Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato - Thomas Taylor
In short, if the words all and every, with which every page of theoretic
mathematics is full, mean what they are conceived by all men to mean, and
if the universals which they signify are the proper objects of science,
such universals must subsist in the soul prior to the energies of sense.
Hence it will follow that induction is no otherwise subservient to
science, than as it produces credibility in axioms and petitions; and
this by exciting the universal conception of these latent in the soul.
The particulars, therefore, of which an induction is made in order to
produce science, must be so simple, that they may be immediately
apprehended, and that the universal may be predicated of them without
hesitation. The particulars of the experimentalists are not of this kind,
and therefore never can be sources of science truly so called.
Of this, however, the man of experiment appears to be totally ignorant,
and in consequence of this, he is likewise ignorant that parts can only
be truly known through wholes, and that this is particularly the case
with parts when they belong to a whole, which, as we have already
observed, from comprehending in itself the parts which it produces, is
called a whole prior to parts. As he, therefore, would by no means merit
the appellation of a physician who should attempt to cure any part of the
human body, without a previous knowledge of the whole; so neither can he
know any thing truly of the vegetable life of plants, who has not a
previous knowledge of that vegetable life which subsists in the earth as
a whole prior to, because the principle and cause of all partial
vegetable life, and who still prior to this has not a knowledge of that
greater whole of this kind which subsists in nature herself; nor, as
Hippocrates justly observes, can he know any thing truly of the nature of
the human body who is ignorant what nature is considered as a great
comprehending whole. And if this be true, and it is so most indubitably,
with all physiological inquiries, how much more must it be the case with
respect to a knowledge of those incorporeal forms to which we ascended in
the first part of this Introduction, and which in consequence of
proceeding from wholes entirely exempt from body are participated by it,
with much greater obscurity and imperfection? Here then is the great
difference, and a mighty one it is, between the knowledge gained by the
most elaborate experiments, and that acquired by scientific reasoning,
founded on the spontaneous, unperverted, and self-luminous conceptions of
the soul. The former does not even lead its votary up to that one nature
of the earth from which the natures of all the animals and plants on its
surface, and of all the minerals and metals in its interior parts,
blossom as from a perennial root. The latter conducts its votary through
all the several mundane wholes up to that great whole the world itself,
and thence leads him through the luminous order of incorporeal wholes to
that vast whole of wholes, in which all other wholes are centred and
rooted, and which is no other than the principle of all principles, and
the fountain of deity itself. No less remarkable likewise, is the
difference between the tendencies of the two pursuits, for the one
elevates the soul to the most luminous heights, and to that great
ineffable which is beyond all altitude; but the other is the cause of a
mighty calamity to the soul, since, according to the elegant expression
of Plutarch, it extinguishes her principal and brightest eye, the
knowledge of divinity. In short, the one leads to all that is grand,
sublime and splendid in the universe; the other to all that is little,
groveling[14] and dark. The one is the parent of the most pure and ardent
piety; the genuine progeny of the other are impiety and atheism. And, in
fine, the one confers on its votary the most sincere, permanent, and
exalted delight; the other continual disappointment, and unceasing
molestation.
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[14] That this must be the tendency of experiment, when prosecuted as the
criterion of truth, is evident from what Bacon, the prince of modern
philosophy, says in the 104th Aphorism of his Novum Organum, that
"baseless fabric of a vision." For he there sagely observes that wings
are not to be added to the human intellect, but rather lead and weights;
that all its leaps and flights may be restrained. That this is not yet
done, but that when it is we may entertain better hopes respecting the
sciences. "Itaque hominum intellectui non plumae addendae, sed plumbum
potius, et pondera; ut cohibeant omnem saltum et volatum. Atque hoc adhuc
factum non est; quum vero factum fuerit, melius de scientiis sperare
licebit." A considerable portion of lead must certainly have been added
to the intellect of Bacon when he wrote this Aphorism.
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If such then are the consequences, such the tendencies of experimental
inquiries, when prosecuted as the criterion of truth, and daily
experience[15] unhappily shows that they are, there can be no other remedy
for this enormous evil than the intellectual philosophy of Plato. So
obviously excellent indeed is the tendency of this philosophy, that its
author, for a period of more than two thousand years, has been universally
celebrated by the epithet of divine. Such too is its preeminence, that it
may be shown, without much difficulty, that the greatest men of antiquity,
from the time in which its salutary light first blessed the human race,
have been more or less imbued with its sacred principles, have been more or
less the votaries of its divine truths. Thus, to mention a few from among a
countless multitude. In the catalogue of those endued with sovereign power,
it had for its votaries Dion of Siracusian, Julian the Roman, and Chosroes
the Persian, emperor; among the leaders of armies, it had Chabrias and
Phocion, those brave generals of the Athenians; among mathematicians, those
leading stars of science, Eudoxus, Archimedes[16] and Euclid; among
biographers, the inimitable Plutarch; among physicians, the admirable
Galen; among rhetoricians, those unrivaled orators Demosthenes and Cicero;
among critics, that prince of philologists, Longinus; and among poets, the
most learned and majestic Virgil. Instances, though not equally illustrious,
yet approximating to these in splendour, may doubtless be adduced after
the fall of the Roman empire; but then they have been formed on these
great ancients as models, and are, consequently, only rivulets from
Platonic streams. And instances of excellence in philosophic attainments,
similar to those among the Greeks, might have been enumerated among the
moderns, if the hand of barbaric despotism had not compelled philosophy
to retire into the deepest solitude, by demolishing her schools, and
involving the human intellect in Cimmerian darkness. In our own country,
however, though no one appears to have wholly devoted himself to the
study of this philosophy, and he who does not will never penetrate its
depths, yet we have a few bright examples of no common proficiency in its
more accessible parts.
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[15] I never yet knew a man who made experiment the test of truth, and I
have known many such, that was not atheistically inclined.
[16] I have ranked Archimedes among the Platonists, because he cultivated
the mathematical sciences Platonically, as is evident from the testimony of
Plutarch in his Life of Marcellus, p. 307. For he there informs us that
Archimedes considered the being busied about mechanics, and in short, every
art which is connected with the common purposes of life, as ignoble and
illiberal; and that those things alone were objects of his ambition with
which the beautiful and the excellent were present, unmingled with the
necessary. The great accuracy and elegance in the demonstrations of Euclid
and Archimedes, which have not been equaled by any of our greatest modern
mathematicians, were derived from a deep conviction of this important
truth. On the other hand modern mathematicians, through a profound
ignorance of this divine truth, and looking to nothing but the wants and
conveniences of the animal life of man, as if the gratification of his
senses was his only end, have corrupted pure geometry, by mingling with it
algebraical calculations, and through eagerness to reduce it as much as
possible to practical purposes, have more anxiously sought after
conciseness than accuracy, facility than elegance of geometrical
demonstration.
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The instances I allude to are Shaftesbury, Akenside, Harris, Petwin, and
Sydenham. So splendid is the specimen of philosophic abilities displayed by
these writers, like the fair dawning of same unclouded morning, that we
have only deeply to regret that the sun of their genius sat before we were
gladdened with its effulgence. Had it shone with its full strength, the
writer of this Introduction would not have attempted either to translate
the works, or elucidate the doctrines of Plato; but though it rose with
vigor, it dispersed not the clouds in which its light was gradually
involved, and the eye in vain anxiously waited for it's meridian beam.
In short, the principles of the philosophy of Plato are of all others the
most friendly to true piety, pure morality, solid learning, and sound
government. For as it is scientific in all its parts, and in these parts
comprehends all that can be known by man in theology and ethics, and all
that is necessary for him to know in physics, it must consequently contain
in itself the source of all that is great and good both to individuals and
communities, must necessarily exalt while it benefits, and deify while it
exalts.
We have said that this philosophy at first shone forth through Plato with
an occult and venerable splendor; and it is owing to the hidden manner in
which it is delivered by him, that its depth was not fathomed till many
ages after it's promulgation, and when fathomed, was treated by
superficial readers with ridicule and contempt. Plato indeed, is not
singular in delivering his philosophy occultly: for this was the custom
of all the great ancients; a custom not originating from a wish to become
tyrants in knowledge, and keep the multitude in ignorance, but from a
profound conviction that the sublimest truths are profaned when clearly
unfolded to the vulgar. This indeed must necessarily follow; since, as
Socrates in Plato justly observes, "it is not lawful for the pure to be
touched by the impure;" and the multitude are neither purified from the
defilements of vice, nor the darkness of twofold ignorance. Hence, while
they are thus doubly impure, it is as impossible for them to perceive the
splendors of truth, as for an eye buried in mire to survey the light
of day.
The depth of this philosophy then does not appear to have been perfectly
penetrated except by the immediate disciples of Plato, for more than five
hundred years after its first propagation. For though Crantor, Atticus,
Albinus, Galen and Plutarch, were men of great genius, and made no common
proficiency in Philosophic attainments, yet they appear not to have
developed the profundity of Plato's conceptions; they withdrew not the
veil which covers his secret meaning, like the curtains which guarded the
adytum of temples from the profane eye; and they saw not that all behind
the veil is luminous, and that there divine spectacles[17] every where
present themselves to the view. This task was reserved for men who were
born indeed in a baser age, but, who being allotted a nature similar to
their leader, were the true interpreters of his mystic speculations. The
most conspicuous of these are the great Plotinus, the most learned
Porphyry, the divine Jamblichus, the most acute Syrianus, Proclus the
consummation of philosophic excellence, the magnificent Hierocles, the
concisely elegant Sallust, and the most inquisitive Damascius. By these
men, who were truly links of the golden chain of deity, all that is
sublime, all that is mystic in the doctrines of Plato (and they are
replete with both these in a transcendent degree), was freed from its
obscurity and unfolded into the most pleasing and admirable light. Their
labors, however, have been ungratefully received. The beautiful light
which they benevolently disclosed has hitherto unnoticed illumined
philosophy in her desolate retreats, like a lamp shining on some
venerable statue amidst dark and solitary ruins. The prediction of the
master has been unhappily fulfilled in these his most excellent
disciples. "For an attempt of this kind," says he,[18] "will only be
beneficial to a few, who from small vestiges, previously demonstrated,
are themselves able to discover these abstruse particulars. But with
respect to the rest of mankind, some it will fill with a contempt by no
means elegant, and others with a lofty and arrogant hope, that they shall
now learn certain excellent things." Thus with respect to these admirable
men, the last and the most legitimate of the followers of Plato, some
from being entirely ignorant of the abstruse dogmas of Plato, and finding
these interpreters full of conceptions which are by no means obvious to
every one in the writings of that philosopher, have immediately concluded
that such conceptions are mere jargon and revery, that they are not truly
Platonic, and that they are nothing more than streams, which, though,
originally derived from a pure fountain, have become polluted by distance
from their source. Others, who pay attention to nothing but the most
exquisite purity of language, look down with contempt upon every writer
who lived after the fall of the Macedonian empire; as if dignity and
weight of sentiment were inseparable from splendid and accurate diction;
or as if it were impossible for elegant writers to exist in a degenerate
age. So far is this from being the case, that though the style of
Plotinus[19] and Jamblichus[20] is by no means to be compared with that
of Plato, yet this inferiority is lost in the depth and sublimity of
their conceptions, and is as little regarded by the intelligent reader,
as motes in a sunbeam by the eye that gladly turns itself to the
solar light.
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[17] See my Dissertation on the Mysteries.
[18]See the 7th Epistle of Plato.
[19] It would seem that those intemperate critics who have thought proper
to revile Plotinus, the leader of the latter Platonists, have paid no
attention to the testimony of Longinus concerning this most wonderful
man, as preserved by Porphyry in his life of him. For Longinus there
says, "that though he does not entirely accede to many of his hypotheses,
yet he exceedingly admires and loves the form of his writing, the density
of his conceptions, and the philosophic manner in which his questions are
disposed." And in another place he says, "Plotinus, as it seems, has
explained the Pythagoric and Platonic principles more clearly than those
that were prior to him; for neither are the writings of Numenius,
Cronius, Moderatus, and Thrasyllus, to be compared with those of Plotinus
on this subject." After such a testimony as this from such a consummate
critic as Longinus, the writings of Plotinus have nothing to fear from
the imbecile censure of modern critics. I shall only further observe,
that Longinus, in the above testimony, does not give the least hint of
his having found any polluted streams, or corruption of the doctrines of
Plato, in the works of Plotinus. There is not indeed the least vestige of
his entertaining any such opinion in any part of what he has said about
this most extraordinary man. This discovery was reserved for the more
acute critic of modern times, who, by a happiness of conjecture unknown
to the ancients, and the assistance of a good index, can in a few days
penetrate the meaning of the profoundest writer of antiquity, and bid
defiance even to the decision of Longinus.
[20] Of this most divine man, who is justly said by the emperor Julian to
have been posterior indeed in time, but not in genius even to Plato himself,
see the life which I have given in the History of the Restoration of the
Platonic Theology, in the second vol. of my Proclus on Euclid.
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As to the style of Porphyry, when we consider that he was the disciple of
Longinus, whom Eunapius elegantly calls "a certain living library, and
walking museum," it is but reasonable to suppose that he imbibed some
portion of his master's excellence in writing. That he did so is
abundantly evident from the testimony of Eunapius, who particularly
commends his style for its clearness, purity, and grace. "Hence," he
says, "Porphyry being let down to men like a mercurial chain, through his
various erudition, unfolded every thing into perspicuity, and purity."
And in another place he speaks of him as abounding with all the graces of
diction, and as the only one that exhibited and proclaimed the praise of
his master. With respect to the style of Proclus, it is pure, clear and
elegant, like that of Dionysius Halicarnassus; but is much more copious
and magnificent; that of Hierocles is venerable and majestic, and nearly
equals the style of the greatest ancients; that of Sallust possesses an
accuracy and a pregnant brevity, which cannot easily be distinguished
from the composition of the Stagirite; and lastly, that of Damascius is
clear and accurate, and highly worthy a most investigating mind.
Others again have filled themselves with a vain confidence, from reading
of commentaries of these admirable interpreters, and have in a short time
considered themselves superior to their masters. This was the case with
Ficinus, Picus, Dr. Henry Moore, and other pseudo Platonists, their
contemporaries, who, in order to combine Christianity with the doctrines
of Plato, rejected some of his most important tenets, and perverted
others, and thus corrupted one of these systems, and afforded no real
benefit to the other.
But who are the men by whom these latter interpreters of Plato are
reviled? When and whence did this defamation originate? Was it when the
fierce champions for the trinity fled from Galilee to the groves of
Academus, and invoked, but in vain, the assistance of Philosophy? When
The trembling grove confessed its fright,
The wood-nymphs started at the sight;
Ilissus backward urg'd his course,
And rush'd indignant to his source.
Was it because that mitred sophist, Warburton, thought fit to talk of the
polluted streams of the Alexandrian school, without knowing any thing of
the source whence those streams are derived? Or was it because some heavy
German critic, who knew nothing beyond a verb in mi, presumed to grunt at
these venerable heroes? Whatever was its source, and whenever it
originated, for I have not been able to discover either, this however is
certain, that it owes its being to the most profound Ignorance, or the
most artful Sophistry, and that its origin is no less contemptible than
obscure. For let us but for a moment consider the advantages which these
latter Platonists possessed beyond any of their modern revilers. In the
first place, they had the felicity of having the Greek for their native
language, and must therefore, as they were confessedly, learned men, have
understood that language incomparably better than any man since the time
in which the ancient Greek was a living tongue. In the next place, they
had books to consult, written by the immediate disciples of Plato, which
have been lost for upwards of a thousand years, besides many Pythagoric
writings from which Plato himself derived most of his more sublime
dogmas. Hence we find the works of Parmenides, Empedocles, the Electic
Zeno, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and many other illustrious philosophers of
the highest antiquity, who were either genuine Platonists or the sources
of Platonism, are continually cited by these most excellent interpreters,
and in the third place they united the greatest purity of life to the
most piercing vigor of intellect. Now when it is considered that the
philosophy to the study of which these great men devoted their lives, was
professedly delivered by its author in obscurity; that Aristotle himself
studied it for twenty years; and that it was no uncommon thing, as Plato
informs us in one of his Epistles, to find students unable to comprehend
its sublimest tenets even in a longer period than this,--when all these
circumstances are considered, what must we think of the arrogance, not to
say impudence, of men in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth
centuries, who have dared to calumniate these great masters of wisdom? Of
men, with whom the Greek is no native language; who have no such books to
consult as those had whom they revile; who have never thought, even in a
dream, of making the acquisition of wisdom the great object of their
life; and who in short have committed that most baneful error of
mistaking philology for philosophy, and words for things? When such as
these dare to defame men who may be justly ranked among the greatest and
wisest of the ancients, what else can be said than that they are the
legitimate descendants of the suitors of Penelope, whom, in the animated
language of Ulysses,
Laws or divine or human fail'd to move,
Or shame of men, or dread of gods above:
Heedless alike of infamy or praise,
Or Fame's eternal voice in future days,[21]
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[21] Pope's Odyssey, book xxii, v. 47, &c.
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But it is now time to present the reader with a general view of the works
of Plato, and, also to speak of the preambles, digressions, and style of
their author, and of the following translation. In accomplishing the
first of these, I shall avail myself of the synopsis of Mr. Sydenham,
taking the liberty at the same time of correcting it where it appears to
be erroneous, and of making additions to it where it appears to be
deficient.
The dialogues of Plato are of various kinds; not only with regard to
those different matters, which are the subjects of them; but in respect
of the manner also in which they are composed or framed, and of the form
under which they make their appearance to the reader. It will therefore,
as I imagine, be not improper, in pursuance of the admonition given us by
Plato himself in his dialogue named Phaedrus[22] and in imitation of the
example set us by the ancient Platonists to distinguish the several
kinds; by dividing them, first, into the most general; and then,
subdividing into the subordinate; till we come to those lower species,
that particularly and precisely denote the nature of the several
dialogues, and from which they ought to take their respective
denominations.
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[22] Whoever is unable to divide and distinguish things into their
several sorts or species; and, on the other hand, referring every
particular to its proper species, to comprehend them all in one general
idea; will never understand any writings of which those things are the
subject, like a true critic, upon those high principles of art to which
the human understanding reaches. We have thought proper, here, to
paraphrase this passage, for the sake of giving to every part of so
important a sentence its full force, agreeably to the tenor of Plato's
doctrine; and in order to initiate our readers into a way of thinking,
that probably many of them are as yet unacquainted with.
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The most general division of the writings of Plato, is into those of the
Sceptical kind, and those of they Dogmatical. In the former sort, nothing
is expressly either proved or asserted, some philosophical question only is
considered and examined; and the reader is left to himself to draw such
conclusions, and discover such truths as the philosopher means to
insinuate. This is done, either in the way of inquiry, or in the way of
controversy and dispute. In the way of controversy are carried on all such
dialogues, as tend to eradicate false opinions; and that, either indirectly,
by involving them in difficulties, and embarrassing the maintainers of them;
or directly, by confuting them. In the way of inquiry proceed those whose
tendency is to raise in the mind right opinions; and that either by exciting
to the pursuit of some part of wisdom, and showing in what manner to
investigate it; or by leading the way, and helping the mind forward in the
search. And this is effected by a process through opposing arguments.[23]
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[23] It is necessary to observe that Plato in the Parmenides calls all
that part of his Dialectic, which proceeds through opposite arguments, an
exercise and wandering.
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The dialogues of the other kind, the Dogmatical or Didactic, teach
explicitly some point of doctrine; and this they do either by laying it
down in the authoritative way, or by proving it in the ways of reason and
argument. In the authoritative way the doctrine is delivered, sometimes by
the speaker himself magisterially, at other times as derived to him by
tradition from wise men. The argumentative or demonstrative method of
teaching, used by Plato, proceeds in all the dialectic ways, dividing,
defining, demonstrating, and analysing; and the object of it consists in
exploring truth alone. According to this division is framed the following
scheme, or table: