Both describe in the same manner his private life and habits; his contented poverty, justice, temperance in the largest sense of the word, and self-sufficing independence of character. On most of these points too, Aristophanês and the other comic writers, so far as their testimony counts for anything, appear as confirmatory witnesses; for they abound in jests on the coarse fare, shabby and scanty clothing, bare feet, pale face, poor and joyless life, of Sokratês.[639] Of the circumstances of his life we are almost wholly ignorant: he served as an hoplite at Potidæa, at Delium, and at Amphipolis; with credit apparently in all, though exaggerated encomiums on the part of his friends provoked an equally exaggerated skepticism on the part of Athenæus and others. He seems never to have filled any political office until the year (B.C. 406) in which the battle of Arginusæ occurred, in which year he was member of the senate of Five Hundred, and one of the prytanes on that memorable day when the proposition of Kallixenus against the six generals was submitted to the public assembly: his determined refusal, in spite of all personal hazard, to put an unconstitutional question to the vote, has been already recounted. That during his long life he strictly obeyed the laws,[640] is proved by the fact that none of his numerous enemies ever arraigned him before a court of justice: that he discharged all the duties of an upright man and a brave as well as pious citizen, may also be confidently asserted. His friends lay especial stress upon his piety; that is, upon his exact discharge of all the religious duties considered as incumbent upon an Athenian.[641]
Though these points are requisite to be established, in order that we may rightly interpret the character of Sokratês, it is not from them that he has derived his eminent place in history. Three peculiarities distinguish the man. 1. His long life passed in contented poverty, and in public, apostolic dialectics. 2. His strong religious persuasion, or belief, of acting under a mission and signs from the gods; especially his dæmon, or genius; the special religious warning of which he believed himself to be frequently the subject. 3. His great intellectual originality, both of subject and of method, and his power of stirring and forcing the germ of inquiry and ratiocination in others. Though these three characteristics were so blended in Sokratês that it is not easy to consider them separately; yet, in each respect, he stood distinguished from all Greek philosophers before or after him.
At what time Sokratês relinquished his profession as a statuary we do not know; but it is certain that all the middle and later part of his life, at least, was devoted exclusively to the self-imposed task of teaching; excluding all other business, public or private, and to the neglect of all means of fortune. We can hardly avoid speaking of him as a teacher, though he himself disclaimed the appellation:[642] his practice was to talk or converse, or to prattle without end,[643] if we translate the derisory word by which the enemies of philosophy described dialectic conversation. Early in the morning he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools where youths were receiving instruction: he was to be seen in the market-place at the hour when it was most crowded, among the booths and tables where goods were exposed for sale: his whole day was usually spent in this public manner.[644] He talked with any one, young or old, rich or poor, who sought to address him, and in the hearing of all who chose to stand by: not only he never either asked or received any reward, but he made no distinction of persons, never withheld his conversation from any one, and talked upon the same general topics to all. He conversed with politicians, sophists, military men, artisans, ambitious or studious youths, etc. He visited all persons of interest in the city, male or female: his friendship with Aspasia is well known, and one of the most interesting chapters[645] of Xenophon’s Memorabilia recounts his visit to and dialogue with Theodotê, a beautiful hetæra, or female companion. Nothing could be more public, perpetual, and indiscriminate as to persons than his conversation. But as it was engaging, curious, and instructive to hear, certain persons made it their habit to attend him in public as companions and listeners. These men, a fluctuating body, were commonly known as his disciples, or scholars; though neither he nor his personal friends ever employed the terms teacher and disciple to describe the relation between them.[646] Many of them came, attracted by his reputation, during the later years of his life, from other Grecian cities; Megara, Thebes, Elis, Kyrênê, etc.
Now no other person in Athens, or in any other Grecian city, appears ever to have manifested himself in this perpetual and indiscriminate manner as a public talker for instruction. All teachers either took money for their lessons, or at least gave them apart from the multitude in a private house or garden, to special pupils, with admissions and rejections at their own pleasure. By the peculiar mode of life which Sokratês pursued, not only his conversation reached the minds of a much wider circle, but he became more abundantly known as a person. While acquiring a few attached friends and admirers, and raising a certain intellectual interest in others, he at the same time provoked a large number of personal enemies. This was probably the reason why he was selected by Aristophanês and the other comic writers, to be attacked as a general representative of philosophical and rhetorical teaching; the more so, as his marked and repulsive physiognomy admitted so well of being imitated in the mask which the actor wore. The audience at the theatre would more readily recognize the peculiar figure which they were accustomed to see every day in the market-place, than if Prodikus or Protagoras, whom most of them did not know by sight, had been brought on the stage; nor was it of much importance, either to them or to Aristophanês, whether Sokratês was represented as teaching what he did really teach, or something utterly different.
This extreme publicity of life and conversation was one among the characteristics of Sokratês, distinguishing him from all teachers either before or after him. Next, was his persuasion of a special religious mission, restraints, impulses, and communications, sent to him by the gods. Taking the belief in such supernatural intervention generally, it was indeed noway peculiar to Sokratês: it was the ordinary faith of the ancient world; insomuch that the attempts to resolve phenomena into general laws were looked upon with a certain disapprobation, as indirectly setting it aside. And Xenophon[647] accordingly avails himself of this general fact, in replying to the indictment for religious innovation, of which his master was found guilty, to affirm that the latter pretended to nothing beyond what was included in the creed of every pious man. But this is not an exact statement of the matter in debate; for it slurs over at least, if it does not deny, that speciality of inspiration from the gods, which those who talked with Sokratês—as we learn even from Xenophon—believed, and which Sokratês himself believed also.[648] Very different is his own representation, as put forth in the defence before the dikastery. He had been accustomed constantly to hear, even from his childhood, a divine voice, interfering, at moments when he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him very frequently, not merely on great, but even on small occasions, intercepting what he was about to do or to say.[649] Though later writers speak of this as the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, he himself does not personify it, but treats it merely as a “divine sign, a prophetic or supernatural voice.”[650] He was accustomed not only to obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and to his enemies. It had always forbidden him to enter on public life; it forbade him, when the indictment was hanging over him, to take any thought for a prepared defence;[651] and so completely did he march with a consciousness of this bridle in his mouth, that when he felt no check, he assumed that the turning which he was about to take was the right one. Though his persuasion on the subject was unquestionably sincere, and his obedience constant, yet he never dwelt upon it himself as anything grand, or awful, or entitling him to peculiar deference; but spoke of it often in his usual strain of familiar playfulness. To his friends generally, it seems to have constituted one of his titles to reverence, though neither Plato nor Xenophon scruple to talk of it in that jesting way which doubtless they caught from himself.[652] But to his enemies and to the Athenian public, it appeared in the light of an offensive heresy; an impious innovation on the orthodox creed, and a desertion of the recognized gods of Athens.
Such was the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, as described by himself and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues; a voice always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively upon his own personal conduct.[653] That which Plutarch and other admirers of Sokratês conceived as a dæmon, or intermediate being between gods and men, was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian church as a devil; by LeClerc, as one of the fallen angels; by some other modern commentators, as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Sokratês himself.[654] Without presuming to determine the question raised in the former hypotheses, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the conviction of Sokratês on the point was quite sincere. A circumstance little attended to, but deserving peculiar notice, and stated by himself, is, that the restraining voice began when he was a child, and continued even down to the end of his life: it had thus become an established persuasion, long before his philosophical habits began. But though this peculiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively to him, there were also other ways in which he believed himself to have received the special mandates of the gods, not simply checking him when he was about to take a wrong turn, but spurring him on, directing, and peremptorily exacting from him, a positive course of proceeding. Such distinct mission had been imposed upon him by dreams, by oracular intimations, and by every other means which the gods employed for signifying their special will.[655]
Of these intimations from the oracle, he specifies particularly one, in reply to a question put at Delphi, by his intimate friend, and enthusiastic admirer, Chærephon. The question put was, whether any other man was wiser than Sokratês; to which the Pythian priestess replied, that no other man was wiser.[656] Sokratês affirms that he was greatly perplexed on hearing this declaration from so infallible an authority, being conscious to himself that he possessed no wisdom on any subject, great or small. At length, after much meditation and a distressing mental struggle, he resolved to test the accuracy of the infallible priestess, by taking measure of the wisdom of others as compared with his own. Selecting a leading politician, accounted wise both by others and by himself, he proceeded to converse with him and put scrutinizing questions; the answers to which satisfied him that this man’s supposed wisdom was really no wisdom at all. Having made such a discovery, Sokratês next tried to demonstrate to the politician himself how much he wanted of being wise; but this was impossible; the latter still remained as fully persuaded of his own wisdom as before. “The result which I acquired (says Sokratês) was, that I was a wiser man than he, for neither he nor I knew anything of what was truly good and honorable; but the difference between us was, that he fancied he knew them, while I was fully conscious of my own ignorance; I was thus wiser than he, inasmuch as I was exempt from that capital error.” So far, therefore, the oracle was proved to be right. Sokratês repeated the same experiment successively upon a great number of different persons, especially those in reputation for distinguished abilities; first, upon political men and rhetors, next upon poets of every variety, and upon artists as well as artisans. The result of his trial was substantially the same in all cases. The poets, indeed, composed splendid verses, but when questioned even about the words, the topics, and the purpose, of their own compositions, they could give no consistent or satisfactory explanations; so that it became evident that they spoke or wrote, like prophets, as unconscious subjects under the promptings of inspiration. Moreover, their success as poets filled them with a lofty opinion of their own wisdom on other points also. The case was similar with artists and artisans; who, while highly instructed, and giving satisfactory answers, each in his own particular employment, were for that reason only the more convinced that they also knew well other great and noble subjects. This great general mistake more than countervailed their special capacities, and left them, on the whole, less wise than Sokratês.[657]
“In this research and scrutiny (said Sokratês, on his defence) I have been long engaged, and am still engaged. I interrogate every man of reputation; I prove him to be defective in wisdom; but I cannot prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling the mission imposed upon me, I have thus established the veracity of the god, who meant to pronounce that human wisdom was of little reach or worth; and that he who, like Sokratês, felt most convinced of his own worthlessness, as to wisdom, was really the wisest of men.[658] My service to the god has not only constrained me to live in constant poverty[659] and neglect of political estimation, but has brought upon me a host of bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and exposed while the bystanders talk of me as a wise man, because they give me credit for wisdom respecting all the points on which my exposure of others turns.”—“Whatever be the danger and obloquy which I may incur, it would be monstrous indeed, if, having maintained my place in the ranks as an hoplite under your generals at Delium and Potidæa, I were now, from fear of death or anything else, to disobey the oracle and desert the post which the god has assigned to me, the duty of living for philosophy and cross-questioning both myself and others.[660] And should you even now offer to acquit me, on condition of my renouncing this duty, I should tell you, with all respect and affection, that I will obey the god rather than you, and that I will persist, until my dying day, in cross-questioning you, exposing your want of wisdom and virtue, and reproaching you until the defect be remedied.[661] My mission as your monitor is a mark of the special favor of the god to you; and if you condemn me, it will be your loss; for you will find none other such.[662] Perhaps you will ask me, Why cannot you go away, Sokratês, and live among us in peace and silence? This is the hardest of all questions for me to answer to your satisfaction. If I tell you that silence on my part would be disobedience to the god, you will think me in jest, and not believe me. You will believe me still less, if I tell you that the greatest blessing which can happen to man is, to carry on discussions every day about virtue and those other matters which you hear me canvassing when I cross-examine myself as well as others; and that life, without such examination, is no life at all. Nevertheless, so stands the fact, incredible as it may seem to you.”[663]
I have given rather ample extracts from the Platonic Apology, because no one can conceive fairly the character of Sokratês who does not enter into the spirit of that impressive discourse. We see in it plain evidence of the marked supernatural mission which he believed himself to be executing, and which would not allow him to rest or employ himself in other ways. The oracular answer brought by Chærephon from Delphi, was a fact of far more importance in his history than his so-called dæmon, about which so much more has been said. That answer, together with the dreams and other divine mandates concurrent to the same end, came upon him in the middle of his life, when the intellectual man was formed, and when he had already acquired a reputation for wisdom among those who knew him. It supplied a stimulus which brought into the most pronounced action a pre-existing train of generalizing dialectics and Zenonian negation, an intellectual vein with which the religious impulse rarely comes into confluence. Without such a motive, to which his mind was peculiarly susceptible, his conversation would probably have taken the same general turn, but would assuredly have been restricted within much narrower and more cautious limits. For nothing could well be more unpopular and obnoxious than the task which he undertook of cross-examining, and convicting of ignorance, every distinguished man whom he could approach. So violent, indeed, was the enmity which he occasionally provoked, that there were instances, we are told, in which he was struck or maltreated,[664] and very frequently laughed to scorn. Though he acquired much admiration from auditors, especially youthful auditors, and from a few devoted adherents, yet the philosophical motive alone would not have sufficed to prompt him to that systematic, and even obtrusive, cross-examination which he adopted as the business of his life.
This, then, is the second peculiarity which distinguishes Sokratês, in addition to his extreme publicity of life and indiscriminate conversation. He was not simply a philosopher, but a religious missionary doing the work of philosophy; “an elenchtic,—or cross-examining god,—to use an expression which Plato puts into his mouth respecting an Eleatic philosopher going about to examine and convict the infirm in reason.”[665] Nothing of this character belonged either to Parmenidês and Anaxagoras before him, or to Plato and Aristotle after him. Both Pythagoras and Empedoklês did, indeed, lay claim to supernatural communications, mingled with their philosophical teaching. But though there be thus far a general analogy between them and Sokratês, the modes of manifestation were so utterly different, that no fair comparison can be instituted.