IX. APOLOGY OF SOKRATES
Adopting the order of precedence above described, for the review of the Platonic compositions, and taking the point of departure from Sokrates or the Sokratic point of view, I begin with the memorable composition called the Apology.
[Side-note: The Apology is the real defence delivered by Sokrates before the Dikasts, reported by Plato, without intentional transformation.]
I agree with Schleiermacher[1]--with the more recent investigations of Ueberweg--and with what (until recent times) seems to have been the common opinion,--that this is in substance the real defence pronounced by Sokrates; reported, and of course drest up, yet not intentionally transformed, by Plato.[2] If such be the case, it is likely to have been put together shortly after the trial, and may thus be ranked among the earliest of the Platonic compositions: for I have already intimated my belief that Plato composed no dialogues under the name of Sokrates, during the lifetime of Sokrates.
[Footnote 1: Zeller is of opinion that the Apology, as well as the Kriton, were put together at Megara by Plato, shortly after the death of Sokrates. (Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio, p. 19.)
Schleiermacher, Einl. zur Apologie, vol. ii. pp. 182-185. Ueberweg, Ueber die Aechtheit der Plat. Schrift. p. 246.
Steinhart thinks (Einleitung, pp. 236-238) that the Apology contains more of Plato, and less of Sokrates: but he does not make his view very clear to me. Ast, on the contrary, treats the Apology as spurious and unworthy of Plato. (Ueber Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 477, seq.) His arguments are rather objections against the merits of the composition, than reasons for believing it not to be the work of Plato. I dissent from them entirely: but they show that an acute critic can make out a plausible case, satisfactory to himself, against any dialogue. If it be once conceded that the question of genuine or spurious is to be tried upon such purely internal grounds of critical admiration and complete harmony of sentiment, Ast might have made out a case even stronger against the genuineness of the Phædrus, Symposion, Philêbus, Parmenidês.]
[Footnote 2: See chapter lxviii. of my History of Greece.
The reader will find in that chapter a full narrative of all the circumstances known to us respecting both the life and the condemnation of Sokrates.
A very admirable account may also be seen of the character of Sokrates, and his position with reference to the Athenian people, in the article entitled Sokrates und Sein Volk, Akademischer Vortrag, by Professor Hermann Köchly; a lecture delivered at Zurich in 1855, and published with enlargements in 1859.
Professor Köchly's article (contained in a volume entitled Akademische Vorträge, Zurich, 1859) is eminently deserving of perusal. It not only contains a careful summary of the contemporary history, so far as Sokrates is concerned, but it has farther the great merit of fairly estimating that illustrious man in reference to the actual feeling of the time, and to the real public among whom he moved. I feel much satisfaction in seeing that Professor Köchly's picture, composed without any knowledge of my History of Greece, presents substantially the same view of Sokrates and his contemporaries as that which is taken in my sixty-eighth chapter.
Köchly considers that the Platonic Apology preserves the Sokratic character more faithfully than any of Plato's writings; and that it represents what Sokrates said, as nearly as the "dichterische Natur" of Plato would permit (Köchly, pp. 302-364.)]
[Side-note: Even if it be Plato's own composition, it comes naturally first in the review of his dialogues.]
Such, in my judgment, is the most probable hypothesis respecting the Apology. But even if we discard this hypothesis; if we treat the Apology as a pure product of the Platonic imagination (like the dialogues), and therefore not necessarily connected in point of time with the event to which it refers--still there are good reasons for putting it first in the order of review. For it would then be Plato's own exposition, given more explicitly and solemnly than anywhere else, of the Sokratic point of view and life-purpose. It would be an exposition embodying that union of generalising impulse, mistrust of established common-places, and aggressive cross-examining ardour--with eccentric religious persuasion, as well as with perpetual immersion in the crowd of the palæstra and the market-place: which immersion was not less indispensable to Sokrates than repugnant to the feelings of Plato himself. An exposition, lastly, disavowing all that taste for cosmical speculation, and that transcendental dogmatism, which formed one among the leading features of Plato as distinguished from Sokrates. In whichever way we look at the Apology, whether as a real or as an imaginary defence, it contains more of pure Sokratism than any other composition of Plato, and as such will occupy the first place in the arrangement which I adopt.[3]
[Footnote 3: Dionysius Hal. regards the Apology, not as a report of what Sokrates really said, nor as approximating thereunto, but as a pure composition of Plato himself, for three purposes combined:--1. To defend and extol Sokrates. 2. To accuse the Athenian public and Dikasts. 3. To furnish a picture of what a philosopher ought to be.--All these purposes are to a certain extent included and merged in a fourth, which I hold to be the true one,--to exhibit what Sokrates was and had been, in relation to the Athenian public.
The comparison drawn by Dionysius between the Apology and the oration De Coronâ of Demosthenes, appears to me unsuitable. The two are altogether disparate, in spirit, in purpose, and in execution. (See Dion. H. Ars Rhet. pp. 295-298: De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosth. p. 1026.)]
In my History of Greece, I have already spoken of this impressive discourse as it concerns the relations between Sokrates himself and the Dikasts to whom he addressed it. I here regard it only as it concerns Plato; and as it forms a convenient point of departure for entering upon and appreciating the Platonic dialogues.
[Side-note: General character of the Apology--Sentiments entertained towards Sokrates at Athens.]
The Apology of Sokrates is not a dialogue but a continuous discourse addressed to the Dikasts, containing nevertheless a few questions and answers interchanged between him and the accuser Melêtus in open court. It is occupied, partly, in rebutting the counts of the indictment (viz., 1. That Sokrates did not believe in the Gods or in the Dæmons generally recognised by his countrymen: 2. That he was a corruptor of youth[4])--partly in setting forth those proceedings of his life out of which such charges had grown, and by which he had become obnoxious to a wide-spread feeling of personal hatred. By his companions, by those who best knew him, and by a considerable number of ardent young men, he was greatly esteemed and admired: by the general public, too, his acuteness as well as his self-sufficing and independent character, were appreciated with a certain respect. Yet he was at the same time disliked, as an aggressive disputant who "tilted at all he met"--who raised questions novel as well as perplexing, who pretended to special intimations from the Gods--and whose views no one could distinctly make out.[5] By the eminent citizens of all varieties--politicians, rhetors, Sophists, tragic and comic poets, artisans, &c.--he had made himself both hated and feared.[6] He emphatically denies the accusation of general disbelief in the Gods, advanced by Melêtus: and he affirms generally (though less distinctly) that the Gods in whom he believed, were just the same as those in whom the whole city believed. Especially does he repudiate the idea, that he could be so absurd as to doubt the divinity of Helios and Selênê, in which all the world believed;[7] and to adopt the heresy of Anaxagoras, who degraded these Divinities into physical masses. Respecting his general creed, he thus puts himself within the pale of Athenian orthodoxy. He even invokes that very sentiment (with some doubt whether the Dikasts will believe him[8]) for the justification of the obnoxious and obtrusive peculiarities of his life; representing himself as having acted under the mission of the Delphian God, expressly transmitted from the oracle.
[Footnote 4: Xenoph. Mem. i. 1, 1. [Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n e( po/lis nomi/zei theou\s ou) nomi/zôn; e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn; a)dikei= de\ kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn].
Plato, Apolog. c. 3, p. 19 B. [Greek: Sôkra/tês a)dikei= kai\ perierga/zetai, zêtô=n ta/ te u(po\ gê=s kai\ ta\ e)poura/nia, kai\ to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiô=n, kai\ a)/llous tau)ta\ tau=ta dida/skôn].
The reading of Xenophon was conformable to the copy of the indictment preserved in the Metrôon at Athens in the time of Favorinus. There were three distinct accusers--Melêtus, Anytus, and Lykon. Plat. Apol. p. 23-24 B.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Apol. c. 28, p. 38 A; c. 23, p. 35 A.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Apol. c. 8-9, pp. 22-23. [Greek: e)k tautêsi\ dê\ tê\s e)xeta/seôs pollai\ me\n a)pe/chtheiai/ moi gego/nasi kai\ oi)=ai chalepô/tatai kai\ baru/tatai, ô(/ste polla\s diabola\s a)p' au)tô=n gegone/nai, o)/noma de\ tou=to le/gesthai, sopho\s ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Apol. c. 14, p. 26 D. [Greek: ô)= thauma/sie Me/lête, i(na ti/ tau=ta le/geis? ou)de\ ê(/lion ou)de\ selê/nên a)/ra nomi/zô theou\s ei)=nai, ô(/sper oi( a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi?]]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Apol. c. 5, p. 20 D.]
[Side-note: Declaration from the Delphian oracle respecting the wisdom of Sokrates, interpreted by him as a mission to cross-examine the citizens generally--The oracle is proved to be true.]
According to his statement, his friend and earnest admirer Chærephon, had asked the question at the oracle of Delphi, whether any one was wiser than Sokrates? The reply of the oracle declared, that no one was wiser. On hearing this declaration from an infallible authority, Sokrates was greatly perplexed: for he was conscious to himself of not being wise upon any matter, great or small.[9] He at length concluded that the declaration of the oracle could be proved true, only on the hypothesis that other persons were less wise than they seemed to be or fancied themselves. To verify this hypothesis, he proceeded to cross-examine the most eminent persons in many different walks--political men, rhetors, Sophists, poets, artisans. On applying his Elenchus, and putting to them testing interrogations, he found them all without exception destitute of any real wisdom, yet fully persuaded that they were wise, and incapable of being shaken in that persuasion. The artisans indeed did really know each his own special trade; but then, on account of this knowledge, they believed themselves to be wise on other great matters also. So also the poets were great in their own compositions; but on being questioned respecting these very compositions, they were unable to give any rational or consistent explanations: so that they plainly appeared to have written beautiful verses, not from any wisdom of their own, but through inspiration from the Gods, or spontaneous promptings of nature. The result was, that these men were all proved to possess no more real wisdom than Sokrates: but he was aware of his own deficiency; while they were fully convinced of their own wisdom, and could not be made sensible of the contrary. In this way Sokrates justified the certificate of superiority vouchsafed to him by the oracle. He, like all other persons, was destitute of wisdom; but he was the only one who knew, or could be made to feel, his own real mental condition. With others, and most of all with the most conspicuous men, the false persuasion of their own wisdom was universal and inexpugnable.[10]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 B. [Greek: tau=ta ga\r e)gô\ a)kou/sas e)nethumou/mên ou(tôsi/, Ti/ pote le/gei o( theo\s kai\ ti/ pote ai)ni/ttetai? e)gô\ ga\r dê\ ou)/te me/ga ou)/te smikro\n xu/noida e)mautô=| sopho\s ô)/n; ti/ ou)=n pote le/gei pha/skôn e)me\ sophô/taton ei)=nai? ou) ga\r dê/pou pseu/detai/ ge; ou) ga\r the/mis au)tô=|. Kai\ polu\n me\n chro/non ê)po/roun], &c.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Apolog. c. 8-9, pp. 22-23.]
[Side-note: False persuasion of wisdom is universal--the God alone is wise.]
This then was the philosophical mission of Sokrates, imposed upon him by the Delphian oracle, and in which he passed the mature portion of his life: to cross-examine every one, to expose that false persuasion of knowledge which every one felt, and to demonstrate the truth of that which the oracle really meant by declaring the superior wisdom of Sokrates. "People suppose me to be wise myself (says Sokrates) on those matters on which I detect and prove the non-wisdom of others.[11] But that is a mistake. The God alone is wise: and his oracle declares human wisdom to be worth little or nothing, employing the name of Sokrates as an example. He is the wisest of men, who, like Sokrates, knows well that he is in truth worthless so far as wisdom is concerned.[12] The really disgraceful ignorance is--to think that you know what you do not really know."[13]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 A. [Greek: oi)/ontai ga/r me e(ka/stote oi( paro/ntes tau=ta au)to\n ei)=nai sopho/n, a(\ a)\n a)/llon e)xele/gxô.]]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 A; c. 17, p. 28 E.]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 B. [Greek: kai\ tou=to pô=s ou)k a)mathi/a e)sti\n au)tê\ ê( e)ponei/distos, ê( tou= oi)/esthai ei)de/nai a(\ ou)k oi)=den?]]
[Side-note: Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the cross-examining mission imposed upon him by the God.]
"The God has marked for me my post, to pass my life in the search for wisdom, cross-examining myself as well as others: I shall be disgraced, if I desert that post from fear either of death or of any other evil."[14] "Even if you Dikasts acquit me, I shall not alter my course: I shall continue, as long as I hold life and strength, to exhort and interrogate in my usual strain, telling every one whom I meet[15]--You, a citizen of the great and intelligent Athens, are you not ashamed of busying yourself to procure wealth, reputation, and glory, in the greatest possible quantity; while you take neither thought nor pains about truth, or wisdom, or the fullest measure of goodness for your mind? If any one denies the charge, and professes that he does take thought for these objects,--I shall not let him off without questioning, cross-examining, and exposing him.[16] And if he appears to me to affirm that he is virtuous without being so in reality, I shall reproach him for caring least about the greater matter, and most about the smaller. This course I shall pursue with every one whom I meet, young or old, citizen or non-citizen: most of all with you citizens, because you are most nearly connected with me. For this, you know, is what the God commands, and I think that no greater blessing has ever happened to the city than this ministration of mine under orders from the God. For I go about incessantly persuading you all, old as well as young, not to care about your bodies, or about riches, so much as about acquiring the largest measure of virtue for your minds. I urge upon you that virtue is not the fruit of wealth, but that wealth, together with all the other things good for mankind publicly and privately, are the fruits of virtue.[17] If I am a corruptor of youth, it is by these discourses that I corrupt them: and if any one gives a different version of my discourses, he talks idly. Accordingly, men of Athens, I must tell you plainly: decide with Anytus, or not,--acquit me or not--I shall do nothing different from what I have done, even if I am to die many times over for it."
[Footnote 14: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 28 E.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 D. [Greek: ou) mê\ pau/sômai philosophô=n kai\ u(mi=n parakeleuo/meno/s te kai\ e)ndeiknu/menos, o(/tô| a)\n a)ei\ e)ntugcha/nô u(mô=n, le/gôn oi(=a/per ei)/ôtha], &c.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 E. [Greek: kai\ e)a/n tis u(mô=n a)mphisbêtê/sê| kai\ phê=| e)pimelei=sthai, ou)k eu)thu\s a)phê/sô au)to\n ou)d' a)/peimi, a)ll' e)rê/somai au)to\n kai\ e)xeta/sô kai\ e)le/gxô, kai\ e)a/n moi mê\ dokê=| kektê=sthai a)retê/n, pha/nai de/, o)neidiô=], &c.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 30, B. [Greek: le/gôn o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata kai\ ta)/lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|.]]
[Side-note: He had devoted his life to the execution of this mission, and he intended to persevere in spite of obloquy or danger.]
Such is the description given by Sokrates of his own profession and standing purpose, imposed upon him as a duty by the Delphian God. He neglected all labour either for profit, or for political importance, or for the public service; he devoted himself, from morning till night, to the task of stirring up the Athenian public, as the gadfly worries a large and high-bred but over-sleek horse:[18] stimulating them by interrogation, persuasion, reproach, to render account of their lives and to seek with greater energy the path of virtue. By continually persisting in such universal cross-examination, he had rendered himself obnoxious to the Athenians generally;[19] who were offended when called upon to render account, and when reproached that they did not live rightly. Sokrates predicts that after his death, younger cross-examiners, hitherto kept down by his celebrity, would arise in numbers,[20] and would pursue the same process with greater keenness and acrimony than he had done.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Apol. c. 18, p. 30 E. [Greek: a)technô=s, ei) kai\ geloio/teron ei)pei=n, proskei/menon tê=| po/lei u(po\ tou= theou= ô(/sper i(/ppô| mega/lô| me\n kai\ gennai/ô|, u(po\ mege/thous de\ nôtheste/rô| kai\ deome/nô| e)gei/resthai u(po\ mu/ôpo/s tinos; oi(=on dê/ moi dokei= o( theo\s e)me\ tê=| po/lei prostetheike/nai toiou=to/n tina, o(\s u(ma=s e)gei/rôn kai\ pei/thôn kai\ o)neidi/zôn e(/na e(/kaston ou)de\n pau/omai tê\n ê(me/ran o(/lên pantachou= proskathi/zôn]. Also c. 26, p. 36 D.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 D; c. 16, p. 28 A; c. 30, p. 39 C.]
[Footnote 20 Plato, Apol. c. 30, p. 39 C. [Greek: nu=n ga\r tou=to ei)/rgasthe] (i.e. [Greek: e)me\ a)pekto/nate]) [Greek: oi)o/menoi a)palla/xesthai tou= dido/nai e)/legchon tou= bi/ou. to\ de\ u(mi=n polu\ e)nanti/on a)pobê/setai, ô(s e)go/ phêmi. plei/ous e)/sontai u(ma=s oi( e)le/gchontes, ou(=s nu=n e)gô\ katei=chon, u(mei=s de\ ou)k ê)|stha/nesthe; kai\ chalepô/teroi e)/sontai o(/sô| neô/teroi/ ei)si, kai\ u(mei=s ma=llon a)ganaktê/sete], &c.
I have already remarked (in chapter lxviii. of my general History of Greece relating to Sokrates) that this prediction was not fulfilled.]
[Side-note: He disclaims the function of a teacher--he cannot teach, for he is not wiser than others. He differs from others by being conscious of his own ignorance.]
While Sokrates thus extols, and sanctifies under the authority of the Delphian God, his habitual occupation of interrogating, cross-examining, and stimulating to virtue, the Athenians indiscriminately--he disclaims altogether the function of a teacher. His disclaimer on this point is unequivocal and emphatic. He cannot teach others, because he is not at all wiser than they. He is fully aware that he is not wise on any point, great or small--that he knows nothing at all, so to speak.[21] He can convict others, by their own answers, of real though unconscious ignorance, or (under another name) false persuasion of knowledge: and because he can do so, he is presumed to possess positive knowledge on the points to which the exposure refers. But this presumption is altogether unfounded: he possesses no such positive knowledge. Wisdom is not to be found in any man, even among the most distinguished: Sokrates is as ignorant as others; and his only point of superiority is, that he is fully conscious of his own ignorance, while others, far from having the like consciousness, confidently believe themselves to be in possession of wisdom and truth.[22] In this consciousness of his own ignorance Sokrates stands alone; on which special ground he is proclaimed by the Delphian God as the wisest of mankind.
[Footnote 21: Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 B. [Greek: e)gô\ ga\r dê\ ou)/te me/ga ou)/te smikro\n xu/noida e)mautô=| sopho\s ô)/n], &c. c. 8, p. 22 D. [Greek: e)mautô=| ga\r xunê/|dein ou)de\n e)pistame/nô|, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n.]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 A-B. [Greek: Ou(=tos u(mô=n, ô)= a)/nthrôpoi, sophô/tato/s e)stin, o(/stis ô(/sper Sôkra/tês e)/gnôken o(/ti ou)deno\s a)/xio/s e)sti tê=| a)lêthei/a| pro\s sophi/an.]]
[Side-note: He does not know where competent teachers can be found. He is perpetually seeking for them, but in vain.]
Being thus a partner in the common ignorance, Sokrates cannot of course teach others. He utterly disclaims having ever taught, or professed to teach. He would be proud indeed, if he possessed the knowledge of human and social virtue: but he does not know it himself, nor can he find out who else knows it.[23] He is certain that there cannot be more than a few select individuals who possess the art of making mankind wiser or better--just as in the case of horses, none but a few practised trainers know how to make them better, while the handling of these or other animals, by ordinary men, certainly does not improve the animals, and generally even makes them worse.[24] But where any such select few are to be found, who alone can train men--Sokrates is obliged to inquire from others; he cannot divine for himself.[25] He is perpetually going about, with the lantern of cross-examination, in search of a wise man: but he can find only those who pretend to be wise, and whom his cross-examination exposes as pretenders.[26]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Apol. c. 4, p. 20 B-C. [Greek: ti/s tê=s toiau/tês a)retê=s, tê=s a)nthrôpi/nês te kai\ politikê=s, e)pistê/môn e)sti/n? . . . e)gô\ gou=n kai\ au)to\s e)kalluno/mên te kai\ ê(bruno/mên a)\n, ei) ê)pista/mên tau=ta; a)ll' ou) ga\r e)pi/stamai, ô)= a)/ndres A)thênai=oi].
c. 21, p. 33 A. [Greek: e)gô\ de\ dida/skalos me\n ou)deno\s pô/pot' e)geno/mên]. c. 4, p. 19 E.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Apol. c. 12, p. 25 B.]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Apol. c. 4, p. 20.]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 B. [Greek: tau=t' ou)=n e)gô\ me\n e)/ti kai\ nu=n periiô\n zêtô= kai\ e)reunô= kata\ to\n theo/n, kai\ tô=n a)stôn kai\ tô=n xe/nôn a)\n tina oi)/ômai sopho\n ei)=nai; kai\ e)peida/n moi mê\ dokê=|, tô=| theô=| boêthô=n e)ndei/knumai o(/ti ou)k e)/sti sopho/s]. c. 32, p. 41 B.]
This _then_is the mission and vocation of Sokrates--1. To cross-examine men, and to destroy that false persuasion of wisdom and virtue which is so widely diffused among them. 2. To reproach them, and make them ashamed of pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom and virtue.[27]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Apol. c. 33, p. 41 E.]
But Sokrates is not empowered to do more for them. He cannot impart any positive knowledge to heal their ignorance. He cannot teach them what WISDOM OR VIRTUE is.
[Side-note: Impression made by the Platonic Apology on Zeno the Stoic.]
Such is the substance of the Platonic Apology of Sokrates. How strong was the impression which it made, on many philosophical readers, we may judge from the fact, that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, being a native of Kition in Cyprus, derived from the perusal of the Apology his first inducement to come over to Athens, and devote himself to the study and teaching of philosophy in that city.[28] Sokrates depicts, with fearless sincerity, what he regards as the intellectual and moral deficiencies of his countrymen, as well as the unpalatable medicine and treatment which he was enjoined to administer to them. With equal sincerity does he declare the limits within which that treatment was confined.
[Footnote 28: Themistius, Orat. xxiii. (Sophistês) p. 357, Dindorf. [Greek: Ta\ de\ a)mphi\ Zê/nônos a)ri/dêla/ te/ e)sti kai\ a)|do/mena u(po\ pollôn, o(/ti au)to\n ê( Sôkra/tous a)pologi/a e)k Phoini/kês ê)/gagen ei)s tê\n Poiki/lên].
This statement deserves full belief: it probably came from Zeno himself, a voluminous writer. The father of Zeno was a merchant who traded with Athens, and brought back books for his son to read, Sokratic books among them. Diogen. Laert. vii. 31.
Respecting another statement made by Themistius in the same page, I do not feel so certain. He says that the accusatory discourse pronounced against Sokrates by Anytus was composed by Polykrates, as a [Greek: logogra/phos], and paid for. This may be the fact but the words of Isokrates in the Busiris rather lead me to the belief that the [Greek: katêgori/a Sôkra/tous] composed by Polykrates was a sophistical exercise, composed to acquire reputation and pupils, not a discourse really delivered in the Dikastery.]
[Side-note: Extent of efficacious influence claimed by Sokrates for himself--exemplified by Plato throughout the Dialogues of Search--Xenophon and Plato enlarge it.]
But neither of his two most eminent companions can endure to restrict his competence within such narrow limits. Xenophon[29] affirms that Sokrates was assiduous in communicating useful instruction and positive edification to his hearers. Plato sometimes, though more rarely, intimates the same: but for the most part, and in the Dialogues of Search throughout, he keeps Sokrates within the circle of procedure which the Apology claims for him. These dialogues exemplify in detail the aggressive operations, announced therein by Sokrates in general terms as his missionary life-purpose, against contemporaries of note, very different from each other--against aspiring youths, statesmen, generals, Rhetors, Sophists, orthodox pietists, poets, rhapsodes, &c. Sokrates cross-examines them all, and convicts them of humiliating ignorance: but he does not furnish, nor does he profess to be able to furnish, any solution of his own difficulties. Many of the persons cross-examined bear historical names: but I think it necessary to warn the reader, that all of them speak both language and sentiments provided for them by Plato, and not their own.[30]
[Footnote 29: Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 64, i. 3. 1, i. 4, 2, iv. 2, 40; iv. 3, 4.]
[Footnote 30: It might seem superfluous to give such a warning; but many commentators speak as if they required it. They denounce the Platonic speakers in harsh terms, which have no pertinence, unless supposed to be applied to a real man expressing his own thoughts and feelings.
It is useless to enjoin us, as Stallbaum and Steinhart do, to mark the aristocratical conceit of Menon!--the pompous ostentation and pretensive verbosity of Protagoras and Gorgias!--the exorbitant selfishness of Polus and Kalliklês!--the impudent brutality of Thrasymachus!--when all these persons speak entirely under the prompting of Plato himself.
You might just as well judge of Sokrates by what we read in the Nubes of Aristophanes, or of Meton by what we find in the Aves, as describe the historical characters of the above-named personages out of the Platonic dialogues. They ought to be appreciated as dramatic pictures, drest up by the author for his own purpose, and delivering such opinions as he assigns to them--whether he intends them to be refuted by others, or not.]
[Side-note: Assumption by modern critics, that Sokrates is a positive teacher, employing indirect methods for the inculcation of theories of his own.]
The disclaimer, so often repeated by Sokrates,--that he possessed neither positive knowledge nor wisdom in his own person,--was frequently treated by his contemporaries as ironical. He was not supposed to be in earnest when he made it. Every one presumed that he must himself know that which he proved others not to know, whatever motive he might have for affecting ignorance.[31] His personal manner and homely vein of illustration seemed to favour the supposition that he was bantering. This interpretation of the character of Sokrates appears in the main to be preferred by modern critics. Of course (they imagine) an able man who cross-questions others on the definitions of Law, Justice, Democracy, &c., has already meditated on the subject, and framed for himself unimpeachable definitions of these terms. Sokrates (they suppose) is a positive teacher and theorist, employing a method, which, though indirect and circuitous, is nevertheless calculated deliberately beforehand for the purpose of introducing and inculcating premeditated doctrines of his own. Pursuant to this hypothesis, it is presumed that the positive theory of Sokrates is to be found in his negative cross-examinations,--not indeed set down clearly in any one sentence, so that he who runs may read--yet disseminated in separate syllables or letters, which may be distinguished, picked out, and put together into propositions, by an acute detective examiner. And the same presumption is usually applied to the Sokrates of the Platonic dialogues: that is, to Plato employing Sokrates as spokesman. Interpreters sift with microscopic accuracy the negative dialogues of Plato, in hopes of detecting the ultimate elements of that positive solution which he is supposed to have lodged therein, and which, when found, may be put together so as to clear up all the antecedent difficulties.
[Footnote 31: Plato, Apol. c. 5, p. 20 D; c. 9, p. 23 A.
Aristeides the Rhetor furnishes a valuable confirmation of the truth of that picture of Sokrates, which we find in the Platonic Apology. All the other companions of Sokrates who wrote dialogues about him (not preserved to us), presented the same general features. 1. Avowed ignorance. 2. The same declaration of the oracle concerning him. 3. The feeling of frequent signs from [Greek: to\ daimo/nion].
[Greek: O(mologei=tai me/n ge le/gein au)to\n] (Sokrates) [Greek: ô(s a)/ra ou)de\n e)pi/staito, kai\ pa/ntes tou=to/ phasin oi( suggeno/menoi; o(mologei=tai d' au)= kai\ tou=to, sophô/taton ei)=nai Sôkra/tê tê\n Puthi/an ei)rêke/nai], &c.
(Aristeides, Orat. xlv. [Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s], pp. 23, 24, 25, Dindorf.)]
[Side-note: 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.
[Side-note: 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.
[Side-note: 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]
[Footnote 32: Plato, Apol. c. 16, p. 28 D.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 A. c. 32, p. 40 D. [Greek: kai\ ei)/te dê\ mêdemi/a ai)/sthêsi/s e)stin, a)ll' oi(=on u(/pnos, e)peida/n tis katheu/dôn mêd' o)/nar mêde\n o(ra=|, thauma/sion ke/rdos a)\n ei)/ê o( tha/natos].
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. [Greek: Ti/ ou)=n? perime/neis i(/leôs tê\n ei)/te sbe/sin ei)/te meta/stasin], &c.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Apol. c. 32, p. 41 A-B.]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Apol. c. 18, p. 30 D.]
[Side-note: 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.
[Footnote 36: Plat. Apol. c. 16, p. 28 D. [Greek: ou(= a)/n tis e(auto\n ta/xê| ê)\ ê(gêsa/menos be/ltion ei)=nai ê)\ u(p' a)/rchontos tachthê=|, e)ntau=tha dei=, ô(s e)moi\ dokei=, me/nonta kinduneu/ein], &c.
Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 8, 11 [Greek: phro/nimos de/, ô(/ste mê\ diamarta/nein kri/nôn ta\ belti/ô kai\ ta\ chei/rô, mêde\ a)/llou prosde/esthai, a)ll' au)ta/rchês ei)=nai pro\s tê\n tou/tôn gnô=sin], &c.
Compare this with Memor. i. 1, 3-4-5, and the Xenophontic Apology, 4, 5, 13, where this [Greek: au)tarkei/a] 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 [Greek: daimo/nion], insist upon this resolute persuasion and self-determination as the most indisputable fact in the case (c. 11, p. 581 C) [Greek: Ai( de\ Sôkra/tous o(rmai\ to\ be/baion e)/chousai kai\ sphodro/têta phai/nontai pro\s a(/pan, ô(s a)\n e)x o)rthê=s kai\ i)schura=s a)pheime/nai kri/eôs kai\ a)rchê=s]. Compare p. 589 E. The speculations of the speakers upon the [Greek: ou)si/a] and [Greek: du/namis tou= Sôkra/tous daimoni/ou], 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--[Greek: ou)d' o(rma\s e)nergazo/menon, a)lla\ phantasi/as o(rmô=n a)gôgou/s], &c.]
[Side-note: Formidable efficacy of established public beliefs, generated without any ostensible author.]
Lastly, we find also in the Apology distinct notice of the formidable efficacy of established public impressions, generated without any ostensible author, circulated in the common talk, and passing without examination from one man to another, as portions of accredited faith. "My accusers Melêtus and Anytus (says Sokrates) are difficult enough to deal with: yet far less difficult than the prejudiced public, who have heard false reports concerning me for years past, and have contracted a settled belief about my character, from nameless authors whom I cannot summon here to be confuted."[37]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Apol. c. 2, p. 18 C-D.]
It is against this ancient, established belief, passing for knowledge--communicated by unconscious contagion without any rational process--against the "procès jugé mais non plaidé", whereby King Nomos governs--that the general mission of Sokrates is directed. It is against the like belief, in one of its countless manifestations, that he here defends himself before the Dikastery.
X. KRITON
[Side-note: General purpose of the Kriton.]
The dialogue called Kriton is, in one point of view, a second part or sequel--in another point of view, an antithesis or corrective--of the Platonic Apology. For that reason, I notice it immediately after the Apology: though I do not venture to affirm confidently that it was composed immediately after: it may possibly have been later, as I believe the Phædon also to have been later.[1]
[Footnote 1: Steinhart affirms with confidence that the Kriton was composed immediately after the Apology, and shortly after the death of Sokrates (Einleitung, p. 303). The fact may be so, but I do not feel thus confident of it when I look to the analogy of the later Phædon.]
[Side-note: Subject of the dialogue--interlocutors.]
The Kriton describes a conversation between Sokrates and his friend Kriton in the prison, after condemnation, and two days before the cup of hemlock was administered. Kriton entreats and urges Sokrates (as the sympathising friends had probably done frequently during the thirty days of imprisonment) to make his escape from the prison, informing him that arrangements have already been made for enabling him to escape with ease and safety, and that money as well as good recommendations will be provided, so that he may dwell comfortably either in Thessaly, or wherever else he pleases. Sokrates ought not, in justice to his children and his friends, to refuse the opportunity offered, and thus to throw away his life. Should he do so, it will appear to every one as if his friends had shamefully failed in their duty, when intervention on their part might easily have saved him. He might have avoided the trial altogether: even when on trial, he might easily have escaped the capital sentence. Here is now a third opportunity of rescue, which if he declines, it will turn this grave and painful affair into mockery, as if he and his friends were impotent simpletons.[2] Besides the mournful character of the event, Sokrates and his friends will thus be disgraced in the opinion of every one.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Krito. c. 5, p. 45 E. [Greek: ô(s e)/gôge kai\ u(pe\r sou= kai\ u(pe\r ê(mô=n tô=n sô=n e)pitêdei/ôn ai)schu/nomai, mê\ do/xê| a(/pan to\ pra=gma to\ peri\ se\ a)nandri/a| tini\ tê=| ê(mete/ra| pepra=chthai, kai\ ê( ei)/sodos tê=s di/kês ei)s to\ dikastê/rion, ô(s ei)sê=lthes, e)xo\n mê\ ei)selthei=n, kai\ au)to\s o( a)gô\n tê=s di/kês ô(s e)ge/neto, kai\ to\ teleutai=on dê\ touti/, ô(/sper katage/lôs tê=s pra/xeôs, kaki/a| tini\ kai\ a)nandri/a| tê=| ê(mete/ra| diapepheuge/nai ê(ma=s dokei=n, oi(tine/s se ou)chi\ e)sô/samen ou)de\ su\ sauto/n, oi(=o/n te o)\n kai\ dunato/n, ei)/ ti kai\ smikro\n ê(mô=n o)/phelos ê)=n].
This is a remarkable passage, as evincing both the trial and the death of Sokrates, even in the opinion of his own friends, might have been avoided without anything which they conceived dishonourable to his character.
Professor Köchly puts this point very forcibly in his Vortrag, referred to in my notes on the Platonic Apology, p. 410 seq.]
[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates to the appeal made by Kriton.]
"Disgraced in the opinion of every one," replies Sokrates? That is not the proper test by which the propriety of your recommendation must be determined. I am now, as I always have been, prepared to follow nothing but that voice of reason which approves itself to me in discussion as the best and soundest.[3] We have often discussed this matter before, and the conclusions on which we agreed are not to be thrown aside because of my impending death. We agreed that the opinions general among men ought not to be followed in all cases, but only in some: that the good opinions, those of the wise men, were to be followed--the bad opinions, those of the foolish men, to be disregarded. In the treatment and exercise of the body, we must not attend to the praise, the blame, or the opinion of every man, but only to those of the one professional trainer or physician. If we disregard this one skilful man, and conduct ourselves according to the praise or blame of the unskilful public, our body will become corrupted and disabled, so that life itself will not be worth having.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Krito. c. 6, p. 46 B. [Greek: ô(s e)gô\ ou) mo/non nu=n a)lla\ kai\ a)ei\ toiou=tos, oi(=os tô=n e)mô=n mêdeni\ a)/llô| pei/thesthai ê)\ tô=| lo/gô|, o(\s a)/n moi logizome/nô| be/ltistos phai/nêtai.]]
[Side-note: He declares that the judgment of the general public is not worthy of trust: he appeals to the judgment of the one Expert, who is wise on the matter in debate.]
In like manner, on the question what is just and unjust, honourable or base, good or evil, to which our present subject belongs--we must not yield to the praise and censure of the many, but only to that of the one, whoever he may be, who is wise on these matters.[4] We must be afraid and ashamed of him more than of all the rest. Not the verdict of the many, but that of the one man skilful about just and unjust, and that of truth itself, must be listened to. Otherwise we shall suffer the like debasement and corruption of mind as of body in the former case. Life will become yet more worthless. True--the many may put us to death. But what we ought to care for most, is, not simply to live, but to live well, justly, honourably.[5]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Krito. c. 7, p. 47 C-D. [Greek: kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn, kai\ ai)schrô=n kai\ kalô=n, kai\ a)gathô=n kai\ kakô=n, peri\ ô(=n nu=n ê( boulê\ ê(mi=n e)stin, po/teron tê=| tô=n pollô=n do/xê| dei= ê(ma=s e(/pesthai kai\ phobei=sthai au)tê/n, ê)\ tê=| tou= e(no/s, ei)/ ti/s e)stin e)pai+/ôn, o(\n dei= kai\ ai)schu/nesthai kai\ phobei=sthai ma=llon ê)\ xu/mpantas tou\s a)/llous?]
c. 8, p. 48 A. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra pa/nu ê(mi=n ou(/tô phrontiste/on o(/, ti e)rou=sin oi( polloi\ ê(ma=s, a)ll' o(\, ti o( e)pai+/ôn peri\ tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn, o( ei)=s, kai\ au)tê\ ê( a)lê/theia.]]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Krito. c. 7-8, pp. 47-48.]
Sokrates thus proceeds:--
The point to be decided, therefore, with reference to your proposition, Kriton, is, not what will be generally said if I decline, but whether it will be just or unjust--right or wrong--if I comply; that is, if I consent to escape from prison against the will of the Athenians and against the sentence of law.
[Side-note: Principles laid down by Sokrates for determining the question with Kriton. Is the proceeding recommended just or unjust? Never in any case to act unjustly.]
To decide the point, I assume this principle, which we have
often before agreed upon in our reasonings, and which must stand unshaken now.[6]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Krito. c. 9, p. 48 E. [Greek: o(/ra de\ dê\ tê=s ske/pseôs tê\n a)rchê/n], &c.]
We ought not in any case whatever to act wrong or unjustly. To act so is in every case both bad for the agent and dishonourable to the agent, whatever may be its consequences. Even though others act wrong to us, we ought not to act wrong to them in return. Even though others do evil to us, we ought not to do evil to them in return.[7]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Krito. c. 10, p. 49 B. [Greek: Ou)de\ a)dikou/menon a)/ra a)ntadikei=n, ô(s oi( polloi\ oi)/ontai, e)peidê/ ge ou)damô=s dei = a)dikei=n], &c.]
[Side-note: Sokrates admits that few will agree with him, and that most persons hold the opposite opinion: but he affirms that the point is cardinal.]
This is the principle which I assume as true, though I know that very few persons hold it, or ever will hold it. Most men say the contrary--that when other persons do wrong or harm to us, we may do wrong or harm to them in return. This is a cardinal point. Between those who affirm it, and those who deny it, there can be no common measure or reasoning. Reciprocal contempt is the sentiment with which, by necessity, each contemplates the other's resolutions.[8]
[Footnote 8: Plato. Krito. c. 10, p. 49 D. [Greek: Oi)=da ga\r o(/ti o)li/gois tisi\ tau=ta kai\ dokei= kai\ do/xei; O(=is ou)=n ou(/tô de/doktai kai\ oi(=s mê/, tou/tois ou)k e)/sti koinê\ boulê/, a)ll' a)na/gkê tou/tous a)llê/lôn kataphronei=n, o(rôntas ta\ a)llê/lôn bouleu/mata. Sko/pei dê\ ou)=n kai\ su\ eu)= ma/la, po/teron koinônei=s kai\ xundokei= soi; kai\ a)rchô/metha e)nteu=then bouleuo/menoi, ô(s ou)de/pote o)rthô=s e)/chontos ou)/te tou= a)dikei=n ou)/te tou= a)ntadikei=n, ou)/te kakô=s pa/schonta a)mu/nesthai a)ntidrô=nta kakô=s].
Compare the opposite impulse, to revenge yourself upon your country from which you believe yourself to have received wrong, set forth in the speech of Alkibiades at Sparta after he had been exiled by the Athenians. Thucyd. vi. 92. [Greek: to/ te philo/poli ou)k e)n ô(=| a)dikou=mai e)/chô, a)ll' e)n ô(=| a)sphalô=s e)politeu/thên.]]
[Side-note: Pleading supposed to be addressed by the Laws of Athens to Sokrates, demanding from him implicit obedience.]
Sokrates then delivers a well-known and eloquent pleading, wherein he imagines the Laws of Athens to remonstrate with him on his purpose of secretly quitting the prison, in order to evade a sentence legally pronounced. By his birth, and long residence in Athens, he has entered into a covenant to obey exactly and faithfully what the laws prescribe. Though the laws should deal unjustly with him, he has no right of redress against them--neither by open disobedience, nor force, nor evasion. Their rights over him are even more uncontrolled and indefeasible than those of his father and mother. The laws allow to every citizen full liberty of trying to persuade the assembled public: but the citizen who fails in persuading, must obey the public when they enact a law adverse to his views. Sokrates having been distinguished beyond all others for the constancy of his residence at Athens, has thus shown that he was well satisfied with the city, and with those laws without which it could not exist as a city. If he now violates his covenants and his duty, by breaking prison like a runaway slave, he will forfeit all the reputation to which he has pretended during his long life, as a preacher of justice and virtue.[9]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Krito. c. 11-17, pp. 50-54.]
[Side-note: Purpose of Plato in this pleading--to present the dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which the Apology had presented--unqualified submission instead of defiance.]
This striking discourse, the general drift of which I have briefly described, appears intended by Plato--as far as I can pretend to guess at his purpose--to set forth the personal character and dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which they present in the Apology. In defending himself before the Dikasts, Sokrates had exalted himself into a position which would undoubtedly be construed by his auditors as disobedience and defiance to the city and its institutions. He professed to be acting under a divine mission, which was of higher authority than the enactments of his countrymen: he warned them against condemning him, because his condemnation would be a mischief, not to him, but to them and because by doing so they would repudiate and maltreat the missionary sent to them by the Delphian God as a valuable present.[10] In the judgment of the Athenian Dikasts, Sokrates by using such language had put himself above the laws; thus confirming the charge which his accusers advanced, and which they justified by some of his public remarks. He had manifested by unmistakable language the same contempt for the Athenian constitution as that which had been displayed in act by Kritias and Alkibiades,[11] with whom his own name was associated as teacher and companion.[12] Xenophon in his Memorabilia recognises this impression as prevalent among his countrymen against Sokrates, and provides what he thinks a suitable answer to it. Plato also has his way of answering it; and such I imagine to be the dramatic purpose of the Kriton.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Apol. c. 17-18, p. 29-30.]
[Footnote 11: This was among the charges urged against Sokrates by Anytus and the other accusers (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 9. [Greek: u(perora=|n e)poi/ei tô=n kathestô/tôn no/môn tou\s suno/ntas]). It was also the judgment formed respecting Sokrates by the Roman censor, the elder Cato; a man very much like the Athenian Anytus, constitutional and patriotic as a citizen, devoted to the active duties of political life, but thoroughly averse to philosophy and speculative debate, as Anytus is depicted in the Menon of Plato.--Plutarch, Cato c. 23, a passage already cited in a note on the chapter next but one preceding.
The accusation of "putting himself above the laws," appears in the same way in the Nubes of Aristophanes, 1035-1400, &c.:--
[Greek: ô(s ê(du\ kainoi=s pra/gmasin kai\ dexioi=s o(milei=n kai\ tô=n kathestô/tôn no/môn u(per phronei=n du/nasthai].
Compare the rhetor Aristeides--[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 133; vol. iii. p. 480, Dindorf.]
[Footnote 12: The dramatic position of Sokrates has been compared by Köchly, p. 382, very suitably with that of Antigoné, who, in burying her deceased brother, acts upon her own sense of right and family affections, in defiance of an express interdict from sovereign authority. This tragical conflict of obligations, indicated by Aristotle as an ethical question suited for dialectic debate (Topic. i. p. 105, b. 22), was handled by all the three great tragedians; and has been ennobled by Sophokles in one of his best remaining tragedies. The Platonic Apology presents many points of analogy with the Antigoné, while the Platonic Kriton carries us into an opposite vein of sentiment. Sokrates after sentence, and Antigoné after sentence, are totally different persons. The young maiden, though adhering with unshaken conviction to the rectitude of her past disobedience, cannot submit to the sentence of death without complaint and protestation. Though above all fear she is clamorous in remonstrances against both the injustice of the sentence and the untimely close of her career: so that she is obliged to be dragged away by the officers (Soph. Antig. 870-877; compare 497-508, with Plato, Krito. p. 49 C; Apolog. p. 28 D, 29 C). All these points enhance the interest of the piece, and are suited to a destined bride in the flower of her age. But an old philosopher of seventy years of age has no such attachment to life remaining. He contemplates death with the eye of calm reason: he has not only silenced "the child within us who fears death" (to use the remarkable phrase of Plato, Phædon, p. 77 E), but he knows well that what remains to him of life must be short; that it will probably be of little value, with diminished powers, mental as well as bodily; and that if passed in exile, it will be of no value at all. To close his life with dignity is the best thing which can happen to him. While by escape from the prison he would have gained little or nothing; he is enabled, by refusing the means of escape, to manifest an ostentatious deference to the law, and to make peace with the Athenian authorities after the opposition which had been declared in his Apology. Both in the Kriton and in the Phædon, Sokrates exhibits the specimen of a man adhering to previous conviction, unaffected by impending death, and by the apprehensions which that season brings upon ordinary minds; estimating all things then as before, with the same tranquil and independent reason.]
[Side-note: Harangue of Sokrates delivered in the name of the Laws, would have been applauded by all the democratical patriots of Athens.]
This dialogue puts into the mouth of Sokrates a rhetorical harangue forcible and impressive, which he supposes himself to hear from personified Nomos or Athens, claiming for herself and her laws plenary and unmeasured obedience from all her citizens, as a covenant due to her from each. He declares his own heartfelt adhesion to the claim. Sokrates is thus made to express the feelings and repeat the language of a devoted democratical patriot. His doctrine is one which every Athenian audience would warmly applaud--whether heard from speakers in the assembly, from litigants in the Dikastery, or from dramatists in the theatre. It is a doctrine which orators of all varieties (Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Lysis, Isokrates, Demosthenes, Æschines, Lykurgus) would be alike emphatic in upholding: upon which probably Sophists habitually displayed their own eloquence, and tested the talents of their pupils. It may be considered as almost an Athenian common-place. Hence it is all the better fitted for Plato's purpose of restoring Sokrates to harmony with his fellow-citizens. It serves as his protestation of allegiance to Athens, in reply to the adverse impressions prevalent against him. The only singularity which bestows special pertinence on that which is in substance a discourse of venerated common-place, is--that Sokrates proclaims and applies his doctrine of absolute submission, under the precise circumstances in which many others, generally patriotic, might be disposed to recede from it--where he is condemned (unjustly, in his own persuasion) to suffer death--yet has the opportunity to escape. He is thus presented as a citizen not merely of ordinary loyalty but of extraordinary patriotism. Moreover his remarkable constancy of residence at Athens is produced as evidence, showing that the city was eminently acceptable to him, and that he had no cause of complaint against it.[13]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Krito. c. 14, p. 52 B. [Greek: ou) ga\r a)/n pote tô=n a)/llôn A)thênai/ôn a(pa/ntôn diaphero/ntôs e)n au)tê=| e)pedê/meis, ei) mê/ soi diaphero/ntôs ê)/reske;] c. 12, p. 50 D. [Greek: phe/re ga/r, ti/ e)gkalô=n ê(li=n te kai\ tê=| po/lei e)picheirei=s ê(ma=s a)pollu/nai?]]
[Side-note: The harangue insists upon topics common to Sokrates with other citizens, overlooking the specialties of his character.]
Throughout all this eloquent appeal addressed by Athens to her citizen Sokrates, the points insisted on are those common to him with other citizens: the marked specialties of his character being left unnoticed. Such are the points suitable to the purpose (rather Xenophontic than Platonic, herein) of the Kriton; when Sokrates is to be brought back within the pale of democratical citizenship, and exculpated from the charge of incivism. But when we read the language of Sokrates both in the Apology and in the Gorgias, we find a very different picture given of the relations between him and Athens. We find him there presented as an isolated and eccentric individual, a dissenter, not only departing altogether from the character and purposes general among his fellow-citizens, but also certain to incur dangerous antipathy, in so far as he publicly proclaimed what he was. The Kriton takes him up as having become a victim to such antipathy: yet as reconciling himself with the laws by voluntarily accepting the sentence; and as persuaded to do so, moreover, by a piece of rhetoric imbued with the most genuine spirit of constitutional democracy. It is the compromise of his long-standing dissent with the reigning orthodoxy, just before his death. [Greek: E)n eu)phêmi/a| chrê\ teleuta=|n].[14]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Phædon, p. 117 D.]
[Side-note: Still Sokrates is represented as adopting the resolution to obey, from his own conviction; by a reason which weighs with him, but which would not weigh with others.]
Still, however, though adopting the democratical vein of sentiment for this purpose, Sokrates is made to adopt it on a ground peculiar to himself. His individuality is thus upheld. He holds the sentence pronounced against him to have been unjust, but he renounces all use of that plea, because the sentence has been legally pronounced by the judicial authority of the city, and because he has entered into a covenant with the city. He entertains the firm conviction that no one ought to act unjustly, or to do evil to others, in any case; not even in the case in which they have done injustice or evil to him. "This (says Sokrates) is my conviction, and the principle of my reasoning. Few persons do accept it, or ever will: yet between those who do accept it, and those who do not--there can be no common counsel: by necessity of the case, each looks upon the other, and upon the reasonings of the other, with contempt."[15]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D.; see p. 428, note i.]
[Side-note: The harangue is not a corollary from this Sokratic reason, but represents feelings common among Athenian citizens.]
This general doctrine, peculiar to Sokrates, is decisive per se, in its application to the actual case, and might have been made to conclude the dialogue. But Sokrates introduces it as a foundation to the arguments urged by the personified Athenian Nomos:--which, however, are not corollaries from it, nor at all peculiar to Sokrates, but represent sentiments held by the Athenian democrats more cordially than they were by Sokrates. It is thus that the dialogue Kriton embodies, and tries to reconcile, both the two distinct elements--constitutional allegiance, and Sokratic individuality.
[Side-note: Emphatic declaration of the authority of individual reason and conscience, for the individual himself.]
Apart from the express purpose of this dialogue, however, the general doctrine here proclaimed by Sokrates deserves attention, in regard to the other Platonic dialogues which we shall soon review. The doctrine involves an emphatic declaration of the paramount authority of individual reason and conscience; for the individual himself--but for him alone. "This (says Sokrates) is, and has long been my conviction. It is the basis of the whole reasoning. Look well whether you agree to it: for few persons do agree to it, or ever will: and between those who do and those who do not, there can be no common deliberation: they must of necessity despise each other."[16] Here we have the Protagorean dogma, Homo Mensura--which Sokrates will be found combating in the Theætêtus--proclaimed by Sokrates himself. As things appear to me, so they are to me: as they appear to you, so they are to you. My reason and conscience is the measure for me: yours for you. It is for you to see whether yours agrees with mine.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D.; see p. 428, note i.]
I shall revert to this doctrine in handling other Platonic dialogues, particularly the Theætêtus.
[Side-note: The Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical. Difference between Rhetoric and Dialectic.]
I have already observed that the tone of the Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical--especially the harangue ascribed to Athens. The business of the rhetorician is to plant and establish some given point of persuasion, whether as to a general resolution or a particular fact, in the bosoms of certain auditors before him: hence he gives prominence and emphasis to some views of the question, suppressing or discrediting others, and especially keeping out of sight all the difficulties surrounding the conclusion at which he is aiming. On the other hand, the business of the dialectician is, not to establish any foreknown conclusion, but to find out which among all supposable conclusions are untenable, and which is the most tenable or best. Hence all the difficulties attending every one of them must be brought fully into view and discussed: until this has been done, the process is not terminated, nor can we tell whether any assured conclusion is attainable or not.
Now Plato, in some of his dialogues, especially the Gorgias, greatly depreciates rhetoric and its purpose of persuasion: elsewhere he employs it himself with ability and effect. The discourse which we read in the Kriton is one of his best specimens: appealing to pre-established and widespread emotions, veneration for parents, love of country, respect for covenants--to justify the resolution of Sokrates in the actual case: working up these sentiments into fervour, but neglecting all difficulties, limits, and counter-considerations: assuming that the familiar phrases of ethics and politics are perfectly understood and indisputable.
[Side-note: The Kriton makes powerful appeal to the emotions, but overlooks the ratiocinative difficulties, or supposes them to be solved.]
But these last-mentioned elements--difficulties, qualifications, necessity for definitions even of the most hackneyed words--would have been brought into the foreground had Sokrates pursued the dialectical path, which (as we know both from Xenophon and Plato) was his real habit and genius. He was perpetually engaged (says Xenophon[17]) in dialectic enquiry. "Wheat is the Holy, what is the Unholy? What is the Honourable and the Base? What is the Just and the Unjust? &c." Now in the rhetorical appeal embodied in the Kriton, the important question, What is the Just and the Unjust (i.e. Justice and Injustice in general), is assumed to be already determined and out of the reach of dispute. We are called upon to determine what is just and unjust in a particular case, as if we already knew what justice and injustice meant generally: to inquire about modifications of justice, before we have ascertained its essence. This is the fundamental assumption involved in the rhetorical process; which assumption we shall find Plato often deprecating as unphilosophical and preposterous.
[Footnote 17: Xenoph. Mem. i. 1, 16. [Greek: Au)to\s de\ peri\ tô=n a)nthrôpei/ôn a)ei\ diele/geto, skopô=n, ti/ eu)sebe/s, ti/ a)sebe/s; ti/ kalo/n, ti/ ai)schro/n; ti/ di/kaion, ti/ a)/dikon; ti/ sôphrosu/nê, ti/ mani/a; ti/ a)ndrei/a, ti/ deili/a; ti/ po/lis, ti/ politiko/s; ti/ a)rchê\ a)nthrô/pôn, ti/ a)rchiko\s a)nthrô/pôn], &c.
We see in Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 40-46, iv. 2, 37, in the Platonic dialogue Minos and elsewhere, the number of dialectic questions which Sokrates might have brought to bear upon the harangue in the Kriton, had it been delivered by any opponent whom he sought to perplex or confute. What is a law? what are the limits of obedience to the laws? Are there no limits (as Hobbes is so much denounced for maintaining)? While the oligarchy of Thirty were the constituted authority at Athens, they ordered Sokrates himself, together with four other citizens, to go and arrest a citizen whom they considered dangerous to the state, the Salaminian Leon. The other four obeyed the order; Sokrates alone disobeyed, and takes credit for having done so, considering Leon to be innocent. Which was in the right here? the four obedient citizens, or the one disobedient? Might not the four have used substantially the same arguments to justify their obedience, as those which Sokrates hears from personified Athens in the Kriton? We must remember that the Thirty had come into authority by resolutions passed under constitutional forms, when fear of foreign enemies induced the people to sanction the resolutions proposed by a party among themselves. The Thirty also ordered Sokrates to abstain from discourse with young men; he disobeyed (Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4, 3). Was he right in disobeying?
I have indicated briefly these questions, to show how completely the rhetorical manner of the Kriton submerges all those difficulties, which would form the special matter of genuine Sokratic dialectics.
Schleiermacher (Einleit. zum Kriton, pp. 233, 234) considers the Kriton as a composition of special occasion--Gelegenheitsschrift--which I think is true; but which may be said also, in my judgment, of every Platonic dialogue. The term, however, in Schleiermacher's writing, has a peculiar meaning, viz. a composition for which there is no place in the regular rank and file of the Platonic dialogues, as he marshals them. He remarks the absence of dialectic in the Kriton, and he adduces this as one reason for supposing it not to be genuine.
But it is no surprise to me to find Plato rhetorical in one dialogue, dialectical in others. Variety, and want of system, seem to me among his most manifest attributes.
The view taken of the Kriton by Steinhart (Einleit. pp. 291-302), in the first page of his very rhetorical Introduction, coincides pretty much with mine.]
So far indeed Sokrates goes in this dialogue, to affirm a positive analogy. That Just and Honourable are, to the mind, what health and strength are to the body:--Unjust and Base, what distemper and weakness are to the body. And he follows this up by saying, that the general public are incompetent to determine what is just or honourable--as they are incompetent to decide what is wholesome or unwholesome. Respecting both one and the other, you must consult some one among the professional Experts, who alone are competent to advise.[18]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Kriton, c. 7, p. 47 D. [Greek: tou= e(no\s, ei)/ ti/s e)stin e)pai+/ôn], &c.]
[Side-note: Incompetence of the general public or [Greek: i)diô=tai]--appeal to the professional Expert.]
Both these two doctrines will be found recurring often, in our survey of the dialogues. The first of the two is an obscure and imperfect reply to the great Sokratic problem--What is Justice? What is Injustice? but it is an analogy useful to keep in mind, as a help to the exposition of many passages in which Plato is yet more obscure. The second of the two will also recur frequently. It sets out an antithesis of great moment in the Platonic dialogues--"The one specially instructed, professional, theorizing, Expert--versus (the [Greek: i)diô=tai] of the time and place, or) common sense, common sentiment, intuition, instinct, prejudice," &c. (all these names meaning the same objective reality, but diversified according as the speaker may happen to regard the particular case to which he is alluding). This antithesis appears as an answer when we put the question--What is the ultimate authority? where does the right of final decision reside, on problems and disputes ethical, political, æsthetical? It resides (Sokrates here answers) with some one among a few professional Experts. They are the only persons competent.
[Side-note: Procedure of Sokrates after this comparison has been declared--he does not name who the trustworthy Expert is.]
I shall go more fully into this question elsewhere. Here I shall merely notice the application which Sokrates makes (in the Kriton) of the general doctrine. We might anticipate that after having declared that none was fit to pronounce upon the Just and the Unjust, except a professional Expert,--he would have proceeded to name some person corresponding to that designation--to justify the title of that person to confidence by such evidences as Plato requires in other dialogues--and then to cite the decision of the judge named, on the case in hand. This is what Sokrates would have done, if the case had been one of health or sickness. He would have said "I appeal to Hippokrates, Akumenus, &c., as professional Experts on medicine: they have given proof of competence by special study, successful practice, writing, teaching, &c.: they pronounce so and so". He would not have considered himself competent to form a judgment or announce a decision of his own.
[Side-note: Sokrates acts as the Expert himself: he finds authority in his own reason and conscience.]
But here, when the case in hand is that of Just and Unjust, the conduct of Sokrates is altogether different. He specifies no professional Expert, and he proceeds to lay down a dogma of his own; in which he tells us that few or none will agree, though it is fundamental, so that dissenters on the point must despise each other as heretics. We thus see that it is he alone who steps in to act himself the part of professional Expert, though he does not openly assume the title. The ultimate authority is proclaimed in words to reside with some unnamed Expert: in fact and reality, he finds it in his own reason and conscience. You are not competent to judge for yourself: you must consult the professional Expert: but your own reason and conscience must signify to you who the Expert is.
The analogy here produced by Plato of questions about health and sickness--is followed out only in its negative operation; as it serves to scare away the multitude, and discredit the Vox Populi. But when this has been done, no oracular man can be produced or authenticated. In other dialogues, we shall find Sokrates regretting the absence of such an oracular man, but professing inability to proceed without him. In the Kriton, he undertakes the duty himself; unmindful of the many emphatic speeches in which he had proclaimed his own ignorance, and taken credit for confessing it without reserve.
XI. EUTHYPHRON
The dialogue called Euthyphron, over and above its contribution to the ethical enquiries of Plato, has a certain bearing on the character and exculpation of Sokrates. It will therefore come conveniently in immediate sequel to the Apology and the Kriton.
[Side-note: Situation supposed in the dialogue--interlocutors.]
The indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates is assumed to have been formally entered in the office of the King Archon. Sokrates has come to plead to it. In the portico before that office, he meets Euthyphron: a man of ultra-pious pretensions, possessing special religious knowledge (either from revelation directly to himself, or from having been initiated in the various mysteries consecrated throughout Greece), delivering authoritative opinions on doubtful theological points, and prophesying future events.[1]
[Footnote 1: Plato, Euthyphr. c. 2, p. 3 D; compare Herodot. ii. 51.]
What brings you here, Sokrates (asks Euthyphron), away from your usual haunts? Is it possible that any one can have preferred an indictment against you?
[Side-note: Indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates--Antipathy of the Athenians towards those who spread heretical opinions.]
Yes (replies Sokrates), a young man named Melêtus. He takes commendable interest in the training of youth, and has indicted me as a corruptor of youth. He says that I corrupt them by teaching belief in new gods, and unbelief in the true and ancient Gods.
Euthyph.--I understand: it is because you talk about the Dæmon or Genius often communicating with you, that Melêtus calls you an innovator in religion. He knows that such calumnies find ready admission with most minds.[2] So also, people laugh at me, when I talk about religion, and when I predict future events in the assembly. It must be from jealousy; because all that I have predicted has come true.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Euthyph. c. 2, p. 3 B: [Greek: phêsi\ ga/r me poiêtê\n ei)=nai theô=n kai\ ô(s kainou\s poiou=nta theou/s, tou\s d' a)rchai/ous ou) nomi/zonta, e)gra/psato tou/tôn au)tô=n e(/neka, ô(/s phêsin]. c. 5, p. 5 A: [Greek: au)toschedia/zonta kai\ kainotomou=nta peri\ tô=n thei/ôn e)xamarta/nein].]
Sokr.--To be laughed at is no great matter. The Athenians do not care much when they regard a man as overwise, but as not given to teach his wisdom to others: but when they regard him besides, as likely to make others such as he is himself, they become seriously angry with him--be it from jealousy, as you say, or from any other cause. You keep yourself apart, and teach no one; for my part, I delight in nothing so much as in teaching all that I know. If they take the matter thus seriously, the result may be very doubtful.[3]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Euthyphr. c. 3, p. 3 C.-D. [Greek: A)thênai/ois ga\r ou) spho/dra me/lei, a)/n tina deino\n oi)/ôntai ei)=nai, mê\ me/ntoi didaskaliko\n tê=s au)tou= sophi/as; o(\n d' a)\n kai\ a)/llous oi)/ôntai poiei=n toiou/tous, thumou=ntai, ei)=t' ou)=n phtho/nô|, ô(s su\ le/geis, ei)/te di' a)/llo ti.]]
[Side-note: Euthyphron recounts that he is prosecuting an indictment for murder against his own father--Displeasure of his friends at the proceeding.]
Sokrates now learns what is Euthyphron's business at the archontic office. Euthyphron is prosecuting an indictment before the King Archon, against his own father; as having caused the death of a dependent workman, who in a fit of intoxication had quarrelled with and killed a fellow-servant. The father of Euthyphron, upon this occurrence, bound the homicide hand and foot, and threw him into a ditch: at the same time sending to the Exêgêtês (the canonical adviser, supposed to be conversant with the divine sanctions, whom it was customary to consult when doubts arose about sacred things) to ask what was to be done with him. The incident occurred at Naxos, and the messenger was sent to the Exêgêtês at Athens: before he could return, the prisoner had perished, from hunger, cold, and bonds. Euthyphron has indicted his father for homicide, as having caused the death of the prisoner: who (it would appear) had remained in the ditch, tied hand and foot, without food, and with no more than his ordinary clothing, during the time occupied in the voyage from Naxos to Athens, in obtaining the answer of the Exêgêtês, and in returning to Naxos.
My friends and relatives (says Euthyphron) cry out against me for this proceeding, as if I were mad. They say that my father did not kill the man:[4] that even if he had, the man had committed murder: lastly, that however the case may have been, to indict my own father is monstrous and inexcusable. Such reasoning is silly. The only point to be considered is, whether my father killed the deceased justly or unjustly. If justly there is nothing to be said; if unjustly, then my father becomes a man tainted with impiety and accursed. I and every one else, who, knowing the facts, live under the same roof and at the same table with him, come under the like curse; unless I purify myself by bringing him to justice. The course which I am now taking is prescribed by piety or holiness. My friends indeed tell me that it is unholy for a son to indict his father. But I know better than they, what holiness is and I should be ashamed of myself if I did not.[5]
[Footnote 4: According to the Attic law every citizen was bound, in case any one of his relatives ([Greek: me/chris a)nepsiadô=n]) or any member of his household ([Greek: oi)ke/tês]) had been put to death, to come forward as prosecutor and indict the murderer. This was binding upon the citizen alike in law and in religion.
Demosthen. cont. Euerg. et Mnesibul. p. 1161. Jul. Pollux, viii. 118.
Euthyphron would thus have been considered as acting with propriety, if the person indicted had been a stranger.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 4. Respecting the [Greek: mi/asma], which a person who had committed criminal homicide was supposed to carry about with him wherever he went, communicating it both to places and to companions, see Antiphon. Tetralog. i. 2, 5, 10; iii. s. 7, p. 116; and De Herodis Cæde s. 81, p. 139. The argument here employed by Euthyphron is used also by the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias, 480 C-D. If a man has committed injustice, punishment is the only way of curing him. That he should escape unpunished is the worst thing that can happen to him. If you yourself, or your father, or your friend, have committed injustice, do not seek to avert the punishment either from yourself or them, but rather invoke it. This is exactly what Euthyphron is doing, and what the Platonic Sokrates (in dialogue Euthyphron) calls in question.]
[Side-note: Euthyphron expresses full confidence that this step of his is both required and warranted by piety or holiness. Sokrates asks him--What is Holiness?]
I confess myself (says Sokrates) ignorant respecting the question,[6] and I shall be grateful if you will teach me: the rather as I shall be able to defend myself better against Melêtus. Tell me what is the general constituent feature of Holiness? What is that common essence, or same character, which belongs to and distinguishes all holy or pious acts?[7]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B. [Greek: ti/ ga\r kai\ phê/somen, oi(/ ge kai\ au)toi\ o(mologou=men peri\ au)tô=n mêde\n ei)de/nai?]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 D. Among the various reasons (none of them valid in my judgment) given by Ueberweg (Untersuch. p. 251) for suspecting the authenticity of the Euthyphron, one is that [Greek: to\ a)no/sion] is reckoned as an [Greek: ei)=dos] as well as [Greek: to\ o(/sion]. Ueberweg seems to think this absurd, since he annexes to the word a note of admiration. But Plato expressly gives [Greek: to\ a)/dikon] as an [Greek: ei)=dos], along with [Greek: to\ di/kaion] (Repub. v. 476 A); and one of the objections taken against his theory by Aristotle was, that it would assume substantive Ideas corresponding to negative terms--[Greek: tô=n a)popha/seôn i)de/as]. See Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 13, with the Scholion of Alexander, p. 565, a. 81, r.]
[Side-note: Euthyphron alludes to the punishment of Uranus by his son Kronus and of Kronus by his son Zeus.]
It is holy (replies Euthyphron) to do what I am now doing: to bring to justice the man who commits impiety, either by homicide or sacrilege or any other such crime, whoever he be--even though it be your own father. The examples of the Gods teach us this. Kronus punished his father Uranus for wrong-doing: Zeus, whom every one holds to be the best and justest of the Gods, did the like by his father Kronus. I only follow their example. Those who blame my conduct contradict themselves when they talk about the Gods and about me.[8]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5-6.
We see here that Euthyphron is made to follow out the precept delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in the Theætêtus and elsewhere--to make himself as like to the Gods as possible--([Greek: o(moi/ôsis theô=| kata\ to\ dunato/n]. Theætêt. p. 176 B; compare Phædrus, 252 C)--only that he conceives the attributes and proceedings of the Gods differently from Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Sokrates intimates his own hesitation in believing these stories of discord among the Gods. Euthyphron declares his full belief in them, as well as in many similar narratives, not in so much circulation.]
Do you really confidently believe these stories (asks Sokrates), as well as many others about the discord and conflicts among the Gods, which are circulated among the public by poets and painters? For my part, I have some repugnance in believing them;[9] it is for reason probably, I am now to be indicted, and proclaimed as doing wrong. If you tell me that you are persuaded of their truth, I must bow to your superior knowledge. I cannot help doing so, since for my part I pretend to no knowledge whatever about them.
[Footnote 9: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 A. [Greek: A)ra/ ge tou=t' e)/stin, ou)= e(/neka tê\n graphê\n pheu/gô, o(/ti ta\ toiau=ta e)peida/n tis peri\ tô=n theô=n le/gê|, duscherô=s pôs a)pode/chomai? di' a(\ dê\, ô(s e)/oike, phê/sei ti/s me e)xamarta/nein.]]
I am persuaded that these narratives are true (says Euthyphron): and not only they, but many other narratives yet more surprising, of which most persons are ignorant. I can tell you some of them, if you like to hear. You shall tell me another time (replies Sokrates): now let me repeat my question to you respecting holiness.[10]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 C.]
[Side-note: Bearing of this dialogue on the relative position of Sokrates and the Athenian public.]
Before we pursue this enquiry respecting holiness, which is the portion of the dialogue bearing on the Platonic ethics, I will say one word on the portion which has preceded, and which appears to bear on the position and character of Sokrates. He (Sokrates) has incurred odium from the Dikastery and the public, because he is heretical and incredulous. "He does not believe in those Gods in whom the city believes, but introduces religious novelties"--to use the words of the indictment preferred against him by Melêtus. The Athenian public felt the same displeasure and offence in hearing their divine legends, such as those of Zeus and Kronus,[11] called in question or criticised in an ethical spirit different from their own--as is felt by Jews or Christians when various narratives of the Old Testament are criticised in an adverse spirit, and when the proceedings ascribed to Jehovah are represented as unworthy of a just and beneficent god. We read in Herodotus what was the sentiment of pious contemporaries respecting narratives of divine matters. Herodotus keeps back many of them by design, and announces that he will never recite them except in case of necessity: while in one instance, where he has been betrayed into criticism upon a few of them, as inconsiderate and incredible, he is seized with misgivings, and prays that Gods and heroes will not be offended with him.[12] The freethinkers, among whom Sokrates was numbered, were the persons from whom adverse criticism came. It is these men who are depicted by orthodox opponents as committing lawless acts, and justifying themselves by precedents drawn from the proceedings or Zeus.[13] They are, besides, especially accused of teaching children to despise or even to ill-use their parents.[14]
[Footnote 11: I shall say more about Plato's views on the theological legends generally believed by his countrymen, when I come to the language which he puts into the mouth of Sokrates in the second and third books of the Republic. Eusebius considers it matter of praise when he says "that Plato rejected all the opinions of his country-men concerning the Gods and exposed their absurdity"--[Greek: o(/pôs te pa/sas ta\s patri/ous peri\ tô=n theô=n u(polê/pseis ê)the/tei, kai\ tê\n a)topi/an au)tô=n diê/legchen] (Præp. Evan. xiii. 1)--the very same thing which is averred in the indictment laid by Melêtus against Sokrates.]
[Footnote 12: Herodot. ii. 65: [Greek: tô=n de\ ei(/neken a)nei=tai ta\ i(ra\, ei) le/goimi, katabai/ên a)\n tô=| lo/gô| e)s ta\ thei=a prê/gmata, ta\ e)gô\ pheu/gô ma/lista a)pêgee/sthai. ta\ de\ kai\ ei)/rêka au)tô=n e)pipsau/sas, a)nagkai/ê katalambano/menos ei)=pon . . . .] 45. [Greek: Le/gousi de\ polla\ kai\ a)/lla a)nepiske/ptôs oi( E(/llênes; eu)ê/thês de\ au)tô=n kai\ o(/de o( mu=thos e)sti, to\n peri\ tou= Ê(rakle/os le/gousi . . . . e)/ti de\ e(/na e)o/nta to\n Ê(rakle/a, kai\ e)/ti a)/nthrôpon, ô(s dê/ phasi, kô=s phu/sin e)/chei polla\s muria/das phoneu=sai? kai\ peri\ me\n tou/tôn tosau=ta ê(mi=n ei)pou=si, kai\ para\ tô=n theô=n kai\ para\ tô=n ê(rô/ôn eu)me/neia ei)/ê.]
About the [Greek: i(roi\ lo/goi] which he keeps back, see cap. 51, 61, 62, 81, 170, &c.]
[Footnote 13: Aristoph. Nubes, 905-1080.]
[Footnote 14: Aristoph. Nubes, 994-1333-1444. Xenophon, Mem. i. 2, 49. [Greek: Sôkra/tês--tou\s pate/ras propêlaki/zein e)di/daske] (accusation by Melêtus).]
[Side-note: Dramatic moral set forth by Aristophanes against Sokrates and the freethinkers, is here retorted by Plato against the orthodox champion.]
Now in the dialogue here before us, Plato retorts this attack. Euthyphron possesses in the fullest measure the virtues of a believer. He believes not only all that orthodox Athenians usually believed respecting the Gods, but more besides.[15] His faith is so implicit, that he proclaims it as accurate knowledge, and carries it into practice with full confidence; reproaching other orthodox persons with inconsistency and short-coming, and disregarding the judgment of the multitude, as Sokrates does in the Kriton.[16] Euthyphron stands forward as the champion of the Gods, determined not to leave unpunished the man who has committed impiety, let him be who he may.[17] These lofty religious pretensions impel him, with full persuasion of right, to indict his own father for homicide, under the circumstances above described. Now in the eyes of the Athenian public, there could hardly be any act more abhorrent, than that of a man thus invoking upon his father the severest penalties of law. It would probably be not less abhorrent than that of a son beating his own father. When therefore we read, in the Nubes of Aristophanes, the dramatic moral set forth against Sokrates, "See the consequences to which free-thinking and the new system of education lead[18]--the son Pheidippides beating his own father, and justifying the action as right, by citing the violence of Zeus towards his father Kronus"--we may take the Platonic Euthyphron as an antithesis to this moral, propounded by a defender of Sokrates, "See the consequences to which consistent orthodoxy and implicit faith conduct. The son Euthyphron indicts his own father for homicide; he vindicates the step as conformable to the proceedings of the gods; he even prides himself on it as championship on their behalf, such as all religious men ought to approve."[19]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B. [Greek: kai\ e)/ti ge tou/tôn thaumasiô/tera, a(\ oi( polloi\ ou)k i)/sasin].
Euthyphron belonged to the class described in Euripides, Hippol. 45:--
[Greek: O(/soi men ou)=n grapha/s te tô=n palaite/rôn E)/choisin, au)toi/ t' ei)si\n e)n mou/sais a)ei/, I)/sasin], &c.
Compare also Euripid. Herakleidæ, 404.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 5 A; c. 6, p. 6 A.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 E. [Greek: mê\ e)pitre/pein tô=| a)sebou=nti mêd' a)\n o(stisou=n tugcha/nê| ô)=n.]]
[Footnote 18: Aristoph. Nubes, 937. [Greek: tê\n kainê\n pai/deusin], &c.]
[Footnote 19: Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Euthyphron, vol. ii. pp. 51-54) has many remarks on the Euthyphron in which I do not concur; but his conception of its "unverkennbare apologetische Absicht" is very much the same as mine. He describes Euthyphron as a man "der sich besonders auf das Göttliche zu verstehen vorgab, und die rechtglaubigen aus den alten theologischen Dichtern gezogenen Begriffe tapfer vertheidigte. Diesen nun gerade bei der Anklage des Sokrates mit ihm in Berührung, und durch den unsittlichen Streich, den sein Eifer für die Frömmigkeit veranlasste, in Gegensatz zu bringen--war ein des Platon nicht unwürdiger Gedanke" (p. 54). But when Schleiermacher affirms that the dialogue was indisputably composed (unstreitig) between the indictment and the trial of Sokrates,--and when he explains what he considers the defects of the dialogue, by the necessity of finishing it in a hurry (p. 53), I dissent from him altogether, though Steinhart adopts the same opinion. Nor can I perceive in what way the Euthyphron is (as he affirms) either "a natural out-growth of the Protagoras," or "an approximation and preparation for the Parmenidês" (p. 52). Still less do I feel the force of his reasons for hesitating in admitting it to be a genuine work of Plato.
I have given my reasons, in a preceding chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates. But that he should publish such a dialogue while the trial of Sokrates was impending, is a supposition altogether inadmissible, in my judgment. The effect of it would be to make the position of Sokrates much worse on his trial. Herein I agree with Ueberweg (Untersuch. p. 250), though I do not share his doubts of the authenticity of the dialogue.
The confident assertion of Stallbaum surprises me. "Constat enim Platonem eo tempore, quo Socrati tantum erat odium conflatum, ut ei judicii immineret periculum, complures dialogos composuisse; in quibus id egit, ut viri sanctissimi adversarios in eo ipso genere, in quo sibi plurimum sapere videbantur, inscitiæ et ignorantiæ coargueret. Nam Euthyphronem novimus, ad vates ignorantiæ rerum gravissimarum convincendos, esse compositum; ut in quo eos ne pietatis quidem notionem tenere ostenditur. In Menone autem id agitur, ut sophistas et viros civiles non scientiâ atque arte, sed coeco quodam impetu mentis et sorte divinâ duci demonstretur: quod quidem ita fit, ut colloquium ex parte cum Anyto, Socratis accusatore, habeatur. . . . . . Nam Menonem quidem et Euthyphronem Plato eo confecit tempore, quo Socratis causa haud ita pridem in judicio versabatur, nec tamen jam tanta ei videbatur imminere calamitas, quanta postea consecuta est. Ex quo sané verisimiliter colligere licet Ionem, cujus simile argumentum et consilium est, circa idem tempus literis consignatum esse." Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Platonis Ionem, pp. 288-289, vol. iv. [Comp. Stallb. ibid., 2nd ed. pp. 339-341].
"Imo uno exemplo Euthyphronis, boni quidem hominis ideoque ne Socrati quidem inimici, sed ejusdem superstitiosi, vel ut hodie loquuntur, orthodoxi, qualis Athenis vulgò esset religionis conditio, declarare instituit. Ex quo nobis quidem clarissimé videtur apparere Platonem hoc unum spectavisse, ut judices admonerentur, ne populari superstitioni in sententiis ferendis plus justo tribuerent." Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Euthyphron. T. vi. p. 146.
Steinhart also (in his Einleitung, p. 190) calls Euthyphron "ein rechtgläubiger von reinsten Wasser--ein ueberfrommer, fanatischer, Mann," &c.
In the two preceding pages Stallbaum defends himself against objections made to his view, on the ground that Plato, by composing such dialogues at this critical moment, would increase the unpopularity and danger of Sokrates, instead of diminishing it. Stallbaum contends (p. 145) that neither Sokrates nor Plato nor any of the other Sokratic men, believed that the trial would end in a verdict of guilty: which is probably true about Plato, and would have been borne out by the event if Sokrates had made a different defence. But this does not assist the conclusion which Stallbaum wishes to bring out; for it is not the less true that the dialogues of Plato, if published at that moment, would increase the exasperation against Sokrates, and the chance, whatever it was, that he would be found guilty. Stallbaum refers by mistake to a passage in the Platonic Apology (p. 36 A), as if Sokrates there expressed his surprise at the verdict of guilty, anticipating a verdict of acquittal. The passage declares the contrary: Sokrates expresses his surprise that the verdict of guilty had passed by so small a majority as five; he had expected that it would pass by a larger majority.]
[Side-note: Sequel of the dialogue--Euthyphron gives a particular example as the reply to a general question.]
I proceed now with that which may be called the Platonic purpose in the dialogue--the enquiry into the general idea of Holiness. When the question was first put to Euthyphron, What is the Holy?--he replied, "That which I am now doing." Sokr. That may be: but many other things besides are also holy.--Euthyph. Certainly.--Sokr. Then your answer does not meet the question. You have indicated one particular holy act, among many. But the question asked was--What is Holiness generally? What is that specific property, by the common possession of which all holy things are entitled to be called holy? I want to know this general Idea, in order that I may keep it in view as a type wherewith to compare each particular case, thus determining whether the case deserves to be called holy or not.[20]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 7, p. 6 E.]
Here we have a genuine specimen of the dialectic interrogatory in which Xenophon affirms[21] Sokrates to have passed his life, and which Plato prosecutes under his master's name. The question is generalised much more than in the Kriton.
[Footnote 21: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 16.]
[Side-note: Such mistake frequent in dialectic discussion.]
It is assumed that there is one specific Idea or essence--one objective characteristic or fact--common to all things called Holy. The purpose of the questioner is: to determine what this Idea is: to provide a good definition of the word. The first mistake made by the respondent is, that he names simply one particular case, coming under the general Idea. This is a mistake often recurring, and often corrected in the Platonic dialogues. Even now, such a mistake is not unfrequent: and in the time of Plato, when general ideas, and the definition of general terms, had been made so little the subject of direct attention, it was doubtless perpetually made. When the question was first put, its bearing would not be properly conceived. And even if the bearing were properly conceived, men would find it easier then, and do find it easier now, to make answer by giving one particular example than to go over many examples, and elicit what is common to all.
[Side-note: First general answer given by Euthyphron--that which is pleasing to the Gods is holy. Comments of Sokrates thereon.]
Euthyphron next replies--That which is pleasing to the Gods is holy: that which is not pleasing, or which is displeasing to the Gods, is unholy.--Sokr. That is the sort of answer which I desired to have: now let us examine it. We learn from the received theology, which you implicitly believe, that there has been much discord and quarrel among the Gods. If the Gods quarrel, they quarrel about the same matters as men. Now men do not quarrel about questions of quantity--for such questions can be determined by calculation and measurement: nor about questions of weight--for there the balance may be appealed to. The questions about which you and I and other men quarrel are, What is just or unjust, honourable or base, good or evil? Upon these there is no accessible standard. Some men feel in one way, some in another; and each of us fights for his own opinions.[22] We all indeed agree that the wrong-doer ought to be punished: but we do not agree who the wrong-doer is, nor what is wrong-doing. The same action which some of us pronounce to be just, others stigmatise as unjust.[23]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 8, p. 7 C-D. [Greek: Peri\ ti/nos de\ dê\ dienechthe/ntes kai\ e)pi\ ti/na kri/sin ou) duna/menoi a)phike/sthai e)chthroi/ ge a)\n a)llê/lois ei)=men kai\ o)rgizoi/metha? i)/sôs ou) pro/cheiro/n soi/ e)stin, a)ll' e)mou= le/gontos sko/pei, ei) ta/d' e)sti\ to/ te di/kaion kai\ to\ a)/dikon, kai\ kalo\n kai\ ai)schro/n, kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ kako/n. A)=r' ou) tau=ta e)sti peri\ ô(=n dienechthe/ntes kai\ ou) duna/menoi e)pi\ i)kanê\n kri/sin au)tô=n e)lthei=n e)chthroi\ a)llê/lois gigno/metha, o(/tan gignô/metha, kai\ e)gô\ kai\ su\ kai\ oi( a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi pa/ntes?]]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 9, p. 8 D. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra e)kei=no/ ge a)mphisbêtou=sin, ô(s ou) to\n a)dikou=nta dei= dido/nai di/kên; a)ll' e)kei=no i)/sôs a)mphisbêtou=si, to\ ti/s e)stin o( a)dikôn kai\ ti/ drô=n, kai\ po/te? Pra/xeô/s tinos peri\ diaphero/menoi, oi( me\n dikai/ôs phasi\n au)tê\n pepra=chthai, oi( de\ a)di/kôs.]]
So likewise the quarrels of the Gods must turn upon these same matters--just and unjust, right and wrong, good and evil. What one God thinks right, another God thinks wrong. What is pleasing to one God, is displeasing to another. The same action will be both pleasing and displeasing to the Gods.
According to your definition of holy and unholy, therefore, the same action may be both holy and unholy. Your definition will not hold, for it does not enable me to distinguish the one from the other.[24]
[Footnote 24: In regard to Plato's ethical enquiries generally, and to what we shall find in future dialogues, we must take note of what is here laid down, that mankind are in perpetual dispute, and have not yet any determinate standard for just and unjust, right and wrong, honourable and base, good and evil. Plato had told us, somewhat differently, in the Kriton, that on these matters, though the judgment of the many was not to be trusted, yet there was another trustworthy judgment, that of the one wise man. This point will recur for future comment.]
Euthyph.--I am convinced that there are some things which all the Gods love, and some things which all the Gods hate. That which I am doing, for example--indicting my father for homicide--belongs to the former category. Now that which all the Gods love is the holy: that which they all hate, is the unholy.[25]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 11, p. 9.]
[Side-note: To be loved by the Gods is not the essence of the Holy--they love it because it is holy. In what then does its essence consist? Perplexity of Euthyphron.]
Sokr.--Do the Gods love the holy, because it is holy? Or is it holy for this reason, because they do love it? Euthyph.--They love it because it is holy.[26] Sokr.--Then the holiness is one thing; the fact of being loved by the Gods is another. The latter fact is not of the essence of holiness: it is true, but only as an accident and an accessory. You have yet to tell me what that essential character is, by virtue of which the holy comes to be loved by all the Gods, or to be the subject of various other attributes.[27]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 12, p. 10 A-D. The manner in which Sokrates conducts this argument is over-subtle. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra dio/ti o(rô/menon ge/ e)sti dia\ tou=to o(ra=tai, a)lla\ tou)nanti/on dio/ti o(ra=tai, dia\ tou=to o(rô/menon; ou)de\ dio/ti a)go/meno/n e)sti, dia\ tou=to a)/getai, a)lla\ dio/ti a)/getai, dia\ tou=to a)go/menon; ou)de\ dio/ti phero/menon, phe/retai, a)lla\ dio/ti phe/retai, phero/menon.]
The difference between the meaning of [Greek: phe/retai] and [Greek: phero/meno/n e)sti] is not easy to see. The former may mean to affirm the beginning of an action, the latter the continuance: but in this case the inference would not necessarily follow.
Compare Aristotel. Physica, p. 185, b. 25, with the Scholion of Simplikius, p. 330, a. 2nd ed. Bekk. where [Greek: badi/zôn e)/sti] is recognised as equivalent to [Greek: badi/zei].]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 A. [Greek: kinduneu/eis, e)rôtô/menos to\ o(/sion, o(/, ti/ pot' e)/stin, tê\n me\n ou)si/an moi au)tou= ou) bou/lesthai dêlô=sai, pa/thos de/ ti peri\ au)tou= le/gein, o(/, ti pe/ponthe tou=to to\ o(/sion, philei=sthai u(po\ pa/ntôn tô=n theô=n; o(/, ti de\ o)\n, ou)/pô ei)=pes. . . . pa/lin ei)pe\ e)x a)rchê=s, ti/ pote o)\n to\ o(/sion ei)/te philei=tai u(po\ theô=n, ei)/te o(/ti dê\ pa/schei.]]
Euthyph.--I hardly know how to tell you what I think. None of my explanations will stand. Your ingenuity turns and twists them in every way. Sokr.--If I am ingenious, it is against my own will;[28] for I am most anxious that some one of the answers should stand unshaken. But I will now put you in the way of making a different answer. You will admit that all which is holy is necessarily just. But is all that is just necessarily holy?
[Footnote: 28: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 D. [Greek: a)/kôn ei)mi\ sopho/s], &c.]
[Side-note: Sokrates suggests a new answer. The Holy is one branch or variety of the Just. It is that branch which concerns ministration by men to the Gods.]
Euthyphron does not at first understand the question. He does not comprehend the relation between two words, generic and specific with reference to each other: the former embracing all that the latter embraces, and more besides (denoting more objects, connoting fewer attributes). This is explained by analogies and particular examples, illustrating a logical distinction highly important to be brought out, at a time when there were no treatises on Logic.[29] So much therefore is made out--That the Holy is a part, or branch, of the Just. But what part? or how is it to be distinguished from other parts or branches of the just? Euthyphron answers. The holy is that portion or branch of the Just which concerns ministration to the Gods: the remaining branch of the Just is, what concerns ministration to men.[30]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13-14, p. 12.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 14, p. 12 E. [Greek: to\ me/ros tou= dikai/ou ei)=nai eu)sebe/s te kai\ o(/sion, to\ peri\ tê\n tô=n theô=n therapei/an; to\ de\ peri\ tê\n tô=n a)nthrô/pôn, to\ loipo\n ei)=nai tou= dikai/ou me/ros.]]
[Side-note: Ministration to the Gods? How? To what purpose?]\
Sokr.--What sort of ministration? Other ministrations, to horses, dogs, working cattle, &c., are intended for the improvement or benefit of those to whom they are rendered:--besides, they can only be rendered by a few trained persons. In what manner does ministration, called holiness, benefit or improve the Gods? Euthyph.--In no way: it is of the same nature as that which slaves render to their masters. Sokr.--You mean, that it is work done by us for the Gods. Tell me--to what end does the work conduce? What is that end which the Gods accomplish, through our agency as workmen? Physicians employ their slaves for the purpose of restoring the sick to health: shipbuilders put their slaves to the completion of ships. But what are those great works which the Gods bring about by our agency? Euthyph.--Their works are numerous and great. Sokr.--The like may be said of generals: but the summary and main purpose of all that generals do is--to assure victory in war. So too we may say about the husbandman: but the summary of his many proceedings is, to raise corn from the earth. State to me, in like manner, the summary of that which the Gods perform through our agency.[31]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, pp. 13, 14.]
[Side-note: Holiness--rectitude in sacrifice and prayer--right traffic between men and the Gods.]
Euthyph.--It would cost me some labour to go through the case fully. But so much I tell you in plain terms. If a man, when sacrificing and praying, knows what deeds and what words will be agreeable to the Gods, that is holiness: this it is which upholds the security both of private houses and public communities. The contrary is unholiness, which subverts and ruins them.[32] Sokr.--Holiness, then, is the knowledge of rightly sacrificing and praying to the Gods; that is, of giving to them, and asking from them. To ask rightly, is to ask what we want from them: to give rightly, is to give to them what they want from us. Holiness will thus be an art of right traffic between Gods and men. Still, you must tell me how the Gods are gainers by that which we give to them. That we are gainers by what they give, is clear enough; but what do they gain on their side?
[Footnote 32: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, p. 14 B. Compare this third unsuccessful answer of Euthyphron with the third answer assigned to Hippias (Hipp. Maj. 291 C-E). Both of them appear lengthened, emphatic, as if intended to settle a question which had become vexatious.]
[Side-note: This will not stand--the Gods gain nothing--they receive from men marks of honour and gratitude--they are pleased therewith--the Holy, therefore, must be that which is pleasing to the Gods.]
Euthyph.--The Gods gain nothing. The gifts which we present to them consist in honour, marks of respect, gratitude. Sokr.--The holy, then, is that which obtains favour from the Gods; not that which gainful to them, nor that which they love. Euthyph.--Nay: I think they love it especially. Sokr.--Then it appears that the holy is what the Gods love? Euthyph.--Unquestionably.
[Side-note: This is the same explanation which was before declared insufficient. A fresh explanation is required from Euthyphron. He breaks off the dialogue.]
Sokr.--But this is the very same explanation which we rejected a short time ago as untenable.[33] It was agreed between us, that to be loved by the Gods was not of the essence of holiness, and could not serve as an explanation of holiness: though it might be truly affirmed thereof as an accompanying predicate. Let us therefore try again to discover what holiness is. I rely upon you to help me, and I am sure that you must know, since under a confident persuasion that you know, you are indicting your own father for homicide.
[Footnote 33: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 19, p. 15 C. [Greek: me/mnêsai ga/r pou, o(/ti e)n tô=| e)mprosthen to/ te o(/sion kai\ to\ theophile\s ou) tau)to\n ê(mi=n e)pha/nê, a)ll' e(/tera a)llê/lôn.]]
Euthyph.--"The investigation must stand over to another time, I have engagements now which call me elsewhere."
[Side-note: Sokratic spirit of the dialogue--confessed ignorance applying the Elenchus to false persuasion of knowledge.]
So Plato breaks off the dialogue. It is conceived in the truly Sokratic spirit:--an Elenchus applied to implicit and unexamined faith, even though that faith be accredited among the public as orthodoxy: warfare against the confident persuasion of knowledge, upon topics familiar to every one, and on which deep sentiments and confused notions have grown up by association in every one's mind, without deliberate study, systematic teaching, or testing cross-examination. Euthyphron is a man who feels unshaken confidence in his own knowledge, and still more in his own correct religious belief. Sokrates appears in his received character as confessing ignorance, soliciting instruction, and exposing inconsistencies and contradiction in that which is given to him for instruction.
[Side-note: The questions always difficult, often impossible to answer. Sokrates is unable to answer them, though he exposes the bad answers of others.]
We must (as I have before remarked) take this ignorance on the part of the Platonic Sokrates not as assumed, but as very real. In no part of the Platonic writings do we find any tenable definition of the Holy and the Unholy, such as is here demanded from Euthyphron. The talent of Sokrates consists in exposing bad definitions, not in providing good ones. This negative function is all that he claims for himself--with deep regret that he can do no more. "Sokrates" (says Aristotle[34]) "put questions, but gave no answers: for he professed not to know." In those dialogues where Plato makes him attempt more (there also, against his own will and protest, as in the Philêbus and Republic), the affirmative Sokrates will be found only to stand his ground because no negative Sokrates is allowed to attack him. I insist upon this the rather, because the Platonic commentators usually present the dialogues in a different light, as if such modesty on the part of Sokrates was altogether simulated: as if he was himself,[35] from the beginning, aware of the proper answer to his own questions, but refrained designedly from announcing it: nay, sometimes, as if the answers were in themselves easy, and as if the respondents who failed must be below par in respect of intelligence. This is an erroneous conception. The questions put by Sokrates, though relating to familiar topics, are always difficult: they are often even impossible to answer, because they postulate and require to be assigned a common objective concept which is not to be found. They only appear easy to one who has never attempted the task of answering under the pressure of cross-examination. Most persons indeed never make any such trial, but go on affirming confidently as if they knew, without trial. It is exactly against such illusory confidence of knowledge that Sokrates directs his questions: the fact belongs to our days no less than to his.[36]
[Footnote 34: Aristotel. Sophist. Elench. p. 183, b. 7. [Greek: e)pei\ kai\ dia\ tou=to Sôkra/tês ê)rô/ta kai\ ou)k a)pekri/neto; ô(molo/gei ga\r ou)k ei)de/nai.]]
[Footnote 35: See Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Euthyphron. p. 140.]
[Footnote 36: Adam Smith observes, in his Essay on the Formation of Languages (p. 20 of the fifth volume of his collected Works), "Ask a man what relation is expressed by the preposition of: and if he has not beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects, you may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer."
The Platonic problem assumes, not only that he shall give an answer, but that it shall be an answer which he can maintain against the Elenchus of Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Objections of Theopompus to the Platonic procedure.]
The assumptions of some Platonic commentators--that Sokrates and Plato of course knew the answers to their own questions--that an honest and pious man, of ordinary intelligence, has the answer to the question in his heart, though he cannot put it in words--these assumptions were also made by many of Plato's contemporaries, who depreciated his questions as frivolous and unprofitable. The rhetor and historian Theopompus (one of the most eminent among the numerous pupils of Isokrates, and at the same time unfriendly to Plato, though younger in age), thus criticised Plato's requirement, that these familiar terms should be defined: "What! (said he) have none of us before your time talked about the Good and the Just? Or do you suppose that we cannot follow out what each of them is, and that we pronounce the words as empty and unmeaning sounds?"[37] Theopompus was the scholar of Isokrates, and both of them probably took the same view, as to the uselessness of that colloquial analysis which aims at determining the definition of familiar ethical or political words.[38] They considered that Plato and Sokrates, instead of clearing up what was confused, wasted their ingenuity in perplexing what was already clear. They preferred the rhetorical handling (such as we noticed in the Kriton) which works upon ready-made pre-established sentiments, and impresses a strong emotional conviction, but presumes that all the intellectual problems have already been solved.
[Footnote 37: Epiktêtus, ii. 17, 5-10. [Greek: To\ d' e)xapatô=n tou\s pollou\s tou=t' e)/stin, o(/per kai\ Theo/pompon to\n r(ê/tora o(/s pou kai\ Pla/tôni e)gkalei= e)pi\ tô=| bou/lesthai e(/kasta o(ri/zesthai. Ti/ ga\r le/gei? Ou)dei\s ê(mô=n pro\ sou= e)/legen a)gatho\n ê)\ di/kaion? ê)\ mê\ parakolouthou=ntes ti/ e)sti tou/tôn e(/kaston, a)sê/môs kai\ kenô=s e)phtheggo/metha ta\s phôna/s?]
Respecting Theopompus, compare Dionys. Hal. Epistol. ad Cn. Pompeium de Platone, p. 757; also De Præcip. Historicis, p. 782.]
[Footnote 38: Isokrates, Helen. Encom. Or. x. init. De Permut. Or. xv. sect. 90.
These passages do not name Sokrates and Plato, but have every appearance of being intended to allude to them.]
[Side-note: Objective view of Ethics, distinguished by Sokrates from the subjective.]
All this shows the novelty of the Sokratic point of view: the distinction between the essential constituent and the objective accidental accompaniment,[39] and the search for a definition corresponding to the former: which search was first prosecuted by Sokrates (as Aristotle[40] points out) and was taken up from him by Plato. It was Sokrates who first brought conspicuously into notice the objective intellectual, scientific view of ethics--as distinguished from the subjective, emotional, incoherent, and uninquiring. I mean that he was the first who proclaimed himself as feeling the want of such an objective view, and who worked upon other minds so a to create the like want in them: I do not mean that he provided satisfaction for this requirement.
[Footnote 39: This distinction is pointedly noticed in the Euthyphron, p. 11 A.]
[Footnote 40: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 2, M. 1078, b. 28.]
[Side-note: Subjective unanimity coincident with objective dissent.]
Undoubtedly (as Theopompus remarked) men had used these ethical terms long before the time of Sokrates, and had used them, not as empty and unmeaning, but with a full body of meaning (i.e. emotional meaning). Strong and marked emotion had become associated with each term; and the same emotion, similar in character, though not equal in force--was felt by the greater number of different minds. Subjectively and emotionally, there was no difference between one man and another, except as to degree. But it was Sokrates who first called attention to the fact as a matter for philosophical recognition and criticism,--that such subjective and emotional unanimity does not exclude the widest objective and intellectual dissension.[41]
[Footnote 41: It is this distinction between the subjective and the objective which is implied in the language of Epiktêtus, when he proceeds to answer the objection cited from Theopompus (note 1 p. 451): [Greek: Ti/s ga\r soi le/gei, Theo/pompe, o(/ti e)nnoi/as ou)k ei)=chomen e(ka/stou tou/tôn phusika/s kai\ prolê/pseis? A)ll' ou)ch oi(=on te e)pharmo/zein ta\s prolê/pseis tai=s katallê/lois ou)si/ais, mê\ diarthrô/santa au)ta/s, kai\ au)to\ tou=to skepsa/menon, poi/an tina\ e(ka/stê| au)tô=n ou)si/an u(potakte/on.]
To the same purpose Epiktêtus, in another passage, i. 22, 4-9: [Greek: Au)tê\ e)stin ê( tô=n I)oudai/ôn, kai\ Su/rôn, kai\ Ai)gupti/ôn, kai\ R(ômai/ôn ma/chê; ou) peri\ tou=, o(/ti to\ o(/sion pa/ntôn protimête/on, kai\ e)n panti\ metadiôkte/on--a)lla\ po/tero/n e)stin o(/sion tou=to, to\ choirei/ou phagei=n, ê)\ a)no/sion.]
Again, Origen also, in a striking passage of his reply to Celsus (v. p. 263, ed. Spencer; i. p. 614 ed. Delarue), observes that the name Justice is the same among all Greeks (he means, the name with the emotional associations inseparable from it), but that the thing designated was very different, according to those who pronounced it:--[Greek: lekte/on, o(/ti to\ tê=s dikaiosu/nês o)/noma tau)ton me\n e)/stin para\ pa=sin E(/llêsin; ê)/dê de\ a)podei/knutai a)/llê me\n ê( kat' E)pi/kouron dikaiosu/nê, a)/llê de\ ê( kata\ tou\s a)po\ tê=s Stoa=s, a)rnoume/nôn to\ trimere\s tê=s psuchê=s, a)/llê de\ kata\ tou\s a)po\ Pla/tônos, i)diopragi/an tô=n merô=n tê=s psuchê=s pha/skontas ei)=nai tê\n dikaiosu/nên. Ou(/tô de\ kai\ a)/llê me\n ê( E)pikou/rou a)ndri/a], &c.
"Je n'aime point les mots nouveaux" (said Saint Just, in his Institutions, composed during the sitting of the French Convention, 1793), "je ne connais que le juste et l'injuste: ces mots sont entendus par toutes les consciences. Il faut ramener toutes les définitions à la conscience: l'esprit est un sophiste qui conduit les vertus à l'échafaud." (Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française, t. xxxv. p. 277.) This is very much the language which honest and vehement [Greek: i)diô=tai] of Athens would hold towards Sokrates and Plato.]
[Side-note: Cross-examination brought to bear upon this mental condition by Sokrates--position of Sokrates and Plato in regard to it.]
As the Platonic Sokrates here puts it in the Euthyphron--all men agree that the person who acts unjustly must be punished; but they dispute very much who it is that acts unjustly--which of his actions are unjust--or under what circumstances they are so. The emotion in each man's mind, as well as the word by which it is expressed, is the same:[42] but the person, or the acts, to which it is applied by each, although partly the same, are often so different, and sometimes so opposite, as to occasion violent dispute. There is subjective agreement, with objective disagreement. It is upon this disconformity that the Sokratic cross-examination is brought to bear, making his hearers feel its existence, for the first time, and dispelling their fancy of supposed knowledge as well as of supposed unanimity. Sokrates required them to define the general word--to assign some common objective characteristic, corresponding in all cases to the common subjective feeling represented by the word. But no man could comply with his requirement, nor could he himself comply with it, any more than his respondents. So far Sokrates proceeded, and no farther, according to Aristotle. He never altogether lost his hold on particulars: he assumed that there must be something common to them all, if you could but find out what it was, constituting the objective meaning of the general term. Plato made a step beyond him, though under the name of Sokrates as spokesman. Not being able (any more than Sokrates) to discover or specify any real objective characteristic, common to all the particulars--he objectivised[43] the word itself: that is, he assumed or imagined a new objective Ens of his own, the Platonic Idea, corresponding to the general word: an idea not common to the particulars, but existing apart from them in a sphere of its own--yet nevertheless lending itself in some inexplicable way to be participated by all the particulars. It was only in this way that Plato could explain to himself how knowledge was possible: this universal Ens being the only object of knowledge: particulars being an indefinite variety of fleeting appearances, and as such in themselves unknowable. The imagination of Plato created a new world of Forms, Ideas, Concepts, or objects corresponding to general terms: which he represents as the only objects of knowledge, and as the only realities.
[Footnote 42: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 8, C-D, Euripides, Phoenissæ, 499--
[Greek: ei) pa=si tau)to\ kalo\n e)/phu, sopho/n th' a)/ma, ou)k ê)=n a)\n a)mphilekto\s a)nthrô/pois e)/ris; nu=n d' ou)th' o(/moion ou)de\n ou)/t' i)/son bro/tois, plê\n o)noma/sai; to\ d' e)/rgon ou)k e)/stin to/de].
Hobbes expresses, in the following terms, this fact of subjective similarity co-existent with great objective dissimilarity among mankind.
"For the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whoever looketh into himself and considereth what he does when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, &c., and upon what grounds, he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all men, desire, fear, hope, &c., not the similitude of the objects of the passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, &c., for these the constitution individual, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with lying, dissembling, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts." Introduction to Leviathan.]
[Footnote 43: Aristot. Metaphys. M. 1078, b. 30, 1086, b. 4.]
[Side-note: The Holy--it has an essential characteristic--what is this?--not the fact that it is loved by the Gods--this is true, but is not its constituent essence.]
In the Euthyphron, however, we have not yet passed into this Platonic world, of self-existent Forms--objects of conception--concepts detached from sensible particulars. We are still with Sokrates and with ordinary men among the world of particulars, only that Sokrates introduced a new mode of looking at all the particulars, and searched among them for some common feature which he did not find. The Holy (and the Unholy) is a word freely pronounced by every speaker, and familiarly understood by every hearer, as if it denoted something one and the same in all these particulars.[44] What is that something--the common essence or idea? Euthyphron cannot tell; though he agrees with Sokrates that there must be such essence. His attempts to explain it prove failures.
[Footnote 44: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 D, 6 E.]
The definition of the Holy--that it is what the Gods love--is suggested in this dialogue, but rejected. The Holy is not Holy because the Gods love it: on the contrary, its holiness is an independent fact, and the Gods love it because it is Holy. The Holy is thus an essence, per se, common to, or partaken by, all holy persons and things.
[Side-note: Views of the Xenophontic Sokrates respecting the Holy--different from those of the Platonic Sokrates--he disallows any common absolute general type of the Holy--he recognises an indefinite variety of types, discordant and relative.]
So at least the Platonic Sokrates here regards it. But the Xenophontic Sokrates, if we can trust the Memorabilia, would not have concurred in this view: for we read that upon all points connected with piety or religious observance, he followed the precept which the Pythian priestess delivered as an answer to all who consulted the Delphian oracle on similar questions--You will act piously by conforming to the law of the city. Sokrates (we are told) not only acted upon this precept himself, but advised his friends to do the like, and regarded those who acted otherwise as foolish and over-subtle triflers.[45] It is plain that this doctrine disallows all supposition of any general essence, called the Holy, to be discovered and appealed to, as type in cases of doubt; and recognises the equal title of many separate local, discordant, and variable types, each under the sanction of King Nomos. The procedure of Sokrates in the Euthyphron would not have been approved by the Xenophontic Sokrates. It is in the spirit of Plato, and is an instance of that disposition which he manifests yet more strongly in the Republic and elsewhere, to look for his supreme authority in philosophical theory and not in the constituted societies around him: thus to innovate in matters religious as well as political--a reproach to him among his own contemporaries, an honour to him among various subsequent Christian writers. Plato, not conforming to any one of the modes of religious belief actually prevalent in his contemporary world, postulates a canon, suitable to the exigencies of his own mind, of that which the Gods ought to love and must love. In this respect, as in others, he is in marked contrast with Herodotus--a large observer of mankind, very pious in his own way, curious in comparing the actual practices consecrated among different nations, but not pretending to supersede them by any canon of his own.
[Footnote 45: Compare Xen. Mem. i. 3, 1. [Greek: ê(/ te ga\r Puthi/a no/mô| po/leôs a)nairei= poiou=ntas eu)sebô=s a)\n poiei=n; Sôkra/tês te ou(/tôs kai\ au)to\s e)poi/ei kai\ toi=s a)/llois parê/|nei, tou\s de\ a)/llôs pôs poiou=ntas perie/rgous kai\ matai/ous e)no/mizen ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: The Holy a branch of the Just--not tenable as a definition, but useful as bringing to view the subordination of logical terms.]
Though the Holy, and the Unholy, are pronounced to be each an essence, partaken of by all the particulars so-called; yet what that essence is, the dialogue Euthyphron noway determines. Even the suggestion of Sokrates--that the Holy is a branch of the Just, only requiring to be distinguished by some assignable mark from the other branches of the Just--is of no avail, since the Just itself had been previously declared to be one of the matters in perpetual dispute. It procures for Sokrates however the opportunity of illustrating the logical subordination of terms; the less general comprehended in the more general, and requiring to be parted off by some differentia from the rest of what this latter comprehends. Plato illustrates the matter at some length;[46] and apparently with a marked purpose of drawing attention to it. We must keep in mind, that logical distinctions had at that time received neither special attention nor special names--however they may have been unconsciously followed in practice.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 12.]
[Side-note: The Euthyphron represents Plato's way of replying to the charge of impiety, preferred by Melêtus against Sokrates--comparison with Xenophon's way of replying.]
What I remarked about the Kriton, appears to me also true about the Euthyphron. It represents Plato's manner of replying to the charge of impiety advanced by Melêtus and his friends against Sokrates, just as the four first chapters of the Memorabilia represent Xenophon's manner of repelling the same charge. Xenophon joins issue with the accusers,--describes the language and proceedings of Sokrates, so as to show that he was orthodox and pious, above the measure of ordinary men, in conduct, in ritual, and in language; and expresses his surprise that against such a man the verdict of guilty could have been returned by the Dikasts.[47] Plato handles the charge in the way in which Sokrates himself would have handled it, if he had been commenting on the same accusation against another person and as he does in fact deal with Melêtus, in the Platonic Apology. Plato introduces Euthyphron, a very religious man, who prides himself upon being forward to prosecute impiety in whomsoever it is found, and who in this case, under the special promptings of piety, has entered a capital prosecution against his own father.[48] The occasion is here favourable to the Sokratic interrogatories, applicable to Melêtus no less than to Euthyphron. "Of course, before you took this grave step, you have assured yourself that you are right, and that you know what piety and impiety are. Pray tell me, for I am ignorant on the subject: that I may know better and do better for the future.[49] Tell me, what is the characteristic essence of piety as well as impiety?" It turns out that the accuser can make no satisfactory answer: that he involves himself in confusion and contradiction:--that he has brought capital indictments against citizens, without having ever studied or appreciated the offence with which he charges them. Such is the manner in which the Platonic Sokrates is made to deal with Euthyphron, and in which the real Sokrates deals with Melêtus:[50] rendering the questions instrumental to two larger purposes--first, to his habitual crusade against the false persuasion of knowledge--next, to the administering of a logical or dialectical lesson. When we come to the Treatise De Legibus (where Sokrates does not appear) we shall find Plato adopting the dogmatic and sermonising manner of the first chapters of the Xenophontic Memorabilia. Here, in the Euthyphron and in the Dialogues of Search generally, the Platonic Sokrates is something entirely different.[51]
[Footnote 47: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 4; also iv. 8, 11.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 E.]
[Footnote 49: Compare, even in Xenophon, the conversation of Sokrates with Kritias and Chariklês--Memorab. i. 2, 32-38: and his cross-examination of the presumptuous youth Glaukon, Plato's brother (Mem. iii. 7).]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Apol. c. 11, p. 24 C. [Greek: a)dikei=n phêmi\ Me/lêton, o(/ti spoudê=| charienti/zetai, r(a|di/ôs ei)s a)gô=nas kathista\s a)nthrô/pous], &c.]
[Footnote 51: Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 199) agrees with the opinion of Schleiermacher and Stallbaum, that the Euthyphron was composed and published during the interval between the lodging of the indictment and the trial of Sokrates. K. F. Hermann considers it as posterior to the death of Sokrates.
I concur on this point with Hermann. Indeed I have already given my opinion, that not one of the Platonic dialogues was composed before the death of Sokrates.]
END OF VOL. I.
************************************* Transcriber's Note
The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.
For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used: ) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript. ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta; ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.
Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **:
Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction Ch. 1, after fn. 47 devination divination Ch. 1, fn. 119 Kosmichen Kosmischen Ch. 1, fn. 146 mizta mixta Ch. 1, fn. 146 front fronte Ch. 1, fn. 164 & 8, Ch. 1, fn. 164 perie/chno perie/chon Ch. 1, fn. 214 2d 2nd. Ch. 2, after fn. 21 ultra phenomenal ultra-phenomenal Ch. 3, fn. 40 Taüschung Täuschung Ch. 3, fn. 64 vol. iii. vol. ii. Ch. 3, fn. 66 art act Ch. 3, fn. 185 Dion. Diog. Ch. 3, fn. 206 okêtê\neu)d eu)dokêtê\n Ch. 3, fn. 217 xxix. xxiv. Ch. 4, fn. 1 chap. xxii. chap. xxi. Ch. 5, fn. 24 de-describes describes Ch. 6, before fn. 14 blank space 4. Ch. 6, fn. 39 passed of : passed off: Ch. 6, fn. 45 the our the four Ch. 7, 3rd para. Hippias II. Hippias I. Ch. 7, fn. 8 409 429 Ch. 7, fn. 8 407 427 Ch. 7, fn. 13 Herman Hermann Ch. 8, fn. 92 s. 12, s. 11,
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