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friendly relation to Socrates, as an honourable compensation for what was said in the Apology; especially when we take into consideration the quotation from the clouds; perhaps also to show how entirely all bad feeling had vanished in him who had in earlier times written that beautiful epigram upon the poet, notwithstanding all the satire which the latter had aimed at the philosopher.

IX. PHÆDON.

It now becomes incumbent upon us to explain more accurately the proper meaning of what has already been said preliminarily in the Introduction to the Symposium, as to the relation and connection between these two dialogues. Now, if the reader would assume with us, by way of experiment, that the Symposium and the Phædon constitute the third description, that of the Philosopher, as connected with the other two already given of the Sophist and the Statesman, we would then, in order that a more accurate view of the subject may not escape him, draw his attention to the fact, that in the speech of Diotima the passion for wisdom is expressly excluded out of the idea of love, in order that this province may be assigned solely to parturition in the beautiful*, and that reference is as it were thus made to another place; which might at once, and of itself, be regarded as a prefatory indication of the Phædon. For it cannot certainly be denied, that if the good is the object of love in general,

* Τόκος ἐν καλῷ. Symp.

then wisdom for its own sake is to be the predominant object of the love of wisdom, so that this feeling as essentially belongs to a man's life and conduct, as the communication and engrafting of wisdom in others. And it is by the mention of these two peculiarities of the philosopher, that his relation to the sophist and the statesman is first fully defined. For the statesman as such also creates, but only as preparing in their kind the superior natures that vibrate intermediately between the furthest extremes, which are thus made most susceptible of knowledge; so that the philosopher best receives the object of his love out of the hands of the true statesman, in order then to create and perfect in that object the higher life of knowledge. And the sophist likewise is also engaged in dialectic separation and combination, but, confined as he is to the world of sense, and involved in pleasure and vanity, he adheres only to the terrestrial copies, and will thence obtain and possess for itself only the non-existent. The philosopher on the contrary struggles to acquire the self-existent, and to preserve it pure in knowledge, and, therefore, in order to exalt himself to the archetypes, in which alone it is to be found, he seeks how he may make his soul, in which they dwell, work for itself alone, and go free from the influence of sense and matter collectively. And this is that passionate desire to become pure spirit, that wish for death in the wise man which we find described here, at the beginning of this work, and out of which all the following investigations develope themselves. But, it will be said by many, even though this wish for death is the other essential inpulse of the philosopher in Plato's opinion, still, it does not

form the most principal subject-matter of the Phædon, but appears only to subsist as an introduction, and an occasion subordinately giving rise to all the discussions upon the soul's immortality, which clearly constitute that to which the chief importance is attached. Now, that the subject of immortality, at least, goes equal shares with that of the wish for death, I am not going to deny, only let it not either be overlooked, that the possibility and truth of knowledge are continually, and repeatedly interwoven with the allegations of proof respecting immortality, and that as regards our author, the two are in fact most intimately combined. For the endeavour after knowledge could not exist at all under the form of a wish to die, not even in a philosopher, if it were necessarily, at the same time, a wish for annihilation. And if the soul is to apprehend the essentially existent, which is not subjected to origination and destruction, and to all the conditions of imperfect existence, it can only do so, (according to the old principle, and one, which in this argument must be always born in mind, that like is only apprehended by like,) as existing similarly, and in the same manner with that essential existence. Thus, then, the immortality of the soul is the condition of all true knowledge as regards men, and conversely, the reality of knowledge is the ground upon which the immortality of the soul is most certainly and easily understood. Hence, in the former dialogues also, in which knowledge was investigated, immortality was always presupposed and investigated simultaneously; and one may say, that, from the Gorgias and Theætetus downwards, the two subjects are continually approximating in their progress, until they are at last in this dialogue most closely

combined. Whoever then comprehends the connection of these two points in the sense in which Plato meant it, will certainly no longer hesitate to place the Phadon and the Symposium together, and to recognise the reciprocal relation of the two. For, as the love there described exhibits the endeavour to connect the immortal with the mortal, that pure contemplation here represented is the endeavour to withdraw the immortal, as such, away from the mortal; and the two are manifestly in necessary connection with one another. For, if the soul in its advances towards knowledge wishes to be continually removing further from the sphere of imperfect existence and appearance, and to be at last entirely separated from it, it is but a return fairly due from a soul in this condition, as it is, notwithstanding, incumbent upon it to interest itself continually in every thing not endowed with soul, first, to engraft knowledge in other souls destined to move longer in this sphere. And on the other hand, if the soul exerts itself to introduce the truth into others, the only proof of its love for them that can be given is, that it adhere itself to truth alone, and fly as far as possible from the semblance of it. Now, of these two essential characteristics in the conduct of a philosopher, one predominates in each of our two dialogues respectively; although their necessary connection did not admit of a complete separation, in that respect also entirely corresponding to the character of the second period of the Platonic composition. For, as the description of love in the speech of Diotima could not exist at all without reference made to pure contemplation, so also in this dialogue, where, properly speaking, that contemplation is represented, we find manifold

allusions throughout to the passionate desire always to live with sympathetic minds, and to co-operate in creating truth within them, as a common task and profit; only, that as regards Socrates, in order as it were to secure him a tranquil departure, this is represented as already essentially completed in his own peculiar circle. And this leads us also to remark how the dramatic character in both dialogues appears so very analogous, and indicates the same relation. For, in the Symposium, Socrates is eminently exhibited in the joyousness and pride of life, though it is not forgotten at the same time how he is plunged in philosophical contemplation, and can postpone all else to that; in the Phædon, on the contrary, what appears most prominent is the tranquillity and cheerfulness with which he expects death, as the liberator from every thing that interrupts contemplation; and on the other hand, he does not nevertheless interrupt his accustomed social practice, but even with the fatal goblet will observe the sacred ceremonies of the festive meal. It is, indeed, generally allowed that little is to be met with in the way of description more beautiful in its kind than this of the dying Socrates; but still the mind is not completely filled with the greatness of the subject before the two images of the same man, that given here and in the Symposium, are combined into one.

If then it should be asked why, if the case stands thus, Plato has not done this himself, and in general worked up into one piece the description of the philosopher in his two-fold character, we may reply, that since we can no longer enquire of Plato himself, this question on the one hand goes too far, and it cannot be incumbent upon us to give an explanation of the

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