Chapter LXVIII: Sokrates (3)

Plato, with that variety of indirect allusion which is his characteristic, continually constrains the reader to look upon human and social life as having its own ends and purposes no less than each separate profession or craft; and impels him to transfer to the former that conscious analysis as a science, and intelligent practice as an art, which are known as conditions of success in the latter.[713] It was in furtherance of these rational conceptions, “Science and Art,” that Sokratês carried on his crusade against “that conceit of knowledge without reality,” which reigned undisturbed in the moral world around him, and was only beginning to be slightly disturbed even as to the physical world. To him the precept, inscribed in the Delphian temple, “Know Thyself,” was the holiest of all texts, which he constantly cited, and strenuously enforced upon his hearers; interpreting it to mean, Know what sort of a man thou art, and what are thy capacities, in reference to human use.[714] His manner of enforcing it was alike original and effective, and though he was dexterous in varying his topics[715] and queries according to the individual person with whom he had to deal, it was his first object to bring the hearer to take just measure of his own real knowledge or real ignorance. To preach, to exhort, even to confute particular errors, appeared to Sokratês useless, so long as the mind lay wrapped up in its habitual mist or illusion of wisdom: such mist must be dissipated before any new light could enter. Accordingly, the hearer being usually forward in announcing positive declarations on those general doctrines, and explanations of those terms, to which he was most attached and in which he had the most implicit confidence, Sokratês took them to pieces, and showed that they involved contradiction and inconsistency; professing himself to be without any positive opinion, nor ever advancing any until the hearer’s mind had undergone the proper purifying cross-examination.[716]

[713] This fundamental analogy, which governed the reasoning
of Sokratês, between the special professions and social living
generally,—transferring to the latter the idea of a preconceived
end, a theory, and a regulated practice, or art, which are
observed in the former,—is strikingly stated in one of the
aphorisms of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, vi, 35: Οὐχ ὁρᾷς,
πῶς οἱ βάναυσοι τεχνῖται ἁρμόζονται μὲν ἄχρι τινὸς πρὸς τοὺς
ἰδιώτας, οὐδὲν ἧσσον μέντοι ~ἀντέχονται τοῦ λόγου τῆς τέχνης, καὶ
τούτου ἀποστῆναι οὐχ ὑπομένουσιν~; Οὐ δεινὸν, εἰ ὁ ἀρχιτέκτων
καὶ ὁ ἰατρὸς μᾶλλον αἰδέσονται ~τὸν τῆς ἰδίας τέχνης λόγον, ἢ ὁ
ἄνθρωπος τὸν ἑαυτοῦ~, ὃς αὐτῷ κοινός ἐστι πρὸς τοὺς θεούς;

[714] Plato (Phædr. c. 8, p. 229, E; Charmidês, c. 26, p. 164, E;
Alkibiad. i, p. 124, A; 129, A; 131, A).

Xenoph. Mem. iv, 2, 24-26. οὕτως ἑαυτὸν ἐπισκεψάμενος, ὁποῖός
ἐστι πρὸς ~τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην χρείαν~, ἔγνωκε τὴν αὐτοῦ δύναμιν.
Cicero (de Legib. i, 22, 59) gives a paraphrase of this
well-known text, far more vague and tumid than the conception of
Sokratês.

[715] See the striking conversations of Sokratês with Glaukon and
Charmidês especially that with the former, in Xen. Mem. iii, c.
6, 7.

[716] There is no part of Plato in which this doxosophy, or
false conceit of wisdom, is more earnestly reprobated than in
the Sophistês, with notice of the elenchus, or cross-examining
exposure, as the only effectual cure for such fundamental vice of
the mind; as the true purifying process (Sophistês, c. 33-35, pp.
230, 231).

See the same process illustrated by Sokratês, after his questions
put to the slave of Menon (Plato, Menon, c. 18. p. 84, B;
Charmidês, c. 30, p. 166, D).

As the Platonic Sokratês, even in the Defence, where his own
personality stands most manifest, denounces as the worst and
deepest of all mental defects, this conceit of knowledge without
reality, ἡ ἀμαθία αὐτὴ ἡ ἐπονείδιστος, ἡ τοῦ οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι ἃ
~οὐκ~ οἶδεν, c. 17, p. 29, B,—so the Xenophontic Sokratês, in
the same manner, treats this same mental infirmity as being near
to madness, and distinguishes it carefully from simple want of
knowledge, or conscious ignorance: Μανίαν γε μὴν ἐναντίον μὲν ἔφη
εἶναι σοφίᾳ, οὐ μέντοι γε τὴν ἀνεπιστημοσύνην μανίαν ἐνόμιζεν.
Τὸ δὲ ἀγνοεῖν ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἃ μή τις οἶδε δοξάζειν, καὶ οἴεσθαι
γιγνώσκειν, ἐγγυτάτω μανίας ἐλογίζετο εἶναι (Mem. iii, 9, 6).
This conviction thus stands foremost in the mental character of
Sokratês, and on the best evidence, Plato and Xenophon united.

It was this indirect and negative proceeding, which, though only a part of the whole, stood out as his most original and most conspicuous characteristic, and determined his reputation with a large number of persons who took no trouble to know anything else about him. It was an exposure no less painful than surprising to the person questioned, and produced upon several of them an effect of permanent alienation, so that they never came near him again,[717] but reverted to their former state of mind without any permanent change. But on the other hand, the ingenuity and novelty of the process was highly interesting to hearers, especially youthful hearers, sons of rich men, and enjoying leisure; who not only carried away with them a lofty admiration of Sokratês, but were fond of trying to copy his negative polemics.[718] Probably men like Alkibiadês and Kritias frequented his society chiefly for the purpose of acquiring a quality which they might turn to some account in their political career. His constant habit of never suffering a general term to remain undetermined, but applying it at once to particulars; the homely and effective instances of which he made choice; the string of interrogatories each advancing towards a result, yet a result not foreseen by any one; the indirect and circuitous manner whereby the subject was turned round, and at last approached and laid open by a totally different face, all this constituted a sort of prerogative in Sokratês, which no one else seems to have approached. Its effect was enhanced by a voice and manner highly plausible and captivating, and to a certain extent by the very eccentricity of his silenic physiognomy.[719] What is termed “his irony,” or assumption of the character of an ignorant learner, asking information from one who knew better than himself, while it was essential[720] as an excuse for his practice as a questioner, contributed also to add zest and novelty to his conversation; and totally banished from it both didactic pedantry and seeming bias as an advocate; which, to one who talked so much, was of no small advantage. After he had acquired celebrity, this uniform profession of ignorance in debate was usually construed as mere affectation; and those who merely heard him occasionally, without penetrating into his intimacy, often suspected that he was amusing himself with ingenious paradox.[721] Timon the Satirist, and Zeno the Epicurean, accordingly described him as a buffoon, who turned every one into ridicule, especially men of eminence.[722]

[717] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 2, 40. Πολλοὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν οὕτω διατεθέντων
ὑπὸ Σωκράτους οὐκέτι αὐτῷ προσῄεσαν, οὓς καὶ βλακωτέρους ἐνόμιζεν.

[718] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 9, p. 23, A. Οἴονται γάρ με ἑκάστοτε
οἱ παρόντες ταῦτα αὐτὸν εἶναι σοφὸν, ἃ ἂν ἄλλον ἐξελέγξω.

Ibid. c. 10, p. 23, C. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, οἱ νέοι μοι
ἐπακολουθοῦντες, οἷς μάλιστα σχολή ἐστιν, οἱ τῶν πλουσιωτάτων,
αὐτόματοι χαίρουσιν ἀκούοντες ἐξεταζομένων τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ
αὐτοὶ πολλάκις ἐμὲ μιμοῦνται, εἶτα ἐπιχειροῦσιν ἄλλους ἐξετάζειν,
etc.

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

[719] This is an interesting testimony preserved by Aristoxenus,
on the testimony of his father Spintharus, who heard Sokratês
(Aristox. Frag. 28, ed. Didot). Spintharus said, respecting
Sokratês: ὅτι οὐ πολλοῖς αὐτός γε πιθανωτέροις ἐντετυχηκὼς εἴη·
τοιαύτην εἶναι τήν τε φωνὴν καὶ τὸ στόμα καὶ τὸ ἐπιφαινόμενον
ἦθος, καὶ πρὸς πᾶσί τε τοῖς εἰρημένοις τὴν τοῦ εἴδους ἰδιότητα.

It seems evident also, from the remarkable passage in Plato’s
Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, A, that he too must have been much
affected by the singular physiognomy of Sokratês: compare Xenoph.
Sympos. iv. 19.

[720] Aristot. de Sophist. Elench. c. 32, p. 183, b. 6. Compare
also Plutarch, Quæst. Platonic. p. 999, E. Τὸν οὖν ἐλεγκτικὸν
λόγον ὥσπερ καθαρτικὸν ἔχων φάρμακον, ὁ Σωκράτης ἀξιόπιστος ἦν
ἑτέρους ἐλέγχων, τῷ μηδὲν ἀποφαίνεσθαι· καὶ μᾶλλον ἥπτετο, δοκῶν
ζητεῖν κοινῇ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, οὐκ αὐτὸς ἰδίᾳ δόξῃ βοηθεῖν.

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

Plato, Gorgias, c. 81, p. 481, B. σπουδάζει ταῦτα Σωκράτης ἢ
παίζει; Republic, i, c. 11, p. 337, A. αὐτὴ ἐκείνη ἡ εἰωθυῖα
εἰρωνεία Σωκράτους, etc (Apol. Sok. c. 28, p. 38, A.)

[722] Diog. Laërt. ii, 16; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i, 34, 93.
Cicero (Brutus, 85, 292) also treats the irony of Sokratês as
intended to mock and humiliate his fellow-dialogists, and it
sometimes appears so in the dialogues of Plato. Yet I doubt
whether the real Sokratês could have had any pronounced purpose
of this kind.

It is by Plato that the negative and indirect vein of Sokratês has been worked out and immortalized; while Xenophon, who sympathized little in it, complains that others looked at his master too exclusively on this side, and that they could not conceive him as a guide to virtue, but only as a stirring and propulsive force.[723] One of the principal objects of his “Memorabilia” is, to show that Sokratês, after having worked upon novices sufficiently with the negative line of questions, altered his tone, desisted from embarrassing them, and addressed to them precepts not less plain and simple than directly useful in practice.[724] I do not at all doubt that this was often the fact, and that the various dialogues in which Xenophon presents to us the philosopher inculcating self-control, temperance, piety, duty to parents, brotherly love, fidelity in friendship, diligence, benevolence, etc., on positive grounds, are a faithful picture of one valuable side of his character, and an essential part of the whole. Such direct admonitory influence was common to Sokratês with Prodikus and the best of the sophists.

[723] The beginning of Xen. Mem. i, 4, 1, is particularly
striking on this head: Εἰ δέ τινες Σωκράτην νομίζουσιν (ὡς ἔνιοι
γράφουσί τε καὶ λέγουσι περὶ αὐτοῦ τεκμαιρόμενοι) ~προτρέψασθαι~
μὲν ἀνθρώπους ἐπ᾽ ἀρετὴν κράτιστον γεγονέναι, ~προαγαγεῖν~ δὲ ἐπ᾽
αὐτὴν οὐχ ἱκανόν—σκεψάμενοι μὴ ~μόνον ἃ ἐκεῖνος κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα
τοὺς πάντ᾽ οἰομένους εἰδέναι ἐρωτῶν ἤλεγχεν~, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἃ λέγων
συνδιημέρευε τοῖς συνδιατρίβουσιν, δοκιμαζόντων, εἰ ἱκανὸς ἦν
βελτίους ποιεῖν τοὺς συνόντας.

[724] Xenophon, after describing the dialogue wherein Sokratês
cross-examines and humiliates Euthydêmus, says at the end: Ὁ
δὲ (Sokratês) ὡς ἔγνω αὐτὸν οὕτως ἔχοντα, ~ἥκιστα μὲν αὐτὸν
διετάραττεν, ἀπλούστατα δὲ καὶ σαφέστατα~ ἐξηγεῖτο ἅ τε ἐνόμιζεν
εἰδέναι δεῖν, καὶ ἃ ἐπιτηδεύειν κράτιστα εἶναι.

Again, iv, 7, 1. Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ~ἁπλῶς~ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γνώμην ἀπεφαίνετο
Σωκράτης πρὸς τοὺς ὁμιλοῦντας αὐτῷ, δοκεῖ μοι δῆλον ἐκ τῶν
εἰρημένων εἶναι, etc.

His readers were evidently likely to doubt, and required
proof, that Sokratês could speak _plainly_, _directly_, and
_positively:_ so much better known was the other side of his
character.

It is, however, neither from the virtue of his life, nor from the goodness of his precepts—though both were essential features in his character—that he derives his peculiar title to fame, but from his originality and prolific efficacy in the line of speculative philosophy. Of that originality, the first portion, as has been just stated, consisted in his having been the first to conceive the idea of an ethical science with its appropriate end, and with precepts capable of being tested and improved; but the second point, and not the least important, was, his peculiar method, and extraordinary power of exciting scientific impulse and capacity in the minds of others. It was not by positive teaching that this effect was produced. Both Sokratês and Plato thought that little mental improvement could be produced by expositions directly communicated, or by new written matter lodged in the memory.[725] It was necessary that mind should work upon mind, by short question and answer, or an expert employment of the dialectic process,[726] in order to generate new thoughts and powers; a process which Plato, with his exuberant fancy, compares to copulation and pregnancy, representing it as the true way, and the only effectual way, of propagating the philosophic spirit.

[725] Plato, Sophistês, c. 17, p. 230, A. μετὰ δὲ πολλοῦ πόνου
τὸ νουθετητικὸν εἶδος τῆς παιδείας σμικρὸν ἀνύτειν, etc. Compare
a fragment of Demokritus, in Mullach’s edition of the Fragm.
Demokrit. p. 175. Fr. Moral 59. Τὸν οἰόμενον νόον ἔχειν ὁ
νουθετέων ματαιοπονέει.

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

We should greatly misunderstand the negative and indirect vein of Sokratês, if we suppose that it ended in nothing more than simple negation. On busy or ungifted minds, among the indiscriminate public who heard him, it probably left little permanent effect of any kind, and ended in a mere feeling of admiration for ingenuity, or perhaps dislike of paradox: on practical minds like Xenophon, its effect was merged in that of the preceptorial exhortation: but where the seed fell upon an intellect having the least predisposition or capacity for systematic thought, the negation had only the effect of driving the hearer back at first, giving him a new impetus for afterwards springing forward. The Sokratic dialectics, clearing away from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo:[727] the newly-created consciousness of ignorance was alike unexpected, painful, and humiliating,—a season of doubt and discomfort; yet combined with an internal working and yearning after truth, never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind had been disabused of its original illusion of false knowledge, was considered by Sokratês not merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable condition, of future progress. It was the middle point in the ascending mental scale; the lowest point being ignorance unconscious, self-satisfied, and mistaking itself for knowledge; the next above, ignorance conscious, unmasked, ashamed of itself, and thirsting after knowledge as yet unpossessed; while actual knowledge, the third and highest stage, was only attainable after passing through the second as a preliminary.[728] This second, was a sort of pregnancy; and every mind either by nature incapable of it, or in which, from want of the necessary conjunction, it had never arisen, was barren for all purposes of original or self-appropriated thought. Sokratês regarded it as his peculiar vocation and skill, employing another Platonic metaphor, while he had himself no power of reproduction, to deal with such pregnant and troubled minds in the capacity of a midwife; to assist them in that mental parturition whereby they were to be relieved, but at the same time to scrutinize narrowly the offspring which they brought forth; and if it should prove distorted or unpromising, to cast it away with the rigor of a Lykurgean nurse, whatever might be the reluctance of the mother-mind to part with its new-born.[729] There is nothing which Plato is more fertile in illustrating, than this relation between the teacher and the scholar, operating not by what it put into the latter, but by what it evolved out of him; by creating an uneasy longing after truth, aiding in the elaboration necessary for obtaining relief, and testing whether the doctrine elaborated possessed the real lineaments, or merely the delusive semblance, of truth.

[726] Compare two passages in Plato’s Protagoras, c. 49, p. 329,
A, and c. 94, p. 348, D; and the Phædrus, c. 138-140, p. 276, A,
E.

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

[728] This tripartite graduation of the intellectual scale is
brought out by Plato in the Symposion, c. 29, p. 204, A, and in
the Lysis, c. 33, p. 218, A.

The intermediate point of the scale is what Plato here, though
not always, expresses by the word φιλόσοφος, in its strict
etymological sense, “a lover of knowledge;” one who is not yet
wise, but who, having learned to know and feel his own ignorance,
is anxious to become wise,—and has thus made what Plato thought
the greatest and most difficult step towards really becoming so.

[729] The effect of the interrogatory procedure of Sokratês, in
forcing on the minds of youth a humiliating consciousness of
ignorance and an eager anxiety to be relieved from it, is not
less powerfully attested in the simpler language of Xenophon,
than in the metaphorical variety of Plato. See the conversation
with Euthydêmus, in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, iv, 2; a long
dialogue which ends by the confession of the latter (c. 39):
Ἀναγκάζει με καὶ ταῦτα ὁμολογεῖν δηλονότι ἡ ἐμὴ φαυλότης· καὶ
φροντίζω μὴ κράτιστον ᾖ μοι σιγᾶν· κινδυνεύω γὰρ ἁπλῶς οὐδὲν
εἰδέναι. Καὶ πάνυ ἀθύμως ἔχων ἀπῆλθε· καὶ ~νομίσας τῷ ὄντι
ἀνδράποδον εἶναι~: compare i, 1, 16.

This same expression, “thinking himself no better than a
slave,” is also put by Plato into the mouth of Alkibiadês, when
he is describing the powerful effect wrought on his mind by
the conversation of Sokratês (Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, 216):
Περικλέους δὲ ἀκούων καὶ ἄλλων ἀγαθῶν ῥητόρων εὖ μὲν ἡγούμην,
τοιοῦτον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἔπασχον, οὐδὲ τεθορύβητό μου ἡ ψυχὴ οὐδ᾽
ἠγανάκτει ὡς ~ἀνδραποδωδῶς διακειμένου~. Ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ τούτου τοῦ
Μαρσύου πολλάκις δὴ οὕτω διετέθην, ὥστε μοι δόξαι μὴ βιωτὸν εἶναι
ἔχοντι ὡς ἔχω.

Compare also the Meno, c. 13, p. 79, E, and Theætet. c. 17, 22,
p. 148, E, 151, C, where the metaphor of pregnancy, and of the
obstetric art of Sokratês, is expanded: πάσχουσι δὲ δὴ οἱ ἐμοὶ
ξυγγιγνόμενοι καὶ τοῦτο ταὐτὸν ταῖς τικτούσαις· ὠδίνουσι γὰρ καὶ
ἀπορίας ἐμπίμπλανται νυκτάς τε καὶ ἡμέρας πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ ἐκεῖναι.
Ταύτην δὲ τὴν ὠδῖνα ἐγείρειν τε καὶ ἀποπαύειν ἡ ἐμὴ τέχνη
δύναται.—Ἐνίοτε δὲ, οἳ ἄν ~μὴ μοι δόξωσιν πως ἐγκύμονες εἶναι,
γνοὺς ὅτι οὐδὲν ἐμοῦ δέονται~, πάνυ εὐμενῶς προμνῶμαι, etc.

There are few things more remarkable than the description given of the colloquial magic of Sokratês and its vehement effects, by those who had themselves heard it and felt its force. Its suggestive and stimulating power was a gift so extraordinary, as well to justify any abundance of imagery on the part of Plato to illustrate it.[730] On the subjects to which he applied himself, man and society, his hearers had done little but feel and affirm: Sokratês undertook to make them think, weigh, and examine themselves and their own judgments, until the latter were brought into consistency with each other, as well as with a known and venerable end. The generalizations embodied in their judgments had grown together and coalesced in a manner at once so intimate, so familiar, yet so unverified, that the particulars implied in them had passed out of notice: so that Sokratês, when he recalled these particulars out of a forgotten experience, presented to the hearer his own opinions under a totally new point of view. His conversations—even as they appear in the reproduction of Xenophon, which presents but a mere skeleton of the reality—exhibit the main features of a genuine inductive method, struggling against the deep-lying, but unheeded, errors of the early intellect acting by itself, without conscious march or scientific guidance,—of the _intellectus sibi permissus_,—upon which Bacon so emphatically dwells. Amidst abundance of _instantiæ negativæ_, the scientific value of which is dwelt upon in the “Novum Organon,”[731] and negative instances, too, so dexterously chosen as generally to show the way to new truth, in place of that error which they set aside,—there is a close pressure on the hearer’s mind, to keep it in the distinct tract of particulars, as conditions of every just and consistent generalization; and to divert it from becoming enslaved to unexamined formulæ, or from delivering mere intensity of persuasion under the authoritative phrase of reason. Instead of anxiety to plant in the hearer a conclusion ready-made and accepted on trust, the questioner keeps up a prolonged suspense with special emphasis laid upon the particulars tending both affirmatively and negatively; nor is his purpose answered, until that state of knowledge and apprehended evidence is created, out of which the conclusion starts as a living product, with its own root and self-sustaining power consciously linked with its premises. If this conclusion so generated be not the same as that which the questioner himself adopts, it will at least be some other, worthy of a competent and examining mind taking its own independent view of the appropriate evidence. And amidst all the variety and divergence of particulars which we find enforced in the language of Sokratês, the end, towards which all of them point, is one and the same, emphatically signified, the good and happiness of social man.

[730] There is a striking expression of Xenophon, in the
Memorabilia, about Sokratês and his conversation (i, 2, 14):—

“He dealt with every one just as he pleased in his discussions,”
says Xenophon: τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς
λόγοις ὅπως ἐβούλετο.

[731] I know nothing so clearly illustrating both the subjects
and the method chosen by Sokratês, as various passages of the
immortal criticisms in the Novum Organon. When Sokratês, as
Xenophon tells us, devoted his time to questioning others: “What
is piety? What is justice? What is temperance, courage, political
government?” etc., we best understand the spirit of his procedure
by comparing the sentence which Bacon pronounces upon the _first
notions of the intellect,—as radically vicious, confused, badly
abstracted from things, and needing complete reexamination and
revision_,—without which, he says, not one of them could be
trusted:—

“Quod vero attinet ad notiones primas intellectûs, nihil est
_eorum, quas intellectus sibi permissus congessit, quin nobis
pro suspecto sit_, nec ullo modo ratum nisi novo judicio se
stiterit, et secundum illud pronuntiatum fuerit.” (Distributio
Operis, prefixed to the N. O. p. 168, of Mr. Montagu’s edition.)
“Serum sane rebus perditis adhibetur remedium, postquam mens
ex quotidianâ vitæ consuetudine, et auditionibus, et doctrinis
inquinatis occupata, et vanissimis idolis obsessa fuerit....
Restat unica salus ac sanitas, ut _opus mentis universum de
integro resumatur; ac mens, jam ab ipso principio, nullo modo
sibi permittatur_, sed perpetuo regatur.” (Ib. Præfatio, p.
186.) “Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex
verbis, verba notionum tesseræ sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsæ (id
quod basis rei est) confusæ sint et temere a rebus abstractæ,
nihil in iis quæ superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaque spes
est una in inductione verâ. _In notionibus nihil sani est_, nec
in logicis, nec in physicis. _Non Substantia, non Qualitas,
Agere, Pati, ipsum Esse, bonæ, notiones sunt;_ multo minus Grave,
Leve, Der sum, Tenue, Humidum, Siccum, Generatio, Corruptio,
Attrahere, Fugare, Elementum, Materia, Forma, et id Genus;
sed omnes phantasticæ et male terminatæ. Notiones infimarum
specierum, Hominis, Canis, et prehensionum immediatarum sensus,
Albi, Nigri, non fallunt magnopere: _reliquæ omnes (quibus
homines hactenus usi sunt) aberrationes sunt_, nec debitis modis
a rebus abstractæ et excitatæ.” (Aphor. 14, 15, 16.) “Nemo adhuc
tantâ mentis constantiâ et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit
et sibi imposuerit, _theorias et notiones communes penitus
abolere, et intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia de
integro applicare. Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multâ fide
et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus, quas primo hausimus,
notionibus, farrago quædam est et congeries_.” (Aphor. 97.) “Nil
magis philosophiæ offecisse deprehendimus, quam quod res quæ
familiares sunt et frequenter occurrunt, contemplationem hominum
non morentur et detineant, sed recipiantur obiter, neque earum
causæ quasi soleant; ut non sæpius requiratur informatio de rebus
ignotis, quam attentio in notis.” (Aphor. 119.)

These passages, and many others to the same effect which might be
extracted from the Novum Organon, afford a clear illustration and
an interesting parallel to the spirit and purpose of Sokratês.
He sought to test the fundamental notions and generalizations
respecting man and society, in the same spirit in which Bacon
approached those of physics: he suspected the unconscious process
of the growing intellect, and desired to revise it, by comparison
with particulars; and from particulars too the most clear and
certain, but which, from being of vulgar occurrence, were least
attended to. And that which Sokratês described in his language
as “conceit of knowledge without the reality,” is identical with
what Bacon designates as the _primary notions_, the _puerile
notions_, the _aberrations_, of the intellect left to itself,
which have become so familiar and appear so certainly known, that
the mind cannot shake them off, and has lost all habit, we might
almost say all power, of examining them.

The stringent process—or electric shock, to use the simile in
Plato’s Menon—of the Sokratic elenchus, afforded the best means
of resuscitating this lost power. And the manner in which Plato
speaks of this cross-examining elenchus, as “the great and
sovereign purification, without which every man, be he the great
king himself, is unschooled, dirty, and fall of uncleanness in
respect to the main conditions of happiness,”—καὶ τὸν ἔλεγχον
λεκτέον ὡς ἄρα μεγίστη καὶ κυριωτάτη τῶν καθάρσεων ἐστὶ, καὶ
τὸν ἀνέλεγκτον αὖ νομιστέον, ἂν καὶ τυγχάνῃ μέγας βασιλεὺς ὤν,
τὰ μέγιστα ἀκάθαρτον ὄντα· ἀπαίδευτόν τε καὶ αἰσχρὸν γεγονέναι
ταῦτα, ἃ καθαρώτατον καὶ κάλλιστον ἔπρεπε τὸν ὄντως ἐσόμενον
εὐδαίμονα εἶναι; Plato, Sophist. c. 34, p. 230, E,—precisely
corresponds to that “_cross-examination of human reason in its
native or spontaneous process_,” which Bacon specifies as one of
the three things essential to the expurgation of the intellect,
so as to qualify it for the attainment of truth: “Itaque
doctrina ista de expurgatione intellectûs, ut ipse ad veritatem
habilis sit, tribus redargutionibus absolvitur; redargutione
philosophiarum, redargutione demonstrationum, et _redargutione
rationis humanæ nativæ_.” (Nov. Organ. Distributio Operis, p.
170, ed. Montagu.)

To show further how essential it is in the opinion of the best
judges, that the native intellect should be purged or purified,
before it can properly apprehend the truths of physical
philosophy, I transcribe the introductory passage of Sir John
Herschel’s “Astronomy:”—

“In entering upon any scientific pursuit, one of the student’s
first endeavors ought to be to prepare his mind for the reception
of truth, by dismissing, or at least loosening his hold on, all
such crude and hastily adopted notions respecting the objects
and relations he is about to examine, as may tend to embarrass
or mislead him; and to strengthen himself, by _something of
an effort and a resolve_, for the unprejudiced admission of
any conclusion which shall appear to be supported by careful
observation and logical argument; even should it prove adverse
to notions he may have previously formed for himself, or taken
up, without examination on the credit of others. _Such an effort
is, in fact, a commencement of that intellectual discipline
which forms one of the most important ends of all science._ It
is the first movement of approach towards that state of mental
purity which alone can fit us for a full and steady perception of
moral beauty as well as physical adaptation. It is the “euphrasy
and rue,” with _which we must purge our sight before we can
receive, and contemplate as they are, the lineaments of truth and
nature_.” (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy; Introduction.)

I could easily multiply citations from other eminent writers on
physical philosophy, to the same purpose. All of them prescribe
this intellectual purification: Sokratês not only prescribed
it, but actually administered it, by means of his elenchus, in
reference to the subjects on which he talked.

It is not, then, to multiply proselytes, or to procure authoritative assent, but to create earnest seekers, analytical intellects, foreknowing and consistent agents, capable of forming conclusions for themselves and of teaching others, as well as to force them into that path of inductive generalization whereby alone trustworthy conclusions can be formed, that the Sokratic method aspires. In many of the Platonic dialogues, wherein Sokratês is brought forward as the principal disputant, we read a series of discussions and arguments, distinct, though having reference to the same subject, but terminating either in a result purely negative, or without any definite result at all. The commentators often attempt, but in my judgment with little success, either by arranging the dialogues in a supposed sequence or by various other hypotheses, to assign some positive doctrinal conclusion as having been indirectly contemplated by the author. But if Plato had aimed at any substantive demonstration of this sort, we cannot well imagine that he would have left his purpose thus in the dark, visible only by the microscope of a critic. The didactic value of these dialogues—that wherein the genuine Sokratic spirit stands most manifest—consists, not in the positive conclusion proved, but in the argumentative process itself, coupled with the general importance of the subject, upon which evidence negative and affirmative is brought to bear.

This connects itself with that which I remarked in the preceding chapter, when mentioning Zeno and the first manifestations of dialectics, respecting the large sweep, the many-sided argumentation, and the strength as well as forwardness of the negative arm, in Grecian speculative philosophy. Through Sokratês, this amplitude of dialectic range was transmitted from Zeno, first to Plato and next to Aristotle. It was a proceeding natural to men who were not merely interested in establishing, or refuting some given particular conclusion, but who also—like expert mathematicians in their own science—loved, esteemed, and sought to improve the dialectic process itself, with the means of verification which it afforded; a feeling, of which abundant evidence is to be found in the Platonic writings.[732] Such pleasure in the scientific operation,—though not merely innocent, but valuable both as a stimulant and as a guarantee against error, and though the corresponding taste among mathematicians is always treated with the sympathy which it deserves,—incurs much unmerited reprobation from modern historians of philosophy, under the name of love of disputation, cavilling, or skeptical subtlety.

[732] See particularly the remarkable passage in the Philêbus, c.
18, p. 16, _seq._

But over and above any love of the process, the subjects to which dialectics were applied, from Sokratês downwards,—man and society, ethics, politics, metaphysics, etc., were such as particularly called for this many-sided handling. On topics like these, relating to sequences of fact which depend upon a multitude of coöperating or conflicting causes, it is impossible to arrive, by any one thread of positive reasoning or induction, at absolute doctrine, which a man may reckon upon finding always true, whether he remembers the proof or not; as is the case with mathematical, astronomical, or physical truth. The utmost which science can ascertain, on subjects thus complicated, is an aggregate, not of peremptory theorems and predictions, but of tendencies;[733] by studying the action of each separate cause, and combining them together as well as our means admit. The knowledge of tendencies thus obtained, though falling much short of certainty, is highly important for guidance: but it is plain that conclusions of this nature, resulting from multifarious threads of evidence, true only on a balance, and always liable to limitation, can never be safely detached from the proofs on which they rest, or taught as absolute and consecrated formulæ.[734] They require to be kept in perpetual and conscious association with the evidences, affirmative and negative, by the joint consideration of which their truth is established; nor can this object be attained by any other means than by ever-renovated discussion, instituted from new and distinct points of view, and with free play to that negative arm which is indispensable as stimulus not less than as control. To ask for nothing but results, to decline the labor of verification, to be satisfied with a ready-made stock of established positive arguments as proof, and to decry the doubter or negative reasoner, who starts new difficulties, as a common enemy, this is a proceeding sufficiently common, in ancient as well as in modern times. But it is, nevertheless, an abnegation of the dignity, and even of the functions, of speculative philosophy. It is the direct reverse of the method both of Sokratês and Plato, who, as inquirers, felt that, for the great subjects which they treated, multiplied threads of reasoning, coupled with the constant presence of the cross-examining elenchus, were indispensable. Nor is it less at variance with the views of Aristotle,—though a man very different from either of them,—who goes round his subject on all sides, states and considers all its difficulties, and insists emphatically on the necessity of having all these difficulties brought out in full force, as the incitement and guide to positive philosophy, as well as the test of its sufficiency.[735]

[733] See this point instructively set forth in Mr. John Stuart
Mill’s System of Logic, vol. ii, book vi, p. 565, 1st edition.

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

“Erat autem sapientia Græcorum professoria, et in disputationes
effusa, quod genus inquisitioni veritatis adversissimum est.
Itaque nomen illud Sophistarum—quod per contemptum ab iis, qui
se philosophos haberi voluerunt, in antiquos rhetores rejectum
et traductum est, Gorgiam, Protagoram, Hippiam, Polum—etiam
universo generi competit, Platoni, Aristoteli, Zenoni, Epicuro,
Theophrasto, et eorum successoribus, Chrysippo, Carneadi,
reliquis.”

Bacon is quite right in effacing the distinction between the two
lists of persons whom he compares; and in saying that the latter
were just as much sophists as the former, in the sense which he
here gives to the word, as well as in every other legitimate
sense. But he is not justified in imputing to either of them this
many-sided argumentation as a fault, looking to the subjects upon
which they brought it to bear. His remark has application to the
simpler physical sciences, but none to the moral. It had great
pertinence and value, at the time when he brought it forward, and
with reference to the important reforms which he was seeking to
accomplish in physical science. In so far as Plato, Aristotle,
or the other Greek philosophers, apply their deductive method
to physical subjects, they come justly under Bacon’s censure.
But here again, the fault consisted less in disputing too much,
than in too hastily admitting false or inaccurate axioms without
dispute.

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

The indispensable necessity, to a philosopher, of having before
him all the difficulties and doubts of the problem which he
tries to solve, and of looking at a philosophical question with
the same alternate attention to its affirmative and negative
side, as is shown by a judge to two litigants, is strikingly
set forth in this passage. I transcribes portion of it: Ἐστὶ
δὲ τοῖς εὐπορῆσαι βουλομένοις προὔργου τὸ διαπορῆσαι καλῶς· ἡ
γὰρ ὕστερον εὐπορία λύσις τῶν πρότερον ἀπορουμένων ἐστὶ, λύειν
δ᾽ οὐκ ἐστιν ἀγνοοῦντας τὸν δεσμόν.... Διὸ δεῖ τὰς δυσχερείας
τεθεωρηκέναι πάσας πρότερον, τούτων τε χάριν, καὶ διὰ τὸ τοὺς
ζητοῦντας ἄνευ τοῦ διαπορῆσαι πρῶτον, ὁμοίους εἶναι τοῖς ποῖ δεῖ
βαδίζειν ἀγνοοῦσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις οὐδ᾽ εἴ ποτε τὸ ζητούμενον
εὕρηκεν, ἢ μὴ, γιγνώσκειν· τὸ γὰρ τέλος τούτῳ μὲν οὐ δῆλον, τῷ δὲ
προηπορηκότι δῆλον. Ἔτι δὲ βέλτιον ἀνάγκη ἔχειν πρὸς τὸ κρίνειν,
τὸν ὥσπερ ἀντιδίκων καὶ τῶν ἀμφισβητούντων λόγων ἀκηκοότα πάντων.

A little further on, in the same chapter (iii, 1, 19, p. 996,
_a_), he makes a remarkable observation. Not merely it is
difficult, on these philosophical subjects, to get at the truth,
but it is not easy to perform well even the preliminary task of
discerning and setting forth the ratiocinative difficulties which
are to be dealt with: Περὶ γὰρ τούτων ἁπάντων οὐ μόνον χαλεπὸν τὸ
εὐπορῆσαι τῆς ἀληθείας, ἀλλ᾽ ~οὐδὲ τὸ διαπορῆσαι τῷ λόγῳ ῥᾴδιον
καλῶς~. Διαπορῆσαι means the same as διεξελθεῖν τὰς ἀπορίας
(Bonitz. not. _ad loc._), “to go through the various points of
difficulty.”

This last passage illustrates well the characteristic gift of
Sokratês, which was exactly what Aristotle calls τὸ διαπορῆσαι
λόγῳ καλῶς; to force on the hearer’s mind those ratiocinative
difficulties which served both as spur and as guide towards
solution and positive truth; towards comprehensive and correct
generalization, with clear consciousness of the common attribute
binding together the various particulars included.

The same care to admit and even invite the development of
the negative side of a question, to accept the obligation of
grappling with all the difficulties, to assimilate the process of
inquiry to a judicial pleading, is to be seen in other passages
of Aristotle; see Ethic. Nikomach. vii, 1, 5; De Animâ, i, 2. p.
403, _b_; De Cœlo, i, 10, p. 279, _b_; Topica, i, 2, p. 101, _a_:
(Χρήσιμος δὲ ἡ διαλεκτικὴ) πρὸς τὰς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἐπιστήμας,
ὅτι δυνάμενοι πρὸς ἀμφότερα διαπορῆσαι, ῥᾷον ἐν ἑκάστοις
κατοψόμεθα τἀληθές τε καὶ τὸ ψεῦδος. Compare also Cicero, Tusc.
Disput. ii, 3, 9.

Understanding thus the method of Sokratês, we shall be at no loss to account for a certain variance on his part—and a still greater variance on the part of Plato, who expanded the method in writing so much more—with the sophists, without supposing the latter to be corrupt teachers. As they aimed at qualifying young men for active life, they accepted the current ethical and political sentiment, with its unexamined commonplaces and inconsistencies, merely seeking to shape it into what was accounted a meritorious character at Athens. They were thus exposed, along with others—and more than others, in consequence of their reputation—to the analytical cross-examination of Sokratês, and were quite as little able to defend themselves against it.

Whatever may have been the success of Protagoras or any other among these sophists, the mighty originality of Sokratês achieved results not only equal at the time, but incomparably grander and more lasting in reference to the future. Out of his intellectual school sprang not merely Plato, himself a host, but all the other leaders of Grecian speculation for the next half-century, and all those who continued the great line of speculative philosophy down to later times. Eukleidês and the Megaric school of philosophers,—Aristippus and the Kyrenaic,—Antisthenês and Diogenês, the first of those called the Cynics, all emanated more or less directly from the stimulus imparted by Sokratês, though each followed a different vein of thought.[736] Ethics continue to be what Sokratês had first made them, a distinct branch of philosophy, alongside of which politics, rhetoric, logic, and other speculations relating to man and society, gradually arranged themselves; all of them more popular, as well as more keenly controverted, than physics, which at that time presented comparatively little charm, and still less of attainable certainty. There can be no doubt that the individual influence of Sokratês permanently enlarged the horizon, improved the method, and multiplied the ascendent minds, of the Grecian speculative world, in a manner never since paralleled. Subsequent philosophers may have had a more elaborate doctrine, and a larger number of disciples who imbibed their ideas; but none of them applied the same stimulating method with the same efficacy; none of them struck out of other minds that fire which sets light to original thought; none of them either produced in others the pains of intellectual pregnancy, or extracted from others the fresh and unborrowed offspring of a really parturient mind.

[736] Cicero (de Orator. iii, 16, 61; Tuscul. Disput. v, 4, 11):
“Cujus (Socratis) multiplex ratio disputandi, rerumque varietas,
et ingenii magnitudo, Platonis ingenio et literis consecrata,
plura genera effecit dissentientium philosophorum.” Ten distinct
varieties of Sokratic philosophers are enumerated; but I lay
little stress on the exact number.

Having thus touched upon Sokratês, both as first opener of the field of ethics to scientific study, and as author of a method, little copied and never paralleled since his time, for stimulating in other men’s minds earnest analytical inquiry, I speak last about his theoretical doctrine. Considering the fanciful, far-fetched ideas, upon which alone the Pythagoreans and other predecessors had shaped their theories respecting virtues and vices, the wonder is that Sokratês, who had no better guides to follow, should have laid down an ethical doctrine which has the double merit of being true, as far as it goes, legitimate, and of comprehensive generality: though it errs, mainly by stating a part of the essential conditions of virtue[737]—sometimes also a part of the ethical end—as if it were the whole. Sokratês resolved all virtue into knowledge or wisdom; all vice, into ignorance or folly. To do right was the only way to impart happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness compatible with any given situation: now this was precisely what every one wished for and aimed at; only that many persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road; and no man was wise enough always to take the right. But as no man was willingly his own enemy, so no man ever did wrong willingly; it was because he was not fully or correctly informed of the consequences of his own actions; so that the proper remedy to apply was enlarged teaching of consequences and improved judgment.[738] To make him willing to be taught, the only condition required was to make him conscious of his own ignorance; the want of which consciousness was the real cause both of indocility and of vice.

[737] In setting forth the ethical end, the language of Sokratês,
as far as we can judge from Xenophon and Plato, seems to have
been not always consistent with itself. He sometimes stated it
as if it included a reference to the happiness, not merely of
the agent himself, but of others besides; both as coördinate
elements; at other times, he seems to speak as if the end was
nothing more than the happiness of the agent himself, though the
happiness of others was among the greatest and most essential
means. The former view is rather countenanced by Xenophon,
the best witness about his master, so that I have given it as
belonging to Sokratês, though it is not always adhered to. The
latter view appears most in Plato, who assimilates the health
of the soul to the health of the body, an end essentially
self-regarding.

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

That this doctrine sets forth one portion of the essential conditions of virtue, is certain; and that too the most commanding portion, since there can be no assured moral conduct except under the supremacy of reason. But that it omits to notice, what is not less essential to virtue, the proper condition of the emotions, desires, etc., taking account only of the intellect, is also certain; and has been remarked by Aristotle[739] as well as by many others. It is fruitless, in my judgment, to attempt by any refined explanation to make out that Sokratês meant, by “knowledge,” something more than what is directly implied in the word. He had present to his mind, as the grand depravation of the human being, not so much vice, as madness; that state in which a man does not know what he is doing. Against the vicious man, securities both public and private may be taken, with considerable effect; against the madman there is no security except perpetual restraint. He is incapable of any of the duties incumbent on social man, nor can he, even if he wishes, do good either to himself or to others. The sentiment which we feel towards such an unhappy being is, indeed, something totally different from moral reprobation, such as we feel for the vicious man who does wrong knowingly. But Sokratês took measure of both with reference to the purposes of human life and society, and pronounced that the latter was less completely spoiled for those purposes than the former. Madness was ignorance at its extreme pitch, accompanied, too, by the circumstance that the madman himself was unconscious of his own ignorance, acting under a sincere persuasion that he knew what he was doing. But short of this extremity, there were many varieties and gradations in the scale of ignorance, which, if accompanied by false conceit of knowledge, differed from madness only in degree, and each of which disqualified a man from doing right, in proportion to the ground which it covered. The worst of all ignorance—that which stood nearest to madness—was when a man was ignorant of himself, fancying that he knew what he did not really know, and that he could do, or avoid, or endure, what was quite beyond his capacity; when, for example, intending to speak the same truth, he sometimes said one thing, sometimes another; or, casting up the same arithmetical figures, made sometimes a greater sum, sometimes a less. A person who knows his letters, or an arithmetician, may doubtless write bad orthography or cast-up incorrectly, by design, but can also perform the operations correctly, if he chooses; while one ignorant of writing or of arithmetic, _cannot_ do it correctly, even though he should be anxious to do so. The former, therefore, comes nearer to the good orthographer or arithmetician than the latter. So, if a man knows what is just, honorable, and good, but commits acts of a contrary character, he is juster, or comes nearer to being a just man, than one who does not know what just acts are, and does not distinguish them from unjust; for this latter _cannot_ conduct himself justly, even if he desires it ever so much.[740]

[739] Xenoph. Mem. iii, 9, 4; Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. vi, 13,
3-5; Ethic. Eudem. i, 5; Ethic. Magn. i, 35.

[740] Xenoph. Mem. iii, 9, 6; iv, 2, 19-22. δικαιότερον δὲ τὸν
ἐπιστάμενον τὰ δίκαια τοῦ μὴ ἐπισταμένου. To call him the juster
man of the two, when neither are just, can hardly be meant: I
translate it according to what seems to me the meaning intended.
So γραμματικώτερον, in the sentence before, means, comes nearer
to a good orthographer. The Greek derivative adjectives in -ικὸς
are very difficult to render precisely.

Compare Plato, Hippias Minor, c. 15, p. 372, D, where the same
opinion is maintained. Hippias tells Sokratês, in that dialogue
(c. 11, p. 369, B), that he fixes his mind on a part of the
truth, and omits to notice the rest.

The opinion here maintained illustrates forcibly the general doctrine of Sokratês. I have already observed that the fundamental idea which governed his train of reasoning, was, the analogy of each man’s social life and duty to a special profession or trade. Now what is principally inquired after in regard to these special men, is their professional capacity; without this, no person would ever think of employing them, let their dispositions be ever so good; with it, good dispositions and diligence are presumed, unless there be positive grounds for suspecting the contrary. But why do we indulge such presumption? Because their pecuniary interest, their professional credit, and their place among competitors, are staked upon success, so that we reckon upon their best efforts. But in regard to that manifold and indefinite series of acts which constitute the sum total of social duty, a man has no such special interest to guide and impel him, nor can we presume in him those dispositions which will insure his doing right, wherever he knows what right is. Mankind are obliged to give premiums for these dispositions, and to attach penalties to the contrary, by means of praise and censure; moreover, the natural sympathies and antipathies of ordinary minds, which determine so powerfully the application of moral terms, run spontaneously in this direction, and even overshoot the limit which reason would prescribe. The analogy between the paid special duty and the general social duty, fails in this particular. Even if Sokratês were correct as to the former,—and this would be noway true,—in making the intellectual conditions of good conduct stand for the whole, no such inference could safely be extended to the latter.

Sokratês affirmed that “well-doing” was the noblest pursuit of man. “Well-doing” consisted in doing a thing well after having learned it and practised it, by the rational and proper means; it was altogether disparate from good fortune, or success without rational scheme and preparation. “The best man (he said), and the most beloved by the gods, is he who, as an husbandman, performs well the duties of husbandry; as a surgeon, those of medical art; in political life, his duty towards the commonwealth. But the man who does nothing well, is neither useful, nor agreeable to the gods.”[741] This is the Sokratic view of human life; to look at it as an assemblage of realities and practical details; to translate the large words of the moral vocabulary into those homely particulars to which at bottom they refer; to take account of acts, not of dispositions apart from act (in contradiction to the ordinary flow of the moral sympathies); to enforce upon every one, that what he chiefly required was teaching and practice, as preparations for act; and that therefore ignorance, especially ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, was his capital deficiency. The religion of Sokratês, as well as his ethics, had reference to practical human ends; nor had any man ever less of that transcendentalism in his mind, which his scholar Plato exhibits in such abundance.

[741] Xenoph. Memor. iii, 9, 14, 15.

It is indisputable, then, that Sokratês laid down a general ethical theory which is too narrow, and which states a part of the truth as if it were the whole. But, as it frequently happens with philosophers who make the like mistake, we find that he did not confine his deductive reasonings within the limits of the theory, but escaped the erroneous consequences by a partial inconsistency. For example; no man ever insisted more emphatically than he, on the necessity of control over the passions and appetites, of enforcing good habits, and on the value of that state of the sentiments and emotions which such a course tended to form.[742] In truth, this is one particular characteristic of his admonitions. He exhorted men to limit their external wants, to be sparing in indulgence, and to cultivate, even in preference to honors and advancement, those pleasures which would surely arise from a performance of duty, as well as from self-examination and the consciousness of internal improvement. This earnest attention, in measuring the elements and conditions of happiness, to the state of the internal associations as contrasted with the effect of external causes, as well as the pains taken to make it appear how much the latter depend upon the former for their power of conferring happiness, and how sufficient is moderate good fortune in respect to externals, provided the internal man be properly disciplined, is a vein of thought which pervades both Sokratês and Plato, and which passed from them, under various modifications, to most of the subsequent schools of ethical philosophy. It is probable that Protagoras or Prodikus, training rich youth for active life, without altogether leaving out such internal element of happiness, would yet dwell upon it less; a point of decided superiority in Sokratês.

[742] Xenoph. Mem. ii, 6, 39. ὅσαι δ᾽ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀρεταὶ
λέγονται ταύτας πάσας σκοπούμενος εὑρήσεις μαθήσει τε καὶ
~μελέτῃ~ αὐξανομένας. Again, the necessity of practise or
discipline is inculcated, iii, 9, 1. When Sokratês enumerates the
qualities requisite in a good friend, it is not merely superior
knowledge which he talks of, but of moral excellence; continence,
a self-sufficing temper, mildness, a grateful disposition (c. ii,
6, 1-5).

Moreover, Sokratês laid it down that continence, or self-control,
was the very basis of virtue: τὴν ἐγκράτειαν ἀρετῆς κρηπῖδα (i,
5, 4). Also, that _continence_ was indispensable in order to
enable a man to acquire knowledge (iv, 5, 10, 11).

Sokratês here plainly treats ἐγκράτειαν (continence, or
self-control) as not being a state of the intellectual man, and
yet as being the very basis of virtue. He therefore does not seem
to have applied consistently his general doctrine, that virtue
consisted in knowledge, or in the excellence of the intellectual
man, alone. Perhaps he might have said: Knowledge alone will
be sufficient to make you virtuous; but before you can acquire
knowledge, you must previously have disciplined your emotions and
appetites. This merely eludes the objection, without saving the
sufficiency of the general doctrine.

I cannot concur with Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. vol. ii, ch.
2, p. 78) in thinking that Sokratês meant by _knowledge_, or
_wisdom_, a transcendental attribute, above humanity, and such
as is possessed only by a god. This is by no means consistent
with that practical conception of human life and its ends, which
stands so plainly marked in his character.

Why should we think it wonderful that Sokratês should propose a
defective theory, which embraces only one side of a large and
complicated question? Considering that his was the first theory
derived from data really belonging to the subject, the wonder is,
that it was so near an approach to the truth.

The political opinions of Sokratês were much akin to his ethical, and deserve especial notice, as having in part contributed to his condemnation by the dikastery. He thought that the functions of government belonged legitimately to those who knew best how to exercise them for the advantage of the governed. “The legitimate king or governor was not the man who held the sceptre, nor the man elected by some vulgar persons, nor he who had got the post by lot, nor he who had thrust himself in by force or by fraud, but he alone who knew how to govern well.”[743] Just as the pilot governed on shipboard, the surgeon in a sick man’s house, the trainer in a palæstra; every one else being eager to obey these professional superiors, and even thanking and recompensing them for their directions, simply because their greater knowledge was an admitted fact. It was absurd, Sokratês used to contend, to choose public officers by lot, when no one would trust himself on shipboard under the care of a pilot selected by hazard,[744] nor would any one pick out a carpenter or a musician in like manner.

[743] Xen. Mem. iii, 9, 10, 11.

[744] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 9.