Initiation into Philosophy | Page 5

them by reaction, because
evidently their universal scepticism had terrified him; but nevertheless
he was their direct outcome, for like them he was extremely mistrustful
of the old vast systems of philosophy, and to those men who pretended
to know everything he opposed a phrase which is probably authentic: "I
know that I know nothing;" for, like the Sophists, he wished to recall
philosophy to earth from heaven, namely from metaphysics to the study
of man, and nothing else; for, like the Sophists, he confined and limited
the field with a kind of severe and imperious modesty which was none
the less contemptuous of the audacious; for, finally, like the Sophists,
but in this highly analogous to many philosophers preceding the
Sophists, he had but a very moderate and mitigated respect for the
religion of his fellow-citizens.
According to what we know of Socrates from Xenophon,
unquestionably the least imaginative of his disciples, Socrates, like the
Sophists, reduced philosophy to the study of man; but his great and
incomparable originality lay in the fact that whereas the Sophists
wished man to study himself in order to be happy, Socrates wished him
to study himself in order to be moral, honest, and just, without any
regard to happiness. For Socrates, everything had to tend towards
morality, to contribute to it, and to be subordinated to it as the goal and
as the final aim. He applied himself unceasingly, relates Xenophon, to

examine and to determine what is good and evil, just and unjust, wise
and foolish, brave and cowardly, etc. He incessantly applied himself,
relates Aristotle--and therein he was as much a true professor of
rhetoric as of morality--thoroughly to define and carefully to specify
the meaning of words in order not to be put off with vague terms which
are illusions of thought, and in order to discipline his mind rigorously
so as to make it an organ for the ascertainment of truth.
HIS METHOD.--He had dialectical methods, "the art of conferring," as
Montaigne called it, more or less happy, which he had probably
borrowed from the Sophists, that contributed to cause him to be
considered one of them, and exercised a wide vogue long after him. He
"delivered men's minds," as he himself said--that is, he believed, or
affected to believe, that the verities are in a latent state in all minds, and
that it needed only patience, dexterity, and skillful investigation to
bring them to light. Elsewhere, he interrogated in a captious fashion in
order to set the interlocutor in contradiction to himself and to make him
confess that he had said what he had not thought he had said, agreed to
what he had not believed he had agreed to; and he triumphed
maliciously over such confusions. In short, he seems to have been a
witty and teasing Franklin, and to have taught true wisdom by laughing
at everyone. Folk never like to be ridiculed, and no doubt the
recollection of these ironies had much to do with the iniquitous
judgment which condemned him, and which he seems to have
challenged up to the last.
HIS INFLUENCE.--His influence was infinite. It is from him that
morality became the end itself, the last and supreme end of all
philosophy--the reason of philosophy; and, as was observed by
Nietzsche, the Circe of philosophers, who enchants them, who dictates
to them beforehand, or who modifies their systems in advance by
terrifying them as to what their systems may contain irreverent towards
itself or dangerous in relation to it. From Socrates to Kant and thence
onward, morality has been the Circe of philosophers, and morality is, as
it were, the spiritual daughter of Socrates. On the other hand, his
influence was terrible for the religion of antiquity because it directed
the mind towards the idea that morality is the sole object worthy of

knowledge, and that the ancient religions were immoral, or of such a
dubious morality as to deserve the desertion and scorn of honest men.
Christianity fought paganism with the arguments of the disciples of
Socrates--with Socratic arguments; modern philosophies and creeds are
all impregnated with Socraticism. When it was observed that the
Sophists form the most important epoch in the history of ancient
philosophy, it was because they taught Socrates to seek a philosophy
which was entirely human and preoccupied solely with the happiness of
man. This led a great mind, and in his track other very great minds, to
direct all philosophy, and even all human science, towards the
investigation of goodness, goodness being regarded as the condition of
happiness.


CHAPTER IV
PLATO
Plato, like Socrates, is Pre-eminently a Moralist, but he reverts to
General Consideration of the Universe and Deals with Politics and
Legislation.
PLATO A DISCIPLE OF SOCRATES.--Plato, like Xenophon, was a
pupil of Socrates,