Chapter XIX: Part 19

_Soc._ And does not the same hold in all other cases? If
you and I were physicians, and were advising one another
that we were competent to practise as state-physicians,
should I not ask about you, and would you not ask about
me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good
health? and was any one else ever known to be cured by
him, whether slave or freeman? And I should make the
same enquiries about you. And if we arrived at the conclusion
that no one, whether citizen or stranger, man or
woman, had ever been any the better for the medical skill
of either of us, then, by Heaven, Callicles, what an absurdity
to think that we or any human being should be so silly as to
set up as state-physicians and advise others like ourselves to
do the same, without having first practised in private,
whether successfully or not, and acquired experience of the
art! Is not this, as they say, to begin with the big jar
when you are learning the potter’s art; which is a foolish
thing?

_Cal._ True. 515

[Sidenote: And now, Callicles, what are you who are a public character doing for the improvement of the citizens?]

_Soc._ And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to
be a public character, and are admonishing and reproaching
me for not being one, suppose that we ask a few questions
of one another. Tell me, then, Callicles, how about making
any of the citizens better? Was there ever a man who was
once vicious, or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and became
by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there ever
such a man, whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman?
Tell me, Callicles, if a person were to ask these questions
of you, what would you answer? Whom would you say
that you had improved by your conversation? There may
have been good deeds of this sort which were done by you
as a private person, before you came forward in public.
Why will you not answer?

[Sidenote: _Pericles a bad political shepherd._]

[Sidenote: Callicles makes no answer.]

_Cal._ You are contentious, Socrates.

[Sidenote: Or how did Pericles and the great of old benefit the citizens?]

_Soc._ Nay, I ask you, not from a love of contention, but
because I really want to know in what way you think that
affairs should be administered among us—whether, when you
come to the administration of them, you have any other aim
but the improvement of the citizens? Have we not already
admitted many times over that such is the duty of a public
man? Nay, we have surely said so; for if you will not
answer for yourself I must answer for you. But if this is
what the good man ought to effect for the benefit of his own
state, allow me to recall to you the names of those whom
you were just now mentioning, Pericles, and Cimon, and
Miltiades, and Themistocles, and ask whether you still think
that they were good citizens.

_Cal._ I do.

_Soc._ But if they were good, then clearly each of them
must have made the citizens better instead of worse?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in
the assembly, the Athenians were not so good as when he
spoke last?

_Cal._ Very likely.

_Soc._ Nay, my friend, ‘likely’ is not the word; for if he
was a good citizen, the inference is certain.

_Cal._ And what difference does that make?

[Sidenote: Pericles corrupted them by giving them pay.]

_Soc._ None; only I should like further to know whether
the Athenians are supposed to have been made better by
Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been corrupted by him;
for I hear that he was the first who gave the people pay,
and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in
the love of talk and of money.

_Cal._ You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set
who bruise their ears.

[Sidenote: He made them worse instead of better, for they all but put him to death.]

[Sidenote: _For he taught the citizens only to kick and butt._]

_Soc._ But what I am going to tell you now is not mere
hearsay, but well known both to you and me: that at first,
Pericles was glorious and his character unimpeached by any
verdict of the Athenians—this was during the time when 516
they were not so good—yet afterwards, when they had been
made good and gentle by him, at the very end of his life
they convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death,
clearly under the notion that he was a malefactor.

_Cal._ Well, but how does that prove Pericles’ badness?

_Soc._ Why, surely, you would say that he was a bad
manager of asses or horses or oxen, who had received them
originally neither kicking nor butting nor biting him, and
implanted in them all these savage tricks? Would he not
be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle,
and made them fiercer than they were when he received
them? What do you say?

_Cal._ I will do you the favour of saying ‘yes.’

_Soc._ And will you also do me the favour of saying whether
man is an animal?

_Cal._ Certainly he is.

_Soc._ And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not
the animals who were his subjects, as we were just now
acknowledging, to have become more just, and not more
unjust?

_Cal._ Quite true.

_Soc._ And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?—or
are you of another mind?

_Cal._ I agree.

_Soc._ And yet he really did make them more savage than
he received them, and their savageness was shown towards
himself; which he must have been very far from desiring.

_Cal._ Do you want me to agree with you?

_Soc._ Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.

_Cal._ Granted then.

_Soc._ And if they were more savage, must they not have
been more unjust and inferior?

_Cal._ Granted again.

_Soc._ Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman?

_Cal._ That is, upon your view.

[Sidenote: Cimon was ostracised; Themistocles was exiled; Miltiades was nearly thrown from the rock.]

[Sidenote: _The old argument repeated, with illustrations taken from common life._]

_Soc._ Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted.
Take the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons
whom he was serving ostracize him, in order that they might
not hear his voice for ten years? and they did just the same
to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile; and they voted
that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should be thrown into
the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis.
And yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these
things would never have happened to them. For the good
charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and
then, when they have broken-in their horses, and themselves
become better charioteers, are thrown out—that is not the
way either in charioteering or in any profession.—What do
you think?

_Cal._ I should think not.

[Sidenote: The older statesmen no better than the existing ones.]

_Soc._ Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, 517
that in the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to
be a good statesman—you admitted that this was true of
our present statesmen, but not true of former ones, and you
preferred them to the others; yet they have turned out
to be no better than our present ones; and therefore, if
they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of
rhetoric or of flattery, or they would not have fallen out
of favour.

_Cal._ But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near
any one of them in his performances.

[Sidenote: The older statesmen not able really to elevate the state to a higher level, but more capable of gratifying its desires.]

[Sidenote: You might as well say that the cook or the baker is a good trainer as that they were great statesmen.]

[Sidenote: The statesman-like the Sophist; neither has any right to accuse their followers of wronging them; they should have taught them better.]

[Sidenote: _Nonsense about the cry of ingratitude which_]

_Soc._ O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded
as the serving-men of the State; and I do think that
they were certainly more serviceable than those who are
living now, and better able to gratify the wishes of the State;
but as to transforming those desires and not allowing them
to have their way, and using the powers which they had,
whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of
their fellow-citizens, which is the prime object of the truly
good citizen, I do not see that in these respects they were a
whit superior to our present statesmen, although I do admit
that they were more clever at providing ships and walls and
docks, and all that. You and I have a ridiculous way, for
during the whole time that we are arguing, we are always
going round and round to the same point, and constantly
misunderstanding one another. If I am not mistaken, you
have admitted and acknowledged more than once, that there
are two kinds of operations which have to do with the body,
and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is
ministerial, and if our bodies are hungry provides food for
them, and if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are
cold supplies them with garments, blankets, shoes, and all
that they crave. I use the same images as before intentionally,
in order that you may understand me the better.
The purveyor of the articles may provide them either wholesale
or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them,—the
baker, or the cook, or the weaver, or the shoemaker, or the
currier; and in so doing, being such as he is, he is naturally
supposed by himself and every one to minister to the body.
For none of them know that there is another art—an art of
gymnastic and medicine which is the true minister of the
body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to
use their results according to the knowledge which she has
and they have not, of the real good or bad effects of meats
and drinks on the body. All other arts which have to do 518
with the body are servile and menial and illiberal; and
gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their
mistresses. Now, when I say that all this is equally true of
the soul, you seem at first to know and understand and
assent to my words, and then a little while afterwards you
come repeating, Has not the State had good and noble
citizens? and when I ask you who they are, you reply,
seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who are or
have been good trainers?—and you had replied, Thearion,
the baker, Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book,
Sarambus, the vintner: these are ministers of the body,
first-rate in their art; for the first makes admirable loaves,
the second excellent dishes, and the third capital wine;—to
me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen
whom you mention. Now you would not be altogether
pleased if I said to you, My friend, you know nothing of
gymnastics; those of whom you are speaking to me are only
the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or
noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and
fattening men’s bodies and gaining their approval, although
the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long
run, and become thinner than they were before; and yet
they, in their simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and
loss of flesh to their entertainers; but when in after years
the unhealthy surfeit brings the attendant penalty of disease,
he who happens to be near them at the time, and offers them
advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if they could they
would do him some harm; while they proceed to eulogize
the men who have been the real authors of the mischief.
And that, Callicles, is just what you are now doing. You
praise the men who feasted the citizens and satisfied their
desires, and people say that they have made the city great,
not seeing that the swollen and ulcerated condition of the
State is to be attributed to these elder statesmen; for they
have filled the city full of harbours and docks and walls and
revenues and all that, and have left no room for justice and
temperance. And when the crisis of the disorder comes, 519
the people will blame the advisers of the hour, and applaud
Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real
authors of their calamities; and if you are not careful they
may assail you and my friend Alcibiades, when they are
losing not only their new acquisitions, but also their original
possessions; not that you are the authors of these misfortunes
of theirs, although you may perhaps be accessories to them.
A great piece of work is always being made, as I see and
am told, now as of old, about our statesmen. When the
State treats any of them as malefactors, I observe that there
is a great uproar and indignation at the supposed wrong
which is done to them; ‘after all their many services to the
State, that they should unjustly perish,’—so the tale runs.
But the cry is all a lie; for no statesman ever could be unjustly
put to death by the city of which he is the head. The
case of the professed statesman is, I believe, very much like
that of the professed sophist; for the sophists, although they
are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece of
folly; professing to be teachers of virtue, they will often
accuse their disciples of wronging them, and defrauding
them of their pay, and showing no gratitude for their services.
Yet what can be more absurd than that men who have become
just and good, and whose injustice has been taken
away from them, and who have had justice implanted in
them by their teachers, should act unjustly by reason of the
injustice which is not in them? Can anything be more
irrational, my friend, than this? You, Callicles, compel me
to be a mob-orator, because you will not answer.

[Sidenote: _is shown to statesmen at Athens._]

_Cal._ And you are the man who cannot speak unless there
is some one to answer?

_Soc._ I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the
speeches which I am making are long enough because you
refuse to answer me. But I adjure you by the god of
friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether there does
not appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying
that you have made a man good, and then blaming him for
being bad?

_Cal._ Yes, it appears so to me.

_Soc._ Do you never hear our professors of education speaking 520
in this inconsistent manner?

_Cal._ Yes, but why talk of men who are good for nothing?

[Sidenote: Sophistry is much superior to rhetoric.]

_Soc._ I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to
be rulers, and declare that they are devoted to the improvement
of the city, and nevertheless upon occasion declaim
against the utter vileness of the city:—do you think that
there is any difference between one and the other? My
good friend, the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying
to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same; but you ignorantly
fancy that rhetoric is a perfect thing, and sophistry a thing to
be despised; whereas the truth is, that sophistry is as much
superior to rhetoric as legislation is to the practice of law, or
gymnastic to medicine. The orators and sophists, as I am
inclined to think, are the only class who cannot complain of
the mischief ensuing to themselves from that which they
teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves
of having done no good to those whom they profess to
benefit. Is not this a fact?

_Cal._ Certainly it is.

[Sidenote: He who teaches honesty ought to teach his pupils to pay him for the lesson.]

[Sidenote: _The physician of the state_]

_Soc._ If they were right in saying that they make men
better, then they are the only class who can afford to leave
their remuneration to those who have been benefited by
them. Whereas if a man has been benefited in any other
way, if, for example, he has been taught to run by a trainer,
he might possibly defraud him of his pay, if the trainer left
the matter to him, and made no agreement with him that he
should receive money as soon as he had given him the
utmost speed; for not because of any deficiency of speed do
men act unjustly, but by reason of injustice.

_Cal._ Very true.

_Soc._ And he who removes injustice can be in no danger
of being treated unjustly: he alone can safely leave the
honorarium to his pupils, if he be really able to make them
good—am I not right[49]?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonour
in a man receiving pay who is called in to advise
about building or any other art?

_Cal._ Yes, we have found the reason.

_Soc._ But when the point is, how a man may become best
himself, and best govern his family and state, then to say
that you will give no advice gratis is held to be dishonourable?

_Cal._ True.

_Soc._ And why? Because only such benefits call forth a
desire to requite them, and there is evidence that a benefit
has been conferred when the benefactor receives a return;
otherwise not. Is this true?

_Cal._ It is.

[Sidenote: Callicles advises Socrates to be the servant of the state, and not run the risk of popular enmity.]

_Soc._ Then to which service of the State do you invite
me? determine for me. Am I to be the physician of the 521
State who will strive and struggle to make the Athenians as
good as possible; or am I to be the servant and flatterer of
the State? Speak out, my good friend, freely and fairly as
you did at first and ought to do again, and tell me your
entire mind.

_Cal._ I say then that you should be the servant of the
State.

[Sidenote: _and the flatterer of the state._]

_Soc._ The flatterer? well, sir, that is a noble invitation.

_Cal._ The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please. For if
you refuse, the consequences will be—

_Soc._ Do not repeat the old story—that he who likes will
kill me and get my money; for then I shall have to repeat
the old answer, that he will be a bad man and will kill the
good, and that the money will be of no use to him, but that
he will wrongly use that which he wrongly took, and if
wrongly, basely, and if basely, hurtfully.

_Cal._ How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never
come to harm! you seem to think that you are living in
another country, and can never be brought into a court of
justice, as you very likely may be brought by some miserable
and mean person.

[Sidenote: Socrates has no fear of popular enmity, but is quite aware that he will incur it, because he is the only true politician of his time, and he has no defence against men such as his opponents: that is to say, he has the defence of truth, but not such a defence as men ordinarily produce.]

_Soc._ Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not
know that in the Athenian State any man may suffer anything.
And if I am brought to trial and incur the dangers
of which you speak, he will be a villain who brings me to
trial—of that I am very sure, for no good man would accuse
the innocent. Nor shall I be surprised if I am put to death.
Shall I tell you why I anticipate this?

_Cal._ By all means.

_Soc._ I think that I am the only or almost the only
Athenian living who practises the true art of politics; I am
the only politician of my time. Now, seeing that when I
speak my words are not uttered with any view of gaining
favour, and that I look to what is best and not to what is
most pleasant, having no mind to use those arts and graces
which you recommend, I shall have nothing to say in the
justice court. And you might argue with me, as I was
arguing with Polus:—I shall be tried just as a physician
would be tried in a court of little boys at the indictment of
the cook. What would he reply under such circumstances,
if some one were to accuse him, saying, ‘O my boys, many
evil things has this man done to you: he is the death of
you, especially of the younger ones among you, cutting and
burning and starving and suffocating you, until you know 522
not what to do; he gives you the bitterest potions, and
compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the variety
of meats and sweets on which I feasted you!’ What do
you suppose that the physician would be able to reply when
he found himself in such a predicament? If he told the
truth he could only say, ‘All these evil things, my boys, I
did for your health,’ and then would there not just be a
clamour among a jury like that? How they would cry out!

_Cal._ I dare say.

_Soc._ Would he not be utterly at a loss for a reply?

[Sidenote: _The myth._]

_Cal._ He certainly would.

_Soc._ And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well
know, if I am brought before the court. For I shall not
be able to rehearse to the people the pleasures which I have
procured for them, and which, although I am not disposed
to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of them, are deemed
by them to be benefits and advantages. And if any one says
that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that
I speak evil of old men, and use bitter words towards them,
whether in private or public, it is useless for me to reply, as
I truly might:—‘All this I do for the sake of justice, and
with a view to your interest, my judges, and to nothing else.’
And therefore there is no saying what may happen to me.

_Cal._ And do you think, Socrates, that a man who is thus
defenceless is in a good position?

_Soc._ Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you
have often acknowledged he should have—if he be his own
defence, and have never said or done anything wrong, either
in respect of gods or men; and this has been repeatedly acknowledged
by us to be the best sort of defence. And if any
one could convict me of inability to defend myself or others
after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was convicted
before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and
if I died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve
me. But if I died because I have no powers of flattery or
rhetoric, I am very sure that you would not find me repining
at death. For no man who is not an utter fool and coward
is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of doing wrong.
For to go to the world below having one’s soul full of injustice
is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of
what I say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you
a story.

_Cal._ Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.

[Sidenote: The philosopher has no reason to dread death, as Socrates will prove by a relation of what happens in the world below.]

[Sidenote: Before the days of Zeus, the judgments of another world too much resembled the judgments of this.]

[Sidenote: Zeus takes measures for the correction and improvement of them.]

[Sidenote: _The souls of the departed._]

_Soc._ Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty 523
tale, which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as
a fable only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I
mean to speak the truth. Homer tells us[50], how Zeus and
Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited
from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there existed
a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been,
and still continues to be in Heaven,—that he who has lived
all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead,
to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect
happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived
unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance
and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time
of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the
judgment was given on the very day on which the men were
to die; the judges were alive, and the men were alive; and
the consequence was that the judgments were not well given.
Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of the
Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their
way to the wrong places. Zeus said: ‘I shall put a stop to
this; the judgments are not well given, because the persons
who are judged have their clothes on, for they are alive; and
there are many who, having evil souls, are apparelled in fair
bodies, or encased in wealth or rank, and, when the day of
judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward and
testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. The
judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have their
clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole
bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All
this is a hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the
judges and the clothes of the judged.—What is to be done?
I will tell you:—In the first place, I will deprive men of
the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present:
this power which they have Prometheus has already received
my orders to take from them: in the second place, they shall
be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall be
judged when they are dead; and the judge too shall be naked,
that is to say, dead—he with his naked soul shall pierce
into the other naked souls; and they shall die suddenly
and be deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave
attire strewn upon the earth—conducted in this manner, the
judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter before
any of you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; two
from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe,
Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment 524
in the meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the
two roads lead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the
other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall judge those who
come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe.
And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold
a court of appeal, in case either of the two others are in any
doubt:—then the judgment respecting the last journey of
men will be as just as possible.’

[Sidenote: As the body is, so is the soul after death; they both retain the traces of what they were in life, and they are punished accordingly.]

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe,
I draw the following inferences:—Death, if I am right, is in
the first place the separation from one another of two things,
soul and body; nothing else. And after they are separated
they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps
the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are
distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or
training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will
remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat man will
remain fat; and so on; and the dead man, who in life had a
fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he
was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge,
or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the
same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or mis-shapen
when he was alive, the same appearance would be
visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit
of the body during life would be distinguishable after death,
either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time.
And I should imagine that this is equally true of the soul,
Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural
or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.—And
when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come
to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects
them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is: perhaps
he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of
some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him,
but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints
and scars of perjuries and crimes with which each action has
stained him, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, 525
and has no straightness, because he has lived without
truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity
and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury
and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously
to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment
which he deserves.

[Sidenote: _The Homeric heroes in the world below._]

[Sidenote: The proper office of punishment is either to improve or to deter.]

[Sidenote: The meaner sort of men are incapable of great crimes.]

[Sidenote: Great men have sometimes been good men; but power is apt to corrupt them.]

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who
is rightly punished ought either to become better and profit
by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that
they may see what he suffers, and fear and become better.
Those who are improved when they are punished by gods
and men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are
improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and
suffering; for there is no other way in which they can be
delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of
the worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes,
are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the time has
passed at which they can receive any benefit. They get no
good themselves, but others get good when they behold them
enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful
sufferings as the penalty of their sins—there they are, hanging
up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below,
a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous men who come
thither. And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be
found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and any other
tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as
I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and
potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the
greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the
power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this; for they
are always kings and potentates whom he has described as
suffering everlasting punishment in the world below: such
were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever
described Thersites, or any private person who was a villain,
as suffering everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to
commit the worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not
in his power, and he was happier than those who had the
power. No, Callicles, the very bad men come from the 526
class of those who have power[51]. And yet in that very class
there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they
are, for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and
to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and
few there are who attain to this. Such good and true men,
however, there have been, and will be again, at Athens and
in other states, who have fulfilled their trust righteously; and
there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides,
the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also
bad, my friend.

[Sidenote: _The spiritual combat._]

[Sidenote: The impartiality of the judges in another world.]

As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of
the bad kind, knows nothing about him, neither who he is,
nor who his parents are; he knows only that he has got hold
of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as curable or incurable,
and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes
and receives his proper recompense. Or, again, he looks
with admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived
in holiness and truth; he may have been a private man or
not; and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to
have been a philosopher who has done his own work, and
not troubled himself with the doings of other men in his lifetime;
him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed.
Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and
judge; but Minos alone has a golden sceptre and is seated
looking on, as Odysseus in Homer[52] declares that he saw
him:

‘Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.’

Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things,
and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and
undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the
honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the
truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as
well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all
other men to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation
of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat,
which is the combat of life, and greater than every other
earthly conflict. And I retort your reproach of me, and say,
that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of
trial and judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon
you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and,
when he has got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you 527
will gape and your head will swim round, just as mine would
in the courts of this world, and very likely some one will
shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon you any sort of
insult.

[Sidenote: _The better path._]

Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife’s tale,
which you will contemn. And there might be reason in your
contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything
better or truer: but now you see that you and Polus
and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our
day, are not able to show that we ought to live any life which
does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of
all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the
saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer
injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue
is to be followed above all things, as well in public as in
private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything,
he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a
man being just is that he should become just, and be chastised
and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of himself
as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and
rhetoric and any other art should be used by him, and all his
actions should be done always, with a view to justice.

Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be
happy in life and after death, as the argument shows. And
never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults
you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and do
you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for
you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if
you are a really good and true man. When we have practised
virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if
that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else
may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge
then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves
airs, for even on the most important subjects we are
always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let
us, then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed
to us that the best way of life is to practise justice and every
virtue in life and death. This way let us go; and in this
exhort all men to follow, not in the way to which you trust
and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way, Callicles,
is nothing worth.

FOOTNOTES

[29] Compare the following: ‘Now, and for us, it is a time to Hellenize and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraized too much and have overvalued doing. But the habits and discipline received from Hebraism remain for our race an eternal possession. And as humanity is constituted, one must never assign them the second rank to-day without being ready to restore them to the first to-morrow.’ Sir William W. Hunter, Preface to Orissa.

[30] Omitting the words τὸν ῥητορικὸν δίκαιον εἶναι and δὲ in next clause.

[31] There is an untranslatable play on the name ‘Polus,’ which means ‘a colt.’

[32] Cp. Rep. ix. 579, 580.

[33] Cp. Rep. ii. 359.

[34] Fragm. Incert. 151 (Böckh).

[35] Antiope, fragm. 20 (Dindorf).

[36] Cp. what is said of Gorgias by Callicles at p. 482.

[37] Cp. Rep. i. 348.

[38] Cp. Phaedr. 250 C.

[39] An untranslateable pun,—διὰ τὸ πιθανόν τε καὶ πιστικὸν ὠνόμασε πίθον.

[40] Or, ‘I am in profound earnest.’

[41] Cp. Rep. iv. 436.

[42] Cp. Rep. iii. 392 foll.

[43] Cp. Laws vi. 752 A.

[44] p. 485.

[45] Cp. Republic, 9. 578 ff.

[46] Cp. Rep. iii. 407 E.

[47] Cp. Symp. 216; 1 Alcib. 135.

[48] Reading with the majority of MSS. πράξοντες.

[49] Cp. Protag. 328.

[50] Il. xv. 187 foll.

[51] Cp. Rep. x. 615 E.

[52] Odyss. xi. 569.

APPENDIX I.

[Sidenote: APPENDIX I.]

It seems impossible to separate by any exact line the genuine writings of Plato from the spurious. The only external evidence to them which is of much value is that of Aristotle; for the Alexandrian catalogues of a century later include manifest forgeries. Even the value of the Aristotelian authority is a good deal impaired by the uncertainty concerning the date and authorship of the writings which are ascribed to him. And several of the citations of Aristotle omit the name of Plato, and some of them omit the name of the dialogue from which they are taken. Prior, however, to the enquiry about the writings of a particular author, general considerations which equally affect all evidence to the genuineness of ancient writings are the following: Shorter works are more likely to have been forged, or to have received an erroneous designation, than longer ones; and some kinds of composition, such as epistles or panegyrical orations, are more liable to suspicion than others; those, again, which have a taste of sophistry in them, or the ring of a later age, or the slighter character of a rhetorical exercise, or in which a motive or some affinity to spurious writings can be detected, or which seem to have originated in a name or statement really occurring in some classical author, are also of doubtful credit; while there is no instance of any ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with length. A really great and original writer would have no object in fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the ‘literary hack’ of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or genius. Further, in attempting to balance the evidence for and against a Platonic dialogue, we must not forget that the form of the Platonic writing was common to several of his contemporaries. Aeschines, Euclid, Phaedo, Antisthenes, and in the next generation Aristotle, are all said to have composed dialogues; and mistakes of names are very likely to have occurred. Greek literature in the third century before Christ was almost as voluminous as our own, and without the safeguards of regular publication, or printing, or binding, or even of distinct titles. An unknown writing was naturally attributed to a known writer whose works bore the same character; and the name once appended easily obtained authority. A tendency may also be observed to blend the works and opinions of the master with those of his scholars. To a later Platonist, the difference between Plato and his imitators was not so perceptible as to ourselves. The Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Plato are but a part of a considerable Socratic literature which has passed away. And we must consider how we should regard the question of the genuineness of a particular writing, if this lost literature had been preserved to us.

[Sidenote: _Criteria of genuineness._]

These considerations lead us to adopt the following criteria of genuineness: (1) That is most certainly Plato’s which Aristotle attributes to him by name, which (2) is of considerable length, of (3) great excellence, and also (4) in harmony with the general spirit of the Platonic writings. But the testimony of Aristotle cannot always be distinguished from that of a later age (see above); and has various degrees of importance. Those writings which he cites without mentioning Plato, under their own names, e. g. the Hippias, the Funeral Oration, the Phaedo, etc., have an inferior degree of evidence in their favour. They may have been supposed by him to be the writings of another, although in the case of really great works, e. g. the Phaedo, this is not credible; those again which are quoted but not named, are still more defective in their external credentials. There may be also a possibility that Aristotle was mistaken, or may have confused the master and his scholars in the case of a short writing; but this is inconceivable about a more important work, e. g. the Laws, especially when we remember that he was living at Athens, and a frequenter of the groves of the Academy, during the last twenty years of Plato’s life. Nor must we forget that in all his numerous citations from the Platonic writings he never attributes any passage found in the extant dialogues to any one but Plato. And lastly, we may remark that one or two great writings, such as the Parmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly devoid of Aristotelian (1) credentials may be fairly attributed to Plato, on the ground of (2) length, (3) excellence, and (4) accordance with the general spirit of his writings. Indeed the greater part of the evidence for the genuineness of ancient Greek authors may be summed up under two heads only: (1) excellence; and (2) uniformity of tradition—a kind of evidence, which though in many cases sufficient, is of inferior value.

[Sidenote: _Inferior works not necessarily spurious._]

Proceeding upon these principles we appear to arrive at the conclusion that nineteen-twentieths of all the writings which have ever been ascribed to Plato, are undoubtedly genuine. There is another portion of them, including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected by the ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal and external evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject. But there still remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either that they are genuine or spurious. They may have been written in youth, or possibly like the works of some painters, may be partly or wholly the compositions of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some contemporary transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master. Not that on grounds either of language or philosophy we should lightly reject them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of political and literary transition? Certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculation as that which separates his later writings from Aristotle.

[Sidenote: _The Lesser Hippias._]

The dialogues which have been translated in the first Appendix, and which appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonic writings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, the First Alcibiades. Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Oration are cited by Aristotle; the first in the Metaphysics, iv. 29, 5, the latter in the Rhetoric, iii. 14, 11. Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his citation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the extant dialogues. From the mention of ‘Hippias’ in the singular by Aristotle, we may perhaps infer that he was unacquainted with a second dialogue bearing the same name. Moreover, the mere existence of a Greater and Lesser Hippias, and of a First and Second Alcibiades, does to a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them. Though a very clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent. The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 21, and there is no similar instance of a ‘motive’ which is taken from Xenophon in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of the genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument ‘whither the wind blows.’ That no conclusion is arrived at is also in accordance with the character of the earlier dialogues. The resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot with certainty be adduced on either side of the argument. On the whole, more may be said in favour of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it.

[Sidenote: _Menexenus: Alcibiades I._]

The Menexenus or Funeral Oration is cited by Aristotle, and is interesting as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators praised ‘the Athenians among the Athenians,’ falsifying persons and dates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history. It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and was, perhaps, intended to rival that great work. If genuine, the proper place of the Menexenus would be at the end of the Phaedrus. The satirical opening and the concluding words bear a great resemblance to the earlier dialogues; the oration itself is professedly a mimetic work, like the speeches in the Phaedrus, and cannot therefore be tested by a comparison of the other writings of Plato. The funeral oration of Pericles is expressly mentioned in the Phaedrus, and this may have suggested the subject, in the same manner that the Cleitophon appears to be suggested by the slight mention of Cleitophon and his attachment to Thrasymachus in the Republic, cp. 465 A; and the Theages by the mention of Theages in the Apology and Republic; or as the Second Alcibiades seems to be founded upon the text of Xenophon, Mem. i. 3, 1. A similar taste for parody appears not only in the Phaedrus, but in the Protagoras, in the Symposium, and to a certain extent in the Parmenides.

To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the First Alcibiades, which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has the greatest merit, and is somewhat longer than any other of them, though not verified by the testimony of Aristotle, and in many respects at variance with the Symposium in the description of the relations of Socrates and Alcibiades. Like the Lesser Hippias and the Menexenus, it is to be compared to the earlier writings of Plato. The motive of the piece may, perhaps, be found in that passage of the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by the words of Socrates (216 B, C). For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more transparent than in the undoubted dialogues of Plato. We know, too, that Alcibiades was a favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues bearing this name passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to contemporaries of Socrates and Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real external evidence (for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we have express testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearing the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on the genuineness of the extant dialogue.

[Sidenote: _Various degrees of genuineness._]