(page 87) - Chapter VI
The Athenian Philosophers

Page 87

his legs felt heavy. And when he had lain down, he made his last request to Crito in the following words: I owe a cock to Asclepius, do not forget to pay it. By this time the poison took effect and he passed away." (Plato Phaedo C. 3 and 65).

(ii) THE DOCTRINES OF SOCRATES

i. The doctrine of Nous, i.e., mind or an Intelligent Cause, in order to account for God and Creation. He is credited with the teleological premise: whatever exists for a useful purpose is the work of an Intelligence. (Xenophon Memorabilia I, 4, 2; Wm. Turner's Hist. of Phil. p. 82).

ii. The doctrine of the Supreme Good:--

The Supreme good i.e., the summum bonum is equated both with happiness and with knowledge. This however is not merely eutuchia which depends upon external conditions and accidents of fortune; but is (eupraxia), a well-being, which is conditioned by good action. This is an attainment in which man becomes godlike through self denial of external needs and the cultivation of the mind: for happiness comes not through the perishable things of the external world, but through the things that endure, which are within us. (Xenophon Memorabilia I, 5, 4.) Wm. Turner's Hist. of Phil. p. 83).

iii. The doctrines of opposites and harmony:

(a) Odd and even are the elements of numbers. One is definite but the other is unlimited, and the unit is the product both of odd and even. Hence the universe consists of opposites: the finite and the infinite, the male and the female; the odd and the even; the left and right.

(b) Harmony is the union of opposites.

(Plato's Phaedo C. 15; Wm. Turner's Hist. of Phil. p. 41; 47).

(Zeller's Hist. of Phil. p. 61).

iv. The Doctrines Concerning the Soul:

(a) The immortality of the Soul

(b) The transmigration of the Soul

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