The third and most important characteristic of Sokratês—that, through which the first and second became operative—was his intellectual peculiarity. His influence on the speculative mind of his age was marked and important; as to subject, as to method, and as to doctrine.
He was the first who turned his thoughts and discussions distinctly to the subject of ethics. With the philosophers who preceded him, the subject of examination had been Nature, or the Kosmos,[666] as one undistinguishable whole, blending together cosmogony, astronomy, geometry, physics, metaphysics, etc. The Ionic as well as the Eleatic philosophers, Pythagoras as well as Empedoklês, all set before themselves this vast and undefined problem; each framing some system suited to his own vein of imagination; religious, poetical, scientific, or skeptical. According to that honorable ambition for enlarged knowledge, however, which marked the century following 480 B.C., and of which the professional men called sophists were at once the products and the instruments, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, as much as was then known, were becoming so far detached sciences as to be taught separately to youth. Such appears to have been the state of science when Sokratês received his education. He received at least the ordinary amount of instruction in all:[667] he devoted himself as a young man to the society and lessons of the physical philosopher Archelaus,[668] the disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he accompanied from Athens to Samos; and there is even reason to believe that, during the earlier part of his life, he was much devoted to what was then understood as the general study of Nature.[669] A man of his earnest and active intellect was likely first to manifest his curiosity as a learner: “to run after and track the various discourses of others, like a Laconian hound,” if I may borrow an expression applied to him by Plato,[670] before he struck out any novelties of his own. And in Plato’s dialogue called “Parmenidês,” Sokratês appears as a young man full of ardor for the discussion of the Parmenidean theory, looking up with reverence to Parmenidês and Zeno, and receiving from them instructions in the process of dialectical investigation. I have already, in the preceding chapter,[671] noted the tenor of that dialogue, as illustrating the way in which Grecian philosophy presents itself, even at the first dawn of dialectics, as at once negative and positive, recognizing the former branch of method no less than the latter as essential to the attainment of truth. I construe it as an indication respecting the early mind of Sokratês, imbibing this conviction from the ancient Parmenidês and the mature and practised Zeno, and imposing upon himself, as a condition of assent to any hypothesis or doctrine, the obligation of setting forth conscientiously all that could be said against it, not less than all that could be said in its favor: however laborious such a process might be, and however little appreciated by the multitude.[672] Little as we know the circumstances which went to form the remarkable mind of Sokratês, we may infer from this dialogue that he owes in part his powerful negative vein of dialectics to “the double-tongued and all-objecting Zeno.”[673]
To a mind at all exigent on the score of proof, physical science as handled in that day was indeed likely to appear not only unsatisfactory, but hopeless; and Sokratês, in the maturity of his life, deserted it altogether. The contradictory hypotheses which he heard, with the impenetrable confusion which overhung the subject, brought him even to the conviction, that the gods intended the machinery by which they brought about astronomical and physical results to remain unknown, and that it was impious, as well as useless, to pry into their secrets.[674] His master Archelaus, though mainly occupied with physics, also speculated more or less concerning moral subjects; concerning justice and injustice, the laws, etc.; and is said to have maintained the tenet, that justice and injustice were determined by law or convention, not by nature. From him, perhaps, Sokratês may have been partly led to turn his mind in this direction. But to a man disappointed with physics, and having in his bosom a dialectical impulse powerful, unemployed, and restless, the mere realities of Athenian life, even without Archelaus, would suggest human relations, duties, action and suffering, as the most interesting materials for contemplation and discourse. Sokratês could not go into the public assembly, the dikastery, or even the theatre, without hearing discussions about what was just or unjust, honorable or base, expedient or hurtful, etc., nor without having his mind conducted to the inquiry, what was the meaning of these large words which opposing disputants often invoked with equal reverential confidence. Along with the dialectic and generalizing power of Sokratês, which formed his bond of connection with such minds as Plato, there was at the same time a vigorous practicality, a large stock of positive Athenian experience, with which Xenophon chiefly sympathized, and which he has brought out in his “Memorabilia.” Of these two intellectual tendencies, combined with a strong religious sentiment, the character of Sokratês is composed; and all of them were gratified at once, when he devoted himself to admonitory interrogation on the rules and purposes of human life; from which there was the less to divert him, as he had neither talents nor taste for public speaking.
That “the proper study of mankind is man,”[675] Sokratês was the first to proclaim: he recognized the security and happiness of man both as the single end of study, and as the limiting principle whereby it ought to be circumscribed. In the present state to which science has attained, nothing is more curious than to look back at the rules which this eminent man laid down. Astronomy—now exhibiting the maximum of perfection, with the largest and most exact power of predicting future phenomena which human science has ever attained—was pronounced by him to be among the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand, and madness to investigate, as Anaxagoras had foolishly pretended to do. He admitted, indeed, that there was advantage in knowing enough of the movements of the heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons, and as guides for voyages, journeys by land, or night-watches: but thus much, he said, might easily be obtained from pilots and watchmen, while all beyond was nothing but waste of valuable time, exhausting that mental effort which ought to be employed in profitable acquisitions. He reduced geometry to its literal meaning of land-measuring, necessary so far as to enable any one to proceed correctly in the purchase, sale, or division of land, which any man of common attention might do almost without a teacher; but silly and worthless, if carried beyond, to the study of complicated diagrams.[676] Respecting arithmetic, he gave the same qualified permission of study; but as to general physics, or the study of Nature, he discarded it altogether: “Do these inquirers (he asked) think that they already know human affairs well enough, that they thus begin to meddle with divine? Do they think that they shall be able to excite or calm the winds and the rain at pleasure, or have they no other view than to gratify an idle curiosity? Surely, they must see that such matters are beyond human investigation. Let them only recollect how much the greatest men, who have attempted the investigation, differ in their pretended results, holding opinions extreme and opposite to each other, like those of madmen!” Such was the view which Sokratês took of physical science and its prospects.[677] It is the very same skepticism in substance, and carried farther in degree, though here invested with a religious coloring, for which Ritter and others so severely denounce Gorgias. But looking at matters as they stood in 440-430 B.C., it ought not to be accounted even surprising, much less blamable. To an acute man of that day, physical science as then studied may well be conceived to have promised no result; and even to have seemed worse than barren, if, like Sokratês, he had an acute perception how much of human happiness was forfeited by immorality, and by corrigible ignorance; how much might be gained by devoting the same amount of earnest study to this latter object. Nor ought we to omit remarking, that the objection of Sokratês: “You may judge how unprofitable are these studies, by observing how widely the students differ among themselves,” remains in high favor down to the present day, and may constantly be seen employed against theoretical men, or theoretical arguments, in every department.
Sokratês desired to confine the studies of his hearers to human matters as distinguished from divine, the latter comprehending astronomy and physics. He looked at all knowledge from the point of view of human practice, which had been assigned by the gods to man as his proper subject for study and learning, and with reference to which, therefore, they managed all the current phenomena upon principles of constant and intelligible sequence, so that every one who chose to learn, might learn, while those who took no such pains suffered for their neglect. Even in these, however, the most careful study was not by itself completely sufficient; for the gods did not condescend to submit all the phenomena to constant antecedence and consequence, but reserved to themselves the capital turns and junctures for special sentence.[678] Yet here again, if a man had been diligent in learning all that the gods permitted to be learned; and if, besides, he was assiduous in pious court to them, and in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they would be gracious to him, and signify beforehand how they intended to act in putting the final hand and in settling the undecipherable portions of the problem.[679] The kindness of the gods in replying through their oracles, or sending information by sacrificial signs or prodigies, in cases of grave difficulty, was, in the view of Sokratês, one of the most signal evidences of their care for the human race.[680] To seek access to these prophecies, or indications of special divine intervention to come, was the proper supplementary business of any one who had done as much for himself as could be done by patient study.[681] But as it was madness in a man to solicit special information from the gods on matters which they allowed him to learn by his own diligence, so it was not less madness in him to investigate as a learner that which they chose to keep back for their own specialty of will.[682]
Such was the capital innovation made by Sokratês in regard to the subject of Athenian study, bringing down philosophy, to use the expression of Cicero,[683] from the heavens to the earth; and such his attempt to draw the line between that which was, and was not, scientifically discoverable; an attempt remarkable, inasmuch as it shows his conviction that the scientific and the religious point of view mutually excluded one another, so that where the latter began, the former ended. It was an innovation, inestimable, in respect to the new matter which it let in; of little import, as regards that which it professed to exclude. For in point of fact, physical science, though partially discouraged, was never absolutely excluded, through any prevalence of that systematic disapproval which he, in common with the multitude of his day, entertained: if it became comparatively neglected, this arose rather from the greater popularity, and the more abundant and accessible matter, of that which he introduced. Physical or astronomical science was narrow in amount, known only to few, and even with those few it did not admit of being expanded, enlivened, or turned to much profitable account in discussion. But the moral and political phenomena on which Sokratês turned the light of speculation were abundant, varied, familiar, and interesting to every one; comprising—to translate a Greek line which he was fond of quoting—“all the good and evil which has befallen you in your home;”[684] connected too, not merely with the realities of the present, but also with the literature of the past, through the gnomic and other poets.
The motives which determined this important innovation, as to the subject of study, exhibits Sokratês chiefly as a religious man and a practical, philanthropic preceptor, the Xenophontic hero. His innovations, not less important, as to method and doctrine, place before us the philosopher and dialectician; the other side of his character, or the Platonic hero; faintly traced, indeed, yet still recognized and identified by Xenophon.
“Sokratês,” says the latter,[685] “continued incessantly discussing human affairs (the sense of this word will be understood by what has been said above, [page 420]); investigating: What is piety? What is impiety? What is the honorable and the base? What is the just and the unjust? What is temperance or unsound mind? What is courage or cowardice? What is a city? What is the character fit for a citizen? What is authority over men? What is the character befitting the exercise of such authority? and other similar questions. Men who knew these matters he accounted good and honorable; men who were ignorant of them he assimilated to slaves.”
Sokratês, says Xenophon again, in another passage, considered that the dialectic process consisted in coming together and taking common counsel, to distinguish and distribute things into genera, or families, so as to learn what each separate thing really was. To go through this process carefully was indispensable, as the only way of enabling a man to regulate his own conduct, aiming at good objects and avoiding bad. To be so practised as to be able to do it readily, was essential to make a man a good leader or adviser of others. Every man who had gone through the process, and come to know what each thing was, could also of course define it and explain it to others; but if he did not know, it was no wonder that he went wrong himself, and put others wrong besides.[686] Moreover, Aristotle says: “To Sokratês we may unquestionably assign two novelties; inductive discourses, and the definitions of general terms.”[687]
I borrow here intentionally from Xenophon in preference to Plato; since the former, tamely describing a process which he imperfectly appreciated, identifies it so much the more completely with the real Sokratês, and is thus a better witness than Plato, whose genius not only conceived but greatly enlarged it, for didactic purposes of his own. In our present state of knowledge, some mental effort is required to see anything important in the words of Xenophon; so familiar has every student been rendered with the ordinary terms and gradations of logic and classification,—such as genus, definition, individual things as comprehended in a genus; what each thing is, and to what genus it belongs, etc. But familiar as these words have now become, they denote a mental process, of which, in 440-430 B.C., few men besides Sokratês had any conscious perception. Of course, men conceived and described things in classes, as is implied in the very form of language, and in the habitual junction of predicates with subjects in common speech. They explained their meaning clearly and forcibly in particular cases: they laid down maxims, argued questions, stated premises, and drew conclusions, on trials in the dikastery, or debates in the assembly: they had an abundant poetical literature, which appealed to every variety of emotion: they were beginning to compile historical narrative, intermixed with reflection and criticism. But though all this was done, and often admirably well done, it was wanting in that analytical consciousness which would have enabled any one to describe, explain, or vindicate what he was doing. The ideas of men—speakers as well as hearers, the productive minds as well as the recipient multitude—were associated together in groups favorable rather to emotional results, or to poetical, rhetorical narrative and descriptive effect, than to methodical generalization, to scientific conception, or to proof either inductive or deductive. That reflex act of attention which enables men to understand, compare, and rectify their own mental process, was only just beginning. It was a recent novelty on the part of the rhetorical teachers, to analyze the component parts of a public harangue, and to propound some precepts for making men tolerable speakers. Protagoras was just setting forth various grammatical distinctions, while Prodikus discriminated the significations of words nearly equivalent and liable to be confounded. All these proceedings appeared then so new[688] as to incur the ridicule even of Plato: yet they were branches of that same analytical tendency which Sokratês now carried into scientific inquiry. It may be doubted whether any one before him ever used the words genus and species, originally meaning family and form, in the philosophical sense now exclusively appropriated to them. Not one of those many names—called by logicians names of the second intention—which imply distinct attention to various parts of the logical process, and enable us to consider and criticize it in detail, then existed. All of them grew out of the schools of Plato, Aristotle, and the subsequent philosophers, so that we can thus trace them in their beginning to the common root and father, Sokratês.