Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  Now Dion had accepted this and other similar teachings of mine, and I may rightly be as indignant at his murderers as at Dionysius. Both parties have done infinite wrong to me and, I may say, to all mankind—the first two in striking down a man whose purpose was to realize justice, the other in refusing to have anything to do with justice, though he possessed every resource for making it prevail throughout his domain. If in his empire [d] there had been brought about a real union of philosophy and power, it would have been an illustrious example to both Greeks and barbarians, and all mankind would have been convinced of the truth that no city nor individual can be happy except by living in company with wisdom under the guidance of justice, either from personal achievement of these virtues or from a right training and education received under God-fearing rulers. This is the center of my grievance against Dionysius; the other injuries [e] that he has done to me are trivial in comparison. And he who murdered Dion has unknowingly produced the same result. For of Dion I know, as surely as a man can know anything about his fellow men, that if he had held the power he would not have been diverted from using it for the following purposes. First of all, with regard to Syracuse,6 his native city, [336] after having cleansed her of her servitude and put on her the garment of freedom, he would have made every effort to adorn her citizens with the best and most suitable laws. Then he would have turned with ardor to the next task, that of resettling all Sicily and liberating her from the barbarians, driving out some of them and subjugating others, a thing he could have done more easily than Hiero. Such deeds accomplished by a man of justice and courage and temperance and philosophy would have produced in the [b] multitude the same respect for virtue which, if Dionysius had listened to me, would have made its saving appearance, one may say, among all mankind. But now some daemon or avenging deity has fallen upon us, and through disrespect for law and the gods, and worst of all, through the audacity of ignorance—that soil in which all ills are rooted and grow, to produce in the end a bitter fruit for those who have planted them—such ignorance has a second time overturned all our plans and brought them to naught.

  But on this our third trial let us avoid saying anything of ill omen. In [c] spite of previous misfortunes, I advise you, the friends of Dion, to imitate his love for his country and his sober way of living and to try to carry out, under better auspices, these plans of his; and what they were you have clearly heard me explain. If there is anyone in your number who is incapable of living in the Dorian fashion like your fathers and follows the “Sicilian life” of the slayers of Dion, do not ask his help nor imagine that [d] he will act loyally or dependably. But summon others to help you in resettling all Sicily and equalizing her laws. Summon them not only from Sicily herself, but from the whole of the Peloponnesus; and do not fear even Athens, for Athens also has citizens preeminent in virtue who abhor the shameless audacity of those who slay their hosts. But if these projects I have mentioned must be deferred, because you are now hard pressed by the many and diverse factions daily sprouting in your midst, then [e] anyone to whom the gods have given a modicum of right opinion must know that there can be no end to the evils of faction until the party that has gained the victory in these battles and in the exiling and slaughtering [337] of fellow citizens forgets its wrongs and ceases trying to wreak vengeance upon its enemies. If it controls itself and enacts laws for the common good, considering its own interests no more than those of the vanquished, the defeated party will be doubly constrained, by respect and by fear, to follow the laws—by fear because the other party has demonstrated its superior force, and by respect because it has shown that it is able and willing to conquer its desires and serve the law instead. In no other way can a city [b] that is rent by factions bring its disorders to an end, but it will continue to be divided within itself by strife and enmity, hatred and distrust.

  Whenever, then, the victors desire to save their city, they must enter into counsel with themselves and first of all select the most eminent Greeks they can discover—old men, with wives and children at home, descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors and each of them possessing a [c] fair amount of property (fifty such men will be enough for a city of ten thousand)—and these they must induce, by personal entreaties and by all the honors at their disposal, to leave home and come to their aid; and when they have come they must direct them to make laws, binding them upon oath to award no more to the victors than to the vanquished, but to consider only the equal and common good of the whole city. And then when the laws have been laid down everything depends upon this. If the [d] victors show themselves more eager than the vanquished to obey the laws, then everything will be safe, happiness will abound, and all these evils will take their flight. But let no one who refuses to abide by these principles call upon me or anyone else for support. These proposals are akin to those that Dion and I tried to accomplish for the benefit of Syracuse, but second best. The best were those that we earlier tried to effect with the aid of Dionysius himself [goods to be common to all]. But fortune is mightier than men and shattered our plans. Now it is for you to try to bring them [e] about with better luck, and may divine favor attend your efforts.

  This, then, is my advice and admonition, and the account of my first visit to Dionysius. As to my later journey across the water, whoever is interested can learn from what follows that it was a reasonable and proper venture. The early part of my first stay in Syracuse passed as I have [338] described it above before giving my advice to the relatives and friends of Dion. After the events described, I made every effort to persuade Dionysius to let me depart, and we came to an agreement that when peace was restored (war was then going on in Sicily) and when Dionysius had made his empire more secure, he would recall both Dion and me. He also asked [b] Dion to consider himself not as having been exiled, but only banished.7 On these conditions I promised that I would return. After peace was restored he sent for me, but Dion he asked to wait another year; me, however, he urged most strongly to come. Dion consented, and even entreated me to set sail; in fact there were many reports coming from Sicily that Dionysius had now once more conceived a great desire for philosophy, and this was why Dion persistently urged me not to disobey the summons. But as for me, though I knew that philosophy often affects young men in this way, yet it seemed to me safer, for the present at least, to say farewell [c] to my plans and let Dion and Dionysius alone; and I offended both of them by replying that I was an old man, and that what they were doing now did not at all accord with the agreement we had made. Now it seems that after this, Archytas visited Dionysius (for before my departure I had established relations of friendship and hospitality between Archytas and his Tarentine friends and Dionysius), and that there were certain other [d] persons who had learned something from Dion, and others who had learned from them; and being full of these half-understood doctrines, they were apparently trying to converse with Dionysius about them as if he had mastered all my thought. Now he is not without natural capacity for learning, and besides is extraordinarily vain; and no doubt he was pleased to have these questions addressed to him, and ashamed to have it discovered that he had learned nothing during my stay. For these reasons he [e] came to desire a clearer understanding, and at the same time his ambition spurred him on. (Why he did not learn from me during my first visit, I have described above.) When, therefore, I had got safely home and had, as I have just said, disregarded his summons to return, Dionysius’ chief ambition, I think, was to prevent anyone from supposing that I had refused to come to his court because I had a contempt for his nature and character [339] and was displeased with his way of living. I must tell the truth, and put up with it if anyone, after hearing what happened, despises my philosophy and esteems the tyrant’s intelligence. Dionysius summoned me a third time, sending a trireme to ease the journey for me, and with it certain Sicilian acquaintances of mine, among them Archedemus, one of the associates of Archytas and a man whom, as he knew, I valued the most highly [b] of all men in Sicily. These all brought me the same stor
y of the marvelous progress Dionysius was making in philosophy. He knew of my feelings towards Dion and of Dion’s desire to have me embark and go to Syracuse; so he wrote me a very lengthy letter, evidently composed with these facts in view. The beginning of it was about as follows: “Dionysius to Plato,” then the customary salutations, and immediately afterwards, “If you come [c] at once to Syracuse as we have requested, first of all the issues that concern Dion will be settled in whatever way you desire (for I know you will desire only what is fair and I agree to this); but if not, none of these questions, whether touching Dion’s person or any other matter, will be settled to your liking.” Such were his words; to give the rest of the letter would take too much space and would not be pertinent here. Other letters kept coming to me from Archytas and the Tarentines praising Dionysius’ [d] philosophy and saying that if I did not come now the friendship I had brought about between them and Dionysius, a friendship which was of no little importance to their state, would be broken off. Now when the summons had taken on this character, with my friends in Sicily and Italy pulling me and those at Athens almost pushing me away with their urging, [e] the same consideration occurred to me as before, that I ought not to betray my friends and followers in Tarentum. Besides, I thought, it is not an unusual thing that a young man of native intelligence who has overheard some talk of lofty matters should be seized by a love for an ideal of life. I ought then to test the situation clearly to see on which side the truth lay, and by no means to give up in advance and expose myself to the blame [340] that would rightly fall upon me if these reports should really be true. I set off, therefore, under cover of this reasoning, though with many fears and forebodings of evil, as can well be understood. “The third time to the Savior,” runs the proverb;8 and my third journey at least confirmed its truth, for by good luck I again came off safely; and next to God I thank Dionysius for it, because there were many determined to destroy me, but he prevented them and showed a certain respect for me and my position.

  [b] When I arrived, I thought my first task was to prove whether Dionysius was really on fire with philosophy, or whether the many reports that came to Athens were without foundation. Now there is a certain way of putting this to the test, a dignified way and quite appropriate to tyrants, especially to those whose heads are full of half-understood doctrines, which I saw at once upon my arrival was particularly the case with Dionysius. You must picture to such men the extent of the undertaking, describing what [c] sort of inquiry it is, with how many difficulties it is beset, and how much labor it involves. For anyone who hears this, who is a true lover of wisdom, with the divine quality that makes him akin to it and worthy of pursuing it, thinks that he has heard of a marvelous quest that he must at once enter upon with all earnestness, or life is not worth living; and from that time forth he pushes himself and urges on his leader without ceasing, until he has reached the end of the journey or has become capable of doing without [d] a guide and finding the way himself. This is the state of mind in which such a man lives; whatever his occupation may be, above everything and always he holds fast to philosophy and to the daily discipline that best makes him apt at learning and remembering, and capable of reasoning soberly with himself; while for the opposite way of living he has a persistent hatred. Those who are really not philosophers but have only a coating of opinions, like men whose bodies are tanned by the sun, when they see how much learning is required, and how great the labor, and how orderly [e] their daily lives must be to suit the subject they are pursuing, conclude that the task is too difficult for their powers; and rightly so, for they are [341] not equipped for this pursuit. But some of them persuade themselves that they have already sufficiently heard the whole of it and need make no further effort. Now this is a clear and infallible test to apply to those who love ease and are incapable of strenuous labor, for none of them can ever blame his teacher, but only himself, if he is unable to put forth the efforts that the task demands.

  It was in this fashion that I then spoke to Dionysius. I did not explain everything to him, nor did he ask me to, for he claimed to have already a sufficient knowledge of many, and the most important, points because [b]of what he had heard others say about them. Later, I hear, he wrote a book on the matters we talked about, putting it forward as his own teaching, not what he had learned from me. Whether this is true I do not know. I know that certain others also have written on these same matters; but who they are they themselves do not know. So much at least I can affirm with confidence about any who have written or propose to write on these [c] questions, pretending to a knowledge of the problems with which I am concerned, whether they claim to have learned from me or from others or to have made their discoveries for themselves: it is impossible, in my opinion, that they can have learned anything at all about the subject. There is no writing of mine about these matters, nor will there ever be one. For this knowledge is not something that can be put into words like other sciences; but after long-continued intercourse between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of the subject, suddenly, like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straighway nourishes itself. And [d] this too I know: if these matters are to be expounded at all in books or lectures, they would best come from me. Certainly I am harmed not least of all if they are misrepresented. If I thought they could be put into written words adequate for the multitude, what nobler work could I do in my life than to compose something of such great benefit to mankind and bring to light the nature of things for all to see? But I do not think that the [e] “examination,” as it is called, of these questions would be of any benefit to men, except to a few, i.e., to those who could with a little guidance discover the truth by themselves. Of the rest, some would be filled with an ill-founded and quite unbecoming disdain, and some with an exaggerated and foolish elation, as if they had learned something grand.

  Let me go into these matters at somewhat greater length, for perhaps [342] what I am saying will become clearer when I have done so. There is a true doctrine that confutes anyone who has presumed to write anything whatever on such subjects, a doctrine that I have often before expounded, but it seems that it must now be said again. For every real being, there are three things that are necessary if knowledge of it is to be acquired: first, the name; second, the definition; third, the image; knowledge comes [b] fourth, and in the fifth place we must put the object itself, the knowable and truly real being. To understand what this means, take a particular example, and think of all other objects as analogous to it. There is something called a circle, and its name is this very word we have just used. Second, there is its definition, composed of nouns and verbs. “The figure whose extremities are everywhere equally distant from its center” is the definition of precisely that to which the names “round,” “circumference,” and “circle” apply. Third is what we draw or rub out, what is turned or destroyed; [c] but the circle itself to which they all refer remains unaffected, because it is different from them. In the fourth place are knowledge (epistēmē), reason (nous), and right opinion (which are in our minds, not in words or bodily shapes, and therefore must be taken together as something distinct both from the circle itself and from the three things previously mentioned); of [d] these, reason is nearest the fifth in kinship and likeness, while the others are further away. The same thing is true of straight-lined as well as of circular figures; of color; of the good, the beautiful, the just; of body in general, whether artificial or natural; of fire, water, and all the elements; of all living beings and qualities of souls; of all actions and affections. For [e] in each case, whoever does not somehow grasp the four things mentioned will never fully attain knowledge of the fifth.

  These things, moreover, because of the weakness of language, are just as much concerned with making clear the particular property of each object [343] as the being of it. On this account no sensible man will venture to express his deepest thoughts in words, especially in a form which is unchangeable, as is true of written outlines. Let us go back and study a
gain the illustration just given. Every circle that we make or draw in common life is full of characteristics that contradict the “fifth,” for it everywhere touches a straight line, while the circle itself, we say, has in it not the slightest element belonging to a contrary nature. And we say that their names are by no [b] means fixed; there is no reason why what we call “circles” might not be called “straight lines,” and the straight lines “circles,” and their natures will be none the less fixed despite this exchange of names. Indeed the same thing is true of the definition: since it is a combination of nouns and verbs, there is nothing surely fixed about it. Much more might be said to show that each of these four instruments is unclear, but the most important point is what I said earlier: that of the two objects of search—the particular [c] quality and the being of an object—the soul seeks to know not the quality but the essence, whereas each of these four instruments presents to the soul, in discourse and in examples, what she is not seeking, and thus makes it easy to refute by sense perception anything that may be said or pointed out, and fills everyone, so to speak, with perplexity and confusion. Now in those matters in which, because of our defective training, we are not accustomed to look for truth but are satisfied with the first image suggested to us, we can ask and answer without making ourselves ridiculous [d] to one another, being proficient in manipulating and testing these four instruments. But when it is “the fifth” about which we are compelled to answer questions or to make explanations, then anyone who wishes to refute has the advantage, and can make the propounder of a doctrine, whether in writing or speaking or in answering questions, seem to most of his listeners completely ignorant of the matter on which he is trying to speak or write. Those who are listening sometimes do not realize that it is not the mind of the speaker or writer which is being refuted, but these four instruments mentioned, each of which is by nature defective.