Meno
mind and matter, reunites them by his preconcerted harmony (compare
again Phaedrus). To him all the particles of matter are living beings
which reflect on one another, and in the least of them the whole is
contained. Here we catch a reminiscence both of the omoiomere, or
similar particles of Anaxagoras, and of the world-animal of the Timaeus.
In Bacon and Locke we have another development in which the mind of
man is supposed to receive knowledge by a new method and to work by
observation and experience. But we may remark that it is the idea
of experience, rather than experience itself, with which the mind is
filled. It is a symbol of knowledge rather than the reality which is
vouchsafed to us. The Organon of Bacon is not much nearer to actual
facts than the Organon of Aristotle or the Platonic idea of good. Many
of the old rags and ribbons which defaced the garment of philosophy have
been stripped off, but some of them still adhere. A crude conception of
the ideas of Plato survives in the 'forms' of Bacon. And on the other
hand, there are many passages of Plato in which the importance of the
investigation of facts is as much insisted upon as by Bacon. Both are
almost equally superior to the illusions of language, and are constantly
crying out against them, as against other idols.
Locke cannot be truly regarded as the author of sensationalism any more
than of idealism. His system is based upon experience, but with him
experience includes reflection as well as sense. His analysis and
construction of ideas has no foundation in fact; it is only the
dialectic of the mind 'talking to herself.' The philosophy of Berkeley
is but the transposition of two words. For objects of sense he would
substitute sensations. He imagines himself to have changed the relation
of the human mind towards God and nature; they remain the same as
before, though he has drawn the imaginary line by which they are divided
at a different point. He has annihilated the outward world, but it
instantly reappears governed by the same laws and described under the
same names.
A like remark applies to David Hume, of whose philosophy the central
principle is the denial of the relation of cause and effect. He would
deprive men of a familiar term which they can ill afford to lose; but
he seems not to have observed that this alteration is merely verbal and
does not in any degree affect the nature of things. Still less did he
remark that he was arguing from the necessary imperfection of language
against the most certain facts. And here, again, we may find a parallel
with the ancients. He goes beyond facts in his scepticism, as they did
in their idealism. Like the ancient Sophists, he relegates the more
important principles of ethics to custom and probability. But crude and
unmeaning as this philosophy is, it exercised a great influence on his
successors, not unlike that which Locke exercised upon Berkeley and
Berkeley upon Hume himself. All three were both sceptical and ideal in
almost equal degrees. Neither they nor their predecessors had any true
conception of language or of the history of philosophy. Hume's
paradox has been forgotten by the world, and did not any more than the
scepticism of the ancients require to be seriously refuted. Like some
other philosophical paradoxes, it would have been better left to die
out. It certainly could not be refuted by a philosophy such as Kant's,
in which, no less than in the previously mentioned systems, the history
of the human mind and the nature of language are almost wholly ignored,
and the certainty of objective knowledge is transferred to the subject;
while absolute truth is reduced to a figment, more abstract and narrow
than Plato's ideas, of 'thing in itself,' to which, if we reason
strictly, no predicate can be applied.
The question which Plato has raised respecting the origin and nature of
ideas belongs to the infancy of philosophy; in modern times it would no
longer be asked. Their origin is only their history, so far as we know
it; there can be no other. We may trace them in language, in philosophy,
in mythology, in poetry, but we cannot argue a priori about them. We may
attempt to shake them off, but they are always returning, and in every
sphere of science and human action are tending to go beyond facts. They
are thought to be innate, because they have been familiar to us all our
lives, and we can no longer dismiss them from our mind. Many of them
express relations of terms to which nothing exactly or nothing at all in
rerum natura corresponds. We are not such free agents in the use of
them as we sometimes imagine. Fixed ideas have taken the most complete
possession of some thinkers who have been most determined to renounce
them, and have been vehemently affirmed when they could be least
explained and were incapable of proof. The world has often been led away
by a word to which no distinct meaning could be attached. Abstractions
such as 'authority,' 'equality,' 'utility,' 'liberty,' 'pleasure,'
'experience,' 'consciousness,' 'chance,' 'substance,' 'matter,' 'atom,'
and a heap of other metaphysical and theological terms, are the source
of quite as much error and illusion and have as little relation
to actual facts as the ideas of Plato. Few students of theology or
philosophy have sufficiently reflected how quickly the bloom of a
philosophy passes away; or how hard it is for one age to understand the
writings of another; or how nice a judgment is required of those who are
seeking to express the philosophy of one age in the terms of another.
The 'eternal truths' of which metaphysicians speak have hardly ever
lasted more than a generation. In our own day schools or systems of
philosophy which have once been famous have died before the founders of
them. We are still, as in Plato's age, groping about for a new method
more comprehensive than any of those which now prevail; and also more
permanent. And we seem to see at a distance the promise of such a
method, which can hardly be any other than the method of idealized
experience, having roots which strike far down into the history of
philosophy. It is a method which does not divorce the present from the
past, or the part from the whole, or the abstract from the concrete,
or theory from fact, or the divine from the human, or one science
from another, but labours to connect them. Along such a road we have
proceeded a few steps, sufficient, perhaps, to make us reflect on the
want of method which prevails in our own day. In another age, all the
branches of knowledge, whether relating to God or man or nature, will
become the knowledge of 'the revelation of a single science' (Symp.),
and all things, like the stars in heaven, will shed their light upon one
another.
MENO
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Meno, Socrates, A Slave of Meno (Boy), Anytus.
MENO: Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching
or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor by practice, then whether
it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?
SOCRATES: O Meno, there was a time when the Thessalians were famous
among the other Hellenes only for their riches and their riding; but
now, if I am not mistaken, they are equally famous for their wisdom,
especially at Larisa, which is the native city of your friend
Aristippus. And this is Gorgias' doing; for when he came there, the
flower of the Aleuadae, among them your admirer Aristippus, and the
other chiefs of the Thessalians, fell in love with his wisdom. And he
has taught you the habit of answering questions in a grand and bold
style, which becomes those who know, and is the style in which he
himself answers all comers; and any Hellene who likes may ask him
anything. How different is our lot! my dear Meno. Here at Athens there
is a dearth of the commodity, and all wisdom seems to have emigrated
from us to you. I am certain that if you were to ask any Athenian
whether virtue was natural or acquired, he would laugh in your face,
and say: 'Stranger, you have far too good an opinion of me, if you think
that I can answer your question. For I literally do not know what virtue
is, and much less whether it is acquired by teaching or not.' And I
myself, Meno, living as I do in this region of poverty, am as poor as
the rest of the world; and I confess with shame that I know literally
nothing about virtue; and when I do not know the 'quid' of anything how
can I know the 'quale'? How, if I knew nothing at all of Meno, could
I tell if he was fair, or the opposite of fair; rich and noble, or the
reverse of rich and noble? Do you think that I could?
MENO: No, indeed. But are you in earnest, Socrates, in saying that you
do not know what virtue is? And am I to carry back this report of you to
Thessaly?
SOCRATES: Not only that, my dear boy, but you may say further that I
have never known of any one else who did, in my judgment.
MENO: Then you have never met Gorgias when he was at Athens?
SOCRATES: Yes, I have.
MENO: And did you not think that he knew?
SOCRATES: I have not a good memory, Meno, and therefore I cannot now
tell what I thought of him at the time. And I dare say that he did know,
and that you know what he said: please, therefore, to remind me of what
he said; or, if you would rather, tell me your own view; for I suspect
that you and he think much alike.
MENO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then as he is not here, never mind him, and do you tell me:
By the gods, Meno, be generous, and tell me what you say that virtue is;
for I shall be truly delighted to find that I have been mistaken, and
that you and Gorgias do really have this knowledge; although I have been
just saying that I have never found anybody who had.
MENO: There will be no difficulty, Socrates, in answering your question.
Let us take first the virtue of a man--he should know how to administer
the state, and in the administration of it to benefit his friends
and harm his enemies; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm
himself. A woman's virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also
be easily described: her duty is to order her house, and keep what is
indoors, and obey her husband. Every age, every condition of life, young
or old, male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there are
virtues numberless, and no lack of definitions of them; for virtue is
relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. And
the same may be said of vice, Socrates (Compare Arist. Pol.).
SOCRATES: How fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue, you
present me with a swarm of them (Compare Theaet.), which are in your
keeping. Suppose that I carry on the figure of the swarm, and ask of
you, What is the nature of the bee? and you answer that there are many
kinds of bees, and I reply: But do bees differ as bees, because there
are many and different kinds of them; or are they not rather to be
distinguished by some other quality, as for example beauty, size, or
shape? How would you answer me?
MENO: I should answer that bees do not differ from one another, as bees.
SOCRATES: And if I went on to say: That is what I desire to know, Meno;
tell me what is the quality in which they do not differ, but are all
alike;--would you be able to answer?
MENO: I should.
SOCRATES: And so of the virtues, however many and different they may be,
they have all a common nature which makes them virtues; and on this he
who would answer the question, 'What is virtue?' would do well to have
his eye fixed: Do you understand?
MENO: I am beginning to understand; but I do not as yet take hold of the
question as I could wish.
SOCRATES: When you say, Meno, that there is one virtue of a man, another
of a woman, another of a child, and so on, does this apply only to