Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the right of satisfaction for his own individual reason.
Never before (so far as we know) had the authority of King Nomos been exposed to such an enemy as this dialectic or cross-examination by Sokrates: the prescriptive creed and unconsciously imbibed sentiment (“ratio ex fide, casu, et puerilibus notionibus”) being thrown upon their defence against negative scrutiny brought to bear upon them by the inquisitive reason of an individual citizen. In the Apology, Sokrates clothes his own strong intellectual œstrus in the belief (doubtless sincerely entertained) of a divine mission. In the Gorgias, the Platonic Sokrates asserts it in naked and simple, yet not less emphatic, language. “You, Polus, bring against me the authority of the multitude, as well as that of the most eminent citizens, all of whom agree in upholding your view. But I, one man standing here alone, do not agree with you. And I engage to compel you, my one respondent, to agree with me.”[77] The autonomy or independence of individual reason against established authority, and the title of negative reason as one of the litigants in the process of philosophising, are first brought distinctly to view in the career of Sokrates.
[77] Plato, Gorgias, p. 472 A. καὶ νῦν, περὶ ὧν σὺ λέγεις, ὀλίγου σοὶ πάντες συμφήσουσι ταὐτα Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ οἱ ξένοι, ἐὰν βούλη κατ’ ἐμοῦ μάρτυρας παρασχέσθαι ὡς οὐκ ἀληθῆ λέγω· μαρτυρήσουσί σοι, ἐὰν μὲν βούλῃ, Νικίας ὁ Νικηράτου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ μετ’ αὐτοῦ — ἐὰν δὲ βούλῃ, Ἀριστοκράτης ὁ Σκελλίου — ἐὰν δὲ βούλῃ, ἡ Περικλέους ὅλη οἰκία ἢ ἄλλη συγγένεια, ἥντινα ἂν βούλῃ τῶν ἔνθαδε ἐκλέξασθαι. Ἀλλ’ ἐγώ σοι εἶς ὣν οὐχ ὁμολογῶ· οὐ γάρ με σὺ ἀναγκάζεις, &c.
Aversion of the Athenian public to the negative procedure of Sokrates. Mistake of supposing that that negative procedure belongs peculiarly to the Sophists and the Megarici.
With such a career, we need not wonder that Sokrates, though esteemed and admired by a select band of adherents, incurred a large amount of general unpopularity. The public (as I have before observed) do not admit the claim of independent exercise for individual reason. In the natural process of growth in the human mind, belief does not follow proof, but springs up apart from and independent of it: an immature intelligence believes first, and proves (if indeed it ever seeks proof) afterwards.[78] This mental tendency is farther confirmed by the pressure and authority of King Nomos; who is peremptory in exacting belief, but neither furnishes nor requires proof. The community, themselves deeply persuaded, will not hear with calmness the voice of a solitary reasoner, adverse to opinions thus established; nor do they like to be required to explain, analyse, or reconcile those opinions.[79] They disapprove especially that dialectic debate which gives free play and efficacious prominence to the negative arm. The like disapprobation is felt even by most of the historians of philosophy; who nevertheless, having an interest in the philosophising process, might be supposed to perceive that nothing worthy of being called reasoned truth can exist, without full and equal scope to negative as well as to affirmative.
[78] See Professor Bain’s Chapter on Belief; one of the most original and instructive chapters in his volume on the Emotions and the Will, pp. 578-584. [Third Ed., pp. 505-538.]
[79] This antithesis and reciprocal repulsion — between the speculative reason of the philosopher who thinks for himself, and the established traditional convictions of the public — is nowhere more strikingly enforced than by Plato in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic; together with the corrupting influence exercised by King Nomos, at the head of his vehement and unanimous public, over those few gifted natures which are competent to philosophical speculation. See Plato, Rep. vi. 492-493.
The unfavourable feelings with which the attempts to analyse morality (especially when quite novel, as such attempts were in the time of Sokrates) are received in a community — are noticed by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his tract on Utilitarianism, ch. iii. pp. 38-39:—
“The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any supposed moral standard, What is its sanction? What are the motives to obey it? or more specifically, What is the source of its obligation? Whence does it derive its binding force? It is a necessary part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this question: which though frequently assuming the shape of an objection to the utilitarian morality, as if it had some special applicability to that above others, really arises in regard to all standards. It arises in fact whenever a person is called on to adopt a standard, or refer morality to any basis on which he has not been accustomed to rest it. For the customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory: and when a person is asked to believe that this morality derives its obligation from some general principle round which custom has not thrown the same halo, the assertion is to him a paradox. The supposed corollaries seem to have a more binding force than the original theorem: the superstructure seems to stand better without than with what is represented as its foundation.… The difficulty has no peculiar application to the doctrine of utility, but is inherent in every attempt to analyse morality, and reduce it to principles: which, unless the principle is already in men’s minds invested with as much sacredness as any of its applications, always seems to divest them of a part of their sanctity.”
Epiktêtus observes that the refined doctrines acquired by the self-reasoning philosopher, often failed to attain that intense hold on his conviction, which the “rotten doctrines” inculcated from childhood possessed over the conviction of ordinary men. Διὰ τί οὖν ἐκεῖνοι (οἱ πολλοὶ, οἱ ἰδιῶται) ὑμῶν (των φιλοσόφων) ἰσχυρότεροι; Ὅτι ἐκεῖνοι μὲν τὰ σαπρὰ ταῦτα ἀπὸ δογμάτων λαλοῦσιν; ὑμεῖς δὲ τὰ κομψὰ ἀπὸ τῶν χειλῶν.… Οὕτως ὑμᾶς οἱ ἰδιῶται νικῶσι· Πανταχοῦ γὰρ ἰσχυρὸν τὸ δόγμα· ἀνίκητον τὸ δόγμα. (Epiktêtus, iii. 16.)