Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a conviction of his own ignorance.

The main purpose of Sokrates is to drive Alkibiades into self-contradictions, and to force upon him a painful consciousness of ignorance and mental defect, upon grave and important subjects, while he is yet young enough to amend it. Towards this purpose he is made to lay claim to a divine mission similar to that which the real Sokrates announces in the Apology61 A number of perplexing questions and difficulties are accumulated: it is not meant that these difficulties are insoluble, but that they cannot be solved by one who has never seriously reflected on them — by one who (as the Xenophontic Sokrates says to Euthydemus),62 is so confident of knowing the subject that he has never meditated upon it at all. The disheartened Alkibiades feels the necessity of improving himself and supplicates the assistance of Sokrates:63 who reminds him that he must first determine what “Himself” is. Here again we find ourselves upon the track of Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, and under the influence of the memorable inscription at Delphi — Nosce teipsum. Your mind is yourself; your body is a mere instrument of your mind: your wealth and power are simple appurtenances or adjuncts. To know yourself, which is genuine Sophrosynê or temperance, is to know your mind: but this can only be done by looking into another mind, and into its most intelligent compartment: just as the eye can only see itself by looking into the centre of vision of another eye.64

Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties. He exhorts to Justice and Virtue — but these are acknowledged Incognita.

At the same time, when, after having convicted Alkibiades of deplorable ignorance, Sokrates is called upon to prescribe remedies — all distinctness of indication disappears. It is exacted only when the purpose is to bring difficulties and contradictions to view: it is dispensed with, when the purpose is to solve them. The conclusion is, that assuming happiness as the acknowledged ultimate end,65 Alkibiades cannot secure this either for himself or for his city, by striving for wealth and power, private or public: he can only secure it by acquiring for himself, and implanting in his country-men, justice, temperance, and virtue. This is perfectly Sokratic, and conformable to what is said by the real Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. But coming at the close of Alkibiadês I., it presents no meaning and imparts no instruction: because Sokrates had shown in the earlier part of the dialogue, that neither he himself, nor Alkibiades, nor the general public, knew what justice and virtue were. The positive solution which Sokrates professes to give, is therefore illusory. He throws us back upon those old, familiar, emotional, associations, unconscious products and unexamined transmissions from mind to mind — which he had already shown to represent the fancy of knowledge without the reality — deep-seated belief without any assignable intellectual basis, or outward standard of rectitude.

Prolixity of Alkibiadês I. — Extreme multiplication of illustrative examples — How explained.

Throughout the various Platonic dialogues, we find alternately two distinct and opposite methods of handling — the generalising of the special, and the specialising of the general. In Alkibiadês I, the specialising of the general preponderates — as it does in most of the conversations of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: the number of exemplifying particulars is unusually great. Sokrates does not accept as an answer a general term, without illustrating it by several of the specific terms comprehended under it: and this several times on occasions when an instructed reader thinks it superfluous and tiresome: hence, partly, the inclination of some modern critics to disallow the dialogue. But we must recollect that though a modern reader practised in the use of general terms may seize the meaning at once, an Athenian youth of the Platonic age would not be sure of doing the same. No conscious analysis had yet been applied to general terms: no grammar or logic then entered into education. Confident affirmation, without fully knowing the meaning of what is affirmed, is the besetting sin against which Plato here makes war: and his precautions for exposing it are pushed to extreme minuteness. So, too, in the Sophistês and Politikus, when he wishes to illustrate the process of logical division and subdivision, he applies it to cases so trifling and so multiplied, that Socher is revolted and rejects the dialogues altogether. But Plato himself foresees and replies to the objection; declaring expressly that his main purpose is, not to expound the particular subject chosen, but to make manifest and familiar the steps and conditions of the general classifying process — and that prolixity cannot be avoided.66 We must reckon upon a similar purpose in Alkibiadês I. The dialogue is a specimen of that which Aristotle calls Inductive Dialectic, as distinguished from Syllogistic: the Inductive he considers to be plainer and easier, suitable when you have an ordinary collocutor — the Syllogistic is the more cogent, when you are dealing with a practised disputant.67

Alkibiadês II. leaves its problem avowedly undetermined.

It has been seen that Alkibiadês I, though professing to give something like a solution, gives what is really no solution at all. Alkibiadês II., similar in many respects, is here different, inasmuch as it does not even profess to solve the difficulty which had been raised. The general mental defect — false persuasion of knowledge without the reality — is presented in its application to a particular case. Alkibiades is obliged to admit that he does not know what he ought to pray to the Gods for: neither what is good, to be granted, nor what is evil, to be averted. He relies upon Sokrates for dispelling this mist from his mind: which Sokrates promises to do, but adjourns for another occasion.

Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours undefined — his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency of the Gods — he prays to them for premonitory warnings.

Sokrates here ascribes to the Spartans, and to various philosophers, the practice of putting up prayers in undefined language, for good and honourable things generally. He commends that practice. Xenophon tells us that the historical Sokrates observed it:68 but he tells us also that the historical Sokrates, though not praying for any special presents from the Gods, yet prayed for and believed himself to receive special irregular revelations and advice as to what was good to be done or avoided in particular cases. He held that these special revelations were essential to any tolerable life: that the dispensations of the Gods, though administered upon regular principles on certain subjects and up to a certain point, were kept by them designedly inscrutable beyond that point: but that the Gods would, if properly solicited, afford premonitory warnings to any favoured person, such as would enable him to keep out of the way of evil, and put himself in the way of good. He declared that to consult and obey oracles and prophets was not less a maxim of prudence than a duty of piety: for himself, he was farther privileged through his divine sign or monitor, which he implicitly followed.69 Such premonitory warnings were the only special favour which he thought it suitable to pray for — besides good things generally. For special presents he did not pray, because he professed not to know whether any of the ordinary objects of desire were good or bad. He proves in his conversation with Euthydêmus, that all those acquisitions which are usually accounted means of happiness — beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, nay, even good health and wisdom — are sometimes good or causes of happiness, sometimes evil or causes of misery; and therefore cannot be considered either as absolutely the one or absolutely the other.70

Comparison of Alkibiadês II. with the Xenophontic Memorabilia, especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus. Sokrates not always consistent with himself.

This impossibility of determining what is good and what is evil, in consequence of the uncertainty in the dispensations of the Gods and in human affairs — is a doctrine forcibly insisted on by the Xenophontic Sokrates in his discourse with Euthydêmus, and much akin to the Platonic Alkibiadês II., being applied to the special case of prayer. But we must not suppose that Sokrates adheres to this doctrine throughout all the colloquies of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: on the contrary, we find him, in other places, reasoning upon such matters, as health, strength, and wisdom, as if they were decidedly good.71 The fact is, that the arguments of Sokrates, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, vary materially according to the occasion and the person with whom he is discoursing: and the case is similar with the Platonic dialogues: illustrating farther the questionable evidence on which Schleiermacher and other critics proceed, when they declare one dialogue to be spurious, because it contains reasoning inconsistent with another.

We find in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine which is also proclaimed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: that the Gods are not moved by costly sacrifice more than by humble sacrifice, according to the circumstances of the offerer:72 they attend only to the mind of the offerer, whether he be just and wise: that is, “whether he knows what ought to be done both towards Gods and towards men”.73

Remarkable doctrine of Alkibiadês II. — that knowledge is not always Good. The knowledge of Good itself is indispensable: without that, the knowledge of other things is more hurtful than beneficial.

But we find also in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine, more remarkable. Sokrates will not proclaim absolutely that knowledge is good, and that ignorance is evil. In some cases, he contends, ignorance is good; and he discriminates which the cases are. That which we are principally interested in knowing, is Good, or The Best — The Profitable:74 phrases used as equivalent. The knowledge of this is good, and the ignorance of it mischievous, under all supposable circumstances. And if a man knows good, the more he knows of everything else, the better; since he will sure to make a good use of his knowledge. But if he does not know good, the knowledge of other things will be hurtful rather than beneficial to him. To be skilful in particular arts and accomplishments, under the capital mental deficiency supposed, will render him an instrument of evil and not of good. The more he knows — and the more he believes himself to know — the more forward will he be in acting, and therefore the greater amount of harm will he do. It is better that he should act as little as possible. Such a man is not fit to direct his own conduct, like a freeman: he must be directed and controlled by others, like a slave. The greater number of mankind are fools of this description — ignorant of good: the wise men who know good, and are fit to direct, are very few. The wise man alone, knowing good, follows reason: the rest trust to opinion, without reason.75 He alone is competent to direct both his own conduct and that of the society.

The stress which is laid here upon the knowledge of good, as distinguished from all other varieties of knowledge — the identification of the good with the profitable, and of the knowledge of good with reason (νοῦς), while other varieties of knowledge are ranked with opinion (δόξα) — these are points which, under one phraseology or another, pervade many of the Platonic dialogues. The old phrase of Herakleitus — Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει — “much learning does not teach reason” — seems to have been present to the mind of Plato in composing this dialogue. The man of much learning and art, without the knowledge of good, and surrendering himself to the guidance of one or other among his accomplishments, is like a vessel tossed about at sea without a pilot.76

Knowledge of Good — appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles.

What Plato here calls the knowledge of Good, or Reason — the just discrimination and comparative appreciation of Ends and Means — appears in the Politikus and Euthydêmus, under the title of the Regal or Political Art, of employing or directing77 the results of all other arts, which are considered as subordinate: in the Protagoras, under the title of art of calculation or mensuration: in the Philêbus, as measure and proportion: in the Phædrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning to account, for the main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, stratagems, decorations, &c., imparted by professional masters. In the Republic, it is personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the Reason of the society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and Producers) are bound implicitly to follow: the virtue of the subordinates consisting in this implicit obedience. In the Leges, it is defined as the complete subjection in the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason,78 without which, no special aptitudes are worth having. In the Xenophontic Memorabilia, it stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of Sophrosynê or Temperance:79 and the Profitable is declared identical with the Good, as the directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits and proceedings.80

The Good — the Profitable — what is it? — How are we to know it? Plato leaves this undetermined.

These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined. We shall find him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, and elsewhere. We have here the title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be pursued. We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title and postulate with a more definite meaning.

CHAPTER XIII.

Hippias Major — situation supposed — character of the dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.

Both these two dialogues are carried on between Sokrates and the Eleian Sophist Hippias. The general conception of Hippias — described as accomplished, eloquent, and successful, yet made to say vain and silly things — is the same in both dialogues: in both also the polemics of Sokrates against him are conducted in a like spirit, of affected deference mingled with insulting sarcasm. Indeed the figure assigned to Hippias is so contemptible, that even an admiring critic like Stallbaum cannot avoid noticing the “petulans pene et proterva in Hippiam oratio,” and intimating that Plato has handled Hippias more coarsely than any one else. Such petulance Stallbaum attempts to excuse by saying that the dialogue is a youthful composition of Plato:1 while Schleiermacher numbers it among the reasons for suspecting the dialogue, and Ast, among the reasons for declaring positively that Plato is not the author.2 This last conclusion I do not at all accept: nor even the hypothesis of Stallbaum, if it be tendered as an excuse for improprieties of tone: for I believe that the earliest of Plato’s dialogues was composed after he was twenty-eight years of age — that is, after the death of Sokrates. It is however noway improbable, that both the Greater and Lesser Hippias may have been among Plato’s earlier compositions. We see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon that there was repeated and acrimonious controversy between Sokrates and Hippias: so that we may probably suppose feelings of special dislike, determining Plato to compose two distinct dialogues, in which an imaginary Hippias is mocked and scourged by an imaginary Sokrates.

Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — subject of that debate.

One considerable point in the Hippias Major appears to have a bearing on the debate between Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: in which debate, Hippias taunts Sokrates with always combating and deriding the opinions of others, while evading to give opinions of his own. It appears that some antecedent debates between the two had turned upon the definition of the Just, and that on these occasions Hippias had been the respondent, Sokrates the objector. Hippias professes to have reflected upon these debates, and to be now prepared with a definition which neither Sokrates nor any one else can successfully assail, but he will not say what the definition is, until Sokrates has laid down one of his own. In reply to this challenge, Sokrates declares the Just to be equivalent to the Lawful or Customary: he defends this against various objections of Hippias, who concludes by admitting it.3 Probably this debate, as reported by Xenophon, or something very like it, really took place. If so, we remark with surprise the feebleness of the objections of Hippias, in a case where Sokrates, if he had been the objector, would have found such strong ones — and the feeble replies given by Sokrates, whose talent lay in starting and enforcing difficulties, not in solving them.4 Among the remarks which Sokrates makes in illustration to Hippias, one is — that Lykurgus had ensured superiority to Sparta by creating in the Spartans a habit of implicit obedience to the laws.5 Such is the character of the Xenophontic debate.

Opening of the Hippias Major — Hippias describes the successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as the gain acquired by his lectures.

Hippias had met with no success at Sparta. Why the Spartans did not admit his instructions — their law forbids.

Upon this Sokrates asks — In which of the cities were your gains the largest: probably at Sparta? Hip. — No; I received nothing at all at Sparta. Sokr. — How? You amaze me! Were not your lectures calculated to improve the Spartan youth? or did not the Spartans desire to have their youth improved? or had they no money? Hip. — Neither one nor the other. The Spartans, like others, desire the improvement of their youth: they also have plenty of money: moreover my lectures were very beneficial to them as well as to the rest.6 Sokr. — How could it happen then, that at Sparta, a city great and eminent for its good laws, your valuable instructions were left unrewarded; while you received so much at the inconsiderable town of Inykus? Hip. — It is not the custom of the country, Sokrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons in a way different from their ordinary routine. Sokr. — How say you? It is not the custom of the country for the Spartans to do right, but to do wrong? Hip. — I shall not say that, Sokrates. Sokr. — But surely they would do right, in educating their children better and not worse? Hip. — Yes, they would do right: but it is not lawful for them to admit a foreign mode of education. If any one could have obtained payment there for education, I should have obtained a great deal; for they listen to me with delight and applaud me: but, as I told you, their law forbids.

Question, What is law? The law-makers always aim at the Profitable, but sometimes fail to attain it. When they fail, they fail to attain law. The lawful is the Profitable: the Unprofitable is also unlawful.

Sokr. — Do you call law a hurt or benefit to the city? Hip. — Law is enacted with a view to benefit: but it sometimes hurts if it be badly enacted.7 Sokr. — But what? Do not the enactors enact it as the maximum of good, without which the citizens cannot live a regulated life? Hip. — Certainly: they do so. Sokr. — Therefore, when those who try to enact laws miss the attainment of good, they also miss the lawful and law itself. How say you? Hip. — They do so, if you speak with strict propriety: but such is not the language which men commonly use. Sokr. — What men? the knowing? or the ignorant? Hip. — The Many. Sokr. — The Many; is it they who know what truth is? Hip. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — But surely those who do know, account the profitable to be in truth more lawful than the unprofitable, to all men. Don’t you admit this? Hip. — Yes, I admit they account it so in truth. Sokr. — Well, and it is so, too: the truth is as the knowing men account it. Hip. — Most certainly. Sokr. — Now you affirm, that it is more profitable to the Spartans to be educated according to your scheme, foreign as it is, than according to their own native scheme. Hip. — I affirm it, and with truth too. Sokr. — You affirm besides, that things more profitable are at the same time more lawful? Hip. — I said so. Sokr. — According to your reasoning, then, it is more lawful for the Spartan children to be educated by Hippias, and more unlawful for them to be educated by their fathers — if in reality they will be more benefited by you? Hip. — But they will be more benefited by me. Sokr. — The Spartans therefore act unlawfully, when they refuse to give you money and to confide to you their sons? Hip. — I admit that they do: indeed your reasoning seems to make in my favour, so that I am noway called upon to resist it. Sokr. — We find then, after all, that the Spartans are enemies of law, and that too in the most important matters — though they are esteemed the most exemplary followers of law.8

Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates.

Perhaps Plato intended the above argument as a derisory taunt against the Sophist Hippias, for being vain enough to think his own tuition better than that of the Spartan community. If such was his intention, the argument might have been retorted against Plato himself, for his propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that the enemies of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes adopted in any actual community. But the argument becomes interesting when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias that the Just is equivalent to the Lawful. In that Xenophontic dialogue, all the difficulties which embarrass this explanation are kept out of sight, and Sokrates is represented as gaining an easy victory over Hippias. In this Platonic dialogue, the equivocal use of the word νόμιμον is expressly adverted to, and Sokrates reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him pronounce the Spartans to be enemies of law: παρανομούς bearing a double sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the other. In the argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not attain its intended purpose of benefiting the community, is no law at all, — not lawful:9 so that we are driven back again upon the objections of Alkibiades against Perikles (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law. In the argument of the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually established, by official authority or custom — and the Spartans are produced as eminent examples of a lawfully minded community. As far as we can assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which men always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually established or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that which men always intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether prescribed by any living authority or not. This (he says) is the opinion of the wise men who know: though the ignorant vulgar hold the contrary opinion. The explanation of τὸ δίκαιον given by the Xenophontic Sokrates (τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ νόμιμον), would be equivalent, if we construe τὸ νόμιμον in the sense of the Platonic Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation that The Just was the generally useful — Τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ κοινῇ σύμφορον.

The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable. This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere.

There exists however in all this, a prevalent confusion between Law (or the Lawful) as actually established, and Law (or the Lawful) as it ought to be established, in the judgment of the critic, or of those whom he follows: that is (to use the phrase of Mr. Austin in his ‘Province of Jurisprudence’) Law as it would be, if it conformed to its assumed measure or test. In the first of these senses, τὸ νόμιμον is not one and the same, but variable according to place and time — one thing at Sparta, another thing elsewhere: accordingly it would not satisfy the demand of Plato’s mind, when he asks for an explanation of τὸ δίκαιον. It is an explanation in the second of the two senses which Plato seeks — a common measure or test applicable universally, at all times and places. In so far as he ever finds one, it is that which I have mentioned above as delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in this dialogue: viz., the Just or Good, that which ought to be the measure or test of Law and Positive Morality, is, the beneficial or profitable. This (I repeat) is the only approach to a solution which we ever find in Plato. But this is seldom clearly enunciated, never systematically followed out, and sometimes, in appearance, even denied.

Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c., but upon the question — What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth.

I resume the thread of the Hippias Major. Sokrates asks Hippias what sort of lectures they were that he delivered with so much success at Sparta? The Spartans (Hippias replies) knew nothing and cared nothing about letters, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy: but they took delight in hearing tales about heroes, early ancestors, foundation-legends of cities, &c., which his mnemonic artifice enabled him to deliver.10 The Spartans delight in you (observes Sokrates) as children delight in old women’s tales. Yes (replies Hippias), but that is not all: I discoursed to them also, recently, about fine and honourable pursuits, much to their admiration: I supposed a conversation between Nestor and Neoptolemus, after the capture of Troy, in which the veteran, answering a question put by his youthful companion, enlarged upon those pursuits which it was fine, honourable, beautiful for a young man to engage in. My discourse is excellent, and obtained from the Spartans great applause. I am going to deliver it again here at Athens, in the school-room of Pheidostratus, and I invite you, Sokrates, to come and hear it, with as many friends as you can bring.11