Theagês — has been declared spurious by some modern critics — grounds for such opinion not sufficient.
This is among the dialogues declared by Schleiermacher, Ast, Stallbaum, and various other modern critics, to be spurious and unworthy of Plato: the production of one who was not merely an imitator, but a bad and silly imitator.1 Socher on the other hand defends the dialogue against them, reckoning it as a juvenile production of Plato.2 The arguments which are adduced to prove its spuriousness appear to me altogether insufficient. It has some features of dissimilarity with that which we read in other dialogues — these the above-mentioned critics call un-Platonic: it has other features of similarity — these they call bad imitation by a falsarius: lastly, it is inferior, as a performance, to the best of the Platonic dialogues. But I am prepared to expect (and have even the authority of Schleiermacher for expecting) that some dialogues will be inferior to others. I also reckon with certainty, that between two dialogues, both genuine, there will be points of similarity as well as points of dissimilarity. Lastly, the critics find marks of a bad, recent, un-Platonic style: but Dionysius of Halikarnassus — a judge at least equally competent upon such a matter — found no such marks. He expressly cites the dialogue as the work of 99Plato,3 and explains the peculiar phraseology assigned to Demodokus by remarking, that the latter is presented as a person of rural habits and occupations.
1 Stallbaum, Proleg. pp. 220-225, “ineptus tenebrio,” &c. Schleiermacher, Einleitung, part ii. v. iii. pp. 247-252. Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp. 495-497.
Ast speaks with respect (differing in this respect from the other two) of the Theagês as a composition, though he does not believe it to be the work of Plato. Schleiermacher also admits (see the end of his Einleitung) that the style in general has a good Platonic colouring, though he considers some particular phrases as un-Platonic.
2 Socher, Ueber Platon, pp. 92-102. M. Cobet also speaks of it as a work of Plato (Novæ Lectiones, &c., p. 624. Lugd. Bat. 1858).
3 Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetor. p. 405, Reiske. Compare Theagês, 121 D. εἰς τὸ ἄστυ καταβαίνοντες.
In general, in discussions on the genuineness of any of the Platonic dialogues, I can do nothing but reply to the arguments of those critics who consider them spurious. But in the case of the Theagês there is one argument which tends to mark Plato positively as the author.
In the Theagês, p. 125, the senarius σοφοὶ τύραννοι τῶν σοφῶν συνουσίᾳ is cited as a verse of Euripides. Now it appears that this is an error of memory, and that the verse really belongs to Sophokles, ἐν Αἴαντι Λοκρῷ. If the error had only appeared in this dialogue, Stallbaum would probably have cited it as one more instance of stupidity on the part of the ineptus tenebrio whom he supposes to have written the dialogue. But unfortunately the error does not belong to the Theagês alone. It is found also in the Republic (viii. 568 B), the most unquestionable of all the Platonic compositions. Accordingly, Schleiermacher tells us in his note that the falsarius of the Theagês has copied this error out of the above-named passage of the Republic of Plato (notes, p. 500).
This last supposition of Schleiermacher appears to me highly improbable. Since we know that the mistake is one made by Plato himself, surely we ought rather to believe that he made it in two distinct compositions. In other words, the occurrence of the same exact mistake in the Republic and the Theagês affords strong presumption that both are by the same author — Plato.
Persons of the dialogue — Sokrates, with Demodokus and Theagês, father and son. Theagês (the son), eager to acquire knowledge, desires to be placed under the teaching of a Sophist.
Demodokus, an elderly man (of rank and landed property), and his youthful son Theagês, have come from their Deme to Athens, and enter into conversation with Sokrates: to whom the father explains, that Theagês has contracted, from the conversation of youthful companions, an extraordinary ardour for the acquisition of wisdom. The son has importuned his father to put him under the tuition of one of the Sophists, who profess to teach wisdom. The father, though not unwilling to comply with the request, is deterred by the difficulty of finding a good teacher and avoiding a bad one. He entreats the advice of Sokrates, who invites the young man to explain what it is that he wants, over and above the usual education of an Athenian youth of good family (letters, the harp, wrestling, &c.), which he has already gone through.4
4 Plato, Theagês, 122.
Sokrates questions Theagês, inviting him to specify what he wants.
Sokr. — You desire wisdom: but what kind of wisdom? That by which men manage chariots? or govern horses? or pilot ships? Theag. — No: that by which men are governed. Sokr. — But what men? those in a state of sickness — or those who are singing in a chorus — or those who are under gymnastic training? Each of 100these classes has its own governor, who bears a special title, and belongs to a special art by itself — the medical, musical, gymnastic, &c. Theag. — No: I mean that wisdom by which we govern, not these classes alone, but all the other residents in the city along with them — professional as well as private — men as well as women.5
5 Plato, Theagês, 124 A-B. Schleiermacher (Einleit. p. 250) censures the prolixity of the inductive process in this dialogue, and the multitude of examples here accumulated to prove a general proposition obvious enough without proof. Let us grant this to be true; we cannot infer from it that the dialogue is not the work of Plato. By very similar arguments Socher endeavours to show that the Sophistês and the Politikus are not works of Plato, because in both these dialogues logical division and differentiation is accumulated with tiresome prolixity, and applied to most trivial subjects. But Plato himself (in Politikus, pp. 285-286) explains why he does so, and tells us that he wishes to familiarise his readers with logical subdivision and classification as a process. In like manner I maintain that prolixity in the λόγοι ἐπακτικοί is not to be held as proof of spurious authorship, any more than prolixity in the process of logical subdivision and classification.
I noticed the same objection in the case of the First Alkibiadês.
Theagês desires to acquire that wisdom by which he can govern freemen with their own consent.
Sokrates now proves to Theagês, that this function and power which he is desirous of obtaining, is, the function and power of a despot: and that no one can aid him in so culpable a project. I might yearn (says Theagês) for such despotic power over all: so probably would you and every other man. But it is not that to which I now aspire. I aspire to govern freemen, with their own consent; as was done by Themistokles, Perikles, Kimon, and other illustrious statesmen,6 who have been accomplished in the political art.
6 Plato, Theagês, 126 A.
Sokr. — Well, if you wished to become accomplished in the art of horsemanship, you would put yourself under able horsemen: if in the art of darting the javelin, under able darters. By parity of reasoning, since you seek to learn the art of statesmanship, you must frequent able statesmen.7
7 Plato, Theagês, 126 C.
Incompetence of the best practical statesmen to teach any one else. Theagês requests that Sokrates will himself teach him.
Theag. — No, Sokrates. I have heard of the language which you are in the habit of using to others. You pointed out to them that these eminent statesmen cannot train their own sons to be at all better than curriers: of course therefore they cannot do me any good.8 101Sokr. — But what can your father do for you better than this, Theagês? What ground have you for complaining of him? He is prepared to place you under any one of the best and most excellent men of Athens, whichever of them you prefer. Theag. — Why will not you take me yourself, Sokrates? I look upon you as one of these men, and I desire nothing better.9
8 Plato, Theagês, 126 D. Here again Stallbaum (p. 222) urges, among his reasons for believing the dialogue to be spurious — How absurd to represent the youthful Theagês as knowing what arguments Sokrates had addressed to others! But the youthful Theætêtus is also represented as having heard from others the cross-examinations made by Sokrates (Theætêt. 148 E). So likewise the youthful sons of Lysimachus — (Lachês, 181 A); compare also Lysis, 211 A.
9 Plato, Theagês, 127 A.
Demodokus joins his entreaties with those of Theagês to prevail upon Sokrates to undertake this function. But Sokrates in reply says that he is less fit for it than Demodokus himself, who has exercised high political duties, with the esteem of every one; and that if practical statesmen are considered unfit, there are the professional Sophists, Prodikus, Gorgias, Polus, who teach many pupils, and earn not merely good pay, but also the admiration and gratitude of every one — of the pupils as well as their senior relatives.10
10 Plato, Theagês, 127 D-E, 128 A.
Sokrates declares that he is not competent to teach — that he knows nothing except about matters of love. Theagês maintains that many of his young friends have profited largely by the conversation of Sokrates.
Sokr. — I know nothing of the fine things which these Sophists teach: I wish I did know. I declare everywhere, that I know nothing whatever except one small matter — what belongs to love. In that, I surpass every one else, past as well as present.11 Theag. — Sokrates is only mocking us. I know youths (of my own age and somewhat older), who were altogether worthless and inferior to every one, before they went to him; but who, after they had frequented his society, became in a short time superior to all their former rivals. The like will happen with me, if he will only consent to receive me.12
11 Plato, Theagês, 128 B. ἀλλὰ καὶ λέγω δήπου ἀεί, ὅτι ἐγὼ τυγχάνω, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οὐδὲν ἐπιστάμενος πλήν γε σμικροῦ τινὸς μαθήματος, τῶν ἐρωτικῶν, τοῦτο μέντοι τὸ μάθημα παρ’ ὁντινοῦν ποιοῦμαι δεινὸς εἶναι, καὶ τῶν προγεγονότων ἀνθρώπων καὶ τῶν νῦν.
12 Plato, Theagês, 128 C.
Sokrates explains how this has sometimes happened — he recites his experience of the divine sign or Dæmon.
Sokr. — You do not know how this happens; I will explain it to you. From my childhood, I have had a peculiar superhuman something attached to me by divine appointment: a voice, which, whenever it occurs, warns me to abstain from that which I am 102about to do, but never impels me.13 Moreover, when any one of my friends mentions to me what he is about to do, if the voice shall then occur to me it is a warning for him to abstain. The examples of Charmides and Timarchus (here detailed by Sokrates) prove what I say: and many persons will tell you how truly I forewarned them of the ruin of the Athenian armament at Syracuse.14 My young friend Sannion is now absent, serving on the expedition under Thrasyllus to Ionia: on his departure, the divine sign manifested itself to me, and I am persuaded that some grave calamity will befall him.
13 Plato, Theagês, 128 D. ἐστι γάρ τι θείᾳ μοίρᾳ παρεπόμενον ἐμοὶ ἐκ παιδὸς ἀρξάμενον δαιμόνιον· ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο φωνή, ἢ ὅταν γένηται, ἀεί μοι σημαίνει, ὃ ἂν μέλλω πράττειν, τούτου ἀποτροπήν, προτρέπει δὲ οὐδέποτε.
14 Plato, Theag. 129.
The Dæmon is favourable to some persons, adverse to others. Upon this circumstance it depends how far any companion profits by the society of Sokrates. Aristeides has not learnt anything from Sokrates, yet has improved much by being near to him.
These facts I mention to you (Sokrates continues) because it is that same divine power which exercises paramount influence over my intercourse with companions.15 Towards many, it is positively adverse; so that I cannot even enter into companionship with them. Towards others, it does not forbid, yet neither does it co-operate: so that they derive no benefit from me. There are others again in whose case it co-operates; these are the persons to whom you allude, who make rapid progress.16 With some, such improvement is lasting: others, though they improve wonderfully while in my society, yet relapse into commonplace men when they leave me. Aristeides, for example (grandson of Aristeides the Just), was one of those who made rapid progress while he was with me. But he was forced to absent himself on military service; and on returning, he found as my companion Thucydides (son of Melesias), who however had quarrelled with me for some debate of the day before. I understand (said Aristeides to me) that Thucydides has taken offence and gives himself airs; he forgets what a poor creature he was, before he came to you.17 I 103myself, too, have fallen into a despicable condition. When I left you, I was competent to discuss with any one and make a good figure, so that I courted debate with the most accomplished men. Now, on the contrary, I avoid them altogether — so thoroughly am I ashamed of my own incapacity. Did the capacity (I, Sokrates, asked Aristeides) forsake you all at once, or little by little? Little by little, he replied. And when you possessed it (I asked), did you get it by learning from me? or in what other way? I will tell you, Sokrates (he answered), what seems incredible, yet is nevertheless true.18 I never learnt from you any thing at all. You yourself well know this. But I always made progress, whenever I was along with you, even if I were only in the same house without being in the same room; but I made greater progress, if I was in the same room — greater still, if I looked in your face, instead of turning my eyes elsewhere — and the greatest of all, by far, if I sat close and touching you. But now (continued Aristeides) all that I then acquired has dribbled out of me.19
15 Plato, Theagês, 129 E. ταῦτα δὴ πάντα εἴρηκά σοι, ὅτι ἡ δύναμις αὕτη τοῦ δαιμονίου τούτου καὶ εἰς τὰς συνουσίας τῶν μετ’ ἐμοῦ συνδιατριβόντων τὸ ἅπαν δύναται. πολλοῖς μὲν γὰρ ἐναντιοῦται, καὶ οὐκ ἔστι τούτοις ὠφεληθηναι μετ’ ἐμοῦ διατρίβουσιν.
16 Plato, Theag. 129 E. οἷς δ’ ἂν συλλάβηται τῆς συνουσίας ἡ τοῦ δαιμόνιου δύναμις, οὗτοι εἰσιν ὧν καὶ σὺ ᾔσθησαι· ταχὺ γὰρ παραχρῆμα ἐπιδιδόασιν.
17 Plato, Theag. 130 A-B. Τί δαί; οὐκ οἶδεν, ἔφη, πρὶν σοὶ συγγενέσθαι, οἷον ἦν τὸ ἀνδράποδον;
18 Plato, Theag. 130 D. Ἡνίκα δέ σοι παρεγένετο (ἡ δύναμις), πότερον μαθόντι παρ’ ἐμοῦ τι παρεγένετο, ἤ τινι ἄλλῳ τρόπῳ; Ἐγώ σοι, ἔφη, ἐρῶ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἄπιστον μὲν νὴ τοὺς θεούς, ἀληθὲς δέ. ἐγὼ γὰρ ἔμαθον μὲν παρὰ σοῦ οὐδὲν πώποτε, ὡς αὐτὸς οἶσθα· ἐπεδίδουν δὲ ὁποτε σοι συνείην, κἂν εἰ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ μόνον οἰκίᾳ εἴην, μὴ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ δὲ οἰκήματι, &c.
19 Plato, Theag. 130 E. πολὺ δὲ μάλιστα καὶ πλεῖστον ἐπεδίδουν, ὁπότε παρ’ αὐτόν σε καθοίμην ἐχόμενός σου καὶ ἁπτόμενος. νῦν δέ, ἦ δ’ ὅς, πᾶσα ἐκείνη ἣ ἕξις ἐξεῤῥύηκεν.
Theagês expresses his anxiety to be received as the companion of Sokrates.
Sokr. — I have now explained to you, Theagês, what it is to become my companion. If it be the pleasure of the God, you will make great and rapid progress: if not, not. Consider, therefore, whether it is not safer for you to seek instruction from some of those who are themselves masters of the benefits which they impart, rather than to take your chance of the result with me.20 Theag. — I shall be glad, Sokrates, to become your companion, and to make trial of this divine coadjutor. If he shows himself propitious, that will be the best of all: if not, we can then take counsel, whether I shall try to propitiate him by prayer, sacrifice, or any other means which the prophets may recommend or whether I shall go to some other teacher.21
20 Plato, Theag. 130 E. ὅρα οὖν μή σοι ἀσφαλέστερον ᾖ παρ’ ἐκείνων τινὶ παιδεύεσθαι, οἳ ἐγκρατεῖς αὐτοί εἰσι τῆς ὠφελείας, ἢν ὠφελοῦσι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, μᾶλλον ἢ παρ’ ἐμοῦ ὅ, τι ἂν τύχῃ, τοῦτο πρᾶξαι.
21 Plato, Theag. 131 A.
104 Remarks on the Theagês — analogy with the Lachês.
The Theagês figured in the list of Thrasyllus as first in the fifth Tetralogy: the other three members of the same Tetralogy being Charmidês, Lachês, Lysis. Some persons considered it suitable to read as first dialogue of all.22 There are several points of analogy between the Theagês and the Lachês, though with a different turn given to them. Aristeides and Thucydides are mentioned in both of them: Sokrates also is solicited to undertake the duty of teacher. The ardour of the young Theagês to acquire wisdom reminds us of Hippokrates at the beginning of the Protagoras. The string of questions put by Sokrates to Theagês, requiring that what is called wisdom shall be clearly defined and specialised, has its parallel in many of the Platonic dialogues. Moreover the declaration of Sokrates, that he knows nothing except about matters of love, but that in them he is a consummate master — is the same as what he explicitly declares both in the Symposion and other dialogues.23
22 Diog. L. iii. 59-61.
23 Symposion, 177 E. οὔτε γὰρ ἄν που ἐγὼ ἀποφήσαιμι, ὃς οὐδέν φημι ἄλλο ἐπίστασθαι ἢ τὰ ἐρωτικά. Compare the same dialogue, p. 212 B, 216 C. Phædrus, 227 E, 257 A; Lysis, 204 B. Compare also Xenoph. Memor. ii. 6, 28; Xenoph. Sympos. iv. 27.
It is not reasonable to treat this declaration of Sokrates, in the Theagês, as an evidence that the dialogue is the work of a falsarius, when a declaration quite similar is ascribed to Sokrates in other Platonic dialogues.
Chief peculiarity of the Theagês — stress laid upon the divine sign or Dæmon.
But the chief peculiarity of the Theagês consists in the stress which is laid upon the Dæmon, the divine voice, the inspiration of Sokrates. This divine auxiliary is here described, not only as giving a timely check or warning to Sokrates, when either he or his friends contemplated any inauspicious project — but also as intervening, in the case of those youthful companions with whom he conversed, to promote the improvement of one, to obstruct that of others; so that whether Sokrates will produce any effect or not in improving any one, depends neither upon his own efforts nor upon those of the recipient, but upon the unpredictable concurrence of a divine agency.24
Plato employs this divine sign here to render some explanation of the singularity and eccentricity of Sokrates, and of his unequal influence upon different companions.
Plato employs the Sokratic Dæmon, in the Theagês, for a philosophical purpose, which, I think, admits of reasonable explanation. During the eight (perhaps ten) years of his personal communion with Sokrates, 105he had had large experience of the variable and unaccountable effect produced by the Sokratic conversation upon different hearers: a fact which is also attested by the Xenophontic Memorabilia. This difference of effect was in no way commensurate to the unequal intelligence of the hearers. Chærephon, Apollodôrus, Kriton, seem to have been ordinary men:—25 while Kritias and Alkibiades, who brought so much discredit both upon Sokrates and his teaching, profited little by him, though they were among the ablest pupils that he ever addressed: moreover Antisthenes, and Aristippus, probably did not appear to Plato (since he greatly dissented from their philosophical views) to have profited much by the common companionship with Sokrates. Other companions there must have been also personally known to Plato, though not to us: for we must remember that Sokrates passed his whole day in talking with all listeners. Now when Plato in after life came to cast the ministry of Sokrates into dramatic scenes, and to make each scene subservient to the illustration of some philosophical point of view, at least a negative — he was naturally led to advert to the Dæmon or divine inspiration, which formed so marked a feature in the character of his master. The concurrence or prohibition of this divine auxiliary served to explain why it was that the seed, sown broadcast by Sokrates, sometimes fructified, and sometimes did not fructify, or speedily perished afterwards — when no sufficient explanatory peculiarity could be pointed out in the ground on which it fell. It gave an apparent reason for the perfect singularity of the course pursued by Sokrates: for his preternatural acuteness in one direction, and his avowed incapacity in another: for his mastery of the Elenchus, convicting men of ignorance, and his inability to supply them with knowledge: for his refusal to undertake the duties of a teacher. All these are mysterious features of the Sokratic character. The intervention of the Dæmon appears to afford an explanation, by converting them into religious mysteries: which, though it be no explanation at all, yet is equally efficacious by stopping the mouth of the questioner, and by making him believe that it is guilt and impiety to 106ask for explanation — as Sokrates himself declared in regard to astronomical phenomena, and as Herodotus feels, when his narrative is crossed by strange religious legends.26
25 Xenophon, Apol. Sokr. 28. Ἀπολλόδωρος — ἐπιθυμήτης μὲν ἰσχυρῶς αὐτοῦ, ἄλλως δ’ εὐήθης. — Plat. Phædon, 117 D.
26 Xen. Mem. iv. 7, 5-6; Herodot. ii. 3, 45-46.
Sokrates, while continually finding fault with other teachers, refused to teach himself — difficulty of finding an excuse for his refusal. The Theagês furnishes an excuse.
In this manner, the Theagês is made by Plato to exhibit one way of parrying the difficulty frequently addressed to Sokrates by various hearers: “You tell us that the leading citizens cannot even teach their own sons, and that the Sophists teach nothing worth having: you perpetually call upon us to seek for better teachers, without telling us where such are to be found. We entreat you to teach us yourself, conformably to your own views.”
If a leader of political opposition, after years employed in denouncing successive administrators as ignorant and iniquitous, refuses, when invited, to take upon himself the business of administration — an intelligent admirer must find some decent pretence to colour the refusal. Such a pretence is found for Sokrates in the Theagês: “I am not my own master on this point. I am the instrument of a divine ally, without whose active working I can accomplish nothing: who forbids altogether my teaching of one man — tolerates, without assisting, my unavailing lessons to another — assists efficaciously in my teaching of a third, in which case alone the pupil receives any real benefit. The assistance of this divine ally is given or withheld according to motives of his own, which I cannot even foretell, much less influence. I should deceive you therefore if I undertook to teach, when I cannot tell whether I shall do good or harm.”
The reply of Theagês meets this scruple. He asks permission to make the experiment, and promises to propitiate the divine auxiliary by prayer and sacrifice; under which reserve Sokrates gives consent.
Plato does not always, nor in other dialogues, allude to the divine sign in the same way. Its character and working essentially impenetrable. Sokrates a privileged person.
It is in this way that the Dæmon or divine auxiliary serves the purpose of reconciling what would otherwise be an inconsistency in the proceedings of Sokrates. I mean, that such is the purpose served in this dialogue: I know perfectly that Plato deals with the 107case differently elsewhere: but I am not bound (as I have said more than once) to force upon all the dialogues one and the same point of view. That the agency of the Gods was often and in the most important cases, essentially undiscoverable and unpredictable, and that in such cases they might sometimes be prevailed on to give special warnings to favoured persons — were doctrines which the historical Sokrates in Xenophon asserts with emphasis.27 The Dæmon of Sokrates was believed, both by himself and his friends, to be a special privilege and an extreme case of divine favour and communication to him.28 It was perfectly applicable to the scope of the Theagês, though Plato might not choose always to make the same employment of it. It is used in the same general way in the Theætêtus;29 doubtless with less expansion, and blended with another analogy (that of the mid-wife) which introduces a considerable difference.30
27 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 8-9-19.
Euripid. Hecub. 944.
φύρουσι δ’ αὐτὰ θεοὶ πάλιν τε καὶ πρόσω, ταραγμὸν ἐντιθέντες, ὡς ἀγνωσίᾳ σέβωμεν αὐτούς. |
28 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 3, 12.
29 Plato, Theætêt. 150 D-E.
30 Plato, Apolog. Sokr. 33 C. ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοιόρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν. 40 A. ἡ γὰρ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου ἐν μὲν τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ παντὶ πάνυ πυκνὴ ἀεὶ ἦν καὶ πάνυ ἐπὶ σμικροῖς ἐναντιουμένη, εἴ τι μέλλοιμι μὴ ὀρθῶς πράξειν. Compare Xenophon, Memor. iv. 8, 5; Apol. Sokr. c. 13.
Here is one of the points most insisted on by Schleiermacher and Stallbaum, as proving that the Theagês is not the work of Plato. These critics affirm (to use the language of Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 220) “Quam Plato alias de Socratis dæmonio prodidit sententiam, ea longissimè recedit ab illâ ratione, quæ in hoc sermone exposita est”. He says that the representation of the Dæmon of Sokrates, given in the Theagês, has been copied from a passage in the Theætêtus, by an imitator who has not understood the passage, p. 150, D, E. But Socher (p. 97) appears to me to have shown satisfactorily, that there is no such material difference as these critics affirm between this passage of the Theætêtus and the Theagês. In the Theætêtus, Sokrates declares, that none of his companions learnt any thing from him, but that all of them οἷσπερ ἂν ὁ θεὸς παρείκῃ (the very same term is used at the close of the Theagês — 131 A, ἐὰν μὲν παρείκῃ ἡμῖν — τὸ δαιμόνιον) made astonishing progress and improvement in his company. Stallbaum says, “Itaque ὁ θεὸς, qui ibi memoratur, non est Socratis dæmonium, sed potius deus i.e. sors divina. Quod non perspiciens noster tenebrio protenus illud dæmonium, quod Socrates sibi semper adesse dictitabat, ad eum dignitatis et potentiæ gradum evexit, ut, &c.” I agree with Socher in thinking that the phrase ὁ θεὸς in the Theætêtus has substantially the same meaning as τὸ δαιμόνιον in the Theagês. Both Schleiermacher (Notes on the Apology, p. 432) and Ast (p. 482), have notes on the phrase τὸ δαιμόνιον — and I think the note of Ast is the more instructive of the two. In Plato and Xenophon, the words τὸ δαιμόνιον, τὸ θεῖον, are in many cases undistinguishable in meaning from ὁ δαίμων, ὁ θεός. Compare the Phædrus, 242 E, about θεὸς and θεῖόν τι. Sokrates, in his argument against Meletus in the Apology (p. 27) emphatically argues that no man could believe in any thing δαιμόνιον, without also believing in δαιμόνες. The special θεῖόν τι καὶ 109δαιμόνιον (Apol. p. 31 C), which presented itself in regard to him and his proceedings, was only one of the many modes in which (as he believed) ὁ θεός commanded and stimulated him to work upon the minds of the Athenians:— ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν (Apol. p. 33 C). So again in Apol. p. 40 A, B, ἡ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου — and four lines afterwards we read the very same fact intimated in the words, τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον, where Sokratis dæmonium — and Deus — are identified: thus refuting the argument above cited from Stallbaum. There is therefore no such discrepancy, in reference to τὸ δαιμόνιον, as Stallbaum and Schleiermacher contend for. We perceive indeed this difference between them — that in the Theætêtus, the simile of the obstetric art is largely employed, while it is not noticed in the Theagês. But we should impose an unwarrantable restriction upon Plato’s fancy, if we hindered him from working out his variety and exuberance of metaphors, and from accommodating each dialogue to the metaphor predominant with him at the time.
Moreover, in respect to what is called the Dæmon of Sokrates, we ought hardly to expect that either Plato or Xenophon would always be consistent even with themselves. It is unsafe for a modern critic to determine beforehand, by reason or feelings of his own, in what manner either of them would speak upon this mysterious subject. The belief and feeling of a divine intervention was very real on the part of both, but their manner of conceiving it might naturally fluctuate: and there was, throughout all the proceedings of Sokrates, a mixture of the serious and the playful, of the sublime and the eccentric, of ratiocinative acuteness with impulsive superstition — which it is difficult to bring into harmonious interpretation. Such heterogeneous mixture is forcibly described in the Platonic Symposium, pp. 215-222. When we consider how undefined, and undefinable, the idea of this δαιμόνιον was, we cannot wonder if Plato ascribes to it different workings and manifestations at different times. Stallbaum affirms that it is made ridiculous in the Theagês: and Kühner declares that Plutarch makes it ridiculous, in his treatise De Genio Sokratia (Comm. ad. Xenoph. Memor. p. 23). But this is because its agency is described more in detail. You can easily present it in a ridiculous aspect, by introducing it as intervening on petty and insignificant matters. Now it is remarkable, that in the Apology, we are expressly told that it actually did intervene on the most trifling occasions — πάνυ 110ἐπὶ σμικροῖς ἐναντιουμένη. The business of an historian of philosophy is, to describe it as it was really felt and believed by Sokrates and Plato — whether a modern critic may consider the description ridiculous or not.
When Schleiermacher says (Einleitung, p. 248), respecting the falsarius whom he supposes to have written the Theagês — “Damit ist ihm begegnet, auf eine höchst verkehrte Art wunderbar zusammenzurühren diese göttliche Schickung, und jenes persönliche Vorgefühl welches dem Sokrates zur göttlichen Stimme ward”. — I contend that the mistake is chargeable to Schleiermacher himself, for bisecting into two phenomena that which appears in the Apology as the same phenomenon under two different names — τὸ δαιμόνιον — τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον. Besides, to treat the Dæmon as a mere “personal presentiment” of Sokrates, may be a true view:— but it is the view of one who does not inhale the same religious atmosphere as Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon. It cannot therefore be properly applied in explaining their sayings or doings. Kühner, who treats the Theagês as not composed by Plato, grounds this belief partly on the assertion, that the δαιμόνιον of Sokrates is described therein as something peculiar to Sokrates; which, according to Kühner, was the fiction of a subsequent time. By Sokrates and his contemporaries (Kühner says) it was considered “non sibi soli tanquam proprium quoddam beneficium a Diis tributum, sed commune sibi esse cum cæteris hominibus” (pp. 20-21). I dissent entirely from this view, which is contradicted by most of the passages noticed even by Kühner himself. It is at variance with the Platonic Apology, as well as with the Theætêtus (150 D), and Republic (vi. 496 C). Xenophon does indeed try, in the first Chapter of the Memorabilia, as the defender of Sokrates, to soften the invidia against Sokrates, by intimating that other persons had communications from the Gods as well as he. But we see plainly, even from other passages of the Memorabilia, that this was not the persuasion of Sokrates himself, nor of his friends, nor of his enemies. They all considered it (as it is depicted in the Theagês also) to be a special privilege and revelation.
[END OF CHAPTER XV]
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