[34] Plato, Apol. c. 32, p. 41 A-B.
[35] Plato, Apol. c. 18, p. 30 D.
Reliance of Sokrates on his own individual reason, whether agreeing or disagreeing with others.
Sokrates here gives his own estimate of comparative good and evil. Death, banishment, disfranchisement, &c., are no great evils: to put another man to death unjustly, is a great evil to the doer: the good man can suffer no evil at all. These are given as the judgments of Sokrates, and as dissentient from most others. Whether they are Sokratic or Platonic opinions, or common to both — we shall find them reappearing in various other Platonic dialogues, hereafter to be noticed. We have also to notice that marked feature in the character of Sokrates[36] — the standing upon his own individual reason and measure of good and evil: nay, even pushing his confidence in it so far, as to believe in a divine voice informing and moving him. This reliance on the individual reason is sometimes recognised, at other times rejected, in the Platonic dialogues. Plato rejects it in his comments (contained in the dialogue Theætêtus) on the doctrine of Protagoras: he rejects it also in the constructive dialogues, Republic and Leges, where he constitutes himself despotic legislator, prescribing a standard of orthodox opinion; he proclaims it in the Gorgias, and implies it very generally throughout the negative dialogues.
[36] Plat. Apol. c. 16, p. 28 D. οὗ ἄν τις ἑαυτὸν τάξῃ ἢ ἡγησάμενος βέλτιον εἶναι ἢ ὑπ’ ἄρχοντος ταχθῇ, ἐνταῦθα δεῖ, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, μένοντα κινδυνεύειν, &c.
Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 8, 11 φρόνιμος δέ, ὥστε μὴ διαμαρτάνειν κρίνων τὰ βελτίω καὶ τὰ χείρω, μηδὲ ἄλλου προσδέεσθαι, ἀλλ’ αὐτάρχης εἶναι πρὸς τὴν τούτων γνῶσιν, &c.
Compare this with Memor. i. 1, 3-4-5, and the Xenophontic Apology, 4, 5, 13, where this αὐταρκεία finds for itself a justification in the hypothesis of a divine monitor without.
The debaters in the treatise of Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, upon the question of the Sokratic δαιμόνιον, insist upon this resolute persuasion and self-determination as the most indisputable fact in the case (c. 11, p. 581 C) Αἱ δὲ Σωκράτους ὁρμαὶ τὸ βέβαιον ἔχουσαι καὶ σφοδρότητα φαίνονται πρὸς ἅπαν, ὡς ἂν ἐξ ὀρθῆς καὶ ἰσχυρᾶς ἀφειμέναι κρίεως καὶ ἀρχῆς. Compare p. 589 E. The speculations of the speakers upon the οὐσία and δύναμις τοῦ Σωκράτους δαιμονίου, come to little result.
There is a curious passage in Plutarch’s life of Coriolanus (c. 32), where he describes the way in which the Gods act upon the minds of particular men, under difficult and trying circumstances. They do not inspire new resolutions or volitions, but they work upon the associative principle, suggesting new ideas which conduct to the appropriate volition — οὐδ’ ὁρμὰς ἐνεργαζόμενον, ἀλλὰ φαντασίας ὁρμῶν ἀγωγούς, &c.
Formidable efficacy of established public beliefs, generated without any ostensible author.