Page:The Republic by Plato.djvu/39

Rh who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. “Mem.” i. 4; “Phædo” 97); and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the “Memorabilia” (“Mem.” i. 2, 51 foll.). The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But anyone can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of inquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown (iv. 432 C), and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another (v. 474 A; cp. 389 A).

Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to the disciple Glaucon in the “Republic” (x. 608 D; cp. vi. 498 D, E; “Apol.” 40, 41); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the dæmonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself (vi. 496 C). A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the “Republic” than in any of the other dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration (τὰ φορτικὰ αὐτῷ προσφέροντες, iv. 442 E): “Let us apply the test of common instances.” “You,” says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, “are so unaccustomed to speak in images.” And this use of examples, or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of