No More Learning

When the generals whom you chose to command me, Athe nians, placed me at my post at Potidaea, and at Amphipolis, and
94 THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES.
at Delium, I remained where they placed me, and ran the risk of death, like other men : and it would be very strange conduct on my part if I were to desert my post now from fear of death or of any other thing, when God has commanded me, as I am persuaded that he has done, to spend my life in searching for wisdom, and in examining myself and others. That would in deed be a very strange thing : and then certainly I might with justice be brought to trial for not believing in the gods : for I should be disobeying the oracle, and fearing death, and thinking myself wise, when I was not wise. For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise : for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them : but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know ? In this matter too, my friends, perhaps I am different from the mass of mankind : and if I were to claim to be at all wiser than others, it would be because I do not think that I have any clear knowledge about the other world, when, in fact, I have none. But I do know very well that it is evil and base to do wrong, and to disobey my superior, whether he be man or god. And I will never do what I know to be evil, and shrink in fear from what, for all that I can tell, may be a good. And so, even if you acquit me now, and do not listen to Anytus' argument that, if I am to be acquitted, I ought never to have been brought to trial at all ; and that, as it is, you are bound to put me to death, because, as he said, if I escape, all your children will forthwith be utterly corrupted by practicing what Socrates teaches ; if you were therefore to say to me, " Socrates, this time we will not listen to Anytus : we will let you go ; but on this condition, that you cease from carrying on this search of yours, and from philosophy ; " if you are found following those pursuits again, you shall die : I say, if you offered to let me go on these terms, I should reply: "Athenians, I hold you in the highest regard and love ; but I will obey God rather than you : and as long as I have breath and strength I will not cease from philosophy, and from exhorting you, and declaring the truth to every one of you whom I meet, saying, as I am wont, ' My excellent friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for wisdom and power of mind ; are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money,
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and for reputation, and for honor ? Will you not think or care about wisdom, and truth, and the perfection of your soul ? ' "
And if he disputes my words, and says that he does care about these things, I shall not forthwith release him and go away: I shall question him and cross-examine him and test him : and if I think that he has not virtue, though he says that he has, I shall reproach him for setting the lower value on the most important things, and a higher value on those that are of less account. This I shall do to every one whom I meet, young or old, citizen or stranger : but more especially to the citizens, for they are more nearly akin to me.
For, know well, God has commanded me to do so. And I think that no better piece of fortune has ever befallen you in Athens than my service to God. For I spend my whole life in going about and persuading you all to give your first and chiefest care to the perfection of your souls, and not till you have done that to think of your bodies, or your wealth ; and telling you that virtue does not come from wealth, but that wealth, and every other good thing which men have, whether in public, or in private, comes from virtue. If then I corrupt the youth by this teaching, the mischief is great : but if any man says that I teach anything else, he speaks falsely. And therefore, Athe nians, I say, either listen to Anytus, or do not listen to him : either acquit me, or do not acquit me : but be sure that I shall notaltermywayoflife; no,notifIhavetodieforitmany times.
[If the Athenians put him to death, they will harm them selves more than him. The city is like a great and noble horse rendered sluggish by its size and needing to be roused. He was the gadfly sent by God to attack it. He explains why he has not taken part in public life. If he had done so, he would have perished without benefiting the city, because no one could make him do wrong through fear of death. His con duct on two occasions shows this. ]
Well, my friends, this, together it may be with other things of the same nature, is pretty much what I have to say in my defense. There may be some one among you who will be vexed when he remembers how, even in a less important trial than this, he prayed and entreated the judges to acquit him with many tears, and brought forward his children and many of his friends and relatives in Court, in order to appeal to your feelings ; and then finds that I shall do none of these things,
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THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES.
though I am in what he would think the supreme danger. Perhaps he will harden himself against me when he notices this : it may make him angry, and he may give his vote in anger. If it is so with any of you — I do not suppose that it is, but in case it should be so — I think that I should answer him reasonably if I said : —
"My friend, I have kinsmen too, for, in the words of Homer, ' I am not born of stocks and stones,' but of woman ; " and so, Athenians, I have kinsmen, and I have three sons, one of them a lad, and the other two still children. Yet I will not bring any of them forward before you, and implore you to acquit me.
And why will I do none of these things? It is not from arrogance, Athenians, nor because I hold you cheap : whether or no I can face death bravely is another question : but for my own credit, and for your credit, and for the credit of our city, I do not think it well, at my age, and with my name, to do any thing of that kind. Rightly or wrongly, men have made up their minds that in some way Socrates is different from the mass of mankind. And it will be a shameful thing if those of you who are thought to excel in wisdom, or in bravery, or in any other virtue, are going to act in this fashion. I have often seen men with a reputation behaving in a strange way at their trial, as if they thought it a terrible fate to be killed, and as if they expected to live forever, if you did not put them to death. Such men seem to me to bring discredit on the city : for any stranger would suppose that the best and most eminent Athe nians, who are selected by their fellow-citizens to hold office, and for other honors, are no better than women. Those of you, Athenians, who have any reputation at all, ought not to do these things : and you ought not to allow us to do them : you should show that you will be much more merciless to men who make the city ridiculous by these pitiful pieces of acting, than
to men who remain quiet.
But apart from the question of credit, my friends, I do not
think that it is right to entreat the judge to acquit us, or to escape condemnation in that way. It is our duty to convince his mind by reason. He does not sit to give away justice to his friends, but to pronounce judgment : and he has sworn not to favor any man whom he would like to favor, but to decide questions according to law. And therefore we ought not to teach you to forswear yourselves ; and you ought not to allow
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yourselves to be taught, for then neither you nor we would be acting righteously. Therefore, Athenians, do not require me to do these things, for I believe them to be neither good nor just nor holy ; and, more especially, do not ask me to do them to-day, when Meletus is prosecuting me for impiety. For were I to be successful, and to prevail on you by my prayers to break your oaths, I should be clearly teaching you to believe that there are no gods ; and I should be simply accusing my self by my defense of not believing in them. But, Athenians, that is very far from the truth. I do believe in the gods as no one of my accusers believes in them : and to you and to God I commit my cause to be decided as is best for you and for me.
(He is found guilty by 281 votes to 220. )
I am not vexed at the verdict which you have given, Athe nians, for many reasons. I expected that you would find me guilty ; and I am not so much surprised at that, as at the numbers of the votes. I, certainly, never thought that the majority against me would have been so narrow. But now it seems that if only thirty votes had changed sides, I should have escaped.
[Meletus proposes the penalty of death. The law allows a convicted criminal to propose an alternative penalty instead. As he is a public benefactor, Socrates thinks that he ought to have a public maintenance in the Prytaneum, like an Olympic victor. Seriously, why should he propose a penalty? He is sure that he has done no wrong. He does not know whether death is a good or an evil. Why should he propose something that he knows to be an evil? Indeed, payment of a fine would be no evil, but then he has no money to pay a fine with ; perhaps he can make up one mina (about twenty dollars) : that is his proposal. Or, if his friends wish it, he offers thirty minae, and his friends will be sureties for payment. ]
(He is condemned to death. )
You have not gained very much time, Athenians, and, as the price of it, you will have an evil name from all who wish to revile the city, and they will cast in your teeth that you put Socrates, a wise man, to death. For they will certainly call me wise, whether I am wise or not, when they want to reproach you. If you would have waited for a little while, your wishes
would have been fulfilled in the course of nature ; for you see TOL. IT. —7
98 THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES.
that I am an old man, far advanced in years, and near to death. I am speaking not to all of you, only to those who have voted for my death. And now I am speaking to them still. Perhaps, my friends, you think that I have been defeated because I was wanting in the arguments by which I could have persuaded you to acquit me, that is, had thought right to do or to say anything to escape punishment.
It not so. have been defeated because was wanting, not in arguments, but in overboldness and effrontery because would not plead before you as you would have liked to hear me plead, or appeal to you with weeping and wailing, or say
and do many other things, which maintain are unworthy of me, but which you have been accustomed to from other men. But when was defending myself, thought that ought not to do anything unmanly because of the danger which ran, and
have not changed my mind now. would very much rather defend myself as did, and die, than as you would have had me do, and live. Both in lawsuit, and in war, there are some things which neither nor any other man may do in order to escape from death. In battle man often sees that he may at least escape from death by throwing down his arms and falling on his knees before the pursuer to beg for his life. And there are many other ways of avoiding death in every danger, man will not scruple to say and to do anything.
But, my friends, think that much harder thing to escape from wickedness than from death for wickedness swifter than death. And now who am old and slow, have been overtaken by the slower pursuer and my accusers, who are clever and swift, have been overtaken by the swifter pur suer, which wickedness. And now shall go hence, sen tenced by you to death and they will go hence, sentenced by truth to receive the penalty of wickedness and evil. And abide by this award as well as they. Perhaps was right for these things to be so: and think that they are fairly measured.
And now wish to prophesy to you, Athenians who have condemned me. For am going to die, and that the time when men have most prophetic power. And prophesy to you who have sentenced me to death, that far severer punishment than you have inflicted on me, will surely overtake you as soon as am dead. You have done this thing, thinking that you will be relieved from having to give an account of your lives. But
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99
say that the result will be very different from that. There will be more men who will call you to account, whom I have held back, and whom you did not see. And they will be harder masters to you than I have been, for they will be younger, and you will be more angry with them. For if you think that you will restrain men from reproaching you for your evil lives by putting them to death, you are very much mistaken. That way of escape is hardly possible, and it is not a good one. It is much better, and much easier, not to silence reproaches, but to make yourselves as perfect as you can. This is my parting prophecy to you who have condemned me.
[Having sternly rebuked those who have condemned him, he bids those who have acquitted him to be of good cheer. No harm can come to a good man in life or in death. Death is either an eternal and dreamless sleep, wherein there is no sen sation at all ; or it is a journey to another and better world, where are the famous men of old. In either case it is not an evil, but a good. ]
And you too, judges, must face death with a good courage, and believe this as a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life, or after death. His fortunes are not neg lected by the gods ; and what has come to me to-day has not come by chance. I am persuaded that it was better for me to die now, and to be released from trouble : and that was the reason why the sign never turned me back. And so I am hardly angry with my accusers, or with those who have con demned me to die. Yet it was not with this mind that they accused me and condemned me, but meaning to do me an injury. So far I may find fault with them.
Yet I have one request to make of them. When my sons grow up, visit them with punishment, my friends, and vex them in the same way that I have vexed you, if they seem to you to care for riches, or for any other thing, before virtue : and if they think that they are something, when they are nothing at all, reproach them, as I have reproached you, for not caring for what they should, and for thinking that they are great men when in fact they are worthless. And if you will do this, I myself and my sons will have received our deserts at your hands. Ito die,
But now the time has come, and we must go hence ;
and you to live. Whether life or death is better is known to God, and to God only.
A GRECIAN SUNSET.
A GRECIAN SUNSET. By LORD BYRON.
[1788-1824. ]
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, Along Morea's hills the setting sun ;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light :
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws, Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows. On old jEgina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile :
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine, Though there his altars are no more divine. Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance, And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven; Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.
On such an eve his palest beam he cast,
When, Athens ! here thy wisest breathed his last. How watched thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murdered sage's latest day !
Not yet — not yet — Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still :
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes ; Gloom o'er the lovely land he seems to pour — The land where Phoebus never frowned before : But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head,
The cup of woe was quaffed — the spirit fled : The soul of him who scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.
But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The queen of night asserts her silent reign ;
No murky vapor, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form. With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play, Where the white column greets her grateful ray,
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. 101
And bright around, with quivering beams beset, Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret :
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide, Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide, The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and somber 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, one solitary palm :
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye,
And dull were his who passed them heedless by.
Again the Mgea. n, heard no more from far,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war : Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. By CICERO.
[Mabcub Tullius Cicbbo, the greatest of Roman orators and perhaps the second of all time, was born b. c. 106, of the nobility. Trained for the bar, his first important case obliged him to go into exile for fear of the dictator Sulla. Returning after Sulla's death, he became the leader of the bar and high in polit ical life ; rose to be consul, b. c. 63, and gained great credit for suppressing Catiline's conspiracy. Later, he was again exiled for taking sides against the tribune Clodius, and again recalled in a storm of popular enthusiasm. He sided with Pompey against Caesar, but made peace with the latter after Fharsalia. After the murder of Caesar, Cicero sided with Octavius, and thundered against Antony, who on his coalition with Octavius demanded Cicero's life as the price of the junction ; Octavius consented, and Cicero was assassinated by an officer whose life he had once saved at the bar. His orations, his letters saved and published by his freedman Tiro, and his varied disquisitions, keep his fame unfailingly bright. ]
This tyrant [Dionysius] showed himself how happy he really was ; for once, when Damocles, one of his flatterers, was dilating in conversation on his forces, his wealth, the greatness of his power, the plenty he enjoyed, the grandeur of his royal palaces, and maintaining that no one was ever happier,— " Have you an inclination," said he, " Damocles, as this kind of life pleases you, to have a taste of it yourself and to make a trial of the good fortune that attends me ? " And when he said that he should like it extremely, Dionysius ordered him to be laid on a bed of gold with the most beautiful covering,
102 THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.
embroidered and wrought with the most exquisite work, and he dressed out a great many sideboards with silver and em bossed gold. He then ordered some youths, distinguished for their handsome persons, to wait at his table, and to observe his nod in order to serve him with what he wanted. There were ointments and garlands ; perfumes were burned ; tables pro vided with the most exquisite meats, — Damocles thought him self very happy. In the midst of this apparatus Dionysius ordered a bright sword to be let down from the ceiling, sus pended by a single horsehair, so as to hang over the head of that happy man. After which he neither cast his eye on those handsome waiters, nor on the well- wrought plate ; nor touched any of the provisions; presently the garlands fell to pieces. At last, he entreated the tyrant to give him leave to go, for that now he had no desire to be happy. Does not Dionysius, then, seem to have declared there can be no happiness for one who is under constant apprehensions ? But it was not now in his power to return to justice, and restore his citizens their rights and privileges ; for, by the indiscretion of his youth, he had engaged in so many wrong steps, and committed such extravagances, that had he attempted to have returned to a right way of thinking he must have endangered his life.
Yet, how desirous he was of friendship, though at the same time he dreaded the treachery of friends, appears from the story of those two Pythagoreans : one of these had been security for his friend, who was condemned to die ; the other, to release his security, presented himself at the time appointed
I wish," said Dionysius,
me as the third in your friendship. " What misery was it for
for his dying : " "
you would admit
him to be deprived of acquaintance, of company at his table, and of the freedom of conversation, especially for one who was a man of learning, and from his childhood acquainted with liberal arts, very fond of music, and himself a tragic poet, — how good a one is not to the purpose, for I know not how it is, but in this way, more than any other, every one thinks his own performances excellent, I never as yet knew any poet (and I was very intimate with Aquinius), who did not appear to
himself to be very admirable. The case is this : you are pleased with your own works, I like mine. But to return to Dionysius : he debarred himself from all civil and polite conversation, and spent his life among fugitives, bondmen, and barbarians, for he was persuaded that no one could be his friend who was worthy of liberty or had the least desire of being free.
DAMON AND PYTHIAS.
DAMON AND PYTHIAS. By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
103
[Charlotte M. Yonge, English novelist, was born in 1823. Her first cele brated novel, " The Heir of Redely ffe," was published in 1853 ; the equally well known "Daisy Chain" in 1856; she has written many other and popular his torical sketches. Her " Book of Golden Deeds " appeared in 1864. ]
Most of the best and noblest of the Greeks held what was called the Pythagorean philosophy. This was one of the many systems framed by the great men of heathenism, when by the feeble light of nature they were, as St. Paul says, "seeking after God, if haply they might feel after Him," like men groping in the darkness. Pythagoras lived before the time of history, and almost nothing is known about him, though his teaching and his name were never lost. There is a belief that he had traveled in the East, and in Egypt, and as he lived about the time of the dispersion of the Israelites, it is possible that some of his purest and best teaching might have been crumbs gathered from their fuller instruction through the Law and the Prophets. One thing is plain, that even in deal ing with heathenism the Divine rule holds good, " By their fruits ye shall know them. " Golden deeds are only to be found among men whose belief is earnest and sincere, and in something really high and noble. Where there was nothing worshiped but savage or impure power, and the very form of adoration was cruel and unclean, as among the Canaanites and Carthaginians, there we find no true self-devotion. The great deeds of the heathen world were all done by early Greeks and Romans before yet the last gleams of purer light had faded out of their belief, and while their moral sense still nerved them to energy ; or else by such later Greeks as had embraced the deeper and more earnest yearnings of the minds that had become a " law unto themselves. "
The Pythagoreans were bound together in a brotherhood, the members of which had rules that are now not understood, but which linked them so as to form a sort of club, with com mon religious observances and pursuits of science, especially mathematics and music. And they were taught to restrain their passions, especially that of anger, and to endure with patience all kinds of suffering ; believing that such self
104 DAMON AND PYTHIAS.
restraint brought them nearer to the gods, and that death would set them free from the prison of the body. The souls of evil doers would, they thought, pass into the lower and more degraded animals, while those of good men would be gradually purified, and rise to a higher existence. This, though lamentably deficient, and false in some points, was a real religion, inasmuch as it gave a rule of life, with a motive for striving for wisdom and virtue. Two friends of this Pythagorean sect lived at Syracuse, in the end of the fourth century before the Christian era. Syracuse was a great Greek city, built in Sicily, and full of all kinds of Greek art and learning ; but it was a place of danger in their time, for it had fallen under the tyranny of a man of strange and capricious temper, though of great abilities, namely, Dionysius. He is said to have been originally only a clerk in a public office, but his talents raised him to continually higher situations, and at length, in a great war with the Carthaginians, who had many settlements in Sicily, he became general of the army, and then found it easy to establish his power over the city.
This power was not according to the laws, for Syracuse, like most other cities, ought to have been governed by a coun cil of magistrates ; but Dionysius was an exceedingly able man, and made the city much more rich and powerful ; he defeated the Carthaginians, and rendered Syracuse by far the chief city in the island, and he contrived to make every one so much afraid of him that no one durst attempt to overthrow his power. He was a good scholar, and very fond of phi losophy and poetry, and he delighted to have learned men around him, and he had naturally a generous spirit ; but the sense that he was in a position that did not belong to him, and that every one hated him for assuming it, made him very harsh and suspicious. It is of him that the story is told, that he had a chamber hollowed in the rock near his state prison, and constructed with galleries to conduct sounds like an ear, so that he might overhear the conversation of his captives ; and of him, too, is told that famous anecdote which has become a proverb, that on hearing a friend, named Damocles, express a wish to be in his situation for a single day, he took him at his word, and Damocles found himself at a banquet with every thing that could delight his senses, delicious food, costly wine, flowers, perfumes, music ; but with a sword with the point
almost touching his head, and hanging by a single horse
DAMON AND PYTHIAS. 105
hair ! This was to show the condition in which a usurper lived !
Thus Dionysius was in constant dread. He had a wide trench round his bedroom, with a drawbridge that he drew up and put down with his own hands ; and he put one barber to death for boasting that he held a razor to the tyrant's throat every morning. After this he made his young daughters shave him ; but by and by he would not trust them with a razor, and caused them to singe off his beard with hot nut shells ! He was said to have put a man named Antiphon to death for answering him, when he asked what was the best kind of brass, " That of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton were made. " These were the two Athenians who had killed the sons of Pisistratus the tyrant, so that the jest was most offensive ; but its boldness might have gained forgiveness for it. One philosopher, named Philoxenus, he sent to a dungeon for finding fault with his poetry, but he afterwards composed another piece, which he thought so supe rior, that he could not be content without sending for this adverse critic to hear it. When he had finished reading it, he looked to Philoxenus for a compliment ; but the philoso pher only turned round to the guards, and said dryly, "Carry me back to prison. " This time Dionysius had the sense to laugh, and forgive his honesty.
All these stories may not be true ; but that they should have been current in the ancient world shows what was the character of the man of whom they were told, how stern and terrible was his anger, and how easily it was incurred. Among those who came under it was a Pythagorean called Pythias, who was sentenced to death, according to the usual fate of those who fell under his suspicion.
Pythias had lands and relations in Greece, and he entreated as a favor to be allowed to return thither and arrange his affairs, engaging to return within a specified time to suffer death. The tyrant laughed his request to scorn. Once safe out of Sicily, who would answer for his return ? Pythias made reply that he had a friend, who would become security for his return ; and while Dionysius, the miserable man who trusted nobody, was ready to scoff at his simplicity, another Pythago rean, by name Damon, came forward, and offered to become surety for his friend, engaging, if Pythias did not return according to promise, to suffer death in his stead.
106 DAMON AND PYTHIAS.
Dionysius, much astonished, consented to let Pythias go, marveling what would be the issue of the affair. Time went on, and Pythias did not appear. The Syracusans watched Damon, but he showed no uneasiness. He said he was secure of his friend's truth and honor, and that if any accident had caused the delay of his return, he should rejoice in dying to save the life of one so dear to him.
Even to the last day Damon continued serene and content, however it might fall out ; nay, even when the very hour drew nigh and still no Pythias. His trust was so perfect, that he did not even grieve at having to die for a faithless friend who had left him to the fate to which he had unwarily pledged him self. It was not Pythias' own will, but the winds and waves, so he still declared, when the decree was brought and the instru ments of death made ready. The hour had come, and a few moments more would have ended Damon's life, when Pythias duly presented himself, embraced his friend, and stood forward himself to receive his sentence, calm, resolute, and rejoiced that he had come in time.
Even the dim hope they owned of a future state was enough to make these two brave men keep their word, and confront death for one another without quailing. Dionysius looked on more struck than ever. He felt that neither of such men must die. He reversed the sentence of Pythias, and call ing the two to his judgment seat, he entreated them to admit him as a third in their friendship. Yet all the time he must have known it was a mockery that he should ever be such as they were to each other — he who had lost the very power of trusting, and constantly sacrificed others to secure his own life, whilst they counted not their lives dear to them in comparison with their truth to their word, and love to one another. No wonder that Damon and Pythias have become such a byword that they seem too well known to have their story told here, except that a name in every one's mouth sometimes seems to be mentioned by those who have forgotten or never heard the tale attached to it.
A DIALOGUE FROM PLATO.
A DIALOGUE FROM PLATO.
By AUSTIN DOBSON.
[Born 1840. ]
107
" Le temps le mieux employe est celui qu'on perd. "
—Claude Tillier.
I'd " read " three hours. Both notes and text Were fast a mist becoming ;
In bounced a vagrant bee, perplexed, And filled the room with humming,
Then out. The casement's leafage sways, And, parted light, discloses
Miss Di. , with hat and book, — a maze Of muslin mixed with roses.
" You're reading Greek ? " "lam — and you ? " " 0, mine's a mere romancer ! "
"So Plato is. " "Then read him —do ; And I'll read mine in answer. "
I read. " My Plato (Plato, too, — That wisdom thus should harden ! ) Declares ' blue eyes look doubly blue
Beneath a Dolly Varden. ' "
She smiled. " My book in turn avers (No author's name is stated)
That sometimes those Philosophers Are sadly mis-translated. "
" But hear, — the next's in stronger style : The Cynic School asserted
That two red lips which part and smile May not be controverted ! "
She smiled once more — " My book, I find, Observes some modern doctors
Would make the Cynics out a kind Of album-verse concooters. "
108 PLATO AND BACON.
Then I — " Why not ? ' Ephesian law, No less than time's tradition,
Enjoined fair speech on all who saw Diana's apparition. ' "
She blushed — this time. " If Plato's page No wiser precept teaches,
Then I'd renounce that doubtful sage, And walk to Burnham Beeches. "
" Agreed," I said. "For Socrates (I find he too is talking)
Thinks Learning can't remain at ease While Beauty goes a walking. "
She read no more. I leapt the sill: The sequel's scarce essential —
Nay, more than this, I hold it still Profoundly confidential.
PLATO AND BACON. By LORD MACAULAY.
[Thomas Babingtox Maoaulat : An English historian and essayist ; born October 25, 1800 ; son of a noted philanthropist and a Quaker lady ; died at London, December 28, 1859. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and called to the bar, but took to writing for the periodicals and to politics ; became famous for historical essays, was a warm advocate of Parliamentary Reform, and was elected to Parliament in 1830. In 1834 he was made a member of the Supreme Legislative Council for India, residing there till 1838, and making the working draft of the present Indian Penal Code. He was Secretary at War in 1839. The first two volumes of his " History of England " were published in December, 1848. His fame rests even more on his historical essays, his unsur passed speeches, and his "Lays of Ancient Rome. "]
It is altogether incorrect to say, as has often been said, that Bacon was the first man who rose up against the Aristotelian philosophy when in the height of its power. The authority of that philosophy had received a fatal blow long before he was born. The part which Bacon played in this great change was the part, not of Robespierre, but of Bonaparte. The philosophy which he taught was essentially new. It differed from that of the celebrated ancient teachers, not merely in method, but also in object. Its object was the good of mankind, in the sense in which the mass of mankind always have understood and always will understand the word "good. "
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The difference between the philosophy of Bacon and that of his predecessors cannot, we think, be better illustrated than by comparing his views on some important subjects with those of Plato. We select Plato, because we conceive that he did more than any other person towards giving to the minds of speculative men that bent which they retained till they received from Bacon a new impulse in a diametrically opposite direction.
It is curious to observe how differently these great men estimated the value of every kind of knowledge. Take arith metic for example. Plato, after speaking slightly of the con venience of being able to reckon and compute in the ordinary transactions of life, passes to what he considers as a far more important advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, he tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify them selves to be shopkeepers or traveling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things.
Bacon, on the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge only on account of its uses with reference to that visible and tangible world which Plato so much despised. He speaks with scorn of the mystical arithmetic of the later Platonists, and laments the propensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters of curiosity, powers the whole exertion of which is required for purposes of solid advantage. He advises arithmeticians to leave these trifles, and to employ themselves in framing con venient expressions, which may be of use in physical researches.
The same reasons which led Plato to recommend the study of arithmetic led him to recommend also the study of mathe matics. The vulgar crowd of geometricians, he says, will not understand him. They have practice always in view. They do not know that the real use of the science is to lead men to the knowledge of abstract, essential, eternal truth. Indeed, if we are to believe Plutarch, Plato carried this feeling so far that he considered geometry as degraded by being applied to any pur pose of vulgar utility. Archytas, it seems, had framed machines of extraordinary power on mathematical principles. Plato re monstrated with his friend, and declared that this was to degrade a noble intellectual exercise into a low craft, fit only for carpen
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ters and wheelwrights. The office of geometry, he said, was to discipline the mind, not to minister to the base wants of the body. His interference was successful ; and from that time, according to Plutarch, the science of mechanics was considered as unworthy of the attention of a philosopher.
Archimedes in a later age imitated and surpassed Archytas. But even Archimedes was not free from the prevailing notion that geometry was degraded by being employed to produce anything useful. It was with difficulty that he was induced to stoop from speculation to practice. He was half ashamed of those inventions which were the wonder of hostile nations, and always spoke of them slightingly as mere amusements, as trifles in which a mathematician might be suffered to relax his mind after intense application to the higher parts of his science.
The opinion of Bacon on this subject was diametrically opposed to that of the ancient philosophers. He valued geome try chiefly, if not solely, on account of those uses which to Plato appeared so base. And it is remarkabe that the longer Bacon lived the stronger this feeling became. When in 1605 he wrote the two books on the Advancement of Learning, he dwelt on the advantages which mankind derived from mixed mathematics ; but he at the same time admitted that the bene ficial effect produced by mathematical study on the intellect, though a collateral advantage, was "no less worthy than that which was principal and intended. " But it is evident that his views underwent a change. When, near twenty years later, he published the " De Augmentis," which is the Treatise on the Advancement of Learning, greatly expanded and carefully cor rected, he made important alterations in the part which related to mathematics. He condemned with severity the high preten sions of the mathematicians, "delicias et fastum mathemati- corum. " Assuming the well-being of the human race to be the end of knowledge, he pronounced that mathematical science could claim no higher rank than that of an appendage or aux iliary to other sciences. Mathematical science, he says, is the handmaid of natural philosophy ; she ought to demean herself as such ; and he declares that he cannot conceive by what ill chance it has happened that she presumes to claim precedence over her mistress. He predicts — a prediction which would have made Plato shudder — that as more and more discoveries are made in physics, there will be more and more branches of mixed mathematics. Of that collateral advantage the value of
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which, twenty years before, he rated so highly, he says not one word. This omission cannot have been the effect of mere inad vertence. His own treatise was before him. From that trea tise he deliberately expunged whatever was favorable to the study of pure mathematics, and inserted several keen reflections on the ardent votaries of that study. This fact, in our opinion, admits of only one explanation. Bacon's love of those pursuits which directly tend to improve the condition of mankind, and his jealousy of all pursuits merely curious, had grown upon him, and had, it may be, become immoderate. He was afraid of using any expression which might have the effect of inducing any man of talents to employ in speculations, useful only to the mind of the speculator, a single hour which might be employed in extending the empire of man over matter. If Bacon erred here, we must acknowledge that we greatly prefer his error to the opposite error of Plato. We have no patience with a philosophy which, like those Roman matrons who swal lowed abortives in order to preserve their shapes, takes pains to be barren for fear of being homely.
Let us pass to astronomy. This was one of the sciences which Plato exhorted his disciples to learn, but for reasons far removed from common habits of thinking. " Shall we set down astronomy," says Socrates, "among the subjects of study? " " I think so," answers his young friend Glaucon : " to know something about the seasons, the months, and the years is of use for military purposes, as well as for agriculture and naviga tion. " " It amuses me," says Socrates, " to see how afraid you are, lest the common herd of people should accuse you of recom mending useless studies. " He then proceeds, in that pure and magnificent diction which, as Cicero said, Jupiter would use if Jupiter spoke Greek, to explain that the use of astronomy is not to add to the vulgar comforts of life, but to assist in rais ing the mind to the contemplation of things which are to be perceived by the pure intellect alone. The knowledge of the actual motions of the heavenly bodies Socrates considers as of little value. The appearances which make the sky beautiful at night are, he tells us, like the figures which a geometrician draws on the sand, mere examples, mere helps to feeble minds. We must get beyond them ; we must neglect them ; we must attain to an astronomy which is as independent of the actual stars as geometrical truth is independent of the lines of an ill- drawn diagram. This is, we imagine, very nearly, if not exactly,
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the astronomy which Bacon compared to the ox of Prometheus, a sleek, well-shaped hide, stuffed with rubbish, goodly to look at, but containing nothing to eat. He complained that astron omy had, to its great injury, been separated from natural phi losophy, of which it was one of the noblest provinces, and annexed to the domain of mathematics. The world stood in need, he said, of a very different astronomy, of a living astronomy, of an astronomy which should set forth the nature, the motion, and the influences of the heavenly bodies, as they really are.
On the greatest and most useful of all human inventions, the invention of alphabetical writing, Plato did not look with much complacency. He seems to have thought that the use of letters had operated on the human mind as the use of the gocart in learning to walk, or of corks in learning to swim, is said to operate on the human body. It was a support which, in his opinion, soon became indispensable to those who used it, which made vigorous exertion first unnecessary and then impossible. The powers of the intellect would, he conceived, have been more fully developed without this delusive aid. Men would have been compelled to exercise the understanding and the memory, and, by deep and assiduous meditation, to make truth thoroughly their own. Now, on the contrary, much knowl edge is traced on paper, but little is engraved in the soul. A man is certain that he can find information at a moment's notice when he wants it. He therefore suffers it to fade from his mind. Such a man cannot in strictness be said to know anything. He has the show without the reality of wisdom. These opinions Plato has put into the mouth of an ancient king of Egypt. But it is evident from the context that they were his own ; and so they were understood to be by Quinctilian. Indeed they are in perfect accordance with the whole Platonic system.
Bacon's views, as may easily be supposed, were widely dif ferent. The powers of the memory, he observes, without the help of writing, can do little towards the advancement of any useful science. He acknowledges that the memory may be dis ciplined to such a point as to be able to perform very extraor dinary feats. But on such feats he sets little value. The habits of his mind, he tells us, are such that he is not disposed to rate highly any accomplishment, however rare, which is of no practical use to mankind. As to these prodigious achieve ments of the memory, he ranks them with the exhibitions of
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ropedancers and tumblers. "These two performances," he says, " are much of the same sort. The one is an abuse of the powers of the body ; the other is an abuse of the powers of the mind. Both may perhaps excite our wonder; but neither is entitled to our respect. "
To Plato, the science of medicine appeared to be of very disputable advantage. He did not indeed object to quick cures for acute disorders, or for injuries produced by accidents. But the art which resists the slow sap of a chronic disease, which repairs frames enervated by lust, swollen by gluttony, or inflamed by wine, which encourages sensuality by mitigating the natural punishment of the sensualist, and prolongs existence when the intellect has ceased to retain its entire energy, had no share of his esteem. A life protracted by medical skill he pronounced to be a long death. The exercise of the art of medicine ought, he said, to be tolerated, so far as that art may serve to cure the occasional distempers of men whose constitutions are good. As to those who have bad constitutions, let them die ; and the sooner the better. Such men are unfit for war, for magistracy, for the management of their domestic affairs, for severe study and speculation. If they engage in any vigorous mental exer cise, they are troubled with giddiness and fullness of the head, all which they lay to the account of philosophy. The best thing that can happen to such wretches is to have done with life at once. He quotes mythical authority in support of this doctrine ; and reminds his disciples that the practice of the sons of ^sculapius, as described by Homer, extended only to the cure of external injuries.
Far different was the philosophy of Bacon. Of all the sciences, that which he seems to have regarded with the greatest interest was the science which, in Plato's opinion, would not be tolerated in a well-regulated community. To make men perfect was no part of Bacon's plan. His humble aim was to make imperfect men comfortable. The beneficence of his phi losophy resembled the beneficence of the common Father, whose sun rises on the evil and the good, whose rain descends for the just and the unjust. In Plato's opinion man was made for philosophy ; in Bacon's opinion philosophy was made for man ; it was a means to an end ; and that end was to increase the pleasures and to mitigate the pains of millions who are not and cannot be philosophers. That a valetudinarian who took great
pleasure in being wheeled along his terrace, who relished his VOL. IV,—8
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boiled chicken and his weak wine and water, and who enjoyed a hearty laugh over the Queen of Navarre's tales, should be treated as a caput lupinum because he could not read the Timaeus without a headache, was a notion which the humane spirit of the English school of wisdom altogether rejected. Bacon would not have thought it beneath the dignity of a phi losopher to contrive an improved garden chair for such a vale tudinarian, to devise some way of rendering his medicines more palatable, to invest repasts which he might enjoy, and pillows on which he might sleep soundly ; and this though there might not be the smallest hope that the mind of the poor invalid would ever rise to the contemplation of the ideal beautiful and the ideal good. As Plato had cited the religious legends of Greece to justify his contempt for the more recondite parts of the art of healing, Bacon vindicated the dignity of that art by appealing to the example of Christ, and reminded men that the great Physi cian of the soul did not disdain to be also the physician of the body.
When we pass from the science of medicine to that of legis lation, we find the same difference between the systems of these two great men. Plato, at the commencement of the Dialogue on Laws, lays it down as a fundamental principle that the end of legislation is to make men virtuous. It is unnecessary to point out the extravagant conclusions to which such a propo sition leads. Bacon well knew to how great an extent the happiness of every society must depend on the virtue of its members ; and he also knew what legislators can and what they cannot do for the purpose of promoting virtue. The view which he has given of the end of legislation, and of the principal means for the attainment of that end, has always seemed to us emi nently happy, even among the many happy passages of the same kind with which his works abound. "Finis et scopus quem leges intueri atque ad quem jussiones et sanctiones suas dirigere debent, non alius est quam ut cives feliciter degant. Id fiet si pietate et religione recte instituti, moribus honesti, armis adver- sus hostes externos tuti, legum auxilio adversus seditiones et privatas injurias muniti, imperio et magistratibus obsequentes, copiis et opibus locupletes et florentes fuerint. " The end is the well-being of the people. The means are the imparting of moral and religious education; the providing of everything necessary for defense against foreign enemies ; the maintaining of internal order ; the establishing of a judicial, financial, and
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commercial system, under which wealth may be rapidly accu mulated and securely enjoyed.
Even with respect to the form in which laws ought to be drawn, there is a remarkable difference of opinion between the Greek and the Englishman. Plato thought a preamble essen tial ; Bacon thought it mischievous. Each was consistent with himself. Plato, considering the moral improvement of the people as the end of legislation, justly inferred that a law which commanded and threatened, but which neither convinced the reason, nor touched the heart, must be a most imperfect law. He was not content with deterring from theft a man who still continued to be a thief at heart, with restraining a son who hated his mother from beating his mother. The only obedi ence on which he set much value was the obedience which an enlightened understanding yields to reason, and which a virtu ous disposition yields to precepts of virtue. He really seems to have believed that, by prefixing to every law an eloquent and pathetic exhortation, he should, to a great extent, render penal enactments superfluous. Bacon entertained no such romantic hopes ; and he well knew the practical inconveniences of the course which Plato recommended. " Neque nobis," says he, " prologi legum qui inepti olim habiti sunt, et leges intro- ducunt disputantes non jubentes, utique placerent, si priscos mores ferre possemus. . . . Quantum fieri potest prologi evi- tentur, et lex incipiat a jussione. "
Each of the great men whom we have compared intended to illustrate his system by a philosophical romance ; and " each left his romance imperfect. Had Plato lived to finish the Critias," a comparison between that noble fiction and the "New Atlantis " would probably have furnished us with still more striking instances than any which we have given. It is amusing to think with what horror he would have seen such an institution as Solomon's House rising in his republic : with what vehe mence he would have ordered the brewhouses, the perfume houses, and the dispensatories to be pulled down; and with what inexorable rigor he would have driven beyond the frontier all the Fellows of the College, Merchants of Light and Depre dators, Lamps and Pioneers.
To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of the Pla
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tonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim was noble ; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow ; but, like Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars ; and therefore, though there was no want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. His arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it struck nothing.
Volans liquidis in nubibus arsit arundo Signavitque viam flammis, tenuisque recessit Consumta in ventos.
Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth, and within bowshot, and hit it in the white. The phi losophy of Plato began in words and ended in words, noble words indeed, words such as were to be expected from the finest of human intellects exercising boundless dominion over the finest of human languages. The philosophy of Bacon began in observations and ended in arts.
The boast of the ancient philosophers was that their doctrine formed the minds of men to a high degree of wisdom and virtue. This was indeed the only practical good which the most cele brated of those teachers even pretended to effect ; and undoubt edly, if they had effected this, they would have deserved far higher praise than if they had discovered the most salutary medicines or constructed the most powerful machines.