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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
The problem of the One and the Many is a problem essentially Platonic. Characteristically Platonic is the saying of Socrates in the Phaedrus: “If I find any man who is able to see a ‘One and Many’ in nature, him I follow, and ‘walk in his footsteps as if he were a god.’” The problem of the One and the Many may indeed be said to be the point around which Plato's deepest concerns center. It occurs in most of his dialogues. It appears in different formulations, and it receives a variety of emphasis. It is certainly at the root of his morals. “Not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued,” is Plato's fundamental teaching. And the good life is a life of law, order, justice. The diverse elements of the soul must be set in order; they must submit to one organizing principle; they must become a well-ordered unity.
2 Phaedrus, 266 (Jowett's translation).
3 Crito, 48.
4 Republic, 462.
5 Ibid. 421.
6 Republic, 443.
7 Gorgias. 504.
8 Republic, 435.
9 Ibid. 441.
10 Ibid. 544.
11 Ibid. 484.
12 Gorgias, 508.
13 Republic, 611.
14 Phaedo, 78.
15 Phaedo, 80.
16 Meno, 77.
17 Republic, 479 (italics mine).
18 Ibid. 490.
19 Ibid. 479.
20 Gorgias, 504.
21 Republic, 492.
22 Ibid. 588 ff.
23 Phaedrus, 246 ff.
24 Republic, 435.
25 Ibid.
26 Republic, 441 ff.
27 Ibid. 443.
28 Ibid. 423 (italics mine).
29 Ibid. 415.
30 Gorgias. 508.
31 I refer here mainly to German romanticists because it was they — particularly Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829)—who clearly formulated a theory of romanticism which they sought to carry out both in life and in art. The group comprising the “Romantic School” consisted of Friedrich von Hardenberg (called Novalis), the two Schlegels — August and his brother Friedrich — and Ludwig Tieck; but I have in mind their later followers as well, such as Brentano, Arnim, von Kleist, Fouqué, Hoffmann, Chamisso, Eichendorff, Heine. I do not think, however, that there is an essential difference between the romanticism in Germany and what is vaguely enough called by the same name in the literatures of other countries. For the romantic tendencies alluded to in this essay it will not be difficult, therefore, to find illustrations in general European literature.
32 Quoted by J. W. Mackail: Lectures on Greek Poetry, London, 1910, p. 120.
33 Republic, 517.
34 Phaedo, 79 ff.
35 Ibid. 80. This notion of “death” occurs in Novalis. Indeed he made a “resolution” thus to die. And in a letter to Friedrich Schlegel (January 20, 1799) he speaks of the longing of Christianity as “absolute Abstraktion, Annihilation des Jetztigen, Apotheose der Zukunft — dieser eigentlichen bessern Welt.”
36 Symposium, 211.
37 Ibid. 211.
38 Ibid. 207.
39 Phaedrus, 243.
40 This doctrine of “symbolic love” is one of the cardinal teachings of German romanticism. It has received a variety of expression. The attitude of the lover toward the beloved in Friedrich Schlege's Lucinde is typical. Says Lucinde's lover: “Lass mich's bekennen, ich liebe nicht dich allein, ich liebe die Weiblichkeit selbst. Ich liebe sie nicht bloss, ich bete sie an, weil ich die Menschheit anbete.” (Edition 1799, p. 70.)
41 Phaedrus, 250–251.
42 Republic, 529.
43 Ibid. 526.
44 I should not be understood as deriving romanticism historically from Plato. I am well aware, in the case of German romanticism, of the intimate relation between it and the Fichtean philosophy. I am using romanticism here as an elemental attitude possessing philosophic generality, of which the Fichtean doctrine of the world-building and world-destroying Infinite Self, engaged in the restless quest after an unattainable ideal, is itself a notable expression.
45 This is a familiar paradox in romantic literature. Goethe's Faust complains:
“Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust;
Die eine will sich von der andera trennen;
Die eine hält in derber Liebeslust,
Sich an die Welt, mit klammernden Orgasen;
Die andre hebt gewaltsam sich vom Dust
Zu den Gefühlen hoher Ahnen.”
And Victor Hugo's Mahomet laments:
“Je suis le lieu vil des sublimes combats:
Tantôt l'homme d'en haut, et tantôt l'homme d'en bas;
Et le mal dans ma bouche avec le bien alterne,
Comme dans le désert le sable et la citerne.”
46 Phaedrus, 247.
47 The historic spirit of romanticism should not be confused with that of Hegel. In general, the romanticists emphasize the discontinuity of past and present, exemplified in Die Christenheit oder Europa by Novalis, in Atala by Chateaubriand, in Rousseau's works; whereas Hegel insists upon their continuity. The romanticists look backward for an ideal in contrast with the actual; Hegel looks to the past for the seeds of the full-grown present.
48 Meno, 81.
49 Phaedrus, 247.
50 Ibid. 250.
51 Republic, 406.
52 Ibid. 423.
53 Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Arts, Fourth Edition, Macmillan Co. London, 1911, pp. 186–189Google Scholar.