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The Mythical Element in the Laws

It is obvious how little justification there is for citing such passages as evidence of Plato's philosophical teachings. For wherever his own concepts emerge, one immediately recognizes the all-dominating fundamental ideas that deny immortality to human beings as generated and having come into being, and grant them life only as one grants the torch in a torch race: so that one person takes it in hand and passes it on to another who has been generated from him [Note: Plato writes: “to go away, handing over the account, just as the ancestral law says.” T. A.: “Here one ought not properly understand 'law,' but rather the belief underlying the law.”]. For this reason, Plato consequently also arrives at the thought—which Aristotle likewise seems to have shared—that human life as such had no beginning, but

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that human beings have existed from eternity, have begotten children, and will continue to beget them without end [Note: Laws 781e: “For every man must surely understand at least this much: that the generation of human beings either had no beginning at all, or else that it has existed for an immeasurable length of time from the beginning at which it came into being.”]. For if, as the alternative possibility, he places the beginning infinitely far back in time, that amounts to approximately the same thing, since it is merely the temporal and quantitative expression of eternity. The Idea is what is eternally alive in simple unity; but the chain of individuals, who move in competition and pass the torch of life from one to another, constitutes infinite time as the becoming image of the ungenerated original.

The Human Being, a Wire-Puppet of the Gods

Plato therefore also declares that human affairs are not worthy of any great seriousness, since we are merely the playthings of the gods, like wire-puppets whose movements are directed by pulling different wires. When they pull us by the hard and iron wires, we fall into the baser affects and act from desire, anger, fear, and hope; but when they pull us by the golden and sacred thread of reason, we lead a gentle and beautiful life in harmony with law and truth [Note: Laws 803b: “Human affairs are not worthy of great seriousness.” Ibid. 803c: “The human being has been contrived as a kind of plaything of the god.” Ibid. 804b: “For the most part we are puppets, though we participate in some small measure in truth.” Laws 644e: “Let us regard each of us living beings as a divine wonder, whether we have been made as a plaything of the gods or for some serious purpose—for we do not know this; but this we do know: that these passions—fear, courage, and calculation—are like nerves or strings within us, pulling us, and so forth.”]. But only a few chosen individuals are capable of this golden guidance. For it requires a special natural endowment and a high degree of education, of which the masses of human beings cannot partake and are therefore always surrendered to their desires [Note: Laws 918c: “A small race of human beings, small by nature and trained by an extraordinary education,” and so forth.]

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Only a few chosen individuals are capable of this golden guidance, for it requires a special natural endowment and a high degree of education, of which the masses cannot partake and are therefore always surrendered to their desires [Note: Laws 918c: “A small race of human beings, small by nature and trained through an extraordinary education,” and so forth.].

The World Is an Immortal War

For Plato, therefore, the great drama of the world also has no conclusion, but represents an immortal war, since the world is full of good things and full of evils—and the latter are more numerous. We fight as servants of the gods and daemons, while enjoying their sublime protection and assistance [Note: Laws 906a: “We have agreed with ourselves that the heavens are full of many good things, but also of their opposites, and that the latter are more numerous. Such a conflict, we say, is immortal and requires extraordinary vigilance; the gods and daemons are our allies, while we ourselves are possessions of the gods and daemons, and so forth. Plato's thought here is Heraclitean. Lucretius also appropriated it for his primordia rerum: De rerum natura I.I.118: “and as if in eternal conflict, they produce battles and struggles,” and so forth.].

The war is immortal, for as soon as one of the opposites were to perish, becoming—that is, the world—would have to come to an end [Note: Laws 904a: “For there could never be generation if one of the living things were destroyed; … the one was conceived as always naturally benefiting, insofar as it is the good of the soul, while the other harms it.”]. As certain as the imperishability of the world is, so certain is the imperishable existence of evil and, consequently, of the struggle.

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Evil Is Unvoluntary and Hereditary

The ground of evil therefore lies in natural causes. Depending on the character of the land we inhabit, the altered influence of the winds, heat, water, and nourishment upon bodily perfection and the constitution of the soul must be taken into account, and legislation must be adapted accordingly [Note: Laws 750d.].

For this reason, a bad way of life is expressly described as a misfortune when the persons concerned were by nature suited to a more perfect life [Note: Laws 832a: “And sometimes, although they are not naturally incapable, they nevertheless suffer misfortune,” and so forth.]. And it goes without saying that every dissolute person acts necessarily against his will, since the mass of human beings lacks moral discipline through ignorance, lack of strength, or both of these causes [Note: Laws 734b: “Everyone who is undisciplined is undisciplined unwillingly, by necessity,” and so forth.].

Plato therefore did not depart from his views in his later works; rather, he employs them with calm confidence as established truths. Indeed, he seems also to have conceived the idea that criminal inclinations are hereditary. For if it were established that the father, the grandfather, and the father of the grandfather of a child had successively committed the same capital crime, such children, together with their possessions, were to be expelled from the country, or only one was to be tolerated—one whom the Delphic god had declared to be uninfected [Note: Laws 856d.].

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The Cult of the Human Soul

From all this it is sufficiently clear that the immortal independence of the person is not a Platonic doctrine, but merely a mythical coloration that Plato knows how to employ effectively in his paintings.

In conclusion, I will only remind the reader that Plato himself, in popular speech, does not fail to emphasize the divine element immanent in our nature—a divine element that is, as it were, Athanasian—and even demands that we should devote divine worship to our soul, since, after the gods themselves, it is the most divine thing and deserves the second place in divine worship, although no one has yet properly understood or practiced this [Note: Laws 726: “Of all his possessions, after the gods, the soul is the most divine and most closely related to him. Therefore, when I say that one must honor one's own soul after the gods, I rightly command that it be honored second. Yet, broadly speaking, no one among us honors it rightly, although he seems to do so; for honor is surely owed to a divine good,” and so forth.].

This is precisely the same distinction that the Greek Church Fathers later applied to the Son in relation to the Father. For although they maintained their identity, they nevertheless assigned the Son only the second place beside the Father. The Father, however, is the Idea in Plato; and the soul, in which the Idea is alive through communion with the principle of Otherness, is the Son. The two are identical, and yet one is subordinated to the other as the First is to the Second.

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§ 7.

The Visible Gods

The Divine Promise Misunderstood

In the Timaeus a law is established that might possibly disturb our previous interpretation, since it has also been claimed in support of the doctrine of immortality. The law states that everything bound together is dissoluble, but that only an evil being would wish to dissolve what has been beautifully joined and is functioning well [Note: Timaeus 41: “Everything that has been bound together is dissoluble; but to wish to dissolve what has been beautifully harmonized and is in good condition belongs to an evil being.”].

From this passage, Ueberweg concludes that the soul, through God's goodness, would not be dissolved again and would therefore, according to Plato, be immortal [Note: Ueberweg, History of the Philosophy of Antiquity, 4th ed., 1871, p. 138.]. It is almost astonishing how carelessly our philosopher is sometimes read and interpreted; it is therefore not astonishing that he has so often been completely misunderstood.

The passage to which Ueberweg refers concerns the gods. All the gods have come into being and have received fiery bodies, like the fixed stars and the planets. This union with the body can again be dissolved. Therefore, as the god the Father explains to them, they are not immortal by their nature; but through his will they are to be immortal. Ueberweg has carelessly transferred this promise, which concerns the gods, to the souls of human beings.

Although this already invalidates the entire argument, one might nevertheless be inclined to ask whether the statement could perhaps be generalized and, without observing Plato's express limitation, extended also to human souls.

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But such objections arise against this that one almost feels embarrassed to have admitted the question's permissibility at all.

First, Plato divides everything that comes into being into the two great realms that Aristotle later distinguished in the same way: the realm of the immortal gods who have come into being, and the realm of the mortal. God the Father alone creates the immortal; but he allows the mortal to be formed by these very gods who have come into being.

Plato counts human beings and animals among mortal things, and he has God the Father say that human beings should therefore be formed not by him himself but by the gods, because if he himself were to generate them, they too would have to become immortal gods [Note: Timaeus 41c: “If the mortal races were brought into being by me and were granted a share in life, they would become equal to the gods. In order, therefore, that they may be mortal,” and so forth.].

The second objection, however, is almost even more serious. For when Plato speaks of binding and unbinding, one must ask what, precisely, is supposed to be bound, united, or joined together. Ueberweg speaks of the soul as though the soul itself were the composite entity—which may perhaps be said in general, but not of Plato at the passage cited by Ueberweg [Note: Ueberweg, Investigations into the Authenticity and Chronological Order of the Platonic Writings, 1861, p. 284. Ueberweg therefore applies the divine promise to the “souls of the planets” or the “souls of the stars,” of which Plato does not say a single word.

Plato obviously intended only to guarantee the imperishability of the luminous stars, whose permanence, as Aristotle reports, had been doubted by certain enlightened physicists. For although the calculations of Mayer and Zöllner were not yet known, the possibility of the stars' extinction had already been considered on very general grounds, just as the modern question of what nourishes the sun had already occupied the ancient Ionian physicists. Naturally, they did not feed it daily with billions of meteors, as people do nowadays, but with the vapors of the earth. At least, however, the question and the insight were the same: the sun's power must be limited, and its entire appearance must have a beginning and an end.].

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Plato is speaking of the union of the soul with the body. This union is always dissoluble, but is not supposed to be dissolved in the case of the gods—a claim he could boldly make, since in his time no fragmented stars were known and astronomy seemed to require this dogma.

He could hardly have declared the union of the human soul with the body indissoluble if the thought had occurred to him, since everyone's perception of death proved the contrary. Moreover, we know well enough from the Phaedo and other dialogues that Plato regards this union with the body as an evil, and that the wise person fears nothing more than its indissolubility. The wise person does everything possible—through self-control, through all the virtues, and above all through knowledge—to free himself from this union [Note: In contrast to the indissolubility asserted in the Timaeus, dissolution is precisely the ethical goal of human beings. The difficult dissolution by which, for example, the wicked continue for a time to haunt the tombs as ghosts is rejected by Plato.].

The wise person seeks to become completely separated and self-contained, to behave while still alive as though already dead; and death seems to him not an evil but a liberation and a welcome dissolution.

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The Gods Who Have Come into Being

Although Ueberweg's argument has collapsed, the position of the gods mentioned above nevertheless raises an interesting question. Have we perhaps found, precisely in the existence of Plato's gods, the seat of individual principles?

For the animals and human beings who appear as individuals are dissolved by the power of death back into the universal principles. The gods, however, appear as a plurality and therefore as individuals, while at the same time existing in an indissoluble condition—not by their own nature, to be sure, but through the will of God the Father.

Yet this doctrine too is problematic. First, one must not regard the whole of Plato's account of nature as the highest truth. That truth can be attained only when the soul has gathered itself entirely into itself and keeps the eyes and ears—those poor witnesses—at a distance. It is therefore already questionable whether we should attach too much importance to his statements about these divine and eternal animals.

Second, his words provide no basis whatsoever for attributing any intellectual or spiritual individuality to them. Although later thinkers derived the entire astrological confusion—the ensoulment of the stars and the earth, together with their influence upon the formation of the human body and upon human destinies—from the animation of the heavenly bodies, and in this respect referred back to Plato, it is nevertheless only Plato's metaphorical language, and hardly his thought, that is responsible.

Plato has the stars created merely as measures of time [Note: Timaeus 38c: “It came into being for the generation of time, so that time might be generated as a measure and guardian,” and so forth.]. And a “personal” influence of a‑

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star-spirit upon human destiny is nowhere found in Plato. Plato is entirely free of this fantasy.

I do not, however, wish to deny that Plato, like his sober-minded pupil Aristotle, appears actually to have regarded the stars as gods and to have attributed great wisdom to them* [Note: Timaeus, p. 40a, reads: “and he placed them in the wisdom of the Most Powerful, following along with him.” This passage seems to me to have been misunderstood by Stallbaum, Cousin, H. Müller, Steinhart, and others.

Stallbaum translates it: particeps reddit sapientiae, in coelo extimo conspicuae, cui ideo etiam Greek text—“he makes it participate in the wisdom that is conspicuous in the outermost heaven, to which he therefore also gave power.” Cousin likewise translates it: “he established it in the knowledge of the Good”; and H. Müller: “and granted it knowledge of the Best.”

Stallbaum explains the singular form of expression by citing several passages in which Greek text is intelligible. But he has overlooked the fact that in all these passages Greek text has the meaning “to judge” or, logically, “to posit.” In the Politics, p. 281, the weaver's art is “posited”—that is, referred back to, or determined—and explained as the best, and so forth. The same applies in the Sophist, p. 235a, and in all the passages he cites; this usage is indeed unmistakable.

But in our passage God is not making a logical judgment; rather, he is creating and producing reality. The act of positing can therefore no longer be explained by that logical usage. Tennemann is consequently more deserving of praise, although Stallbaum cites him only to criticize him, because Tennemann demanded that Greek text or Greek text be substituted for Greek text. It is evident that here we require the concept of Greek text.

Nevertheless, I believe that this emendation is unnecessary if my interpretation is accepted. At p. 38c Plato says of these stars: “God placed their bodies in the revolutions.” Through this passage we know exactly what Plato indicates at p. 40a concerning the place in which he sets them.

He calls this Greek text, however, at p. 39c “the period of the single and wisest revolution.” From this second passage we therefore know that Greek text belongs to that Greek text as an attribute. If he wished to say that God placed these stars in that place, he could either have written, with Tennemann, “into the revolution of the Most Powerful”; but then he would have suppressed the attribute “wisest,” whose emphasis was important to him.

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Or he could have substantivized the attribute by omitting the noun, as he does in countless passages, and written “into wisdom.” In that case, the concept of Greek text or Greek text would easily be supplied, since the words “following along with it” present the Most Powerful—as the word “it” indicates—as something in motion. We already know this motion from p. 34a, where he describes it as “a motion concerned especially with intellect and wisdom.”

The genitive “of the Most Powerful” is therefore not objective but subjective. My interpretation does not substantially change the meaning. For if the gods are placed in the wisdom of the Most Powerful and move along with him, they must naturally also be permeated by this wisdom or come to share in it—particeps reddit, as Stallbaum translates it.

But the transmitted words can be preserved only in this way, since a real process cannot be explained as a logical reflection. For if one really wished to translate the passage by analogy with those cited by Stallbaum, Plato would be saying:

“God placed them as wisdom”—that is, he recognized, from the characteristics present in their nature, that they must be referred back to the concept of wisdom.

In that case, however, he would not have been acting as a creator, but as a dialectician who had merely assigned an already completed thing to a conceptual location. Yet he plainly wishes to say:

“He placed them in the Greek text, where wisdom resides, and they therefore came to partake of it.”

One can already see from this geometrical determination that this is not a dialectical truth but merely a correct opinion; for wisdom cannot

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properly be referred to a place that it inhabits, where it is supposed to engage in regular movements for the measurement of time, unless one is speaking poetically.

If, then, all the relevant circumstances testify that we are being offered only Plato's poetic and metaphorical expression of the truth, how can we rightly assume that the “instruments of time measurement” were really intended to count as eternal personal gods? (End of Note.)]

But I would rather assume that Aristotle, through his inclination toward exact definition, was—as the saying goes—“caught on the hook,” while Plato, protected by his poetic language, probably taught a purer pantheism, as I shall attempt to show. 1) The fact that the stars move could not reasonably be denyed. But whatever moves without being pushed or pulled is an animal. Thus the stars are animals. 2) Since human memory extends as far back as anyone can remember, and the stars have not changed, they are presumably unchanging and therefore presumably eternal. The stars are eternal animals. 3) Their motion is firmly ordered and always remains the same. But all order derives from reason, which must therefore presumably belong to them. The stars are eternal rational animals.

This is how Plato and Aristotle reasoned, and it brought them into the greatest difficulty, for polytheism does not fit within their system. Plato at least attaches the notion of having come into being to the stars in his mythical presentation. Aristotle, however, believed that this would endanger the eternal identity of the world and might ultimately amount to admitting that the world originated from nothing or chaos. He therefore posits the stars, without a beginning, as eternal entelechies.

Now, in order to avoid having many rulers, he must subordinate them to the one divine spirit. Since he naturally has nothing further to say about their relationship, he leaves this region of his system in the utmost obscurity and in contradiction with his remaining doctrine. These two great philosophers might perhaps have arrived at the principle of the individual precisely through their doctrine of the gods, had the study of nature—without modern chemistry and physics—not made this concept less urgently pressing

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upon them; but the development in the history of thought drove them too exclusively toward investigating the universal essence of things, and this motive therefore seems to have had little influence on Plato. Indeed, I believe one must go a step further and remove the entire illusion of the gods from the strict doctrinal conception as metaphor.

For if one examines the account in the Timaeus carefully, the metaphorical play of dramatic staging is unmistakable throughout. One cannot properly understand any concept unless one knows how to distinguish what is metaphor from what is the scientific doctrine being indicated.

Should Plato's mixing bowl, which his god uses in the creation, also be counted among the principles? And in what language did God the Father address the gods he had created? And how did he extend the soul throughout the universe, when it has no extension? And how could he envelop the body with it from the outside, if the soul itself had not already been a body?

All these determinations are meaningless unless one decisively resolves to regard the entire creation drama as metaphorical. In doing so, one admittedly gives up the right to preserve individual figures from the drama—such as the gods—as historical, real beings.

I therefore consider it entirely arbitrary to separate the creative God the Father, in his transcendence beyond and prior to the world, from the world itself. One could concede this only if one placed the mixing bowl beside him as a second principle, and the various ingredients of the mixture as the third, fourth, and fifth principles. But I would prefer to do without the witches' brew that was concocted from them.

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Rather, if Plato's account means anything at all, we must conclude that the world—which contains within itself everything intelligible and everything sensible, and which is not supposed to have anything outside itself that it lacks and that would make it imperfect—also contains within itself the ungenerated, creative God. Otherwise, in my view, it would have left the best thing outside itself, would have remained profoundly imperfect, and could only be profoundly miserable.

The ungenerated God is merely, in name, what Plato everywhere else displays as the intelligible, as the Idea in that which has come into being, and it is no more separable from the latter than the latter is from it. The two have been mixed together so thoroughly in the mixing bowl that they are to remain joined together for all eternity.

Here, then, the fundamental thought of the Sophist returns: Being and Not-Being, motion and the unmoved, are inseparable, and the world—like the most desirable plaything of children—is at once both movable and unmoved.

For this reason, we must now also compel the gods to give up their separate existence, which Plato has thrown over them merely as a decorative royal ornament for the staging. For he says explicitly in the Timaeus—and we have long known this from the other dialogues—that the world, which has come into being, contains within itself all intelligible animals, as well as us and all the other sensible creatures, as its parts.

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If our individuality is therefore nothing, as we saw above, then neither is there anything to the individuality of the gods. They are nothing but the parts or species of the Idea of animal as such.

Within the Idea of animal itself, there are once again Ideas that are distinguished within it through division. To these species belong the gods, just as the mortal races do. Their essence, or their eternal nature, is the Idea; their appearance is its sensible image.

There is no question of any point of self-subsistence, since no individual principles were thrown into the mixing bowl. I therefore consider this question settled as well. Just as the Ideas of human being and ox are not independently existing individual animals, although they possess eternal being and remain identical and immortal amid all changes in individual existences, so the Ideas of the stars, as gods, are merely an illusion of opinion and are to be acknowledged only as such. In truth, only the one blessed God exists in them, just as he exists in us.

§ 8.

For an Explanation of Plato's Symposium

In Plato's Symposium we find a remarkable portrait of Socrates. It attracts us and delights us through its vivid clarity, while on the other hand it strikes us as strange because we are unfamiliar with the motif introduced for comparison.

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Alcibiades compares Socrates with the Silenuses displayed in sculptors' workshops. These can be split open into two halves, and when opened they reveal images of gods inside.

As far as I can see, Plato's interpreters have nowhere supplied further information about this motif. It is certainly conceivable that the artistic Greek might have spontaneously thought of giving the cabinets used to store his smaller manufactured images of the gods the shape of Silenuses. But it would certainly be more desirable and more natural if we did not have to regard such customs—which must have been widespread—as accidental and arbitrary, but could recognize in them a tradition and a religious symbolism.

This would plainly also give the application to Socrates a much deeper meaning. For Socrates, as Alcibiades says, spends his entire life among human beings playfully concealing himself in this way; but when he becomes serious and opens himself to the person who has seen inside him, he contains images of gods—so divine and golden, so beautiful and splendid—that one must immediately do everything he commands.

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Unfortunately, I am not able to provide a precise explanation for the use of the motif introduced here. I would, however, like to encourage archaeologists to give us further insight by pointing out an analogy that greatly surprised me and that certainly deserves some consideration.

This analogy consists in the Egyptian mummy cases. The analogy holds in two respects: externally and internally. First, these curious mummy chests, which are fashioned in the form of Osiris and in other shapes, can be divided into two halves and opened—just as inside the mummies themselves countless images of gods, fashioned from every kind of material, have been found, and these now constitute the treasures of our museums [Note: Auguste Mariette-Bey, Notice des principaux monuments du Musée d'antiquités égyptiennes à Boulaq, 1864, p. 38: “The interior of the coffin is no less rich in ornamentation; large figures of divinities and genii, painted in bright colors on a dull background, form its principal subject.

Page 39: The cavity of the chest is filled with these thousand amulets, which are the wealth of our display cases. Page 41: The mummies are increasingly—that is, from the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty onward—loaded with amulets, scarabs, and figurines made of every material. Page 42: When the mummies are opened, the cavity of the chest reveals the thousand statuettes of which I have spoken.” The last statement refers to Memphis and to the period of Greek and Roman rule.].

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The meaning of these works of religious art is also entirely analogous to that of our Platonic passage. For the deceased person lying inside the case assures us, in the chapters of the Book of the Dead found with him, that although in life he was the inconspicuous human being known by such-and-such a name, in truth he is the primordial god Tum himself, as well as Ra, Chem, Osiris, and all the gods [Note: R. Lepsius, The Oldest Texts of the Book of the Dead, 1867, and elsewhere, p. 46.].

It is quite natural that such images of the gods, together with their corresponding cases, must also have been produced ready-made for sale in craftsmen's workshops. Something similar can still be observed everywhere today in Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic countries.

May we not therefore suppose that Greek craftsmanship remained within the tradition of Egyptian craftsmanship, especially in ecclesiastical art, which unmistakably points back to Egypt [Note: I would even venture to suppose that when, in Catholic churches, we still find the saints represented as life-sized figures made of wood, wax, or some other material, furnished with a golden door on the chest and containing within them the revered relics, this too may preserve the ancient Egyptian tradition.]?

It would then be entirely understandable why the Greek craftsman, by free analogy, transformed the chests used for storing images of the gods into Silenuses that could be divided into two halves and opened, thereby revealing the precious images of the gods.

Through this analogy, the meaning of the entire comparison made by Alcibiades would also receive its most illuminating interpretation. For the comparison evidently means nothing other than that, in Socrates especially, the god concealed within human beings can be recognized in his glory. Ordinarily, the soul resembles the sea-god Glaucus: disfigured by desires and evils, covered with shells, seaweed, and stones,

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it looks more like an animal than an immortal god [Note: Republic 611c-d.]. Only when it is viewed in its pure and unmixed condition—without the human flesh and colors, and without all the other mortal clutter—does it reveal itself in truth as the Beautiful, which, as the divine itself, is simple and immortal [Note: Symposium 211e–212b: “If it were possible for someone to see the Beautiful itself, pure, unmixed, and uncontaminated, rather than filled with human flesh, colors, and all the other mortal nonsense, and if he could behold the divine Beautiful itself in its single form,” and so forth.].

The person who attains this vision thereby also acquires that immortality of which human beings are capable in general—that is, he becomes immortal in the sight of the Immortal, which is itself his true essence [Note: Ibid.: “to become immortal, insofar as this is possible for any human being.” Compare my History of the Concept of the Parousia, pages 138ff.].

§ 9.

Justin, the Martyr

For the history of Greek philosophy, the Greek Church Fathers are not merely an important source; they also provide incomparable instruction inasmuch as they show what could practically be done with philosophical dogmas, and how far one could use them to resist and satisfy oneself in relation to the religions that came from Asia.

With regard to our question, we find abundant information in the philosopher and martyr Justin. He entered the school of a Platonist and was instructed by him without charge, although he did not possess the necessary preliminary education.

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He then withdrew into the wilderness so that he might quietly gather himself into himself. There, however, he encountered an old Christian who purified his Platonism to such an extent that Justin himself could find the transition to faith [Note: Justin, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, pages 106 to 110, in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, volume 6.].

This conversation, which chiefly concerns the immortality of the soul, clearly demonstrates the manner in which the Platonists of that time communicated their doctrine. Justin, at least, was unable to distinguish the salt from the salted dish. It is probable that on the whole people everywhere at that time—and still today—found themselves in the same position with regard to Plato's writings: they did not dare to separate the strict scientific doctrine from its poetic clothing, although the Aristotelian school had provided a shining example of the legitimacy of such a distinction.

Justin, as he tells us, had not become acquainted with Aristotelian wisdom because the Peripatetic whom he approached for instruction would not teach him without charge.

Thus Justin, as still most often happens today, took the doctrines of pre-existence and immortality, together with the humorous tales of transmigration of souls, as literal currency, while nevertheless inevitably finding strict doctrines scattered among them. The old man now begins to catechize him.

The Knowledge of God Does Not Rest upon Our Kinship with God

He begins with the knowledge of God, which, according to Plato, is attained through the kinship (Greek text) of our soul-

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through our kinship with God. But since the human soul wanders through all animals [Note: The editors have remarkably misunderstood this passage. At the beginning of p. 106 it reads: “all the souls pass through all the animals.” The question is: “Do the souls of all animals also comprehend that divine power?” The editors translate Greek text as “comprehend,” thereby missing the entire logic of the conclusion. For this sentence contains the second premise, while the conclusion—that animals therefore also know God—follows only afterward with “therefore.” Without introducing the transmigration of souls, no conclusion can be reached at all.

In Plato, Greek text ordinarily means “to wander” or “to move,” although in a few passages it also means “to grasp” or “to comprehend.” Justin, too, immediately afterward consistently understands Greek text as movement—for example, at the beginning of p. 108: “but they never entered into pigs, snakes, and dogs”; and likewise at the beginning of p. 109: “but from wherever it was taken, there it moves again.”], the animals obviously have the same soul as human beings. Horses and donkeys, therefore, ought also to be able to know God on account of this kinship.

Justin attempts to escape this conclusion by reminding the old man that even most human beings do not know God, because the second condition for this knowledge is an ethical one—namely, a life of virtue and justice.

“But,” replies the old man, “sheep and goats do no one any wrong. They, too, therefore, ought to possess the knowledge of God.”

As a good Platonist, Justin ought already to have observed that true justice is impossible without reason and knowledge of the just, and that the soul, merely as soul, possesses only the possibility of all this. But he feels himself too quickly overpowered and flees to the third condition of the knowledge of God, namely, the constitution of the body. In fact, he is right not to resist further, for the reason why the human soul does not immediately possess the knowledge of God is precisely the body, and, secondarily, the influence of bodily impulses upon our life, which is overcome through virtue.

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Although the old man argues against this that animals, if they possessed speech, would also find plenty to criticize in the human body, he nevertheless leaves this comparison between the animal and human bodies aside and turns, in a more philosophical manner, to the general question of the body's relation to the soul and the consequences of that relation.

The Soul Had No Existence before Birth According to Plato

First, he refutes pre-existence—not by means of foreign arguments, but by Plato himself. The souls are supposed to have possessed a complete vision of God before entering the body at birth. But, he says, according to Plato they do not remember this once they have been born.

Here, of course, Plato's doctrine of recollection has not been forgotten. The old man is evidently thinking of the river and the field of Forgetfulness—compare above, p. 145—since after birth the soul in fact brings with it no memory of these visions.

“What advantage,” he asks, “does the person who possessed these visions have over the person who did not possess them, if he nevertheless does not remember having possessed them?”

The argument is correctly made. According to Plato, knowledge first comes to both only gradually, and it is pointless to explain the a priori element of thought by means of an empirical intuition in a prior existence. The soul always begins again from the beginning.

“Therefore,” concludes the old man, “the souls did not see God before their birth.” With this, pre-existence is disposed of, and Justin knows nothing to say in its defense, since he apparently does not notice that the pre-existence of the soul in the vision of God signifies only the identity of the soul with God.

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Refutation of the Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls

The doctrine of the transmigration of souls is refuted just as easily by the same argument. The souls are supposed to be punished by dwelling in animals. But since the souls of animals plainly do not know that they are in animal bodies for this reason, or that they have committed some offense, the punishment is of no use and is not even a punishment, because punishment requires knowledge of these matters. The animals therefore cannot derive any incentive toward improvement from it.

Consequently, says the old man, it is not true that souls pass into foreign bodies.

Here too, the refutation remains entirely within the Platonic images, and the ingenious background of Plato's thought is completely disregarded. And why? Because the paper money of metaphors is taken for hard currency, and therefore no inquiry can be made after the gold itself.

These refutations are so easy because it can have no difficulty demonstrating that every comparison limps. For at some point the difference between the things being compared must always emerge, as soon as the tertium comparationis—the third element of comparison—does not strictly establish the limits of the comparison.

The Soul Is Not Eternal a Parte Ante

The old man now also wishes to refute the eternity of the soul, and he divides the question because, if the soul is immortal, it must also be ungenerated.

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The soul cannot be ungenerated because, according to Plato, the world has come into being, since it is continually engaged in coming into being and passing away. Since the soul belongs to the world, it cannot be ungenerated.

A Platonist of a better school than Justin would of course immediately have objected to this argument that the soul does not belong to the world insofar as the world is perishable, but that it constitutes the identical and imperishable element of the world through which the world participates in Being.

Nevertheless, Justin is right not to emphasize this point, because the question does not concern the World-Soul but the individual soul, and even a Platonist could maintain the ungenerated nature of the individual soul only as a joke.

Justin therefore reinforces the generated nature of the soul with other Platonic considerations. He reminds us that God alone is ungenerated, that everything ungenerated must be similar, equal, and identical to everything else that is ungenerated, and that no one ungenerated thing could have precedence over another either in power or in honor. For this reason, the ungenerated cannot exist as a plurality at all, but only as One.

These considerations are genuinely Platonic, and they would naturally cause individual souls, if they were ungenerated, to dissolve into the unity of God.

Justin rightly draws a few further consequences. For if the souls were ungenerated, they could not commit offenses, nor could they be full of ignorance, cowardice, arrogance, and so forth. They would neither voluntarily wander into the bodies of pigs, snakes, and dogs, nor would it be permissible to force them to do so.

Here too, therefore, the contradiction clearly comes to light, because the characteristics that belong to the soul according to its universal essence are being applied to the individual soul-

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and, conversely, the characteristics of the individual soul are applied to it. Since Justin has not carried out this distinction, he must remain caught in the contradiction.

The Soul Is Not Immortal

For this reason, the soul, merely as soul, is not immortal. The old man demonstrates this in particular by skillfully employing the proof cited above, on p. 117, in which the soul appeared as the principle of life.

For the soul is either life or it possesses life. With this distinction, he very properly indicates the opposition between the Idea and that which comes into being, which participates in the Idea.

Now the soul cannot itself be life, for otherwise it would have to bring life to something else and not to itself. But since it undeniably lives, it does not live because it is life; rather, it participates in life.

This proof is not convincing. For, on the one hand, the soul could bring life to the body as something other than itself, while on the other hand still itself being life. To refute Plato, the old man would have had to show that the soul itself is something other than life, and this could be done only by distinguishing the individual soul from the World-Soul.

The latter is the eternal principle of life in the world; the individual soul, however, comes into being through participation in its essence.

If, then, the soul is merely participating, the logic of the relation of participation follows—that is, the participant possesses the predicate of that in which it participates for as long as it participates, and loses it when participation ceases.

Just as the body participates in the soul, but not forever—instead, only until this harmony is dissolved—so too the soul

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is made alive by the vital spirit, according to God's will, and ceases to exist according to his will.

The only Platonic element in this deduction is the use of the concept of participation. In every other respect Plato would accept none of it. For him, the union of soul and body means the becoming-alive of the body through the soul as the principle of life; this process therefore cannot also occur a second time in the soul, so as to make the soul itself alive in the first place.

For Plato, a soul that is not alive is simply not a soul—which is why he shows that the souls of the dead live in Hades.

On the other hand, one can see quite clearly from this that the opposition between the individual soul and the unity of the World-Soul, which Plato deliberately suppressed, emerges here as the principal matter in the Christian thinker. For the Christian is concerned with the individual soul, which lives by the grace of God.

Plato, however, had to conceal this through his images, because for him only the World-Soul is the One universal Living Being, whose eternal nature appears to the senses and to opinion in a temporal individual plurality. The intelligible essence is One; the sensible is many and individual.

Conclusion

I have analyzed Justin's reflections at such length because they vividly reveal the contradiction in which a Platonist had to find himself if he did not regard the master's metaphors as metaphors. Since many people still share this position today, I did not consider the discussion untimely.

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§ 10.

The Uncertainty of the Doctrine

If the interpretation I have presented already enjoyed general acceptance, I would of course have had no reason to investigate the question. On the other hand, however, my interpretation would be problematic in its probability if all historians of philosophy decisively held the opposite view. For it is hardly conceivable that so many astute and careful scholars would pronounce decisively on this question if the reasons were not sufficiently clear and certain.

I may therefore seek indirect support for my arguments in the uncertainty with which the doctrine of immortality is attributed to Plato. This uncertainty in fact testifies that scholars found reasons in the Platonic dialogues to doubt whether Plato had really presented his beautiful stories about the soul's experiences before and after its existence in the body as a serious and strict doctrine.

If they ultimately incline toward answering the question affirmatively, that of course cannot prevent us, after a new examination of the concepts, from adopting the opposite conclusion.

But if, for a moment, we set aside every decision for or against and consider merely the remarkable uncertainty surrounding judgment on our question, then I believe we must from the outset grant greater probability to the negative decision.

For if, despite Plato's extensive and precise presentation, despite his express assurances, and despite his forceful exhortatory applications, doubts nevertheless persist, then the grounds for these doubts must presumably lie within the system itself and cannot be removed altogether. There can be no satisfaction in closing one eye and saying yes while remaining unable to escape the sting of the contradiction.

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My investigation, however, does not merely offer a negation where others have offered an affirmation. It changes only the standpoint of the consideration: the affirmation remains recognized as “correct opinion” (Greek text), while the negation is valid only insofar as, for scientific understanding, the historical expression of the Infinite is transformed into eternity, and the individual soul is regarded merely as the Parousia of the One Living Being.

The impression produced by my investigation is admittedly weakened if I now quote verbatim the affirmations with which several distinguished scholars have answered our question. Nevertheless, since these affirmative answers unmistakably arise from doubt and are still permeated by it, I regard the uncertainty evident in them as a recommendation of the standpoint we have now reached after renewed investigation.

Heinrich Ritter's Doubt and Affirmation

Ritter expresses his opinion on this matter in various passages of his History of Philosophy, but always in such a way that he seems to decide, almost with a certain effort, to give preference to the affirmative answer. I will let him speak for himself:

“Among the other conceptions that Plato holds concerning the life of the soul after death, there is none that is incompatible with the others, and none that does not also express something of what Plato intended by the-

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the feeling of uncertainty that one might suspect in investigations of this kind. His physical doctrines, however, correspond most closely to the conception of transmigration of souls, and this conception is also closely interwoven with his ethical view, thereby favoring the opinion that for Plato it signified more than merely a pictorial or mythical representation of the soul's continued life after death” [Note: History of Philosophy, 1830, volume 2, p. 385.].

Despite his affirmation, then, Ritter emphasizes the feeling of uncertainty in Plato and regards his own interpretation merely as an opinion favored by considerations derived from elsewhere.

In another passage [Note: Ibid., p. 313ff.] Ritter discusses recollection of the Idea and admits that “it lies very close to our ways of thinking to suppose that the assumption that the soul existed before this life should be counted among the mythical ornamentation of the presentation.”

Nevertheless, he wishes to retain the scientific character of this doctrine because Plato “proves it very seriously.” Ritter believes that such a proof lies in the concept of motion, which is inseparably connected with the soul—compare above, p. 117.

I have shown above that this proof concerns only the universal essence of ideal nature as such and has nothing to do with the individual soul. Ritter must already have felt the sting of this objection, for he then raises another question: whether Plato also holds that “the soul is always a single soul.”

This question, too, can only be answered affirmatively, for according to Plato the immortal has a determinate number, and there can be neither more nor fewer souls than there are [Note: Ibid., p. 314.].

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I have already shown above that this proof has nothing to do with statistics and does not in the slightest arise from the belief that the population of the earth remains constantly the same. See p. 127. It expresses only the identity of the Idea in quantitative terms. Individual souls can play no role in it, because their individuality is erased each time at death and at birth.

Ritter has therefore indeed taken the Platonic myths seriously, but only after a considerable struggle with the Platonic dialectic that opposes them and with the demands of interpretation. Had he examined more sharply the question of the relationship between Being and Not-Being, he would have favored the opposite interpretation more strongly.

We see, then, that this is by no means a certain doctrine, but one about which it is possible to judge in either way. A certain judgment can be attained only by considering why Plato uses mythical expression at all.

For there may perhaps be areas of knowledge that, according to Plato's doctrine, cannot bear a scientific expression at all, because they are not truth but merely reflections of truth in the turbid element of opinion. That becoming—and therefore also the individual—belongs to this realm is indisputable, for according to Plato truth is the Eternal and the Universal.

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Zeller's Affirmation and Doubt

Zeller says [Note: Philosophy of the Greeks, volume 2, p. 266 in the first edition; p. 531 in the second edition.]: “Where, however, what is dogmatically intended comes to an end and the mythical begins is difficult to determine, and it is evident that Plato himself was not entirely clear about this, for precisely for this reason he required mythical presentation.”

I have expressed my view on this matter above, on p. 165, and therefore ask the reader once again to consider whether Plato does not always seek to determine the Idea in a purely scientific manner, while using the mythical exclusively for the realm of becoming, in which, according to his doctrine, the strict concept is impossible.

Zeller continues: “The point whose strictly dogmatic significance can least be doubted is the doctrine of immortality.”

In my opinion, the immortality of the individual soul belongs to the realm of becoming and history, and I therefore expect Plato to speak of it only mythically.

“Even if one were,” says Zeller [Note: Ibid., p. 268; in the second edition, p. 534: “It cannot therefore be doubted that he was entirely serious in assuming pre-existence.”], “to leave open the question whether Plato in his later period was consistent enough to regard the soul as altogether without beginning, it nevertheless cannot be doubted, given his many and decisive statements—most of them expressed in an entirely dogmatic manner—that he was at least perfectly serious about determining its pre-existence.”

One can see that this distinguished scholar must nevertheless have found sufficient reason initially to doubt the seriousness of the Platonic

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doctrine. But why has no one ever doubted, for example, whether the Idea, according to Plato, belongs to the perishable; whether courage ranks higher than wisdom; whether justice consists in possessing superiority; and so forth?

The following words of Zeller likewise reveal the necessary uncertainty of the decision [Note: Ibid., p. 535 of the second edition.]:

“But once the two boundary points of this circle of conceptions—pre-existence and immortality—have been established, it becomes impossible to avoid not merely what lies between them, the doctrine of recollection, but also the conceptions of transmigration of souls and retribution in the afterlife increasingly acquire the appearance of having been seriously intended.”

Zeller could speak in this way only because he would have preferred to avoid these consequences and would have preferred not to take them seriously. The reason why he hesitated to establish these doctrines as dogmatic components of the system can lie only in the other unquestionable components of the system, which can never be reconciled with these doctrines.

Through these concessions to the popular interpretation, Zeller necessarily proceeds ever farther down the inclined plane, on which it is no longer possible to stop. Thus, it seems, against his will, he sees the Platonic doctrines rolling downward into the nebulous region of myth-forming fantasy [Note: Ibid., p. 535, second edition.].

“Plato himself speaks of recollection with such dogmatic definiteness, and its connection with the whole-

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“with the whole system is so evident that we must necessarily count it among its doctrinal components.” Are the souls, then, really supposed to have viewed the Ideas with sensory eyes before birth? Is the intelligible supposed once to have been sensible?

“His statements concerning the conditions of retribution in the afterlife are much less clear and decisive. Our earlier investigations have already shown that these conceptions did not possess the status of dogmatic propositions for him. Nevertheless, we must assume, on the basis of these same statements, that at least the general assumption of retribution after death was firmly established for him.

This assumption was, after all, directly entailed by his belief in immortality. He presumably regarded only the more precise determination of the manner of retribution in the afterlife as impossible, and believed that here he had to content himself partly with a consciously mythical presentation and partly—as in the physics of the Timaeus—with what was probable. The same applies to the transmigration of souls. Plato was probably serious about it in general.”

Thus, in every individual case, Zeller clearly recognizes the poetic play, yet he nevertheless wishes to regard it in general as a doctrinal component of the system.

Above, on p. 170, I attempted to show how Plato used all these doctrines as exhortatory elements for education and legislation, and how, in principle, he permitted and even recommended lies and the most foolish superstition if he hoped to derive from them a political advantage for ruling the people who were inaccessible to reason.

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Necessary Contradiction

I will only mention how this interpretation of Zeller's must bring him into contradiction with himself. For if Zeller has otherwise understood Plato correctly and this latter interpretation is incorrect, then Zeller must necessarily also be in conflict with himself. And if this is indeed the case, it may indirectly serve as a sign that his latter interpretation is incorrect.

I have already mentioned above [Note: See p. 112, note *.] that, in explaining the principles, Zeller decisively denies that Plato possesses an Idea of the individual soul. Nevertheless, he later asserts the following in order to make room and establish justification for the doctrines of immortality, transmigration of souls, and retribution [Note: Philosophy of the Greeks, 2nd ed., p. 533.]:

“According to Plato's view, individual souls are not emanations of the World-Soul, emerging from it for a certain time and returning to it again. Rather, just as the particular Ideas stand alongside the highest Idea, so the particular souls stand alongside the Soul of the Whole in independent individuality. Both are of the same essence, and the one must therefore be imperishable just as the other is. The soul as such is the principle of motion, is inseparably connected with the Idea of life, and therefore every soul must be so as well.”

I cannot avoid seeing a clear contradiction between these two claims. I would be astonished by it, since this is not a matter of incidental details but, in a certain sense, the center of Plato's doctrine, if I did not at the same time have the motive for this contradiction before my eyes.

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For belief in immortality, transmigration of souls, and so forth, leads just as necessarily to the second assertion as the first assertion follows from the principles of Platonism.

Zeller is also well aware of the weakness of this second assertion. He writes:

“This proof is certainly not entirely conclusive. Plato's premises probably entail that there must always be souls, but not that these souls must always be the same.”

Zeller does not at all recall his striking arguments against the assumption of an Idea of individual souls, yet he does recognize that Plato's premises, even at this point, do not actually authorize the conclusion drawn from them. But since he believes in the seriousness of Plato's doctrine of immortality, he prefers to permit the “inconclusive proof” and seeks to supplement it from another side.

He continues:

“One may therefore reasonably doubt whether Plato would have arrived at this firm conviction if it had not also been recommended to him from another side: on the one hand, by the moral interest of belief in retribution in the afterlife, which emerges so vividly in him” [I emphasized this pedagogical and political point above, p. 175].

“But this does not entail an acknowledgment of immortality as a dogmatic doctrine; it entails only the usefulness of this belief for the obedience of the people, and its agreement with his elevated conception of the dignity and vocation of the spirit.” From this standpoint, the immortality of the soul does indeed follow mythically, but scientifically what follows is only the acknowledgment of the soul as the Divine and the veneration of the soul as the Second Divine.

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Compare above, pages 121 and 181.

“On the other hand, by the support that could thereby be gained for his theory of knowledge through the doctrines of recollection.”

This consideration itself concerns the mythical. Recollection and immortality are indeed connected in the closest possible way. But the theory of knowledge can only be illustrated by these images, not supported by them.

At the conclusion of this discussion, Zeller adds some weighty words that once again remove him from the inclined plane. And insofar as they accurately capture Plato's true meaning, they stand just as far removed from all the poetic allegories:

“But insofar as the scientific grounding of belief in immortality is concerned, everything for him is summed up in the demand that we become conscious of the essence of our soul, an essence that excludes the possibility of its destruction.”

This is Platonic. The essence of the soul is its universal “ancient nature” [Note: Compare p. 144 above.]. This has nothing to do with the individual and personal.

To attain consciousness of this is the task of philosophy, which recognizes the Eternal, the Universal, and the Intelligible. Platonic immortality consists in this knowledge.

The contemplation of the Eternal is our immortal and eternal life in time [Note: Compare above, p. 195.] and our highest good. It is the Beautiful, which, as the ultimate purpose, also lies inwardly at the foundation of every love of sensible beauty.

When, in philosophizing, we seek the essence within ourselves—that is, within the individually living being, within the Son—we find our metousia with the Father. His eternal essence is also our true essence, and we therefore partake of his-

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immortality and divinity, and we do well to venerate our soul as a disguised true God. The transcendent Self-identical is the essence of the soul immanent in us, and it has its Parousia when we recognize it and love it in contemplation.

Erdmann's Affirmation and Doubt

If we now compare Plato's presentation in the writings of the ingenious Erdmann [Note: Outline of the History of Philosophy, pages 96, 103.], we certainly find the “sempiternity” of the soul decisively affirmed, both as pre-existence and as post-existence. Nevertheless, the uncertainty that is unavoidable in our question also emerges there. For example, concerning pre-existence he says:

“It would scarcely be possible to maintain that everything contained in that magnificent myth in the Phaedrus is merely clothing.”

Erdmann, however, has not established the standard by which the boundary between the mythical and the scientific is to be measured. We therefore remain stuck in uncertainty.

Strümpell's Silence

Strümpell has attempted to consider ancient philosophy in relation to the problems and solutions of the Herbartian system. Whatever one may think of such a task, one must in any case concede that it is quite interesting even for a non-Herbartian to see how the ancient philosophers shift in perspective and appear differently when viewed from such a standpoint.

But it is not appropriate to pursue that matter here. What is noteworthy for us is that Strümpell, both in his History of Theoretical Philosophy among the Greeks and in the second, more extensive volume, which carries the practical philosophy of the Greeks only as far as Plato and therefore treats Plato at considerable length,

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nevertheless, as far as I can see, does not devote a single word to the doctrine of immortality.

It is certainly questionable whether one has the right simply to ignore a doctrine that occupies such a prominent position in so many dialogues. But if one sets that question aside, this fact nevertheless expresses the opinion that the doctrine of immortality had no essential influence either on Plato's theoretical or on his practical philosophy, and that both can be sufficiently understood without taking the hopes of immortality into account.

That Strümpell cannot, of course, avoid mentioning the immortality of the soul by using this expression is self-evident, since he is discussing Plato. Thus, for example, in his Theoretical Philosophy, p. 153, he says that Plato distinguishes a mortal and an immortal, an irrational and a rational, part of the soul. And in his Practical Philosophy, p. 191, where he appears to contrast Socrates' immediate faith with a speculative faith in Plato, he occasionally speaks of the future life of the favorites of the gods.

All these passages, however, are merely translations of the Greek text. The question itself—whether the doctrine of immortality is merely myth and a mode of imaginative presentation or, as Zeller puts it, a dogmatic component of the system—is nowhere, as far as I have been able to see, addressed.

If Strümpell therefore regarded it as a seriously intended Platonic dogma, his presentation would be remarkably deficient, since the doctrine of absolute qualities would plainly receive a tremendous blow if individual souls were to burst forcibly into metaphysics.

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I therefore believe that we may count Strümpell among those who remove the doctrine of immortality from the list of Platonic dogmas. This is not meant to deny that, in my opinion, this doctrine is precisely what deserves detailed investigation. On the contrary, I am convinced that it contains the center of gravity of the Platonic system, for the soul is the unity of the Platonic principles as living substance.

How Michelis Attempts to Calm His Doubts

The way in which Michelis, a Christian philosopher [Note: The Philosophy of Plato, volume 2, pages 59 to 60.], attempts to eliminate the undeniable uncertainty of the doctrine is also interesting.

He attacks Susemihl, who interpreted Plato's reference to a clear divine instruction as referring instead to the complete execution of the matter in the Philosophos, which was still to be expected, and then continues:

“But this insufficiency of the dialectical proof is not the weakness of Platonic thinking. It is rather the weakness and insufficiency of human thinking and of philosophy itself, which at no time, either before or afterward, has gone beyond what Plato accomplished here. And whatever we actually possess in Christianity beyond this philosophical conviction, in the form of a confident certainty of eternal life, is not the work of human knowledge, but the work of divine grace, through the strengthening of moral energy in the divine morality of the Gospel, and above all through the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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It seems to me in fact to be a crudeness of thought and an offense—not merely against humility, but against the work of divine grace itself—if one were to interpret this intimate and truthful feeling concerning the insufficiency of human proof as a doubt concerning immortality.”

For our question, it is irrelevant how Michelis explains the actual insufficiency of all the Platonic proofs and the uncertainty of the doctrine. For when he offers explanations for them, he concedes the facts, and that alone was important to us.

As for the content of his explanation, my account above certainly proceeds along an entirely different path. I did not merely dare to regard the Platonic doctrine of immortality as problematic; I regarded it as wholly mythical and assumed that Plato had never thought of individual immortality.

Michelis would also have arrived at this interpretation, despite his reproachful words, if he had taken Plato's doctrine somewhat more objectively. For on p. 60 he says that the proof of immortality is concentrated in the knowledge of the soul's true essence, and that the question concerning the essence of the soul leads entirely back to the doctrine of Ideas.

If this is really granted, it follows quite simply that individual immortality cannot be at issue, since the doctrine of Ideas has nothing to do with the individual.

The claim that no one has ever gone beyond what Plato accomplished therefore lacks any foundation, since Plato—whose view was that everything individual is perpetually flowing and never truly Being—stands just as far removed from the concept of individual immortality as Spinoza, Hegel, or materialism. For all of them-

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both idealism and materialism regard the individual and the individual personal soul merely as a temporary function of universal forces, as an indifferent mode in the life of substance, which eternally affirms itself anew in the death of changing individuals and alone is immortal.

It is possible, perhaps even probable, that Socrates thought differently, that, still living more deeply in the atmosphere of popular belief, he really hoped for and believed in personal immortality. But Plato is not Socrates. And although Plato, as one of the most receptive of geniuses, absorbed the power of Socrates into himself, he had at the same time penetrated so deeply into the dark meaning of Heraclitus and into the dialectical clarity of the Eleatics that the Heraclitean flux washed away all individual existence and left standing only the ever-identical sun of the One eternal Eleatic ideal world.

The English and Thomas Maguire

If I cite the Englishman Lewes, whose tasteful History of Philosophy has found so many readers among us in its German translation, one will indeed encounter there the most unreserved belief in Plato's doctrines of recollection, immortality, and transmigration of souls [Note: In the German translation, based on the third edition of 1871: recollection, p. 372; immortality, p. 375; transmigration of souls, p. 383. Grote's work on Plato should have been considered first. Unfortunately, it was not accessible to me.].

Yet this book, however ingeniously and imaginatively written, certainly does not claim to be regarded as a scholarly work. The more difficult problems of scholarship are either not addressed at all or are dispatched with a superficial reflection from the standpoint of Comte.

Moreover, while one must respect the talented author, one may also assert that anyone who occupies Comte's standpoint cannot properly understand Plato at all, since understanding Plato abolishes that standpoint.

I mention Lewes's work here, therefore, only because its elegant style is suited to spreading an interest in philosophy among more casual readers. Given the character of the book, however, I would consider it inappropriate to discuss its prevailing views in detail, for the arguments presented there stand or fall with positivism.

Among the Scots, I mention Henry Calderwood, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, who frequently considers Plato in the historical sections of his Handbook of Moral Philosophy.

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Although he has no doubt that Plato intended to prove immortality, he nevertheless emphasizes the great uncertainty of the matter, since in his opinion immortality cannot be deduced metaphysically but can be made certain only through divine revelation. This is the uncertainty that Plato places in the mouth of Socrates at the conclusion of the Apology.

Calderwood, who otherwise very ably upholds the demands of philosophy against Comte, seems to me, on the other hand, too yielding toward the claims of theology. His opinion can therefore be compared with that of Michelis.

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I would like to draw particular attention here to a very ingenious work that, as far as I can see, is not yet known in Germany. It is the Essays on the Platonic Ethics by Thomas Maguire, L.L.D., Dublin, 1870.

The author does not regard Platonic doctrine as coldly and objectively as an antiquity, as we are accustomed to do. Instead, he places it in the midst of present-day life and allows it to defend itself against modern chemistry, physiology, and history, as well as against Lewes, Mill, Comte, Grote, Bain, Maudsley, and others, and he invariably awards Plato the palm of victory [Note: Thus, for example, on p. 60 the author says of Plato's familiar ethical principle, which he evidently also makes his own: “Charity—the great principle—not only true in speculation, but fruitful in practice. No one is willingly bad.”].

His presentation is clear and sharp, and his arguments are concise. Unfortunately, he deliberately sets aside the metaphysical questions with which we are chiefly concerned here [Note: Compare p. 85: “Plato's metaphysics. Such an investigation would obviously be out of place in an ethical treatise.”]. This was certainly advantageous for simplifying the questions, but in my opinion it deprives the entire interpretation of its deeper background. For without metaphysics, the coherence of Platonic doctrine cannot be understood, nor can there be an ethics that wishes to remain scientific while abandoning its metaphysical foundation.

As for our question, I find only that he mentions the ethical significance of the doctrines of immortality and recollection [Note: “Without touching on the metaphysical portion, which deals with the Immortality of the Soul and the famous doctrine of Reminiscence. Both topics have, however, an ethical significance.”], without explaining whether this is supposed to be their only significance.

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When, however, on p. 111 he maintains that, according to Plato, the majority of human beings, because they are not philosophers, never undergo the process of Greek text, this assertion must be considerably qualified. For even the ordinary person who finds two pieces of wood similar or equal already recollects the Idea of similarity and equality.

His emphasis upon the automatic activity of intuitive reason is highly commendable. Its inherent activity, he maintains, always remains the same and is hindered in its manifestations only by certain accidental disturbances [Note: Ibid., p. 64: “According to Plato, the ethical faculty is Greek text, and it is working for intuitive Reason, whose inherent activity is always at full strength, although its movements may be impeded by certain obstructions.”].

This interpretation is speculative and seems to prove that Maguire has perceived the living Platonic God, immanent within the individual and always identically active.

I would therefore be pleased to read from Maguire, before long, an investigation into the question of what “real existence” is in Plato [Note: Ibid., p. 111: “I had intended adding an appendix on Real Existence, but shall reserve it for a more fitting occasion.”].

According to my investigations above, existence differs by degrees. The highest degree is possessed and enjoyed only by the philosopher who is living the eternal life.

Schleiermacher's Judgment

In mentioning the various views of Platonic doctrine here, someone may perhaps-

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Some distinguished scholar may perhaps miss his name. I ask that this not be interpreted as an expression of contempt. Anyone who wishes to pursue this literary-historical side of the matter in detail I refer to the well-known, careful, and learned works of Susemihl.

My only concern here was to characterize, through a few examples, the various positions that have been adopted toward Platonic doctrine.

In my opinion, Schleiermacher has spoken most aptly about our question, and I am in greatest agreement with him. Since I attach great importance to his judgment and am convinced that others, too, will gladly listen to his voice, I will quote his own words from his preface to the Phaedo [Note: Ibid., pages 13 to 14.]:

“Plato's Socrates himself evidently places the greatest weight upon the fact that it is the same necessity by virtue of which the Ideas exist and the soul exists, both before we are born and in the same manner in which the Ideas exist and the soul exists outside the realm of becoming, in which it appears during life.

This alone is immediately certain to Socrates and his companions, and it is precisely because this is immediately one and the same with the reality of knowledge itself that they hold fast to it.

Those who understand Plato differently—or who, at least, attribute to him a different conception of immortality, as though it were something immediately certain to him and the result of his demonstration—should take warning from this passage, lest they join the company of those confused dreamers who imagine that, according to Plato, the Ideas, apart from nature and apart from the mind, possess somewhere an existence that is—I know not in what manner—sensible and somehow external.”

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In this question, it does not matter that Schleiermacher himself was a Platonist in the doctrine of immortality—that is, that he did not believe in an individual and personal future existence of the soul. For even if one adopts the opposite standpoint, as I do [Note: Compare my work On the Immortality of the Soul, Duncker & Humblot, 1874.], one must not allow oneself to search in Plato, according to one's own preference, for a mode of thought that contradicts the principles and spirit of his entire system.

We are not seeking truth as such here, but historical truth.