In a remarkable passage of the Leges (i. 637 D, 638 C), Plato observes, in touching upon the discrepancy between different local institutions at Sparta, Krete, Keos. Tarentum, &c.:—“If natives of different cities argue with each other about their respective institutions, each of them has a good and sufficient reason. This is the custom with us; with you perhaps it is different. But we, who are now conversing, do not apply our criticisms to the private citizen; we criticise the lawgiver himself, and try to determine whether his laws are good or bad.” ἡμῖν δ’ ἐστι οὐ περὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἄλλων ὁ λόγος, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῶν νομοθετῶν αὐτῶν κακίας τε καὶ ἀρετῆς. King Nomos was not at all pleased to be thus put upon his trial.
Aversion towards Sokrates aggravated by his extreme publicity of speech. His declaration, that false persuasion of knowledge is universal; must be understood as a basis in appreciating Plato’s Dialogues of Search.
The dislike so constantly felt by communities having established opinions, towards free speculation and dialectic, was aggravated in its application to Sokrates, because his dialectic was not only novel, but also public, obtrusive, and indiscriminate.[89] The name of Sokrates, after his death, was employed not merely by Plato, but by all the Sokratic companions, to cover their own ethical speculations: moreover, all of them either composed works or gave lectures. But in either case, readers or hearers were comparatively few in number, and were chiefly persons prompted by some special taste or interest: while Sokrates passed his day in the most public place, eager to interrogate every one, and sometimes forcing his interrogations even upon reluctant hearers.[90] That he could have been allowed to persist in this course of life for thirty years, when we read his own account (in the Platonic Apology) of the antipathy which he provoked — and when we recollect that the Thirty, during their short dominion, put him under an interdict — is a remarkable proof of the comparative tolerance of Athenian practice.
[89] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. 3. “Est enim philosophia paucis contenta judicibus, multitudinem consulto ipsa fugiens, eique ipsi et suspecta et invisa,” &c.
The extreme publicity, and indiscriminate, aggressive conversation of Sokrates, is strongly insisted on by Themistius (Orat. xxvi. p. 384, Ὑπὲρ τοῦ λέγειν) as aggravating the displeasure of the public against him.
[90] Xenophon, Memor. iv. 2, 3-5-40.
However this may be, it is from the conversation of Sokrates that the Platonic Dialogues of Search take their rise, and we must read them under those same fundamental postulates which Sokrates enunciates to the Dikasts. “False persuasion of knowledge is almost universal: the Elenchus, which eradicates this, is salutary and indispensable: the dialectic search for truth between two active, self-working minds, both of them ignorant, yet both feeling their own ignorance, is instructive, as well as fascinating, though it should end without finding any truth at all, and without any other result than that of discovering some proposed hypotheses to be untrue.” The modern reader must be invited to keep these postulates in mind, if he would fairly appreciate the Platonic Dialogues of Search. He must learn to esteem the mental exercise of free debate as valuable in itself,[91] even though the goal recedes before him in proportion to the steps which he makes in advance. He perceives a lively antithesis of opinions, several distinct and dissentient points of view opened, various tentatives of advance made and broken off. He has the first half of the process of truth-seeking, without the last; and even without full certainty that the last half can be worked out, or that the problem as propounded is one which admits of an affirmative solution.[92] But Plato presumes that the search will be renewed, either by the same interlocutors or by others. He reckons upon responsive energy in the youthful subject; he addresses himself to men of earnest purpose and stirring intellect, who will be spurred on by the dialectic exercise itself to farther pursuit — men who, having listened to the working out of different points of view, will meditate on these points for themselves, and apply a judicial estimate conformable to the measure of their own minds. Those respondents, who, after having been puzzled and put to shame by one cross-examination, became disgusted and never presented themselves again — were despised by Sokrates as lazy and stupid.[93] For him, as well as for Plato, the search after truth counted as the main business of life.
[91] Aristotel. Topica, i. p. 101, a. 29, with the Scholion of Alexander of Aphrodisias, who remarks that the habit of colloquial debate had been very frequent in the days of Aristotle, and afterwards; but had comparatively ceased in his own time, haying been exchanged for written treatises. P. 254, b. Schol. Brandis, also Plato, Parmenid. pp. 135, 136, and the Commentary of Proklus thereupon, p. 776 seqq., and p. 917, ed. Stallbaum.
[92] A passage in one of the speeches composed by Lysias, addressed by a plaintiff in court to the Dikasts, shows how debate and free antithesis of opposite opinions were accounted as essential to the process τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν — καὶ ἐγὼ μὲν ᾤμην φιλοσοφοῦντας αὐτοὺς περὶ τοῦ πράγματος ἀντιλέγειν τὸν ἐναντίον λόγον· οἱ δ’ ἄρα οὐκ ἀντέλεγον, ἀλλ’ ἀντέπραττον. (Lysias, Or. viii. Κακολογιῶν s. 11, p. 273; compare Plat. Apolog. p. 28 E.)
Bacon describes his own intellectual cast of mind, in terms which illustrate the Platonic διάλογοι ζητητικοί, — the character of the searcher, doubter, and tester, as contrasted with that of the confident affirmer and expositor:—“Me ipsum autem ad veritatis contemplationes quam ad alia magis fabrefactum deprehendi, ut qui mentem et ad rerum similitudinem (quod maximum est) agnoscendum satis mobilem, et ad differentiarum subtilitates observandas satis fixam et intentam haberem — qui et quærendi desiderium, et dubitandi patientiam, et meditandi voluptatem, et asserendi cunctationem, et resipiscendi facilitatem, et disponendi sollicitudinem tenerem — quique nec novitatem affectarem, nec antiquitatem admirarer, et omnem imposturam odissem. Quare naturam meam cum veritate quandam familiaritatem et cognationem habere judicavi.” (Impetus Philosophici, De Interpretatione Naturæ Proœmium.)