This being supposed, we cannot now overlook the remaining characteristics in which this external part of the dialogue is pre-eminently rich. For the reader, from whom too much does not lie concealed under the cover of insignificant things, the knowledge of which is here brought forward, will see Plato, in part defending combinations made in earlier works and which had perhaps been assailed, and showing how nearly the smallest thing may be related to the largest in a particular point of view; and then again constructing words, almost extravagantly, in order to show how necessary this becomes as soon as a systematic process adopts subjects to which it has been hitherto strange, and at the same time to bring to notice a particular indifference as to the affixing of appellations; ennobling moreover the purifying Socratic process, and pointing out its proper pedagogic place; ridiculing moreover the arrogant method of the rhetoricians and politicians who used to confound things the most different, and, as if it profited nothing to distinguish such trifles, brought the true philosopher and the sophist under the same appellation. Which is just the reason why Plato introduces among the explanations characteristic of the sophist that most distinct one which describes the process of the philosopher, in which the stranger is continually left in doubt, whether he is to allow it to obtain as an explanation of what a sophist is, and on the other hand repeatedly sets up the close connection of the sophist with the demagogue.

If we look only to the inward, and in itself more philosophical, part of the dialogue, its characteristics will appear strikingly similar to those of the whole. For it begins with the question as to whether there can be a false in speech and thought, simply resolved into that of the possibility of a non-existent, and of its possessing any attributes, or whether non-existence cannot be predicated of anything. The arguments usually at that time brought forward on the positive side of the question, and with which we are already acquainted from notices of them in the Theætetus, Euthydemus and Cratylus, are here a second time advanced, strengthened and confirmed on all sides, and as soon as it is shown, from the necessity of assuming the possibility of a non-existent, that the existence of mere fallacious appearance and error must be admitted, and as what they are to be admitted, this part also is at an end, and the dialogue goes on into the investigation about the Sophist. Accordingly it would seem that with reference also to this part, what it begins and ends with, namely, the question relative to the non-existent and error, must obtain for the proper subject-matter; and on the other hand, that what is let in between the parts of this investigation and occupies the middle of it, must appear partly to be only a mean for reaching that end, partly a digression not unwillingly ‘seized upon. But what reader, when he looks to the tenor of this digression, will not be compelled to apprehend in it immediately the most valuable and precious core of the dialogue, and that the more certainly, as here for the first time almost in the writings of Plato, the most inward sanctuary of philosophy is opened in a purely philosophical manner, and as, generally, existence is better and more noble than non-existence. For in the course of the investigation about the non-existent, exactly in the way in which this arose as a something higher in that about the Sophist, the question arises as to the community of ideas¹; upon which all real thought and all life in knowledge depends; and the notion of the life of the existent, and of the necessary identity and reciprocality of existence and knowledge is most regularly disclosed. And there is not anything within the sphere of philosophy more important, or any method peculiar to the views and method of Plato, more suitably adapted to conduct pupils and readers to the point than that which is here pursued. Let the reader but notice first how this the most inward, and, in point of extent, far from important kernel of the whole, exactly according to nature’s method, forms itself into two halves externally, quite separate from one another, but quite grown together, and organically connected in the closest manner. For first, starting with the statement of the impossibility, that these persons should have reached the sphere of abstract existence who begin with mere unity, or they who continue to remain within the sphere of opposites; the real life of the existent, in which all opposites reciprocally penetrate and unite, is pointed out, and at the same time it is shown that knowledge can subsist neither without rest nor without motion, neither without station nor without flux, neither without constancy nor without progression, but in each pair requires a union of both. And let no one be misled by the apparently sceptical surprise at this required amalgamation of opposites, inasmuch as this is the last point at which the indirect method of demonstration, at the highest summit of which we here find ourselves, must terminate. And thus again, as if some quite new matter was arising, and without even the connection being pointed out, a descent is made from this sphere of the highest existence into that of opposites, which are here represented by the great one of motion and rest², and it is shown that, first, community with opposites is founded upon the self-identity and diversity³ of the existent as common properties, and that in this sphere of diversity the existent exhibits itself necessarily, and in a variety of ways under the form of the non-existent, so that there can never be any opposite in respect of that highest existence itself considered as such, but he who has not penetrated to the light of true existence cannot, in general, advance further than to this non-existence of true knowledge, and the ignorance of true existence. That, therefore, the nature of all true philosophy is in fact here enunciated is a position requiring no further elucidation for him who is generally capable of apprehending it. Only let every reader notice the manner in which these conclusions are drawn, I mean, that Plato starts from the point at which every one necessarily finds himself, the sphere of conception, which is indeed at the same time that of contradictory opposites, showing that the establishment in this of any propositions respecting the existent carries with it exactly the same difficulties as the establishment of propositions respecting the non-existent, and that any one who thinks but to conceive or state anything, must first acquire a title of possession by virtue of which he can do so; and for this purpose the glance into that higher sphere of speculation is disclosed for all who can penetrate into it, as the only defence against the pretensions, not to be otherwise repulsed, of sophistical contentiousness. And because in our present dialogue the advance commences from this point, and presses forward up to that, the highest, immediately and without calling in the assistance of any mythical expedient, or otherwise deserting the course of the purest dialectics, we may fairly regard the Sophist as the inmost core of all indirect speculations of Plato, and to a certain degree as the first, and in its kind as a perfect image of the philosopher himself.

The latter moreover for the reason that as Plato himself grew as it were from the comprehensive survey and penetration of all earlier Grecian efforts in the province of philosophy, so also the inmost and most real substance of our dialogue results from a testing of the principles of all earlier philosophizing, of which we would here recall to the recollection of the reader as much as is necessary, and at the same time possible: for I regret that as to every point which it might be necessary and desirable to clear up, it does not also seem possible to do so. First of all then, that position which it is especially an object to refute, which asserts the utter impossibility of the non-existent, is referred to Parmenides as its most especial and pregnant source, and supported out of his own peculiar works, and it is accordingly demonstrated to him, with reference to existence, that it is not attainable under that higher potentiality of the unity of being and knowledge, by him who starts from simple unity without multiplicity, under the conditions of which the existent could not be under every form, not, consequently, both as a whole, and as in a state of progressiveness. It is in every way significant, that this refutation of Parmenides is put into the mouth of an Eleatic, and it might easily suggest itself that in what he here says, Plato only had in view a more correct explanation of the much misunderstood Parmenides; did not the expressions of the Stranger himself seem to oppose this view, and moreover he is not set up as a strict disciple of the Eleatic wisdom, but, as a dialogic personage, he forms in an extremely remarkable manner the transition as it were, from Parmenides himself to the Pythagorean Timaeus. We have, therefore, certainly in this dialogue the chief locus of the difference between the Platonic and Eleatic philosophers, though we could by no means maintain with Simplicius, who otherwise says here and there much that is instructive about our dialogue, that in the dialogue of the Parmenides Plato adopted the existent unit. from the philosopher; and in the Sophist, contradicted him throughout. Only it is a pity that we have not, I fear, enough remaining of Parmenides to enable us. to conceive Plato’s opinion about. the philosopher, and especially for the reason that Plato nowhere expresses himself decidedly upon the philosophy of Parmenides as to the sensible world, though we might really feel ourselves authorized to refer much upon this subject to the Eleatic philosopher, notwithstanding that he is not named as the author of it. What, for instance, are we to say of those friends of the ideal who are mentioned at the last, who conceive the possibility of an imperfect existence without that perfect existence, and separate from it, and consider man as participating in both⁴? It would not be surprising if many readers were to hit upon the idea that Plato here meant himself and his own doctrine; and when, again, he involves this doctrine also in the perplexing contradiction in which the existent cannot be discovered, that this, on the other hand, is only pushing his indirect method to extremity. But if the contradiction in this doctrine were to be removed, then also the distinction between perfect and imperfect existence must be destroyed, and thus Plato would have started from a manifestly false statement of his own doctrine. And moreover, that something is here meant which he actually intends to refute, must be obvious to every reader of any penetration, from the whole tone of the argument,—from this giant-combat, and this defence from the region of the invisible⁵. It is moreover easy to see that he has in view a perfectly well-known doctrine.’ Now we know Parmenides to have assumed the possibility of such an imperfect existence, and a world of appearance separate from perfect existence and in opposition to it, and thus, that man has communication with the one by means of perception, with the other by reason, would also be Parmenidean enough. If then we are to risk a guess as to why Parmenides is nevertheless not mentioned at all here, and it is entirely separated from the criticism upon his doctrines, we might say that in this part Plato had not so much Parmenides in his mind as other philosophers, against whom also he disputes elsewhere without naming them,—I mean the original and first Megarians. For these men in many particulars, as the ancients testify, approximated to Plato, under whose influence and co-operation their school had first formed itself, and thus, if we are to give as much liberty to critical combination as in this province it is certainly necessary to do, traces are not wanting, that even without the province of regular dialectics, they adopted much out of the Eleatic system, and of this I should be inclined to account this passage also as an instance, unless some one can give a better founded explanation. As opponents of the materialistic empirics, of Democritus and Aristippus, for Plato has certainly in his mind the latter also of the two, these philosophers might be most especially noticed. Again, no less difficulty may seem to attend the explanation of what precedes, whom, for instance, Plato means by those who look upon the existent as involving multiplicity, and in particular as double or triple, since so many have equal pretensions to be considered, and then again when we come to examine accurately, nothing is perfectly satisfactory. At first the reader may probably be quite at a loss to know to what the argument is to be referred; but as soon as he remembers that in the language of our dialogue Plato could not otherwise denote what Aristotle calls the setting up of these principles, references and allusions pour in in clouds. Least of all, however, will the appearance and tone of the whole passage allow us to surmise the existence of an allusion here to any thing abstruse, and advanced only by a few less-known individuals. And quite as little, certainly, to the Pythagoreans, although it might otherwise be said of them, most appropriately, that their existence is threefold, divided into the finite, the infinite and the privative, but as no reference to this school occurs anywhere else in the whole dialogue, it is not probable that it was intended to be alluded to in this passage; but as Aristotle also at the beginning of his books on Physics says of all those who assume the existence of a fundamental matter and two opposite functions, that they set up these principles, so also Plato has here especially in view the old Ionic philosophers. This seems also to receive confirmation from the circumstance of his separating those who assume a threefold from those who assume only a twofold existence, though he does this but very slightly and superficially. For it is precisely among the Ionians that so vague a description may be supposed to have existed, according as the fundamental matter was given, simple and independent of the functions, or conceived to be itself comprehended under the functions, as seems to have been the notion of Anaximander. It is only to the philosopher just named, that as far as we know the idea of the combat of the parts of the threefold existence with one another would apply. Should, however, this view appear still to be liable to much suspicion, as may perhaps be the case, we are on the other hand the more certain as to the later Ionic and Sicilian Muses⁶, that by them, Heraclitus and Empedocles are intended. Upon this point we have not only the express testimony of Simplicius, but the comparison of our passages, as well with what we know of the two men from other sources, as also with the way in which Plato expresses himself about them elsewhere is sufficient to establish the fact. Quite as undeniable, as Tennemann also has already observed, are the allusions to Antisthenes, where those philosophers are spoken of who do not admit the possibility of any community or connexion between ideas, but would take every thing independently and for itself, or who maintain the proposition that a false assertion enunciates nothing. These polemics cannot fail to force themselves upon the notice of those readers who have already accompanied us in the prosecution of them through several dialogues.

A more intimate relation between the Sophist and the Parmenides on the one side, and the Timæus on the other, is indicated not only externally by the more passive condition of Socrates in these three dialogues, but must also be of itself clear to every one, from the close connection in the subject-matter, even though it should be considered preliminarily, in a negative point of view alone. Hence it is natural to start the question, whether by a comparison of the three it may not be discovered from the dialogues themselves which of them was the latest and which the earliest. With respect then to the Timæus no doubt can arise as to its being the latest of these three works; but between the Sophist and Parmenides critics have certainly hesitated, and, as we have already remarked in the Introduction to that dialogue, have considered the last named as the later of the two. Now, disinclined as I am to refer by anticipation to what is to come, I would ask any one who knows the Timæus, whether the foundation of the Timæus is not laid perfectly and dialectically by the way in which here, in the Sophist, the existent is brought down within the sphere of opposites, as well as by the discussion which occurs here upon the subjects of identity and diversity, and whether it is not clear that our dialogue generally comes much nearer to the Timæus than the Parmenides does? This, however, is intended to be said preliminarily only, in order to show generally the point from which the question is to be viewed. But let the reader only compare the Sophist and Parmenides with one another, and observe whether anything whatever resembling an announcement of the dialogue named after the latter philosopher is to be found in the manner in which in the former Socrates appeals to his conversation with him; or whether, on the contrary, it is not manifest that the notice marking the age of the interlocutors⁷ is there introduced with reference to and in justification of this dialogue, so that the whole passage has the appearance of being intended to bring the Parmenides to the recollection of the reader. If we compare further the particular corresponding passages, as for instance that about unity and totality, we shall unquestionably recognize in the Sophist a surer hand, and a more enlarged method. And we may even find the key to all that in the Parmenides appears to have a double sense, in the way in which essential existence, and existence in another sense, by participation that is, and so also the originally existent and existence in the sphere of contradictions are here kept separate: so that it would be strange to have already given the solution here, and then to have set the riddle afterwards in the Parmenides. Above all, however, let the reader but look to the first part of the Parmenides, and the problematical character of the expressions there as to the existence of ideas, and then consider whether this character could have found place, after the distinction had been so clearly referred to in the Theætetus, between knowledge and conception, and that between mere conception and appearance had been further subjoined here in the Sophist.

But it may be useful here to throw a glance of comparison, not upon the Parmenides alone, but upon the remaining dialogues, with the view of availing ourselves of the opportunity of testing from this important point the arrangement we have hitherto pursued. First, then, the Sophist is manifestly the crown of all that is antisophistic in the Platonic dialogues, and no dialogue of which this is a principal component part can be conceived to have been written subsequently to the present, for it would have been as unseasonable in the author as putting the salt on after supper. So complete a process as we have here, by which the subject has its place assigned in the order of things, must from its nature be the last member in the investigation, and conclude the whole. For a work in which the dramatic character is so predominant as it is in the Protagoras, must precede a dialogue like the present, as far as mythical expositions elsewhere precede the productions of purely dialectic speculation. Moreover, the Protagoras supplies us with yet another, although subordinate point, of comparison. For what was said in that dialogue about baseness and vice is here manifestly intended to be illustrated, and protected from misconception, by the instancing of two species of it, so that we may say that, in this point of view, on the one hand, the Sophist brings the Protagoras into agreement with the Gorgias, and on the other, that it forms the transition to that ethical character which predominates in the books upon the Republic. In the Gorgias, which is indeed more anti-rhetorical than antisophistical, we find the application of the terms idea, type, and imitation, in order to explain from them the nature of what is false and bad, manifestly with the appearance of being earlier than it is here, because it is there put only hypothetically, while here it is regularly deduced and established. Moreover, the Sophist appeals to the notion of the semblance of the just as to a thing known, and sets up a connection between rhetoric and sophistry, such that they both coincide in the idea of mere appearance. And as the Euthydemus generally is presupposed in the Sophist, and every thing in which Plato could appeal to that dialogue is briefly dispatched, as, for example, that non-existence cannot be ever made the predicate of a proposition, and that it is self-evident, that when a man asserts falsely about a thing, he does not speak of the thing at all; so also, any one may easily see that much that was too shortly touched upon in the Euthydemus, is here demonstrated more at length. If we compare further what the Cratylus and Sophist have in common, we can scarcely doubt that the illustrations about types and imitations preceded the application here made of the same thought; especially if we notice the easy way in which the stranger is satisfied with the explanation, that a type is a second reality made to resemble a first, while in the Cratylus we find extensive explanations as to how the type can only be externally and in part the same with the archetype; and even in the manner in which in the Sophist the idea of a type is first introduced, we may easily observe the reference to the Cratylus. In like manner, Plato could scarcely have expressed himself so briefly as to the relation between thought and language, if he had not himself already represented words to be immediate imitations of things and actions. From these points, certainly, every appearance of an inverted order in the arrangement of the dialogues will easily admit of being destroyed. And how should Plato, just at the beginning of this dialogue, have come to consider all knowledge, not as resulting from an act of production, but of appropriation? and how, with his accuracy, should he thus have allowed himself to maintain this point without further discussion, if he could not reckon upon what the Menon was supposed to have made clear to his readers?

This short analysis will, it is hoped, suffice with reference now to much that has been already said on former occasions, fully also to justify the separation of the Sophist from the Theætetus, notwithstanding the two are placed so closely in connection with one another. For while, with regard to some of the dialogues introduced between these two, the manner of their connexion with the Theætetus has been made more clear, and how they develop themselves from it, and again with regard to others, how they are presupposed by the Sophist; these two circumstances taken in conjunction, become too evident in the case of every one of these dialogues to allow a doubt to arise as to their place with reference to these. But it is also immediately certain, that the Sophist rests upon the Theætetus, and would be perfectly unintelligible without the distinction previously established between knowledge and conception, and the suggestions in the Theætetus respecting the first, which constitute in fact a sufficient foundation for what is here said, and no other is essentially necessary. Let any one, however, conceive the Sophist to have followed immediately upon the Theætetus, and consequently to have contained in itself all that he can now take for granted out of the Menon, and Euthydemus especially, and then say whether it would not necessarily have been a shapeless work for Plato to have composed, and if to its present difficulties such superabundance and complexity of matter had been further added, whether it would not then have been perfectly unintelligible. Only it is not here intended to be said, that in completing the plan of this dialogue, Plato projected in his mind those other dialogues purposely with a view to the future; but this is only to be understood in the sense in which one may reasonably speak of the natural course of the development of inward conceptions from one another. Hence, as to the assignation made at the end of the Theætetus and the continuous connection at the beginning of the Sophist, it is scarcely worth while entering into a more accurate explanation, as any reader, not satisfied with that given in the Introduction to the Meno, can do this for himself.

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Footnotes

1. P. 251. B. — καὶ δὴ που χαίρουσιν οὐκ ἐῶντες ἀγαθὸν λέγειν ἄνθρωπον, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ἀγαθὸν ἀγαθόν, τὸν δὲ ἄνθρωπον ἄνθρωπον. — Ε. — καὶ τιθῶμεν γε αὐτοὺς λέγειν, εἰ βούλει, πρῶτον μηδὲν μηδὲν μηδεμίαν δύναμιν ἔχειν κοινωνίας εἰς μηδέν — ↩

2. P. 254. D. ↩

3. τὸ ταὐτὸν καὶ θάτερον. ↩

4. P. 248. B. Γένεσιν, τὴν δὲ οὐσίαν χωρὶς τοῦ διελόμενοι λέγετε, ἢ γὰρ; Καὶ σώματι μὲν ἡμᾶς γενέσει δ’ αἰσθήσεως κοινωνεῖν, διὰ λογισμοῦ δὲ ψυχῇ πρὸς τὴν ὄντως οὐσίαν, ἣν ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ὡσαύτως ἔχειν φατέ, γένεσιν δὲ ἄλλοτε ἄλλως. ↩

5. P. 246. Καὶ μὴν ἔοικέ γε ἐν αὐτοῖς οἷον γιγαντομαχία τις εἶναι διὰ τὴν ἀμφισβήτησιν περὶ τῆς οὐσίας πρὸς ἀλλήλους. Οἱ μὲν εἰς γῆν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τὸν ἀόρατον πάντα ἕλκουσι … κ.τ.λ. ↩

6. P. 242. C. ↩

7. P. 237. Πάλιν ἡμῖν [?]. ↩