In the Meno, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the
significant words:
'That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier
to do men harm than to do them good;' and Socrates was anticipating
another
opportunity of talking with him. In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting
his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to
put the world on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that
very
matter touching which Socrates is accused. An incident which may
perhaps
really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned Athenian
diviner
and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion.
This Euthyphro and Socrates are represented as meeting in the
porch
of the King Archon. Both have legal business in hand. Socrates is
defendant
in a suit for impiety which Meletus has brought against him (it is
remarked
by the way that he is not a likely man himself to have brought a suit
against
another); and Euthyphro too is plaintiff in an action for murder, which
he has
brought against his own father. The latter has originated in the
following
manner:--A poor dependant of the family had slain one of their domestic
slaves in Naxos. The guilty person was bound and thrown into a ditch by
the command of Euthyphro's father, who sent to the interpreters of
religion
at Athens to ask what should be done with him. Before the messenger
came
back the criminal had died from hunger and exposure.
This is the origin of the charge of murder which Euthyphro
brings against
his father. Socrates is confident that before he could have undertaken
the responsibility of such a prosecution, he must have been perfectly
informed
of the nature of piety and impiety; and as he is going to be tried for
impiety himself, he thinks that he cannot do better than learn of
Euthyphro
(who will be admitted by everybody, including the judges, to be an
unimpeachable
authority) what piety is, and what is impiety. What then is piety?
Euthyphro, who, in the abundance of his knowledge, is very
willing to
undertake all the responsibility, replies: That piety is doing as I do,
prosecuting your father (if he is guilty) on a charge of murder; doing
as the gods do--as Zeus did to Cronos, and Cronos to Uranus.
Socrates has a dislike to these tales of mythology, and he
fancies that
this dislike of his may be the reason why he is charged with impiety.
'Are
they really true?' 'Yes, they are;' and Euthyphro will gladly tell
Socrates
some more of them. But Socrates would like first of all to have a more
satisfactory answer to the question, 'What is piety?' 'Doing as I do,
charging
a father with murder,' may be a single instance of piety, but can
hardly
be regarded as a general definition.
Euthyphro replies, that 'Piety is what is dear to the gods,
and impiety
is what is not dear to them.' But may there not be differences of
opinion,
as among men, so also among the gods? Especially, about good and evil,
which have no fixed rule; and these are precisely the sort of
differences
which give rise to quarrels. And therefore what may be dear to one god
may not be dear to another, and the same action may be both pious and
impious;
e.g. your chastisement of your father, Euthyphro, may be dear or
pleasing
to Zeus (who inflicted a similar chastisement on his own father), but
not
equally pleasing to Cronos or Uranus (who suffered at the hands of
their
sons).
Euthyphro answers that there is no difference of opinion,
either among
gods or men, as to the propriety of punishing a murderer. Yes, rejoins
Socrates, when they know him to be a murderer; but you are assuming the
point at issue. If all the circumstances of the case are considered,
are
you able to show that your father was guilty of murder, or that all the
gods are agreed in approving of our prosecution of him? And must you
not
allow that what is hated by one god may be liked by another? Waiving
this
last, however, Socrates proposes to amend the definition, and say that
'what all the gods love is pious, and what they all hate is impious.'
To
this Euthyphro agrees.
Socrates proceeds to analyze the new form of the definition.
He shows
that in other cases the act precedes the state; e.g. the act of being
carried,
loved, etc. precedes the state of being carried, loved, etc., and
therefore
that which is dear to the gods is dear to the gods because it is first
loved of them, not loved of them because it is dear to them. But the
pious
or holy is loved by the gods because it is pious or holy, which is
equivalent
to saying, that it is loved by them because it is dear to them. Here
then appears to be a contradiction,--Euthyphro has been giving an
attribute
or accident of piety only, and not the essence. Euthyphro acknowledges
himself that his explanations seem to walk away or go round in a
circle,
like the moving figures of Daedalus, the ancestor of Socrates, who has
communicated his art to his descendants.
Socrates, who is desirous of stimulating the indolent
intelligence of
Euthyphro, raises the question in another manner: 'Is all the pious
just?'
'Yes.' 'Is all the just pious?' 'No.' 'Then what part of justice
is
piety?' Euthyphro replies that piety is that part of justice which
'attends'
to the gods, as there is another part of justice which 'attends' to
men.
But what is the meaning of 'attending' to the gods? The word
'attending,'
when applied to dogs, horses, and men, implies that in some way they
are
made better. But how do pious or holy acts make the gods any better?
Euthyphro
explains that he means by pious acts, acts of service or ministration.
Yes; but the ministrations of the husbandman, the physician, and the
builder
have an end. To what end do we serve the gods, and what do we help them
to accomplish? Euthyphro replies, that all these difficult questions
cannot
be resolved in a short time; and he would rather say simply that piety
is knowing how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and
sacrifices.
In other words, says Socrates, piety is 'a science of asking and
giving'--asking
what we want and giving what they want; in short, a mode of doing
business
between gods and men. But although they are the givers of all good, how
can we give them any good in return? 'Nay, but we give them honour.'
Then
we give them not what is beneficial, but what is pleasing or dear to
them;
and this is the point which has been already disproved.Socrates,
although
weary of the subterfuges and evasions of Euthyphro, remains unshaken in
his conviction that he must know the nature of piety, or he would never
have prosecuted his old father. He is still hoping that he will
condescend
to instruct him. But Euthyphro is in a hurry and cannot stay. And
Socrates'
last hope of knowing the nature of piety before he is prosecuted for
impiety
has disappeared. As in the Euthydemus the irony is carried on
to
the end.
INTRODUCTION TO THE
APOLOGY
by Benjamin Jowett
I. Introduction
In what relation the Apology of Plato stands to the real
defence of
Socrates, there are no means of determining. It certainly agrees in
tone
and character with the description of Xenophon, who says in the
Memorabilia
that Socrates might have been acquitted 'if in any moderate degree he
would
have conciliated the favour of the dicasts;' and who informs us in
another
passage, on the testimony of Hermogenes, the friend of Socrates, that
he
had no wish to live; and that the divine sign refused to allow him to
prepare
a defence, and also that Socrates himself declared this to be
unnecessary,
on the ground that all his life long he had been preparing against that
hour. For the speech breathes throughout a spirit of defiance, (ut
non
supplex aut reus sed magister aut dominus videretur esse judicum');
and the loose and desultory style is an imitation of the 'accustomed
manner'
in which Socrates spoke in 'the agora and among the tables of the
money-changers.'
The allusion in the Crito may, perhaps, be adduced as a further
evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts. But in the main it must
be regarded as the ideal of Socrates, according to Plato's conception
of
him, appearing in the greatest and most public scene of his life, and
in
the height of his triumph, when he is weakest, and yet his mastery over
mankind is greatest, and his habitual irony acquires a new meaning and
a sort of tragic pathos in the face of death. The facts of his life are
summed up, and the features of his character are brought out as if by
accident
in the course of the defence. The conversational manner, the seeming
want
of arrangement, the ironical simplicity,are found to result in a
perfect
work of art, which is the portrait of Socrates.
Yet some of the topics may have been actually used by
Socrates; and
the recollection of his very words may have rung in the ears of his
disciple.
The Apology of Plato may be compared generally with those
speeches
of Thucydides in which he has embodied his conception of the lofty
character
and policy of the great Pericles, and which at the same time furnish a
commentary on the situation of affairs from the point of view of the
historian.
So in the Apology there is an ideal rather than a literal
truth;
much is said which was not said, and is only Plato's view of the
situation.
Plato was not, like Xenophon, a chronicler of facts; he does not appear
in any of his writings to have aimed at literal accuracy. He is not
therefore
to be supplemented from the Memorabilia and Symposium
of
Xenophon, who belongs to an entirely different class of writers. The Apology
of Plato is not the report of what Socrates said, but an elaborate
composition,
quite as much so in fact as one of the Dialogues. And we may perhaps
even
indulge in the fancy that the actual defence of Socrates was as much
greater
than the
Platonic defence as the master was greater than the disciple. But in
any case, some of the words used by him must have been remembered, and
some of the facts recorded must have actually occurred. It is
significant
that Plato is said to have been present at the defence, as he is also
said
to have been absent at the last scene in the Phaedo. Is it
fanciful
to suppose that he meant to give the stamp of authenticity to the one
and
not to the other?--especially when we consider that these two passages
are the only ones in which Plato makes mention of himself. The
circumstance
that Plato was to be one of his sureties for the
payment of the fine which he proposed has the appearance of truth.
More suspicious is the statement that Socrates received the first
impulse
to his favourite calling of cross-examining the world from the Oracle
of
Delphi; for he must already have been famous before Chaerephon went to
consult the Oracle (Riddell), and the story is of a kind which is very
likely to have been invented. On the whole we arrive at the conclusion
that the Apology is true to the character of Socrates, but we cannot
show
that any single sentence in it was actually spoken by him. It breathes
the spirit of Socrates, but has been cast anew in the mould of Plato.
There is not much in the other Dialogues which can be compared
with
the Apology. The same recollection of his master may have been
present
to the mind of Plato when depicting the sufferings of the Just in the Republic.
The Crito may also be regarded as a sort of appendage to the Apology,
in which Socrates, who has defied the judges, is nevertheless
represented
as scrupulously obedient to the laws. The idealization of the sufferer
is carried still further in the Gorgias, in which the thesis is
maintained, that 'to suffer is better than to do evil;' and the art of
rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of
self-accusation.
The parallelisms which occur in the so-called Apology of
Xenophon
are not worth noticing, because the writing in which they are contained
is manifestly spurious. The statements of the Memorabilia
respecting
the trial and death of Socrates
agree generally with Plato; but they have lost the flavour of Socratic
irony in the narrative of Xenophon.
The Apology or Platonic defence of Socrates is divided into
three parts:
1st.The defence properly so called; 2nd. The shorter address in
mitigation
of the penalty; 3rd. The last words of prophetic rebuke and
exhortation.
II. Part One: Main Defense Speech
The first part commences with an apology for his colloquial
style; he
is, as he has always been, the enemy of rhetoric, and knows of no
rhetoric
but truth; he will not falsify his character by making a speech. Then
he
proceeds to divide his accusers into two classes; first, there is the
nameless
accuser--public opinion. All the world from their earliest years had
heard
that he was a corrupter of youth, and had seen him caricatured in the Clouds
of Aristophanes. Secondly, there are the professed accusers, who are
but
the mouth-piece of the others. The accusations of both might be summed
up in a formula. The first say, 'Socrates is
an evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the
earth and above the heaven; and making the worse appear the better
cause,
and teaching all this to others.' The second, 'Socrates is an evil-doer
and corrupter of the youth, who does not receive the gods whom the
state
receives, but introduces other new divinities.' These last words appear
to have been the actual indictment (compare Xen. Mem.); and the
previous
formula, which is a summary of public opinion, assumes the same legal
style.
The answer begins by clearing up a confusion. In the
representations
of the Comic poets, and in the opinion of the multitude, he had been
identified
with the teachers of physical science and with the Sophists. But this
was
an error. For both of them he professes a respect in the open court,
which
contrasts with his manner of speaking about them in other places.
(Compare
for Anaxagoras, Phaedo, Laws; for the Sophists, Meno,
Republic,
Tim., Theaet., Soph., etc.) But at the same time he shows that he
is
not one of them. Of natural philosophy he knows nothing; not that he
despises
such pursuits, but the fact is that he is ignorant of them, and never
says
a word about them. Nor is he paid for giving instruction--that is
another
mistaken notion:--he has nothing to teach. But he commends Evenus for
teaching
virtue at such a 'moderate' rate as five minae. Something of the
'accustomed
irony,' which may perhaps be expected to sleep in the ear of the
multitude,
is lurking here.
He then goes on to explain the reason why he is in such an
evil name.
That had arisen out of a peculiar mission which he had taken upon
himself.
The enthusiastic Chaerephon (probably in anticipation of the answer
which
he received) had gone to Delphi and asked the oracle if there was any
man
wiser than Socrates; and the answer was, that there was no man wiser.
What
could be the meaning of this--that he who knew nothing, and knew that
he
knew nothing, should be declared by the oracle to be the wisest
of
men? Reflecting upon the answer, he determined to refute it by finding
'a wiser;' and first he went to the politicians, and then to the poets,
and then to the craftsmen, but always with the same result--he found
that
they knew nothing, or hardly anything more than himself; and that the
little
advantage which in some cases they possessed was more than
counter-balanced
by their conceit of knowledge. He knew nothing, and knew that he knew
nothing:
they knew little or nothing, and imagined that they knew all things.
Thus
he had passed his life as a sort of missionary in detecting the
pretended
wisdom of mankind; and this occupation had quite absorbed him and taken
him away both from public and private affairs. Young men of the richer
sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, 'which was not unamusing.'
And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of knowledge had
revenged
themselves by calling him a villainous corrupter of youth, and by
repeating
the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and sophistry, which are
the stock-accusations against all philosophers when there is nothing
else
to be said of them.
The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who
is present
and can be interrogated. 'If he is the corrupter, who is the improver
of
the citizens?' (Compare Meno.) 'All men everywhere.' But how
absurd,
how contrary to analogy is this! How inconceivable too, that he should
make the citizens worse when he has to live with them. This surely
cannot
be intentional; and if unintentional, he ought to have been instructed
by
Meletus, and not accused in the court.
But there is another part of the indictment which says that he
teaches
men not to receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new
gods.
'Is that the way in which he is supposed to corrupt the youth?' 'Yes,
it
is.' 'Has he only new gods, or none at all?' 'None at all.' 'What, not
even the sun and moon?' 'No; why, he says that the sun is a stone, and
the moon earth.' That, replies Socrates, is the old confusion about
Anaxagoras;
the Athenian people are not so ignorant as to attribute to the
influence
of Socrates notions which have found their way into the drama, and may
be learned at the theatre. Socrates undertakes to show that Meletus
(rather
unjustifiably) has been compounding a riddle in this part of the
indictment:
'There are no gods, but Socrates believes in the existence of the sons
of gods, which is absurd.'
Leaving Meletus, who has had enough words spent upon him, he
returns
to the original accusation. The question may be asked, Why will he
persist
in following a profession which leads him to death? Why?--because he
must
remain at his post where the god has placed him, as he remained at
Potidaea,
and Amphipolis, and Delium, where the generals placed him. Besides, he
is not so overwise as to imagine that he knows whether death is a good
or an evil; and he is certain that desertion of his duty is an evil.
Anytus
is quite right in saying that they should never have indicted him if
they
meant to let him go. For he will certainly obey
God rather than man; and will continue to preach to all men of all
ages the necessity of virtue and improvement; and if they refuse to
listen
to him he will still persevere and reprove them. This is his way of
corrupting
the youth, which he will
not cease to follow in obedience to the god, even if a thousand deaths
await him.
He is desirous that they should let him live--not for his own
sake,
but for theirs; because he is their heaven-sent friend (and they will
never
have such another), or, as he may be ludicrously described, he is the
gadfly
who stirs the generous steed into motion. Why then has he never taken
part
in public affairs? Because the familiar divine voice has hindered him;
if he had been a public man, and had fought for the right, as he would
certainly have fought against the many, he would not have lived, and
could
therefore have done no good. Twice in public matters he has risked his
life for the sake of justice--once at the trial of the generals; and
again
in resistance to the tyrannical commands of the Thirty.
But, though not a public man, he has passed his days in
instructing
the citizens without fee or reward--this was his mission. Whether his
disciples
have turned out well or ill, he cannot justly be charged with the
result,
for he never promised to
teach them anything. They might come if they liked, and they might
stay away if they liked: and they did come, because they found an
amusement
in hearing the pretenders to wisdom detected. If they have been
corrupted,
their elder relatives
(if not themselves) might surely come into court and witness against
him, and there is an opportunity still for them to appear. But their
fathers
and brothers all appear in court (including 'this' Plato), to witness
on
his behalf; and if their relatives are corrupted, at least they are
uncorrupted;
'and they are my witnesses. For they know that I am speaking the truth,
and that Meletus is lying.'
This is about all that he has to say. He will not entreat the
judges
to spare his life; neither will he present a spectacle of weeping
children,
although he, too, is not made of 'rock or oak.' Some of the judges
themselves
may have complied with this practice on similar occasions, and he
trusts
that they will not be angry with him for not following their example.
But
he feels that such conduct brings discredit on the name of Athens: he
feels
too, that the judge has sworn not to give away justice; and he cannot
be
guilty of the impiety of asking the judge to break his oath, when he is
himself being tried for impiety.
III. Part Two: Proposal of Counter-Penalty
As he expected, and probably intended, he is convicted. And
now the
tone of the speech, instead of being more conciliatory, becomes more
lofty
and commanding. Anytus proposes death as the penalty: and what
counter-proposition
shall he make? He, the benefactor of the Athenian people, whose whole
life
has been spent in doing them good, should at least have the Olympic
victor's reward of maintenance in the Prytaneum. Or why should he
propose
any counter-penalty when he does not know whether death, which Anytus
proposes,
is a good or an evil? And he is certain that imprisonment is an evil,
exile
is an evil.
Loss of money might be an evil, but then he has none to give; perhaps
he can make up a mina. Let that be the penalty, or, if his friends
wish,
thirty minae; for which they will be excellent securities.
IV. Part Three: Socrates' Final Address
(He is condemned to death.) He is an old man already, and the
Athenians
will gain nothing but disgrace by depriving him of a few years of life.
Perhaps he could have escaped, if he had chosen to throw down his arms
and entreat for his life. But he does not at all repent of the manner
of
his defence; he would rather die in his own fashion than live in
theirs.
For the penalty of unrighteousness is swifter than death; that penalty
has already overtaken his accusers as death will soon overtake him.
And now, as one who is about to die, he will prophesy to them.
They
have put him to death in order to escape the necessity of giving an
account
of their lives. But his death 'will be the seed' of many disciples who
will
convince them of their evil ways, and will come forth to reprove them
in
harsher terms, because they are younger and more inconsiderate.
He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to
those who
would have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that the divine sign
never
interrupted him in the course of his defence; the reason of which, as
he
conjectures, is that the death to which he is going is a good and not
an
evil. For either death is a long sleep, the best of sleeps, or a
journey
to another world in
which the souls of the dead are gathered together, and in which there
may be a hope of seeing the heroes of old--in which, too, there are
just
judges; and as all are immortal, there can be no fear of any one
suffering
death for his opinions.
Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or
death, and
his own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was better for
him to depart; and therefore he forgives his judges because they have
done
him no harm, although they never meant to do him any good.
He has a last request to make to them--that they will trouble
his sons
as he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or
to think themselves something when they are nothing.
INTRODUCTION TO CRITO
by Benjamin Jowett
THE CRITO seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates
in one
light only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine
mission and trusting in the will of Heaven, but simply as the good
citizen, who having been unjustly condemned is willing to give
up his life in obedience to the laws of the State.
The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship
has been
seen off Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and
contemporary Crito, who visits him before the dawn has broken; he
himself
has been warned in a dream that on the third day
he must depart. Time is precious and Crito has come early in order
to gain his consent to a plan of escape. This can be easily
accomplished by his friends, who will incur no danger in making the
attempt to save him, but will be disgraced forever if they
allow him to perish. He should think of his duty to his children, and
not play into the hands of his enemies. Money is already
provided by Crito as well as by Simmias and others, and he will have
no difficulty in finding friends in Thessaly and other
places.
Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the
opinions
of the many: whereas, all his life long he has followed the
dictates of reason only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled
man. There was a time when Crito himself had allowed the
propriety of this. And although someone will say "The many can kill
us," that makes no difference; but a good life, that is to say
a just and honorable life, is alone to be valued. All considerations
of loss of reputation or injury to his children should be
dismissed: the only question is whether he would be right in attempting
to escape. Crito, who is a disinterested person, not
having the fear of death before his eyes, shall answer this for him.
Before he was condemned they had often held discussions, in which they
agreed that no man should either do evil, or return evil for evil, or
betray
the right. Are these principles to be altered because the circumstances
of Socrates are altered? Crito admits that they remain the same. Then
is
his escape consistent with the maintenance of them? To this Crito is
unable
or unwilling to reply.
Socrates proceeds: Suppose the laws of Athens to come and
remonstrate
with him: they will ask, "Why does he seek to
overturn them?" and if he replies, "They have injured him," will not
the laws answer, "Yes, but was that the agreement? Has he
any objection to make to them which would justify him in overturning
them? Was he not brought into the world and educated
by their help, and are they not his parents? He might have left Athens
and gone where he pleased, but he has lived there for
seventy years more constantly than any other citizen." Thus he has
clearly shown that he acknowledged the agreement which he cannot now
break
without dishonor to himself and danger to his friends. Even in the
course
of the trial he might have proposed exile as the penalty, but then he
declared
that he preferred death to exile. And whither will he direct his
footsteps?
In any well-ordered State the laws will consider him as an enemy.
Possibly
in a land of misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the
unseemly narrative of his escape regarded by the inhabitants as an
amusing
tale. But if he offends them he will have to learn another sort of
lesson.
Will he continue to give lectures in virtue? That would hardly be
decent.
And how will his
children be the gainers if he takes them into Thessaly, and deprives
them of Athenian citizenship? Or if he leaves them behind,
does he expect that they will be better taken care of by his friends
because he is in Thessaly? Will not true friends care for them equally
whether he is alive or dead?
Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of
life and
children afterwards. He may now depart in peace and innocence,
a sufferer and not a doer of evil. But if he breaks agreements, and
returns evil for evil, they will be angry with him while he lives; and
their brethren, the laws of the world below, will receive him as an
enemy.
Such is the mystic voice which is always
murmuring in his ears.
That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against
him during
his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later
ages. The crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been
his pupils, were still recent in the memory of the now
restored democracy. The fact that he had been neutral in the death
struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate popular
good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation, undertakes
the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not
to the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of
Crito
and the proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily
have invented far more than that; and in the selection of Crito, the
aged friend, as the fittest person to make the proposal to
Socrates, we seem to recognize the hand of the artist. Whether anyone
who has been subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment
is right in attempting to escape is a thesis about which casuists might
disagree. Shelley is of the opinion that
Socrates "did well to die," but not for the "sophistical" reasons which
Plato has put into his mouth. And there would be no
difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred
to a glorious death the good which he might still be able to
perform. "A skilful rhetorician would have had much to say about that"
(50 C). It may be remarked, however, that Plato never
intended to answer the question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the
ideal of patient virtue which refuses to do the least evil in
order to avoid the greatest, and to show Socrates, his master,
maintaining
in death the opinions which he had professed in his
life. Not "the world," but the "one wise man," is still the
philosopher's
paradox in his last hours.
INTRODUCTION TO THE
PHAEDO
by Benjamin Jowett
After an interval of some months or years, at Phlius a town of
Sicyon,
the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to Echecrates and
other
Phliasians by Phaedo the "beloved disciple." The Dialogue necessarily
takes
the form of a narrative, because Socrates has to be described acting as
well as speaking. The minutest particulars of the event are interesting
to distant friends, and the narrator has an equal interest in them.
During the voyage of the sacred ship to and from Delos, which
has occupied
thirty days, the execution of Socrates has been deferred. (Cp. Xen.
Mem.
iv. 8, 2.) The time has been passed by him in conversation with a
select
company of disciples. But now the holy season is over, and the
disciples
meet earlier than usual in order that they may converse with Socrates
for
the last
time. Those who were present, and those who might have been expected
to be present, are specially mentioned. There are Simmias and Cebes
(Crito
45b), two disciples of Philolaus whom Socrates "by his enchantments has
attracted from Thebes" (Mem. iii. 11, 17), Crito the aged friend, the
attendant
of the prison, who is as good as a friend, -- these take part in the
conversation. There are present also, Hermogenes, from whom Xenophon
derived his information about the trial of Socrates (Mem. iv. 8, 4);
the
"madman" Apollodorus (Symp.173d); Euclid and Terpsion from Megara (cp.
Theaet. sub init); Ctesippus, Antisthenes, Menexenus, and some other
less-known
members of the Socratic circle, all of whom are silent auditors.
Aristippus
and Plato are noted as absent. Soon the wife and children of Socrates
are
sent away, under the direction of Crito; he himself has just been
released
from chains, and is led by this circumstance to make the natural remark
that "Pleasure follows pain." (Observe that Plato is preparing the way
for his doctrine of the alternation of opposites.) "Aesop would have
represented
them in a fable as a two-headed creature of the gods." The mention of
Aesop
reminds Cebes of a question which had been asked by Evenus the poet
(cp.
Apol. 20a): "Why Socrates, who was not a poet, while in prison had been
putting Aesop into verse?" "Because several times in his life he had
been
warned in dreams that he should make music; and as he was about to die
and was not certain what was the meaning of this, he wished to fulfill
the admonition in the letter as well as in the sprit, by writing verses
as well as by cultivating philosophy. Tell Evenus this and bid him
follow
me in death." "He is not the sort of man to do
that, Socrates." "Why, is he not a philosopher?" "Yes." "Then
he will be willing to die, although he will not take his own life, for
that is held not to be right."
Cebes asks why men say that suicide is not right, if death is
to be
accounted a good? Well, (1) according to one explanation, because man
is
a prisoner, and is not allowed to open the door of his prison and run
away
-- this is the truth in a "mystery." Or rather, perhaps, (2) because
man
is not his own property, but a possession of the gods, and he has no
right
to make away
with that which does not belong to him. But why, asks Cebes, if he
is a possession of the gods, will he wish to die and leave them? for he
is under their protection; and surely he cannot take better care of
himself
than they take of him. Simmias explains that Cebes is really referring
to Socrates, whom they think too unmoved at the prospect of leaving the
gods and his friends.
Socrates answers that he is going to other gods who are wise and good,
and perhaps to better friends; and he professes that he is ready to
defend
himself against the charge of Cebes. They shall be his judges, and he
hopes
that he will be more successful in convincing them than he had been in
convincing the court.
The philosopher desires death -- which the wicked world will
insinuate
that he also deserves: and perhaps he does, but not in any sense which
they are capable of understanding. Enough of them: the real question
is,
What is the nature of that death which he desires? Death is the
separation
of soul and body -- and the philosopher desires such a separation. He
would
like to
be freed from the dominion of bodily pleasures and of the senses, which
are always perturbing his mental vision. He wants to get rid of eyes
and
ears, and with the light of the mind only to behold the light of truth.
All the evils and impurities and necessities of men come from the body.
And death separates him from these evils, which in this life he cannot
wholly cast aside. Why
then should he repine when the hour of separation arrives? Why, if
he is dead while he lives, should he fear that other death, through
which
alone he can behold wisdom in her purity?
Besides, the philosopher has notions of good and evil unlike
those of
other men. For they are courageous because they are afraid of greater
dangers,
and temperate because they desire greater pleasures. But he disdains
this
balancing of pleasures and pains; he knows no virtue but that which is
the companion of wisdom. All the virtues, including wisdom, are
regarded
by him
only as purifications of the soul. And this was the meaning of the
founders of the mysteries when they said, "Many are the wand-bearers,
but
few are the mystics." (Cp. Matt. xxii. 14: "Many are called, but few
are
chosen.") And in the hope that he is one of these mystics, Socrates is
now departing. This is his answer to those who charge him with
indifference
at the prospect of leaving the gods and his friends.
Still, a fear is expressed that the soul, upon leaving the
body, may
vanish away like smoke or air. Socrates in answer appeals first of all
to the old Orphic tradition that the souls of the dead are in the world
below, and that the living come from them. This he attempts to found on
a philosophical assumption that all opposites -- e.g. less, greater;
weaker,
stronger; sleeping, waking; life, death -- are generated out of each
other.
Nor can this process of generation be only a passage from living to
dying,
for then all would end in death. The perpetual sleeper (Endymion) would
be no longer distinguished, for all the world would sink in rest. The
circle
of nature is not complete unless the living come from the dead as well
as pass to them.
The favorite Platonic doctrine of reminiscence is then adduced
as a
confirmation of the pre-existence of the soul. Some proofs of this
doctrine
are demanded. One proof given is the same as that of the Meno (82a
foll.),
and is derived from the latent knowledge of mathematics, which may be
elicited
from an unlearned person when a diagram is presented to him. Again,
there is a power of association, which from seeing Simmias may remember
Cebes, or from seeing a picture of Simmias may remember Simmias. The
lyre
may recall the player of the lyre, and equal pieces of wood or stone
may
be associated with the higher notion of absolute equality. But here
observe
that material equalities fall short of the conception of absolute
equality with which they are compared, and which is the measure of
them. And the measure or standard must be prior to that which is
measured,
the idea of equality prior to the visible equals. And if prior to them,
then prior also to the perceptions of the senses which recall them, and
therefore either given before birth or at birth. But all men have not
this
knowledge, nor have any
without a process of reminiscence; and this is a proof that it is not
innate or given at birth (unless indeed it was given and taken away at
the same instant, which is absurd). But if not given to men in birth,
it
must have been given before birth -- this is the only alternative which
remains. And if we had ideas in a former state, then our souls must
have
existed and must have had
intelligence in a former state. The pre-existence of the soul stands
or falls with the doctrine of ideas.
It is objected by Simmias and Cebes that these arguments only
prove
a former and not a future existence. Socrates answers this objection by
recalling the previous argument, in which he had shown that the living
had come from the dead. But the fear that the soul at departing may
vanish
into air (especially if there is a wind blowing at the time) has not
yet
been charmed away. He proceeds: When we fear that the soul will vanish
away, let us ask ourselves what is that we suppose to be liable to
dissolution?
Is it the simple or the compound, the unchanging or the changing, the
invisible
idea or the visible object of sense? Clearly the latter and not the
former;
and therefore not the soul, which in her own pure thought is
unchangeable,
and only when using the senses descends into the region of change.
Again,
the soul commands, the body serves: in this respect too the soul is
akin
to the divine, and the body to the mortal. And in every point of view
the
soul is the image of divinity and immortality, and the body of the
human
and mortal. And whereas the body is liable to speedy dissolution, the
soul
is almost if not quite indissoluble. (Cp. Tim. 41a.) Yet even the body
may be preserved for ages by the embalmer's art; how much more the soul
returning into herself on her way to the good and wise God! She has
been
practicing death all her life long, and is now finally released from
the
errors and follies and passions of men, and forever dwells in the
company
of the gods.
But the soul which is polluted and engrossed by the corporeal,
and has
no eye except that of the senses, and is weighed down by the bodily
appetites,
cannot attain to this abstraction. In her fear of the world below she
lingers
about her sepulchre, a ghostly apparition, saturated with sense, and
therefore
visible. At length she enters into the body of some animal of a nature
congenial to her former life of sensuality or violence, and becomes
an ass or a wolf or a kite. And of these earthy souls the happiest are
those who have practiced virtue without philosophy; they are allowed to
pass into gentle and civil natures, such as bees and ants. (Cp. Rep.
619c; Meno 100a.) But only the philosopher who departs pure is
permitted
to enter the company of
the gods. This is the reason why he abstains from fleshly lusts, and
not from the fear of loss or disgrace, which are the motives of other
men.
He too has been a captive, and the willing agent of his own captivity.
But Philosophy has spoken to him, and he has heard her voice; she has
gently
entreated him, and brought his soul out of the "miry clay," and purged
away the mists of
passion and the illusions of sense which envelop her, and taught her
to resist the influence of pleasures and pains, which are like nails
fastening
her to the body. To that prison-house she will not return; and
therefore
she abstains from bodily pleasures -- not from a desire of having more
or greater ones, which is the exchange of commerce and not of virtue,
but
because she knows
that only in the calm of pleasures and passions she will behold the
light of truth.
Simmias and Cebes remain in doubt; but they are unwilling to
raise objections
at such a time. Socrates wonders at this. Let them regard him rather as
the swan, who, having sung the praises of Apollo all his life long,
sings
at his death more lustily than ever. (Cp. 60d.) Simmias acknowledges
that
there is cowardice in not probing truth to the bottom. "And if truth
divine
and inspired is not to be had, then let a man take the best of human
notions,
and upon this frail bark let him sail through life." He proceeds to
state
his difficulty: It has been argued that the soul is invisible and
incorporeal,
and therefore immortal, and prior to the body. But is not the soul
acknowledged
to be a harmony, and has she not the same relation to the body, as the
harmony-- which like her is invisible -- has to the lyre? And yet the
harmony
does not survive the lyre. Cebes has also an objection, which like
Simmias
he expresses in a figure. He is willing to admit that the soul is more
lasting than the body. But the more lasting nature of the soul does not
prove her immortality; for after having worn out many bodies in a
single
life, and many more in successive births and deaths, she may at last
perish,
or, as Socrates afterwards restates the objection, the very act of
birth
may be the beginning of her death, and the last body may survive the
last
soul, just as the coat of an old weaver is left behind him after he is
dead, although a man is more lasting than his coat. And he who would
prove
the immortality of the soul, must prove not only that the soul outlives
one or many bodies, but that she outlives them all.
The audience, like the chorus in a play, for a moment
interpret the
feelings of the actors; there is a temporary depression, and then the
inquiry
is resumed. It is a melancholy reflection that arguments, like men, are
apt to be deceivers; and those who have been often deceived become
distrustful
both of arguments and of friends. But this unfortunate experience
should
not make us either haters of men or haters of arguments. The hatred of
arguments is equally mistaken, whether we are going to live or die. At
the approach of death Socrates desires to be impartial, and yet he
cannot
help feeling that he has too great an interest in the truth of his own
argument. And therefore he wishes his friends to examine and refute
him,
if they think that he is not speaking the truth.
Socrates requests Simmias and Cebes to state their objections
again.
They do not go to the length of denying the pre-existence of ideas.
Simmias
is of opinion that the soul is a harmony of the body. But the admission
of the pre-existence of ideas, and therefore of the soul, is at
variance
with this. (Cp. a parallel difficulty in Theaet. 203a, 204a.) For a
harmony
is an effect, whereas the soul is not an effect, but a cause; a harmony
follows, but the soul leads; a harmony admits of degrees, and the soul
has no degrees. Again, upon the supposition that the soul is a harmony,
why is one soul better than another? Are they more or less harmonized,
or is there one harmony within another? But the soul does not admit of
degrees, and cannot therefore be more or less harmonized. Further, the
soul is often engaged in resisting the affections of the body, as Homer
describes Odysseus "rebuking his heart." Could he have written this
under
the idea that the soul is a harmony of the body? Nay, rather, are we
not
contradicting Homer and ourselves in affirming anything of the sort?
The goddess Harmonia, as Socrates playfully terms the argument
of Simmias,
has been happily disposed of; and now an answer has to be given to the
Theban Cadmus. Socrates recapitulates the argument of Cebes, which, as
he remarks, involves the whole question of natural growth or causation;
about this he proposes to narrate his own mental experience. When he
was
young he had puzzled himself with physics: he had inquired into the
growth
and decay of animals, and the origin of thought, until at last he began
to doubt the self-evident fact that growth is the result of eating and
drinking, and thus he arrived at the conclusion that he was not meant
for
such inquiries. Nor was he less perplexed with notions of comparison
and
number. At first he had imagined himself to understand differences of
greater
and less, and to know that ten is two more than eight, and the like.
But
now those very notions appeared to him to contain a contradiction. For
how can one be divided into two? or two be compounded into one?
Theseare
difficulties which Socrates cannot answer. Of generation and
destruction
he knows nothing. But he has a confused notion of another method
in which matters of this sort are to be investigated. (Cp. Rep. 435d;
533a;
Char. 170a foll.)
Then he heard some one reading out of a book of Anaxagoras,
that mind
is the cause of all things. And he said to himself: If mind is the
cause
of all things, mind must dispose them all for the best. The new teacher
will show me this "order of the best" in man and nature. How great had
been his hopes and how great his disappointment! For he found that his
new friend was anything but consistent in his use of mind as a cause,
and
that he soon introduced winds, waters, and other eccentric notions. It
was as if a person had said that Socrates is sitting here because he is
made up of bones and muscles, instead of telling the true reason --
that
he is here because the Athenians have thought good to sentence him to
death,
and he has thought good to await his sentence. Had his bones and
muscles
been left by him to their own ideas of right, they would long ago have
taken themselves off. But surely there is a great confusion of the
cause
and condition in all this. And this confusion also leads people into
all
sorts of erroneous theories about the position and motions of the
earth.
None of them know how much stronger than any Atlas is the power of the
best. But this "best" is still undiscovered; and in inquiring after the
cause, we can only hope to attain the second best.
Now there is a danger in the contemplation of the nature of
things,
as there is a danger in looking at the sun during an eclipse, unless
the
precaution is taken of looking only at the image reflected in the
water,
or in a glass. (Cp. Laws, 897d; Rep. 516a foll.) And I was afraid, says
Socrates, that I might injure the eye of the soul. I thought that I had
better return to the old and safe method of ideas. Though I do not mean
to say that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas
sees
only through a glass darkly, any more than he who contemplates actual
effects.
If the existence of ideas is granted to him, Socrates is of
opinion
that he will then have no difficulty in proving the immortality of the
soul. He will only ask for a further admission: that beauty is the
cause
of the beautiful, greatness the cause of the great, smallness of the
small,
and so on of other things. Thus he avoids the contradictions of greater
and less (greater by reason of that which is smaller!), of addition and
subtraction, and the other difficulties of relation. These subtleties
he
is for leaving to wiser heads than his own; he prefers to test ideas by
their consequences, and, if asked to give an account of them, goes back
to some higher idea or hypothesis which appears to him to be the best,
until at last he arrives at a resting-place. (Rep.510a foll.; Phil. 16a
foll.)
The doctrine of ideas, which has long ago received the assent
of the
Socratic circle, is now affirmed by the Phliasian auditor to command
the
assent of any men of sense. The narrative is continued; Socrates is
desirous
of explaining how opposite ideas may appear to coexist but not really
coexist
in the same thing or person. For example, Simmias may be said to have
greatness
and also smallness, because he is greater than Socrates and less than
Phaedo.
And yet Simmias is not really great and also small, but only when
compared
to Phaedo and Socrates. I use the illustration, says Socrates, because
I want to show you not only that ideal opposites excludeone another,
but
also the opposites in us. I, for example, having the attribute of
smallness
remain small, and cannot become great: the smallness in me drives out
greatness.
One of the company here remarked that this was inconsistent
with the
old assertion that opposites generated opposites. But that, replies
Socrates,
was affirmed, not of opposite ideas either in us or in nature, but of
opposite
things -- not of life and death, but of individuals living and dying.
When
this objection has been removed, Socrates proceeds: This doctrine of
the
mutual exclusion of opposites is not only true of the opposites
themselves,
but of things which are inseparable from them. For example, cold and
heat
are opposed; and fire, which is inseparable from heat, cannot coexist
with
cold, or snow, which is inseparable from cold, with heat. Again, the
number
three excludes the number four, because three is an odd number and four
is an even number, and the odd is opposed to the even. Thus we are able
to proceed a step beyond "the safe and simple answer." We may say, not
only that the odd excludes the even, but that the number three, which
participates
in oddness, excludes the even. And in like manner, not only that does
life
exclude death, but the soul, of which life is the inseparable
attribute,
also excludes death. And that of which life is the inseparable
attribute
is by the force of the terms imperishable. If the odd principle were
imperishable,
then the number three would not perish, but remove on the approach of
the
even principle. But the immortal is imperishable; and therefore the
soul
on the approach of death does not perish but removes.
Thus all objections appear to be finally silenced. And now the
application
has to be made: If the soul is immortal, "what manner of persons ought
we to be?" having regard not only to time but to eternity. For death is
not the end of all, and the wicked is not released from his evil by
death;
but every one carries with him into the world below that which he is
and
that which he becomes, and that only.
For after death the soul is carried away to judgment, and when
she has
received her punishment returns to earth in the course of ages. The
wise
soul is conscious of her situation, and follows the attendant angel who
guides her through the windings of the world below; but the impure soul
wanders hither and thither without a guide, and is carried at last to
her
own place, as the
pure soul is also carried away to hers. "In order that you may
understand
this, I must first describe to you the nature and conformation of the
earth."
Now the whole earth is a globe placed in the centre of the
heavens,
and is maintained there by the perfection of balance. That which we
call
the earth is only a small hollow, of which there are many; but the true
earth is above, and is a finer and subtler element, and is full of
precious
stones and bright colors, of which the stones and colors in our earth
are
but fragments and reflections, and the earth itself is corroded and
crusted
over just as the shore is by the sea. And if, like birds, we could fly
to the surface of the air, in the same manner that fishes come to the
top
of the sea, then we should behold the true earth and the true heaven
and
the true stars. This heavenly earth is of divers colors, sparkling with
jewels brighter than gold and whiter than any
snow, having flowers and fruits innumerable. And the inhabitants dwell,
some on the shore of the sea of air, others in "islets of the blest,"
and
they hold converse with the gods, and behold the sun, moon, and stars
as
they truly are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.
But the interior of the earth has other and deeper hollows,
and one
huge chasm or opening called Tartarus, into which vast streams of water
and fire are ever flowing to and fro, of which small portions find
their
way to the surface and form seas and rivers and volcanoes. There is a
perpetual
inhalation and exhalation of the air rising and falling as the waters
pass
into the depths
of the earth and return again, in their course forming lakes and
rivers,
but never descending below the centre of the earth, the opposite side
of
which is a precipice to the rivers on both sides. These rivers are many
and mighty, and there are four principal ones, Oceanus, Acheron,
Pyriphlegethon,
and Cocytus. Oceanus is the river which encircles the earth; Acheron
takes
an
opposite direction, and after flowing under the earth and in the desert
places at last reaches the Acherusian lake, and this is the river at
which
the dead await their return to earth. Pyriphlegethon is a stream of
fire,
which coils around the earth and flows into the depths of Tartarus. The
fourth river (Cocytus) is that which is called by the poets the Stygian
river, and falls into, and forms the lake Styx, receiving strange
powers
in the waters. This river, too, falls into Tartarus.
The dead are first of all judged according to their deeds, and
those
who are incurable are thrust into Tartarus, from which they never come
out. Those who have only committed venial sins are first purified of
them,
and then rewarded for the good which they have done. Those who have
committed
crimes, great indeed, but not unpardonable, are thrust into Tartarus,
but
are cast
forth at the end of the year on the shores of the rivers, where they
stand crying to their victims to let them come out, and if they
prevail,
then they are let out and their sufferings cease; if not, they are
borne
in a ceaseless whirl along the rivers of Tartarus. The pure souls also
receive their reward, and have their abode in the upper earth, and a
select
few in still fairer "mansions."
Socrates is not prepared to insist on the literal accuracy of
this description,
but he is confident that something of the kind is true. He who has
sought
after the pleasures of knowledge and rejected the pleasures of the
body,
has reason to be of good hope at the approach of death, whose voice is
already heard calling to him, and will be heard calling by all men.
The hour has come at which he must drink the poison, and not
much remains
to be done. How shall they bury him? That is a question which he
refuses
to entertain, for they are not burying him, but is dead body. His
friends
had once been sureties that he would remain, and they shall now be
sureties
that he has run away. Yet he would not die without the customary
ceremonies
of washing and burial. Shall he make a libation of the poison? In the
spirit he will, but not in the letter. One request he utters in the
very
act of death, which has been a puzzle to after ages. The puzzle has
been
occasioned by the simplicity of his words, for there is no reason to
suppose
that they have any hidden meaning. With a sort of irony he remembers
that
a trifling religious
duty is still unfulfilled, just as above (60e) he is represented as
desirous before he departs to make a few verses in order to satisfy a
scruple
about the meaning of a dream.
1. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has such a
great interest
for all mankind that they are apt to rebel against any examination of
the
nature of their belief. They do not like to acknowledge that this, as
well
as the other "eternal ideas" of man, has a history in time, which may
be
traced in Greek poetry or philosophy, and also in the Hebrew
Scriptures.
They convert
feeling into reasoning, and throw a net-work of dialectics over that
which is really a deeply-rooted instinct. In the same temper which
Socrates
reproves in himself (91b) they are disposed to think that even bad
arguments
will do no harm, for they will die with them, and while they live they
will gain by the delusion. But there is a better and higher spirit to
be
gathered from the Phaedo, as well as from the other writings of
Plato, which says that first principles should be most constantly
reviewed
(Phaedo 107b), and that the highest subjects demand of us the
greatest
accuracy (Rep. 504e).
2. Modern philosophy is perplexed at this whole question,
which is sometimes
fairly given up and handed over to the realm of faith. The perplexity
should
not be forgotten by us when we attempt to submit the Phaedo of Plato to
the requirements of logic. For what idea can we form of the soul when
separated
from the body? Or how can the soul be united with the body and still be
independent? Is the soul related to the body as the ideal to the real,
or as the whole to the parts, or as the subject to the object, or as
the
cause to the effect, or as the end to the means? Shall we say with
Aristotle,
that the soul is the entelechy or form of an organized living body? or
with Plato, that she has a life of her own? Is the Pythagorean image of
the harmony, or of the monad, the truer expression? Is the soul related
to the body as sight to the eye, or as the boatman to his boat? (Arist.
de Anim. ii. 1, 11, 12.) And in another state of being is the soul to
be
conceived of as vanishing into infinity, hardly possessing an existence
which she can call her own, as in the pantheistic system of Spinoza and
others? or as an individual spirit informed with another body and
retaining
the impress of her former character? (Cp. Gorg. 524b-c.) Or is the
opposition
of soul and body a mere illusion, and the true self neither soul nor
body,
but the union of the two in the "I" which is above them? And is death
the
assertion of this
individuality in the higher nature, and the falling away into
nothingness
of the lower? Or are we vainly attempting to pass the boundaries of
human
thought? The body and the soul seem to be inseparable, not only in
fact,
but in our conceptions of them; and any philosophy which too closely
unites
them, or too widely separates them, either in this life or in another,
disturbs the balance of human nature. Neither Plato nor any other
philosopher
has perfectly adjusted them, or been perfectly consistent with himself
in describing their relation to one another.
3. Again believing in the immortality of the soul, we must
still ask
the question of Socrates, "What is that which we suppose to be
immortal?"
Is it the personal and individual element in us, or the spiritual and
universal?
Is it the principle of knowledge or of goodness, or the union of the
two?
Is it the mere force of life which is determined to be, or the
consciousness
of self which cannot be got rid of, or the fire of genius which refuses
to be extinguished? Or is there a hidden being which is allied to the
Author
of all existence, who is because he is perfect, and to whom our ideas
of
perfection give us a title to belong? Whatever answer is given by us to
these questions, there still remains the necessity of allowing the
permanence
of evil, if not forever, at any rate for a time, in order that the
wicked
"may not have too good a bargain." For the annihilation of evil at
death,
or the eternal duration of it, seem to involve equal difficulties in
the
moral order of the universe. Sometimes we are led by our feelings,
rather
than by our reason, to think of the good and wise only as existing in
another
life. Why should the mean, the weak, the idiot, the infant, the herd of
men who have never in any proper sense the use of reason, reappear with
blinking eyes in the light of another world? But our second thought is
that the hope of humanity is a common one, and that all or none have a
right to immortality. Reason does not allow us to suppose that we have
any greater claims than others, and experience sometimes reveals to us
unexpected flashes of the higher nature in those whom we had despised.
Such are some of the distracting thoughts which press upon us when we
attempt
to assign any form to our conceptions of a future state.
4. Again, ideas must be given through something; and we are
always prone
to argue about the soul from analogies of outward things which may
serve
to embody our thoughts, but are also partly delusive. For we cannot
reason
from the natural to the spiritual, or from the outward to the inward.
The
progress of physiological science, without bringing us nearer to the
great
secret, has perhaps tended to remove some erroneous notions respecting
the relations of body and mind, and in this we have the advantage of
the
ancients. But no one imagines that any seed of immortality is to be
discerned
in our mortal frames. The result seems to be that those who have
thought
most deeply on the immortality of the soul, have been content to rest
their
belief on the agreement of the more enlightened part of mankind, and on
the inseparable connection of such a doctrine with the existence of a
God,
and our ideas of divine justice -- also in a less degree on the
impossibility
of thinking otherwise of those whom we reverence in this world. And
after
all has been said, the figure, the analogy, the argument, are felt to
be
only approximations in different forms to the expression of the common
sentiment of the human heart.
5. The Phaedo of Plato may also be regarded as a
dialectical
approximation to the truth of immortality. Beginning in mystery,
Socrates,
in the intermediate part of the Dialogue, attempts to bring the
doctrine
of a future life into connection with his theory of knowledge. In
proportion
as he succeeds in this, the individual seems to disappear in a more
general
notion of the soul; the
contemplation of ideas "under the form of eternity" takes the place
of past and future states of existence. His language may be compared to
that of some modern philosophers, who speak of eternity, not in the
sense
of perpetual duration of time, but as an ever-present quality of the
soul.
Yet at the conclusion of the Dialogue, having "arrived at the end of
the
intellectual world" (Rep.
532b), he replaces the veil of mythology, and describes the soul and
her attendant genius in the language of the mysteries or of a disciple
of Zoroaster. Nor can we fairly demand of Plato a consistency which is
wanting among ourselves, who acknowledge that another world is beyond
the
range of human thought, and yet are always seeking to represent the
mansions
of heaven or
hell in the colors of the painter, or in the descriptions of the poet
or rhetorician.
6. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not new to
the Greeks
in the age of Socrates, but, like the unity of God, had a foundation in
the popular belief. The old Homeric notion of a gibbering ghost
flitting
away to Hades; or of a few illustrious heroes enjoying the isles of the
blest; or of an existence divided between the two; or the Hesiodic, of
righteous spirits, who become guardian angels -- had given place in the
mysteries and the
Orphic poets to representations, partly fanciful, of a future state of
rewards and punishments. (Laws, ix. 870a.) The reticence of the Greeks
on public occasions and in some part of their literature respecting
this
"underground" religion, is not to be taken as a measure of the
diffusion
of such beliefs. If Pericles in the funeral oration is silent on the
consolations
of immortality, the poet Pindar and the tragedians on the other hand
constantly
assume the continued existence of the dead in an upper or under world.
Darius and Laius are still alive; Antigone will be dear to her brethren
after death; the way to the palace of Cronos is found by those who
"have
thrice departed from evil." The tragedy of the Greeks is not "rounded"
by this life, but is deeply set in decrees of fate and mysterious
workings
of powers beneath the earth. In the caricature of Aristophanes there is
also a witness to the common sentiment. The Ionian and Pythagorean
philosophies
arose, and some new elements were added to the popular belief. The
individual
must find an expression as well as the world. Either the soul was
supposed
to exist in the form of a magnet or of a particle of fire, or light, or
air, or water; or of a number or of a harmony of number; or to be or
have,
like the stars, a principle of motion (Arist. de Anim. i. 1, 2, 3). At
length Anaxagoras, hardly distinguishing between life and mind, or
between
mind human and divine, attained the pure abstraction; and this, like
the
other abstractions of Greek philosophy, sank deep into the human
intelligence.
The opposition of the intelligible and the sensible, and of God to the
world, supplied an analogy which assisted in the separation of soul and
body. If ideas were separable from phenomena, mind was also separable
from
matter; if the ideas were eternal, the mind that conceived them was
eternal
too. As the unity of God was more distinctly acknowledged the
conception
of the human soul became more developed. The succession, or alternation
of life and death, had occurred to Heraclitus. The Eleatic Parmenides
had
stumbled upon the modern thesis, that "thought and being are the same."
The eastern belief in transmigration defined the sense of
individuality;
and some, like Empedocles, fancied that the blood which they had shed
in
another state of being was crying against them, and that for thirty
thousand
years they were to be "fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth." The
desire
of recognizing a lost love or friend in the world below (Phaedo 68a) is
a natural feeling which, in that age as well as in every other, has
given
distinctness to the hope of immortality. Nor were ethical
considerations
wanting, partly derived from the necessity of punishing the greater
sort
of criminals, whom no avenging power of this world could reach. The
voice
of conscience, too, was heard reminding the good
man that he was not altogether innocent. (Rep. 330a.) To these
indistinct
longings and fears an expression was given in the mysteries and Orphic
poets: a "heap of books" (Rep. 364e), passing under the names of
Musaeus
and Orpheus in Plato's time, were filled with notions of an under
world.
7. Yet probably the belief in the individuality of the
soul after
death had but a feeble hold on the Greek mind. Like the personality of
God, the personality of man in a future state was not inseparably bound
up with the reality of his existence. For the distinction between the
personal
and impersonal, and also between the divine and human, was far less
marked
to the Greek than to ourselves. And as Plato readily passes from the
notion
of the good to that of God, he also passes, almost imperceptibly to
himself
and his reader, from the future life of the individual soul to the
eternal
being of the absolute soul. There has been a clearer statement and a
clearer
denial of the belief in modern times than is found in early Greek
philosophy,
and hence the
comparative silence on the whole subject which is often remarked in
ancient writers, and particularly in Aristotle. For Plato and Aristotle
are not further removed in their teaching about the immortality of the
soul than they are in their theory of knowledge.
8. That in an age when logic was beginning to mould human
thought, Plato
should have cast his belief in immortality into a logical form, is not
surprising. And when we consider how much the doctrine of ideas was
also
one of words, we cannot wonder that he should have fallen into verbal
fallacies:
early logic is always mistaking the truth of the form for the truth of
the matter. It is easy to see that the alternation of opposites is not
the same as the generation of them out of each other; and that the
generation
out of each other, which is the first argument in the Phaedo,
is
at variance with their mutual exclusion of each other, whether in
themselves
or in us, which is the last. For even if we admit the distinction which
he draws at 103a, between the opposites and the things which have the
opposites,
still individuals fall under the latter class; and we have to pass out
of the region of human hopes and fears to a conception of an abstract
soul
which is the impersonation of the ideas. Such a conception, which in
Plato
himself is but half expressed, is unmeaning to us, and relative only to
a particular stage in the history of thought. The doctrine of
reminiscence
is also a fragment of a former world, which has no place in the
philosophy
of modern times. But Plato had the wonders of psychology just
opening
to him, and he had not the explanation of them which is supplied by the
analysis of language and the history of the human mind. The question,
"Whence
come our abstract ideas?" he could only answer by imaginary hypothesis.
Nor is it difficult to see that his crowning argument is purely verbal,
and is but the expression of an instinctive confidence put into a
logical
form: "The soul is immortal because it contains a principle of
imperishableness."
Nor does he himself seem at all to be aware that nothing is added to
human
knowledge by his "safe and simple answer," that beauty is the cause of
the beautiful; and that he is merely reasserting the Eleatic being
"divided
by the Pythagorean numbers," against the Heraclitean doctrine of
perpetual
generation. The answer to the "very serious question" of generation and
destruction is really the denial of them. For this he would substitute,
as in the Republic, a system of ideas, tested not by experience, but by
their consequences, and not explained by actual causes, but by a
higher,
that is, more general notion: consistency with themselves is all that
is
required of them. (Rep. 510a foll., and Phaedo 101a foll.)
9. To deal fairly with such arguments they should not only not
be separated
from the age to which they belong, but they should be translated as far
as possible into their modern equivalents. "If the ideas of men are
eternal,
their souls are eternal, and if not the ideas, then not the souls.'
Such
an argument stands nearly in the same relation to Plato and his age, as
the argument from the existence of God to immortality among ourselves.
"If God exists, then the soul exists after death; and if there is no
God,
there is no existence of the soul after death." For the ideas are to
his
mind the reality, the truth, the principle of permanence, as well as of
mind and order in the world. When Simmias and Cebes say that they are
more
strongly persuaded of the existence of ideas than they are of the
immortality
of the soul, they represent fairly enough the order of thought in Greek
philosophy. And we might say in the same way that we are more certain
of
the existence of God than we are of the immortality of the soul, and
are
led by the belief in the one to the belief in the other. The parallel,
as Socrates would say, is not perfect, but agrees in as far as the mind
in either case is regarded, as dependent on something above and beyond
herself. Nor need we shrink from pressing the analogy one step further:
"We are more certain of our ideas of truth and right than we are of the
existence of God, and are led on in the
order of thought from one to the other."
10. The main argument of the Phaedo is derived from the
existence of
eternal ideas of which the soul is a partaker; the other argument of
the
alteration of opposites is replaced by this. And there have not been
wanting
philosophers of the idealist school who have imagined that the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul is a theory of knowledge only, and that
in all that precedes Plato is preparing for this. Such a view is far
from
lying of the surface of the Phaedo, and seems to be
inconsistent
with the Gorgias and the Republic. Those who maintain
it
are immediately compelled to renounce the shadow which they have
grasped,
as a play of words only. But the truth is that Plato in his argument
for
the immortality of the soul has collected many
elements of proof or persuasion, ethical and mythological as well as
dialectical, which are not easily to be reconciled with one another;
and
he is as much in earnest about his doctrine of retribution, which is
repeated
in all his more ethical writings, as about his theory of knowledge. And
while we may fairly translate the dialectical into the language of the
Hegel, and the religious
and mythological into the language of Dante or Bunyan, the ethical
speaks to us still in the same voice, reaching across the ages.
11. Two arguments of this sort occur in the Phaedo. The first
may be
described as the aspiration of the soul after another sort of being.
Like
the Oriental or Christian ascetic, the philosopher is seeking to
withdraw
from impurities of sense, to leave the world and the things of the
world,
and to find his higher self. Plato recognizes in these aspirations the
foretaste of immortality; as Butler and Addison in modern times have
argued,
the one from the moral tendencies of mankind, the other from the
progress
of the soul towards perfection. In using this argument Plato has
certainly
confused the soul which has left the body, with the soul of the good
and
wise. (Cp. Rep. 611c.) Such a confusion was natural, and arose partly
out
of the antithesis of soul and body. The soul in her own essence, and
the
soul "clothed upon" with virtues and graces, were easily interchanged
with
one another, because on a subject which passes expression the
distinctions
of language can hardly be maintained.
12. The other ethical proof of the immortality of the soul is
derived
from the necessity of retribution. The wicked would be too well off if
their evil deeds came to an end. It is not to be supposed than an
Ardiaeus,
an Archelaus, an Ismenias could ever have suffered the penalty of their
crimes in this world. The manner in which this retribution is
accomplished
Plato represents under the figure of mythology. Doubtless he felt that
it was easier to improve than to invent, and that in religion
especially
the traditional form was required in order to give verisimilitude to
the
myth. The myth too is far more probable to that age than to ours, and
may
fairly be regarded as "one guess among many" about the nature of the
earth,
which he cleverly supports by the indications of geology. Not that he
insists
on the absolute truth of his own particular notions: "no man of sense
will
be confident of that; but he will be confident that something of the
kind
is true" (114d). As in other passages (Gorg. 527a. Tim. 29d; cp. Phaedo
107b), he wins belief for his fictions by the moderation of his
statements;
he does not, like Dante or Swedenborg, allow himself to be deceived by
his own creations.
The Dialogue must be read in the light of the situation. And
first of
all we are struck by the calmness of the scene. Like the spectators at
the time, we cannot pity Socrates; his mien and his language are so
noble
and fearless. He is the same as he ever was, but milder and gentler,
and
he has in no degree lost his interest in dialectics; the argument is
the
greatest gain to him,
and he will not forego the delight of it in compliance with the
jailer's
intimation that he should not heat himself with talking. Some other
traits
of his character may be noted; for example, the courteous manner in
which
he inclines his head to the last objector, or the ironical touch, "Me
already,
as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls;" or the
depreciation
of the arguments with which "he comforted himself and them;" or the
allusion
to the possibility of finding another teacher among barbarous races
(cp.
Polit. 262d); or the mysterious reference to another science
(mathematics?)
of generation and destruction for which he is vainly feeling. There is
no change in him; only now he is invested with a sort of sacred
character,
as the prophet or priest of Apollo the God of the festival, in whose
honor
he first of all composes a hymn, and then like the swan pours forth his
dying lay. Perhaps the extreme elevation of Socrates above his own
situation,
and the ordinary interests of life (compare his jeu d' esprit
about his burial) create in the mind of the reader an impression
stronger
than could be derived from arguments that such a one, in his own
language,
has in him "a principle which does not admit of death."
The other persons of the Dialogue may be considered under two
heads:
(1) private friends; (2) the respondents in the argument.
First there is Crito, who has been already introduced to us in
the Euthydemus
and the Crito; he is the equal in years of Socrates, and stands in
quite
a different relation to him from his younger disciples. He is a man of
the world who is rich and prosperous (cp. the jest in the Euthydemus
304c), the best friend of Socrates, who wants to know his last
commands,
in
whose presence he talks to his family, and who performs the last duty
of closing his eyes. It is observable too that, as in the Euthydemus,
Crito
shows no aptitude for philosophical discussions. Nor among the friends
of Socrates must the jailer be forgotten, who seems to have been
introduced
by Plato in order to show the impression made by the extraordinary man
on
the common. The gentle nature of the man is indicated by his weeping
at the announcement of his errand and then turning away, and also by
the
words of Socrates to his disciples: "How charming the man is! since I
have
been in prison he was always coming to me, and has been as good as
could
be to me." We are reminded too that he has retained this gentle nature
amid
scenes of death and violence by the contrasts which he draws between
the behavior of Socrates and of others when about to die.
Another person who takes no part in the philosophical
discussion is
the excitable Apollodorus, the same who, in the Symposium, of which he
is the narrator, is called "the madman," and who testifies his grief by
the most violent emotions. Phaedo is also present, the "beloved
disciple"
as he may be termed, who is described, if not "leaning on his bosom,"
as
seated next to Socrates, who is playing with his hair. At a particular
point the argument is described as falling before the attack of
Simmias.
A sort of despair is introduced in the minds of the company. The effect
of this is heightened by the description of Phaedo, who has been the
eye-witness
of the scene, and by the sympathy of his Phliasian auditors, who are
beginning
to think "that they too can never trust an argument again." Like
Apollodorus,
Phaedo himself takes no part in the argument. But the calmness of his
behavior,
"veiling his face" when he can no longer contain his tears, contrasts
with
the passionate cries of the other.
The two principal interlocutors are Simmias and Cebes, the
disciples
of Philolaus the Pythagorean philosopher of Thebes. Simmias is
described
in the Phaedrus (242b) as fonder of an argument than any man living;
and
Cebes, although finally persuaded by Socrates, is said to be the most
incredulous
of human beings. It is Cebes who at the commencement of the
Dialogue raises the question why "suicide is unlawful," and who
first supplies the doctrine of recollection as a confirmation of the
argument
of the pre-existence of the soul. It is Cebes who urges that the
pre-existence
does not necessarily involve the future existence of the soul, and who
brings forward the argument of the weaver and his coat. To Simmias, on
the other hand, is
attributed the notion that the soul is a harmony, which is naturally
put into the mouth of a Pythagorean disciple. It is Simmias, too, who
first
remarks on the uncertainty of human knowledge, and only at last
concedes
to the argument such a qualified approval as is consistent with the
feebleness
of the human faculties.
There is no proof that the conversation was ever actually
held, and
the place of the Dialogue in the series is doubtful. The doctrine of
ideas
is certainly carried beyond the Socratic point of view; in no other of
the writings of Plato is the theory of them so completely developed.
Whether
the belief in immortality can be attributed to Socrates or not is
uncertain;
the silence of
the Memorabilia, and of the earlier Dialogues of Plato, is an argument
to the contrary. Yet in the Cyropaedia Xenophon (viii. 7, 19 foll.) has
put language into the mouth of the dying Cyrus which recalls the
Phaedo,
and may perhaps have been derived from the teaching of Socrates.
The Phaedo, as has been already intimated, is not one
of the
Socratic Dialogues of Plato; nor, on the other hand, can it be assigned
to that later period of the Platonic writings at which the ideas appear
to be forgotten. Without pretending to determine the real time of
composition,
the Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Phaedo, and Symposium may
be
conveniently read by us in this
order as illustrative of the life of Socrates. Another chain may be
formed of the Meno, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, in which the
immortality
of the soul is connected with the doctrine of ideas. In the Meno
the theory of ideas is based on the ancient belief in transmigration,
which
reappears again in the Phaedrus, as well as in the Republic
and Timaeus, and in all of them is connected
with a doctrine of retribution. In the Phaedrus the immortality of
the soul is supposed to rest on the conception of the soul as a
principle
of motion, whereas in the Republic the argument turns on the
natural
continuance of the soul, which, if not destroyed by her own proper
evil,
can hardly be destroyed by any other. The soul of man in the Timaeus
(42a
foll.) is derived from
the Supreme Creator, and either returns after death to her kindred
star, or descends into the lower life of an animal. The Apology
expresses the same view as the Phaedo, but with less
confidence;
the probability of death being a long sleep is not excluded. The Theaetetus
also describes, in a digression, the desire of the soul to fly away and
be with God -- "and to fly to
him is to be like him" (176b). Lastly, the Symposium may be
observed to resemble as well as to differ from the Phaedo. While
the first notion of immortality is only in the way of natural
procreation
or of posthumous fame and glory, the higher vision of beauty, like the
good in the Republic, is the vision of the eternal idea. So
deeply
rooted in Plato's mind is the belief in immortality; so various are the
forms of expression which he employs.
Some elements of the drama may be noted in all the Dialogues of Plato.
The Phaedo is the tragedy of which Socrates is the protagonist and
Simmias
and Cebes the secondary performers. No Dialogue has a greater unity of
subject and feeling. Plato has certainly fulfilled the condition of
Greek,
or rather of all art, which requires that scenes of death and suffering
should be clothed in beauty. The gathering of the friends at the
commencement
of the Dialogue, the dejection of the audience at the temporary
overthrow
of the argument, the picture of Socrates playing with the hair of
Phaedo,
the final scene in which Socrates alone retains his composure -- are
masterpieces
of art. The chorus at the end might have interpreted the feeling of the
play: "There can no evil happen to a good man in life or death." |