But those who employ irony in moderation, and speak ironically in matters that are not too obvious and palpable, appear to be men of refinement.

  Finally, the boaster seems to be especially the opposite of the truthful man; for he is worse than the ironical man.

  8.

  Of wittiness.

  Again, since relaxation is an element in our life, and one mode of relaxation is amusing conversation, it seems that in this respect also there is a proper way of mixing with others; i.e. that there are things that it is right to say, and a right way of saying them: and the same with hearing; though here also it will make a difference what kind of people they are in whose presence you are speaking, or to whom you are listening.

  And it is plain that it is possible in these matters also to go beyond, or to fall short of, the mean.

  Now, those who go to excess in ridicule seem to be buffoons and vulgar fellows, striving at all costs for a ridiculous effect, and bent rather on raising a laugh than on making their witticisms elegant and inoffensive to the subject of them. While those who will never say anything laughable themselves, and frown on those who do, are considered boorish and morose. But those who jest gracefully are called witty, or men of ready wit (εὐτράπελοι), as it were ready or versatile men.

  For* a man’s character seems to reveal itself in these sallies or playful movements, and so we judge of his moral constitution by them, as we judge of his body by its movements.

  But through the prominence given to ridiculous things, and the excessive delight which most people take in amusement and jesting, the buffoon is often called witty because he gives delight. But that there is a difference, and a considerable difference, between the two is plain from what we have said.

  An element in the character that observes the mean in these matters is tact. A man of tact will only say and listen to such things as it befits an honest man and a gentleman to say and listen to; for there are things that it is quite becoming for such a man to say and to listen to in the way of jest, and the jesting of a gentleman differs from that of a man of slavish nature, and the jesting of an educated from that of an uneducated man.

  This one may see by the difference between the old comedy and the new: the fun of the earlier writers is obscenity, of the later innuendo; and there is no slight difference between the two as regards decency.

  Can good jesting, then, be defined as making jests that befit a gentleman, or that do not pain the hearer, or that even give him pleasure? Nay, surely a jest that gives pleasure to the hearer is something quite indefinite, for different things are hateful and pleasant to different people.

  But the things that he will listen to will be of the same sort [as those that he will say, whatever that be]: jests that a man can listen to he can, we think, make himself.

  So then there are jests that he will not make [though we cannot exactly define them]; for to make a jest of a man is to vilify him in a way, and the law forbids certain kinds of vilification, and ought perhaps also to forbid certain kinds of jesting.

  The refined and gentlemanly man, therefore, will thus regulate his wit, being as it were a law to himself.

  This then is the character of him who observes the mean, whether we call him a man of tact or a man of ready wit.

  The buffoon, on the other hand, cannot resist an opportunity for a joke, and, if he can but raise a laugh, will spare neither himself nor others, and will say things which no man of refinement would say, and some of which he would not even listen to.

  The boor, lastly, is wholly useless for this kind of intercourse; he contributes nothing, and takes everything in ill part. And yet recreation and amusement seem to be necessary ingredients in our life.

  In conclusion, then, the modes just described of observing the mean in social life are three in number,* and all have to do with conversation or joint action of some kind: but they differ in that one has to do with truth, while the other two are concerned with what is pleasant; and of the two that are concerned with pleasure, one finds its field in our amusements, the other in all other kinds of social intercourse.

  9.

  Of the feeling of shame

  Shame (αἰδώς) cannot properly be spoken of as a virtue; for it is more like a feeling or emotion than a habit or trained faculty. At least, it is defined as a kind of fear of disgrace, and its effects are analogous to those of the fear that is excited by danger; for men blush when they are ashamed, while the fear of death makes them pale. Both then seem to be in a way physical, which is held to be a mark of a feeling or emotion, rather than of a habit or trained faculty.

  Again, it is a feeling which is not becoming at all times of life, but only in youth; it is thought proper for young people to be ready to feel shame, because, as their conduct is guided by their emotions, they often are misled, but are restrained from wrong actions by shame.

  And so we praise young men when they are ready to feel shame, but no one would praise a man of more advanced years for being apt to be ashamed; for we consider that he ought not to do anything which could make him ashamed of himself.

  Indeed, shame is not the part of a good man, since it is occasioned by vile acts (for such acts should not be done: nor does it matter that some acts are really shameful, others shameful in public estimation only; for neither ought to be done, and so a man ought not to be ashamed); it is the part of a worthless man and the result* of being such as to do something shameful.

  But supposing a man’s character to be such that, if he were to do one of these shameful acts, he would be ashamed, it is absurd for him to fancy that he is a good man on that account; for shame is only felt at voluntary acts, and a good man will never voluntarily do vile acts.

  At the utmost, shame would be hypothetically good; that is to say, supposing he were to do the act, a good man would be ashamed: but there is nothing hypothetical about the virtues.

  Again, granting that it is bad to be shameless, or not to be ashamed to do shameful things, it does not therefore follow that it is good to do them and be ashamed of it.

  Continence,* in the same way, is not a virtue, but something between virtue and vice.

  But we will explain this point about continence later;† let us now treat of justice.

  BOOK V.

  THE SEVERAL MORAL VIRTUES AND VICES—concluded. JUSTICE.

  1.

  Preliminary Two senses of justice distinguished justice (l) = obedience to law = complete virtue.

  We now have to inquire about justice and injustice, and to ask what sort of acts they are concerned with, and in what sense justice observes the mean, and what are the extremes whose mean is that which is just. And in this inquiry we will follow the same method as before.

  We see that all men intend by justice to signify the sort of habit or character that makes men apt to do what is just, and which further makes them act justly* and wish what is just; while by injustice they intend in like manner to signify the sort of character that makes men act unjustly and wish what is unjust. Let us lay this down, then, as an outline to work upon.

  We thus oppose justice and injustice, because a habit or trained faculty differs in this respect both from a science and a faculty or power. I mean that whereas both of a pair of opposites come under the same science or power, a habit which produces a certain result does not also produce the opposite result; e.g. health produces healthy manifestations only, and not unhealthy; for we say a man has a healthy gait when he walks like a man in health.

  [Not that the two opposites are unconnected.] In the first place, a habit is often known by the opposite habit, and often by its causes and results: if we know what good condition is, we can learn from that what bad condition is; and, again, from that which conduces to good condition we can infer what good condition itself is, and conversely from the latter can infer the former. For instance, if good condition be firmness of flesh, it follows that bad condition is flabbiness of flesh, and that what tends to produce firmness of flesh conduces to good condition.

  And, in the second place, if one of a pair of opposite terms have more senses than one, the other term will also, as a general rule, have more than one; so that here, if the term “just” have several senses, the term “unjust” also will have several.

  And in fact it seems that both “justice” and “injustice” have several senses, but, as the different things covered by the common name are very closely related, the fact that they are different escapes notice and does not strike us, as it does when there is a great disparity—a great difference, say, in outward appearance—as it strikes every one, for instance, that the κλείς (clavis, collar-bone) which lies under the neck of an animal is different from the κλείς (clavis, key) with which we fasten the door.

  Let us then ascertain in how many different senses we call a man unjust.

  Firstly, he who breaks the laws is considered unjust, and, secondly, he who takes more than his share, or the unfair man.

  Plainly, then, a just man will mean (1) a law-abiding and (2) a fair man.

  A just thing then will be (1) that which is in accordance with the law, (2) that which is fair; and the unjust thing will be (1) that which is contrary to law, (2) that which is unfair.

  But since the unjust man, in one of the two senses of the word, takes more than his share, the sphere of his action will be good things—not all good things, but those with which good and ill fortune are concerned, which are always good in themselves, but not always good for us—the things that we men pray for and pursue, whereas we ought rather to pray that what is good in itself may be good for us, while we choose that which is good for us.

  But the unjust man does not always take more than his share; he sometimes take less, viz. of those things which are bad in the abstract; but as the lesser evil is considered to be in some sort good, and taking more means taking more good, he is said to take more than his share. But in any case he is unfair; for this is a wider term which includes the other.

  We found that the law-breaker is unjust, and the law-abiding man is just. Hence it follows that whatever is according to law is just in one sense of the word. [And this, we see, is in fact the case;] for what the legislator prescribes is according to law, and is always said to be just.

  Now, the laws prescribe about all manner of things, aiming at the common interest of all, or of the best men, or of those who are supreme in the state (position in the state being determined by reference to personal excellence, or to some other such standard); and so in one sense we apply the term just to whatever tends to produce and preserve the happiness of the community, and the several elements of that happiness. The law bids us display courage (as not to leave our ranks, or run, or throw away our arms), and temperance (as not to commit adultery or outrage), and gentleness (as not to strike or revile our neighbours), and so on with all the other virtues and vices, enjoining acts and forbidding them, rightly when it is a good law, not so rightly when it is a hastily improvised one.

  Justice, then, in this sense of the word, is complete virtue, with the addition that it is displayed towards others. On this account it is often spoken of as the chief of the virtues, and such that “neither evening nor morning star is so lovely;” and the saying has become proverbial, “Justice sums up all virtues in itself.”

  It is complete virtue, first of all, because it is the exhibition of complete virtue: it is also complete because he that has it is able to exhibit virtue in dealing with his neighbours, and not merely in his private affairs; for there are many who can be virtuous enough at home, but fail in dealing with their neighbours.

  This is the reason why people commend the saying of Bias, “Office will show the man;” for he that is in office ipso facto stands in relation to others,* and has dealings with them.

  This, too, is the reason why justice alone of all the virtues is thought to be another’s good, as implying this relation to others; for it is another’s interest that justice aims at—the interest, namely, of the ruler or of our fellow-citizens.

  While then the worst man is he who displays vice both in his own affairs and in his dealings with his friends, the best man is not he who displays virtue in his own affairs merely, but he who displays virtue towards others; for this is the hard thing to do.

  Justice, then, in this sense of the word, is not a part of virtue, but the whole of it; and the injustice which is opposed to it is not a part of vice, but the whole of it.

  How virtue differs from justice in this sense is plain from what we have said; it is one and the same character differently viewed:† viewed in relation to others, this character is justice; viewed simply as a certain character,‡ it is virtue.

  2.

  Of justice (2) = fairness, how related to justice (1). What is just in distribution distinguished from what is just in correction.

  We have now to examine justice in that sense in which it is a part of virtue—for we maintain that there is such a justice—and also the corresponding kind of injustice.

  That the word is so used is easily shown. In the case of the other kinds of badness, the man who displays them, though he acts unjustly [in one sense of the word], yet does not take more than his share: for instance, when a man throws away his shield through cowardice, or reviles another through ill temper, or through illiberality refuses to help another with money. But when he takes more than his share, he displays perhaps no one of these vices, nor does he display them all, yet he displays a kind of badness (for we blame him), namely, injustice [in the second sense of the word].

  We see, then, that there is another sense of the word injustice, in which it stands for a part of that injustice which is coextensive with badness, and another sense of the word unjust, in which it is applied to a part only of those things to which it is applied in the former sense of “contrary to law.”

  Again, if one man commits adultery with a view to gain, and makes money by it, and another man does it from lust, with expenditure and loss of money, the latter would not be called grasping, but profligate, while the former would not be called profligate, but unjust [in the narrower sense]. Evidently, then, he would be called unjust because of his gain.

  * Once more, acts of injustice, in the former sense, are always referred to some particular vice, as if a man commits adultery, to profligacy; if he deserts his comrade in arms, to cowardice; if he strikes another, to anger: but in a case of unjust gain, the act is referred to no other vice than injustice.

  It is plain then that, besides the injustice which is coextensive with vice, there is a second kind of injustice, which is a particular kind of vice, bearing the same name* as the first, because the same generic conception forms the basis of its definition; i.e. both display themselves in dealings with others, but the sphere of the second is limited to such things as honour, wealth, security (perhaps some one name might be found to include all this class† ), and its motive is the pleasure of gain, while the sphere of the first is coextensive with the sphere of the good man’s action.

  We have ascertained, then, that there are more kinds of justice than one, and that there is another kind besides that which is identical with complete virtue; we now have to find what it is, and what are its characteristics.

  We have already distinguished two senses in which we speak of things as unjust, viz. (1) contrary to law, (2) unfair; and two senses in which we speak of things as just, viz. (1) according to law, (2) fair.

  The injustice which we have already considered corresponds to unlawful.

  But since unfair is not the same as unlawful, but differs from it as the part from the whole (for unfair is always unlawful, but unlawful is not always unfair), unjust and injustice in the sense corresponding to unfair will not be the same as unjust and injustice in the sense corresponding to unlawful, but different as the part from the whole; for this injustice is a part of complete injustice, and the corresponding justice is a part of complete justice. We must therefore speak of justice and injustice, and of that which is just and that which is unjust, in this limited sense.

  We may dismiss, then, the justice which coincides with complete virtue and the corresponding injustice, the former being the exercise of complete virtue towards others, the latter of complete vice.

  It is easy also to see how we are to define that which is just and that which is unjust in their corresponding senses [according to law and contrary to law]. For the great bulk, we may say, of the acts which are according to law are the acts which the law commands with a view to complete virtue; for the law orders us to display all the virtues and none of the vices in our lives.

  But the acts which tend to produce complete virtue are those of the acts according to law which are prescribed with reference to the education of a man as a citizen. As for the education of the individual as such, which tends to make him simply a good man, we may reserve the question whether it belongs to the science of the state or not; for it is possible that to be a good man is not the same as to be a good citizen of any state whatever.*

  But of justice as a part of virtue, and of that which is just in the corresponding sense, one kind is that which has to do with the distribution of honour, wealth, and the other things that are divided among the members of the body politic (for in these circumstances it is possible for one man’s share to be unfair or fair as compared with another’s); and another kind is that which has to give redress in private transactions.

  The latter kind is again subdivided; for private transactions are (1) voluntary, (2) involuntary.

  “Voluntary transactions or contracts” are such as selling, buying, lending at interest, pledging, lending without interest, depositing, hiring: these are called “voluntary contracts,” because the parties enter into them of their own will.

  “Involuntary transactions,” again, are of two kinds: one involving secrecy, such as theft, adultery, poisoning, procuring, corruption of slaves, assassination, false witness; the other involving open violence, such as assault, seizure of the person, murder, rape, maiming, slander, contumely.

  3.

  Of what is just in ditribution and its rule of geometrical proportion.

  The unjust man [in this limited sense of the word], we say, is unfair, and that which is unjust is unfair.

  Now, it is plain that there must be a mean which lies between what is unfair on this side and on that. And this is that which is fair or equal; for any act that admits of a too much and a too little admits also of that which is fair.

  If then that which is unjust be unfair, that which is just will be fair, which indeed is admitted by all without further proof.

  But since that which is fair or equal is a mean between two extremes, it follows that what is just will be a mean.

  But equality or fairness implies two terms at least.*

  It follows, then, that that which is just is both a mean quantity and also a fair amount relatively to something else and to certain persons—in other words, that, on the one hand, as a mean quantity it implies certain other quantities, i.e. a more and a less; and, on the other hand, as an equal or fair amount it involves two quantities,† and as a just amount it involves certain persons.

  That which is just, then, implies four terms at least: two persons to whom justice is done, and two things.

  And there must be the same “equality” [i.e. the same ratio] between the persons and the things: as the things are to one another, so must the persons be. For if the persons be not equal, their shares will not be equal; and this is the source of disputes and accusations, when persons who are equal do not receive equal shares, or when persons who are not equal receive equal shares.

  This is also plainly indicated by the common phrase “according to merit.” For in distribution all men allow that what is just must be according to merit or worth of some kind, but they do not all adopt the same standard of worth; in democratic states they take free birth as the standard,* in oligarchic states they take wealth, in others noble birth, and in the true aristocratic state virtue or personal merit.

  We see, then, that that which is just is in some sort proportionate. For not abstract numbers only, but all things that can be numbered, admit of proportion; proportion meaning equality of ratios, and requiring four terms at least.

  That discrete proportion† requires four terms is evident at once. Continuous proportion also requires four terms: for in it one term is employed as two and is repeated; for instance, a/b = b/c. The term b then is repeated; and so, counting b twice over, we find that the terms of the proportion are four in number.

  That which is just, then, requires that there be four terms at least, and that the ratio between the two pairs be the same, i.e. that the persons stand to one another in the same ratio as the things.

  Let us say, then, a/b = c/d, or alternandoa/c = b/d.

  The sums of these new pairs then will stand to one another in the original ratio [i.e. a + c/b + d = a/b or c/d ].

  But these are the pairs which the distribution joins together;‡ and if the things be assigned in this manner, the distribution is just.

  This joining, then, of a to c and of b to d is that which is just in distribution; and that which is just in this sense is a mean quantity, while that which is unjust is that which is disproportionate; for that which is proportionate is a mean quantity, but that which is just is, as we said, proportionate.

  This proportion is called by the mathematicians a geometrical proportion; for it is when four terms are in geometrical proportion that the sum [of the first and third] is to the sum [of the second and fourth] in the original ratio [of the first to the second or the third to the fourth].

  But this proportion [as applied in justice] cannot be a continuous proportion; for one term cannot represent both a person and a thing.

  That which is just, then, in this sense is that which is proportionate; but that which is unjust is that which is disproportionate. In the latter case one quantity becomes more or too much, the other less or too little. And this we see in practice; for he who wrongs another gets too much, and he who is wronged gets too little of the good in question: but of the evil conversely; for the lesser evil stands in the place of good when compared with the greater evil: for the lesser evil is more desirable than the greater, but that which is desirable is good, and that which is more desirable is a greater good.

  This then is one form of that which is just.

  4.

  Of that which is just in correction, and its rule of arithmetical proportion.

  It remains to treat of the other form, viz. that which is just in the way of redress, the sphere of which is private transactions, whether voluntary or involuntary.

  This differs in kind from the former.

  For that which is just in the distribution of a common stock of good things is always in accordance with the proportion above specified (even when it is a common fund that has to be divided, the sums which the several participants take must bear the same ratio to one another as the sums they have put in), and that which is unjust in the corresponding sense is that which violates this proportion.

  But that which is just in private transactions* is indeed fair or equal in some sort, and that which is unjust is unfair or unequal; but the proportion to be observed here is not a geometrical proportion as above, but an arithmetical one.

  For it makes no difference whether a good man defrauds a bad one, or a bad man a good one, nor whether a man who commits an adultery be a good or a bad man; the law looks only to the difference created by the injury, treating the parties themselves as equal, and only asking whether the one has done, and the other suffered, injury or damage.

  That which is unjust, then, is here something unequal [or unfair] which the judge tries to make equal [or fair]. For even when one party is struck and the other strikes, or one kills and the other is killed, that which is suffered and that which is done may be said to be unequally or unfairly divided; the judge then tries to restore equality by the penalty or loss which he inflicts upon the offender, subtracting it from his gain.

  For in such cases, though the terms are not always quite appropriate, we generally talk of the doer’s “gain” (e.g. the striker’s) and the sufferer’s “loss;” but when the suffering has been assessed by the court, what the doer gets is called “loss” or penalty, and what the sufferer gets is called “gain.”

  What is fair or equal, then, is a mean between more or too much and less or too little; but gain and loss are both more or too much and less or too little in opposite ways, i.e. gain is more or too much good and less or too little evil, and loss the opposite of this.

  And in the mean between them, as we found, lies that which is equal or fair, which we say is just.

  That which is just in the way of redress, then, is the mean between loss and gain.

  When disputes arise, therefore, men appeal to the judge:* and an appeal to the judge is an appeal to that which is just; for the judge is intended to be as it were a living embodiment of that which is just; and men require of a judge that he shall be moderate [or observe the mean], and sometimes even call judges “mediators” (μεσιδίους), signifying that if they get the mean they will get that which is just.

  That which is just, then, must be a sort of mean, if the judge be a “mediator.”

  But the judge restores equality; it is as if he found a line divided into two unequal parts, and were to cut off from the greater that by which it exceeds the half, and to add this to the less.

  But when the whole is equally divided, the parties are said to have their own, each now receiving an equal or fair amount.

  But the equal or fair amount is here the arithmetic mean between the more or too much and the less or too little. And so it is called δίκαιον (just) because there is equal division (δίχα); δίκαιον being in fact equivalent to δίχαιον, and δικαστής (judge) to διχαστής.

  If you cut off a part from one of two equal lines and add it to the other, the second is now greater than the first by two such parts (for if you had only cut off the part from the first without adding it to the second, the second would have been greater by only one such part); the second exceeds the mean by one such part, and the mean also exceeds the first by one.

  Thus we can tell how much to take away from him who has more or too much, and how much to add to him who has less or too little: to the latter’s portion must be added that by which it falls short of the mean, and from the former’s portion must be taken away that by which it exceeds the mean.

  To illustrate this, let AA′, BB′, CC′ be three equal lines:—

  

  From AA′ let AE be cut off; and let CD [equal to AE] be added to CC′; then the whole DCC′ exceeds EA′ by CD and CZ [equal to AE or CD], and exceeds BB′ by CD.

  And this* holds good not only in geometry, but in the arts also; they could not exist unless that which is worked upon received an impression corresponding in kind and quantity and quality to the exertions of the artist.

  But these terms, “loss” and “gain,” are borrowed from voluntary exchange. For in voluntary exchange having more than your own is called gaining, and having less than you started with is called losing (in buying and selling, I mean, and in the other transactions in which the law allows free play); but when the result to each is neither more nor less but the very same amount with which he started, then they say that they have their own, and are neither losers nor gainers. That which is just, then, is a mean between a gain and a loss, which are both contrary to the intention,* and consists in having after the transaction the equivalent of that which you had before it.

  5.

  Simple requital is not identical with what is just, but proportionate requital is what is just in exchange; and this is effected by means of money. We can now give a general definition of justice (2).

  Some people, indeed, go so far as to think that simple requital is just. And so the Pythagoreans used to teach; for their definition of what is just was simply that what a man has done to another should be done to him.

  But this simple requital does not correspond either with that which is just in distribution or with that which is just in the way of redress (though they try to make out that this is the meaning of the Rhadamanthine rule—

  “To suffer that which thou hast done is just”);

  for in many cases it is quite different. For instance, if an officer strike a man, he ought not to be struck in return; and if a man strike an officer, he ought not merely to be struck, but to be punished.

  Further, it makes a great difference whether what was done to the other was done with his consent or against it.

  But it is true that, in the interchange of services, this is the rule of justice that holds society together, viz. requital—but proportionate requital, and not simple repayment of equals for equals. For the very existence of a state depends upon proportionate return. If men have suffered evil, they seek to return it; if not, if they cannot requite an injury, we count their condition slavish. And again, if men have received good, they seek to repay it: for otherwise there is no exchange of services; but it is by this exchange that we are bound together in society.

  This is the reason why we set up a temple of the graces [charities, χάριτες] in sight of all men, to remind them to repay that which they receive; for this is the special characteristic of charity or grace. We ought to return the good offices of those who have been gracious to us, and then again to take the lead in good offices towards them.

  But proportionate interchange is brought about by “cross conjunction.”

  For instance, let A stand for a builder, B for a shoemaker, C for a house, D for shoes.*

  The builder then must take some of the shoemaker’s work, and give him his own work in exchange.

  Now, the desired result will be brought about if requital take place after proportionate equality has first been established.*

  If this be not done, there is no equality, and intercourse becomes impossible; for there is no reason why the work of the one should not be worth more than the work of the other. Their work, then, must be brought to an equality [or appraised by a common standard of value].

  This is no less true of the other arts and professions [than of building and shoemaking]; for they could not exist if that which the patient [client or consumer] receives did not correspond in quantity and quality with that which the agent [artist or producer] does or produces.†

  For it is not between two physicians that exchange of services takes place, but between a physician and a husbandman, and generally between persons of different professions and of unequal worth; these unequal persons, then, have to be reduced to equality [or measured by a common standard].*

  All things or services, then, which are to be exchanged must be in some way reducible to a common measure.

  For this purpose money was invented, and serves as a medium of exchange; for by it we can measure everything, and so can measure the superiority and inferiority of different kinds of work—the number of shoes, for instance, that is equivalent to a house or to a certain quantity of food.

  What is needed then is that so many shoes shall bear to a house (or a measure of corn) the same ratio that a builder [or a husbandman] bears to a shoemaker.† For unless this adjustment be effected, no dealing or exchange of services can take place; and it cannot be effected unless the things to be exchanged can be in some way made equal.

  We want, therefore, some one common measure of value, as we said before.

  This measure is, in fact, the need for each other’s services which holds the members of a society together; for if men had no needs, or no common needs, there would either be no exchange, or a different sort of exchange from that which we know.

  But money has been introduced by convention as a kind of substitute for need or demand; and this is why we call it νόμισμα, because its value is derived, not from nature, but from law (νόμος), and can be altered or abolished at will.

  Requital then will take place after the wares have been so equated [by the adjustment of prices] that the quantity of shoemaker’s work bears to the quantity of husbandman’s work [which exchanges for it] the same ratio that husbandman bears to shoemaker.* But this adjustment must be made,† not at the time of exchange (for then one of the two parties would get both the advantages‡ ), but while they are still in possession of their own wares; if this be done, they are put on an equal footing and can make an exchange, because this kind of equality can be established between them.

  If A stand for a husbandman and C for a certain quantity of his work (or corn), B will stand for a shoemaker, and D for that quantity of shoemaker’s work that is valued as equal to C.

  If they could not requite each other in this way, interchange of services would be impossible.

  That it is our need which forms, as it were, a common bond to hold society together, is seen from the fact that people do not exchange unless they are in need of one another’s services (each party of the services of the other, or at least one party of the service of the other), as when that which one has, e.g. wine, is needed by other people who offer to export corn in return. This article, then [the corn to be exported], must be made equal [to the wine that is imported].*

  But even if we happen to want nothing at the moment, money is a sort of guarantee that we shall be able to make an exchange at any future time when we happen to be in need; for the man who brings money must always be able to take goods in exchange.

  Money is, indeed, subject to the same conditions as other things: its value is not always the same; but still it tends to be more constant than the value of anything else.

  Everything, then, must be assessed in money; for this enables men always to exchange their services, and so makes society possible.

  Money, then, as a standard, serves to reduce things to a common measure, so that equal amounts of each may be taken; for there would be no society if there were no exchange, and no exchange if there were no equality, and no equality if it were not possible to reduce things to a common measure.

  In strictness, indeed, it is impossible to find any common measure for things so extremely diverse; but our needs give a standard which is sufficiently accurate for practical purposes.

  There must, then, be some one common symbol for this, and that a conventional symbol; so we call it money (νόμισμα, νόμος). Money makes all things commensurable, for all things are valued in money. For instance, let A stand for a house, B for ten minæ, C for a bed; and let A = B/2, taking a house to be worth or equal to five minæ, and let C (the bed) = B/10. We see at once, then, how many beds are equal to one house, viz. five.

  It is evident that, before money came into use, all exchange must have been of this kind: it makes no difference whether you give five beds for a house, or the value of five beds.

  Thus we have described that which is unjust and that which is just. And now that these are determined, we can see that doing justice is a mean between doing and suffering injustice; for the one is having too much, or more, and the other too little, or less than one’s due.

  We see also that the virtue justice is a kind of moderation or observance of the mean, but not quite in the same way as the virtues hitherto spoken of. It does indeed choose a mean, but both the extremes fall under the single vice injustice.*

  We see also that justice is that habit in respect of which the just man is said to be apt to do deliberately that which is just; that is to say, in dealings between himself and another (or between two other parties), to apportion things, not so that he shall get more or too much, and his neighbour less or too little, of what is desirable, and conversely with what is disadvantageous, but so that each shall get his fair, that is, his proportionate share, and similarly in dealings between two other parties.

  Injustice, on the contrary, is the character which chooses what is unjust, which is a disproportionate amount, that is, too much and too little of what is advantageous and disadvantageous respectively.

  Thus injustice, as we say, is both an excess and a deficiency, in that it chooses both an excess and a deficiency—in one’s own affairs choosing excess of what is, as a general rule, advantageous, and deficiency of what is disadvantageous; in the affairs of others making a similarly disproportionate assignment, though in which way the proportion is violated will depend upon circumstances.

  But of the two sides of the act of injustice, suffering is a lesser wrong than doing the injustice.

  Let this, then, be accepted as our account, in general terms, of the nature of justice and injustice respectively, and of that which is just and that which is unjust.

  6.

  (One can act unjustly without being unjust.) That which is just in the strict sense is between citizens only, for it implies law.

  But since it is possible for a man to do an act of injustice without yet being unjust, what acts of injustice are there, such that the doing of them stamps a man at once as unjust in this or that particular way, e.g. as a thief, or an adulterer, or a robber?

  Perhaps we ought to reply that there is no such difference in the acts.* A man might commit adultery, knowing what he was about, and yet be acting not from a deliberate purpose at all, but from a momentary passion. In such a case, then, a man acts unjustly, but is not unjust; e.g. is not a thief though he commits a theft, and is not an adulterer though he commits adultery, and so on.†

  We have already explained the relation which requital bears to that which is just. But we must not fail to notice that what we are seeking is at once that which is just simply [or without any qualifying epithet], and that which is just in a state or between citizens.* Now, this implies men who associate together in order to supply their deficiencies, being free men, and upon a footing of equality, either absolute or proportionate.

  Between those who are not upon this footing, then, we cannot speak of that which is just as between citizens (though there is something that can be called just metaphorically). For the term just cannot be properly applied, except where men have a law to appeal to,† and the existence of law implies the existence of injustice; for the administration of the law is the discrimination of what is just from what is unjust.

  But injustice implies an act of injustice (though an act of injustice does not always imply injustice) which is taking too much of the goods and too little of the evils of life. And so we do not allow an individual to rule over us, but reason or law; for an individual is apt thus to take more for himself, and to become a tyrant.

  The magistrate’s function, then, is to secure that which is just, and if that which is just, then that which is equal or fair. But it seems that he gets no advantage from his office, if he is just (for he does not take a larger share of the good things of life, except when that larger share is proportionate to his worth; he works, therefore, in the interests of others, which is the reason why justice is sometimes called “another’s good,” as we remarked before).* Some salary, therefore, must be given him, and this he receives in the shape of honours and privileges; and it is when magistrates are not content with these that they make themselves tyrants.

  That which is just as between master and slave, or between father and child, is not the same as this, though like. We cannot speak (without qualification) of injustice towards what is part of one’s self—and a man’s chattels and his children (until they are of a certain age and are separated from their parent) are as it were a part of him—for no one deliberately chooses to injure himself; so that a man cannot be unjust towards himself.

  We cannot speak in this case, then, of that which is unjust, or of that which is just as between citizens; for that, we found, is according to law, and subsists between those whose situation implies law, i.e., as we found, those who participate equally or fairly in governing and being governed.

  The term just, therefore, is more appropriate to a man’s relations to his wife than to his relations to his children and his chattels, and we do speak in this sense of that which is just in a family; but even this is not the same as that which is just between citizens.*

  7.

  It is in part natural, in part conventional.

  Now, of that which is just as between citizens, part is natural, part is conventional. That is natural which has the same validity everywhere, and does not depend on our accepting or rejecting it; that is conventional which at the outset may be determined in this way or in that indifferently, but which when once determined is no longer indifferent; e.g. that a man’s ransom be a mina, or that a sacrifice consist of a goat and not of two sheep; and, again, those ordinances which are made for special occasions, such as the sacrifice to Brasidas [at Amphipolis], and all ordinances that are of the nature of a decree.

  Now, there are people who think that what is just is always conventional, because that which is natural is invariable, and has the same validity everywhere, as fire burns here and in Persia, while that which is just is seen to be not invariable.

  But this is not altogether true, though it is true in a way. Among the gods, indeed, we may venture to say it is not true at all; but of that which is just among us part is natural, though all is subject to change. Though all is subject to change, nevertheless, I repeat, part is natural and part not.

  Nor is it hard to distinguish, among things that may be other than they are, that which is natural from that which is not natural but dependent on law or convention, though both are alike variable. In other fields we can draw the same distinction; we say, for instance, that the right hand is naturally the stronger, though in any man the left may become equally strong.

  And so, of that which is just, that part which is conventional and prescribed with a view to a particular end* varies as measures vary; for the measures of wine and of corn are not everywhere the same, but larger where the dealers buy, and smaller where they sell.† So I say that which is just not by nature but merely by human ordinance is not the same everywhere, any more than constitutions are everywhere the same, though there is but one constitution that is naturally the best everywhere.

  The terms “just” and “lawful” in each of their several senses stand for universal notions which embrace a number of particulars; i.e. the acts are many, but the notion is one, for it is applied to all alike.

  “That which is unjust,” we must notice, is different from “an act of injustice,” and “that which is just” from “an act of justice:” for a thing is unjust either by nature or by ordinance; but this same thing when done is called “an act of injustice,” though before it was done it could only be called unjust. And so with “an act of justice” (δικαίωμα); though in the latter case we rather employ δικαιοπράγημα as the generic term, and restrict δικαίωμα to the correction of an act of injustice. But as to the several species of acts of justice and injustice, we must postpone for the present the inquiry into their nature and number and the ground which they cover.

  8.

  The internal conditions of a just or unjust action, and of a just or unjust agent.

  Now that we have ascertained what is just and what is unjust, we may say that a man acts unjustly or justly when he does these things voluntarily; but when he does them involuntarily, he does not, strictly speaking, act either unjustly or justly, but only “accidentally,” i.e. he does a thing which happens to be just or unjust.* For whether an act is or is not to be called an act of injustice (or of justice) depends upon whether it is voluntary or involuntary; for if it be voluntary the agent is blamed, and at the same time the act becomes an act of injustice: so something unjust may be done, and yet it may not be an act of injustice, i.e. if this condition of voluntariness be absent.

  By a voluntary act I mean, as I explained before, anything which, being within the doer’s control, is done knowingly (i.e. with knowledge of the person, the instrument, and the result; e.g. the person whom and the instrument with which he is striking, and the effect of the blow), without the intervention at any point of accident or constraint; e.g. if another take your hand and with it strike a third person, that is not a voluntary act of yours, for it was not within your control; again, the man you strike may be your father, and you may know that it is a man, or perhaps that it is one of the company, that you are striking but not know that it is your father; and it must be understood that the same distinction is to be made with regard to the result, and, in a word, to the whole act. That then which either is done in ignorance, or, though not done in ignorance, is not under our control, or is done under compulsion, is involuntary; besides which, there are many natural processes in which we knowingly take an active or a passive part, which cannot be called either voluntary or involuntary, such as growing old and dying.

  An accidentally unjust act and an accidentally just act are equally possible; e.g. a man might restore a deposit against his will for fear of consequences, and then you could not say that he did what was just or acted justly except accidentally:* and, similarly, a man who against his will was forcibly prevented from restoring a deposit would be said only accidentally to act unjustly or to do that which is unjust.

  Voluntary acts, again, are divided into (1) those that are done of set purpose, and (2) those that are done without set purpose; i.e. (1) those that are done after previous deliberation, and (2) those that are done without previous deliberation.

  Now, there are three ways in which we may hurt our neighbour. Firstly, a hurt done in ignorance is generally called a mistake when there is a misconception as to the person affected, or the thing done, or the instrument, or the result; e.g. I may not think to hit, or not to hit with this instrument, or not to hit this person, or not to produce this effect, but an effect follows other than that which was present to my mind; I may mean to inflict a prick, not a wound, or not to wound the person whom I wound, or not to deal a wound of this kind.

  But [if we draw the distinction more accurately] when the hurt comes about contrary to what might reasonably be expected, it may be called a mishap: but when, though it is not contrary to what might reasonably be expected, there is still no vicious intention, it is a mistake; for a man makes a mistake when he sets the train of events in motion,* but he is unfortunate when an external agency interferes.†

  Secondly, when the agent acts with knowledge but without previous deliberation, it is an act of injustice; e.g. when he is impelled by anger or any of the other passions to which man is necessarily or naturally subject. In doing such hurt and committing such errors, the doer acts unjustly and the acts are acts of injustice, though they are not such as to stamp him as unjust or wicked; for the hurt is not done out of wickedness.

  But, thirdly, when it is done of set purpose, the doer is unjust and wicked.

  On this account acts done in anger are rightly held not to be done of malice aforethought; for he who gave the provocation began it, not he who did the deed in a passion.

  Again, in such cases as this last, what men dispute about is usually not whether the deed was done or not, but what the justice of the case is; for it is an apparent injustice that stirs the assailant’s wrath. There is a difference between cases of this kind and disputes about contracts: in the latter the question is a question of fact, and one or other of the parties must be a vicious character, unless his memory be at fault; but in these cases they agree about the facts, but differ as to which side is in the right (whereas the deliberate aggressor knows very well the rights of the case), so that the one thinks that he is wronged, while the other thinks differently.*

  But if a man hurt another of set purpose, he acts unjustly, and acts of injustice (i.e. violations of what is proportionate and fair), when so done, stamp the doer as an unjust character.

  In like manner a man is a just character when he of set purpose acts justly; but he is said to act justly if he merely do voluntarily that which is just.

  Of involuntary injuries, on the other hand, some are pardonable, some unpardonable. Errors that are committed not merely in ignorance but by reason of ignorance are pardonable; but those that are committed not through ignorance but rather in ignorance, through some unnatural or inhuman passion, are not pardonable.†

  9.

  Sundry questions about doing and suffering injustice

  But it may be doubted whether we have sufficiently explained what it is to suffer and to do injustice. First of all, are these terms applicable to such a case as that which is described in those strange verses of Euripides?—

  • “A. I slew my mother: that is all my tale.
  • P. But say, did both or neither will the deed?”

  Is it really possible, I mean, to suffer injustice [or be wronged] voluntarily? or is suffering injustice always involuntary, as doing injustice is always voluntary?

  Again, is suffering injustice always one way or the other (as doing injustice is always voluntary), or is it sometimes voluntary and sometimes involuntary?

  Similarly with regard to having justice done to you: doing justice is always voluntary [as doing injustice is], so that one might expect that there is the same relation in both cases between the active and the passive, and that suffering injustice and having justice done to you are either both voluntary or both involuntary. But it would surely be absurd to maintain, even with regard to having justice done to you, that it is always voluntary; for some that have justice done to them certainly do not will it.

  Again we may raise the question in this [more general] form: Can a man who has that which is unjust done to him always be said to suffer injustice [or be wronged]? or are there further conditions necessary for suffering as there are for doing injustice?

  Both what I do and what I suffer may be (as we saw) “accidentally” just; and so also it may be “accidentally” unjust: for doing that which is unjust is not identical with doing injustice, nor is suffering that which is unjust the same as suffering injustice; and similarly with doing justice and having justice done to you. For to have injustice done to you implies some one that does injustice, and to have justice done to you implies some one that does justice.

  But if to do injustice means simply to hurt a man voluntarily, and voluntarily means with knowledge of the person, the instrument, and the manner, then the incontinent man, who voluntarily hurts himself, will voluntarily suffer injustice, and it will be possible for a man to do injustice to himself—the possibility of which last is also one of the questions in dispute.

  Again, a man might, through incontinence, voluntarily suffer himself to be hurt by another also acting voluntarily; so that in this case also a man might voluntarily suffer injustice.

  I think rather that the above definition is incorrect, and that to “hurting with knowledge of the person, the instrument, and the manner,” we must add “against his wish.”* If we define it so, then a man may voluntarily be hurt and suffer that which is unjust, but cannot voluntarily have injustice done to him. (For no one wishes to be hurt,—even the incontinent man does not wish it, but acts contrary to his wish. No one wishes for anything that he does not think good; what the incontinent man does is not that which he thinks he ought to do.) But he that gives, as Glaucus gives to Diomede in Homer—

  “Gold for his bronze, fivescore kine’s worth for nine,”

  does not suffer injustice; for the giving rests with him, but suffering injustice does not rest with one’s self; there must be some one to do injustice.

  It is plain, then, that suffering injustice cannot be voluntary.

  There are still two questions that we purposed to discuss: (1) Is it the man who assigns or the man who receives a disproportionately large share that does injustice? (2) Is it possible to do injustice to yourself?

  In the former case, i.e. if he who assigns and not he who receives the undue share does injustice, then if a man knowingly and voluntarily gives too much to another and too little to himself, he does injustice to himself. And this is what moderate persons are often thought to do; for the equitable man is apt to take less than his due. But the case is hardly so simple: it may be that he took a larger share of some other good, e.g. of good fame or of that which is intrinsically noble.

  Again, the difficulty may be got over by reference to our definition of doing injustice; for in this case nothing is done to the man against his wish, so that no injustice is done him, but at most only harm.

  It is plain, moreover, that the man who makes the unjust award does injustice, but not always he who gets more than his share; for a man does not always do injustice when we can say of what he does that it is unjust, but only when we can say that he voluntarily does that which is unjust; and that we can only say of the prime mover in the action, which in this case is the distributor and not the receiver.

  Again, there are many senses of the word “do,” and in a certain sense an inanimate instrument, or my hand, or again my slave under my orders, may be said to slay; but though these may be said to do what is unjust, they cannot be said to act unjustly or to do an act of injustice.

  Again, if a man unwittingly gives unjust judgment, he does not commit injustice in the sense of contravening that which is just according to law, nor is his judgment unjust in this sense, but in a certain sense it is unjust; for there is a difference between that which is just according to law and that which is just in the primary sense of the word: but if he knowingly gives unjust judgment, he is himself grasping at more than his share, in the shape either of favour with one party or vengeance on the other. The judge, then, who gives unjust judgment on these grounds, takes more than his due, quite as much as if he received a share of the unjust award; for even in the latter case a judge who awards a piece of land would receive, not land, but money.

  Men fancy that as it is in their power to act unjustly, so it is an easy matter to be just. But it is not so. To lie with your neighbour’s wife, or to strike your neighbour, or to pass certain coins from your hand to his is easy enough, and always within your power, but to do these acts as the outcome of a certain character is not an easy matter, nor one which is always within your power.*

  Similarly men think that to know what is just and what is unjust needs no great wisdom, since any one can inform himself about those things which the law prescribes (though these things are only accidentally, not essentially, just): but to know how these acts must be done and how these distributions must be made in order to be just,—that indeed is a harder matter than to know what conduces to health; though that is no easy matter. It is easy enough to know the meaning of honey, and wine, and hellebore, and cautery, and the knife, but to know how, and to whom, and when they must be applied in order to produce health, is so far from being easy, that to have this knowledge is to be a physician.

  For the same reason, some people think that the just man is as able to act unjustly as justly, for he is not less but rather more capable than another of performing the several acts, e.g. of lying with a woman or of striking a blow, as the courageous man is rather more capable than another of throwing away his shield and turning his back and running away anywhere. But to play the coward or to act unjustly means not merely to do such an act (though the doer might be said “accidentally” to act unjustly),* but to do it in a certain frame of mind; just as to act the part of a doctor and to heal does not mean simply to apply the knife or not to apply it, to give or to withhold a drug, but to do this in a particular fashion.

  Justice, lastly, implies persons who participate in those things that, generally speaking, are good, but who can have too much or too little of them. For some—for the gods perhaps—no amount of them is too much; and for others—for the incurably vicious—no amount is beneficial, they are always hurtful; but for the rest of mankind they are useful within certain limits: justice, therefore, is essentially human.

  10.

  Of equity

  We have next to speak of equity and of that which is equitable, and to inquire how equity is related to justice, and that which is equitable to that which is just. For, on consideration, they do not seem to be absolutely identical, nor yet generically different. At one time we praise that which is equitable and the equitable man, and even use the word metaphorically as a term of praise synonymous with good, showing that we consider that the more equitable a thing is the better it is. At another time we reflect and find it strange that what is equitable should be praiseworthy, if it be different from what is just; for, we argue, if it be something else, either what is just is not good, or what is equitable is not good;† if both be good, they are the same.

  These are the reflections which give rise to the difficulty about what is equitable. Now, in a way, they are all correct and not incompatible with one another; for that which is equitable, though it is better than that which is just (in one sense of the word), is yet itself just, and is not better than what is just in the sense of being something generically distinct from it. What is just, then, and what is equitable are generically the same, and both are good, though what is equitable is better.

  But what obscures the matter is that though what is equitable is just, it is not identical with, but a correction of, that which is just according to law.

  The reason of this is that every law is laid down in general terms, while there are matters about which it is impossible to speak correctly in general terms. Where, then, it is necessary to speak in general terms, but impossible to do so correctly, the legislator lays down that which holds good for the majority of cases, being quite aware that it does not hold good for all.

  The law, indeed, is none the less correctly laid down because of this defect; for the defect lies not in the law, nor in the lawgiver, but in the nature of the subject-matter, being necessarily involved in the very conditions of human action.

  When, therefore, the law lays down a general rule, but a particular case occurs which is an exception to this rule, it is right, where the legislator fails and is in error through speaking without qualification, to make good this deficiency, just as the lawgiver himself would do if he were present, and as he would have provided in the law itself if the case had occurred to him.

  What is equitable, then, is just, and better than what is just in one sense of the word—not better than what is absolutely just, but better than that which fails through its lack of qualification. And the essence of what is equitable is that it is an amendment of the law, in those points where it fails through the generality of its language.

  The reason why the law does not cover all cases is that there are matters about which it is impossible to lay down a law, so that they require a special decree. For that which is variable needs a variable rule, like the leaden rule employed in the Lesbian style of masonry; as the leaden rule has no fixed shape, but adapts itself to the outline of each stone, so is the decree adapted to the occasion.

  We have ascertained, then, what the equitable course is, and have found that it is just, and also better than what is just in a certain sense of the word. And after this it is easy to see what the equitable man is: he who is apt to choose such a course and to follow it, who does not insist on his rights to the damage of others, but is ready to take less than his due, even when he has the law to back him, is called an equitable man; and this type of character is called equitableness, being a sort of justice, and not a different kind of character.

  11.

  Can a man wrong himself?

  The foregoing discussion enables us to answer the question whether it be possible or not for a man to act unjustly to himself.

  That which is just in one sense of the word we found to be those manifestations of the several virtues which the law prescribes: e.g. the law does not order a man to kill himself; and what the law does not order it forbids: and, further, when a man, contrary to the law, voluntarily inflicts hurt without provocation, he acts unjustly (voluntarily meaning with knowledge of the person and the instrument). Now, the man who kills himself in a rage voluntarily acts thus against right reason and does what the law forbids: he acts unjustly therefore.

  But unjustly to whom? To the state surely, not to himself; for he suffers voluntarily, but no one can have an injustice done him voluntarily. And upon this ground the state actually punishes him, i.e. it pronounces a particular kind of disfranchisement upon the man who destroys himself, as one who acts unjustly towards the state.

  Again, if we take the word unjust in the other sense, in which it is used to designate not general badness, but a particular species of vice, we find that in this sense also it is impossible to act unjustly to one’s self. (This, we found, is different from the former sense of the word: the unjust man in this second sense is bad in the same way as the coward is bad, i.e. as having a particular form of vice, not as having a completely vicious character, nor do we mean to say that he displays a completely vicious character when we say that he acts unjustly). For if it were possible, it would be possible for the same thing at the same time to be taken from and added to the same person. But this is impossible; and, in fact, a just deed or an unjust deed always implies more persons than one.

  Further, an act of injustice, besides being voluntary, if not deliberate, must be prior to hurt received (for he who, having received some hurt, repays the same that he received is not held to act unjustly); but he who hurts himself suffers that very hurt at the same time that he inflicts it.

  Again, if it were possible for a man to act unjustly to himself, it would be possible to suffer injustice voluntarily.

  Further, a man cannot act unjustly without doing an act of injustice of some particular kind; but no one commits adultery with his own wife, or burglariously breaks through his own walls, or steals his own property.

  But the whole question about acting unjustly to one’s self is settled (without going into detail) by the answer we gave* to the question whether a man could voluntarily suffer injustice.

  (It is plain that to suffer and to do injustice are both bad, for the one is to get less and the other more than the mean amount, which corresponds to what is healthy in medicine, or to what promotes good condition in gymnastics: but, though both are bad, to do injustice is the worse; for to do injustice is blamable and implies vice (either completely formed vice, what we call vice simply, or else that which is on the way to become vice; for a voluntary act of injustice does not always imply injustice), but to have injustice done to you is no token of a vicious and unjust character.

  In itself, then, to be unjustly treated is less bad, but there is nothing to prevent its being accidentally the greater evil. Science, however, does not concern itself with these accidents, but calls a plcurisy a greater malady than a stumble; and yet the latter might, on occasion, accidentally become the greater, as, for instance, if a stumble were to cause you to fall and be caught or slain by the enemy.)

  Though we cannot apply the term just to a man’s behaviour towards himself, yet we can apply it metaphorically and in virtue of a certain resemblance to the relations between certain parts of a man’s self—not, however, in all senses of the word just, but in that sense in which it is applied to the relations of master and slave, or husband and wife; for this is the sort of relation that exists between the rational and the irrational parts of the soul.

  And it is this distinction of parts that leads people to fancy that there is such a thing as injustice to one’s self: one part of a man can have something done to it by another part contrary to its desires; and so they think that the term just can be applied to the relations of these parts to one another, just as to the relations of ruler and ruled.*

  We may now consider that we have concluded our examination of justice and the other moral virtues.

  BOOK VI.

  THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES.

  1.

  Must be studied because (a) reason prescribes the mean, (b) they are a part of human excellence. The intellect is (1) scientific, (2) calculative: we want the virtue of each.

  We said above that what we should choose is neither too much nor too little, but “the mean,” and that “the mean” is what “right reason” prescribes. This we now have to explain.

  Each of the virtues we have discussed implies (as every mental habit implies) some aim which the rational man keeps in view when he is regulating his efforts; in other words, there must be some standard for determining the several modes of moderation, which we say lie between excess and deficiency, and are in accordance with “right reason.” But though this is quite true, it is not sufficiently precise. In any kind of occupation which can be reduced to rational principles, it is quite true to say that we must brace ourselves up and relax ourselves neither too much nor too little, but “in moderation,” “as right reason orders;” but this alone would not tell one much; e.g. a man would hardly learn how to treat a case by being told to treat it as the art of medicine prescribes, and as one versed in that art would treat it.

  So in the case of mental habits or types of character also it is not enough that the rule we have laid down is correct; we need further to know precisely what this right reason is, and what is the standard which it affords.

  * The virtues or excellences of the mind or soul, it will be remembered, we divided† into two classes, and called the one moral and the other intellectual. The moral excellences or virtues we have already discussed in detail; let us now examine the other class, the intellectual excellences, after some preliminary remarks about the soul.

  We said before that the soul consists of two parts, the rational and the irrational part. We will now make a similar division of the former, and will assume that there are two rational faculties: (1) that by which we know those things that depend on invariable principles, (2) that by which we know those things that are variable. For to generically different objects must correspond generically different faculties, if, as we hold, it is in virtue of some kind of likeness or kinship with their objects that our faculties are able to know them.

  Let us call the former the scientific or demonstrative, the latter the calculative or deliberative faculty. For to deliberate is the same as to calculate, and no one deliberates about things that are invariable. One division then of the rational faculty may be fairly called the calculative faculty.

  Our problem, then, is to find what each of these faculties becomes in its full development, or in its best state; for that will be its excellence or virtue.

  But its excellence will bear direct reference to its proper function.

  2.

  The function of the intellect, both in practice and speculation, is to attain truth.

  Now, the faculties which guide us in action and in the apprehension of truth are three: sense, reason,* and desire.

  The first of these cannot originate action, as we see from the fact that brutes have sense but are incapable of action.

  If we take the other two we find two modes of reasoning, viz. affirmation and negation [or assent and denial], and two corresponding modes of desire, viz. pursuit and avoidance [or attraction and repulsion].

  Now, moral virtue is a habit or formed faculty of choice or purpose, and purpose is desire following upon deliberation.

  It follows, then, that if the purpose is to be all it should be, both the calculation or reasoning must be true and the desire right, and that the very same things must be assented to by the former and pursued by the latter.

  This kind of reasoning, then, and this sort of truth has to do with action.

  But speculative reasoning that has to do neither with action nor production is good or bad according as it is true or false simply: for the function of the intellect is always the apprehension of truth; but the function of the practical intellect is the apprehension of truth in agreement with right desire.

  Purpose, then, is the cause—not the final but the efficient cause or origin—of action, and the origin of purpose is desire and calculation of means; so that purpose necessarily implies on the one hand the faculty of reason and its exercise, and on the other hand a certain moral character or state of the desires; for right action and the contrary kind of action are alike impossible without both reasoning and moral character.

  Mere reasoning, however, can never set anything going, but only reasoning about means to an end—what may be called practical reasoning (which practical reasoning also regulates production; for in making anything you always have an ulterior object in view—what you make is desired not as an end in itself, but only as a means to, or a condition of, something else; but what you do is an end in itself, for well-doing or right action is the end, and this is the object of desire).

  Purpose, then, may be called either a reason that desires, or a desire that reasons; and this faculty of originating action constitutes a man.

  No past event can be purposed; e.g. no one purposes to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about that which is past, but about that which is to come, and which is variable: but the past cannot be undone; so that Agathon is right when he says—

  • “This thing alone not God himself can do—
  • To make undone that which hath once been done.”

  We have thus found that both divisions of the reason, or both the intellectual faculties, have the attainment of truth for their function; that developed state of each, then, in which it best attains truth will be its excellence or virtue.

  3.

  Of the five modes of attaining truth: (1) of demonstrative science of things invariable.

  Let us describe these virtues then, starting afresh from the beginning.

  Let us assume that the modes in which the mind arrives at truth, either in the way of affirmation or negation, are five in number, viz. art, science, prudence, wisdom, reason;* for conception and opinion may be erroneous.

  What science is we may learn from the following considerations (for we want a precise account, and must not content ourselves with metaphors). We all suppose that what we know with scientific knowledge is invariable; but of that which is variable we cannot say, so soon as it is out of sight, whether it is in existence or not. The object of science, then, is necessary. Therefore it is eternal: for whatever is of its own nature necessary is eternal: and what is eternal neither begins nor ceases to be.

  Further, it is held that all science can be taught, and that what can be known in the way of science can be learnt. But all teaching starts from something already known, as we have explained in the Analytics; for it proceeds either by induction or by syllogism. Now, it is induction that leads the learner up to universal principles, while syllogism starts from these. There are principles, then, from which syllogism starts, which are not arrived at by syllogism, and which, therefore, must be arrived at by induction.*

  Science, then, may be defined as a habit or formed faculty of demonstration, with all the further qualifications which are enumerated in the Analytics. It is necessary to add this, because it is only when the principles of our knowledge are accepted and known to us in a particular way, that we can properly be said to have scientific knowledge; for unless these principles are better known to us than the conclusions based upon them, our knowledge will be merely accidental.†

  This, then, may be taken as our account of science.

  4.

  Of knowledge of things variable, viz. (2) of art in what we make;

  That which is variable includes that which man makes and that which man does; but making or production is different from doing or action (here we adopt the popular distinctions). The habit or formed faculty of acting with reason or calculation, then, is different from the formed faculty of producing with reason or calculation. And so the one cannot include the other; for action is not production, nor is production action.

  Now, the builder’s faculty is one of the arts, and may be described as a certain formed faculty of producing with calculation; and there is no art which is not a faculty of this kind, nor is there any faculty of this kind which is not an art: an art, then, is the same thing as a formed faculty of producing with correct calculation.

  And every art is concerned with bringing something into being, i.e. with contriving or calculating how to bring into being some one of those things that can either be or not be, and the cause of whose production lies in the producer, not in the thing itself which is produced. For art has not to do with that which is or comes into being of necessity, nor with the products of nature; for these have the cause of their production in themselves.

  Production and action being different, art of course has to do with production, and not with action. And, in a certain sense, its domain is the same as that of chance or fortune, as Agathon says—

  “Art waits on fortune, fortune waits on art.”

  Art, then, as we said, is a certain formed faculty or habit of production with correct reasoning or calculation, and the contrary of this (ἀτεχνία) is a habit of production with incorrect calculation, the field of both being that which is variable.

  5.

  and (3) of prudence in what we do, the virtue of the calculative intellect.

  In order to ascertain what prudence is, we will first ask who they are whom we call prudent.

  It seems to be characteristic of a prudent man that he is able to deliberate well about what is good or expedient for himself, not with a view to some particular end, such as health or strength, but with a view to well-being or living well.

  This is confirmed by the fact that we apply the name sometimes to those who deliberate well in some particular field, when they calculate well the means to some particular good end, in matters that do not fall within the sphere of art. So we may say, generally, that a man who can deliberate well is prudent.

  But no one deliberates about that which cannot be altered, nor about that which it is not in his power to do.

  Now science, we saw, implies demonstration; but things whose principles or causes are variable do not admit of demonstration; for everything that depends upon these principles or causes is also variable; and, on the other hand, things that are necessarily determined do not admit of deliberation. It follows, therefore, that prudence cannot be either a science or an art: it cannot be a science, because the sphere of action is that which is alterable; it cannot be an art, because production is generically different from action.

  It follows from all this that prudence is a formed faculty that apprehends truth by reasoning or calculation, and issues in action, in the domain of human good and ill; for while production has another end than itself, this is not so with action, since good action or well doing is itself the end.

  For this reason Pericles and men who resemble him are considered prudent, because they are able to see what is good for themselves and for men; and this we take to be the character of those who are able to manage a household or a state.

  This, too, is the reason why we call temperance σωϕροσύνη, signifying thereby that it is the virtue which preserves prudence. But what temperance preserves is this particular kind of judgment. For it is not any kind of judgment that is destroyed or perverted by the presentation of pleasant or painful objects (not such a judgment, for instance, as that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles), but only judgments about matters of practice. For the principles of practice [or the causes which originate action]* are the ends for the sake of which acts are done; but when a man is corrupted by pleasure or pain, he straightway loses sight of the principle, and no longer sees that this is the end for the sake of which, and as a means to which, each particular act should be chosen and done; for vice is apt to obliterate the principle.

  Our conclusion then is that prudence is a formed faculty which apprehends truth by reasoning or calculation, and issues in action, in the field of human good.

  Moreover, art [or the artistic faculty] has its excellence [or perfect development] in something other than itself, but this is not so with prudence. Again, in the domain of art voluntary error is not so bad as involuntary, but it is worse in the case of prudence, as it is in the case of all the virtues or excellences. It is plain, then, that prudence is a virtue or excellence, and not an art.

  And the rational parts of the soul or the intellectual faculties being two in number, prudence will be the virtue of the second, [the calculative part or] the faculty of opinion; for opinion deals with that which is variable, and so does prudence.

  But it is something more than “a formed faculty of apprehending truth by reasoning or calculation;” as we see from the fact that such a faculty may be lost, but prudence, once acquired, can never be lost.*

  6.

  (4) Of intuitive reason as the basis of demonstrative science.

  Science is a mode of judging that deals with universal and necessary truths; but truths that can be demonstrated depend upon principles, and (since science proceeds by demonstrative reasoning) every science has its principles. The principles, then, on which the truths of science depend cannot fall within the province of science, nor yet of art or prudence; for a scientific truth is one that can be demonstrated, but art and prudence have to do with that which is variable.

  Nor can they fall within the province of wisdom; for it is characteristic of the wise man to have a demonstrative knowledge of certain things.

  But the habits of mind or formed faculties by which we apprehend truth without any mixture of error, whether in the domain of things invariable or in the domain of things variable, are science, prudence, wisdom, and reason.† If then no one of the first three (prudence, science, wisdom) can be the faculty which apprehends these principles, the only possible conclusion is that they are apprehended by reason.

  7.

  (5) Of wisdom as the union of science and intuitive reason. Comparison of the two intellectual virtues, wisdom and prudence.

  The term σοϕία (wisdom* ) is sometimes applied in the domain of the arts to those who are consummate masters of their art; e.g. it is applied to Phidias as a master of sculpture, and to Polyclitus for his skill in portrait-statues; and in this application it means nothing else than excellence of art or perfect development of the artistic faculty.

  But there are also men who are considered wise, not in part nor in any particular thing (as Homer says in the Margites—

  • “Him the gods gave no skill with spade or plough,
  • Nor made him wise in aught”),

  but generally wise. In this general sense, then, wisdom plainly will be the most perfect of the sciences.

  The wise man, then, must not only know what follows from the principles of knowledge, but also know the truth about those principles. Wisdom, therefore, will be the union of [intuitive] reason with [demonstrative] scientific knowledge, or scientific knowledge of the noblest objects with its crowning perfection, so to speak, added to it. For it would be absurd to suppose that the political faculty or prudence is the highest of our faculties, unless indeed man is the best of all things in the universe.

  Now, as the terms wholesome and good mean one thing in the case of men and another in the case of fishes, while white and straight always have the same meaning, we must all allow that wise means one thing always, while prudent means different things; for we should all say that those who are clear-sighted in their own affairs are prudent, and deem them fit to be entrusted with those affairs. (And for this reason we sometimes apply the term prudent even to animals, when they show a faculty of foresight in what concerns their own life.)

  Moreover, it is plain that wisdom cannot be the same as statesmanship. If we apply the term wisdom to knowledge of what is advantageous to ourselves, there will be many kinds of wisdom; for the knowledge of what is good will not be one and the same for all animals, but different for each species. It can no more be one than the art of healing can be one and the same for all kinds of living things.

  Man may be superior to all other animals, but that will not make any difference here; for there are other things of a far diviner nature than man, as—to take the most conspicuous instance—the heavenly bodies.

  It is plain, then, after what we have said, that wisdom is the union of scientific [or demonstrative] knowledge and [intuitive] reason about objects of the noblest nature.

  And on this account people call Anaxagoras and Thales and men of that sort wise, but not prudent, seeing them to be ignorant of their own advantage; and say that their knowledge is something out of the common, wonderful, hard of attainment, nay superhuman, but useless, since it is no human good that they seek.

  Prudence, on the other hand, deals with human affairs, and with matters that admit of deliberation: for the prudent man’s special function, as we conceive it, is to deliberate well; but no one deliberates about what is invariable, or about matters in which there is not some end, in the sense of some realizable good. But a man is said to deliberate well (without any qualifying epithet) when he is able, by a process of reasoning or calculation, to arrive at what is best for man in matters of practice.

  Prudence, moreover, does not deal in general propositions only, but implies knowledge of particular facts also; for it issues in action, and the field of action is the field of particulars.

  This is the reason why some men that lack [scientific] knowledge are more efficient in practice than others that have it, especially men of wide experience; for if you know that light meat is digestible and wholesome, but do not know what meats are light, you will not be able to cure people so well as a man who only knows that chicken is light and wholesome.

  But prudence is concerned with practice; so that it needs knowledge both of general truths and of particular facts, but more especially the latter.

  But here also [i.e. in the domain of practice] there must be a supreme form of the faculty [which we will now proceed to consider].

  8.

  Prudence compared with statesmanship and other forms of knowledge.

  And in fact statesmanship and prudence are the same faculty, though they are differently manifested.

  Of this faculty in its application to the state the supreme form is the legislative faculty, but the special form which deals with particular cases is called by the generic name statesmanship. The field of the latter is action and deliberation; for a decree directly concerns action, as the last link in the chain.* And on this account those engaged in this field are alone said to be statesmen, for they alone act like handicraftsmen.

  But it is when applied to the individual and to one’s own affairs that this faculty is especially regarded as prudence, and this is the form which receives the generic name prudence or practical wisdom (the other forms being (1) the faculty of managing a household, (2) the legislative faculty, (3) statesmanship [in the narrower sense], which is subdivided into (a) the deliberative, (b) the judicial faculty).

  Knowing one’s own good, then, would seem to be a kind of knowledge (though it admits of great variety),† and, according to the general opinion, he who knows and attends to his own affairs is prudent, while statesmen are busybodies, as Euripides says—

  • “What? was I wise, who might without a care
  • Have lived a unit in the multitude
  • Like any other unit? . . .
  • For those who would excel and do great things—”

  For men generally seek their own good, and fancy that is what they should do; and from this opinion comes the notion that these men are prudent.

  And yet, perhaps, it is not possible for a man to manage his own affairs well without managing a household and taking part in the management of a state.

  Moreover, how a man is to manage his own affairs is not plain and requires consideration. And this is attested by the fact that a young man may become proficient in geometry or mathematics and wise* in these matters, but cannot possibly, it is thought, become prudent. The reason of this is that prudence deals with particular facts, with which experience alone can familiarize us; but a young man must be inexperienced, for experience is the fruit of years.

  Why again, we may ask, can a lad be a mathematician but not wise, nor proficient in the knowledge of nature? And the answer surely is that mathematics is an abstract science, while the principles of wisdom and of natural science are only to be derived from a large experience;† and that thus, though a young man may repeat propositions of the latter kind, he does not really believe them, while he can easily apprehend the meaning of mathematical terms.

  Error in deliberation, again, may lie either in the universal or in the particular judgment; for instance, you may be wrong in judging that all water that weighs heavy is unwholesome, or in judging that this water weighs heavy. But prudence [in spite of its universal judgments] plainly is not science; for, as we said,* it deals with the ultimate or particular fact [the last link in the chain], for anything that can be done must be of this nature.

  And thus it is in a manner opposed to the intuitive reason also: the intuitive reason deals with primary principles which cannot be demonstrated, while prudence deals with ultimate [particular] facts which cannot be scientifically proved, but are perceived by sense—not one of the special senses, but a sense analogous to that by which we perceive in mathematics that this ultimate [particular] figure is a triangle;† for here too our reasoning must come to a stand. But this faculty [by which we apprehend particular facts in the domain of practice] should, after all, be called sense rather than prudence; for prudence cannot be defined thus.‡

  9.

  Of deliberation.

  Inquiry and deliberation are not the same; for deliberation is a particular kind of inquiry. But we must ascertain what good deliberation is—whether it is a kind of science or opinion, or happy guessing, or something quite different.

  It is not science; for we do not inquire about that which we know: but good deliberation is a kind of deliberation, and when we deliberate we inquire and calculate.

  Nor is it happy guessing; for we make happy guesses without calculating and in a moment, but we take time to deliberate, and it is a common saying that execution should be swift, but deliberation slow.

  Good deliberation, again, is different from sagacity, which is a kind of happy guessing.

  Nor is it any kind of opinion.

  But since in deliberating ill we go wrong, and in deliberating well we go right, it is plain that good deliberation is a kind of rightness, but a rightness or correctness neither of science nor opinion; for science does not admit of correctness (since it does not admit of error), and correctness of opinion is simply truth; and, further, that concerning which we have an opinion is always something already settled.

  Good deliberation, however, is impossible without calculation.

  We have no choice left, then, but to say that it is correctness of reasoning (διάνοια); for reasoning is not yet assertion: and whereas opinion is not an inquiry, but already a definite assertion, when we are deliberating, whether well or ill, we are inquiring and calculating.

  But as good deliberation is a kind of correctness in deliberation, we must first inquire what deliberation means, and what its field is.*

  Now, there are various kinds of correctness, and it is plain that not every kind of correctness in deliberation is good deliberation; for the incontinent man or the vicious man may duly arrive, by a process of calculation, at the end which he has in view,* so that he will have deliberated correctly, though what he gains is a great evil. But to have deliberated well is thought to be a good thing; for it is only a particular kind of correctness in deliberation that is called good deliberation—that, namely, which arrives at what is good.

  But, further, what is good may be arrived at by a false syllogism; I mean that a right conclusion as to what is to be done may be arrived at in a wrong way or upon wrong grounds—the middle term being wrong;† so that what leads to a right conclusion as to what should be done is not good deliberation, unless the grounds also be right.

  A further difference is that one may arrive at the right conclusion slowly, another rapidly. So we must add yet another condition to the above, and say that good deliberation means coming to a right conclusion as to what is expedient or ought to be done, and coming to it in the right manner and at the right time.

  Again, we speak of deliberating well simply, and of deliberating well with a view to a particular kind of end. So good deliberation simply [or without any qualifying epithet] is that which leads to right conclusions as to the means to the end simply; a particular kind of good deliberation is that which leads to right conclusions as to the means to a particular kind of end. And so, when we say that prudent men must deliberate well, good deliberation in this case will be correctness in judging what is expedient to that end of which prudence has a true conception.

  10.

  Of intelligence

  The faculty of intelligence or sound intelligence, in respect of which we say a man is intelligent or of sound intelligence, is not the same as science generally, nor as opinion (for then all men would be intelligent), nor is it identical with any particular science, such as medicine, which deals with matters of health, and geometry, which deals with magnitudes; for intelligence has not to do with what is eternal and unchangeable, nor has it to do with events of every kind, but only with those that one may doubt and deliberate about. And so it has to do with the same matters as prudence; but they are not identical: prudence issues orders, for its scope is that which is to be done or not to be done; while intelligence discerns merely (intelligence being equivalent to sound intelligence, and an intelligent man to a man of sound intelligence).

  Intelligence, in fact, is equivalent neither to the possession nor to the acquisition of prudence; but just as the learner in science is said to show intelligence when he makes use of the scientific knowledge which he hears from his teacher, so in the domain of prudence a man is said to show intelligence when he makes use of the opinions which he hears from others in judging, and judging fitly—for soundly [when we speak of sound intelligence] means fitly.

  And from this use of the term with regard to learning comes its employment to denote that faculty which we imply when we call a man intelligent; for we often speak of the intelligence of a learner.

  11.

  Of judgment Of reason or intuitive perception as the basis of the practical intellect.

  Judgment (what we mean when we speak of a man of kindly judgment, or say a man has judgment) is a correct discernment of that which is equitable. For the equitable man is thought to be particularly kindly in his judgments, and to pass kindly judgments on some things is considered equitable. But kindly judgment (συγγνώμη) is judgment (γνώμη) which correctly discerns that which is equitable—correctly meaning truly.

  Now, all these four formed faculties which we have enumerated not unnaturally tend in the same direction. We apply all these terms—judgment, intelligence, prudence, and reason—to the same persons, and talk of people as having, at a certain age, already acquired judgment and reason, and as being prudent and intelligent. For all these four faculties deal with ultimate and particular* facts, and it is in virtue of a power of discrimination in the matters with which prudence deals that we call a person intelligent, or a man of sound judgment, or kindly judgment; for equitable is a common term that is applicable to all that is good in our dealings with others.

  But that which is to be done is always some particular thing, something ultimate. As we have seen, it is the business of the prudent man to know it, and intelligence and judgment also have to do with that which is to be done, which is something ultimate.

  And the intuitive reason [the last of the four faculties above enumerated] also deals with ultimate truths, in both senses of the word;* for both primary principles and ultimate facts [in the narrower sense of the word ultimate = particular] are apprehended by the intuitive reason, and not by demonstration: on the one hand, in connection with deductions [of general truths in morals and politics],† reason apprehends the unalterable first principles; on the other hand, in connection with practical calculations, reason apprehends the ultimate [particular] alterable fact (which forms the minor premise [in the practical syllogism]. These particular judgments, we may say, are given by reason, as they are the source of our conception of the final cause or end of man; the universal principle is elicited from the particular facts: these particular facts, therefore, must be apprehended by a sense or intuitive perception; and this is reason.‡

  And so it is thought that these faculties are natural, and that while nature never makes a man wise, she does endow men with judgment and intelligence and reason. This is shown by the fact that these powers are believed to accompany certain periods of life, and that a certain age is said to bring reason and judgment, implying that they come by nature.

  (The intuitive reason, then, is both beginning and end; for demonstration both starts from and terminates in these ultimate truths.)

  And on this account we ought to pay the same respect to the undemonstrated assertions and opinions of men of age and experience and prudence as to their demonstrations. For experience has given them a faculty of vision which enables them to see correctly.*

  We have said, then, what prudence is, and what wisdom is, and what each deals with, and that each is the virtue of a different part of the soul.

  12.

  Of the uses of wisdom and prudence. How prudence is related to cleverness.

  But here an objection may be raised. “What is the use of them?” it may be asked. “Wisdom does not consider what tends to make man happy (for it does not ask how anything is brought about). Prudence indeed does this, but why do we need it? Prudence is the faculty which deals with what is just and noble and good for man, i.e. with those things which it is the part of the good man to do; but the knowledge of them no more makes us apter to do them, if (as has been said) the [moral] virtues are habits, than it does in the case of what is healthy and wholesome—healthy and wholesome, that is, not in the sense of conducing to, but in the sense of issuing from, a healthy habit; for a knowledge of medicine and gymnastics does not make us more able to do these things.

  “But if it be meant that a man should be prudent, not in order that he may do these acts, but in order that he may become able to do them, then prudence will be no use to those who are good, nor even to those who are not. For it will not matter whether they have prudence themselves, or take the advice of others who have it. It will be enough to do in these matters as we do in regard to health; for if we wish to be in health, we do not go and learn medicine.

  “Again, it seems to be a strange thing that prudence, though inferior to wisdom, must yet govern it, since in every field the practical faculty bears sway and issues orders.”

  We must now discuss these points; for hitherto we have been only stating objections.

  First, then, we may say that both prudence and wisdom must be desirable in themselves, since each is the virtue of one of the parts of the soul, even if neither of them produces anything.

  Next, they do produce something.

  On the one hand, wisdom produces happiness, not in the sense in which medicine produces health, but in the sense in which health produces health;* that is to say, wisdom being a part of complete virtue, its possession and exercise make a man happy.

  On the other hand [in the sphere of action], man performs his function perfectly when he acts in accordance with both prudence and moral virtue; for while the latter ensures the rightness of the end aimed at, the former ensures the rightness of the means thereto.

  The fourth† part of the soul, the vegetative part, or the faculty of nutrition, has no analogous excellence; for it has no power to act or not to act.

  But as to the objection that prudence makes us no more apt to do what is noble and just, let us take the matter a little deeper, beginning thus:—

  We allow, on the one hand, that some who do just acts are not yet just; e.g. those who do what the laws enjoin either unwillingly or unwittingly, or for some external motive and not for the sake of the acts themselves (though they do that which they ought and all that a good man should do). And, on the other hand, it seems that when a man does the several acts with a certain disposition he is good; i.e. when he does them of deliberate purpose, and for the sake of the acts themselves.

  Now, the rightness of the purpose is secured by [moral] virtue, but to decide what is proper to be done in order to carry out the purpose belongs not to [moral] virtue, but to another faculty. But we must dwell a little on this point and try to make it quite clear.

  There is a faculty which we call cleverness (δεινότης)—the power of carrying out the means to any proposed end, and so achieving it. If then the end be noble, the power merits praise; but if the end be base, the power is the power of the villain. So we apply the term clever both to the prudent man and the villain.*

  Now, this power is not identical with prudence, but is its necessary condition. But this power, the “eye of the soul” as we may call it, does not attain its perfect development† without moral virtue, as we said before, and as may be shown thus:—

  All syllogisms or deductive reasonings about what is to be done have for their starting point [principle or major premise] “the end or the supreme good is so and so” (whatever it be; any definition of the good will do for the argument). But it is only to the good man that this presents itself as the good; for vice perverts us and causes us to err about the principles of action. So it is plain, as we said, that it is impossible to be prudent without being morally good.

  13.

  How prudence is related to moral virtue

  This suggests a further consideration of moral virtue; for the case is closely analogous to this—I mean that just as prudence is related to cleverness, being not identical with it, but closely akin to it, so is fully developed moral virtue related to natural virtue.

  All admit that in a certain sense the several kinds of character are bestowed by nature. Justice, a tendency to temperance, courage, and the other types of character are exhibited from the moment of birth. Nevertheless, we look for developed goodness as something different from this, and expect to find these same qualities in another form. For even in children and brutes these natural virtues are present, but without the guidance of reason they are plainly hurtful. So much at least seems to be plain—that just as a strong-bodied creature devoid of sight stumbles heavily when it tries to move, because it cannot see, so is it with this natural virtue; but when it is enlightened by reason it acts surpassingly well; and the natural virtue (which before was only like virtue) will then be fully developed virtue.

  We find, then, that just as there are two forms of the calculative faculty, viz. cleverness and prudence, so there are two forms of the moral qualities, viz. natural virtue and fully developed virtue, and that the latter is impossible without prudence.

  On this account some people say that all the virtues are forms of prudence, and in particular Socrates held this view, being partly right in his inquiry and partly wrong—wrong in thinking that all the virtues are actually forms of prudence, but right in saying that they are impossible without prudence.

  This is corroborated by the fact that nowadays every one in defining virtue would, after specifying its field, add that it is a formed faculty or habit in accordance with right reason, “right” meaning “in accordance with prudence.”

  Thus it seems that every one has a sort of inkling that a formed habit or character of this kind (i.e. in accordance with prudence) is virtue.

  Only a slight change is needed in this expression. Virtue is not simply a formed habit in accordance with right reason, but a formed habit implying right reason.* But right reason in these matters is prudence.

  So whereas Socrates held that the [moral] virtues are forms of reason (for he held that these are all modes of knowledge), we hold that they imply reason.

  It is evident, then, from what has been said that it is impossible to be good in the full sense without prudence, or to be prudent without moral virtue. And in this way we can meet an objection which may be urged. “The virtues,” it may be said, “are found apart from each other; a man who is strongly predisposed to one virtue has not an equal tendency towards all the others, so that he will have acquired this virtue while he still lacks that.” We may answer that though this may be the case with the natural virtues, yet it cannot be the case with those virtues for which we call a man good without any qualifying epithet. The presence of the single virtue of prudence implies the presence of all the moral virtues.

  And thus it is plain, in the first place, that, even if it did not help practice, we should yet need prudence as the virtue or excellence of a part of our nature; and, in the second place, that purpose cannot be right without both prudence and moral virtue; for the latter makes us desire the end, while the former makes us adopt the right means to the end.

  Nevertheless, prudence is not the mistress of wisdom and of the better part of our nature [the reason], any more than medicine is the mistress of health. Prudence does not employ wisdom in her service, but provides means for the attainment of wisdom—does not rule it, but rules in its interests. To assert the contrary would be like asserting that statesmanship rules the gods, because it issues orders about all public concerns [including the worship of the gods.]

  BOOK VII.

  CHAPTERS 1–10.

  CHARACTERS OTHER THAN VIRTUE AND VICE.

  1.

  Of continence and incontinence, heroic virtue and brutality. Of method. Statement of opinions about continence.

  At this point we will make a fresh start and say that the undesirable forms of moral character are three in number, viz. vice, incontinence, brutality. In the case of two of these it is plain what the opposite is: virtue is the name we give to the opposite of vice, and continence to the opposite of incontinence; but for the opposite of the brutal character it would be most appropriate to take that excellence which is beyond us, the excellence of a hero or a god,—as Homer makes Priam say of Hector that he was surpassingly good—

  • “Nor seemed the child
  • Of any mortal man, but of a god.”

  If, then, superlative excellence raises men into gods, as the stories tell us, it is evident that the opposite of the brutal character would be some such superlative excellence. For just as neither virtue nor vice belongs to a brute, so does neither belong to a god; to the latter belongs something higher than virtue, to the former something specifically different from vice.

  But as it is rare to find a godlike man (to employ the phrase in use among the Spartans; for when they admire a man exceedingly they call him σεῖος* ἀνήρ), so also is the brutal character rare among men. It occurs most frequently among the barbarians; it is also produced sometimes by disease and organic injuries; and, thirdly, we apply the name as a term of reproach to those who carry vice to a great pitch.†

  However, we shall have to make some mention of this disposition further on,‡ and we have already discussed vice; so we will now speak of incontinence and softness and luxuriousness, and also of continence and hardiness—for we must regard these as the names of states or types of character that are neither identical with virtue and vice respectively nor yet generically different.

  And here we must follow our usual method, and, after stating the current opinions about these affections, proceed first to raise objections, and then to establish, if possible, the truth of all the current opinions on the subject, or, if not of all, at least of the greater number and the most important. For if the difficulties can be resolved and the popular notions thus confirmed, we shall have attained as much certainty as the subject allows.

  It is commonly thought (1) that continence and hardiness are good and laudable, while incontinence and softness are bad and blamable; and, again (2), that a continent man is identical with one who abides by his calculations, and an incontinent man with one who swerves from them; and (3) that the incontinent man, knowing that an act is bad, is impelled to do it by passion, while the continent man, knowing that his desires are bad, is withheld from following them by reason. Also (4) it is commonly thought that the temperate man is continent and hardy: but while some hold that conversely the latter is always temperate, others think that this is not always so; and while some people hold that the profligate is incontinent, and that the incontinent man is profligate, and use these terms indiscriminately, others make a distinction between them. Again (5), with regard to the prudent man, sometimes people say it is impossible for him to be incontinent; at other times they say that some men who are prudent and clever are incontinent. Lastly (6), people are called incontinent even in respect of anger and honour and gain. These, then, are the common sayings or current opinions.

  2.

  Statement of difficulties as to how one can know right and do wrong.

  But in what sense, it may be objected, can a man judge rightly when he acts incontinently?

  Some people maintain that he cannot act so if he really knows what is right; for it would be strange, thought Socrates, if, when real knowledge were in the man, something else should master him and hale him* about like a slave. Socrates, indeed, contested the whole position, maintaining that there is no such thing as incontinence: when a man acts contrary to what is best, he never, according to Socrates, has a right judgment of the case, but acts so by reason of ignorance.

  Now, this theory evidently conflicts with experience; and with regard to the passion which sways the incontinent man, if it really is due to ignorance, we must ask what kind of ignorance it is due to. For it is plain that, at any rate, he who acts incontinently does not fancy that the act is good till the passion is upon him.

  There are other people who in part agree and in part disagree with Socrates. They allow that nothing is able to prevail against knowledge, but do not allow that men never act contrary to what seems best; and so they say that the incontinent man, when he yields to pleasure, has not knowledge, but only opinion.

  But if, in truth, it be only opinion and not knowledge, and if it be not a strong but a weak belief or judgment that opposes the desires (as is the case when a man is in doubt), we pardon a man for not abiding by it in the face of strong desires; but, in fact, we do not pardon vice nor anything else that we call blamable.

  Are we, then, to say that it is prudence that opposes desire [in those cases when we blame a man for yielding]? For it is the strongest form of belief. Surely that would be absurd: for then the same man would be at once prudent and incontinent; but no one would maintain that a prudent man could voluntarily do the vilest acts. Moreover, we have already shown that prudence is essentially a faculty that issues in act; for it is concerned with the ultimate thing [the thing to be done], and implies the possession of all the moral virtues.

  Again, if a man cannot be continent without having strong and bad desires, the temperate man will not be continent, nor the continent man temperate; for it is incompatible with the temperate character to have either very violent or bad desires.

  They must, however, be both strong and bad in the continent man: for if they were good, the habit that hindered from following them would be bad, so that continence would not be always good; if they were weak and not bad, it would be nothing to respect; and if they were bad, but at the same time weak, it would be nothing to admire.

  Again, if continence makes a man apt to abide by any opinion whatsoever, it is a bad thing—as, for instance, if it makes him abide by a false opinion: and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any opinion whatsoever, there will be a kind of incontinence that is good, an instance of which is Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles; for he merits praise for being prevented from persevering in the plan which Ulysses had persuaded him to adopt, by the pain which he felt at telling a lie.

  Again, the well-known argument of the sophists, though fallacious, makes a difficulty: for, wishing to establish a paradoxical conclusion, so that they may be thought clever if they succeed, they construct a syllogism which puzzles the hearer; for his reason is fettered, as he is unwilling to rest in the conclusion, which is revolting to him, but is unable to advance, since he cannot find a flaw in the argument. Thus it may be argued* that folly combined with incontinence is virtue:—by reason of his incontinence a man does the opposite of that which he judges to be good; but he judges that the good is bad and not to be done; the result is that he will do the good and not the bad.

  Again, he who pursues and does what is pleasant from conviction, and deliberately chooses these things, would seem [if this doctrine be true] to be better than he who does so, not upon calculation, but by reason of incontinence. For the former is more curable, as his convictions might be changed; but to the incontinent man we may apply the proverb which says, “If water chokes you, what will you wash it down with?” For if he were convinced that what he does is good, a change in his convictions might stop his doing it; but, as it is, though he is convinced that something else is good, he nevertheless does this.

  Again, if incontinence and continence may be displayed in anything, who is the man whom we call incontinent simply? For though no one man unites all the various forms of incontinence, there yet are people to whom we apply the term without any qualification.

  Something of this sort, then, are the objections that suggest themselves; and of these we must remove some and leave others;† for the resolution of a difficulty is the discovery of the truth.

  3.

  Solution: to know has many senses; in what sense such a man knows.

  We have, then, to inquire (1) whether the incontinent man acts with knowledge or not, and what knowledge means here; then (2) what is to be regarded as the field in which continence and incontinence manifest themselves—I mean whether their field be all pleasures and pains, or certain definite classes of these; then (3), with regard to the continent and the hardy man, whether they are the same or different; and so on with the other points that are akin to this inquiry.

  (But we ought to begin by inquiring whether the species of continence and the species of incontinence of which we are here speaking are to be distinguished from other species by the field of their manifestation or by their form or manner—I mean whether a man is to be called incontinent in this special sense merely because he is incontinent or uncontrolled by reason in certain things, or because he is incontinent in a certain manner, or rather on both grounds; and in connection with this we ought to determine whether or no this incontinence and this continence may be displayed in all things. And our answer to these questions will be that the man who is called simply incontinent, without any qualification, does not display his character in all things, but only in those things in which the profligate manifests himself; nor is it simply an uncontrolled disposition with regard to them that makes him what he is (for then incontinence would be the same as profligacy), but a particular kind of uncontrolled disposition. For the profligate is carried along of his own deliberate choice or purpose, holding that what is pleasant at the moment is always to be pursued; while the incontinent man thinks otherwise, but pursues it all the same.)* [Let us now turn to question (1).]

  As to the argument that it is true opinion and not knowledge against which men act incontinently, it really makes no difference here; for some of those who merely have opinions are in no doubt at all, but fancy that they have exact knowledge.

  If then it be said that those who have opinion more readily act against their judgment because of the weakness of their belief, we would answer that there is no such difference between knowledge and opinion; for some people have just as strong a belief in their mere opinions as others have in what they really know, of which Heraclitus is an instance.*

  But we use the word know (ἐπίστασθαι) in two different senses: he who has knowledge which he is not now using is said to know a thing, and also he who is now using his knowledge. Having knowledge, therefore, which is not now present to the mind, about what one ought not to do, will be different from having knowledge which is now present. Only in the latter sense, not in the former, does it seem strange that a man should act against his knowledge.

  Again, since these reasonings involve two kinds of premises [a universal proposition for major and a particular for minor], there is nothing to prevent a man from acting contrary to his knowledge though he has both premises, if he is now using the universal only, and not the particular; for the particular is the thing to be done.

  Again, different kinds of universal propositions may be involved: one may concern the agent himself, another the thing; for instance, you may reason (1) “all men are benefited by dry things, and I am a man;” and (2) “things of this kind are dry;” but the second minor, “this thing is of this kind,” may be unknown or the knowledge of it may be dormant.†

  These distinctions, then, will make a vast difference, so much so that it does not seem strange that a man should act against his knowledge if he knows in one way, though it does seem strange if he knows in another way.

  But, again, it is possible for a man to “have knowledge” in yet another way than those just mentioned: we see, I mean, that “having knowledge without using it” includes different modes of having, so that a man may have it in one sense and in another sense not have it; for instance, a man who is asleep, or mad, or drunk. But people who are under the influence of passion are in a similar state; for anger, and sexual desire and the like do evidently alter the condition of the body, and in some cases actually produce madness. It is plain, then, that the incontinent man must be allowed to have knowledge in the same sort of way as those who are asleep, mad, or drunk.*

  But to repeat the words of knowledge is no proof that a man really has knowledge [in the full sense of having an effective knowledge]; for even when they are under the influence of these passions people repeat demonstrations and sayings of Empedocles, just as learners string words together before they understand their meaning—the meaning must be ingrained in them, and that requires time. So we must hold that the incontinent repeat words in the same sort of way that actors do.

  Again, one may inquire into the cause of this phenomenon [of incontinence] by arguments based upon its special nature,* as follows:—You may have (1) a universal judgment, (2) a judgment about particular facts which fall at once within the province of sense or perception; but when the two are joined together,† the conclusion must in matters of speculation be assented to by the mind, in matters of practice be carried out at once into act; for instance, if you judge (1) “all sweet things are to be tasted,” (2) “this thing before me is sweet”—a particular fact,—then, if you have the power and are not hindered, you cannot but at once put the conclusion [“this is to be tasted”] into practice.

  Now, when you have on the one side the universal judgment forbidding you to taste, and on the other side the universal judgment, “all sweet things are pleasant,”‡ with the corresponding particular, “this thing before me is sweet” (but it is the particular judgment which is effective), and appetite is present—then, though the former train of reasoning bids you avoid this, appetite moves you [to take it]; for appetite is able to put the several bodily organs in motion.

  And thus it appears that it is in a way under the influence of reason, that is to say of opinion, that people act incontinently—opinion, too, that is, not in itself, but only accidentally, opposed to right reason. For it is the desire, not the opinion, that is opposed to right reason.*

  And this is the reason why brutes cannot be incontinent; they have no universal judgments, but only images and memories of particular facts.

  As to the process by which the incontinent man gets out of this ignorance and recovers his knowledge, the account of it will be the same as in the case of a man who is drunk or asleep, and will not be peculiar to this phenomenon; and for such an account we must go to the professors of natural science.

  But since the minor premise† is an opinion or judgment about a fact of perception, and determines action, the incontinent man, when under the influence of passion, either has it not, or has it in a sense in which, as we explained, having is equivalent, not to knowing in the full sense, but to repeating words as a drunken man repeats the sayings of Empedocles.

  And thus, since the minor premise is not universal, and is thought to be less a matter of knowledge than the universal judgment [or major premise], it seems that what Socrates sought to establish really is the case;* for when passion carries a man away, what is present to his mind is not what is regarded as knowledge in the strict sense, nor is it such knowledge that is perverted by his passion, but sensitive knowledge merely.†

  4.

  Of incontinence in the strict and in the metaphorical sense.

  So much, then, for the question whether the incontinent man knows or not, and in what sense it is possible to act incontinently with knowledge. We next have to consider whether a man can be incontinent simply, or only incontinent in some particular way,‡ and, if the former be the case, what is the field in which the character is manifested.

  It is evident that it is in the matter of pleasures and pains that both continent and hardy and incontinent and soft men manifest their characters.

  Of the sources of pleasure, some are necessary, and others are desirable in themselves but admit of excess: “necessary” are the bodily processes, such as nutrition, the propagation of the species, and generally those bodily functions with which we said that profligacy and temperance have to do; others, though not necessary, are in themselves desirable, such as victory, honour, wealth, and other things of the kind that are good and pleasant.*

  Now, those who go to excess in these latter in spite of their own better reason are not called incontinent simply, but with a qualifying epithet, as incontinent with respect to money, or gain, or honour, or anger — not simply, since they are different characters, and only called incontinent in virtue of a resemblance—just as the victor in the last Olympic games was called a man; for though the meaning of the name as applied to him was but slightly different from its common meaning, still it was different.†

  And this may be proved thus: incontinence is blamed, not simply as a mistake, but as a kind of vice, either of vice simply, or of some particular vice; but those who are thus incontinent [in the pursuit of wealth, etc.] are not thus blamed.

  But of the characters that manifest themselves in the matter of bodily enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the profligate are concerned, he who goes to excess in pursuing what is pleasant and avoiding what is painful, in the matter of hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, and all things that affect us by touch or taste, and who does this not of deliberate choice, but contrary to his deliberate choice and reasoning, is called incontinent—not with the addition that he is incontinent with respect to this particular thing, as anger, but simply incontinent.

  A proof of this is that people are also called soft in these latter matters, but not in any of the former [honour, gain, etc.].

  And on this account we group the incontinent with the profligate and the continent and the temperate (but do not class with them any of those who are metaphorically called continent and incontinent), because they are in a way concerned with the same pleasures and pains. They are, in fact, concerned with the same matters, but their behaviour is different; for whereas the other three deliberately choose what they do, the incontinent man does not.

  And so a man who, without desire, or with only a moderate desire, pursues excess of pleasure, and avoids even slight pains, would more properly be called profligate than one who is impelled so to act by violent desires; for what would the former do if the violent passions of youth were added, and if it were violent pain to him to forego the satisfaction of his natural appetites?

  But some of our desires and pleasures are to be classed as noble and good (for some of the things that please us are naturally desirable), while others are the reverse of this, and others are intermediate between the two, as we explained before,* —such things as money, gain, victory, and honour falling within the first class. With regard both to these, then, and to the intermediate class, men are blamed not for being affected by them, or desiring them, or caring for them, but only for doing so in certain ways and beyond the bounds of moderation. So we blame those who are moved by, or pursue, some good and noble object to an unreasonable extent, as, for instance, those who care too much for honour, or for their children or parents: for these, too, are noble objects, and men are praised for caring about them; but still one might go too far in them also, if one were to fight even against the gods, like Niobe, or to do as did Satyrus, who was nicknamed Philopator from his affection for his father—for he seemed to carry his affection to the pitch of folly.

  In these matters, then, there is no room for vice or wickedness for the reason mentioned, viz. that all these are objects that are in themselves desirable, though excess in them is not commendable, and is to be avoided.

  Similarly, in these matters there is no room for incontinence strictly so called (for incontinence is not only to be avoided, but is actually blamable), but because of the similarity of the state of mind we do here use the term incontinence with a qualification, saying “incontinent in this or in that,” just as we apply the term “bad physician” or “bad actor” to a man whom we should not call bad simply or without a qualifying epithet. Just as in the latter case, then, the term badness or vice is applied, not simply, but with a qualification, because each of these qualities is not a vice strictly, but only analogous to a vice, so in this case also it is plain that we must understand that only to be strictly incontinence (or continence) which is manifested in those matters with which temperance and profligacy are concerned, while that which is manifested with regard to anger is only metaphorically called so; and therefore we call a man “incontinent in anger,” as “in honour” or “in gain,” adding a qualifying epithet.

  5.

  Of incontinence in respect of brutal or morbid appetites.

  While some things are naturally pleasant (of which some are pleasant in themselves, others pleasant to certain classes of animals or men), other things, though not naturally pleasant, come to be pleasant (1) through organic injuries, or (2) through custom, or again (3) through an originally bad nature and in each of these three classes of things a corresponding character is manifested.

  For instance [taking (3) first], there are the brutal characters, such as the creature in woman’s shape that is said to rip up pregnant females and devour the embryos, or the people who take delight, as some of the wild races about the Black Sea are said to take delight, in such things as eating raw meat or human flesh, or giving their children to one another to feast upon; or, again, in such things as are reported of Phalaris.

  These, then, are what we call brutal natures [corresponding to (3)]: but in other cases the disposition is engendered by disease or madness; for instance, there was the man who slew and ate his mother, and that other who devoured the liver of his fellow-slave [and these correspond to (1)].

  Other habits are either signs of a morbid state, or the result of custom [and so come either under (1) or under (2)]; e.g. plucking out the hair and biting the nails, or eating cinders and earth, or, again, the practice of unnatural vice; for these habits sometimes come naturally,* sometimes by custom, as in the case of those who have been ill treated from their childhood.

  Whenever nature is the cause of these morbid habits, no one would think of applying the term incontinence, any more than we should call women incontinent for the part they play in the propagation of the species; nor should we apply the term to those who, by habitual indulgence, have brought themselves into a morbid state.†

  Habits of this kind, then, fall without the pale of vice, just as the brutal character does; but when a man who has these impulses conquers or is conquered by them, this is not to be called [continence or] incontinence strictly, but only metaphorically, just as the man who behaves thus in the matter of his angry passions cannot be strictly called incontinent. For even folly, and cowardice, and profligacy, and ill temper, whenever they are carried beyond a certain pitch, are either brutal or morbid. When a man is naturally so constituted as to be frightened at anything, even at the sound of a mouse, his cowardice is brutal [inhuman]; but in the wellknown case of a man who was afraid of a weasel, disease was the cause. And of irrational human beings, those who by nature are devoid of reason, and live only by their senses, are to be called brutal, as some races of remote barbarians, while those in whom the cause is disease (e.g. epilepsy) or insanity are to be called morbidly irrational.

  Again, a man may on occasion have one of these impulses without being dominated by it, as, for instance, if Phalaris on some occasion desired to eat the flesh of a child, or to indulge his unnatural lusts, and yet restrained himself; and, again, it is possible not only to have the impulse, but to be dominated by it.

  To conclude, then: as in the case of vice there is a human vice that is called vice simply, and another sort that is called with a qualifying epithet “brutal” or “morbid vice” (not simply vice), so also it is plain that there is a sort of incontinence that is called brutal, and another that is called morbid incontinence, while that only is called incontinence simply which can be classed with human profligacy.

  We have thus shown that incontinence and continence proper have to do only with those things with which profligacy and temperance have to do, and that in other matters there is a sort of incontinence to which the name is applied metaphorically and with a qualifying epithet.

  6.

  Incontinence in anger less blamed than in appetite.

  The next point we have to consider is that incontinence in anger is less disgraceful than incontinence in appetite.

  The angry passions seem to hear something of what reason says, but to mis-hear it, like a hasty servant who starts off before he has heard all you are saying, and so mistakes his errand, or like a dog that barks so soon as he hears a noise, without waiting to find out if it be a friend. Just so our angry passions, in the heat and haste of their nature, hearing something but not hearing what reason orders, make speed to take vengeance. For when reason or imagination announces an insult or slight, the angry passion infers, so to speak, that its author is to be treated as an enemy, and then straightway boils up; appetite, on the other hand, if reason or sense do but proclaim “this is pleasant,” rushes to enjoy it. Thus anger, in some sort, obeys reason, which appetite does not. The latter, therefore, is the more disgraceful; for he who is incontinent in anger succumbs in some sort to reason, while the other succumbs not to reason, but to appetite.

  Again, when impulses are natural, it is more excusable to follow them (for even with our appetites it is more pardonable to follow them when they are common to all men, and the more pardonable the commoner they are); but anger and ill temper are more natural than desire for excessive and unnecessary pleasures, as we see in the story of the man who excused himself for beating his father. “He beat his own father,” he said, “and that father beat his, and my son here,” pointing to his child, “will beat me when he is a man; for it runs in the family.” And there is that other story of the man who was being dragged out of the house by his son, and bade him stop at the doorway; for he had dragged his own father so far, but no further.

  Again, the more a man is inclined to deliberate malice, the more unjust he is. Now, the hot-tempered man is not given to deliberate malice, nor is anger of that underhand nature, but asserts itself openly. But of appetite we may say what the poets say of Aphrodite: “Craft-weaving daughter of Cyprus;” or what Homer says of her “embroidered girdle,”

  “Whose charm doth steal the reason of the wise.”*

  If then this incontinence be more unjust, it is more disgraceful than incontinence in anger, and is to be called incontinence simply, and a sort of vice.

  Again, when a man commits an outrage, he does not feel pain in doing it, but rather pleasure, while he who acts in anger always feels pain as he is acting. If then the acts which rouse the justest indignation are the more unjust, it follows that incontinence in appetite is more unjust [than incontinence in anger]; for such outrage is never committed in anger.†

  Thus it is plain that incontinence in appetite is more disgraceful than incontinence in anger, and that continence and incontinence proper have to do with bodily appetites and pleasures.

  But now let us see what differences we find in these bodily appetites and pleasures.

  As we said at the outset, some of them are human and natural in kind and degree; others are signs of a brutal nature; others, again, are the result of organic injury or disease.

  Now, it is with the first of these only that temperance and profligacy have to do: and for this reason we do not call beasts either temperate or profligate, except it be metaphorically, if we find a whole class of animals distinguished from others by peculiar lewdness and wantonness and voracity; for there is no purpose or deliberate calculation in what they do, but they are in an unnatural state, like madmen.

  Brutality is less dangerous than vice, but more horrible; for the noble part is not corrupted here, as in a man who is merely vicious in a human way, but is altogether absent. To ask which is worse, then, would be like comparing inanimate things with animate: the badness of that which lacks the originating principle is always less mischievous; and reason [which the brutal man lacks] is here the originating principle. (To compare these, then, would be like comparing injustice with an unjust man: each is in its own way the worse.* ) For a bad man would do ten thousand times as much harm as a brute.

  7.

  Incontinence yields to pleasure, softness to pain. Two kinds of incontinence, the hasty and the weak.

  With regard to the pleasures and pains of touch and taste, and the corresponding desires and aversions, which we before marked out as the field of profligacy and temperance, it is possible to be so disposed as to succumb to allurements which most people resist, or so as to resist allurements to which most people succumb. When they are exhibited in the matter of pleasures, the former of these characters is called incontinent and the latter continent; when they are exhibited in the matter of pains, the former is called soft and the latter hardy. The character of the general run of men falls between these two, inclining perhaps rather to the worse.

  But since some pleasures are necessary, while others are not, and since the necessary pleasures are necessary in certain quantities only, but not in too great nor yet in too small quantities, and since the same is true of appetites and of pains, he who pursues pleasures that fall beyond the pale of legitimate pleasures, or pursues any pleasures to excess,* is called profligate, if he pursues them of deliberate purpose for their own sake and not for any result which follows from them; for such a man must be incapable of remorse—must be incurable therefore; for he who feels no remorse is incurable. In the opposite extreme is he who falls short of the mean (while he who observes the mean is temperate). So with the man who avoids bodily pains, not because he is momentarily overcome, but of deliberate purpose.

  But those who act thus without deliberate purpose may do so either to gain pleasure or to escape the pain of desire, and we must accordingly distinguish these from one another.

  But all would allow that a man who does something disgraceful without desire, or with only a moderate desire, is worse than if he had a violent desire; and that if a man strike another in cool blood he is worse than if he does it in anger; for what would he do if he were in a passion? The profligate man, therefore, is worse than the incontinent.

  Of the characters mentioned, then, we must distinguish softness from profligacy.

  The continent character is opposed to the incontinent, and the hardy to the soft; for hardiness implies that you endure, while continence implies that you overcome, and enduring is different from overcoming, just as escaping a defeat is different from winning a victory; so continence is better than hardiness.

  But he that gives way to what the generality of men can and do resist is soft and luxurious (for luxury, too, is a kind of softness),—the sort of man that suffers his cloak to trail along the ground rather than be at the pains to pull it up; that plays the invalid, and yet does not consider himself wretched, though it is a wretched man that he imitates.

  Similarly with continence and incontinence. If a man give way to violent and excessive pleasures or pains, we do not marvel, but are ready to pardon him if he struggled, like Philoctetes when bitten by the viper in the play of Theodectes, or Cercyon in the Alope of Carcinus; or like people who, in trying to restrain their laughter, burst out into a violent explosion, as happened to Xenophantus. But we do marvel when a man succumbs to and cannot resist what the generality of men are able to hold out against, unless the cause be hereditary disposition or disease (e.g. softness is hereditary in the Scythian kings, and the female is naturally softer than the male).

  The man that is given up to amusement is generally thought to be profligate, but in fact he is soft; for amusement is relaxation, since it is a rest from labour; and among those who take too much relaxation are those who are given up to amusement.

  There are two kinds of incontinence, the hasty and the weak. Some men deliberate, but, under the influence of passion, do not abide by the result of their deliberations; others are swayed by passion because they do not deliberate; for as it is not easy to tickle a man who has just been tickling you, so there are people who when they see what is coming, and are forewarned and rouse themselves and their reason, are able to resist the impulse, whether it be pleasant or painful. People of quick sensibility or of a melancholic temperament are most liable to incontinence of the hasty sort; such people do not wait to hear the voice of reason, because, in the former case through the rapidity, in the latter case through the intensity of their impressions, they are apt to follow their imagination.

  8.

  Incontinence compared with vice and virtue.

  Again, a profligate man, as we said, is not given to remorse, for he abides by his deliberate purpose; but an incontinent man is always apt to feel remorse. So the case is not as it was put in one of the difficulties we enumerated,* but the former is incurable, the latter is curable. For full-formed vice [profligacy] seems to be like such diseases as dropsy or consumption, incontinence like epilepsy; for the former is chronic, the latter intermittent badness.

  Indeed, we may roundly say that incontinence is generically different from vice; for the vicious man knows not, but the incontinent man knows, the nature of his acts.†

  But of these incontinent characters, those who momentarily lose their reason are not so bad as those who retain their reason but disobey it;‡ for the latter give way to a slighter impulse, and cannot, like the former, be said to act without deliberation. For an incontinent man is like one who gets drunk quickly and with little wine, i.e. with less than most men.

  We have seen that incontinence is not vice, but perhaps we may say that it is in a manner vice. The difference is that the vicious man acts with deliberate purpose, while the incontinent man acts against it. But in spite of this difference their acts are similar; as Demodocus said against the Milesians, “The Milesians are not fools, but they act like fools.” So an incontinent man is not unjust, but will act unjustly.

  It is the character of the incontinent man to pursue, without being convinced of their goodness, bodily pleasures that exceed the bounds of moderation and are contrary to right reason; but the profligate man is convinced that these things are good because it is his character to pursue them: the former, then, may be easily brought to a better mind, the latter not. For virtue preserves, but vice destroys the principle; but in matters of conduct the motive [end or final cause] is the principle [beginning or efficient cause] of action, holding the same place here that the hypotheses do in mathematics.* In mathematics no reasoning or demonstration can instruct us about these principles or starting points; so here it is not reason but virtue, either natural or acquired by training, that teaches us to hold right opinions about the principle of action. A man of this character, then, is temperate, while a man of opposite character is profligate.

  But there is a class of people who are apt to be momentarily deprived of their right senses by passion, and who are swayed by passion so far as not to act according to reason, but not so far that it has become part of their nature to believe that they ought to pursue pleasures of this kind without limit. These are the incontinent, who are better than the profligate, and not absolutely bad; for the best part of our nature, the principle of right conduct, still survives in them.

  To these are opposed another class of people who are wont to abide by their resolutions, and not to be deprived of their senses by passion at least. It is plain from this, then, that the latter is a good type of character, the former not good.

  9.

  Continence and incontinence not identical with keeping and breaking a resolution.

  Now, who is to be called continent? he who abides by any kind of reason and any kind of purpose, or he who abides by a right purpose? And who is to be called incontinent? he who abandons any kind of purpose and any kind of reason, or he who abandons a true reason and a right purpose?—a difficulty which we raised before.* Is it not the case that though “accidentally” it may be any kind, yet “essentially” it is a true reason and a right purpose that the one abides by and the other abandons? For if you choose or pursue A for the sake of B, you pursue and choose B “essentially,” but A “accidentally.” But by “essentially” (καθ’ αὑτό) we mean “absolutely” or “simply” (ἁπλῶς); so that we may say that in a certain sense it may be any kind of opinion, but absolutely or simply it is a true opinion that the one abides by and the other abandons.

  But there is another class of persons that are apt to stick to their opinions (I mean those whom we call stubborn or obstinate), because they are averse to persuasion and not readily induced to change their mind. These bear some resemblance to the continent, as the prodigal does to the liberal, and the foolhardy to the courageous, but in many respects are different. For it is changing his mind at the prompting of passion or appetite that the continent man dislikes; he is ready enough on occasion to yield to reason: but it is to reason especially that the obstinate man will not listen, while he often conceives a passion, and is led about by his pleasures.

  The opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish are all obstinate—the opinionated from motives of pleasure and pain; for they delight in the sense of victory when they hold out against argument, and are pained if their opinion comes to naught like a decree that is set aside. They resemble the incontinent man, therefore, rather than the continent.

  Sometimes also people abandon their resolutions from something else than incontinence, as, for instance, Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles. It may be said, indeed, that pleasure was his motive in abandoning his resolution: but it was a noble pleasure; for truth was fair in his eyes, but Ulysses had persuaded him to lie. For he who acts with pleasure for motive is not always either profligate, or worthless, or incontinent, but only when his motive is a base pleasure.

  Again, as there are people whose character it is to take too little delight in the pleasures of the body, and who swerve from reason in this direction, those who come between these and the incontinent are the continent. For while the incontinent swerve from reason because of an excess, and these because of a deficiency, the continent man holds fast and is not turned aside by the one or the other.

  But if continence be a good thing, the characters that are opposed to it must be bad, as in fact they evidently are; only, since the other extreme is found but rarely and in few cases, incontinence comes to be regarded as the only opposite of continence, just as profligacy comes to be regarded as the only opposite of temperance.

  We often apply names metaphorically; and so we come to speak metaphorically of the continence of the temperate man. For it is the nature both of the continent and of the temperate man never to do anything contrary to reason for the sake of bodily pleasures; but whereas the former has, the latter has not bad desires, and whereas the latter is of such a nature as to take no delight in what is contrary to reason, the former is of such a nature as to take delight in, but not to be swayed by them.

  The incontinent and the profligate also resemble each other, though they are different: both pursue bodily pleasures, but the latter pursues them on principle,* while the former does not.

  10.

  Prudence is not, but cleverness is, compatible with incontinence.

  It is impossible for the same man to be at once prudent and incontinent; for we have shown that a man cannot be prudent without being at the same time morally good.

  Moreover, a man is not prudent simply because he knows—he must also be apt to act according to his knowledge; but the incontinent man is not apt to act according to his knowledge (though there is nothing to prevent a man who is clever at calculating means from being incontinent; and so people sometimes think a man prudent and yet incontinent, because this cleverness is related to prudence in the manner before* explained, resembling prudence as an intellectual faculty, but differing from it by the absence of purpose): nor indeed does he know as one who knows and is now using his knowledge, but as one may know who is asleep or drunk.

  He acts voluntarily (for in a manner he knows what he is doing and with what object), and yet is not bad: for his purpose is good; so he is only half bad. Moreover, incontinent men are not unjust,† for they are not deliberately malicious—some of them being apt to swerve from their deliberate resolutions, others of melancholic temper and apt to act without deliberating at all. An incontinent man, then, may be compared to a state which always makes excellent decrees and has good laws, but never carries them out; as Anaxandrides jestingly says—

  “So willed the state that takes no heed of laws.”

  The bad man, on the contrary, may be compared to a state that carries out its laws, but has bad laws.

  Both incontinence and continence imply something beyond the average character of men; for the one is more steadfast than most men can be, the other less.

  Of the several kinds of incontinence, that of the melancholic temper is more curable than that of those who make resolutions but do not keep them, and that which proceeds from custom than that which rests on natural infirmity: it is easier to alter one’s habit than to change one’s nature. For the very reason why habits are hard to change is that they are a sort of second nature, as Euenus says—

  • “Train men but long enough to what you will,
  • And that shall be their nature in the end.”

  We have now considered the nature of continence and incontinence, of hardiness and softness, and the relation of these types of character to each other.

  CHAPTERS 11—14.

  OF PLEASURE.

  11.

  We must now discuss pleasure. Opinions about it.

  The consideration of pleasure and pain also falls within the scope of the political philosopher, since he has to construct the end by reference to which we call everything good or bad.

  Moreover, this is one of the subjects we are bound to discuss; for we said that moral virtue and vice have to do with pleasures and pains, and most people say that happiness implies pleasure, which is the reason of the name μακάριος, blessed, from χαίρειν, to rejoice.

  Now, (1) some people think that no pleasure is good, either essentially or accidentally, for they say that good and pleasure are two distinct things; (2) others think that though some pleasures are good most are bad; (3) others, again, think that even though all pleasures be good, yet it is impossible that the supreme good can be pleasure.

  (1) It is argued that pleasure cannot be good, (a) because all pleasure is a felt transition to a natural state, but a transition or process is always generically different from an end, e.g. the process of building is generically different from a house; (b) because the temperate man avoids pleasures; (c) because the prudent man pursues the painless, not the pleasant; (d) because pleasures impede thinking, and that in proportion to their intensity (for instance, the sexual pleasures: no one engaged therein could think at all); (e) because there is no art of pleasure, and yet every good thing has an art devoted to its production; (f) because pleasure is the pursuit of children and brutes.

  (2) It is argued that not all pleasures are good, because some are base and disgraceful, and even hurtful; for some pleasant things are unhealthy.

  (3) It is argued that pleasure is not the supreme good, because it is not an end, but a process or transition.—These, then, we may take to be the current opinions on the subject.

  12.

  Answers to arguments against goodness of pleasure. Ambiguity of good and pleasant. Pleasure not a transition, but unimpeded activity.

  But that these arguments do not prove that pleasure is not good, or even the highest good, may be shown as follows.

  In the first place, since “good” is used in two senses (“good in itself” and “relatively good”), natures and faculties will be called good in two senses, and so also will motions and processes: and when they are called bad, this sometimes means that they are bad in themselves, though for particular persons not bad but desirable; sometimes that they are not desirable even for particular persons, but desirable occasionally and for a little time, though in themselves not desirable; while some of them are not even pleasures, though they seem to be—I mean those that involve pain and are used medicinally, such as those of sick people.

  In the second place, since the term good may be applied both to activities and to faculties, those activities that restore us to our natural faculties [or state] are accidentally pleasant.

  But in the satisfaction of the animal appetites that which is active is not that part of our faculties* or of our nature which is in want, but that part which is in its normal state; for there are pleasures which involve no previous pain or appetite, such as those of philosophic study, wherein our nature is not conscious of any want.

  This is corroborated by the fact that while our natural wants are being filled we do not take delight in the same things which delight us when that process has been completed: when the want has been filled we take delight in things that are pleasant in themselves, while it is being filled in their opposites; for we then take delight in sharp and bitter things, none of which are naturally pleasant or pleasant in themselves. The pleasures, then, which these things give are not real pleasures; for pleasures are related to one another as the things that produce them.

  Again, it does not necessarily follow, as some maintain, that there is something else better than pleasure, as the end is better than the process or transition to the end: for a pleasure is not a transition, nor does it always even imply a transition; but it is an activity [or exercise of faculty], and itself an end: further, it is not in becoming something, but in doing something that we feel pleasure: and, lastly, the end is not always something different from the process or transition, but it is only when something is being brought to the completion of its nature that this is the case.

  For these reasons it is not proper to say that pleasure is a felt transition, but rather that it is an exercise of faculties that are in their natural state, substituting “unimpeded” for “felt.”

  Some people, indeed, think that pleasure is a transition, just because it is in the full sense good, supposing that the exercise of faculty is a transition; but it is in fact something different.*

  But to say that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things are unhealthy, is like saying that health is bad because some healthy things are bad for money-making. Both are bad in this respect, but that does not make them bad: even philosophic study is sometimes injurious to health.

  As to pleasure being an impediment to thinking, the fact is that neither prudence nor any other faculty is impeded by the pleasure proper to its exercise, but by other pleasures; the pleasure derived from study and learning will make us study and learn more.

  That there should be no art devoted to the production of any kind of pleasure, is but natural; for art never produces an activity, but only makes it possible: the arts of perfumery and cookery, however, are usually considered to be arts of pleasure.

  As to the arguments that the temperate man avoids pleasure, that the prudent man pursues the painless life, and that children and brutes pursue pleasure, they may all be met in the same way, viz. thus:—

  As we have already explained in what sense all pleasures are to be called good in themselves, and in what sense not good, we need only say that pleasures of a certain kind are pursued by brutes and by children, and that freedom from the corresponding pains in pursued by the prudent man—the pleasures, namely, that involve appetite and pain, i.e. the bodily pleasures (for these do so), and excess in them, the deliberate pursuit of which constitutes the profligate. These pleasures, then, the temperate man avoids; but he has pleasures of his own.

  13.

  Pleasure is good, and the pleasure that consists in the highest activity isthegood. All admit that happiness is pleasant. Bodily pleasures not the only pleasures.

  But all admit that pain is a bad thing and undesirable; partly bad in itself, partly bad as in some sort an impediment to activity. But that which is opposed to what is undesirable, in that respect in which it is undesirable and bad, is good. It follows, then, that pleasure is a good thing. And this argument cannot be met, as Speusippus tried to meet it, by the analogy of the greater which is opposed to the equal as well as to the less; for no one would say that pleasure is essentially a bad thing.*

  Moreover, there is no reason why a certain kind of pleasure should not be the supreme good, even though some kinds be bad, just as there is no reason why a certain kind of knowledge should not be, though some kinds be bad. Nay, perhaps we ought rather to say that since every formed faculty admits of unimpeded exercise, it follows that, whether happiness be the exercise of all these faculties, or of some one of them, that exercise must necessarily be most desirable when unimpeded: but unimpeded exercise of faculty is pleasure: a certain kind of pleasure, therefore, will be the supreme good, even though most pleasures should turn out to be bad in themselves.

  And on this account all men suppose that the happy life is a pleasant one, and that happiness involves pleasure: and the supposition is reasonable; for no exercise of a faculty is complete if it be impeded; but happiness we reckon among complete things; and so, if he is to be happy, a man must have the goods of the body and external goods and good fortune, in order that the exercise of his faculties may not be impeded. And those who say that though a man be put to the rack and overwhelmed by misfortune, he is happy if only he be good, whether they know it or not, talk nonsense.

  Because fortune is a necessary condition, some people consider good fortune to be identical with happiness; but it is not really so, for good fortune itself, if excessive, is an impediment, and is then, perhaps, no longer to be called good fortune; for good fortune can only be defined by its relation to happiness.

  Again, the fact that all animals and men pursue pleasure is some indication that it is in some way the highest good:

  • “Not wholly lost can e’er that saying be
  • Which many peoples share.”

  But as the nature of man and the best development of his faculties neither are nor are thought to be the same for all, so the pleasure which men pursue is not always the same, though all pursue pleasure. Yet, perhaps, they do in fact pursue a pleasure different from that which they fancy they pursue and would say they pursue—a pleasure which is one and the same for all. For all beings have something divine implanted in them by nature.

  But bodily pleasures have come to be regarded as the sole claimants to the title of pleasure, because they are oftenest attained and are shared by all; these then, as the only pleasures they know, men fancy to be the only pleasures that are.

  But it is plain that unless pleasure—that is, unimpeded exercise of the faculties—be good, we can no longer say that the happy man leads a pleasant life; for why should he need it if it be not good? Nay, he may just as well lead a painful life: for pain is neither bad nor good, if pleasure be neither; so why should he avoid pain? The life of the good man, then, would be no pleasanter than others unless the exercise of his faculties were pleasanter.

  14.

  Of the bodily pleasures, and the distinction between naturally and accidentally pleasant.

  Those who say that though some pleasures are very desirable — to wit, noble pleasures — the pleasures of the body, with which the profligate is concerned, are not desirable, should consider the nature of these pleasures of the body. Why [if they are bad] are the opposite pains bad? for the opposite of bad is good. Are we to say that the “necessary” pleasures are good in the sense that what is not bad is good? or are they good up to a certain point?

  Those faculties and those motions or activities which do not admit of excess beyond what is good,* do not admit of excessive pleasure; but those which admit of excess admit also of excessive pleasure. Now, bodily goods admit of excess, and the bad man is bad because he pursues this excess, not merely because he pursues the necessary pleasures; for men always take some delight in meat, and drink, and the gratification of the sexual appetite, but not always as they ought. But with pain the case is reversed: it is not excess of pain merely that the bad man avoids, but pain generally; [which is not inconsistent with the proposition that pain is bad,] for the opposite of excessive pleasure is not painful, except to the man who pursues the excess.*

  But we ought to state not only the truth, but also the cause of the error; for this helps to produce conviction, as, when something has been pointed out to us which would naturally make that seem true which is not, we are more ready to believe the truth. And so we must say why it is that the bodily pleasures seem more desirable.

  First of all, then, it is because of its efficacy in expelling pain, and because of the excessiveness of the pain to which it is regarded as an antidote, that men pursue excessive pleasure and bodily pleasure generally. But these remedies produce an intense feeling, and so are pursued, because they appear in strong contrast to the opposite pain.

  (The reasons why pleasure is thought to be not good are two, as we said before: (1) some pleasures are the manifestation of a nature that is bad either from birth, as with brutes, or by habit, as with bad men: (2) the remedial pleasures imply want; and it is better to be in a [natural] state than in a transition to such a state; but these pleasures are felt while a want in us is being filled up, and therefore they are only accidentally good.† )

  Again, these pleasures are pursued because of their intensity by those who are unable to take delight in other pleasures; thus we see people make themselves thirsty on purpose. When the pleasures they pursue are harmless, we do not blame them (though when they are hurtful the pursuit is bad); for they have no other sources of enjoyment, and the neutral state is painful to many because of their nature: for an animal is always labouring, as physical science teaches, telling us that seeing and hearing is labour and pain, only we are all used to it, as the saying is. And thus in youth, because they are growing, men are in a state resembling drunkenness; and youth is pleasant. But people of a melancholic nature are always wanting something to restore their balance; for their bodies are always vexing them because of their peculiar temperament, and they are always in a state of violent desire. But pain is expelled either by the opposite pleasure or by any pleasure, if it be sufficiently strong; and this is the reason why such men become profligate and worthless.

  But pleasures that have no antecedent pain do not admit of excess. These are the pleasures derived from things that are naturally and not merely accidentally pleasant. I call those things accidentally pleasant that have a restorative effect; for as the restoration cannot take place unless that part of the system which remains healthy be in some way active, the restoration itself seems pleasant: but I call those things naturally pleasant that stimulate the activity of a healthy system.*

  But nothing can continue to give us uninterrupted pleasure, because our nature is not simple, but contains a second element which makes us mortal beings;* so that if the one element be active in any way, this is contrary to the nature of the other element, but when the two elements are in equilibrium, what we do seems neither painful nor pleasant; for if there were a being whose nature were simple, the same activity would be always most pleasant to him. And on this account God always enjoys one simple pleasure; for besides the activity of movement, there is also activity without movement, and rest admits of truer pleasure than motion. But change is “the sweetest of all things,” as the poet says, because of a certain badness in us: for just as it is the bad man who is especially apt to change, so is it the bad nature that needs change; for it is neither simple nor good.

  We have now considered continence and incontinence, and pleasure and pain, and have explained what each is, and how some of them are good and some bad. It remains to consider friendship.

  BOOK VIII.

  FRIENDSHIP OR LOVE.

  1.

  Uses of friendship. Differences of opinion about it.

  After the foregoing, a discussion of friendship will naturally follow, as it is a sort of virtue, or at least implies virtue, and is, moreover, most necessary to our life. For no one would care to live without friends, though he had all other good things. Indeed, it is when a man is rich, and has got power and authority, that he seems most of all to stand in need of friends; for what is the use of all this prosperity if he have no opportunity for benevolence, which is most frequently and most commendably displayed towards friends? or how could his position be maintained and preserved without friends? for the greater it is, the more is it exposed to danger. In poverty and all other misfortunes, again, we regard our friends as our only refuge. We need friends when we are young to keep us from error, when we get old to tend upon us and to carry out those plans which we have not strength to execute ourselves, and in the prime of life to help us in noble deeds—“two together” [as Homer says]; for thus we are more efficient both in thought and in action.

  Love seems to be implanted by nature in the parent towards the offspring, and in the offspring towards the parent, not only among men, but also among birds and most animals; and in those of the same race towards one another, among men especially—for which reason we commend those who love their fellow-men. And when one travels one may see how man is always akin to and dear to man.

  Again, it seems that friendship is the bond that holds states together, and that lawgivers are even more eager to secure it than justice. For concord bears a certain resemblance to friendship, and it is concord that they especially wish to retain, and dissension that they especially wish to banish as an enemy. If citizens be friends, they have no need of justice, but though they be just, they need friendship or love also; indeed, the completest realization of justice* seems to be the realization of friendship or love also.

  Moreover, friendship is not only an indispensable, but also a beautiful or noble thing: for we commend those who love their friends, and to have many friends is thought to be a noble thing; and some even think that a good man is the same as a friend.†

  But there are not a few differences of opinion about the matter. Some hold that it is a kind of likeness, and that those who are like one another are friends; and this is the origin of “Like to like,” and “Birds of a feather flock together,”‡ and other similar sayings. Others, on the contrary, say that “two of a trade never agree.”§

  Others go deeper into these questions, and into the causes of the phenomena; Euripides, for instance says—

  • “The parched earth loves the rain,
  • And the high heaven, with moisture laden, loves
  • Earthwards to fall.”

  Heraclitus also says, “Opposites fit together,” and “Out of discordant elements comes the fairest harmony,” and “It is by battle that all things come into the world.” Others, and notably Empedocles, take the opposite view, and say that like desires like.

  Of these difficulties, all that refer to the constitution of the universe may be dismissed (for they do not properly concern our present inquiry); but those that refer to human nature, and are intimately connected with man’s character and affections, we will discuss—as, for instance, whether friendship can exist in all men, or whether it is impossible for men to be friends if they are bad, and whether there be one form of friendship or rather many. For those who suppose that there is only one kind of friendship, because it admits of degrees, go upon insufficient grounds. Things that differ in kind may differ also in degree (But we have already spoken about this point.* )

  2.

  Three motives of friendship. Friendship defined.

  Perhaps these difficulties will be cleared up if we first ascertain what is the nature of the lovable. For it seems that we do not love anything, but only the lovable, and that the lovable is either good or pleasant or useful. But useful would appear to mean that which helps us to get something good, or some pleasure; so that the good and the pleasant only would be loved as ends.

  Now, do men love what is good, or what is good for themselves? for there is sometimes a discrepancy between these two.

  The same question may be asked about the pleasant.

  It seems that each man loves what is good for himself, and that, while the good is lovable in itself, that is lovable to each man which is good for him. It may be said that each man loves not what is really good for him, but what seems good for him. But this will make no difference; for the lovable we are speaking of will then be the apparently lovable.

  The motives of love being thus threefold, the love of inanimate things is not called friendship. For there is no return of affection here, nor any wish for the good of the object: it would be absurd to wish well to wine, for instance; at the most, we wish that it may keep well, in order that we may have it. But it is commonly said that we must wish our friend’s good for his own sake. One who thus wishes the good of another is called a well-wisher, when the wish is not reciprocated; when the well-wishing is mutual, it is called friendship.

  But ought we not to add that each must be aware of the other’s well-wishing? For a man often wishes well to those whom he has never seen, but supposes to be good or useful men; and one of these may have the same sentiments towards him. These two, then, are plainly well-wishers one of another; but how could one call them friends when each is unaware of the other’s feelings?

  In order to be friends, then, they must be wellwishers one of another, i.e. must wish each other’s good from one of the three motives above mentioned, and be aware of each other’s feelings.

  3.

  Three kinds of friendship, corresponding to the three motives Perfect friendship is that whose motive is the good.

  But these three motives are specifically different from one another; the several affections and friendships based upon them, therefore, will also be specifically different. The kinds of friendship accordingly are three, being equal in number to the motives of love; for any one of these may be the basis of a mutual affection of which each is aware.

  Now, those who love one another wish each other’s good in respect of that which is the motive of their love. Those, therefore, whose love for one another is based on the useful, do not love each other for what they are, but only in so far as each gets some good from the other.

  It is the same also with those whose affection is based on pleasure; people care for a wit, for instance, not for what he is, but as the source of pleasure to themselves.

  Those, then, whose love is based on the useful care for each other on the ground of their own good, and those whose love is based on pleasure care for each other on the ground of what is pleasant to themselves, each loving the other, not as being what he is, but as useful or pleasant.

  These friendships, then, are “accidental;” for the object of affection is loved, not as being the person or character that he is, but as the source of some good or some pleasure. Friendships of this kind, therefore, are easily dissolved, as the persons do not continue unchanged; for if they cease to be pleasant or useful to one another, their love ceases. But the useful is nothing permanent, but varies from time to time. On the disappearance, therefore, of that which was the motive of their friendship, the friendship itself is dissolved, since it existed solely with a view to that.

  Friendship of this kind seems especially to be found among elderly men (for at that time of life men pursue the useful rather than the pleasant) and those middle-aged and young men who have a keen eye to what is profitable. But friends of this kind do not generally even live together; for sometimes they are by no means pleasant (nor indeed do they want such constant intercourse with others, unless they are useful); for they make themselves pleasant only just so far as they have hopes of getting something good thereby.

  With these friendships is generally classed the kind of friendship that exists between host and guest.*

  The friendship of young men is thought to be based on pleasure; for young men live by impulse, and, for the most part, pursue what is pleasant to themselves and what is immediately present. But the things in which they take pleasure change as they advance in years. They are quick to make friendships, therefore, and quick to drop them; for their friendship changes as the object which pleases them changes; and pleasure of this kind is liable to rapid alteration.

  Moreover, young men are apt to fall in love; for love is, for the most part, a matter of impulse and based on pleasure: so they fall in love, and again soon cease to love, passing from one state to the other many times in one day.

  Friends of this kind wish to spend their time together and to live together; for thus they attain the object of their friendship.

  But the perfect kind of friendship is that of good men who resemble one another in virtue. For they both alike wish well to one another as good men, and it is their essential character to be good men. And those who wish well to their friends for the friends’ sake are friends in the truest sense; for they have these sentiments towards each other as being what they are, and not in an accidental way: their friendship, therefore, lasts as long as their virtue, and that is a lasting thing.

  Again, each is both good simply and good to his friend; for it is true of good men that they are both good simply and also useful to one another.

  In like manner they are pleasant too; for good men are both pleasant in themselves and pleasant to one another: for every kind of character takes delight in the acts that are proper to it and those that resemble these; but the acts of good men are the same or similar.

  This kind of friendship, then, is lasting, as we might expect, since it unites in itself all the conditions of true friendship. For every friendship has for its motive some good or some pleasure (whether it be such in itself or relatively to the person who loves), and is founded upon some similarity: but in this case all the requisite characteristics belong to the friends in their own nature; for here there is similarity and the rest, viz. what is good simply and pleasant simply, and these are the most lovable things: and so it is between persons of this sort that the truest and best love and friendship is found.

  It is but natural that such friendships should be uncommon, as such people are rare. Such a friendship, moreover, requires long and familiar intercourse. For, as the proverb says, it is impossible for people to know one another till they have consumed the requisite quantity of salt together. Nor can they accept one another as friends, or be friends, till each show and approve himself to the other as worthy to be loved. Those who quickly come to treat one another like friends may wish to be friends, but are not really friends, unless they not only are lovable, but know each other to be so; a wish to be friends may be of rapid growth, but not friendship.

  This kind of friendship, then, is complete in respect of duration and in all other points, and that which each gets from the other is in all respects identical or similar, as should be the case with friends.

  4.

  The others are imperfect copies of this.

  The friendship of which pleasure is the motive bears some resemblance to the foregoing; for good men, too, are pleasant to each other. So also does that of which the useful is the motive; for good men are useful also to one another. And in these cases, too, the friendship is most likely to endure when that which each gets from the other is the same (e.g. pleasure), and not only the same, but arising from the same source—a friendship between two wits, for instance, rather than one between a lover and his beloved. For the source of pleasure in the latter case is not the same for both: the lover delights to look upon his beloved, the beloved likes to have attentions paid him; but when the bloom of youth is gone, the friendship sometimes vanishes also; for the one misses the beauty that used to please him, the other misses the attentions. But, on the other hand, they frequently continue friends, i.e. when their intercourse has brought them to care for each other’s characters, and they are similar in character.

  Those who in matters of love exchange not pleasure but profit, are less truly and less permanently friends. The friendship whose motive is profit ceases when the advantage ceases; for it was not one another that they loved, but the profit.

  For pleasure, then, or for profit it is possible even for bad men to be friends with one another, and good men with bad, and those who are neither with people of any kind, but it is evident that the friendship in which each loves the other for himself is only possible between good men; for bad men take no delight in each other unless some advantage is to be gained.

  The friendship of good men, again, is the only one that can defy calumny; for people are not ready to accept the testimony of any one else against him whom themselves have tested. Such friendship also implies mutual trust, and the certainty that neither would ever wrong the other, and all else that is implied in true friendship; while in other friendships there is no such security.

  For since men also apply the term friends to those who love one another for profit’s sake, as happens with states (for expediency is thought to be the ground on which states make alliances), and also to those who love one another for pleasure’s sake, as children do, perhaps we too ought to apply the name to such people, and to speak of several kinds of friendship—firstly, in the primary and strict sense of the word, the friendship of good men as such; secondly, the other kinds that are so called because of a resemblance to this: for these other people are called friends in so far as their relation involves some element of good, which constitutes a resemblance; for the pleasant, too, is good to those who love pleasant things. But these two latter kinds are not apt to coincide, nor do the same people become friends for the sake both of profit and pleasure; for such accidental properties are not apt to be combined in one subject.

  Now that we have distinguished these several kinds of friendship, we may say that bad men will be friends for the sake of pleasure or profit, resembling one another in this respect, while good men, when they are friends, love each other for what they are, i.e. as good men. These, then, we say, are friends simply; the others are friends accidentally and so far as they resemble these.

  5.

  Intercourse necessary to the maintenance of friendship.

  But just as with regard to the virtues we distinguish excellence of character or faculty from excellence manifested, so is it also with friendship: when friends are living together, they take pleasure in, and do good to, each other; when they are asleep or at a distance from one another, they are not acting as friends, but they have the disposition which, if manifested, issues in friendly acts; for distance does not destroy friendship simply, but the manifestation of friendship. But if the absence be prolonged, it is thought to obliterate even friendship; whence the saying—

  • “Full many a friendship hath ere now been loosed
  • By lack of converse.”

  Old men do not seem apt to make friends, nor morose men; for there is little in them that can give pleasure: but no one can pass his days in intercourse with what is painful or not pleasant; for our nature seems, above all things, to shun the painful and seek the pleasant.

  Those who accept each other’s company, but do not live together, seem to be rather well-wishers than friends. For there is nothing so characteristic of friendship as living together:* those who need help seek it thus, but even those who are happy desire company; for a solitary life suits them least of all men. But people cannot live together unless they are pleasant to each other, nor unless they take delight in the same things, which seems to be a necessary condition of comradeship.

  The truest friendship, then, is that which exists between good men, as we have said again and again. For that, it seems, is lovable and desirable which is good or pleasant in itself, but to each man that which is good or pleasant to him; and the friendship of good men for one another rests on both these grounds.

  But it seems that while love is a feeling, friendship is a habit or trained faculty. For inanimate things can equally well be the object of love, but the love of friends for one another implies purpose, and purpose proceeds from a habit or trained faculty. And in wishing well for their sakes to those they love, they are swayed not by feeling, but by habit. Again, in loving a friend they love what is good for themselves; for he who gains a good man for his friend gains something that is good for himself. Each then, loves what is good for himself, and what he gives in good wishes and pleasure is equal to what he gets; for love and equality, which are joined in the popular saying ϕιλότης ἰσότης, are found in the highest degree in the friendship of good men.

  6.

  Impossible to have many true friends.

  Morose men and elderly men are less apt to make friends in proportion as they are harsher in temper, and take less pleasure in society; for delight in society seems to be, more than anything else, characteristic of friendship and productive of it. So young men are quick to make friends, but not old men (for people do not make friends with those who do not please them), nor morose men. Such people may, indeed, be well-wishers, for they wish each other good and help each other in need; but they are by no means friends, since they do not live with nor delight in each other, which things are thought to be, more than anything else, characteristic of friendship.

  It is impossible to have friendship, in the full sense of the word, for many people at the same time, just as it is impossible to be in love with many persons at once (for it seems to be something intense, but intense feeling implies a single object); and it is not easy for one man to find at one time many very agreeable persons, perhaps not many good ones. Moreover, they must have tested and become accustomed to each other, which is a matter of great difficulty. But in the way of profit or pleasure, it is quite possible to find many* agreeable persons; for such people are not rare, and their services can be rendered in a short time.

  Of these other kinds, that which more nearly resembles true friendship is that whose motive is pleasure, when each renders the same service to the other, and both take pleasure in one another, or in the same things, such as young men’s friendships are wont to be; for a generous spirit is commoner in them than in others. But the friendship whose motive is utility is the friendship of sordid souls. Those who are happy do not need useful, but pleasant friends; it is people to live with that they want, and though they may for a short time put up with what is painful, yet no one could endure anything continually, not even the good itself, if it were painful to him; so they require that their friends shall be pleasant. But they ought, we may say, to require that they shall be good as well as pleasant, and good for them; then all the characteristics of a friend will be combined.

  People in exalted positions seem to make distinct classes of friends. They have some who are useful, and others who are pleasant, but seldom any that unite both these qualities; for they do not seek for people who are at once agreeable and virtuous, or people who can be useful to them in noble actions, but they seek for witty persons to satisfy their craving for pleasure, while for other purposes they choose men who are clever at carrying out their instructions: but these two qualities are seldom united in one person.

  The good man, indeed, as we have already said, is both pleasant and useful; but such a man does not make friends with a man in a superior station, unless he allows himself inferior in virtue:* only thus does he meet the good man on equal terms, being inferior in one respect in the same ratio as he is superior in another. But great men are by no means wont to behave in this manner.

  In the friendships hitherto spoken of the persons are equal, for they do the same and wish the same for each other, or else exchange equal quantities of different things, as pleasure for profit. (We have already explained that the latter less deserve the name of friendship, and are less lasting than the former kind. We may even say that, being at once both like it and unlike it, they seem both to be and not to be friendships. On the ground of their resemblance to the friendship that is based on virtue, they seem to be friendships; for one involves pleasure, the other profit, both of which belong to true friendship; but, again, inasmuch as it is beyond calumny and is lasting, while they are liable to rapid change and different in many other respects, they seem not to be friendships because of their unlikeness to it.)

  7.

  Of friendship between unequal persons and its rule of proportion. Limits within which this is possible.

  But, besides these, there is another kind of friendship, in which the persons are unequal, as that of a father for a son, and generally of an elder for a younger person, or of a man for a woman, or of a ruler of any kind for a subject.

  These also are different from one another; for that of parent for child is not the same as that of ruler for subject, nor even that of father for son the same as that of son for father, nor that of man for woman the same as that of woman for man. For each of these classes has a different excellence and a different function, and the grounds of their affection are different; therefore their love and their friendship also are different. What each does for the other, then, is not the same, nor should they expect it to be the same; but when children give to their parents what they owe to those who begat them, and parents on their part give what they owe to their children, then such friendship will be lasting, and what it ought to be. But in all friendships based on inequality, the love on either side should be proportional—I mean that the better of the two (and the more useful, and so on in each case) should receive more love than he gives; for when love is proportioned to desert, then there is established a sort of equality, which seems to be a necessary condition of friendship.

  But there seems to be a difference between the equality that prevails in the sphere of justice and that which prevails in friendship: for in the sphere of justice the primary sense of “equal” [or “fair,” ἴσον] is “proportionate to merit,” and “equal in quantity” is only the secondary sense; but in friendship “equal in quantity” is the primary, and “proportionate to merit” the secondary sense.*

  This is plainly seen in cases where there comes to be a great distance between the persons in virtue, or vice, or wealth, or in any other respect; for they no longer are, nor expect to be, friends. It is most plainly seen in the case of the gods; for they have the greatest superiority in all good things. But it is seen also in the case of princes; for here also those who are greatly inferior do not claim their friendship; nor do people of no consideration expect to be friends with the best and wisest in the state. It is impossible accurately to determine the limits within which friendship may subsist in such cases: many things may be taken away, and it may remain; but again, if a person be very far removed, as God is, it can no longer be.

  This has suggested the objection that, after all, a friend does not wish his friend the greatest of all goods, that he should become a god; for then he would lose a friend—that is, a good; for a friend is a good thing. If then we were right in saying that a friend wishes good to his friend for his (the friend’s) sake, we must add, “the friend remaining what he is:” so far as is compatible with his being a man, he will wish him the greatest good—but perhaps not everything that is good; for every man wishes good most of all to himself.

  8.

  Of loving and being loved.

  Most people seem, from a desire for honour, to wish to be loved rather than to love, and on this account most men are fond of flatterers; for a flatterer is an inferior friend, or pretends to be so and to love more than he is loved: but being loved is thought to come near to being honoured, and that most men strive for.

  But they seem to desire honour not for its own sake, but accidentally: it is expectation that makes most men delight in being honoured by those in authority; for they hope to get from them anything they may want: they delight in this honour, therefore, as a token of good things to come. On the other hand, those who desire the honour or respect of good men and men who know, are anxious to confirm their own opinion of themselves; they rejoice, therefore, in the assurance of their worth which they gain from confidence in the judgment of those who declare it.

  But men delight in being loved for its own sake; wherefore it would seem that being loved is better than being honoured, and that friendship is desirable for its own sake.

  Friendship, however, seems to lie in the loving, rather than in the being loved. This is shown by the delight that mothers take in loving; for some give their children to others to rear, and love them since they know them, but do not look for love in return, if it be impossible to have both, being content to see their children doing well, and loving them, though they receive from them, in their ignorance, nothing of what is due to a mother.

  Since friendship lies more in loving [than in being loved], and since we praise those who love their friends, it would seem that the virtue of a friend is to love, so that when people love each other in proportion to their worth, they are lasting friends, and theirs is a lasting friendship.

  This is also the way in which persons who are unequal can be most truly friends; for thus they will make themselves equal: but equality and similarity tend to friendship, and most of all the similarity of those who resemble each other in virtue; for such men, being little liable to change, continue as they were in themselves and to one another, and do not ask anything unworthy of one another, or do anything unworthy for one another—nay, rather restrain one another from anything of the sort; for it is characteristic of a good man neither to go wrong himself, nor to let his friend go wrong.

  Bad men on the other hand [as friends] have no stability: for they do not even continue like themselves; but for a short space they become friends, rejoicing in each other’s wickedness.

  Those, however, who are useful and agreeable to one another continue friends longer, i.e. so long as they continue to furnish pleasure or profit.

  The friendship whose motive is utility seems, more than any other kind, to be a union of opposites, as of rich and poor, ignorant and learned; for when a man wants a thing, in his desire to get it he will give something else in exchange. And perhaps we might include the lover and his beloved, the beautiful and the ugly person, in this class. And this is the reason why lovers often make themselves ridiculous by claiming to be loved as they love; if they were equally lovable they might perhaps claim it, but when there is nothing lovable about them the claim is absurd.

  But perhaps nothing desires its opposite as such but only accidentally, the desire being really for the mean which is between the two; for this is good. For the dry, for instance, it is good not to become wet, but to come to the intermediate state, and so with the hot, and with the rest of these opposites. But we may dismiss these questions; for, indeed, they are somewhat foreign to our present purpose.

  9.

  Every society has its own form of friendship as of justice. All societies are summed up in civil society.

  It seems, as we said at the outset, that the subject-matter and occasion of friendship and of justice are the same. Every community or association, it is thought, gives some occasion for justice, and also for friendship; at least, people address as friends their partners in a voyage or campaign, and so on with other associations. To what extent soever they are partners, to that extent is there occasion for friendship; for to that extent is there occasion for justice.

  Moreover, “friends’ goods are common property,” says the proverb rightly; for friendship implies community. Brothers, indeed, and comrades have all things in common: other friends have certain definite things in common, some more and some less; for friendships also differ in degree. But what justice requires is also different in different cases; it does not require from parents towards children, for instance, the same as from brothers towards one another, nor from comrades the same as from fellow-citizens, and so on through the other kinds of friendship.

  Injustice also assumes different forms in these several relations, and increases according to the degree of friendship; e.g. it is a grosser wrong to rob a comrade than a fellow-citizen, and to refuse help to a brother than to a stranger, and to strike one’s father than to strike any other man. The claims of justice, in fact, are such as to increase as friendship increases, both having the same field and growing pari passu.

  But all kinds of association or community seem to be, as it were, parts of the political community or association of citizens. For in all of them men join together with a view to some common interest, and in pursuit of some one or other of the things they need for their life. But the association of citizens seems both originally to have been instituted and to continue for the sake of common interests; for this is what legislators aim at, and that which is for the common interest of all is said to be just.

  Thus all other associations seem to aim at some particular advantage, e.g. sailors work together for a successful voyage, with a view to making money or something of that sort; soldiers for a successful campaign, whether their ulterior end be riches, or victory, or the founding of a state; and so it is with the members of a tribe or a deme. Some associations, again, seem to have pleasure for their object, as when men join together for a feast or a club dinner; for the object here is feasting and company. But all these associations seem to be subordinate to the association of citizens; for the association of citizens seems to have for its aim, not the interests of the moment, but the interests of our whole life, even when its members celebrate festivals and hold gatherings on such occasions, and render honour to the gods, and provide recreation and amusement for themselves.* For the ancient festivals and assemblies seem to take place after the gathering in of the harvest, being of the nature of a dedication of the first-fruits, as it was at these seasons that people had most leisure.

  All associations, then, seem to be parts of the association of citizens; and the several kinds of friendship will correspond to the several kinds of association.

  10.

  Of the three forms of constitution.

  Now, of constitutions there are three kinds, and an equal number of perverted forms, which are, so to speak, corruptions of these. Constitutions proper are kingly government and aristocracy; and, thirdly, there is a form of government based upon an assessment of property, which should strictly be called timocracy, though most people are wont to speak of it as constitutional government simply.

  Of these, kingly government is the best and timocracy the worst. The perversion of kingly government is tyranny: both are monarchies, but there is a vast difference between them; for the tyrant seeks his own interest, the king seeks the interest of his subjects. For he is not properly a king who is not self-sufficient and superabundantly furnished with all that is good; such a man wants nothing more; his own advantage, then, will not be his aim, but that of his subjects. A man of another character than this could only be the sort of king that is chosen by lot.*

  Tyranny is the opposite of kingly rule, because the tyrant seeks his own good; and of this government it is quite obvious† that it is the worst of all: we may add that the opposite of the best must be the worst.

  Kingly government degenerates into tyranny; for tyranny is a vicious form of monarchy: the bad king, then, becomes a tyrant.

  Aristocracy degenerates into oligarchy through the vice of the rulers, who, instead of distributing public property and honours according to merit, take all or most of the good things for themselves, and give the offices always to the same people, setting the greatest store by wealth; you have, then, a small number of bad men in power, in place of the best men.

  Lastly, timocracy degenerates into democracy: and indeed they border closely upon each other; for even timocracy is intended to be government by the multitude, and all those who have the property qualification are equal.

  Democracy is the least bad [of the corrupt forms], for it is but a slight departure from the corresponding form of constitution.

  These, then, are the ways in which the several constitutions are most apt to change; for these are the directions in which the change is slightest, and encounters the least resistance.

  Likenesses of these forms of government and patterns of them, so to speak, may be found in families. For instance, the association of father and sons has the form of kingly rule; for the father cares for his children. This, also, is the reason why Homer addresses Zeus as father; for kingly government aims at being a paternal government. But in Persia the association of father and son is tyrannical; for fathers there use their sons as slaves. The association of master and slave is also tyrannical; for it is the interest of the master that is secured by it. But this seems to be a legitimate kind of tyranny, while the Persian kind seems to be wrong; for different beings require different kinds of government.

  The association of man and wife seems to be aristocratic: for the husband bears rule proportionate to his worth, i.e. he rules in those matters which are his province; but he entrusts to his wife those matters that properly belong to her. But when the man lords it in all things, he perverts this relation into an oligarchical one; for he then takes rule where he is not entitled to it, and not only in those matters in which he is better. Sometimes, on the other hand, the wife rules because she is an heiress. In these cases authority is not proportionate to merit, but is given on the ground of wealth and influence, just as in oligarchies.

  The association of brothers resembles a timocracy; for they are equal except in so far as they differ in age. On this account, if they differ very widely in age, their friendship can no longer be a brotherly friendship.

  A democratic form of association is chiefly found in those households which have no master (for there all are on a footing of equality), or where the head of the house is weak, and every one does what he likes.

  11.

  Of the corresponding forms of friendship.

  In each of these forms of government friendship has place to the same extent as justice. In the first place, the king shows his friendship for his subjects* by transcendent benefits; for he does good to his subjects, seeing that he is good, and tends them with a view to their welfare, as a shepherd tends his sheep,—whence Homer calls Agamemnon “shepherd of peoples.”

  The friendship of a father for his child is of a similar kind, though the benefits conferred are still greater. For the father is the author of the child’s existence, which seems the greatest of all benefits, and of his nurture and education; and we also ascribe these to our forefathers generally: and thus it is in accordance with nature that fathers should rule their children, forefathers their descendants, kings their subjects.

  These friendships involve the superiority of one side to the other; and on this account parents receive honour as well [as service].* Moreover, what justice requires here is not the same on both sides, but that which is proportionate to their worth; for this is the rule of friendship also [as well as of justice].

  The friendship, again, of man and wife is the same as that which has place in an aristocracy; for both benefit in proportion to their merit, the better getting more good, and each what is fitting; but this is the rule of justice also.

  The friendship of brothers resembles that of comrades, for they are equal and of like age; but those with whom that is the case for the most part have the same feelings and character. And the friendship in a timocracy is of the same type as this; for the citizens here wish to be equal and fair; so they take office in turn, and share it equally: their friendship, then, will follow the same rule.

  In the corrupt forms, as there is but little room for justice, so there is but little room for friendship, and least of all in the worst; in a tyranny there is little or no friendship. For where ruler and subject have nothing in common, there cannot be any friendship, any more than there can be any justice,—e.g. when the relation is that of a workman to his tools, or of the soul to the body, or of master to slave. The tools and the body and the slave are all benefited by those who use them; but our relations with inanimate objects do not admit of friendship or justice; nor our relations with a horse or an ox; nor our relations with a slave as such. For there is nothing in common between master and slave. The slave is a living tool; the tool is a lifeless slave. As a slave, then, his master’s relations with him do not admit of friendship, but as a man they may: for there seems to be room for some kind of justice in the relations of any man to any one that can participate in law and contract,—and if so, then for some kind of friendship, so far, that is to say, as he deserves the name man.

  And so friendships and justice are found to some small extent even in tyrannies, but to a greater extent in democracies than in any other of the corrupt forms; for there the citizens, being equal, have many things in common.

  12.

  Of the friendship of kinsmen and comrades.

  All friendship, as we have already said, implies association; but we may separate from the rest the friendship of kinsmen and that of comrades. The friendships of fellow-citizens, of fellow-tribesmen, of fellow-sailors, etc., seem, as opposed to these, to have more to do with association; for they appear to be founded upon some sort of compact. The friendship of host and guest might also be included in this class.

  Kinsmen’s friendship seems to include several species, but to be dependent in all its forms upon the friendship of parent and child. For parents love their children as part of themselves; children love their parents as the source of their being. But parents know their children better than the children know that these are their parents, and that which gives birth is more closely attached to that which proceeds from it, than the offspring is to that which gave it life: for that which proceeds from us belongs to us, as a tooth or a hair, or anything of that sort, to its owner; but we do not belong to it at all, or belong to it in a less degree.

  Again, there is a difference in respect of time; for parents love their offspring from the moment of their birth, but children love their parents only after the lapse of time, when they have acquired understanding or sense.

  These considerations also show why mothers love their children more than fathers do.

  Parents, then, love their children as themselves (for what proceeds from them is as it were a second self when it is severed), but children love their parents as the source of their being, and brothers love each other because they proceed from the same source: for the identity of their relation to this source constitutes an identity between them; so that they say that they are of the same blood and stock, etc. And so they are in a way identical, though they are separate persons.

  But friendship between brothers is greatly furthered by common nurture and similarity of age; for those of the same age naturally love one another, as the saying is, and those who are used to one another naturally make comrades of one another, so that the friendship of brothers comes to resemble that of comrades.

  Cousins and other kinsfolk become attached to each other for the same reason—I mean because they come of the same stock. But the attachment is more or less close according to the nearness or remoteness of the founder of the family.

  The friendship of children for their parents (like that of men for the gods) is friendship for what is good and superior to themselves, as the source of the greatest benefits, namely, of their life and nurture, and their education from their birth upwards.

  Friendship of this kind brings with it more, both of pleasure and profit, than that of strangers, in proportion as there is more community of life.

  The friendship of brothers has all the characteristics of the friendship of comrades, and has them in a greater degree (provided they are good and generally resemble one another) inasmuch as they belong more to one another and love each other from their birth up, and have more similarity of character, as being of the same stock and brought up together and educated alike; moreover, they have had the longest and the surest experience of one another.

  In all other kinsmen’s friendships the same elements will be found in proportion to the relationship.

  The friendship of man and wife seems to be natural; for human beings are by nature more apt to join together in couples than to form civil societies, inasmuch as the family is prior in time to the state and more indispensable, and the propagation of the species is a more fundamental characteristic of animal existence. The other animals associate for this purpose alone, but man and wife live together not merely for the begetting of children, but also to satisfy the needs of their life: for the functions of the man and the woman are clearly divided and distinct the one from the other; they supply each other’s wants, therefore, both contributing to the common stock. And so this sort of friendship is thought to bring with it both pleasure and profit. But it will be based on virtue, too, if they be good; for each sex has its own virtue, and both will rejoice in that which is of like nature.

  Children also seem to be a bond that knits man and wife together (which is a reason why childless unions are more quickly dissolved); for children are a good which both have in common, but that which people have in common holds them together.

  To ask on what terms a man should live with his wife, and generally friend with friend, seems the same as to ask what justice requires in these cases; for what is required of a man towards his friend is different from what is required of him towards a stranger, a comrade, or a fellow-student.

  13.

  Of the terms of interchange and quarrels hence arising in equal friendships.

  There are three kinds of friendship, as we said at the outset, and in each kind there are both equal and unequal friendships; I mean that sometimes two equally good persons make friends, and sometimes a better and a worse,—and so with those who are pleasant to one another, and with those who are friends with a view to profit—sometimes rendering equal services to one another, and sometimes unequal.

  Now, those who are equal should effect equality by loving one another, etc., equally, but those who are unequal should effect equality by making what each renders proportionate to the greater or less merit of the other.

  But accusations and reproaches arise solely or mostly in friendships whose motive is profit, as we should expect. For those whose friendship is based on virtue are eager to do good to each other (for this is the office of virtue and friendship); and between people who are thus vieing with one another no accusations or quarrels can arise; for a man cannot be embittered against one who loves him and does him a service, but, if he be of a gracious nature, requites him with a like service. And he who renders the greater service will not reproach his friend, since he gets what he desires;* for each desires what is good.

  Such quarrels, again, are not apt to arise in friendships whose motive is pleasure; for both get at the same time that which they desire, if they delight in each other’s company; but if one were to accuse the other for not being agreeable to him, he would make himself ridiculous, seeing that he was under no compulsion to associate with him.

  But the friendship whose motive is utility is fruitful in accusations; for as the friends here use each other solely with a view to their own advantage, each always wants the larger share and thinks he has less than his due, and reproaches the other with not doing for him so much as he requires and deserves; though, in truth, it is impossible for the one who is doing a service to supply all that the other wants.

  But it seems that as the rules of justice are two-fold, the unwritten and those that are set down in laws, so the friendship whose motive is utility is of two kinds—one resting on disposition, the other on contract. And accusations are most apt to arise when the relation is understood in one sense at the commencement, and in the other sense at the conclusion.

  That which rests on contract is that in which there are specified conditions, and it is of two kinds: one is purely commercial, on the principle of cash payments; the other is less exacting in point of time, though in it also there is a specified quid pro quo.

  In the latter case, what is due is evident and cannot be disputed, but there is an element of friendliness in the deferment of payment; for which reason, in some states, there is no recovery by law in such cases, but it is held that when a man has given credit he must take the consequences.

  That which rests on disposition has no specified conditions, but one gives another presents (or whatever else it may be) as a friend. But afterwards he claims as much or more in return, regarding what he gave not as a gift, but as a loan. And thus, wishing to terminate the relation in a different spirit from that in which he entered upon it, he will accuse the other.* And this is apt to happen because all or nearly all men, though they wish for what is noble, choose what is profitable; and while it is noble to do a good service without expecting a return, it is profitable to receive a benefit.

  In such cases, then, we should, if we have the power, make an equivalent return for benefits received (for we must not treat a man as a friend if he does not wish it: we should consider that we made a mistake at the beginning, and received a benefit from a person from whom we ought not to have accepted it—for he was not a friend and did not act disinterestedly—and so we ought to terminate the relation in the same way as if we had received a service for a stipulated consideration): and the return should be what we would have agreed* to repay if able; if we were unable, the donor would not even have expected repayment. So we may fairly say that we should repay if we have the power.

  But we ought at the outset carefully to consider who it is that is doing us a service, and on what understanding, so that we may accept it on that understanding or else reject it.

  It is a debatable question whether the requital is to be measured by, and to be made proportionate to, the value of the service to the recipient or to the benefactor. For the recipients are apt to say that they received what was but a small matter to their benefactors, and what they might just as well have got from others, depreciating the service done them; but the others, on the contrary, are apt to say that what they gave was the best they had, and what could not be got from any one else, and that it was given in a time of danger or on some other pressing occasion.

  Perhaps we may say that, if the friendship have profit for its motive, the benefit received should be taken as the measure; for it is the recipient who asks a service, which the other renders in expectation of an equal service in return: the amount of the assistance rendered, then, is determined by the extent to which the former is benefited, and he should repay as much as he received, or even more; for that would be the nobler course.

  In friendships based on virtue, on the other hand, such accusations do not occur, but it would seem that the measure of the service is the purpose of him who does it; for virtue and moral character are determined by purpose.

  14.

  Of the same in unequal friendships.

  Quarrels occur also in unequal friendships; for sometimes each claims the larger share, but when this happens the friendship is dissolved. For instance, the better of the two thinks he ought to have the larger share; “the good man’s share is larger,” he says: the more useful of the two makes the same claim; “it is allowed,” he says, “that a useless person should not share equally; for friendship degenerates into gratuitous service unless that which each receives from the friendship be proportionate to the value of what he does.” For such people fancy that the same rule should hold in friendship as in a commercial partnership, where those who put in more take a larger share.

  The needy man and the inferior man argue in the contrary way; “it is the office of a good friend,” they say, “to help you when you are in need; for what is the use of being friends with a good man or a powerful man, if you are to get nothing by it?”

  It seems that the claims of both are right, and that each ought to receive a larger share than the other, but not of the same things—the superior more honour, the needy man more profit; for honour is the tribute due to virtue and benevolence, while want receives its due succour in the pecuniary gain.

  This seems to be recognized in constitutions too: no honour is paid to him who contributes nothing to the common stock of good; the common stock is distributed among those who benefit the community, and of this common stock honour is a part. For he who makes money out of the community must not expect to be honoured by the community also; and no one is content to receive a smaller share in everything. To him, then, who spends money on public objects we pay due honour, and money to him whose services can be paid in money; for, by giving to each what is in proportion to his merit, equality is effected and friendship preserved, as we said before.

  The same principles, then, must regulate the intercourse of individuals who are unequal; and he who is benefited by another in his purse or in his character, must give honour in return, making repayment in that which he can command. For friendship exacts what is possible rather than what is due: what is due is sometimes impossible, as, for instance, in the case of the honour due to the gods and to parents; for no one could ever pay all his debt to them; but he who gives them such service as he can command is held to fulfil his obligation.

  For this reason it would seem that a man may not disown his father, though a father may disown his son; for he who owes must pay: but whatever a son may do he can never make a full return for what he has received, so that he is always in debt. But the creditor is at liberty to cast off the debtor; a father, therefore, is at liberty to cast off his son. But, at the same time, it is not likely that any one would ever disown a son, unless he were a very great scoundrel; for, natural affection apart, it is but human not to thrust away the support that a son would give. But to the son, if he be a scoundrel, assisting his father is a thing that he wishes to avoid, or at least is not eager to undertake; for the generality of men wish to receive benefits, but avoid doing them as unprofitable. So much, then, for these questions.

  BOOK IX.

  FRIENDSHIP OR LOVE—continued.

  1.

  Of the rule of proportion in dissimilar friendships.

  In all dissimilar friendships* it is proportionate exchange that maintains equality and preserves the friendship (as we have already said), just as in the association of citizens, where the shoemaker, in exchange for his shoes, receives some return proportionate to his desert, and so on with the weaver and the rest.

  Now, in these latter cases, a common measure is supplied by money; money is the standard to which everything is referred, and by which it is measured.

  In sentimental friendships, on the other hand, the lover sometimes complains that while he loves excessively he gets no love in return, although, maybe, there is nothing lovable about him; often the beloved complains that whereas the other used to promise everything, he now performs nothing.

  Complaints of this sort are wont to arise when, pleasure being the motive of the friendship with one person and profit with the other, they do not both get what they want. For the friendship, being based on these motives, is dissolved whenever they fail to obtain that for the sake of which they made friends; for it was not the other’s self that each loved, but only something which he had, and which is not apt to endure; for which reason these friendships also are not apt to endure. But friendship based on character, being pure, is likely to last, as we said.

  Sometimes, again, friends quarrel when they find they are getting something different from what they want, for failing to get what you want is like getting nothing. This may be illustrated by the story of the harper: a man promised him that the better he played, the more he should receive; but when, as dawn drew near, the harper claimed the fulfilment of his promise, the other replied that he had already paid him pleasure* for pleasure. Now, if this was what both wished, there would be nothing more to say: but if the one wanted pleasure and the other profit, and the one has what he wants, while the other has not, the bargain will not be fairly carried out; for it is what a man happens to want that he sets his heart on, and consents for the sake of it to render this particular service.

  But whose business is it to fix the value of the service? his who first gives, or rather his who first receives?—for he who first gives seems to leave it to the other. This, they say, was the custom of Protagoras: when he had been giving lessons in any subject, he used to tell his pupil to estimate the value of the knowledge he had acquired, and so much he would take.

  Some, however, think the rule should be, “Let a friend be content with his stated wage.”*

  But if a man, after being paid in advance, fulfils none of his engagements, because he had promised more than he could perform, he is rightly held chargeable; for he does not fulfil his contract. But the sophists, perhaps, are compelled to adopt this plan [of payment in advance]; for otherwise no one would give anything for what they know.

  He, then, who fails to do that for which he has already been paid, is rightly chargeable. But when there is no express agreement about the service rendered, (a) when one voluntarily helps another for that other’s sake, no accusation can arise, as we said: for this is the nature of friendship based on virtue. The return must here be regulated by the purpose of him who renders the first service; for it is purpose that makes both friend and virtue. The same rule would seem to apply also to the relations of a philosopher and his disciples; for desert cannot here be measured in money, and no honour that could be paid him would be an adequate return; but, nevertheless, as in our relations to gods and parents, the possible is accepted as sufficient. (b) If, however, the first gift has been made, not in this spirit, but on the understanding that there shall be some return, the return should, if possible, be such as both deem proportionate to desert: but if this cannot be, it would seem to be not only necessary, but just, that the recipient of the first benefit should assess it; for whatever be the amount of the advantage he has received, or whatever he would have been willing to give for the pleasure, the other, in receiving the same amount, will receive as much as is due from him. For even in sales this is plainly what takes place; and in some states there is no recovery by law in voluntary contracts, as it is held that when you have given a man credit, you must conclude your bargain with him in the same spirit in which you began it. It is held to be fairer that the service should be valued by him who is trusted than by him who trusts. For most things are differently valued by those who have them and by those who wish to get them: what belongs to us, and what we give away, always seems very precious to us. Nevertheless, the return to be made must be measured by the value which is set upon the service by the receiver. But perhaps he ought to put it, not at what it seems to be worth when he has got it, but at the value he set upon it before he had it.

  2.

  Of the conflict of duties.

  There are some further questions that here suggest themselves, such as whether the father’s claims to service ought to be unlimited, and the son should obey him in everything, or whether in sickness he should obey the physician, and in the election of a general should choose him who is skilled in war; and, similarly, whether one ought to help one’s friend rather than a good man, and repay a benefactor rather than make a present to a comrade, if one cannot do both.

  We may, perhaps, say that to lay down precise rules for all such cases is scarcely possible; for the different cases differ in all sorts of ways, according to the importance or unimportance, the nobility or necessity of the act. But it is tolerably evident that no single person’s claims can override all others; and that, as a general rule, we ought to repay benefits received before we do a favour to a comrade—just as, if we had borrowed money, we ought to pay our creditors before we make presents to our comrades.

  But it may be that even this rule will not hold good in all cases; for instance, if a man has been ransomed from a band of brigands, ought he in turn to ransom his ransomer, whoever he may be, or repay him when he demands it, even though he be not captured, in preference to ransoming his father? For it would seem that a man ought to ransom his father even before himself.

  As we said then, generally speaking, we should repay what we owe: but if giving [instead of repaying] be more noble or meet a more pressing need, it is right to incline in this direction; for sometimes it is not even fair to repay the original service, e.g. when one man has helped another, knowing him to be a good man, while the latter in repaying him would be helping one whom he believes to be a bad man. And so a man is sometimes not bound to lend in turn to one who has lent him money: A may have lent to B in full expectation of being repaid, as B is an honourable man; but B may have no hope of being repaid by A, who is a rascal. If this be the real state of the case, the demand for a loan in return is not fair; but even if the facts be otherwise, yet, if they think thus of each other, their conduct would be regarded as natural.

  As we have often said, statements concerning human affections and actions must share the indefiniteness of their subject.

  It is tolerably plain, then, that, on the one hand, the claims of all men are not the same, but that, on the other hand, the father’s claims do not override all others, just as Zeus does not receive all our sacrifices; the claims of parents, brothers, comrades, and benefactors are all different, and to each must be rendered that which is his own and his due.

  And this is the way in which men appear to act: to a wedding they invite their kinsfolk; for they have a share in the family, and therefore in all acts relating thereto: and for the same reason it is held that kinsfolk have more claim than any others to be invited to funerals.

  Parents would seem to have a special claim upon us for sustenance, as we owe it them, and as it is nobler to preserve the life of those to whom we are indebted for our own than to preserve ourselves.

  Honour, also, we should pay to our parents, as to the gods; but not all honour: for the honour due to a father is not the same as that due to a mother; nor do we owe them the honour due to a wise man or a good general, but that which is due to a father and that which is due to a mother.

  To all our elders, again, we should pay the honour due to their age, by rising up at their approach and by giving them the place of honour at the table, and so forth. But between comrades and brothers there should be freedom of speech and community in everything. And to kinsfolk and fellow-tribesmen and fellow-citizens, and all other persons, we should always try to give their due, and to assign to each what properly belongs to him, according to the closeness of his connection with us, and his goodness or usefulness. When the persons are of one kind this assignment is comparatively easy, but when they are of different kinds it is more difficult. We must not, however, on this account shirk the difficulty, but must distinguish as best as we can.

  3.

  Of the dissolution of friendships.

  Another difficult question is, whether we should or should not break off friendship with those who have ceased to be what they were.

  We may, perhaps, say that those whose friendship is based on profit or pleasure naturally part when these cease; for it was these that they loved: when these are gone, therefore, it is to be expected that the love goes too. But complaints would be likely to arise if a man who loved another for profit or pleasure’s sake pretended to love him for his character; for, as we said at the outset, quarrels between friends very frequently arise from a difference between the real and the supposed motives of the friendship. If, then, a man deceives himself, and supposes that he is beloved for his character, though the other’s behaviour gives no ground for the supposition, he has only himself to blame; but if he is deceived by the other’s pretence, then there is a fair ground of complaint against such an impostor, even more than against those who counterfeit the coinage, inasmuch as it is a more precious thing that is tampered with.

  But if a man admit another to his friendship as a good man, and he becomes and shows himself to be a bad man, is he still to be loved? Perhaps we may answer that it is impossible, as it is not everything that is lovable, but only the good. A bad man, then, is not lovable, and ought not to be loved: for we ought not to love what is bad, nor to make ourselves like what is worthless; but, as we said before, it is like that makes friends with like.

  Is the friendship, then, to be immediately broken off? Perhaps not in all cases, but only in the case of those who are incurably bad: when their reformation is possible, we are more bound to help them in their character than their fortune, inasmuch as character is a nobler thing, and has more to do with friendship than fortune has. But a man who withdraws his friendship in such a case, would seem to do nothing unnatural; for it was not with such a man that he made friends: his friend has become another man, and as he cannot restore him, he stands aloof from him.

  But suppose that the one remains what he was while the other gets better and becomes far superior in virtue: is the latter still to treat the former as a friend? Perhaps it is hardly possible that he should do so. We see this most plainly if the interval between the two be very considerable. Take, for instance, a boyish friendship: if one of the two remains a child in understanding, while the other has become a man in the fullest sense of the word, how can they any longer be friends, now that the things that will please them, and the sources of their joys and sorrows, are no longer the same? for not even in regard to each other’s character will their tastes agree, and without this, we found, people cannot be friends, since they cannot live together. (But this point has been already discussed.)

  Shall we, then, simply say that the latter should regard the former as no more a stranger than if he had never been his friend? Perhaps we may go further than this, and say that he should not entirely forget their former intercourse, and that just as we hold that we ought to serve friends before strangers, so former friends have some claims upon us on the ground of past friendship, unless extraordinary depravity were the cause of our parting.

  4.

  A man’s relation to his friend like his relation to himself.

  Friendly relations to others, and all the characteristics by which friendship is defined, seem to be derived from our relations towards ourselves. A friend is sometimes described as one who wishes and does to another what is good or seems good for that other’s sake, or as one who wishes his friend to exist and to live for his (the friend’s) sake. (This is what mothers feel towards their children, and what friends who have had a difference feel for one another.) Others describe a friend as one who lives with another and chooses what he chooses, or as one who sympathizes with the griefs and joys of his friend. (This, also, is especially the case with mothers.) And, similarly, friendship is usually defined by some one or other of these characteristics.

  Now, every one of these characteristics we find in the good man’s relations to himself (and in other men just so far as they suppose themselves to be good; but it seems, as we have said, that virtue and the good man are in everything the standard): for the good man is of one mind with himself, and desires the same things with all his soul, and wishes for himself what both is and seems good, and does that (for it is characteristic of him to work out that which is good) for his own sake—for the sake, that is to say, of the rational part of him, which seems to be a man’s self. And he wishes his self to live and be preserved, and especially that part of his self by which he thinks: for existence is good to the good man. But it is for himself that each wishes the good; no one would choose to have all that is good (as e.g. God is in complete possession of the good) on condition of becoming some one else, but only on condition of still being just himself.* But his reason would seem to be a man’s self, or, at least, to be so in a truer sense than any other of his faculties.

  Such a man also wishes to live with himself; for his own company is pleasant to him. The memory of his past life is sweet, and for the future he has good hopes; and such hopes are pleasant. His mind, moreover, is well stored with matter for contemplation: and he sympathizes with himself in sorrow and in joy; for at all seasons the same things give him pain and pleasure, not this thing now, and then another thing,—for he is, so to speak, not apt to change his mind.

  Since, then, all these characteristics are found in the good man’s relations to himself, and since his relations to his friend are the same as his relations to himself (for his friend is his second self), friendship is described by one or other of these characteristics, and those are called friends in whom these characteristics are found.

  The question whether friendship towards one’s self is or is not possible may be dismissed at present; but that it is possible so far as one has two or more selves would seem to follow from what has been already said, and also from the fact that the extreme of friendship for another is likened to friendship for one’s self.

  But the characteristics we have mentioned appear to be found in the generality of men, though they are not good.* Perhaps we may say that so far as they are agreeable to themselves, and believe they are good, so far do they share these characteristics. People who are utterly worthless and impious never have them, nor do they even seem to have them. But we might almost say roundly that they are wanting in all who are not good; for such men are not at one with themselves: they desire one thing while they wish another, as the incontinent do, for instance (for, instead of what they hold to be good, they choose what is pleasant though injurious). Others, again, through cowardice or laziness, shrink from doing that which they believe is the best for them; while those who have done many terrible things out of wickedness, hate life, and wish to get rid of it, and sometimes actually destroy themselves.

  Bad men try to find people with whom to spend their time, and eschew their own company; for there is much that is painful in the past on which they look back and in the future to which they look forward when they are by themselves, but the company of others diverts them from these thoughts. As there is nothing lovable in them, they have no friendly feelings towards themselves.

  He who is not good, then, cannot sympathize with himself in joy or sorrow; for his soul is divided against itself: one part of him, by reason of its viciousness, is pained at being deprived of something, while another part of him is pleased; one part pulls this way, another that, tearing him to pieces, as it were, between them. Or if it be impossible to be pained and pleased at the same time, yet, at any rate, after a short interval he is pained that he was pleased, and wishes that he had never partaken of this pleasure; for those who are not good are full of remorse.

  Thus we may say roundly that he who is not good has no friendly feelings even for himself, as there is nothing lovable in him. If, then, to be in this state is utterly miserable, we ought to strain every nerve to avoid vice, and try to be good; for thus we may be friendly disposed towards ourselves, and make friends with others.

  5.

  Friendship and goodwill.

  Well-wishing seems to be friendly, but is not friendship: for we may wish well to those who are unknown to us, and who are not aware that we wish them well; but there can be no friendship in such cases. But this we have already said.

  Neither is well-wishing the same as love; for it has none of the intense emotion and the desire which accompany love.

  Love, moreover, implies intimate acquaintance, while well-wishing may spring up in a moment; it does so, for instance, when athletes are competing for a prize: we may wish well to a competitor, and be eager for his success, though we would not do anything to help him; for, as we said, we suddenly become well-wishers and conceive a sort of superficial affection in such cases.

  The truth seems to be that well-wishing is the germ of friendship, in the same way as pleasure in the sight of a person is the germ of love: for no one falls in love unless he is first pleased by visible beauty; but he who delights in the beauty of a person is not one whit in love on that account, unless he also feels the absence and desires the presence of that person. Just so it is impossible for people to be friends unless they first become well-wishers, but people who wish each other well are not a whit on that account friends; for they merely wish good to those whose well-wishers they are, but would never help them in any enterprise, or put themselves out for them. One might say, then—extending the meaning of the term—that well-wishing is an undeveloped friendship, which with time and intimate acquaintance may become friendship proper,—not that friendship whose motive is profit, nor that whose motive is pleasure; for well-wishing is no element in them. He who has received a benefit does indeed give his good wishes in return to his benefactor, and it is but just that he should; but he who wishes that another may prosper, in the hope of good things to be got by his means, does not seem really to wish well to the other, but rather to himself, just as he is not really a friend if he serves him with an eye to profit.

  But, generally speaking, well-wishing is grounded upon some kind of excellence or goodness, and arises when a person seems to us beautiful or brave, or endowed with some other good quality, as we said in the case of the athletes.

  6.

  Friendship and unanimity

  Unanimity [or unity of sentiment] also seems to be an element in friendship; and this shows that it is not mere agreement in opinion, for that is possible even between people who know nothing of each other.

  Nor do we apply the term to those who agree in judgment upon any kind of subject, e.g. upon astronomy (for being of one mind in these matters has nothing to do with friendship); but we say that unanimity prevails in a state when the citizens agree in their judgments about what is for the common interest, and choose the same course, and carry out the decision of the community. It is with regard to practical matters, therefore, that people are said to be of one mind, especially with regard to matters of importance and things that may be given to both persons, or to all the persons concerned; for instance, a state is said to be of one mind when all the citizens are agreed that the magistracies shall be elective, or that an alliance be made with Sparta, or that Pittacus be governor, Pittacus himself being willing to accept the office. But when each wishes the government for himself, like the brothers in the Phœnissæ of Euripides, then they are at discord: for being of one mind means that each not merely thinks of the same thing (whatever it be), but thinks of it under the same conditions—as, for instance, if both the populace and the upper classes agree that the best men shall govern; for thus they all get what they want.

  Unanimity, then, seems to be, as it is called, the kind of friendship that prevails in states; for it has to do with what is for the common interest, and with things that have a considerable influence upon life.

  This kind of unanimity is found in good men; for they are of one mind with themselves and with each other, standing, so to speak, always on the same ground: for the wishes of such people are constant, and do not ebb and flow like the Euripus; they wish what is just and for the common interest, and make united efforts to attain it. But people who are not good cannot be of one mind, just as they cannot be friends except for a little space or to a slight extent, as they strive for more than their share of profit, but take less than their share of labours and public services: but every man, while wishing to do this himself, keeps a sharp eye upon his neighbour, and prevents him from doing it; for if they are not thus on their guard, the community is ruined. The result is that they are at discord, striving to compel one another to do what is just, but not willing to do it themselves.

  7.

  Why benefactors love more than they are loved.

  Benefactors seem to love those whom they have benefited more than those who have received benefits love those who have conferred them; and as this appears irrational, people seek for the cause of this phenomenon.

  Most people think the reason is that the one is in the position of a debtor, the other in the position of a creditor; and that, therefore, just as in the case of a loan the debtor wishes his creditor were out of the way, while the lender, on the other hand, is anxious that his debtor may be preserved, so here the benefactor desires the existence of him whom he has benefited in hopes of receiving favours in return, while the other is not at all anxious to repay.

  Epicharmus, indeed, might perhaps say that this is only the view of “those who have bad places at the play,”* but it seems to be true to life; for the generality of men have short memories, and are more eager to receive benefits than to confer them.

  But it would seem that the real cause is something that lies deeper in the nature of things, and that the case of creditors does not even resemble this: for creditors have no real affection for their debtors, but only a wish that they may be preserved in order that they may repay; but those who have conferred benefits have a real love and affection for those whom they have benefited, even though they are not, and are never likely to be, of any service.

  The same phenomenon may be observed in craftsmen; for every craftsman loves the work of his own hands more than it would love him if it came to life. But perhaps poets carry it furthest; for they love their own poems to excess, and are as fond of them as if they were their children.

  Now, the case of the benefactors seems to resemble theirs; those whom they have benefited they have made, so to speak: that which they have made, then, they love more than the work loves its maker. And the reason of this is that we all desire existence and love it: but it is in the exercise of our faculties, or in the realization of ourselves, that our existence lies (for it lies in living and doing): but* that which a man makes is, in a way, a realization of his self; therefore he loves it, because he loves existence.

  But this is in accordance with the nature of things; for it is a law of nature that what a thing is as yet potentially is exhibited in realization by that which it makes or does.

  Moreover, the manifestation of his action is beautiful to the benefactor, so that he delights in the person that makes it manifest; but to him who has received the benefit there is nothing beautiful in the benefactor, but at the most something useful; and such an object is less pleasing and less lovable.

  Again, we take pleasure in realizing ourselves in the present, in hopes for the future, and in memories of the past; but that in which we are realizing ourselves is the most pleasant, and likewise the most lovable. Now, for the benefactor what he has done endures (for that which is beautiful is lasting), while for him who has received the benefit the advantage soon passes away.

  Again, the memory of beautiful deeds is pleasant, of profitable actions not at all pleasant, or not so pleasant; but with expectation the reverse seems to be the case.

  Again, loving seems like doing something, being loved like having something done to you: but those who have the better part in the transaction naturally feel and show more love.

  Again, we all have more affection for what we have achieved with toil, as those who have made money love it more than those who have inherited it; but receiving a benefit seems to involve no labour, while conferring one seems to be troublesome. And for this reason mothers have more affection for their children than fathers; for they have more trouble in giving them birth, and fuller assurance that they are their own. But this would seem to be a characteristic of benefactors also.

  8.

  In what sense it is right to love one’s self.

  Another question which is raised is, whether we ought most to love ourselves or others.

  We blame, it is said, those who love themselves most, and apply the term self-loving to them as a term of reproach: and, again, he who is not good is thought to have regard to himself in everything that he does, and the more so the worse he is; and so we accuse him of doing nothing disinterestedly. The good man on the other hand, it is thought, takes what is noble as his motive, and the better he is the more is he guided by this motive, and by regard for his friend, neglecting his own in