I. Providence taking care of good men living or dying; CHAP. but whether of the two were better for a man, he thought. God alone knew. Mem. 1. i. But to shew more plainly what Socrates's judgment was as to the production of the world, Xenophon gives this account of it: Ἐθαύμαζε δ ̓ εἰ μὴ φανερὸν αὐτοῖς ἐστιν, Xenoph. ὅτι ταῦτα οὐ δυνατόν ἐστιν ἀνθρώποις εὑρεῖν. Ἐπεὶ καὶ τοὺς μέσα γιστον φρονοῦντας ἐπὶ τῷ περὶ τούτων λέγειν οὐ ταῦτα δοξάζειν ἀλλήλοις, ἀλλὰ τοῖς μαινομένοις ὁμοίως διακεῖσθαι πρὸς ἀλλήλους· That he looked on it as a great piece of folly in mankind to attempt it from material causes; and he wondered that they did not find out that these things were above their reach. And he thinks those philosophers argued like madmen; neither agreeing with one another, nor with the nature of things: for some said that it consisted of one thing; others, of infinite: some said all things were in motion; others said there was no motion at all; some said that all things were generated and corrupted; and others, that nothing at all was. Plato in his Phædo let us know how he came to be unsatisfied even with Anaxagoras himself, although he mightily approved his fundamental notion of all things being produced by an Eternal Mind. When he was a young man, he saith, he was a great admirer of natural philosophy, and endeavoured to find out the causes of things; but at last he found they were too hard for him, and so fell into a kind of scepticism but he had heard of a book of Anaxagoras, wherein he asserted, that Mind ordered all things. This pleased him well: but he expected that from hence he would have shewed how that Eternal Mind did frame every thing for the best, τὸ ἑκάστῳ βέλτιστον; but finding him to falter there, and to run to mere natural causes as others had done, he gave over his pursuit of natural philosophy, and applied himself to BOOK matters of morality, as more certainly known, and of greater use to mankind. I. Xenoph. l.i. But as to Providence, Xenophon is very particular in c. 1. ad fin. it, That it extended to all things said or done, although et c. 4. ad fin. Valer.Max. 1. vii. c. 2. sect. 8. in never so great silence; and that God was present in all places. To the same purpose Diogenes Laertius mentions a saying of Thales. Being asked whether a man could do an unjust action without God's knowing it; No, saith he, not if he only thinks to do it. Which, saith Valerius Maximus, was intended to keep men's minds clean and pure, as well as their hands. But the atheistical club at Athens, in Socrates's time, turned this another way. For they said, This was only a contrivance of some cunning man, to keep mankind more And that this was their sense appears by the Sext. Emp. verses still preserved in Sextus Empiricus; and part p. 264. ed. in Plutarch and others; but by the former they are atPar. 1569. Poesis Phil. tributed to Critias, and by the latter to Euripides, ed. Leid. p. 75. in awe. both of Socrates's time. But there seems to be far 1. Miscell. 1. i. I. Placit. Phi his poison; and when Thrasybulus came to deliver CHAP. Athens, upon his being killed, the whole faction sunk. Nothing can be more agreeable to the character of such a man, than to make him look on all religion as an imposture and contrivance of some crafty politician. But nothing of it agrees with that of Euripides, who was scholar to Anaxagoras, a friend to Socrates; and on all occasions wrote decently with respect to piety and virtue. But Plutarch saith, He wrote the verses P. Petit. in the name of Sisyphus, for fear of the Areopagus. c. 1. It cannot be denied, that author (whether, Plutarch or not, for some question it) doth say so. But if Plutarch had said it on good ground, how came Sextus, after him, so positively to give them to Critias? And which is more to the purpose, the same author had but a little before quoted a passage of Euripides, very agreeable to a scholar of Anaxagoras, that the heavens were Plutarch.de καλὸν ποίκιλμα τέκτονος σοφοῦ, the beautiful workmanship los. l. i. c. 6. of a wise architect; and from thence we come to the notion of God. How different is this from the sense of those atheistical verses! But it is no easy matter to judge what the true sense of a poet is, when it is his design to personate others. And so Euripides might introduce Sisyphus as speaking agreeable to his own character, who is represented as an ill man, and given to fraud; and therefore it is no wonder such a man should look on religion as such a contrivance. For ether Sisyphus or Critias might be well supposed to utter such things: but the question is, how far Euripides is to be charged with them; and whether he spoke his own sense under the name of Sisyphus, for fear of the Areopagus? This ought certainly to be proved some other way: and if not, it seems to be a very unjust imputation; especially since Socrates expressed such an esteem for Euripides; which he would I. BOOK never have done, if he had suspected that, under the person of Sisyphus, he had overthrown the foundations of religion. Ælian. l. ii. c. 13. ed. Lugd. Mem. 1. i. c. 4. But what the true sense of Socrates was, may be seen by his discourse with Aristodemus; of which Xenoph. Xenophon hath preserved the remembrance. This Aristodemus was one of those that not only neglected religion himself, but despised and laughed at those that regarded it. Socrates finding what sort of man he was, takes him to task after his dry manner. And are there no persons, Aristodemus, said he, that you have any esteem of for being wiser than others? Yes, said he briskly, and like a man of wit, I admire Homer for an epic poem, Melanippides in dithyrambics, Sophocles in tragedy, Polycletus in the art of making statues, and Phidias in painting. The man, we see, was a kind of virtuoso in other things, but without any sense of God or religion. Well! said Socrates, and would you not admire those more who make living and moving statues, than such only as have neither sense nor motion? No doubt the former, Aristodemus replied, if they are made by design, and not by chance. that, said Socrates, we may best judge by the use they are intended for: for those things which are for a manifest use, are most agreeable to design. As for instance, the senses of men are so plainly given them for particular uses, that we cannot reasonably think but that he that made mankind at first gave them them for that purpose; as he particularly instances in the fabric of the eye, and the care of nature to preserve it, (which he calls a work of Providence ;) and so for the ears, nose, and mouth, which are so framed as to be рovoτкws пeпρayμéva, done by a wise design, and not by chance. And I cannot, saith Socrates, look upon them otherwise than as the workmanship σοφοῦ τινος δημιουργοῦ καὶ Ibid. Of προνοητι I. pwov, of a wise contriver, and a lover of his own CHAP. workmanship. The same he shews in the propagation of animals, and the love and care of their young, &c. But as to mankind, he saith, there is opóμóv tI, a reach beyond other animals; and they have not only a body made out of earth, but a mind which we perceive within ourselves. And can these great and wonderful things come to pass δι' ἀφροσύνην τινὰ, without mind or understanding? To which our virtuoso had nothing to say, but that he could not see the artificer here, as he did in other cases. Well! and do not you contrive and design things in your own mind? And yet you can no more see that, than the wise contriver of these things. All that Aristodemus had to say was, that he did not disown or despise a Divine Being, but he thought it too great to regard his service. Hold a little, said Socrates; for the greater he is, the more he ought to be honoured by mankind. Then he questioned whether there were such a thing as Providence, with respect to human affairs. For that, Socrates again bade him look to the frame of human nature, and the several parts of man's body, and he could not but see a Providence in the contrivance of the several parts of the body; but especially the mind, which he hath inspired into men. Τὴν ψυχὴν κρατίστην τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐνέφυσε : not blowing some subtle air into man, as some modern philosophers would translate it, or giving a mere vital motion. But Socrates was far from thinking an incorporeal sub-Ibid. stance within us to be a contradiction; nor that it was any absurdity to take a metaphor from air, to express the infusion of an immaterial soul. And he shews the excellency of the human soul above others, because it alone apprehends the being of God, who made and contrived the greatest, best things, and alone is capable of doing him service: besides, that it hath prudence |