FROM the earliest times to the present, the Philebus has been regarded as one of the most important of the works of Plato, and also, as one of the most difficult. Even those who, strangely enough, consider the great majority of his works only as play and pastime, do yet think that he is at last in this dialogue serious for once, and intends to say something that has a meaning. Pity only that this correct sentiment has never grown into a clearer insight into the work, for those on the one hand, who have in general taken a right view of its most universal bearing, have not been so fortunate in their endeavours to penetrate into the details, and superadd, therefore, to the difficulty of the subject a perplexed style of expression, and confusion of language upon these points; while they who speak easily and intelligibly of the same, display little else than the narrowness of their own capacity to see the meaning of such works, and consequently a very deficient criticism.
Now in this result of the pains we have bestowed upon the dialogue, the place which it occupies, and its connection with the earlier, will contribute much to facilitate the understanding of it, with those who adhere to the indications already given. And, next to these, every reader who pays sufficient regard to the structure of the whole, and the way in which the connection is interrupted and again taken up, may get a clear conception of what is meant beyond what is actually said; following exactly the recommendations we were obliged to give in the case of the Sophist, to which dialogue the present bears an especial resemblance in its principal features. For here also we have a question, and that not an unimportant one, to which of the two, namely, in the life of man, the prize is due, pleasure or knowledge, proposed for decision just at the beginning of the work, and as soon as the question is satisfactorily answered the dialogue concludes, as if in this it had entirely exhausted its subject. But on closer consideration, we see that much that is of weight and importance is intermediately introduced, not essentially connected with the solution of that problem, or of which, at least, as much as was necessary might have been incidentally brought in, as is here the case with much besides. And this circumstance excites at the same time a suspicion, that the question started just at the commencement is by no means the only one, nay, may not perhaps contain even the main purport of the dialogue. For, after the dialectic foundation, which proves that we are not at the outset to consider pleasure and good as two names of one thing, and consequently as identical, and after the allegation of proof, that neither pleasure nor knowledge are in themselves sufficient, nay more, that accurately speaking, for this is certainly implied in what is said, neither of the two ever appears in reality unmixed with the other, Socrates might have advanced at once to that masterly explanation of pleasure according to its inward essence, and of desire, and of the intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and might have shown how false pleasure, of which several kinds spontaneously present themselves to his notice solely from these explanations, cannot partake of that admixture with knowledge necessary in the life of man. And if he had there further shown in conclusion, how, on the other hand, the latter is harmless in all its degrees even to the lowest, and how every species of it is capable of being combined, and is already naturally combined with pure pleasure, the question started would have been thus satisfactorily answered. Such matter as would have entirely dropped out, supposing this uninterrupted progress to have been adopted, consists chiefly of the second dialectic piece, in which those two pairs of ideas, that of the indefinite, the defining, the compounded and compounding cause, are established. These ideas do indeed come into application, in so far as it is shown of impure pleasure that it belongs to the indefinite, but no one will be disposed to maintain that, they are set up here only for that purpose. Rather should we say, that the passage connects itself with that in the Sophist, which in a similar manner there forms the kernel of the whole. For in the Sophist also, he begins with speculations upon the nature of our notions of things (δόξαι), and thus shows the necessary union, in knowledge, of the fluent and constant, and, correspondingly, the necessary union of existence and knowledge in that principle which is supreme and original. And in like manner in this dialogue, starting from the same point, he investigates more closely the mode and manner of created existence, and of the origin of the fluent and constant elements in it. For, if we take away everything connected with form in our notions of things, under which we must reckon all that can in any way be called measure or definite magnitude, there remains nothing to constitute the abstract essence of matter but the indefinite, entirely dependent upon conditions of comparison as apprehended in fallible perception; and which is precisely the same with the absolutely manifold, never self-identical, and consequently, not essentially existent. Now the fact that Plato here avoids this definition of the non-existent, current in the Sophist and elsewhere, and thereby, although certainly unintentionally, increases the difficulty of connecting the two passages, is in part the result of the same subject being in fact here viewed from a different side, and consequently needing different forms of expression; and moreover, Plato wished to avail himself of the language of the Pythagoreans, and that the more, because he is here already upon his way towards the Timæus, in order to show, by so doing, the coincidence between his own mode of thinking and theirs. This indefinite, therefore, and the principle of definiteness, here expressed particularly under the schema of number, because this expresses the mean between the infinitely great and unity, are the two sources of created existence; while the real cause of it is that which connects and compounds these two, the eternal nature of Zeus, expressed also under the name of Reason, in which the Sophist had already pointed out the necessary union of existence and knowledge as taking place. This doctrine is certainly expounded very briefly and imperfectly, both as regards the necessities of the reader, and also as compared with that to which it is to serve as a supplement, although the exposition here has the advantage of not being given in so indirect a form, but more positively. And this part of our dialogue might be added to anything in the others that have preceded, if anything can be found tending to justify the opinion, that a full understanding of the philosophy of Plato from his works was only in the power of his disciples, who, on the perusal of them, could call to mind his other instructions, while, from others, the best part remain concealed. But we have not been so badly dealt with; attentive readers who have followed hitherto the developments of the doctrine of forms and original existence, and that which is derived from it, will follow also here. But even to such it must ever be matter of surprise, that Plato, when he denotes the universal causative as reason or mind, appeals only to the general feeling of mankind, and when he establishes that principle of indefiniteness as an original principle, not produced from the eternal nature of Zeus, but only bound up with it, in so far as the monarch mind dwells in it, this is a point upon which, as the subject lies close upon the border of the properly philosophic speculation of Plato, and approximates to that which he believed it possible to explain mythically only, not even the immediate scholars of the philosopher were more scientifically instructed than we ourselves are from the Phædon, where Socrates equally contents himself with the arranging mind, and where the method of discussing the opposition between body and soul favours the view of the originality of the indefinite.