Complete Works (342 page)

Every Greek ought to bear in mind that the location we Greeks possess is absolutely best for virtue. Its merit is that it is intermediate between winter and summer. Since our summer is inferior to the summer in those other places, as we said, we were late in coming to observe the ordering of these gods. But let us take it for granted that whatever Greeks receive from foreigners they improve in the end—a point that we must suppose [e] holds for the present subject in particular. In fact, it is difficult to find out all these things for certain, but there is high and good hope that even
[988]
though the tradition about all these gods and also their worship have come from abroad, the Greeks, on account of their forms of education, the oracles from Delphi, and their whole legally codified system of worship, will succeed in worshiping them better and in a real sense more justly.

Let no Greek ever fear that being mortal we should never concern ourselves with the divine. We should have quite the opposite thought; the divine [i.e., the cosmos] is never without intelligence nor is it at all ignorant [b] of human nature, but it knows that if it teaches we will follow along and learn what we are taught. And of course it knows that the very thing that it teaches us and that we learn is number and how to count. If it did not know this it would be the least intelligent thing of all. It would really not “know itself,” as the proverb goes, if it were angry at those who are able to learn and did not instead rejoice without envy along with the ones who become good through God’s help.

Now it makes much good sense that when humans first had thoughts [c] about how the gods came to be and what they were like and what deeds they did once they came to be, what they said was not acceptable or pleasing to sensible people. Nor were the later accounts, in which fire, water and the other bodies were declared oldest and the wonderful soul younger, and which also maintained that that motion was superior and more valuable which belongs to body and which body produces in itself by heat, cold, and all things of that sort, and that the soul does not move [d] both body and soul itself. But now, when we say that it is no surprise that if a soul comes to be in a body it causes both the body and itself to move and revolve, on no account does our soul disbelieve that it has the capacity to make any weight revolve, no matter how large. Therefore, since as we now claim, soul is the cause of the whole cosmos, and all good things have causes that are good, while evil things have different causes, which [e] are evil, it is no wonder that soul is the cause of every orbit and motion, and the best kind of soul causes orbits and motions that tend toward the good, while the opposite kind of soul causes those that tend toward the opposite. It follows that the good must always have defeated and must always defeat the evil.

All that we have said is in accord with Justice, who takes vengeance on the unholy. Consequently, getting back to the object of our investigation,
[989]
we cannot but believe that the good person, at least, is wise. But as for the wisdom for which we have long been searching, let us see whether we can discover any discipline or art such that ignorance of it would make us lack all judgment about justice. In fact, I think we can. Let me say what it is. I shall try to make clear to you how it dawned upon me as I searched high and low. The cause of our failure is that we do not practice the most [b] important part of virtue in the right way. What I just said seems to me to indicate this strongly. For no one will ever persuade us that there is a more important part of virtue for mortals than reverence towards the gods, although it must be admitted that through ignorance of the worst kind this quality has been absent from the people with the best natures.

Such natures hardly ever occur, but if they do they are an outstanding benefit. For a soul that possesses both quickness and slowness in a mild and moderate degree will tend to be good-natured. It will be inclined towards courage, readily induced to moderation, and—the most important [c] feature in such cases—since it will be good at learning and remembering, it can greatly enjoy these activities, and so will have a love of learning. These are not easily produced, but when they are born and are nurtured and trained in the necessary way, it is absolutely right for such people to be able to hold the inferior majority in subjection by thinking, doing and saying all that concerns the gods in the right ways at the right times, not hypocritically performing sacrifices and purification rites for violations [d] against gods and humans, but in truth honoring virtue. In fact, honoring virtue is the single most important thing for the entire city. Now we hold that this segment of the population is by nature best suited to authority and is capable of learning the noblest and finest studies, if anyone will teach them. But no one could do so unless God leads the way. Indeed, if someone were to teach, but not in the right way, it would be better not to learn. Even so, it follows from what I am now saying that people with this kind of nature, the best, must learn these things and that I must tell them to.

I must try, then, to give a detailed account of what those things are, what they are like, and how to learn them, given my ability as a speaker [e] and the ability of those who can hear me: what things a person is to learn
[990]
about reverence towards the gods and how he is to learn them. When you hear what it is, you will find it strange. I say its name is astronomy, an answer no one would ever expect through unfamiliarity with the subject. People do not know that the true astronomer must be the wisest person. I do not mean anyone practicing astronomy the way Hesiod did and everyone else of that sort, by observing risings and settings of stars, but the one who has observed seven of the eight circuits, each of them completing its own orbit in a way no one can easily contemplate who is not [b] endowed with an extraordinary nature. We have now said what we must learn. We shall go on to state, as we say, how we must and should learn it. My first point is the following.

The moon completes its circuit most quickly, bringing the month [the new moon] and before it the full moon. Next we must attain knowledge of the sun, which brings the solstices as it completes its entire circuit, and then the planets that accompany it [i.e., Venus and Mercury]. To avoid repeating ourselves many times about the same things, since the remaining [c] orbits which we discussed earlier are not easy to understand, we should make continuous efforts in preparing for this knowledge the people whose natures can understand it, to teach them many preliminary subjects and accustom them to learning when they are boys and youths. For this reason they need to study mathematics.

First and foremost is the study of numbers in their own right, as opposed to numbers that possess bodies. This is the study of the entire nature and properties of odd and even—all that number contributes to the nature of existing things. After learning this, next in order is what goes by the [d] extremely silly name of geometry [literally, “earth measurement”]. In fact, it is absolutely clear that this subject is the assimilation by reference to plane surfaces of numbers that are not by nature similar to one another. That this miracle is of divine, not human origin should be obvious to anyone who can understand it. After this is the study of numbers with three factors, which are similar in virtue of their nature as solids. Another art, called stereometry by those acquainted with it, assimilates numbers [e] that are dissimilar. But what people who look into these matters and understand them find divine and miraculous is how nature as a whole molds sorts and kinds according to each proportion, with reference to the power that is always based on the double and the power opposite to this
[991]
[the half]. The first sequence of the double is the one carried out in numbers in the ratio one to two [i.e., the sequence 1, 2, 4, …]. The sequence determined by squares [sc. of these numbers: the sequence 1, 4, 16, …] is the double of this. Double of
this
is the one [the sequence 1, 8, 64, …] that reaches what is solid and tangible, after proceeding from one to eight.
⁵
The sequence that gives the mean of the double involves both the mean that exceeds the smaller and is exceeded by the larger by an equal amount [i.e., the arithmetic mean], and the mean that exceeds one of the extremes by the same fraction of that extreme as the fraction of the other extreme by which it is exceeded by that extreme [i.e., the harmonic mean]. [b] (The means of 6 in relation to 12 are determined by the ratios 3:2 and 4:3.)
⁶
The sequence based on both of these means has been granted to the human race by the blessed choir of the Muses and has bestowed upon us the use of concord and symmetry to promote play in the form of rhythm and harmony.

Let us take it that all these things are as we have said. But what is the point of learning them? To ascertain this we must refer to the divine element in the generated world, which consists of the finest and most divine sort of visible things God has permitted humans to observe. No [c] one who has observed them can ever claim to have learned them in any easy way that does not involve the sciences that I just described. In addition, in all our discussions we must fit the individual to the species by asking questions and refuting errors. This method is the first and finest touchstone for humans to use, whereas all the tests that are not genuine but pretend to be so involve everyone in totally useless labor. We must also have an [d] accurate knowledge of how time brings to pass all celestial events precisely. If we do, then everyone who has confidence in the truth of our account that soul is both older and more divine than body should believe that the saying “all things are full of gods” is entirely right and sufficient, and further that we are never slighted through the forgetfulness or neglect of our superiors.

In all these studies, though, the following point must be kept in mind: anyone who comprehends each of them through the right method is greatly benefited in doing so; otherwise, it is better to call on God for help. The [e] right method is this—I must say this much at least. To the person who learns in the right way it will be revealed that every diagram and complex system of numbers, and every structure of harmony and the uniform pattern of the revolution of the stars are a single thing applying to all these phenomena. And it
will
be revealed to anyone who learns correctly, as we
[992]
say, fixing his eye on unity. To one who studies these subjects in this way, there will be revealed a single natural bond that links them all. But anyone who is going to pursue these studies in any other way must “call on Good Fortune for help,” as we say too. For without them, no one in cities will ever become happy. This is the right way, this is the upbringing, these are the studies. Whether they are difficult, whether they are easy, this is the way we must proceed.

It is not right to neglect the gods once it is obvious that our story about them all has been told in the right way and blessed by Good Fortune. [b] Anyone who has grasped all these things in this way I say is truly the wisest. I maintain also, both in jest and in earnest, that when any of these people fulfills his destiny by dying (if indeed he still exists in death), he will no longer be affected by a multitude of perceptions as he is now but will participate in a destiny of unity. Having become one from many, he will be happy, most wise, and blessed—whether in his blessed state he dwells on continents or islands [the Isles of the Blest]—and he will enjoy [c] this fortune forever. And whether he lives his life engaging in these pursuits in private or in public, the gods will grant him to experience the same things in the same way. But as to what we asserted at the outset, the identical account is now at hand again, and it is genuinely true—that with but a few exceptions, humans are incapable of becoming perfectly blessed and happy. This has been stated correctly. Only those who are by nature godlike and moderate, who also possess the rest of virtue, and have understood [d] all the subjects connected with the blessed science [astronomy] (and we have stated what these are) have obtained and possess all the gifts of the divinity in adequate measure.

In private we say and in public we enact into law that the highest offices must be bestowed upon those individuals who have mastered these studies in the right way, with much labor, and have arrived at the fullness of old age. The others must obey them and speak in praise of all gods and goddesses. Now that we have come to know this wisdom well enough and have tested it, we are all bound, most rightly, to urge the Nocturnal [e] Council to pursue it.

1
. Thus extending the concept of number to include ratios.

2
.
Laws
x; for the point noted just below, see 891e ff., 896a ff.

3
. 978c–979a.

4
. I.e., from West to East.

5
. This last sequence, formed by cubing the numbers in the first sequence, represents three dimensions, the “solid and tangible.” (Likewise, the first and second sequences represent one and two dimensions, respectively.) In reaching it, we have passed through the previous two sequences; that is, the generation of three dimensions presupposes that of one and two dimensions.

6
. The arithmetic mean of 6 and 12 is 9, the harmonic mean is 8, and 9:6 = 3:2 and 8:6 = 4:3; also 12:9 = 4:3 and 12:8 = 3:2.

LETTERS

Translated by Glenn R. Morrow.

The biographer Diogenes Laertius tells us that Thrasyllus included in his edition of Plato thirteen letters alleging to have been written by him. These are the letters presented here, in Thrasyllus’ numbering. Apart from two insignificant ones indicating no presumed date, they all profess to be from the last two decades of Plato’s life. Most of them show him deeply and personally involved in the politics of Syracuse, the most important Greek city of Sicily, then engaged in a protracted struggle with Carthage to preserve Greek hegemony in the island, or at least its eastern half. The general Dionysius had established himself as ‘tyrant’ of the previously democratic Syracuse, being succeeded in 367/6 by his son Dionysius II, to whom
Letters
I, II, III, and XIII are addressed. Plato had visited the court of Dionysius I in about 387, and according to these
Letters
he had formed a close friendship there with the tyrant’s young brother-in-law, Dion—later an influential figure in his government—of whose intellectual and moral qualities he held a high opinion. According to the account of
Letter
VII, by far the longest and most interesting of the series, Dion shared Plato’s ideals of government—presumably those expressed in
Republic.
With the accession of the younger Dionysius, a young man who showed an interest in philosophical matters, Dion saw an opportunity, with the help of Plato’s instruction in philosophy, to win Dionysius over to abandoning his tyranny for a rule of the ‘best’ laws under free institutions. Thus—still according to the
Letters—
Plato returned to Syracuse in 367 or 366 to carry out his and Dion’s purpose of establishing there the magnanimous rule of a ‘philosopher-king’. But Dionysius proved less tractable than Dion had expected; within four months, fearing him as a rival, he banished Dion to Greece, and Plato himself returned to Athens not long afterwards, the grand project a shambles. He came back a third time some four years later, at Dionysius’ urging, in the hope at least of restoring Dion to Dionysius’ good graces. At that too he failed. The rest of the story—Dion’s successful expedition to take Syracuse in 357, effectively ending Dionysius’ rule, and his eventual murder in 354 in the factional fighting that ensued—can be read in Plutarch’s
Life of Dion.