beyond its deserts; for with due allowance for the pure disinterestedness of Sokrates's noble trust in truth, virtue, and humanity, one can hardly help suggesting the question how weak, unstable, immature, unprincipled intellects were likely to fare after his teaching. That some of his hearers were forward in asserting their independence of paternal and other restraints, we are told by Aristophanes and Xenophon. Probably such weaklings were in a very large minority, indeed his own appeal before the Dikastery is a sufficient proof that this was really the case, and Sokrates, pressed with the objection, might well have replied that no possible method of teaching could be devised which might not in isolated cases and peculiar circumstances act prejudicially on its recipients. Certainly the examples adduced of Kritias and Alkibiades out of the many pupils who had come under the influence of Sokrates could hardly have been deemed, except by political adversaries, a cogent proof of the pernicious nature of his teachings. Besides, the implicit trust which Sokrates had in humanity, as well as his indifference to the alleged mischievous effects of his elenchus, must also be attributed to his belief that the tendencies of human nature were towards good rather than evil. His proposition, 'No man is voluntarily evil,' however questionable to us, was a leading principle of his thought and action. Indeed, it is only another mode of asserting the identity of virtue with knowledge, and vice with ignorance. With these convictions, Sokrates was not likely to be alarmed by practical ill-consequences incidentally resulting from his teaching. But what, it might be asked, were the precise effects contemplated by Sokrates as the legitimate products of his Dialectic upon the youth of Athens? An instructive answer to this question is furnished by his remark before the Dikasts as to the treatment he desired for his sons when he was dead. He wished them to be submitted to the same pitiless analytic to which he himself submitted his youthful disciples whenever they appeared to care for other things more than virtue, or seemed to think too highly of themselves. Whence it is clear that Sokrates imagined his elenchus adapted for the twofold purpose-(1) of inducing Nescience, and thereby humility and caution, in speculation; (2) of directly promoting virtue in practice. The former result we can have no difficulty in understanding. It is merely the inculcation of selfdenial, the conviction of ignorance, and the stern repression of dogmatic assertion which are initiatory stages of most systems of teaching, whether dogmatic or Skeptical. A genuine persuasion of Nescience is with most persons not only a preparation for but a stimulus to the acquirement of knowledge, and to attain it in some form or other is therefore a common aim both of philosophers and religious teachers, whatever might be their difference of opinion as to the extent to which the feeling of mental vacuity is to be cherished, or the manner in which it is to be filled up. More difficult is the practical bearing of the question-Nescience regarded as a propedeutic to virtue. Our more positive habits of thought have made it difficult to comprehend how the consciousness of ignorance could, in the way supposed by Sokrates, Pyrrhôn, and other thinkers, have contributed to ethical action. That the idea was not confined to the Greeks is shown by its prevalence among Hindu thinkers as well as Christian mystics. Perhaps a few considerations may enable us to discern the sequence of thought, if not to appreciate its importance. 1. We must remember that the consciousness of Nescience operates in practical life as in speculation by engendering a feeling of distrust and dissatisfaction, and a desire to escape from it, either by the road of independent moral practice-the Skeptical road, or by attaining and accumulating positive knowledge-results-the dogmatic road. In the former case moral conduct-the performance of obvious duty-may receive enhanced consideration from the reflection that it is the only road possible to man, the sole alternative of man's acknowledged impotence in speculation. This is certainly the rationale of the stress which not only Greek philosophers, but modern thinkers like Spinoza and Kant, placed upon Ethical action. 2. Sokrates is satisfied of the efficacy of introspection and perpetual self-analysis in counteracting vicious tendencies. Once a youth could be induced to proceed in the path of γνῶθι σεαυτόν, to watch diligently and discriminate accurately the process of ratiocination, the play of passion, the way in which actions are evolved from motives, the inborn bias of individual idiosyncrasies both of thought and conduct, the whole working, in short, of the machinery within him; once he could be persuaded to hunt out and unmask the pretences, false assumptions, plausible semblances beneath which human thought and action so often hide their real character, the less inclination would he manifest for pursuing blindly the paths of vice. This was only another form of St. Paul's antagonism between flesh and spirit. Sokrates undoubtedly maintained that if a man walked in the spirit, he would not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.' This opinion was also in complete harmony with his identification of vice with ignorance-the uncultured and thoughtless apathy that took no cognizance of its real state, and therefore took no heed to reform it. 3. It would contribute to virtuous conduct by inducing a state of intellectual and moral honesty, by substituting self-knowledgethe only knowledge possible to humanity-for ignorance, sincerity for deceit, and truthfulness for falsehood. No virtuous conduct or moral excellence could proceed from those impure sources, and the endeavour to extirpate them, the aim of the Sokratic mission, was the best service he could render to morality. Sokrates was here taking up the position of a preacher who insists that a consciousness of shortcoming is itself a distinct advance on the road of reformation and practical righteousness. 4. Nor was the social effect of his teaching less in inducing a proper value by the only agency capable of making it, of individual worth and attainment, and thus determining in the consciousness of the individual the exact relation which he as a unit of the social system bore to all the rest. Pretentious ignorance was, in the opinion of Sokrates, not only an individual but a political vice. The man who thought he knew what he actually did not know was a source of danger to the State. We may readily believe that in the recent political changes that had taken place in the government of Athens there was no lack of special instances which served to confirm his opinion, though with his customary deference to the existing government he did not care to allude to them pointedly. At any rate, he was convinced that Nescience was a better bond of cohesion between one man and another than arrogant science. Theoretically, at least, it was a leveller. In a nation of Skeptics-of men whose conviction of ignorance was a ruling principle in their lives-no man could with any show of reason attempt to domineer over another. Tyrannies and misgovernments were the baleful progeny of vaunted wisdom and baseless science, not of humble conscious ignorance. But the ostensible issues of Sokrates's trial as contained in the charges of Meletos and in the reply of the Platonic Apology must not shut our eyes to its real significance. It was no question of transient interest that was being tried before the Dikastery. As Aristotle and other clear-sighted contemporaries saw, it was philosophy that was really arraigned in the person of one of the noblest of her sons.1 It was the right of free-thought, the claim of the human reason to exercise its powers in whatever direction it chose, without limit or hindrance of any kind save those imposed by its own laws, that was contested by the accusers of Sokrates. In Aristotle quotes from a Sokratic apology by an anonymous rhetorician the words: μέλλετε δὲ κρίνειν οὐ περὶ Σωκράτους ἀλλὰ περὶ ἐπιτηδεύματος, εἰ χρὴ φιλοσοφεῖν. Rhet. ii 18 short, he is the representative of a cause, that of intellectual freedom, of religious liberty, of human progress, and it is this fact that gives to his trial, condemnation, and death the peculiar sacredness and importance they have always had. The questions then tried in Athens and resolved by the calm, unwavering courage of Sokrates, were of paramount interest to humanity at large. Was it right that men should use their reason? Was it right to avow honestly the results of life-long and patient research? Was it right under any circumstances to dissent from generally received beliefs} These were some of the latent issues of the trial considered from the standpoint of philosophy. Nor were these issues of less importance regarded from the point of view of religion. Sokrates, like other free-thinkers on our list, was really a martyr for religious liberty and a victim of dogmatic intolerance. Neither his philosophical Skepticism nor the political enmity he had provoked contributed so much to his condemnation as his heterodoxy.' He had dared to ignore the national deities, and to ascribe divine authority to other and more human agencies. His accusers were able to appeal to the powerful sentiment of religious prejudice, and the pretended deference but real contempt with which Sokrates encountered the charge was hardly likely to impress the Dikasts with his innocence. Notwithstanding the free speculation current among the thinkers and higher sections of Athenian society, Zeus was still the sovereign deity of Greece, and a worshipper of Zeus in his popular mythological presentation Sokrates did not even pretend to be. We might therefore say that Sokrates was sacrificed as a victim to the manes of the moribund deities of Olympus. In short, the real issue between Sokrates and his enemies was between enlightenment and human progress on the one hand, and the intellectual stolidity commonly known as philistinism on the other. Reasoned discussion on every topic and in every direction constituted for him the chief good of human existence. It was a duty that had the sanction not only of personal idiosyncrasy, of the general reason of humanity, but also of religion. To stifle inquiry, to repress the innate inquisitiveness of the Reason, he regarded as more than an intellectual crime, it was a veritable act of sacrilege. The outcome of enlightened Nescience, in which it resulted in his own case, had received the approval of the deity. It was the Nirvana which he regarded as the highest attainable point of human exploration. That all enlightenment should be Comp. the allegations put into his mouth in the earlier part of the Euthyphron. attended with drawbacks, that the tree of knowledge should open men's eyes to their nakedness, was both natural and reasonable. An Eden of uninquiring innocence and inexperience would have been no paradise for him. On the contrary, this was what his enemies deprecated and feared. An inquiry into the nature of the gods, into the source and authority of popular notions on virtue, impiety, courage, was equivalent in their estimation to atheism, and the denial of all distinction between vice and virtue. Besides, where would the daring investigator cease? What was to be reputed sacred and inviolable from the profane grasp of an elenchus so audacious, so omnivorous, so pitiless? Remove the old landmarks of the belief of their ancestors, and irreligion and immorality must needs run riot through the State. The gods would no longer be safe in Olympus. The laws would no longer be obeyed, the authority of parents would be set at nought. Social restraints of every kind would disappear. So argued in good faith the enemies of Sokrates, the representatives of Athenian obscurantism. They are thus the prototypes of men common enough in every age of the world, who see in each extension of freedom a source of danger both to the individual and the common weal; who are suspicious of all unrestrained research, of every novel discovery, of every attempt at intellectual emancipation. Sokrates before the Athenian Dikastery occupied precisely the same position as Giordano Bruno and Galileo before the Roman Inquisition. In all such cases of bigotry and fanaticism there is no question as to the conscientious motives of the perpetrators, the only doubt relates to their wisdom and far-sightedness. They seem animated by the deepest distrust of humanity and, what is of graver import, of human reason. In part they are misled by the fallacy common to all dogmatists of enforcing on others the limits and conditions they find necessary for themselves and as their sole idea of freedom is bondage; of religion, blind adherence to unverified beliefs; of morality, external restrictions of a narrow and cramping nature, it cannot be wonderful that their ideals do not attract freer and more generous natures. The Athenian Dikasts could not have been brought to acknowledge that Sokrates with his Nescience and elenchus stood on an infinitely higher platform of truth than themselves; that he was more religious in his belief in divine agencies, in his persuasion that deity symbolised the highest justice and righteousness, than they were in their worship of Zeus, Hêrê, and Aphroditê; that he was far more ethical in his conviction of absolute morality than they could possibly be, guided only by customary restraints and human enactments. : |