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Cornell University Library 
 B 317.T23 
 
 Varia Socratica, first series.By A. E. Ta 
 
 3 1924 008 300 612 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008300612 
 
VAEIA S 
 
 _w<- ~' •■•' r, 
 
 CA 
 
 FIRST SERIES 
 
 BY 
 
 A. E. TAYLOR 
 
 wdvra tovto wpoo«/ua «mi' ovtoiJ tov yppov ov Set fj.a.6iiv. 
 
 Plato, Republic 681 d. 
 
 eiriXa/3ou T>js atwvwv fanjs. 
 
 1 Tim. vi. 12. 
 
 ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS 
 No. IX 
 
 OXFOED: 
 
 JAMES PAEKEE & CO. 
 
 2 7 BROAD STREET 
 
 1911 
 
VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 FIRST SERIES 
 
VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 FIBST SERIES 
 
 BY 
 
 A. B. TAYLOR 
 
 irai/Ta ravra irpooi/jud etmv avrov rov vofiov ov Set imOeiv. 
 
 Plato, Republic 531 d. 
 
 eiriXafiov Tijs altaviov {joyjs. 
 
 1 Tim. vi. 12. 
 
 ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS 
 No. IX 
 
 
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CVSTODI • SOCIISQVE 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword . . ix 
 
 1. The Impiett op Socrates 1 
 
 2. On the alleged Distinction in Aristotle between 
 
 2(0Kj0(£tijs AND o 'EaKpd.T-ijS ■ 40 
 
 3. Socrates and the Sura-ol Ad-yoi 91 
 4 The (fapovTurrripLov . .129 
 
 Postscript 175 
 
 5. The Words etSos, iSea in pre-Pl atonic Literature . 178 
 
 Epilogue ..... 268 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The following Essays form, as their title-page shows, only 
 the first half of a collection which the writer hopes to 
 complete in the course of a few months. Even when 
 completed, the whole work is designed to be merely 
 preparatory to another on the interpretation of the 
 Platonic Philosophy, and the materials brought together 
 in the following pages, as well as those which, it is trusted, 
 will form their continuation, were originally intended to 
 appear in the Introduction to that projected work. As 
 the matter grew, however, the author found it increasingly 
 impossible to exhibit what in his conception forms the 
 very soul of the special irpayfiaTeia of Plato, and to 
 discriminate, so to say, what is Platonic in Platonism from 
 what can be shown to be the depositum fidei transmitted 
 from Socrates, without allowing the projected Introduction 
 to develop to such an extent as to demand separate 
 treatment. 
 
 The main thesis in virtue of which the five Essays now 
 submitted for the reader's judgment form some kind of 
 literary unity may be very succinctly stated. It is that the 
 portrait drawn in the Platonic dialogues of the personal 
 and philosophical individuality of Socrates is in all its 
 main points strictly historical, and capable of being shown 
 to be so. In other words, the demonstrably Orphic and 
 Pythagorean peculiarities of Plato's hero, his conception of 
 
x VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 QCkoaofyia as an ascetic discipline in the proper meaning 
 of the word, leading through sainthood to the attainment 
 of everlasting life, the stress laid on the imdr)fiara as a 
 vehicle of spiritual purification, and the doctrine of the 
 eternal things, the aamfiara nai votjto. eiZr), as the true 
 objects of knowledge, are no inventions of the idealising 
 imagination of Plato, but belong in very truth, as their 
 common faith, to the Pythagorean or semi-Pythagorean 
 group whose central figure twice over receives something 
 like formal canonisation from the head of the Academy 
 (once in the famous closing words of the Phaedo, and again, 
 after many years, in the echo of them at Epistle vii. 324 e 
 ov eyw <7%e8ov ovk av ala'yyvolfi.iyv elirwv SiKatorarov 
 ehcu twv TOTe). In a word, what the genius of Plato has 
 done for his master is not, as is too often thought, to trans- 
 figure him, but to understand him. In particular, it is 
 urged that there is not, and, so far as We know, there 
 never was, any really faithful historical account of the 
 personality of Socrates except the Academic tradition which 
 goes back to Plato, and on which Aristotle was absolutely 
 dependent for all that is significant in his information, 
 and the brilliant caricature which Aristophanes reasonably 
 thought his own comic masterpiece. It will be shown 
 that these two sources confirm one another surprisingly 
 even in little matters of detail. The conclusion is that 
 classical .antiquity was right in accepting the tradition as 
 substantially correct, and the nineteenth century wrong, in 
 a way which distorts the whole history of Greek thought 
 in the later fifth and the fourth centuries, in trying to get 
 behind it. If the main results of this series of studies and 
 the continuation with which I hope to follow it up are 
 correct, the whole of what passes in the current textbooks 
 as the orthodox account of Socrates and the " minor 
 Socratics " will have to be rewritten. 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 In arguing my case I have necessarily made constant 
 use of Diels's Domgraphi and Vorsokratiker, and perhaps to 
 an even greater extent of my colleague Professor Burnet's 
 work on Early Greek Philosophy. To these, and to all other 
 works of which I have availed myself, I beg once for all 
 to express my grateful obligations. I trust, however, that 
 in the main my conclusions have been made my own by 
 genuine direct personal thought. Where I have been 
 conscious of owing the first suggestion of a train of thought 
 to others, I have tried to make proper acknowledgment 
 of the fact. My work might no doubt have been much 
 benefited by a closer study of the current literature 
 of its subject, but, whether for good or bad, I have sought 
 mainly to see with my own eyes rather than with the 
 spectacles of others, and to be guided (I hope the ex- 
 pression is not unduly self-confident) by the two watch- 
 words to Se (pvai Kpariarov airav and oXlyov re <f>i,\ov 
 re. 
 
 My sincerest gratitude is due to the Warden and 
 Fellows of Merton College, who, by electing me in 1902 
 to the Fellowship vacant by the death of Professor S. E. 
 Gardiner, made it possible for me to devote such leisure as 
 I have been able to enjoy in the intervals of University 
 teaching during the past few years to the studies of which 
 the present work records some results. I am particularly 
 grateful for the generosity which they have shown in 
 allowing me to take so long a time for reiterated study 
 before attempting publication, and I earnestly trust both 
 that the present instalment of my projected work may prove 
 not altogether unworthy of their acceptance, and that the 
 execution of the remainder may follow without unnecessary 
 delay. I have also to express my thanks to the University 
 Court of St. Andrews for the honour which they have 
 done me in consenting to issue this volume as one of the 
 
xii VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 series of University Publications. I have finally to thank 
 my friend and colleague Professor Burnet for the great 
 help I have received both from his writings and from 
 personal intercourse with him, but more especially for his 
 kindness in reading the whole of the volume in manuscript. 
 I may mention here that all references to the Platonic 
 text are to the edition of Professor Burnet ; for Aristotle's 
 Rhetoric, Poetics and Metaphysics, as well as for the Attic 
 orators, I have used the texts of the Teubner series, and 
 for the Ethics that of Professor Bywater; for Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides, and for Xenophon (so 
 far as the edition was available at the time of writing), the 
 texts of the Oxford Bibliotheca. In the case of quotations 
 from other writers the text used has been regularly named 
 when necessary. 
 
 A. E. TAYLOR. 
 
 St. Andrews, December 1, 1910. 
 
The Impiety of Socrates 
 
 As we all know, the proceeding formally employed by the 
 leaders of the restored democracy to get rid of Socrates was 
 a ypa^ri d<rej3e£a<;. The precise nature of the " impiety " 
 alleged against the philosopher has, however, always been 
 wrapped in a cloud of mystery, some part of which it is 
 the object of the present essay to dispel. So far as I know, 
 no one has as yet made it quite clear why Socrates should 
 have been one of the earliest victims of the restored demo- 
 cracy, 1 nor why so influential and upright a person as 
 Anytus should have lent the weight of his reputation to 
 the prosecution. There is no evidence to show that Socrates, 
 until the time of the prosecution, had been the object of 
 popular dislike. The comedians, to be sure, had attacked 
 him, but we must remember that comedy, at least so far 
 as we may take Aristophanes as its representative, does 
 not express the views of the democracy but of a group of 
 literary men, whose bias is strongly against both the Periclean 
 democracy and the Imperialistic policy with which the 
 existence of the democracy was inseparably bound up. 
 Its favourite butts were precisely the chosen statesmen of 
 the democracy who set themselves to carry out the Periclean 
 policy resolutely and with full consciousness of what they 
 were doing. And we may add that, so far as we can judge, 
 the attacks of the comedians on Socrates were as complete 
 
 1 As Professor Bury puts it {History of Greece, p. 581), "It is not clear 
 why their manifesto for orthodoxy was made at that particular time. " 
 
 1 B 
 
2 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 a failure as their attacks on Euripides. The Clouds was not 
 a success on the stage ; the actual condemnation of Socrates 
 was the work of a very small majority of the voters ; after 
 his death, his reputation, like that of Alcibiades, was the 
 subject of a regular literary warfare. If we turn to the 
 Platonic dialogues, we find Socrates represented as an object 
 of public curiosity, hut there is no sign that he was regarded 
 with dislike. 
 
 It is idle to attempt to solve the problem by talking 
 of the proceedings against Socrates as an act of revenge, 
 or an exhibition of bigotry on the part of the judges, or 
 of the real prosecutor, Anytus. The recently restored 
 democracy was notoriously not revengeful, in spite of the 
 efforts of men like Lysias to spur it on to high-handed 
 measures against all who had filled administrative offices 
 in the year of anarchy. 1 The fidelity with which it 
 adhered to the terms of the general amnesty is undisputed 
 matter of fact, and Anytus, in particular, distinguished 
 himself by setting the example of renouncing all demands 
 for compensation for the loss of a considerable fortune. 2 
 Neither can we suppose bigotry to have played any 
 prominent part in securing the philosopher's condemnation. 
 Anytus was assuredly no bigot, or he would not be found, 
 in the very year of the trial of Socrates, using his influence 
 on behalf of Andocides. 3 Nor can the judges have been 
 specially bigoted, since the influence of Anytus and the 
 rhetoric of Meletus combined only succeeded in securing 
 
 1 So Plato himself expressly says, with reference to the proceedings of 
 Anytus and Thrasybulus, that the treatment of Socrates was exceptional ; in 
 general 7roXX^i ixpfyavTo ol rbre /careXSipres (mciicdai, Ep. vii. 325 b. 
 
 2 Isocrates xviii. 23 8/>a<nJj3ouXos /cal "Avvtos, jiiyia-rav fxkv dw&fievu twv iv 
 tt/i wiKei, ttoXXuv S' iireaTeprjfUiioi. x/'W^tw*', eiSires Si rods airoypdipovTas, 
 Sfuns oi5 ToKixwaw airots Slims \ayx£ vel >' °^ fivriaiKaiceiv. 
 
 8 Andocides i.' 150 d|ifi 5' ^ovye roirovs drives i/iiv aperfjs ffir\ tjjs 
 fMyltTTY)s els t6 tt\tj0os rb i/ih-epov IXeyxov Uoirav avapdires ivTavBot <rv/j.- 
 fiovketeiv ti/up & yiyvticicovm wepl ifiov • Sevpo "Avvtc, K4(pa\e, kt\. Neither 
 a fanatical demagogue nor a bigoted religionist would have been likely to 
 use his influence for Andocides, whose political antecedents were of the worst 
 kind, and who was on his trial for » scandalous sacrilege against the '.' two 
 deities " of Eleusis. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 3 
 
 a verdict by the small majority of 280 votes against 220. 1 
 One may add that the curious fragment of a speech by 
 Lysias against Aeschines the Socratic contains some evidence 
 to the same effect. The plaintiff, who had imprudently 
 advanced money to set up Aeschines in business, naively 
 explains to the jury that, as a pupil of Socrates, Aeschines 
 might be assumed to know all about justice, and to be, 
 therefore, a safe person to lend money to. The language 
 rather implies that Socrates was already dead, and thus 
 shows that, even after the famous trial, an Athenian 
 court might reasonably be expected to regard a pupil of 
 Socrates as a person of more than ordinary probity. 2 
 Taking everything into account, it is only fair to Anytus 
 and his friends to assume that when they decided to 
 prosecute Socrates for impiety they were honestly convinced 
 that he was a menace to the re-established constitutional 
 democracy, and that they knew of facts about his life which 
 seemed to justify the conviction. This is universally 
 admitted about one part of the indictment ; I propose to 
 show that it is probably equally true of the rest. 
 
 As we all know, the ypafyri brought against Socrates 
 indicted him of aaefteia on two distinct counts. He was 
 charged (1) with corrupting the young, (2) with certain 
 impieties in respect of the official religious cultus. And it 
 must be noted that the charge of offences against the official 
 cultus cannot have been included, as I once used to suspect, 
 for technical legal purposes, merely to bring the principal 
 offence, the corruption of the young, within the bounds of 
 a yparfyq aaefielas. It would have been quite feasible to 
 lay a capital ypa<f>r) aGefieias on the latter ground alone. 
 This is clear from the pamphlet of Isocrates trepl t??s 
 dvnSocrem. In effect this manifesto is a mere senile 
 effusion of self-praise, but in form, as Blass has shown, 
 
 1 Professor Bury (loc. cit. ) has rightly called attention to this point, though 
 he seems to attach no significance to the "religions" part of the accusation. 
 
 2 Lysias irpbs Maxlviiv rbv Sai/r/jaruciv xp^ws : weivSels 6' iir' airov rotavra 
 \iyovros Kal fi/m olby.evos tovtovI KlayUiifli "ZuKparovs yeyovbra ixadTjTTfv Kal 
 Trepl 5ucaioa6vT]S Kal dper^s ttoWoiis Kal (refivods \4yovra \6yovs oiiK &v irore 
 CTnxeipyffcu o(>6& roXjU^trat direp ol irovqpbTCLTOL Kal Adt-KibTarot &v8puiroi . . . 
 
4 VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the work is a tasteless imitation of Plato's Apologia. 
 Isocrates makes an occasion for self-laudation by pretending 
 that he, like Socrates, is on his trial for the capital offence 
 of "corrupting the young," and that the imminent danger 
 justifies what would otherwise be a transgression of the 
 bounds of decency. But there is this difference between 
 the original and the copy, that with Isocrates the pretended 
 ypa<t>i] includes no charge of offences against cultus. This 
 shows that a capital indictment could be laid on the charge 
 of " corrupting " the young alone, and that Anytus and his 
 friends could have effected their object (which was, of course, 
 merely to frighten Socrates away from Athens) without 
 laying anything further to his account. Since they did in 
 fact specify a further offence, it is only reasonable to think 
 that they believed themselves to have evidence of it, and 
 to ask whether we cannot still discover what the evidence 
 was. 
 
 When we turn to our ancient authorities we find that, 
 whereas the nature of the evidence adduced by the accusers 
 in proof of the charge of "corruption of the young" is 
 unmistakably indicated, the meaning of the other accusation 
 is only explained in a way which, as I hope to show, is 
 demonstrably false. We learn from Xenophon's Memorabilia 
 that the corrupting influence of Socrates upon his young 
 friends was alleged to lie in inspiring them with anti- 
 democratic and unconstitutional sentiments, and that the 
 "accuser" rested his case largely on the notorious fact that 
 both Alcibiades and Critias had belonged to the Socratic 
 circle. 1 For my purpose it makes little difference whether 
 this " accuser " is, as Blass, in my opinion rightly, maintains, 
 Meletus, or, as Cobet held, Polycrates, the author of the 
 pamphlet against Socrates disparaged by Isocrates. The 
 pains which Xenophon takes to refute the charge are 
 
 1 Aeschines also, we must remember, asserts that the "sophist Socrates" 
 was put to death because he had been the teacher of Critias (i. 175). It is. 
 probable that the accusers dwelt more on the case of Critias, for whom no one 
 had a good word, than on that of Alcibiades, whose character, as we see from 
 Isocrates irepl rod fetfyovs, as well as from the polemics ascribed to Lysias and 
 Andocides, had its warm defenders. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 5 
 
 sufficient proof that it was the one which told most heavily 
 against his master with the»public, and we may be sure 
 that Meletus made the most of it, whether he is the 
 particular " accuser " whom Xenophon has in mind or not — 
 not to say that it would be an easy task to show that the 
 accusation was, in fact, true. 1 
 
 When we come to the other account, the case is altered. 
 Plato gives us no real explanation of it in the Apology, and 
 Xenophon offers one which, as I propose to show, is both 
 false and absurd. 
 
 Pirst, however, we must attempt, if we can, to reconstruct 
 the actual words of the indictment. According to Favorinus 
 (Diogenes Laertius ii. 5. 40), the document was still pre- 
 served in his own day among the archives of the Metroon. 
 The words were ahacel ^mKpdTrj<; ou? p&v r\ 7ro\t? vo/ii^ei 
 6eoi)<i ov vofii^mv, erepa Se icaiva Sai/i6via elarrjyovfjLevos ' 
 aSttcei Se leal Toils veov? 8ia<p0eipcoi) ' Ti/iTjfia ddvaro?. 
 In the opening sentence of the Memorabilia, Xenophon 
 gives the accusation in the same words, only that he has 
 ela<pepa>v instead of the equivalent elo-r/yov/jievos. Plato, 
 on the other hand, makes Socrates quote the avrmfioa-ia of 
 his prosecutors rather differently. According to him, the 
 charge of "corrupting the young" came first, and the 
 accusation ran somewhat thus : aSiicet StoK/aari;?, rov<s re 
 veov? SuxfjOeipcov Kai 6eoi/<i ofi? r) ttoXis vofii^ei ov vofii^cov, 
 erepa Se Batfiovia Kauvd? If one could be sure that 
 Favorinus had actually seen and transcribed the original 
 indictment (though this goes beyond the mere statement 
 that it was still extant in his day), his evidence would be 
 conclusive in favour of Xenophon's version as against that 
 
 1 For what it means is that the influence of Socrates was opposed to the 
 revival of the old democratic ideals which the leaders of the returned exiles 
 dreamed of. That this was the case is certain. The political leanings 
 ascribed to Socrates by both Plato and Xenophon, and reflected in their own 
 judgment on the men of the fifth century, are definitely hostile to democratic 
 imperialism and in accord with the aims of the "moderates." Aristotle's 
 well-known panegyric on Thucydides, Nicias and Theramenes is a witness 
 to the preservation of this political tradition in the Academy. It is significant 
 that the agitation of Demosthenes and his party had no Academic support. 
 
 a Apology 24 b. 
 
6 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 of Plato. I must confess, however, that I am not satisfied 
 either that Favorinus had seen the actual document or had 
 carefully transcribed something shown to him as the actual 
 document. One may reasonably doubt whether the actual 
 affidavit can have been still extant and legible in the middle 
 of the second century a.d. ; and, even if it were, it would 
 still be a question whether we can trust the fidelity of 
 Favorinus as a transcriber, if he did make a professed 
 transcription of it, for he actually made the blunder of 
 declaring that Meletus did not himself speak in the prosecu- 
 tion, in the face of the express statements of the Platonic 
 and Xenophontic Apologies. We have not, then, as it seems 
 to me, sufficient independent testimony to enable us to 
 decide between Plato and Xenophon. This being the case, 
 it seems to me most probable on the whole that Plato, who 
 was actually present at the trial, gives us the heads of the 
 accusation in the order in which they were actually dealt 
 with by Socrates, while Xenophon, precisely because he was 
 absent, is all the more likely to have consulted the formal 
 dvTcofioa-Ca of the prosecutors, and to have reproduced the 
 charges as they stood in the indictment. In this case, it 
 will follow that the offences against cultus were primarily 
 specified as the chief legal ground for procedure. Another 
 point, which we may afterwards find to have some signifi- 
 cance, is that in Xenophon's version (with which that 
 apparently derived from Favorinus agrees) Socrates is 
 charged explicitly with " importing " a foreign cultus (etV- 
 <j>epo)p, elcrrfyoviJuevo<i), a charge which the Platonic, and pre- 
 sumably the actual Socrates, for good reasons, replaces by the 
 less serious one of "recognising" novel divinities (erepa 
 KMva Saipiovia being in Plato governed by vofii^ovTa). 1 
 
 1 For the insinuation implied in elcrQipav, eloyyoi/jtvos cf. Euripides, 
 Bacchae 255 ai tclvt' ftreiffas, Tcipeala ' rbvb' aS 0A«s | rbv Sal/iov' ivBpilnrouriv 
 £<r</>£pwii viov | (TKoweiv irrepurois n&pirApw /uaSois <p£pew, 353 rbv BrjM/jiopcpoii 
 %ivov 6s claQipei vtxtov \ naivifv ywai%l Kal text Xv/tafrercu. Aristotle intends 
 a similar suggestion when he speaks of those who imported (toi)s Koidcavras or 
 eJowye^iras) the elS-r). The insinuation is, in fact, that Platonism is a mere 
 modification of Italian Pythagoreanism, a statement made explicitly in Met 
 987 a 30. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 7 
 
 Next as to the precise character of the alleged offence 
 against eultus. It is reallv double-edged. Socrates is 
 accused (a) of not " recognising " the official divinities, (b) 
 of " importing " — Plato makes him soften the charge, as he 
 probably did, to one of " recognising " — certain unauthorised 
 objects of eultus. The accusation has often been misunder- 
 stood to be one of unbelief, or atheism, and the Platonic 
 Socrates affects to take the first part of it in that sense, 
 for very good reasons of his own. But this cannot have 
 been the sense originally intended by Anytus and Meletus. 
 As Plato's Socrates goes on to argue, an accusation of 
 believing in no gods whatever and believing in icawii Bai/wvia 
 is pure nonsense, and we owe it to the very capable states- 
 men who were behind the prosecution of Socrates not to 
 believe them guilty of having framed so ridiculous a charge 
 except on the very strongest of evidence. Taken in their 
 strict sense, the words of the accusation do not even imply 
 that Socrates had ever called in question the existence of 
 the "gods whom the city recognises." Eor vo/ii^etv Oeovs 
 does not mean merely to believe that there are gods, but to 
 " recognise " the gods by paying them the honour due to 
 them. An atheist is necessarily, if he is consistent in his 
 conduct, a man who ov vo/ii^ei 6eov<;, but a man who ov 
 vofii^ei, deovt may be very far from atheism. This is 
 excellently shown by the fact that Lysias can say of Pison, 
 one of the Thirty, that ovre 0eoi><; ovre dvOpanrovs vo/xi^ei, 1 
 which means not, of course, that Pison was a philosophical 
 solipsist, who disbelieved in the existence of his fellow-men, 
 but that he had no regard for God or man, no fear of either 
 before his eyes. Similarly the charge against Socrates is 
 strictly that " he does not recognise the gods whom our 
 city recognises, but reserves his recognition for certain other 
 novel supernatural beings." What he is accused of is 
 neither atheism nor moral delinquency, in any sense we 
 should attach to the words, but devotion to a religious 
 eultus which has not the stamp of the State's approval, and 
 
 1 Lysias xii. 9. Pison was an "unjust judge," like the one who says in 
 the Gospel rbv 9ebv ov (poftoSficu oidi AvSparov iirpiiroiiai. 
 
8 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 is, in fact, an unlicensed importation from abroad. As our 
 ancestors of the seventeenth century would have put it, 
 he frequents a foreign conventicle. 1 
 
 That this is the true interpretation of the accusation 
 appears when we examine the structure of the Platonic 
 Apology. Socrates is there made to distinguish sharply 
 between the specific accusation on which he has been 
 brought to trial, and a more general accusation which, as 
 he says, has been informally brought against him by the 
 comic poets. This more general accusation is humorously put 
 by him into the form of a regular dvTco/ioo-ia, with which 
 he deals before he comes to examine the actual dvrcofioaia 
 of Meletus. This charge is one of atheism, the atheism 
 which the well-known speculations of Anaxagoras had 
 caused to attach to students of physical science. It is 
 briefly disposed of by the consideration that, as Socrates 
 has never professed to be able to teach Physics, the 
 Anaxagorean speculations, whatever their value may be 
 (and he is careful not to prejudge this issue), have nothing 
 to do with him. This part of the Apology has thus no 
 connection with the charges of offending against religion 
 made by Meletus, and Plato is careful to make it clear 
 that it is not meant as having any reference to the avreoiAocria 
 of the prosecutors. The whole section which deals with 
 the caricatures of the comic poets forms no part of the 
 dycov proper, and is not directed 77730? rbv dvnSiKov. It 
 belongs altogether to the proem of the real dycov, and its 
 
 1 We need not suppose that any evidence was adduced to show that 
 Socrates had actually neglected the formal obligations of the official cultus, 
 since such unnecessary ' ' nonconformity " is foreign to both Plato's and 
 Xenophon's pictures of the man. In point of fact, the proof that Socrates 
 did not pay due reverence to the official gods would be sufficiently established 
 by showing that he did pay special reverence to foreign and unlicensed 
 divinities. "Mine honour will I not give to another" is the rule in affairs 
 of this kind. E.g. if you show yourself peculiarly "devout to" a strange 
 god, while you content yourself with no more than the discharge of officially 
 established politenesses to Athena of the Burg, you are ipso facto giving 
 Athena's proper honour to her rival, just as an Englishman might show dis- 
 loyalty if he merely treated the Archbishop of Canterbury with ceremonial 
 courtesy, but went out of his way to be effusive to a Papal Nuncio. It 
 would not be necessary to add a positive insult to the Archbishop. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCRATES 9 
 
 function is simply SiaXveiv T<fc? im-o^ia?, to remove any 
 initial prejudice which might ^prevent the audience from 
 giving an unbiased hearing to the arguments and evidence 
 on which the defence proper is based. When we do at 
 last reach the actual dsycbv, Socrates treats the specific 
 allegation of religious disloyalty in a very singular fashion. 
 He isolates the first, or negative, clause of the accusation 
 from the second, which as a matter of fact contains the 
 real complaint, and asks Meletus what he means by his 
 statement that Socrates does not " recognise " the gods of 
 Athens. Does he mean that Socrates " recognises " some 
 other god or gods, or that he " recognises " none at all ? 
 Of course what the indictment really meant was the former 
 alternative, but Meletus, being wholly unversed in dialectic, 
 falls into a booby-trap of the simplest kind. He adopts the 
 second alternative, no doubt because it makes Socrates' 
 wickedness more astounding, and thus the original charge 
 of disloyalty to the State religion is adroitly converted into 
 one of pure atheism. It is easy for Socrates to show that 
 this accusation conflicts with the very next clause of the 
 indictment, but meanwhile the really serious charge of 
 disloyalty to the city's gods has been allowed to fall into 
 the background, and goes unanswered. 
 
 Thus Plato neither explains what the real accusation 
 was, nor does he offer any reply to it. I can find no 
 reasonable explanation of his conduct but the obvious one, 
 that his account of what he heard Socrates say at the trial 
 is in the main closely true to fact, and that Socrates indulged 
 his " accustomed irony " at the expense of his prosecutor to 
 confuse the issue at stake, precisely because he had no 
 satisfactory defence against the charge which had been made 
 in the avrm/jLoa-ia, and would have been pressed home by 
 Meletus coherently enough if he had not allowed Socrates 
 to cross-examine him. The Platonic Apology vindicates 
 Socrates triumphantly on the score of "atheism," but 
 silently owns that he was guilty on the real charge of 
 unlicensed innovation in religion. 
 
 This being so, we naturally ask whether any reasonable 
 
10 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 conjecture can be formed about the nature of these " inno- 
 vations " with regard to which Socrates could not defend 
 himself ; and, as Plato has not seen fit to enlighten us in the 
 Apology, we naturally turn next to the apologetic materials 
 supplied by Xenophon, who shows himself far less adroit in 
 following the sound maxim iraKai to aiyav <j>dp/iMicov 
 /3Xa/3i7? e%a>. Now Xenophon does profess to know the 
 ground on which the accusation was based. He says that, 
 in his opinion, it was Socrates' notorious claim to possess a 
 " divine sign " which gave rise to the belief that he had 
 imported unauthorised Bai/iovta. 1 I propose to show both 
 that the statement is false and that Xenophon is uncandid 
 if he intends to put it forward as a suggestion coming from 
 himself. Later on we shall see that it is at least highly 
 probable that Xenophon knew his explanation to be untrue, 
 and that he was well aware of the real foundation of the 
 accusation, though the degree of his unveracity is for us 
 a minor question. What is important is to prove that the 
 version of the matter which has been believed on his 
 authority down to our own times is false, and to ask 
 whether the genuine facts are not to be discerned even 
 now. Our results will, I hope, be doubly interesting, as 
 they not merely throw some fresh light on the most famous 
 moments in the life of a very great man, but further present 
 us with some curious information on the conception of 
 " impiety " entertained by old-fashioned Athenians at the 
 opening of the fourth century. 
 
 First, then, it should be noted that Xenophon's explana- 
 tion is inherently incredible, and that he himself is naive 
 enough to point out the incredibility of it. It is Xenophon 
 himself who goes on to say that Socrates' belief in his oracle 
 stands on the same level with the belief of other men in 
 fiavTiicri? If Socrates believed that " heaven " gave him 
 revelations by means of the a-tjfieiov, he believed neither more 
 
 1 Memorabilia i. 1. 2 8tcTe$p6\rtTo yap lis (pair} SuxpArris rb ScupAviov 
 eavTuii <rrjfw.lv aw &6ev 87) Kal /idWrd poi SoKavaiv airbv alniaanBai Kaiva 
 5atfibvta eltr<p£puv. 
 
 2 Mem, i. 1. 3 6 o' o6dt}v xaivbrepov eltritpepe tuv &\\<av, tiaot. fiavriKty 
 voidfrovres olwuoU re xpwxTai Kal <pi)fMus Kal <rii^j3A\ois xal 9valaK kt\. Note the 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 11 
 
 nor less than any of his neighbours who put their faith in 
 omens, or consulted a soothsaye^r about their dreams. And 
 it follows at once that if Socrates could be charged with 
 impiety for believing in the prophetic significance of his 
 " sign," Anytus and Meletus could equally have brought 
 a successful <ypa<f>r) aaefiela*; against any Athenian who 
 believed in dreams and omens, that is, against the great 
 majority of the Brj/ioi. But surely it is certain that a 
 prosecution on such grounds would not only have made its 
 promoters ridiculous, but have laid them open to a counter- 
 accusation of impiety which they would not have found it 
 easy to defend. 
 
 Further, it seems clear from the Platonic Apologia that 
 nothing at all was said about the " sign " in the speech of 
 Meletus, and it is therefore presumable that it was not 
 alluded to in the indictment. To prove this, we have only 
 to observe that Plato is absolutely silent about the " sign " 
 in that part of his work which deals with the accusation of 
 impiety, that is, in the real aymv. The subject is brought 
 up later on by Socrates himself in quite a different connec- 
 tion, as the professed explanation of his abstention from 
 public life. 1 In other words, the " sign " is treated as falling 
 outside the main issues of the case ; the whole passage about 
 it is simply a SiaXvaK t»5? viro-^ia^. He abstained from 
 politics, he says, because the " sign " restrained him. Now 
 the mere fact that such an explanation is regarded by Plato 
 as at least a plausible argument against the viroyfria of 
 suspicious dicasts, should of itself be sufficient proof that no 
 accusation of aaejUeia could have been put forward on the 
 
 scornful echo of the indictment : " His ' importations ' were no more ' novel ' 
 than those of every one else. " 
 
 1 Apology 31 c t<rus &i> o$v SAfeiex &totov elvou 8ti Sii iyii ISitu nkv ravra 
 avfifSovketiia irepuwv koI TroXuTrpayfiovw, SyfioeLtu Se ou To\p& avafialviav els to 
 tt\t)6os tA viiirepov trv/j.povXeiku' T^t w6\ei. rofrrov 81 atnbv ianv 8 i/ieis 4/J.oD 
 ffo\\d(«s d/cij/ciare iroXXoxoC X^yoi'TOs, irri poi delbii n nal Saiixomov ylyveTtu . . 
 tout' (<mv S iioi havTiovrat t4 iroXmicA Tpdrreiv kt\. (We are to suppose, 
 then, that Socrates had seriously thought of such a career, only that the Belbv 
 ti forbade it ; his abstention from public life, as he implies in Sepublic 496 c, 
 was forced on him by God against his inclination, just as was afterwards the 
 case with Plato according to Ep. vii.) 
 
12 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 mere strength of the Batfiovtov a-rjfieiov. A much less alert 
 intelligence than that of either Socrates or Plato could not 
 have failed to see the absurdity of trying to disarm suspicion 
 by what, if Xenophon is telling the truth, was bound to be 
 taken as a gratuitous confession of the crime laid to his 
 charge. To make the point clearer, let us consider what 
 the vTTotyLa, is under which Socrates lies. It is that, though 
 notoriously influential in private among such young men as 
 Alcibiades, Critias, Charmides, Aristotle o&t&v rpiaKovra, 
 as a leader of political discussions, he has' never honestly 
 come forward and openly placed his gifts at the service of 
 the State. This inevitably creates a suspicion, not only 
 reasonable enough in itself, but apparently so well backed 
 by facts that Plato does not venture to put it into words, 
 though we can easily read it between the lines of his reply. 
 The virotyia is, in fact, that Socrates is the able and danger- 
 ous head of an anti-democratic eraipia, like that in which 
 Antiphon had played the leading part a dozen years before. 
 That an audience which could remember the behaviour 
 of the oligarchical clubs of 415, and had fresh in their 
 memories two subversions of the Constitution within a dozen 
 years, should cherish such suspicions about Socrates was the 
 most natural thing in the world. His puppets, Critias and 
 the others, it might be said, played up to their cues, and 
 paid with their lives for doing so, but the " chief contriver 
 of all harms" took care to keep himself safe behind the 
 scenes, and here he is to-day ready to begin the old . game 
 again, if we do not give him his deserts. And I suspect 
 that it would do Socrates no good that, as every one knew, 
 he had not, like his friend Chaerephon, shared the exile of 
 the patriots during the Terror ; he was one of the " men of 
 the city," as opposed to oi e/c TLeipcua>$, and what that 
 means may be gathered from the speeches of Lysias belong- 
 ing to the years 403— 400. 1 
 
 1 Cf. Lysias xxv. 1 biun /xiv iroWty <rvyyvibp.r)v %X a , & foSpes SiKatrral, 
 aKouovat roiofrrtav \6ytav Kal dvafiifivrfiffKo^vois tQv yeyevqp4vtav y bpoius Hirtunv 
 ipylfraSai tois in Aaret fielvturi kt\., xxvi. 2 oi yi.p iy0vp.ei<r8e Sn 087-01 pjv 
 87-e 77 7r6Xis ivb t&v A-axeSai/wviiAiv ijpxero, oiSi tt)s oijttjs JouXefas i/uv fieradovvai 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCRATES 13 
 
 Socrates thus lay under a false but highly natural 
 suspicion, and it was evidently^iis business to dispel it by 
 assigning his abstention from public life, which, in the friend 
 of Critias and Charmides, looked like the cunning of un- 
 scrupulous self-preservation, to an innocent cause. The 
 cause he assigns is the action of the Sai/ioviov arj/ieiov. 
 This is plain proof that, in Plato's opinion at least, the 
 (TTj/jieiov was not a thing at which the average dicast would 
 be likely to take umbrage. Yet further, the language in 
 which the explanation is introduced is such that, in the 
 hands of a writer who knows what words mean, it ought to 
 'imply that the "sign" had never been referred to in the 
 course of the trial until Socrates himself saw fit to " import " 
 it into the argument. For it is introduced simply as 
 "something you have often heard me speak of in many 
 places" (a phrase which of itself implies that there could 
 be no impiety in a tiling of which Socrates was always and 
 everywhere talking in the most open way). It is assumed 
 that, though the dicasts may never have heard before that 
 the " sign " had forbidden Socrates to speak in the iicic\r}crLa, 
 they already knew perfectly that he had such a " sign," and 
 their knowledge did not come from the speeches of the 
 prosecutors, but from Socrates himself. If the " sign " had 
 played any part in the speech of Meletus, the language of 
 Socrates, as reproduced by Plato, would be ridiculous. He 
 could not possibly fall back on one of the very points of the 
 accusation as an innocent explanation of a suspicious course 
 of conduct ; - he must necessarily have dealt with the " sign " 
 and have discussed its character in the aycov proper ; or, if 
 it were conceivable that he should have put the whole subject 
 into the wrong division of his speech, he must at least 
 have described the " sign " as " something which Meletus has 
 misrepresented, but about which you shall now hear the 
 
 ri£lw<ra.i>, kt\. The same soreness of feeling between the two parties is pre- 
 supposed in xxviii., where Lysias has to argue against the presumption 
 created in fa your of Ergooles by his having notoriously been one of the "men 
 of Piraeus." See also xxxir. (date immediately after the amnesty) for the 
 feeling against persons who, like Socrates, tt}i iiJkr rixt 1 T ">" £* Ilei/iaiws 
 Tpayn&Ttov fieriaxof, "ji Bi yvtifiin t&v 4% ifrreus. 
 
14 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 truth." When we remember that we are dealing not with 
 the work of a botcher but with that of Plato, we are bound 
 to infer from the foregoing considerations that the " sign " 
 had never been mentioned by the prosecutors at all, and 
 that it cannot therefore have been any part of the grounds 
 for the ypafptf against Socrates. 
 
 An objection may perhaps be made to this conclusion on 
 the ground that Plato's Socrates immediately goes on to say 
 that it is presumably from a misrepresentation about the 
 " sign " that Meletus has indicted him for aae^eia (o 8r/ 
 Kal iv rfji ypcuprji, ewiKatfiaiSdiv Me\rjTO<i iypdyfraro). But 
 the warning hr) should of itself suggest that the pretended 
 explanation may not be altogether serious. And when we 
 add to the reasons already given for disbelieving that the 
 " sign " had played any part in the accusation the further 
 consideration that Socrates is careful not to say that the 
 " burlesque " occurred in the speech of Meletus, but ascribes 
 it solely to the formal indictment, it becomes clear that the 
 remark is only an instance of the eladvla "ttoKparovs elptoveia. 
 It is, in fact, an admirable stroke of humour to suggest that 
 the tremendous charge of " importing novel Satpovia " has 
 nothing worse than this trifling business of the arjfielov behind 
 it. At least, if Meletus said nothing in his speech about the 
 o-ripelov, that cannot have been what he and Anytus meant 
 by the accusation. 
 
 We can see now how the traditional account of the 
 impiety of Socrates has grown up. A suggestion made 
 humorously by Plato, and in all likelihood by Socrates 
 himself in the course of his address to the dicasts, has been 
 taken up seriously by Xenophon, most probably out of the 
 Apology itself, and given out as his own theory of the 
 matter, and later writers have too often been content to 
 echo this piece of pure " Pragmatismus " as if it were an 
 ascertained fact. 
 
 Assuming, then, that the negative part of our case has 
 been made out, we may say that the "impiety" alleged 
 against Socrates was neither atheism nor the possession of a 
 private oracle. We have next to ask whether any probable 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCKATES 15 
 
 conjecture can be made as to its real character. Any theory 
 we can frame, let it be remembered, must satisfy the 
 following conditions. It must assign a ground for the 
 charge which is compatible with the known good sense and 
 probity of Anytus, and also with what we know of current 
 Athenian sentiment as to what is or is not " impious." It 
 must also explain why Plato contrives to avoid the whole 
 issue in the Apology, and why Xenophon gives only a 
 palpably false explanation. Finally it must explain why 
 the offence could fairly be represented as an importation of 
 innovations in cultus. These considerations enable us at 
 once to set aside a view which has found too much favour 
 in quarters influenced by the Christian conception of heresy 
 as the holding of false " doctrines concerning the faith." 
 
 Socrates was not condemned because, as we learn from 
 the Euthyphro, he refused to believe in the tales of the 
 rebellion of Zeus against his father, or of the war with the 
 giants, or because he wished, like the Ionian philosophers 
 before him, to " bowdlerise " Homer and Hesiod. Myths 
 were never held de fide in the Hellenic world, and there is 
 no evidence that disbelief in them was ever regarded as 
 impiety. Pindar could deny with impunity the story of the 
 banquet of Tantalus, Aeschylus that of the victory of Apollo 
 over the serpent of Pytho. 1 Even the astounding picture 
 of the character of Zeus in the Prometheus, and the very 
 uusatisfactory morality of Loxias in the Orestean trilogy, do 
 not seem ever to have been felt as offences against religion. 2 
 Nor need I prove that the whole chronique scandaleuse of 
 Olympus is denounced as an impious invention of the 
 poets, not merely by Euripides, 3 but by the cautious and 
 
 1 Eumenides 4 ff. iv Si twi rplrm \ \Ax eL > SeXodoijs, oiSi wplis ftiav nvis, | 
 Tiraxis tXKri rats X6ovbs Ka6££ero, | iotflri ' Sldoiai. 8' f/ yev49\iov S&aiv \ Qoiflwi 
 kt\. 
 
 2 It is a mistake to take the ' ' theology " of the trilogy too seriously. 
 Loxias, after commanding a peculiarly treacherous murder, proves quite 
 unable to protect the murderer, and Athena only saves him by what is 
 morally a ' ' toss-up. " The verdict is the familiar one, "Not guilty ; don't do 
 it again." 
 
 3 See, for a sample passage, Euripides, Heracles 1340-1346, with its 
 thoroughly "philosophic" conclusion, doi8ffl» oi'Je Siar-qvoi \byoi, where there 
 
16 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 conventional Isocrates. 1 Even Aristophanes regards the 
 tale of the binding of Cronus as a blasphemy fit only for 
 the mouth of wickedness personified. 2 The notion that the 
 contemporaries of Socrates looked on the Hesiodic Theogony 
 as a canonical body of doctrine from which it was criminal 
 to depart is an anachronism. The /xv0ot of Hesiod and 
 Orpheus were not dogmas, and the essential thing in 
 Athenian religion was not dogma, but cultus, the practice of 
 the proper rules of "giving and receiving between God and 
 man." "We may be quite sure that what Socrates was 
 charged with was not unbelief or over-belief, but irregular 
 religious practices, a method of "giving to and receiving 
 from " heaven which had not the stamp of official approval, 
 and therefore might very conceivably be used to influence 
 to Oeloi/ against the interests of the Athenian democracy. 
 " Impiety " of this kind was naturally also high treason. 
 
 Nor, I may add, was the case of Socrates in the least 
 parallel with that of Anaxagoras, except in so far as, 
 in both cases, the considerations actually operative were 
 
 seems to be an intentional allusion to the proverb 7roXXd if/eiSovrai aoiSoi. 
 We have, of course, the famous case of the dot ids Stesichorus, who was blinded 
 for blasphemy, but his crime lay precisely in believing Homer. 
 
 1 Busvris 38-39 dXXi yb.p oiSiv <roi rijs dXijfleias ipUXfio-ev, dXXi raU twv 
 ironrrHv j3\a<r<prjp.iat! tirTjKoXoi'^Tjaas, oJ davorepa p.kv ireirouiK&Tas Kai ireirovBtrras 
 dirotpalvovtrt rods £k tuv ddavdrajf yeyovoras fj rods €k t&v avdpwirwv rwv 
 &vo<riuT&Tiw . . iirip 8>v rip> pkv df(ai> SIktjv oix (Sotrav, oi pA\v &rip.tbpi]ToL ye 
 Siitpvyov . . 'Op(peds 8' 6 pAKurra roirwv run \6yav a^&ficvos Siaffwaadeh rbv 
 §lov ire\eir7i<rev. We may note, too, that even such a zealot as) Euthyphro 
 expresses neither horror nor surprise when Socrates refuses to believe his 
 stories about the " ancient and violent deeds " of the gods. (The insinuation, 
 which occurs at Euthyphro 6 b, that it is this want of faith which has led 
 to the prosecution foi ,J impiety is manifestly a part of the irony which 
 pervades the dia^sgue.) The implication of the whole passage is that these 
 stories were .commonly told as tales of what happened long ago, but that no 
 one except professed mystery-mongers pretended to know whether there was 
 any truth in them. The attitude of Euthyphro should dispose once for all 
 of the notion that Euripides was risking his life by attacking popular 
 mythology. 
 
 2 Clouds 904 AAIKOS AOrOS. irfis Srp-a, 5(kijs otf(n;s, 6 Zei>$ 
 
 odic dirb\u\ev rbv Trovrip* abrov 
 Sijiras ; 
 AIKAI02 AOrOS. alpoi, rovrl nal S*i 
 
 Xw/>ef rb ko.k6v S6re p.oi \iKivtjv, 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 17 
 
 political, and might have been put forward largely on their 
 own merits. For Socrates, in* Plato, says no single word 
 which would indicate that the astronomical views of 
 Anaxagoras had been laid to his charge by his actual 
 accusers. It is not Meletus but Aristophanes whom he 
 accuses of having involved him in the general prejudice 
 against astronomers. This prejudice is represented as one 
 of old standing, dating, in fact, from the production of the 
 Clouds, and Meletus is said to have taken advantage of 
 it to involve Socrates in a fresh accusation. But the line 
 of distinction is very sharply drawn between the old and 
 more general charge, which is not formally before the 
 court at all, and the more specific accusation of Meletus. 
 It is only after disposing of the general accusation, made by 
 persons who cannot be confronted with him, that Socrates 
 begins to consider the ypa<f>tf of Meletus ; and when he 
 does come to deal with it we hear no more of astronomy 
 or Anaxagoras. What Meletus complained of was not 
 that Socrates studied astronomy, but that he " corrupted 
 the young " and followed an unlicensed form of religion. 
 
 Now the Phaedo and Gorgias profess to tell us facts 
 about Socrates which, if authentic, at once explain how he 
 might fairly be thought guilty of " impiety " by persons 
 of high character and not totally devoid of common-sense. 
 From both of them we learn that Socrates was a convinced 
 believer in the Orphic-Pythagorean doctrine of the soul, 
 according to which this present life in the body is only 
 the prelude to the more real and endless life to come after 
 the separation of soul and body, and the chief duty of man 
 is to live for this redemption of the soul by means of 
 "philosophy." In the Gorgias in particular this theory 
 of the duty of man is made the ground for a severe indict- 
 ment of one and all the famous men of the fifth century 
 who had created Imperial Athens, and "philosophy" and 
 the 8rjfio<! are pitted against one another, like God and 
 Mammon, as masters whom no one can serve at once. 1 
 
 1 Gorgias 481 d \4y<a b" ivixr/jiras, Sn iytli re koX tri vuv Tvrfxi.voii.ev rairbr 
 ti Treirovdores, tpwvre d{io Svre 5votv iK&repos, iyib iikv ' A.\Ki^idSov re tov 
 
 C 
 
18 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Both dialogues exhibit him as closely connected in a sort 
 of society with Pythagorean foreigners. In the Gorgias a 
 special appeal is made to the authority of a " man of Italy " 
 who is a transparent disguise for the Pythagorean refugee 
 Philolaus. 1 In the Phaedo, Socrates is the central figure 
 of a group of like-minded persons ; there are Simmias 
 and Cebes, pupils of Philolaus from Thebes, Echecrates, a 
 Pythagorean from Phlius, 2 who form the minor group of 
 interlocutors ; and among the other persons are not only 
 Phaedo, who figures as a well-known acquaintance of the 
 society at Phlius, but also Euclides and Terpsion from 
 Megara, of whom we only know as Eleatics, and Eleatics 
 were regularly reckoned in antiquity as a sort of heterodox 
 Pythagoreans. We could easily add more details to the 
 picture by taking other dialogues into the account. Thus, 
 for example, the whole doctrine of Eros as the impulse to 
 philosophy, expounded in the Symposium, the Phaedrus, 
 the nuptial metaphor of Republic vi., and the account of 
 " spiritual midwifery " in the Theaetetus, requires to be read 
 in the light of Hesiod, Parmenides, and the Hijypolytus, 
 whose hero, it is essential to remember, is an Orphic 
 
 KXeiWou koX (piKoffOfftlas, ffi) Se Svoiv, rod re ' KB-qvaltjiv Srffiov Kal rod IIvpi- 
 \dfjLirovs. Cf. 513 c 6 d'fjfiov y&p tpojs, & KaXXf/cXeis, £v&v 4v rrjt. ^VXH 1 T V L 
 crfji avriararei /ioi. When we remember that the conversation is supposed 
 to take place somewhere between the trial of the generals and the final 
 surrender at the Goat's River, the allusion to Alcibiades is seen to be the 
 expression of political hopes which would find little sympathy with the 
 democratic leaders of a later time, and should be read in connection with 
 the hopes and fears exhibited by Aristophanes in the Frogs. It is important 
 to remember that the tone in which " democracy " is criticised in the Gorgias 
 and Bepublic is throughout carefully adapted to the dramatic character of 
 the speaker and the circumstances of the presupposed time. It is the 
 criticism of an anti-Periclean who has lived to see the outcome of the great 
 war- policy staving him in the face. Plato's own personal views must be 
 sought more particularly in the Laws and the 7th Epistle. But this is 
 no theme for a passing note, and I hope to deal more fully with it in a second 
 series of these studies. 
 
 1 Gorgias 493. As Professor Burnet has remarked, the 2i/ceX6s must be 
 regarded as a mere reference to the proverb about the 2i/ceXds KOfvpbs irf/p, 
 and this ties us down to an " Italian " Pythagorean as the authority followed. 
 Comparison with Phaedo 61 b-62 b shows that Philolaus is meant. 
 
 2 The quality of Echecrates as a Pythagorean is proved by his appearance 
 in the list of Iamblichus. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 19 
 
 " saint." l The Phaedo implies that the connection between 
 Socrates and these communities was close enough for some 
 members of the school to pay frequent visits to the philo- 
 sopher throughout his imprisonment. 2 The same point 
 
 1 I shall hardly be required to produce the formal proof of the Orphic 
 origin of all this. It may be enough to call attention once more to the 
 point that the doctrine of the "maieutic art," which is merely part of the 
 theory of Eros as the aspiration to the immortal life, is guaranteed as 
 Socratic by the jest of Aristophanes, Clouds 136 dTepi/iept/ivois t^)v Bipuv 
 XeXctKTiKas j ko.1 tppovrlS' ^^jSXw^as kfy]vptttLkvqv . I may note that tx£pifj.va 
 and tppovrls are both words with an Orphic ring about them. For fiipi/iva 
 in this sense cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 459 nivci 8' cL/covaal ri //.ov | fiipqiva 
 MKT7]pe<p£s, Eumenides 360 a-irsv8ofj.ha 6" d<pe\etv | tlvcl rdtrde fiepifivas, [ 
 &e&i/ 5" drAaac ifitus j fieXe'rais iirucpaiveLv. So it looks intentional that in 
 Pindar 01. ii. the vision of judgment to come is introduced by the thought 
 (58) 6 fidv ttXoutos aperais dedatdaXp^i/os | 0epei tCw re Kai tCov j Katpbv, (3a,8eiav 
 {nrix wv pipwav. The man of wealth does well to be careful as knowing 
 that he will have to render account of his stewardship. It can hardly be a 
 mere coincidence that Pyth. viii., which ends with an echo of the Orphic 
 thought that our life here is but a shadow, exhibits the same transition, 
 (87 ff.) b 8i Kakbv ti viov Xerotic | afSpdraros lm /My&Xas | £1; £\tISos irirerai | 
 viroTrrtpoLS avopeacs, ^x oJV I Kp^aaova ir\o6rov /xipi/Jivav . . . eirdfiepoi • rl 8£ 
 tis ; rl 8' oil tis; trxias Svap \ ivSpuiros. So it is the function of Bromius 
 diacreieui re ^opois [ juerd t' ai\ov yeXdaai \ airvwaviral re fieplpvas, Euripides, 
 Bacchae 379. He hates, in fact, the pietistic anxiety of the unco guid, and 
 requires his votaries tjotphv &ir£x elv Trpawlba <pp£va re j ireptaffiov irapa <pajT&v, 
 that is, from the philosophers who make their lives a meditatio mortis, and 
 the whole race of kill-joys. We see thus, I think, that "anxiety about 
 one's soul " is a distinct meaning of ^ipi/wa, and Pindar's use of the word 
 with special reference to a god who "watches over " his favourites, e.g. 01. i. 
 107 Bebs eirlrpoTros t£ov reataL fi-fiSeTcu | ex&w tovto ica8os, 'Itpoiv, [ p.eplf/.vaicni', 
 Ncm. iii. 68 8s Tiiv8e vaaov etf/cXe'i ■jrpo<re'8T]Ke Xoywt | Kai ffefivbv ay\aa?ai 
 fiepL/ivais | IlvBlov Qc6.pi.ov, further illustrates the religious associations of the 
 word. They may even colour Empedocles' vr\Tnoi ■ oi yip a<piv SoXixb'Ppovt's 
 tin pJpt/j.va.1, since he is there speaking of men who have forgotten the 
 "imperial palace whence" they "came." As for (ppovrls, the whole point 
 of the jest of the $povnaTl)piov is that in Attic Greek (ppovrifav means to 
 "take anxious thought" about a thing. For its religious associations cf. 
 the well-known Aeschylean el rb iiirav airb (ppovrlSos ixBos XP^I PaXelv irri- 
 tA/ws ; I think also Ag. 1530 afirixavu ippovrlSos dTepr)8els | eiirakanov 
 nepiij.vav | Sira Tpdirw/uu, ttItvovtos oIkov (the despairing cry is for a. divine 
 protector in so evil a world) ; Euripides, Hippolytus 375 ijS-ri nor fiXXws vvicrbs 
 £v fiaxpui xP^"" al I Bviyr&v £<ppl>vTia' jjl 8u-<p8apTai. fllos. Many other examples 
 could be readily supplied. In the sense in which <ppovTiaTi)s is the opposite 
 ■of the type glorified in the Bacchae, the word means the divot who works out 
 his salvation with fear and trembling. 
 
 2 Phaedo 59 d del yap 8^ Kai rhs irpbaBev ■ijfie'pas eMiSe/iev tpoirav Kai iyiii 
 .Kai oi &\\oi Trapb. rbv ItaKparri, ktX. ; Theaetetus 142c ff. That the "notes" 
 
20 VARIA SOOEATICA 
 
 recurs in the Theaetetus, with the highly probable addition 
 that some of them took full notes of his talk. The com- 
 panion story of the Crito, 1 about the large sum of money 
 which Simmias and Cebes brought from Thebes, can hardly 
 mean less than that the Theban Pythagoreans had made 
 a " collection " on his account, no doubt with the original 
 intention of bribing the accusers to let the prosecution drop. 
 In any case, no one will deny that Plato has chosen, 
 especially in the Phaedo, to represent Socrates as intimately 
 connected with the Pythagorean communities of northern 
 and central Greece. I suggest, then, that, since the con- 
 nection is incidentally revealed, much to the damage of 
 his own theory of Socrates, by Xenophon, 2 we should 
 
 taken by the friends of Socrates are not a pure invention of Plato is clear ; 
 it is only their existence which explains the sudden appearance of so many 
 examples of a new form of literature (reckoned by Aristotle as a kind of 
 "mime" or drama), the 2wKp<z™t6s \6yos, immediately after the philo- 
 sopher's death. The reason why the Eleatics were regarded as a kind of 
 Pythagoreans is simply that, in all probability, the school followed the 
 Pythagorean "life," i.e. were members of the brotherhood, though in 
 disagreement with the doctrines of the others. The evidence for this in 
 the case of Parmenides and Zeno, which is quite good, will be found in 
 Professor Burnet's treatment of these philosophers in his Early Greek 
 Philosophy. Parmenides and Melissus are both in the list of Iamblichus. 
 I have avoided speaking of a school of Megara, since it is not clear to me 
 that "Megarians " were even recognised as a sect before the time of Aristotle, 
 I suspect popular thought antedates Stilpo and Diodorus and Eubulides, 
 as it certainly does the Cyrenaics, a school which really belongs to the age 
 of Epicurus and Arcesilaus. (See Plutarch, Adversus Oolotem 1120 c.) 
 
 1 Crito 45 b cfs Si ko.1 KexS/wcev iir' airb tovto apyipiov iKavdv, 2t,/j./j.las <? 
 GtjjScuos, (toiixos Si ko.1 K^j3i)s xal dWoi iroXXoi irdn. The object is expressly 
 said just above to have been to buy off the "sycophants," i.e. the nominal 
 accusers, and the mention of the irdvu toXKoI shows that the foreign friends 
 of Socrates (all of whom, so far as we know, were connected with Pytha- 
 goreanism) were acting together. We must suppose either that they did not 
 know that a man of the stamp of Anytus was the real mover, or that they 
 were not in time. For obvious reasons, Plato says nothing as to their 
 presence in Athens at the trial. I should add that my attention was first 
 called to the passage of the Crito by Professor Burnet. 
 
 3 Mem. i. 2. 48, Simmias, Cebes, and Phaedondas (see Phaedo 59 c) are 
 mentioned among the friends of Socrates, and the former two at iii. 11. 17 
 where they are expressly designated as Thebans. At iv. 2. 10 Theodoras, 
 the Pythagorean geometer, seems to be also spoken of as a personal friend. 
 Note that this confirms the statements of the Theaetetus about the friendship 
 between the two men. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 21 
 
 accept it as probably true, and that it may possibly afford 
 the missing clue to the real character of the " impiety " of 
 the philosopher. 
 
 To see the probable effect on an Athenian dicastery of 
 a well-founded assertion that Socrates was an associate 
 of the Pythagoreans, we must bear in mind several points. 
 The breaking-up of the Pythagoreans as a society in Magna 
 Graecia was sufficiently recent for two of the survivors, 
 Philolaus and Lysis, to have been active as teachers in 
 Thebes at the end of Socrates' life, and the history of these 
 chosen associates would not tell in favour of a philosopher 
 already known to be no admirer of the democracy which 
 the men of " practical sense " were fruitlessly trying to 
 revive. The Pythagoreans were, moreover, known to have 
 a secret cult of their own, based on mysterious beliefs about 
 the soul, a matter which no ancient voXi? could be expected 
 to treat lightly ; and, to make matters worse, the sect was 
 not popular in Athens, as we see from the fact that the 
 catalogue of members given by Iamblichus mentions only 
 one Athenian. Whether Socrates went further and actually 
 participated in the common life and peculiar worship of his 
 Pythagorean friends is more than we can say, 1 though it 
 
 1 There is a curious difficulty about this point, from the solution of which 
 much light might be thrown on the personality of Socrates. The Pythagorean 
 Apollo was, as is natural in a religion originating with a Samian, the Ionian 
 Apollo of Delos. This is shown by the way in which the Delian legend of 
 the Hyperborean maidens has got mixed up with the Pythagoras legend as 
 early as the work of Aristotle on the Pythagoreans. Yet the special favourite 
 of Socrates is always the Delphian Apollo, the irdrpios igriyriTfy whose services 
 were to be invoked for the ideal ir6\is and whose oracle had appointed him 
 his mission. This is all the stranger, and the more certainly historical, that 
 the Apollo of Delphi had fallen into deserved discredit at Athens for his 
 partisanship throughout the Great War, so that we actually find the Athens 
 of Demosthenes and Hyperides reviving the claims of Dodona to escape 
 recognising the authority of Pytho. Possibly one should regard the devotion 
 of Socrates to Delphi partly as indicating political sentiments, partly as due 
 to the effect on his career of the oracle given to Chaerephon, which, as I 
 could readily prove, belongs to a time before the war, when a man could 
 fairly well serve both Athens and Delphi. The death-scene of the Phaedo 
 is orthodox in all its details. The vision which warns Socrates of the 
 approaching return of the sacred trireme conies, of course, from Delos, which 
 the boat had just left. The poem to Apollo, as quoted by Diogenes, begins 
 
22 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 is at least possible that his famous description of himself 
 as a fellow-servant with the swans of Apollo should be 
 understood in that light. In any case, the known fact 
 that he chose to make special intimates of Pythagoreans 
 from Thebes and Phlius, who, as every one knew, had a 
 private cult of their own, not recognised by any Polis nor 
 confined to members of any Polis, would be enough to lead 
 to the inference that he shared in their practices, and to 
 expose him to the charge of neglecting the deities of the 
 State in favour of certain " imported novelties." And there 
 is extant evidence that some such participation in "uncanny" 
 rites was popularly ascribed to him years before his trial. 1 
 
 Taking all these points together, I think we are fairly 
 justified in suggesting that the real impiety of Socrates was 
 nothing other than an intimate connection, probably amount- 
 ing to " inter-communion," with foreign Pythagoreans. If 
 we were actually required to give a name to the foreign 
 Saifiovtov whom Socrates, according to his accusers, patronised, 
 we should not go very far astray in calling him 'AttoWwv 
 'T7T6/3/3o/)£to?. But fortunately there is no need to " give the 
 
 correctly A^Xi' "AiroXXoy, x a '/> e > an ^ the swans are Delian too (Euripides, 
 Iph. Taw. 1104 \LfjLvav 6' elhLo~<rov<rav iidup | k&k\iov, k"v6a k^kvos fieXcoidbs 
 Moi5ffos Bepaireiei). Whatever a Pythagorean might have thought of his 
 weakness for Delphi in life, Socrates at least died in the faith. Hence his 
 mission of awakener of the dull imposed on him by Delphi cannot be the 
 ground for calling himself a fellow-servant with the swans of Delos. I 
 suspect it does mean that Socrates shared in some way in the Pythagorean 
 life. This is borne out by Xen. Mem. iii. 14, in so far as it assumes that 
 Socrates and his friends regularly had a common table, though Xenophon 
 implies that there was no rule of vegetarianism. It is evidence perhaps for 
 actual participation in the cult that Socrates says of himself {Phaedo 69 c ff.) : 
 elalv yap dr/, [&s] tfeauiv ol irepl rets TeXerds, vapdi]KO$6poi fxkv ToWot, |Qci/cx ot 5^ 
 re iravpoi ' oSroi 5' eltrlv Kara ttjv ijity $b!-av oiiK SXXoi i) ol Tre(pt\offo<priK&res 
 opOuis. Sjv 81) Kal £y& Kara ye rb dvvwrbv otiS^y air4\Lirov iv twl filwi, dXXa 
 iravrl Tp6irwi irpoiBufi^Briv yeviadai. When we bear in mind the very special 
 significance which <piXbao<pos, <j>iKoaotpla, <pi\oao<peiv bear throughout the 
 dialogue, this statement probably means a great deal. 
 
 1 Aristophanes, Birds 1553 irpbs Si tois XkiAtoviv \l\/ivi] tis £ot' SAoutos 
 oS | i/»t/x&7 w 7 e ' SwK/sdTijs ' | h8a Kal HeltravSpos iJXCe | Se6/ievos 'j'vxty iSetv . 
 kS.it' avrjKB' aiiriji. Kdrwdev | . . Xaipe<puiv i) vvKreph. The representation of 
 Socrates as president of a "seance" only becomes intelligible when we 
 suppose his close connection with the Pythagorean-Orphic mystics to have 
 been notorious. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 23 
 
 real names." The Saifwviov arj/jLelov itself would acquire 
 a new and sinister significance if men could be persuaded 
 that its owner was mixed up with unlicensed and probably 
 discreditable foreign rites. The avra tcaS" avra etBr), if 
 the accusers had ever heard of them, would probably be 
 set down as outlandish deities of some kind, just as " Jesus 
 and Anastasis " seem to have been four centuries later. 1 
 That Apollo, under a different name, was a god specially 
 honoured by the State as a 0eo? Trarp&ios, and in various 
 other relations, and that the great Pindar had lavished 
 some of his most enchanting lines on the blessedness of 
 the Hyperboreans and the " magic road," which no man 
 can find, to their earthly Paradise, would make no differ- 
 ence, since Pindar was not an Athenian, and the phrase 
 Kawa Saifiovia does not mean recentia numina but insolita 
 iiumina. The objection to Socrates' alleged divinities was 
 not that they were new, but that they were unofficial. 
 
 This interpretation, it will be seen, at once explains why 
 the accusation was one of " importing " religious novelties. 
 Whatever may have been the home of Orphicism, 
 Pythagoreanism, at any rate, was distinctly something 
 un- Attic and belonging to a different world from Athens 
 and her Ionian connections. 2 As I have already said, the 
 catalogue of Pythagoreans in Iamblichus contains only one 
 
 1 For an illustration of what the Srjfios could believe when its fears were 
 excited by a hint of the existence of a private cult I need only refer 
 to the extract preserved by Athenaeus from a speech (Fr. 53) of Lysias 
 against Cinesias, in which the unlucky poet is described as belonging 
 to a "Hell-Fire Club" (the KaKoSaiiioviarai, or "Sorry Devils") who met 
 every month on a "fast day" (filav -qntpav ra^dfievoc t&v dirotppddwv) to ^ 
 blaspheme the gods and the laws. This is just the kind of thing that an 
 excited or unscrupulous \oyoyp&<pos would have been likely to say about 
 Socrates and Cebes and the rest. Compare also the wild alarm created by 
 the Hermocopidae. 
 
 2 So, too, Socrates' trances, though far outdone by Epimcnides and 
 Pythagoras, are neither Attic nor Ionian. Both Plato and Aristophanes 
 let us see how "odd" they were thought, and it is a singularly happy 
 touch in the account of Socrates' conduct before Potidaea in the Symposium 
 that it is the Ionians, the countrymen of the originators of Greek science, 
 who are particularly struck by >\ kind of thing they evidently had never 
 seen at home. 
 
24 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 name from Athens, while there are four each from such 
 insignificant states as Sicyon and Phlius. Since the list 
 comes down to the time of Plato and his friends, this 
 means that Pythagoreanism was virtually unknown in 
 Athens at the end of the fifth century, and that there was 
 no means of controlling the wildest notions which enemies 
 of the imported wisdom of " gifted men of Italy '' might 
 diffuse among the &7/A0?. All that would definitely be 
 known of the " brethren " would be that they held strange 
 views on the fate of the soul after death, that they had an 
 unlicensed private cult, and — ominous fact — that they 
 were foreigners from states which Athens had no cause to 
 love. The question still remains whether there is positive 
 proof that the Orphic and Pythagorean doctrine of the life 
 to come was regarded as impious by the average Athenian 
 opinion of the later part of the fifth century. I propose to 
 show that it was by the concurrent testimony of Euripides, 
 Aristophanes, and Plato himself. For Euripides we may 
 naturally appeal to the Hvppolytus in which the hero is 
 himself a typical Orphic iea8ap6<;, a devotee of absolute 
 bodily purity and mental holiness, with his full measure of 
 the saint's incapacity for ever understanding the sinner. 
 In the Theseus of the play, as in the Theseus of Attic 
 drama generally, we have, let it be remembered, the stock 
 tragic type of the character burlesqued on the comic stage 
 as Arj/Mot, a character who would be almost " John Bull " 
 if he could only be made a touch or two more puzzle-headed. 
 He figures as the steady, common-sense, not over-brilliant 
 representative of the best features in the Sfjfios, in fact, as 
 the sort of person Thrasybulus or Anytus was in real life. 
 His opinions may generally be taken as typical of those of 
 the ordinary good democrats whose ambitions are fairly 
 summed up in the description of the good old days given 
 by the SUaio*; X0709 of the Clouds ; even when, as in the 
 case before us, his verdict is given in anger and is unjust 
 to an individual, it is thoroughly characteristic of the 
 feelings of the best elements in the 8*7/409 towards whole 
 classes. Hence it is significant that the freely expressed 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 25 
 
 opinion of Theseus about the congregation of the godly to 
 which his son belongs is that tkey are one and all Puritans 
 of the stage type, deliberate hypocrites who, like Tartuffe, 
 make their religion and its musty scriptures a cloak for 
 licentiousness. 
 
 (tv Si) Oeoitriv u>s irfpuTtrbs uv dvijp 
 £vvti ; (tv (T(a<f>po>v ko.1 kclkwv d/ojpaTOS ; 
 
 ';8n(?) vvv av^ci kou &Y a\pv\ov fiopas 
 <rtTOts(?) KaTT-qXtv ', 'Op(pia t' o.vo.kt' e\utv 
 f$a.K)(eve ttoWwv y pap,p.6.T(av Tip.(ov Kanri/ovs" 
 eTrei y f\^<f>6rj's. tovs 8e toiovtow; eyii 
 (pevyeiv Trpo^xavui Trao-f drjpevowt yap 
 cre/xvofs \6youriv, aur\pa p.rj\avuip.evoi. 
 
 Hippolytus 948-957. 1 
 
 It may be said that the speaker is here giving vent to a 
 natural but mistaken anger, founded on the false accusation 
 of Phaedra. This is true, but not to the point. The real 
 point is that when a man like Theseus is angry, his private 
 opinion of the "saints," which courtesy and good nature 
 would otherwise check, gets open utterance, just as a well- 
 bred English layman's private opinion of " parsons " is most 
 likely to be heard when he fancies himself wronged by a 
 member of the profession. More could be quoted to 
 illustrate the opinion of the K.a8apol felt by Euripides to be 
 natural to an Athenian democrat, but I will content myself 
 with recalling the peculiarly biting sneer directed against 
 the aaicri<ri<; which is, according to the Phaeclo, as necessary 
 a part of the philosopher's life as of the saint's — 
 
 7ToA.A.<i) ye p.5,\\ov (ravTov i?jo"K?jo"as ce/Jeiv 
 
 rj tovs T€kovtols 6'crta Spav St/catos &v. — ib. 1080-81. 2 
 
 The testimony of Aristophanes is even more to the 
 
 1 I quote the MSS. text with Murray's notes of corruption. I am not 
 clear, however, that there is anything wrong. Why should not a'no. mean 
 the "grain-market"? 
 
 2 Hippolytus was under a "special obligation" to honour his father (the 
 parent really meant) because, as a vbBm, he had no strict claim to be brought 
 up, as he had been, like a prince. 
 
26 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 point, since it shows that the Orphic doctrine of the future 
 life was really, apart from any mere accessories, itself 
 "impious" to Athenian ears. In the Frogs, an English 
 reader may well be surprised to find the famous o-wfia-a-rjua 
 doctrine of the world to come thrust in along with the 
 incest of one heroine and the sacrilege of another among 
 the crowning proofs of the " impiety " of Euripides himself. 
 Yet here is the text — 
 
 TTOLitiV 8t KO.Kb>V OVK CUTIOS €OT ; 
 
 ov 7r/3oay<uyoi)s Kare8ei£' oStos, (the nurse of Phaedra) 
 
 ko.1 TiKTOvo-as iv rots tepois, (-A-Uge) 
 
 Kal jutyviijucvas toutiv d8e\<f>oii, (Canace in the Aeohis) 
 Kcd (JMaKovaras ov ffiv to ffiv ; 
 
 where the last charge refers, of course, to the well-known 
 lines, much in the spirit of a modern hymn — 
 
 Tis oTSev el to £iji> fikv «tti Ka.r9a.veiv, ktA. 
 
 Thus we get, in an ascending climax of iniquity, pimping, 
 sacrilege, incest, the belief in the " life of the world to 
 come " ! That the climax is intended is clear from the 
 arrangement of the three first accusations, and we also see 
 that we were quite justified in holding that the authority of 
 so great a poet as Pindar made no difference as to the 
 " impiety " of a doctrine not recognised by, nor consistent 
 with, the official cultus of the Athenian people. In fact, 
 the famous Orphic lines of Fr. 131, ical <r£>fia fiev iravTwv 
 eireTai OavaTcai TrepurOevel, | £a>bv 8' eri, Xewrerat al&vos 
 ethakav to yap iari /jlovov | sk dewv, preach the offending 
 doctrine in words as plain as those of the Gorgias or Phaeclo. 
 
 With regard to evidence to be derived from Plato (which 
 is all the more valuable because he consistently depicts 
 Socrates himself as a firm believer in the faith according to 
 Orpheus), I would call special attention to the tone taken 
 in the second book of the Republic towards the wandering 
 priests and mystery-mongers who obviously represent a 
 degraded religion of the same type as that of the c^tXocro^o? 
 who is seeking his soul's health by deliverance from 
 servitude to the " body of death." The difference is that 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 27 
 
 the Attic equivalent of the " begging friar " tempts his 
 clients to look for salvation not to knowledge, but to the 
 ritual performance of cheap and amusing ceremonies. 1 The 
 heretics in the Laws who teach sinners how to insure 
 themselves against the wrath to come are plainly members 
 of the same great brotherhood. Plato, in fact, is face to 
 face with two very different developments of the same 
 original Orphicism. On the one hand, there are the 
 <j>i\6cro(f)oi, who mean by salvation the true health of the 
 soul, and seek it first and foremost through science, men 
 such as Socrates and the group to whom the Phaedo is 
 dedicated ; on the other, there is the whole brood of quacks 
 who promise relief to the alarmed conscience by spells 
 ascribed to Musaeus, Eumolpus, Orpheus, and these Plato, 
 like the Athenian S^o?, regards as dangerous sectaries 
 whom it is the duty of the city of the Imivs to suppress. 
 Owing to the non-existence of a school of Pythagoreans in 
 Athens, it is probable that the sectaries were only known 
 to the Athenian public at large on their worst side. Hence 
 we find that the 'OpfaoTeXearrjs regularly figures in 
 Athenian literature as a disreputable person. (Compare 
 the fictions of Demosthenes about the career of Aeschines' 
 mother, the similar charges brought against the mother of 
 Epicurus, the part played by the 'Op<j>eoTe\e<TTi]<; in 
 Theophrastus' character of the 8ei<ri8a£/j.a>v.) 
 
 Nor is it hard to see why these ideas should have been 
 specially obnoxious to the Athenian democracy. There are 
 two obvious points which have to be taken into account. 
 In the first place, the doctrine that the true business of 
 man here " is to prepare himself for the life . beyond the 
 grave, or, as Socrates puts it in the Gorgias, for the day 
 when the soul will stand naked at the bar of the Judge to 
 receive its doom, was quite incompatible with the ethical 
 basis of Hellenic democracy, the view that service of the 
 7roXt? is the whole duty of man, and with an official cultus 
 which aims at investing this conception of life with the 
 sanctions of religion. The point is not whether the soul 
 1 Cf. Plntarcli, Non posse similiter vivi etc. 1105 b. 
 
28 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 retains some kind of consciousness after death or not ; that 
 it does was the foundation of the funeral rites of family 
 worship, and the discussion in the first book of Aristotle's 
 Ethics brings out clearly the strength of the popular 
 objection to the theory that the dead are not touched by 
 the good or ill fortune of their kinsmen among the living. 
 The real point at issue, one which no civilisation has been 
 able to evade or to settle, concerns the relative importance 
 of the " here " and the " hereafter." The view so thoroughly 
 ingrained with Athenian life that we have come to look 
 upon it inaccurately as the " Hellenic " theory, and virtually 
 adopted by modern Protestantism since the downfall of 
 Calvinistic Evangelicalism, is that it is the here which 
 matters for its own sake ; the there may, to all intents and 
 purposes, be left out of our calculations. The Orphic and 
 Catholic Christian view, on the contrary, is that the here 
 matters, in the end, as a means to the there ; it is the eternal 
 things which should be in the forefront in our whole 
 ordering of our lives. And it is this point of view which 
 Philosophy made its own from the time of Pythagoras to 
 that of Aristotle. Hence the inevitable opposition between 
 the spirit of the Sjj/ao? and the spirit of Philosophy. The 
 only attempt in Greek history to found a church ended, as 
 we know, in a violent reaction, not, as is still frequently 
 stated, on the part of the oligarchs, but on that of the 
 democrats. This strife between the Pythagorean and the 
 secular ideal was in spirit identical with- the familiar 
 modern strife between the Church and the State. Thus 
 the impiety of association with the unlicensed conventicles 
 of Pythagoreanism forms an important part of the wider 
 charge of " corrupting the young " by inspiring them with a 
 spirit hostile to the constitution. 
 
 Further, as has been already urged, the Pythagorean 
 assemblies were international ; the Pythagorean associates 
 of Socrates, in particular, were, unless Chaerephon the "Bat" 
 was one of them, as the jest of the Birds seems to imply, 
 mainly foreigners, and it might fairly be argued that the 
 objects pursued by such societies, and presumably promoted 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 29 
 
 by their secret worship, were not likely to be identical with 
 the object of the official State religion, the good estate of 
 the Bfj/j,o<i of Athens. That was not a probable " intention " 
 for the prayers of Megarians, Thebans, and Phliasians. In 
 this respect the position of Socrates as an intimate associate 
 of foreign Pythagoreans, and at least suspected of participa- 
 tion in their peculiar worship, would be closely analogous 
 to that of an Englishman of 1690 who was known to 
 associate daily with foreign Romanists and strongly suspected 
 of being a " Papist " himself. Such an interpretation of the 
 facts thus helps to make it clearer why so prominent a 
 leader of the restored democracy as Anytus thought it right 
 to lend his name to the prosecution. 
 
 It may be replied that the Eleusinian rites were widely 
 believed to be concerned with the life to come, and were, 
 moreover, international, and yet lay under no suspicion. 
 But we must remember that the Eleusinian opjia had 
 been incorporated in the official cultus ever since the sixth 
 century, and were under the control of Athenian officials. 
 Hence there could be no suspicion that they had any object 
 inconsistent with the welfare of the 8fj/io<;, and this would, 
 of course, be a matter of personal knowledge with all 
 the dicasts who had been initiated. The case of the 
 Pythagorean rites was wholly different. They formed no 
 part of the cultus of the State, and were not under Athenian 
 control. From what we have already seen, it is most 
 likely that neither the prosecutors of Socrates nor the 
 dicasts knew, except from the wildest hearsay, what they 
 were. And finally, in the mysteries, the important thing 
 was not dogma but ritual. A man was free to believe that 
 they taught a doctrine about the life to come or not, just as 
 he pleased. What did matter was that he should take his 
 bath in the sea, offer his pig, and be a spectator of the 
 sacred mystery-play. With the Pythagorean, as with the 
 modern theologian, it was the dogma of the fall and 
 redemption of the soul which was the important thing ; the 
 cultus was throughout secondary. Hence the Eleusinia, 
 unlike the Pythagorean religion, offered no possibility of a 
 
30 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 clash between a man's " eternal " and his " secular " duties. 
 To take another modern parallel, the &7/A0? was naturally 
 suspicious of international secret rites for much the same 
 reasons as the rulers of the Roman Church are to this day 
 hostile to Freemasonry. 
 
 I suggest, then, that one chief reason for the prosecution 
 of Socrates was that he was suspected of having been the 
 centre of an anti-democratic eTaipla, and that the suspicion 
 was supported by the belief that he was addicted to the 
 " foreign " cult of the Pythagoreans. In other words, he 
 was " impious,'' not as an atheist, or a disbeliever in Hesiod, 
 or a person with an odd private oracle, but as an adherent 
 of a religio non licita, in fact, as the first Nonconformist of 
 note in history. 
 
 I have sufficiently indicated my opinion that Socrates 
 was, according to law, actually guilty of the charge. The 
 question of the historical fidelity of Plato's portrait of his 
 master is, however, too large a problem to be dealt with at 
 the tail-end of an essay. I can at least promise any student 
 who will investigate it with an open mind, and with special 
 reference to the data furnished by Aristophanes, that he 
 will find abundant evidence — much of it, so far as I know, 
 not yet published- — in support of both theses, that Plato's 
 historical accuracy is in the main demonstrable, and that 
 Socrates, if not actually a Pythagorean, was next door to it. 
 The inquiry ought to be seriously taken in hand, if it were 
 only in the hope of recovering the true lineaments of one 
 of the greatest figures in history, so long obliterated by 
 ignorance and prejudice. There is just one point on which 
 I must say a word, because of the popularity of a view 
 which can fairly be shown to be a pure mistake. Whatever 
 may have been the attitude of Socrates to Pythagoreanism 
 as a whole, it should be evident that Plato is right in 
 ascribing to him a firm belief in the cr&fAa-o-fjfia doctrine. 
 It is still common to say that Socrates took up a purely 
 agnostic position with respect to immortality, and the 
 justification of the statement is usually sought in the 
 supposed scepticism of the Platonic Apology, coupled with 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCKATES 31 
 
 the absolute silence of the Xenophontic Memorabilia. Now 
 as regards the Apology, the view which I have called 
 mistaken simply gives a false account of the facts. It is 
 true that Socrates, after the final condemnation, shows him- 
 self ready to prove that death is no evil to him, even on 
 the assumption that it is the end of all, but it requires a 
 singularly dull and tasteless reader not to see that his own 
 sympathies are with the hope of a blessed immortality. 
 And it is instructive to observe that though no reference 
 has been made to the Orphic beliefs during the defence, as, 
 on my theory of the matter, none could be made, no sooner 
 is the issue decided than the Orphic ideas make their way 
 to the front. The first prospect Socrates proposes to him- 
 self on the other side of the grave is to stand before the 
 Orphic judges of the dead, Miuos and Ehadamanthys and 
 Aeacus and, as a true Athenian could not forget to add, 
 Triptolemus, and the next is to have the company of 
 Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer {Apology 41 a). 
 Of the grounds for the faith that was in him Socrates could 
 naturally say nothing to the dicastery ; they are kept for the 
 like-minded few who gather round him in the prison-house 
 in the Phaedo, but the faith itself is there, and without it 
 the final thesis that the ways of an upright man are not 
 unregarded of the Lord would lose most of its meaning. 
 
 As for Xenophon, the reason for his silence on every- 
 thing that relates to the Orphic element in the life of 
 Socrates is obvious. His purpose, as avowed by himself, is 
 to show that Socrates had no dangerous originality ; he 
 merely taught, the very lessons that an Anytus or Thrasy- 
 bulus would have thought edifying, but with a skill which 
 was beyond them. Hence he carefully suppresses, as far as 
 he can, all mention of the personal peculiarities which 
 distinguished Socrates from the average decent Athenian. 
 He cannot help admitting that Socrates knew Cebes and 
 Simmias and Theodorus, but he tries to cover up the fact 
 that these intimate friends were foreigners, 1 and says not a 
 
 1 The fact is let out at iii. 11. 17, as far as Cebes and Simmias are concerned, 
 by the one word Q^ifBev, which is indispensable to the point of the passage, 
 
32 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 word about their connection with Pythagoreanism. He 
 labours to prove that Socrates despised mathematics, though 
 he has in his own despite to allow that he was really 
 acquainted witli its higher theoretical developments, 1 and 
 that he thought Anaxagoras a lunatic, 2 though his own 
 story implies that Socrates had a pretty accurate knowledge 
 of the lunatic's writings. The reason for all this economy of 
 the truth is obvious; the truth could not have been told with- 
 out disclosing the relations of Socrates with Pythagoreanism, 
 and these relations would appear to an ordinary Athenian 
 burgher as going far to justify the prosecution of the hero. 
 
 But there is one work in which Xenophon is not 
 professedly writing a " discourse " of Socrates, and can 
 therefore afford to show that he knows all about the 
 doctrines on which the Socratic books maintain such a 
 silence. Turn to the dying speech of Cyrus at the end of 
 the Cyropaedia (viii. 7. 17 ff.). There we find that Xenophon 
 not only knows the Orphic doctrine of awfia-a-fjfia, but can 
 expound it with arguments which agree so closely with 
 those of Plato's dying Socrates as to force on us the 
 conclusion that the whole passage was written, so to say, 
 with the Phacdo lying open on the table, just as we have 
 seen that the very first chapter of the Memorabilia showed 
 signs of a knowledge of the Apology. 
 
 It may be worth while to point out the coincidences in 
 
 the object being to show that Socrates' field of magnetic attraction extended 
 so far. In the curious list of special intimates given at i. 2. 48 the language 
 seems to be purposely chosen to conceal the fact that three of the seven 
 persons named were foreigners, inelvm awrjaav, ovx tra Sri/iTiyopinol fj 8lko.vikoI 
 yivolvro, d\\' tva Ka\ot re K&yadol yevd/xevoi ml otKUt ko.1 oIk^tciis Kai olicetois 
 Kcd <f>i\ois icai 7r6Xei ral ttoXItcus Sivaivro fcaXfis ^p^trfiai. 1 can hardly believe 
 that it is by mere accident that the words read as if Crito, Chaerephon, 
 Cebes, Phaedo all belonged to one and the same ttiSXis. Similarly, no one 
 would guess from iv. 2. 10 that Theodoras was a Pythagorean from Cyrene. 
 
 1 For we learn, iv. 7. 3, that he was oik iireipos of the SvvovvtTwv diaypa/j.- 
 fidruiv of geometry, and, ib. 5, that he was not Avi/ikoos of mathematical 
 astronomy (i.e. probably he was well acquainted with the theories of 
 Philolaus). 
 
 - Mem. iv. 7. 6-9, a passage which should place the truth of Plato's 
 narrative of the early impression made on Socrates by Anaxagoras out of 
 doubt. 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCKATES 33 
 
 a little detail. Cyrus begins by reminding his sons that no 
 one can be sure that there will Ue an end of him eireiBav rod 
 avdpoairivov fiiov Tekevrtfaco. For the fact that he will be 
 no longer seen after his death proves nothing, since even in 
 life the soul is invisible, and only detected by her actions. 
 Now the very opening phrase of this argument is an echo 
 of Orphic ideas, 6 avQpaymvos fjio? means more than " this 
 present life " ; it means " this life as a human being," and 
 thus implies as its antithesis in the writer's mind an earlier 
 or later stage of existence in which the soul is not, properly 
 speaking, " of human kind," i.e. the belief in transmigration 
 or in purely discarnate existence, or in both. So in the 
 Phaedo our past existence is expressly spoken of as the time 
 when our souls existed trplv elvat, iv dvdpdnrov e'thei, %a>p\s 
 drwjiaTav (76 c), where iv avBpdmov e'ISei elvat, corresponds 
 exactly with Xenophon's dvdpanrivos /8109. What the 
 writer has in his mind in both cases i.s the doctrine that 
 the human soul began its career as a divinity, and that its 
 true destiny is to become once more 0eb<s afiftpoTos, owkn 
 0v7yro<i. The appeal to the activity of the soul during life 
 to prove that a thing may exist without being visible has 
 again its exact parallel in the Phaedo, in the great passage 
 in which it is shown that the soul belongs to the class of 
 the invisible, the body to the class of the visible, and that 
 the former class is akin to the eternal, the latter to the 
 perishable (79 a— 80 b). Since the same points are made, 
 for a different purpose, and especially the point that the 
 directing and governing work in the partnership of soul 
 and body belongs to the soul, in the argument of Memorabilia 
 i. 4 against the atheist Aristodemus, the coincidence, if it 
 proves use of Plato at all, goes to show that the Phaedo 
 has been drawn on for the Memorabilia as well as for the 
 Cyropaedia. In any case, the common source of Plato and 
 Xenophon is manifestly Pythagorean, since the argument 
 turns on the establishment of one of those pairs of 
 "' opposites " which Aristotle regarded as distinctive of the 
 school. The next point (§ 18) is that the souls of the 
 dead must still "have might" (/evpiai elvai), as is shown 
 
 D 
 
34 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 by the terrors they send on the bloodguilty, and the 
 avenging demons (iraXafivaiovs) they send against the 
 impure. The argument is poor enough, but its sources are 
 clearly indicated, not only by its character but by the 
 appearance in it of such words as TraXa/ivaiov? and <f>difie- 
 voi<s. The next point (§ 20) is that the departed soul 
 remains in possession of its faculties. It does not become 
 acppcov by separation from the a<f>pov a&fia, but rather orav 
 a,Kparo<s Kal /caOapbs 6 vovi e/cicptOfjt, Tore Kal <ppovip,u>TaTOV 
 avrbv etKo? elvai. This is, of course, pure Phaedo. We 
 have there too the thought that <j>p6vr)tn<; depends on the 
 purification of the soul from the body (orav Si ye airrj icaff 
 avTrjv aKqiriji, e/ceicre ofyerai ei? to xaOapov re Kal del ov 
 . . . Kal tovto avTrjS to irddrj/jui tjtpovrja'i's KeKKjjTat, 79 d). 
 The aim of the philosopher is that, when the final separation 
 comes at death, the soul shall depart in a state of purity 
 (edv fiev icaOapa diraWaTTtiTai, fM}8ev tov <7(i)fiaT0<; <rvvi<p- 
 e\icovo-a . , . to Se ovSev aXXo io-rlv rj opd&f <pi\o<ro(povo-a 
 Kal rmi 8vri redvdvai /ieXerwo-a paihlws, 80 e). It is the 
 souls which depart unpurified which become visible as 
 ghosts, al pJ) Ka8ap&<s diroKvOeiaai aXXa, tov oparov /ler- 
 expvaai, Sib Kal op&vTai, (81 d). Where all this comes 
 from in the end, the words Kadapos, Kadapais are enough 
 in themselves to show. 
 
 The next argument (§ 20) — it is a pity that Aristotle 
 never took the examination of it in hand — is that when a 
 man dies, we can see for ourselves that all the constituents 
 of him are reunited to their kindred masses in the larger 
 world (7Tjoo9 to 6fi6<f>v\ov) except the soul, the departure of 
 which is as invisible as its presence. Ergo — it is not 
 at all clear what Xenophon meant to prove. But the 
 poetical 6p,6(pv\ov, a word used only once by Aristotle and 
 once by Plato (speaking through the mouth of the 
 Pythagorean Timaeus), may give us a clue. The complete 
 theory no doubt was that just as the materials of the body 
 (the Empedoclean elements seem to be meant) return to the 
 cosmic masses of earth, water, etc., at death, so the soul 
 returns, by the same law, to its " connatural " and " proper " 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCRATES 35 
 
 place, just as Plato's Timaeus makes it return in the end to 
 its "native star." The thought then will be that of the 
 Phaedo that the soul is " naturally akin to " the eternal and 
 invisible {otjferai, eh to /cadapov re Kal del bv Kal dddvarov 
 Kal dxravTcos eftov, Kal a>? avyyevr/s oftaa avrov del fier 
 eiceivov re yiyverai . . . Kal ireiravTal, re tov ifkdvov ktK., 
 79 d). 1 
 
 Finally, we have the argument (§ 21) that sleep and 
 death are closely akin, but the soul shows its divine nature 
 above all in sleep, for it is then freest from the body, and 
 can foresee the future. This doctrine is not at all Platonic, 
 though of course the thought that the soul is divinest when 
 most free from servitude to the body is fundamental in the 
 Phaedo. But we can easily see where the theory that the 
 soul is " freest " in sleep, and therefore attains to prophecy 
 in visions, comes from. We have only to turn to Pindar 
 and Aeschylus for the connection with Orphicism. From an 
 already quoted fragment of Pindar we learn of the immortal 
 soul that evSei Be irpatraovrtov /ieXeeov, ardp evhovreaaiv ev 
 TroWot? oveipoK I SeiKvva-i Tepirv&v efyepiroiaav ^aXeirmv 
 re Kp'uriv. Aeschylus' allusions to clairvoyance are well 
 known, but it should be pointed out that they assume a 
 curious physical theory derived from the Orphic Empedocles. 
 The theory is that it is the blood round the heart with 
 which we think. The heart itself is seated, like a (idvns 
 on his professional chair, and reads off the pictures of things 
 to come as they are mirrored in the never-ceasing flow of 
 the 7repiKapSiov atfia. Presumably the process is better 
 performed in sleep because, as the poet himself says, ev 
 rjfxepat, 8e fiolp' dirpo<Tico7ro<; ftporaiv ; in the daytime the 
 heart's attention is distracted by the sights and sounds of 
 the outer world. As neglect of the curious physiology of 
 the poet has led to unnecessary emendations of his text, I 
 may be allowed to cite one or two passages in explanation. 
 
 Agamemnon 179 orafet S' ev 0' imvai irpo icap&ias | 
 
 1 The ' ' wandering " of the sonl is, of course, specifically Orphic. 
 Compare the lines of Empedocles — 
 
 ru)i> Kal tyui vvv elfu, (pvyas BeSdev Kal &\Vjrr|s 
 velKCi ixaivofitvui irlavi/os. 
 
36 VARIA SOCRATIGA 
 
 fivrja-iinjfKov ttoi/o? ktX. " And in sleep, too, the wakeful 
 sore drips, drips in front of the heart, and so wisdom comes 
 to men unsought." 
 
 ib. 975 Ttirre fioi roS" ifiTreSm \ Sei/jui irpoarar'qpiov 
 icapBias repair kottov troraTai | ovB' atroirrva'ai, oiicav 
 hvaKpirav oveipdrwv | Oapaos exnrt6e<; t£et | <f>pevo$ tyikov 
 Bpovov ; Tr. " "Why does this haunting thing of ill (Setfia 
 means not " fear " but " frightful thing " ; for examples see 
 the dictionaries) stay fluttering before my prophetic heart? 
 Nor will hardihood to spit it away, like a perplexing 
 dream, take its place on the wonted chair." 
 
 The Becp,a is an ugly vision pictured in the " blood round 
 the heart," as it were in a bowl of ink or a crystal. The 
 heart is the diviner who would, in general, sit in his " wonted 
 chair " and interpret the vision in the water or ink, or what- 
 ever may have been used for this purpose. In the case of 
 a perplexing dream, which does not fall under any of the 
 rules of his art, he dismisses the matter (airoBioTropirei) by 
 the ceremony of " spitting the dream away," but in the 
 present case the vision is so persistent that he has not the 
 " face " to get rid of it so readily. When once the under- 
 lying physiological theory has been grasped, I can see no 
 difficulty in the textus receptus. Unless possibly airoinva-av 
 would give a slightly better sense than the infinitive,, 
 the fidvni being supposed to " spit away " his bad dream 
 before taking his seat for the day ? 
 
 Eumenides 102 Spa Be 7r\r)ya<s rd<r8e KapBiai akdev. So 
 M. The text appears to be correct. Clytaemnestra is calling 
 on the leader of the Erinyes to behold her injuries in vision, 
 as the following lines show. Hence "see these wounds 
 with thy heart " gives the very sense required. Hermann's 
 opare ir\7]ja<; racrhe /capita? odev is less satisfactory, since it 
 must mean " behold the author of these wounds." But the 
 Erinyes could not behold Orestes, as he had been already 
 conveyed out of the temple by Hermes. The Erinyes were 
 not clairvoyant except in sleep, and when they woke they 
 had lost the scent (e'f ap/cvcov •KeirTtoKev o'lyerai 0" 6 Oijp — I 
 virvtoi KpaTTjdela a'ypav w\ecra). 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 3 V 
 
 We may take it, then, as fairly made out that Xenophon 
 has utilised for the death-scene 4>i the Cyrajoaedia the very 
 same Orphic and Pythagorean materials which Plato has 
 employed with infinitely greater skill for the Phaedo. 
 If we consider how difficult it would have been for 
 Xenophon to hold communications when at Scillus with 
 members of the circle who had been present at the death 
 of Socrates, the most natural inference is that he actually 
 owed his knowledge of the last hours of Socrates' life to 
 the reading of Plato's dialogue. That he should have made 
 such a use of it would go far to prove that he regarded it 
 as, in substance, a faithful picture of what was done and 
 said in the prison. If we accept as genuine the Apologia 
 ascribed to Xenophon, in which I can find no grounds for 
 suspicion, the possibility becomes a certainty. For not 
 only are the Apology — and to a less extent the Phaedo — of 
 Plato laid under contribution, but the opening reference to 
 the numerous earlier writings about the defence and end 
 of Socrates, all of which are declared to be authentic 
 narratives, must include the Phaedo. 1 
 
 I must here take leave of my subject, but in doing so 
 I would urge once more that the special problem on which 
 I have sought to throw a little much-needed light is only 
 part of a much wider question. The question is whether 
 the Platonic account of the life and character of Socrates 
 cannot be shown by careful study to be consistent with 
 itself both in respect of the fairly numerous biographical 
 details which it contains, and in presenting us with a 
 remarkably individual conception of a great personality 
 with a very definite creed. If it can, and if Plato's portrait 
 can be found in a host of little ways to be supported 
 by the elaborate caricature of the Clouds, we shall be left 
 
 1 The moat famous instance of borrowing from the Phaedo is, of course, 
 that in § 28, where the incident of Socrates smoothing down Phaedo's curls 
 and the frantic weeping of Apollodorus 6 naviic6s mentioned in Phaedo 117 d 
 are "contaminated." The words of § 1 referred to above are Saupdrovs Si 
 ££(6p /hoi Soxei rfvot /lenvijadai . . . irepl re rijs aToXoylas Kal Tijs TeXeurijs tov 
 Plov. yeyp&ipatri piv oiv irepl toAtov Kal &\\oi nal iravres hvxov rtp fieya\iiyoptas 
 airov " (Si Kal SrfKov Sti tm Svti oCtois ippi)9r) iiwi Swkp&tovs. 
 
38 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 without excuse if we prefer to the life-like representations 
 of Plato and Aristophanes the commonplaces of Xenophon 
 and the second-hand notices of Aristotle, from which every 
 really individual trait has evaporated. Incidentally, I 
 may remark that the vindication of Plato's portrait of 
 Socrates for history would clear up an unexplained difficulty 
 in Aristotle's account of Plato himself. In the well-known 
 chapter A 6 of the Metaphysics Aristotle expressly begins 
 his account of Platonism with the remark that it was 
 much the same thing as Pythagoreanism, with a few minor 
 changes. In point of fact these modifications (the views 
 which Aristotle calls Xhia HXcltcovos:) are two — (1) that Plato 
 held that the Unlimited is a duality, and (2) that he 
 regarded numbers as something different both from physical 
 things and from mathematical objects. This view of 
 Platonism as simply a refined Pythagoreanism is that . 
 which in the main dominates both the Metaphysics and the 
 Physics. But the curious thing is that Aristotle has filled 
 out a chapter intended to prove the Pythagoreanism of 
 Plato by an account of his mental development which 
 appears to ascribe everything to the rival influences of 
 Heraclitus and Socrates. We naturally ask, where then 
 do the Pythagoreans come into the story ? There is, 
 indeed, no place left for them, except on one supposition. 
 If Socrates was something very much like a Pythagorean 
 himself, and Aristotle and his hearers knew the fact, there 
 would be no need to specify Pythagorean ideas as a third 
 source of the Platonic doctrine, because the hearers would 
 at once understand that the Pythagorean influence was 
 part of the influence of Socrates himself. 1 
 
 1 Oiie final comment on the remark already quoted from Professor Bury 
 that "it is not clear" why the "manifesto for orthodoxy" should have been 
 made just when it was. It may help us to recollect that such a manifesto 
 could not well have been made before the end of the Great War for several 
 reasons. For one thing Athens had been engaged ever since the Syracusan 
 disaster in a life-and-death struggle for existence, and, for another, an attack 
 on Socrates could hardly have been planned so long as his influential friends 
 among the veibrepot had to be reckoned with. Socrates could hardly have 
 been put out of the way while Critias and Charmides and their friends were 
 
THE IMPIETY OF SOCEATES 39 
 
 a serious factor in the situation. And the year or two immediately after the 
 fall of the "tyrants" were fairly wall taken up, as we can see from the 
 speeches of Lysias which belong to that time, with the business of getting 
 the new democracy into working order, and dealing with the remaining 
 ministers of the oligarchy. All things considered, Anytus and his friends 
 do not seem to have let the grass grow under their feet. If they did not 
 bring their accusation against the preceptor of Critias sooner, I should say 
 it was because they wanted to feel their position fairly secure before proceed- 
 ing. As it was, they nearly lost their case. I ought to have added to the 
 proofs of the connection between Socrates and the Pythagoreans the curious 
 assumption of Phaedo 98 e, that if he had escaped, he would of course hare 
 made for Megara or Thebes. Why this selection of places ? It may be said, 
 because they were the nearest cities of refuge for anyone leaving Athens by 
 land. But why should Socrates take it for granted that the escape would 
 not in any case be made by sea ? Is the explanation that he would have 
 found a band of devotees of the "philosophic life" in either of these two 
 cities, and would so have been among ' ' co-religionists " ? 
 
II 
 
 On the Alleged Distinction in Akistotle 
 
 BETWEEN CGOKpdTHC AND 6 CuKpaTHC 
 
 It has sometimes been argued that, in the difficulty of 
 believing at once in the historical character of Plato's 
 Socrates and of Xenophon's, our safest course is to begin 
 historical inquiry with an appeal to the authority of 
 Aristotle. Aristotle, it is urged, has what is for us the 
 great advantage of being neither too near in time to 
 Socrates nor too far from him to be disqualified for the 
 part of the dispassionate student of thought and character. 
 Never having known Socrates himself, he is under no 
 temptation to yield to hero-worship; as an immediate 
 disciple of Plato, he may be trusted to give us actual facts 
 unmixed with the fables and anecdotes of a later age. 
 Hence in trying to form a notion of the personality and 
 teaching of Socrates, we may safely treat information 
 coming from Aristotle as recommended by a special 
 guarantee of authenticity, and regard it as a residuum of 
 undoubted fact by the standard of which the rest of our 
 alleged information may be tested. The object of the 
 present essay is to establish the direct opposite of such 
 a view. What I am going to maintain is that Aristotle 
 neither had, nor could have been expected to have, any 
 particular knowledge of the life and thought of Socrates, 
 except what he learned from Plato, or read in the works 
 of the " Socratic men," and more especially that every state- 
 ment of importance made about Socrates in the Aristotelian 
 corpus can be traced to an existing source in the Platonic 
 
 40 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 41 
 
 dialogues. All that is left over, when we have set aside 
 the dialogues, amounts, as We shall find, to one or two 
 rather trivial anecdotes which have the appearance of 
 coming from now lost " Socratic " writings, and add nothing 
 to our comprehension of the man or his thought. I shall 
 also do what I can to show that Aristotle exercised no kind 
 of higher criticism on his documents, but simply accepted 
 what he read in the twKpariKol Xoyoi of Plato and others 
 as a dramatically faithful presentation of a real historical 
 figure. 
 
 It will follow, then, that Aristotle's professed knowledge 
 about the philosophical position of Socrates is drawn from 
 no source except one which is equally available to ourselves, 
 the Platonic dialogues, and that it is a mere blunder in 
 criticism either to correct Plato's representations by an 
 appeal to Aristotle, or to regard them as deriving any 
 confirmation from coincidence with him. Incidentally I 
 shall also try to show that on the one main point in which 
 Aristotle is commonly supposed to have preserved the 
 historical truth, as against the poetic imagination of Plato, 
 his meaning has probably been entirely misunderstood. 
 The net result of the inquiry will be to reduce us to the 
 dilemma that either the Platonic dialogues have faithfully 
 preserved the genuine tradition about the person and 
 doctrine of Socrates, or the tradition has not been preserved 
 at all, and we have no materials whatever for the recon- 
 stitution of the most influential personality in the history 
 of Greek thought except the burlesque of the Clouds, and 
 Socrates must take his place by the side of Pythagoras as 
 one of the " great unknown " of history. 
 
 Before I come to the investigation of Aristotle's specific 
 statements about Socrates, I must, however, deal briefly 
 with a preliminary question of a purely linguistic kind. 
 There is a widespread belief, even among scholars of high 
 eminence, that Aristotle himself has marked his sense of 
 the distinction between Socrates the actual fifth-century 
 philosopher and " the Socrates " who is a dramatis persona 
 in the Platonic dialogues by his use of the definite article. 
 
42 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 SwKpaTr)!;, it is said, regularly means Socrates who fought 
 at Delium, drank the hemlock, and all the rest of it ; o 
 ttoiepa,T7i<t means "the Socrates" who discourses in Plato 
 on the IBea rcvyadov, the rpiros avOpcoTros, fiedefys, and 
 other recondite themes undreamed of hy his historical 
 prototype. Now if this distinction is really founded, it 
 is destructive of my main position. For even if Aristotle 
 could be proved to have applied the distinction wrongly, 
 attributing to " the Socrates " what rightly belongs to 
 "Socrates," and vice versa, it would still be true that in 
 drawing the distinction at all he implicitly recognises that 
 the Socrates of Plato is an imaginary and purely dramatic 
 character, and it would be a fact of the highest moment 
 that such a distinction could be assumed as obvious to 
 students within less than two generations after Socrates' 
 death. I propose, then, to devote the first few pages of 
 this essay to showing that the supposed distinction does 
 not really exist, and that the so-called " canon of Fitzgerald " 
 must disappear from future works on Aristotle. 
 
 CcoKpdTHC AND 6 CcOKpffTHC 
 
 What I intend to show by the following citations is 
 that, on the one hand, what is manifestly a quotation from 
 the Socrates of Plato is introduced by a reference to %toicpa- 
 1-17? without the article, and that in other cases a remark 
 is ascribed to o SatcpaTris in circumstances where no 
 special allusion to " the " Socrates of the dialogues would 
 be possible. I shall then show that the text of Aristotle 
 exhibits the same fluctuation in the presence or absence 
 of the article with other proper names, and therefore that if 
 there is any recognisable principle of difference in meaning 
 it must be one which applies to all these cases alike, not 
 one which holds good only of the name Socrates. 
 
 From the first, I shall, of course, exclude from considera- 
 tion the numerous cases in which %caicpdTT)<} is used as a 
 " logical example," a mere blank which may be filled up, 
 without detriment to the sense or truth of a proposition, 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 43 
 
 by any other proper name of a human being (%asKpdrti<i 
 iarl fiovai/cos, %. eoTt Xet/Ǥs, and the like). Sw/c/oaTT/v 
 is here, of course, a mere variable, which may have any 
 value we like to assign it in a given proposition, except 
 that Aristotle's examples are usually so selected as to 
 imply that the variable selected must be a member of the 
 class " men," or, more exactly, that every value (x v x 2 . . . ) 
 of the variable x shall make the proposition " x is a man " 
 true. About this usage, I have a suggestion to make which 
 is not capable of strict proof, but may perhaps amuse the 
 reader as it has amused me. The standing instances of such 
 a " logical ^example " are, as we all remember, Socrates, 
 Coriscus, Callias ; of these Coriscus is obviously identical 
 with Aristotle's own fellow-pupil in the Academy, Coriscus 
 of Scepsis ; Callias is not unlikely to be identical with 
 Callippus, the notorious assassin of Dion, and Socrates 
 with Socrates 6 vemrepos, the Academic mathematician who 
 appears in the Theaetetus and its continuation in the 
 Sophistes and Politicus as a student of the theory of 
 irrationals. Hence I make the suggestion for what it 
 is worth that Aristotle has preserved for us a personal 
 trick employed by Plato in lecturing, as by many modern 
 teachers of logic, the trick of using members of the audience 
 as the logical subjects of sample propositions. In fact, the 
 trick may be older still, since Plato makes Socrates himself 
 employ it, e.g. at Sophistes 263 a, where ©eatTT/To? icdOr)- 
 rat, ©eaiTJjTo? irereTai are taken as examples of a true 
 and a false proposition respectively. When we remember 
 that some of Aristotle's illustrations, e.g. the argument that 
 to trol elvai is not the same thing as to povaiicwi elvai, 
 or the assertion (irepl %<oia>v \xoplwv a 644 c 25) that 
 Socrates and Coriscus ov Siatfiepovcri t&i e%8ei, or the long 
 disquisition (irepl fauW yeve<reco<; 768) on what happens 
 when Socrates becomes a father (which indeed reads like 
 a characteristic piece of lecture-room " chaff " by a professor), 
 almost force us to the conclusion that the person meant is 
 a contemporary, the inference seems to me almost inevitable 
 that the Socrates who shares with Mill's Duke of 
 
44 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Wellington such immortality as a text-book can bestow is 
 not the famous philosopher at all, but Aristotle's own class- 
 mate. (Can we really conceive that a man should mention 
 together Coriscus and Socrates 6 ^axfrpovio-icov in one breath 
 as examples of the same general truth ? Would any 
 lecturer to-day dream of illustrating the proposition " All 
 men are mortal " by taking as his illustrations Alexander, 
 Napoleon — and a reigning sovereign ?) Of course, I do not 
 mean that 6 SoxppovLo-Kov could not be used as an example, 
 especially in a case where he is mentioned along with other 
 famous names of history. There is no absurdity when we 
 find Achilles, Alcibiades, Lysander, Socrates named together 
 as examples of fieyaXaJrv^la, or when Socrates and Hippias 
 are associated as persons with such a public reputation that 
 their utterances may be regarded as evSofja, because the 
 combination of names makes a misunderstanding impossible. 
 But to couple Coriscus, as an example of man in general, 
 with a philosopher who had long been dead, while there 
 was a contemporary Socrates of distinction belonging to the 
 very same body as Coriscus, would have been absurd, because 
 it would have been to invite misunderstanding. 
 
 To return to our point : let me take for special consider- 
 ation, first the use of the article with the name Socrates, 
 then its employment with proper names in general, in the 
 Rhetoric, a specially useful book for the purpose because of 
 the great number of anecdotes about real or supposed 
 historical persons contained in it. 
 
 SiB/c/jaTi;? and o Sw/c/aanj? in the Rhetoric. We have — 
 (a) 1398 b 30 wcnrep , Apia-ri7nro<; irpo<; TWcnasva 
 eirayyeXTtKcorepov Tt eltrovra, a>? wtero • aXka firjv o y' 
 eraipot rjfiu>v, e<f>r), ovdev toiovtov, Xeytov tov XwKpaTrjv. 
 I do not stop to ask where Aristotle may have picked up 
 this story. There is no reason why it should not be true, 
 and, true or not, it may probably enough have been told in 
 some lost Socratic discourse, perhaps one of the many 
 works said in Xenophon's Apologia to have dealt with the 
 defence and death of Socrates, or in an anti-Platonic work 
 of Antisthenes. The whole point of the reproof would, of 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 45 
 
 course, be lost if rbv XeoKpdrTjv were taken to mean 
 " Plato's Socrates," or any man's Socrates except the actual 
 man. 
 
 (&) 1419 a 8 olov Xa/cpdrris MeXifrou ov <fido~ieovTo<; 
 avrbv 8eoi><; vofii^eiv . . . fjpero el ov% oi 8aifJLoves 
 Tyrol 6emv watSe? elev r) Qelov ri. Here, though the 
 question was no doubt held by Aristotle to have been put 
 to the actual Meletus by the actual Socrates, the language 
 shows that he is directly quoting from Plato, Apology 27 c. 
 He ought therefore, if he really meant to mark a distinction 
 by the use of the article, to have said 6 Swkpdrqv- Or 
 does anyone suppose that Aristotle omits the article because 
 he had satisfied himself that this particular remark of " the 
 Socrates " of Plato had actually been uttered before the 
 dicasts ? The obvious explanation is that Aristotle depended 
 on the Apology for his knowledge about the trial of Socrates, 
 and simply assumed that the historical man said pretty 
 much what Plato makes him say. 
 
 (c) Even more instructive is a comparison of two 
 passages in which the same observation is ascribed first to 
 "the" Socrates, and afterwards to Socrates simpliciter. 
 1367 b 8 &airep yap 6 %<oKpdr7)<; eXeyev, ov j(aXeirbv 
 'A.d7)vaiov$ ev 'A07)vaioi<; iiraivetv, 1415 b 31 o yap 
 Xiyei Sm/cpdrrji; ev twi eTnTO<pl,a)i dXrjde^, otv ov 
 yaXeTrbv , A07]vaiov<; ev 'Adyvaiois eTraiveiv d\X' ev Aa/ce^- 
 SaipMVbois. What Aristotle has in mind in both places is 
 manifestly the remark of Plato's Socrates (one which might 
 easily enough have been made by the actual Socrates, or by 
 anybody else), in Menexenus 235 d; but it will be noted 
 that, whereas in the passage where Plato's work is cited by 
 name as the source of the quotation, the speaker is called 
 simply Socrates, in the other place, where the saying is 
 represented as an habitual one (eXeye, " he used to say "), 
 and is therefore attributed to the historical philosopher, 
 the expression is 6 Xto/cpar*)?. If the theory of the 
 " canon " were sound, we should have to suppose both that 
 the actual Socrates delivered an eVtTa^to? (and it would 
 then become a nice question whether this discourse is lost, 
 
46 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 or whether it is identical with the Mmexenm, and contained 
 an account of the Corinthian war and the King's Peace), and 
 also that " Plato's Socrates " was in the habit of saying 
 what, in point of fact, he only says once. Or should we 
 once more assume that Aristotle made historical researches 
 which satisfied him that the historical Socrates had on some 
 occasion made the very obvious remark which the 
 Menexenus ascribes to him ? Eeally, nothing could be 
 stronger proof of the fact that Aristotle applied no criticism 
 whatever to Plato's account of Socrates, but took it with 
 the proverbial foi de charbonnier, than his ascription of a 
 sentence of the Menexenus to Socrates, unless it be the 
 astounding passage of the Politics (B 1264 b 24), where 
 the Laws are discussed as " discourses of Socrates." These 
 passages, of themselves, are enough to show that Aristotle 
 cannot have meant to mark any difference in meaning by 
 the use or omission of the article, and that he simply 
 treated Socrates and " the Socrates of Plato " as for all 
 purposes pretty much identical. 1 
 
 It would, no doubt, be possible to bring the passages 
 quoted above under the ''canon" by arbitrary insertions 
 and excisions of the article ; but the process, in the case 
 of a canon which depends on the alleged uniformity of our 
 text as its sole recommendation, would be quite indefensible. 
 And we surely ought to lay down no rule of this kind 
 without a previous study of Aristotle's employment of the 
 article with proper names as a whole. Socrates is by no 
 means the only person whose name figures sometimes with 
 and sometimes without the article, and if the difference is 
 significant in his case, we ought to find that it has a kindred 
 significance in others. If 'Zm/cpdrr]? is Socrates, but o 
 ta)/cpdTr)s " Plato's Socrates," then , A^i\\ev<s, "E/crap and 
 the like should be real or supposed historical persons, but 
 6 'AjfiWew?, 6 "E/crcop should mean "Homer's," or 
 
 1 I do not forget that throughout this criticism of the Laws and Republic 
 the legislator is called 6 Su/tpdri;!, but so, for the matter of that, is the law- 
 giver of Sparta called 6 AvKovpyos at 1270 a 7, and the Cretan king 6 Mlras at 
 1271 b 38. 
 
THE AEISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 47 
 
 " Sophocles' " or " Euripides' " Achilles, Hector, etc., accord- 
 ing to the context. Similarly 6 Kkewv should not mean 
 Cleon, but " Cleon in Thucydides," and so on generally. In 
 point of fact, it is easy to show from the Rhetoric alone that 
 no such distinction can be carried out. The utmost we 
 can say is that on the whole the names of famous historical 
 persons seem to occur most commonly without the article, 
 and those of a personage in a play or poem with it. But 
 this is what we should naturally expect, since a reference 
 to the character of a play or poem is frequently preceded 
 by the mention of its author. When this occurs it is 
 natural to use a defining article in going on to speak of the 
 personages in his work, just as it is natural for us, when 
 Shakespeare has been named, to speak of "his" Hamlet, 
 " his " Cordelia. But the exceptions are far too pronounced 
 to allow us to suppose that Aristotle had a hard and fast 
 rule in such matters, any more than we have ourselves. I 
 will quote only a few examples, but they will, I think, be 
 amply sufficient to prove my point. 
 
 I. Eeferences to historical persons with the article. 
 
 1401 b 34 olov a>? o Ay/jABr)? ttjv Arjfioaffevow; 7ro\t- 
 Telav iravTusv t&v icaic&v a'lriov. Here Demades, who has 
 the article, is, of course, as much the " historical " Demades as 
 Demosthenes, who is without it, is the actual Demosthenes. 
 
 1377a 19 iced to tov Eevo<fidvov<; apfiorret kt\. ; ib. 
 22 koX to tov Eevotfydvov; fieTaaTpeifravTa (paTeov «tX. 
 6 Uevoij)dvri<; here is absolutely identical in meaning with 
 the Si€vo(j}dvT]<; of 1399 b 6 olov 'Bevo<f>dvr)<; eXeyev, and 
 1400 b 5 olov 'Bi€vo<f>dv7]<s 'E\eaTats . . . avveftovkevev. 
 
 1365 a 28 koL o I<f>ncpaTi}<i abrbv iveKcofila^e Xeycov 
 ii; &v virrjpgev tclvto,. 
 
 1398 a 17 Kai &<; 6 I^iKjOari;? Sri yevvatOTaTOS 6 
 fiekTiaTo?. (Though the name is several times used 
 without the article, no one, to my knowledge, has suggested 
 that o 'I<j}iKpdT7]<i means anything different from 'I(pncpdTt]<s.) 
 
 1364 a 19 mairep 6 AeeoSa/ia? KaTtjyop&v e<pr] KaWt- 
 crTpaTov. (o Aea>8dfia$ and KaWio-T/aaro? stand, of course, 
 on exactly the same footing.) 
 
48 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 1367 a 8 &<77rep Kal %a"7r<pob ireiroirjKev, elirovTO? tov 
 'A\«at'ou kt\. 
 
 1368 a 20 oirep 6 'lo-oKpaTij? eiroiei Sia ttjv do-vvrfdeiav 
 tov St/coXoyeiv. (The article before the proper name 
 omitted here only in the inferior MSS. More commonly 
 we have simply 'la-oKpdrtj'i, as in the examples given below.) 
 
 1384 b 15 Bio eS e^et 17 tov ISivpnrLBov wiroKpiais 
 7r/)05 tov? 'Zvpaicoo-iovs. (More often simply TLvpi7rl8r]<s.) 
 
 1386 a 20 Bib Kal 6 "A/witrt? hrl fiev t&i vtei 
 cuyofiivwt, etrl to dvoOavelv ovk eSd/cpvcrev. (It will 
 hardly be maintained that there is here a conscious dis- 
 tinction between the unlucky Pharaoh and "Amasis in 
 Herodotus.") 
 
 1392 b 11 mairep Kal 'lo-oicpdTT)<; e<f>r) Beivbv elvat 
 el 6 fiev Ei/0wo? efiadev, avToi Be p.r) BvvrjaeTai evpelv. 
 
 1402 b 11 eva-Taaif oti ovkovv 6 TliTTaKoi alveros, 
 comparing 1389 a 16 mairep to HiTTaicov e%ei avro- 
 (pOeyfia els 'Apspidpaov. 
 
 1405 b 23 o %ip,eov£Br]<;, ore fiev eBLBov fiiadbv 0X1701/ 
 avT&i 6 viKr\aa<i tow 6pevo~iv kt\. (Oftener simply 
 %i/jbavlBrj<;.) 
 
 II, References to dramatis personae in literature with- 
 out the article. 
 
 (In some of these cases it might be urged that the 
 article is omitted because Aristotle regarded the heroes 
 of epic and tragic poetry as real men and women who had 
 once actually lived. My object will none the less be 
 gained by showing that the personages of myth and legend 
 are indifferently named with or without the article, so 
 that no particular significance can be attributed to its 
 presence or absence. As before, my list makes no pretence 
 to completeness.) 
 
 1396 b 14 ware ovBev /iciWov 6 toiovto? tov Avt\- 
 Xia etraivel ■?) AiofirfBrjv. 
 
 1399 a 2 Kal irepl t?j? 'EiXevi]<s a>s Ico/cpar^s ypd<f>ei 
 oti o-irovBala, eiirep ©^o-eu? eicpivev. 
 
 1399 b 28 Kal to iic tov AIWto? tov ®eo8eKTOv 
 (note the article) oti 6 Ato/^S?;? irpoeiXeTo 'OBvaaea ktX, 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 49 
 
 1400 a 28 eV twi A'iavn tov ©eoSe/tToi/ 'OBvaaevt 
 Xeyei 7T/309 tov A'iavra. ^ 
 
 1401 b 36 on Sueatcot; 'A\e£av8po<; eKafie rrjv 'E\e- 
 
 VTjV. 
 
 In each of these examples we have the names of a pair 
 of persons from the epic and tragic cycle of myths ; one name 
 has the article, the other has not. No regular rule seems 
 to exist for the preference of one form to the other. In 
 some of the cases it is the name which stands in the 
 nominative that takes the article, in others that which is 
 in an oblique case ; in some it is the first mentioned, in 
 others the second. And it is quite clear that no distinc- 
 tion is made between real or supposedly real persons and 
 personages in a play or poem. If the 'OSvo-o-evs who, in 
 Theodectes, speaks to Ajax is a real person, so is d Alas to 
 whom he speaks. If " Alexander " is an historical character, 
 so is " the " Helen whom he carried away. If " the 
 Achilles " of the first example means " the poets' Achilles," 
 so also must the Diomedes whose name stands without any 
 article be " the Diomedes of the poets." (I purposely leave 
 out the numerous cases in which a single name from the 
 epic story occurs without the article, since it might be 
 pleaded that Aristotle omitted the article because he looked 
 on the personages of the heroic stories in general as real. 
 Where you get a pair of such names, of which only one 
 has the article, you are bound either to assert some general 
 rule as to the difference in meaning, or to renounce the 
 view that %a>KpaTrj<i and d Sw/e/aaT^s must mean different 
 things.) 
 
 My conclusion then is this : — 
 
 (1) The usage of the Bhetoric is inconsistent with the 
 theory that there is any general difference of meaning intended 
 by the insertion or absence of the article with a proper 
 name in Aristotle. Whatever 6 %wKpa.Ti)<; can mean 
 XtoKpaTrji can mean also. In fact, if Aristotle had intended 
 to speak of " Socrates in Plato " as a being to be dis- 
 criminated from some other Socrates, it is pretty clear that 
 he would have made his meaning unambiguous by writing 
 
 E 
 
50 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 of o TlXdrcovo? %u>Kpa.Tq^, just as he distinguishes Antigone 
 in Sophocles from Antigone in other tragedians by calling 
 her 17 %o(f>OK~\.eowi 'Avri/yovr). 
 
 (2) If I am asked why Aristotle varies his practice in 
 the matter so much, I have no answer to offer at present. 
 I must be content merely to suggest that rhythmic con- 
 siderations may have something to do with the matter, and 
 that, in that case, we might expect to find less uniformity 
 in some parts of his lectures, more in others, according as 
 any given passage has or has not been polished up for 
 literary effect. 
 
 Meanwhile, if I can fulfil my promise to show that 
 every peculiarity of doctrine or method ascribed by Aristotle 
 to Socrates (with or without the article) is to be found in 
 Plato, and that we can almost always point with reasonable 
 certainty to the specific passages he has in mind, we may 
 regard as established the double equation ScoKpa.Tr)<{ = o 
 2<B«/oaTi7? = Socrates as depicted in Plato, and dismiss to 
 limbo the notion that Aristotle had any other source than 
 the writings of Plato for his information about Socrates. 
 
 Perhaps, however, before I pass to this second part of 
 the discussion, I may add a few remarks about the use of 
 the article with proper names in the Poetics, where we seem 
 to be dealing entirely with lecture-notes apart from any dis- 
 turbing insertion of literary purple patches. The general 
 rule here is, as might be expected from the absence of literary 
 artifice and the business-like character of the document, that 
 names of persons occur without the article, but there are 
 exceptions, even in the case of some of the most famous 
 names of literature. Thus the names of the great poets 
 usually stand without the article, but we have 6 "Ofiijpo? at 
 1451 a 21 (and 6 'Hpaic\r]$ in the preceding line). 
 
 At 1452 a 6—7, the person whose statue fell on his 
 murderer is twice 6 Mi'tu? (a>? 6 dvSpias 6 rod M1V1/0? 
 iv Apyei. d7T6KT£ivev tov airtov tov Oavdrov r&t Miti/i). 
 At 1453 a 28 it is, contrary to the general rule, 6 Evpnri8r)<; 
 who is said to be rpaytKcoraTOi t&v ttoitjtcov. So at 
 1461 b 36 mdrjicov 6 Mwwaveos tov K.aXknnrl8r)v e'«a\et 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 51 
 
 though Callippides is mentioned directly after without the 
 article. Similarly there seems io be no fixed rule about 
 either the names of plays and poems, or of the characters 
 of the mythic cycle. We have 'IXta? (1449 a 1) and 
 17 'Duos (1462 b 2), f, 'OSiWeia (1462 b 9) and 'OSiWeta 
 (1451 a 23), and even the combination 'I\tas ical 17 
 'OSvoweia (1449 a 1). So we have more than once iv 
 r&t OISIttoSi, iv Twt 'Opecrrrji, but also iv 'Avnyovr/i 
 (1454 a 1) and iv 'EXetcrpat, (1460 a 32). So with the 
 names of the characters we have rrjv KXvrai/jLvtfo-Tpav 
 airodavovaav virb tov 'Opicrrov ical tt/v 'QpifyvKrjv viro rod 
 1 AXKfiaicavos (1453 b 22), but 0101* 'OSvo-a-eiif Sia •ny? 
 ovXrjs . . . aveyvrnpLaOi) (1454 b 26), and orav o <ro<po<; fiev 
 fiera wovrjpias <Se> i^airaTijOrji, axr-irep %iirv<po<; (1456 a 
 21), and otov OiSwrou? ical ®viaTf)<i ical 01 iic twv toiovtcov 
 yevmv iirKpaveis avhpe<s (1453 a 11). 
 
 So in the historical sketch given in Metaphysics A, the 
 names usually have no articles, but we have 6 yap Hap- 
 fieviSr}'} at 986b22, 6 pjev yap HXdrav at 990 a 30, where 
 the use of the article, if it meant anything, could easily 
 have been avoided, and the Socrates of the " logical example " 
 is indifferently %eoicpdT7j<s and o SwK/aaTT/? (991a 25—27). 
 And, if I may be allowed to anticipate a point, in Meta- 
 physics M 1078b30 it is o 2»«/jaT?7? — i.e. according to 
 the " canon " I am attacking " Socrates in Plato " — who ra 
 KaOoXov ov %copi(TTa iiroiei. So in the De anima, though 
 most philosophers are introduced without any article, 6 
 TTKaToov iv rwt Tifiaicci tt\v -tyvyfrv etc t&v aroi^eimv 
 iroiel 404 b 16, and we are naturally led to ask why if 
 6 XcoKpaTry; means something different from %micpdTr)<;, 
 6 TlXdrmv should not equally mean something different from 
 ItXdrmv ? The examination could be carried further, but 
 with the same result. Insertion or omission of the article 
 with a proper name seems to make no recognisable difference 
 in any other case, and it is the " most horrid arbitrariness " 
 to assume that it must make a difference in the one case 
 of Socrates. 
 
52 VAKIA SOCEATIOA 
 
 We come now to the consideration of the actual sources 
 of Aristotle's information about Socrates. And, first of all, 
 we must ask the question whether it is in itself likely that 
 Aristotle should have known much about Socrates except 
 what he could learn in the Academy. "We may be fairly 
 sure, to begin with, that he did not know much about him 
 before his own arrival in Athens. Socrates was one of the- 
 " sights " of Athens, but he had no taste for foreign travel, 
 and the connections of his special intimates were all with 
 very different quarters from the Chalcidic peninsula. We 
 can hardly suppose that stories about him were preserved 
 at Potidaea for a couple of generations after his campaign 
 there. And it is not very likely that either the inhabitants 
 of Stageira or the habitues of the Macedonian court took 
 much interest in the doings of the mainly Pythagorean 
 coterie which met in the speculation-shop at Athens. How 
 circumscribed an Athenian reputation might be, after the 
 great disaster at Syracuse which destroyed the maritime 
 supremacy of Athens, is illustrated for us by the seventh 
 Platonic letter where the fate of Socrates is described in 
 a way only intelligible on the supposition that he was all 
 but an unknown quantity to Plato's Sicilian friends. He 
 is introduced, and the language speaks volumes for the 
 authenticity of the letter, as " an elderly friend of mine," 
 (f>[\ov iivhpa ip,ol Trpeafivrepov %(oicpaTr) (Joe. cit. 324 e). 
 
 Equally to the point is the utter absence of any 
 demonstrable reference in Plato to Democritus, a philosopher 
 about whom Aristotle is so well informed, and whose 
 mechanical and physical theories, if we may judge from the 
 Timaeus, Plato would have regarded with a friendly interest, 1 
 
 1 I am sorry not to be able to agree with Professor Natorp in finding allusions 
 to Democritus in the Timaeus and Parmenides (see the index to his Platans 
 Ideenlehre, s.v. "Demokrit"). That the passages which he cites prove acquaint- 
 ance with Atomism I am quite ready to believe, but Atomism was an older thing 
 than the philosophy of Democritus. My own belief is that the doctrine to 
 which Plato alludes is that of Leucippus. Leucippns had been originally an 
 Eleatic, and it is only natural that Plato, who was specially interested in the 
 
THE AEISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 53 
 
 while he must have been iu absolute accord with the famous 
 distinction between the " bastard beliefs " begotten by sen- 
 sation and the " legitimate " convictions based on rational 
 insight. I can only account for this complete silence by 
 what is, after all, the very natural suggestion that a man 
 might make a very big reputation in Abdera without being 
 known at Athens, as, in fact, Democritus himself com- 
 plains (fy\0ov <yap els 'Adrfvas kcu ov ti? fie eyvcoKev, 
 Fr. 116, Diels). Probably the same simple consideration 
 may go far to explain the silence of our ancient sources of 
 information about that tantalising figure Nausiphanes, and 
 other adherents of Democritus whose mere names occasionally 
 come under our notice. 
 
 We may take it,"then, that Aristotle's information about 
 Socrates is likely to have been entirely obtained in Athens 
 itself. And further, I cannot see that in Athens there 
 was any likely source of valuable tradition about Socrates 
 outside the Academy. Acquaintance with the philosophy 
 of Socrates was not to be got from anecdotes picked up in 
 
 Eleatic school and has more than once expressed his admiration for its lead- 
 ing men, should have been acquainted with the new development given to 
 their theory of the One by Leucippus. Professor Natorp has forgotten that the 
 very passage to which he rightly calls attention as bearing on the relations 
 of Flatonism with Atomism, Aristotle, de generatione A 325 a 23 ff., says 
 nothing about Democritus at all, but is avowedly an account of the grounds 
 on which Leucippus reached his conclusion (AeiVi7T7ros 6" 2x etv <*>rf9y Xfryovs 
 kt\.). What we should expect to find somewhere in Plato, if he had been 
 acquainted with Democritus, is not merely an occasional allusion to Atomism, 
 but some notice of the peculiar contribution of Democritus to the theory, his 
 epistemological attack on the value of sensation, especially as it is at this 
 point that Platonism and Atomism most nearly touch. In any case the 
 references in the Parmenides and Timaeus must be primarily taken to be 
 to Leucippus, since it would be a chronological blunder to make Parmenides 
 allude to Democritus (though he would naturally be assumed to know some- 
 thing of the views of an ex-member of his own school). Similarly dramatic 
 probability requires us to take allusions put in the mouth of Timaeus of Locri 
 as intended for Leucippus, who was so closely connected with the Italian line 
 of development, rather than for Democritus. It is a mistake to see any 
 special allusion to the Atomists in Timaeus' criticism of the theory of 
 "innumerable worlds," since that doctrine is a commonplace with nearly all 
 the old physicists. The point is a small one, but it illustrates the dangers 
 attendant on the mistaken notion that Democritus was a " pre-Socratic. " 
 
54 VAKIA SOCEATIOA 
 
 casual conversation with outsiders who had been on speak- 
 ing terms with him, or remembered some incident in their 
 boyhood in which his singular personality had figured. 
 The way in which Aristotle presents certain formal dogmas 
 as characteristic of Socrates plainly presupposes a fixed 
 tradition handed down by a school, and there was no school 
 in existence to form such a tradition except that of Plato. 
 A priori, then, we should expect that Aristotle's conception 
 of Socrates must come almost entirely from Academic 
 sources, possibly amplified here and there by acquaintance 
 with the Xm/cpaTiKol Xoyoi of Xenophon, and of other 
 Socratic men, and by verbal remarks made by Plato in 
 personal conversation. In the main it would be the picture 
 of Socrates drawn in Plato's dialogues which would form 
 the basis not only of Aristotle's statements, but of the 
 whole Academic tradition. Other Socratic men, like 
 Euclides and Phaedo, had, to be sure, founded philosophic 
 coteries outside Athens, and these, no doubt, preserved their 
 own version of the Socratic tradition, but it must surely 
 be clear that nothing but the foundation of the Academy 
 could have given one version of the tradition its literary 
 importance and vitality. As it is, the reason why we 
 know next to nothing of the figure of Socrates as it may 
 have been conceived by most of those whose names have 
 come down to us as authors of XioKpanicol \oyot, is that 
 they were not connected with permanent " schools " by 
 which their writings would have been preserved, and in 
 which a definite tradition might have been perpetuated. 
 The reasonable presumption is thus that the Aristotelian 
 account of Socrates simply records familiar traits from an 
 almost exclusively Academic school-tradition, which must 
 rest, in its turn, on the writings of Plato. I turn now to 
 the detailed establishment of the point, by examining the 
 various pieces of information preserved in the Aristotelian 
 corpus and indicating their apparent sources. 
 
 But first it may be worth our while to recall Aristotle's 
 own expressed view as to the class of literature to which a 
 \0705 2»K/3«Tt«o5 belongs. A " Socratic discourse " is, for 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 55 
 
 Aristotle, primarily a kind of prose drama. It is a form of 
 " imitation " just as an epic poeifl or a play is ; as Professor 
 Bywater has put it, its definition, in the terms employed in 
 the Poetics, would be fiip/ycns ev Xoymi %&>/»? ap/iovia<; ical 
 pvdfiov. In this respect it stands on the same level with 
 the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus; there ought to be 
 a generic name for this kind of prose drama, which would 
 include the prose mime and the Socratic discourse as its 
 species, just as there is a common name of which both 
 tragedy and comedy are species, '' drama " ; but the language 
 unfortunately does not provide one. ovBev yap av e%oifiev 
 bvopAtrai koivov tov? Saxppopos ical Hevap^ov /it'/xov? ical Toil? 
 "ZtoKpariKoix; \oyov? — as it is implied we ought to have 
 (Poetics 1447 b 2). 
 
 Now we have already been told, by implication, what it 
 is that all forms of mimetic art " imitate " ; they " imitate " 
 ^07] ical 7rd9rj /cat -n-pagets, " men's characters and what they 
 do and have done to them " (ib. 1447 a 28). It should 
 follow that Aristotle, rightly or wrongly, regards the 
 " Socratic discourse " as a highly realistic kind of composi- 
 tion. You cannot, of course, infer that he holds that the 
 actual Socrates must have really made every remark ascribed 
 to him in such a discourse, but it would not be a proper 
 " imitation " of the character of Socrates unless it were in 
 all its main points a faithful presentation. E.g. if Socrates 
 notoriously disapproved of mathematics, or thought astronomy 
 impious, discourses in which he is made to take a keen 
 interest in the latest developments in arithmetic, or in the 
 theories of astronomers, would be very bad fupqaeis of his 
 fl8o<s. (So, if Xenophon's account of him is correct, Re- 
 public vi— vii. are a bad /it/tijo-t?.) So, again, if you provided 
 Socrates with an elaborately fictitious biography (as Plato is 
 sometimes held to have done in the Phaedo and Pavmenid.es), 
 you would not be giving a proper /dfuja-ii of " what he did 
 or had done to him." 
 
 So when we come to the consideration of tragedy, the 
 real subject of the part of the Poetics which has been pre- 
 served, we learn that one essential point in depicting the 
 
56 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 ^0o? of a character is that it must be o/ioiov (1454 a 23), 
 which means, as Professor Bywater says, " like the original." 
 You must, e.g., make your Hector, Orestes, etc., such as the 
 accepted story says they were, and of course, in the same 
 way, if a friend of an actual man, Socrates, makes him 
 a personage in a work of art, his " Socrates " must be 
 reeognisably "like" the man whose name he bears. Similarly 
 as to incident, it is regularly taken for granted in the Poetics 
 that the main outlines of "what the characters did or had 
 done to them " are prescribed beforehand by a story which 
 the poet did not make (an a>v \6yos, as " Euripides " says in 
 the Frogs, with reference to the plot of the Hippolytus), 
 and that it is only in the detailed way of leading up to the 
 main fixed incidents that the poet has a free hand. In 
 Aristotle's own illustration, anyone who wishes to compose 
 an Iphigenia has to take as data the disappearance of the 
 heroine, her appointment as the priestess at a shrine where 
 strangers are sacrificed, the arrival of her brother, the 
 recognition and the escape as fixed elements in the story. 
 He is only free to invent the motivation of the successive 
 events (e.g. to choose his own way of bringing the brother 
 to the spot), and to fill in details (e.g. to choose the exact 
 way in which the recognition shall be brought about). 
 With much more right, then, may we demand that the 
 writer of a %wicpaTiico<; Xoyo?, a drama in which the hero is 
 one of the best-known characters of the most famous asje of 
 Athens, shall not present us with a biography of his hero 
 which relates things none of which, nor the like of them, 
 ever happened. If Socrates never met Parmenides and Zeno, 
 never talked with them of the One and the Many, never 
 crossed swords and exchanged compliments with Protagoras 
 at the height of his fame, never threw himself with ardour 
 into the studies of the (j>vo-ucol or pondered over the book 
 of Anaxagoras, never occupied himself with the problems of 
 political reform which occupy the Republic, never belongpd 
 with Cebes, Simmias, and Phaedo to that quaint little band of 
 believers in eiSrj who speak of themselves in the Phaedo as 
 "we," then the Platonic \6yoi, by the canons which are 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 57 
 
 assumed in the Poetics for all forms of dramatic composition, 
 are bad Xoyoi, and Aristotle hftd no right to couple them 
 with such realistic pictures from life as the compositions of 
 Sophron and Xenarchus seem to have been, as examples of 
 the kind of prose-drama which ought to have, though it has 
 not, a single technical name. Yet he does so, not only in 
 the passage before us, but in the fragment (61 of the Berlin 
 edition, 1486 a 9) where the Xw/cpaTiicol \6yot, are expressly 
 named by the side of the mimes of Sophron as examples 
 of the same kind of composition. It is, of course, open to 
 anyone who likes, to dispute the correctness of the implied 
 view of the "taKpanicol Xoyoi. Aristotle may have been 
 deceived into taking for fidelity to fact what is really only 
 the skill of the consummate master of fiction. But what I 
 am concerned with now is merely the question what view 
 Aristotle took, whether that view was sound or not. 1 
 
 Now to come to the examination of details. I may have 
 ■overlooked a point here and there, but I believe my list 
 will be found to contain every passage referred to in 
 Bonitz's Index s.v. Sw/c/aoT^? or 6 ~ZcoiepdTr)<; in which the 
 allusion to a Platonic dialogue could be called in doubt. 
 
 I begin with a few references which are not to statements 
 in Plato, as illustrative of the amount of information about 
 
 1 Incidentally I may note, as an illustration of Plato's attention to fact, 
 that a careful reading of the Phaedo reveals the existence of two "we" 
 groups in the Phaedo. There are the " we " who believe in the eifiij and also 
 in the doctrine (fortunately traceable right back to Pythagoras) of 6.vi.p.vri<ns. 
 Socrates constantly includes himself in this group to which Cebes and Sinimias 
 at least, and presumably the kw<P& Trpbviaira of the dialogue also, belong. 
 There is another " we " group who are in the habit of believing the soul to be 
 the apfiovia rrjs f«xv', i- e > Pythagoreans who have been deeply interested in 
 the medical developments arising out of the theories of Empedocles. Sinimias 
 belongs to this group and speaks for it at 86 b (toiovtSv n jiiXiara inrokaix- 
 fii.vop.ev tt]v ij/vxyv etnai), and Echecrates had at one time shared its doctrine 
 {airwi fwi ravra irpovSiSoKTo 88 d) and still half inclines to it {8o.vp.aaTm ydp 
 p.ov 6 \oyos oBtos ivTiXafipdverai mi vvv ko.1 &d, ib.). Socrates, and apparently 
 also Cebes, do not belong to this "we," and the apparent object of the whole 
 by-play between Phaedo and Echecrates (88 d ff. ) is to indicate that the 
 difference on this point is logically the most important feature in the whole 
 'hoyos. It is scarcely credible that the distinction between the two "we's" 
 existed only in Plato's fancy. 
 
58 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 Socrates which Aristotle seems to have derived from other 
 sources than the dialogues. 
 
 Rhetoric 1393 b 4 trapa^oXr) Be ra tancpariKa, olov e't ti? 
 Xeyoi on ov Bel KXr)pa>Toi>$ apyeiv. oftoiov yap coatrep av ei 
 Tt? toiis a0Xr)Ta<! icXrjpoir) p,r) oi Bvvavrai aytovl^eaOai dXX 
 oi av Xd'xoxnv, rj t&v irXcorijpmv ov nva Bel icvfiepvav 
 KKtfpwaeiev, a>? ov Beov tov eiriaTa/Mevov dXXa tov Xa^ovTa. 
 This is apparently given not as an actual remark of Socrates 
 but simply as " the sort of argument you get in the Socratic 
 discourses." There are, of course, plenty of parallels with 
 the reasoning to be found in Plato, and the same sort of 
 thing must have been extant in many Socratic discourses 
 now lost to us, so that it is hardly necessary to find a 
 special source of any kind for the observation. The closest 
 parallel, however, seems to be Xenophon, Memorabilia i. 2. 
 9 inrepopav eiroiei (sc. according to the Kartfyopos) t&v 
 tcaOeo-TWTow vofiwv toi>$ o~vvovra<;, Xeycov a>? fi&pov eirj 
 tou? f/,ev t»7? 7ro\eo>9 apyfovTas airb xvdfiov Ka6iaravai r 
 KV^epvrjTTji, Be p,r)Seva QeXeiv xprjcrOai Kvafievrm fnjBe Teierovt 
 /iijS' avXryriji fi^B' iir aXXa roiavra (the same kind of 
 saying which lies at the bottom of the famous picture of 
 the mutinous crew and their disastrous voyage at the open- 
 ing of Republic vi.). The close correspondence of the 
 language suggests that, if Aristotle is directly taking his 
 illustration from any specific source, it is from the Memora- 
 bilia. If so, this is, so far as I know, the only case in which 
 the employment of Xenophon can be clearly shown. (I 
 would suggest, incidentally, that very possibly we should 
 emend the word d0XrjTa<; in the Rhetoric to auX/j/ra? on the 
 strength of the Xenophontic passage. The fact that the 
 " pairs " in athletic contests were often determined by lot 
 makes the aflX^T??? rather an unfortunate example for the 
 purpose of the irapaftoXri, and it is also clear that the 
 person who is coupled with the ttXcotijp ought to be, what 
 the avXi)Tri<i is, both in Plato and Aristotle, a recognised 
 example of the " professional " or t6^i/itj/?.) 
 
 1 Thus Alcibiades was speaking as a genuine Socratic when he told the- 
 Spartans (Thucydides vi. 89) that the democracy was oiuiKa^oviUvji Avoid. 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 59 
 
 Ethica Eudemia 1235 a 37. It is an argument by 
 example to prove that to yjpr\an%v SoKei <j)i\ov elvat fiovov 
 that 'ZcoKparr}*; 6 yipmv (apparently so called because, in the 
 time of Eudemus, %eoKpdTt)<: might have been taken to mean 
 %a>KpaT7)<; 6 vemTepos) said men throw away even parts of 
 their own bodies when they cease to be of use, d7ro{3d\\ovcri 
 
 TOV TTTVeXoV KOI T«S Tpi%Ct<} Kal TOW} OVVJffK, KCLI TO, fJLOpUl 
 
 OTt pnrTovfiev Ta a%pr)0~Ta, Kal Tekos to oS)fia OTav diro- 
 Odvrji- a^pr]o-To<i yap 6 ve/cpos. Eudemus seems here to be 
 referring to Xenophon, Mem. i. 2. 53 Kal Trpbs tovtok ye Srj 
 on TTj<i •^ru^s &%eKdovo-r)<;, ev r)i p,dvt)i ylyveTai <ppoVT}o-t<}, 
 to aotfia tov oiKeiOT&Tov dvdpdyirov Tr\v Tayio-Ti]v ifjevey- 
 KavTes cupavi^ovaiv. eXeye $' oti Kal %5>v eicao-Tos eavrov, 
 b irdvTmv fidXiara (piKei, tov o-fofiaTOS 6 ti av a^peiov r)i 
 Kal dvaxpeXes, avTO<s Te d<paipel Kal aXkcoi irape^ei. avToi 
 Te ye avT&v ovv^d<} Te Kal T/Jt^a? Kai tv\ov<s d<pat,povo~i Kal 
 Tot? laTpols Trapeypvai fieTa ttovcov- Te Kal d\yr)$6vmv Kal 
 diroTefiveiv Kal diroKaeiv . . . Kal to o-LaXov e/c tov aTOfiaTOt 
 ditoTTTVovaiv do? SvvavTai TroppeoTaTco Sioti wepeXei fiev ovhev 
 avTovi ivov, (3Xa7rTei Be tto\v fiaX\ov. 
 
 Rhetoric 1398 a 24. Socrates refused to visit the court of 
 Archelaus on the ground that vfipiv e<pr] elvai to fir) hvvaaOai 
 dfivvao-Oat, ofioias? Kal ev iraOovTas wairep Kal KaK&s. 
 (The point of the remark is, I think, generally overlooked. 
 If Socrates ev irda-^ei at the hands of Archelaus, it becomes 
 his obligation ev iroieiv 'Ap%i\aov. But the only way to 
 do this is to make the soul of Archelaus better, and the first 
 step to its improvement would be that Archelaus should be 
 punished for his crimes. As there is no hope of this, 
 Socrates will not go where he can do no good. The mean- 
 ing is not that Socrates accepts the current view that one 
 should repay good with good and evil with evil. On this 
 interpretation the two cases contemplated are not parallel. 
 For, in the common view, if you fail to repay good with 
 good, the uySpt? is on your side ; if you fail to return evil for 
 evil, you do not commit vfipis, but vfipis is committed on 
 you. What Socrates means is something profounder. 
 According to the common view, if Archelaus does me a 
 
€0 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 wrong which I cannot requite, then vfipi£op.ac, the worth 
 of my personality is degraded. Yes, says Socrates, but 
 exactly the same thing happens if I do not repay kindness 
 at his hands by the only means in my power, which is to 
 try to bring him to punishment for his crimes. It is 
 not Archelaus, but Socrates, who v/3pi£erai, suffers degrada- 
 tion, if he does not try to lead Archelaus to repentance, as 
 he certaiuly will not be allowed to do. The thought is 
 thus absolutely in accord with the ethical teaching of the 
 Gorgias and Republic. The popular view of vfipis referred 
 to is not that v/3pt,<s is committed by the man who accepts 
 a kindness which he is unable to repay or by the man who 
 leaves an injury unavenged, but merely that he who injures 
 the defenceless commits vfipis. Socrates adds that he who is 
 not allowed to make such a return for kindness as lies in 
 his power also suffers i)/3/ats.) 
 
 Rhetoric 1398 b 30. (The already discussed anecdote of 
 the rebuke administered to Plato by Aristippus.) This and 
 the preceding incident may well have been taken from lost 
 " Socratic discourses," or may equally well be reminiscences 
 derived from actual conversation with Plato. 
 
 Rhetoric 1417 a 19 Bui tovto ovk e^ovtriv ol fiaBr)- 
 fiariKoi Xoyoi rfit\, on ovBe irpoaLpeaiv to yap ov evetca 
 ovk eyovo~iv. dXK' ol %(OKpariKoi' irepl toiovtwv yap 
 Xiyovatv. The reference is, no doubt, to the whole class 
 of such \6yoi, and it may be noted that what is meant 
 by their exhibiting ^0o? and irpoabpearK; is not that they 
 are didactic, concerned with the ends for which we ought to 
 act, but that they are dramatic, and full of traits illustrating 
 the characters of the personages who figure in the narra- 
 tive, and showing what is their f)6o<; and with what 
 Trpoaipeo-i*} they act. It is just what we call the "dramatic" 
 touches in a work like the Phaedo, the picture of Socrates 
 chafing the leg which had just been released from its chain, 
 the playing with Phaedo's curls, the violent sobbing of 
 Apollodorus, in which " Socratic discourses '' exhibit ^6o<s, i.e. 
 just the touches in which Plato's way of narrating a con- 
 versation differs from the colourless manner of a Xenophon. 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 61 
 
 It would be as absurd not to believe that Aristotle is 
 thinking chiefly of the Platonic " discourses " here as to 
 suppose that he means any ethers when he says at Politics 
 1265 a 11 that all the \oyot of Socrates exhibit to TrepiTrbv 
 Kal to Kaivorofiov KaX [to] tflvryriicov. Of the reference in 
 the Poetics to Sa/cpanicol \6yot I have already spoken. 
 
 There is a statement in Aristotle, Fr. 83 (Berlin edition), 
 1490 a 21, that Socrates defined evyeveia as e£ ayaO&v 
 yovecov elvat. This is included in the Fragments of Aristotle 
 on the authority of Stobaeus, who says he is quoting the 
 dialogue irepl evyeveias. But it should be remembered that 
 according to Plutarch (Aristides xxvii.) there was a doubt 
 about the genuineness of this particular dialogue. The 
 definition is connected with the curious tale about the 
 bigamy of Socrates, who is said to have had, besides 
 Xanthippe, as a second wife the daughter (Diogenes 
 Laertius), or granddaughter (Plutarch), or great-grand- 
 daughter (Athenaeus) of Aristides o §Licaio<;, and it was, 
 according to Stobaeus' account of what Aristotle said, in 
 connection with her that the definition was given ; a 
 daughter of Aristides must be vjohlgeboren, because she had 
 so " righteous " a father. 
 
 As to the authority for the story, all the authors who 
 tell it refer to Aristotle, and both Plutarch and Stobaeus 
 to the work irepl evyeveiw;. 1 Diogenes (ii. 26) further 
 mentions Satyrus and Hieronymus of Ehodes, Plutarch adds 
 Demetrius of Phalerum and Aristoxenus, and Athenaeus 
 names Callisthenes, Demetrius, Satyrus and Aristoxenus. 
 The appearance of Aristoxenus among the authorities for 
 this tale goes far to discredit it, and it has considerable 
 internal difficulties. The absolute absence of any uncon- 
 scious allusion to the matter in Plato and Xenophon is a 
 serious matter. It is a further difficulty that the various 
 versions of it lay stress on the poverty of the alleged second 
 wife, and Diogenes, in particular, insists, apparently on the 
 strength of the irepl evyeveias, that she brought no dowry 
 
 1 Stobaeus does not give the story, but be mentions the daughter of 
 Aristides in connection with the definition of eiy£t>a.a. 
 
62 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 with her. Now it is in itself a difficult question, which 
 has not been adequately examined, how Socrates, who was 
 always ev p,vplat -n-evlai, supported himself, Xanthippe, and 
 his sons, and the mystery deepens if we suppose that he 
 married a second wife, as the story asserts, out of compassion 
 for her impoverished condition. Still the names of Aristotle 
 and Demetrius are of considerable weight, if one could only 
 feel sure that the vrepl evyeveias was genuine. On the whole 
 I should suggest, in the light of the testimony of the Laches 
 to the old friendship between Socrates and the family of 
 Aristides, that there is some foundation in fact for the story. 
 Socrates may well have in some way charged himself with 
 the protection of a daughter of Lysimachus (the story which 
 makes her his sister raises chronological difficulties), and it 
 was probably the mischievous genius of Aristoxenus which 
 turned the incident, whatever it was, into a case of bigamy. 
 That the tale is traced to the irepl evyevelas seems to me 
 to militate against the genuineness of the work, or the good 
 faith of those who professed to be citing it. 
 
 Fragment 61 (Berlin edition), 1486 a 2. Aristotle said 
 in his irepl iroirjTiov that the dialogues of Alexamenus of 
 Teos were earlier than the T&aKpariicol \6yoi (from Diogenes 
 Laertius iii. 48, and Athenaeus xi. 505 c, in which latter 
 context it forms part of an abusive attack on the originality 
 of Plato). These are, I believe, all the passages in the 
 Aristotelian corpus in which reference is made to XeoKpariKol 
 Xoyoi, or sayings of Socrates quoted which cannot be found in 
 the extant Platonic literature. It will be seen that the 
 number of such sayings is ridiculously small, and that none 
 of them has any philosophical significance, except perhaps the 
 reason for not visiting Archelaus which is put into Socrates' 
 mouth in the Ehetoric, and this story, correctly interpreted, 
 shows that Aristotle ascribed the ethical doctrine of the 
 Gorgias to Socrates. Our results so far are highly unfavourable 
 to the view that Aristotle's knowledge of the tenets of 
 Socrates is at all independent of the tradition created by 
 Plato. Even Xenophon only seems to have been utilised, if 
 at all, in one single passage, and then only for an illustration 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 63 
 
 of Socratic method exactly parallel with scores that might 
 have been taken from Plato. The one clear case of actual 
 quotation from Xenophon which we have detected belongs 
 not to Aristotle, but to Eudemus. 
 
 I come now to the passages which refer to the special 
 tenets of Socrates. In every case, it will be seen, it is quite 
 easy to point to the probable or certain Platonic source of 
 the notice. 
 
 (1) The fundamental service of Socrates to science lay 
 in his insistence on the importance of universal definition, 
 and of iiraKriKol Xoyoi. 
 
 Metaphysics A 987 b 1—4 %a>Kpdrov^ Be irepi fiev ra 
 r)BiK.a Trpayfiarevofievou, Trepl Be tt)9 0X17? tyvaews ovBev, 
 
 eV fJL&VTOl TOVTOtS TO KaOoKoV fl/TOUJ/TO? KM, 7T€j0t OpUTfl&V 
 
 eTna-Tija-avTO'} irpwrov Ttjv Bidvoiav. M 1078 b 17, 28 
 S<»tf/jaT0i/? Be irepl ra? r/0t,Ka<; aperas irpay/j,aTevofievov 
 teal irepl tovtcov 6pl£e<r0ai KadoXov fyTovvTO? irpaTov . . . 
 Bvo yap iariv a rts av airoBoitf Soj/c/saret BiKaloa, tow t 
 hraKTiKoi)'; \6yow; KaX to 6pL%e<r6ai KadoXov ravra yap 
 ecrriv d/j,(j)(o Trepl dp^rjv eVtar^/iT;?. aXX' 6 fiev 2,<oKpaT7}<; 
 ra, KaOoXov ovk ^eopicrTa, eiroUi oiiBe tow: opicr/Movs' 01 
 B' ij(a>picrav, xal to, Tocavra TOiv ovtwv IBeas Trpoerrjyopevaav. 
 The last statement about a difference of view between 
 Socrates and the ol Be, who are apparently identical with the 
 oi trpSnot tcl<s IBeas <j>i]cravTe<; etvai of 1078bll, must be 
 left over for special discussion. As to the remainder of 
 what we are told here, it is obvious that the statement 
 might be made by a reader who knew Socrates only from his 
 reading of Plato on the strength of almost any one of the 
 discussions contained in, e.g., the Charmides, Laches, Greater 
 Hippias, Protagoras, Bepublic i. 
 
 (2) Socrates used to ask questions but not to answer 
 them, mfioXoyei yap ovk elBivai, Sophist. Elench. 183 b 7. 
 This is, I think, a plain allusion to the complaint of Thrasy- 
 machus (Rep. 337 e) Xva ~%coKpaTr}s to eia>6b<s Biairpd^rjTai- 
 ax)To<; /lev pr/ a/iroKpLvrrrai, aXXov B' diroKpivofievov \a/i- 
 fldvrji Xoyov kol i\eyxr)i. Ilals yap av, e<pr)v eyco, w 
 fieKnare, tIs anroKpivauro, irpStTOv fiev fir/ et'Sws kt\. 
 
64 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 (3) Etltica Nic. 1127 b 25. Socrates a typical e'tpmv, 
 p,dXi<na Be kcu ovtoi to, evBoga atrapvovvTai, oirep /cat 
 %wKparr)<s eirolei. For possible sources see Republic 337 a 
 avTTj 'iceivr] r\ elmdvia elptovela %a>KpaTov<; ; Gorgias 489 e 
 elpcovevrji, 3) "taKpareis ; Apology 37 e ov treio-eade p,oi 
 d>i elpa>vevofjt.evau. 
 
 (4) Virtue is <f>p6vr)o-i<;, the several virtues are <ppovrja-ei<;, 
 iTricrTrjfiat, Xoyoi. 
 
 Mh. N. 1144 b 18, 29 koX Sta/e/jcm?? ttji fiev 6p6m 
 ityjrei, ttji 8' rjfidpravev, on fiev yap tj>povrj<rei<; citero elvai 
 7ra<7a? ra? dperdf rjfidpravev, on 8' ovk avev <^povrj<re(o<;, 
 KaXws ekeyev . . . 2,a)KpdTr)<; fiev ovv Xoyov? Ta? apera? 
 atiero elvai (eTricrTTJfia<; yap elvai 7raera<?), r/fieis Be fierd 
 Xoyov. ib. 1 1 1 6 b 4 69ev koX 6 ScoKpaTrj? mirjdr] enria-Trffvrfv 
 elvai TTjv dvBpeiav (with which compare Eth. Eud. 1230 a 6 
 air}) yap TovvavTiov e%ei rj cos ioiero %aKpdrrj';, eiriaTrffiifv 
 oiofievo'; elvai rr)v dvBpeiav, 1216 b 2 ZcoKparrji; fiev ovv 6 
 TrpeafivTrjs Sier elvai TeXo? to yivdxriceiv rr)v dperrjv ktX.). 
 [Magna Moralia] 1182 a 15 fiera tovtov XcoKparr)*; eiruyevo- 
 fLevos fteXnov Ka\ em trXeiov elirev virep tovtcov, ovk opOws 
 Be ovB' o&to?. to? yap apera? eiriaTrffia? eTroiei. 1183b 
 8 ovk opdtos Be ovB 1 6 %WKpdT7]<i eVtcTT^/ia? eiroiei Ta? 
 aperd? ktX. 1190 b 2 8 oiBe %eoKpdrrj<; Be op6Si<; ekeyev, 
 eTTiarrjp.rjV elvai (pdar/cwv rr)v dvBpeiav. 1198 a 10 Bio ovk 
 bpOSis 2,a>Kpdrr)<; ekeyev, (f>d<7Ka>v elvai ttjv dperr/v Xoyov. 
 None of these passages tells us anything about %a>Kpdrr)<; or 
 6 %wKpaTr]<i (both forms are found with reference to the 
 very same statements), which may not be read in the 
 Charmides, Laches, Protagoras and Republic, and the Laches 
 and Protagoras are manifestly the sources of the statement that 
 Socrates regarded dvBpeia as a form of eirio-TrjfiT), while the 
 more general view that all virtue is a " science " or " ratio " is 
 manifestly based on Socrates' reduction of virtue to intelli- 
 gent computations of pleasures and pains in the Protagoras. 
 
 (5) There is no such state as aKpaaia. Eth. Nic. 1145 b 
 23 Beivbv yap eTna-Trifir)? evovarys, co? caiero %a>Kpdrif<s, 
 dXXo ti Kparetv Kal irepiekKeiv airr/v wairep dvBpdiroBov. 
 %<0KpdTr)<; fiev ydp oXeo? i/id%eTo irpbi rbv Xoyov 
 
THE AEISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 65 
 
 &>? ovk QV<rr)<; (iKpaaiat • oideva yap vTro\ap,ftdvovTa 
 irpa/rreiv irapa, to fteKmaTov, a%ka 6V dyvoiav. Compare 
 1147 b 15 zeal eoiKev b ktfyrei SuKpaTJ]? crvfiftalveiv 
 kt\.; [Magna Moralia] 1187 a 7 &<nrep XtoKpaTij? etyq, 
 ovk £<p' rjfuv yevio~dai to o-irovSaiov} elvai fj tffavKovs. el 
 yap T49, <fyt}triv, eptOTijo-eiev ovTivaovv irorepov av fiovkoiTO 
 8iicaio<; elvai r) aSiKO?, ovBels av eXoiro ttjv d&iKiav ; 1200 
 b 25 %(OKpa,T7f<i fikv o%v 6 irpeo~/3vT7)<; dvrjipei o\<»? ical 
 ovk e<pr] dKpao-iav elvai. We might add here Eth. Nic. 
 1113 b 14 to oe \eyeiv to? ovBels exa>v Trovrjpbs ovS' olkwv 
 p.aKapio'i eoi/ce to fiev yjrevSel, to 8 a\r}0ei, except that, as 
 no name is mentioned there, one cannot be sure whether 
 the reference is to Socrates or to Plato (who puts the 
 doctrine not only into the mouth of Socrates, but into that 
 of Timaeus, Tim. 86 d if.). That the common source of all 
 these allusions to Socrates' view that there is no vice except 
 error is the Protagoras of Plato seems plain from the verbal 
 echoes of Plato's language at Protagoras 352 b (eVovoT/<? 
 troWaKK avdpwirati eTTio~Tr)fir)<i, ov ttjv eTrio-Trjfirjv avTov 
 apyeiv aU' aXXo ti . . aTej(y&<; Stavoov/ievoi irepl t?js 
 iirio'Trj/ir]^ &o-irep irepl dv8pa7ro8ov, TrepieXKOfiiv^ inrb t&v 
 aXXav a-rrdvTav) in the first of the passages cited from 
 the Ethics. 
 
 (6) Self-knowledge, Aristotle, Fr. 4 (Berlin edition), 
 1475 a 1 Kal t&v ev AeX^ot? ypafipMTcav BeioTaTOv eSoKei to 
 Yv&di XavTov, o 8rj Kal XwKpaTei airopia<s Kal ^rfTrjaeta'i 
 TavTt)<i dpyj\v iviBcoKev a>? 'Apio-TOTe\i)<: ev Tot? H\aTmviKoi<i 
 eiprj/ce (Plutarch, Adv. Colotem 1118 c). The manifest 
 source is Phaedrus 229 e ff . ov 8vvajxal ira> KaTa, to Ae\<piKov 
 ypd/ipM yv&vai ifmvTov kt\. 
 
 (7) Aristotle, Fr. 3, 1474 b 10 = Diogenes Laertius 
 ii. 23 Kal THv9a>8e ikOeiv (sc. tov £.) 'ApurroTeXi;? <pr)o-iv. 
 Probably no more than an inference from the fact that 
 Aristotle had spoken of the influence of the Delphic inscrip- 
 tion on Socrates. 
 
 (8) Rhetoric 1398 a 15, 1419 a 8. Both passages refer 
 to the argument of Socrates in refutation of the charge of 
 atheism, that one who believes in a 8aip,6viov or in 8aip,ove<; 
 
 F 
 
66 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 must necessarily believe in gods, since the Sat/xoves are 
 either the progeny or the handiwork of gods. (No names 
 are mentioned in the earlier of the two passages.) The 
 source is thus plainly Apology 27 b ff., and the fact that 
 in 1419 a 8 the reasoning is ascribed to Xw/c/sotij? of 
 itself proves that %eoKpdrr)<; does not mean " the historical 
 Socrates " in distinction from Plato's Socrates, but that 
 Aristotle did not discriminate the two. 
 
 (9) Rhetoric 1367 b 8, 1415 b 31. Both passages, 
 which have already been discussed in this paper, allude 
 to a saying that " it is easy to deliver an encomium 
 on Athenians before an Athenian audience." The later 
 of the two attributes this to %a>/cpaT7]<; iv tom iiriTcupitoi, 
 which shows that the source on which Aristotle is drawing 
 is Menexenus 235 d el fiev yap Sioi ' AO-qvaiov? iv He\o- 
 Trovvqcrloi<; e«5 Xeyeiv, rj TLekoTrovvijcrLovs iv 'A.QrfvaLoi'i, 
 dyadov av priTopo? Scot, rod TreiaovTOS teal ev8oicifii]<rovTO<; • 
 orav Se ti<s iv tovtoi? dymvi^qrai ovairep /cat iwaivei, 
 ovSev pA/ya Sojeelv e5 Xiyeiv. There remain a few allusions 
 which do not seem to have any source in Plato, and throw 
 no light on the thought or character of Socrates. For the 
 sake of completeness, I add them here. 
 
 (10) Fr. 65 (Berlin edition), 1486 b 26= Diogenes 
 Laertius ii. 46 tovtgh rts, KaOd <pr)<riv 'AjOJo-roTeX^s iv y 
 irepl iroir)Tiiefj<; t icpiXovelicei 'AvtlXo^o<; Arjp,vio<i xal 'Avti<])&v 
 6 'repaToo-KOTrois. Cf. Diogenes Laertius viii. 49 rovrtoi 
 (fxuriv avTnrapaTa<r<rea6at K.vkava Kaddtrep 'Ai/ti'Soko? 
 ( ? ' ' A.vTkko'Xpi) "Zw/cpdrei. Perhaps this comes from 
 Xenophon, Memorabilia i. 6. 1, where we are told that 
 Antiphon 6 <ro<pio-r^<s tried to steal pupils from Socrates 
 (jSouXo/ievo? Toil's o-vvov(TiacrTa<; airov TrapeXeadai). 
 
 (11) Fr. 27, 1479 a 14 = Diogenes Laertius ii. 27. 
 " Aristotle says " that a magus from Syria told the fortune 
 of Socrates and predicted his violent death. 
 
 (12) Rhetoric 1390 b 31. The sons of Socrates were 
 insignificant persons. 
 
 (13) Analytica- posteriora 97 b 21. Socrates — the 
 great philosopher no doubt is meant, as he is coupled 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 67 
 
 with Alcibiades and Lysander — was a typical fieyaXoylrvxps. 
 (Aristotle was no doubt thinking of the yevvaiori) 1 ; shown 
 by Socrates in his last hours, which is more than once 
 referred to in the Phaedo as singularly impressive.) 
 
 [(14) ProUemata 953 a 27. Socrates and Plato both 
 had the fieKay^okia common in men of genius.] 
 
 So far I think the reader will be inclined to agree with 
 me that there is nothing at all in Aristotle's account of the 
 character or opinions of Socrates which he could not have 
 taken, and in all probability did not take, direct from the 
 XtoiepaTiieol \6yoi of Plato. Though he had no doubt read 
 many other such " discourses of Socrates/' there is no sign 
 that he found anything in them which led him to modify 
 in any recognisable way the view which he might have 
 arrived at by confining himself to the dramatic portrait 
 drawn for us in the Platonic writings, and it is therefore 
 a highly unreasonable assumption that he made any dis- 
 tinction between the portrait and its historical original. 
 In particular, he seems to have owed as good as nothing 
 at all to the pretended portrait of Xenophon. I will add 
 a reflection which may or may not impress the reader, but 
 certainly has some weight with me. I cannot help feeling 
 that, when all is said, Socrates remains for Aristotle a 
 rather perplexing problem. In the historical sketch of 
 Metaphysics A, he is the one figure who flits across the 
 stage as a sort of mystery, like Melchisedec, without 
 father or mother, without beginning or end of days. He 
 is credited with having effected the most tremendous trans- 
 formation in the general character of Greek thought, but 
 no light is thrown on the question how he was led to strike 
 out this new line for himself, or what were his relations with 
 his predecessors and his contemporaries. This comes out 
 more particularly in two ways. Socrates is the only 
 important personage who is introduced into the narrative 
 without any attempt to give a positive statement of his 
 views about the " cause and principle," or to show how he 
 came by them. He comes in incidentally in the course of 
 a professed account of the origin of Platonism as a person 
 
68 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 by whom Plato was known to have been influenced, and 
 we are told that on one important point (the universal 
 character of scientific propositions) he gave the impetus to 
 the formation of the theory of ei8r), and that is all. Also, 
 as I have urged in the previous essay, even in the account 
 of Platonism, Socrates seems to be a disturbing element. 
 Aristotle appears, at first sight, to be holding two theories 
 about the philosophical antecedents of Plato, which he 
 merely places side by side without a word to show how 
 they can be reconciled. On the one hand his main purpose 
 is unmistakably to show that Platonism is an offshoot 
 from the " Italian " philosophy, by which he manifestly 
 means Pythagoreanism. On the other, he expressly treats 
 it as due to the influence of Socrates on a mind already 
 imbued with a scepticism as to the reality of the things 
 which our senses perceive. I have argued in the last essay 
 for a view of the position of Socrates which would make 
 it possible to reconcile these two accounts. The inference 
 I wish to draw here is that, if Aristotle has told us so little 
 about the place of Socrates in the development of " first 
 philosophy," the reason is that he knew little more about 
 the facts than what we can still piece together from the 
 hints given us in the dialogues of Plato. He therefore,, 
 like an honest man, left his hearer to read Plato for himself, 
 and did not make a show of having independent knowledge- 
 where, in fact, he had none. 
 
 to rpirov t&i ^corfjpi : our hardest task yet lies before 
 us. We have, I hope, disabused ourselves of the belief in 
 the infallibility of " Fitzgerald's Canon." We have seen 
 that there is no single statement, with one exception, made 
 anywhere in the Aristotelian corpus about the doctrines of 
 Socrates which either may not or must not be traced back 
 to Plato. But the exception remains to be faced as our 
 " third wave." It is a very remarkable statement, and, as 
 it is commonly interpreted, is meant to insist upon a 
 fundamental difference in doctrine between the historical 
 Socrates and the historical Plato. If the accepted inter- 
 pretation is correct, every word of the preceding argument 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 69 
 
 may be accepted, and yet my thesis is hopelessly ruined. 
 Though Aristotle may depend Tor everything else he says 
 about Socrates on Plato, the fact will remain that he knew 
 of one absolutely vital difference between the teaohing of 
 Socrates and that of 6 ^eoKpdrrji, the protagonist in Plato's 
 dramas. He had, therefore, information of the highest 
 value independent of the Academic tradition, and we can 
 only wonder why he made no further use of it. The 
 statement in question is that of Metaphysics M 1078 b 30, 
 where Aristotle is speaking of the difference between 
 Socrates and certain persons " who had been the first to 
 say that there are iSeat," but did not add that these IBeai 
 are numbers. The critical words are d\X' 6 p,ev "ZaKparrfi 
 ra KaQoKov oi jyapio-ra irroiei, ovSe rovs 6pierfiov<s' oi S' 
 ej(a>pi(7av, teal ra roiavra r&v ovrmv ideas irpoo-Tjyopevffav. 
 In the briefer parallel account of A, there is nothing 
 answering to the first clause of this statement, and all 
 that corresponds to the second clause is oiiraxs (or o5to?, 
 the MSS. authority is unhappily divided,) fiev ovv ra roiavra 
 r&v ovrmv t'Se'a? 7rpoo-t)y6pevo-e (A 987 b 7). The further 
 account of Plato in A makes it clear that Aristotle includes 
 him in the charge contained in the words of M, oi 8' 
 i-)(a>pi,aav, though it is worth noting that this accusation 
 is not brought against him by name, and that he is nowhere 
 unambiguously said to have been the first person to " separate 
 the universals and definitions " or to call them I8eai. 
 
 Now, on the current interpretation, the sentence reads 
 plausibly enough. " Socrates did not ascribe an independent 
 reality to universals ; this was done first by Plato, who also 
 gave them the name of Ideas." (It is, of course, allowed 
 that the Socrates referred to — in spite of his being d 
 %(OKpdrr)<} — is Socrates the actual man, since the ^copia-fjuog 
 of the Ideas is regarded as being what the Socrates of 
 Plato means when he so often speaks of eiSr/ or IBeai, which 
 can only be apprehended by vov<; as %a>pt?, apart from, or 
 distinct from, the things which are perceived by the senses.) 
 
 But the apparently simple statement bristles with 
 difficulties. What does Aristotle really mean by the 
 
70 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 operation of ^wpKr/to?, of which he speaks so curtly as 
 though his hearers would know at once what it meant ? 
 If it was an innovation made by Plato, why does he 
 contrive never to say so in so many words ? If Plato 
 is distinguished as " those who first said there are eiSri " 
 from some one else who added that eiSrj are numbers, why 
 does Aristotle constantly attribute the doctrine of the 
 " numbers " to Plato himself, as if it were a matter of 
 course that every one knew that he regarded the elhtf as 
 numbers ? If he really knew that Plato's Socrates mis- 
 represented the historical Socrates on so important a point, 
 why does he everywhere else apparently take Plato's 
 Socrates as a bona fide witness to the actual teachings of 
 the real Socrates ? In the face of problems like these we 
 seem bound to raise the question whether the conventional 
 interpretation of Aristotle's statement is correct. May 
 not the Socrates who " did not separate " the universals 
 after all be the Socrates of Plato, and Aristotle's statement 
 about him and the difference between him and his successors 
 a mere inference drawn by Aristotle from the Platonic 
 writings themselves ? If this should be the case, we may 
 still be able to discover the passages in Plato on which 
 Aristotle's conclusion about Socrates is based, and we may 
 thus be led to modify our opinion as to what the view 
 Aristotle means to ascribe to him is. In any case, I must 
 repeat, before we acquiesce in the current explanation, if 
 it is an explanation, we have to answer the awkward 
 question : if Socrates was misrepresented by the tradition 
 of the Academy, how did Aristotle find it out ? 
 
 To begin with, then, I would raise the question, what 
 precisely is the "non-separating of the universals" for 
 which Aristotle appears to be commending Socrates ? A 
 logical distinction of the kind which Aristotle means to 
 indicate is clearly something which goes down to the roots 
 of a philosophical system, and it must be possible to make 
 its significance clear without merely repeating the mysterious 
 technical terminology in which Aristotle expresses it. The 
 ancient tradition of the Peripatetics does not help us in 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 71 
 
 trying to accomplish the task, since it merely repeats 
 Aristotle's statement in his own words, (e.g. Alexander on 
 M 1078 b merely says 6 (iev %ajKpdT7)<i ra icadokov, &v 
 koX Toil? opicrfiovs ifflrei, ov yapiaTh, iiroiei t&v aiadiyrmv, 
 ovBe tovs opicr/ioix; ^eopia-r&v <f>vcre<ov elvai ekeyev), and we 
 are thus thrown back on the acumen of the modern in- 
 terpreters. So far as I can make out their view (and it 
 is held by even so acute and independent a thinker as 
 Professor Milhaud), they agree in bringing the statement 
 into connection with the Socratic use of "arguments from 
 example." Socrates, they hold, in effect, regarded " justice," 
 ""courage," "equality" and the rest of the "universals" 
 simply as common characteristics which are actually equally 
 and alike present in every individual member of the classes 
 " just men," " brave men," " equal quantities," and can 
 therefore be detected and defined by a simple process of 
 iirayeoytf, i.e. by taking several members of a class and 
 picking out the predicates which belong equally to each 
 and all of them. What Plato did, according to this view, 
 was to insist that " justice," " courage " and the like are 
 never realised completely in the individual case ; there is 
 a truer justice or courage than has ever been actually 
 exhibited by any man ; exact equality is something which 
 our methods of measurement can never detect. Yet justice, 
 courage, equality are terms which must have a definite 
 logical intension, since we can employ them in rational 
 discourse. We can call one line of conduct more just than 
 another, one approximation to a given length closer than 
 another, though we may not believe that pure and perfect 
 justice has ever been incarnate, or that anyone has ever 
 constructed a rod which is exactly a yard long. Plato 
 therefore conceived of the intension of a significant or 
 general name as an "upper limit" not realised in actual 
 experience, but implied in all scientific reasoning (a ev 
 eVi -raw iroXK&v, as Aristotle phrases it), postulated the 
 existence of such limits and called them " ISeai." (I am 
 purposely stating the view which I find habitually taken 
 of Aristotle's meaning in more careful language than its 
 
72 VAEIA SOOEATICA 
 
 defenders usually employ, in order that it may suffer no 
 injustice from the introduction of loose metaphorical 
 language about confusion between "notions and things," 
 " the hypostatization of concepts," and the like.) 
 
 Now the first observation that occurs to one on an 
 interpretation of this kind is that if Socrates really believed 
 that justice, courage, equality can be found existing in 
 absolute perfection, if he did not see that in the realm of 
 facts we have to put up with approximations to them, 
 and that it would therefore be idle to attempt to define 
 them by looking for the actual existence of absolutely 
 identical common predicates in all members of a group of 
 actual persons or things, he must have been, what even his 
 enemies never called him, a very great fool. This, however, 
 it may be said, is an argument from merely subjective 
 feeling, and should not be allowed to count, so I proceed 
 at once to a consideration which is not of a subjective 
 order. There is no foundation whatever for the view here 
 implied as to the logical methods of Socrates in historical 
 tradition. On the current interpretation of Aristotle, 
 Socrates not merely rendered a service to science by 
 employing eVa/crt/eot \6yoi — he knew of no other kind of 
 reasoning ; his talk was iiraicTiieol \6yot, from beginning to 
 end. In fact, he is not infrequently said to have invented 
 the use of appeals to example ! Such a view finds no 
 support in either Plato or Xenophon. And I will add 
 that the use of eVa/crt/col \6yoi has, of itself, no special 
 connection with Socraticism. An eVa/crt/co? \oyo? is 
 simply an appeal to facts to confirm a theoretical conclusion, 
 and the use of such an appeal did not remain unknown to 
 mankind until Socrates arose to discover it. Indeed, one 
 might have reason to suppose that the phrase itself was a 
 familiar one before Socrates, and arose outside the special 
 philosophical circles to which he belonged. 
 
 I shall show directly that the Fhaedo assumes the 
 existence of " reasoning from example " as a well-known 
 and logically defective method familiar to the whole Eleatic- 
 Pythagorean group who were present at the death of 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 73 
 
 Socrates. First, however, I would submit the following 
 certainly un-Socratic passages to the judgment of the reader. 
 
 Hippocrates trepl ayji&v (a purely technical medical 
 work, entirely independent of the speculations of " sophists "), 
 2 (Kiihlewein ii. p. 47) ttjv fiev ot>v x e fy a > w^pi °v o \oyo?, 
 eSco/ei rt? imSfjaat KaTairprjvea iroirjaa';. o Se r)vdyica%ev 
 ouTto? ej(eiv mairep 01 ro^evovref . . . Kal ovrwt e^pvcrav 
 eVeSet . . . ■ vo/j.L£mv ifovr&i elvai, tovto avrrji to Kara 
 <pvo~iv, Kal fiapTvpiov eirrf/eTO rd re 6o~rea iravra to, iv 
 tcoi nrifflGi, on Wvtoplijv %x et if^'dXK.'rj'Ka ktX. I.e. the 
 unskilful surgeon who insisted on setting the fractured 
 member in an unnatural position " appealed " to the visible 
 fact of the straightness of the forearm as evidence in support 
 of his preformed theory as to the natural position of the 
 bones of the hand. So immediately below, Kal ttjv to^ik^v 
 eirTjyeTo fiapTvpiov, " he appealed also to the art of archery," 
 again in confirmation of his theory. 
 
 So ib. 3 (Kiihlewein ii. 49), we read of another blundering 
 practitioner that he insisted on a fractured hand being 
 treated with the palm upwards (vwrfof), and that in order 
 to justify his theory that this was the natural position (to 
 kclto, <pvaiv) he called attention to the sensible fact that 
 " the bone which projected along the wrist against the little 
 finger was in a straight line with the bone from which men 
 measure the forearm," ovtco<; eypvo-av eirehei tovto vofiL^wv 
 to Kara (pvaiv eivat, tu>i T6 XP 01 o~r]p,aivo[ievo<; Kal Ta ocTea 
 vo/ii^cov KaTa <pvaiv elvai ovt(o<;, oti fyaiveTai to e^&xpv 
 oo-reov to irapa, tov Kapirov, rji 6 afUKpbs So,ktv\o<;, kot 
 idvcopiijv elvai tov bo-Teov, cnr oreti tov irr/xyv ol avdpwrroi 
 fieTpeovaiv. TavTa fiaprvpia eirrfyeTO, oti KaTa, (pvcriv ovtw<; 
 e%et, Ka ^ eSoKet ev Xeyeiv. (Similarly in the few instances 
 of a logical use of iirdyeo-0ai in Plato and Aristotle, the 
 word means always to support a statement by an appeal 
 to witnesses.) These passages show, I think, that eirdyeo-dai 
 was already known in the medical school of Cos, before the 
 end of the fourth century, as a technical phrase for calling 
 in sensible facts to confirm a previously formed conclusion. 
 The fact is not unimportant when we remember that the 
 
74 VARIA SOCEATIOA 
 
 chief terms of Plato's logic, elSos, avrb i<p ecovrov (Plato's 
 airrb icaO' avrov), Koivaveiv, i>Tr60ecri<;, already meet us full 
 developed in the irepl apxalrj? i^t/m/m}?. I turn next to 
 Plato, more especially with a view to determining the precise 
 position which is ascribed by the company in the Phaedo 
 to the logical process of eVayoyy??. It might be conceived 
 that Plato should have attributed to Socrates a logical 
 theory which was actually his own creation ; it is hardly 
 thinkable that he should have represented a whole group 
 of persons as holding this theory in common, and as some- 
 thing so well established and understood that it has a 
 technical vocabulary of its own, and needs no kind of 
 explanation whatever, without betraying himself somewhere. 
 A theory of logical method which is represented as familiar 
 to and believed in by the whole Pythagorean -Socratic 
 community of 399 B.C. is not lightly to be disposed of as 
 an artistic anachronism. 
 
 Now there are two points of supreme importance in 
 connection with the logical doctrine of the Phaedo. (1) 
 The doctrine of the existence of avra Kaff 1 avra eiSi], to 
 which experience only presents imperfect approximations, 
 is represented not as something peculiar to Socrates, but 
 as a tenet common to him with Simmias, Cebes, and the 
 rest, and so thoroughly understood that no word of explana- 
 tion as to what it means is required. The doctrine is, 
 indeed, described as airep ael ical aWore ical iv t&i 
 •jrapekr)\v6oTi \6ymi, ov&ev ir&wavfiai \eyaw, and as tij? 
 atria? to e*8o? b weirpayfidTevp.ai, {Phaedo 100 b), but 
 Cebes makes haste to say that no introductory explanation 
 is necessary, a>? SiSovtos <roi ovk av <$>6avoi<; -rrepaivmv, 
 and Socrates had already described the " kind of cause in 
 question " as iicetva ra ■n-oXvdpvXijra, and the same 
 assumption that anyone who knows much about Socrates 
 and his friends knows that they believe in ra ei8r) is a 
 standing one with Plato. Before we read the account of 
 the spiritual development of Socrates, the eifS^ have already 
 made their appearance in the Phaedo without a word 
 of explanation, as " all those things oh i7ria-<ppayi^6/ieda 
 
THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 75 
 
 " avrb to b eari " ical iv Tals ipwTr\<Teat,v ipcoTcovret 
 Kal iv rat? airoKpiaeaiv* avoKpivofievoi" (75 d). 
 Similarly neither Glaucon in the Republic nor Parmenides 
 and Zeno in the Parmenides need to have it explained to 
 them what an eZSo? is, as indeed no reader of the earliest 
 works of the Hippocratean corpus would ; what the Eleatic 
 philosophers want to be told is not what Socrates means 
 by an etSo?, but how he supposes these eiBrj to be related to 
 the world of sense. Hence I cannot escape from the 
 conclusion of Professor Burnet that the doctrine in its main 
 outlines was, as Plato represents, common ground to Socrates 
 and his Pythagorean friends. (Echecrates too, it will be 
 observed, asks for no explanation.) But my object in 
 referring to the matter is simply to remind the reader that 
 Socrates and his friends in the Phaedo never speak of the 
 ei&T) as established by a process of induction ; their existence 
 is throughout postulated. The technical phrase is vironOe- 
 <rdai, or simply riOeaOai elSo? ti, the equivalence of the 
 expressions showing that the word means to " postulate," not 
 to " assume provisionally." The corresponding verbal noun 
 is vir66e<n<;, and these usages are universal in Plato. One 
 viroTi&erai the existence of avrb to koKov exactly as he 
 vTroriOerat that all integers are even or odd. Now vir66e<ri<s 
 in the sense of " postulate " is not a word of Plato's in- 
 vention, it is a technical term of Ionian science. The 
 £7ro#ea-« of a thinker means his fundamental premiss, in 
 connection with Ionian philosophy in particular, his 
 assumption as to the number and kind of the primary 
 forms of body. For example, the object of the irepl 
 ap^ali)* laTpiKijf is to show that medicine is independent 
 of any preformed virodeai';. One or two examples of the 
 way in which the author uses the word will be sufficient 
 to show that he knows it as a terminus technicus in exactly 
 the same sense in which we find it in the Phaedo. 
 
 § 1. The very first sentence of the work : oiroaoi /iev 
 eTrexeipijaav irepi it)Tpi,Krj<s Xeyeiv rj rypd(f>eiv, viroBecnv airol 
 avTocs VTrodifievoi rm Xoycoi Oepfwv r\ ■yjrv^pbv rj vypbv r\ 
 (jrjpbv J) aXXo ti b av dekwaiv, e? ^pa^ii ayovrei ttjv 
 
76 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 apxfjv Trj<i airvi)<i rolaiv dvOpwrroiai vovtratv re icai 
 Oavdrov, koI iravt rrjv avrr/v, §V r) Bvo inroOefievoi, ev 
 iroXXoia-i [iev ieai<voi<ri> olai Xeyovat icara<pavie<s euri 
 d/iaprdvovTev, fidXiara Be ai-iov fie/j^jraadai, ort, afupi 
 re^vr/i e'ovo-77? ktX. I.e. the complaint is that medicine is 
 an iovaa rkyyt), " a really established science," and there- 
 fore needs no justification by an argument from cosmological 
 first principles. The vvodea-Ks of each of the writers censured 
 is his "postulate" as to the number and kinds of the 
 ingredients of the human body ; the particular example 
 given is clearly one in which (as is the case in some of the 
 Hippocratean books themselves) each of the four " elements " 
 of Empedocles is made to contribute a special stuff, with its 
 distinctive sensible quality, to the organism. The writer's 
 view is that medicine is already firmly founded on a basis 
 of solid empirical facts, there are trustworthy practitioners 
 (cf. Socrates' habit of testing the claims of education to be 
 an art by asking whether there really is an accredited body 
 of specialists in education), and as our observation extends 
 our knowledge of medical fact will extend too, so that all 
 such vTTodecrei,<} are superfluous, Bib ovk r/tjlovv avrr)v eycoye 
 KcuvrjS VTroQeaios Beladai &<nrep ra cupavea re ical airopeo- 
 fieva, irepl av dvdyicr), r\v ri<s eTrt^eiprji ri Xeyeiv, 
 VTroOeaei j^prjaOai, olov irepX r&v perecopcov 17 r&v vtto 
 yfjv a e'l Tt? Xeyoi teal ywwaicoL a>? ^X €l ' °^ T ' " y 
 avr&i Ton Xeyovrc ovre Tots clkovovo-i BfjXa av e'irj, eXre 
 dXrjOea early etre p,7\. I.e. he thinks you cannot have the 
 evidence of the senses to establish your theory of the things 
 " on high " or of the interior of the earth ; anything you 
 say on these matters rests on " postulation." So § 13 
 begins eiri Be r&v rbv kclivov rporrov rr)v rkyyiyv tyjrevv- 
 rmv if; virodeaios rbv Xoyov etraveXQelv ftovXofiai • el 
 yap ri ecrrtv 8epp,bv r) •tyvypbv rj tfr/pov r) vypov ro 
 Xvp,cuvop,evov rbv avOpairov ktX. That is, his " innovating 
 opponents" are the school who lay it down as a principle 
 in physics that the human body and all others consist of 
 four primary elements, each with its own peculiar quiddity, 
 and that all disease is caused by excess or defect of one or 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 77 
 
 more of these four (the physicians who build on the theories 
 of Empedocles). They are»said to study their art ef 
 virodeaem, because they take the doctrine of the four 
 " roots of things " as an axiom or postulate ; they " take it 
 for grauted " that every disease can be traced back to one 
 of these four. But the writer asserts that such a theory 
 would be useless in medical practice. § 15 airopeco 8' 
 eycoye, ol rbv \6yov iiceivov \eyovTe<; KaX ayovTes etc 
 TavT7j<; t?}? 6Sov iirl viroOeaiv ttjv re^vqv riva Trore rpoirov 
 Qepwrrevovai tow avdpamovs watrep v7TOTi0evTai. ov 
 yap ianv clvtoIs, olfiai, efy\vpi}p.kvov aino rt e'<£ kmvTov 
 deppiov r) tyvxpov rj fJT/pbv rj vypbv fiijSevi aWoot eiBei 
 Koivmveov. That is, "As for those who maintain that 
 theory and in this way bring their profession into accord 
 with a physical assumption, I wonder how they manage to 
 treat their patients in accord with their postulate. For I 
 am sure they have never discovered anything which is 
 merely hot or merely cold, or dry or moist, and has nothing 
 in common with any other element." For, as he goes on 
 to explain, all the remedies exhibited in practice show the 
 supposed specific characters of the " elements " in combina- 
 tion, not in isolation. It is worth noting that in this single 
 sentence we find all the leading terms of the so-called 
 " Ideal Theory " already in use as words of art. There is 
 virodeaw in the sense of a postulate, avrb i<p' etovrov 
 meaning "in isolation," Koivmveov meaning "in combina- 
 tion," etSo?, in a sense only one remove from Plato's, as an 
 " elementary body," a " thing-in-itself." Hence I commend 
 the passage and the whole booklet to the special study of 
 those who think that Plato is guilty of an anachronism in 
 making Socrates argue with Parmenides and Zeno about 
 avra icaO' aira eiSr; and fiede^K, or expound the nature of 
 his own viroffea-is, or fundamental philosophical assumption, 
 to Cebes and Simmias. 
 
 I may subjoin just one single example from the Hippo- 
 cratean . corpus of the kind of use of vTroffea-eii, general 
 postulates of a science of nature, to which the writer of the 
 •n-epl ap%al,ri<; ir)TpiK^<s so properly objected. The writer of 
 
78 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the irepl (j>vo-&v begins his work with just such a general 
 postulate as his wiser colleague had protested against. His 
 theory is that all diseases have one single cause — an undue 
 aggregation of air in the cavities of the body, all other 
 conditions being merely concomitant causes (avvalria, a 
 " Socratic " word, and fieraina). After propounding a 
 series of unproved assertions as to the particular way in 
 which each special disease is set up by some peculiar 
 accumulation of air, he concludes triumphantly, ijyayov Be 
 tov \oyov eirl to yvcopia/ia Kai rmv voerrjfiaTCOv Kai rmv 
 appajaTij/Aaroov ev olcriv aKrj9r)<; VTrodecris (? ev dlaw 
 aki)Qi)<; f) viroQeaii) efyavi) (Kiihn i. p. 586). Precisely 
 similar are Aristotle's iroKneiai eg virodeaeax;, which are 
 not, of course, " hypothetical constitutions," but constitutions 
 in which some fundamental postulate must be carefully 
 observed. 
 
 Further, the friends of Socrates in the Phaedo are 
 perfectly familiar with the use of eTra/criKol \6yot,, and 
 regard them as an inferior, and often deceptive, method of 
 inference. In particular they insist vehemently that the 
 immortality of the soul is not to be recommended to them 
 by an argument " from sensible analogies," but by rigid 
 demonstration (aTroBetfjv;) from a postulate they can agree to 
 accept. Thus at 92 d Simmias is called on to make his 
 choice between the doctrine that "learning is recollecting" 
 and the theory that the soul is the " attunement " of the 
 body, and at once prefers to adhere to the former because 
 oBe fiev yap fiou yeyovev avev aTroBei^eax; fiera. et/eoro? 
 Tivof Kai einrpeirelas, odev Kai to£? 7ro\\ot? BoKel av- 
 0pcoTrov<; • iycb Bk rois Bia, raiv euKOTtov tA? airoBei^ei,<s 
 Troiovfiivois XoyoK crvvoiBa oSaiv aXa^ocriv . . , 6 Be irepl 
 TJJ5 avafwrjaeca ical fiad^a-e(o<; \6yoi oV wiroBeaewi a£ia? 
 aTroBeljaa&ai elprjTai. So the method recommended by 
 Socrates as his own, when we come to it (100 b ff.), has 
 nothing inductive about it. It consists in starting with 
 what seems to you the soundest postulate and rigidly 
 deducing consequences from it. The postulate itself you 
 leave untouched unless some one refuses to admit it ; in that 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 79 
 
 case, you have, if you can, to deduce it from something still 
 more primitive, until you come 4o inavov ti, some postulate 
 which satisfies both your antagonist and yourself (101 d). 
 It is thus not induction, argument from example, but the 
 •' geometrical method " of Descartes and Spinoza, which 
 Plato represents Socrates as introducing into philosophy as 
 the one satisfactory method of procedure. His argument 
 for immortality satisfies his hearers precisely because the 
 conclusion does not rest on parallels and analogies, but is 
 rigidly deduced from the doctrine that there are e'iSrj, exact 
 scientific concepts, and that the soul has knowledge of them, 
 and for Simmias and the rest this doctrine is an virodeais 
 afjla airoSeljao-dai. Hence they need to pursue the inquiry 
 no further. 
 
 When we turn to Xenophon we find the accuracy of 
 Plato's account curiously confirmed. He has nothing much 
 to say about the logical method of his master, but he knows 
 that iir6decri<; and (MroSetfts are the important features in 
 it, and brings them together in a way which is all the more 
 valuable as evidence because the triviality of his illustration 
 shows that he is not inventing but repeating what he 
 scarcely half understands. Eor he says (Mem. iv. 6. 13) 
 that if Socrates were contradicted by a person /MrjBev evwv 
 a-a<f>e<s \eyetv, aXlC avev airoBeil-ea)? j/jroi a-CHpebrepov AdcrKwv 
 €ivai bv avrbs \eyoi, rj iroTuTiicdaTepov rj dvSpeiorepov rj 
 aWo ti t&v toiovtwv, iirl rr)v inroOeaiv eiravrjyev av irdvra 
 tov \6yov. Thus Xenophon knows that one was not 
 expected to speak in Socratic circles avev avroSeigeaxi ; the 
 proper thing was to be prepared with an avoBeigi? of your 
 position. If you had none, Socrates used to bring the 
 problem back (? has eTravfjyev av anything to do with 
 eTrdyeadai) to the assumption which underlay it. In 
 Xenophon's own trivial example, where Socrates and another 
 speaker are supposed to be discussing which of two persons 
 is the more efficient citizen, this assumption is some un- 
 defined conception as to the "work" of a good citizen. 
 Unless the disputants are agreed what ought to be expected 
 of a good citizen, clearly it is useless to ask whether A is a 
 
80 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 better citizen than B. Socrates' reduction of the dispute 
 to its vTr68eai,<; thus takes the form of raising this issue 
 explicitly, n ovv ovk eiceivo irp&rov eireaice-ty-aiieOa, ri eanv 
 epyov wyaOov ttoKLtov ; 
 
 Of course I am aware that there are plenty of 
 " arguments from example " put into the mouth of Socrates 
 both in Plato and in Xenophon, and that his fondness for 
 homely illustrations from the trades and professions was 
 proverbial. But my point is simply that this trait, how- 
 ever interesting as a touch of personal %6o<;, is of no serious 
 philosophical significance. The " argument from example " 
 could necessarily only play a subordinate part in the 
 " Socratic method." It cannot of itself establish a general 
 truth at all, but comes in, at best, as iiraywyi] does in 
 Aristotle's own theory, as a means of making a proposition 
 already found by diroSei^it or assumed as an v-jr68e<ri<; in 
 the mind of Socrates himself more easily apprehensible to 
 an auditor. And so we find in Plato that the " arguments 
 from example," though often sufficient to disprove the 
 theories of an antagonist, are never put forward by Socrates 
 as proof of his own convictions. When he is dealing with 
 brothers in philosophy like Simmias and Cebes, we hear no 
 more of these analogies ; airohei^ from an virodeaif is 
 expected, and Socrates does his best to provide it. 
 
 Turning back now to the statements of Aristotle, we 
 may, I think, urge with the more force for our brief 
 digression the following points. Though Aristotle lays 
 hold of the telling use of illustration (irapa^oXij, iiraKTiKoi 
 \6joi) as characteristic of Socrates, he is never so absurd as 
 to ascribe its invention to him, and it is not even clear that 
 when he speaks of ra %a>icpaTtKa, in the Rhetoric, as coming 
 under the head of TrapafSo'kri, he is not referring primarily 
 to the pithy comparisons put into the philosopher's mouth 
 by Plato and the other writers of Socratic discourses. The 
 mere statement that Socrates made use of iiraicTiKol \oyot. 
 in discussing definitions reads like, and probably is, a 
 remark suggested by the study of the dialogues themselves. 
 Aristotle says nothing to indicate that he connected the 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 81 
 
 employment of iircvyooytf in any way with the trait he has 
 in mind in stating that Socrates ov ^capiffra iiroiei to. 
 kclOoXov, or that he looked upon the process of aTrdSetft? 
 from an V7r60eat<i as un-Socratic. 
 
 The connection of the two pieces of information is 
 entirely due to the ingenuity of modern expositors, whose 
 views are discounted for us by the fact that they have 
 usually started with the assumption that Plato's account 
 of Socrates is purely imaginative, and have never thought of 
 submitting their theory to a serious test. Seeing, then, that 
 the current view of what Aristotle meant by the distinction 
 between Socrates and the persons " who first said that there 
 are ei&r} " seems to lead into an impasse, it is worth while to 
 set it aside at least for the purpose of an experiment. If 
 we assume that Plato himself is the real source of this state- 
 ment, as he appears to be of everything else which Aristotle 
 professes to know about the views of Socrates, and that the 
 latter leaves the nature of the %a>pio-fi6<; which Socrates avoided 
 unexplained, as we suggested that he omitted all account of 
 the positive views of Socrates about rb alriov from Meta- 
 physics A, because his hearers were expected to know as 
 much as he did himself from their reading of the Platonic 
 dialogues, is there anything in Plato which, if we suppose 
 Aristotle to be referring to it, would at once explain the 
 whole mystery ? I answer that there is such a passage, 
 and that it makes the business so simple that I believe the 
 reference would long ago have been universally recognised, 
 but for the inveterate prejudice of the nineteenth century 
 against believing in the accuracy of Plato's account of facts. 
 The whole point becomes clear if we see that what Aristotle 
 has in mind is the difference between the view ascribed to 
 Socrates by Plato, and that which he assigns to the el8&v 
 <j>lXoi of the Sophistes. These latter persons are represented 
 as asserting a kind of ^cupta/io? between the e'187) and 
 sensible things quite unlike any doctrine ever ascribed to 
 Socrates. It is, of course, true that Plato's Socrates is 
 frequently made to use the expressions ^to/si?, avro icaO' avro 
 of an elSov or concept, as distinct from the sensible things 
 
 G 
 
82 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 which receive the same name, to 'laov is neither wood nor 
 stone nor any such thing aWa irapa ravra iravra erepov 
 Tt, aiiTo to taov, and the same is true of «wto to koXov, 
 ai>To to a<ya06v, avrb to hliccuov, avrb to oaiov, and all the 
 things on which "we" set the stamp of o eo-Tt (Phaedo 
 75 d). It is our cardinal vir66eai<s that each of these is 
 something avrb Kaff avro (100 c). There is an aiiTr) 
 o/iotoTij? %<»/>'? ^9 rifiels ofLotoTrjTO'i e%p/iev (^Parmenides 
 130 b), an avdpdoirov eZSos %to/»t? tj/jl&v ical t&v olot ^/*et? 
 io-fiev trdvTdtv (ib. c), and the like. The multiplication of 
 passages to prove the point would be superfluous. But the 
 use of the corresponding phrase auTo &$ ecovTov in the 
 irepl apxairj'i lr)TpiKr}<} should suggest to us that these 
 expressions have a very harmless sense. They merely 
 mean that " man " or " humanity " is not the same thing as 
 a man, or equality as a pair of equal things, or justice as 
 a just act. Where there is a significant class-name, there 
 is a common nature corresponding to the name, and the 
 common nature is not identical with any one of the things 
 which possess it. That the common nature should be 
 possessed by these things does not in any way prevent it 
 being itself " distinct " from each and all of them. That 
 the members of a class do possess a common nature, and 
 that it is their common relation to it, called variously 
 fiidefji<;, Trapovo-la, xoivrnvia, which makes the corresponding 
 adjective predicable of them, is what Socrates all along 
 asserts with the utmost conviction. Even when, under the 
 pressure of the Eleatic dialectic, he finds it beyond him to 
 specify what the precise logical character of this relation of 
 the members of a class to the intension of the class-name is, 
 he never thinks of renouncing his belief in its reality. The 
 worst strait to which Parmenides can reduce him is merely 
 the admission tI aXXo Set £r)Teiv &i fieTaXafi^dvei. But 
 it would be possible to hold a much more radical theory of 
 " separation," and there were, according to Plato, persons 
 who did hold it. On the " Socratic " theory, as expounded 
 by Plato, true universal propositions, " science " in the full 
 sense of the word, would only be possible with reference to 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCEATES 83 
 
 e'&T), since the things perceived by our senses are "always 
 changing " ; they do not permanently " partake of " the 
 same elSoi once and for all ; they " are " not, they only 
 "become." To put the point in the language of Plato's 
 mathematical physics, the elementary triangles of which a 
 material particle is constructed can never be safely assumed 
 to be geometrically perfect, since their edges get worn off 
 and their corners rounded down, so that where mathematical 
 theory assumes that you have a perfect Sphere or tetra- 
 hedron, in physical fact you may be dealing with a spheroid 
 or a merely approximate pyramid, the precise geometrical 
 determination of which is impossible. And further, the 
 triangles are constantly being dissolved and reformed in 
 different groupings, so that even while you speak of a 
 corpuscle as a tetrahedron, it may be turning into a sphere, 
 and so on. But you can at least have " true opinion " ; 
 the approximation of sensible fact to the ideal geometrical 
 scheme may, at a given moment, be so close that your 
 judgment, though it is not " science," because it is affected 
 by an amount of error which is not exactly known, is truer 
 than any other which could be passed upon the same facts, 
 and may, for purposes of practice, be taken as equivalent to 
 truth. But it would be possible to hold that there is no 
 relation whatever between science and sensible fact ; that 
 sensible facts are just a region in which no correspondence, 
 not even an approximate one, can be found with the 
 relations between pure concepts which form the object- 
 matter of the ftaOrffiara. From such a point of view 
 sensation would have no cognitive value whatever ; it would 
 be, in modern phrase, a mere complex of motor reactions on 
 stimulus, or, in Platonic language, there would be etStj, but 
 there would be no relation of /iide^ti between them and 
 "the things we perceive with our senses." There would 
 be " science," and its contents would extend just as far as 
 the Pythagorean arithmetic did, but there would be no 
 " true opinion." Now this is precisely the view ascribed in 
 the Sophistes to the unnamed elB&v </u\ot whose doctrine 
 has to be refuted before the possibility of genuine 
 
84 VAKIA SOCRATICA 
 
 "synthetic" propositions can be established. What they 
 assert (Sophistes 248 a) is that there is an absolute severance 
 between ye"ve<n<i (process, fact) and ovtrta. We " share in 
 process with our body through sensation but in real being 
 with our soul by means of calculation " (<ra>fuiTi fiev f]fia<i 
 yeviaei oV at'cr^crew? KOivcoveZv, Bia Xoyicrfiov Be yfrvxfji 
 •n-pb<: rrjv ovrm ovalav), and the meaning of " sharing in " 
 is explained immediately below to be, acting or being 
 acted on (jradtifia r) iroirjfia iic Swd[ieeb<; rivo<; airo t&v 
 Trpbi aWrfka awiovrmv yiyvofievov, where every word is 
 significant, "a condition of being affected by or affecting 
 something else which occurs as the result of an activity in 
 things which are coming into relation with one another"). 
 The view of these unnamed persons is then clearly that 
 perception is not a cognitive process at all ; it is merely 
 having your body affected in various ways by interaction 
 with other bodies (and no reference is made to Soga as a 
 psychical result of such interrelation). Knowledge, on the 
 other hand, if the theory were thought out in terms of 
 modern philosophical systems, would have to be described! 
 as a relation which simply and always subsists between the 
 soul and the eiSrj which are its objects, a simple " aware- 
 ness " of eternally subsisting relations ; or, as Mr. Bertrand 
 Kussell has put it, the relation of knower to known would 
 have the peculiarity that one of its terms is nothing but 
 the awareness of the relation between the terms. Hence 
 Plato can refute these el8a>v <pi\oi by the simple argument 
 that " to come to know " a thing, or " to become known " i& 
 itself a form of process, and that their theory, pushed to its- 
 consequences, should lead to the view that knowledge is as 
 impossible as Sofa. The fact that this very same argument 
 appears in the Parmenides as one from which you cannot 
 escape, unless you can produce a logically unexceptional 
 account of the relation of /*e0eft?, shows that we are dealing 
 there with the same type of doctrine, and that the attack of 
 the Eleatic philosophers on the youthful Socrates is meant 
 to embody objections to the doctrine of /iide^i<!, and the 
 consequent recognition of the cognitive worth of " opinion,'* 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 85 
 
 ■which originated with the same school of thinkers 
 (Parmenides 133 b ff.). Tift question then arises who 
 these thinkers may have been. It is often held that they 
 represent some development posterior to the age of Socrates, 
 some school who were busy in attacking the Platonic 
 doctrine in Plato's middle and later life, and I should agree 
 •with the view so far as to admit that Plato's special occupa- 
 tion with them in the Parmenides and Sophistes, as well as 
 his anxiety in the closely connected Theaetetus to give the 
 fullest possible recognition to the claims of 6p0^ Boga avev 
 e i 7ria-T^fir]<;, does show that the issue was a live one about 
 the year 359, the most probable approximate date for the 
 composition of these dialogues. For reasons into which I 
 need not go fully here, I should be inclined to identify the 
 actual opponents whom Plato has specially in mind with 
 the circle connected with Polyxenus and the mathematician 
 Bryson ; but I do not wish to argue the question in this 
 connection. I may, however, point out that we may probably 
 exclude from consideration the identification of the persons 
 criticized with either (1) Plato himself, as represented by 
 his earlier writings, (2) disciples of Plato who had failed to 
 apprehend him correctly, (3) Antisthenes. The extreme 
 rationalism of the el85>v fyiXoi, with its complete rejection of 
 opdr) 861-a as a means of information about the sensible 
 world, is entirely unlike anything which can be found any- 
 where in Plato ; and all that we know of his immediate 
 followers seems to show that their tendency was to extend 
 rather than to narrow the sphere in which Sofa is per- 
 missible. 1 And, so far as Antisthenes 2 is concerned, there 
 
 . 1 Compare what we are told by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. mathematicos, vii. 
 145) about Speusippus' doctrine ol tinarqp.ovi.KT) at<rdri<ns, and (vii. 147) about 
 the views of Xenocrates on 8b%a. 
 
 ' 2 I can see nothing in the accidental prosodical correspondence between 
 o\f<ifia0ris and ' A.vnaBivi\s to warrant the view that the words tok t« vtou nal 
 r&v yepbvTuw rots 6\//ifm0i<n Bdvr\v irape<riiev&Ka/Ki> (Soph. 251 b) contain a. 
 personal allusion. The reference would be impossible if Antisthenes were 
 dead when the dialogue was written (which is at least probable), and Plato 
 has avoided allowing the allusion to be felt both by inserting the riot, and 
 ohoosing a form of S\j/i/ia0^s, the dative plural, which has no metrically 
 equivalent case in the declension of 'Avrur8hris. Similarly the supposed 
 
86 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 is really no evidence at all on which to attribute to him an 
 elaborate theory of knowledge such as Plato ascribes to the 
 elS&v faXoi. The persons whom Plato describes as attack- 
 ing the " giants " fiaXa ev\a/3m avwOev it; aopdrov 
 nroQkv, and as easier to convince because they are rjpepm- 
 repot, ought never to have been confused with the airal- 
 Bevroi of Aristotle; they are manifestly a body of subtle 
 dialecticians. Moreover, on any one of these three supposi- 
 tions it would be hard to explain the prominence given 
 to Parmenides and the Eleatic following in general in 
 connection with their criticisms. Why should the 
 refutation of Plato himself, or of some followers of Plato 
 unknown to history, or of Antisthenes, be dangerously like 
 laying unfilial hands on " father Parmenides " ? 
 
 Still it does not follow that because Plato's ultimate 
 object is to meet the attacks of a set of thinkers who were 
 flourishing forty years after the death of Socrates, there 
 were no representatives of the view in question in Socrates' 
 own time ; and if we read the Sophistes carefully we may 
 perhaps find out something about them. From 248 b we 
 learn that Theaetetus, who is assumed to be a peipaiciov 
 (Theaetetus 142 c) at the time of the conversation, which 
 was held in 399 just before the trial of Socrates (ib. 210 d), 
 might probably not have sufficient acquaintance with the 
 
 reference to Aristippus at Philebus 67 b (oiS' &v 01 ir&vTes /3Aes tc ko.1 tiriroi kclI 
 tSXXo aiinravTO, dr/pla 0<2<r() is purely fanciful, since the doctrine attacked is 
 shown by the allusions of Aristotle to be that of Eudoxus, and Aristippus as 
 the head of a school seems to be a creation of the moderns. In the ancient 
 world the " Cyrenaics " seem to have been unknown as a, sect before the 
 younger Aristippus. Plutarch expressly distinguishes them as contemporaries 
 of Epicurus from his predecessors, who include not only Plato and Aristotle, 
 but Theophrastus and Stilpo (Adversus Oolotem 1120 c, and compare Eusebius, 
 P.E. xiv. 31). Note how differently Plato proceeds in the myth of Er, 
 where he plainly does mean "Ardiaeus" the Great to be a disguise for 
 Archelaus. The names correspond in their first syllable, and very closely in 
 their vocalisation, and the careers are made to correspond almost as carefully 
 as the names. He makes the identification so obvious that the average 
 reader can hardly miss it, not so obscure that it takes a German professor to 
 discover it. 
 
 1 Contrast the well-known anecdote of Antisthenes' objection to Plato, 
 Itttrov /iiv opw, Iwirbrtira. 5' oiSk bpGi. 
 
THE AEISTOTELIAN SOCRATES 87 
 
 persons in question to know how they would meet criticism 
 of their views, but the Eleatic»stranger can answer definitely 
 for them on the ground of his personal knowledge of them, 
 Sia <ivvr\Qeiav. Now this stranger has already been 
 introduced as a member of the school of Parmenides and 
 Zeno {eratpov t&v d/j,(f>l Hap/ieviBrfv ical Zrjvcova [iraipeov], 
 Sophistes 216 a), but not sharing in the undue tendency of 
 many of the school to "eristic." It seems to be meant 
 that he is an actual disciple of Zeno or Parmenides or 
 both, a thing which the data of the Parmenides show to be 
 chronologically possible, and which is also suggested by 
 the extreme personal reverence he feels for "his father 
 Parmenides." 1 Where he comes from we are not told, 
 though we learn that his family was native in Elea, and 
 that (see note below) he had lived there as a boy. Thus 
 Plato definitely assumes the existence, in the latter days 
 of Socrates, of a school, apparently deriving from that of 
 Parmenides, who maintained that all knowledge is know- 
 ledge of vorjTcb icaX aaw/iara eiSrj which are eternal and 
 unchanging, and that all sensible existence is mere yive<n<; 
 of which we have no knowledge at all. In holding this 
 view the school were, of course, following in the steps of 
 Parmenides himself, who roundly asserts more than once 
 that " there is no truth " in the Soljai fipor&v, though they 
 have advanced upon him by substituting " bodiless forms " 
 and their relations with one another for the spherical 
 " One " as the object of knowledge (i.e. they are pretty 
 definitely a school of mathematicians, half-Pythagorean and 
 half-Eleatic). The reader will see at once to what all this 
 points. That there was a group of such half-Parmenidean 
 thinkers at Megara, for one place, in the year of Socrates' 
 death, and that two of them, Euclides and Terpsion, were 
 among the intimates of Socrates is certain, and is, in fact, 
 about all we know of the so-called " Megarian " school 
 before the time of Polyxenus, Bryson and Helicon, who 
 
 1 Actual discipleship of Parmenides seems to be implied at 237 a Uap/ievldrit 
 Si A /W711S, ffl wai, iruuriv ri/uv aHmv &pxbp*v6s re /ecu Sii. tAoi/s tovto dxe- 
 HaprApcro, irefSji re CbiSe (i.e. in conversation) iKiaTore V7W1/ koI nera fUrpuv. 
 
88 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 figure in Plato's correspondence, and the first of whom, 
 according to a well-known passage in Alexander's com- 
 mentary on the Metaphysics, achieved a name as a critic of 
 Platonism. It is the fact that these ultra-rationalists were 
 historically descended from Eleaticism which explains why 
 they cannot be answered in the SopMstes without a critical 
 examination of Parmenides himself, and why their point of 
 view, when Plato wants to express it in the most forcible 
 way, is put into the mouths of Parmenides and Zeno in 
 person. 
 
 We may now finally state our suggested interpretation 
 of the passage we have been discussing. Its source is the 
 account of the elB&v (pl\oi in the Sophistes, with perhaps 
 the addition of the opening pages of the Parmenides. The 
 Socrates of the sentence is, of course, the "real" Socrates, 
 but he is the " real Socrates " as known to Aristotle from 
 the whole series of dialogues in which the doctrine of 
 fieOefys is propounded. That he ov j^wpiaTa eiroiei ra 
 KaOokov means that throughout Plato's dialogues, from the 
 first to the last, he insisted on that positive relation of 
 sensible facts to supra -sensible concepts which makes 
 "right belief" about matters of experience possible, and 
 permits at any rate of an approximate cosmology; those 
 who "first said these are IBeai" are the unnamed elB&v 
 <j)i\oi of the Sophistes, who are in fact discriminated from 
 Plato by Aristotle on the ground that they did not hold 
 his view that these e'iSr) are " numbers " ; (it would be 
 interesting to know whether this is a fact, or whether, what 
 is at least as likely, Aristotle merely inferred it from the 
 absence of any reference to the doctrine in the Sophistes ;) 
 the ol B' i%d>pi<rav means precisely what Plato means when 
 he speaks of the absolute gulf set up by the elBcov <f>L\oi 
 between the yevecri<; with which we have communion through 
 our body in sensation, and the unchanging relations of the 
 bodiless e'lBrj which are the sole objects of knowledge. 
 The distinction is thus not made between Plato and 
 Socrates, but between two parties both known to Aristotle 
 from the pages of Plato, Socrates on the one side and the 
 
THE AKISTOTELIAN SOCKATES 89 
 
 " friends of eiBrj " who were personally intimate with the 
 unnamed "stranger from Ele«" on the other. Aristotle, 
 indeed, held that Plato had laid himself open to the same 
 criticism as these elSStv <f»iXoi because he had never succeeded 
 in giving anything more than a metaphorical account of 
 the all-important relation of /iefleft?, but this does not alter 
 the fact that his observation is meant in the first place to 
 refer to Socrates as he appears in the pages of Plato, and 
 asserts nothing which was not included in the Platonic 
 tradition. 
 
 I conclude, then, that there is no evidence that Aristotle's 
 statements about the views of Socrates rest on any authority 
 except the tradition created for the Academy by the Platonic 
 dialogues, and that, if he is allowed to count as a witness 
 to anything, it must be to the absence in the latter half of 
 the fourth century of any view of Socrates other than that 
 presented by Plato. We have therefore a right to claim 
 his testimony, such as it is, in favour of the view that 
 Plato's dramatic portraiture of Socrates is, in all essentials, 
 thoroughly historical. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 I hope it will not be ascribed to disrespect that I have made no 
 reference in the text of my essay to Professor By water's recent remarks 
 on SojKpaTTjs and 6 Scok/jottjs in his commentary on the Poetics (note 
 on 1454 a 30). With regard to use of the article in the Rhetoric and 
 Poetics I must leave the examples cited in the text to speak for them- 
 selves, especially as Professor Bywater does not apparently take into 
 account the varying usage with other names of historical persons, and 
 it seems idle to me to attempt to lay down any rule until this has 
 been examined. His statement that in the Politics 6 2wk/0(£tijs "is 
 regularly used for the Socrates in Plato's dialogues," seems to me to 
 involve a petitio principii until it has been shown independently that 
 Aristotle consciously distinguished this " Socrates " from the historical 
 Socrates. The only way to show this would be to prove that Aristotle 
 attributes to Socrates views which are inconsistent with those ascribed 
 by Plato to " Socrates." I have tried to argue that this is so far 
 from being the case that every view ascribed by Aristotle to Socrates 
 comes straight out of the mouth of "Socrates." If my contention has 
 been made out, the whole theory that Aristotle made a distinction 
 
90 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 between the two Socrates falls to the ground, since 2wk/x£ti/s will 
 mean both Plato's Socrates and the real Socrates. So will the remark 
 that the o 'Apio-To^avqi of Pol. B 1262 b 11 " means the Aristophanes 
 in Plato's Symposium." It is true, of course, that Aristotle is quoting 
 from the Symposium, but the fact is of no moment unless you can prove 
 that he is intentionally discriminating between the character who 
 speaks there and the author of the comedies, and there is nothing in 
 his text which throws any light on the point. He may have held 
 that Plato simply invented the speech, or he may have held that such 
 a gathering as that described by Plato took place (which is likely 
 enough), and that Aristophanes really said something like the remark 
 ascribed to him by Plato. And here, again, it may be the case that 
 * Plato is partly building up his speech out of real fragments of Aristo- 
 phanes' table talk, or it may not. We have no means of deciding 
 such a question. I, for one, should certainly not have felt justified 
 in assuming that Aristophanes did actually make this special remark 
 if Aristotle had happened to attribute it to 'Apurro(pavr)s without the 
 article. So if a modern writer spoke of " Wolsey's advice to Cromwell 
 to shun ambition," it would be dangerous to assume that he consciously 
 meant to assert that the advice was actually given, merely because he 
 did not explicitly say. " Wolsey's advice in Henry VIII." Per contra, 
 if I say " Brutus in Shakespeare does so and so," I am not necessarily 
 to be understood as implying that it is only in Shakespeare that Brutus 
 does the act. 
 
Ill 
 
 The diccoi Xoroi 
 
 There are several passages in Plato which show us that the 
 type of the contentious epio-nKoi of whom Aristotle had so 
 bad an opinion, was, or was assumed by Plato to be, in 
 existence before the death of Socrates, and that the opinion 
 that the " eristic men " of whom we hear both in Aristotle 
 and in the later dialogues of Plato are Megarians or Cynics 
 contemporary with Plato's manhood, who owed their 
 existence to the popularity of Socrates' own particular art 
 of " dialectic," must be correspondingly modified. Thus in 
 the Phaedo, when Socrates utters his warning against 
 fuaoXoyia, he observes that it is precisely those who have 
 been most occupied in the construction of antinomies who 
 are most in danger of ending as sceptics and misologists. 
 Kal fiakMTTa Srj ol irepl tow? avn\oyiKoi><s Xoyov<s Sia- 
 Tpiyjravrei ol<T0' on TeKevrtovres o'iovrai o-OfpwraTOi yeyo- 
 vivai Kal KaravevorjKevai fiovoi on oiire t&v irpayp,ar(ov 
 ovBevb<; ovSev vytes oiire fteftaiov ovre t&v \6y<ov, aWa. 
 irdvTa \ovtcl\ dre^i/w? mawep ev Hjipiircoi avw Kara 
 o~Tpe<peTai Kal %povov oiiBeva ev ovSevl fievei (90 c). And 
 he goes on immediately to say that his own attitude 
 towards the Xoyo? of the immortality of the soul, which 
 seems at the moment to be endangered by the criticisms of 
 Simmias and Cebes, differs in one little point from that of 
 an avriXoyiKof ; his concern is not to talk for victory, but 
 to arrive at truth, Kal eyeb fioi. Sokco ev r&i irapovn 
 too-ovtov fiovov eKeivtov Sioiffetv ' ov yap 07rw? rot? 
 •jrapovo-iv a eyw Xeym So^ei akTjOfj elvai wpodufAiyo-opMi, 
 
 91 
 
92 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 el fir) el'77 irdpepyov, d\X' 6Vg>? avT&i ifiol oti fiaXitrra 
 Bo£et ovtcos e%eiv (91 a). It is obvious that constructors 
 of dvriXoyiKol \6yoi, antinomies, which aim merely at 
 victory, are here alluded to as a well-known contemporary 
 class, and that it would be absurd to suppose that Socrates 
 means his allusion to touch two friends who are both, 
 according to the dialogue, among the audience, Euclides 
 and Antisthenes. avriXoyla then, Plato assumes, is a well- 
 known trick in the age of Socrates, and certainly does not 
 originate in a perversion of the Socratic elenchus by 
 Euclides or Antisthenes. We meet the same set of persons 
 again at the opening of the Sophistes, where we are told of 
 the stranger from Elea that " his family is of Elea, and 
 he is an associate of Parmenides and Zeno, but a very 
 genuine philosopher " (fidXa Be dvBpa fyCKoaofyov). The 
 very expression singularly reminds us of Boswell's " Mr. 
 Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot 
 help it," and distinctly suggests that you would not immedi- 
 ately suppose that a person of the antecedents specified 
 was fidXa </>t\oo-o<£os unless you were expressly told so. 1 
 "What you would expect may be gathered from the following 
 sentences. Socrates is afraid that a pupil of Zeno will 
 prove a " very devil in logic-chopping " (#eo? mv ti$ 
 iXeyKTiKov) far above the level of the present company, until 
 Theodorus reassures him by the information that the new- 
 comer is more reasonable to deal with than the enthusiasts 
 for controversy (/ieTpic!>Tepo<s t&v Trepl rks epiBa<s eairovBa- 
 icoreov, 216 b). Plato thus definitely connects the rise of 
 Eristic not with the elenchus of Socrates but with the 
 antinomies of Zeno. It is in the same spirit that he speaks 
 of Zeno in the well-known passage, Phaedrus 261 d, as the 
 " Yea-and-Nay of Elea " (top 'EXeartKoi/ TIaXafjLrjBrjv, where 
 the commentators should point out that the jest lies in a 
 hinted derivation of the name from irdXvv and firjBop,ai 2 ), 
 
 1 When we remember that the speaker is one of Iamblichus's Pythagoreans, 
 we see what this means. The stranger is a <j>t\6trotpos in the sense of the 
 Gorgias and Phaedo, a follower of the ' ' narrow way that leadeth unto life. " 
 
 a It is exactly the same thing which Timon of Phlius expressed less neatly 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOl 93 
 
 and Aristotle was only repeating what was evidently the 
 Academic school tradition when he said that Zeno was the 
 originator of Dialectic. As every one knows, Plato has 
 drawn a lively satiric picture of a couple of the irepl t«? 
 epi8a<s £<77rou8aKOT6? in his Euthydemus, and, as usual, the 
 attempt has been made to find the omnipresent Antisthenes 
 behind the satire. But if Plato is correct in assuming that 
 men of this sort were a recognised class before the end of 
 the fifth century, there is really no need to suspect the 
 presence of Antisthenes whenever one comes on the traces 
 of one of those wonderful dvri\oyiKoC who maintained oti 
 ovk eari -^revSij \eyeiv. It is fortunate, therefore, that we 
 should still possess a large portion of a work by an " Eristic " 
 which may be even earlier than the death of Socrates, and 
 from which we see that Plato's assumption as to the 
 comparatively early origin of the avriXoyiicol \6yoi is 
 historical. What I propose to do in the few pages which 
 follow is to show that we have in the 8i<r<rol \6yoi such a 
 specimen of early eristic which exhibits at once signs of 
 Eleatic origin and of considerable Socratic influence. I 
 hope by its aid also to throw a little additional light on 
 the famous exordium of Isocrates' Encomium of Helen. 
 
 There are two reasons why it seems worth while to look 
 for traces of Socratic thought, or ideas akin to Socraticism, 
 in the anonymous and fragmentary Bia-a-ol \6yoi, formerly 
 entitled by Stephanus, for no very obvious reason, Dialexeis. 1 
 The work is, in any case, that of a member of some 
 " philosophical " or " sophistic " circle contemporary with the 
 closing years of the life of Socrates. The date is indicated by 
 i. 8 (Diels, Vorsokratiker, 2 ii. 1. 636), where a TmvAa/ceScu- 
 fiovLwv vl/ca av iviatav ' 'Adrfvaltos ical to>? av/ifid'^o)'; is 
 referred to as the " most recent " (rd vecoTara) example 
 of a considerable war. The work was thus composed at 
 
 when he spoke of 
 
 i,luporepoy\d><r<rov re niya aBho% oiic aKairaSvbv 
 
 Zrftvijivos ir&VTtdv iTriX^irTopos. 
 1 I shall appeal throughout to the text given at the end of Diels's Frag- 
 ments der Vorsokratiker, 2 ii. 1. 
 
94 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the latest not long after 404, and possibly before the death 
 of Socrates, since the writer evidently knows nothing of the 
 expedition of Cyrus (401), nor of the war between Sparta 
 and Elis (399). Further, the dialect of Ihe work is 
 Dorian, and its special peculiarities are said (with how 
 much ground I do not feel competent to judge,) to point to 
 the Argolid or its neighbourhood (then why not Megara or 
 Phlius ?) as its origin. Since the author's method through- 
 out is the formal construction of antinomies, the facts strongly 
 suggest that we are dealing, as Diels says, not with an 
 epideixis by a wandering sophist, but with a formal lecture, 
 a Schuhortrag, delivered by a "professor" resident in a 
 Dorian-speaking town. 1 Whether the town were Megara 
 
 1 The suggestion that the work was composed in Cyprus seems to me un- 
 happy. Cyprus before Evagoras had established himself firmly at Salamis 
 does not seem a' likely place for " sophists," and the one reference to 
 Cyprus in the text makes, if anything, against rather than for the theory, 
 v. 5 ra yap tt)i5' ibvra iv rot Aiftvcu oiiK tariv, oiSi ye ra h tm Aiflvat iv 
 Ki'/irpwt. This is much as if one should say "What is here is not in Cape 
 Town, and what is in Cape Town is not in New York." A writer who was 
 actually in New York would hardly express himself thus, and the argument 
 gains by supposing that three places are considered, "here," "Libya," 
 "Cyprus," as you then get two distinct illustrations of the writer's point, 
 whereas if " here " is Cyprus, you only have one, the proposition " what is 
 in Libya is not in Cyprus " being then inferable, as a simple converse, from 
 "what is here is not in Libya." From vi. 8, where the existence of 
 ' Aval-ay ipeioi. Kal 1Iv8ay6pci.oi is given as an argument in favour of the view 
 that " wisdom and virtue can be taught, '\ we may perhaps infer that these 
 two schools of philosophy were those best known to the author. Argos, 
 Sicyon, Phlius are all well represented iu the list of Iamblichus. Cyprus, 
 I need hardly say, is not there. Neither is Megara, though Euclides and 
 his friends, from their connection with Parmenides, would probably have 
 been roughly put down by the generality as Pythagoreans of a sort. That 
 Polyclitus should be the only instance given of a rexvlrris who taught his 
 re)(yv to his son, tells perhaps in favour of Argos. The 'Axafo^peioi are 
 presumably those of Athens, of whom Archelaus was the head after the 
 banishment of Anaxagoras himself. They occur as a well-known sect in 
 Plato, Cratylus 409 b. Anaxagoras, in fact, would be, before the rise of the 
 'ZwKpaTucol, the latest example of a philosopher who had a regular band of 
 pupils called after his name at Athens. 
 
 (I may take this opportunity of observing that, though Plato speaks so 
 strongly in the Phaedo of the influence of Anaxagoras as decisive at the 
 critical moment of Socrates' early life, he always avoids saying anything 
 about any personal meeting between the two. The temptation to bring 
 ±hem_together, as he has brought Socrates into company with Parmenides, 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI 95 
 
 or Phlius or Sicyon or another is of no special moment. 
 The important point is simply *that it is a specimen of 
 the kind of reasoning which Plato and Aristotle ascribe to 
 the " eristics," and that it shows us what the kind of thing 
 which Plato has reproduced in a glorified form in the 
 Hypotheses of the Parmenides could sink to in the hands of a 
 thoroughly common-place practitioner of the art. One may 
 add, as minor personal touches, that the writer had read his 
 Herodotus, and seems, as we should expect, to have a special 
 familiarity with Euripides, from whom some of his examples, 
 which have been mostly noted by Diels, appear to be taken. 
 Thus the general conception that we are everywhere in 
 life confronted with a pair of Xoyot, each destructive of the 
 other, itself, as Blass notes, seems to allude to Euripides 
 Fr. 189 (from the Antiope) e/e TravTO? av t*9 irpwyfuiTos 
 Surcr&v \6ymv | cvycova deir av el \iyeiv eitj ao^of, and 
 this in turn to take us back to the well-known assertion 
 of Protagoras that " there are two sides to every case " (Bvo 
 \6yovs irepl 7ravT0<s 7rpdy/j,a,TO<;, avTi/ceifievow; aW^Xots). 
 Even the obvious illustration of the alleged identity of 
 KaXov and aiaj^pov, that it is koKov at Sparta, but alaypov 
 
 Zeno, Cratylus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, would 
 naturally have been so strong, and the assumption that Socrates never did 
 meet such a prominent figure of the Periclean circle is so apparently strange, 
 that I can only account for Plato's making it on the supposition that he 
 knew it to be a fact that Anaxagoras and Socrates, for some unexplained 
 reason, had not met. E.g. I cannot understand why he should represent 
 Socrates as only having learned the views of Anaxagoras about vovs from hearing 
 "some one" (no doubt Archelaus) read his book, when it would have been 
 so natural to describe him as hearing Anaxagoras expound the theory in person, 
 unless from pure regard to fact. This is only one of the curious little points 
 which constantly arise to perplex one who will not believe that Plato's veracity 
 about details has a. prima facie claim to be admitted until he has been found 
 falsifying them. Let me mention just one other, at the cost of a line or two 
 of irrelevance. There is no more pathetic touch in Plato than the fidelity with 
 which he clings to the memory of his kinsman Critias. Anyone who compares 
 his handling of Critias with his treatment of Alcibiades will see at once that 
 Plato has a personal kindness for the one which he never exhibits towards the 
 other. Of Critias he will say nothing but what can be said to his credit. 
 Yet he never yields to the temptation to give Critias anything like the place 
 of Alcibiades in the heart of his Socrates. For he knew the facts, and 
 Satov Trponjmv tjjk dXijfleiaK.) 
 
96 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 everywhere among Ionians for the girls to practise 
 " exercises," and to march about " with bare arms and no 
 shifts " (axeipi8a>Ta><; ical ayiT(ova<i irapepirev, ii. 9), may be a 
 poetical reminiscence of the violences of Euripides' Peleus, ovB' 
 av el fiovXoiro rt? | vaxppwv yevotro "ZirapTiaTihcov icopr\ | at 
 j-iiv veotcriv igeprj/iovcrai 86/movs | yv/ivoio-o firjpoi? koX 7T67r\ots 
 dveip,evoi<; | Spofjuovs TraXalarpas t ovk avatr^erov^ i/iol | 
 Koivas ayovtri, Andromache 595, especially since, as Diels 
 notes, we have directly below (ii. 11) the further instance 
 that the Thessalians think it a point of manhood to break 
 in a horse for yourself, and to know how to kill and cut 
 up an ox, whereas in Sicily this is alo-%p6v and work for 
 menials. The reference here seems plainly to be to 
 Euripides, Electro, 815 e/c t&v icakwv Kop.irovai roiai, ®ea- 
 <ra\oi? I elvat roS' oo"Tt? ravpov apra/iei ko\&<; I iirtrovi 
 t bxna^ei. Of the " older poets " he quotes Aeschylus 
 and Cleobuline. Any conjecture we may form as to the 
 ultimate purport of his discourse must necessarily be deferred 
 until we have examined its contents in some detail, as it 
 is mutilated at the end (and possibly at the beginning, as 
 it opens without any adequate prooemium). What we 
 possess of the work is an excellent example of the " two 
 arguments " which the " thinkers " in general are charged 
 by Aristophanes with keeping on their premises. It is 
 true, as we have said, that the possession of apjpoa to> \o7o> 
 was a common accusation against all the wits, and that it 
 is sometimes made a special charge against Protagoras. 
 But the real origin of the whole thing was, as far as we 
 can judge, Eleatic. It was the logical acumen of the " Yea- 
 and-Nay of Elea" which made this kind of reasoning 
 popular, and we have an excellent example of it in what we 
 know of the argumentation of Gorgias in his work irepl 
 tpvaew; r\ tov pJr) ovros, the Eleatic origin of which is 
 unmistakable. This is a further reason for referring the 
 Sitrtrol \6yoc to a school which drew its inspiration from 
 Elea ; and if we can find marks in the treatise of connection 
 with Socraticism, it becomes all the easier for us to under- 
 stand Aristophanes' ascription of the " two arguments " to 
 
THE AI2SOI AOrOI 97 
 
 him. That Aristophanes' burlesque was a mere unfounded 
 calumny is, in the nature of tHb case, most improbable. 
 
 I would further suggest that the work throws some 
 light on the exordium of Isocrates' Helena. Isocrates there 
 attacks three classes of triflers {Helena § 1) — (a) those who 
 maintain that it is impossible to speak falsely, or to 
 utter a contradiction or to " deliver two contradictory 
 discourses " (Bvo Xoyco avTeiirelv) about the same matter 
 {irepl rcov avr&v irpayfiaTcDv) ; (b) those who say that 
 " courage and wisdom and justice are one and the same," 
 and that we possess none of them tpva-ei, but that there is 
 •' one science of them all " ; (c) the " eristics " (dXkot, 8e -n-epl 
 ra<i epiSa? Starpiftovai, ; cf. Plato's irepl ra? e/»8a? iairov- 
 BaKores;). 1 It was at one time held (e.g. by Thompson in 
 his edition of the Phaedrus, p. 175 ff.) that the allusions 
 were to three eminent " Socratic men " — Antisthenes, 
 Plato, Euclides. The identification must, however, be 
 mistaken, at least as regards Plato, since Isocrates expressly 
 says that the persons to whom he is referring have " grown 
 grey" in the defence of their paradoxes. But, as Blass has 
 shown, the Helena must be one of the earliest works of 
 Isocrates, and belongs therefore to a time when Plato was 
 on the sunny side of forty; to which I would add that 
 if the Helena had been written when Plato was an elderly 
 man, it must be later in date than the Republic (which, as 
 
 1 JTor convenience' sake I quote the whole passage, Isocrates x. 1 elai 
 rives ot pAya (ppovovaiv 1)v iirbBeeiv &toxov Kal irapaSo^ov iroiijcrd/ievoi irepi 
 TaiiTTfS dpeKTws elweiv Svvqdiaffi. • Kal KarayeyripaKaffiv oi p£v ov <paoK0VTe? 
 oT6v t' elvai ^evSij Xtyetv ovS' dvnX^yeip, ovSe S6u \6yta irepi t&v avrutv irpay- 
 fjL&Ttiiv dvreLTeiVy ol Se 8tel;i6vTes tl>s dvSpla Kal ffotpla Kal SiKaioaCvrj Tavrbv ian, 
 teal 4>vaei pjkv ovSev auruv e'x o t i£v i /^ a & ^rtcm^/ttj Kad* atravrtav iariv dXXoe Se 
 irepl ras £piffas SiarpL^ovffi Tds ovSev fiev tiMpeXofoas, irpdy/xaTa Se irapdxeiv rdis- 
 T\r}<ri&fovffi Svvap^vas. 2 ^ycIj 5' el /lev etliptov vetatrrl tt\v vepiepylav ravTqv iv 
 rots \6yois iyyeyevrjp^VTjv Kal toGtovs iiri rrji Kaw&njri tQv evprjp.e'voiv <pi\orifiov- 
 jU&ovs, ovk av dfiotus iBatifiagov avrwv ' vvv Se rls itrrtv otirws dipifmd'fis [Plato- 
 then has not devised this epithet in the Sophistes to suggest the name 
 Antisthenes, but takeu it over from a much earlier work by a well-known con- 
 temporary], CHrris oiiK olSe HpwraySpav Kal *roi)s /car' iKeivov rbv xpbvov yevofitvow 
 (rtxpurras 6ti Kal TotaSra Kal iroXi irpay/iaruSiaTepa avyypap.fi.aTa KariKiwov 
 rnuv ; (The aorpiaraL contemporary with Protagoras are then identified in 
 the next section with Gorgias, Zeno, and Melissus.) 
 
 H 
 
98 VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 I may have an opportunity to argue elsewhere, was written 
 before 388/38 1 ?), and that the doctrine of the identity of 
 all the virtues could not have been ascribed to the author 
 of the Republic in this unqualified way, even in a hostile 
 caricature. We seem therefore forced to suppose that 
 Socrates himself, along perhaps with other members of the 
 Phaedo group, is one of the persons attacked by Isocrates, 
 and it is no reason for suspecting this identification to 
 urge that the tense of tearayeyTipdicaai implies that the 
 person intended must actually have been alive, since the 
 plural would naturally include not only Socrates but any 
 of his more elderly associates who continued to repeat his 
 doctrine. 1 Hence the other two classes of triflers, (b) and 
 (c), must be thought of also as belonging to the same time 
 as Socrates. This is completely in accord with Plato, who 
 represents the avriKoyiKoL as well known in the time of 
 Socrates (Phaedo 90 b, Sophistes 216b, Euthydermis passim), 
 and ascribes the doctrine on ovk eariv ^JrevSi] \eyeiv 
 not only to Euthydemus, but, in the Sophistes, to a class 
 assumed to be numerous at the supposed date of the conver- 
 sation. The Sio-o-ol Xoyoi, equally prove the existence of 
 such a class circa 400 B.C. ; and I think the language of 
 the Helena §§ 3-4 suggests that Isocrates regards all the 
 doctrines which he derides as those of the generation 
 
 1 Very similar ia the explanation of Blass, who takes Antisthenes to be 
 aimed at as the person who rejected the principle of contradiction, but 
 thinks it possible that Plato may be the person who held that all virtues are 
 one. According to Blass, this does not demand, what is on other grounds 
 impossible, a late date for the Helena, since KaTayeyripaKcun need only refer 
 to the first person named, i.e., on Blass's interpretation, Antisthenes. I have 
 already explained that this identification appears to mo groundless, since 
 there is plenty of evidence that the doctrine oix lortv avrihiyeiv goes back 
 to the fifth century. Moreover all the alleged personal attacks of the 
 Theaetetus and Sophistes on Antisthenes vanish under careful scrutiny. I do 
 not believe that any personal name is concealed under the tyipi.aBfy yfpuv of 
 the Sophistes ; if there is an allusion it is probably to 'IffOKpdrjjs, and Plato 
 is referring to the sport made in the Helena over the logicians and their 
 disputes. Blass's general argument for dating the Helena not later than 
 393 {Altische Beredsamkeit, 2 i. 75 note 1) seems to me irresistible. "With 
 these dates, the attack may well be specially on Socrates as represented in 
 the Phaedo and Protagoras. 
 
THE AI2SOI AOrOI 99 
 
 immediately posterior to Zeno and Melissus. This again 
 takes us back to the time of (Socrates and the Siaaol Xoyoi? 
 To return to the hiatrol \6yoi itself. The text, as 
 we have it, begins with the remark that there are two 
 contrasted current views about " good " and " bad " ; the one 
 is that there is a real distinction between them, the other 
 that they are the " same thing," and that " what is good 
 for one man is bad for another," and the same thing 
 good for the same man at one time and bad at another. 
 Incidentally, I may observe that this abrupt opening 
 appears to prove that our text is mutilated at the beginning, 
 since the antithesis " good-bad " is actually only one of six 
 which are discussed in the sequel. The contrasted views, 
 both of which are very superficially conceived, are, then, (a) 
 the distinction between good and bad is absolute, and pre- 
 supposes a fixed and universal norm, the theory always 
 ascribed to Socrates by Plato ; (&) the theory that the dis- 
 tinction is merely relative to the particular ends proposed, 
 which is connected by Plato with the homo mensura 
 doctrine of Protagoras, and ascribed by Xenophon, as the 
 basis of a purely dialectical argument against Aristippus, to 
 Socrates. 2 The author declares himself, in respect of this 
 
 1 A further argument for the same conclusion may be founded upon what 
 Isocrates says in Helena § 8. The pretenders whom he is denouncing have 
 given such an impetus to the maintenance of falsehood that by now (ijSri) 
 certain persons, " seeing the profit they derive from their profession, have 
 ventured to assert in writing that the life of beggars and exiles is more 
 enviable than any other. " This seems to be a direct allusion to Cynicism. 1 f 
 it is so, the Cynics are distinguished from the earlier paradox-mongers whom, 
 according to Isocrates, they have contrived to outdo, and it is therefore not 
 they who are meant by the persons who have grown grey in maintaining &n oin. 
 iariv ivrMyeiv. (topovtov b" eiriScScWvai ireiroiijicairf to tf/evSo^oyeiii, Sxtt' 
 *tjSt| tlv&, bpuvres toGtovs 4k t&v tolo6twp &<pekov[i&vovs t roX/AWfft vpd(J>EiV ws 
 Jkmr 6 tS>v TTWxevbvruv KaX (pevybvTUv filos fijXwTArepos fi run JUw avSpwiruv 
 kt\. ) I take it, then, that the allusions of Isocrates are (a) to the same persons 
 whose denial of the possibility of contradiction is reproduced as one side of 
 the antinomy which pervades the Suraol \byoi, and that the Cynics cannot 
 safely be assumed to be among them ; (6) to Socrates, and very probably to the 
 presentation of his personality in the Phaedo and Protagoras ; (<s) to the Neo- 
 Eleatics, of whom our writer seems to be one, and who are, as we have seen, 
 referred to by Plato in several places. 
 
 2 Plato's Socrates is always consistent on this point. There is always a 
 iixed standard with him, though the standard he uses in different dialogues 
 
100 VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 particular antinomy, on the side of the relativists (e'ya> 8e 
 koI avrb<; ToterSe troTiridefiai, i. 2), but proposes to argue 
 the case by appeal to experience (e'« ra dvdpairiva) fita). 
 Thus we get as the 
 
 First Antinomy, Thesis : " good " and " bad " are identical 
 (i.e. anything may be either, according to circumstances). 
 Antithesis : " good " and " bad " are different in fact as well as 
 in name. The thesis is defended by the ordinary arguments 
 of the relativist; which are, of eourse, all irrelevant, since no 
 one of them shows that a determinate thing belongs to both 
 classes at once. Food, drink, ra a$pohi,aia are good for the 
 healthy, bad for the sick. (This refers principally, of course, 
 to the prevalence of XifioKTovtT) as a feature of the medical 
 treatment in vogue in the fifth century.) " Private vices are 
 public benefits." a/cpaala is bad for those who practise it, 
 but good for the vendor of luxuries. " Luxury and waste are 
 good for trade." What would doctors and undertakers do if 
 there were no disease or death in the world ? A bad harvest 
 at home is the opportunity of the e/wro/sos, the dealer in 
 imported corn. Shipwrecks make good business for the ship- 
 building trade. " It is good for the smith that tools rust and 
 break ; good for the potter that crockery is fragile ; victory of 
 all kinds is good for the victor, but bad for the vanquished." 
 
 may vary with the exigencies of the situation. In general, the standard of 
 moral currency is, as in the Phaedo, wisdom. The pretended Hedonism of the 
 Protagoras is no exception. Socrates' whole objection there is to the purely 
 relative view of Protagoras that "good " per se has no meaning ; good means 
 what is relative to an end, and there are as many different standards of good 
 as there are different ends [Prolog. 334 c, a precise parallel with our argument).. 
 It is against that view that Socrates champions the theory of an absolute 
 standard. That this standard is "maximum of pleasure, minimum of pain" 
 he never asserts as his own conviction, but simply as an assumption which 
 the ordinary man will be ready to grant (cf. specially 355-356 c). Xenophon 
 puts the argument, ascribed by Socrates to Protagoras, dogmatically 
 in the mouth of Socrates against Aristippus [Mem. iii. 8. 4). If Xenophon'a 
 account is historical, the argument of Socrates may have been meant merely 
 to tell ad homiiiem, but it is just as likely that the whole section is a mere 
 confused reminiscence of the passage in the Protagoras. Even Xenophon 
 must have been decidedly duller than is commonly assumed if he did not 
 see that the representation of Socrates as a pure relativist in morals would 
 seriously damage the apologetic value of his Memorabilia, and the passage is, 
 in fact, quite out of harmony with the general spirit of the work. 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI 101 
 
 All that seems Socratic here is the stress laid on the 
 analogy from the " life of tlte shoemaker and mechanic." 
 The reasoning of the antithesis is of a different kind, proceed- 
 ing by reductio ad dbsurdum. If good and bad are the same, 
 then if it is true that " I have done good to my parents 
 or to my city," it will be equally true and on the same 
 grounds that " I have done evil to my parents or to my 
 city." If I pity the poor because they have so hard a lot, 
 I must equally envy them for the same thing, since it is 
 a great good as well as a great evil. If disease is bad for 
 the sufferer, it must equally be good for him, and so forth. 
 
 Again the writer expresses sympathy with the argument. 
 " For I think it would never be recognisable what kind of 
 thing is a good and what kind an evil, if they were the 
 same and not different." There is nothing which strikes 
 one as specially Socratic about this reasoning except perhaps 
 the cautious remark with which the reductio ad dbsurdum 
 ends, that the author does not mean to assert any positive 
 doctrine as to what " good " is, but merely to deny that it 
 is the same thing as " bad " (koI ov \iya> tL icrri to ayaBov, 
 aXka tovto 7reipa>/jLai Si$do~ieeiv, &>? ov tchvtov [eiy] to 
 Kaicbv Kal TayaOov, d\\' k/caTepov). This is precisely the 
 sort of conclusion we get in many of the Platonic dialogues, 
 e.g. in the Theaetetus, where the final result is that we do 
 not know what knowledge is, but have satisfied ourselves 
 that it is not the same as sensation, nor yet as right opinion. 
 The apagogic reasoning is of the Zenonian type copied by 
 Plato repeatedly in the Hypotheses of the Parmenides} 
 
 1 It should be observed that throughout the first five antinomies at least, 
 each antinomy is simply a case of the standing "sophistic" antithesis between 
 0ii<r« and vdpos. The thesis is regularly that a certain difference, marked in 
 common language, is a merely verbal distinction (exists only vS/iai, or, as our 
 author puts it, there is only a difference in the Svv/i.a, not in the irpayim = 
 #i)<m). The antithesis asserts that the distinction is real, not merely verbal 
 (exists in the irpayim = 0iVei). This distinction of 0i)<ris and v6/ws is commonly 
 set down, in a vague way, as " sophistic," but it ought to be noted that, while 
 latent in all early Greek thought, it first becomes explicit in Parmenides, when 
 we meet for the first time the sharp distinction- between a\T)0elri=6i> = (pv<ns, 
 and the f}poTuii> 36£cu in which there is no truth at all, but a belief in the 
 reality of distinctions which are purely verbal; fwptpiu y&p KartSevro dtio yvc&iias 
 cvopaiav (i.e. men have given two names where there is only the one reality). 
 
102 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Second Antinomy. Thesis: koKov and ala^pov are 
 identical (i.e. the difference between them is purely relative). 
 
 Study of the Hippocratean works which are dependent on the general theories 
 of the physicists bring out the interesting point that already in the fifth 
 century elSos had been appropriated as a terra standing to 0i)cris in the same 
 relation as Spopa to convention. Thus we get the view that things are distinct 
 from one another pdpwi when there is a distinct recognised name for each of 
 them ; they differ <ptio-ei or have distinct tpfoeis when they have each a special 
 eTSos, a primary quiddity (e.g. if t6 BeppAp is the elSos of one, tS if/vxpbp of the 
 other). Cf. Hippocrates irepi t^x"'!^ Kiihn i. 7, oiSc/ua iarlv (sc. t^x 1 "/) fi 
 ye Ik twos etStos oix bparai, ol/iai 8' fywye ko.1 to. dvi/tara aiiTrji (leg. airas) Sia 
 ret etSea Xa/3eij>. &\oyop yap airb twp bpopuLnw to. etSea 7iye!<r9<u fSKaarapeip /cat 
 aSdparop. ra fiev yap ovbp-ara tptiatos vofwdeT^fiard. ioTi, to. Si etSea oi5 vofio- 
 derii/mra, dXXa jSXa<m},uaTa. (It should be noted that the writer is under 
 Eleatic influence, for he says, ib. above, to. pip ibpra alei bparai nal yipwaxerai, 
 to. Si pJ) ibvra aire bparai aire yaiwanerai. etdea then are apparently the funda- 
 mental "opposites" rb Beppbp, rb £qpbp, etc. ; compare the p.op(j>ai of Par- 
 menides. ) So, ib. 11 iv rois Trkelaroiai twp re tpvoptpwp ko\ twp iroievpipav 
 IvetrTi to, etSea tuv Bepaireiwp koX twp tpapptaxav, etSea means not ' ' sorts " or 
 "kinds," but "specific virtues." This is clear from the context. The writer 
 is arguing that medicine is a true rixvv and that even a cure effected without 
 professional aid is not due to accident, rb airbparov, but to the fact that the 
 man who recovers had made use of an article of diet, a purge, etc., containing 
 the very "specific virtue " which medicine, as an art, systematically looks for 
 in things. For there is no oial-q or real essence corresponding to the word 
 "chance," but medicine consists in just such a search for oialai. to pep yap 
 airbparop oi tpaiperai oiolrp/ tx<n> oiSepirjp dXX' f) oilvofia pbpop, but medicine 
 iv rots 81a rt irpopoovpApoiat, <paiperal re koX Iti 0aveiTGU oiiffl^v Uxowra. (Thus 
 oiali)p (x av = <pioiv lx eiV or •picet ctcoi, to exist in natura rerum, and the 
 elSea of the ipioei oVth investigated by medicine are the healing " properties " 
 or "virtues" specific to the various plants, minerals, etc.) 
 
 Compare with this the polemic of the Tepl tpiaios apBpwrrov against the 
 monists who say that man consists of only one material, blood, Kiihn i. 350 
 pvpI Si TroXXd (sc. apBpwirbs e'en) • 7roXXd yip elaip (p twi owpari ibvra, a bubrap iir' 
 dXX^X&w irapd tpiaiv Beppalvqral re nal yjiixrrrai koX fripalpi/rTai re Kai vypaiprrrat 
 pofoovs riKTei. wore 7roXXai piip ISiai twp povffrjparwp woXX^ Si icai i] ttjo-LS aiiriwp 
 iarlv. d£i« Si 1-yuye rbp tpaaKOPra alpo. povpop rbp &p$ponrov xal aXho p.ri$ip 
 SeiKvivai abrbp p/)] peraWaffaopra rty ISiijp prjSi ylveaBai iravTolov, dXX' fi &pn}p 
 TLP&, tov ipiavrov 1} ttjs ip\tKnjs tov dpdpiinrov ip fy alpo. ipebp tpedperat p.ovpop ip twi 
 apdpwTm. ib. 353 (man is made of four things) koX to&twp irp&Top pip koto. tAi/ 
 vbpop to, ovbp-ara Siwplffdai <p"t\p\ KoX obSevl afrrwp tw&t6 SpopM etpat ' UTreiTa tols 
 ISias Kara, <pvaiv KexwpioSai, Kal otirc rb 4>\lypa oiSip ioixipu twi aV/ian aire t6 
 alp.a Tijt xoXtJi otfre t^v x°^t v twl fp\iypaTi. ttws yap ap ioiKora eii] Tavra dXXi/Xoi- 
 (TLP t wp oUre TCt xpt6^iara Spoia tpalperai TrpoaopwpLeva, offre Tijt X €t pi "^aiovTL 8p.oia 
 So/da elpai; o<Sre yap 6eppA 6p.oias iarlp oSre ipvxp& oflTefijpd oUre iypa. apayicq 
 toIpvp bri TOffoSrop SirjWaKTai dXXiiXwK T^» ISir/p Te Kai rty Sipapup /*■)) Ip aira 
 elxat. Thus here again the ISty is (like the eTSos in the irepi Tix"V') the 
 objective counterpart in re, ip ttji tpio-ei of the name, 6pop.a, which exists 
 
THE AI2SOI AOrOI 103 
 
 Antithesis: icaXov and ala%p6v are different in fact as well. 
 as in name. • 
 
 The reasoning proceeds as before. The thesis is supported 
 by instances to show that anything and everything may be 
 either kclKov or alo-ypbv according to circumstances. Thus 
 it is icaXov for a handsome boy epaardi 'xapi^eaOai, but 
 alaypov to do the same thing for one who is not his 
 ipaa-rdt (the opposite, it will be remembered, of the paradox 
 of Lysias discussed in the Phaedrus, which may conceivably 
 be in the writer's mind) ; it is ala-^pov for a woman to 
 bathe in public, but kclKov for a man to do so ; koXov to 
 have intercourse with her husband in secrecy, but ala%p6v 
 to do so in public, and ata^iarov for man or woman to 
 commit adultery ; it is alo-^pbv for a man but kclKov for a 
 woman to use cosmetics and jewellery ; kclKov to do kind- 
 nesses to a friend, alo-^pov to do them to an enemy ; al<r%p6v 
 to run in battle, but koKov to run in a race; aia^pov to 
 slay your fellow-citizens, but kclKov to kill the enemies of the 
 ttoXls. So at Sparta it is koKov for the girls to exercise 
 and go half naked and for the boys not to learn their letters ; 
 both are aloypa among Ionians ; antenuptial unchastity is 
 kclKov in a Macedonian girl, alaypov in a Greek girl; among 
 the Thracians, tatooing enhances a girl's beauty, other folk 
 regard it as the punishment of a scoundrel. The Scythians 
 think it kclKov to scalp an enemy and make a drinking-cup 
 of his skull; no Greek would darken the doors of a man 
 
 vd/uoi, or, as the scholastics would say, in intellectv,. The word does not mean in 
 passages like this " visible appearance " ; you prove that the ISir) of phlegm 
 is different from that of blood by arguing from their sensible differences. 
 Hence the IU-ij is that of which the sensible qualities are signs, the proprietas 
 occulta, or natura naturans, or substantia, a regular Ding an sich, a Platonic 
 "idea" long before Plato. Hence, in the irepi <pvaios ivdpdiirov we find as 
 strictly equivalent phrases Kara Sfivafiiv kclI /card <t>uaiv and rrjv Idtyv xal tt/i- 
 StSvafuv, where the Qiais or ISi-q is the "thing," the Sivaixis its perceived 
 "character." All this past medical history of the word, resulting in the 
 correspondence or analogy, ISh/ : 6vo/w. = <pi<ns : vbnoi, explains why Democritus 
 called the atoms ISiai, and shows us the source of Plato's speculations on the 
 right assignment of names in the Cratylus. In another essay I hope to have 
 more to say about the medical use of elSos, Idia, and the fundamental import- 
 ance of the meaning eTSos or ISia = body, a sense too often overlooked, though 
 it actually persists in Plato and Aristotle. 
 
104 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 who did such a thing. The Massagetae eat their fathers, 
 the Persians have intercourse with their mothers, daughters 
 and sisters, the Lydians prostitute their daughters; the 
 Greeks regard all these practices as ala^pd. So with the 
 differences between the manners of Greeks and Egyptians 
 (it will be seen that the writer is well up in his Herodotus). 
 The conclusion is that if we form an aggregate of all the 
 various alcr%pd and an aggregate of all the icaXd, we shall 
 find that the two aggregates are identical. Whatever is 
 icakov for some one, or according to the view of some peoples, 
 is alaxpov for another, or in the eyes of some other people. 
 icakov and alo-^pdv are, to anticipate Pascal, "geographical 
 expressions." It is amusing to find that much the same con- 
 clusion, based on identical reasoning, has been just recently 
 announced by Professor Westermarck from a chair in the 
 University of London as the last word of anthropological 
 " science." 
 
 The proof of the antithesis, icakov and alaypov are 
 different in fact as well as in name, proceeds as before. 
 If they were identical, the very same thing which is icakov 
 for a Spartan would also be aiaypov for the Spartan, and so 
 forth, but this is absurd. The alleged argument from the 
 identity of the two aggregates is analyzed, not without 
 acuteness. " They say that if men were to make a collection 
 of the ala-ypd from all peoples, and then summon men 
 together and bid each carry off what he thinks icakov, 
 everything would be carried off as icakov. I should be 
 much surprised if alo-%pd when formed into an aggregate 
 turn out to be icdkd, and do not keep the character with 
 which they came into the collection. Surely, if what had 
 been brought together were horses or oxen or sheep or men, 
 what was taken away again would be no other, any more 
 than if gold or silver were brought into the heap, copper or 
 lead could be taken from it." That is, the argument of the 
 thesis is a fallacy of composition. That which is AaiceBai- 
 fwvicoi alo"xp6v does not cease to be so, merely because it is 
 icakov MaxeSovt or Tlepercu. It does not become icakov 
 AaiceSaifiovitoi by the mere process of being included in the 
 
THE AI2SOI AOrOI 105 
 
 aggregate of things which are icaXd to some one. I do 
 not observe anything particularly Socratic about the reason- 
 ing of this antinomy, and the image of the formation of the 
 great aggregate of icakd or alo-%pd reminds one more of the 
 K€<yxplrr)<} of Zeno (Aristotle, Physics, H 250al9) than of 
 anything else. It is, however, interesting that iirdjeo-Oai, 
 which we have already found in Hippocrates as apparently 
 a terminus teehnicus for " backing up '' an argument by an 
 appeal to independent testimony, is known in the same 
 sense to our author, since the antithesis ends by commenting 
 on an appeal to an unknown poet, probably Euripides, which 
 had occurred in the thesis, Troirjras he p,dp-rvpa<; iirar/ovTat 
 < o'l > irorl ahovdv, oi ttot akaQeiav iroievvri, " they 
 bring in to back up their reasoning the poets, whose 
 standard in composing is not the true but the pleasing." 
 
 Third Antinomy. Thesis : just and unjust are identical. 
 Antithesis : just and unjust are not identical. Proof of the 
 thesis : lying is just, for one may righteously deceive the 
 enemies of the State, or even one's nearest and dearest; e.g. it 
 is right to get one's parents to take a medicated draught by 
 saying that it is not medicine. Theft and violence are also 
 just; e.g. it would be just to deprive one's friend of a 
 weapon with which he was about to do himself an injury, 
 by trickery, or, if needs be, by physical force. It would be 
 just, in a a-rda-i*}, if one's father was lying in prison awaiting 
 death at the hands of the opposite faction, to break into the 
 gaol. Perjury may be just, as in the case of a man who has 
 been forced by the public enemy to swear to commit treason, 
 and then breaks his word. Sacrilege may be just, as, e.g., 
 if Greeks should devote the treasures of Delphi and Olympia 
 to the defence of Hellas against an invasion of barbarians. It 
 may be just, at the bidding of God, to murder one's kindred 
 as Orestes and Alcmaeou did. The induction is further 
 supported by quotations from Aeschylus and Cleobuline. 
 
 Antithesis : just and unjust are as really different as 
 their names are (jaairep ical raivvfia ointo koX to Trpdyfia), 
 .since it is absurd to argue that he who commits a crime is 
 to ipso doing a virtuous act, and vice versa, or that the more 
 
106 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 unjust a man is, the juster he is. The appeal made to the 
 " analogy of the arts," that the best tragic poets or painters 
 are just those who are most skilled in producing illusion, is 
 worthless because there is no ethical principle at stake 
 (re^wi? 8" eirdyovrai, iv ah ovie e<rn to Si/caiov Kal aSiicov). 
 And the poets, again, may be dismissed, since the standard 
 on which they base their judgments is merely the taste of 
 their audiences. 
 
 The genuinely " Socratic " character of the arguments 
 adduced for the thesis of this antinomy seems indisputable. 
 Trieber and Diels have pointed out that the reasoning is in 
 the main identical with that of Xenophon (Memorabilia iv. 
 2. 14-18). Not only are the special examples much the 
 same (the inducement of a relative to take medicine by 
 friendly falsehood, the surreptitious or forcible removal of a, 
 dangerous weapon from a friend who may make a bad use 
 of it), but the line of argument is precisely similar. We 
 admit that certain practices are just when adopted against 
 an enemy, and then show that there are cases in which the 
 same conduct would be equally just in dealing with a 
 friend (e.g. it is fair in a general not only to mislead the 
 enemy, but to put heart into his own men by falsely telling 
 them that reinforcements are close at hand). The same 
 argument, and one of the same illustrations, that of the 
 removal of the weapon, recurs in Plato at Republic i. 331,. 
 with exactly the same object of proving that the distinction 
 between just and unjust conduct does not depend on the 
 question whether the party affected is "the enemy"; and it 
 is the same point which crops up again at 382 d in the 
 notion of the " medicinal lie," so that we can hardly doubt 
 that in all three cases we are dealing with echoes of the 
 actual talk of the historical Socrates. In the antithesis we 
 have further, if I am not mistaken, traces of polemic 
 against the main ethical tenet of Socrates. In Plato and 
 Xenophon the real object of Socrates' casuistry is to show 
 from the inefficacy of popular conceptions the necessity of 
 an " art " or " science '' of good and evil by means of which 
 it can be determined by the trained " craftsman " what line 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI 107 
 
 of conduct is " just " and what " unjust." A trace of this 
 conception of morality as a Te^as; appears in our author when 
 he appeals to the " arts " in support of the view that deceit is 
 just because " in the drama and in painting " he who produces 
 the completest illusion is the best artist, oari<s < tea > 7r\eiara 
 igairaTiji Sfioia rois a\r)8tvoi<s iroiewv ovtos apurros, iii. 10. 
 Compare the attack on the /ufvqr^ in Republic x. 
 
 Fourth Antinomy. Thesis : false discourse and true 
 discourse are identical. Antithesis : false discourse and 
 true discourse are not identical. The view argued in the 
 thesis is that there is no intrinsic difference between true 
 and false discourse; the difference is extrinsic and lies in 
 correspondence or want of correspondence with "fact'' 
 (Trpayfia). In the antithesis it is urged that there is an 
 intrinsic as well as an extrinsic difference between the two. 
 The thesis is proved as follows. The same \oyo<?, or form 
 of words, may be at once true and false. The Xoyo? or 
 discourse is the same in both cases, but it is true when 
 " things have happened as the words state," false when they 
 have not so happened (prav Xoyo? pr)6fy, al p.ev w? <ica> 
 Xeyr/rai 6 Xoyo?, ovrm yeyevrjTai, a\adr)<; o Aoyo?, al 8e fit] 
 yeyevrjTai, tyevSrjs 6 avro? Xoyo?, iv. 2). Thus, you accuse 
 some one of lepoavXia : " if the deed happened, the dis- 
 course is true ; if the deed did not happen, it is false." So, 
 if each of a company says, " I am a ^vo-ras," they all utter 
 the same words, but it may be that I only speak the truth, 
 because I happen to be the only person who has really 
 gone through the ceremony of /tui/o-t?- The conclusion is that 
 the same discourse is false when falsehood is present to it 
 (orav /lev avrmi Trapfji to yfrevSof) ; but when truth is present 
 to it, it is true (orav Se to a\adi<;, aXaOrfs;), just as the same 
 man is successively a boy, a lad, a man, and a greybeard. 
 
 Antithesis : false and true discourse differ intrinsically 
 and absolutely. For (1) otherwise whenever you tell the 
 truth you are also telling a lie. (This is like the modern 
 argument against those who maintain that all truths are 
 partially false, that, if they are consistent, they must also 
 hold that the statement " all truths are partially false " is 
 
108 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 itself partially false. 1 ) (2) The very assertion of the thesis 
 that " if the thing happened, the Xoyo? is true ; if it did not 
 happen, it is false," shows that the difference between truth 
 and falsehood is one of Trpay/Aa, not of ovv/jm (i.e. the distinc- 
 tion between true and false rests on an objective foundation). 
 (3) Dicasts, who have not been present at to. Trpdr/fiara, 
 the facts in dispute between the parties to a law-suit, can 
 yet distinguish between a true narrative and a false one. 
 (The argument is apparently mutilated just after this, but 
 the point seems to be that if there were only an extrinsic 
 difference between true and false, only one who had been 
 an eyewitness of the irpar/fiara in dispute could tell 
 whether it is " the true " or " the false " which is " present " 
 to the discourse. The ability of dicasts to judge of the 
 truth of a narrative about events which they have not 
 personally witnessed shows this consequence to be absurd, 
 and therefore destroys the hypothesis on which it is based. 
 The reasoning is thus, as in the previous cases, apagogic.) 
 
 Fragmentary as this section of the Sicra-ol \070t is, it 
 seems to me to have a threefold interest. 
 
 (1) It makes it abundantly clear that the puzzles and 
 paradoxes about predication which Plato treats humorously 
 in the Euthydemus and seriously in the Theaetetus and 
 Sophistes, were actually familiar in the lifetime of Socrates, 
 and therefore likely enough to have formed a topic of 
 conversation with him. This, however, is nothing fresh, 
 since, apart altogether from the evidence of Plato, we have 
 already drawn the same conclusion from the opening 
 sentences of Isocrates' Helena, where oi irepl t«? epi&as, the 
 persons who deny the possibility of contradiction, and those 
 who hold that all virtue is one, and that there is a single 
 " science " of it all (that is, before every one else, Socrates 
 himself), are bracketed together as mischievous paradox- 
 mongers all belonging to the same age. What our passage 
 seems to add is a valuable light on the history of the 
 Platonic conception of thought as the " converse of the soul 
 1 I make no assumption as to the validity of this reasoning. See White- 
 head and Russell, Principia mathemalica, vol. i. ch. 2, for the view that it 
 is invalid. 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI 109 
 
 with itself." The fullest exposition of this idea does not 
 meet us until the PMlebus (3$ c-40 c), but the thought 
 occurs also at Theaetetus 189 c ff. in connection with the 
 very problem of the nature of " false discourse " raised in 
 the Sia-o-ol Xoyot. According to our thesis, false discourse 
 is identical with true discourse, and the proof of their 
 identity depends wholly upon taking \6yo<; iu the sense of 
 verbal utterance. When it is said that /mvo-tcis elfii is one 
 and the same Xoyo?, and yet may both be true when I utter 
 it, and false when you utter it, it is obvious that X0709 is 
 understood to mean the spoken sentence, not the meaning 
 it expresses, which is, of course, different with each speaker: 
 Before the arguments about the impossibility of falsehood 
 could be examined, it was necessary to get rid of this implicit 
 fallacy of ambiguity. Hence the stress laid by Plato's Socrates 
 on the conception that the content of a proposition is a 
 " discourse of the soul with herself." The idea, as we can now 
 see, may perfectly well be due to the Socrates of history. 
 
 (2) Special attention is due to the phrase " when to 
 i/reuSo? is present " (irapiji) to the \oyos, then it is false, 
 and when to aXa6e<s is present to it, it is true. This ex- 
 pression that predication depends on the "presence" of 
 an elSos " to " the subject of predication is familiar to us 
 all as one of the technical terms of the Platonic doctrine 1 
 of [iide!ji<:. TrapovGia is, in fact, the logical converse of 
 fii0€^K. According to the doctrine of the Phaeclo, if it is 
 true that " I am hot," there is a more ultimate ground for 
 the truth of this proposition. Instead of regarding the pre- 
 dicative statement as ultimate, after the fashion of Aristotle, 
 the Phaedo explains that every subject-predicate proposition 
 depends on a more ultimate relational proposition containing 
 no " predicate " at all. If " I am hot," that is because of the 
 
 1 e.g. to illustrate from the Phaedo alone, 100 d idv ris 1*01 \iyqi. SC S tl 
 KaXbv kanv bnovv . . . tovto air\us Kal arexvws Kal fows edrfdus ?xu Trap' efiavrGJi, 
 Stl ofiic aXKo rt iroiel atirb Kakbv fy 7) ^Ketvov rov koKov etre napovata she Kotvuvla 
 [efre] Sirrji By Kal 8tus irpoayevo/jdini, 105 oi5£ av £pr;t, St av vib/ian rl &yytvri- 
 rai, ■pooTjo'ei, oi'/c £p& &n wi av votros, d\V Sit av Tvperbs ' oti5' &i av apidfi&L tL 
 iyyirrfrui, irepirrbs iarai, oiK {put Si av 7repm-6TT)s, d\V wi av p.ovds. Compare 
 the reiterated use of iirop.iveiv, d£l-a<r8ai throughout the same passage. 
 
110 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 existence of a relation between me and the entity to depfiov, 
 which may be expressed either by saying " I partake of 
 to depfiov," or conversely " to depfiov is present to me." 
 The peculiarity of this view is that it makes all predication 
 logically secondary ; the adjective Bepfio? can only be truly 
 predicated about me, because there is a logically prior rela- 
 tion, which is not that of adjective to substantive, between 
 me and to 0ep/i6v, and to depfiov is not an adjective but a 
 substantival term or entity. So, from this point of view, 
 '' all men are mortal " asserts a relation between every man 
 and to 0v7]t6v "mortality." Its real meaning is "every 
 man possesses mortality," or " mortality is present in every 
 man." This is precisely the view implied in the passage we 
 are considering, to ■^revBo<; and to aXadei are regarded as 
 substantival entities, and this is why, in the antithesis, the 
 argument can be turned against the very persons who are 
 said to employ it in support of the view that the difference 
 between a true and a false 7wyo<; is merely verbal or con- 
 ventional. The point of the rejoinder is that in the act of 
 saying a \oyos is true when to aXade<; is present to it, 
 you by implication avow that to a\a6e<s has a <£voy? or 
 objective reality of its own, other than that of to yfrevSos. 
 In fact, the underlying conception of to aXaOis, or to yJrevSos, 
 is exactly the same as that of a Platonic ISea, that it is 
 an entity with a determinate <f>vo-i<} of its own — is, as the 
 scholastics put it, something in re, not in intellects, tantum. 
 
 The passage thus shows us that the fundamental notion 
 of the "Ideal Theory," together with a characteristic piece 
 of its technical terminology, was familiar possibly before 
 the death of Socrates, and may be adduced, along with the 
 evidence of the irepl ap^aiy? IrjTpiicfjs, and much more from 
 the Hippocratean corpus, which I reserve for another place, 
 to show how contrary to fact is the popular notion that 
 Plato invented ex nihilo the doctrine of eiSr} or the technical 
 terms in which it is expressed. 
 
 (3) It is also important that the argument of the 
 antithesis for an intrinsic difference between truth and false- 
 hood is supported by an example which is twice made 
 
THE AI2SOI AOrOI 111 
 
 prominent in Plato, though with him for a rather different 
 object, the establishment of th% distinction between know- 
 ledge and right opinion. In Theaetetus 201 b ff. the dis- 
 tinction is illustrated by this very case of the dicasts who 
 can be " persuaded " into a right opinion about facts which 
 are only really known to the eyewitness, 1 and the same 
 example is obviously present to the mind of Plato's Timaeus 
 when he makes it a fundamental distinction between know- 
 ledge and opinion that the one can be produced by "per- 
 suasion" and destroyed by the same means, whereas the 
 other only arises from " teaching," and is " not to be shaken 
 by persuasion." 2 Here, again, the writer of the Surorol 
 Xoyoi may be availing himself of a genuine piece of Socratic 
 philosophy, though, of course, the insistence on the difference 
 between okr/Bevr) and Sofja may come straight from an 
 Eleatic source. It is the recurrence of the illustration 
 which seems important for our purpose. 
 
 Fifth Antinomy. Thesis: the insane and the sane, the 
 wise and the ignorant, say and do the same things. Anti- 
 thesis : the things which the sane and wise say and do are not 
 the same as those said and done by the insane and ignorant. 
 
 The proof of the thesis is regarded by Diels as frag- 
 mentary, and, in any case, its force is far from clear. 
 " (1) The sane and the insane use the same words for 
 things, 'earth,' 'man,' 'horse,' 'fire.' And they perform the 
 same acts. They sit down, eat, drink, go to bed and the 
 like. (3) The same thing is both greater and less, more 
 and fewer, heavier and lighter. The talent is heavier than 
 the mina, but lighter than two talents. (4) The same 
 man is alive and is not alive ; the same things are and are 
 not. For the things which are here are not in Libya, and 
 
 1 Theaetetus 201 b ij <ri otei dewovs rivas oStw StoaanaXovs elvat ibare ots p.}] 
 Trapeyivovrb rives aTocrrepovp^voiS xpfuMiTa ij ri tfXXo jSiafojK&'Ois, toiVois Siivaadai. 
 irpbs OSap apixpbv BiBdl-ai IxavCn rwv yevop4nuv 7T)» dXiJfeiai' / OiiSap.Sn Oyuye 
 olpat, d\Xd ireurai piv. . . . OiiK &v, Si <pt\e, et ye rairrbv fjv 86|o Te dXi;<?r;s . . . 
 xal £vuiTi\p.T\, ipBi. tot' av Jtra(rrijs /Licpos £861-0. fev S.vev imar/nup' vvv Se 
 ZoiKev dXXo Tt eKarepof elvat. 
 
 2 Timaeus 51 e t6 p£v yap airSv 8ia dibaxfjs, rb b" iwb Tetdous ijp.iv iyylyverai. • 
 . . . Kal rb piv aKlvTfrov ireiSol, rb Be fieraireto-Tiv. 
 
112 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the things which are in Libya are not in Cyprus. So things 
 both are and are not." 
 
 The exact purport of all this is obscure, and the only 
 suggestion I can make is that the Xoyos the writer has in 
 view is the Heraclitean one, " things both are and are not," 
 to which the antithesis would be that everything which is has 
 a definite <£va-t? of its own. Thus the antinomy becomes : 
 the law of contradiction is invalid ; the law of contradiction 
 is not invalid. The alleged identity of behaviour on the 
 parts of the sane and the insane is thus only one example 
 of the allegation that " things are and are not." That the 
 'HpaKXelreioi did discourse in much this fashion is notorious 
 from the Platonic references to them, and from the kind of 
 thing we read in the Hippocratean nrepl Stair^? a, the work 
 of some Heracliteanising " sophist." 
 
 The antithesis is more interesting, as it brings us back 
 to the \6yoi iiraicTiicoL. The writer first appeals, as is 
 usual in his antitheses, to the point that we can after all 
 make the distinction between a sane man and a lunatic; 
 the same act is not at once equally a mark of sanity and of 
 lunacy. Hence <ra>(ppocrvvr) and crocpla cannot be the same 
 as fiavla and ajiaOla. He then proceeds, teal eVa/creo? 6 
 \6yo<; irorepov &v ev Beovri toI <ra><ppovovvTe<; Xeyovn r\ toI 
 ficuvofievoi ; that is, it is suggested that sanity differs from 
 insanity by the relevance of the sane man's speech or act to 
 the situation. The lunatic may have the same vocabulary 
 as the sane man, but he employs it mal a propos, and it is 
 the want of relevancy which makes all the difference. 
 About the use of the word eirdyetrOat, in logic, the present 
 passage suggests a remark which may be worth throwing out 
 as a suggestion. We have already seen that in Hippocrates, 
 Plato, Xenophon and our author, it regularly means to 
 " adduce testimony " in favour of a statement already laid 
 down, to " clinch " the argument by an appeal to sensible 
 fact or to a supposed authority. So the sense here seems 
 to be, " we must further bring in, we must call to our aid, 
 the A.070? that . . ." Thus, if the original metaphor under- 
 lying the later technical meaning of iiraywyq is not, as 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI lli3 
 
 Professor Burnet once maintained, the legal one of " citing 
 witnesses," (a view which is, t% my mind, strongly favoured 
 by the Hippocratean fiaprvpiov eTrdyecrdat = to put in 
 affidavits, so to say,) I suggest that it may be military, 
 " we must bring into play the X070? that, etc.," the metaphor 
 being from the reinforcement of one's front line or main 
 battle by bringing up the iiraicToL or "reserves.'' In any 
 case, the repeated appearance of the verb in a technical 
 logical sense in the Siaerol Xoyot seems a valuable link in 
 the evidence for regarding the general conception of "in- 
 ductive reasoning" as familiar before the end of the fifth 
 century, and for believing in the presence of a Socratic 
 element in the work. The rest of the antithesis has a 
 further interest of its own. The writer goes on to urge 
 that a difference in meaning may be effected by a mere 
 change of accent or quantity, as, e.g., from rXau/eo? to 
 y\avKo<;, 'BtdvOot to %avd6<;, Hou^o? to ^ovOos, or from 
 Typo? to rvpos, or from o-a/cos to cra«o? ( = ar]Ko<s). Or, 
 again, by a trifling change of letters, as from Kaprot to 
 Kparos, from 01/05 to 1/005- In these cases, nothing is added 
 or taken away, there is only a change in the dpp.ovia or 
 modulation of the voice. Yet the meaning is entirely altered. 
 A fortiori, then, the change made by introducing or remov- 
 ing the qualification of relevancy must be much greater, 
 and the modified \0y05 cannot possibly remain what it was 
 before. It is like thinking that you can add 1 to or subtract 
 1 from 10, and yet have the same sum as before. If 
 one says that the same man is and is not, we must ask r\ fi 
 rh, irdvTa eariv ; " do you mean relatively, partially, or as 
 a whole?" If anyone says that a thing "is not" in an 
 absolute sense, he says what is false, and confuses relative 
 with absolute denial. So everything "is" relatively, (ovkwv 
 ai Tt? p#) (pair] tfpev, tyevherai, < to tI ical > ra irdvTa elircDv 
 ravrd. irdvTa &v irf\i icrri. So Diels, but ? ecrTt.) All 
 this is interesting, not only as illustrating the same sort of 
 preoccupation with elementary problems of prosody and 
 etymology as we can trace in Heracliteanism, and in Plato's 
 picture of Prodicus, but also as indicating that Plato's own 
 
 1 
 
114 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 final resolution of the difficulty about predicating non-being 
 by the distinction between relative and absolute denial was 
 not, in its main principle, a novelty when Plato wrote the 
 Sophistes. Incidentally, the writer's insistence on the view 
 that all denial is relative or qualified, and his assertion that 
 " everything in some way is," is, of course, a mark of Eleatic 
 influence. 
 
 Sixth Antinomy. Here we come to the closest point of 
 contact with Socraticism, since the whole antinomy is con- 
 cerned with the problem whether aotpia and apery are 
 reyyai or not. The thesis is : wisdom and virtue cannot 
 be acquired by teaching (the very proposition on behalf of 
 which Plato's Socrates makes out a case in the Protagoras 
 and Mend) ; antithesis : wisdom and virtue can be taught, 
 (the Socratic thesis which Protagoras tries to defend without 
 knowing how to do so). The arguments and examples of 
 the Siaa-ol \6yoi agree so closely with those of the Prot- 
 agoras that a common source seems to me certain. 
 
 The arguments for the thesis are — (a) you cannot both 
 impart a thing to another and retain it for yourself, as 
 must be the case if one man can impart cro^ta and apery 
 to another by teaching ; (&) if wisdom and virtue were 
 teachable, there would be a recognised class of teachers 
 of them, just as there is of music ; (c) on the same assump- 
 tion, the " wise men who have arisen throughout Hellas '' 
 would have taught wisdom and virtue to their families 
 (t«!>? <plXw<i), which, it is implied, we know they have not 
 done ; (d) as for the professed " sophists," many of their 
 pupils have got no good from their instruction, while (e) 
 many persons have risen to eminence (d^ioi \6ya> 
 •yeyivrivrat) without a sophistic education. 
 
 Against (a) it is then argued, in the antithesis, that in 
 the case of a professional teacher of ypd/ifiara, or of a 
 professional /ci0apiard<;, a man imparts knowledge without 
 parting with it ; against (&) that there is a recognized class 
 of teachers of wisdom and virtue, the so-called " sophists," 
 and that the existence of Anaxagoreans and Pythagoreans 
 proves that Anaxagoras and Pythagoras did succeed in 
 
THE AISXOI AOrOI 115 
 
 teaching others ; against (c) that Polyclitus taught his 
 own art to his son ; against (<j) and (e) that the possibility 
 of rising to eminence without instruction from a sophist 
 proves nothing, since you may also learn to read without 
 going to school ; but it does not follow that schoolmasters 
 are useless. For there is such a thing as <j>va^, a natural 
 capacity, and if one has enough of this, he may be able to 
 dispense with education, just as a child learns to speak by 
 imitating its elders, without needing professional instruction. 
 We see, e.g., that a Persian child brought up from infancy 
 among Greeks spontaneously talks Greek, and if a Greek 
 infant were similarly brought up in Persia, it would 
 naturally talk Persian. " Thus," concludes the author, 
 "my discourse has been delivered, and you have its begin- 
 ning, middle, and end. What I say is not that virtue is 
 the result of teaching, but that the alleged demonstrations 
 do not convince me " (ov \eya) d>? BiSa/crou ecniv, d\\' 
 ovk wrro'XpmvTi fioi Trjvai ai a7roSei£et9). 
 
 It will be seen at once that the arguments here can- 
 vassed are identical with those familiar to us from the 
 Protagoras and Meno of Plato, and that the resemblance 
 extends to the individual examples alleged. The only 
 difference is that examples based upon the special 
 peculiarities of Athenian life and references to specific facts 
 of Attic history are present in the one case and absent in 
 the other. Thus there is nothing in the Siao-ol \6yoi 
 answering to the picture drawn in the Protagoras of the 
 behaviour of the eKKXijaia which will listen to any and 
 every citizen on the point of political or moral principle, 
 but refuses a hearing on technical points of naval construc- 
 tion and the like to all but professionals (Protagoras 319 
 b-d). Again, in the development of the argument 
 that there is clearly no re^vr] of virtue and o-ofyia, since 
 we see that the " best " citizens do not succeed in imparting 
 virtue and wisdom to their sons, whereas the rexi/iTr}*; 
 can always teach his rej(vri to his children, we miss in the 
 Sterol Xoyoi a parallel to the cases of Pericles, Thucy- 
 dides, and Themistocles, by which Plato's Socrates drives 
 
116 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the argument home. All that this proves, however, is the 
 already manifest point that the Sia-crol Xoyoi was not com- 
 posed at Athens, or for the instruction of Athenian scholars. 
 For the rest, the agreement is complete but for Plato's 
 omission of the purely " eristic " argument that " you 
 cannot communicate a thing to another, and yet retain 
 •it yourself." This is, of course, a general argument against 
 the possibility of communicating any kind of accomplish- 
 ment by teaching; the thesis which it goes to prove is 
 on oiSev e<rri SiSatriceiv, and it does not say much for the 
 intelligence of our author that he should have served it up 
 as a special argument against the teachability of apery and 
 <To$ia. Apart from this the arguments of the Protagoras 
 (319 e ff.) and Meno may be summarised thus. (1) If 
 apery could be taught, the heroes of history would have 
 instructed their sons in it, either personally or by the aid 
 of carefully selected professionals. That they have not 
 done so is shown by the case of Pericles, to which the 
 Meno adds those of Thucydides, Themistocles, and Aristides 
 (93 b— 94 c). (2) There is no generally recognised class 
 of professional teachers of apery (Meno 89 e). (3) The 
 ao^iarai who claim to be such a class do no good at all 
 to their pupils, (Meno 92 a, the anti-sophistic argument 
 of Anytus). These are precisely the arguments (3) (2) (4) of 
 the Staa-ol \6yoi. Argument (5), that a man may distinguish 
 himself in apery and ao^La without having attended the 
 instructions of a o-ocpio-Tys, dismissed by the writer of the 
 Shto-oI Xoyoi as " very silly," is similarly considered in 
 Plato by Protagoras more carefully, Protagoras 327 ff. So 
 with the counter-arguments in favour of the teachability 
 of virtue. The point that there are professional teachers 
 of it, viz. the <ro<pio-rai, is made both in the Protagoras 
 (328 a) and in the Meno (91-92). The appeal to an 
 original difference in capacity (<f>va-i<;) as explaining why one 
 man may attend the discourse of the ao^>i<rry<i without 
 profit, while another may exhibit a high degree of apery 
 without the help of a a-o<piary<;, and without being able to 
 impart his own excellence to another, is prominent in 
 
THE AI220I AOrOI 117 
 
 Protagoras' defence of his own profession {Protagoras 
 327 fit'.), and is provisionally Accepted in the Meno as the 
 explanation of the existence of men who are dyadol avev 
 8i8a%j)<:. The illustration of unconscious learning of things 
 from the social milieu independently of formal instruction 
 by the analogy of the way in which a child learns to speak 
 the language of the society in which it grows up recurs, 
 and is developed with much force, at Protagoras 327 e. We 
 may fairly draw the conclusion that the arguments put by 
 Plato into the mouths of the speakers in the Protagoras 
 and Meno are throughout no inventions of his own. They 
 belong to a body of well-recognised fifth-century arguments 
 pro and contra on the totto?, rrorepov hthaicrov ecrnv rj 
 apery, and there is no reason why they should not have 
 been canvassed, as Plato says they were, between Protagoras, 
 the first person to make the teaching of apery his pro- 
 fessional calling, and Socrates. The popularisation of dia- 
 lectical argumentation by Zeno, and the interest awakened 
 by the appearance of Protagoras as a paid professor of the 
 art of living, are enough of themselves to account for the 
 development in the latter half of the century of a well- 
 recognised and, as we may say, " classical " body of grounds 
 for and against the teachability of aocpia and apery. To 
 ascribe the invention of these grounds to the fourth century, 
 the age of the permanent schools of Plato and Isocrates, is a 
 pure anachronism. The very existence of the schools 
 implies that for thinking men the question " can virtue be 
 taught ? " had clearly found an answer. We must not be 
 misled on this point by the fact that Aristotle propounds the 
 same issue, as though it were still unsolved, in the Ethics. 
 What this means is not that the debate was still going on 
 in the days of the Lyceum, but merely that, with his usual' 
 dependence on the Platonic tradition, Aristotle thinks it part 
 of his duty as a lecturer to take up any problem of im- 
 portance raised in the Platonic text and to define his 
 attitude to it, precisely as many a teacher of philosbphy 
 to-day looks on himself as bound in honour to discuss, e.g., 
 views about number and continuity which have definitely 
 
118 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 become obsolete because he finds them playing a part in 
 Kant's doctrine of the Schematism of the Categories. 
 
 The extraordinarily close resemblances with which we 
 have just dealt may raise the further question whether our 
 author must not have been actually acquainted with the 
 criticisms of Socrates on the Protagorean doctrines, either 
 at first hand or by report. There would, of course, be no 
 impossibility in the supposition that he may himself have 
 been one of the more commonplace members of the 
 Megarian group of dialecticians with whom Socrates had 
 close personal relations, and thus may have actually heard 
 from the lips of Socrates the arguments in which he shows 
 so close an approximation to the Meno and Protagoras. 
 But I cannot see that the inference is in any way necessary. 
 We are not obliged to suppose that the arguments employed 
 by Socrates against Protagoras and the claims of " sophistry " 
 to reckon as a genuine Tej(yr) are put forward by Plato as 
 the invention of his hero. Socrates was perfectly at 
 liberty to avail himself of any generally recognised airopLai 
 on the subject, and to call on Protagoras to solve them if he 
 could. And there is one consideration which, to my own 
 mind, makes for the view that the difficulties raised in the 
 Protagoras are not of Socrates' making. If we compare 
 them with the reasons given in the Gorgias for refusing the 
 name of re^vr) to the sophists' skill, we shall be struck at 
 once by a difference of tone between the two dialogues. 
 The criticisms of the Protagoras are all based on empirical 
 observations of a decidedly obvious kind, and there is no 
 fundamental principle common to them all by which they 
 are converted into a logical unity. They emphatically do 
 not form, as they should do, and as the superficial author 
 of the Bta-a-ol \6yoi says they do, a whole having " beginning, 
 middle, and end." But this is exactly what the polemic of 
 the Gorgias is. It is a sustained argument based on the 
 conception of a re^vrj as the knowledge of demonstrable 
 and connected truths relating to a well-defined object or 
 " whole of discourse." The argument is worked out by the 
 systematic application of what we know to have been the 
 
THE AI2SOI AOrOI 119 
 
 Socratic method of classification Kara yewy, and couched in 
 the mathematical form which *Pla to regularly ascribes to 
 Socrates. Whoever will take the pains to contrast the 
 refutation of the claims of prjTopiKrj to be a ri'yyv as gi ven 
 in the Gorgias, (and it must be remembered that the 
 argument is expressly stated to be equally fatal to ao<jn- 
 aTiKij,) with the comparatively rough-and-ready popular 
 declamations of Socrates and Protagoras in the Protagoras, 
 will, I think, be inclined to admit that the probability is 
 that the whole series of arguments on both sides of the 
 question whether virtue can be taught, as rehearsed in that 
 dialogue and in the Meno, belong to the common-places of 
 fifth-century rhetoric, like Pindar's everlasting moralisings 
 on the theme to <f>vai. /cpdrta-rov airav, or Hippolytus' 
 devotion to a mistress who accepts only the offerings of 
 those 8(7oi<; SiSclictov firjSiv, a\\' iv rfji (pvtret, \ to 
 <rci)<f>poveiv eiX/r/y^ev e? tcl •jrdvO' 6/xS><;. 
 
 I take it, then, that the agreement between the 
 arguments canvassed in the Siaa-ol \6yot, and those of the 
 Platonic Protagoras and Meno is not of itself enough to 
 prove actual dependence of the former work on Socratic 
 influence. What it does prove is the dramatic exactitude 
 with which Plato has reproduced for us the manner of 
 thought and speech of the philosophical circles of the 
 generation before his own. 
 
 There is still, of course, an interesting possibility left 
 open, as to which I have said nothing. What if the 
 unknown author of the 8io<rol \6yoi should be actually 
 borrowing the arguments of his antinomy from the Platonic 
 dialogues themselves ? Since, as we have seen, the work 
 cannot be much later in date than the death of Socrates, 
 and may possibly be even a little earlier, such a supposition 
 would require us to assign exceedingly early dates to the 
 Protagoras and Meno, and therefore, if the majority of 
 scholars are right in seeing allusions to the Gorgias in the 
 Meiw, to the Gorgias also. We should, in fact, have to 
 assume that all three dialogues were written and circulated 
 almost immediately after the death of Socrates. (Since 
 
120 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 both the threats of Anytus in the Meno and the warnings 
 of Callicles in the Gorgias presuppose in the reader a 
 knowledge of the fate which actually overtook Socrates, 
 neither dialogue can be supposed to belong to a date before 
 399. The Protagoras, on the other hand, contains nothing 
 which might not have been written during the life-time of 
 its hero.) There is nothing, so far as I can see, to exclude 
 the possibility of so early a date for the three dialogues, 
 and there is at least one piece of evidence which might be 
 urged in favour of it. I mean the well-known passage of 
 the seventh Epistle in which the statement of the Republic 
 that mankind will never cease from their troubles unless 
 kings become philosophers or philosophers kings is quoted 
 as coming from an " eulogy on genuine philosophy " com- 
 posed before Plato's first visit to Sicily. 1 Whether the 
 author of the Epistle is Plato or an immediate disciple, in 
 either case this statement means that the Republic, in which 
 the words in question occur in the very context described, 
 was already composed as early as the year of the King's 
 Peace, and this must mean that the Protagoras, the Gorgias, 
 and its pendant the Meno, should be assigned to a date 
 some years earlier. We are thus thrown back for the 
 Gorgias on a date very little later than the death of 
 Socrates, while, apart from the mere a priori probability 
 that it was the trial and death of Socrates which gave, the 
 first impulse to the publication of \6^ol ~ZcoiepaTiKoi, there 
 is no valid reason for denying that a number of the earlier 
 Platonic dialogues may have been circulated while the 
 master was still alive, as the traditional anecdotes preserved 
 by Diogenes Laertius presuppose. On the other side, we 
 have nothing beyond the existence of supposed allusions in 
 the Gorgias to the existence of the Academy as an organized 
 
 1 Ep. vii. 326 a "ktyew re fyayK&ffdTjv, eVatpcw ttjv 6p6i]v 0t\o<ro0£ap, &s 4k 
 toi)t?)s t<rra> rd re TroAiraci ditcaia nal to, twv ISiurdv ir&VTO. KanSelv ' ttaKwv 
 <iSv oti \Jji-eu> t& avfipixnriva ytwrj wplv av 4) to tuv tpCkoawpotivTiav upOQs ye Kai 
 d\^#ws y4vos els dpx&s e"\dTji ras ttoKltlkcls ^ rb twv Svvatrrev6vTojv iv rats 
 irSKeeiv Ik twos fiolpas Betas &vtus (pi\ocro(p-q<rrn. The passages alluded to 
 are, of course, Republic 473 d, 501 e. That the allusion is to a published 
 "work" is made clear by the words iiruvav t^v 6p6)\v tpCKouoiplav. 
 
THE AI220I AOrOI 121 
 
 body. But it is at least open to question whether the sup- 
 posed allusions are not all due to misinterpretation. Thus, 
 to take the most plausible instance of all, when Callicles 
 describes the kind of life from which he wishes to dissuade 
 Socrates as tov Xoittov j3iov j3ia>vai fiera /ieipaicLav iv 
 ycovlai rpi&v rj Terrdpcov "ifriOvpt^ovra (Gorgias 485 d), 
 one is tempted at first to think the language singularly 
 inappropriate to the case of Socrates, whose figure was daily 
 familiar in the streets, the agora, and the palaestrae, and to 
 fancy that the shaft is really aimed at the president of 
 the nascent Academy. But we may change our minds 
 when we remember Xenophon's description of the ercupoi 
 of Socrates as sharing a common table, 1 Plato's picture of 
 the relations of Socrates with the Pythagorean and Eleatic 
 coteries, and Aristophanes' exhibition of the <f>povTi<rrr)piov. 
 These representations are only intelligible on the assumption 
 that there was such an inner ring of disciples as the 
 language of the Gorgias presupposes, and it is to the more 
 intimate communications of Socrates with the members of 
 this little group — we know their names with tolerable 
 completeness from the Phaedo — that Callicles means to 
 allude. Hence I see no reason to think that the Gorgias 
 contains any references to the establishment of the Academy, 
 or requires to be dated late enough to admit of any. 2 
 
 1 See 'Memorabilia, bk. iii. c. 14, where the anecdotes are unintelligible 
 ■except on the supposition that the avvtieiirvowTts are the intimate Socratic 
 circle, and that the common repast is their regular habit. 
 
 - I lay no stress on the bitterness of tone shown in the attack of the 
 dialogue on the democracy and its leaders. This has sometimes been ex- 
 plained by supposing that the dialogue, being composed almost immediately 
 after the death of Socrates, reflects the feelings of Plato when the loss of his_ 
 master was still fresh. Such views ignore the all-important point that the 
 anti-democratic diatribes of the Gorgias and Republic are given by Plato not 
 as his own but as those of Socrates, and that the Sit/WKparia assailed through- 
 out is that of the Periclean age, a state of society which passed away, never 
 to recur, before Plato was well past the years of adolescence. In a subsequent 
 essay I shall try to show that there is every reason to believe that the 
 Gorgias and Republic do faithfully represent the opinion of Socrates at the 
 end of his life on the great era of Athenian imperialistic expansion through 
 which he had lived as youth and man, and which, in reality, came to its 
 inevitable end when the Athenian forces surrendered to Gylippus at Syracuse. 
 
122 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 The argument of the Bia-a-ol \6yoi now wanders to a 
 topic which, at first sight, does not seem to have any 
 connection with the contention that antinomies may be 
 raised about all subjects of discourse, though we must re- 
 member that, since the beginning of the work is probably 
 lost, we do not know what the author's main thesis really 
 is, nor how large a part the assertion that two \6yoi can 
 be put forward about everything may have been related to 
 it. If we possessed his own statement of his intention, the 
 transition might be found to be less abrupt than it looks. 
 He begins with a formal attack on the system of appoint- 
 ment to offices by lot, always regarded in antiquity as 
 the outward symbol of S^fioKparia. The method, he says, 
 is neither rational nor democratic. His points are (1) that 
 no one would dream of allotting the tasks of his household 
 servants in such a way ; (2) that it would be absurd to 
 make an artisan follow a calling which he had received by 
 lot in preference to one which he understands (iiriaTaraC) ; 
 
 (3) that it would be equally foolish to select the performers 
 in a musical contest, or in war, by lot, since it would often 
 happen that an avX/^TTj? would thus be required to play 
 the Kiddpa, a hoplite to serve in the cavalry, etc. Moreover, 
 
 (4) the system is undemocratic because, where offices are 
 disposed of by lot, a fiio-oSafux; stands an equal chance of 
 appointment with a loyal democrat. To ensure democratic 
 rule it would be better for the S&fios to elect men of known 
 devotion to itself to all positions of trust, putting each of 
 them over the department for which his special abilities 
 mark him out. The argument is thus, on one side at least, 
 thoroughly Socratic in spirit. eiria-Tijfir), expert knowledge, 
 is demanded as the indispensable qualification for the 
 exercise of all administrative functions ; a man is only to be 
 allowed to undertake work which he knows how to do better 
 than anyone else. But the further insistence on loyalty 
 to the Bafiof as the second necessary qualification cannot 
 be called equally Socratic or Platonic. eiivoia towards 
 the governed is, indeed, insisted on vigorously enough in 
 the Republic as a fundamental note in the character of a 
 
THE AIXSOI AOrOI 123 
 
 "guardiaD," but this devotion to the best interests of the 
 whole 7ro\t? is something quite* different from the party- 
 spirit denoted by the phrase evvovs ran Stffiwi. Socrates 
 and Plato were no lovers of the Athenian Sijfios and had 
 no sentimental illusions as to its merits. Their maxim, as 
 we know, was that so long as the best and wisest bear rule 
 in the best interests of the whole 7ro\ts, it matters nothing 
 whether the Sj}/ios likes their rule or not ; the all-important 
 thing is that the " man at the helm " should be a true 
 navigator secundum artem, not whether he was elected to 
 take command by the crew. Our author would appear to 
 be writing for a community in which it is taken for granted 
 that loyalty is loyalty to the Sd/Moi, and treason the same 
 thing as /uaoSajiCa. We may infer, then, that he is himself 
 a citizen and writes for an audience of citizens of a Doric- 
 speaking democracy. 
 
 What is more to our present purpose is the very close 
 agreement of the illustrations used to show the unwisdom 
 of the use of the lot with those ascribed to Socrates by 
 Xenophon 1 and Aristotle. 2 In particular, the words of our 
 author, rcovrbv Be icai ev ay&cn ra<; fMocnicas BiakXapaia-ai 
 Ta>9 aya)vt(7Ta<; ical 6 ri •% eicacrTO<; \d%7)i dytovi^eadai • 
 avXrjTas tcidapll-ei rv^bv xal KtdapcoiBb<; avXtfcrei, are so 
 manifestly an expanded statement of what Aristotle calls 
 the " Socratic " criticism of the use of the " bean," that the 
 recurrence of the avX^nfc in the example as given here, 
 as well as in the Xenophon tic passage, seems to me a very 
 strong confirmation of my previous suggestion that dff\r)rd<i 
 in the Aristotelian passage is a corruption of auKi/rds. 
 
 The further argument that the use of the lot defeats its 
 own object by giving the oligarchical partisan as good a 
 chance of appointment as anyone else, and is therefore 
 contrary to the spirit of a BrifioKparia, recurs in Isocrates, 
 
 1 Memorabilia i. 2. 9 Xiyav ws p.Spov elrj roils /iiv ttjs iroXews apxovras &vi> 
 Kvdfiov KaOurrdvcu, Ku/SepKiJTTji Si iiijSiva $£Ktu> xp^^ai KvaixevrCbi pr/Si tIktovi 
 fnj8' ao\7jTTJt 3 /wjo" iir' d\\a Toiavra. 
 
 2 Rhetoric 1393 b 4 irapajSoX^ Si ra Sawcpan/cd, olov d tis \£yoi 6Vi oi Set 
 K\7jptOToits &px^iv. HfLOiov yap tiitrwep av ei tis rods d0X?;Tas (?) Kkypoly} /jltj ol 
 Stivavrai ayuivlfeaBai dXX' oS av Xdxwow, KT ^- 
 
124 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Areopagiticus 23 iv /j,ev yap rrji KXijpaxrei tt/v tv^tjp 
 fipafievaeiv teal iroXXaxii XTjtfreo-ffai w apx a< > tov<; oXiy- 
 ap^iai iiridvfiovvra^. And one may note; as an indica- 
 tion of the sources from which such criticisms come, that 
 Isocrates has immediately before " conveyed " for his own 
 purpose the thought of Socrates in the Gorgias about the 
 significance of the yecofierpiKr) 1V0T77?, Areopagiticus 21 
 Svotv laoTrjToiv vofu£o/j,ivai,v elvai, icai rrj<s fiev ravrbv 
 hiraaw airovefLovcrr]^ tjj? he to irpoaf/Kov kicatnov;, ovk 
 rjyvoovv (sc. Solon and Cleisthenes) rrjv xpri&ificaTepav, 
 dXXd rfjv fiev tSsv avr&v d^iovaav tou? xpTjarow; Kal tow; 
 irovrfpovs cnrehoicLfiatpv a>? ov hucaiav ovaav, ttjv he Kara' 
 ttjv al-Lav eicaaTov TifMoarav [/cat KoXd^ovaav] "irpoifipovvTO 
 Kal hid Tavrr]<s miKovv rr/v ttoXiv. §§ 25—26, in which the 
 older democracy is praised because of its comparative lack 
 of ambitious candidates for office, are probably equally 
 reminiscent of the Socratic theory of the unwillingness of 
 the "best" men to rule (cf. § 25 %aXeTrci>Tepov fjv iv 
 e/cetvoi<; tok *)(povoi<s eiipelv toii? fiovXofiivovs ap-^eiv rj vvv 
 tow; firjhev heo/ievov<; • ov yap ifiiroplav dXXd Xeirovpyiav 
 ivofii%ov elvai ttjv tS>v koivwv eirifieXeiav). All this 
 criticism of the ways and methods of the Periclean 
 democracy comes pretty obviously from one source. It 
 represents the kind of view current towards the end of the 
 Peloponnesian war among the " intellectuals " of Athens, so 
 far as they did not belong to the party of violent reaction 
 which got and abused its chances after the capitulation of 
 the city. On the connection of Socrates with this party — 
 the party of Theramenes as we may call it — I hope to 
 have more to say in a subsequent essay. 
 
 The next section of the hio-o-ol Xoyoi is sufficiently 
 striking to deserve quotation as a whole. Its manifest 
 object is to support the peculiarly Socratic view, attested 
 by Xenophon no less than by Plato, of the identity of the 
 dialectician and the statesman, by the familiar Socratic 
 argument that he who understands the theory of anything 
 must be the most efficient practitioner. " I hold that it 
 belongs to the same man and to the same art to be able 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI 125 
 
 to converse with brevity (/cara /Spa^u SiaKeyecrOat 1 ), and 
 to know the truth of things (rav^aKddeiav t&v irpayfidrcov), 
 and to know how to give judgment rightly {8ucd£ev opdm), 
 and to be able to make orations to the public (Safiayopelv), 
 and to know the arts of discourse, and to teach about the 
 nature of all things, 2 how they are and how they came to 
 be. And first, how should one who knows about the 
 nature of all things be unable <to teach the city> 3 to act 
 rightly about everything ? Again, he who knows the arts 
 of discourse will also know how to discourse aright about 
 everything. For he who is to speak aright must speak 
 about things he knows (eirCa-rurai). So he will know 
 about everything. For he knows the arts of all discourses, 
 and all discourses are about all things that are. And he 
 who is to know how to speak rightly must know the things 
 about which he speaks, and teach the city aright to do the 
 good things but hinder it somehow from doing the bad. 
 And since he knows these things, he will know their 
 opposites 4 also, for he will know everything. For these 
 things (i.e., I suppose, the " opposites ") are the same things 
 
 1 Compare the boasts of Protagoras in Plato and Socrates' ironical allusions 
 to them. Protagoras 329 b IiparaySpas Si SSe luavos piv ixaxpois X&yous Kal 
 KtiKoiis elveiv, us aiirk St/Xoi, Uavbs Si Kal e"pun-r)SeU airoKplvaaBai Kara fipaxb 
 kt\. ; 335 b-c ao p&v y&p, ws \i~yerat irepl troO, (p^jLS Si Kal atirbs, Kal iv 
 fmKpdXoyiat Kal £v $pa%vhoylai olds re el avvovaias iroiei(T0a.L — voipbs yap el — iyw 
 Be t& imxpa ravra aStivaros ; 336 a-d, and the similar profession of Gorgias 
 (Gorgias 449 b-c). That Kara fipaxi in our passage similarly refers to the 
 question-and-answer method of " dialectic " as contrasted with the continuous 
 iTrlSet^is of rhetoric is made certain by the 4pum!>nevov am-oKplveaBai of its 
 concluding clause. 
 
 2 It is not quite clear how much the words rav t&v turavTUv <piaiv are 
 meant to cover. They should strictly include the whole of the irepl <j>tiaews 
 lo-ropta. In the context they seem to mean "all the circumstances" which 
 arise in political life, but the clause us tyet Kal us iyivero, as well as the next 
 remark that rol \6yot iravres irepl Trivrav t&v i<J>VTti>v evrt>, calls for the wider 
 reference. It looks as if the author were carelessly adapting to his immediate 
 purposes a general principle of which he does not quite see the scope. 
 
 3 rav irbXiv SiSaffKev is an insertion of Diels' which is justified by the 
 recurrence of the words in the further development of the argument. 
 
 4 ra Irepa tootuv. The principle implied is that expressed by Aristotle 
 in the form that there is p.la iwuTT^/iri tu>v ivavrluv. That this is really 
 Socratic is shown by the constant appeals to it throughout Republic i. 
 
126 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 in the whole (ear* yap ravra ra>v iravTwv Tr\vd)} and he 
 will do what is needed with reference to the same thing 
 when called upon. If he knows how to play the flute, he 
 will always he able to play the flute if it is necessary to 
 do so. And he who knows how to plead a case at law 
 (Sucdfeo-ffai) must have a right knowledge of justice, for 
 it is that with which law-suits are concerned. And know- 
 ing this he will also know its opposite, and the things other 
 than < these >. And he needs also to know all the laws, so 
 if he does not know the facts he will not know the laws 
 either. 2 For it is the same man who knows the laws in 
 music and who knows music, and he who does not know 
 music does not know the law either. It is an easy 
 inference that he who knows the truth about things knows 
 
 1 I do not feel quite sure about the meaning of the writer, but I take the 
 sense to be that the reason why there is " one science of opposites " is that 
 "in the whole" opposites are identical, according to the Heraclitean doctrine 
 of which we have found traces in the Surtrol \6yoi. Hence since " in the 
 whole" e.g. good and evil are the same thing, knowledge of the good is 
 necessarily knowledge of the evil also. . 
 
 2 The argument is that the true dicast must know the laws ; but if he does 
 not know ri. irpi.yp.aTa, he cannot know the laws. The force of the analogy 
 from /iou<ri/«7 seems to be that you cannot be novain&s unless you know the 
 laws which have to be observed in constructing a melody. But these laws 
 depend upon certain irpdypara or objective realities, viz. the mathematical 
 ratios corresponding to the fundamental intervals in the musical scale. To 
 know the "laws" of /ioucriKi} and to know these irp6.yfi.aTa is all one. 
 Similarly the "laws "in accord with which a just verdict should be given 
 rest upon the real objective character of to Sikcuov. If you do not know 
 what to Slxaiov — airb & (an muaiouvvq in Platonic phrase — is, you cannot 
 really know the laws in accordance with which you ought to absolve or 
 condemn. The reasoning seems to be directed against the view that we do 
 not and cannot know the 0iVis of to SUaiov, we only know the varying v6/j.oi 
 or "conventions" as to what is just which prevail in different communities. 
 On this theory a decision which is in accord with the vbjioi. of a given tAXis 
 is a "just" decision relatively to that to'Kls, and a man who knows the 
 "conventions" prevailing at Athens may therefore give a decision which is 
 "conventionally" just, without knowing or caring what is "absolutely" 
 or "naturally" just. The writer is arguing by implication that the 
 "conventions" of society are founded on a real objective distinction between 
 the Stuaiov and the aducov, and therefore if you do not know the irpayp.a in 
 question, in other words the 0iV« or eJSos of the "just," you can no more 
 give a just decision than you could compose a melody without knowing the 
 fundamental harmonic intervals. 
 
THE AISSOI AOrOI 12V 
 
 everything. And then <he is able to converse > briefly 
 too about everything <if> hg is called on to answer a 
 question. So then he must know everything." 
 
 The reasoning here is superficial enough, but what 
 should interest us is that its purport is to establish the 
 identity of the 8iaXeKTiic6$, the man who can play the 
 game* of question and answer, at once with the irepl iravra 
 etSco? or philosopher, and with the man who can do every- 
 thing, particularly give political advice (Sr/firjyopeiv), secundum 
 artem. The conclusion therefore is that the 8iaXeKTtic6<; is 
 the true philosopher, and the true philosopher is also the 
 true statesman and prjrap. The position, as it is needless 
 to point out, is the same as that expressed by Plato in the 
 demand that philosophers, as the masters of the art of 
 dialectic, shall be kings, and by Xenophon in the claim 
 which he puts into the mouth of Socrates that dialectic 
 makes men "fit to bear rule." The appearance of the idea 
 in the Sta-aol \6yoi seems thus to be a clear indication of 
 Socratic influence. 
 
 In the few remaining lines of the fragment the writer 
 passes on to the discussion of the value of a good memory, 
 and the illustration of the ways in which memory may be 
 aided by the formation of artificial associations. The 
 connection of this topic with what has gone before is not 
 obvious, but the passage is interesting as recalling the 
 mnemonic art of Hippias, who figures in both Xenophon 
 and Plato as standing in a rather closer relation to Socrates 
 than any of the other famous " sophists." * 
 
 Our general result, then, would seem to be that the 
 
 1 Apart from the curious specimen of mnemonics, there is a further point 
 of contact with Hippias, as Diels notes, in the conception of the master of 
 the art of discourse (a£ tuv \brywv t4x" m )i as heing also a polymath and an 
 authority irepl ipitrios t&v airavruv. Of. Protagoras 337 d, where Hippias 
 speaks to the assembled "sophists" as persons who know tV (piaiv twv 
 wpay/j-iruv, and the foregoing sentences in which he extols (j>ins at the 
 expense of p6/uos. And note that Plato there makes Hippias dwell on the 
 " brevity " required for dialogue much as our writer does. We must there- 
 fore probably recognise an influence of Hippias as well as of Socrates on our 
 unknown author. That the author is not Hippias himself seems clear from 
 the difference in style between the Suraol Aifyoi and Plato's imitation of 
 
128 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Siaa-oi \6yoi, written possibly before the death of Socrates 
 and at the latest in the very earliest years of the fourth 
 century, shows unmistakable traces of Socratic influence, 
 and must be seriously reckoned with in any attempt to 
 reconstruct the history of Greek thought in the generation 
 immediately anterior to Plato. In particular, it seems to 
 show that the identification of the dialectician with the 
 statesman, (in other words, the theory of the philosopher- 
 king,) and the beginnings of the doctrine of eiBy are pre- 
 Platonic, and presumably therefore due to Socrates and his 
 circle. The repeated correspondences with some early 
 Platonic dialogues, notably the Protagoras, and with points 
 burlesqued in the Clouds of Aristophanes, further serve to 
 confirm our contention that Plato's picture of Socrates and 
 his circle is in the main historically much more accurate 
 than it is now usual to suppose. The writer gives clear 
 indications of belonging to the class of semi-Eleatic thinkers 
 represented for us in the Socratic circle by Euclides and 
 his Megarian associates. In the mutilated condition in 
 which his work has been preserved all safe indications of 
 his ultimate object have been lost, and it is as a mere 
 conjecture that I would suggest that his purpose in con- 
 structing his antinomies may have been to reinforce the 
 Eleatic doctrine that tcl iroKKd, the contents of the world 
 of sensible experience, are unknowable, and that no belief 
 about them is any truer than its contradictory. 
 
 Hippias. Moreover, the X6701 are obviously not an " epideixis " by a travelling 
 professor, but, as Diels says, Schulvortrage : I would add that there is no 
 evidence that Hippias ever used a Doric dialect, and that all the probabilities 
 are against it. He seems to have written in Attic, as most persons who had 
 anything to say naturally did in the latter part of the fifth century. The 
 statement that Socrates was more closely connected with Hippias than with 
 other " sophists " is based upon the marked difference of tone between the 
 Hippias i. and ii. of Plato and the Protagoras and Oorgias. Socrates does 
 not treat Hippias with the formal politeness which he reserves for the other 
 distinguished foreign savants, but with a familiarity which would be ill- 
 mannered if it did not rest on fairly close acquaintance. That Xenophon, 
 who says nothing of the interviews between Socrates and Protagoras or 
 Gorgias, should have given a whole chapter to Hippias (Memorabilia iv. 4), 
 points in the same direction. 
 
IV 
 
 The Phrontisterion 
 
 In the first essay of the present collection I have tried to 
 show how much may be learned by a right use of Plato's 
 Phaedo about the vie intime of Socrates and his connection 
 with the Pythagorean societies in which " philosophy " was 
 pursued as a way of redemption from the " body of death " 
 into everlasting life. By the tragedy of the Phaedo I now 
 wish to set the splendid comic burlesque of the Clouds, and 
 to show how very exactly the one confirms the other, and 
 how ridiculously Aristophanes has misconceived his function 
 if the currently accepted view of Socrates as primarily a 
 commonplace moralist of the market-place is veritable 
 history. For if the Clouds is really a genuine caricature, 
 by the hand of a master in the art, of the hero of the 
 Phaedo, we ought to be able to trace in it, with due allow- 
 ance for the distortion which it is the business of the 
 caricaturist to effect, the very lineaments which we see 
 glorified by the approach of martyrdom in the Phaedo. If 
 we can do so, all serious doubt as to the historical character 
 of Plato's account of his master's pursuits and mental 
 history should be dispelled, and for this reason the play 
 of Aristophanes, if it can be trusted at all, is one of the 
 most precious of all documents for the study of the develop- 
 ment of Greek philosophical thought. This is a fact which 
 has already been recognised by some writers on Socraticism, 
 notably in Italy, 1 but is not, so far as I know, adequately 
 appreciated among ourselves. "We are still too much in 
 the habit of taking it for granted that the " Socrates " of 
 
 1 See the Postscript to the present Essay. 
 
 129 K 
 
130 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Aristophanes is not so much a caricature, and a life-like 
 caricature, of a notable personality as a fancy-picture in 
 which all the ludicrous or objectionable features of the 
 "new learning" have been combined, with an entire dis- 
 regard for historical fact. The play, we are commonly told, 
 is a general attack on the " sophists," and by " sophists " 
 the exponents of this view mean, not what the word really 
 signified in the Attic of Aristophanes' time, pretenders to 
 specialist knowledge of any and every kind, but what it 
 has been made to mean for us, more especially by the 
 influence of Grote, the travelling professors of the arts of 
 persuasive speech. Its protagonist is no real individual 
 man, but a sort of composite photograph in which the 
 features of all the leading peripatetic professors are in- 
 geniously blended. Even Dr. Verrall, who has shown so 
 brilliantly how much may be learned from the Frogs about 
 the historical personality and habits of Euripides, has 
 thought it necessary to dismiss the " Socrates " of the 
 Clouds as no true caricature with the remark (as we shall 
 see, a mistaken one,) that in all probability Socrates was 
 not well enough known in 423, when the play was pro- 
 duced, for wanton disregard of verisimilitude in the comic 
 picture to be detected or resented by the mass of Athenian 
 playgoers. 1 If this were true, the work would, of course, 
 lose all its value for the student of Plato and of philosophy. 
 I propose, however, to show in detail that it is not true, 
 and that the Clouds, when carefully read, so exactly con- 
 firms the statements of the Phaedo as to the entourage of 
 Socrates and his early associations with the science of the 
 previous generation, as to leave little doubt that the Platonic 
 representation is curiously exact even down to matters of 
 detail. To be more precise, I undertake to give reasons 
 for holding that the play is not directed at all against the 
 " sophists " in the sense in which that word is commonly 
 understood in English, but against a specific group of 
 persons who combined scientific research with aa/cyo-is, 
 the quest of salvation from the body, that is, against the 
 1 Euripides (he Rationalist, p. 106, note 1. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 131 
 
 very circle whose portraits have been drawn from the point 
 of view of a sympathizer in the Phaedo. I think, more- 
 over, that I can make it clear that the brunt of the attack 
 is specifically directed against the conception of " dialectic " 
 as the universal science, and the dialectician as the true 
 statesman which we have come to connect more particularly 
 with the Platonic Republic. 
 
 But, to begin with, I must deal with one or two con- 
 siderations of a general nature which seem to me fatal to 
 the view that the burlesque of Aristophanes is aimed at 
 a mere type, not, as all genuine caricature should be, at the 
 exhibition, with the proper exaggerations and distortions, 
 of a perfectly individual character. 
 
 In the first place, then, it is obvious that baseless mis- 
 representation, which a spectator or reader can detect for 
 what it is, must be fatal to the popular success of a cari- 
 cature, a consideration which Aristophanes, of all men, 
 cannot be supposed to have ignored. To succeed at all 
 with any public — and, after all, the comedian's first object 
 is to succeed, to " catch on " — caricature must be, or must 
 be believed by the public to be, like its original. And 
 the likeness must be such that there can be no possible 
 doubt in the mind of the public as to the person aimed at. 
 To exhibit to a public who were familiar with the personality 
 of the actual Socrates a mere composite portrait in which 
 the various features of half a dozen different " sophists " — 
 Diogenes, Archelaus, Protagoras, Prodicus — are thrown 
 together, and the label " Socrates " affixed to the result, 
 would have been as feeble a jest as it would be to-day 
 to exhibit a character made up of traits drawn from the 
 members of five or six different Cabinets under the name 
 -of Asquith or Balfour. It would have been to court 
 failure. 1 Hence, as Dr. Verrall has seen, it is essential to 
 
 1 I may be reminded that the Clouds did in fact prove a failure. That 
 it did not fail because the caricature of Socrates was a bad one will be made 
 apparent in the course of the present essay. , It will be my object to show 
 that Aristophanes is only speaking the truth when he calls particular 
 .attention to the minute care which he has lavished on the work he not 
 unreasonably extols as the best of his comedies (Clouds 522 ml rairr/v 
 
132 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the theory I am combating to assume that the personality 
 of Socrates was almost an unknown quantity when the 
 Clouds was exhibited. That this assumption is entirely 
 false can, I submit, be shown both by external and by 
 internal evidence. As for the external evidence, to be 
 drawn from the chronological assumptions tacitly made in 
 the Platonic dialogues, it has figured already in part in a 
 preceding essay on the " impiety " of Socrates, and I will 
 merely remind my reader here that it is taken for granted 
 in the Charmides that the public activity of Socrates among 
 the veoi had attracted attention as early as the beginning 
 of the Peloponnesian war, while a combination of the data 
 afforded by different dialogues shows, as I shall shortly 
 show, that the famous oracle of the Pythia, from which 
 Plato himself dates the notoriety of Socrates as a public 
 character, must be placed earlier still. Thus we may take 
 it as certain that Socrates and his doings were perfectly 
 familiar to the general public of Athens years before the 
 production of the Clouds, not to mention that, on Plato's 
 showing at least, Socrates had been a prominent figure in 
 the narrower circle of the " wits " who gathered round 
 Pericles and Aspasia for a still longer period. Hence the 
 possibility that Aristophanes (who, according to the 
 Symposium, was on personally friendly terms with the philo- 
 sopher,) should have failed in his caricature, either from want 
 of adequate acquaintance with its object or from careless- 
 ness bred of the knowledge that his audience would not be 
 able to detect bad work, seems to me definitely excluded. 
 
 The internal evidence of the play itself is to the same 
 effect. For one thing, we may reasonably take it for 
 granted that Aristophanes, as a man of sense, would not 
 have endangered fhe popularity of his play by selecting as 
 
 trotpilrraT' lx etv ™" i/ufo Ktaiiuidiuv). It would be much nearer the truth 
 to say, as the poet himself suggests, that the play failed because the cari- 
 cature was too good and thorough to be fully appreciated by an audience 
 which preferred its high comedy diluted by farcical horseplay and bawdry. 
 Further proof that Socrates was sufficiently wbll known in 423 to be a 
 suitable butt for comedy is afforded by the fact that the rival play 6f 
 Amipsias, the Kiceos, also dealt with him and his circle. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 133 
 
 Us leading figure a person of whom little was known and in 
 Whom no one but the "intellectuals" took much interest. 
 If Aristophanes meant to attack the "new learning" at 
 all, it was obviously his business to attack it in the person 
 of some one who was generally known as one of its chief 
 representatives, and in whom his audience was interested. 
 Further, the main idea of the play clearly is, that Socrates 
 and his " notion-shop " were, in point of fact, so universally 
 known that a country bumpkin who wished his son to get 
 a training in " cuteness " would at once think of Socrates 
 and his friends as the natural quarter in which to apply. 1 
 If the Athenians of 423 scarcely knew of Socrates at all 
 and took little interest in his doings, how could Strepsiades 
 be represented as taking it for granted that the (ppoyn- 
 imjpiov was the proper school to which to take his lad ? 
 Moreover, and this is to me personally a very significant 
 point, there is no internal evidence that the Clouds is meant 
 as an attack on the popular teachers of Ehetoric at all. In 
 almost every point of importance the character ascribed to 
 Socrates and his fia8r}ral throughout the play is ludicrously 
 in contrast with all that we know of Protagoras, Prodicus, 
 and their likes. They were fashionable men who moved in 
 the highest circles, made large sums by their profession, and 
 addressed themselves specially to the youth of the wealthy 
 and well-born class ; it was not the small farmers and shop- 
 keepers who made up the St}/j,o<s, but the high-born and 
 leisured (uo-oSrjfioi whose sons sought to buy the secret of 
 success from Protagoras or Gorgias or Thrasymachus, and it 
 is in this fact, as Plato plainly hints in the Gorgias and 
 Meno, that we must look for the real cause of the unpopu- 
 larity of " sophists " with the Srjp,o<;. 
 
 The <]>povTio-Tao of the Clouds, on the other hand, like 
 
 1 Clouds 94. Strepsiades at once knows where to take his son as soon as 
 he has got his promise to be put to school. ^ux«" <to^>Qii tovt iarl <j>povn- 
 art\piov kt\. (Note the intentional Equivoque in \pvx&v : Behold yon gathering- 
 place of wisest spirits : Sieh da den Sammelplatz gelahrter Geister.) The 
 fame of Socrates and his friends is thus perfectly well known to a mere 
 bumpkin. It is equally familiar to the lad himself, 102 robs dXafiras \ robs 
 ibxptufVTas, robs AvvTroStfrovs \4yeis, \ &v 6 KaKoSalfuav XuKpdrtjs Kal Xa.ipe<f>uv. 
 
134 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 the Socrates of the Apology, live iv /ivpicu irevlcu, and 
 cannot he sure of a dinner from one day to the next (Clouds 
 175). The instructions of Socrates are not given in the salon 
 of a great man like Callias, the son of Hipponicus, nor in a 
 handsome palaestra, but in his own dingy and ruinous 
 house. His typical pupil is not a young fashionable, but 
 the ragged and fleasy Chaerephon (ib. 156, 503), elsewhere, 
 as we have seen, laughed at by the poet as a specimen 
 of the Orphic seekers after salvation, the 7)fti0vf)Te<; of 
 Aristophanes, the " practitioners of dying " of the Phaedo. 
 It is true that the special trick of which " Socrates " is said 
 to keep the secret is that art of making " the worse case 
 appear the better" in which all the Professors of Rhetoric, 
 from Protagoras downwards, were believed to deal, hut to 
 judge from the performances of the two \6yoi themselves, 
 as well as from the behaviour of Strepsiades and 
 Phidippides after their course of attendance at the school, 
 the particular way of performing the trick taught in the 
 <f>povTiarripi,ov is not that of plausible oratory, but that 
 of verbal quibbling and captious questioning which, as 
 we saw in the last essay, goes back to the paradoxes of 
 " Master Yea-and-Nay of Elea." In a word, what is parodied 
 is not the " art " of Protagoras and Gorgias, but the very 
 '' dialectic," or, as an enemy would call it, the " eristic " 
 which Plato represents as characteristic of Socrates and his 
 Eleatic and Pythagorean friends, and as always proving fatal 
 by its novelty to the rhetoricians of established reputation 
 who venture to enter the lists against it. 
 
 It is perhaps worth while to note that the very word 
 a-o<pia-Ti]<; hardly occurs in the play at all, and never in the 
 sense of " professional teacher of plausible oratory " — a 
 singular fact, if the main object of the comedy is to use 
 Socrates as a burlesque on the great masters of that 
 accomplishment. 1 On the other hand, there is another name 
 
 1 To be exact, the name"Vo0i<rra( is found four times. At 359 Socrates is 
 said to be one of the fiereuipoaiupurTat, which does not mean a "sophist" at 
 all in the sense in which we have unfortunately come to use the word, but 
 an astronomer and cosmologist like Thales (cf. Clauds 180, where Socrates is 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 135 
 
 under which Socrates and his intimates are repeatedly held 
 up to derision, and that name is <j>povri<TTai, " notionists," 
 
 spoken of as a second and greater Thales), or Anaxagoras ; at 331 the 
 ' ' Clouds " are said to provide support for a herd of (rapurral, though here 
 again these " sophists " are more precisely described in the following lines as 
 " seers " (with a special reference to Lampon), " writers of medical compendia " 
 (larpor^xvas, i.e. persons like the composers of such Hippocratean works as 
 the trepl Stainjij irepl aepow, iiddruy, rbiruv, irepl rixvys, irepl avdpunrov (pvaios, 
 and the like), "dithyrambic poets," and "astronomical quacks" (/xeTeupo- 
 (pivaicas, a jeer which, in the light of the parabasis, may be supposed to be 
 specially aimed at Meton and his reform of the Calendar). Thus the iiereupo- 
 trmpurral seem to be persons who, whether as poets or as men of science, claim 
 to be peculiarly acquainted with the "things aloft," and may therefore 
 reasonably be said to make their living out of the " weather " ; all reference to 
 the popular teachers of Rhetoric is excluded by the nature of the case. At 
 1111 Socrates undertakes to make Phidippides <ro<pt<rTT]v dcfaip, which, if we 
 may judge from the event, he does by teaching him the trick of "eristic," 
 and at 1309 Strepsiades is called tovtov tov atupusrlpi, apparently with reference 
 to the exhibition of " eristic " which he has just given at the expense of his 
 creditor. All the instances seem to show that the "sophistry" against 
 which the Clouds is directed is something quite different in kind from the 
 art of Protagoras and Gorgias, and exactly reminiscent of the very gift of 
 "dialectic" which is made so prominent in Plato's portrait of Socrates. 
 The passages which show that 6 <ppavnari\% must have been a current nick- 
 name, presumably derived from the constant recurrence of the notion of 
 <ppbvr)<ni in the daily discourses of Socrates, are too numerous to require 
 exhaustive quotation here. 
 
 With regard to Protagoras in particular, it will become more evident than 
 ever that he can hardly be particularly aimed at in the Clouds when we 
 consider that he was, in all probability, dead when the play was exhibited. 
 The current chronology, which has been confused by the tale of his prosecu- 
 tion for impiety, places his death either about 415 or about 411, but this is 
 entirely inconsistent with the notices given in Plato. From Protagoras 317 <* 
 we learn that he was already an elderly man at the imaginary date of the 
 gathering in the house of Callias, (i.e., as we shall shortly see, not much later, 
 if at all, than 440 B.C.), and that he was a full generation older than Socrates, 
 Prodicus, and Hippias (itatroi iroWd ye tn) ij5ii el/d ev rrji Tiyyr\i. • /col yip xal ri, 
 ai/iTavTO. iroWd fioi iariv — oiSevos Stov ov Trdvriav hv ip.wv ko.0' i)\iKlav wariip 
 ehfv. This, of course, does not mean merely that it would have been just 
 physically possible for Protagoras to have been a father at the date of Socrates' 
 birth, but that he was a man of the previous generation — i. e. roughly some 
 thirty years older, as the kb.6' rjhuclav implies. Protagoras and his contem- 
 poraries, it is meant, were grown men when Socrates and his ^Xi/ces were 
 children). The same thing is implied at 320 c when Protagoras proposes to 
 expound his views in a "story," as an old man talking to young people may 
 do without impropriety, ir&repov bfuv, ws irpetrfifrrepos veurre'poLs, fivBov \iytav 
 £iri8el%tii kt\. Such a proceeding would be an intolerable piece of arrogance in 
 a speaker addressing men only some fifteen or sixteen years younger than him: 
 
136 VARIA SQOEATICA 
 
 " botherationists," " minute philosophers." So his abode is 
 the fypovrwTTqpiov or "factory of notions," the problems 
 upon which he sets his scholars to work are <f>povTl8e<;, 
 
 self ; in an old man talking with persons who were babies when he was in his 
 prime it is graceful and natural. Thus the birth of Protagoras must be put 
 back to somewhere about 500 B.C., and, in complete accordance with Plato's 
 assertion that he was already well on in years when he disputed with Socrates 
 in the house of Callias, he must be supposed for the purposes of the dialogue 
 to be somewhere about sixty. This accounts, again, for the way in which he 
 addresses Socrates at the end of the dialogue as a young man of promise who 
 may yet distinguish himself, 361 e ovk &v Bav/juLfaifU el tSiv eWoytfxup ytvoio 
 AvSpum 4irl aoiplai. These are not the words of a man of forty-five to a man 
 of thirty. As to the date of his death, we have really no trustworthy state- 
 ment except that of Plato in the Meno 91 e, that he lived to be about seventy. 
 Plato's words, ol/uu y&p airbv airoOaveiv iyyis ko.1 cj35ofi-r)Koi>Ta err] yeyovbra, 
 require us to suppose that the exact number of years was, if anything, rather 
 less than seventy, and we thus get 430 B.C. as the probable latest date for his 
 death. This fits in well with the immediately following observation of the 
 Meno that his reputation remains undiminished in eh ri)» yiUpav Tavr-qvl, 
 which would be absurd if supposed to be spoken within little more than ten 
 years after the event to which they refer. 
 
 These results appear to me no less certain that they are inconsistent with 
 the story of the prosecution for impiety. The falsehood of this tale, which 
 had been already discerned by Mr. St. George Stock in his edition of the 
 Meiw, has been so thoroughly established by Professor Burnet that we may 
 hope in another generation or so to see it expunged even from the text-books 
 of the history of Greek philosophy. 
 
 The current chronology, which brings down the birth of Protagoras to 
 about 485-480, seems to rest on nothing but one of the usual Alexandrian 
 combinations. Protagoras was known to have been one of the commissioners 
 employed by Pericles for the establishment of the important colony of 
 Thurii in 444 (Heraclides of Pontus ap. Diogenes Laertius viii. 50). Now 
 the foundation of Thurii, like the fall of Sardis, was a favourite date with the 
 Alexandrians in fixing the d/c/«j of persons for whom no more exact data were 
 available. The assumption that the d/f/ti) of Protagoras coincided with this 
 most important event in his recorded career, taken together with Plato's 
 express assertion that he was just under seventy when he died, at once gives 
 484-415 as his dates of birth and death. But it is absurd to prefer such a 
 transparent combination to the clear and consistent indications of the 
 Protagoras. The theory which brings him down to 480-411 seems to rest on 
 nothing better than the tale that his "accuser" was Pythodorus, "one of 
 the 400," i.e. a member of the very class from whom the admirers and pupils 
 of the " sophists " were recruited ! (Cf. Aristophanes, Frogs 967, for the 
 "moderate reactionaries" of 411 as the "disciples" of the "sophistic" poet 
 Euripides.) The case of Protagoras is thus similar to that of Lysias whose 
 traditional date has notoriously been got wrong in consequence of the fixing 
 of his d/f/ii) by reference to the foundation of Thurii. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 137 
 
 " notions," 1 and the changes are rung on ^povri^eiv and its 
 cognates until the modern reader, whatever may have been 
 the feelings of the ancient spectator, grows weary of the 
 word. The only reasonable explanation of this " damnable 
 iteration " is, in fact, that the nickname is no invention of 
 the poet's, but a popular term of derision already familiar 
 to the audience as specially appropriate to Socrates and his 
 friends, and adopted as a catchword by the poet precisely 
 because, being so familiar, it might be counted on to raise 
 a laugh at the minimum expense of brains. Fortunately 
 we have the evidence of Plato, and perhaps also of 
 Xenophon, to confirm this conclusion. 2 All this shows that 
 
 1 The keynote of the play is struck in the opening exposition at 1. 75 
 when Strepsiades ends his recollections with the remark vvv o5x S\ijv tt)v 
 viiera tppovrlfav oSov, | pluv rjSpov arpairbv oaifiovias iireptpva. If I read the 
 poet aright, this is an intentional hint to the audience that the coming piece 
 is to deal with the humours of the cppovrurral and their <ppovTiaTi)piov. For 
 a single example of a passage which is only intelligible on the view that 
 the point lies in the reiteration of a jest already familiar to the audience, 
 cf. 227 ff.— 
 
 oi) yap av ttote 
 8-fivpov 6p$S>s rb. iieriupa TrpA.yp.aTa, 
 el fiij KpepA&as rb vlrqp.a koX tt\v (ppovrlSa 
 \ottt)v Karap-elljas els rbv opoiov aipa. 
 el 8' (bv x a M a ' t&voi xdruSev lanbirovv, 
 ovk &v ttoB' ri^pov oil yap d\\' i] yr) j8/at 
 £Affet Tpbs aOTTjv tt]v tK/j.dda ttjs tppovrldos. 
 
 2 Plato's testimony to the existence of a long-standing popular joke about 
 Socrates as a (ppovrurrfy will be found in Symposium. 220 c, where, when 
 Socrates falls into one of his trances, the word goes round the camp before 
 Potidaea that ZwK/jdrijs tppovrifav tanjiccv. Unless the nickname had already 
 been in existence there would have been no point in this camp jest. The 
 joke lay in the fact that the tj>povn<rTr)s was at work in the open and not, as 
 usual, in the seclusion of his "factory." There was an opportunity to watch 
 the whole process of the making of a (ppovrls. So it is given in the Apology, 
 18 b, as a summary of the popular view of Socrates, lis ttrrw ns SwKpdrijs 
 <ro<pbs &vrjp, ra re luriuipa (ppovrurr'/is kt\. Xenophon's allusion occurs in 
 Symposium vi. 6, where the Syracusan maitre de ballet attacks Socrates with 
 the words S.pa ai, <D Xt&Kpares, b (ppovrurTjp iiriKahoipxvos ; It might be 
 maintained that Xenophon is here merely reproducing a nickname which 
 had been fixed on Socrates by the Clouds itself, since the speaker's jibe about 
 the "geometry" by which Socrates is said to measure the jump of a flea 
 seems to be an allusion to Clouds 144 ff. But comparison with the Platonic 
 passage suggests rather that both the nickname and (?) the joke about the 
 
138 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 the object of the Clouds is not to attack " sophists " at all, 
 but to burlesque a group of "faddists" gathered round a 
 particular individual with whose mental and physical 
 peculiarities the spectators are assumed to be well acquainted, 
 and who is depicted not as a " sophist," but rather as what 
 we should call a needy and tolerably dishonest " crank." 
 Besides being interested in science in a fantastic fashion, 
 which should recall to an English reader Swift's ridicule of 
 Newton and the Eoyal Society, the person caricatured has 
 an educational system which reminds us at more points 
 than one of the programme laid down for the philosopher- 
 king of the Republic, and is specially skilled in the 
 controversial use of what, with Plato before us, we at once 
 recognise as the Socratic elenchus. Socrates and his dialectic 
 are thus presumed to be well known to the Athenian public 
 of 423. That this assumption precisely agrees with that 
 habitually made by Plato follows at once from the following 
 considerations. The opening of the Charmides assumes that 
 Socrates was already a familiar figure in the palaestrae and 
 gymnasia, and in the habit of practising the elenchus on 
 the youths who congregated there as early as the beginning 
 
 flea are popular pleasantries ■which Aristophanes found ready to his hand. 
 So again the remark made by Strepsiades at 1. 190, in his amiable desire to 
 save the labour of the geologizing disciples whom he supposes to be looking 
 for truffles, fi.ii vvv tovtS ye (ppovrtfeTe, is singularly flat unless ippovHfeiv was 
 already applied in a derisive sense to the supposed researches of Socrates and 
 his friends. The same result follows from the consideration that Amipsias' 
 KSvvos actually had u, chorus of tppovnaraX, as we see from the remark of 
 Athenaeus about Protagoras, 'A/uei^as 8' iv run K6vvm . . . oil KaraptSfiei 
 airbv & twl t£>v (ppovrurTwv xfy m - Athenaeus draws from this the conclusion 
 that Protagoras must have been absent from Athens in 423, or he would have 
 figured among the QpovTioral. The real reasons for his non-appearance are 
 (a) that he was not a (ppovTiarfy at all, and (6) that he was pretty certainly dead 
 years before. I will add one further consideration. Apart from the existence 
 of some such popular "slang" nickname, the very choice of the words 
 Qpovrlfav, (ppovrls, tppovnar-rii as the catch- words of the play would be a little 
 perplexing. For the primary, literary sense of cppovTlfciv in classical Greek, 
 as the lexicons will show, is simply to be "anxious" or "worried" about a 
 thing. Compare the phrases oiSev tppovrlfa, " I don't care a curse," oi> 
 (ppovrls 'l7riro(c\e(8i)i, " I don't give a damn," or such a passage as Aeschylus, 
 Agamemnon 102, 4\iris d/ii)ra ippovrtS' &v\i)aTov, " imagination wards off my 
 insatiate anxiety," and the like. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 139 
 
 of the Peloponnesian war. For we are expressly told there 
 that on his return from Potidaea he went straight " after so 
 long an interval " (olov Sia j^povov a^ty/iei/o?) to his 
 "accustomed haunts" (o-wifflet? SiaTpifid*;)} The Symposium 
 suggests an even earlier date for the beginning of that self- 
 imposed mission to the Athenian people of which we hear 
 so much in the Apology. We learn there that Alcibiades, 
 who was of military age when the war began, and served, 
 like Socrates, at Potidaea, had already been impressed by 
 the philosopher's discourses at a time when he was a mere 
 boy, and apparently only just old enough to be allowed to 
 go about without a iraiSayayy6<;. 2 So, again, Socrates appears 
 in the r61e of a mentor of youth in the Protagoras, the 
 imaginary date of which must be some time before the out- 
 break of the war, as the great gathering of " sophists " is 
 scarcely conceivable except in a time of general peace. 
 (Hippias, for instance, could scarcely be so comfortable in 
 Athens as the tone of his speech implies that he is, if Elis 
 had been at the moment a member of a confederacy with 
 which Athens was at war. Alcibiades, too, is described as 
 only just showing marks of puberty. As puberty was 
 commonly supposed to occur in the male at fourteen, and 
 Alcibiades cannot have been much younger than twenty 
 when he served at Potidaea, this points to a date not more 
 than a year or two after 440, and possibly a little earlier. 3 ) 
 
 1 Charmides 153 a. That Socrates is far from being new to hie mission is 
 farther indicated ib. d by the words avOts iyw^atiroi/s Avripurtav ret TijiSe, ircpl 
 <pCKoao(plas Situs Sx 01 Tt&vv, wept re riiv viuv. 
 
 2 The whole story told by Alcibiades in praise of the continence of Socrates 
 implies, of course, that the narrator was under the age of puberty at the time 
 of the incidents mentioned, and for his extreme youth cf. 217 a itpb rod oix 
 elaSiis &vev &Ko\oti6ov fidvos psr airrov ylyveaBai. Yet even at this early date 
 Socrates was so well known that Alcibiades could think it an eirtixqim 
 davimarbv to "hear all that he knew." 
 
 3 Cf. Protagoras 337 d. The eulogy of Athens would be inconceivable in 
 the mouth of a speaker whose irarpis was at the very moment engaged in a 
 crusade against Athens on behalf of Greek freedom. For the age of Alcibiades 
 at the date assumed see 309 a, where he is called avijp and said to be Trifrywcos 
 ijSri iiroTriixir\dp.evos. It is a minor point that Pericles is assumed to be still 
 living, and apparently in the height of his renown (319 e-320 a Jlepuc\rjs, 6 
 TOVTtavl T&v v eav Iff kwv ira7"jJ/>, . . . & 5' oi5r6s ffotpds iffTiv otfre avrbs 7rcu5ei5et 
 
140 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 Stating the case in the least favourable terms for my own 
 theory, we may fairly say that Plato consistently assumes 
 that the public mission of Socrates began not later than 
 some time between 440 and 435, and possibly earlier. 
 This of itself would be enough to show that Socrates must 
 have been a most familiar figure long before the Clouds was 
 put on the stage, and that to exhibit a pretended burlesque 
 pf him which could not be recognised as accurate in its 
 fundamental points would have been to expose oneself to 
 certain and merited failure. But there is still more behind. 
 Every one knows that, according to the Apology, Socrates 
 began his missionary career in consequence of the famous 
 answer of the Pythia to Chaerephon's question, Is there 
 anyone wiser than Socrates ? That the oracle quoted by 
 Plato was actually given has sometimes been questioned, 
 but is, I venture to think, certain. According to Plato, 
 Socrates not merely made the story a prominent point in 
 his defence before the judges, but actually called, or offered 
 to call, the brother of the deceased Chaerephon to give 
 evidence of the fact. (I do not appeal for confirmation to 
 the appearance of the story in the Apology of Xenophon, 
 since that work, genuine or not, is manifestly itself largely 
 dependent on the Apology and Phaedo.) But, apart from 
 any question of external confirmation, the truth of the 
 narrative is guaranteed by the very fact that Plato makes 
 Socrates propose to put in evidence. 1 Unless Socrates 
 really did tell the story at his trial and offer to prove it by 
 witnesses, it is unintelligible why Plato should make him do 
 so. The tale itself might pass muster as a mere ingenious 
 
 kt\.). The passage about Alcibiades, in particular, seems quite decisive, 
 and it would be idle to argue against it from dates based on conjectures as to 
 the year of the death of Hipponious, or of the production of Pherecrates' 
 Ayptoi. 
 
 1 Apology 21 a. Note that in 23 c it is assumed that it was only as a 
 further consequence of Socrates' public appearances as a cross-questioner of 
 eminent men that the Wot began to gather round him. Note also that it is 
 emphatically not these vioi (who, as Socrates explains, were members of rich 
 and leisured households), but an entirely different "set," beggarly ascetics 
 and " cranks " of the type of Chaerephon the ghost-raiser (i.e. Orphic- 
 Pythagorean followers of $t\otro<pla) who figure in the Clouds as nadryral. 
 
THE PKRONTISTERION 141 
 
 fiction, but not the absurdity of saying that witnesses to it 
 were produced if every one of»the spectators of the scene 
 could testify that no such witnesses had been called. But 
 now, assuming the truth of Plato's story, let us observe 
 what we can infer from it. There has been a good deal 
 of foolish speculation about the matter, but one simple 
 inference is unavoidable. If the managers of the Delphic 
 oracle assured Chaerephon on the faith of Apollo that 
 Socrates was the wisest of men, we may be sure they knew 
 well enough that Chaerephon already thought him so. The 
 really interesting point about the incident is not so much 
 the answer of the god (which is explicable enough), but the 
 fact that the question was put. The raising of it implies 
 that in circles where an interest was taken in aofyla 
 Socrates already had so high a reputation that the question 
 whether he had any living superior could be asked of 
 Apollo without absurdity. 
 
 Thus the Apology makes it clear that Socrates had 
 already a high and assured reputation in certain circles 
 interested in <j)iXocro<f)ia even before the date we have been 
 led to assume for his appearance as a general cross- 
 questioner of all sorts and conditions of men. This, of 
 course, fits in with what Plato tells us in the Phaedo of 
 his master's early enthusiasm for the subject called trefil 
 $u<rea>5 laTopia, and in the Parmenides of the impression 
 made and received in his encounter with the great Eleatic 
 dialecticians, and is absolutely irreconcilable with the still 
 too common conception of him as an avroSl,8aieTo<}, a self- 
 trained man with no more knowledge of the science of 
 the past than might be picked up incidentally by turning 
 over books on a vendor's stall, and standing in no particular 
 relations with his predecessors in the quest for " wisdom." 
 For the moment I propose to ifse these results merely to 
 show how incredible it is that the Athenian citizens of the 
 year 423 could have been expected by Aristophanes to 
 applaud a caricature of Socrates which was not carefully 
 modelled after the truth. 
 
 We have thus every reason to suppose that the picture 
 
142 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 of Socrates in the Clouds is a careful and elaborate piece of 
 art, a distortion into the grotesque of a figure with which 
 both the poet and the audience upon whom the success or 
 failure of his comedy depended were familiarly acquainted, 
 and we may reasonably expect to recover by close study 
 of the caricature the main features of its original no less 
 confidently than, as Dr. Verrall has shown, we can do the 
 same thing in the case of the Aristophanic "Euripides." 
 Indeed, we might go so far as to suggest that we have 
 better ground for confidence in the case of the earlier play, 
 since the poet takes special credit to himself in the para- 
 basis for the exceptional art shown in its composition, and 
 invites the spectators to show their taste by appreciating 
 that art adequately, a piece of self-praise which would be 
 oddly out of place if the leading personage of the drama 
 bore no close resemblance to his acknowledged prototype. 1 
 Hence, if it can be shown that the leading features in the 
 caricature exactly correspond with traits of the character 
 and history of Socrates as delineated by Plato, the last 
 vestige of reasonable suspicion that the Platonic portrait 
 is unhistorical will be removed, and we shall be prepared 
 to treat the occasional passages of autobiography which the 
 dialogues put into the mouth of Socrates as authentic 
 records of the highest importance. Accordingly, I invite 
 attention to the following series of coincidences between 
 Aristophanes and Plato. 
 
 (1) To consider first a matter which affects our whole 
 conception of the general character of the Trpay/j,aTeia of 
 Socrates. The Socrates of Aristophanes, though a well- 
 known figure in the streets and places of public resort, 2 is 
 
 1 Aristophanes, Clouds 521 cire i/tcts iryoi/ievos etvai flearcks dermis (not likely, 
 then, to be imposed on) | koX ra&njv ffocp&TaT fyeiv tojv ifiuv K(afuoi.ditav. We 
 must remember that our Clouds is a second edition, and may therefore be 
 supposed to have had the benefit of a thorough critical revision. 
 
 2 This conclusion again is supported by the Protagoras. In that dialogue 
 Protagoras and Socrates are represented as already personally known to each 
 other, as appears from the fact that Protagoras addresses Socrates by name, 
 though he had neither introduced himself nor been named by any member of the 
 company (316 c dpBGis, £0jj, irpoyiojSiJi, ffl Siixpares, iirip i/ioii). Since Protagoras 
 has only just arrived at Athens, and Socrates had not been aware of his 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 143 
 
 moreover the centre of a narrower special circle whose 
 appearance testifies to the mortification of the flesh, and 
 who are engaged in studies of an abstruse kind which make 
 no appeal to the " man in the street." He is no mere 
 clever conversationalist and dialectical fencer with politicians, 
 poets, craftsmen, and chance comers generally, but a teacher 
 with fiadifrai, who are represented in the play as living in 
 his house and carrying on their studies there. If we had 
 no description of Socrates to compare with this except that 
 of Xenophon, we might be inclined to suspect Aristophanes 
 of reckless misrepresentation, though even Xenophon 
 incidentally reveals in a single passage the suggestive fact 
 that Socrates was connected with a society of some kind 
 which, like the fiadrjrai in the tppovTicrTtfptov, had a 
 common dining- table (Mem. iii. 14. 1). But when we turn 
 to Plato we find the Aristophanic account amply confirmed. 
 Socrates does, no doubt, find his way into all companies, 
 and contrives to compel all manner of men, high and low, 
 to give account of their spiritual state, but he has also a 
 special circle with whom he is connected in a more intimate 
 manner. He discourses with them, as he does not with the 
 multitude at large, of the deep things of the philosophic 
 life, and of his own intimate experiences, and they regard 
 
 presence until informed by Hippocrates, the acquaintance must have been 
 made on that previous visit of Protagoras to Athens which took place, as we 
 are told at 310 e, when Hippocrates, who is now a young man of means, was 
 a mere child. 310 e also takes it for granted that Socrates already knows 
 Protagoras, since Hippocrates asks Socrates for an introduction to the great 
 man expressly on the ground that he has never yet personally met him, oiSi 
 iiipaxa Hpwray6pa,v jriiTrore 068' ax-qnoa. ovUv. It must then have been on 
 this former occasion that Protagoras had formed the high expectation of 
 Socrates' future distinction which he had already expressed to "many" 
 (wpbs iroKKois S-i) dpy/co. Sri &v ivrvyxiv woXi) pAXurra tiya/iai ai, 361 e). 
 Thus Socrates was already a prominent figure among the rising " wits " at 
 a time of which we can only say roughly that it must have been some years 
 before he had reached the age of thirty. This, of course, fits in exactly with 
 the glimpses given by the Phaedo and Parmenides of the tastes and pursuits 
 of Socrates in his early manhood. 
 
 I owe the view taken above of the significance of the oracle given to 
 Chaerephon in the first instance to conversation with Professor Burnet, who 
 must not, however, be held responsible for my combination of it with other 
 data. 
 
144 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 his passing from them in the prison much as the " sons of 
 the prophets " did the taking away of Elijah. They are 
 the " we " in whose name Socrates talks in the Phaedo, the 
 "we" who are always speaking of " beauty itself," "justice 
 itself," "piety itself," and " setting the seal " of the expression 
 "what it is itself" (avro b %ctti) on such concepts in 
 their "questions and answers" (Phaedo 75 d), and with 
 whom the reality of such entities is what the reality of 
 the " thinking thing " was for Descartes, the standard or 
 criterion of all other reality (ib. 77 a). They are sharply 
 distinguished from the more general public to whom 
 Socrates addresses himself in obedience to the mandate of 
 Delphi by the fact that they are not to be satisfied with 
 arguments from analogy, the eiraicTiicol \6yoi which 
 Aristotle thought so characteristic of Socrates, but require 
 to be convinced by "' demonstration based upon an adequate 
 initial postulate" (92 d). In their eyes the reality of 
 " beauty itself," and the other eiSr), is such an a\-ia viro- 
 0ecri,<s, and it is with reference to them that these concepts 
 are called i/ceiva rcb iroXvffpvXtjTa, "those much-talked-of 
 entities" (100 b). 1 Primarily these persons, as we meet 
 them in the Phaedo, are not so much fiaOriTal as comrades 
 of Socrates, Pythagorean /ladrjrai of Philolaus, and scholars 
 of the Eleatics from Megara. But even among the younger 
 men who might properly be called fiaOrjTai we seem to 
 come across a few who stand in something of the same 
 kind of special relation to the master. Plato's brother 
 Glaucon is one of them, for all his love of dogs and sport, 
 and this explains why, in the tenth book of the Republic, 
 Socrates can include him among the "we" who are 
 " accustomed " to posit an etSo? for each class of things 
 which are called by a common name, and to say that it is 
 this IBea which the workman imitates when he makes 
 a bed or a table (Republic 596 a, b, where note the 
 repeated insistence on the fact that the theory is one 
 which " we " are " accustomed " to maintain, rfji dtcOviat 
 
 1 See the illuminating discussion of these passages in Burnet, Early 
 Greek Philosophy? pp. 354-356. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 145 
 
 fiedoBov . . . elw0a/iev TiOeadcu . . . eia>0a/iev Xeyeiv). 
 This, too, is, no doubt, why Adimantus, who had been the 
 respondent in the earlier part of Republic vi., becomes 
 silent as soon as the topic of the ISea raya0ov is raised, 
 and leaves Glaucon to carry on the discussion about the 
 Good, the different grades of reality and cognition, and the 
 principles of scientific education, and does not intervene 
 again until at 548 d we reach the more popular subject 
 of the imperfect types of personal and national character. 1 
 
 1 Adimantus, in fact, belongs to the general public, outside the specially 
 Socratic circle. This point is at once made clear and accounted for by the 
 Apology. At Apology 34 a, Socrates proposes to call Adimantus as a witness 
 to prove that Plato, for one, has not been "corrupted " by association with 
 him. This, of course, implies that Adimantus was not himself one of the 
 band of vioi who were in constant attendance on Socrates, since otherwise his 
 evidence would have been worthless. It implies further that Adimantus was 
 considerably older than the other two, and stood, as we say, in loco parentis 
 to them. (Plato was apparently the youngest of the three, since the apparent 
 date assumed for the discussions of the Republic is 411 B.C., and Glaucon 
 is already at that date a young man with dogs and horses, whereas Plato 
 was then a mere lad, not yet even an t<prifSos.) I call attention to the point 
 because it disposes of the fanciful theory that the choice of Glaucon as chief 
 respondent in the profoundest parts of the Republic is due to his character as 
 an ipariKis. Do these facts explain the curious point that in the opening scene 
 of the dialogue Adimantus is found in company with Polemarchus, like his 
 brother Lysias a partisan of the Sij/jos ? Considering the known politics of 
 Plato's relatives, we should hardly have expected to find Adimantus associating 
 so familiarly with persons "on the wrong side." But, as an older man, he 
 may well have kept a cooler head than the young bloods of the family (includ- 
 ing Plato, who describes himself in Epist. vii. 324 d as originally enthusiastic 
 for the revolution of 404 : wi-l\8^v yap aiirois Ik twos ASIkov fliov iirl SUaiov 
 rpimov tLyovras SioiK^ffetv Si] rfy tt6\lv, Siare airois a<p65pa Trpotreixov tov vovv 
 tI irp&l-oiev), and more alive to the advantage of having friends in both 
 parties. He may, in fact, have belonged rather to the party of Theramenes 
 than to that of Critias. (From Xenophon, Mem. iii. 6, where Socrates, from 
 friendship to Plato, intervenes to prevent Glaucon from making himself 
 ridiculous in public life, it would seem at first as though Glaucon were 
 younger than Plato. For he is said there to have come forward as a politician 
 "before he was twenty," and the tradition was that Plato " heard" Socrates 
 at the age of twenty. If this is correct, Glaucon must have been at least a 
 year or two younger. But Xenophon may have fallen into some error about 
 the age of Glaucon ; or, again, the anonymous tradition of the age at which 
 Plato "heard" Socrates may be mistaken; or, finally, the "hearing" may 
 refer to the beginning of a period of intimate discipleship which had been 
 preceded by a considerable time of more external connection with Socrates 
 as one of the interested and admiring vioi. At any rate, it seems rash to 
 
 L 
 
146 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 It is this inner circle of Socratic men who are represented 
 in the Clouds, which takes no account of the public 
 applications of the Socratic elenchus, as the fiad-qrai who 
 live with their teacher in the <f>povTi<rriqpiov. In view of 
 Xenophon's description of their common meals this 
 description of them as living in the house of Socrates, 
 much like the Fellows of a College, cannot he said to go 
 beyond the bounds of fair and legitimate caricature. 
 
 (2) To come now to some details. I have already 
 pointed out that it is taken for granted in the preliminary 
 exposition of the drama that the tppovTio-Typiov and its 
 inhabitants are perfectly familiar to the dullest Athenian 
 peasant. 1 Both Strepsiades and his son apparently know 
 a good deal about the reputed mysterious lore and odd 
 ways of Socrates and Chaerephon and the other inmates. 
 And two points, perhaps, fall to be specially noted. The 
 only ippovTunrjs specified by name, other than Socrates, is 
 Chaerephon. To "grow exactly like Chaerephon" is held 
 out as the highest prize of faithful attendance in the school. 
 Chaerephon is, in fact, the standing butt of the poet. And 
 the particular facts about him which are singled out for 
 ridicule are two, his " mortified " appearance, and his con- 
 nection with " spiritist " lore and necromancy. 2 Chaerephon 
 
 discredit the very definite representations of Mepublic i. on no better grounds 
 than the combination of Xenophon with the statement about the age at 
 which Plato " heard " Socrates. The language of Plato himself (Ep. vii. 
 324 e) certainly suggests that his connection with Socrates was no new 
 thing in the year 404. ) 
 
 1 Is it too fanciful to see in the nightly ippovrlt of Strepsiades an allusion 
 to the nightly meditations of Phaedra, elsewhere burlesqued by our poet, ijdri 
 vor dWws vvurbs tv fiatcpwi XP^IM \ BrqT&v itppbvna' fji 8U<p8aprai /Jfos (Hippol. 
 375-6) ? So Strepsiades had been awake all night reflecting on the impending 
 ruin of his fllos. 
 
 2 For the first, cf. , besides the tale about the flea, 503-4 oiSiv Siol<ras 
 Xcupt0u>KTos tV <pvaif. — otfwi Ka.Kob~n.lpMv ripxffviis yevfoo/tai. For the second, 
 I must refer again to the passage from the Birds already dealt with in Essay 
 I. It may be significant also both that Xenophon is so silent about a man 
 who had clearly been one of the best known of the Qporrurral, and that when 
 he incidentally breaks through his silence it is to class Chaerephon with 
 Simmias, Cebes, and Phaedo, and others who associated with Socrates purely 
 "for their souls' health," that they. might become koXol Ki.ya.6ol in the 
 Socratic sense (Mem. i. 2. 48). I take this to mean that he, too, was one of 
 
THE PHBONTISTEBION 147 
 
 thus figures as an example of the kind of <f>iX6o-o<f>ot, of 
 whom we read in the Phaedo that the irdKKoL are only too 
 ready to admit their claim to be persons who ovZev aXKo 
 iirirrjhevovaiv fj airoOvquricebv re koX reOvdvai (ib. 64 a). 
 Indeed, I would not be too sure that the passage does not 
 contain a side glance at Aristophanes, as the person who 
 had given the most famous literary expression to this 
 popular estimate of the #to? $t\o<ro^o?. We do not hear 
 anything of Chaerephon in the Phaedo, but the reason is, as 
 we learn from the Apology, that he had finished his course 
 between the return of the exiles from Piraeus and the trial 
 of Socrates. We shall thus be not far wrong if we put 
 
 the Pythagorizing seekers after salvation. Hence, perhaps, his selection as the 
 companion of Socrates in so thoroughly Pythagorean and Orphic a dialogue 
 as the Gorgias. The only other references of Xenophon to Chaerephon are 
 insignificant. From Mem. ii. 3 we learn that there had once been ill-feeling 
 between him and his brother Chaerechrates, and in the Apology the story of 
 the Delphian oracle is repeated from the Platonic Apology. Hermogenes, who 
 is another figure in Xenophon's list, also figures among the company present 
 at the death of Socrates, and so, of course, does Crito. This leaves only 
 Chaerecrates, out of the whole list, ^unaccounted for. As we learn from 
 Xenophon that he was the younger of the brothers, and is thus presumably 
 the witness called by Socrates to the facts about the oracle, the silence of 
 Plato about him is curious. Perhaps the explanation may be that the 
 dissension was too deep-seated to be appeased even by the intervention of 
 Socrates, and led to a separation between Chaerecrates and the rest of the 
 group. Or he may have been dead too, and the brother of the Apology may 
 be a different one. It is, however, suggestive that Xenophon says nothing 
 of the success of Socrates' attempt at a reconciliation. The leanings of 
 Hermogenes are indicated by his delight with the derivation, called by 
 Plato "Orphic," of trw/m fromV(iifei», as though the body were the " prison- 
 house " in which the soul is "reserved" for the day of judgment (Cratylus 
 400 c). One may fairly conjecture that Xenophon's whole list of persons, 
 who, unlike Alcibiades and Critias, associated with Socrates for the simple 
 purpose of becoming nakol Kd.ya.8ol, is made up of sympathizers with Orphic 
 and Pythagorean ideas and practices, and, in fact, that this list, the group 
 of intimates in the Phaedo and the iiadiyral of the Clouds, are identical, when 
 allowance has been made for the changes in personnel brought about by the 
 lapse of a quarter of a century. Phidippides and his father do not propose 
 to join it ; like Alcibiades and Oritias, in Xenophon, they mean to stay in 
 the school only long enough to get hold of the art of success in the'elenchus, 
 and then to return to the " world," and Strepsiades is exceedingly impatient 
 at the magnitude of the preliminary routine through whioh Socrates insists 
 on putting him. But Socrates is throughout no mere professor of the two 
 \byoi, he is first and foremost the head of a permanent body of naSip-ai, 
 
148 VAKIA SOCKATICA 
 
 down the men who figure in Aristophanes as Socrates' 
 fellow-members of an "impious" Orphic or semi-Orphic 
 " conventicle," half a " church " and half a " hell-fire club," 
 like that of Cinesias and his KaKoBatfiovia-rai. 
 
 To proceed a few lines further. The very first words 
 of the fia6r)rrj<; who opens the door to Strepsiades throw 
 an absolutely startling light on one of the most familiar 
 passages in Plato. He complains that, by the untimely 
 noise, <£/>oim'8' ii;rj(ifi\(OKa<; i%r)vpr)nevT)v, " you have caused 
 the miscarriage of a notion" (137). In a language so 
 chary of its metaphors as the Attic of the fifth century,, 
 such an expression is much more vigorous and unnatural 
 than it would, unfortunately, be in a language like our 
 own, which has been debased by the journalistic style of 
 which the abuse of metaphor and the inability to say a 
 simple thing in simple words are so familiar a symptom. 
 Yet, even in English, the phrase strikes one as a very 
 extraordinary way of saying " you have interrupted our 
 studies." "We should at least put down a man who ex- 
 pressed himself after this fashion to an intruder as an 
 " original," given to the use of remarkably picturesque 
 phraseology. 1 We have, therefore, the right to assume that 
 the violent metaphor is employed for a definite purpose, 
 and the suspicion is raised almost to certainty when we 
 
 organized with common studies and meals, and even religious rites, exactly 
 like a Pythagorean bpaKbiov. I have already shown that this is also the 
 Platonic account, and it is of supreme importance that Xenophon should 
 be found unconsciously revealing the same thing. The avvtienrvovmes, of 
 whom mention has already been made, are, no doubt, the members of the 
 i/uucSiev. 
 
 1 As an instance of the way in which unusually picturesque metaphor, 
 even in English, sometimes produces this impression, I may mention 
 having heard it recorded as a striking thing in a west-country village once 
 visited by Tennyson that the poet had been heard to complain of some 
 neglect of his comfort as "awaking a dormant cold." The inhabitants 
 commented on this as a piece of diction only permissible in a poet with an 
 established reputation, who might thus be supposed free to take liberties 
 with words. 
 
 Is there any parody of the lge/w0fa ascribed to the Pythagoreans in the 
 absolute stillness demanded, as it would appear, for the conception and birth, 
 of a (ppovTls ? 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 149 
 
 find the poet calling attention to it by making Strepsiades 
 repeat it, obviously as something* out-of-the-way which had 
 touched his curiosity, in the next line but one, a\X' elire 
 fioi to irpayfia Tov^rt/M^Xtofiivov (139). The only natural 
 explanation consistent with the belief that Aristophanes is 
 a man of ordinary sense is that the phrase would tickle 
 the audience, precisely because it would be recognised as 
 characteristic of Socrates and his <ppovTio~rripiov, just as we 
 could infer from the text of the Critic that Lord Burleigh's 
 sagacious and consequential " nod " was already traditional 
 in the eighteenth century. Now, according to Plato, as we 
 all- know, Socrates did describe himself as a practitioner of 
 the art of spiritual midwifery, one whose function it was 
 to bring the ripening thoughts of his young friends to the 
 birth, and actually spoke in this connection, as his pupil 
 is made to speak in Aristophanes of the " miscarriage ;: of 
 a concept. 1 
 
 We can, I think, draw a still more important inference 
 from this luckily preserved jest. The famous description 
 in the Theaetetus of the pains of the soul which is "in 
 travail " with a thought to which it cannot of itself, without 
 aid, give expression, at once leads us to put a question 
 which the Theaetetus does not answer. Who, or what, is 
 the " only begetter " of that which the teeming soul carries 
 in its womb ? The answer has to be sought in the well- 
 known description of the impulse towards tokos iv kcCK&i 
 which the Socrates of the Symposium (206 c ff.) ascribes 
 to Diotima. The thoughts which Socrates helps into the 
 world by his dialectic are the offspring of intercommunion 
 between earnest and ardent minds. The close correspond- 
 ence between the language of this part of Diotima's speech 
 and that of the Theaetetus should forbid our doubting that 
 we are dealing throughout with the same theory. 2 But this 
 
 1 Theaetetus 148 e ff. The double use of the phrase by Aristophanes 
 shows that the metaphor must have been so common on the lips of Socrates 
 that it could be counted on to raise a laugh when put into the mouth of a 
 /ia0)j7T}s whose devotion leads him to copy his teacher's pet catch- words. J 
 
 2 Compare particularly the references in the Symposium to the throes of 
 intellectual delivery, 206 d iroWii ii TTotrjiris 7£yoi/e irepl ri na\bv Sii. rb 
 
150 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 means further that the whole so-called doctrine of " Platonic 
 love," with its identification of the impulse of the lover and 
 the philosopher, so well known to us from the Symposium,^ 
 the Phaedrus, and the hymn of the sixth book of the 
 Republic, which forms, as we might say, an epithalamium 
 for the soul that has met its Bridegroom, is, in its inception 
 at least, not primarily Platonic at all, but belongs to that 
 paradoxical and heavenly lover, Socrates. And we thus 
 find ground for believing that the presentation of Socrates 
 in the first-named x dialogue is strictly historical, and that 
 
 pey&Xris tb&ivos &iro\iav rbv txovra, and to the possibility that one's in- 
 tellectual offspring may turn out to be a mere " semblance " of truth, Symp. 
 212 a tIktciv oix efSwXa dpmjs, dre oiic elSii\ov iipairTopJvm, dXXi iXyBij, &re 
 rod dXijfloOs tyairTofUvm, Thmetet. 150 b ivtore p.iv rfdwXa tIktciv, Ian 8' 6Ve 
 &\r]8t.v&, Sep. vi. 490 a i,iro\oyi)<T&fie8a, Sn irpbs rb bv trapvKws ety ap.iXkS.j0at 
 o ye 8crus <ptkoii.aBi]s, roi oiic . . . iiroX^yoi tov Ipuros, irplv . . . yairi\aa% 
 vovv koX dX^Betav, 7x0/17 re ko.1 dXij0£s fi6«; rat rpitpotro ical oiirw X^yoi wSivos, 
 wplv 6" oil. The careful reader will note for himself that this notion of the 
 lepbs yi/iot of Mind with What Is haunts the whole of the Republic, exactly 
 as the thought of the sponsa Ghristi has haunted the devout imagination 
 of later ages. The source of the doctrine is not far to seek. As we might 
 expect from Diotima, we are in the region of the "mysteries " throughout her 
 discourse. The lepos yd/jtos supplied unscrupulous Christian Fathers with 
 much of their worst scandal against Hellenism (in spite of the fact that it 
 remains to this day as an article of the Creed), and Eros himself is a 
 characteristically Orphic figure. 
 
 1 I speak specially of the Symposium, because the case of the Phaedrus 
 is partly different, inasmuch as it is largely taken up with a subtle polemic 
 against Isocrates, and his attempt to divorce the art of getting hold of 
 effective " points of view " and putting them into neat antithetical phrases 
 from the knowledge of man and of life. I have urged some further reasons for 
 regarding the Symposium picture of Socrates, in particular, to be singularly 
 accurate in two papers in recent numbers of Mind (N.S. 69, 74), "A Note 
 on Plato's Vision of the Ideas," and a oritical review of Mr. R. G. Bury's 
 recent edition of the dialogue. On the Orphic connections of the doctrine 
 of Eros, it is sufficient to remark that in Plato it is always connected with 
 the "wheel of birth," and that Aristotle specially marks the point when he 
 suggests Hesiod or Parmenides as the author of the theory of the cosmic 
 significance of sexual attraction further worked out by Empedocles. It is 
 strictly in order that the Eippolytus, a play with an Orphic Ka$ap6s as its 
 hero, should lament the general disregard of the godhead of tpm (top tSs 
 'AQpoSlras tpCKr&TUv BaX&nwv kXijiBovxov 01) aepHfo/iev). I would, in fact, 
 suggest that whenever Ipws, the tpyia, and Orpheus meet us in Plato, we are 
 in the immediate presence of "St. Socrates." A point which must not be 
 overlooked is that the spiritualisation of the doctrine of tpus into the 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 151 
 
 if Plato has there seen fit to make him discourse in a high 
 poetic strain very different frosi the homely tone he was 
 accustomed to use in his daily talk of " fullers and shoe- 
 makers and carpenters," it is because he did discourse so 
 when the audience and the occasion- were fit. 
 
 I am afraid I shall try the reader's patience intolerably, 
 but I have even now not quite done with the matter of 
 the (f>povTv<} which miscarried. In the lines which follow, 
 after a caution against "telling tales out of school," 1 the 
 
 conception of a " holy marriage " of the soul with its Divine Bridegroom rb 6V 
 is hardly likely to have come from any thinker who was not himself by 
 temperament an ipoirii<6s. This is a familiar feature of Socrates, but we 
 have no real evidence as to its presence in Plato. As for the epigrams 
 ascribed to him, even if they are to be taken as expressing personal feeling 
 at all, there are grave reasons for suspecting the authenticity of those which 
 bear on the point. The beautiful lines on Phaedrus and Alexis, as Professor 
 Burnet reminds me, betray themselves by the use of the name "AXefts 
 ("Alick"), since Alexander is a specifically non-Attic name, not likely to 
 have been borne by an Athenian lad before Macedonian times. I would add 
 that the name Phaedrus probably comes from the Platonic dialogues, as 
 does also that of Agathon in the lines translated by Shelley (cf. Diogenes 
 Laertius iii. 29). The author probably remembered that the famous 
 Agathon figures as the host in the great "erotic dialogue," and is also 
 mentioned as an 4pti/j*vos at Protagoras 315 e, while Phaedrus delivers 
 one of the discourses on Eros in the Symposium, and also discusses the 
 subject with Socrates in the Phaedrus. Neither could have been an 
 ipibftaios of Plato for reasons of chronology, and that there should have 
 been a. Phaedrus and an Agathon who are prominent in the chief " erotic 
 discourses," and also a later pair of the same names who were epw/j-evoi of 
 Plato, is too incredible a coincidence. The epigrams on Aster and that on 
 Dion prove nothing at all. I need hardly add that these remarks are not 
 meant to cast any aspersion on the indubitable " purity " of Socrates. The 
 habit of reading an evil sense into all classical references to traiSepaffHa is 
 part of the price we have to pay for coming to Greek literature full of 
 prejudices derived from the corruptions of Imperial Borne. 
 
 As for the attempts to extract an admission that Plato is passing beyond 
 the limits of his master's doctrines from the words of Diotima at Symp. 
 209 e touto fiiv oiv ra ipumxa t<rus, & Xdnpares, k&v ai itvr]delr}S ' to Si H\ea 
 xal iiroirTuid, &>v iveKa xal raOra lariv . . . ovk olS' el oUs r' ox eifys. they 
 seem to me futile. The sense is merely that one must not be too confident 
 that any mere man can attain to the full revelation of the beatific vision. 
 
 1 140 dXX' oi Si/us 7rXV rdim iiadtyraiaai X£yeu>, 143 Xlj-w vopXcai Si Tavra 
 XfA\ pvariipia. The school preserves a disdplina arcani, and its inquiries are 
 religious secrets. This points to the conclusion that the brotherhood forms 
 a fflaaos or " conventicle," and, as we shall shortly see, Strepsiades is formally 
 inducted into it by a regular rite of initiation. Thus we get another glimpse 
 
152 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 jia6r)Trj<s proceeds to explain what the unfortunate conceit 
 was. It was a device for measuring a flea's jump in terms 
 of the length of its own foot. That is, we have mentioned 
 at the very first introduction of the school of tppovTio-ral, 
 as a specimen of the kind of thing in which Socrates was 
 supposed to be interested, the solution of a mathematical 
 problem from the study known as irepl fyvaew; ia-ropta, 
 the very subject of which Socrates tells us in the Phaedo 
 he had, in early life, been an enthusiastic votary, though 
 the significance of such a statement has been so generally 
 overlooked that a clever modern writer has been led by a 
 misunderstanding of Aristotle into the remarkable observa- 
 tion that " he only knew enough " of it " to hate it." 1 The 
 
 of Socrates in what I believe to be his true character as a member of a 
 regular " church," and so the conclusions of our essay on the tiurtpua. 
 Zwcpdrous are again confirmed. 
 
 1 Phaedo 96 a. For further evidence of the interest of Socrates in such 
 matters see the curious passage of Xenophon, Symposium 1. 4, where 
 Socrates propounds as subjects of interest such questions as rl irore b iiiv 
 \ixvos Sib. rb Xa/iTpav <t>\6ya l%eiv 0<3s irapix el > T0 ^ x a ^ lce "" / Xbjw/jAi' H* 02s 
 Iiiv oi 7roiei, (v avrwi di &\\a iiujiat.vbii.tva, Trapixerat., nal irws rb piv PXaiov 
 vypbv 8j> atil-ei ri)V (p\bya, rb Si OSup, in iypbv itrri, Karaapivvvn rb irvp. 
 These are, of course, regular problems about 0ii<ris ; the various opinions on 
 the first point still form a special section of the Placita, irepl KaroTTpucwv 
 ifupda-euv. The passage of the Phaedo implies that physical science was still 
 known at Athens by the old name ?repl <pti<rea>s 'urropta as late as 399 B.C. 
 This is connected with an interesting piece of linguistic history. There is 
 every reason to believe that the words 0i\o<ro0/a, <pi\6<rotpos, <pi\o<ro<peTv were 
 first specialised in meaning by the Pythagoreans, and not improbably by 
 Pythagoras himself. Originally they had probably not meant more than 
 their derivation implies, fondness for getting information and cultivating 
 one's intelligence. With the Pythagoreans tpiXoroQla acquired the meaning 
 of the pursuit of science as a means to "salvation," or deliverance from re- 
 birth, a sense in which it is most conspicuously used by Plato in the Phaedo 
 and Gorgias, though the same associations will be found to colour his employ- 
 ment of <pi\oao<pia and its cognates wherever they recur (e.g. in the 
 Phaedrus, and throughout the parts of the Republic which deal with the 
 philosopher-kings, who are quite as much " saints " as men of science). It 
 is only less prominent in Aristotle. (For the proofs of all this see Burnet, 
 Early Greek Philosophy, 2 p. 321, and the references given there.) Also, I think, 
 the lexicons will make it clear that the specialised sense of the words was 
 first made current in Attic by the immediate disciples of Socrates themselves. 
 The whole group of words is absent from Aristophanes. Neither tpi\oo-o<pla 
 nor QiKdtroipos seems to occur in Attic prose before the time of Plato. In 
 the one famous passage where the verb <pi\oiro<peiv occurs (the ^>i\otro(poG/itv 
 
THE PHRONTISTEBION 153 
 
 jest of Aristophanes does not, of course, by itself prove that 
 Socrates had really interested* himself in mathematical 
 problems, but it does prove that his fellow-citizens believed 
 that he had done, and is so far a confirmation of the 
 assumption made in the Phaedo, Republic, and Meno, and 
 the rather reluctant admission of Xenophon, that he had 
 some advanced knowledge of these "useless" sciences. 1 
 And it is worthy of notice that Aristophanes has thought 
 it worth while to echo what looks like a terminus technicus 
 
 dvev imXantas of the funeral speech of Pericles, Thuc. ii. 40) the antithesis 
 with <pi\oKa\ovp.ev shows that it is used (exactly as by Herodotus in his 
 narrative of Solon and Croesus) in the general sense, ' ' we cultivate our 
 intelligence." Then we suddenly find the words becoming part of the 
 current vocabulary just at the end of the fifth century. tpCKoaoQeiv occurs 
 at least once, though in no very exalted sense, in Lysias, himself a connection 
 of Socrates and his friends, [Lys.] viii. 11 ko.1 £y&> p.ii> Gnurpi <pi\otro<povvTas 
 airobs Trepl tov wpaypuiTos ivrCKiyav tok havrlov XA70K • oi 5' ti.pa obn AvriXeyov 
 aM ivriirparTov. (The speech, however, appears to be both spurious and 
 late.) Lys. xxiv. 10 elicbs ydp, & (3ovktf, irdvTas rods ^x 0VT ^ T( dvffT'6x 7 lf la 
 tovtq ^ryreiv Kal tovto faXofrotpelv, fiVws , ws i\vT&rara fierax^ptovprcu. rb 
 cvufiefiTiKbs irdffos ("all who suffer from an infirmity set their intelligence at 
 work to devise a way of making it as bearable as they can "). Then the 
 whole group of words are familiar in the Socratics and their contemporary 
 Isocrates. The natural inference is that it was through the Socratic circle 
 that the high significance put on these words by the Pythagoreans made its 
 way into literary Attic, and this, like so many other things, points to the 
 view that Socrates stood in a very intimate relation with the Pythagorean 
 succession. In any case the application of the name "philosophers" to the 
 early cosmologists as a body is a misnomer. Those of them, at any rate, 
 who were exempt from Pythagorean influences did not describe themselves 
 or their studies by the names QihbaoQoi, Qihovcxpla, as the frequenters of 
 Socrates' tppovTurTiipt.ov undoubtedly did. And what others called them, as 
 we see from the references to them in Hippocrates, was <ro0«rraf. The 
 " modern writer" referred to is Dr. Benn, in his Philosophy of Greece, p. 173. 
 His language is based, I suppose, on Aristotle, Met. A 987 b 2, which only 
 means that Socrates did not " specialise " on 0iVis, <pi<ris formed no part of 
 his TrpaypuLTela. 
 
 1 Meno 82 c ff., Phaedo 92 d, where Siramias, wishing to illustrate the 
 danger of trusting to arguments from analogy, appeals to "geometry" as a 
 field in which he and his friends are quite at home. That this represents a 
 peculiarly "Platonic" view of inference, and amounts to something like 
 conscious criticism of the "inductive methods" of the "historical Socrates," 
 as is held by Natorp and others, is a mere assumption resting on what I 
 hope I have shown to be the mistaken theory that Aristotle is our primary 
 source of information about the philosopher. 
 
154 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 of the science, perverting it, as his business was, into 
 nonsense. The line which Socrates measures is described 
 at 152 as to yapiov, a regular term of Pythagorean 
 geometry, misused here for comic effect, as %a>plov never 
 means " distance," but always " area " or " rectangle " (literally 
 "field"), as it does in the famous problem of the Meno} 
 So the verb in dvefierpei to ^mpiov is also a word of art. 
 ava/ieTpeiv is properly to estimate the size of an area, to 
 " demeasure " or " measure out," and the whole phrase 
 means " he computed the area of the rectangle," an expression 
 intended to produce all the greater impression on Strepsiades 
 that he does not understand it. 
 
 A little farther down (177) we find Socrates again as a 
 mathematician, drawing figures with a compass in the ashes, 
 exactly as he does in Plato for the instruction of Meno and 
 his servant. That such htor/pafifiaTa are familiar things to 
 Socrates and his circle is further seen from the way in 
 which they are mentioned without any explanation, and 
 the danger of blind confidence in them pointed out in the 
 Phaedo and Cratylus? 
 
 I would even venture to add that when we take all the 
 passages which have just been referred to as evidence for 
 the interest of Socrates in geometry together, we may 
 perhaps feel justified in guessing that the story about 
 the flea is not the invention of Aristophanes at all, but 
 a current popular jest which the great comedian thought 
 good enough to appropriate. At least, it is brought up 
 again in Xenophon's Symposium, along with the charge of 
 studying things "on high, ,; in a way which suggests re- 
 production of popular gossip rather than direct literary 
 
 1 82 b, o, d, 83 a, 87 a al. See also Burnet, op. cit. p. 115, note 2. ■ 
 
 2 Phaedo 92 d, 73 b, where &yav nva liri ra 8iaypdfj.fi.aTa is referred to as 
 a proceeding which needs no explanation ; Cratylus 436 d oiSiv &toitov, Sxnrep 
 tG)v 8iaypa.fifi6.Tti)v ivlore tou wptiirov cfw<pov ko.1 &8tfKov tf/etidovs yevofxtvov, 
 ri, \oiirti, Td/j.To\\a ijSyi Svra iT6/j.eva opoXoyetv aW^Xots. Even Xenophon 
 admits Socrates' familiarity with such diaypdfifMTa, though the admission is 
 fatal to his theory that Socrates took the vulgar utilitarian view of such 
 matters, Mem. iv. 7. 3 t6 8£ fiAxpi tuv Svaavvh-uv Siaypa/j.ij.iiT<av yeu/ierplav 
 lw.vBA.vew aireSoKtfi.a^ev . . . koItol oiK 4irap6s ye air&v i)v. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 155 
 
 allusion. 1 This is, however, a minor point of no real 
 significance. It is more interesting to observe that the 
 immediate effect of the disclosures of the /ia6 / r)T'q<! is to 
 convince Strepsiades that Athens can boast of another and 
 a greater — Thales. (ji Stjt eicetvov rbv ®a\rjv dav/jid- 
 frfiev ; 180.) The point of the comparison is, of course, 
 that Thales was popularly credited with a number of 
 remarkable applications of mathematics to problems of 
 practical life. 2 
 
 According to Strepsiades, all these performances are now 
 thrown into the shade by the ingenuity of Socrates, who 
 stole the means of providing a dinner for his society under 
 the pretence of demonstrating a theorem with the help of 
 the compasses. This is " applied mathematics " of a kind 
 which appealed to the mind of an Athenian petit bourgeois, 
 or a Xenophon. 
 
 We pass on a little farther, and are introduced to the 
 interior of the factory. The pupils of Socrates are 
 " discovered " in a variety of strange postures, " searching 
 the gloom below Tartarus," and making astronomical 
 observations, and some of them carrying on both researches 
 at once. In passing one might observe that the interests 
 in astronomy and in the secrets of the underground world 
 are similarly combined in the myth of the Phaedo, which 
 offers us at once a general scheme of the ovpavo? and a 
 curious account of the subterranean rivers, and implies, 
 
 1 Xenophon, op. tit. 6. 8 elir4 /u>i ttSgovs \pi\\a 7r6Sas tyov &irtx eL ' raOra 
 ydp <r£ 0a<« yeuiixerpelv. If this is not a cruder form of a jest which 
 Aristophanes has improved more suo, I can only say that Xenophon's 
 appreciation of the poet's wit must have been very defective. 
 
 2 For a concise account of the supposed facts see Burnet, op. cit. 44-46, 
 and for a similar reference to Thales as the standing type of the great 
 mathematician in Aristophanes, Birds 1009 &v$pwiros eaX?}s ("the fellow's 
 another Newton "), said of Meton. 
 
 I am surprised to find that Diels infers from Proclus, In Euclid. 250. 20 ff., 
 that Proclus, and possibly Eudemus, had seen a mathematical work purport- 
 ing to be by Thales ( Vorsokratiker? ii. 2, p. vi.). All that Proclus says in the 
 passage is that Thales is said to have enunciated i. 5, using the old expres- 
 sion "like angles " instead of the more exact later equivalent " equal angles." 
 If either Proclus or his authority had seen a work believed to be by Thales, 
 I cannot understand how this notice should be introduced by a X^yercu. 
 
156 VAKIA SOCKATICA 
 
 therefore, a curiosity about both on the part of the group 
 of students to whom the tale is related. 1 
 
 That Aristophanes means quite seriously to represent 
 the Socratic circle as scientific men engaged in mathematical 
 study comes out again at 1. 213, where the jest lies in 
 Strepsiades' misunderstanding of a technical term of 
 geometry, irapwrkTaTat, properly used of a figure " erected 
 on " or " applied to " a given straight line as its base. It 
 is worth while to note, once more, that the term is put into 
 the mouth of Socrates by Plato. 2 
 
 (3) We see, then, that even before Socrates appears on, 
 or rather over, the stage, Aristophanes has prepared us to 
 expect that he will prove to be in the direct line of 
 
 1 It may be said that the myth of the Pkae-do proves nothing, since it is, 
 of course, of Plato's own construction. But the real question is not whether 
 Socrates actually related a myth of this kind in the prison, but whether 
 Plato is offending against verisimilitude in saying that he did. He was free 
 to compose a myth for his hero, but he was not free, as a literary artist, to 
 invent a narrative of the last day of Socrates' life in which all the conversa- 
 tion turned upon topics notoriously beyond the ken of the Socratic circle. 
 
 2 Meno 87 a, the well-known illustration of the nature of an hypothesis, 
 et fiiv iffrtv tovto rb x ta P^ ov tolovtov, olov irapa ttjv doOeiaav afirov ypafifity 
 Trapareivavra tWelTeiv Toiofirai x^/itwt, olov &v a&rb rb Traparerafiivov ^t ktX,, 
 sc. ' ' if this rectangle is such that when one applies it to the given straight line 
 of it (i. e. apparently to the diameter of the circle of which Socrates is speak- 
 ing), it is deficient by a rectangle similar to itself" (see the explanation of 
 the passage given by M. Cantor, Oeschichte der Mathematik, i. 187 [ed. 1]). 
 iraparelveiv thus means literally to " lay out " a given area along a given base- 
 line, just as ivraBrivai in the same passage means "to be laid out in," 
 ' ' inscribed in " the circle. The problem is a case of the more general one of 
 the £X\ei^is, which we know to have been studied by the Pythagoreans, and 
 of which there are numerous examples in the constructions of Euclid ii. (see 
 Zeuthen, Histoire des matJUmatiqtoes, 37 ff.). Euclid's words for the pro- 
 cesses are irapaf}i,\\ti.v=irapaTetveiv, iyypi.(pav = (vTelvav. Strepsiades, of 
 course, takes the "' laving out" in a painful metaphorical sense. In a crude 
 map, such as that in the tppovTi.o-T-tipi.ov would be, Euboea would be represented 
 as almost exactly rectangular, and this gives all the more point to the jest. 
 Attica and Euboea look roughly like a triangle plus a, rectangle ' ' applied " 
 to one of its sides. 
 
 I ought to have observed on 1. 152 that the fact that avanerpeiv or 6,va- 
 neTpei<r6at, as well as x^p' "! i s a technicality, explains the point in Birds 
 1020, where Peithetaerus says to Me ton oiK Ava/j-erp^o-eis bomtov dra-Hix 
 iXkaxv 1 '> Meton is dismissed with a word borrowed from his own Tt%vr\. The 
 im$T)Ti)s is presumably playing with Strepsiades much as the Squire did with 
 Moses Primrose. 
 
THE PHMONTISTEBION 157 
 
 succession of the Greek men of science, the astronomers 
 and geometers, a new and greater Thales, whereas nothing 
 has dropped from the lips of the fiaOrjT^ which could 
 suggest that he is to be put up as a typical representative 
 of so different a class of men as the brilliant Professors of 
 Ehetoric. It is notorious that the expectations thus raised 
 are fulfilled, and that " Socrates," on his first introduction 
 to us, is depicted as primarily a propounder of eccentric 
 ideas about biology and cosmology, and next as a heretic, 
 like the "Euripides" of the Frogs, who has his own 
 "private mint" of divinities. (The absence of any re- 
 ference to so admirably suitable a subject for burlesque as 
 the Saift,6viov arj/jielov may perhaps yield some support to 
 my view that the "sign" had nothing to do with the 
 imputation of impiety.) It is, as we know, the custom to 
 say that this representation is not fair caricature but mere 
 baseless fiction, and to appeal for proof of this assertion to 
 Xenophon and the Apology of Plato. But I think the 
 supposed evidence will be found inadequate to support the 
 conclusion. Even Xenophon admits, as we have seen, that 
 Socrates " knew something " about the higher mathematics, 1 
 
 1 For the "higher mathematics" see Mem. iv. 7. 3 oix S.ireip6s ye airiov %v 
 (with reference to the Siaypd/i/mra of geometry), 5 koLtoi oiU roirwv ye 
 dvijKoos Ijv (of speculative astronomy) ; for the arguments against Anaxagoras, 
 which are much more redolent of Xenophon himself than of Socrates, ib. 6-9 ; 
 for the interest in the writings of the "wise men of the past," ib. i. 6. 14 
 Kal rods 0Tj<ravpobs t&v TrdXat oo<pG>v dvdpwv oOs iKeivoi KCLTi\nrov iv fitfiKtots 
 ypi^avres, uveXhruiv KOLvijt ai>v rots 0f\ois 8iipxop.at. It is not quite clear 
 whom Xenophon has in mind. 7roXai6s, 7r<£Xcu do not of themselves imply 
 very remote antiquity, and often need to be rendered in English by words 
 like "some while since." Thus Demosthenes, in 343, speaks of the rebuilding of 
 the Long Walls by Conon, only half a century before, as the work of K6i>ii>i> o 
 iraXatis. Hence Xenophon's phrase might quite well cover the works of men 
 like Parmenides whom Socrates had actually seen in his youth. It is not 
 likely that he means the early physicists, since, according to him, they were 
 not aotpol but ivbrp-oi.. I suspect that the " friends " are Simmias and Cebes 
 and their associates, and that the books referred to are really Orphic. Hesiod 
 and Parmenides would, of course, come in under this head as they do in Plato, 
 Symposium 195 e, where they are cited as authorities for iraXcud wp&yimTa 
 TroXXi ml jS/aia about the gods. For the "hoary antiquity" popularly 
 ascribed to Orphic literature cf. Euripides, Hippolytus 954 iroXXuc ypa/j./jAroii' 
 TL/J.&V Kairvois, and Alcestis 967 Opijurouis iv aavlmv ras \ 'Opipeia Kari- 
 
158 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 • 
 
 that he was a student of the " treasure houses " of the 
 writings of the " sages of the past," and that he knew 
 enough ahout the system of Anaxagoras in particular to 
 argue against it in some detail. The evidence of the 
 Apology of Plato, again, is usually unconsciously perverted. 
 What Socrates really says there is (a) that he can " make 
 neither head nor tail of" the nonsense which has been put 
 into his mouth by Aristophanes, and is not responsible for 
 it (it being, of course, the business of the caricaturist to 
 make his " Professor " talk nonsense) ; (6) that his judges 
 must know that he had never been heard to hold public 
 discourse on these matters of cosmology ; 1 (c) that it is 
 absurd to ascribe to him doctrines which every one knew to 
 be the time-honoured theories of Anaxagoras, and which are, 
 besides, " singular " {aroira)? All this is quite compatible 
 
 ■ypa\j/ev \ yrjpvs, where the reference to aavlSes implies the enormous antiquity 
 of the "spells " in question. 
 
 1 This is really an ingenious evasion of the issue, since the evidence 
 appealed to, that of "common fame," proves nothing as to the ideas which 
 were ventilated inside the <ppovnaTJipiov. 
 
 2 Apology 19 b-d, 26 e. Note that in the former passage Socrates seems 
 to distinguish between certain misrepresentations which he definitely traces 
 to the caricatures of the comic poets, and others of which he does not mention 
 the source. He says that his judges have "seen him in the comedy of 
 Aristophanes " talking a deal of nonsense of which he can make nothing (as, 
 in fact, Aristophanes means that it shall be unintelligible), and appeals to 
 their own personal knowledge of him in reply to this burlesque. Then he 
 goes on, as if he were no longer dealing with Aristophanes and his comedy at 
 all, to say that they may have heard from " some one " (19 d) that he makes 
 a living by "educating men," like Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias, and that 
 this also is false. Thus he seems to discriminate between the charges of 
 Aristophanes and that of "educating men for a fee," which, as Plato's 
 Protagoras explains, was the conduct disliked in the class we call "sophists." 
 It will be noted that although in the Clouds Strepsiades expects to pay a fee 
 ±o Socrates (98), and offers to follow the well-known practice introduced 
 by Protagoras, and better it, by swearing to pay whatever is asked of him 
 (245), Socrates asks no fee of him, and never even alludes to the matter. 
 That his coat and shoes vanish after initiation (856 ff.), apparently as a 
 perquisite, is another matter. Aristophanes in point of fact never makes the 
 accusation of "educating men for a living" against Socrates at all; i.e. he 
 does not attack him as a "sophist," but, as we shall see directly, for 
 "impiety" connected with the study of "things aloft." Apparently 
 "Socrates" is only too ready to teach his blasphemies gratis to anyone 
 whom he can get hold of. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 159 
 
 with the view that Socrates at one period of his life had 
 taken a much greater interest in cosmology than he did in 
 his later days (which is exactly what Plato asserts in the 
 Phaedo), and even that, though he never regaled the public 
 of the streets with speculations in mathematical and physical 
 science, he may to tbe end have been less reserved towards 
 that group of more intimate friends who appear in the 
 Clouds as the fia07jral and in the Phaedo as witnesses of his 
 last hours. And even in the Apology, where a more 
 absolute disclaimer would have stood him in better stead, 
 Plato is careful to make him speak with respect of " science." 
 He has not a word to say against it ; he merely disclaims 
 any pretensions to it on his own part, and protests against 
 having the ideas of thirty or forty years past brought 
 forward as personal theories of his own ; that is all. 1 
 What is more to the point is the curious piece of auto- 
 biography introduced into the Phaedo. The whole narrative 
 rests on the assertion that Socrates had begun as an 
 enthusiast for "what they call investigation about ^>vtn<s" 
 and had made himself thoroughly at home with a variety of 
 cosmological theories. It was precisely the discrepancy 
 between the various theories, and the inability of their 
 originators to establish them by valid demonstration from 
 " axioms worthy of acceptance," which led him in later life 
 to turn away from a study of which he had once expected 
 so much. Though this narrative reveals much which we 
 could never have suspected if we had only the statements 
 of the Apology to guide us, it is entirely consistent with the 
 truth of those statements, when they are not unwarrantably 
 stretched beyond their plain literal meaning, and equally so 
 with the accuracy of the general picture of Socrates drawn 
 by Aristophanes. 
 
 In fact, as I shall now proceed to show, there is a 
 very singular coincidence between Aristophanes and Plato. 
 
 1 19 o oix lis &ti/jA£uiv X£yw rty roiairriv imarfi/iriv el tls irepl Toirav 
 <ro4>6s tart. kt\. Plato himself might have said as much, since he also held 
 that cosmology is no imrrf/iri, but a "likely story." Contrast the extra- 
 vagant language of Xenophon, Mem. iv. 7. 6. 
 
160 VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 The very systems to which special reference is made in the 
 Phaedo as having engaged the attention of Socrates in early 
 life, are precisely those whose conceptions and technical 
 phrases are placed in the mouth of the protagonist of the 
 Clouds. As we can further show by considerations of 
 chronology, they are also just the particular systems which 
 would inevitably attract special attention during the early 
 manhood of the real Socrates. Hence the confirmation of 
 Plato's narrative by an earlier and quite independent witness 
 actually proves, with as much rigour as can fairly be ex- 
 pected in the establishment of facts of this kind, that one 
 part, at least, of what Plato tells us in the Phaedo, the 
 account of the studies by which Socrates was led to desert the 
 dogmatic empiricism of the cosmologists for his own peculiar 
 method of ar/ce^ts iv \6<yoi<s, is the plain historical truth, 
 and it follows at once that, unless conclusive grounds can 
 be produced to the contrary, it is only reasonable to 
 presume the equal truth of the rest of the narrative which 
 describes the new way of thinking finally adopted by 
 Socrates. I proceed to the examination of the evidence, 
 merely remarking that an obvious, though often overlooked, 
 consequence of the rehabilitation of Plato's story is that the 
 activity of the so-called " sophists," the popular " educators 
 of men," counts for little or nothing as a factor in deter- 
 mining the mental development of Socrates. If Plato is 
 a witness of truth, it was not dissatisfaction with the 
 " scepticism," or even with the ethical superficiality of 
 Protagoras or Gorgias, but disappointment with the failure 
 of cosmology, which gave birth to Socraticism. And this 
 position is borne out by the Platonic dialogues in general, 
 and notably by the Apology. As Plato represents the 
 facts, Socrates was, as no member of the intellectual circle 
 at Athens could well avoid being, brought occasionally into 
 contact with the prominent personalities of the " sophistic 
 movement," and exercised his dialectic on them, precisely 
 as he did on politicians, poets, craftsmen and others, but his 
 relations with them went no farther. 1 He was neither a 
 1 The "sophists'' are not even mentioned in the Apology among the 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 161 
 
 product, nor, except incidentally, an antagonist of the 
 movement, and, in fact, stoodf in no very close relation 
 with it. His real place in the succession of Greek thinkers 
 
 classes which furnished Socrates with his victims, who are described as being 
 made up of (1) politicians, (2) poets, (3) artisans {Apology 21-23). If what 
 we may call the ' ' ministry ' ' of Socrates had been in any special way directed 
 against " sophists " and their admirers, it is surely incredible that the fact 
 should be ignored in his defence. One of the accusations brought by Meletus 
 was precisely that of " educating men and taking a fee for doing so," that is, 
 of being himself a " sophist" in the newer sense which came to be put on 
 the word in consequence of the success of Protagoras. Plato's language at 
 Protagoras 316 b,c seems to mean that the specialisation of meaning by 
 which o-0010-nJs came to stand for a " trainer of men " was actually introduced 
 for the first time by Protagoras himself. On the current theory of the nature 
 of Socrates' mission in life, he could hardly have failed to make the obvious 
 reply to his accusers, "I appeal to every one present to bear witness that 
 ' trainers of men ' are the very class against whom my whole life has been a 
 continuous protest, and whom I have always singled out for exposure." 
 
 To avoid misconceptions, let it be pointed out once for all that the word 
 aoQurrfp in fifth-century literature has two senses, an earlier and more 
 general, and a later and more special. In the wider sense a oofaarfp is any- 
 one who possesses a Tix v V or profession, rising above that of the ordinary 
 artisan, and requiring special professional knowledge. In this sense, men of 
 science, poets, sculptors, physicians, are all ampiarai, and there is nothing 
 invidious in calling them so. It may be found in Herodotus, the Hippo- 
 cratean writers, Xenophon, Aristophanes, no less than in Plato, and includes, 
 of course, those old cosmologists and biologists whom we most incorrectly call 
 the " pre-Socratic " philosophers. To give one or two examples : every one 
 remembers how Herodotus speaks of Pythagoras as " far from the weakest of 
 the aoQuTTai," meaning that he was an eminent man of science. So Simplicius 
 {Comm. in Pkysica, 151. 30 ff.) tells us that Diogenes of Apollonia spoke of 
 the pluralistic tpvaitXoyot as <ro<f>urTal in the book which he wrote against 
 them. Aristophanes gives the name to oracle-mongers like Lampon, medical 
 writers, dithyrambic poets and astronomers (Clouds 331). Xenophon {Mem. 
 i. 1. 11) speaks of that which the "sophists" — i.e. the cosmologists — call 
 the Kdffpos (6 KaXotifievos inrb twv <jo4>wtwv k6it/j.os). Plato (Hippias Maj. 
 281 c, d) makes Socrates speak of the " profession of you aoQurrai " in a way 
 which, taken in the context, implies that Pittacus, Bias, Thales, and the 
 whole Ionian succession down to Anaxagoras are included in the reference. 
 
 At the same time the word was acquiring the narrower sense of a paid 
 professional "trainer of men," and, as I have said, it would appear that it 
 was fh-3t appropriated in this special sense by Protagoras. Hence Xenophon 
 says that Socrates defined the iro^ior^s as a person who prostitutes his 
 "wisdom," or "mystery," by selling it to any chance comer (Mem. i. 6. 
 13 Kal rty ao<t>lav w<rai)TWS rods fdv dpyvpiov tui fiovKofjue'vut irtaXovvras 
 <ro<pi<rT&.s oTro/caXoOffiJ'. The underlying idea is that a true aotf>6s would only 
 bestow his aotyia on a successor who had been tried and tested and found 
 worthy to inherit it. One's "mystery" must not be cast downl like a pearl 
 
 M 
 
162 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 is a problem on which these Essays seek to throw some light, 
 but it is not that of an outcome of, or a reaction against, 
 the development initiated by Protagoras. 
 
 We may now turn to the text of the Phaedo and 
 attempt to single out points for comparison with Aris- 
 tophanes. At 96 b of that dialogue Socrates not merely 
 tells us that " when a young man " he had aspired to the 
 crotpla called " investigation of <pv<ri<;," but specifies in de- 
 tail some of the conflicting theories which he found current. 
 The questions he specially mentions are these. 1 " Is the 
 production of living creatures due, as some persons used to 
 say, to a certain fermentation of the hot and the cold ? " 
 " Do we think with our blood, or with air or with fire ? " 
 " Or is it the brain which discharges the functions of 
 sensation, and so indirectly those of memory, belief, and 
 knowledge ? " He adds that he was further interested in the 
 constitution of the " heaven " and the earth (to, irepl tov 
 ovpavbv koI tt)v yfjv irdOr) 9 6 c), and farther on gives, 
 as specimens of the cosmological problems thus indicated, 
 the questions of the shape and position of the earth, and 
 the motions of the heavenly bodies. 2 A little lower down 
 still we have, as further examples of the theories with which 
 he familiarised himself, the doctrines that the earth is kept 
 at rest by the rotatory motion (Sivy) of the " heaven," or, 
 again, that it rests " like a broad tub " on a base of air. 3 
 
 There are one or two general observations which are at 
 once suggested by this passage. The problems mentioned are 
 obviously those which are thought of as likely to be specially 
 
 before swine). When I say that the " Socrates " of the Clouds is not a 
 "sophist," I am, of course, using the word in this second sense, which coin- 
 cides exactly with the meaning put on the word by modern writers. We 
 must further distinguish a third sense, familiar from Plato's "dialectical" 
 dialogues and from Aristotle's Topics, in which the aoQurrljs is one who 
 abuses the dialectic of Zeno and Socrates for filthy lucre. 
 
 1 Phaedo 96 b. I have followed here the text indicated by our MSS., 
 iirciSb.v rb Sepp-bv Kai rb \j/vxpbv <ri)we56va riva \ap.f3dvqi. Burnet in his 
 first edition of the text obelizes \j/uxpbv, Sclianz omits the whole clause ko.1 tA 
 tj/vxpb", Sprengel suggests iypbu. My reason for retaining ij/vxpbv will be 
 apparent immediately. (In the last edition of his text Burnet has rightly 
 withdrawn his obelus.) 2 Phaedo 97 d-98 a. 3 Phaedo 99 b. 
 
THE PHBONTISTEBION 163 
 
 prominent in the philosophical circles to which Plato's hero 
 found himself introduced i» early youth. It is therefore 
 very important to note that they are very different from 
 those which Plato represents as exercising the minds of 
 young men nearer in time to his own generation. Such 
 questions as whether " virtue " can be known and taught, 
 whether the virtues are one or many, whether there can be 
 an " art of governing," above all, whether knowledge is the 
 same as sense-perception — in a word, all the issues which 
 the activity of the " sophists '' brought into prominence 
 during the life-time of Socrates, are " conspicuous by their 
 absence." This means that Protagoras had not yet come 
 into his full fame, and that his 'AXrjOeia was as yet 
 either unwritten or little known. On the other hand, the 
 prominence given to biological and psychophysical questions 
 shows that we are concerned with a time not long before 
 the birth of " sophistic," when, thanks to the development 
 of medicine, biology was beginning to displace cosmology 
 as the fashionable subject of scientific interest. The assumed 
 state of science, then, is precisely that which we know to 
 have existed at the very period when Socrates, who was 
 born about 470, would be a young man, and which was to 
 be seriously modified in the next twenty years by the 
 increasing fame of Protagoras and his art of " training men." 
 This means that Plato's narrative can be intended neither 
 as an account of his own early development, 1 nor as a 
 purely generalised account of the progress of a soul towards 
 philosophy. It is given in good faith as the spiritual 
 history of Socrates himself, and constructed with definite 
 reference to the peculiar stage of " higher culture " which 
 Greek thought had reached about 450 B.C. This comes 
 out even more clearly when we go on to refer the various 
 
 1 So taken, it would not only be at variance with the famous passages in 
 which Aristotle professes to describe the mental development of Plato (Met. 
 A 987 a 32 ff., and its oonnterpart in M 1078 b 12 ff., where Plato must at least 
 be included among "those who said that there are Iditu"), but with the 
 seventh Platonic letter, since it ignores the passionate interest in public affairs 
 which Plato there speaks of as so decisive for the development of his own 
 mind(^. vii. 324 cff.). 
 
164 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 theories enumerated to their authors. The doctrine that 
 the production of living creatures is due to a " fermentation " 
 of the " hot " and the " cold " is recognisable at once as 
 that of Archelaus, 1 the Athenian disciple of Anaxagoras, 
 whom there is abundant evidence for regarding as the actual 
 teacher of Socrates. 2 As for the question what it is " with 
 which we think," the view that it is the blood goes back, of 
 course, to Empedocles' alfia yap avOpdairoit; irepiicapSiov 
 ia-Ti vor)/j,a, a point which must not be forgotten when we 
 come to consider the evidence for Socrates' acquaintance 
 with the Italian - Sicilian scientific tradition which was 
 subsequently so important for its influence upon Plato ; as 
 for the suggestion that it is " fire," it may or may not imply 
 
 1 See what is said in Hippolytus i. 9 (Doxographi Graeci 564 = Diels, 
 Vorsokratiker, 2 i. 324) irepl Si fauav <jyr)aiv, 6'n SepfuuvofUviis ttjs yrjs t& 
 irp&Tov iv tuh. K&rca fitpei, Hirou rb Bepfibv /cat to ipvxpbv tpitryeTO, dvetpalvero 
 t6. re d\\a £una 7ro\\a Kal ol &*0pW7rot, diravra rty aurty biairav ffyovTa £k r^r 
 iXtfos Tpe<p6neva. (The last clause explains the o-vvrpiKpeTtu of the Phaedo. ) 
 Of course, the general idea of the emergence of living beings from a primitive 
 "slime" goes back to the oldest days of Ionian science, but the verbal 
 coincidences seem to show that Plato is thinking specially of the version of 
 the matter given by Archelaus. 
 
 2 Archelaus as the teacher of Socrates. — The fact is asserted by Diogenes 
 (ii. 16), Suidass.v. 'Apx^aos, Porphyry, Hist. Phil. Fr. 12, and Simplicius 
 {Phys. 27. 23). See Diels, Vorsokratiker, 2 i. 323-4. From Simplicius we see 
 that the ultimate authority for all these statements was Theophrastus. This, 
 means that the story formed part of the Academic tradition about Socrates,, 
 and this puts its truth beyond reasonable doubt. The calumny of Aristoxenus, 
 who called Socrates the ircuSuci. (in an injurious sense) of Archelaus, and the 
 story of Ion of Chios (Diogenes ii. 22) that Socrates accompanied Archelaus 
 on the expedition against Samos (441/440), imply a known connection between 
 the two men as their foundation. This well attested association of Socrates- 
 with Archelaus explains why his early studies should have taken the line 
 described by Plato. A curious point is that Plato says nothing of any 
 personal meeting of Socrates with Anaxagoras. He only makes him "hear " 
 some one (no doubt Archelaus) reading from the book of Anaxagoras. Yet 
 the fact that they should not have met is so surprising that we cannot 
 suppose it to be an invention on Plato's part. An author who was willing to 
 sacrifice truth to literary and historical plausibility would certainly have 
 described Socrates as hearing Anaxagoras expound his views in person. This 
 makes it all the more likely that Plato is not inventing when he says that 
 Socrates did meet Parmenides and Zeno. A minor point of interest is that 
 it seems to be implied that the book of Anaxagoras was in existence (though 
 possibly not in general circulation, since Archelaus may have been specially 
 favoured with an early copy of it) while Socrates was still p&s. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 165 
 
 actual study of Heraclitus. Socrates might know of it 
 from the mysterious HippaWs who, as Professor Burnet 
 puts it, forms the connecting link between the Pythagoreans 
 and Heraclitus, or, more probably, from the contemporary 
 Heracliteans, whom we gather from the Cratylus, and from 
 Aristotle's notices of Cratylus, to have existed at Athens 
 as a sect as late as the boyhood of Plato. Much more im- 
 portant are the suggestions that we think by means of " air " 
 or with our brains, since it was just the combination of these 
 two views (the one derived ultimately from Anaximenes, 
 and the other from Alcmaeon,) which constituted the 
 peculiar theory of Diogenes of Apollonia, the " latest of the 
 physicists," according to which sensation and thought are due 
 to the action of the " air within the body " on the brain. 1 
 
 Now, Plato's account, as has been already pointed out 
 by Professor Burnet and others, is strikingly supported by 
 the quite independent evidence of Aristophanes. For the 
 two special biological doctrines which are picked out for 
 ridicule in the Clouds are (1) the doctrine that moisture is 
 injurious to thought, which can only work freely when one's 
 " notions " are allowed to mingle freely with their " kindred 
 air," and (2) the doctrine that the great physical phenomena 
 are due to an aWepios Bivof, a " whirligig of the heavens." 
 As we all know, the first of these is the property of Diogenes, 
 while the other comes from Anaxagoras and Archelaus. 2 
 
 1 For this view see the fragment numbered 5 by Diels ( Vorsokratiker? i. 335), 
 Kal /iot doicei rit tt\v vbi)aiv %x ov elvax 6 d.ijp KaKoOfievot inrb tuv avdp&wuiv /ctX. , 
 and the account of Diogenes in Theophrastus de Sensibus 39-45 (Doxographi 
 510-512). We get a further reference to this at Clouds 763 &wox&\a (this is, 
 perhaps, an Orphic touch, reminiscent of the dea/uarfpiov) rty ippovrlS' els rbv 
 aipa, and it is from Diogenes, too, that " Socrates" has learned to swear by 
 "respiration, chaos, and air" as his great gods (627). 
 
 2 The theory of the bad effect of moisture, which is a corollary of the view 
 that we think with the air in the brain, is implied in Diogenes, Fr. 5, where 
 we are told that the "air within" is colder than that in the region of the 
 sun, but warmer than that which surrounds us. It is fully expounded by 
 Theophrastus {de Sensibus 44-45) as follows. "The air with which we 
 think is pure and dry, for moisture hinders intelligence. . . . That this is 
 so is illustrated by the fact that other animals are of inferior intelligence. 
 For they breathe in the air from the earth and adopt a moister nutriment. 
 . . . This is also the reason why children are so thoughtless. For they have 
 a great deal of moisture, and so <the air> cannot pass throughout their bodies 
 
166 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Traces of Anaxagorean doctrine seem also to be present 
 in the account which " Socrates " is made to give Strepsiades 
 of thunder and lightning. 1 .We might even, perhaps, be 
 inclined to find an allusion to the same theories in the 
 elaborate quibbling about the description of the day of new 
 moon as evr/ ical via, when we remember that Plato him- 
 self tells us that the " Anaxagoreans " had taught the 
 doctrine that the moon shines by reflected light as a novelty 
 at Athens. 2 Thus Aristophanes and Plato seem to be in 
 complete agreement about the interest taken by Socrates, 
 at some time in his life, in physical questions, and also as 
 to the particular physical systems with which he was most 
 closely acquainted. 
 
 (4) Moreover, and this is a point of fundamental import- 
 ance, the Socrates of the dialogues, particularly of the 
 Phaedo and Gorgias, has what we may call a mystical, as well 
 as a scientific, side to his character. He is one of a group 
 
 but is excreted in the region of the breast, whence they are dull and thought- 
 less." That Aristophanes is really referring to this in the passage where 
 "Socrates" explains that he philosophizes in mid-air in order to keep his 
 notions fine by mingling them with the dryest air (Clouds 227-234) is, of 
 course, shown by his use of the non-Attic k/ids, which is familiar in the 
 medical writers and is quoted from Diogenes by Theophrastus, for Attic 
 bypbrr}? or to tiyp6v. 
 
 The aWipios Slvos of 380 is just that irepix&pV 1 ™-* or "revolution," set up by 
 vovs, of which Anaxagoras speaks in Fr. 12 (Diels) as the efficient cause.of 
 the nda/ios. That the doctrine of the irepix&pyvs reached Socrates through 
 Archelaus may perhaps be inferred from the fact that Plato speaks of the 
 book of Anaxagoras as apparently not known to Socrates until he had already 
 made considerable acquaintance with the theories of the tpvaumi. 
 
 1 Clouds 382-407 should be compared with Placita iii. 3. 4 (Doxographi 
 368), noting specially the coincidence between 1. 404, Srav eis rairas dve/tos 
 (fijpds fiereupurBels Ka.Ta.K\eur0rji, and the text of the Placita, Srav rb 8epp.bv 
 els rb ij/vxpbv tpvirio-qi (tovto S' earlv aidipiov /tipos ds df/suScs) ktX., though the 
 explanation of ^povr-fi as due to the enclosure of moisture in the clouds (1. 376) 
 must come from another source, perhaps the theory of Diogenes, for which 
 see Placita iii. 3. 8. 
 
 2 Clouds 1179 ff. Plato, Cratylus 409 a ?ouce (sc. the name ZeX^vi;) 
 8rj\ovPTi iraXaibrepov 8 itceivos veoiffrl £\eyev, Stl y aeXfyri airb tov i)\lov ?x" 
 rb <pm. . . . b viov Si irov teal Svov aei kan Trepl T7)x (reXfyrjv tovto rb 0ffis, etirep 
 &\t\9tj ol 'kvafaybpaoi \iyovaiv. The context seems to suggest that the 
 "Anaxagoreans" had made some prominent use of the expression Ivrj koX via 
 in expounding the "novel" theory. Perhaps one may guess that the 
 pretended derivation of o-e\fyrj from <ri\as, Ivov, viov, really belongs to them. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 167 
 
 who are seeking redemption from the body. He is fond 
 of speaking of the philosopher's life as a daily dying, and 
 describing it in language borrowed from the Eleusinian and 
 Orphic initiations. Another point connected with this side 
 of his character is that he is subject to inexplicable lapses 
 into a state of trance or ecstasy, such as that which overtook 
 him on his way to Agathon's banquet, or that which held 
 him spellbound for a day and a night before Potidaea. 
 He is known to cherish beliefs about the immortal soul and 
 the judgment to come, when the soul will stand before the 
 judge naked of its " chiton of strange flesh," 1 and he is 
 suspected of replacing the familiar gods of the city by 
 mysterious secret divinities of his own. There is not one 
 of these points which has escaped the eye of the caricaturist. 
 In the Clouds, his associates are <ppovna-rai, and tppovTts, 
 as we saw in the first Essay, is a word charged with 
 religious meaning; their proceedings are fivar^pia (143), 
 holy secrets which must not be spoken of before the 
 uninitiated, just like the vision of the avro to kuXov in the 
 Symposium (210 aff.) and the Phaedrus (250 ff.). 
 
 Nay, we may go even farther ; the Clouds actually 
 makes prominent both parts of the accusation which was to 
 prove fatal to Socrates a quarter of a century later. Its 
 hero is both a contemptuous rejecter of the tutelary divinities 
 of the city of Athens and a devotee of iceuva Sai/xovia, who 
 are, naturally enough, figures connected with his cosmo- 
 logical studies. The conventicle of (ppovTio-Tal, has a 
 .religious organisation, and the first proceedings taken on 
 the arrival of a new pupil are intended to admit him, like 
 a candidate for baptism, into this religious community. 
 The very first piece of information which "Socrates" bestows 
 on Strepsiades is that " the gods " are not " legal tender " in 
 the (fypovria'Tijpiov. irolovs 6eov<; 6/iel av ; trpanov yap 
 0eol | y)\uv vo/iio-fi ovk ean (1. 247). The first piece of 
 
 1 Cf. Gorgias 523 c "d/jLTrextipevot. ydp,'' %<p7i, tl ol Kpivd^evoi KpivovTcu' 
 ffivres ydp Kptvovrai, . . . e eVeira yvpvoiis KpiTiov, . . . redtfeuras yap Set 
 Kplveui " with Empedocles, Fr. 126 (Diels), aapKwv aKKayvGrri irepivTiWovaa 
 Xtrwvt. 
 
168 VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 instruction imparted to him is to be the true knowledge of 
 "things divine," ra Qela irpdyfiara (250), and the first 
 reward of his diseipleship is " communion with the Clouds, 
 our deities "(252-258). Before he can be admitted to behold 
 these gods or to matriculate as a pupil, he has to undergo 
 a burlesque initiatory rite of 6p6vm<ri<i (254 ft), and to 
 reject the traditional deities and all their works (365), a 
 renunciation wbich he actually performs (423), exactly as 
 nowadays a person to be baptized formally bids defiance to 
 the devil and all his works. 1 Even the occasional trances 
 appear not to escape notice, since the story of Socrates and 
 the lizard appears to be a comic version of them. 2 The 
 actual entrance into the (jipovTocrr^piov is accompanied by 
 further rites intended to recall the preparations for the 
 descent of a mystic into the realm of Hades. (Elsewhere, 
 as I have sufficiently observed already, Aristophanes gives 
 us a remarkable picture of Socrates and the inevitable 
 Chaerephon as necromancers, which would be pointless unless 
 the $povTL<rTaL were generally reputed to be persons with 
 mysterious views about the soul and the unseen world. 3 ) 
 
 1 The ritual, too, is like our own. The hierophant propounds the formula 
 to which the candidate has to express adhesion by a response. 4XXo n drJT 
 odv vo/ucis ijSri 0ebv oiSiva irXty &wep fuel's, | rb Xdos tovtI Kal tos Ne(p{\as Kal 
 Tijv yXwTTav, rpia ravri ; | — odd' av dia\ex^^V v 7' &Tex"&s toU fiXXois, ob8' av 
 airavT&v, \ oiS' av Bbaaipi, oib" &v' airelaaip.' , oib" iiriBeltpi \i^avarbv (423-426). 
 Thus the religious exclusiveness of the precept "thou shalt have no other gods" 
 makes its appearance as a. peculiarity of the sect, and we understand better 
 what was meant by the accusation 'ZwKparqs aSiKel oOs t\ ir6X« ro/icfei deobs ob 
 voidfav. As for "Socrates' " own gods, Xdos is, of course, an Orphic figure, 
 the others, Air, the Clouds, Anapnoe, are a travesty of the doctrine of Diogenes 
 that "Air" is omniscient and divine. 
 
 2 Clouds 169-174. I think we have here a recognisable parody of such a 
 scene as that described in the Symposium 174 d. 
 
 3 Clouds 255. Strepsiades is seated on the Upbs oKl/iirovs (note the definite 
 article) and ritnally crowned, and it is explained that this ceremony has to 
 be performed on all who are to be " initiated," ravra iravra toi>s reXou/^vous | 
 i)ti.eis iroioO/iCT. "Matriculation" into the school is thus equivalent to ad- 
 mission into a religious "congregation" or "order," a thought which is 
 constantly present in Plato, with whom the <j>i\b<rotj>oifs regularly spoken of 
 as /titrrrp, iitimTip, fidicxos, etc. Next, the invocation of Air, Aether, and the 
 Clouds is preceded, just as in the great mysteries, by the proclamation of a 
 solemn religious silence, ebtfnmeiv xph T °" irpeafMryr Kal t^s ebxv* iiraKobav, 
 (263). Then follows the prayer of invocation and the actual descent or 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 169 
 
 Nor is it forgotten that the " pomps and vanities of this 
 wicked world " must also be forsaken for a life of mortifica- 
 tion. 1 The character of the society as a religious sect is 
 thus thrown into the strongest relief, and the conclusions of 
 •our first Essay, arrived at on entirely independent evidence, 
 receive new and startling confirmation. Could more proof 
 be wanted that the <f>povTia-rai of the Clouds are no other 
 than the tyikoa-ofyot of the Phaedo and Gorgias as seen by a 
 master in the art of detecting and exaggerating human 
 oddities and frailties ? Or could anything be more ridiculous 
 than to exhibit admission into the " school " of Socrates as 
 involving this tremendous religious solemnity, if " Socrates " 
 is meant as a caricature of the professional " sophists " ? 
 Whether Socrates was an actual member of a religious 
 ■0MKJ-O? or not, it is clear to me that Aristophanes thought 
 he was, and assumed that his audience would think so too. 
 His whole tone is exactly that which a Eoyalist satirist of 
 the seventeenth century might have taken in attacking the 
 beliefs and character of the Puritan " godly." 
 
 Epiphany of the Clouds, with the result that the candidate becomes an ^f47tt?;s, 
 322 tf. &gt\ el 7tws 2<rTut, Ideiv a&ras ijdrj tpavep&s iindvfiw kt\. The entrance 
 into the <ppovTusTr\piov reminds Strepsiades so strongly of the descent into the 
 ■cave of Trophonius that he asks for the regular "honey-cake" which the 
 visitors took with them as a defence against the real or imaginary serpents 
 who infested the cavern. For the experiences of those who_ made the descent 
 see Pausanias, ix. 39. 4, and Plutarch, de Genio Secratis, 21-22, with Dr. 
 Frazer's commentary on the former passage. The close connection of the rites 
 •with Orphic beliefs is shown by what Pausanias tells us of the two waters of 
 •Oblivion and Memory of which the consultant had to drink. Aristophanes, 
 in fact, means to suggest the Karafidaeis eW'Aidov associated with the legends 
 of Orpheus and Pythagoras. Entrance to the school of the ascetics who " die 
 daily" is, in fact, a "descent into hell." The thought reappears as a piece 
 of genuine Socraticism in Plato's famous apologue of the Cave, as Professor 
 Stewart has ably shown in his treatment of the matter in The Myths of Plato. 
 The wit of the apologue lies largely in its being an answer to criticisms like those 
 of Aristophanes and the xoWol on the ■q/u$vijTes. The philosopher is the only 
 man who does not dwell in the cave. He is already "risen," and only 
 redescends voluntarily to preach the opening of the prison to them that 
 are bound. * 
 
 1 Clouds Hi el [Lvfyuav et Kal tppoPTiffTTjs Kal rb rakaiirtopov tveaTiv \ iv rrji 
 i/'uX'?'' Ka l /"} K&fwm M"' Arris i»j)t6 paSliuv, | /Mjre piy&v &x8ei \lav, /ttjT' dpi- 
 gt$.v iwtdvfieis, | otvov t dff^xet Kal yvfivaffiuv Kal tu>v &Wwi> avoiyrwv. The 
 aspirant is, in fact, to live the life of a Ka$ap6s or "saint." 
 
170 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 (5) I do not know whether the next suggestion I have 
 to offer will he scouted as fanciful, hut it seems worth while 
 to make it, if only to learn how it will be received. We 
 have seen already that hoth the final suppression of the 
 SUatos X070? and the performances of Phidippides after he 
 has passed through the factory are parodies of the Socratic 
 dialectic. 1 This suggests the question whether the attempted 
 education of Strepsiades may not also be a burlesque of 
 some recognisable features in the paedagogical procedure of 
 the Platonic Socrates. And I am inclined to think the 
 answer ought . to be in the affirmative. The end to he 
 achieved by a course in the (ppovriar^piov, as we are 
 expressly told by the " Clouds " themselves, is efficiency as 
 a director of public affairs. 2 In other words, what is 
 promised is that the pupil shall acquire that " art of 
 statesmanship," or "royal" art _ which Socrates, both in 
 Plato and in Xenophon, regards as the highest form of 
 human wisdom. And the preliminary steps in the attempted 
 training of Strepsiades are no less reminiscent of the 
 educational theory of the Republic. In the first place, just 
 as Plato's Socrates is always insisting that the first business 
 of the philosopher is " in accord with the inscription of 
 Delphi to know himself," so Aristophanes' " Socrates " first 
 calls on Strepsiades to exhibit this self-knowledge. He is 
 to expose his soul to the scrutiny of its physician in order 
 that the physician may decide on the kind of treatment 
 indicated ; 3 and the preliminary steps to it are represented 
 
 1 The two X6701 are not really a touch borrowed from Protagoras ; they are 
 a true feature of the Socratic circle. The Socrates of the Phaedo speaks of 
 &vTi\oyu<oi as well-known characters, and we have found in the Suraol \&ym, 
 which appeared to show unmistakable marks of acquaintance with Socrates, 
 an excellent specimen of the kind of thing Aristophanes means to parody 
 by the exhibition of the just and unjust "arguments." As I have argued 
 in the last Essay, the person really responsible for such antithetic X6701 ia 
 Zeno. 
 
 2 Clouds 431 dXV £<rrcu trot touto irap ijp.u)v ' ibtrre t6 \olw6v 7' d7ro rovdl I 
 £v roil dr},uon yvtxjfjLas oddels vuctiaei. irXetovas ^ go. Cf. 464-467. 
 
 3 478 Hye 5if, Kirenri not. ab tov aavrov rpoirov, \ IV afrriiv ciSiis Soris i<rrl 
 nyxavas | ijBri 'irl rofrrois irpbs at (fOiKds Tpoarpipa. Cf. Plato, Charmides 156 b, c y 
 Protagoras 352 a. 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 111 
 
 as the study of musical rhythms and grammar, and practice 
 in the discovery of " conceits "*{$povTihe<i), which apparently 
 involves practice in logical classification. 1 The whole con- 
 
 1 Clouds 741-2 irepuppbvei ra wpi.yy.wra, \ 6p8us Suupuv ko.1 (tkotuv. It is 
 hard not to think that Suupwv and o-kowQv are meant to be echoes of actual 
 Socratic catchwords. Compare the stress which even the Xenophontic 
 Socrates lays on the importance of classification, precisely as a means to the 
 "art royal," Mem,, iv. 5. 11 tois iyKpariai. pbvov i^eart. aKoirelv to, Kpirurra 
 t&v TpaypArav, Kal Uym ko.1 Ipyoii. SiaMyovras Kara yiv-q Ta pjkv ayada 
 Trpocupei&dai, twv 8e Kaxutv air^xeffBat.. ib. 12 2<pT] 8e Kal rb 8t.dX£ye<rdai bvo~ 
 pMo-drjvai £k tov irvvibvTas koivtjl fiovhetieaBai btakiyovTas Kara. yhi\ ra irpdy- 
 fjtara . . . {k tovtov yap ylyvetrBai dvSpas aplffrovs re Kal rjyep.0VLKUiTa.T0vs Kai 
 Sia\eKTiK<jiTiTovs. That we are here dealing with an actual saying of Socrates, 
 made possibly half in jest (for the derivation can scarcely have been serious), 
 seems to me to follow from the exact parallel in Plato, Sophistes 253 e, where 
 dialectic is identified with the power fy re Koivuvetv iKacrra Sivarai Kal Stt/l 
 pA] SiaKpiveiv Kara 7&0S iTlffTaaBat. 
 
 For the exercises on rhythms see Clouds 647 rax>i y av Strata pjs.vS6.veiv 
 Trepi pvBp.Qv. It is curious to note the correspondence of Republic 400 b with 
 what follows in Aristophanes, oi/xcu 84 p.e axrjKoivai 01) aatpm ivbwXibv t4 tivo. 
 ovopAjfovTos avrov ativderov Kal S&ktv\ov Kal rjpuiibv ye kt\., Clouds 650 iiraiovB' 
 oxotbs i<m tov pvBpusv \ Kar' iv6-rr\iov, x^foios aS Kara 8&ktv\ov. Both Plato's 
 and Aristophanes' Socrates have clearly been to the school of Damon. For 
 the reality which is burlesqued in the lesson on genders compare the 
 numerous humorous allusions in Plato to Socrates' attendance on the "one- 
 drachma discourse " of Prodicus (e.g. Cratylus 384 b). If there is anything 
 at all in my suggestion it gives a death-blow to the, in my opinion, already 
 sufficiently discredited fancy of an earlier edition of the Republic in which the 
 scheme for the training of the philosopher-kings was not included. That 
 Socrates really had some such conception of the statesman who governs by a 
 Tt%vi\ as that which forms the basis of the Republic seems to me clearly indicated 
 in the passage quoted above from Xenophon, where training in dialectic is 
 said to make men "fitter to command." I would invite any reader to judge 
 for himself whether the first six chapters of Memorabilia iii., especially the 
 conversation with Glaucon in c. 6, do not give the impression that Xenophon 
 is trying to expound the theory of the to\itikti riyy-q, but has understood it 
 so imperfectly as to confound the " art royal " with mere knowledge of 
 political statistics. 
 
 One might also add that the coincidence between the views on deference 
 to parental authority held by Phidippides after his training in the Qpovri- 
 o-T-/ipiov (Clouds 1399-1446) with those which Xenophon tells us were attributed 
 to Socrates by the narltyopas (Mem. i. 2. 49 ff.) cannot be a mere accident. 
 Xenophon's attempt to explain away these caustic sayings, the genuineness of 
 which he does not dispute, does no credit to his intelligence. Aristophanes 
 has hit the nail on the head. Granted that the right way of looking at 
 things is that of the Attic shopkeeper or small farmer, Socrates, as we know 
 him from Plato, is exactly the sort of being represented in the Clouds. 
 
172 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 •ception of what goes on in the (ppovncrTijpiov thus strikes 
 one as full of shafts aimed at an educational principle 
 identical with that of Republic vi.-vii., the employment of 
 " science " as a means to the mastery of the 7ro\iTiicr) Tkyyi). 
 The ideal of the scientific statesman is, of course, necessarily 
 degraded for the purpose of burlesque into that of an in- 
 variably successful demagogue, just as the p,a6^p,aTa by 
 which he is educated are identified with such pedantries as 
 the objection to calling a cock and a hen bird by the same 
 name "fowl," but I cannot resist the impression that it is 
 one and the same original which has inspired the portrait 
 of the Republic and the caricature of the Clouds. 
 
 So we may note a coincidence with the Theaetetus. In 
 Plato, Socrates can give birth to no ideas of his own. He 
 professes merely the art of helping other men's thoughts into 
 the world and testing their soundness. So in the Clouds, 
 Strepsiades is called on to devise ippovTihe? for himself, not 
 to receive them ready-formed from an instructor, eic^pov- 
 Tiaov ti t5>v creavrov irpa^fiaTcav (695). ovtos, ti iroieis ; 
 ov^l <]>povTl£ei$ ; — eyd> ; | vrj tov HoaeiBw. — KaX tI $r)T 
 etppovncras ; (723—724). ovk iyKaXvyfrdp,evo<; Taverns ti 
 <j>povTiet^ ; (735). At 737 "Socrates" positively refuses 
 to assist in the process; avTos 6 ti fiovket irprnTO^ igevpwv 
 Xeye. So 740 ffli vvv, koXvtttov kcu u^daa^ ttjv fypovTiha 
 | XeTTTrjv KaTa fjuicpov Trepuppovei to, irpdy/utTa. The sole 
 function " Socrates '' takes on himself is that of examining 
 the merits of Strepsiades' ^poj/r/Se? after they have been 
 formed (746-783). Here again is an agreement which I 
 cannot regard as the result of accident. Another admirable 
 hit occurs at 841 where Phidippides is promised, as a first 
 result of a course under " Socrates,'' self-knowledge, the 
 knowledge on which the Socrates of Xenophon and Plato is 
 always insisting, yvaxrei Se cravTov w? afiaOr/s el not iraj(vi;. 
 
 I may add a few points which have been passed over as 
 of minor importance. The <f>povTia-Tijpiov not only possesses 
 a map (7^9 7re/>io8o?), but apparently also an orrery. At 
 least, this is suggested by 200-201 where Strepsiades asks, 
 manifestly about some strange object which has caught his 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 173 
 
 eye, irpbs rS>v 0e£)v, ri yap rdS' iartv ; elire fioi, and gets the 
 reply darpovopia p,ev uvttjl. Perhaps it is not too extrava- 
 gant to suppose that the icpepABpa of " Socrates " itself is a 
 burlesque on some real simple apparatus which could be 
 fixed on a roof for the purpose of observing the stars. In 
 illustration of the point that it is really the Socratic elenchus 
 against which the poet's shafts are aimed, I might have 
 quoted 320—321 teal XeirroXoyeiv 77877 ^rjrel teal Trep't Kairvov 
 tTTevoXea^eiv, | xal yvw/iiSiwi yvmp/ryv vvljao-' irepmi "Koycoi 
 avTikoyija-ai. At 853 Phidippides contemptuously speaks 
 of the <f>povTi<rTai, as yrjyeveis, a name which, as we at once 
 remember, Plato gives to the materialists in the famous 
 passage about the yiyavrop.a^la in the Sophistes. In both 
 cases, the immediate suggestion of the word seems to be 
 " atheists," " godless " persons. (The other explanation 
 mentioned in the Aristophanic scholia that the cppovTUTraC 
 are called yrjyevei<i because of their unwholesome pallor, 
 as though they had always lived in cellars, is unlikely. 
 yijyeve2<; elsewhere are always thought of as rough and 
 brutal " sons of earth," who would be likely to be the reverse 
 of pallid.) Is it possible that in Aristophanes there is a 
 second reference, apart from the obvious allusion to the 
 impiety of the Giants and Titans ? In the myth of 
 Dionysus Zagreus, it was the Titans who devoured Dionysus, 
 and the possibility of the Orphic votarist achieving his 
 aim of union with the Deity rests on the fact that mankind 
 are sprung from the ashes of the Titans and still retain the 
 divine substance within them. This is why the /3a/e^o?, as 
 the result of his purifications and mysteries, becomes one 
 with Bacchus himself. The age to which the legend can be 
 traced back is uncertain, but if it was known to Aristophanes 
 there is a double point in his application of the word 
 yriyeveis to the devotees of the conventicle which meets in 
 the <f>povn<TTijpiov. A more important point seems to me 
 suggested by the finale of the play. May we not regard it 
 as probable that Aristophanes had in mind the suppression 
 of the Pythagoreans and the burning of their a-vveSpia in 
 Italy when he represented the penitent Strepsiades as 
 
174 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 " burning in " Socrates and his disciples ? If we may, this 
 gives us another hint of a resemblance intended by the poet 
 between the Pythagoreans and the worshippers of Air, 
 Eespiration, and the Clouds. 
 
 I do not for a moment suppose that I have exhausted 
 the list of points of contact between Aristophanes and 
 Plato, nor is it necessary for my purpose to do so: What 
 has been said, unless it is all baseless fancy, seems enough 
 to show that the account given of Socrates in the dialogues 
 is surprisingly like the caricature of him produced by the 
 great comedian in Plato's boyhood, so much so that the two 
 representations reciprocally confirm one another in a way 
 which compels us to believe that the Clouds is a historical 
 document of the first rank, and that Plato's description of 
 the entourage, interests, and early life of Socrates rests, in 
 all its main points, on a genuinely historical basis. 
 
 Let us recapitulate one or two of the main results which 
 emerge from the present study. 
 
 (1) Socrates stood from the first in very close relation 
 with the last of his predecessors the fyvo-iicoi, particularly 
 with Anaxagoras and Archelaus, the last of the Ionian 
 succession, and with Diogenes, who combined a physical 
 monism like that of Anaximenes with special biological and 
 medical interests which connect him with the Italian 
 medical school of Crotona, and so with Pythagoreanism. 
 
 (2) He possessed mathematical attainments of an ad- 
 vanced kind, another link with Pythagorean science. 
 
 (3) He formed the centre, or at least a central figure, in 
 a group of permanently connected intimates whom Plato 
 calls ^>t\6a-o(j}oi, and Aristophanes ^povriaraL The peculi- 
 arity of the group, which had a common table, was that it 
 was composed of men who were at once students of mathe- 
 matics and physics, and devotees of a private religion of an 
 ascetic type, based on mystical conceptions about the soul 
 and the world to come. The group was thus at once a 
 scientific "school" and a religious 6La<ro<;. All that we 
 are told about it indicates that it was an Orphic-Pythagorean 
 community of some kind. Its members were, probably with 
 
THE PHBONTISTERION 175 
 
 truth, regarded as unbelievers in the official gods of the 
 7to\i? of Athens. ^ 
 
 (4) The Socratic ideal in education was to arrive at an 
 art of statesmanship, only attainable by the study of 
 dialectic. Dialectic is an art of invincibility in argument, 
 an art of the successful use of the elenchus. The prepara- 
 tion for it includes an encyclopaedic study of language, 
 rhythm, metre, " things aloft." 
 
 (5) It is characteristic, however, that Socrates has no 
 ready-made knowledge to impart. His pupils have to do 
 their own thinking ; their minds must become pregnant 
 with tppovTiSes without his assistance. What he does do 
 is by skilful employment of question and answer to help the 
 disciple's thoughts to birth, and to test their value when 
 bom. 
 
 (6) Self-knowledge is, with him, the most important 
 knowledge of all. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 I have purposely kept myself until recently from studying the essay ^ 
 of Chiappelli, II Naturalismo di Socrate e le prime Nubi d' Aristofane 
 (Rome, 1886), in order to work out my own views, as far as possible, 
 independently and without prepossessions. It is therefore my duty 
 to put it on record here that a considerable number of the Aristophanic 
 passages which I have used in the foregoing Essay were properly 
 collected by Chiappelli and correctly interpreted as showing that 
 Socrates in 423 B.C. was known to his fellow-citizens as a student of the 
 natural sciences. I am also glad to find that my suggestion as to the 
 finale of the comedy being based on the burning of the Pythagorean 
 crvveSpia is not a new one, having been, according to Chiappelli, put 
 forward as long a^o as 1856 by Gbttlingin the Berichte der Sachsischen 
 Gesellschaft. It is another matter whether Chiappelli is right in hold- 
 ing that the original Clouds depicted Socrates merely as an eccentric 
 but harmless pedant, and that the passages which represent him as a 
 " corrupter of youth " and a devotee of strange cults were one and all 
 introduced in an uncompleted revision of the play which was unknown 
 to Plato when he composed the Apology and Symposium. The notion 
 of the "conventicle" seems to me so inseparable from the whole 
 general conception of the ippovruTTrjpiov, that a play from which it was 
 entirely absent would be something far too different from our comedy 
 to be the original basis of it ; and it is certain that the original Clouds 
 
176 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 did represent Socrates as the chief figure of a band of cfrpovTwrai, 
 and that the contemporary Connus of Ameipsias depicted him in the 
 same light. Nor do I see how, as a matter of dramatic construction, 
 the play could possibly have been, originally, devoid of the episode 
 of the education of Phidippides (according to a suggestion of Koechly, 
 which, says Chiappelli, would be a splendid confirmation of his own 
 views). We have already seen that the role of cross-examiner of 
 promising veoi had been assumed by Socrates long before the date of 
 the original Clouds, and that his fondness for the part was notorious 
 as early at least as the campaign before Potidaea. A v«os whose 
 education was to be mismanaged by Socrates is therefore an indispens- 
 able figure in a telling burlesque of him dating from the year 423. 
 And one may further ask whether we are to suppose that Phidippides 
 did not appear in the original Clouds at all, or that he did appear but 
 not as a freshman of the ^povTurrqpiov. If he did appear, what other 
 conceivable part can have been assigned to him ? If he did not 
 appear, the "first Clouds" must have been so radically different in 
 construction from the extant version that it is idle to dream of recon- 
 structing it. Koechly's speculation would, I am sure, find little 
 favour with a jury of intelligent theatre-goers. Hence it seems to 
 me that Chiappelli and the writers on whom he relies assume a'much 
 more complete reconstruction of the original Clouds than the facts 
 warrant us in accepting. For instance, we may believe the statement 
 that the scene of the actual duel between the two Xoyoi did not 
 appear in the acted play without drawing the conclusion that the 
 accusation of the prologue, according to which the KptiTTinv and the 
 ijTTbiv Xdyos are kept on the premises in the (frpovTio-Trjpiov, must 
 have been added in the reconstruction, or that there was nothing 
 in the acted version to support the view that Socrates depraved 
 young men by familiarising them with the " worser argument." 
 In fact, as I have already urged, Socrates, as known to us 
 from Plato, had been notoriously perplexing the vkoi with his 
 dialectic for the best part of ten years when Aristophanes put him 
 on the stage, and this must not be forgotten when we try to form an 
 opinion about the contents of the " first Clouds." 
 
 I think, moreover, that Chiappelli goes farther than is warranted 
 by the text of Plato when he infers from the Apology that Socrates 
 was only ridiculed in the acted Clouds as an astronomical crank. It 
 is true that the Socrates of Plato does not say that he had been 
 attacked as a " corrupter of youth," tv rrji ' Apurrotfidvovs KWfiuiiSlai ; 
 but he does say (Apology 18 b) that the same ancient accusers who 
 called him a o-o<£o9 dvqp, to. t« p-erewpa <£jOovTto-njs, koli ra virb 
 yrp irdvTa dvefijTTjKtos, also said that he made rbv rjTTto Xoyov 
 KpeiTTw, where the reference, as the allusion to the study of t<x virb 
 rrjs yfjs shows, is to the acted Clouds. It should also be noted that, 
 whereas the reply to Anytus and Meletus does not begin until 24 b, 
 Socrates already disposes of the charge that he is a paid professional 
 
THE PHRONTISTERION 177 
 
 "educator of men" at 19 d ff. This then was also a part of the 
 outstanding accusation brought againsj him by the comic poets, not, 
 as Chiappelli seems to think, a matter which could not have been 
 alleged in the original Clouds. Though, even in our present version, 
 as I have shown, Aristophanes does not actually venture to charge 
 Socrates with taking fees ; he only hints at the possibility by 
 representing Strepsiades as expecting to have to pay. Chiappelli 
 is, I think, definitely wrong in asserting that any fee is taken 
 from Strepsiades in the play as it stands ; the loss of his coat 
 and shoes is better explained by the view that they were perquisites 
 of the disciples who would take part in the initiatory rite by which 
 he is matriculated. (It was the rule that visitors to the cave of 
 Trophonius wore the linen "chiton" and special shoes, Pausanias 
 ix. 39.) Chiappelli misses the point of this performance altogether. 
 "What troubles Strepsiades is not merely the dirt and squalor of the 
 schoolroom, but the suspicious resemblance of his position on the 
 lepbs o-Kifiirovs to that of a person undergoing a ceremonial process 
 of consecration to the xfloVioi deoi (257), or preparing for the 
 "descent into hell" (508). It is a weakness of Chiappelli's whole 
 discussion that he entirely overlooks the mystical and religious 
 character which belongs to the <j>povTi<rTr)piov all through the play. 
 The squalor of the members is a fundamental feature in the picture. 
 It is the burlesque version of the life of the <pi\6a-o<j>os, of which 
 the Phaedo and Gorgias give us the serious counterpart. 
 
 In a word, I see no evidence for holding that the Clouds ever 
 existed in a form in which the presentation of Socrates differed in 
 any important respect from that which we possess. The rehandling 
 of the play is sufficiently accounted for by the comparative failure of 
 the acting version, and we may well suppose that the brilliant idea 
 of the introduction of the two Xoyoi in person was an afterthought 
 which commended itself to the poet on its own merits without 
 agreeing with Chiappelli that Aristophanes, who had originally 
 treated Socrates as a harmless pedant, came afterwards to view him 
 as a moral pest. 1 do not myself find any evidence in the existing 
 play that Aristophanes felt any serious hostility to Socrates, any more 
 than I can see in the Frogs, to which Chiappelli appeals as a parallel 
 case, any evidence that the representation of Euripides as a corrupter 
 of morals is meant to be taken in earnest. 
 
THE WOEDS ddoc, i&ea IN PEE-PLATONIC 
 LITEEATUEE 
 
 Plato, as we all know, represents Socrates in many of 
 his dialogues as habitually expounding the doctrine that 
 the true objects of scientific knowledge, and consequently 
 the supreme realities of the objective world, are not sensible 
 things, but certain IBiai, etSi), or, as Locke would have said, 
 " real essences " which are indiscernible by sense-perception, 
 and apprehended only by a kind of non-sensuous perception 
 of the intellect, povcoi Oeara vm. And it is to be noticed 
 that he ascribes this doctrine to Socrates as one which he 
 had maintained from a very early time in his mental history. 
 In the Phaedo the doctrine is repeatedly spoken of as one 
 recognised as fundamental not only by Socrates but by a 
 whole group of his Eleatic and Pythagorean friends, in fact 
 by the whole circle who were present at his death, as is 
 shown by the repeated assertion that it is what " we " are 
 accustomed to believe, the assumption which " we " regularly 
 make when we " put the seal of h eari " on a term, and 
 so forth. The passages have been already quoted with 
 exact references in preceding essays, so that there is no 
 need to reproduce the list of them here. Similarly, in the 
 Parmenides, where Socrates is represented as an exceedingly 
 young man, Socrates is said to have expounded the same 
 doctrine to Parmenides and Zeno, and, what is more 
 remarkable, they are assumed to have understood its 
 meaning from the very first. They are represented as 
 
 178 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 179 
 
 being in doubt as to the range of objects which are in- 
 cluded among these eiStj ; they«have to ask, e.g., whether 
 Socrates believes not only in etSri answering to the concepts 
 of the ideal " norms " of mathematics, ethics, and aesthetics, 
 but also in e'iSr) of the physical elements and the beings 
 formed out of their compounds (m-vp, vBcop, avdpayiros, 130 c), 
 and of apparently formless aggregates of matter such as 
 6pL^, tt^Xo?, pinro<s; and Socrates himself feels some 
 difficulty about the matter (130 c-d). They also raise 
 subtle difficulties about the nature of the relation between 
 the e^Srj and the sensible things which, according to the 
 doctrine of the Platonic Socrates, get a secondary and deriva- 
 tive kind of existence from "participating" in these e%8r), 
 " having communion with " them, exhibiting their " presence." 
 The one question they do not think of asking is what an 
 €tSo? or iSea is. This they are presumed to understand 
 perfectly from the outset. Similarly the doctrine is assumed 
 to be known and accepted by the Locrian astronomer Timaeus, 
 and he, too, though no member of the familiar Socratic 
 group, but a Pythagoreau from Magna Graecia, represents 
 it as something universally believed in by a community, 
 presumably the Pythagorean circle to which he belongs. 
 (Timaeus 51 C fidrrjv eicda'TOTe elvai t'u <pafiev eZSos 
 e/cdarov votjtov, to 8' ovSev dp' ?ji> ttXt/v \oyos ;) To be 
 sure, it is almost universally asserted that this representation 
 is unhistorical, and that Plato is merely making Socrates 
 the mouthpiece of a doctrine which he well knew himself 
 to have invented, and for which he had himself devised 
 the characteristic technical nomenclature, much as the 
 Alexandrian author of the Wisdom of Solomon and the 
 Palestinian author of Ecclesiastes put thoughts demonstrably 
 borrowed from Greek literature and philosophy into the 
 mouth of the " sou of David, king over Israel in Jerusalem " ; 
 though the theory still leaves it a mystery why Plato 
 should have carried the fiction so far as to include the 
 Pythagoreans of Magna Graecia among the " we " to whom 
 he ascribes his doctrine, and why Aristotle should have 
 .accepted the fiction so readily that he habitually treats 
 
180 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 Platonism as Pythagoreanism with a few peculiar modifica- 
 tions. 
 
 I have already tried to show that the evidence of 
 Aristotle, which is commonly supposed to justify this theory 
 of the etSrj as a Platonic novelty, is regularly misinterpreted. 
 The object of the present Essay is to support the arguments 
 which carry back the doctrine to Socrates himself, and still 
 earlier, by an examination of the use of the words el&os, 
 IBea in Greek prose, outside the philosophy of Plato and 
 Aristotle, and to show both what was the original meaning 
 of the words, and how they acquired certain definite 
 technical senses in the science of the fifth century. Thus, 
 for our purposes, the following classes of literature require 
 to be considered : (1) the ordinary non-philosophical writings 
 of the fifth and early fourth centuries, both historical and 
 oratorical, (2) the remains of Pythagorean mathematics, (3) 
 the remains of the early rhetoricians, (4) the medical 
 writers. The basis from which I shall argue is what I 
 believe to be a complete list of all occurrences of the terms 
 in question in Greek prose literature, exclusive of Plato and 
 Aristotle themselves, down to the death of Alexander the 
 Great ; and I believe that, with this material before me, I 
 shall be able to show that eZSo?, IBea, wherever they occur 
 in any but a most primitive sense, have a meaning due to 
 their significance in Pythagorean geometry, that it is this 
 geometrical sense which has given rise to the technical 
 meanings in which we find the words employed in medicine 
 and rhetoric, and, though on this part of the question I 
 shall content myself with a few hints, that it supplies the 
 key to the Platonic doctrine itself. If we can establish the 
 point that etSo? and IBea were already familiar scientific 
 conceptions in the fifth century, and that they occur in the 
 medical writers in particular in a sense hardly distinguish- 
 able from that of Plato's earlier dialogues, we shall have 
 gone a long way towards rehabilitating the veracity of 
 Plato's assumption that belief in etBi) was characteristic of 
 Socrates, and incidentally towards answering the question, 
 Where, then, does the originality of Plato come in ? There 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 181 
 
 are, in particular, certain prejudices which I believe to be 
 very common in the minds of Plato's readers which I shall 
 endeavour to remove altogether. The chief of these is the 
 ingrained notion that eZSo? began by meaning a " kind " or 
 " class," and that Plato thus derived his theories about e'tSr) 
 from this sense of the word by " hypostatizing " the 
 " common nature " of a " class " into a transcendent object. 
 As against this very frequently expressed view, I shall try 
 to show that the meaning " real essence " is the primary, 
 the meaning "logical class" the secondary and derivative, 
 and that this is so certain that it is worth while to raise 
 the question whether, in Plato, elBo<} ever really means class 
 at all. Properly, as I shall contend, the etSos of a thing 
 means the same as its (frvo-is, in all the various senses in 
 which (j)V(ri<; is a term of fifth-century science, and that this 
 is what explains both the correlation of etSo? and significant 
 ovofm which we find constantly in Plato, and most pro- 
 minently in the Gratylus, and the habitual use of such 
 expressions as to tov <rd>fiaTo$ eZSo?, ■xJru^Tj? elSas, and the 
 like, as mere periphrases for a&fia, ^vyf), and so forth. I 
 must apologize for a certain degree of apparent incoherence 
 in the arrangement of the following pages. It is due partly 
 to the difficulty inherent in what, so far as I know, is the 
 first attempt to digest the whole of the material, partly to 
 the necessity of making an artificial separation between, e.g., 
 historians, physicians, fyvaiicoi, who in reality belong to the 
 same age and employ the same vocabulary. 
 
 I may best begin, I think, with establishing a point of 
 some importance, which is only too generally overlooked. 
 etBo<s and ISea are, as we shall see reason to hold, not 
 common words at all in the vocabulary of Attic prose. 
 The best proof of this — the facts will be presented in detail 
 later — is their almost entire absence from Xenophon and 
 from the language of Attic forensic and political oratory, as 
 well as from that of Aristophanes. There is every reason 
 to suspect that both terms are an importation from the 
 technical terminology of Ionian science, primarily, no doubt, 
 from medicine, and to a lesser extent from rhetoric. The 
 
182 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 instances in Thucydides, the only Attic non-professional 
 writer -who makes much use of the words, will be found, I 
 think, to bear out this suggestion. But, so far as the words 
 did actually occur in everyday non-professional Attic, it 
 seems clear that the sense of etSo? at least was " body " or 
 " physique " — " body," that is, in the special sense of the 
 human body. The importance of this is that it shows that, 
 in current language, the word implied no contrast of 
 " reality " with appearance ; it did not mean " what really 
 is " as contrasted with " what seems to be," nor yet " what 
 a thing looks like " as contrasted with what it is. Both 
 these senses, which we find constantly in the language of 
 science, must then, presumably, have been drawn from some 
 other source than the vocabulary of current Attic. And I 
 believe it will not be hard to show that this " other source " 
 is the technical terminology of Ionian science. 
 
 To establish my point sufficiently for my immediate 
 purpose, I will cite one passage from Aristotle and another 
 from Plato. In the chapter of the Poetics which deals with 
 the removal of alleged difficulties in Homer by proper 
 punctuation and exegesis, we are told that some students 
 found such a difficulty in the statement that Dolon etSo? 
 fiev erjv «a«o?, and Aristotle proposes to remove it by the 
 suggestion that Homer is here using a yX&rra, or un- 
 familiar dialectical word. He does not mean that Dolon 
 was " ill-formed," but that he had an ugly face. In support 
 oi his view he remarks that the Cretans use the word 
 euetSjj? in the sense of evTrpoo-wn-o';, "handsome" {Poet. 
 1461 a 12 koX tov AoXmva . . . ov to awjxa ao-v/xfieTpov 
 iiWa to TrpoawRov alo-^pov, to ycip eveiSei o! KpijTe? <to 
 add. Bywater> evirpoo-oyirov icaXovo-i). The implication is, 
 of course, that in the current Attic evetSj?? never meant 
 " handsome " ; it would be immediately assumed by an 
 ordinary reader that koko? to eiSo? meant not " ugly to look 
 at," but " deformed of body," unless you explained that 
 there is a little-known dialect in which evetfii;? means 
 what the world at large calls evirpoo-coiros. That is, e?8o? 
 in current Greek means the body or physique as a whole. 
 
THE WOEDS EIA02, IAEA 183 
 
 The same point comes out in Plato, Protagoras 352 a, where 
 Socrates says that if you had to«judge from a man's elBo<s of 
 his state of health or fitness for some particular work, you 
 would not be content to look at his face and hands, you 
 would tell him to strip and show his chest and back (IBiov 
 to irpoa-mirov teal t«? j(eipa<; a/cpas eiiroi, "Wi Br/ p,oi airo- 
 /caXvtyas icaX to, a-Tr^dy ical to p,erd<ppevov iiriBei^ov, Iva 
 iwiaKeyJreop.ai o-afyeaTepov). Another curious illustration of 
 the same point may be found at Timaeus 66 d, where we 
 are told that smells have no eiBrj (vepl Be Br) ttjv t&v 
 fiVKTr/pcov Bvvap.iv, eiBr) p,ev ovk evi). This might, at first 
 sight, seem to mean simply that we cannot make a 
 systematic classification of smells as we can of colours, tones, 
 and tastes, a fact familiar to all students of psychology. 
 But it really means a great deal more, since Timaeus goes 
 on to explain that the reason why there are no eiBt) of 
 smells is simply that a thing is only odoriferous while it is 
 passing from the liquid to the gaseous state, or vice versa ; 
 when it has definitely assumed the structure characteristic 
 of " air " or " water " it no longer gives off a smell. The 
 sense is, then, that odoriferous objects have no such definite 
 molecular structure as is assigned by Timaeus to the 
 Empedoclean elements, they only become odoriferous in the 
 passage from one definite structure to another. It is the 
 definite and regular geometrical structure assumed by 
 Timaeus for the corpuscles of the " elements " which is 
 denoted here by the word etSo?. I make these introductory 
 remarks simply as illustrating the error of the supposition 
 that the etSo?, IBia of the Platonic philosophy have been 
 derived from the use in which these words are mere verbals 
 of IBelv (so that, e.g., «a\o9 rr)v IBeav is simply equivalent to 
 «a\os IBelv). This would be contrary to the whole spirit of 
 the Platonic doctrine, in which the etSo? of anything is 
 precisely the one underlying reality as opposed to its many 
 imperfect " appearances " or manifestations. 
 
 Premising thus much, I pass to consider the examples 
 of both words in 
 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and the orators, 
 
184 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 setting aside for the present Isocrates, who falls to be treated 
 rather as a theorist on style and rhetoric than as an " orator." 
 
 Herodotus 
 
 i. 8 Kal Brj Kal to eZSo? rfp yvvaiKos virepeiraivetov 
 (" extravagantly belauding his wife's figure" elBo<; in the sense 
 attested by Aristotle as the current one, "physique," not 
 ." beauty of face," since Candaules insisted on exhibiting his 
 wife naked to prove his point) ; ib. ov yap <re BoKeto irelOe- 
 crOai fiot, XeyovTi irepl tov etSeo? tt)? yvvaiKO?. 
 
 i. 80 Kafir)\ov i7T7ros (pofieerai Kal ovk aver^Tai ovre 
 rvv IBerjv ttvTr}<; opemv ktX. (the horse is afraid of the camel 
 and cannot endure the sight of its figure). 
 
 i. 94 efjevprjdfjvai, Br/ &v Tore Kal t&v kv$wv . . . Kal 
 t&v dXXecav Tratrewv Traiyvicov ra e'iBea (the figures, shapes, 
 of all sorts of toys). 
 
 i. 196 ovoi Be tov Brjfiov eo~Kov eiriyafioi, ovrot Be 
 el'fieo? //av oiBev eSiovTo %pr)o-Tov (demanded no comeliness 
 in their wives). 
 
 i. 1 9 9 oo~ai pAv vvv et'Seo? te iirafifiivai elcrl Kal fieydBeos 
 (the possessors of a fine and stately physique). 
 
 i. 203 tpvXXa ToirjoSe IBir)? (leaves with this specific 
 property, a sense of the word which we shall find not 
 uncommon in the scientific writers). 
 
 ii. 53 S0ev Be eyevovTO eKao-To<; t&v Qe&v . . . okoio'l Te 
 Tive<s Ta eiSea (and what were their figures). 
 
 ib. Homer and Hesiod are responsible for the popular 
 theology, Tip,d<s Te Kal Te%ya<; BieXovTes Kal eiBea avT&v (sc. 
 t&v 6e&v) o-r)iirjvavTe<s {e'iBea again = their figures, their 
 bodily forms, not their features). 
 
 ii. 69 KpoKoBei\ov<; Be "laves mvo/iaaav, et«a§bi>Te? axiT&v 
 to, e'iBea Toicri irapa o~$Lo~i yiyvo/Aevoicri KpoKoSetXoi.cn. 
 
 ii. 71 (of the hippopotami) <pvcnv Be irape-^ovTai IBei)? 
 ToitfvBe, where <pv<rt<; I8er)<; is a periphasis for iBerjv, " their 
 figure is as follows." 
 
 ii. 7 6 elBo<s Be Trj<; fiev t/3tos ToBe, " the figure of the ibis 
 is as follows " ; ib. t&v fiev Br/ fieXaivetov . . . rjBe IBirj. 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 185 
 
 ii. 92 Krjpiwi <r^>r)K&v IBer/v 6fioioTarr]v ("in figure like a 
 wasp's nest "). • 
 
 iii. 24 iS-oftoievvres to etSo? i<s to Swarov (reproducing 
 the living body as carefully as they can). 
 
 iii. 61 dSe\<f>eb<s . . . oliccbs fiaKiara to etfio? "ZpMpBi 
 Twt Kvpov, . . . fjv re Br/ ofioios etSos t£>i 'ZpepSi. (The 
 likeness meant is, of course, of physique in general, not 
 merely of features, though this is included.) 
 
 iii. 102 elal Be icah to elBoi ofioioTaToi (the fabulous 
 Indian ants are very similar in body, or figure, to Greek 
 ants). 
 
 iii. 103 to fiev Br) et§09 okoIov ti ej(ei r) Kapafkos . . . 
 ov o-vyypd<pa). (I give no description of the camel's form.) 
 
 iii. 107 ficpiei viroirTepoi, o-piicpo\ to, peydOea, iroucikoi 
 tcl etSea. 
 
 iv. 109 ovBev ttjv iBerjv opoioi ovBe to j(pmp,a (they differ 
 both in their physique and in their complexion). 
 
 iv. 129 t&v te ovav r) (fxovrj ical t&v r)pi6vmv to elBo<s 
 (the braying of the asses and the figure of the mules) ; ib. 
 a,T6 ovTe dtcova , avTe<; irpoTepov (j)a)vf)s Totavrr)*; oine lBovTe<; 
 [to] elBos. 
 
 iv. 185 6 Be a\? avToQi ical \evKo<i Kal irop$vpeo<i to 
 elBos opvo-aeTat (elBo<; here very exceptionally used of the 
 colour of a thing, where in Attic one would say \eu«os 
 IBeiv). 
 
 vi. 61 eovaav ydp piv to elBo<; $\avpt)v r) Tpo<pb<; avTrjs, 
 . . . opS>aa Toil? yovea<; crvp(popr)v to el8o<! avTr)<! woiev- 
 fievovi ktX. ; ib. diro fiev Br/ Tat/Tr/? t»?? r)p£pr)<; peTaireaelv 
 to elBo<s. (The language is meant to include comeliness of 
 form as well as beauty of feature.) 
 
 vi. 100 fieTeirep/irovTO p,ev 'AOyvaLovs, e<ppoveov Be 
 Bifpao-ia^ IBias (" had a divided policy," a mere periphrasis 
 for Bl%a ifppoveov). 
 
 vi. 119 (to cppeap) to Trape^erai Tpifyao-Las I8ea<;. (The 
 meaning seems to be " supplies three different bodies," as the 
 three IBeav are said to be bitumen, salt, and oil.) 
 
 vi. 127 TrXotiTcai ical etBei -rrpofyeprnv ' AOr/vaiav. (As 
 in other cases where elBos refers to physical beauty, we 
 
186 VAKIA SOGKATICA 
 
 must be careful to bear in mind that mere handsomeness 
 of face is only a small part of what is meant. Our way 
 of tacitly connecting /caWo? specially with the face could 
 only have arisen among a people like ourselves among 
 whom it is customary for men, as well as for women, to 
 keep the body concealed. To a G-reek, accustomed to the 
 free exposure of the male form, such one-sided emphasis on 
 the facial features as the chief element in beauty would be 
 scarcely possible. This is my justification for treating etSo? 
 where it means " body's beauty " as falling under the sense 
 of " human body.") 
 
 vii. 70 8iaX\d<rtrovTe<s el8o<; fiev ovSev toIgi eripoitri, 
 ^mvrjv Se teal rpl^eofui jxbvov. (They differ no whit in 
 body from the others, but only in their language and the 
 fashion of their hair.) 
 
 viii. 105 o«t»5 yap KTijcrairo iralSai etSeo? iira/ifievovf 
 (cf. i. 199 above). 
 
 viii. 113 ex Be toov aWtov avfifid^cov ifjekeyero kwt 
 0X1701/?, Toltri ecSed re virrjp^e SiaXeyav ktX. (Mardonius, 
 of course, selected not the best-looking, but the strongest 
 men, men of exceptional physique.) 
 
 If my list is complete, elSo? occurs altogether twenty-four 
 times, ISst) eight. The words seem to be exactly synonymous. 
 eiBo<; occurs once in the sense of the " shapes " or " figures " 
 of inanimate things ; once, most unusually, with reference 
 to the colour of an inanimate thing; seven times of the 
 figure of animals ; fourteen times of the human body, figure, 
 physique; twice of the (anthropomorphic) figure ascribed 
 to the gods. IBerj occurs in the sense of the figure or 
 physique of an animal three times ; of the human physique 
 once; once apparently in the general sense of "body," 
 " physical substance " ; once with the meaning of prqprium, 
 characteristic property, and once, in the phrase i<j>p6veov 
 Si^aalwi I8ea<s, in a mere periphrasis for a numeral adverb, 
 " were minded in two ways." 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 187 
 
 Thucydides 
 
 i. 109 Kal avroK iroXkal ISeai iroXifuop KaTeo-Tifo-av, 
 " many phases of war," " war in many shapes." 
 
 ii. 19 iraaav Iheav ireipdaavre'; ovk iSvvavTO eKelv, 
 " they failed to take it, though they tried every scheme of 
 capture." 
 
 ii. 41 ~Keya> Tt)v re iraaav irokiv ttj? 'EXXaSo? iraiheva-iv 
 elvai Kal Ka6' exaarov Soiceiv av fioi top airov avSpa Trap 
 7)fiSn> iirl 7r\ei(TT av ei&r] Kal fiera, yapiTuiv p,d\iaT av 
 evTpa7riXa><} to trw/ia aiirapices irape%ecr0ai, " I maintain 
 that our city as a whole is a school for Hellas, and that, 
 in my judgment, it is easier among ourselves than any- 
 where else for the individual citizen to exhibit a bodily 
 training which fits him for the most graceful performance 
 of the most various parts," iirl irXelaTa siStj being almost 
 equivalent to "in the most various directions," "to the 
 most various purposes," and eiSr/ thus about synonymous 
 with <y^(r)fx.ara, " shapes," " modes," " guises " of activity, 
 the strictly original meaning of the word. 
 
 ii. 50 yevofievov yhp icpeiaaov \oyov to elSos tt}<; voaov 
 . . . iv rwtSe eSqXtoo-e (idTuaTa aWo rt bv rj t&v i;vv- 
 rpotpcov ti. I am not quite sure how to classify this 
 example, except that to e'So? rf}<; v. does not mean the 
 " look " nor yet the " kind " of the malady. On the whole, 
 I think it a case in which, as often in the medical writers, 
 eZSo? means <£vo-ts, " real essence," with the result that to 
 eZSo? T7)<! v. is about equivalent in sense to t\ voo-os. 
 
 ii. 51 to p,ev o&v voo-rjfia . . . toiovtov %v eVi trav tt/v 
 ISiav (introductory to the account of the main symptoms 
 of the plague of Athens). The general character of the 
 disease was as aforesaid. ISea seems to mean, as el8o<; 
 often does in the medical writers, the symptoms of the 
 disease regarded collectively. This meaning would come 
 naturally from the literal one of " look," " appearance." 
 
 ii. 77 (siege of Potidaea). When the allies found 
 Potidaea impregnable, they tried to fire it, before finally 
 resolving on a blockade, irao-av yctp Si) Iheav iirevoovv, e" 
 
188 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 7T<bs tripUrtp avev Banrdvr}<; ical TroXtopKias irpoaa^dei/q, " for, 
 to be sure, they considered every device to win the city 
 without the expense of a blockade." iracrav IBeav is here 
 little more than a periphrasis for irdvra, and the sense of 
 IBea appears to be simply " phase," " guise," " appearance." 
 
 iii. 62 ^yttet? Be /ir]Biaai fiev avrov<; ov (pafiev Bion ovB 
 'A0i7wu'oi/?, Trji fievroi, avTTJi IBecu vcrrepov lovrcov 'KOyvawov 
 eirl roils 'EUi/ws (lovov? «5 Jioicor&v aTTiKuaai. icalroi 
 aice^racrde ev o'icai e'lBei kicaTepoi r/fi&v tovto ewpafjav. 
 " Our, reply is that the reason why they did not take sides 
 with the Medes is that the Athenians did not do so. But 
 when Athens attacked Hellas with the same purpose, they 
 were the only Boeotians who took the Attic side. But 
 consider what was the situation in which each of the two 
 parties before you acted thus." Here IBea seems to mean 
 " pretext," a sense immediately derived from that of 
 " appearance." etSo? below clearly means the " appearance," 
 " situation," of affairs generally. 
 
 iii. 8 1 iraad re IBea /caTea-rr] Oavdrov, not " every kind 
 of death," but " death in all its shapes." 
 
 iii. 8 2 ical hreirecre iroKKd ical yaXeira, tcarcb crrdcnv Tat? 
 TroXetri, yiyvo/neva fiev ical alel eaofieva, ea><; av f\ avrr) <£u<7t? 
 dvOpdyirmv rji, fiaXXov Be ical ^av^avrepa ical rot? eiBecri 
 BiTJWayfieva, a>? av e/cacrrai at fieraftoXal t&v ^vvtv^i&v 
 iipicrT&vTat, " consequences of civil strife, such as occur 
 and always will occur while human nature is what it is, 
 but are more or less violent, and vary in the shape they 
 assume, according to the particular situation " (etSo? in the 
 simple sense of the " shape " things wear. The meaning 
 " kind " is excluded by the context). 
 
 iii. 83 iraaa IBea Karearr] KaKOTpoiria<s, "villainy in all 
 its guises." 
 
 iii. 98 rrdcrd re IBea KaTecrTt) Tr}<; <pvyr}<; ical tov oXedpov 
 t&i aTparoireBoot t&v 'A07jval,a>v, " a general flight and 
 destruction of the Athenian forces ensued." {iraaa IBea 
 ktX. = flight and destruction in all their phases, as in the 
 instances given just above, a sense of IB&a exactly the 
 reverse of that which is characteristic for Plato and his 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 189 
 
 fellow-Socratics. The repeated combination with KaTearif, 
 itself a word of medicine, indicates that Thucydides has 
 probably derived this use of the word from the Ionian 
 medical writers.) 
 
 iii. 112 Kal es irdaav IBeav ^(oprjaavTe'i rrjs (pvyrjs 
 irpdirovro Tive<s, " fled in every way they could " (not 
 " kinds." There is only one land of <pvy>]). 
 
 iv. 55 ffweo-TWTes irapd ttjv vtvap-^ovaav a<p&v Iheav 
 T7j9 irapaaKevr)<s vavTiK&t, dy&vi, Kal tovtwi Trpbi 'A&rjvaiovs, 
 " finding themselves involved in naval operations which lay 
 outside their traditioual policy," etc. 
 
 vi. 4 BpeiravoeiBe'} ttjv IBeav to j^wpiov earl, "its 
 geometrical shape is that of a sickle." 
 
 vi. 76 tt)i Be avrfji IBeai melvd re ea-%ov Kal to, vvv 
 iretprnvrai, " their attempts here are conceived in the same 
 spirit as their captures there " (IBea = pretext, policy). 
 
 vi. 77 OjO&wTe? avTOvs iirl tovto to elBos Tpeirop^vov<i 
 (wo"T6 tous fiev \oyoi<: r/fiwv Sutrrdvat,, roi/s Be ^vfipA-yav 
 eXiriSi eKTrdXe/iovv irphf aXXijXov? kt\., " when we see 
 them taking to the policy of alienating some of our friends 
 by argument, etc." The underlying notion again is " look " 
 or " appearance " of affairs. 
 
 vii. 29 IBea wacra KaOeio-rrJKei okeOpov, "slaughter in 
 all its shapes/' is exactly similar to the passages already 
 quoted from ii. 98 and elsewhere. 
 
 vii. 81 ivofit^ov Kal w? Tavrrji Tr\i IBeai KaTaBap,a- 
 crdfievoi \rjtyea6ai, avTovs, " would overpower and capture 
 them even by these tactics " (ravTi)i rrjc IBeai little more 
 than a periphrasis for ravrfii). 
 
 viii. 56 AXKifiidBr/s Be . . . rpeirerai iirl rotovhe elBo? 
 wore rbv Tio-o-a<pepvr)V to? fieyiaTa alrovvra irapd t&v 
 'AOijvaCcov fir/ Zvpfirivai. This is exactly similar to vi. 77. 
 " A. betakes himself to a policy such that . . ." So again, 
 viii. 90 oi Be r&v TerpaKoalmv fidKiara ivavTioi ovre<; t«Si 
 TovovTtot e'lBei, " the leading opponents of such a policy." 
 
 Thus we have IBea used fourteen times, elSo<; seven times. 
 There seems to be no difference in the sense of the two 
 words, but we may note that it is always IBea which is 
 
190 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 used as the subject to KaTaarfjpai,. Both IBea and etSo? 
 appear as mere verbal periphrases. The sense " physique " 
 does not occur with either word, though the still more 
 general meaning of " bodily shape," of which the other is 
 logically a specification, does. The meaning " class," " sort " 
 is never required. Thus, as a "first vintage" from the 
 particulars, we may say that Thucydides uses the words 
 in two senses: (1) "phase," "manifestation," " fashion," i.e. 
 the special form under which a universal such as " death," 
 " wickedness " is found in a particular case ; (2) " policy," 
 "plan," a meaning apparently derived from the former. 
 Neither meaning bears the slightest resemblance to the 
 sense regularly attached to the words in Plato, " what a 
 thing really is," the single reality as opposed to the variety 
 of its " appearances," nor to the sense " sort," " kind." The 
 philosophic sense thus presumably does not come from the 
 vocabulary of early Attic prose. The repeated conjunction 
 traaa IBea tivo<s /carea-Tr) points to a borrowing by Thucy- 
 dides from the language of medicine. 
 
 For completeness' sake, I will add the following examples 
 from early Attic. 
 
 Aristophanes 
 
 Clouds 288 aXK diroaetad/ievat vefyos o/j,/3piov I a- 
 6avdra<s ISias, iiriBrnfieda | TrfketrKoirayi ofi/ian yalav. 
 (aOavaTas IBea? is " our immortal forms," i.e. the female 
 figures which are represented in the play as the vera 
 corpora of the Clouds. The example then belongs to the 
 sense " (human) body.") 
 
 ib. 546 ovB' v/j,a<; ty)T& '^airardv Bl$ ical rpli ravr 
 elcrdywv, | dX\' dei Kawas IBeas ei<r<fiepa)v ao<f>o^ofj,ai. 
 (tcaivcbs I8ea<s, new " figures " or " shows," with special refer- 
 ence to the actual "figures," such as the sausage-seller of 
 the Knights.) 
 
 Birds 993 ti? B' I8£a /3ov\ev[iaTo<i\ | ti? 17 'irlvoia ; 
 (IBia fiovXeviLaTos, not much -more than a periphrasis, as 
 we might say, " what's the shape of your notion ? ") 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 191 
 
 ib. 1000 airbed yap ar\p cart rr/v ISeav o\g>? | Kara, 
 irvuyea pAXurra, " the air is much like an oven in its 
 shape." 
 
 Thesmophoriazusae 266 avijp jiev r)pHv ovroai ical Sr/ 
 yvvrj | to y elSos, " our man's transformed to a woman 
 already in his figure'' Follows an injunction to speak in 
 a soft and womanish voice. 
 
 ib. 436 irao-a? S' elSeas (so MSS. Eav., t'Sea? edd.) 
 e^raa-ev. If the text is correct, the sense is obscure ; 
 but the reference seems to be either to the rhetorical 
 (rxrffiaTa Xi^ea><; of Gorgias or to the aj^fiara T?j9 SiavoLas 
 of the later rhetoric, so that the meaning would be " tropes " 
 (itself, as we shall see, a sense borrowed from geometry). 
 
 Plutus 316 dXX eia vvv to>v cncco/AfiaTcov airaXXayevres 
 tfSt) | vp,eli eV dXX' elSo? TpeireaO'. (eV dXXo elSos 
 means, as a scholiast says, et? dXXrjv 6S6v rwa, to another 
 " style " or " line " of composition. The sense is strictly 
 the geometrical one, " pattern.") 
 
 ib. 558—9 irov TlXovrov irape^m j3eXrLova<; dvSpa'i | ical 
 ti)v yvd>fir]v ical rrjv ISeav, " better in mind and body too.'' 
 
 Frogs 384 dye vvv erepav v/ivcov ISeav rrjv icapTro<p6pov 
 jSacriXeiav | AtffiTjTpa 8eav iiriKoa/iovvres \ %a0eoi<; p,oXiral<; 
 KeXaSeire (literally " in a fresh pattern of song," the rhythm 
 being thought of as a geometrical structure, exactly like 
 those we use to show changes of metre). Or possibly all 
 that is meant is " a fresh song," i.e. one on a new subject, 
 erepav vfivmv ISeav meaning no more than erepov vfivov, 
 though this is less likely. 
 
 Antiphon the Orator. I can find no instance of elSos, 
 ISea, or the frequent Platonic equivalent popcpij, in the 
 speeches or extant fragments, a fact which of itself suggests 
 that the words were not widely current, outside the technical 
 vocabulary of science, in the Attic of the fifth century. 
 
 [Xenophori\ 'AOrjvaLOJv -rroXireia. (Text of L. Dindorf.) 
 § 1 0. The Srjfiog of Athens dress no better than slaves 
 
 and fieroi/coi, ical tc\ etSrj oiSev fieXriow; el<ri, "their 
 
 physiqite is not a whit better." 
 
192 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 The earlier Sophistic 
 
 The remains of the earlier "sophists" mayalso be taken into 
 account here as evidence for the Attic prose of the period 
 450—400 B.C. My references are to Diels, VorsoJeratiker, 2 ii. 1, 
 and for Gorgias, Antisthenes, Alcidamas, to Blass's text. 
 
 Protagoras irepl Oe&v (Diels ii. 1. 537), irepl fiev de&v 
 ovk eya eioevai ova ax; eiaiv ova cos ovk eicnv ova ottoiol 
 Tivef IBeav, " nor what their figures (or bodies) are like." 
 
 Gorgias (ap. Plutarch, Be mulierum virtute 242 f, Diels 
 ii. 1. 561) KOfiTfroTepos fiev 6 Topyias <j>alverai Kekevcov 
 fir) to elBo<: dXXa rr/v Bofjav elvat, ■nroWots yvcbpifiov tjJs 
 ywaucos, " a woman's fame, not her person, should be 
 widely known." 
 
 Encomium Helenae 12. If Blass is right in emending 
 the corrupt to yap t?)? iretOov^ e^r)v, 6 Be vov<s ical toi el 
 avdyKJ] 6 elBa><; ktK. to to yap tj}? trei6ov<; elBos e^« 
 fiev ovofia evavTiov avcvy/crji, to tj}? it. elBo<s will be a mere 
 periphrasis for r) ireiam, like Shakespeare's " quality of 
 mercy " or the common tragic periphrases with Be/ia<s, icdpa 
 (rovfwv Be/ias, tov/wv icapa = e/xe, and the like). The words 
 are not found elsewhere in the remains of Gorgias. 
 
 Antisthenes. Neither word is found in the two extant 
 eVtSetfets of Antisthenes. 
 
 Prodicus. Neither word is found in the remains, which, 
 however, include hardly anything beyond the " Choice of 
 Heracles" preserved by Xenophon. The same remark 
 applies to the scanty remains of Hippias, and Plato seems 
 to avoid using the words in his imitations of Protagoras, 
 Prodicus, and Hippias. 
 
 Further, neither word occurs in the extant fragments 
 of Thrasymachus, Critias, or Antiphon the " sophist," except 
 in one remark ascribed to Critias (Diels ii. 1. 627) where 
 elBo<s is used in the sense of (human) physique, oti icdWt,- 
 cttov elBoi ev toi? appeal to drfKv. 
 
 Anonymus Iamblichi (i.e. the unknown writer on ethics, 
 large fragments from whom have been unearthed by Blass 
 in the Protrepticus of Iamblichus, and who appears from 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 193 
 
 his style to be a " sophist " of the time of the Peloponnesian 
 war. (See for the text Diels ii. *. 629-635.) etSo?, ISea, 
 /j,op<fiij are all absent. 
 
 Alcidamas. It is striking that neither term is found 
 in the Kara a-o<picTr&v, an attack on the composers of 
 written eVtSei'fet?, since the mention of eiBrj or ISeai \6ytov 
 would appear so natural in such a context. In the Odysseus 
 ascribed to the same author we have in § 10 irep.irovTe'i 
 Bia. toiovtov eiSovi, " by means of such a device," a phrase 
 similar to several already quoted from Thucydides. But 
 the work, though comparatively early, is probably spurious 
 (see Blass's Antiphon, p. xxvii), and not to be quoted for 
 the usage of pre-Platonic Attic. 
 
 I may next take into account the language of Xenophon 
 and the orators, always reserving for special consideration 
 Isocrates, who is not properly reckoned as an orator at all, 
 but as a teacher of prose composition, and in whom the 
 technical rhetorical sense of IBea, eZSo? is naturally common 
 enough. 
 
 Xenophon 
 
 Memorabilia. Xenophon, of course, knows of the im- 
 portance attached by Socrates to correct classification, and 
 attributes to him a derivation of ^laXe/crt/erf from 8ia\eyeiv, 
 to sort, or lay apart, as we have already seen. But it is 
 remarkable that the actual word ISea never occurs in the 
 Memorabilia, and e!8o? appears (three times in all) only in 
 the one curious chapter (iii. 10) where Socrates is re- 
 presented as discussing characterisation in art with a painter 
 and a sculptor, and then in the most literal sense. 
 
 § 2 rd ye tcaXa eiSi} dtpofioiovvres, § 7 rot? t&v 
 tpsvrwv e'lZeaiv direucdfav rb epyov ^toTucayrepow; Troiels 
 <j>alvecr6ai rovs avSpiavras, § 8 Set . . . rbv dvSpiavro- 
 ttoiov ra, t»)s ifrv)(f}<} epya r&i e'iSei Trpo<reiicd£ei,v. 
 
 Symposium. We have three instances of elSos, all in the 
 sense either of body (human) or physique. 
 
 viii. 25 6 p,ev r&i eUSet. rbv vovv irpwrk^wv, ib. 26 o 
 
 
 
194 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 tov eiSovs iirapK&v ap^ei tov epaarov, ib. 36 tov tSh, 
 elSei tov ipwfievov %pd>p.evov. In all these instances 
 " beauty " would be a just permissible rendering, but 
 " body " is the only word which a really careful translator 
 would use. 
 
 Oeconomicus. No example, so far as I know. 1 
 
 Hellenica. Only three examples, so far as I know, all 
 in the sense of (human) body or physique. 
 
 iii. 1. 14 wir&KTeive 8e ical tov vlbv avrfj<s, to tg etSo? 
 ovra 7rdyica\ov ical ir&v ovra d>s eirTaicalheica. 
 
 iii. 2. 17 6 AepKv\iSa<; \aj3cov tow? Kparicrrowi ra 
 eiSj] t&v irepl airbv ical fonreav ical ire^Siv irpofjXffe 
 (" advanced with the men of the strongest bodies "). 
 
 iii. 3. 5 oiito<s (sc. Cinadon) &' ?jv ical to elSo*; veavi- 
 <7ico<i ical Tr/v TJrv%riv evpooo'Tos (of youthful body and 
 vigorous mind). 
 
 Anabasis ii. 3. 16 ivTavda ical tov eyicetjiaXov tov 
 <polviico<; TrpmTov e<payov ol aTpaTi&Tai, ical ol irdWol 
 e9avfiao~av to re elBo<; ical Ti)v IBioTTjTa t^5 r)Bovr]<i, 
 " were surprised by its shape and its singular taste." (Note 
 the survival of this old sense of fihovq.) This seems to be 
 the only instance in the whole Anabasis. 
 
 Cyropaedia i. 2. 1 <f>vvai Se 6 Kvpos XeyeTai ical 
 diSeTai en ical vvv virb tS»v fiapfiapasv eZSo? fiev /caWio-ro?, 
 
 1 The entire absence of any reference to the elSri from Xenophon's Socratic 
 books is not so startling as it looks. If the conception of eWij is, as I shall 
 argue, primarily Pythagorean, Xenophon is only adhering to his regular 
 policy of protecting his master's memory by preserving silence about all that 
 connected him with a mysterious and suspected "sect." Moreover, it is 
 quite possible that Xenophon knew nothing about the matter. He never 
 saw Socrates after his departure for the army of Cyrus, and the Anabasis 
 makes it clear that he was quite a young man at that date. (His patron 
 Proxenus was only thirty, and Xenophon was presumably younger still.) 
 Taking this and the general superficiality of his character into account, 
 we may fairly suppose that Socrates did not exactly take Xenophon into his 
 inmost confidence, and that one reason why he has so little to tell about his 
 master's beliefs is that he knew very little of them. He says he had actually 
 been present at a great many of the conversations he reports, but then he 
 says he had heard Socrates talk about the battle of Cunaxa. Further, we do 
 not know how much even of what he may have heard he has mangled 
 because he could not understand it. 
 
THE WOEDS EIA02, IAEA 195 
 
 "^ v xh v ^ fyiXavdpoa'iroTaTO'i. etSo?, like floppy in the next 
 sentence, means body as opposed to mind. 
 
 iv. 5. 57 6 Se exXe^dpevo^ ai)Twv tovs ra. elSr} fteXri- 
 vrov<s eKeyev ktX. etSo? again = body (" those of the finest 
 physique "). 
 
 v. 1. 6 vvv phrroi i^aipovpev avSpl ae, e5 itrdi <m, 
 ovre to ethos eiceivov j(eipovi ovri ovre rr/v yvcop/tjv ovre 
 Bwap.iv fj-TTco e%ovri ("inferior neither in body nor in 
 mind nor in estate "). 
 
 viii. 2. 6. (In a household ordered on the Socratic 
 principle of specialisation of function, so that the baker 
 has nothing to do but bake loaves) ical pijSe rovrovs 
 TravToScnrovs, dXX' apicel av ev eZSos evSoKip,ovv irapijfiji, 
 the work will be better done than anywhere else. etSo? 
 here might mean " shape," but it is more likely, perhaps, 
 that it means "sort," "kind." If so, it is the only 
 example of this sense in Xenophon. 
 
 Hie.ro. No case of IBia or etSo?. 
 
 Agesilaus. No case of either word. 
 
 Hipparcfricus. No case of either word. 
 
 Bespublica Zacedaemoniorum. No example. 
 
 Be Vectigalibus. No example. 
 
 Apologia. No example. 
 
 Be Re Equestri. One case of etSo? with reference to the 
 physique of a horse, 1. 17 eZSos pev &rj irdiXov ovra> Soki- 
 pd^ovre<s paXicr av rjpiv SoKovai rvy^dveiv eviroSoi /cal 
 layypov /cal evadpicov ical evo--xrfp,ovo<; km eip-eyedov;. 
 
 Cynegeticus. We have the following cases of elSos. 
 
 2. 3 %pr) Se rbv p.ev dp/cvwpbv elvai . . . rrjv rfXiiciav 
 vrepl err) etKoeri, to Se elfio? iXa<j>pov, iayypdv, fyvyrp) Se 
 txavov, " he must be about twenty years old, strong and 
 light in body and adequately endowed in mind." 
 
 3. 3 ai Se <r/c\i]pal ra, eXhrj ^a\e7T(Ss dirb r&v Kwrj- 
 lyeaiav diraXXdrrovo~i, " dogs of stiff and stubborn build 
 are badly used up in hunting." (L. & S. rightly class 
 this among passages in which aicXr/pos is used of the body, 
 as the opposite of vypo<:, supple, lithe.) 
 
 3. 11 ola<i Se Set elvai rod avrov yivov<s rd re eiStj 
 
196 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 Kal ra, aWa <ppdo-to, "what they should be like in 
 physique, and in other points." 
 
 4. 2 Kal iav mat roiavrat ai ievve<>, etrovrai io-yypai 
 ra 61817, i\a<f>pal, o-vfi/Merpoi, "iroBtoKeif, Kal airo rmv 
 7rpoa<l)7rcov <pai8pal Kal ev<rrop,oi. (Note the implied 
 antithesis between points of body and peculiarities of face.) 
 
 4. 6 fiera, Se tov eiSovt Kal rod epyov rovrov ev- 
 Tfrvftoi, e<rrw<7av Kal eviroSes Kal evpives Kal evTpij(e<;, 
 " besides having the points of body and method of working 
 described, the dogs should be high-spirited, swift of foot, 
 keen of scent, and should have a good coat." 
 
 7. 7 iireiBav o \aya><; evpio-Krjrai, iav fiev KaXal mat 
 •jrpbs tov Spofiov ra, eiSrj, p,r) avtivat, ev6v<s, " when the 
 hare has been started, if their bodies are well suited for 
 coursing, they should not be unleashed at once." 
 
 7. 8 iav yap o/iodev KaXa*} ra, el&r) ovo-ai Kal eirtyv- 
 %ov? 7rpb<; rbv Spofiov iiriKvrji, opmaat, tov \aya> evreivo- 
 fievai prjywvTai. e'iSij again = their bodies as opposed to 
 their yfrv^. 
 
 9. 7 rwt avrm eiSei irpos avroiii y^prjo-dai tj)? 
 8ripa<i, " the same fashion or disposition " of the chase, eiSos 
 exactly synonymous with o-yr\fi,a, and meaning something 
 like the geometrical or topographical arrangement adopted. 
 
 Thus we may say generally that ISia is not a word of 
 Xenophon's vocabulary ; etSo? is relatively unfamiliar, and 
 always means " body '' (except in the Cynegeticus, almost 
 always the human body) save in two cases, in one of 
 which it means quite literally a " plan " or " diagram " 
 (o-xfi/ia), an( i i n ^ e other, apparently, " sort," " kind." The 
 contrast in usage between Thucydides and Xenophon seems 
 to me strongly to support the view at which I have hinted 
 that the word, except in the sense of " body," was non- 
 Attic, and is in Athenian literature a loan-word from 
 Ionian science, (by which I mean, of course, science written 
 in the Ionic dialect, independently of the place of its origin). 
 We note, in particular, the absence of the sense etSo<t = yevo<t 
 = " sort," " class." Further investigation will, I hope, show 
 that this is one of the latest meanings to he acquired, and 
 
THE WOEDS EIA02, IAEA 197 
 
 only arose under the influence of the Academy. If this is 
 true, it will follow that, so far frdtn the eiBrj of Plato having 
 been reached by the "reification of concepts," the notion 
 of a " species " or " class " was obtained by the conceptualis- 
 ing away of Socratic e'ISrj. 
 
 To take the orators next. For the sake of completeness, 
 I give all the instances from Andocides to Hyperides. 
 (Antiphon has been already disposed of, and Isocrates shall 
 receive special treatment later on.) 
 
 Andocides 
 
 De Mysteriis 100 irparTOfievo'; 8' oil ttoXv apyvpiov eirl 
 roll ala-^iaroK epyoc? efijs (i.e. as a /a'wwSo?), ical Tavra 
 ovra><; (io%8ripb<; mv rrjv IBeav, " you led the life of a hired 
 prostitute, and a mighty sorry one at that." IBea here 
 again = body or physique, and the meaning is not merely 
 that he was ugly of face, but a miserable creature altogether. 
 
 Lysias 
 
 Only one instance in a speech of more than dubious 
 authenticity. 
 
 [ii.] 4 ifkeov yap ehoKovv (sc. the Amazons) rwv avhpStv 
 rat? i|ru^at9 Bicupepeiv rj rat? ISeais iWeiireiv : t'Seat? mean- 
 ing here " bodies," with the usual contrast to -^v^aL 
 
 Isaeus, like Antiphon and the genuine Lysias, has no 
 example of either word. 
 
 Aeschines 
 
 From Aeschines we have the following examples. 
 
 i. 116 Bvo Si poi t»7? Karriyopiav eiSr) XeiTrerat e<£' ols 
 ifiavrov t elirelv ev^opai rot? 0eoi<; iracri Kal -irao-ais virep 
 rfjs 7ro\e«? 009 irpo , r\i,pi)p,ai. The following section shows 
 that the two etSr) are a TrpoSitfyrjarK or " anticipatory 
 rehearsal " of the line of defence expected to be taken by 
 Demosthenes and the other speakers for Timarchus, and a 
 7rapd.K\i)<ri<i t&v ttoKit&v irpbi aperr\v. eiSri, then, means 
 here "formal constituents" of the speech, and is nearly 
 
198 VAMA SOCEATICA 
 
 equivalent to fiepij. The nearest Platonic parallel is the 
 famous eiSr) ev rfji yjrv^rJL of the Republic, which are also 
 called indifferently p.eprj or fiopia. See Professor Bywater's 
 note on the similar use of the word in Aristotle, Poetics 
 1449 a 7, where the present passage should have been given 
 as an apposite parallel. 
 
 i. 134 roi/<! fiev viels . . . airavres eii^eade ol p.eXkovTe<i 
 iraihoTTOieiadau /caXous KoyaOoiif Ta? (Sea? <f>vpai. ISea 
 = body, physique. 
 
 i. 194 TOVTcoi jap iraplaaw iic Tpi&v elS&v (rvvrfyopoi, 
 " supporters drawn from three classes," a clear instance of 
 etSo? = " kind." The whole speech is marked by familiarity 
 with the ideas and language of the " sophistic " schools of 
 composition. 
 
 ii. 47 et7T6 vpoeXdmv . . K.Trjtri(pa)v aXKov; re rival 
 \oyov<; teal tol"? irpb<; ^rjfioaOevqv avr&i, <Tvyiceifievov<; 
 epelv irepi T6 rrj<; evTevifecos tjj? QCkiirirov ical tt)? lSea<; 
 avrov kt\., i.e. about his personality, or, more strictly, his 
 bodily presence, his physique. 
 
 iii. 29 ecrri yap, w cwS/se? 'AOr/valoi, ra>v irepl ra<i ap^as 
 eiBrj rpla, " there are three classes of officials." It is then 
 explained that these are (1) officials formally appointed by 
 lot or election, (2) superintendents of public works, and all 
 persons who " have any affair of State in their hands for 
 more than a month," (3) any others who are entitled to the 
 ■f)yefiovla ZiKaaT-qpitov. Thus the rare sense " class " is here 
 unmistakable. 
 
 Demosthenes 
 
 In the whole collection I only find two instances. 
 
 xix. 233 el Si tk &>v e'</>' ijXt/a'as irepov /SeXrtaw ttjv 
 ISiav, i.e. of better physique. 
 
 xxiv. 192 ecrriv, <o apSpes 'Adijvaloi, Sv eiBr), irepl &v 
 el<r ol vofMoi icara 7ra<ra? ras 7ro\et?. There are two sorts 
 of matters with which the laws of all cities deal. The two 
 e'iZrj are then described as vofioi, irepl tup IBiav and vofioi 
 irepl t&v 7r/3o? to 8r)/j,6(riov. The sense is thus " class," 
 " kind," " sort." 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 199 
 
 Lycurgus INot one of these three orators ever uses 
 
 Diimrchus \ 184a, etSos, or tMeir equivalents ayfrfia and 
 
 Hyperides J /wptfrrf. 
 
 (<r^j}/ta occurs once in the pfjaK from Euripides' Urech- 
 theus quoted hy Lycurgus, dX\' e/ioiy' eir/ reicva | < a > ical 
 fidj(piTO teal fier av$pd<riv irpeiroi, | p,r) ajfflpuT a\Ae>? 
 ev nroKet Tre<pvKOTa, sc. not mere "figure-heads," mere 
 "outward shows of man," and elSoi once in the long 
 quotation from Tyrtaeus, ala^vvei 8e yevo<;, Kara 8' dyhabv 
 elBo<} i\£y%ei, with the meaning of body, " he brings shame 
 on his family and belies his own splendid bulk of man- 
 hood.") 
 
 Thus the two words are only found nine times in the 
 whole bulk of what we may call the work-a-day forensic 
 and political oratory of Athens, and one of these instances 
 ought really to be discounted, as it comes from the worth- 
 less declamation handed down to us as the 'EirtTa^to? 
 of Lysias. This, of itself, would go far to sustain my 
 suggestion that these words formed no part of the " live " 
 vocabulary of Athenian life, even late in the fourth century, 
 and that we must regard them, where they are found, as 
 importations from non-Attic scientific literature. 
 
 We note, further, that in this handful of instances the 
 words always mean body or physique, except in one passage 
 of Demosthenes and one of Aeschines, where it has the 
 sense of •' class " or " kind," and one where it means 
 " formal constituent." This again bears out my assertion 
 that et8o?, ISea did not begin by meaning " class " or " sort," 
 but that this purely logical sense arose from the watering 
 down of the metaphysical meaning of the words for which 
 we have chiefly to thank Aristotle. I may put this point 
 in another way. yevos and et8o9 are primarily words with 
 implications as diverse as their derivations ; the one means 
 " family," the other " body." The equation yevo<s = etSo? is 
 an outcome, not a datum, of the Platonic -Aristotelian 
 philosophy, and one may doubt whether, even in Aristotle, 
 the equation is quite complete. It certainly is not so in 
 any logical system which maintains, as that of Aristotle 
 
200 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 does, that there are infimae species incapable of further 
 logical division. 
 
 I would note, too, that of our nine (or eight) examples 
 five come from the three speeches of Aeschines. When we 
 remember that Aeschines repeatedly boasts of possessing a 
 iracSeia which raises him above the level of his opponents, 
 and particularly of the dwalSevTo? Demosthenes, this recur- 
 rence of a technical term of rhetorical art lends some colour 
 to the traditions preserved in the " lives " of the orators, 
 which make Aeschines a member of the school of Isocrates, 
 and perhaps of the Academy, while they assert that 
 Demosthenes had never been able to pay the fees demanded 
 by Isocrates. The whole style, of which Demosthenes is 
 the most brilliant exponent, with its love of vigorous and 
 vulgar metaphors and colloquialisms, goes to negative the 
 belief of later ages that he had ever been one of the 
 Academy, and his politics are also decidedly of the wrong 
 colour. It is not to an Academician of the age of 
 Xenocrates and Phoeion that we should naturally look for 
 the attempt to revive the " demagogy " of Pericles and 
 Cleon. (The story that Isocrates declined to educate 
 Demosthenes on " reduced terms " is further confirmed in 
 one vital point by the contemporary author of the speech 
 against Lacritus, who mentions " the thousand drachmas " 
 as the well-known fee charged by Isocrates for his regular 
 course, [Demosthenes] xxxv. 42.) It would follow, of 
 course, that the story of Demosthenes about the poverty 
 and low station of Aeschines' parents is, what an Athenian 
 audience probably took it to be, pure romance, and that 
 the account which Aeschines gives of his own parentage is 
 probably, in the main, true. 
 
 So far, then, we seem to have reached the following 
 results, at least provisionally : — 
 
 (1) etSo? and ISia were not common words in the 
 vocabulary of fifth- or even of fourth-century Attic. The 
 one sense in which they were commonly understood by 
 persons outside the scientific schools, which had their own 
 technical vocabulary, was "body" or "physique," most 
 
THE WOEDS EIA02, IAEA 201 
 
 usually with an implied restriction to the human body. 
 Since then Plato habitually assumes that the words bore a 
 philosophical signification, which he cannot have invented 
 for himself; since he treats it as something which his readers 
 quite understand for themselves, we are forced to suppose 
 that he derived the terms from the technical language of 
 pre-existing fifth-century science. 
 
 (2) We have also seen already that the words could be 
 used, as terms which an intelligent reader would understand, 
 in the following senses : (a) geometrical " figure," (6) the 
 symptomatology of a disease, (c) a formal constitutive element 
 in a speech (such as the ay<ov, the 8t,a\v<ri<; t£>v vTroyfrc&v, 
 the ■jrpoSiijyrja-i';, or anticipatory rehearsal of the coming 
 speech on the other side, and the like), (d) a " trope " or 
 rhetorical artificial ornament either of language or of 
 "thought," (e) a "class'' or "kind." The word had thus 
 acquired a technical sense in geometry, in medicine, in 
 rhetoric, iu logic. The problem is now to discover, if we 
 can, from which of these senses the rest follow as natural 
 derivatives — i.e. we must trace the history of the words 
 as a technicality backwards. If we do so, we shall in the 
 end be, for the first time, in a position to answer the 
 question whether it is likely that Plato committed a literary 
 blunder in ascribing certain senses of the words to Socrates 
 and his companions. 
 
 We may begin by considering rhetoric, on the ground 
 that it is notoriously a younger science than medicine or 
 geometry. 
 
 I will, therefore, next attempt to give a list of the 
 occurrences of our two words in Isocrates, with some dis- 
 cussion as to the meanings they bear. I shall follow, 
 throughout, the text of Blass as issued in the Teubner series. 
 
 Isocrates 
 
 We have the following cases, and the list is, I trust, 
 complete. 
 
 ii. 34 a<7Teio? eivai iretpSi ical cre/j,v6<; • . . . Set Se . 
 
202 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 Xpfjadcu fiev dficpoTepais rat? IBeaK ravrai?, ri)v Be crvfi- 
 (fiopav tt)v exarepai rrpoaovaav Bia<pevyeiv. Try to combine 
 affability with dignity ; but, while exhibiting both manners, 
 avoid the inconveniences which attach to either. IBiai here 
 does not, of course, mean " kinds," but much more literally 
 " ways of bearing oneself," a sense not far removed from 
 the popular one. 
 
 ii. 48 Set toli? fiovXofievow; r) iroteiv r) ypd<j>etv ri Keya- 
 pta/ievov rot? 7roWot? fir) tov? aMpeKificoTaTowi r&v \oymv 
 tyfrelv aXKa roil? fivdcoBeardrov; . . . 816 ical rr)v 'Ofirjpov 
 iroirjo-iv kcu row; trp&rov evpovra? rpaycoiBiav d%tov davfid- 
 %eiv, brt KartBovre? rr)v §vaiv rr)v r&v dvOpdnrcov dfMpo- 
 repats rot? lBeat<s ravrai? Kareyjpr^travro irpo? rr)v iroitfatv. 
 Homer and the discoverers of tragedy are to be commended 
 for their judicious combination of the two " styles of com- 
 position," sound exhortation, and the telling of exciting 
 marvels. IBea then = a " fashion " or " style " of writing, 
 a sense which, as we shall find, is a natural extension of 
 that of a " figure '' of rhetoric. "We should say genre. 
 
 iii. 30 evprfcro/iev ras fir) /lere^ovcra'i rovrav t&v IBe&v 
 (sc. aa)<ppo<Tvvr)<; icaX 8iicaio(rvvr)s) fieyaKwv icaic&v atria? 
 oixra?. This looks like an echo of the Socratic-Platonic 
 language about eiSr/ and fiede^i?, and I should suppose that 
 it probably is so, though we might, but for the tell-tale word 
 fiere^ovaa?, take it to mean merely that " temperance " and 
 " justice " are two " modes " or " appearances " in which 
 virtue presents itself to us. 
 
 iii. 44 xpr) Be Boxtfid^eiv t<x? dpera? ovk iv ralf airats 
 tSiats dirdo-as, dXXa, rr)v fiev BiKaioa-vvrjv iv rats diroplais, 
 rr)v Be eroi<ppoo-vvriv iv rats SvvaareUu?, rr)v B' iyxpdreiav iv 
 rat? t&v vemrepusv r)\iKiai<;. iya> roivvv iv irao-t rot? teaipoi? 
 (pavtfo-o/iat nrelpav rrj? ifiavrov <pvo~eo>? BeBatKco?. A man's 
 various virtues should not be judged of in the same situa- 
 tions. His justice should be measured by his behaviour in 
 needy circumstances, his temperance by his conduct when in 
 power, his command of his passions by his behaviour in 
 youth. IBeat is thus all but synonymous with icatpoi, 
 and means the different phases or aspects which a man's 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 203 
 
 affairs present. We have found some similar examples in 
 Thucydides. * 
 
 iv. 7 el fiev fn)8afia><; aWea? olov t r)v SrjXovv ra<s avras 
 Trpdgeis ott' r) Sia fuas I8ea<}, etyev civ T(? viro\af3elv, to? 
 ireptepyov i<rn rbv avTov rpoirov eicelvoi<s \eyovra iraKiv 
 ivoj(\eiv TOis axovova-iv. If the same matters could only 
 be treated of in one and the same manner, it might reason- 
 ably be thought superfluous to try the patience of the 
 audience again by a speech in the same style as those of 
 former orators. ISia clearly means " style," " manner," 
 " fashion " of selecting the topics and setting them off to 
 advantage. 
 
 v. 143 a\\a yap etkop^v diroa-^ia-dai rfj<; toio,vti)<; iSeas, 
 to abstain from such a style (sc. rod \6yov), i.e. from an 
 eulogistic comparison of Philip with his predecessors. 
 
 ix. 9 Kal irepl tovtiov Sn/jXAaai, fir) fiovov rot? Terayfiivoit 
 ovofiaaiv, aWa ra fiev Ijevoi,?, to, 8e Kaivolf, ra Se fiera- 
 (fiopats, Kal firjBev irapaXiireiv aXka, nraat, Tot? e'iSeai hia- 
 •rroiicikai Trjv -Koirjaiv. To diversify one's composition with 
 all the stylistic embellishments, such as those mentioned 
 above, the use of novel or dialectical words for those current 
 in everyday life, the use of metaphors. eoSrj has here the 
 technical meaning of stylistic " graces," including apparently 
 not only the famous ay^fiara of Gorgias, but any other 
 linguistic ornaments by which one's diction may be 
 heightened and lifted above the level of ordinary life. 
 Isocrates goes on to argue, in effect, that his task is harder 
 than that of a poet because you cannot make a free use of 
 such embellishments in prose. 
 
 (The passage has been discussed at length at p. 151 of 
 Professor Bywater's Aristotle on the Art of Poetry. Professor 
 Bywater gives a different interpretation, which I am, with 
 all respect, forced to believe mistaken. He understands 
 tois e'l8e<ri to mean tow e'iBeai t&v ovo/idrcov, " every kind 
 of name." If the passage stood alone, this might perhaps 
 pass muster, but compare xv. 74 (quoted below) for the use 
 of etSo? as equivalent to <rx r )f ia ^ef e«?. Besides, a metaphor 
 is more naturally spoken of as a "figure of speech " than as a 
 
204 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 " kind of name." And surely Isocrates means to include 
 among the advantages of the poet a good deal more than his 
 freedom to use " every kind of name." He means rather "all 
 the resources of a heightened diction." We shall, however, 
 find at xv. 280 a clear instance of e2So? = " class," "kind") 
 
 x. 11. (It is easy enough to make an impression by 
 defending a paradox, however devoid its advocate may be 
 of rhetorical accomplishments.) oi Be koivoI koX ttkttoI 
 ica\ rovTot? ofioioi tcoi> Xoycov Bia, ttoW&v IBe&v ical Kaipwv 
 Sv(7icaTafj,a&i]Ttov evpia-Kowai re kcll Xeyovrcu. I.e. if you 
 are to make a reputation by discourses on sensible topics 
 with no paradoxical nonsense about them, in a word, by 
 arguments which appeal to common-sense, you will need to 
 show unusual mastery of the tropes and devices of rhetoric. 
 
 x. 15. (Gorgias had proposed to deliver an encomium 
 on Helen, but managed his discourse so badly that it was 
 rather a mere excuse for her than an eulogy.) ean S' ovk 
 etc ra>v avrmv IBeoov oiiBe irepl t5>v avr&v [epyoav] o \oyos, 
 a\Xa irav rovvavriov • airoXoyela-Qai f^ev yap irpoarjiceL 
 irepl T(bv aBi/ceiv alriav iy^ovrmv, iiraweiv he tou? iir 
 ayaQmi rivl 8ia<f)epovTa<;. The matter and manner which 
 would be appropriate in a " speech for the defendant " is 
 out of place in an eulogy on admitted excellence. In both 
 this and the last passage ISeat, means IBeat Xoyav, "styles 
 of discourse." Hence in the first of the two, ISeai is con- 
 joined with Kaipol: it is in the choice of the appropriate 
 tone for the various parts of his discourse, and in the 
 observation of due proportion and strict relevancy in the 
 handling of the topics selected, that the skill of the 
 rhetorician is shown. 
 
 x. 54 t&v 8e KaXXovs a/ireaTeprjiievaov ovhev evprjaofiev 
 ayaircojievov aXka irdvTa Kara^povovfieva, ifKr^v oaa 
 ravTTjs rjy? ISeas iceicobvmvrjice. Here again the language 
 seems anticipatory of Platonic phraseology; IBea for once 
 seems to stand for the self-identical object denoted by the 
 name kqWo?, the avro b eern koKov, and Koivcovia is one 
 of the technical terms in Plato for the relation between 
 such an avrb b eari and its partial embodiments. Hence, 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 205 
 
 if, as I think Blass haB proved, the Helena really belongs to 
 a date about 390, the passage liay be used to show that 
 the characteristic language of the theory of etHi) was known 
 to Isocrates little more than ten years after the death of 
 Socrates. Believing, as I do, that the Republic was written 
 before the King's Peace of 388/7, I am not surprised at 
 this ; but, if a fact, it is enough to show, irrespective of 
 any theory as to the dates of the Platonic dialogues, that 
 the theory cannot have been invented by Plato; it must 
 have been in existence for a fairly long time before Isocrates 
 could use its technicalities as current literary coin. The 
 same remark applies equally to 
 
 x. 58 roaavrrii S' evcreftelat, ica\ irpovoiau %pd)fie8a irepl 
 ttjv Iheav rrjv Toiavrrjv (sc. rb koSXo<s) ktX., where, as when 
 Plato speaks of the avra naff avra eiBrj, the natural 
 English translation would be simply "thing," and the 
 pretentious bad English " entity." 1 
 
 xi. 33 &ctt ov fiovov tj}? a\r)6et,a<; airwv dXka ical Trjs 
 l&ias oXt;?, Sl ^? evXoyelv Set, fyaivei 8ii}/j,apTr)iea>s. You, 
 says Isocrates to Polycrates, have not merely failed to prove 
 the truth of your statements about Busiris, but have shown 
 your ignorance of the style appropriate to an eulogy, l&ea 
 means ISea \6ymv, the style appropriate to a certain literary 
 genre. 
 
 xii. 2. Isocrates describes his own discourses as iroW&v 
 [lev iv0vfirj/j.dTcov yefiovras, ovk oXlycov 8' avTiQktremv ical 
 TrapKrdxremv ical rmv aXKmv ISe&v t&v iv rat? pTjTopeiacs 
 8iaXa/Airov<r&v. We see from this the origin of the various 
 rhetorical senses of ISea of which we meet so many examples 
 in this author. Primarily it means an artificial arrange- 
 ment of words or clauses adopted by the professional rhetors 
 for the purpose of raising the style of their eVtSeifets above 
 that of ordinary life. The Ihecu of rhetoric are, to begin 
 with, strictly "figures of diction" {ayfiiuna Xefews), and 
 begin with the famous ay^fiara or artificial verbal tricks of 
 
 1 It should be observed that the whole context (Helena 54-58) presents 
 strong affinities with the doctrine of Ipun expounded by Plato, which we 
 have already seen reason to regard as thoroughly Sociatic. 
 
206 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Gorgias, antithesis, parallelism, parisosis, and homoeoteleuton. 
 
 The extension of the word to artificial embellishments of 
 
 a less mechanical kind, the rhetorical question, effective 
 
 aposiopesis, and the like (a-^fiara Stavotas), was easy and 
 
 obvious, and ISia in the sense of the general " style " 
 
 appropriate to a given composition (eulogy, invective, and 
 
 the like) seems to be merely the collective use of the same 
 
 word. Isocrates, as our examples show, extends the word 
 
 to cover not only the Topyieia a^fiara, or " figures " proper, 
 
 but stylistic foppery of every kind, and can thus distinguish, 
 
 e.g., the ISicu proper in an " apology " from those suitable for 
 
 an eulogy. 1 
 
 xii. 132 iycb Se <fyrjpX to? fiev tSea? tS>v irokiretrnv 
 
 Tpets elvat fiovas, 6\iyap^lav, Bij/MOKpanav, p.ovap-^Lav. 
 
 The object of the passage is to argue that men in general 
 
 are wrong in confusing " aristocracy " with a government 
 
 airo ri/j,rjp,dTcov, and reckoning it as a fourth ISia -rroKiTeiai;. 
 
 Whatever be the apparent constitution of a iroKi<;, if it 
 
 places its best men in office and obeys them, it is in spirit an 
 
 dpiaroKparia. (See the whole context 131—134.) Hence 
 
 the ISecu t&v iroXtrei&v are contrasted with the <^v<rei<; fcal 
 
 Swdfiei? twv iroXiTetav of 134 as form with substance, or 
 
 letter with spirit. So the sense is " I maintain that the 
 
 outward forms of government are three only, rule by the 
 
 many, rule by the few, rule by one." The addition of 
 
 " rule by the best " to the list rests on a cross-division, and 
 
 Isocrates is urging that the constitution maintained from 
 
 1 On the axhlMra of Gorgias see specially Blass, Attische Beredsamkeit, 2 
 i. 63 ff. It is important to note that Gorgias was not only a Sicilian, but, 
 according to a tradition which seems fairly authenticated, a personal disciple 
 of Empedocles, and that the name ISiat was given to Einpedocles' four 
 "roots of things" by Philistion. Hence we may reasonably look to a con- 
 nection with Pythagorean science, through Empedocles, for the original 
 meaning of ISieu or (rxAlutTa (the words are equivalent) as a term of rhetoric. 
 And we see at once what the connection of thought must have been. The 
 original ax^ara of Gorgias were quite literally "patterns," "shapes," 
 "diagrams" for the arrangement of the words of a kw\ov or the Kui\a 
 of a "period." When we employ, as Gorgias, I imagine, himself did, a 
 diagram to exhibit the nature of a chiasmus or a irapl<ru<ris, or to show the 
 parallelism between the Ku\a of a ireploSos, we are instinctively going back 
 to the primary sense of the phrase "a, figure of speech." 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 207 
 
 the time of Theseus to that of Pisistratus was in form 
 " rule by the many," but in subslltntial fact " rule by the 
 best." We have an opposition of ISea and <pvai<{ l not, as 
 in Plato, an identification of them. 1 
 
 xiii. 16 tptj/u yap iya> ra>v fiev I8e£>v e£ &v roiis \oyov<s 
 airavras Kal Xeyofiev Kal crvvriOefiev, Xafieiv rr)v eiria , Tr}fj.rjv 
 ovk elvai T&v irdvv ^aXeir&v, ijv ti? clvtov irapahSib fir) 
 tok paihlws vTria^vovfievoc 1 ; aXXa tok eiSoat ti irepl avrmv. 
 ISeat Xoymv here, as in other cases, includes both the 
 a^/MiTa of Gorgias, and, more generally, the variety of 
 " manners," " styles " taught by the authors of the rhetorical 
 re'xyai as appropriate to the different conditions in which 
 a speech may he delivered. The same things are described 
 immediately below as ra eiSr) twv Xoycov (xiii. 17), and 
 the point is that it is easy to learn how many and what 
 these eiBrj are ; but to judge correctly how they should be 
 combined, and how the result may be conveyed in language 
 at once graceful and appropriate to the circumstances, 
 requires not merely the use of a handbook, but natural 
 capacity, careful practice, and training by a master who, 
 like Isocrates, is a model in such matters. 
 
 xv. 1 1 rocrovrov ovv firJKO<; Xoyov trvviSelv Kal rocravTas 
 I8ea<t Kal roaovrov aWrj\a>v atyeaTcbcra*; avvap/xoaai Kal 
 avvayayeiv . . . ov irdvv fUKpbv r)v epyov. What is 
 meant by the " numerous ISeat Xoycov " is shown by the 
 preceding remark that the work contains " some things 
 proper to be said before a dicastery, others which are not 
 fitting for such pleadings but exhibit a frank picture of 
 philosophy and its results, and something too which may be 
 serviceable to younger men who feel the impulse towards 
 learning and cultivation," evia fiev iv Sucaarripiau irpeirovra 
 prjdfjvai, to, Be irpo<i fiev tovi toiovtovs ayS>va<s oiy 
 
 1 The whole passage reads like an effusion of petty spite against the 
 Academy and the memory of Plato (which is insulted more than once 
 quite gratuitously in the course of the pamphlet). It was Plato who had 
 notoriously reckoned ApurroKparla as a fifth form of government by the side 
 of the inferior rirrapa eldy (Republic 544 a, and cf. Politicus 301). For other 
 impudent attacks on Plato and the Academy in the brochure see §§ 5, 9, 16, 
 26 111. 
 
208 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 apfioTTOVTa, irepX he cf>iXocro(f)la<; Treirapptjaiaerfieva nai 
 SeBrfKcoKOTa rrjv hvpa/iiv avrfj*; • e<rri he ti ical toiovtov, o t&v 
 vetoT&pmv rot? eVi to. fiaOrjfiara ical rrjv ircuhelav opfiooaiv 
 aKova-acriv av crvveveyicoi. The work thus exhibits three 
 theai, or " manners " of composition and construction, those 
 appropriate to a real \6yo<; hiicaviicos or forensic pleading, 
 to a discourse on the worth of philosophy (this, I suppose, 
 would be a \oyo? eViSet/eTMco?), and to a \oyo? irpoTpeTTTiic6<;} 
 Precisely similar is 
 
 xv. 46 eirj h av ov /M/epbv epyov, el traaa<i Ti? t«? lhea<; 
 to? t&v \6ymv igapiff/ieiv iirt-^eiprja-eiev, where the ISiai 
 in question have just been called rpoirot, ruv \6ymv and 
 partially enumerated. The list includes genealogies (to, 
 yevq ra, t&v ^fiidecov), expositions of the poets, Socratic 
 dialogues (ipa>Ti]<rei<; ical airoKpiaei'i), besides the line to 
 which Isocrates claims to have devoted himself, " political 
 discourses," and the forensic pleadings which he professes 
 to despise. 2 We get the word again in a narrower sense 
 
 1 Thus the only recognised branch of oratory in which the "speech," 
 according to its author, is not a model of all excellence, is the \<S7os avy.- 
 pov\eimic6s. It would have been inconsisent with the general plan of the 
 work to introduce this branch of discourse, unless, indeed, isolated bits of 
 counsel to the seriously minded " young men " can be taken as coming under 
 this head. 
 
 It is amusing to see how Isocrates' rancorous hatred of Plato and the 
 Academy breaks out in the very opening words of the irepl avriSStreus. He 
 complains bitterly of the insults of "some of the sophists" who had dared 
 to call him a writer of speeches for the law-courts. This, he observes with 
 his usual vanity, is as absurd as to call Phidias a "mudder" (/topoirXdtfos), or 
 Zeuxis a sign-painter. We seem to have here a reference to the well-known 
 passage, Euthydemus 304 d, where an unnamed critic of Socrates, who has 
 long been reasonably identified with Isocrates, is described as iviip oidfio'os 
 wdvv efrai ao<pos, Tofrrwv tis r(av Trepl robs \6yovs roifs els t& SiKaar^ipta Setvuv (a 
 perfectly correct description of Isocrates' position at the time when the 
 dialogue was written, before his assumption of the part of Heaven-sent political 
 adviser to civilisation at large). The offence, such as it was, was probably 
 more than a generation old when the Antidosis was written, but Isocrates 
 had neither forgotten nor forgiven it. We must make some allowance for 
 his annoyance at the appearance of Aristotle as a professional rival just at 
 the very time when the pamphlet was being composed. So Blass, AUische 
 Beredsamkeit, 2 ii. 60. 
 
 a As far as the words go, ipariiaat nal diroxplacis might mean no more than 
 the bits of feigned dialogue with the &vt18ikos which were a regular part of the 
 
THE WORDS EIA02, IAEA 20 & 
 
 immediately below in xv. -47, where we are told that 
 " political" discourses are more affin to poetry than forensic 
 pleadings in virtue of their more poetic and varied diction, 
 their weighty and moral reflections, and the more brilliant 
 and various ISeai which pervade them, en Se ral<s aXKais 
 I8eai<; &Tri<paveo-Tepai<; ical irKeiocnv o\ov rbv Xoyov Scoi- 
 kovctiv. IBeat seems to stand here for " embellishments " 
 of the kinds introduced by Gorgias, antitheses, Trapta-merei?, 
 assonances, and the like. 
 
 xv. 74 ov /movov /xtKpoi'i /Mepeaiv aKK' o\ot$ e'£8eo~i 
 7rpoetXo/j,i)v ^prjo-dat 7Tjoo? vfias. eiSr] seems to have the 
 meaning of el'877 \6ycov in the wider sense. Isocrates haa 
 just represented himself as reciting long extracts from the 
 Panegyrieus, De Pace, and IIpo? Nt/co/eXea before an imaginary 
 jury. He then says, in effect, that he has put before tha 
 audience not mere " snippets " (fiiicpa fieprj) froni his. 
 works, but complete specimens of his performances in the 
 recognised departments of oratory. And, in fact, the-, 
 speeches, or rather pamphlets, which he selects are a. 
 \oyo$ ttoXitikos, the De Pace, a X0709 iTrtSeiKTiicos, the; 
 Panegyricus, and a \oyo? ■jrapaiveTucos, the address to- 
 Nicocles. He has carefully avoided making any quotations* 
 from his \6yoi Sueavi/coc in pursuance of his regular habit- 
 of concealing the fact that he had begun life as an ordinary. 
 \oyoypa<f>o<;. 
 
 xv. 183. Isocrates is here, apparently in dependence on-: 
 the Gorgias of Plato, instituting a parallel between the 
 arts of the iraiSoTpl,^rj<; and the " philosopher " (i.e. the. 
 teacher of the art of effective pamphleteering). In the 
 course of the comparison he says iireiBav yap \dfta>o-L 
 puaQiyrax, oi fiev TraiSoTpifiai to, o~%r]/j.aTa ra TTpof tt\v 
 dymviav evpTjfieva tov<; <poiTa>VTa<; BiSdaKovariv, oi Be. 
 irepl ttjv cpiXocrocpiav 6We? ra? IBeas dird<ja<i, al<; o \oyo<?, 
 Tvy%dvei xpco/ievos, Sie^ep^ovrai toZ? f/.a6r)Tai<;. From the 
 
 rhetorician's stock-in-trade. The context, however, shows that Isocratea 
 means to describe not something which might appear in a "discourse" oi: 
 any and every kind, but a substantive branch of literature which can b& 
 nothing but the Su/cpoTi/td. . 
 
 P 
 
210 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 parallel with the teachers of athletes we see that the 
 meaning is that just as the latter hegin their course by 
 explaining the several "positions" or "figures" employed 
 in wrestling or fence, so the " philosopher " opens his 
 instruction by acquainting his pupils with the several 
 " styles " or " manners " which can be used in oratory, 
 He then goes on to observe that in both cases the 
 knowledge of the way in which the various " positions " 
 must be combined in dealing with an actual situation 
 depends less on theory than on practice and experience. 
 The verbal antithesis between the o-^p.aTa of the one art 
 and the ISeai of the other shows that what is in his mind 
 in the first instance is the o-y^/uiTa Xefeto? of Gorgias, 
 and that he is conscious of the metaphor underlying the 
 phrase ; but the context proves that this is only part of his 
 meaning. The ISeai, of this passage will also include the 
 various parts or "constitutive elements" of a discourse, 
 each of which will require its own proper "manner," the 
 irpoolfiiov, the Sitfyrio-is, the counter-attack on the opponent, 
 the concluding appeal to the judges, and so forth. E.g. 
 such a " figure of thought " as the feigned cross-examination 
 of the avriSiKOf, or the rhetorical self-question, will be 
 appropriate in one of these divisions but not equally so 
 in auother. What is meant here, then, is the different 
 " manners " which have to be skilfully combined in the 
 successful composition of an actual address. 
 
 xv. 280 ra fiev el/cora ical ra TeKfir/pia ical irav to tS>v 
 iricrTemv elSos tovto fiovov mcpeXet to fiepos, e<f> auirep av 
 uvt&v eKturrov tvvvi prjdev. to t&v iricrTecov elSot is little 
 more than an equivalent for iracrai at iriorei?, but since 
 two kinds of such mo-Teis are enumerated, I think we 
 should render literally " the whole kind of thing of which 
 eiKOTa and Texfirfpia are examples," "confirmation in general." 
 This may then be taken as a case, and the only case, in 
 Isocrates in which et8o? = class, sort, kind. It has nothing 
 to do with the Platonic sense, *' what a thing really is." 
 
 Epist. vi. 8 eWio-fj,ai yap XeYeti' irpo<; to\><; irepX ttjv 
 <f>i\oao<plav Tr\v ^fieTepav hiaTpLfSovTa<;, oti tovto irpSyTov 
 
THE WORDS EIAOX, IAEA 211 
 
 Bel CKk^aaQai, ri rat, \6ycoi teal tois tov Xoyov fxepeat, 
 SiairpaKreov io~Tiv' i-rreiBav Be i*>v6 evpwfiev xal Bia/cpiftoa- 
 <rcofie0a, fyrrireov elvai (prjfu ras IBeat, Si &v ravr i£epya- 
 a-6ri<Terat, ical X^yfrerai re\o<;, oirep {nreOefieda. " I am in 
 the habit of telling students of my philosophy that the 
 first thing to be considered is the end to be achieved by 
 a discourse, or by its several parts ; it is only after a 
 precise determination of this question that we have to 
 discover the figures (i.e. whether of language or "thought") 
 by which our purpose may be achieved and completed." 
 
 The following points seem to emerge as results of this 
 examination : — 
 
 (1) It is noticeable that common as the words elBoi, 
 IBea are in Isocrates' accounts of his theory of composition, 
 they are entirely absent from his early Xoyol Si/eaviKoi, 
 a plain proof that he regards them as technical terms 
 belonging to the art of composition. 1 
 
 (2) The words are completely synonymous. They occur 
 twenty-two times in all. In one case ISea means the way 
 in which a man " carries himself." This would properly 
 fall under the only sense current in ordinary Attic, 
 " physique." In one it seems certainly to mean " class " ; 
 in one, " situation," "state of affairs"; in three the context 
 seems to show that, as in Plato, it stands for an avrb icaO' 
 uvto elSoi, a determinate fyvcns or " real essence." There are 
 fifteen cases in which the meaning is ISea or o-yr\p,a Xoyov, 
 
 1 Compare the remarks of Blass, Altische Beredsamkett, 2 ii. 100, "Was 
 diescr etSrj oder Idiot seiner Keilen uennt, sind die Elemente, aus deren 
 Mischung jede Rede sich bildet, entsprechend den <rxv^ aT °- in den Gymnastik 
 uud von begrenzter, wenn aui-h nicht kleiner Zahl, so dass ein Wissen und 
 «in Lehren derselben mbglieh ist. Man wird dabei bald an die sieben ciSy 
 <les Anaximenes (i.e. the older contemporary and rival of Aristotle, author 
 of the so-called Shetoric to Alexander) . . . bald an die efSij und rbroi (oder 
 <TTOix«a) des Aristoteles erinnert ; denn der Ausdruck cISos besagt dem 
 Isourates alles und nichts, und es heisst so die gange Gattung von Reden 
 wie die Species, und ferner das Enthymem und die Figur, je nach Umstanden." 
 On the special sense of ei5o; = axw a ^us see also ib. p. 106. 
 
 The allusion to o~™x«a is very happy, since we shall see that in medicine 
 too the meaning of clBos has been largely determined by the attempt to 
 bring the Empedoclean theory of the "four roots" into harmony with 
 Pythagorean mathematics. 
 
212 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 which may mean either {a) an artificial construction of words 
 (o- X r)fia Xe'£e<o?), or (6) a rhetorically effective turn ^ given 
 to the thought expressed (cr^fjfia hia.vo'ua<;), or (c) the " style 
 or manner " appropriate to a literary genre as a whole. In 
 the one remaining case, that of the eiSij ■jroKirei&v, the 
 immediate sense might be " figure," " shape," but is probably 
 not " class." 
 
 (3) The origin of this rhetorical use of ISea and eZSos is. 
 pretty certainly found in the (r^ij/j-ara of Gorgias, which 
 were so called precisely because they could be exhibited 
 as actual " arrangements " or " diagrams." Isocrates thus 
 becomes an important witness to the conclusion I am trying 
 to establish, that elSoi and ISea were known technical terms- 
 before Plato began to write, and that they came primarily 
 from the vocabulary of mathematics. 
 
 I will next consider the uses of the words in the 
 medical writers of the fifth and early fourth centuries- 
 whose writings constitute the so-called "works" of 
 Hippocrates. It will not be necessary for my purpose to- 
 enter into any discussions about the real authorship of this 
 extensive literature, and I will only make one general 
 remark upon it. Among the Hippocratean tracts the most 
 superficial observation detects two great classes. There are 
 some which are guides and textbooks of purely empirical 
 medicine, and either ignore the general theories of the 
 cosmologists and speculative biologists, or actually denounce 
 the connection between medicine and speculation as harmful 
 to the advance of the healing art. It is generally recognised 
 that these works represent the tradition of the school of 
 Cos, and that it is among them that we must look for the 
 genuine treatises of the great Hippocrates. There is 
 another class in which medicine is treated as an integral 
 part of the biology and cosmology of the cro^iarrai, and in 
 which speculative theories about the $uo-t<? of the human 
 body and of the Koa-fios are explicitly upheld. For the 
 most part the works of this class exhibit traces of the 
 theories of Alcmaeon, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, but- 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 213 
 
 above all of Empedocles. This means that their authors 
 belong to a school who were actively preoccupied in making 
 a connection between human biology and the older science 
 of cosmology. As we know now, this school was specially 
 connected with Italian Pythagoreanism, and this accounts 
 for the exceptional prominence of the theories of Empedocles, 
 an Orphic and follower of the Pythagorean way of life, in 
 their writings. 1 We shall find that it is from this class of 
 Hippocratean works that the most significant examples of 
 ISea, elBo';, in a sense closely akin to the Platonic, are drawn. 
 Thus our study will bring us round to the conclusion that 
 the notion of ei'Si; has come into medicine, no less than into 
 rhetoric, from the geometry of the Pythagoreans. 
 
 As to the text of my citations, I have followed Kiihlewein. 
 for the two volumes which are all that has appeared of his 
 projected edition. For everything else I have had to fall 
 back upon Kiihn, whom I . have had to reproduce with all 
 his uncritical sham Ionic, only correcting an occasional very 
 obvious blunder in the text, and removing one or two 
 specially preposterous " Ionic " forms which might be felt by 
 the reader as positive eyesores. I hope it will be under- 
 stood that my quotations do not represent a Greek which I 
 personally suppose any scientific man to have been capable of 
 writing. Kiihlewein is quoted by volume and section, Kiihn 
 by volume and page. I must apologise for the wearisome- 
 ness of the next few pages, but it seemed worth while to 
 try and make the list of Hippocratean examples complete. 
 
 1 See Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 2 pp. 234, 340. The recent discovery 
 that Philolaus was one of these "eclectic" medical theorists is of special 
 importance, since it accounts for some part at least of the prominence given 
 to biological and medical questions in the " autobiographical " sections of the 
 Phaedo, as well as for the fundamental principle of the Socratic-Platonic- 
 Aristotelian ethics that virtue = the health of the soul = hovoid-q in the soul, 
 which thus turns out to be an application of the medical theories of the 
 school of -Crotona about the causes of disease. The existence of this 
 Pythagorean medical school also explains why it is that the sense-physiology 
 of the Timaeus mainly follows Empedocles and Diogenes. It is because 
 these writers themselves are ultimately so dependent on Alcmaeon ; Timaeus, 
 in fact, represents exactly the trend of physiological thought which we should 
 .expect from a Pythagorean contemporary of Socrates and Philolaus. 
 
214 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Hepl ap%airi<s b)rpiicri<; (a work indispensable to the 
 serious student of the theories about virodeaei'i expounded 
 in the Phaedo). 
 
 Kiihlewein i. 7 ti Srj tovto (the discovery of rules of 
 diet and hygiene for the sick) ineivov (the older discovery 
 of a distinctively human diet) Sia^epei aU' fj [irXeov] to 
 y elSos /cat on irdiKiXcorepov koX 7rXeioi/o? "rrp^yfiantj^^ 
 ap%r) Se eKeivq r) it pore pop yevopevq ; How does this differ 
 from that except in its appearance, and in being a more 
 complicated discovery which demands more application ? 
 etSos here seems, as often, to mean appearance as contrasted 
 with real fact. 
 
 12 %a\e7rov Se roiavrr)^ aicpi/3elri<s e'ovo-97? 7repl ttjv 
 Tey(yr)p Tvy^aveiv alel rov drpeKeo-TaTOV. iroWd Se eiSea 
 /ear vt\rpiKV)v e? roo-avTTjv aicpifteiav rjKei, irepl mv elp^aerai. 
 The meaning seems to be, " since such finish is required of 
 the art of medicine, it is no easy thing always to hit on the 
 most unfailing treatment. Yet many branches of the art 
 have been brought to this pitch of exactitude." eiSea would 
 then mean " constituent parts," " departments," like Plato's 
 el'Sij ev rrji i}rvxfji and Aristotle's eiSr] of tragedy. 
 
 15 airopem 8' etywye, oi top \6yov eicelvov Xeyovre? ical 
 ayovTes ex TavTv\<; rrjg 6B0O iirl viroQeaiv rrjv Teyyr\v riva 
 7TOT6 rpoirov depairevovo-t, tovs avdpwirovs, iba-irep vttotl- 
 BevTCLi. oi yap ianv avTols, olfiai, efJTjvprjfievov avro rt 
 i<f> etovTov depfibv J) ^v^pov 1) fjrjpbv rj vypov fiTjSevl ottmi 
 eUSeb Kowcoveov. d\\' oiofxai eycoye ravra ftpm/iara icai 
 Trofiara avroio-i inrdp^eiv olo-i irdvTe<s xpemfieda. " I really 
 cannot understand in what fashion those who hold this 
 theory, and in this way make the medical art depend on 
 some philosophical doctrine, are going to base their treat- 
 ment of their patients on their philosophy. For, I take it, 
 they have not discovered anything which, by itself, is hot 
 or cold, moist or dry, and shares in no other elSo<s. No, I 
 take it, they can only avail themselves of the same forms of 
 solid and liquid nutriment which are at the service of the 
 rest of us." 
 
 The Hepl ap^aLy? lr]Tpiier)<} is, as I have already hinted, 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 215 
 
 of the first importance for the whole history of Greek 
 Philosophy, so important indeed«that no one who has not 
 made a study of it should be esteemed competent to speak 
 or write on the subject. It supplies us with the key not 
 only to the conception of " hypotheses " which is fundamental 
 for the understanding of the Phaedo and Republic, but also 
 to the Platonic conception of the connection of pleasure 
 and pain with avair\ripw<Tt,<; and icevo)<n<;, and to the 
 " Aristotelian " doctrine of the " mean." But no passage in 
 the work is so important as the lines now before us. Of 
 themselves they are sufficient to destroy the whole current 
 theory of the origin of the " doctrine of e'iS-r}." For they 
 show that the terms elSoi, avro icf>' emvrov (Plato's avro 
 xaO' avro), KOivavla already had a known and definite 
 meaning in the medical science of the fifth century. In 
 other words, the technical phrases of the Phaedo are not 
 Plato's invention but belong to fifth-century science, and 
 science of a kind with which we have already found that 
 Socrates was familiar. Exactly what the phrases mean 
 may be briefly explained thus. The writer, who shows his 
 knowledge of the work of Empedocles by his repeated 
 reference to just those four " opposites '' which correspond 
 most closely to the four Empedoclean "roots," is arguing 
 against physicians who try to base a doctrine of diet on one 
 of the philosophical theories (the v7ro9e<ret<; he calls them) 
 about the elementary " body " or " bodies " of which man 
 and other things are made. To these cosmological theories 
 about the primary body or bodies he gives the name 
 v7ro9ea-ei<;, clearly a technical term in this sense, and his 
 illustrations show that it is specially the Empedoclean 
 viroOeavi, that man, and everything else, is made of four 
 such "roots," with which he is specially concerned. His 
 own object is to show that medical knowledge has grown 
 and will continue to grow best when it is based on careful 
 knowledge of empirical facts, and unencumbered by any 
 speculations about the ultimate forms of body. He argues, 
 therefore, against those who insist on treating Empedoclean 
 cosmology as a proper basis for medicine, that you cannot, 
 
216 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 in actually prescribing for a sick man, order him to take 
 "something hot" or "something cold." That is, you 
 cannot prescribe a diet which consists of absolutely pure 
 " elementary " matter. You have to prescribe just one or 
 more of the articles with which we are all familiar, and 
 none of these is a pure elSo<; ; none of them is an "element" 
 with a single specific property, " hot," " cold," etc. ; all of 
 them are compounds and therefore exhibit a " combination " 
 of " opposites " (a KoivavLa of ei'Sij). For, as he goes on to 
 say, if you prescribe " something heating," your patient will 
 at once ask " what thing ? " and the moment you specify 
 the " heating thing," you find that to be " heating " is not 
 its only characteristic. It may be Oepfwv teal arpv<f)v6v or 
 Bepfwv Kai ifKahapov or depfibv apa&ov ey^pv ; it will never 
 be merely dep/iov. 1 If we ask exactly how we are to 
 translate el8o<; in this connection, the answer is instructive. 
 As the example shows, Oepfiov, yfrv%p6v, and the rest of the 
 " opposites " are eiSr), but also, each of these " opposites " is 
 looked on, in the fashion of Empedocles or Anaxagoras, as a 
 substantial thing, not as an attribute of some still more 
 ultimate body. The discussion belongs to the time after 
 the criticism of Parmenides and Zeno had destroyed, for 
 men who could think, the old notion of a single primary 
 body, but before anyone had clearly grasped the notion 
 that a thing could be real without being a body. 2 Hence 
 e'So? here means at once an ultimately simple body, and an 
 ultimately simple sense-quality, and is, as for Plato, an 
 exact equivalent of $v<w. The conception of the things of 
 the actual world as constituted by a Koivwvia of several 
 e'ihrf is, in fact, exactly that which Plato ascribes to Socrates, 
 
 1 Compare the exactly similar argument of Anaxagoras (ir&s y&p &v 4k fi.ii 
 T/>ixis yivono $pl£ ko.1 irdpf 4k /ify <rapic6s ; Fr. 10, Diels), where the facts of 
 nutrition are employed in exactly the same way against the belief in a finite 
 number of simple "elements." 
 
 2 As Professor Burnet has shown, exactly the same ambiguity affects 
 Anaxagoras' use of the word xp^/wfa. It is wrong in principle to ask if 
 the ir&vTa xp^ll mTa which are " in all things " are simple bodies or simple 
 qualities. The distinction had not yet been felt. rb Sepfidv is at once what 
 we should call a simple "quality," and a simple body which is a "bearer" 
 of the quality. 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 217 
 
 except that it has not yet been suggested that the simple 
 " reals " are incorporeal. * 
 
 19 ireaaeadai Be ical perafidXXeiv ical Xeirrvveadai 
 Te teal ira^vveirQai e? ^(yfiwv et§09 St aXXwv elBecov ical 
 iravTolwv . . . iravTcav Brj tovtcov rjiciara irpoarjicet QeppJai 
 rj tyvxp&i irda^eiv. ovre yap av tovto ye aa-weit) ovre 
 ira^vvdeiT). Virtually e? ^vp,(ov elBos seems to be no more 
 than a periphrasis for 69 %vp,ov, but the full sense is, I 
 think, the characteristic " structure " or " pattern " presented 
 by %u/W and similar secretions, so that the expression, and, 
 in the end, all the other periphrases of the kind, would 
 result from the attempt, to be considered later on, to identify 
 , the various kinds of different bodies with different types of 
 geometrical construction. I have already referred to a 
 striking example of this to be found at Plato, Timaeus 6 6 d, 
 where smells are said to have no eiBrj because they only 
 arise from bodies which have lost one definite structure 
 and not yet acquired another. Hence to twv oct/mwv irav 
 rjfuyeves (is a half-formed thing) e'iBei 8' ovBevl crvp,- 
 fiefirjicev av/iperpia 7t/jo? to two, a^eiv bcrpJ\v, i.e. the 
 structure of an dement is not connected with any particular 
 odour. 
 
 23 TroXXa Be ical aXXa ical eaa> ical efjco tov awfiaTos 
 e'iBea c^rj/idrcov, a peyaXa dXXr/Xcov 8t,a<f>epet, 77-/309 to 
 iradr)p,ara ical voaeovTi ical vyuuvovTi. The examples 
 given are variations in the size of the head, thickness of 
 the neck, its length, shape of the belly, width of the chest. 
 The combination e'IBea <ryr)p,aTa>v seems a curious pleonasm 
 for cryj}p,aTa, unless the words are to be taken in the most 
 literal sense, " appearances of structure." On the whole, 
 the expression seems to me to be purely pleonastic, both 
 elBea and a-^rjfiara meaning " configurations." 
 
 ib. el yXvKV<; %v/i09 emv p,eTafidXXoi 69 aXXo elBos, 
 fjLTj dirb <rvyicpri<no<; dXXd avrb? e^icrrdpevos, 7rot09 7-49 at) 
 "7r/3WT09 yevoiTo, 7Ti«/j09 r) dXp,vpb<; rj arpv^>vb<i rj 6^9; 
 olfiai pev, b%v<;. Here the meaning appears to be quite 
 definitely " characteristic structure," and the question is, 
 " What structure would 6 yXv/cii<: %iyto9 assume first of all 
 
218 VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 if spontaneously converted, without combination with an alien 
 ^v/io?, into a different ' stuff' ? " The answer is that " the 
 sweet " would, in the first instance, become " the sour." 
 
 Thus we seem to discern behind the uses of the word 
 in the Uepl dpxat,r]<s lijTpiicrj<; the general meaning of 
 " structure," passing into that of '" element " or " simple 
 real," in virtue of the assumption that every distinct simple 
 quality corresponds with a definite geometrical structure. 
 This is just what we should expect from the author's 
 polemical interest in the attempt to connect medical theory 
 and practice with the Empedoclean theory of the "four 
 roots." (See especially § 20 for the special prominence 
 given to Empedocles among the theorists, whose speculations 
 must not be allowed to influence the practical physician, 
 and, on the whole subject, Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy* 
 pp. 234-235, 349.) 
 
 Uepl depcov vBdrcov tottuv. The work yields no fresh 
 result for our special inquiry, though it contains much which 
 is, on other grounds, highly valuable to the student of Plato. 
 IBea occurs once, and elBos nineteen times. In the one 
 instance of IBea the meaning seems to be " bodily shape." 
 Eighteen of the cases of eiSos fall under the same head ; 
 the nineteenth is apparently to be rendered "characteristic 
 stage " in the course of a disorder. Here are the details. 
 
 § 3 (Kiihlewein) ■qni p.ev 7ro\t? Trpb<; ra irvevfiara 
 Kelrai to Oepfid . . . iv ravrrji rrji irdKei ... to re 
 eiSea eVi to irKrjdo? avrav dirovonTepa elvat' iaffletv B 
 ovk ayadov? elvat, ovBe trlvetv. eiSea = the physique, con- 
 stitutions of the inhabitants (not, of course, their " features," 
 as the reference to appetite, etc., shows). 
 
 5 to, Te eiSea tcov avOpwiriov ev%pod re km dvOrjpa 
 e'crt fiaXKov % aXKr/t rp> firj ti<s vovao? ko\vt]i. 
 
 1 to? Be Svcrevreplas el/co? ean ytveaBat koX rrjiat 
 yvvat^l ical Tot? eXBeat toi<s vyporaTOKTt (sc. the persons 
 who have most moisture in their constitutions). 
 
 11 rd re <yap vocrev/jtara fidXiara iv Tavrrjiai riJKrtv 
 r/fiepr)i<riv xplverai. ical to, fiev diroifrOivei, Ta Se X-qyei, 
 ra Be aWa iravra fiedtaraTat e? erepov elBos ical ereprjv 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 219 
 
 Karda-Taaiv. (The context shows that the meaning is " and 
 the rest pass into a different p%ase." eZSo? = a distinct 
 stage in an illness marked by special symptoms, a sense 
 derivative from that of " shape," " structure." I have 
 already remarked on /cardo-rao-i? as a medical term in 
 connection with Thucydides' frequent conjunction of ISea 
 with KdTatTTrjvai.) 
 
 12 tov<; Te avdpmTrovs evTpa<f>ea<; elvai teal to, aXKa 
 Kal to, eiBea KaX\iaTov<i Kal pueyeOea p,eyio-rov<; Kal r\Kio~Ta 
 8ta<popov<; e's to. re eiSea avr&v Kal to, /teyedea (" well- 
 grown and finely formed, and presenting only slight diver- 
 sities of physique and stature "). 
 
 13 r]v Be Siacpopoi ecocri (sc. at &pat) pueya cr<peoov 
 avrecov, 8ia<f>opal Kal 7rXeiove<; ylvovrai tois ei8eo~i. (The 
 differences are, of course, in constitution, not in features.) 
 
 15 8ia ravTas 8fj ra? •7rpo(j>d<Tia<;, (for these reasons) 
 ra, e'iBea dTrtjXXayp,eva t&v Xovrr&v dvQ poairav ej^pvaiv oi 
 <f>a<rvi)voL (The peculiarities mentioned are great stature, 
 grossness of bulk, pallor, deep voice, sluggishness.) 
 
 19 Sioti Kal to, eiBea opotoi avTol eavrois el<ri. 
 
 ib. Sia TaxiTa<s ra<; avdyKas ra, e'iSea avrcSv ira^ea icrrl 
 Kal a-apxcoSea ktX. (" their bodies are fat and fleshy "). 
 
 ib. Sia, 7rip,eXijv re Kal faXr/v rtjv adpua ra, [re] e'iBea 
 koiKev dXXrjXoiai ktX. 
 
 20 to, he ffijXea ffavfiaarbv olov poiKa iort Kal fiXaBea 
 to, eiSea. 
 
 23 Sion to, eiSea SfrjXXd^Oai vofii^a tcov ^Lvpanraicov 
 puaXXov rj tcov 'Aattjvwv Kal ra, fieyedea 8ia<popa>TaTa 
 avTt\ eiovTols elvai Kara, ttoXiv eKaarrjv. (ei8ea here is 
 synonymous with p.op<pai in the previous sentence, to 8e 
 Xoittov yevoi to iv rrji ^vpcoirTji Sidtpopov airb icavrcoi 
 eo~Ti Kal Kara to p,eye0o<; Kal Kara to? /jLopcf>d<;. There 
 is more variation among the nations of Europe than among 
 those of Asia, both in constitution and in size, because the 
 climatic conditions are so much more variable.) 
 
 24 evravda et/eo? e'iSea /ieyd\a elvai Kal Trpo? to 
 TaXaitTTcopov Kal to dvSpeiov e5 TrecpuKora (fine physiques, 
 well adapted to endure fatigue and to face danger). 
 
220 VAKIA SOCKATICA 
 
 ib. avdjKrj to roiavra eihea vpoyaa-roTepa teal anrkr]- 
 vcoBea elvai. 
 
 ib. elev av eihea p,eyd\oi Kal ea>VTol<ri irapaifK^atoi. 
 
 ib. iv TavTiji ttjv x^PV 1 Ta e'ihea et'/eo? [re] aickr)pa re 
 etvai Kal evrova ktK. 
 
 ib. iicei Kal to eihea Kal to r\8ea Kal to? <pv<ria<; 
 evprjcreif irKelaTOV hiacpepovo-a 1 ;. 
 
 ib. evprjaeLs yap iirl to TrXfjOos rf)<; ^eop?7? Trji fyvaeL 
 aKoXovdeovra Kal to eihea tcSv avdpwiraiv Kai TOVi rpoirowi 
 (as a general rule, men's bodily and mental characters corre- 
 spond to the nature of the district in which they live). 
 
 ib. at [lev ivavTiwrarai (fivcries re Kal IBiat e^pvaiv 
 ouro>? (these are the most markedly contrasted examples 
 of physique and constitution). 
 
 Thus we note that the meaning of ethos, ihea in every 
 case but one is body or bodily constitution. In no case does 
 it mean " sort," and in no case " features " or " countenance." 
 
 Hepl Stair??? ogeav. I find only a single instance of 
 ethos and none of Ihea. 
 
 43 oaa re rjfiecov f] <pvo~is Kai i\ e£t? eKao~Toio~iv e«- 
 t€kvo2 irddea Kal eihea iravTola, where the eihea seem to 
 mean the outward and visible symptoms by which the 
 "presence of a irdOos or morbid condition is diagnosed. 
 (In passing, let me call attention to the use of the word 
 iroioT7)<; in 8 62 as a technical term for the "specific" 
 character of a potion. The word is therefore not invented 
 by Plato in the Theaetetus, as has often been thought, but 
 taken over, like so much of his phraseology, from the 
 technical language of medicine and given a more extended 
 meaning.) 
 
 Hepl htaiTrjs ofewi> (vo&a). I note one instance of Ihea 
 in the sense of a visible symptom of disease. 
 
 39 rj he tov Ihp&Tos Iheri koivov asiravTwv: the symp- 
 tom of sweating (or (?) the appearance of a sweat) is 
 common to them all. 
 
 Hpoyveoo-TiKov. I find no instance of ethos or ISia. 
 
 'Ej7rtSrip.!,cov a. There are two instances of ethos. 
 
 19 eK he rSiv Kapvovrav airkQvqwrKov p,a\io~Ta fieipaxia, 
 
THE WOEDS E1A02, IAEA 221 
 
 veoi, aKfMi£ovTe<;, Xeloi, viroXevKo^paTe';, I6vrpt,')(e<;, fiekdvo- 
 Tjoi^e?, (i£\avo<pQaXfj,ot,, oi eiKrjm Kal iirl to pdi&v/iov 
 ^e/8ta?«OT6?, io-^yo<f>a>voi, Tprj^ixpcovoi, TpavXoi, opyikoi* 
 Kal yvvaiKes irXeierTai i/c tovtov tov e'iSeoi aireOvrjiaKov. 
 A careless translator would be tempted to render the last 
 words, " and most of the women who died were of this sort." 
 But the analogy of previously cited passages shows us that 
 the real sense is " most of the women who died were also of 
 this habit of body." etSo?, as usual, properly means body, 
 then a given constitution or " habit of body," " physique," 
 and so, eventually, "type." Passages like the one before 
 us are interesting because they show how the word finally 
 reached the sense of " class," " sort " by passing from the 
 original sense of " body " or " bodily figure " through that 
 of " type." The special application of this to our present 
 subject lies in the fact that the etSo? of the Phaedo and 
 Republic is only a specialisation of the meaning " type " or 
 " typical structure." The 64877 finally become " classes " 
 only as a result of a philosophical criticism which denies 
 the real existence of " types " or irapaSetyfiara iv rrji (frvaei. 
 The linguistic history of the word is enough of itself to 
 refute the theory that Socrates began by talking of " classes," 
 which were then converted by Plato into objective types; 
 It is also fatal to the view that the eWo? as a 7rapdSeiyfia is 
 characteristic of Plato's " second theory," for the meaning 
 trapdSeiyfia is current in the fifth century ; the etSo? which 
 is not a irapdo'eiypa is an invention of Aristotle, as far as 
 philosophy is concerned. 
 
 20 Kal 8ieo~a>i£ovTO iravre<i, o&? Kayco olSa, olaiv ai 
 viro<rTpo<pal Sict tov eiSeo? tovtov yevoiaTo. There was a 
 recovery in every case coming under my personal knowledge- 
 in which the fever recurred with these symptoms (lit. " in 
 this figure"). 
 
 "Emihrjfiicov y. I only note the following examples. 
 
 3 eicdaTov he t&v viroyeypamiAvav elSeav ?/aav 01 
 ied/jt,vovTe<; Kal Wvtjio-kov ttoXXoL The patients all exhibited 
 the symptoms described, and the deaths were numerous. 
 (eiSemv is a descriptive genitive, and the rendering " were of 
 
222 VAEIA SOOEATICA 
 
 the classes described " is excluded, since what has gone 
 before is an enumeration not of classes of patients but of 
 the collective symptoms of the disorder : <pcoval KaKovfievai, 
 /cavcroi (ppevmKol, aTO/xara dcftOwBea ktX.) 
 
 12 7roWa Be Kal aXXa irvpermv eireBrip/qo-ev eXBea, 
 Tpuraitov, rerapraiav, vvKrepivwv, avveyewv, p.a.Kp&v, ire- 
 ir\avr)fieva>v, uaoihewv, a/caTcurrdTcov. The meaning here is, 
 of course, " types," and it is one of the few cases in 
 Hippocrates where we could translate by " classes " without 
 sensible detriment to the author's meaning. 
 
 14 elBo<; Be tSjv <pdivco8ea>v ?iv to Xelov, to inroXevKov, 
 to (j>aico)8e<;, rb virepvOpov, to yapoirbv, XevKo^tXeyfiariai, 
 irTepvycoBee<i : the " symptoms," " bodily peculiarities," were 
 etc. 
 
 Uepl rmv ev Ke<j>aXP}i rpafidroav, Kiihlewein, vol. ii. 
 
 5 IBeat Be t?)? <pXdo~io<i irXelov? yivovrai . . . a\V oil 
 tovtcov riov IBemv ovBepiav eariv IBovra roio-iv 6cf>6aXfiolai, 
 yv&vai OKOiT) ti? iariv ttjv IBer/v Kal okoo-tj tk to fieyeOoi. 
 IBerj plainly means " shape," " geometrical figure." 
 
 6 eo-<pXarat Be to oareov 7roXXa<i IBias, Kal yap iirl 
 irXeov tov oareov Kal eir kXaaaov Kal fiaXXov re Kal e? 
 fiaOvrepov Kara Kal rjao-ov n Kal iimroXatoTepov. Mean- 
 ing as before.* 
 
 7 ev Be Twt T/307T(»t eKacrTioi (in each sort of wound) 
 ir\etoves iBeat ylvovTai. Kal irepl fiev tpXdaioi re Kal 
 pa>yfirj<; (a contusion which is also accompanied by a 
 fracture), ktjv apj^co ravra irpoayevqTat, ttji eBprji Kal rjv 
 (pXcuri? fiovvT) yevryrai,, 77817 ire<j>paaTai on iroXXal IBeat, 
 yivovrat Kal tt}? <f>Xdo-io<; Kal rrji pa>y[ifj<;. 17 Be eBprj aiirr} 
 i<f>' 6<BVTr)? yiverai fiaKporepr) Kal fipa^vTepri, iovcra Kal 
 Kap/irvXcoTepT) Kal Wvrepr) Kal KVKXoreprj^' Kal iroXXal 
 aXXai IBeai tov toiovtov rpoirov, okoiov av ti Kal to arofia 
 rod /3i\eos r}t. As the last words show, the meaning of 
 IBeai throughout is " shapes," " figures," which the bruise or 
 fracture may present. The writer's own word for " sort," 
 " class " appears to be tjootto?. I have noted no case of 
 €*So? in the treatise. 
 
 Kar Ir/Tpeiov, Kiihlewein, vol. ii. 
 
THE WOKDS EIA02, IAEA 223 
 
 3 avyr}<; fiev ovv Bvo el&ea, to fiev koivov, to Be TeyyqTov, 
 " two kinds " of illumination, " natwal and artificial." 
 
 ib. t»? 6 Set o~d)^7]Tai kcl\ ayr\(ia xal eZSos tov %eipi%o- 
 fievov iv irapi^ei, iv j^eipiafiSii,, iv Trji eireiTa efjet. The 
 patient's position is to be such that the proper shape and 
 figure of the member to be treated is maintained as he 
 prepares himself for treatment, during the treatment and 
 after treatment. elBof thus means quite literally the 
 " figure," " shape " of the member to be operated on, o^ryta 
 referring perhaps to its position relatively to the rest of the 
 body. 
 
 7 eVtSeo-to? Bvo e'lBea, elpyaarfievov kcl\ ipya£op.evov, 
 
 ib. to, Be eiBea, aifKoov, a/ceirapvov, aifiov, o<p0a\jj,o<; icai 
 po/i/3o<; icai ■qfiiTO/Aov. apfio^ov to elBo? two eiBei koX t&i 
 irddet tov iiriBeofiivov. In the last sentence etSo? means, 
 of course, the shape of the bandage. Several technical 
 names for these different shapes are enumerated, and it is 
 added that the bandage selected must be determined by the 
 shape of the injured part and the character of the injury. 
 The meaning of the otber sentence is that there are two 
 points to be considered in bandaging an injury ; the 
 bandaging must be quickly and painlessly done, and the 
 bandage must answer its purpose after it is on. I find it 
 very hard to bring this instance . under any of the accepted 
 senses of elBos, unless we render " figure " much in the 
 sense in which we speak of " figures " in a dance. " In 
 making a bandage there are two figures." 
 
 8 aya0a><; Be Bvo e'iBea tov iiuBeopAvov tV^vo? fiev ij 
 ink^ei rj irX^dei, oBovlmv. The sense seems to be that there 
 are two ways of making a good bandage, either to make 
 the pressure very great or to use a large number of ligatures. 
 eiSea will then mean " figures," " ways of construction." 
 
 19. (A bandage must be so constructed that it keeps 
 the bandaged member " in position " in spite of the move- 
 ments of the body.) f) eVi'Sem? a>? iv twi clvtwi a^-q/uni 
 ?jt, Bia<f>vKao~o-6w. icecpdXaia o~X7)/j,cLtcdv 'idea, <f>vat,e<; eicdo-Tov 
 twv fieXeiov' tol 8" eiBea ex tov rpeyetv, oBoitropelv, eaTavai, 
 KaraiceZcrOcu iic tov epyov, e* tov afyeioSai. Thus the 
 
224 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 ecBea of this passage seem to mean the different "'figures " 
 or "positions" assumed by the bandaged member as tb.6 
 patient goes through the routine of his bodily life. 
 
 Tlepl ayfi&v. I find no instance of either word. 
 
 Tlepl apdpwv i(ij3o\r)<;, Kiihlewein ii. 
 ' 27 0X17 he 7) %eip okiaddvei rj eo~<o rj etjw rj evQa if 
 evOa . . . TovToicri KaTaTaais la-yypr) iroirjTer), ical to 
 fiev e^e'xpv cviriodelv, to 8' erepov avrmdelv, Svo e'tSea ' a/ia 
 e? TOinricrco ical e? to irXdyiov rj yepalv eirl TpaTre%7]<; rj 
 ■n-TepvTjt. I.e. the physician who is treating a dislocated 
 hand must push it in two directions at once, so that .e'iSed- 
 means " figures " of motion like those of dancing, fencing, 
 etc. The sense is thus ultimately that of geometrical figures. 
 
 34 dXX' ov fiovXofiai diroirXavav tov Xoyov, ev aXXoicri- 
 yap etSeai voo-r\p.aTwv irepl tovtuiv eiprjTai. I will not 
 wander from the immediate point, as the matter (the anatomy 
 of the under-jaw) has been described in a different context. 
 e'lBea voo-rniaTav no doubt means literally " figures of dis- 
 orders," i.e. descriptions of their symptomatology, but we 
 lose nothing by rendering merely " kinds." 
 
 Mo%Xiic6v, Kiihlewein ii. 
 
 1 elSos /covBvX&Ses 'iyov iirijjbvXiSa (of knobby shape). 
 
 ib. eZSo? paifioetBecrTaTov t&v £<bicov aTevoTdTO? yap 
 TavTTji avOptoiro'i eir oy/cov. 
 
 6 aicpd>fjt,iov diroairaaOev to fiev eZSos fyaiveTat, olov 
 irep wfiov eKTrecovTos. 
 
 In all these three cases, etSos means " shape," " geometri- 
 cal figure." 
 
 All the rest of my quotations will be taken from Kiihn 
 and given by volume and page. 
 
 I may first give the list, a longish one, of works in which 
 I find no instance of ISia or elSos. It comprises 
 Tlepl ewTap,r)vov. Tlepi eXicmv. 
 
 Tlepl e7n,Kvi]o-io<;. Uepl alfioppolBcov. 
 
 Tlepl vyp&v ^oj?<7to?. Tlepl dvaTOfifji. 
 
 'Em-iSrj/iCcov a , e , f '. Tlepl OKTapA\vov. 
 
 Tlepl irapOevicov. Tlepl evvirvicov. 
 
 Twancrjiav a . Hep}, vovamv a , /3 , y . 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 225 
 
 Hepl iraQasv. Tiepl crvpCyycov. 
 
 Uepl yvvaiKeii]<! <\>vat,o<s. He^t ckto/a^s ififipvov. 
 
 Hepl oi/rjo?. , A.$opi<rfwL 
 
 Truly a formidable list. A general consequence of im- 
 portance which follows from the total absence of the words 
 in all these works, contrasted with their presence in those 
 which either expound cosmological systems or, like the Hepl 
 ap%air)<; tyrpucfji;, enter into the polemic against them, is that 
 the words do not belong, except in a current non-technical 
 sense, to the language of the " working medical man," who 
 is concerned solely with the practical cure of disease and 
 has no speculative theories of c^vo-t? at the back of his 
 mind. The persons who make play with them are the 
 speculative philosophers, the Hegels and Schellings of their 
 day, to whom medicine is not interesting for its own sake, 
 or as a profession by which they have to live, but as a 
 field in which they can give free scope for their love of 
 Mtturphilosophie and propound undemonstrable theories 
 about the number and nature of the ultimate kinds of body, 
 and support them by biological analogy. "What this means 
 is that e'So? and ISea have got into medicine out of " what 
 they call " irepl ^ucrew? Icrropia. 
 Uepl rkyyt)^ (Kiihn, vol. i.). 
 
 i. 7 ovSefiia ecrrlv (sc. re^vrj) r\ ye e/c twos ecBeo<; ov/c 
 oparai, olfjLai B eytoye Kal rd ovofiara avTtjs (sic, 1. aura 1 *) 
 Bid ra e'IBea \afielv. aXoyov yap cltto r&v ovopArmv rd 
 eiSea qyeltrdai f3\ao~rdveiv, Kal dBvvarov. rd fiev yap- 
 ovofiara <pvaio<; vojioderrffiard iari, to. Be eiBea ov vo/io- 
 der^/xara dWd ^Xaar^fiara. The writer is, as we see, 
 deeply influenced by the antithesis of vo/xo^ and (pvo-i?, 
 and is also an adherent of the Eleatic doctrine of Being, 
 for he says just before rd fiev iovra alel opdrai Kal 
 yivcb&Kerai, ra Be jirj iovra ovre oparai ovre yivooaKerai. 
 It is clear here that e'tBea means simply the real things 
 or bodies which are the objects studied by a science. 
 The argument is directed against the view that the things 
 which some or all of the sciences study exist only vo/itoi, 
 "subjectively," and not fyvaei. He argues that the 
 
226 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 technical vocabulary of a science does not create the 
 objects corresponding to the names ; it is in dependence 
 on the objects that the names have been created. (E.g. 
 mathematics, on this view, does not deal -with . mere 
 names or symbols, but with real things, and the names 
 have only obtained currency because there was something 
 with a determinate character to be named. Thus we shall 
 catch his meaning if we say that, taking <pvo-i<; as a collective 
 name for bodily reality (the only kind of reality known to 
 the early men of science before the rise of atomism), the 
 etSea are the individual constituents of which <f>v<ri<; is the 
 aggregate. The implied contrast between e'iSea which exist 
 <pvaei and names which exist only vofiwt would be pre- 
 served if we rendered eiSea " real essences.") 
 
 i. 9 to fjuev jap tt)? Tvyrj<; eZ8o<? ■yjrikbv ovk r/ftovKijOi]- 
 <rav 0ei]aao-0ai iv wi rrji ri^vrji, iireTpe-tyav <7^>a? clutoih; • 
 Scrre tjj? p,ev e? ttjv Tvyjr/v avaqboprj? aTrrjXKayfievoi elai, 
 tj)s fievToi e? rr)v Teyvrjv ovk airrpCKajp,evoi • iv wt yap 
 i7r£Tpe^rav ical eiricnevaav avrfji o-<j>a<; avTov<; iv tovtwv 
 avTfjs Kal to elSo<; io-xeyfravro ical ty/v Svvajuv Trepav&ivTOS 
 rov epyov ejvao-av. Here again eZSos is about equivalent 
 to ovala or <j>vo-i<i, the objective reality corresponding to and 
 denoted by a significant name. Thus to t^? Tvyjr/g or to 
 Trj<; T6yv7}<; eJSo? are periphrases for ■>) tvvij, tj Teyvq. 
 
 i. 11 vvv he Br) <f>alvopTai twv irjTpcbv ol fiaKio-Ta 
 eiraiveofievot Kal hiaiTijp.ao'iv Icofievoi Kal dXXoiat Te 
 eioeaiv a ovk av Tt? (pan), /mi) oti ii)Tpo<; a\\ ovoe 
 lhia)Ti]<; dveiriaTij/JLtov a.K0Vo-a<;, fit] ov t»j? Teyvrj? elvai. 
 (eiheai = things, substances.) 
 
 ib. iv toli irXeiffTOiai t5>v tc <pvop,eva>v Kal t&v irotev- 
 /livcov eveaTi to, ecBea t&v 0epa7reta>v Kal t&v cpap/naKcov. 
 e'ihea here means not "kinds," but rather "natures," 
 " substances with a specific healing virtue." This is clear 
 from the context. The author's contention is that medicine 
 is not a thing of haphazard but a genuine Teyvrj or pro- 
 fession. He is meeting the objection that cures may be 
 effected without professional treatment. To this he rejoins 
 that even such a cure is due not to to avTopuTov, blind 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 227 
 
 accident, but to the fact that the man who recovers in this 
 way has unintentionally made use^of an article, e.g. of diet, 
 containing the very etSea, " specifics," to use the nearest 
 English equivalent, which medicine seeks systematically to 
 discover. For every disorder there are certain determinate 
 "specifics," and to recover from it you must employ them, 
 whether by medical advice or by accident. Recovery from 
 a disease is something which has definite and assignable 
 causes ; for to avro/^arov is an empty name without an 
 ovaia, " thing," " real essence," " body," corresponding to 
 it. to Se avro/jLarov ov fyalveTai ovairjv 'iyov ovBefiiijv 
 aW r) ovopa /movov, but medicine iv tois Bid tl irpovoov- 
 fjiivouri <palveTai, re ical <f>aveiTai en ov<rLr)v e^ovaa. 
 Thus the e'lBea sought by medicine are the healing 
 " substances '' or " specifics '' contained in plants, minerals, 
 etc. Very interesting is the connection, indicated by the 
 passages just quoted from the Tlepl Tkyyi]^, and confirmed 
 by others from other medical works which will be produced 
 immediately, between the conception of an elBos and the 
 v6fio<;-(f>vcTi<; antithesis. The point is simply this : eZSo? is 
 what corresponds on the side of (pvcris to ovofia on the side 
 of vofio<i. e'lBea are ex parte rei what 6v6/j,ara are ex parte 
 intellectus. Hence, on the assumption that every name is the 
 name of something, that there are not, or in a properly con- 
 structed language ought not to be, any names for the fir; iov 
 of which Parmenides had taught that we cannot even speak 
 significantly, 1 the existence of ovofiara becomes in itself 
 
 1 Parmenides, Fr. 4 (Diels) o<he yap av yvolt)s rb ye jitj ibv (pi yap avv- 
 ffrdv), | otire tppaaais. Fr. 8 tt\v p£v edv &v6t)tov avibvvp.ov (ot) yap d\7]$7]S \ fariv 
 6S6s. ) ... | fioptpas yap KaT&devro SOo yv&fias bvQ}xa%eiVi \ tuv filav oi XP*& V 
 iariM kt\. p.op(p-fi in the poem of Parmenides means exactly what we find 
 tlSos meaning in the passages under our notice, "ultimate bodily reality, " 
 "material substance." Through Empedocles, and no doubt others, this 
 equivalence has passed to Plato and Aristotle, with whom nop<pJi is constantly 
 used as identical with what they call elBos. When we bear in mind that 
 lioptpi] also means primarily "figure," the use of the word in Parmenides 
 adds considerable strength to the evidence in favour of the view that his 
 polemic ^is directed against the dualism of the Pythagorean geometrical 
 philosophers. His complaint is that their theory requires them to treat 
 "space" as a body out of which things are made by the action of something 
 else (ravria 5' ixplvavTO 8£|ias Kal cr^pLar 1 fffevro J xtapls dTr' aWijKtav ktX.), 
 
228 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 evidence of the existence of the corresponding el'Sea. Hence 
 we get the equation etSo? = ovaia = <pvo-is (in the sense in 
 which we can speak of the <j)vai,<; of an individual thing, as 
 contrasted with the collective (pvcn<; which is the aggregate 
 of all things) = " real essence." This explains at once (1) 
 why, in the mouths of cosmologists and biologists who are 
 also pluralists, the effiea regularly mean the ultimate simple 
 "elements'' of body, and (2) why, in our more developed 
 terminology, which distinguishes "thing" from "property," we . 
 often have to translate by "specific" or "distinctive" property. 
 
 Tlepl <f>vcrio<; avOpcitirov (Kiihn's pages). 
 
 i. 350. The physicians who say that man is "one thing" 
 (i.e. biologists like Diogenes of Apollonia who are also 
 monists in their cosmology), say further ical tovto ev ibv 
 fieTciXkaaaeiv ttjv ISeijv ical rr)v Svvajuv avay/ca^ofievov 
 v7ro re tov ffepfiov ical rov '^rv^pov, /cal <y[ve<r9ai ical 
 ykv/cii teal Tracpbv ical XevKOv ical /MeXav ical iravroiov 
 n aWo. They say that this "one thing" changes its 
 " character and quality " under the stress of heat and cold. 
 IBer) thus means here the " form '' or " nature " of the 
 supposed " one thing." The underlying sense is " shape," 
 but the word is taken in a wider sense to signify any of the 
 supposed ultimate qualitative " opposites " of the Ionian 
 hylozoism. In the hands of the pluralists, of course, these 
 " opposites " become ultimate " substances " or simple bodies. 
 This explains why elSoi and ISia can sometimes mean what 
 a thing really is as opposed to the " forms " in which it 
 appears to us, sometimes, as so often in Thucydides, the 
 variety of " guises " or " aspects " themselves. To a pluralist 
 the recognition, e.g., of " air " as an elSo<: means that it is an 
 ultimate " element " ; a monist, if he holds that air is the 
 primary body, has also to hold that air somehow presents 
 
 With regard to the reading Kartdevro yvd>/ms dvo/i&fcir, it must be remembered 
 that yviiiiri in fifth-century Greek is "mind "as opposed to eZSos, "body."' 
 We have seen plenty of instances of this in the course of the present Essay. 
 Hence yv&[ms Kartdevro dvofidfeiv means simply ( ' have decided in their 
 minds," "have made up their minds," to speak of. Parmenides' conten- 
 tion is that one of the two fwpfiai only exists vb/jjai, has no objective (pvais,. 
 and therefore can have no true 6i>o/j.a, since every Svo/ia is 6vo/i.& nvos. 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 229 
 
 itself to our notice under an infinite plurality of " phases." 
 Hence when a pluralist speaks dt e'lBr) we have usually to 
 render the word by " bodies " or " things " ; when a monist 
 talks of them, as he cannot really do without inconsistency, 
 we have to introduce from a more developed philosophy the 
 notion of specific qualities or determinations of what is, 
 after all, one and the same " thing " or " substance." 
 
 ib. vvvt Be iroWd (sc. ianv o av0pa)^7^o<;)• woWa yap 
 elcriv iv t&i crco/iaTC iovra, a otcorav vir dWrfXcov irapa 
 §v<riv dep/iaivr)Tai re ical ■^rv^rjrai ical %r)paivr\Tal re 
 /ecu vypaivqrai, vovcrov; toktsi. wore iroXKal fiev ISeai 
 t&v vovar)p,aT<ov, iroXK,r) Be ical ij ir/cris avrecov ioTiv. 
 d%ia> Bk eycoye tov (pdcricovTa alfia eivai fiovvov rov 
 dvOpcoTrov /ecu aWo firfBev Bei/cvvvat, aiiTOV firj fieraX- 
 \aaaovra ttjv IBerjv firjBe yivecrOai iravroiov dXk rj coprjv 
 rivd rov eviavrov r\ Tr\t rfKiici7)<s tov dvOpwirov iv rji 
 alfia ivebv (fxuverai fiovvov iv t&i dvBpoairwi. That is, 
 the writer adopts the Empedoclean theory of the "four 
 roots" of things. Man is made not of blood only but 
 of three other IBeai or " elements " (that this is meant is 
 shown by the enumeration of four elementary activities 
 and no more). If the monists who say that the human 
 body is made only of blood were right, they should be 
 able to point to some stage in human development in 
 which the body exists simply in the form and with the 
 properties of blood. Thus fir; fieTaWdcrcrovTa ttjv IBeijv 
 means "without transformation of substance," "untran- 
 substantiated." I think that the ttoWoX ISeai t&v vovo-rf- 
 fidrcov must be rendered in a similar fashion, " there are 
 many substances in which disease arises," i.e. disease is 
 not necessarily " diseased state of the blood." If we 
 translate "there is more than one kind of disease," the 
 argument loses its cogency, since even if the body consisted 
 only of blood, it would not follow that there can be only 
 one kind of disease of the blood; for it might be, e.g., 
 either over-heated or over-cooled. 
 
 i. 354 (On the four "temperaments") ical tovtcov irpa>- 
 tov [lev Kara tov vofiov tc\ ovofiara Biapladai <f>rjfil ical 
 
230 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 ovSevl avrecov ravrb ovvofw, elvaf eireira tus ioea<s Kara 
 <pvo~iv KeywoLcrdai ical ovre to <f>\eyfia ovBev ioiicevai r&t 
 cufiart oiire rb al/ia rrji ^oXiji, ovre rrjv ~X,o\r)v tw 
 <f)\ey[iari. 7rd)9 yap av ioiKora e'ir) ravra aWr)\oio~iv ; 
 5>v oiire to ^pco/iara ofioia (pcuverai rrpoo~opa>[ieva, ovre 
 rr\b yeipi yjravovri ofioia Sojceei elvai ; oiire yap Oep/xa 
 6[iola><; eo-rlv oiire yfrv^pa ovre ^pa ovre vypd. avdyicrf 
 roivvv ori, toctovtov SirjXXaKrai aXXtfXwv rrjv iherjv re 
 Kal rrjv Svvafiiv fir) ev avra elvcu. To a student of Plato, 
 this passage is one of the most illuminating in the whole 
 Hippocratean corpus. We see from it (1) that there is 
 an exact correspondence between the antithesis <pvo-i^-vo/xo<; 
 and the antithesis l8ea-ovo/j,a. In fact we have a regular 
 avaXoyia, ISea : fyvo-i? : : ovofta : vofios. For the writer's 
 object is to prove that man " is many things " both /caret 
 vofiov and Kara §vaiv, "in name and in objective fact." 
 You prove the first point by showing that there are different 
 names for different constituents of the human body. (This 
 implies, of course, that every name is a " name of some- 
 thing," " what is not cannot even be named," and further, 
 if you think it out, that each of the names appealed to, 
 alfia, <p\ey(j,a, etc., is simple and indefinable, since other- 
 wise they might all prove to be synonyms, or all of them 
 but one might be further specific determinations of the 
 remaining one. If, e.g., <^Xeyfia is a synonym for al/ia, or if 
 it can be defined as alpd ttcq<; e^ov, the author's argument 
 to show that " man is many " Kara vofiov falls to the 
 ground. Hence our passage throws a flood of light on 
 Plato's Cratylus, where it is also maintained that in a 
 scientific language there would be an exact correspondence 
 of names and eiBrj, and proves, moreover, that Plato is 
 guilty of no anachronism in assuming that Socrates might 
 have discussed such a question as the right employment 
 of names with Cratylus and Hermogenes. It also throws 
 light on the connection of the views ascribed to Antisthenes 
 about definition with earlier thought in a way which shows 
 how far they were from being mere personal eccentricities.) 
 (2) "When we come to the further proof that " man is 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 231 
 
 many " Kara <f>v<nv we see that this is proved by the 
 argument that the various sensible properties of cpXiyfia, 
 %o\?7, alfia are all different. Ergo they are distinct 
 ISiai. Thus the ISerj means that which is not directly 
 perceptible itself, but reveals its nature to us through 
 its sensible properties, a " substance," " monad," or " thing- 
 in-itself," and <j)vai<; or Nature at large is simply the 
 aggregate of such eiSrj. The " specific " qualities of these 
 IBecu are what the writer calls their Svvdfieis, their ways 
 of affecting other things, and particularly the human 
 organs of sense. Thus at the end of the passage, where 
 (f>\iyfia, %oX»7, alfia are said to be " separated " Kara 
 Svvafiiv Kai Kara <f>vaiv, Kara <f>vai,v means the same thing 
 as ISir/v in the former expression ical ttjv ISirjv ical tt)v 
 <pv<riv. The (f>vai<; or ISer) is the " thing " or " substance," 
 the Swdfiei? are its perceived " characters," and we 
 have ISirj in a sense exactly equivalent to Locke's " real 
 essence." 
 
 This conception of the correspondence of the antitheses 
 ISerj-ovofia and <f>v<ris-v6fio<; further helps us to understand 
 why the atomists called atoms, which, unlike the sensible 
 qualities of things, exist <pv<rei, by the name of ISeai. Merely 
 as an illustration of the indispensability of a fair knowledge 
 of fifth-century medicine to the student of Greek Philosophy, 
 I would call attention to a point which does not bear 
 directly on the present investigation. Just as in Aristotle's 
 theory of the elements, we find in the Tiepl <£uo-to? dvOpw- 
 irov a constant recurrence of the notion that each of the 
 ISeai which make up the human body corresponds with a 
 binary combination of the fundamental Ionian opposites. 
 alfia, like air in Aristotle, is moist and hot ; <j>\eyfia, like 
 water, is moist and cold ; peXaiva xoXtf, like fire, is dry 
 and hot ; %av0r] yoky, like earth, dry and cold. Hence we 
 get a regular table of correspondence between the " seasons " 
 and the constituents of the organism : — 
 
 j^eifuov eap depos fydivoircapov 
 
 [(piXeyfia alfia ^avdrj j(pKrj pA\aiva %o\»; 
 The underlying idea is, of course, that of the intimate 
 
232 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 correspondence of macrocosm and microcosm. (Kiihn i. 
 357-359.) 
 
 i. 361 to Be gv/nrav yv&vai Bel tov IrjTpbv ivavriov 
 iGTao~6ai toIcti KaTeareSxTi km vovcrrniaai, km elBeai km 
 Spijtai km rfkiKLrjitTi, km to, (rvvreivovra Xveiv km to. 
 XeXv/ieva avvTeiveiv. In this statement of the funda- 
 mental principle of " allopathic " medicine, e'iBeai clearly 
 means again the alleged " four substances " composing the 
 human body. The physician's duty is to produce " restora- 
 tion of the bodily equilibrium" by supplying the defect, 
 and purging away the excess of any one of the four. (For 
 the writer's adherence to Alcmaeon's doctrine of l<rovofiuq 
 as the basis of health see what immediately precedes the 
 words quoted.) 
 
 i. 362 a Bel Kara/j,a6ovra /MerafiaXXeiv, km o~Keyfrd/j,evov 
 
 TOV avOpiOTTOV T1JV CpVO~lV TTjV T6 ijkuCVqV KOI TO fitSo? KM T7]V 
 
 mp^v tov eVeo? km t?)? voixtov tov Tpoirov tt)v Bepaireiav 
 •froiieaffcu, iroTe fiev d^aipeovTa iroTe Be irpoaTL0evTa, &<mrep 
 fioi koX irdXat eipr/TM 7Tj0o? e/tao-ra? t&v tfXiKtiav km twv 
 d>pecov km tS)v IBecov ( ? elBetov) km twv vocrmv, ev Te Trjiai 
 <pap/j,aKL7jLai irpoTpeireo-Oai, km ev Tolat, BiatTrjp.ao'iv. e],Bo<; 
 here apparently means simply " habit of body," " individual 
 constitution." 
 
 i. 369 oi ifkelaTot, tS)v irvpeTwv yivovrai airb y(oXrj<i. 
 eZSea Be <r(f>eo)v el<rl Teacrapa . . . ovofiaTa B' avT€oio~iv 
 io-Tt crvvo^of, ajufrrifiepivos, TptTalos, TerapTaios. Here we 
 have a case in which, though the antithesis with ovo/iaTa 
 is kept up, eiBea seems to mean no more than " types," and 
 might be adequately rendered "sorts," though the actual 
 metaphor is, no doubt, geometrical, " figures." 
 
 TLepl yovfj<;. 
 
 i. 374 elal Be Te<ro-ape$ IBeai tov vypov, al/ia, %o\?7, 
 liBcop km (pXey/j,a. ToaavTag yap IBias e^ei o-v/M<pvea<s o 
 avdpwrros ev ewvTwi km diro toutbcov m voaot yivovrai 7) 
 al €« voamv BiaKpio-ie<;. The second IBeai clearly means 
 " substances," " primary constituents of the body." The first 
 may bear the same sense, if we regard tov vypov as a 
 descriptive genitive, "substances of the moist <kind>," 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 233 
 
 but appears rather to mean " figures," i.e. types of moisture 
 {genitive of material). • 
 
 1 ^i /\ /. crrrnn-tt A*? r^i r\t unirviiin rrr r\r\t\ III cemni is rr i T-rtll llftf/lnil 
 
 i. 382 iirfjv Be ti oi voa-rj/ia nrpocrrkor)!, Kal tov vypov 
 uvT&b, atf> ov to crirepfia yiverai, Teaaape<; IBeai eovaai 
 •OKOcrai ev <f>vcrei, VTrrjp^av, rrjv yovrjv oi% oXrjv irape^coaiv, 
 aaQeveo-Tepov (? daOeveaTepav) Be to zeal to ireTr7jpa)/j,ivov, 
 oi QSifia Be fioi Boxeet Kal irijpadrjvai Kaddirep o To/ceu?. 
 " When a man has been attacked by a disease, and the 
 four IBeai of the moist (the four which were originally in 
 his organism) do not supply the semen whole and entire, 
 but one or another is injured and therefore enfeebled (or 
 •(?) is injured and therefore contributes the semen in an 
 enfeebled condition), then I think it quite natural that <the 
 ■offspring > should exhibit the same injury as the father." 
 Here the IBeai are clearly to be thought of as four bodies or 
 •constituents of the organism, " the four moist constituents." 
 
 Tlepl <j)vo-to<; iraiBlov. 
 
 i. 394 rjv Be fir) vyialvr\i r\ yvvr) firjBe fieXkr}/, vyiaiveiv, 
 ■ytopkei 7) tcd9apcri<; iXdrrav Kal el8o<; TrovqpoTepr). We 
 should say " the discharge is diminished in quantity and 
 inferior in quality," but the writer had probably no distinct 
 notion of quality, and means rather " and is of inferior 
 stuff" (eiBo? = body). 
 
 i. 397 oKorav Be Biapdpa>dr)i to iraiBiov (the embryo), 
 Ta eXBea twv fieXecov, av^ofievov clvtov tu tb bo-Tea eiricrickr)- 
 poTaTa yiveTat ical KoCkaLveTai. e'lBea here apparently = 
 the shapes, figures, structure of the limbs. 1 
 
 i. 402 Kal otov dcjsiicrjTat el<s Tas firjTpa^ IBerjv «o"^et tov 
 "yaXa/CTO? Kal to iratBiov air avTov eiravpicnceTaL o\uyov. 
 The meaning is not "it takes on the appearance of milk," 
 but " it acquires the peculiar character of milk." The case 
 belongs to the sense of IBer] — Averts, what a thing is in its 
 real nature, and the meaning would be fairly rendered 
 by " is converted into the substance of milk." (The point 
 of the passage is that the formation of the milk is much 
 
 1 Ktihn places the comma after 01V0C and has no stop after /i.e\iuv. This, 
 I think," suggests a false construction. In general I have found it necessary 
 to modify his erratic punctuation, but have been careful to make no change 
 affecting grammar or sense without due warning. 
 
234 . VAKIA SOCEATICA 
 
 earlier than its appearance in the breasts, which only takes 
 place at birth.) 
 
 Tlepl a-apK&v. I may call attention to the interesting 
 initial statement of the writer's cosmological theory which 
 appears to be a conflation, not very thoroughly thought 
 out, of the special theories of Empedocles with the old 
 Milesian view of a single primary body. Thus he begins 
 by saying, in genuine Milesian style, (i. 424) Boiceet, Be /iot 
 
 KaXeofiev dep/ibv aOdvarov re elvai ical voelv irdvTa ical 
 opfjv Ka\ aicox/eiv ical elBevai irdvra ical to, ovra KaX to, 
 /jleWovto. eaeadai. This is pretty pure Heracliteanism, 
 but in what follows he gives an account of the formation 
 of the ovpavos which agrees in its main details with 
 Empedocles. 
 
 i. 426 oKoaa Be iTvy^ave /coWcoBicrTepa eovra (more 
 viscous) KaX tov yjrv%pov jxeTe^pvra, ravra Be Bepfiaivo/ieva, 
 ovk rjBvvaTo eicicavQr\vat, oiiBe firjv tov vypov yevea0av' Bia. 
 tovto IBirjv aXXoioTeprjv t-Tutfie t&v aWcov ical iyevero vevpa 
 o-reped. ISer] here then means <pvo-t<:, bodily substance. 
 
 i. 435 7) Be rpcxpr) iireiBav dfpiKrjTai, (sc. et? ra evrepa), 
 eicao-TOP roiavTTjv direhmKe ttjv IBeijv e/cdarrov OKoia irep r/v. 
 The text seems to me to require some simple correction 
 such as eicddTcoi for kicdo-Tov, but the sense clearly is that 
 food as we digest it is converted into the several substances 
 composing the body, all of which are thus nourished by it. 
 IBer) thus = <pva-i<s, bodily substance. 
 
 Of the many interesting features of this eclectic treatise 
 
 1 will only remark that it ends with a long passage on the 
 vital significance of the week of 7 days, intended to show 
 that o alcov icn tov dvdpdnrov eirTatffiepos. For (1) the 
 embryo is fully formed in 7 days after conception ; (2) 
 death follows on a 7-days' course of starvation ; (3) a 7- 
 months' child will live, and 7 months =30x7 days ; an 
 8-months' child never lives, but a child born after 9 months 
 and 10 odd days will live, and 9 months +10 days = 40 x 7 
 days ; (4) the critical periods in fevers occur at intervals of 
 whole or half weeks, in a tertian on the 11th day, that is 
 after 7 + 3^ days, in a quartan on the 18th (after 2x7 + 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 235 
 
 3^ days). And severe wounds begin to inflame on the 4th 
 day, i.e. after 3^ days, while the inflammation subsides either 
 on the 14th or on the 18th day. (5) The permanent teeth 
 are acquired in 7 years, i.e. 7x360 days. The prominence 
 given to these speculations about the significance of the 
 7-days' period shows, of course, that we are on Pythagorean 
 ground. There is much more of the same kind of thing 
 in the Hepl hrTap.rfvov, with which I will not concern 
 myself further in this place than to throw out the hint 
 that the dpfiovoa, of which we read at i. 452, as determining 
 the days after conception to which the physician must pay 
 special attention, seems to be identical with that used by 
 Timaeus in his account of the generation of the soul of 
 the world. 
 
 Hepl Kap8iri<;. 
 
 i. 487 irepifiokov B e^et irayyv /ecu ftodpov ep,/3e/3o- 
 ffpcorai to elBos eiKeXov oXfiwi. " It has a thick wall and 
 is hollowed into a cavity of the shape of a mortar." 
 
 Ilejot dBevcav. 
 
 i. 492 to etSo? Xevicr) kci\ olov (pXeyfia, iira^ofievai Be 
 olov elpla — i.e. the stuff, matter, of a gland. 
 
 Tlepl oaTeoav (f>vaio^. 
 
 i. 504 Kal elBos KapBur/f oi ve<j)pol eypvai teal ovtoi 
 KoiXtmSeet- The meaning is again clearly " stuff " or 
 " matter." The Latin version in Kiihn oddly has foramen ! 
 
 i. 512 Ta ocnea twi ada/MaTi o-Tao~iv Kal opdoTTjTa Kal 
 el8o<; TrapkyovTai. etSo? = shape. 
 
 Tlepl (pva&v. 
 
 i. 571 BoKeei p,ev ovv to, vova-rjfiaTa oiBev aXkrfkoiaiv 
 eoiKevai . . . eo-n Be fiia t(ov vowecov diraoSsv Kal IBer) 
 Kal alrl/q r) avTr\. ti? Be eaTiv avTt) Bid tov p,e\XovTO<s 
 Xo<yov (ppdo-ai ireiprjo-ofiai. Ta yap o-eo/iaTa tojv dvQpomav 
 Kal t&v aXXcov £(omdv dtro Tpicraewv Tpo<f>mv Tpe<j>ovTai. 
 e<TTi Be t9\uti Tpotyfjicri Tavra Ta ovofiaTa, aura, troTa, 
 irvev/MZTa. ■jrvevp.aTa Be ra fiev iv roicrt, o-d>/j,acrt, <f)v<rai 
 KakeovTai, Ta Be e^co tov ira>/j,aTO<; drip. . . . (In what 
 follows it is stated that air fills to p,eTa%v 7?)? Te Kal 
 ovpavov, and that the sun, moon, and stars move through 
 
236 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 this air, rwi yap irvpl to irvevfia rpofyrj ; air is likewise 
 t?i<s 7% o^Tjfia, precisely as with Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, 
 Democritus and Euripides. 1 The meaning of the statement 
 that the ISerj of all disorders is one is that the substance 
 or matter is one and the same in them all, viz. the irvevfia 
 or " air in the body," which has suffered some derangement. 
 Thus ISerj and ah it} are very nearly synonymous in this 
 context, and we are told 
 
 i. 572 roXai 8' av dvrjTolcriv ovro<; ainos rov re fiiov 
 Kal rwv vocrecov ratal voakovcri. (The word for " class," 
 "kind" is throughout e0vo<;, as e.g. on i. 574, where men 
 are said to be one edvo<; of fwta. I may also in passing note 
 that avvaina, fierahia are carefully used for " subsidiary " 
 or "concomitant causes," so that the distinction drawn 
 between " cause " and " necessary conditions " in the 
 Phaedo, like so much else that has been hastily pronounced 
 to be Platonic " development," really belongs to the 
 medical science of the fifth century, e.g. i. 586 <f>Qera is 
 the principal cause of epilepsy, as of all disease, ra Se 
 aXXa iravra avvaina Kal p,eraurca.) 
 
 Uepl lepr)<; voaov. 
 
 i. 592 avdpcmroi filov Beo/ievoi TroWa, Kal iravrola 
 re^viovTai Kal ttolkiXXovo-vv e? re raXXa iravra Kal e? 
 rtjv vovcrov ravTTjv, eKacrreot el'Set rov 7rd&eo<; 6e£>i tt)v 
 ahtrjv TTpoari6evre<;. The context shows that eKdarai 
 el'Set means " for each symptom of the disease " (not " for 
 each kind." The e'tSea are all present together in a 
 concrete case of epilepsy, the falling, e.g., is one elSo?, the 
 foaming at the mouth another. Men ascribe each of these 
 symptoms to the agency of some particular god. The 
 " Mother " sends one of them, Poseidon another, Apollo a 
 third, Ares and Hecate yet others). 
 
 i. 608. When the voto<; blows diravra ravra (all things 
 which contain to vypov) . . . alcrddverai tov votov Kai 
 SiaWdcro-et, rrjv fiopcpiyv el<; erepov etSo?. popcf)/] = elBoi 
 — cpvo-is, " they all change their substance into a new one." 
 
 1 Troiades 884 ffi yrjs SjCT/ta '"'' r ' "YV* ^X av %8pav, | Sens tot el <ri, 
 dvaT&n-affTos eldtvai. 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 237 
 
 Tlepl StatViy? vyieivf}*;. 
 
 i. 618 Tot? Be e'iBeai toicti aag/cooSeat ical pakdaicoio-t, 
 ical epvOpolai o-vp,<pepet Srj tov irXecova yjpbvov tov evi- 
 avrov ijrjporipoio-i SiaiTij/iaai ■)(peecr8ai, vyprj yap 17 </>uo-{? 
 r&v elBecov tovtcov. Cf. just below, ical toio-i veoiat t&v 
 ffcofbdrmv avpcfrepei paXaKcorepoial re ical vyporipoiai XP^ e ' 
 aOai Tolai Biairrffiatriv . . . Bel Be 7rpb<; ttjv ffkiietriv ical rrjv 
 aprjv ical to e8o<; ical Tt]v ^uiprpi ical to e'iSea ra BiaiT^p,aTa 
 TroiieaOai. elBos thus = body, constitution. So again 
 
 i. 623 yiverai Be rpoiros ovtos rfji 8iappo[r)<; t£)v 
 cmpMTav roiai irvKvoaapKoicri pakiaTa, oicorav dvay- 
 KafyiTai avQp<oiro<; icper}<payeeiv rfj<; <j}vaio<i VTrap%ovo-r}<t 
 ToiavTrj<s . . . ra Be apaiorepa tSiv elBecov ical Bao-vTepa- 
 ical ttjv K.pet)§ay'vr)v Beyerrai ical ras TaXanrajpiaf p,5X\ov 
 viropAvei, where 6(809, o-wpa, 0i5a-ts are all used as- 
 synonyms in the sense of bodies, or constitutions. 
 
 Tlepl BiaiT7]<! a . 
 
 i. 631 ovtco Be tovtcov tyovTcov, iroWas ical ttovto- 
 Bairati ISeas diroicpivovTai air dWrjKcov ical aireppaToav 
 ical %d>ta>v, ovBev opoiov aWtf\oio~iv ovTe tt)v o-ifiv ovTe 
 T-iyv Svvap.iv, where the last clause shows that IBeat means- 
 " bodies " which differ in " appearance and in qualities." 
 
 i. 645 icepapels tov Tpoj(pv Btveovo-i ical ovTe irpoaay 
 ovre oirio-co irpo^apet' dp,<f>oTepaae ayei. tov o\ov diro- 
 ptp-rj/jLa tj)s wepK^oprj';. (So far I have followed the 
 reconstruction of Diels, as Kiihn's text is so corrupt as- 
 to be unintelligible. The passage then proceeds) ev Be 
 T&i avT&t, epyd^ovTai e'iBrj -rrepHpepopevcov (but read irepi- 
 (pepopei'coi) iravToBaird. "As the wheel revolves they 
 fashion all kinds of images (or figures) on it." l 
 
 Tlepl BiaiTiji; /3'. 
 
 i. 703 tcl pev ovv e'iBea twv kottcov ToiavTa eaTiv, 
 r) Be Bvvapis avTwv &8e ej^ei. Reference to what has 
 gone before shows that eXBea as contrasted with Bvvdpeif 
 is about equivalent to '' causes." 2 
 
 1 Diels, who gives this passage at Vorsokratiker 2 i. 1. 85, of course with the- 
 necessary correction of irepLtpepotitvujv to Trepttpepo^yai, omits the word etBrj. 
 
 2 Perhaps I had better give the full quotation : i. pp. 702-3 irepl 
 Bt k6tt<iJP t&v £v ToXffL ff&fmoiv iyyivop^viav &de ^x ei ' °l M^ dytifLvaaTOL 
 
238 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 Hepl BtaLrrj^ y. 
 
 i. 716 eVl TavTa Br) ra eiBea eVefet/it ical Belijm oteoia 
 yiverai toictiv avOpwiroicriv vyiauveiv Boiceovcn icai icrdbovai 
 re ijSeco?, iroveew re Bwapevoiai ical eroo/taTO? /cat y^pco/iaTO<{ 
 licavcbs e^ovaiv. The eiBea meant here are the different 
 " types " of disorder which may, from inattention to diet 
 and exercise, attack men who " seem to be in good health, 
 have a relish for their food, are equal to hard work, and 
 sound of constitution and complexion." 1 
 
 Tuv dvdpwiruv dirt) iravrbs kottiumtl irbvov, ovotv ydp tov G&fiaTos StaireTovriTai 
 irpbs oi/Siva Trbvov, rk Si yeyvfivaafUva twv aajfiaruv birb rdv avediaTtav 
 iriviDv KOiriai. tA Si ml airb tS>v avvifiwv yv/ivatrluv KOiriai, iirepfioKrji XPV- 
 <rdf.ieva. to. fiiv oTiv etSea ktX. 
 
 This is clearly not a classification of the kinds of k6ttoi, but an enumera- 
 tion of the causes by which icbiros is induced, followed by an account of its 
 " symptoms " or " effects " (Swd/ieis). Given the notion that the geometrical 
 structure of a body is the underlying reality from which its sensible " effects " 
 flow, this equation of elSos with atria, which we find again in a more developed 
 form in the theory of the atria expounded by Socrates in the Phaedo, is an 
 obvious and inevitable consequence. 
 
 1 As an illustration of the light thrown by the medical writers on Plato, 
 I may refer in passing to a point of great interest which does not directly 
 bear on the meaning of eTSos. The reader of Ilepl dialrr)s y cannot fail to he 
 struck by two interesting features of the book. It is addressed not to 
 physicians but to the general public, and is, in fact, a manual intended to be 
 used by the non-professional man in the regulation of his diet and exercise to 
 suit the different seasons. Also it is intended to be specially serviceable to 
 the working man, the artisan or farmer or shopkeeper, who must he content 
 with simple and easily practicable rules which will not interfere with regular 
 attention to business. For the unemployed rich, who can afford to make 
 "fussing" about their bodily condition the chief concern of life, the author 
 explains that he could provide a much more elaborate discipline : i. 716 
 otai Si touto irapeffKeiacrrai Kal Siiyvoxrrai 6Vi oiSiv S(pc\6s (<rn ofre xPV^twv 
 oUte (Tib/iaTos otire rwv &\\u:v ouSepos arep rijs iiyielys, irpbs rodrovs ifjrl fiot Blaira 
 i^evprmivri as dvvarbv wpbs to aXuiSiararov tuv Suvardv irpoTiy/Uvi). These 
 more precise rules are not the immediate subject of the book, yet the careful 
 regulations actually laid down for men who must work for their living strike 
 the modern mind as meticulous. This shows two things, (1) that there was 
 a class of well-to-do men in the fifth century who did make the maintenance 
 of bodily condition by attention to an elaborate regimen the be-all and 
 end-all of existence ; (2) that even the working part of the public took 
 sufficient interest in the subject of Slaira to buy works like our author's, and 
 to practise what we should consider a curiously thorough self-regulation about 
 diet, exercise, and " hygiene " generally. It is the former class of valetudin- 
 arians whom Plato is proposing to get rid of in Republic iii. And if we 
 understand that his working-men may be supposed in general to possess such 
 
THE WOEDS EIA02, IAEA 239 
 
 Uepl Tpo<jyr)<;. 
 
 Kiihn ii. 17 Tpo<pr) ical Tpotpijs elBos jx'ia ical woXKai. 
 fiia (lev rjt, yevo<s ev, elBos Be LyporrjTi ical ^rjporrjTi ical iv 
 Tovreoiaiv IBiai ical irocrov earl ical e? Tiva ical e? TocravTa. 
 
 ib. ical ttjv p.ev IBl-qv IBerjv i%ej3\a<TTr)o-e (sc. 97 rpo<f>i]) ttjv 
 Be irpoTeprjv ecrriv ore ical ra<; irporepag igrjfiavpcocre. 
 
 The meaning of et8o?, IBerj seems again to be " substance " 
 with a specific quality or virtus of its own. Thus the sense 
 of the second passage is that, for instance, to vypov when 
 taken into the system increases the amount of to vypov 
 already existing there, and, in some cases, also diminishes 
 the amount of to fjripov by converting it into its own 
 substance. 
 
 ii. 22 yaXa Tpo<pr) olcri yaXa Tpo<prj Kara <f>vcriv aXXoicri 
 Be ovyi . . . ical crdpices ical aXXai IBiai Tpo(f>r}<; iroXkaC. 
 The meaning is obviously nutritious bodies, bodies which 
 provide Tpo^. I.e. there are certain parts of the body, 
 or rather certain organic substances, which are of the same 
 kind as milk. A milk diet will increase the quantity of 
 these substances in the body, and of these only, and so on 
 with meat or bread. 
 
 Uepl tottcov t&v KaTa, avBpairov. 
 
 ii. 145 r/ Be IqTpiicr) oKiyoicaipos icrnv, ical o? tovto 
 eirio~TaTai i/ceivo KaOeaTTjicev, ical iiriaTaTai tc\ e'IBea ical to, 
 fir/ e'iBea, a p,-r\ icrTiv iv IrjTpacfjt, 6 /caipbs yvcovai, on to, 
 viro-^wprjfiaTa ov% inro%ajpr)Tiica yiverai, ical TaXXa oti 
 inrevavTia ecrTiv. ical vTrevavricoTaTa oi% inrevavTUOTaTa. 
 o Be icaipbs SB' icrTi, to, criTa 7rpoo~<f>epeiv oacov fi&XXei to 
 <r5sp,a Trpoo-(pepofj,ev(Dv to w\r}6o<s icpaTeeiv. The e'iBea, as I 
 take it, mean once more the " bodies " which, in virtue of 
 their specific "properties," provide some rpo^rj for the 
 
 works as the Uepl Bialr^s y, and to regulate their lives by them, we can see 
 that they would only be likely to require a physician in rare cases, such as 
 accidents requiring surgical treatment or attacks of an epidemic. The " kill- 
 or-cure " method which Plato seems to be proposing in the Republic is thus 
 very much less brutal, and much more in accord with our own notions about 
 the proper management of health than it looks to be, or than commentators 
 who have not troubled to read their Hippocrates have supposed it to be. 
 His tacit assumption all through is that ordinary ailments will be avoided by 
 intelligent self-regulation. 
 
240 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 special " stuffs " of kindred kind found in the organism, ra- 
 /it) eiBea bodies of an alien kind, unrepresented in the 
 organism, and therefore incapable of being rpo<prj to any of 
 its constituents. 1 
 
 TLepl vovaasv B' • 
 
 ii. 324 eyei Be ical 17 yvvrj ical 6 avr/p Tea<rapa<} lBea<> 
 
 vypov iv rail. aoap,aTi d<f> &v vovaot, yivovrat . . . avrai Be 
 
 ai IBeat, el<rl <p\eypa, alfia, ypKri, ical uo"|0&>i/r . . . ical iireiBf/ 
 
 to ^dttov iyevero Kara tov? roicf}a<;, Toaavra<} I8ea<; vypov 
 
 vyir/pov te ical voaepov e%ei iv ecovrwi, dirocjjai'ico Be oicocra 
 
 iv eicdcrTrji rovrecov to>v IBecov ical irXeico ical eKao~o~to ev 
 
 t&i, aat/iari yCverai. IBeai thus = materials, " four moist 
 
 substances." (The whole theory of health as due to' 
 
 lo-ovo/Mirj, and the connection of lo-ovop.it) with pleasure and 
 
 pain, is then worked out in a way which coincides with the 
 
 doctrine of the Philebus and Timaeus. E.g. we feel pleasure 
 
 when the passages of the veins are filled with an element 
 
 that is deficient in the body. Thus when there is not 
 
 enough of rb vypov in the body, rore ip-eiperai av6pa>-iro<? 
 
 rj (payeeiv -P) iriveiv toiovtov b Tr\v re p,olpr\v eicelvi)v 
 
 eimrKrjo-ei, ical lawaei rrjicn oKXtj tai, ii. 338.) The whole 
 
 work deserves to be read as an illustration of the medical 
 
 applications of the notion of a motion of avrnrepLo-Tao-t,*;, and 
 
 of the view that the predominance of any one of the four 
 
 forms of to vypov over the rest is always the cause of a 
 
 disease. The author is not very early as he criticizes the 
 
 views of " former physicians." ' In connection with Plato, 
 
 with whom he agrees in so many of his views, it may be 
 
 noted that at 373—4 he rejects the notion that drink enters 
 
 the lungs, on the ground that, if it did, we could neither 
 
 breathe nor speak when the lungs were full of drink, 
 
 1 A curious light is thrown on the history of an important group of words 
 by a passage like ii. 141 lip-putty oil Svvardv ian raxd /iofleiv 81& riSe, df-n 
 &S6vaT6v iari Kade&TTjKfa iv aiirijt (r6(f}t(rfia yev4(r0ai t where ffbtpifffia. means a 
 " universal rule" or "law." Success in practice depends so entirely on the 
 particulars of the patient's constitution and the circumstances of the attack 
 that no simple universal law can be given for the treatment of a case ; rules- 
 always require to be modified to suit the special circumstances, and there is- 
 thus no way of dispensing with individual study of the individual "case." 
 Hence long experience is required to make a man a good physician. 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 24 1: 
 
 Besides, our food would not be duly digested, and we can 
 easily satisfy ourselves that highly aperient medicines do 
 not make their way into the lungs. He admits that the 
 belief (which is ascribed to Timaeus by Plato, Timaeus 70 c, 
 and is therefore, no doubt, that of the Italian Pythagoreans) 
 is very general, ii. 376 ttoXXoI /cdpra t&v ai/ffprnirmv 
 to ttotov So/ciovcriv e? tov irXev/wva ^mpieiv. (Note' the: 
 way in which ttoXXoI t&v avdp&irwv is used apparently 
 as a designation of the Pythagorean theorists, jusfc as 
 Parmenides regularly alludes to them as fipoToL) 
 
 379 avTai at rpet? IBeat t&v vovo-rjp,aTa>v airb to$> 
 vBpw7ro<;. ISeai apparently means "figures," and hence, 
 phases, forms. 
 
 Tlepl t&v ivTO<; irad&v. 
 
 ii. 463 irepl Be tou <f>XeyiAaTO<; t«? avTa<s yvcbfj,a<} e^a> 
 a? teal irepl ^oXi)<;, Kal tjyrjfit Ta<; IBeat aiiTov ir.oXXa<s elvai, 
 Kal to fiev eiriBtf/iiov iari, to Se vecoTarov. IBeat = its 
 figures, its outward manifestations, the disorders, or perhaps 
 rather symptoms of disorder, to which it gives rise. 
 
 ii. 465 (XevKov $Xeyp,a) ftdpvvei tov avOpwtrov fiaXXdv 
 Kal ISirjv aXXoi7]v e%eiv tov eirvBrifiiov BoKeiTai a>%poTep7)v. 
 (ISerj = <f>vo-i<;, structure, constitution, composition.) 
 
 TvvaiKtjuav /3'. 
 
 ii. 799 TretpfjaBai irpoo~Tidevai t&v TvpoaQermv ttj? ttloXov 
 BaiBbs tnoTaTt]^, %plo-p,a Be Xitra eo-Tto, iroteeiv Be fj,rJKo<> 
 [lev BaKTvXmv e£, irXr}0o<; Be irevTe rj ef, elBo<; Be e^ovpa, 
 . . . to Be irayxiTepov elvat, okoctov Sa«riAo? 6 Xi%av6<;, Kal 
 to etSo? ofioiov T&i BaKTvXat i% ciKpov XeirTOTaTov. (etSo? 
 = shape, geometrical form.) So ii. 800 /xoXvfiBov 'UeXov 
 e£eXa<ravTa iroirjaai to eZSo? t&i BaiSiwt t&i irayvTaTOH. 
 
 Uepl a<f>6pcov (Kiihn vol. iii.). 
 
 iii. 25 ap<ofia,T(DV iravToBair&v eiBrj oti evasBeo~TdTG)v 
 Kal grjpoTaTwv Ko^a<;. The meaning here may be " stuffs," 
 " materials," but we can, for once, render by " sorts " with- 
 out harm to the sense. 
 
 'JLTTlBlJfllOiV /8 . 
 
 iii. 429 toiovtov t»)s voarov Kal eKao-TT)<; KaTaaTdo-iot 
 irpb<; dXXrpuK otuv pJ\ ti vewTepotrourjdrjL ev t&i ava> ellBei, 
 
 R 
 
242 VARIA SOCEATICA 
 
 (The meaning is unclear, but to me to ava> elho? seems to 
 mean " what is above us," i.e. the " heaven," literally " the 
 body over our heads." *) 
 
 iii. 445 'laa tG>l eiSei hiaj(wprjfiara Sia iravrb<; /caicov 
 (of the same symptoms). 2 
 
 iii. 446 kultoi virepiroXKa e<rnv ohri rdB lovra f/v, twj 
 iv -^rv^ei iceiaBai vTro/3el3\r]p,evov ' eo? sXkoi fiev to t/^u^o?, 
 OdXiret Se to toiovtov etSo? if; nr poo-ay a>yrj<; io-Ti fiaXKov ktX. 3 
 
 S" iii. 620 <j)covrj oir] ylveTai dpyi^ojiivoMrtv ■fjv toiouti) 
 rji fir) opyi^o/ievmv <pvaet. ?ji, /cal o/ifiaTa 61a av rji <pvo-ei, 
 <fir/l> Tapaymhea ola OTav bpyityovTai ol fir] toiovtoi, 
 /cal T&Wa Kara \oyov t&v vovaav, olov to <pdiv&8e<; 
 •iroiiet to eZSo?, r/v toiovto? <f>v<rei vrrap^r\i, e? toiovtov 
 voo-7]fia nrapeaTai, ical T&Xka ovtw;. 
 
 The sentence again seems to require some correction. 
 Perhaps it would be sufficient to omit the first fji. In the 
 following clause the text of Kiihn gives an ungrammatical 
 OTav opyi^ovTai for opyi^oavTai. The sense there is that 
 phthisical persons constitutionally exhibit peculiarities of 
 the voice and features which, in the healthy, would be 
 
 1 The passage is specially concerned with diseases peculiar to the season 
 of autumn, and the general meaning of the words quoted is that the course 
 of such diseases is as has just been described unless the weather is abnormal 
 and unseasonable. In an abnormal autumn the disorders may exhibit different 
 symptoms, or present a different succession of stages, as the writer goes 
 on to say, et di /«}, fi\X?)S touto (sc. to iv rut &va etBei) Kwraaraaws &v 
 dpX 01 - Hence my rendering, " the body which is over our heads." 
 
 2 The reference is strictly to the evacuations of the patients, " the evacua- 
 tions were of the same character (as those already described), and gave an 
 unfavourable prognosis. " 
 
 3 I do not follow either the grammar or the sense of the passage as given 
 by Kiihn. The general sense is that certain obstinate cases of diarrhoea 
 among the writer's patients were unexpectedly relieved by sleeping on cold 
 bedding. He seems to be saying, ' ' there were many cases in which this 
 proceeding was beneficial " ; to toiovtov eZSos then means tovto t5 <rx%«ti " this 
 arrangement," "disposition," " management of affairs" (literally "figure"), 
 and BdXirei in wpoaaybiyrjs seems to mean, perhaps, " produces warmth 
 gradually." The itm of the text cannot be translated. The Latin version 
 in Kiihn absurdly tries to make grammar by taking $&\irei as a dative 
 (calido vero quidquid huiusce est generis, sensim magis procedit). I venture 
 provisionally to regard 4<m as an error for tn, and to place a full stop after 
 fiaWov, though I suspect that the real error goes deeper. 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 243 
 
 signs of anger, and olov to $6iv8>he<i iroieei to etSos means 
 " the symptoms due to a phthisi<|fll constitution." (Unless, 
 as the Latin translation assumes, eZSo? is accusative, when 
 the sense would be " the symptoms which make up the 
 phthisical appearance") 
 
 We may, I think, draw the following conclusions from 
 the preceding list. 
 
 etSo?, IZeq scarcely occur at all in those Hippocratean 
 writings which may be properly called textbooks of 
 empirical medicine. They are much more common in the 
 works, many of them apparently intended for a curious 
 general public rather than for the specialist, which aim 
 at attaching medicine, through biology, to the general 
 speculations about the structure of the icoo-fio? in which what 
 we loosely call early Greek " philosophy " originated. In 
 these works, over and above the common current sense of 
 " living body," " physique," " constitution," we find both 
 words frequently used in a sense which shows that they 
 mean more particularly the primary bodies which are, as 
 we should say, the " elements " of which both the human 
 organism and the organism of the k6o-/jlo<; are made up. 
 When thus used, the word often appears to take on the 
 associations we should connect with such terms as " monad," 
 " thing-in-itself," " real essence," " simple real," and the eiSrj 
 or ISeai thus conceived are from time to time contrasted, 
 apparently as not directly perceptible, with the Swdfieis 
 or specific properties which they exert on other things, 
 especially on the human sense-organs, and which are per- 
 ceptible to the eye, the hand, and the other organs of sensa- 
 tion. In connection with this metaphysical meaning of the 
 word, we find the notion of such an etSo? or ultimate form 
 of body as existing " all by itself," in a state of, so to say, 
 chemical isolation, airb eirl emvrov, and the contrasted 
 notion of a icoivcovia elSecov in which a " real " is found in 
 composition with others, and here we seem to recognise the 
 germs of the doctrine ascribed by Plato to Socrates of the 
 e?Sij and of fiede^t? in eiSr) as the mode of being of all 
 other things., elSos in this sense is, as I have said, that of 
 
244: VARIA SOCEATICA ; 
 
 which (j>vcrK in its collective signification is the aggregate, 
 the objective counterpart of ovo/ia, the thing denoted by a 
 simple well-defined name, and the antithesis between elSo? 
 and ovo/ia thus corresponds exactly with that between <f>v<ri<: 
 and v6fio<;. We might, in fact, say that v6fio<s is the 
 collective to Svofia, just as ^utrt? is the collective to eZSo?. 
 The examples of such eiSrj which meet us are sometimes the 
 old Milesian "opposites," to 0epfi6v, to yfrv^pov, to ijrjpov, to 
 vypov, and the rest, sometimes the Empedoclean " elements," 
 themselves in reality no more than a selection from the 
 " opposites," definitely conceived as bodies. Now here, as 
 it appears to me, we have clear indications of the way in 
 which the belief in ecSri, which appears full-blown in a, 
 work like the Phaedo, has grown up. Under the Eleatic. 
 criticism of -Milesianism the original single <pvo-i<s t5>v 
 iovTav has been transformed into a belief in several simple 
 bodies which are of the nature of metaphysical " reals '' or 
 " things-in-themselves," and of which the composite " things " 
 of the world of everyday life are the " appearances." From 
 this to the doctrine of eiSij described in the Phaedo is really 
 only a single step. The great originality of that theory, 
 as it appears to me, does not lie in the conception of the 
 eZSo? or of the " participation of things in it." The very 
 terminology of the medical men who were endeavouring to 
 adjust their doctrine to the new theories provides us with 
 precisely the language which Plato's Socrates employs to 
 set forth his convictions. Nor is it any novelty when we 
 find him insisting on the contrast between the eternal being 
 of the eiSrj and the transitory character of everything else. 
 For this is the very language of Empedocles, who tells us 
 in verses too familiar to quote that what we are accustomed 
 to look on as the " things " of the world around us are mere 
 transitory combinations of the only things that really endure, 
 the '* roots " of all things. The great and imperishable 
 thought of the Phaedo is that there are " reals," and those 
 the most important of all, which are immaterial ; there is 
 an etSos or <pvo-i<; of to koXov and to a<ya06v no less than 
 of the " hot " or the " cold," and it is precisely with these. 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA '245 
 
 etSr) which are invisible, not merely because our eyes are 
 defective or the bodies we see alwfys composite, but because 
 their nature is spiritual and can only be spiritually discerned, 
 that <pi\oao(pia has chiefly to do. It is in this sense, in 
 the sense that Socrates was occupied in the discernment 
 of the eiBr) of the things which are unseen, that I should 
 understand the well-known statement of Aristotle that his 
 irpajfiareia was concerned with ra rjdiKa, the affairs of a 
 man's soul, and not with ^vo-t? in the Aristotelian sense, 
 the world of that which is born and dies. 
 
 And there is another, apparently opposite sense, in 
 which we find medical writers, most of whom must have 
 been the contemporaries of Socrates, speaking of ISiai and 
 e'iSr). Sometimes, at least, they mean the collective variety 
 of the symptoms presented by a disease, as distinguished 
 from the one hidden source of the mischief. Yet these two 
 senses of the words, though they seem at first sight to be 
 as sharply distinguished as " reality " and " appearance," 
 can manifestly be seen to be developments from a single 
 •original. Given the sense etSo?, a " figure " or " body " 
 in geometry, which we have also found as the origin of 
 el&os, ISea, " trope," " figure of diction," in rhetoric, we 
 can see at once how the word can become specialised 
 in two apparently opposite directions. It will readily 
 come to mean the variety of shapes or phases presented 
 by a thing which remains in its fundamental " real essence " 
 one and the same in spite of the appearance of endless 
 variety. (Compare, for a passing illustration of a similar 
 transition in the meaning of a synonym of etSo?, the constant 
 use of floppy for the accidental variations in the manifesta- 
 tion of what is in truth selfsame at the core. Thus 
 contrast trdKX&v ovo/jmtcov p>op<pr] p,ia, one " verum corpus " 
 under many changing names, where fiop<prf is opposed as 
 that which is (pvcrei, to the 6v6p,ara, which are only t5)i 
 avOpoyireicoi vofimi, with 7ro\Xal p,op<pal tS>v haipovicov, 
 where the p,op<pai are the illusions, the Baifioviov the 
 mysterious " reality," which is " behind the veil.") On the 
 other hand, given the existences of a mathematical philosophy 
 
246 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 which finds the " real essence " or fons emanationis of all 
 bodies in their geometrical structure, and given also a 
 pluralism which demands that the things of the everyday 
 world shall be regarded as composites of several such 
 ultimate " bodies," the way at once lies open for the con- 
 ception ascribed by Plato to the fifth-century Pythagorean 
 astronomer Timaeus, and illustrated by so great a host of 
 passages in the Hippocratean writings, of the elBo<s as the 
 reality of which all that our senses reveal forms the 
 SvvdjieK or " effects." And with this conception we are 
 on the very verge of the " ideal theory " in the form in 
 which Plato ascribes it to Socrates and his Eleatic and 
 Pythagorean friends. Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, 
 Socrates thus appear as the successive terms of a single 
 development guided throughout by a single thought. 
 
 One further stage in our journey backward from the 
 terminology of current speech in the fourth century still 
 remains to be taken. "We have to consider, side by side 
 with the medical writers of the fifth century, the " sophists " 
 or cosmologists who were their contemporaries and pre^- 
 decessors, and to show, if we can, that the notion expressed 
 by elSo<s, ISea, fj-°p<f>v came into their thought and language 
 under the influence of Pythagorean mathematics, and our 
 task is complete. The case will be made out if we can 
 show that the notion and the word are absent from the 
 earliest Milesian science, and only begin to make their 
 appearance in systems which we can prove to have been 
 influenced by the development of Pythagoreanism. In 
 great part, onr case is already established by the fact that 
 the two fifth -century sciences in which the terms have 
 been found to play a prominent part are Ehetoric and 
 Medicine. For both these sciences are of Italian or 
 Sicilian origin ; that is, they come from the very home of 
 Pythagorean ways of thinking, and in both of them the 
 primary meaning " bodily shape," " structure " is still manir 
 festly felt under the specialised senses of elSo<s and ISea. 
 What we have really still to do is simply to present the 
 negative half of an argument of the type christened by 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 247 
 
 Mill and his followers the "Joint Method of Agreement 
 and Difference," the proof that etSbs, ISea are not " words of 
 art " except where we have independent evidence of Pytha- 
 gorean influence. In doing so, I shall take the actual 
 remains of the cosmologists according to the text of Diels 
 in the second edition of his Vorsokratiker, and shall, as 
 usual, reason backward from the later to the earlier in time. 
 
 We start, then, with the well-established fact that 
 Democritus used the word ISea of his atoms, and that the 
 terms appear in a different sense in his extant remains. 
 For the first point see Plutarch, Adv. Colotem 8 (Diels i. 2 1. 
 362) tL yap Xeyei A.r)fioicpiTOS ; . . . elvai Sk irdpra Ta? 
 a,TO[iov<; fj iSeai vir airov Krikovfieva?, erepov Be fjwjBev. 
 (That the Teubner editor retains the unmeaning IBloh; of 
 Wyttenbach against the authority of the MSS. is only 
 one of a thousand proofs of the uncritical character of his 
 work, and the need for a fresh edition of the Moralia from 
 a competent hand.) 
 
 That Democritus should have used this name for his 
 "monads" is the most natural thing in the world, when 
 we remember that the only properties ascribed to them 
 are purely geometrical, and that his terminology probably 
 came down from Leucippus, who had been an Eleatic, i.e. 
 a member of a sect which, though hostile to Pythagorean 
 science, grew up in the midst of it and lived on controversy 
 with it, and was moreover intimately associated with the 
 religious side of the " Pythagorean life," so that the catalogue 
 of Pythagoreans used by Iamblichus mentions Parmenides 
 and Melissus as adherents of the school, and Iamblichus 
 (Vit. Pythag. 104) speaks of Leucippus himself as a pupil 
 of Pythagoras. 1 One may add that Aristotle more than 
 
 1 The statement of Iamblichus is barely credible on chronological grounds, 
 and his carelessness is shown by the fact that he also speaks of Philolans, 
 Eurytus, Archytas, and Lysis, who belong partly to the age of Socrates, 
 partly to that of Plato, as persons who had been "disciples of Pythagoras 
 in their youth," whereas we know that Pythagoras was of an earlier 
 generation than Heraclitus, and probably than Xenophanes. But it may 
 quite well be the fact that Leucippus, like Parmenides and Empedocles, and 
 probably Zeno and Melissus, followed the "Pythagorean" way of life. 
 
'84S VAPJA SOCEATICA 
 
 once points out the similarity between the doctrine of the 
 atomists and that of Plato and the Pythagoreans, notably 
 ut de Caelo T 303 a 8, where he says Tpoirov yap nva ical 
 ovtoi irdvTa to, ovtcl iroiovaiv dpi0/ioi><; koi i!j api0p.£>v 
 Kal yap el fir) aa<f>6j<; BrfKovatv, ofim<; tovto fiovXovrai 
 Xiyeiv. There are other passages in Aristotle and the 
 Aristotelian commentators which strongly suggest that 
 Demoeritus used the equivalent word aj( / v/ JMTa no * merely 
 for a fundamental property of the d/iepr) aco/iara, but as 
 a synonym for them. E.g. de Bespiratione 472 a 14 elvat 
 yap tov ddvarov rrjv t£>v toiovtwv a-^r/fidrmv etc tov 
 <r<bp,aTo<; e^oSov iic t?j? tov 7repiej(pvTo<; e«0Xi^rea)?, where 
 the archaic expression to irepikyov suggests strongly that we 
 are dealing with a formal quotation. Of etSo? in the sense 
 of " living body " we seem to find an example in a passage 
 of the Placita which has been emended by Diels with the 
 aid of Lactantius, Placita v. 19. 6 A. yeyevt) fieva to fwta 
 a-vo-rdo-ei elBieov dvdpOpwv (so Diels, for the unmeaning 
 letters elSeevaarpov) irp&rov tov vypov %toioyovovvTo<;. 
 A fairly clear case of the use of ayr)fia as a synonym 
 for the atom seems to be supplied by Theophrastus, de caus. 
 plant, vi. 17. 11 ff. (Diels i. 2 1. 383) eVet to 76 a-y^/iaTa 
 Ar/fAOKpiTov, Kaddirep eke%8ri, TeTaypAva<s ej(pvTa t«? 
 /iop<pa$ TZToyp&va icai to. trddr), [icaiTot ye ovk] ij^prjv 
 iroieiv, where the fioptpal are said to be possessed by 
 o-%i]fiaTa, exactly as we are more commonly told that 
 a-xfifMa was one of the three intrinsic properties of the 
 aTOfia or dp,epr) o-wfiara. 
 
 In the fragments received as genuine by Diels one finds 
 the following cases : — 
 
 [6—8]. These fragments are quoted by Sextus from 
 a work with the title Tlepl l&e&v. Diels offers us the 
 alternative rendering, " on differences in shape " (i.e. between 
 atoms) and " on figures " (Gestalten). I would suggest, 
 however, that our collection of examples from "Hippo- 
 crates" leads rather to the supposition that the meaning 
 ^ is simply '' on Primary Bodies." The famous passage 
 (Diels, . Pr. 9) quoted by Sextus to show that all sense- 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 249 
 
 qualities are subjective belongs really to the same thought. 
 For, as we have found on Hippoolatean evidence, et'Sij are 
 just the things which exist cpvaei as opposed to the nomina 
 rerum quae non sunt, which only exist vop.au, " as a result 
 •of human artifice." Hence to say that colour, taste, 
 temperature and the like are only vo/awi, while arofia and 
 icevov are <pvo-ei, is, in the language of the period, as much 
 ss to say that the latter are eiSea. (There is, of course, a 
 certain oxymoron in speaking of the icevov as an etSos, but the 
 atomists were well aware that their thought " /*?) eov is 
 just as much as eov " could not be expressed without paradox. 
 Epicurus' synonym 77 avaj>)]<; <f>vo-i<; involves just the same 
 paradox, when we remember that the primary sense of 
 </>vo-i<} in Greek cosmology is Body.) 
 
 Fr. 1 1 (Diels) yv<up:r]<; Se Svo elcrlv IBeai, rj fiev ^vqaim), 
 ■fj Se o-Konrj. There are two forms of thinking, the true- 
 born and the bastard. (The correct translation is silently ^ 
 .given by both Diels and Burnet, but it may be as well to 
 point out explicitly that ctkot'ii) here means exactly what 
 it does in the common a/conov \e%o?. Sense-perception 
 is the bastard brother of true thinking ; the two are like 
 the child of the bondwoman and the child of the free- 
 < woman in St. Paul's apologue. This point is rightly made 
 toy Philo, with whom it is the foundation of his whole 
 •exegesis of the story of Ishmael and Isaac.) 
 
 141. From Hesychius (where the reference to Democritus 
 is, however, not explicitly given, and we need not suppose 
 that he is the only author whose use of IBea is in ques- 
 tion). IBia, 77 ofioiorrjs, fiop<j}ij, elSos. Kal to iXd-^iarov 
 ■a&fia. 
 
 167 Stvov anrb tov 7rtzvrb<s awoicpiOrivcu iravroimv elSecov 
 (an eddy of atoms of every kind ; elSewv in the sense of 
 bodies of divers structures). 
 
 Diogenes of Apollonia 5 (Diels) are ovv TroXvrpoTrov 
 jeovo~r)<; tt)? eTepoi<ao-io<; iroXvrpo'ira Kal ra %£>ia real 7roXKa 
 Kal ovre IBeav dWijXot? ioiKora ovre Blairav oiire votjciv 
 'ktX. Diels here renders by Gestalt, but the combination 
 With Siaira seems to me to suggest rather that the sense 
 
250 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 is " body," " constitution," " unlike in body, in habits of 
 life, and in mind." 
 
 Anaxagoras 4 (Diels) j^pi} SoKeiv ivelvai troWd re Kal 
 iravroia iv ifacn Tots avy/cpivofievoi'i ieai (nrepjiara irdprcov 
 yjpi)lLar<ov Kal I8ea<! iravTo'ias eypvTa Kal j(poih<s Kal T/8ovd$. 
 Here the translation " shapes," " forms " seems necessitated 
 by the conjunction with colours and savours. Of the 
 alleged remains of the later Pythagweans I say nothing 
 here, since those of Archytas belong to too late a date 
 for my purpose, and those of Philolaus appear to me to 
 have been finally shown to be spurious by Professor Burnet. 
 
 Empedocles. It is of some importance for linguistic 
 history to know that Plato's friend Philistion, who belonged 
 to the Italian medical school on which Empedocles exercised 
 so much influence, called the four " elements " of Empedocles 
 IBeat,. See the quotation from the latrica of Menon in 
 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy? p. 235 n. 2 <S>CKurruov B r 
 dierai e« reaadpav IBe&v avveffrdvai ^/ta?, tout' eariv eV 
 Te<r<rdpmv <rToi%eicov • irvp6<s, aepos, vBaro<;, 77}?. (The 
 sequel is interesting, as it throws light on the opposition 
 of etSo? and Svvap,i<; which we have already found in the 
 medical writers. Each of the IBeai has one special &vva/u<r 
 or fundamental property, fire being depfiov, air ■^■v^pov, 
 water vypov, earth typov. Thus the theory is seen to be 
 an attempt to fuse the mathematical theory of body, in 
 which geometrical structure is what distinguishes one body 
 from another (Pythagoreauism), with the old Milesian concep- 
 tion of " opposites." The later version adopted by Aristotle, 
 and on his authority by the Middle Ages, according to 
 which each o-Toi%eiov is a binary combination of " opposites," 
 is a more refined version of the same kind of view.) 
 
 In the remains themselves we have (Diels, Fr. 22) the 
 statement that ipiXva brings together e-^jSpa a TrXeiarov air 
 dXkrfKwv htk-)(pvai, /idXiaTa | yevvrji re Kptfcei re Kal etBeaiv 
 eK/ia/croia-t, where e'ISeaiv plainly means " in figure," " in 
 shape." 
 
 In Fr. 23 the same process is compared with the work of 
 a painter who reproduces by different mixtures of the same 
 
THE WOKDS EIAOS, IAEA 251 
 
 colours e't&ea iraaiv aKiyicia . . ., " trees, and men and 
 women, beasts and birds and fishe* and gods." The sense 
 is thus once more " shapes," " bodily appearances." 
 
 Closely similar is Fr. 35 r&v Si re /iiayo/Mevtov x e ^ T ' 
 edvea p,vpia OvqrSiv | travToidK IBerjiaiv aprjpora, Oavfia 
 ISia-dai, where the meaning is "fashioned with bodies of 
 diverse kinds." So again at Fr. 71 el Be tL <roi irepl r&vBe 
 XtTrofuXo? 67t\6to marts, | 7TW? vSaro<; yair)<; re ical alOipos 
 rjeXiov re \ Kipva/xevav eiBr] re yevoiaTO \poia re Qvqr&v 
 kt\. "If you still doubt how when these things were 
 mingled (i.e. the " elements ") the figures and tints of mortal 
 things arose." 
 
 Fr. 98 etc r&v alfia re yevro ical a\Xrj<i eiBea aapicos. 
 Diels translates "the blood and the other kinds of flesh." 
 But apart from what we have proved as to the rarity of 
 elSos = species, kind, in fifth-century Greek, there seems to 
 be a gross absurdity in making Empedocles talk of blood as 
 a " kind of flesh." Eender rather " blood, and also the stuff 
 of which flesh is made " (the bodies which constitute flesh). 
 
 Fr. 115 (from the icadap/ioL). " Daemons " who fall from 
 their high estate must wander thirty thousand seasons <j>vo- 
 fievow} iravTola Bta ypovov eiSea dvjjr&v, " being born, as 
 time wears on, into all manner of mortal bodies (or figures)." 
 
 Fr. 125 iic fiev yap £<o6>v iridei veicpd eiBe d(iei/3<ov 
 (made the dead from the living, changing their bodies). 
 Thus the words occur seven times in all, and always in 
 the sense of bodily shape or structure, or that simply of 
 body (of an organized living being). 
 
 Melissus, Fr. 8 (Diels) <pa/j.ivoi<; yap elvai ■jroXXd ical 
 diSia ical e'ISr) re teal Ict^vv e^ovra, iravTa erepoiovaBai 
 rffuv SoKei ical /jLerairlirTeiv etc rod eKaarore opasfievov. 
 B7j\ov toLvvv on ovk op95><; ewp&fiev ovSe eicelva •koXKcl 
 6p6&<i Boxel elvai. ov yap dv fiereTrnrTev, ei d\rj6r) tfv, 
 dX\' ?jv olov irep iSoicei etcao-rov tovtcov. About the trans- 
 lation there cannot be much doubt. Diels and Burnet 
 use almost exactly the same words ; the one renders ical 
 e'IBr) re ical Itrypv e^ovra, "and had forms and power of 
 their own," the other " die ihre bestimmten Gestalten und 
 
252 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 ihre Festigkeit besassen." But we may ask to what clause 
 of the preceding account of our popular everyday pluralism 
 does the ei&rj e^ovra refer ? What forms are meant ? 
 I think it refers to the " opposites " which we currently 
 believe to be real, to Oep/iov, to yfrvy(pov, to aicKripov, to 
 paXdaicov, to £5>iov, to /jltj £wv, and to the three bodies also 
 mentioned, vBcop, y% \i0os. The " belief that these things 
 have eiSr/ " will then amount to the conviction that each of 
 them has a definite tpvo-K or " real essence " of its own, 
 different from those of the others, which persists unchanged 
 against attempts to alter it. (It is this " persistence " which 
 is meant by the to-^u? ascribed to them all.) Melissus then 
 argues that, since all these things appear to change into 
 their opposites, we are involved in hopeless contradiction 
 with ourselves so long as we take the evidence supplied 
 by the senses as an argument against the One of Eleaticism. 
 The argument does not appear to me to be more particularly 
 directed against Anaxagoras than against any form of 
 pluralism. E.g. it would tell just as much against 
 Empedocles' attempt to reconcile the facts of sense with 
 the Eleatic principles, and, taking into account the important 
 influence of Empedocles on the medical science of the 
 period, and the link of connection indicated by the fact 
 that Melissus as well as Empedocles was reckoned as 
 belonging to the Pythagorean succession, I think we may 
 regard the appearance of yrj and vScop among the things 
 mistakenly believed to have el'877 to show that he and 
 his followers are partly in the writer's mind. 
 
 Parmenides. Neither ISea, etSo?, nor ayflfia occurs in 
 the remains of the poem. pop<f>rj is found once, in the 
 famous passage which begins the account of the "false 
 opinions " of men, fiop(f>a<; yap KwrkQevTO Bvo <yvd>fia^ 
 ovofid^eiv, \ t&v (iLav ov xpec6i> itmv, where it seems to me 
 that fjt-op<j>ij definitely means a "body." For, as we see 
 immediately after, the popfyrj which ought not to have 
 received a name is " the dark," which early Greek science 
 regularly confuses with empty space. And the whole 
 'point of Parmenides' criticism of other thinkers amounts 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 25$ 
 
 to this, that their theories compel them to believe in the ; 
 absurd view that empty space is % body. His reasoning 
 throughout turns on the assumption that if you admit that 
 empty space is at all, you must believe that it is a kindi 
 of body, as has been well brought out by Professor Burnet. 
 The dialectic of the poem is one sustained exposure of the. 
 absurdity, in the proper sense of the word, of this position. 
 Hence I would frankly translate, "they have made up, 
 their minds to give names to two bodies, whereof one 
 should not receive a name." Empty space ought not to, 
 have a name, because the ovo/jm is, as we have so often 
 seen, the representative in the realm of vo/j,os, of an eZSo? or 
 " real essence " belonging to tf>vcri<;. Every name is the name 
 of an ov ti, and this means, for the age of Parmenides, 
 that it is the name of a body. Where there is no body to 
 be denoted, there is no significant denoting name. Hence 
 with Parmenides himself space has no name ; it is merely 
 firj iov, and we may be sure that he would have said of 
 fir) iov what Aristotle says of all such negative expressions^ 
 that it is ovk ovofia. 
 
 Heraclitus. There is no instance of any of the groups! 
 of words I8ia, elSos, ayr\pM, fiop<pi] in any extant quotation 
 from Heraclitus. 
 
 Xenophanes. One instance of 186a, in a purely non- 
 technical sense, in the famous attack on anthropomorphism. 
 (Diels) Ft. 15 Xitirot pAv 0' 'iirirotai, ySoe? he re fiovaiv 
 ofioLwi | Kai <Ke> 8e&v ISeas eypafov Kal o-cojjuit inrolovv. 
 Here t'Sea? eypa<pov and adfiaT eiroiovv seem to mean 
 the same thing, " would have drawn the bodies of the gods '* 
 in their own image. Unless, perhaps, a-dofiar evoiovv refers, 
 specifically to sculpture, as is possible, " would have 
 drawn their likenesses and carved their images." 
 
 When all allowance has been made for the scantiness- 
 of the remains of the earliest Greek science, two things 
 seem to be clearly shown by our collection of passages. 
 (1) The use of etSo?, ISea, a^rj/Ma, fiop^rj as scientific 
 technical terms cannot be shown to belong to the earliest 
 stages of Ionian science. On the other hand, one or more 
 
254 VAEIA SOCRATICA 
 
 of these words are found in Empedocles, Anaxagoras, 
 Diogenes, and Deinocritus, in cases which show that they 
 have already come into use as scientific technicalities, and 
 this result is corroborated by their frequent appearance in 
 the fifth-century medical writers. (2) It is also noticeable 
 that both among the philosophers and among the medical 
 writers, so far as one can really distinguish the two classes 
 of authors, the conception of ei8i} or ISeat, is most prominent 
 just where, on other grounds, we can assert the presence 
 of an Italian influence. In particular, the ISecu are specially 
 prominent in the philosophies of Empedocles (in whose 
 school the term became technical for what later usage has 
 taught us to call the four " elements "), Democritus (with 
 whom IBiai seems to have been the original technical name, 
 presumably inherited from Leucippus, of the "indivisible 
 bodies"), and Socrates, as described by Plato. In every 
 one of these cases the historical connection with Pytha- 
 goreanism is beyond dispute. For Empedocles it is 
 established by the inclusion of his name in the ancient 
 catalogue of Pythagorean worthies reproduced by Iamblichus, 
 by the Orphicism of the theological doctrines of the 
 KaOapfxol,, and more particularly by the important informa- 
 tion, supplied by Ammonius, that the god of whom we 
 read in Fr. 134 (Diels) that he has not the form and 
 figure of man but is (ppr/v leprj ical a8e<r<f>aTo<;, (ppovritrt 
 (note the word, " by his providential care ") k6<t/jlov airavra 
 /caraiaa-ova-a 0of}i<ri, is Apollo. This means that Empedocles, 
 like Pythagoras and Socrates, followed a version of the 
 Orphic doctrine in which Apollo, and not the more 
 customary Dionysus, was the chief object of worship. The 
 point is all the more significant from the exact corre- 
 spondence of the language of Fr. 134 about "God" with 
 that of Fr. 29 about the "sphere" which is constituted 
 when " love " prevails over strife and all things come 
 together into one. For it follows that the " sphere " must 
 be identical with Apollo, and that the whole cosmogony 
 of Empedocles is, in the end, also a theology, the drama 
 of the ever-repeated dismembering and rebirth of a god. 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 255 
 
 (No doubt the identification of the " sphere " with Apollo 
 would be aided by the popular etjynology reproduced in 
 Plato's Gratylus where we are told that one possible deriva- 
 tion of the name Apollo is from a- and irdkvs, so that the 
 word means " he who is not many," " the One and Only." 
 In view of the fact that the whole object of Orphicism 
 seems to have been the re-establishment of the mystical 
 oneness of the soul with its God, we may fairly assume 
 that this derivation, as well as another there mentioned, 
 according to which the word means either 6 airoXvav, " the 
 deliverer from bondage," or 6 diroXovcov, " the washer away 
 of sin," are Orphic or Pythagorean (Cratylus 404—405). 
 Important confirmation would be given by Fr. 129, on the 
 unnamed wise man of the Golden Age, if we could be sure 
 that Porphyry and Iamblichus are right in understanding the 
 lines of Pythagoras. It is something in favour of their view 
 that, as Professor Burnet reminds us, it had been held by 
 Timaeus the historian, who had exceptional opportunities 
 of knowing what the local traditions as to the philosopher's 
 meaning were. Of course the reference would be to 
 Pythagoras in one of his earlier incarnations, so that the 
 difficulty raised by Professor Burnet in his first edition 
 does not really exist.) 
 
 As for Democritus, we have to remember that his main 
 doctrine goes back to Leucippus, and with it go, probably, 
 the technical terms in which it was expressed. Now 
 Leucippus had certainly been a pupil of the Eleatics, and, 
 according to Theophrastus, of Parmenides himself (kowco- 
 vqaas HapfieviSTji rrj<; (f>iXoo-o<f>la<i, Simplicius, Physics 
 28. 4). That this is chronologically possible has been 
 pointed out by Burnet, who might have made his case even 
 stronger if he had chosen. For Plato's Eleatic in the 
 Sophistes, the assumed date of which is 399, since the con- 
 versation is feigned to have happened the very day after 
 Socrates had put in his formal answer to the avrw^oaia 
 of his prosecutors (Theaefetus 210 d), speaks of his own 
 early recollections of the personal teaching of Parmenides 
 (Soph. 237 a Hap/j,evi,8r]<; Se 6 /iiya<s, & iral, irauriv 17/Mv 
 
256, VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 otiatv ap-xpi*ev6<; re koX Sici reXovs rovro dire/iaprvparc 
 •7re£r)i re &8e e/cdorore \eycov KaX fiera fierpwv). It i 
 clear that Plato here assumes that Parmenides was stil 
 active as head of a school in the " stranger's " early youth 
 and that the "stranger" had. repeatedly (e/cd<rrore) listene( 
 to his discourse. And the whole tone of the dialogue ii 
 opposed to our assuming that the "stranger" is of ar 
 earlier generation than Socrates himself, who also had onc< 
 met Parmenides in his early life. It follows, then, thai 
 unless we reject Plato's chronology altogether, Leucippus 
 who must have been as old as, or older than, Socrates 
 to have had Democritus for his disciple, could not have 
 " associated " with the Eleatic philosophers except as a 
 personal associate and scholar of Parmenides. And it is 
 quite certain that no one could have been an associate oi 
 Parmenides without being exposed to the influence, in this 
 case a hostile one, of the Pythagoreanism against which the 
 doctrine of the " One " is a reaction. While, as for Socrates, 
 we have already seen that it is precisely to his Pythagorean 
 and Eleatic friends that Plato makes him talk most freely 
 of e'iSrj' as perfectly well known things in which "we" all 
 believe, and about which " we " are always making assertions. 
 It should also be further noted that even with 
 Empedocles the " four roots " are beginning to assume the 
 character which they expressly have in Democritus and 
 in the theories ascribed by Plato to the Socratic circle. 
 They are " monads," " things-in-themselves," " metaphysical 
 reals." Even in Empedocles, it is only when " strife " has 
 for the moment completed the dismemberment of the 
 "god" that you find a "root" existing i<j>' eavrov, in a 
 state of chemical purity. Everything contained in the 
 world in which organic creatures move and have their 
 being is a compound exhibiting the koivcovlu of a plurality 
 of " roots." With Democritus, no less than with Plato, 
 the process is complete. The only things that are are the 
 IBecu, and they are imperceptible ; just as Plato says they 
 are fxovcoi dearh v&t, so Democritus says that the yvrjairj 
 ypcofirj of which they are the objects only arises when you 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOX, IAEA 257 
 
 transcend the limits of the o-kotitj yvmfirf of sense (6Vai> 
 f] a-tcoTLt] /My/cert SvvijTcu firjre opfiv eV eXarrov yJ\re 
 akoveiv' firfre oSfiaaOai, fjurjTe yevetrBai fiifre iv rfji ■^ravtrei 
 aiaOa'veaddi, Fr. 11, Diels). For Democritus, no less than 
 for Plato, it is true to invert Kant's dictum about the 
 limits of knowledge, and to say " knowledge is only possible 
 where; possible experience leaves off." The only difference, 
 but an enormous one, is that Plato always makes the 
 assumption that his etBrj are not merely " transcendent 
 of sense," but also hyperplvysical, oo-to/taTa, and can thus 
 put at their very head such entities as to ev and to 
 wya06v. 
 
 We may thus, I think, take it as established that eZSo? 
 and ISia, wherever they appear as technical terms, alike 
 in rhetoric, in medicine, and in metaphysics, have acquired 
 their technical character under Pythagorean influence. 
 Prom the popular sense of " body " (especially used of the 
 living, and still more especially of the living human 
 organism) come alike the applications of the word to 
 supposed ultimate simple bodies, such as the four of 
 Empedocles, to the figures and tropes of rhetoric, and to 
 the hyperphysical " monads "—the word is Plato's own — of 
 the Socratic- Platonic philosophy. How has the derived 
 meaning been obtained in each of these cases ? It seems 
 clear, I think, from our review of the evidence that it is 
 through the sense of. " bodily structure," the " shape " of a 
 body, as I have tried to show more in detail in the case of 
 the rhetorical ISeai or a^fiara. The link of connection, 
 in the case of the etSr) which are physical " elements," or 
 " opposites " conceived as primary kinds of " stuff," lies 
 ready to hand in the notion that the Swa/tet? or properties 
 of a body flow in the last resort from its geometrical 
 structure. It only requires the extension of this notion 
 of structure as determining a thing's behaviour to include 
 non-physical entities to lead to the belief in a definite law, 
 order, or structure as constituting the inmost nature of 
 justice, courage, piety or beauty. And that this is the line 
 which Greek thought followed is almost too evident to 
 
 s 
 
258 VARIA SOCRATICA 
 
 call for proof. The proof, if proof is needed, may be 
 supplied by the prominence given in Plato from the 
 Protagoras right on to the Politicus, Philebus and Laws, to 
 " number, weight, and measure," or more generally to " com- 
 putation," Xoyia/ioi, as of no less moment for the inner 
 than for the outer life, and by the thought of the " mean " 
 or " right measure " as that on which the health of the 
 soul depends. Now in what sort of school is this identifica- 
 tion of structure with the " real essence " of a thing most 
 likely to have arisen? Clearly in one which held that the 
 " choir and furniture of heaven and earth " are, strictly 
 speaking, " geometrical figures " with specific modes of 
 construction and nothing more, in a school which held that, 
 as Descartes taught, physical bodies are simply identical 
 with " mathematical bodies," variously figured modes of 
 extension, the very view which Aristotle found so 
 characteristic of the " so-called Pythagoreans " with whose 
 tenets he was acquainted, ol S' apiO/iovs elvai <pa<riv 
 ■avra, ret irpdy/iara, we are told of them at Metaphysics A 
 987 b 28, and again at 990 a 14 that ef &v yap viro- 
 TL0evTai ical \iyovaiv ovSev fiaXXov irepl t&v f&adr)- 
 jxanicwv \iyov(ri aco/j-aTcov rj wept T&v alaOrjTOiv. This 
 puzzled Aristotle immensely, but should cause no amaze- 
 ment to one who has read the Principia of Descartes. 
 The Pythagoreans show no distinction between "mathe- 
 matical figures " and " solid physical bodies," precisely 
 because they held that "physical body" is "figured 
 extension " and nothing more, just as Plato and Descartes 
 held the same thing after them. 
 
 This is not the place to expound the Pythagorean 
 doctrine itself. For one thing, the task would require not 
 a paragraph or two at the end of an essay, but a whole 
 volume. For another, it can only be adequately accom- 
 plished when the Neo-Pythagorean works on mathematics 
 and the Neo-Platonist commentaries on Plato, to mention 
 no other source, have been subjected, with the view of 
 separating the genuine Pythagorean tradition from its 
 later accretions, to a much more rigorous critical analysis 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 259 
 
 than has yet been applied. And for a third, I agree 
 so thoroughly with Professor "Burnet's treatment of 
 Pythagoreanism in the new edition of his book on Early 
 Greek Philosophy that I have nothing to add to it or to 
 take away from it in any essential point. But there is one 
 thing which may be said in bringing the present Essay to 
 a close. Whenever we come across elBr) in Pythagorean 
 documents, new or old, it is in connection with the doctrine 
 that " numbers are the stuff of which things are made " ; 
 the et&ea are effiea api0fi&v. This seems to me to 
 establish Professor Burnet's main contention that the use 
 of regular geometrical patterns for the exhibition of the 
 laws of series with which we are so familiar from the 
 writings of Platonists and Neo-Pythagoreans of the earliest 
 centuries A.D., is a piece of old Pythagorean symbolism 
 which probably goes back to Pythagoras himself. 
 
 Things " are " numbers, then, because they are geometrical 
 figures, and a geometrical figure is precisely an arrangement 
 ■of units or dots. I do not argue the case, because I think it 
 superfluous to repeat what I regard as work already definitely 
 achieved. But I want to point out that the result throws 
 a great deal of light on Plato's language about the e*8o? as 
 something " separate from," or " transcendent of," the things 
 which " participate in it." There is a particular branch 
 •of the theory of numerical series which to this day 
 retains in our text-books on Algebra a name which takes 
 tis back to the Pythagorean and Platonic theories discussed 
 by Aristotle. I mean the doctrine of the so-called 
 " figurate numbers " — the very name of which only requires 
 to be translated into Greek to show that they are no other 
 than the elS^nKol apiOfioi of the Metaphysics. The " figurate 
 numbers " are series of integers which have the peculiarity 
 that each term of such an infinite series can be represented 
 by a regular geometrical pattern, an equilateral triangle, a 
 square, a regular polygon, or one of the regular solids. 
 Their algebraical character is given by the statement that 
 the successive numbers of such a series are the sums 'of 
 1, 2, 3 . . . n . . ., terms of an arithmetical progression 
 
260 VAEIA SOCEATICA 
 
 with 1 as its first term. According as the constant difference 
 
 between the successive terms of the progression is 1, 2, 3 
 
 . . . m . . ., the " pattern " of the resultant series of 
 
 "figurate" numbers is an equilateral triangle, a square, a 
 
 regular pentagon ... Or, to give the general rule for the 
 
 construction of such "figurate series," the »th term of the 
 
 „ , , ■ , .n (n - I) (m - 2) 
 series of wi-agonal numbers is always n + — ^ ', 
 
 a formula which is easily deducible from the account of the 
 "figurate numbers" given by Theon of Smyrna, pp. 36-41 
 (ed. Hiller). 1 
 
 Thus, to take the simplest examples. If we take the 
 " triangular numbers," for which the constant difference of 
 the generating arithmetical progression is 1, we get as 
 our " triangles " the sums of the successive terms of the 
 progression 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 . . . The " triangles " are 
 therefore the series 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21 . . . Every 
 term of this series can be exhibited geometrically as an 
 .equilateral triangle, thus — 
 
 " " , and so on without end. 
 
 Or again, taking 2 as constant difference, the generating 
 progression becomes 1, 3, 5, 7> 9 . . ., and the series 
 resulting from the sums of its successive numbers is 1, 4, 9,. 
 16, 25 . . . And every term of this series can be exhibited 
 as a "square." 
 
 Now I will not waste the reader's time by the reproduc- 
 tion of the evidence already adduced by Professor Burnet 
 to show that the representation of numerical series in this 
 way by " patterns " or e'iSea belongs to the earliest times of 
 Pythagorean mathematics, and that the investigation of the 
 special peculiarities of the simpler "figurate" series had 
 been successfully prosecuted during, if not before, the fifth 
 century. I will merely add to what Professor Burnet has 
 adduced two remarks. The first is that we have a striking 
 illustration of the antiquity of this way of studying 
 
 1 To secure simplicity I consider in this sentence only the case of 
 numbers whose "pattern" is a plane "figure." 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 26 L 
 
 geometrical figures as patterns which symbolise arithmetical 
 truths in the fact that, down to N«o-Pythagorean times, the 
 technical name for the successive terms of the arithmetical 
 progression by which a " figurate series " is generated was 
 ryptbfioves. Thus the series of the natural integers were the 
 ". gnomons " of the " triangles," that of the odd integers, 
 1, 3, 5, 7 . . ., the "gnomons " of the " squares," and so on. 
 Professor Burnet has shown how the use of the name may 
 have arisen from special attention to the series of " squares," 
 in which the term added to each "square" to obtain the 
 next has exactly the pattern =0 of the astronomical yvco/j.a>v 
 or "pointer." What I want to point out is that, in 
 practice, the name was given not only to the terms of the 
 progression of odd integers, but to those of any progression 
 which generates a " figurate " number, so that the lexicon is 
 only partly correct when it gives "odd number" as the 
 meaning of yvcofimv in arithmetic. The precise definition 
 of a yvm/Mov has fortunately been preserved by Iamblichus 
 in his Introduction to Nicomachus (p. 58. 19 Pistelli), and it 
 is this : o avfyfrucos e/edarov eiBov; t5>v woXvymvav Kara 
 •wpoadkaiv to avrb etSo? Sia^>v\a,TTtov, " the number which 
 by addition increases the same pattern of polygonal number, 
 while preserving that pattern, unchanged." 1 That this 
 definition is old, and not the invention of a Neo-Pythagorean, 
 is manifest from the mere fact that in the later terminology 
 the recognised technical name for a geometrical " pattern " 
 or figure is not etSos but a-^ijfia. Thus in the text of 
 Nicomachus the very patterns we are considering are 
 
 1 Of. Theo Smyrnaeus (Hiller 37. 11) rdi/res Si oi £(pe%TJs apiS/iol, iirayev- 
 v&vres rpiyi&vovs 1) Terpayiivom 1) TroXifyiicous, yvii/wves KaKoOvrai. In point 
 of fact, the generating' progressions of the " polygonal numbers " consist 
 alternately of alternately odd and even terms (when the fixed difference; of 
 the progression is odd), and of odd terms only (when the -fixed difference is 
 even). It might he said that the name yviinwv itself was clearly given, in the 
 first instance, to the terms of the progression generating the "square 
 numbers," which are all odd, but the extension to the case of the alternately 
 odd and even natural integers which form the generating progression of the 
 "triangles" must be as old as Pythagoras himself, since it was obviously 
 from a study of the triangular numbers that he discovered that 10 is the 
 TeTpaicrh par eminence, the " triangle " of the first four integers. 
 
262 VAEIA SOCKATICA 
 
 regularly called ayr\p,a,Ta, the exhibition of the " pattern " 
 corresponding to a given number is tr^fiaToypa^ia, and 
 the drawing of the diagram is aj^fiari^eiv. On the other 
 hand, the very same things are called by Archytas (Fr. 4, 
 Diels) e'i&ea in a passage where he is expressly insisting 
 upon the priority of \oyicmica, arithmetic, over yea> fierpia. 
 a i/cXeiTrei ab a yem/ierpia icaX airohel^ia'i a XoryiaTUch eVt- 
 re\el icai 6/jl&<s, el p,ev elBeeov rea irpwyfiareia, ical ra irepX 
 Tot? e'ihetnv, where the meaning seems clearly to be that, 
 where geometry fails us, Xoyia-riKa establishes the results 
 which have to do with the properties (av/ifiefiriicoTa) of the 
 elSea, " patterns," if there really is a knowledge about such 
 "patterns" at all. So the pre-Christian forger of the 
 fragments of Philolaus still knows (Fr. 5, Diels) that the 
 proper name for the " patterns of number " is elSt}, which 
 is also the term regularly used by Aristotle in speaking 
 of them. My other remark is one which is perhaps not 
 capable of direct proof. It is still a disputed question 
 exactly what part Pythagoras played in the discovery of i. 47, 
 except that he is known not to have formulated the general 
 geometrical proof which we find in Euclid. But if we 
 ponder over the statements of Proclus in his commentary 
 on the proposition, we shall, I think, regard it as probable 
 that Pythagoras approached the whole subject as a problem 
 in arithmetic. Por Proclus (Friedlein 428) definitely 
 ascribes to Pythagoras the solution of the problem, " given 
 an odd integer a to find two integers b, e such that 
 a 2 + b 2 = <?." The solution for the case in which the given 
 a is even he ascribes to Plato. Since Proclus had the work 
 of Eudemus to draw upon, he is not likely to have been 
 mistaken on a point of this sort, and his narrative (which is 
 repeated by the scholiast on i. 47) strongly suggests that 
 the whole problem was considered by Pythagoras from this 
 arithmetical point of view. 
 
 The application with a view to which I have made these 
 remarks is an obvious one. The conception that what we 
 call a " geometrical figure " is properly an etSo? apidfiov, a 
 pattern made up of units or points (the Pythagoreans, we 
 
THE WOEDS EIAOS, IAEA 263 
 
 must remember, did not distinguish the two, but called the 
 point and the number 1 indifferently fiovd<s — the definition 
 of the point as fiovas eypva-a deaiv, " a number 1 having 
 position," which Proclus calls Pythagorean, amounts to an 
 identification rather than to a discrimination), seems to give 
 us the key to the view that the whole Ko<rfio<; is dpi0fio<;, or, 
 as Aristotle puts it, that " arithmetical number " is the stuff 
 of which things are made. For, it is assumed, the Swa//et? 
 of all " things " are consequences of their geometrical form, 
 and a geometrical form such as the equilateral triangle is 
 simply the expression of the peculiar properties of the 
 terms of a series of numbers. We can represent 10 in all 
 sorts of ways (e.g. by a row of dots placed in a straight 
 line, by a rectangle with 5 dots in one side and 2 in the 
 other), but its proper form is a triangle. It is only when 
 we represent it as a triangle that we see by inspection 
 what Pythagoras regarded as the fundamental property of 
 10, that it is the sum of the four first natural integers. 
 In other words, the " patterns '' of the figurate numbers 
 (and every integer belongs to some figurate series) 
 exhibit a law of formation in virtue of which we can 
 construct at will an interminable series of terms all 
 exhibiting one and the same law of formation. 10, for 
 instance, is a triangle, in Plato's language it " partakes of 
 triangularity" ; but 10 is not "the triangle," for it is only 
 one of an interminable series of " triangular numbers " all 
 obeying the same law of formation. Thus the " pattern " is 
 at once "in" the individual terms and beyond them. If 
 we extend this conception beyond the case of numbers and 
 their symbolisation by diagrams, it leads to the view that 
 the " common nature " exhibited by the members of a 
 " class " (to pass over, for our purposes, the modern difficulties 
 which have been raised against admitting the notion of 
 " class " as a logical ultimate) can at once be thought of as 
 something which is "in them," and yet as an individual 
 entity which is ev iirl t&v ttoWcov, in a word as a Platonic 
 ISea. Light is thrown too on the problem which has 
 puzzled so many students why Aristotle should speak of 
 
264 VARIA SOCKATICA 
 
 the Platonic eiBrj as " numbers." The e'tSri ended as numbers, 
 because they had from the first begun as numbers, or laws 
 of number. Just a couple of examples in illustration of 
 this point. The account of the " elements " which Plato 
 puts into the mouth of Timaeus is obviously in keeping 
 with his character as a Pythagorean of the late fifth century, 
 who, as his medical views show, belongs to the sect who 
 tried to bring the new doctrine of Empedocles into harmony 
 with the inherited theories of the school. The "four 
 roots" are accepted, but their differences of quality are 
 traced back to their geometrical; structure. Their corpuscles 
 are .ultimately built up out of two different types of original 
 triangle. (Hence the nbn-Empedoclean doctrine that 
 there is only one of the "roots" which cannot be "trans- 
 muted" just because its ultimate geometrical structure 
 is unique.) Now we get the difficulty that . the corpuscles 
 of the roots correspond to four regular solids. But there is 
 a fifth regular solid, the sphere. Why then, we ask, does 
 not Plato, like Democritus, recognise the sphere as having 
 a corresponding corpuscle ? Why is nothing made of 
 spherical molecules ? I believe that the answer is that the 
 sphere cannot be constructed out of plane triangles, or, to put 
 the thing in the arithmetical way, " spherical numbers " are 
 not a series which can be generated by a progression, (A 
 "spherical" number was, in fact, one of which the third 
 power ends in the same digit as the original number — e.g. 
 4 or 9.) Hence, since the law of formation of " spherical " 
 numbers is of a different kind from those of the numbers 
 corresponding to the other regular solids, an entirely jiew 
 function has to be found for the " sphere." It is the shape 
 of the ovpavbs as a whole, not that of the corpuscles of any of 
 its members. A step farther along the same lines. Aristotle 
 (in Metaphysics M 6) is greatly puzzled by' the question 
 whether, if the e'tSr) are numbers, the units of each etSoi are 
 commensurable with all the rest, or only with the units in 
 the same «8o$, or whether one and the same eifio? may be 
 constituted by units which are incommensurable with .each 
 other. 
 
THE WOKDS EIA02, IAEA 265 
 
 It is only reasonable to assume that he is thinking of a 
 difficulty which had seemed to hin»to be actually involved 
 in the Platonic philosophy. We can hardly suppose that 
 he. is inventing gratuitous airopiat, for the mere pleasure of 
 doingso. If we turn to the physical theories of the Timaeus 
 we may possibly find the explanation. For -we are there 
 told that the two patterns on which the corpuscles of the 
 " elements " are built up are the isosceles right-angled triangle, 
 and the triangle! formed by drawing perpendiculars to the 
 sides of the equilateral triangle from the opposite angular 
 points. Now a triangle is completely determined in every- 
 thing but absolute magnitude when the relative lengths of 
 its sides are known. We may therefore regard a triangle 
 as a triplet constituted by the three numbers which express 
 the lengths of the sides when one of the sides is taken as 
 the unit of measurement. Thus regarded, Plato's two 
 ultimate - constructions can be expressed in terms of number 
 as the triplets (1, 1, */~2), the isosceles right-angled 
 triangle, and (1, ^/ 3, 2), the triangle obtained by the sub- 
 division of the equilateral. Since these numerical triplets are, 
 in. the end, the formative constituents of all physical reality, 
 they are of course elBr)TiKol apifffioL And since one of. the 
 elements of each etSo? is a surd, each etSo? is constituted by 
 units which are incommensurable with one another. While 
 since »J 2 has not to \f 3 the "proportion of one integer to 
 another," each ethos has a constituent which is incommensur- 
 able with any of the units of the other. Is it not likely that 
 it is this piece of mathematics which explains Aristotle's 
 apparently gratuitous airopla ? That he would be. struck by 
 it is all the more likely, since it is given, by Timaeus himself 
 as the reason for rejecting the old Milesian doctrine of the 
 convertibility of any "element" into any other to which 
 Aristotle clung, and which he could not have . renounced 
 without r the ruin of his own peculiar 1 theory about irpmrq 
 v\rj, according' to which whatever is actualised in the shape 
 of one of the "roots " is Bvvd/iet any one of the others. 
 
 Enough, however, of these matters which take us 
 
266 VAPJA SOCKATICA 
 
 definitely into the regions of " Platonism " proper, the 
 philosophic construction of Plato's later years. How much 
 of the doctrine of Timaeus is genuine fifth-century Pytha- 
 goreanism, and how much is the work of the Academy, it is 
 as yet premature to decide. But this much we may con- 
 fidently assert, that the remains of fifth-century science show 
 that there is no anachronism in Plato's assumption that 
 Socrates held a doctrine of eiBi) such as that expounded in 
 the Phaeclo and Republic, or even that he had, in early life,, 
 discussed its difficulties with Parmenides and Zeno. We 
 have found that the conception of a " real essence," and the 
 use of the names etoos, ISea, axfjfia, fiopcpi] to denote it, was 
 generally current before the end of the fifth century wher- 
 ever the influence of Pythagoreanism as modified hy the 
 speculation of Empedocles had made itself felt ; and to 
 suppose that the admirer of Philolaus, the intimate friend of 
 Cebes and Simmias and Phaedo and Echecrates, knew nothing 
 of such a doctrine is to commit a palpable absurdity* 
 Exactly what part Socrates played in the development from 
 Pythagoreanism and Eleaticism to Platonism we shall 
 probably never know, though I have tried to indicate a 
 conjecture about the matter. But one thing is certain,, 
 neither Plato nor Socrates invented the conception of the 
 eiBrj as the abiding reality in a world of illusions, and the 
 proper objects of knowledge. One might as well say that 
 Plato invented God when he wrote the Timaeus. %r\i ravra 
 Kovri<i olSev e£ otov ^dvrj. But one thing we may say 
 with a fair measure of assurance. Socrates, the more we 
 study him and his age, appears not merely as the continuator 
 of the religious side of Pythagoreanism, the Olympic contest 
 for eternal life against the world, the flesh and the devil,, 
 but also as its continuator on the more purely speculative 
 side as a searcher after the " real essences " and " causes " 
 of the world-order. His identification of " the cause " with 
 " the good " is, in fact, the proclamation of the lines on 
 which all legitimate philosophy has ever since had to pro- 
 ceed. To borrow an image of his own, he was for all 
 mankind the irpo/iVTiarpia of the lepb? ydfios between genuine 
 
THE WORDS EIAOS, IAEA 267 
 
 knowledge and true faith, a marriage which cannot be 
 dissolved except by the destruction* of <f>i\o<ro<f>ia. Whom 
 God has joined, let no man put asunder. 1 
 
 1 Possibly the work of Anaximenes (the so-called Rhetoric to Alexander) 
 should have been included among the compositions examined in this Essay. 
 It has been omitted on the ground that it seems to add nothing to our know- 
 ledge of the history of the terms etSos, ISia, beyond what we have already 
 learned from Isocrates. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 I have once more to confess at the end of this series of 
 studies, as I confessed at the Beginning, that it forms only 
 the first half of a plan the complete execution of which has 
 been, as I trust, only very temporarily interrupted. What 
 I hope from the complete realisation of the whole, should 
 its results find acceptance, is the dissipation of the clouds 
 of mystery which, as recent historians, such as Max Wundt 
 in Germany and G. Zuccante in Italy, who lack the courage 
 to break fully with modern fashions and to return to the 
 Academic tradition, openly confess, veils from us what is 
 admittedly the most striking personality in the history of 
 Greek thought. Our task, be our success in it what it 
 may, is to restore Socrates to his rightful place as the first 
 thoroughly intelligible figure in the great line of succession 
 by which Greek Philosophy is indissolubly linked with 
 Christianity on the one side and modern science on the 
 other. It must be honestly said that even the fullest 
 execution of such a plan only rolls the darkness a little 
 farther back. Here, as in all our researches, omnia abeunt 
 in mysterium. Behind Socrates, if the main ideas of these 
 studies contain substantial truth, we dimly discern the 
 half-obliterated features of Pythagoras of Samos, and behind 
 Pythagoras we can only just descry the mists which 
 enclose whatever may be hidden under the name of Orpheus. 
 And behind Orpheus, for us at least, there is only the 
 impenetrable night. But it is a night in which, as we can 
 hardly fail to recognise, the Church, the University, the 
 organisation of science, all have their remote and unknown 
 
 268 
 
EPILOGUE 269 
 
 beginnings. They are all " houses " of the soul that, by what 
 devious route soever, has come bj»the faith that she is a 
 pilgrim to a country that does not appear, a creature made 
 to seek not the things which are seen but the things which 
 are eternal. And this is why I have chosen as a second 
 motto for these pages the Scriptural command to lay fast 
 hold on eternal life. Philosophy, as the history of her name 
 shows, began as the quest for the road that leads to the city 
 of God, and she has never numbered many true lovers among 
 those who " forget the way." It was precisely because it held 
 out the prospect of the life everlasting to be won by converse 
 with unseen things that Platonism, even apart from its 
 baptism into Christ, had inherent strength to outlast all the 
 other " philosophies," and to grow up again into a new and 
 profound metaphysic and ethics in the evil times of the 
 third century of our era when the whole system of visible 
 things seemed sinking into the " gulf of Non-being " before 
 men's eyes. For if the things which are seen are shaken, 
 it is that the things which are not seen may remain. And, 
 if I am not merely mistaken in my main contention, no 
 small part of this inextinguishable vitality which has made 
 the Platonic Philosophy, in the favourite image of Plotinus, 
 a spring of the water of life in the deserts of " becoming," 
 is directly due to the teaching as much as to the life of 
 the thinker whose last word was the message of immortal 
 hope, xaXbv to a&Xov km, f) e\7Tt? fieydXrj. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. 
 

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