by Walter Pater
Many a train of thought, many a turn of expression, only too familiar, some may think, to the reader of Plato, are summarised in that troublesome yet perhaps attractive passage. The influence then of Parmenides on Plato had made him, incurably (shall we say?) a dualist. Only, practically, Plato’s richly coloured genius will find a compromise between the One which alone really is, is yet so empty a thought for finite minds; and the Many, which most properly is not, yet presses so closely on eye and ear and heart and fancy and will, at every moment. That which really is (to on)+ the One, if he is really to think about it at all, must admit within it a certain variety of members; and, in effect, for Plato the true Being, the Absolute, the One, does become delightfully multiple, as the world of ideas — appreciable, through years of loving study, more and more clearly, one by one, as the perfectly concrete, mutually adjusted, permanent forms of our veritable experience: the Bravery, for instance, that cannot be confused, not merely with Cowardice, but with Wisdom, or Humility. One after another they emerge again from the dead level, the Parmenidean tabula rasa, with nothing less than the reality of persons face to face with us, of a personal identity. It was as if the firm plastic outlines of the delightful old Greek polytheism had found their way back after all into a repellent monotheism. Prefer as he may in theory that blank white light of the One — its sterile, “formless, colourless, impalpable,” eternal identity with itself — the world, and this chiefly is why the world has not forgotten him, will be for him, as he is by no means colour-blind, by no means a colourless place. He will suffer it to come to him, as his pages convey it in turn to us, with the liveliest variety of hue, as in that conspicuously visual emblem of it, the outline of which (essentially characteristic of himself as it seems) he had really borrowed from the old Eleatic teacher who had tried so hard to close the bodily eye that he might the better apprehend the world unseen. —
And now (he writes in the seventh book of The Republic) take for a figure of human nature, as regards education and the lack thereof, some such condition as this. Think you see people as it were in some abode below-ground, like a cave, having its entrance spread out upwards towards the light, broad, across the whole cavern. Suppose them here from childhood; their legs and necks chained; so that there they stay, and can see only what is in front of them, being unable by reason of the chain to move their heads round about: and the light of a fire upon them, blazing from far above, behind their backs: between the fire and the prisoners away up aloft: and see beside it a low wall built along, as with the showmen, in front of the people lie the screens above which they exhibit their wonders.
I see: he said.
See, then, along this low wall, men, bearing vessels of all sorts wrought in stone and wood; and, naturally, some of the bearers talking, other silent.
It is a strange figure you describe: said he: and strange prisoners. —
They are like ourselves: I answered! Republic, 514.
Metaphysical formulae have always their practical equivalents. The ethical alliance of Heraclitus is with the Sophists, and the Cyrenaics or the Epicureans; that of Parmenides, with Socrates, and the Cynics or the Stoics. The Cynic or Stoic ideal of a static calm is as truly the moral or practical equivalent of the Parmenidean doctrine of the One, as the Cyrenaic monochronos hędonę+ — the pleasure of the ideal now — is the practical equivalent of the doctrine of motion; and, as sometimes happens, what seems hopelessly perverse as a metaphysic for the understanding is found to be realisable enough as one of many phases of our so flexible human feeling. The abstract philosophy of the One might seem indeed to have been translated into the terms of a human will in the rigid, disinterested, renunciant career of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, its mortal coldness. Let me however conclude with a document of the Eleatic temper, nearer in its origin to the age of Plato: an ancient fragment of Cleanthes the Stoic, which has justly stirred the admiration of Stoical minds; though truly, so hard is it not to lapse from those austere heights, the One, the Absolute, has become in it after all, with much varied colour and detail in his relations to concrete things and persons, our father Zeus.
An illustrious athlete; then a mendicant dealer in water-melons; chief pontiff lastly of the sect of the Stoics; Cleanthes, as we see him in anecdote at least, is always a loyal, sometimes a very quaintly loyal, follower of the Parmenidean or Stoic doctrine of detachment from all material things. It was at the most critical points perhaps of such detachment, that somewhere about the year three hundred before Christ, he put together the verses of his famous “Hymn.” By its practical indifference, its resignation, its passive submission to the One, the undivided Intelligence, which dia pantôn phoita+ — goes to and fro through all things, the Stoic pontiff is true to the Parmenidean schooling of his flock; yet departs from it also in a measure by a certain expansion of phrase, inevitable, it may be, if one has to speak at all about that chilly abstraction, still more make a hymn to it. He is far from the cold precept of Spinoza, that great re-assertor of the Parmenidean tradition: That whoso loves God truly must not expect to be loved by Him in return. In truth, there are echoes here from many various sources. Ek sou gar genos esmen+: — that is quoted, as you remember, by Saint Paul, so just after all to the pagan world, as its testimony to some deeper Gnôsis than its own. Certainly Cleanthes has conceived his abstract monotheism a little more winningly, somewhat better, than dry, pedantic Xenophanes; perhaps because Socrates and Plato have lived meanwhile. You might even fancy what he says an echo from Israel’s devout response to the announcement: “The Lord thy God is one Lord.” The Greek certainly is come very near to his unknown cousin at Sion in what follows: —
kydist’, athanatôn, polyônyme, pankrates aiei Zeu, physeos archęge, nomou meta panta kybernôn, chaireˇ se gar pantessi themis thnętoisi prosaudan, k.t.l.
Mullach, Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, I. .
Thou O Zeus art praised above all gods: many are Thy names and
Thine is all power for ever.
The beginning of the world was from Thee: and with law Thou
rulest over all things.
Unto Thee may all flesh speak: for we are Thy offspring.
Therefore will I raise a hymn unto Thee: and will ever sing of
Thy power.
The whole order of the heavens obeyeth Thy word: as it moveth
around the earth:
With little and great lights mixed together: how great art Thou,
King above all for ever!
Nor is anything done upon earth apart from Thee: nor in the
firmament, nor in the seas:
Save that which the wicked do: by their own folly.
But Thine is the skill to set even the crooked straight: what is
without fashion is fashioned and the alien akin before Thee.
Thus hast Thou fitted together all things in one: the good with
the evil:
That Thy word should be one in all things: abiding for ever.
Let folly be dispersed from our souls: that we may repay Thee
the honour, wherewith Thou hast honoured us:
Singing praise of Thy works for ever: as becometh the sons of
men.+
NOTES
29. +Transliteration: To Syngramma. Translation: “The Prose.”
32. +Transliteration: ousia achrômatos, aschęmatistos, anaphęs. E-text editor’s translation: “the colorless, utterly formless, intangible essence.” Plato, Phaedrus 247c. See also Appreciations, “Coleridge,” where Pater uses the same quotation.
33. +Transliteration: aphasia. Liddell and Scott definition: “speechlessness.”
34. +Transliteration: to on. Translation: “that which is.”
35. +The principle is that of Baruch Spinoza.
36. +Transliteration: Kosmos. Liddell and Scott definition: “I. 1. order; 2. good order, good behaviour, decency; 3. a set form or order: of states, government; 4. the mode or fashion of a thing; II. an ornament…; III. the world or universe, from its pe
rfect arrangement.”
36. +Transliteration: kosmiotęs. Liddell and Scott definition: “propriety, decorum, orderly behaviour.”
36. +Transliteration: archę. Liddell and Scott definition: “I. beginning, first cause, origin. II. 1. supreme power, sovereignty, dominion; 2. office.”
37. +Transliteration: para panta legomena. Pater’s translation: “in spite of common language.”
38. “The Lord thy God. . . .” Deuteronomy 6:4. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: . . .” See also Mark 12:29: “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: . . .”
38. +Transliteration: Peri physeôs. E-text editor’s translation: “Regarding Nature — i.e. the title De Naturâ Rerum.”
39. +Transliteration: hę men hopôs estin te kai hôs ouk esti mę einai. Pater’s translation: “that what is, is; and that what is not, is not.” Parmenides, Epeôn Leipsana [Fragmentary Song or Poem], line 35. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 117. Ed. F.W.A. Mullach. Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1967 (reprint of the Paris, 1860 edition).
39. +Transliteration: peithous esti keleuthos; alętheię gar opędei. Pater’s translation: “this is the path to persuasion, for truth goes along with it.” Parmenides, Epeôn Leipsana [Fragmentary Song or Poem], line 36. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 118. Although I have left the quotation as Pater renders it, the semicolon should be a comma, as in the Mullach collection Pater used — otherwise the first half of the sentence would be a question, and that is not how Pater himself translates the verse.
39. +Transliteration: tęn dę toi phrazô panapeithea emmen atarpon; oute gar an gnoięs to ge mę eon ou gar ephikton. Pater’s translation: “I tell you that is the way which goes counter to persuasion: That which is not, never could you know: there is no way of getting at that.” Parmenides, Epeôn Leipsana, lines 38-9. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 118.
39. +Transliteration: To gar auto voein estin te kai einai. Pater’s translation in Latin: “idem est enim cogitare et esse”; in English, that may be translated, “Thinking and being are identical.” Parmenides, Epeôn Leipsana, line 40. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 118.
39. +Transliteration: tothi gar palin hixomai authis. Pater’s translation: “at what point I begin; for thither I shall come back over again.” Parmenides, Epeôn Leipsana, line 42. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 118.
43. +Transliteration: heteron epistęmęs doxa; eph’ heterô ara heteron ti dynamenę hekatera autôn pephyke; ouk enchôrei gnôston kai doxaston tauton einai. E-text editor’s translation: “opinion differs from scientific knowledge…To each of them belongs a different power, so to each falls a different sphere…it is not possible for knowledge and opinion to be one and the same.” Plato, Republic, 478a-b.
44. +Transliteration: aei kata tauta hôsautôs echousan. Pater’s translation: “ever in the same condition in regard to the same things.” Plato, Republic 478.
45. +Transliteration: ho philotheamôn. Liddell and Scott definition “fond of seeing, fond of spectacles or shows.” This word is from the same passage just cited, note for page 44.
46. +Transliteration: to on. Translation: “that which is.”
48. Transliteration: monochronos hędonę. Pater’s definition “the pleasure of the ideal now.” The adjective monochronos means, literally, “single or unitary time.” See also Marius the Epicurean, Vol. 1, Cyrenaicism, and Vol. 2, Second Thoughts, where Pater quotes the same key Cyrenaic language.
49. +Transliteration: dia pantôn phoita. E-text editor’s translation: “which courses through all things.” Cleanthes (300-220 B.C.), Hymn to Zeus, lines 12-13. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 151. Ed. F.W.A. Mullach. Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1967 (reprint of the Paris, 1860 edition). Pater has translated Cleanthes’ phrase koinos logos as “undivided Intelligence.” The relevant verse reads, “su kateuthynęs koinon logon, hos dia pantôn phoita,” which may be translated, “You guide the Universal Thought that courses through all things.” But the word logos is multivalent and subject to philosophical nuance, so any translation of it is bound to be limited.
49. +Transliteration: Ek sou gar genos esmen. E-text editor’s translation: “For we are born of you.” Cleanthes (300-220 B.C.), Hymn to Zeus, line 4. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 151. Pater alludes also to Saint Paul’s words in Acts 17:28: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”
50. +Here Pater provides a somewhat abbreviated translation of the Hymn to Zeus. As above, the Greek is from Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 151.
PLATO AND THE DOCTRINE OF NUMBER
His devotion to the austere and abstract philosophy of Parmenides, its passivity or indifference, could not repress the opulent genius of Plato, or transform him into a cynic. Another ancient philosopher, Pythagoras, set the frozen waves in motion again, brought back to Plato’s recognition all that multiplicity in men’s experience to which Heraclitus had borne such emphatic witness; but as rhythm or melody now — in movement truly, but moving as disciplined sound and with the reasonable soul of music in it.
Pythagoras, or the founder of the Pythagorean philosophy, is the third of those earlier masters, who explain the intellectual confirmation of Plato by way of antecedent. What he said, or was believed to have said, is almost everywhere in the very texture of Platonic philosophy, as vera vox, an authority with prescript claim on sympathetic or at least reverent consideration, to be developed generously in the natural growth of Plato’s own thoughts.
Nothing remains of his writings: dark statements only, as occasion served, in later authors. Plato himself attributes those doctrines of his not to Pythagoras but to the Pythagoreans. But if no such name had come down to us we might have understood how, in the search for the philosophic unity of experience, a common measure of things, for a cosmical hypothesis, number and the truths of number would come to fill the place occupied by some omnipresent physical element, air, fire, water, in the philosophies of Ionia; by the abstract and exclusive idea of the unity of Being itself in the system of Parmenides. To realise unity in variety, to discover cosmos — an order that shall satisfy one’s reasonable soul — below and within apparent chaos: is from first to last the continuous purpose of what we call philosophy. Well! Pythagoras seems to have found that unity of principle (archę)+ in the dominion of number everywhere, the proportion, the harmony, the music, into which number as such expands. Truths of number: the essential laws of measure in time and space: — Yes, these are indeed everywhere in our experience: must, as Kant can explain to us, be an element in anything we are able so much as to conceive at all. And music, covering all it does, for Pythagoras, for Plato and Platonism — music, which though it is of course much besides, is certainly a formal development of purely numerical laws: that too surely is something, independently of ourselves, in the real world without us, like a personal intelligible soul durably resident there for those who bring intelligence of it, of music, with them; to be known on the favourite Platonic principle of like by like (homoion homoiô)+ though the incapable or uninstructed ear, in various degrees of dulness, may fail to apprehend it.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras parted early into dust (that seems strange, if they were ever really written in a book) and antiquity itself knows little directly about his doctrine. Yet Pythagoras is much more than a mere name, a term, for locating as well as may be a philosophical abstraction. Pythagoras, his person, his memory, attracted from the first a kind of fairy-tale of mystic science. The philosophy of number, of music and proportion, came, and has remained, in a cloud of legendary glory; the gradual accumulation of which Porphyry and Iamblichus, the fantastic masters of Neo-Platonism, or Neo-Pythagoreanism, have embodied in their so-called Lives of him, like some antique fable richly embossed with starry wonders. In this spirit there had been much writing about him: that he was a son of Apollo, nay, Apollo himself — the twilight, attempered, Hyperborea
n Apollo, like the sun in Lapland: that his person gleamed at times with a supernatural brightness: that he had exposed to those who loved him a golden thigh: how Abaris, the minister of that god, had come flying to him on a golden arrow: of his almost impossible journeys: how he was seen, had lectured indeed, in different places at the same time. As he walked on the banks of the Nessus the river had whispered his name: he had been, in the secondary sense, various persons in the course of ages; a courtesan once, for some ancient sin in him; and then a hero, Euphorbus, son of Panthus; could remember very distinctly so recent a matter as the Trojan war, and had recognised in a moment his own old armour, hanging on the wall, above one of his old dead bodies, in the temple of Athene at Argos; showing out all along only by hints and flashes the abysses of divine knowledge within him, sometimes by miracle. For if the philosopher really is all that Pythagoras or the Pythagoreans suppose; if the material world is so perfect a musical instrument, and he knows its theory so well, he might surely give practical and sensible proof of that on occasion, by himself improvising music upon it in direct miracle. And so there, in Porphyry and Iamblichus, the appropriate miracles are.
If the mistaken affection of the disciples of dreamy Neo-Platonic Gnôsis at Alexandria, in the third or fourth century of our era, has thus made it impossible to separate later legend from original evidence as to what he was, and said, and how he said it, yet that there was a brilliant, perhaps a showy, personality there, infusing the most abstract truths with what would tell on the fancy, seems more than probable, and, though he would appear really to have had from the first much of mystery or mysticism about him, the thaumaturge of Samos, “whom even the vulgar might follow as a conjuror,” must have been very unlike the lonely “weeping” philosopher of Ephesus, or the almost disembodied philosopher of Elea. In the very person and doings of this earliest master of the doctrine of harmony, people saw that philosophy is
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,