sensual influences. In either case, the terms body or senses must, as has been observed, be understood to comprehend, not only all the objects of the appetites, but also all the rights and duties, to which they give rise-in a word, all things in relation to the senses. " The objections to the doctrine, that Virtue is Science, raised in the end of the Meno, need not detain us long. It will be observed, that they consist in the statement of what is a pure matter of fact-a matter of fact too, which may be easily prevented. The matter of fact is this, that if Virtue admitted of being taught, there would be professors and students of Virtue—the very objection urged against Protagoras by Socrates. Now Protagoras, as we have seen, denies the alleged fact; and even granting its truth, it amounts merely to this, that no expert in ethical training had as yet appeared. But the author of the Republic and the Laws would be the last man to be hampered by the favourite argument of the foes to improvement in all ages-that what has never been, can, therefore, never be. And the splendid contributions to civilization made by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, and their illustrious and zealous successors-contributions to which we owe nearly all that redeems modern thought from what is abject and sentimental-have happily enabled us to see that the objection no longer holds. F IV. THE GORGIAS. The Gorgias is divided into three parts: I. The argument with Gorgias is to this effect:The question proposed is, What is Rhetoric? 448. Now every art deals more or less with words; and words in turn deal with the subject-matter of the particular art in question. 450. Rhetoric, consequently, deals with words, but what is its object? To produce persuasion, and that, too, in the most important matters, Justice, and its opposite, Injustice. But, as the Rhetorician is a skilled expert, his business must be about what he thoroughly understands, and so he must know what Justice is. He will then do no injustice; he will not make injustice the ultimate end of his Rhetoric, 460, e. But this conclusion is at variance with a previous statement made by Gorgias, that Rhetoric sometimes produces injustice, 456, c. d. These two statements Socrates is unable to reconcile, for according to him, the Rhetorician, if he knows what justice is, cannot but do justice. 461. This is of course in other words. the famous doctrine, No one is willingly bad. II. Polus then takes up the argument, and eulogises Rhetoric as a means of obtaining power. In answer, Socrates draws a distinction between arts which do permanent good, and those which produce temporary pleasure. Man consists of body and soul, and there are arts especially adapted to the requirements of each. Now the arts, which do the body permanent good, are Gymnastic and Medicine, the former increasing its strength, and the latter removing disease. The art, which ameliorates the soul is Legislation, or the art of positive morality. All these do permanent good, but unhappily each is attended by a base counterfeit. Thus, Gymnastic and Medicine, which do permanent good, are counterfeited by Cosmetique and Gastronomy, which produce only temporary pleasure, while Sophistic, to which Rhetoric is an ancillary, apes Legislation, as a teacher of morality. Now things relatively to our volitions are either good, bad, or indifferent; and it is obvious that what is good only can be the ultimate End or scope of human action; whilst the bad or the indifferent is only sought as a step or Means to what is good. 468. To the statement, therefore, of Polus, that Rhetoricians, like despots, can do what they please, Socrates demurs. Rhetoricians do, indeed, what they like, but not what they will, since no one is willingly bad. Mere power, as such, therefore, cannot be praised; on the contrary an unjust use of power is the object, not of envy, as Plato asserts, but of compassion. 469. That is, as Socrates explains, of the two, the doer of wrong is more truly deserving of compassion than the sufferer of wrong, and if it were necessary for him, Socrates, to choose between doing and suffering wrong, he would prefer the latter. He also points out, that the wrong doer, the proper object of compassion, may be quite unaware of his wretched state. 464. 471. Polus, on the contrary, attributes the unenviable lot of the wrong-doer solely to his liability to punishment at the hands of his fellow-men, who would eagerly commit the very act for which they punish him, if sure of impunity, and who all envy his conduct while they visit it with punishment. "The usurer hangs the cozener." In other words, according to Socrates, if we do harm to others, we do thereby greater harm to ourselves, even if we be guaranteed complete impunity. According to Polus, if we do harm to others, the only possible harm to ourselves is our liability to retaliation at the hands of others. It is obvious, the question between Socrates and Polus is that, which is the Main Thesis of the Republic, that Injustice is undesirable, principally because of its effects, in the first instance, on the Agent himself. Socrates thus lays down a proposition, which Polus accepts as a fair statement of the point at issue, namely, that Wrong-doers are wretched; but that Wrong-doers, who are punished are still less wretched than those who are not. As a logical test of argument, Socrates likewise insists, that no inconsistency can follow from Truth. But if inconsistency does not follow from truth, consistency cannot follow from falsehood. Consequently, inconsistency is a proof of the falsehood of the doctrine from which it flows. The inconsistency in the present case Socrates elicits as follows: To suffer wrong, is, according to Polus, worse than to do wrong; but to do wrong, involves more Disproportion. If so, says Socrates, doing wrong must surpass suffering wrong, either in positive temporary pain; or in permanent evil; or in both, 475, b. c. But doing wrong does not surpass suffering wrong in positive pain, and so does not surpass it in both. Therefore, to do wrong surpasses suffering wrong in some kind of undesirable quality, since it involves more Disproportion. 475, c. So far is the first point proved. The notion Disproportion will be at once understood by the student of Butler. "The nature of man is adapted to some course of action or other. Upon comparing some actions with this nature, they appear suitable and correspondent to it: from comparison of other actions with the same nature, there arises to our view some unsuitableness or disproportion. The correspondence of actions to the nature of the agent, renders them natural; their disproportion to it, unnatural. That an action is correspondent to the nature of the agent, does not arise from its being agreeable to the principle, which happens to be the strongest; for it may be so, and yet be quite disproportionate to the nature of the agent. The correspondence, therefore, or disproportion, arises from somewhat else. This can be nothing but a difference in nature and kind (altogether distinct from strength) between the inward principles. Some, then, are in nature and kind superior to others. And the correspondence arises from the action being conformable to the higher principle; and the unsuitableness, from its being contrary to it." That is, suffering wrong is contrary to man's sensibility; doing wrong is contrary to man's nature considered as a whole-the sum of parts, in mutual correlation and in subordination to the whole. This notion of a whole, at once profound and exact, is one of the many forms of ancient thought, which Butler has the merit of appreciating. A Whole is not a bundle of parts, it is an arrangement of parts, according to their fitness to one another, and to the end or function of the whole. The second branch of the question is then discussed. Socrates maintains, that if you are guilty of wrong, it is better to suffer punishment than not; and this Polus denies. Socrates argues, it is better to suffer punishment, because the patient may thereby be reformed, and so far receive benefit; and the test of the efficacy of the punishment is the reformation of the offender, 477. a. This reformation is brought about by the removal of Injustice, ȧdiría, and Injustice is the preponderance of the lower elements in the inner life— the Disproportion of Butler. Hence, then, just as with regard to the body, the best thing is never to be sick at all, and, if sick, the best thing is, to get well as soon as possible; so the most happy man is he, who neither |