Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/491

 A STUDY OF PLATONIC TEEMINOLOGY. 477 One of the first manifestations of the need of having special terms at his disposal for such an object appears in the use he makes of the expression avro TO, or even simply TO, as in the phrase (Hippias major, 287 D) : ov rl ea-ri /cav, aA,' o TI ea-Tt TO Kaov ; But the position occupied in the Dialogues by the search for the character, or the sum of the characteristics common to all the objects designated by a certain name, also rendered indispensable the introduction of a technical term to denote just that which was the object of the search. It is not easy to determine what were the reasons that impelled Plato to choose for this office the term, et8o<?. It is, however, not the only term that is used by him for that purpose. There is even a Dialogue the Philebus in which he seems to have taken care to avoid the use of it, sub- stituting loea (ISeav %eiv, 127, 132, 134), <ucn.<? ((jjvcriv 122), Tt/TTo? (TVTTOV e%etv, 82, 113), fj,oipa (/j,T%eiv TT)? 60 B) yevos, Svvafiis, etc. We even find the phrases : TOV eiSovs, (frvais TOV yevovs used in a sense which differs little from that expressed, conversely, in the Republic, by etSo? T?}? 9. On the other hand, the term eZ&o? itself, besides keeping, in Plato, all the sufficiently varied meanings which it has in the ordinary language, sometimes assumes, in phrases having a technical meaning, a signification re- markably different from that indicated above. E.g., in the phrase, evl eiBet TrepiXa^dveiv, it seems to stand in the place of ovo/j,a or Xoyo?. Cf. SopMstes : evl ovopaTL irepikafielv (226 E), TrepieiXfj^vai, r&> yw (ibid.). In the fourth book of the Republic, courage, temperance, wisdom are often indicated as eiSr), while at the same time the expressions etSo? TOV TroXe/jLiKov, etc., are used to indicate the different classes of society. Both senses are combined in the phrase : TavTa eVrt ev /ca<7Tft) rjfiwv eiSr) teal rj0ij airep ev Trj TroXet. The first of these is, however, the one that predominates. E.g. (Rep., 434, D) after defining in what Justice consists, the con- clusion is reached that : eav rjftiv Kal et? eva eicaa-Tov TWV avOpwTTtDv TO eZ8o9 TOVTO 6jjiooji]Tai teal eicet SiKaioa-vvijv elvat (Rep., 434 D). Among the passages in which the meaning which is to be attached to such expressions comes out most clearly defined are to be included those in which the importance of recognis- ing the distinction that they express is asserted in opposition to some interlocutor who refuses or neglecte to make it, or fails to understand its significance. One of the most notable is that (Meno, 74) in which Socrates is represented in the act 32