That the professional teachers called sophists, in Greece, were intellectual and moral corruptors, and that much corruption grew up under their teaching in the Athenian mind, are common statements, which I have endeavored to show to be erroneous. Corresponding to these statements is another, which represents Sokratês as one whose special merit it was to have rescued the Athenian mind from such demoralizing influences; a reputation which he neither deserves nor requires. In general, the favorable interpretation of evidence, as exhibited towards Sokratês, has been scarcely less marked than the harshness of presumption against the sophists. Of late, however, some authors have treated his history in an altered spirit, and have manifested a disposition to lower him down to that which they regard as the sophistical level. M. Forchhammer’s treatise: “The Athenians and Sokratês, or Lawful Dealing against Revolution,” goes even further, and maintains confidently that Sokratês was most justly condemned as an heretic, a traitor, and a corrupter of youth. His book, the conclusions of which I altogether reject, is a sort of retribution to the sophists, as extending to their alleged opponent the same bitter and unfair spirit of construction with that under which they have so long unjustly suffered. But when we impartially consider the evidence, it will appear that Sokratês deserves our admiration and esteem; not, indeed, as an anti-sophist, but as combining with the qualities of a good man, a force of character and an originality of speculation as well as of method, and a power of intellectually working on others, generically different from that of any professional teacher, without parallel either among contemporaries or successors.

The life of Sokratês comprises seventy years, from 469 to 399 B.C. His father, Sophroniskus, being a sculptor, the son began by following the same profession, in which he attained sufficient proficiency to have executed various works; especially a draped group of the Charites, or Graces, preserved in the acropolis, and shown as his work down to the time of Pausanias.[629] His mother, Phænaretê, was a midwife, and he had a brother by the mother’s side named Patroklês.[630] Respecting his wife Xanthippê, and his three sons, all that has passed into history is the violent temper of the former, and the patience of her husband in enduring it. The position and family of Sokratês, without being absolutely poor, were humble and unimportant but he was of genuine Attic breed, belonging to the ancient gens Dædalidæ, which took its name from Dædalus, the mythical artist as progenitor.

The personal qualities of Sokratês, on the other hand, were marked and distinguishing, not less in body than in mind. His physical constitution was healthy, robust, and enduring, to an extraordinary degree. He was not merely strong and active as an hoplite on military service, but capable of bearing fatigue or hardship, and indifferent to heat or cold, in a measure which astonished all his companions. He went barefoot in all seasons of the year, even during the winter campaign at Potidæa, under the severe frosts of Thrace; and the same homely clothing sufficed to him for winter as well as for summer. Though his diet was habitually simple as well as abstemious, yet there were occasions, of religious festival or friendly congratulation, on which every Greek considered joviality and indulgence to be becoming. On such occasions, Sokratês could drink more wine than any guest present, yet without being overcome or intoxicated.[631] He abstained, on principle, from all extreme gymnastic training, which required, as necessary condition, extraordinary abundance of food.[632] It was his professed purpose to limit, as much as possible, the number of his wants, as a distant approach to the perfection of the gods, who wanted nothing, to control such as were natural, and prevent the multiplication of any that were artificial.[633] Nor can there be any doubt that his admirable bodily temperament contributed materially to facilitate such a purpose, and assist him in the maintenance of that self-mastery, contented self-sufficiency, and independence of the favor[634] as well as of the enmity of others, which were essential to his plan of intellectual life. His friends, who communicate to us his great bodily strength and endurance, are at the same time full of jests upon his ugly physiognomy; his flat nose, thick lips, and prominent eyes, like a satyr, or silenus.[635] Nor can we implicitly trust the evidence of such very admiring witnesses, as to the philosopher’s exemption from infirmities of temper; for there seems good proof that he was by natural temperament violently irascible; a defect which he generally kept under severe control, but which occasionally betrayed him into great improprieties of language and demeanor.[636]

Of those friends, the best known to us are Xenophon and Plato, though there existed in antiquity various dialogues composed, and memoranda put together, by other hearers of Sokratês, respecting his conversations and teaching, which are all now lost.[637] The “Memorabilia” of Xenophon profess to record actual conversations held by Sokratês, and are prepared with the announced purpose of vindicating him against the accusations of Melêtus and his other accusers on the trial, as well as against unfavorable opinions, seemingly much circulated respecting his character and purposes. We thus have in it a sort of partial biography, subject to such deductions from its evidentiary value as may be requisite for imperfection of memory, intentional decoration, and partiality. On the other hand, the purpose of Plato, in the numerous dialogues wherein he introduces Sokratês, is not so clear, and is explained very differently by different commentators. Plato was a great speculative genius, who came to form opinions of his own distinct from those of Sokratês, and employed the name of the latter as spokesman for these opinions in various dialogues. How much, in the Platonic Sokratês, can be safely accepted either as a picture of the man or as a record of his opinions,—how much, on the other hand, is to be treated as Platonism; or in what proportions the two are intermingled,—is a point not to be decided with certainty or rigor. The “Apology of Sokratês,” the “Kriton,” and the “Phædon,”—in so far as it is a moral picture, and apart from the doctrines advocated in it,—appear to belong to the first category; while the political and social views of the “Republic” and of the treatise “De Legibus,” the cosmic theories in the “Timæus,” and the hypothesis of Ideas, as substantive existences apart from the phenomenal world, in the various dialogues wherever it is stated, certainly belong to the second. Of the ethical dialogues, much may be probably taken to represent Sokratês, more or less Platonized.

But though the opinions put by Plato into the mouth of Sokratês are liable to thus much of uncertainty, we find, to our great satisfaction, that the pictures given by Plato and Xenophon of their common master are in the main accordant; differing only as drawn from the same original by two authors radically different in spirit and character. Xenophon, the man of action, brings out at length those conversations of Sokratês which had a bearing on practical conduct, and were calculated to correct vice or infirmity in particular individuals; such being the matter which served his purpose as an apologist, at the same time that it suited his intellectual taste. But he intimates, nevertheless, very plainly, that the conversation of Sokratês was often, indeed usually, of a more negative, analytical, and generalizing tendency;[638] not destined for the reproof of positive or special defect, but to awaken the inquisitive faculties and lead to the rational comprehension of vice and virtue as referable to determinate general principles. Now this latter side of the master’s physiognomy, which Xenophon records distinctly, though without emphasis or development, acquires almost exclusive prominence in the Platonic picture. Plato leaves out the practical, and consecrates himself to the theoretical, Sokratês; whom he divests in part of his identity, in order to enrol him as chief speaker in certain larger theoretical views of his own. The two pictures, therefore, do not contradict each other, but mutually supply each other’s defects, and admit of being blended into one consistent whole. And respecting the method of Sokratês, a point more characteristic than either his precepts or his theory,—as well as respecting the effect of that method on the minds of hearers,—both Xenophon and Plato are witnesses substantially in unison: though, here again, the latter has made the method his own, worked it out on a scale of enlargement and perfection, and given to it a permanence which it could never have derived from its original author, who only talked and never wrote. It is fortunate that our two main witnesses about him, both speaking from personal knowledge, agree to so great an extent.

Both describe in the same manner his private life and habits; his contented poverty, justice, temperance in the largest sense of the word, and self-sufficing independence of character. On most of these points too, Aristophanês and the other comic writers, so far as their testimony counts for anything, appear as confirmatory witnesses; for they abound in jests on the coarse fare, shabby and scanty clothing, bare feet, pale face, poor and joyless life, of Sokratês.[639] Of the circumstances of his life we are almost wholly ignorant: he served as an hoplite at Potidæa, at Delium, and at Amphipolis; with credit apparently in all, though exaggerated encomiums on the part of his friends provoked an equally exaggerated skepticism on the part of Athenæus and others. He seems never to have filled any political office until the year (B.C. 406) in which the battle of Arginusæ occurred, in which year he was member of the senate of Five Hundred, and one of the prytanes on that memorable day when the proposition of Kallixenus against the six generals was submitted to the public assembly: his determined refusal, in spite of all personal hazard, to put an unconstitutional question to the vote, has been already recounted. That during his long life he strictly obeyed the laws,[640] is proved by the fact that none of his numerous enemies ever arraigned him before a court of justice: that he discharged all the duties of an upright man and a brave as well as pious citizen, may also be confidently asserted. His friends lay especial stress upon his piety; that is, upon his exact discharge of all the religious duties considered as incumbent upon an Athenian.[641]

Though these points are requisite to be established, in order that we may rightly interpret the character of Sokratês, it is not from them that he has derived his eminent place in history. Three peculiarities distinguish the man. 1. His long life passed in contented poverty, and in public, apostolic dialectics. 2. His strong religious persuasion, or belief, of acting under a mission and signs from the gods; especially his dæmon, or genius; the special religious warning of which he believed himself to be frequently the subject. 3. His great intellectual originality, both of subject and of method, and his power of stirring and forcing the germ of inquiry and ratiocination in others. Though these three characteristics were so blended in Sokratês that it is not easy to consider them separately; yet, in each respect, he stood distinguished from all Greek philosophers before or after him.

At what time Sokratês relinquished his profession as a statuary we do not know; but it is certain that all the middle and later part of his life, at least, was devoted exclusively to the self-imposed task of teaching; excluding all other business, public or private, and to the neglect of all means of fortune. We can hardly avoid speaking of him as a teacher, though he himself disclaimed the appellation:[642] his practice was to talk or converse, or to prattle without end,[643] if we translate the derisory word by which the enemies of philosophy described dialectic conversation. Early in the morning he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools where youths were receiving instruction: he was to be seen in the market-place at the hour when it was most crowded, among the booths and tables where goods were exposed for sale: his whole day was usually spent in this public manner.[644] He talked with any one, young or old, rich or poor, who sought to address him, and in the hearing of all who chose to stand by: not only he never either asked or received any reward, but he made no distinction of persons, never withheld his conversation from any one, and talked upon the same general topics to all. He conversed with politicians, sophists, military men, artisans, ambitious or studious youths, etc. He visited all persons of interest in the city, male or female: his friendship with Aspasia is well known, and one of the most interesting chapters[645] of Xenophon’s Memorabilia recounts his visit to and dialogue with Theodotê, a beautiful hetæra, or female companion. Nothing could be more public, perpetual, and indiscriminate as to persons than his conversation. But as it was engaging, curious, and instructive to hear, certain persons made it their habit to attend him in public as companions and listeners. These men, a fluctuating body, were commonly known as his disciples, or scholars; though neither he nor his personal friends ever employed the terms teacher and disciple to describe the relation between them.[646] Many of them came, attracted by his reputation, during the later years of his life, from other Grecian cities; Megara, Thebes, Elis, Kyrênê, etc.

Now no other person in Athens, or in any other Grecian city, appears ever to have manifested himself in this perpetual and indiscriminate manner as a public talker for instruction. All teachers either took money for their lessons, or at least gave them apart from the multitude in a private house or garden, to special pupils, with admissions and rejections at their own pleasure. By the peculiar mode of life which Sokratês pursued, not only his conversation reached the minds of a much wider circle, but he became more abundantly known as a person. While acquiring a few attached friends and admirers, and raising a certain intellectual interest in others, he at the same time provoked a large number of personal enemies. This was probably the reason why he was selected by Aristophanês and the other comic writers, to be attacked as a general representative of philosophical and rhetorical teaching; the more so, as his marked and repulsive physiognomy admitted so well of being imitated in the mask which the actor wore. The audience at the theatre would more readily recognize the peculiar figure which they were accustomed to see every day in the market-place, than if Prodikus or Protagoras, whom most of them did not know by sight, had been brought on the stage; nor was it of much importance, either to them or to Aristophanês, whether Sokratês was represented as teaching what he did really teach, or something utterly different.

This extreme publicity of life and conversation was one among the characteristics of Sokratês, distinguishing him from all teachers either before or after him. Next, was his persuasion of a special religious mission, restraints, impulses, and communications, sent to him by the gods. Taking the belief in such supernatural intervention generally, it was indeed noway peculiar to Sokratês: it was the ordinary faith of the ancient world; insomuch that the attempts to resolve phenomena into general laws were looked upon with a certain disapprobation, as indirectly setting it aside. And Xenophon[647] accordingly avails himself of this general fact, in replying to the indictment for religious innovation, of which his master was found guilty, to affirm that the latter pretended to nothing beyond what was included in the creed of every pious man. But this is not an exact statement of the matter in debate; for it slurs over at least, if it does not deny, that speciality of inspiration from the gods, which those who talked with Sokratês—as we learn even from Xenophon—believed, and which Sokratês himself believed also.[648] Very different is his own representation, as put forth in the defence before the dikastery. He had been accustomed constantly to hear, even from his childhood, a divine voice, interfering, at moments when he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him very frequently, not merely on great, but even on small occasions, intercepting what he was about to do or to say.[649] Though later writers speak of this as the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, he himself does not personify it, but treats it merely as a “divine sign, a prophetic or supernatural voice.”[650] He was accustomed not only to obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and to his enemies. It had always forbidden him to enter on public life; it forbade him, when the indictment was hanging over him, to take any thought for a prepared defence;[651] and so completely did he march with a consciousness of this bridle in his mouth, that when he felt no check, he assumed that the turning which he was about to take was the right one. Though his persuasion on the subject was unquestionably sincere, and his obedience constant, yet he never dwelt upon it himself as anything grand, or awful, or entitling him to peculiar deference; but spoke of it often in his usual strain of familiar playfulness. To his friends generally, it seems to have constituted one of his titles to reverence, though neither Plato nor Xenophon scruple to talk of it in that jesting way which doubtless they caught from himself.[652] But to his enemies and to the Athenian public, it appeared in the light of an offensive heresy; an impious innovation on the orthodox creed, and a desertion of the recognized gods of Athens.

Such was the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, as described by himself and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues; a voice always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively upon his own personal conduct.[653] That which Plutarch and other admirers of Sokratês conceived as a dæmon, or intermediate being between gods and men, was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian church as a devil; by LeClerc, as one of the fallen angels; by some other modern commentators, as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Sokratês himself.[654] Without presuming to determine the question raised in the former hypotheses, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the conviction of Sokratês on the point was quite sincere. A circumstance little attended to, but deserving peculiar notice, and stated by himself, is, that the restraining voice began when he was a child, and continued even down to the end of his life: it had thus become an established persuasion, long before his philosophical habits began. But though this peculiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively to him, there were also other ways in which he believed himself to have received the special mandates of the gods, not simply checking him when he was about to take a wrong turn, but spurring him on, directing, and peremptorily exacting from him, a positive course of proceeding. Such distinct mission had been imposed upon him by dreams, by oracular intimations, and by every other means which the gods employed for signifying their special will.[655]

Of these intimations from the oracle, he specifies particularly one, in reply to a question put at Delphi, by his intimate friend, and enthusiastic admirer, Chærephon. The question put was, whether any other man was wiser than Sokratês; to which the Pythian priestess replied, that no other man was wiser.[656] Sokratês affirms that he was greatly perplexed on hearing this declaration from so infallible an authority, being conscious to himself that he possessed no wisdom on any subject, great or small. At length, after much meditation and a distressing mental struggle, he resolved to test the accuracy of the infallible priestess, by taking measure of the wisdom of others as compared with his own. Selecting a leading politician, accounted wise both by others and by himself, he proceeded to converse with him and put scrutinizing questions; the answers to which satisfied him that this man’s supposed wisdom was really no wisdom at all. Having made such a discovery, Sokratês next tried to demonstrate to the politician himself how much he wanted of being wise; but this was impossible; the latter still remained as fully persuaded of his own wisdom as before. “The result which I acquired (says Sokratês) was, that I was a wiser man than he, for neither he nor I knew anything of what was truly good and honorable; but the difference between us was, that he fancied he knew them, while I was fully conscious of my own ignorance; I was thus wiser than he, inasmuch as I was exempt from that capital error.” So far, therefore, the oracle was proved to be right. Sokratês repeated the same experiment successively upon a great number of different persons, especially those in reputation for distinguished abilities; first, upon political men and rhetors, next upon poets of every variety, and upon artists as well as artisans. The result of his trial was substantially the same in all cases. The poets, indeed, composed splendid verses, but when questioned even about the words, the topics, and the purpose, of their own compositions, they could give no consistent or satisfactory explanations; so that it became evident that they spoke or wrote, like prophets, as unconscious subjects under the promptings of inspiration. Moreover, their success as poets filled them with a lofty opinion of their own wisdom on other points also. The case was similar with artists and artisans; who, while highly instructed, and giving satisfactory answers, each in his own particular employment, were for that reason only the more convinced that they also knew well other great and noble subjects. This great general mistake more than countervailed their special capacities, and left them, on the whole, less wise than Sokratês.[657]

“In this research and scrutiny (said Sokratês, on his defence) I have been long engaged, and am still engaged. I interrogate every man of reputation; I prove him to be defective in wisdom; but I cannot prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling the mission imposed upon me, I have thus established the veracity of the god, who meant to pronounce that human wisdom was of little reach or worth; and that he who, like Sokratês, felt most convinced of his own worthlessness, as to wisdom, was really the wisest of men.[658] My service to the god has not only constrained me to live in constant poverty[659] and neglect of political estimation, but has brought upon me a host of bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and exposed while the bystanders talk of me as a wise man, because they give me credit for wisdom respecting all the points on which my exposure of others turns.”—“Whatever be the danger and obloquy which I may incur, it would be monstrous indeed, if, having maintained my place in the ranks as an hoplite under your generals at Delium and Potidæa, I were now, from fear of death or anything else, to disobey the oracle and desert the post which the god has assigned to me, the duty of living for philosophy and cross-questioning both myself and others.[660] And should you even now offer to acquit me, on condition of my renouncing this duty, I should tell you, with all respect and affection, that I will obey the god rather than you, and that I will persist, until my dying day, in cross-questioning you, exposing your want of wisdom and virtue, and reproaching you until the defect be remedied.[661] My mission as your monitor is a mark of the special favor of the god to you; and if you condemn me, it will be your loss; for you will find none other such.[662] Perhaps you will ask me, Why cannot you go away, Sokratês, and live among us in peace and silence? This is the hardest of all questions for me to answer to your satisfaction. If I tell you that silence on my part would be disobedience to the god, you will think me in jest, and not believe me. You will believe me still less, if I tell you that the greatest blessing which can happen to man is, to carry on discussions every day about virtue and those other matters which you hear me canvassing when I cross-examine myself as well as others; and that life, without such examination, is no life at all. Nevertheless, so stands the fact, incredible as it may seem to you.”[663]

I have given rather ample extracts from the Platonic Apology, because no one can conceive fairly the character of Sokratês who does not enter into the spirit of that impressive discourse. We see in it plain evidence of the marked supernatural mission which he believed himself to be executing, and which would not allow him to rest or employ himself in other ways. The oracular answer brought by Chærephon from Delphi, was a fact of far more importance in his history than his so-called dæmon, about which so much more has been said. That answer, together with the dreams and other divine mandates concurrent to the same end, came upon him in the middle of his life, when the intellectual man was formed, and when he had already acquired a reputation for wisdom among those who knew him. It supplied a stimulus which brought into the most pronounced action a pre-existing train of generalizing dialectics and Zenonian negation, an intellectual vein with which the religious impulse rarely comes into confluence. Without such a motive, to which his mind was peculiarly susceptible, his conversation would probably have taken the same general turn, but would assuredly have been restricted within much narrower and more cautious limits. For nothing could well be more unpopular and obnoxious than the task which he undertook of cross-examining, and convicting of ignorance, every distinguished man whom he could approach. So violent, indeed, was the enmity which he occasionally provoked, that there were instances, we are told, in which he was struck or maltreated,[664] and very frequently laughed to scorn. Though he acquired much admiration from auditors, especially youthful auditors, and from a few devoted adherents, yet the philosophical motive alone would not have sufficed to prompt him to that systematic, and even obtrusive, cross-examination which he adopted as the business of his life.

This, then, is the second peculiarity which distinguishes Sokratês, in addition to his extreme publicity of life and indiscriminate conversation. He was not simply a philosopher, but a religious missionary doing the work of philosophy; “an elenchtic,—or cross-examining god,—to use an expression which Plato puts into his mouth respecting an Eleatic philosopher going about to examine and convict the infirm in reason.”[665] Nothing of this character belonged either to Parmenidês and Anaxagoras before him, or to Plato and Aristotle after him. Both Pythagoras and Empedoklês did, indeed, lay claim to supernatural communications, mingled with their philosophical teaching. But though there be thus far a general analogy between them and Sokratês, the modes of manifestation were so utterly different, that no fair comparison can be instituted.

The third and most important characteristic of Sokratês—that, through which the first and second became operative—was his intellectual peculiarity. His influence on the speculative mind of his age was marked and important; as to subject, as to method, and as to doctrine.

He was the first who turned his thoughts and discussions distinctly to the subject of ethics. With the philosophers who preceded him, the subject of examination had been Nature, or the Kosmos,[666] as one undistinguishable whole, blending together cosmogony, astronomy, geometry, physics, metaphysics, etc. The Ionic as well as the Eleatic philosophers, Pythagoras as well as Empedoklês, all set before themselves this vast and undefined problem; each framing some system suited to his own vein of imagination; religious, poetical, scientific, or skeptical. According to that honorable ambition for enlarged knowledge, however, which marked the century following 480 B.C., and of which the professional men called sophists were at once the products and the instruments, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, as much as was then known, were becoming so far detached sciences as to be taught separately to youth. Such appears to have been the state of science when Sokratês received his education. He received at least the ordinary amount of instruction in all:[667] he devoted himself as a young man to the society and lessons of the physical philosopher Archelaus,[668] the disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he accompanied from Athens to Samos; and there is even reason to believe that, during the earlier part of his life, he was much devoted to what was then understood as the general study of Nature.[669] A man of his earnest and active intellect was likely first to manifest his curiosity as a learner: “to run after and track the various discourses of others, like a Laconian hound,” if I may borrow an expression applied to him by Plato,[670] before he struck out any novelties of his own. And in Plato’s dialogue called “Parmenidês,” Sokratês appears as a young man full of ardor for the discussion of the Parmenidean theory, looking up with reverence to Parmenidês and Zeno, and receiving from them instructions in the process of dialectical investigation. I have already, in the preceding chapter,[671] noted the tenor of that dialogue, as illustrating the way in which Grecian philosophy presents itself, even at the first dawn of dialectics, as at once negative and positive, recognizing the former branch of method no less than the latter as essential to the attainment of truth. I construe it as an indication respecting the early mind of Sokratês, imbibing this conviction from the ancient Parmenidês and the mature and practised Zeno, and imposing upon himself, as a condition of assent to any hypothesis or doctrine, the obligation of setting forth conscientiously all that could be said against it, not less than all that could be said in its favor: however laborious such a process might be, and however little appreciated by the multitude.[672] Little as we know the circumstances which went to form the remarkable mind of Sokratês, we may infer from this dialogue that he owes in part his powerful negative vein of dialectics to “the double-tongued and all-objecting Zeno.”[673]

To a mind at all exigent on the score of proof, physical science as handled in that day was indeed likely to appear not only unsatisfactory, but hopeless; and Sokratês, in the maturity of his life, deserted it altogether. The contradictory hypotheses which he heard, with the impenetrable confusion which overhung the subject, brought him even to the conviction, that the gods intended the machinery by which they brought about astronomical and physical results to remain unknown, and that it was impious, as well as useless, to pry into their secrets.[674] His master Archelaus, though mainly occupied with physics, also speculated more or less concerning moral subjects; concerning justice and injustice, the laws, etc.; and is said to have maintained the tenet, that justice and injustice were determined by law or convention, not by nature. From him, perhaps, Sokratês may have been partly led to turn his mind in this direction. But to a man disappointed with physics, and having in his bosom a dialectical impulse powerful, unemployed, and restless, the mere realities of Athenian life, even without Archelaus, would suggest human relations, duties, action and suffering, as the most interesting materials for contemplation and discourse. Sokratês could not go into the public assembly, the dikastery, or even the theatre, without hearing discussions about what was just or unjust, honorable or base, expedient or hurtful, etc., nor without having his mind conducted to the inquiry, what was the meaning of these large words which opposing disputants often invoked with equal reverential confidence. Along with the dialectic and generalizing power of Sokratês, which formed his bond of connection with such minds as Plato, there was at the same time a vigorous practicality, a large stock of positive Athenian experience, with which Xenophon chiefly sympathized, and which he has brought out in his “Memorabilia.” Of these two intellectual tendencies, combined with a strong religious sentiment, the character of Sokratês is composed; and all of them were gratified at once, when he devoted himself to admonitory interrogation on the rules and purposes of human life; from which there was the less to divert him, as he had neither talents nor taste for public speaking.

That “the proper study of mankind is man,”[675] Sokratês was the first to proclaim: he recognized the security and happiness of man both as the single end of study, and as the limiting principle whereby it ought to be circumscribed. In the present state to which science has attained, nothing is more curious than to look back at the rules which this eminent man laid down. Astronomy—now exhibiting the maximum of perfection, with the largest and most exact power of predicting future phenomena which human science has ever attained—was pronounced by him to be among the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand, and madness to investigate, as Anaxagoras had foolishly pretended to do. He admitted, indeed, that there was advantage in knowing enough of the movements of the heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons, and as guides for voyages, journeys by land, or night-watches: but thus much, he said, might easily be obtained from pilots and watchmen, while all beyond was nothing but waste of valuable time, exhausting that mental effort which ought to be employed in profitable acquisitions. He reduced geometry to its literal meaning of land-measuring, necessary so far as to enable any one to proceed correctly in the purchase, sale, or division of land, which any man of common attention might do almost without a teacher; but silly and worthless, if carried beyond, to the study of complicated diagrams.[676] Respecting arithmetic, he gave the same qualified permission of study; but as to general physics, or the study of Nature, he discarded it altogether: “Do these inquirers (he asked) think that they already know human affairs well enough, that they thus begin to meddle with divine? Do they think that they shall be able to excite or calm the winds and the rain at pleasure, or have they no other view than to gratify an idle curiosity? Surely, they must see that such matters are beyond human investigation. Let them only recollect how much the greatest men, who have attempted the investigation, differ in their pretended results, holding opinions extreme and opposite to each other, like those of madmen!” Such was the view which Sokratês took of physical science and its prospects.[677] It is the very same skepticism in substance, and carried farther in degree, though here invested with a religious coloring, for which Ritter and others so severely denounce Gorgias. But looking at matters as they stood in 440-430 B.C., it ought not to be accounted even surprising, much less blamable. To an acute man of that day, physical science as then studied may well be conceived to have promised no result; and even to have seemed worse than barren, if, like Sokratês, he had an acute perception how much of human happiness was forfeited by immorality, and by corrigible ignorance; how much might be gained by devoting the same amount of earnest study to this latter object. Nor ought we to omit remarking, that the objection of Sokratês: “You may judge how unprofitable are these studies, by observing how widely the students differ among themselves,” remains in high favor down to the present day, and may constantly be seen employed against theoretical men, or theoretical arguments, in every department.

Sokratês desired to confine the studies of his hearers to human matters as distinguished from divine, the latter comprehending astronomy and physics. He looked at all knowledge from the point of view of human practice, which had been assigned by the gods to man as his proper subject for study and learning, and with reference to which, therefore, they managed all the current phenomena upon principles of constant and intelligible sequence, so that every one who chose to learn, might learn, while those who took no such pains suffered for their neglect. Even in these, however, the most careful study was not by itself completely sufficient; for the gods did not condescend to submit all the phenomena to constant antecedence and consequence, but reserved to themselves the capital turns and junctures for special sentence.[678] Yet here again, if a man had been diligent in learning all that the gods permitted to be learned; and if, besides, he was assiduous in pious court to them, and in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they would be gracious to him, and signify beforehand how they intended to act in putting the final hand and in settling the undecipherable portions of the problem.[679] The kindness of the gods in replying through their oracles, or sending information by sacrificial signs or prodigies, in cases of grave difficulty, was, in the view of Sokratês, one of the most signal evidences of their care for the human race.[680] To seek access to these prophecies, or indications of special divine intervention to come, was the proper supplementary business of any one who had done as much for himself as could be done by patient study.[681] But as it was madness in a man to solicit special information from the gods on matters which they allowed him to learn by his own diligence, so it was not less madness in him to investigate as a learner that which they chose to keep back for their own specialty of will.[682]

Such was the capital innovation made by Sokratês in regard to the subject of Athenian study, bringing down philosophy, to use the expression of Cicero,[683] from the heavens to the earth; and such his attempt to draw the line between that which was, and was not, scientifically discoverable; an attempt remarkable, inasmuch as it shows his conviction that the scientific and the religious point of view mutually excluded one another, so that where the latter began, the former ended. It was an innovation, inestimable, in respect to the new matter which it let in; of little import, as regards that which it professed to exclude. For in point of fact, physical science, though partially discouraged, was never absolutely excluded, through any prevalence of that systematic disapproval which he, in common with the multitude of his day, entertained: if it became comparatively neglected, this arose rather from the greater popularity, and the more abundant and accessible matter, of that which he introduced. Physical or astronomical science was narrow in amount, known only to few, and even with those few it did not admit of being expanded, enlivened, or turned to much profitable account in discussion. But the moral and political phenomena on which Sokratês turned the light of speculation were abundant, varied, familiar, and interesting to every one; comprising—to translate a Greek line which he was fond of quoting—“all the good and evil which has befallen you in your home;”[684] connected too, not merely with the realities of the present, but also with the literature of the past, through the gnomic and other poets.

The motives which determined this important innovation, as to the subject of study, exhibits Sokratês chiefly as a religious man and a practical, philanthropic preceptor, the Xenophontic hero. His innovations, not less important, as to method and doctrine, place before us the philosopher and dialectician; the other side of his character, or the Platonic hero; faintly traced, indeed, yet still recognized and identified by Xenophon.

“Sokratês,” says the latter,[685] “continued incessantly discussing human affairs (the sense of this word will be understood by what has been said above, page 420); investigating: What is piety? What is impiety? What is the honorable and the base? What is the just and the unjust? What is temperance or unsound mind? What is courage or cowardice? What is a city? What is the character fit for a citizen? What is authority over men? What is the character befitting the exercise of such authority? and other similar questions. Men who knew these matters he accounted good and honorable; men who were ignorant of them he assimilated to slaves.”

Sokratês, says Xenophon again, in another passage, considered that the dialectic process consisted in coming together and taking common counsel, to distinguish and distribute things into genera, or families, so as to learn what each separate thing really was. To go through this process carefully was indispensable, as the only way of enabling a man to regulate his own conduct, aiming at good objects and avoiding bad. To be so practised as to be able to do it readily, was essential to make a man a good leader or adviser of others. Every man who had gone through the process, and come to know what each thing was, could also of course define it and explain it to others; but if he did not know, it was no wonder that he went wrong himself, and put others wrong besides.[686] Moreover, Aristotle says: “To Sokratês we may unquestionably assign two novelties; inductive discourses, and the definitions of general terms.”[687]

I borrow here intentionally from Xenophon in preference to Plato; since the former, tamely describing a process which he imperfectly appreciated, identifies it so much the more completely with the real Sokratês, and is thus a better witness than Plato, whose genius not only conceived but greatly enlarged it, for didactic purposes of his own. In our present state of knowledge, some mental effort is required to see anything important in the words of Xenophon; so familiar has every student been rendered with the ordinary terms and gradations of logic and classification,—such as genus, definition, individual things as comprehended in a genus; what each thing is, and to what genus it belongs, etc. But familiar as these words have now become, they denote a mental process, of which, in 440-430 B.C., few men besides Sokratês had any conscious perception. Of course, men conceived and described things in classes, as is implied in the very form of language, and in the habitual junction of predicates with subjects in common speech. They explained their meaning clearly and forcibly in particular cases: they laid down maxims, argued questions, stated premises, and drew conclusions, on trials in the dikastery, or debates in the assembly: they had an abundant poetical literature, which appealed to every variety of emotion: they were beginning to compile historical narrative, intermixed with reflection and criticism. But though all this was done, and often admirably well done, it was wanting in that analytical consciousness which would have enabled any one to describe, explain, or vindicate what he was doing. The ideas of men—speakers as well as hearers, the productive minds as well as the recipient multitude—were associated together in groups favorable rather to emotional results, or to poetical, rhetorical narrative and descriptive effect, than to methodical generalization, to scientific conception, or to proof either inductive or deductive. That reflex act of attention which enables men to understand, compare, and rectify their own mental process, was only just beginning. It was a recent novelty on the part of the rhetorical teachers, to analyze the component parts of a public harangue, and to propound some precepts for making men tolerable speakers. Protagoras was just setting forth various grammatical distinctions, while Prodikus discriminated the significations of words nearly equivalent and liable to be confounded. All these proceedings appeared then so new[688] as to incur the ridicule even of Plato: yet they were branches of that same analytical tendency which Sokratês now carried into scientific inquiry. It may be doubted whether any one before him ever used the words genus and species, originally meaning family and form, in the philosophical sense now exclusively appropriated to them. Not one of those many names—called by logicians names of the second intention—which imply distinct attention to various parts of the logical process, and enable us to consider and criticize it in detail, then existed. All of them grew out of the schools of Plato, Aristotle, and the subsequent philosophers, so that we can thus trace them in their beginning to the common root and father, Sokratês.

To comprehend the full value of the improvements struck out by Sokratês, we have only to examine the intellectual paths pursued by his predecessors or contemporaries. He set to himself distinct and specific problems: “What is justice? What is piety, courage, political government? What is it which is really denoted by such great and important names, bearing upon the conduct or happiness of man?” Now it has been already remarked that Anaxagoras, Empedoklês, Demokritus, the Pythagoreans, all had still present to their minds those vast and undivided problems which had been transmitted down from the old poets; bending their minds to the invention of some system which would explain them all at once, or assist the imagination in conceiving both how the Kosmos first began, and how it continued to move on.[689] Ethics and physics, man and nature, were all blended together; and the Pythagoreans, who explained all nature by numbers and numerical relations, applied the same explanation to moral attributes, considering justice to be symbolized by a perfect equation, or by four, the first of all square numbers.[690] These early philosophers endeavored to find out the beginnings, the component elements, the moving cause or causes, of things in the mass;[691] but the logical distribution into genus, species, and individuals, does not seem to have suggested itself to them, or to have been made a subject of distinct attention by any one before Sokratês. To study ethics, or human dispositions and ends, apart from the physical world, and according to a theory of their own, referring to human good and happiness as the sovereign and comprehensive end;[692] to treat each of the great and familiar words designating moral attributes, as logical aggregates comprehending many judgments in particular cases, and connoting a certain harmony or consistency of purpose among the separate judgments, to bring many of these latter into comparison, by a scrutinizing dialectical process, so as to test the consistency and completeness of the logical aggregate or general notion, as it stood in every man’s mind: all these were parts of the same forward movement which Sokratês originated.

It was at that time a great progress to break down the unwieldy mass conceived by former philosophers as science; and to study ethics apart, with a reference, more or less distinct, to their own appropriate end. Nay, we see, if we may trust the “Phædon” of Plato,[693] that Sokratês, before he resolved on such pronounced severance, had tried to construct, or had at least yearned after, an undivided and reformed system, including physics also under the ethical end; a scheme of optimistic physics, applying the general idea, “What was best,” as the commanding principle, from whence physical explanations were to be deduced; which he hoped to find, but did not find, in Anaxagoras. But it was a still greater advance to seize, and push out in conscious application, the essential features of that logical process, upon the correct performance of which all our security for general truth depends. The notions of genus, subordinate genera, and individuals as comprehended under them,—we need not here notice the points on which Plato and Aristotle differed from each other and from the modern conceptions on that subject,—were at that time newly brought into clear consciousness in the human mind. The profusion of logical distribution employed in some of the dialogues of Plato, such as the Sophistês and the Politicus, seems partly traceable to his wish to familiarize hearers with that which was then a novelty, as well as to enlarge its development, and diversify its mode of application. He takes numerous indirect opportunities of bringing it out into broad light, by putting into the mouths of his dialogists answers implying complete inattention to it, exposed afterwards in the course of the dialogue by Sokratês.[694] What was now begun by Sokratês, and improved by Plato, was embodied as part in a comprehensive system of formal logic by the genius of Aristotle; a system which was not only of extraordinary value in reference to the processes and controversies of its time, but which also, having become insensibly worked into the minds of instructed men, has contributed much to form what is correct in the habits of modern thinking. Though it has been now enlarged and recast, by some modern authors—especially by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his admirable System of Logic—into a structure commensurate with the vast increase of knowledge and extension of positive method belonging to the present day, we must recollect that the distance, between the best modern logic and that of Aristotle, is hardly so great as that between Aristotle and those who preceded him by a century, Empedoklês, Anaxagoras, and the Pythagoreans; and that the movement in advance of these latter commences with Sokratês.

By Xenophon, by Plato, and by Aristotle, the growth as well as the habitual use of logical classification is represented as concurrent with and dependent upon dialectics. In this methodized discussion, so much in harmony with the marked sociability of the Greek character, the quick recurrence of short question and answer was needful as a stimulus to the attention, at a time when the habit of close and accurate reflection on abstract subjects had been so little cultivated. But the dialectics of Sokratês had far greater and more important peculiarities than this. We must always consider his method in conjunction with the subjects to which he applied it. As those subjects were not recondite or special, but bore on the practical life of the house, the market-place, the city, the dikastery, the gymnasium, or the temple, with which every one was familiar, so Sokratês never presented himself as a teacher, nor as a man having new knowledge to communicate. On the contrary, he disclaimed such pretensions, uniformly and even ostentatiously. But the subjects on which he talked were just those which every one professed to know perfectly and thoroughly, and on which every one believed himself in a condition to instruct others, rather than to require instruction for himself. On such questions as these: What is justice? What is piety? What is a democracy? What is a law? every man fancied that he could give a confident opinion, and even wondered that any other person should feel a difficulty. When Sokratês, professing ignorance, put any such question, he found no difficulty in obtaining an answer, given off-hand, and with very little reflection. The answer purported to be the explanation or definition of a term—familiar, indeed, but of wide and comprehensive import—given by one who had never before tried to render to himself an account of what it meant. Having got this answer, Sokratês put fresh questions, applying it to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give answers inconsistent with the first; thus showing that the definition was either too narrow, or too wide, or defective in some essential condition. The respondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to other questions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with the amendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentangle himself, was obliged to plead guilty to the inconsistencies, with an admission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the original query, which had at first appeared so easy and familiar. Or, if he did not himself admit this, the hearers at least felt it forcibly. The dialogue, as given to us, commonly ends with a result purely negative, proving that the respondent was incompetent to answer the question proposed to him, in a manner consistent and satisfactory even to himself. Sokratês, as he professed from the beginning to have no positive theory to support, so he maintains to the end the same air of a learner, who would be glad to solve the difficulty if he could, but regrets to find himself disappointed of that instruction which the respondent had promised.

We see by this description of the cross-examining path of this remarkable man, how intimate was the bond of connection between the dialectic method and the logical distribution of particulars into species and genera. The discussion first raised by Sokratês turns upon the meaning of some large generic term, the queries whereby he follows it up, bring the answer given into collision with various particulars which it ought not to comprehend, yet does; or with others, which it ought to comprehend, but does not. It is in this manner that the latent and undefined cluster of association, which has grown up round a familiar term, is as it were penetrated by a fermenting leaven, forcing it to expand into discernible portions, and bringing the appropriate function which the term ought to fulfil, to become a subject of distinct consciousness. The inconsistencies into which the hearer is betrayed in his various answers, proclaim to him the fact that he has not yet acquired anything like a clear and full conception of the common attribute which binds together the various particulars embraced under some term which is ever upon his lips; or perhaps enable him to detect a different fact, not less important, that there is no such common attribute, and that the generalization is merely nominal and fallacious. In either case, he is put upon the train of thought which leads to a correction of the generalization, and lights him on to that which Plato[695] calls, seeing the one in the many, and the many in the one. Without any predecessor to copy, Sokratês, fell as it were instinctively into that which Aristotle[696] describes as the double track of the dialectic process; breaking up the one into many, and recombining the many into one; the former duty, at once the first and the most essential, Sokratês performed directly by his analytical string of questions; the latter, or synthetical process, was one which he did not often directly undertake, but strove so to arm and stimulate the hearer’s mind, as to enable him to do it for himself. This one and many denote the logical distribution of a multifarious subject-matter under generic terms, with clear understanding of the attributes implied or connoted by each term, so as to discriminate those particulars to which it really applies. At a moment when such logical distribution was as yet novel as a subject of consciousness, it could hardly have been probed and laid out in the mind by any less stringent process than the cross-examining dialectics of Sokratês, applied to the analysis of some attempts at definition hastily given by respondents; that “inductive discourse and search for (clear general notions or) definitions of general terms,” which Aristotle so justly points out as his peculiar innovation.

I have already adverted to the persuasion of religious mission under which Sokratês acted in pursuing this system of conversation and interrogation. He probably began it in a tentative way,[697] upon a modest scale, and under the pressure of logical embarrassment weighing on his own mind. But as he proceeded, and found himself successful, as well as acquiring reputation among a certain circle of friends, his earnest soul became more and more penetrated with devotion to that which he regarded as a duty. It was at this time probably, that his friend Chærephon came back with the oracular answer from Delphi, noticed a few pages above, to which Sokratês himself alludes as having prompted him to extend the range of his conversation, and to question a class of persons whom he had not before ventured to approach, the noted politicians, poets, and artisans. He found them more confident than humbler individuals in their own wisdom, but quite as unable to reply to his queries without being driven to contradictory answers.

Such scrutiny of the noted men in Athens is made to stand prominent in the “Platonic Apology,” because it was the principal cause of that unpopularity which Sokratês at once laments and accounts for before the dikasts. Nor can we doubt that it was the most impressive portion of his proceedings, in the eyes both of enemies and admirers, as well as the most flattering to his own natural temper. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to present this part of the general purpose of Sokratês—or of his divine mission, if we adopt his own language—as if it were the whole; and to describe him as one standing forward merely to unmask select leading men, politicians, sophists, poets, or others, who had acquired unmerited reputation, and were puffed up with foolish conceit of their own abilities, being in reality shallow and incompetent. Such an idea of Sokratês is at once inadequate and erroneous. His conversation, as I have before remarked, was absolutely universal and indiscriminate; while the mental defect which he strove to rectify was one not at all peculiar to leading men, but common to them with the mass of mankind, though seeming to be exaggerated in them, partly because more is expected from them, partly because the general feeling of self-estimation stands at a higher level, naturally and reasonably, in their bosoms, than in those of ordinary persons. That defect was, the “seeming and conceit of knowledge without the reality,” on human life with its duties, purposes, and conditions; the knowledge of which Sokratês called emphatically “human wisdom,” and regarded as essential to the dignity of a freeman; while he treated other branches of science as above the level of man,[698] and as a stretch of curiosity, not merely superfluous, but reprehensible. His warfare against such false persuasion of knowledge, in one man as well as another, upon those subjects—for with him, I repeat, we must never disconnect the method from the subjects—clearly marked even in Xenophon, is abundantly and strikingly illustrated by the fertile genius of Plato, and constituted the true missionary scheme which pervaded the last half of his long life; a scheme far more comprehensive, as well as more generous, than those anti-sophistic polemics which are assigned to him by so many authors as his prominent object.[699]

In pursuing the thread of his examination, there was no topic upon which Sokratês more frequently insisted, than the contrast between the state of men’s knowledge on the general topics of man and society, and that which artists or professional men possessed in their respective special crafts. So perpetually did he reproduce this comparison, that his enemies accused him of wearing it threadbare.[700] Take a man of special vocation—a carpenter, a brazier, a pilot, a musician, a surgeon—and examine him on the state of his professional knowledge, you will find him able to indicate the persons from whom and the steps by which he first acquired it: he can describe to you his general aim, with the particular means which he employs to realize the aim, as well as the reason why such means must be employed and why precautions must be taken to combat such and such particular obstructions: he can teach his profession to others: in matters relating to his profession, he counts as an authority, so that no extra-professional person thinks of contesting the decision of a surgeon in case of disease, or of a pilot at sea. But while such is the fact in regard to every special art, how great is the contrast in reference to the art of righteous, social, and useful living, which forms, or ought to form, the common business alike important to each and to all! On this subject, Sokratês[701] remarked that every one felt perfectly well-informed, and confident in his own knowledge; yet no one knew from whom, or by what steps, he had learned: no one had ever devoted any special reflection either to ends, or means, or obstructions: no one could explain or give a consistent account of the notions in his own mind, when pertinent questions were put to him: no one could teach another, as might be inferred, he thought, from the fact that there were no professed teachers, and that the sons of the best men were often destitute of merit: every one knew for himself, and laid down general propositions confidently, without looking up to any other man as knowing better; yet there was no end of dissension and dispute on particular cases.[702]

Such was the general contrast which Sokratês sought to impress upon his hearers by a variety of questions bearing on it, directly or indirectly. One way of presenting it, which Plato devoted much of his genius to expand in dialogue, was, to discuss, Whether virtue be really teachable. How was it that superior men, like Aristeidês and Periklês,[703] acquired the eminent qualities essential for guiding and governing Athens, since they neither learned them under any known master, as they had studied music and gymnastics, nor could insure the same excellences to their sons, either through their own agency or through that of any master? Was it not rather the fact that virtue, as it was never expressly taught, so it was not really teachable; but was vouchsafed or withheld according to the special volition and grace of the gods? If a man has a young horse to be broken, or trained, he finds without difficulty a professed trainer, thoroughly conversant with the habits of the race,[704] to communicate to the animal the excellence required; but whom can he find to teach virtue to his sons, with the like preliminary knowledge and assured result? Nay, how can any one either teach virtue, or affirm virtue to be teachable, unless he be prepared to explain what virtue is, and what are the points of analogy and difference between its various branches; justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, etc.? In several of the Platonic dialogues, the discussion turns on the analysis of these last-mentioned words: the “Lachês” and “Protagoras” on courage, the “Charmidês” on temperance, the “Euthyphrôn” on holiness.

By these and similar discussions did Sokratês, and Plato amplifying upon his master, raise indirectly all the important questions respecting society, human aspirations and duties, and the principal moral qualities which were accounted virtuous in individual men. As the general terms, on which his conversation turned, were among the most current and familiar in the language, so also the abundant instances of detail, whereby he tested the hearer’s rational comprehension and consistent application of such large terms, were selected from the best known phenomena of daily life;[705] bringing home the inconsistency, if inconsistency there was, in a manner obvious to every one. The answers made to him,—not merely by ordinary citizens, but by men of talent and genius, such as the poets or the rhetors, when called upon for an explanation of the moral terms and ideas set forth in their own compositions,[706]—revealed alike that state of mind against which his crusade, enjoined and consecrated by the Delphian oracle, was directed, the semblance and conceit of knowledge without real knowledge. They proclaimed confident, unhesitating persuasion, on the greatest and gravest questions concerning man and society, in the bosoms of persons who had never bestowed upon them sufficient reflection to be aware that they involved any difficulty. Such persuasion had grown up gradually and unconsciously, partly by authoritative communication, partly by insensible transfusion, from others; the process beginning antecedent to reason as a capacity, continuing itself with little aid and no control from reason, and never being finally revised. With the great terms and current propositions concerning human life and society, a complex body of association had become accumulated from countless particulars, each separately trivial and lost to the memory, knit together by a powerful sentiment, and imbibed as it were by each man from the atmosphere of authority and example around him. Upon this basis the fancied knowledge really rested; and reason, when invoked at all, was called in simply as an handmaid, expositor, or apologist of the preëxisting sentiment; as an accessory after the fact, not as a test or verification. Every man found these persuasions in his own mind, without knowing how they became established there; and witnessed them in others, as portions of a general fund of unexamined common-place and credence. Because the words were at once of large meaning, embodied in old and familiar mental processes, and surrounded by a strong body of sentiment, the general assertions in which they were embodied appeared self-evident and imposing to every one: so that, in spite of continual dispute in particular cases, no one thought himself obliged to analyze the general propositions themselves, or to reflect whether he had verified their import, and could apply them rationally and consistently.[707]