Authors of Greece Part 15

A different lesson is found in the _Euthyphro_. After wishing Socrates success in his coming trial, Euthyphro informs him that he is going to prosecute his father for manslaughter, a.s.suring him that it would be piety to do so. Socrates asks for a definition of piety. Euthyphro attempts five--"to act as Zeus did to his father"; "what the G.o.ds love"; "what all the G.o.ds love"; "a part of righteousness, relating to the care of the G.o.ds"; "the saying and doing of what the G.o.ds approve in prayer and sacrifice". Each of these proves inadequate; Euthyphro complains of the disconcerting Socratic method as follows:

"Well, I do not know how to express my thoughts. Every one of our suggestions always seem to have legs, refusing to stand still where we may fix it down. Nor have I put into them this spirit of moving and shifting, but you, a second Daedalus."

It is noticeable that no definite result comes from this dialogue; Plato was within his rights in refusing to answer the main question.

Philosophy does not pretend to settle every inquiry; her business is to see that a question is raised. Even when an answer is available, she cannot always give it, for she demands an utter abandonment of all prepossessions in those to whom she talks--otherwise there will be no free pa.s.sage for her teaching. Though refuted, Euthyphro still retained his first opinions, for his first and last definitions are similar in idea. To such a person argument is mere waste of time.

An admirable ill.u.s.tration of Plato's lightness of touch is found in the _Laches_. The dialogue begins with a discussion about the education of the young sons of Lysimachus and Melesias. Soon the question is raised "What is courage?" Nicias warns Laches about Socrates; the latter has a trick of making men review their lives; his practice is good, for it teaches men their faults in time; old age does not always bring wisdom automatically. Laches first defines courage as the faculty which makes men keep the ranks in war; when this proves inadequate, he defines it as a stoutness of spirit. Nicias is called in; he defines it as "knowledge of terrors and confidence in war"; he is soon compelled to add "and knowledge of all good and evil in every form"--in a word, courage is all virtue combined. The dialogue concludes that it is not young boys but grown men of all ages who need a careful education. This spirited little piece is full of dramatic vigour--the remarks of Laches and Nicias about each other as they are repeatedly confuted are most human and diverting.

Literary criticism is the subject of the _Ion_. Coming from Ephesus, Ion claimed to be the best professional reciter of Homer in all Greece.

Acknowledging that Homer made him all fire, while other poets left him cold, he is made to admit that his knowledge of poetry is not scientific; otherwise he would have been able to discuss all poetry, for it is one. Socrates then makes the famous comparison between a poet and a magnet; both attract an endless chain, and both contain some divine power which masters them. Ecstasy, enthusiasm, madness are the best descriptions of poetic power. Even as a professional reciter Ion admits the necessity of the power of working on men.

"When I am on the platform I look on my audience weeping and looking warlike and dazed at my words. I must pay attention to them; if I let them sit down weeping, I myself shall laugh when I receive my fee, but if they laugh I myself shall weep when I get nothing."

Homer is the subject of the _Hippias Minor_. At Olympia Hippias once said that every single thing that he was wearing was his own handiwork.

He was a most inventive person--one of his triumphs being an art of memory. In this dialogue he prefers the Iliad to the Odyssey because Achilles was called "excellent" and Odysseus "versatile". Socrates soon proves to him that Achilles was false too, as he did not always keep his word. He reminds Hippias that he never wastes time over the brainless, though he listens carefully to every man. In fact, his cross-examination is a compliment. He never thinks the knowledge he gains is his own discovery, but is grateful to any who can teach him. He believes that unwitting deceivers are more culpable than deliberate tricksters.

Hippias finds it impossible to agree with him, whereupon Socrates says that things are for ever baffling him by their changeability; it is pardonable that unlearned men like himself should err; when really wise people like Hippias wander in thought, it is monstrous that they are unable to settle the doubts of all who appeal to them.

_Channides_, the young boy after whom the dialogue was named, was the cousin and ward of Critias, the infamous leader of the Thirty Tyrants.

On being introduced to him Socrates starts the discussion "What is self-control?" The lad makes three attempts to answer; seeing his confusion, Critias steps in, "angry with the boy, like a poet angry with an actor who has murdered his poems". But he is not more successful; his three definitions are proved wanting.

"Like men who, seeing others yawn, themselves yawn, he too was in perplexity. But because he had a great reputation, he was put to shame before the audience and refused to admit his inability to define the word."

The dialogue gives no definite answer to the discussion. It is a vivid piece of writing; the contrast between the young lad and the elder cousin whose pet phrases he copies is very striking.

In the _Lysis_ the characters and the conclusion are similar. Lysis is a young lad admired by Hippothales. The first portion of the dialogue consists of a conversation between Lysis and Socrates; the latter recommends the admirer to avoid foolish converse. On the entry of Lysis'

friend Menexenus, Socrates starts the question "What is friendship?"

It appears that friendship cannot exist between two good or two evil persons, but only between a good man and one who is neither good nor bad, exactly as the philosopher is neither wise nor ignorant, yet he loves knowledge. Still this is not satisfactory; up conclusion being reached, Socrates winds up with a characteristic remark; they think they are friends, yet cannot say what friendship is. This dialogue was carefully read by Aristotle before he gave his famous description in the Ethics: "A friend is a second self". Perhaps Socrates avoided a definite answer because he did not wish to be too serious with these sunny children.

The _Euthydemus_ is an amusing study of the danger which follows upon the use of keen instruments by the unscrupulous. Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus are two sophists by trade to whom words mean nothing at all; truth and falsehood are identical, contradiction being an impossibility. As language is meaningless, Socrates himself is quickly reduced to impotence, recovering with difficulty. Plato was no doubt satirising the misuse of the new philosophy which was becoming so popular with young men. When nothing means anything, laughter is the only human language left. The _Cratylus_ is a similarly conceived diversion. Most of it is occupied with fanciful derivations and linguistic discussions of all kinds. It is difficult to say how far Plato is serious. Perhaps the feats of Euthydemus in stripping words of all meaning urged him to some constructive work--for Plato's system is essentially destructive first, then constructive. At any rate, he does insist on the necessity for determining a word's meaning by its derivation, and points out that a language is the possession of a whole people.

In the _Protagoras_ Socrates while a young man is represented as meeting a friend Hippocrates, who was on his way to Protagoras, a sophist from Abdera who had just arrived at Athens. Socrates shows first that his friend has no idea of the seriousness of his action in applying for instruction to a sophist whose definition he is unable to give.

"If your body had been in a critical condition you would have asked the advice of your friends and deliberated many days before choosing your doctor. But about your mind, on which depends your weal or woe according as it is evil or good, you never asked the advice of father or friend whether you ought to apply to this newly-arrived stranger. Hearing last night that he was here, you go to him to-day, ready to spend your own and your friends' money, convinced that you ought to become a disciple of a man you neither know nor have talked with."

They proceed to the house of Callias, where they find Protagoras surrounded by strangers from every city who listened spell-bound to his voice.

Protagoras readily promises that Hippocrates would be taught his system which offers "good counsel about his private affairs and power to transact and discuss political matters". Socrates' belief that politics cannot be taught provokes one of the long speeches to which Plato strongly objected because a fundamental fallacy could not be refuted at the outset, vitiating the whole of the subsequent argument. Protagoras recounted a myth, proving that shame and justice were given to every man; these are the basis of politics. Further, cities punish criminals, implying that men can learn politics, while virtue is taught by parents and tutors and the State. Socrates asks whether virtue is one or many.

Protagoras replies that there are five main virtues, knowledge, justice, courage, temperance and piety, all distinct. A long rambling speech causes Socrates to protest; his method is the short one of question and answer. By using some very questionable reasoning he proves that all these five virtues are identical. Accordingly, if virtue is one it can be taught, not however, by a sophist or the State, but by a philosopher, for virtue is knowledge.

This conclusion is thoroughly in harmony with Socrates' system. Yet it is probably false. Virtue is not mere knowledge, nor vice ignorance. If they were, they would be intellectual qualities. They are rather moral attributes; experience soon proves that many enlightened persons are vicious and many ignorant people virtuous. The value of this dialogue is its insistence upon the unity of virtue. A good man is not a bundle of separate excellences; he is a whole. Possessing one virtue he potentially has them all.

The _Gorgias_ is a refutation of three distinct and popular notions.

Gorgias of Leontini used to invite young men to ask him questions, none of whom ever put to him a query absolutely new. It soon appears that he is quite unable to define Rhetoric, the art by which he lived. Socrates said it was a minister of persuasion, that it in the long run concerned itself with mere Opinion, which might be true or false, and could not claim scientific Knowledge. Further, it implied some morality in its devotees, for it dealt with what was just or unjust. Polus, a young and ardent sophist, was compelled to a.s.sent to two very famous doctrines, first that it is worse to do evil than to experience it, second, that to avoid punishment was the worst thing for an offender. But a more formidable adversary remained, one Callicles, the most shameless and unscrupulous figure perhaps in Plato's work. His creed is a flat denial of all authority, moral or intellectual. It teaches that Law is not natural, but conventional; that only a slave puts up with a wrong, and only weak men seek legal protection. Philosophy is fit only for youths, for philosophers are not men of the world. Natural life is unlimited self-indulgence and public opinion is the creation of those who are too poor to give rein to their appet.i.tes; the good is pleasure and infinite self-satisfaction is the ideal. Socrates in reply points out the difference between the kinds of pleasures, insists on the importance of Scientific knowledge of everything, and proves that order is requisite everywhere--its visible effects in the soul being Justice and Wisdom, not Riot. To prevent injustice some art is needed to make the subject as like as possible to the ruler; the type of life a man leads is far more important than length of days. The demagogue who like Callicles has no credentials makes the people morally worse, especially as they are unable to distinguish quacks from wise men. Nor need philosophers trouble much about men's opinions, for a mob always blames the physician who wishes to save it. A delightful piece of irony follows, in which Socrates twits Callicles for accusing his pupils of acting with injustice, the very quality he instils into them. Callicles, though refuted, advises Socrates to fawn on the city, for he is certain to be condemned sooner or later; the latter, however, does not fear death after living righteously.

Most men have held doctrines similar to those refuted here. There is an idea abroad that what is "natural" must be intrinsically good, if not G.o.dlike. But it is quite clear that "Nature" is a vague term meaning little or nothing--it is higher or lower and natural in both forms.

Those who wish to know the lengths of impudence to which belief in the sacredness of "Nature" can bring human beings might do worse than read the _Gorgias_.

Plato's dramatic power and fertility of invention are displayed fully in the _Symposium_. Agathon had won the tragic prize and invited many friends to a wine-party. After a slight introduction a proposition was carried that all should speak in praise of Love. First a youth Phaedrus describes the antiquity of love and gives instances of the attachments between the s.e.xes. Pausanias draws the famous distinction between the Heavenly and the Vulgar Aphrodite; the true test of love is its permanence. A doctor, Eryximachus, raises the tone of the discussion still further. To him Love is the foundation of Medicine, Music, Astronomy and Augury. Aristophanes tells a fable of the s.e.xes in true comic style, making each of them run about seeking its other half.

Agathon colours his account with a touch of tragic diction. At last it is Socrates' turn. He tells what he heard from a priestess called Diotima. Love is the son of Fulness and Want; he is the intermediary between G.o.ds and men, is active, not pa.s.sive; he is desire for continuous possession of excellent things and for beautiful creation which means immortality, for all men desire perpetual fame which can come only through the science of the Beautiful. In contemplation and mystical union with the Divine the soul finds its true destiny, satisfying itself in perfect love.

At this moment Alcibiades arrives from another feast in a state of high intoxication. He gives a most marvellous account of Socrates' influence over him and likens him in a famous pa.s.sage to an ugly little statue which when opened is all gold within. At the end of the dialogue one of the company tells how Socrates compelled Aristophanes and Agathon to admit that it was one and the same man's business to understand and write both tragedy and comedy--a doctrine which has been practised only in modern drama.

In this dialogue we first seem to catch the voice of Plato himself as distinct from that of Socrates. The latter was undoubtedly most keenly interested in the more human process of questioning and refuting, his object being the workmanlike creation of exact definitions. But Plato was of a different mould; his was the soaring spirit which felt its true home to be the supra-sensible world of Divine Beauty, Immortality, Absolute Truth and Existence. Starting with the fleshly conception of Love natural to a young man, he leads us step by step towards the great conclusion that Love is nothing less than an identification of the self with the thing loved. No man can do his work if he is not interested in it; he will hate it as his taskmaster. But when an object of pursuit enthrals him it will intoxicate him, will not leave him at peace till he joins his very soul with it in union indissoluble. This direct communication of Mind with the object of worship is Mysticism. It is the very core of the highest form of religious life; it purifies, enn.o.bles, and above all it inspires. To the mystic the great prophet is the Athenian Plato, whose doctrine is that of the Christian "G.o.d is love"

converted into "Love is G.o.d". It is not entirely fanciful to suggest that Plato, in saying farewell to the definitely Socratic type of philosophy, gave his master as his parting gift the greatest of all tributes, a dialogue which is really the "praise of Socrates".

The intoxication of Plato's thought is evident in the _Phaedrus_. This splendid dialogue marks even more clearly the character of the new wine which was to be poured into the Socratic bottles. Phaedrus and Socrates recline in a spot of romantic beauty along the bank of the Ilissus.

Phaedrus reads a paradoxical speech supposed to be written by Lysias, the famous orator, on Love; Socrates replies in a speech quite as unreal, praising as Lysias did him who does not love. But soon he recants--his real creed being the opposite. Frenzy is his subject--the ecstasy of prophecy, mysticism, poetry and the soul. This last is like a charioteer driving a pair of horses, one white, the other black. It soars upwards to the region of pure beauty, wisdom and goodness; but sometimes the white horse, the spirited quality of human nature, is pulled down by the black, which is sensual desire, so that the charioteer, Reason, cannot get a full vision of the ideal world beyond all heavens. Those souls which have partially seen the truth but have been dragged down by the black steed become, according to the amount of Beauty they have seen, philosophers, kings, economists, gymnasts, mystics, poets, journeymen, sophists or tyrants. The vision once seen is never quite forgotten, for it can be recovered by reminiscence, so that by exercise each man can recall some of its glories.

The dialogue then pa.s.ses to a discussion of good and bad writing and speaking. The truth is the sole criterion of value, and this can be obtained only by definition; next there must be orderly arrangement, a beginning, a middle and an end. In rhetoric it is absolutely essential for a man to study human nature first; he cannot hope to persuade an audience if he is unaware of the laws of its psychology; not all speeches suit all audiences. Further, writing is inferior to speaking, for the written word is lifeless, the spoken is living and its author can be interrogated. It follows then that orators are of all men the most important because of the power they wield; they will be potent for destruction unless they love the truth and understand human nature; in short, they must be philosophers.

The like of this had nowhere been said before. It opened a new world to human speculation. First, the teaching about oratory is of the highest value. Plato's quarrel with the sophists was based on their total ignorance of the enormous power they exercised for evil, because they knew not what they were doing. They professed to teach men how to speak well, but had no conception of the science upon which the art of oratory rests. In short, they were sheer impostors. Even Aristotle had nothing to add to this doctrine in his treatise on _Rhetoric_, which contains a study of the effects which certain oratorical devices could be prophesied to produce, and provides the requisite scientific foundation.

Again, the indifference to or the ridicule of truth shown by some sophists made them odious to Plato. He would have none of their doctrines of relativity or flux. Nothing short of the Absolute would satisfy his soaring spirit. He was sick of the change in phenomena, the tangible and material objects of sense. He found permanence in a world of eternal ideas. These ideas are the essence of Platonism. They are his term for universal concepts, cla.s.ses; there are single tangible trees innumerable, but one Ideal Tree only in the Ideal world beyond the heavens. Nothing can possibly satisfy the soul but these unchanging and permanent concepts; it is among them that it finds its true home.

Lastly, the tripart.i.te division of the nature of the soul here first indicated is a permanent contribution to philosophy. Thus Plato's system is definitely launched in the _Phaedrus_. His subsequent dialogues show how he fitted out the hulk to sail on his voyages of discovery.

The _Meno_ is a rediscussion on Platonic principles of the problem of the _Protagoras_: can virtue be taught? Meno, a general in the army of the famous Ten Thousand, attempts a definition of virtue itself, the principle that underlies specific kinds of virtues such as justice.

After a cross-examination he confesses his helplessness in a famous simile: Socrates is like the torpedo-fish which benumbs all who touch it. Then the real business begins. How do we learn anything at all?

Socrates says by Reminiscence, for the soul lived once in the presence of the ideal world; when it enters the flesh it loses its knowledge, but gradually regains it. This theory he dramatically ill.u.s.trates by calling in a slave whom he proves by means of a diagram to know something of geometry, though he never learned it. Thus the great lesson of life is to practise the search for knowledge--and if virtue is knowledge it will be teachable.

But the puzzle is, who are the teachers? Not the sophists, a discredited cla.s.s, nor the statesmen, who cannot teach their sons to follow them. Virtue then, not being teachable, is probably not the result of knowledge, but is imparted to men by a Divine Dispensation, just as poetry is. But the origin of virtue will always be mysterious till its nature is discovered beyond doubt. So Plato once more declares his dissatisfaction with a Socratic tenet which identified virtue with knowledge.

The _Phaedo_ describes Socrates' discussion of the immortality of the soul on his last day on earth. Reminiscence of Ideas proves pre-existence, as in the _Meno_; the Ideas are similarly used to prove a continued existence after death, for the soul has in it an immortal principle which is the exact contrary of mortality; the Idea of Death cannot exist in a thing whose central Idea is life. Such in brief is Socrates' proof. To us it is singularly unconvincing, as it looks like a begging of the whole question. Yet Plato argues in his technical language as most men do concerning this all-important and difficult question. That which contains within itself the notion of immortality would seem to be too n.o.ble to have been created merely to die. The very presence of a desire to realise eternal truth is a strong presumption that there must be something to correspond with it. The most interesting portion of this well-known dialogue is that which teaches that life is really an exercise for death. All the base and low desires which haunt us should be gradually eliminated and replaced by a longing for better things. The true philosopher at any rate so trains himself that when his hour comes he greets death with a smile, the life on earth having lost its attractions.

Such is the connection between the _Meno_ and the _Phaedo_; the life that was before and the life that shall be hereafter depend upon the Ideal world. That salvation is in this life and in the practical sphere of human government is possible only through a knowledge of these Ideas is the doctrine of the immortal _Republic_. This great work in ten books is well known, but its unique value is not always recognised. It starts with a discussion of Justice. Thrasymachus, a brazen fellow like Callicles in the _Gorgias_, argues that Justice is the interest of the stronger and that law and morality are mere conventions. The implications of this doctrine are of supreme importance. If Justice is frank despotism, then the Eastern type of civilisation is the best, wherein custom has once for all fixed the right of the despot to grind down the population, while the sole duty of the latter is to pay taxes.

The moral reformation of law becomes impossible; no adjustment of an unchanging decree to the changing and advancing standard of public morality can be contemplated; const.i.tutional development, legal reformation and the great process by which Western peoples have tried gradually to make positive law correspond with Ethical ideals are mere dreams.

But the verbal refutation of Thrasymachus does not satisfy Glaucus and Adeimantus who are among Socrates' audience. In order to explain the real nature of Justice, Socrates is compelled to trace from the very beginning the process by which states have come into existence. Economic and military needs are thoroughly discussed. The State cannot continue unless there is created in it a cla.s.s whose sole business it is to govern. This cla.s.s is to be produced by communistic methods; the best men and women are to be tested and chosen as parents, their children being taken and carefully trained apart for their high office. This training will be administered to the three component parts of the soul, the rational, the spirited and the appet.i.tive, while the educational curriculum will be divided into two sections, Gymnastic for the body and Artistic for the mind--the latter including all scientific, mathematical and literary subjects. After a careful search, in this ideal state Justice, the principle of harmony which keeps all cla.s.ses of the community coherent, will show itself in "doing one's own business".

Yet even this method of describing Justice is not satisfactory to Plato, who was not content unless he started from the universal concepts of the Ideal world. The second portion of the dialogue describes how knowledge is gained. The mind discards the sensible and material world, advancing to the Ideas themselves. Yet even these are insufficient, for they all are interconnected and united to one great and architectonic Idea, that of the Good; to this the soul must advance before its knowledge can be called perfect. This is the scheme of education for the Guardians; the philosophic contemplation of Ideas, however, should be deferred till they are of mature age, for philosophy is dangerous in young men. Having performed their warlike functions of defending the State, the Guardians are to be sifted, those most capable of philosophic speculation being employed as instructors of the others. Seen from the height of the Ideal world, Justice again turns out to be the performance of one's own particular duties.

This ideal society Plato admits to be a difficult aim for our weak human nature; he stoutly maintains, however, that "a pattern of it is laid up in heaven", man's true home. He mournfully grants that a declension from excellence is often possible and describes how this rule of philosophers, if established, would be expected to pa.s.s through oligarchy to democracy, the worst form of all government, peopled by the democratic man whose soul is at war with itself because it claims to do as it likes. The whole dialogue ends in an admirable vision in which he teaches that man chose his lot on earth in a preexisting state.

Such is a fragmentary description of this masterpiece. What is it all about? First it is necessary to point out a serious misconception.

Plato is not here advocating universal communism; his state postulates a money-making cla.s.s and a labouring cla.s.s also. Apart from the fact that he explicitly mentions these and allows them private property, it would be difficult to imagine that they are not rendered necessary by his very description of Justice. Not all men are fit for government--and therefore those who are governed must "do their particular business" for which they are fitted; in some cases it is the rather mean business of piling up fortunes. Communism is advocated as the only means of creating first and then propagating the small Guardian caste. Nor again is the caste rigid, for some of the children born of communistic intercourse will be unfit for their position and will be degraded into the money-making or property owning section. Communism to Plato is a high creed, too high for everybody, fit only for the select and enlightened or teachable few.

Nor is the _Republic_ an instance of Utopian theorising. It is a criticism of contemporary Greek civilisation, intended to remove the greatest practical difficulty in life. Man has tried all kinds of governments and found none satisfactory. All have proved selfish and faithless, governing for their own interests only. Kings, oligarchs, democrats and mob-leaders have without exception regarded power as the object to be attained because of the spoils of office. Political leadership is thus a direct means of self-advancement, a temptation too strong for weak human nature. As a well-known Labour leader hinted, five thousand a year does not often come in men's way. There is only one way of securing honest government and that is Plato's. A definite cla.s.s must be created who will exercise political power only, economic inclinations of any sort disqualifying any of its members from taking office. The ruling cla.s.s should rule only, the money-making cla.s.s make money only.

In this way no single section will tax the rest to fill its own pockets.

The one requisite is that these Guardians should be recognised as the fittest to rule and receive the willing obedience of the rest. If any other sane plan is available for preserving the governed from the incessant and rapacious demands of tax-collectors, no record of it exists in literature. Practical statesmanship of a high and original order is manifest in the _Republic_; in England, where the official qualifications for governing are believed to be equally existent in everybody whether trained or untrained in the art of ruling, the _Republic_, if read at all, may be admired but is sure to be misunderstood.

It seems that Plato's teaching at the Academy raised formidable criticism. The next group of dialogues is marked by metaphysical teaching. The _Parmenides_ is a searching examination of the Ideas.

If these are in a world apart, they cannot easily be brought into connection with our world; a big thing on earth and the Idea of Big will need another Idea to comprehend both. Besides, Ideas in an independent existence will be beyond our ken and their study will be impossible.

Socrates' system betrays lack of metaphysical practice; at most the Ideas should have been regarded as part of a theory whose value should have been tested by results. This process is exemplified by a discussion of the fundamental opposition between the One and the infinite Many which are instances of it.

This criticism shows the advantage Plato enjoyed in making Socrates the mouthpiece of his own speculations; he could criticise himself as it were from without. He has put his finger on his own weak spot, the question whether the Ideas are immanent or transcendent. The results of this examination were adopted by the Aristotelian school, who suggested another theory of Knowledge.

The _Philebus_ discusses the question whether Pleasure or Knowledge is the chief good. A metaphysical argument which follows that of the _Parmenides_ ends in the characteristic Greek distinction between the Finite and the Infinite. Pleasure is infinite, because it can exist in greater or less degree; there is a mixed life compounded of finite and infinite and there is a creative faculty to which mind belongs. Pleasure is of two kinds; it is sometimes mixed with pain, sometimes it is pure; the latter type alone is worth cultivating and includes the pleasures of knowledge. Yet pleasure is not an end, but only a means to it. It cannot therefore be the Good, which is an end. Knowledge is at its best when it is dealing with the eternal and immutable, but even then it is not self-sufficient--it exists for the sake of something else, the good.

This latter is characterised by symmetry, proportion and truth.

Knowledge resembles it far more than even pure pleasure.