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That the natural effect of the picture here drawn by Plato, was, to justify the antipathy of those who hated philosophy--we may see by the epilogue which Plato has thought fit to annex: an epilogue so little in harmony with what has preceded, that we might almost imagine it to be an afterthought--yet obviously intended to protect philosophy against imputations. Sokrates having concluded the recital, in his ironical way, by saying that he intended to become a pupil under the two Sophists, and by inviting Kriton to be a pupil along with him--Kriton replies by saying that he is anxious to obtain instruction from any one who can give it, but that he has no sympathy with Euthyd?mus, and would rather be refuted by him, than learn from him to refute in such a manner. Kriton proceeds to report to Sokrates the remarks of a by-stander who had heard all that passed; and who expressed his surprise that Sokrates could have remained so long listening to such nonsense, and manifesting so much deference for a couple of foolish men. Nevertheless this couple are among the most powerful talkers of the day upon philosophy. This shows you how worthless a thing philosophy is: prodigious fuss, with contemptible result--men careless what they say, and carping at every word that they hear.

Now, Sokrates , this man is wrong for depreciating philosophy, and all others who depreciate it are wrong also. But he was right in blaming you, for disputing with such a couple before a large crowd.

The first part of this epilogue, which I have here given in abridgment, has a bearing very different from the rest of the dialogue, and different also from most of the other Platonic dialogues. In the epilogue, Euthyd?mus is cited as the representative of true dialectic and philosophy: the opponents of philosophy are represented as afraid of being put down by Euthyd?mus: whereas, previously, he had been depicted as contemptible,--as a man whose manner of refuting opponents was more discreditable to himself than to the opponent refuted; and who had no chance of success except among hearers like himself. We are not here told that Euthyd?mus was a bad specimen of philosophers, and that there were others better, by the standard of whom philosophy ought to be judged. On the contrary, we find him here announced by Sokrates as among those dreaded by men adverse to philosophy,--and as not undeserving of that epithet which the semi-philosopher cited by Kriton applies to "one of the most powerful champions of the day".

Plato, therefore, after having applied his great dramatic talent to make dialectic debate ridiculous, and thus said much to gratify its enemies--changes his battery, and says something against these enemies, without reflecting whether it is consistent or no with what had preceded. Before the close, however, he comes again into consistency with the tone of the earlier part, in the observation which he assigns to Kriton, that most of the professors of philosophy are worthless; to which Sokrates rejoins that this is not less true of all other professions. The concluding inference is, that philosophy is to be judged, not by its professors but by itself; and that Kriton must examine it for himself, and either pursue it or leave it alone, according as his own convictions dictated.

This is a valuable admonition, and worthy of Sokrates, laying full stress as it does upon the conscientious conviction which the person examining may form for himself. But it is no answer to the question of Kriton; who says that he had already heard from Sokrates, and was himself convinced, that philosophy was of first-rate importance--and that he only desired to learn where he could find teachers to forward the progress of his son in it. As in so many other dialogues, Plato leaves the problem started, but unsolved. The impulse towards philosophy being assured, those who feel it ask Plato in what direction they are to move towards it. He gives no answer. He can neither perform the service himself, nor recommend any one else, as competent. We shall find such silence made matter of pointed animadversion, in the fragment called Kleitophon.

The person, whom Kriton here brings forward as the censor of Sokrates and the enemy of philosophy, is peculiarly marked. In general, the persons whom Plato ranks as enemies of philosophy are the rhetors and politicians: but the example here chosen is not comprised in either of these classes: it is a semi-philosopher, yet a writer of discourses for others. Schleiermacher, Heindorf, and Spengel, suppose that Isokrates is the person intended: Winckelmann thinks it is Thrasymachus: others refer it to Lysias, or Theodorus of Byzantium: Socher and Stallbaum doubt whether any special person is intended, or any thing beyond some supposed representative of a class described by attributes. I rather agree with those who refer the passage to Isokrates. He might naturally be described as one steering a middle course between philosophy and rhetoric: which in fact he himself proclaims in the Oration De Permutatione, and which agrees with the language of Plato in the dialogue Phaedrus, where Isokrates is mentioned by name along with Lysias. In the Phaedrus, moreover, Plato speaks of Isokrates with unusual esteem, especially as a favourable contrast with Lysias, and as a person who, though not yet a philosopher, may be expected to improve, so as in no long time to deserve that appellation. We must remember that Plato in the Phaedrus attacks by name, and with considerable asperity, first Lysias, next Theodorus and Thrasymachus the rhetors--all three persons living and of note. Being sure to offend all these, Plato might well feel disposed to avoid making an enemy of Isokrates at the same time, and to except him honourably by name from the vulgar professors of rhetoric. In the Euthyd?mus he had no similar motive to address compliments to Isokrates: respecting whom he speaks in a manner probably more conformable to his real sentiments, as the unnamed representative of a certain type of character--a semi-philosopher, fancying himself among the first men in Athens, and assuming unwarrantable superiority over the genuine philosopher; but entitled to nothing more than a decent measure of esteem, such as belonged to sincere mediocrity of intelligence.

That there prevailed at different times different sentiments, more or less of reciprocal esteem or reciprocal jealousy, between Plato and Isokrates, ought not to be matter of surprise. Both of them were celebrated teachers of Athens, each in his own manner, during the last forty years of Plato's life: both of them enjoyed the favour of foreign princes, and received pupils from outlying, sometimes distant, cities--from Bosphorus and Cyprus in the East, and from Sicily in the West. We know moreover that during the years immediately preceding Plato's death , his pupil Aristotle, then rising into importance as a teacher of rhetoric, was engaged in acrimonious literary warfare, seemingly of his own seeking, with Isokrates and some of the Isokratean pupils. The little which we learn concerning the literary and philosophical world of Athens, represents it as much distracted by feuds and jealousies. Isokrates on his part has in his compositions various passages which appear to allude to Plato among others, in a tone of depreciation.

Isokrates seems, as far as we can make out, to have been in early life, like Lysias, a composer of speeches to be spoken by clients in the Dikastery. This lucrative profession was tempting, since his family had been nearly ruined during the misfortunes of Athens at the close of the Peloponnesian war. Having gained reputation by such means, Isokrates became in his mature age a teacher of Rhetoric, and a composer of discourses, not for private use by clients, but for the general reader, on political or educational topics. In this character, he corresponded to the description given by Plato in the Euthyd?mus: being partly a public adviser, partly a philosopher. But the general principle under which Plato here attacks him, though conforming to the doctrine of the Platonic Republic, is contrary to that of Plato in other dialogues, "You must devote yourself either wholly to philosophy, or wholly to politics: a mixture of the two is worse than either"--this agrees with the Republic, wherein Plato enjoins upon each man one special and exclusive pursuit, as well as with the doctrine maintained against Kallikl?s in the Gorgias--but it differs from the Phaedrus, where he ascribes the excellence of Perikles as a statesmen and rhetor, to the fact of his having acquired a large tincture of philosophy. Cicero quotes this last passage as applicable to his own distinguished career, a combination of philosophy with politics. He dissented altogether from the doctrine here laid down by Plato in the Euthyd?mus, and many other eminent men would have dissented from it also.

As a doctrine of universal application, in fact, it cannot be defended. The opposite scheme of life --that philosophy is to be attentively studied in the earlier years of life as an intellectual training, to arm the mind with knowledge and capacities which may afterwards be applied to the active duties of life--is at least equally defensible, and suits better for other minds of a very high order. Not only Xenophon and other distinguished Greeks, but also most of the best Roman citizens, held the opinion which Plato in the Gorgias ascribes to Kallikl?s and reprobates through the organ of Sokrates--That philosophical study, if prolonged beyond what was necessary for this purpose of adequate intellectual training, and if made the permanent occupation of life, was more hurtful than beneficial. Certainly, a man may often fail in the attempt to combine philosophy with active politics. No one failed in such a career more lamentably than Dion, the friend of Plato--and Plato himself, when he visited Sicily to second Dion. Moreover Alkibiad?s and Kritias were cited by Anytus and the other accusers of Sokrates as examples of the like mischievous conjunction. But on the other hand, Archytas at Tarentum administered his native city with success, as long as Perikl?s administered Athens. Such men as these two are nowise inferior either to the special philosopher or to the special politician. Plato has laid down an untenable generality, in this passage of the Euthyd?mus, in order to suit a particular point which he wished to make against Isokrates, or against the semi-philosopher indicated, whoever else he may have been.

, &c., which exhibits the like views.

MENON.

This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city of Larissa. He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias. The name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates. The conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two episodes: in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.

The dialogue is begun by Menon, in a manner quite as abrupt as the Hipparchus and Minos:

Menon proceeds to answer that there are many virtues: the virtue of a man--competence to transact the business of the city, and in such business to benefit his friends and injure his enemies: the virtue of a woman--to administer the house well, preserving every thing within it and obeying her husband: the virtue of a child, of an old man, a slave, &c. There is in short a virtue--and its contrary, a vice--belonging to each of us in every work, profession, and age.

All this preliminary matter seems to be intended for the purpose of getting the question clearly conceived as a general question--of exhibiting and eliminating the narrow and partial conceptions which unconsciously substitute themselves in the mind, in place of that which ought to be conceived as a generic whole--and of clearing up what is required in a good definition. A generic whole, including various specific portions distinguishable from each other, was at that time little understood by any one. There existed no grammar, nor any rules of logic founded on analysis of the intellectual processes. To predicate of the genus what was true only of the species--to predicate as distinctively characterizing the species, what is true of the whole genus in which it is contained--to lose the integrity of the genus in its separate parcels or fragments--these were errors which men had never yet been expressly taught to avoid. To assign the one common meaning, constituent of or connoted by a generic term, had never yet been put before them as a problem. Such preliminary clearing of the ground is instructive even now, when formal and systematic logic has become more or less familiar: but in the time of Plato, it must have been indispensably required, to arrive at a full conception of any general question.

Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some lyric poet--"To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine, honourable--and to have the power of getting them". But Sokrates remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one without exception desires good. No one desires evil except when he mistakes it for good. On this point all men are alike; the distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of the definition--in the power of acquiring good things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c. But the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them. It appears then that every agent who acts with justice and moderation is virtuous. But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be themselves defined. No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless he knows what virtue itself is. Menon must look for a better definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted.

Whoever this lyric poet was, his real meaning is somewhat twisted by Sokrates in order to furnish a basis for ethical criticism, as the song of Simonides is in the Protagoras. A person having power, and taking delight in honourable or beautiful things--is a very intelligible Hellenic id?al, as an object of envy and admiration. Compare Protagoras, p. 351 C: , is the boast of Perikl?s in the name of the Athenians, Thucyd. ii. 40.

I do not believe this doctrine . Priests, priestesses, and poets tell us, that the mind of man is immortal and has existed throughout all past time, in conjunction with successive bodies; alternately abandoning one body, or dying--and taking up new life or reviving in another body. In this perpetual succession of existences, it has seen every thing,--both here and in Hades and everywhere else--and has learnt every thing. But though thus omniscient, it has forgotten the larger portion of its knowledge. Yet what has been thus forgotten may again be revived. What we call learning, is such revival. It is reminiscence of something which the mind had seen in a former state of existence, and knew, but had forgotten. Since then all the parts of nature are analogous, or cognate--and since the mind has gone through and learnt them all--we cannot wonder that the revival of any one part should put it upon the track of recovering for itself all the rest, both about virtue and about every thing else, if a man will only persevere in intent meditation. All research and all learning is thus nothing but reminiscence. In our researches, we are not looking for what we do not know: we are looking for what we do know, but have forgotten. There is therefore ample motive, and ample remuneration, for prosecuting enquiries: and your doctrine which pronounces them to be unprofitable, is incorrect.

Sokrates proceeds to illustrate the position, just laid down, by cross-examining Menon's youthful slave, who, though wholly untaught and having never heard any mention of geometry, is brought by a proper series of questions to give answers out of his own mind, furnishing the solution of a geometrical problem. The first part of the examination brings him to a perception of the difficulty, and makes him feel a painful perplexity, from which he desires to obtain relief: the second part guides his mind in the efforts necessary for fishing up a solution out of its own pre-existing, but forgotten, stores. True opinions, which he had long had within him without knowing it, are awakened by interrogation, and become cognitions. From the fact that the mind thus possesses the truth of things which it has not acquired in this life, Sokrates infers that it must have gone through a pre-existence of indefinite duration, or must be immortal.

The former topic of enquiry is now resumed: but at the instance of Menon, the question taken up, is not--"What is virtue?" but--"Is virtue teachable or not?" Sokrates, after renewing his objection against the inversion of philosophical order by discussing the second question without having determined the first, enters upon the discussion hypothetically, assuming as a postulate, that nothing can be taught except knowledge. The question then stands thus--"Is virtue knowledge?" If it be, it can be taught: if not, it cannot be taught.

Sokrates proceeds to prove that virtue is knowledge, or a mode of knowledge. Virtue is good: all good things are profitable. But none of the things accounted good are profitable, unless they be rightly employed; that is, employed with knowledge or intelligence. This is true not only of health, wealth, beauty, strength, power, &c., but also of the mental attributes justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, &c. All of these are profitable, and therefore good, if brought into action under knowledge or right intelligence; none of them are profitable or good, without this condition--which is therefore the distinctive constituent of virtue.

Virtue, therefore, being knowledge or a mode of knowledge, cannot come by nature, but must be teachable.

Yet again there are other contrary reasons which prove that it cannot be teachable. For if it were so, there would be distinct and assignable teachers and learners of it, and the times and places could be pointed out where it is taught and learnt. We see that this is the case with all arts and professions. But in regard to virtue, there are neither recognised teachers, nor learners, nor years of learning. The Sophists pretend to be teachers of it, but are not: the leading and esteemed citizens of the community do not pretend to be teachers of it, and are indeed incompetent to teach it even to their own sons--as the character of those sons sufficiently proves.

. There is no which can teach it, if a man be . But if a man be well-disposed, then education in will serve .

Here, a new speaker is introduced into the dialogue--Anytus, one of the accusers of Sokrates before the Dikastery. The conversation is carried on for some time between Sokrates and him. Anytus denies altogether that the Sophists are teachers of virtue, and even denounces them with bitter contempt and wrath. But he maintains that the leading and esteemed citizens of the state do really teach it. Anytus however presently breaks off in a tone of displeasure and menace towards Sokrates himself. The conversation is then renewed with Menon, and it is shown that the leading politicians cannot be considered as teachers of virtue, any more than the Sophists. There exist no teachers of it; and therefore we must conclude that it is not teachable.

The state of the discussion as it stands now, is represented by two hypothetical syllogisms, as follows: 1. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable: But virtue is knowledge: Therefore virtue is teachable. 2. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable: But virtue is not teachable: Therefore virtue is not knowledge. The premisses of each of these two syllogisms contradict the conclusion of the other. Both cannot be true. If virtue is not acquired by teaching and does not come by nature, how are there any virtuous men?

Nevertheless the question which we have just discussed--"How virtue arises or is generated?"--must be regarded as secondary and dependent, not capable of being clearly understood until the primary and principal question--"What is virtue?"--has been investigated and brought to a solution.

This last observation is repeated by Sokrates at the end--as it had been stated at the beginning, and in more than one place during the continuance--of the dialogue. In fact, Sokrates seems at first resolved to enforce the natural and necessary priority of the latter question: but is induced by the solicitation of Menon to invert the order.

The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates is indisputable. Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is. You must know the essence of the subject--or those predicates which the word connotes before you investigate its accidents and antecedents. Menon begins by being satisfied that he knows what virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even understand the question. Sokrates, on the other hand, not only confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never yet met with a man who did know. One of the most important lessons in this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar ethical and social ideas. Menon represents the common state of mind. He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside to his original object of curiosity--"Whether virtue is teachable". Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions--.

must be known before the are sought--

The confession of Sokrates that neither he nor any other person in his experience knows what virtue is--that it must be made a subject of special and deliberate investigation--and that no man can know what justice, or any other part of virtue is, unless he first knows what virtue as a whole is--are matters to be kept in mind also, as contrasting with other portions of the Platonic dialogues, wherein virtue, justice, &c., are tacitly assumed as matters known and understood. The contributions which we obtain from the Menon towards finding out the Platonic notion of virtue, are negative rather than positive. The comments of Sokrates upon Menon's first definition include the doctrine often announced in Plato--That no man by nature desires suffering or evil; every man desires good: if he seeks or pursues suffering or evil, he does so merely from error or ignorance, mistaking it for good. This is true, undoubtedly, if we mean what is good or evil for himself: and if by good or evil we mean the result of items of pleasure and pain, rightly estimated and compared by the Measuring Reason. Every man naturally desires pleasure, and the means of acquiring pleasure, for himself: every man naturally shrinks from pain, or the causes of pain, to himself: every one compares and measures the items of each with more or less wisdom and impartiality. But the proposition is not true, if we mean what is good or evil for others: and if by good we mean something apart from pleasure, and by evil something apart from pain . A man sometimes desires what is good for others, sometimes what is evil for others, as the case may be. Plato's observation therefore cannot be admitted--That as to the wish or desire, all men are alike: one man is no better than another.

Though the subject of direct debate in the Menon is the same as that in the Protagoras yet the manner of treating this subject is very different in the two. One point of difference between the two has been just noticed. Another difference is, that whereas in Menon the teachability of virtue is assumed to be disproved, because there are no recognised teachers or learners of it--in the Protagoras this argument is produced by Sokrates, but is combated at length by a counter-argument on the part of the Sophists, without any rejoinder from Sokrates. Of this counter-argument no notice is taken in the Menon: although, if it be well-founded, it would have served Anytus no less than Protagoras, as a solution of the difficulties raised by Sokrates. Such diversity of handling and argumentative fertility, are characteristic of the Platonic procedure. I have already remarked, that the establishment of positive conclusions, capable of being severed from their premisses, registered in the memory, and used as principles for deduction--is foreign to the spirit of these Dialogues of Search. To settle a question and finish with it--to get rid of the debate, as if it were a troublesome temporary necessity--is not what Plato desires. His purpose is, to provoke the spirit of enquiry--to stimulate responsive efforts of the mind by a painful shock of exposed ignorance--and to open before it a multiplicity of new roads with varied points of view.

Nowhere in the Platonic writings is this provocative shock more vividly illustrated than in the Menon, by the simile of the electrical fish: a simile as striking as that of the magnet in Ion. Nowhere, again, is the true character of the Sokratic intellect more clearly enunciated. "You complain, Menon, that I plunge your mind into nothing but doubt, and puzzle, and conscious ignorance. If I do this, it is only because my own mind is already in that same condition. The only way out of it is, through joint dialectical colloquy and search; in which I invite you to accompany me, though I do not know when or where it will end." And then, for the purpose of justifying as well as encouraging such prolonged search, Sokrates proceeds to unfold his remarkable hypothesis--eternal pre-existence, boundless past experience, and omniscience, of the mind--identity of cognition with recognition, dependent on reminiscence. "Research or enquiry is fruitless. You must search either for that which you know, or for that which you do not know. The first is superfluous--the second impossible: for if you do not know what a thing is, how are you to be satisfied that the answer which you find is that which you are looking for? How can you distinguish a true solution from another which is untrue, but plausible?"

Here we find explicitly raised, for the first time, that difficulty which embarrassed the different philosophical schools in Greece for the subsequent three centuries--What is the criterion of truth? Wherein consists the process called verification and proof, of that which is first presented as an hypothesis? This was one of the great problems debated between the Academics, the Stoics, and the Sceptics, until the extinction of the schools of philosophy.

. Stallbaum describes it as a "quaestiunculam, haud dubie e sophistarum disciplin? arreptam". If the Sophists were the first to raise this question, I think that by doing so they rendered service to the interests of philosophy. The question is among the first which ought to be thoroughly debated and sifted, if we are to have a body of "reasoned truth" called philosophy.

Not one of these schools was satisfied with the very peculiar answer which the Platonic Sokrates here gives to the question. When truth is presented to us , we recognise it as an old friend after a long absence. We know it by reason of its conformity to our antecedent, pre-natal, experience : the soul or mind is immortal, has gone through an indefinite succession of temporary lives prior to the present, and will go through an indefinite succession of temporary lives posterior to the present--"longae, canitis si cognita, vitae Mors media est". The mind has thus become omniscient, having seen, heard, and learnt every thing, both on earth and in Hades: but such knowledge exists as a confused and unavailable mass, having been buried and forgotten on the commencement of its actual life.

Since all nature is in universal kindred, communion, or interdependence, that which we hear or see here, recalls to the memory, by association, portions of our prior forgotten omniscience. It is in this recall or reminiscence that search, learning, acquisition of knowledge, consists. Teaching and learning are words without meaning: the only process really instructive is that of dialectic debate, which, if indefatigably prosecuted, will dig out the omniscience buried within. So vast is the theory generated in Plato's mind, by his worship of dialectic, respecting that process of search to which more than half of his dialogues are devoted.

--is very similar to the theory of Leibnitz:--"Ubique per materiam disseminata statuo principia vitalia seu percipientia. Omnia in natur? sunt analogica" . Farther, that the human mind by virtue of its interdependence or kindred with all nature, includes a confused omniscience, is also a Leibnitzian view. "Car comme tout est plein et comme dans le plein tout mouvement fait quelqu' effet sur les corps distans ? mesure de la distance, de sorte que chaque corps est affect? non seulement par ceux qui le touchent, et se ressent en quelque fa?on de tout ce qui leur arrive--mais aussi par leur moyen se ressent de ceux qui touchent les premiers dont il est touch? imm?diatement. Il s'ensuit que cette communication va ? quelque distance que ce soit. Et par consequent tout corps se ressent de tout ce qui se fait dans l'Univers: tellement que celui, qui voit tout, pourroit lire dans chacun ce qui se fait partout et m?me ce qui s'est fait et se fera, en remarquant dans le pr?sent ce qui est ?loign? tant selon les temps que selon les lieux: , disoit Hippocrate. Mais une ?me ne peut lire en elle m?me que ce qui y est represent? distinctement: elle ne sauroit developper tout d'un coup ses r?gles, car elles vont ? l'infini. Ainsi quoique chaque monade cr??e repr?sente tout l'Univers, elle repr?sente plus distinctement le corps qui lui est particuli?rement affect?, et dont elle fait l'Ent?l?chie. Et comme ce corps exprime tout l'Univers par la connexion de toute la mati?re dans le plein, l'?me repr?sente aussi tout l'Univers en repr?sentant ce corps qui lui appartient d'une mani?re particuli?re" .

Again, Leibnitz, in another Dissertation: "Comme ? cause de la pl?nitude du monde tout est li?, et chaque corps agit sur chaque autre corps, plus ou moins, selon la distance, et en est affect? par la r?action--il s'ensuit que chaque monade est un miroir vivant, ou dou? d'action interne, repr?sentatif de l'Univers, suivant son point de vue, et aussi r?gl? que l'Univers m?me" .

Leibnitz expresses more than once how much his own metaphysical views agreed with those of Plato. Lettre ? M. Bourguet, pp. 723-725. He expresses his belief in the pre-existence of the soul: "Tout ce que je crois pouvoir assurer, est, que l'?me de tout animal a pr?exist?, et a ?t? dans un corps organique: qui enfin, par beaucoup de changemens, involutions, et ?volutions, est devenu l'animal pr?sent" . And in the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence to a certain point: "II y a quelque chose de solide dans ce que dit Platon de la r?miniscence" . Also Leibnitz's Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain, p. 196, b. 28; and Epistol. ad Hanschium, p. 446, a. 12.

In various other dialogues of Plato, the same hypothesis is found repeated. His conception of the immortality of the soul or mind, includes pre-existence as well as post-existence: a perpetual succession of temporary lives, each in a distinct body, each terminated by death, and each followed by renewed life for a time in another body. In fact, the pre-existence of the mind formed the most important part of Plato's theory about immortality: for he employed it as the means of explaining how the mind became possessed of general notions. As the doctrine is stated in the Menon, it is made applicable to all minds . This appears from the person chosen to illustrate the alleged possibility of stimulating artificial reminiscence: that person is an unlettered youth, taken at hazard from among the numerous slaves of Menon.

Plutarch, in the same fragment, indicates some of the objections made by Bion and Straton against the doctrine of . How does it happen that this reminiscence brings up often what is false or absurd? . If such reminiscence exists how comes it that we require demonstrations to conduct us to knowledge? and how is it that no man can play on the flute or the harp without practice?

--in which he enters fully into the spirit of the Menon and the Phaedon-- . Compare also Cicero, Tusc. D. i. 24. The doctrine has furnished a theme for very elegant poetry: both in the Consolatio Philosophiae of Boethius--the piece which ends with

"Ac si Platonis Musa personat verum, Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur"--

and in Wordsworth--"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting," &c.

It is thus that Plato applies to philosophical theory the doctrine of pre-natal experience and cognitions: which he considers, not as inherent appurtenances of the mind, but as acquisitions made by the mind during various antecedent lives. These ideas cannot have been acquired during the present life, because the youth has received no special teaching in geometry. But Plato here takes no account of the multiplicity and diversity of experiences gone through, comparisons made, and acquirements lodged, in the mind of a youthful adult however unlettered. He recognises no acquisition of knowledge except through special teaching. So, too, in the Protagoras, we shall find him putting into the mouth of Sokrates the doctrine--That virtue is not taught and cannot be taught, because there were no special masters or times of teaching. But in that dialogue we shall also see Plato furnishing an elaborate reply to this doctrine in the speech of Protagoras; who indicates the multifarious and powerful influences which are perpetually operative, even without special professors, in creating and enforcing ethical sentiment. If Plato had taken pains to study the early life of the untaught slave, with its stock of facts, judgments, comparisons, and inferences suggested by analogy, &c., he might easily have found enough to explain the competence of the slave to answer the questions appearing in the dialogue. And even if enough could not have been found, to afford a direct and specific explanation--we must remember that only a very small proportion of the long series of mental phenomena realised in the infant, the child, the youth, ever comes to be remembered or recorded. To assume that the large unknown remainder would be insufficient, if known, to afford the explanation sought, is neither philosophical nor reasonable. This is assumed in every form of the doctrine of innate ideas: and assumed by Plato here without even trying any explanation to dispense with the hypothesis: simply because the youth interrogated had never received any special instruction in geometry.

I have already observed, that though great stress is laid in this dialogue upon the doctrine of opinions and knowledge inherited from an antecedent life--upon the distinction between true opinion and knowledge--and upon the identity of the process of learning with reminiscence--yet nothing is said about universal Ideas or Forms, so much dwelt upon in other dialogues. In the Phaedrus and Phaedon, it is with these universal Ideas that the mind is affirmed to have had communion during its prior existence, as contrasted with the particulars of sense apprehended during the present life: while in the Menon, the difference pointed out between true opinions and knowledge is something much less marked and decisive. Both the one and the other are said to be, not acquired during this life, but inherited from antecedent life: to be innate, yet unperceived--revived by way of reminiscence and interrogation. True opinions are affirmed to render as much service as knowledge, in reference to practice. There is only this distinction between them--that true opinions are transient, and will not remain in the mind until they are bound in it by causal reasoning, or become knowledge.

The manner in which Anytus, the accuser of Sokrates before the Dikastery, is introduced into this dialogue, deserves notice. The questions are put to him by Sokrates--"Is virtue teachable? How is Menon to learn virtue, and from whom? Ought he not to do as he would do if he wished to learn medicine or music: to put himself under some paid professional man as teacher?" Anytus answers these questions in the affirmative: but asks, where such professional teachers of virtue are to be found. "There are the Sophists," replies Sokrates. Upon this Anytus breaks out into a burst of angry invective against the Sophists; denouncing them as corruptors of youth, whom none but a madman would consult, and who ought to be banished by public authority.

The dialogue is then prosecuted and finished between Sokrates and Menon: and at the close of it, Sokrates says--"Talk to Anytus, and communicate to him that persuasion which you have yourself contracted, in order that he may be more mildly disposed: for, if you persuade him, you will do some good to the Athenians as well as to himself."

In many of the Platonic dialogues we have the antithesis between Sokrates and the Sophists brought out, as to the different point of view from which the one and the other approached ethical questions. But in this portion of the Menon, we find exhibited the feature of analogy between them, in which both one and the other stood upon ground obnoxious to the merely practical politicians. Far from regarding hatred against the Sophists as a mark of virtue in Anytus, Sokrates deprecates it as unwarranted and as menacing to philosophy in all her manifestations. The last declaration ascribed to Anytus, coupled with the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue, show us that Plato conceives the anti-Sophistic antipathy as being anti-Sokratic also, in its natural consequences. That Sokrates was in common parlance a Sophist, disliked by a large portion of the general public, and ridiculed by Aristophanes, on the same grounds as those whom Plato calls Sophists--is a point which I have noticed elsewhere.

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