(Aristeides, Orat. xlv. Περὶ Ῥητορικῆς, pp. 23, 24, 25, Dindorf.)
Incorrectness of such assumption — the Sokratic Elenchus does not furnish a solution, but works upon the mind of the respondent, stimulating him to seek for a solution of his own.
I have already said (in the preceding [chapter]) that I cannot take this view either of Sokrates or of Plato. Without doubt, each of them had affirmative doctrines and convictions, though not both the same. But the affirmative vein, with both of them, runs in a channel completely distinct from the negative. The affirmative theory has its roots aliunde, and is neither generated, nor adapted, with a view to reconcile the contradictions, or elucidate the obscurities, which the negative Elenchus has exposed. That exposure does indeed render the embarrassed respondent painfully conscious of the want of some rational, consistent, and adequate theoretical explanation: it farther stimulates him to make efforts of his own for the supply of that want. But such efforts must be really his own; the Elenchus gives no farther help: it furnishes problems, but no solutions, nor even any assurance that the problems as presented, admit of affirmative solutions. Whoever expects that such consummate masters of the negative process as Sokrates and Plato, when they come to deliver affirmative dogmas of their own, will be kept under restraint by their own previous Elenchus, and will take care that their dogmas shall not be vulnerable by the same weapons as they had employed against others — will be disappointed. They do not employ any negative test against themselves. When Sokrates preaches in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, or the Athenian Stranger in the Platonic Leges, they jump over, or suppose to be already solved, the difficulties under the pressure of which other disputants had been previously discredited: they assume all the undefinable common-places to be clearly understood, and all the inconsistent generalities to be brought into harmony. Thus it is that the negative cross-examination, and the affirmative dogmatism, are (both in Sokrates and in Plato) two unconnected operations of thought: the one does not lead to, or involve, or verify, the other.
Value and importance of this process — stimulating active individual minds to theorise each for itself.
Those who depreciate the negative process simply, unless followed up by some new positive doctrine which shall be proof against all such attack — cannot be expected to admire Sokrates greatly, even as he stands rated by himself. Even if I concurred in this opinion, I should still think myself obliged to exhibit him as he really was. But I do not concur in the opinion. I think that the creation and furtherance of individual, self-thinking minds, each instigated to form some rational and consistent theory for itself, is a material benefit, even though no farther aid be rendered to the process except in the way of negative suggestion. That such minds should be made to feel the arbitrary and incoherent character of that which they have imbibed by passive association as ethics and æsthetics, — and that they should endeavour to test it by some rational and consistent standard — would be an improving process, though no one theory could be framed satisfactory to all. The Sokratic Elenchus went directly to this result. Plato followed in the same track, not of pouring new matter of knowledge into the pupil, but of eliciting new thoughts and beliefs out of him, by kindling the latent forces of his intellect. A large proportion of Plato’s dialogues have no other purpose or value. And in entering upon the consideration of these dialogues, we cannot take a better point of departure than the Apology of Sokrates, wherein the speaker, alike honest and decided in his convictions, at the close of a long cross-examining career, re-asserts expressly his devoted allegiance to the negative process, and disclaims with equal emphasis all power over the affirmative.
View taken by Sokrates about death. Other men profess to know what it is, and think it a great misfortune: he does not know.
In that touching discourse, the Universal Cross-Examiner declares a thorough resolution to follow his own individual conviction and his own sense of duty — whether agreeing or disagreeing with the convictions of his countrymen, and whether leading to danger or to death for himself. “Where a man may have posted himself either — under his own belief that it is best, or under orders from the magistrate — there he must stay and affront danger, not caring for death or anything else in comparison with disgrace.”[32] As to death, Sokrates knows very little what it is, nor whether it is good or evil. The fear of death, in his view, is only one case of the prevalent mental malady — men believing themselves to know that of which they really know nothing. If death be an extinction of all sensation, like a perpetual and dreamless sleep, he will regard it as a prodigious benefit compared with life: even the Great King will not be a loser by the exchange.[33] If on the contrary death be a transition into Hades, to keep company with those who have died before — Homer, Hesiod, the heroes of the Trojan war, &c. — Sokrates will consider it supreme happiness to converse with and cross-examine the potentates and clever men of the past — Agamemnon, Odysseus, Sisyphus; thus discriminating which of them are really wise, and which of them are only unconscious pretenders. He is convinced that no evil can ever happen to the good man; that the protection, of the Gods can never be wanting to him, whether alive or dead.[34] “It is not lawful for a better man to be injured by a worse. He may indeed be killed, or banished, or disfranchised; and these may appear great evils, in the eye of others. But I do not think them so. It is a far greater evil to do what Melêtus is now doing — trying to kill a man unjustly.”[35]
[32] Plato, Apol. c. 16, p. 28 D.
[33] Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 A. c. 32, p. 40 D. καὶ εἴτε δὴ μηδεμία αἴσθησίς ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ οἷον ὕπνος, ἐπειδάν τις καθεύδων μηδ’ ὄναρ μηδὲν ὁρᾷ, θαυμάσιον κέρδος ἂν εἴη ὁ θάνατος.
Ast remarks (Plat. Leb. und Schrift. p. 488) that the language of doubt and uncertainty in which Sokrates here speaks of the consequences of death, is greatly at variance with the language which he is made to hold in Phædon. Ast adduces this as one of his arguments for disallowing the authenticity of the Apology. I do not admit the inference. I am prepared for divergence between the opinions of Sokrates in different dialogues; and I believe, moreover, that the Sokrates of the Phædon is spokesman chosen to argue in support of the main thesis of that dialogue. But it is impossible to deny the variance which Ast points out, and which is also admitted by Stallbaum. Steinhart indeed (Einleitung, p. 246) goes the length of denying it, in which I cannot follow him. The sentiment of Sokrates in the Apology embodies the same alternative uncertainty, as what we read in Marcus Antoninus, v. 33. Τί οὖν; περιμένεις ἵλεως τὴν εἴτε σβέσιν εἴτε μετάστασιν, &c.