History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [86]
His end, and his farewells, are described. His last words are: 'Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?' Men paid a cock to Asclepius when they recovered from an illness, and Socrates has recovered from life's fitful fever.
'Of all the men of his time,' Phaedo concludes, 'he was the wisest and justest and best.'
The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages. What are we to think of him ethically? (I am concerned only with the man as Plato portrays him.) His merits are obvious. He is indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humorous to the last moment, caring more for what he believes to be truth than for anything else whatever. He has, however, some very grave defects. He is dishonest and sophistical in argument, and in his private thinking he uses intellect to prove conclusions that are to him agreeable, rather than in a disinterested search for knowledge. There is something smug and unctuous about him, which reminds one of a bad type of cleric. His courage in the face of death would have been more remarkable if he had not believed that he was going to enjoy eternal bliss in the company of the gods. Unlike some of his predecessors, he was not scientific in his thinking, but was determined to prove the universe agreeable to his ethical standards. This is treachery to truth, and the worst of philosophic sins. As a man, we may believe him admitted to the communion of saints; but as a philosopher he needs a long residence in a scientific purgatory.
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PLATO'S COSMOGONY
Plato's cosmogony is set forth in the Timaeus,1 which was translated into Latin by Cicero, and was, moreover, the only one of the dialogues that was known in the West in the Middle Ages. Both then, and earlier in Neoplatonism, it had more influence than anything else in Plato, which is curious, as it certainly contains more that is simply silly than is to be found in his other writings. As philosophy, it is unimportant, but historically it was so influential that it must be considered in some detail.
The place occupied by Socrates in the earlier dialogues is taken, in the Timaeus, by a Pythagorean, and the doctrines of that school are in the main adopted, including (up to a point) the view that number is the explanation of the world. There is first a summary of the first five books of the Republic, then the myth of Atlantis, which is said to have been an island off the Pillars of Hercules, larger than Libya and Asia put together. Then Timaeus, who is a Pythagorean astronomer, proceeds to tell the history of the world down to the creation of man. What he says is, in outline, as follows.
What is unchanging is apprehended by intelligence and reason; what is changing is apprehended by opinion. The world being sensible, cannot be eternal, and must have been created by God. Since God is good, He made the world after the pattern of the eternal; being without jealousy, He wanted everything as like Himself as possible. 'God desired that all things should be good, and nothing bad, as far as possible.' 'Finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder
he brought order.' (Thus it appears that Plato's God, unlike the Jewish and Christian God, did not create the world out of nothing, but rearranged pre-existing material.) He put intelligence in the soul, and the soul in the body. He made the world as a whole a living creature having soul and intelligence. There is only one world, not many, as various pre-Socratics had taught; there cannot be more than one, since it is a created copy designed to accord as closely as possible with the eternal original apprehended by God. The world in its entirety is one visible animal, comprehending within itself all other animals. It is a globe, because like is fairer than unlike, and only a globe is alike everywhere. It rotates, because circular motion is the most perfect; and since this is its only motion it