toms of society, the later Cynicism became frequently a repulsive and shameful caricature of the Socratic spirit. This was especially the case with Diogenes of Sinope, the only one of his disciples whom Antisthenes suffered to remain with him. In their high estimation of virtue and philosophy these Cynics, who have been suitably styled the Capuchins of the Grecian world, preserved a trace of the original Socratic philosophy, but they sought virtue "in the shortest way,” in a life according to nature as they them selves expressed it, that is, in shutting out the outer world, in attaining a complete independence, and absence of every need, and in renouncing art and science as well as every determinate aim. To the wise man said they nothing should go amiss; he should be mighty over every need and desire, free from the restraints of civil law and of custom, and of equal privileges with the gods. An easy life, said Diogenes, is assigned by the gods to that man who limits himself to his necessities, and this true philosophy may be attained by every one, through perseverance and the power of selfdenial. Philosophy and philosophical interest is there none in this school of beggars. All that is related of Diogenes are anecdotes and sarcasms.

We e see here how the ethics of the Cynic school lost itself in entirely negative statements, a consequence naturally resulting from the fact that the original Socratic conception of virtue lacked a concrete positive content, and was not systematically carried out. Cynicism is the negative side of the Socratic doctrine.

3. ARISTIPPUS AND THE CYRENIANS.-Aristippus of Cyrene, numbered till the death of Socrates among his adherents, is represented by Aristotle as a Sophist, and this with propriety, since he received money for his instructions. He appears in Xenophon as a man devoted to pleasure. The adroitness with which he adapted himself to every circumstance, and the knowledge of human nature by which in every condition he knew how to provide means to satisfy his desire for good living and luxury, were well known among the ancients. Brought in contact with the government, he kept himself aloof from its cares lest he should become dependent; he spent most of his time abroad in order to free himself from

every restraint; he made it his rule that circumstances should be dependent upon him, while he should be independent of them. Though such a man seems little worthy of the name of a Socraticist, yet has he two points of contact with his master which should not be overlooked. Socrates had called virtue and happiness coordinately the highest end of man, i. e. he had indeed asserted most decidedly the idea of a moral action, but because he brought this forward only in an undeveloped and abstract form, he was only able in concrete cases to establish the obligation of the moral law in a utilitarian way, by appealing to the benefit resulting from the practice of virtue. This side of the Socratic principle Aristippus adopted for his own, affirming that pleasure is the ultimate end of life, and the highest good. Moreover, this pleasure, as Aristippus regards it, is not happiness as a condition embracing the whole life, nor pleasure reduced to a system, but is only the individual sensation of pleasure which the body receives, and in this all determinations of moral worth entirely disappear; but in that Aristippus recommends knowledge, self-government, temperance, and intellectual culture as means for acquiring and preserving enjoyment, and, therefore, makes a cultivated mind necessary to judge respecting a true satisfaction, he shows that the Socratic spirit was not yet wholly extinguished within him, and that the name of pseudo-Socraticist which Schleiermacher gives him, hardly belongs to him.

The other leaders of the Cyrenian school, Hegesias, Theodorus, Anniceris, we can here only name. The farther development of this school is wholly occupied in more closely defining the nature of pleasure, i. e. in determining whether it is to be apprehended as a momentary sensation, or as an enduring condition embracing the whole life; whether it belonged to the mind or the body, whether an isolated individual could possess it, or whether it is found alone in the social relations of life; whether we should regard it as positive or negative, (i. e. simply the absence of pain)

4. EUCLID AND THE MEGARIANS.-The union of the dialectical and the ethical is a common character in all the partial Socratic schools; the difference consists only in this, that in the

one the ethical is made to do service to the dialectical, and that in the other, the dialectical stands in subjection to the ethical. The former is especially true of the Megarian school, whose essential peculiarity was pointed out by the ancients themselves as a combination of the Socratic and Eleatic principles. The idea of the good is on the ethical side the same as the idea of being on the physical; it was, therefore, only an application to ethics of the Eleatic view and method when Euclid called the good pure being, and the not-good, not-being. What is farther related of Euclid is obscure, and may here be omitted. The Megarian school was kept up under different leaders after his death, but without living force, and without the independent activity of an organic development. As hedonism (the philosophical doctrine of the Cyreneans that pleasure is the chief good) led the way to the doctrine of Epicurus, and cynicism was the bridge toward the Stoic, so the later Megaric development formed the transition point to scepticism. Directing its attention ever more exclusively towards the culture of the formal and logical method of argument, it left entirely out of view the moral thoughts of Socrates. Its sophistries and quiddities which were, for the most part, only plays of word and wit, were widely known and noted among the ancients.

5. PLATO, AS THE COMPLETE SOCRATICIST.—The attempts thus far to build upon the foundation pillars of the Socratic doctrine, started without a vigorous germinating principle, and ended fruitlessly. Plato was the only one of his scholars who has approached and represented the whole Socrates. Starting from the Socratic idea of knowledge he brought into one focus the scattered elements and rays of truth which could be collected from his master or from the philosophers preceding him, and gave to philosophy a systematic completeness. Socrates had affirmed the principle that conception is the true being and the only actual, and had urged to. a knowledge according to the conception; but these positions were no farther developed. His philosophy is not yet a system, but is only the first impulse toward a philosophical development and method. Plato is the first who has approached a systematic rep

resentation and development of the ideal world of conceptions true in themselves.

The Platonic system is Socrates objectified, the blending and reconciling of preceding philosophy.

SECTION XIV.

PLATO.

I. PLATO'S LIFE. 1. His YOUTH.-Plato, the son of Aristo, of a noble Athenian family, was born in the year 429 B. C. It was the year of the death of Pericles, the second year of the Peloponnesian war, so fatal to Athens. Born in the centre of Grecian culture and industry, and descended from an old and noble family, he received a corresponding education, although no farther tidings of this have been transmitted to us, than the insignificant names of his teachers. That the youth growing up under such circumstances should choose the seclusion of a philosophic life rather than a political career may seem strange, since many and favor able opportunities for the latter course lay open before him. Critias, one of the thirty tyrants, was the cousin of his mother, and Charmides, who subsequently, under the oligarchic rule at Athens, found his death at Thrasybulus on the same day with Critias, was his uncle. Notwithstanding this, he is never known to have appeared a single time as a public speaker in the assembly of the people. In view of the rising degeneracy and increasing political corruption of his native land, he was too proud to court for himself the favor of the many-headed Demos; and more attached to Doricism than to the democracy and practice of the Attic public life, he chose to make science his chief pursuit, rather than as a patriot to struggle in vain against unavoidable disaster, and become a martyr to his political opinions. He regarded the Athenian state as lost, and to hinder its inevitable ruin he would not bring a useless offering.

2. HIS YEARS OF DISCIPLINE.-A youth of twenty, Plato came to Socrates, in whose intercourse he spent eight years. Besides a few doubtful anecdotes, nothing is known more particularly of this portion of his history. In Xenophon's Memorabilia (III. 6) Plato is only once cursorily mentioned, but this in a way that indicates an intimate relation between the scholar and his master. Plato himself in his dialogues has transmitted nothing concerning his personal relations to Socrates; only once (Phæd. p. 59) he names himself among the intimate friends of Socrates. But the influence which Socrates exerted upon him, how he recognized in him the complete representation of a wise man, how he found not only in his doctrine but also in his life and action the most fruitful philosophic germs, the significance which the personal character of his master as an ideal type had for him--all this we learn with sufficient accuracy from his writings, where he places his own incomparably more developed philosophical system in the mouth of his master, whom he makes the centre of his dialogues and the leader of his discourses

3. HIS YEARS OF TRAVEL.-After the death of Socrates 399 B. C., in the thirtieth year of his age, Plato, fearing lest he also should be met by the incoming reaction against philosophy, left, in company with other Socraticists, his native city, and betook himself to Euclid, his former fellow-scholar, the founder of the Megaric school (cf. § XIII. 4) at Megara. Up to this time a pure Socraticist, he became greatly animated and energized by his intercourse with the Megarians, among whom a peculiar philosophical direction, a modification of Socraticism, was already asserted. We shall see farther on the influence of this residence at Megara upon the foundation of his philosophy, and especially upon the elaboration and confirmation of his doctrine of Ideas. One whole period of his literary activity and an entire group of his dialogues, can only be satisfactorily explained by the intellectual stimulus gained at this place. From Megara, Plato visited Cyrene, Egypt, Magna-Grecia and Sicily. In Magna-Grecia he became acquainted with the Pythagorean philosophy, which was then in its highest bloom. His abode among the Pythagoreans had a marked effect