Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1

This then is the mission and vocation of Sokrates — 1. To cross-examine men, and to destroy that false persuasion of wisdom and virtue which is so widely diffused among them. 2. To reproach them, and make them ashamed of pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom and virtue.27

Such is the substance of the Platonic Apology of Sokrates. How strong was the impression which it made, on many philosophical readers, we may judge from the fact, that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, being a native of Kition in Cyprus, derived from the perusal of the Apology his first inducement to come over to Athens, and devote himself to the study and teaching of philosophy in that city.28 Sokrates depicts, with fearless sincerity, what he regards as the intellectual and moral deficiencies of his countrymen, as well as the unpalatable medicine and treatment which he was enjoined to administer to them. With equal sincerity does he declare the limits within which that treatment was confined.

But neither of his two most eminent companions can endure to restrict his competence within such narrow limits. Xenophon29 affirms that Sokrates was assiduous in communicating useful instruction and positive edification to his hearers. Plato sometimes, though more rarely, intimates the same: but for the most part, and in the Dialogues of Search throughout, he keeps Sokrates within the circle of procedure which the Apology claims for him. These dialogues exemplify in detail the aggressive operations, announced therein by Sokrates in general terms as his missionary life-purpose, against contemporaries of note, very different from each other — against aspiring youths, statesmen, generals, Rhetors, Sophists, orthodox pietists, poets, rhapsodes, &c. Sokrates cross-examines them all, and convicts them of humiliating ignorance: but he does not furnish, nor does he profess to be able to furnish, any solution of his own difficulties. Many of the persons cross-examined bear historical names: but I think it necessary to warn the reader, that all of them speak both language and sentiments provided for them by Plato, and not their own.30

The disclaimer, so often repeated by Sokrates, — that he possessed neither positive knowledge nor wisdom in his own person, — was frequently treated by his contemporaries as ironical. He was not supposed to be in earnest when he made it. Every one presumed that he must himself know that which he proved others not to know, whatever motive he might have for affecting ignorance.31 His personal manner and homely vein of illustration seemed to favour the supposition that he was bantering. This interpretation of the character of Sokrates appears in the main to be preferred by modern critics. Of course (they imagine) an able man who cross-questions others on the definitions of Law, Justice, Democracy, &c., has already meditated on the subject, and framed for himself unimpeachable definitions of these terms. Sokrates (they suppose) is a positive teacher and theorist, employing a method, which, though indirect and circuitous, is nevertheless calculated deliberately beforehand for the purpose of introducing and inculcating premeditated doctrines of his own. Pursuant to this hypothesis, it is presumed that the positive theory of Sokrates is to be found in his negative cross-examinations, — not indeed set down clearly in any one sentence, so that he who runs may read — yet disseminated in separate syllables or letters, which may be distinguished, picked out, and put together into propositions, by an acute detective examiner. And the same presumption is usually applied to the Sokrates of the Platonic dialogues: that is, to Plato employing Sokrates as spokesman.

Interpreters sift with microscopic accuracy the negative dialogues of Plato, in hopes of detecting the ultimate elements of that positive solution which he is supposed to have lodged therein, and which, when found, may be put together so as to clear up all the antecedent difficulties.

I have already said (in the preceding chapter) that I cannot take this view either of Sokrates or of Plato. Without doubt, each of them had affirmative doctrines and convictions, though not both the same. But the affirmative vein, with both of them, runs in a channel completely distinct from the negative. The affirmative theory has its roots aliunde, and is neither generated, nor adapted, with a view to reconcile the contradictions, or elucidate the obscurities, which the negative Elenchus has exposed. That exposure does indeed render the embarrassed respondent painfully conscious of the want of some rational, consistent, and adequate theoretical explanation: it farther stimulates him to make efforts of his own for the supply of that want. But such efforts must be really his own; the Elenchus gives no farther help: it furnishes problems, but no solutions, nor even any assurance that the problems as presented, admit of affirmative solutions. Whoever expects that such consummate masters of the negative process as Sokrates and Plato, when they come to deliver affirmative dogmas of their own, will be kept under restraint by their own previous Elenchus, and will take care that their dogmas shall not be vulnerable by the same weapons as they had employed against others — will be disappointed. They do not employ any negative test against themselves.

When Sokrates preaches in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, or the Athenian Stranger in the Platonic Leges, they jump over, or suppose to be already solved, the difficulties under the pressure of which other disputants had been previously discredited: they assume all the undefinable common-places to be clearly understood, and all the inconsistent generalities to be brought into harmony. Thus it is that the negative cross-examination, and the affirmative dogmatism, are (both in Sokrates and in Plato) two unconnected operations of thought: the one does not lead to, or involve, or verify, the other.

Those who depreciate the negative process simply, unless followed up by some new positive doctrine which shall be proof against all such attack — cannot be expected to admire Sokrates greatly, even as he stands rated by himself. Even if I concurred in this opinion, I should still think myself obliged to exhibit him as he really was. But I do not concur in the opinion. I think that the creation and furtherance of individual, self-thinking minds, each instigated to form some rational and consistent theory for itself, is a material benefit, even though no farther aid be rendered to the process except in the way of negative suggestion. That such minds should be made to feel the arbitrary and incoherent character of that which they have imbibed by passive association as ethics and æsthetics, — and that they should endeavour to test it by some rational and consistent standard — would be an improving process, though no one theory could be framed satisfactory to all. The Sokratic Elenchus went directly to this result. Plato followed in the same track, not of pouring new matter of knowledge into the pupil, but of eliciting new thoughts and beliefs out of him, by kindling the latent forces of his intellect. A large proportion of Plato’s dialogues have no other purpose or value.

And in entering upon the consideration of these dialogues, we cannot take a better point of departure than the Apology of Sokrates, wherein the speaker, alike honest and decided in his convictions, at the close of a long cross-examining career, re-asserts expressly his devoted allegiance to the negative process, and disclaims with equal emphasis all power over the affirmative.

In that touching discourse, the Universal Cross-Examiner declares a thorough resolution to follow his own individual conviction and his own sense of duty — whether agreeing or disagreeing with the convictions of his countrymen, and whether leading to danger or to death for himself. “Where a man may have posted himself either — under his own belief that it is best, or under orders from the magistrate — there he must stay and affront danger, not caring for death or anything else in comparison with disgrace.”32 As to death, Sokrates knows very little what it is, nor whether it is good or evil. The fear of death, in his view, is only one case of the prevalent mental malady — men believing themselves to know that of which they really know nothing. If death be an extinction of all sensation, like a perpetual and dreamless sleep, he will regard it as a prodigious benefit compared with life: even the Great King will not be a loser by the exchange.33 If on the contrary death be a transition into Hades, to keep company with those who have died before — Homer, Hesiod, the heroes of the Trojan war, &c. — Sokrates will consider it supreme happiness to converse with and cross-examine the potentates and clever men of the past — Agamemnon, Odysseus, Sisyphus; thus discriminating which of them are really wise, and which of them are only unconscious pretenders. He is convinced that no evil can ever happen to the good man; that the protection, of the Gods can never be wanting to him, whether alive or dead.34 “It is not lawful for a better man to be injured by a worse.

Sokrates here gives his own estimate of comparative good and evil. Death, banishment, disfranchisement, &c., are no great evils: to put another man to death unjustly, is a great evil to the doer: the good man can suffer no evil at all. These are given as the judgments of Sokrates, and as dissentient from most others. Whether they are Sokratic or Platonic opinions, or common to both — we shall find them reappearing in various other Platonic dialogues, hereafter to be noticed. We have also to notice that marked feature in the character of Sokrates36 — the standing upon his own individual reason and measure of good and evil: nay, even pushing his confidence in it so far, as to believe in a divine voice informing and moving him. This reliance on the individual reason is sometimes recognised, at other times rejected, in the Platonic dialogues. Plato rejects it in his comments (contained in the dialogue Theætêtus) on the doctrine of Protagoras: he rejects it also in the constructive dialogues, Republic and Leges, where he constitutes himself despotic legislator, prescribing a standard of orthodox opinion; he proclaims it in the Gorgias, and implies it very generally throughout the negative dialogues.