1

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 principlè 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

1 1461b.

2 P. 259 (St.).

3 262.

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

inquiries; in the latter, the extent of his misapprehension of the method of artistic representationand the consequent value of Aristotle's contribution to the science of criticism-appears most clearly.

The permanent element in Plato's criticism is contained in three mutually dependent principles. In literature the 'thought' is prior to the 'form'; greatness in art depends upon morality in the artist; and art and morals are mutually connected, both in the sense that the character of the artist appears in the character of his work, and in the sense that the creations of art have an influence upon the life of man which can be expressed in terms of morality.

The first of these principles is most clearly stated in the message of the Phaedrus, which is addressed to literature as a whole.

'Go you to Lysias and say that we two have gone down to the fountain of the Nymphs and the seat of the Muses, and have held speech with them; and that they bade us tell him and other composers of speeches, and Homer and other composers of poetry, whether set to music or not, and Solon, too, and others who have committed political compositions to writing under the name of laws, that if, in composing these various works, they knew where the truth was, and could make good their statements in case of their being called in question, and, if they maintain that they are able to prove by word of mouth much more than their writings contain-if this be so, we must tell them they have no business to be called by any of the names appropriated to these several classes of composers-orator, poet, or legislator-but that they should be called by a name which expresses the purpose

on which they have really been engaged: and this purpose is the search for "wisdom," and their name is "lover of wisdom," or philosopher.''

The principle of the interdependence of art and morals is asserted in its widest form in the third book of the Republic. Here he lays down the general standard by which the fitness of poetry and the arts for admission into the ideal commonwealth is to be tested; and he decides that a thing is beautiful just so far as it is made to be an expression of morality.

'Then excellence of thought, and of harmony, and of form, and of rhythm, is connected with excellence of character, with good nature, that is, not in the sense of the colourless character which we euphemistically term "good nature," but in that of the disposition which is really well and nobly equipped from the point of view of character. . . .

'The qualities which are implied in this excellence of character are conspicuously present in painting and all similar arts, in weaving and embroidery and architecture, and, indeed, in the productions of all the lesser arts, and further in the constitution of bodies and of all organic growths. In all of these excellence or defectiveness of form can be discerned. And defectiveness of form and rhythm and harmony are associated with deficiencies of thought and of character, while the corresponding artistic excellences are associated with the corresponding moral excellences of self-restraint and goodness; indeed, they are directly expressive of them.

'If this be so, we must not confine our supervision to our poets. In addition to compelling the poets to embody the

1278. [The form of the passage has been slightly altered in translation].

stamp of morality in their productions as a condition of their working among us, we must exercise supervision over the whole class of art-workers. We must prevent them from embodying this expression of vice or moral obliquity or meanness or bad taste either in their representations of living things or in their buildings, or in anything else which they produce. If we cannot restrain them, we must not allow them to produce among us at all, for we are bound to prevent our 'guardians' from being bred upon the images of vice, like cattle on rank grass, gathering many impressions from many sources, day by day and little by little, and feeding upon them, and so unconsciously collecting a great mass of evil in their souls. Instead of this we must look for artists who are able out of the goodness of their own natures to trace the nature of beauty and perfection, that so our young men, like persons who live in a healthy place, may be perpetually influenced for good. Every impression which they receive through eye or ear will come from embodiments of beauty, and this atmosphere, like the health-giving breeze which flows from bracing regions, will imperceptibly lead them from their earliest childhood into association and harmony with the spirit of Truth, and into love for that spirit.''

Such a censorship is, of course, fatal to artistic freedom in general, while in respect of poetry it excludes 'the indiscriminate realist'; the man 'whose cleverness makes him capable of assuming every form and reproducing every object.' To such a dramatic artist the citizens of the ideal commonwealth are merciless. His talent is freely admitted, but he is told that 'one like him neither does, nor indeed can,