Plato (Collins)/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
DIALOGUES OF SEARCH.
LACHES―CHARMIDES―LYSIS―MENO―ELTHYPHIEO―CHATYLUS―THEATETUS.
"Socrates used to ask questions, but did not answer them, for he professed not to know."-Aristotle.
In the Dialogues which follow, we have the negative side of the teaching of Socrates strongly brought out. Both sides of the questions raised are fully argued by him, but no definite conclusion is arrived at. He never, indeed, assumes any attitude of authority. He is a searcher for truth, like the young men with whom he talks; the only difference being that his search is more zealous and systematic than theirs. "We shall" (he says in the Theætetus) "either find what we are looking for, or we shall get rid of the idea that we know what we really do not know. And we philosophers have plenty of leisure for our inquiries, for we are not tied down to time, like a barrister pleading in the law-courts, whose speech is measured by the clock." Socrates had begun, as he tells us, by catechising artisans and mechanics as to their arts and occupations (hence the constant allusions in the Dialogues to mechanical employments―shoemaking, swordmaking, and the like), and from them he had got clear and satisfactory answers. But he found that if he asked a man what was his real work or object in life, or what was the meaning of the moral terms so frequently in his mouth, he got only vague answers or contradictions. Hence the questions which he examines in these 'Dialogues of Search' relate to the most familiar and obvious terms that meet us on the threshold of morality―Holiness, Courage, Temperance, and other cardinal virtues―qualities which many might possess themselves and easily recognise in others, but which they could not explain with any logical precision.
It is true that custom and tradition had given to these set phrases of morality a certain value and significance in the minds of those who used them; but few had learned to define or analyse their full meaning, and Socrates was the first who brought them under a logical scrutiny―examining their various uses, fixing their strict sense, and referring the individuals to their proper class, or, in the words of Aristotle, rallying the stragglers to the main body of the regiment.
In his arguments with the Sophists, as we have seen, Socrates shows his opponents no law. He proves himself a bitter and determined antagonist―turning where he can their own weapons against themselves, and leaving them to find out the fallacies in his statements; nor will he listen to any long defence from them, for, as he tells Protagoras, he has a short memory, and expects definite categorical answers. But when talking, as in these 'Dialogues of Search,' with some young noble of the rising generation, whose character is hardly formed and whose heart is still fresh and pure, the manner of Socrates entirely changes, and his voice softens; he lays aside that terrible "irony" of his; he adapts his questions to the youth's comprehension, encourages and sympathises with his attempts to answer, and uses the easiest language and the homeliest illustrations to explain his meaning.
We may take first the Dialogue entitled Laches, in which Courage―the instinct of a child and the habit of a man―is discussed. The speakers bear historical names. There is Lysimachus, the son of Aristides, and Melesios, son of Thucydides (not the historian, but a statesman contemporary with Themistocles); but the genins of the fathers has not in this case been inherited by their sons, who are plain respectable citizens of Athens, and nothing more. They are conscions, however, of their own degeneracy, and complain that their education had been neglected, and that their fathers had been so much engrossed in affairs of state as to have neither time nor inclination to act as tutors to their own children. "Both of us," says Lysimachus, "often talk to our boys about the many noble deeds which our fathers did in war and peace―but neither of us has any deeds of his own which he can show. Now we are somewhat ashamed of this contrast being seen by them, and we blame our fathers for letting us be spoiled in the days of our youth when they were occupied with the concerns of others; and this we point out to the lads, and tell them that they will not grow up to honour, if they are rebellious and take no pains about themselves; but that if they take pains they may become worthy perhaps of the names they bear." (The two youths, as was often the case, had been named after their grandfathers, Aristides and Thucydides.)
In their doubt as to the best means of carrying out these good intentions, the two fathers come to Laches and Nicias—both distinguished generals and statesmen—and ask their advice in the matter; more especially as to whether the lessons of a certain swordsman, who has just been going through a trial of arms, are likely to be of use. The veterans discuss the merits of this new style of fencing,—just as two officers now might criticise the last improved rifle. Nicias is much in favour of the youths learning it, as it will usefully occupy their spare time, will be of real service in war, and will set them up and give them a military air and carriage. But Laches has no opinion of this newfangled invention, and thinks that if it had been worth anything, the Spartans, the first military power in Greece, would have adopted it. He had indeed himself once been witness of a ridiculous scene in which this very swordsman had left his last invention—a spear with a billhook at the end of it—sticking fast in the rigging of the enemy's vessel, and was laughed at by friends and foes. "No," says Laches, "let us have simplicity in all things—in war as well as music: but these young men must learn something; so let us appeal to Socrates, my old comrade in the battle-field, who has much experience of youth."
Socrates, thus appealed to, joins in the discussion. His opinion is that they should find some wise teacher, not so much with a view to lessons in arms, as to a general education of the mind. For no trifling question, he says, is at issue. They are risking the most precious of earthly possessions—their children, upon whose turning out well or ill depends the welfare of the house. For his own part, he knows nothing of the matter. He is neither professor nor inventor himself, and is too poor to pay fees to the Sophists. Nicias and Laches are wealthier and wiser men than he; and he will gladly abide by their decision. But why do their opinions differ?
Nicias thinks they will be drawn into a Socratic argument, as usual, but is very willing to go through an examination; and Laches, though not fond of arguing as a rule, is very ready to listen when the man is in harmony with his words, and willing therefore to be taught by Socrates, whom he knows as not merely a talker, but a doer of brave deeds.
Socrates thinks it will be better to consider, not so much the question of who are the teachers, as what they profess to teach,—namely, Virtue, or more especially that part of it which most concerns them at present—Courage. Then, by a series of questions, he limits the vague definition first given by Laches, and proves to him that there may be other forms of courage as noble as that of the soldier who stands his ground in battle—such as the endurance of pain, or poverty, or reproach; and it generally seems to be a certain wise strength of mind, the intelligent and reasonable fortitude of a man who foresees coming evil and can calculate the consequences of his acts, and is very different from the fearless courage of a child, or the insensate fury of a wild beast. But then the man who has this knowledge of good and evil, implied in the possession of real courage, must have also temperance and justice, and in fact all the virtues; and this would contradict the starting-point of their discussion, in which they agreed that courage was only a part of virtue.
"No," Socrates concludes; "we shall have to leave off where we began, and courage must still be to us an unknown quantity. We must go to school again ourselves, and make the education of these boys our own education."
The introduction to the Charmides is another specimen of that dramatic description in which Plato excelled. "Yesterday evening," says Socrates, "I came back from the camp at Potidæa; and having been a good while away, I thought I would go and look in at my old haunts. So I went into the Palæstra of Taureas, and there I found a number of persons, most of whom I knew, though not all. My visit was unexpected, and as soon as they saw me coming in they hailed me at once from all sides; and Chærephon (who is a kind of lunatic, you know) jumped up and rushed to me, seizing my hand and exclaiming, "How did you escape, Socrates?" (I must explain that a battle had taken place at Potidæa not long before we left, the news of which had only just reached Athens.)
"You see," I replied, "that here I am."
"The report was," said he, "that the fighting was very severe, and that several of our acquaintance had fallen."
"That was too nearly the truth," replied I.
"I suppose you were there?" said he.
"I was."
"Then sit down and tell us the whole story."—J.
So Socrates sits down between Chærephon and Critias, and answers their eager inquiries after absent friends. Then there enters a group of youths, laughing and talking noisily, and among them is Charmides, a cousin of Critias, tall and handsome, and (so say his friends) "as fair and good within as he is without." He comes and sits near Socrates, who professes to know a charm that will cure a headache of which he has been complaining. This charm is a talisman given to Socrates (as he tells Charmides) by Zamolxis, physician to the king of Thrace; but which he is only allowed to use on the condition of his never attempting to cure the body without first curing the soul, and then temperance in the one will produce health in the other. But the question is, "What is Temperance?" It is not always what Charmides understands by it, the quietness of a gentleman who is never flurried and never noisy; nor is it exactly modesty, though very like it; nor is it (as Critias defines it) "doing one's own business," even though our work as men be nobly and usefully done. Nor, again, is it true that the golden characters on the gates of Delphi, "Know thyself," simply meant, "Be temperate;" nor is it a "science of sciences," as Critias again explains it—or rather, the knowledge of what a man knows and does not know. All knowledge is relative, and must have some object-matter; and such a universal knowledge as Critias would imply by temperance would in no way conduce to our happiness.
Finally, Socrates confesses himself puzzled and baffled. They are no nearer the truth than at starting; and the argument, so to speak, "turns round and laughs in their faces." He is sorry that Charmides has learnt so little from him; "and still more," he concludes—
"am I grieved about the charm which I learned with so much pain and to so little profit from the Thracian, for the sake of a thing which is nothing worth. I think, indeed, that there is a mistake, and that I must be a bad inquirer; for I am persuaded that wisdom or temperance is really a great good; and happy are you if you possess that good. And therefore examine yourself, and see whether you have this gift, and can do without the charm; for if you can, I would rather advise you to regard me simply as a fool who is never able to reason out anything; and to rest assured that the more wise and temperate you are, the happier you will be."
Charmides said: "I am sure I do not know, Socrates, whether I have or have not this gift of wisdom and temperance; for how can I know whether I have that, the very nature of which even you and Critias, as you say, are unable to discover ? (not that I believe you.) And further, I am sure, Socrates, that I do need the charm; and, so far as I am concerned, I shall be willing to be charmed by you daily, until you say I have had enough."
"Very good, Charmides," said Critias; "if you do this I shall have a proof of your temperance—that is, if you allow yourself to be charmed by Socrates, and never desert him at all."
"You may depend on my following and not deserting him," said Charmides. "If you who are my guardian command me, I should be very wrong not to obey you."
"Well, I do command you," he said.
"Then I will do as you say, and begin this very day."
In the Lysis, the scene is again a Palæstra, near a school kept by Micon, a friend of Socrates. It is a half-holiday (like a saint's day in some of our public schools) in honour of the god Hermes; and the boys are scattered round the courtyard, some wrestling, some playing at dice, and others looking on. Among these last is Lysis, of noble birth and of high promise, with his friend Menexenus. Socrates professes himself charmed at the attachment of the two boys, and calls them very fortunate. All people, he says, have their different objects of ambition—horses, dogs, money, honour, as the case may be; but for his own part he would rather have a good friend than all these put together. It is what he has longed for all his life, and here is Lysis already supplied. "But," he asks, "what is Friendship, and who is a friend?"
Is it sympathy—is it, as the poets say, that "the gods draw like to like" by some mysterious affinity of souls? In that case, the bad man can be no one's friend; for he is not always even like himself—much less like any one else; while the good man is self-sufficing, and therefore has no need of friends. Is not Difference rather the principle? Are not unlike characters attracted by a sense of dependence, and do not the weak thus love the strong, and the poor the rich? But this cannot be so always, for then by this very law of contraries the good would love the bad, and the just the unjust. No—there must be a stage of indifference, between these two; when one whose character is hardly formed—who is neither good nor bad—courts the society of the good, from some vague desire of improvement.
But Socrates is not satisfied yet. He thinks there must be some final principle or first cause of friendship which they have not discovered: "and here," he says,
"I was going to invite the opinion of some older person, when suddenly we were interrupted by the tutors of Lysis and Menexenus, who came upon us like an evil apparition with their brothers, and bade them go home, as it was getting late. At first we and the bystanders drove them off, but afterwards, as they would not mind, and only went on shouting in their barbarous dialect, and got angry, and kept calling the boys (they appeared to us to have been drinking rather too much at the Hermæa, which made them difficult to manage), we fairly gave way, and broke up the company. I said, however, a few words to the boys at parting. O Menexenus and Lysis, will not the bystanders go away and say, 'Here is a jest: you two boys, and I, an old boy, who would fain be one of you, imagine ourselves to be friends, and we have not as yet been able to discover what is a friend!'"—J.
Aristotle devotes two books of his "Ethics" to this much-debated question of Friendship—always romantic and interesting from a Greek point of view. He looks upon it in a political light, as filling up the void left by Justice in the state; and he traces its appearance in different forms in different governments. It is an extension of "Self-Love"—very different from Selfishness,—for a good man (he says) will give up honour and life and lands for his friend's sake, and yet reserve to himself something still more excellent—the glory of a noble deed.[1] But Aristotle can, no more than Plato, give the precise grounds for any friendship, except that it should not be based on pleasure or utility; and we are told of his saying more than once to his pupils, "O my friends, there is no friend!" Perhaps, after all, Montaigne was right—friendship is inexplicable; and the only reason that can be given for liking such a person is the one given by him, "Because it was he, because it was I."
The Meno of Plato, introduced in the Dialogue which bears his name, is a very different character from the Meno of history—a traitor who did his best to embarrass the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks. Plato represents him as a "Thessalian Alcibiades"—a rich young noble, the devoted pupil of the Sophists. He meets Socrates, and abruptly asks him the old question, whether Virtue can be taught; and Socrates, as usual, professes ignorance. He is not a Gorgias, that he can answer such a question offhand "in the grand style." He does not even know what Virtue is, much less who are its teachers: and he adds, with mock humility, that there is a singular dearth of wisdom at Athens just now, for the rhetoricians have carried it all away with them to Thrace. Perhaps Meno will kindly enlighten him with the opinions of Gorgias on this difficult question?
Yes, Meno will tell him. Every age and condition of life has its special virtue. A man's virtue is statesmanship, in which he will guard his own and his country's interests; while "a woman's virtue is to order her house and keep what is within doors, and obey her husband;"—a stay-at-home view of her duties which would find little favour with the modern advocates of female suffrage.
But surely, objects Socrates, justice and temperance are needed by all ages and professions. Must there not be some one common element pervading these separate virtues, which are merely individuals of a class, like colours and figures? Virtue, like health, must be a common quality, though it may take various forms.
Meno then comes to understand that a definition is what is wanted, and accordingly quotes one from the poets. "Virtue is the desire of the honourable, and the power of getting it."
But Socrates is not satisfied with this. You must, he says, get what is honourable with justice (or it would not be virtuous); and justice is a part of virtue.
Meno is puzzled by this, and complains that Socrates is a wizard, and has bewitched him. His arguments are like the shock of the torpedo—they benumb and stupefy. But Socrates declares that he is just as much perplexed himself; he is ready, indeed, to search for the truth, but he knows no more what the truth is than Meno does.
"How then" (says Meno, acutely) "can you search for that of which you know nothing; and how, even if you find it, can you be sure that you have got it?"
This difficulty Socrates explains by that famous doctrine of Reminiscence, which is so important a principle in the Platonic philosophy. The soul (as the poets say) is immortal, and is continually dying and being born again—passing from one body to another. During these stages of existence, in Hades and in the upper world, it has seen and learnt all things, but has forgotten the greater part of its knowledge. It is capable, however, of reviving by association all that it has learnt—for all nature is akin, and all knowledge and learning is only reminiscence. Socrates then proves his theory by cross-examining a boy—one of Meno's slaves—who gives the successive stages of a problem in geometry; and this implies that the knowledge was already latent in his mind.
Then Socrates goes on to show that knowledge is the distinctive element of virtue, without which all good gifts, such as health, or beauty, or strength, are unprofitable because not rightly used; and if virtue be knowledge, it cannot come by nature, but must be taught.
"But who are its teachers?" he asks, appealing to one of the company, Anytus, afterwards his own accuser: for he has failed, hitherto, to find them. "Shall Meno go to the Sophists—the professed teachers of all Greece?"
"Heaven forbid!" answers Anytus; "the Sophists are the corrupters of our nation. The real teachers are the good old Athenian gentlemen, and the statesmen of a past age."
But this Socrates will not allow. These great statesmen never imparted their own wisdom to their sons, and yet they surely would have done so had it been possible.
Anytus is indignant that his heroes should be so lightly spoken of, and angrily bids Socrates be careful of his words, and remember that it is easier to do men harm in Athens than to do them good.
Still the original question has not been answered, "Is Virtue teachable?" and Socrates inclines to think it "a gift from heaven," and that it may be directed by another faculty, practically as useful as knowledge, namely, "right opinion;" and this is a sort of divine instinct possessed by statesmen, but which they cannot impart to others. The higher form of virtue—the ideal knowlege—is possessed by none; and if a man could be found both possessing it and able to impart it, he would be like Tiresias, as Ulysses saw him in Hades, who alone had understanding in the midst of a world of shadows.
EUTHYPHRO.
This Dialogue carries us back to the days when the trial of Socrates was still impending. One morning the philosopher meets the augur Euthyphro at the entrance of the law-courts.
"What are you doing here?" asks the augur. "I am defendant," Socrates answers, "in a suit which a young man named Meletus has brought against me on a charge of corrupting the youth;—and you?"
"I am prosecuting my father for murder," is the startling reply of Euthyphro; and then he proceeds to tell the story. A man employed on his father's estate, in the island of Naxos, had killed a fellow-slave in a drunken quarrel; and his father had bound the offender hand and foot, and thrown him into a ditch, while he sent to inquire of a diviner at Athens what he should do with him. But long before the messenger could return, the unfortunate slave had died of cold and hunger; and Euthyphro had felt it his duty to prosecute his father for murder. "My friends," says he, "call me impious and a madman for so doing; but I know better than they do in what true filial piety consists."
"And what is Piety?" asks Socrates; "the knowledge may be of use to me in my approaching trial."
"Doing as I am doing now," replies the other, in the true spirit of a Pharisee—"bringing a murderer to justice without respect of persons, and following the example set by the gods themselves."
But (asks Socrates again) what is the specific character of piety?—for there must be other pious acts besides prosecuting one's father, and the gods may disagree as to questions of right and wrong. Even suppose they all agree in loving a certain act, the fact of their loving it would not make it pious.
Then Euthyphro defines piety to be that branch of justice which chiefly concerns the gods; and that man, he says, is most pious who knows best how to propitiate their favour by prayer and sacrifice. Thus piety becomes a sort of business transaction, on the mutual benefit system, between gods and men; where worldly prosperity is bestowed on one side, and honour and gratitude are rendered on the other.
But Socrates is not satisfied. They have, he says, been arguing in a circle, and have got back to the definition they before rejected—that piety is "what is dear to the gods:" for the honour we thus pay to them by prayer and sacrifice is most dear to them. So they must again seek for the true answer; and Euthyphro must tell him, for if any man knows the nature of piety, it is evidently he. But Euthyphro is in a hurry, and cannot stay.
"If Socrates had thought like Euthyphro, he might have died in his bed." Such is the moral M. Cousin[2] draws from this Dialogue; and undoubtedly the subsequent impeachment of the philosopher might be attributed in part to the enmity of the Athenian priesthood—always jealous and intolerant of any new form of faith. Here the contrast is (as Plato probably meant it to be) a striking one between the augur Euthyphro—perfect in the letter of the law, but whose consistent "piety" is impelling him to be a parricide—and Socrates, even now about to be indicted for worshipping strange gods, yet proving a self-devoted martyr who refuses to save his life by tampering with his conscience, and who dies rather than break the law by attempting to escape, when escape was easy.
CRATYLUS.
This Dialogue turns entirely upon etymology, and hence it is extremely difficult to reproduce it in a modern form, as continual reference is made to Greek nouns and names. The humour is so extravagant and sustained, and the derivations, which Socrates gravely propounds, are often so fanciful and far-fetched, that Mr Jowett thinks Plato intended the Cratylus as a satire upon the false and specious philology of the day; but that the meaning of his satire (as is often the case) has "slept in the ear of posterity."
Cratylus, an admirer of Heraclitus, has been arguing about names with Hermogenes—a younger brother of the rich Callias, whom we have met before as the hospitable entertainer of Protagoras—and his brother Sophists. Hermogenes maintains that names are merely conventional signs, which can be given or taken away at pleasure; and that any name which you choose to give anything is correct until you change it: while Cratylus holds that names are real and natural expressions of thought, or else they would be mere inarticulate sounds; and that all truth comes from language. They invite Socrates, who has just joined them, to give his opinion. "Alas!" says Socrates, regretfully, "if I could only have afforded to attend that fifty-drachma course of lectures given by the great Prodicus, who advertised them as a complete education in grammar and language, I could have told you all about it; but I was only able to attend the single-drachma course, and know as little of this difficult question as you. Still, I should like a free discussion on the subject."
We cannot (he goes on) accept Hermogenes' principle, that each man has a private right of nomenclature: for if anybody might name anything, and give it as many names as he liked, all meaning and distinction of terms would soon perish—there being as much truth and falsehood implied in words as in sentences. No,—speaking and naming, like any other art, should be done in the right way, with the right instrument, and by the right man in the right place. "This giving of names," he continues, "is no such light matter as you fancy, or the work of chance persons; and Cratylus is right in saying that things have names by nature, and that not every man is an artificer of names, but he only who looks to the thing which each name by nature has, and is, will be able to express the ideal forms of things in letters and syllables." It is the law that gives names through the legislator, who is advised in his work by the Dialectician, who alone knows the right use of names, and who can ask and answer questions properly.
The Sophists profess to teach you the correctness of names; but if you think lightly of them, turn to the poets. In Homer you will find that the same thing is called differently by gods and men—for instance, the river which the gods call Xanthus, men call Scamander; and there is a solemn and mysterious truth in this, for of course the gods must be right. And so with the two names that Hector's son went by—Astyanax and Scamandrius—which did Homer think correct? Clearly, the name given by the men, who are always wiser than the women. This is another great truth; and besides, in this case, there is a curious coincidence, for the names of the father and son—though having only one letter (t) the same—mean the same thing—Hector being "holder," and Astyanax "defender," of the city. The mere difference of syllables matters nothing, if the same sense is retained.[3]
All these old heroic names, continues Socrates, carry their history with them; and, if you analyse them properly, you learn the character of the men or gods who bore them. Atreus is "the stubborn" or "destructive;" Orestes, the wild "mountain ranger;" Zeus himself, the lord of "life"—and so on with the other personages in Hesiod's genealogy.
Hermogenes is startled by these derivations, and thinks Socrates must be inspired—his language is so oracular.
"Yes," says Socrates, "and I caught this inspiration from the great Euthyphro, with whom I have been since daybreak, listening while he declaimed; his divine wisdom has so filled my ears and possessed my soul, that to-day I will give myself up to this mysterious influence, and examine fully the history of names; to-morrow I will go to some priest or sophist, and be purified of this strange bewitchment."
Sometimes, he continues, we must change and shift the letters to get at the real form of the word: thus sôma, "body," is the same as sêma, "tomb"—meaning the grave in which our soul is buried, or perhaps kept safe, as in a prison, till the last penalty is paid. So also Pluto is the same as Plutus, and means the giver of riches, for all wealth comes from the world below, where he is king. It is true that we use his name as a euphemism for Hades, but we do so wrongly, for there is really nothing terrible connected with that word. It does not mean the awful "unseen" world, as people think; but Pluto is called Hades because he knows (eidenai) all goodness and beauty, and thus binds all who come to him by the strongest chains—stronger than those of Father Time himself. And so these other awful names, such as Persephatta and Apollo, have really nothing terrible about them, if you examine their derivation. But Socrates will have no more discussion about the gods—he is "afraid of them."
"Only one more god," pleads Hermogenes. "I should like to know about Hermes, of whom I am said not to be a true son. Let us make him out, and then I shall know if there is anything in what Cratylus says."
"I should imagine," says Socrates, "that the name Hermes has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the interpreter, or messenger, or thief, or liar, or bargainer;—language has a great deal to say to all that sort of thing; and, as I was telling you, the word eirein is expressive of the use of speech, and we have improved eiremês into Hermes."
"Then I am very sure," says Hermogenes, in a tone of conviction, "that Cratylus was quite right in saying that I was no true son of Hermes, for I am not a good hand at speeches."—J.
Then Socrates examines the names of the various elements, virtues, and moral qualities, most of which he derives in a manner that would shock a modern philologist. Some of them, he says truly, have a foreign origin, inasmuch as the Greek borrowed many words from the Barbarians; "for the Barbarians are older than we are, and the original form of words may have been lost in the lapse of ages." The word dikaion—"justice"—says Socrates, has greatly puzzled him. Some one had told him, as a great mystery, that the word was the same as diaion—the subtle and penetrating power that enters into everything in creation; and when he inquired further, he was told that Justice was the Sun,—the piercing or burning element in nature. But when he quotes this beautiful notion with great glee to a friend, he is met by the satirical answer—"What is there then no justice in the world when the sun goes down?" And when Socrates begs his friend to tell him his own honest opinion, he says, "Fire in the abstract;" which is not very intelligible. Another says, "No,—not fire in the abstract, but the abstraction of heat in fire." A third professes to laugh at this, and says, with Anaxagoras, that Justice is Mind; for Mind, they say, has absolute power, and mixes with nothing, and governs all things, and permeates all things. At last, he says, he found himself in greater perplexity as to the nature of Justice than when he began his inquiry.
Then follow other derivations, more extravagant than any which we have noticed; but Socrates concludes with a long passage of serious etymology. We should get at primary names (he says), and separate the letters, which have all a distinct meaning-thus l expresses "smoothness," r "motion," a "size," and e "length." When we have fixed their meaning, we can form them into syllables and words; and add and subtract until we get a good and true image of the idea we intend to express. Of course there are degrees of accuracy in this process, where nature is helped out by custom; and a name, like a picture, may be a more or less perfect likeness of a person or thought. Great truths may be learned through names; but there are higher forms of knowledge, which can only be learnt from the ideas themselves, of which our words are but faint impressions; and "no man of sense will put himself or his education in the power of names," or believe that the world is in a perpetual flux and transition, "like a leaky vessel." And with this parting blow at Heraclitus, the Dialogue, with its mixture of truth and fiction, of jest and earnest, comes to an end. But, wild and fanciful as many of the derivations undoubtedly are, it must still be admitted that "the guesses of Plato are better than all the other theories of the ancients respecting language put together."[4]
THEÆTETUS.
Euclid (not the mathematician, but the philosopher of that name) meets his friend Terpsion at the door of his own house in Megara; and their conversation happens to turn upon Theætetus, whom Euclid has just seen carried up towards Athens, almost dead of dysentery, and of the wounds he had received in the battle of Corinth. "What a gallant fellow he was, and what a loss he will be!" says Terpsion; and then Euclid remembers how Socrates had prophesied great things of him in his youth, and had proved—as he always did—a true prophet; for Theætetus had more than fulfilled the promise of his early years. Euclid had taken careful notes of a discussion between Socrates and the young Theætetus in days gone by, and this paper is now read by a servant for the benefit of Terpsion.
As Socrates said, Theætetus was "a reflection of his own ugly self," both in person and character. Snub- nosed, and with projecting eyes, brave and patient, slow and sure in the pursuit of knowledge, "full of gentleness, and always making progress, like a noiseless river of oil." His answers in the Dialogue bear out this character: they are invariably shrewd and to the point, and would have done credit (says his examiner) to "many bearded men." Socrates is still the same earnest disputant, professing to know nothing himself, but willing to assist others in bringing their thoughts to the birth; for so far, he tells Theætetus, he has inherited the art of his mother Phænarete, the midwife. Hence those youths resort to him who are tortured by the pangs of perplexity and doubt, and yearn to be delivered of the conceptions which are struggling for release within their breasts. If these children of their souls are likely to prove a true and noble offspring, they are suffered to see the light; but if, as is often the case, his divine inward monitor warns Socrates that they are but lies or shadows of the truth, they are stifled in the birth.
The question discussed is Knowledge; and the first definition of it proposed is "sensible perception." This Socrates connects with the old saying of Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all things;" and this he again links on to the still older doctrine of Heraclitus, "All things are becoming." "These ancient philosophers" (he says)—"the great Farmenides excepted—agreed that since we live in the midst of perpetual change and transition, our knowledge of all things must be relative. There is no such thing, they will tell you, as real existence. You should not say, 'this is white or black,' but, 'it is my (or your) impression that it is so.' And thus each man can only know what he perceives; and so far his judgment is true."
"Of course" (continues Socrates), "we might object that our senses may deceive us; that in cases where a man is mad or dreaming—who knows, indeed, whether we are not dreaming at this very moment—he must get false impressions: or, again, that our tastes may become perverted; and as wine is distasteful to a sick man, so what is really good or true does not appear so to us. But Protagoras would reply that the sick man's dreams are real to him,—that my impressions of wine are certainly different in health and sickness; but then I am different, and my impressions in either case are true."
"I wonder (says Socrates, ironically) that Protagoras did not begin his great work on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other strange monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things; then, when we were reverencing him as a god, he might have condescended to inform us that he was no wiser than a tadpole, and did not even aspire to be a man—would not this have produced an overpowering effect? For if truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and no man has any superior right to determine whether the opinion of any other is true or false, but each man, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom ?"—J.
Then Socrates takes upon himself to defend Protagoras, who is made to qualify his original statement: "Man is the measure of all things, but one man's knowledge may be superior in proportion as his impressions are better; still, every impression is true and real, and a false opinion is impossible."
Common-sense, replies Socrates, is against this theory, which would reduce all minds to the same level. Practically, men are always passing judgment on the impressions of others, pronouncing them to be true or false, and acting accordingly; they recognise superior minds, and submit to teachers and rulers: thus Protagoras himself made a large fortune on the reputation of having better judgment than his neighbours. And if one man's judgment is as good as another's, who is to decide? Is the question to he settled by a plurality of votes, or what shall be the last court of appeal? Protagoras may think this or that, but there are probably ten thousand who will think the opposite; and, by his own rule, their judgments are as good as his.
But even Socrates feels some compunction in thus attacking the theories of a dead philosopher who cannot defend himself.
"If he could only" (he says) "get his head out of the world below, he would give both of us a sound drubbing —me for quibbling, and you for accepting my quibbles—and be off and underground again in a twinkling."—J.
Then comes a break in the main argument, and Socrates wanders off into a digression, in which he draws a striking contrast between the characters of the lawyer and philosopher—the former always in a hurry, with the water-clock urging him on—busy and preoccupied, the slave of his clients,—keen and shrewd, but narrow-minded, and from his early years versed in the crooked paths of deceit: while the philosopher is a gentleman at large, master of his own time, abstracted and absorbed in thought, seeing nothing at his feet, and knowing nothing of the scandals of the clubs or the gossip of the town—hardly even acquainted with his next-door neighbour by sight—shy, awkward, and too simple-minded to retaliate an insult, or understand the merits of a long pedigree.[5]
"Knowledge, then," continues Socrates, resuming the argument, "cannot be perception; for, after all, it is the soul which perceives, and the senses are merely organs of the body springing from a common centre of life. In fact, we see and hear rather through them than with them. Furthermore, there are certain abstractions which we (that is, the trained and intelligent few) perceive with the eye of reason alone."
Then Theætetus suggests that knowledge may be defined as "true opinion;" but then, says Socrates, the old objection would be raised, that false opinion is impossible; for we must either know or not know, and in either case we know what we know. The reply is, that mistakes are always possible; you may think one thing to be another. Our souls, continues Socrates, using a metaphor which has since passed into a commonplace, are like waxen tablets—some broad and deep, where the impressions made by sight or hearing are clear and indelible; others cramped and narrow, where the impressions from the senses are confused and crowded together; and sometimes the wax itself is soft, or shallow, or impure, and so the impression is soon effaced. Often, too, we put, so to speak, the shoe on the wrong foot, or stamp with the wrong seal; and from these wrong and hasty impressions come false opinions. There can be no mistake when perception and knowledge correspond; but we often have one without the other. I may see an inscription, but not know its meaning; or I may hear a foreigner talk, but not understand a word he says.
But stay, says Socrates—we have been rashly using these words "know" and "understand," while all the time we are ignorant of what "knowledge" is. We must try again to define the term; and first, to have is quite different from to possess knowledge. Our soul is like an aviary full of wild birds, flying all about the place, singly or in groups. You may possess them, but you have none in hand; and until you collect, comprehend, and grasp your winged thoughts, you cannot be said to have them either. When you have once caught your bird (or your thought), you cannot mistake it; but while they are flying about, you may mistake the ring-dove for the pigeon, and so you may mistake the various numbers and forms of knowledge.
"Perhaps," says Theatetus, sharply, there may be sham birds in the aviary; and you may put forth your hand intending to grasp Knowledge, but catch Ignorance instead. How then?"
"No," says Socrates; "it is a clever suggestion, but if you once know the form of knowledge, you will never mistake it for ignorance. Perhaps, however, there may be higher forms of knowledge in other aviaries, which help you to tell the wrong from the right thought; but on this supposition we might go on imagining forms to infinity."
A third and last definition of knowledge is now proposed—"True opinion plus definition or explanation." But what is explanation?—is it the expression of a man's thoughts? But every one who is not deaf and dumb can express his thoughts. Or is it the enumeration of the elements of which anything is composed? But you may know the syllables of a name without being able to explain the letters. Or, lastly, is explanation "the perception of difference"? For instance (says Socrates, somewhat rudely), I know and recognise Theætetus by his having a peculiar snub nose, different from mine and all other snub noses in the world. But is my perception of this difference opinion or knowledge? If the first, I have only opinion; if the second, I am assuming the very term which we are trying to define.
And thus, in the true "Socratic manner," abrupt and unsatisfactory as it seems to us, the Dialogue ends; and "knowledge" remains the same unknown quantity as before. And yet (Socrates thinks) the discussion has not been altogether fruitless; for he has shown Theætetus that the offspring of his brain were not worth the bringing up.
"If," concludes the philosopher, "you are likely to have any more embryo thoughts, such offspring will be all the better for our present investigation, and if you should prove barren, you will be less overbearing and gentler to your friends, and modest enough not to fancy you know what you do not know. So far only can my art go, and no further; for I know none of the secrets of your famous teachers, past or present."—J.
- ↑ Ethics, viii. ix.
- ↑ Fragm. de Philos. Ane., 117.
- ↑ So says Fluellen; they "are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations."—Henry V., act iv. sc. 7.
- ↑ Jowett's Plato, i. 620
- ↑ The Philosopher here argues that a long line of ancestors does not necessarily make a gentleman; for any one, if he chooses, may reckon back to the first Parent,—just as Tennyson the reminds Lady Clara that—
"The grand old Gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent."