The Greek Philosophers, Vol. 1 (of 2) — A Closer Reading

Benn’s Critical Stance on Athenian Democracy

In the excerpt on Plato’s political critique, Benn does not simply summarize Plato’s views but presents them with a sharp edge. He quotes Plato’s characterization of Pericles as the one who “first gave the people pay and made them idle and cowardly,” and notes that Plato excepts only Aristeides among elder statesmen. Benn then extends the analysis to the law courts, where he reports Plato’s claim that judicial decisions had come to disregard righteousness entirely. The passage is notable for Benn’s own editorial voice: he describes the lawyer’s portrait as “unflattering” and observes that such figures were becoming the most powerful in the state. Benn adds a comparative remark that the dicastery’s power resembled that of the modern European press, but more direct and formidable. This blend of quotation, paraphrase, and contemporary analogy is characteristic of Benn’s method throughout the volume.

Structure and Sources: From Periodical to Book

The preface reveals that the first volume and the first two chapters of the second are reprinted from the Westminster Review with corrections and additions. Three chapters—on the Sceptics and Eclectics, the Religious Revival, and the Spiritualism of Plotinus—appear for the first time. This composite origin gives the book an unusual texture: some sections may retain the tighter argumentation of a periodical article, while others are more expansive. Benn’s references to Zeller are “copious,” as he admits, and the footnotes (not excerpted here) likely anchor his claims in German philological scholarship. Readers should be aware that the work is not a continuous narrative but a set of linked studies, and that Benn’s own interpretive framework—his “philosophy of history”—shapes the selection and emphasis of material.

The Excerpt’s View of Plato’s Social Diagnosis

Benn’s treatment of Plato’s critique of Athenian society is detailed and specific. He reports Plato’s view that popular leaders “fed the State on a diet” leading to an “ulcerated and swollen condition,” and that they filled the city with harbors, docks, and walls while leaving no room for justice and temperance. The excerpt then moves to Plato’s description of the lawyer’s character: “keen and shrewd,” but with a “small and unrighteous soul,” stunted by early fears and driven into crooked ways. Benn notes that this portrait was becoming increasingly accurate as specialization separated military, political, and legislative functions. He observes that the ultimate power was passing to the law courts, where general questions could be discussed in a more popular style. The passage ends with a striking claim: a vote of the Ecclêsia could only deprive a statesman of office, but a vote of the Dicastery might deprive him of civil rights, home, freedom, property, or life itself. Benn does not endorse or refute Plato’s diagnosis; he presents it as a coherent critique rooted in Plato’s own experience.

Benn’s volume rewards readers who approach it as a series of interpretive essays rather than a neutral survey. The excerpts show a writer willing to juxtapose ancient sources with modern parallels, and to foreground the social and political conditions that shaped philosophical arguments. Because the book originated in part from periodical contributions, its chapters vary in density and scope. Readers interested in the reception of Greek thought in late Victorian Britain will find Benn’s own intellectual commitments—his admiration for German scholarship, his critical view of Athenian democracy, and his effort to trace philosophical continuity—as revealing as the ancient material he presents.

That rainy afternoon, Benn’s Greeks felt alive, their ideas breathing through centuries of quiet argument. I kept thinking how every system steals from another—nothing truly begins. Later, my hand drifted to a different shelf and landed on H. P. Blavatsky; A Great Betrayal — A Reader’s Guide, which circles the same strange theft, only frailer, more human. One book simply opened the next, like a door left ajar.