ideas, which was a pioneer attempt to deal with the still unsolved problem of universals; third, his
arguments in favour of immortality; fourth, his cosmogony; fifth, his conception of knowledge as
reminiscence rather than perception. But before dealing with any of these topics, I shall say a few
words about the circumstances of his life and the influences which determined his political and
philosophical opinions.
Plato was born in 428-7 B.C., in the early years of the Peloponnesian War. He was a well-to-do
aristocrat, related to various people who were concerned in the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. He was
a young man when Athens was defeated, and he could attribute the defeat to democracy, which his
social position and his family connections were likely to make him despise. He was a pupil of
Socrates, for whom he had a profound affection and respect; and Socrates was put to death by the
democracy. It is not, therefore, surprising that he should turn to Sparta for an adumbration of his
ideal commonwealth. Plato possessed the art to dress up illiberal suggestions in such a way that
they deceived future ages, which admired the Republic without ever becoming aware of what was
involved in its proposals. It has always been correct to praise Plato, but not to understand him.
This is the common fate of great men. My object is the opposite. I wish to understand him, but to
treat him with as little reverence as if he were a contemporary English or American advocate of
totalitarianism.
The purely philosophical influences on Plato were also such as to predispose him in favour of
Sparta. These influences, speaking broadly, were: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and
Socrates.
From Pythagoras (whether by way of Socrates or not) Plato derived the Orphic elements in his
philosophy: the religious trend, the belief in immortality, the other-worldliness, the priestly tone,
and all that is involved in the simile of the cave; also his respect for mathematics, and his intimate
intermingling of intellect and mysticism.
From Parmenides he derived the belief that reality is eternal and timeless, and that, on logical
grounds, all change must be illusory.
From Heraclitus he derived the negative doctrine that there is nothing permanent in the sensible
world. This, combined with the doctrine of Parmenides, led to the conclusion that knowledge is
not