ONE:Apart from legendary reputations, there is no name in the worlds history more famous than that of Socrates, and in the history of philosophy there is none so famous. The only thinker that approaches him in celebrity is his own disciple Plato. Every one who has heard of Greece or Athens has heard of him. Every one who has heard of him knows that he was supremely good and great. Each successive generation has confirmed the reputed Delphic oracle that no man was wiser than Socrates. He, with one or two others, alone came near to realising the ideal of a Stoic sage. Christians deem it no irreverence to compare him with the Founder of their religion. If a few dissentient voices have broken the general unanimity, they have, whether consciously or not, been inspired by the Socratic principle that we should let no opinion pass unquestioned and unproved. Furthermore, it so happens that this wonderful figure is known even to the multitude by sight as well as by name. Busts, cameos, and engravings have made all familiar with the Silenus-like physiognomy, the thick lips, upturned nose, and prominent eyes which impressed themselves so strangely on the imagination of a race who are accused of having cared for nothing but physical beauty, because they rightly regarded it as the natural accompaniment of moral loveliness. Those who wish to discover what manner of mind lay hid beneath this uninviting109 exterior may easily satisfy their curiosity, for Socrates is personally better known than any other character of antiquity. Dr. Johnson himself is not a more familiar figure to the student of literature. Alone among classical worthies his table-talk has been preserved for us, and the art of memoir-writing seems to have been expressly created for his behoof.79 We can follow him into all sorts of company and test his behaviour in every variety of circumstances. He conversed with all classes and on all subjects of human interest, with artisans, artists, generals, statesmen, professors, and professional beauties. We meet him in the armourers workshop, in the sculptors studio, in the boudoirs of the demi-monde, in the banqueting-halls of flower-crowned and wine-flushed Athenian youth, combining the self-mastery of an Antisthenes with the plastic grace of an Aristippus; or, in graver moments, cheering his comrades during the disastrous retreat from Delium; upholding the sanctity of law, as President of the Assembly, against a delirious populace; confronting with invincible irony the oligarchic terrorists who held life and death in their hands; pleading not for himself, but for reason and justice, before a stupid and bigoted tribunal; and, in the last sad scene of all, exchanging Attic courtesies with the unwilling instrument of his death.80He explained to me that one of those soldiers accused me of ... spying and arson. He had thought to recognise in me a person who had asked him that afternoon whether he was ... a Belgian or a German soldier, and whom he had also seen escaping from a factory which was in full blaze a moment later.
TWO: CHAPTER XII
ONE:After his Eminence had allowed me to kiss his ring, he asked me to sit down. I had now a good opportunity to notice how grief dwelt on his212 entirely spiritualised face, in its frame of white hair. But his extraordinary kindness in intercourse did not leave him for one moment.An answer might conceivably have been supplied, had Aristotle been enable to complete that sketch of an ideal State which was originally intended to form part of his Politics. But the philosopher evidently found that to do so was beyond his powers. If the seventh and eighth books of that treatise, which contain the fragmentary attempt in question, had originally occupied the place where they now stand in our manuscripts, it might have been supposed that Aristotles labours were interrupted by death. Modern criticism has shown, however, that they should follow immediately after the first three books, and that the author broke off, almost at the beginning of his ideal polity, to take up the much more congenial task of analysing and criticising the actually existing Hellenic constitutions. But the little that he has done proves him to have been profoundly unfitted for the task of a practical reformer. What few actual recommendations it contains are a compromisesomewhat in the spirit of Platos Lawsbetween the Republic and real life. The rest is what he never fails to give usa mass of details about matters of fact, and a summary of his speculative ethics, along with counsels of moderation in the spirit of his practical ethics; but not one296 practical principle of any value, not one remark to show that he understood what direction history was taking, or that he had mastered the elements of social reform as set forth in Platos works. The progressive specialisation of political functions; the necessity of a spiritual power; the formation of a trained standing army; the admission of women to public employments; the elevation of the whole race by artificial selection; the radical reform of religion; the reconstitution of education, both literary and scientific, the redistribution of property; the enactment of a new code; the use of public opinion as an instrument of moralisation;these are the ideas which still agitate the minds of men, and they are also the ideas of the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws. Aristotle, on the other hand, occupies himself chiefly with discussing how far a city should be built from the sea, whether it should be fortified; how its citizens should not be employed; when people should not marry; what children should not be permitted to see; and what music they should not be taught. Apart from his enthusiasm for philosophy, there is nothing generous, nothing large-minded, nothing inspiring. The territory of the city is to be self-sufficing, that it may be isolated from other States; the citizens are to keep aloof from all industrial occupations; science is put out of relation to the material well-being of mankind. It was, in short, to be a city where every gentleman should hold an idle fellowship; a city where Aristotle could live without molestation, and in the enjoyment of congenial friendships; just as the God of his system was a still higher Aristotle, perpetually engaged in the study of formal logic.
TWO:A search was being made for the fugitives in every place but the right one. The railings of the square were high, so that it never occurred to any one that the culprits might have escaped that way. They had got off somehow. In the opinion of most of the people there they had stopped the motor and started it again on its headlong course, after which they had mingled with the crowd.In no other branch of machinery has so much research and experiment been made during eighty years past as in steam machinery, and, strange to say, the greater part of this research has been directed to the details of engines; yet there has been no improvement made during the time which has effected any considerable saving of heat or expense. The steam-engines of fifty years ago, considered as steam-using machines, utilised nearly the same proportion of the energy or power developed by the boiler as the most improved engines of modern constructiona fact that in itself indicates that an engine is not the vital part of steam machinery. There is not the least doubt that if the efforts to improve steam-engines had been mainly directed to economising heat and increasing the evaporative power of boilers, much more would have been accomplished with the same amount of research. This remark, however, does not apply to the present day, when the principles of steam-power are so well understood, and when heat is recognised as the proper element to deal with in attempts to diminish the expense of power. There is, of course, various degrees of economy in steam-using as well as in steam-generating machinery; but so long as the best steam machinery does not utilise but one-tenth or one-fifteenth part of the heat represented in the fuel burned, there need be no question as to the point where improvements in such machinery should be mainly directed.
ONE:"I have done what you asked," he said curtly. "You are a wonderful man, you novelist; see you at our dear friend the Countess's tomorrow. Good night."
TWO:Answering to the first principles of demonstration in logic, if not absolutely identical with them, are what Aristotle calls causes in the nature of things. We have seen what an important part the middle term plays in Aristotles theory of the syllogism. It is the vital principle of demonstration, the connecting link by which the two extreme terms are attached to one another. In the theory of applied logic, whose object is to bring the order of thought into complete parallelism with the order of things, the middle term through which a fact is demonstrated answers to the cause through which it exists. According to our notions, only two terms, antecedent and consequent, are involved in the idea of causation; and causation only becomes a matter for reasoning when we perceive that the sequence is repeated in a uniform manner. But Aristotle was very far from having reached, or even suspected, this point of view. A cause is with him not a determining antecedent, but a secret nexus by which the co-existence of two phenomena is explained. Instead of preceding it intercedes; and this is why he finds its subjective counterpart in the middle term of the syllogism. Some of his own examples will make the matter clearer. Why is the moon eclipsed? Because the earth intervenes between her and the sun. Why is the bright side of the moon always turned towards the sun? Because she shines by his reflected light (here light is the middle term). Why is that person talking to the rich man? Because he wants to borrow money of him. Why are those two men friends? Because they have the same enemy.281
