We see by this description of the cross-examining path of this

remarkable man, how intimate was the bond of connection between the

dialectic method and the logical distribution of particulars into

species and genera. The discussion first raised by Sokratês turns

upon the meaning of some large generic term, the queries whereby he

follows it up, bring the answer given into collision with various

particulars which it ought not to comprehend, yet does; or with

others, which it ought to comprehend, but does not. It is in this

manner that the latent and undefined cluster of association, which

has grown up round a familiar term, is as it were penetrated by a

fermenting leaven, forcing it to expand into discernible portions,

and bringing the appropriate function which the term ought to fulfil,

to become a subject of distinct consciousness. The inconsistencies

into which the hearer is betrayed in his various answers, proclaim

to him the fact that he has not yet acquired anything like a clear

and full conception of the common attribute which binds together the

various particulars embraced under some term which is ever upon his

lips; or perhaps enable him to detect a different fact, not less

important, that there is no such common attribute, and that the

generalization is merely nominal and fallacious. In either case,

he is put upon the train of thought which leads to a correction

of the generalization, and lights him on to that which Plato[695]

calls, seeing the one in the many, and the many in the one. Without

any predecessor to copy, Sokratês, fell as it were instinctively

into that which Aristotle[696] describes as the double track of the

dialectic process; breaking up the one into many, and recombining

the many into one; the former duty, at once the first and the most

essential, Sokratês performed directly by his analytical string of

questions; the latter, or synthetical process, was one which he did

not often directly undertake, but strove so to arm and stimulate

the hearer’s mind, as to enable him to do it for himself. This

one and many denote the logical distribution of a multifarious

subject-matter under generic terms, with clear understanding of the

attributes implied or connoted by each term, so as to discriminate

those particulars to which it really applies. At a moment when such

logical distribution was as yet novel as a subject of consciousness,

it could hardly have been probed and laid out in the mind by any less

stringent process than the cross-examining dialectics of Sokratês,

applied to the analysis of some attempts at definition hastily given

by respondents; that “inductive discourse and search for (clear

general notions or) definitions of general terms,” which Aristotle so

justly points out as his peculiar innovation.

[695] Plato, Phædrus, c. 109, p. 265, D; Sophistês, c. 83, p.

253, E.

[696] Aristot. Topic. viii, 14, p. 164, b. 2. Ἐστὶ μὲν γὰρ ὡς

ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν διαλεκτικὸς, ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνταστικός. Ἐστὶ δὲ τὸ

μὲν προτείνεισθαι, ~ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω~ (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλως ληφθῆναι

πρὸς ὃ ὁ λόγος) τὸ δ᾽ ἐνίστασθαι, ~τὸ ἓν πολλά~· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ ἢ

ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν διδοὺς, το δ᾽ οὐ, τῶν προτεινομένων.

It was from Sokratês that dialectic skill derived its great

extension and development (Aristot. Metaphys. xiii, 4, p. 1078,

b).

I have already adverted to the persuasion of religious mission under

which Sokratês acted in pursuing this system of conversation and

interrogation. He probably began it in a tentative way,[697] upon

a modest scale, and under the pressure of logical embarrassment

weighing on his own mind. But as he proceeded, and found himself

successful, as well as acquiring reputation among a certain circle

of friends, his earnest soul became more and more penetrated with

devotion to that which he regarded as a duty. It was at this time

probably, that his friend Chærephon came back with the oracular

answer from Delphi, noticed a few pages above, to which Sokratês

himself alludes as having prompted him to extend the range of his

conversation, and to question a class of persons whom he had not

before ventured to approach, the noted politicians, poets, and

artisans. He found them more confident than humbler individuals in

their own wisdom, but quite as unable to reply to his queries without

being driven to contradictory answers.

[697] What Plato makes Sokratês say in the Euthyphron, c. 12, p.

11, D, Ἄκων εἰμὶ σοφός, etc., may be accounted as true at least

in the beginning of the active career of Sokratês; compare the

Hippias Minor, c. 18, p. 376, B; Lachês, c. 33, p. 200, E.

Such scrutiny of the noted men in Athens is made to stand prominent

in the “Platonic Apology,” because it was the principal cause of that

unpopularity which Sokratês at once laments and accounts for before

the dikasts. Nor can we doubt that it was the most impressive portion

of his proceedings, in the eyes both of enemies and admirers, as well

as the most flattering to his own natural temper. Nevertheless, it

would be a mistake to present this part of the general purpose of

Sokratês—or of his divine mission, if we adopt his own language—as

if it were the whole; and to describe him as one standing forward

merely to unmask select leading men, politicians, sophists, poets,

or others, who had acquired unmerited reputation, and were puffed up

with foolish conceit of their own abilities, being in reality shallow

and incompetent. Such an idea of Sokratês is at once inadequate

and erroneous. His conversation, as I have before remarked, was

absolutely universal and indiscriminate; while the mental defect

which he strove to rectify was one not at all peculiar to leading

men, but common to them with the mass of mankind, though seeming

to be exaggerated in them, partly because more is expected from

them, partly because the general feeling of self-estimation stands

at a higher level, naturally and reasonably, in their bosoms, than

in those of ordinary persons. That defect was, the “seeming and

conceit of knowledge without the reality,” on human life with its

duties, purposes, and conditions; the knowledge of which Sokratês

called emphatically “human wisdom,” and regarded as essential to the

dignity of a freeman; while he treated other branches of science

as above the level of man,[698] and as a stretch of curiosity, not

merely superfluous, but reprehensible. His warfare against such false

persuasion of knowledge, in one man as well as another, upon those

subjects—for with him, I repeat, we must never disconnect the method

from the subjects—clearly marked even in Xenophon, is abundantly

and strikingly illustrated by the fertile genius of Plato, and

constituted the true missionary scheme which pervaded the last half

of his long life; a scheme far more comprehensive, as well as more

generous, than those anti-sophistic polemics which are assigned to

him by so many authors as his prominent object.[699]

[698] Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 12-16. Πότερόν ποτε νομίσαντες ἱκανῶς

ἤδη τἀνθρώπεια εἰδέναι ἔρχονται (the physical philosophers) ἐπὶ

τὸ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων φροντίζειν· ἢ τὰ μὲν ἀνθρώπεια παρέντες,

τὰ δὲ δαιμόνια σκοποῦντες, ἡγοῦνται τὰ προσήκοντα πράττειν....

Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ~ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ διελέγετο~ σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβὲς,

τί ἀσεβὲς καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ἃ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας ἡγεῖτο καλοὺς

κἀγαθοὺς εἶναι, τοὺς δὲ ~ἀγνοοῦντας ἀνδραποδώδεις~ ἂν δικαίως

κεκλῆσθαι.

Plato, Apolog. Sok. c. 5, p. 20, D. ἥπερ ἐστὶν ἴσως ἀνθρωπίνη

σοφία· τῷ ὄντι γὰρ κινδυνεύω ταύτην εἶναι σοφός· οὗτοι δὲ τάχ᾽

ἄν, οὓς ἄρτι ἔλεγον, μείζω τινὰ ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον σοφίαν σοφοὶ

εἶεν, etc. Compare c. 9, p. 23, A.

[699] It is this narrow purpose that Plutarch ascribes to

Sokratês, Quæstiones Platonicæ, p. 999, E; compare also

Tennemann, Geschicht. der Philos. part ii, art. i, vol. ii, p. 81.

Amidst the customary outpouring of groundless censure against

the sophists, which Tennemann here gives, one assertion is

remarkable. He tells us that it was the more easy for Sokratês to

put down the sophists, since their shallowness and worthlessness,

after a short period of vogue, had already been detected by

intelligent men, and was becoming discredited.

It is strange to find such an assertion made, for a period

between 420-399 B.C., the era when Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias,

etc., reached the maximum of celebrity.

And what are we to say about the statement, that Sokratês put

down the sophists, when we recollect that the Megaric school and

Antisthenês, both emanating from Sokratês, are more frequently

attacked than any one else in the dialogues of Plato, as having

all those skeptical and disputatious propensities with which the

sophists are reproached?

In pursuing the thread of his examination, there was no topic

upon which Sokratês more frequently insisted, than the contrast

between the state of men’s knowledge on the general topics of man

and society, and that which artists or professional men possessed

in their respective special crafts. So perpetually did he reproduce

this comparison, that his enemies accused him of wearing it

threadbare.[700] Take a man of special vocation—a carpenter, a

brazier, a pilot, a musician, a surgeon—and examine him on the state

of his professional knowledge, you will find him able to indicate the

persons from whom and the steps by which he first acquired it: he

can describe to you his general aim, with the particular means which

he employs to realize the aim, as well as the reason why such means

must be employed and why precautions must be taken to combat such and

such particular obstructions: he can teach his profession to others:

in matters relating to his profession, he counts as an authority, so

that no extra-professional person thinks of contesting the decision

of a surgeon in case of disease, or of a pilot at sea. But while such

is the fact in regard to every special art, how great is the contrast

in reference to the art of righteous, social, and useful living,

which forms, or ought to form, the common business alike important to

each and to all! On this subject, Sokratês[701] remarked that every

one felt perfectly well-informed, and confident in his own knowledge;

yet no one knew from whom, or by what steps, he had learned: no one

had ever devoted any special reflection either to ends, or means, or

obstructions: no one could explain or give a consistent account of

the notions in his own mind, when pertinent questions were put to

him: no one could teach another, as might be inferred, he thought,

from the fact that there were no professed teachers, and that the

sons of the best men were often destitute of merit: every one knew

for himself, and laid down general propositions confidently, without

looking up to any other man as knowing better; yet there was no end

of dissension and dispute on particular cases.[702]

[700] Plato, Gorgias, c. 101, p. 491, A.

Kalliklês. Ὡς ἀεὶ ταὐτὰ λέγεις, ὦ Σώκρατες. Sokratês. Οὐ μόνον

γε, ὦ Καλλικλεῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν. Kalliklês. Νὴ τοὺς

θεοὺς, ἀτεχνῶς γε ~ἀεὶ σκυτέας~ καὶ ~κναφέας~ καὶ ~μαγείρους

λέγων~ καὶ ~ἰατροὺς, οὐδὲν παύῃ~. Compare Plato, Symposion, p.

221, E, also Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 37; iv, 5, 5.

[701] It is not easy to refer to specific passages in

manifestation of the contrast set forth in the text, which,

however, runs through large portions of many Platonic dialogues,

under one form or another: see the Menon, c. 27-33, pp. 90-94;

Protagoras, c. 28, 29, pp. 319, 320; Politicus, c. 38, p. 299,

D; Lachês, c. 11, 12, pp. 185, 186; Gorgias, c. 121, p. 501, A;

Alkibiadês, i, c. 12-14, pp. 108, 109, 110; c. 20, p. 113, C, D.

Xenoph. Mem. iii, 5, 21, 22; iv, 2, 20-23; iv, 4, 5; iv, 6, 1. Of

these passages, iv, 2, 20, 23 is among the most remarkable.

It is remarkable that Sokratês (in the Platonic Apology, c. 7,

p. 22), when he is describing his wanderings (πλάνην) to test

supposed knowledge, first in the statesmen, next in the poets,

lastly in the artisans and craftsmen, finds satisfaction only in

the answers which these latter made to him on matters concerning

their respective trades or professions. They would have been wise

men, had it not been for the circumstance that, because they knew

those particular things, they fancied that they knew other things

also.

[702] Plato, Euthyphrôn, c. 8, p. 7, D; Xen. Mem. iv, 4, 8.

Such was the general contrast which Sokratês sought to impress upon

his hearers by a variety of questions bearing on it, directly or

indirectly. One way of presenting it, which Plato devoted much of

his genius to expand in dialogue, was, to discuss, Whether virtue be

really teachable. How was it that superior men, like Aristeidês and

Periklês,[703] acquired the eminent qualities essential for guiding

and governing Athens, since they neither learned them under any

known master, as they had studied music and gymnastics, nor could

insure the same excellences to their sons, either through their

own agency or through that of any master? Was it not rather the

fact that virtue, as it was never expressly taught, so it was not

really teachable; but was vouchsafed or withheld according to the

special volition and grace of the gods? If a man has a young horse

to be broken, or trained, he finds without difficulty a professed

trainer, thoroughly conversant with the habits of the race,[704] to

communicate to the animal the excellence required; but whom can he

find to teach virtue to his sons, with the like preliminary knowledge

and assured result? Nay, how can any one either teach virtue, or

affirm virtue to be teachable, unless he be prepared to explain what

virtue is, and what are the points of analogy and difference between

its various branches; justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, etc.?

In several of the Platonic dialogues, the discussion turns on the

analysis of these last-mentioned words: the “Lachês” and “Protagoras”

on courage, the “Charmidês” on temperance, the “Euthyphrôn” on

holiness.

[703] Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 2; Plato, Meno, c. 33, p. 94.

[704] Compare Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 4, p. 20, A; Xen. Mem. iv, 2,

25.

By these and similar discussions did Sokratês, and Plato amplifying

upon his master, raise indirectly all the important questions

respecting society, human aspirations and duties, and the principal

moral qualities which were accounted virtuous in individual men.

As the general terms, on which his conversation turned, were among

the most current and familiar in the language, so also the abundant

instances of detail, whereby he tested the hearer’s rational

comprehension and consistent application of such large terms,

were selected from the best known phenomena of daily life;[705]

bringing home the inconsistency, if inconsistency there was, in a

manner obvious to every one. The answers made to him,—not merely by

ordinary citizens, but by men of talent and genius, such as the poets

or the rhetors, when called upon for an explanation of the moral

terms and ideas set forth in their own compositions,[706]—revealed

alike that state of mind against which his crusade, enjoined and

consecrated by the Delphian oracle, was directed, the semblance

and conceit of knowledge without real knowledge. They proclaimed

confident, unhesitating persuasion, on the greatest and gravest

questions concerning man and society, in the bosoms of persons who

had never bestowed upon them sufficient reflection to be aware that

they involved any difficulty. Such persuasion had grown up gradually

and unconsciously, partly by authoritative communication, partly by

insensible transfusion, from others; the process beginning antecedent

to reason as a capacity, continuing itself with little aid and no

control from reason, and never being finally revised. With the great

terms and current propositions concerning human life and society, a

complex body of association had become accumulated from countless

particulars, each separately trivial and lost to the memory, knit

together by a powerful sentiment, and imbibed as it were by each man

from the atmosphere of authority and example around him. Upon this

basis the fancied knowledge really rested; and reason, when invoked

at all, was called in simply as an handmaid, expositor, or apologist

of the preëxisting sentiment; as an accessory after the fact, not

as a test or verification. Every man found these persuasions in

his own mind, without knowing how they became established there;

and witnessed them in others, as portions of a general fund of

unexamined common-place and credence. Because the words were at once

of large meaning, embodied in old and familiar mental processes, and

surrounded by a strong body of sentiment, the general assertions in

which they were embodied appeared self-evident and imposing to every

one: so that, in spite of continual dispute in particular cases,

no one thought himself obliged to analyze the general propositions

themselves, or to reflect whether he had verified their import, and

could apply them rationally and consistently.[707]

[705] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 6, 15. Ὅποτε δὲ αὐτός τι τῷ λόγῳ

διεξίοι, διὰ τῶν μάλιστα ὁμολογουμένων ἐπορεύετο, νομίζων ταύτην

τὴν ἀσφάλειαν εἶναι λόγου· τοιγαροῦν πολὺ μάλιστα ὧν ἐγὼ οἶδα,

ὅτε λέγοι, τοὺς ἀκούοντας ὁμολογοῦντας παρεῖχε.

[706] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 7. p. 22, C: compare Plato, Ion. pp.

533, 534.

[707] Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν (says Sokratês to Euthydêmus) ἴσως διὰ τὸ

σφόδρα πιστεύειν εἰδέναι, οὐδ᾽ ἐσκέψω (Xen. Mem. iv, 2, 36):

compare Plato, Alkibiad. i, c. 14, p. 110. A.

The phenomenon here adverted to is too obvious, even at the present

day, to need further elucidation as matter of fact. In morals, in

politics, in political economy, on all subjects relating to man

and society, the like confident persuasion of knowledge without

the reality is sufficiently prevalent: the like generation and

propagation, by authority and example, of unverified convictions,

resting upon strong sentiment, without consciousness of the steps

or conditions of their growth; the like enlistment of reason as

the one-sided advocate of a preëstablished sentiment; the like

illusion, because every man is familiar with the language, that

therefore every man is master of the complex facts, judgments, and

tendencies, involved in its signification, and competent both to

apply comprehensive words and to assume the truth or falsehood of

large propositions, without any special analysis or study.[708]

[708] “Moins une science est avancée, moins elle a été bien

traitée, et plus elle a besoin d’être enseignée. C’est ce qui

me fait beaucoup désirer qu’on ne renonce pas en France à

l’enseignement des sciences idéologiques, morales, et politiques;

qui, après tout, sont des sciences comme les autres—_à la

difference près, que ceux qui ne les ont pas étudiées sont

persuadés de si bonne foi de les savoir, qu’ils se croient en

état d’en décider_.” (Destutt de Tracy, Elémens d’Idéologie,

Préface, p. xxxiv, ed. Paris, 1827.)

There is one important difference, however, to note, between our

time and that of Sokratês. In his day, the impressions not only

respecting man and society, but also respecting the physical world,

were of this same self-sown, self-propagating, and unscientific

character. The popular astronomy of the Sokratic age was an aggregate

of primitive, superficial observations and imaginative inferences,

passing unexamined from elder men to younger, accepted with

unsuspecting faith, and consecrated by intense sentiment. Not only

men like Nikias, or Anytus and Melêtus, but even Sokratês himself,

protested against the impudence of Anaxagoras, when he degraded the

divine Helios and Selênê into a sun and moon of calculable motions

and magnitudes. But now, the development of the scientific point of

view, with the vast increase of methodized physical and mathematical

knowledge, has taught every one that such primitive astronomical

and physical convictions were nothing better than “a fancy of

knowledge without the reality.”[709] Every one renounces them without

hesitation, seeks his conclusions from the scientific teacher, and

looks to the proofs alone for his guarantee. A man who has never

bestowed special study on astronomy, knows that he is ignorant of it:

to fancy that he knows it, without such preparation, would be held

an absurdity. While the scientific point of view has thus acquired

complete predominance in reference to the physical world, it has

made little way comparatively on topics regarding man and society,

wherein “fancy of knowledge without the reality” continues to reign,

not without criticism and opposition, yet still as a paramount

force. And if a new Sokratês were now to put the same questions

in the market-place to men of all ranks and professions, he would

find the like confident persuasion and unsuspecting dogmatism as to

generalities; the like faltering, blindness, and contradiction, when

tested by cross-examining details.

[709] “There is no science which, more than astronomy, stands

in need of such a preparation, or draws more largely on that

intellectual liberality which is ready to adopt whatever is

demonstrated, or concede whatever is rendered highly probable,

however new and uncommon the points of view may be, in which

objects the most familiar may thereby become placed. Almost

all _its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction

with those of superficial and vulgar observation_, and with

what appears to every one, until he has understood and weighed

the proofs to the contrary, the _most positive evidence of his

senses_. Thus the earth on which he stands, and which has served

for ages as the unshaken foundation of the firmest structures

either of art or nature, is divested by the astronomer of its

attribute of fixity, and conceived by him as turning swiftly on

its centre, and at the same time moving onward through space

with great rapidity, etc.” (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy,

Introduction, sect. 2.)

In the time of Sokratês, this last comparison was not open;

since there did not exist, in any department, a body of doctrine

scientifically constituted: but the comparison which he actually

took, borrowed from the special trades and professions, brought

him to an important result. He was the first to see, and the idea

pervades all his speculations, that as in each art or profession

there is an end to be attained, a theory laying down the means and

conditions whereby it is attainable, and precepts deduced from that

theory, such precepts collectively taken directing and covering

nearly the entire field of practice, but each precept separately

taken liable to conflict with others, and therefore liable to cases

of exception; so all this is not less true, or admits not less of

being realized, respecting the general art of human living and

society. There is a grand and all-comprehensive End,—the security

and happiness, as far as practicable, of each and all persons in the

society:[710] there may be a theory, laying down those means and

conditions under which the nearest approach can be made to that end:

there may also be precepts, prescribing to every man the conduct and

character which best enables him to become an auxiliary towards its

attainment, and imperatively restraining him from acts which tend

to hinder it; precepts deduced from the theory, each one of them

separately taken being subject to exceptions, but all of them taken

collectively governing practice, as in each particular art.[711]

Sokratês and Plato talk of “the art of dealing with human beings,”

“the art of behaving in society,” “that science which has for its

object to make men happy:” and they draw a marked distinction between

art, or rules of practice deduced from a theoretical survey of the

subject-matter and taught with precognition of the end, and mere

artless, irrational knack, or dexterity, acquired by simple copying,

or assimilation, through a process of which no one could render

account.[712]

[710] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 1, 2. Ἐτεκμαίρετο (Sokratês) δὲ τὰς

ἀγαθὰς φύσεις, ἐκ τοῦ ταχύ τε μανθάνειν οἷς προσέχοιεν, καὶ

μνημονεύειν ἃ ἂν μάθοιεν, καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖν τῶν μαθημάτων πάντων, δι᾽

ὧν ἔστιν οἰκίαν τε καλῶς οἰκεῖν καὶ πόλιν, καὶ τὸ ὅλον ἀνθρώποις

τε καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις πράγμασιν εὖ χρῆσθαι. Τοὺς γὰρ τοιούτους

ἡγεῖτο παιδευθέντας οὐκ ἂν μόνον αὐτούς τε εὐδαίμονας εἶναι καὶ

τοὺς ἑαυτῶν οἴκους καλῶς οἰκεῖν, ἀλλὰ ~καὶ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους καὶ

πόλεις δύνασθαι εὐδαίμονας ποιῆσαι~.

Ib. iii, 2, 4. Καὶ οὕτως ἐπισκοπῶν, τίς εἴη ἀγαθοῦ ἡγεμόνος

ἀρετὴ, τὰ μὲν ἄλλα περιῄρει, κατέλειπε δὲ, ~τὸ εὐδαίμονας ποιεῖν,

ὧν ἂν ἡγῆται~.

Ib. iii, 8, 3, 4, 5; iv, 6, 8. He explains τὸ ἀγαθὸν to mean τὸ

ὠφέλιμον—μέχρι δὲ τοῦ ὠφελίμου πάντα καὶ αὐτὸς συνεπεσκόπει καὶ

συνδιεξῄει τοῖς συνοῦσι (iv, 7, 8). Compare Plato, Gorgias, c.

66, 67, p. 474, D; 475, A.

Things are called ἀγαθὰ καὶ καλὰ on the one hand, and κακὰ καὶ

αἰσχρὰ on the other, in reference each to its distinct end,

of averting or mitigating in the one case, of bringing on or

increasing in the other, different modes of human suffering.

So again, iii, 9, 4, we find the phrases: ἃ δεῖ πράττειν—ὀρθῶς

πράττειν—τὰ συμφορώτατα αὑτοῖς πράττειν, all used as equivalents.

Plato, Symposion, p. 205. A. Κτήσει γὰρ ἀγαθῶν εὐδαίμονες

ἔσονται—καὶ οὐκέτι προσδεῖ ἐρέσθαι, ἵνατι δὲ βούλεται εὐδαίμων

εἶναι; ἀλλὰ τέλος δοκεῖ ἔχειν ἡ ἀπόκρισις: compare Euthydem. c.

20, p. 279, A; c. 25, p. 281, D.

Plato, Alkibiadês, ii, c. 13, p. 145, C. Ὅστις ἄρα

τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ ~τοῦ

βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη—αὐτὴ δ᾽ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου ἥπερ καὶ ἡ τοῦ

ὠφελίμου~—φρόνιμόν γε αὐτὸν φήσομεν καὶ ἀποχρῶντα σύμβουλον,

καὶ τῇ πόλει καὶ αὐτὸν ἑαυτῷ· τὸν δὲ μὴ ποιοῦντα, τἀναντία

τούτων: compare Plato, Republic, vi, p. 504, E. The fact

that this dialogue, called Alkibiadês II, was considered by

some as belonging not to Plato, but to Xenophon or Æschinês

Socraticus, does not detract from its value as evidence about

the speculations of Sokratês (see Diogen. Laërt. ii, 61, 62;

Athenæus, v, p. 220).

Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 30, A. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλλο πράττων

περιέρχομαι, ἢ πείθων ὑμῶν καὶ νεωτέρους καὶ πρεσβυτέρους, μήτε

σωμάτων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι μήτε χρημάτων πρότερον μηδὲ οὕτω σφόδρα, ὡς

τῆς ψυχῆς, ὅπως ὡς ἀρίστη ἔσται· λέγων ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ

γίγνεται, ~ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα καὶ τἄλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις

ἅπαντα καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ~.

Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griechen, vol. ii, pp. 61-64)

admits as a fact this reference of the Sokratic ethics to human

security and happiness as their end; while Brandis (Gesch. der

Gr. Röm. Philosoph. ii, p. 40, _seq._) resorts to inadmissible

suppositions, in order to avoid admitting it, and to explain away

the direct testimony of Xenophon. Both of these authors consider

this doctrine as a great taint in the philosophical character of

Sokratês. Zeller even says, what he intends for strong censure,

that “the eudæmonistic basis of the Sokratic ethics differs from

the _sophistical moral philosophy_, not in principle, but only in

result” (p. 61).

I protest against this allusion to a _sophistical moral

philosophy_, and have shown my grounds for the protest in the

preceding chapter. There was no such thing as _sophistical moral

philosophy_. Not only the sophists were no sect or school, but

farther, not one of them ever aimed, so far as we know, at

establishing any ethical theory: this was the great innovation of

Sokratês. But it is perfectly true that, between the preceptorial

exhortation of Sokratês, and that of Protagoras or Prodikus,

there was no great or material difference; and this Zeller seems

to admit.

[711] The existence of cases forming exceptions to each separate

moral precept, is brought to view by Sokratês in Xen. Mem. iv, 2,

15-19; Plato, Republic, i, 6, p. 331, C, D, E; ii, p. 382, C.

[712] Plato, Phædon, c. 88, p. 89, E. ἄνευ τέχνης τῆς περὶ

τἀνθρώπεια ὁ τοιοῦτος χρῆσθαι ἐπεχειρεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· εἰ γάρ

που μετὰ τέχνης ἔχρητο, ὥσπερ ἔχει, οὕτως ἂν ἡγήσατο, etc. ἡ

πολιτικὴ τέχνη, Protagor. c. 27, p. 319, A; Gorgias, c. 163, p.

521, D.

Compare Apol. Sok. c. 4, p. 20, A, B; Euthydêmus, c. 50, p. 292,

E: τίς ποτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐπιστήμη ἐκείνη, ἣ ἡμᾶς εὐδαίμονας ποιήσειεν;...

The marked distinction between τέχνη, as distinguished from

ἄτεχνος τριβὴ—ἄλογος τριβὴ or ἐμπειρία, is noted in the Phædrus,

c. 95, p. 260, E, and in Gorgias, c. 42, p. 463, B; c. 45, p.

465, A; c. 121, p. 501, A, a remarkable passage. That there is

in every art some assignable end, to which its precepts and

conditions have reference, is again laid down in the Sophistês,

c. 37, p. 232, A.

Plato, with that variety of indirect allusion which is his

characteristic, continually constrains the reader to look upon

human and social life as having its own ends and purposes no

less than each separate profession or craft; and impels him to

transfer to the former that conscious analysis as a science, and

intelligent practice as an art, which are known as conditions of

success in the latter.[713] It was in furtherance of these rational

conceptions, “Science and Art,” that Sokratês carried on his crusade

against “that conceit of knowledge without reality,” which reigned

undisturbed in the moral world around him, and was only beginning

to be slightly disturbed even as to the physical world. To him the

precept, inscribed in the Delphian temple, “Know Thyself,” was the

holiest of all texts, which he constantly cited, and strenuously

enforced upon his hearers; interpreting it to mean, Know what sort

of a man thou art, and what are thy capacities, in reference to

human use.[714] His manner of enforcing it was alike original and

effective, and though he was dexterous in varying his topics[715] and

queries according to the individual person with whom he had to deal,

it was his first object to bring the hearer to take just measure

of his own real knowledge or real ignorance. To preach, to exhort,

even to confute particular errors, appeared to Sokratês useless, so

long as the mind lay wrapped up in its habitual mist or illusion

of wisdom: such mist must be dissipated before any new light could

enter. Accordingly, the hearer being usually forward in announcing

positive declarations on those general doctrines, and explanations

of those terms, to which he was most attached and in which he had

the most implicit confidence, Sokratês took them to pieces, and

showed that they involved contradiction and inconsistency; professing

himself to be without any positive opinion, nor ever advancing

any until the hearer’s mind had undergone the proper purifying

cross-examination.[716]

[713] This fundamental analogy, which governed the reasoning

of Sokratês, between the special professions and social living

generally,—transferring to the latter the idea of a preconceived

end, a theory, and a regulated practice, or art, which are

observed in the former,—is strikingly stated in one of the

aphorisms of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, vi, 35: Οὐχ ὁρᾷς,

πῶς οἱ βάναυσοι τεχνῖται ἁρμόζονται μὲν ἄχρι τινὸς πρὸς τοὺς

ἰδιώτας, οὐδὲν ἧσσον μέντοι ~ἀντέχονται τοῦ λόγου τῆς τέχνης, καὶ

τούτου ἀποστῆναι οὐχ ὑπομένουσιν~; Οὐ δεινὸν, εἰ ὁ ἀρχιτέκτων

καὶ ὁ ἰατρὸς μᾶλλον αἰδέσονται ~τὸν τῆς ἰδίας τέχνης λόγον, ἢ ὁ

ἄνθρωπος τὸν ἑαυτοῦ~, ὃς αὐτῷ κοινός ἐστι πρὸς τοὺς θεούς;

[714] Plato (Phædr. c. 8, p. 229, E; Charmidês, c. 26, p. 164, E;

Alkibiad. i, p. 124, A; 129, A; 131, A).

Xenoph. Mem. iv, 2, 24-26. οὕτως ἑαυτὸν ἐπισκεψάμενος, ὁποῖός

ἐστι πρὸς ~τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην χρείαν~, ἔγνωκε τὴν αὐτοῦ δύναμιν.

Cicero (de Legib. i, 22, 59) gives a paraphrase of this

well-known text, far more vague and tumid than the conception of

Sokratês.

[715] See the striking conversations of Sokratês with Glaukon and

Charmidês especially that with the former, in Xen. Mem. iii, c.

6, 7.

[716] There is no part of Plato in which this doxosophy, or

false conceit of wisdom, is more earnestly reprobated than in

the Sophistês, with notice of the elenchus, or cross-examining

exposure, as the only effectual cure for such fundamental vice of

the mind; as the true purifying process (Sophistês, c. 33-35, pp.

230, 231).

See the same process illustrated by Sokratês, after his questions

put to the slave of Menon (Plato, Menon, c. 18. p. 84, B;

Charmidês, c. 30, p. 166, D).

As the Platonic Sokratês, even in the Defence, where his own

personality stands most manifest, denounces as the worst and

deepest of all mental defects, this conceit of knowledge without

reality, ἡ ἀμαθία αὐτὴ ἡ ἐπονείδιστος, ἡ τοῦ οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι ἃ

~οὐκ~ οἶδεν, c. 17, p. 29, B,—so the Xenophontic Sokratês, in

the same manner, treats this same mental infirmity as being near

to madness, and distinguishes it carefully from simple want of

knowledge, or conscious ignorance: Μανίαν γε μὴν ἐναντίον μὲν ἔφη

εἶναι σοφίᾳ, οὐ μέντοι γε τὴν ἀνεπιστημοσύνην μανίαν ἐνόμιζεν.

Τὸ δὲ ἀγνοεῖν ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἃ μή τις οἶδε δοξάζειν, καὶ οἴεσθαι

γιγνώσκειν, ἐγγυτάτω μανίας ἐλογίζετο εἶναι (Mem. iii, 9, 6).

This conviction thus stands foremost in the mental character of

Sokratês, and on the best evidence, Plato and Xenophon united.

It was this indirect and negative proceeding, which, though only

a part of the whole, stood out as his most original and most

conspicuous characteristic, and determined his reputation with a

large number of persons who took no trouble to know anything else

about him. It was an exposure no less painful than surprising to the

person questioned, and produced upon several of them an effect of

permanent alienation, so that they never came near him again,[717]

but reverted to their former state of mind without any permanent

change. But on the other hand, the ingenuity and novelty of the

process was highly interesting to hearers, especially youthful

hearers, sons of rich men, and enjoying leisure; who not only

carried away with them a lofty admiration of Sokratês, but were fond

of trying to copy his negative polemics.[718] Probably men like

Alkibiadês and Kritias frequented his society chiefly for the purpose

of acquiring a quality which they might turn to some account in their

political career. His constant habit of never suffering a general

term to remain undetermined, but applying it at once to particulars;

the homely and effective instances of which he made choice; the

string of interrogatories each advancing towards a result, yet a

result not foreseen by any one; the indirect and circuitous manner

whereby the subject was turned round, and at last approached and laid

open by a totally different face, all this constituted a sort of

prerogative in Sokratês, which no one else seems to have approached.

Its effect was enhanced by a voice and manner highly plausible and

captivating, and to a certain extent by the very eccentricity of his

silenic physiognomy.[719] What is termed “his irony,” or assumption

of the character of an ignorant learner, asking information from

one who knew better than himself, while it was essential[720] as an

excuse for his practice as a questioner, contributed also to add

zest and novelty to his conversation; and totally banished from it

both didactic pedantry and seeming bias as an advocate; which, to

one who talked so much, was of no small advantage. After he had

acquired celebrity, this uniform profession of ignorance in debate

was usually construed as mere affectation; and those who merely

heard him occasionally, without penetrating into his intimacy, often

suspected that he was amusing himself with ingenious paradox.[721]

Timon the Satirist, and Zeno the Epicurean, accordingly described him

as a buffoon, who turned every one into ridicule, especially men of

eminence.[722]

[717] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 2, 40. Πολλοὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν οὕτω διατεθέντων

ὑπὸ Σωκράτους οὐκέτι αὐτῷ προσῄεσαν, οὓς καὶ βλακωτέρους ἐνόμιζεν.

[718] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 9, p. 23, A. Οἴονται γάρ με ἑκάστοτε

οἱ παρόντες ταῦτα αὐτὸν εἶναι σοφὸν, ἃ ἂν ἄλλον ἐξελέγξω.

Ibid. c. 10, p. 23, C. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, οἱ νέοι μοι

ἐπακολουθοῦντες, οἷς μάλιστα σχολή ἐστιν, οἱ τῶν πλουσιωτάτων,

αὐτόματοι χαίρουσιν ἀκούοντες ἐξεταζομένων τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ

αὐτοὶ πολλάκις ἐμὲ μιμοῦνται, εἶτα ἐπιχειροῦσιν ἄλλους ἐξετάζειν,

etc.

Compare also ibid. c. 22, p. 33, C; c. 27, p. 37, D.

[719] This is an interesting testimony preserved by Aristoxenus,

on the testimony of his father Spintharus, who heard Sokratês

(Aristox. Frag. 28, ed. Didot). Spintharus said, respecting

Sokratês: ὅτι οὐ πολλοῖς αὐτός γε πιθανωτέροις ἐντετυχηκὼς εἴη·

τοιαύτην εἶναι τήν τε φωνὴν καὶ τὸ στόμα καὶ τὸ ἐπιφαινόμενον

ἦθος, καὶ πρὸς πᾶσί τε τοῖς εἰρημένοις τὴν τοῦ εἴδους ἰδιότητα.

It seems evident also, from the remarkable passage in Plato’s

Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, A, that he too must have been much

affected by the singular physiognomy of Sokratês: compare Xenoph.

Sympos. iv. 19.

[720] Aristot. de Sophist. Elench. c. 32, p. 183, b. 6. Compare

also Plutarch, Quæst. Platonic. p. 999, E. Τὸν οὖν ἐλεγκτικὸν

λόγον ὥσπερ καθαρτικὸν ἔχων φάρμακον, ὁ Σωκράτης ἀξιόπιστος ἦν

ἑτέρους ἐλέγχων, τῷ μηδὲν ἀποφαίνεσθαι· καὶ μᾶλλον ἥπτετο, δοκῶν

ζητεῖν κοινῇ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, οὐκ αὐτὸς ἰδίᾳ δόξῃ βοηθεῖν.

[721] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 4, 9.

Plato, Gorgias, c. 81, p. 481, B. σπουδάζει ταῦτα Σωκράτης ἢ

παίζει; Republic, i, c. 11, p. 337, A. αὐτὴ ἐκείνη ἡ εἰωθυῖα

εἰρωνεία Σωκράτους, etc (Apol. Sok. c. 28, p. 38, A.)

[722] Diog. Laërt. ii, 16; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i, 34, 93.

Cicero (Brutus, 85, 292) also treats the irony of Sokratês as

intended to mock and humiliate his fellow-dialogists, and it

sometimes appears so in the dialogues of Plato. Yet I doubt

whether the real Sokratês could have had any pronounced purpose

of this kind.

It is by Plato that the negative and indirect vein of Sokratês has

been worked out and immortalized; while Xenophon, who sympathized

little in it, complains that others looked at his master too

exclusively on this side, and that they could not conceive him as a

guide to virtue, but only as a stirring and propulsive force.[723]

One of the principal objects of his “Memorabilia” is, to show

that Sokratês, after having worked upon novices sufficiently with

the negative line of questions, altered his tone, desisted from

embarrassing them, and addressed to them precepts not less plain and

simple than directly useful in practice.[724] I do not at all doubt

that this was often the fact, and that the various dialogues in which

Xenophon presents to us the philosopher inculcating self-control,

temperance, piety, duty to parents, brotherly love, fidelity in

friendship, diligence, benevolence, etc., on positive grounds, are

a faithful picture of one valuable side of his character, and an

essential part of the whole. Such direct admonitory influence was

common to Sokratês with Prodikus and the best of the sophists.

[723] The beginning of Xen. Mem. i, 4, 1, is particularly

striking on this head: Εἰ δέ τινες Σωκράτην νομίζουσιν (ὡς ἔνιοι

γράφουσί τε καὶ λέγουσι περὶ αὐτοῦ τεκμαιρόμενοι) ~προτρέψασθαι~

μὲν ἀνθρώπους ἐπ᾽ ἀρετὴν κράτιστον γεγονέναι, ~προαγαγεῖν~ δὲ ἐπ᾽

αὐτὴν οὐχ ἱκανόν—σκεψάμενοι μὴ ~μόνον ἃ ἐκεῖνος κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα

τοὺς πάντ᾽ οἰομένους εἰδέναι ἐρωτῶν ἤλεγχεν~, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἃ λέγων

συνδιημέρευε τοῖς συνδιατρίβουσιν, δοκιμαζόντων, εἰ ἱκανὸς ἦν

βελτίους ποιεῖν τοὺς συνόντας.

[724] Xenophon, after describing the dialogue wherein Sokratês

cross-examines and humiliates Euthydêmus, says at the end: Ὁ

δὲ (Sokratês) ὡς ἔγνω αὐτὸν οὕτως ἔχοντα, ~ἥκιστα μὲν αὐτὸν

διετάραττεν, ἀπλούστατα δὲ καὶ σαφέστατα~ ἐξηγεῖτο ἅ τε ἐνόμιζεν

εἰδέναι δεῖν, καὶ ἃ ἐπιτηδεύειν κράτιστα εἶναι.

Again, iv, 7, 1. Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ~ἁπλῶς~ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γνώμην ἀπεφαίνετο

Σωκράτης πρὸς τοὺς ὁμιλοῦντας αὐτῷ, δοκεῖ μοι δῆλον ἐκ τῶν

εἰρημένων εἶναι, etc.

His readers were evidently likely to doubt, and required

proof, that Sokratês could speak _plainly_, _directly_, and

_positively:_ so much better known was the other side of his

character.

It is, however, neither from the virtue of his life, nor from the

goodness of his precepts—though both were essential features in

his character—that he derives his peculiar title to fame, but from

his originality and prolific efficacy in the line of speculative

philosophy. Of that originality, the first portion, as has been

just stated, consisted in his having been the first to conceive

the idea of an ethical science with its appropriate end, and with

precepts capable of being tested and improved; but the second

point, and not the least important, was, his peculiar method, and

extraordinary power of exciting scientific impulse and capacity in

the minds of others. It was not by positive teaching that this effect

was produced. Both Sokratês and Plato thought that little mental

improvement could be produced by expositions directly communicated,

or by new written matter lodged in the memory.[725] It was necessary

that mind should work upon mind, by short question and answer, or an

expert employment of the dialectic process,[726] in order to generate

new thoughts and powers; a process which Plato, with his exuberant

fancy, compares to copulation and pregnancy, representing it as the

true way, and the only effectual way, of propagating the philosophic

spirit.

[725] Plato, Sophistês, c. 17, p. 230, A. μετὰ δὲ πολλοῦ πόνου

τὸ νουθετητικὸν εἶδος τῆς παιδείας σμικρὸν ἀνύτειν, etc. Compare

a fragment of Demokritus, in Mullach’s edition of the Fragm.

Demokrit. p. 175. Fr. Moral 59. Τὸν οἰόμενον νόον ἔχειν ὁ

νουθετέων ματαιοπονέει.

Compare Plato, Epistol. vii, pp. 343, 344.

We should greatly misunderstand the negative and indirect vein of

Sokratês, if we suppose that it ended in nothing more than simple

negation. On busy or ungifted minds, among the indiscriminate public

who heard him, it probably left little permanent effect of any

kind, and ended in a mere feeling of admiration for ingenuity, or

perhaps dislike of paradox: on practical minds like Xenophon, its

effect was merged in that of the preceptorial exhortation: but where

the seed fell upon an intellect having the least predisposition or

capacity for systematic thought, the negation had only the effect

of driving the hearer back at first, giving him a new impetus for

afterwards springing forward. The Sokratic dialectics, clearing

away from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and laying bare

the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch

of the torpedo:[727] the newly-created consciousness of ignorance

was alike unexpected, painful, and humiliating,—a season of doubt

and discomfort; yet combined with an internal working and yearning

after truth, never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening,

which could never commence until the mind had been disabused of its

original illusion of false knowledge, was considered by Sokratês

not merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable

condition, of future progress. It was the middle point in the

ascending mental scale; the lowest point being ignorance unconscious,

self-satisfied, and mistaking itself for knowledge; the next above,

ignorance conscious, unmasked, ashamed of itself, and thirsting after

knowledge as yet unpossessed; while actual knowledge, the third

and highest stage, was only attainable after passing through the

second as a preliminary.[728] This second, was a sort of pregnancy;

and every mind either by nature incapable of it, or in which, from

want of the necessary conjunction, it had never arisen, was barren

for all purposes of original or self-appropriated thought. Sokratês

regarded it as his peculiar vocation and skill, employing another

Platonic metaphor, while he had himself no power of reproduction,

to deal with such pregnant and troubled minds in the capacity of

a midwife; to assist them in that mental parturition whereby they

were to be relieved, but at the same time to scrutinize narrowly the

offspring which they brought forth; and if it should prove distorted

or unpromising, to cast it away with the rigor of a Lykurgean nurse,

whatever might be the reluctance of the mother-mind to part with

its new-born.[729] There is nothing which Plato is more fertile in

illustrating, than this relation between the teacher and the scholar,

operating not by what it put into the latter, but by what it evolved

out of him; by creating an uneasy longing after truth, aiding in the

elaboration necessary for obtaining relief, and testing whether the

doctrine elaborated possessed the real lineaments, or merely the

delusive semblance, of truth.

[726] Compare two passages in Plato’s Protagoras, c. 49, p. 329,

A, and c. 94, p. 348, D; and the Phædrus, c. 138-140, p. 276, A,

E.

[727] Plato, Men. c. 13. p. 80, A. ὁμοιότατος τῇ πλατείᾳ νάρκῃ τῇ

θαλασσίᾳ.

[728] This tripartite graduation of the intellectual scale is

brought out by Plato in the Symposion, c. 29, p. 204, A, and in

the Lysis, c. 33, p. 218, A.

The intermediate point of the scale is what Plato here, though

not always, expresses by the word φιλόσοφος, in its strict

etymological sense, “a lover of knowledge;” one who is not yet

wise, but who, having learned to know and feel his own ignorance,

is anxious to become wise,—and has thus made what Plato thought

the greatest and most difficult step towards really becoming so.

[729] The effect of the interrogatory procedure of Sokratês, in

forcing on the minds of youth a humiliating consciousness of

ignorance and an eager anxiety to be relieved from it, is not

less powerfully attested in the simpler language of Xenophon,

than in the metaphorical variety of Plato. See the conversation

with Euthydêmus, in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, iv, 2; a long

dialogue which ends by the confession of the latter (c. 39):

Ἀναγκάζει με καὶ ταῦτα ὁμολογεῖν δηλονότι ἡ ἐμὴ φαυλότης· καὶ

φροντίζω μὴ κράτιστον ᾖ μοι σιγᾶν· κινδυνεύω γὰρ ἁπλῶς οὐδὲν

εἰδέναι. Καὶ πάνυ ἀθύμως ἔχων ἀπῆλθε· καὶ ~νομίσας τῷ ὄντι

ἀνδράποδον εἶναι~: compare i, 1, 16.

This same expression, “thinking himself no better than a

slave,” is also put by Plato into the mouth of Alkibiadês, when

he is describing the powerful effect wrought on his mind by

the conversation of Sokratês (Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, 216):

Περικλέους δὲ ἀκούων καὶ ἄλλων ἀγαθῶν ῥητόρων εὖ μὲν ἡγούμην,

τοιοῦτον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἔπασχον, οὐδὲ τεθορύβητό μου ἡ ψυχὴ οὐδ᾽

ἠγανάκτει ὡς ~ἀνδραποδωδῶς διακειμένου~. Ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ τούτου τοῦ

Μαρσύου πολλάκις δὴ οὕτω διετέθην, ὥστε μοι δόξαι μὴ βιωτὸν εἶναι

ἔχοντι ὡς ἔχω.

Compare also the Meno, c. 13, p. 79, E, and Theætet. c. 17, 22,

p. 148, E, 151, C, where the metaphor of pregnancy, and of the

obstetric art of Sokratês, is expanded: πάσχουσι δὲ δὴ οἱ ἐμοὶ

ξυγγιγνόμενοι καὶ τοῦτο ταὐτὸν ταῖς τικτούσαις· ὠδίνουσι γὰρ καὶ

ἀπορίας ἐμπίμπλανται νυκτάς τε καὶ ἡμέρας πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ ἐκεῖναι.

Ταύτην δὲ τὴν ὠδῖνα ἐγείρειν τε καὶ ἀποπαύειν ἡ ἐμὴ τέχνη

δύναται.—Ἐνίοτε δὲ, οἳ ἄν ~μὴ μοι δόξωσιν πως ἐγκύμονες εἶναι,

γνοὺς ὅτι οὐδὲν ἐμοῦ δέονται~, πάνυ εὐμενῶς προμνῶμαι, etc.

There are few things more remarkable than the description given of

the colloquial magic of Sokratês and its vehement effects, by those

who had themselves heard it and felt its force. Its suggestive and

stimulating power was a gift so extraordinary, as well to justify

any abundance of imagery on the part of Plato to illustrate it.[730]

On the subjects to which he applied himself, man and society, his

hearers had done little but feel and affirm: Sokratês undertook

to make them think, weigh, and examine themselves and their own

judgments, until the latter were brought into consistency with each

other, as well as with a known and venerable end. The generalizations

embodied in their judgments had grown together and coalesced in a

manner at once so intimate, so familiar, yet so unverified, that

the particulars implied in them had passed out of notice: so that

Sokratês, when he recalled these particulars out of a forgotten

experience, presented to the hearer his own opinions under a totally

new point of view. His conversations—even as they appear in the

reproduction of Xenophon, which presents but a mere skeleton of the

reality—exhibit the main features of a genuine inductive method,

struggling against the deep-lying, but unheeded, errors of the early

intellect acting by itself, without conscious march or scientific

guidance,—of the _intellectus sibi permissus_,—upon which Bacon so

emphatically dwells. Amidst abundance of _instantiæ negativæ_, the

scientific value of which is dwelt upon in the “Novum Organon,”[731]

and negative instances, too, so dexterously chosen as generally to

show the way to new truth, in place of that error which they set

aside,—there is a close pressure on the hearer’s mind, to keep it in

the distinct tract of particulars, as conditions of every just and

consistent generalization; and to divert it from becoming enslaved to

unexamined formulæ, or from delivering mere intensity of persuasion

under the authoritative phrase of reason. Instead of anxiety to

plant in the hearer a conclusion ready-made and accepted on trust,

the questioner keeps up a prolonged suspense with special emphasis

laid upon the particulars tending both affirmatively and negatively;

nor is his purpose answered, until that state of knowledge and

apprehended evidence is created, out of which the conclusion starts

as a living product, with its own root and self-sustaining power

consciously linked with its premises. If this conclusion so generated

be not the same as that which the questioner himself adopts, it will

at least be some other, worthy of a competent and examining mind

taking its own independent view of the appropriate evidence. And

amidst all the variety and divergence of particulars which we find

enforced in the language of Sokratês, the end, towards which all of

them point, is one and the same, emphatically signified, the good and

happiness of social man.

[730] There is a striking expression of Xenophon, in the

Memorabilia, about Sokratês and his conversation (i, 2, 14):—

“He dealt with every one just as he pleased in his discussions,”

says Xenophon: τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς

λόγοις ὅπως ἐβούλετο.

[731] I know nothing so clearly illustrating both the subjects

and the method chosen by Sokratês, as various passages of the

immortal criticisms in the Novum Organon. When Sokratês, as

Xenophon tells us, devoted his time to questioning others: “What

is piety? What is justice? What is temperance, courage, political

government?” etc., we best understand the spirit of his procedure

by comparing the sentence which Bacon pronounces upon the _first

notions of the intellect,—as radically vicious, confused, badly

abstracted from things, and needing complete reexamination and

revision_,—without which, he says, not one of them could be

trusted:—

“Quod vero attinet ad notiones primas intellectûs, nihil est

_eorum, quas intellectus sibi permissus congessit, quin nobis

pro suspecto sit_, nec ullo modo ratum nisi novo judicio se

stiterit, et secundum illud pronuntiatum fuerit.” (Distributio

Operis, prefixed to the N. O. p. 168, of Mr. Montagu’s edition.)

“Serum sane rebus perditis adhibetur remedium, postquam mens

ex quotidianâ vitæ consuetudine, et auditionibus, et doctrinis

inquinatis occupata, et vanissimis idolis obsessa fuerit....

Restat unica salus ac sanitas, ut _opus mentis universum de

integro resumatur; ac mens, jam ab ipso principio, nullo modo

sibi permittatur_, sed perpetuo regatur.” (Ib. Præfatio, p.

186.) “Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex

verbis, verba notionum tesseræ sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsæ (id

quod basis rei est) confusæ sint et temere a rebus abstractæ,

nihil in iis quæ superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaque spes

est una in inductione verâ. _In notionibus nihil sani est_, nec

in logicis, nec in physicis. _Non Substantia, non Qualitas,

Agere, Pati, ipsum Esse, bonæ, notiones sunt;_ multo minus Grave,

Leve, Der sum, Tenue, Humidum, Siccum, Generatio, Corruptio,

Attrahere, Fugare, Elementum, Materia, Forma, et id Genus;

sed omnes phantasticæ et male terminatæ. Notiones infimarum

specierum, Hominis, Canis, et prehensionum immediatarum sensus,

Albi, Nigri, non fallunt magnopere: _reliquæ omnes (quibus

homines hactenus usi sunt) aberrationes sunt_, nec debitis modis

a rebus abstractæ et excitatæ.” (Aphor. 14, 15, 16.) “Nemo adhuc

tantâ mentis constantiâ et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit

et sibi imposuerit, _theorias et notiones communes penitus

abolere, et intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia de

integro applicare. Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multâ fide

et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus, quas primo hausimus,

notionibus, farrago quædam est et congeries_.” (Aphor. 97.) “Nil

magis philosophiæ offecisse deprehendimus, quam quod res quæ

familiares sunt et frequenter occurrunt, contemplationem hominum

non morentur et detineant, sed recipiantur obiter, neque earum

causæ quasi soleant; ut non sæpius requiratur informatio de rebus

ignotis, quam attentio in notis.” (Aphor. 119.)

These passages, and many others to the same effect which might be

extracted from the Novum Organon, afford a clear illustration and

an interesting parallel to the spirit and purpose of Sokratês.

He sought to test the fundamental notions and generalizations

respecting man and society, in the same spirit in which Bacon

approached those of physics: he suspected the unconscious process

of the growing intellect, and desired to revise it, by comparison

with particulars; and from particulars too the most clear and

certain, but which, from being of vulgar occurrence, were least

attended to. And that which Sokratês described in his language

as “conceit of knowledge without the reality,” is identical with

what Bacon designates as the _primary notions_, the _puerile

notions_, the _aberrations_, of the intellect left to itself,

which have become so familiar and appear so certainly known, that

the mind cannot shake them off, and has lost all habit, we might

almost say all power, of examining them.

The stringent process—or electric shock, to use the simile in

Plato’s Menon—of the Sokratic elenchus, afforded the best means

of resuscitating this lost power. And the manner in which Plato

speaks of this cross-examining elenchus, as “the great and

sovereign purification, without which every man, be he the great

king himself, is unschooled, dirty, and fall of uncleanness in

respect to the main conditions of happiness,”—καὶ τὸν ἔλεγχον

λεκτέον ὡς ἄρα μεγίστη καὶ κυριωτάτη τῶν καθάρσεων ἐστὶ, καὶ

τὸν ἀνέλεγκτον αὖ νομιστέον, ἂν καὶ τυγχάνῃ μέγας βασιλεὺς ὤν,

τὰ μέγιστα ἀκάθαρτον ὄντα· ἀπαίδευτόν τε καὶ αἰσχρὸν γεγονέναι

ταῦτα, ἃ καθαρώτατον καὶ κάλλιστον ἔπρεπε τὸν ὄντως ἐσόμενον

εὐδαίμονα εἶναι; Plato, Sophist. c. 34, p. 230, E,—precisely

corresponds to that “_cross-examination of human reason in its

native or spontaneous process_,” which Bacon specifies as one of

the three things essential to the expurgation of the intellect,

so as to qualify it for the attainment of truth: “Itaque

doctrina ista de expurgatione intellectûs, ut ipse ad veritatem

habilis sit, tribus redargutionibus absolvitur; redargutione

philosophiarum, redargutione demonstrationum, et _redargutione

rationis humanæ nativæ_.” (Nov. Organ. Distributio Operis, p.

170, ed. Montagu.)

To show further how essential it is in the opinion of the best

judges, that the native intellect should be purged or purified,

before it can properly apprehend the truths of physical

philosophy, I transcribe the introductory passage of Sir John

Herschel’s “Astronomy:”—

“In entering upon any scientific pursuit, one of the student’s

first endeavors ought to be to prepare his mind for the reception

of truth, by dismissing, or at least loosening his hold on, all

such crude and hastily adopted notions respecting the objects

and relations he is about to examine, as may tend to embarrass

or mislead him; and to strengthen himself, by _something of

an effort and a resolve_, for the unprejudiced admission of

any conclusion which shall appear to be supported by careful

observation and logical argument; even should it prove adverse

to notions he may have previously formed for himself, or taken

up, without examination on the credit of others. _Such an effort

is, in fact, a commencement of that intellectual discipline

which forms one of the most important ends of all science._ It

is the first movement of approach towards that state of mental

purity which alone can fit us for a full and steady perception of

moral beauty as well as physical adaptation. It is the “euphrasy

and rue,” with _which we must purge our sight before we can

receive, and contemplate as they are, the lineaments of truth and

nature_.” (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy; Introduction.)

I could easily multiply citations from other eminent writers on

physical philosophy, to the same purpose. All of them prescribe

this intellectual purification: Sokratês not only prescribed

it, but actually administered it, by means of his elenchus, in

reference to the subjects on which he talked.

It is not, then, to multiply proselytes, or to procure authoritative

assent, but to create earnest seekers, analytical intellects,

foreknowing and consistent agents, capable of forming conclusions

for themselves and of teaching others, as well as to force them into

that path of inductive generalization whereby alone trustworthy

conclusions can be formed, that the Sokratic method aspires. In

many of the Platonic dialogues, wherein Sokratês is brought forward

as the principal disputant, we read a series of discussions and

arguments, distinct, though having reference to the same subject,

but terminating either in a result purely negative, or without any

definite result at all. The commentators often attempt, but in my

judgment with little success, either by arranging the dialogues

in a supposed sequence or by various other hypotheses, to assign

some positive doctrinal conclusion as having been indirectly

contemplated by the author. But if Plato had aimed at any substantive

demonstration of this sort, we cannot well imagine that he would have

left his purpose thus in the dark, visible only by the microscope

of a critic. The didactic value of these dialogues—that wherein the

genuine Sokratic spirit stands most manifest—consists, not in the

positive conclusion proved, but in the argumentative process itself,

coupled with the general importance of the subject, upon which

evidence negative and affirmative is brought to bear.

This connects itself with that which I remarked in the preceding

chapter, when mentioning Zeno and the first manifestations of

dialectics, respecting the large sweep, the many-sided argumentation,

and the strength as well as forwardness of the negative arm, in

Grecian speculative philosophy. Through Sokratês, this amplitude

of dialectic range was transmitted from Zeno, first to Plato and

next to Aristotle. It was a proceeding natural to men who were not

merely interested in establishing, or refuting some given particular

conclusion, but who also—like expert mathematicians in their own

science—loved, esteemed, and sought to improve the dialectic process

itself, with the means of verification which it afforded; a

feeling, of which abundant evidence is to be found in the Platonic

writings.[732] Such pleasure in the scientific operation,—though

not merely innocent, but valuable both as a stimulant and as

a guarantee against error, and though the corresponding taste

among mathematicians is always treated with the sympathy which it

deserves,—incurs much unmerited reprobation from modern historians

of philosophy, under the name of love of disputation, cavilling, or

skeptical subtlety.

[732] See particularly the remarkable passage in the Philêbus, c.

18, p. 16, _seq._

But over and above any love of the process, the subjects to which

dialectics were applied, from Sokratês downwards,—man and society,

ethics, politics, metaphysics, etc., were such as particularly called

for this many-sided handling. On topics like these, relating to

sequences of fact which depend upon a multitude of coöperating or

conflicting causes, it is impossible to arrive, by any one thread

of positive reasoning or induction, at absolute doctrine, which a

man may reckon upon finding always true, whether he remembers the

proof or not; as is the case with mathematical, astronomical, or

physical truth. The utmost which science can ascertain, on subjects

thus complicated, is an aggregate, not of peremptory theorems and

predictions, but of tendencies;[733] by studying the action of each

separate cause, and combining them together as well as our means

admit. The knowledge of tendencies thus obtained, though falling

much short of certainty, is highly important for guidance: but it is

plain that conclusions of this nature, resulting from multifarious

threads of evidence, true only on a balance, and always liable to

limitation, can never be safely detached from the proofs on which

they rest, or taught as absolute and consecrated formulæ.[734] They

require to be kept in perpetual and conscious association with the

evidences, affirmative and negative, by the joint consideration of

which their truth is established; nor can this object be attained by

any other means than by ever-renovated discussion, instituted from

new and distinct points of view, and with free play to that negative

arm which is indispensable as stimulus not less than as control. To

ask for nothing but results, to decline the labor of verification,

to be satisfied with a ready-made stock of established positive

arguments as proof, and to decry the doubter or negative reasoner,

who starts new difficulties, as a common enemy, this is a proceeding

sufficiently common, in ancient as well as in modern times. But it

is, nevertheless, an abnegation of the dignity, and even of the

functions, of speculative philosophy. It is the direct reverse of

the method both of Sokratês and Plato, who, as inquirers, felt that,

for the great subjects which they treated, multiplied threads of

reasoning, coupled with the constant presence of the cross-examining

elenchus, were indispensable. Nor is it less at variance with the

views of Aristotle,—though a man very different from either of

them,—who goes round his subject on all sides, states and considers

all its difficulties, and insists emphatically on the necessity of

having all these difficulties brought out in full force, as the

incitement and guide to positive philosophy, as well as the test of

its sufficiency.[735]

[733] See this point instructively set forth in Mr. John Stuart

Mill’s System of Logic, vol. ii, book vi, p. 565, 1st edition.

[734] Lord Bacon remarks, in the Novum Organon (Aph. 71):—

“Erat autem sapientia Græcorum professoria, et in disputationes

effusa, quod genus inquisitioni veritatis adversissimum est.

Itaque nomen illud Sophistarum—quod per contemptum ab iis, qui

se philosophos haberi voluerunt, in antiquos rhetores rejectum

et traductum est, Gorgiam, Protagoram, Hippiam, Polum—etiam

universo generi competit, Platoni, Aristoteli, Zenoni, Epicuro,

Theophrasto, et eorum successoribus, Chrysippo, Carneadi,

reliquis.”

Bacon is quite right in effacing the distinction between the two

lists of persons whom he compares; and in saying that the latter

were just as much sophists as the former, in the sense which he

here gives to the word, as well as in every other legitimate

sense. But he is not justified in imputing to either of them this

many-sided argumentation as a fault, looking to the subjects upon

which they brought it to bear. His remark has application to the

simpler physical sciences, but none to the moral. It had great

pertinence and value, at the time when he brought it forward, and

with reference to the important reforms which he was seeking to

accomplish in physical science. In so far as Plato, Aristotle,

or the other Greek philosophers, apply their deductive method

to physical subjects, they come justly under Bacon’s censure.

But here again, the fault consisted less in disputing too much,

than in too hastily admitting false or inaccurate axioms without

dispute.

[735] Aristotel. Metaphysic. iii, 1, 2-5, p. 995, _a_.

The indispensable necessity, to a philosopher, of having before

him all the difficulties and doubts of the problem which he

tries to solve, and of looking at a philosophical question with

the same alternate attention to its affirmative and negative

side, as is shown by a judge to two litigants, is strikingly

set forth in this passage. I transcribes portion of it: Ἐστὶ

δὲ τοῖς εὐπορῆσαι βουλομένοις προὔργου τὸ διαπορῆσαι καλῶς· ἡ

γὰρ ὕστερον εὐπορία λύσις τῶν πρότερον ἀπορουμένων ἐστὶ, λύειν

δ᾽ οὐκ ἐστιν ἀγνοοῦντας τὸν δεσμόν.... Διὸ δεῖ τὰς δυσχερείας

τεθεωρηκέναι πάσας πρότερον, τούτων τε χάριν, καὶ διὰ τὸ τοὺς

ζητοῦντας ἄνευ τοῦ διαπορῆσαι πρῶτον, ὁμοίους εἶναι τοῖς ποῖ δεῖ

βαδίζειν ἀγνοοῦσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις οὐδ᾽ εἴ ποτε τὸ ζητούμενον

εὕρηκεν, ἢ μὴ, γιγνώσκειν· τὸ γὰρ τέλος τούτῳ μὲν οὐ δῆλον, τῷ δὲ

προηπορηκότι δῆλον. Ἔτι δὲ βέλτιον ἀνάγκη ἔχειν πρὸς τὸ κρίνειν,

τὸν ὥσπερ ἀντιδίκων καὶ τῶν ἀμφισβητούντων λόγων ἀκηκοότα πάντων.

A little further on, in the same chapter (iii, 1, 19, p. 996,

_a_), he makes a remarkable observation. Not merely it is

difficult, on these philosophical subjects, to get at the truth,

but it is not easy to perform well even the preliminary task of

discerning and setting forth the ratiocinative difficulties which

are to be dealt with: Περὶ γὰρ τούτων ἁπάντων οὐ μόνον χαλεπὸν τὸ

εὐπορῆσαι τῆς ἀληθείας, ἀλλ᾽ ~οὐδὲ τὸ διαπορῆσαι τῷ λόγῳ ῥᾴδιον

καλῶς~. Διαπορῆσαι means the same as διεξελθεῖν τὰς ἀπορίας

(Bonitz. not. _ad loc._), “to go through the various points of

difficulty.”

This last passage illustrates well the characteristic gift of

Sokratês, which was exactly what Aristotle calls τὸ διαπορῆσαι

λόγῳ καλῶς; to force on the hearer’s mind those ratiocinative

difficulties which served both as spur and as guide towards

solution and positive truth; towards comprehensive and correct

generalization, with clear consciousness of the common attribute

binding together the various particulars included.

The same care to admit and even invite the development of

the negative side of a question, to accept the obligation of

grappling with all the difficulties, to assimilate the process of

inquiry to a judicial pleading, is to be seen in other passages

of Aristotle; see Ethic. Nikomach. vii, 1, 5; De Animâ, i, 2. p.

403, _b_; De Cœlo, i, 10, p. 279, _b_; Topica, i, 2, p. 101, _a_:

(Χρήσιμος δὲ ἡ διαλεκτικὴ) πρὸς τὰς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἐπιστήμας,

ὅτι δυνάμενοι πρὸς ἀμφότερα διαπορῆσαι, ῥᾷον ἐν ἑκάστοις

κατοψόμεθα τἀληθές τε καὶ τὸ ψεῦδος. Compare also Cicero, Tusc.

Disput. ii, 3, 9.

Understanding thus the method of Sokratês, we shall be at no loss

to account for a certain variance on his part—and a still greater

variance on the part of Plato, who expanded the method in writing

so much more—with the sophists, without supposing the latter to be

corrupt teachers. As they aimed at qualifying young men for active

life, they accepted the current ethical and political sentiment, with

its unexamined commonplaces and inconsistencies, merely seeking to

shape it into what was accounted a meritorious character at Athens.

They were thus exposed, along with others—and more than others, in

consequence of their reputation—to the analytical cross-examination

of Sokratês, and were quite as little able to defend themselves

against it.

Whatever may have been the success of Protagoras or any other among

these sophists, the mighty originality of Sokratês achieved results

not only equal at the time, but incomparably grander and more

lasting in reference to the future. Out of his intellectual school

sprang not merely Plato, himself a host, but all the other leaders

of Grecian speculation for the next half-century, and all those who

continued the great line of speculative philosophy down to later

times. Eukleidês and the Megaric school of philosophers,—Aristippus

and the Kyrenaic,—Antisthenês and Diogenês, the first of those called

the Cynics, all emanated more or less directly from the stimulus

imparted by Sokratês, though each followed a different vein of

thought.[736] Ethics continue to be what Sokratês had first made

them, a distinct branch of philosophy, alongside of which politics,

rhetoric, logic, and other speculations relating to man and society,

gradually arranged themselves; all of them more popular, as well as

more keenly controverted, than physics, which at that time presented

comparatively little charm, and still less of attainable certainty.

There can be no doubt that the individual influence of Sokratês

permanently enlarged the horizon, improved the method, and multiplied

the ascendent minds, of the Grecian speculative world, in a manner

never since paralleled. Subsequent philosophers may have had a more

elaborate doctrine, and a larger number of disciples who imbibed

their ideas; but none of them applied the same stimulating method

with the same efficacy; none of them struck out of other minds that

fire which sets light to original thought; none of them either

produced in others the pains of intellectual pregnancy, or extracted

from others the fresh and unborrowed offspring of a really parturient

mind.

[736] Cicero (de Orator. iii, 16, 61; Tuscul. Disput. v, 4, 11):

“Cujus (Socratis) multiplex ratio disputandi, rerumque varietas,

et ingenii magnitudo, Platonis ingenio et literis consecrata,

plura genera effecit dissentientium philosophorum.” Ten distinct

varieties of Sokratic philosophers are enumerated; but I lay

little stress on the exact number.

Having thus touched upon Sokratês, both as first opener of the

field of ethics to scientific study, and as author of a method,

little copied and never paralleled since his time, for stimulating

in other men’s minds earnest analytical inquiry, I speak last about

his theoretical doctrine. Considering the fanciful, far-fetched

ideas, upon which alone the Pythagoreans and other predecessors had

shaped their theories respecting virtues and vices, the wonder is

that Sokratês, who had no better guides to follow, should have laid

down an ethical doctrine which has the double merit of being true, as

far as it goes, legitimate, and of comprehensive generality: though

it errs, mainly by stating a part of the essential conditions of

virtue[737]—sometimes also a part of the ethical end—as if it were

the whole. Sokratês resolved all virtue into knowledge or wisdom;

all vice, into ignorance or folly. To do right was the only way to

impart happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness compatible

with any given situation: now this was precisely what every one

wished for and aimed at; only that many persons, from ignorance,

took the wrong road; and no man was wise enough always to take the

right. But as no man was willingly his own enemy, so no man ever

did wrong willingly; it was because he was not fully or correctly

informed of the consequences of his own actions; so that the proper

remedy to apply was enlarged teaching of consequences and improved

judgment.[738] To make him willing to be taught, the only condition

required was to make him conscious of his own ignorance; the want of

which consciousness was the real cause both of indocility and of vice.

[737] In setting forth the ethical end, the language of Sokratês,

as far as we can judge from Xenophon and Plato, seems to have

been not always consistent with itself. He sometimes stated it

as if it included a reference to the happiness, not merely of

the agent himself, but of others besides; both as coördinate

elements; at other times, he seems to speak as if the end was

nothing more than the happiness of the agent himself, though the

happiness of others was among the greatest and most essential

means. The former view is rather countenanced by Xenophon,

the best witness about his master, so that I have given it as

belonging to Sokratês, though it is not always adhered to. The

latter view appears most in Plato, who assimilates the health

of the soul to the health of the body, an end essentially

self-regarding.

[738] Cicero, de Orator. i, 47, 204.

That this doctrine sets forth one portion of the essential

conditions of virtue, is certain; and that too the most commanding

portion, since there can be no assured moral conduct except under the

supremacy of reason. But that it omits to notice, what is not less

essential to virtue, the proper condition of the emotions, desires,

etc., taking account only of the intellect, is also certain; and has

been remarked by Aristotle[739] as well as by many others. It is

fruitless, in my judgment, to attempt by any refined explanation to

make out that Sokratês meant, by “knowledge,” something more than

what is directly implied in the word. He had present to his mind,

as the grand depravation of the human being, not so much vice, as

madness; that state in which a man does not know what he is doing.

Against the vicious man, securities both public and private may be

taken, with considerable effect; against the madman there is no

security except perpetual restraint. He is incapable of any of the

duties incumbent on social man, nor can he, even if he wishes, do

good either to himself or to others. The sentiment which we feel

towards such an unhappy being is, indeed, something totally different

from moral reprobation, such as we feel for the vicious man who does

wrong knowingly. But Sokratês took measure of both with reference

to the purposes of human life and society, and pronounced that the

latter was less completely spoiled for those purposes than the

former. Madness was ignorance at its extreme pitch, accompanied, too,

by the circumstance that the madman himself was unconscious of his

own ignorance, acting under a sincere persuasion that he knew what

he was doing. But short of this extremity, there were many varieties

and gradations in the scale of ignorance, which, if accompanied by

false conceit of knowledge, differed from madness only in degree, and

each of which disqualified a man from doing right, in proportion to

the ground which it covered. The worst of all ignorance—that which

stood nearest to madness—was when a man was ignorant of himself,

fancying that he knew what he did not really know, and that he could

do, or avoid, or endure, what was quite beyond his capacity; when,

for example, intending to speak the same truth, he sometimes said

one thing, sometimes another; or, casting up the same arithmetical

figures, made sometimes a greater sum, sometimes a less. A person

who knows his letters, or an arithmetician, may doubtless write

bad orthography or cast-up incorrectly, by design, but can also

perform the operations correctly, if he chooses; while one ignorant

of writing or of arithmetic, _cannot_ do it correctly, even though

he should be anxious to do so. The former, therefore, comes nearer

to the good orthographer or arithmetician than the latter. So, if

a man knows what is just, honorable, and good, but commits acts

of a contrary character, he is juster, or comes nearer to being a

just man, than one who does not know what just acts are, and does

not distinguish them from unjust; for this latter _cannot_ conduct

himself justly, even if he desires it ever so much.[740]

[739] Xenoph. Mem. iii, 9, 4; Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. vi, 13,

3-5; Ethic. Eudem. i, 5; Ethic. Magn. i, 35.

[740] Xenoph. Mem. iii, 9, 6; iv, 2, 19-22. δικαιότερον δὲ τὸν

ἐπιστάμενον τὰ δίκαια τοῦ μὴ ἐπισταμένου. To call him the juster

man of the two, when neither are just, can hardly be meant: I

translate it according to what seems to me the meaning intended.

So γραμματικώτερον, in the sentence before, means, comes nearer

to a good orthographer. The Greek derivative adjectives in -ικὸς

are very difficult to render precisely.

Compare Plato, Hippias Minor, c. 15, p. 372, D, where the same

opinion is maintained. Hippias tells Sokratês, in that dialogue

(c. 11, p. 369, B), that he fixes his mind on a part of the

truth, and omits to notice the rest.

The opinion here maintained illustrates forcibly the general doctrine

of Sokratês. I have already observed that the fundamental idea which

governed his train of reasoning, was, the analogy of each man’s

social life and duty to a special profession or trade. Now what is

principally inquired after in regard to these special men, is their

professional capacity; without this, no person would ever think of

employing them, let their dispositions be ever so good; with it, good

dispositions and diligence are presumed, unless there be positive

grounds for suspecting the contrary. But why do we indulge such

presumption? Because their pecuniary interest, their professional

credit, and their place among competitors, are staked upon success,

so that we reckon upon their best efforts. But in regard to that

manifold and indefinite series of acts which constitute the sum

total of social duty, a man has no such special interest to guide

and impel him, nor can we presume in him those dispositions which

will insure his doing right, wherever he knows what right is.

Mankind are obliged to give premiums for these dispositions, and to

attach penalties to the contrary, by means of praise and censure;

moreover, the natural sympathies and antipathies of ordinary minds,

which determine so powerfully the application of moral terms, run

spontaneously in this direction, and even overshoot the limit which

reason would prescribe. The analogy between the paid special duty and

the general social duty, fails in this particular. Even if Sokratês

were correct as to the former,—and this would be noway true,—in

making the intellectual conditions of good conduct stand for the

whole, no such inference could safely be extended to the latter.

Sokratês affirmed that “well-doing” was the noblest pursuit of man.

“Well-doing” consisted in doing a thing well after having learned it

and practised it, by the rational and proper means; it was altogether

disparate from good fortune, or success without rational scheme

and preparation. “The best man (he said), and the most beloved by

the gods, is he who, as an husbandman, performs well the duties of

husbandry; as a surgeon, those of medical art; in political life,

his duty towards the commonwealth. But the man who does nothing

well, is neither useful, nor agreeable to the gods.”[741] This is

the Sokratic view of human life; to look at it as an assemblage of

realities and practical details; to translate the large words of the

moral vocabulary into those homely particulars to which at bottom

they refer; to take account of acts, not of dispositions apart from

act (in contradiction to the ordinary flow of the moral sympathies);

to enforce upon every one, that what he chiefly required was teaching

and practice, as preparations for act; and that therefore ignorance,

especially ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, was his capital

deficiency. The religion of Sokratês, as well as his ethics, had

reference to practical human ends; nor had any man ever less of that

transcendentalism in his mind, which his scholar Plato exhibits in

such abundance.

[741] Xenoph. Memor. iii, 9, 14, 15.

It is indisputable, then, that Sokratês laid down a general

ethical theory which is too narrow, and which states a part of the

truth as if it were the whole. But, as it frequently happens with

philosophers who make the like mistake, we find that he did not

confine his deductive reasonings within the limits of the theory,

but escaped the erroneous consequences by a partial inconsistency.

For example; no man ever insisted more emphatically than he, on the

necessity of control over the passions and appetites, of enforcing

good habits, and on the value of that state of the sentiments and

emotions which such a course tended to form.[742] In truth, this

is one particular characteristic of his admonitions. He exhorted

men to limit their external wants, to be sparing in indulgence, and

to cultivate, even in preference to honors and advancement, those

pleasures which would surely arise from a performance of duty, as

well as from self-examination and the consciousness of internal

improvement. This earnest attention, in measuring the elements and

conditions of happiness, to the state of the internal associations

as contrasted with the effect of external causes, as well as the

pains taken to make it appear how much the latter depend upon the

former for their power of conferring happiness, and how sufficient

is moderate good fortune in respect to externals, provided the

internal man be properly disciplined, is a vein of thought which

pervades both Sokratês and Plato, and which passed from them, under

various modifications, to most of the subsequent schools of ethical

philosophy. It is probable that Protagoras or Prodikus, training rich

youth for active life, without altogether leaving out such internal

element of happiness, would yet dwell upon it less; a point of

decided superiority in Sokratês.

[742] Xenoph. Mem. ii, 6, 39. ὅσαι δ᾽ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀρεταὶ

λέγονται ταύτας πάσας σκοπούμενος εὑρήσεις μαθήσει τε καὶ

~μελέτῃ~ αὐξανομένας. Again, the necessity of practise or

discipline is inculcated, iii, 9, 1. When Sokratês enumerates the

qualities requisite in a good friend, it is not merely superior

knowledge which he talks of, but of moral excellence; continence,

a self-sufficing temper, mildness, a grateful disposition (c. ii,

6, 1-5).

Moreover, Sokratês laid it down that continence, or self-control,

was the very basis of virtue: τὴν ἐγκράτειαν ἀρετῆς κρηπῖδα (i,

5, 4). Also, that _continence_ was indispensable in order to

enable a man to acquire knowledge (iv, 5, 10, 11).

Sokratês here plainly treats ἐγκράτειαν (continence, or

self-control) as not being a state of the intellectual man, and

yet as being the very basis of virtue. He therefore does not seem

to have applied consistently his general doctrine, that virtue

consisted in knowledge, or in the excellence of the intellectual

man, alone. Perhaps he might have said: Knowledge alone will

be sufficient to make you virtuous; but before you can acquire

knowledge, you must previously have disciplined your emotions and

appetites. This merely eludes the objection, without saving the

sufficiency of the general doctrine.

I cannot concur with Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. vol. ii, ch.

2, p. 78) in thinking that Sokratês meant by _knowledge_, or

_wisdom_, a transcendental attribute, above humanity, and such

as is possessed only by a god. This is by no means consistent

with that practical conception of human life and its ends, which

stands so plainly marked in his character.

Why should we think it wonderful that Sokratês should propose a

defective theory, which embraces only one side of a large and

complicated question? Considering that his was the first theory

derived from data really belonging to the subject, the wonder is,

that it was so near an approach to the truth.