Besides transforming art and literature, the dialectic method helped to revolutionise social life, and the impulse communicated in this direction is still very far from being exhausted. We allude to its influence on female education. The intellectual blossoming of Athens was aided, in its first development, by a complete separation of the sexes. There were very few of his friends to whom an Athenian gentleman talked so little as to his wife.[104] Colonel Mure aptly compares her position to that of an English housekeeper, with considerably less liberty than is enjoyed by the latter. Yet the union of tender admiration with the need for intelligent sympathy and the desire to awaken interest in noble pursuits existed at Athens in full force, and created a field for its exercise. Wilhelm von Humboldt has observed that at this time chivalrous love was kept alive by customs which, to us, are intensely repellent. That so valuable a sentiment should be preserved and diverted into a more legitimate channel was an object of the highest importance. The naturalistic method of ethics did much, but it could not do all, for more was required than a return to primitive simplicity. Here the method of mind stepped in and supplied the deficiency. Reciprocity was the soul of dialectic as practised by Socrates, and the dialectic of love demands a reciprocity of passion which can only exist between the sexes. But in a society where the free intercourse of modern Europe was not permitted, the modern sentiment could not be reached at a single bound; and those who sought for the conversation of intelligent women had to seek for it among a class of which Aspasia was the highest representative. Such women played a great part in later Athenian society; they attended philosophical lectures, furnished heroines to the New Comedy, and on the whole gave a healthier tone to literature. Their successors, the Delias and Cynthias of Roman elegiac poetry, called forth strains of exalted affection which need nothing but a worthier object to place them on a level with the noblest expressions of tenderness that have since been heard. Here at least, to understand is to forgive; and we shall be less scandalised than certain critics,[105] we shall even refuse to admit that Socrates fell below the dignity of a moralist, when we hear that he once visited a celebrated beauty of this class, Theodotê by name;[106] that he engaged her in a playful conversation; and that he taught her to put more mind into her profession; to attract by something deeper than personal charms; to show at least an appearance of interest in the welfare of her lovers; and to stimulate their ardour by a studied reserve, granting no favour that had not been repeatedly and passionately sought after.
Xenophon gives the same interest a more edifying direction when he enlivens the dry details of his Cyropaedia with touching episodes of conjugal affection, or presents lessons in domestic economy under the form of conversations between a newly-married couple.[107] Plato in some respects transcends, in others falls short of his less gifted contemporary. For his doctrine of love as an educating process—a true doctrine, all sneers and perversions notwithstanding—though readily applicable to the relation of the sexes, is not applied to it by him; and his project of a common training for men and women, though suggestive of a great advance on the existing system if rightly carried out, was, from his point of view, a retrograde step towards savage or even animal life, an attempt to throw half the burdens incident to a military organisation of society on those who had become absolutely incapable of bearing them.
Fortunately, the dialectic method proved stronger than its own creators, and, once set going, introduced feelings and experiences of which they had never dreamed, within the horizon of philosophic consciousness. It was found that if women had much to learn, much also might be learned from them. Their wishes could not be taken into account without giving a greatly increased prominence in the guidance of conduct to such sentiments as fidelity, purity, and pity; and to that extent the religion which they helped to establish has, at least in principle, left no room for any further progress. On the other hand, it is only by reason that the more exclusively feminine impulses can be freed from their primitive narrowness and elevated into truly human emotions. Love, when left to itself, causes more pain than pleasure, for the words of the old idyl still remain true which associate it with jealousy as cruel as the grave; pity, without prevision, creates more suffering than it relieves; and blind fidelity is instinctively opposed even to the most beneficent changes. We are still suffering from the excessive preponderance which Catholicism gave to the ideas of women; but we need not listen to those who tell us that the varied experiences of humanity cannot be organised into a rational, consistent, self-supporting whole.
A survey of the Socratic philosophy would be incomplete without some comment on an element in the life of Socrates, which at first sight seems to lie altogether outside philosophy. There is no fact in his history more certain than that he believed himself to be constantly accompanied by a Daemonium, a divine voice often restraining him, even in trifling matters, but never prompting to positive action. That it was neither conscience in our sense of the word, nor a supposed familiar spirit, is now generally admitted. Even those who believe in the supernatural origin and authority of our moral feelings do not credit them with a power of divining the accidentally good or evil consequences which may attend on our most trivial and indifferent actions; while, on the other hand, those feelings have a positive no less than a negative function, which is exhibited whenever the performance of good deeds becomes a duty. That the Daemonium was not a personal attendant is proved by the invariable use of an indefinite neuter adjective to designate it. How the phenomenon itself should be explained is a question for professional pathologists. We have here to account for the interpretation put upon it by Socrates, and this, in our judgment, follows quite naturally from his characteristic mode of thought. That the gods should signify their pleasure by visible signs and public oracles was an experience familiar to every Greek. Socrates, conceiving God as a mind diffused through the whole universe, would look for traces of the Divine presence in his own mind, and would readily interpret any inward suggestion, not otherwise to be accounted for, as a manifestation of this all-pervading power. Why it should invariably appear under the form of a restraint is less obvious. The only explanation seems to be that, as a matter of fact, such mysterious feelings, whether the product of unconscious experience or not, do habitually operate as deterrents rather than as incentives.
VII.
This Daemonium, whatever it may have been, formed one of the ostensible grounds on which its possessor was prosecuted and condemned to death for impiety. We might have spared ourselves the trouble of going over the circumstances connected with that tragical event, had not various attempts been made in some well-known works to extenuate the significance of a singularly atrocious crime. The case stands thus. In the year 399 B.C. Socrates, who was then over seventy, and had never in his life been brought before a law-court, was indicted on the threefold charge of introducing new divinities, of denying those already recognised by the State, and of corrupting young men. His principal accuser was one Melêtus, a poet, supported by Lycon, a rhetorician, and by a much more powerful backer, Anytus, a leading citizen in the restored democracy. The charge was tried before a large popular tribunal, numbering some five hundred members. Socrates regarded the whole affair with profound indifference. When urged to prepare a defence, he replied, with justice, that he had been preparing it his whole life long. He could not, indeed, have easily foreseen what line the prosecutors would take. Our own information on this point is meagre enough, being principally derived from allusions made by Xenophon, who was not himself present at the trial. There seems, however, no unfairness in concluding that the charge of irreligion neither was nor could be substantiated. The evidence of Xenophon is quite sufficient to establish the unimpeachable orthodoxy of his friend. If it really was an offence at Athens to believe in gods unrecognised by the State, Socrates was not guilty of that offence, for his Daemonium was not a new divinity, but a revelation from the established divinities, such as individual believers have at all times been permitted to receive even by the most jealous religious communities. The imputation of infidelity, commonly and indiscriminately brought against all philosophers, was a particularly unhappy one to fling at the great opponent of physical science, who, besides, was noted for the punctual discharge of his religious duties. That the first two counts of the indictment should be so frivolous raises a strong prejudice against the third. The charges of corruption seem to have come under two heads—alleged encouragement of disrespect to parents, and of disaffection towards democratic institutions. In support of the former some innocent expressions let fall by Socrates seem to have been taken up and cruelly perverted. By way of stimulating his young friends to improve their minds, he had observed that relations were only of value when they could help one another, and that to do so they must be properly educated. This was twisted into an assertion that ignorant parents might properly be placed under restraint by their better-informed children. That such an inference could not have been sanctioned by Socrates himself is obvious from his insisting on the respect due even to so intolerable a mother as Xanthippê.[108] The political opinions of the defendant presented a more vulnerable point for attack. He thought the custom of choosing magistrates by lot absurd, and did not conceal his contempt for it. There is, however, no reason for believing that such purely theoretical criticisms were forbidden by law or usage at Athens. At any rate, much more revolutionary sentiments were tolerated on the stage. That Socrates would be no party to a violent subversion of the Constitution, and would regard it with high disapproval, was abundantly clear both from his life and from the whole tenor of his teaching. In opposition to Hippias, he defined justice as obedience to the law of the land. The chances of the lot had, on one memorable occasion, called him to preside over the deliberations of the Sovereign Assembly. A proposition was made, contrary to law, that the generals who were accused of having abandoned the crews of their sunken ships at Arginusae should be tried in a single batch. In spite of tremendous popular clamour, Socrates refused to put the question to the vote on the single day for which his office lasted. The just and resolute man, who would not yield to the unrighteous demands of a crowd, had shortly afterwards to face the threats of a frowning tyrant. When the Thirty were installed in power, he publicly, and at the risk of his life, expressed disapproval of their sanguinary proceedings. The oligarchy, wishing to involve as many respectable citizens as possible in complicity with their crimes, sent for five persons, of whom Socrates was one, and ordered them to bring a certain Leo from Salamis, that he might be put to death; the others obeyed, but Socrates refused to accompany them on their disgraceful errand. Nevertheless, it told heavily against the philosopher that Alcibiades, the most mischievous of demagogues, and Critias, the most savage of aristocrats, passed for having been educated by him. It was remembered, also, that he was in the habit of quoting a passage from Homer, where Odysseus is described as appealing to the reason of the chiefs, while he brings inferior men to their senses with rough words and rougher chastisement. In reality, Socrates did not mean that the poor should be treated with brutality by the rich, for he would have been the first to suffer had such license been permitted, but he meant that where reason failed harsher methods of coercion must be applied. Precisely because expressions of opinion let fall in private conversation are so liable to be misunderstood or purposely perverted, to adduce them in support of a capital charge where no overt act can be alleged, is the most mischievous form of encroachment on individual liberty.
Modern critics, beginning with Hegel,[109] have discovered reasons for considering Socrates a dangerous character, which apparently did not occur to Melêtus and his associates. We are told that the whole system of applying dialectics to morality had an unsettling tendency, for if men were once taught that the sacredness of duty rested on their individual conviction they might refuse to be convinced, and act accordingly. And it is further alleged that Socrates first introduced this principle of subjectivity into morals. The persecuting spirit is so insatiable that in default of acts it attacks opinions, and in default of specific opinions it fastens on general tendencies. We know that Joseph de Maistre was suspected by his ignorant neighbours of being a Revolutionist because most of his time was spent in study; and but the other day a French preacher was sent into exile by his ecclesiastical superiors for daring to support Catholic morality on rational grounds.[110] Fortunately Greek society was not subject to the rules of the Dominican Order. Never anywhere in Greece, certainly not at Athens, did there exist that solid, all-comprehensive, unquestionable fabric of traditional obligation assumed by Hegel; and Zeller is conceding far too much when he defends Socrates, on the sole ground that the recognised standards of right had fallen into universal contempt during the Peloponnesian war, while admitting that he might fairly have been silenced at an earlier period, if indeed his teaching could have been conceived as possible before it actually began.[111] For from the first, both in literature and in life, Greek thought is distinguished by an ardent desire to get to the bottom of every question, and to discover arguments of universal applicability for every decision. Even in the youth of Pericles knotty ethical problems were eagerly discussed without any interference on the part of the public authorities. Experience had to prove how far-reaching was the effect of ideas before a systematic attempt could be made to control them.
In what terms Socrates replied to his accusers cannot be stated with absolute certainty. Reasons have been already given for believing that the speech put into his mouth by Plato is not entirely historical; and here we may mention as a further reason that the specific charges mentioned by Xenophon are not even alluded to in it. This much, however, is clear, that the defence was of a thoroughly dignified character; and that, while the allegations of the prosecution were successfully rebutted, the defendant stood entirely on his innocence, and refused to make any of the customary but illegal appeals to the compassion of the court. We are assured that he was condemned solely on account of this defiant attitude, and by a very small majority. Melêtus had demanded the penalty of death, but by Attic law Socrates had the right of proposing some milder sentence as an alternative. According to Plato, he began by stating that the justest return for his entire devotion to the public good would be maintenance at the public expense during the remainder of his life, an honour usually granted to victors at the Olympic games. In default of this he proposed a fine of thirty minae, to be raised by contributions among his friends. According to another account,[112] he refused, on the ground of his innocence, to name any alternative penalty. On a second division Socrates was condemned to death by a much larger majority than that which had found him guilty, eighty of those who had voted for his acquittal now voting for his execution.
Such was the transaction which some moderns, Grote among the number, holding Socrates to be one of the best and wisest of men, have endeavoured to excuse. Their argument is that the illustrious victim was jointly responsible for his own fate, and that he was really condemned, not for his teaching, but for contempt of court. To us it seems that this is a distinction without a difference. What has been so finely said of space and time may be said also of the Socratic life and the Socratic doctrine; each was contained entire in every point of the other. Such as he appeared to the Dicastery, such also he appeared everywhere, always, and to all men, offering them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If conduct like his was not permissible in a court of law, then it was not permissible at all; if justice could not be administered without reticences, evasions, and disguises, where was sincerity ever to be practised? If reason was not to be the paramount arbitress in questions of public interest, what issues could ever be entrusted to her decision? Admit every extenuating circumstance that the utmost ingenuity can devise, and from every point of view one fact will come out clearly, that Socrates was impeached as a philosopher, that he defended himself like a philosopher, and that he was condemned to death because he was a philosopher. Those who attempt to remove this stain from the character of the Athenian people will find that, like the blood-stain on Bluebeard’s key, when it is rubbed out on one side it reappears on the other. To punish Socrates for his teaching, or for the way in which he defended his teaching, was equally persecution, and persecution of the worst description, that which attacks not the results of free thought but free thought itself. We cannot then agree with Grote when he says that the condemnation of Socrates ‘ought to count as one of the least gloomy items in an essentially gloomy catalogue.’ On the contrary, it is the gloomiest of any, because it reveals a depth of hatred for pure reason in vulgar minds which might otherwise have remained unsuspected. There is some excuse for other persecutors, for Caiaphas, and St. Dominic, and Calvin: for the Inquisition, and for the authors of the dragonnades; for the judges of Giordano Bruno, and the judges of Vanini: they were striving to exterminate particular opinions, which they believed to be both false and pernicious; there is no such excuse for the Athenian dicasts, least of all for those eighty who, having pronounced Socrates innocent, sentenced him to death because he reasserted his innocence; if, indeed, innocence be not too weak a word to describe his life-long battle against that very irreligion and corruption which were laid to his charge. Here, in this one cause, the great central issue between two abstract principles, the principle of authority and the principle of reason, was cleared from all adventitious circumstances, and disputed on its own intrinsic merits with the usual weapons of argument on the one side and brute force on the other. On that issue Socrates was finally condemned, and on it his judges must be condemned by us.
Neither can we admit Grote’s further contention, that in no Greek city but Athens would Socrates have been permitted to carry on his cross-examining activity for so long a period. On the contrary, we agree with Colonel Mure,[113] that in no other state would he have been molested. Xenophanes and Parmenides, Heracleitus and Democritus, had given utterance to far bolder opinions than his, opinions radically destructive of Greek religion, apparently without running the slightest personal risk; while Athens had more than once before shown the same spirit of fanatical intolerance, though without proceeding to such a fatal extreme, thanks, probably, to the timely escape of her intended victims. M. Ernest Renan has quite recently contrasted the freedom of thought accorded by Roman despotism with the narrowness of old Greek Republicanism, quoting what he calls the Athenian Inquisition as a sample of the latter. The word inquisition is not too strong, only the lecturer should not have led his audience to believe that Greek Republicanism was in this respect fairly represented by its most brilliant type, for had such been the case very little free thought would have been left for Rome to tolerate.