A belief is current, in accordance with views maintained concerning Socrates in speech and writing, and in either case conjecturally, that, however powerful he may have been in stimulating men to virtue as a theorist, he was incapable of acting as their guide himself. It would be well for those who adopt this view to weigh carefully not only what Socrates effected "by way of castigation" in cross- questioning whose who conceived themselves to be possessed of all knowledge, but also his everyday conversation with those who spent their time in close intercourse with himself. Having done this, let them decide whether he was incapable of making his companions better.
Al. "If any one believes that Socrates, as represented in certain dialogues (e.g. of Plato, Antisthenes, etc.) of an imaginarycharacter, was an adept ({protrepsasthai}) in the art of stimulating people to virtue negatively but scarcely the man to guide ({proagein}) his hearers on the true path himself." Cf. (Plat.) "Clitophon," 410 B; Cic. "de Or." I. xlvii. 204; Plut. "Mor." 798 B. See Grote, "Plato," iii. 21;K. Joel, op. cit. p. 51 foll.; Cf. below, IV. iii. 2.
I will first state what I once heard fall from his lips in a discussion with Aristodemus, "the little," as he was called, on the topic of divinity. Socrates had observed that Aristodemus neither sacrificed nor gave heed to divination, but on the contrary was disposed to ridicule those who did.
See Plat. "Symp." 173 B: "He was a little fellow who never wore any shoes, Aristodemus, of the deme of Cydathenaeum."--Jowett.
Or, "the divine element."
So tell me, Aristodemus (he begain), are there any human beings who have won your admiration for their wisdom?
Ar. There are.
Soc. Would you mention to us their names?
Ar. In the writings of epic poetry I have the greatest admiration for Homer. . . . And as a dithyrambic poet for Melanippides. I admire also Sophocles as a tragedian, Polycleitus as a sculptor, and Zeuxis as a painter.
Melanippides, 430 B.C. See Cobet, "Pros. Xen." s.n.
Soc. Which would you consider the more worthy of admiration, a fashioner of senseless images devoid of motion or one who could fashion living creatures endowed with understanding and activity?
Ar. Decidedly the latter, provided his living creatures owed their birth to design and were not the offspring of some chance.
Soc. But now if you had two sorts of things, the one of which presents no clue as to what it is for, and the other is obviously for some useful purpose--which would you judge to be the result of chance, which of design?
Ar. Clearly that which is produced for some useful end is the work of design.
Soc. Does it not strike you then that he who made man from the beginning did for some useful end furnish him with his several senses-- giving him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch the intonations of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours if nostrils had not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet things and pungent, and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a tongue beenfashioned in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides all this, do you not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this closing of the delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding doors, which, when there is need to use them for any purpose, can be thrown wide open and firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, this planting of the eyelashes as a protecting screen? this coping of the region above the eyes with cornice-work of eyebrow so that no drop of sweat fall from the head and injure them? again this readiness of the ear to catch all sounds and yet not to be surcharged? this capacity of the front teeth of all animals to cut and of the "grinders" to receive the food and reduce it to pulp? the position of the mouth again, close to the eyes and nostrils as a portal of ingress for all the creature's supplies? and lastly, seeing that matter passing out of the body is unpleasant, this hindward direction of the passages, and their removal to a distance from the avenues of sense? I ask you, when you see all these things constructed with such show of foresight can you doubt whether they are products of chance or intelligence?
Cf. Aristot. "de Part. Animal." 1. For the "teleological" views see IV. iii. 2 foll.
"Like a sieve" or "colander."
"That which goeth out of a man."
Ar. To be sure not! Viewed in this light they would seem to be the handiwork of some wise artificer, full of love for all things living.
"Demiurge."
Passage referred to by Epictetus ap. Stob. "Flor." 121, 29.
Soc. What shall we say of this passion implanted in man to beget offspring, this passion in the mother to rear her babe, and in the creature itself, once born, this deep desire of life and fear of death?
Ar. No doubt these do look like the contrivances of some one deliberately planning the existence of living creatures.
Soc. Well, and doubtless you feel to have a spark of wisdom yourself? Ar. Put your questions, and I will answer.
Soc. And yet you imagine that elsewhere no spark of wisdom is to befound? And that, too, when you know that you have in your body a tiny fragment only of the mighty earth, a little drop of the great waters, and of the other elements, vast in their extent, you got, I presume, a particle of each towards the compacting of your bodily frame? Mind alone, it would seem, which is nowhere to be found, you had the lucky chance to snatch up and make off with, you cannot tell how. And these things around and about us, enormous in size, infinite in number, owe their orderly arrangement, as you suppose, to some vacuity of wit?
