Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to the day of his death.
Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked, through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato, and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his dream. [489]
[Footnote 489: ][ (return) ] Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii. ch. vii.
Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason is purified and strengthened by reflection, and that to reflect is to observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the problem of being by the principles revealed in his own consciousness, and in the ultimate ideas of the reason to find the foundation of all real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.
Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit, that earnestness and rectitude of purpose, that longing after truth, that inward sympathy with, and reverence for justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in the heart of Socrates, and which constrained him to believe in their reality and permanence. He could not endure the thought that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty a dream. The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive, but the voice of reason and conscience would not mislead the upright man. The opinions of individual men might vary, but the universal consciousness of the race could not prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not always last; they must perish. The just thing and the true thing are the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime conviction that his mission was to draw the Athenian mind away from the fleeting, the transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the contemplation of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal Beauty, all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate ἀγαθόν--the Supremely Good. The knowledge of this "Supreme Good" he regarded as the highest science. [490]
[Footnote 490: ][ (return) ] "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.
Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further qualification of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had been achieved by his predecessors. In this regard he had enjoyed advantages superior to those of Socrates. Socrates was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive observation, the results of which he had generalized with more or less accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands not only a knowledge of contemporaneous opinions and modes of thought, but also a knowledge of the succession and development of thought in past ages. Its instrument is not simply psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a counterproof. [491] And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied carefully the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools. Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of Heraclitus. [492] He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and in the writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have purchased. He studied the principles of Parmenides under Hermogenes, [493] and he more than once speaks of Parmenides in terms of admiration, as one whom he had early learned to reverence. [494] He studied mathematics under Theodoras, the most eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in Southern Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued his course to Egypt. [495] Enriched by the fruits of all previous speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder of his life to the development of a comprehensive system "which was to combine, to conciliate, and to supersede them all." [496] The knowledge he had derived from travel, from books, from oral instruction, he fused and blended with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed the whole, and gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has excited the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages. [497]
[Footnote 491: ][ (return) ] Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 31.
[Footnote 492: ][ (return) ] Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.