These pythagorising Platonici might well be termed δεινοὶ περὶ φύσιν. They paid much attention to the interpretation of nature, though they did so according to a numerical and geometrical symbolism.
[141] Plato, Republic, x. p. 607.
Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics — defect of the Philêbus.
In my judgment, this is one main defect pervading the Platonic Philêbus — the forced conjunction between Kosmology and Ethics — the violent pressure employed to force Pleasures and Pains into the same classifying framework as cognitive Beliefs — the true and the false. In respect to the various pleasures, the dialogue contains many excellent remarks, the value of which is diminished by the purpose to which they are turned.[142] One of Plato’s main batteries is directed against the intense, extatic, momentary enjoyments, which he sets in contrast against the gentle, serene, often renewable.[143] That the former are often purchasable only at the cost of a distempered condition of body and mind, which ought to render them objects shunned rather than desired by a reasonable man — this is a doctrine important to inculcate: but nothing is gained by applying the metaphorical predicate false, either to them, or to the other classes of mixed pleasures, &c., which Plato discountenances under the same epithet. By thus condemning pleasures in wholesale and in large groups, we not only set aside the innocuous as well as others, but we also leave unapplied, or only half applied, that principle of Measure or Calculation which Plato so often extols as the main item in Summum Bonum.
[142] We read in Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric (Book i. ch. 7, pp. 168-170) some very good remarks on the erroneous and equivocal assertions which identify Truth and Good — a thesis on which various Platonists have expended much eloquence. Dr. Campbell maintains the just distinction between the Emotions and Will on one side, and the Understanding on the other.
“Passion” (he says) “is the mover to action, Reason is the guide. Good is the object of the Will; Truth the object of the Understanding.”
[143] Plato, Philêbus, p. 45 D. ἐν ὕβρει μείζους ἡδονάς, οὐ πλείους λέγω, &c.
So in the Republic, also, ἡδονὴ ὑπερβάλλουσα is declared to be inconsistent with σωφροσύνη (iii. 402 E).
Directive sovereignty of Measure — how explained and applied in the Protagoras.
In this dialogue as well as others, Measure is thus exalted, and exalted with emphasis, at the final conclusion: but it is far less clearly and systematically applied, as far as human beings are concerned, than in the Protagoras. The Sokrates of the Protagoras does not recognise any pleasures as false — nor any class of pleasures as absolutely unmixed with pain: he does not set pleasure in pointed opposition to the avoidance of pain, nor the intense momentary pleasures to the gentle and more durable. He considers that the whole course of life is a perpetual intermixture of pleasures and pains, in proportions variable and to a certain extent modifiable: that each item in both lists has its proper value, commensurable with the others; that the purpose of a well-ordered life consists, in rendering the total sum of pleasure as great, and the total sum of pain as small, as each man’s case admits: that avoidance of pain and attainment of pleasure are co-ordinate branches of this one comprehensive End. He farther declares that men are constantly liable to err by false remembrances, estimates, and comparisons, of pleasures and pains past — by false expectations of pleasures and pains to come: that the whole security of life lies in keeping clear of such error — in right comparison of these items and right choice between them: that therefore the full sovereign controul of each man’s life must be vested in the Measuring Science or Calculating Intelligence.[144] Not only all comprehensive sovereignty, but also ever-active guidance, is postulated for this Measuring Science: while at the same time its special function, and the items to which it applies, are more clearly defined than in any other Platonic dialogue. If a man be so absorbed by the idea of an intense momentary pleasure or pain, as to forget or disregard accompaniments or consequences of an opposite nature, greatly overbalancing it — this is an error committed from default of the Measuring Science: but it is only one among many errors arising from the like deficiency. Nothing is required but the Measuring Science or Intelligence, to enable a man to make the best of those circumstances in which he may be placed: this is true of all men, under every variety of place and circumstances. Measure is not the Good, but the one condition which is constant as well as indispensable to any tolerable approach towards Good.