1 THE BRITISH ACADEMY

SECON D AN N U AL PH IL OS OPH I CAL LECTU RE

H E NR IE TTE H E R T! TRU ST

The S oc ra ti c Doc t rin e of

the S ou l

D Professor John Bu rnet , LL . .

L ondon

P ublished for the British Acad emy

B r lf d Ox f d U s s y Humph ey Mi or , or niver ity Pres E C A . . men Corner,

S E C O ND A N N U A L P H IL O S O PH ICA L L E C TU R E

HENRIE ’I‘TE HERT! TRUST

THE S OCRATI C DO CTR IN E OF THE SOU L

D BY ROF E SSO R J B T LL . P OH N URNE ,

Janua r 26 1 91 6 y ,

M Y O R DS A DI E S A N D E N T L E M E N L , L G , When the President and Council did me the honour of inviting me to deliver the Annual Philosophical Lecture, and when they asked me of to take Socrates as my subject, they were, course, aware that the f treatment o such a theme must be largely philological and historical .

I, certainly, have no claim to be regarded as a philosopher, but I have tried hard to understand what Socrates was and what he did, and of I conceive that to be a question genuine philosophical interest . is one of Whatever else it , philosophy, in aspect it, is the progressive ff of to e ort man find his true place in the world, and that aspect must of be treated historically, since it is part human progress, and philo of logically, since it involves the interpretation documents . I am not of of to afraid, then, the objection that most what I have say to- day is history rather than philosophy . We are men , not angels, ' and for many of us our best chance of getting a glimpse of things on is of their eternal side to approach them along the path time . More

of W of over, some us have hat may be called a sense loyalty to great no men . In a way, doubt, it does not matter whether we owe a truth to or S or for Pythagoras ocrates Plato, but it is natural us to desire

u r to know o benefactors and keep them in grateful remembrance . for of I make no apology, therefore, the historical character much that to I have lay before you, and I shall begin by stating the problem in a strictly historical form .

to Themistiu s J In a letter the philosopher , the Emperor ulian says

The achievements of Alexander the Great are outdone in my eyes son of S 0 hroni u It e W by Socrates p sc s . is to him I ascrib the isdom of of of Plato, the fortitude Antisthenes, the generalship Xenophon, M 4 SECOND ANNUAL PHILOSOPHICAL LECTURE

Eretriac S im mias the and Megaric philosophies, with Cebes, , Phaedo To and countless others . him too we owe the colonies that they S planted, the Lyceum , the toa and the Academies . Who ever found salvation in the victories of Alexander ! Whereas it is thanks to Socrates that all who find salvation in philosophy are being saved 1 even now . J ’ These words of ulian s are still true, and that is partly why there S is so little agreement about ocrates . The most diverse philosophies

u new have so ght to father themselves upon him, and each account of him tends to reflect the fashions and prejudices of the hour . At

one . time he is an enlightened deist, at another a radical atheist He has been lauded as the father of scepticism and again as the high priest of mysticism as a democratic social reformer and as a victim of democratic intolerance and ignorance . He has even been claimed

! u N o with at least equal reason as a Q aker . wonder that his latest

: biographer, H . Maier, exclaims

In the presence of each fresh attempt to bring the personality of is Socrates nearer to us, the impression that always recurs the same The m an whose influence was so widespread and s o profound cannot have been like that 2

’ Unfortunately that is just the impression left on me by Maier s own bulky volume, though he has mastered the material and his treatment of U it is sound as far as it goes . nless we can find some other line of u s approach, it looks as if Socrates must still remain for the Great

Unknown . ’ That, to be sure, is not Maier s view . He thinks he knows a great

or 600 deal about Socrates, he would not have written pages and more about him . The conclusion he comes to is that Socrates was S not, properly peaking, a philosopher, which makes it all the more of remarkable that the philosophers the next generation, however ff S much they di ered in other respects, all agreed in regarding ocrates

difierences as their master . Maier makes much of the between the Socratic schools and urges that these could not have arisen if Socrates had been a philosopher with a system of his own . There seems to be something in that at first sight, but it only makes it more puzzling that these philosophers should have wished to represent their philo sophies as Socratic at all . In modern times the most inconsistent

l C or K phi osophies have been called artesian antian or Hegelian, but in these cases we can usually make ou t how they were derived from

1 264 c .

2 ’ H Maier Sokm tes sein Werk und s in schzchtlic tellu n Tubi . e e e he S e , , g g ( ng n ,

1 91 3) p . 3 . THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL

K or . e Descartes, ant, Hegel respectively Each of th se thinkers had set up some new principle which was then applied in divergent and even contradictory ways by their successors , and we should expect to of ! find that Socrates did something the same kind . eller, from whom most of us have learned, thought he knew what it was . ' B e r s hilow hie Socrates discovered the universal and founded the g ifl p p .

Maier will have nothing to do with that, and I rather think he is wise . not The evidence does bear examination , and in any case the hypo thesis would only account for Plato (if it would even do that) . The

remain . other Socratics h unexplained If, however, we are to be of to deprived this ingenious construction, we want something replace f or . it, and this we look to Maier in vain He tells us that Socrates was of not a philosopher in the proper sense the word, but only of own f a moral teacher with a distinctive method his , that o ’ n dialectical protreptic In other words, his philosophy was nothi g more than his plan of making people good by arguing with them in S a peculiar way . urely the man whose influence has been so great cannot have been like that !

Now it is clearly impossible to discuss the Socratic question in all of so its bearings within the limits a single lecture, what I propose to do is to take Maier as the ablest and most recent advocate of the Vi was not ew that Socrates really a philosopher, and to apply the

Socratic method of reasoning from admissions made by the other side .

see u s If we try to where these will lead , we may possibly reach d conclusions Maier himself has faile to draw, and these will be all the i more cogent if based solely on evidence he allows to be valid . He s s o a candid writer, and the assumptions he makes are few that, if

out on a case can be made these alone, it stands a fair chance of being a sound one . The experiment seemed at least worth trying, and the f o m so . result it was new to yself at any rate, it may be new to others ’ . n of I resolved not to quarrel , the , with Maier s estimate the value of ou r of sources . He rejects the testimony Xenophon, who did not belong to the intimate Socratic circle, and who was hardly more than

-fiv twenty e years old when he saw Socrates for the last time . He also disallows the evidence of Aristotle, who came to Athens as a lad of of S eighteen thirty years after the death ocrates, and who had no important sources of information other than those accessible to our

. u our selves That leaves s with Plato as sole witness, but Maier does

not his . accept testimony in its entirety . Far from it For reasons as I need not discuss, since I propose to accept his conclusion a basis 6 SECOND ANNUAL PH ILOSOPHICAL LECTURE

’ m o we to for argu ent, he h lds that must confine ourselves Plato s

out A olo Crito earliest writings, and he particularly singles the p g y and ,

to of S m osium which he adds the speech Alcibiades in the y p . In of these two works, and in that single portion a third, he holds that ’ Plato had no other intention than to set the Master s personality and lifework before ou r eyes without additions of his own This does A olo of not mean , observe, that the p gy is a report the speech actually

b S his Crito delivered y ocrates at trial, or that the conversation with

S m in the prison ever took place . It imply eans that the Socrates we ’ learn to know from these sources is the real man, and that Plato s so to sole object far was preserve a faithful memory of him . Maier

uses other early dialogues too, but he makes certain reservations hi about them which I wish to avoid discussing . I prefer to take s admissions in the strictest sense and with all the qualifications he on u of insists . The iss e, then, takes this form What could we know Socrates as a philosopher if no other account of him had come down

to us A olo Orito S of l than the p gy, the , and the peech A cibiades, and with the p rovis o that even these are not to be regarded as reports of ’ actual speeches or conversations ! I should add that Maier also allows us to treat the allusions in contemporary comedy as corrobora

tive evidence, though they must be admitted with caution . Such are

the conditions of the experiment I resolved to try .

III

A olo Crito In the first place, then, we learn from the p gy and that Socrates was just over seventy when he w as put to death in the

f 39 4 0 r 4 9 S o 9 B C . 7 o 6 B . 0 . pring . , and that means that he was born in was of w as He , then, a man the Periclean Age . He already ten years old ou t O when Aeschylus brought the restean Trilogy, and about thirty when Sophocles and Euripides were producing their earliest of tragedies . He must have watched the building the new Parthenon

to s ee from start finish . We are far too apt to Socrates against the more s ombre background of those later days to which Plato and

Xenophon belonged, and to forget that he was over forty when Plato

n . was bor If we wish to understand him historically, we must first f wn replace him among the surroundings o his o generation . In other words, we must endeavour to realize his youth and early manhood . S To most people ocrates is best known by his trial and death, and i l that is why he s commonly pictured as an o d man . It is not always remembered, for instance, that the Socrates caricatured by Aristo

louds of - S or phanes in the C is a man forty ix, that the Socrates who 1 1 p . 47. THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE OF THE S OUL

B c . u him served at Potidaea (432 . ) in a manner that wo ld have won

- - V C . O n the . . to day was about thirty seven that occasion he saved

of or the life Alcibiades, who must have been twenty at least, he would not have been on active service abroad . Even if we assume that Potidaea was his first campaign , Alcibiades was eighteen years S S h younger than ocrates at the very outside, and his peech in t e

um to S ymp osi carries us still further back, the time when he was 1 f n to of about fi tee . In reading the account he is made give the ’ f of beginning o his intimacy with Socrates, we are reading a boy s enthusiasm for a man just turned thirty . The story makes a difl erent

. u s now impression if we keep that in view What concerns , however, ’ is that the wisdom of Socrates is assumed to be m atter of common knowledge in these early days . It was just because he had some strange, new knowledge to impart that Alcibiades sought to win his 2 ff see of . a ection . We shall the bearing that shortly From the Ap ology we learn further that Socrates conceived

- o himself to have a mission to his fellow citizens, and that his devoti n to it had brought him to poverty . He cannot have been really poor to for h begin with ! we have found him serving before Potidaea, w ich means that he had the property qualification required at the time for

. 4 23 B those who served as hoplites Nine years later ( . however, A Ami sias on when ristophanes and p represented him the comic stage, to it appears that his neediness was beginning be a byword . They both allude to W hat seems to have been a current joke about his want n w d i of a e cloak an the shifts he was put to to get one. Am psias to S shoemakers fi r said he was born pite the , but Soc ates may have

for had other reasons than poverty going barefoot . In the same

as for fragment he is addressed a stouthearted fellow that, all his ’ u to . Two E u olis h nger, never stooped be a parasite years later, p used stronger language . He calls Socrates a garrulous beggar, who ’ W to O has ideas on everything except here get a meal . f course we must not take this language too seriously . Socrates was still serving as louds of a hoplite at Delium, the year before the C Aristophanes and Gam ma of Ami sias the p , and at Amphipolis the year after . Some thing, however, must have happened shortly before to bring him into or hi public notice, the comic poets would not all have turned on m at is ff of once, and it also clear that he had su ered losses some kind .

1 In passing from the story of his first intimacy with S ocrates to that of

- Po i aea A cibia es sa s Tofu d r e ci c t du a l/T a n ov e ovet Ka i er d r a fir‘ a t d , l d y y p p p y y , n ’ ld r b u at T a was an o s o t a a r tim & . m e e c S . 21 9 e h t t y, l t , ( y p , 2 ! He thought it wou ld b e a stroke Of l uck mim dKoiJO' a z do a u ep 057 0 9 55 a 21 a (Symp . 7 , 8 SECOND ANNUAL PHILOSOPHICAL LECT URE

V r W to e y likely these ere due the war in the first place , but the A olo of p gy makes him poorer still at the close his life, and he is made

to hi . attribute that to s mission We may infer, I think , that the

of of louds public mission Socrates had begun before the year the C , b u t f was was still something o a novelty then , so that its nature not A clearly understood . He was absent from thens , as we know, the year before, and presumably in the preceding years also, though we do not happen to hear of any actual battle in which he took part between Potidaea and Delium . We are told, however, that his habit of meditation was a j oke in the army before Potidaea, and that it was

- 1 there he once stood wrapped in thought for twenty four hours .

It looks as if the call came to him when he was in the trenches and,

s o i if , the mission cannot have become the sole business of his l fe till

- five N ow after Delium, when he was forty years old . we have seen ‘ his that he was known for wisdom long before that, and the A l of on p o ogy confirms the speech Alcibiades this point . It was before Socrates entered on his mission that Chaerep ho went to Delphi and asked the oracle whether there was any one wiser than

S l w was ocrates, from which it fol ows that this isdom whatever it , w as something anterior to and quite independent of the public

A olo . su m mission described in the p gy To up, the evidence Maier admits is sufficient to prove that Socrates was known as a wise man before he was forty, and before he began to go about questioning his

l - of fe low citizens . Whatever we may think the details, both the Ap ology and the speech of Al cibiades assume that as a matter of i ad course, which is even more conv ncing than if it h been stated in so many words . O n of the other hand, it does not seem likely that the mission ‘ ’ Socrates stood in no sort of relation to the Wisdom for which n A olo he was know in his younger days . The p gy does not help us

. l u s to here It te ls a good deal about the mission, but nothing as the ‘ ’ of of Chaere ho nature the wisdom which prompted the inquiry p , while Alcibiades is not sufficiently sober in the Symp osium to give us to more than a hint, which would hardly be intelligible yet, but which

S l . i we ha l return It w ll be best, then, to start with the account given in the Ap ology of that mission to his fellow- citizens to which Socrates

of i see devoted the later years his l fe, and to whether we can infer anything from it about the wisdom for which he had been known in early manhood .

1 m S . 220 c 3 Mai 1 n s . er sa s 30 tha is ob ious e e s o y p , qq y (p . n . ) t th v ly d p nd ra trustworthy t dition . THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE O F THE SOUL

IV

S the We are told, then, that at first ocrates refused to accept

of set declaration the Pythia that he was the wisest of men, and u one t himself to refute it by prod cing some who was cer ainly wiser .

ff onlv the The result of his e orts, however, was to show that all people who were wise in their own eyes and those of others were u of really ignorant, and he concl ded that the meaning the oracle n did not lie o the surface . The god must really mean that all men S alike were ignorant, but that ocrates was wiser in this one respect ,

e that he knew he was ignorant, while other men thought they w re now wise . Having discovered the meaning of the oracle, he felt it his duty to champion the veracity of the god by devoting the rest ’ f of o his life to the exposure other men s ignorance .

one s It ought, would think, to be obvious that this is a humorou

For uf way of stating the case . very s ficient reasons the Delphic A oracle was an object of suspicion at thens, and, when Euripides s exhibits it in an unfavourable light, he only reflects the feeling of his audience . It is incredible that any Athenian Should have thought it worth while to make the smallest sacrifice in defence of an institution which had distinguished itself by its pro - Persian and pro

or S to Spartan leanings, that ocrates should have hoped conciliate his W judges by stating that he had ruined himself in such a cause . e might as well expect a jury of English Nonconformists to be favour ably impressed by the plea that an accu sed pers on had been reduced f to penury by his advocacy o Papal Infallibility . O n this point recent German critics have an inkling of the truth,

u of m though they draw q ite the wrong conclusions . Several the have made the profound discovery that the speech Plato puts into the

of not not to mouth Socrates is a defence at all, and was likely conciliate the court. They go on to infer that he cannot have spoken of like that, and some them even conclude that the whole story of the ’ oracle is Plato s invention . That is because they start with the con v iction that Socrates must have tried to make ou t the best case he ’ 1 could for himself . He only needed, says Maier, . to appeal to the correctness with which he had always fulfilled the religious duties of ’

. l S an Athenian citizen Xenophon s Ap o ogy makes him peak thus . ’ And he certainly did speak thus . The inference is characteristically S A olo German, but the ocrates we think we know from the p gy, Urito of to the , and the speech Alcibiades would never have stooped of do anything of the sort . He was not afraid the State, as German

1 p . 1 0 SECOND ANN UAL PH ILOSOPH ICAL LECTURE

o m to professors ccasionally are . He certainly ad itted its right deal

its is ff e with citizens as it thought fit, but that a very di er nt thing from

o t to o of rec gnizing its itle contr l their freedom thought and speech . of Crito The Socrates the insists, indeed, that a legally pronounced

t u sen ence must be executed, and that he m st therefore submit to death at the hands of the State but we misunderstand him badly if we fail to see that he asserts even more strongly his right not to degrade n himself by a humiliati g defence, or to make things easy for his

a him . ccusers by running away, which is just what they wanted to do

u No . Each party must abide by the sentence prono nced ! Socrates

must die, and his accusers must lie under condemnation for wicked n s a ess and dishonesty . That is what he is made to y in the A l 1 o o so u . p gy, and he adds that it was bo nd to be of Even Xenophon , who does put forward the plea religious o on of S S c nformity behalf ocrates, hows rather more insight than the

own l of Germans . In his Ap o ogy he admits that other accounts the ’ S ! of u ! peech Plato s, course , in partic lar had succeeded in repro ’ du in c g the lofty tone (p eya knyop ca ) of Socrates . He really did 2 s u peak like that, he says , and he was quite indifferent to the res lt of th e trial . Unfortunately this is immediately spoilt by a complaint

one s o that no had accounted for his indifference, that it seemed ‘ ’ ’ own rather unwise , just as it does to the Germans . Xenophon s s view, which he modestly attributes to Hermogenes, is that Socrate f not wished to escape the evils o old age by a timely death . He did n has wa t to become blind and hard of hearing . It not been given e ither to Xenophon or to the Germans to s ee that the only thing to be expected of a brave man accused on a tru mpery charge is just that t one of humorous condescension and p ersiflage which Plato has repro A olo d u ced . As s ee we shall , there are serious moments in the p gy

t oo is , but the actual defence rather a provocation than a plea for is acquittal . That is just why we feel so sure that the S peech true to l ife .

not We need doubt, then, that Socrates actually gave some such

of A olo account his mission as that we read in the p gy, though we

must keep in v iew the ironical character of this part of the speech .

Most English critics take it far too seriously . They seem to think the m essage of Socrates to his fellow- citizens can have been nothing more

than is there revealed, and that his sole business in life was to expose

! of d the ignorance others . If that had really been all, it is surely har

1 39 b 4 s , qq . ’ 2 ' wa X é d 15 6 w d ovs . ato s n . A ol I < K o n oii w 77 r P e a i o hov 37 4. v r s p . 5 fi ppq q p l ’

rese at the ria b ut X o h was som w ere in Asia . p nt t l , en p on e h THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE O F THE SOUL to believe that he wo uld have been ready to fac e death rather than d S l n relinquish his task . No oubt ocrates he d that the convictio of on of o ignorance was the first step the way salvati n, and that it was little u s e talking of anything else to people who had still this S to o m e tep take, but even Xenophon , wh m these sa e critics gen rally regard as an authority on the historical Socrates represents him as o o a teacher of positive d ctrine . It ught to be possible to discover m A olo what this was even fro the p gy itself.

V

We must not assume , indeed, that Socrates thought it worth while

s a to y much about his real teaching at the trial, though it is likely that he did indicate its nature . There were certainly some among his five d to hundred ju ges who deserved be taken seriously . Even if he did him not do this, however, Plato was bound to do it for , if he wished

eff to produce the ect he obviously intended to produce . As a matter of m fact, he has done it quite un istakably, and the only reason why the point is usually missed is that we find it hard to put ourselves in the place of those to whom such doctrine was novel and strange . The passage which lets us into the secret is that where Socrates is made to tell his judges that he will not give up what he calls ’ h f on p ilosophy , even though they were to o fer to acquit him that

is for condition . Here, if anywhere, the place where we look a state

of ment the truth for which he was ready to die, and Plato accordingly ’ makes him give the sum and substance of his philosophy in words h which have obviously been chosen with the greatest care, and to whic all possible emphasis is lent by the solemnity of the context and by the

of S s a rhetorical artifice repetition . What ocrates is made to y is this

I will not cease from philosophy and from exhorting you, and one of declaring the truth to every you I meet, saying in the words to : d I am accustomed use My good frien , are you not ashamed of for of caring money and how to get as much it as you can, and for or honour and reputation, and not caring taking thought for wisdom for P and truth and your soul, and how to make it as good as possible And again

old I go about doing nothing else but urging you, young and alike, not to care for your bodies or for money sooner or as much as for your 1 h u ow o . soul, and to make it as good as y can

‘ ’ To S on his care for their souls, then, was what ocrates urged

- we how . fellow citizens, and shall have to consider much that implies

1 29 d 4 s . and 30 3 s . , qq , , 7 qq 1 2 SECOND ANN UA L PH ILOSOPH ICAL LECTURE

First , however, it should be noted that there are many echoes of the phrase in all the Socratic literature . Xenophon uses it in con m ’ texts which do not appear to be derived fro Plato s dialogues .

Antisthenes, it seems , employed the phrase too , and he would hardly m to have borrowed it fro Plato . Isocrates refers it as something 1 familiar . The Athenian Academy possessed a dialogue which was evidently designed as a sort of introduction to Socratic philosophy for is n m beginners, and thrown i to the appropriate for of a conversation A S . is between ocrates and the young lcibiades It not, I think , by

b ut . S Plato, it is of early date In it ocrates shows that, if any one of is to care rightly for himself, he must first all know what he is ! n it is the proved that each of us is soul, and therefore that to care to ou r for ourselves is care for souls . It is all put in the most

S S provokingly imple way, with the usual illustrations from hoemaking A olo 2 and the like, and it strikingly confirms what is said in the p gy.

I am not called upon to labour this point, however, for Maier admits, h and indeed insists, that t is is the characteristic Socratic formula . m s ee . Let us , then, where this ad ission will lead us l Just at first, I fear, it will seem to lead nowhere in particu ar .

S eflort uch language has become stale by repetition , and it takes an

to . S k appreciate it o far as words go, Socrates has done his wor too

is and - n well . It an orthodox respectable Opinion to day that each o e

u s hi s of has a soul, and that its welfare is highest interest, and that

o in B . C . see was s already the fourth century , as we can from S Isocrates . We assume without examination that a imilar vague on too orthodoxy the subject existed in the days of Socrates , and was h that there not ing very remarkable in his reiteration of it .

o That is why Maier, having safely reached this p int, is content to inquire no further, and pronounces that Socrates was not a philo

S 0pher in the strict sense, but only a moral teacher with a method

n S w ofi u of his ow . I hope to ho that he has left j st where he ought to have begun . For it is here that it becomes important to remember that Socrates no belonged to the age of Pericles . We have right to assume that his words meant just as much or as little as they might mean in

Isocrates or in a modern sermon . What we have to ask is what they would mean at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War ! and,

e i so m if we ask that qu stion, we shall find, I bel eve, that, far fro ’ appearing commonplace, the exhortation to care for his soul

1 F r refer M i r . i i a 3 Th a us Is r es Antid. o e ces see a e 333 . . o n oc n , p , n e ll n t ( w G i 0 as ote b r Pla o v l . 3 9 ote t o . ) n d y ( , , p 2 P at Ale 1 . 1 2 o . e 9 s ! l ! 7 , qq . THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL m as S to of ust have come a hock the Athenian those days, and may

not . even have seemed a little ridiculous It is implied, we must rv is in u s is of obse e, that there something which capable attaining is of wisdom, and that this same thing capable attaining goodness ‘ ’ and i o . rv r ghte usness This something Socrates called soul (d xfi) . N ow no one had ever said that before, in the sense in which Socrates m an N ot e t it . only had the word q finever been used in this way, the of S a but existence what ocrates c lled by the name had never ”been l to a realized . If that can be shown, it wi l be easier underst nd how r to as of l Soc ates came be regarded the true founder phi osophy, and

our . of i o problem will be solved This involves, course, an inqu ry int

i of x v u s the h story the word p xfi, which may seem to be taking n if l a lo g way from Socrates, but that cannot be helped we real y w to s a of l ish mea ure the import nce the advance he made . It wi l ’ be obvious that in what follows I have been helped by Rohde s P s che y , but that really great work seems to me to miss the very o to to no on p int which it ought lead up . It has chapter Socrates at all .

VI

‘ ’ O l « v riginal y, the word p xfi meant breath , but, by historical a S d two times, it had alre dy been pecialize in distinct ways . It had

to m coura e breath o come ean g in the first place, and secondly the f l e The has n of to our if . first sense nothi g, course, do with present

so has to inquiry, but much confusion arisen from failure distinguish to it from the second, that it will be as well clear the ground by n is n d m n defini g its range . There abu dant evi ence in any la guages of a primitive idea that pride and courage naturally expressed them

s n or! not to too it selve by hard breathi g, put fine a point upon in t e snort g. Perhaps his was first observed in horses . At any rat , ’ ‘ the phrase to breathe hard (m/ eiv p éya ) survived in the sense of ‘ ’ ‘ ‘ to be proud , and warriors are said to breathe wrath and to ’ t . x v i was brea he Ares So the word p x j used, just like the Latin ‘ ’ s iritus for . p , what we still call high spirit Herodotus and the 1 Tragedians have it often in this sense and Thucydides once . From ’ ‘ is eox v o and this derived the adjective p x s, spirited courageous ’ ma nammou s e a ko v o is of the g man, the p y xp x s, properly the man i is spir t It clear that, if we wish to discover what Socrates really

W ’ of meant by X X l: when he called the seat wisdom and goodness by

1 Ari a oras was ! ai m H ro . 1 24 we are to t a st T c . 40 3 In e . h u n . , . d v ld h t g My )

‘ - dx o Fr m the tex we see c ear t a is mea s he was oor s iri ed . p s . o con t l ly h t th n p p t i I mention this because Liddell and Scott are wrong on the po nt . 1 4 SECOND ANNUAL PHILOSOPHICAL LECTURE

a m o th t name, we must eli inate all instances of the w rd which fall

under this head . ’ e of ’U ’ The second m aning V X l is the breath of life , the presence or absence of which is the most obvious distinction between the ‘ ’ m is imate and the inanimate . It , in the first place , the ghost

a man gives up at death, but it may also quit the body temporarily , which explains the phenomenon of swooning That

so u w as being , it seemed nat ral to suppose it also the thing that can

a h ro m at large when the body is asleep , and even appear to anot er m sleeping person in his drea . Moreover, since we can dream of the

e d ad, what then appears to us must be just what leaves the body at n w the m om ent of death . These considerations explai the world ide ’ of of belief in the soul as a sort double the real bodily man , the

ka enius x rv r . Egyptian , the Italian g , and the Greek l x j N ow this double is not identified with whatever it is in us that

ou r i feels and wills during waking l fe . That is generally supposed sa to be blood and not breath . Homer has a great deal to y about

b rv . feelings, but he never attri utes any feeling to the q xfi The

v éo and the s, which do feel and perceive, have their seat in h the midriff or the heart ! they belong to the body and perish wit it .

x rv In a sense , no doubt, the l xficontinues to exist after death, since r it can appear to the su vivors, but in Homer it is hardly even a ghost,

since it cannot appear to them otherwise than in a dream . It is

mu d m J ammy h a shadow ( ) or i age ( ) , wit no more substance, as 1 A of . pollodorus put it, than the reflection the body in a mirror

ex ce souls are witless and feeble things . Tiresias is the p ! Departed N elc ia tion that proves the rule, and in the y it is only when the Shades have been allowed to drink blood that consciousness returns

rv to them for a while . That is not because death has robbed the xl xfi of anyt hing it ever had ! it had nothing to do with the conscious

life when it was in the body, and cannot therefore have any con

s ciou snes s of when detached from it. A few favourites heaven escape

lot of B this dismal by being sent to the Isles the lest, but these do

not really die at all . They are carried away still living and retain

their bodies, without which they would be incapable of bliss . This 2 point, too, is well noted by Apollodorus .

1 d ‘ v ds A 63 ! b 420 W a hsm . {mor ider at r s o o oru s we l 66 1 S o . E el. i . c p ll d p ( t , p , ) wx ’ ’ ‘ - r ois eidcbkoz s r oi s e v r ois K a rdn' rpocs (ba woyevors oyola s Kai r ois di d r awoddr a wa ux/w r a ’ ’ ‘ evors‘ d Ka ddrra e eix a o' r a t Ka i r ds m vr o et s i eir a t O' re E vcbdr 86 fia ém a a w p , g 15v f j p p , p p ) a 1 a! 7 9 r r o e na v e v d p ex t a s a ur t hmlrw Ka t a qbnv . 2 l A o l r b i 2 e / o év i y Kai r d o é ar a wa eix/a t . Sto Eel . 4 2 fr w o o us lo. . r p l d , ( . , p ) p o p p THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL

VII

b e It is generally agreed that these views can hardly primitive, and ‘ of r cz v a z é ev a that the Observances the mortuary cult ( p f p ), which we A w find practised at thens and elsewhere, really bear itness to a far

f S one ‘’U earlier stratum o belief . They how that at time the l X fi

u to w as s pposed dwell with the body in the grave, where it had to be f of supported by the o ferings the survivors, especially by libations ’ the (xoa t ) poured over the tomb . It has been fairly inferred that immunity of the Homeric world from ghosts had a good deal to do with the substitution of cremation for burial . When the body is

n « has . bur t the pvxfi no longer a foothold in this life At any rate, the early Athenian ghost was by no means so feeble and helpless ’ or a thing as the Homeric . If a man s murder went unavenged, if ‘ ’ ofierin s the g at his grave were neglected, his ghost could walk , and the feast of the Anthesteria preserved the memory of a time

' when departed souls were believed to revisit their old hom es once

of a year . There is no trace anything here that can be called

- m m ancestor worship . It is something much ore pri itive than that . m the Though less helpless, and therefore more for idable, than ‘ ’ S Homeric hade , the early Athenian ghost is dependent on the ff k ff o erings of the survivors, and they ma e these o erings, partly, no doubt, from feelings of natural piety, but mainly. to keep the ghost

to . quiet . That is hardly be called worship w It is plain , on the other hand, that these beliefs ere mere survivals B in the Athens of the fifth century . C . We Should know next to nothing about them were it not th at the mortuary Observances

of of become legal importance in cases homicide and inheritance, s o r that the orato s had to treat them seriously, and, moreover, they went on quite comfortably side by side with the wholly inconsistent own belief that departed souls all went to a place of their . We know ’ now that Lucian s picture of Charon and his boat faithfully repro

for B c . duces the imagery of the sixth century . it agrees exactly with the representation on a recently discovered pl ece of black 1 s e ! figured pottery . There we e the souls miserable little creatures w ! on ith wings weeping the bank and praying to be taken aboard, while Charon sits in the stem and makes all he has room for work

a of their pass ge by rowing . The people who decorated a piece h pottery, obviously intended for use in the mortuary cult, wit such a scene had evidently no living beli ef in the continued existence

1 Furtwan ler Charon cin altattische Ma lerei Arc i fii r Reli ionswissen g , , e ( h v g

s aft iii . 1 91 ch , v pp 16 SECOND ANNUAL PHILOSOPHICAL LECTURE of the soul within the grave . We find the same contradiction in a Egypt, but there both beliefs were taken seriously. The Egypti ns

- ot out of ffi were a business like people, and g the di culty by assuming

l one Ira o two sou s, of which (the ) remains in the t mb while the other ba d (the ) eparts to the place of the dead . Similar devices were

of . adopted elsewhere, but the Greeks felt no need for anything the sort

We may safely infer that the old belief had lost its b old upon them .

Whichever way we take it, the traditional Athenian beliefs about a the soul were cheerless enough , and we cannot wonder at the pop larit of of y the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised a better lot some sort to the initiated after death . It does not appear, however, that

r this was at all clearly conceived . The obligation of secrecy refer ed to to the ritual alone, and we should hear something more definite as i AS is the future l fe, if the Mysteries had been explicit about it . it , the chorus in the Frogs of Aristophanes probably tell us all there was of to tell, and that only amounts to a vision meadows and feasting

of O one a sort glorified picnic . f thing we may be quite sure, namely, that no new view of the soul was revealed in the Mysteries ! for in

ul A s that case we sho d certainly find some trace of it in Aeschylus . m of a atter fact, he tells us nothing about the soul, and hardly ever m him entions it . To , as to most of his contemporaries, thought h s belongs to the body ! it is the blood round the heart, and t at cease to to think at death . The life come has no place in his scheme of things, and that is just why he is so preoccupied with the problem of ’ the fathers sins being visited on the children . Justice must be done on t or ll ear h not at a .

d out as In any case, the promises hel in the Mysteries are quite inconsistent with the beliefs implied by the mortuary cult as are C and haron his boat, and the fact that the Eleusinia had been taken over by the state as part of the public religion shows once more how little hold such beliefs had on the ordinary Athenian . I do not mean l h e u that he actively disbelieved them, but I shou d suppose tho ght u on very little about them . After all, the Athenians were brought p l Homer, and their everyday working be iefs were derived from that u B so rce . esides, Homer was already beginning to be interpreted allegorically, and the prevailing notion in the time of Socrates cer tainl y was that the soul s of the dead were absorbed by the upper air, S u liants just as their bodies were by the earth . In the pp Euripides ’ is gives us the formula Earth to earth and air to air , and that no 1 of o n so of d heresy his w . It was much a matter course that it ha

1 ’ ’ Eu r. S u l r efi a ev m or a lde a pp . 5 33 rv n p o p , ’ 3 7 1 r o 0 63m 8 9 7 71 .

1 8 SECOND ANNUAL PHILOSOPH ICAL LECTURE

The o em Egyptians . tr uble was till recently that there se ed to be no roo m for a n age of such spec ulation within the limits of Greek history

w e e m e of as kn w it, and any modern scholars have follow d the lead ‘ ’ o e Her dotus in holding that it cam from the barbarians , and in

a o O O m w as particul r fr m Egypt . n the other hand , rphicis closely

o u b und p with the worship of Dionysus, which seems to have come o fr m Thrace, and we can hardly credit the Thracians with a gift for

e mystical theology . If, however, we take a wid r view, we shall find that doctrines of a similar character are to be found in m any places

do ! has which have nothing to with Thrace . ielinski shown strong

r u e m m g o nds for believing that the H r etic theology, which beca e

a A in import nt in later days, originated in rcadia, and especially

the m of m is e Mantinea, ho e the prophetess Dioti a, who c rtainly not 1 to b e regarded as a fictitious personage . There were mystical elements of ! w as in the worship the Cretan eus, and a book of prophecies in m C extant later days co posed in the dialect of yprus, which is 2 n practically identical with the Arcadian . The geographical distributio of the doctrine strongly suggests that we have really to do with

m the A A e and of a survival fro egean g , that the period theological speculation we seem bound to assum e w as just the time of the power

so i of Cnossus . If that is , the pr ests of Heliopolis in the Delta may

u as C as vice vers a q ite well have borrowed from rete , if there was ll w a e . any borro ing at . There is no need to look for r mote origins

is However that may be, it certain that such doctrines flourished i n B . C . o exceed ngly in the sixth century , and that their influence the

of w as n higher thought Greece by no means egligible . We must,

b e is however, careful to avoid exaggeration here ! for, while it certain ’ that the O rphics attached an importance to the soul which went far beyond anything recognized in the p ublic or private religion of the

a s o Greek st tes, it is by no means clear that they went much beyond

S so primitive piritism in the account they gave of its nature . In far as the soul was supposed to reveal its true nature in ecstasy which

u or might be artificially produced by dr gs dancing, that is obvious !

its but, even in higher manifestations, the doctrine still bears traces of its i pr mitive origin . The earliest statement in literature of the unique divine origin of the soul is to be found in a fragment of one ’ 3 ‘ of l Pindar s Dirges, but even there it is cal ed an image of life

1 A rchi fu R i wi ix 43 r e i s sse sc aft . . v l g on n h , p 1 O B S i in K uh ! ei rift ix n akl s th n s M . m s s c o e Cypria ee ch dt n t h ,

. 361 s Th f ia an C rio e dia cts is th m pp qq . e identity o the Arcad n d yp t le e os t certai and fu am fa wi h r ar h A n nd enta l ct t eg d to t e A egean ge. 3 Pin ar fr 1 k . 31 Ber . d , g THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE O F THE SOUL

‘ a ic / eibw ou m ( os k ) surviving after death , uch in the Homeric way, and we are expressly told that it sleeps when the limbs are active ’ ‘ ’ Gilda 3s4 n a o o ov r wv a eAea w ( p l ) and shows its prophetic nature only in A has dreams . In fact, as dam said, it is rather like what been called ’ m d the subliminal self in modern ti es, and is quite issociated from 1 the normal waking consciousness . It may be divine and immortal, but it is really no concern of ours except in sleep and at the m oment t of death . It is not identified with wha we call I

IX

The word xpv xij had also been used by the scientific schools of

Ionia in quite another than the popular and traditional sense . This of An appears to have originated in the doctrine aximenes, that air d of ( fip), the primary substance, was the life the world, just as the breath w as the life of the body . That doctrine was being taught at of S Athens by Diogenes Apollonia in the early manhood of ocrates, of lou d s A who is represented as an adherent it in the C of ristophanes .

The emphasis lies entirely on the cosmical side, however . There is no special interest in the individual human soul, which is just that portion of the boundless air which happens to be shut up in our body

m for for the ti e being, and which accounts our life and consciousness . There is a great advance on primitive v iews here in so far as the drvx ij is identified for the first time with the normal waking con

- s ciou sness not . , and with the dream consciousness This point is S pecially emphasized in the system of Heraclitus, which was based precisely on the Opposition between waking and sleeping, life and 2 death . The waking soul is that in which the elemental fire burns bright or O and dry ! sleep and death are due to its partial total extinction . n of flux the other hand, the soul is in a state just as much as the body .

It, too, is a river into which you cannot step twice ! there is nothing ’ ‘ ’ ou S of as or A y can peak I even this . naxagoras preferred to

of was ostulate v ofi call the source motion he obliged to p , s, instead of

rv ou r d xfi, but for present purpose he meant much the same thing . The common feature in all these theories is that ou r conscious life ‘ ’ ou t da a dev comes to us from of doors ( p ) , as Aristotle puts it, employing a term elsewhere used in describing respiration . Its existence is of a temporary and accidental character, depending solely on the fact that for the moment a portion of the primary substance is

1 A am The Doctrine the Celestia l Ori in the ou l Cambri e Prae ctio s d , of g of S ( dg le n , a Ad m pointed out (p . 32) that Myers ch ose the Pindaric fragment as the ea i of his cha ter on S e Hum P l v e an ers ona it ol . i . h d ng p l p ( y, , p 1 See m Greek Philos o h Part I Thales to Plato 1 y p y, , , 4 . 20 S ECOND ANNUAL PH ILOSOPH ICAL LECTURE

fits in l enclosed in a particular body . It will be seen that this wel enough with the view commonly accepted at Athens and expressed in the formula Earth to earth and air to air That is why no one was

o of sh cked by the scientific view . The sophists were accused almost everything , but I do not remember any place where they are blamed ’ ‘ of of for failing to think nobly the soul . There was no doctrine

or h soul in the received religion, none wort talking about, and there The could therefore be no impiety in what the Sophists taught . d Orphic doctrine was far more likely to ofl en current prejudices . e The Pythagoreans might, perhaps, have developed a more adequat doctrine of the soul ! for they shared the religious interest of the

O e of rphi s and the scientific interests the Ionians . As it happened, however, their musical and medical studies led them to regard it as ’ ' ’ ’ a blend (Kp ci cn g) or attunement (app ow a ) of the elem ents which m 1 co pose the body, of which, therefore, it is merely a function .

of the Democritus went so far, indeed, as to distinguish the pleasures soul as more divine than those of the tabernacle (o x fivog) or body ! ff but, since he held the soul to be corporeal, that was only a di erence 2 . O a or of degree n the whole, we must conclude th t neither religion S B C w . philosophy in the fifth century . . kne anything of the oul What they called by that name was something extrinsic and dis sociated n from the ormal personality, which was altogether dependent on the body .

X

In the Athenian literature of the fifth century the idea of soul t O if is still more unknown . We might have expec ed that the rphic, not the scientific theory, would have left some trace, but even that did not happen . In a matter of this kind vague general impressions are to k on useless, and the observations I am about ma e are based what I believe to be a complete enumeration of all instances of the word

rv of d xfiin the extant Athenian literature the fifth century , including

Herodotus, who wrote mainly for Athenians . I was much surprised of by the result this inquiry, which showed that, down to the very of close the century, there is hardly an instance of the word in any other than a purely traditional sense . ‘ In the first place, as I have said before, it often means high

S or u s . pirit courage, but that does not concern for the present In ‘ ’ of a certain number passages it means ghost , but ghosts are not often mentioned . In a larger number of places it may be translated ‘ ’ life , and that is where possible misunderstandings begin . It has

1 2 S ee ih. 75 . S ee ih . 1 5 5 . THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL 21

f xrv of not, in fact, been su ficiently observed that l xfi, in the literature or this period, never means the life of a man except when he is dying d or A so in danger of eath, , in other words, that the ttic usage is far the

You or ‘’U ’ or ou same as the Homeric . may lose give up your l X l y may save it you may risk it or fight or Speak in its defence you may To sacrifice it like Alcestis or cling ignobly to it like Admetus . ’ ’ i othm rv t a com love one s xlrvxfi s to shrink from death, and g l x is a sa mon word for cowardice . In the same sense you may y that ’ AS for rv a i ou a thing is dear as dear life the xl x of other people, y

or x rv i may mourn them avenge them, in which case l x j clearly means ‘ ’ los as i . t life, and may j ust as well be rendered death l fe The one thing you cannot do with a xpvxfi is to live by it . When ’ i 1 to his ul Theseus in Eur pides bids Amphitryon do violence so , he means Force yourself to live and the literal sense of his words ‘ f ’ is Hold in the breath o life by force and do not let it escape . i Refuse to give up the ghost comes near it . Sim larly, the expression 2 Collect your drvxij properly means Make an effort not to swoon ’ i You l and impl es the same idea of holding one s breath . wil search the Athenian writers of the fifth century in vain for a single instance ‘ of drvx ij meaning life except in connexion with swooning or death . The xpvxfiis also Spoken of in the tragedians as the seat of certain ‘ i a has feel ngs, in which case we naturally render it by he rt What not been observed is that these feelings are always of a very Special

saw u of ‘ U as of subli kind . We that Pindar tho ght the I’ X fi a sort minal self which Sleeps when the limbs are active but has prophetic

Iii visions when the body is asleep . Attic tragedy this function is ’ one generally attributed to the heart and not the soul , but there is place at least where xlrvxfiseems definitely to mean the subconscious Troades A d for In the the infant styanax, when about to ie, is pitied having had no conscious experience of the privileges of royalty . Thou sawest them and didst mark them in thy but thou ’ 3 not to knowest them . This seems be the only place where know ledge of any kind is ever ascribed to the and it is ex pressly to is t f denied be knowledge . It only he!vague awareness o early

e childhood which leaves no trace in the memory . We note the sam idea in another place where something is said to strike u pon the

1 ‘ ‘ ’ Eur. Here. 1 366 rv r ui ov Wila witz i r is xl x w B g . mo s nterp etation of this si u ar r ng l ly pe verse. 2 Eur. Here. 626 o oklxo ov i s Aa é r é ov e a fio a c Cf P 8 0 dhhd y Wx j B p p r n . . hoen . 5 ’ a fihhe ou 95 1 0 /e d 0 1 9 Ka i fi . d o o f m p p w v. 3 ’ Eur . Tro 1 1 1 B H K . . See . . e e in T rr o 7 nn dy y ell s n te. 22 SECOND ANNUAL PH ILOSOPH ICAL LECTURE

1 x v i m . p x j as familiar, that is, to awaken dor ant memories That ‘ ’ explains further how the drvx ij may be made to smart by being on to touched the raw, and also why certain griefs are said reach ‘ ’ i S f the l v fi. We still peak o a touching spectacle or an appeal that reaches the heart, though we have forgotten the primitive on psychology which the phrases are based . If we follow u p this clue we find that the feelings referred to the xlrvxfiare al ways those which belong to that obscure part Of us which

afli nit - S has most y with the dream consciousness . uch are all strange a yearnings and forebodings and grief too great for words as we s y.

S too is of uch, , the sense Oppression and gloom which accompanies the Of feelings horror and despair, and which is spoken of as a weight of

S to ou r x r ! which we eek lighten l vxfi. Anxiety and depression what ‘ low S ! in x rv i u n we call pirits have their seat the l x j , and so have all reasoning terrors and dreads . Strange, overmastering passion , like fi or w to rv the love Of Phaedra, is once t ice said attack the d xfi Twice in Sophocles it is the seat Of kindly feeling but that 3 to s a goes rather beyond its ordinary range . It is safe y that the drvxvj is never regarded as having anything to do with clear perception or w or kno ledge, even with articulate emotion . It remains something

our . mysterious and uncanny, quite apart from normal consciousness The gift of prophecy and magical skill are once or twice referred

or l to it, but never thought character . It is sti l, therefore, essentially ’ the double Of primitive belief, and that is just why it can address us u s or be addressed by us as if it were something distinct from . That,

of S SO of course, became a mannerism or figure peech, but it was not ’ . of Anti one hi at first The soul the Watchman in the g , w ch tries to C i dissuade him from making his report to reon, can claim k ndred with ’ ’ han the conscience Of Launcelot G ob in Shakespeare s Merc t. We shall now be able to s ee the bearings Of some special uses f f o xrv . S of O the word l xfi It is poken , for instance, as the seat

ou t a guilty conscience . That is brought clearly by a remarkable

1‘ in Anti ho n his passage p , where he is maki g client argue that he f ui would never have come to Athens if he had been conscious o g lt . ‘ ’ ‘ A xrv i l he guiltless l x j wil often , says, preserve both itself and

on an exhausted body, but a guilty e will leave even a vigorous body ’ in the lurch . It is from the same point Of view that the law Of ‘ ’ homicide demands the forfeiture of the guilty soul dp oio a o a 5 or ovk eao a o a rv i . u se of rv i B d x j), a phrase in which the d x j as the seat

1 2 S o . l E 2 . Hi . 5 04 5 6 . 902 Eur . ph . pp , 3 S h 4 o . 0. C . 498 De ouede Herodis 93 . fr . 98 p , . ,

5 ‘ Anti h T I a 1 o etr. . a f P a aws 8 3 . C . o L p , , 7 . l t , , 7 , THE SOCR ATIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL 23 of conscience is combined with its meaning of life as a thing to be to lost . Several passages Of the tragedians are be interpreted in the

. A light Of this eschylus, indeed, makes the conscience reside in the heart, as was to be expected, but he is emphatic in referring it to the ‘ ’ - the of dream consciousness . It is in the night season that sore 1 ’ C of Re ublic remorse breaks out . Even the placid ephalus Plato s p is wakened once and again from his Sleep by the fear that he may have S n some in against gods or men o his conscience . Another mysterious feeling closely associated with the subconscious

ou r is t element in life the sen iment Of kinship , what the French call la voia’ da s an too S of l con g . The Greeks, , usually poke b ood in this nex ion C of , but lytemnestra in Sophocles addresses Electra as born my ijrvxfi and occasionally near kinsmen are Spoken Of as having ’ ‘ one soul instead of One blood m i Finally, we ust notice a cur ous and particularly instructive use Of the word, which we know to have been derived from popular

rv Of language . The d xfiis the seat wayward moods and appetites, and especially Of those unaccountable longings for certain kinds of food and drink which sometimes emerge from the more irrational

ou r n . C and uncontrolled part Of ature The yclops in Euripides, who has for SO not tasted human flesh ever long, says he will do his 3 v i O u A xp x j a good turn by eating dysseus p . Even eschylus does not disdain to make the ghost Of Darius advise the Persian elders ‘ to give their souls some pleasure day by day Just SO the

R animo or enio indu l ere animi omans said g g , and spoke Of acting causa of . It is a quaint piece primitive psychology, and it is cer ’ tainl e ou y convenient to make a doubl , for which y are not strictly

for responsible, the source Of those strange yearnings good living

of to which the best us are subject now and then . The Egyptian h a n . « v had similar tende cies Looked at in this way, the p xfi is ’ f u the merely animal element o o r nature . I have now covered practically all the uses of the word xpvxn i n ‘ Of the Athenian literature the fifth century. Even in Lysias, who to belongs the fourth, there is only one instance of the word in any is as but a traditional sense, which the more remarkable he had belonged to the fringe at least of the Socratic circle . The few x f e ceptions I have noted are all O the kind that proves the rule . When Herodotus is discussing the supposed Egyptian origin of the 5 b e rv O . belief in immortality, naturally uses d xfiin the rphic sense

1 1 S H a am S ee m mnon 1 8 o . El e A a e 6 . . 5 . dl , g , p . ph 77 3 4 Eu r C l 3 . . c 40. s . s . 840 y . A e ch Per 5 Hero 11 1 23 . d . . 24 SEGON I) ANNUAL PH ILOSOPHICAL LECTURE

’ O f i n Hippolytus in Euripides speaks a v rgi soul , but he is really an 1 fi u re O O rphic g . therwise the word is used by Euripides in a purely A B acchae. traditional manner, even in the eschylus employs it very

o S seld m, and then quite simply . ophocles, as might be expected, is rather subtler, but I cannot find more than two passages where he really goes beyond the limits I have indicated, and they both l l o one Phi octetes . O ccur in Of his latest plays, the dysseus te ls ‘ Neoptolemus that he is to entrap the ‘I’UX ’l of Philoctetes with h to words whic seems imply that it is the seat of knowledge, and ‘ Philoctetes Speaks Of the mean so ul of Odysseus peering through crannies which seems to imply that it i s the seat Of character . These instances belong to the very close of the century and anticipate

a x t the us ge Of the ne . There is no other place where it is even ‘ ’ suggested that the soul has anyt hing to do with knowledge or ignorance, goodness or badness, and to Socrates that was the most m i portant thing about it .

Now, if even the higher poetry Observed these limits, we may be

ul n SO d sure that pop ar la guage did even more strictly . When urge ‘ ’ A to care for his soul , the plain man at thens might suppose he was being advised to have a prudent regard for his personal safety, ‘ ’ of his s a or to take care skin as we y, even that he was being l ’ recommended to have what is ca led a good time . If we can trust A ul to to ristophanes, the words wo d suggest him that he was mind ’ his B r ghost . The i ds tell us how Pisander came to Socrates ’ s ee x v i l i wanting to the p xfi that had deserted him while st l al ve , ’ ’ where there is a play on the double meaning courage and ghost . ’ ‘ ’ S on arv a z ocrates is recognized as the authority l x , who calls spirits 1‘ ru a co ei f - t (d x y y ) from the deep . The inmates o his thought fac ory ‘ ” 5 b our w r i tou l lou ds (gp jp ) are derisively cal ed wise drux a i in the C . It is true that once in Aristophanes we hear of crafty souls (doxz a c which reminds us of the P hiloctetes but the speaker is an

- o O so oracle m nger from reos, that is another exception that proves 6 u . i h the r le We may, I th nk, realize the bewilderment w ich the of if teaching Socrates would produce, we think Of the uncomfortable feeling Often aroused by the English words ‘ ghost ’ and ‘ ghostly ’ ’ in their Old sense Of spirit and spiritual . There is something not al together reassu ring in the phrase ‘ ghostly admonition

1 2 Eu r Hi . Phil. 5 5 . 1 006 S o . . pp . ph 3 4 S o Phil 1 1 Ari B irds 1 5 5 s . . 0 3 s . 5 ph . . t qq 5 6 ri A i P 8 . A st Clouds r st . ace 1 06 . 94 . e

26 SECOND ANNUAL PHILOSOPHICAL LECTURE

O f course, Maier is compelled by the evidence he admits as valid to recognize that Socrates called his work in life philosophy but he holds that this philosophy consisted solely in the application Of to the dialectical method moral exhortation . That is why he says

S of h e ocrates was no philosopher in the strict sense the word . If of only means that he did not expound a system in a course lectures,

that is doubtless true ! but, even at the worst Of times , philosophy to to never meant merely that the Greeks . It is not correct either s ay that the wisdom Of which Socrates is made to Speak in the A olo Orito p gy and was merely practical wisdom . At this point Maier makes a bad mistake by importing the Aristotelian distinction

- - b bu o i o o ia N O between gp n s and gb into the discussion . doubt that ’ - has 6V7 0 t o o bi a distinction its value, but at this date ¢p 7 9 and g were m completely synonymous ter s, and they continued to be used quite

promiscuously by Plato . It is wisdom and truth (gbpbv no t g K a i

dk det a to fi ) that the soul is to aim at, and it is an anachronism intro duce the Aristotelian idea of practical truth If the word gbpbmyo' t s

on to c o ia is the whole preferred p , it is only because the latter had ‘ ’ our rather bad associations, like cleverness . It is hardly worth on S while, however, to waste words this point ! for the ocratic doctrine that Goodness is knowledge amounts to a denial that there

is any ultimate distinction between theory and practice .

The conditions of ou r experiment did not allow us to admit much

v e idence, and that seemed at first rather unpromising . Nevertheless, to of r we have been able reach a result the first impo tance, which A olo must now be stated precisely . We have found that, if the p gy to is be trusted in a matter Of the kind, Socrates was in the habit ‘ ’ l - Of exhorting his fel ow citizens to care for their souls . That is

admitted by Maier . We have seen further that such an exhortation ’ implies a u se of the word xlrvxfi and a view of the soul s nature

t . O qui e unheard Of before the time Of Socrates The rphies, indeed,

on Of had insisted the need purging the soul , but for them the soul 1 was not the normal personality ! it was a stranger from another

u world that dwelt in s for a time . The Ionian cosmologists had

t ou r cer ainly identified the soul with waking consciousness, but that

As A too came to us from outside . Diogenes of pollonia put it,

1 The octri e Of wa h eveo ia or tra smi ra io in its u sua form im ies d n yy n g t n , l , pl ‘ ’ i ia i f For i th s dissoc t on Of the s ou l from th e rest o th e personality. th s

reaso I do n ot be ie e t a S ocra es acce e it in that sense. n , l v h t t pt d THE SOCRATIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL

‘ it was a small fragment Of gOd by which he meant a portion Of the ‘ ’ cosmical air which happens for the time being to animate ou r

. S O see to bodies Socrates, far as we could , was the first say that the normal consciousness was the true self, and that it deserved all ’ on the care bestowed the body s mysterious tenant by the religious . The jests Of Aristophanes made it plain that Socrates was known as n 4 3 B S 2 c . a man who poke stra gely of the soul before . , and this

to not old S O takes us back a time when Plato was five years , that there can be no question Of him as the author of the view he ascribes ’ m a to Socrates . We y fairly conclude, I think, that the wisdom

so m Chaere ho which i pressed the boy Alcibiades and the impulsive p , was just this .

I promised not to go beyond the evidence allowed by Maier, d c an I must therefore stop on the threshold of the So ratic philosophy .

w on I cannot, ho ever, refrain from suggesting the lines which further u investigation would proceed . In a dialog e written thirty years after of Theaetetus m the death Socrates, the , Plato akes him describe his method Of bringing thoughts to birth in language derived from his ’ l mother s cal ing, and we can prove this to be genuinely Socratic from the evidence Of Aristophanes who had made fun of it more than 2 half a century before . The maieutic method in turn involves the theory Of knowledge mythically expressed in the doctrine of Remini s c nce S m osium e . The doctrine Of Love, which Socrates in the y p professes to have learnt from Diotima, is only an extension Of the same line Of thought, and it may be added that it furnishes the natural explanation Of his mission . If Socrates really held that the soul was irresistibly driven to go beyond itself in the manner Of there described, there was no need an oracle from Delphi to make of him take up the task converting the Athenians . That, however, on is transgressing the limits I had imposed myself, and I do not wish to prejudice what I believe to be the solid result we have is reached . That in itself enough to show that it is Of very little consequence whether we call Socrates a philosopher in the proper ’ or not for J sense ! we now see how it is due to him that, in ulian s ‘ words, all who find salvation in philosophy are being saved even ’ now s et ou t . to . That is the problem we to solve I only wished throw ou t a few hints to Show that Maier would have to write another 600 pages at least to exhaust the implications of his own

S u s admissions . ome Of will prefer to think it has been better done already by Plato .

1 2 A Cl uds 1 3 . x i ov i) 6 17 rist . o 7 A Di r o . . 1 9 e s i d 9 0 . l , p v p p