PLATO.

It has been remarked by Coleridge, that all men are born disciples either of Plato or Aristotle: by which he means that these two great men are the leaders in the two kinds of philosophy which govern the thinking world,—the one looking into the soul, as the great well of truth; the other, studying the outward world, and building up its system upon facts collected by observation. The truth is doubtless to be found by compounding the two systems.

Plato was born at Athens, in May, 429 B. C. He was the son of Ariston and Perectonia. His original name was Aristocles, and it has been conjectured that he received that of Plato, from the largeness of his shoulders: this, however, is improbable, as Plato was then a common name at Athens. Being one of the descendants of Codrus, and the offspring of a noble, illustrious, and opulent family, he was educated with the utmost care; his body was formed and invigorated with gymnastic exercises, and his mind was cultivated and trained by the study of poetry and of geometry; from which two sources he doubtless derived that acuteness of judgment and warmth of imagination, which stamped him as at once the most subtle and flowery writer of antiquity.

He first began his literary career by writing poems and tragedies; but he was disgusted with his own productions, when, at the age of twenty, he was introduced into the society of Socrates, and was qualified to examine, with critical accuracy, the merit of his compositions, and compare them with those of his poetical predecessors. He, therefore, committed them to the flames. During eight years he continued to be one of the pupils of Socrates; and though he was prevented by indisposition from attending the philosopher’s last moments, he collected, from the conversation of those that were present, and from his own accurate observations, very minute and circumstantial accounts, which exhibit the concern and sensibility of the pupil, and the firmness, virtue, and elevated moral sentiments of the dying philosopher.

After the death of Socrates Plato retired from Athens, and, with a view to emerge his stores of knowledge, he began to travel over different countries. He visited Megara, Thebes, and Elis, where he met with the kindest reception from his fellow-disciples, whom the violent death of their master had likewise removed from Attica. He afterwards visited Magna Græcia, attracted by the fame of the Pythagorean philosophy, and by the learning, abilities, and reputation of its professors, Philolaus, Archytas, and Eurytus. He then passed into Sicily, and examined the eruptions of Etna. He visited Egypt, where the mathematician Theodorus, then flourished, and where he knew that the tenets of the Pythagorean philosophy had been fostered.

When he had finished his travels, Plato retired to the groves of Academus, in the neighborhood of Athens, and established a school there; his lectures were soon attended by a crowd of learned, noble, and illustrious pupils; and the philosopher, by refusing to have a share in the administration of political affairs, rendered his name more famous and his school more frequented. During forty years he presided at the head of the academy, and there he devoted his time to the instruction of his pupils, and composed those dialogues which have been the admiration of every succeeding age. His studies, however, were interrupted for a while, as he felt it proper to comply with the pressing invitations of Dionysius, of Syracuse, to visit him. The philosopher earnestly but vainly endeavored to persuade the tyrant to become the father of his people, and the friend of liberty.

In his dress, Plato was not ostentatious; his manners were elegant, but modest, simple, and without affectation. The great honors which were bestowed upon him, were not paid to his appearance, but to his wisdom and virtue. In attending the Olympian games, he once took lodgings with a family who were totally strangers to him. He ate and drank with them, and partook of their innocent pleasures and amusements; but though he told them his name was Plato, he did not speak of the employment he pursued at Athens, and never introduced the name of that great philosopher, whose doctrines he followed, and whose death and virtues were favorite topics of conversation in every part of Greece. When he returned to Athens, he was attended by the family which had so kindly entertained him; and, being familiar with the city, he was desired to show them the celebrated philosopher whose name he bore. Their surprise may be imagined, when he told them that he was the Plato whom they wished to behold.

In his diet he was moderate; and, indeed, to sobriety and temperance in the use of food, and abstinence from those indulgences which enfeeble the body and enervate the mind, some have attributed his preservation during a terrible pestilence which raged in Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Plato was never subject to any long or lingering indisposition; and, though change of climate had enfeebled a constitution naturally strong and healthy, the philosopher lived to an advanced age, and was often heard to say, when his physicians advised him to leave his residence at Athens, where the air was impregnated by the pestilence, that he would not advance one single step to gain the top of Mount Athos, were he assured of attaining the longevity which the inhabitants of that mountain were said to enjoy. Plato died on his birth-day, in the eighty-first year of his age, about the year 348 B. C. His last moments were easy, and without pain; and, according to some authors, he expired in the midst of an entertainment; but Cicero tells us that he died while in the act of writing.

The works of Plato are numerous; with the exception of twelve letters, they are all written in the form of dialogue, in which Socrates is the principal interlocutor. Thus he always speaks by the mouth of others, and the philosopher has nowhere made mention of himself, except once in his dialogue entitled Phædon, and another time in his Apology for Socrates. His writings were so celebrated, and his opinions so respected, that he was called divine; and for the elegance, melody, and sweetness of his expressions, he was distinguished by the appellation of the Athenian bee. His style, however, though commended and admired by the most refined critics among the ancients, has not escaped the censure of some of the moderns. It is obvious that the philosopher cannot escape ridicule, who supposes that fire is a pyramid tied to the earth by numbers; that the world is a figure consisting of twelve pentagons; and who, to prove the metempsychosis and the immortality of the soul, asserts that the dead are born from the living, and the living from the dead. The speculative mind of Plato was employed in examining things divine and human; and he attempted to ascertain and fix not only the practical doctrines of morals and politics but the more subtle and abstruse theory of mystical theogony—the origin of the gods, or divine power. His philosophy was universally received and adopted in ancient times, and it has not only governed the opinions of the speculative part of mankind, but it continues still to influence the reasoning, and to divide the sentiments of the moderns.

In his system of philosophy, he followed the physics of Heraclitus, the metaphysical opinions of Pythagoras, and the morals of Socrates. He maintained the existence of two beings—one self-existent, and the other formed by the hand of a pre-existent, creative god and man. The world, he maintained, was created by that self-existent cause, from the rude, undigested mass of matter which had existed from all eternity, and which had ever been animated by an irregular principle of motion. The origin of evil could not be traced under the government of a deity, without admitting a stubborn intractability and wildness congenial to matter; and from these, consequently, could be demonstrated the deviations from the laws of nature, and from thence, the extravagant passions and appetites of men.

From materials like these were formed the four elements, and the beautiful structure of the heavens and the earth; and into the active but irrational principle of matter, the divinity infused a rational soul. The souls of men were formed from the remainder of the rational soul of the world, which had previously given existence to the invisible gods and demons. The philosopher, therefore, supported the doctrine of ideal forms, and the pre-existence of the human mind, which he considered as emanations of the Deity, and which can never remain satisfied with objects or things unworthy of their divine original. Men could perceive, with their corporeal senses, the types of immutable things, and the fluctuating objects of the material world; but the sudden changes to which these are continually liable, create innumerable disorders, and hence arise deception, and, in short, all the errors of human life. Yet, in whatever situation man may be, he is still an object of divine concern, and, to recommend himself to the favor of the pre-existent cause, he must comply with the purposes of his creation, and, by proper care and diligence, he can recover those immaculate powers with which he was naturally endowed.

All science the philosopher made to consist in reminiscence—in recalling the nature, forms, and proportions, of those perfect and immutable essences, with which the human mind had been conversant. From observations like these, the summit of felicity might be attained by removing from the material, and approaching nearer to the intellectual world; by curbing and governing the passions, which were ever agitated and inflamed by real or imaginary objects.

The passions were divided into two classes: the first consisted of the irascible passions, which originated in pride or resentment, and were seated in the breast; the other, founded on the love of pleasure, was the concupiscible part of the soul, seated in the inferior parts of the body. These different orders induced the philosopher to compare the soul to a small republic, of which the reasoning and judging powers were stationed in the head, as in a firm citadel, and of which the senses were the guards and servants. By the irascible part of the soul, men asserted their dignity, repelled injuries, and scorned danger and the concupiscible part provided the support and the necessities of the body, and, when governed with propriety, gave rise to temperance. Justice was produced by the regular dominion of reason, and by the submission of the passions; and prudence arose from the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the soul, without which other virtues could not exist.

But amidst all this, wisdom was not easily attained; at their creation all minds were not endowed with the same excellence; the bodies which they animated on earth, were not always in harmony with the divine emanation; some might be too weak, others too strong. On the first years of a man’s life depended his future character; an effeminate and licentious education seemed calculated to destroy the purposes of the divinity, while the contrary produced different effects, and tended to cultivate and improve the reasoning and judging faculty, and to produce wisdom and virtue.

Plato was the first who supported the immortality of the soul upon arguments solid and permanent, deduced from truth and experience. He did not imagine that the diseases and death of the body could injure the principle of life, and destroy the soul, which, of itself, was of divine origin, and of an incorrupted and immutable essence, which, though inherent for a while in matter, could not lose that power which was the emanation of God. From doctrines like these, the great founder of Platonism concluded that there might exist in the world a community of men, whose passions could be governed with moderation, and who, from knowing the evils and miseries which arise from ill conduct, might aspire to excellence, and attain that perfection which can be derived from a proper exercise of the rational and moral powers. To illustrate this more fully, the philosopher wrote a book, well known by the name of the “Republic of Plato,” in which he explains, with acuteness, judgment, and elegance, the rise and revolution of civil society; and so respected was his opinion as a legislator, that his scholars were employed in regulating the republics of Arcadia.

It was a characteristic of Plato’s mind, that he united a subtle intellect to a glowing fancy. As an illustration of his style, we may mention the passage in which he shows the operation of the three principles in the human being—mind, soul, and body—or the three powers of intellect, spirit, and matter. It occurs in the dialogue of Phædrus, where he endeavors to illustrate the doctrine that the mind or reason should be the governing faculty.

The soul is here compared to a chariot, drawn by a pair of winged steeds, one of which is well-bred and well-trained, and the other quite the contrary. The quiet horse, the Will, is obedient to the rein, and strives to draw its wilder yoke-fellow, the Appetite, along with it, and to induce it to listen to the voice of the charioteer, Reason. But they have a great deal of trouble with the restive horse, and the whole object of the journey seems to be lost, if this is permitted to have its way. In this allegory, it is shown that the object of Reason, in exacting obedience, is not merely that discipline and subordination which constitute the virtues of man, but to keep the mind in a state to rise to the contemplation and enjoyment of great and eternal truths. In other words, a man must be in a moral state, before he can place himself in a religious state, so as to enjoy the summum bonum, or greatest good. What, then, is this greatest good? or, in the language of Plato, its idea?—for, with him, idea and essence are synonymous. This is God—not his image, but his nature, which is the sovereign good. Thus the greatest happiness of man was placed by Plato in a mysterious union of the soul with this source of goodness. How near an approach to Christian communion with God, is this?

However fantastic many of the details of Plato’s system may seem, and however illusory its whole machinery must appear, when viewed in the light of modern criticism, one thing is to be observed,—that the great results of his philosophy are true. He struggled through the thick mists of his age, and discovered the eternal existence of Deity; he perceived and established, on grounds not to be controverted, the immortality of the soul. He placed true happiness where philosophy and religion place it—in the ascendency of the spirit over the body—the subjugation of the passions to the dominion of reason and virtue. It appears that the germs of these great truths had already manifested themselves in the minds of Pythagoras, Socrates, and others; and Plato borrowed from them many of his noble ideas. But he systematized what they had left in a crude state; he gave a more clear and distinct utterance to what his great master, Socrates, had dimly conceived, and ineffectually struggled to announce. He reached the highest point, in the search after divine knowledge which has ever been attained, without the direct aid of inspiration. In the gradual development of God’s will to man, he was one of the great instruments. Yet, in reviewing his works, we see how imperfect was still his knowledge of things divine, and what fearful shadows would rest upon the world, if Plato were our only guide. How dark, uncertain, mysterious, would be the ways of God—the destinies of man—if left where the philosopher left them!