acknowledgment naturally grew out of the reflective philosophy of Plato. In the search for truth, which he conducted through the powerful instrument of dialectic, Plato found that men derive their opinions and their rules of conduct from a knowledge of literature as well as from a knowledge of life. He recognized especially that literature is the medium by which the young are introduced to the world, and inferior minds are enabled to share the wisdom of their superiors; and he was, therefore, compelled, in constructing a system of morals, to take account both of the subject-matter and of the forms of this source of knowledge.

It is not surprising that a criticism conceived on such a basis should be inadequate.

1

What Jowett has written of his work in general is true of his work in the special field of criticism. 'He is no dreamer, but a great philosophical genius struggling with the unequal conditions of light and knowledge under which he is living.' And so in Plato we find a remarkable, almost instinctive, comprehension of the true principles which underlie the development of art and literature, joined to a fatal misconception of the character and limitations of artistic representation, and, we must add, of the work of the Greek poets.

The contrast between Plato and Aristotle in their respective researches in the department of criticism is very significant. Plato is an idealist, and his

criticism is an examination of literature and art in the light of principles deduced from the study of the life of man. Aristotle is a realist, and his criticism is based upon a consideration of the actual literary material which lay before him. Plato appears to have regarded the productions of art and literature for critical purposes solely as a vehicle for conveying philosophic truth; and criticism meant for him an endeavour to ascertain how far the message of poetry and the arts agreed with the message of philosophy. The desire to reach the truth directed and controlled the whole of his vast intellectual activity, and when he applies himself to art and literature this motive is so predominant that it obscures his appreciation of the lesser elements of beauty and pleasure, and prevents him from realizing the difference between truth in art and truth in nature. Art was a vehicle by which men could be taught the truths of philosophy, and the only object of criticism, as he conceived it, was to find out to what extent it fulfilled this purpose.

Aristotle's criticism, on the other hand, was independent of any ethical motive; under his scheme it formed a separate and distinct department of inquiry. An art, he says in the Ethics,' is the product of 'a union of a creative faculty and reason.' In the Poetics he finds that the source of the creative faculty is the primitive impulse of imitation; and he points out that art as thus analyzed must produce

1 1140*.

results which can be distinguished from the results of any mere effort of the understanding.

As a contribution to a specific department of human knowledge, Aristotle's account of the origin and methods of art in the Poetics shows an infinite advance upon Plato's exposure of its defects in the Republic. But Plato's method, being in fact the method of art itself, by employing the powerful assistance of the imagination, enabled him to pierce more deeply into the heart of things, and to reveal truths of higher import and wider application than the truths disclosed by the more exact but more restricted investigations of Aristotle. And so it has come about that while the rules of Aristotle, based upon a limited area of observation, have been gradually superseded, the principles of Plato are seen to be in harmony with the modern conception of the functions of art and literature. For the time has come when art and literature are no longer the property of the few, but when in fact they are as intimately a part of the life of civilized peoples, as they were of Hellenic life in the age of Pericles; and, therefore, the identity of their spirit with the spirit of the truest thought and the highest conduct -which Plato asserted to be the true relation between them and the life of man-seems no longer impossible of realization, but has, on the contrary, come to be regarded as the natural goal of their development.

Of Plato's general criticism it is sufficient to note

that the opinions scattered throughout the Dialogues anticipate the artistic principles laid down by Aristotle in the Poetics in more than one important particular. For example, the doctrine that both the incidents and the characters represented by the poet should be typical, appears more than once in the Poetics in the form of a statement that, according to the method of poetry, an impossibility which is credible is preferable to a possibility which is incredible.'' Now in the Phaedrus, Plato not only formulates the same principle with respect to the special art, Rhetoric, which he is there discussing, but he carries the argument a step further, by showing how this principle can be reconciled to what he calls the 'first quality' or 'condition precedent' of good speaking-namely, 'that the mind of the speaker should know the truth of what he is about to speak.'' This he does by pointing out that the man who knows the truth of what he describes, knows best how to produce those resemblances which prove so persuasive. For, 'if a man does not know what the facts are in each case, he cannot possibly acquire the master's manner of gradually leading his audience from the fact to the opposite of the fact by means of resemblances or analogous instances; nor can he see through the speech of a rival who employs the same method.''

Again, Aristotle repeatedly insists upon the supreme importance of the plot as an element of 2 P. 259 (St.).

1 1461b.

3 262.

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Tragedy. Plato insists upon the same doctrine in his discussion of Rhetoric; and in so doing he uses the same figure-that of an organism-which Aristotle uses to enforce his meaning in the Poetics. 'Every speech,' Plato says, 'ought to be composed like a living thing, having its own body and being deficient neither in head nor feet; both the trunk and the extremities of the speech must be so composed as to harmonize with one another and with the whole.' And he adds two qualities which distinguish all correct literary construction: 'First, to group the scattered facts, drawn from many sources, in a single idea, by regarding them from one point of view. . . ; and then to be able to treat them again singly under natural divisions-hitting the joints in fact instead of breaking off portions like a bad carver.'' And he subsequently extends the principle from a speech to a tragedy; for the art of tragedy does not consist in the composition of a number of separate speeches, but in the arranging of these elements in a harmonious and consistent whole.'

But these are, after all, points of minor importance. What is essential for us to know in Plato's criticism is, first, the nature of those deeper and more pregnant principles revealed by his idealistic method; and, secondly, the manner in which he applies these principles to Greek art and poetry. The former contains what is most permanent and most remarkable in his