Turning from literature and the arts to law and politics, again we fall
under the lash of Socrates. For do we not often make 'the worse appear
the better cause;' and do not 'both parties sometimes agree to tell
lies'? Is not pleading 'an art of speaking unconnected with the truth'?
There is another text of Socrates which must not be forgotten in
relation to this subject. In the endless maze of English law is there
any 'dividing the whole into parts or reuniting the parts into a
whole'--any semblance of an organized being 'having hands and feet and
other members'? Instead of a system there is the Chaos of Anaxagoras
(omou panta chremata) and no Mind or Order. Then again in the noble
art of politics, who thinks of first principles and of true ideas?
We avowedly follow not the truth but the will of the many (compare
Republic). Is not legislation too a sort of literary effort, and might
not statesmanship be described as the 'art of enchanting' the house?
While there are some politicians who have no knowledge of the truth, but
only of what is likely to be approved by 'the many who sit in judgment,'
there are others who can give no form to their ideal, neither having
learned 'the art of persuasion,' nor having any insight into the
'characters of men.' Once more, has not medical science become a
professional routine, which many 'practise without being able to say
who were their instructors'--the application of a few drugs taken from
a book instead of a life-long study of the natures and constitutions of
human beings? Do we see as clearly as Hippocrates 'that the nature of
the body can only be understood as a whole'? (Compare Charm.) And are
not they held to be the wisest physicians who have the greatest distrust
of their art? What would Socrates think of our newspapers, of our
theology? Perhaps he would be afraid to speak of them;--the one vox
populi, the other vox Dei, he might hesitate to attack them; or he might
trace a fanciful connexion between them, and ask doubtfully, whether
they are not equally inspired? He would remark that we are always
searching for a belief and deploring our unbelief, seeming to prefer
popular opinions unverified and contradictory to unpopular truths which
are assured to us by the most certain proofs: that our preachers are
in the habit of praising God 'without regard to truth and falsehood,
attributing to Him every species of greatness and glory, saying that He
is all this and the cause of all that, in order that we may exhibit Him
as the fairest and best of all' (Symp.) without any consideration of
His real nature and character or of the laws by which He governs the
world--seeking for a 'private judgment' and not for the truth or 'God's
judgment.' What would he say of the Church, which we praise in like
manner, 'meaning ourselves,' without regard to history or experience?
Might he not ask, whether we 'care more for the truth of religion, or
for the speaker and the country from which the truth comes'? or, whether