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2 The contemplation of the εἴδωλον, image or symbol, leads us to the reality. The reality is always the Platonic Idea. The εἴδωλον, in the case of ordinary “things,” is the material copy which men mistake for the reality (516 A). In the case of spiritual things and moral ideas, there is no visible image or symbol (Politicus 286 A), but imperfect analogies, popular definitions, suggestive phrases, as τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, well-meant laws and institutions serve as the εἴδωλα in which the philosophic dialectician may find a reflection of the true idea. Cf. on 520 C, Sophist 234 C, Theaetetus 150 B.
3 Cf. Timaeus 86 D, Laws 731 E, Apology 23 A. The reality of justice as distinguished from the εἴδωλον, which in this case is merely the economic division of labor. Adam errs in thinking that the real justice is justice in the soul, and the εἴδωλον is justice in the state. In the state too the division of labor may be taken in the lower or in the higher sense. Cf. on 370 A, Introduction p. xv.
4 μὴ ἐάσαντα . . . δόχαν444 A: Cf. Gorgias 459 C, 462 C. A series of participles in implied indirect discourse expand the meaning of τὴν ἐντός(πρᾶξιν), and enumerate the conditions precedent (resumed in οὕτω δή443 E; Cf. Protagoras 325 A) of all action which is to be called just if it tends to preserve this inner harmony of the soul, and the reverse if it tends to dissolve it. The subject of πράττειν is anybody or Everyman. For the general type of sentence and the Stoic principle that nothing imports but virtue cf. 591 E and 618 C.
5 Cf. on 433 E.
6 Cf. Gorgias 491 D where Callicles does not understand.
7 Cf. Gorgias 504.
8 Cf. 621 C and on 352 A.
9 The harmony of the three parts of the soul is compared to that of the three fundamental notes or strings in the octave, including any intervening tones, and so by implication any faculties of the soul overlooked in the preceding classification. Cf. Plutarch, Plat. Quest. 9. Proclus, p. 230 Kroll.ὥσπερ introduces the images, the exact application of which is pointed by ἀτεχνῶς. Cf. on 343 C. The scholiast tries to make two octaves (δὶς διὰ πασῶν) of it. The technical musical details have at the most an antiquarian interest, and in no way affect the thought, which is that of Shakespeare's “For government, though high and low and lower,/ Put into parts, doth keep one in concent,/ Congreeing in a full and natural close/ Like music.” (Henry V. I. ii. 179) Cf. Cicero, De rep. ii. 42, and Milton (Reason of Church Government), “Discipline . . . which with her musical chords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together.”
10 Cf. Epin. 992 B. The idea was claimed for the Pythagoreans; cf. Zeller I. i. p. 463, Guyau, Esquisse d'une Morale, p. 109 “La moralité n'est autre chose que l'unité de l'être.” “The key to effective life is unity of life,” says another modern rationalist.
11 ὀνομάζοντα betrays a consciousness that the ordinary meaning of words is somewhat forced for edification. Cf. Laws 864 A-B and Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 9, n. 21. Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1138 b 6) would regard all this as mere metaphor.
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