[15] Plato. Ion, 534 C-D. διὰ ταῦτα δὲ ὁ θεὸς ἐξαιρούμενος τούτων τὸν νοῦν τούτοις χρῆται ὑπηρέταις καὶ τοῖς χρησμῳδοῖς καὶ τοῖς μάντεσι τοῖς θείοις, ἵνα ἡμεῖς οἱ ἀκούοντες εἰδῶμεν, ὅτι οὐχ οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ταῦτα λέγοντες οὕτω πολλοῦ ἄξια, ἀλλ’ ὁ θεὸς αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ λέγων, διὰ τούτων δὲ φθέγγεται πρὸς ἡμᾶς.
[16] Plato, Ion. 534 E. ταῦτα ἐνδεικνύμενος ὁ θεὸς ἐξεπίτηδες διὰ τοῦ φαυλοτάτου ποιητοῦ τὸ κάλλιστον μέλος ᾖσεν.
Analogy of the Magnet, which holds up by attraction successive stages of iron rings. The Gods first inspire Homer, then act through him and through Ion upon the auditors.
Homer is thus (continues Sokrates) not a man of art or reason, but the interpreter of the Gods; deprived of his reason, but possessed, inspired, by them. You, Ion, are the interpreter of Homer: and the divine inspiration, carrying away your reason, is exercised over you through him. It is in this way that the influence of the Magnet is shown, attracting and holding up successive stages of iron rings.[17] The first ring is in contact with the Magnet itself: the second is suspended to the first, the third to the second, and so on. The attractive influence of the Magnet is thus transmitted through a succession of different rings, so as to keep suspended several which are a good way removed from itself. So the influence of the Gods is exerted directly and immediately upon Homer: through him, it passes by a second stage to you: through him and you, it passes by a third stage to those auditors whom you so powerfully affect and delight, becoming however comparatively enfeebled at each stage of transition.
[17] Plato, Ion, 533 D-E.
This comparison forms the central point of the dialogue. It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates in the Apology.
The passage and comparison here given by Sokrates — remarkable as an early description of the working of the Magnet — forms the central point or kernel of the dialogue called Ion. It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates himself in his Apology to the Dikasts, and it is repeated in more than one place by Plato.[18] Sokrates declares in his Apology that he had applied his testing cross-examination to several excellent poets; and that finding them unable to give any rational account of their own compositions, he concluded that they composed without any wisdom of their own, under the same inspiration as prophets and declarers of oracles. In the dialogue before us, this thought is strikingly illustrated and amplified.
[18] Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 22 D; Plato, Menon, p. 99 D.
Platonic Antithesis: systematic procedure distinguished from unsystematic: which latter was either blind routine, or madness inspired by the Gods. Varieties of madness, good and bad.
The contrast between systematic, professional, procedure, deliberately taught and consciously acquired, capable of being defended at every step by appeal to intelligible rules founded upon scientific theory, and enabling the person so qualified to impart his qualification to others — and a different procedure purely impulsive and unthinking, whereby the agent, having in his mind a conception of the end aimed at, proceeds from one intermediate step to another, without knowing why he does so or how he has come to do so, and without being able to explain his practice if questioned or to impart it to others — this contrast is a favourite one with Plato. The last-mentioned procedure — the unphilosophical or irrational — he conceives under different aspects: sometimes as a blind routine or insensibly acquired habit,[19] sometimes as a stimulus applied from without by some God, superseding the reason of the individual. Such a condition Plato calls madness, and he considers those under it as persons out of their senses. But he recognises different varieties of madness, according to the God from whom it came: the bad madness was a disastrous visitation and distemper — the good madness was a privilege and blessing, an inspiration superior to human reason. Among these privileged madmen he reckoned prophets and poets; another variety under the same genus, is, that mental love, between a well-trained adult, and a beautiful, intelligent, youth, which he regards as the most exalted of all human emotions.[20] In the Ion, this idea of a privileged madness — inspiration from the Gods superseding reason — is applied not only to the poet, but also to the rhapsode who recites the poem, and even to the auditors whom he addresses. The poet receives the inspiration directly from the Gods: he inoculates the rhapsode with it, who again inoculates the auditors — the fervour is, at each successive communication, diminished. The auditor represents the last of the rings; held in suspension, through the intermediate agency of other rings, by the inherent force of the magnet.[21]