how can we persuade the individual, in such a state, to obey the laws and confine his self-seeking within the circle of the total good? No wonder an Alcibiades turns against a state that distrusts ability, and reverences number more than knowledge. No wonder there is chaos where there is no thought, and the crowd decides in haste and ignorance, to repent at leisure and in desolation. Is it not a base superstition that mere numbers will give wisdom? On the contrary is it not universally seen that men in crowds are more foolish and more violent and more cruel than men separate and alone? Is it not shameful that men should be ruled by orators, who "go ringing on in long harangues, like brazen pots which, when struck, continue to sound till a hand is put upon them"?[1] Surely the management of a state is a matter for which men cannot be too intelligent, a matter that needs the unhindered thought of the finest minds. How can a society be saved, or be strong, except it be led by its wisest men?
Imagine the reaction of the popular party at Athens to this aristocratic gospel at a time when war seemed to require the silencing of all criticism, and when the wealthy and lettered minority were plotting a revolution. Consider the feelings of Anytus, the democratic leader whose son had become a pupil of Socrates, and had then turned against the gods of his father, and laughed in his father's face. Had not Aristophanes predicted precisely such a result from this specious replacement of the old virtues by unsocial intelligence?[2]
Then the revolution came, and men fought for it and
- ↑ Plato's Protagoras, sect. 329.
- ↑ In The Clouds (423 B.C.) Aristophanes had made great fun of Socrates and his "Thinking-shop," where one learned the art of proving one's self right, however wrong. Phidippides beats his father on the ground that his father used to beat him, and every debt should be repaid. The satire seems to have been good-natured enough: we find Aristophanes frequently in the company of Socrates; they agreed in their scorn of democracy; and Plato recommended The Clouds to Dionysius. As the play was brought out twenty-four years before the trial of Socrates, it could have had no great share in bringing the tragic dénouement of the philosopher's life.
