Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/354

 III. ON PLATO'S PHAEDO. 1 By D. G. EITCHIE. i. BEFORE we can answer the questions : ' What are Plato's arguments about the soul's nature and destiny ? ' ' What is their relation to one another ? ' ' What is their value ? ' we are obliged to consider how far the expressions used by him are to be understood literally. Plato's visions of another world have fixed themselves indelibly in the common consciousness of Western civilisa- tion. We hardly know, without the most careful examina- tion, how many of those beliefs that are often spoken of as if they were peculiar to Christianity are due directly or in- directly to Platonic influence. Thus, even if it should be the case, as Hegel 2 holds, that the mythical element in Plato is quite unessential in his philosophy, or, as Teich- miiller 3 holds, not believed in at all by Plato himself, this mythical element would still deserve the attention of all students of human thought, both as taking up previous Pythagorean, Orphic, probably Egyptian and perhaps Indian ideas, and as influencing all the Hellenic and Koman world, i.e., what we commonly call the whole world. And, in any case, the mythical form of expression must throw some light on Plato's habitual manner of thinking; for we cannot abstractly separate form and content, expression and thought. Let us take the three characteristic Platonic ' doctrines ' of Eecollection, Pre-existence and Transmigration, and en- deavour to discover in what sense they are to be understood. 1. The doctrine of Recollection (dvd/j,vr]cn<;) occurs both in the Meno and the Phaedo. "Knowing is remembering." This theory seemed to obviate the Sophistic puzzle about the impossibility of learning : We either learn what we already know or what we don't know : in the first case we don't learn ; in the second case, we can't (cp. Meno, 80 E). This is just one of those instances where the Aristotelian distinction of potentiality and actuality comes at once to our help. We learn what we are capable of knowing ; we cannot 1 Read before the Aristotelian Society on Nov. 30, 1885. Only a few- additions have been made, with some alterations in the form. - (Jeschichte der Phil, ii. 207 ff. 3 Studien zur Gesch. der Begriffe and Ueber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele. 24