Menexenus compared with the view of rhetoric presented in the Gorgias — Necessity for an orator to conform to established sentiments.

Here then we have Plato exchanging philosophy for “the knack of flattery” — to use the phrase of the Gorgias. Stallbaum is so unwilling to admit this as possible, that he represents the Platonic harangue as a mere caricature, intended to make the rhetorical process ridiculous. I dissent from this supposition; as I have already dissented from the like supposition of the same critic, in regard to the etymologies of the Kratylus. That Plato might in one dialogue scornfully denounce Rhetoric — and in another, compose an elaborate discourse upon the received rhetorical type — is noway inconsistent with the general theory which I frame to myself, about the intellectual character and distinct occasional manifestations of Plato.30 The funeral harangue in the Menexenus proves that, whatever he thought about Rhetoric generally, he was anxious to establish his title as a competent rhetorical composer: it proves farther that he was equal to Lysias in the epideiktic department, though inferior to Perikles. It affords a valuable illustration of that general doctrine which the Platonic Sokrates lays down in the Gorgias — That no man can succeed as a rhetor, unless he is in full harmony of spirit and cast of mind with his auditors; or unless he dwells upon and enforces sympathies, antipathies, and convictions, already established in their minds.31 A first-rate orator like Perikles, touching the chords of cherished national sentiment, might hope, by such a discourse as that which we read in Thucydides, “adjecisse aliquid receptæ religioni”.32 No public orator ever appointed by the Senate to pronounce the funeral harangue, could have expatiated more warmly than Plato has here done, upon the excellence of the Athenian constitution, and upon the admirable spirit which had animated Athenian politics, both foreign and domestic. Plato falls far short, indeed, of the weight and grandeur, the impressive distinctness of specification, the large sympathies, intellectual as well as popular — with which these topics are handled by Perikles in Thucydides: but his eulogy is quite as highflown and unreserved.

Colloquial portion of the Menexenus is probably intended as ridicule and sneer at Rhetoric — The harangue itself is serious, and intended as an evidence of Plato’s ability.

In understanding fully the Menexenus, however, we have to take account, not merely of the harangue which forms the bulk of it, but also of the conversation whereby it is commenced and concluded. Plato, speaking always through the mouth of Sokrates, has to invent some fiction excusing the employment of his master in the unprecedented capacity of public orator. What Stallbaum says (in my judgment, erroneously) about the harangue — appears to me perfectly true about the conversation before and after it. The introductory observations, interchanged between Sokrates and Menexenus, certainly tend to caricature (as Aristophanes33 does in the Acharneis and the Equites) the strong effects produced by this panegyrical oratory on the feelings of hearers; and to depreciate the task of the orator as nothing better than an easy and amusing pastime. To praise Athens among Athenian auditors (we are told) is a matter in which few speakers can fail to succeed, however poor their abilities. Moreover, the great funeral harangue of Perikles is represented as having been composed for him by Aspasia34 — a female, though remarkable among her sex — who is extolled as holding the highest place among rhetorical teachers, and is introduced here, as Aristophanes introduces her in the Acharneis, when he is putting a construction of discreditable ridicule on the origin of the Peloponnesian war.35 To make a good funeral harangue (Sokrates says) requires little or no preliminary preparation: besides, the Rhetors have harangues ready prepared at home. All this persiflage, in harmony with the polemics of the Gorgias, derides and degrades the Rhetors collectively. But when Plato takes the field against them as a competitor, in his own rhetorical discourse, he drops the ironical vein, and takes pains to deliver one really good and excellent in its kind. His triumph is thus doubled. He tells the Rhetors that their business is a trifling and despicable one: at the same time showing them that, despicable as it is, he can surpass them in it, as he professes to surpass Lysias in the Phædrus.36

Anachronism of the Menexenus — Plato careless on this point.

Such I conceive to be the scope of the dialogue, looked at from Plato’s point of view. In order to find a person suitable in point of age to be described as the teacher of Sokrates, he is forced to go back to the past generation — that of Perikles and Aspasia. But though he avoids anachronism on this point, he cannot avoid the anachronism of making Sokrates allude to events long posterior to his own death. This anachronism is real, though it has been magnified by some critics into a graver defect than it is in truth. Plato was resolved not to speak in his own person, but through that of Sokrates. But he is not always careful to keep within the limits which consistent adherence to such a plan imposes.37

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Persons and circumstances of Kleitophon.

Conversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he alludes to observations of an unfavourable character recently made by Kleitophon, who asks permission to explain.

Whoever told you so (replies Kleitophon), did not report accurately what I said. On some points, indeed, I did not praise you; but on other points I did praise you. Since, however, you are evidently displeased with me, though you affect indifference — and since we are here alone — I should be glad to repeat the same observations to yourself, in order that you may not believe me to think meanly of you. These incorrect reports seem to have made you displeased with me, more than is reasonable. I am anxious to speak to you with full freedom, if you will allow it.1

It would be a shame indeed (rejoined Sokrates), if, when you were anxious to do me good, I could not endure to receive it. When I have learnt which are my worst and which are my best points, I shall evidently be in a condition to cultivate and pursue the latter and resolutely to avoid the former.

Hear me then (says Kleitophon).

Explanation given. Kleitophon expresses gratitude and admiration for the benefit which he has derived from long companionship with Sokrates.

As your frequent companion, Sokrates, I have often listened to you with profound admiration. I thought you superior to all other speakers when you proclaimed your usual strain of reproof, like the God from a dramatic machine, against mankind.2 You asked them, “Whither are you drifting, my friends? You do not seem aware that you are doing wrong when you place all your affections on the gain of money, and neglect to teach your sons and heirs the right use of money. You do not provide for them teachers of justice, if justice be teachable; nor trainers of it, if it be acquirable by training and habit; nor indeed have you studied the acquisition of it, even for yourselves. Since the fact is obvious that, while you, as well as your sons, have learnt what passes for a finished education in virtue (letters, music, gymnastic), you nevertheless yield to the corruptions of gain — how comes it that you do not despise your actual education, and look out for teachers to correct such disorder? It is this disorder, not the want of accomplishment in the use of the lyre, which occasions such terrible discord, and such calamitous war, between brother and brother — between city and city.3 You affirm that men do wrong wilfully, not from ignorance or want of training: yet nevertheless you are bold enough to say, that wrong-doing is dishonourable and offensive to the Gods. How can any one, then, choose such an evil willingly? You tell us it is because he is overcome by pleasures: well then, that again comes to unwillingness — if victory be the thing which every man wishes: so that, whichever way you turn it, reason shows you that wrong-doing is taken up unwillingly, and that greater precautions ought to be taken upon the subject, both by individuals and by cities.”4

The observations made by Sokrates have been most salutary and stimulating in awakening ardour for virtue. Arguments and analogies commonly used by Sokrates.

Such, Sokrates (continues Kleitophon), is the language which I often hear from you; and which I always hear with the strongest and most respectful admiration. You follow it up by observing, that those who train their bodies and neglect their minds, commit the mistake of busying themselves about the subordinate and neglecting the superior. You farther remark, that if a man does not know how to use any object rightly, he had better abstain from using it altogether: if he does not know how to use his eyes, his ears, or his body — it will be better for him neither to see, nor to hear, nor to use his body at all: the like with any instrument or article of property — for whoever cannot use his own lyre well, cannot use his neighbour’s lyre better. Out of these premisses you bring out forcibly the conclusion — That if a man does not know how to use his mind rightly, it is better for him to make no use of it:— better for him not to live, than to live under his own direction. If he must live, he had better live as a slave than a freeman, surrendering the guidance of his understanding to some one else who knows the art of piloting men: which art you, Sokrates, denominate often the political art, sometimes the judicial art or justice.5

But Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how it is to be attained. Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and now wants information how he is to act.

These discourses of yours, alike numerous and admirable — showing that virtue is teachable, and that a man should attend to himself before he attends to other objects — I never have contradicted, and never shall contradict. I account them most profitable and stimulating, calculated to wake men as it were out of sleep. I expected anxiously what was to come afterwards. I began by copying your style and asking, not yourself, but those among your companions whom you esteemed the most6 — How are we now to understand this stimulus imparted by Sokrates towards virtue? Is this to be all? Cannot we make advance towards virtue and get full possession of it? Are we to pass our whole lives in stimulating those who have not yet been stimulated, in order that they in their turn may stimulate others? Is it not rather incumbent upon us, now that we have agreed thus far, to entreat both from Sokrates and from each other, an answer to the ulterior question, What next? How are we to set to work in regard to the learning of justice?7 If any trainer, seeing us careless of our bodily condition, should exhort us strenuously to take care of it, and convince us that we ought to do so — we should next ask him, which were the arts prescribing how we should proceed? He would reply — The gymnastic and medical arts. How will Sokrates or his friends answer the corresponding question in their case?

Questions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both to the companions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself.

The ablest of your companions answered me (continues Kleitophon), that the art to which you were wont to allude was no other than Justice itself. I told him in reply — Do not give me the mere name, but tell me what Justice is.8 In the medical art there are two distinct results contemplated and achieved: one, that of keeping up the succession of competent physicians — another that of conferring or preserving health: this last, Health, is not the art itself, but the work accomplished by the art. Just so, the builder’s art, has for its object the house, which is its work — and the keeping up the continuity of builders, which is its teaching. Tell me in the same manner respecting the art called Justice. Its teaching province is plain enough — to maintain the succession of just men: but what is its working province? what is the work which the just man does for us?

Replies made by the friends of Sokrates unsatisfactory.

To this question your friend replied (explaining Justice) — it is The Advantageous. Another man near him said, The Proper: a third said, The Profitable: a fourth, The Gainful.9 I pursued the inquiry by observing, that these were general names equally applicable in other arts, and to something different in each. Every art aims at what is proper, advantageous, profitable, gainful, in its own separate department: but each can farther describe to you what that department is. Thus the art of the carpenter is, to perform well, properly, advantageously, profitably, &c., in the construction of wooden implements, &c. That is the special work of the carpenter’s art: now tell me, what is the special work, corresponding thereunto, of the art called Justice?

None of them could explain what the special work of justice or virtue was.

At length one of your most accomplished companions, Sokrates, answered me — That the special work peculiar to Justice was, to bring about friendship in the community.10 Being farther interrogated, he said — That friendship was always a good, never an evil: That the so-called friendships between children, and between animals, mischievous rather than otherwise, were not real friendships, and ought not to bear the name: That the only genuine friendship was, sameness of reason and intelligence: not sameness of opinion, which was often hurtful — but knowledge and reason agreeing, in different persons.11

At this stage of our conversation the hearers themselves felt perplexed, and interfered to remonstrate with him; observing, that the debate had come round to the same point again. They declared that the medical art also was harmony of reason and intelligence: that the like was true besides of every other art: that each of them could define the special end to which it tended: but that as to that art, or that harmony of reason and intelligence, which had been called Justice, no one could see to what purpose it tended, nor what was its special work.12

Kleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates himself. But Sokrates did not answer clearly. Kleitophon believes that Sokrates knows, but will not tell.

After all this debate (continues Kleitophon) I addressed the same question to yourself, Sokrates — What is Justice? You answered — To do good to friends, hurt to enemies. But presently it appeared, that the just man would never, on any occasion, do hurt to any one:— that he would act towards every one with a view to good. It is not once, nor twice, but often and often, that I have endured these perplexities, and have importuned you to clear them up.13 At last I am wearied out, and have come to the conviction that you are doubtless a consummate proficient in the art of stimulating men to seek virtue; but that as to the ulterior question, how they are to find it — you either do not know, or you will not tell. In regard to any art (such as steersmanship or others), there may be persons who can extol and recommend the art to esteem, but cannot direct the hearers how to acquire it: and in like manner a man might remark about you, that you do not know any better what Justice is, because you are a proficient in commending it. For my part, such is not my opinion. I think that you know, but have declined to tell me. I am resolved, in my present embarrassment, to go to Thrasymachus, or any one else that I can find to help me; unless you will consent to give me something more than these merely stimulating discourses.14 Consider me as one upon whom your stimulus has already told. If the question were about gymnastic, as soon as I had become fully stimulated to attend to my bodily condition, you would have given me, as a sequel to your stimulating discourse, some positive direction, what my body was by nature, and what treatment it required. Deal in like manner with the case before us: reckon Kleitophon as one fully agreeing with you, that it is contemptible to spend so much energy upon other objects, and to neglect our minds, with a view to which all other objects are treasured up. Put me down as having already given my adhesion to all these views of yours.

Kleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and going to Thrasymachus. But before leaving he addresses one last entreaty, that Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly.

Proceed, Sokrates — I supplicate you — to deal with me as I have described; in order that I may never more have occasion, when I talk with Lysias, to blame you on some points while praising you on others. I will repeat, that to one who has not yet received the necessary stimulus, your conversation is of inestimable value: but to one who has already been stimulated, it is rather a hindrance than a help, to his realising the full acquisition of virtue, and thus becoming happy.15

Remarks on the Kleitophon. Why Thrasyllus placed it in the eighth Tetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along with Kritias, the other fragment.

The fragment called Kleitophon (of which I have given an abstract comparatively long), is in several ways remarkable. The Thrasyllean catalogue places it first in the eighth Tetralogy; the three other members of the same Tetralogy being, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.16 Though it is both short, and abrupt in its close, we know that it was so likewise in antiquity: the ancient Platonic commentators observing, that Sokrates disdained to make any reply to the appeal of Kleitophon.17 There were therefore in this Tetralogy two fragments, unfinished works from the beginning — Kleitophon and Kritias.

We may explain why Thrasyllus placed the Kleitophon in immediate antecedence to the Republic: because 1. It complains bitterly of the want of a good explanation of Justice, which Sokrates in the latter books of the Republic professes to furnish. 2. It brings before us Kleitophon, who announces an inclination to consult Thrasymachus: now both these personages appear in the first book of the Republic, in which too Thrasymachus is introduced as disputing in a brutal and insulting way, and as humiliated by Sokrates: so that the Republic might be considered both as an answer to the challenge of the Kleitophon, and as a reproof to Kleitophon himself for having threatened to quit Sokrates and go to Thrasymachus.

Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a just theory of Plato.

It could not have been published until after Plato’s death.

Yet though the Kleitophon is Plato’s work, it is a sketch or fragment never worked out. In its present condition, it can hardly have been published (any more than the Kritias) either by his direction or during his life. I conceive it to have remained among his papers, to have been made known by his school after his death, and to have passed from thence among the other Platonic manuscripts into the Alexandrian library at its first foundation. Possibly it may have been originally intended as a preparation for the solution of that problem, which Sokrates afterwards undertakes in the Republic: for it is a challenge to Sokrates to explain what he means by Justice. It may have been intended as such, but never prosecuted:— the preparation for that solution being provided in another way, such as we now read in the first and second books of the Republic. That the great works of Plato — Republic, Protagoras, Symposion, &c. — could not have been completed without preliminary sketches and tentatives — we may regard as certain. That some of these sketches, though never worked up, and never published by Plato himself, should have been good enough to be preserved by him and published by those who succeeded him — is at the very least highly probable. One such is the Kleitophon.

Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished. It points out the defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses them in the Apology.

When I read the Kleitophon, I am not at all surprised that Plato never brought it to a conclusion, nor ever provided Sokrates with an answer to the respectful, yet emphatic, requisition of Kleitophon. The case against Sokrates has been made so strong, that I doubt whether Plato himself could have answered it to his own satisfaction. It resembles the objections which he advances in the Parmenidês against the theory of Ideas: objections which he has nowhere answered, and which I do not believe that he could answer. The characteristic attribute of which Kleitophon complains in Sokrates is, that of a one-sided and incomplete efficiency — (φύσις μονόκωλος) — “You are perpetually stirring us up and instigating us: you do this most admirably: but when we have become full of fervour, you do not teach us how we are to act, nor point out the goal towards which we are to move”.18 Now this is precisely the description which Sokrates gives of his own efficiency, in the Platonic Apology addressed to the Dikasts. He lays especial stress on the mission imposed upon him by the Gods, to apply his Elenchus in testing and convicting the false persuasion of knowledge universally prevalent:— to make sure by repeated cross-examination, whether the citizens pursued money and worldly advancement more energetically than virtue:— and to worry the Athenians with perpetual stimulus, like the gadfly exciting a high-bred but lethargic horse. Sokrates describes this not only as the mission of his life, but as a signal benefit and privilege conferred upon Athens by the Gods.19 But here his services end. He declares explicitly that he shares in the universal ignorance, and that he is no wiser than any one else, except in being aware of his own ignorance. He disclaims all power of teaching:20 and he deprecates the supposition, — that he himself knew what he convicted others of not knowing, — as a mistake which had brought upon him alike unmerited reputation and great unpopularity.21 We find thus that the description given by Sokrates of himself in the Apology, and the reproach addressed to Sokrates by Kleitophon, fully coincide. “My mission from the Gods” (says Sokrates), “is to dispel the false persuasion of knowledge, to cross-examine men into a painful conviction of their own ignorance, and to create in them a lively impulse towards knowledge and virtue: but I am no wiser than they: I can teach them nothing, nor can I direct them what to do.” — That is exactly what I complain of (remarks Kleitophon): I have gone through your course, — have been electrified by your Elenchus, — and am full of the impulse which you so admirably communicate. In this condition, what I require is, to find out how, or in which direction I am to employ that impulse. If you cannot tell me, I must ask Thrasymachus or some one else.