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NOTES AND COEEESPONDENCE. 145 Plato is interesting and instructive, in spite of its errors : and I think the same of most other parts of his historical work. The remarks that I have to offer on his explanation and defence of his own ethical theories, I reserve for a more convenient occasion. H. SIDGWICK. By permission of the author I have read the foregoing rejoinder, and through the courtesy of the Editor append a few brief notes. My allegation that Plato " preferred voluntary pravity to involuntary " is declared to be unfounded, (1) because made " on the strength of a passage in the Hippias Minor" a disputed dialogue ; and (2) because at variance with the Socratic principle, " No one is voluntarily bad ". The reader is led to suppose that I rely exclusively on the Hippias Minor, and that I take no account of the Socratic principle. There are two passages of the Types of Ethical Theory which ascribe to Plato the controverted " preference ". The earlier of these (i. 70) states it in extenso, lays it side by side with the Socratic maxim, and suggests an interpretation which enabled them to coexist ; giving as authority, along with the reference to the Hippias Minor, one to the Republic, which repeats the same doctrine. The later passage (i. 105), occurring in an ethical recapitulation, merely recalls the former sufficiently to render a comment intelligible, and therefore does not repeat the double reference. Prof. Sidgwick, quoting and criticising only the latter, blames me for not noticing the doubts about the Hippias Minor. In my judgment, they would in themselves have had little relevance ; and, in presence of the passage from the Republic, none at all. Doctrines found in common in one of the slightest and in the greatest of the Platonic writings, appear to me fairly attributable to the Master's philosophy. Prof. Jowett says : " The 16th debatable portion 1 ' (of the dialogues) "scarcely in any degree affects our judgment of Plato, either as a thinker or a writer ; and though suggesting some inte- resting questions to the scholar and critic, is of little importance to the general reader" (Translation of Plato, 2nd Edition, vol. ii., p. 140). The passage in the Republic is said, however, to give me no support, (1) because its admission is not of voluntary pravity, but of voluntary lies; (2) because it separates these from involuntary by no degrees of compari- son (implying " preference "), but demands equal condemnation for both. It stands thus : " With regard to truth, shall we not pronounce it but a crippled soul that hates and cannot bear voluntary falsehood, and is angry beyond measure with itself and others for telling lies, yet lives on easy terms with involuntary falsehood and feels no annoyance at being caught in ignorance, but is content to wallow in it like a swinish brute ? " (1) In proof that Plato did not think of these " lies" as having any "pravity," appeal is made to his defence of occasional resort to deception. Such defence is also found in the Methods of Ethics (iii., ch. 7, 3, p. 319) : what would the author say, if, after describing the liar's compunction at his lies in such terms as Plato's, he were treated as perhaps seeing nothing bad in them ? Deception, spoken of in general terms, does not lose its pravity for one who finds room for a rare exception. (2) If this passage does not compare the voluntary fault with the involuntary, and denounce the folly of taking the former for the worse, I know not what words can do so : put the two hates on an equality, and the sense of the proposition is lost. In referring this passage to the "latest stage of Plato's development" I did not use the phrase of the final stadium of his literary activity, or forget the group of dialogues between the Republic and the Laws. I meant to mark merely the complete escape of his thought from its Socratic base into the structure created by his own genius. The subsequent modifications bear more the character of critical corrections and appropriations from contemporary influences than of features in his personal development. 10