Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/440

 418 mSTCRY OF GREECE. Btruck out any novelties of his own. And in Plato's dialogue called " Parmenides," Sokrates appears as a young man full of ardor for the discussion of the Parmenidean theory, looking up with reverence to Parmenides and Zeno, and receiving from them instructions in the process of dialectical investigation. I have already, in the preceding chapter, 1 noted the tenor of that dialogue, as illustrating the way in which Grecian philosophy presents itself, even at the first dawn of dialectics, as at once negative and positive, recognizing the former branch of method DO less than the latter as essential to the attainment of truth. I construe it as an indication respecting the early mind of Sokrates, imbibing this conviction from the ancient Parmenides and the mature and practised Zeno, and imposing upon himself, as a con- dition of assent to any hypothesis or doctrine, the obligation of setting forth conscientiously all that could be said against it, not less than all that could be said in its favor : however laborious such a process might be, and however little appreciated by the multi- tude. 2 Little as we know the circumstances which went to form the remarkable mind of Sokrates, we may infer from this dialogue that he owes in part his powerful negative vein of dialectics tc " the double-tongued and all-objecting Zeno." 3 To a mind at all exigent on the score of proof, physical science as handled in that day was indeed likely to appear not only unsatisfactory, but hopeless ; and Sokrates, in the maturity of his life, deserted it altogether. The contradictory hypotheses which be heard, with the impenetrable confusion which overhung the .iubject, brought him even to the conviction, that the gods intend- ed the machinery by which they brought about astronomical and physical results to remain unknown, and that it was impious, aa remarked, we have here a good contemporary witness, Ion of Chios, to the fact of his intimacy with Archelans. In no other sense than this could a man like Sokrates be said to he the pupil of any one. 1 See the chapter immediately preceding, p. 472. 2 See the remarkable passage in Plato's Parmenides, p. 135. C to 136, E of which a portion has already been cited in my note to the preceding chap ter, referred to in the note above. 3 Timon the Sillographer ap. Diogen. Lae'rt. ix, 25. aov 6e fieya a-devof OVK uA.a7ra.Jvov KUVTUV t'TTiX^Trropof, etc.