Thus the theory must end in total scepticism and darkness. The fact that theosophists do not, as a matter of fact, draw these sceptical conclusions, simply means that they are not as clear-headed and logical as Protagoras was. {155} CHAPTER XI THE SEMI-SOCRATICS Upon the death of Socrates there ensued a phenomenon which is not infrequent in the history of thought. A great and many-sided personality combines in himself many conflicting tendencies and ideas. Let us take an example, not, however, from the sphere of intellect, but from the sphere of practical life. We often say that it is difficult to reconcile mercy and justice. Among the many small personalities, one man follows only the ideal of mercy, and as his mercy has not in it the stern stuff of justice, it degenerates into mawkishness and sentimental humanitarianism. Another man follows only the ideal of justice, forgetting mercy, and he becomes harsh and unsympathetic. It takes a greater man, a larger personality, harmoniously to combine the two. And as it is in the sphere of practical life, so it is in the arena of thought and philosophy. A great thinker is not he who seizes upon a single aspect of the truth, and pushes that to its extreme limit, but the man who combines, in one many-sided system, all the varying and conflicting sides of truth. By emphasizing one thought, by being obsessed by a single idea and pushing it to its logical conclusion, regardless of the other aspects of the truth, one may indeed achieve a considerable local and {156} temporary reputation; because such a procedure often leads to striking paradoxes, to strange and seemingly uncommon conclusions. The reputations of such men as Nietzsche, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, are made chiefly in this way. But upon the death of a great all-embracing personality, just because his thought is a combination of so many divergent truths, we often find that it splits up into its component parts, each of which gives rise to a one-sided school of thought. The disciples, being smaller men, are not able to grasp the great man's thought in its wholeness and many-sidedness. Each disciple seizes upon that portion of his master's teaching which has most in common with his own temperament, and proceeds to erect this one incomplete idea into a philosophy, treating the part as if it were the whole. This is exactly what happened after the death of Socrates. Only one man among his disciples was able to grasp the whole of his teaching, and understand the whole of his personality, and that was Plato. Among the lesser men who were the followers and personal friends of Socrates, there were three who founded schools of philosophy, each partial and one-sided, but each claiming to be the exponent of the true Socraticism. Antisthenes founded the Cynic school, Aristippus the Cyrenaic, and Euclid the Megaric.