Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/462

 440 HISTORY OF GREECE. reality " continues to reign, not without criticism and opposition, yet still as a paramount force. And if a new Sokrates were now to put the same questions in the market-place to men of all ranks and professions, he would find the like confident persuasion and unsuspecting dogmatism as to generalities ; the like faltering, blindness, and contradiction, when tested by cross-examining details. In the time of Sokrates, this last comparison was not open ; since there did not exist, in any department, a body of doctrine scientifically constituted : but the comparison which he actually took, borrowed from the special trades and professions, brought him to an important result. He was the first to see, and the idea pervades all his speculations, that as in each art or profession there is an end to be attained, a theory laying down the means and conditions whereby it is attainable, and precepts deduced from that theory, such precepts collectively taken directing and covering nearly the entire field of practice, but each precept separately taken liable to conflict with others, and therefore liable to cases of exception ; so all this is not less true, or admits not less of being realized, respecting the general art of human living and society. There is a grand and all-comprehensive End, the security and happiness, as far as practicable, of each and all persons in the society : * there may be a theory, laying 1 Xenoph. Memor. iv, 1, 2. 'ErEKuatpsTo (Sokrates) 6e ruf u QvGEtC, tic TOV Ta%v TE (iav&uvEiv oi Trpoa?x olV > Ka ^ ftvijfjtovEVEiv a uv fiu&oiev, Kal i'xi'&vuEiv TUV naftquuruv TTUVTUV, <5t' uv earlv oliciav re /caAdif OIKEIV Kal nofav, Kal rb o/lov uvdpuiroie re Kal uv&pu-ivoif Trpu-ypaaiv EV Toiif yap roiovTovf TjyeiTO TratfiEV&EVTaf OVK uv uovov avTovf re I roi)f eavruv OIKOVC /raP.cif OIKEIV, uA7.u Kal a A A ovf av& pun ove Kal iroAetf Sitvaadai Evtiaifiovaf -KOiijGai. Ib. iii, 2, 4. Kal oirwf snidKOTruv, riq slij dyatfou ^yc/iovof upETr/, TU jili 1 c/.Xa TTEpiypsi, Kare/let^-e f5e, rb evdalfiova^ iroisiv, uv uv iiyiirai. Ib iii, 8, 3, 4, 5 ; iv, 6, 8. He explains TO uyadbv to mean ro wfyi'Xiuov fiXpt 6s TOV u(p?iiuov TTUVTO Kal ai'Tbf avvETreaKOTTEi Kal avvfiieZysi rotf evvovai (iv, 7, 8). Compare Plato, Gorgias, c. 66, 67, p. 474, D ; 475, A. Tilings are called uya&a a? /caAd on the one hand, and KOKU Kal aiaxpll on the other, in reference each to its distinct end, of averting or mitigating in the one case, of bringing on or increasing in the other, different modes of human suffering. So again, iii, 9, 4, we find the phrases : a. SEI r/'-i-rt *y