It is impossible to understand Plato unless we take our departure from his master Sokrates. Now it is precisely in regard to Classification, and the meaning and comprehension of general terms, that the originality and dialectical acuteness of Sokrates were most conspicuously manifested. He was the first philosopher (as Aristotle[c] tells us) who set before himself the Universal as an express object of investigation,—and who applied himself to find out and test the definition of universal terms. He wrote nothing; but he passed most part of his long life in public, and in talking indiscriminately with every one. Oral colloquy, and cross-examining interrogation, were carried by him to a pitch of excellence never equalled. Not only did he disclaim all power of teaching, but he explicitly avowed his own ignorance; professing to be a mere seeker of truth from others who knew better, and to be anxious only for answers such as would stand an accurate scrutiny. To this peculiar scheme—the topics on which he talked were adapted: for he avoided all recondite themes, and discussed only matters relating to man and society: such as What is the Holy? What is the Unholy? What are the Beautiful and the Mean the Just and Unjust? Temperance? Madness? Courage? Cowardice? A City? A man fit for citizenship? Command of Men? A man fit for commanding men? Such is the specimen-list given by Xenophon[d] of the themes chosen by Sokrates. We see that they are all general, and embodied in universal terms. But the terms as well as the themes were familiar to all: every man believed himself thoroughly to understand the meaning of the former—every one had convictions ready-made and decided on the latter. When Sokrates first opened the colloquy, respondents were surprised to be questioned about such subjects, upon which they presumed 277 that every one must know as well as themselves. But this confidence speedily vanished when they came to be tested by inductive[e] interrogatories: citation of appropriate particulars, included or not included in the generalities which they laid down. The result proved that they could not answer the questions without speedily contradicting themselves: that they did not understand the comprehension of their own universal terms: and that upon all these matters, on which they talked so confidently, they had never applied themselves deliberately to learn, nor could they say how their judgments had been acquired or certified.[f]
[c] Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b. 30.
[d] Xenophon, Memorab. I., 1—16.
[e] So Aristotle calls them—λόγους ἑπακτικούς.—Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.
[f] Xenophon, Memorab. IV. 2—13—30—36.
The conviction formed in the mind of Sokrates, after long persistence in such colloquial cross-examination, is consigned in his defence before the Athenian judicature, pronounced a month before his death. He declared that what he found every where was real ignorance, combined with false persuasion of knowledge: that this was the chronic malady of the human mind, which it had been his mission to expose: that no man was willing to learn, because no man believed that he stood in need of learning: that, accordingly, the first step indispensable to all effective teaching, was to make the pupil a willing learner, by disabusing his mind of the false persuasion of knowledge, and by imparting to him the stimulus arising from a painful consciousness of ignorance.
Such was the remarkable psychological scrutiny instituted by Sokrates on his countrymen, and the verdict which it suggested to him. I have already observed that his great intellectual bent was to ascertain the definition of general terms, and to follow these out to a comprehensive and consistent classification.[g] It must be added that no man was ever less inclined to mysticism than Sokrates: and that he was thus 278 exempt from those misleading influences which (according to Mr. James Mill, [p. 260]) “have led men away from the real object of Classification, and prevented them from understanding it till a late period in metaphysical enquiry.” Sokrates did not come before his countrymen with classifications of his own, originated or improved—nor did he teach them how the process ought to be conducted. His purpose was, to test and appreciate that Classification which he found ready-made and current among them. He pronounced it to be worthless and illusory.
[g] Xenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV. 6. 1—7—10—15. ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσιν, τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτε ἔληγε.
Now I wish to point out that what Sokrates thus depreciated, is exactly that which this Chapter of the Analysis lays before us as Classification generally. I agree with the Analysis that Classification, up to a certain point, grows out of the principle of Association and the exigencies of the human mind, by steps instructively set forth in that work. But such natural growth reaches no higher standard than that which Sokrates tested and found so lamentably deficient, even among a public of unusual intelligence. It does not deserve the name of a “mighty operation” (bestowed upon it by Mr. James Mill, [p. 270]). It is a rudimentary procedure, indispensable as a basis on which to build, and sufficing in the main for social communication, when no science or reasoned truth is required: but failing altogether to realise what has been understood by philosophers, from Sokrates downward, as the true and full purpose of Classification. So long as the Class is conceived to be only what the Analysis describes, an indistinct aggregate of resembling individuals denoted by the same name, without clearly understanding wherein the resemblance consists, or what facts and attributes are connoted by the name[h] (I use the word connote, 279 not in the sense of the Analysis, but in the sense of Mr. John Stuart Mill)—so long will Classification continue to be, as Sokrates entitled it, a large persuasion of knowledge with little reality to sustain it.
[h] The necessity of determining the connotation of the Class-term is distinctly put forward by Sokrates—Xenophon, Memorab. III. 14, 2. λόγῳ ὄντος περὶ ὀνομάτων, ἰφ’ οἱῷ ἔργῳ ἕκαστον εἴη--Ἔχοιμεν ἂν (ἒφἠ) εἰπεῖν, ἐπὶ ποιῷ ποτὲ ἔργῳ ἄνθρωπος ὀψόφαγος καλεῖται; &c., also the remarkable passage IV., 6. 13—15, Plato, Sophistes, p. 218 B. τοὔνομα μόνον ἔχομεν κοινῇ τὸ δὲ ἔργον, ἐφ’ ᾧ καλοῦμεν, &c.