PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. BY GEORGE GROTE AUTHOR OF THE 'HISTORY OF GREECE'. _A NEW EDITION._ IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1888. _The right of Translation is reserved._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVI. PHÆDRUS--SYMPOSION. These two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato. Phædrus is the originator of both 1 Eros as conceived by Plato. Different sentiment prevalent in Hellenic antiquity and in modern times. Position of women in Greece _ib._ Eros, considered as the great stimulus to improving philosophical communion. Personal Beauty, the great point of approximation between the world of sense and the world of Ideas. Gradual generalisation of the sentiment 4 All men love Good, as the means of Happiness, but they pursue it by various means. The name _Eros_ is confined to one special case of this large variety 5 Desire of mental copulation and procreation, as the only attainable likeness of immortality, requires the sight of personal beauty as an originating stimulus 6 Highest exaltation of the erotic impulse in a few privileged minds, when it ascends gradually to the love of Beauty in general. This is the most absorbing sentiment of all 7 Purpose of the Symposion, to contrast this Platonic view of Eros with several different views of it previously enunciated by the other speakers; closing with a panegyric on Sokrates, by the drunken Alkibiades 8 Views of Eros presented by Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon 9 Discourse of Sokrates from revelation of Diotima. He describes Eros as not a God, but an intermediate Dæmon between Gods and men, constantly aspiring to divinity, but not attaining it 9 Analogy of the erotic aspiration with that of the philosopher, who knows his own ignorance and thirsts for knowledge 10 Eros as presented in the Phædrus--Discourse of Lysias, and counter-discourse of Sokrates, adverse to Eros--Sokrates is seized with remorse, and recants in a high-flown panegyric on Eros 11 Panegyric--Sokrates admits that the influence of Eros is a variety of madness, but distinguishes good and bad varieties of madness, both coming from the Gods. Good madness is far better than sobriety _ib._ Poetical mythe delivered by Sokrates, describing the immortality and pre-existence of the soul, and its pre-natal condition of partial companionship with Gods and eternal Ideas 12 Operation of such pre-natal experience upon the Intellectual faculties of man--Comparison and combination of particular sensations indispensable--Reminiscence 13 Reminiscence is kindled up in the soul of the philosopher by the aspect of visible Beauty, which is the great link between the world of sense and the world of Ideas 14