Chapter LXVIII: Sokrates (2)

Sokratês desired to confine the studies of his hearers to _human_ matters as distinguished from _divine_, the latter comprehending astronomy and physics. He looked at all knowledge from the point of view of human practice, which had been assigned by the gods to man as his proper subject for study and learning, and with reference to which, therefore, they managed all the current phenomena upon principles of constant and intelligible sequence, so that every one who chose to learn, might learn, while those who took no such pains suffered for their neglect. Even in these, however, the most careful study was not by itself completely sufficient; for the gods did not condescend to submit _all_ the phenomena to constant antecedence and consequence, but reserved to themselves the capital turns and junctures for special sentence.[678] Yet here again, if a man had been diligent in learning all that the gods permitted to be learned; and if, besides, he was assiduous in pious court to them, and in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they would be gracious to him, and signify beforehand how they intended to act in putting the final hand and in settling the undecipherable portions of the problem.[679] The kindness of the gods in replying through their oracles, or sending information by sacrificial signs or prodigies, in cases of grave difficulty, was, in the view of Sokratês, one of the most signal evidences of their care for the human race.[680] To seek access to these prophecies, or indications of special divine intervention to come, was the proper supplementary business of any one who had done as much for himself as could be done by patient study.[681] But as it was madness in a man to solicit special information from the gods on matters which they allowed him to learn by his own diligence, so it was not less madness in him to investigate as a learner that which they chose to keep back for their own specialty of will.[682]

[678] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 7. Καὶ τοὺς μέλλοντας οἴκους τε καὶ
πόλεις καλῶς οἰκήσειν, μαντικῆς ἔφη ~προσδεῖσθαι~. Τεκτονικὸν
μὲν γὰρ, ἢ χαλκευτικὸν, ἢ γεωργικὸν, ἢ ἀνθρώπων ἀρχικὸν, ἢ τῶν
τοιούτων ἔργων ἐξεταστικὸν, ἢ λογιστικὸν, ἢ οἰκονομικὸν, ἢ
στρατηγικὸν γενέσθαι—~πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα μαθήματα καὶ ἀνθρώπου
γνώμῃ αἱρετέα~ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι. Τὰ δὲ ~μέγιστα~ τῶν ἐν τούτοις
ἔφη τοὺς ~θεοὺς ἑαυτοῖς καταλείπεσθαι, ὧν οὐδὲν δῆλον εἶναι τοῖς
ἀνθρώποις~, etc.

[679] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 9-19. Ἔφη δὲ δεῖν, ἃ μὲν μαθόντας ποιεῖν
ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοὶ, μανθάνειν· ἃ δὲ μὴ δῆλα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐστὶ,
πειρᾶσθαι διὰ μαντικῆς παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πυνθάνεσθαι· τοὺς γὰρ θεοὺς,
οἷς ἂν ἵλεῳ ὦσι, σημαίνειν.

[680] Xenoph. Mem. i, 4, 15; iv, 3, 12. When Xenophon was
deliberating whether he should take military service under Cyrus
the younger, he consulted Sokratês, who advised him to go to
Delphi and submit the case to the oracle (Xen. Anabas. iii, 1, 5).

[681] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 10.

[682] Xenoph. Mem. 1, 9; iv, 7, 6.

Such was the capital innovation made by Sokratês in regard to the subject of Athenian study, bringing down philosophy, to use the expression of Cicero,[683] from the heavens to the earth; and such his attempt to draw the line between that which was, and was not, scientifically discoverable; an attempt remarkable, inasmuch as it shows his conviction that the scientific and the religious point of view mutually excluded one another, so that where the latter began, the former ended. It was an innovation, inestimable, in respect to the new matter which it let in; of little import, as regards that which it professed to exclude. For in point of fact, physical science, though partially discouraged, was never absolutely excluded, through any prevalence of that systematic disapproval which he, in common with the multitude of his day, entertained: if it became comparatively neglected, this arose rather from the greater popularity, and the more abundant and accessible matter, of that which he introduced. Physical or astronomical science was narrow in amount, known only to few, and even with those few it did not admit of being expanded, enlivened, or turned to much profitable account in discussion. But the moral and political phenomena on which Sokratês turned the light of speculation were abundant, varied, familiar, and interesting to every one; comprising—to translate a Greek line which he was fond of quoting—“all the good and evil which has befallen you in your home;”[684] connected too, not merely with the realities of the present, but also with the literature of the past, through the gnomic and other poets.

[683] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 4, 10.

[684] Ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακὸν τ᾽ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.

The motives which determined this important innovation, as to the subject of study, exhibits Sokratês chiefly as a religious man and a practical, philanthropic preceptor, the Xenophontic hero. His innovations, not less important, as to method and doctrine, place before us the philosopher and dialectician; the other side of his character, or the Platonic hero; faintly traced, indeed, yet still recognized and identified by Xenophon.

“Sokratês,” says the latter,[685] “continued incessantly discussing _human_ affairs (the sense of this word will be understood by what has been said above, page 420); investigating: What is piety? What is impiety? What is the honorable and the base? What is the just and the unjust? What is temperance or unsound mind? What is courage or cowardice? What is a city? What is the character fit for a citizen? What is authority over men? What is the character befitting the exercise of such authority? and other similar questions. Men who knew these matters he accounted good and honorable; men who were ignorant of them he assimilated to slaves.”

[685] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 16.

Sokratês, says Xenophon again, in another passage, considered that the _dialectic process_ consisted in coming together and taking common counsel, to distinguish and distribute things into genera, or families, so as to learn what each separate thing really was. To go through this process carefully was indispensable, as the only way of enabling a man to regulate his own conduct, aiming at good objects and avoiding bad. To be so practised as to be able to do it readily, was essential to make a man a good leader or adviser of others. Every man who had gone through the process, and come to know what each thing was, could also of course define it and explain it to others; but if he did not know, it was no wonder that he went wrong himself, and put others wrong besides.[686] Moreover, Aristotle says: “To Sokratês we may unquestionably assign two novelties; inductive discourses, and the definitions of general terms.”[687]

[686] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 5, 11, 12. Ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἐγκρατέσι μόνοις
ἔξεστι σκοπεῖν τὰ κράτιστα τῶν πραγμάτων, καὶ ~λόγῳ καὶ ἔργῳ
διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη~, τὰ μὲν ἀγαθὰ προαιρεῖσθαι, τῶν δὲ κακῶν
ἀπέχεσθαι. Καὶ οὕτως ἔφη ἀρίστους τε καὶ εὐδαιμονεστάτους ἄνδρας
γίγνεσθαι, καὶ ~διαλέγεσθαι~ δυνατωτάτους. Ἔφη δὲ καὶ ~τὸ
διαλέγεσθαι~ ὀνομασθῆναι, ἐκ ~τοῦ συνιόντας κοινῇ βουλεύεσθαι
διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα~· δεῖν οὖν πειρᾶσθαι ὅτι
μάλιστα πρὸς τοῦτο ἕτοιμον ἑαυτὸν παρασκευάζειν, καὶ τούτου
μάλιστα ἐπιμελεῖσθαι· ἐκ τούτου γὰρ γίγνεσθαι ἄνδρας ἀρίστους τε
καὶ ἡγεμονικωτάτους καὶ διαλεκτικωτάτους.

Surely, the etymology here given by Xenophon or Sokratês, of the
word διαλέγεσθαι, cannot be considered as satisfactory.

Again, iv, 6, 1. Σωκράτης δὲ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν
ὄντων, ἐνόμιζε καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἂν ἐξηγεῖσθαι δύνασθαι· τοὺς δὲ
μὴ εἰδότας, οὐδὲν ἔφη θαυμαστὸν εἶναι, αὐτοὺς τε σφάλλεσθαι καὶ
ἄλλους σφάλλειν. Ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσι, τί ἕκαστον εἴη
τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτ᾽ ἔληγε. Πάντα μὲν οὖν, ᾗ ~διωρίζετο~, πολὺ
ἂν ἔργον εἴη διεξελθεῖν· ἐν ὅσοις δὲ τὸν τρόπον τῆς ἐπισκέψεως
δηλώσειν οἶμαι, τοσαῦτα λέξω.

[687] Aristot. Metaphys. i, 6, 3, p. 987, b. Σωκράτους δὲ περὶ
μὲν τὰ ἠθικὰ πραγματευομένου, περὶ δὲ τῆς ὅλης φύσεως οὐδὲν—ἐν
μέντοι τούτοις τὸ καθόλου ζητοῦντος καὶ περὶ ὁρισμῶν ἐπιστήσαντος
πρώτου τὴν διάνοιαν, etc. Again, xiii, 4, 6-8, p. 1078, b. Δύο
γάρ ἐστιν ἅ τις ἂν ἀποδοίη Σωκράτει δικαίως, ~τοὺς τ᾽ ἐπακτικοὺς
λόγους~ καὶ ~τὸ ὁρίζεσθαι καθόλου~: compare xiii, 9, 35, p. 1086,
b; Cicero, Topic. x, 42.

These two attributes, of the discussions carried on by Sokratês,
explain the epithet attached to him by Timon the Sillographer,
that he was the leader and originator of the _accurate talkers_:—

Ἐκ δ᾽ ἄρα τῶν ἀπέκλινεν ὁ λιθοξόος, ἐννομολέσχης,
Ἑλλήνων ἐπαοιδὸς ~ἀκριβολόγους ἀποφῄνας~,
Μυκτὴρ, ῥητορόμυκτος, ὑπαττικὸς εἰρωνεύτης.

(ap. Diog. Laërt. ii, 19.)

To a large proportion of hearers of that time, as of other times,
_accurate thinking and talking_ appeared petty and in bad taste:
ἡ ἀκριβολογία μικροπρεπές (Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. iv, 4, p.
1122, b; also Aristot. Metaphys. ii, 3, p. 995, a). Even Plato
thinks himself obliged to make a sort of apology for it (Theætet.
c. 102, p. 184, C). No doubt Timon used the word ἀκριβολόγους in
a sneering sense.

I borrow here intentionally from Xenophon in preference to Plato; since the former, tamely describing a process which he imperfectly appreciated, identifies it so much the more completely with the real Sokratês, and is thus a better witness than Plato, whose genius not only conceived but greatly enlarged it, for didactic purposes of his own. In our present state of knowledge, some mental effort is required to see anything important in the words of Xenophon; so familiar has every student been rendered with the ordinary terms and gradations of logic and classification,—such as genus, definition, individual things as comprehended in a genus; what each thing is, and to what genus it belongs, etc. But familiar as these words have now become, they denote a mental process, of which, in 440-430 B.C., few men besides Sokratês had any conscious perception. Of course, men conceived and described things in classes, as is implied in the very form of language, and in the habitual junction of predicates with subjects in common speech. They explained their meaning clearly and forcibly in particular cases: they laid down maxims, argued questions, stated premises, and drew conclusions, on trials in the dikastery, or debates in the assembly: they had an abundant poetical literature, which appealed to every variety of emotion: they were beginning to compile historical narrative, intermixed with reflection and criticism. But though all this was done, and often admirably well done, it was wanting in that analytical consciousness which would have enabled any one to describe, explain, or vindicate what he was doing. The ideas of men—speakers as well as hearers, the productive minds as well as the recipient multitude—were associated together in groups favorable rather to emotional results, or to poetical, rhetorical narrative and descriptive effect, than to methodical generalization, to scientific conception, or to proof either inductive or deductive. That reflex act of attention which enables men to understand, compare, and rectify their own mental process, was only just beginning. It was a recent novelty on the part of the rhetorical teachers, to analyze the component parts of a public harangue, and to propound some precepts for making men tolerable speakers. Protagoras was just setting forth various grammatical distinctions, while Prodikus discriminated the significations of words nearly equivalent and liable to be confounded. All these proceedings appeared then so new[688] as to incur the ridicule even of Plato: yet they were branches of that same analytical tendency which Sokratês now carried into scientific inquiry. It may be doubted whether any one before him ever used the words genus and species, originally meaning family and form, in the philosophical sense now exclusively appropriated to them. Not one of those many names—called by logicians _names of the second intention_—which imply distinct attention to various parts of the logical process, and enable us to consider and criticize it in detail, then existed. All of them grew out of the schools of Plato, Aristotle, and the subsequent philosophers, so that we can thus trace them in their beginning to the common root and father, Sokratês.

[688] How slowly grammatical analysis proceeded among the Greeks,
and how long it was before they got at what are now elementary
ideas in every instructed man’s mind, may be seen in Gräfenhahn,
Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie im Alterthum, sects. 89-92,
etc. On this point, these sophists seem to have been decidedly in
advance of their age.

To comprehend the full value of the improvements struck out by Sokratês, we have only to examine the intellectual paths pursued by his predecessors or contemporaries. He set to himself distinct and specific problems: “What is justice? What is piety, courage, political government? What is it which is really denoted by such great and important names, bearing upon the conduct or happiness of man?” Now it has been already remarked that Anaxagoras, Empedoklês, Demokritus, the Pythagoreans, all had still present to their minds those vast and undivided problems which had been transmitted down from the old poets; bending their minds to the invention of some system which would explain them all at once, or assist the imagination in conceiving both how the Kosmos first began, and how it continued to move on.[689] Ethics and physics, man and nature, were all blended together; and the Pythagoreans, who explained all nature by numbers and numerical relations, applied the same explanation to moral attributes, considering justice to be symbolized by a perfect equation, or by four, the first of all square numbers.[690] These early philosophers endeavored to find out the beginnings, the component elements, the moving cause or causes, of things in the mass;[691] but the logical distribution into genus, species, and individuals, does not seem to have suggested itself to them, or to have been made a subject of distinct attention by any one before Sokratês. To study ethics, or human dispositions and ends, apart from the physical world, and according to a theory of their own, referring to human good and happiness as the sovereign and comprehensive end;[692] to treat each of the great and familiar words designating moral attributes, as logical aggregates comprehending many judgments in particular cases, and connoting a certain harmony or consistency of purpose among the separate judgments, to bring many of these latter into comparison, by a scrutinizing dialectical process, so as to test the consistency and completeness of the logical aggregate or general notion, as it stood in every man’s mind: all these were parts of the same forward movement which Sokratês originated.

[689] This same tendency, to break off from the vague aggregate
then conceived as physics, is discernible in the Hippokratic
treatises, and even in the treatise De Antiquâ Medicinâ, which
M. Littré places first in his edition, and considers to be
the production of Hippokratês himself, in which case it would
be contemporary with Sokratês. On this subject of authorship,
however, other critics do not agree with him: see the question
examined in his vol. i, ch. xii, p. 295, _seq._

Hippokratês, if he be the author, begins by deprecating the
attempt to connect the study of medicine with physical or
astronomical hypothesis (c. 2), and he farther protests against
the procedure of various medical writers and sophists, or
philosophers, such as Empedoklês, who set themselves to make out
“what man was from the beginning, how he began first to exist,
and in what manner he was constructed,” (c. 20). This does not
belong, he says, to medicine, which ought indeed to be studied as
a comprehensive whole, but as a whole determined by and bearing
reference to its own end: “You ought to study the nature of man;
what he is with reference to that which he eats and drinks, and
to all his other occupations or habits, and to the consequences
resulting from each:” ὅ,τί ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος πρὸς τὰ ἐσθιόμενα
καὶ πινόμενα, καὶ ὅ,τι πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ὅ,τι ἀφ᾽
ἑκάστου ἑκάστῳ συμβήσεται.

The spirit, in which Hippokratês here approaches the study of
medicine, is exceedingly analogous to that which dictated the
innovation of Sokratês in respect to the study of ethics. The
same character pervades the treatise, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, a
definite and predetermined field of inquiry, and the Hippokratic
treatises generally.

[690] Aristotel. Metaphys. i, 5, p. 985, 986. τὸ μὲν τοιόνδε τῶν
ἀριθμῶν πάθος δικαιοσύνη, τὸ δὲ τοιόνδε ψυχή καὶ νοῦς, ἕτερον
δὲ καιρὸς, etc. Ethica Magna, i. 1. ἡ δικαιοσύνη ἀριθμὸς ἰσάκις
ἴσος: see Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philos. lxxxii, lxxxiii,
p. 492.

[691] Aristotel. Metaphys. iii, 3, p. 998, A. Οἷον Ἐμπεδοκλῆς πῦρ
καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ τὰ μετὰ τούτων, ~στοιχεῖά~ φησιν εἶναι ἐξ ὧν ἐστὶ τὰ
ὄντα ἐνυπαρχόντων, ~ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὡς γένη~ λέγει ταῦτα τῶν ὄντων. That
generic division and subdivision was unknown or unpractised by
these early men, is noticed by Plato (Sophist. c. 114, p. 267, D).

Aristotle thinks that the Pythagoreans had some faint and obscure
notion of the logical genus, περὶ τοῦ ~τί ἐστιν~ ἤρξαντο μὲν
λέγειν καὶ ὁρίζεσθαι, λίαν δὲ ἁπλῶς ἐπραγματεύθησαν (Metaphys.
i, 5, 29, p. 986, B). But we see by comparing two other passages
in that treatise (xiii, 4, 6, p. 1078, b, with i, 5, 2, p. 985,
b) that the Pythagorean definitions of καιρὸς, τὸ δίκαιον, etc.,
were nothing more than certain numerical fancies; so that these
words cannot fairly be said to have designated, in their view,
logical _genera_. Nor can the ten Pythagorean συστοιχίαι, or
parallel series of contraries, be called by that name; arranged
in order to gratify a fancy about the perfection of the number
ten, which fancy afterwards seems to have passed to Aristotle
himself, when drawing up his ten predicaments.

See a valuable Excursus upon the Aristotelian expressions τί
ἐστι—τί ἦν εἶναι, etc., appended to Schwegler’s edition of
Aristotle’s Metaphysica, vol. ii, p. 369, p. 378.

About the few and imperfect definitions which Aristotle seems
also to ascribe to Demokritus, see Trendeleuburg, Comment. ad
Aristot. De Animâ, p. 212.

[692] Aristotle remarks about the Pythagoreans, that they
referred the virtues to number and numerical relations, not
giving to them a theory of their own: τὰς γὰρ ἀρετὰς εἰς τοὺς
ἀριθμοὺς ἀνάγων ~οὐκ οἰκείαν τῶν ἀρετῶν τὴν θεωρίαν~ ἐποιεῖτο
(Ethic. Magn. i, 1).

It was at that time a great progress to break down the unwieldy mass conceived by former philosophers as science; and to study ethics apart, with a reference, more or less distinct, to their own appropriate end. Nay, we see, if we may trust the “Phædon” of Plato,[693] that Sokratês, before he resolved on such pronounced severance, had tried to construct, or had at least yearned after, an undivided and reformed system, including physics also under the ethical end; a scheme of optimistic physics, applying the general idea, “_What was best_,” as the commanding principle, from whence physical explanations were to be deduced; which he hoped to find, but did not find, in Anaxagoras. But it was a still greater advance to seize, and push out in conscious application, the essential features of that logical process, upon the correct performance of which all our security for general truth depends. The notions of genus, subordinate genera, and individuals as comprehended under them,—we need not here notice the points on which Plato and Aristotle differed from each other and from the modern conceptions on that subject,—were at that time newly brought into clear consciousness in the human mind. The profusion of logical distribution employed in some of the dialogues of Plato, such as the Sophistês and the Politicus, seems partly traceable to his wish to familiarize hearers with that which was then a novelty, as well as to enlarge its development, and diversify its mode of application. He takes numerous indirect opportunities of bringing it out into broad light, by putting into the mouths of his dialogists answers implying complete inattention to it, exposed afterwards in the course of the dialogue by Sokratês.[694] What was now begun by Sokratês, and improved by Plato, was embodied as part in a comprehensive system of formal logic by the genius of Aristotle; a system which was not only of extraordinary value in reference to the processes and controversies of its time, but which also, having become insensibly worked into the minds of instructed men, has contributed much to form what is correct in the habits of modern thinking. Though it has been now enlarged and recast, by some modern authors—especially by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his admirable System of Logic—into a structure commensurate with the vast increase of knowledge and extension of positive method belonging to the present day, we must recollect that the distance, between the best modern logic and that of Aristotle, is hardly so great as that between Aristotle and those who preceded him by a century, Empedoklês, Anaxagoras, and the Pythagoreans; and that the movement in advance of these latter commences with Sokratês.

[693] Plato, Phædon, c. 102, seq., pp. 96, 97.

[694] As one specimen among many, see Plato, Theætet. c. 11,
p. 146, D. It is maintained by Brandis, and in part by C.
Heyder (see Heyder, Kritische Darstellung und Vergleichung
der Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik, part i, pp. 85,
129), that the logical process, called division, is not to
be considered as having been employed by Sokratês along with
definition, but begins with Plato: in proof of which they
remark that, in the two Platonic dialogues called Sophistês and
Politicus, wherein this process is most abundantly employed,
Sokratês is not the conductor of the conversation.

Little stress is to be laid on this circumstance, I think; and
the terms in which Xenophon describes the method of Sokratês
(διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα, Mem. iv, 5, 12) seem to
imply the one process as well as the other: indeed, it was
scarcely possible to keep them apart, with so abundant a talker
as Sokratês. Plato doubtless both enlarged and systematized the
method in every way, and especially made greater use of the
process of division, because he pushed the dialogue further into
positive scientific research than Sokratês.

By Xenophon, by Plato, and by Aristotle, the growth as well as the habitual use of logical classification is represented as concurrent with and dependent upon dialectics. In this methodized discussion, so much in harmony with the marked sociability of the Greek character, the quick recurrence of short question and answer was needful as a stimulus to the attention, at a time when the habit of close and accurate reflection on abstract subjects had been so little cultivated. But the dialectics of Sokratês had far greater and more important peculiarities than this. We must always consider his method in conjunction with the subjects to which he applied it. As those subjects were not recondite or special, but bore on the practical life of the house, the market-place, the city, the dikastery, the gymnasium, or the temple, with which every one was familiar, so Sokratês never presented himself as a teacher, nor as a man having new knowledge to communicate. On the contrary, he disclaimed such pretensions, uniformly and even ostentatiously. But the subjects on which he talked were just those which every one professed to know perfectly and thoroughly, and on which every one believed himself in a condition to instruct others, rather than to require instruction for himself. On such questions as these: What is justice? What is piety? What is a democracy? What is a law? every man fancied that he could give a confident opinion, and even wondered that any other person should feel a difficulty. When Sokratês, professing ignorance, put any such question, he found no difficulty in obtaining an answer, given off-hand, and with very little reflection. The answer purported to be the explanation or definition of a term—familiar, indeed, but of wide and comprehensive import—given by one who had never before tried to render to himself an account of what it meant. Having got this answer, Sokratês put fresh questions, applying it to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give answers inconsistent with the first; thus showing that the definition was either too narrow, or too wide, or defective in some essential condition. The respondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to other questions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with the amendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentangle himself, was obliged to plead guilty to the inconsistencies, with an admission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the original query, which had at first appeared so easy and familiar. Or, if he did not himself admit this, the hearers at least felt it forcibly. The dialogue, as given to us, commonly ends with a result purely negative, proving that the respondent was incompetent to answer the question proposed to him, in a manner consistent and satisfactory even to himself. Sokratês, as he professed from the beginning to have no positive theory to support, so he maintains to the end the same air of a learner, who would be glad to solve the difficulty if he could, but regrets to find himself disappointed of that instruction which the respondent had promised.

We see by this description of the cross-examining path of this remarkable man, how intimate was the bond of connection between the dialectic method and the logical distribution of particulars into species and genera. The discussion first raised by Sokratês turns upon the meaning of some large generic term, the queries whereby he follows it up, bring the answer given into collision with various particulars which it ought not to comprehend, yet does; or with others, which it ought to comprehend, but does not. It is in this manner that the latent and undefined cluster of association, which has grown up round a familiar term, is as it were penetrated by a fermenting leaven, forcing it to expand into discernible portions, and bringing the appropriate function which the term ought to fulfil, to become a subject of distinct consciousness. The inconsistencies into which the hearer is betrayed in his various answers, proclaim to him the fact that he has not yet acquired anything like a clear and full conception of the common attribute which binds together the various particulars embraced under some term which is ever upon his lips; or perhaps enable him to detect a different fact, not less important, that there is no such common attribute, and that the generalization is merely nominal and fallacious. In either case, he is put upon the train of thought which leads to a correction of the generalization, and lights him on to that which Plato[695] calls, seeing the one in the many, and the many in the one. Without any predecessor to copy, Sokratês, fell as it were instinctively into that which Aristotle[696] describes as the double track of the dialectic process; breaking up the one into many, and recombining the many into one; the former duty, at once the first and the most essential, Sokratês performed directly by his analytical string of questions; the latter, or synthetical process, was one which he did not often directly undertake, but strove so to arm and stimulate the hearer’s mind, as to enable him to do it for himself. This one and many denote the logical distribution of a multifarious subject-matter under generic terms, with clear understanding of the attributes implied or connoted by each term, so as to discriminate those particulars to which it really applies. At a moment when such logical distribution was as yet novel as a subject of consciousness, it could hardly have been probed and laid out in the mind by any less stringent process than the cross-examining dialectics of Sokratês, applied to the analysis of some attempts at definition hastily given by respondents; that “inductive discourse and search for (clear general notions or) definitions of general terms,” which Aristotle so justly points out as his peculiar innovation.

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

[696] Aristot. Topic. viii, 14, p. 164, b. 2. Ἐστὶ μὲν γὰρ ὡς
ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν διαλεκτικὸς, ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνταστικός. Ἐστὶ δὲ τὸ
μὲν προτείνεισθαι, ~ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω~ (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλως ληφθῆναι
πρὸς ὃ ὁ λόγος) τὸ δ᾽ ἐνίστασθαι, ~τὸ ἓν πολλά~· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ ἢ
ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν διδοὺς, το δ᾽ οὐ, τῶν προτεινομένων.

It was from Sokratês that dialectic skill derived its great
extension and development (Aristot. Metaphys. xiii, 4, p. 1078,
b).

I have already adverted to the persuasion of religious mission under which Sokratês acted in pursuing this system of conversation and interrogation. He probably began it in a tentative way,[697] upon a modest scale, and under the pressure of logical embarrassment weighing on his own mind. But as he proceeded, and found himself successful, as well as acquiring reputation among a certain circle of friends, his earnest soul became more and more penetrated with devotion to that which he regarded as a duty. It was at this time probably, that his friend Chærephon came back with the oracular answer from Delphi, noticed a few pages above, to which Sokratês himself alludes as having prompted him to extend the range of his conversation, and to question a class of persons whom he had not before ventured to approach, the noted politicians, poets, and artisans. He found them more confident than humbler individuals in their own wisdom, but quite as unable to reply to his queries without being driven to contradictory answers.

[697] What Plato makes Sokratês say in the Euthyphron, c. 12, p.
11, D, Ἄκων εἰμὶ σοφός, etc., may be accounted as true at least
in the beginning of the active career of Sokratês; compare the
Hippias Minor, c. 18, p. 376, B; Lachês, c. 33, p. 200, E.

Such scrutiny of the noted men in Athens is made to stand prominent in the “Platonic Apology,” because it was the principal cause of that unpopularity which Sokratês at once laments and accounts for before the dikasts. Nor can we doubt that it was the most impressive portion of his proceedings, in the eyes both of enemies and admirers, as well as the most flattering to his own natural temper. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to present this part of the general purpose of Sokratês—or of his divine mission, if we adopt his own language—as if it were the whole; and to describe him as one standing forward merely to unmask select leading men, politicians, sophists, poets, or others, who had acquired unmerited reputation, and were puffed up with foolish conceit of their own abilities, being in reality shallow and incompetent. Such an idea of Sokratês is at once inadequate and erroneous. His conversation, as I have before remarked, was absolutely universal and indiscriminate; while the mental defect which he strove to rectify was one not at all peculiar to leading men, but common to them with the mass of mankind, though seeming to be exaggerated in them, partly because more is expected from them, partly because the general feeling of self-estimation stands at a higher level, naturally and reasonably, in their bosoms, than in those of ordinary persons. That defect was, the “seeming and conceit of knowledge without the reality,” on human life with its duties, purposes, and conditions; the knowledge of which Sokratês called emphatically “human wisdom,” and regarded as essential to the dignity of a freeman; while he treated other branches of science as above the level of man,[698] and as a stretch of curiosity, not merely superfluous, but reprehensible. His warfare against such false persuasion of knowledge, in one man as well as another, upon those subjects—for with him, I repeat, we must never disconnect the method from the subjects—clearly marked even in Xenophon, is abundantly and strikingly illustrated by the fertile genius of Plato, and constituted the true missionary scheme which pervaded the last half of his long life; a scheme far more comprehensive, as well as more generous, than those anti-sophistic polemics which are assigned to him by so many authors as his prominent object.[699]

[698] Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 12-16. Πότερόν ποτε νομίσαντες ἱκανῶς
ἤδη τἀνθρώπεια εἰδέναι ἔρχονται (the physical philosophers) ἐπὶ
τὸ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων φροντίζειν· ἢ τὰ μὲν ἀνθρώπεια παρέντες,
τὰ δὲ δαιμόνια σκοποῦντες, ἡγοῦνται τὰ προσήκοντα πράττειν....
Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ~ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ διελέγετο~ σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβὲς,
τί ἀσεβὲς καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ἃ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας ἡγεῖτο καλοὺς
κἀγαθοὺς εἶναι, τοὺς δὲ ~ἀγνοοῦντας ἀνδραποδώδεις~ ἂν δικαίως
κεκλῆσθαι.

Plato, Apolog. Sok. c. 5, p. 20, D. ἥπερ ἐστὶν ἴσως ἀνθρωπίνη
σοφία· τῷ ὄντι γὰρ κινδυνεύω ταύτην εἶναι σοφός· οὗτοι δὲ τάχ᾽
ἄν, οὓς ἄρτι ἔλεγον, μείζω τινὰ ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον σοφίαν σοφοὶ
εἶεν, etc. Compare c. 9, p. 23, A.

[699] It is this narrow purpose that Plutarch ascribes to
Sokratês, Quæstiones Platonicæ, p. 999, E; compare also
Tennemann, Geschicht. der Philos. part ii, art. i, vol. ii, p. 81.

Amidst the customary outpouring of groundless censure against
the sophists, which Tennemann here gives, one assertion is
remarkable. He tells us that it was the more easy for Sokratês to
put down the sophists, since their shallowness and worthlessness,
after a short period of vogue, had already been detected by
intelligent men, and was becoming discredited.

It is strange to find such an assertion made, for a period
between 420-399 B.C., the era when Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias,
etc., reached the maximum of celebrity.

And what are we to say about the statement, that Sokratês put
down the sophists, when we recollect that the Megaric school and
Antisthenês, both emanating from Sokratês, are more frequently
attacked than any one else in the dialogues of Plato, as having
all those skeptical and disputatious propensities with which the
sophists are reproached?

In pursuing the thread of his examination, there was no topic upon which Sokratês more frequently insisted, than the contrast between the state of men’s knowledge on the general topics of man and society, and that which artists or professional men possessed in their respective special crafts. So perpetually did he reproduce this comparison, that his enemies accused him of wearing it threadbare.[700] Take a man of special vocation—a carpenter, a brazier, a pilot, a musician, a surgeon—and examine him on the state of his professional knowledge, you will find him able to indicate the persons from whom and the steps by which he first acquired it: he can describe to you his general aim, with the particular means which he employs to realize the aim, as well as the reason why such means must be employed and why precautions must be taken to combat such and such particular obstructions: he can teach his profession to others: in matters relating to his profession, he counts as an authority, so that no extra-professional person thinks of contesting the decision of a surgeon in case of disease, or of a pilot at sea. But while such is the fact in regard to every special art, how great is the contrast in reference to the art of righteous, social, and useful living, which forms, or ought to form, the common business alike important to each and to all! On this subject, Sokratês[701] remarked that every one felt perfectly well-informed, and confident in his own knowledge; yet no one knew from whom, or by what steps, he had learned: no one had ever devoted any special reflection either to ends, or means, or obstructions: no one could explain or give a consistent account of the notions in his own mind, when pertinent questions were put to him: no one could teach another, as might be inferred, he thought, from the fact that there were no professed teachers, and that the sons of the best men were often destitute of merit: every one knew for himself, and laid down general propositions confidently, without looking up to any other man as knowing better; yet there was no end of dissension and dispute on particular cases.[702]

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

Kalliklês. Ὡς ἀεὶ ταὐτὰ λέγεις, ὦ Σώκρατες. Sokratês. Οὐ μόνον
γε, ὦ Καλλικλεῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν. Kalliklês. Νὴ τοὺς
θεοὺς, ἀτεχνῶς γε ~ἀεὶ σκυτέας~ καὶ ~κναφέας~ καὶ ~μαγείρους
λέγων~ καὶ ~ἰατροὺς, οὐδὲν παύῃ~. Compare Plato, Symposion, p.
221, E, also Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 37; iv, 5, 5.

[701] It is not easy to refer to specific passages in
manifestation of the contrast set forth in the text, which,
however, runs through large portions of many Platonic dialogues,
under one form or another: see the Menon, c. 27-33, pp. 90-94;
Protagoras, c. 28, 29, pp. 319, 320; Politicus, c. 38, p. 299,
D; Lachês, c. 11, 12, pp. 185, 186; Gorgias, c. 121, p. 501, A;
Alkibiadês, i, c. 12-14, pp. 108, 109, 110; c. 20, p. 113, C, D.

Xenoph. Mem. iii, 5, 21, 22; iv, 2, 20-23; iv, 4, 5; iv, 6, 1. Of
these passages, iv, 2, 20, 23 is among the most remarkable.

It is remarkable that Sokratês (in the Platonic Apology, c. 7,
p. 22), when he is describing his wanderings (πλάνην) to test
supposed knowledge, first in the statesmen, next in the poets,
lastly in the artisans and craftsmen, finds satisfaction only in
the answers which these latter made to him on matters concerning
their respective trades or professions. They would have been wise
men, had it not been for the circumstance that, because they knew
those particular things, they fancied that they knew other things
also.

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

Such was the general contrast which Sokratês sought to impress upon his hearers by a variety of questions bearing on it, directly or indirectly. One way of presenting it, which Plato devoted much of his genius to expand in dialogue, was, to discuss, Whether virtue be really teachable. How was it that superior men, like Aristeidês and Periklês,[703] acquired the eminent qualities essential for guiding and governing Athens, since they neither learned them under any known master, as they had studied music and gymnastics, nor could insure the same excellences to their sons, either through their own agency or through that of any master? Was it not rather the fact that virtue, as it was never expressly taught, so it was not really teachable; but was vouchsafed or withheld according to the special volition and grace of the gods? If a man has a young horse to be broken, or trained, he finds without difficulty a professed trainer, thoroughly conversant with the habits of the race,[704] to communicate to the animal the excellence required; but whom can he find to teach virtue to his sons, with the like preliminary knowledge and assured result? Nay, how can any one either teach virtue, or affirm virtue to be teachable, unless he be prepared to explain what virtue is, and what are the points of analogy and difference between its various branches; justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, etc.? In several of the Platonic dialogues, the discussion turns on the analysis of these last-mentioned words: the “Lachês” and “Protagoras” on courage, the “Charmidês” on temperance, the “Euthyphrôn” on holiness.

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

[704] Compare Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 4, p. 20, A; Xen. Mem. iv, 2,
25.

By these and similar discussions did Sokratês, and Plato amplifying upon his master, raise indirectly all the important questions respecting society, human aspirations and duties, and the principal moral qualities which were accounted virtuous in individual men. As the general terms, on which his conversation turned, were among the most current and familiar in the language, so also the abundant instances of detail, whereby he tested the hearer’s rational comprehension and consistent application of such large terms, were selected from the best known phenomena of daily life;[705] bringing home the inconsistency, if inconsistency there was, in a manner obvious to every one. The answers made to him,—not merely by ordinary citizens, but by men of talent and genius, such as the poets or the rhetors, when called upon for an explanation of the moral terms and ideas set forth in their own compositions,[706]—revealed alike that state of mind against which his crusade, enjoined and consecrated by the Delphian oracle, was directed, the semblance and conceit of knowledge without real knowledge. They proclaimed confident, unhesitating persuasion, on the greatest and gravest questions concerning man and society, in the bosoms of persons who had never bestowed upon them sufficient reflection to be aware that they involved any difficulty. Such persuasion had grown up gradually and unconsciously, partly by authoritative communication, partly by insensible transfusion, from others; the process beginning antecedent to reason as a capacity, continuing itself with little aid and no control from reason, and never being finally revised. With the great terms and current propositions concerning human life and society, a complex body of association had become accumulated from countless particulars, each separately trivial and lost to the memory, knit together by a powerful sentiment, and imbibed as it were by each man from the atmosphere of authority and example around him. Upon this basis the fancied knowledge really rested; and reason, when invoked at all, was called in simply as an handmaid, expositor, or apologist of the preëxisting sentiment; as an accessory after the fact, not as a test or verification. Every man found these persuasions in his own mind, without knowing how they became established there; and witnessed them in others, as portions of a general fund of unexamined common-place and credence. Because the words were at once of large meaning, embodied in old and familiar mental processes, and surrounded by a strong body of sentiment, the general assertions in which they were embodied appeared self-evident and imposing to every one: so that, in spite of continual dispute in particular cases, no one thought himself obliged to analyze the general propositions themselves, or to reflect whether he had verified their import, and could apply them rationally and consistently.[707]

[705] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 6, 15. Ὅποτε δὲ αὐτός τι τῷ λόγῳ
διεξίοι, διὰ τῶν μάλιστα ὁμολογουμένων ἐπορεύετο, νομίζων ταύτην
τὴν ἀσφάλειαν εἶναι λόγου· τοιγαροῦν πολὺ μάλιστα ὧν ἐγὼ οἶδα,
ὅτε λέγοι, τοὺς ἀκούοντας ὁμολογοῦντας παρεῖχε.

[706] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 7. p. 22, C: compare Plato, Ion. pp.
533, 534.

[707] Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν (says Sokratês to Euthydêmus) ἴσως διὰ τὸ
σφόδρα πιστεύειν εἰδέναι, οὐδ᾽ ἐσκέψω (Xen. Mem. iv, 2, 36):
compare Plato, Alkibiad. i, c. 14, p. 110. A.

The phenomenon here adverted to is too obvious, even at the present day, to need further elucidation as matter of fact. In morals, in politics, in political economy, on all subjects relating to man and society, the like confident persuasion of knowledge without the reality is sufficiently prevalent: the like generation and propagation, by authority and example, of unverified convictions, resting upon strong sentiment, without consciousness of the steps or conditions of their growth; the like enlistment of reason as the one-sided advocate of a preëstablished sentiment; the like illusion, because every man is familiar with the language, that therefore every man is master of the complex facts, judgments, and tendencies, involved in its signification, and competent both to apply comprehensive words and to assume the truth or falsehood of large propositions, without any special analysis or study.[708]

[708] “Moins une science est avancée, moins elle a été bien
traitée, et plus elle a besoin d’être enseignée. C’est ce qui
me fait beaucoup désirer qu’on ne renonce pas en France à
l’enseignement des sciences idéologiques, morales, et politiques;
qui, après tout, sont des sciences comme les autres—_à la
difference près, que ceux qui ne les ont pas étudiées sont
persuadés de si bonne foi de les savoir, qu’ils se croient en
état d’en décider_.” (Destutt de Tracy, Elémens d’Idéologie,
Préface, p. xxxiv, ed. Paris, 1827.)

There is one important difference, however, to note, between our time and that of Sokratês. In his day, the impressions not only respecting man and society, but also respecting the physical world, were of this same self-sown, self-propagating, and unscientific character. The popular astronomy of the Sokratic age was an aggregate of primitive, superficial observations and imaginative inferences, passing unexamined from elder men to younger, accepted with unsuspecting faith, and consecrated by intense sentiment. Not only men like Nikias, or Anytus and Melêtus, but even Sokratês himself, protested against the impudence of Anaxagoras, when he degraded the divine Helios and Selênê into a sun and moon of calculable motions and magnitudes. But now, the development of the scientific point of view, with the vast increase of methodized physical and mathematical knowledge, has taught every one that such primitive astronomical and physical convictions were nothing better than “a fancy of knowledge without the reality.”[709] Every one renounces them without hesitation, seeks his conclusions from the scientific teacher, and looks to the proofs alone for his guarantee. A man who has never bestowed special study on astronomy, knows that he is ignorant of it: to fancy that he knows it, without such preparation, would be held an absurdity. While the scientific point of view has thus acquired complete predominance in reference to the physical world, it has made little way comparatively on topics regarding man and society, wherein “fancy of knowledge without the reality” continues to reign, not without criticism and opposition, yet still as a paramount force. And if a new Sokratês were now to put the same questions in the market-place to men of all ranks and professions, he would find the like confident persuasion and unsuspecting dogmatism as to generalities; the like faltering, blindness, and contradiction, when tested by cross-examining details.

[709] “There is no science which, more than astronomy, stands
in need of such a preparation, or draws more largely on that
intellectual liberality which is ready to adopt whatever is
demonstrated, or concede whatever is rendered highly probable,
however new and uncommon the points of view may be, in which
objects the most familiar may thereby become placed. Almost
all _its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction
with those of superficial and vulgar observation_, and with
what appears to every one, until he has understood and weighed
the proofs to the contrary, the _most positive evidence of his
senses_. Thus the earth on which he stands, and which has served
for ages as the unshaken foundation of the firmest structures
either of art or nature, is divested by the astronomer of its
attribute of fixity, and conceived by him as turning swiftly on
its centre, and at the same time moving onward through space
with great rapidity, etc.” (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy,
Introduction, sect. 2.)

In the time of Sokratês, this last comparison was not open; since there did not exist, in any department, a body of doctrine scientifically constituted: but the comparison which he actually took, borrowed from the special trades and professions, brought him to an important result. He was the first to see, and the idea pervades all his speculations, that as in each art or profession there is an end to be attained, a theory laying down the means and conditions whereby it is attainable, and precepts deduced from that theory, such precepts collectively taken directing and covering nearly the entire field of practice, but each precept separately taken liable to conflict with others, and therefore liable to cases of exception; so all this is not less true, or admits not less of being realized, respecting the general art of human living and society. There is a grand and all-comprehensive End,—the security and happiness, as far as practicable, of each and all persons in the society:[710] there may be a theory, laying down those means and conditions under which the nearest approach can be made to that end: there may also be precepts, prescribing to every man the conduct and character which best enables him to become an auxiliary towards its attainment, and imperatively restraining him from acts which tend to hinder it; precepts deduced from the theory, each one of them separately taken being subject to exceptions, but all of them taken collectively governing practice, as in each particular art.[711] Sokratês and Plato talk of “the art of dealing with human beings,” “the art of behaving in society,” “that science which has for its object to make men happy:” and they draw a marked distinction between art, or rules of practice deduced from a theoretical survey of the subject-matter and taught with precognition of the end, and mere artless, irrational knack, or dexterity, acquired by simple copying, or assimilation, through a process of which no one could render account.[712]

[710] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 1, 2. Ἐτεκμαίρετο (Sokratês) δὲ τὰς
ἀγαθὰς φύσεις, ἐκ τοῦ ταχύ τε μανθάνειν οἷς προσέχοιεν, καὶ
μνημονεύειν ἃ ἂν μάθοιεν, καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖν τῶν μαθημάτων πάντων, δι᾽
ὧν ἔστιν οἰκίαν τε καλῶς οἰκεῖν καὶ πόλιν, καὶ τὸ ὅλον ἀνθρώποις
τε καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις πράγμασιν εὖ χρῆσθαι. Τοὺς γὰρ τοιούτους
ἡγεῖτο παιδευθέντας οὐκ ἂν μόνον αὐτούς τε εὐδαίμονας εἶναι καὶ
τοὺς ἑαυτῶν οἴκους καλῶς οἰκεῖν, ἀλλὰ ~καὶ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους καὶ
πόλεις δύνασθαι εὐδαίμονας ποιῆσαι~.

Ib. iii, 2, 4. Καὶ οὕτως ἐπισκοπῶν, τίς εἴη ἀγαθοῦ ἡγεμόνος
ἀρετὴ, τὰ μὲν ἄλλα περιῄρει, κατέλειπε δὲ, ~τὸ εὐδαίμονας ποιεῖν,
ὧν ἂν ἡγῆται~.

Ib. iii, 8, 3, 4, 5; iv, 6, 8. He explains τὸ ἀγαθὸν to mean τὸ
ὠφέλιμον—μέχρι δὲ τοῦ ὠφελίμου πάντα καὶ αὐτὸς συνεπεσκόπει καὶ
συνδιεξῄει τοῖς συνοῦσι (iv, 7, 8). Compare Plato, Gorgias, c.
66, 67, p. 474, D; 475, A.

Things are called ἀγαθὰ καὶ καλὰ on the one hand, and κακὰ καὶ
αἰσχρὰ on the other, in reference each to its distinct end,
of averting or mitigating in the one case, of bringing on or
increasing in the other, different modes of human suffering.
So again, iii, 9, 4, we find the phrases: ἃ δεῖ πράττειν—ὀρθῶς
πράττειν—τὰ συμφορώτατα αὑτοῖς πράττειν, all used as equivalents.

Plato, Symposion, p. 205. A. Κτήσει γὰρ ἀγαθῶν εὐδαίμονες
ἔσονται—καὶ οὐκέτι προσδεῖ ἐρέσθαι, ἵνατι δὲ βούλεται εὐδαίμων
εἶναι; ἀλλὰ τέλος δοκεῖ ἔχειν ἡ ἀπόκρισις: compare Euthydem. c.
20, p. 279, A; c. 25, p. 281, D.

Plato, Alkibiadês, ii, c. 13, p. 145, C. Ὅστις ἄρα
τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ ~τοῦ
βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη—αὐτὴ δ᾽ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου ἥπερ καὶ ἡ τοῦ
ὠφελίμου~—φρόνιμόν γε αὐτὸν φήσομεν καὶ ἀποχρῶντα σύμβουλον,
καὶ τῇ πόλει καὶ αὐτὸν ἑαυτῷ· τὸν δὲ μὴ ποιοῦντα, τἀναντία
τούτων: compare Plato, Republic, vi, p. 504, E. The fact
that this dialogue, called Alkibiadês II, was considered by
some as belonging not to Plato, but to Xenophon or Æschinês
Socraticus, does not detract from its value as evidence about
the speculations of Sokratês (see Diogen. Laërt. ii, 61, 62;
Athenæus, v, p. 220).

Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 30, A. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλλο πράττων
περιέρχομαι, ἢ πείθων ὑμῶν καὶ νεωτέρους καὶ πρεσβυτέρους, μήτε
σωμάτων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι μήτε χρημάτων πρότερον μηδὲ οὕτω σφόδρα, ὡς
τῆς ψυχῆς, ὅπως ὡς ἀρίστη ἔσται· λέγων ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ
γίγνεται, ~ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα καὶ τἄλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις
ἅπαντα καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ~.

Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griechen, vol. ii, pp. 61-64)
admits as a fact this reference of the Sokratic ethics to human
security and happiness as their end; while Brandis (Gesch. der
Gr. Röm. Philosoph. ii, p. 40, _seq._) resorts to inadmissible
suppositions, in order to avoid admitting it, and to explain away
the direct testimony of Xenophon. Both of these authors consider
this doctrine as a great taint in the philosophical character of
Sokratês. Zeller even says, what he intends for strong censure,
that “the eudæmonistic basis of the Sokratic ethics differs from
the _sophistical moral philosophy_, not in principle, but only in
result” (p. 61).

I protest against this allusion to a _sophistical moral
philosophy_, and have shown my grounds for the protest in the
preceding chapter. There was no such thing as _sophistical moral
philosophy_. Not only the sophists were no sect or school, but
farther, not one of them ever aimed, so far as we know, at
establishing any ethical theory: this was the great innovation of
Sokratês. But it is perfectly true that, between the preceptorial
exhortation of Sokratês, and that of Protagoras or Prodikus,
there was no great or material difference; and this Zeller seems
to admit.

[711] The existence of cases forming exceptions to each separate
moral precept, is brought to view by Sokratês in Xen. Mem. iv, 2,
15-19; Plato, Republic, i, 6, p. 331, C, D, E; ii, p. 382, C.

[712] Plato, Phædon, c. 88, p. 89, E. ἄνευ τέχνης τῆς περὶ
τἀνθρώπεια ὁ τοιοῦτος χρῆσθαι ἐπεχειρεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· εἰ γάρ
που μετὰ τέχνης ἔχρητο, ὥσπερ ἔχει, οὕτως ἂν ἡγήσατο, etc. ἡ
πολιτικὴ τέχνη, Protagor. c. 27, p. 319, A; Gorgias, c. 163, p.
521, D.

Compare Apol. Sok. c. 4, p. 20, A, B; Euthydêmus, c. 50, p. 292,
E: τίς ποτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐπιστήμη ἐκείνη, ἣ ἡμᾶς εὐδαίμονας ποιήσειεν;...

The marked distinction between τέχνη, as distinguished from
ἄτεχνος τριβὴ—ἄλογος τριβὴ or ἐμπειρία, is noted in the Phædrus,
c. 95, p. 260, E, and in Gorgias, c. 42, p. 463, B; c. 45, p.
465, A; c. 121, p. 501, A, a remarkable passage. That there is
in every art some assignable end, to which its precepts and
conditions have reference, is again laid down in the Sophistês,
c. 37, p. 232, A.