Socrates - The Man and His Mission

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SOCRATES
THE MAN AND HIS MISSION
SOCRATES
BY
R. NICOL GROSS, M.A.
METHUEN & CO. LTD.

ESSEX STREET W.C,
LONDON
First Published in 1914
, TO
MY MOTHER
PREFACE
present study of Socrates and his mission
has been done in the leisure gathered from other
THE avocations, and was undertaken as the result of
a profound personal reverence for Athens' saint and
sage. It records the impression made on the writer
by the ancient authorities. It has not been written

for experts and scholars, but in order to tempt the
average Englishman of culture to hold
company for
a little while with one of earth's most elect spirits
and leaders. Accordingly discussion of disputed
matters has been reduced to a minimum, though it
could not be quite eliminated. The class of readers
for whom the book is intended will also account for
the introduction of material connected with life and
ideas contemporary with Socrates, superfluous for the
Greek student, but, one hopes, not uninteresting to
the general reader, nor without relevance and use in
giving him the needed background of light and shade
in order to a just appreciation of the man's character
and work. I only hope it will be the means of sending
some to more authoritative and better sources, for to
know Socrates is to love him and to reverence human
nature. I have been helped by the various modern
authorities to whom references are given, and have to
thank Professors Phillimore and Latta of Glasgow
University for initial guidance to the literature, and
viii SOCRATES
also Professor Taylor of St. Andrews for discussing
one or two points with me. I am also obliged to
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and to the Clarendon Press,
Oxford, for permission to quote from Dakyns' trans-
ation of Xenophon, and Jowett's translation of Plato,
respectively.
R. N. C.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACK
I. INTRODUCTORY i
II. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION, YOUTH

(a) THE AUTHORITIES
(b) PARENTAGE AND HOME

....
...
. .
5
5
9
SCHOOL LIFE .14
(c)
(d) ADVANCED EDUCATION

. .
...
. .
17
III. THE MAN 36

(a) His APPEARANCE 36
His CHARACTER
(b)
(c) SOCRATES AND ASCETICISM ... 41

49
IV. DOMESTIC LIFE 59

(a) THE ATHENIAN HOME AND LIVING His :
POVERTY 59
(b) THE ATHENIAN WIFE XANTHIPPE : .
69
(c) ATHENIAN MARRIAGE XANTHIPPE : .
71
(d) POSITION OF WOMAN XANTHIPPE
(e) His VIEW OF THE FAMILY
:
... .
73
80
V. PUBLIC LIFE
(a)
(b)
SOCRATES AS FRIEND
SOCRATES AS CITIZEN
....
....
82
82
102
(c) His MISSION no
VI. His TEACHING : ON WORK .... 142
VII. TREATMENT OF ENEMIES .

150
VIII. THE STATE AND THE IN-

DIVIDUAL 162
ix
x SOCRATES
CHAP. 'AGE
IX. His TEACHING : His ETHICS . . . 173
(a) His METHOD 173
(b) KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE . . . 179
(c) THE GOOD 194
X. His RELIGION 208

THE WORLD AND MIND . . . 208
(a)
(b)
(c)
GOD AND GODS
SOCRATES ON PIETY .... 213
231
(d)
(e)
(/)
SOCRATES ON SACRIFICE
SOCRATES ON PRAYER
THE DIVINE VOICE
....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.243
234
238
(g) THE SOUL AND THE HEREAFTER . . 266
XI. THE "

CLOUDS " OF ARISTOPHANES . . 272
XII. THE TRIAL: ITS CAUSES . . . .289

XIII. THE TRIAL 298
XIV. (a)
(b)
THE LAST SCENES
TRIBUTES TO SOCRATES .... 319
333
INDEX 339
SOCRATES
L
SOCRATES, THE MAN AND
HIS MISSION
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
"
He that meditateth in the law of the Most High will seek out
the wisdom of all the ancients." The Book of Ecclesiasticus.
History," said Thomas Carlyle,

" the
history of what man has accomplished
UNIVERSAL in this world, is at bottom the History of the
Great Men who have worked here." And Goethe has
written that what is called the spirit of the age is the
spirit of the man in whom the age is mirrored. Socrates
was one of those historic personalities who reflect and
summarise an epoch. He gathered into his own ex-
perience the profoundest movements of the mind of
Greece in his time, a time when authority in religion,
morality, and society had broken down or was breaking
down, and thought wandered between two worlds, the
dying world of tradition and convention and the world
that now travailed to be born, the world of reason and
freedom. It was a transition period in the history of
Greek civilisation and therefore of world-civilisation,
and Socrates looms out of it the figure of one who in
the midst of the flux of nationalism in thought, senti-
ment, and outlook stood steady and secure, building
a bridge Between the old an$ the new, between that
i
2 SOCRATES
which had been and that which was to be. He is of
those few select spirits who have drawn and fascinated
men with the spell of masters. Schools rose to carry
on hiswork, to own him master, to propagate his
fertile impulse, but they had the usual defect of in-
capacity to develop the spirit that gave them birth,

either wholly, justly, or symmetrically. It is the fate
of schools to be confined toan aspect.
Socrates, however, not only made disciples and lovers
among his contemporaries, but he has made pupils and
lovers ever since. He was an inspiring personality as
well as a penetrating thinker, and his character has,
by strong, simple, manly charm, won the reverence

its
and affection of those of other climes and faiths who
have come to know him. Erasmus, the great humanist
and reformer, the flower of Christian scholarship in the
sixteenth century, one not apt to fall into romantic
admirations, gave him in his own heart a place among
"
the saints of religion Sancte Socrates, ora pro
:
nobis."
It is the combination of a masculine Greek saint-
hood, in which the merely low and selfish were com-
pletely submerged, with extraordinary intellectual
power, which commands our enthusiastic regard and
puts Socrates among those who, by reason of their
spiritual magnitude, should be familiar to all who seek
to take a great view of man and of life, companions of
all who desire to use life nobly and well. He overlooks
the horizons that bound the world of common men,
and speaks to the mind and heart of all ages.
The last scenes of all in his life sets the seal to that
quality in his character which moves the human soul

everywhere and attests an irrefragable place among
the elect of the earth.
It was 399 B.C.,on a day of late Mayor of June.
Just as the sun was near its setting over the modest
INTRODUCTORY 3
houses and stately temples of the wonderful little city

of Athens, and the long shadows were stretching
across the ground, you might have seen a group of
men in one of the rooms of an Athenian gaol. They
were looking sad, and could with difficulty keep the
tears from welling up in their eyes, as they looked now
and then into the face of one old rugged-looking fellow,
who moved about with good cheer on his countenance
and a genial playfulness on his lips. Never before had
that rough and homely face, on which rested the
peaceful afterglow of the light of high-thinking, seemed
to them to reveal so much
of mingled dignity and
pathos, never had
before the sense of how poor
and empty life would be to them without his great
manly words, searching questions, and cheering com-
pany been so strong they were heavy at heart, for
;
Socrates was about to die at the hands of the people

for whose good he had always sought to live.
Within the cool shadow of the prison walls their
movements and their words were muffled in the quiet
which wraps all deep sorrow, and which was hardly
broken when an official entered and stood by Socrates
to tell him that now his hour had arrived and he must
go out to meet death. Even the hardened official
could not go about his duty in the usual way ; his voice
faltered as he spoke to the condemned man "
:
Socrates,
I have known you all the time as the noblest and
gentlest and best of all who have ever come here. I
know you do not blame me, you have no hard feeling '
against me. I only do what I must. Try to bear

"
your lot as easily as you can and the tears burst
into his eyes as he turned and went away. Socrates
"
looked up and said, Good-bye, we shall bear it."
It was the recompense of a true and good life, thus
at the end to have about him the friends for whom he
had made life a thing grand enough to be worth living,
4 SOCRATES
thus to witness the reverence and affection even of the
man who was to carry out upon him the stern sentence
of death. Socrates' career had been a triumph of
character all the way through; it was a triumph of
character at the end.
But who was this man and what had he done, that
he should be so hated and so loved at the same time ?
How could he be worthy of all honour in the opinion
of some, and of death in that of others ?
It is the purpose of this book to set forth his character,
aims, and work in such a way as to bring out for the

ordinary modern reader something of that grandeur
of Socrates as a man and a thinker which has made
him one of the most haunting and influential figures
of history.
CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION

" Desired to
gain one prize
In place of many, the secret of the world,
Of man, and man's true purpose, path, and fate."
BROWNING'S "Paracelsus."
(a) THE AUTHORITIES
may seem strange that we know so little about

early years of the world's greatest men.
the
IT Moses, Buddha, Jesus, they have introduced fresh
epochs in the life and thought of peoples, but we know
practically nothing of their boyhood and youth. In
the case of the Founder of Christianity a few stories of
a mythical kind, the result not of contemporary obser-
vation but of pious imagination, which works in the
haze of subsequent glory, have to suffice. 1
Such knowledge of the life as we have is derived
from the Gospels of the New Testament, the earliest of
which, viz. Mark, dates from a period at least three
decades after Christ's death, and gives no information
about him prior to his public ministry. Matthew and
Luke, which were written any time between 70 or 80
A.D. close of the first century, 2 though incor-
and the
porating earlier material, do give stories about his
miraculous birth and his infancy ; these, however, do
not represent duly ascertained facts; they rather
" " "
Cp. Bousset's Jesus in Die Religion des Neuen Testaments."
1
1
See, e.g., Julicher's Introduction to New Testament, pp. 308,
324, 337.
5
6 SOCRATES
elucidate the beliefs which had grown up in the Chris-
tian Church subsequent to his death ? 1
"
As Professor Bousset puts it It is very: little that
we know of Jesus. The beginnings lie in darkness.
. . .
. .
Everywhere
. almost we are confined to uncer-
tainties and hypotheses. We shall do well to give up '
' ' '
2
all attempt at a Life or History of Jesus."
These statements apply in a measure to Socrates,
the fact being that biography in the sense in which we
know it is a form of literature which unfortunately
did not arise in Greece till the Christian era, and to
this comparatively late date belong the so-called
"
Lives of Homer," and, of course, such works as the
Lives by Plutarch (50-120 A.D.) and those of Dio-
genes Laertius (about 200-250 A.D.).
Not only is comparatively little recorded, and that
referring chiefly to the later part of Socrates' career,
but in the case of one of our two chief authorities,
Xenophon (about 440 or 431-354 B.C.), we have to
" "
remember that the Reminiscences were very pro-
bably not written in their present form till after 387
B.C., an interval which permits a considerable number
3
of slips and modifications in the details of any remini-

scences of a man's words, though not sufficient to
efface the impression of the spirit and purport of his
habitual character and conversations. 4
Those were not the days when, through the plenti-
J. Estlin Carpenter, First Three Gospels, ch. iii.

1
See
Cp. Burkitt, Gospel History and
1
Bousset, op. cit., p. 10.
Transmission, p. 20.
8
Dakyns' Xenophon, Vol. I. p. cxxx. Cp. Vol. in. p. xl. See
"
Discussion in JoeTs Sokrates," I. Einleitung, pp. 21-24.
4 "
Socrates is seen through a vista of years. The young man's
memoranda, however faithfully preserved, represent also the
mature reflections of one who has himself gone through many
experiences, since, as a youth, he sat in some saddler's shop and
imbibed words of wisdom." Dakyns, op. cit., p. xl.
BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 7
fulness of good paper and especially through the art of

printing, was easy to give fixed and unvarying form
it
to floating recollections and stories about an impressive

personality. Notebooks, such as they were, must have
been awkward, clumsy furniture. The material used
might be papyrus roll, made of the pith of papyrus reed
cut in long vertical strips, which were laid side by side
in parallels and transversely, pressed into a flat surface,
then dried in the sun so as to make long rolls. The ink
was got either from cuttle-fish or from oak-galls, the
pen being either reed or bird quill. From as early as
the fifth century in Greece tablets of wood were also
commonly used. They were coated over with a smooth
surface of wax, a metal stylus being used for writing
on them. The ends of the tablets might be joined
together by rings, thus forming a rude, cumbersome
sort of book. 1 Everything then had to be written or
imprinted by hand on such tablets, and it is therefore
easy to understand why so few authorities for the life
and teaching of Socrates have come down to us. We
have to rely on the Socratic writings of Xenophon,
"
which pass from matter-of-fact, shorthand-note nar-
rative at one point to pure artistic dramatisation at
another," and on the Dialogues of Plato, some of which
2
antedate Xenophon's recollections, but which make no

profession of being more than dramatic portraiture of
Socrates, and the historical value of which accordingly
varies considerably, and is at the present day a subject
of renewed debate. In addition to these two authorities,
we have a few notices by Aristotle on the philosophy
of Socrates. Aristotle, whether dependent on Plato or
not for his statements, as Professors Doring and
A. E. Taylor have argued, was at any rate much nearer
1
On all this see Whibley, Companion to Greek Studies : or Schools
of Hellas, p. 85 ff., by Freeman.
2 HI. xli.
Dakyns, op. cit.,
8 SOCRATES
the available sources than we are, besides being a
systematic historian of previous Greek philosophy, and
a highly-trained investigator and original thinker. So
far as his evidence goes, therefore, it is of paramount
value.
not our purpose to place before readers of this
It is
book the variations of view held by modern writers as
to the relative value of these three chief sources, to
which should be added a fourth, of which Professor
Taylor has made great use and whose significance he
has, we venture to think, very much overrated that
"
is, the Comedy of Aristophanes called The Clouds,"
first produced at Athens in the year 424 B.C., but
subjected to revision later. The divergence which

exists on the part of scholars as to the historical worth
of the portraiture of each of these ancient sources
can hardly be exaggerated, and the student has to fall
back largely on his own judgment in using the ex-
tant material. Any later authorities, such as Diogenes
Laertius, have no independent value, and must be used
only on insignificant points. At present the state of
discussion is more confused than ever, and, to find a
parallel, we should have to go to the Higher Criticism
of the Gospels of the New Testament. Nevertheless,
certain broad and prominent features emerge both
in the character and teaching of the master, which
stand out bold and secure amid the troubled waves
and modern opinion.
conflicting currents of And cer-
tain parts of his are not exposed to any serious
life
doubt, because they are attested by Xenophon and

Plato alike.
From this brief reference to the chief authorities we
now turn to the life itself.
BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION
(b) PARENTAGE AND HOME

Socrates was born about 470 B.C. 1 in the parish of
2
Alopece, close to Athens. His father was Sophronis-
3
cus, a worker in stone, 4 and a man highly spoken of.
"
Lysimaches, in Plato's Laches," refers to him as one
of the best of men, 6 and one whose friendship he had
6
enjoyed till death without a break or a difference.
Very little is known of his mother. Her name was
Phaenarete, and according to her son's description in
7
the Theaetetus, she was a person of formidable appear-

"
ance but of sterling quality. Brave and burly," 8 is
the description her son gives of her, from which we
should judge that Socrates rather took after his mother
in the matter of his physical characteristics, while with
regard to the moral he was perhaps a most happy

blend of both parents, combining the geniality of his
father with the honest naturalness of his mother. He
9
tells us she was in the habit of acting as a midwife.
The latter circumstance would seem to point to the
conclusion that the home was a poor one. It should,
however, be remembered that the domestic straits,
which presumably accounted for Phsenaret6's practice
of midwifery, may only have pressed upon the family
at a fairly late period, as a result of the calamities
following upon the Peloponnesian War, which broke
out between Athens and Sparta in 431 B.C. Many
1
At his trial in 399 B.C. he speaks of himself as over seventy
(Plato, Apology, 17 d).
* ii. 18.
Diogenes Laertius, 5,
8 ist Alcibiades, 131 E ; Laches, 180 D ; Hellenica, i. 7, 15.
4
Diogenes Laertius, loc. cit.
8 180 E.
181 A.
7
Theaetetus, 149 A; ist Alcibiades, 131 E; Diogenes Laertius,
8
5 J 8. Theaetetus, loc, cit,
Theaetetus, loc. cit. Cp, Diogenes Laertius, loc. cit.

10 SOCRATES
Athenians, but especially the country people living
round about, lost their property and were reduced to
1
destitution or poverty by the calamities of that
notorious war, which was destined to be the beginning
of the end of the imperial greatness of the city of
Athena. The policy of Pericles, the leading states-
man, had been to withdraw the Attic population into
Athens, leaving the land to be ravaged by the Pelo-
ponnesians, while he fortified the city and attacked the
enemy on the sea. The immediate consequences of
2
this plan can, of course, be conceived. The country

people and those Athenian citizens who had estates on
the land became concentrated in Athens, with their
3
wives, families, and furniture. The ordinary resources
of the city were not great or elastic enough to meet
such an influx. Some found lodgings, others received
the hospitality of friends, but the bulk of them had to
be accommodated in the temples. 4 Altogether the
situation was harrowing. The land of Attica was
6
ravaged by the enemy, prices in the city naturally rose
high, while many had been deprived of their means of
livelihood and ruined. 6 On the back of this plague
broke out in the overcrowded city, and men gave
"
themselves up to practise the philosophy of Eat and
drink, forto-morrow we die." 7 The terrible straits to
which the common Greek population involved were
reduced is described by the powerful pen of Aristo-
" "
phanes in his Comedy The Acharnians produced in
8
425 B.C. The farcical character of the piece, designed
1 ch. 65.
Thucydides, ii.
Thucydides, ii. ch. 13.

*
Thucydides, ii. ch. 14. Ibid., ch. 17.
Thucydides, ch. 47.
ii.
Xenophon, Mem., ii. ch. 8, and Banquet, ch. 4.

Ibid., ch. 52, 53.
See, e.g., Rogers' edition of Acharnians, with English trans-
lation.
for pretty loud laughter, cannot suffice to drown the
pathos of the bitter conditions it seeks to indicate.

May it not then have been that Sophroniscus's in
any case modest competence foundered in the general
debacle, and that Phaenarete, with her strong practical
sense and vigorous personality, came to the rescue by
deciding to go out as a nurse ? Suppose her to have
married at eighteen, which is by no means early for a
Greek girl, 1 and Socrates to have been born two years
later, that would make Phaenarete about sixty years
of age in 430 B.C., when Socrates was just over forty.
So that chronology does not necessarily exclude our
hypothesis.
In any case it is not likely that Sophroniscus was,
even previous to the Peloponnesian War, more fortunate

than to belong to the class of honest respectable arti-
sans (whose means were generally very limited) in
ancient Greece, and whose wages, as well as their stan-
dards of living, in various ways, were much lower
than in our modern civilisation.
Such then is the home, as regards wealth, in which
we must conceive the future master to have been
brought up. In default of all information, we may be
permitted to picture him as a sturdy little fellow, full
of fun and good spirits, playing, as the boys of Athens
did, with hoop and top, but also at times very serious,
2
and prone to ask questions about things, which his

mother could not answer to his satisfaction, and which
at times perhaps rather annoyed her. 3 Again we
1
Aristotle, De. Rep., vii. 16, p. 1335, thinks eighteen a good
age for girls to marry. In Xenophon's OEconomicus the young wife
is not yet fifteen years (CEc., ch. 7, 4). Plato suggests twenty
for girl's age (Republic, 460 E).
2
Becker's Charicles, p. 223.
3
In fact, judging by his mature life, he must have been one of
those gifted infants of George MacDonald's enthusiastic imagina-
tion, of whom he says : "I believe that even the new-born infant
12 SOCRATES
imagine him playing among the marble chips that fall
from his father's chisel, and sitting looking up at him
as he slowly shaped the rough block into some image.
It would only be in accordance with the common
practice, as described to us by Plato, that his father

should instruct him in worthy principles of conduct,
no doubt bidding him be diligent and some day he
might rise to be a famous sculptor. His mother too
would teach him the usual moral lessons and stories,
and instruct him in the way that he should go. It is
true he would miss the Shorter Catechism, but in other
respects his moral and religious training would be as
assiduously seen to as if he had been born among the
" " "
Auld Lichts of Scotland. Plato in the " Protagoras
gives us a glimpse of parental responsibility at work in
"
these matters. As soon as ever the child can under-
stand what is said to him, his nurse, his mother, his
attendant, nay, his father himself, begin to vie in efforts
for hisimprovement. Every word and act is an occa-
sion for instruction by precept and example he is ;
taught that so-and-so is just or unjust, fair or ugly,

right or wrong. He must do this and not do that. If
he is wood getting warped
disobedient, like a piece of
and crooked, then he scolded and whipped." 1 The
is
instrument of torture was usually a slipper or sandal. 2

" "
It is rather a pity that the metaphor of wood
should have got attached to children in the grown-up
mind which has to deal with them. It shows an undue
lack of respect, and may lead to a rather constant
is, in some of his moods, already grappling with the deepest meta-
physical problems, in forms infinitely too rudimental for the under-

standing of the grown philosopher as far in fact removed from his
ken on the one side, that of intelligential beginning, the germinal
subjective, as his abstrusest speculations are from the final solution
of absolute entity on the other." Robert Falconer, ch. 14.
1
Protagoras, 325 c, d. Cp. Republic, 377 ff.
* Becker's Charicles, p. 224 (Eng. trans.).
bending of the twig so that the tree be inclined

may
like other trees. But
any at no excuse
rate there is
for thinking that little Greek children were left en-

tirely to the devices of the Evil One who haunted the
outer darkness of an immoral Paganism, or that they
were brought up without God or religious hope in the
world.
Socrates would be taught according to the lights
then available, that the gods must be revered and
their good-will secured that they would brook no
;
human insolence, no transgression of the law of respect

and modesty that indeed the mighty they cast down,
;
and exalted them of reverent mien. 1

Regularly he would see the family worship, in which
his father was priest worship the same in spirit, though
;
with different beliefs and rites, as that described so

"
simply and finely by Burns in his Cottar's Saturday
Night." The Athenians were, as a rule, great sticklers
for the pieties they were even superstitiously afraid
;
of their gods, those higher powers on whose knees lay

the disposal of the human lot, and on whose good
graces depended the general security and prosperity of
national and individual life. He would be brought up
in the nurture and admonition of Homer and Hesiod,
with their tales of gods and heroes. There was some
scepticism among a few thinkers in the age, but it
was not an age of universal or of popular scepticism
that built the temples of the Acropolis.
"
Not from a low or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias wrought."
Even interpreted as a means of humouring the people,

rather than of honouring the traditional gods, on the
1
The pious doctrine of the prosperity of the good and adversity
of the evil did not stand the test of experience in Greece
any more
than in Israel, See, e.g., Aristophanes, Plutus, 26 #,
14 SOCRATES
part of Pericles and his circle, they would still stand as
a monument of current popular sentiment in the
matter of religion and religious rites. Religion entered
closely and at all points
*
into the private and public
life of the Greeks so that amid the seen and temporal
they were ever being reminded of the unseen and

eternal. It invested all life with a higher meaning and
deeper dignity. All this was bound to have its in-

fluence on the mind of the young Socrates, and surely
through the profound piety of the man we may rightly
trace some effect of the training of the child.
(c) SCHOOL LIFE
Of the school life of Socrates we only know what is

to be inferred from the course of education general
among Athenian boys. The customary age for be-
ginning school was about six. The schools were not
provided by the city authority, but were private
2
institutions, the profession, as far as elementary
education is concerned, being but poorly esteemed and
3
as poorly paid. It is also noteworthy that such
educational provision existed for boys alone. We
nowhere read of institutions for girls, 4 though Plato
later desiderated their establishment, 6 so that women
could share the interests of men. The home-training
was, however, generally regarded as enough to equip
girls for all the duties they would be expected or
allowed to undertake in after-life. The elementary
school education was compulsory for boys. 8
1
Fustel De Coulanges, La Cite antique, chs. iv. and vi.
1
Schools of Hellas, p. 61. Cp. Becker, op. cit., p. 228.
*
Plato later advocated inspectors and a Minister of Education
(Laws, vi. 755).
4 6
Becker, op. cit., p. 236. Laws, vi. 764 ; vii. 805.
Cp. Plato, Laws, vii. 804. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite antique,
p. 267.
Socrates then would be dragged out of bed before

sunrise, for,by a law of Solon, the schools were open by
1
dawn, then he would get the sleep washed from his
eyes, and partake of a slight vegetarian breakfast,
very light, afterwhich he must trot off to where the

young and sleepy idea would be taught to shoot.
"
Scions of richer sires were accompanied by a peda-
gogue," one of the household slaves, but in all proba-
bility comparative poverty would give little Socrates
the privilege of trotting along by the side of his father, 2
who would carry the necessary paraphernalia, the
wax tablet and stylus, which took the place of the
modern slate and pencil, and also the lead ruler and
the sponge for erasing the impressions on the wax, the
3
lyre, etc.
We do not know what sort of fees would have to be
paid, but in the less well-equipped schools, at any rate,
they must have been extremely low, and occasionally

very poor boys might pay their way by doing menial
duties like preparing the ink, washing the benches, 4
and sweeping the rooms. 5 The standard of life gener-
ally was, of course, far lower and the cost of living
6
cheaper than in our modern civilisation.
At school Socrates would spend all the day till sun-
down, with a break for midday meal he would have ;
no weekly holiday on Sundays, its place, however, being

taken by the many religious festivals in the Athenian
calendar. The subjects of elementary instruction which
occupied the years from six to fourteen were (a) reading,
writing, arithmetic, with the addition, sometimes, of
1
Cp. Thucydides, vii. 29. Becker, op. cit., p. 231.
See, for such a case, Demosthenes, De Corona, p. 313.
*
8
Cp. Lucian (A.D. 125-180, app.), Loves, 44, on the schoolboy.
4
For equipment of the schools in the way of furniture, maps, etc.,
see Freeman, Schools of Hellas, p. 84.
6
As Êschines did (Demosthenes, De Corona, p. 313).
See, e.g., Zimmern, Greek Commonwealth, ad loc.
16 SOCRATES
drawing and painting, (b) Learning to play the lyre
and sing to it. (c) Gymnastic exercises.
The literature read comprised extracts from the
great Homer and Hesiod, who together constituted
the Greek Bible. The greatest importance attached to
this instruction, which was designed not only to educate
the mind but to awaken and form the soul, and educe
all the higher loyalties of life. Indeed, so clearly was
the importance of the moral aspect of education recog-
nised that the government appointed inspectors to
supervise this particular branch, and the recognition of
its supreme place in the hierarchy of pedagogic ends
emerges beyond all doubt in the work of the great

philosophers and educationalists, Plato and Aristotle. 1
Every branch was considered by them in relation to
its effect upon the soul and character of the pupils,
the aim of all education being to fit its recipient for
the highest, fullest exercise of all the faculties in a life
which is good.
Literature and music was varied by physical exer-
cises and games, and Socrates no doubt learned like
"
the rest of boys to play with hoops and tops, stones
" "
and dice." 2
The Lysis of Plato gives us a pleasing
little glimpse into school life as it was lived at Athens,
and we notice that religious rites were not neglected.

The master was a friend of Socrates, and when the
"
latter visited the school he found that the boys had
just finished sacrifice and the offerings were nearly
over, and they were all in their best playing knuckle-
bones. Most of the games were outside in the court-
yard, but some were in a corner of the vestibule playing
at odd and even with knuckle-bones, which they took
1
See, e.g., Plato, Republic, 378 ff. Aristotle, Politics, bk. vii.
17 and bk. viii. 1-7. Burnet's Aristotle on Education, pp. 102 ff.
Grote's Plato, jv. pp. 23-5. Nettleship Lectures on Plato's Re
ch. v, I Schools of
Hellas, p. 83,
public,
out of baskets, while others stood and watched." We

are indebted to the august philosopher for these
delightful mises en scene, which bring the past so near
and make even grey philosophy so fresh and human.
The type of boy that was turned out by these methods
has been described by the inimitable pen of Aristo-
"
phanes in The Clouds," l and hinted in fine touches
of realism by Plato. 2 Grace of form and movement,
modesty of mien, piety of soul, and reverence of dis-
position, were its chief and its normal results.
(d) ADVANCED EDUCATION

About fourteen years of age, what we should call the
secondary curriculum was entered upon by boys whose
circumstances were such that it could be afforded. It
was carried on by a class of trained teachers known as
Sophists, who were specialists in their own particular
subjects, which included language, literature, history,
laws of Athens, rhetoric, and various branches of
science, theaim being to fit the youthful Athenians
they would have to enter, and also
for the public life
to render them capable of a dignified and suitable use
of their leisure, in the higher occupations of intellectual
and political activity, which distinguish the true and
liberal human life. The physical department of the
earlier training was also pursued, for the freeman had
not only to discharge political and judicial functions 3
as a citizen of his city, but also military functions as
its guardian. The sound mind in the sound body was
therefore a desideratum of life for every citizen. Theirs
was the very ideal of education that Herbert Spencer
has expounded for us. 4 Not only so, but the more
1 *
Clouds, 11. 961 ff. Plato, Lysis, 207 a, b.
*
See, e.g., Fustel de Coulanges, La Cit6 antique, p. 267.
*
Principles of Education, ch. i.
2
18 SOCRATES
reflective minds at any rate recognised a close re-
lationship between body and mind, so that their
harmonious development was a condition of even dis-
tinctively mental excellence, a point in which they were
ahead of our modern state schools. 1 The more is the
"
pity. Ian Maclaren once said No one can estimate
:
how much Germany has gained from Luther's genial

and robust nature or Scotland lost through Calvin
being a chronic invalid and Knox being a broken man."
"
It is certain that if Carlyle had not had to swallow
whole hogsheads of castor oil," as he pathetically and
hyperbolically put it, he would not have been quite so
"
ill to get on wi'," nor so pessimistic and bitter in his
tone of thought. There would have been less Avernus

and more azure in his philosophy. It is also certain
that the abounding health which training developed
out of the constitution of a horse in Socrates gave his
" "
sainthood that full, solid, red-blooded, and blue-
eyed virtue it possessed and enjoyed to its own
advantage.
The education in music was also continued, no small
part of the reason being its effect upon moral character.
Both Plato and Aristotle lay the greatest stress upon
its value as an instrument for developing spirit, and
accustoming the soul to a love of harmony and beauty,

which would tend to subdue the passions to their proper
place as the obedient ministers of the higher spiritual
2
powers in man. Indeed the whole artistic side of the
curriculum is with a view to develop that delicate and
just aesthetic taste which to a Greek was never separable
from moral sensibility and right ethical judgment. It
isto bring gracefulness into the whole character, to
make " the eye keen for all defects, whether in the
1
See, e.g., Plato's Republic, bk. iii. 403 ff., but especially 410.
1 Plato's Republic, bk. iii. 398 ff., especially 401.
failures of art or the misgrowths of nature," so that a

"
man will gladly receive beautiful objects into his
upon them, and grow noble and good."
*
soul, feed It
did not fail of this in In another respect it
Socrates.
must have played its part in producing that profound
patriotism which we shall see exemplified in the life of
Socrates, for it concerned itself, in earlier and later
stages, with the heroic literature of Greece which, amid
much that was open to the grave censure of philo-
sophers and sceptical poets, held up before its readers
high examples of romantic and chivalrous sacrifice for
one's country. It was a literature of heroes which
fostered that national and civic piety which was part
of the deepest religion of the members of Greek cities.
"
Indeed, the real religion of the fifth century," says
"
Professor Gilbert Murray, was a devotion to the city
itself." 2
Advanced education included rhetoric, ethics, and
and Socrates by some means was able to
science,
obtain considerable expert instruction in these matters.
How it was made possible to him is not a matter of
certainty. We are told that he was taken from school
and apprenticed to his father's occupation of sculp-
ture. 3 Not only so, but he must have wrought at it
for years, and acquired high skill, for what was said to
be a piece of his work Hermes and the Graces, robed
was to be found at the entrance to the Acropolis, 4 the
highest eminence and the fortified centre of the city,
as late as the time of Pausanias in the latter half of
the second century A.D. 6
1
Plato, loc. cit.
2
Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 96 ; also p. 91.
3
Diogenes, ii. 5, 19.
4 "
Acropolis, art. Athens," in Encyclopaedia Britannica, or any
Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, like Smith's.
6
Pausanias, i. 22, 8 and ix. 35, 7. Diogenes Laertius, ii. ch. 5,
19-
20 SOCRATES
There ample reason, then, to believe that when
is
Socrates had to leave school, he determined that it

should not be the end of his education. The fire that
cannot be quenched was in his bones, the burning
desire for knowledge, which time and again in history
has turned the heart-beats of poor lads into the
throb of an incarnate Fate, and propelled them on
through every disadvantage and difficulty toward
their goal. Knowledge is said to be the child of
wonder, and Socrates had the capacity for wonder
in a saving degree. The spark was in him that dis-
turbs the clods. As he wrought the hard stubborn
marble into shape, he was busy also trying to bring
order out of chaos in his inner world, struggling to give
form to the formless feelings and ideas and inklings
which flitted about in his soul. As he thought about
the universe it came to him as a superlative wonder, a
riddle, a secret, the inscrutable Sphinx, fascinating and

unescapable.
If you had seen this raw-boned, rough-featured lad
you would not have been struck by his appearance,

unless it were by the circumstance that he was uglier
than usual. He came from the common people and
he looked it, with ponderous skull, that might have
"
been a storehouse of lead," a nose that lacked any
sense of dignity or eminence, eyes that seemed to turn
away ashamed of it and to be conscious of trying to
remedy the defect altogether a country bumpkin look
:
about him. But below that exterior was a mind and

soul, like a royalty travelling incognito, and destined
yet to prove itself one of the finest, biggest, and strongest
in all Greece and all history. He was one of those who
have to take their kingdom by force, and in whom the
might is the basis of the right. Diogenes Laertius l re-
lates, on the authority of Demetrius the Byzantine, that
1
Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 20.
Crito took him from the workshop and had him edu-
cated, being charmed by his mental accomplishment,
"
his grace of soul." What ground in fact there was
for this story we cannot say. It might be true, and it
might be a myth spun out of the circumstance that in

the latter part of Socrates' career Crito was ready to
offer any help which might preserve the precious ser-
vices of Socrates to the world. But there is no doubt
at all about Socrates' youthful insatiable interest in
science. He had a passion to know everything know-
"
able. When young I had a prodigious zeal for that
branch of knowledge which is called Natural Philo-
1
sophy." So Plato makes him say in the "Phaedo."
His invincible enthusiasm for knowledge seems to have
led him to make himself conversant with the previous
speculations of the Greek philosophers, and, in time, to
have won for him the acquaintance of the great con-
temporary teachers who were drawn to Athens as the
metropolis of culture in Greece at that period. We
have the statement of Plato that while Socrates was
still very young he had listened to the great thinker,
2
Parmenides, who was then a very old man. In the dia-
"
logue Parmenides" it is stated that at the time Par-
menides must have been about sixty-five years of age at
the outside, a figure of refined and gentlemanly bearing. 3
In his company was Zeno, then about forty, tall and
4
elegant in build, noted for the dialectical ability with
which he defended the absolute monism of Parmenides,
showing that on any pluralistic hypothesis motion was
as paradoxical as on the Parmenidean principles. 5
Socrates, on hearing of their arrival outside Athens,
1
Phaedo, 96.
1
Theaetetus, 183 E ; Parmenides, 127 b ; cp. Sophistes, 217 d,
* For Parmenides' philosophy, see Burnet, pp. 183 ff.
*
Plato's Parmenides, 127.
8
Burnet, op. cit. t p. 331 ; Plutarch, Life of Pericles, ch. iv.
22 SOCRATES
along with a great many others sets off with eagerness
to listen to Zeno's discourses. It is emphasized that
he was very young at this time, when already
speculation had won him as an ardent disciple.
Xenophon also alludes to this search for knowledge,
which was a permanent characteristic of Socrates. 1
"I go about hunting up, along with my friends,
all the treasures that the ancient sages have left
in writing in their books, and if I find anything
"
good, I profit by it."
2
Of all the men I have ever
3
known," says Xenophon, speaking of a later period of
"
the master's life, he was the most anxious to ascertain
in what any of those about him was really versed."
And the youth was father of the man. He ultimately
attained what in those days would be equivalent to
what is now called encyclopaedic knowledge. Xenophon
does not omit to mention that when Socrates later
turned from natural science as his central interest it
was not because he was ignorant of its higher develop-
ments. Alike of geometry 4 and astronomy, 5 he
had acquired knowledge, and had heard lectures in
them. 6
7
Diogenes Laertius calls Archelaos, the pupil of
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, his teacher, and, on the

authority of Ion of Chios, relates that he once was
away from Athens in company with Archelaos. He
also became familiar with the physical speculations 8 of
Anaxagoras by his own reading. 9
He
further enjoyed the friendship of Damon, who,
according to Plutarch, while ostensibly professing to
be only a teacher of music, was really a very accom-
Cp. Laches, 180 C.
Quoted Fouill6e, La Philosophic de Socrate, i. p. 6.
* 6
Mem., iv. 7. Mem., iv. 7, 3. Mem., iv. 7, 5.
T
Mem., ii. 4, 16. Diogenes, ii. 5, 23.
For these, see Burnet, op. cit., ch. vi.
Plato, Phaedo, 97 C. Xen., Mem., iv. 7, 6.
plished and cultured man, from whom Pericles re-

1
ceived tuition in the arts of the politician, 3 and who

2
was banished as a Sophist by the Athenians. It was

" "
quite a common thing for these professors to dis-
guise in this way the real nature of their teaching,
owing to the odium it roused among the public. 4

Damon professed to teach music, and Socrates dis-
cussed its principles with him but the master whom
;
he mentions as giving him musical lessons on the lyre

till well on in life is Connus, the son of Metrobius.
5
The
boys who also took lessons from Connus, Socrates
good-humouredly tells us, used to laugh at himself
and call their master the old man's teacher. 6
As showing how Socrates from humble beginnings
had penetrated to the highest circles of society in
Athens, we have his allusion about which plays the
humour that was a constant feature of his conversation
as Plato delineates it the allusion which he makes to
Aspasia as his instructor in rhetoric. 7 Aspasia was the
" "
new- woman who became the companion and all
but wife of Pericles, the greatest statesman and politi-
cian of the age, and who by reason of her brilliant
gifts and conversation, formed the centre and cynosure
of the coterie of intellectuals and heretics who adorned
the Periclean circle and added eclat to the salons of
his paramour.
This phase of Socrates' career, the example it affords
of how great gifts, and tireless industry in their culti-
vation, can overcome the obstacles of social position
and comparative poverty, and give a man entrance to
the highest aristocracies of life and literature, reminds
*
Cp. Laches, 180 D. Menexenus, 235 E.
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, ch. iv.
Plato, Protagoras, 316.
Euthydemus, 272 C Menexenus, 236 A.
;
7
Euthyderaus, 272 C. Menexenus, 236 A.
24 SOCRATES
one of the similar elevation of Robert Burns from the
plough-handle to the most highly cultured and literary
Edinburgh in its great days, though, of course,
circles of
in Athens of the fifth century the social contrasts were
not so marked, and even famous politicians lived in
very humble state. Socrates and Burns, widely con-
trasted as they were in some features of character, seem
to have had the same intellectual precocity, and, one
might add, the same moral perspicacity, which made
upon the most distinguished men who met them an
impression of extraordinary native endowment and rare
mental force.
Plato gives artistic expression to what must have
been the general feeling created in those capable of
intellectual and moral appreciation with regard to the
destiny which Socrates' adroitness of ethical judgments

and dexterity of logical analysis marked out for him.
They were qualities which gave him that air of inevi-
tability which is the evident claim of genius on the
future. Protagoras, the greatest of contemporary
humanists, says of the ardent young philosopher "I :
for my part, Socrates, applaud your enthusiasm and

resource in argument. I am not, on the whole, a bad
man, and least of all am I given to jealousy, for I have
said to many regarding you that of any I come across
I admire you far and away above all, especially among
those of your own age, and I say that I should not be
surprised if you achieve a place among men renowned
for wisdom." *
Prodicus of Ceos was another of the most noted of the
travelling teachers of that time, called "Sophists,"
and Socrates had relations with him, 2 even attending
a short course of his lectures, which cost a drachma, in
default of being able to afford the larger 50-drachma
1
Protagoras, 361 B. Meno, 96 d ; Channides, 163 d.
course, which, according to Prodicus, was a complete

education in language and grammar. 1 Prodicus pro-
fessed philology, the meaning of words, composition,
and moral instruction, and the famous apologue, "The
Choice of Heracles," often repeated by Socrates as a
fine piece of moral allegory, was his work. One gathers
from Plato that Socrates regarded him with consider-
able respect, 2 and, as has been suggested by one writer,
Prodicus's work in the exact definition of words may
have contributed something to Socrates' rage for the
exact definition of ideas and ethical standards.
In Socrates, then, we have a youth impelled by an
encyclopaedic interest, and an unbounded curiosity, one
who, by reason of his irrepressible zeal and conspicuous
mental acumen, wins from poverty an access to the best
sources of contemporary culture, in addition to plumb-
ing the shoals and deeps of the thought of the past.
But it all fails to satisfy him. The philosophical or
cosmological theories of the great pioneers in specula-
tion are but husks to this youth's hunger for an intelli-
gible explanation of the universe. Plato in the
" "
Phaedo has put into Socrates' mouth a graphic
confession of his state of mind during these wander-
jahre of the soul, when it was achieving its struggling
exodus from the bricks- without- straw materialisms of
previous Greek thought to the promised land, flowing
with peace and happiness, of his own spiritual philo-
sophy, to him a land of freedom and expansion which
offered fields to be explored and tracts to be subdued
beyond the measure of one life.
"
Listen, then, when I tell you, Cebes, that in my
3
youth I walked in wonder the thrill for that wisdom
1
Cratylus, 384 b.
1
Protagoras, 341 A.
3
Phaedo, 96. For his sense of the mystery of common things,
cp, Xen. ; Banquet, ch. vii. ; Dakyns, iii. 335, 336.
26 SOCRATES
which they call the study of nature. Life's excelling
glory seemed to me to be to know the causes of things
rerum cognoscere causas to be in their secret, why
they come to be and cease to be, why they are. Many
a time and oft was I tossed hither and thither, now
lifted up, now cast down, as I brooded on that question
whether living things take form, from the hot and the
cold, when touched by corruption whether it is the
;
blood by which we think, or air, or fire, or whether it

is none of these, but the brain that is the cause of our
faculties of perception, whether from these perceptions
spring memory and opinion, and whether from these

in the same way, when they settle, springs knowledge.
Brooding on the problem of the decay of these faculties,
too, and on the phenomena of heaven and earth with
their vicissitudes, I at last came to despair of my
capacity for such things all was vanity and futility.
;
The knowledge I had that seemed so clear to myself

and to others became mere darkness to me as a result
of this thinking I was gradually losing what I thought
;
I had known, on many subjects," and so on he goes,
telling us how he broke into the world, and found it

mystery and the dark. The whole story is so fascinat-
1
ing, so modern, so real, of this youth away back in

Athens looking for the first time at things with his own
eyes and his own mind, instead of through the eyes and
mind of others, looking like a child on a strange heaven
and a strange earth, dark, mysterious, unfathomable,
knowing one thing only that he knows nothing!
There he stands naked and alone, at the mouth of the
cave of shadows.
"
It was Baphometic fire-baptism," the rite by
his
which the gods confer selfhood and its privileges upon
us, if we have been built in moulds worthy to receive
them. It was the experience which plunges a man
1
See Phaedo, 96, 97.
into unutterable solitude and voiceless wilderness, that

"
he may learn to know himself and God.
I paused
in my wild wanderings and sat me down to wait and
consider for it was as if the hour of change drew nigh.
;
I seemed to surrender, to renounce utterly, and say :
'
Fly, then, false shadows of Hope I will chase you no;
more, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard

spectres of Fear, I care not for you ye too are all ;
shadows and a lie. Let me rest here for I am way- weary

and life-weary; I will rest here." *
Every thinker must go along his via dolorosa, and
be content to drink his cup of welt-schmerz, without
which there is no initiation into the great brotherhood
of Thought : it is the lowest cash price of original
greatness.
" Mother of this unfathomable world !
Favour my solemn song, for Ihave loved

Thee ever, and thee only ;
I have watched
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render
up the tale
Of what we are. In low and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness.
Like an inspired and desperate alchymist
Staking his very life on some dark hope."
Justice will not be done, nor due homage paid to

Socrates and his achievements, until we vividly realise
what his quest of truth must have cost him. We are
apt to treat those men of olden time and other clime
as a sort of lay figures, forgetting that they were real
flesh and blood like ourselves, and subject to the same
1
Sartor Resartus, ch. viii.
28 SOCRATES
laws of inner experience. The night of the soul could
be as dark for those bygone seekers of the day as for
us moderns.
The subjects of Socrates' earlier absorption, we gather
from the passage in the "Phsedo" just quoted, were
biology, psychology, and natural science. Previous

solutions of these world-problems were of a materialistic
or semi-materialistic and mechanical kind.
Thales, recognised as the founder of Greek
1
philo-
sophy, a remarkable man of the beginning of the sixth
century B.C., who had been astronomer, geometrician,
engineer, and statesman, but who is more famous for
having fallen into a well than for more solid and im-
portant achievements, declared water to be the first
principle from which all things came.
"
Anaximander, the next name, taught that there
was one eternal, indestructible substance out of which
everything arises and into which everything once more
returns a boundless stock of matter from which the
;
waste of existence is continually being made good." 2

The "boundless" of Anaximander is just infinite
mass or matter. Our world has emerged from this by
the separating out of the opposites, moist and dry,
warm and cold. 3 Man has ascended from the lower
species, fish, all living things being originally derived
from the moisture as it was evaporated by the sun. 4
Anaximenes (flourished about middle of sixth century
B.C.) identified the infinite substance with air, which
becomes fire when rarefied, and water or earth when
condensed. Air is the source and substratum of all
things.
1
For these names, see Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, or the
"
cheaper and available Benn's Ancient Philosophy, in the History
"
of Science Series (15. each).
1
Burnet, op. cit., p. 50. Burnet, op. cit., p. 62.
'
Op. cit., p. 73.
Xenophanes of Colophon, in Asia Minor, regarded

earth as the primordial base of things, while Heraclitus
of Ephesus (about end of sixth century) gave fire his
"
suffrage. This universe the same for all, was not
made by any god or any man, but was and is and ever
shall be, an ever-living fire, kindled and quenched by
measure." The soul of man also he considered to be
just a form of fire.
Parmenides of Elea launched the view that reality
simply is ; the universe is uncreated, indestructible,
immovable, complete. Change and motion are illusion,
they are not-being, and not-being simply is not. In
his cosmology, Parmenides adopted the theory that
everything is composed from the warm and the cold
element, and man also takes his rise from these.
Empedocles of Acragas, in Sicily, who adopted the
Pythagorean doctrine of re-incarnation, and otherwise
seems to have had a touch of the mythologising tem-
perament, took for his basis of explanation of the
world all the four elements already alluded to, water,
air, earth, fire. The process of things consists in the
separation and union of these elements under the in-
fluence of what he calls Strife and Love, but Strife and
Love are principles as corporeal as the elements them-
selves. The truth of the matter is that the distinction
between material and spiritual, corporeal and incor-
poreal, had not yet been clearly evolved in Greek

philosophy. And these speculators were dealing with
inadequate categories. This criticism applies also to
the views of Leucippus and Democritus, who held that
the cosmos is evolved from atoms, i.e. particles of
matter too small for sense to perceive, differing only
in size, form, and position, and subject to motion in
the void, a motion which leads to all sorts of combina-
tions of the atoms and so gives rise to the heterogeneity
of the world we know.
30 SOCRATES
These theories were open to the same objections as
are modern scientific theories when set forth as com-
plete and satisfying explanations of the world, and
Socrates was deep-skulled enough to be conscious of
their inadequacy. For example, we are told that stones
fall because of the law of the gravitation. But the law
of gravitation is a mere general summary of the facts
as we experience them, and leaves the facts themselves
as far from elucidation as ever. That masses should
attract each other with a force proportionate to the
mass and inversely proportionate to the square of their
distance apart is by no means a self-evident axiom,
especially since in certain states they repel each other,
as, for example, when charged with like electricities.
No more does the world become transparent by being
reduced to its simplest elements. Atoms and motion
account for atoms and motion, that alone.
Socrates then was in a state of disillusionment and
discontent. Like Faust, after poring over the lore of
the ancients, he felt the door still barred and himself on
the wrong side of it.
" Habe nun, ach, Philosophic

Juristerei und Medicin,
Und leider, auch Theologie
Durchaus studirt,mit heissem Bemiihn.
Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor,
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor." 1
"
One 2
day, however, he heard some one reading from
a book by a certain Anaxagoras saying that Mind is
"
1
I've studied now Philosophy,
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,
And even, alas Theology,
!
From end to end with labour keen ;
And here, poor fool with all my lore

I
I stand no wiser than before."

Bayard Taylor's Trans.
Phaedo, 97 C.
the disposer and cause of all things." The words fell
like flashes of light from the upper air on the eyes of

a man groping in some dark mine. They seemed to
light up the obscurity.
" Before him shone a
glorious world,
Fresh as a banner bright unfurled
To music suddenly."
Hope was rekindled in his heart, and seizing the

books, as a drowning man clutches at a raft, he plunged
through them as fast as he could. But, alas he was !
doomed to disappointment. He had expected that

anyone who took the principle of Mind seriously in his
theory of the world would work it out in detail, and
show how, as mind is the source of the order in things,
that order is the best in all particulars. 1
As mind always seeks the best, the idea of what is
best and most excellent will be the clue to all facts ;
it will explain why they are where they are and what
they are. That is inherently true of all the operations

of mind wherever you have intelligence, you find that
;
action with a view to what is better. 2 I do certain

is
things because I shall then be more satisfied: I act

for the best as a modern idealist would say, from the
idea of the Good. Thus a world that is a rational
world must be one in which all is well ordered, and
on the best lines.
Mind's on its throne,

All's right with the world.
Moreover, a universe whose Principle is intelligent

must also be intelligible, that is to say, one whose ways
are man's ways and its thoughts man's thoughts, for
man is intelligent. Community of nature is the source
of sympathy and understanding. And so the mind of
1
Phaedo, 97 C.
*
Phaedo, 97 E and 98 A.
32 SOCRATES
man is the key to the Mind of the World, and the
Ethical is the Real. The cosmos must be directed by
reasonable motives, therefore, not by blind mechanical
laws.
Socrates is in prison, his position there is to be
accounted for not by the fact that he is composed of
bones and flesh and sinews, but because the Athenians
condemned him, and he regards it as better and more
right to remain and undergo his punishment than to
flee. 1 Rational explanation demands teleology. The
reason behind all things is the cause of all things.
Anaxagoras, however, did not attempt to work out

his principle, but fell back like the others on ether and
water and such like altogether inappropriate and irre-
levant causes. 2 To put the position in more modern
terms, the explanation of the world does not lie in
atoms or molecules or electrons. These do not tell
why things are, but only what they probably are. The
reason for this book is not to be found in pen and ink
and paper, but in the aim and motive of the writer.
The former are mere conditions for the carrying out of
the latter, which is at once the final and the efficient
cause. It was one of Socrates' great discoveries that
materialistic and mechanical principles give only
the conditions but not the causes or reasons of
3
phenomena.
The world is really a living organism like our own
body, it is a rational being like ourselves and we shall

;
only understand its phenomena and their inter-relations

by penetrating to the innermost reality of our own
being and discovering the principles of our own action.
The world is slowly moving to some goal it is con- ;
trolled by ends on the analogy and likeness of human

conduct. To be able to say what kind of world it is
1
Phaedo, 98 C-E. Ibid., 98 C.
1
Ibid., 99 A.
therefore, we must know what sort of ends it is aiming

at. Is its inner impulse to evil or to good, to ugliness
or to beauty ? To get light on that we shall have to
find by analysis of our own being, and from knowledge
of it, just what sort of end all rational seeking and
desiring involves. To know the world, then, is to
know ourselves. Man man, that is, as rational will
is the measure of all things. And thus it is that

for Socrates metaphysics is closely bound up with
psychology and ethics.
The two great principles which had crystallised in his
"
mind from the experiences of his "Sturm und Drang
period are now before us; (i) the knowledge of our
own ignorance, which alone can set the mind off in an
original quest for the true knowledge, alone make that
quest a real thing, the real thing, of life, that without
which, in fact, life is neither tolerable nor possible :
"Know that thou dost not know"; and (2) this

quest for true knowledge must be pursued through
the knowledge of ourselves: "Know thyself." Self-
knowledge, then, becomes Socrates' one lifelong dis-
cipline and pursuit and as the nature of the self is
;
rational, and the nature of the rational is the ethical,

ethics becomes for him the and starting-point and
basis
goal of metaphysics. And
at this period of his life, at
all events, we may class him as a Humanist or a Prag-
matist, though we shall see that, as in the case of his
great successor, Plato, it was a Humanism which was

never to be content with anything less than Absolutism.
Socrates was no pluralist or relativist.
Thus it was, then, that he turned from his first absorp-
tions in science and nature-study to inquiry into man
and the principles of his moral nature. It was in these
Riddle of the Universe was going
latter alone that the
to find its solution.In this phase of his thought he
represented and symbolised one of the characteristic
3
34 SOCRATES
movements of his age, the Humanistic movement,
which found expression in some of the great Sophists
of Greece, particularly in Protagoras, exercised a de-
cided influence in literature, and came into conflict
with the established faiths and customs of the various
states or cities where it got a footing. We note this
in passing simply to indicate, what we shall later en-
large upon, that the life of Socrates had not merely an

individual but a national significance. He was more
than a man he was a historical movement. And so
;
far from illustrating that form of originality which is

isolated from, and independent of, one's social environ-
ment, a form of originality more technically described
as insanity, Socrates was rather the beam of light from
which one can analyse out the many-coloured spectrum
"
of the age. His centralising interest, after his con-
' '
version that day when Anaxagoras kindled the light

in his soul, was man. And it was out among men that
"
he was likely to find man," not in a laboratory or
study, where
" Statt der
lebendigen Natur,
Da Gott die Menschen schuf hinein,
Umgiebt in Rauch und Moder nur
Dich Tiergeripp' und Totenbein."
The sculpture trade was neglected, given up, probably.
The first and foremost thing in Socrates' estimate was
not the making of statues, but the making up of his
own mind. The first article in his short Catechism was :
Man's chief end is to achieve the end of man. We must

be ourselves first, and anything else after that. It is
certainly an awkward and difficult view of life to take
seriously, but for Socrates it was the. only real, the
only possible, view. He couldn't live on bread alone,
he must have the Word of Truth. To him it was no
hobby, but a necessity, to be a seeker of Truth. The
world could do, and must do, without his statues he ;
could not do, and would not do, without its secret.
It was a bold thing for him to follow out this inner call.
It exposed him, no doubt, to misunderstanding and
criticism on the part of his practical and common-sense
friends and relations. Such incidental inconveniences,
however, must not be abjured, but endured, by him
who is in earnest about ideas. He gave himself up to
questioning everybody he came across who was likely
to be of help to him in his purpose, and his career to
the very end was a patient, indefatigable, unwearyable
search for true knowledge by the interrogation of
others. He wasalways animated by the same spirit
as Newton, who felt that he was but a child gathering
pebbles on the beach, while the undiscovered oceans
rolled beyond his feet. He never ceased to be a learner.
He never let an opportunity slip.
Indeed, his expertness in picking other people's
brains amounted to a fine art, and his importunity
was such as to be a severe irritant to those less
fanatical for truth. He stands a remarkable prototype
of Browning's Grammarian :
"
He knew and stepped on with pride
the signal,
Over men's pity ;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping.
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live

When
he had learned it.
Imagine the whole, then execute the parts
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick.
Still before living, he'd learn how to live

No end to learning.
Earn the means first, God surely will contrive
1
Use for our earning."
1
Grammarian's Funeral.
CHAPTER III
THE MAN
" La vie d6vote est une vie douce, heureuse, et aimable."
SAINT FRANCOIS DE SALES.
(a) His APPEARANCE

is only gradually we can unfold the features of
Socrates' spiritual and intellectual greatness.
IT We turn now to ask what manner of man he was
in looks. He had a wonderful gift of attracting the
generous-souled youth but it was no
to himself ;
grace or comeliness of the outward form for which they

desired him. It must be confessed that Socrates was
ugly in appearance. But he is by no means the only
ugly man in history who has exercised a magnetic spell
over others. There is a type of face, ordinarily unpleas-
ing, which, when lit up by the spiritual emotion within,
and kindling with the soul's rapt intensity, becomes
strangely fascinating. Savonarola, the great Florentine
priest and preacher, had a face like that. George
"
Eliot, in her Romola," one of the greatest and most
eloquent of modern novels, with the spirit of Êschylus
"
in it, indicates what it was like. There was nothing
transcendent in Savonarola's face. It was not beauti-
ful. It was strong featured and owed all its refine-
ment mind and rigid discipline of body,
to habits of . . .
with a gaze in which simple human fellowship expressed

itself as a strongly felt bond. Such a glance is half
the vocation of the priest or spiritual guide of men." 1
We can well believe that the spirit within must often
1
Romola, ch. 40,
M
THE MAN 37
have flooded the repellent physiognomy of Socrates

with the rapt fire of an unearthly enthusiasm and the
subduing grace of an intense human interest. Plato's
"
prayer was Give me beauty in the inward soul, and
:
may the outward and the inward man be one," and

under the transforming touch of a mingled spiritual
and intellectual ardour, we imagine the repellent
traits of feature being lost to sight in Socrates, and
the inner majesty of a seeing soul unfolding itself
before the eyes of eager onlookers.
But at ordinary times what was he like ? get We
details from various sources the "Symposium" and
"Apology" of Plato as well as other dialogues, Aristo-
" 1
phanes, and the Banquet" ascribed to Xenophon.
In the last named Socrates is staged as a jolly, good-
natured fellow, singing the praises of his own homely
features among his boon companions. Square, squat,
strong built rough-hewn from the rock
;
face-bones ;
thick set, and not too much flesh to soften their

angularities in spite of abstemious habits amounting
;
to austerity, stout and corpulent in body 2 protruding

;
3
eyes that seemed to want to see round the back of his
head snub nose, 4 with wide nostrils thick lips, straight
; ;
wiry hair, and irregular beard about the last man in

Athens to be taken for its Alastor and intellectual pro-
phet. He must, we think, have had some resemblance
to Macaulay, who was described in a contemporary
"
number of Blackwood, as a little, splay-footed, ugly,
dumpling of a fellow, with a mouth from ear to ear."

In his bovine eyes slept fires, which at times were
belched out as from the eyes of a bull. 6 Withal in his
1
There are grave doubts as to its authenticity, and the picture
of Socrates may be a bit over-coloured.
*
Xen., Banquet, ch. iv. For other features, ch. vi.
8 *
Cp. Theaetetus, 209. Cp. Theaetetus, 209.
'
See Phaedo, 117 b: "He looked like a bull at the man, as was
his wont."
38 SOCRATES
mien there was a haughtiness, which might even
become majesty, as he walked, with head tossed high
" do you
in the air, sphering his eyes about. Why "
carry your head so high, and do the haughty asks ?
one character of another in a comedy of Callias. 1

"
I have a good right," is the
reply, "I'm only following
Socrates' example."
2
In Aristophanes' "Clouds," the chorus of Clouds
"
thus address their high priest, Socrates You hold :
your nose high in the streets, and merely wheel your

eyes on folk. Barefooted, you put up with many ills ;
a high solemnity is on your face, because of us."

A strange figure he must have cut as he marched
along, with his shabby old cloak and his bare feet,
and yet with the tread of an Olympian, bestriding the
world like a Colossus. We surmise it must have
made gods men laugh, this insignificant
as well as
plebeian figure, that might have been the sausage
"
seller, stepped out from Aristophanes' Knights," yet
with all the bearing of the veriest aristocrat an air ;
which condescends to accept the universe and tolerate

" "
mankind, Aristotle's great-minded man come to
"
life, one who claims much because he deserves it," . .
who " utterly despises honour from ordinary men, for

that is not what he deserves, who likewise makes light
of dishonour, for he will never merit it, ... who never
looks down on others without justice, whose . . .
nature it is not to receive benefits, but to confer them,

dignified to equals, affable to inferiors, . . . who cares
not that men should praise him, nor lowers himself to
blame others, not doing many things, but what
. . .
he does, great and notable, ... his gait slow, his voice
deep, his speech measured, not likely to be in a hurry
when there are few things in which he is deeply in-
1 fr. 12. Quoted Couat, Aristophane, p. 283.
11. 362, 363.
THE MAN 39
terested, never excited, as one who holds nothing to

be of very great importance." 1 We can believe that
his old cloak swung about him in lordly fashion. 2
Such, then, the exterior of the philosopher seen by
the poor outsider of the markets, the view reproduced
for us by Plutarch when he says of the great Roman,
"
Marcus Cato He was cheerful and harsh all at once,
:
pleasant and yet severe as a companion, fond of jokes

but morose at the same time, just as Plato tells us
that Socrates, if judged merely from his outside,
appeared to be only a silly man with a face like a
satyr, who was rude to all he met, though his inner
nature was earnest and full of thoughts that moved
' '
his hearers to tears and touched their hearts. 3 However

formidable and majestic, Socrates, with all his eccen-
tricity, may have appeared to the man in the street,
yet, in congenial company at least, he could coin a joke
at himself. We have referred to Macaulay. It is
related of him that, after seeing his portrait as painted
by Hayter for a picture of the House of Commons, the
great litterateur good-humouredly quoted Charles the
Second's comment on seeing his own portrait, " Odds
fish, if I'm like this, I am an ugly fellow." Socrates,
we are given to understand, was wont to take an
equally genial view of his unprepossessing features.
He forgave Nature for taking a very utilitarian view of
beauty in the hour of deciding upon him, a view with
which in more serious moments and in regard to more
impersonal matters, he had himself unfeigned sym- "

"
pathy. The fifth chapter of Xenophon's Banquet
is an apology by Socrates for his face in detail, carried
out with a raillery and fun which clamour to be taken

1
Nicomachean Ethics, bk. iv. ch. 3. From Peter's translation.
* See Theaetetus.
3
Plutarch's Life of Marcus Cato. Lives translated by Stewart
and Long.
40 SOCRATES
for a true characterisation of a great human, who
with all his absorption in high philosophic themes
believed in the maxim desipere in loco.
That young " blood
"
of Athens, the beautiful and
but loose-principled and
brilliant, ill-starred, Alcibiades,
whose connexion with Socrates is one of the unfor-
gettable episodes in the everlasting romance of per-
sonal influence, is made by Plato to exclaim during
"
a burst of vinous frankness, You might very well
compare Brasidas or Pericles to Achilles or Nestor,
or other heroes of antiquity but here is one who is
;
comparable to no one at all except it be to a Silenus

"
or a Satyr." * And by the author of Xenophon's
Banquet," already alluded to, Socrates is presented as
arguing for his superior handsomeness on the ground
"
that Sileni are the progeny of naiads and nymphs
divine." In the "Thesetetus" we get a confirmatory
glimpse of the good-humoured and playful way in
which Socrates would allude to his outward man.
It lights up his whole character, showing him free and
easy in his manners, full of good nature, when you
knew him, however apparently lofty in his general
bearing before the outside world.
There was a story 2 told by Phaedo of Elis, and
repeated by the great Roman orator Cicero, to the
effect that a certain Zopyrus, who had a foible for
reading people's heads and divining their character,

expatiated on the vices written on Socrates' face,
whereat the rest of the company present, for the most
"
part, strongly dissented, but Socrates said, No, he
is right the vices are there, only reason has de-
;
throned them." The story indicates the sensual

strength and energy of the face, something in it that
told of suffering and struggle, the ruggedness about
1
Plato,Symposium, 215.
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. p. 48.
THE MAN 41
it of violent elemental forces, but also, far withdrawn,

to those who
could discern, a spiritual quality, a calm
of power attained through victory.
(6) His CHARACTER
Aristoxenos, a pupil of Aristotle, tells of having

heard his father, Spintharus, who came into personal
contact with Socrates, say that his temper sometimes
betrayed him into great improprieties of speech and
demeanour. 1 In all probability his natural tempera-
ment was of the violent and explosive kind, and
doubtless he found its control no pleasant pastime.
But that he was guilty of improprieties of speech and
demeanour may only mean what is otherwise clear
enough that, with all his faculty for gentle persuasion
and irresistible coaxing, when drawing on some modest
youth or conceited charlatan into the vortex of
argument, he was still a fragment of rude nature,
rugged and simple, robust and healthy, not choosing
his language always with a view to titillate the deli-
cate tympanum of over-refined, effeminate ears. To
people for whom the storm in a tea-cup is enough to
induce a mild sea-sickness, the roll and swell and
breakers of the real ocean must be a fearful terror.
There were those who thought Jesus anything but
controlled and restrained in parts of his speech and
demeanour, but usually a knowledge of particular
circumstances brings a more favourable and sympa-
thetic verdict. So with Socrates. We read that, in
the course of his discussions, he was often subjected
to rough handling, being stoned, having his hair
plucked, and being subjected to ridicule, but that he
1
Fragments of Aristoxenos, 27, 28, ap. Frag. Hist. Graec, p. 280,
ed. by Didot. Grote, Hist, of Greece, viii. p. 208 n., does not accept
distrust of Aristoxenos by Ritter and Preller.
42 SOCRATES
bore all with patience. Once, when he meekly sub-
mitted to a kick, his forbearance caused surprise. But
"
he only said, If an ass had kicked me, would I have
"
taken the law of it ?
Such stories may perhaps be exaggerated in details,
and their source may be the undoubted antipathies
he roused toward himself x but the above answer has
;
the genuine Socratic salt in it, and it no doubt faith-

fully preserves a characteristic superiority to personal
revenge for insults. The Athenians were a most liti-
gious species, with a very sensitive regard for their
rights, but Socrates overcame the tribal weakness, for
he remained a stranger to the inside of law courts
2
all his days.
Self-mastery was written deep over his character
and life. He fought like a Hercules with the Nemean
lions of doubt and appetite, and all the hydra-
headed problems of intellectual and moral life, and
he stands out before the world more than conqueror,
winning his soul, and, if not knowledge, at least faith and
trust and hope, where these alone are possible to win.
He was of the race of Jesus and the Buddha, one
to whom we can admiringly and affectionately apply
Meredith's lines :
" We see through mould the rose unfold,

The soul through blood and tears."
His was a single-eyed pursuit of knowledge and

life
virtue and a disinterested desire to spread them

among others. Selfishness or worldliness had no
place hi his heart. He was brought up poor, but he
had succeeded in gaining such knowledge, and was
possessed of such native endowment, as might have
put comparative wealth and affluence within his
1
Apol., 23 A.
1
Diogenes, ii. 5, 21, on the authority of Demetrius.
THE MAN 43
reach. He
could have taken a high place among the
travelling professors of the time, who charged large
sums for their instructions and apparently lived like
gentlemen, but he waved such a career aside as no
temptation at all. Regarding himself always as an
inquirer among inquirers, never as a teacher among
x
pupils, he refused to accept money from those to
whom nevertheless his society was a liberal education.
As Xenophon tells us, he lavished all he had, through
his whole life, on others, giving the greatest benefits
to all who cared to share them. Indeed we might
apply to him, as the formula of life he adopted in
relation to others, the words of the Apostle Peter :
"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have

give I unto thee." "He stigmatised those who con-
descended to take wages for their society as vendors
of their own persons, because they were compelled
to discuss for the benefit of their paymasters. What
surprised him was that anyone possessing virtue
should deign to ask money as its price instead of
simply finding his reward in the acquisition of an
honest friend." 2
His thought about life might be put into the grave
and impressive words spoken by our own great sage,
Carlyle, on that occasion when, as their Lord Rector,
he addressed the students of his old University of
Edinburgh : "Man is born to expend every particle of
strength that God Almighty has given him, in doing
the work he finds he is fit for to stand up to it to
;
the last breath of life, and do his best. We are called

upon to do that and the reward we all get which we
;
of, if we have merited it

are perfectly sure is that we
have got the work done, or at least that we have tried

1
Plato, Apol., 19 E. Xen., Mem., i. 6, n. Diogenes Laertius, ii,
5. 27.
2
Mem., i. 2, 6 and 7.
44 SOCRATES
to do the work. For that is a great blessing in itself ;
and I should say there is not very much more reward

than that going in this world. If the man gets meat
and clothes, what matters it whether he buy those
necessaries with seven thousand a year or with seven
million, could that be, or with seventy pounds a year ?
He can get meat and clothes for that and he will find
;
intrinsically, if he is a wise man, wonderfully little real

difference." So Socrates. Life was a mission not a
trade, for him. He construed it in terms of the highest.
Not what we get, but what we give, to the world is our
riches.
"
Thoreau, the American, wrote truly that to be a
philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor
even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to
live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, in-
dependence, magnanimity, and trust." Like Rousseau

he saw men born free but everywhere in chains, the
life of civilisation a slavery for the meat that perisheth,
and for a while he repudiated it and retired to the

banks of Walden Pond, near Concord, there to live
the philosophic life in a house built by himself and
costing between 5 and 6.
But Thoreau was a bachelor, and he was only con-
ducting an experiment. Socrates had to encounter
four arguments against his world-renouncing inter-
pretation of his call in a wife and three children, and
with him it was no novel and short-lived adventure,
but a mode of life faithfully followed for more than
a generation. All the more worthy then is he of the
name of a lover of wisdom.
He must have been quite a " character " in Athens,
and that sound common-sense of his, that gumption
which went right to the roots of things, sometimes
took rather droll ways of expressing itself. His
humour too, which was in the very bone of him, led
THE MAN 45
him to actions which must have helped to increase

the impression of eccentricity his quaint natural ways
created. Once coming on a crowd of people staring
at a fine horse, he stepped forward and asked the
groom if the animal had much wealth. The fellow
looked at him in surprise, thinking him hardly sound
in mind to ask such a question, and, rather puzzled,
" "
replied, "How can a horse have wealth ? Thereat"
"
says Socrates, who narrated the incident, I dared to
lift my
eyes from the earth, on learning that after
all it is permitted a poor penniless horse to be a
noble animal, if nature only have endowed him with

a good spirit."
Right at the end of his career he could stand
"
before his judges and say, I am at the extremity
of poverty on account of my service to God." l "He
did not think wealth and birth a matter for rever-
ence," says Diogenes Laertius, and if we go back to
that magnificent Dialogue of Plato, the " Theaetetus,"
a glorious anticipation of modern idealism, we shall
learn to understand why he could despise them. It
was because, like the Apostle Paul, he could say, " poor,
yet possessing all things." We take this excerpt from
one of the great passages of the world's literature :
"
Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten
thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this
to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to think
" " "
of the whole earth (as the Republic puts it, he is a
"spectator of all time and existence"); "and when
they sing the praises of family and say that some one
is a gentleman because he has had seven generations
of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments

only betray a dull and narrow vision in those who
utter them, and who are not educated enough to look
at the whole nor to consider that every manjias had
1
Apol., 23 b.
46 SOCRATES
thousands and thousands of progenitors, and among
them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves,
Hellenes and barbarians, many times over. And
when people pride themselves on having a pedigree
of twenty-five ancestors, which goes back to Hercules,
the son of Amphitryon, he cannot understand their
x
poverty of ideas."
Pale, passing, poor, all other wealth and nobility
to Socrates beside this of the mind and soul. Not
what a man has but what he is constitutes his only
title to rank and admiration. It is the thought that
wanders through eternity, the emotion that is touched
by all being, which is the great man's heritage. And
he is rich indeed before whom the universe stoops to
offer the gold and frankincense and myrrh of its own
secrets, purposes, and works.
Socrates did his high thinking on pretty plain
living and dressing. He had all the unconcern of a
St. Francis about his own personal wants. There is a
fragment from one of the plays of Eupolis, a comic
poet of the time who had a considerable vogue, but
of whose work no more than fragments have survived,
hi which a character delivers himself on this wise :
"
hate this Socrates, this babbling beggar, who has
I
meditated more than anybody else, but has never
asked where he was going to get his dinner." 2 Aristo-
phanes, greatest of the Comics, has various allusions
to him and his disciples, which will demand con-
" "
siderable notice later. In the Birds he speaks of
the faddists who were "dirty like Socrates," 3 "who
fasting and dirt, and played Socrates,"
4
lived in
and in the "Clouds" he represents the wretched
little coterie of Socratics as so stingy that they never
1 *
Theaetetus, 174, 175. Fragment, 352.
1. 1280. 1, 1282,
THE MAN 47
go to the baths or use unguents. They are a pale

l
ghastly lot, which does not, however, prevent them
2
being also as black as coal. These would have been
unkind cuts at Socrates, if they were not comedy.
There is nothing in Plato or Xenophon to suggest that
the sage's appearance might have gained considerable
advantage from a less economical use of soap and
water. The indications are rather to the contrary,
and would suggest that he knew the value of water,
and had great delicacy of feeling in regard to the body.
It might be a ponderous judgment which laid much
stress on the very slender hints of an artistic treat-
ment of character like Plato's, but at least he does
"
state that before Socrates went to the famous Sym-
"
posium he had bathed, and after an all-night flow
of reason and feast of soul, instead of going to bed, he
took a cold bath and proceeded to the duties of the
day. Plato apparently could imagine him doing such
a thing, and if Socrates was as black as Aristophanes
painted him, then Plato was unconsciously playing
into the hands of a cynical humour. Nor is it obvious
why a philosopher who had no superstitions about
water in life should suddenly succumb just before
death. 3 Socrates, as we shall see directly, was averse
to unhealthy negligence of the body.
In the matter of dress he dispensed with sandals
*
altogether, following what was the indoor fashion
even outside. The latter practice would not have
been such matter for remark unless it had been very
rare. There is a fragment of Ameipsias where it is
"
said of Socrates in regard to this economy that he
was born to be the curse of shoemakers." 5
It was sometimes an advantage in the summer as
* 3
1
11.835-7. ! IIIZ
-
Phaedo, 115 A.
4
Becker's Charicles, p. 445.
8
Frag. 9. In a play The Tribon. See Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 28.
48 SOCRATES
on the occasion where Plato pictures him walking
along in the stream of the Ilissus with Phsedrus, to
cool and refresh himself under the scorching sun.
But Socrates could do without the comfort of shoes
in all climates and weathers. When campaigning at
Potidaea, where the Athenians fought a battle with
the Spartans in September 432 B.C., the other soldiers
looked daggers at him because, while they kept indoors
in the bitter cold or wrapped fleeces about their feet
when they went out, Socrates trudged about on the
icy roads quite unconcernedly in his bare feet and with
a provoking curl of contempt on his lip. 1
As for clothing, previous to this campaign of 431 B.C.,
Alcibiades relates that he had had Socrates to supper,
" " 2
and then he was wearing a threadbare cloak ;
he was struck alike by the man's wisdom and powers

of endurance.
In all respects he was a model of the simple life.
He only ate and drank as a rule when hunger and thirst
intimated the legitimate and necessary claims of
Nature, and at such times a good appetite provided
all the sauce or spice that was necessary. His ab-
stinence in these matters was a notorious character-
istic, in allusion to which Aristophanes makes the
Clouds promise old Strepsiades that if he also will
join their cult he will be able to endure hardship,
stand or walk without fatigue, never suffer from cold,
nor be concerned about breakfast, and he will keep
aloof from wine and gymnastics and other follies. 3
"Others live to eat," Socrates once said. "I eat
4
to live."
The same moderation and self-control characterised
actions and passions
all his ;
if his face gave evidence
of sensuality subdued, his face was a true witness, for
1
Plato, Symposium, 220. Op. cit., 219.
*
Clouds, 413-16. Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 34.
THE MAN 49
Socrates held the reins tight on the lusts of the flesh

and its bewitching pleasures. No historical figure
gives a stronger impression of possessing an absolute
power of peace over the rage and tumult of the heart's
unquiet seas. Odysseus stopped the sailors' ears with
wax, and had himself tied to the mast, as his bark sailed
past the treacherous rocks where the fateful Sirens
sang with baleful charm but Socrates moved free;
and unfettered, with all his senses open, amid the

siren music of pleasure, moved with a sense of absolute
self-possession. He had made the " great renuncia-

tion," the decision for the higher as against the lower,
for spiritual attainment as against self-indulgence.
He had counted the cost, and he knew Hesiod's lines :
"
Wickedness may a man take wholesale with ease,
smooth is the way and her dwelling-place is very
nigh but in front of virtue the immortal gods have
;
placed toil and sweat, long is the path and steep that
leads to her, and rugged at the first, but when the
summit of the path is reached, then for all its roughness
the path grows easy." * And with the substance of the
2 "
teaching of Prodicus' famous allegory, The Choice
of Hercules," he had the greatest sympathy, bringing
out, as it does, that decided and final choice between
virtue and vice, labour and ease, self-discipline and
self-indulgence, which every youth must make whose
life is to rise above mediocrity of achievement and be
an enrichment to the world. The goals of all worthy

living are both difficult and remote, and the means of
their attainment sacrificial.
(c)Let us consider Socrates' severe self-restraint
furtherand we shall be persuaded that, so far as
Xenophon's recollections are concerned, it was not
due to the motive which drove the monks in the
1
1
Mem., ii. ch. i, 20. (Dakyns translation.)
1
See Mem., ii. ch. i, 21 flf.
4
50 SOCRATES
middle ages to castigate and mortify the flesh. It was
not due to a theory of dualism between body and soul,
as a result of which the more a man crushed out all
the natural impulses and desires of the physical side
of his nature the purer and stronger would he become
spiritually.
In this important matter of Socrates' theory and
practice, the testimony of Plato and Xenophon is not
wholly identical, because when we come to Plato's
writings we find emerging in them a clearly marked
In the " that
dualistic doctrine. Phaedo," superb
dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul, in which
rationalism touched with the emotion of mystic longing
takes its highest flight and falls, we have Socrates de-
lineated as one who desires to throw off this mortal
coil to depart and be with pure Ideas which is far
better and who, indeed, in life has been practising
to die.
" "
Philosophy in the Phaedo is the dying to the body,
and living to the Soul or Reason it is the protracted
;
struggle by means of Reason to rise entirely out of the

sphere of sense and appetites and passions into the
sphere of knowledge where the mind sees clearly
and not through a glass darkly. Here the body with
its affections of pain and pleasure is a distorting and
perverting medium, and only when we are wholly

disengaged from it, can we look face to face with the
eye of Reason on the Eternal Reality. Hence the
practice of the presence of Death to which Socrates
declares he has devoted his life.
Of the Socrates of the " Phaedo," however, we think it
may fairly be said, as of the Christ of the Apostle Paul,
that it knows no more the master after the flesh, but
after the spirit. Just as in the one case we have Jesus
Paulinised, so in the other we have Socrates Platonised.
We shall probably be convinced of this when we
THE MAN 51
reflect that this view of Socrates' life and doctrine is
closely and organically related in the "Phaedo" argument

to the doctrine of Ideas, which till recently nearly all
scholars have regarded as, in this developed ontological
sense, a vision of Plato not vouchsafed to the eyes of
Socrates.
" "
Besides, thePhaedo presents, I think, some degree
of positive assurance about the destiny of souls in the
next world, which is not on quite the same key as
Socrates' frank agnosticism, combined with the dis-
" "
position to trust the hope which we have in
larger
the early dialogue "Crito." These two dialogues
"
are contrary one to the other, and the " Phaedo as a
historical document in this regard must take the
lower place.
Again, then, we affirm our belief that Socrates did
not live as an ascetic from the ascetic motive of a
dualism of soul and body.
Turning to Xenophon we find that, like St. Francis
of Assisi, he had a reverence and just regard for
" "
brother ass his body, for the very reason that if
in your philosophical agonising you want to be free
of the body and all the handicaps which it may lay
upon the mind and reason, the best way is to keep it
in good health.
It is not when the body is in good form, but when it
is in bad form, that it hampers and restricts and
deflects us in the
higher the mental life.
race of
"
Rousseau wrote in " Emile "All sensual passions find
:
their home in effeminate bodies." "A feeble body

makes a feeble mind." "The longer I live," said
Sydney Smith, who was"
clergyman, philosopher, and
physician all in one the longer I live, the more I
am convinced that the apothecary is of more im-
portance than Seneca, and that half the unhappiness
in the world proceeds from little stoppages, from a
52 SOCRATES
duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place,
from a vext duodenum, or an agitated pylorus. Old
friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard
salt meat has led to suicide. Young people in early
life should be taught the moral, intellectual, and
physical evils of indigestion." One of the shrewdest

" " "
jokes ever launched was Punch's question, Is life
" "
worth living ? with the reply, That depends on the
liver."
Xenophon tells us that he neither neglected his

own body, nor approved of others who neglected theirs. 1
Rather he inculcated the greatest attention to health,
and food and drink, so that one might spend life as
2
healthily as possible.
Heremonstrates with Epigenes on his poor-looking
puny condition, telling him that healthiness is pro-
fitable not only from the point of view of all physical
demands, but also from those of the mind. Poor
health affects the understanding, it distorts observation
and knowledge, it causes forgetfulness, lack of en-
thusiasm, distemper, madness often.
The body is the handmaid of the soul, and it should
be made as beautiful as it can be. 8 He neither
neglected his body nor approved of those who did, but
advocated the natural claims of appetite combined
with moderate exercise, as tending to a healthy body
4
without trammelling the cultivation of the soul.
" Let us not

always say
'
Spite of this flesh to-day,
I strove, made
head, gained ground upon the whole !
'
As the bird wings and sings,

Let us cry, ' All good things
'" s
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more than flesh helps soul !
1 * iv. 8
Mem., i. 2, 4. 7, 9. Mem., iii. 12.
*
Mem., i. 2, 4.
5
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
THE MAN 53
Nor was Socrates' life a life that felt no attraction of

pleasure, no urge of passion, no joy of fulfilled desire.
Antiphon, looking at his frugal habits, thought he

should be dubbed professor of misery, but Socrates
points out that his food, though plain, is nutritious, and
he brings to it the excellent spice of hunger. If he
drinks only when he is thirsty, he enjoys it all the
more. If he does not wear sandals, he is never
troubled with sore heels.
His few wants leave him independent, superior to
inconveniences that bother other people, and freer
to face life's emergencies and duties, less tempted to
shrink from dangers and hardships. Self-mastery, and

moderation of the appetites, is the very foundation of
all virtue, and it must be made the central thing of
the soul.
It is the man who is thus master of himself and
victor over greed and covetousness that men prefer for
the executors of their property, and wards of their
children it is he who can be trusted to rule well in the
;
state and stand to his post in he too whom

war ;
people like for friend and guest, because he does not

think of himself first. He is the man who is " dear
to God, beloved by friends, and honoured by his
1
fellow-countrymen."
For all these reasons Socrates' life is, so far from
being miserable, the happiest life of all free from the
decay and degeneration of soul which over-indulgence
inevitably brings, and nearest to the life of God who
has no wants or needs at all. 2 It is the most divine
life on earth.
We thus see that Socrates practised self-control
as a means of realising the highest and happiest
1 The tones are of
Xenophon, but one can detect the true Socratic
note beneath.
2
Mem., i. 6, 10, Cp. Diogenes, ii. 5, 27.
54 SOCRATES
possible life of mind and spirit and body. The body
was not to be thrown away as a useless or harmful
thing, but to be cared for and used as an instrument
of the soul.
seems to be right in the main when he says
Zeller :
"
The
self-control of Socrates, alike in Xenophon as in
Plato, has not that ascetic character which has recently
been attributed to it. ... Here self-control is not
the radical denial of pleasure to oneself, but the
freedom of the consciousness of self, and the possession
1
of self."
"It was his professed purpose," writes Grote, "to
limit as much as possible the number of his wants,
as a distant approach to the perfection of the gods,
who wanted nothing to control such as were natural
;
and prevent the multiplication of any that were

2
artificial."
" "
now," he declared at his trial,
Up till I will
yield to none in the pleasure which life has brought

to me. I think those live best who seek to be as
good as they can be, and they with most pleasure
'
who feel themselves growing from good to better
"
daily self surpast,' and that joy has been his. 3 His
view was that of Aristotle at a later day that happiness
is not amusement it is not living the life of a vege-
;
table, it is the exercise of the highest faculties of

reason the true happiness is that of the perfect man. 4
;
Crito speaks of him

as always of an amazingly
6
happy, light disposition. "His life at all times,"
" was a marvel of cheerfulness and
says Xenophon,
calm content." 6
He was a Mark Tapley in the
flesh.
1
Phil, der Griechen, i. Die Personlichkeit des Sok., pp. 17, 18
(edit. 1844).
1 *
History of Greece, vol. viii. p. 207. Xen., Mem., iv. 8, 6.
Arist., Nicomachean Ethics, x. 6, 2 and 6 ; 8, 7.
'
Crito, 43 b. Mem., iv. 8, 2.
THE MAN 55
book l to show among

Prof. Taylor has published a
other things that Socrates was a religious ascetic, and
that he belonged to the ascetic sect of the Pytha-
goreans, maintaining an Orphic cult, one of the chief
dogmas of which was that the body was a tomb of
the soul, and that this life was really death, and that
what men call death was really the opening into life,
"
the escape from the prison-house this body of
death," as St. Paul called it into the pure, free
activity of the soul. Prof. Taylor has argued for his
views subtly and ingeniously, but he cannot argue
away much evidence
"
against them.
"
Neither the Phaedo of Plato, nor along with it
the "Clouds" of Aristophanes, appear to us to be
the works on which such a view of Socrates can be
securely based.
The personal reminiscences of Xenophon refer to a
period of Socrates' life when he associated with him,
that is perhaps from about 415 B.C. till 401 B.C.* when
Xenophon went to Asia, so that the period of about
two years which elapsed between the cessation of his
intercourse with Socrates and the date of the events
" "
recorded in the Phaedo hardly permit of a reconcilia-
tion of their accounts of Socrates' views on the body
in relation to the soul.
"
There the testimony both of the " Symposium of
is
Plato and that of "Xenophon," that Socrates, if an

ascetic in his views, was sometimes a very jolly one,
and of a non-teetotal variety. He could do his duty
to the cup on rare occasions with no visible effect on
himself, which argues either some little familiarity with
it at other times, or almost incredible power of mind
"
over body. Though unwilling generally to drink,
1
Varia Socratica, First Series, ch. i. pp. 29, 30.
*
The exact dates are uncertain. See Dakyns' works of Xenophon,
vol. i. introd. pp. 75, 76.
56 SOCRATES
when he was compelled, he could beat everybody, and
1
most amazing of all, nobody ever saw Socrates drunk."
Aristodemus describes the close of the banquet
"
in these Eryximachus and Pha^drus, and
words :
some others took their departure. I went to sleep and

as it was late I slept soundly till cockcrow. The rest
of the party were all asleep or gone, only Agathon and
Aristophanes and Socrates were awake, and there
they were sitting drinking out of a large cup, passing
itround from left to right."
Socrates the while talked paradoxes about comedy
and tragedy till the other two dropped into the arms
of Morpheus, overcome with wit, wisdom, wine and
weariness. He himself rose, went and had a bath,
then turned to the usual avocations of the day. 2
" "
The Xenophontic Banquet has striking re-
semblances to Plato's, but of course there must have
been considerable similarity about such functions,
and the differences are just as striking. The change
from the one to the other is like that which, however,
Burns did not find it impossible to make from a
distinguished and refined Edinburgh salon to the
Jolly Beggar bonhomie of the Crochallan Club.
The difference of atmosphere could be no greater
than that to which Jesus accommodated himself,
when one day he fared with a sympathetic Pharisee
and on another ate and drank with publicans and
sinners.
Socrates apparently had a large nature which was
sometimes as conspicuous for geniality as at others
for refinement. He could play the polished gentle-
man with a Protagoras or a Prodicus, and also the
hail-fellow-well-met with roystering cronies. The
Aristophanic portrait of the hungry, cadaverous, round-
shouldered, hollow-chested indoor student must have
1 *
Plato, Symposium, 220 a. Plato, Symposium, 223.
THE MAN 57
been irresistibly comical to the Athenians, because so

palpably absurd.
" "
In the Xenophontic Banquet he gets quite
hilarious, and jokes, in a mood inebriated only partly
with mere good-humour, on the unfortunate features
of his outer man. At one point l he gets the length
of declaring he would like to take a few turns at dancing,
for the movements lend added grace and animation
to the human form divine. Of course the idea of this
stout old philosopher tripping it on the light fantastic
toe sends the company into fits of laughter. But he
assures them that he indulges the terpsichorean art
at times in private, for the benefit of his constitution.
No wonder the graceful Charmides stood aghast on
accidentally coming upon the elephant at its evolu-
tions For a historical parallel we should have to
!
go to Dr. Johnson, who was accused in the papers of

"
taking lessons in dancing. And why," he asked,
"should not Dr. Johnson add to his other powers a
"
little
corporeal agility ?
Of course we won't swear to the exact truth of every-
thing in our authority, but the spirit of the thing
may be taken as true, and it all goes to indicate the
boyishness, the lightheartedness, the jollity on occasion,
of this man whose inner mind and soul were at heavy
wrestle with the mysteries of life and problems of
thought. Restless doubt and inquiry had not added
a drop of bitterness, sourness, or dolefulness to the
essential sweetness and gaiety of the disposition he
showed. He seemed to spend his life in irony and
2
jest on mankind, says Plato.
He puts the brightest face on things because, in
spite of all his hardships, endurance, and deprivations,
he has the joy of having saved his soul, won the
glorious privilege of being independent, and so lived
1 a
Ch. ii. Plato, Symposium, 216 E.
58 SOCRATES
"
as to feel the highest of all pleasures, that of becom-
ing better oneself, and of acquiring better and better
friends." 1
Hemerely took poverty in his stride, as
an incident, not as something to point to, and give
himself airs on. It was no pose with him. Once
referring to Antisthenes, who had turned the rent in his
cloak out so that it could be seen, Socrates quietly
"
said, I can see his vanity through the hole in his
coat."
Simplicity and sincerity marked his ways with
himself and others. All his desire was to be, not to
seem. He had a mission to fulfil and he was strait-
ened till it should be accomplished. He was happy
through all but the mission was the only thing
;
worth consideration.
1
Mem., i. ch. 6, 9.
CHAPTER IV
DOMESTIC LIFE
" This is my
prayer to thee, mylord Strike, strike, at the root
:
of penury in my
" Give me the
heart.
strength lightly to bear joys and sorrows.
my
" Give me the
strength to raise my mind high above trifles."
RABINDRANATH TAGORE.
report has it that the saints are very

beings to live with, and we can well
difficult
VULGAR imagine it to be so. We
have even heard of
a doubtful species who were saints abroad and devils
at home, a hybridism which points to lack of care
in the breeding of the virtues and disqualifies them in
popular estimation. Any man, however, who has

given himself as a hostage to God in some great
absorbing cause will be apt to forget those trifling
but charming adaptations which constitute the
amenities and graces of social life. Even a person's
"
abnormal sensibility may make him gey ill to deal
"
wi,' as in Carlyle's case. When a poor mortal can't
digest anything but chickens and refuses to have
them, because he can't stand their preliminary dying
cries, we can forgive the impatience of his sturdier
brethren who rejoice in the dura ilia messorum, and
we mark how virtuous may be the qualities that render
us hardly tolerable to our fellows. Even the authentic
saint is apt to be a thorn in the flesh of those made of
poorer stuff, for his unworldliness is like to be a source
of constant irritation. Often he is able to live for
other people because somebody else lives for him, and
59
60 SOCRATES
naturally he rather despises their office. Mary has a
sisterMartha who cooks and washes at home. The
saint eats his dinner as though he ate not, which is
far from pleasing to those who had the cooking of it.
His spiritual zeal creates material problems he cannot
stoop to solve.
Socrates was one of the easiest saints in the world
to get on with, whether at home or abroad, and yet he
must have made things difficult for his wife, and she
reciprocated in her own way.
Xanthippe, doubtless
affectionate enough, but a coarse-grained, ordinary
woman, could have done without her husband's
philosophy, if he had brought home more cash, and
occasionally fewer friends. Socrates would not teach
for money, his services were either above or beneath
reward, and she had to adopt the same estimate of
hers. He would not do his work for anything but love,
and she had to keep the house going on the same
commodity. She deserves more sympathy than she
has usually got. We can sympathise with her under
the unhappy necessity of performing
" that hardest task of man alive
To make three guineas do the work of five."
We don't
exactly know what her philosophy of life
was, normally, but there must have been moments
when it came perilously near Bernard Shaw's doctrine
adapted for domestic use, "The crying need of the
nation is not for better morals, cheaper bread, tem-
perance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen sisters
and erring brothers, nor for the grace, love, and
fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough
money."
has to be confessed that Socrates' household
It
economy is wrapped in mystery. Demetrius of
Phalerum, who wrote a book on him, declared in it
DOMESTIC LIFE 61
"
that Socrates not only possessed a house, but also
seventy minae (i.e. 284, 7$. 6d.) which were borrowed
l
by Crito." Plutarch does not accept this statement,
holding that it sprung from a desire to relieve Socrates
of the stigma of poverty. Demetrius' mind must
have been a piece of queer psychology if he thought he
could overthrow the united testimony of Plato and
Xenophon, and even in Athens in those days, though
money had three or four times the purchasing power
it has among us, 284, 75. 6d. could hardly represent
"
wealth. Anyhow, the " (Economicus of Xenophon
"
suggests a much more modest capital. If I could
find a good purchaser, I suppose that the whole of my
effects, including the house in which I live, might
"
very fairly realise five minae (i.e. 20, 6s.). So he
is represented as saying to Critobulos, and not only
so but he further declares that it is ample and suffi-

cient for his wants. 2 The verdict of Boeckh is that,
put out at current rates of interest, the portion of this
available for investment would not bring sufficient
return to provide Socrates and his wife with barley,
not to mention other necessaries, or the maintenance
of his three children. The point is discussed in
" "
The Public Economy of Athens by Boeckh, who is
"
inclined to doubt the statement in the " (Economicus
on the ground that the history of the ancient philo-
sophers is so corrupted by myth and legend. If it is
not to be credited for that reason, then it is difficult
to know where the line that divides truth from some-
thing else is to be drawn in Xenophon's writings,
especially as all the evidence goes to show that
Socrates lived in extreme poverty. After all the claim
" (Economicus " is
to credence of a document like the
on a very different footing from that of biographical
1
Plutarch, Life of Aristides, ch. i.
*
Ch. 2, 3. Loc. cit.
62 SOCRATES
writers in the Christian era. But Boeckh goes on,
"
Assuming Xenophon's account to be entirely correct,"
and what motive, we ask, could Xenophon have to
"
give an aggravated account of Socrates' poverty ? it
must be thought that the mother of the young sons
maintained herself and two children either by her
labour or out of her dowry, while Lamprocles supported
himself and that the domestic economy for which
;
Socrates was so celebrated consisted in keeping his

family at work."
l
We have not information to decide
on these circumstances. What Xanthippe's dowry
might be is a matter of mere speculation, but in all
probability it would not amount to much. While for

her labour, that must have been at the best but a
broken source of income, if we assume with the records
that the three children of Socrates were all by her.
The youngest was with his mother in the prison on the
morning of Socrates' death, which may perhaps be

ground for inferring that the child was then of tender
age, and not to be left out of the mother's care. If
so there must have been a lapse of many years between
the eldest and youngest, because Lamprocles was
quite a youth before his father died, and able to form
an independent judgment on his mother's character.
In any case there must have been times, at the birth
of the children, when expenses were heavier than
usual and Xanthippe's labours not available.
There is the possibility that while he refused pay-
ment for the privilege of association with him, yet
some of his friends, who were well supplied with this
world's goods, might be in the habit of relieving the
On the other hand, there
financial strain for his wife.
is evidence against such bounties, unless of course
they were given to Xanthippe without Socrates'
1
Public Economy of Athens, bk. i. ch. 20 (Eng. trans., 2nd
edit., revised 1842). Quoted also in Holden's CEconomicus, p. no.
DOMESTIC LIFE 68
personal knowledge. For to Critobulus he says his

exiguous property quite sufficient to meet his wants,
is
and if he ever did need any assistance he was quite

sure he had friends who would be only too willing
to render help. They would make some contribution,
to themselves a mere trifle, which would be a deluge
of plenty to him. 1 We have already noticed his
delicacy in money matters, and his extremely sensitive
regard for his independence. It was a matter of
report that he had declined the offer of Alcibiades to
2
give him land on which to build a house, and on
another occasion the invitation of Charmides to accept
some slaves for the purpose of making money by
them. 8
We gather then that Socrates' household subsisted
on a sum that would be incredible did we not know
that living in Athens was altogether cheaper and
simpler than in modern societies. If we could have
visited his home we should have found it intolerably
bare and mean, judged by modern ideas, for even the
well-to-do Athenian house 4 was far removed from
being a mansion, up to and at the period of the Pelo-
ponnesian War. They might be one story, but
generally consisted of two stories, the lower com-
prising the public rooms, and the inner or women's
apartments, where the females lived in an unhealthy
confinement which reminds us of the Zenanas of
India to-day. The upper story, which in some cases
was reached by an outside stair abutting on the street,
and which itself might overhang the lower story,
1
CEconomicus, ch. ii.
1
Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 24, on the authority of the Recollections
of Pamphile. Ibid., 31.
*
Cp. Couat, Aristophane, p. 194. Zimmern, Greek Common-
wealth, ad loc. ;Becker's Charicles, ad loc. Tucker, Life in Ancient
Athens, pp. 54, 55.
64 SOCRATES
could be used for the accommodation of the domestic
menials, where such were possessed. The material
used in building was commonly brick or wood, 1 and
sometimes stone. The roofs were flat, and the lighting
got partly from above, partly through doors, though
windows in the walls were also a method employed to
some extent. The heating was done by fires, but it is
supposed there were no properly constructed chimneys,
and that the smoke escaped in the way in vogue in
the old Scotch country cottages, i.e. through a hole
in the roof. The upper story, where it existed, must
have been rather in the way from this point of view,
and in that case the smoke had to get away as best
it could through apertures and doors. The floors
in early times were of dried earth, but in the fifth
century we also find them made of paving stones or "
2 "
pebbles set in cement. Becker in Charicles says
they were, as a rule, only plaster. In the more
elegant houses diverse patterns might be wrought on
the floor.
As for the walls they were merely whitewashed until
Alcibiades introduced the innovation of painting them.
Socrates appears to have been averse to this applica-
"
tion of art, for he complains that pictures and
decorations deprive of more pleasure than they give." 3
So at least it is stated among some other very trite
and commonplace remarks ascribed to him, and if it
is to be understood at all, the sentiment must have
been called forth by rather crude attempts at mural

decoration.
As for furniture, it was very scanty in all probability,
consisting of rude beds, couches, chairs, stools, portable
tables, cupboards, with necessary utensils and vessels
1
Xen., Mem., iii. i, 7. Whibley, Companion to Greek Studies,
623 Tucker, op. cit., p. 58.
;
s
Whibley, op. cit., 623. Mem., iii. 8, 10.
DOMESTIC LIFE 65
for cooking and for the table, 1 which when out of use
adorned the floor or walls.
Altogether then, taking Socrates' establishment as
a poor one, below the ordinary Athenian standards of
comfort, the impression we form of it is that it must
have been what to us would be an intolerably bare and
plain habitation, without touch of art, possessing only
such beauty as utility rigorously interpreted gives,
a habitation, however, which would demand the very
minimum of outlay to keep it up to its humble best.
A coat whitewash now and again for the walls would
of
be the extent of normal outlay to keep it in decent
order.
The cost of living in other respects was likewise
very low at Athens, the habits being simple. At
table knives and forks were not in use, solid food being
eaten with the fingers, while for liquid dishes a metal
spoon or a chunk of bread sufficed.
2
The average Athenian took three meals a day ;
3
breakfast, partaken of immediately on rising lunch ;
about noon after the marketing was done and dinner ;
in the evening, when the duties of the day were over

and one could enjoy oneself, and, on occasion, some
genial society, as well as one's viands. How many
meals Socrates usually took is, of course, quite another
matter. That would depend on circumstances and the
state of appetite. He regarded food as a matter of
minimum importance, to be regulated by need rather
than by rule. He might very occasionally indulge in
luxuries like fish and poultry and hare at a grand
banquet given by some friend on a great occasion, but
at home, as all accounts relate, he dined abstemiously
on the plainest fare. Vegetarian dishes were the order
1
Whibley, op. c-it., 624. Cp. also Xen., CEconomicus, ch. 9, 6.
1
See Becker's Charicles, p. 320 (Eng. trans.).
*
Arist., Aves, 1285.
S
66 SOCRATES
of the day, being cheapest, and consisting mainly of
barley bread and porridge, also vegetables like onions,

leeks, beans, lettuce, and cabbage. Butcher meat
was also at times, but sparingly, eaten by the people.
Olives and figs, nuts and fruit cakes, were run on for
dessert, the last enjoying great favour at Athens,
with a reputation like Bath buns in the south, or
Eccles cakes in the north of England. The poorer
people, of course, did not enjoy all this variety and,
inexpensive as such diet was, it does not by any
means represent the possible minimum of subsistence.
A man like Socrates especially could easily cut out a
number of these items as superfluous. Plato imagined
"
people in more primitive times to live on barley and
wheat, baking cakes of the meal and kneading loaves
of the flour." 1 And what the Scotch could nourish
a strong, healthy, and brainy peasantry on, would not
be too plain for Socrates, and would mean extremely
little outlay.
We can get an idea, from information scattered
through the Comedies of Aristophanes, as to the
prices of such commodities. Enough to make a
2
repast might be got for a half-obol, or three-farthings
in our money, according to the statement in the
"
"Frogs in the "Wasps," 3 the judge Philocleon can
;
feed a family of three persons on <\\d.

"
From the " Plutus we learn that a cloak might
4
cost about thirteen or seventeen shillings, 6 and a
6
pair of shoes about six shillings and sixpence, but
these can by no means represent minimum prices.
"
A man could keep himself on twopence halfpenny
a day at that outlay he could have some bread,
;
olives, and some fish or meat. Fourpence halfpenny

1 *
Repub. 372 b. Arist., Frogs, 554.
* *
11. 300, 301. Assembly of Women, 412.
*
Plutus, 982. Plutus, 983.
DOMESTIC LIFE 67
sufficed to buy bread, provisions, and drink for a

family of three persons. Food and fire did not cost
a family more than one hundred and eighty-two
drachmas, or about eight pounds. In addition there
was rent and clothing. A house could be had at an
annual rental of from five to ten pounds. Clothes
and shoes did not cost more than from fifty to sixty
drachmas, i.e. from about forty-four to fifty-three
shillings. Thus, says Couat, a family could live on
three hundred and twenty-five francs a year, i.e.
"
about sixteen pounds." 1 The most moderate person
required for living i obols a day (i.e. about 2d.),
which in a year of 360 days gives a sum of about 3."
For four persons that means 12, and at the rate of
12 per cent, this demands a capital of 144 for food
alone.
The earnings of workmen were correspondingly small,
pay varying from five obols to two drachmas, in our
money sevenpence halfpenny to one and sevenpence
halfpenny. The salary paid by the state to soldiers
for time spent in military manoeuvres was at the rate
of fourpence halfpenny a day.
From facts like these it is possible to understand to
some extent the smallness of Socrates' estimate of his
own property, and to get an idea of what an in-
significant sum it would be possible for him and his
family to subsist upon by denying themselves all but

the very necessaries of life, and with the help of
Xanthippe's vigorous management, assuming it to
have taken an economical bent.
The question arises in regard to Socrates' married
life, whether Xanthippe was the only wife he ever had.
We quote the following passage from Diogenes Laertius :
"
Aristotle says that he (Socrates) had two women in
1
Couat, Aristophane, p. 192. Cp. Boeckh, Public Economy of
Athens, bk. i. ch. 20 (Eng. trans.), pp. 109 ff. (1842).
68 SOCRATES
marriage in the first instance, Xanthippe, of whom
;
Lamprocles was born then Myrto, the daughter of

;
Aristides the Just, whom he took without dowry she ;
became the mother of Sophroniscus and Menexenus.

Some say he married Myrto first some, that he had ;
both at the same time, e.g. Satyrus and Hieronymus

the Rhodian. For, they say, the Athenians, wishing
to increase the population, on account of the lack of
men, decreed to marry one woman as wife and to beget
l
children by another. Hence Socrates' action." Of
these statements it certainly not true that Xan-
is
thippe was the first wife of Socrates, and was succeeded

by Myrto, for Socrates was the husband of Xanthippe
at his death, and the mother of his youngest child.
She was also admittedly the mother of his eldest
Lamprocles. So that, if he ever had been married to
another woman before Xanthippe, he either had no
children by her, or for some inexplicable reason no
writer has made any allusion to them. The same com-
ment will hold of any hypothetical relationship with a
woman after his marriage with Xanthippe. The idea
has to confront three improbabilities (a) the pur-:
pose of the relationship, if it was to replenish a popu-

lation reduced by war, was not in Socrates' case
attained or (b) if it was, no mention is made of the
;
which is hard to account for, since the three

progeny,
by Xanthippe are mentioned, a number which hardly
represents any zeal for the state in its need, when we
remember that many years must have intervened be-
tween the birth of the eldest and youngest ; (c) the
improbability arising from Xanthippe's feelings in the
matter, which, if they were like her sentiments generally,
must have been strong and decisive against rivals.
The story in a milder form is contradicted by Plu-
tarch in his Life of Aristides, 2 where he refers to it in
1 *
Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 26. Ch. 27.
DOMESTIC LIFE 69
"
the following terms Demetrius of Phalerum, Hiero-
:
nymus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus the musician, and Aris-

totle (if we are to believe the treatise on Nobility a
genuine work of his) say that Myrto, the granddaughter

of Aristides (Diogenes says the daughter) lived in the
house of Socrates the philosopher, who was indeed
married to another woman, but who took her into his
house because she was a widow destitute of the neces-
saries of life. These authors are sufficiently refuted by
Panaetius in his writings on Socrates."
It would have been extremely interesting to know
what Panaetius had to say on this matter, but as it is,
we must either be content to dismiss the episode as
pure legend, or be satisfied that any base and carnal
motive for his conduct is out of the question as incon-
sistent with all that is most sure and certain about his
character. 1
This, however, has to be granted, that his relations
with Xanthippe were not of the most fortunate, partly
for reasons concerned with the status of women gener-
ally in Athens at that time, and partly on account of

Xanthippe's own peculiar temperament, which had
the one advantage of being a foil to set off the patience
and goodness of heart of her philosophic husband.
(b) The sentiments and conceptions of woman and
her sphere in Athens were such as to make it almost
impossible for a wife to be the intellectual companion
of her husband, unless when she was possessed of
marked native talent. That intellectual culture and
acquirement which boys got from schools and tutors
and the free intercourse of social life was denied the
Athenian girl, and she grew up (ordinarily) with
merely domestic interests and accomplishments. There
were women who had fitted themselves for intellectual
1
See the remarks of Professor A. E. Taylor in Varia Socratica,
pp. 61, 62.
70 SOCRATES
companionship with men and who enjoyed free and
unfettered intercourse with them, but they belonged
to a small class apart, which was not the one from
which an Athenian would choose his wife they were
;
the free-lances of society, outside the pale of civil

rights and beneath the recognition of the respectable of
their own sex. The life and interests of the respect-
able female were cribbed, cabined, and confined the ;
home was her sphere, almost her prison, and her

duties were those of the faithful wife, mother, and
mistress of the home. She was seldom to be seen
on the street ;
it would even have shocked propriety
for her to do her own marketing ;

and as Pericles
declared, in his famous Funeral Oration, the less she was
on the tongues of men for good or evil the better.
Using Xenophon's metaphor of the ideal wife, she was
the queen-bee living always in the hive, and directing
her workers in the doing of their various duties. She
was a delicate combination of the German Hausfrau
and the English mid- Victorian, the quintescence of
domesticity and propriety. Cranford itself had nothing
to show more fair in the way of delicacy, modesty,
and ladylikeness, what is called in these last days
"
the womanliness of woman." Only we fear that to
cover the effects of her indoor life she took to the
rouge-pot, a pardonable weakness surely, since it
sprang from the self-effacing desire to be pleasing to
her husband. Intellectually she was always a minor,
and was thought better so.
be interesting, and not, we hope, altogether
It will
unilluminating with regard to Socrates, to get as fair

an idea as we can of the facts about the Athenian wife.
It will show that we ought not to judge of Socrates'
married lot by standards not then demanded or
expected.
That woman was inferior and regarded as such is,
DOMESTIC LIFE 71
on the whole, true. 1

In answer to a question put
" "
by Socrates, CEconomicus
in the of Xenophon,
which gives a very charming, if also to us at times
an unconsciously amusing picture of the ideal domestic
life, Isomachus, the interlocutor, speaks in this wise
"
regarding his docile and exemplary mate Well- :
skilled ? What proficiency was she likely to bring

with her when she was not quite fifteen at the
time she wedded me, and during the whole period
of her life had been most carefully brought up to
see and hear as little as possible, and to ask the
fewest questions, or do you not think that one should
be satisfied if at marriage her whole experience con-
sisted in knowing how to take the wool and make a
dress, and seeing how her mother's hand-maidens had
their daily tasks assigned to them ? For as regards
control of appetite and self-indulgence she had received
the soundest education, and that I take to be the most
important matter in the bringing up of man or
woman." 2
(c) The objects of marriage are stated in the oration
of Demosthenes against Neaera as being "in order to
beget legitimate children and to have a trustworthy
guardian of the home and all in it."
3
Isomachus, in
" "
the CEconomicus," says Did it ever strike you to
:
consider, dear wife, what made me choose you as my
1 "
Plato, in Repub., v. p. 455, says In almost every employ-
:
ment the male sex is vastly superior to the other. There are many
women no doubt who are better in many things than many men ;
"
but speaking generally the case is as stated a perfectly English
"
sentiment, rather more strongly put by Aristotle: Even a woman
may be good and also a slave though; the woman may be said to
be an inferior being and the slave is absolutely bad" (Aristotle,
Poetics, 15, i). Plato in the Laws desiderated education for girls
to enable them to take their place by men.
*
CEconomicus, 7, 5,6.
8
p. 1386. Cp. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii.
p. 382 ; Grote, Plato,
ii. p. 2 n.
72 SOCRATES
wife among women, and your parents to entrust you
all
to me of all
? men
It was with the deliberate intent to
discover, I for myself and your parents on behalf of

you, the best partner of house and children we could
find, that I sought you out, your parents acting to the
best of their ability made choice of me. If at some
future time God grant us to have children born to us,
we take counsel together how best to bring them
will
up, for that too will be a common interest and a

common blessing if haply they shall live to fight our
battles, and we find in them hereafter support and
succour when ourselves are old." 1 The chief ends
"
of marriage are first and foremost to perpetuate the
races of living creatures, and next to make provision

for sons and daughters to render support in old
2
age."
There nothing in this that might not be assigned
is
by any contemporary writer on the subject to-day.

And one really sees no reason for the assertion that in
Greece the married relation was a sensuous one in a
degree in which it is not so among the mass of people
now. The Apostle Paul himself, while setting up
celibacy as the ideal for the Corinthian Christians,
still advised them to marry if their passions were too
3
strong it is better to
; marry than to burn. And
Bernard Shaw has attacked the marriage institution of
England as being to a large extent describable in terms
of St. Paul's lower alternative. And who can deny
that it is by ordinary conventional sentiment taken as
a charter by which any and every indulgence of sexual
passion is legitimised and consecrated.
It may be said that the better education and wider
interests of women
to-day permits of and makes
possible a truly spiritual union between man and
1
CEconomicus, ch. 7, n and 12. (Dakyns' trans.)
1
Op. cit., ch. 7, 19. i Corinthians, ch. 7, v. 9.
DOMESTIC LIFE 73
woman a companionship in life's ideal interests which

purifies and transfigures the merely sensuous bond.
That is of course true, but we should be wrong in
supposing that the same transfiguration was not
possible to the Greeks.
It is nothing to the contrary by any means that the
relationship usually originate in romantic
did not
sentiment and love's young dream, that marriage
was the result of an arrangement between the bride-
groom and his parents, on the one hand, and the
parents of the bride on the other, and that the two were
often unacquainted with each other previous to the
event which was of such import to both. If the mode
of selection was artificial and rather prosaic, we must
recollect that it is the only one we consider good enough
for our royal families, and the one which plays a larger
and larger part as we ascend in the scale of society.
Moreover if, as Xenophon hints, it was based on a refer-
ence to the end of marriage as the production of offspring
for the state, and carried out with a view to the best
accomplishment of "that end, it" was only the kind of

thing which the advanced people in our own
society, styled Eugenists, would very much like to
see more prevalent among us.
(d) Woman was regarded as an inferior creature, so
she is still ;
but that does not prevent her from enjoying
special privilege and deference. Anyone who knows
our society knows that the gentlemanly attitude to
the fair sex, chivalry and gallantry in their higher
refinements, are quite compatible with a good deal
of latent cynicism in the views of women, and a very
pronounced belief in their essential mental inferiority

to the male.
In Greece there was much that went to neutralise
female inferiority, and make the male attitude to it
"
in many cases something other than one of con-
74 SOCRATES
1
temptuous toleration," as it has been described. In
certain respects, with all its narrowness of mind and
restriction of liberty, womanhood was the object of
special deference and respect, and a high ideal in the
way of modesty and purity"
was demanded.
Marcus Cato said that a man who beat his wife and
children laid hands on the holiest things," and we can
find in Aristophanes indications that as regards woman
that was also the Athenian view. It is bad enough
that Pheidippides beats his father it is disgraceful;
but that he should even threaten to beat his mother
is an intolerable enormity. Strepsiades can make no
terms with the causes of such unnaturalness. 2 The
plays of Êschylus and Sophocles breathe the sense
of a certain rare dignity, propriety, and delicacy, as
the characteristics of womanhood. Weak, foolish,
and baneful the sex may be, but it is more, it stands
out as a thing to be reckoned with for good or ill. In
" "
the Electra of Euripides one finds expressed, in the
conduct and on the lips of an old peasant, those feelings
of chivalry towards the weaker sex which denote the
respect it commanded.
Isomachus finds in his ideal wife one who will
share his joys in days of gladness, enter into his
sorrows in days of trouble. 3 She is the real partner
in his inner life, even though excluded from public
interests. The Athenian, like the average educated
German, wanted to find in his home a haven where
the ripples and waves of business cares and political
strifes did not come ;
" Thou hast and kine

enough with fields to keep ;
'Tis mine to make all bright within the door.

'Tis joy to him that toils, when toil is o'er,
To find home waiting, full of happy things." 4
Godley, Socrates and Athenian Society, p. 124.

1
*
See Clouds, 11. 1442 ff.
4
Xen., (Economicus, ch. 9, 12. Euripides, Electra.
DOMESTIC LIFE 75
Certainly we smile at the eagerness of Isomachus

"
to relate to Socrates instances of the large-minded-
"
ness of his wife, shown in the readiness with which,
"
as he says, she listened to my words and carried out
"
my wishes it is so exquisitely English. Nor was
this the only side to the picture. With all her con-
ventional subordination she was not always without
the immemorial power to subdue superior strength.
'
You see that little boy," said Themistocles once to
"
his friends, the fate of Greece is in his hands, for
he rules his mother, and his mother rules me, I rule the
Athenians, and the Athenians rule Greece."
"
If we may be permitted to quote from the (Econo-
micus" again, in spite of Gomperz's statement, 1 that
Xenophon's works are no true picture" of Athenian
life and sentiment (Husband to wife)
: The greatest
joy of all willbe to prove yourself my better to make ;
me your follower knowing no dread lest, as the years

;
advance, you should decline in honour in your house-

hold, but rather trusting that, though your hair turn
grey, yet in proportion as you become a better help-
mate to myself and to the children, a better guardian
of your home, so will your honour increase throughout
the household as mistress, wife, and mother, daily
more dearly prized, since it is not through excellence
of outward form but by reason of the lustre of virtues
shed forth upon the life of man, that increase is given
"
to things beautiful and good." 2 In the " Banquet it
is mentioned as if it were something not at all very
remarkable that Niceratus adores his wife and is

adored by her. 8
At its best married life was thus a happy union in
which the feeling of inferiority or superiority was
1
Greek Thinkers, vol. ii.
p. 382.
s
CEconomicus, vii. (Dakyns' trans.)
1
*
Xen., Banquet, ch. viii. (Dakyns trans.)
76 SOCRATES
effaced, and at its worst a relation from which the law
permitted release to the woman under certain circum-
stances, so that she was not entirely at the mercy of a
callous husband. Woman, then, was no mere chattel
without rights technically she was the inferior,
;
the man was the head of the wife, as in the Pauline

Ethic, but in practice it depended a good deal on the
persons concerned.
The case of Socrates himself is instructive, though
we do not class him as an ordinary Athenian. After
allowing for the natural tendency to work out the
typical example of the other-worldly philosopher and
henpecked husband in one, we must allow some truth
to common gossip, and recognise that under Socrates'
humble roof Xanthippe was master of the situation.
Whether by reason of constitution or of circumstances,
or of both combined, she had developed into a quick-
tempered, sharp-tongued, petulant woman. She had
not any of the power of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage
Patch to lock up her troubles and lose the key. She
was apt to be querulous in speech and volcanic in
action. And we can sympathise with the alacrity of
Socrates, which comes out as a little natural touch
"
in the CEconomicus," whether consciously or un-
consciously. Isomachus expresses a fond desire to
treat the philosopher to some instances of that large-
mindedness of his wife which showed itself in her
willingness to do what he wanted; and Socrates

"
replies, What sort of thing
Do, pray, tell me, since
?
I would far more gladly hear about a living woman's

virtues than that Zeuxis should show me the portrait
of the loveliest woman he has painted." The senti-
ment is thoroughly Socratic, but is there not also a
drop of pathos in the question ? Still the reminiscences
and anecdotes go to show that Socrates, ample-minded,
big-hearted, easy-going, with all his restless rapier-
DOMESTIC LIFE 77
the honest but fiery Xanthippe

like intellect, treated
with the best of good-humour and consideration, for
he knew the virtues in her motherly heart.
Alcibiades once said that her rating was intolerable.
" "
Oh," said Socrates, I'm used to it as one gets used
to the noise of wheels. Besides you don't find the
" '
noise of geese intolerable A. But they give me
!
eggs and young ones.' S.

'
And Xanthippe gives
"
me children.' l
On another occasion, as the gossip
goes,he compared himself, as husband of a fiery wife,
to a trainerwho has to deal with spirited horses.
When he can manage them, he has the satisfaction of
2
knowing he need fear no others. One day she was
givinghim a rating in the presence of some friends,
and concluded her tirade by flinging some water
about him, whereat the philosopher good-naturedly
"
contented himself with remarking, Did I not tell
you Xanthippe was thundering, and it would soon
" 3
rain ? It reminds one of the story told of St.
Basil. The Saint was haled before an angry magis-
trate, who threatened that he would tear out his liver.
"
To this Basil Thanks for your
politely replied,
intention ; where it is at present
has been no slight it
annoyance." Asked his advice whether a man ought

"
to marry, Socrates wittily replied, In either case
you will repent it." Such was ancient gossip.
His excellent and forbearing conduct in the home
seems to have been a proverb in the ancient world,
and not without an influence for good. Marcus Cato
"
expressed himself to the effect that he would rather
be a good husband than a great statesman, and that
what he especially admired in Socrates was his
patience and kindness in bearing with his ill-tempered
4
wife and stupid children."
1 *
Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 36. Op. cit., il. 5, 37.
3 *
Op, cit., ii. 5, 36. Plutarch, Life of Marcus Cato, ch. 20.
78 SOCRATES
In every direction he was, as we have seen, a man of
extraordinary self-restraint, and the root of it lay,
we think, in his capacity to see things steadily and
see them whole. Outbursts of anger and retaliation
against individuals are generally due to a temporary
lapse of memory under present excitement, a defect
of rational vision, during which the object is not seen
entire, but is caught at a rapid, partial, or unfavour-
able angle ; in such an instantaneous, fragmentary
view there is nothing to counteract the impulse of
resentment. But Socrates at such testing moments
could keep the whole object in full view of the whole
eye, and the reaction was determined accordingly.
He saw not merely Xanthippe the termagant, but
Xanthippe the sharer of his burdens, the companion of
his poverty, the mother and nurse of his children, the
wife who no doubt at bottom loved him from her
heart.
Lamprocles, one of their sons, on a certain occasion
lost histemper with his mother, and when his father
remonstrated, he alleged in excuse that nobody could
stand her cantankerousness. Socrates took him in
hand and showed how unjust and ungrateful he was,
"
in view of all he owed to his mother. The mother
conceiving bears her precious burthen with travail
and pain, and at the risk of life itself sharing with
that within her womb the food on which she herself
is fed. And when with much labour she has borne
to the end and brought forth her infant, she feeds it
and watches over it with tender care, not in return
for any good thing previously received, for indeed the
babe itself is little conscious of its benefactor and
cannot even signify its wants, . and for many months
. .
she feeds it night and day, enduring the toil, nor recking
what return she shall receive for all her trouble. . . .
And this mother who is kind to you and takes such

DOMESTIC LIFE 79
tender care of you when you are ill to make you well
again, and to see that you want for nothing which may
help you ; and more than all who is perpetually plead-
ing for blessings in your behalf and offering her vows to
heaven can you say of her that she is cross-grained
" l
and harsh ?
Behind her faults then Socrates saw the essentially
good mother. Nor should we fail to note the piety of
the home, so precious a possession of the ancients,
which is here indicated. We shall have to deal later
with the religion of Socrates, but no treatment of
domestic life would be right which omitted all re-
ference to the domestic pieties and the religious feeling
which pervaded the common life of the people, and
out of which arose the sacred rites of the family
hearth. In passing one may also draw attention to
the fact that the attitude here depicted does not bear
out the Aristophanic representation of him as, in
intention and spirit at all events, an underminer of
filial Socrates taught doctrines whose tendency
piety.
was to work as solvents of merely sentimental con-
ventions, where sentiment is out of place, but there
was nothing in that which at all weakened the duty
of a just deference and gratitude to parents, any
more than it would be legitimate exegesis to take the
teaching of Jesus that unless a man hated brother
and sister and father and mother he could not be worthy
to be his disciple, and interpret it as teaching actual
hatred of one's own flesh and blood as condition of
loving humanity, which would be an extraordinary
inversion of their real spirit and tendency.
Wehave seen then the calm, reasoned attitude of
Socrates in the home, his recognition of the essential
work and worth of the woman whose irritability must
have often been a thorn in the flesh. The elements
1
Xen., Mem., ii. ch. 2. (Dakyns' trans.)
80 SOCRATES
of violent domestic unhappiness and strife were there,
but the steady and completely disciplined character,
and the all-round vision of Socrates, saved the situa-
tion, so far as salvation was possible, and kept him
cheerful and genial through all.
(e) He brought the same reconciling spirit to bear
on all family relationships, holding that members of a
family are meant to be a help and blessing to one
another. The family is an organism whose members,
like eyes and hands and feet in the body, make up for
each other's deficiencies and contribute to the common
unitary life. Domestic squabbles were for him the
sign of a species of stupidity, of a lack of the common-
sense to give and take, to overlook and forgive. For
the want of this spirit the divine meaning and purpose
of the family is frustrated. It is intended to be a
little commonwealth of those who co-operate each
with each to the advantage and good of all alike. 1
The parents out of natural affection must sacrifice
and labour for their children's weal, and the children
must honour and respect their parents. The home
thus becomes a school of character and a centre of
happiness. The chapter on Socrates' education has
already brought out the fact that in Greece generally
the hearth was a centre of religious and moral guidance
and instruction, a place for the first stages of character-
building, and an altar whose priest was the father.
8
There is nothing in Xenophon's "Reminiscences," or
anywhere outside the Platonic Dialogues, that we

know to suggest that Socrates felt, as Plato did so
of,
deeply, that the institutions of the family and of

property had failed to produce a high enough type of
citizen, and that that result would only be achieved
by breaking down family walls, and introducing a
1
Mem., ii. 3, 19.
1
Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cit6 antique.
DOMESTIC LIFE 81
state communismin which all narrower, more domestic

loyaltieswould be submerged, and loyalty to the one
father and mother, Society, alone remain. That we
believe was left for the rationalism of a thinker in
whom sentiment was much less deeply rooted than in
the rationalism of Socrates. The latter was, in the
words which Lord Houghton was characterised by
in
"
G. W. E. Russell, that most precious combination
a genius and a heart. He warmed not only both
hands but indeed all his nature before the fire of life."
Family relationships as well as social relationships were
in his view capable of being made an indispensable
enrichment of life.
CHAPTER V
PUBLIC LIFE
"
Ah, forge of God, where blows
The blast of an incredible flame, what might
Shapes to what uses there
Each obdurate iron or molten fiery part
Of the one infinite wrought human heart ;
In tears, love, anger, beauty, and despair,

"
Throbbing for ever, under the red night ?
LAURENCE BINYON.
(a) SOCRATES AS FRIEND
Athens men were citizens first and anything else

"
after that. An Athenian citizen," says Pericles,
IN
"
in the oration put into his mouth by Thucydides
an Athenian does not neglect the state
citizen
because he takes care of his own household. We alone
regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs,
not as a harmless but as a useless character." l
Loyalty to the state's welfare must condition and
circumscribe all other loyalties. Home life with us
is richer than with them. We recognise that the
home is the best school for society, that it is there we
first learn the love and brotherhood, the mutual for-
bearance and self -sacrifice, which we must later apply

in the wider relationships of the community. It is
in the warmer, more genial atmosphere of the family
we train those seedlings which we must plant out in
the world to clothe it with beauty and fruitfulness.
1
Thucydides, bk. ii. ch. 40.
82
PUBLIC LIFE 88
At the same time it must be confessed that there

is in human nature, as we are acquainted with it at
present, a strong tendency to give up to the family
what was meant for mankind. It is an enlarged form
of selfishness, which checks and frustrates various
reforms which would be for the good of the nation as
a whole. What we want is more public spirit which
will bring men and women outside their excellent
homes to think and work disinterestedly for the
common weal. We in this land have never appre-
ciated as the Greeks did how much we owe to society
and its organisation in the way of secure life, eco-
nomic resources, accumulated culture, and developed
morality ; indeed, we are its debtors for everything
which enriches personality and makes life worth
living. If we are above the condition of Hottentots
and Sandwich Islanders, it is because of the social
heritage into which we have entered.
Socrates, at any rate, cannot be accused of subordi-
nating public to home duties. In a town of citizens he
was distinguished for his public ardour, though it was
exposed to misrepresentation or lack of recognition

because it did not run in the conventional channels.
No figure was more familiar in the market place and
other haunts of public resort, 1 like the Gymnasia.
Anywhere where two or three people were gathered
together you might find Socrates in the midst. He
could hardly have been of the tribe referred to con-
"
temptuously by Robert Louis Stevenson, who have
plied theirbook diligently and know all about some
one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of
the study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour
and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better
and brighter parts of life," though that is the picture
of him which Aristophanes sketches, making him live
1
Mem,, bk. i. ch. i, 10,
84 SOCRATES
a rusty-musty existence in an underground cellar where
he and his followers get pale grubbing after pale
" "
notions," their faces bruckit wi' dirt," as Scotch
folk say.
" " is
Socrates," says Laches, always passing his time
in places where the youth have any noble study and
pursuit." He might be found sitting in one of the
various tradesmen's shops surrounding the market,
where Athenians would often turn in of an afternoon
and pass the hot time of day resting and conversing,
or under the porticoes of buildings, or perhaps walking
beneath the shade of the plane trees which Cimon had
had planted in the market.
The market, or Agora, was the very centre of Athenian
"
life, the hub of the universe," where the hum of
talk and discussion for ever floated among the cries
of hucksters, who stood at their booths or stalls and
shouted out their wares in bustling rivalry, and where
each class of goods had its own position and area.
The market was a large, rambling, irregular space,
stretching from the Pnyx to the Inner Cerameicos.
More especially from nine in the forenoon till about
twelve it presented a scene of animated bustle, moving
knots of men, gentlemen or slaves, busy making their
purchases of women comparatively few and these of
;
low or ambiguous social standing.

It will help us to realise the bright scene, the varied
background, in which Socrates moved, if we quote the

description of the market place
l
given by Becker in
his
" Charicles " :
a
"
The market place was filling fast when Charicles
entered it. Traders had set up their wattled stalls
all over it, with their goods exposed on tables and
benches. Here the female bakers had piled up their
1
See also Whibley, Companion to Greek Studies, p. 536.
1
P. 61 of Eng. trans.
PUBLIC LIFE 85
round-shaped loaves and cakes, and were pursuing

with a torrent of scolding and abuse the unlucky
wight who happened, in passing by, to upset one of
their pyramids. There, simmered the kettles of the
women who sold boiled peas and other vegetables ;
in the crockery market, hard by, the potmen were

descanting on the goodness of their wares. A little
way off, in the myrtle market, chaplets and fillets
were to be sold, and many a comely flower-weaver
received orders for garlands, to be delivered by her in
the evening. All the wants of the day, from barley-
groats up to the choicest fish, from garlick to the
incense of the gods ; clear pure oil, and the most
exquisite ointments ; fresh made cheese, and the
sweet honey of the bees of Hymettus ; cooks ready
to be hired, slaves, male and female, to be sold, each
and all were to be found at their customary stalls.
There were others, who went about crying their wares,
while every now and then a public crier crossed the
ground, announcing with stentorian voice the arrival
of some goods to be sold, or the sale of a house, or
perhaps a reward for the apprehension of a robber,

or a runaway slave. Slaves of both sexes, as well as
freemen, kept walking up and down, bargaining and
inspecting the stalls, in search of their daily require-
ments.
" The fish market bell was
just ringing as a signal
that the hour of business had arrived, and forthwith
all streamed in that direction, to lose no time in com-
pleting this all-important purchase. The way to the

money changers led Charicles directly across this part
of the market. And it was truly amusing to behold
how the eager buyers tried all their arts of persuasion
to move the hard-hearted dealers, who stuck doggedly
'
to their prices. What's the price of these two pike,
'
if I take the asks a greedy gourmand in his
pair ?
86 SOCRATES
'
hearing. Ten obols,' answered the fishmonger,
'
scarce deigning to look up. That's too much,'
'
said the other, you'll let me have them for eight, I'm
' ' '
sure? Yes, one of them,' was the reply. Non-
'
sense/ said the would-be purchaser come, here are ;

'
eight obols.' I told you the price, sir ; and if you

don't like it you can go elsewhere,' said the inexorable
dealer, with the most perfect nonchalance. Such
scenes as this were of frequent occurrence, and
Charicleswould have liked to witness more of them,
but that Manas was with him bearing the important
casket."
It was in this bustle then Socrates lived his life and
pursued his mission. He was as true a city bird as
any Cockney. He never went away from Athens but
for military service except on the very rarest occa-
sions. Only one such occasion is referred to by him
" 1
in the Crito," and it is asserted to be the only one.
Three are mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, 2 with the
authority from which he quotes, one of them being a
stay at Samos with Archelaus when Socrates was
still young. The record shows his heart was within
the dear old walls. Athens to him was something
"
like London to Johnson Why, Sir, you find no :
man at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London.

No, Sir, when a man is tired of London he is tired of
life for there is in London all that life can afford."
;
Not that he was insensible to the charms of natural

beauty, and could not feel the spell of the country.
He once told Aristippus, 8 that the ideal place for a
church was away in some lonely spot, high up, whence
the eye could look across the landscape. There about
the worshipper would be peace and tranquillity and
the emotion of the long look into the distance. In
"
the Phaedrus," if we may take the little dramatic
1 * '
Crito, 52 b, ii. 5, 22, 23. Mem., iii, 8.
PUBLIC LIFE 87
touches as true to the spirit of Socrates, and there is
much justification for doing so on artistic grounds,

we find the master by no means untouched by natural
beauties. He agrees that it is more refreshing to
walk on the country roads than in city promenades. 1
When Phaedrus has led him to a quiet spot beneath a
"
plane tree, he exclaims enthusiastically, By Hera,
what a retreat This plane-tree is large and high.
!
And the height and woven shade of the Chestnut

altogether lovely And what glory of blossom, as
!
if to the place with finest scent

fill And the spring !
beneath the plane is most delicious about our feet

with its fresh cold water. It seems to be sacred to
Nymphs and Achelous, from these figures and offerings.
How exquisitely sweet and delightful the air that
breathes in the place, ahum
too with a chorus of
crickets, summer's harmony.
Best of all the gentle
grassy slope, just made for the head to recline on
luxuriously You could not have been a better guide,
!
my dear Phaedrus." 2
He has entered into the very
feeling of nature's scenes and scents and sounds.
But if he had been asked whether he cared much for
Nature, we imagine he would have made Browning's
"
reply, Yes, a great deal, but for human beings a
great deal more."
He was the " poor lover of discourse," the seeker
after knowledge and wisdom, and it was in men and
books he found his best instructors. Men and books
" "
were his passion. As he says in " Phaedrus 8 he was
afflicted with a weakness for listening to speeches."
"
Hold up a book before me and you may lead me
allover Attica and the wide world." It reminds us
of Lord Macaulay, in a letter to his sister Margaret :
"
If I had at this moment my choice of would
life, I
bury myself in one of those immense libraries, and

1 3
Phaedrus, 227. Phaedrus, 230. 228.
88 SOCRATES
never pass a waking hour without a book before me."
One infers from the Platonic dialogues that Socrates
possessed a wide, profound, and studied knowledge

of the literature of his country.
Ruskin believed that great authors used words with
painstaking accuracy and premeditated significance,
so that only by minute verbal study do we extract the
full flavour and richness of their writing ; every word
carries involved overtones which only the tutored ear
can distinguish and appreciate. Now, many people
read by the line or sentence, a few by the page Socrates ;
was a word-reader. He read critically and with the

understanding. Like our own John Locke he did
not believe in merely skimming along without a
comprehension of each part as one proceeds. It was
thorough reading he hated lazy, superficial ac-
;
quaintance with literature, and it was a trait of his

character which rather irritated and annoyed people
who treated language in an offhand, cavalier sort of
way. His searching, analytic method of dealing with
literature struck others as the unhappy pedantry of a
bore, rather than, as it was, the delicate individualising
power of the lover.
Another reason for his love of the city was his love
of society.He had a genius for friendship.
"
The grace of friendship mind and heart
Linked with their fellow heart and mind ;
The gains of science, gifts of art,
The sense of oneness with our kind ;
The thirst to know and understand,
A large and liberal discontent ;
These are the goods in life's rich hand,

The things that are more excellent."
These lines perfectly express Socrates' views. Plato

and Xenophon confirm each other on this matter.
Even his thinking was social and co-operative and, like
PUBLIC LIFE 89
"
Emerson, he might have said, We want but two or
three friends, but these we cannot do without they ;
serve us in every thought we think." *

" I am him say in the
one of those," Plato makes
'Lysis,"
2
"who from my
childhood up have set my
heart upon a certain thing. All people have their
fancies. Some are fond of gold, others of honour.
Now I have no violent desire for any of these things.
But I have a passion for friends. And I would rather
have a good friend than the best cock or quail in the
world or even than a horse or a dog (note the quiet
irony). Yes, I should prefer a real friend to all the
gold of Darius or even to Darius himself. I am such
a lover of friends as that." Or, as Xenophon recalls
him expressing it "I too, Antiphon, having my
:
tastes,even as another finds pleasure in his horse and

his hounds, and another in his fighting and cocks, so I
take my pleasure in good friends and if I have any
;
good thing myself I teach it to them or I commend

them to others by whom I think they will be helped
forward on the path of virtue." 3
The Athenians, as a whole, were a sociable people,
and they dined on occasion at one another's houses,
holding symposia, from which however the women
were excluded, this latter circumstance not tending
to improve the tone of such gatherings. Besides this
they also formed themselves into little social clubs,*
at which they had meals together, each member pay-
ing his contribution to the common expense. The

Socratic circle seems also to have followed this custom.
Itwas what we might call a small philosophical club,
inwhich the delights of friendship became a stimulus
and help to intellectual pursuits. As Socrates ex-
1 * *
In a letter to Carlyle. Lysis, 211 E. Mem., i. ch. 6.
1
Cp. Laches, 179 b. Whibley, Companion to Greek Studies,
612.
90 SOCRATES
" "
presses it in the. Protagoras," All men who have a
companion are readier in deed and word and thought,

for they can co-operate in their discoveries." It is this
high aim that gives Socratic friendship its true note.
"
The "Memorabilia" and the "Lysis express the same
doctrine that it is only between the good that friend-
ship strictly speaking can exist. Men only want the
friendship of the good, for only from such can any
"
benefit be derived to win the love of good men we
;
must be good ourselves in speech and action." l

Friendship lives in an interchange of sympathy, help,
and gratitude, 2 and is, in the highest sense, unselfish,
"
a beautiful rivalry in mutual service. 3 Friends
have all things in common," was a Greek aphorism
about friendship approved and adopted by Socrates. 4
Accordingly, in his view, it is only possible between
those who have overcome selfishness its foundation ;
is self-control, mastery of all the lower

passions and
desires. It is for those who have control over the
pleasures of the body, who are kindly disposed and

5
upright in all their dealings.
Friendship ought to be a bond uniting all the good
everywhere, and yet experience shows the good often
opposed to each other. The very desire for posses-
sion of the things that are lovely and of good report
creates strife and discord, not to mention that which
is stirred up by anger and avarice and
envy in indivi-
duals and nations. 6
"
Nevertheless," says Socrates, full of faith's and
"
love's glowing optimism, through all opposing barriers
friendship steals her way and binds together the
beautiful and good among mankind. Such is their
virtue that they would rather possess scant means
1 2
Mem., ii. ch. 6. Mem., ii. ch. 6.
3 *
ii. ch. 6. Repub., 424 A. Lysis, 206 E.
'
Xen., Mem., ii. ch, 6, Mem., ii. ch. 6.
PUBLIC LIFE 91
painlessly than wield an empire won by war. In spite

of hunger and thirst they will share their meat and
drink without a pang. Nor bloom of lusty youth,
nor love's delights, can warp their self-control nor ;
will they be tempted to cause pain where pain should

be unknown. It is theirs to eschew not merely all
greed of riches, not merely to make a just and lawful
distribution of wealth, but to supply what is lacking
to the needs of one another. Theirs is to compose strife
and discord, not in painless oblivion simply, but to the
general advantage. Theirs also to hinder such extra-
vagance of anger as shall entail remorse hereafter.
And as to envy they shall make a clean sweep and
clearance of it ; the good things which a man possesses
shall be also the property of his friends, and the goods
which they possess are to be looked upon as his." l
"
The teaching of the Platonic dialogue " Lysis is to
the same effect. Because of the impulse Friendship
gives to excel in benevolence and kindly deed, it is
a thing of incomparable worth. It grows with the
years like a beautiful tree bearing its fruit, because
it is rooted in good soil. Friendship is the daughter
of the Heavenly Love, it is itself heavenly, all its in-
spirations are noble and generous. It enters not only
into the joys and gains, but into the sorrows and losses
of others, so enlarging the personality and purifying
the morality of men. Such being its divine descent
and nature, it is not possible in any genuine sense
between the selfish or the evil. It is above these
because it means Harmony, and the evil have no
harmony of nature even with themselves ; in them
the lower is at victorious war with the higher, and the
soul is in a state of insurrection and anarchy. Evil
is selfishness,
friendship is unselfishness. The good
alone can truly and deeply unite.
1
Mem., ii. ch. 6, 23,
92 SOCRATES
Socratic Friendship thus conceived is, like the
Christian Love, a principle which is to bind the good,
the elect, together, in a community which brings
within its sweep those of all classes and nations. One
feels that Socrates is expressing the consciousness
of principles and affinities that are in their nature
supra-national, simply human without qualification
or restriction. We shall have to allude to the point
again in discussing his ethics in relation to the treat-
ment of enemies.
We must pursue Socrates' teaching about Friendship
along another line no less important. It was to be a
relationship growing out of the soul and its affinities,
not out of the body and its appetites. In this matter
Socrates came to his time as an apostle and reformer.
Here he stands out as a man sent by God to his day
and generation. His doctrine of Friendship was re-
volutionary and redemptive to the Athens of that
day, in respect of one of its social customs.
All injustice and partiality avenges itself sooner or
later on a society. We
cannot fail of the true human
law with impunity. On this JEschylus and Shakes-
peare shake hands across the centuries :
"
While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,
His law is and stern
fixed ;
The wage of wrong is woe." *
The Athenians denied womanhood a free equal life ;
it was unnatural, and from it as a root

grew unnatural
vices as an evil fruitage on the tree of life. The
romance which should have gathered round woman
twined like a noxious growth about boyhood. "It
was the masculine beauty of youth that fired the
Hellenic imagination with glowing and impassioned
2
sentiment," says Grote, and Gomperz points out that
1
jEschylus, Agamemnon. Trans. House of Atreus, p. 72.
Plato, vol. ii. p. 3.
PUBLIC LIFE 98
"
these attachments not infrequently led to devotion,
enthusiastic, intense, ideal, the sensual origin of which
was entirely forgotten." The l
form and comeliness
of these boys often, however, became an infatua-
tion to mature men, in whom the love of beauty was
a very passion. The springs of a sexual attraction
were stirred, incomprehensible as the fact may be
to us, and it led to practices which were and could
only be demoralising and disastrous. It disturbed the
sanity of age and corrupted the innocence of youth.
Socrates' doctrine and example were directed against
these friendships in whose flower curled the worm of
sensuality.
"
Alcibiades, in the Symposium," relates how he had
used every wile and device to tempt Socrates into the
illicit pleasures of love, playing upon the philosopher's
well-known susceptibility to physical beauty. He had
subjected him to the very keenest temptations in
order to stir up his amorous passions, but all in vain ;
Socrates could not be corrupted. He came out of

by fire unscathed, and poured
the trial of his virtue as
contempt on Alcibiades' arts.
2
Whether or no we
can accept every detail of this confession of Alcibiades
in his cups, whether or no we can take the confession
as a whole as at all truly biographical, at any rate
it does give dramatic expression to what must have
been a recognised characteristic of Socrates, that he

would have nothing to do with the sensual practices
connected with boy-love.
Xenophon gives similar testimony, telling us that
Socrates warned others against the perils of these
amours. He remonstrated with Critias on his relations
"
with Euthydemus, knowing that his love was carnal,
1
Greek Thinkers, ii. p. 380.
217-219, and cp. Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades,
8
See Symposium,
chs. 4 and 6.
94 SOCRATES
of the body," appealing to his sense of self-respect and
honour, pointing out that such conduct was a de-
gradation of pure love; and when this proved un-
availing, mightily offended the proud Critias by
resorting to irony in which he likened the latter's ways
to hoggery. 1 In another case he adopted a more
bantering tone, where we might think it impossible
to be too serious and grave, but he was an inveterate
jester, without being one iota the less serious and
earnest. There is no more intense and concentrated
man alive than George Bernard Shaw, yet John Bull,
with his unconscionable ponderosities, thinks him
capable only of flippancy and jest. Behind all that,
however, is an earnestness deep almost as life. Grape-
shot may in some circumstances be more effective
than powder and ball. And we don't measure feelings
by weight. So with Socrates.
Critobulus, a man of sense, has, the master hears,
given a kiss to a fair son of Alcibiades, wherefore he
ought to be called a libertine, who is ready to leap
"
into fatal flames. Poor soul, what do you expect your
fate to be after that kiss ? Let me tell you. On the
instant you will lose your freedom, the indenture of
your bondage will be signed you will be driven to
;
spend large sums on hurtful pleasures you will ;
scarcely have a moment's leisure for any noble study ;
you will be driven to concern yourself zealously for

things which no man, not even a madman, would
choose to make an object of concern." 2 Socrates
advises such an one caught in these infatuations to
run helter-skelter from the zone of danger let him ;
go abroad till he gets cured, for it is the poisoning of

manhood.
29 and 30.
1
Mem., i. ch. 2,
*
Cp. Xenophon, Banquet, ch. 4, 24 ff., on Socrates' warnings
against the passions.
PUBLIC LIFE 95
Socrates then clearly saw this moral cancer in

contemporary manners, and he sought to recall his
fellow-men to the truth that it is not such love but
the love of the mind and the soul which leads to the
surest and highest exaltation. The charm of wisdom
"
never weakens nor betrays nor disappoints She is
better than rubies and all the things that can be
desired are not to be compared unto her." He saw
friendship as a pure ideal of mutual co-operation in
pursuit of the soul's highest goals, and of such a
character were the friendships of his life. There is a
spiritual gravitation which makes the mutual attrac-
tion of souls the greater the nearer they are in spirit
and purpose to each other.
"
Do you ask to be the companion of nobles ?
Make yourself noble and you shall be." The men who
gathered about Socrates, some older, some younger,
were men who, like him, yearned for the heights, whose
heart panted after the waterbrooks of Truth and
Reality. Nor was there any limit, in the master's
view, to the value of a companionship like that. It
was there, in the leap of a kindred emotion, in the
light caught from one another's eyes, in the thought
that kindles from soul to soul, that one reached the
best in one's own or in another's mind.
It would seem that the little Socratic group formed
a club, a common enough thing in Athens as we have
remarked, and those who took part in the meetings
brought their own contribution to the common meal,
Socrates' method being that, while some brought more
than others, all should share freely and alike. 1 It
may have been these meetings and not any Orphic-
Pythagorean religious community, such as Professor
Taylor suggests, which lay at the bottom of Aristo-
" "
phanes' idea of the Phrontisterion or Notion-den
1
Xen., Mem., Hi. ch. 14.
96 SOCRATES
"
in the Clouds." These club meetings became a
common feast of wit and wisdom. If Socrates or
Simmias or Cebes or Hermogenes or any of the
others came across any good thing among the written
treasures of the wise of old, they seized upon it and
brought it to the club, and together those present
1
discussed it.
It was a little Literary and Philosophical Society.

We can imagine what times they had together. What
discoveries what enthusiasm
! a group of searchers !
gathered round Socrates the Searcher. He sat among

them like a kind of god, feeding on nectar and am-
"
brosia, or like a Dr. Johnson, only without the I am
"
Sir Oracle tone. We can imagine their meetings,
breaking up late at night or early in the morning, as
"
described in Plato's Symposium," the enthusiasts
going out beneath the dark blue vault and the cold
bright stars, their mind aglow with intellectual ecstasies,
their heart a tumult of ardours Pale, passing, poor !
to Socrates carnal passions and enjoyments beside

all
these stirring raptures of the soul's high loves. There

" "
is a splendid passage in Xenophon's Banquet where
Socrates, amid the night's fun and rollicking laughter,
stands forth as the prophet of this marvellous, this
more spiritual and loftier love in man.
He speaks of the transit oriness, the imperfection,
the selfishness, and dissatisfaction of mere carnal
loves, in contrast with the abiding growth, the un-
selfishness, the sharing of each other's joys and sorrows
in true love, where the passion for holy friendship
leads to sweet offices and a bliss which company life
from youth to eld.
With Socrates, then, it is always the soul that is the
real thing. Man isnot his body but his mind so, to ;
love the body is not to love the man's self, but only
1
Mem., i. ch. 6, 14.
PUBLIC LIFE 97
his property, for the soul is the man and it is superior

to and rules the body. 1
In the " Symposium" of Plato also the mystery of
Spiritual Love is unfolded in glowing language by
Socrates, but he repeats the revelation as being not
his own but given him by Diotima. This may be
interpreted as a mere device of the Socratic irony.
Socrates always took the role of the agnostic. Or it
may be taken to suggest that in this oratorio of Love
there are some notes which Plato felt to be not quite
the voice of Socrates. Here Love is more metaphy-
sical than in Xenophon ;
it is concerned with trans-
"
cendental beauty, Beauty Absolute. And the true
order of going and being led by another to the things
of love is to use the beauties of the earth as steps
along
which one mounts upward for the sake of that other
beauty, going from one or two, and from two to all
fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and
from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair
notions he arrives at the notion of Absolute Beauty,
and at last knows what the essence of beauty is." 2
There is nothing in that which goes beyond the
historical Socrates, but this Beauty is further defined
"
as absolute, separate, simple, everlasting, which
without increase or diminution, or any change is
imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties

of all other things." 3 In this conception of the
Absolute Idea as a separate self-subsistent reality
we have the Platonic element, though Socrates has
recently been credited with holding also that theory.
4
We can't discuss that question now. Socrates at

least led up to the very door if he did not enter it before
"
Plato, and we shall quote a passage from the Sym-
"
posium that thrills with Socratic tones, and which
1 *
See ist Alcibiades, 130, 131. Plato, Sympos., 2ij,
4
By Professor ^, E. Taylor in Varia Socratjca,
7
98 SOCRATES
has an intrinsic charm, making it too fine to be
omitted :
"
These (preceding) are the lesser mysteries of
love into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to
the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown
of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right
spirit they will lead, I know not whether you will be
able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform
you and do you follow if you can. For he who would
proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to
visit beautiful forms and first, if he be guided by his
;
instructor aright, to love one such form only out of

that he should create fair thoughts and soon he
;
will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form

in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not
to recognise that the beauty in every form is one and
the same And when he perceives this he will abate
!
his violent love of the one, which he will despise and

deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all
beautiful forms in the next stage he will consider
;
that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than

the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous
soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content
to love and tend him, and will search out and bring
to the birth thoughts which may improve the young,
until he is compelled to contemplate and see the
beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand
that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that
personal beauty is a trifle and after laws and in-
;
stitutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see

their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the
beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a

slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards
and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will
create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in
boundless love of wisdom until on that shore he.
;
PUBLIC LIFE 99
grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is

revealed to him of a single science, which is the science
l
of beauty everywhere."
The evidencein its entirety goes to show that the
love Socrates advocated was pure. Zeller says he does
not abolish the eros or love toward boys, but retains it
as the innocent basis of a higher and spiritual attrac-

tion. 2 Why the innocent basis of such a love for the
intellectualand spiritual progress of youth should be
abolished, one cannot imagine. Sorel 8 takes a graver
view and holds that, though Socrates neither practised
nor taught immorality, his preaching of the higher
love or friendship was yet an idealisation of vice, which
cut at the roots of the family life, and while it did not
by any means initiate, at any rate accelerated, the evil
tendencies of the time.
All we can say here is that to our mind the state-
ment that Socrates' doctrine of love and friendship
aggravated the evil of his time is tantamount to
saying that the apostolate or the discipleship of Christ
cut at the roots of family life, that the Reformation
aggravated the vices of Catholicism, and Lord Shaftes-
bury's legislation only led to deterioration in factory
life.
Socrates rather stands out as a great moral and

spiritual prophet and reformer, the censor of con-
temporary vices, the revealer of a better way. He is
the apostle of a Love and Friendship than which there
is nothing more beautiful and winning in all the
creations of the mystic souls of men. It lifted men
into a community above class, nation, tribe, a com-
munity in the pursuit of things spiritual and universal,
things honest, true, lovely, and of good report.
1
Plato, Symposium, 210. (Jowett's trans.)
2
Philosophic der Griechen, 1842, i. p. 18.
Zeller,
8
Le Proces de Socrate, pp. 95, 96, 234,
100 SOCRATES
" "
It from the Christian
differs philanthropia in
that it comes to men on the heights, while the latter
seeks them in the depths. Men must rise to the love
of Socrates, the Pauline love descends to them.
But such antitheses fail to seize the redemptive
and renewing potency of Socrates' ideal to an age and
people such as he had to do with. It was an Athenian
evangelism rapt and glowing, at once an individual
and a social gospel. And it must be claimed for it
that it was not merely a doctrine, an ideal, for Socrates,
but the very life of the prophet himself. It is when
doctrine and life, thought and deed, are thus fused into
a whole that glows and burns through the living
personality of a man that we get gospels not theories,
and that men are drawn into communities, under the
moving and moulding influence of a master.
inspiration
And Socrateshad this power, he drew a band of
enthusiastic and devoted disciples around him, com-
posed of those in whom he had found or in whom he
created the Self-same spirit as was in himself. These
were Crito, Simmias, Cebes, Plato, Chaerecrates,
Chaerephon, Hermogenes, Phaedo, Xenophon, Alci-
biades, Antisthenes, and others, who came for longer
or shorter periods within the magnetic spell of his
great enthusiasm his Amor intellectuals. Diogenes
Laertius gives an account of the call of Xenophon to
follow Socrates, which is curiously like the account
of Jesus calling his disciples, in its suddenness and
the ready submission it evoked. Xenophon must

have been quite a youth, and was very beautiful to
look upon. That would attract Socrates. One day
then, in a narrow lane, he met this fine-looking, modest
youth, and in his quaint, unconventional way, put
out his staff and blocked the passage. Then he pro-
ceeded to question Xenophon as to where various
commodities might be got, the youth being ready in
PUBLIC LIFE 101
"
his replies. And where
are the fair and noble to
"
be found Xenophon
? was surprised at this and
"
could not answer. Then follow me and be taught,"
said Socrates. And he followed and became a hearer.
Xenophon was permanently influenced by his associa-
tion with the master, and we know the gratitude,
admiration, and esteem in which he held him.
Euripides, the poet, was also strongly influenced by
" "
Socrates. Aristophanes, in the Frogs satirises him l
for his spirit and views, which are much the same as
"
those attributed to Socrates in the Clouds." He
makes Euripides say :
" This was the kind of love I

brought
To school my town in ways of thought ;
I
mingled reasoning with my art
And shrewdness, till I fired their heart
To brood, to think things through and through ;
And rule their houses better too." 2
Euripides also has introduced gods of his own, in

harmony with the materialism of the schools Ether,
Vocal Chords, Reason, which will compare with the
Clouds, Air, and Tongue he, in his comical spirit, accuses
Socrates of worshipping. It is evident the poet sails
in the same galley with the philosopher a few years
"
younger than himself. Verrall, in his Euripides the
Rationalist," gives a serious exposition of Euripides'
attitude to the orthodox gods and mythology, showing
it to be one of criticism and repudiation. He had the
"
spiritwhich, as Aristophanes puts it, questions all
things," the very spirit of Socrates.
It was not through writing, but through the direct
and living influence of spirit on spirit, through the
power to attract and deeply impress the young and
eager intellect and aspiration of Athens that Socrates
made such a profound mark on his day and generation.
1 *
405 B.C. Gilbert Murray's trans.
102 SOCRATES
(b) SOCRATES AS CITIZEN

The Athenian citizen had to play many parts.
Under the democratic regime he was soldier, politician,
judge, as well as family man and perhaps also trader.
And we now turn to see how Socrates conducted
himself in these various capacities.
As a soldier he took part in various campaigns in
the Peloponnesian War, which broke out in 432 B.C.
In September of that year he was present at the
Battle of Potidaea, in which Potidaeans and Corinthians,
whose colonists the former were, though under tribute
to Athens, fought against the Athenians, who, accord-
"
ing to the inscription, gave their lives in barter for
l
glory and ennobled their country." Alcibiades says
that in this campaign Socrates and he messed together,
so that he had an opportunity of witnessing his ex-
"
traordinary feats of endurance, in which he was
2
superior to everybody." It was here he once stood
absorbed in meditation from dawn till evening and
right on through the night till next morning, and
"
that in what Alcibiades describes as a tremendous
"
winter ;
but Alcibiades had delicate tastes. He also
bears his testimony to Socrates' courage in battle, by
telling how the philosopher saved his life, by refusing
to leave him when he had been wounded, and rescuing
him and his arms. 3
The same unruffled courage was displayed at the
Battle of Delium in 424 B.C., when the Athenians were
utterly routed by Boeotians and Thebans after a
stubborn fight. 4 Socrates was one of the seven thou-
sand heavy-armed, and after the day had turned
1
Bury's History of Greece, p. 393.
1
Plato,Symposium, 220 A.
*
Ibid., 220.
4
Thucydides, bk. iv,, chs. 93-96.
PUBLIC LIFE 103
against them and the Athenians were in full flight,

Alcibiades, who was on horseback and could see what
was going on, relates that he came up with Socrates,
who was just as Aristophanes had described him in
"
the streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican and
rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies as well
as friends, and making very evident to all and sundry
that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet
"
with a stout resistance ; and in this way he and his
companion, Laches, escaped, for persons of this class
are never touched in war, those only being pursued who
are running away headlong." 1 It was of this episode
that Laches declared that if only all the others had
behaved like Socrates the honour of Athens would
have been saved. 2
He was also on the Amphipolis in 422 B.C.
field at
when the dashing and brilliant
Spartan general
Brasidas fought the Athenians under Cleon, that
versatileand influential demagogue 3 whom Aristo-
phanes had pilloried and flogged so ruthlessly in the
" *
Knights."
On all these occasions Socrates could later look back
and feel he had done his duty as well as it could be
done. 5 As he told his judges he had always stuck to
his post without a thought of flinching, believing
that the post of duty was the post at which God had
8
placed him. Duty for Socrates was a religious con-
ception, and law a sacred thing which must not be
violated by the arbitrary act of any man. No one
was further removed than he from the spirit of
anarchy and lawlessness. Obedience to duly con-
1 *
Symposium, 221. Laches, 181 b.
*
Thucydides, bk. iv., ch. 21.
*
On Aristophanes' portraiture of him, see Couat, Aristophane,
pp. 142-153.
*
See Plato, Apology, 28 E, Ibid., 28 E,
104 SOCRATES
stituted authority was confirmed by the sanctions of
religion, and the man who broke them and failed of
fidelity would find that he had only thrown himself
into their power, when they rose against him before
the Judges of the other world.
The same deep and sacred loyalty to Athens and
her constitution was conspicuously shown at the very
end in his conscientious objection to escaping from
prison and the city at the pleading of Crito and his
friends, who were anxious that he should avail himself
of comparatively easy means of avoiding the death
penalty and find asylum elsewhere. He refused, in

terms in which, as Grote has remarked, "he is made
to express the feelings and repeat the language of a
devoted democratical patriot." J
His career was marked by another striking exempli-
fication of this loyalty, as well as of his absolute fear-
lessness and integrity.
In 406 the war with Sparta the Peloponnesian
B.C.
War was dragging its weary length along and
still
in that year the Spartan and Athenian fleets met at

the islands of Arginusae off the coast of Asia Minor,
2
the latter achieving a complete victory. The
Athenian generals detailed off two captains with ships
to attend to the disabled vessels and pick up the
wrecked crews, while the rest of the fleet pursued the
enemy. A violent storm arose which prevented the
carrying out of this which in the eyes of the Greeks was
a sacred duty, and the sailors were left to perish. The
report of this caused the greatest furore at Athens ;
indignation boiled among the people. So intense
was the feeling against them in spite of their report
1
Plato, vol. i.
p. 430.
1
For details of the whole episode, see Xenophon, Hellenica,
bk. ch, 6,
i. 30 ff. and ch. 7. Cp. Holm, History of Greece, vol. ii.
ch. 28.
PUBLIC LIFE 105
of havingdone all that could be expected to save the

was decided by the Popular Assembly, con-
sailors, it
trary to the wise and equitable provisions of the
Statute Book, to try the nine generals en bloc, and
give an immediate single vote upon their guilt and
fate.
Socrates stood out against this procedure as illegal
and unjust, and amid menace and hooting persisted
1
in his attitude. He would do nothing contrary to

"
the law. He was king of himself with something
sublime in him." In spite of him, however, and his
unflinching stand, others, who agreed as to the illegality
of the proceedings, were browbeaten and threatened
in an excited and uproarious assembly till they sub-
mitted. The vote was summarily taken and eight
generals condemned, the ninth, Theramenes, having
saved his skin by turning traitor on the others. The
six of them who were present in Athens were put to
death.
The moral victory, however, lay with Socrates, the
man of rock-like integrity, for the fickle and turbulent
mob afterwards repented of its crime, and Callixenus,
who had introduced the motion for this inequitable
mode of voting, starved himself to death on account
of the revulsion of popular feeling against him. 2
"He is strongest who stands most alone," says
Ibsen, and in this instance Socrates and the right
proved stronger than the Athenian populace and the
wrong. The fact is that, in his cool self-respect, the
quiet but haughty way in which he would stick to his
own judgment in total indifference to consequences
and the opinion of others, whoever they might be,
mark him as of the order of true greatness. One
1
Hellenica, ch. 7, 15.
1
Xenophon, Hellenica, i. ch. 7 (end). Cp, Holm, History of
Greece, vol. ii.
p. 503,
106 SOCRATES
cannot but smile at his sober, imperturbable, and
unostentatious reverence for himself and his own
convictions of things. You could as soon have moved
Mount Parnassus from its firm base as him from
right. He rested on it with all his elephantine weight
and smiled and winked at the assaults of mosquitoes.
The following instance must be told in the few and
sufficient words in which Plato makes Socrates tell it
at his Defence, when standing his trial :
"
When the Oligarchy was in power, the Thirty sent
for me and four others to come to their room. They
commanded us to go and fetch Leon the Salaminian
from Salamis, that he might be made away with.
It was their way to implicate as many people as
possible in their crimes. But I showed them that,

to use a vulgar expression, I did not care a rap about
death, that all I cared for was not to do anything
against the right of man or the law of God. Strong as
it was, the government could not terrify me into
wrong, for when we left the Council-room the four
others went to Salamis, but I walked away home.
That would probably have meant death for me, only
the government was shortly after broken up." l
If these facts show anything they show that the
imperturbable strength and integrity of the character

of Socrates rested on a lofty patriotism supported by
a profound personal religion, and a deep devotion to
the principles of Justice.
We shall have to speak of Socrates' religion later,
may be said that the Divine and the Invisible

but here it
beset him behind and before its eyes, he felt, were
;
"
ever upon him. How could he do this evil and sin
"
against God ?
The laws of the state were man's attempts to lay

down as well as he could the restrictions and condi-
1
Plato's Apology, 32 C, D.
PUBLIC LIFE 107
tions necessary if he was not to injure his own welfare,

but realise his Good, the real ideal of his life, the end
laid down by the divine appointment. Wilfully and
maliciously to transgress these laws for one's own
selfish purposes was thus to offend against Heaven.
The only excuse for breaking one law is that you are
keeping a better. Prove that these human enact-
ments are not the law of God and their authority and
sacredness are gone. The only absolutely inviolable
thing in the world is the Good, the Ideal. But so
long as laws are recognised as finger-posts on the long
journey to human perfection, so long we must keep
them standing and follow their directions aye, even
though it mean the sacrifice of life and self. No man
must prove traitor to the Ideal or anything that leads
to it. It is a small matter whether he live, a great
matter whether the Good be kept alive.
He would brook no tampering with the behests of
Conscience. To himthat inner voice spoke in tones
more awful and subduing than the thunders of popular
convention or passion or caprice. Two days before he
drank the hemlock, Crito was with him in prison,
urging him to avail himself of easy means of escape,
and trying to get round his obstinacy in refusing to
entertain the idea, by reminding him that his pas-
sive acquiescence in this coup de grdce on the part
of his enemies would bring a stigma of cowardice
and spiritlessness on his own name and that of his
friends in the eyes of the public, and turn them into
a laughing-stock. To which Socrates replies that the
one consideration for him is whether the suggestion
"
is morally right. For now as always I am not the
man to be moved by anything but that reason which
approves itself to me as the best. What a man must
fear in this world or in the next is not the opprobrium
of the mob of shallow and ignorant people, but the
108 SOCRATES
disapprobation of the man though there be only one
who is wise and knows."
"
Prove me wrong by right reason," he seems to
"
say with Luther before the Diet at Worms, and I
shall alter. Otherwise recant I neither can nor will.
For it is perilous to go against Conscience. Here I
stand, I can do no other. So help me, God."
No trimmer of sails this, no catcher at the popular
breeze, but a true captain of life steering by the
immovable stars, in the teeth of wind or wave.
The state which has such citizens is truly blessed ;
they are the salt which preserves it from going to decay,

whether or no they feel called to join in active politics.
They save "by what they are, more than by what they
" "
do. For character as Emerson says, teaches
above the will."
Socrates then fulfilled the military and judicial
functions which devolved upon him, but he kept aloof
from the game of politics which so fascinated his
fellow-citizens.He preferred being a philosopher and
prophet to being a politician. Looking at the life of
the city he came to the conclusion that there were
plenty of people anxious to direct and conduct its
affairs, but few capable of conducting them well.
There was a glut of rulers but a scarcity of thinkers.
Politics had not enough science in it, nor economics
enough ethics, and on that fact he believed the state
would founder. The Athenian democracy was by
no means an idyllic or angelic phenomenon. If
Pericles held up before it its more ideal self, in his
Funeral Oration, we do not lack pictures of its weak-
nesses and vices, perhaps exaggerated by prejudice,
in the works of Aristophanes and Plato. The former
satirises it in its judicial capacity as being swayed by
personal whims and petty spites and the arts of clever

flattery. Such was its morale that the informer and
PUBLIC LIFE 109
the rhetorician held it in the hollow of their hand.

Politically, he represents
it as a silly egotistical old
dotard, the victim of sharpers and blusterers and

demagogues, with none of the qualities or qualifica-
tions of true rulers. It was in such a state of nerves
as to feel safe only when ruled by the bottom dogs.
This aspect of democracy, with its comical touch of
"
caricature, is brought out in the Knights," where it
is suggested to the Sausage-seller that he should
become a political leader and rival the power of

Cleon.
" S.S. But know
: I
nothing, friend, beyond my letters,
And even of them but little, and that badly.
DEMOSTHENES :
The mischief is that you know anything.

To be a demus-leader is not now
For lettered men nor yet for honest men,
But for the base and ignorant. Don't let slip
The bright occasion which the gods provide thee."
" A brutal voice, low birth, an agora-training ;
Why, you've got all one wants for public life.

The Pythian shrine and oracles concur." l
But there is no Aristophanic humour in Plato's
vehement denunciation of the state of things in his
" "
"Republic and Theaetetus."
2 He thrashes the mob
unmercifully as a hysterical, loud-mouthed bully, insist-
ing upon its own arbitrary and confused ideas and visit-
"
ing those who dare resist it with disfranchisement,
3
and death."
fines, It is a many -headed, unphilosophi-
cal monster which rears about it a brood of sophists,
sycophants, and flatterers, who minister to its whim

and pleasure. That is its law of survival of the fittest
in Plato's view.
This state of matters will account for Socrates'
1
218 ff. (Rogers' trans.)
11.
*
See Republic, 496 ; Theaetetus, 173-175.
8
Rep,, vi. 494.
110 SOCRATES
abstention from politics. It was not that he was
above the city and its concerns, or that they were
beneath him, but that as an active partisan he would
be in for a job whose tools were too dirty for him to
handle, because he did not know the way to compro-
mise and cajole, and would be sure to rouse a brood of
jealousies and antipathies which would hurry him off
the face of the earth before his work was half-done,
and also because he had bigger aims and ends and
satisfactions to strive for than fell within the scheme
of a merely political programme. It was not at the
superstructures but at the bases of life he must work.

He could not give up to party what was meant for
mankind. It was a deepening and clarifying of the
whole consciousness of the people which was wanted.
And that would involve an attitude of censorship and
criticism which in political life would mark a man out
as a victim on party altars.
"
In his " Apology Plato makes him state quite defi-
nitely the reason for that aloofness from citizen
activities which in Pericles' phrase makes a man not
merely harmless but useless.

The divine sign, he said, opposed his going in for
"
politics, and that quite rightly, for you know well
enough, Athenians, that if I had long ago taken up
politics, long ago I should have met my fate, and
been of use neither to you nor to myself. Oh, you
needn't get indignant at hearing the truth. There
isn't a man who will escape, if he offers genuine oppo-
sition to you or any other crowd and prevents in-
justices and illegalities from taking place in the city.

The man who is out for no sham fight in the cause of
justice, if he wants to live even a short time, must be
a private not a public citizen." l
(c) What then was him by God
this mission laid on ?
1
Apology, 31 D, E, 32 A.
PUBLIC LIFE 111
It had a twofold aspect, (i) It was a crusade against

Ignorance. (2) It was a crusade for Virtue. And the
two lay very near each other in Socrates' thought. It
was an intellectual, ethical, and social mission in one.
If we had to sum it up in one phrase, we should say it
was a gospel of Efficiency all-round Efficiency.
(i) The Crusade against Ignorance. We have
already seen Socrates as a youth entering into the
shadows of the everlasting No ; all the scientific and
philosophic knowledge of his time utterly failed to

satisfy him, or throw any light on the riddle of exist-
ence. He had learned his own ignorance, and he
never forgot the lesson.
In this condition a strange thing happened. His
friend Chaerephon, a headstrong, impulsive youth,
actually asked the Oracle at Delphi whether there
were a wiser man than Socrates, and the response
"
was None." * This rather staggered Socrates, who
was deeply conscious of being wise in no matter, small
or great. It puzzled and troubled him, for he could
not venture to doubt the truth of what the Oracle
declared. That would be sacrilege. Accordingly he
must justify the paradox to himself. So off he set
to those who enjoyed the reputation of wisdom
politicians, poets, and artisans thinking that the
Oracle would surely be proved mistaken. On the
contrary, however, Socrates found that, wise and know-
ing as they were in their own conceits, they were
really quite ignorant, the only difference between them
and himself being that he knew he was ignorant and
they did not. Incidentally he took occasion to en-
lighten them on the point, however, and for his pains
roused more hatred and antipathy to himself than
gratitude. Superficial convention, complacent sham,
bottomless cant, were the order of the day and he
1 21.
Plato, Apology,
112 SOCRATES
turned the sharp piercing ray of his dialectic upon
them. He had a revealing touch ! Of the politicians,
he says that, like himself, none of them knew anything
"
beautiful and good," only they had an idea they
1
did, while he entertained no such illusion. His
experience too was that it was those who enjoyed
the highest reputation who were really most deficient,
and those who were reckoned inferior who had most
sense and gumption in their composition. 2
As for the poets, they taught by a kind of instinct
and inspiration better than they knew or understood.
Question the best and most painstaking of them on
their works, and they were like children. The poetic
faculty created in them what was only an illusion of
wisdom.
The artisans did know some things and could do
them, but as in the case of the poets, their capacity
in one direction led to a claim to wisdom in others
which was without foundation.
This process of showing up the limits and the super-
ficiality of men's knowledge created a mistaken notion
that Socrates himself must have knowledge on those
matters in regard to which he was able to prove the
ignorance of others. But he disclaims any such pre-
tension. He has learned that God alone is truly wise,
and that what the Oracle was trying to teach him was
that the wisdom of man was little and naught and ;
that he who, like Socrates, realises this, is the wisest

"
of men. And so even now " (over seventy years of
" I am still
age) going about seeking out and questioning
any whether among citizens or foreigners, whom I
think to be wise, in accordance with the will of God.
And when to my mind he turns out not to be wise,
then, with God's help, I show him that he is not. And
on account of my absorption in this mission, I have
Apology, 21 D. Op. cit., 22 A.
PUBLIC LIFE 113
had no time either for public or domestic affairs, but

I am in extreme poverty because of this service of
!
God."
It was the sense
of this call to a higher service, far
exceeding in importance and value any merely poli-
tical functions and duties, the service of bringing men
to see how shallow their conceptions and judgments
were, how poor their whole stock-in-trade of genuine
knowledge, how slight their touch with realities it
was that which compelled Socrates to treat everything
else in the world as negligible. This one thing he
must do, drag people out of their snug little caves of
illusion, and set them in their nakedness face to face
with Reality. That was the first step toward wisdom
and salvation.
Get to know thyself, what thou really art, what
thou really hast. Strip off all that clothing of the
mind which thou hast borrowed, all these categories
and formulae and ready-made judgments which thou
hast adopted these only prevent thee from getting
;
into touch with the reality of thyself and of the uni-

verse. They are no real possession and they prevent
thee from attaining that humility, that sense of utter
present insufficiency, which is the beginning of any
true hope for thee Thy knowledge is ignorance, God
!
alone is Thy wisdom is just to know that

wise. 2 !
We shall in dealing with Socrates' religion discover

traits that relate him to the mystics of the world, and
here we would point out that Socrates' attitude seems
to be that of an intellectual mysticism. He has experi-
enced the mystery of the universe, the vanity of human
knowledge he has renounced the wisdom of man,
;
and the world of that wisdom he has felt that in

;
God alone is knowledge and truth, and he has entered

into the grace of that self knowledge which is Humility .
1
Plato, Apol., 23 b. Apology, 23 A.
114 SOCRATES
Except that the experience gone through in terms
is
and stages preponderatingly for no such
intellectual
experience is entirely of the intellect, but involves the
whole character in every part of it how does this
differ from the experience of religious or moral mys-
ticism in general ?
Let us take the following description from Miss

" *
Evelyn Underhill's fine book on Mysticism," and
the similarities will be obvious :
"
Primarily then the self must be purged of all that
stands between it and goodness putting on the char-;
acter of reality instead of the character of illusion or

'
sin.' It longs ardently to do this from the first
moment in which it sees itself in the all-revealing
radiance of the Uncreated Light. When once love '
openeth the inner eye of the soul for to see this truth,'
'
says Hilton, with other circumstances that attend it,

then beginneth the soul to be really humble ; for then
through the sight of God it feeleth and seeth itself as
it is, and then doth the soul forsake the beholding and
leaning upon itself.'

"
So, with Dante, the first terrace of the Mount of
Purgatory is devoted to the cleansing of pride and the
production of humility. Such a process is the inevit-
able one might almost say mechanical result of a
vision, however fleeting, of Reality an undistorted
;
of the earth-bound self. All its life it has been

sight
measuring its candlelight by other candles. Now for
the first time it is out in the open air and sees the sun.
'
This is the way,' said the voice of God to St. Catherine
If thou wilt arrive at a perfect
'
of Siena in ecstasy.
knowledge and enjoyment of Me, the Eternal Truth,
thou shouldst never go outside the knowledge of thy-
self ;
and by humbling thyself in the valley of humility
thou wilt know Me and thyself, from which knowledge
1
Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 241, 242.
PUBLIC LIFE 115
thou wilt draw all that is necessary. ... In self-
knowledge, then, thou wilt humble thyself seeing ;

'
that, in thyself, thou dost not even exist.'

Not of course that the recognition of the vanity of
ordinary human knowledge and of one's own know-
ledge, combined with the sense of God as alone wise,
in itself affords sufficient ground to call Socrates a
mystic of the intellect. We believe he must be classed
with the Mystics because of that, along with other
characteristics which he displayed and which will be
referred to in their place. Meanwhile in the total
view of him which one wishes to attain this mystical
strain should stand out prominently. It suggests the
fact that while his criticism was intensely negative, it
had a positive motive behind it, one might say a
religious motive, for illusion and error fill the soul with
husks so that the hunger for the true bread is sup-
pressed, and man remains so far separated from God
and reality. And to that extent genuine morality
becomes impossible. All his criticism was a mere pre-
liminary to search for true knowledge upon which alone
morality could be securely founded, and morality with
Socrates was the great thing. It was, however, in this
aspect of it a knowledge to be gained not from the

study of nature but from the analysis of human experi-
ence, and a discrimination and clarification of its con-
fused ideas and principles. It had a social as well as
an individual aspect, and must be the basis of the
conduct of states as well as of personal conduct. The
democracy whose deficiencies we have referred to must
also enlist in its concerns theknowledge which saves.
It was thus part of the mission he diligently pursued
to unmask that profound ignorance of upstarts and
haranguers which Aristophanes burlesqued and to make
Athens aware that its government demanded some-
thing more than ability to gull the mob and get elected.
116 SOCRATES
In season and out of season he seems to have prose-
cuted this task of deepening and clearing the politics
of Athens. He scorched vain and flippant pretension
by thrusting it into the fire of his ridicule. The
government of a state is too complicated and serious
an affair to be trusted to any but men of trained
talents and expert knowledge. It should be an affair
neither of blood nor of ballot, but of brains.
He showed up the futility of appearing to be wealthy,
brave, and strong without the reality, or of getting a
position which one has not the ability to fill. It simply
means that when the testing-time comes, comes disaster
and disgrace with it. "I call that man a cheat and
no small bit of a cheat, who would get other people's
money by false pretences but he is by far the worst
;
impostor who deludes people into thinking he is fit

to rule a state when he is nothing of the kind." *
In this crusade his double in modern times is Thomas
Carlyle, that other blaster of bubble-heads and enemy
of all sham, insincerity, and superficiality.
sorts of
Carlyle despised contemporary politics as a huge
palaver and the House of Commons as a little gibber-
ing-gallery. He screeched with every bit of bile in
him for the man of talent, the king or true-knowing
man, so that the ills of human things might at last
be righted or put in the way of being righted. The
aristocrat of knowledge and talent must rule, it is
the virtue and salvation of all others to obey : "If

thou do know better than I what is good and right,
I conjure thee, in the name of God, force me to do it."
That was Socrates' view of the matter.Liberty and
Equality were to him as to Carlyle the cult and cant
of mediocrity. To worship them was to consecrate
and crown not the human maximum but the human
minimum ;
it was to suppress nature and silence
1
Mem., i. ch. 7. Cp. bk. iii. ch. 6 ; bk. iv. ch. 2.
PUBLIC LIFE 117
facts with a battle-cry. To see no mountains and

valleys in the world, see nothing but a level plain, is
to see wrongly, and to see wrongly is to act disastrously.
When the post of pilot for a ship is vacant, we do not
all claim to be equally fitted for it, neither do we offer
it to the man who proves himself to have the glibbest
and most dexterous tongue ; we give it to the trained

man, the expert, the pilot, the man who has studied
1
navigation, ships, and seas.
Similarly with the ship of state. Only he is qualified
to steer it who knows what port it is destined for, and
how to get there. The statesman must have learned
human nature and its goal, he must have learned also
the ins and outs of what concerns the social life and
its maintenance, he must be philosopher and economist.
How else can he be anything but a falsity, and what

else can falsity be but failure ?
The same view is taken by Plato in the " Republic,"

and his sentiment so far is quite Socratic. It is not
the order of nature or of common-sense that the
uninstructed sailors should, either by cajolery or force,
take the place of the captain, who has been trained
to the business. 2 Accordingly in the state "one or
more of the true philosophers shall be invested with
full authority and contemn the honours of the
present
day, in the belief that they are mean and worthless ;
and that, deeply impressed with the supreme im-
portance of right and of the honours to be derived
from it, and regarding justice as the highest and most
binding of all obligations, he shall, as the special
servant and admirer of justice, carry out a thorough
reform of his own state." 8
But such reform in Socrates' view should only be
undertaken by one who is conversant with facts.
1
Mem., i. ch. 2, g ; iii. ch. 9, n.
Plato, Republic, 488. Op. cit., 540.
118 SOCRATES
No reformer, no idealist, no man whatever, has any
right to lay his hand to the duty of re-making or ruling
society till he has made himself familiar with its
structure, its laws, its details, any more than he would
have a right to tamper and fumble with a delicate
and complex piece of machinery if he were ignorant
of the details of machine construction. Socrates saw
that in his day the condition of the people was such as
to demand for its betterment what Professor Jones,
"
in his book on The Working Faith of a Social Re-
former," has declared to be most requisite in our own
"
time : No one who is interested in the social well-
being of the people will deny that amongst the deepest
needs of our times is the need of clear light upon the
broad principles of social well-being, the need, in short,
of a science of social life." It is out of the marriage

of the true ideal with the knowledge of facts and
conditions, in the brain of the thinker, a marriage both
partners in which must respect and reverence each
other, that all sound, healthy, and saving reform and
rule is born. The Ideal must be instructed by facts,
the facts must subserve the Ideal.
The fact that the first six chapters of the Third
Book of Xenophon's " Recollections" are devoted to
illustrating Socrates' activity in trying to make his
fellows realise the supreme need of full and accurate
knowledge to the successful conduct of any public
post of responsibility, indicates the importance Socrates
attached to science in political and social affairs.
The sixth chapter gives a most amusing instance of
Socrates' humour and irony brought into subtle play
for the purpose of drawing out a conceited youth,
who aimed at the highest offices of state and gave his
friends concern because of his entire lack of gumption,
to see that he was really ignorant. Socrates took
him in hand and cross-examined him with the aid of a
PUBLIC LIFE 119
judicious flattery, and succeeded in showing him

little
that he was altogether without that knowledge of
affairs which would be absolutely necessary to success
in the office.
For the sake of the blend of common-sense and
ironic humour of it, as well as to further exemplify
Socrates' work in this line, we quote the reminiscence
of another occasion in which he had to deal with the
conceit of yoath and its danger to the state, when there
is no solid attainment behind it. He pictures such
an one beginning his public speech in this exalted
"
strain :
'
Men of Athens, I have never at any time
learnt anything from anybody : nor if I have ever
heard of anyone as being an able statesman versed in
speech and capable of action, have I sought to come
across him individually. I have not so much as been
at pains to provide myself with a teacher from amongst
those who have knowledge. However, anything . . .
that occurs to me by the light of nature I shall be

glad to place at your disposal.' How appropriate
would such a preface sound on the lips of anyone
seeking, say, the office of state physician, would it
not ? How advantageously he might begin an
'
address on this wise Men of Athens, I have never
:
learnt the art of healing by help of anybody, nor have

I sought to provide myself with
any teacher among
medical men. Indeed, to put it briefly, I have been
ever on my guard not only against learning anything
from the profession, but against the very notion of
having ever studied medicine at all. If, however, you
will be so good as to confer on me the post, I promise
I willdo my best to acquire skill by experimenting
"
on your persons.' l
The true democracy then for Socrates is and can
only be an equality of opportunity, a liberty to all
1
Mem., bk. iv. ch. 2, 4 and 5. (Dakyns' trans.)
120 SOCRATES
to develop the gift that is in them by having access
to the sources of education and training, but it can
only embody its right idea when pains are taken to
put the wisest and ablest at the head of its concerns,
and when its members are not of the opinion that in
the affairs of free government every man has an equal
claim to office and power. Democracy must be ordered
and disciplined.
Socrates' claim to be called a social reformer in the
strict sense has been denied by Professor Joel as against
the view of Doling. Joel holds that neither in history
nor in Xenophon does Socrates stand out as a social
reformer, and such an idea could only Tiave arisen in
an age like the present, when social reform has risen
"
to such prominence in men's thoughts. Wherein,"
"
he asks, does the social reform of Socrates consist ?
There is not a word of Socialism. A strengthening of
the principle of democracy it cannot be, just as little
a reversal or alteration in the balance of power iij the
state (Doling, pp. 373, 375), no change at all, indeed,
of the external organisation of society (Doring, p. 369),
but only a dealing with spiritual factors. Not the
State, the Constitution, the economic system, the
relations between citizens, are to be reformed, but the
citizens themselves. In a word, Socrates wants no
social-reform but its opposite, individual-reform. It
is no economic amelioration from above, it is not a
socialising, or a levelling, or a unifying, but an accentua-

" "
tion of differences, an aristocratising (Doring, p.
'
384), an inner elevation, and even in the Memorabilia
'
'
an increase of specialisation. Allow the Memorabilia
'
to be quite historical for the moment, where does

" *
Socrates speak of his social-reform ?
Now we believe it true that Socrates was far more
1
Joel, Der Echte und der Xenophontische Sokrates, vol. n. pt. ii.
P- 955.
PUBLIC LIFE 121
concerned with individuals and character than with

programmes and systems, but in this connexion Joel
distinguishes too sharply between what is individual
and what is social. In Socrates' mind these terms do
"
not exclude one another, nor are they opposites."
The reform of the individual would soon manifest
itself in social reforms and improvements. And there
was one matter in which he would certainly have
altered the method of election to state offices, viz. that
in which resort was had to election by lot. His whole
conception of government by knowledge and skill was
opposed to any method of deciding the occupancy of
leading positions by arbitrary methods.
How exactly he proposed to secure the choice of the
best to rule we do not know, and perhaps he had not
considered, beyond the primary need of diffusing the
idea that for public posts it was the trained and
efficient men and not the talkers who alone should be
considered as eligible. Only when the democracy had
been educated up to that conception, fundamental,
indisputable, and indispensable, would the necessity
arise to think out some specific means for giving effect
to it. But at least choice by lot would have to go.
"
That the " Memorabilia do teach.
Moreover, in the early chapters of the Third Book
already alluded to, it is social reform, improvements in
the condition of society, the increase of its prosperity
and happiness, that are contemplated as a result of
the heightened efficiency of its rulers and servants.
Hence one cannot see why we should not be justified
in speaking of Socrates as a social reformer. Surely
the connotation of that term will extend to anyone
whose aim is the amelioration and improvement of
society and social service as such, and Socrates cer-
tainly desired such improvement and stated certain
conditions of its attainment.
122 SOCRATES
Alike for the purposes of social and individual life
it was requisite not only that one should know the
facts which have a bearing on the right discharge
of duty, but also that one should know oneself
intimately, have a true and just estimate of one's

powers, so that one won't attempt what is beyond one's
capacity, and won't be afraid to venture on what lies
within it, and thus deprive society of useful services,
which it ought to have. It is possible for a man to

attempt too much because of conceit and egotism, but
it is him to attempt too little through
also possible for
self-depreciation. Xenophon relates how Socrates

would deal with any case of the latter kind he came
across. The instance given is Charmides, the son
of Glaucon, who was a brother of Plato. Here was a
man of insight and ability, who shone in private
gatherings, evincing a fine gift for administration, yet
the state was deprived of his valuable gifts because
he recoiled from the battles of the Assembly which
were with noise and garments rolled in blood, meta-
phorically speaking. He thought he would be no-
where in such bustle. Socrates reasoned with him on
" "
this timidity before dullards and weaklings when
among experts he could give an excellent account of
"
himself. Is it the fullers among them of whom you
stand in awe, or the cobblers, or the carpenters, or the
coppersmiths, or the merchants, or the farmers, or the
hucksters of the market-place exchanging their wares,
and bethinking them how they are to buy this cheap
"
and sell the other dear ? x As well might a man
face trained athletes and then cower before amateurs.
"
My good fellow, do not be ignorant of yourself I
Do not fall into that commonest of errors theirs who

rush off to investigate the concerns of the rest of the
world, and have no time to turn and examine them-
1
Mem., bk. iii. ch. 7.
PUBLIC LIFE 123
selves. is a duty which you must not in

Yet that
cowardly draw
sort back from rather must you :
brace yourself to give good heed to your own self ;
and as to public affairs, if by any manner of means

the}'may be improved through you, do not neglect
them. Success in the sphere of politics means that
not only the mass of your fellow-citizens, but your
personal friends and you yourself last but not least,
*
by your action."
will profit
Joel would doubtless see evidence of Cynic in-

fluence upon Xenophon's account in the last senti-
ment, but there nothing in it as it stands which, even
is
if
cynic, might not also be Socratic. And the whole
passage shows that Socrates had not lost either
interest or faith in, or loyalty to, the Athenian state.
He considered it a man's duty to render what service
he could to society. But the passage also brings out
the emphasis he laid on this affair of self-knowledge,
and that is our present point. He sometimes quoted
"
the inscription on the temple at Delphi, Know
2
thyself," because the knowledge of self includes the
awakening of the mind to what it does really know
and what it really does not know. To know oneself
"
is, in Carlyle's phrase, to know what one can work
at," but to be thorough it also involves a searching
examination of one's ideas and general mental and
moral stock-in-trade. A cross-examination of Euthy-
demus reveals that, with all his conceit of his own
knowledge and ability, he has never really thought out
the ideas and criteria which he applies to experience
and conduct, he calls certain things right and others
wrong on the basis of mere tradition and convention
and common-sense, and it is only when pressed by
Socrates that he finds his easy-going moral judgments
break down, 3 and learns that if they are to be securer
1 * *
Mem., bk. iii. ch. 7, Mem., bk. iv. ch. 2. Ibid.
124 SOCRATES
and more valid than mere opinion, he will have to
sift and define them a great deal more by the processes
of reason and thought. Yet until we have come to

a sure and certain knowledge of right and wrong,
good and bad, how can we be in a position to come to
proper decisions in regard to our conduct, either as
individuals or as citizens ?
Conduct is life, and the three most

three-fourths of
important fourths to Socrates. It cannot be escaped.
Life is action, and yet, when the truth is told, hardly
any have really considered the moral principles which
lie at the very heart of it and give it its character.
Our conduct is not action, it is muddle, a thing of

accidents. Socrates felt it was high time this sort
of thing should cease and conduct be cleared up, and
based upon consistent and irrefragable principles.
Only so do we attain self-determination and self-
possession. These are appropriated from the world of
human experience only through criticism and reason.
Freedom is a function of intellect, and intellect is
the highest and most intimate expression of personality.
We are our ideas and principles even more than our
volitions and acts the former are our inner selves, the
;
latter but their expression in the world, according to

varying circumstances.
The self then, in a moral point of view, became the
one great central object of Socrates' mission. He
turned from the study of natural science, which he
found unsatisfying to the demands of his intellect, and
comparatively remote from the unescapable exigencies
of life, to the urgent task of a moral reconstruction
based upon the purified certainties of thought and
"
reason, summed up in the term self-knowledge."
We cannot in deference to the indications of Aristo-
phanes which Prof. A. E. Taylor has sought to justify
by subtle means and through reference to Plato,
PUBLIC LIFE 125
depart from what has been the traditional view that

Socrates did turn from natural science as his main
interest to an absorption in ethical matters. That
does not by any means signify that he absolutely closed
his ears to the scientific speculations of others, or cut
off from memory what he had previously learned of
them in youth. What it does signify is that he found
no rest or satisfaction in science, was persuaded that,
as prosecuted in the schools of Greece, it would never
solve the riddle of the universe, that indeed that
riddle could only be solved by penetration into man's
moral experience, that both intellectually and practi-
cally it is man who is the fundamental object of interest
to man. He is the microcosm in and through whom
alone we shall understand the macrocosm.
Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, all bear witness to this
transference of the centre of gravity of Socrates'
interestfrom the physical to the ethical, and the com-
plete subordination of the former to the latter, nay,
even its elimination from his discussions. Plato is as
emphatic and uncompromising on this point as Xeno-
phon. In the "Apology" he represents Socrates as
"
referring to Aristophanes' caricature in the Clouds,"
"
where he is set forth as an inquirer into the things in
heaven and beneath the earth," presumably what we
should call the phenomena of astronomy and geology,
and teaching others these things. He is seen turning
in the air and declaring that he is walking on it, and a
"
lot of other nonsense,
things of which," says Socrates,
"
understand nothing at all. I do not speak as
I
one who holds such science in dishonour, if there should
be anyone who has knowledge of such things. But . . .
for myself, O Athenians, I have neither part nor lot

in these studies. I challenge any of you to speak and
declare you have ever heard me make the slightest
it, if
reference to such topics in my discussions, and there

126 SOCRATES
you who have heard my conversations."
1
are many of
There can be no ambiguity about these words, and
they are from Plato. Moreover, the dominant interest
of what are recognised generally as the earliest Platonic
dialogues is an interest not in nature that is absent
wholly but in moral ideas, Friendship, Courage,
Temperance, and so on, which goes to substantiate
the attitude expressed in the " Apology," and the infer-
ence one readily draws from the autobiographic part
" "
in the Phaedo already given.
It is the same with Xenophon. There Socrates is
set before us, busy with the search after the essential
nature, the definition, of Piety, and Courage, and Tem-
perance, and Prudence, &c.
2
"
He set his face against all discussion of such high
matters as the nature of the Universe, how the cosmos,
as the savants phrase it, came into being or by;
what forces the celestial phenomena arise. To trouble

one's brain about such matters was, he argued, to play
the fool. He would ask first, Did these investigators
feel their knowledge of things human so complete that
they betook themselves to lofty speculations ? Or did
they maintain that they were playing their proper
parts in thus neglecting the affairs of man to speculate
on the concerns of God ? He was astonished they did
not see how far these problems lay beyond mortal
ken." 8 Then he goes on to justify the last sentiment
by reference to the interminable conflicts
"
of the different
schools of physical philosophers. One sect has dis-
covered that Being is one and indivisible. Another
that it is infinite in number. If one proclaims that all
things are in a continual flux, another replies that
nothing can possibly be moved at any time. The
theory of the universe as a process of birth and death
1
Plato, Apology, 19 b, c, d. Mem., i. ch. i.
Mem., i. ch. i, (Dakyns* trans.)
PUBLIC LIFE 127
ismet by the counter theory, that nothing ever could

be born or ever will die." l
Xenophon gives another reason why Socrates scorned
these physical and metaphysical speculations, viz. his
"
scepticism as to their utility. Do such explorers into
divine operations hope that when they have discovered
by what forces the various phenomena occur, they will
create winds and waters at will and fruitful seasons?
Will they manipulate these and the like to suit their
" 2
needs?
Whether or not Socrates actually regarded men whose
interest was the physical universe in general as fools,
whether or not he used the argument of the comparative
uselessness of such inquiries and we see no reason why
one, disillusioned with such studies and feeling intensely
the immediate and urgent necessity to rationalise and
so secure and fortify morals as at once concerned with
Athenian as well as human well-being, should not in
his zeal press the argument about utility at any rate
the main point is made sufficiently plain, that Socrates
took no direct personal interest in scientific studies.
"
Aristotle's testimony is' to the same effect. Soc-
"
rates," he says, though confining his examination
to questions of moral conduct and giving no study to
the nature of the universe as a whole, sought within
the moral sphere for the Universal, and was the first to
concentrate his attention on definitions." 3 Statements
to the sameare repeated by him at various
effect
"
places, e.g., Socrates concerned himself with the
and was the first to seek to give defini-
ethical virtues
"
tions in regard to them by the universal." * He
*
gave up inquiry into nature."
1 *
Mem., i. ch. i, 14. Mem., i. ch. I.
3
Metaphysics, A 987, b, i. Taylor, Aristotle on his Predecessors,
p. 100.
'
Metaphysics, M
1078, b, 17.
*
De Part, Anim., i.
642 a, 28. Cp. Ethics Eud., i. 1216, b, 2.
128 SOCRATES
In the face ofall this it appears rather perverse to
tumble into with a comic poet like Aristophanes,

line
and hold that Socrates actively maintained his early
interest in nature. But this is what Sorel does,
arguing for the view that Socrates was a follower of
" "
Anaxagoras, and that the denial in Plato's Apology
refers only to astronomy, whose objects, the sun and
stars, Socrates regarded as divine, and therefore not
amenable to human calculation and knowledge, while
in other respects he remained an Anaxagorean, and the
Athenians were not wrong in charging him with that
heresy.
1
All we can answer to this is that the words
"
of the Apology" naturally construed, explicitly refer to
more than the science of astronomy, and as regards
Anaxagoras, the implication Socrates meant to convey
in his reference to that philosopher at the Defence was
"
that he was not an Anaxagorean. The " Phsedo is to
the same effect. Sorel has simply missed the obvious,
or refused to see it under some Aristophanic mesmerism.
Taylor, who also advocates the view that Socrates
continued his active interest in scientific speculation
and inquiry to the last, disposes of the Aristotelian
dicta by the following interpretation, which does not
at all strike us as the natural meaning of the language :
"
It is in this sense, in the sense that Socrates was
' '
occupied in the discernment of the ideas of the

things which are unseen, that I should understand
'
the well-known statement of Aristotle that his busi-
' '
ness was concerned with ethical matters,' the

' '
affairs of a man's soul, and not with nature in the

Aristotelian sense, the world of that which is born and
dies" (p. 245).
But Aristotle himself, from the quotations just given,
"
will be seen to explain what he meant by ethical
" "
matters," and it is the moral sphere," and the
1
See Le Proces de Socrate, pp. 139-144.
PUBLIC LIFE 129
"
moral virtues it is not the distinction between the
;
eternal world of ideas in Plato's sense, and the world

of sense, for how could Socrates in concerning himself
"
with these ideas," be said to have no concern with
the world of sense, if, as Professor Taylor says else-
" "
where (p. 88), he did not separate the ideas from the
" "
phenomena of the world of sense but insisted all
through on their positive relation ? In that case his con-
cern was with both worlds. No, the Aristotelean dis-
tinction, interpreted in the obvious natural sense, is that
between the realms of ethics and of natural history.
It is to fail to grasp the significance of Socrates'
experience, even while seeking to confer an honour
on his intellectual interests, if we try to rescue him
in spite of himself from an attitude, if not of contempt
perhaps semi-humorously expressed, at least of com-

parative indifference to, and personal detachment
from, scientific speculation and inquiry in regard to
the universe. For the attitude of agnosticism into
which he was driven by the use of merely scientific
categories threw him back with fuller abandon upon
human categories, and drove him to look upon the
world as a moral and religious phenomenon, only to
be understood in the light of the revelation of the
religious spirit and by the help of the categories of
moral experience. His very rationalism, pressed to the
furthest limits carried him over the boundaries of
materialism into a higher philosophy whose primary
demand was that man should penetrate to the mystery
of his own nature, and in its secrets read the meaning
of the world.
In comparison with this service which the depth and
thoroughness of his method and his experience have ren-
dered to the human spirit, the fact of his dropping the
pursuit of the sciences is unimportant in determining our
estimate of his greatness. Non omnia possumus omnes.
9
130 SOCRATES
It is seldom that a perfect balance can be maintained
of all the helpful and legitimate interests of human
life, and such balance is almost impossible and would
be, perhaps, an obstacle in the case of those who are

called to be apostles of one special aspect of the Ideal.
The fundamental and the crowning knowledge, then,
is the knowledge of self, for with that all the common-
place illusions amid which men ordinarily live begin to

vanish away like mist rent in pieces by the sun's rays.
And so he went about persuading and compelling
people to get at the truth regarding themselves, to
get a face to face view of realities. The salvation of
man lies in getting away from mere appearances, the
confusion of inert minds. He thought it his God-
appointed business to help people to do that who
failed to do it for themselves.
He went out and in amongst all classes of the people
poets, teachers, leaders, artisanson this quest after
sure knowledge. Cobblers, vendors, ne'er-do-wells, it
mattered not, he took to do with all. One time you
would see him sitting in a shoemaker's shop, soon after
he might be found in an artist's studio. He was no
respecter of persons or trades. Distinctions of birth,
class, wealth, were simply nothing to Socrates. High
and low, rich and poor, being men, were alike to him,
so long as he had anything to learn or teach, bearing
on his life-work.
One of the most salient features of the personality
was his combination of sincere humility with unusual
mental alacrity and cleverness. Socrates' mind was
incisive ;
could perform the dissection of a man's
it
intellectual tissue with the fineness and delicacy of a

perfect surgical instrument. Other men's minds cast
shadows in the neighbourhood of Socrates' intellectual
brilliance. And too often a faculty like this goes with
personal conceit to make a combination by no means
PUBLIC LIFE 181
pleasing. Indeed, in spite of its sharpness, such a

character affects us as repugnant. Conceit kills any
reverence we may have for cleverness.
Socrates' character, however, was too large, too solid
for the flippancies of egotism. fundamental note Its
was seriousness, though with many an overtone of
jest and joy.
And so we find in him a continual recognition of his
own ignorance while criticising the pretended know-
ledge of others. He did not himself pretend to the
knowledge which he too often discovered did not exist
in others who did pretend to it. If, in anger at being
shown up, they rounded on him and told him he knew
no better, he only smiled in their face and said it was
true.
1
That was not all. No one could have an argu-
mentative battle with him without being compelled in
their heart to acknowledge his insight and penetration,
and hence the idea that his profession of ignorance
was purely ironical and assumed. This is what is
known as Socratic Irony. But it was only mere
irony to the superficial knower. Socrates had a
deeper standard or estimate of What constitutes true
knowledge, and he knew that he himself could not
attain to it. This ideal of his was always a problem
with which he was wrestling, a problem that continually
baffled even his brain. His life was a wrestle with
ideas, for ideas. He must know exactly what he is
talking about instead of using conventional words and
phrases in the conventional way to express conven-
tional meanings.
That is the sort of thing which prevents progress.
Men are misled
by words, and will not be at the trouble
of examining into privileges which certain words have
obtained by heredity, and which ought perhaps to
be taken from them.
1
On all this, Thesetetus, 150.
182 SOCRATES
This is especially so in the most important of all the
phases of practical life viz. the moral.

We glibly call things or actions good, just, right,
courageous, pious, etc., without even asking ourselves,
Am I right in so calling them ? Do they really merit
the title ? What is goodness, justice, right, courage,
piety, and so on ? I am trading in doubtful, perhaps
in counterfeit, coin, till I have asked and answered the
question, What is the real and true meaning of these
ideas ?
Only then voyage of life be guided by the
shall the
fixed stars in the heaven of thought, and not by wan-
dering and inconstant lights. We must get behind
slightly superficialities of speech to the deep under-
lying, changeless, and absolute realities of the moral
consciousness. 1 Then we shall be able to make pro-
gress, drawn on by the profounder gravitations of truth,
instead of being tossed hither and thither at the caprice
of language. The greatest foe of a strong and right
morality is ignorance. What the world needs is know-
ledge. So we see Socrates as the apostle of the eternal
in morality. His attitude is a messenger to all
that young in the world. It proclaims that the
is
great hindrance to advance in the world's conduct is

custom, tradition, hearsay, make-believe, and lack of
penetrating thought. We
are too apt to oppose any-
thing which does not come with the certificate of
recognised values. We
forget that there may be a
" "
discovery of new values and a transvaluation of old.
Dogma is the old man of the sea that hangs about
the neck not only of an emerging religion, but of a
rising morality. Men and women assume that it is
a sufficient reason for the existence of a particular
code of judgment and action that it has got itself to
exist. The actual custom becomes the tyrannical
1
The seeker of concepts and not instances, Theaetetus, 147.
PUBLIC LIFE 188
law. The external banishes the internal to endless

exile. Convention corrupts the world. Socrates is
against all that. The actual must always be criticised
and corrected by the ideal the old fact by the new
thought. The mind of man is the sole authority, the
sole source of revelation. Its pronouncements are
alone sacred. Whatever cannot justify itself before
the bar of conscience, or stand the light of reason,
though it were hoary with eld and entwined like the
ivy with ancient sentiment and gnarled prejudice,
must be torn from the soil, if the primroses and crocuses
of the fresh spring are to have room to take root and
grow, as heralds of another summer of the soul of

man.
Socrates was Athens' prophet of the soul, of the
inward life the life of reason, judgment, thought.
(b) The rationalism of Socrates, however, was not
a bare abstract rationalism. It was his method, his
instrument, but the man himself was far more than
a logic-chopping machine. He had soul as well, and
it was the life of the soul in its richness and fullness
he sought. He took it all as his province. There are

writers, like Joel in an extreme degree, and also
Gomperz, who fall foul of Xenophon, on account of
what they are pleased to regard as his common-
placeness and philistinism.
1
To such, Socrates is
the pure rationalist and dialectician, bones with the
flesh off, only the skeleton of a man. We think
Xenophon on the whole, so far as it went,
gave a reliable
enough picture of his subject, though naturally he
may have brought some features which attracted him
into more prominence and passed lightly over others
in which he was not so much interested. No doubt
Socrates said, as every man must say, many things
1 "
Cp. Prof. Bury on Xenophon in Ancient Greek Historians,"
p. 151.
134 SOCRATES
which are not it was
brilliantly metaphysical, and
surely permissible to him to have interests and sym-
pathies that were not purely philosophical. He was
a full-blooded philosopher and lover of wisdom, and
that means he was a lover of life and of experience on
other sides than the intellectual it means that he
;
must have felt, as assuredly he seems to have done,

that the intellect is made for life, and not life for the
intellect. He was indeed a Professor of Life, and
took the greatest interest in all that concerned it, all
its problems and ideals.
Virtue and the soul were his care, as not only
Xenophon but also Plato sufficiently attests, and it
1
was for their sake that he indefatigably advocated

the necessity of accurate knowledge.
We are unstable, unprogressive and
inconsistent,
futile, because we knowledge, which, in the
lack
Socratic sense, means contact with Truth and Reality,
instead of relatively to the fickle changing shows of
things. It is only expressing the same thing to say
that we must get deeper than the senses. These do
not carry us down into the soul and essence of things ;
in them the accidental and essential come united

together and confused, and it is only by the process
of thought and reflexion that we can strip off the
modes and fashions with which Reality is clothed, in
which it is "half revealed and half concealed," so that
we can apprehend it in its pure, perfect, unchanging
being.
It is easy to see that such communion with Truth
has and always must have a revolutionary aspect,
that it is the principle of continuous reform and
endless advance. It is this which keeps man and
the world young, and we do not wonder that Socrates
gathered the youth about him and stirred their
1
Apol., 31 a, b.
PUBLIC LIFE 135
enthusiasm, and that it was the youth above all to

whom he was drawn.
Of course it was inevitable in a society with any
elements of conservatism in it that an inspiration of
that kind, carried into effect upon current modes of
belief and conduct, should set up ferment and anta-
gonisms, and Socrates became a man marked out for

suspicion and hate.
But it was never his way to throw up a line because
of its consequences to himself. It seemed to amuse
him more than anything else to notice the nervous
excitement of people to protect themselves against
him. It was the amusement of conscious power of
the man who has given himself and all he has in
hostage to Truth, who is prepared to be snuffed out
with the false if he be false, and asks no victory for
himself but that of the Truth, whose slave he is.
George Fox himself was no more devoted and dis-
interested in showing up the hollowness of vain
profession and groundless convention, and the
Athenians found the one about as great a nuisance
and terror as the English did the other, and it is
not unlikely that as possible victims would get out
of the way when they saw Fox bearing down on them,
so at Athens Socrates would be avoided by some
who did not relish the prospect of being shelled as
clean as oysters by a few dexterous strokes of the
Socratic dialectic. Here is Macaulay's verdict, in
which he suffers a good deal more than he need have
done, from sympathy with the Athenians, perhaps
because he fails to remember the bonhomie and good
"
humour of Socrates the iconoclast I do not much
:
wonder at the violence of the hatred which Socrates

had provoked. He had, evidently, a thorough love
for making men look small. There was a meek
maliciousness about him which gave wounds which
136 SOCRATES
must have smarted long, and his command of temper
was more provoking than noisy triumph and in-
solence would have been." 1
We don't doubt about the wounds and smarts, but
surely there is little to drop tears over when conceit
and swagger and philistinism mourn. And it was in
a good cause.
Socrates went about as a sort of sage let loose or
minister at large, to whom people sometimes had
recourse in difficulties and who was always ready to
enter into their interests, and learn from them what
could be learned. He gives us the impression of one
largely skilled in literature and the human heart, a
man withal of " self -reverence, self-knowledge, self-
control," well fitted in all respects to be a good guide,
counsellor, and friend.
We have no desire to submerge this aspect of his
activity expatiated on by Xenophon and vouched for
by Plato, in which the moral and spiritual interest
ranging over all life stands out predominant the
great peak about which the lesser heights cluster.
"
It is all included in the meaning of the term philo-
"
sopher as Socrates understood
it. To him philosophy
meant wisdom the largest sense, not only the
in
intellectual penetration to the essence of things, but
also a way of life, an attitude of the whole soul, the
achievement of a just perspective in life, a right
balance of its various interests, according to the dis-
position, and under the control, of God to be a ;
philosopher means to see life steadily and see it whole

at every moment so that one's conduct in all its
forms is the result of a right appreciation of values on
the part of the agent. To live such a life, realise such
a character, and to stimulate and lead others to the
pursuit of it was a great part of Socrates' mission, a
1
Life and Letters, ch. xiii.
PUBLIC LIFE 187
part which he could not on any terms give up. His

determination on this point was as fixed and unalter-
able in the presence of his judges, as that of Luther
before the Roman Catholic dignitaries and pleni-
"
potentiaries at Worms. I can do no other. So help
me, God."
" "
To do wrong," he said, and to distrust the better,
represented by God or man, that I know to be
wickedness and disgrace." l
"
honour and love you, Athenians, but I will
I
rather obey God than you, and as long as I have
breath and power in me, I shall never cease to be
philosopher nor to admonish and censure any of you
'
I meet, saying, as has been my wont My friend, as
an Athenian, of that city greatest and most renowned
for wisdom and strength, are you not ashamed to make
your care the amassing of as much wealth as you can,
and glory and honour, while you neither care for nor
give your thought to prudence and truth or to making
your soul as good as you can ? And if any of you
disputes the point and says he does care, I shall not
lethim off and leave him, but I shall question him
and examine him, and, if I find that he has not ac-
quired virtue but claims to have, I shall reproach him
with treating the things of highest value as of least
value, and esteeming the less important as the more
important. This I shall do with old and young,
stranger or citizen, especially the citizens as closer
linked to me by blood. For I tell you God calls me
to this work, and I believe that no greater blessing
has ever befallen you in this city than my service to
God. For I go about doing nothing else than persuad-
ing you, old and young, to transfer your interest from
the body and from wealth and to concern yourselves
with so much fervour only for the highest perfection
1
Apol., 29 b.
188 SOCRATES
of soul possible to you. I say to you that virtue does
not come from wealth, but from virtue comes wealth
and all other blessings to men both individually and
socially. .Such is my teaching, and I shall not
. .
give up, no, not if I had to face many deaths."

*
"I
am a man who has never had the wit to be idle during
his whole life, but has been careless of what the many
care about, wealth, and family interests, and military
and speaking in the assembly, and magistrates,
offices,
and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really
too honest a man to follow in this way and live, I did
not go where I could do no good to you or to myself ;
but where I could do the greatest good privately to

every one of you thither I went, and sought to persuade
every man among you that he must look to himself,
and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his
private interests, and look to the state before he looks
to the interests of the state and that this should be
;
the order which he observes in all his actions." 2

It was in the capacity of a minister in spiritual
things, stirringup the conscience of the people, re-

proaching them when they confused life's true values,
and subordinated the supreme ends of human
existence to what were only means and instruments,
that likened himself to a gadfly, 3 which
Socrates
keeps stirring up a great and noble steed when it gets
slow and tardy in its movements. It is his function
to keep the Athenian State from falling into a drowsi-
ness and sleep of its better part and highest faculties,
by continually exhorting its citizens, like a father or
elder brother, to strive after virtue and make it their
paramount business.*
" "
The dialogue Clitophon also bears testimony
to the importance which Socrates attached, and the
1 a
Plato, Apol., 29 d-3o c. Apol., 36 b, c; cp. 38 a.
1 *
Apol., 30 e. Apol., 31 b.
PUBLIC LIFE 139
place which he gave, to this mission of virtue. There

also in termsand phrases which recall the "Apology,"
he is spoken of as one who has given himself to a
crusade against the conception of life's happiness as con-
sisting in the amassing of the goods that perish ; there
alsohe is represented as going about trying to awake
the Athenians out of their indolence and sleep as
regards the true aims and values and blessedness of
human activity, and as exhorting them to the study
and acquirement of virtue, as more necessary than any
other part of education, 1 whether that of the intellect
or of the body there also we are told that he held up
;
the soul and its interests as supreme over every other

human concern. 2 Clitophon indeed acknowledges,
"
what Xenophon insists on in the Recollections,"
that Socrates had no rival in the power to stimulate
youth in the pursuit of the things pertaining to the
soul's welfare, 3 in wakening them out of the dogmatic
slumbers of the ordinary conventional fashion of life
to a sense of their spiritual needs, though he adds
that Socrates could give no help, indeed was rather
an obstacle, when it became a matter of achieving the
end of virtue and attaining happiness a criticism
which rather confirms the belief that there was vacil-
lation and uncertainty in Socrates' ethical teaching,
and that, in accordance with his own disclaimers, he
never reached philosophical rest in the possession
of fixed positive truth. The iron of doubt that had
entered deep into his soul in youth was never wholly
extracted. To him it was only given to walk by
faith, not by knowledge, though he never ceased to
pursue the quest of the latter, because he was con-
vinced that until we attain clear and sure knowledge
in the realm of ethics, we can never develop true and
settled virtue, to help to produce which, individually
1 2 8
Clitophon, 407 c, d. Ibid., 410 d. Ibid., 410 e,
140 SOCRATES
and socially, was the
one cardinal enthusiasm and
interest of his earthly
career. For this mission he
continued poor for this he sacrificed all other
;
ambitions and pleasures with a single eye he did

;
this work of God, trying to instil a higher conscious-

ness into his fellows, to promote among them nobler
manners, purer laws, juster relations, better life,
seeking no reward and taking none, except the peace

of his own conscience, the approval of God, and the
gratitude and affection of those who could appreciate
the good he did.
It becomes us whensoever in our hearts we recount
the names of those who have laboured humbly and
faithfully in this world as disciples and slaves of the
soul and of virtue, those who in their day and genera-
tion have been saints and apostles of the life of the
spirit and belonged to the great order of the good,
who have loved good for its own sake with a pas-
sionate love, whose lives have been the light of men,
it becomes us to remember among them that un-
wearied devotee who, borne on by his inner faith and

convictions, pursued his ministry for virtue's sake,
scorned, unheeded, hated, by most of his fellow-
citizens, in the public haunts and highways of Athens,
in its shops and its houses, among high and low, rich
and poor, artist and artisan, at the call of God and
the need of man ; an exile from convention by the
privilege of reason, a pilgrim from dogma and error by
"
the same privilege one who marched breast forward,
;
never doubted clouds would break," and who believed

in the True and the Good shining beyond the veils of
human ignorance and delusion.
He was just the man to be counsellor and friend to
others in need because he could see all matters in the
clarifying light of reason and from the highest and
broadest point of view, and we now turn to get ac-
PUBLIC LIFE 141
quainted with his principles and teachings on some of

the greater matters of life, as they emerge from his
handling of the personages and facts he came across
in daily life, as he pursued this ministry at large.
We shall close this section with the fine characterisa-
tion ofhim by Joel l "He warned and was misunder-
:
stood, did citizen duty and was misrepresented, went

about the streets and came not to knowledge he
brooded in his soul and remained an enigma to him-
self. He was the " selbstlosen Socrates " the selfless
Socrates. He gained his life in losing it."
1
See Der Echte und der Xenophontische Sokrates, vol. n. pt, ii.
p. 961.
CHAPTER VI
HIS TEACHING ON WORK
shall see that the great determining prin-
WE ciple which Socrates brought to bear in

deciding the problems of thought and life
was that of reason, the reason which sits throned
within, and whose oracles if listened to would dis-
sipate those difficulties which confront us because
we are hidebound by convention and public opinion.
Inner Reason dictated not only the sage's advice to,
but also his relations with, others, as we shall immedi-
and it lay at the root of his greatness.
ately illustrate,
"
I am
a man who at all times can only be persuaded
x
by reason approved on reflection."
Mr. Arnold Bennett has said with considerable truth
"
that brain alone is the enemy of prejudice and
precedent, which alone are the enemies of progress.
And this habit of originally examining phenomena is
perhaps the greatest factor that goes to the making
of personal dignity, for it fosters reliance on oneself
and courage to accept the consequences of the act
of reasoning. Reason is the basis of personal dig-
a
nity."
This was eminently so with Socrates. His advance
upon the main body of mankind was due to the fact
that in him Thought and Reason sat upon Olympus
and judged the world. Other people accepted things,
Socrates judged them. He took the law and order
of the day into avizandum he asked whether it had
;
1
Plato, Crito, 46 b.
a
The Human Machine.
142
HIS TEACHING ON WORK 143
anything to say for itself worth listening to before

the bar of an enlightened Reason.
It is related that Margaret Fuller, one of a
brilliant coterie of literary spirits in America, once
"
said I accept the universe." The statement of
Miss Fuller was repeated to Carlyle in his grim shades
at Chelsea. "Gad, she'd better!" was his laconic
comment.
There is a sense in which we must all accept the
universe and be thankful, and the Calvinism in Carlyle's
bones laughed at any poor female biped who made a
fuss about so simple and inevitable a fact. But if we
must accept the universe, we ought first to be sure
"
what the universe is. If the Actual says, I am the
"
universe," and soul says, I am the universe, and I
am better than the Actual," then Socrates, like Carlyle
"
himself, would say, Let the soul have it." Man's
soul is in the world not to submit to it, but to subdue
it, for after all the human soul is the organ of the
Soul of the world, through which the latter utters its
deeper, truer reality. And the nature of the soul is,
in its Socratic view and in the Greek view generally,
above all else, Reason.
What Reason condemns is damned, what Reason
approves is law, Reason being of course not mere

formal logic, but the trained and educated insight of
wisdom and knowledge.
There is an incident for which Xenophon vouches
as having come within his own personal experience,
when Aristarchus; one of Socrates' friends, met him
with downcast spirit and disconsolate face. The
philosopher bade him unbosom his miseries, and out
came a tale of woe. Aristarchus's home had been
made the asylum and refuge of all his penniless female
relations, fourteen souls all told living under his roof,
at a time of crisis in Athens, when food was scarce,
144 SOCRATES
money likewise, and no chance of either buying or
borrowing, on his eaten-up securities.
It was indeed a pickle these ladies all to be kept
alive; and nothing to do it with !
Socrates at once saw daylight through the darkness,

and a sun behind the clouds.
He horrified the already overwrought, anxious
Aristarchus by suggesting the simple expedient of
setting these free-born relations to work on baking
and sewing and dressmaking.
It would bring in the much needed guineas, it would
afford that occupation of one's time and faculties without
which proper manhood and womanhood is impossible,
and it would create an atmosphere of good temper
and happiness instead of that of jealousy and de-
jection and sourness.
After some objection on the score of the indignity
of work for well-born ladies, Socrates' plan was tried,
and with great success. The prospect of Aristarchus'
home brightened, and he was relieved of the worry
and anxiety of a very delicate and difficult situation.
Sometimes Socrates would drop into an artist's
studio or tradesman's shop, and converse with the man
on the principles of his art or craft, the idea being
probably not so much to enlighten them as to learn
from them facts about their work and its methods,
which he could use to illustrate and support his own
logical and ethical theories. Socrates had genius
enough to see that the common life about him was of
as much use to philosophy and as closely and essentially
related to its aims and objects and conclusions as any
department of human activity. He brought philo-
sophy out of the schools into touch with the ordinary
life of ordinary men, and so made it a more living and
practical and serious thing. It was like the sunlight

which must illuminate not only stately buildings and
public but small back shops and private stores,

offices,
and be more worth for it.
of all the
It was, indeed, made a matter of criticism that in
his philosophical discussions he would keep his argu-
ments haunting about shoemakers and tanners, and
blacksmiths' shops, thus making the august muse smell
and old iron, and other nasty common things.
of leather
But here again Socrates took the point of view not
of the senses, but of thought and reason. A bad
smell or a dusty exterior might be part of the noble
order of the universe. We
might just as well be as
democratic as Reality itself.
And here we come in view of another of those dim
clustered isles which gather themselves out of the
monotonous level of the grey sea of custom and
convention, that lies about the world's rare up-towering
souls.
In Athens, as is well known, there were two widely
separated social classes the free-born citizen and the
slave. It was the business of the free-born to guide
and govern their city, it was the business of the slave
to work for the free-born.
Thus in Athens manual labour was generally
"
looked down upon as disfiguring and low." Even
in a master-mind like Plato's, we often hear echoes of
this uncomplimentary estimate of trade and labour.
Plato believed that man was meant to be an artist,
but the artisan is a slave in spirit, his occupation stains
his soul, warps his mind, and so injures the delicate
harmonious beauty of the full-petalled and symmetrical
bloom of life.
saw deeper than Plato. Socrates', I believe,

Socrates
was a fuller and more balanced mind than Plato he ;
had more catholic sympathies, a larger heart, hewn out

of common humanity.
"
And to him it was given to see that all work is
10
146 SOCRATES
noble and alone noble," as Carlyle put it ; that honest
labour, which plants a stalk of grain or a flower where
before was nothing, is the very mission of this life and
of all who live. it was, in Athens, who saw
Socrates,
"
clearly the perennial sacredness of work." He, too,
would have proclaimed to all and sundry, " Produce,
produce, were it the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of
a product in God's name, produce it."
;
Disgrace, so he taught, never lies in the kind of

work a man does, if it is useful and needful. Idleness
is the only disgrace. But there are people who are
extremely busy idling, and others who seem to be
idling who are really busy with life's most important
work.
Of the former class, who would be as well if not
better doing nothing, are dicers and gamblers and
others engaged in occupations that are injurious to
themselves and others. These Socrates classed as
"
idle drones." Work to be worthy of the name
must have some social utility, and those who get their
wealth by means that adds not a jot to the real wealth
and welfare of society are simply parasites, who live
on the sweat of their fellows, eating the honey others
gather through the industrious day.
On the other hand, not every man who is not en-
gaged in" what is popularly or conventionally called
"
work is an idler. There are some who called
Socrates a meddlesome fellow who lounged about
doing anything but useful work. Socrates repudiated
that charge.
One can imagine Socrates Redivivus thumping
Robert Louis Stevenson on the back in lusty apprecia-
" "
tion, when he had written in his Apology for Idlers :
"
Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business
is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many
other things. And it is not by any means certain that

a man's business is the most important thing he has
to do." That was the view out of which all Socrates'

public activities grew that was his Apologia pro vita
;
sua.
Moreover, he believed that the true joy of life comes
from the sense of work well done. As a modern
teacher finely puts it : "No impulse is too splendid
for the simplest task : no task is too simple for the
most splendid impulse."

He was once asked what he regarded as the best
"
business and pursuit of man, and he replied Doing
:
well." He did not mean by that, good fortune. Suc-

"
cess as such was to him little enough. In my creed,
that man is successful who by dint of learning and
"
practice does a thing well," or tries to do his duty."
"
These are the best men, and nearest to the heart
of God, who if farmers do their farming well, if doctors
their doctoring, if politicians do their best in politics.
But the man who does nothing well is useless to men
and no friend of God." *
"
Whatever you do," he is reported to have said to
an old friend he met after he had missed him for a long
time, and whom he advised, being out of employment,
to use his gifts as an agent on somebody's estates, and
never mind the cant about it being slavish to work
"
for others, Whatever you do, do it heart and soul, and
make it your finest effort."
"Act with all your might" was a favourite aphorism
of Socrates taken from Hesiod, and even to-day its
adoption would mark a revolution in vast areas of our

industries and business. There are few things more
wanted to send the world spinning merrily forward than
the reintroduction into our modern industry of the
whole heart and will and might. We miss the zest,
the glorious zest, of labour that carries us along as on
1
Mem., iii, ch. 9.
148 SOCRATES
"
a spring-tide. I eat my heart out when I am not up
to the neck in work," said St.-Beuve.
No one can fail to be impressed with the thorough-
ness and enthusiasm with which through life Socrates
himself pursued his high calling a calling ever to learn,
ever to examine, ever to move on from that which is
found wanting to that which is securer and more
perfect. He sat as " Grandpa," at the feet of Connus,
but that was only one sign of the passion of devotion
of his whole being to life's whole ideal the ideal of
Knowledge, Reason, Good. To the end he felt he was
only battling at the closed gates, that he had never

got entry within the mystery at whose altar it was his
consuming desire sometime here or hereafter to bow,

with the light of knowledge in his eyes but he never
resigned the quest, nor gave up the pursuit. He lived
for it with all his might, and with a good heart he was
able to die for it.
Professor Joel has argued, as he has on other

features of Xenophon's delineation, that in ascribing
to Socrates this advocacy of all honest labour, this
sense of the dignity of work and the disgrace of idle-
ness, we find another instance of effect of Cynic ideas
and doctrine upon Xenophon's mind that it was
;
Antisthenes and his followers who regarded no work

as too mean, and who thus broke down the time-
honoured division between the two great classes of the
free citizens who never soiled their hands with labour,
and the artisans. He maintains that the intellec-
tualism of Socrates would not tend to an appreciation
of artisan work, and that indeed he gave up his own
1
craft.
We can see no good ground for this position, based
on the gratuitous assumption that if a doctrine and
1
See Der Echte und der Xenophontische Sokrates, vol. n.
pt, ii.pp. 1025, 1026.
attitude can be shown to be Cynic, ipso facto it

cannot have been Socratic. It is a queer principle
of criticism, and there is plenty of evidence in Plato
as well as in Xenophon that Socrates did not despise
art or artisans, while it is obvious to all who under-
stand the circumstance that his abandonment of his
early trade had nothing to do with any feeling that it
was mean and unworthy. He abandoned it for the
same reason for which he eschewed the gentlemanly
life of politics.
His attitude towards labour was exactly that of the
great German mystic Tauler: "One can spin, another
can make shoes and all these are gifts of the Holy
;
Ghost I tell you, if I were not a priest, I should

:
esteem it a great gift if I was able to make shoes,

and would try to make them so well as to be a pattern
to all."
CHAPTER VII
TREATMENT OF ENEMIES
and Reflection are radical forces, much

more so than is sentiment and just because
;
REASON more radical in their standards, they are more

Catholic and universal in their judgments. Their func-
tion and tendency is to strip off the accidental and
transient and penetrate to the essential. We have just
seen how Socrates, by appealing to the Reason within,
was at once carried to a view which broke down the
great conventional distinction between the class of
the free who toiled not neither did they spin, and
the class which had to toil and spin for them, a dis-
tinction which in any case was counting for less and
less in the public life of Athens, as the Aristophanic
drama shows.
The critical principle applied by Socrates not only
cut at the root of the conventional opinion in regard
to labour which set up a cleavage within the same
society, but it was bound also to operate as a solvent
for the unnatural divisions and relations between
members of different societies.
If a man, e.g., ought to love his neighbour as himself,
the inference of Reason is that he ought also to love
everybody else's neighbour as himself. The considera-

tion as to whether a man lives in the same street
and the same society or in another street and different
society, makes no difference from the point of view
of the Reason in the way in which you ought to treat
150
TREATMENT OF ENEMIES 151
him. Taking them simply as individuals, the colour

of men's skin, or their position geographically on the
surface of the globe, does not affect the fundamental
rights and duties which the Moral Law imposes as
between them and ourselves. This was one of the
great principles of the Practical Reason in the thought
of Kant, who expressed it in the imperative so to act
as if the maxim on which you becomeact were to
through your will That
a universal law of nature.
means that ethically every person must have equal
value for us, and we must treat all in the same spirit,
and it leads to what may be called a rational or
ethical Humanitarianism in which all such divisions
and antipathies and hatreds as have no justification
in reason and morality are abolished.
The question is, did Socrates see all to which the
principle committed him, and did the vision liberate
him from the ordinary ethic of his time, which drew a
sharp line between friends and enemies, and sanctioned
"
opposite modes of conduct toward them ? It is
commonly held to redound to a man's praise," he

"
says in conversation with Chgerecrates, to have
outstripped an enemy in mischief or a friend in
x
kindness," a quotation of ordinary sentiment which
it is worth observing occurs in a talk in which Socrates
ispressing Chserecrates to take the initiative in healing

the quarrel which has arisen between him and his
brother. He advises him to go and frankly offer his
hand to his brother in reconciliation. He will be sure
to find his generosity reciprocated, but even if it
"
should not be so, then at the worst you will have
shown yourself to be a good, honest, brotherly man,
and he will appear as a sorry creature on whom
kindness is wasted." 2
But Socrates had a very high ideal of family re-
1 l
Xen., Mem., bk. ii. ch. 3, 14. Ibid,, 17.
152 SOCRATES
lationships,and brotherhood was a natural tie which
he believed God intended should bind members of
the family together closer than hands and feet, or
ears and eyes, in a community of mutual good l and ;
" "
the Recollections don't represent Socrates as
inculcating the same attitude in the case of mutual
enemies in general. Take the following words ad-
dressed to Critobulus by Socrates, who assumes the
role of an agent for promoting friendships :
"
If you will authorise me to say that you are
devoted to your friends that nothing gives you so
;
much joy as a good friend that you pride yourself

;
no less on the fine deeds of those you love than

on your own that you never weary of plotting
;
and planning to procure them a rich harvest of the

same; and lastly, that you have discovered a man's
virtue is to excel his friends in kindness and his foes in
hostility. If I am
authorised thus to report of you,
I think you me a serviceable fellow-hunter
will find
in the quest of friends, which is the conquest of the
2
good."
It would seem as though Socrates had failed of his
own principles in this matter, and that the pressure of
environing ideas was too strong for the fidelity of his
own spirit to itself. We confess we find it difficult, in
virtue of the impression which the whole character of
the man makes upon us, and which we have tried to
convey, in preceding pages, to believe that Socrates
could be satisfied with such an attitude of mind towards
his enemies. It conflicts with all we know of him, in
his bearing towards others. We are not convinced by
"
Professor A. E. Taylor's Varia Socratica" that Socrates
was actually a member of a Pythagorean brotherhood,
but he was intimate with Pythagoreans, and it is not
1
Xen., Mem., bk. ii. ch. 3, 18, 19,
1
Xen., Mem., bk. ii. ch. 6, 35.
credible to us that one whom they affectionately re-

cognised to be greater than themselves should have
fallen below the moral level of the teaching of their
school, which was, according to Aristotle, that they
"
were never to injure anyone, but endure patiently
wrongs, and injury, and, in a word, do all the good they
could." This was the very doctrine that Socrates
practised. It was he of whom his jailor at the last
could say that he was unlike other prisoners, for he
had never railed at him, but had spoken only kindly
words, and showed nothing but courtesy and bene-
volence ; of whom Demetrius, quoted by Diogenes
Laertius, could relate that once when he was kicked
by some cad in passing, he only laughed, and when his
friends expressed astonishment at this meek and mild
behaviour, asked whether when asses kicked him he
was to have the law of them l of whom Xenophon him-
;
"
self says that he was never the cause of evil to the
state, was free of offence in private as in public life,
never hurt a single soul either by deprivation of good
or infliction of evil, and never lay under the imputation
of any such wrong-doing" who, according to Plato's
;
"Apology," found at heart no cause of anger against his

accusers or those who condemned him to death, 3 and
could say in the presence of his fellow-citizens that he
had never intentionally wronged anyone; 8 who held
that men do not commit wrong except because of
ignorance, error, or illusion, not seeing the true char-
acterand consequence of their action. Could such an
one believe in the doctrine of retaliation or of injuring
enemies ?
We confess we derive little consolation from Professor
Joel's theory that Xenophon's account would be in-
fluenced by the Cynic doctrine that Justice consists in
1
Diogenes Laertius, bk. ii. ch. 6, 21.
1 *
Apol., 41 d. Apol., 37 a.
154 SOCRATES
strict reciprocity,paying back in the coin in which
you are paid, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
and that what Xenophon gives us is not the historical
Socrates but the Cynic sage.
The fact is, Xenophon himself has presented us with
Socrates in another aspect, as taking a great view of
humanity, very much akin to that he had of the family
a view in which the good among mankind are
presented as forming one great community and brother-
hood.
"
Soc. Seeds of love are implanted in man by
nature. Men have need of one another, feel pity, help
each other by united efforts, and in recognition of the
fact show mutual gratitude. But there are seeds of
war implanted also. The same objects being regarded
as beautiful or agreeable by all alike, they do battle
for their possession a spirit of disunion enters, and
;
the parties range themselves in adverse camps. Dis-

cord and anger sound a note of war : the passion of
having more, staunchless avarice, threatens hostility ;
and envy is a hateful fiend.

"
But, nevertheless, through all opposing barriers
friendship steals her way, and binds together the beautiful
and good among mankind. Such is their virtue that they
would rather possess scant means painlessly than wield
an empire won by war. In spite of hunger and thirst,
they will share their meat and drink without a pang.
Nor bloom of lusty youth, nor love's delights can
warp their self-control nor will they be tempted to
;
cause pain where pain should be unknown. It is

theirs not merely to eschew all greed of riches, not
merely to make a just and lawful distribution of
wealth, but to supply what is lacking to the needs of
one another. Theirs is it to compose strife and discord
not in painless oblivion simply, but to the general
advantage. Theirs also to hinder such extravagance
of anger as shall entail remorse hereafter. And as to

envy, they will make a clean sweep and clearance of
it ;the good things which a man possesses shall be
also the property of his friends, and the goods which
they possess are to be looked upon as his. Where, then,
is the
improbability that the beautiful and noble should
be sharers in the honours of the state not only without
" l
injury, but even to their mutual advantage ?
Socrates' doctrine is that friendship can only exist
between the good evil disintegrates and divides.
:
But goodness takes no account of national divisions.

Wherever the good are, they are friends of the good :
they need each other, and they help each other. In

their hearts are none of the things which create strife
and enmity. Here, then, is the recognition of a
kingdom of peace and goodwill, a kingdom of mutual
affection and service, a kingdom of God, which takes
no account of artificial national divisions. It is a king-
dom of the Spirit, and all who have the Spirit belong
to it.
was the plane on which Socrates' thought

This, then,
moved, the purer, wider air he breathed and the soul ;
which lived at these heights could not have been com-

pletely held by any inferior doctrines of morality.
We can be quite sure that he would recognise only the
highest standards in conduct that were known to him.
Aristotle informs us that Socrates held that no one
would choose, if he had the choice, injustice rather
than justice in action, nor cowardice rather than
courage, nor any vice in preference to the corresponding
virtue? 2 The philosopher who cherished such views
was likelier to pity the poor misled wrong-doer and seek
to set him right, than to exact revenge or cause him
further injury. The consistency of his practical con-
1
1
Xen., Mem., bk. ii. ch. 6, 21 ff.
(Dakyns trans.)
1
Aristotle, Magna Moralia, i. g, 1187 a.
156 SOCRATES
duct with his doctrine of ill-doing as ignorance, drives
us to accept the unanimous testimony of the Platonic
dialogues, which is to the effect that to return evil for
evil on a man would only be to aggravate the evil.
In the " Apology," Socrates states his inmost convic-
tion that "to be unjust and to disobey any one better
than oneself, whether God or man, is contrary to duty
and honour." The point, then, is as to whether or no it
is unjust to render evil for evil, or under
any circum-
stance to injure a fellow-creature. And to that we reply
in the first place, that if doing evil is the result of ig-
norance, then to retaliate in like manner is unjust and
wrong, and can only be the result of ignorance also,
and we suggest that Socrates was not so dull and
obtuse as to fail to recognise the obvious inference
from his own principles.
Nor can we fall back on the idea that his conception
of justice was, in itself, too confused and imperfect
to exclude the maxim of retaliation. Socrates had
"
got beyond the current position on this matter. In
questions of just and unjust, fair and foul," he says
"
to Crito, which are the subjects of our present
consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the
many and to fear them or the opinion of the one
;
man who has understanding ? Ought we not to fear

and reverence him more than all the rest of the world ;
and if we desert him, shall we not destroy and injure
that principle in us which may be assumed to be
" l
improved
"
by justice and deteriorated by injustice ?
In spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite
of consequences whether better or worse, shall we insist
as before, that injustice is always an evil and dishonour
to him who acts unjustly ?
"CR. Yes.
"
Soc. Then we must do no wrong ?
1
Plato, Crito, 47. (Jowett's trans.)
"
CR. Certainly not.
"
Soc. Nor when injured, injure in return, as the
many imagine ; for we must injure no one at all ?
"
CR. Clearly not.
"
Soc. Again, Crito, may we do evil ?
"
CR. Surely not, Socrates.
"
Soc. And what of doing evil in return for evil,
which is the morality of the many is that just or
not ?
" CR.
Not just.
"
Soc. Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil
for evil to any one whatever evil we may have suffered
from him." 1
The same conclusion is put into Socrates' mouth in
2 "
the Republic :
"
Soc. If, then, someone says that it is just to render
to each what is due to him, by that understanding
that injury is due to enemies, and service to friends,
such an one would not be wise in so expressing him-
self. He has not spoken the truth. For it has been
seen that in no circumstances is it just to injure anyone."
Socrates' argument has turned on the point, to him
self-evident, that nothing that is right and good can
possibly do hurt or injury to anyone.
"
In the " Gorgias Plato makes him declare that the
worst evil that can ever befall a man is to do wrong, 3
and that if it were a choice between acting unjustly
and suffering unjustly, between doing wrong and
having wrong done to himself, he would choose the
latter.*
In these dialogues, then, there is not a quaver of
uncertainty about the conviction that the just and
good man will never repay injury with injury but
1
Plato's Crito, 49. (Jowett's trans.)
2
Bk. i. 335 e.
*
Plato, Gorgias, 469 b. Ibid., 469 c.
158 SOCRATES
always with good, and it fits in beautifully with
Socrates' character.
Are we to suppose, then, that Plato gives us the
truth, and that Xenophon was mistaken and incon-
sistent in his reminiscences of the master's teaching on
this theme ? We should have no hesitation in taking
that position, only there is one other dialogue ascribed
" "
to Plato the fragmentary dialogue Clitophon
inwhich Socrates is taken to task for the obscurity
and ambiguity of his opinions on certain matters, and
this very question of the treatment of enemies is
"
mentioned. Clitophon speaks thus to him Finally,
:
Socrates, I applied directly to yourself, and you told

me that it was the principle of justice to injure enemies
and do good to friends. But afterwards it came out that
the just man never injures anyone, for he acts with a view
to the good of everybody in everything. And this was
my experience not once or twice but for a long time,
so I gave up my persistency, having come to the
conclusion either that while you were without a rival
in stirring up people to the concern of virtue, but
could do no more . either you do not know really
. .
what justice is or you do not choose to communicate

your knowledge."
This is a most interesting and significant passage,
and the vacillation which it attributes to Socrates is
not without commentary and witness in the Platonic
literature at large. It has the note of authenticity
about it, and on the strength of it we would suggest
that while Socrates had long risen in spirit and sym-
pathy above the ethics of contemporary orthodoxy,
yet in the realm of theory it cost him a prolonged
struggle to shake himself quite free of the views in
which his upbringing had been steeped, and which were
strongly entrenched in the social and even religious
authorities around him. He experienced a protracted
duel between the loftier and the lower conception of

moral obligations, and in the end the loftier van-
quished, so that he found it impossible to conceive
that a just man would do any injury to any fellow
mortal, even if injured by him. In his speculations
and discussions he would start off from the generally
accepted hypotheses on the subject but would by the
;
force of his own

reasoning always be driven to the
higher point of view. Perhaps, indeed, it would be on
the whole the most fitting inference from the evidence
before us to hold that, in accordance with his usual
method, he only laid down the accepted opinion as a
point of departure from which he could set out and
carry others with him to the recognition of its untena-
bility and the acceptance of his own real view, a
method which was obviously liable to create mis-
understanding in those who did not clearly grasp it.
The contradiction alluded to by Clitophon would thus
receive explanation as being due to the fact that he
mistook for an admission what was only a concession
for the purposes of an argument, whose issue was its
overthrow.
Reviewing all the evidence, we may take it as certain
that Socrates practised, and practically certain that
before his death he taught, the doctrine of returning
"
good for evil, that neither injury, nor retaliation,
nor warding off evil by evil is ever right." l
Emerson achieved an insight into moral law which
led him to pronounce in his own oracular way that
"
the good man has absolute good, which like fire
turns everything to his own nature, so that you
cannot do him any harm." a
But 400 years before Christ Plato put the same
deep spiritual truth on the lips of Socrates, who after
"
his sentence of death calmly declares that no evil can
2 "
Essay on
1
Plato, Crito, p. 49 d. Compensation."
160 SOCRATES
happen to a good man in
' '
l
life or in death, Virtue makes
itspossessor invulnerable all things, even the rage of
;
enemies, work together for good to those who love the

good and are good. They are the proteges of Heaven ;
"
neither they nor theirs are neglected by the gods." 8
With such conviction as that it would indeed be a
degradation of self, not to say a grave inconsistency,
to entertain the idea of revenge. Let a man be true
to the divine law and ideal within him, and he has
already conquered his enemies and the world. He can
afford to do only good to every man, whether friend
or foe. It is the same idea as was later promulgated
by the Cynics, that all things were theirs. Spiritually

"
they appropriated the universe. The Cynic hath
begotten all mankind, he hath all men for his sons,
all women for his daughters ; so doth he visit all and
care for Thinkest thou that he is a mere meddler
all.
and busybody in rebuking those whom he meets ? As

a father he doth it, as a brother, and as a servant of
the Universal Father, which is God."
It is worthy of grateful recognition that the prin-
ciple of overcoming evil with good, which is the very

flower of Christian ethic, was thus the possession of
the great thinkers of Greece some centuries before
Jesus and Paul inculcated it. And yet we must re-
cognise a certain difference. Its root was not the
same in Greek philosophy and in Christian teaching.
In the former it was rather the flower of reason, in
the latter the blossom of love. Perhaps in the case
of Socrates we may say it was the fruit of both, as in
that of Jesus it grew not only out of his beautiful love
;
but also out of his sweet reasonableness. We should

not be doing more than justice to the Athenian saint
to say that it was the natural product alike of his
mind and his heart as they lie open to us in these
1 *
Apol., 41 d. Ibid.
wonderful records. The keenness of his intellect,

the geniality of his nature, and the largeness of his
soul, all led him to it, and it is as high as morality can
take us.
Let us remember that for him all evil and wrong-
doing has its origin in ignorance, ignorance of the true
Good. That good, if we could only see it clearly,
would be recognised to be one and the same for all.
In it or moving towards it we are all in harmony and
at peace. We only become enemies as we lose sight of
the Highest and turn our hearts to lower and relative
goods, poor deluded fools, divided not only from
others but divided within ourselves. With the
"
Apostle, Socrates could devoutly say, Avenge not
yourselves, beloved. For it is written, Vengeance is
mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." l Only that
Socrates would have said that the man who does evil
takes revenge on himself.
1
Romans, ch. 12, v. 19.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL
have already to some extent set forth
"T^TTESocrates'
\\
VV/
attitude to
but we must now
contemporary society,
further elucidate his
doctrine and especially try to clear away one or two
partial and imperfect views of it.
The principle of good-will and of well-doing, other-

wise the law of mutual service, underlay the whole
social organisation of man in Socrates' view of it.
Nowhere more than in Athenian thinkers has the
idealistic conception of the state prevailed. Society
did not originate in, nor does it exist for, nothing more
than the protection of individuals in the enjoyment of
their own life and the realisation of their own ends.
Society comes into being because we human beings
have need of one another, because we are so con-
stituted and made that we can be a great help to one
another. That was alike the Platonic and the Socratic
doctrine. Socrates has been called the great in-
dividualist, and he was the superman whom Greece
had to produce ere it could produce the Saviour
(Joel). He rose above the existing state, and out
of the world within him created an ideal state. He
was the man who in his day is sufficient unto himself,
and so is possessed of that power of detachment, that
independence, which are necessary to him who is to
create the better order that is to be.
We have, however, seen that the individuality of
THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 163
Socrates revealed itself, as all great individuality

must, in social ways. The great man is the great
servant, sooner or later. And there is no other
greatness than that of service, though of course it
may be a service of the remote unborn future rather
than of the existing present. Social service is the
means of true self-realisation. Thus when the most
gifted fail to put their gifts at the service of their city
or country, it is not only the city and country that
suffer but they themselves.
This idea comes out in a conversation already referred
to which Socrates is said to have held with Charmides,
who, although he showed himself possessed of superior
administrative capacity, declined to put it at the
disposal of the community. Socrates appealed to
him to give the city the benefit of his capacities, for
in doing so it would not only be the rest of the
citizens, but his own friends, and not least himself,
who would reap the advantage.
It is alike to the highest common interest and a con-
dition of personal happiness that the best and the ablest
men should be in the seats of the rulers ; there they
would enjoy a free self-determined life themselves as
well as furnish it to others. But when the men second-
rate or third-rate in character and ability were allowed
to usurp the functions of government, it could only
spell injury and disaster to those over whom they were,
and disgrace to themselves.
If only to escape oppression, injustice, and all the
miseries that wait upon wickedness or incompetence
in high places, the noble-minded should take the reins
of office in their own hands.
1
"
Zeller, in his History of Greek Philosophy," has
rightly insistedon the emphasis which Socrates laid upon
individuality, the absolute and unwavering deference
1
Mem., iii. 7 ; ii. i ; iv. I.
164 SOCRATES
which he paid to his own private judgment and reason.
He has characterised this attitude as quite opposed to
Greek ideas on the subject, according to which the
"
state is the original and immediate object of all moral
"
activity," and there is no private virtue." Not only
is he a bad citizen who acts against society, but also he
who merely withdraws from social relations. Socrates,

says Zeller, desired people to concern themselves with
themselves in the first place, and only after that with
the state. 1
In support of this view he refers to Xenophon's
Mem., iii. 6, and iv. 2. Neither of these passages will
support such a conception or construction of Socrates'
sentiments. Their purport is clearly to show that
before a man rushes into politics and seeks to become
a civic ruler he should equip himself with the necessary
knowledge of himself and of the affairs which he will
have to handle. He must educate himself before he pre-
sumes to educate and guide the state. How can he
govern justly any democracy if he knows neither what
justice nor what democracy is ?
It was because of the appalling ignorance of social
facts and principles and ends displayed by candidates
for office, the utter lack of the sense of responsibility
among his ambitious fellow-citizens, that Socrates felt
bound to remain outside public life at Athens as far as
possible, and become its uncompromising, yet friendly
critic.
It was not because he thought a man could be
virtuous or a full man while slipping all his social obli-
gations, thathe took up his solitary apostolic role, but
because he saw that no greater benefactor could be
given to the Athenians than a thorough, drastic and
detached critic.
He was never more completely social in his motive
1
Zeller, pt. ii. p. 96.
than when he was ploughing his lonely furrow.

Hence also we feel compelled, with whatever humility
born of a great admiration for his painstaking, thorough
research, to dissent from Karl Joel in certain features
Joel is more radical
of his characterisation of Socrates.
and consistent than Zeller, because to all intents and
purposes he scraps Xenophon in what is peculiarly
Xenophontic. Grote can admit that the active practi-
cal social phase of his interest and life might exist in
Socrates side by side with his detached critical and
dialectical impulse, which is the view we have advo-
cated. But all the practical is swallowed up by the
dialectical in Joel's view. Socrates is the man of
" "
conviction, not of deed the ;
autocrat who had to
come before the Saviour." Socrates is " the analyti-
"
"
cal impulse become flesh." He is the founder of the
right of individuality, of the man over against the
environment. He is the discoverer of the inner world ;
he cuts himself off from the existing order of society,
and builds a new order out of his own inner fullness
"
and might." The wrecker of convention was no
*
social enthusiast."
In all this, moreover, he was simply unearthing the
inborn affinity and tendency of the Greeks to indi-
vidualism a tendency which showed itself throughout
the fifth century, and which came to its utmost limit
and turning-point in Antisthenes and Aristippus. 2
Neither in Xenophon nor in Plato, the author of the
"
Republic," can we see any ground for Joel's denials,
though there is, of course, plenty in both for what he
affirms.
Socrates was a mighty, titanic individualist, true,
true also that his social reforms were to come not as
the result, not primarily, of new social organisations,
1 For all this see Der Echte und der Xenophontische Sokrates,
vol. n. pt. ii. pp. 961-965. Ibid., p. 958,
166 SOCRATES
but as the work of better and wiser individuals. But
there can hardly be any doubt that the individualism
of Socrates was not of the anarchic but of the social
kind ;that society was always viewed as the field
for its exercise and expression.
For Socrates the purpose and welfare of a society
consisted in securing to all classes in it the welfare and
happiness of the individuals belonging to them ; but,
on the other hand, that welfare and happiness were
impossible in a badly ordered, badly governed state.
The fact that Antisthenes and the Cynics laid great
" "
stress on the kingly art of rule, together with the
fact, if it were proved, that Xenophon, in writing his
" "
Memorabilia transcribed Cynicism and its doctrines,
does not prove that Socrates did not, and could not,
lay stress on the function of a city's government, nor
hold similar views to Antisthenes on any other point.
Joel shows one-sidedness. He is right in what he
asserts, wrong in what he denies; for in Plato as in
Xenophon the reformation of individuals which Socrates
labours for through his criticisms is such as will make
them fitter to realise not only the ideal self, but the
ideal state. In Xenophon and Plato both self and
society are treated as inseparable from each other in
the thought of Socrates.
" "
The whole motive of Plato's Republic the idea
that justice is not merely a virtue of the individual, but
at the same time a quality of the social order, embody-
ing the mutual relation of rulers to ruled, and vice versa
is a true development of the Socratic position.
If Joel's view is the whole truth, then the full and

free submission of Socrates to the Laws, as personified
"
and articulate in that exquisite passage of the " Crito
already referred to, has no justification in history and
fact, and it is hard to understand why Socrates did not
take his chance and, wiping the dust of Athens from
some other place of safety.

his feet, flee to Thessaly, or
The Cynic has no state he " lives under the open sky,
;
and wherever he goes, there is sun and moon and stars

and communion with the gods."
But Socrates knew that out of Athens his occupa-
tion would be gone and though he was the great
;
" "
autocrat," the great subjectivist," the great dis-
coverer of the independent authority of the conscience
"
within, he never denied that man is a social
being," that all these things had only the highest

worth, meaning, and actuality for him within the
society of the city-state. It was his city, loyal to
its own laws, which, he recognised, gave him the
conditions of birth, nurture, education, and a share
in all the common good. He was its debtor for all
he was and had, 1 and it is more to be valued, is higher
and holier than father or mother. 2
Browning said that the name of Italy would be found
graven on his heart even deeper was the name of
Athens graven on the heart of its great son, Socrates.
No one had more right to take the name of Athens upon
his lips and say :
"
Life of mine, I love thee."
In the "Crito," 52, the Laws are by himself re-

presented as speaking thus to Socrates :
"
Of all Athenians you have been the most constant
resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may
be supposed to love. For you never went out of the
city either to see the games, except once when you
went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless you
were on military service. Nor had you any curiosity
to know other states or their laws your affections ;
did not go beyond us and our state we were your ;
special favourites and here in this city you begat

;
1
Crito, 51. Ibid.
168 SOCRATES
your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction.
You even pretended that you preferred death to exile."
The relation of Socrates to society, as we have tried
to elucidate it, receives further illustration in his doc-
trine of Justice.Here also we find the presence of a
positiveand a negative attitude, in this case, to the
actual laws of society, an attitude at once of sub-
mission and of transcendence. Socrates was no
anarchist or antinomian, nor, to use a phrase of Mr.
"
G. K. Chesterton's, did he set up a convention of
' '
unconventionality .
In a conversation with Euthydemus l he quotes the

Oracle at Delphi as saying that the way to please the
gods is by acting according to the law of the state, and
Xenophon adduces examples of his strict conformity
to Athenian law when it imperilled his own safety.
When the populace, under the influence of hate and
passion, forgot what the laws ordained, Socrates refused
to budge a jot from their enactments.
The " Crito," as already noticed, illustrates the same
characteristic of his conduct, so that we cannot attribute
it to mere misunderstanding of Socrates by Xenophon.
We find Socrates maintaining that the just is the

lawful, and that the just man is the law-abiding man.
2
Throughout the chapter he evidently treats the laws

of a state as the expression and embodiment of those
principles of character and conduct which are opposed
to the arbitrary, the fickle, and the merely self-regarding
passions and propensities of our nature.
It is of the utmost importance that the laws should
be reverenced, and not played with. They stand for
order against that chaos in which human life and char-
acter fall to pieces.
It is nothing to say that what man has enacted he
may yet repeal, as it is no reason for playing the traitor
1
Mem., iv. 3. Mem., iv. 4.
inwar to say that the war may be brought to an end

and peace restored. 1 It is more important that we
should obey the laws than that every law should be
worthy of obedience.
If a law is wrong, it must not be broken, but put
right by means. This attitude is
constitutional
" "
clearly and forcibly brought out in the Crito of Plato,
where Socrates gently but firmly puts from him the
temptation to evade the death penalty passed on him
in accordance with Athenian law. He feels it his
duty to submit to the Laws even though he feels
them to have been wrongly applied. To disobey them
"
is to overturn the very foundations of society, for no
state can subsist and stand, in which the decisions of
law have no power but are set aside and overthrown by
2
individuals."
"
is more to be valued, is higher and
Our country
holierthan father or mother or any ancestor, and more
to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of
understanding also to be soothed, and gently and
;
reverently entreated when angry even more than a

father, not persuaded, obeyed." 3
and if
What then of such a problem as that with which

Antigone is confronted in Sophocles' play ? Here is
a girl who, with all the dwellers in Thebes, is interdicted
by Kreon the King from scattering dust on the body
of a man who is her brother, because he has died
fighting against the city.

On the other hand, the welfare of that brother in the
other world depended upon the pious rites of burial.
Shall she obey the command of an earthly ruler, or
perform the duty of a sister ? Shall she reverence the
unwritten laws eternal in the heavens or the enactments
of man ?
Antigone decided to obey the instincts and affections

1 *
Mem., Iv. 4. Crito, 50, Crito, 51.
170 SOCRATES
within rather than Kreon's commands, and to face a
terrible death by immurement.
We see the greatness of Sophocles in that solution,
and it must have appealed to the Athenian public.
But would it be Socrates' solution, in view of his

teaching about the inviolability of the laws ? We
answer yes.
For to Socrates also, according to Xenophon, there
were divine laws laws unwritten, universal, inscribed
on the hearts of all men of all lands 1 laws, e.g., which
relate to marriage, to social life, to the recompensing
kindness with kindness, and so on, whose sanction lies
in the evil and disastrous consequences which inevitably
ensue if they are broken. These are not the result of
human enactment, they exist and operate, though all
men were to repudiate them they must therefore
;
come from the gods. 2 Now the gods only lay down
such laws as are just, and so the law-abiding man and
the just man are one.
It will be noticed that Xenophon leaves this subject
somewhat confused by failing to distinguish clearly
between the human laws and the divine laws, or to
recognise that they may come into conflict with each
other, as in the experience of Antigone.
In such a case seems, however, pretty clear from
it
"
Memorabilia" that only that is truly
this chapter of the
law and lawful which is in harmony with the deeper
laws of the gods. This follows from the considera-
tion that no human legislation could avert the natural
They alone are supreme
penalties of their violation.
and and hence in any case of conflict it is
inviolate,
they which must be obeyed.
That being so, it becomes impossible to give un-
reasoning implicit obedience to the laws of the state,
and we may accept it that Socrates was too clear headed
1 *
Mem., iv. 4, 19. Mem., iv. 4, 24.
not to see this inference, and too clear conscienced not

to draw it. He cannot possibly have rested in the
confusion in which Xenophon leaves him, by his
identification of human and divine legislation.
Hence we are compelled to the view that for Socrates
the truly just man is the man who obeys the dictates
and behests of God, as they are to be read in the soul
of the individual and in the experience and history of
mankind.
At the same time, we are to be pervaded by a
spirit ofobedience to the laws of our state. There
must be a heartfelt allegiance to these, otherwise we
shall have every man who has an objection to any
existing law of society simply ignoring or breaking it.

The inevitable outcome of such an attitude would be
to reduce society to its primitive elements, and re-
introduce chaos.
Pure individualismis absolute reaction, and Socrates
was no reactionary of that kind. He believed in in-

dividuality, but he believed that that individuality was
not possible in society.
For him the practical problem is How can I be true
to myself, without being fatal to society ? How can
I reform society without destroying it ? How can I
fight it without slaying it ? How can I become an
idealist without becoming an anarchist ?
He challenges the state not as its enemy, but as its
friend his attitude was that of Mr. G. K. Chesterton
;
to the universe at large.

"
Before any cosmic act of reform we must have a
cosmic oath of allegiance . the moment we have
. .
a fixed heart we have a free hand. For our Titanic

. . .
purposes of faith and revolution what we need is not the

cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some
way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love
it. . .We have to feel the Universe at once as an ogre's
.
172 SOCRATES
be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to
castle, to
which we can return at evenings." l
Athens was exactly that to Socrates. He stormed
" "
itout of love for it. He had that primal loyalty
which makes the most implacable revolutionist, and
always at evening he returned to sleep within its
beloved walls.
Because I love man I must obey God rather than
man. This paradox runs everywhere it is the ;
paradox of sanity. For he loves society most who

"
does not love it just enough to get on with it, but
enough to get it on." And that is the love wherewith
Socrates loved it.
"
1
Orthodoxy, ch. The Flag of the World."
CHAPTER DC
HIS ETHICS
"
Wisdom is the principal thing." PROVERBS.
(a) His METHOD
most important function of life is to pass

judgment on ourselves the next most im-
THE portant to pass it on others. Now when we are
judging humanity and its conduct we are dealing not
only with facts but with values. We say a certain
reform is just, a certain action pious, a certain woman
good, a certain man courageous. These terms are the
current coin of our language in which society has
minted its long and varied experience. But are we
sure we know what we mean by them, and are we
sure we mean the right thing ?
It is a matter of everyday experience that what
one man calls good another calls bad what one ;
section of society calls and justice

simple equity
another calls spoliation and robbery
what one school;
calls beautiful another calls hideous, and so on. As

we have seen, this fact of continual discrepancy and
conflict in our moral and aesthetic appreciations and
judgments struck Socrates very much. As he reflected

upon it he came to the conclusion that human welfare
can never be achieved till we have thoroughly sifted,
purified, and fixed these ethical conceptions by which
life is guided and determined, and which represent the
communion of the human mind and spirit with

173
174 SOCRATES
Reality in its moral character. And so says Xenophon,
"
he would always be discussing these aspects of
human experience and turning over in his mind the
'
questions, what is pious and impious ? what is

beautiful and ugly ? what is just and unjust ? what is
prudence and madness, courage and cowardice ? what
is a state, and social ? what is government ? who is a
'
governor and the other categories involved in a

?
free self-determined life." 1 The earlier and more

" "
Socratic dialogues of Plato, if we may be allowed
a generally recognised distinction, convey an
still
impression that confirms Xenophon's statement as

to the subjects which monopolised Socrates' mind and
thought, for they are concerned with arguments about
" "
what really constitutes courage," and friendship,"
"
and piety," though the same sort of interest pervades
" "
later dialogues of Plato, like the Theaetetus and the
"
Republic," in which we have the search for the true
nature of Knowledge and of Justice.
These norms or ideas are the ruling and deter-
mining things, therefore they must be the most real
things and if we want to get away from the clash and
;
conflict, the confusion and flux of unreflective private

opinion, away from all that to the stability and fixity
of truth, we must clear up our conventional ideas and
get to know their precise significance.

The way Socrates did it was this. He would come
across, let us say, some callow youth, particularly
wise in his own conceit, one who, because he did not
think much, was all the more pleased to think he knew
all that was to be known. He would begin by paying
a few ironical compliments, if necessary, using them
as a bait to attract his fish to the hook, and so get the
rather reluctant wiseacre drawn into discussion.
His victim states that of course he knows what right
Xen., Mem., i. i, 16,

HIS ETHICS 175
and wrong is, and is probably visibly irritated that

anyone should be guilty of such humbug as to doubt
it. Socrates then begins in earnest, with a secret
chuckle and a merry twinkle in his eye, to land the
silly trout wriggling and flopping out of its element,
and in the sight of all beholders.
He would ask him, e.g., whether lying and deceit
is right or
wrong. Let us call the youth E.
E. confidently replies, Wrong.
Soc. But suppose you are at war, is it wrong to lead
the enemy astray and deceive it.
E. Oh no, deceit is quite right then.
Ah, Socrates would reply, you meant of course
that it is wrong to deceive friends and only right to
deceive enemies.
E. provided by his generous examiner with this door
of retreat, flies through it, and says, yes, that is his
meaning. He has, you see, already had his ideas

cleared up a little with Socrates' help, and has analysed
his original conception more precisely, so as to admit
that it is right to deceive a foe, wrong to deceive a
friend. But Socrates has him again.
Soc. Suppose, E., you have a friend who has got
worried and low-spirited and wants to put an end to
his life, and suppose he comes to you and asks you to
lendhim a knife, would you not be right in saying that
you have no knife in your possession, and meanwhile
communicate with his people while you pretend to be
procuring one ?
E. has to confess that in those circumstances a little
deceit would be quite right towards a friend.
And so on Socrates would go, compelling his subject
to contradict or modify one after another of his own
admissions till the poor man is left quite bewildered,
and has after all to concede his ignorance of what right
and wrong is and the need on his part of more radical
176 SOCRATES
and systematic thought and reflection, in order to
attain a clear definition of them.
The Socratic method of attaining knowledge in-
volved the processes of hypotheses, classification, and
definition. 1 He starts off from ordinary experience,
the commonly accepted, bringing forward a number
of concrete instances to which a certain category is
applied, carefully classifying them according as they
are judged to be of one quality or its opposite. Having
thus got his collection of instances to which the term
Right, say, is admittedly applicable, all others being
sifted out and excluded, he proceeds to analyse
them and discover the element or essence which is
common to all. That gives us the " definition " of the
quality.
Aristotle assigns to Socrates the honour of first using
this method of definition in "Ethics." He says the
"
Pythagoreans had discussed the definition of a few
concepts, connecting them with the theory of numbers.

e.g., what is opportunity, or justice,
They asked, or
"
marriage ?
But to assign a numerical representation to such

things is very different from definition in the Socratic
and modern sense, and Aristotle writes in these words :
"
Now Socrates confined his to the moral
studies
virtues, and was the first to attempt universal defini-
tion in connexion with them."
2
He fixed thought
8
for the first time on definitions.
True knowledge consisted in definition, the un-
changing common element amid all the
essential
differences and varieties and fluctuations of concrete
particulars. The definition of Courage or Piety or
Virtue is the isolation and statement of that which
1
Aristotle, Metaphysics, M 1078, b, 28.
*
Aristotle, Metaphysics, M 1078 a. A. E. Taylor, Aristotle oq
*
his Predecessors, p. 101. Op. cit., 987, b. 4.
HIS ETHICS 177
constitutes these things what they are. It is, if you

like, the reality of them, something which can only be
got at by the exercise of reflection and reason upon

the material of experience.
This contribution of the genius, one might almost
say the common-sense, of Socrates to logical method
and ethical theory was to become of enormous import-
ance in the history of philosophy, for it was the fore-
runner and the basis of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas,
the first great idealistic theory of reality we possess.
In view of the Platonic development, it is impossible
to exaggerate the service which Socrates has rendered
to human thought. He taught men to look for and
recognise universals, and all that Plato did was to
regard the universals of Socratic definition as indepen-
dent things, realities of the world of thought, which
is the absolute world, separate from that of sense-
experience, independent of it, giving to it, indeed, any

substantiality it possesses.
Plato thus turned the world upside down. Like
Kant he achieved a revolution to which that of the
change from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican astronomy
furnishes but a feeble analogy. Common-sense regards
the world we apprehend through our senses as the real
world it consists of what we call things, facts, and
;
"
these are the chiels that winna ding." And the
man who impugns its reality, and the reality of things
of which consists, is told to try his theory on the
it
nearest wall. But for Plato the world of our senses

isa world of unreality, of mere shadows and images.
The real world is that which we reach and apprehend
by thought, the world of Ideas. The former world is

ever changing, passing away, moving between entity
and non-entity, nothing in it remains one and the same.
What a contrast to the world of idea !Goodness is
Goodness, Beauty Beauty, now and forever; they are
12
178 SOCRATES
eternal, absolute, without change ; they are not mere
abstract qualities only to be found in the concrete
things and inseparable from them there is a world in ;
which they exist and

subsist, pure, unmixed, separate,
themselves by themselves. In this lower world we
only get their shadows and images, all mixed up and
con 'used, and in changing relations to one another.
" "
Plato," says Aristotle, accepted Socrates' teach-
ing, but held that it applied not to any sensible thing,
but to entities of another kind because in his view it
was impossible that the common definition could be
that of sensible things, which are always changing.
These he called Ideas."
entities
We have said that not Socrates but Plato made
this particular innovation of regarding the universal
quality expressed in Definition as the reality, in

the sense of existing apart and independently in the
world of Absolutes. In this we are in harmony
with what Xenophon tells us, and are following the
explicit declarations of Aristotle, whom we have just
2
quoted. The former gives plenty of examples of
the pursuit of definitions of moral qualities by Socrates,
but he nowhere hints anything like what we know
" "
as the Theory of Ideas in Plato's sense just ex-
"
plained. Elsewhere Aristotle declares that Socrates
did not make his universals separate things, nor yet
3
his definitions."
This is an extremely interesting and important
matter, for recently in this country Professor Taylor
of St. Andrews has attacked the traditional view and
argued that when Plato puts the doctrine of Ideas into
Socrates' mouth in his dialogues, he is only attributing
to him what was in truth his own. 4
1
Aristotle, Metaphysics, A 987, b. 4, 5.
*
Mem., iv. 6.
'
Metaphysics, M 1078, b, 30.
*
See, e.g., Taylor, Varia Socratica, pp. 89, 266.
HIS ETHICS 179
This view ought to be mentioned, but personally we

cannot resist what appear to us the convincing argu-
ments on the other side.
Both Xenophon and Aristotle, we may take it, knew
Plato's dialogues, in which case the former as well as
the latter knew of the theory of Ideas, yet Xenophon
never attributes it to Socrates, and Aristotle denies
it to him. Besides, in the earliest and presumably
" "
most historical of the Platonic dialogues we have
set out before us Socrates' activity as Xenophon also
represents it, i.e. definition-hunting, and in them the
"
theory of Ideas" is not mentioned at all; it is only
in dialogues which embody Plato's later and more

mature philosophical activity that it appears.
The traditional view seems to be much the most
consistent with all the evidence, and demands less of
that ingenious but forced interpretation which char-
acterises Taylor's.
(6) KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE

The result of Definition as Socrates pursued it is to
lead us to knowledge of that in which lightness or
wrongness, justice or injustice, prudence or reckless-
ness, consists, so that we shall be able to apply these
terms appropriately and rightly. And it is at once
obvious that as our conduct is determined by our
ideas, right ideas, and the ability to attach the right
moral term and description to things, are necessary
to right conduct. A man whose moral conceptions
are obscure and confused is sure to go wrong, he
will inevitably blunder and commit mistakes in action.
Clear knowledge alone can save us from such error,
and save us from all the other causes of error, e.g.,
current custom, irrelevant circumstances, and our
own prejudices. Thus to have a firm, clear grasp of
180 SOCRATES
the true ideas of things, as a result of the intellectual
process of Definition, would mean nothing less than a
moral liberation. It would result in moral freedom
freedom, that is to say, from the influence of that
whose influence is only allowed to operate on us
because of our ignorance ; it would mean truth and

truth alone as the guide of conduct, and that is freedom
in the ethical sphere. Harmony with reality is the
condition of liberty of the kind which alone can be
called moral liberty, and which alone the illuminated
and emancipated mind would desire. And Harmony
with reality or with truth in our actions is what is
meant by virtue. Since then it is only to be attained
by knowledge or wisdom, we may say that" Virtue is
knowledge. As Emerson, in his essay on Spiritual
"
Laws," puts it : the adherence in action
Virtue is
to the nature of things, and the nature of things makes

it prevalent. It consists in a perpetual substitution
of being for seeming."
That Virtue is knowledge is the cardinal thesis of
the ethical theory of Socrates, and he made all the
" "
virtues to consist in specific kinds of knowledge
"
or science." 1 For knowledge Xenophon puts
" " "
wisdom : He (Socrates) declared that Justice
and every other virtue is wisdom. That is to say,
things just and all things else that are done virtuously
are beautiful and good ; and neither would those
who know these things prefer anything else to them,
nor would those who do not know them be able to do
them, but even if they set about them they would go
astray. So it is the wise who do what is good and
beautiful, but those who are not wise cannot, but even
if they try, blunder. Well, then, seeing that just actions
and all other beautiful and good actions are done
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1144, b, J 8, 29;

1
1116, b, 4.
Eudemian Ethics, 1216, b, 2. Magna Moralia, 1182, a, 15 ; 1183, b, 8.
HIS ETHICS 181
with virtue it is evident that justice and all other

l
virtue is wisdom."
Knowledge, prudence, wisdom, these three terms
by which Socrates is said to have denned virtue, carry
rather different overtones of meaning, though they are
closely related, and we may take it that virtue as he
understood it really comprised and involved all three.
It meant that virtue as a moral fact involves ex-
perience, insight, and complete knowledge of all the

elements of a situation. Men may be just by accident,
good by nature, pious by custom, in a certain sense of
the words, but not in the full sense of the word virtue.
Indeed, to such justice and goodness and piety he
would deny the name of virtue. 2 For that you must
do the just or good or pious act because you know it
to be so. It then becomes in a real sense not merely
action, but your action, for you know exactly what

you are doing. In the other cases you are more or
less passive in your conduct.
The constitutive element
or the characteristic
element in virtue, then, being knowledge, Socrates
defines the particular virtues as knowledge in parti-
cular relations and circumstances.
"
Thus Laches," we have the virtue, Courage,
in the
defined as the knowledge of the evil and the good, of the
things which create fear and hope, a definition, how-
ever, which is discarded as too general, since temper-
ance and justice, e.g., are also the knowledge of good
and evil in some sense, and so the dialogue ends without
the specific nature of the knowledge which constitutes
Courage being cleared up.
3
In the " Protagoras,"
Courage is defined as the knowledge of what is, and what
is not, dangerous, while ignorance of these is cowardice,
that is to say, no man will be truly courageous who acts
1 *
Mem., iii. 9, 5 Mem., iii. 9, 14.
'
Plato, Laches, 197, 198.
182 SOCRATES
stoutly in the face of dangers, without knowing they
are dangers. On the other hand, it is foolhardiness
and not courage to act without fear, where fear
1
ought to be.
" " "
As the Memorabilia puts it, those who know how
to cope with terrors and dangers well and nobly are
courageous, and those who fail utterly of this are
cowards, and the ability to do so involves knowledge ;
and those who know what ought to be done also have

the power to do it." *
"
When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies I can."
Courage, then, is the knowledge of what ought to be
feared, and what ought not to be feared if your ideas ;
on that score are your conduct will be right if

right, ;
they are wrong, your conduct will surely be wrong.

Virtue is the knowledge which makes one act just the
right act in those circumstances, the act which is in
accordance with the real and true character of things ;
one might phrase it, harmony with facts, with truth

and reality. It might, of course, happen to be just the
act the circumstances demand, without the knowledge,
though Socrates hardly contemplated this possibility ;
but then it would not be true virtue, it would be luck

or chance. And the man who happened to be right
to-day, might just as easily be wrong to-morrow,
whereas, acting with knowledge, he would be right
every time his voluntary reaction would in all cases
;
be adapted to the demand of the occasion.

On the same principle, Justice is denned as the virtue
3
of those who know what is lawful in their relations
" "
with their fellow-men, who know what they ought
" "
to do, how they ought to behave, towards them,
this being identified with what the laws ordain the ;
1 iv. 6, 10.
Plato, Protagoras, 359, 360. Cp. Xen., Mem.,
1 *
Mem., iv. 6, II. Mem., iv. 4, 12, 25 ; iv. 6, 6.
HIS ETHICS 183
just and the lawful l are thus regarded as one and the
same thing, and in the argument as Xenophon gives it
"
both are connected with treating men nobly and
" "
well and with refusing to do any wrong." *
We have already discussed the question of the
relationship between law and the right. It is enough
here to repeat that Socrates' meaning apparently is
that Justice consists in knowing what the Divine Laws
ordain as the right and proper thing to do, which is
sure to work out for the good of others and of oneself. 3
So far as the actual legislation of any society does not
coincide with that, it must be altered, for in such a case
it is the expression of mistaken and false knowledge,
and therefore one would suppose cannot be objectively

and absolutely though it represents justice for
just,
those who live under and whose business is obedience.
it,
From this point of view we can see clearly enough

why Socrates considered knowledge so essential in any
who aspired to the kingliest and most royal of the
arts that of ruling and administering a state. The
position of ruler is one in which a man may do endless
harm to others as well as to himself, hence the supreme
necessity that such an one should know accurately
what is right, and what is wrong. He must be above
all things just and able to embody justice in social
relations, and that is impossible if his moral ideas are
in the state of confusion in which Adeimantus, in the
"
Republic," declares the conventional ideas to be,
because they do not concern themselves with what
Justice and Injustice are in themselves and in their
"
effects in the soul unseen either by gods or
men," but entirely with their external consequences
and fortunes. The consequence of this superficiality,
this lack of penetration in thought, is that people go
1
Mem., iv. 4, 12, 13, 18 ; iv. 6, 5, 6.
1
Mem., iv. 4, 12. Mem., iv. 4, 19 ff.
184 SOCRATES
all wrong in their sentiments about justice, and think
that they can by cleverness and deceit secure, without
being actually and inwardly just, all the benefits which
a reputation for justice brings, 1 and they even pros-
titute religion 2 into the service of their injustices and
immoralities, because of their lack of knowledge of
the true nature of Justice and Injustice and of their in-
herent spiritual effects, their effects on the soul itself.
The true ruler, then, is he who has this knowledge and
insight, and can make earthly laws after the pattern of
the divine. He has the knowledge of what justice in
its essence is, and can embody it in the laws and re-
and so secure the common weal.
lations of the state,
The common weal is his aim, and he not only has the
aim, but he knows the ways and means of its attain-
ment, apart from which Justice cannot be actualised
among the citizens of the state. 3
But Socrates goes further than all this, and means
more, in his dictum that Virtue is knowledge. Not
only must a man know rightly in order to act rightly,
but he knows rightly he will act rightly. If conduct
if
is wrong, then knowledge, ideas, have gone wrong.
And here we arrive at the storm centre of the ethics

of Socrates. He believed implicitly that " we needs
must love the highest when we see it." No man errs
or sins voluntarily.
This must not be taken to imply that no one ever
commits an action which is not good and virtuous,
for if that were so there had been no need for Socrates
to stimulate and encourage his fellow-men toward
Virtue. Men do the wrong thing, the bad thing, that
isuniversally admitted. The question is why ? And
Socrates answers because they don't know what they
are doing, don't know fully and completely and accu-
1
See Republic, 363-7.
ii.
Ibid., 364.
1
Cp. Doring, op, cit., p. 450.
HIS ETHICS 185
"
rately they don't see aright. This
; want of insight
is the one and only source of moral shortcoming." *
Such is the view we find expressed in several dia-
logues of Plato and attributed to Socrates by Aristotle :
"
Then, said Socrates, if the pleasant is the good,
nobody does anything under the idea or conviction
that some other thing would be better and is also
attainable, when he might do the better. And this in-
feriority of a man to himself is merely ignorance, as the
superiority of a man to himself is wisdom. ... No man
voluntarily pursues evil or that which he thinks to be
evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature." 8
"
We
will what is good, what is neither good nor bad
we do not what is bad." 3
will, still less
Consistently with this doctrine in Plato, Aristotle

tells us that Socrates would have regarded it as a terrible
thing for a man to be enticed or controlled by any-

thing other than his knowledge, for such a condition
would be no better than slavery. He stood up for
reason as though there were no such thing as lack of
self-control, on the assumption that no one acted con-
trary to the best except through ignorance.
4
He held
that no one would choose wrong in preference to right,
and erased lack of control of the passions entirely from
his psychology. 6
Such doctrine appears to go right in the face of
ordinary human experience, which is replete with in-
stances of what seems to be the overcoming of know-
ledge by pleasure, and the consequent choice of the
evil in preference to the good. Socrates, holding to
the position that knowledge is the commanding thing '
1
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii.
p. 66. (Eng. trans.)
Plato, Protagoras, 358 b, c, d. (Jowett's trans.)
Gorgias, 468 C.
4
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1145, b, 23.
Arist., Magna Moralia, 1187, a, 7, 1200, b, 25.
Plato, Protagoras, 352 c, d.
186 SOCRATES
V
and that cannot be overcome by passion or pleasure,

it
proceeds, in the " Protagoras," to justify this view so

opposed to common opinion.
1
His argument is too
obviously unsatisfactory to be even specious, for it
turns on the identification of the good with pleasure
which has gone before. If it be said that a man prefers
"
evil to good because he is overcome by pleasure, it is
the same as saying he prefers evil to good because he is
"
overcome by good, which is absurd. 2 A man, however,
might go wrong by making a mistake in regard to
pleasures, by miscalculating their relative magnitude ;
and all that is necessary to save from such miscalcula-
tion is a science of measurement. For the lack of that
we are deceived and misled, which means not that we
are overcome by pleasure, but that we are the victims
of illusion or of the lack of accurate objective know-
ledge. Again it is ignorance which is at the root of
3
evil.
The particular argument of the "Protagoras" is
hollow, because if some other motive than pleasure,
which is assumed to be the good, had been taken, the
absurdity of saying that the good is overcome by it
would not have seemed so obvious. The main prin-
ciple, however, that knowledge of the good determines
action is not affected by the weakness of that particular
line of defence. Does this principle necessitate the
inference that there is really no lack of self-control in
man? And did Socrates eliminate or forget the
force of passion in the human heart ? The tendency
of much in Plato and a great deal in Xenophon is
against such a construction, and" they are our first-
hand authorities. The " Apology of Plato represents
him as seeking to recall the mind of his contemporaries
from the things of the body, the seductions of wealth
Protagoras, 352 b, d
1
; 353 a.
1 *
Op. cit., 355. Protagoras, 356, 357.
HIS ETHICS 187
and bodily pleasure, to the cultivation of the soul.

" "
Xenophon's Recollections are full of Socrates' re-
cognition of the dangerous power and fascination of
appetite, and as we have pointed out he regarded
self-control as the corner-stone of all the virtues, and
also as the condition of the maximum of pleasure
"
itself. incontinency," he is made to say,
Since
"
will not suffer us to resist hunger and thirst, or to
hold out against sexual appetite, or want of sleep
(which abstinences are the only channels to true
pleasure in eating, drinking, love, and slumber, won
by those who will patiently endure till each particular
happiness is at the flood), it comes to this, we are cut
off by incontinency from the full fruition of the more
obvious and constantly recurring pleasures." *
Socrates knew only too well the temptations of
passion, but he held, that whatever be the Good,
conduct always was determined by that, and there-
fore in all circumstances we follow that which at the
moment we estimate and know, or think we know,
to give the preponderance of good. Contrary to that
we cannot act, but the passions and appetites un-
fortunately come in to disturb and falsify our estimates
and knowledge, and so lead us into error which
inevitably results in wrong action ; we mistake our
good, subsume the contemplated action under the
wrong category, and thus fail of our real end and
commit evil.
It is quite a mistake, and a very obvious one, to
"
say that Socrates argues as if what Aristotle calls the
irrational part of the soul did not exist." 2 It is not
knowledge in the abstract which determines action,
"
1
Mem., iv. 5, 9. Cp. 6 where he says incontinency confounds
men's wits and makes them choose the worse in place of the better."
1
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. p. 67 (Eng. trans.). Cp. Fouillde,
La Philosophic de Socrate, ii. p. 4; also Jo51, op. cit., i. pp. 266 ff.
188 SOCRATES
but our knowledge, or idea, or estimate of what we
"
regard as the
" good," and our lower or passional or
"
irrational nature most assuredly comes in to affect
that knowledge. It may, e.g., mislead us into regarding
the nearer pleasure as the greater, or cause us to
forget that an immediate pleasure may leave in its
1
consequences a balance of pain, assuming, that is,
" "
with Socrates in the Protagoras that pleasures and
pains can be totalled up and a balance struck, and in
spite of some of our modern philosophers we must
admit that in ordinary life something of the kind does
take place.
To provide the reason with a defence against these
extraneous powers which deflect the needle from the
pole, Xenophon tells us Socrates insisted on the
necessity of self-discipline and that exercise which
keeps the passions in their right and proper place.
Just as the body which is not exercised cannot
perform its functions, so is it with the soul. It can't
do what it should nor abstain from what it should
not. Hence fathers desire their sons to go into the
company of the good, for it is an exercise of virtue. 2
"Want of practice causes us to forget the words of
instruction, and when we forget these and when they
are forgotten the state of the soul in which we desired
prudence is lost to memory. Many a man who
. . .
can be frugal when cool, when the passion of love

seizes him,becomes reckless in expenditure and stoops to
dishonourable gains. ... To me it seems that all beauti-
ful and noble things are the result of constant practice
and training and pre-eminently the virtue of temperance.
For in the same body are planted with the soul pleasures
which persuade it to throw aside prudence and indulge
them and the body by the quickest means."*
Plato, Protagoras, 353. Mem., i. 2, 19, 20.
*
Mem., i. 2, 21-3.
HIS ETHICS 189
True, accurate, knowledge of the Good, Wisdom, then,

depends for its survival on the discipline of one's
nature. The science of the Good demands a skill
which comes only from practice and the balance so
achieved of all the parts of the soul, the rational and
the irrational.
Over and over again x Xenophon gives Recollections
in which the existence of the passions is recognised and
the need for their discipline inculcated if the full
beauty and strength of human character is to be
attained and the good life realised ; the gods give none
of the things that are beautiful and good to men
without toil, 2 and if there was one thing more than
another with regard to Socrates as a man, which
impressed itself on those who associated with him,
it was the thorough discipline and control which he
3
had exercised
upon himself.
Socrates then by no means allowed himself to forget
the existence of evil passions and inclinations, but he
held that knowledge could wield an imperium over
them as the tranquil moon does over unquiet seas.
When the lower forces seem to have the upper hand
and to get their way with us, it is only because they
have first been able to produce some blindness, some
warping of the mind's vision within us. Under
their influence for the time the man forgets, he cannot
keep the right idea and conception steady and clear
before his inner eye, it becomes distorted, thrust out
by the inclinations or passions, especially if his hold
upon it, and its hold on him, is weak through lack of
discipline and habit knowledge is falsified and the
;
false knowledge brings its appropriate consequences.

But at the moment of acting the man glimpses the
1 28
See, e.g., Mem., iii. 9, 1-3 iii. 9, 14
; ii. ; i, ; iv. 5, i. Cp.
Doting, Die Lehre des Sokrates, pp. 513-18.
* *
Mem., ii. i, 28. Mem., iv. 5, i,
190 SOCRATES
action as his good, the counteracting ideas are at least
momentarily displaced, their pull is snapped, and
the deed is done. Next moment it may be repented
of as wrong, foolish, mad, but that is when normal
consciousness and knowledge has flooded back in
again, when the man has again come to himself.
It may seem that there is a philosophical perversity
and eccentricity about the Socratic doctrine, but even
to-day it is held by men whose business is to observe
human agency and analyse the workings of the mind.
It is virtually the theory of Will propounded by
Professor William James, 1 and it will not be out of place

to quote a passage from Mr. Arnold Bennett, in which
the doctrine that conduct is a matter of knowledge
or intellectual is
very uncompromisingly
perception
affirmed. We say intellectual perception,
but we must
remember that the whole active nature, the experience
and the character of a man goes into his normal per-
ception. What we see depends on what we are.
There is no
isolated faculty.
"
The culture of the brain, the constant disciplinary
exercise of the reasoning faculty, means the diminution
"
of misdeeds," said Balzac in La Cousine Bette."
"
A
crime is in the first instance a defect of reasoning
powers." In the appreciation of this truth, Marcus
Aurelius was, as usual, a bit beforehand with Balzac.
"
Marcus Aurelius said, No soul wilfully misses truth."
And Epictetus had come to the same conclusion be-
fore Marcus Aurelius, and Plato before Epictetus. All
wrong-doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the
best thing to do. Whatever sin a man does he does
either for his own benefit or for the benefit of society.
At the moment of doing it he is convinced that it is
the only thing to do. He is mistaken. And he is
1
Psychology,
"
vol. ii.
pp. 560 f. Talks on Psychology, pp.
186 f.
HIS ETHICS 191
mistaken because his brain has been unequal to the

task of reasoning the matter out." l
This passage from Bennett will show that the view
that virtue is knowledge and that no one does wrong
voluntarily, by no means involves the elimination of
the passions or of the soul's irrational part, as Aristotle
inferred.
Perhaps some native weakness of body or spirit may
make it harder for the subject to see his conduct for
what it is, and know just what he is doing. If he be

of a timorous disposition, then the knowledge which
means courage will be very difficult for him to retain
in the moment of trial. He imagines things, as chil-
dren in the dark imagine they see ghosts he may ;
normally disbelieve in the things and call himself

foolish, but the knowledge he has, the belief he holds,
gets displaced by the palpable suggestions of his
emotional condition, or his bodily condition.
Here is someone who, as we say, sees the better and
follows the worse. The Socrates of Xenophon and
Plato would not have denied such happenings in a
certain sense. The cause, however, he would have
said, was that at the point of action the worse had
taken on the semblance of the better, for this parti-
cular man. We all know that sophistry of passion
which simply translates the bad into the good, the
undesirable into the desirable, for the time being, a
sort of hypnotism which makes us blind to some
features of our act which are there, and makes us see
other features which may not be there at all, and all
the while there may be a latent sense that we are
making a fool of ourselves, a ghostly trace of normality,
and the next instant a conviction that we have made
a fool of ourselves. But the moment of volition was
the moment of a flash of false colour over our deed, in
1
Arnold Bennett, The Human Machine.
192 SOCRATES
which we saw it as our good, though it was not the Good.
This interpretation is given in the " Meno," where
Socrates says that people desire evils thinking them
good, and all men are alike in this respect that they
act always from their idea of what is good. 1
Leaving the question of the theoretical soundness of
this position, inwhich Socrates is supported by various
modern philosophers, we may say that probably
it suggested itself to Socrates as a result of his own
inner experience. With him, undoubtedly, reason was
"
supreme, and when it whispered low, Thou must,"
"
he at once replied, I will." The dust of passion lay
beneath his feet and he looked always through the
transparent medium of thought. Practice and self-
discipline had put his soul into perfect condition for
the right estimate of every alternative of conduct
which presented itself. It was naked reason without
the flesh-tints and rose-mists. For him to see the
better, to know it, was to do it and not let slip ; the
vision was steady, circumstances made no difference.
To him " knowledge and wisdom " were indeed the
" a
mightiest things."
Not only did Socrates puzzle people by saying that
no man errs voluntarily, he amazed them by suggesting
that the man who errs knowingly is really more moral
than he who errs unknowingly. One can imagine the
delight gave Socrates to propound these disturbing
it
paradoxes to the self-complacent and cock-sure bour-

geoisie of Athens. He must have laughed inwardly
many a time as he startled them with his audacities ;
we can see the merry twinkle in his eye as he turns

the apparently safest moralities of Euthydemus outside
in and upside down. 3 Of course it would be crude
interpretation which committed Socrates to the oppo-
site position of that which he assails in others with
1 * *
Meno, 78. Protagoras, 352. Mem., iv. 2, 20-3.
HIS ETHICS 193
and objections. A man may be allowed to

difficulties
point out the difficulties of a particular attitude without
necessarily being satisfied with the alternative attitude,

for he might, if occasion arose, just as easily point out
objections to it. But there is a very real kernel of
truth in the paradox that the man who is voluntarily
unrighteous is, or at any rate may be, more righteous
than the man who is involuntarily unrighteous.
He argued that it was so, by help of his favourite
analogy of the arts. He who misreads or misspells
unconsciously is more illiterate than he who does so
deliberately.
1
If we may be permitted to illustrate the
point further, take the case of music. The lady who

deliberately goes half a tone flat in singing, knowing
that she is out of harmony, may surely be regarded as
more musical than one who gets flat quite involuntarily
and without any consciousness of her mistake. And
in this particular the analogy of the arts holds good.
To take an extreme case, a civilised man of ordi-
nary good character commits more voluntary offences
against the moral law than a primitive savage, but the
savage is not on that account at a higher stage of
moral development or nearer spiritual perfection than
the civilised man. The most hopeless feature in the
state of soul of the cannibal who eats his brethren is
not the fact of his eating them, but the fact that he
does not feel or know that he is doing anything wrong.
That is the measure of his low estate. He would be
at a higher level, he would have more morality if he
did the deed with a due sense of its enormity. What
exalts the publican and sinner above the pharisee
himself in the spiritual scale, is that the one knows
he is a publican and a sinner and the other does not
know he is a pharisee. Therefore the former is nearer
the kingdom of Heaven than the latter. The volun-
1
See Mem., iv. 2, 20, 21.
13
194 SOCRATES
tary sinner may reach the stage of conviction of sin,
which is the possibility of the attainment of virtue,
but there is no such hope in the case of him who is
so low or so hardened that he does not recognise the
action as a sin. In that sense we are all familiar with
the truth and ready to admit it, that voluntary
wrong-doing is the mark of a higher morality than
involuntary.
(c) THE GOOD

Man in his conduct always seeks some good, but
what, according to Socrates, is the Good ? What is it
which gives worth to everything else, and makes it
truly desirable ? What are we all after when we truly
know ourselves ? At first sight it looks as if we were
all after different things, that the standard of value

varied from individual to individual. One man
seems to live for success in business, another for the
betterment of his fellow-men, another for pleasure,
while for some
" To mak' a happy fireside clime
For weans and wife,
Is the true pathos and sublime
Of human life."
Can we find in all these varied and sometimes con-

flicting ends, some common, universal element which
makes them desirable to their different devotees ? Is
itthat they give pleasure ? Is pleasure in itself a good,
and nothing but a good, thing ?
"
One might infer from the " Protagoras that Socrates
took that view, for there he holds that the pleasant
and the good are one, and the painful and the evil one, 1
so that right conduct is a question of the accurate
measurement and balance of alternative pleasures.
1
351. cp . 358.
HIS ETHICS 195
is literally Hedonism, and we should

Such a doctrine
know by time that Socrates was no Hedonist.
this
Virtue, he knew, was not the primrose path of dalliance,
but a hard road it offered not ease and pleasure but
;
toil and difficulty. He was rather an eccentric Hedonist,

who nurtured his theory and sentiments on extracts
"
from Hesiod like the following Wickedness may a
:
man take wholesale with ease, smooth is the way,

and her dwelling-place is very nigh but in front of ;
virtue the immortal gods have placed toil and sweat ;
long is the path and steep that leads to her, and rugged
at first, though, when the summit of the path is reached,
then for all its roughness the path grows easy." *
His approval of Prodicus's story of the " Choice of
2
Heracles," an approval for which Xenophon vouches,
reveals his mind on the subject. It was the doctrine
of a preference of the hard and heroic as against the
soft and pleasant. We must recollect that it would
be as sound and sensible to attribute equal authority to
all the speeches in the book of Job, as to regard every
position for which Socrates argued with interlocutors

as the expression of his own sincere convictions. He
would take some hypothesis and argue from it as true
in order to deduce certain consequences and enforce
certain views, but the hypothesis need not represent
his own fixed belief by any means. It might serve
well enough for a dialectical display in which he could
achieve his main end, to show the unsatisfactoriness
not only of the opinions of others, but perhaps also
of any position he himself had to suggest.
At the same time he held that the virtuous life was
that which, on the whole, gave the largest and the
securest balance of pleasure. He declared that nobody
got more pleasure out of life than he did with all his
abstinences and deprivations. We cannot, however,
1 *
Mem., ii. i, 20. Mem., ii. i, 21 ff.
196 SOCRATES
on that account, entertain the notion that pleasure
was the impelling motive of Socrates' life and work.
To achieve the Good must necessarily be pleasant, but
that does not mean that pleasure must be the Good.
There are ends and objects and duties in life for which
"
one counts hardship and suffering cheap. Must we
not suppose that these will take their sorrows lightly,
looking to such high ends ? Must we not suppose that
they will gaily confront existence, who have to support
them, not only their conscious virtue, but the praise
and admiration of the world ? And once more, habits
of indolence, along with the fleeting pleasures of the
moment, are incapable of setting up a good habit of
body or of implanting in the soul any knowledge
worthy of account ; whereas by painstaking endeavour
in the pursuit of high and noble deeds, as good men tell
us, through endurance we shall in the end attain the
l
goal."
In this passage Socrates is made to state his diver-
gence from the ethics of Aristippus, the founder of
what is known as the Cyrenaic school. Whether it is
"
or is not reconcilable with the Protagoras," it stands
as Xenophon's conception of what Socrates' life and
doctrine were, and while there are traits in this dis-
cussion with Aristippus which strike us as less charac-
teristically Socratic than Xenophontic, yet the sub-
stance of the views expressed is true to what we other-
wise know of Socrates' character and sentiments, and
it is attestation of a scale of valuation in the Socratic
ethics not based upon mere considerations

"
of pleasure.
"
The argument in the Protagoras goes on the hypo-
thesis that all pleasures as such are alike in quality,
and only differ in magnitude or quantity. But such a
view goes in the face of experience, as continually recog-
nised by Socrates himself. He would not for a moment
1
Mem., ii. i, 19. (Dakyns* trans.)
HIS ETHICS 197
have put the pleasure of physical enjoyment on the

same plane as that of intellectual or spiritual enjoy-
ment.
Pleasure in itself most people would admit to be a
good, and pain an evil;but they never do exist in
themselves, and in their relations and consequences
their moral quality may be changed, according to their
effect in hindering or helping in the attainment of
what is the highest Good of life.
. Pleasure in exactly the same case as any other

is
subordinate good, it is relative to the use we make of

it. For example, Socrates, in another conversation
with Aristippus, 1 identifies the good and the beautiful,
and declares that whatever is good is in the same
respect beautiful. But that does not mean that
Beauty is the summum bonum. So is it also with
health, wealth, or courage. None of these can be
defined as the absolute good. 2 They are relative to
something beyond themselves. This characteristic of
lesser goods is also brought out in the second chapter of
"
the fourth book of the Memorabilia." 3 There, indeed,
Socrates takes up a thoroughly radical attitude and
insists that even wisdom, 4 and happiness, 5 may be a
source of evil to their possessor, as well as the good
things just mentioned. But this is an instance in
which Socrates is not expounding his own doctrine,
but simply pursuing Euthydemus from position to
position in order to refute him and bring home to him
a sense of his ignorance. He is playing his dialectical
game.
"
In the " Euthydemus of Plato again the relativity of
such goods as health, wealth, beauty, and honour is
brought out, and it is maintained that these things,
good surely in themselves, if the abstraction be per-
1
Mem., iii. 8. Mem., iii. 8, 2 and 3.
See ff.
*
31 Ibid., 33- Ibid., 34.
198 SOCRATES
mitted, derive their moral value and worth from the
use to which they are put. They may all become evils
if there is not present the knowledge and wisdom
"
which can use them rightly. 1 In the " Meno also it is
distinctly affirmed that while the Good is profitable
always, every other thing which men call good, health
and wealth, aye, even justice, courage, memory, the
good things of the spirit, are sometimes profitable,
sometimes hurtful, according as they are and are not
under the guidance of Wisdom.
Thus, if Socrates is to be described as a Hedonist,
"
he might equally be described as a Beautyist," a
" "
"Wealthist," a Healthist," or an Honourist,"
but the evidence is overwhelming that he found the
absolute good in none of them. In each case the
element of knowledge and wisdom must be added to
ensure that all these goods be put to a right and bene-
ficial use. He believes in them all, in everything
indeed, so far as, under the control of wisdom and
2
knowledge, it contributes to man's welfare, to his

supreme Good.
The element of utility also entered into his con-
ception of the Good. There are passages 3 in which
Socrates asserts that whatever is good must be good
for something, the good being identified with the
useful. Similarly he held, in regard to beauty, that it
consisted in the fact that the object suited its purpose.
Everything, in so far as it fills its place in the universe,
performs its function and is useful, is good and
beautiful, whereas the useless, wherever it is to be
found, is ugly and so far bad. 4 Socrates appears as a

1
280. Cp. Mem., and CEconomicus, i.,
iv. i, 2, 4, 8-12.
1 8
Mem., iii. 8, 6. Mem., iii. 8.
' "
Cp. Plato, Republic, 505 a. The form of the Good is the
highest object of science and this essence, by blending with just
things and all other created objects, renders them useful and ad-
vantageous." (Davies and Vaughan.)
HIS ETHICS 199
stout common-sense utilitarian, with no nonsense

about him. A house however ornamental which was
not adapted for its main purpose would neither be a
good nor a beautiful house to Socrates. Failing in
the very reason of its existence how could it be
beautiful or good ? l On the other hand, the meanest
objects in creation, if they served the end of their
being, were to him at once good and beautiful.
Here was a sympathy as wide as worth itself, a
feeling ofthe goodness of all useful life however
insignificant the use, the root of that democracy of
spirit which makes Socrates' character large and broad
and sane like nature's self.
Sometimes he carried the idea to whimsical lengths,
for the sake of the fun, as when in a jovial hour he
argued that he was more beautiful than Critobulus
because with his snub nose and protruding eyes he
had freer and wider vision than the other with his
more regular features, and with his upturned nostrils
could better catch the various odours borne on the
2
passing breeze. This pronounced utilitarian tendency
is also to be found in the fact that, according to
Xenophon, he advocated the study of the sciences

only so far as they were necessary and useful for the
ends of practical life. To that extent he was willing
to waive his principle that the sciences should be
left severely alone, a principle originating from the
fruitlessness of their pursuits in his own experience.
So far, however, as they were useful at all he was quite
willing that they should be studied. In science for
life's sake he believed. 3
In accordance with this view the good and beautiful
man would be he who fulfilled the end and mission of
his being, realised the purpose of his existence, which
1 *
Mem., iii. 10, 9-15. Xen., Banquet, v. 5-8.
*
Mem., iv. 7, 2-8,
200 SOCRATES
would of course vary from individual to individual.
While the bad man, the ugly man, would be he who is
out of his proper place, the man in a position for
which he is not meant or fitted. The highest good of
life, then, is attained when everyone is in the position
and discharging the functions by means of which he
can be of the greatest use and advantage to the com-
munity in general and himself in particular. So
Socrates declared that the farmer who did his farming
well, the doctor who did his doctoring well, were
nearest to the heart of God. 1 In general terms he
denned the highest object of man to be well-doing, 2
and he who did not do well in some particular sphere
of life was useless and displeasing to God. 3
We may say then that Man's supreme good consists
in well-doing, in accomplishing the work to which he is
called, and thus one of the important aspects of self-
knowledge is knowledge as to what you can work at,
what you have a faculty for. 4 As Carlyle said, the
latest version of the gospel of self-knowledge is to
"
Know thy work and do it ... know what thou
canst work at, and work at it like a Hercules." 6 To
be at one's wrong work is to be at the source of rivers
of misery misery alike for oneself and for others.
The question arises as to the motive which ought
to operate in all our work is the end of it to be simply
;
our own welfare and happiness or that of the com-

munity as a whole ? Professor Doring has ventured
to state that the underlying idea of the Socratic
ethics always one's own advantage and happiness.
is
Even in the cultivation of friendship it is our own

"
happiness we seek.
6
We must assume the exclusive
1 *
Mem., iii. 9, 15. Ibid., iii. g, 14.
3 *
Mem., iii. 9, 15. Mem,, iv. 2, 23-31.
6
Past and Present, bk. in. ch. xi.
Doring, Die Lehre ries Sokrates, p. 496.
HIS ETHICS 201
dominance of the egoistic motive in human nature." l

But surely this indicates an utterly wrong under-
standing of Socrates' appeal to self-regarding considera-
tions when he argues for the blessings of friendship
and the duty of undertaking social responsibilities.
It reveals a strange blindness to the dominant motives
of Socrates' own missionary career. He drew no
distinction between the good of an individual and the
good of his friends or of those whom he ruled. They
were identical on the plane on which Socrates' thought
moved. A man naturally sought his own happiness,
but the wise and good man sought it, where alone it
was to be found, in the service of others, and labours
which promoted their welfare and made them also
happy.
On one occasion, Xenophon tells us, he met someone
who had been appointed a general and minister of
war Socrates seems to have known almost everybody
worth knowing in Athens from Pericles and Aspasia
downwards and he reminded this officer that Homer
"
had called Agamemnon a shepherd of the peoples," f
probably because it was" his business to see to the needs
of those under him, the shepherd careth for the
sheep"; while by calling him a "good king" he
"
probably meant a king who does not only battle
well against enemies, ... or stand up nobly for his
own life alone, but one who is the cause of happiness
and welfare to those whom he rules. 3 For a king is
chosen not to look well after himself, but also that those
who have chosen him may attain welfare by him.
Men go to war in order to attain the best life, and they
choose leaders to lead them to that goal, and that it
* "
is their bounden duty to do." Have no hesitation,"
he told a youthful cavalry officer, "but direct your
1 *
Op. cit., p. 495. Iliad, ii. 1.
243.
* *
Mem., iii. 3, 2. Mem,, iii. 2, 3.
202 SOCRATES
men to these matters, from whichyou yourselfjjwill be
"
benefited and all the citizens
through you."
l
When
considering the virtue of a general he stripped every-
thing else away and left one thing only to make
those whom he led happy."
It is perfectly clear that Socrates did not encourage
men to enter into public life simply for their own
advantage without regard to that of the community,

or from any merely egoistic motive. I may argue
with a man who refuses to undertake a position of
responsibility in the state, though he has the quali-
fications forit, and try to persuade him by pointing
out the evil consequences to himself (as well as to

others) which will follow from thus timorously de-
clining his social duties and allowing affairs to fall into
the hands of less competent place-seekers. But to
reason from that, that I think one's own happiness
the exclusive motive either in human nature or my
own, or that I enthrone it as the Highest Good, is to
reason without either imagination or shrewdness and
to reason wrongly. I may even admit that all men out
of given possibilities choose those which they think
best and most profitable for themselves, without being
justifiably accused of adopting egoistic ethics. We all
act from a conception of our own good, that is the
form of the moral life, but it all depends on what that
conception is whether I am an egoist like Socrates ;
himself I may interpret my own good and profit as a

life of altruism and self-sacrifice for the sake of the
good and the happiness of mankind as a whole.

Socrates would admit that self-satisfaction in some
form, Happiness, is the motive and end of action.
And this Happiness isan end in and for itself, so that
it is quite superfluous and unnecessary to ask why a
man aims at Happiness.
2
But even Happiness is not
1 * Plato's
Mem., iii. 3, 15. Symposium, 241, 242.
HIS ETHICS 203
an Absolute Good if it is made to consist in things

which are ambiguous and may turn to ill, such as
Beauty, Wealth, or Honour.
1
As we have seen true
Happiness, which is the Absolute Good, consists not
in good fortune but in the life of well-doing, a life
whose happiness includes and involves that of others,
a life indeed which aims at their welfare and happiness.
The people to whom his heart went out in friendship
"
and love were those in whom the faculties of the
"
soul unfolded in virtue." Such natures as these only
needed to be educated to become not only happy
themselves and happy administrators of their private
households, but to be capable of rendering other
a
beings as states or as individuals happy." It is
evident again in this sentiment that one's own
happiness is contemplated as only a fraction of life's
true blessedness, and that if our own is to be full and
complete must pass into the happiness of others
it ;
it must consist in the fulfilment of our duties and

obligations in the state according to our capacity, in
service and beneficence. Happiness will only be
absolutely achieved when justice is realised in com-
munal life, in that conception of justice which Plato
elaborated later in his " Republic," that is to say, when
everyone does his own proper work, fills his own proper
sphere, whether that of ruler or ruled, in a life of
well-doing with the view of promoting the good
3
of all.
Happinessis not a mere passive state, it is the bloom
of health and intense activity, like the bloom of a

flower, the delicate exhalation of all the forces which
go to sustain life and growth. The career of ruler is
that in which the greatest happiness is permitted
because it is that which demands and necessitates the
activity of the largest powers and faculties, that in
1 *
Mem., iv. 2, 35, Mem,, iv, I, i, Mem,, ii. i, 19.
204 SOCRATES
which it is possible to perform the greatest service to
others and to the
state, and produce the maximum
of happiness all round. But this noblest consumma-
tion is only possible where the ruler has knowledge,
and is in touch with truth and reality and fact, in
his own soul and in the world he must know the true
;
end of personal life and the true goal of the world a

view in which we have the suggestion which Plato was
to develop into his doctrine that all will be right with
the world only when the philosophers are on the
throne, when the rulers are men who, as it is said in
"
the " Thesetetus," know the essence or nature of man
as man," l whose eyes see through the murk and
"
mist of opinion and sense and accident to the Ideas,"
the eternal Laws, the Absolute Good, that sun 2 in
whose light alone can man or state be safely guided
through the seas of life and the shoals of time.
Whatever definition be given of the Good, whether
it be called Pleasure, Happiness, or Well-doing, there
will always remain differences in men's power to
identify it rightly in concrete cases. In practical life
what authoritative means have we for deciding as
between various judgments, perhaps conflicting judg-
ments, upon any particular course of conduct ? Whose
view is to be authoritative in the last resort, or can we
get no further than to say that each man must be
judge for himself ? We are not left in doubt as to
what was on this point. Not the
Socrates' position
multitude, not the majority, but the wise man, the
man of knowledge and insight, must be final arbiter.
There can be no hesitation in accepting the teaching
" Theaetetus " as
of the genuinely Socratic on this parti-
cular matter, and in it the doctrine that each particular
man must be his own authority and standard on
questions of opinion and judgment is repudiated.
1 *
Thesetetus, 174 b. Cp. Repub., 508, 515 ff.
HIS ETHICS 205
Soc. Shall I you, Theodorus, what amazes

tell me
in your acquaintance, Protagoras.
THEOD. What is that ?
Soc. I am charmed with his doctrine that what
appears to each one, that for him is. But I have
wondered that he did not begin his work on Truth
with the thesis that a pig or a dog-faced baboon or
some other yet stranger 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, not
to speak of his fellow-men 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 another is true or
false, but each man 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 of us is the
measure of wisdom to himself ? I say nothing of the
ridiculous predicament in which my own midwifery
and the whole art of dialectic placed is for the ;
attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions

of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of
folly, if those of each man are equally right.

1
Precisely the same attitude is insisted upon in the

"
Crito," where Socrates argues with his dear old friend
that in all the ordinary affairs of life, and in the arts,
we abide by the opinion of the trained expert 2 and not
by that of the unskilled multitude, and so ought we
"
also in questions of ethics. In questions of just and
unjust, fair and foul, good and evil also ought we to
Theaetetus, 161 C-E,
1
(Jowett's trans, slightly altered.)
Crito, 47 A-C.
206 SOCRATES
follow the opinion of the many and to fear them ; or
the opinion of the one man who has understanding ?
Ought we not to fear and reverence him more than all
the rest of the world and if we desert him shall we
:
not destroy and injure that principle in us which may

be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated
l
by injustice ?
The same appeal to wisdom and the wise man, the
same deference to him, while those who are on the
lower plane of life and character are ruled out of court
as too inconsiderable, runs through Xenophon's
" Memorabilia." The
only difference in the testimony
is an added touch of bitterness in the Platonic language,
taking the place of a certain sympathetic piety in that

of Xenophon.
"
What is the distinction, Euthydemus, between a
man devoid of self-control and the dullest of brute
beasts ? A man who forgoes all height of aim, who
gives up searching for the best and strives only to
gratify his sense of pleasure, is he better than the

silliest of cattle ? But to the self-controlled alone it is
given to discover the hid treasures. These choose . . .
deliberately the good and avoid the evil. Thus it is

that a man reaches the zenith, as it were, of goodness
and happiness, thus it is that he becomes most capable
of reasoning and discussion."
2
Such is the man who
8
attains wisdom, and it is obvious that such is the man
for whom alone Socrates has any reverence and to whose
judgment he will pay any respect. He is the man who

has the capacity for dialectic and consequently for
right ethical discrimination and judgment.
Summing it up it simply means that morality and
the Good are not merely relative things, that each man
is not the law for himself, but that the nearer a human
1
Crito, ibid., c, d, Cp. 48 a, and Repub., 493 c, d.
*
Mem., iv. 5, n and 12. 3
Ibid., 6;
HIS ETHICS 207
being comes to realising the essential thing in his

nature, the more developed the rational, which for
Socrates is also the divine, in him, the more clearly
and authoritatively does he apprehend the supreme
good, the more does he approximate to the absolute
standard of human conduct.
CHAPTER X
HIS RELIGION
"
It is well said in every sense that a man's Religion is the chief
fact with regard to him." THOMAS CARLYLE,
(a) THE WORLD
strength of Socrates' character, the motive

power of his life, sprang from piety of mind
THE and heart. A belief in the overruling x and
inworking of God in the universe was the very
atmosphere in which he lived. His character and his
aims were through and through religious. The back-
ground of his thought was God, and hence the calm
subsisting at the heart of every agitation within his
soul. The radiance of the Unseen and Spiritual lay
across his life, and filled the world for him with
good, so that Duty always had its sweetness and

work its song. He felt all through that he was not
his own, that he had a mission to fulfil, and he
was straitened till it should be done; yet his task
was not a slavery, but that service which is perfect
freedom. His was a self-dedicated life to a call from
on high, to which his attitude was one of grateful
acceptance and welcome.
a
Xenophon relates a conversation which he heard
between Socrates and Aristodemus, 3 the latter of whom
took up rather a superior attitude to religious senti-
1 *
Cp. Plato, Phaedo, 62, 63. Mem., i. 4, 2.
1
See Plato, Symposium, 173 B.
208
HIS RELIGION 209
ments, in which the master made

use of his character-
istic methods. He
him to the sense of
seeks to lead
the wisdom and greatness and goodness of the Mind
which has fashioned all things, and to show him, or
make him realise, that all this beneficent and har-
monious scheme of things cannot be the product of
"
mere chance, but demands the belief in a wise artificer
who loves life." 1
Everywhere throughout the Cosmos we trace the

presence of design.Particularly in the case of our
own body is it evident. And if one is justified in
admiring the artistic products of a Homer or a Sopho-
cles, or a Zeuxis or a Polycleitus, what reverence
and honour are due to Him whose artistry produces
living beings, every part of whose bodily organism
shows that has been created designedly to produce
it
the best life of the whole Neither chance nor blind

!
force will account for the exquisite fitness of eye and

ear and mouth and hand for their functions as ministers
to man's life. There one sees the special benevolence of
God to our race. For He has also given us members
and functions not granted to the lower animals. 3 He
"
has conferred upon us the noblest kind of soul, which
can the apprehension of the gods who have
rise to
greatest and most beautiful things."

the 3
constructed
He has given us superiority in nature, body, and spirit.
We alone can serve the gods, and we alone live like
gods. Our organisation, status, and privileges, then,
as human beings, so lofty and divine, seem to Socrates
to prove that behind all are the design and the working
of a beneficent Deity.
To-day the scientist would give another and different
explanation of these facts which so impressed Socrates.
He would attribute them to Evolution under the law
of Survival of the Fittest. But if by that is meant
1 *
Mem., i. 4, 7. Ibid., n, 12, 13. Ibid., 12.
210 SOCRATES
that all the adaptation and harmony and organisation
in living beings is the result of the action and reaction
of merely mechanical forces, then the theory has been
found wanting by modern thinkers of various schools.
Martineau held that behind all the blind forces must
have been some designing and directing Power. 1 The
Hegelians have felt the need to postulate an Absolute
Spirit as the inner reality of the world and its move-
ments. And more recently Bergson has had to assume, in
addition to the merely physical factors of development,
a Spiritual Reality, which he calls Life, and which is
possessed of an inherent tendency to ever fuller ex-
pression, ever higher development, a Life not otiose
or stagnant but tidal, flowing into all the nooks and
crannies of matter, which it shapes into an increasingly
perfect medium of its own growing impulse and ex-
pression. The highest manifestation of this immanent
force is consciousness, and if it does not operate by
design in the ordinary sense, it is only because its
activity is as much above design, as it is above our

finite spirits.
The important point, however, is that in advocating
the recognition of that which is ultra and supraphy-
sical, of Mind, in the Universe, Socrates is supported
by all modern idealistic philosophy, as well as by the

representatives of religion.
He had other arguments by which he substantiated
his position. recognised that our body is made
It is
up of small quantities of elements, which exist in

enormous quantities in the world it is only because ;
they are in the world that they have been available

for our bodies. But we also have mind, and where
has it come from, if not in the same way from the
great store of mind in the world ? Man's mind must
be a particula mentis divina.
1
Study of Religion ; chapter, Teleology.
HIS RELIGION 211
Again, on the analogy of our own personality, there

is the argument, indicated by Xenophon, 1 and more
" "
fully articulated in the Phaedo of Plato, that just as
the actions and movements of our physical body are
directed and controlled and determined by the mind
within, so is it with the whole world and its phenomena ;
these are only explicable, only intelligible to us, as

the operation of Cosmic Mind, which by the very nature
of mind must act for the best, from an end which is
the Good. 2 That being so, we are compelled to regard
all the forces of the world as different but ultimately
harmonious expressions of one Reason or Will, directed

toward the Good. For Socrates, indeed, and Plato,
as for modern philosophers like T. H. Green, Reason
and Will towards the Good are but two expressions
of the one fact. And because all is under the lordship
and control of Mind, the process of the world is toward
an end or goal, and that in the case of the Mind of the
universe can be no other than the Highest, the Ab-
solute Good.
is thus for Socrates well fitted to be the
Religion
ground anofinsuperable optimism, the spring of a
quenchless hope and faith :
" God's in His heaven

;
All's right with the world."
"Ah, my good sir, lay to heart and understand that

even as your own mind within you can turn and dispose
of your body as it lists, so ought we to think that the
wisdom which abides within the universal frame does
so dispose of all things as is pleasing to it ; and it
cannot be that your eye can range over many a mile,
and the eye of God be unable to see all things at once ;
or that your soul can think of what is near it and also
of what is distant, while the thought of God is in-
1
Mem., i.
4, 9. Cp. Phaedo, 97 0-99,
212 SOCRATES
competent to embrace everything at the same time.
If only you will try by serving the gods whether they are
willing to give their guidance to men in dark places,

you will know that such is Godhead in its nature and
greatness that the gods can see all at a glance, can
hear all, are present everywhere, and care for all at
one and the same time." l
So Socrates states his faith in the omniscience,
omnipresence, and providence of the Godhead.
There is one other attribute of God emphasized by
the Platonic Socrates, both in the "Theaetetus" and
the "Republic," which there can be no mistake in
including in the conception of God held by the historical
2
Socrates, and that is His Goodness or Righteousness.
As Spirit or Mind the creature and controlling Divinity
of the world must, as we have suggested, seek the
Absolute Good, and He can neither be evil nor the
cause of evil. From the point of view of His Omni-
science also we can infer, on Socratic principles, that
God will neither err nor commit wrong or evil. Hence
also, the irreconcilable antagonism of Good and Evil
"
which we meet with in the " Theaetetus and
" "
Republic must have been part of Plato's inheritance
from Socrates, though it is very doubtful whether the
element of pessimism in Plato, and his assertion that
evil must always exist is compatible with Socrates'
thesis that evil is ignorance.
"
can never pass away
Evils, Theodorus, for there ;
must always be something which is antagonist to

good. Having no place among the gods, of necessity
they hover round the earthly nature and this sphere.
Wherefore we ought to try to escape to the other world
as quick as possible. And this escape is the becoming
like God as far as is in our power and likeness to ;
Cp. Phaedo, 62 b.
I
Mem., i. 4, 18, 19.
Cp. Phado, 62 d, 63
II
a,
HIS RELIGION 213
Him means to become just and holy and wise. But,

my dear fellow, it is by no means easy to convince
mankind that it should pursue virtue and avoid vice,
not in order that a man may seem to be good, which
is the reason given by the world, and in my judgment
is only the repetition of an old wives' fable. Whereas

the truth is God is never unrighteous at all He is
perfect righteousness ; and he of us who is the most
righteous is the most like Him."
1
" "
In the Republic it is argued that God is good in
reality, and as such is the cause of no evil because
"
that which is good is not the cause of all things but
only of what is as it should be, being guiltless of
originating evil."
a
He can only be responsible for
that which is good and beneficial in human life, and
3
according to Plato, that is the lesser part.
This doctrine of God as the Creator and Source of all
good, in His nature perfect righteousness, able to keep
all men and created things within His view and to hear
their cry, to whose perfections it is the duty of mankind
to approach as nearly as possible, is a doctrine not
unworthy of the best in Christendom itself, and
illustrates the height in theological thought and
speculation which it was given to Socrates and Plato

to attain. It was a theology whose foundations were
laid in reason and moral experience, and which in its
upsoaring never tried to cut itself off from its

loftiest
base. it was a moral theology, and at its
All through
crown and summit, a God who was a moral God.
There was a sweet reasonableness about it which many
ages of Christianity might envy.
(b) It may have occurred to some readers to remark
that it was characteristic of Greeks as of Romans to be-
lieve in gods, not in God that they were polytheists.
1
Thesetetus, 176 a, b; trans, (after Jowett).
1 *
Repub., ii. 379 b. Ibid., 379 c.
214 SOCRATES
The Socrates of Xenophon and Plato seems to use
the singular and the plural almost indifferently.
Such a circumstance shows that the polytheistic mode
of thought was a wavering one, and that the arith-
metical aspect of Godhead was a very vague, sub-
ordinate and unimportant one. Such trace of dis-
crimination in the use as there may be in Socrates
will be referred to subsequently. What we must re-
cognise here is that among the great Greek philosophers
and poets, a marked leaning to a view of the universe
akin to Monotheism was prevalent. As the idea
developed that the world was not a chaos, nor yet a
pluralism of mutually independent and co-ordinate
powers or wills, but partook rather of the nature of a
unity or system, rational and moral, it was only
natural that the gods should come to be conceived as
having their arbitrary powers limited by some supreme
Power or Will, and so there gradually rose above the
horizons of thought and imagination, like a peak to
dominate the lower range of hills, the conception of
Necessity or Fate.
1
It marked the recognition of law
and order in the physical and especially in the moral
world.
The question then became one of reconciling such
an idea with that of Zeus, who even in Homer is
"
recognised as supreme, the Father of gods and men,"
the term Father connoting not necessarily physical
generation, but dignity, as in the Christian application
"
of it to God. In the
"
Iliad and " Odyssey," Fate and
the Will of Zeus are made practically synonymous.
"
And later one of the cult names of Zeus was Leader
2
of Fate."
But in a great interpreter of the drama of human
and divine experience like Êschylus, the identifica-
1
Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, vol. iii. p. 91.
1
Farnell, The Cults of Greece, i.
p. 79.
HIS RELIGION 215
tion not so easily or so consistently made. In that

is
"
titanic and sublime tragedy, The Prometheus
Bound/' the hero-martyr, pinned to the lonely gorge,
sustains his defiance of the despotic and tyrannical
will of Zeus by faith in the ultimate supremacy of a
higher power than even that of Zeus, viz. Fate, the

Moral Order, which will overthrow all injustice and
wrong whether of men or gods. So, too, in Herodotus
the gods cannot escape Destiny. 1
Usually, however, Êschylus is less audacious in his
departure from the dominant Greek mode of thought,
for which the nod of Zeus moves the world and his
will fixes its destinies. 2 Sophocles and Euripides could
be quoted to the same effect.
Even in Aristotle, Zeus incorporates into himself
the principle of Fate, 3 but by this time Zeus and God
were interchangeable terms, and the Conception of
God had become exalted and purified till all that
could be regarded as morally unworthy was excluded
from it, and Deity could do no evil. There could be no
such antagonism between Zeus and the Moral Order
"
as emerged in the Prometheus."
In literature and philosophy, then, there was a dis-
tinct tendency towards the recognition of one will
behind all events, the will of Zeus supreme, and he
was worshipped under appropriate titles as the God
with whom men had to do in various spheres and
circumstances of life. 4
The striking point, however, is that the mono-
theistic tendency of the higher Greek thought did not
interfere to any extent with the polytheism of the
popular cults. The lower gods still retained reverence
1
Farnell, op cit., p. 81.
*
See Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p, 273.
3
De Mundo; Farnell, op. cit., p. 81.
4
See Farnell, op cit., pp. 44 ff.
216 SOCRATES
and worship within their own sphere, one reason
doubtless being that later suggested by Apuleius, 1
that men could more readily realise intimacy with
lesser deities, not so universalised nor exalted above
human tribes and emotions 2 as Zeus. In this respect
their functionswould answer in the popular religious
experience of the Greeks to those of Christ in Pro-
testantism and of the Virgin Mary and the Saints in
Roman Catholicism, for we must not forget that even
Christianity has failed to maintain a strict and pure
monotheism in the intercourse between its devotees
and its God. Zeus, like the Christian God, appears to
have been too high and lifted up, too universal in
his attributes and functions, to meet fully the wants
of ordinary human beings. Though he was assigned
various functions and gathered unto himself the
different ideals and aspects of character which men
desiderate in their deities, there yet continued to flourish
under the shadow of that Olympus on whose brow he
sat, the cult of other minor gods.
What was Socrates' position ? The only con-
clusion we can come to on all the evidence we have
" "
considered that the question between
is God and
" "
gods was to him a subordinate and comparatively
unimportant one. Number really matters extremely
little. Not the arithmetic, but the morality and
spirituality of your Godhead is the point. Nor must
this be counted to him for pagan blindness. He was
at least no less advanced and enlightened than the
late William James on this point, and James was
unworthy neither of the era nor of the society in which
he lived. We are so apt to be horrified at things in a
society outside the traditions and sympathies of our
own, religiously, things which in our own society we can
1
De Deo Socratis, p. 116 ;
opera edited by Hildebrand, vol. ii.
a
Op. cit., pp. 140, 141.
HIS RELIGION 217
contemplate and tolerate without turning a hair. We

may quake at the Spectre of the Brocken seen through
the dividing mists, and find when we approach it
closer and see it clearer that it is only an old familiar
friend of our own.
Socrates appears to us to have had considerable
sympathy with the conventional worship even while
predominantly influenced by the philosophical view.
His speculative activity undoubtedly drew him on to
a monotheistic conception of the universe, but he did
not utterly cast off the gods and modes of worship
of the common men and women among whom he had
been born and among whom he lived. The Religion
of his people had wound itself about his heart with
the clutch of many tender sentiments. He was a
believer in Reason, but he was not a disembodied
Rationalist. Writers like Joel present him to our
imagination as a rickle of logical bones stalking about
the graveyards in which he has buried the flesh and
blood of ordinary human experience. Not so can
we picture him. He was not the pure intellectualist
who keeps himself unspotted from the emotions and
sentiments of the world. He was a man who stood
between the old and the new he was amphibious, and
;
breathed the air of two worlds, the world that was

aging and the world just to be born.
He reminds us of the image Plato gives us of Glaucon
rising out of the sea, with the stones and shells and
greenweed of the lower, denser, element clinging and
dripping about him. He was an Athenian, though he
was also very much more he was a spectator of all
;
time, and existence, but he looked out upon it from

the market-place of the city whose stones and people
were dear to him as life. You might compare him
magnet comparare parvis to some Scotch Presbyterian
professor in the grip of Hegel, or to an Anglican Broad
218 SOCRATES
Churchman. He indulges in heretical orthodoxy.
He can use the orthodox nomenclature, do the
orthodox things, but the inner idea is changed, there
is a new vintage in the old bottles.
" "
Thus he continued to speak of the gods and to
perform sacrifices to them he even taught that men
;
should worship according to the prescribed rites of their

city or state and not make a fuss about their New
Theology. The forms, or the absence of forms, is
not the vital thing. It is all a matter of spirit. And
so he gives the impression of waving away the dis-
cussion of rites and ceremonies as rather trivial for
a philosopher to bother himself about one way or
another, and gives a genial patronage to the beliefs
"
and faith of the weaker brethren." His attitude
seems very like that described in mellow tints and
inculcated with soft grace by Mr. A. C. Benson in his
" "
essays From a College Window :
"
The true concern of the believer is to be his own
attitude to life, his relations with the circle, small or
great, in which he finds himself. ... He need not
trouble himself about traditional ordinances, elaborate
ceremonials, subtle doctrines, metaphysical defini-
tions. He must concern himself with far different
things let him be sure that he is patient, and just,
;
and tender-hearted, and sincere ; let him be sure

that no sin is allowed to lurk unresisted in the depths
of his spirit. . . . Let him be quiet and peaceable ;
let him take freely the comforts of the holy influences

which Churches, for all their complex fabric of tradi-
tions and ceremony, still hold out to the spirit ; . .
the Churches themselves have gained by age and

gentle associations, and artistic perception, a large
treasure of things that are full of beauty, that are
only hurtful when held to be special and peculiar
channels of holiness and sweetness, when they are
HIS RELIGION 219
supposed to have a definite sanctification which is

opposed to the sanctification of the beauty exterior
to them. Let the Christian be grateful for the
beauty they hold, and use it freely and simply. . . .
Let him not even seek to go outside of the persua-

sion, as it is so strangely called, in which he was
born," &c.
Socrates spoke of the oracle of Delphi as having
authoritatively pronoimced the conformist attitude as
the one to be adopted. Prof. A. E. Taylor has called
him " the first non-conformist of history," but the
phrase seems singularly infelicitous, for Socrates, in
common with many more cultured and critical spirits of
the time, was a conformist. At heart he is an Inde-
pendent, but externally he won't be a Separatist. He
makes you feel he can quite easily do without all the
mythology and all the religious ritual about him, that
" "
the Inner Light is sufficient for him, but he prefers
to walk in the old paths so far as they do not lead

away from that Light. We have not understood
Socrates, nor, perhaps, got a true inkling of his
greatness, till we see that he was not only a man of
robust reason, but of hardly less strong sentiment.
His emotions were deep, if his intellect was lofty,
and the combination produced a sweet reasonableness
and toleration in his religious judgments.
Xenophon represents him as a man of deep piety,
who paid due and regular court to the city's gods,
by prayer and sacrifice, openly and in the sight of all.
And we find nothing to controvert this in Platonic
allusions in which we expect fidelity to Socrates, viz.,
little artistic details. Thus in the " Symposium "it is
"
said, Socrates took his place on the couch and
supped with the rest [evidently he did not taboo
flesh-food] ; and then libations were offered and
after a hymn had been sung to the gods and there
220 SOCRATES
had been the usual ceremonies," &C. 1 Of course we
must be careful of laying too much stress on every
reference to the gods. Thus, his last
by Socrates
words in
dying were that he owed a cock to Asclepius,
and that Crito must see the debt paid. 2 It would
never do to infer from such an incident Socrates'
serious belief in Asclepius the god of healing. It is a
joke on Socrates' part as the rigor mortis is about to

creep over his heart, a stroke of humour, not with one
foot but literally with both feet in the grave, in which
he expresses his dying conviction that death is not
for him an evil but a deliverance, an emancipation,
a blessing. Just previous to drinking the poison-cup,
he had asked the jailor if he might pour a libation,
"
but as this is not permitted he simply replies, I
understand, but it is permitted and one must pray to

the gods that one's journey to that other world be
" 3
prosperous. This I pray, and so may it be a
recognition of the unseen divine Powers in whose
hands is man's future destiny, and without any sense
of need for distinction or clear division among them.
The charge brought against him was that he did
not recognise the city's gods, but strange deities so
it was formulated in court by Meletus. But in the
account of his defence given by Plato, he merely evades
the point of the charge, by trapping Meletus into
self-contradiction. He gets the accuser to say that
what he means is that Socrates is an out and out
atheist and disbeliever in the gods, but as the strange
divinities whom he is declared to worship must be
sons of the gods, it follows that he must be a believer
in the gods too. 4 Meletus can't have it both ways.
He is further accused of teaching that the sun and
moon are mere stones and not gods, to which Socrates
1 *
Symposium, 176 a. Phaedo, 118.
1 *
Phado, 117 b, c. Apology, 27 c, d.
HIS RELIGION 221
contents himself by replying that it is Anaxagoras

who teaches this, and he himself cannot claim any
originality The impression on our
in this respect.
minds is merely playing with Meletus and
that he is
his charges, and it is doubtful whether he does or does

not mean it to be inferred that he worships the sun
and moon. It depends on how one interprets the
" "
question, Oh, don't I even worship sun and moon ?
Grote takes it as an assertion of his belief in them as
gods, and this view does certainly derive support from
1
the reminiscence of Alcibiades that during the cam-

paign at Potidaea, after a remarkable fit of mental
abstraction, Socrates offered a prayer to the sun and
went his way. 2 But it must be remembered that
Socrates was at Potidaea thirty-two years before the
end of his life, and a man's beliefs and adorations may
change more than once in that interval.

Moreover, it is not inconceivable that Alcibiades
could be mistaken about the real object to whom
Socrates' prayer was uttered, if the latter simply
" "
made use of the term Sun in invocation as a
metaphor. It is the commonest thing imaginable
"
in
prayer for Christians to address God as a Sun and

"
Shield," or as Sun of my
Plato himself
soul," &c.
used it in speaking of the Supreme Idea of the Good,
because the Idea in the world of realities takes
the same place and function as the Sun in the physical
world, the world of appearances.
" "
The evidence of Aristophanes' Clouds is to the
effect that Socrates and his associates adopted the
Anaxagorean view of the sun as a red-hot stone, but

we shall find later that Aristophanes is not to be taken
as law and gospel on Socrates' religion. We leave the
question undecided, then, for lack of conclusive data,
as far as the deity of the sun is concerned.
1 J
Plato, vol. i.
p. 413. Symposium, aao.
222 SOCRATES
Personally we incline to the opinion that Socrates
did believe in the existence of lesser divinities and
"
spirits. There the statement in the " Symposium
is
that God does not take to do directly and immediately

with men, but communes with them through such
intermediaries. 1 The doctrine is put into the mouth
of Diotima, and is only repeated from her by Socrates,
perhaps in order to suggest that Socrates has no
reason or proof to give of it, but accepts it as a revela-
"
tion,beyond the sphere of dialectic. Love," repeats
Socrates, "is no god but a great spirit, one of the
beings who occupy a middle place between God and
man ; forGod himself does not hold intercourse with
man, and all the fellowship which exists between
gods and men takes place through this intermediate
order, whose function is that of interpreter and go-
between." 2
Now all this world of religious imagination peopled
with dim forms of divinities and spirits, conjured up
before the mystic vision not only here but also in the
" Phaedrus " 3 and " 4
Timaeus," may be held to spring
more appropriately from Plato's gorgeous mind than
from Socrates' more simple and rational imagination,
but there seems to be no evidence for denying that
the background of his mind was haunted by the dim
shapes of gods which were left undisturbed by the
exorcism of an exclusive Rationalism. Only he never
strove to formulate a clear articulate doctrine regard-
ing them, and on the dim horizons of his soul they
seemed continually to be emerging and melting again
into the identity of one godhead. This divine world
lay beyond the sphere in which his dialectic had
application, and hence he was not inclined to dogmatise

about it or to deny it, though probably he would not
1
See Symposium, 202 d, e ; 203 a ff.
*
202 d, e (paraphrase), 246 e. 41.
HIS RELIGION 228
have acquiesced so self-consciously in the genealogies

of the gods of Greek mythology as Plato did, unless we
read a dash of irony and impatience into his meaning
when he declared, " It is impossible to doubt what we
have learned from witnesses, who declared themselves
to be the offspring of the gods, and who must of course
have known their own family affairs." Still there was
undoubtedly much in his constitution and character
(something cf that modesty and reverence which was
the instinct of Athenians), which would incline him
to endorse Plato's dictum with regard to the divine
"
world which transcends human knowledge We :
must obey the law, and believe." To adopt a charac-

terisation of George Eliot's, which strikes us as
"
extremely true of Socrates, we may say he had that
mental combination which is at once humble in the
region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge,"
a combination in which he bears a strong likeness to a
Tyndall or a Huxley, in modern times.
Socrates had given up all personal devotion to
physical research as prosecuted in the various sciences,
though that does not necessarily connote entire indif-
ference to the work of others along these lines, and
he had given it up because he was more concerned
to know himself and solve the problems of human
experience which lay nearer the needs of life; and
for the same reason, if we assume that the true
Socrates speaks in the " Phaedrus," he also turned away
from the mass of Greek theology as embodied in the
legends. When a man began with that sort of thing,
there was no logical end to it, and to Socrates it was
all vain and profitless. He had no time to spend
on these elaborate constructions, so he just accepted
them to be going on with, in common with his fellows,
in a genial off-hand, uninterested sort of way, devoting
"
himself, as he put it, to the serious study not of
224 SOCRATES
fables but of myself, that I may see whether I am
really a more complicated and more furious monster
than Typhon, or a creature of a gentler and simpler
l
sort, the born heir of a divine and tranquil nature."
The sentiment smacks of the quaint Socrates, as salt
air smacks of the sea.
The same attitude is expressed in the " Euthyphro,"
" "
one of the early Socratic dialogues, and thus
receives strong confirmation. When Socrates has it
quoted to him in justification of human conduct that
Kronos and Zeus acted in a particular way, his reply
is that he can hardly accept these tales about the
quarrels and fights of the gods. If people dogmatise
and declare them true, then, he says with a touch of
irony, he must abide by their superior wisdom, but
as for himself such matters lie beyond the range of his
knowledge. Euthyphro hints that he can tell him a
good deal about these gods and their ways, but
Socrates has not time for that sort of thing at present.
His attitude is one of bored scepticism, of detachment
and practical indifference. He would rather learn from
Euthyphro what the practical human virtue of piety is.*
It is the strain of common sense and the saving tendency
toward utilitarianism coming out again.
The position is very similar to that of plenty of
devout Christians to-day toward many of the Old
Testament stories, to doctrines of angels, and to large
parts of the Apocalypse. These things have simply
lost all relation to the inner life and become void of
all appeal to large numbers of Christians, who simply
leave them aside, neither accepting in any effective
way, nor yet explicitly rejecting them. There they

are in the authentic books, but they form no part
of the real faith of cultured Christians, bear no re-
lation to the spiritual motives by which they live.
1 2
Plato, Phaedrus, 230 a. Euthyphro, 6.
HIS RELIGION 225
And we have to remember that in standing partially

on the outside of the popular religious tradition
Socrates was by no means alone he was simply one :
in whom the more cultured spirit of the age was

mirrored, a spirit which took the gods with a grain of
salt, having lost the firm belief in their vivid in-
"
dividual reality as persons. The Olympians," says
"
Prof. Gilbert Murray, are artists' dreams, ideals,
allegories they are symbols of something beyond
;
themselves. They are gods of a half-rejected tradition,

of unconscious make-believe, of aspiration. They are
gods to whom the doubtful philosophers can pray,
with all a philosopher's due caution, as to so many
radiant and heart-searching hypotheses. They are
not gods in whom any one believes as a hard fact. . . .
Something like this, I take it, was the character of the

Olympian Religion in the higher minds of later Greece.
Its gods could awaken man's worship and strengthen
his higher aspirations but at heart they knew them-
;
selves to be only metaphors. As the most beautiful

image carved by man was not the god but only a
symbol to help towards conceiving the gods, so the
god himself when conceived was not the reality but
only a symbol to help towards conceiving the
1
reality."
One wonders what sort of reverence and belief in
their deities a people could have, who permitted their
introduction upon the comic stage as objects for the
broadest farce and the most rollicking laughter ? On
the assumption that Aristophanes ever posed as a
serious defender of orthodox religion and the gods
against the scepticism of philosophers and sophists,
one can only be amazed at the wholly irreverent way
in which he handles them on his stage.
"
Jn the Knights," Nicias suggests to Demosthenes
1
Four Stages of Greek Religion, pp. 97, 98.
F5
226 SOCRATES
that they had better go to the shrine of some god and
pray for mercy :
"DEM. Shrines! Shrines! Why, sure, you don't

believe in the gods ?
"
NIC. Yes I do.
"
DEM. But what's your argument ? Where's your
proof ?
" NIC. Because I feel me and hate me
they persecute
in spite of everything I try to do to please 'em.
"
DEM. Well, well, that's true, you're right enough
1
in that."
" "
In the Birds Peisthetairus suggests that the
birds should build a Babylon in mid-air, and in order
to bring the gods into due submission to them, they
should starve them out by intercepting the supplies
of sacrificial smoke ; they should also send an envoy
to Zeus and demand his abdication, and to forbid him
and the other gods in heaven :
" To trespass on our atmospheric domain

With scandalous journeys to visit a list
Of Alcmenas, and Semeles if they persist,
;
We warn them that means will be taken, moreover,

To stop their gallanting and acting the lover." 2
The birds will be a good substitute for Delphic

Do dona, and for Zeus himself,
" We'll not
keep away, scornful and proud, a-top of a cloud."
In Jupiter's way, but attend every day
To prosper and bless."
But comedy " went beyond these comparatively

decent limits. The innumerable adulteries of Zeus,
his disguises, his prodigious amours, as many scenes
with enticing details as would make the audience
1
Frere's Trans. Works, vol. ii.
p. 70,
8
Frere, op. cit,, p. 162.
HIS RELIGION 227
split their sides with laughter," were held up before

the public. 1
So Charon, Êacus, and Pluto, solemn figures of the
underworld, are treated as amusing old bogies and
hell a theatre fittingly made to frighten the simple.
"
The Poseidon of Aristophanes is a blockhead." a
In the Frogs we have Êacus scolding Dionysius
like a fish-wife, calling him a wretch, a shameless,
"
a triple rogue, who stole my dog Cerberus and
3
escaped, &c.
Heracles fairs very badly at the hands of Athenian
Comedy, being represented as a giant, with small
head and overhanging belly, a sensual voracious rake
who can be bought through any of his appetites. 4
easily
It is quite evident that there must have been a
public at Athens that thought the popular traditions

and conceptions as fit only for farce, and who regarded
no satire upon the unspiritual and immoral elements of
the legends of the gods as too vitriolic and scathing.
Xenophanes in the sixth century had set a philo-
sophical fashion in theological criticism when he
said that there was one God above all gods and men,
and that Homer and Hesiod had ascribed to the gods
"
all things that are a disgrace among men, thefts,
5
adulterers, deception of each other."
In Euripides and Plato alike we see emerge with a
bold and unmistakable clearness the thought that
the traditional gods are no gods, that there cannot be
two systems of morality, one for gods and another
for men, the latter far higher and purer. The godhead
1
Couat, Aristophane, p. 239.
a
Couat, op. cit., p. 237 Birds, 1565 ff.
;
8
See Frogs, 465 ff.
4
Birds, 1603, 62 ff.
; Frogs, 503 ff. See Couat, op. cit., 232-5.
5
See Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, ist edit., p. 115, or Adam,
Religious Teachers of Greece, p. 200, for fragments of Xenophanes.
228 SOCRATES
therefore must be purged of evil and baseness and
immorality.
Euripides, e.g., referring to the old myth that the
slaying of Neoptolemus at Delphi was a divine retri-
bution because his father had insulted Apollo, com-
pares such an action on the part of a god to the
1
sleepless grudge of a base-minded man.
There are moments when the poet, looking beyond
the moral confusions of the old theology, and through
the painful mystery of the world, catches glimpses of
some better order lying at the heart of changes and
working on this earth of ours.
" O earth's upholder that on earth dost dwell,
Whate'er thy name, hard to be understood,
Zeus, or necessity of Nature's course,
Or mind of mortals before thee I bow ;
For on thy noiseless pathway thou dost guide

As righteousness commands, all human things."
*
These words are the words of Hecuba, but the voice

is surely the voice of Euripides.
"
In Plato's " Republic we have Adeimantus setting
forth the plain blunt doctrines of the time-honoured
theology, according to which the just spend their time
"
in the next world, reclining on couches, wine-bibbing,
the fairest rewards of virtue being, in their estimation,
an everlasting carousal. 8 ... If the gods do exist
and concern themselves with us, we have heard nothing
of them from any other quarter than the current
traditions and genealogies of poets, and they say that
the gods are wrought upon and diverted from their
purpose by sacrifices and supplications and offerings.
If we
are to believe them, we will act unjustly and
offer sacrifices from the proceeds of our crimes." *
1
For his treatment of the gods, &c., see Verrall's Euripides
the Rationalist.
* in Greek Literature, p. 313.
Campbell, Religion
1 *
Republic, 363 c. Ibid., 365 e.
HIS RELIGION 229
The depraving effect on conduct, then, of such views

did not escape the notice of those who were given to
reflection, and was, of course, clearly recognised by
Plato himself, who declared that the gods were not
deceitful l nor feeble, 2 nor licentious, 3 nor purchasable, 4
and that it was sacrilege to attribute such vices to
them.
This we may take to be Socrates' doctrine also, for
nothing else is consistent with the figure alike of the
" "
Memorabilia and the " Dialogues of Plato." He was
not concerned to deny the existence of these gods it was ;
not worth while but if they are to be retained, they

;
must at least be freed from all that is unworthy while ;
the arithmetical constitution of the invisible Godhead

is a very subordinate consideration, but the lofty
moral character of it must be upheld and vindicated.

The moral law must control the Godhead, not the
Godhead the moral law. This is the conviction
which Plato makes him express in the "Euthyphro,"
where Socrates argues that a thing is not holy because
the gods love it, but that they love it because it is
5
holy.
This is to approve a change in men's estimates and
valuations which is of far-reaching import. It is to
put morality at the very heart of religion, and to place

goodness above any arbitrary and conventional means
of pleasing the gods. It is at once to humanise and
moralise theology, to bring it back to the simplicity of
goodness, truth, and righteousness from the arti-
ficialities of any system based on the arbitrary pre-
rogatives and preferences of its gods. shall see We

the ethical character of his religion brought out more
fully in his discussion of the nature of Piety. In
addition to this what we have tried to indicate in the
1
Rep., 382. Ibid., 388 c, 389 a. 390 b,
Ibid., c.
4
Ibid., 390 d, e; cp. 391. Euthyphro, 10.
230 SOCRATES
foregoing is that Socrates had no clear and definite
system of the gods in his mind, with the spheres and
functions of each clearly separated and defined. Such
an articulate polytheism had been eclipsed by the
cardinal thought of Deity or Godhead as such in the
various phases of its activity and relationship with
mortals. It was immaterial therefore whether one
spoke of God or gods, and any attempt to discuss and

define the point by human reason Socrates would
probably have treated as presumptuous and futile,
believing that it transcended human knowledge and
was among those divine things that we ought not to
pry into and which don't concern us. If "
there is
"
any maintainable distinction, it is that God is
the term preferred when the world and providence is

" "
being considered, gods when it is a matter of
divine dealings with men. 1
Enough for him that he believed the divine powers
to be interested in men and to take care of them. 2
"
There is no good thing which they do not give us," 3
and all the blessings we enjoy in life and all that is
needful for our terrestrial existence come of their
grace they send the seasons with their pleasant
;
vicissitudes and the fruits of the earth from them ;
are fire and water. The animals too are given by

them to be helpers and fellow-workers with man.
So also to the gods we owe those senses by which we
apprehend and enjoy the world without, and the inner
faculties of memory and reason by which civilisation
is built up. 4
"
It seems to me," says Socrates in the "Phaedo,"
"to be well said that gods look after us and that we
men are the possessions of the gods." 5
1
Joel, op. cit., i.
p. 135. Mem., I. i. 19.
8 *
Euthyphro, 15 a. Xen., Mem., iv. 3.
6
Phaedo, 62 b; cp. Plato, Laws, 906 a.
HIS RELIGION 231
And yet though they are the authors of all this good,
they themselves remain invisible. God who orders
and sustains the whole visible fabric of things abides
unseen by mortal eye, like the soul, which governs and
controls our body. 1 And yet, as already said, they are
eveiy where, and nothing that we plan or say or do
2
escapes their all-seeing eye.
The Socratic conception differs in no very material
way from that of Christ, who believed in the existence
under the supreme command of
of legions of angels
one who was both Creator of all and his own Father.
The same essential attributes are assigned to the
Deity, and there emerges the same trustful faith in the
guardian care of God over men, who are His own flock,
"
the sheep of His pasture, His possessions."
Christendom has not always maintained inviolate
such a high and hopeful doctrine.
(c) SOCRATIC PIETY

So far we have been dealing with what the Deity
is man, now the question arises, How does man come
to
into touch with the Deity, how can he please God ?
To answer that question involves the consideration of
what Socrates understood by Piety, and we shall find
that while adopting the recognised forms and ritual,
he put a fresh content into them. He refined and
spiritualised what he accepted, like the later Hebrew
prophets and like Jesus himself, who, as far as one can
learn, did not directly attack the Jewish sacrificial
system as such, but declared that in itself it was not
enough, that morality and a right attitude of heart
and soul must go with it.
"
If thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against
1 '
Mem., iv. 3. Ibid., I. i. 19.
232 SOCRATES
thee, leave therethy gift before the altar, and go thy
way, be reconciled
first to thy brother, and then come
and offer thy gift." 1 The Law with its ritual is not
impugned, but it is to be fulfilled in a new spirit.
" The heart's aye the part aye
That makes us right or wrang."
The problem of what constitutes piety is discussed

in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, and also in some reminis-
cences of Xenophon's. In the former Socrates leads
on Euthyphro from one definition to another, showing
him that none of them are satisfactory or self -consistent.
First of all piety is stated to consist in just such conduct
as Euthyphro is engaged in with such apparent zeal
and self-complacency, viz. prosecuting anyone guilty
of sacrilege or crime. But Socrates does not want
merely examples of pious action, but the true defini-
tion, a statement of the quality whose presence it is
in all examples of piety that makes them pious. Euthy-

"
phro takes another shot Piety is that which is dear
:
to the gods, and Impiety is that which is not dear to

them." 2 Whereupon Socrates points out that with
gods who quarrel and differ with each other, loving
and hating different things (as in the orthodox theology
they do), the same action would on this definition turn
out to be both pious and impious at the same time.
Moreover he goes on to show that to define piety as
that which is loved by God, is to substitute one fact
about the thing for the thing itself, for, it is admitted,
a thing is not holy because it is loved by God, but is
beloved by God because it is holy. 3
Still further on Socrates gets Euthyphro to admit
that piety is a part of justice, i.e. there may be justice
where there is no piety, but there can never be piety
where there is not justice. 4 Asked to specify what
1 * ' *
Matt. v. 23. Euthyphro, 6. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 12.
HIS RELIGION 233
part of justice piety and holiness are, Euthyphro

"
answers, that part which attends to the gods."
Being pressed by the insistent dialectician as to the
"
precise meaning of the phrase attention to the gods,"
Euthyphro gets a trifle impatient and bored, and de-
"
clares he understands by piety pleasing the gods in
word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices ; that is
piety, and it is the salvation of families and states,
just as its opposite, which is unpleasing to the gods, is
their ruin and destruction."
Socrates translates this the bald
definition into
language of
economics, as commercial
a nice little
transaction between gods and men, in which you give

them gifts in sacrifice and ask back gifts in prayer x ;
in more vulgar parlance, a case of scratching their back

that they scratch yours.
may
Euthyphro, being only human, is nettled by the
underlying facetiousness of his solemn cross-examiner,
and after an unsatisfactory weak piece of argument,
by which Socrates leads him into the ditch again,
Euthyphro says he is in a hurry and must be off, and
so Socrates is left lamenting that he does not yet know
what piety and holiness are, and must continue at the
mercy and his charge of impiety, whereas
of Meletus
"
I
might have proved that I had been converted
by Euthyphro, and had done with rash innovations
and speculations in which I had indulged through
ignorance, and that I was going to lead a better life
in future." The dialogue thus ends with a
character-
irony levelled at his accusers, as well
istic bit of jesting
as at Euthyphro, who was so sure that he knew what
piety was, and that his conduct was all right.
The dialogue, however, suggests the points insisted
on in the discussion of the same subject with Euthy-
" a
demus in the Memorabilia," viz. that if our piety is to
1 *
Euthyphro, 15. Mem., iv, 6.
234 SOCRATES
be secure from error and mistake, it must be based on
knowledge. Tradition and convention and dogmatism
won't do. Piety means honouring the gods in the
proper form, or according to the law, and to do this
we must know the proper form, or the law, a knowledge
which will inevitably be followed by corresponding
conduct, for who that honours the gods at all would
do it otherwise than in what he knew to be the proper
form ?
(d) We have noted the sly depreciatory suggestion

of Socrates about sacrifice and prayer as too commonly
practised, though of course Euthyphro repudiates the
idea that it is a piece of business on the level with the
market, wherein gods and men buy each others' com-
modities at mutually advantageous prices.
Socrates at any rate did not hold the vulgar com-
mercial theory of sacrifice and prayer. Deity has need
of nothing, 1 as even the ordinary religious man knows
when he comes to reflect. 2 What, then, is its meaning
and purpose ? If Xenophon be right, the Socratic
doctrine is that it is a way of showing gratitude to the
gods.
3
But how can one do that in any way that is at
all adequate ? It seems impossible. Socrates, how-
ever, takes a genial view of the Godhead, and falls back
on the Delphian oracle 4 with its dictum that we must
show this gratitude according to the law of the State,
i.e. by means of sacrifices in proportion to our means.
We do not show the gods honour by offering them less

than it is in our power to give but, having done our
;
best, we can rest in the hope of their highest blessing. 6

And that best is impossible apart from obedience to
them.
It is not at all a question of the amount or the cost-
liness of our gifts, but entirely of the right spirit. The
1 * *
Mem., i. 6, 10. Euthyphro, 14 e. Mem., iv. 3, 16.
* Ibid. *
Ibid., iv. 3, 17.
HIS RELIGION 235
thing that gives worth to all our giving to the gods is

the heart of humble obedience to them. 1 The little
offerings of the poor man are as precious in their eyes as
the large offerings of the wealthy, otherwise the offer-
ings of bad men would be more acceptable often than
those of the good. 2 And if that were so, human life
would not be worth living, 3 for its moral foundations
would be overthrown, and its moral value dismissed in
the courts above. Socrates held the conviction that
the satisfaction and joy of the gods in our gifts is in
direct proportion to the piety and holiness of the
4
giver.
He was not the first to hold such views. Pythagoras
was credited in Cynic schools with having inculcated
that in sacrifice the purity of the soul was of more value
than the costliness of the offerings.
6
How far Socrates
was influenced by Pythagorean teaching is a very
debatable point, and it is not of much importance
that we should assess the exact measure of his origin-
ality. What is worth insisting on is that the whole
temper of his mind and tone of his thought was such
as naturally to lead him to lay stress on the inner and
spiritual as against the outer and mechanical, and to
let the latter rest as it was, so long as the former could
be made right and pure. Attend to the spirit and
motive of your religion, and the forms may be allowed
to look after themselves. He stood for the supremacy
of character and morality in rite and ceremony, and
for the inner and spiritual over against the merely
external, in man's quest for reconciliation and peace
with God. 6
It must be confessed that a right sense of values
1 *
Mem., iv. 3, 17. Ibid., i.
3, 3.
8 *
Ibid. Ibid.
8
Joel, op. cit.,vol. ii. pt. i. p. 209.
1
Cp. Adam, Religious Teachers of Greece, p. 351.
236 SOCRATES
in these matters was becoming more and more neces-
sary in Greece, and the necessity was winning recogni-
tion among thoughtful people, for the elaborate sacri-
ficialsystem was leading to "
abuses, as voiced by
Adeimantusin the " Republic of Plato, and to priestly
hypocrisy and worldliness as satirised by Aristophanes.
The doctrine sedulously diffused and commonly
accepted that men could escape the penalties of their
sins, and win the personal favour of the gods, apart
from inward repentance and virtue, could not but
corrupt character and undermine morals.
"
There are quacks and soothsayers," says Adeiman-
"
tus, who flock to the rich man's doors and try to per-
suade him that they have a power at command, which
they procure from heaven, and which enables them
by sacrifices and incantations, performed amid feasting
and indulgence, to make amends for any crime com-
mitted either by the individual or by his ancestors ;
and that should he desire to do a mischief to anyone,

it may be done at a trifling expense ; for they profess
that by certain invocations and spells they can prevail
upon the gods to do their bidding." x Indeed, Adei-
mantils also attacks the Mysteries associated with the
name of Orpheus on precisely the same grounds that
"
they hold out to men a prospect of
being absolved
"
and purified from wrong and vice by the offering of
sacrifices and the participation in what he calls
"pleasurable amusements," thus encouraging men to

think that they will be able to escape the consequences
2
of their injustice.
Here, then, was a system which lent itself to success
without goodness, welfare without virtue, and which
could be readily enough perverted into the false doc-
trine that the gods could be bought over to one's
selfish ends by paying the necessary price.
8
1
Republic, 364 ; Davies and Vaughan's trans. Republic, 365 a.
HIS RELIGION 237
Aristophanes points out the utterly self-interested

and unspiritual character of such a religion in his
"
Knights," where Agoracrite, the sausage-seller, and
1
Cleon his rival are represented as offering sacrifice to

the gods for the most palpably selfish ends. It is not
submission of the will to God, but submission of God
to one's will, which becomes the object of such a cult.
"
In his " Plutus he satirises the insincerity, unspiritu-
2
ality, and materialism which characterises its devotees,
and even its priestly officials. When the high priest
of Zeus contemplates his shrine without worshippers,
it is not the decline of the faith which most distresses
him, but the diminution of the takings, and he resolves

that he will become an acolyte of Plutus, a position
that promises more profits. 8 In the same play we have
a scene in the temple of Asclepius by night, whither
Carion the slave has conducted the blind Plutus for
treatment. The lights have been snuffed, and the sick
put to bed, but Carion can't sleep, and happening to
open his eyes, what does he see but the priest quietly
cleaning the holy table of the dry figs and cakes offered
by the good souls. He steals round the altars, and
quickly empties what is on them into the bag he carries,
thus appropriating them to his own use. 4
The corruptions and tendencies to abuse of cere-
monial religion were thus making themselves felt as
a problem for the moralist and thinker, and the higher
ethics of Socrates, the stress he laid upon soul and con-
duct, grew out of the deeper needs of the times, and
was in harmony with them. He was just the teacher
and exemplar that the religious situation demanded
one who, while treating the established order with all
due reverence, yet placed the main emphasis on the
state and attitude of the soul within, with the conduct
1 '
424 b, c. Plutus, 11. 1172 ff.
8 *
Ibid., 11. 1186 ff. Ibid., 11. 665 fi.
288 SOCRATES
which issues therefrom, was of opinion that the gods
were more pleased with the deference of those who
were holy, 1 and gave them the fullest obedience, 2 and
went so far as to say that they were the men best and
most beloved of the gods who in the ordinary duties
3
of everyday life performed their tasks well.
His position was the result of that solid common-
sense and quiet sanity which characterised all his
relations, secular and sacred, and which were the em-
bodiment and expression of the faculty of Reason,
constructed and enriched by wide reading, large ex-
perience, and assiduous thought upon the many prob-
lems of human conduct.
(e) The impression of well-balanced moral health
and sound spiritual insight in matters of religion, which
Socrates gives, is further strengthened by what we are
told of his attitude regarding prayer. A man's inmost
thinking may be judged pretty well by his praying.
The out and in, and appear round
real character will flit
corners, amid any number of conventional artificialities

of petition and phrasing.
Aristophanes gives us an idea of the character of
a good deal of the praying that was in vogue in his day.
It had a fair quantity of superstition, and a keen eye
for the main chance in it, just like the sacrificing. It
aimed too often at getting the gods over to one's own

side, and winning their favour for one's own ambitions,
in this respect resembling the notorious prayer of
Holy Willie, who was by no means a purely im-
aginary character in Christendom.
"
But, Lord, remember me and mine
Wi' mercies temp'ral and divine ;
That I for fear and grace may shine,

Excelled by nane,
And a' the glory shall be thine,
"
Amen, Amen !
*
1 *
Mem., i. 3, 3. Mem., iv. 3, 16.
* * 11. ff.
Mem., iii. 9, 15. Cp. Aristophanes, Plutus, 134
HIS RELIGION 289
People would enumerate as many of the gods as pos-

sible in their invocation, so as to conciliate the good-will
of all of them, a feature which the comic poet parodies
"Knights," and in reference to which Couat

in the 1
"
wittily remarks that the most solid piety was that
which had the best memory." 2
The prayers of Socrates were short and simple;
he could cast himself in full trust upon the wisdom and
goodness of the Godhead. In this respect he was
ahead of Christianity in some of its Scotch forms, in
which the Almighty would be informed beyond any
possibility of mistake just what was wanted of Him,
as in the case of the minister of a rural parish where
the crops had been laid by rain, who is said to have
"
prayed that a wind should be sent O Lord, we
:
pray Thee to send us wind no a rantin,

; tantin, tearin'
wind, but a noohin', soughin', winnin' wind."
In Socrates' eyes it was an absurdity, as well as an
irreverence, to try to instruct and coax the Deity. Better
to have faith that the gods know best what things are
good, and pray that they may give us these.
" '
His formula of prayer was simple Give me the :
things that are good/ for, said he, the gods know best
what good things are to pray for gold, or silver, or
despotic power were no better than to make some
particular throw at dice, or stake in battle or any such
thing the subject of prayer, of which the future conse-
3
quences are manifestly uncertain."
" We ignorant of ourselves
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good so 4find we profit
;
By losing of our prayers."
In the dialogue, "Alcibiades II," Socrates is made to

1 *
11. 865 ff. Couat, Aristophane, p. 253.
*
Mem., i.
3, 2. Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra.
240 SOCRATES
quote admiringly the prayer of some poet for his
friends :
" O Zeus, grant us blessings, prayed for or not,

And defend us from evils even that we pray for." i
"
In its perfect faith and self-suppression," remarks
"
Prof. Adam, the Socratic formula of prayer is more
2
Christian than Greek." But
was not entirely
it
unique and solitary. Pythagoras was said to have

taught his disciples that the wise ought simply to pray
to the gods for blessings, 8 and Xenophanes, a philo-
sopher of the sixth century before Christ, who had
4
severely criticised the traditional conceptions of the

gods, was content that prayer should be summed up
"
in the petition for power to do that which is right."
It brings out the fact that paganism so called did not
wander about in utter darkness, without God or hope ;
there were many who believed in the goodness of the

gods above them, and who could rest in the faith of the
old Roman poet :
"
Aptissma quaeque dabunt Di
Carior est illis homo quam sibi."
" The
gods will grant what is best for us,
For man is not so dear to himself as to them."
This humble childlike faith was the very core of the
personality of Socrates ; it was the very acra of his
character. His life was one of absolute trust in the
transcendent divine goodness ; this was its keynote,
a note of strength and joy with such trust he could ;
face either life or death for everything works to- ;
gether for good to him who thus knows God.

He always had the sense that the divine will was
operating above and through life, guiding everything
to its destined goal of good, and that it was man's privi-
lege to be a helper of the gods, co-operating with them,
and sharing their purpose. It is, therefore, in perfect
1 *
Alcibiades, ii. 143 a. Adam, op. cit., p. 352.
8 *
Joel, op. cit., vol. ii.
pt i.
p. 209. Born circa 570 B.C.
HIS RELIGION 241
consistency with Socrates' mind and character, especi-

ally ashe laid so much store by work done well and
done with all one's might, that he should tell Crito-
bulus, as he does in Xenophon's "GBconomicus," that
the exhortation to endeavour to begin all work with
heaven's help, commands his entire assent. 1
There is one other prayer, put upon Socrates' lips
by Plato, and it grows and blossoms from them with
the beauty of a rose in its natural place. It seems to
give us the very essence and peculiarity of the soul of
the great sage, in its spirituality, and a certain quaint
abruptness in thought. It comes at the close of the
"
Phaedrus." Socrates and his companion rise to leave
the beautiful little spot, with its grass and spring and
spreading plane-tree, where they have been together
in high discourse of the soul. The entire natural and
spontaneous religious feeling of the sage suggests a
and he prays
fitting expression for itself in prayer, :
"
Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods, who haunt
this place, give me beauty in the inward soul and ;
may the outward and the inward man be one. May

I judge the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have
such wealth as only the wise could bear and carry." 2
"
Give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the
outward and the inward man be one," what more
perfect blossom can be culled from all the liturgies in
which man has ever sought to build into words his
high desire and unalienable aspiration. In it prayer
has become a lyric, and all the poetry of religion has
crushed its sweetness into fragrant speech.
We have been accustomed in certain religious circles
to hear indiscriminate references to paganism and all
its works, in the supposed interests of the religion of
Jesus, and to the supposed glory of God. It is needless
to say that ordinarily the people who stoop to such
1 *
CEconomicus, ch. vi. I. Phaedrus, 279 b, c,
16
242 SOCRATES
wholesale superficial depreciation of other religious
systems and spiritual cults are ignorant of their finer
products, and have but little sympathy with the
catholicity of their God, whose light breaks through
the many-sided prism of human thought and experience
in varied colours, to give light to them that walk in
darkness, and so lead them into communion with
Himself. The highest reverence for God is the rever-
ence for all He has made. If He has looked and seen
that it was all very good, it is not for His professed
worshippers to look and see that nearly all of it was very
bad. That is to show such a pathetic lack of moral
and spiritual appreciation, linked to such a vulgar
expression of it, as can only alienate the humble and
devout and sincere seeker after those things of beauty,
good, and truth which anywhere and everywhere the
Creative Spirit of the Most High has scattered over the
many pathways of man's pilgrimage here below.
Let us love the highest religion in a Socrates as well
"
as in a Paul. To summarise the whole matter, Piety,
according to Socrates, consists, on the one hand, in
the free observance of religious ceremonies after the
custom of the state, in the presenting of offerings
according to one's means, in prayer for the Good in
general, and, on the other hand, in the achieving of the
good and the avoidance of the evil from awe of the
disfavour and punishment of the gods." l
We quarrel with this summary of Prof. Doring's
only in the last suggestion, that for Socrates the motive
of well-doing is the fear of the gods' punishment.
No doubt the approbation of the gods was a strong
factor with Socrates, but he would surely have said,
"
with F. W. Robertson, that if there be no God, no
future state, yet even then it is better to be generous

than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better
1
Doring, Lehre des Sokrates, pp. 448, 449.
HIS RELIGION 243
to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a

coward." Plato was not above him in this. 1
(/) It is in prayer that most religious people realise the
closest intercourse and communion of the soul with
its God. But Socrates was among that smaller number
who believe themselves to have special visitations of
the Divine, and to be the recipients of direct intima-
tions from it. Such impressions and convictions, arising
out of one's inner experience, have a way of authenti-
cating themselves beyond all doubt to those who have
them, and they are generally confined to men and women
with an unusually intense realisation of religious reali-
ties. It is not surprising that it is out of this class
there come the great spiritual prophets of the world's
history. And wherever we find such experience in
some form, we may be sure that we are in the neigh-
bourhood of strong prophetic and religious affinities.
Socrates was a man whose intellect and reason could
never be at rest ; he must have clearness and con-
sistency on all subjects which are vitally important
to us. All the more impressive, therefore, to find
that he believed himself in contact with that spirit
world, of which another great intellectual wrote :
" Die Geister-welt ist nicht geschlossen

Dein herz ist todt, dein sinn ist Zu." 2
We have already seen that in the Platonic dialogues

we are taught to realise that there is more in heaven
and earth than any merely rationalistic philosophy
can dream of that there is room in them for strange
creations of poetry and imagination. The universe
is peopled with dim forms and
phantom shapes beyond
our ken.
No other view is really so reasonable as that. The
1
Rep. 358 d, and 367 e. Life and Letters, i.
p. 104.
*
Goethe, Faust.
244 SOCRATES
belief in higher spiritual beings than ourselves is one
to which common
sense would lead us.
It was a belief congenial, of course, to the Greek, and
Socrates shared it. But he had no dogmatic theory
about such worlds unrealised. It was enough for him
to accept it so far as it seemed to enter his experience,
and in one matter of the guidance of his life he believed

it did enter.
There was something of the mystic as well as of the
rationalist in the rich soul of this prophet and truth-
seeker. He had
experiences of
rapt contemplation,
such as we hear of in the case of the Christian saints
and mystics. And any account of him which denudes
this aspect of his character of significance is partial
and insufficient. It is leaving the Prince of Denmark
out of Hamlet. For to our mind it is not more in the
Socratic dialectic than in the Socratic experience of
religion that we most truly find the man.
The whole character includes both sides, of course,
but the tendency of recent philosophical commentators
is to shift all the significance of the revelation of Socrates
to his achievements in logic. It was certainly a mighty
birth of genius whose issue was to be Plato, in which
philosophy opened its eyes on a whole new world,
but when we are dealing with the personality of Socra-
tes, it represents only one part of a larger and richer
whole. Socrates was essentially a philosophic mind,
but he was also, and no less essentially, a religious
spirit. And to him religion was not simply a matter
of ideas and beliefs, but even more of feeling and inner
experience.
There was a tremendous mental intensity about
Socrates, but whether that of itself would account for
those occasions of absorption when he became lost
to the world about him, whether he was like a piece
" "
of machinery that sleeps when it is going at top
HIS RELIGION 245
speed, or whether we must assume some psychical

abnormality, such as would relate him on one side to
the religious devotee like George Fox, it is difficult to de-
cide. We think the evidence points to an explanation
which must involve both characteristics.
There were times when, perhaps without any warning
to those around him, Socrates would suddenly relapse
into a fit
profound abstraction, and this must have
of
been sufficiently well known, in the Socratic circle at
least, to make it weave it into his
possible for Plato to
artistic portraiture For example, in
of the master.
the " Symposium," 1 it is related that he was just ap-
proaching the house of Agathon, who had won the
prize for his first tragedy. Aristodemus was along
with him. The latter, however, on entering, became
aware that he was by himself. A servant was sent out
to fetch Socrates, but brought back the message that
he had retired to the portico of a neighbouring house ;
"
there he is standing, and when I call he will not
2
come."
Aristodemus, to prevent Socrates being further dis-
turbed, excuses him by saying, " This is a habit of
his. He withdraws, and stands absorbed just where
he happens to be." Socrates was accordingly left
alone, and came in when the feast was about half
" not
over, having been absorbed a long time, as was
8
his wont."
The language definitely suggests that these periods
of rapt contemplation were fairly frequent in Socrates'
experience. And Alcibiades tells the story of one such
"
occasion when Socrates had a spell of this self-
concentration in thought from dawn till noon." By
that time he attracted the curiosity of the others, but
still he remained lost to the outside world, and in that
condition he remained standing through all the follow-

1
Symposium, p. 174. Ibid., 175 a. c.
Ibid., 175
246 SOCRATES
ing night, till the sun rose next morning, when he
addressed an invocation to the sun and went away. 1
"We are reminded," says Gomperz, "of Newton,
who, one morning, was found sitting half-dressed
late
in bed, sunk in meditation and on another occasion
;
remained for a long time in his cellar, where a train of

thought had taken possession of him, while in the act of
2
fetching a bottle of wine for his guests."
We are not, however, definitely informed of the pre-
cise state of Socrates' mind in these conditions. Was
it always the solution of some intellectual problem
of the philosopher ? Had it nothing in it of the rapt
emotion or beatific vision of the saint ? Was it not
an experience like that of the Indian philosopher and
mystic, to which Mr. W. B. Yeats has referred in his
"
introduction to the beautiful book of Song Offerings,"
by Rabindranath Tagore ? Of Mr. Tagore,
"
he says,
it was told him by an eyewitness that every morning
at three, he sits immovable in contemplation, and for
two hours does not awake from his reverie upon the
nature of God. His father, the Maha Rishi, would
sometimes sit there all through the next day once :
upon a river he fell into contemplation because of the
beauty of the landscape, and the rowers waited for

"
eight
hours before they could continue their journey. 3 We
must not fail to remember the complexity of Socrates'
mind and temperament, nor forget that he is represented
to us as subject not only to these fits of abstraction, but
also to hearing a divine voice, and to seeing visions.
Macaulay came fresh to the reading of Plato from other
fieldswhere he had gathered wide knowledge of human
nature, and the impression which the personality of
Socrates made on his mind is not to be put aside with-
out more ado, although it is always marred by a certain
1 *
Symposium, 220 c, d. Greek Thinkers, ii.
p. 47.
1
Song Offerings, Introd., pp. x, xi.
HIS RELIGION 247
lack of sympathy, which we should hardly have ex-

pected in a deeply pious man, and a historian of power.
He says in his diary of July 1853, this, among other
things :
"
The stories of the oracle, the divine monitor, and
the dream are absurd. I imagine that, with all his
skill in Logomachy, Socrates was a strange, fanciful,
superstitious old fellow. Extreme credulity has often

gone with extreme logical subtlety. Witness some of
the Schoolmen witness John Wesley." l
;
It is something as inclusive as this view, though

corrected by a recognition of the sane moral and in-
tellectual vision of Socrates, which we have been forced
"
to adopt. 2 Socrates showed no "extreme credulity
" "
or superstition in his attitude towards the religious
mythologies and rites of his times. All the more im-

pressive and startling, therefore, his experience and
acceptance of the more intimate and personal inter-
course of the Divine with his own soul. Whether or
no we choose to dismiss these experiences as credulity
and superstition and on the objective aspect of them
we refrain from passing a judgment at any rate the
admission of their subjective reality throws clearly
up before our minds the intensely religious tempera-
ment of Socrates. It was really this inner personal
and individual experience of, and intercourse with, the
powers of the upper spiritual world, deeper and more
intimate than ritual conformity with the established
religion of the state, which was the most powerful in-
fluence in Socrates' life. His temperament was not
of the ecclesiastical, but of the mystical order the ;
true centre of his religion was not the temple but the
soul.
There are several instances in Plato of Socrates
1
Life and Letters, by Trevelyan, ch. xiii.
*
Cp. Plutarch's Moralia : De Genio Socratis, ch. 9.
248 SOCRATES
referring to visions, as a means by which the gods
revealed their will. 1 In the " Apology
' '
he declares that
discussion with others was a duty imposed on him by
"
Apollo, and he was confirmed in it by oracles, visions,
and in every way in which the will of the divine power
was ever to anyone." 2 According to the
signified
"
Crito," he had a vision in the night, while he lay in
prison awaiting the day of death, in which there
seemed to come to him a lovely and beautiful woman,
clad in white garments, who called him, and said :
"
O Socrates, the third day hence to Phthia shalt
thou go." 3
It was quite clear to Socrates what the vision meant,
and the fact appears to have turned out accordingly.
In the " Phaedo," we are told that while in prison he
busied himself in turning some fables of Êsop into
verse, and composed a hymn to Apollo, because of a
dream that had often come to him, sometimes appear-
ing in one form and sometimes in another, but always
saying the same words :
" *
Socrates, cultivate the muse."
It does not seem to us that these passages are to be

taken as examples of Socrates' ironical and humorous
way of speaking, unless, indeed, we are prepared to
" "
interpret the divine voice also in that way, and
treat it as a mere figure of speech, and that is not pos-
sible, for it was not for a figure of speech that Socrates
was accused and condemned. We are compelled to
admit that with all his intellectualist and rationalising
Cp. the Apostle Paul, Acts ch. 22, w. 17 and 18 ; Tertullian,
1
"The majority of men, almost "learn God from visions"; Inge,

"
Christian Mysticism," p. 16, They played a much more im-
portant part in the life of the early Church than many ecclesiastical
historians are willing to admit."
"
Apol., 33 c. The sentiment of the
8
Republic" is against these
visions and divinations and soothsayings, see 382 e.
8
Crito, 44 a, b. Phaedo, 60 d-6i b.
HIS RELIGION 249
passion, he continued to believe in the direct intercourse

of the Deity with the individual through visions and
oracles, and that he himself was so constituted as to
be the conscious recipient of these supernatural re-
velations and admonitions. On this side of his nature
he recalls George Fox, the founder of the sect called
Quakers, who, on one occasion, we are told, fell
into a trance which lasted fourteen days, and out
of which he came as though he were another man, 1
and who also, at various times in his life, heard
voices. Like Socrates with the vision and command
about cultivating the muse, Fox also had his doubts
"
and hesitations about the exact meaning of a voice." a
There were, of course, important differences between
Socrates and Fox as regards culture and intellectual
power and development but the similarity as regards
;
these peculiar experiences, however we may interpret

them, points to a similar religious temperament in the
case of Socrates as in that of Fox, a temperament in-
tense in its emotions and convictions, so intense as to
demand a personal contact with, and an original
experience of, the higher spiritual world, and not to
be satisfied with a conventional religion of external
rites and forms. Its religion must be a religion of the
Inner Light.
It was common accepted belief in the time of Socrates
that the gods revealed their will to men by the voices
of thunder or of birds in the external world, 3 and accord-
ing to Xenophon, Socrates was in favour of recourse
to divination, 4 in the case of affairs and enterprises
whose issue lay outside the sphere of purely human
control and knowledge but the characteristic feature
;
of his own experience was that the gods' will was de-
1
Life of George Fox, by Bickley, p. 23. Op. cit., p. 23.
* and Xen., Apol., 13,
Xen., Mem., i. i, 3,
*
See e.g. Mem., iv. 7, 10 ; cp. iv. 3, 12 ; i. 4, 15.
250 SOCRATES
clared to him directly and apart from the usual external
media. The form which the supernatural communica-
tion took with him was most distinctively not dream
or vision, but a voice, unaccompanied by any visual
appearance. And it must be definitely recognised that
in his own apprehension and interpretation of this phe-
nomenon, it was not merely the sudden and emphatic
registration in consciousness of the decision of any
natural instinct or insight or endowment, but truly
and authentically an intervention on the part of Deity
through the medium of some sort of spirit or divine
sign.
The evidence of both Plato and Xenophon is con-
clusive on that point. Socrates was convinced that
the gods of their own free grace did stoop to guide
mortals in their ordinary lives with regard to events
of doubtful issue, 1
and he had experience of it in inti-
mations or signs within his own soul.
"
You have often heard me say that a sort of divine
thing, a spirit agency (daimonion), comes into my ex-
perience, the point indeed which Meletus, surely in
jest,has made matter of indictment. Ever since my
boyhood I have had experience of a certain voice,
which, when it comes to me, always forbids me to do

something which I am going to do, but never commands
me to do anything it is this which opposes my follow-
;
2
ing a political career."
It was in view of the dictates of this voice that he
refrained from preparing any set defence when on
8
trial.
Socrates placed implicit confidence in its admoni-
1
Xen., Apol., 13 Mem., i. i, 2.
;
1
Plato, Apol., 31 d cp. Theages, 128 d
; ; Euthydemus, 272 e;
Phaedrus, 242 ;Repub., 496 c Euthyphro, 3

;
b Apuleius, De Deo
;
2 and 4 i and 5.
Socratis, ch. 19; Xen., Mem., i. i, ;
iv. 8,
1
Xen., Mem., iv. 8, 5.
HIS RELIGION 251
tions, and, if we may credit Xenophon on this point, he

claimed never to have been deceived by it, and never
to have misled friends by any advice he gave on the
1
strength of it. It was quite a constant and familiar
monitor, and spoke its warning even in affairs of but
slight importance.
2
But when Plutarch 3 relates the
story that it once saved him from a scuffle with a herd
of pigs by warning him to turn back from a certain
road, while those who went on got splashed with mud
among the hogs, we feel that the supernatural has
taken a turn toward the ridiculous, a fate which is
apt to befall it in the hands of credulous and enthusi-
astic devotees.
Another point in regard to the sign mentioned by
Plato is that it was of such a peculiar and abnormal
nature, that he can claim that to only an odd one, if

to any at all, had it ever before been granted, 4 and this
ought to prevent us from identifying it simply with
the voice of conscience.
Wemay lay it down at once, if we are to accept our
authorities at all, that it was no ordinary and common
human faculty or gift. The one feature in regard to
it in which Xenophon appears to be in explicit con-
tradiction with Plato, is that while the latter always
speaks of it as warning Socrates against doing certain
things not to his best interest to do, the former
it is
6
states that also exhorted him to things he should do.
it
But, as Zeller has argued, the contradiction is more

apparent than real, for if the divine sign did not forbid
him to take any particular course, he could therefrom
assume its approbation of it, although one would infer
Mem., i. i, 4.
Plato, Apol., 40 a ; ist Alcibaides, 103 a.
Plutarch's Moralia, De Genio Socratis, ch. 10.
Repub. 496 c ; cp. Mem., iv. 3, 12.
Mem., iv. 8, i ;
iv. 3, 12 ; i.
4, 15.
252 SOCRATES
from Xenophon that it definitely enlightened him as
to what things he ought to do.
To Socrates, then, the " daimon " or " sign " was no
other than the voice of Deity, and was the expression
of his sense of direct supernatural communion, without
the intervention of external phenomena. God not only
speaks through the wind, and fire and thunder, but
also through the still small voice within. That being
so, this communion is quite independent of time and
place, and the usual means of divination. It becomes
not a physical, but a spiritual phenomenon, in this
respect marking a great advance on the state religion
of the time. Moreover, it renders void the theory that
the gods' intercourse with men is confined to certain
definite ceremonies or sacred occasions. Socrates felt
personally and inwardly in touch with the supernatural
through all the affairs of his life. It is true religion
touched life at many points for the ordinary Greek,
but even so, it seemed to be more a statutory, official,
hereditary affair, its sanctions being invoked on recog-
nised social occasions, but with Socrates it comes to
have an intimate and private value and meaning con-
cerned with everyday life and conduct. The divine
makes its presence felt in the mysterious depth of the
soul, and this characteristic makes Socrates' experience
an important contribution to the development of
spiritual religion. Socrates put the most implicit
faith in the "sign," and rendered it unquestioning
obedience. It was under its direction that he shaped
his life in its larger as well as in its lesser aspects. It
was guided by monition that he abstained from the
its
career of politics to which every Athenian of mature
years was devoted, and gave himself up to his mission
of recalling his fellow-countrymen to the paramount
interests of the soul, and of quickening in them a sense
of the need of knowledge or science as a condition of
HIS RELIGION 253
the welfare of the individual and society. His was a

lifesainted and set apart by the express ordination of
the Deity, transmitted not through priest or hierarch,
but sealed by the immediate impression of the divine
call on the spiritual sense.
THE SIGN
Its Interpretation
It is needless to say that commentators and writers

have tried to give a less supernatural explanation of
"
the Socratic voice."
Whether one can accept Socrates' own belief about it
depends largely on one's conception of God and the
world.
A religious man might well hold that it was the right
and that we have no right to go be-
interpretation,
hind the immediate self-consciousness and experience
of Socrates in the matter.
And certainly if Christian testimony is to rest secure
against criticism on the basis of the soul's experience,
as is often claimed to-day, so also must that of Socrates.
We have no logical or just right to accept the imme-
diacy of experience in one case, and reject it in another.
The man who judges of such things by the accident of
the particular religious traditions in which he happens
to have been brought up, is at once out of court as an
impartial judge of religious phenomena. From a quite
different point of view, Joel labours to deprive the
"sign" of its extraordinary and peculiar character as
an unique religious experience.
" "
It is than an individual, partly
more," he says,
1
physiological, partly psychological abnormality"; and
he proceeds to ask if Socrates were so little of a
1
op. tit., voL i.
p. 71.
254 SOCRATES
philosopher as to bring such a well-attested phenomenon
1
among the mysteries of the purely personal.
That representation of the case he holds to be due
to Xenophon's pronounced supernatural leanings.
" ' '
The path from divination in general to the sign

(divinity) of Socrates is no private footpath for him
alone it is the path of the Socratic philosophy in its
;
general significance, the path of the spiritual progress

of humanity from externality to inwardness, from
superstitious awe of the alien Power of Fate, to the
individual's sense of personal responsibility." 2
No doubt the Socratic "voice," when reflected on,
means the change from externality to inwardness, and
no doubt all that enters into its great value for humanity
in its spiritual progress, but it is going against the simple
facts, as they appear to us, to denude the phenomenon
of its private and mystical element.
It is Joel's theory that to Socrates man was an intel-
"
lectual, theknowing," being but that over and above ;
this element there remained an insoluble residuum,

"
which made itself felt, in the exercise of the faculty of
choice as individual tact, as conscience, as intuition,
as an unerring instinct and feeling for the intellectual
or moral occasion. This undefined psychical power,
whose working Socrates must have recognised, but
which he could not explain, this strange inner faculty,
' '
he called a divinity (8<u/A<wov). It was the revenge

of the emotional part of the soul (Aristotle) that it
allowed itself to be pushed by this rationalist into
the furthest distant corner of his being, and then
from that obscurity exercised so decisive an influence
3
upon him."
Now from a general consideration of Socrates' use of
religious language, it is by no means impossible that
1 *
Jol, op. cit., p. 71. Ibid., i.
p. 73.
*
Ibid., i.
p. 75.
HIS RELIGION 255
he should use the term divinity in a loose, popular way,

or "ironically," and signify by it whatever was in-
explicable and outre in his experience, but, if we are
right in what we have said, it was not so in this case.
Nor can be maintained on the evidence that he gave
it
"
the name " divinity to what he himself believed to
be a natural faculty present, more or less, in men gener-
" " "
ally, andrightly definable as mere tact or intui-
tion," or an unerring instinct for the occasion the
savoir faire of a diplomatist, who knows just the right
thing to do without being able to give detailed reasons
for its Tightness.
Socrates was profoundly convinced of the limitations
of human knowledge in comparison with the field of
human action he was deeply conscious of the mystery
;
which, for man, wraps the world and the issue of human
"
conduct. The God alone is wise, and his oracle de-
clares human wisdom to be worth little or nothing,
employing the name of Socrates as an example. He

is the wisest of men who, like Socrates, knows well
that he is in truth worthless so far as wisdom is con-

cerned. The really disgraceful ignorance is to think
that you know what you
really do not know." Hence l
his profound sense of that dependence upon God in

which Schleiermacher found the eternal essence of
religion.
The opinion of the great German historian of Greek
" "
philosophy, Zeller, on the Socratic voice is very
much the same as that of Joel. He calls it an " inner

oracle" 2 and describes it as "a premonitory sense
[vorgefiihf] of the character of certain actions as advan-
tageous or injurious it is the inner voice of personal
;
tact which without reflection becomes the motive of

action to the faithful and incorruptible observer of the
1
Plato, Apol., 23 a, 29 b.
1
Geschichte d. Griechischen Philosophic, vol. ii.
p. 30.
256 SOCRATES
world of human life." It is an inner voice to be ex-
plained partly from the wide knowledge of life and

acute insight of the Attic sage and partly from this
self-knowledge and consciousness of what was appro-
priate to his own character. Its psychical origin, how-
ever, was not at the moment recognised by Socrates, and
so, in accordance with the spirit of the time, he trans-
formed it into an immediate divine revelation. 1
Zeller distinguishes it from the voice of conscience, 2
which has to do with the moral tone of actions, not
with their consequences in detail, and he also distin-
guishes it from the divine call to the philosophic life,
"
which Socrates always attributes to the god." 3 To
our mind, however, a reference to the passages in the
"
Apology," where Socrates speaks of his call to be a
spiritual prophet to Athens suggests a very close con-
" "
nexion between the god at whose behest he enters
" "
on his mission, and the voice which restrains him
from a political life, participation in which would
have exposed him to antipathies which would soon
have terminated his higher work and Piat is, in our
;
view, nearer to the feelings in Socrates' mind when

" " "
he identifies the voice with the god."
4 Neither
can we follow Zeller when he says that the voice be-
tokens the same withdrawal of the deepening spirit
into itself the same wrestling with an idea not brought
to full consciousness, as on other occasions plunged
Socrates into trance-like meditation. 6 It was the very
lack of the sense of personal activity which made the
voice seem to come from a higher source, as in the
8
experience of other mystics.
1 '
Zeller, op. cit., p. 23. Cp. Piat, Socrate, p. 219.
8
Apol., 29 d, 30 a, 31 d Theaetetus, 150 c, f
;
Rep., 496 c.
;
' '
Piat, Socrate, p. 211. Zeller, op. cit., p, 34.
'
See Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 78, 79.
HIS RELIGION 257
Fouillee 1 is so far nearer the subjective facts when

he likens the voice to reminiscence and intuition,
emphasizing the moment of spontaneity in the
total mental state, and comparing it to the unusually
heightened and clarified state of consciousness which
love produces. One may call it an "inspiration."
The voice for Socrates was certainly no idea to be
elucidated or problem to be solved, it was an im-
pression to be received. Fouillee in his further
characterisation of it goes on to say that the hearing
of it as a voice must be due to hallucination. 2 The
divinity must not be construed as a positive and
"
distinct being. 8 It is only a vague, interior voice, a
sign, a presentiment, something indefinable, which is
attributed to a divine cause, but without personifying
this cause into a divinity in the literal sense of the
words." * Socrates himself never defined it clearly,
nor attributed it to any particular god, 5 which may be
true enough, seeing that Socrates was altogether vague
about the persons of the Godhead generally, but we
do not think there is any room for doubt that Socrates
believed it to be an objective voice within him uttering
God's will.
"
Piat says For him it was the word of the great
:
God, God invisible, omnipotent, who made and governs

"
the world." It was the inward personal expression
which the Providence of the world took for Socrates."
It is going beyond the meagre data to assign thus
definitely the God to whom Socrates referred the voice,
and to distinguish Him so sharply from the other gods
of mythology. We are not inclined, in view of our
previous discussion, to agree that Socrates attributed
the divine sign directly to the Supreme Deity on the ;
1
La Philosophic de Socrate, vol. ii.
pp. 309-14.
1 * *
Ibid., p. 313. Ibid., p. 314. Ibid., p, 314.
5
Ibid., p. 314. Piat, Socrate, p. 220.
17
258 SOCRATES
whole, that at any rate he would conceive
it is likelier
God to speak through some intermediate spirit or

guardian deity. But it must be admitted that Socrates
did not, so far as our data go, critically analyse the
experience he had, and was content with believing it
a divine sign, without trying to identify its exact source.
Fiat's verdict upon the phenomenon as a whole is
expressed with a reserve that admirably suits the in-
complete state of our present knowledge. He is in-
clined to regard it as a psychical hallucination, but
recognises that it would be rash to dogmatise. "If God
is anything personal, if He is nearer to us than we to
ourselves and the contrary is far from demonstrated

why should He not have had mysterious conversations
"
which the ears of the soul alone can hear ? *
It is simply a cult of mediocrity, or a prejudice of
naturalism, to lump abnormal experiences like those
of Socrates with psychopathic phenomena, as is some-
times done. It is not far from a conceit of the common-
place to cite some of the greatest religious personalities
of history, men whoseinfluence over average humanity
has been extraordinary and far reaching, as the subjects
of mental disease, because their experience has not been
in accordance with ordinary rule. 2 Average humanity
is not in possession and use of every human faculty
and sense. It may be only the child in the womb,

waiting to be born into worlds beyond its present ken,
through the opening of senses yet closed and here ;
and there may appear a soul of finer endowment, in

whom one of these senses is to be found, though still
imperfect. There is nothing more natural on strict
evolutionary principles than that man's spiritual sense
may undergo spontaneous variations in the case of
certain members of the race, bringing them into touch,
1
Socrate, p. 221.
1
Cp. Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 61-75.
HIS RELIGION 259
in special ways, with the unseen environment of the

soul. And Socrates may well have been one of these
elect and privileged spirits, in whom a certain chord
iskeyed to vibrate to the voice of God, and to become
vocal with His message however transmitted.
One may, of course, look to the modern theory of
the subliminal self to afford the explanation of the
"
peculiar features of the "daimon of Socrates, but in
the meantime that would only be seeking the explana-
tion of the obscure in the mysterious. That theory
can throw no illumination on our psychological prob-
lem. To have recourse to it would be like accounting
for a light by the dark lai.tern in which it burns.
"
The subliminal says Professor James,
self, contains,
e.g., such things as all our momentarily inactive memo-
ries, and it harbours the springs of all our obscurely
motived passions, impulses, likes, dislikes, and preju-
dices. Our intuitions,
hypotheses, fancies, supersti-
tions, persuasions, convictions, and, in general, all
our non-rational operations, come from it. It is the
source of our dreams, and apparently they may re-
turn to it. In it arise whatever mystical experiences
we may have, and our automatisms, sensory or motor ;
our life in hypnotic and hypnoid conditions, if we are

'
'
subjects to such conditions our delusions, fixed ideas,

;
and we are hysteric subjects

hysterical accidents, if ;
our cognitions, if such there be, if

supra-normal
we are telepathic subjects. It is also the fountain-
head of much that feeds our religion. In persons deep
in the religious life, as we have now abundantly seen
and this is my conclusion the door into this region
seems unusually wide open ;
at any rate, experiences
making their entrance through that door have had
x
emphatic influence in shaping religious history."
But the region in which certain phenomena lie does
1
Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 483, 484.
260 SOCRATES
not explain these phenomena and their varying charac-
ters,nor does it determine their worth and value. More-
over, to take the bull by the horns, what conceivable
mental phenomenon does not enter through the sub-
liminal consciousness into our experience, and carry
upon it some colour of the medium through which it
has come ? There is not much help in this hypothesis.
The wisest plan, we repeat, seems to be to rest where
Socrates himself rested. He admitted its mysterious-
ness, and defined it in terms of his immediate sense
of its character and value as a "something divine."
Here at any rate we cannot go further without grave
risk of going astray. In a world in which, as Carlyle
insisted, everything is in the last analysis supernatural,
and, as Mr, Chesterton has said, the most ordinary
thing miraculous, it appears to us like straining at a
gnat while we swallow a camel, to deny that in his pecu-
liar experience of the sign Socrates could be in imme-
diate and peculiar touch with the divine agencies whose
activity sustains all that has life and being, and out of
whose consciousness our own has been hewn.
The only difference between such experiences and
those which we regard as normal and accept without
question, is merely one of frequency and value, and
not of inherent credibility. The history of the Christian
religion has furnished numbers of parallels to the Soc-
ratic voice. Many of them will hardly stand criticism,
and are due to hallucination, but that is no ground for
discrediting their authenticity in the case of men of
admittedly high or concentrated religious sensibility.
No amount of spurious imitative experience affects
those cases where the condition of genuine and original
experience existed.
There is the voice at Christ's baptism. There is
Saul on the way to Damascus hearing a voice from
heaven, so real to him, apart altogether from the*ques-
HIS RELIGION 261
tion of his interpretation of it, that it revolutionises

his life. There
Augustine in the garden hearing
is St.
"
the distinct command, Tolle et lege." John Bunyan,
busy with a game of cat on Sunday, all at once hears
"
the distinct question as from above, Wilt thou leave
thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to
"
hell ? George Fox, the" founder of the society called
"
Quakers, heard voices on various occasions. 1
One must admit the difficulty in distinguishing
between the cases where nerve conditions or psychical
conditions, as, e.g., of predisposition and expectation,
willthemselves account for the hearing of these voices ;
the subjective history of the individual will, in a pro-

portion of the cases, afford sufficient explanation, and
it isimpossible to set up any infallible criterion. The
subject is exceedingly obscure and delicate. But
unless we are prepared to characterise as illusory and
mistaken the ordinary exercises of the religious man,
wherein he claims to have direct communion with the
transcendent Deity, we see no logical and consistent
ground for scepticism in regard to all phenomena of
the nature of the divine sign of Socrates.
And now we turn to indicate the general significance of
this inner experience of Socrates in the history of man's
spiritual progress. Athenian comedy and the drama of

Euripides, as well as the teaching of the philosophers
and Sophists, nearly contemporary with Socrates, show
that the traditional and official religion was breaking
down at the touch of reflection and the cult of the ;
Mysteries points to the need that was being felt in

Greece for a more individual and personal religion to
satisfy the needs of the soul. In these respects Socrates
" "
seems to mirror the age. The Divine Voice re-
presents in the religious sphere that for which the

doctrine of Reason stands in the sphere of Truth and
1
See, e.g., Life by Bickley, pp. 14, 23, 26, 29, 68, 283.
262 SOCRATES
social relationships, viz., the principle of inwardness
and the right of individuality, though we do not claim
that Socrates rose to the abstract conception of such
principle and right. It signifies a private and personal
communion of God with, or relation of God to, the
individual soul, and that not through any external
state-established ritesand ceremonies, but spiritually
and directly. God
in the soul, God making His
It is
grace felt and His will known, inwardly to the indi-
vidual in an unmistakable way. Constituting, as it
does, a break away from the established religion, it
isnot altogether strange that the orthodox Athenian
should regard it as a dangerous innovation. It struck
him as an attempt at getting entree to the divine pre-
sence otherwise than by the recognised statutory way.
In that respect it was claiming divine respect for the in-
dividual as such and apart from state sanctions. There
was no saying to what nonconformities it might lead,
if the private citizen once got free of the grip of the
state upon his religious experiences. It would certainly

tend to disturb the old position of equilibrium between
the individual and society when the former was entirely
relative or subordinate to the latter. As Professor Joel
has put it, emphasizing, as is the purpose of his work,
the Cynic features of the picture of Socrates which has
come down to us: "The peculiar cult of the divine
voice is Cynic ;
ittypifies the apotheosis of subjecti-
vity ;
Socrates made the Cynic a subjectivist. It
was subjectivity that he proclaimed. 1 ... If there
isanything historical in the divine sign at all it affirms
that to a man of strong individual instincts like Socrates
the voice of one's own
being, wonderfully strange and
a
inexplicable, yet seemed worthy of reverence."
Wemust not, however, be supposed to suggest that
Socrates proclaimed independence as a principle, either
1 *
vol. Ibid.
Op t cit., II. pt. ii. p. 961.
HIS RELIGION 263
he had a very deep reverence

in society or religion, for
for duly constituted authority, and spoke as if the law
of the land were always to be taken as the guide of
conduct and the norm of religion. His attitude was
analogous to that of St. Paul to the Law and the
Prophets and Jewish religion. He frequented the
synagogues, accepted and believed the Old Testament,
yet he inculcated a higher and more spiritual and
catholic principle. The old loyalties remained, while
he proclaimed a new idea. 1
He was not conscious, really, of the full meaning and
tendency of the forces which found expression through
his personality he was instrument as much as agent
;
in the great spiritual movement which his life and

work symbolised he was building larger than he
;
knew, as it is the prerogative of the genius and the

inspired man to do. He is an illustration of Emerson's
"
aphorism that Character teaches above the will."
For with all his teaching about conformity to law, the
principle of individuality and independence was always
breaking out in him through character. His whole
personality in its various experiences and activities
was of itself a direct challenge to authority in thought,
and religion. It was not so much that he
politics,
advocated independence, but that he was independent.
Men looking at him could not fail to see the principle
embodied and be influenced by it either in the direction
of approval or opposition. He was a germinal person-
ality, rooted in the old, and bursting into flower and
fruit which carries the seeds of the new.
There is one further question of great interest with
regard to Socrates as a religious man, to which, in con-
clusion, we would refer. Did the inwardness of his
religious views and the spirituality of his temperament
lead him into association with any of the contemporary
1
See Acts xxiv. 11-16 ; Romans iii. 21, 22, 28 ; Galatians passim.
264 SOCRATES
societiesand cults which existed to meet just these
intenser personal needs of the soul which he felt ?
Sorel, a French writer, has expressed the opinion
that Socrates posed as a hierophant and sacred teacher,
adducing as the ground of his views the representation
"
given by Aristophanes in the Clouds," where Socrates
is presented as the chief priest of a little semi-religious,
semi-scientific community, which, badly housed, un-

washed, and caring nothing for the amenities or ele-
gances of ordinary life, devotes itself to searching into
the mysteries of heaven and earth, and to the cultiva-
tion of a dangerous dialectic. 1 The candidate for admis-
sion to the brotherhood has to undergo certain rites of
initiation suggested in Aristophanes' caricature, where
Strepsiades admitted
is as a student to the Notion-den.
Professor A. E. Taylor 2 has argued for a similar view.
He believes Socrates to have been one of a little band of
Pythagoreans leading an ascetic life, engaging in mystic
rites, and constituting a small dissenting community
or sect in the Athenian state. The conception of
Socrates as the leading spirit of such an esoteric circle,
as broadly sketched in the "Clouds," might perhaps
"
be supported from Xenophon's Banquet," where
Hermogenes, one of the Socratic elect, speaks of his
enjoyment of a more intimate intercourse with the
gods, and of especial signs of their grace, similar to those
vouchsafed to Socrates himself. He does not require
to have recourse to oracles, for the gods are so interested
in him as never to lose him from view night or day ;
and knowing as they do, they advise and

all things,
guide him by sending to him as their messengers,

voices, dreams, and auguries, thus enlightening him as
to what he ought and ought not to do. 3 To this, how-
1
Sorel,Le Proces de Socrate, p. 137.
1
Varia Socratica, ist series, pp. 17 ff, 148.
*
Xenophon, Banquet, ch. iv. 47.
HIS RELIGION 265
ever, Socrates replies in a rather detached way, and

not as one who has revealed this more intimate converse
with the gods to Hermogenes that he finds nothing
incredible in it, and that he learns with pleasure by
what services Hermogenes binds his friends to him a
somewhat irrelevant consideration.
In this connexion one may be permitted to quote,
for what it is worth, a tradition preserved in Diogenes
Laertius, regarding the meeting of Socrates and Xeno-
phon, which has the ring of the religious master-and-
disciple relation about it. Xenophon, a young man,
meeting Socrates, asks him: "Where is the market
" "
of life ? Where does one mould men to virtue ? "
"
interprets Socrates. Follow me, and I will teach
you."
Such evidence, however, from Aristophanes and
Xenophon is too ambiguous, precarious, and slender
to be much of a support to the theory of Socrates
we are considering, and it has to stand against the
force of the plain meaning of Socrates' statement in
" "
the Apology : "I have no regular disciples, but if
anyone likes to come to hear me while I am pursuing
my mission (of cross-examination), whether he be
young or old, he may freely come." l
This denial, excluding as it does the suggestion that
Socrates drew to himself a band of religious inquirers,
who in any way formed what could be called a cult,
on the basis of membership ratified by a solemn ritual
and an esoteric doctrine, together with the absence of
all reference to such a society in the Trial, leads us
again to the conclusion that, without any definite or

open break with, or repudiation of, the official religion
in vogue, Socrates found it possible to cultivate and
nourish that more spiritual conception of true
religion which was the distinctive thing about him.
1
Plato, Apol., 33 a.
266 SOCRATES
(g) THE SOUL AND THE^HEREAFTER

It has already been pointed out that in Socrates' view
the true dignity and superlative excellence of man lies
in the soul, the soul as the seat of that Reason and Intel-
ligence which link man with Deity. It is the soul and
not the body which constitutes the real self, 1 and is
the thing of paramount importance. The body is
merely its instrument and subordinate, there to carry
out its dictates and commands. 1 He held, so we have
maintained, that man's full and perfect life was to be
realised,not by annihilating all bodily desires and im-
pulses, but by regulating them and giving them their
proper place, which is a secondary one, in life's rational
and spiritual order. The body when kept in good
condition will prove to be instrumental to the soul's
purposes, and will not interfere with its apprehensions
and functions, as will happen if it be neglected or
abused.
At the same time the difference between the soul and
the body is strongly emphasized, and it is in virtue of
the former that man transcends the rest of the animal
creation, and is brought into communion with Deity.
It is because of it that man can rise to the height of
3
knowing and adoring the gods, for it makes him kin
with them. The soul partakes in the Divine 4 it ;
resembles the Divine in its faculty of intelligence,

6
memory, and foresight. Hence the reverence in
which Socrates always held it, and his assertion that
to neglect it and its interests is of all follies the most
foolish. "I do nothing but go about persuading
you all, old and young alike, not to take thought
1
ist Alcibiades, 130 C. Cp. Plato, Apol., 30 a.
1 *
ist Alcibiades, 130 C. Cp. Mem., i. 4. Mem., i. 3.
Mem., i. 4. Cp. Phaedrus, 253 a.
*
Mem., iv. 3. Cp. Phaedrus, 246.
HIS RELIGION 267
for your bodies and property, but first and foremost

to care about the greatest improvement of the
*
soul."
The the cause of life and motion and
soul again is
revival in the it is that principle in virtue of

body ;
which anything lives its very nature is to produce

;
life and movement. 1 And this characteristic is, in

"
the Phaedo," made the basis of one of the arguments
for the soul's immortality.*
It is not surprising that with his lofty view of the
soul, its dignity, its divinity, its inherent vitality,
Socrates should be predisposed to the belief in its im-
mortality. And Fouillee argues that he held that
belief,* a view which could be profusely supported if
it were permissible to attribute the doctrines of the
" " " "
Phaedo and " Phasdrus and " Republic to the his-
torical Socrates. But those who are prepared to do so
will have on their hands the task of reconciling the con-
viction of immortality which these dialogues manifest
with the less committal attitude of those other and
earlier dialogues which are usually admitted to be more
" "
direct and objective in their portraiture, the Apology
and "Crito." All we can gather from them is that
Socrates entertained at the best good hope of immor-
tality, while clearly conscious that the subject was one
which did not admit of positive proof and reasoned
knowledge.
His attitude towards the hereafter is one of agnos-
ticism. He does not know what happens subsequent
to death, but he is an optimist, and through that final
mystery his faith shines radiant and beautiful. What-
ever death brings he is convinced that it cannot be an
1
Plato, Apol., 30 a.
*
Mem., iv. 3. Cp. Phdo, 105 d Cratylus, 399,; d, e.
*
Cp. argument in Cratylus, 245 C.
*
La Philosophic de Socrate, ii. p. 157.
268 SOCRATES
evil,otherwise the divine voice would have warned
"
him to avoid
it. There is great reason to hope that
death is a good." 1 Death came before Socrates in
two possible forms, either of which he was pre-
pared to* defend as being a happier state than life on
earth.
(a) Itmay be a dreamless sleep that knows no
waking, a complete cessation of consciousness.
2
Even
"
so it will be a wonderful gain," 3 for there are few
days and nights of life probably better or more pleasant
than dreamless slumber an impressive statement,
which seems to point to a deep vein of melancholy in
Socrates (or in Plato), and rather strange on the lips
of one who held that with all his restraints and self-
denials he had lived a life which for sheer happiness
he would not exchange with the life of any other man.
Can it be that it was the verdict of reflection, in which
the many lights and shadows of experience blended
into grey, as one looked back at them for a moment
in the presence of the last mystery? It was at any
rate a very characteristically Greek sentiment.
4
"Such death, says Socrates, I call gain."
On the other hand, " if what is said is true, and death
is but a 'covered way,' a journey to another place
where the dead abide, what, O Judges, could be a greater

6
good than that ? If one will meet there with just
judges, with Minos and Rhadamanthus," as it is said,

"
with ./Eacus and Triptolemus, and all the other divine
spirits who were good in their
life here, then the journey
will be a trifle and to associate with Musaeus and

;
Hesiod and Homer, what price would you put on that ?

I am ready to die again and again if that is true."
What a time he will be able to have there meeting

Palamedes and Ajax and Telamon, and all who have
' *
1
Plato, Apol., 40 c. Apol., 40 d. 40 d.
Ibid., 40 E.
*
Ibid., 40 E. Apol., 41 a.
HIS RELIGION 269
died an unjust death, comparing his sufferings with

theirs. Above all, won't he be able to question and
cross-examine the great and wise of old like Odysseus,
and all the other men and women. What boundless
happiness ! And they won't be
able to kill him there,
for all are beyond the power of death, if what is said
" 1
is true !
"
Wherefore, O Judges, be of good cheer about death,
and know of a certainty that no evil can happen to a
good man either in life or after death, nor are his affairs
a
neglected by the gods." As he had said on another
occasion "I believe that the gods are our guardians,
:
"
and that we are a possession of the gods." And now
it is time to depart, I to die, ye to live but which of
;
us goes to the better lot is hidden from all but God."

"
These are the concluding words of Plato's Apology,"
and surely they breathe the very spirit of the Socrates
we have learned to know and admire and love.
Where he does not know, and cannot know, he falls
back upon a faith and trust in God, which enabled
him to confront every mystery of life and death with
a triumphant resignation, confidence, and joy. Be it
the sleep that knows no waking, or the waking that
knows no sleep, it is equally for the best, for it is all
ordered by Him in whose hands we all are.
We venture to surmise that you will search the re-
cords of humanity in vain for a single nobler example
of spiritual faith in God and trust for the unseen. In
the glimpse which he permits himself of a possible
heaven beyond, radiant with his superlative humour,
too exquisite to be irreverent, there is not a touch or
suggestion of that sensual and corpulent grossness
which has too often disfigured Christian symbolism
and anticipation nothing of that dogmatism which, in
;
the case of Christian piety, has sometimes disturbed

1 *
41 b, c. 41 c.
270 SOCRATES
the fullness of trust in God's will, and almost presumed
to dictate the conditions of His wise appointment ;
there is nothing of that terrible shadow of endless

punishment, the very thought of which makes one
shudder with the fear that there may be a God.
Contrast with Socrates' entire submission to God's
will these outbursts of a well-known Christian preacher,
and a great Christian poet, which are only saved from
startling impiety by their evident sincerity and
earnestness :
"
I do declare it seems to me that the world had
better be wiped out altogether, incontinently, unless

there is a world beyond, where a man shall use the
force which here he has made his own." l
"
Truly there needs another life to come !
If this be all (I must tell Festus that)

And other life awaits us not for one
I say, 'tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
A wretched failure. I for one protest

*
Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn."
We do not think that the average experience of
humanity will confirm such a tragic estimate of the

present world, nor in any case is it necessarily the only
expedient, to bring in a new world to redress the balance
of the old. What God has made is good, and if what
man has made is so very bad, he must remake and make
better. If we will only all act according to the know-
ledge we have and the right we discern, the sorrow and

suffering of life will melt like snow and happiness will
blossom forth like summer. And we will look as God
once looked upon this mysterious, wonderful, miracu-
lous phantasm we call the world, and see that it is
good. And the better it is,doubtless the more of it we
1
Dr. MacLaren of Manchester.
Browning, Paracelsus.
HIS RELIGION 271
shall want, and not suffering but happiness will doubt-

less then be made the ground of a demand for immor-
tality. Man must desire, we cannot say whether God
must grant. But either way life seems great enough
and high enough for enterprise, devotion, and praise.
In some respects the theology of Socrates is different
from the Christian, and can never supplant it, because
it represents the transition from a lower stage of
religious development than does New Testament
theology but these are subordinate points, and when
;
one turns to consider what it was in and for Socrates,

one sees it as the light, the inspiration, and the strength
of a truly noble and independent spiritual life, a life lived
always for the higher as he understood it and saw it.

It was the theology of a man who was of the company
of the great, and whose thought, conduct, and influence
co-operated in leading men to better things; a man

whose spirit and aspiration might be finely expressed
in the words of Wordsworth :
"
Give unto me madelowly wise
The of self-sacrifice
spirit ;
The confidence of reason give ;

And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live."
CHAPTER XI
THE "CLOUDS" OF ARISTOPHANES
"
has superior rights," says Amiel. The
world must adapt itself to Truth not Truth to
TRUTH the world." That is the conviction which has
kept the thinker, the prophet, and the reformer true
to their own idea in all ages of the world's history.
They have had the vision of the Eternal Idea high and
clear like the sun above the fluctuating seas and the
confused moving phantasmagorias of time and sense.
They have lived by its illumination and felt its irre-
sistible power, and they have taken their own soul to
be God's prophecy of the world. In Maeterlinck's
phrase, they have not so much possessed the Truth as
been possessed by it.
Socrates was one of the comparatively few who have
so been possessed by the vision of the True and the
Good as to become partakers of Fate and makers of
History.
The man, however, who lives by the future for the
future is always to some extent at war with the past,
and unpopular in the present. Often he hardly under-

stands himself, and others do not understand him at
all or misunderstand. Emerson has gone the length
of asserting that "to be great is to be misunder-
stood." That certainly was the lot of Socrates. In
his case it was all the more inevitable in that not only
had he a clearer and purer soul than the average
Athenian citizen, but he was much cleverer and more
273
THE "CLOUDS" OF ARISTOPHANES 273
brilliant. And if there is anything more hateful than

spiritual genius to the conservative bourgeoisie, it is
intellectual cleverness.
Socrates played and flashed about the comparatively
dull, heavy-eyed commonalty of his day like a rapid
scimitar, threatening a dangerous cut anywhere, which
it could not be alert and
quick enough to parry. A
reformer is grievous, but a clever reformer, having an
intellect tipped with irony, is scarcely tolerable in any
society.
"I am the gadfly," Plato makes him say in the
" "
Apology," which God has given the state, and am
always fastening on you, arousing, persuading, and
reproaching you."
He performed the function with a persistence and
importunity which makes us wonder why he was not
brought to his punishment at an earlier age than some-
thing over seventy years.
Socrates himself was convinced, according to Plato,
that for such a long apostolate in the service of Truth
and public righteousness and the higher life as he
was permitted to exercise, he had to thank the fact
that he had kept out of party politics, for no one would
have been allowed to live who, amid the embroilments
of a public career, struggled against iniquities in conduct
and illegalities in procedure, on behalf of the cause of
1
Justice, as he had felt himself compelled to do.
As it was, a quarter of a century before his trial he
had become a marked man at Athens, the butt of various
comic poets, 2 especially the greatest of them, Aristo-
phanes. These exponents of public opinion, who could
be experts in playing to the gallery, would introduce
him on the stage in the character of a man engaged
1
Apology, 31 E, 32 A.
*
On the attitude of Comedy to Philosophy, see Couat's Aristo-
phane, ch. vii.
18
274 SOCRATES
in constant amours with young men. 1 Doubtless the
travesty arose from the fact that it was among young
men that Socrates won his most ardent pupils and
admirers, and prejudice may have been only too quick
" "
to interpret these relations of a free-thinker in
accordance with practicescommon among Athenians
at that time. Anybody who recollects the gross stories
which became current in Rome in regard to the prac-
tices of the Christians in their religious assemblies,
will realise to what lengths slander and misrepresenta-
tion can go, where heretics are involved. Perhaps,
" "
too, was one of the
it hits of comic perversity
thus to work up the circumstance that Socrates was
in the habit of speaking of himself as a midwife, whose
profession was to deliver young men of the ideas they

had conceived.
Anyhow, we have seen how far from truth such a
2
representation is, for had not Socrates made it part
of his mission to pour a finer and purer wine into the
unclean bottles ? The adulterated vintage, however,
brought the laugh and the laugh's the thing in
Athenian comedy.
Aristophanes, the greatest of Greek comic writers,
"
made Socrates the subject of his Clouds," a play first
in 423 B.C. There is no denying that the
produced
work is in its farcical way very clever and irresistibly
funny, and one is sure that Socrates himself must have
guffawed heartily over though, in accordance with
it,
the genius of Greek comedy, it was very crude and

rough characterisation. Aristophanes cannot have
intended it for anything but farcical banter, while as
for the crowd that hated Socrates they would enjoy
it after their own kind.
1 "
See Life of Isocrates in Oratores Attici," edited by Miiller
and Hunziker, vol. ii.
p. 481.
2
See p. 92 ff.
Socrates' life-mission began after it was borne in

on him that the proper interest of mankind is man,
that it would be a waste of time to try to solve the
riddle of the universe before we have solved the riddle
of ourselves, and that the soul is the key to the world.
Then he was still comparatively young, but Aristophanes
presents him in 423 B.C., when over forty-six years of
age, as burrowing into things beneath the earth
still
and above the earth a verfluchtes dumpfes Mauer-

loch, as Faust called himself gnawing away at geo-
metry, geography, and astronomy in the stuffy
atmosphere of his "Notion-den."
Indeed one can adduce various features of the repre-
sentation which effectually dispose of it as anything
more than a mirror of the contorted Socrates of the
popular and orthodox mind, although some modern
1
writers, like Sorel, and Professor A. E. Taylor have
sought to vindicate it, as, in important respects, a
reliable source of information, an authority indeed of
"
the first importance, on Socrates. In the Clouds,"
Socrates appears as devoted to the same pursuits as
that class of teachers of science and rhetoric which is
known as the Sophists. He comes before us as an arch-
Sophist. Now, as a matter of fact, he was popularly
regarded as belonging to that class, as not only the
" "
Clouds shows, but also at a later day a reference
"
to him by Êschines, the orator, as Socrates, the
*
Sophist." The identification is, in some points, very
inaccurate and unjust Socrates had considerable
;
respect for the greater Sophists, like Prodicus and
Gorgias and Hippias he thinks they are justified in

;
charging fees for their instruction and though some of

;
them are engaged in the teaching of science, a subject

1
Le Proces de Socrate.
*
Against Timarchus, 71 (345 B.C.). For similarities between
Socrates and Sophists, see Zeller, op. cit., p. 373 (edit. 1844).
276 SOCRATES
he himself has abandoned, he does not on that account
despise them and their work.
1
But, taking the Sophist
class as a whole, Socrates, having weighed them in
balances of his own dialectic, foundthem sadly want-
ing; they were of those whose knowledge was unex-
amined, and their aims shallow, and they included men
who, teaching rhetoric for rhetoric's sake, could only
earn Socrates' contempt, as well as the old-fashioned
Athenian's suspicion.
Nevertheless the confusion was not without some
sound justification. Socrates had at least this in
common with a class who differed very much among
themselves, that he belonged to the "new school,"
or had deep sympathies with it that is to say, to the
;
school of the intellectualists, the men of ideas. How-

ever far removed from many of them in sentiment
and spirit, he rowed in the same galley with them.
Now the intellectualist is very apt to appear as an
a-moralist, or an anti-moralist, as one may judge from
the opinions held by the bulk of respectable members
of society to-day about Bernard Shaw or H. G. Wells,
and men of that type. Shaw seems to turn the world
of sentiment and ideas topsy-turvy by his cleverness
and dialectical skill. He has the agility of an acrobat,
and we notice that he can prove anything he likes,
however apparently ridiculous and opposed to our
established notions. And our bourgeosie would feel
little hesitation in describing his drama and social
propaganda as an attempt to make the worse appear

the better reason, and in predicting, as its inevitable
consequence, the corruption of the youth tainted there-
by. Many regard him as counsel-in-chief to the devil,
a man of mephistophelian dexterity and mephisto-
phelian intention. And yet the truth is that he is a
man puritanically fastidious in temperament and pro-
1
Plato, Apol., 19, c, e.
foundly moral in aim. His crime is ideas. It was in a

similar light Socrates appeared to Athenian orthodoxy,
and Aristophanes hit off and stereotyped in laughter
for all future generations the popular view a view
in which his character and pursuits were traduced,
travestied, and misrepresented. We are not at all sure
that in this Aristophanes' motive was an inimical one.
The laughter play seems to us to be boisterous,
of the
good-natured "laughter all through. The Socrates of

"
the Clouds is a far-away, other-worldly, erratic,
fanciful, and harmless creature. There is nothing in

the play which suggests that its author really believed
Socrates to be the sketch he painted, any more than he
believed Zeus, Heracles, and Dionysus to be the rakes
and bon-vivants he put on the stage. To the hearers
of any critical acumen and any knowledge of Socrates,
the play would at every turn suggest the absurdities
of these popular conceptions of the great Athenian
which it set forth, and end by drowning the whole
business, with the furore and fuss it was creating, in
a cascade of irrepressible farce. We are tempted to
ask, How could anyone treat this eccentric heretic and
his notorious notion-hunting with elephantine gravity
"
and seriousness, after seeing the Clouds," where the
worst heresies and charges against him are brought out
as a piece of inimitable fun, at which people have to
laugh and laugh again, even in spite of themselves.
What other tendency could the play have, if it was
to be successful comedy, and it is successful comedy,
than to make Socrates and his pursuits a subject of
amusement instead of hatred? Aristophanes saw
the humorous side of Socrates, and of the new move-
ment about him he also saw the humorous side of
;
the flutter in the orthodox dove-cotes, and hence the

" "
Clouds as we have it.
Irresistible fun is poked at his irrepressible dialectical
278 SOCRATES
zeal and
subtlety, at his tireless, but to others very
tiring, accuracy in the use of words, and at his method
of logical division. It is all thin air, pedantic futility,
hair-splitting as an art of wasting time and trying

1
patience. Aristophanes possibly enough agreed
with the man in the street in this verdict, but it is
not necessary for a humorist to be the enemy of an
enthusiastic philosopher in order to find him a bore
and solemn trifler.
Apart from the question of motive, very different
opinions have been taken"
of the objective truth and
"
fidelity of the Clouds as portraiture. Sorel regards
it as, on the whole, justified Fouillee says of it that ;
it is "neither faithful witness nor sincere criticism." 2

We would say that it is about as far from faithful witness
as the North Pole from the South, that in parts Aris-
tophanes has his heart in the criticism, but that, taken
as a whole, the key to it is to be found in the dictum
"
of Couat about Athenian comedy in general, that it
is from the popular point of view that it observes
life."
3
But we are by no means of the opinion that
one is justified in assuming that Aristophanes in the
" "
Clouds endorses and approves the popular point
of view. As it stands, the production is ninety per
cent, of pure caricature.
Socrates is presented as the high-priest of a sceptical
scientific coterie he initiates his new pupil, Strepsiades,
;
4
into the circle, using a pallet-bed, in place of the sacred
tripod on which the victim of sacrifice was wont to be
placed, so that the stupid old rustic cries out in terror
lest he is going to be offered up ; in the meanwhile
Cp. the Syracusan's opinion

1
See, e.g., 11.
145 ff., 225 ff., 740, &c.
of it all Xenophon's Banquet, ch. 6.
in
a
La Philosophic de Socrate, ii. p. 554.
8
Couat, Aristophane, p. 360.
11. 254
1
his upper garment is quietly spirited
away and con-
fiscated to the needs of the school, a touch which surely,
by its very ridiculousness as applied to Socrates, would,
while sending the audience into fits of laughter, make
them feel that they were not getting serious truth in
this play, but a good hale joke. Again Socrates is
dexterous enough to steal some meat from the table
of the wrestling school by means of a pair of compasses
made from a skewer, with which he is supposed to
be making geometrical diagrams. 2 Deliberate non-
sense, of course, but the echo of a question which must
often have been asked How does Socrates manage
:
to live ?
It is also suggested that he takes pay 3 for the lessons

he gives both in the art of debate, which means a strife
for triumph more than truth, and in scientific subjects
like geometry, astronomy, geology, and geography, all
comprised in the curriculum of his dingy den. There
is here an identification of him with the Sophists, which
is further hinted at when it is stated that his gods the

Clouds, nourish a lot of Sophists, diviners of Thurii,
medicine- men, &c., with their flowing locks and fingers
4
adorned with rings.
Now
Socrates at his trial could emphatically declare
that he never had disciples or pupils in the regular
sense of the word, never took any fees, 6 since he did
not profess to be a teacher 6 or anything more than
an inquirer, and did not prosecute research in these
sciences. 7
Indeed, in the course of his defence, as set forth by
1
11. 499, 1498.
1
11. 175 ff.
Cp. Eupolis, Fr. 361, by whom he is made to steal a
wine jar when out dining.
*
11. 98, 99- 11.
331
6
Plato, Apol., 19 d, e; cp. Mem., i. 6; Diogenes Laertius, ii.
5,27-
7
Plato, Apol., loc. cit. Op. cit. t 19 c.
280 SOCRATES
"
Plato, he
definitely refers to the Clouds," and the
picture there given of him as engrossed in scientific
subjects, only to deny that he has given himself to
such studies, and to challenge any to say that they have
heard him discussing the matters alluded to in the
"
Clouds." l Aristophanes himself indicates how seri-
ously these occupations of the Socratics in their den,
and his own caricature of them are to be taken, by the
scene he presents of them at work, when Strepsiades
arrives, on the calculation of how many times the length
of its own feet a fly has just jumped. He would make
the audience see these researches as excruciatingly
innocent and amusing.
These minor points show that in the Comedy we are
not dealing with an objective treatment of Socrates,
and this judgment is further strengthened by the pre-
sentation of more important aspects of the subject.
Socrates is put up as a scientific materialist, and an
"
out-and-out atheist, for whom Zeus is no longer
" 2 "
current coin his Trinity is
; the Clouds, Chaos,
" 3
and the Tongue to talk about Zeus he regards
;
as mere drivel. 4 The Clouds, not Zeus, it is, who

send rain and thunder or lightning, in accordance with
mere mechanical laws. 6 For him and his retinue of
" "
minute philosophers heaven is an oven, and men
and women merely coals. 6 Imagine the Socratics, as
7
Aristophanes described them, a dirty, unwashed lot,
and their doctrine of men and women as coals must
have been a most comical hit They would look it.
!
All this is really as wide of the mark as can be, as the

preceding study of Socrates' development and religion
abundantly shows. These charges of inquiring into
things above and things under the earth, the study of
1 * *
Apol., 19 b, c. d. 1.
247 cp, 1477.
; U. 424, 365.
4 5
1. 367. 11. 380 ff. 11. 95, 96.
7
See, e.g., 11. 504, 833.
astronomy and geology as we should now say, of not

recognising the gods, and of transvaluating recognised
moral values, and making the worse out to be the
better, were the usual charges brought against all
who went in for philosophical speculation, 1 but they
were, at any rate in his case, largely unjustifiable. He
transvaluated values only in the sense of seeking to
bring people to a sense of the true values and proportion
of life. He was not a scientist, and did not pursue
' '
S o he declares in the Apology. 2

' '
scientific speculation .
"
You have spent your whole life in investigating such
questions" (i.e. what Justice is) "and such alone,"
"
says Adeimantus to him in the Republic." The evi-
8
dence of Xenophon is to the same effect, 4 and so also is

that of Aristotle. 5
As for materialism, notoriously he was dissatisfied
with it. His disappointment with Anaxagoras rose
out of the fact that that philosopher, in spite of his
conception of Mind in the universe, continued to speak
"
of air, ether, water, and other irrelevancies, as the
cause of things," 6 and forgot about Mind. Nor could
he find rest in the " whirl theory of the earth's equili-
"
brium, as put forth by Empedocles, nor in the view that

7
it is supported and sustained by air which it breathes
in, in accordance with the speculation of Anaximenes.
It was the cardinal contribution of Socrates to the
development of Greek philosophy that he felt the im-
possibility of explaining the world on materialistic
principles, and saw the necessity for introducing the
idealistic or spiritual principle into theories of the world.
Caricature does not end there. Socrates' school is
1 *
Plato, Apol., 23 d. Apol., 18 b, 19.
8
Rep., 367. Mem.,
"
i. i, n ; iv. 7, 6.
Metaphysics, i. 6, p. 987 b ; A. E. Taylor, Aristotle on his Pre-

decessors," p. 100.
7
Phsedo, 98 c. Phaedo, 99 b, c.
282 SOCRATES
the place to which people who want to escape their
debts otherwise than by the right means of paying
them, can turn to get their wits sharpened for the ven-
"
ture. The Notion-den, Reflectory," keeps two
or
qualities of goods to suit the needs of its patrons the
Just and the Unjust Argument. These two arguments
are contrary the one to the other, and under Socratic
tuition in the art of handling them skilfully, one can
make the Unjust triumph over the Just. 1
"
It is this Unjust Argument, the Argument which
Strepsiades comes to learn,
1
pays nothing/' which old
burdened as he is with the debts of his sporting and
extravagant son, Pheidippides. The clod-pated old
fellow, who is a sore trial to Socrates' patience, proves
too dense to become a successful logical acrobat, but
he learns enough to laugh at Zeus and perjury and to
stand up to his son's creditors with amusing effrontery,
meeting their demands with the most irrelevant and
impertinent considerations. Poor old Strepsiades has
had all his morality rubbed off, but he cuts the most
inoffensively comical figure without it. Why should
he pay his debt to Amyntas, a man who knows nothing
of astronomy ? a And why should interest accrue on
a debt at all, when the sea gets no bigger though streams
s
flow into it ?
Aristophanes may be getting a stroke in at Socrates'

fondness for analogies. Anyhow the Athenian sage
is the head and front of a movement in education to
instruct people in dishonesty and humbug.

But he is held up to the audience, not only as a cor-
rupter of the honesty and good sense and God-fearing
character of the old, but also of the piety and modesty
of the young. He is classed with the representatives
of a new system of education, whose product is con-
trasted very unfavourably with that of the good old
1 a
1. 117. 11. 1283, 1284. 11. 1290 ff.
system, on which the Just Argument descants in the

*
following lines :
"
Now first you must know, in the days long ago, how we brought
up our youngsters and schooled them ;
When to argument just 'twas the fashion to trust, and when

Virtue and Modesty ruled them.
Little boys 'twas averred must be seen and not heard and to ;
school they must go all together,

Unprotected by coats, or by wraps for their throats, in the
coldest and snowiest weather ;
Where they learnt to repeat, in a posture discreet, all the ancient

respectable ditties,
Such as Sound of the war that is borne from afar,' or ' Pallas,
'
'
the sacker of cities ;
And to render with care the traditional air, without any new-
fangled vagary :
If you played the buffoon, or the simple old tune if you tried to
embellish or vary,
And to show off your skill in a shake or a trill, or in modern
fantastical ruses
All you got by your trick was a touch of the stick, for the outrage
you did to the Muses."
It was a favourite subject for Aristophanes' humour.

"
In the " Acharnians we have the chorus of old Mara-
thon veterans making loud lament a :
"We whose only Safe Poseidon is the staff we lean upon,

' '
There we stand decayed and muttering hard beside the court-

house stone,
Nought discerning all around us safe the darkness of our case ;
Comes the youngster who has compassed for himself the accuser's
place,
Slings his light and nipping phrases, tackling us with legal scraps,
Pulls us up and cross-examines, setting little verbal traps,
Rends and rattles old Tithonus, till the man is dazed and blind ;
Till with toothless gums he mumbles, then departs condemned
and fined ;
Sobbing, weeping, as he passes, to his friends he murmurs low,

"
All I've saved to buy a coffin, now to pay the fine must go.'
'
1
Trans, from Godley's Socrates and Athenian Society, p. 173.
1
11. 682 ff. (Rogers' trans.) Cp. Xen., Banquet, ch. iii.
284 SOCRATES
" "
In the Knights 1 he refers to the change coming
over the youth of Athens, from the robust, sturdy,
hunt-loving type, to the effeminate intellectual.
Demus : " I mean these striplings in the perfume mart,

Who sit them down and chatter stuff like this
1
Sharp fellow Phseax wonderful defence
: :
Concise speaker most inclusive speaker:

:
Effective argumentative incisive

: : :
Superlative against the combative.

S.S. : You're quite derisive of these talkatives.
Demus : I'll make them all give up their politics,
a
And go a hunting with their hounds instead."
The new education strikes at the roots of those

admirationsand traditions in which the austere
greatness of Athens in the past depends. It produces
a self-conceited, nil-admirari, devil-may-care type of
youth, who has no more reverence for his father or
mother than a fighting cock.
" "
Pheidippides after a course in the Notion-den
is not above giving his father a good beating, on the
ground that it is for his good, the same ground as that

on which the father claims to be justified in beating
the son. 3
Pheidippides even goes so far as to declare that, on
occasion shown, he is ready to do as much to his
mother. This is the last straw that breaks the camel's
back. Strepsiades can stand it no longer. He is
thoroughly convinced of the practical dangerousness
of such revolutionary ideas he sees home and state ;
reeling like a whirligig to destruction he wakes up to ;
the realisation of what a madman he was to throw

away the gods at Socrates' bidding, and rushes out
in a fury, gets one of his slaves on to the roof of
"
the Notion-den or Reflect ory," to tear it up and
fling it at the amazed rogues, its inmates, below, and
1 3
11. 1375 ff. Rogers' trans. 11.
1410 ff.
ends by setting the whole place on fire. Socrates

shouts to know what he is doing on the roof, to
which Strepsiades coolly replies, in the phraseology
he had learned from Socrates, so adding insult to
injury: "I am treading the air, and thinking about
the sun."
Socrates gasps that he will be suffocated; and
Chaerophon, one of the students, that he will be burnt
up. Strepsiades, only concerned with conscience and
repentance, regards the blaze as an atonement for
the offence he has done to the gods in having
denied them 1 It is the melodramatic climax of the
play and must have sent the spectators away in
roars of laughter.
Was there anything about Socrates and his doctrines
to give the slightest colour of verisimilitude to the
farcical scenes between Strepsiades and his young blood
of a son, Pheidippides ? Xenophon has told us that
Socrates instilled the principles of filial piety and
reverence for elders into his own children he was
;
very far removed from the flippant and irrespons-

ible anarchist, and had a great esteem for social
law and order. But he certainly did teach that if
welfare and happiness are to be secured in the state,
power and authority must not be based on any con-
siderations but those of knowledge, proficiency, and
skill. Not the measure of our years but the measure
of our acquirements and abilities must be the point
that determines selection to the ruling offices, and it
is easily conceivable and only too natural that the
ardent youths whom he filled with his ideas and in

whom he created an enthusiasm to the point of
"Schwarmerei," should often repeat these doctrines,
and perhaps give themselves superior airs on the
strength of them, though conceit was no failing of
their master. Moreover, we must again insist that his
286 SOCRATES
position, teaching, and influence were generally
identified with those of the Sophists and teachers who
"
were classed as the new-school," and regarded as a
dangerous lot, and undoubtedlyin his rationalism
and criticism of conventions he incorporated the new
1
spirit.
There was just enough point in these allusions for
Aristophanes to create the laugh. It has usually
been assumed that Aristophanes' intention in the
" "
Clouds was hostile to Socrates and the new learning,
but there appears to us to be no reason for such an
assumption. It was simply that he found in the
philosopher with his eccentricities, who was one of
the most familiar figures in Athens, a rich and fertile
subject for his art. As already hinted his portraiture
of the gods of mythology shows anything but the
piety and reverence of sincere belief in them. He

was more than half converted to the scepticism whose
practical effects in Strepsiades and his son he coins
"
into farce. He was one of those who attack in
another a principle to which they themselves are
committed without understanding it," says Zeller 2
with insight. It is not even necessary to suppose
he did not understand it. With the shrewdness of
the man of humour he may have seen, and seen
rightly enough, the laxities and evils to which in-
tellectual enlightenment may lead the populace who
are touched by it. It is legitimate to fear that the
loosing of old anchorages, and the losing of ancient
landmarks, may set the more ignorant and undis-
ciplined elements in a community adrift into moral
evils. One may deplore such results without belonging
1
Zeller has remarked that Socrates did not create the new and
most individualistic spirit it was there. But he accepted it and
;
embodied it in himself. Phil, der Griechen, ii., 4th edit., p. 229.

J
Philosophic der Griechen, and part, 4th edit. (1889), p. 208.
to the party of reaction or being hostile to the leaders

of revolt.
Even a friend, given an irresistible sense of humour,
"
might have written the Clouds," if he had his qualms
about some of the consequences of Socrates' teach-
ing on the popular mind. A humorist among friends
is likea bull in a china shop you never know what
;
wreckage he will make for the sheer fun of the thing.
Aristophanes would know well enough that the

Socrates of his piece was a lot of rot many of his ;
hearers, all of them who knew anything of Socrates,

must have known it too. Really, it might be a
parody on the ridiculousness of the popular tales
current about the master's views and character.
Did not Socrates smile at the " Clouds " as he is said
" "
to have done at the " Lysis of Plato, saying, What a
"
lot of lies the fellow is telling about me ?
"
It is also significant that Plato in the "Symposium
represents Socrates and Aristophanes as dining
together at the house of Agathon like good friends,
and when Alcibiades breaks in on the scene and utters
his eulogium of Socrates he turns to Aristophanes
and quotes a phrase from the " Clouds " as giving a
glimpse of Socrates exactly as he had seen him. Now
if the "Clouds" had been a
painful book to Socrates
and his friends, the diatribe of an enemy and written
with a hostile intention, the reference to its words by
Alcibiades on this occasion must have created very
uncomfortable feelings in Socrates and Aristophanes,
and stirred the most unpleasant recollections. It
would be an artistic faux pas. Was Plato likely to
go to a hostile play to find a description of Socrates'
demeanour to quote with effect ? We hardly think so.
He would have hated the "Clouds" too much thus
to bring it in if he had regarded it as a virulent anti-
Socratic broadside. Nor if it had been one of the
288 SOCRATES
contributing causes to the feeling against Socrates and
a factor leading to his trial and condemnation nearly
a quarter of a century later, would Plato have been
likely to immortalise the relations of good-fellowship
between the poet and the philosopher. Fouillee's
opinion is that the two had later become reconciled
to each other, which is of course a perfectly possible
view of the case, but the need for such a reconciliation
has been assumed rather than proved, because it
seems to have been forgotten that Aristophanes was
first and foremost a comic poet in his Comedy.
"
What the "Clouds does do is to show us the sort
of opinions and judgments which were current about
Socrates, and the sort of feeling with which he was
regarded in unenlightened circles. It is a first-rate
authority not on Socrates but on the Athenians, and
so contributes more vividly than any other book, even
than the "Apology," to our knowledge of the state
of mind in Athens to which the great teacher finally
fell a victim.
CHAPTER XII
THE TRIAL: ITS CAUSES
the "Clouds" we learn that Socrates had
become an object of suspicion and antipathy
FROM as a sophist and scientific student, as an un-
usually clever heretic who undermined the foundations
of belief in the gods by his teaching, exercised a bad
influence on the young by weakening the hold of the
ancient conventions and pieties on their mind, and
encouraging in them an intellectual conceit and sharp
practice which were the antithesis of that modesty and
honesty which were regarded as the ancient pillars of
human welfare and social stability. He belonged to
the new who under the
school of innovators in thought,
generic name were a synonym for all that
of sophist
was dangerous to the established system in thought
and religion.
The Apology of Plato confirms the fact that one of
the causes of the process against him lay in the
"
opinion the false opinion that he speculated about
the heaven above, and inquired into the earth beneath,
and practised the art of making the worse appear the
l
better," and such speculation had become identified
with religious scepticism owing to the materialism
which had characterised the teaching of preceding or
contemporary philosophers who prosecuted physical
studies.
Another cause operating against him was the hatred
1
Apol., 23 d, e.
19 389
290 SOCRATES
he roused in the breasts of all classes by his work of
cross-examination and its result
revealing in the
general ignorance which prevailed where the pre-
tension to knowledge was fondly cherished. Poets,
politicians, artisans, he discovered to be living in a
fool's paradise of dogma and make-believe the
appearance without the reality of knowledge. Now
there is plenty of evidence that the Athenians were a
people who enjoyed flattery and detested criticism
and rebuke. Aristophanes pillories this weakness of
"
his fellow-citizens in the humours of the Knights,"
and opens out the demoralisation and danger to which
it leads. Plato was thoroughly imbued with the
conviction that democracy is a beast which demands
that its whims and caprices be humoured and satisfied.
At a somewhat later day Aristotle can still say that
what the populace love is the flatterer, and Isocrates
that their ire is roused by those who dare to reprove
and rebuke them.
Socrates found it true in his own experience. The
career in which he showed up to people the hollowness
of their own mind did not prove popular with any of
the classes in society. It was like the sowing of
dragon's teeth from which sprang up a host of personal
enemies l whose amour proprc he had mortally offended.
It is not pleasant to be proved an ignoramus and a
fool. Socrates might try to do it very gently, he
might even administer local anaesthetics during the
operation, with that subtle skill which was charac-

teristic of him, but it was still the process of drawing
rotten teeth and it hurt it left an aching void in the
:
patient's self-esteem. Thus he had a number of

private enemies who nourished resentments and who
would be only too ready to seize any favourable
1
Plato, Apol., 23 c ; Theaetetus, 151. Cp. Diogenes Laertius,
" 5, 38.
THE TRIAL : ITS CAUSES 291
opportunity of striking a blow at him, and the most

prominent among them was a citizen named Anytus.
It may be that the Athenians are deserving of a
little sympathy. None of us like our illusions de-
stroyed. Schleiermacher and Gomperz have ex-
pressed the opinion that the Socrates of Xenophon's
"Recollections" must have been a terrible bore, and
"
Macaulay once wrote in his diary that if he had treated
him as he is said to have treated Protagoras, Hippias,
and Gorgias, I should never have forgiven him." But
Macaulay must have failed to appreciate the dry
humour of Socrates in his dealings with these noted
humanists.
Other factors contributed to deepen the ill-odour
that hung about Socrates' name, from his classifica-
tion with the new school of scientists and sophists in
Athens. They were the set whom Aspasia the cele-
brated mistress of Pericles, the greatest statesman of
the age, gathered about her, and Socrates, to whom
distinctions of class were nothing at all, and who
cultivated the society of all sorts and conditions, had
also had access to and conversations with her. Now
Aspasia represented a type of woman quite contrary to
the orthodox Athenian conventions. She belonged to
a class which was not respectable in Athens she was ;
a brilliant woman, a woman of ideas, a blue-stocking,

but also the paramour l of Pericles, and a foreigner
from Asia. The Athenians regarded her influence
as immoral, and stories were told, mere gossip and
scandal, of her practices more suited to the sensuality
of the life of Asia Minor than of Athens. 2 Moreover,
1
On this class, see Becker, Charicles, pp. 241 ff., with references.
2
Aristophanes, Acharnians, 527, 530-9. See on Aspasia Plutarch's
Life of Pericles; Sorel, LeProcesde Socrate, p. 161 ; Couat, Aristo-
phane, pp. 134, 135; vindication of Aspasia Mahafty, Social Life
in Greece, pp. 213-16.
292 SOCRATES
during the period of the Peloponnesian War, secret
cults of Asiatic origin and character were introduced
into the city, whose influence was not salutary, and
these tendencies were identified with the revolutionary
movement in ideas and the new cosmopolitanism, of
which Socrates was taken as the anost familiar and
picturesque representative, as Voltaire and Rousseau
epitomised respectively the rationalism and emotion-
alism of France in the eighteenth century.
Again, Pericles himself, as the initiator and champion
of the war policy, fell into eclipse in the admiration of
the Athenians, and became an object of widespread
hostility, owing to the disasters and hardships which
the military operations brought in their train. At-
tempts were made to strike at him and his court
through the prosecution of his heterodox philosophical
friends, e.g. Anaxagoras, the feeling of the people to-
wards whom was likely to be aggravated by the reaction
towards orthodoxy which is known usually to accom-
pany disasters in national life.
But these factors were in operation for a quarter of
a century, and more in some cases, before Socrates
was actually summoned to trial. Why was the fatal
blow not struck till 399 B.C., when he was over seventy
years of age ?
The it was not merely his religious and

fact is that
moral doctrines, his relations to the intellectual and
sceptical movement of his time, but also his political
views and relationships which singled him out as a
man to be got rid of. Socrates, like Carlyle, was a
critic of democracy and an advocate of the aristocracy
of talent. Now in 403 B.C. the oligarchical govern-
ment of the Thirty came to an end, and Democracy
took its place. The latter engaged the strong passions
of the people, in whose memory rankled misdeeds
and tyrannies, and there is no passion so headlong as
THE TRIAL: ITS CAUSES 293
political passion, unless it be the passion of religion.

And for Socrates to stand up and in a calm and
measured way point out the defects and stupidity of
certain democratic forms, was rather more than would
have been tolerated even in any Christian community
we know, where feeling is running very high. To
the democrats and their adherents it must have
seemed like defending the hateful system they had
cast out.
x
It was brought against him
that his views of the
ludicrousness of appointing the leaders of the State
by lot, led and could not but lead his youthful asso-
ciates to despise the democratic constitution. In
fact, there were those who so far misunderstood
Socrates as to think that he despised the poor and
mediocre commoner altogether. There was a passage
from Homer often on his lips, in which we are told
Odysseus used words of gentle persuasion with the
best,but
"
the worst whose spirits brake out in noise
He '
cudgelled with his sceptre, chid and said, Stay, wretch, be
still,
And hear thy betters : thou art base and both in power and skill
Poor and unworthy, without name in Counsel or in war.
We must not all be Kings.' "
On the strength of his love of these lines, it was said
he regarded the weak and ignorant as only fit for the
rule of compulsion, though, as Xenophon points out,
in that case he must have regarded force as the fit
"
argument for himself. On the contrary," however,
"
says Xenophon, Socrates was plainly a lover of the
"
people, and indeed of all mankind violence of any
kind was alien from his nature. 2
The opinion that he was at heart an oligarch was
1
Mem., i. 2, 9. Ibid., i. 2, 10.
294 SOCRATES
not weakened by the fact that one of the most
notorious of the hated gang of tyrants known to
Greek history as the Thirty, Critias by name, as well
as others of that ilk, had been of those who associated
with Socrates. In the restored Democracy these
connections were not forgotten and were a source of
renewed hatred toward Socrates. The orator ,/Eschines
indeed declares that the Athenians put him to death
as the teacher of Critias. 1
Xenophon describes Critias, who by the way was
maternal uncle of Plato, as a man of overtowering
ambition who would only have been satisfied with the
concentration of complete power in his own hands. 2
He brought on his return from exile (i.e. in 404 B.C.,
on fall of Athens at end of Peloponnesian War), not
merely an unmeasured and unprincipled lust of power,
but a rancorous impulse toward spoliation and blood-
shed." 3 He was thus particularly obnoxious to the
democrats. If this was the type of man and politician
the teaching of Socrates had helped to produce, then
he was a danger and pest to democracy and deserved
some punishment. It is not difficult to understand
the feelings of those leaders of the people who had been
thrust into banishment by the Thirty, and among the
judges who came to sit in trial upon Socrates were
those who hadthus suffered exile. 4 We cannot with
Êschines say that Socrates was tried and put to death
because of Critias alone, but these oligarchic con-
nections were an important factor in the situation. 5
It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the
Socratic circle was drawn wholly from any one social
1
Against Timarchus, 71 (345 B.C.) ; Zeller, op. cit., 2nd part,
p. 210.
1
Mem., i. 2, 12.
8
Hellenica, ii. 2 cp. Grote, History of Greece, vol.
; viii. ch. 55.
4
Plato, Apol., 21 a.
5
Cp. Adam, Religious Teachers of Greece, p. 354.
class or political party. 1 He was not the man to give

up to party what was meant for mankind, and over
against the names of Critias, Charmides, and Plato can
be set those of men whose sympathies and relations
were with the democratic caucus, men like Chaerephon,
2
Crito, and Lysias. There was one in particular, the
well-known Alcibiades, who played a peculiar role in
public life, being a demagogue with the ambitions of a
despot, and whose career threw a sinister colour over
the teaching and influence of Socrates, in the mind of
the Athenians.
Romance hovers with elusive wing over the story
of Socrates and Alcibiades. The latter was a youth
of remarkable beauty and great promise, corrupted by
the evil unisexual practices of the time, and swayed
by the most immoderate ambition. Xenophon calls
him "the most undisciplined, overbearing, and violent
member of the democracy." 8 In youth he was spoiled
by the flatteries of men who lost their head over him
and desired to be the object of his special regard. But
there was only one man who had the power and the
magnetism of personality to completely subdue
Alcibiades, a man, too, of quite different spirit and
ambitions from himself, and that was no other than
Socrates.* Alcibiades would have liked to have won
Socrates to love him after the flesh, but the great
good man proved absolutely uncorruptible. The
Symposium Plato gives the strongest and most
of
definite testimony through Alcibiades' own lips, that
the usual uncleanness never tainted Socrates' relations
with him. And that is enough. As Plutarch puts it,
Alcibiades discovered to his chagrin "that this man
1
Cp. Zeller, op. cit., p. 223.
*
Sorel, op. cit., pp. 226, 227
Diog. Laert., ii. 5, 38.
;
3
Mem., i. 12; and see also Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades, passim.
2,
*
See Plato, ist Alcibiades.
296 SOCRATES
did not wish to caress and admire him, but to expose
his ignorance, search out his faults, and bring down
his vain unreasoning conceit. Thus learning to
. . .
despise himself and to admire his friend, Alcibiades,

charmed with his good nature and full of reverence for
his virtues,became insensibly in love with him not as
the world loveth." x
The association with and influence of Socrates upon
him was, however, temporary only, and he began to
develop the characteristics which later made his career
a byword for dastardliness.
Here, then, was a case to hand to the Athenians, who
on other grounds suspected the dangerousness of
Socrates' teachings and hated him, to illustrate his
evil influence. Was Alcibiades not a glaring example
and epitome of some of the very vices Aristophanes
had burnt in fast colours into Socrates' teaching ?
Here was youthful braggadocio and insolence, irre-
verence for elders and superiors, contempt of religion,
its gods and its symbols, here was a man who was a
law unto himself, who played fast and loose with his
country, cosmopolitan if you like, void of morality
and patriotism, with plenty of rhetorical ability and
always ready to make the worse appear the better
reason to suit his own ends. 2
In the case alike of Alcibiades and Critias, Xenophon
has pointed out that the example of Socrates was
altogether against their spirit and aims and ways.
His humility, his contentment with his own meagre
estate, his self-discipline, were obvious to all his
associates. They courted his society not because
they were of his spirit or partook of it, but because
they wanted something of the secret of his unrivalled
1
Life of Alcibiades, Steward and Long's trans. See Paul, Epistle
to Romans, ch. i, v. 27.
3
See Plutarch's Life ; Grote's History, vol. viii. ch. 66.
dialectical skill. When they got all that was likely

to serve their own ambitions, they left and walked no
more with him. So long as they were near him, they
were kept in restraint, and their appetites were checked ;
it was afterwards,
away from his wholesome touch
and influence, that they fell a prey to their un-
scrupulous lusts and ambitions.
Socrates had dealt straight and fair with them.
He had once tried to sting Critias out of an impure
"
passion for Euthydemus, stigmatising it as a swinish
affection," but he only won as his reward the enmity
of Critias, who in after life became a declared enemy
of his previous master, and when in power sought,
along with Charicles, to bridle his mouth and put a
1
stop to his career as teacher at large.
Nevertheless it was not likely that the Athenian
demos, determined to strike at the new influences,
which they held to be fraught with danger alike to
home and city, to law and religion, would inquire too
meticulously into the right or wrong of branding
Socrates with blame for the character and deeds of
these two men, whom they knew to have been friends
of Socrates at one time. The Athenian democracy
was not a very judicial body, and was readily swayed
2
by its passions and feelings.
1
i. ch. 2.
Mem., Cp. Grote, Hist., vol. viii. ch. 55.
3
Aristophanes, Plato, and the Orators attest this. Cp. Whibley,
Companion to Greek Studies, 406.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRIAL
A length, under the regime of the restored demo-

cracy, the train of circumstances
the explosion took place. Socrates was ar-
raigned before the Athenian judges. "The pent-up
forces of deep ill-will and sullen distrust which had long
was fired and
been accumulating in the breasts of his fellow-citizens

now found vent in an explosion which led to one of the
most tragic events which have darkened the annals of
human civilisation." It was in the spring of 399 B.C.
l
that Socrates, now a man of over seventy, 2 stood before

the court of the Heliastai, composed, in numbers which
3 There
varied, of citizens over thirty years of age.
may have been 557 or 501 of these jurors drawn from
the available 5000 and assigned to this case by lot, as
"
was the Athenian custom. A few hundred sailors,"
says Fouillee, were to be arbiters in the greatest case
debated in ancient times. It was before them Socrates
the metaphysician had to make his defence." *
They were bound by oath to judge according to the
laws and decrees of the Athenian people, to hear
impartially both sides, and give their verdict solely
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers,

1
ii.
p. 92.
*
Plato's Apol., i7d.
3
Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. viii. p. 281. Gomperz, Greek
Thinkers, ii. p. 98, says 501 jurors, Archon's Court. Zeller, 4th
edit., p. 198 n. Fouillee, Socrate, ii. p. 413, 414.
;
*
Fouill6e, op. cit., ii. p. 415.
298
THE TRIAL 299
on the point at issue, and without fear or favour. 1

The King Archon was President of the Court. Before
him all the preliminaries must previously have been
gone through, such as the summoning of the accused,
with the handing in by plaintiff of the plea of justi-
fication, also the hearing of statements by the accused.
The Archon decided as to relevancy of the charges,
and if satisfied fixed the day of trial. 1 In Court he was
supported by clerks, heralds, and police, to secure that
all proceeded in due and orderly course. The parties
themselves must in person conduct their own case,
no professional advocates being allowed as in our
present day courts, although prepared speeches could
be bought. The jurors were each provided with a
pair of counters, one with a hole in it, the other with a
thick axle, the former to be placed in an urn for the
purpose, and denoting acquittal, the latter con-
demnation. They were provided with seats on long
benches, while opposite and facing them, on ad-
jacent platforms, stood the plaintiffs and the defend-
ants.
On
this memorable occasion the accusers were three
in number, representing different sections of the com-
munity, Meletus for the poets, Anytus for the artisans
and politicians, and Lycus for the orators. 2 The two
former were well known and influential adherents of the
democracy. The law under which the charge was
brought was a decree which had been introduced by
Diopeithes in order to strike a blow at Anaxagoras
and Pericles, and which declared that proceedings
"
should be instituted against all persons who did not
For legal proceedings, see Whibley, op.

1
cit., 405 ; and cp.
Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, ch. xiv.
a
Plato, Apol., 23 e; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 38.
300 SOCRATES
believe in the gods or who taught theories about things
*
celestial."
The actual charge presented against Socrates was
"
in these terms Socrates is guilty of the offence of
:
not recognising the gods of the city and of introducing

other strange deities he is also guilty of corrupting
;
2
the youth. Penalty, Death."
How far these charges are to be regarded as justified

will be gathered from what we have already set forth
in this book. We have two records, both written after
Socrates' death, of how he dealt with the accusations
before his judges, one known as the Apology of
Xenophon, whose authorship, however, is regarded as
3
doubtful, though Dakyns, whose translation of the
works of Xenophon is a thorough and painstaking
" "
piece of craftsmanship, inclines to think the Apology
deserves the benefit of the doubt.
The other record is that which is given in the classic
"Apology of Plato," which Schleiermacher, Zeller,

4
Grote, Fouillee, and more recently Gomperz (with
5 6
limitations), and Prof. Taylor believe to give what is
in the main a faithful account of Socrates' defence.

Socrates would appear to have let this crisis in his
career very lightly on his mind. He had a presenti-
lie
ment that his hour was come, that at over seventy
years of age it was hardly worth his while to stoop to
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, ch. 32 (Eng. trans. Stewart and

1
Long).
2
See Plato, Apol., 24 b Mem., i. i, i
;
Diogenes Laertius, ii.
;
5, 40-
3
Dakyns, vol. iii. Introd., pp. 46, 47. Zeller, Sokrates and Plato
(4th edit.), p. 195 n., is sure it is not genuine.
*
See op. cit., vol. ii. p. 417.
*
See Greek Thinkers, ii. pp. 100, 101, and 105-8.
6
Varia Socratica, series I, ch. i also Zeller, Sok. and Plato, 4th
;
edit., 196 .
THE TRIAL 801
defend his doctrine and character from the aspersions

cast upon them, and that it were better to leave his
reputation to the argument of his whole past life
and the arbitrament of a future which could see him
steadily and see him whole.
To the suggestion of a friend, Hermogenes, 1 that
some attention to the preparation of an apology before
his judges might make the difference between
all
condemnation and acquittal, Socrates replied that
was his best apology, and that, in any case, his
his life
"divinity" had opposed his attempts to prepare a

formal defence. 2
Socrates had never had reason to distrust this
supernatural sign, and to him it was like an indication
that probably the fullness of the time had come to lay
his commission at the feet of Him who had given it.
If so, God's time was the best time. Hermogenes
could not quite see it in that light, and the thought
that God could take away Socrates then for the best,
puzzled him.
The master's reply, as given by Xenophon, 3 is one
of the noblest things in literature. Never has the
deep root of religion, fixed in the divine by the fila-
ments of faith and trust, grown to the light in more
beautiful resignation, repose, and dignity of soul.
"Do you find it strange," he continued, "that to
the Godhead should appear better for me to close
it
my life Do you not know that up to the

at once
?
present moment there is no man whom I can admit to

have spent a better and happier life than mine. Since
theirs I regard as the best of lives who study best to
1
Xenophon, Apology, 1-7 ; cp. Mem., iv. 8.
2
Cp. Plato's Apol., 17 c.
8
Taking Mem., iv. 8, as genuine, with Dakyns, why should
Xenophon not have reproduced from the Apology, assuming it also
genuine.
302 SOCRATES
become as good as may be, and theirs the happiest
who have the liveliest sense of growth in goodness ;
and such, hitherto, is the happy fortune which I

perceive to have fallen to my lot. But, if I am . . .
destined to prolong my days, maybe I shall be enforced

to pay in full the penalties of old age to see and
hear less keenly, to fail in intellectual force, and to
leave school, as it were, more of a dunce than when
I came, learned and more forgetful in a word,
less
I shall fall from my high estate, and daily grow worse
in that wherein I aforetime excelled. But indeed, . . .
if it is reserved for me to die unjustly, then on those
who unjustly slay me lies the shame (since, given

injustice is base, how can any unjust action whatso-
ever fail of baseness ?). But for me what disgrace is
itthat others should a just decision and right
fail of
acts concerning me ? before me a long line

. . . I see
of predecessors on this road, and I mark the reputa-
tion also among posterity which they have left. I note
how it varies according as they did or suffered wrong,

and for myself I know that I too, although I die to-day,
shall obtain from mankind a consideration far different
from that which will be accorded to those who put me
to death. I know that undying witness will be borne
to me to this effect, that I never at any time did wrong
to any man, or made him a worse man, but ever
tried to make those better who were with me."
l
Such was the frame of mind in which Socrates

stood before his accusers and judges.
In Xenophon's account he deals more directly and
straightly with the definite charges against him than
in Plato's, (i) On the charge of not reverencing the
city's gods, he reminds his audience that it has been
his habit publicly to frequent the city's altars and
1
Mem., iv. 8, 6-10 ; Dakyns' trans.
THE TRIAL 308
festivals. (2) Nor can the fact of his belief in his own
" "
divinity with its inward Voice be rightly inter-
preted as the introduction of new and strange gods,
since already the Athenian people believe that the
gods speak to them in the voice of thunder, of birds,
and of soothsayers. 1
He has never taken oath by any other than the
recognised deities, nor named them.
(3) In reply to the charge of corrupting the youth,
he asks how such a baneful effect could come from
schooling them to manliness and frugality, and self-
control. He appeals to his own life, well known to
all, a lifefreedom from appetite, of independence of
of
spirit, and of search after whatsoever things are good

a life which has attracted to it many of those who
made virtue their pursuit. He challenges them to
produce examples of the youths whose religion or
moderation or industry has been undermined and
2
destroyed by his society.
"
Bless my soul," exclaims Meletus, "I know those
whom you have persuaded to obey yourself rather
than their own fathers."
This was a charge brought against Socrates which he
could not and did not try to rebut. But it involves
no crime, he reminds Meletus, any more than it is a
crime for a doctor to take preference of one's father,
when one is ill.
There are circumstances when the doctor is naturally
superior in authority to the father, and so when it
comes to argument and education, the superior talent of
Socrates is admitted by the sons, and they turn to
him. In that there is no ground of accusation.
When we turn to the defence as rendered by Plato,

we find considerable differences, and in judging as to
1 *
Dakyns' Works, iii.
p. 188. Dakyns, p. 190.
304 SOCRATES
which to prefer it must be taken into consideration
that while Plato was present at the trial, Xenophon

was 1
not, being in exile.
In Plato's account Socratesmakes no reference to
frequent attendance at the public altars and sacrifices,
nor to the similarity between his divine Voice and the
voice of birds and thunder and soothsayers, though one
must be careful to nothing from silence.
deduce
Socrates may have mentioned these con-
quite well
siderations, and Plato quite well have omitted them
to feed his zest on the more dialectical discomfiture of
Meletus, whom Socrates corners by the process of first
of all drawing him into making a more sweeping
charge. Socrates gets him to accuse him of being a
2
complete atheist, treating the sun as a stone and the
moon as earth, and then, quite inconsistently, accusing
him also of introducing new deities and spiritual
agencies not recognised by the State.
An atheist is hardly the man to introduce new gods,
and Socrates suggests that Meletus is merely having a
bit of fun in this trial. 3
In reference to the accusation of being a corrupter
of youth, Socrates as in Xenophon's delineation
appeals for any who have been corrupted to stand
forth and accuse him or let their relatives speak
;
out, many of whom are present in court.

4
As matter
of fact, declares Socrates, it will be found that they
are ready to take his side, and stand by the man
accused of corrupting their sons and brothers. 6
But Plato also gives what is not found in Xenophon,
a piece of reasoning to refute Meletus' charge, which
at any rate is in the genuine Socratic manner. 6
1
He was in Asia from 401-399 B.C. Dakyns' Works, vol. i.
2
pp. Ixxxvii ff. cp. FouilK-e, op.
; cit., i. 417. Apol., 26 c, d.
3 *
Apol., 27 a. Apol., 33 d.
4
Apol., 34 a, b. Apol., 25.
THE TRIAL 305
It is to the effect, firstly, that in human experience

we find that it is always the few who are improvers.
For example, in the case of horses, just a small minority,
the trainers, act as improvers of them, and not the
multitude, so that it is against all analogy of ex-
perience for Meletus to be right in the assertion to
which Socrates manages to commit him that he alone
should corrupt the youth while everybody else does
them good. Secondly, it is only common-sense to admit
that everybody likes to live with good neighbours, and
nobody therefore would corrupt them intentionally,
while he does so unintentionally the fit procedure
if
to apply is correction not accusation. 1

We can imagine the sly irony of Socrates as he thus
on his very trial gives a successful display of that
argumentative ability which had been one cause of
his being put there by the slower-witted, respectable
Athenians.
Nor does he fail to tell the judges that the real
cause of the general antipathy to himself is no-
thing worthier than the wounded pride and envy of
those whose conceit of knowledge he has effectually
stabbed. 2
Having thus dealt with the counts of the indictment,
he turns to discourse on his own position before his
city's tribunal in a strain of lofty self-justification
and admonition.
It is no part of a good man's business to scan the
chances of life or death one care alone is his, that
;
"
of doing right. Thou doest wrong to think that a
man of any use at all is to weigh the risk of life or
death, and not to consider one thing only, whether
when he acts he does the right thing or the wrong,
performs the deeds of a good man or a bad."
3
He himself, who faced death at Potidaea, Amphipolis,

*
1
Apol., 26 a. Apol., 20 d-23 E. Apol., 28 B.
20
306 SOCRATES
and Delium, in his city's cause, is not the man disgrace-
fully to quit the search of truth and the life of a
philosopher which God has laid upon him. It would
be a tragic thing indeed if, having given his days to
bring others to wisdom, he himself should be a cast-
away from its portals. And what else is the fear of
death but a appearance of wisdom ? For who can
false
tell whether death may not be the greatest good that
can befall a mortal ? Yet to fear it, is to assume
that the greatest of ills.
it is
"
should be found to be wiser than the multi-
If I
tude, it would be in this, that having no adequate
knowledge of the Beyond, I do not presume that I
have it. But one thing I do know, and that is that
to do injustice or turn my back on the better is alike
an evil and a disgrace. And never shall I fear a possible
good, rather than avoid a certain evil. ... If you say
Socrates, Anytus fails to convince us, we
'
to me,
let you go on condition that you no longer spend your
life in this search, and that you give up philosophy.
'
but if you are caught at again you must die

it
my reply is Men of Athens, I honour and love you,

'
but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I

breathe, and have the strength, I shall never turn
from philosophy, nor from warning and admonishing
any of you I come across not to disgrace your
citizenship of a great city renowned for its wisdom
and strength, by giving your thought to reaping the
largest possible harvest of wealth and honour and
glory, and giving neither thought nor care that you
" l
may reach the best in judgment, truth, and the soul.'
He warns them that he will go on with his mission
of examining and criticising, and pointing out to
young or old, native or foreigner, that they are
reversing the true values of life, despising the things
1
Apol., 29.
THE TRIAL 307
of greatest import and exalting the things that matter

little.
"
So God bids, and I consider that never has a
greater good been done you, than through my ministry
in the city. 1 For it is my one business to go about
to persuade young and old alike not to make their
bodies and their riches their first and their engrossing
care, but rather to give
it to the perfecting of their
soul. Virtue springs not from possessions, but from

virtue springs possessions and all other human
blessings, whether for the individual or for society.
If that is to corrupt the youth, then it is mischievous.
But that and nothing else is my offending, and he lies
who says else. Further I would say, O Athenians,
you can believe Anytus or not, you may acquit or
not, but I shall not alter my conduct, no, not if I have
to die a score of deaths." 2
Uproar ensued on these words in court, but Socrates
appealed for a hearing, and went on :
"
You can assure yourselves of this that, being what
I say, if
you put me to death, you will not be doing
greater injury to me than to yourselves. To do me
wrong is beyond the power of a Meletus or an Anytus.
Heaven permits not the better man to be wronged by
the worse. Death, exile, disgrace Anytus and the
average man may count these great evils, not I. A
far greater evil is it to do as he is now doing, trying to
do away with a fellow-being unjustly.
"
O Athenians, I am far from pleading, as one might
expect, for myself it is for you I plead lest you should
;
err as concerning the gift of God given unto you,
by condemning me. If you put me to death you will

not easily find another of my sort, who, to use a
metaphor that may cause some laughter, am attached
by God to the state, as a kind of gadfly to a big generous
1 *
Apol., 30 A, Apol,, 50.
808 SOCRATES
horse, rather slow because of its very bigness and in
need of being waked up. As such and to that end
God has attached me to the city, and all day long and
everywhere fasten
I on you, rousing and persuading
and admonishing you." l
As proof that he has been engaged in a divinely
imposed work he cites the fact that for it he has
counted his own interests and concerns as nothing,
always pursuing exhorting them to virtue, and
theirs,
"
that not for any earthly reward. Of this you have
one sufficient witness my poverty. 2 ... Be not
angry with me speaking the truth, for no man will
escape alive who honourably and sincerely opposes
you or any other mob, and puts his foot down before
the many unjust and unrighteous things that would
otherwise happen in the city. The man who really
fights for justice and right, even if he expects but a
short career, untouched, must occupy a private not a
3
public station."
Socrates then proceeds to give examples of that
unbending integrity of conduct, that regard for right,
for which as it was he ran the risk of forfeiting his life,
and to which had he been a public man he would
most certainly have fallen a sacrifice.
But his life has been one of conversation and
teaching at the call of God in oracles, dreams, and
every way by which the divine appointment has ever
been conveyed to any man. 4
Has it been a life of corrupting influence ? And
Socrates sweeps his eye round the court and challenges
those who have seen the effects of his teaching to
speak out. He mentions Crito, Critobulus, Lysanus,
Antiphon, Nicostratus, Paralus, Adeimantus, Plato,
Êantodorus, who are there in court, and others too
1 *
Plato, Apol., 30. Apol., 31 C.
3 *
Apol,, 31 E, 32 A. Ibid.,33 C.
THE TRIAL 809
he might name, whom Meletus ought to have as

witnesses for the prosecution, if they admit the truth
of the charges. But no They are with Socrates.
!
Such is his defence. And now it is ended. Shall he,

in order to influence his judges, bring in his wife
and three move them with prayers and
children, to
entreaties That would be to fall from the respect
?
due to himself, to the court, and to the state. Let

there be no limelight nor melodrama. His business
is not to petition his judges, but to convince them ;
and their business not to grant justice as a gift, but as

a right. They must abide by law.
"
Clearly, if I tried to persuade you and overcame
you by entreaty, when you have taken the oath of
judge, I should be teaching you not to believe that
there are gods, and my very defence would be a con-
viction that I do not pay them regard. But that is
far from being so. I believe in them as no one of my
accusers believes. And to you I commit my cause

and to God, to judge me as seemeth best for me and
l
for you."
And so with a dignity of demeanour, the expres-
sion of an inward dignityof soul which would not
brook that, for the sake of life and its affections,
he should veer even a hair's breadth from the truth,
or lead others so to do, Socrates closes his defence
and calmly waits the verdict
of the court.
We can feel the quiet nervous tension of his friends
amid that bustle while the votes are recorded and
counted.
Then the result is declared amid a strained hush
"Guilty."
Socrates again stands forth to speak.
" "
All this may be familiar from Plato's Apology and
from repetition ever since. But the same may be said
i
Apol., 35 D-
810 SOCRATES
of Jesus before Pilate. Yet one is never tired of it.
It can never become commonplace. They are both
of those great pictures which hang on the walls of
Time, which we look at again and again, only to lose
ourselves in deeper and deeper enthusiasm. The gold
never tarnishes with handling. It may become as
familiar as a sunset and remain as glorious.
"
of Athens, many things keep me from being
Men
grieved that you have convicted me. What has
happened was not unexpected by me. I am rather
surprised at the number of votes on either side. I
did not think the majority would be so little. As it is
the transference of thirty votes would have acquitted
l
me."
The penalty proposed in the indictment was death.
But according to Athenian usage the condemned
had the privilege of naming a penalty himself, and in
this situation Socrates cannot resist being gravely
humorous.
He suggests that the only fitting penalty is to be
maintained by the state in the Prytaneum as a reward
for his services to Athens, like a victor in the races.
Really if he is to estimate what he deserves he has no
alternative but that proposition.
He may not suggest a fine, for he has no money to
pay it with nor exile, for if he can't be endured in
;
Athens, it is hardly likely he will be tolerated else-

where, and to alter his life is out of the question.
"
A fine life it would be for one at my age always
being driven out from one city and changing to
another. For I know that whithersoever I go the
young men will listen to my words, just as here. If
I drive them away, they themselves will have me cast
out, and if I don't drive them away their fathers and

relatives will cast me out for their sakes." 2
1 2
36 A, Apol., 37 D.
THE TRIAL 311
To the idea that he should give up his mission he

can only reply that to do so would be to disobey
God. "It is the greatest good for a man to converse
daily of virtue and the other subjects which you hear
me discussing, examining both myself and others,
for the unexamined life is not worth x
living."
So he proposes as alternative to death the fine of
a mina, which is all he can see his way to pay, but at
the hurried bidding of his friends Plato, Crito, Crito-
bulus, and Apollodorus, he finally leaves it at 30
minae (122), on their security.
Again there is an anxious interval while the jurors
decide between the penalties 30 minae, or the death
of Socrates.
When the decision is announced, the word is
"Death." Socrates must die. The man who will
not stoop to plead must bear the utmost punishment
of law. He " who had never wronged another," and
refused to wrong himself, is not for this earth. Athens
prefers to be without her prophet. Let her sons
nurse their illusions leave them undisturbed in their
;
conceit and pride let them keep the semblance of

;
knowledge rather than the sense of ignorance sham

;
before reality, convention before truth, dogma before

revelation, rest rather than progress of the mind !
The penalty is Death !
Again Socrates stands forth to say his last word,

before the court which has condemned him departs
to home or market place, to discuss the event which
perhaps they think will meet with general approval
and then soon be forgotten.
The innate dignity of the man is still about him.
He reminds them that they must step out of that
narrow court into another, the larger, juster court of
Time, Truth, the World. They have taken but little
312 SOCRATES
from his but they have taken too much from then-
life,
own reputation. He has scorned to appeal from their
verdict to their sentiment in the usual way. Nor does
he regret it.
"
I would far rather choose to die with that de-
meanour than live by adopting the other.
"
O men, hard it is not to avoid death, it is far
harder to avoid wrongdoing. It runs faster than
death. I being slow and stricken in years am caught
by the slower, but my accusers, sharp and clever as
they are, by the swifter wickedness. And now I go
to pay the debt of death at your hands, but they to
pay the debt of crime and unrighteousness at the hand
of Truth. I for my part shall abide by the award ;
let them see to it also. Perhaps somehow these

things were to be,and I think it is well." l
Then he tells them that men, before death, become
clothed with a prophetic gift, and he too, about to die,
prophesies with all the solemnity of a man done with
this world.
He them that in vain have they attempted to
tells
escape censure on their ways and lives, others will

spring up from the seed he has sown. If he scourged
them with whips, these will scourge them with
scorpions. The only honourable, the only possible
escape from censure on their mistaken lives, is not by
suppressing their censors but by taking thought to
their own amendment. " With this prophecy I am
free of you who have voted against me."
Then he turns to address those who voted for his
2
acquittal :
"
Friends, who have acquitted me, I would like
also to talk with you about this thing which has
happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before
I go to the place at which I must die.
Stay then
i *
Apol., 39 A, B. Apol., 39 E.
THE TRIAL 318
awhile, for we may as well talk with one another

while there is time. You are my friends, and I should
show you the meaning of
like to this event which has
happened to me. O my Judges for you I may truly
calljudges I should like to tell you of a wonderful
circumstance. Hitherto the familiar oracle within
me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me
even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip of
error in any matter and now as you see there has
;
come upon me that which may be thought, and is

generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But
the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was
leaving my house and going out in the morning, or
when I was going up into this court, or while I was
speaking, at anything which I was going to say and ;
yet Ihave often been stopped in the middle of a

speech, but now in nothing I either said or did touching
this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I
take to be the explanation of this ? I will tell you.
I regard this as a great proof that what has happened
to me is a good, and that those of us who think that

death is an evil are in error. For the customary sign
would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil
and not to good.
"
Wherefore, O Judges, be of good cheer about
death, and know of a certainty that no evil can
happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
He and his are not neglected by the gods, nor has
my own approaching end happened by mere chance.
But I see clearly that to die and be released was better
for me and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For
;
which reason, also, I am not angry with my con-

demners, or with my accusers they have done me
;
no harm, although they did not mean to do me any

good and for this I may gently blame them.
;
"
Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my
314 SOCRATES
sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to
punish them, and I would have you trouble them, as
I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches,
or anything, more than about virtue or if they pretend ;
to be something when they are really nothing, then

reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring
about that for which they ought to care, and thinking
that they are something when they are really nothing.
And if you do this, I and my sons will have received
justice at your hands.
"
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our
ways I to die, and you to live. Which is better God
*
only knows." "
"
The picture which in the Apology Socrates draws
of himself as the prophet of the soul and of virtue,
answering closely as it does to features of his life and
labour as sketched by Xenophon, has been called in
question by those who hold the opinion that the
master's one interest and occupation was philosophical,
concerning itself with the pursuit of concepts.
"Socrates, in the latter portion of the 'Apology'
assumes the role of an exhorter and a preacher of
virtue, one who addresses all he meets followers and
fellow-countrymen alike and tries to persuade them
to take thought of their highest interests. need We
not dwell on the improbability that such a Socrates
should have been the original of the Socrates of the
comic stage. It is enough to point out that all we
know of his positive ethical teaching is in contradic-
2
tion with this account of him."
Gomperz's explanation is that Plato substituted
as the aim and endeavour of Socrates' activity what
was just an incidental consequence of it, i.e. spiritual
awakening and moral reformation.
On the other hand, we would argue that Plato was not
2
1
Jowett's trans. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii.
p. 107.
THE TRIAL 815
the man todo so, either as the result of confusion or

deliberation. He, too, was a member oi the new
school, and a critic of the old authorities in Athenian
morality ;
we cannot conceive him throwing a sop
like this to Cerberus, least of all when it was too late
to be of any use in saving Socrates' life, and he had
quitted this mortal stage.
Moreover, there is simply no reason for refusing to
admit that there was nothing to prevent Socrates
being, what in our chief authorities, Plato and Xeno-
phon, he is represented as being, both a seeker for
concepts and an examiner of lives, a prophet of
individual and social morality. And if he had not
been the latter as well as the former, how did he come
to gain the enthusiastic discipleship of Xenophon,
who, according to the class of critics we are dealing
with, had no capacity to appreciate Socrates on his
philosophical side at all ?
How also did he become not only the inspirer of a
school of thought like the Megarians, but of a dis-
cipline of life like the Cynic ?
We still cling, then, to the all-round Socrates of the
" "
Apology of Plato, and not to the pedantic recluse
" "
of the Clouds of Aristophanes, to the great preacher
and teacher and example of noble living, as well as to
the discoverer of logical processes.
All sides are dear to us, and we shall not let them
go, while we have a reason for holding them. He has

the homage of our mind for his logical acumen, but
he has the worship of our heart for his spiritual insight,
his moral greatness, and his reforming zeal.
It would hardly be right to leave the condemnation
of Socrates at this point, without some attempt to
understand its significance and to appraise the conduct
of the Athenians to whom it was due.
The future, which is on the side of a martyr, is too
316 SOCRATES
apt to confuse the just and proper appreciation of its
hero with the refusal to allow any sympathy with
the motives, and any mitigation of the culpability and
folly, of those who have done him to death.
Christian literature has amply furnished us with
this one-sided method of historical criticism. The
crucifixion of Jesus has never ceased to revolt the
Christian conscience which he was the chief instrument
in creating. The Church has never ceased to wonder
how such a miscarriage of justice was possible, and
has been forced back for explanation on two somewhat
unnatural considerations, the implications of which
it has not usually tried to reconcile, viz., the eternal
purpose of the Supreme Power, God, in human sal-

vation, and the unrelieved diabolical wickedness and
malice of Jews and Romans.
If the former ground be taken seriously it must be
followed by pity rather than indignation for those
who had to be its mortal instruments the same sort
of pity as we have for Clytemnestra and Orestes and
CEdipus. And as for the second explanation, a fairer

research and a more discriminating temper are
beginning to force on us the acceptance of the view
that the Jews, particularly the Pharisees who were
chiefly involved, acted from conscientious religious
motives, rather than from personal hatred, while the
Romans in all their Christian persecutions were in-
stigated by a regard for political loyalty and the safety
and integrity of their empire.
So also with the condemnation of Socrates. What-
ever personal motives may have actuated those pri-
marily responsible, in all probability there mingled
with them reasons of religion and state, which would
be the chief influence in the case of Athenian jurors
generally.
As we have previously pointed out, in Socrates old
THE TRIAL 817
traditions and present institutions were brought into

direct collision with new tendencies and ideas. Demo-
cracy was to be replaced by the aristocracy of mind ;
patriotic sentiments rooting themselves in, and clinging

about, the little city republic were to be dissolved in
the wider relationships of an intellectual brotherhood
which knew no barriers of city walls. The kingdom of
philosophy is a universal kingdom. Moreover, in the

light of the new mentality of which Socrates was the
incandescent focus, the old traditional religion of the
city, the religion under which it had grown to greatness,
was shown up as an idol with many cracks and
fractures in it its head was not 22-carat gold, and its
;
feet were an admixture of clay.

The free criticism of the established religious order
might easily bring on the city from its gods the
dreaded Nemesis of impiety, with which their literature
had so ingrained the Athenians, if indeed the disasters
of the Peloponnesian War were not already signs of
that Nemesis.
It isn't so very long ago since the English would have
pretty generally found an explanation of national

calamities in the irreligiousness and impiety of the
population, or some section of it. Why, did we not
quite recently hear the frightful fate of the Titanic
spoken of as a judgment of Heaven on luxury and
prodigality ? Ill fortune cows and frightens people
into superstitious ideas, and so may precipitate violent

reaction.
To admit that such forces played on the Athenians
isonly to admit that they were human and no better
than Christians in the bulk. But it is also to affirm
that they were no worse.
If the limits of city life,or the narrow unities
of national life are an ultimate and inviolable
thing, then Socratic ideas and sentiments were
818 SOCRATES
against the order of things, and were dealt with
accordingly.
Grievously hath he sinned, and grievously hath he
answered for it, and no censure can be attached to the
instruments of his fate. To them, indeed, these things

were ultimate and inviolate, for they were just average
patriots.
The tragedy is that the times demanded not average
patriots, but pioneers pioneers in thought and senti-

ment As matter of fact there was a broad undercurrent
.
of free thought in the age of Aristophanes and Euri-

pides, which would account for the long immunity of
Socrates from arrest, till the end of the Peloponnesian
War, with its train of calamities, which introduced a
period of reaction, during which Socrates was sacrificed.
But in spite of temporary reaction, we can agree with
Zeller that the deeper inevitability of the age was
towards a broadening beyond the limits of merely
national or city consciousness, and a departure from
the religious orthodoxy with which the city's tradi-
tions were bound up. In the greatness of his own
personality Socrates symbolised the break up of the
age of authority and the rise of the age of reason and
freedom. 1 And he is not the only one whom an age
and people, panic-stricken at its own tendencies, has
sacrificed to a passing moment of feverish penitence
and superstition.
"
They grew too great
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good."
And they paid the penalty.

1
Cp. Zeller, Phil, der Griech., ii., 4th edit., 228-31.
CHAPTER XIV
() THE LAST SCENES
"
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of
my soul."
W. E. HENLEY.
now we turn to lift the veil from the last
A) scenes in the
light of the far past,
In the twi-
life of the master.
but dimly we can
discern just what happened. Plato has woven wonder-
it is
ful discourse into those last days a discourse of a

soul that already feels itself above time and time's
sorrowful delusions, and sings the melody of the
immortals.
" "
The
Phaedo is one of the greatest books in litera-
ture. In it we have divine philosophy wedded to art
by the imagination of a wizard mind and through "
it we look on
Socrates as through charmed magic
"
casements in a transfigured world of thought and
faith and beauty. He moves in the witchery of
starlight.
But Socrates really did discourse like that in his
if
narrow discourse of the great wide world of

cell,
diviner freer life beyond the prison-gates, it must all
have come as a kind of revelation suddenly after the
curtain fell on the scene of his trial.
There he left the future, unknown, entirely in the
hands of God, with a quiet but adequate faith. Now in
"
the " Phaedo wave after wave of argument for the im-
319
820 SOCRATES
mortality of the soul when it has shuffled off this
mortal coil, flows out from his illumined mind upon the
doubts and scepticism of his friends. It is great
discourse if the world has ever heard such; but we
for our part must assign these noble affirmations and
proofs to the creative spirit of that superlative philo-

sopher, and pupil of the master, Plato.
They are so rounded, so deep sounding, so bell-like
in the clearness and wholeness of their ring, that
they body forth a more certain conviction and assur-
ance than we think Socrates ever attained. It is
a grander oratorio of intellect than the inner ear of
Socrates ever listened to; and yet we feel that it
is not far away from his mood. His life trembled on
the prelude of it, hesitatingly, and Plato takes up the
theme, in his own full, bold strain, weaves chords
and movements of his own inspiration about it, but
ever and anon letting authentic notes of the departed
and beloved master fall into the swell of the larger
music, to mingle with it so that instinct alone, at
times, can waveringly analyse out the original voice
from the composer's.
It is not impossible for a man who assumes no certain
knowledge of the fate of the soul after death to allay
the pain and pang in the hearts of sorrowful friends,
by dwelling on all the arguments for a good hope
"
that
"
death does not end all, that indeed death is but a
"
covered way, which opens into light." An agnostic
is not a man who sees no arguments for a certain belief,
but one who also sees arguments against it. And all
the circumstances would induce Socrates, in that in-
terval of farewell between doom and death, to bring
forth all that he could say for the positive view.
It does not, however, seem to us that these considera-
tions explain the triumphant, if interrupted, march of
the reasoning in the "Phaedo." And, moreover, part
THE LAST SCENES 821
of theargument rests upon a psychology and a meta-

physic which were not beaten out on Socrates' anvil,
but on Plato's own. The clean dualism of soul and
body, nay the conflict between the two, as of an angel
and a demon from different worlds, but temporarily
thrown together, the theory of knowledge, and the
philosophy of ideas, are, we still believe, distinctly
Platonic. The lips are the lips of Socrates, but the
voice is the voice of Plato.
It so happened that when Socrates was condemned
to die, a period of thirty days had to intervene ere the
sentence could be carried into effect, for the sacred
embassy had just set out to Delos.
The story was that Athens had to pay a yearly
tribute of fourteen youths to the Minotaur in Crete,
but that Theseus had slain the monster, and freed the
city from this terrible sacrifice. Athens at the time
vowed to Apollo that if it were so freed it would
send a yearly embassy to Delos, in the ship in which
Theseus was supposed to have sailed. From the
moment the priest of Apollo had crowned the ship
till the time of its arrival back was a holy season, during
which the city must not be polluted by any public

executions. 1
"
Thus Socrates lay in prison for a month. During
the whole of that time his life proceeded as usual.
There was nothing to mark a difference between now
and formerly in the even tenour of its courage and it :
was a lif e which at all times had been a marvel of cheer-

fulness and calm content." 2
Part of his time was spent in pious and pleasant
exercise of composing a hymn to Apollo, and also of
8
turning some fables of Êsop into verse.
1
See Phaedo, 58 Xen., Mem., iv. 8.
;
*
Xen., Mem., iv. 8 Dakyns' trans., cp. Phaedo, 63 a-c.
;
3
Phaedo, 61 cp. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Socrates, 22.
;
21
322 SOCRATES
It was somewhat of a surprise to his friends that the
practised philosopher, who knew himself and his limi-

tations so well, should thus turn amateur poet; but
the circumstance and explanation are indescribably
human and and give a charming glimpse of
childlike,
his character. He
explained this whim as due to a
dream he had, in which he was told " that he should
compose music." He had always taken this as refer-
ring to philosophy, "the noblest and best of music,"
but now he had a scruple on the matter, and so took
to music in the more popular sense of poetry. There
is something very innocent and comic in the wise, but
essentially simple-minded dialectician tempting his

poetical muse to flight on the fables of ./Esop in this way.
The chief occupation, however, of his days was in
the dearly loved discourse.
Prison regulations in Athens were apparently in
some respects very humane, and Socrates could always
have his friends with him. The names of the faithful
1
group are given by Plato. They used to gather near
the place where his trial had occurred, which was near
the prison, and there wait till the prison doors were
opened, when they entered and generally passed the
2
day with Socrates, discoursing in the old way on the
high themes of human thought and quest. The near
approach of death made no alteration in the occupation
of the sage. Death could not find him at a better
occupation than that with which his life for the last
thirty years had been filled. His ordinary life was
the best preparation for death he could think of. It is
a fine testimony to the ordered elevation of the work
of these years.
Naturally the thoughts of the little group of friends
turned to the question of whether nothing could be
done to save the life of this man on the verge of seventy,
1
Phaedo, 59. Ibid.
THE LAST SCENES 823
who had won not only their mind's reverence but their
heart's love.
They at anyrate, knowing him so intimately, and
able justly to appreciate his worth, felt that the future
would repeal the verdict of the Athenians, and that it
would be demanded of them why they had done nothing
to save so great and good a man from his own indiffer-
ence to life and from the temporary passion and preju-
dice of the populace. Something must be devised to
get Socrates saved. He must be asked to effect an
escape from Athens that would be comparatively easy.
But who was to make the suggestion ? It must
come from the one among them who enjoyed the highest
esteem and consideration, for it was a delicate business
to suggest any hole and corner procedure to a man like
Socrates.
The natural man for the task was, of course, Crito,
the most honoured friend of the master. That is no
artistic touch of Plato, as Jowett suggests, but the
touch of a common instinct on the part of the group
of friends. The dialogue Crito gives us is what passed
between the two on this matter.
At once Socrates felt it to be shady and beneath his
dignity. He run away in disguise ? But he knew it
was suggested out of love and grief, and it gave him a
fine opportunity for argument.
It is the last 1 opportunity of persuading Socrates.
There are rare touches behind Plato's description.
Crito is at the prison long before there is any chance
of the doors being open. He can't rest. Only two
days before the fatal day It is still dark, with
!
the sentinel stars above, and Crito is already there.

He manages to get access, and we can imagine his
doubt and excitement, conscious of his purpose.
He enters the cell of Socrates. All is dark, not a
1
Crito, 44, suggests it was not the first time of advising flight.
324 SOCRATES
movement. Socrates is lying on his couch asleep.
Only the measured heaving of slumber is to be heard.
And the man is due to die within forty-eight hours !
Crito has not the heart to disturb that rest. So he

sits down to watch and wait and think.
At length the dawn is just about to break outside, and
the sleeping figure moves and wakes.
"
Soc. Why, what are you doing here at this hour,
Crito ? It must be very early.
"
CRITO. Yes, it's just daybreak.
"Soc. Have you just come ?
"
CRITO. No, I came some time ago.
"
Soc. Why did you not waken me at once then,
instead of sitting there in silence ?
"
CRITO. Socrates, I would not like myself to have
such watch and sorrow. But I've been amazed at
seeing you sleep so peacefully. And I did not wake
you at once to steal away that peace. Often before
in your have thought you happy in your dis-
life I
position, but never half as much as now, that with

1
fate so close you should take it so quietly and easily."
Socrates notices in Crito's demeanour there is some-
thing on his mind, and asks him bluntly what has
brought him so early.
Then Crito tells him how near the fatal day is, and
pleads with him to consider his friends, and their grief
at the prospect of his loss, to consider what people
will say of his own (Crito's) apparent indifference to
secure his friend's escape from death. Yes, he and
others besides are ready to put anything he has at
8
Socrates' disposal.
He pleads with him through his sense of duty " to
"
wife and children the hardest argument against a
good man.
But Socrates waves all such considerations aside.
1
Crito, 43. Ibid., 45.
THE LAST SCENES 825
How his conduct will appear to superficial crowds

matters nothing to him. How would a wise man judge
it ? To do what the crowd approves and does was
never his way.
Is it right or is it wrong, that's the question. Con-
sequences, aye though they be death, don't count.
And so Socrates weighs the alternatives in the strict
balance of conscience. The Athenians may have done
"
him wrong ;
their law may be unjust to him, but no "
man may render evil for evil, or retaliate." l
Never
is it right to ward
wrong with wrong."
off
It has always been his principle to be obedient to
the laws, to treat them as sacred to them he owes :
that order and society which alone makes a man's own

life and personality worth anything. His residence
in Athens was a contract to be loyal to the laws of
Athens. Besides, what is the good of him at his age
uprooting the practice and profession and good name
of a lifetime ? And what has any other town or city
to offer him, when Athens has refused him ?
" "
All through this argument the Laws of Athens
are personified, and it is their voice which speaks and
suggests these considerations, their last word being :
"
Listen, Socrates, to us who have brought you up.
'
Think not of life and children first, and of justice after-

wards, but of justice first, that you may be justified
before the princes of the world below. For neither will
you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier
or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do
as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer
and not a doer of evil a victim not of the laws but
;
ofmen. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil,

and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agree-
ments which you have made with us, and wronging
those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say,
1
Crito, 49.
326 SOCRATES
yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall
be angry with you while you live, and our brethren
the laws in the world below, will receive you as an
enemy for they will know that you have done your
;
best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.'

"
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring
in my ears. Like the sound of the flute in the ears of
the mystic that voice, I say, is humming in my ears,
;
and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know

that anything more which you may say will be vain.
Yet speak, if
you have anything to say.
"
CRITO. I have nothing to say, Socrates.
"
Soc. Leave me then to follow whithersoever
God leads." *
"
So ends the Crito."
Socrates then deliberately prefers to die, and his asso-
ciates probably spoke no more on the subject of flight.
The next scene Plato gives us 2 is on the morning of
the day of his deliverance from earth.
A number of his associates, Athenians, and from other
cities, have as usual come early to the prison. When
they arrive the jailer tells them to wait, for the Eleven
"
are with Socrates, taking off his chains and giving
orders that he is to die to-day."
When they are allowed to go in, they find Socrates
with the chains off, and Xanthippe, his wife, sitting
beside him, with their child in her arms. She had been
a shrew, and had given him many a scolding, but we
doubt not, though rather coarse of grain, she had loved
him deeply in her own way. Diogenes Laertius relates
that when she had heard the news of his condemnation,
she said
"
You will die unjustly " to which, with ;
" 7
his usual humour, he only replied, ould you rather W
3
have me die justly."
1 *
Jowett's translation. Phaedo, 59 ff.
3
ii.
Diogen., 5, 35.
THE LAST SCENES 827
When the friends entered whom perhaps she had

never regarded as much else than a set of idlers with
a bee in their bonnet, a melting emotion coursed through
"
her, and she turned to her husband, O Socrates, this
is the last time
you will speak with your friends or
they with you."
"
Socrates looked over to Crito and said : Crito, let
someone lead her away home."
Some of them then led her away crying and beating
her breast.
Then Socrates, sitting up on his couch, bent his leg
up and began to rub it, delivering himself the while of
some reflections on the psychology of pain and pleasure.
Still the philosopher !
And now we pass to the last solemn events of the

tragedy, lightened up only by the unquenchable cheer-
fulness and good humour of the central figure.
And one or two little traits we must not miss they;
are so truly of the man, and doubtless fond reflection

recalled them and dwelt on them again and again.
We would feign believe them historical, though if anyone
chooses to regard them as only the fineness of Plato's
realistic art, we must even let him think so.
Crito who, as already said, holds a special place and
relation to Socrates, having been under his guardian-
ship, and acting for him in all personal affairs requiring
delicacy and confidence, a sort of paternal relationship
to this great man, who at fully seventy is still the absent-
minded philosopher, the child Crito, seeing he is
going to fling himself into an argument with the well-
known alacrity and zeal of the tireless hunter of con-
cepts, gets restless and fidgety, and when he has got
Socrates' attention, tells him that the attendant
has said that if he gets heated with debate it will inter-
fere with the action of the poison he has later to drink,
hi which case he may have to take it twice or three
328 SOCRATES
times. The officer has been rather insistent to Crito
on the point, being doubtless a bit excited by the stern
duty which lies before him. But Socrates dismisses "
the warning abruptly as rather a nuisance. Give
him my compliments, and tell him to be ready for his
duties, which is to administer it twice, or, if that won't
do, three times." And then on he goes with his lofty
reflections on the philosopher's life and death.
Another incident reveals the man.
Socrates has been moving along in the debate with
great idat, a sort of triumphal procession of intellect,
the disciples looking on as usual with profound ad-
miration. Then comes a point when Simmias and
Cebes seem to shiver all his fine constructions, and a
feeling of compassion and unpleasantness seizes on the
little group.
Socrates, too, is feeling the shock of the argument,
and apparently needs time to marshal his broken forces
again. There he sits on his couch, with Phaedo a little
lower, on a stool just down at his right hand, and he
is playing with his young and enthusiastic admirer's
hair, stroking it down against his head and neck.

"
He had a way of playing with my hair," says Phaedo.
It's a fine little natural touch. Then he looks down at
the lad, and says, in a few simple words in which pathos
meets jest hiddenly.
"
To-morrow, perhaps, Phasdo, you will cut off this
beautiful hair."
"
It seems so, Socrates," I said.
"
Not if you listen tome," said he.
And Socrates goes on to advise him to cut off the
glory of his hair in sorrow for the slain argument, unless
it can be brought back to life. If it cannot, Socrates
too will cut off his hair along with Phaedo on the
morrow.
The delicate play of pain-touching humour in this
THE LAST SCENES 829
little episode is perfectly exquisite it;

is a smile
" "
Socrates casts through the lachrymae rerum
in Phaedo's heart to lighten them for a little. It is
exquisite.
Then he proceeds to warn the young men against
the temptation to become sceptics in regard to reason,
because they may be called on sometimes to admit
they have come to wrong conclusions. Pessimism
and cynicism may come from pitching one's expecta-
tions too high in regard to men and things. Dis-
appointment of our trusts, miscarriage of our efforts,
must not lead us to give up the search for truth and
reality. It was this frame of mind at a difficult
moment that raised Phaedo's admiration to en-
thusiasm. 1
The high discourse came to an end, and Socrates

rose and went into the bath-chamber, Crito with him.
When he had taken his bath, his three sons and
women-folk were brought to him, and he spoke with
them for a little, and gave them some directions, in
Crito's presence. Then they went away, and Socrates
returned to where his friends awaited him.
While he had been absent at the bath the sense of
the greatness of their loss came upon his faithful
friends more than ever. "He was like a father of
whom we were being bereaved, and we were to pass
the rest of life as orphans."
Sunset was drawing near, and little was said. Each

sat with his thoughts.
The jailer entered, the man from whose hands Socrates
was to receive the hemlock cup, one who, perhaps,
had done that stern duty often enough before, and
who was not to be easily touched with emotion. But
now the callousness of officialdom for once was broken,
1
Phaedo, 89,
330 SOCRATES
and this rough jailer became a man again, at the
contact with one supremely great soul.
"
"Socrates," he said, I shall not have to
complain
of you as I have of others, that they vent their anger
and curses on me when I give them the poison at the
command of my have found you in your
superiors. I
time here the noblest and gentlest and best man that
has ever been in this place, and I know you will not be
angry at me, but at those who are the cause of this.
And now you know my errand, good-bye, and try to
bear as lightly as you can what must be."
And with that he burst into tears and turned to go
away.
"
And
Socrates, looking up at him, said And you, :
good-bye ; I'll do as you bid."

And then addressing his friends " What a gentle- :
man he is. would come

All the time we've been here he
to me, and sometimes he conversed, and was the best
of fellows, and how fine of him to weep for me. But
now, Crito, the poison, if it is prepared. If not, let
him get it ready."
The rest had better be told in the words of Plato,
translated by Jowett :
It was the hour when the sun was just resting on

the western sea, the hour of richest colour, when the
glow is on the world, and ere the grey of twilight wraps
all things in its still melancholy.
Socrates had asked that the cup be given to him ;
he is done with the world and there is no call to delay

further his exit from its little stage. He will away
to the land beyond the river.
"
Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing
by, and he went out, and having been absent for some
time, returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison.
You, my good friend, who are ex-
'
Socrates said :
perienced in these matters, shall give me directions

THE LAST SCENES 331
how I am
to proceed.' The man answered : You '
have only to walk about until your legs are heavy,

and then to lie down and the poison will act. At the
same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who, in the
easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or
change of colour or feature, looking at the man with
all his
eyes, manner was, took the
Echecrates, as his
cup and said What do you say about making a libation
'
:
'
out of this cup to any god ? May I, or not ? The
man answered :
'
We
only prepare, Socrates, just as
much as we deem enough.'
'
I understand,' he said,
'
but I may and must ask the gods to prosper my journey
from this to that other world even so and so be it
according to my prayer.' Then holding the cup to
his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank the poison.
And hitherto most of us had been able to control our
sorrow, but now when we saw him drinking, and saw,
too, that he had finished the draught, we could no
longer forbear, and, in spite of myself, my own tears
were flowing fast, so that I covered my face and wept
over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him,
but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost
such a friend. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he
found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up
and walked away, and I followed and at that moment,
;
Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke

out in a loud and passionate cry which made cowards
of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness :
' '
What is this strange outcry ? he said. '
I sent away
the women mainly in order that they might not offend

in this way, for Ihave heard that a man should die in
peace. Be quiet then, and have patience.' When we
heard that we were ashamed, and refrained our tears ;
and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began

to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the
directions, and the man who gave him the poison now
832 SOCRATES
and then looked at his feet and legs, and after a while
he pressed his foot hard, and asked him if he could
'
feel and he said No
;
'
and then his leg, and so up-
;
wards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold

and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said When :
'
the poison reaches the heart that will be the end.' He

was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he
uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and
'
said (they were his last words) he said Crito, I :
owe a cock to Asclepius, will you remember to pay

' '
the debt ? The debt shall be paid,' said Crito ;
' '
is there anything else ? There was no answer to

this question but in a minute or two a movement was
;
heard, and the attendants uncovered him his eyes ;
were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.

" Such was
the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom
I may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all
the men whom I have ever known." x

Diogenes tells that when he was about to drink the
poison, Apollodorus offered him his own finer mantle
" "
to die in. Why," he replied, is own cloak fit my
" 2
to live in and not to die in ? True or not, it gives
the spirit of the man.
We have followed till its close the life of Athens'
sage. He drank the poison and awaited its fatal action
with the hopeful dignity and quiet which he felt befitted
death and himself. He rebuked his grief-stricken
friends for bursting into tears and weeping. Even
Crito had not been able to restrain himself, but with
that perfect feeling which existed between them and
the philosopher, he had moved away a little, to give
vent to his sorrow apart.
He knew Socrates' exquisite delicacy of feeling for
just the fitting thing, a feeling which had led him to
cover himself over when he drank the hemlock.
1 *
Jowett's trans. Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5, 35.
THE LAST SCENES 833
Touches like these draw us to Crito all who love

;
Socrates must love his lover, him who would have given
anything to save him, and whose hands performed the
last affectionate office of closing his eyes and mouth.
Blessed indeed the heart which felt that love, and the
hands which did that act. So long as the name of
Socrates shall be reverenced, so long will this deed be
spoken of as a memorial to him. On him, the great
heart, broken for its greatness, leaned for the fulfilment
of whatever earthly duties were due by it. Crito was
the confidential friend and agent. To him Socrates
was "beloved Socrates." 1 It was he who sat and
watched and wondered while the great man, with death
hanging over him, slept, as a child sleeps. What he
thought of Socrates and felt towards him was not for
words or comments. They were of the deep things
for which there is.no speech.
(b) And now, in conclusion, we wish to gather a few
of the tributes of reverence and appreciation, which
others who were inspired by his influence and touched
by his lordliness and goodness, have paid to him.
First comes Plato, with the noble gift of the grandest
works of human thought within our ken. The glorious
creations of his superlative mind he gives as his tribute to
Socrates, at whose feet he had sat who had first opened
to him the doors of the infinite world of thought.
No sentence of appreciation even his great art could
have coined can equal in impressiveness the fact that
in all his dialogues the chief figure is Socrates.
To have won that distinction, and the admiration
out of which it sprang, is colossal proof of the real
greatness of Socrates' mind, and the no less real admira-
tion of his greatest pupil.
It is to Plato we owe also the testimony put into

i
Crito, 44.
884 SOCRATES
the mouth of the brilliantly gifted but loose-principled
and erratic Alcibiades, in whose heart there seems to
have gone on a tussle between the better and the
worse, the ideal and the sinful, such as later tore the
inner life of young Augustine for manyyears in Carthage,
the pull of an ardent enthusiasm for the pursuit of know-
ledge and wisdom against the perilous lust of the flesh
and the evil pride of life. In the case of Augustine
the good won, in that of Alcibiades the worse prevailed,
and he left the company of Socrates to pursue the path
of worldly ambitions.
Agathon was celebrating with friends his victory
in the competition with tragedies, and the company
were extemporising speeches on love, when in burst
Alcibiades, drunk, and roystering, his head decked with
ribands, which he brings to transfer to the head of
1
Agathon.
Suddenly he sees Socrates, and asks for some of the
"
ribbons back wherewith to crown the marvellous
head of this universal despot . who in conversation
. .
2
is the conqueror of all mankind."
And then he launches into an eulogy of the " universal

despot," which, drunk as he is, he yet declares to be
only the sober truth.
" 3
I shall praise Socrates in a figure which will appear
to him to be a caricature, and yet I do not mean to
laugh at him, but only to speak the truth. I say, then,
that he is exactly like the masks of Silenus, which may
be seen in the statuaries' shops, sitting with pipes and
flutes in theirmouths and they are made to open
;
in the middle and have images of gods inside them.

" When we hear
any other speaker, even a very good
one, his words produce absolutely no effect upon us in
comparison, whereas the very fragments of you and
your words, even at second hand, and however imper-
1
212. 213. 215.
THE LAST SCENES 885
fectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every

man, woman, and child who comes within hearing of
them. I have heard Pericles and other great orators,
but though I thought they spoke well, I never had any
similar feeling my soul was not stirred by them, nor
;
was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state.

But this Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass
that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life which
I was leading and I am conscious that if I did not
;
shut my ears against him, and fly from the voice of the
siren, he would detain me until I grew old sitting at
his feet. For he makes me confess that I ought not
to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul,
and busying myself with the concerns of the Athenians ;
therefore I hold my ears and bear myself away from him.

And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed,
which you might think not to be in my nature, and
there is no one else who does the same. For I know
that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to
do as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love
of popularity gets the better of me. And therefore
I run away andfly from him, and when I see him I am
ashamed of what I have confessed to him. Many a
time have I wished that he were dead, and yet I know
that I should be much more sorry than glad if he were
to die : so that I am at my wit's end."
1
" "
The close of the Memorabilia sums up Xenophon's
appreciation :
"
Amongst those who knew Socrates and recognised
what manner of man he was, all who make virtue and
perfection their pursuit still to this day cease not to
lament his lot with bitterest regret, as for one who
helped them in the pursuit of virtue as none else could.
"To me, personally, he was what I have myself
1
Jowett's translation.
836 SOCRATES
endeavoured to describe so pious and devoutly
t
religious that he would take no step apart from the

will of heaven so just and upright that he never did
;
even a trifling injury to any living soul so self -con- ;
trolled, so temperate, that he never at any time chose

the sweeter in place of the better so sensible, and ;
wise, and prudent, that in distinguishing the better

from the worse he never erred nor had he need of ;
any helper, but for the knowledge of these matters,

his judgment was at once infallible and self-sufficing.
Capable of reasonably setting forth and denning moral
questions, he was also able to test others, and where
they erred, to cross-examine and convict them, and so
to impeland guide them in the path of virtue and noble
manhood. With these characteristics, he seemed to
be the very impersonation of human perfection and
1
happiness."
We may also quote the concluding words of the
"Apology," which has come down to us as from his
pen :
"
For myself, indeed, as I lay to mind the wisdom of
the man and his nobility, and can neither forget him
nor, remembering him, forbear to praise him. But if
any of those who make virtue their pursuit have ever
met a more helpful friend than Socrates, I tender such
an one my congratulations as a most enviable man." 2
And further, this fine testimony :
"
He never hurt a single soul either by deprivation
of good or infliction of evil, and never lay under the
imputation of any such wrong-doing."
Phaedo, in the dialogue of Plato of that name, gives
us what he may be taken to have felt about Socrates
while the latter was lying in prison waiting his end.
"
I was in
affected a wonderful way in his company.
1
Dakyns' Works, vol. iii.
pp. 181, 182.
*
Dakyns, iii. 195.
THE LAST SCENE 887
No feeling of pity entered my mind as one would expect,

being present at the death of a friend, Echecrates.
He seemed to me happy in his mien and in his conversa-
tion, and he died so fearlessly and nobly, that I could
not but believe that the divine hand was in it leading
him to the gates of the Beyond, and that his lot would
be blessed when he arrived there if ever man's was.
And so no regret seized me as one would have expected
l
at such an extremity."
Here we too, with joy at the gift of such a man and
such a life, take our leave of Socrates.
1
Phaedo, 58 e.
INDEX
"
ACHARNIANS, THE," of AristO- Aspasia, 23, 291
phanes, 10, 283, 291 n. Athenians, the: their conduct to
Adam, 235 ; on Socrates' Socrates, 316, 317; Free-
prayers, 240 thought among,225, 318 ;
.SLschines, 275, 294 superstitious element, 317;

/Eschylus, "Agamemnon," 92; compared with Christians, 317
214, 215 Audition, 250
Agathon, 334 Authorities, for Socrates, 5-8 ;
Alcibiades, 40, 295, 334 their incompleteness, 6 ; its

Alopece, parish of, 9 causes, 7 ; their comparative
Amphipolis, Socrates at, 103, worth, 8
305
Anaxagoras: studied by Socrates, "
BECKER'S Charicles," n, 47,
22, 30 Mind in the Universe,
;
63, 65; 84; 291
30; fails to apply the prin-
Bennett.Arnold, quoted, 142, 190
ciple, 33, 281 ; 299 "Birds" of Aristophanes: on
Anaximander, 28 Socrates' personal habits, 46,
Anaximenes, 28, 281
Antisthenes Socrates on, 58
: ;
47; 65, 226, 227
on work, 148 Body, the," Socrates' care for, 52
Boeckh, Public Economy of
Anytus, 299 Athens," on Socrates' cir-
Apollodorus," 311, 331,
332
"
of Plato, its his- cumstances, 61, 62 cost of ;
Apology living"in Athens, 67

toricalvalue, 300 ; tribute
Bury, History of Greece,"
to Socrates, 336
quoted, 102 on Xenophon as
Apuleius, "De Deo Socratis,"
;
historian, 133
216, 250
Archelaos, a teacher of Socrates, "
22, 86 CAMPBELL, Lewis, Religion in
Aristarchus, Socrates' conversa- Greek Literature," 215, 228
tion with, 143 Carlyle, quoted, i ; Socrates
Aristippus, 86, 196 compared with, 116 ; on work,
Aristocracy of Talent, 163 146, 200
Aristodemus, 208 " Clouds " Chaerecratcs, 151
Aristophanes, see ; Chaerephon, in, 285, 295
on the Gods, 225-227; cor- Charicles, 297
ruptions of sacrificial sys- Chesterton, G. K., quoted, 171,
tem, 237; on contemporary 172
" Clouds "
of Aristophanes, 8
prayer, 238, 239 ;
Aristotle, 7, 38, 127, 155, 176, on Socrates' appearance, 38 ;
1 80 personal habits, 48 view of ;
Aristoxenos, 41 woman indicated, 74 So- ;
Asceticism and Socrates, 49 f. crates and science, 127, 128;

Asclepius, 332 Socrates' religion in, 221 ; 264;
338
INDEX 339
273 ff. ; interpretation of, Domestic Economy in Athens :
277, 286-288 ; its treatment houses, 63, 64 meals, 65, 66 ; ;
of Socrates, 277, 278 ; value cost of living, 66, 67 wages, 67 ;
of its portraiture, 278 ff. Doring, 7, 189, 200, 242

Common-weal as motive, 201,
202 ECHECRATES, 331, 332
Conn us, tutor of Socrates, 148 Education in Athens elemen- :
Couat's
" "
Aristophane quoted, tary, 14 ff. advanced, 17 ff. ;
on cost of living at Athens, "Electra of Euripides, 74

67 ; Greek houses, 63 103, ; Emerson quoted, 159
227, 273 Empedocles of Acragas : his
Courage defined, 181, 182 teaching, 29; 281
Criterion, the, in Morality, 204, Enemies, treatment of, 150 ff.
205 Equality, Socrates' view of,

Critias, 294, 297 ii6ff.
Crito, 295, 308, 311, 323, 327, Erasmus :
quoted on Socrates, 2
329, 331, 332, 333 Ethics, his sole interest in man-
Critobulus, Socrates' conver- hood: Platoon, 125; Xeno-
sation with, 152, 241, 308, phon on, 127; Aristotle on,
3ii 127,174,176. See also under
Cross-examination, Socratic,! 12 ; Teaching
" n.
example of, 1 75 Eupolis, " 279
Fragments,"
" Electra
Euripides, quoted,
D.SMON, the, (Divine-sign) of 74; on theology, 228; Socrates'
Socrates, no, 250 a con-
; influence on, 101
stant monitor, 251, 313 a ;
"
peculiar experience, 251 its ; FARNELL, The Cults of
negative function, 251 ; not Greece," 214, 215
the voice of Conscience, 251 ; Fouillee on the Daemon of
:
represents a special communi- " 257, 267 ; 278 ;

Socrates, on
cation of God, 252 its
; Plato's Apology," 300
interpretation, 253 ff. ; its Fox, George, Inner Light,
general significance, 262 Trances and Voices, 249, 261
Damon, a tutor of Socrates, 23 Friendship : Socrates' passion
Definition, Socratic, 176; its for, 88 ff his philosophy of,
.
;
influence on Plato, 177 90 ff. 154;
Delium, Socrates' conduct at, "Frogs" of Aristophanes, 66, 227

102, 306 Fustel de Coulanges, 17
Delphic Oracle on Socrates, in
Demetrius of Phalerum quoted, GOD, Designer of Nature, 209 ;
on Socrates' circumstances, 61 His beneficence, 209, 212,

Democracy of Athens its
:
230; All-seeing, 211; Om-
character, 108, 109 ;Socrates niscient, 2ii Omnipresent, ;
on, 1 20 ;Aristotle, Aristo- 212 ;His righteousness, 212,

phanes, Socrates, and Plato's 213 ;a Spiritual Being, the
view of, 290, 297 Mind of the Universe, 209,
Democritus, 29 211,212; His Moral Goodness,
Demosthenes quoted on mar- 213 ;monotheism or poly-
riage, 71 theism comparatively unim-
Design in the World, 209; portant to Socrates' trust in
Design and Modern Science, God, 239 reveals His Will
;
209, 210 in Visionsand Signs, 248, 249,

Diogenes Laertius, 6 250 Special Revelation, 252
;
Diopeithes, 299 Gomperz, 40, 71, 75,93, 185, 187

340 SOCRATES
Good, the, 194 flf. variations in ; Love, Socrates' philosophy of,
Men's ideas of, 194 the Good ; 96-99 dangers of carnal
;
and pleasure, 194 ; relative love, 93 ff. Socrates, the

;
Goods, 198 ; the criterion of, apostle of a pure love, 99, 100,
205
204, " 295 his love of all men, 293
;
Grote, History of" Greece," 41, Lycus, 299

54, 297 his Plato," 71,
; Lysias, 295
92
MACAULAY, Lord, quoted, 37,
HAPPINESS, 200 ff. Happiness ; 39, 87, 135, 247, 291
"
an activity, 203 of Socrates, ; Mahaffy, Social
Life in
301 Greece," 291 n.
Hereafter, the, 267 Agnostic ff . ; Market-place of Athens, 84, 85
attitude, 267, 306, 314 not ; Marriage in Athens, 71 ff. ;
an evil, 268, 313 Socrates' ; Demosthenes on, 71 ; Xeno-

optimism and trust, 269, 313 phon on, 71
Hennogenes and special inter- Marsyas, 335
course with the gods, 264, 301 Martin eau, 210
Hesiod, 16, 49, 147 Materialism of pre-Socratic phil-
Hieronymus the Rhodian, 68, 69 osophy, 30 Socrates' dis-
;
'
Holm, History of Greece," 105 satisfaction with, 30, 281
Homer, 16, 293 Meletus, 299
" Memorabilia " of Xenophon,
IDEAS, relation of Socrates to date of, and value, 6
Platonic Theory of, 177, 178, Minotaur, annual tribute to, 321
179 Monotheism, tendency to, in
Individual and State, 163 ff. ;
Greek literature, 214 ff. ;
JoSl quoted, 165 Socrates ; Homer, 214 /Eschylus, 215 ;

;
no anarchist, 166 his social ; Aristotle, 215 survival of ;
sense, 167 his individualism,

; lesser cults, 216 ; Socrates'
166, 171, 172 position, 216, 230 compared ;
with modern Christians, 231

JAMES, William, 190, 216, Murray, Gilbert, quoted, 19, 101,
259 225
JoSl, 120 Socrates as
; on Myrto, daughter of Aristides, 68,
Rationalist, 133, 141 Cynic ; 69
influence on Xenophon, 148; Mysticism of Socrates, 113-115,
153 240 on the Dsemon, 253
; ;
244246
Judicial procedure at Athens, Mythology, the Greek, Aristo-
298, 299 phanes' treatment of, 225-227;
Jury at Socrates' trial, 298 Plato's, 228 Socrates', 229
;
Justice denned, 182, 183

NOTE-BOOKS in Greece, 7
KANT, his maxim of conduct, 151
"
Knights," the, of Aristophanes, OPTIMISM, religious, of Socrates,
103, 226, 284, 290 21 r as to death, 269, 270,
;
Knowledge and Virtue, 179 ff. ; 301, 312, 313

supremacy of, in conduct, 192
Knowledge of Self, 33, 113, 122 PAN.STIUS, quoted by Plutarch
on Socrates and Myrto, 69
LAMPROCLES, Socrates' son, 68 Parmenides, 21 his teaching,;
Legends of the gods, Socrates' 29

distaste for, 223, 224 Passion in Socratic ethics, 187 ff.
Leucippus, 29 Pausanias, 19
INDEX 841
Peloponnesian War, 9, 10 ; in- politics, Joe'l's and Doring's

troduction of Asiatic cults views, 120 ; Xenophon cited,
during, 292 121
Pericles, 10, 14, 23, 292 Relativism in morals rejected,
PhtedOy the ; Socrates and 204-207
science, 25 ff ; the philosophic
.
Religion : in Greek home life,
' ' '
life, 50 ; value of the Phaedo* 12-14 the foundation of

;
on Socrates, 50, 51, 319, 320 Socrates' character, 208 ;

Phaenarete", mother of Socrates, Socrates' sympathy with es-
9 her character, 9
; tablished cults, 217 com- ;
Philosophy and common life in parative unimportance of rites

Socrates, 144 and doctrines, 217, 218;
Piety of Socrates, 219-221, Socrates a conformist, 219 ;
231 ff. ; current ideas of, inner experience, 244, 247,
criticised by Socrates, 232, 252
233 ;it must be based on Revelation of God, its modes,
knowledge, 234 ; Doring 248-250, 252, 308 ; special
quoted, 242 revelation, 252, 264
Plato, 7 his theory of Ideas,
; Revenge: Xenophon's testimony,
177, 178 152 reasons for doubting it,
;
Pleasure and virtue, 186 ff ; . I 52 >

J 53 Socrates opposed
>
pleasure and The Good, 194 ff .; to, 155 " ff. "Apology" and
Socrates not a Hedonist, 195,
"
Crito quoted, 156;
197 qualities of pleasure, 197
; "Gorgias"
" " quoted, 157;
Plutarch, "Lives" of, 6; on Clitophon quoted, 158 ;
Socrates' looks, 39 on Soc- ; conclusion from, 159

rates' circumstances, 61 ; Soc- Reverence for Laws, 168
rates and Xanthippe, 77 ; 296 ; Robertson, F. W., 242
"
"Moralia" of, 247, 251 Rousseau, "Emile" of, 51
Plutus," the, of Aristophanes, Rulers, need of Science in, 164
13 ., 237, 238
Potidaea, Socrates conduct at, SACRIFICE Socrates' teaching
:
102, 305 on, 234 ff. its meaning, 234 ; ;
Prayer, 238 ff. ; contemporary its value lies in the right

forms of, satirised by Aristo- spirit, 234, 235 ; Pythagoras
phanes, 238, 239 prayers ; cited, 235 ; sacrifice and for-
of Socrates, simplicity of, giveness, 236 ; corruptions of
239 ;his faith and trust in the system, 236, 237 ; the
God, 240 value of Socrates' teaching,
Prison Socrates' demeanour in,
:
237
321 his occupations in, 321,
; Saint-Beuve, 148
322 free conditions of, 322
; Scepticism, contemporary with
Prodicus of Ceos, a tutor of Socrates, 225 ff.
" School
Socrates, 24 Choice of
;
in Athens, 14
: ele- ;
Heracles," 49 mentary curriculum, 15, 16 ;
Protagoras, on Socrates' gifts, objects of

education, 17;
24 advanced curriculum, 17 ff.
Pythagoras, on sacrifice, 235 Science : Socrates' passion for,
in youth, 21, 26 need of ;
" Notion- Science in public officers, 117
REFLECTORY," the (or
den), 282 ff .; need of Science for conduct,
Reformer, Socrates as, (i) in 124 Physical Science given

;
morals, 93-99 Zeller and ; up by Socrates for ethical,

Sorel's views, 99 (2) *& ; 125-129
342 SOCRATES
Self-discipline, necessity of, to love of all mankind, 293
virtue, 188 ff . ; self-reverence loyalty of, to Athens, 104,
of Socrates, 307 167, 168
Silenus, 334 personal habits, 46, 47, 48,
Sin, doctrine of, 184 ff. ; Plato 55, 56
and Aristotle quoted on, 185 ; religious optimism and trust
possibility of sin, 191 in God, 211, 269, 270, 301,
Smith, Sydney, 51 3", 313
Society, its basis, 162. See self-mastery of, 42, 49 ;
under Teaching its purpose, 54; 93 ff., 102
Socrates self-reverence of, 307
advanced education, 20 ff. Socrates and Asceticism,
Anaxagoras studied, 30 ff. 49 ff.
anecdote of Crito, 21 unselfishness of motive, 42,

appearance of, 36 ff Aris-
. ; 43,45
tophanes on, 38; Xeno- Domestic Circumstances, 61 ff. ;
phon's" Banquet "on, 39; Boeckh on, 61, 62; Deme-
Alcibiades in the " trius of Phalerum on, 61
' '
Sym- ;
posium of Plato on, 40 ; Plutarch on, 61 ; Xenophon

" Phaedo "
on, 40 on, 6 1
compared with Robert abstinence from Politics and
Burns, 24 its causes, 108-110
date and place of birth, 9 apostle of a pure Love, 99,
dissatisfaction with Con- 100
temporary Science, 26, 30 apostle, the, of Reality, 116,
enthusiasm of, for Science, 132, 134, *35
21, 26 ; for knowledge, Club-life, 95, 96
22, 112, 130 compared with Johnson, 86
home training, 12-14 death of, 330-333
Humanism of, 33 Equality, view of, 116
knowledge of our ignorance, ethical mission, 136 ff., 273,
33 knowledge of Self, 33,
; 306, 314, 315
113, 122, 123 haunts of, 83, 84
mental powers, 24 home, 65
parentage, 9 influence of, and its causes,
parents' circumstances, 9, 2-4
10, II intellectual mission,! 12,1 15
philosophy, his vocation, 34 love of city, 86, 167
school-life, 14 ff. love of men and books, 87
teachers, 21, 22 mysticism in Socrates, 113-
teleology, 32
testimony of Protagoras, 24 oligarchy, regarded as sym-
His character pathetic with, 292, 293 ff.
attention to the body, 51, 52 on the vice of carnal love,
Christian spirit, 153, 336 93 ff-, 96
courage in battle, 102, 103 ; Passion for friendship, 88,89
in public life, 104, 105, philosophy of Love, 96-99 ;
106, 107, 108 Zeller on, 99 Sorel on, 99
;
geniality and humour of, 39, Prison, 3, 319 ff. his de- ;
4, 42, 56, 57 meanour in, 321, 324 ;

happiness of his life, 53, 54, occupations in, 321, 322 ;
336 refuses to escape, 325, 326

humility, 112, 131 prophet of the Inward Life
irony of, 112, 118, 119, 131 of Reason, 133, 142, 150
INDEX 343
Socrates (continued) TEACHING :
(a) Ethics
rationalist, as, Gomperz and Conflict of popular judg-
Joel referred to, 133 ments, 173
relations with Myrto, 68, 69 Good, the, 194 ff,
sense of natural beauty, 87 The Good, its criterion, 204,
significance of, i, 2, 318 205
Socrates as social reformer, The Good and Happiness,
Joel's and Doring's views, 200 ff .
120; Xenophon cited, The Good, and Pleasure, 194 ;
121 Socrates not a Hedonist,

Sophists, Socrates regarded !95> 197 qualities of ;
as one, 275 his respect ; pleasure, 197

275
for, similarities of,
; Rejection of Relativism in
with Socrates, 276 Morals, 204-207
view of the family, 80, 152 Subordinate and relative
Xanthippe, his wife, 76 ff. Goods, 198
Trial, the The Good and "Utility,
dignity of demeanour, 309, 198 ff.
3" The Good, and Well-doing,

itscauses, 289 ff, 200; common-weal, 201,
optimism, 313 202
reply to charges, 302, 303, Passion in Socratic Ethics,
304 187 ff.
Socrates' frame of mind, Search for Universals by cross-
301, 302 examination and defini-
the process, 298, 299 tion, 174-176
Tributes to Self-discipline, necessity of,
by Alcibiades in "Plato," i88ff.
334 Sin, involuntary, 184 ; its
"
by Phaedo in Plato," 336 possibility, 191
by Plato, 333 The Virtues : Courage, 181,
by Xenophon, 335-336 182 ; Justice, 182, 183 ;
Sophist, Socrates regarded as, Piety, 234

275, 291 ; similarities of, to Virtue is knowledge (or wis-
Socrates, 276; 17 dom), 1 80; Virtue and Plea-
Sophroniscus, 9 sure, 1 86 ff.
Sorel, quoted, 99, 128, 264, 275, (b) : Design in the

Religion
278 World, 209 God, His nature ;
Soul, the, its value, 266 ; its and perfections, 211-213;

Divine nature, 266 ; its func- monotheism and poly-
tions, 267 ; immortality of, theism in Socrates, 216 ;
267 ff. belief in minor deities and

Spencer, Herbert, 17 spirits, 222 ;
distaste for
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 146 legends of gods, 223, 224 ;
Subliminal self and Daemon of purification of theology,

260 229 on 234
" Socrates, 259, ; sacrifice, ff.,
Supernatural," the, 258, 260 see under Sacrifice ; prayer,

238 ff., and under Prayer ;
TAYLOR, A. Socrates and

E., 7 ; revelations the gods, of
dying to live, 55 69 ; 124, 128; 248-250, 252 the Daemon, ;
on Socrates' relation to Physi- 250 ff. ; views as to its

cal Science; 152, 264, 275, interpretation, 253 ff. not ;
300 the leader of a cult, 264,

Tauler, mystic, on work, 149 265
844 SOCRATES
TEACHING :
(c) Society : Mutual Trial, the the charge against
:
service its basis, 162 ; aristo- Socrates, 300 the Authorities,

;
cracy of talent, 163 ; indivi- 300 Socrates' reply, 302, 303,

;
dual and State, 163 ff .

; 304 ; the procedure, 298, 299
Socrates' social sense, 167 ; Tributes to Socrates, 333 ff.
"
reverence for Laws, 168 ; Tucker's Life in Ancient
unwritten Laws, 169 ff. his ; Athens," quoted, 63, 64, 299
individualism, 166, 171, 172
(d) The Soul, doctrine of, UNDERBILL, Evelyn, quoted,
266 ff. 114
(e) The Treatment of Enemies,
Unjust argument, the, 282
150 ff. his Humanitarian
;
Utility and The Good, 198 ff.
principle, 151 family ;
VIRTUE, definition of, 180, 181
quarrels, 151 ; Christian Visions sent by the God as signs,
spirit, 153, 159-161 ; Joel 248, 249 Tertullian and
;
referred to, 153 ; 155 ff. ; Paul quoted, 248 ; George

revenge Xenophon quoted,
:
Fox, 249
152 ; reasons for doubting
him, 152, 153; Revenge: WELL-DOING, "the Good, 200
Socrates to Whibley's Companion to
" opposed
"
:
Greek Studies," quoted, 64,

Apology," Crito,"
"Gorgias," "Clitophon "on, 65, 89, 299
156-158 conclusion,
; 159 Wise man as moral standard,
(j) On Work, 143 ff. 205, 206
Athenian view of work, 145 Woman in Athens, 69 ff .
; Xeno-
conversation with Aris- phon's views on ideal wife,
tarchus on women's work, 71, 75 woman's position, 73 ;
;
" Clouds " re-
143, 144 Aristophanes'
ferred to, 74 Euripides'
nobility of work, 146, 418, ;
149 "Electra," 74; Themistocles

Teleology, need of, 32, 209 quoted, 75 " "
Thales, 28 Work, see under Teaching of
Theology, Aristophanes' treat- XANTHIPPE, Socrates' wife, 60,
ment of, 225-227 Socrates' ;
76, 77, 326, 327
influence on, 229
Xenophanes of Colophon, 29
Theseus, 321 : dates of Life, 6 his
Xenophon
" ;
Thoreau, 44 Memorabilia," 6 his ;
Thucydides, 10, 102, 103 "Banquet," 7, 56, 57; a

Trance-like absorption of So-
disciple of
Socrates, 101 ;
crates, 244-246 tribute of, to Socrates, 335,

Trial, its causes Socrates' specu-:
offence of cross- 336 Prof. Bury on, 133

;
lation, 289 ;
examination, 290 ; identifica- ZELLER, 54, 99, 163 on the ;
tion with Sophists, 291 circle ; Daemon, 255 on Plato's ;

"
of Aspasia, 291 political ; Apology," 300; 318
causes, 292 ff. Critias and ; Zeno, 21 "
Alcibiades, 294, 295 justifi- ; Zimmern's Greek Common-
cation by Xenophon on last wealth" quoted, 63
point, 296, 297 Zopyrus, 40
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

R. NICOL GROSS, M.A.

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

by the ancient authorities. It has not been written

II. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION, YOUTH

(b) PARENTAGE AND HOME

(d) ADVANCED EDUCATION

III. THE MAN 36

(c) SOCRATES AND ASCETICISM ... 41

IV. DOMESTIC LIFE 59

VII. TREATMENT OF ENEMIES .

VIII. THE STATE AND THE IN-

X. His RELIGION 208

(g) THE SOUL AND THE HEREAFTER . . 266

XI. THE "

XII. THE TRIAL: ITS CAUSES . . . .289

History," said Thomas Carlyle,

capacity to develop the spirit that gave them birth,

by strong, simple, manly charm, won the reverence

quality in his character which moves the human soul

houses and stately temples of the wonderful little city

Socrates was about to die at the hands of the people

against me. I only do what I must. Try to bear

aims, and work in such a way as to bring out for the

BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION

(a) THE AUTHORITIES

may seem strange that we know so little about

of slips and modifications in the details of any remini-

J. Estlin Carpenter, First Three Gospels, ch. iii.

fulness of good paper and especially through the art of

to floating recollections and stories about an impressive

antedate Xenophon's recollections, but which make no

subjected to revision later. The divergence which

doubt, because they are attested by Xenophon and

(b) PARENTAGE AND HOME

the Theaetetus, she was a person of formidable appear-

regard to the moral he was perhaps a most happy

Theaetetus, loc. cit. Cp, Diogenes Laertius, loc. cit.

this plan can, of course, be conceived. The country

Thucydides, ii. ch. 13.

Xenophon, Mem., ii. ch. 8, and Banquet, ch. 4.

for pretty loud laughter, cannot suffice to drown the

pathos of the bitter conditions it seeks to indicate.

even previous to the Peloponnesian War, more fortunate

and prone to ask questions about things, which his

practice, as described to us by Plato, that his father

taught that so-and-so is just or unjust, fair or ugly,

instrument of torture was usually a slipper or sandal. 2

physical problems, in forms infinitely too rudimental for the under-

bending of the twig so that the tree be inclined

for thinking that little Greek children were left en-

human insolence, no transgression of the law of respect

and exalted them of reverent mien. 1

with different beliefs and rites, as that described so

of their gods, those higher powers on whose knees lay