Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/254

 238 SOCRATES which aimed at producing upon readers the same effect which the voice of the master had produced upon hearers. For a time he was content thus to follow in the steps of Socrates, and of this period we have records in those dialogues which are commonly designated Socratic. But Plato had too decided a bent for metaphysics to linger long over propaedeutic studies. Craving knowledge not merely provisional and subjective knowledge of ethical concepts, such as that- which had satisfied Socrates, but knowledge of the causes and laws of the universe, such as that which the physicists had sought he asked himself what was necessary that the "right opinion " which Socrates had obtained by abstraction from particular instances might be converted into "knowledge" properly so called. Iii this way Plato was led to assume for every Socratic universal a corresponding unity, eternal, immutable, suprasensual, to be the cause of those particulars which are called by the common name. On this assumption the Socratic definition or statement of the "what" of the universal, being obtained by the inspection of particulars, in some sort represented the unity, form, or "idea" from which they derived their characteristics, and in so far was valuable ; but, inasmuch as the inspection of the particulars was partial and imperfect, the Socratic definition was only a partial and imperfect representation of the eternal, immutable, suprasensual idea. How, then, was the imperfect representation of the idea to be converted into a perfect representation ? To this question Plato's answer was vague and tentative. By constant revision of the provisional defini- tions which imperfectly represented the ideas he hoped to bring them into such shapes that they should culminate in the de- finition of the supreme principle, the Good, from which the ideas themselves derive their being. If in this way we could pass from uncertified general notions, reflections of ideas, to the Good, so as to be able to say, not only that the Good causes the ideas to be what they are, but also that the Good causes the ideas to be what we conceive them, we might infer, he thought, that our definitions, hitherto provisional, are adequate representations of real existences. But the Flatonism of this period had another ingredient. It has been seen that the Eleatic Zeno had rested his denial of plural- ity upon certain supposed difficulties of predication, and that they continued to perplex Antisthenes as well as perhaps Euclides and others of Plato's contemporaries. These difficulties must be dis- posed of if the new philosophy was to hold its ground ; and ac- cordingly, to the fundamental assertion of the existence of eternal immutable ideas, the objects of knowledge, Plato added two sub- ordinate propositions, namely, (1) "the idea is immanent in the particular," and (2) "there is an idea" wherever a plurality of particulars is called by the same name." Of these propositions the one was intended to explain the attribution of various and even inconsistent epithets to the same particular at the same time, whilst the other was necessary to make this explanation available in the case of common terms other than the Socratic universals. Such was the Platonism of the Republic and the Phaedo, a provi- sional ontology, with a scheme of scientific research, which, as Plato honestly confessed, was no more than an unrealized aspiration. It was the non- Socratic element which made the weakness of this the earlier theory of ideas. Plato soon saw that the hypothesis of the idea's immanence in particulars entailed the sacrifice of its unity, whilst as a theory of predication that hypothesis was in- sufficient, because applicable to particulars only, not to the ideas themselves. But with clearer views about relations and negations the paradox of Zeno ceased to perplex ; and with the consequent withdrawal of the two supplementary articles the development of the fundamental assumption of ideas, eternal, immutable, supra- sensual, might be attempted afresh. In the more definite theory which Plato now propounded the idea was no longer a Socratic uni- versal, perfected and hypostatized, but rather the perfect type of a natural kind, to which type its imperfect members were related by imitation, whilst this relation was metaphysically explained by means of a " thoroughgoing idealism " (R. D. Archer-Hind). Thus, whereas in the earlier theory of ideas the ethical universals of Socrates had been held to have a first claim to hypostatization in the world of ideas, they are now peremptorily excluded, whilst the idealism which reconciles plurality and unity gives an entirely new significance to so much of the Socratic element as is still retained. Plato's The growth of the metaphysical system necessarily influenced ethical Plato's ethical doctrines ; but here his final position is less remote theories, from that of Socrates. Content in the purely Socratic period to elaborate and to record ethical definitions such as Socrates himself might have propounded, as soon as the theory of ideas offered itself to Plato's imagination he looked to it for the foundation of ethics as of all other sciences. Though in the earlier ages both of the indi- vidual and of the state a sound utilitarian morality of the Socratic sort was useful, nay valuable, the morality of the future should, he thought, rest upon the knowledge of the Good. Such is the teaching of the Republic. But with the revision of the metaphysical system came a complete change in the view which Plato took of ethics and its prospects. "Whilst in the previous period it had ranked as the first of sciences, it was now no longer a science ; because, though Good absolute still occupied the first place, Good relative and all its various forms justice, temperance, courage, wisdom not being ideas, were incapable of being 'known." Hence it is that the ethical teaching of the later dialogues bears an in- telligible, though perhaps unexpected, resemblance to the simple practical teaching of the unpliilosophical Socrates. Yet throughout these revolutions of doctrine Plato was ever true to the Socratic theory of education. His manner indeed changed ; for, whereas in the earlier dialogues the characteristics of the master " The soft and intricate discourse, The wit that makes us tolerant perforce, The mystic legend, and the verse that drops As snowflakes shower on wintry forest tops, The questions working wedge-like to the proof, The threads of prayer from old religion's woof, The courteous skill of keen rebukes that chide The learner's folly and the sophist's pride" are studiously and skilfully preserved, in the later dialogues Socrates first becomes metaphysical, then ceases to be protagonist, and at last disappears from the scene. But in the later dialogues, as in the earlier, Plato's aim is the aim which Socrates in his con- versation never lost sight of, namely, the dialectical improvement of the learner. Bibliography. Of the histories of Greek philosophy enumerated in the article PARMENIDES the most important for the study of Socrates's life and work is teller's Philosophie d. Griechen. The part in question has been translated into English under the title of Socrates and the Socratic Schools, London, 1877. Schwegler'sGesc/iicftte d. griechischen Philosophie will also be found instructive. It is plainly impossible to supply here such a list of special treatises as is given by Ueberweg in his Grundrlss d. Geschichte d. Philosophie, and still more so to provide a complete bibliography. But the following sources of informa- tion may be mentioned : F. Schleiermacher, "Ueber d. Worth d. Sokrates als Philosophen," in Abh. d. Berliner Alcad. d. Wissensch., 1818, and Werke, iii., 2,287-308, translated into English byC. Thirlwall, in the Phil osnphiccd Museum, Cambridge, 1833, ii. 538-555 ; L. F. Lelut, Du Demon de Socrate, Paris, 1836, 1856, reviewed by E. Littre in Medecine et Medecins, Paris, 1872 ; G. Grote, History of Greece, ch. Ixviii., and Plato and tlie other Companions of Sokrates, London, 1865 ; C. F. Hermann, De Socratis accusatorib-us, Gottingen, 1854 ; W. H. Thompson, The Phesdrus of Plato, London, 1868, Appendix I. ; T. Wildauer, D. Psychologie d. Willens bei Sokrates, &c., Innsbruck, 1877. For the view taken in the present article with regard to the Sai(j.wioi>, see the writer's paper "On the Sa.ifj.6vtov of Socrates," in the Journal of Philology, v. ; and comp. Chr. Meiners, Vermischte philosophische Schriften, Leipsic, 1776 " in moments of 'Schwarmerei 1 Socrates took for the voice of an attendant genius what was in reality an instantaneous presentiment in regard to the issue of a contemplated act." For a fuller statement of the writer's view of Plato's relations to Socrates, see a paper on Plato's Jtejmllic, i. 509 D sq., in t]e,Journal of Philology, x., and a series of papers on " Plato's later Theory of Ideas," in vols. x., xi., xiii., xiv. of the same periodical. Comp. SOPHISTS and (by all means) ETHICS. (H. JA.) SOCRATES, church historian. In the course of the last twenty-five years (425-450) of the reign of Theodosius II. (the first thoroughly Byzantine emperor) at least six church histories were written in Greek within the limits of the Eastern empire, those, namely, of Philostorgius the Arian, of Philippus Sidetes, of Socrates, of Sozomen, of Theodoret, and of Hesychius. Of these the first, no longer extant except in fragments, seems to have been the most important. Those of Philip and of Hesychius (the former an untrustworthy and dreary performance) have also perished. The remaining three are now our main sources for church history from Constantino to Theodosius II. None of them has ventured upon a fresh treatment of the period dealt with by Eusebius ; all three begin their narratives about the point where his closes. In the West the Church History of that author had already been continued by Rufinus and his Chronicle by Jerome, and the work of Rufinus was certainly known to the Byzantines. Nor did these write independently of each other, for SOZOMEN (q.v.) certainly had before him the work of So- crates, and THEODOEET (q.v.) knew one or both of them. The three histories together became known in the West from the 6th century through the selection which Cassio- dorus caused to be made from them, and it is to this selec- tion (if we leave Rufinus and Jerome out of account) that the Middle Ages were mainly indebted for all they knew of the Arian controversies, and of the period generally between the councils of Nice and Ephesus. The 'EK/cAeo-iacrri/o/ 'Icrro/na of Socrates, still complete, in several books, embracing the period from 306 to 439, was written about, or at all events not later than, 440. He was born and brought up at Constantinople ; the date of his birth is uncertain, but it can hardly have been be- fore 385. Of the facts of his life we know practically nothing, except that he was not a cleric but a " scholas- ticus " or advocate. Of the occasion, plan, and object of