Phaedrus
their own good conduct in the successive stages of existence. Nor again
can we attribute anything to the accidental inference which would also
follow, that even a tyrant may live righteously in the condition of life
to which fate has called him ('he aiblins might, I dinna ken'). But
to suppose this would be at variance with Plato himself and with Greek
notions generally. He is much more serious in distinguishing men from
animals by their recognition of the universal which they have known in
a former state, and in denying that this gift of reason can ever be
obliterated or lost. In the language of some modern theologians he might
be said to maintain the 'final perseverance' of those who have entered
on their pilgrim's progress. Other intimations of a 'metaphysic' or
'theology' of the future may also be discerned in him: (1) The moderate
predestinarianism which here, as in the Republic, acknowledges the
element of chance in human life, and yet asserts the freedom and
responsibility of man; (2) The recognition of a moral as well as an
intellectual principle in man under the image of an immortal steed; (3)
The notion that the divine nature exists by the contemplation of
ideas of virtue and justice--or, in other words, the assertion of the
essentially moral nature of God; (4) Again, there is the hint that human
life is a life of aspiration only, and that the true ideal is not to
be found in art; (5) There occurs the first trace of the distinction
between necessary and contingent matter; (6) The conception of the soul
itself as the motive power and reason of the universe.
The conception of the philosopher, or the philosopher and lover in one,
as a sort of madman, may be compared with the Republic and Theaetetus,
in both of which the philosopher is regarded as a stranger and monster
upon the earth. The whole myth, like the other myths of Plato, describes
in a figure things which are beyond the range of human faculties, or
inaccessible to the knowledge of the age. That philosophy should be
represented as the inspiration of love is a conception that has already
become familiar to us in the Symposium, and is the expression partly of
Plato's enthusiasm for the idea, and is also an indication of the real
power exercised by the passion of friendship over the mind of the Greek.
The master in the art of love knew that there was a mystery in these
feelings and their associations, and especially in the contrast of
the sensible and permanent which is afforded by them; and he sought
to explain this, as he explained universal ideas, by a reference to a
former state of existence. The capriciousness of love is also derived
by him from an attachment to some god in a former world. The singular
remark that the beloved is more affected than the lover at the final
consummation of their love, seems likewise to hint at a psychological
truth.
It is difficult to exhaust the meanings of a work like the Phaedrus,
which indicates so much more than it expresses; and is full of
inconsistencies and ambiguities which were not perceived by Plato
himself. For example, when he is speaking of the soul does he mean the
human or the divine soul? and are they both equally self-moving and
constructed on the same threefold principle? We should certainly be
disposed to reply that the self-motive is to be attributed to God only;
and on the other hand that the appetitive and passionate elements have
no place in His nature. So we should infer from the reason of the thing,
but there is no indication in Plato's own writings that this was his
meaning. Or, again, when he explains the different characters of men
by referring them back to the nature of the God whom they served in a
former state of existence, we are inclined to ask whether he is serious:
Is he not rather using a mythological figure, here as elsewhere, to draw
a veil over things which are beyond the limits of mortal knowledge? Once
more, in speaking of beauty is he really thinking of some external form
such as might have been expressed in the works of Phidias or Praxiteles;
and not rather of an imaginary beauty, of a sort which extinguishes
rather than stimulates vulgar love,--a heavenly beauty like that which
flashed from time to time before the eyes of Dante or Bunyan? Surely
the latter. But it would be idle to reconcile all the details of the
passage: it is a picture, not a system, and a picture which is for the
greater part an allegory, and an allegory which allows the meaning to
come through. The image of the charioteer and his steeds is placed side
by side with the absolute forms of justice, temperance, and the like,
which are abstract ideas only, and which are seen with the eye of the
soul in her heavenly journey. The first impression of such a passage, in
which no attempt is made to separate the substance from the form, is far
truer than an elaborate philosophical analysis.
It is too often forgotten that the whole of the second discourse of
Socrates is only an allegory, or figure of speech. For this reason, it
is unnecessary to enquire whether the love of which Plato speaks is
the love of men or of women. It is really a general idea which includes
both, and in which the sensual element, though not wholly eradicated, is
reduced to order and measure. We must not attribute a meaning to
every fanciful detail. Nor is there any need to call up revolting
associations, which as a matter of good taste should be banished, and
which were far enough away from the mind of Plato. These and similar
passages should be interpreted by the Laws. Nor is there anything in the
Symposium, or in the Charmides, in reality inconsistent with the sterner
rule which Plato lays down in the Laws. At the same time it is not to be
denied that love and philosophy are described by Socrates in figures
of speech which would not be used in Christian times; or that nameless
vices were prevalent at Athens and in other Greek cities; or that
friendships between men were a more sacred tie, and had a more important
social and educational influence than among ourselves. (See note on
Symposium.)
In the Phaedrus, as well as in the Symposium, there are two kinds of
love, a lower and a higher, the one answering to the natural wants of
the animal, the other rising above them and contemplating with religious
awe the forms of justice, temperance, holiness, yet finding them
also 'too dazzling bright for mortal eye,' and shrinking from them
in amazement. The opposition between these two kinds of love may be
compared to the opposition between the flesh and the spirit in the
Epistles of St. Paul. It would be unmeaning to suppose that Plato, in
describing the spiritual combat, in which the rational soul is
finally victor and master of both the steeds, condescends to allow any
indulgence of unnatural lusts.
Two other thoughts about love are suggested by this passage. First of
all, love is represented here, as in the Symposium, as one of the great
powers of nature, which takes many forms and two principal ones, having
a predominant influence over the lives of men. And these two, though
opposed, are not absolutely separated the one from the other. Plato,
with his great knowledge of human nature, was well aware how easily
one is transformed into the other, or how soon the noble but fleeting
aspiration may return into the nature of the animal, while the
lower instinct which is latent always remains. The intermediate
sentimentalism, which has exercised so great an influence on the
literature of modern Europe, had no place in the classical times of
Hellas; the higher love, of which Plato speaks, is the subject, not of
poetry or fiction, but of philosophy.
Secondly, there seems to be indicated a natural yearning of the human
mind that the great ideas of justice, temperance, wisdom, should be
expressed in some form of visible beauty, like the absolute purity and
goodness which Christian art has sought to realize in the person of
the Madonna. But although human nature has often attempted to represent
outwardly what can be only 'spiritually discerned,' men feel that in
pictures and images, whether painted or carved, or described in words
only, we have not the substance but the shadow of the truth which is in
heaven. There is no reason to suppose that in the fairest works of Greek
art, Plato ever conceived himself to behold an image, however faint, of
ideal truths. 'Not in that way was wisdom seen.'
We may now pass on to the second part of the Dialogue, which is a
criticism on the first. Rhetoric is assailed on various grounds: first,
as desiring to persuade, without a knowledge of the truth; and secondly,
as ignoring the distinction between certain and probable matter. The
three speeches are then passed in review: the first of them has no
definition of the nature of love, and no order in the topics (being in
these respects far inferior to the second); while the third of them is
found (though a fancy of the hour) to be framed upon real dialectical
principles. But dialectic is not rhetoric; nothing on that subject is to
be found in the endless treatises of rhetoric, however prolific in hard
names. When Plato has sufficiently put them to the test of ridicule he
touches, as with the point of a needle, the real error, which is the
confusion of preliminary knowledge with creative power. No attainments
will provide the speaker with genius; and the sort of attainments which
can alone be of any value are the higher philosophy and the power of
psychological analysis, which is given by dialectic, but not by the
rules of the rhetoricians.
In this latter portion of the Dialogue there are many texts which may
help us to speak and to think. The names dialectic and rhetoric are
passing out of use; we hardly examine seriously into their nature and
limits, and probably the arts both of speaking and of conversation have
been unduly neglected by us. But the mind of Socrates pierces through
the differences of times and countries into the essential nature of man;
and his words apply equally to the modern world and to the Athenians of
old. Would he not have asked of us, or rather is he not asking of us,
Whether we have ceased to prefer appearances to reality? Let us take
a survey of the professions to which he refers and try them by his
standard. Is not all literature passing into criticism, just as Athenian
literature in the age of Plato was degenerating into sophistry and
rhetoric? We can discourse and write about poems and paintings, but we
seem to have lost the gift of creating them. Can we wonder that few
of them 'come sweetly from nature,' while ten thousand reviewers (mala
murioi) are engaged in dissecting them? Young men, like Phaedrus, are
enamoured of their own literary clique and have but a feeble sympathy
with the master-minds of former ages. They recognize 'a POETICAL
necessity in the writings of their favourite author, even when he boldly
wrote off just what came in his head.' They are beginning to think that
Art is enough, just at the time when Art is about to disappear from the
world. And would not a great painter, such as Michael Angelo, or a great
poet, such as Shakespeare, returning to earth, 'courteously rebuke'
us--would he not say that we are putting 'in the place of Art the
preliminaries of Art,' confusing Art the expression of mind and truth
with Art the composition of colours and forms; and perhaps he might
more severely chastise some of us for trying to invent 'a new shudder'
instead of bringing to the birth living and healthy creations? These he
would regard as the signs of an age wanting in original power.
Turning from literature and the arts to law and politics, again we fall
under the lash of Socrates. For do we not often make 'the worse appear
the better cause;' and do not 'both parties sometimes agree to tell