The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates

If we would examine, therefore, all that has happened to them; if we consider how much the greatness of their birth, their interest, and their riches, had puffed up their minds; if we reflect on the ill company they fell into, and the many opportunities they had of debauching themselves, can we be surprised that, after they had been so long absent from Socrates, they arrived at length to that height of insolence to which they have been seen to arise?  If they have been guilty of crimes, the accuser will load Socrates with them, and not allow him to be worthy of praise, for having kept them within the bounds of their duty during their youth, when, in all appearance, they would have been the most disorderly and least governable.  This, however, is not the way we judge of other things; for whoever pretended that a musician, a player on the lute, or any other person that teaches, after he has made a good scholar, ought to be blamed for his growing more ignorant under the care of another master?  If a young man gets an acquaintance that brings him into debauchery, ought his father to lay the blame on the first friends of his son among whom he always lived virtuously?  Is it not true, on the contrary, that the more he finds that this last friendship proves destructive to him, the more reason he will have to praise his former acquaintance.  And are the fathers themselves, who are daily with their children, guilty of their faults, if they give them no ill example?  Thus they ought to have judged of Socrates; if he led an ill life, it was reasonable to esteem him vicious; but if a good, was it just to accuse him of crimes of which he was innocent?

And yet he might have given his adversaries ground to accuse him, had he but approved, or seemed to approve those vices in others, from which he kept himself free: but Socrates abhorred vice, not only in himself, but in everyone besides.  To prove which, I need only relate his conduct toward Critias, a man extremely addicted to debauchery.  Socrates perceiving that this man had an unnatural passion for Euthydemus, and that the violence of it would precipitate him so far a length as to make him transgress the bounds of nature, shocked at his behaviour, he exerted his utmost strength of reason and argument to dissuade him from so wild a desire.  And while the impetuosity of Critias’ passion seemed to scorn all check or control, and the modest rebuke of Socrates had been disregarded, the philosopher, out of an ardent zeal for virtue, broke out in such language, as at once declared his own strong inward sense of decency and order, and the monstrous shamefulness of Critias’ passion.  Which severe but just reprimand of Socrates, it is thought, was the foundation of that grudge which he ever after bore him; for during the tyranny of the Thirty, of which Critias was one, when, together with Charicles, he had the care of the civil government of the city, he failed not to remember this affront, and, in revenge of it, made a law to forbid teaching the art of reasoning in Athens: and having nothing to reproach Socrates with in particular, he laboured to render him odious by aspersing him with the usual calumnies that are thrown on all philosophers: for I have never heard Socrates say that he taught this art, nor seen any man who ever heard him say so; but Critias had taken offence, and gave sufficient proofs of it: for after the Thirty had caused to be put to death a great number of the citizens, and even of the most eminent, and had let loose the reins to all sorts of violence and rapine, Socrates said in a certain place that he wondered very much that a man who keeps a herd of cattle, and by his ill conduct loses every day some of them, and suffers the others to fall away, would not own himself to be a very ill keeper of his herd; and that he should wonder yet more if a Minister of State, who lessens every day the number of his citizens, and makes the others more dissolute, was not ashamed of his ministry, and would not own himself to be an ill magistrate.  This was reported to Critias and Charicles, who forthwith sent for Socrates, and showing him the law they had made, forbid him to discourse with the young men.  Upon which Socrates asked them whether they would permit him to propose a question, that he might be informed of what he did not understand in this prohibition; and his request being granted, he spoke in this manner: “I am most ready to obey your laws; but that I may not transgress through ignorance, I desire to know of you, whether you condemn the art of reasoning, because you believe it consists in saying things well, or in saying them ill?  If for the former reason, we must then, from henceforward, abstain from speaking as we ought; and if for the latter, it is plain that we ought to endeavour to speak well.”  At these words Charicles flew into a passion, and said to him: “Since you pretend to be ignorant of things that are so easily known, we forbid you to speak to the young men in any manner whatever.”  “It is enough,” answered Socrates; “but that I may not be in a perpetual uncertainty, pray prescribe to me, till what age men are young.”  “Till they are capable of being members of the Senate,” said Charicles: “in a word, speak to no man under thirty years of age.”  “How!” says Socrates, “if I would buy anything of a tradesman who is not thirty years old am I forbid to ask him the price of it?”  “I mean not so,” answered Charicles: “but I am not surprised that you ask me this question, for it is your custom to ask many things that you know very well.”  Socrates added: “And if a young man ask me in the street where Charicles lodges, or whether I know where Critias is, must I make him no answer?”  “I mean not so neither,” answered Charicles.  Here Critias, interrupting their discourse, said: “For the future, Socrates, you must have nothing to do with the city tradesmen, the shoemakers, masons, smiths, and other mechanics, whom you so often allege as examples of life; and who, I apprehend, are quite jaded with your discourses.”  “I must then likewise,” replied Socrates, “omit the consequences I draw from those discourses; and have no more to do with justice, piety, and the other duties of a good man.”  “Yes, yes,” said Charicles; “and I advise you to meddle no more with those that tend herds of oxen; otherwise take care you lose not your own.”  And these last words made it appear that Critias and Charicles had taken offence at the discourse which Socrates had held against their government, when he compared them to a man that suffers his herd to fall to ruin.

Thus we see how Critias frequented Socrates, and what opinion they had of each other.  I add, moreover, that we cannot learn anything of a man whom we do not like: therefore if Critias and Alcibiades made no great improvement with Socrates, it proceeded from this, that they never liked him.  For at the very time that they conversed with him, they always rather courted the conversation of those who were employed in the public affairs, because they had no design but to govern.—The following conference of Alcibiades, in particular, which he had with Pericles, his governor—who was the chief man of the city, whilst he was yet under twenty years of age—concerning the nature of the laws, will confirm what I have now advanced.

“Pray,” says Alcibiades, “explain to me what the law is: for, as I hear men praised who observe the laws, I imagine that this praise could not be given to those who know not what the law is.”  “It is easy to satisfy you,” answered Pericles: “the law is only what the people in a general assembly ordain, declaring what ought to be done, and what ought not to be done.”  “And tell me,” added Alcibiades, “do they ordain to do what is good, or what is ill?”  “Most certainly what is good.”  Alcibiades pursued: “And how would you call what a small number of citizens should ordain, in states where the people is not the master, but all is ordered by the advice of a few persons, who possess the sovereignty?”  “I would call whatever they ordain a law; for laws are nothing else but the ordinances of sovereigns.”  “If a tyrant then ordain anything, will that be a law?”  “Yes, it will,” said Pericles.  “But what then is violence and injustice?” continued Alcibiades; “is it not when the strongest makes himself be obeyed by the weakest, not by consent, but by force only?”  “In my opinion it is.”  “It follows then,” says Alcibiades, “that ordinances made by a prince, without the consent of the citizens, will be absolutely unjust.”  “I believe so,” said Pericles; “and cannot allow that the ordinances of a prince, when they are made without the consent of the people, should bear the name of laws.”  “And what the chief citizens ordain, without procuring the consent of the greater number, is that likewise a violence?”  “There is no question of it,” answered Pericles; “and in general, every ordinance made without the consent of those who are to obey it, is a violence rather than a law.”  “And is what the populace decree, without the concurrence of the chiefs, to be counted a violence likewise, and not a law?”  “No doubt it is,” said Pericles: “but when I was of your age, I could resolve all these difficulties, because I made it my business to inquire into them, as you do now.”  “Would to God,” cried Alcibiades, “I had been so happy as to have conversed with you then, when you understood these matters better.”  To this purpose was their dialogue.

Critias and Alcibiades, however, continued not long with Socrates, after they believed they had improved themselves, and gained some advantages over the other citizens, for besides that they thought not his conversation very agreeable, they were displeased that he took upon him to reprimand them for their faults; and thus they threw themselves immediately into the public affairs, having never had any other design but that.  The usual companions of Socrates were Crito, Chaerephon, Chaerecrates, Simmias, Cebes, Phædon, and some others; none of whom frequented him that they might learn to speak eloquently, either in the assemblies of the people, or in the courts of justice before the judges; but that they might become better men, and know how to behave themselves towards their domestics, their relations, their friends, and their fellow-citizens.  All these persons led very innocent lives; and, whether we consider them in their youth or examine their behaviour in a more advanced age, we shall find that they never were guilty of any bad action, nay, that they never gave the least ground to suspect them of being so.

But the accuser says that Socrates encouraged children to despise their parents, making them believe that he was more capable to instruct them than they; and telling them that as the laws permit a man to chain his own father if he can convict him of lunacy, so, in like manner, it is but just that a man of excellent sense should throw another into chains who has not so much understanding.  I cannot deny but that Socrates may have said something like this; but he meant it not in the sense in which the accuser would have it taken: and he fully discovered what his meaning by these words was, when he said that he who should pretend to chain others because of their ignorance, ought, for the same reason, to submit to be chained himself by men who know more than he.  Hence it is that he argued so often of the difference between folly and ignorance; and then he plainly said that fools and madmen ought to be chained indeed, as well for their own interest as for that of their friends; but that they who are ignorant of things they should know, ought only to be instructed by those that understand them.

The accuser goes on, that Socrates did not only teach men to despise their parents, but their other relations too; because he said that if a man be sick, or have a suit in law, it is not his relations, but the physicians, or the advocates who are of use to him.  He further alleged that Socrates, speaking of friends, said it was to no purpose to bear goodwill to any man, if it be not in our power to serve him; and that the only friends whom we ought to value are they who know what is good for us, and can teach it to us: thus, says the accuser, Socrates, by persuading the youth that he was the wisest of all men, and the most capable to set others in the right road to wisdom, made them believe that all the rest of mankind were nothing in comparison with him.  I remember, indeed, to have heard him sometimes talk after this manner of parents, relations, and friends; and he observed besides, if I mistake not, that when the soul, in which the understanding resides, is gone out of the body, we soon bury the corpse; and even though it be that of our nearest relation, we endeavour to put it out of our sight as soon as decently we can.  Farther, though every man loves his own body to a great degree, we scruple not nevertheless to take from it all that is superfluous, for this reason we cut our hair and our nails, we take off our corns and our warts, and we put ourselves into the surgeons’ hands, and endure caustics and incisions; and after they have made us suffer a great deal of pain, we think ourselves obliged to give them a reward: thus, too, we spit, because the spittle is of no use in the mouth, but on the contrary is troublesome.  But Socrates meant not by these, or the like sayings, to conclude that a man ought to bury his father alive, or that we ought to cut off our legs and arms; but he meant only to teach us that what is useless is contemptible, and to exhort every man to improve and render himself useful to others; to the end that if we desire to be esteemed by our father, our brother, or any other relation, we should not rely so much on our parentage and consanguinity, as not to endeavour to render ourselves always useful to those whose esteem we desire to obtain.

The accuser says further against Socrates, that he was so malicious as to choose out of the famous poets the passages that contained the worst instructions, and that he made use of them in a sly manner, to inculcate the vices of injustice and violence: as this verse of Hesiod,

“Blame no employment, but blame idleness.”

And he pretends that Socrates alleged this passage to prove that the poet meant to say that we ought not to count any employment unjust or dishonourable, if we can make any advantage of it.  This, however, was far from the thoughts of Socrates; but, as he had always taught that employment and business are useful and honourable to men, and that idleness is an evil, he concluded that they who busy themselves about anything that is good are indeed employed; but that gamesters and debauched persons, and all who have no occupations, but such as are hurtful and wicked, are idle.  Now, in this sense, is it not true to say:—

“Blame no employment, but blame idleness”?

The accuser likewise says that Socrates often repeated, out of Homer, a speech of Ulysses; and from thence he concludes that Socrates taught that the poet advised to beat the poor and abuse the common people.  But it is plain Socrates could never have drawn such a wild and unnatural inference from those verses of the poet, because he would have argued against himself, since he was as poor as anyone besides.  What he meant, therefore, was only this, that such as are neither men of counsel nor execution, who are neither fit to advise in the city nor to serve in the army, and are nevertheless proud and insolent, ought to be brought to reason, even though they be possessed of great riches.  And this was the true meaning of Socrates, for he loved the men of low condition, and expressed a great civility for all sorts of persons; insomuch that whenever he was consulted, either by the Athenians or by foreigners, he would never take anything of any man for the instructions he gave them, but imparted his wisdom freely, and without reward, to all the world; while they, who became rich by his liberality, did not afterwards behave themselves so generously, but sold very dear to others what had cost them nothing; and, not being of so obliging a temper as he, would not impart their knowledge to any who had it not in their power to reward them.  In short, Socrates has rendered the city of Athens famous throughout the whole earth; and, as Lychas was said to be the honour of Sparta, because he treated, at his own expense, all the foreigners who came to the feasts of the Gymnopaedies, so it may, with much greater reason, be said of Socrates that he was the glory of Athens, he who all his life made a continual distribution of his goodness and virtues, and who, keeping open for all the world the treasures of an inestimable wealth, never sent any man out of his company but more virtuous, and more improved in the principles of honour, than formerly he was.  Therefore, in my opinion, if he had been treated according to his merit, they should have decreed him public honours rather than have condemned him to an infamous death.  For against whom have the laws ordained the punishment of death?  Is it not for thieves, for robbers, for men guilty of sacrilege, for those who sell persons that are free?  But where, in all the world, can we find a man more innocent of all those crimes than Socrates?  Can it be said of him that he ever held correspondence with the enemy, that he ever fomented any sedition, that he ever was the cause of a rebellion, or any other the like mischiefs?  Can any man lay to his charge that he ever detained his estate, or did him or it the least injury?  Was he ever so much as suspected of any of these things?  How then is it possible he should be guilty of the crimes of which he was accused; since, instead of not believing in the gods, as the accuser says, it is manifest he was a sincere adorer of them?  Instead of corrupting the youth, as he further alleges against him, he made it his chief care to deliver his friends from the power of every guilty passion, and to inspire them with an ardent love for virtue, the glory, the ornament, and felicity of families as well as of states?  And this being fact (and fact it is, for who can deny it?), is it not certain that the Republic was extremely obliged to him, and that she ought to have paid him the highest honours?

Chapter III.  How Socrates Behaved Through the Whole of His Life

Having, therefore, observed myself that all who frequented him improved themselves very much in his conversation, because he instructed them no less by his example than by his discourses, I am resolved to set down, in this work, all that I can recollect both of his actions and words.

First, then, as to what relates to the service of the gods, he strictly conformed to the advice of the oracle, who never gives any other answer to those who inquire of him in what manner they ought to sacrifice to the gods, or what honours they ought to render to the dead, than that everyone should observe the customs of his own country.  Thus in all the acts of religious worship Socrates took particular care to do nothing contrary to the custom of the Republic, and advised his friends to make that the rule of their devotion to the gods, alleging it to be an argument of superstition and vanity to dissent from the established worship.

When he prayed to the gods he besought them only to give him what is good, because they know better than we do what things are truly good for us; and he said that men who pray for silver, or for gold, or for the sovereign authority, made as foolish requests as if they prayed that they might play or fight, or desired any other thing whose event is uncertain, and that might be likely to turn to their disadvantage.

When he offered sacrifices he did not believe that his poverty rendered them despicable in the presence of the gods; and, while he offered according to his ability, he thought he gave as much as the rich, who load the altars with costly gifts, for he held that it would be an injustice in the gods to take more delight in costly sacrifices than in poorer ones, because it would then follow that the offerings of the wicked would for the most part be more acceptable to them than the gifts of the good; and that, if this were so, we ought not to desire to live one moment longer: he thought, therefore, that nothing was so acceptable to the Deity as the homage that is paid him by souls truly pious and innocent.  To this purpose he often repeated these verses:—

“Offer to heaven according to thy pow’r:Th’ indulgent gracious gods require no more.”

And not only in this, but in all the other occasions of life, he thought the best advice he could give his friends was to do all things according to their ability.

When he believed that the gods had admonished him to do anything, it was as impossible to make him take a contrary resolution as it would have been to have prevailed with him in a journey to change a guide that was clear-sighted for one that knew not the way, and was blind likewise.  For this reason he pitied their folly, who, to avoid the derision of men, live not according to the admonitions and commands of the gods; and he beheld with contempt all the subtilties of human prudence when he compared them with divine inspirations.

His way of living was such that whoever follows it may be assured, with the help of the gods, that he shall acquire a robust constitution and a health not to be easily impaired; and this, too, without any great expense, for he was content with so little that I believe there was not in all the world a man who could work at all but might have earned enough to have maintained him.  He generally ate as long as he found pleasure in eating, and when he sat down to table he desired no other sauce but a sound appetite.  All sorts of drink were alike pleasing to him, because he never drank but when he was thirsty; and if sometimes he was invited to a feast, he easily avoided eating and drinking to excess, which many find very difficult to do in those occasions.  But he advised those who had no government of themselves never to taste of things that tempt a man to eat when he is no longer hungry, and that excite him to drink when his thirst is already quenched, because it is this that spoils the stomach, causes the headache, and puts the soul into disorder.  And he said, between jest and earnest, that he believed it was with such meats as those that Circe changed men into swine, and that Ulysses avoided that transformation by the counsel of Mercury, and because he had temperance enough to abstain from tasting them.

As to love, his advice was to avoid carefully the company of beautiful persons, saying it was very difficult to be near them and escape being taken in the snare; and, having been told that Critobulus had given a kiss to the son of Alcibiades, who was a very handsome youth, he held this discourse to Xenophon, in the presence of Critobulus himself.

“Tell me, Xenophon, what opinion have you hitherto had of Critobulus?  Have you placed him in the rank of the temperate and judicious; or with the debauched and imprudent?”  “I have always looked upon him,” answered Xenophon, “to be a very virtuous and prudent man.”  “Change your opinion,” replied Socrates, “and believe him more rash than if he threw himself on the points of naked swords or leapt into the fire.”  “And what have you seen him do,” said Xenophon, “that gives you reason to speak thus of him?”  “Why, he had the rashness,” answered Socrates, “to kiss the son of Alcibiades, who is so beautiful and charming.”  “And is this all?” said Xenophon; “for my part, I think I could also willingly expose myself to the same danger that he did.”  “Wretch, that you are!” replied Socrates.  “Do you consider what happens to you after you have kissed a beautiful face?  Do you not lose your liberty?  Do you not become a slave?  Do you not engage yourself in a vast expense to procure a sinful pleasure?  Do you not find yourself in an incapacity of doing what is good, and that you subject yourself to the necessity of employing your whole time and person in the pursuit of what you would despise, if your reason were not corrupted?”  “Good God!” cried Xenophon, “this is ascribing a wonderful power to a kiss forsooth.”  “And are you surprised at it?” answered Socrates.  “Are there not some small animals whose bite is so venomous that it causes insufferable pain, and even the loss of the senses?”  “I know it very well,” said Xenophon, “but these animals leave a poison behind them when they sting.”  “And do you think, you fool,” added Socrates, “that kisses of love are not venomous, because you perceive not the poison?  Know that a beautiful person is a more dangerous animal than scorpions, because these cannot wound unless they touch us; but beauty strikes at a distance: from what place soever we can but behold her, she darts her venom upon us, and overthrows our judgment.  And perhaps for this reason the Loves are represented with bows and arrows, because a beautiful face wounds us from afar.  I advise you, therefore, Xenophon, when you chance to see a beauty to fly from it, without looking behind you.  And for you, Critobulus, I think it convenient that you should enjoin yourself a year’s absence, which will not be too long a time to heal you of your wound.”