SOKRATES.
That the professional teachers called sophists, in Greece, were
intellectual and moral corruptors, and that much corruption grew up
under their teaching in the Athenian mind, are common statements,
which I have endeavored to show to be erroneous. Corresponding to
these statements is another, which represents Sokratês as one whose
special merit it was to have rescued the Athenian mind from such
demoralizing influences; a reputation which he neither deserves nor
requires. In general, the favorable interpretation of evidence, as
exhibited towards Sokratês, has been scarcely less marked than the
harshness of presumption against the sophists. Of late, however,
some authors have treated his history in an altered spirit, and
have manifested a disposition to lower him down to that which they
regard as the sophistical level. M. Forchhammer’s treatise: “The
Athenians and Sokratês, or Lawful Dealing against Revolution,” goes
even further, and maintains confidently that Sokratês was most justly
condemned as an heretic, a traitor, and a corrupter of youth. His
book, the conclusions of which I altogether reject, is a sort of
retribution to the sophists, as extending to their alleged opponent
the same bitter and unfair spirit of construction with that under
which they have so long unjustly suffered. But when we impartially
consider the evidence, it will appear that Sokratês deserves our
admiration and esteem; not, indeed, as an anti-sophist, but as
combining with the qualities of a good man, a force of character
and an originality of speculation as well as of method, and a power
of intellectually working on others, generically different from
that of any professional teacher, without parallel either among
contemporaries or successors.
The life of Sokratês comprises seventy years, from 469 to 399
B.C. His father, Sophroniskus, being a sculptor, the son began by
following the same profession, in which he attained sufficient
proficiency to have executed various works; especially a draped
group of the Charites, or Graces, preserved in the acropolis, and
shown as his work down to the time of Pausanias.[629] His mother,
Phænaretê, was a midwife, and he had a brother by the mother’s side
named Patroklês.[630] Respecting his wife Xanthippê, and his three
sons, all that has passed into history is the violent temper of the
former, and the patience of her husband in enduring it. The position
and family of Sokratês, without being absolutely poor, were humble
and unimportant but he was of genuine Attic breed, belonging to the
ancient gens Dædalidæ, which took its name from Dædalus, the mythical
artist as progenitor.
[629] Pausanias, i, 22, 8; ix, 35, 2.
[630] Plato, Euthydem. c. 24, p. 297, D.
The personal qualities of Sokratês, on the other hand, were marked
and distinguishing, not less in body than in mind. His physical
constitution was healthy, robust, and enduring, to an extraordinary
degree. He was not merely strong and active as an hoplite on
military service, but capable of bearing fatigue or hardship, and
indifferent to heat or cold, in a measure which astonished all
his companions. He went barefoot in all seasons of the year, even
during the winter campaign at Potidæa, under the severe frosts of
Thrace; and the same homely clothing sufficed to him for winter as
well as for summer. Though his diet was habitually simple as well
as abstemious, yet there were occasions, of religious festival or
friendly congratulation, on which every Greek considered joviality
and indulgence to be becoming. On such occasions, Sokratês could
drink more wine than any guest present, yet without being overcome
or intoxicated.[631] He abstained, on principle, from all extreme
gymnastic training, which required, as necessary condition,
extraordinary abundance of food.[632] It was his professed purpose
to limit, as much as possible, the number of his wants, as a
distant approach to the perfection of the gods, who wanted nothing,
to control such as were natural, and prevent the multiplication
of any that were artificial.[633] Nor can there be any doubt
that his admirable bodily temperament contributed materially to
facilitate such a purpose, and assist him in the maintenance of that
self-mastery, contented self-sufficiency, and independence of the
favor[634] as well as of the enmity of others, which were essential
to his plan of intellectual life. His friends, who communicate to us
his great bodily strength and endurance, are at the same time full
of jests upon his ugly physiognomy; his flat nose, thick lips, and
prominent eyes, like a satyr, or silenus.[635] Nor can we implicitly
trust the evidence of such very admiring witnesses, as to the
philosopher’s exemption from infirmities of temper; for there seems
good proof that he was by natural temperament violently irascible;
a defect which he generally kept under severe control, but which
occasionally betrayed him into great improprieties of language and
demeanor.[636]
[631] See the Symposion of Plato as well as that of Xenophon,
both of which profess to depict Sokratês at one of these jovial
moments. Plato, Symposion, c. 31, p. 214, A; c. 35, etc., 39,
_ad finem_; Xenoph. Symp. ii, 26, where Sokratês requests that
the wine may he handed round in small glasses, but that they may
succeed each other quickly, like drops of rain in a shower.
The view which Plato takes of indulgence in wine, as affording a
sort of test of the comparative self-command of individuals, and
measuring the facility with which any man may be betrayed into
folly and extravagance, and the regulation to which he proposes
to submit the practice, may be seen in his treatise De Legibus,
i, p. 649; ii, pp. 671-674. Compare Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 1; i,
6, 10.
[632] Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 4. τὸ μὲν οὖν ὑπερεσθίοντα
ὑπερπονεῖν ἀπεδοκίμαζε, etc.
[633] Xenoph. Mem. i, 6, 10. Even Antisthenês (disciple of
Sokratês, and the originator of what was called the Cynic
philosophy), while he pronounced virtue to be self-sufficient for
conferring happiness, was obliged to add that the strength and
vigor of Sokratês were required as a farther condition: αὐτάρκη
τὴν ἀρετὴν πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν, μηδενὸς προσδεομένην ὅτι μὴ τῆς
Σωκρατικῆς ἴσχυος; Winckelman, Antisthen. Fragment. p. 47; Diog.
Laërt. vi, 11.
[634] See his reply to the invitation of Archelaus, king of
Macedonia, indicating the repugnance to accept favors which he
could not return (Aristot. Rhetor. ii, 24).
[635] Plato, Sympos. c. 32, p. 215, A; Xenoph. Sympos. c. 5;
Plato, Theætet. p. 143, D.
[636] This is one of the traditions which Aristoxenus, the
disciple of Aristotle, heard from his father Spintharus, who had
been in personal communication with Sokratês. See the Fragments
of Aristoxenus, Fragm. 27, 28; ap. Frag. Hist. Græc. p. 280, ed.
Didot.
It appears to me that Frag. 28 contains the statement of what
Aristoxenus really said about the irascibility of Sokratês;
while the expressions of Fragm. 27, ascribed to that author by
Plutarch, are unmeasured.
Fragm. 28 also substantially contradicts Fragm. 26, in which
Diogenes asserts, on the authority of Aristoxenus,—what is not to
be believed, even if Aristoxenus had asserted it,—that Sokratês
made a regular trade of his teaching, and collected perpetual
contributions: see Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 6; i, 5, 6.
I see no reason for the mistrust with which Preller (Hist.
Philosophie, c. v, p. 139) and Ritter (Geschich. d. Philos. vol.
ii, ch. 2, p. 19) regard the general testimony of Aristoxenus
about Sokratês.
Of those friends, the best known to us are Xenophon and Plato,
though there existed in antiquity various dialogues composed, and
memoranda put together, by other hearers of Sokratês, respecting
his conversations and teaching, which are all now lost.[637] The
“Memorabilia” of Xenophon profess to record actual conversations
held by Sokratês, and are prepared with the announced purpose of
vindicating him against the accusations of Melêtus and his other
accusers on the trial, as well as against unfavorable opinions,
seemingly much circulated respecting his character and purposes.
We thus have in it a sort of partial biography, subject to such
deductions from its evidentiary value as may be requisite for
imperfection of memory, intentional decoration, and partiality. On
the other hand, the purpose of Plato, in the numerous dialogues
wherein he introduces Sokratês, is not so clear, and is explained
very differently by different commentators. Plato was a great
speculative genius, who came to form opinions of his own distinct
from those of Sokratês, and employed the name of the latter as
spokesman for these opinions in various dialogues. How much, in the
Platonic Sokratês, can be safely accepted either as a picture of the
man or as a record of his opinions,—how much, on the other hand,
is to be treated as Platonism; or in what proportions the two are
intermingled,—is a point not to be decided with certainty or rigor.
The “Apology of Sokratês,” the “Kriton,” and the “Phædon,”—in so far
as it is a moral picture, and apart from the doctrines advocated in
it,—appear to belong to the first category; while the political and
social views of the “Republic” and of the treatise “De Legibus,”
the cosmic theories in the “Timæus,” and the hypothesis of Ideas,
as substantive existences apart from the phenomenal world, in the
various dialogues wherever it is stated, certainly belong to the
second. Of the ethical dialogues, much may be probably taken to
represent Sokratês, more or less Platonized.
[637] Xenophon (Mem. i, 4, 1) alludes to several such
biographers, or collectors of anecdotes about Sokratês. Yet it
would seem that most of these _Socratici viri_ (Cicer. ad Attic.
xiv, 9, 1) did not collect anecdotes or conversations of the
master, after the manner of Xenophon; but composed dialogues,
manifesting more or less of his method and ἦθος, after the type
of Plato. Simon the leather-cutter, however, took memoranda of
conversations held by Sokratês in his shop, and published several
dialogues purporting to be such. (Diog. Laërt. ii, 123.) The
_Socratici viri_ are generally praised by Cicero (Tus. D. ii, 3,
8) for the elegance of their style.
But though the opinions put by Plato into the mouth of Sokratês
are liable to thus much of uncertainty, we find, to our great
satisfaction, that the pictures given by Plato and Xenophon of
their common master are in the main accordant; differing only as
drawn from the same original by two authors radically different
in spirit and character. Xenophon, the man of action, brings out
at length those conversations of Sokratês which had a bearing on
practical conduct, and were calculated to correct vice or infirmity
in particular individuals; such being the matter which served
his purpose as an apologist, at the same time that it suited his
intellectual taste. But he intimates, nevertheless, very plainly,
that the conversation of Sokratês was often, indeed usually, of
a more negative, analytical, and generalizing tendency;[638] not
destined for the reproof of positive or special defect, but to awaken
the inquisitive faculties and lead to the rational comprehension of
vice and virtue as referable to determinate general principles. Now
this latter side of the master’s physiognomy, which Xenophon records
distinctly, though without emphasis or development, acquires almost
exclusive prominence in the Platonic picture. Plato leaves out the
practical, and consecrates himself to the theoretical, Sokratês;
whom he divests in part of his identity, in order to enrol him as
chief speaker in certain larger theoretical views of his own. The
two pictures, therefore, do not contradict each other, but mutually
supply each other’s defects, and admit of being blended into one
consistent whole. And respecting the method of Sokratês, a point more
characteristic than either his precepts or his theory,—as well as
respecting the effect of that method on the minds of hearers,—both
Xenophon and Plato are witnesses substantially in unison: though,
here again, the latter has made the method his own, worked it out on
a scale of enlargement and perfection, and given to it a permanence
which it could never have derived from its original author, who only
talked and never wrote. It is fortunate that our two main witnesses
about him, both speaking from personal knowledge, agree to so great
an extent.
[638] Xenophon, Memor. i, 1, 16. Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων
ἀεὶ διελέγετο, ~σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβές, τί ἀσεβές~· τί καλὸν, τί
αἰσχρόν· τί δίκαιον, τί ἄδικον· τί ἀνδρία, τί δειλία· τί πόλις,
τί πολιτικός· τί ἀρχὴ ἀνθρώπων, τί ἀρχικὸς ἀνθρώπων, etc.
Compare i, 2, 50; iii, 8, 3, 4; iii, 9; iv, 4, 5; iv, 6, 1.
σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσι, ~τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτ᾽
ἔληγε~.
Both describe in the same manner his private life and habits; his
contented poverty, justice, temperance in the largest sense of the
word, and self-sufficing independence of character. On most of these
points too, Aristophanês and the other comic writers, so far as their
testimony counts for anything, appear as confirmatory witnesses; for
they abound in jests on the coarse fare, shabby and scanty clothing,
bare feet, pale face, poor and joyless life, of Sokratês.[639] Of
the circumstances of his life we are almost wholly ignorant: he
served as an hoplite at Potidæa, at Delium, and at Amphipolis;
with credit apparently in all, though exaggerated encomiums on the
part of his friends provoked an equally exaggerated skepticism on
the part of Athenæus and others. He seems never to have filled any
political office until the year (B.C. 406) in which the battle of
Arginusæ occurred, in which year he was member of the senate of Five
Hundred, and one of the prytanes on that memorable day when the
proposition of Kallixenus against the six generals was submitted to
the public assembly: his determined refusal, in spite of all personal
hazard, to put an unconstitutional question to the vote, has been
already recounted. That during his long life he strictly obeyed the
laws,[640] is proved by the fact that none of his numerous enemies
ever arraigned him before a court of justice: that he discharged all
the duties of an upright man and a brave as well as pious citizen,
may also be confidently asserted. His friends lay especial stress
upon his piety; that is, upon his exact discharge of all the
religious duties considered as incumbent upon an Athenian.[641]
[639] Aristoph. Nubes, 105, 121, 362, 414; Aves, 1282; Eupolis,
Fragment. Incert. ix, x, xi. ap. Meineke, p. 552; Ameipsias,
Fragmenta, Konnus, p. 703, Meineke; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 28.
The later comic writers ridiculed the Pythagoreans, as well as
Zeno the Stoic, on grounds very similar: see Diogenes Laërt. vii,
1, 24.
[640] Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 1. Νῦν ἐγὼ πρῶτον ἐπὶ δικαστήριον
ἀναβέβηκα, ἔτη γεγονὼς πλείω ἑβδομήκοντα.
[641] Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 2-20; i, 3, 1-3.
Though these points are requisite to be established, in order
that we may rightly interpret the character of Sokratês, it is
not from them that he has derived his eminent place in history.
Three peculiarities distinguish the man. 1. His long life passed
in contented poverty, and in public, apostolic dialectics. 2. His
strong religious persuasion, or belief, of acting under a mission and
signs from the gods; especially his dæmon, or genius; the special
religious warning of which he believed himself to be frequently the
subject. 3. His great intellectual originality, both of subject and
of method, and his power of stirring and forcing the germ of inquiry
and ratiocination in others. Though these three characteristics
were so blended in Sokratês that it is not easy to consider them
separately; yet, in each respect, he stood distinguished from all
Greek philosophers before or after him.
At what time Sokratês relinquished his profession as a statuary we do
not know; but it is certain that all the middle and later part of his
life, at least, was devoted exclusively to the self-imposed task of
teaching; excluding all other business, public or private, and to the
neglect of all means of fortune. We can hardly avoid speaking of him
as a teacher, though he himself disclaimed the appellation:[642] his
practice was to talk or converse, or _to prattle without end_,[643]
if we translate the derisory word by which the enemies of philosophy
described dialectic conversation. Early in the morning he frequented
the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools
where youths were receiving instruction: he was to be seen in the
market-place at the hour when it was most crowded, among the booths
and tables where goods were exposed for sale: his whole day was
usually spent in this public manner.[644] He talked with any one,
young or old, rich or poor, who sought to address him, and in the
hearing of all who chose to stand by: not only he never either asked
or received any reward, but he made no distinction of persons, never
withheld his conversation from any one, and talked upon the same
general topics to all. He conversed with politicians, sophists,
military men, artisans, ambitious or studious youths, etc. He visited
all persons of interest in the city, male or female: his friendship
with Aspasia is well known, and one of the most interesting
chapters[645] of Xenophon’s Memorabilia recounts his visit to and
dialogue with Theodotê, a beautiful hetæra, or female companion.
Nothing could be more public, perpetual, and indiscriminate as to
persons than his conversation. But as it was engaging, curious, and
instructive to hear, certain persons made it their habit to attend
him in public as companions and listeners. These men, a fluctuating
body, were commonly known as his disciples, or scholars; though
neither he nor his personal friends ever employed the terms _teacher_
and _disciple_ to describe the relation between them.[646] Many of
them came, attracted by his reputation, during the later years of
his life, from other Grecian cities; Megara, Thebes, Elis, Kyrênê,
etc.
[642] Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 21, p. 33, A. ἐγὼ δὲ διδάσκαλος μὲν
οὐδενὸς πώποτε ἐγενόμην: compare c. 4, p. 19, E.
Xenoph. Memor. iii, 11, 16. Sokratês: ἐπισκώπτων τὴν ἑαυτοῦ
ἀπραφμοσύνην; Plat. Ap. Sok. c. 18, p. 31, B.
[643] Ἀδολεσχεῖν; see Ruhnken’s Animadversiones in Xenoph. Memor.
p. 293, of Schneider’s edition of that treatise. Compare Plato,
Sophistês, c. 23, p. 225, E.
[644] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 10; Plato, Apol. Sok. I, p. 17, D; 18,
p. 31. A. οἷον δή μοι δοκεῖ ὁ θεὸς ἐμὲ τῇ πόλει προστεθεικέναι
τοιοῦτόν τινα, ὃς ὑμᾶς ἐγείρων καὶ πείθων, καὶ ὀνειδίζων ἕνα
ἕκαστον, οὐδὲν παύομαι, ~τὴν ἡμέραν ὅλην πανταχοῦ προσκαθίζων~.
[645] Xen. Mem. iii, 11.
[646] Xenophon in his Memorabilia speaks always of the companions
of Sokratês, not of his _disciples_: οἱ συνόντες αὐτῷ—οἱ
συνουσίασται (i, 6, 1)—οἱ συνδιατρίβοντες—οἱ συγγιγνόμενοι—οἱ
ἑταῖροι—οἱ ὁμιλοῦντες αὐτῷ—οἱ συνήθεις (iv, 8, 2)—οἱ μεθ᾽ αὐτοῦ
(iv, 2, 1)—οἱ ἐπιθύμηται (i, 2, 60). Aristippus also, in speaking
to Plato, talked of Sokratês as ὁ ἑταῖρος ἡμῶν; Aristot. Rhetor.
ii. 24. His enemies spoke of his _disciples_, in an invidious
sense; Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 21, p. 33, A.
It is not to be believed that any companions can have made
frequent visits, either from Megara and Thebes, to Sokratês at
Athens, during the last years of the war, before the capture
of Athens in 404 B.C. And in point of fact, the passage of the
Platonic Theætetus represents Eukleidês of Megara as alluding
to his conversations with Sokratês only a short time before
the death of the latter (Plato, Theætetus. c. 2. p. 142,
E). The story given by Aulus Gellius—that Eukleidês came to
visit Sokratês by night, in women’s clothes, from Megara to
Athens—seems to me an absurdity, though Deycks (De Megaricarum
Doctrinâ, p. 5) is inclined to believe it.
Now no other person in Athens, or in any other Grecian city, appears
ever to have manifested himself in this perpetual and indiscriminate
manner as a public talker for instruction. All teachers either
took money for their lessons, or at least gave them apart from the
multitude in a private house or garden, to special pupils, with
admissions and rejections at their own pleasure. By the peculiar mode
of life which Sokratês pursued, not only his conversation reached the
minds of a much wider circle, but he became more abundantly known as
a person. While acquiring a few attached friends and admirers, and
raising a certain intellectual interest in others, he at the same
time provoked a large number of personal enemies. This was probably
the reason why he was selected by Aristophanês and the other comic
writers, to be attacked as a general representative of philosophical
and rhetorical teaching; the more so, as his marked and repulsive
physiognomy admitted so well of being imitated in the mask which the
actor wore. The audience at the theatre would more readily recognize
the peculiar figure which they were accustomed to see every day in
the market-place, than if Prodikus or Protagoras, whom most of them
did not know by sight, had been brought on the stage; nor was it of
much importance, either to them or to Aristophanês, whether Sokratês
was represented as teaching what he did really teach, or something
utterly different.
This extreme publicity of life and conversation was one among the
characteristics of Sokratês, distinguishing him from all teachers
either before or after him. Next, was his persuasion of a special
religious mission, restraints, impulses, and communications, sent to
him by the gods. Taking the belief in such supernatural intervention
generally, it was indeed noway peculiar to Sokratês: it was the
ordinary faith of the ancient world; insomuch that the attempts to
resolve phenomena into general laws were looked upon with a certain
disapprobation, as indirectly setting it aside. And Xenophon[647]
accordingly avails himself of this general fact, in replying to
the indictment for religious innovation, of which his master was
found guilty, to affirm that the latter pretended to nothing beyond
what was included in the creed of every pious man. But this is not
an exact statement of the matter in debate; for it slurs over at
least, if it does not deny, that speciality of inspiration from the
gods, which those who talked with Sokratês—as we learn even from
Xenophon—believed, and which Sokratês himself believed also.[648]
Very different is his own representation, as put forth in the defence
before the dikastery. He had been accustomed constantly to hear, even
from his childhood, a divine voice, interfering, at moments when
he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way
of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him
very frequently, not merely on great, but even on small occasions,
intercepting what he was about to do or to say.[649] Though later
writers speak of this as the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, he himself
does not personify it, but treats it merely as a “divine sign, a
prophetic or supernatural voice.”[650] He was accustomed not only to
obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to
others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and to
his enemies. It had always forbidden him to enter on public life;
it forbade him, when the indictment was hanging over him, to take
any thought for a prepared defence;[651] and so completely did he
march with a consciousness of this bridle in his mouth, that when
he felt no check, he assumed that the turning which he was about to
take was the right one. Though his persuasion on the subject was
unquestionably sincere, and his obedience constant, yet he never
dwelt upon it himself as anything grand, or awful, or entitling him
to peculiar deference; but spoke of it often in his usual strain of
familiar playfulness. To his friends generally, it seems to have
constituted one of his titles to reverence, though neither Plato nor
Xenophon scruple to talk of it in that jesting way which doubtless
they caught from himself.[652] But to his enemies and to the Athenian
public, it appeared in the light of an offensive heresy; an impious
innovation on the orthodox creed, and a desertion of the recognized
gods of Athens.
[647] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 2, 3.
[648] See the conversation of Sokratês (reported by Xenophon,
Mem. i, 4, 15) with Aristodemus, respecting the gods: “What
_will_ be sufficient to persuade you (asks Sokratês) that the
gods care about you?” “When they _send me special monitors, as
you say that they do to you_ (replies Aristodemus); to tell me
what to do, and what not to do.” To which Sokratês replied,
that they answer the questions of the Athenians, by replies
of the oracle, and that they send prodigies (τέρατα) by way
of information to the Greeks generally. He further advises
Aristodemus to pay assiduous court (θεραπεύειν) to the gods, in
order to see whether they will not send him monitory information
about doubtful events (i, 4, 18).
So again in his conversation with Euthydemus, the latter says to
him: Σοὶ δὲ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐοίκασιν ~ἔτι φιλικώτερον ἢ τοῖς ἄλλοις
χρῆσθαι~, οἵγε μηδὲ ἐπερωτώμενοι ὑπὸ σοῦ προσημαίνουσιν, ἅτε χρὴ
ποιεῖν καὶ ἃ μὴ (iv, 3, 12).
Compare i, 1, 19; and iv, 8, 11, where this perpetual
communication and advice from the gods is employed as an evidence
to prove the superior piety of Sokratês.
[649] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 19, p. 31, D. Τούτου δὲ αἴτιόν ἐστιν
(that is, the reason why Sokratês had never entered on public
life) ~ὃ ὑμεῖς ἐμοῦ πολλάκις ἀκηκόατε πολλαχοῦ λέγοντος~, ὅτι μοι
θεῖόν τι καὶ δαιμόνιον γίγνεται, ὃ δὴ καὶ ἐν τῇ γραφῇ ἐπικωμῳδῶν
Μέλητος ἐγράψατο. Ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ~ἐκ παιδὸς ἀρξάμενον~, φωνή
τις γιγνομένη, ἣ ὅταν γένηται, ἀεὶ ἀποτρέπει με τούτου ὃ ἂν μέλλω
πράττειν, προτρέπει δὲ οὔποτε. Τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ὅ μοι ἐναντιοῦται τὰ
πολιτικὰ πράττειν.
Again, c. 31, p. 40, A, he tells the dikasts, after his
condemnation: Ἡ γὰρ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου ~ἐν μὲν
τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ παντὶ πάνυ πυκνὴ ἀεὶ ἦν καὶ πάνυ ἐπὶ σμικροῖς
ἐναντιουμένη, εἴ τι μέλλοιμι μὴ ὀρθῶς πράξειν~. Νυνὶ δὲ συμβέβηκέ
μοι, ἅπερ ὁρᾶτε καὶ αὐτοὶ, ταυτὶ, ἅ γε δὴ οἰηθείη ἄν τις καὶ
νομίζεται ἔσχατα κακῶν εἶναι. Ἐμοὶ δὲ οὔτε ἐξιόντι ἕωθεν οἴκοθεν
ἠναντιώθη ~τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον~, οὔτε ἡνίκα ἀνέβαινον ἐνταυθοῖ
ἐπὶ τὸ δικαστήριον, οὔτ᾽ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ οὐδαμοῦ μέλλοντί τι ἐρεῖν·
~καίτοι ἐν ἄλλοις λόγοις πολλαχοῦ δὴ με ἐπέσχε λέγοντα μεταξύ~.
He goes on to infer that his line of defence has been right, and
that his condemnation is no misfortune to him, but a benefit,
seeing that the sign has not manifested itself.
I agree in the opinion of Schleiermacher (in his Preface to his
translation of the Apology of Sokratês, part i, vol. ii, p. 185,
of his general translation of Plato’s works), that this defence
may be reasonably taken as a reproduction by Plato of what
Sokratês actually said to the dikasts on his trial. In addition
to the reasons given by Schleiermacher there is one which may
be noticed. Sokratês predicts to the dikasts that, if they put
him to death, a great number of young men will forthwith put
themselves forward to take up the vocation of cross-questioning,
who will give them more trouble than he has ever done (Plat.
Ap. Sok. c. 30, p. 39, D). Now there is no reason to believe
that this prediction was realized. If, therefore, Plato puts an
erroneous prophecy into the mouth of Sokratês, this is probably
because Sokratês really made one.
[650] The words of Sokratês plainly indicate this meaning: see
also a good note of Schleiermacher, appended to his translation
of the Platonic Apology, Platons Werke, part i, vol ii, p. 432.
[651] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 8, 5.
[652] Xenoph. Sympos. viii, 5; Plato, Euthydem. c. 5, p. 272, E.
Such was the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, as described by himself
and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues; a voice
always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively upon his own personal
conduct.[653] That which Plutarch and other admirers of Sokratês
conceived as a dæmon, or intermediate being between gods and men,
was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian church as a devil;
by LeClerc, as one of the fallen angels; by some other modern
commentators, as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Sokratês
himself.[654] Without presuming to determine the question raised in
the former hypotheses, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the
conviction of Sokratês on the point was quite sincere. A circumstance
little attended to, but deserving peculiar notice, and stated by
himself, is, that the restraining voice began when he was a child,
and continued even down to the end of his life: it had thus become an
established persuasion, long before his philosophical habits began.
But though this peculiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively
to him, there were also other ways in which he believed himself to
have received the special mandates of the gods, not simply checking
him when he was about to take a wrong turn, but spurring him on,
directing, and peremptorily exacting from him, a positive course
of proceeding. Such distinct mission had been imposed upon him by
dreams, by oracular intimations, and by every other means which the
gods employed for signifying their special will.[655]
[653] See Plato (Theætet. c. 7, p. 151, A; Phædrus, c. 20, p.
242. C; Republic, vi, 10, p. 496, C)—in addition to the above
citations from the Apology.
The passage in the Euthyphron (c. 2, p. 3, B) is somewhat less
specific. The Pseudo-Platonic dialogue, Theagês, retains the
strictly prohibitory attribute of the voice, as never in any
case impelling; but extends the range of the warning, as if it
was heard in cases not simply personal to Sokratês himself, but
referring to the conduct of his friends also (Theagês, c. 11, 12,
pp. 128, 129).
Xenophon also neglects the specific attributes, and conceives the
voice generally as a divine communication with instruction and
advice to Sokratês, so that he often prophesied to his friends,
and was always right (Memor. i, 1, 2-4; iv, 8, 1).
[654] See Dr. Forster’s note on the Euthyphron of Plato, c. 2, p.
3.
The treatise of Plutarch (De Genio Socratis) is full of
speculation on the subject, but contains nothing about it which
can be relied upon as matter of fact. There are various stories
about prophecies made by Sokratês, and verified by the event, c.
11, p. 582.
See also this matter discussed, with abundant references, in
Zeller Philosophie der Griechen, v. ii, pp. 25-28.
[655] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 22, p. 33, C. Ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ
φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ~ἐκ μαντείων~ καὶ
~ἐξ ἐνυπνίων~, καὶ ~παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία
μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν~.
Of these intimations from the oracle, he specifies particularly one,
in reply to a question put at Delphi, by his intimate friend, and
enthusiastic admirer, Chærephon. The question put was, whether any
other man was wiser than Sokratês; to which the Pythian priestess
replied, that no other man was wiser.[656] Sokratês affirms that he
was greatly perplexed on hearing this declaration from so infallible
an authority, being conscious to himself that he possessed no wisdom
on any subject, great or small. At length, after much meditation and
a distressing mental struggle, he resolved to test the accuracy of
the infallible priestess, by taking measure of the wisdom of others
as compared with his own. Selecting a leading politician, accounted
wise both by others and by himself, he proceeded to converse with him
and put scrutinizing questions; the answers to which satisfied him
that this man’s supposed wisdom was really no wisdom at all. Having
made such a discovery, Sokratês next tried to demonstrate to the
politician himself how much he wanted of being wise; but this was
impossible; the latter still remained as fully persuaded of his own
wisdom as before. “The result which I acquired (says Sokratês) was,
that I was a wiser man than he, for neither he nor I knew anything
of what was truly good and honorable; but the difference between us
was, that he fancied he knew them, while I was fully conscious of my
own ignorance; I was thus wiser than he, inasmuch as I was exempt
from that capital error.” So far, therefore, the oracle was proved
to be right. Sokratês repeated the same experiment successively
upon a great number of different persons, especially those in
reputation for distinguished abilities; first, upon political men
and rhetors, next upon poets of every variety, and upon artists as
well as artisans. The result of his trial was substantially the same
in all cases. The poets, indeed, composed splendid verses, but when
questioned even about the words, the topics, and the purpose, of
their own compositions, they could give no consistent or satisfactory
explanations; so that it became evident that they spoke or wrote,
like prophets, as unconscious subjects under the promptings of
inspiration. Moreover, their success as poets filled them with a
lofty opinion of their own wisdom on other points also. The case was
similar with artists and artisans; who, while highly instructed, and
giving satisfactory answers, each in his own particular employment,
were for that reason only the more convinced that they also knew well
other great and noble subjects. This great general mistake more than
countervailed their special capacities, and left them, on the whole,
less wise than Sokratês.[657]
[656] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 5, p. 21, A. Sokratês offers to
produce the testimony of the brother of Chærephon, the latter
himself being dead, to attest the reality of this question and
answer.
[657] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 7, 8, p. 22.
“In this research and scrutiny (said Sokratês, on his defence) I have
been long engaged, and am still engaged. I interrogate every man
of reputation; I prove him to be defective in wisdom; but I cannot
prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling the
mission imposed upon me, I have thus established the veracity of the
god, who meant to pronounce that human wisdom was of little reach or
worth; and that he who, like Sokratês, felt most convinced of his own
worthlessness, as to wisdom, was really the wisest of men.[658] My
service to the god has not only constrained me to live in constant
poverty[659] and neglect of political estimation, but has brought
upon me a host of bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and
exposed while the bystanders talk of me as a wise man, because they
give me credit for wisdom respecting all the points on which my
exposure of others turns.”—“Whatever be the danger and obloquy which
I may incur, it would be monstrous indeed, if, having maintained my
place in the ranks as an hoplite under your generals at Delium and
Potidæa, I were now, from fear of death or anything else, to disobey
the oracle and desert the post which the god has assigned to me, the
duty of living for philosophy and cross-questioning both myself and
others.[660] And should you even now offer to acquit me, on condition
of my renouncing this duty, I should tell you, with all respect and
affection, that I will obey the god rather than you, and that I will
persist, until my dying day, in cross-questioning you, exposing your
want of wisdom and virtue, and reproaching you until the defect be
remedied.[661] My mission as your monitor is a mark of the special
favor of the god to you; and if you condemn me, it will be your
loss; for you will find none other such.[662] Perhaps you will ask
me, Why cannot you go away, Sokratês, and live among us in peace and
silence? This is the hardest of all questions for me to answer to
your satisfaction. If I tell you that silence on my part would be
disobedience to the god, you will think me in jest, and not believe
me. You will believe me still less, if I tell you that the greatest
blessing which can happen to man is, to carry on discussions every
day about virtue and those other matters which you hear me canvassing
when I cross-examine myself as well as others; and that life, without
such examination, is no life at all. Nevertheless, so stands the
fact, incredible as it may seem to you.”[663]
[658] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 9, p. 23. I give here the sense rather
than the exact words: Οὗτος ὑμῶν σοφώτατός ἐστιν, ὅστις ὥσπερ
Σωκράτης ἔγνωκεν ὅτι οὐδενὸς ἄξιός ἐστι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πρὸς σοφίαν.
Ταῦτ᾽ ἐγὼ μὲν ἔτι καὶ νῦν περιϊὼν ζητῶ καὶ ἐρευνῶ κατὰ τὸν θεὸν,
καὶ τῶν ἀστῶν καὶ τῶν ξένων ἄν τινα οἴωμαι σοφὸν εἶναι· καὶ
ἐπειδάν μοι μὴ δοκῇ, ~τῷ θεῷ βοηθῶν~ ἐνδείκνυμαι ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι
σοφός.
[659] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 9, p. 23, A-C.
... ἐν πενίᾳ μυρίᾳ εἰμὶ, διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ λατρείαν.
[660] Plato. Ap. Sok. c. 17, p. 29. Τοῦ δὲ θεοῦ τάττοντος, ὡς
ἐγὼ ᾠήθην καὶ ὑπέλαβον, φιλοσοφοῦντά με δεῖν ζῆν, καὶ ἐξετάζοντα
ἐμαυτὸν καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους, ἐνταῦθα δὲ φοβηθεὶς ἢ θάνατον ἣ ἄλλο
ὁτιοῦν πρᾶγμα λίποιμι τὴν τάξιν.
[661] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 17, p. 29, C.
[662] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 18, p. 30, D.
[663] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 28, p. 38, A. Ἐάν τε γὰρ λέγω, ὅτι τῷ
θεῷ ἀπειθεῖν τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ, καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἀδύνατον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν,
οὐ πείσεσθέ μοι ὡς εἰρωνευομένῳ· ἐάν τ᾽ αὖ λέγω ὅτι καὶ τυγχάνει
μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν ὂν ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦτο, ἑκάστης ἡμέρας περὶ ἀρετῆς
τοὺς λόγους ποιεῖσθαι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων, περὶ ὧν ὑμεῖς ἐμοῦ ἀκούετε
διαλεγομένου καὶ ἐμαυτὸν καὶ ἄλλους ἐξετάζοντοσ—ὁ δὲ ἀνεξεταστὸς
βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ (these last striking words are selected
by Dr. Hutcheson, as the motto for his Synopsis Philosophiæ
Moralis)—ταῦτα δὲ ἔτι ἧττον πείσεσθέ μοι λέγοντι.
I have given rather ample extracts from the Platonic Apology,
because no one can conceive fairly the character of Sokratês who
does not enter into the spirit of that impressive discourse. We see
in it plain evidence of the marked supernatural mission which he
believed himself to be executing, and which would not allow him to
rest or employ himself in other ways. The oracular answer brought
by Chærephon from Delphi, was a fact of far more importance in his
history than his so-called dæmon, about which so much more has
been said. That answer, together with the dreams and other divine
mandates concurrent to the same end, came upon him in the middle
of his life, when the intellectual man was formed, and when he
had already acquired a reputation for wisdom among those who knew
him. It supplied a stimulus which brought into the most pronounced
action a pre-existing train of generalizing dialectics and Zenonian
negation, an intellectual vein with which the religious impulse
rarely comes into confluence. Without such a motive, to which his
mind was peculiarly susceptible, his conversation would probably have
taken the same general turn, but would assuredly have been restricted
within much narrower and more cautious limits. For nothing could well
be more unpopular and obnoxious than the task which he undertook of
cross-examining, and convicting of ignorance, every distinguished
man whom he could approach. So violent, indeed, was the enmity which
he occasionally provoked, that there were instances, we are told,
in which he was struck or maltreated,[664] and very frequently
laughed to scorn. Though he acquired much admiration from auditors,
especially youthful auditors, and from a few devoted adherents, yet
the philosophical motive alone would not have sufficed to prompt him
to that systematic, and even obtrusive, cross-examination which he
adopted as the business of his life.
[664] Diogen. Laërt. ii, 21.
This, then, is the second peculiarity which distinguishes Sokratês,
in addition to his extreme publicity of life and indiscriminate
conversation. He was not simply a philosopher, but a religious
missionary doing the work of philosophy; “an elenchtic,—or
cross-examining god,—to use an expression which Plato puts into
his mouth respecting an Eleatic philosopher going about to examine
and convict the infirm in reason.”[665] Nothing of this character
belonged either to Parmenidês and Anaxagoras before him, or to
Plato and Aristotle after him. Both Pythagoras and Empedoklês did,
indeed, lay claim to supernatural communications, mingled with their
philosophical teaching. But though there be thus far a general
analogy between them and Sokratês, the modes of manifestation were so
utterly different, that no fair comparison can be instituted.
[665] Plato. Sophistês, c. 1, p. 216; the expression is applied
to the Eleatic stranger, who sustains the chief part in that
dialogue: Τάχ᾽ ἂν οὖν καὶ σοί τις οὗτος τῶν κρειττόνων συνέποιτο,
φαύλους ἡμᾶς ὄντας ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἐποψόμενος καὶ ἐλέγξων, ~θεὸς
ὤν τις ἐλεγκτικός~.
The third and most important characteristic of Sokratês—that, through
which the first and second became operative—was his intellectual
peculiarity. His influence on the speculative mind of his age was
marked and important; as to subject, as to method, and as to doctrine.
He was the first who turned his thoughts and discussions distinctly
to the subject of ethics. With the philosophers who preceded him,
the subject of examination had been Nature, or the Kosmos,[666]
as one undistinguishable whole, blending together cosmogony,
astronomy, geometry, physics, metaphysics, etc. The Ionic as well
as the Eleatic philosophers, Pythagoras as well as Empedoklês,
all set before themselves this vast and undefined problem; each
framing some system suited to his own vein of imagination;
religious, poetical, scientific, or skeptical. According to that
honorable ambition for enlarged knowledge, however, which marked
the century following 480 B.C., and of which the professional men
called sophists were at once the products and the instruments,
arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, as much as was then known, were
becoming so far detached sciences as to be taught separately to
youth. Such appears to have been the state of science when Sokratês
received his education. He received at least the ordinary amount of
instruction in all:[667] he devoted himself as a young man to the
society and lessons of the physical philosopher Archelaus,[668] the
disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he accompanied from Athens to Samos;
and there is even reason to believe that, during the earlier part
of his life, he was much devoted to what was then understood as
the general study of Nature.[669] A man of his earnest and active
intellect was likely first to manifest his curiosity as a learner:
“to run after and track the various discourses of others, like a
Laconian hound,” if I may borrow an expression applied to him by
Plato,[670] before he struck out any novelties of his own. And in
Plato’s dialogue called “Parmenidês,” Sokratês appears as a young
man full of ardor for the discussion of the Parmenidean theory,
looking up with reverence to Parmenidês and Zeno, and receiving
from them instructions in the process of dialectical investigation.
I have already, in the preceding chapter,[671] noted the tenor of
that dialogue, as illustrating the way in which Grecian philosophy
presents itself, even at the first dawn of dialectics, as at once
negative and positive, recognizing the former branch of method no
less than the latter as essential to the attainment of truth. I
construe it as an indication respecting the early mind of Sokratês,
imbibing this conviction from the ancient Parmenidês and the mature
and practised Zeno, and imposing upon himself, as a condition of
assent to any hypothesis or doctrine, the obligation of setting forth
conscientiously all that could be said against it, not less than all
that could be said in its favor: however laborious such a process
might be, and however little appreciated by the multitude.[672]
Little as we know the circumstances which went to form the remarkable
mind of Sokratês, we may infer from this dialogue that he owes in
part his powerful negative vein of dialectics to “the double-tongued
and all-objecting Zeno.”[673]
[666] Xenoph Mem. i, 1, 11. Οὐδὲ γὰρ περὶ τῆς τῶν πάντων φύσεως,
ἧπερ τῶν ἄλλων οἱ πλεῖστοι, διελέγετο, σκοπῶν ὅπως ὁ καλούμενος
ὑπὸ τῶν σοφιστῶν Κόσμος ἔχει, etc.
Plato, Phædon, c. 45, p. 96. B. ταύτης τῆς σοφίας, ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι
~περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίαν~.
[667] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 7, 3-5.
[668] Ion, Chius, Fragm. 9. ap. Didot. Fragm. Historic. Græcor.
Diogen. Laërt. ii, 16-19.
Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. vol, ii, ch. 2, p. 19) calls in
question the assertion that Sokratês received instruction from
Archelaus; in my judgment, without the least reason, since Ion
of Chios is a good contemporary witness. He even denies that
Sokratês received any instruction in philosophy at all, on the
authority of a passage in the Symposion of Xenophon, where
Sokratês is made to speak of himself as ἡμᾶς δὲ ὁρᾶς αὐτουργούς
τινας τῆς φιλοσοφίας ὄντας (1, 5). But it appears to me that
that expression implies nothing more than a sneering antithesis,
so frequent both in Plato and Xenophon, with the costly lessons
given by Protagoras, Gorgias, and Prodikus. It cannot be
understood to deny instruction given to Sokratês in the earlier
portion of his life.
[669] I think that the expression in Plato’s Phædo, c. 102, p.
96, A, applies to Sokratês himself, and not to Plato: τὰ γε ἐμὰ
πάθη, means the mental tendencies of Sokratês when a young man.
Respecting the physical studies probably sought and cultivated by
Sokratês in the earlier years of his life, see the instructive
Dissertation of Tychsen, Ueber den Prozess des Sokratês, in the
Bibliothek der Alten Literatur und Kunst; Erstes Stück, p. 43.
[670] Plato, Parmenid. p. 128, C. καίτοι ὥσπερ γε αἱ Λάκαιναι
σκύλακες, εὖ μεταθεῖς καὶ ἰχνεύεις τὰ λεχθέντα, etc.
Whether Sokratês can be properly said to have been the pupil
of Anaxagoras and Archelaus, is a question of little moment,
which hardly merited the skepticism of Bayle (Anaxagoras, note
R; Archelaus, note A: compare Schanbach, Anaxagoræ Fragmenta,
pp. 23, 27). That he would seek to acquaint himself with their
doctrines, and improve himself by communicating personally with
them, is a matter so probable, that the slenderest testimony
suffices to make us believe it. Moreover, as I have before
remarked, we have here a good contemporary witness, Ion of Chios,
to the fact of his intimacy with Archelaus. In no other sense
than this could a man like Sokratês be said to be the _pupil_ of
any one.
[671] See the chapter immediately preceding, p. 472.
[672] See the remarkable passage in Plato’s Parmenidês, p. 135 C
to 136 E, of which a portion has already been cited in my note to
the preceding chapter, referred to in the note above.
[673] Timon the Sillographer ap. Diogen. Laërt. ix, 25.
Ἀμφοτερογλώσσου δὲ μέγα σθένος οὐκ ἀλαπαδνὸν
Ζήνωνος, πάντων ἐπιλήπτορος, etc.
To a mind at all exigent on the score of proof, physical science
as handled in that day was indeed likely to appear not only
unsatisfactory, but hopeless; and Sokratês, in the maturity of his
life, deserted it altogether. The contradictory hypotheses which he
heard, with the impenetrable confusion which overhung the subject,
brought him even to the conviction, that the gods intended the
machinery by which they brought about astronomical and physical
results to remain unknown, and that it was impious, as well as
useless, to pry into their secrets.[674] His master Archelaus, though
mainly occupied with physics, also speculated more or less concerning
moral subjects; concerning justice and injustice, the laws, etc.;
and is said to have maintained the tenet, that justice and injustice
were determined by law or convention, not by nature. From him,
perhaps, Sokratês may have been partly led to turn his mind in this
direction. But to a man disappointed with physics, and having in
his bosom a dialectical impulse powerful, unemployed, and restless,
the mere realities of Athenian life, even without Archelaus, would
suggest human relations, duties, action and suffering, as the most
interesting materials for contemplation and discourse. Sokratês
could not go into the public assembly, the dikastery, or even the
theatre, without hearing discussions about what was just or unjust,
honorable or base, expedient or hurtful, etc., nor without having his
mind conducted to the inquiry, what was the meaning of these large
words which opposing disputants often invoked with equal reverential
confidence. Along with the dialectic and generalizing power of
Sokratês, which formed his bond of connection with such minds as
Plato, there was at the same time a vigorous practicality, a large
stock of positive Athenian experience, with which Xenophon chiefly
sympathized, and which he has brought out in his “Memorabilia.” Of
these two intellectual tendencies, combined with a strong religious
sentiment, the character of Sokratês is composed; and all of them
were gratified at once, when he devoted himself to admonitory
interrogation on the rules and purposes of human life; from which
there was the less to divert him, as he had neither talents nor taste
for public speaking.
[674] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 6. Ὅλως δὲ τῶν οὐρανίων, ᾗ ἕκαστα ὁ
θεὸς μηχανᾶται, φροντιστὴν γίγνεσθαι ἀπέτρεπεν· οὔτε γὰρ εὑρετὰ
ἀνθρώποις αὐτὰ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι, οὔτε χαρίζεσθαι θεοῖς ἂν ἡγεῖτο
τὸν ζητοῦντα, ἃ ἐκεῖνοι σαφηνίσαι οὐκ ἐβουλήθησαν. Κινδυνεῦσαι
δ᾽ ἂν ἔφη καὶ παραφρονῆσαι τὸν ταῦτα μεριμνῶντα, οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ
Ἀναξαγόρας παρεφρόνησεν, ὁ τὰ μέγιστα φρονήσας ~ἐπὶ τῷ τὰς τῶν
θεῶν μηχανὰς ἐξηγεῖσθαι~.
That “the proper study of mankind is man,”[675] Sokratês was the
first to proclaim: he recognized the security and happiness of man
both as the single end of study, and as the limiting principle
whereby it ought to be circumscribed. In the present state to which
science has attained, nothing is more curious than to look back at
the rules which this eminent man laid down. Astronomy—now exhibiting
the maximum of perfection, with the largest and most exact power of
predicting future phenomena which human science has ever attained—was
pronounced by him to be among the divine mysteries which it was
impossible to understand, and madness to investigate, as Anaxagoras
had foolishly pretended to do. He admitted, indeed, that there was
advantage in knowing enough of the movements of the heavenly bodies
to serve as an index to the change of seasons, and as guides for
voyages, journeys by land, or night-watches: but thus much, he said,
might easily be obtained from pilots and watchmen, while all beyond
was nothing but waste of valuable time, exhausting that mental effort
which ought to be employed in profitable acquisitions. He reduced
geometry to its literal meaning of land-measuring, necessary so far
as to enable any one to proceed correctly in the purchase, sale, or
division of land, which any man of common attention might do almost
without a teacher; but silly and worthless, if carried beyond, to the
study of complicated diagrams.[676] Respecting arithmetic, he gave
the same qualified permission of study; but as to general physics,
or the study of Nature, he discarded it altogether: “Do these
inquirers (he asked) think that they already know _human affairs_
well enough, that they thus begin to meddle with _divine_? Do they
think that they shall be able to excite or calm the winds and the
rain at pleasure, or have they no other view than to gratify an
idle curiosity? Surely, they must see that such matters are beyond
human investigation. Let them only recollect how much the greatest
men, who have attempted the investigation, differ in their pretended
results, holding opinions extreme and opposite to each other, like
those of madmen!” Such was the view which Sokratês took of physical
science and its prospects.[677] It is the very same skepticism in
substance, and carried farther in degree, though here invested with a
religious coloring, for which Ritter and others so severely denounce
Gorgias. But looking at matters as they stood in 440-430 B.C., it
ought not to be accounted even surprising, much less blamable. To an
acute man of that day, physical science as then studied may well be
conceived to have promised no result; and even to have seemed worse
than barren, if, like Sokratês, he had an acute perception how much
of human happiness was forfeited by immorality, and by corrigible
ignorance; how much might be gained by devoting the same amount of
earnest study to this latter object. Nor ought we to omit remarking,
that the objection of Sokratês: “You may judge how unprofitable are
these studies, by observing how widely the students differ among
themselves,” remains in high favor down to the present day, and may
constantly be seen employed against theoretical men, or theoretical
arguments, in every department.
[675] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 16. Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ ~τῶν ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ
διελέγετο~, etc. Compare the whole of this chapter.
[676] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 5.
[677] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 12-15. Plato entertained much larger
views on the subject of physical and astronomical studies than
either Sokratês or Xenophon: see Plato, Phædrus, c. 120, p. 270,
A; and Republic, vii, c. 6-11, p. 522, _seq._
His treatise De Legibus, however, written in his old age, falls
below this tone.
Sokratês desired to confine the studies of his hearers to _human_
matters as distinguished from _divine_, the latter comprehending
astronomy and physics. He looked at all knowledge from the point of
view of human practice, which had been assigned by the gods to man
as his proper subject for study and learning, and with reference
to which, therefore, they managed all the current phenomena upon
principles of constant and intelligible sequence, so that every
one who chose to learn, might learn, while those who took no such
pains suffered for their neglect. Even in these, however, the most
careful study was not by itself completely sufficient; for the
gods did not condescend to submit _all_ the phenomena to constant
antecedence and consequence, but reserved to themselves the capital
turns and junctures for special sentence.[678] Yet here again, if
a man had been diligent in learning all that the gods permitted
to be learned; and if, besides, he was assiduous in pious court to
them, and in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they
would be gracious to him, and signify beforehand how they intended
to act in putting the final hand and in settling the undecipherable
portions of the problem.[679] The kindness of the gods in replying
through their oracles, or sending information by sacrificial signs
or prodigies, in cases of grave difficulty, was, in the view of
Sokratês, one of the most signal evidences of their care for the
human race.[680] To seek access to these prophecies, or indications
of special divine intervention to come, was the proper supplementary
business of any one who had done as much for himself as could be done
by patient study.[681] But as it was madness in a man to solicit
special information from the gods on matters which they allowed him
to learn by his own diligence, so it was not less madness in him to
investigate as a learner that which they chose to keep back for their
own specialty of will.[682]
[678] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 7. Καὶ τοὺς μέλλοντας οἴκους τε καὶ
πόλεις καλῶς οἰκήσειν, μαντικῆς ἔφη ~προσδεῖσθαι~. Τεκτονικὸν
μὲν γὰρ, ἢ χαλκευτικὸν, ἢ γεωργικὸν, ἢ ἀνθρώπων ἀρχικὸν, ἢ τῶν
τοιούτων ἔργων ἐξεταστικὸν, ἢ λογιστικὸν, ἢ οἰκονομικὸν, ἢ
στρατηγικὸν γενέσθαι—~πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα μαθήματα καὶ ἀνθρώπου
γνώμῃ αἱρετέα~ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι. Τὰ δὲ ~μέγιστα~ τῶν ἐν τούτοις
ἔφη τοὺς ~θεοὺς ἑαυτοῖς καταλείπεσθαι, ὧν οὐδὲν δῆλον εἶναι τοῖς
ἀνθρώποις~, etc.
[679] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 9-19. Ἔφη δὲ δεῖν, ἃ μὲν μαθόντας ποιεῖν
ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοὶ, μανθάνειν· ἃ δὲ μὴ δῆλα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐστὶ,
πειρᾶσθαι διὰ μαντικῆς παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πυνθάνεσθαι· τοὺς γὰρ θεοὺς,
οἷς ἂν ἵλεῳ ὦσι, σημαίνειν.
[680] Xenoph. Mem. i, 4, 15; iv, 3, 12. When Xenophon was
deliberating whether he should take military service under Cyrus
the younger, he consulted Sokratês, who advised him to go to
Delphi and submit the case to the oracle (Xen. Anabas. iii, 1, 5).
[681] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 10.
[682] Xenoph. Mem. 1, 9; iv, 7, 6.
Such was the capital innovation made by Sokratês in regard to the
subject of Athenian study, bringing down philosophy, to use the
expression of Cicero,[683] from the heavens to the earth; and such
his attempt to draw the line between that which was, and was not,
scientifically discoverable; an attempt remarkable, inasmuch as it
shows his conviction that the scientific and the religious point
of view mutually excluded one another, so that where the latter
began, the former ended. It was an innovation, inestimable, in
respect to the new matter which it let in; of little import, as
regards that which it professed to exclude. For in point of fact,
physical science, though partially discouraged, was never absolutely
excluded, through any prevalence of that systematic disapproval which
he, in common with the multitude of his day, entertained: if it
became comparatively neglected, this arose rather from the greater
popularity, and the more abundant and accessible matter, of that
which he introduced. Physical or astronomical science was narrow in
amount, known only to few, and even with those few it did not admit
of being expanded, enlivened, or turned to much profitable account in
discussion. But the moral and political phenomena on which Sokratês
turned the light of speculation were abundant, varied, familiar, and
interesting to every one; comprising—to translate a Greek line which
he was fond of quoting—“all the good and evil which has befallen you
in your home;”[684] connected too, not merely with the realities of
the present, but also with the literature of the past, through the
gnomic and other poets.
[683] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 4, 10.
[684] Ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακὸν τ᾽ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.
The motives which determined this important innovation, as to the
subject of study, exhibits Sokratês chiefly as a religious man and
a practical, philanthropic preceptor, the Xenophontic hero. His
innovations, not less important, as to method and doctrine, place
before us the philosopher and dialectician; the other side of his
character, or the Platonic hero; faintly traced, indeed, yet still
recognized and identified by Xenophon.
“Sokratês,” says the latter,[685] “continued incessantly discussing
_human_ affairs (the sense of this word will be understood by what
has been said above, page 420); investigating: What is piety? What
is impiety? What is the honorable and the base? What is the just and
the unjust? What is temperance or unsound mind? What is courage or
cowardice? What is a city? What is the character fit for a citizen?
What is authority over men? What is the character befitting the
exercise of such authority? and other similar questions. Men who knew
these matters he accounted good and honorable; men who were ignorant
of them he assimilated to slaves.”
[685] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 16.
Sokratês, says Xenophon again, in another passage, considered that
the _dialectic process_ consisted in coming together and taking
common counsel, to distinguish and distribute things into genera,
or families, so as to learn what each separate thing really was. To
go through this process carefully was indispensable, as the only
way of enabling a man to regulate his own conduct, aiming at good
objects and avoiding bad. To be so practised as to be able to do it
readily, was essential to make a man a good leader or adviser of
others. Every man who had gone through the process, and come to know
what each thing was, could also of course define it and explain it to
others; but if he did not know, it was no wonder that he went wrong
himself, and put others wrong besides.[686] Moreover, Aristotle says:
“To Sokratês we may unquestionably assign two novelties; inductive
discourses, and the definitions of general terms.”[687]
[686] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 5, 11, 12. Ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἐγκρατέσι μόνοις
ἔξεστι σκοπεῖν τὰ κράτιστα τῶν πραγμάτων, καὶ ~λόγῳ καὶ ἔργῳ
διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη~, τὰ μὲν ἀγαθὰ προαιρεῖσθαι, τῶν δὲ κακῶν
ἀπέχεσθαι. Καὶ οὕτως ἔφη ἀρίστους τε καὶ εὐδαιμονεστάτους ἄνδρας
γίγνεσθαι, καὶ ~διαλέγεσθαι~ δυνατωτάτους. Ἔφη δὲ καὶ ~τὸ
διαλέγεσθαι~ ὀνομασθῆναι, ἐκ ~τοῦ συνιόντας κοινῇ βουλεύεσθαι
διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα~· δεῖν οὖν πειρᾶσθαι ὅτι
μάλιστα πρὸς τοῦτο ἕτοιμον ἑαυτὸν παρασκευάζειν, καὶ τούτου
μάλιστα ἐπιμελεῖσθαι· ἐκ τούτου γὰρ γίγνεσθαι ἄνδρας ἀρίστους τε
καὶ ἡγεμονικωτάτους καὶ διαλεκτικωτάτους.
Surely, the etymology here given by Xenophon or Sokratês, of the
word διαλέγεσθαι, cannot be considered as satisfactory.
Again, iv, 6, 1. Σωκράτης δὲ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν
ὄντων, ἐνόμιζε καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἂν ἐξηγεῖσθαι δύνασθαι· τοὺς δὲ
μὴ εἰδότας, οὐδὲν ἔφη θαυμαστὸν εἶναι, αὐτοὺς τε σφάλλεσθαι καὶ
ἄλλους σφάλλειν. Ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσι, τί ἕκαστον εἴη
τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτ᾽ ἔληγε. Πάντα μὲν οὖν, ᾗ ~διωρίζετο~, πολὺ
ἂν ἔργον εἴη διεξελθεῖν· ἐν ὅσοις δὲ τὸν τρόπον τῆς ἐπισκέψεως
δηλώσειν οἶμαι, τοσαῦτα λέξω.
[687] Aristot. Metaphys. i, 6, 3, p. 987, b. Σωκράτους δὲ περὶ
μὲν τὰ ἠθικὰ πραγματευομένου, περὶ δὲ τῆς ὅλης φύσεως οὐδὲν—ἐν
μέντοι τούτοις τὸ καθόλου ζητοῦντος καὶ περὶ ὁρισμῶν ἐπιστήσαντος
πρώτου τὴν διάνοιαν, etc. Again, xiii, 4, 6-8, p. 1078, b. Δύο
γάρ ἐστιν ἅ τις ἂν ἀποδοίη Σωκράτει δικαίως, ~τοὺς τ᾽ ἐπακτικοὺς
λόγους~ καὶ ~τὸ ὁρίζεσθαι καθόλου~: compare xiii, 9, 35, p. 1086,
b; Cicero, Topic. x, 42.
These two attributes, of the discussions carried on by Sokratês,
explain the epithet attached to him by Timon the Sillographer,
that he was the leader and originator of the _accurate talkers_:—
Ἐκ δ᾽ ἄρα τῶν ἀπέκλινεν ὁ λιθοξόος, ἐννομολέσχης,
Ἑλλήνων ἐπαοιδὸς ~ἀκριβολόγους ἀποφῄνας~,
Μυκτὴρ, ῥητορόμυκτος, ὑπαττικὸς εἰρωνεύτης.
(ap. Diog. Laërt. ii, 19.)
To a large proportion of hearers of that time, as of other times,
_accurate thinking and talking_ appeared petty and in bad taste:
ἡ ἀκριβολογία μικροπρεπές (Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. iv, 4, p.
1122, b; also Aristot. Metaphys. ii, 3, p. 995, a). Even Plato
thinks himself obliged to make a sort of apology for it (Theætet.
c. 102, p. 184, C). No doubt Timon used the word ἀκριβολόγους in
a sneering sense.
I borrow here intentionally from Xenophon in preference to Plato;
since the former, tamely describing a process which he imperfectly
appreciated, identifies it so much the more completely with the real
Sokratês, and is thus a better witness than Plato, whose genius
not only conceived but greatly enlarged it, for didactic purposes
of his own. In our present state of knowledge, some mental effort
is required to see anything important in the words of Xenophon; so
familiar has every student been rendered with the ordinary terms and
gradations of logic and classification,—such as genus, definition,
individual things as comprehended in a genus; what each thing is,
and to what genus it belongs, etc. But familiar as these words have
now become, they denote a mental process, of which, in 440-430 B.C.,
few men besides Sokratês had any conscious perception. Of course,
men conceived and described things in classes, as is implied in the
very form of language, and in the habitual junction of predicates
with subjects in common speech. They explained their meaning clearly
and forcibly in particular cases: they laid down maxims, argued
questions, stated premises, and drew conclusions, on trials in the
dikastery, or debates in the assembly: they had an abundant poetical
literature, which appealed to every variety of emotion: they were
beginning to compile historical narrative, intermixed with reflection
and criticism. But though all this was done, and often admirably well
done, it was wanting in that analytical consciousness which would
have enabled any one to describe, explain, or vindicate what he was
doing. The ideas of men—speakers as well as hearers, the productive
minds as well as the recipient multitude—were associated together
in groups favorable rather to emotional results, or to poetical,
rhetorical narrative and descriptive effect, than to methodical
generalization, to scientific conception, or to proof either
inductive or deductive. That reflex act of attention which enables
men to understand, compare, and rectify their own mental process,
was only just beginning. It was a recent novelty on the part of the
rhetorical teachers, to analyze the component parts of a public
harangue, and to propound some precepts for making men tolerable
speakers. Protagoras was just setting forth various grammatical
distinctions, while Prodikus discriminated the significations of
words nearly equivalent and liable to be confounded. All these
proceedings appeared then so new[688] as to incur the ridicule even
of Plato: yet they were branches of that same analytical tendency
which Sokratês now carried into scientific inquiry. It may be doubted
whether any one before him ever used the words genus and species,
originally meaning family and form, in the philosophical sense now
exclusively appropriated to them. Not one of those many names—called
by logicians _names of the second intention_—which imply distinct
attention to various parts of the logical process, and enable us
to consider and criticize it in detail, then existed. All of them
grew out of the schools of Plato, Aristotle, and the subsequent
philosophers, so that we can thus trace them in their beginning to
the common root and father, Sokratês.
[688] How slowly grammatical analysis proceeded among the Greeks,
and how long it was before they got at what are now elementary
ideas in every instructed man’s mind, may be seen in Gräfenhahn,
Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie im Alterthum, sects. 89-92,
etc. On this point, these sophists seem to have been decidedly in
advance of their age.
To comprehend the full value of the improvements struck out by
Sokratês, we have only to examine the intellectual paths pursued
by his predecessors or contemporaries. He set to himself distinct
and specific problems: “What is justice? What is piety, courage,
political government? What is it which is really denoted by such
great and important names, bearing upon the conduct or happiness of
man?” Now it has been already remarked that Anaxagoras, Empedoklês,
Demokritus, the Pythagoreans, all had still present to their minds
those vast and undivided problems which had been transmitted
down from the old poets; bending their minds to the invention of
some system which would explain them all at once, or assist the
imagination in conceiving both how the Kosmos first began, and how it
continued to move on.[689] Ethics and physics, man and nature, were
all blended together; and the Pythagoreans, who explained all nature
by numbers and numerical relations, applied the same explanation
to moral attributes, considering justice to be symbolized by a
perfect equation, or by four, the first of all square numbers.[690]
These early philosophers endeavored to find out the beginnings, the
component elements, the moving cause or causes, of things in the
mass;[691] but the logical distribution into genus, species, and
individuals, does not seem to have suggested itself to them, or to
have been made a subject of distinct attention by any one before
Sokratês. To study ethics, or human dispositions and ends, apart from
the physical world, and according to a theory of their own, referring
to human good and happiness as the sovereign and comprehensive
end;[692] to treat each of the great and familiar words designating
moral attributes, as logical aggregates comprehending many judgments
in particular cases, and connoting a certain harmony or consistency
of purpose among the separate judgments, to bring many of these
latter into comparison, by a scrutinizing dialectical process, so as
to test the consistency and completeness of the logical aggregate or
general notion, as it stood in every man’s mind: all these were parts
of the same forward movement which Sokratês originated.
[689] This same tendency, to break off from the vague aggregate
then conceived as physics, is discernible in the Hippokratic
treatises, and even in the treatise De Antiquâ Medicinâ, which
M. Littré places first in his edition, and considers to be
the production of Hippokratês himself, in which case it would
be contemporary with Sokratês. On this subject of authorship,
however, other critics do not agree with him: see the question
examined in his vol. i, ch. xii, p. 295, _seq._
Hippokratês, if he be the author, begins by deprecating the
attempt to connect the study of medicine with physical or
astronomical hypothesis (c. 2), and he farther protests against
the procedure of various medical writers and sophists, or
philosophers, such as Empedoklês, who set themselves to make out
“what man was from the beginning, how he began first to exist,
and in what manner he was constructed,” (c. 20). This does not
belong, he says, to medicine, which ought indeed to be studied as
a comprehensive whole, but as a whole determined by and bearing
reference to its own end: “You ought to study the nature of man;
what he is with reference to that which he eats and drinks, and
to all his other occupations or habits, and to the consequences
resulting from each:” ὅ,τί ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος πρὸς τὰ ἐσθιόμενα
καὶ πινόμενα, καὶ ὅ,τι πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ὅ,τι ἀφ᾽
ἑκάστου ἑκάστῳ συμβήσεται.
The spirit, in which Hippokratês here approaches the study of
medicine, is exceedingly analogous to that which dictated the
innovation of Sokratês in respect to the study of ethics. The
same character pervades the treatise, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, a
definite and predetermined field of inquiry, and the Hippokratic
treatises generally.
[690] Aristotel. Metaphys. i, 5, p. 985, 986. τὸ μὲν τοιόνδε τῶν
ἀριθμῶν πάθος δικαιοσύνη, τὸ δὲ τοιόνδε ψυχή καὶ νοῦς, ἕτερον
δὲ καιρὸς, etc. Ethica Magna, i. 1. ἡ δικαιοσύνη ἀριθμὸς ἰσάκις
ἴσος: see Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philos. lxxxii, lxxxiii,
p. 492.
[691] Aristotel. Metaphys. iii, 3, p. 998, A. Οἷον Ἐμπεδοκλῆς πῦρ
καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ τὰ μετὰ τούτων, ~στοιχεῖά~ φησιν εἶναι ἐξ ὧν ἐστὶ τὰ
ὄντα ἐνυπαρχόντων, ~ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὡς γένη~ λέγει ταῦτα τῶν ὄντων. That
generic division and subdivision was unknown or unpractised by
these early men, is noticed by Plato (Sophist. c. 114, p. 267, D).
Aristotle thinks that the Pythagoreans had some faint and obscure
notion of the logical genus, περὶ τοῦ ~τί ἐστιν~ ἤρξαντο μὲν
λέγειν καὶ ὁρίζεσθαι, λίαν δὲ ἁπλῶς ἐπραγματεύθησαν (Metaphys.
i, 5, 29, p. 986, B). But we see by comparing two other passages
in that treatise (xiii, 4, 6, p. 1078, b, with i, 5, 2, p. 985,
b) that the Pythagorean definitions of καιρὸς, τὸ δίκαιον, etc.,
were nothing more than certain numerical fancies; so that these
words cannot fairly be said to have designated, in their view,
logical _genera_. Nor can the ten Pythagorean συστοιχίαι, or
parallel series of contraries, be called by that name; arranged
in order to gratify a fancy about the perfection of the number
ten, which fancy afterwards seems to have passed to Aristotle
himself, when drawing up his ten predicaments.
See a valuable Excursus upon the Aristotelian expressions τί
ἐστι—τί ἦν εἶναι, etc., appended to Schwegler’s edition of
Aristotle’s Metaphysica, vol. ii, p. 369, p. 378.
About the few and imperfect definitions which Aristotle seems
also to ascribe to Demokritus, see Trendeleuburg, Comment. ad
Aristot. De Animâ, p. 212.
[692] Aristotle remarks about the Pythagoreans, that they
referred the virtues to number and numerical relations, not
giving to them a theory of their own: τὰς γὰρ ἀρετὰς εἰς τοὺς
ἀριθμοὺς ἀνάγων ~οὐκ οἰκείαν τῶν ἀρετῶν τὴν θεωρίαν~ ἐποιεῖτο
(Ethic. Magn. i, 1).
It was at that time a great progress to break down the unwieldy
mass conceived by former philosophers as science; and to study
ethics apart, with a reference, more or less distinct, to their
own appropriate end. Nay, we see, if we may trust the “Phædon” of
Plato,[693] that Sokratês, before he resolved on such pronounced
severance, had tried to construct, or had at least yearned after,
an undivided and reformed system, including physics also under the
ethical end; a scheme of optimistic physics, applying the general
idea, “_What was best_,” as the commanding principle, from whence
physical explanations were to be deduced; which he hoped to find,
but did not find, in Anaxagoras. But it was a still greater advance
to seize, and push out in conscious application, the essential
features of that logical process, upon the correct performance of
which all our security for general truth depends. The notions of
genus, subordinate genera, and individuals as comprehended under
them,—we need not here notice the points on which Plato and Aristotle
differed from each other and from the modern conceptions on that
subject,—were at that time newly brought into clear consciousness
in the human mind. The profusion of logical distribution employed
in some of the dialogues of Plato, such as the Sophistês and the
Politicus, seems partly traceable to his wish to familiarize hearers
with that which was then a novelty, as well as to enlarge its
development, and diversify its mode of application. He takes numerous
indirect opportunities of bringing it out into broad light, by
putting into the mouths of his dialogists answers implying complete
inattention to it, exposed afterwards in the course of the dialogue
by Sokratês.[694] What was now begun by Sokratês, and improved by
Plato, was embodied as part in a comprehensive system of formal
logic by the genius of Aristotle; a system which was not only of
extraordinary value in reference to the processes and controversies
of its time, but which also, having become insensibly worked into the
minds of instructed men, has contributed much to form what is correct
in the habits of modern thinking. Though it has been now enlarged
and recast, by some modern authors—especially by Mr. John Stuart
Mill, in his admirable System of Logic—into a structure commensurate
with the vast increase of knowledge and extension of positive method
belonging to the present day, we must recollect that the distance,
between the best modern logic and that of Aristotle, is hardly so
great as that between Aristotle and those who preceded him by a
century, Empedoklês, Anaxagoras, and the Pythagoreans; and that the
movement in advance of these latter commences with Sokratês.
[693] Plato, Phædon, c. 102, seq., pp. 96, 97.
[694] As one specimen among many, see Plato, Theætet. c. 11,
p. 146, D. It is maintained by Brandis, and in part by C.
Heyder (see Heyder, Kritische Darstellung und Vergleichung
der Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik, part i, pp. 85,
129), that the logical process, called division, is not to
be considered as having been employed by Sokratês along with
definition, but begins with Plato: in proof of which they
remark that, in the two Platonic dialogues called Sophistês and
Politicus, wherein this process is most abundantly employed,
Sokratês is not the conductor of the conversation.
Little stress is to be laid on this circumstance, I think; and
the terms in which Xenophon describes the method of Sokratês
(διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα, Mem. iv, 5, 12) seem to
imply the one process as well as the other: indeed, it was
scarcely possible to keep them apart, with so abundant a talker
as Sokratês. Plato doubtless both enlarged and systematized the
method in every way, and especially made greater use of the
process of division, because he pushed the dialogue further into
positive scientific research than Sokratês.
By Xenophon, by Plato, and by Aristotle, the growth as well as the
habitual use of logical classification is represented as concurrent
with and dependent upon dialectics. In this methodized discussion, so
much in harmony with the marked sociability of the Greek character,
the quick recurrence of short question and answer was needful as
a stimulus to the attention, at a time when the habit of close
and accurate reflection on abstract subjects had been so little
cultivated. But the dialectics of Sokratês had far greater and more
important peculiarities than this. We must always consider his method
in conjunction with the subjects to which he applied it. As those
subjects were not recondite or special, but bore on the practical
life of the house, the market-place, the city, the dikastery, the
gymnasium, or the temple, with which every one was familiar, so
Sokratês never presented himself as a teacher, nor as a man having
new knowledge to communicate. On the contrary, he disclaimed such
pretensions, uniformly and even ostentatiously. But the subjects on
which he talked were just those which every one professed to know
perfectly and thoroughly, and on which every one believed himself in
a condition to instruct others, rather than to require instruction
for himself. On such questions as these: What is justice? What is
piety? What is a democracy? What is a law? every man fancied that
he could give a confident opinion, and even wondered that any other
person should feel a difficulty. When Sokratês, professing ignorance,
put any such question, he found no difficulty in obtaining an
answer, given off-hand, and with very little reflection. The answer
purported to be the explanation or definition of a term—familiar,
indeed, but of wide and comprehensive import—given by one who had
never before tried to render to himself an account of what it meant.
Having got this answer, Sokratês put fresh questions, applying it
to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give
answers inconsistent with the first; thus showing that the definition
was either too narrow, or too wide, or defective in some essential
condition. The respondent then amended his answer; but this was a
prelude to other questions, which could only be answered in ways
inconsistent with the amendment; and the respondent, after many
attempts to disentangle himself, was obliged to plead guilty to the
inconsistencies, with an admission that he could make no satisfactory
answer to the original query, which had at first appeared so easy and
familiar. Or, if he did not himself admit this, the hearers at least
felt it forcibly. The dialogue, as given to us, commonly ends with a
result purely negative, proving that the respondent was incompetent
to answer the question proposed to him, in a manner consistent and
satisfactory even to himself. Sokratês, as he professed from the
beginning to have no positive theory to support, so he maintains to
the end the same air of a learner, who would be glad to solve the
difficulty if he could, but regrets to find himself disappointed of
that instruction which the respondent had promised.