INTRODUCTION

O F all the philosophies of antiquity, Platonism had by far the

most fluctuations. After Aristotle and Theophrastus, the Peri-
patetics concentrated almost exclusively on commentaries on
their master and on the building up of various fields of specialized
knowledge; the later Epicureans hardly added a word to the Founder's
teaching, which they professed in the form of a creed; the Stoics only
developed their doctrines when the criticisms of rivals, especially the
Sceptics of the New Academy, made it essential for them to do so.
The theories of the Platonists, however, varied radically. Speusippus,
for example, the successor of Plato himself as head of the Academy,
dispensed with the Theory of Forms. The next head, Xenocrates,
revived it-only to amalgamate it with Plato's theory of the objects of
mathematics.
Among the reasons for this unusual variety of doctrines even within
the Old Academy is the fact that Plato's thought could not easily be
reduced to a system or taught systematically. It contained within itself
unresolved, but-as it is the purpose of this study to demonstrate-
philosophically fruitful divergences of opinion on the highest topics:
the Good, the nature of love, the aim of the life of virtue. Plato himself,
by writing in dialogue form, gives an indication that he thought of his
writings largely as compositions ad hominem. What is written here is
intended to suggest that the unity of his thought consists only in cer-
tain general beliefs, such as that there are supra-sensible realities and
that some aspect of the human soul is immortal. It protests, in passing,
against those who look on Plato as the author of a series of tracts:
one on the Theory of Forms, one on Aesthetics, another on Statesman-
ship, and so on.
The Theory of Forms is a faith: a faith expressed in general terms and
not explained in detail. Plato himself, at sundry times in his life, sug-
gested ways of understanding its relevance, but he probably did not
regard even his final opinions as conclusive. Many of his successors,
however, including Plotinus and Origen, assumed that they could
"explain" or "correct" his "system" as though it were a compact
4 EROS AND PSYCHE
and unified whole. Accordingly, they took parts of that supposed
system out of context and welded them into their own theories. In
doing so, by the very production of a system that was seldom self-
contradictory and indistinct in detail, they were unplatonic even when
expounding parts of the Platonic corpus. To extend the meaning of
"unplatonic" in this direction is somewhat unusual, but none the less
meaningful. To understand in particular instances the way Plotinus and
Origen handled the Platonic originals and developed Platonic themes
is a major object of this book.