SOCRATES (_concluded_)
_The dialectic method--Instruction through humiliation--Justice and
utility--Righteousness transcending rule_
It must not be imagined that anywhere in the recorded conversations of
Socrates can we find thus in so many words expounded his fundamental
doctrine. Socrates was not an expositor but a questioner; he
disclaimed the position of a teacher, he refused to admit that any were
his pupils or disciples. But his questioning had two sides, each in
its way leading people on to an apprehension of the ideal in existence.
The first side may be called the negative or destructive, the second,
the positive or constructive. In the first, whose object was to break
down all formalism, all mere regard for rules or traditions or
unreasoned maxims, his method had considerable resemblance to that of
the Sophists; like them he descended not infrequently to what looked
very like quibbling and word-play. As Aristotle observes, the
dialectic method differed from that of the Sophists not so much in its
form, as in the purpose for which it was employed. The end of the
{116} Sophists was to confuse, the end of Socrates was through
confusion to reach a more real, because a more reasoned certainty; the
Sophists sought to leave the impression that there was no such thing as
truth; he wished to lead people to the conviction that there was a far
deeper truth than they were as yet possessed of.
A specimen of his manner of conversation preserved for us by Xenophon
(_Memor_. IV. ii.) will make the difference clearer. Euthydemus was a
young man who had shown great industry in forming a collection of wise
sayings from poets and others, and who prided himself on his superior
wisdom because of his knowledge of these. Socrates skilfully manages
to get the ear of this young man by commending him for his collection,
and asks him what he expects his learning to help him to become? A
physician? No, Euthydemus answers. An architect? No. And so in like
manner with other practical skills,--the geometrician's, astronomer's,
professional reciter's. None of these he discovers is what Euthydemus
aims at. He hopes to become a great politician and statesman. Then of
course he hopes to be a just man himself? Euthydemus flatters himself
he is that already. "But," says Socrates, "there must be certain acts
which are the proper products of justice, as of other functions or
skills?"--"No doubt."--"Then of course you can tell us what {117} those
acts or products are?"--"Of course I can, and the products of injustice
as well."--"Very good; then suppose we write down in two opposite
columns what acts are products of justice and what of injustice."--"I
agree," says Euthydemus.--"Well now, what of falsehood? In which
column shall we put it?"--"Why, of course in the unjust column."--"And
cheating?"--"In the same column."--"And stealing?"--"In it too."--"And
enslaving?"--"Yes."--"Not one of these can go to the just
column?"--"Why, that would be an unheard-of thing."
"Well but," says Socrates, "suppose a general has to deal with some
enemy of his country that has done it great wrong; if he conquer and
enslave this enemy, is that wrong?"--"Certainly not."--"If he carries
off the enemy's goods or cheats him in his strategy, what about these
acts?"--"Oh, of course they are quite right. But I thought you were
talking about deceiving or ill-treating friends."--"Then in some cases
we shall have to put these very same acts in both columns?"--"I suppose
so."
"Well, now, suppose we confine ourselves to friends. Imagine a general
with an army under him discouraged and disorganised. Suppose he tells
them that reserves are coming up, and by cheating them into this belief
he saves them from their discouragement, and enables them to win a
victory. What about this cheating of one's friends?"--"Why, I {118}
suppose we shall have to put this too on the just side."--"Or suppose a
lad needs medicine, but refuses to take it, and his father cheats him
into the belief that it is something nice, and getting him to take it,
saves his life; what about that cheat?"--"That will have to go to the
just side too."--"Or suppose you find a friend in a desperate frenzy,
and steal his sword from him, for fear he should kill himself; what do
you say to that theft?"--"That will have to go there too."--"But I
thought you said there must be no cheating of friends?"--"Well, I must
take it all back, if you please."--"Very good. But now there is
another point I should like to ask you. Whether do you think the man
more unjust who is a voluntary violator of justice, or he who is an
involuntary violator of it?"--"Upon my word, Socrates, I no longer have
any confidence in my answers. For the whole thing has turned out to be
exactly the contrary of what I previously imagined. However, suppose I
say that the voluntary deceiver is the more unjust."--"Do you consider
that justice is a matter of knowledge just as much (say) as
writing?"--"Yes, I do."--"Well now, which do you consider the better
skilled as a writer, the man who makes a mistake in writing or in
reading what is written, because he chooses to do so, or the man who
does so because he can't help it?"--"Oh, the first; because he can put
it right whenever he likes."--"Very {119} well, if a man in the same
way breaks the rule of right, knowing what he is doing, while another
breaks the same rule because he can't help it, which by analogy must be
the better versed in justice?"--"The first, I suppose."--"And the man
who is better versed in justice must be the juster man?"--"Apparently
so; but really, Socrates, I don't know where I am. I have been
flattering myself that I was in possession of a philosophy which could
make a good and able man of me. But how great, think you, must now be
my disappointment, when I find myself unable to answer the simplest
question on the subject?"
Many other questions are put to him, tending to probe his
self-knowledge, and in the end he is brought to the conclusion that
perhaps he had better hold his tongue, for it seems he knows nothing at
all. And so he went away deeply despondent, despising himself as an
absolute dolt. "Now many," adds Xenophon, "when brought into this
condition by Socrates, never came near him again. But Euthydemus
concluded that his only hope of ever being worth anything was in seeing
as much of Socrates as he could, and so he never quitted his side as
long as he had a chance, but tried to follow his mode of living. And
Socrates, when he perceived this to be his temper, no longer tormented
him, but sought with all simplicity and clearness to {120} show him
what he deemed it best for him to do and think."
Was this cross-examination mere 'tormenting' with a purpose, or can we
discover underlying it any hint of what Socrates deemed to be the truth
about justice?
Let us note that throughout he is in search of a _definition_, but that
as soon as any attempt is made to define or classify any particular
type of action as just or unjust, _special circumstances_ are suggested
which overturn the classification. Let us note further that while the
immediate result is apparently only to confuse, the remoter but more
permanent result is to raise a suspicion of any hard and fast
definitions, and to suggest that there is something deeper in life than
language is adequate to express, a 'law in the members,' a living
principle for good, which transcends forms and maxims, and which alone
gives real value to acts. Note further the suggestion that this living
principle has a character analogous to the knowledge or skill of an
accomplished artificer; it has relation on the one hand to law, as a
principle binding on the individual, it has relation on the other hand
to _utility_, as expressing itself, not in words, but in acts
beneficial to those concerned. Hence the Socratic formula, Justice is
equivalent to the _Lawful_ on the one hand, to the _Useful_ on the
other.
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Socrates had thus solved by anticipation the apparently never-ending
controversy about morality. Is it a matter imposed by God upon the
heart and conscience of each individual? Is it dictated by the general
sense of the community? Is it the product of Utility? The Socratic
answer would be that it is all three, and that all three mean
ultimately the same thing. What God prescribes is what man when he is
truly man desires; and what God prescribes and man desires is that
which is good and useful for man. It is not a matter for verbal
definition but for vital realisation; the true morality is that which
_works_; the ideally desirable, is ultimately the only possible, course
of action, for all violations of it are ultimately suicidal.
Note finally the suggestion that the man who _knows_ (in Socrates'
sense of knowledge) what is right, shows only more fully his
righteousness when he voluntarily sins; it is the 'unwilling sinner'
who is the wrongdoer. When we consider this strange doctrine in
relation to the instances given,--the general with his army, the father
with his son, the prudent friend with his friend in desperate
straits,--we see that what is meant is that 'sin' in the real sense is
not to be measured or defined by conformity or otherwise to some formal
standard, at least in the case of those who _know_, that is, in the
case of men who have realised goodness in its true nature in {122}
their characters and lives. As St. Paul expressed it (Rom. xiii. 10),
"Love is the fulfilling of the law." Or again (Gal. v. 23), after
enumerating the 'fruits of the spirit'--love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--he
adds, "Against such there is no law."
In the domain of life, not less than in that of the arts, the highest
activity does not always or necessarily take the form of conformity to
rule. There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in fact,
obedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of which
rules and formulae are at best only an adumbration. The originality of
the great musician or painter consists in just such transcendence of
accepted formulae; this is why he invariably encounters opposition and
obloquy from the learned conventional pedants of his time. And in the
domain of morals the martyrs, reformers, prophets are in like manner
'willing sinners.' They are denounced, persecuted, crucified; for are
they not disturbers of society; do they not unsettle young men; do they
not come, as Christ came, not to bring peace into the world, but a
sword? And thus it is that the willing sinners of one generation are
the martyrs and heroes of the next. Through their life and death a
richer meaning has been given to the law of beauty or of rectitude,
only, alas! in its turn to be translated into new conventions, new
{123} formulae, which shall in due time require new martyrs to
transcend them. And thus, on the other hand, the perfectly honest
sticklers for the old and common-place, unwilling sinners all
unconscious of their sin, are fated to bear in history the brand of men
who have persecuted the righteous without cause. To each, according to
the strange sad law of life, time brings its revenges.
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