Representative Men: Seven Lectures
of virtue is not to be arrived at, except through direct contemplation
of the divine essence. Courage, then, for "the persuasion that we must
search that which we do not know, will render us, beyond comparison,
better, braver, and more industrious, than if we thought it impossible
to discover what we do not know, and useless to search for it." He
secures a position not to be commanded, by his passion for reality;
valuing philosophy only as it is the pleasure of conversing with real
being.
Thus, full of the genius of Europe, he said, "Culture." He saw the
institutions of Sparta, and recognized more genially, one would say,
than any since, the hope of education. He delighted in every
accomplishment, in every graceful and useful and truthful performance;
above all, in the splendors of genius and intellectual achievement.
"The whole of life, O Socrates," said Glauco, "is, with the wise the
measure of hearing such discourses as these." What a price he sets on
the feats of talent, on the powers of Pericles, of Isocrates, of
Parmenides! What price, above price on the talents themselves! He
called the several faculties, gods, in his beautiful personation. What
value he gives to the art of gymnastics in education; what to geometry;
what to music, what to astronomy, whose appeasing and medicinal power
he celebrates! In the Timseus, he indicates the highest employment of
the eyes. "By us it is asserted, that God invented and bestowed sight
on us for this purpose,--that, on surveying the circles of intelligence
in the heavens, we might properly employ those of our own minds, which,
though disturbed when compared with the others that are uniform, are
still allied to their circulations; and that, having thus learned, and
being naturally possessed of a correct reasoning faculty, we might,
by imitating the uniform revolutions of divinity, set right our own
wanderings and blunders." And in the Republic,--"By each of these
disciplines, a certain organ of the soul is both purified and
reanimated, which is blinded and buried by studies of another kind;
an organ better worth saving than ten thousand eyes, since truth is
perceived by this alone."
He said, Culture; but he first admitted its basis, and gave immeasurably
the first place to advantages of nature. His patrician tastes laid
stress on the distinctions of birth. In the doctrine of the organic
character and disposition is the origin of caste. "Such as were fit
to govern, into their composition the informing Deity mingled gold:
into the military, silver; iron and brass for husbandmen and
artificers." The East confirms itself, in all ages, in this faith. The
Koran is explicit on this point of caste. "Men have their metal, as
of gold and silver. Those of you who were the worthy ones in the state
of ignorance, will be the worthy ones in the state of faith, as soon
as you embrace it." Plato was not less firm. "Of the five orders of
things, only four can be taught in the generality of men." In the
Republic, he insists on the temperaments of the youth, as the first
of the first.
A happier example of the stress laid on nature, is in the dialogue
with the young Theages, who wishes to receive lessons from Socrates.
Socrates declares that, if some have grown wise by associating with
him, no thanks are due to him; but, simply, whilst they were with him,
they grew wise, not because of him; he pretends not to know the way
of it. "It is adverse to many, nor can those be benefited by associating
with me, whom the Daemons oppose, so that it is not possible for me
to live with these. With many, however, he does not prevent me from
conversing, who yet are not at all benefited by associating with me.
Such, O Theages, is the association with me; for, if it pleases the
God, you will make great and rapid proficiency: you will not, if he
does not please. Judge whether it is not safer to be instructed by
some one of those who have power over the benefit which they impart
to men, than by me, who benefit or not, just as it may happen." As if
he had said, "I have no system. I cannot be answerable for you. You
will be what you must. If there is love between us, inconceivably
delicious and profitable will our intercourse be; if not, your time
is lost, and you will only annoy me. I shall seem to you stupid, and
the reputation I have, false. Quite above us, beyond the will of you
or me, is this secret affinity or repulsion laid. All my good is
magnetic, and I educate, not by lessons, but by going about my
business."
He said, Culture; he said, Nature; and he failed not to add, "There
is also the divine." There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly
tends to convert itself into a power, and organizes a huge
instrumentality of means. Plato, lover of limits, loved the illimitable,
saw the enlargement and nobility which come from truth itself, and
good itself, and attempted, as if on the part of the human intellect,
once for all, to do it adequate homage,--homage fit for the immense
soul to receive, and yet homage becoming the intellect to render. He
said, then, "Our faculties run out into infinity, and return to us
thence. We can define but a little way; but here is a fact which will
not be skipped, and which to shut our eyes upon is suicide. All things
are in a scale; and, begin where we will, ascend and ascend. All things
are symbolical; and what we call results are beginnings."
A key to the method and completeness of Plato is his twice bisected
line. After he has illustrated the relation between the absolute good
and true, and the forms of the intelligible world, he says:--"Let there
be a line cut in two, unequal parts. Cut again each of these two
parts,--one representing the visible, the other the intelligible
world,--and these two new sections, representing the bright part and
the dark part of these worlds, you will have, for one of the sections
of the visible world,--images, that is, both shadows and reflections;
for the other section, the objects of these images,-that is, plants,
animals, and the works of art and nature. Then divide the intelligible
world in like manner; the one section will be of opinions and
hypotheses, and the other section, of truths." To these four sections,
the four operations of the soul correspond,--conjecture, faith,
understanding, reason. As every pool reflects the image of the sun,
so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the
supreme Good. The universe is perforated by a million channels for his
activity. All things mount and mount.
All his thought has this ascension; in Phaedrus, teaching that "beauty
is the most lovely of all things, exciting hilarity, and shedding
desire and confidence through the universe, wherever it enters; and
it enters, in some degree, into all things; but that there is another,
which is as much more beautiful than beauty, as beauty is than chaos;
namely, wisdom, which our wonderful organ of sight cannot reach unto,
but which, could it be seen, would ravish us with its perfect reality."
He has the same regard to it as the source of excellence in works of
art. "When an artificer, in the fabrication of any work, looks to that
which always subsists according to the same; and, employing a model
of this kind, expresses its idea and power in his work; it must follow,
that his production should be beautiful. But when he beholds that which
is born and dies, it will be far from beautiful."
Thus ever: the Banquet is a teaching in the same spirit, familiar now
to all the poetry, and to all the sermons of the world, that the love
of the sexes is initial; and symbolizes, at a distance, the passion
of the soul for that immense lake of beauty it exists to seek. This
faith in the Divinity is never out of mind, and constitutes the
limitation of all his dogmas. Body cannot teach wisdom;--God only. In
the same mind, he constantly affirms that virtue cannot be taught;
that it is not a science, but an inspiration; that the greatest goods
are produced to us through mania, and are assigned to us by a divine
gift.
This leads me to that central figure, which he has established in his
Academy, as the organ through which every considered opinion shall be
announced, and whose biography he has likewise so labored, that the
historic facts are lost in the light of Plato's mind. Socrates and
Plato are the double star, which the most powerful instruments will
not entirely separate. Socrates, again, in his traits and genius, is
the best example of that synthesis which constitutes Plato's
extraordinary power. Socrates, a man of humble stem, but honest enough;
of the commonest history; of a personal homeliness so remarkable, as
to be a cause of wit in others,--the rather that his broad good nature
and exquisite taste for a joke invited the sally, which was sure to
be paid. The players personated him on the stage; the potters copied
his ugly face on their stone jugs. He was a cool fellow, adding to his
humor a perfect temper, and a knowledge of his man, be he who he might
whom he talked with, which laid the companion open to certain defeat
in any debate,--and in debate he immoderately delighted. The young men
are prodigiously fond of him, and invite him to their feasts, whither
he goes for conversation. He can drink, too; has the strongest head
in Athens; and, after leaving the whole party under the table, goes
away, as if nothing had happened, to begin new dialogues with somebody
that is sober. In short, he was what our country-people call an old
one.
He affected a good many citizen-like tastes, was monstrously fond of
Athens, hated trees, never willingly went beyond the walls, knew the
old characters, valued the bores and philistines, thought everything
in Athens a little better than anything in any other place. He was
plain as a Quaker in habit and speech, affected low phrases, and
illustrations from cocks and quails, soup-pans and sycamore-spoons,
grooms and farriers, and unnameable offices,--especially if he talked
with any superfine person. He had a Franklin-like wisdom. Thus, he
showed one who was afraid to go on foot to Olympia, that it was no
more than his daily walk within doors, if continuously extended, would
easily reach.
Plain old uncle as he was, with his great ears,--an immense talker,--the
rumor ran, that, on one or two occasions, in the war with Boeotia, he
had shown a determination which had covered the retreat of a troop;
and there was some story that, under cover of folly, he had, in the
city government, when one day he chanced to hold a seat there, evinced
a courage in opposing singly the popular voice, which had well-nigh
ruined him. He is very poor; but then he is hardy as a soldier, and
can live on a few olives; usually, in the strictest sense, on bread
and water, except when entertained by his friends. His necessary
expenses were exceedingly small, and no one could live as he did. He
wore no undergarment; his upper garment was the same for summer and
winter; and he went barefooted; and it is said that, to procure the
pleasure, which he loves, of talking at his ease all day with the most
elegant and cultivated young men, he will now and then return to his
shop, and carve statues, good or bad, for sale. However that be, it
is certain that he had grown to delight in nothing else than this
conversation; and that, under his hypocritical pretense of knowing
nothing, he attacks and brings down all the fine speakers, all the
fine philosophers of Athens, whether natives, or strangers from Asia
Minor and the islands. Nobody can refuse to talk with him, he is so
honest, and really curious to know; a man who was willingly confuted,
if he did not speak the truth, and who willingly confuted others,
asserting what was false; and not less pleased when confuted than when