The mind of the slave questioned by Sokrates is discovered to be pregnant. Though he has received no teaching from any professed geometer, he is nevertheless found competent, when subjected to a skilful interrogatory, to arrive at last, through a series of mistakes, at correct answers, determining certain simple problems of geometry. He knows nothing about geometry: nevertheless there exist in his mind true opinions respecting that which he does not know. These opinions are “called up like a dream” by the interrogatories: which, if repeated and diversified, convert the opinions into knowledge, taken up by the respondent out of himself.46 The opinions are inherited from an antecedent life and born with him, since they have never been taught to him during this life.

Plato’s theory about pre-natal experience. He took no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal experience.

It is thus that Plato applies to philosophical theory the doctrine (borrowed from the Pythagoreans) of pre-natal experience and cognitions: which he considers, not as inherent appurtenances of the mind, but as acquisitions made by the mind during various antecedent lives. These ideas (Plato argues) cannot have been acquired during the present life, because the youth has received no special teaching in geometry. But Plato here takes no account of the multiplicity and diversity of experiences gone through, comparisons made, and acquirements lodged, in the mind of a youthful adult however unlettered. He recognises no acquisition of knowledge except through special teaching. So, too, in the Protagoras, we shall find him putting into the mouth of Sokrates the doctrine — That virtue is not taught and cannot be taught, because there were no special masters or times of teaching. But in that dialogue we shall also see Plato furnishing an elaborate reply to this doctrine in the speech of Protagoras; who indicates the multifarious and powerful influences which are perpetually operative, even without special professors, in creating and enforcing ethical sentiment. If Plato had taken pains to study the early life of the untaught slave, with its stock of facts, judgments, comparisons, and inferences suggested by analogy, &c., he might easily have found enough to explain the competence of the slave to answer the questions appearing in the dialogue. And even if enough could not have been found, to afford a direct and specific explanation — we must remember that only a very small proportion of the long series of mental phenomena realised in the infant, the child, the youth, ever comes to be remembered or recorded. To assume that the large unknown remainder would be insufficient, if known, to afford the explanation sought, is neither philosophical nor reasonable. This is assumed in every form of the doctrine of innate ideas: and assumed by Plato here without even trying any explanation to dispense with the hypothesis: simply because the youth interrogated had never received any special instruction in geometry.

Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or Forms.

What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning — his distinction between knowledge and right opinion.

What Plato meant by this “causal reasoning, or computation of cause,” is not clearly explained. But he affirms very unequivocally, first, that the distinction between true opinion and knowledge is one of the few things of which he feels assured47 — next, with somewhat less confidence, that the distinction consists only in the greater security which knowledge affords for permanent in-dwelling in the mind. This appears substantially the same distinction as what is laid down in other words towards the close of the dialogue — That those, who have only true opinions and not knowledge, judge rightly without knowing how or why; by an aptitude not their own but supplied to them from without for the occasion, in the nature of inspiration or prophetic œstrus. Hence they are unable to teach others, or to transfer this occasional inspiration to any one else. They cannot give account of what they affect to know, nor answer scrutinizing questions to test it. This power of answering and administering cross-examination, is Plato’s characteristic test of real knowledge — as I have already observed in my eighth chapter.

This distinction compared with modern philosophical views.

To translate the views of Plato into analogous views of a modern philosopher, we may say — That right opinion, as contrasted with knowledge, is a discriminating and acute empirical judgment: inferring only from old particulars to new particulars (without the intermediate help and guarantee of general propositions distinctly enunciated and interpreted), but selecting for every new case the appropriate analogies out of the past, with which it ought to be compared. Many persons judge in this manner fairly well, and some with extreme success. But let them be ever so successful in practice, they proceed without any conscious method; they are unable to communicate the grounds of their inferences to others: and when they are right, it is only by haphazard — that is (to use Plato’s language), through special inspiration vouchsafed to them by the Gods. But when they ascend to knowledge, and come to judge scientifically, they then distribute these particular facts into classes — note the constant sequences as distinguished from the occasional — and draw their inferences in every new case according to such general laws or uniformities of antecedent and consequent. Such uniform and unconditional antecedents are the only causes of which we have cognizance. They admit of being described in the language which Plato here uses (αἰτίας λογισμῷ), and they also serve as reasons for justifying or explaining our inferences to others.48

Manifestation of Anytus — intense antipathy to the Sophists and to philosophy generally.

Why are you so bitter against the Sophists? asks Sokrates. Have any of them ever injured you? Anyt. — No; never: I have never been in the company of any one of them, nor would I ever suffer any of my family to be so. Sokr. — Then you have no experience whatever about the Sophists? Anyt. — None: and I hope that I never may have. Sokr. — How then can you know about this matter, how far it is good or bad, if you have no experience whatever about it? Anyt. — Easily. I know what sort of men the Sophists are, whether I have experience of them or not. Sokr. — Perhaps you are a prophet, Anytus: for how else you can know about them, I do not understand, even on your own statement.49

Anytus then declares, that the persons from whom Menon ought to learn virtue are the leading practical politicians; and that any one of them can teach it. But Sokrates puts a series of questions, showing that the leading Athenian politicians, Themistoklês, Periklês, &c., have not been able to teach virtue even to their own sons: à fortiori, therefore, they cannot teach it to any one else. Anytus treats this series of questions as disparaging and calumnious towards the great men of Athens. He breaks off the conversation abruptly, with an angry warning to Sokrates to be cautious about his language, and to take care of his own safety.

The dialogue is then prosecuted and finished between Sokrates and Menon: and at the close of it, Sokrates says — “Talk to Anytus, and communicate to him that persuasion which you have yourself contracted,50 in order that he may be more mildly disposed: for, if you persuade him, you will do some good to the Athenians as well as to himself.”

The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists — Practical statesmen.

The enemy and accuser of Sokrates is here depicted as the bitter enemy of the Sophists also. And Plato takes pains to exhibit the enmity of Anytus to the Sophists as founded on no facts or experience. Without having seen or ascertained anything about them, Anytus hates them as violently as if he had sustained from them some personal injury; a sentiment which many Platonic critics and many historians of philosophy have inherited from him.51 Whether the corruption which these Sophists were accused of bringing about in the minds of youth, was intentional or not intentional on their part — how such corruption could have been perpetually continued, while at the same time the eminent Sophists enjoyed long and unabated esteem from the youth themselves and from their relatives — are difficulties which Anytus does not attempt to explain, though they are started here by Sokrates. Indeed we find the same topics employed by Sokrates himself, in his defence before the Dikasts against the same charge.52 Anytus has confidence in no one except the practical statesmen: and when a question is raised about their power to impart their own excellence to others, he presently takes offence against Sokrates also. The same causes which have determined his furious antipathy against the Sophists, make him ready to transfer the like antipathy to Sokrates. He is a man of plain sense, practical habits, and conservative patriotism — who worships what he finds accredited as virtue, and dislikes the talkers and theorisers about virtue in general: whether they debated in subtle interrogation and dialectics, like Sokrates — or lectured in eloquent continuous discourse, like Protagoras. He accuses the Sophists, in this dialogue, of corrupting the youth; just as he and Melêtus, before the Dikastery, accused Sokrates of the same offence. He understands the use of words, to discuss actual business before the assembly or dikastery; but he hates discourse on the generalities of ethics or philosophy. He is essentially μισόλογος. The point which he condemns in the Sophists, is that which they have in common with Sokrates.

The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen.

In many of the Platonic dialogues we have the antithesis between Sokrates and the Sophists brought out, as to the different point of view from which the one and the other approached ethical questions. But in this portion of the Menon, we find exhibited the feature of analogy between them, in which both one and the other stood upon ground obnoxious to the merely practical politicians. Far from regarding hatred against the Sophists as a mark of virtue in Anytus, Sokrates deprecates it as unwarranted and as menacing to philosophy in all her manifestations. The last declaration ascribed to Anytus, coupled with the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue, show us that Plato conceives the anti-Sophistic antipathy as being anti-Sokratic also, in its natural consequences. That Sokrates was in common parlance a Sophist, disliked by a large portion of the general public, and ridiculed by Aristophanes, on the same grounds as those whom Plato calls Sophists — is a point which I have noticed elsewhere.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue.

The dialogue called Protagoras presents a larger assemblage of varied and celebrated characters, with more of dramatic winding, and more frequent breaks and resumptions in the conversation, than any dialogue of Plato — not excepting even Symposion and Republic. It exhibits Sokrates in controversy with the celebrated Sophist Protagoras, in the presence of a distinguished society, most of whom take occasional part in the dialogue. This controversy is preceded by a striking conversation between Sokrates and Hippokrates — a youth of distinguished family, eager to profit by the instructions of Protagoras. The two Sophists Prodikus and Hippias, together with Kallias, Kritias, Alkibiades, Eryximachus, Phædrus, Pausanias, Agathon, the two sons of Periklês (Paralus and Xanthippus), Charmides, son of Glaukon, Antimœrus of Mende, a promising pupil of Protagoras, who is in training for the profession of a Sophist — these and others are all present at the meeting, which is held in the house of Kallias.1 Sokrates himself recounts the whole — both his conversation with Hippokrates and that with Protagoras — to a nameless friend.

This dialogue enters upon a larger and more comprehensive ethical theory than anything in the others hitherto noticed. But it contains also a great deal in which we hardly recognise, or at least cannot verify, any distinct purpose, either of search or exposition. Much of it seems to be composed with a literary or poetical view, to enhance the charm or interest of the composition. The personal characteristics of each speaker — the intellectual peculiarities of Prodikus and Hippias — the ardent partisanship of Alkibiades — are brought out as in a real drama. But the great and marked antithesis is that between the Sophist Protagoras and Sokrates — the Hektor and Ajax of the piece: who stand forward in single combat, exchange some serious blows, yet ultimately part as friends.

Introduction. Eagerness of the youthful Hippokrates to become acquainted with Protagoras.

An introduction of some length impresses upon us forcibly the celebrity of the Great Sophist, and the earnest interest excited by his visit to Athens. Hippokrates, a young man of noble family and eager aspirations for improvement, having just learnt the arrival of Protagoras, comes to the house of Sokrates and awakens him before daylight, entreating that Sokrates will introduce him to the new-comer. He is ready to give all that he possesses in order that he may become wise like Protagoras.2 While they are awaiting a suitable hour for such introduction, Sokrates puts a series of questions to test the force of Hippokrates.3

Sokrates questions Hippokrates as to his purpose and expectations from Protagoras.

Sokr. — You are now intending to visit Protagoras, and to pay him for something to be done for you — tell me what manner of man it is that you are going to visit — and what manner of man do you wish to become? If you were going in like manner to pay a fee for instruction to your namesake Hippokrates of Kos, you would tell me that you were going to him as to a physician — and that you wished to qualify yourself for becoming a physician. If you were addressing yourself with the like view to Pheidias or Polykleitus, you would go to them as to sculptors, and for the purpose of becoming yourself a sculptor. Now then that we are to go in all this hurry to Protagoras, tell me who he is and what title he bears, as we called Pheidias a sculptor? Hipp. — They call him a Sophist.4 Sokr. — We are going to pay him then as a Sophist? Hipp. — Certainly. Sokr. — And what are you to become by going to him? Hipp. — Why, judging from the preceding analogies, I am to become a Sophist. Sokr. — But would not you be ashamed of presenting yourself to the Grecian public as a Sophist? Hipp. — Yes: if I am to tell you my real opinion.5 Sokr. — Perhaps however you only propose to visit Protagoras, as you visited your schoolmaster and your musical or gymnastical teacher: not for the purpose of entering that career as a professional man, but to acquire such instruction as is suitable for a private citizen and a freeman? Hipp. — That is more the instruction which I seek from Protagoras. Sokr. — Do you know then what you are going to do? You are consigning your mind to be treated by one whom you call a Sophist: but I shall be surprised if you know what a Sophist is6 — and if you do not know, neither do you know what it is — good or evil — to which you are consigning your mind. Hipp. — I think I do know. The Sophist is, as the name implies, one cognizant of matters wise and able.7 Sokr. — That may be said also of painters and carpenters. If we were asked in what special department are painters cognizant of matters wise and able, we should specify that it was in the workmanship of portraits. Answer me the same question about the Sophist. What sort of workmanship does he direct? Hipp. — That of forming able speakers.8 Sokr. — Your answer may be correct, but it is not specific enough: for we must still ask, About what is it that the Sophist forms able speakers? just as the harp-master makes a man an able speaker about harping, at the same time that he teaches him harping. About what is it that the Sophist forms able speakers: of course about that which he himself knows?9 Hipp. — Probably. Sokr. — What then is that, about which the Sophist is himself cognizant, and makes his pupil cognizant? Hipp. — By Zeus, I cannot give you any farther answer.10

Danger of going to imbibe the instruction of a Sophist without knowing beforehand what he is about to teach.

Sokr. — Do you see then to what danger you are going to submit your mind? If the question were about going to trusting your body to any one, with the risk whether it should become sound or unsound, you would have thought long, and taken much advice, before you decided. But now, when it is about your mind, which you value more than your body, and upon the good or evil of which all your affairs turn11 — you are hastening without reflection and without advice, you are ready to pay all the money that you possess or can obtain, with a firm resolution already taken to put yourself at all hazard under Protagoras: whom you do not know — with whom you have never once talked — whom you call a Sophist, without knowing what a Sophist is? Hipp. — I must admit the case to be as you say.12 Sokr. — Perhaps the Sophist is a man who brings for sale those transportable commodities, instruction or doctrine, which form the nourishment of the mind. Now the traders in food for the body praise indiscriminately all that they have to sell, though neither they nor their purchasers know whether it is good for the body; unless by chance any one of them be a gymnastic trainer or a physician.13 So, too, these Sophists, who carry about food for the mind, praise all that they have to sell: but perhaps some of them are ignorant, and assuredly their purchasers are ignorant, whether it be good or bad for the mind: unless by accident any one possess medical knowledge about the mind. Now if you, Hippokrates, happen to possess such knowledge of what is good or bad for the mind, you may safely purchase doctrine from Protagoras or from any one else:14 but if not, you are hazarding and putting at stake your dearest interests. The purchase of doctrines is far more dangerous than that of eatables or drinkables. As to these latter, you may carry them away with you in separate vessels, and before you take them into your body you may invoke the Expert, to tell you what you may safely eat and drink, and when, and how much. But this cannot be done with doctrines. You cannot carry away them in a separate vessel to be tested; you learn them and take them into the mind itself; so that you go away, after having paid your money, actually damaged or actually benefited, as the case may be.15 We will consider these matters in conjunction with our elders. But first let us go and talk with Protagoras — we can consult the others afterwards.

Remarks on the Introduction. False persuasion of knowledge brought to light.

Such is the preliminary conversation of Sokrates with Hippokrates, before the interview with Protagoras. I have given it (like the introduction to the Lysis) at considerable length, because it is a very characteristic specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic point of view. It brings to light that false persuasion of knowledge, under which men unconsciously act, especially in what concerns the mind and its treatment. Common fame and celebrity suffice to determine the most vehement aspirations towards a lecturer, in one who has never stopped to reflect or enquire what the lecturer does. The pressure applied by Sokrates in his successive questions, to get beyond vague generalities into definite particulars — the insufficiency, thereby exposed, of the conceptions with which men usually rest satisfied — exhibit the working of his Elenchus in one of its most instructive ways. The parallel drawn between the body and the mind — the constant precaution taken in the case of the former to consult the professional man and to follow his advice in respect both to discipline and nourishment — are in the same vein of sentiment which we have already followed in other dialogues. Here too, as elsewhere, some similar Expert, in reference to the ethical and intellectual training of mind, is desiderated, as still more imperatively necessary. Yet where is he to be found? How is the business of mental training to be brought to a beneficial issue without him? Or is Protagoras the man to supply such a demand? We shall presently see.

Sokrates and Hippokrates go to the house of Kallias. Company therein. Respect shown to Protagoras.

Questions of Sokrates to Protagoras. Answer of the latter, declaring the antiquity of the sophistical profession, and his own openness in avowing himself a sophist.

Sokr. — Protagoras, I and Hippokrates here are come to talk to you about something. Prot. — Do you wish to ta]k to me alone, or in presence of the rest? Sokr. — To us it is indifferent: but I will tell you what we come about, and you may then determine for yourself. This Hippokrates is a young man of noble family, and fully equal to his contemporaries in capacity. He wishes to become distinguished in the city; and he thinks he shall best attain that object through your society. Consider whether you would like better to talk with him alone, or in presence of the rest.16 Prot. — Your consideration on my behalf, Sokrates, is reasonable. A person of my profession must be cautious in his proceedings. I, a foreigner, visit large cities, persuading the youth of best family to frequent my society in preference to that of their kinsmen and all others; in the conviction that I shall do them good. I thus inevitably become exposed to much jealousy and even to hostile conspiracies.17 The sophistical art is an old one;18 but its older professors, being afraid of enmity if they proclaimed what they really were, have always disguised themselves under other titles. Some, like Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides, called themselves poets: others, Orpheus, Musæus, &c., professed to prescribe religious rites and mysteries: others announced themselves as gymnastic trainers or teachers of music. But I have departed altogether from this policy; which indeed did not succeed in really deceiving any leading men — whom alone it was intended to deceive — and which, when found out, entailed upon its authors the additional disgrace of being considered deceivers. The true caution consists in open dealing; and this is what I have always adopted. I avow myself a Sophist, educating men. I am now advanced in years, old enough to be the father of any of you, and have grown old in the profession: yet during all these years, thank God, I have suffered no harm either from my practice or my title.19 If therefore you desire to converse with me, it will be far more agreeable to me to converse in presence of all who are now in the house.20