Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/864

Rh 852 SOCRATES. ceived indeed tliat the existence of something abso- lutely true and certain must be presupposed, but without investigating further what knowledge is and how it may be developed. It was the awakening of the idea of knowledge, and the first utterances of it, which made the philosophy of Socrates the turning-point of a new period, and gave to it its fructifying power. Before we inquire after the existence of things we must establish in our own minds the idea of them (Xen. Mem. iv. 6. § 1, 13, iv. 5. § 12 ; Plat. Apol p. 21, &c. ; Arist. Metaph. i. 6, de Part. Anim. i. 1, p. 642. 28); and for that reason we must come to an under- standing with ourselves respecting what belongs to man, before we inquire after the nature of things in general (Xen. Mem. i. 1. § 11, conip. 4. § 7 ; Arist. Metaph. i. 6, de Part. Anim. i. 1). Socrates accordingly takes up the inquiry respecting know- ledge in the first instance, and almost exclusively, in reference to moral action ; but he is so penetrated with a sense of the power of knowledge, that he maintains that where it is attained to, there moral action will of necessity be found ; or, as he ex- presses it, all virtue is knowledge (Xen. Mem. iii. 9. § 4, iv. 6 ; Plat. Protag. p. 329, &c. 349, &c.; Arist. Eth. Nic. vi. 13, iii. 11, Eth. Eudem. i. 5, iii. 1, Magn. Mor. i. 1, 35) ; for knowledge is always the strongest, and cannot be overpowered by appetite (Arist. Eth. Nicom. vii. 3, Eudem. vii. 13; Plat. Protag. p. 352, &c.). Therefore no man willingly acts wickedly (Arist. Magn. Mor. i. 9, comp. Xen. Mem. iii. 9. § 4, iv. 6. § 6, 11 ; Plat. Apol. p. 25, e. &c.) ; for will appeared to him to be inseparably connected with knowledge. But just as knowledge, as such, that is without regard to the diversity of the objects to which it is directed, is something single, so also he could admit only a single virtue (Xen. Mem. iii. 9. § 2 ; Arist. Ech. A'ic. iii. 1, Eudem. iii. 1) ; and as little could he recognise an essential diversity in the directions which virtue took, as in the practice of it by persons of different station and sex (Arist. Polit. i. 13). It may easily be conceived, therefore, that he did not venture to separate happiness from virtue, and that he expressly defined the former more accurately as good conduct (eu7rpa|ta) in dis- tinction from good fortune (eurux^a, Xen. Mem. iii. 9. § 14) ; a distinction in which is expressed the most important diversity in all later treatment of ethics, which sets down either a certain mode of lieing or acting^ as such, or else the mere enjoy- ment that results therefrom, as that which is in itself valuable. But how does knowledge develope itself in us ? In this way : the idea^ obtained by means of in- duction, as that which is general, out of the indi- vidual facts of consciousness, is settled and fixed by means of definition. Those are the two scientific processes, which, according to the most express testimonies of Aristotle and others, Socrates first discovered, or rather first pointed out (Arist, Met. xiii. 4 ; comp, Xen. Mem. iv. 6. § 1 ; Plat. Apol. p. 22, &c.) ; and although he did not attempt to develope a logical theory of them, but rather con- tented himself with the masterly practice of them, he may with good reason be regarded as the founder of the theory of scientific knowledge. Socrates, however, always setting out from what was immediately admitted (Xen. Mem. iv. 6. § 15), exercised this twofold process on the most different subjects, and in doing so was led to obtain an in- SOCRATES. sight into this or that one of them, not so much by the end in view as by the necessity for calling fortli self-knowledge and self-understanding. For this end he endeavoured in the first place, and chiefly, to awaken the consciousness of ignorance ; and in- asmuch as the impulse towards the development of knowledge is already contained in this, he maintains that he had been declared by the Delphic god to be the wisest of men, because he did not delude himself with the idea that he knew what he did not know, and did not arrogate to himself any wisdom (Plat. Apol. pp. 21, 25, Theaet. p. 150). To call forth distrust in pretended knowledge he used to exercise his peculiar irony, which, directed against himself as against others, lost all offensive poignancy (Plat, de Rep. i. p. 337, Si^mp. p. 216, Theaet. p. 150, Meno, p. 80 ; Xen. Mem. iv, 2). Convinced that he could obtain his object only by leading to the spontaneous search after truth, he throughout made use of the dialogical form (which passed from him to the most different ramifications of his school), and designates the inclination to supply one's deficiencies in one's own investigation by association with others striving to- wards the same end, as true love (Brandis, 6'esc/i. der griechisch-romischen Philos. ii. p. 64), But how- ever deeply Socrates felt the need of advancing in self-development with others, and by means of them, the inclination and the capability for wrap- ping himself up in the abstraction of solitary medita- tion and diving into the depths of his own mind, was equally to be found in him (Plat. Symp. pp. 174, 220). And again, side by side with his incessant endeavour thoroughly to understand himself there stood the sense of the need of illumination by a higher inspiration. This he was convinced was imparted to him from time to time by the mo- nitions or warnings of an internal voice, which he designated his Zaiixoviov. By this we are not to understand a personal genius, as Plutarch {de Genio Socratis, c. 20), Apuleius (de Deo Socrat. p. Ill, &c. ed, Basil,), and others, and probably also the accusers of Socrates, assumed ; as little was it the offspring of an enthusiastic phantasy, as moderns have thought, or the production of the Socratic irony, or of cunning political calculation. It Wiis rather the yet indefinitely developed idea of a divine revelation. (See especially Schleier- macher, in his translation of the works of Plato, L 2, p, 432, &c.) On that account it is always described only as a divine something, or a divine sign, a divine voice {a-q/j.^lov, (pwvri. Plat. Phaedr. p. 242, de Rep. vi. p, 406, Apol. p. 31, &c.). This voice had reference to actions the issue of which could not be anticipated by calculation, whether it manifested itself, at least immediately, only in the way of warning against certain actions (Flat, Apol. p. 31), or even now and then aa urging him to their performance (Xen. Mem. i. 4, iv. 3, § 12, &c,). On the other hand this daemo- nium was to be perceived as little in reference to the moral value of actions as in reference to sub- jects of knowledge. Socrates on the contrary ex- pressly forbids the having recourse to oracles on a level with which he places his daemonium, in reference to that which the gods have enabled men to find by means of reflection. (Xen. Mem. i. 1. § 6, &c.) Thus far the statements of Xenophon and Plato admit of being very well reconciled both with one another and with those of Aristotle. But this is