death, it is impossible to conceive. But his ethical principles sprang in his case, as in that of other great thinkers, from his Nescience. The wreck of his speculation, so far as definitive truth is concerned, gave a new impulse and energy to his practice. Though his physical researches had ended in confessed doubt, though he acknowledged he knew not the truth about the gods, nor about other subjects in which humanity is interested, though his Dialectic itself terminated in a cul de sac, though his consequent conviction of Nescience was firm and unalterable, Sokrates had not the least doubt as to the primary and indefeasible obligations of morality. He did not doubt that under any circumstances virtue was preferable to vice, temperance to luxury, chastity to lust, selfsacrifice to selfishness. He might not be able in the complications of varied human relations, and with the flexible and elastic instrumentality of logic, to demonstrate in every instance the reason of the superiority, but of the fact itself he had not the least doubt. The demands of virtue operated on him like the consciousness of bodily wants. Hunger, for instance, though he could not explain the physiological processes induced by eating food, had an inherent imperiousness he could not disregard. Similarly his uncertainty on the subject of the gods or of a future life made no difference in his appreciation of the absolute obligation of virtue and duty. The conclusion to which Sokrates arrived on this matter he formulated in his well-known dictum, 'Virtue is Knowledge.' In this proposition he expressed the necessary transference to human practice of the energy that could not be satisfactorily applied to speculation and its nugatory results. Not that Sokrates would have been satisfied with an ethical practice apart from self-knowledge. This would have been merely conceited and pretentious conduct, the accidental walking in a straight path by a man who was stone-blind. Man must be disciplined by an insight selfacquired into his actual relation to the problems of existence and to the false-knowledge which claims to interpret them. He must practise the maxim Pythagoras impressed on all his disciples of so many years' apprenticeship to dumbness (áparía). He must 'Know himself,' and the nescience that knowledge entails, before his good conduct can possess that flavour of disinterestedness and humility requisite for free moral action; poverty of spirit being, in the judgment of Sokrates, as of Christ, an essential pre-requisite for entry into the kingdom of truth. But here the question may be asked, What was the Sokratic standard of moral action, and how far is it open to the charge sometimes brought against it of utilitarianism? To me it seems that Sokrates had in reality two ethical standards: one abstract, the other concrete the first speculative and ideal, the second practical-but differing from each other in degree not in kind. Supreme justice and righteousness, like the highest truth, he regarded as the exclusive prerogatives of the gods. As human Nescience could not attain the former, so neither could human impotence reach the latter. But in practical life, and in view of the more immediate needs of man, whether as an individual or a unit of the social community, there was extant a rough-and-ready standard of duty sufficient to guide those who submitted to it. Every man knew, e.g. what was good for himself, and knew also the kind of action best adapted to secure that good. But this language had the defect of being necessarily ambiguous. Sokrates undoubtedly meant by the good what was beneficial to man's highest interests considered as a rational being born for truth, virtue, and disinterestedness. That the good should have implied his material advantage was an implication utterly opposed to the life and teaching, and I will add the death, of Sokrates; it conflicted especially with his noble maxim that it is better to suffer than do ill. But it is quite conceivable how in the crude superficial comprehension of such disciples as Xenophon, the term 'good,' as an end of human action, might be held to mean material prosperity, and for that reason might have been abused by some of his disciples. While Sokrates, however, maintained that human acts are not ordinarily incapable of determination in accordance with the rule of rectitude, he disavows all attempt to teach speculative ethics. The Sokratic query, 'Is Virtue Teachable?' is truly answered thus as a theory, No; as a practice, Yes. Here again comes in the Nescience that attaches to all human ratiocination as such. Men must practise virtue, but in its essence virtue is not definable. Friendship, courage, piety-all the other excellences of humanityare integral parts of a good man's duty; but no verbal ingenuity can devise definitions of those qualities that will meet all the subtle and refined distinctions Dialectic can bring to bear upon them. The elementary truths of arithmetic, e.g. such propositions as 2+2=4, may be commonly acknowledged truths, but the abstractions of the higher mathematics are as indeterminate and uncertain as anything can well be. What seems rather remarkable in the mental character of Sokrates is that he makes little allowance for minds differently constituted from his own. He could hardly comprehend a code of moral practice so indissolubly joined to abstract dogmas as to be altogether dependent on them. He could not conceive that the insoluble difficulties of the intellectual problem might with some persons be transferred to the practical duty. If Lysis, e.g. cannot define 'courage,' or Euthyphro 'impiety,' this is no reason for doubting the existence either of the one or the other. Truth, in his estimation, was above and beyond all human conception considered as the object of ratiocination. The attempt to find it involved the seeker in an inextricable labyrinth. But of the existence of truth, and of the duty of all mortals to pursue it, he has not the slightest doubt. The difference between a Skeptic who affirms the non-existence of truth, and of another thinker who, asserting its existence, denies that men can ever attain it, might to some persons seem impalpable. But the moral distinction between them is nevertheless very great, and it is mainly this difference that separates Sokrates from his Skeptical successors, Pyrrhôn and Ainesidemos. But we cannot leave Sokrates's unconditional obligation' of morality without observing that in one particular he allows a departure from his ideal of absolute justice so far as to maintain the binding character of even unjust laws or legal decisions when promulgated by competent authority. This opinion-so strikingly illustrated by his own fate-was no doubt mainly grounded on the idea of subordinating the interests of the individual to the welfare of the body politic. It pointed, therefore, in the direction of selfdenial; but it is easy to see that an extended application of this theory would make the accidental and changeable laws of a country the real standard of human action to the exclusion of any higher or more permanent rule of conduct. It would seem that the Greek reverence for patriotism was capable of occasionally assuming, even in the mind of her greatest thinker, a predominating form quite inconsistent with his own sublime ideal of unconditional morality.' 6 3. I have already incidentally touched upon the belief of Sokrates in the autonomy of the human reason, and the infallibility that he claims for Dialectic. He did not derive this opinion from any teacher, though it might have been suggested by the Eleatic philosophers. Probably it was the pure spontaneous result of his own selfanalysis. A man who has himself experienced the efficiency of any given instrumentality to accomplish a certain purpose does not need the recommendation of another to induce him to adopt it. The introspective tendencies of Sokrates were innate and vigorous, and, whatever the path of inquiry he might have followed for the time, he must sooner or later have come home to the inner circle of his own thought and speculation. Such a return was implied VOL. I. in his abandonment of physical -science studies. He had thereby ascertained the power of the intellect to analyse and test all supposed truths brought to the bar of its judgment. The extent of that power it would be difficult from the Sokratic standpoint to exaggerate. A knowledge-test that ended in Nescience, an analysis that ceased its functions when nothing was left to analyse, might claim to be the ne plus ultra of destructiveness. It was a gun that annihilated the foe, but in the act of firing blew itself up. But of its suicidal tendencies Sokrates took no heed. He knew he could reaffirm as an absolute postulate what Dialectic had destroyed. Perhaps, too, he purposely overlooked them in consideration of the deadly effect of the weapon. False knowledge he deemed so mischievous that any method of destroying it was to be welcomed. Few Skeptics, as we shall find, have been greatly influenced by the reflection that their method must needs include self-destructive elements. Sokrates was aware that his Nescience, like a scorpion, was armed with a deadly sting which might, on emergency, be turned against itself. The paralogism implied in the very phrase 'Knowing nothing but nothing,' and which is expressed in the epigram— Nil scis, unum hoc scis; aliquid scis et nihil ergo -had no power to frighten Sokrates from the career of his Skeptical humour. As Coleridge said of ghosts, he had seen too many (paralogisms) to be frightened at them. Nor was it only from his own experience of the power of his elenchus that Sokrates came to regard it as the sole avenue to knowledge. Reflection in another direction convinced him that to men as rational beings no other method of pursuing truth except the enlightened human reason was even conceivable. Whether the method were intrinsically perfect or imperfect, or whether its results were satisfactory or not, it was the only method in human power. Man had no choice but to employ it. Nay, more, if the reason were the sole means of acquiring truth, it was right that it should, if only on that account, be made the most of. Hence it must be employed with vigour, with the most unrestricted freedom, and the most implicit confidence. No limiting dogma must impede its course. No ancient prescription, no authoritative belief, no current definition must claim immunity from its research. All things heavenly and things earthly must be submitted to its sway. Dialectic being 'the nature,' was also the sole ruler, 'of all things.' The wild, lawless manner in which 1 Jeannis Audoeni Epig. Bk. iii. No. 191. Sokrates, animated by these principles, employs his logical weapons has been often animadverted on. Genuine admirers of the Sokratic elenchus have frequently expressed a wish that its author had been more moderate and methodical in its use. But we must not forget that the view of ratiocination those persons maintain is altogether different from that which commended itself to Sokrates. According to them, reason must be employed warily, or its employment will cause mischief. Like fire and water, they consider it a good servant but a bad master. In no respect, therefore, must freedom be conceded to it. All this narrow, suspicious feeling on the subject of the greatest of human faculties was alien to the mind of Sokrates. According to him, Reason was self-existent and autocratic, subject to no law, restrained by no barrier. It occupied the position not of a slave but a mistress. Indeed, to speak of restraining her powers and activities was itself a contradiction, for to what other principle in the internal economy of man could an appeal be made? She was herself not only the supreme but the sole judge in her own court. Accordingly she must needs, by virtue of her autonomy, her independence, her indefeasible right as the sole deliberative principle of humanity, be allowed to conduct her ratiocination in her own way. What Sokrates conceived that way to be, we have already noticed in the 'Dialogues of Search.' It is easy to blame this unlimited Dialectic, to pronounce it captious and contentious, to assert that the procedure cuts away the ground from beneath all truth. So no doubt it does, and Sokrates himself both admits and contends for this very effect. But we must remember that great minds are great not only in virtue of unusual capacity, but by the possession of multifarious many-sided activities, as well as an inordinate appetite for every kind and amount of truth. They unite in themselves the powers of a magnifying and multiplying glass. They not only see objects larger than ordinary men, but they see them in diversiform aspects. You remember the anecdote in Boswell's 'Life of Johnson,' when Boswell avowed his belief in second-sight. The evidence,' he said, 'is enough for me, though not for his (Johnson's) great mind; what will not fill a quart-bottle will fill a pint-bottle. I am filled with belief." No doubt the relation described in Boswell's tavern simile was one that existed between Sokrates and his disciples; the definition or idea that was capable of filling the mind of a Lysis or Charmides was totally insufficient to fill his 1 Coleman's cynical rejoinder may be worth noting as indicating a principle of which Skeptics and Free-thinkers have made large use-' Then cork it up!' |