Theaetetus
preparation in the Theaetetus, and crowns the work in the Sophist.
Many (1) fine expressions, and (2) remarks full of wisdom, (3) also
germs of a metaphysic of the future, are scattered up and down in
the dialogue. Such, for example, as (1) the comparison of Theaetetus'
progress in learning to the 'noiseless flow of a river of oil';
the satirical touch, 'flavouring a sauce or fawning speech'; or the
remarkable expression, 'full of impure dialectic'; or the lively images
under which the argument is described,--'the flood of arguments pouring
in,' the fresh discussions 'bursting in like a band of revellers.'
(2) As illustrations of the second head, may be cited the remark of
Socrates, that 'distinctions of words, although sometimes pedantic, are
also necessary'; or the fine touch in the character of the lawyer,
that 'dangers came upon him when the tenderness of youth was unequal to
them'; or the description of the manner in which the spirit is broken
in a wicked man who listens to reproof until he becomes like a child; or
the punishment of the wicked, which is not physical suffering, but the
perpetual companionship of evil (compare Gorgias); or the saying, often
repeated by Aristotle and others, that 'philosophy begins in wonder,
for Iris is the child of Thaumas'; or the superb contempt with which
the philosopher takes down the pride of wealthy landed proprietors by
comparison of the whole earth. (3) Important metaphysical ideas are: a.
the conception of thought, as the mind talking to herself; b. the notion
of a common sense, developed further by Aristotle, and the explicit
declaration, that the mind gains her conceptions of Being, sameness,
number, and the like, from reflection on herself; c. the excellent
distinction of Theaetetus (which Socrates, speaking with emphasis,
'leaves to grow') between seeing the forms or hearing the sounds of
words in a foreign language, and understanding the meaning of them; and
d. the distinction of Socrates himself between 'having' and 'possessing'
knowledge, in which the answer to the whole discussion appears to be
contained.
...
There is a difference between ancient and modern psychology, and we
have a difficulty in explaining one in the terms of the other. To us the
inward and outward sense and the inward and outward worlds of which they
are the organs are parted by a wall, and appear as if they could never
be confounded. The mind is endued with faculties, habits, instincts, and
a personality or consciousness in which they are bound together. Over
against these are placed forms, colours, external bodies coming into
contact with our own body. We speak of a subject which is ourselves,
of an object which is all the rest. These are separable in thought, but
united in any act of sensation, reflection, or volition. As there are
various degrees in which the mind may enter into or be abstracted from
the operations of sense, so there are various points at which this
separation or union may be supposed to occur. And within the sphere
of mind the analogy of sense reappears; and we distinguish not only
external objects, but objects of will and of knowledge which we contrast
with them. These again are comprehended in a higher object, which
reunites with the subject. A multitude of abstractions are created by
the efforts of successive thinkers which become logical determinations;
and they have to be arranged in order, before the scheme of thought is
complete. The framework of the human intellect is not the peculium of
an individual, but the joint work of many who are of all ages and
countries. What we are in mind is due, not merely to our physical, but
to our mental antecedents which we trace in history, and more especially
in the history of philosophy. Nor can mental phenomena be truly
explained either by physiology or by the observation of consciousness
apart from their history. They have a growth of their own, like the
growth of a flower, a tree, a human being. They may be conceived as of
themselves constituting a common mind, and having a sort of personal
identity in which they coexist.
So comprehensive is modern psychology, seeming to aim at constructing
anew the entire world of thought. And prior to or simultaneously with
this construction a negative process has to be carried on, a clearing
away of useless abstractions which we have inherited from the past. Many
erroneous conceptions of the mind derived from former philosophies
have found their way into language, and we with difficulty disengage
ourselves from them. Mere figures of speech have unconsciously
influenced the minds of great thinkers. Also there are some
distinctions, as, for example, that of the will and of the reason, and
of the moral and intellectual faculties, which are carried further than
is justified by experience. Any separation of things which we cannot see
or exactly define, though it may be necessary, is a fertile source of
error. The division of the mind into faculties or powers or virtues is
too deeply rooted in language to be got rid of, but it gives a false
impression. For if we reflect on ourselves we see that all our faculties
easily pass into one another, and are bound together in a single mind or
consciousness; but this mental unity is apt to be concealed from us by
the distinctions of language.
A profusion of words and ideas has obscured rather than enlightened
mental science. It is hard to say how many fallacies have arisen from
the representation of the mind as a box, as a 'tabula rasa,' a book,
a mirror, and the like. It is remarkable how Plato in the Theaetetus,
after having indulged in the figure of the waxen tablet and the decoy,
afterwards discards them. The mind is also represented by another class
of images, as the spring of a watch, a motive power, a breath, a stream,
a succession of points or moments. As Plato remarks in the Cratylus,
words expressive of motion as well as of rest are employed to describe
the faculties and operations of the mind; and in these there is
contained another store of fallacies. Some shadow or reflection of the
body seems always to adhere to our thoughts about ourselves, and mental
processes are hardly distinguished in language from bodily ones. To see
or perceive are used indifferently of both; the words intuition, moral
sense, common sense, the mind's eye, are figures of speech transferred
from one to the other. And many other words used in early poetry or in
sacred writings to express the works of mind have a materialistic sound;
for old mythology was allied to sense, and the distinction of matter and
mind had not as yet arisen. Thus materialism receives an illusive aid
from language; and both in philosophy and religion the imaginary figure
or association easily takes the place of real knowledge.
Again, there is the illusion of looking into our own minds as if our
thoughts or feelings were written down in a book. This is another figure
of speech, which might be appropriately termed 'the fallacy of the
looking-glass.' We cannot look at the mind unless we have the eye
which sees, and we can only look, not into, but out of the mind at
the thoughts, words, actions of ourselves and others. What we dimly
recognize within us is not experience, but rather the suggestion of an
experience, which we may gather, if we will, from the observation of the
world. The memory has but a feeble recollection of what we were saying
or doing a few weeks or a few months ago, and still less of what we
were thinking or feeling. This is one among many reasons why there is
so little self-knowledge among mankind; they do not carry with them
the thought of what they are or have been. The so-called 'facts of
consciousness' are equally evanescent; they are facts which nobody ever
saw, and which can neither be defined nor described. Of the three laws
of thought the first (All A = A) is an identical proposition--that is to
say, a mere word or symbol claiming to be a proposition: the two others
(Nothing can be A and not A, and Everything is either A or not A) are
untrue, because they exclude degrees and also the mixed modes and double
aspects under which truth is so often presented to us. To assert that
man is man is unmeaning; to say that he is free or necessary and cannot
be both is a half truth only. These are a few of the entanglements which
impede the natural course of human thought. Lastly, there is the fallacy
which lies still deeper, of regarding the individual mind apart from
the universal, or either, as a self-existent entity apart from the ideas
which are contained in them.
In ancient philosophies the analysis of the mind is still rudimentary
and imperfect. It naturally began with an effort to disengage the
universal from sense--this was the first lifting up of the mist. It
wavered between object and subject, passing imperceptibly from one or
Being to mind and thought. Appearance in the outward object was for a
time indistinguishable from opinion in the subject. At length mankind
spoke of knowing as well as of opining or perceiving. But when the word
'knowledge' was found how was it to be explained or defined? It was not
an error, it was a step in the right direction, when Protagoras said
that 'Man is the measure of all things,' and that 'All knowledge is
perception.' This was the subjective which corresponded to the objective
'All is flux.' But the thoughts of men deepened, and soon they began
to be aware that knowledge was neither sense, nor yet opinion--with or
without explanation; nor the expression of thought, nor the enumeration
of parts, nor the addition of characteristic marks. Motion and rest were
equally ill adapted to express its nature, although both must in some
sense be attributed to it; it might be described more truly as the mind
conversing with herself; the discourse of reason; the hymn of dialectic,
the science of relations, of ideas, of the so-called arts and sciences,
of the one, of the good, of the all:--this is the way along which Plato
is leading us in his later dialogues. In its higher signification it was
the knowledge, not of men, but of gods, perfect and all sufficing:--like
other ideals always passing out of sight, and nevertheless present to
the mind of Aristotle as well as Plato, and the reality to which they
were both tending. For Aristotle as well as Plato would in modern
phraseology have been termed a mystic; and like him would have defined
the higher philosophy to be 'Knowledge of being or essence,'--words to
which in our own day we have a difficulty in attaching a meaning.
Yet, in spite of Plato and his followers, mankind have again and again
returned to a sensational philosophy. As to some of the early thinkers,
amid the fleetings of sensible objects, ideas alone seemed to be fixed,
so to a later generation amid the fluctuation of philosophical opinions
the only fixed points appeared to be outward objects. Any pretence
of knowledge which went beyond them implied logical processes, of the
correctness of which they had no assurance and which at best were only
probable. The mind, tired of wandering, sought to rest on firm ground;
when the idols of philosophy and language were stripped off, the
perception of outward objects alone remained. The ancient Epicureans
never asked whether the comparison of these with one another did not
involve principles of another kind which were above and beyond them. In
like manner the modern inductive philosophy forgot to enquire into
the meaning of experience, and did not attempt to form a conception of
outward objects apart from the mind, or of the mind apart from them.
Soon objects of sense were merged in sensations and feelings, but
feelings and sensations were still unanalyzed. At last we return to
the doctrine attributed by Plato to Protagoras, that the mind is only a