Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended under it, was not then familiar.

(We may remark that Plato here, as in the Euthyphron, brings under especial notice one of the most important distinctions in formal logic — that between a generic between a term and the various specific terms comprehended under it. Possessing as yet no technical language for characterising this distinction, he makes it understood by an induction of several separate but analogous cases. Because the distinction is familiar now to instructed men, we must not suppose that it was familiar then.)

Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that when obtained, they are misfortunes. Every one fancies that he knows what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance.

Sokr. — Whom do you call wise and unwise? Is not the wise man, he who knows what it is proper to say and do — and the unwise man, he who does not know? Alk. — Yes. Sokr. — The unwise man will thus often unconsciously say or do what ought not to be said or done? Though not mad like Œdipus, he will nevertheless pray to the Gods for gifts, which will be hurtful to him if obtained. You, for example, would be overjoyed if the Gods were to promise that you should become despot not only over Athens, but also over Greece. Alk. — Doubtless I should: and every one else would feel as I do. Sokr. — But what if you were to purchase it with your life, or to damage yourself by the employment of it? Alk. — Not on those conditions.29 Sokr. — But you are aware that many ambitious aspirants, both at Athens and elsewhere (among them, the man who just now killed the Macedonian King Archelaus, and usurped his throne), have acquired power and aggrandisement, so as to be envied by every one: yet have presently found themselves brought to ruin and death by the acquisition. So, also, many persons pray that they may become fathers; but discover presently that their children are the source of so much grief to them, that they wish themselves again childless. Nevertheless, though such reverses are perpetually happening, every one is still not only eager to obtain these supposed benefits, but importunate with the Gods in asking for them. You see that it is not safe even to accept without reflection boons offered to you, much less to pray for boons to be conferred.30 Alk. — I see now how much mischief ignorance produces. Every one thinks himself competent to pray for what is beneficial to himself; but ignorance makes him unconsciously imprecate mischief on his own head.

Mistake in predications about ignorance generally. We must discriminate. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of good, is always mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always.

Sokr. — You ought not to denounce ignorance in this unqualified manner. You must distinguish and specify. Ignorance of what? and under what modifications of persons and circumstances? Alk. — How? Are there any matters or circumstances in which it is better for a man to be ignorant, than to know? Sokr. — You will see that there are such. Ignorance of good, or ignorance of what is best, is always mischievous: moreover, assuming that a man knows what is best, then all other knowledge will be profitable to him. In his special case, ignorance on any subject cannot be otherwise than hurtful. But if a man be ignorant things of good, or of what is best, in his case knowledge on other subjects will be more often hurtful than profitable. To a man like Orestes, so misguided on the question, “What is good?” as to resolve to kill his mother, it would be a real benefit, if for the time he did not know his mother. Ignorance on that point, in his state of mind, would be better for him than knowledge.31 Alk. — It appears so.

Wise public counsellors are few. Upon what ground do we call these few wise? Not because they possess merely special arts or accomplishments, but because they know besides, upon what occasions and under what limits each of these accomplishments ought to be used.

Sokr. — Follow the argument farther. When we come forward to say or do any thing, we either know what we are about to say and do, or at least believe ourselves to know it. Every statesman who gives counsel to the public, does so in the faith of such knowledge. Most citizens are unwise, and ignorant of good as well as of other things. The wise are but few, and by their advice the city is conducted. Now upon what ground do we call these few, wise and useful public counsellors? If a statesman knows war, but does not know whether it is best to go to war, or at what juncture it is best — should we call him wise? If he knows how to kill men, or dispossess them, or drive them into exile, — but does not know upon whom, or on what occasions, it is good to inflict this treatment — is he a useful counsellor? If he can ride, or shoot, or wrestle, well, — we give him an epithet derived from this special accomplishment: we do not call him wise. What would be the condition of a community composed of bowmen, horsemen, wrestlers, rhetors, &c., accomplished and excellent each in his own particular craft, yet none of them knowing what is good, nor when, nor on what occasions, it is good to employ their craft? When each man pushes forward his own art and speciality, without any knowledge whether it is good on the whole either for himself or for the city, will not affairs thus conducted be reckless and disastrous?32 Alk. — They will be very bad indeed.

Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial.

Sokr. — If, then, a man has no knowledge of good or of the better — if upon this cardinal point he obeys fancy without reason — the possession of knowledge upon special subjects will be oftener hurtful than profitable to him; because it will make him more forward in action, without any good result. Possessing many arts and accomplishments, and prosecuting one after another, but without the knowledge of good, — he will only fall into greater trouble, like a ship sailing without a pilot. Knowledge of good is, in other words, knowledge of what is useful and profitable. In conjunction with this, all other knowledge is valuable, and goes to increase a man’s competence as a counsellor: apart from this, all other knowledge will not render a man competent as a counsellor, but will be more frequently hurtful than beneficial.33 Towards right living, what we need is, the knowledge of good: just as the sick stand in need of a physician, and the ship’s crew of a pilot. Alk. — I admit your reasoning. My opinion is changed. I no longer believe myself competent to determine what I ought to accept from the Gods, or what I ought to pray for. I incur serious danger of erring, and of asking for mischiefs, under the belief that they are benefits.

It is unsafe for Alkibiades to proceed with his sacrifice, until he has learnt what is the proper language to address to the Gods. He renounces his sacrifice, and throws himself upon the counsel of Sokrates.

Sokr. — The Lacedæmonians, when they offer sacrifice, pray simply that they may obtain what is honourable and good, without farther specification. This language is acceptable to the Gods, more acceptable than the costly festivals of Athens. It has procured for the Spartans more continued prosperity than the Athenians have enjoyed.34 The Gods honour wise and just men, that is, men who know what they ought to say and do both towards Gods and towards men — more than numerous and splendid offerings.35 You see, therefore, that it is not safe for you to proceed with your sacrifice, until you have learnt what is the proper language to be used, and what are the really good gifts to be prayed for. Otherwise your sacrifice will not prove acceptable, and you may even bring upon yourself positive mischief.36 Alk. — When shall I be able to learn this, and who is there to teach me? I shall be delighted to meet him. Sokr. — There is a person at hand most anxious for your improvement. What he must do is, first to disperse the darkness from your mind, next, to impart that which will teach you to discriminate evil from good, which at present you are unable to do. Alk. — I shall shrink from no labour to accomplish this object. Until then, I postpone my intended sacrifice: and I tender my sacrificial wreath to you, in gratitude for your counsel.37 Sokr. — I accept the wreath as a welcome augury of future friendship and conversation between us, to help us out of the present embarrassment.

Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues.

The two dialogues, called First and Second Alkibiadês, of which I have just given some account, resemble each other more than most of the Platonic dialogues, not merely in the personages introduced, but in general spirit, in subject, and even in illustrations. The First Alkibiadês was recognised as authentic by all critics without exception, until the days of Schleiermacher. Nay, it was not only recognised, but extolled as one of the most valuable and important of all the Platonic compositions; proper to be studied first, as a key to all the rest. Such was the view of Jamblichus and Proklus, transmitted to modern times; until it received a harsh contradiction from Schleiermacher, who declared the dialogue to be both worthless and spurious. The Second Alkibiadês was also admitted both by Thrasyllus, and by the general body of critics in ancient times: but there were some persons (as we learn from Athenæus)38 who considered it to be a work of Xenophon; perceiving probably (what is the fact) that it bears much analogy to several conversations which Xenophon has set down. But those who held this opinion are not to be considered as of one mind with critics who reject the dialogue as a forgery or imitation of Plato. Compositions emanating from Xenophon are just as much Sokratic, probably even more Sokratic, than the most unquestioned Platonic dialogues, besides that they must of necessity be contemporary also. Schleiermacher has gone much farther: declaring the Second as well as the First to be an unworthy imitation of Plato.39

Grounds for disallowing them — less strong against the Second than against the First.

Here Ast agrees with Schleiermacher fully, including both the First and Second Alkibiades in his large list of the spurious. Most of the subsequent critics go with Schleiermacher only half-way: Socher, Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, recognise the First Alkibiadês, but disallow the Second.40 In my judgment, Schleiermacher and Ast are more consistently right, or more consistently wrong, in rejecting both, than the other critics who find or make so capital a distinction between the two. The similarity of tone and topics between the two is obvious, and is indeed admitted by all. Moreover, if I were compelled to make a choice, I should say that the grounds for suspicion are rather less strong against the Second than against the First; and that Schleiermacher, reasoning upon the objections admitted by his opponents as conclusive against the Second, would have no difficulty in showing that his own objections against the First were still more forcible. The long speech assigned in the First Alkibiadês to Sokrates, about the privileges of the Spartan and Persian kings,41 including the mention of Zoroaster, son of Oromazes, and the Magian religion, appears to me more unusual with Plato than anything which I find in the Second Alkibiadês. It is more Xenophontic42 than Platonic.

The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of inferiority.

But I must here repeat, that because I find, in this or any other dialogue, some peculiarities not usual with Plato, I do not feel warranted thereby in declaring the dialogue spurious. In my judgment, we must look for a large measure of diversity in the various dialogues; and I think it an injudicious novelty, introduced by Schleiermacher, to set up a canonical type of Platonism, all deviations from which are to be rejected as forgeries. Both the First and the Second Alkibiadês appear to me genuine, even upon the showing of those very critics who disallow them. Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, all admit that there is in both the dialogues a considerable proportion of Sokratic and Platonic ideas: but they maintain that there are also other ideas which are not Sokratic or Platonic, and that the texture, style, and prolixity of the Second Alkibiadês (Schleiermacher maintains this about the First also) are unworthy of Plato. But if we grant these premisses, the reasonable inference would be, not to disallow it altogether, but to admit it as a work by Plato, of inferior merit; perhaps of earlier days, before his powers of composition had attained their maturity. To presume that because Plato composed many excellent dialogues, therefore all that he composed must have been excellent, is a pretension formally disclaimed by many critics, and asserted by none.43 Steinhart himself allows that the Second Alkibiadês, though not composed by Plato, is the work of some other author contemporary, an untrained Sokratic disciple attempting to imitate Plato.44 But we do not know that there were any contemporaries who tried to imitate Plato: though Theopompus accused him of imitating others, and called most of his dialogues useless as well as false: while Plato himself, in his inferior works, will naturally appear like an imitator of his better self.

The two dialogues may probably be among Plato’s earlier compositions.

I agree with Schleiermacher and the other recent critics in considering the First and Second Alkibiadês to be inferior in merit to Plato’s best dialogues; and I contend that their own premisses justify no more. They may probably be among his earlier productions, though I do not believe that the First Alkibiadês was composed during the lifetime of Sokrates, as Socher, Steinhart, and Stallbaum endeavour to show.45 I have already given my reasons, in a previous chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates; still less in that of Alkibiadês, who died four years earlier. There is certainly nothing in either Alkibiadês I. or II. to shake this belief.

Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men.

If we compare various colloquies of Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, we shall find Alkibiadês I. and II. very analogous to them both in purpose and spirit. In Alkibiadês I. the situation conceived is the same as that of Sokrates and Glaukon, in the third book of the Memorabilia. Xenophon recounts how the presumptuous Glaukon, hardly twenty years of age, fancied himself already fit to play a conspicuous part in public affairs, and tried to force himself, in spite of rebuffs and humiliations, upon the notice of the assembly.46 No remonstrances of friends could deter him, nor could anything, except the ingenious dialectic of Sokrates, convince him of his own impertinent forwardness and exaggerated self-estimation. Probably Plato (Glaukon’s elder brother) had heard of this conversation, but whether the fact be so or not, we see the same situation idealised by him in Alkibiadês I., and worked out in a way of his own. Again, we find in the Xenophontic Memorabilia another colloquy, wherein Sokrates cross-questions, perplexes, and humiliates, the studious youth Euthydemus,47 whom he regards as over-confident in his persuasions and too well satisfied with himself. It was among the specialties of Sokrates to humiliate confident young men, with a view to their future improvement. He made his conversation “an instrument of chastisement,” in the language of Xenophon: or (to use a phrase of Plato himself in the Lysis) he conceived. “that the proper way of talking to youth whom you love, was, not to exalt and puff them up, but to subdue and humiliate them”.48

Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this feature in Sokrates.

If Plato wished to idealise this feature in the character of Sokrates, no name could be more suitable to his purpose than that of Alkibiades: who, having possessed as a youth the greatest personal beauty (to which Sokrates was exquisitely sensible) had become in his mature life distinguished not less for unprincipled ambition and insolence, than for energy and ability. We know the real Alkibiadês both from Thucydides and Xenophon, and we also know that Alkibiades had in his youth so far frequented the society of Sokrates as to catch some of that dialectic ingenuity, which the latter was expected and believed to impart.49 The contrast, as well as the companionship, between Sokrates and Alkibiades was eminently suggestive to the writers of Sokratic dialogues, and nearly all of them made use of it, composing dialogues in which Alkibiades was the principal name and figure.50 It would be surprising indeed if Plato had never done the same: which is what we must suppose, if we adopt Schleiermacher’s view, that both Alkibiadês I. and II. are spurious. In the Protagoras as well as in the Symposion, Alkibiades figures; but in neither of them is he the principal person, or titular hero, of the piece. In Alkibiadês I. and II., he is introduced as the solitary respondent to the questions of Sokrates — κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα: to receive from Sokrates a lesson of humiliation such as the Xenophontic Sokrates administers to Glaukon and Euthydemus, taking care to address the latter when alone.51

Plato’s manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates. Magical influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates.

I conceive Alkibiadês I. and II. as composed by Plato among his earlier writings (perhaps between 399-390 B.C.)52 giving an imaginary picture of the way in which “Sokrates handled every respondent just as he chose” (to use the literal phrase of Xenophon53): taming even that most overbearing youth, whom Aristophanes characterises as the lion’s whelp.54 In selecting Alkibiades as the sufferer under such a chastising process, Plato rebuts in his own ideal style that charge which Xenophon answers with prosaic directness — the charge made against Sokrates by his enemies, that he taught political craft without teaching ethical sobriety; and that he had encouraged by his training the lawless propensities of Alkibiades.55 When Schleiermacher, and others who disallow the dialogue, argue that the inordinate insolence ascribed to Alkibiades, and the submissive deference towards Sokrates also ascribed to him, are incongruous and incompatible attributes, — I reply that such a conjunction is very improbable in any real character. But this does not hinder Plato from combining them in one and the same ideal character, as we shall farther see when we come to the manifestation of Alkibiades in the Symposion: in which dialogue we find a combination of the same elements, still more extravagant and high-coloured. Both here and there we are made to see that Sokrates, far from encouraging Alkibiades, is the only person who ever succeeded in humbling him. Plato attributes to the personality and conversation of Sokrates an influence magical and almost superhuman: which Cicero and Plutarch, proceeding probably upon the evidence of the Platonic dialogues, describe as if it were historical fact. They represent Alkibiades as shedding tears of sorrow and shame, and entreating Sokrates to rescue him from a sense of degradation insupportably painful.56 Now Xenophon mentions Euthydemus and other young men as having really experienced these profound and distressing emotions.57 But he does not at all certify the same about Alkibiades, whose historical career is altogether adverse to the hypothesis. The Platonic picture is an idéal, drawn from what may have been actually true about other interlocutors of Sokrates, and calculated to reply to Melêtus and his allies.

The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in Alkib. I. Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge.

Looking at Alkibiadês I. and II. in this point of view, we shall find them perfectly Sokratic both in topics proclaimed and in manner — whatever may be said about unnecessary prolixity and common-place here and there. The leading ideas of Alkibiadês I. may be found, nearly all, in the Platonic Apology. That warfare, which Sokrates proclaims in the Apology as having been the mission of his life, against the false persuasion of knowledge, or against beliefs ethical and æsthetical, firmly entertained without having been preceded by conscious study or subjected to serious examination — is exemplified in Alkibiadês I. and II. as emphatically as in any Platonic composition. In both these dialogues, indeed (especially in the first), we find an excessive repetition of specialising illustrations, often needless and sometimes tiresome: a defect easily intelligible if we assume them to have been written when Plato was still a novice in the art of dialogic composition. But both dialogues are fully impregnated with the spirit of the Sokratic process, exposing, though with exuberant prolixity, the firm and universal belief, held and affirmed by every one even at the age of boyhood, without any assignable grounds or modes of acquisition, and amidst angry discordance between the affirmation of one man and another. The emphasis too with which Sokrates insists upon his own single function of merely questioning, and upon the fact that Alkibiades gives all the answers and pronounces all the self-condemnation with his own mouth58 — is remarkable in this dialogue: as well as the confidence with which he proclaims the dialogue as affording the only, but effective, cure.59 The ignorance of which Alkibiades stands unexpectedly convicted, is expressly declared to be common to him with the other Athenian politicians: an exception being half allowed to pass in favour of the semi-philosophical Perikles, whom Plato judges here with less severity than elsewhere60 — and a decided superiority being claimed for the Spartan and Persian kings, who are extolled as systematically trained from childhood.