Ii — Socratic Dialectic
The highest end of instruction is to discipline and liberalize mind and character by familiarizing the thoughts with those of the learned and wise. Character is inspired by admiration of character, intellect by participating in intellect. The masters form masters. And had I the choice of my class, I would put Plato’s works at once into its hands. And, for a beginning,—say the Alcibiades of the earlier Dialogues. I know of no discipline under the care of a thoughtful instructor so fitting for educating the reason, quickening the moral sense, refining the sensibilities, fashioning the manners, ennobling the character, as exercises in the Socratic dialectic: opening the whole armory of gifts, it sharpens and polishes these for the victories of life. The youth who masters Plato wins fairly his degree alike in humanity and divinity. He has the key to the mysteries, ancient and modern.C
Take the following as an example of the pure dialectic method as of metaphysic;
“In what way, asks Socrates, may we attain to know the soul itself with the greatest clearness? for when we know this, it seems we shall know ourselves. Now, in the name of the gods, whether are we not ignorant of the right meanings of that Delphic inscription just now mentioned, ‘Know thyself?’”
Alcibiades. What meaning? what have you in your thoughts, Socrates, when you ask the question?
Socrates. I will tell you what I suspect this inscription means, and what particular thing it advises us to do. For a just resemblance of it is, I think, not to be found wherever one pleases, but in only one thing, the sight.
Alcibiades. How do you mean?
Socrates. Consider it jointly with me. Were a man to address himself to the outward human eye, as it were some other man; and were he to give it this counsel, “See yourself,” what particular thing should we suppose that he advises the eye to do? Should we not suppose that it was to look at such a thing as that the eye by looking at it, might see itself?
Alcibiades. Certainly we should.
Socrates. What kind of thing then do we think of by looking at which we see things at which we look, and at the same time see ourselves?
Alcibiades. ’Tis evident, Socrates, that for this purpose we must look at mirrors and other things of like kind.
Socrates. You are right. And has not the eye itself, with which we see, something of the same kind belonging to it?
Alcibiades. Most certainly it has.
Socrates. You have observed then, that the face of the person who looks in the eye of another person, appears visible to himself in the eye of the person opposite to him, as in a mirror. And we therefore call this the pupil, because it exhibits the image of that person who examines it.
Alcibiades. What you say is true.
Socrates. The eye beholding an eye and looking in the most excellent part of it in that which it sees, may thus see itself?
Alcibiades. Apparently so.
Socrates. But if the eye look at any other part of the man, or at anything whatever, except what this part of the eye happens to be like, it will not see itself.
Alcibiades. It is true.
Socrates. If therefore the eye would see itself, it must look in an eye, and in that place of the eye, too, where the virtue of the eye is naturally seated; and the virtue of the eye is sight.
Alcibiades. I am aware that it is so.
Socrates. Whether then is it not true, my friend Alcibiades, that the soul if she know herself, must look at soul, and especially at that place in the soul in which wisdom, the virtue of the soul, is ingenerated, and also at whatsoever else this virtue of the soul resembles?
Alcibiades. To me, Socrates, it seems true.
Socrates. Do we know of any place in the soul more divine than that which is the seat of knowledge and intelligence?
Alcibiades. We do not.
Socrates. This, therefore, in the soul resembles the divine nature. And a man, looking at this, and realizing all that which is divine and God and wisdom, would gain the most knowledge of himself.
Alcibiades. It is apparent.
Socrates. And to know one’s self we acknowledge to be wisdom.
Alcibiades. By all means.
Socrates. Shall we not say, therefore, that as mirrors are clearer, purer, and more splendid than that which is most analogous to a mirror in the eye, in like manner, God is purer and more splendid than that which is best in our soul?
Alcibiades. It is likely, Socrates.
Socrates. Looking therefore at God, we should make use of him as the most beautiful mirror, and among human concerns we should look at the virtue of the soul, and thus by so doing shall we especially see and know our very self.
Alcibiades. Yes.
And yet knowing the fascinations that beset gifted young men, one might say to them at parting, as Socrates did to the accomplished Alcibiades, when the latter intimated that he would begin thenceforward to cultivate the science of justice:
“I wish you may persevere. But I am terribly afraid for you; not that I in the least distrust the goodness of your disposition; but perceiving the torrent of the times, I fear you may be borne away with it, in spite of your own resistance and all my endeavors in your aid.”