Plato (Collins)/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
PHILOSOPHERS AND SOPHISTS.
DIALOGUES: PARMENIDES―SOPHISTES―PROTAGORAS―GORGIAS―HIPPIAS―ECTHYDEMUS.
Not harsh and rugged, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute."―Milton.
"Philosophy," says Plato in his 'Theætetus,' "begins in wonder, for Iris is the child of Thaumas." It is the natural impulse of the savage, wherever he sees force and motion that he cannot explain, to invent a god; and so the first stage of Science is a sort of Fetishism, or worship of the powers of nature. The Greek, especially curious and inventive, carried this tendency to its furthest limits; and the result was an elaborate Mythology, in which every object and operation in the physical world was referred to a special god. Thus the thunder was caused by the wrath of Zeus; the earthquake was produced by Poseidōn; and the pestilence by the arrows of Apollo. Poets like Homer and Hesiod reduced these myths to a system, and perpetuated them in their verse; and so it may be said that Greek philosophy springs from poetry, for in this poetry are contained the germs of all subsequent thought. Homer, indeed, has been called "the Greek Bible;" and every Athenian gentleman is said to have known the Iliad and Odyssey by heart. Their morality, it is true, was of a rough and ready character, suited to the high spirit of heroic times, when war and piracy were the hero's proper profession; but there are everywhere traces of a strict code of honour and a keen sense of rights and duties. The oath and the marriage tie, the claims of age and weakness, the guest and the suppliant, are all respected; and though all stratagems are held to be fair in war, Achilles, the poet's model hero, tells us that his soul detests the liar "like the gates of hell."
Hesiod looks back with regret to the heroes of this golden time, long since departed to the islands of the blest. His own lot has fallen upon evil days; the earth has lost its bloom; the present race of men are sadly degenerate; and Shame and Retribution, the two last remaining virtues, have gone for ever.
Simonides and Theognis complete this gloomy picture; they and the other "Gnomic" poets, fragments of whose writings have come down to us, preach for the most part a prudential morality, unlike the chivalrous naïveté of Homer, and expressed in mournful sentences which read like verses from Ecclesiastes. The uncertainty of fortune, the inconstancy of friends, the miseries of poverty and sickness—these are the phases of life which strike them most.
Then come the "Seven Wise Men," of whom Solon was one, who stand on the border-land of romance and history, like the Seven Champions of Christendom. We know little of them beyond those aphorisms ascribed to each of them, and said to have been engraven in gold on the gates of Delphi, which became as household words in Greece, and some of which have found their way into modern proverbs—"The golden mean," "Know thyself," "Virtue is difficult," "Call no man happy till he dies." Another of the seven was Thales—half star-gazer, half man of business—honoured by Aristotle with the title of "the first philosopher." He and those who followed him tried to discover some one element or first principle underlying the incessant change and motion which they saw in the world around them. Thales believed this principle to be Water—improving on the old myth of Oceanus, the eternal river that girds the universe. Anaximander thought the universe originally was a bath of flames, or a ring of fire broken up into sun, moon, and stars, while the earth remained balanced like a column in the centre. Anaximenes, again, said that "Air ruled over all things; and the Soul, being Air, ruled in man." Thus these three Ionian philosophers took each some one element as the symbol of an abstract idea.
Then came Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed the Obscure,—"shooting," says Plato, "as from a quiver, sayings brief and dark." He is oppressed with the sense of the perpetual change in nature. Nothing is at rest, all is in continual movement and progression. Life and time are like a stream flowing on for ever, in which thoughts and actions appear for a moment and then vanish. Pythagoras, again, maintained that Number was the sacred and unchangeable principle by which the universe was regulated; and there was a "music of the spheres;" and that the soul itself was a harmony imprisoned in the body: while his contemporary Democritus, "the first materialist," held that by some law of necessity countless atoms had moved together in the void of space, and so produced a world.
Lastly, the Eleatics took higher ground, and conceived the idea of one eternal and absolute Being which alone exists, while non-existence is inconceivable. Plurality and change, space and time, are merely illusions of the senses. This doctrine is set forth at some length by Parmenides, the founder of this school of thought, in an epic poem, in which he has been commissioned, he says, by the goddess of wisdom, "to show unto men the unchangeable heart of truth." Plato, who always speaks of him with respect—"more honoured than all the rest of philosophers put together"—has given his name to one of his Dialogues, in which he introduces him as visiting Athens in his old age, in company with Zeno, his friend and pupil, and there discussing his theories with Socrates, then a young man of twenty.
The Dialogue turns upon the difficulties involved in the famous Eleatic saying, that "the All is one, and the many are nought;" but, by an easy transition, the argument in the first part of the Dialogue discusses the doctrine of Ideas—the key-stone of Plato's philosophy. This doctrine seems to have grown upon him, and engrossed his mind; and his poetic feeling is continually suggesting additions and embellishments to it, just as an artist adds fresh touches to a favourite picture. He admits, with Heraclitus, that all objects of sense are fleeting and changeable; and he admits with the Eleaties that Being alone can really be said to exist; but he blends these two theories together. Everything that we can name or see has its eternal Idea or prototype; and this particular flower, with its sensible bloom and fragrance, is merely the transitory image or expression of the universal Flower that never fades. And thus, far removed from this material world of birth and death, change and decay, Plato conceived another world of pure and perfect forms, imperceptible by Earthly senses and perceived by the eye of reason alone, each form in itself separate, unchangeable, and everlasting, and each answering to some visible object to which it impacts a share of its own divine essence, as the sun gives light to nature.
But (objects Parmenides in this Dialogue), how can you bridge over the gulf which separates the sensible from the Ideal world? How do these earthly imitations of the Ideas partake of the essence of their divine prototypes? And how far can you carry your theory? Have the meanest as well as the noblest objects—hair and mud, for instance, as well as beauty and truth—their ideal Forms? Again, there may be Ideas of Ideas, and so you may go on generalising to infinity. Lastly, they cannot be only conceptions of the mind; while, if they are types in nature and have a real existence, we cannot know them; for all human knowledge is relative, and to comprehend these eternal and absolute Ideas, we should require an Ideal and absolute knowledge, such as the gods alone can possess. Of ourselves, therefore, we cannot know these Ideas; and yet, unless we admit that absolute and abstract Ideas exist, all discussion—nay, all philosophy—is at an end.
These objections, so skilfully put by Parmenides, are not answered by Plato in this, or indeed in any other Dialogue; and he thus makes out a strong case against his own favourite theory. Socrates himself is lectured by Parmenides on his defective mental training. His enthusiasm (says the old philosopher), which makes him "keen as a Spartan hound" in the quest of truth, is a noble impulse in itself; but it will be useless unless he, so to speak, reads his adversary's brief, and studies a question in all its bearings, tracing all the consequences which may follow from the assumption or denial of some hypothesis. Above all, Socrates should cultivate "Dialectic,"[1] which alone can enable him to separate the ideal from the sensible, and is an indispensable exercise, although most people regard it as mere idle talking.
Parmenides is then prevailed upon himself to give an example of this "laborious pastime;" though, as he says, he shakes with fear at the thought of his self-imposed task, "like an old race-horse before running the course he knows so well." He selects for examination his own Eleatic theory, and traces the consequences which follow from the contradictory assumptions that "One is," and "One is not." We need not follow him through the mazes of this chain of arguments, which result after all in two contradictory conclusions. It is doubtful if Plato had any other object in this "legerdemain of words" than to stimulate the curiosity of a youthful inquirer like Socrates with a series of arguments as puzzling and equivocal as the riddle in his "Republic," to which Mr Grote compares them: "A man and no man, seeing and not seeing, a bird and no bird, sitting upon wood and no wood, struck and did not strike it with a stone and no stone." The only difference is, that in one case the author knew the solution of his riddle; while it may be doubted if Plato himself held the key to the enigmas in his "Parmenides."
In this Dialogue we are introduced also to Zeno—"Parmenides' second self"—the able exponent of the art of Dialectic, and a type of a new stage of Greek thought which had just commenced with the Sophists. The appearance of these professors at Athens was a sign of the times. Hitherto, as we have seen, philosophy had resulted in rough abstractions from Nature or in a vague Idealism; but now thought was directed to the practical requirements of life, and the Sophists supplied a recognised want in the education of the age. They were the professors of universal knowledge; and, above all, they taught Rhetoric—in the view of an Athenian the most important of all branches of learning. To speak with a fluency and dignity was not so much an accomplishment as a necessary safeguard at Athens, where "Informers" abounded, where litigation was incessant, and where a citizen was liable to be called upon to defend his life and property any day in one of the numerous law-courts. Again, eloquence, far more than with us, was a source of success and popularity in public life; and as a French soldier was said to carry a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, so every citizen who had the natural or acquired gift of eloquence might aspire to rise from the ranks, and become president of Athens. Provided that he had a ready and plausible tongue, neither his poverty nor mean descent need stand in his way; for the foremost place in Athens had been occupied in succession by a tanner and a lamp-seller. The small number of citizens, as compared with slaves, made political power more accessible than in our over-grown democracies; and every citizen was forced to become part and parcel of the state in which he lived. Moreover, the Greek Assembly was more easily moved by an appeal to their feelings or imagination, especially on an occasion of strong public interest, than a modern House of Commons, Sometimes their enthusiasm broke through all bounds, and Plato’s description of the effect produced by a popular orator is probably not exaggerated.
All motives, therefore—policy, ambition, self-defence—combined to induce the Athenian to learn the art of speaking, and there was an increasing demand for teachers. The Sophists undertook to qualify the young aspirant for political distinction; to teach him to think, speak, and act like a citizen, to convince or cajole the Assembly, to hold his own in the law-court, and generally to give him the power of making "the worse seem the better reason." Their lecture-rooms were crowded; they were idolised by the rising generation; and they not uncommonly made large fortunes, charging often as much as fifty drachmas (about two guineas) a lesson; for few of them would have the magnanimity of Protagoras, who left it to the conscience of his pupils to name their own fees.
The Sophists were the sceptics and rationalists of their times, and they headed the reaction against the dogmatism of previous philosophy. According to them, there was no fixed standard of morality; real knowledge was impossible; tradition was false; religion was the invention of lying prophets; law and justice were devices of the strong to ensnare the weak; pleasure and pain were the only criteria of right and wrong; each man should use his private judgment in all matters, and do that which seemed good in his own eyes.
We can hardly estimate the mingled feelings of fear and dislike with which an average Athenian citizen would regard the influence undoubtedly possessed by this class. Patriotism and religious prejudice would intensify the hatred against these foreign sceptics; and added to this would be the popular antipathy which has in all times shown itself against scheming lawyers and ambitious churchmen—
"Chicane in furs, and casuistry in lawn."
For, inasmuch as philosophy was closely blended with their religion, the Sophist would seem to practise a sort of intellectual simony; tampering with and selling at a high price the divinest mysteries; holding the keys of knowledge themselves, but refusing to impart, except to such as came with full purses, those truths which were to the Greek as the very bread of life.
Doubtless Plato had sufficient reason to justify the repulsive picture which he has drawn of the Sophist in several of his Dialogues, as "the charlatan, the foreigner, the prince of esprits faux, the hireling who is not a teacher; . . . the 'evil one,' the ideal representative of all that Plato most disliked in the moral and intellectual tendencies of his own age, the adversary of the almost equally ideal Socrates."[2]
In the Dialogue called The Sophist, an attempt is made to define, by a regular logical process called "dichotomy," the real nature of this many-sided creature; no easy task, says Plato, "for the animal is troublesome, and hard to catch." He has a variety of characters. Firstly, he is a sort of hunter, and his art is like the angler's, with the difference that he is a fisher of men, and baits his hook with pleasure, "haunting the rich meadow-lands of generous youth." Secondly, he is like a retail trader, but his merchandise is a spurious knowledge which he buys from others or fabricates for himself as he wanders from city to city. Thirdly, he is a warrior, but his tongue is his sword with which he is eternally wrangling about right and wrong for money. Fourthly, since education purifies the soul by casting out ignorance or the false conceit of knowledge, men would have you believe that the Sophist does this; though, as a matter of fact, he is about as like the real "purger of souls" as a wolf is like a dog. Lastly, this creature aspires to universal knowledge, and will argue—ay, and teach others to argue—about any object in creation; and, like a clever painter, he will impose upon you the appearance for the reality, and thus he steals away the hearts of our young men, deceiving their ears and deluding their senses, while he disguises his own ignorance under a cloud of words. In fact, he is a mere imitator—and an imitator of appearance, not of reality.
"But how" (an objector replies) "can a man be said to affirm or imitate that which is only appearance, and has no real existence?" This quibble is followed by a perplexing discussion on "Not-Being"—the stumbling-block of Eleatic philosophers. To us nothing can be simpler than the distinction between "this is not," i.e, does not exist—and "this is not," i.e., is not true; but so oppressed was the Eleatic with the sense of "Being" as alone having existence, that he held that no reality could be attached to non-being; and therefore falsehood, which was merely the expression of non-being, was impossible. Nothing would be gained by following out the threads of this difficult argument; and we may dismiss the Eleatic theory with the consolation that, as Professor Jowett says, Plato has effectually "laid its ghost"—we will hope, for ever.
PROTAGORAS.
The opening of this Dialogue is highly dramatic. Socrates is awakened before daylight by the young Hippocrates, who is all on fire to see and hear this Protagoras, who has just come to Athens. Socrates calms his excitement, and advises him to be sure, before he pays his money to the great Sophist, that he will get his money's worth; for it is a rash thing to commit his soul to the instruction of a foreigner, before he knows his real character, or whether his doctrines are for good or for evil. "O my friend!" he says, earnestly, "pause a moment before you hazard your dearest interests on a game of chance; for you cannot buy knowledge and carry it away in an earthly vessel: in your own soul you must receive it, to be a blessing or acurse."
Talking thus gravely on the way, they arrive at the house of Callias, who had spent more money on the Sophists—so Plato tells us—than any other Athenian of his times. The doorkeeper is surly, and at first refuses to admit them, thinking that his master has had enough of the Sophists and their friends already. But at last they enter, and find a large company already assembled within. Protagoras himself is walking up and down the colonnade, declaiming to a troop of youths who had followed him from all parts of Greece, attracted by the music of his words, "as though he were a second Orpheus." Hippias, another Sophist, whom we shall meet again, is lecturing on astronomy to a select audience in the opposite portico; while the deep voice of Prodicus, a younger professor, is heard from an adjoining room, where he lies still warmly wrapped up in bed, and conversing from it to another circle of listeners.
Socrates at once steps up to Protagoras, and tells him the purpose for which they have sought him; and the great man makes a gracious answer. "Yes—Hippocrates has done right to come to him, for he is not as other Sophists. He will not treat him like a schoolboy, and weary him with astronomy and music. No; he will teach him nobler and more useful lessons than these: prudence, that he may order his own house well; and political wisdom, that he may prove himself a good citizen and a wise statesman."
"But," asks Socrates, half incredulously, "can such wisdom and virtue as this be really taught at all? If it were so, would not our statesmen have taught their own children the art by which they became great themselves, and the mantle of Pericles have descended in a measure upon his sons?"
To this Protagoras replies by a parable. Man was overlooked in the original distribution of gifts by Epimetheus among mortal creatures, and was left the only bare and defenceless animal in creation; and though Prometheus strove to remedy his brother's oversight as far as he could, by giving him fire and other means of life, still there was no principle of government, and man kept slaying and plundering his brother man; till at last Jove took pity on him, and sent Hermes to distribute justice and friendship, not to a favoured few, but to all alike. "For," said Jove, "cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts; and further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death as a plague to the state." The very fact that evil-doers are punished, not in retaliation for past wrong, but to prevent future wrong, is a proof that certain virtues can be acquired "from study, and exercise, and teaching." In fact, a man's education begins in his cradle. From childhood he is placed under tutors and governors, and stimulated to virtue by admonitions, by threats, or blows. When he arrives at man's estate, the law takes the place of his masters, and compels him to live uprightly. He who rebels against instruction or punishment is either exiled or condemned to death, under the idea that he is incurable. "Who teaches virtue, say you? (Protagoras continues); you might as well ask who teaches Greek. The fact is, all men are its teachers,—parents, guardians, tutors, the laws, society—each and all do their part in forming a man's character."
Socrates professes himself charmed with the eloquence of Protagoras; but there is one little question further upon which he would like to have his opinion. "Is there one virtue, or are there many?" Protagoras, who at first argues that the virtues are separate—like the different features of a man's face—is forced much against his will to admit that holiness is much the same as justice,—and so on with the several others.
Then a line from the poet Simonides is discussed—"It is hard to be good;" and Protagoras, who had been hitherto the chief speaker, is himself put to the question by Socrates, with a reminder that short answers are best for short memories—like his own. This discussion is simply a satire on the verbal criticism so common in that age, and reduced to a science by the Sophists; when men in the very exuberance of thought, like the Euphuists in the Elizabethan age, fenced with sharp sayings—taking, as here, some well-known text from a poet, illustrating its meaning, and using it to point a moral, like a preacher in a modern pulpit.
But this criticism is admitted by both sides to be a somewhat commonplace amusement. To quote from the poets, says Socrates, with some sarcasm, especially when they are not present to tell us what they really meant, is a mere waste of time; it is like listening to a flute-girl after dinner, and betrays a dearth of invention on the part of the company. So the original argument on the plurality of Virtue is resumed; and it is proved, to the satisfaction at least of one disputant, that knowledge is not only a power in itself, but is also the main element in every virtue; and that even if pleasure were the rule of life—which it is not—still knowledge would be required to strike the balance between pleasure and pain.
GORGIAS.
Among the professors of the day none was more distinguished than Gorgias of Leontini, who came as an ambassador to Athens to obtain her aid against Syracuse before the great Sicilian war. His doctrines resulted in utter Nihilism. Nothing (he said) exists; if anything existed, it could not be known; and, even if it could be known, such knowledge could not be imparted. In this Dialogue he is the guest of Callicles, an accomplished Athenian gentleman; and he is pressed by Socrates to give an account of himself and his art. Rhetoric, replies Gorgias, is his art, and it is used by him and by others for the best of purposes—namely, to give political freedom to all men, and political power to a few. Of course, like other arts, it is capable of abuse; but it is not the teacher's fault if his pupils, like a boxer in the mere wantonness of strength, use their weapons injuriously or unfairly.
Socrates (who seems to consider Sophistry quite fair in war against a Sophist) uses a fallacy as gross as any of those which he himself exposes in the "Euthydemus," and makes Gorgias contradict his previous assertion. The Rhetorician is asserted to have learned justice from his teacher—granted; he is therefore, ipso facto, a just man, and his art is equally just. How, then, can he act injuriously?
Polus—a young pupil of Gorgias—who is sitting near, is indignant at what he rightly thinks an intentional misuse of words, and plunges into the discussion with all the impetuosity of youth. Socrates, he says, has no right to force such a plain contradiction in terms upon Gorgias—nay, it is positive ill-breeding in him to do so.
"Most excellent Polus," says Socrates, in his politest manner, "the chief object of our providing for ourselves friends and children is that when we grow old and begin to fail, a younger generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and actions; so now, if I and Gorgias are failing, we have you here, ready to be help to us, as you ought to be; and I, for my part, promise to retract any mistake which you may think I have made—on one condition."
And this condition is that his answers must be brief. True, it is hard that Polus should be deprived of his freedom of speech, especially in Athens; but it is harder still, says Socrates, for his hearers, to have to listen to long-winded arguments.
Then Socrates gives his views on Rhetoric, which was the question they had started with. It is not, strictly speaking, an art at all, but, like cookery or music, is a mere routine for gratifying the senses, being, in fact, a part of flattery, and the shadow of a part of politics, and bearing the same relation to justice that Sophistry bears to legislation.[3]
In the course of his argument with Polus, Socrates makes two statements which sound to his audience like the wildest paradoxes—truisms as they may appear from a Christian point of view. It is better (he says) to suffer than to do a wrong; and the evil-doer, though possessed of infinite wealth and power, must inevitably be miserable. Though all the world should be against him, he will maintain this to be the truth—yes, and he will go a step further. The evil-doer who escapes the law, and lives on in his wickedness, is a more miserable man than he who suffers the reward of his crimes; and though the tyrant or murderer may avoid his earthly judge, as a sick child avoids the doctor, still he carries about with him an incurable cancer in his soul. For his own part, Socrates would heap coals of fire upon the head of his enemy by letting him escape punishment. "If he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep it, and spend it on him and his, regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness."
Callicles—the shrewd man of the world—is amazed to hear such doctrines, which, if put into practice, would, he thinks, turn society upside down. "Is your master really in earnest, or is he joking?" he asks Chærephon.
"He speaks in profound earnest," is the reply.
"Yes," says Socrates; "and my words are but the echo of the voice of truth speaking within my breast."
But Callicles is not to be imposed upon by such "brave words." Gorgias was too modest, and Polus too clumsy an opponent to point out an obvious fallacy. Socrates has been playing fast and loose with the words Custom and Nature, and has confounded two distinct things. To suffer wrong is better than to do wrong by Custom, but not by Nature. Conventional Justice is the refuge of the coward and the slave, and was invented by the weak in self-defence. Naturally, Might is Right—
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."
Socrates is surely-not too old to learn a little common-sense. Philosophy, as a part of education, is a good thing, no doubt, to start with. But if a man carries it with him into later life, he becomes a useless and ridiculous member of society, at the mercy of any chance accuser; hiding in holes and corners, and whispering to a few chosen youths, instead of standing forth boldly before the world, and making his mark in life.
Socrates compliments Callicles on a frankness so rarely met with, but presses him as to the exact sense of natural justice"—i.e., the will of the stronger. By "stronger" Callicles explains that he means the wise and stout-hearted politician, who has the ambition and spirit and desires of a king; and who, moreover, will not scruple to gratify them to the full. "Yes," says Callicles, emphatically, "luxury, intemperance, and licence, if they are duly supported, are happiness and virtue—all the rest is a mere bauble, custom contrary to nature, and nothing worth."
Socrates, in his own fashion, disproves these monstrous doctrines, and forces Callicles, though much against his will, to admit that pleasure and virtue are not always identical; that really Virtue is, or should be, the end of all our actions; that in the long-run the just and temperate man alone is happy; and that he who leads a robber's life is abhorred by gods and men while upon earth, and goes down to Hades with his soul branded with the sears of his crimes. There must come a day of judgment and retribution, when each man shall receive the just reward of his deeds.
Now I (concludes Socrates) am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the Judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when the time comes, to die. And to the utmost of my power, I exhort all men to do the same. And in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.—J.
But in spite of his triumphant defence of Virtue, there is a bitter tone of isolation and loneliness in the last part of this Dialogue. "I, and I only, am left," Socrates seems to say—like Elijah upon Carmel—among ten thousand who know not the truth. My own generation will not hear me or believe me; they will not even understand me; and in the end I shall probably be accused—as a physician might be arraigned by a pastry-cook before a jury of children; and as I cannot refer to any pleasures which I have provided for the people, but can only appeal to my own blameless life, any one may foresee the verdict. "Not that I fear death"—he says, with a noble scorn—only the coward and the profligate need fear that. There is something nobler than mere ease and personal safety. "He who is truly a man, ought not to care much how long he lives; he knows, as women say, that none can escape the day of destiny, and therefore is not too fond of life; all that he leaves to heaven, and thinks how he may best spend such term as is allotted him."
THE "GREATER" AND "LESSER" HIPPIAN.
Two short Dialogues ascribed to Plato on doubtful grounds have come down to us bearing the name of Hippias, who is the representative of the younger generation of Sophists, clever and accomplished, but, as we shall see, intolerably vain of his personal merits.
"How is it," asks Socrates on meeting him, "that the wise and handsome Hippias has been so long away from Athens?"
"Public business has taken up all my time," Hippias replies; "for I am always singled out by my countrymen of Elis on any important occasion, as being the only man who can properly represent their city, and I have just been on an embassy to Sparta."
"Lucky fellow!" says Socrates, "to combine such dignity and usefulness, and to get large sums from the youth in return for that knowledge which is more precious than any gold. But how was it that the wise men of old took no practical part in politics?"
"Because they had not the ability to combine public and private business, as we do now."
"Ah, well," says Socrates, "I suppose wisdom has progressed, like everything else. Gorgias and Prodicus have, I know, made immense sums from their pupils; but those old sages were too simple-minded to ask for payment, or make an exhibition of their knowledge. Nowadays, he is wisest who makes most money."
"You would be astonished," says Hippias, "if you knew what a fortune I have made. I got a hundred and fifty minæ in Sicily alone, though Protagoras was there at the same time."
"And where did you make most?" asks Socrates. "I suppose at Sparta, for you have been there oftenest."
"No," says Hippias; "not a penny could I get from the Spartans, though they have plenty of money. Indeed they care little for Astronomy or Music, or any new sciences; and as for Mathematics, they can hardly count. The only thing they cared about was Archæology—the genealogies of their gods and heroes, and so forth; and they were also greatly pleased with a lecture I gave in the form of advice from Nestor to Neoptolemus on the choice of a profession."
"By the way," says Socrates, suddenly, "there is one question which I want answered, and I have been waiting till I could find one of you wise men to tell me—What is the Beautiful?"
Hippias at first answers that a fair maiden is a beautiful thing; but Socrates shows that this is merely a relative term, and that compared with a goddess she would be ugly, just as the wisest man is an ape compared with a god. There must be some form or Essence which makes a maiden or a lyre beautiful. It is not "gold" (as Hippias foolishly suggests), for then Phidias would have made Athenè's face of gold instead of ivory: nor is it "the suitable," for that only causes things in their right place to appear beautiful, and does not really make them so. Nor, again, does the glowing description of a prosperous life according to Greek ideas, which is the next definition volunteered, satisfy Socrates.
"It is a beautiful thing, when a man has lived in health, wealth, and honour, to reach old age, and having buried his parents handsomely, to be buried splendidly by his descendants."[4]
Such vague language tells us nothing. Again, Beauty is not "the useful," nor is it even "power for the production of good," for this would make goodness distinct from beauty. And lastly, Beauty is not simply "that which pleases our sight and hearing." And then by an argument—more subtle than the occasion seems to require—Socrates shows that the pleasures from the other senses should not be excluded.
Finally, the question is left unanswered, and Hippias expresses his dissatisfaction at these "shreds and parings of argument." A man (he thinks) should take a larger view of debate, and learn to make a telling speech in court, instead of wasting time on this minute criticism, which profits him nothing.
No doubt, Socrates replies, his own doubts and difficulties, which some strange power compels him to make known, seem small and valueless to a wise man like Hippias. It has always been his unhappy destiny to seek and inquire, and be reviled by the world for doing so; but this discipline must be endured, if the result is his own improvement. In any case, this discussion has had one advantage, for it has taught him the truth of the old proverb, that "What is beautiful is difficult."
In the Dialogue known as the "Lesser" Hippias, we again meet that philosopher, who has just delivered a lecture on Homer at Athens, and who boasts that he can talk on all subjects and answer all questions that may be asked; in fact, he is a professor of every science. Upon this, Socrates reminds him that on his last appearance at Olympia he had worn a tunic and embroidered girdle which he had woven himself, and a ring which he had engraved with his own hand; and had brought with him a quantity of his own writings in verse and prose, and, more wonderful than all, an Art of Memory, which he had himself invented.
The question on which Socrates wishes now to be enlightened by Hippias is the characters of the two heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey. Hippias maintains that Achilles is nobler than Ulysses, as being straightforward, and not mendacious. But Socrates objects to this; the mendacious man is capable, intelligent, and wise: if a man cannot tell a lie on occasion, he shows his ignorance. Those who do wrong wilfully are better than those who do wrong through ignorance or against their will—just as to be wilfully ungraceful is better than to be really awkward; and as a good runner can run fast or slow, and a good archer hit or miss the mark when he chooses.
Again, Socrates continues, if justice is a mental capacity, the more capable mind is the more just; and such a mind, being competent to exercise itself in good or evil, will, if it does evil, do it willingly; and therefore the wilful wrong-doer is the good man.
And with this gross paradox—established by arguments as sophistical as any which Socrates has elsewhere exposed—the Dialogue ends. He confesses himself to be puzzled and bewildered by the conclusion at which they have arrived; but (he adds) it is no great wonder that a plain simple man like himself should be puzzled, if the great and wise Hippias is puzzled as well.
EUTHYDEMUS.
Nowhere is Plato's humour more sustained than in this Dialogue, portions of which seem to have been written in a spirit of broad farce. The arrogance and self-conceit of the two principal personages, the mock humility of Socrates and the impatience of Ctesippus, form a contrast of character as amusing as a scene in a clever comedy.
Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are introduced as two brothers, possessed, by their own account, of universal genius—able to use their swords and fight in armour—masters, also, of legal fence, and professors of "wrangling" generally—able and willing, moreover, to give lessons in speaking, pleading, and writing speeches. But all these accomplishments are now, as they frankly tell Socrates, matters of merely secondary consideration.
"Indeed," I said, "if such occupations are regarded by you as secondary, what must the principal one be? Tell me, I beseech you, what that noble study is."
"The teaching of virtue, Socrates," he replied, "is our principal occupation; and we believe that we can impart it better and quicker than any man."
"My God!" I said, "and where did you learn that? I always thought, as I was saying just now, that your chief accomplishment was the art of fighting in armour; and this was what I used to say of you, for I remember that this was professed by you when you were here before. But now, if you really have the other knowledge, O forgive me: I address you as I would superior beings, and ask you to pardon the impiety of my former expressions. But are you quite sure about this, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus? the promise is so vast, that a feeling of incredulity will creep in.
"You may take our word, Socrates, for the fact."
"Then I think you happier in having such a treasure than the great king is in the possession of his kingdom. And please to tell me whether you intend to exhibit this wisdom, or what you will do."
"That is why we are come hither, Socrates; and our purpose is not only to exhibit, but also to teach any one who likes to learn."—J.
A circle is formed, and young Cleinias, a grandson of Alcibiades, is selected as the victim to be improved by their logic, and is questioned accordingly as to his ideas of knowledge and ignorance. The poor youth is puzzled and confounded by their ingenious questioning and contradicts himself almost immediately; but Socrates good-naturedly reassures him by telling him that his tormentors are not really in earnest, and that their jests are merely a sort of prelude to graver mysteries to which he will be presently admitted, as soon as he has learnt the correct use of terms. Then Socrates, with the gracious permission of the two Sophists, gives an example of his own method, and by a series of easy questions elicits from Cleinias the admission that wisdom is the only good, that ignorance is evil, and that to become wise is at present his heart's desire.
Then Euthydemus begins again. "So you want Cleinias to become wise, and he is not wise yet?" Socrates admits this. "Then you want the boy to be no longer what he is—that is, you want him to be done away with? A nice set of friends you must all be!"
Socrates is amazed at this retort; and Ctesippus, who is a warm friend of Cleinias, is most indignant, and calls the Sophists a pair of liars in plain language. To this Euthydemus replies that there is no such thing as a lie, and that contradiction is impossible. The dispute is growing warm, when Socrates interposes. There is no use, he says, in quarrelling about words; if by "doing away with him" the strangers mean that they will make a new man out of Cleinias, by all means let them destroy the youth, and make him wise, and all of us with him.
But if you young men do not like to trust yourselves with them, then, fiat experimentum in corpore senis; here I offer my old person to Dionysodorus: he may put me into the pot, like Medea the Colchian, kill me, pickle me, eat me, if he will only make me good, Ctesippus said: "And I, Socrates, am ready to commit myself to the strangers; they may skin me alive, if they please (and I am pretty well skinned by them already), if only my skin is made at last, not like that of Marsyas, into a leathern bottle, but into a piece of virtue. And here is Dionysodorus fancying that I am angry with him, when I am really not angry at all. I do but contradict him when be seems to me to be in the wrong; and you must not confound abuse and contradiction, O illustrious Dionysodorus; for they are quite different things."
"Contradiction!" said Dionysodorus; "why, there never was such a thing."—J.
And then he proves in his own fashion that falsehood has no existence, and that a man must either say what is true or say nothing at all.
One absurd paradox follows another; and the two brothers venture on the most extravagant assertions. According to them, neither error nor ignorance are possible; and they themselves have known all things from their birth—dancing, carpentering, cobbling—nay, the very number of the stars and sands; till even Socrates loses patience, and Ctesippus cannot disguise his disgust at their effrontery.
Several passages of arms take place, of which the following may serve as an instance:—
"You say," asks Euthydemus of Ctesippus, "that you have a dog?"
"Yes, a villain of a one," said Ctesippus.
"And he has puppies?"
"Yes, and they are very like himself."
"And the dog is the father of them?"
"Yes," he said, "certainly."
"And is he not yours?"
"To be sure he is."
"Then he is a father, and he is yours; ergo, he is your father, and the puppies are your brothers."
"Let me ask you one little question more," said Dionysodorus, quickly interposing, in order that Ctesippus might not get in his word—"you beat this dog?"
Ctesippus said, laughing, "Indeed I do; and I only wish that I could beat you instead of him."
"Then you beat your father," he said.
I should have had more reason to beat yours, said Ctesippus; "what could he have been thinking of when he begat such wise sons? Much good has this father of you and other curs got out of your wisdom."—J.
More arguments are advanced, in which the perversion of words is no less gross and palpable than in the passage above quoted—even to the most illogical mind. The fallacies, indeed, are generally so transparent as hardly to require serious refutation. The bystanders, however, are represented as being marvellously pleased at the remarkable wit and ingenuity of the two brethren; and Socrates professes to be overcome by this display of their powers of reasoning. He makes them a speech in which he gravely compliments them on their magnanimous disregard of all opinions besides their own, and their "kind and public-spirited denial of all differences, whether of white or black, good or evil."
"But what appears to me to be more than all is, that this art and invention of yours is so admirably contrived that in a very short time it can be imparted to any one. I observe that Ctesippus learned to imitate you in no time. Now this quickness of attainment is an excellent thing; but at the same time I would advise you not to have any more public entertainments—there is a danger that men may undervalue an art which they have so easy an opportunity of learning: the exhibition would be best of all, if the discussion were confined to your two selves; but if there must be an audience, let him only be present who is willing to pay a handsome fee;—you should be careful of this—and if you are wise, you will also bid your disciples discourse with no man but you and themselves. For only what is rare is valuable; and water, which, as Pindar says, is the best of all things, is also the cheapest. And now I have only to request that you will receive Cloinias and me among your pupils."—J.
- ↑ The process by which the definitions of Logic are attained.
- ↑ Jowett's Plato, iii. 448.
- ↑ The following table exhibits the respective places which Socrates considers Rhetoric and Sophistry to hold in the education of his day:—
Training. Real. Sham. Of Body Gymnastics, with its sham counterpart, Cosmetics. Medicine, with” sham” counterpart,” Cookery. Of Mind Law-making, with” sham” counterpart,” Sophistry. Judging, with” sham” counterpart,” Rhetoric. - ↑ Whewell's Platonic Dialogues, ii. 101.
