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THREE:

THREE:The three forms of individualism already enumerated do not exhaust the general conception of subjectivity. According to Hegel, if we understand him aright, the most important aspect of the principle in question would be the philosophical side, the return of thought on itself, already latent in physical speculation, proclaimed by the Sophists as an all-dissolving scepticism, and worked up into a theory of life by Socrates. That there was such a movement is, of course, certain; but that it contributed perceptibly to the decay of old Greek morality, or that it was essentially opposed to the old Greek spirit, cannot, we think, be truly asserted. What has been already observed of political liberty and of political unscrupulousness may be repeated of intellectual inquisitiveness, rationalism, scepticism, or by whatever name the tendency in question is to be called��it always was, and still is, essentially characteristic of the Greek race. It may very possibly have been a source of political disintegration at all times, but that it became so to a greater extent after assuming the form of systematic speculation has never been proved. If the study of science, or the passion for intellectual gymnastics, drew men away from the duties of public life, it was simply as one more private interest among many, just like feasting, or lovemaking, or travelling, or poetry, or any other of the occupations in which a wealthy Greek delighted; not from any intrinsic incompatibility with the duties of a statesman or a soldier. So far, indeed, was this from being true, that liberal studies, even of the abstrusest order, were pursued with every advantage to their patriotic energy by such citizens as Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, and, above all, by Pericles and Epameinondas. If Socrates stood aloof from public business it was that he might have more leisure to train others for its proper performance; and he himself, when called upon to serve the State, proved fully equal to the emergency. As for the Sophists, it is well known that their profession was to give young men the sort of education which would enable251 them to fill the highest political offices with honour and advantage. It is true that such a special preparation would end by throwing increased difficulties in the way of a career which it was originally intended to facilitate, by raising the standard of technical proficiency in statesmanship; and that many possible aspirants would, in consequence, be driven back on less arduous pursuits. But Plato was so far from opposing this specialisation that he wished to carry it much farther, and to make government the exclusive business of a small class who were to be physiologically selected and to receive an education far more elaborate than any that the Sophists could give. If, however, we consider Plato not as the constructor of a new constitution but in relation to the politics of his own time, we must admit that his whole influence was used to set public affairs in a hateful and contemptible light. So far, therefore, as philosophy was represented by him, it must count for a disintegrating force. But in just the same degree we are precluded from assimilating his idea of a State to the old Hellenic model. We must rather say, what he himself would have said, that it never was realised anywhere; although, as we shall presently see, a certain approach to it was made in the Middle Ages.��You��re a fine Sky Patrol,�� he grumbled. ��You swallowed everything he said, like a big softie! And told him everything you knew,�� he continued, bitterly.

THREE:Whether Spinoza ever read Plato is doubtful. One hardly sees why he should have neglected a writer whose works were easily accessible, and at that time very popular with thinking minds. But whether he was acquainted with the Dialogues at first hand or not, Plato will help us to understand Spinoza, for it was through the door of geometry that he entered philosophy, and under the guidance of one who was saturated with the Platonic spirit; so far as Christianity influenced him, it was through elements derived from Plato; and his metaphysical method was one which, more than any other, would have been welcomed with delight by the author of the Meno and the Republic, as an attempt to realise his own dialectical ideal. For Spinozism is, on the face of it, an application of geometrical reasoning to philosophy, and especially to ethics. It is also an attempt to prove transcendentally what geometricians only assume��the necessity of space. Now, Plato looked on geometrical demonstration as the great type of certainty, the scientific completion of what Socrates had begun by his interrogative method, the one means of carrying irrefragable conviction into every department of knowledge, and more particularly into the study of our highest good. On the other hand, he saw that geometricians assume what itself requires to be demonstrated; and he confidently expected that the deficiency would be supplied by his own projected method of transcendent dialectics. Such at least seems to be the drift of the following passage:CHAPTER XL. ANOTHER COIL.