at different times. Which of the two is earliest, we have no means of
deciding. The commentators, who favour generally the view taken in
the Gorgias, treat the Protagoras as a juvenile and erroneous
production: sometimes, with still less reason, they represent
Sokrates as arguing in that dialogue, from the principles of his
opponents, not from his own. For my part, without knowing whether the
Protagoras or the Gorgias is the earliest, I think the Protagoras an
equally finished composition, and I consider that the views which
Sokrates is made to propound in it, respecting pleasure and good, are
decidedly nearer to the truth.
[Side-note: Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of
Sokrates in both dialogues.]
That in the list of pleasures there are some which it is proper to
avoid,--and in the list of pains, some which it is proper to accept
or invite--is a doctrine maintained by Sokrates alike in both the
dialogues. Why? Because some pleasures are good, others bad: some
pains bad, others good--says Sokrates in the Gorgias. The same too is
said by Sokrates in the Protagoras; but then, he there explains what
he means by the appellation. All pleasure (he there says), so far as
it goes, is good--all pain is bad. But there are some pleasures which
cannot be enjoyed without debarring us from greater pleasures or
entailing upon us greater pains: on that ground therefore, such
pleasures are bad. So again, there are some pains, the suffering
of which is a condition indispensable to our escaping greater pains,
or to our enjoying greater pleasures: such pains therefore are good.
Thus this apparent exception does not really contradict, but
confirms, the general doctrine--That there is no good but the
pleasurable, and the elimination of pain--and no evil except the
painful, or the privation of pleasure. Good and evil have no
reference except to pleasures and pains; but the terms imply, in each
particular case, an estimate and comparison of future pleasurable and
painful consequences, and express the result of such comparison. "You
call enjoyment itself evil" (says Sokrates in the Protagoras),[75]
"when it deprives us of greater pleasures or entails upon us greater
pains. If you have any other ground, or look to any other end, in
calling it evil, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not
be able to tell us. So too, you say that pain is a good, when it
relieves us from greater pains, or when it is necessary as the
antecedent cause of greater pleasures. If you have any other end in
view, when you call pain good, you may tell us what that end is; but
you will not be able to tell us."[76]
[Footnote 75: Plato, Protagoras,** p. 354 D. [Greek: e)pei/, ei) kat'
a)/llo ti au)to\ to\ chai/rein kako\n kalei=te kai\ ei)s a)/llo ti
te/los a)poble/psantes, e)/choite a)\n kai\ ê(mi=n ei)pei=n; a)ll'
ou)ch e(/xete. . . . e)pei\ ei) pro\s a)/llo ti te/los a)poble/pete,
o(/tan kalê=te au)to\ to\ lupei=sthai a)gatho/n, ê)\ pro\s o(\ e)gô\
le/gô, e)/chete ê(mi=n ei)pein; a)ll' ou)ch e(/xete.]]
[Footnote 76: In a remarkable passage of the De Legibus, Plato denies
all essential distinction between Good and Pleasure, and all reality
of Good apart from Pleasure (Legg. ii. pp. 662-663). [Greek: ei) d'
au)= to\n dikaio/taton eu)daimone/staton a)pophai/noito bi/on
ei)=nai, zêtoi= pou pa=s a)\n o( a)kou/ôn, oi)=mai, ti/ pot' e)n
au)tô=| to\ tê=s ê(donê=s krei=tton a)gatho/n te kai\ kalo\n o(
no/mos e)no\n e)painei=? ti/ ga\r dê\ dikai/ô| chôrizo/menon ê(donê=s
a)gatho\n a)\n ge/noito?]
Plato goes on to argue as follows: Even though it were not true, as I
affirm it to be, that the life of justice is a life of pleasure, and
the life of injustice a life of pain--still the law-giver must
proclaim this proposition as a useful falsehood, and compel every one
to chime in with it. Otherwise the youth will have no motive to just
conduct. For no one will willingly consent to obey any recommendation
from which he does not expect more pleasure than pain; [Greek:
ou)dei\s ga\r a)\n e(/kôn e)/theloi pei/thesthai pra/ttein tou=to
o(/, tô| mê\ to\ chai/rein tou= lupei=sthai ple/on e(/petai] (663
B).]
[Side-note: Distinct statement in the Protagoras. What are
good and evil, and upon what principles the scientific adviser is to
proceed in discriminating them. No such distinct statement in the
Gorgias.]
In the Gorgias, too, Sokrates declares that some pleasures are good,
others bad--some pains bad, others good. But here he stops. He does
not fulfil the reasonable demand urged by Sokrates in the Protagoras--"If
you make such a distinction, explain the ground on which you
make it, and the end to which you look". The distinction in the
Gorgias stands without any assigned ground or end to rest upon. And
this want is the more sensibly felt, when we read in the same
dialogue, that--"It is not every man who can distinguish the good
pleasures from the bad: a scientific man, proceeding on principle, is
needed for the purpose".[77] But upon what criterion is the
scientific man to proceed? Of what properties is he to take account,
in pronouncing one pleasure to be bad, another good--or one pain to
be bad and another good--the estimate of consequences, measured in
future pleasures and pains, being by the supposition excluded? No
information is given. The problem set to the scientific man is one of
which all the quantities are unknown. Now Sokrates in the
Protagoras[78] also lays it down, that a scientific or rational
calculation must be had, and a mind competent to such calculation
must be postulated, to decide which pleasures are bad or fit to be
rejected--which pains are good, or proper to be endured. But then he
clearly specifies the elements which alone are to be taken into the
calculation--_viz._, the future pleasures and pains accompanying
or dependent upon each with the estimate of their comparative
magnitude and durability. The theory of this calculation is clear and
intelligible: though in many particular cases, the data necessary for
making it, and the means of comparing them, may be very imperfectly
accessible.
[Footnote 77: Plato, Gorgias, p. 500 A. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n panto\s
a)ndro/s** e)stin e)kle/xasthai poi=a a)/gatha\ tô=n ê(de/ôn
e)sti\ kai\ o(poi=a kaka/? ê)\ technikou= dei= ei)s e(/kaston?
Technikou=.]]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Protagoras, pp. 357 B, 356 E.]
[Side-note: Modern ethical theories. Intuition. Moral sense--not
recognised by Plato in either of the dialogues.]
According to various ethical theories, which have chiefly obtained
currency in modern times, the distinction--between pleasures good or
fit to be enjoyed, and pleasures bad or unfit to be enjoyed--is
determined for us by a moral sense or intuition: by a simple,
peculiar, sentiment of right and wrong, or a conscience, which
springs up within us ready-made, and decides on such matters without
appeal; so that a man has only to look into his own heart for a
solution. We need not take account of this hypothesis, in reviewing
Plato's philosophy: for he evidently does not proceed upon it. He
expressly affirms, in the Gorgias as well as in the Protagoras, that
the question is one requiring science or knowledge to determine it,
and upon which none but the man of science or _expert_
([Greek: techniko\s]) is a competent judge.
[Side-note: In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is
self-regarding as respects the agent: not considering the pleasures
and pains of other persons, so far as affected by the agent.]
Moreover, there is another point common to both the two dialogues,
deserving of notice. I have already remarked when reviewing the
doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras, that it appears to me
seriously defective, inasmuch as it takes into account the pleasures
and pains of the agent only, and omits the pleasures and pains of
other persons affected by his conduct. But this is not less true
respecting the doctrine of Sokrates in the Gorgias: for whatever
criterion he may there have in his mind to determine which among our
pleasures are bad, it is certainly not this--that the agent in
procuring them is obliged to hurt others. For the example which
Sokrates cites as specially illustrating the class of bad
pleasures--_viz._, the pleasure of scratching an itching part of the
body[79]--is one in which no others besides the agent are concerned.
As in the Protagoras, so in the Gorgias--Plato in laying down his
rule of life, admits into the theory only what concerns the agent
himself, and makes no direct reference to the happiness of others as
affected by the agent's behaviour.
[Footnote 79: The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have reckoned this
among the bad pleasures, because the discomfort and distress of body
out of which it arises more than countervail the pleasure.]
[Side-note: Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues
is in substance the same, but differing in classification.]
There are however various points of analogy between the Protagoras
and the Gorgias, which will enable us, after tracing them out, to
measure the amount of substantial difference between them; I speak of
the reasoning of Sokrates in each. Thus, in the Protagoras,[80]
Sokrates ranks health, strength, preservation of the community,
wealth, command, &c., under the general head of Good things, but
expressly on the ground that they are the producing causes and
conditions of pleasures and of exemption from pains: he also ranks
sickness and poverty under the head of Evil things, as productive
causes of pain and suffering. In the Gorgias also, he numbers wisdom,
health, strength, perfection of body, riches, &c., among Good
things or profitable things[81]--(which two words he treats as
equivalent)--and their contraries as Evil things. Now he does
not expressly say here (as in the Protagoras) that these things are
_good_, because they are productive causes of pleasure or
exemption from pain: but such assumption must evidently be supplied
in order to make the reasoning valid. For upon what pretence can any
one pronounce strength, health, riches, to be _good_--and
helplessness, sickness, poverty, to be _evil_--if no reference
be admitted to pleasures and pains? Sokrates in the Gorgias[82]
declares that the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, in so
far as they impart health and strength to the body--evil, in so far
as they produce a contrary effect. Sokrates in the Protagoras reasons
in the same way--but with this difference--that he would count the
pleasure of the repast itself as one item of good: enhancing the
amount of good where the future consequences are beneficial,
diminishing the amount of evil where the future consequences are
Unfavourable: while Sokrates in the Gorgias excludes immediate
pleasure from the list of good things, and immediate pain from the
list of evil things.
[Footnote 80: Plato, Protagor. pp. 353 D, 354 A.]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 467-468-499.]
[Footnote 82: Plato, Gorgias, p. 499 D.]
This last exclusion renders the theory in the Gorgias untenable and
inconsistent. If present pleasure be not admitted as an item of good
so far as it goes--then neither can the future and consequent
aggregates of pleasure, nor the causes of them, be admitted as good.
So likewise, if present pain be no evil, future pain cannot be
allowed to rank as an evil.[83]
[Footnote 83: Compare a passage in the Republic (ii. p. 357) where
Sokrates gives (or accepts, as given by Glaukon) a description of
Good much more coincident with the Protagoras than with the Gorgias.
The common property of all Good is to be desired or loved; and there
are three varieties of it--1. That which we desire for itself, and
for its own sake, apart from all ulterior consequences, such as
innocuous pleasures or enjoyments. 2. That which we desire both for
itself and for its ulterior consequences, such as good health, good
vision, good sense, &c. 3. That which we do not desire--nay,
which we perhaps hate or shun, _per se_: but which we
nevertheless desire and invite, in connection with and for the sake
of ulterior consequences: such as gymnastic training, medical
treatment when we are sick, labour in our trade or profession.
Here Plato admits the immediately pleasurable _per se_ as one
variety of good, always assuming that it is not countervailed by
consequences or accompaniments of a painful character. This is the
doctrine of the Protagoras, as distinguished from the Gorgias, where
Sokrates sets pleasure in marked opposition to good.]
[Side-note: Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias,
maintains a different argument from that which Sokrates combats in
the Protagoras.]
Each of the two dialogues, which I am now comparing, is in truth an
independent composition: in each, Sokrates has a distinct argument to
combat; and in the latest of the two (whichever that was), no heed is
taken of the argumentation in the earlier. In the Protagoras, he
exalts the dignity and paramount force of knowledge or prudence: if a
man knows how to calculate pleasures and pains, he will be sure to
choose the result which involves the greater pleasure or the less
pain, on the whole: to say that he is overpowered by immediate
pleasure or pain into making a bad choice, is a wrong description--the
real fact being, that he is deficient in the proper knowledge how
to choose. In the Gorgias, the doctrine assigned to Kalliklês and
impugned by Sokrates is something very different. That justice,
temperance, self-restraint, are indeed indispensable to the happiness
of ordinary men; but if there be any one individual, so immensely
superior in force as to trample down and make slaves of the rest,
this one man would be a fool if he restrained himself: having the
means of gratifying all his appetites, the more appetites he has, the
more enjoyments will he have and the greater happiness.[84]
Observe--that Kalliklês applies this doctrine only to the one omnipotent
despot: to all other members of society, he maintains that
self-restraint is essential. This is the doctrine which Sokrates in the
Gorgias undertakes to refute, by denying community of nature between
the pleasurable and the good--between the painful and the evil.
[Footnote 84: Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 B.]
[Side-note: The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the
Gorgias, is unsuccessful--it is only so far successful as he adopts
unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras.]
To me his refutation appears altogether unsuccessful, and the
position upon which he rests it incorrect. The only parts of the
refutation really forcible, are those in which he unconsciously
relinquishes this position, and slides into the doctrine of the
Protagoras. Upon this latter doctrine, a refutation might be
grounded: you may show that even an omnipotent despot (regard for the
comfort of others being excluded by the hypothesis) will gain by
limiting the gratification of his appetites to-day so as not to spoil
his appetites of tomorrow. Even in his case, prudential restraint is
required, though his motives for it would be much less than in the
case of ordinary social men. But Good, as laid down by Plato in the
Gorgias, entirely disconnected from pleasure--and Evil, entirely
disconnected from pain--have no application to this supposed despot.
He has no desire for such Platonic Good--no aversion for such
Platonic Evil. His happiness is not diminished by missing the former
or incurring the latter. In fact, one of the cardinal principles of
Plato's ethical philosophy, which he frequently asserts both in this
dialogue and elsewhere,[85]--That every man desires Good, and acts
for the sake of obtaining Good, and avoiding Evil--becomes untrue, if
you conceive Good and Evil according to the Gorgias, as having no
reference to pleasure or the avoidance of pain: untrue, not merely in
regard to a despot under these exceptional conditions, but in regard
to the large majority of social men. They desire to obtain Good and
avoid Evil, in the sense of the Protagoras: but not in the sense of
the Gorgias.[86] Sokrates himself proclaims in this dialogue: "I and
philosophy stand opposed to Kalliklês and the Athenian public. What I
desire is, to reason consistently with myself." That is, to speak the
language of Sokrates in the Protagoras--"To me, Sokrates, the
consciousness of inconsistency with myself and of an unworthy
character, the loss of my own self-esteem and the pungency of my own
self-reproach, are the greatest of all pains: greater than those
which you, Kalliklês, and the Athenians generally, seek to avoid at
all price and urge me also to avoid at all price--poverty, political
nullity, exposure to false accusation, &c."[87] The noble
scheme of life, here recommended by Sokrates, may be correctly
described according to the theory of the Protagoras: without any
resort to the paradox of the Gorgias, that Good has no kindred or
reference to Pleasure, nor Evil to Pain.
[Footnote 85: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 467 C, 499 E.]
[Footnote 86: The reasoning of Plato in the Gorgias, respecting this
matter, rests upon an equivocal phrase. The Greek phrase [Greek: eu)=
pra/ttein] has two meanings; it means _recté agere_, to act
rightly; and it also means _felicem esse_, to be happy. There is
a corresponding double sense in [Greek: kakô=s pra/ttein]. Heindorf
has well noticed the fallacious reasoning founded by Plato on this
double sense. We read in the Gorgias, p. 507 C: [Greek: a)na/gkê to\n
sô/phrona, di/kaion o)/nta kai\ a)ndrei=on kai\ o(/sion, a)gatho\n
a)/ndra ei)=nai tele/ôs, to\n de\ a)gatho\n ei)= te kai\ kalô=s
pra/ttein a)\ a)\n pra/ttê|, to\n d' eu)= pra/ttonta maka/rio/n te
kai\ eu)dai/mona ei)=nai, to\n de\ ponêro\n kai\ kakô=s pra/ttonta
a)/thlion.] Upon which Heindorf remarks, citing a note of Routh, who
says, "Vix enim potest credi, Platonem duplici sensu verborum [Greek:
eu)= pra/ttein] ad argumentum probandum abuti voluisse, quæ fallacia
esset amphiboliæ". "Non meminerat" (says Heindorf) "vir doctus
ceteros in Platone locos, ubi eodem modo ex duplici illâ potestate
argumentatio ducitur, cujusmodi plura attulimus ad Charmidem, 42, p.
172 A." Heindorf observes, on the Charmidês l. c.: "Argumenti hujus
vim positam apparet in duplici dictionis [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein]
significatu: quum vulgo sit _felicem esse_, non _recté
facere_. Hoc aliaque ejusdem generis sæpius sic ansam præbuerunt
sophismatis magis quam justi syllogismi." Heindorf then refers to
analogous passages in Plato, Repub. i. p. 354 A: Alkib. i. p. 116 B,
p. 134 A. A similar fallacy is found in Aristotle, Politic. vii. i.
p. 1323, a. 17, b. 32--[Greek: a)/rista ga\r pra/ttein prosê/kei
tou\s a)/rista politeuome/nous--a)du/naton de\ kalô=s pra/ttein toi=s
mê\ ta\ kala\ pra/ttousin.] This fallacy is recognised and properly
commented on as a "logisches Wortspiel," by Bernays, in his
instructive volume, _Die** Dialoge des Aristoteles_, pp. 80-81
(Berlin, 1863).]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 481 D, 482 B.]
[Side-note: Permanent elements--and transient elements--of
human agency--how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues.]
Lastly I will compare the Protagoras and the Gorgias (meaning always,
the reasoning of Sokrates in each of them) under one more point of
view. How does each of them describe and distinguish the permanent
elements, and the transient elements, involved in human agency? What
function does each of them assign to the permanent element? The
distinction of these two is important in its ethical bearing. The
whole life both of the individual and of society consists of
successive moments of action or feeling. But each individual (and the
society as an aggregate of individuals) has within him embodied and
realised an element more or less permanent--an established character,
habits, dispositions, intellectual acquirements, &c.--a sort of
capital accumulated from the past. This permanent element is of
extreme importance. It stands to the transient element in the same
relation as the fixed capital of a trader or manufacturer to his
annual produce. The whole use and value of the fixed capital, of
which the skill and energy of the trader himself make an important
part, consists in the amount of produce which it will yield: but at
the same time the trader must keep it up in its condition of fixed
capital, in order to obtain such amount: he must set apart, and
abstain from devoting to immediate enjoyment, as much of the annual
produce as will suffice to maintain the fixed capital unimpaired--and
more, if he desires to improve his condition. The capital cannot be
commuted into interest; yet nevertheless its whole value depends
upon, and is measured by, the interest which it yields. Doubtless the
mere idea of possessing the capital is pleasurable to the possessor,
because he knows that it can and will be profitably employed, so long
as he chooses.
[Side-note: In the Protagoras.]
Now in the Protagoras, the permanent element is very pointedly
distinguished from the transient, and is called Knowledge--the
Science or Art of Calculation. Its function also is clearly
announced--to take comparative estimate and measurement of the
transient elements; which are stated to consist of pleasures and
pains, present and future--near and distant--certain and
uncertain--faint and strong. To these elements, manifold yet
commensurable, the calculation is to apply. "The safety of life"
(says Sokrates[88]) "resides in our keeping up this science or art
of calculation." No present enjoyment must be admitted, which would
impair it; no present pain must be shunned, which is essential to
uphold it. Yet the whole of its value resides in its application to
the comparison of the pleasures and pains.
[Footnote 88: Plato, Protag. p. 357 A. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\ ê(donê=s
te kai\ lu/pês e)n o)rthê=| tê=| ai(re/sei e)pha/nê ê(mi=n ê(
sôtêri/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa, tou= te ple/onos kai\ e)lattonos kai\
mei/zonos kai\ smikrote/rou kai\ por)r(ôte/rô kai\ e)ggute/rô],
&c.]
[Side-note: In the Gorgias.]
In the Gorgias the same two elements are differently described, and
less clearly explained. The permanent is termed, Order, arrangement,
discipline, a lawful, just, and temperate, cast of mind (opposed to
the doctrine ascribed to Kalliklês, which negatived this element
altogether, in the mind of the despot), parallel to health and
strength of body: the unordered mind is again the parallel of the
corrupt, distempered, helpless, body; life is not worth having until
this is cured.[89] This corresponds to the knowledge or Calculating
Science in the Protagoras; but we cannot understand what its function
is, in the Gorgias, because the calculable elements are incompletely
enumerated.
[Footnote 89: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 504 B-C, 506 D-E.
[Greek: Ta/xis--ko/smos--psuchê\ kosmi/a a)mei/nôn tou= a)kosmê/tou.]]
In the Protagoras, these calculable elements are two-fold--immediate
pleasures and pains--and future or distant pleasures and pains.
Between these two there is intercommunity of nature, so that they are
quite commensurable; and the function of the calculating reason is,
to make a right estimate of the one against the other.[90] But in the
Gorgias, no mention is made of future or distant pleasures and pains:
the calculable element is represented only by immediate pleasure or
pain--and from thence we pass at once to the permanent calculator--the
mind, sound or corrupt. You must abstain from a particular
enjoyment, because it will taint the soundness of your mind:
this is a pertinent reason (and would be admitted as such by Sokrates
in the Protagoras, who instead of sound mind would say, calculating
intelligence), but it is neither the ultimate reason (since this
soundness of mind is itself valuable with a view to future
calculations), nor the only reason: for you must also abstain, if it
will bring upon yourself (or upon others) preponderating pains in the
particular case--if the future pains would preponderate over the
present pleasure. Of this last calculation no notice is taken in the
Gorgias: which exhibits only the antithesis (not merely marked but
even over-done[91]) between the immediate pleasure or pain and the
calculating efficacy of mind, but leaves out the true function which
gives value to the sound mind as distinguished from the unsound and
corrupt. That function consists in its application to particular
cases: in right dealing with actual life, as regards the agent
himself and others: in [Greek: e)nergei/a], as distinguished from
[Greek: e(/xis], to use Aristotelian language.[92] I am far from
supposing that this part of the case was absent from Plato's mind.
But the theory laid out in the Gorgias (as compared with that in the
Protagoras) leaves no room for it; giving exclusive prominence to the
other elements, and acknowledging only the present pleasure or pain,
to be set against the permanent condition of mind, bad or good as it
may be.
[Footnote 90: There would be also the like intercommunity of nature,
if along with the pains and pleasures of the agent himself (which
alone are regarded in the calculation of Sokrates in the Protagoras)
you admit into the calculation the pleasures and pains of others
concerned, and the rules established with a view to both the two
together with a view to the joint interest both of the agent and of
others.]
[Footnote 91: Epikurus and his followers assigned the greatest value,
in their ethical theory, to the permanent element, or established
character of the agent, intellectual and emotional. But great as they
reckoned this value to be, they resolved it all into the diminution
or mitigation of pains, and, in a certain though inferior degree, the
multiplication of pleasures. They did not put it in a separate
category of its own, altogether disparate and foreign to pleasures
and pains.
See the letter of Epikurus to Menoekeus, Diog. L. x. 128-132;
Lucretius, v. 18-45, vi. 12-25; Horat. Epist. i. 2, 48-60.]
[Footnote 92: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. i. 7. The remark of Aristotle in
the same treatise, i. 5--[Greek: dokei= ga\r e)nde/chesthai kai\
katheu/dein e)/chonta tê\n a)retê/n, ê)\ a)praktei=n dia\ bi/ou]--might
be applied to the theory of the Gorgias. Compare also Ethic.
Nik. vii. 3 (vii. 4, p. 1146, b. 31, p. 1147, a. 12).]
[Side-note: Character of the Gorgias generally--discrediting
all the actualities of life.]
Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the
manner in which Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured,
exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all
the actualities of life--all the recreative and elegant arts,
including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic--all
provision for the most essential wants, all protection against
particular sufferings and dangers, even all service rendered to
another person in the way of relief or of rescue[93]--all the
effective maintenance of public organised force, such as ships,
docks, walls, arms, &c. Immediate satisfaction or relief, and
those who confer it, are treated with contempt, and presented as in
hostility to the perfection of the mental structure. And it is in
this point of view that various Platonic commentators extol in an
especial manner the Gorgias: as recognising an Idea of Good
superhuman and supernatural, radically disparate from pleasures and
pains of any human being, and incommensurable with them: an Universal
Idea, which, though it is supposed to cast a distant light upon
its particulars, is separated from them by an incalculable space, and
is discernible only by the Platonic telescope.
[Footnote 93: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 501-502-511-512-517-519. [Greek:
a)/neu ga\r dikaiosu/nês kai\ sôphrosu/nês lime/nôn kai\ neôri/ôn
kai\ teichô=n kai\ pho/rôn kai\ toiou/tôn phluariô=n e)mpeplê/kasi
tê\n po/lin.]
This is applied to the provision of food, drink, clothing, bedding,
for the hunger, thirst, &c., of the community (p. 517 D), to the
saving of life (p. 511 D). The boatman between Ægina and Peiræus
(says Plato) brings over his passengers in safety, together with
their families and property, preserving them from all the dangers of
the sea. The engineer, who constructs good fortifications, preserves
from danger and destruction all the citizens with their families and
their property (p. 512 B). But neither of these persons takes credit
for this service: because both of them know that it is doubtful
whether they have done any real service to the persons preserved,
since they have not rendered them any better; and that it is even
doubtful whether they may not have done them an actual mischief.
Perhaps these persons may be wicked and corrupt; in that case it is a
misfortune to them that their lives should be prolonged; it would be
better for them to die. It is under this conviction (says Plato) that
the boatman and the engineer, though they do preserve our lives, take
to themselves no credit for it.
We shall hardly find any greater rhetorical exaggeration than this,
among all the compositions of the rhetors against whom Plato declares
war in the Gorgias. Moreover, it is a specimen of the way in which
Plato colours and misinterprets the facts of social life, in order to
serve the purpose of the argument of the moment. He says truly that
when the passage boat from Ægina to Peiræus has reached its
destination, the steersman receives his fare and walks about on the
shore, without taking any great credit to himself, as if he had
performed a brilliant deed or conferred an important service. But how
does Plato explain this? By supposing in the steersman's mind
feelings which never enter into the mind of a real agent; feelings
which are put into words only when a moralist or a satirist is
anxious to enforce a sentiment. The service which the steersman
performs is not only adequately remunerated, but is, on most days, a
regular and easy one, such as every man who has gone through a decent
apprenticeship can perform. But suppose an exceptional day--suppose a
sudden and terrible storm to supervene on the passage--suppose the
boat full of passengers, with every prospect of all on board being
drowned--suppose she is only saved by the extraordinary skill,
vigilance, and efforts of the steersman. In that case he will, on
reaching the land, walk about full of elate self-congratulation and
pride: the passengers will encourage this sentiment by expressions of
the deepest gratitude; while friends as well as competitors will
praise his successful exploit. How many of the passengers there are
for whom the preservation of life may be a curse rather than a
blessing--is a question which neither they themselves, nor the
steersman, nor the public, will ever dream of asking.]
* * * * *
[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates resumed--multifarious arts of
flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure.]
We have now established (continues Sokrates) that pleasure is
essentially different from good, and pain from evil: also, that to
obtain good and avoid evil, a scientific choice is required--while to
obtain pleasure and avoid pain, is nothing more than blind imitation
or irrational knack. There are some arts and pursuits which aim only
at procuring immediate pleasure--others which aim at attaining good
or the best;[94] some arts, for a single person,--others for a
multitude. Arts and pursuits which aim only at immediate pleasure,
either of one or of a multitude, belong to the general head of
Flattery. Among them are all the musical, choric, and dithyrambic
representations at the festivals--tragedy as well as comedy--also
political and judicial rhetoric. None of these arts aim at any thing
except to gratify the public to whom they are addressed: none of them
aim at the permanent good: none seek to better the character of the
public. They adapt themselves to the prevalent desires: but whether
those desires are such as, if realised, will make the public worse or
better, they never enquire.[95]
[Footnote 94: The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have admitted a
twofold distinction of aims, but would have stated the distinction
otherwise. Two things (he would say) may be looked at in regard to
any course of conduct: first, the immediate pleasure or pain which it
yields; secondly, this item, not alone, but combined with all the
other pleasures and pains which can be foreseen as its conditions,
consequences, or concomitants. To obey the desire of immediate
pleasure, or the fear of immediate pain, requires no science; to
foresee, estimate, and compare the consequences, requires a
scientific calculation often very difficult and complicated--a
[Greek: te/chnê] or [Greek: e)pistê/mê metrêtikê/].
Thus we are told not only in what cases the calculation is required,
but what are the elements to be taken into the calculation. In the
Gorgias, we are not told on what elements the calculation of good and
evil is to be based: we are told that there _must be science_,
but we learn nothing more.]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 502-503.]
[Side-note: The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public--even
the best past Rhetors have done nothing else--citation of the
four great Rhetors by Kallikles.]
_Sokr._--Do you know any public speakers who aim at anything
more than gratifying the public, or who care to make the public
better? _Kall._--There are some who do, and others who do not.
_Sokr._--Which are those who do? and which of them has ever made
the public better?[96] _Kall._--At any rate, former
statesmen did so; such as Miltiades, Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles.
_Sokr._--None of them. If they had, you would have seen them
devoting themselves systematically and obviously to their one end. As
a builder labours to construct a ship or a house, by putting together
its various parts with order and symmetry--so these statesmen would
have laboured to implant order and symmetry in the minds and bodies
of the citizens: that is, justice and temperance in their minds,
health and strength in their bodies.[97] Unless the statesman can do
this, it is fruitless to supply the wants, to fulfil the desires and
requirements, to uphold or enlarge the power, of the citizens. This
is like supplying ample nourishment to a distempered body: the more
such a body takes in, the worse it becomes. The citizens must be
treated with refusal of their wishes and with punishment, until their
vices are healed, and they become good.[98]
[Footnote 96: Plato, Gorgias, p. 503 C.]
[Footnote 97: Plato, Gorgias, p. 504 D.]
[Footnote 98: Plato, Gorgias, p. 505 B.]
[Side-note: Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This
is the condition of virtue and happiness.]
We ought to do (continues Sokrates) what is pleasing for the sake of
what is good: not _vice versà_. But every thing becomes good by
possessing its appropriate virtue or regulation. The regulation
appropriate to the mind is to be temperate. The temperate man will do
what is just--his duty towards men: and what is holy--his duty
towards the Gods. He will be just and holy. He will therefore also be
courageous: for he will seek only such pleasures as duty permits, and
he will endure all such pains as duty requires. Being thus temperate,
just, brave, holy, he will be a perfectly good man, doing well and
honourably throughout. The man who does well, will be happy: the man
who does ill and is wicked, will be miserable.[99] It ought to be our
principal aim, both for ourselves individually and for the city, to
attain temperance and to keep clear of intemperance: not to let our
desires run immoderately (as you, Kallikles, advise), and then seek
repletion for them: which is an endless mischief, the life of a
pirate. He who pursues this plan can neither be the friend of any
other man, nor of the Gods: for he is incapable of communion, and
therefore of friendship.[100]
[Footnote 99: Plato, Gorgias, p, 507 D (with Routh and Heindorf's
notes).]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Gorgias, p. 507 E. [Greek: koinônei=n ga\r
a)du/natos; o(/tô| de\ mê\ e(/ni koinôni/a, phili/a ou)k a)\n
ei)/ê.]]
[Side-note: Impossible to succeed in public life, unless
a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force.]
Now, Kallikles (pursues Sokrates), you have reproached me with
standing aloof from public life in order to pursue philosophy. You
tell me that by not cultivating public speaking and public action, I
am at the mercy of any one who chooses to accuse me unjustly and to
bring upon me severe penalties. But I tell you, that it is a greater
evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong; and that my first business is,
to provide for myself such power and such skill as shall guard me
against doing wrong.[101] Next, as to suffering wrong, there is only
one way of taking precautions against it. You must yourself rule in
the city: or you must be a friend of the ruling power. Like is the
friend of like:[102] a cruel despot on the throne will hate and
destroy any one who is better than himself, and will despise any one
worse than himself. The only person who will have influence is, one
of the same dispositions as the despot: not only submitting to him
with good will, but praising and blaming the same things as he
does--accustomed from youth upwards to share in his preferences and
aversions, and assimilated to him as much as possible.[103] Now if
the despot be a wrong-doer, he who likens himself to the despot will
become a wrong-doer also. And thus, in taking precautions against
suffering wrong, he will incur the still greater mischief and
corruption of doing wrong, and will be worse off instead of better.
[Footnote 101: Plato, Gorgias, p. 509 C. Compare Leges, viii. 829 A,
where [Greek: to\ mê\ a)dikei=n] is described as easy of attainment;
[Greek: to\ mê\ a)dikei=sthai], as being [Greek: pagcha/lepon]: and
both equally necessary [Greek: pro\s to\ eu)daimo/nôs zê=|n].]
[Footnote 102: Plat. Gorg. 510 B. [Greek: phi/los--o( o(/moios tô=|
o(moi/ô|]. We have already seen this principle discussed and rejected
in the Lysis, p. 214. See above, ch. xx., p. 179.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C. [Greek: lei/petai dê\
e)kei=nos mo/nos a)/xios lo/gou phi/los tô=| toiou/tô|, o(\s a)\n,
o(moê/thês ô)/n, tau)ta\ pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n, e)the/lê|
a)/rchesthai kai\ u(pokei=sthai tô=| a)/rchonti. Ou(=tos me/ga e)n
tau/tê| tê=| po/lei dunê/setai, tou=ton ou)dei\s chai/rôn a)dikê/sei.
. . . Au(/tê o(do/s e)stin, eu)thu\s e)k ve/ou e)thi/zein au)to\n toi=s
au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthtai tô=| despo/tê|, kai\
paraskeua/zein o(/pôs o(/ ti ma/lista o(/moios e)/stai e)kei/nô|.]]
[Side-note: Danger of one who dissents from the public, either
for better or for worse.]
_Kall._--But if he does not liken himself to the despot, the
despot may put him to death, if he chooses? _Sokr._--Perhaps he
may: but it will be death inflicted by a bad man upon a good
man.[104] To prolong life is not the foremost consideration, but to
decide by rational thought what is the best way of passing that
length of life which the Fates allot.[105] Is it my best plan to do
as you recommend, and to liken myself as much as possible to the
Athenian people--in order that I may become popular and may acquire
power in the city? For it will be impossible for you to acquire power
in the city, if you dissent from the prevalent political character
and practice, be it for the better or for the worse. Even imitation
will not be sufficient: you must be, by natural disposition,
homogeneous with the Athenians, if you intend to acquire much favour
with them. Whoever makes you most like to them, will help you forward
most towards becoming an effective statesman and speaker: for every
assembly delight in speeches suited to their own dispositions, and
reject speeches of an opposite tenor.[106]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Gorgias, p. 511 B.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 511 B, 512 E.]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 A. [Greek: kai\ nu=n de\ a)/ra
dei= se ô(s o(moio/taton gi/gnesthai tô=| dêmô| tô=| A)thênai/ôn, ei)
me/lleis tou/tô| prosphilê\s ei)=nai kai\ me/ga du/nasthai e)n tê=|
po/lei. . . . ei) de/ soi oi)/ei o(ntinou=n a)nthrô/pôn paradô/sein
te/chnên tina\ toiau/tên, ê(/ ti/s se poiê/sei me/ga du/nasthai e)n
tê=| po/lei tê=|de, _a)no/moion o)/nta tê=| politei/a| ei)/t' e)pi\
to\ be/ltion ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ chei=ron_, ou)k o)rthô=s bouleu/ei;
ou) ga\r mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai, a)ll' au)tophuô=s o(/moion toou/tois,
ei) me/lleis ti gnê/sion a)perga/zesthai ei)s phili/an tô=|
A)thênai/ôn dê/mô|.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for
himself--to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction.]
Such are the essential conditions of political success and
popularity. But I, Kalliklês, have already distinguished two schemes
of life; one aiming at pleasure, the other aiming at good: one, that
of the statesman who studies the felt wants, wishes, and impulses of
the people, displaying his genius in providing for them effective
satisfaction--the other, the statesman who makes it his chief or sole
object to amend the character and disposition of the people. The last
scheme is the only one which I approve: and if it be that to which
you invite me, we must examine whether either you, Kallikles, or I,
have ever yet succeeded in amending or improving the character of any
individuals privately, before we undertake the task of amending the
citizens collectively.[107] None of the past statesmen whom you
extol, Miltiades, Kimon, Themistokles, Perikles, has produced any
such amendment.[108] Considered as ministers, indeed, they were
skilful and effective; better than the present statesmen. They were
successful in furnishing satisfaction to the prevalent wants and
desires of the citizens: they provided docks, walls, ships, tribute,
and other such follies, abundantly:[109] but they did nothing to
amend the character of the people--to transfer the desires of the
people from worse things to better things--or to create in them
justice and temperance. They thus did no real good by feeding the
desires of the people: no more good than would be done by a skilful
cook for a sick man, in cooking for him a sumptuous meal before the
physician had cured him.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorgias, p. 515 A.]
[Footnote 108: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 516, 517.]
[Footnote 109: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 517, 519. [Greek: a)/neu ga\r
sôphrosu/nês kai\ dikaiosu/nês lime/nôn kai\ neôri/ôn kai\ teichô=n
kai\ pho/rôn kai\ toiou/tôn phluariô=n e)mpeplê/kasi tê\n po/lin.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man
at Athens, who follows out the true political art. Danger of doing
this.]
I believe myself (continues Sokrates) to be the only man in Athens,--or
certainly one among a very few,--who am a true statesman,
following out the genuine purposes of the political art.[110] I aim
at what is best for the people, not at what is most agreeable. I do
not value those captivating accomplishments which tell in the
Dikastery. If I am tried, I shall be like a physician arraigned by
the confectioner before a jury of children. I shall not be able to
refer to any pleasures provided for them by me: pleasures which
_they_ call benefits, but which I regard as worthless. If any
one accuses me of corrupting the youth by making them sceptical, or
of libelling the older men in my private and public talk--it will be
in vain for me to justify myself by saying the real truth.--Dikasts,
I do and say all these things justly, for your real benefit. I shall
not be believed when I say this, and I have nothing else to say: so
that I do not know what sentence may be passed on me.[111] My only
refuge and defence will be, the innocence of my life. As for death,
no one except a fool or a coward fears _that_: the real evil,
and the greatest of all evils, is to pass into Hades with a corrupt
and polluted mind.[112]
[Footnote 110: Plato, Gorgias, p. 521 D.]
[Footnote 111: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 521-522.]
[Footnote 112: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 E. [Greek: au)to\ me\n ga\r to\
a)pothnê/skein ou)dei\s phobei=tai, o(/stis mê\ panta/pasin
a)lo/gisto/s te kai\ a)/nandro/s e)sti, to\ de\ a)dikei=n
phobei=tai], &c.
]
[Side-note: Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of
deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life--the
philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be
rewarded.]
Sokrates then winds up the dialogue, by reciting a [Greek: Ne/kuia],
a mythe or hypothesis about judgment in Hades after death, and
rewards and punishments to be apportioned to deceased men, according
to their merits during life, by Rhadamanthus and Minos. The greatest
sufferers by these judgments (he says) will be the kings, despots,
and men politically powerful, who have during their lives committed
the greatest injustices,--which indeed few of them avoid.[113]
The man most likely to fare well and to be rewarded, will be the
philosopher, "who has passed through life minding his own business,
and not meddling with the affairs of others".[114]
[Footnote 113: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 525-526.]
[Footnote 114: Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C. [Greek: philoso/phou ta\
au)tou= pra/xantos, kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n tô=| bi/ô|.]
It must be confessed that these terms do not correspond to the life
of Sokrates, as he himself describes it in the Platonic Apology. He
seems to have fancied that no one was [Greek: polupra/gmôn] except
those who spoke habitually in the Ekklesia and the Dikastery.]
* * * * *
[Side-note: Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates--Rhetorical or
dogmatical character of the Gorgias.]
"Dicuntur ista magnifice,"[115]--we may exclaim, in Ciceronian words,
on reaching the close of the Gorgias. It is pre-eminently solemn and
impressive; all the more so, from the emphasis of Sokrates, when
proclaiming the isolation in which he stands at Athens, and the
contradiction between his ethico-political views and those of his
fellow-citizens. In this respect it harmonises with the Apology, the
Kriton, Republic, and Leges: in all which, the peculiarity of his
ethical points of view stands proclaimed--especially in the Kriton,
where he declares that his difference with his opponents is
fundamental, and that there can be between them no common ground for
debate--nothing but reciprocal contempt.[116]
[Footnote 115: Cicero, De Finib. iii. 3, 11.]
[Footnote 116: Plato, Kriton, p. 49 D.]
[Side-note: He merges politics in Ethics--he conceives the
rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.]
The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as
extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as
considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is,
merging politics in ethics. The proper and paramount function of
statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual
teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and
characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad
dispositions to good. We are admonished that until this is effected,
more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of
the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state
of a sick man, who would receive harm and not benefit from a
sumptuous banquet.
[Side-note: _Idéal_ of Plato--a despotic lawgiver or
man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters
pursuant to certain types of his own.]
This is the conception of Plato in the Gorgias, speaking through the
person of Sokrates, respecting the ends for which the political
magistrate ought to employ his power. The magistrate, as
administering law and justice, is to the minds of the community what
the trainer and the physician are to their bodies: he produces
goodness of mind, as the two latter produce health and strength of
body. The Platonic _idéal_ is that of a despotic law-giver and
man-trainer, wielding the compulsory force of the secular arm for
what he believes to be spiritual improvement. However instructive it
is to study the manner in which a mind like that of Plato works out
such a purpose in theory, there is no reason for regret that he never
had an opportunity of carrying it into practice. The manner in which
he always keeps in view the standing mental character, as an object
of capital importance to be attended to, and as the analogon of
health in the body--deserves all esteem. But when he assumes the
sceptre of King Nomos (as in Republic and Leges) to fix by
unchangeable authority what shall be the orthodox type of character,
and to suppress all the varieties of emotion and intellect, except
such as will run into a few predetermined moulds--he oversteps all
the reasonable aims and boundaries of the political office.
[Side-note: Platonic analogy between mental goodness and
bodily health--incomplete analogy--circumstances of difference.]
Plato forgets two important points of difference, in that favourite
and very instructive analogy which he perpetually reproduces, between
mental goodness and bodily health. First, good health and strength of
the body (as I have observed already) are states which every man
knows when he has got them. Though there is much doubt and dispute
about causes, preservative, destructive, and restorative, there is
none about the present fact. Every sick man derives from his own
sensations an anxiety to get well. But virtue is not a point thus
fixed, undisputed, indubitable: it is differently conceived by
different persons, and must first be discovered and settled by a
process of enquiry; the Platonic Sokrates himself, in many of the
dialogues--after declaring that neither he nor any one else
within his knowledge, knows what it is--tries to find it out without
success. Next, the physician, who is the person actively concerned in
imparting health and strength, exercises no coercive power over any
one: those who consult him have the option whether they will follow
the advice given, or not. To put himself upon the same footing with
the physician, the political magistrate ought to confine himself to
the function of advice; a function highly useful, but in which he
will be called upon to meet argumentative opposition, and frequent
failure, together with the mortification of leaving those whom he
cannot convince, to follow their own mode of life. Here are two
material differences, modifying the applicability of that very
analogy on which Plato so frequently rests his proof.
[Side-note: Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter
among a community of fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a
dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence.]
In Plato's two imaginary commonwealths, where he is himself despotic
law-giver, there would have been no tolerable existence possible for
any one not shaped upon the Platonic spiritual model. But in the
Gorgias, Plato (speaking in the person of Sokrates) is called upon to
define his plan of life in a free state, where he was merely a
private citizen. Sokrates receives from Kallikles the advice, to
forego philosophy and to aspire to the influence and celebrity of an
active public speaker. His reply is instructive, as revealing the
interior workings of every political society. No man (he says) can
find favour as an adviser--either of a despot, where there is one, or
of a people where there is free government--unless he be in harmony
with the sentiments and ideas prevalent, either with the ruling Many
or the ruling One. He must be moulded, from youth upwards, on the
same spiritual pattern as they are:[117] his love and hate, his
praise and blame, must turn towards the same things: he must have the
same tastes, the same morality, the same _idéal_, as theirs: he
must be no imitator, but a chip of the same block. If he be either
better than they or worse than they,[118] he will fail in acquiring
popularity, and his efforts as a competitor for public influence
will be not only abortive, but perhaps dangerous to himself.
[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C-D. [Greek: o(moê/thês ô)/n,
tau)ta\ pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n tô=| a)/rchonti. . . . eu)thu\s e)k
ne/ou e)thi/zein au(to\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthai
tô=| despo/tê|, kai\ paraskeua/zein o(/pôs o(/ ti ma/lista o(/moios
e)/stai e)kei/nô|.] 513 B: [Greek: ou) mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai a)ll'
au)tophuô=s o(/moion tou/tois.]]
[Footnote 118: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 A. [Greek: ei)/t' e)pi\ to\
be/ltion ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ chei=ron.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates feels his own isolation from his
countrymen. He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic.]
The reasons which Sokrates gives here (as well as in the Apology, and
partly also in the Republic) for not embarking in the competition of
political aspirants, are of very general application. He is an
innovator in religion; and a dissenter from the received ethics,
politics, social sentiment, and estimate of life and conduct.[119]
Whoever dissents upon these matters from the governing force (in
whatever hands that may happen to reside) has no chance of being
listened to as a political counsellor, and may think himself
fortunate if he escapes without personal hurt or loss. Whether his
dissent be for the better or for the worse, is a matter of little
moment: the ruling body always think it worse, and the consequences
to the dissenter are the same.
[Footnote 119: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 B; Theætêtus, p. 179; Menon, p.
79.]
[Side-note: Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric.]
Herein consists the real antithesis between Sokrates, Plato, and
philosophy, on the one side--Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Demosthenes,
and rhetoric, on the other. "You," (says Sokrates to Kalliklês),[120]
"are in love with the Athenian people, and take up or renounce such
opinions as they approve or discountenance: I am in love with
philosophy, and follow her guidance. You and other active politicians
do not wish to have more than a smattering of philosophy; you are
afraid of becoming unconsciously corrupted, if you carry it beyond
such elementary stage."[121] Each of these orators, discussing
political measures before the public assembly, appealed to general
maxims borrowed from the received creed of morality, religion, taste,
politics, &c. His success depended mainly on the emphasis which
his eloquence could lend to such maxims, and on the skill with which
he could apply them to the case in hand. But Sokrates could not
follow such an example. Anxious in his research after truth, he
applied the test of analysis to the prevalent opinions--found them,
in his judgment, neither consistent nor rational--constrained many
persons to feel this, by an humiliating cross-examination--but became
disqualified from addressing, with any chance of assent, the
assembled public.
[Footnote 120: Plato, Gorgias, p, 481 E.]
[Footnote 121: Plato, Gorgias, p. 487 C. [Greek: e)ni/ka e)s u(mi=n
toia/de tis do/xa, mê\ prothumei=sthai ei)s tê\n a)kribei/an
philosophei=n, a)lla\ eu)labei=sthai. . . . o(/pôs mê\ pe/ra tou=
de/ontos sophô/teroi geno/menoi lê/sete diaphthare/ntes.]
The view here advocated by Kallikles:--That philosophy is good and
useful, to be studied up to a point in the earlier years of life, in
order to qualify persons for effective discharge of the duties of
active citizenship, but that it ought not to be made the main
occupation of mature life, nor be prosecuted up to the pitch of
accurate theorising: this view, since Plato here assigns it to
Kallikles, is denounced by most of the Platonic critics as if it were
low and worthless. Yet it was held by many of the most respectable
citizens of antiquity; and the question is, in point of fact, that
which has always been in debate between the life of theoretical
speculation and the life of action.
Isokrates urges the same view both in Orat. xv. De Permutatione,
sect. 282-287, pp. 485-486, Bekker; and Orat. xii. Panathenaic. sect.
29-32, p. 321, Bekker. [Greek: diatri/psai me\n ou)=n peri\ ta\s
paidei/as tau/tas chro/non tina\ sumbouleu/saim' a)\n toi=s
neôte/rois, mê\ me/ntoi perii+dei=n tê\n phu/sin tê\n au)tô=n
kataskeleteuthei=san e)pi\ tou/tois], &c. Cicero quotes a similar
opinion put by Ennius the poet into the mouth of Neoptolemus, Tusc.
D. ii. 1, 1; Aulus Gell. v. 16--"degustandum ex philosophiâ censet,
non in eam ingurgitandum".
Tacitus, in describing the education of Agricola, who was taken by
his mother in his earlier years to study at Massilia, says,
c. 4:--"Memoriâ teneo, solitum ipsum narrare, se in primâ juventâ
studium philosophiæ, _ultra quam concessum Romano et senatori_,
hausisse; ni prudentia matris incensum ac flagrantem animum
coercuisset".
I have already cited this last passage, and commented upon the same
point, in my notes at the end of the Euthydêmus, p. 230.]
[Side-note: Position of one who dissents, upon material
points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen.]
That in order to succeed politically, a man must be a genuine
believer in the creed of King Nomos or the ruling force--cast in the
same spiritual mould--(I here take the word _creed_ not as
confined to religion, but as embracing the whole of a man's critical
_idéal_, on moral or social practice, politics, or taste--the
ends which he deems worthy of being aspired to, or proper to be
shunned, by himself or others) is laid down by Sokrates as a general
position: and with perfect truth. In disposing of the force or
influence of government, whoever possesses that force will use it
conformably to his own maxims. A man who dissents from these maxims
will find no favour in the public assembly; nor, probably, if his
dissent be grave and wide, will he ever be able to speak out his
convictions aloud in it, without incurring dangerous antipathy. But
what is to become of such a dissenter[122]--the man who frequents the
same porticos with the people, but does not hold the same creed,
nor share their judgments respecting social _expetenda_ and
_fugienda_? How is he to be treated by the government, or by the
orthodox majority of society in their individual capacity? Debarred,
by the necessity of the case, from influence over the public
councils--what latitude of pursuit, profession, or conduct, is to be
left to him as a citizen? How far is he to question, or expose, or
require to be proved, that which the majority believe without proof?
Shall he be required to profess, or to obey, or to refrain from
contradicting, religious or ethical doctrines which he has examined
and rejected? Shall such requirement be enforced by threat of legal
penalties, or of ill-treatment from individuals, which is not less
intolerable than legal penalties? What is likely to be his character,
if compelled to suppress all declaration of his own creed, and to act
and speak as if he were believer in another?
[Footnote 122: Horat. Epist. i. 1, 70--
"Quod si me populus Romanus forté roget, cur
Non ut porticibus, sic judiciis fruar iisdem,
Nec sequar aut fugiam quæ diligit ipse vel odit:
Olim quod vulpes ægroto cauta leoni
Respondit, referam: Quia me vestigia terrent
Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum."]
[Side-note: Probable feelings of Plato on this subject. Claim
put forward in the Gorgias of an independent _locus standi_ for
philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued
by Sokrates.]
The questions here suggested must have impressed themselves forcibly
on the mind of Plato when he recollected the fate of Sokrates. In
spite of a blameless life, Sokrates had been judicially condemned and
executed for publicly questioning received opinions, innovating upon
the established religion, and instilling into young persons habits of
doubt. To dissent only for the better, afforded no assurance of
safety: and Plato knew well that his own dissent from the Athenian
public was even wider and more systematic than that of his master.
The position and plan of life for an active-minded reasoner,
dissenting from the established opinions of the public, could not but
be an object of interesting reflection to him.[123] The Gorgias
(written, in my judgment, long after the death of Sokrates, probably
after the Platonic school was established) announces the vocation of
the philosopher, and claims an open field for speculation, apart from
the actualities of politics--for the self-acting reason of the
individual doubter and investigator, against the authority of
numbers and the pressure of inherited tradition. A formal
assertion to this effect was worthy of the founder of the Academy--the
earliest philosophical school at Athens. Yet we may observe that
while the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias adopts the life of
philosophy, he does not renew that farther demand with which the
historical Sokrates had coupled it in his Apology--the liberty of
oral and aggressive cross-examination, addressed to individuals
personally and indiscriminately[124]--to the _primores populi_
as well as to the _populum tributim_. The fate of Sokrates
rendered Plato more cautious, and induced him to utter his ethical
interrogations and novelties of opinion in no other way except that
of lectures to chosen hearers and written dialogue: borrowing the
name of Sokrates or some other speaker, and refraining upon system
(as his letters[125] tell us that he did) from publishing any
doctrines in his own name.
[Footnote 123: I have already referred to the treatise of Mr. John
Stuart Mill "On Liberty," where this important topic is discussed in
a manner equally profound and enlightened. The co-existence of
individual reasoners enquiring and philosophising for themselves,
with the fixed opinions of the majority, is one of the main
conditions which distinguish a progressive from a stationary
community.]
[Footnote 124: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 21-22-23-28 E. [Greek: tou= de\
theou= ta/ttontos, ô(s e)gô\ ô)|ê/thên te kai\ u(pe/labon,
philophou=nta me dei=n zê=|n kai\ _e)xeta/zonta e)mauto/n te kai\
tou\s a)/llous_], &c.]
[Footnote 125: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 B. K. F. Hermann (Ueber Platon's
Schriftstellerische Motive, p. 290) treats any such prudential
discretion, in respect to the form and mode of putting forward
unpopular opinions, as unworthy of Plato, and worthy only of
Protagoras and other Sophists. I dissent from this opinion
altogether. We know that Protagoras was very circumspect as to form
(Timon ap. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathemat. ix. s. 57); but the passage of
Plato cited by Hermann does not prove it.]
[Side-note: Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of
discussion. Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance.]
As a man dissenting from received opinions, Sokrates had his path
marked out in the field of philosophy or individual speculation. To
such a mind as his, the fullest liberty ought to be left, of
professing and defending his own opinions, as well as of combating
other opinions, accredited or not, which he may consider false or
uncertified.[126] The public guidance of the state thus falls to one
class of minds, the activity of speculative discussion to another;
though accident may produce, here and there, a superior
individual, comprehensive or dexterous enough to suffice for both.
But the main desideratum is that this freedom of discussion should
exist: that room shall be made, and encouragement held out, to the
claims of individual reason, and to the full publication of all
doubts or opinions, be they what they may: that the natural tendency
of all ruling force, whether in few or in many hands, to perpetuate
their own dogmas by proscribing or silencing all heretics and
questioners, may be neutralised as far as possible. The great
expansive vigour of the Greek mind--the sympathy felt among the best
varieties of Greeks for intellectual superiority in all its forms--and
the privilege of free speech ([Greek: par)r(êsi/a]), on which the
democratical citizens of Athens prided themselves--did in fact
neutralise very considerably these tendencies in Athens. A greater
and more durable liberty of philosophising was procured for Athens,
and through Athens for Greece generally, than had ever been known
before in the history of mankind.
[Footnote 126: So Sokrates also says in the Platonic Apology, pp.
31-32. [Greek: Ou) ga\r e)/stin o(/stis a)nthrô/pôn sôthê/setai ou)/te
u(mi=n ou)/te a)/llô| plê/thei ou)deni\ gnêsi/ôs e)nantiou/menos,
kai\ diakôlu/ôn polla\ a)/dika kai\ para/noma e)n tê=| po/lei
gi/gnesthai; a)ll' a)nagkai=o/n e)sti to\n tô=| o)/nti machou/menon
u(pe\r tou= dikai/ou, kai\ ei) me/llei o)li/gon chro/non
sôthê/sesthai, _i)diôteu/ein a)lla\ mê\ dêmosieu/ein_.]
The reader will find the speculative individuality of Sokrates
illustrated in the sixty-eighth chapter of my History of Greece.
The antithesis of the philosophising or speculative life, against the
rhetorical, political, forensic life--which is put so much to the
advantage of the former by Plato in the Gorgias, Theætêtus (p. 173,
seq.), and elsewhere was the theme of Cicero's lost dialogue called
Hortensius: wherein Hortensius was introduced pleading the cause
against philosophy, (see Orelli, Fragm. Ciceron. pp. 479-480), while
the other speakers were provided by Cicero with arguments mainly in
defence of philosophy, partly also against rhetoric. The competition
between the teachers of rhetoric and the teachers of philosophy
continued to be not merely animated but bitter, from Plato downward
throughout the Ciceronian age. (Cicero, De Orat. i. 45-46-47-75,
&c.)
We read in the treatise of Plutarch against the Epikurean Kolôtes, an
acrimonious invective against Epikurus and his followers, for
recommending a scheme of life such as to withdraw men from active
political functions (Plutarch, adv. Kolôt. pp. 1125 C, 1127-1128);
the like also in his other treatise, Non Posse Suaviter Vivi secundum
Epicurum. But Plutarch at the same time speaks as if Epikurus were
the only philosopher who had recommended this, and as if all the
other philosophers had recommended an active life; nay, he talks of
Plato among the philosophers actively engaged in practical
reformatory legislation, through Dion and the pupils of the Academy
(p. 1126, B, C). Here Plutarch mistakes: the Platonic tendencies were
quite different from what he supposes. The Gorgias and Theætêtus
enforce upon the philosopher a life quite apart from politics,
pursuing his own course, and not meddling with others--[Greek:
philoso/phou ta\ au(tou= pra/xantos kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n
tô=| bi/ô|] (Gorg. 526 C); which is the same advice as Epikurus gave.
It is set forth eloquently in the poetry of Lucretius, but it had
been set forth previously, not less eloquently, in the rhetoric of
Plato.]
[Side-note: Issue between philosophy and rhetoric--not
satisfactorily handled by Plato. Injustice done to rhetoric. Ignoble
manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês.]
This antithesis of the philosophical life to the rhetorical or
political, constitutes one of the most interesting features of the
Platonic Gorgias. But when we follow the pleadings upon which Plato
rests this grand issue, and the line which he draws between the two
functions, we find much that is unsatisfactory. Since Plato himself
pleads both sides of the case, he is bound in fairness to set forth
the case which he attacks (that of rhetoric), as it would be put by
competent and honourable advocates--by Perikles, for example, or
Demosthenes, or Isokrates, or Quintilian. He does this, to a certain
extent, in the first part of the dialogue, carried on by Sokrates
with Gorgias. But in the succeeding portions--carried on with Pôlus
and Kalliklês, and occupying three-fourths of the whole--he alters
the character of the defence, and merges it in ethical theories which
Perikles, had he been the defender, would not only have put aside as
misplaced, but disavowed as untrue. Perikles would have listened with
mixed surprise and anger, if he had heard any one utter the monstrous
assertion which Plato puts into the mouth of Polus--That rhetors,
like despots, kill, impoverish, or expel any citizen at their
pleasure. Though Perikles was the most powerful of all Athenian
rhetors, yet he had to contend all his life against fierce opposition
from others, and was even fined during his last years. He would
hardly have understood how an Athenian citizen could have made any
assertion so completely falsified by all the history of Athens,
respecting the omnipotence of the rhetors. Again, if he had heard
Kalliklês proclaiming that the strong giant had a natural right to
satiate all his desires at the cost of the weaker Many--and that
these latter sinned against Nature when they took precautions to
prevent him--Perikles would have protested against the proclamation
as emphatically as Plato.[127]
[Footnote 127: Perikles might indeed have referred to his own
panegyrical oration in Thucydides, ii. 37.]
[Side-note: Perikles would have accepted the defence of
rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias.]
If we suppose Perikles to have undertaken the defence of the
rhetorical element at Athens, against the dialectic element
represented by Sokrates, he would have accepted it, though not a
position of his own choosing, on the footing on which Plato places it
in the mouth of Gorgias: "Rhetoric is an engine of persuasion
addressed to numerous assembled auditors: it ensures freedom to the
city (through the free exercise of such a gift by many competing
orators) and political ascendency or command to the ablest rhetor. It
thus confers great power on him who possesses it in the highest
measure: but he ought by no means to employ that power for unjust
purposes." It is very probable that Perikles might have recommended
rhetorical study to Sokrates, as a means of defending himself
against unjust accusations, and of acquiring a certain measure of
influence on public affairs.[128] But he would have distinguished
carefully (as Horace does) between defending yourself against unjust
attacks, and making unjust attacks upon others: though the same
weapon may suit for both.
[Footnote 128: Horat. Satir. ii. 1, 39--
"Hic stilus haud petet ultro
Quemquam animantem; et me veluti custodiet ensis
Vaginâ tectus; quem cur destringere coner,
Tutus ab infestis latronibus? Oh pater et rex
Jupiter! ut pereat positum rubigine telum,
Nec quisquam noceat cupido mihi pacis! At ille
Qui me commôrit (melius non tangere! clamo)
Flebit, et insignis totâ cantabitur urbe."
We need only read the Memorabilia of Xenophon (ii. 9), to see that
the historical Sokrates judged of these matters differently from the
Platonic Sokrates of the Gorgias. Kriton complained to Sokrates that
life was difficult at Athens for a quiet man who wished only to mind
his own business ([Greek: ta\ e(autou= pra/ttein]); because there
were persons who brought unjust actions at law against him, for the
purpose of extorting money to buy them off. The Platonic Sokrates of
the Gorgias would have replied to him: "Never mind: you are just, and
these assailants are unjust: they are by their own conduct entailing
upon themselves a terrible distemper, from which, if you leave them
unpunished, they will suffer all their lives: they injure themselves
more than they injure you". But the historical Sokrates in Xenophon
replies in quite another spirit. He advises Kriton to look out for a
clever and active friend, to attach this person to his interest by
attention and favours, and to trust to him for keeping off the
assailants. Accordingly, a poor but energetic man named Archedemus is
found, who takes Kriton's part against the assailants, and even
brings counterattacks against them, which force them to leave Kriton
alone, and to give money to Archedemus himself. The advice given by
the Xenophontic Sokrates to Kriton is the same in principle as the
advice given by Kallikles to the Platonic Sokrates.]
[Side-note: The Athenian people recognise a distinction
between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which
Plato conceived.]
Farther, neither Perikles, nor any defender of free speech, would
assent to the definition of rhetoric--That it is a branch of the art
of flattery, studying the immediately pleasurable, and disregarding
the good.[129] This indeed represents Plato's own sentiment, and was
true in the sense which the Platonic Sokrates assigns (in the
Gorgias, though not in the Protagoras) to the words _good_ and
_evil_. But it is not true in the sense which the Athenian
people and the Athenian public men assigned to those words. Both
the one and the other used the words _pleasurable_ and
_good_ as familiarly as Plato, and had sentiments corresponding
to both of them. The pleasurable and painful referred to present and
temporary causes: the Good and Evil to prospective causes and
permanent situations, involving security against indefinite future
suffering, combined with love of national dignity and repugnance to
degradation, as well as with a strong sense of common interests and
common obligations to each other. To provide satisfaction for these
common patriotic feelings--to sustain the dignity of the city by
effective and even imposing public establishments, against foreign
enemies--to protect the individual rights of citizens by an equitable
administration of justice--counted in the view of the Athenians as
objects _good_ and _honourable_: while the efforts and
sacrifices necessary for these permanent ends, were, so far as they
went, a renunciation of what they would call the
_pleasurable_. When, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war,
the Athenians, acting on the advice of Perikles, allowed all Attica
to be ravaged, and submitted to the distress of cooping the whole
population within the long walls, rather than purchase peace by
abnegating their Hellenic dignity, independence, and security--they
not only renounced much that was pleasurable, but endured great
immediate distress, for the sake of what they regarded as a permanent
good.[130] Eighty years afterwards, when Demosthenes pointed out to
them the growing power and encroachments of the Macedonian Philip,
and exhorted them to the efforts requisite for keeping back that
formidable enemy, while there was yet time--they could not be wound
up to the pitch requisite for affronting so serious an amount of
danger and suffering. They had lost that sense of Hellenic dignity,
and that association of self-respect with active personal soldiership
and sailorship, which rendered submission to an enemy the most
intolerable of all pains, at the time when Perikles had addressed
them. They shut their eyes to an impending danger, which ultimately
proved their ruin. On both these occasions, we have the
_pleasurable_ and the _good_ brought into contrast in the
Athenian mind; in both we have the two most eminent orators of
Grecian antiquity enforcing the _good_ in opposition to the
_pleasurable_: the first successfully, the last vainly, in
opposition to other orators.
[Footnote 129: The reply composed by the rhetor Aristeides to the
Gorgias of Plato is well deserving of perusal, though (like all his
compositions) it is very prolix and wordy. See Aristeides, Orationes
xlv. and xlvi.--[Greek: Perei\ R(êtorikê=s], and [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n
Tetta/rôn]. In the last of the two orations he defends the four
eminent Athenians (Miltiades, Themistoklês, Periklês, Kimon) whom
Plato disparages in the Gorgias.
Aristeides insists forcibly on the partial and narrow view here taken
by Plato of persuasion, as a working force both for establishing laws
and carrying on government. He remarks truly that there are only two
forces between which the choice must be made, intimidation and
persuasion: that the substitution of persuasion in place of force is
the great improvement which has made public and private life worth
having ([Greek: mo/nê biôto\n ê(mi=n pepoi/êke to\n bi/on], Orat.
xlv. p. 64, Dindorf); that neither laws could be discussed and
passed, nor judicial trial held under them, without [Greek:
r(êtorikê\] as the engine of persuasion (pp. 66-67-136); that Plato
in attacking Rhetoric had no right to single out despots and violent
conspirators as illustrations of it--[Greek: ei)=t' e)le/gchein me\n
bou/letai tê\n r(êtorikê/n, katêgorei= de\ tô=n tura/nnôn kai\
dunastô=n, _ta\ a)/mikta mignu/s--ti/s_ ga\r ou)k oi)=den, o(/ti
r(êtorikê\ kai\ turanni\s tosou=ton a)llê/lôn kechôri/stai, o(/son
to\ pei/thein tou= bia/zesthai] (p. 99). He impugns the distinction
which Plato has drawn between [Greek: i)atrikê/, gumnastikê/,
kubernêtikê/, nomothetikê/], &c., on the one side, which Plato
calls [Greek: te/chnai], arts or sciences, and affirms to rest on
scientific principles--and [Greek: r(êtorikê/, mageirikê/], &c.,
on the other side, which Plato affirms to be only guess work or
groping, resting on empirical analogies. Aristeides says that [Greek:
i)atrikê\] and [Greek: r(êtorikê\] are in this respect both on a par;
that both are partly reducible to rule, but partly also driven by
necessity to conjectures and analogies, and the physician not less
than the rhetor (pp. 45-48-49); which the Platonic Sokrates himself
affirms in another dialogue, Philêbus, p. 56 A.
The most curious part of the argument of Aristeides is where he
disputes the prerogative which Plato had claimed for [Greek:
i)atrikê/, gumnastikê/] &c., on the ground of their being arts or
reducible to rules. The effects of human art (says Aristeides) are
much inferior to those of [Greek: thei/a moi=ra] or divine
inspiration. Many patients are cured of disease by human art; but
many more are cured by the responses and directions of the Delphian
oracle, by the suggestion of dreams, and by other varieties of the
divine prompting, delivered through the Pythian priestess, a woman
altogether ignorant (p. 11). [Greek: kai/toi mikra\ me\n ê( pa/ntas
ei)dui=a lo/gous i)atrikê\ pro\s ta\s e)k Delphô=n du/natai lu/seis,
o(/sai kai\ i)di/a| kai\ koinê=| kai\ no/sôn kai\ pathêma/tôn
a(pantôn a)nthrôpi/nôn e)pha/nthêsan.] Patients who are cured in this
way by the Gods without medical art, acquire a natural impulse which
leads them to the appropriate remedy--[Greek: e)pithumi/a au)tou\s
a)/gei e)pi\ to\ o)/nêson] (p. 20). Aristeides says that he can
himself depose--from his own personal experience as a sick man
seeking cure, and from personal knowledge of many other such--how
much more efficacious in healing is aid from the Gods, given in
dreams and other ways, than advice from physicians; who might well
shudder when they heard the stories which he could tell (pp. 21-22).
To undervalue science and art (he says) is the principle from which
men start, when they flee to the Gods for help--[Greek: tou=
kataphugei=n e)pi\ tou\s theou\s schedo\n a)rchê/, to\ tê=s te/chnês
u(peridei=n e)/stin.]]
[Footnote 130: Nothing can be more at variance with the doctrine
which Plato assigns to Kalliklês in the Gorgias, than the three
memorable speeches of Perikles in Thucydides, i. 144, ii. 35, ii. 60,
seq. All these speeches are penetrated with the deepest sense of that
[Greek: koinôni/a] and [Greek: phili/a] which the Platonic Sokrates
extols: not one of them countenances [Greek: pleonexi/an], which the
Platonic Sokrates forbids (Gorg. 508 E). [Greek: To\ prostalaipôrei=n
tô=| do/xanti kalô=|] (to use the expressive phrase of Thucydides,
ii. 53) was a remarkable feature in the character of the Athenians of
that day: it was subdued for the moment by the overwhelming misery of
pestilence and war combined.]
[Side-note: Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to
all the various established sentiments and opinions. Erroneous
inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato.]
Lastly, it is not merely the political power of the Athenians that
Perikles employs his eloquence to uphold. He dwells also with
emphasis on the elegance of taste, on the intellectual force and
activity, which warranted him in decorating the city with the title
of Preceptress of Hellas.[131] All this belongs, not to the
pleasurable as distinguished from the good, but to good (whether
immediately pleasurable or not) in its most comprehensive sense,
embracing the improvement and refinement of the collective mind. If
Perikles, in this remarkable funeral harangue, flattered the
sentiments of the people--as he doubtless did--he flattered them by
kindling their aspirations towards good. And Plato himself does the
same (though less nobly and powerfully), adopting the received
framework of Athenian sentiment, in his dialogue called Menexenus,
which we shall come to in a future chapter.
[Footnote 131: Thucyd. ii. 41-42. [Greek: xunelô/n te le/gô tê/n te
pa=san po/lin tê=s E(lla/dos pai/deusin ei)=nai], &c.]
[Side-note: The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order,
system, discipline. But order may be directed to bad ends as well as
to good. Divergent ideas about virtue.]
The issue, therefore, which Plato here takes against Rhetoric, must
stand or fall with the Platonic Idéal of Good and Evil. But when he
thus denounces both the general public and the most patriotic
rhetors, to ensure exclusive worship for his own Idéal of Good--we
may at least require that he shall explain, wherein consists that
Good--by what mark it is distinguishable--and on what authority
pre-eminence is claimed for it. So far, indeed, we advance by the help
of Plato's similes[132]--order, discipline, health and strength of
body--that we are called upon to recognise, apart from all particular
moments of enjoyment or suffering, of action or quiescence, a certain
permanent mental condition and habit--a certain order, regulation,
discipline--as an object of high importance to be attained. This (as
I have before remarked) is a valuable idea which pervades, in one
form or another, all the Hellenic social views, from Sokrates
downward, and even before Sokrates; an idea, moreover, which was
common to Peripatetics, Stoics, Epikureans. But mental order and
discipline is not in itself an end: it may be differently cast, and
may subserve many different purposes. The Pythagorean brotherhood was
intensely restrictive in its canons. The Spartan system exhibited the
strictest order and discipline--an assemblage of principles and
habits predetermined by authority and enforced upon all--yet neither
Plato nor Aristotle approve of its results. Order and discipline
attained full perfection in the armies of Julius Caesar and the
French Emperor Napoleon; in the middle ages, also, several of
the monastic orders stood high in respect to finished discipline
pervading the whole character: and the Jesuits stood higher than any.
Each of these systems has included terms equivalent to justice,
temperance, virtue, vice, &c., with sentiments associated
therewith, yet very different from what Plato would have approved.
The question--What is Virtue?--_Vir bonus est quis?_--will be
answered differently in each. The Spartans--when they entrapped (by a
delusive pretence of liberation and military decoration) two thousand
of their bravest Helot warriors, and took them off by private
assassinations,[133]--did not offend against their own idea of
virtue, or against the Platonic exigency of Order--Measure--System.
[Footnote 132: Plat. Gorg. p. 504.]
[Footnote 133: Thucydid. iv. 80.]
[Side-note: How to discriminate the right order from the
wrong. Plato does not advise us.]
It is therefore altogether unsatisfactory, when Plato--professing to
teach us how to determine scientifically, which pleasures are bad,
and which pains are good--refers to a durable mental order and
discipline. Of such order there existed historically many varieties;
and many more are conceivable, as Plato himself has shown in the
Republic and Leges. By what tests is the right order to be
distinguished from the wrong? If by its results, by _what_
results?--calculations for minimising pains, and maximising
pleasures, being excluded by the supposition? Here the Sokrates of
the Gorgias is at fault. He has not told us by what scientific test
the intelligent Expert proceeds in determining what pleasures are
bad, and what pains are good. He leaves such determination to the
unscientific sentiment of each society and each individual. He has
not, in fact, responded to the clear and pertinent challenge thrown
out by the Sokrates of the Protagoras.
[Side-note: The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity
of the dissenting philosopher.]
I think, for these reasons, that the logic of the Gorgias is not at
all on a par with its eloquence. But there is one peculiar feature
which distinguishes it among all the Platonic dialogues. Nowhere in
ancient literature is the title, position, and dignity of individual
dissenting opinion, ethical and political--against established
ethical and political orthodoxy--so clearly marked out and so boldly
asserted. "The Athenians will judge as they think right: none
but those speakers who are in harmony with them, have any chance of
addressing their public assemblies with effect, and acquiring
political influence. I, Sokrates, dissent from them, and have no
chance of political influence: but I claim the right of following
out, proclaiming, and defending, the conclusions of my own individual
reason, until debate satisfies me that I am wrong."