Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks

by Erwin Rohde

NOTES TO CHAPTER XIII

[1] Pl., Ap. c. 32 f. (40 C ff.).

[2] Ap. 41 C D.

[3] Ap. 29 A B, 37 B.

[4] Xen. Cyrop. 8, 7, 17, makes the dying Kyros justify his faith that the soul survives the body rather on the lines of popular belief and the cult of souls than from would-be-philosophical considerations (§ 20; see above, chap. v, [n. 178]). In spite of this he allows the question to remain undecided—as though of little importance—whether, in fact, the soul then leaves the body and lives on or whether μένουσα ἡ ψυχὴ ἐν τῷ σώματι συναποθνήσκει, § 21. In either eventuality he will after death μηδὲν ἔτι κακὸν παθεῖν, § 27.—Arist., SE. xvii, p. 176b, 16, πότερον φθαρτὴ ἢ ἀθάνατος ἡ ψυχὴ τῶν ζῴων, οὐ διώρισται τοῖς πολλοῖς—in this question they ἀμφιδοξοῦσι.

[5] Pl., Phd. 70 A, 77 B, 80 D. This belief of the πολλοί and παῖδες looks indeed much more like a piece of superstition than a denial of the continued life of the ψυχή (in which light Pl. represents it). We have already met with the soul as a wind-spirit more than once: when it leaves the body the other wind-spirits carry it off and away with themselves (cf. above, chap. i, [n. 10]), esp. when a high wind is blowing (cf. the German popular belief that when a man hangs himself a storm arises: Grimm, p. 635: cf. Mannhardt, Germ. Myth. 270 n. In other words, the “furious host”, the personified storm-spirits—Grimm, p. 632; cf. [Append. vii]—come and carry away with them the poor unquiet soul).

[6] Cf. Pl. Rp. 330 D E. There is more about these matters in the speech against Aristogeiton, [D.] 25, 52–3. In spite of the popular form in which it is put such an opinion is not to be claimed at once as a popular and generally held belief: the author of this speech is a follower of Orpheus, a fact which he himself betrays in § 11.

[7] Pl. Rp. 608 D.

[8] It is probable that in the Πολιτεία two essentially distinct stages of Platonic doctrine are found side by side with only an external bond of union, and that in particular what is said in Bk. v, 471 C ff., to the end of Bk. vii about the φιλόσοφοι, their education and position in the state (and outside politics), is an extraneous addition to the completed picture of the καλλίπολις which is given in Bks. ii—v, 471 C: an afterthought not originally included in the plan of the whole book and not anticipated in the beginning of it. This seems to me to emerge unmistakably from a careful and unprejudiced study of the whole work and to have been completely demonstrated by Krohn and Pfleiderer. That Plato himself regarded the first sketch of an ideal state as a separate work (which may even have been actually published separately: Gellius, 14, 3, 3), is shown by the beginning of the Timaeus. Here—with the implication of quite a different staging of the dialogue and a different introduction from what we now read in Rp., Bk. i, c. 1—ii, c. 9—we have an exact recapitulation of the subject of the inquiry in the Πολιτεία from ii, 10, 367 E, to v, 460 C, with the definite statement (19 AB) that thus far and no farther had the discussion gone “yesterday”. The stages in which the whole work was composed seem then to be divisible as follows: (1) Sketch of the state of the [478] φύλακες (in brief) embodied in a dialogue between Sokrates, Kriton, Timaios, Hermokrates, and another companion: in subject matter agreeing (apart from the introduction) substantially with Rp. ii, 10, 367 E, to v, 460 C. (2) Continuation of this sketch in the story of ancient Athens and the people of Atlantis. Its completion is transferred elsewhere because in the meantime the Πολιτεία itself has been extended and into the empty framework of the Τίμ. thus left available the account of the creation of the world given by Timaios is very loosely inserted: the frame-narratives of the Τίμαιος and Κριτίας never being completed. (3) Continuation of the first sketch (still virtually along the lines originally laid down) in Rp. v, 460 D–471 C (in which 466 E ff. is a brief account of the behaviour of the state in time of war—a substitute for the longer and more detailed statement on the same subject in Tim. 20 B f.), and in viii, ix (the greater part), and x, second half (608 C ff.). (4) Finally the whole work receives its crown and completion in a section that was, however, not foreseen in the older parts of the design, for it disturbs part of that original design’s independence and validity and does more than merely supplement it—the introduction of the φιλόσοφοι and their special type of “virtue”, v, 471 C–vii fin.; ix, 580 D–588 A; x, part 1 (to 608 B).—Then came the final editing of the whole: insertion of the new introduction, i, 1–ii, 9 (not necessarily left until the completion of the whole); necessary bringing into harmony of the divergent elements by a few excisions, qualifications, etc.; and probably a literary revision and polishing of the whole book.—The whole thus finally produced reveals its origin clearly enough in the outgrowing of a first plan and its replacement by a second that has naturally suggested itself in the course of the author’s own continued development. At the same time Plato could claim that the whole edifice, in spite of much extension and rebuilding in a different style of architecture, should be considered as a unity in the form in which he finally left it (as a noteworthy monument, too, of his own alteration of view). He himself in the sublimest moments of his mystic flight in Bks. vi and vii in no sense rejects the groundwork of the καλλίπολις of ii–v (though not, indeed, designed originally as such), but merely reduces it to the position of a substructure which remains a necessary and sole foundation even for the mystic pinnacle and preserves its absolute validity for the great majority of the citizens who inhabit the καλλίπολις (for the φιλόσοφοι are still regarded as very few in number) for whom it is a school for the exhibition of political virtue.—In the first sketch, then, there is no trace of a doctrine of immortality that can be properly so called, and the popular belief in a continued life of the soul after death has for Plato, at this stage at least, no serious weight or importance. The φύλακες are not to trouble about what may follow death (iii, 1 ff.); the main purpose in view is to show that δικαιοσύνη is its own reward, and the rewards which are anticipated for it after death are only ironically alluded to (ii, 363 CD; cf. 366 AB); Sokrates means to do without such hopes (366 E ff.). The ἀθανασία ψυχῆς is only introduced as a paradox in x, 608 D (in the continuation of the first sketch) for which proof is sought; whereupon the importance of the question as to what may await the soul after death emerges (614 A ff.) as well as the necessity of taking thought not for this short life but ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἅπαντος χρόνον (608 C), of which nothing had been said or could have been said in iii–v. Finally in vi–vii the indestructibility of the soul is implied in its sublimest form. It is evident that Plato’s own views on these matters had undergone changes in the course of time, and that these [479] changes are reflected in the various strata of the Πολιτεία even after its final editing. (Cf. Krohn, Platon. Staat, p. 265; Pfleiderer, Platon. Frage, p. 23 f., 35 ff., 1888.)

[9] The Appearance βούλεται, ὀρέγεται, προθυμεῖται εἶναι what its Idea is: Phd. 74 D, 75 AB. The Ideas are thus teleological causes like the divine νοῦς of Aristotle which, unmoved itself, κινεῖ ὡς ἐρώμενον (just as matter has a desire for form, potentiality for actuality). Plato it is true did not keep to this method of illustrating rather than explaining the relation between the Appearance and the unmoved Idea.

[10] νοήσει μετὰ λόγου περιληπτόν, Tim. 27 D. οὗ οὔποτ’ ἂν ἄλλῳ ἐπιλάβοιο ἢ τῷ τῆς διανοίας λογισμῷ, Phd. 79 A. αὐτὴ δι’ αὑτῆς ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ κοινὰ φαίνεται περὶ πάντων ἐπισκοπεῖν, Tht. 185 D.

[11] The prius in the case of man is really the perception of his own mental activity in νόησις μετὰ λόγου as being a process essentially different from δόξα μετ’ αἰσθήσεως ἀλόγου. It is inference from the former alone that leads to the conclusion that the νοούμενα exist: Tim. 51 B–52 A. It is the Ideas that we grasp in abstract thought: αὐτὴ ἡ οὐσία ἧς λόγον δίδομεν καὶ ἐρωτῶντες καὶ ἀποκρινόμενοι, Phd. 78 D.

[12] The ἐπιστήμη which διαλεκτική alone can give (Rp. 533 DE) is ἀναμάρτητος (Rp. 477 E).

[13] Of the three εἴδη or γένη—the ὄν, the γιγνόμενον and the ἐν ᾧ γίγνεται (the χώρα) of Tim. 48 E f., 52 ABD)—the third at any rate is quite foreign to the soul. Like the World-Soul (Tim. 35 A), along with which it is “mixed” (41 D), the individual soul also is a middle term between the ἄμερες of the Idea and the κατὰ τὰ σώματα μεριστόν, having a share in both.

[14] True, unalterable Being belongs only to the ἀειδές and therefore also to the soul: Phd. 79 A f.

[15] Phd. c. 54–6 (105 B–107 B).

[16] ὁμοιότερον ψυχὴ σώματός ἐστι τῷ ἀειδεῖ (and that = τῷ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντι), Phd. 79 B. τῷ θείῳ καὶ ἀθανάτῳ καὶ νοητῷ καὶμονοειδεῖ καὶ ἀδιαλύτῳ καὶ ὡσαύτως κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχοντι ἑαυτῷ ὁμοιότατον ψυχή, 80 AB.

[17] ἀγένητον, Phdr. c. 24, 245 D (ἀΐδιος simply, Rp. 611 B). The creation of the souls in Tim. is only intended to represent the origin of the spiritual from the δημιουργός (not the coming into being of the soul in time): see Siebeck, Ges. d. Psychol. i, 1, 275 ff. Still, it remains impossible to say whether Plato whenever he speaks of the pre-existence of the soul always means that the soul existed without beginning.

[18] As to the relation of the individual soul to the soul of the universe, neither the mythical account in Timaeus nor the briefer allusion in Phileb. 30 A allows us to conclude that the soul of our body is “taken from” the soul of the σῶμα τοῦ παντός. In reality the fiction of a “World-Soul” is intended to serve quite other purposes than the derivation of the individual soul from a single common source.

[19] Tim. 34 C; Lg. 891 A–896 C.

[20] Acc. to the account in Phdr. 246 C, the soul suffers its downfall into the earthly existence if ὁ τῆς κάκης ἵππος, i.e. the ἐπιθυμία in the soul, tends towards the earth—247 B. It must, therefore, be the result of the preponderance of the appetitive impulses. This, however, can only happen if the λογιστικόν of the soul has become too weak to drive the soul-chariot any longer as its duty was. Hence the supporting wings, i.e. the νόησις, of the soul-horse fall off. It is thus a weakening of the cognitive part of the soul that causes its downfall into materiality (just as it is the measure of their capacity for knowledge that determines [480] the character of the ἐνσωμάτωσις of the souls, and their return to the τόπος ὑπερουράνιος is equally determined by their recovery of the purer form of knowledge: 248 C ff., 249 AC). Thus it is not, as in Empedokles, a religio-moral transgression that leads to the incarnation of the souls, but a failure of intellect, an intellectual fall in sin.

[21] The soul is, acc. to the account in Tim., created in order that by animating and governing a body, it may complete the sum of creation: without the ζῷα the οὐρανός (the universe) would be ἀτελής, Tim. 41 B ff. Acc. to this teleological motivation of the being and the ἐνσωμάτωσις of the soul, this latter, the ἐνσωμάτωσις, would have belonged to the original plan of the δημιουργός and there would be no purpose in the creation of the souls (by the δημιουργός and the inferior gods) unless they were destined to the animation of the ζῷα and conjunction with σώματα. But it is obviously inconsistent with all this that the object of the soul’s endeavour should be to separate itself as soon as possible and as completely as possible from the body and everything material in order to get back again to immaterial life without any body—42 BD. This is a relic of the original theological view of the relation between body and soul. In Phd. (and usually in Plato) it displays itself unconcealed; but it was far too closely bound up with the whole of Plato’s ethic and metaphysics not to make its illicit appearance even when as in Tim. he wished to keep the physiological side to the fore.

[22] Phdr. 245 C–246 A. The soul is τὸ αὑτὸ κινοῦν, and indeed continually, ἀεικίνητον, it is τοῖς ἄλλοις ὅσα κινεῖται πηγὴ καὶ ἀρχὴ κινήσεως (the body only seems to move itself, but it is really the soul within which moves it—246 C). If the soul were to perish, πᾶς οὐρανὸς πᾶσά τε γένεσις would be at a standstill. The conception of the “soul” as the ἀεικίνητον was already well and long established in Plato’s time (see above, chap. xii, [n. 150]). In the form in which he introduces it here (as a proof of the imperishability of the soul) he may have modelled his conception on that of Alkmaion (Arist., An. 405a, 29): see Hirzel, Hermes, xi, 244. But Plato here and throughout Phdr. is speaking of the individual soul (ψυχή collective singular). So too in Lg. 894 E ff., 896 A ff. (λόγος of the soul: ἡ δυναμένη αὐτὴ αὑτὴν κινεῖν κίνησις. It is the αιτία and the issue of all movement in the world, the source of life; for life belongs to that which αὐτό αὑτὸ κινεῖ 895 C.) As distinguished from the ψυχὴ ἐνοικοῦσα ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς κινουμένοις we do not hear of the (double) World-Soul until 896 E. There is in fact κίνησις in plenty in the world besides that of the animated organisms.

[23] Phd. 93 B (c. 43) and often.

[24] ψυχή on the one side, πᾶν τὸ ἄψυχον on the other. Phdr. 246 B and so generally.

[25] Tim. 86 B ff. (c. 41).—In brief: κακὸς ἑκὼν οὐδείς, διὰ δὲ πονηρὰν ἕξιν τινὰ τοῦ σώματος καὶ ἀπαίδευτον τροφὴν (education of the soul) ὁ κακὸς γίγνεται κακός, 86 E.

[26] τὸ σωματοειδὲς ὃ τῇ ψυχῇ ἡ ὁμιλία τε καὶ ξυνουσία τοῦ σώματος . . . ἐνεποίησε ξύμφυτον κτλ. Phd. 81 C, 83 D.

[27] Pythagoreans, see above (chap. xi, [n. 55]); hardly Demokritos (Dox., p. 390, 14). The trichotomy can exist very well side by side with the dichotomy (which also appears) into λογιστικόν and αλόγιστικον, the last being simply divided again into θυμός and ἐπιθυμία.

[28] In the first sketch of the Republic (ii–v). Here it is admittedly bound up with the three classes or castes of the state, but it has not been invented for the benefit of these classes. On the contrary, the [481] trichotomy of the soul is original and the division of the citizen body into three parts is derived and explained from it; cf. 435 E.—The view that Plato was never quite serious about the threefold division of the soul but always spoke of it as something semi-mythical or as a temporarily adopted hypothesis, will not appear plausible on an unprejudiced study of the passages in the Platonic writings that deal with the threefold division of the soul.

[29] Rp. x, 611 A–E (c. 11), shows clearly that the reason which made Plato abandon his conception (given in the first sketch of the Rep. and still maintained in the Phaedrus) of the natural trichotomy of the soul into parts or divisions was the consideration of its immortality and vocation to intercourse with the θεῖον καὶ ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀεὶ ὄν.—The emotions and passions by which the soul is “fettered” ὑπὸ τοῦ σώματος, explain its tendency to clothe itself in another body after death, Phd. 83 C ff. If the emotions and passions were indissolubly linked to the soul the latter could never escape from the cycle of rebirths.—On the other hand, if only the λογιστικόν, as the only independently existing side of the soul, goes into the place of judgment in the other world there would seem to be no reason that should tempt this simple uncompounded soul to renewed ἐνσωμάτωσις, a process which implies materiality and desire. (This difficulty troubled Plotinos too.) Plato takes into view the possibility of an inner corruption of the pure and undivided intellectual soul which makes a future state of punishment and purgatory possible and intelligible and explains the existence (until a complete return to purity is achieved) of a tendency or constraint to renewed ἐνσωμάτωσις even without a permanent association with the θυμοειδές and the ἐπιθυμητικόν.

[30] τῇ ἀληθεστάτῃ φύσει the soul is μονοειδές, Rep. x, c. 11 (611 B, 612 A). Hence it is τὸ παράπαν ἀδιάλυτος ἢ ἐγγύς τι τούτου, Phd. 80 B.

[31] The intellect-soul ἀθάνατον ἀρχὴν θνητοῦ ζῴου is the creation of the δημιουργός; the other faculties of the soul, θυμός, ἐπιθυμία (and αἴσθησις therewith), ψυχῆς ὅσον θνητὸν (Tim. 61 C), are all added to the soul at the moment of its union with the body by the subordinate deities: Tim. 41 D–44 D; 69 A–70 D (c. 14, 15, 31). The same idea appears in Rp. x, 611 BC. τὸ ἀειγενὲς μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς is distinguished from the ζωογενές: Polit. 309 C.

[32] τὸ σῶμα καὶ αἷ τούτου ἐπιθυμίαι, Phd. 66 C. The soul moved by passion suffers ὑπὸ σώματος, 83 CD. In death the soul is καθαρὰ πάντων τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα κακῶν καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν, Crat. 404 A.

[33] Tim. 43 C. It is only as a result of this violent and contradictory excitement through the physical perception of Becoming that the soul becomes ἄνους (which is originally foreign to it) ὅταν εἰς σῶμα ἐνδεθῇ θνητόν, 44 A. (It will in time become ἔμφρων once more and can become wise, 44 BC. In the case of the animals, which can be inhabited by the same soul, it will remain always ἄφρων—one may suppose.)

[34] . . . σμικρὸν χρόνον, οὐδὲν μὲν οὖν πρὸς τὸν ἅπαντα (χρόνον). Rp. 498 D.

[35] In accordance with popular thought (but obviously also in perfect seriousness and without any special concession) death is regarded as τῆς ψυχῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος ἀπαλλαγή, Phd. 64 C; Gorg. 524 B. Hence, it usually happens that the soul μηδέποτε εἰς Ἅιδου καθαρῶς ἀφικέσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τοῦ σώματος ἀναπλέα ἐξιέναι, Phd. 83 D. (—ἀεὶ, i.e. with the exception of the few complete φιλόσοφοι that do not need further purification in Hades, and this is, in fact, the doctrine of the Phd. itself; cf. 114 C, 80 E, 81 A.)

[36] Purgatory, punishment and rewards in the other world: Gorg. [482] 523 ff.: Rp. x, c. 13 ff., 614 A ff. (vision of Er, son of Armenios in the continuation of the first version of the πολιτεία); Phd. 110 B–114 C. We must not here go into the details of the individual myths in which it is still perhaps possible to distinguish what parts Plato has taken out of ancient poetry and popular legend and what comes from theological and particularly Orphic doctrinal poetry—or even (Rp. x) from Oriental fables—and how much he has added independently on his own account. (A few remarks will be found in G. Ettig, Acherunt., Leipz. Stud. xiii, 305 ff.; cf. also Döring, Arch. Ges. Phil. 1393, p. 475 ff.; Dieterich, Nekyia, 112 ff.) He usually distinguishes three classes among the souls (only apparently two in Phdr. 249 A): those who are affected with curable faults, the hopelessly and incurable guilty (who are condemned to eternal punishment in Tartaros without rebirth: Gorg. 525 C ff.; Rp. 615 D; Phd. 113 E); and, thirdly the ὁσίως βεβιωκότες, δίκαιοι καὶ ὅσιοι. This is the system of Gorg. 525 BC, 526 C; Rp. 615 BC. (With these come also the ἄωροι, 615 C, who neither deserve punishment nor reward—of them Er said ἄλλα, οὐκ ἄξια μνήμης. Perhaps older theologians had already concerned themselves with these, not being satisfied with the fate assigned by popular mythology to the ἄωροι—see [Append. vii]—it would have been a natural subject for the professional attention of these Schoolmen of popular superstition.) In Phd. 113 D ff. the question is even more minutely dealt with. Here we have (1) οἱ μέσως βεβιωκότες (che visser’ senz’ infamia e senza lode), (2) οἱ ἀνιάτως ἔχοντες, (3) οἱ ἰάσιμα ἡμαρτηκότες, (4) οἱ διαφερόντως ὁσίως βεβιωκότες, and (5) the élite of these ὅσιοι, the real philosophers, οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθεράμενοι—these are not born again. To the other classes are assigned their appropriate purgation, reward or punishment. Here classes 2, 3, and 4 correspond to the three classes of Rp. and Gorg. (which may perhaps be modelled on the divisions popularized by older theological poetry—see above, chap. xii, [n. 62]). Novelties are the μέσως βεβιωκότες and the true philosophers. For these last the abode upon the μακάρων νῆσοι (Gorg. 526 C), or, what comes to the same thing, upon the surface of the earth (Phd. 114 BC), is no longer sufficient. They go ἐς μακάρων τινὰς εὐδαιμονίας (115 D), which means that they are really freed entirely from temporal existence and enter into the unchanging “Now” of eternity. (As far as the complete escape of the φιλόσοφοι is concerned the account in Rp. x, c. 13 [614 A–615 C] does not contradict that of Phd. The only reason why this is not mentioned in Rp. is that these absolutely enfranchized souls could not appear upon the λειμών there mentioned: 614 E.)—Of these various accounts that of Phd. seems to be the latest. In Lg. there is yet another indefinite allusion to the necessity of undergoing a judgment after death: 904 C ff.

[37] Choice of their new state of life by the souls in the other world, Rp. 617 E ff.; Phdr. 249 B. The purpose of this arrangement is made clear by Rp. 617 E; αἰτία ἑλομένου· θεὸς ἀναίτιος (cf. Tim. 42 D). It is, in fact, a theodicy and at the same time secures the complete responsibility of every man for his own character and deeds (cf. 619 C). There is no idea of founding a determinist theory upon it.—The choice is guided by the special character of the soul (which it has developed in its previous life) and its tendencies (cf. Phd. 81 E; Lg. 904 BC). For the same reason there is no choice on the occasion of the soul’s first ἐνσωμάτωσις (Tim. 41 E): after that, in later births, a definite descent in well-marked stages in peius, can be observed, each conditioned by the degree of corruption attaching to the soul (Tim. 42 B ff.). [483] All of which can very well co-exist with a choice of its own fate by the soul conditioned by its own nature.

[38] ξυμμετρία, Tim. 87 D.

[39] At least three (as in Pi., O. ii, 75 ff.), acc. to Phdr. 249 A. Between each two births there is an intervening period of 1,000 years (Rp. 615 A; Phdr. 249 AB). This cuts away the ground from such myths as that of the various “lives” of Pythagoras (see [Append. x]).

[40] Incarnation in animals, Phdr. 249 B; Rp. 618 A, 620 ff.; Phd. 81 E; Tim. 42 BC. That this part was any less seriously meant than any other part of his doctrine of metempsychosis is not in the least suggested by Plato himself. Acc. to Tim. 91 D–92 B, all the animals have souls that had once inhabited the bodies of men (see Procl., in Rp. ii, 332 Kroll; he is trying to harmonize Tim. and Phdr.). In fact, the idea that a man’s soul might inhabit an animal was precisely the great difficulty in Plato’s doctrine of the soul. If, as is said in Phdr. 249 BC, a real animal-soul cannot enter into a human body because it does not possess νόησις or the power of “dialectic” which constitutes the essential part of the human soul’s activity, how can a real human soul enter into an animal’s body when it is obvious that as an animal it can make no use of its νόησις? (For this very reason many Platonists—those who were not satisfied with ingenious or artificial interpretations: cf. Sallust., de Dis 20; Procl., in Tim. 329 DE—denied the entrance of the human soul into animals; cf. Aug. CD. X, 30, and partic. Nemes., p. 116 Matth. Lucr. iii, 760, already seems to have such Platonists in mind.) The λογιστικόν of the soul seems to be absent from animals or to be present but undeveloped as in children: Rp. iv, 441 A B (or does it remain permanently bound in ἀφροσύνη? see above, this chap., [n. 33]. Just such a theory put forward by exponents of μετεμψύχωσις who would make the ψυχή always the same but not always equally active, is attacked by Alex. Aphr., de An., p. 27 Br.). But acc. to the later doctrine of Plato the λογιστικόν comprises the whole contents of the soul before it enters a body; if the animals do not possess it then they do not strictly speaking possess a soul (θυμός and ἐπιθυμία in themselves are not the soul; they are only added to the soul when it first enters into a body). It seems certain that Plato adopted the view that the soul migrates into the bodies of animals from the theologians and Pythagoreans, while he still believed that the soul was not pure power of thought but also (as still in Phdr.) included θυμός and ἐπιθυμία in itself. Later, because it was difficult to do without the migration-theory of the soul on account of its ethical importance, he allowed the idea to remain side by side with his reorganized and sublimated doctrine of the soul. (On the other hand, metempsychosis into plants—which are certainly also ζῷα, though they only have to τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν, Tim. 77 B—was never adopted by him from Empedokles; cf. Procl., in Rp. ii, 333 Kr., and for the same reason: this idea was unimportant and indifferent from an ethical point of view.)

[41] τὴν εἰς τὸν νοητὸν τόπον τῆς ψυχῆς ἄνοδον, Rp. 517 B.

[42] ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἀγένητόν ἐστι, καὶ ἀδιάφθορον αὐτὸ ἀναγκη εἶναι, Phdr. 245 D—the ancient argument from the fact that the individual soul (and of this Plato is speaking) has no beginning to the conclusion that its life can have no end.

[43] This much may be conceded to Teichmüller’s observations. “The individual, and the individual soul, is not an independent principle but only a resultant of the compounding of the Idea and the principle of Becoming”—though this is not how Plato regards the [484] matter; hence in Plato—“the individual is not eternal (i.e. not necessarily), and the eternal Principles are not individual”, Stud. z. Ges. d. Begr., p. 115, 142 (1874). But all that Teichmüller has to say under this head is in reality only a criticism of the Platonic doctrine of the soul and does not help us to determine what exactly that doctrine was. Plato speaks always of the immortality, i.e. the eternity, of the individual soul; nowhere does he confine indestructibility to the “common nature” of the soul; and this fact is not even remotely explained by appealing as Teichmüller does to an alleged “orthodoxy” to which Plato is supposed to be accommodating his words. If from no other passage we should be obliged to conclude definitely from Rp. 611 A that Plato believed in the existence of a plurality of souls and in their indestructibility: ἀεὶ ἂν εἶεν αἱ αὐταί (ψυχαί). οὔτε γὰρ ἄν που ἐλάττους γένοιντο μηδεμιᾶς ἀπολλυμένης, οὔτε αὗ πλείους. Here the predicate of the first sentence is indubitably εἶεν only; it is affirmed that always the same souls will exist, not that αἱ αὐταὶ εἶεν (“the souls are always the same ones”) as Teichmüller supposes, Platon. Frage, 7 ff., and it is asserted with all possible plainness that the plurality of individual souls, of which a definite number exist, is indestructible.

[44] E.g. appeal made to τελεταί, παλαιοὶ λόγοι ἐν ἀπορρήτοις λεγόμενοι, and particularly to Orphic doctrine, in those places where he is speaking of the inward difference between the soul and all that is corporeal, of the soul’s “death” in earthly life, of its enclosure in the σῶμα as its σῆμα in punishment of its misdeeds—of punishment and purification after death in Ἅιδης, of the migration of the soul, its imperishability, dwelling of the pure in the neighbourhood of the gods (Phd. 61 BC, 63 C, 70 C, 81 A, 107 D ff.; Gorg. 493 A; Crat. 400 BC; Men. 81 A; Lg. 870 DE, 872 E). This also is the origin of the tendency to compare the highest philosophical activity, or the beholding of the Ideas before all time, with the ἐποπτεῖαι of the mysteries: Phdr. 250 B; cf. Lob., Agl. 128.

[45] Nine (an ancient sacred number) stages from the φιλόσοφος downwards to the τύραννος, Phdr. 248 DE.

[46] This is frequently stated in individual myths; cf. also Phd. 85 CD.

[47] Phdr. 250 C (ὄστρεον): Rp. 611 CD (Glaukos).

[48] τὴν τοῦ ὄντος θήραν, Phd. 66 C (ὅταν αὐτὴ καθ’ αὑτὴν πραγματεύηται ἡ ψυχὴ περὶ τὰ ὄντα, Tht. 187 A. αὐτῇ τῇ ψυχῇ θεατέον αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα, Phd. 66 D).

[49] ξυναίτια, Tim. 46 C ff. νοῦς καὶ ἀνάγκη, 47 E ff. (ὁ θεός is πολλῶν ἀναίτιος, namely τῶν κακῶν, Rp. 379 AC).

[50] The σῶμα with which the soul is bound up is a κακόν, Phd. 66 B (δεσμοί of the soul, 67 D). The κακά in the world are regularly said to come from matter until in Lg., side by side with the εὐεργέτις ψυχή of the world, there appears an evil World-Soul that works evil.

[51] Particularly in Phd., καθαρεύειν—κάθαρσις—οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι in contrast with the ἀκάθαρτοι ψυχαί, 67 A ff., 69 BC, 80 E, 82 D, 108 B, 114 C. Katharsis of the soul through dialectic Soph. 230 C ff. Express allusion to the analogous requirement of κάθαρσις by οἱ τὰς τελετὰς ἡμῖν καταστήσαντες, Phd. 69 C.

[52] κάθαρσις εἶναι τοῦτο ξυμβαίνει, τὸ χωρίζειν ὅ τι μάλιστα ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ ἐθίσαι αὐτὴν καθ’ αὑτὴν πανταχόθεν ἐκ τοῦ σώματος συναγείρεσθαί τε καὶ ἁθροίζεσθαι, καὶ οἰκεῖν κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ ἐν τῷ νῦν παρόντι καὶ ἐν τῷ ἔπειτα μόνην καθ’ αὑτῆν, ἐκλυομένην ὥσπερ ἐκ δεσμῶν ἐκ τοῦ σώματος, Phd. 67 C. Thus δικαιοσύνη and [485] ἀνδρεία, and more particularly φρόνησις, are καθαρμός τις, 69 BC. λύσις τε καὶ καθαρμός of φιλοσοφία, 82 D.

[53] φιλοσοφία teaches the soul εἰς αὑτὴν ξυλλέγεσθαι καὶ ἁθροίζεσθαι and to ἀναχωρεῖν from the ἀπάτη of the senses ὅσον μὴ ἀνάγκη αὐτοῖς χρῆσθαι, Phd. 83 A.—ἐὰν καθαρὰ ἡ ψυχὴ ἀπαλλάττηται . . . φεύγουσα τὸ σῶμα καὶ συνηθροισμένη αὐτὴ εἰς αὑτήν, 80 E, 76 C.

[54] . . . καθαροὶ ἀπαλλαττόμενοι τῆς τοῦ σώματος ἀφροσύνης . . . γνωσόμεθα δι’ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν πᾶν τὸ εἰλικρινές, μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι μὴ οὐ θεμιτὸν ᾖ, Phd. 67 AB.

[55] For the ἀγαθόν, ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα, αἰτία both of ἀλήθεια and of ἐπιστήμη but identical with neither (they are only ἀγαθοειδῆ) and ἔτι μειζόνως τιμητέον—cause of the γιγνωσκόμενα and not only of γιγνώσκεσθαι, of both εἶναι and οὐσία, οὐκ οὐσίας ὄντος τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀλλ’ ἔτι ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας πρεσβείᾳ καὶ δυνάμει ὑπερέχοντος—see Rp. vi, c. 19 (508 A ff.), 517 BC. Here τὸ ἀγαθόν, as the reason and active cause of all Being is itself placed beyond and above Being (as it is regularly with the Neoplatonics) and identified with Godhead (the θεῖος νοῦς, Phil. 22 C); this last is, however, in Tim. set side by side with the Ideas, of which τὸ ἀγαθόν is now the highest.

[56] ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα μέγιστον μάθημα, Rp. 505 A.

[57] The περιαγωγή of the soul, Rp. vii init.

[58] The philosopher, ἐξιστάμενος τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων καὶ πρὸς τῷ θείῳ γιγνόμενος, ἐνθουσιάζων λέληθε τοὺς πολλούς, Phdr. 249 D.

[59] ὁ γὰρ συνοπτικὸς διαλεκτικός, Rp. 537 C. εἰς μίαν ἰδέαν συνορῶντα ἄγειν τὰ πολλαχῇ διεσπαρμένα (and again κατ’ εἴδη τέμνειν what is unified)—this is the business of the διαλεκτικός, Phdr. 265 D. ἐκ πολλῶν αἰσθήσεων εἰς ἓν λογισμῷ ξυναιρούμενον (ἰέναι), Phdr. 249 B.

[60] Gradual ascent of dialectic upwards to αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἀγαθόν, Rp. 532 A f., 511 BC, 534 B ff. to αὐτὸ τὸ καλόν, Smp. c. 28–9 (211 B). Its aim is ἐπαναγωγὴ τοῦ βελτίστου ἐν ψυχῇ πρὸς τοῦ ἀρίστου ἐν τοῖς οὖσι θέαν, Rp. 532 C.

[61] The philosophic ἐρωτικός at the end of the dialectic ascent ἐξαίφνης κατόψεταί τι θαυμαστὸν τὴν φύσιν καλόν κτλ., Smp. 210 E—exactly as in the τέλεα καὶ ἐποπτικὰ μυστήρια, 210 A. ὁλόκληρα καὶ ἁπλᾶ καὶ εὐδαίμονα φάσματα μυουμενοί τε καὶ ἐποπτεύοντες ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ, Phdr. 250 C.—it is a visionary and a suddenly acquired apprehension of the world-order, not one obtained in discursive thought. We may compare the way in which Plotinos, with a recollection of such Platonic passages, describes the arrival of ἔκστασις—ὅταν ἡ ψυχὴ ἐξαίφνης φῶς λάβῃ κτλ. (5, 3, 17; cf. 5, 5, 17).

[62] The soul ἔοικε τῷ θείῳ, Phd. 80 A. It is ξυγγενὴς τῷ τε θείῳ καὶ ἀθανάτῳ καὶ τῷ ἀεὶ ὄντι, Rp. 611 E—συγγένεια θεία of men; Lg. 899 D. The eternal and immortal is, as such, divine. The real Ego of man, the ἀθάνατον, ψυχὴ ἐπονομαζόμενον, after death goes παρὰ θεοὺς ἄλλους, Lg. 959 B.

[63] The θεῖον, ἀθανάτοις ὁμώνυμον, part of the soul is ἀθάνατος ἀρχὴ θνητοῦ ζῴου, Tim. 41 C, 42 E. The φρόνησις of the soul (its “wing” Phdr. 246 D) τῷ θείῳ ἔοικεν, Alc.¹ 133 C.—In Tim. 90 A C this κυριώτατον τῆς ψυχῆς εἶδος is actually called the δαίμων which man has ξύνοικον ἐν αὑτῷ.

[64] The eye is ἡλιοειδέστατον τῶν περὶ τὰς αἰσθήσεις ὀργάνων, Rp. 508 B.—Goethe is alluding either to these words or to the phrase of Plotinos taken from them, 1, 6 (περὶ τοῦ καλοῦ), 9.

[65] ἐπιστήμη καὶ ἀλήθεια are both ἀγαθοειδῆ, Rp. 509 A—the soul something θεοειδές, Phd. 95 C. [486]

[66] From the φιλοσοφία of the soul and from the question ὧν ἅπτεται καὶ οἵων ἐφίεται ὁμιλιῶν its real nature can be discerned as one which is ξυγγενὴς τῷ θείῳ καὶ ἀθανάτῳ καὶ τῷ ἀεὶ ὄντι, Rp. 611 DE; Phd. 79 D. With the ξυγγενές of the soul we achieve contact with the ὄντως ὄν, Rp. 490 B. If the Ideas are everlasting, so must our soul be, Phd. 76 DE. By its power of φρονεῖν ἀθάνατα καὶ θεῖα the ἀνθρωπίνη φύσις has itself a share καθ’ ὅσον ἐνδέχεται (i.e. with νοῦς) in ἀθανασία, Tim. 90 BC. This thinking “part” of the soul πρὸς τὴν ἐν οὐρανῷ ξυγγένειαν ἀπὸ γῆς ἡμᾶς αἴρει, ὡς ὄντας φυτὸν οὐκ ἔγγειον ἀλλ’ οὐράνιον, Tim. 90 A.

[67] λύειν τὴν ψυχὴν from the body and from sense-perception, Phd. 83 AB, 65 A, 67 D. λύσις and καθαρμός of the soul by φιλοσοφία, Phd. 82 D. λύσις καὶ ἴασις τῶν δεσμῶν (of the body) καὶ τῆς ἀφροσύνης, Rp. 515 C.

[68] θεῖος εἰς τὸ δυνατὸν ἀνθρώπῳ γίγνεται—said of the true philosopher, Rp. 500 D; ἀθάνατος, Smp. 212 A. The φιλόσοφος is perpetually in contact with the ὂν ἀεὶ and the θεῖον, which last is with difficulty recognizable by the eyes of τῆς τῶν πολλῶν ψυχῆς, Soph. 254 A.—καί μοι δοκεῖ θεὸς μὲν (as e.g. Empedokles called himself) ἀνὴρ οὐδαμῶς εἶναι, θεῖος μήν· πάντας γὰρ ἐγὼ τοὺς φιλοσόφους τοιούτους προσαγορεύω Soph. 216 B (where θεῖος is used in quite a different sense from that it has in other passages where Plato speaks of χρησμῳδοὶ καὶ θεομάντεις as θεῖοι, Men. 99 C, and of the insight and virtue of the unphilosophic as coming θείᾳ μοίρᾳ ἄνευ νοῦ).

[69] Rp. 519 C, 540 B.—τῆς τοῦ ὄντος θέας, οἵαν ἡδονὴν ἔχει, ἀδύνατον ἄλλῳ γεγεῦσθαι πλὴν τῷ φιλοσόφῳ, Rp. 582 C (cf. Phileb.).

[70] The flight ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε produces ὁμοίωσιν θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν, Tht. 176 B. ὁμοιοῦσθαι θεῷ, Rp. 613 A (τὸ κατανοουμένῳ τὸ κατανοοῦν ἐξομοιῶσαι, Tim. 90 D).

[70a] The soul that has through philosophy become completely “pure” is withdrawn from the cycle of Rebirth and from the whole material world. Even as early as Phdr. the souls of the φιλοσοφήσαντες after a third ἐνσωμάτωσις are exempt for the remainder of the περίοδος of 10,000 years, while the real and unwavering (ἀεί) philosopher remains for ever free from the body. That at least must be the meaning of 248 C–249 A. The subject is then treated in more detail in Phd.: Release of the φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι for ever from life in the body (ἄνευ σωμάτων ζῶσι τὸ παράπαν εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον, 114 C)—entry of the pure soul to its kin (εἰς τὸ ξυγγενές, 84 B) and its like (εἰς τὸ ὅμοιον αὐτῇ, τὸ ἀειδές, 81 A), and εἰς θεῶν γένος, 82 B—and to the τοῦ θείου τε καὶ καθαροῦ καὶ μονοειδοῦς ξυνουσία, 83 E. Still more mythologically expressed—Tim. 42 BD (ὁ τῶν κακῶν καθαρὸς τόπος Tht. 177 A). Throughout we have the release theory of the theologians re-expressed in a philosophical and more elevated manner (Orphic: μεμυημένοι, Phd. 81).

[71] . . . οὐ ῥᾴδιον δηλῶσαι . . . , Phd. 114 C.

[72] To the ἀΐδιος οὐσία, τὸ ἔστι μόνον κατὰ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον προσήκει Tim. 37 E.

[73] It is true that not until it becomes associated with the body does the soul, by obtaining αἴσθησις, ἐπιθυμία, θυμός, and all the other faculties that bring it into touch with Becoming and Changing, obtain what can strictly be called its individual personality. The perfectly adequate comprehension in thought of the ever-Unchanging by the bodiless and free soul would have no individualized content. We must not, however, (with Teichm., Pl. Fr. 40), conclude from this that Plato knew nothing of an immortality of the individual and of [487] individuality. He did not distinctly raise the question of the seat and origin of individuality in the soul. He is content to suppose that a plurality of individual souls was living before their entanglement with Becoming, and to conclude from this that in eternity, too, after their last escape from γένεσις, the same number of individual souls will still be living. Numerical distinctness (which affects in a scarcely intelligible manner the spaceless and immaterial) has to do duty with him for qualitative distinctness which would alone be able to account for the self-consciousness of this plurality. Acc. to the picture given in Tim. c. 14 (41 D ff.) the souls created by the δημιουργός are evidently all alike (hence also is γένεσις πρώτη τεταγμένη μία πᾶσιν, 41 E), and only when they are in the σῶμα, and bound up with mortal portions of soul, do they react in different ways to what affects them from without—and so become different. (This is so, however, in the pre-existent period, too, acc. to Phd.: but in that account θυμός and ἐπιθυμία are also bound up with the soul in pre-existence.) The influence of the lower soul-partners and of the τροφὴ παιδεύσεως (Tim. 44 B) makes the λογιστικά also of the souls differ among themselves. This acquired individual characterization, the fruit of differing παιδεία καὶ τροφή—something quite the reverse of the “common nature” of “soul” in general which Teichmüller supposes to be meant here: Stud. 143—is taken with it by the soul to the place of judgment, i.e. Hades, Phd. 107 D. When, however, by the best τροφὴ παιδεύσεως it has become completely pure and free from all the trammels of the physical and perishable and departs into bodiless existence in the ἀειδές—then in truth all individual distinctness has been dissolved out of it. Still, it must endure for ever as a self-conscious personality; for that this is what Plato meant cannot be doubted.

[74] Phd. 83 D.

[75] χωρίζειν ὅτι μάλιστα ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψυχὴν, Phd. 67 C. ἀναχωρεῖν, 83 (quite in the manner of genuine mysticism—it is the “separateness” of the man who is to behold god, of which Eckhart speaks).

[76] Phd. 64 A ff., 67 E.

[77] Phd. 114 C.

[78] τοῦ σώματος πτόησις καὶ μανία, Crat. 404 A.

[79] τῷ ξυγγενεῖ πλησιάσας καὶ μιγεὶς τῷ ὄντι ὄντως, Rp. 490 B.

[80] The soul ἐῶσα χαίρειν τὸ σῶμα καὶ καθ’ ὅσον δύναται οὐ κοινωνοῦσα ὀρέγεται τοῦ ὄντος, Phd. 65 C. In the same way the Appearance yearns after the Idea; see above, this chap., [n. 9].

[81] τῆς φρονήσεως κτῆσις, Phd. 65 A ff.

[82] πειρᾶσθαι χρῆ ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε φεύγειν ὅτι τάχιστα. φυγὴ δε ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν, Tht. 176 AB.

[83] Rp. 523 A–524 D.

[84] Beyond all other things it is the κάλλος of the world of Appearance that awakes the memory of that which has once been seen in the world of Ideas: Phdr. 250 B, 250 D ff.; Smp. c. 28 ff. (210 A ff.). Plato gives a peculiar reason for this, but in reality it is due to a vigorous re-emergence of the fundamental artistic sense—the aesthetic element in his philosophic speculation and enthusiasm—which the thinker had so violently suppressed in obedience to his theory that the αἰσθήσεις and all the arts are merely imitations of deceptive imitations of the only true Reality.

[85] Not μάθησις—only ἀνάμνησις, Phdr. 249 BC; Men. c. 14 ff. (80 D ff.); Phd. c. 18 ff. (72 E ff.). (This theory occurs regularly in Plato in close connexion with the theory of the soul’s migrations; [488] and it appears that he did as a matter of fact derive it from the anticipations and suggestions of earlier teachers of metempsychosis: see above, chap. xi, [n. 96].)

[86] Rp. vii init.

[87] ὁμοίωσις δὲ θεῷ δίκαιον καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι, Tht. 176 B.

[88] εἰς ἀγορὰν οὐκ ἴσασι τὴν ὁδόν κτλ., Tht. 173 D ff.

[89] Tht. 172 C–177 C. The philosopher is unskilled in the life of the everyday world and its arts, and is quite indifferent towards them. Commonplace people, if he is at any time drawn into the affairs of the market place or the law courts, regard him as εὐήθης, ἀνόητος, γελοῖος. Sometimes δόξαν παράσχοιντ’ ἂν (οἱ ὄντως φιλόσοφοι) ὡς παντάπασιν ἔχοντες μανικῶς, Soph. 216 D; Rp. 517 A—passages from the later writing of Plato. Even as early as Phdr. 249 D ἐξιστάμενος τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων καὶ πρὸς τῷ θείῳ γιγνόμενος νουθετεῖται ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ὡς παρακινῶν κτλ.

[90] ἰδιωτεύειν ἀλλὰ μὴ δημοσιεύειν is the injunction made to the philosopher, Ap. 32 A; at least, in πόλεις as they are, Rp. 520 B. After death comes the reward ἀνδρὸς φιλοσόφου τὰ αὑτοῦ πράξαντος καὶ οὐ πολυπραγμονήσαντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ, Gorg. 526 C. ὥσπερ εἰς θηρία ἄνθρωπος ἐμπεσών the true philosopher will ἡσυχίαν ἔχειν καὶ τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν, Rp. 496 D.

[91] τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πράγματα μεγάλης μὲν σπουδῆς οὐκ ἄξια, Lg. 803 B.

[92] Gorg. 521 D. ὁ ὡς ἀληθῶς κυβερνητικός, Rp. 488 E (cf. also Men. 99 E, 100 A).

[93] Not διάκονος καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν παρασκευαστής but rather an ἰατρός, Gorg. 518 C, 521 A; cf. 464 B ff.

[94] Gorg. 519 A. All these worldly matters seem to him φλυαρίαι: just as all the Appearances in the world of Becoming are for him but φλυαρίαι, Rp. 515 D.

[95] Gorg. c. 78 ff. (522 B ff.).

[96] οὗτος ὁ τρόπος ἄριστος τοῦ βίου, Gorg. 527 E—(this is the real subject of the Gorg., viz. ὅντινα χρὴ τρόπον ζῆν, 500 C, and not the nature of ῥητορική—and it is this which gives its special emotional tone to the dialogue).

[97] Gorg. 515 C ff., 519 A ff. Summary: οὐδένα ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν γεγονότα τὰ πολιτικὰ ἐν τῇδε τῇ πόλει, 517 A.

[98] οὐχ ὡς καλόν τι ἀλλ’ ὡς ἀναγκαῖον πράττοντες, Rp. 540 B.

[99] It is now the σκοπὸς ἐν τῷ βίῳ—inaccessible to the ἀπαίδευτοι—οὗ στοχαζομένους δεῖ ἅπαντα πράττειν, Rp. 519 C.

[100] The ἄλλαι ἀρεταὶ καλούμεναι (even including σοφία regarded as practical shrewdness: Rp. 428 B ff.) as ἐγγὺς οὖσαι τῶν τοῦ σώματος become of secondary importance compared with the virtue of φρόνησις, i.e. of dialectic and the contemplation of the Ideas, Rp. 518 DE. This alone is θειότερον, something μεῖζον than those bourgeois virtues, Rp. 504 D—philosophy stands high above δημοτική τε καὶ πολιτικὴ ἀρετή, ἐξ ἔθους τε καὶ μελετῆς γεγονυῖα ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας τε καὶ νοῦ, Phd. 82 BC.—This, too, rightly understood, is the real point of the inquiry in Meno. Explicitly, indeed, the dialogue only concerns itself with that ἀρετή which is commonly so regarded and is based on ἀληθὴς δόξα, coming into existence by instinct (θεία μοῖρα); which, however, to the philosopher is not ἀρετή in the proper sense of the word; that name he would only give to ἐπιστήμη, the only sort of knowledge that can be learnt and acquired as a permanent possession, depending as it does upon the doctrine of Ideas. To ἐπιστήμη he this time only makes distant allusion. [489]

[101] Rp. vii, c. 15 (535 A, 536 D); cf. vi, c. 2, 5 (485 B, 487 B; 489 D, 490 E).

[102] καὶ τοῦ μὲν (δόξης ἀληθοῦς) πάντα ἄνδρα μετέχειν φατέον, νοῦ δὲ θεούς, ἀνθρώπων δὲ γένος βραχύ τι, Tim. 51 E.

[103] φιλόσοφον πλῆθος ἀδύνατον εἶναι, Rp. 494 A. φύσεις of a completely philosophical kind, πᾶς ἡμῖν ὁμολογήσει ὀλιγάκις ἐν ἀνθρώποις φύεσθαι καὶ ὀλίγας, Rp. 491 B.

[104] “That into which I sink myself—that becomes one with me: when I think on Him I am as God that is the Fount of Being”—the true mystic note. For the mystics, knowledge of an object is real oneness with the thing known; knowledge of God is union with God.

[105] Rp. 540 B.

CHAPTER XIV
THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD
PART I
PHILOSOPHY

Plato and the Platonic account of the nature, origin, and destiny of the soul closes a period. It marks the end of that theological and spiritualist movement to the force and significance of which nothing bears clearer witness than the fact that it could have such a conclusion. After this point its development ceases—at least it disappears from the surface of Greek life: like one of those Asiatic torrents with which the ancients were familiar it buries itself underground for a long stretch of its course, only to reappear eventually, with all the greater effect, far away from the place of its origin. Even Plato’s own school almost immediately after the death of its master and directing spirit turned its attention in a direction quite other than that which he had given it.[1] To have retained the Platonic outlook would have made his pupils even more isolated in their very different age than Plato himself had been in his own.

Greece entered upon a new and final phase of her development. The ominous breakdown of the older political fabric at the end of the fourth century might have seemed likely to put an end to the natural vitality of the Greek peoples. With the conquest of the East by Macedonians and Greeks, however, new tasks were set before that people and with the new task they acquired new faculties. The polis, indeed, the purest expression of Greek constructive ability, could not be restored to life. Such of the old and narrow city-republics as had not perished completely in that stormy period only languished in a stagnant peace. Rare, indeed, are the exceptions in which (as particularly in Rhodos) a more vigorous and independent life asserted itself. The new and swollen cities of the Macedonian Empire, with their motley populations drawn from many nationalities, could not make good the loss. The Leagues in which Greece seemed to be making an effort to find a political organization of a wider compass soon broke down under the effects of inward [491] corruption and external violence. Even in its deepest and most essential character the old national spirit of Greece, which had drawn its strength from its clear-cut individuality, seemed to be suffering damage through the unlimited extension eastwards and westwards of Greek life. It did not cease to be an immeasurable advantage to be a Greek, but a Greek now meant anyone who had a share in the one thing that still distinguished and characterized the Greeks, namely, Greek culture—and Greek culture was no longer confined to a single nation. It was no fault of this Greek humanism that not a single one of the vast populations of the East (and in the West at last Rome stood alone) was able to make their own this culture so generously offered to the whole world, so that there, too, all should become Greek who were capable of becoming free human beings. Nevertheless, from all countries and nationalities uncounted multitudes of individuals entered into the circle of this extended Hellenism. The way was open for all who could live without the need of a way of life and thinking modelled strictly upon national lines: for the culture which now united all Greeks and Greek communities was based upon science—and science knows nothing of national frontiers.

The science which could thus present itself as the guiding principle of such a large and heterogeneous mass of cultured people, must at any rate have reached a condition of stability if not of completely rounded finality. After all the stir and controversy of the previous centuries it had at last arrived at a period of contented enjoyment of its own resources: the long drawn-out struggle, the restless years of search were now held to have borne fruit. In philosophy at least there was a distinct slackening of the insatiable zeal and boldness of individual thinkers in posing new questions and wresting answers or in seeking for fresh solutions to old problems. A few great systems, formulated in accordance with the fixed tenets of the various schools of thought, still offered a refuge to those who demanded fixity and definition in their opinions; for centuries they kept up their special traditions without serious alteration until they, too, fell in pieces at last. A greater measure of independence and variety was displayed by the special sciences which since they had now been completely released for the first time from the leading-strings of philosophy proceeded to develop freely in accordance with their own principles. Art, too, was by no means devoid as yet of originality and attractiveness, and in spite of the overwhelming achievements of the past refused to be driven [492] into a position of subservience and imitation. But it was no longer, in conjunction with the peculiar customs and manners of a people, the mistress and dispenser of wisdom and knowledge of the world. Art becomes a plaything and an incidental diversion: it is science that determines the general character and content of culture. But this scientifically minded culture shares in the natural temper of all science. Science has its feet firmly planted in life itself: it keeps men’s minds actively employed in this world; it has small temptation to leave the firm ground of what is knowable and can never be too well known, to voyage out into the region of the intangible which can never be a subject of scientific inquiry. A cool rationalism, a calm adherence to the intelligible and thinkable, without any leanings to the gloomy terrors of a mysterious world of the unknown—such is the temper that marks the science and culture of the Hellenistic age and marks it more distinctively than any other period of Greek culture. Such mysticism as was still vigorous and effective kept itself timidly in the background at this time; in the everyday world it is rather the direct contrary of mysticism that we are made aware of; the unlovely results of the prevailing rationalism, a bleak reasonableness, a knowing and prosaic common sense such as stares dully at us from the pages of Polybios’ History as the point of view of the narrator himself and of those of whom he writes. It was no age of heroes or of the heroic. A weaker and more delicate generation holds the field. The breakdown of political life and the disappearance of its obligations made it more possible than it had ever been before for the individual to lead his own life in his own way.[2] And he makes the most of his freedom, his culture, the treasures of an inward, private life enriched with all the brilliance and charm of an old and perfected civilization. All the past had thought and laboured on his behalf; he is not idle, but he is busy without ever being in a hurry, enjoying his heritage and taking his ease in the cooling sunlight of the long drawn-out autumn of Greek life. And he is little concerned to inquire what may follow when this brilliant, many-coloured world that surrounds him shall have vanished from his gaze. This world is all in all to him. The hope or fear of immortality has little effect upon the educated people of the age.[3] Philosophy to which in one form or another they are all more or less closely attached teaches them according to its particular mood to cherish that hope or calmly to set it to one side: in none of the popular sects [493] had the doctrine of the eternity or imperishable nature of the soul any serious significance as the central doctrine of a system. Natural science ruled the day, while theology remained in the background and could only obtain a doubtful hearing (if it was even listened to at all) for its proclamation of the divine origin and everlasting life of the souls.