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Socrates, the Man and His Mission

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Socrates, the Man and His Mission UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. SAN UlfcUO 3 1822017325887 LIBRARY c/> NI * SA -'-- J x libirij UNIVERSTYOFCLFORNASAND.E 31822017325887 SOCRATES THE MAN AND HIS MISSION SOCRATES THE MAN AND HIS MISSION BY R. NICOL GROSS, M.A. \ METHUEN & CO. LTD. ESSEX STREET W.C, LONDON First Published in 1914 , TO MY MOTHER PREFACE present study of Socrates and his mission has been done in the leisure gathered from other THEavocations, and was undertaken as the result of a profound personal reverence for Athens' saint and sage. It records the impression made on the writer by the ancient authorities. It has not been written for experts and scholars, but in order to tempt the average Englishman of culture to hold company for a little while with one of earth's most elect spirits and leaders. Accordingly discussion of disputed matters has been reduced to a minimum, though it could not be quite eliminated. The class of readers for whom the book is intended will also account for the introduction of material connected with life and ideas contemporary with Socrates, superfluous for the Greek student, but, one hopes, not uninteresting to the general reader, nor without relevance and use in giving him the needed background of light and shade in order to a just appreciation of the man's character and work. I only hope it will be the means of sending some to more authoritative and better sources, for to know Socrates is to love him and to reverence human nature. I have been helped by the various modern authorities to whom references are given, and have to thank Professors Phillimore and Latta of Glasgow University for initial guidance to the literature, and viii SOCRATES also Professor Taylor of St. Andrews for discussing one or two points with me. I am also obliged to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and to the Clarendon Press, Oxford, for permission to quote from Dakyns' trans- ation of Xenophon, and Jowett's translation of Plato, respectively. R. N. C. CONTENTS CHAP. PACK I. INTRODUCTORY i II. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION, YOUTH . 5 (a) THE AUTHORITIES .... 5 (b) PARENTAGE AND HOME ... 9 (c) SCHOOL LIFE . .14 (d) ADVANCED EDUCATION ... 17 III. THE MAN 36 (a) His APPEARANCE 36 (b) His CHARACTER 41 (c) SOCRATES AND ASCETICISM ... 49 IV. DOMESTIC LIFE 59 (a) THE ATHENIAN HOME AND LIVING : His POVERTY 59 (b) THE ATHENIAN WIFE : XANTHIPPE . 69 (c) ATHENIAN MARRIAGE : XANTHIPPE . 71 (d) POSITION OF WOMAN : XANTHIPPE . 73 80 (e) His VIEW OF THE FAMILY ... V. PUBLIC LIFE 82 (a) SOCRATES AS FRIEND .... 82 AS 102 (b) SOCRATES CITIZEN .... (c) His MISSION no VI. His TEACHING : ON WORK .... 142 VII. TREATMENT OF ENEMIES . 150 VIII. THE STATE AND THE IN- DIVIDUAL 162 ix x SOCRATES CHAP. 'AGE IX. His TEACHING : His ETHICS . 173 (a) His METHOD 173 (b) KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE . 179 (c) THE GOOD 194 X. His RELIGION 208 . 208 (a) THE WORLD AND MIND . (b) GOD AND GODS 213 (c) SOCRATES ON PIETY .... 231 (d) SOCRATES ON SACRIFICE . 234 (e) SOCRATES ON PRAYER .... 238 (/) THE DIVINE VOICE . .243 (g) THE SOUL AND THE HEREAFTER . 266 " " XI. THE CLOUDS OF ARISTOPHANES . 272 XII. THE TRIAL: ITS CAUSES . .289 XIII. THE TRIAL 298 XIV. (a) THE LAST SCENES 319 (b) TRIBUTES TO SOCRATES .... 333 INDEX 339 SOCRATES THE MAN AND HIS MISSION L SOCRATES, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY " He that meditateth in the law of the Most High will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients." The Book of Ecclesiasticus. History," said Thomas Carlyle, " the history of what man has accomplished UNIVERSALin this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here." And Goethe has written that what is called the spirit of the age is the spirit of the man in whom the age is mirrored. Socrates was one of those historic personalities who reflect and summarise an epoch. He gathered into his own ex- perience the profoundest movements of the mind of Greece in his time, a time when authority in religion, morality, and society had broken down or was breaking down, and thought wandered between two worlds, the dying world of tradition and convention and the world that now travailed to be born, the world of reason and freedom. It was a transition period in the history of Greek civilisation and therefore of world-civilisation, and Socrates looms out of it the figure of one who in the midst of the flux of nationalism in thought, senti- ment, and outlook stood steady and secure, building a bridge Between the old an$ the new, between that i 2 SOCRATES which had been and that which was to be. He is of those few select spirits who have drawn and fascinated men with the spell of masters. Schools rose to carry on his work, to own him master, to propagate his fertile impulse, but they had the usual defect of in- capacity to develop the spirit that gave them birth, is fate either wholly, justly, or symmetrically. It the of schools to be confined to an aspect. Socrates, however, not only made disciples and lovers among his contemporaries, but he has made pupils and lovers ever since. He was an inspiring personality as well as a penetrating thinker, and his character has, by its strong, simple, manly charm, won the reverence and affection of those of other climes and faiths who have come to know him. Erasmus, the great humanist and reformer, the flower of Christian scholarship in the sixteenth century, one not apt to fall into romantic admirations, gave him in his own heart a place among " the saints of religion : Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis." It is the combination of a masculine Greek saint- hood, in which the merely low and selfish were com- pletely submerged, with extraordinary intellectual power, which commands our enthusiastic regard and puts Socrates among those who, by reason of their spiritual magnitude, should be familiar to all who seek to take a great view of man and of life, companions of all who desire to use life nobly and well. He overlooks the horizons that bound the world of common men, and speaks to the mind and heart of all ages. The last scenes of all in his life sets the seal to that quality in his character which moves the human soul everywhere and attests an irrefragable place among the elect of the earth. It was 399 B.C., on a day of late May or of June. Just as the sun was near its setting over the modest INTRODUCTORY 3 houses and stately temples of the wonderful little city of Athens, and the long shadows were stretching across the ground, you might have seen a group of men in one of the rooms of an Athenian gaol. They were looking sad, and could with difficulty keep the tears from welling up in their eyes, as they looked now and then into the face of one old rugged-looking fellow, who moved about with good cheer on his countenance and a genial playfulness on his lips. Never before had that rough and homely face, on which rested the peaceful afterglow of the light of high-thinking, seemed to them to reveal so much of mingled dignity and pathos, never before had the sense of how poor and empty life would be to them without his great manly words, searching questions, and cheering com- so were at for pany been strong ; they heavy heart, Socrates was about to die at the hands of the people for whose good he had always sought to live. Within the cool shadow of the prison walls their movements and their words were muffled in the quiet which wraps all deep sorrow, and which was hardly broken when an official entered and stood by Socrates to tell him that now his hour had arrived and he must go out to meet death. Even the hardened official about his in the usual his voice could not go duty way ; " faltered as he spoke to the condemned man : Socrates, I have known you all the time as the noblest and gentlest and best of all who have ever come here. I ' know you do not blame me, you have no hard feeling against me. I only do what I must. to bear " Try your lot as easily as you can and the tears burst into his eyes as he turned and went away. Socrates " looked up and said, Good-bye, we shall bear it." It was the recompense of a true and good life, thus at the end to have about him the friends for whom he had made life a thing grand enough to be worth living, 4 SOCRATES thus to witness the reverence and affection even of the man who was to carry out upon him the stern sentence of death. Socrates' career had been a triumph of character all the way through; it was a triumph of character at the end. But who was this man and what had he done, that he should be so hated and so loved at the same time ? How could he be worthy of all honour in the opinion of some, and of death in that of others ? It is the purpose of this book to set forth his character, aims, and work in such a way as to bring out for the ordinary modern reader something of that grandeur of Socrates as a man and a thinker which has made him one of the most haunting and influential figures of history.
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