Phaedrus — Plato

XXVI GENERAL INTRODUCTION righteousness, and to rise in their souls as clear Knowledge and as holy purpose, with their growth ijnto manhood.

This central faith in the reality and power of truth determined Plato's attitude toward every important question that met him, — toward the old philosophy, toward the theories and practices of the Sophists, toward the business, art, religion, and politics of his nation, and toward the conduct of his own life.^ Let us look at each of these points.

The Old Philosophers : Plato* did not join the Sophists and the general public in scorn of the old philosophers. He believed that their long search for the truth had not been altoggther in vain. He believed that some of them were worth the deepest study he could give them. He made extensive and expensive journeys to meet living disciples of the various schools of philosophy.

There is a tradition that he paid a sum equal to about $i,6oo for one small book on the teachings of Pythagoras. It is at any rate certain that he was a profound student of Pythagoras, of Parmenides, of Heracleitus, and doubtless of other old masters. He was not afraid that such study of his predecessors would affect his own originality.

No passage can be recalled which shows that he was jealous of any of his predecessors or anxious to prove his own superiority. In the Theaetetus there is a reference to one of the old masters which seems to be not ironical, but characteristic of Plato's genuine reverence for the greater philosophers. " I have a kind of reverence," he says, " for the great leader himself, Parmenides, venerable and awful as in Homeric language he may be called ;

GENERAL INTRODUCTION XXVll him I should be ashamed to approach in a spirit unworthy of him. The Sophists : Plato was unceasingly hostile to the doctrines and practices of the Sophists. He clearly saw that the Sophists were not all upon the same level^The best and the worst of them one may become acquainted with in two of the dialogues given in this volume — Euthydemus and Protagoras.

Euthydemus and his brother, Dionysodorus, are exhibited as substantially a pair of confidence men. They are ignorant, shallow, unscrupulous tricksters. Their game is the half-grown youth who has much money and little judgment. When they have dazzled and corrupted and robbed the boy, their work is done.

In the dialogue, Plato scorches these men with his irony, and holds them up to public shame as mercilessly as Aristophanes did in the comedy their kind to which I have referred. In the Protagoras we are introduced to Sophists of a very different kind. Protagoras, Hippias, and Prodicus were men who had earned distinction by attainments which are honored in almost all civilized countries.

They were masters of the learning and of the arts of the time. Judged by any ordinary standard, the Sophists of this class would receive an honorable if not an eminent place in the history of culture. It is held by some scholars that Plato was not just to them. It is possible that he was not, although, indeed, he shows very clearly that he was by no means ignorant of their many gifts and accomplishments.

The reason for his unfailing antagonism to every kind of Sophist is not ignorance of their attainments, as judged by ordinary standards.

XXVIU GENERAL INTRODUCTION He utterly refuses to judge them by ordinary standards. Everything is eternally judged by one %\t \\ standard, the absolute truth. Judged by this standard, "niS^TffOst ' accbmplisned Sophist stands selfcondemned. He does not believe in the absolute truth. He does not seek to know it. He does not seek to obey it. He has no faith in anything except the power of artifice.

His learning, since it never leads toward the absolute truth, is " the art of giving, by quibbling criticism, an appearance of knowledge.'* His rhetoric is not a true but a spurious art, which does not seek to supply true food for the soul, but only to concoct highly spiced dishes which shall pamper and corrupt the people. Athens: What did Plato think of his own city, — its art, its religion, its politics?

If you glance again at the brief account which has been given of the many glories of Athens at that time, or, better, if you become thoroughly acquainted with the history of Athens, you may well think that any Athenian had a right to be proud of his birthplace, — its commercial and political prosperity, its temples, its classic drama, its impressive religious ceremonials.

Indeed, if you get to know and love the " glory that was Greece,'* you may be inclined to anger against any one who would dare to criticise it. Be angry if you will, but Plato, who grew up in the midst of that glory was its remorseless critic. He made his criticisms in the exquisitely graceful Athenian fashion, but in substance they are al stern as H le^ad been Jeremiah or John Knox. The reason for this severe judgment, as in the case of the Sophists, is that he knows only one standard of