A Planet of Light and Heat: Samuel Neilson and the Northern Star (Published in History Ireland, 2015)
On the Hill of Tara in County Meath, next to the Lia Fail, is a monument commemorating the Rising of 1798 and some 3,000 miles away, in a cemetery in Poughkeepsie, New York, is another monument marking the grave of a man who devoted his life to the vision of free and unified Ireland. His name was Samuel Neilson (1761-1803) and, while not as widely recognized as others who participated in the rebellion such as Wolfe Tone, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, or William Orr, he played an integral role in the Rising of 1798 primarily as editor of the newspaper the Northern Star.
The historian Gillian O’Brien, in an article on Neilson’s paper, cites the writer Walter Cox who, in 1811 described the Northern Star as:
a planet of light and heat; its influences were commensurate with its circulation and its circulation was only restricted by the ocean. It warmed the cold; it animated the feeble; it cheered the afflicted; it stimulated the intrepid and instructed all. Pernicious dogmas, false reasonings, slavish superstitions and gothic prejudices, which broke the people into different sects and marshalled them against each other, disappeared before it.
The Northern Star was an independent source of news in Ireland at a time when the English-controlled press was the only source of information. It is not surprising to read Cox’s description of it as a force which broke down barriers and prejudices among the people because the publication was born out of the vision of the Society of United Irishmen who sought to unify all of Ireland – Catholics and protestants – in the cause of a free and united land. The vision was articulated by Wolfe Tone; but it was Neilson who shared that vision with every person in Ireland who read the articles or heard them read aloud. O’Brien writes how “in late eighteenth-century Ireland, the purchase of The Northern Star was as potent a symbol of freethinking, independent citizenship as bearing arms.” The paper was the mouthpiece of the United Irishmen and Samuel Neilson was the man who devoted himself to ensuring the Northern Star reached as many people as possible.
The spirit of revolution was in the air throughout the latter part of the 18th century. The British colonies in North America had successfully revolted against English rule in 1775 and by 1783 had defeated the English empire and declared themselves an independent nation. In 1789 the French had thrown off their monarchy in their own revolution and dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The example of oppressed people breaking free of tyrannical rule was carefully noted by the politically minded in Ireland. While these revolutions were going on, the Catholic majority of the population in Ireland had almost no rights at all. The wealthy landowners and aristocrats were Anglicans of the Church of Ireland, aligned with English rule, and used their political power to enact the penal laws to deprive Irish Catholics of their lands and fortunes. In 1641 Catholics held 59% of the land; by 1703 they held only 14%. No Catholic could serve in the armed forces or possess arms, they could not ride a horse worth more than five pounds, could not vote or attend school or serve in government, and were forced to pay a tithe to the Anglican Church as well as a Hearth Tax (also known as Hearth Money) for each fireplace in the home.
Irish Presbyterians and Dissenters suffered similar injustices and persecutions (though less harsh) which Neilson was keenly aware of. In 1791 he became involved in politics through the Volunteer Movement, a militia organized during the American Revolution when British troops stationed in Ireland were deployed to North America. The military authority of these militas emboldened some to exercise what political power they could to effect change in Ireland. A life-long Presbyterian, Neilson nevertheless saw no significant distinction between Catholics, protestants (dissenters) and those of his own church and suggested to his friend, the political activist Henry Joy McCracken, the idea of forming a society based on Wolfe Tone’s Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland which championed equal rights and treatment before the law for everyone in the land.
Neilson believed a united society was the imperative first step in galvanizing the people to action and following the examples of the North American colonies and France, free Ireland from tyranny. Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell, also protestants, joined with Neilson and McCracken, and other like-minded Irish intellectuals, in establishing the Society of United Irishmen in October 1791. The Northern Star was conceived as a voice of dissent, a necessary alternative to the English-controlled press in Ireland, and was launched in January 1792 with Neilson as editor.
The Northern Star broadcast the central principles of the United Irishmen:
1. That the weight of English influence in the government of this country is so great as to require a cordial union among all the people of Ireland, to maintain that balance which is essential to the preservation of our liberties and the extension of our commerce.
2. That the sole constitutional mode by which this influence can be opposed is by a complete and radical reform of the people in Parliament.
3. That no reform is just which does not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion.
The aim of the United Irishmen was freeing Ireland from English rule but, to accomplish this, they needed popular support; the Northern Star won them this support at tremendous cost to those involved with the publication. Neilson, his staff, and supporters repeatedly weathered the legal storms for libel brought against him and his paper by English authorities from 1792 through 1795. When the pressure from the English became too great, many of those associated with the paper distanced themselves. Neilson then carried the paper and took all of the risks on his own, maintaining the press until his arrest for sedition in 1796. He and Russell and any others found on site were taken to Newgate prison in Dublin and then on to Kilmainham jail while the paper’s offices were ransacked by the militia men who had arrested them.
During its run, the Northern Star was distributed throughout Ireland, achieving a circulation of almost 5,000 subscribers, not counting those who read the paper in pubs or heard it read to them. The historian Jonathan Bardon writes that the Northern Star, with Samuel Neilson as editor, “became the most widely read newspaper in Ireland” and, displaying his keen business acumen, Neilson even made the publication profitable. In May of 1797 the Monaghan Militia wanted to place an English loyalty declaration in the Northern Star. The staff refused unless an offending sentence, referring to Belfast as a town notorious for seditious practices, was removed from the piece. In response, the militia destroyed the printing presses of the Northern Star, ending the paper’s run.
When Neilson was released in February of 1798 (owing to failing health from his time in the notorious Kilmainham jail) it was under the condition that he not associate with any treasonable persons or engage in any seditious activities. Neilson, however, refused to recognize the authority of the English restrictions placed on his release and returned to his former cause even though he now had no means of printing or distributing the Northern Star. Neilson felt, more than he even had before, that the time for the rebellion was at hand and, as Jonathan Bardon writes, it was Neilson who thought up the plan to signal the start of the rebellion: “simply stop the government coaches carrying the mail and other vital army communications, and when the coach failed to appear at the usual time, then it was time to lift the pikes out of the thatch.” The rebellion’s date was not yet decided upon when, on 12 March 1798, fifteen members of the United Irishmen, including the rebel leader Oliver Bond, were arrested at Bond’s house in Dublin following a tip to the authorities by the traitor Thomas Reynolds. The arrest of Bond and the others momentarily stalled plans for the uprising.
Neilson and rebel leader Lord Edward Fitzgerald were still at large, however, with Fitzgerald hiding in a house on Thomas Street in Dublin and Neilson bringing him whatever intelligence could be gathered. It has been claimed by some historians (Bardon among them) that the authorities were watching Neilson and followed him to Fitzgerald but more recent scholarship makes clear that Fitzgerald was betrayed by a fellow member of the United Irishmen, a man at whose house he had dined and whom he trusted, one Francis Magan, who reported Fitzgerald’s whereabouts to authorities in May. The date of the rebellion was set for 23 May and Fitzgerald was the man to lead it with Neilson’s strategy in place for Dublin to rise as the flashpoint and surrounding cities and counties to then follow suit. On 18 May, however, authorities raided the house on Thomas Street, following Megan’s tip, and Fitzgerald was critically wounded and taken to Newgate Prison.
On the night of 23 May, Neilson was reconnoitering Newgate for a surprise attack to free Fitzgerald when he was recognized by one of his former jailers and, though he tried to escape, he was overpowered, beaten, and arrested. The rising began the next morning just before dawn but, again because of treachery, the authorities were aware of the threat and had mobilized the army in Dublin to police the streets so rigidly that the rebels had no chance to enact their plan. Neilson’s strategy of stopping the government coaches failed owing to a lack of leadership and organization. Rebel forces in County Wicklow did rise, however, and these inspired others. The Rising of 1798 would continue until it was crushed in September of the same year (though efforts would persist, as opportunity and circumstance presented itself, until its objectives were largely realized by 1922). As the authorities executed and massacred insurgents, Neilson remained in prison with the others taken when the rebellion began.
Neilson and the other rebels had been moved from Newgate to Kilmainham jail except for Fitzgerald who died of the wounds he received at his arrest. From Kilmainham, Neilson was exiled to the English stronghold of Fort George in Scotland and remained there a prisoner until 30 June 1802 when he was deported with the others to the Netherlands. The English insisted that none of these men ever return to Ireland. Neilson defied English law by visiting his wife and children after his release and then left for the United States of America from Dublin. He arived in December 1802, most probably at the docks of South Street in Manhattan, New York. His plan was to start up another Northern Star in America and continue the fight for Irish independence by organizing another Society of United Irishmen. He was preparing to publish his paper and bring his wife and family over from Ireland when a yellow fever epidemic struck New York in August of 1803.
Historian George H. Lukacs writes, “The early severity of this yellow fever outbreak drove merchants and citizens out of the city to towns such as Poughkeepsie.” Neilson took passage on a boat which was heading two hours north to Poughkeepsie on 28 August but it was too late; he was already infected with the fever and died the next day, 29 August 1803 at the age of 43. The weekly publication Political Barometer of September 6, 1803 reports, “Some few weeks since, Mr. Neilson issued proposals for publishing an evening paper in New York; driven from thence by the calamitous disease which now prevails in the city, he was taken sick on his passage up the river, landed here on Sunday, and died Monday morning; his remains were decently interred in the Dutch Presbyterian burying ground in this village.” When this cemetery lot was sold to make way for businesses, and the graves moved, Neilson’s body was interred in the new Episcopal cemetery on Montgomery Street in 1830 and, when this lot was moved, his remains were re-located to plot 94, A of the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery in 1880. The grave remained unmarked, however, until identified by the writer Thomas Addis Emmet. On August 29, 1905 the present stone was unveiled with great ceremony, an event attended by a large crowd of admirers, and, in the words of one journalist, “the gallant Irishman got his just reward.”
Samuel Neilson could have lived a comfortable life with his wife and family. He clearly had an acute business sense and a talent for the written word. He chose, instead, to devote himself to the good of the people through the publication of the Northern Star. Unlike Wolfe Tone or Lord Fitzgerald, Neilson had no dramatic or heroic exit from life but just like them he gave his life and sacrificed his family for the cause of Irish freedom from English oppression. His grave rests many miles from the land he sought to free but, for those who respect his sacrifice, it serves as a reminder of what could have been had the Rising of 1798 succeeded, of the many successes which followed, and of the values of liberty and equality which so many would rather die for than live without.
His headstone reads:
Sacred To The Memory of
Samuel Neilson
An Irish Patriot of 1798
One of the Founder of the
United Irishmen
Who sacrificed his fortune and his life
In the cause of his country
Born in County Down, Ireland Sept 1761
Died 29 August 1803
Erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians
Division No. 2. Poughkeepsie, New York
August 29 1905
NEILSON
On the back of the monument are engravings of the harp and wolves with “Ireland Forever” in Gaelic.
Sidebar: Neilson was born 17 September 1761 at Ballyroney, County Down, Ireland to Alexander Neilson, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Agnes. He was the second born of a large family of eight boys and five girls and was educated in liberal arts and mathematics in school. He married Anne Bryson in 1785 when he worked as a successful woolen draper in Belfast and they had five children. Prior to his involvement with politics, Neilson’s business, The Irish Woolen Warehouse, was “the most extensive and respectable house in that line in Belfast” generating the small fortune of 8,000 pounds by 1792.
Sidebar: Writer and historian Malachy McCourt comments on the importance of Neilson’s paper: “Through discussion of foreign and domestic politics, Northern Star tried to educate its readership, which at its peak reached 4,000 people, and which was larger than any other contemporary paper…If anyone ever doubts the truth of the adage `the pen is mightier than the sword’, think of all the times in history that absolute rulers and governments have tried to stifle writers. Those who write well are dangerous to those who try to stifle freedom.”
For Further Reading:
Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes, 2008, Gill & Macmillan, Ltd, Dublin.
Andrew Flood, The 1798 Rebellion and the Origins of Irish Republicanism, 2007, indymedia ireland, Web.
Malachy McCourt, Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland, 2004, Running Press, London.
Gillian O’Brien, Spirit, Impartiality and Independence: The Northern Star, 1792-1797, Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris as da chultur, Vol. 13, 1988, pp. 7-23.
END
The Ruins of Wyndclyffe Rhinecliff, NY
There are many fascinating and forlorn ruins throughout the Hudson Valley in upstate New York and, among them, the tottering remains of what was once considered the grandest home in the country. While the house has had many names since its construction in 1853, it is best known as Wyndclyffe, home to the millionaire spinster Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, who was Edith Wharton’s aunt. Although the house is a ruin today, considered far too unstable for even the most ardent preservationists to save, it was once the site of grand parties overlooking the majestic Hudson River where men and women of the Gilded Age strolled across the rolling lawns and took tea in the ornate sitting rooms whose windows looked out upon carefully manicured grounds.
Wyndclyffe, like many of the homes of the wealthy in the Hudson Valley, was built as a weekend and summer home for Miss Jones as an escape from the urban environment of New York City. In the mid-19th century, as cities grew larger and more congested, more and more of those who could afford to retreated to the countryside and had grand estates built for their entertainment and leisure. One famous example of this is Oheka Castle, built between 1914-1919 by financier Otto Hermann Khan in Huntington, NY, now a hotel and another, closer to Wyndclyffe (and also linked by their histories) is the Mills Estate (known as Staatsburgh) built in 1895 which is today a State Historic Site. Wyndclyffe, sadly, did not weather the years well enough to enjoy either of these fates but, through the neglect of a series of owners, was allowed to fall into ruin.
In 1852, Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones decided to build the grandest of all summer homes two hours north of Manhattan near the small hamlet of Rhinecliff. She purchased eighty acres of land from a Mr. Jacob Cramer and hired the local architect George Veitch to design the house. Veitch was well known for his work on the nearby Russell estate whose parameters today define the boundaries of Rhinecliff (though the estate itself is long gone) and whose work may still be seen in such structures as the Rhinecliff Hotel and the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in nearby Rhinebeck. Veitch designed a three-story Hudson River Gothic mansion, in the Norman Style, which consisted of twenty-four rooms, a carriage house, boat house and dock, all set grandly on a hill of terraced lawns overlooking the river. Miss Jones had her house so opulently furnished, her grounds so well sculpted, that other wealthy families in the area added adornments and extravagances to their own summer homes to keep pace with her; this practice gave birth to the famous idiom regarding trying to match the lifestyle of one’s neighbors: “keeping up with the Joneses”.
Edith Wharton often visited her aunt’s house when she was young (as she also did the nearby Mills’ Estate which is thought to be the model for Bellomont in her 1905 novel The House of Mirth) and later described it unflatteringly as the most repulsive place she could remember seeing. In her autobiography, A Backward Glance, Wharton writes, “The effect of terror produced by the house at Rhinecliff was no doubt due to what seemed to me its intolerable ugliness.” Wharton refers to the house as `Rhinecliff’ the few times she mentions it in her memoir and this seems to have given rise to the belief that the hamlet of Rhinecliff came to be named for the house. Actually, the Jones’ estate was known as Wyndclyffe as early as 1859 and there is no evidence to suggest the house was ever formally known as `Rhinecliff’. Most likely, Edith Wharton referred to her aunt’s home as `Rhinecliff’ in much the same way the Mills family referred to their country home as `Staatsburgh’ simply by using the locale as the name of the estate informally.
Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones died in 1876 and left the estate to her nephew Edward Jones, Jr. who continued to care for the property until he sold it to Mr Andrew Finck in 1886 for $25,000.00. Mr. Finck renamed the estate Linden Grove and it remained in the Finck family, with one member selling it to another over the years for the token sum of one dollar, until it was sold in 1934 to one Anna Rice for $1,800.00. It is alleged that, under the Rice ownership, the house and grounds became a nudist colony in the mid-thirties. Anna Rice kept the house only two years before she sold it, possibly owing to expense of upkeep or perhaps owing to the unpopularity of the nudist colony, to a family named Lesavoy for $100.00 (the Lesavoy’s have also been cited as proprietors of a nudist colony on the grounds). After that, ownership becomes less clear as do the reasons for sale and purchase price. It was again sold in 1961 for $12,500.00 and then in 1971 for $85,000.00.
By this time, the once grand eighty acres by the Hudson River had been sub-divided and sold off so the house now sat upon a meager 2.5-acre lot. None of the owners, after the Finck family, appear to have actually lived in the house or cared for it very much and, gradually, it fell into ruin. Although the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, no preservation efforts have been made to restore it and, even though it was purchased again in 2003, allegedly with an eye toward restoration, nothing has been done to stop time from pressing the former jewel of Hudson Valley Estates into the earth. Today Wyndclyffe is a precarious ruin, plastered with `No Trespassing’ signs and regularly monitored by the local police who chase would-be ghost hunters, relic collectors, and the occasional history enthusiast off the grounds. Still beautiful in ruin, Wyndclyffe’s fate remains uncertain and, most probably, it has passed beyond the point of redemption and restoration. Even so, in its day, it was the envy of the very rich of the Gilded Age, a home visited by political, financial, and literary luminaries, and its weathered brick and empty windows still have much to tell the attentive visitor.
END
The Grand Estates of Staatsburg, New York
I love Staatsburg. It’s my home town and it was Betsy’s hometown and where Emily also grew up. This piece was published in Timeless Travels Magazine, summer issue, 2015. It was a real pleasure to write. I hope you like it.
Two hours north of New York City, between the towns of Hyde Park and Rhinebeck, lies the small village of Staatsburg. The village today is a lovely, quiet, rural community with the Portofino Ristorante located prominently on the main road, the small, brick post office, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, the community library, and then the long expanse of the Dinsmore Golf Course, one of the oldest public golf courses in the country, which was created by the wealthy owners of the estates which once adorned the riverfront. There were four such grand estates in Staatsburg c. 1915: The Point (the Hoyt Estate), Staatsburgh (the Mills Estate), The Locusts (the Dinsmore Estate), and Hopeland (the Huntington Estate). The Point, Staatsburgh, and The Locusts were all connected originally to the Livingston family, regarded as “America’s Aristocracy”, while Hopeland was associated with the Dinsmore family which came to own The Locusts and its abundant acreage. All four of these estates once employed the majority of the citizens of Staatsburg, directly or indirectly, and although the days of the Gilded Age in America are long gone one can still feel those times as one stands on the hill outside the mansion of Staatsburgh,walks through the woods to the ruins of The Point or strolls the pleasant paths through the grounds of Hopeland.
The Hudson River Valley was discovered by Europeans in the 17th century and was described as unlike anything the Dutch Captain Hendrick Hudson had ever seen. It was literally a new world of endless wilderness covering high hills and valleys cut through by a river so wide it made the Amstel seem like a stream. It was not long, however, before the European settlers began transforming the land so it would resemble the old world they had left. Lots were cleared and buildings raised and the paths worn through the woods by Native American tribes like the Mahican and Munsee became roads which, in time, were paved. By the year 1712, the English had taken the land from the Dutch and increased development which would expand even further after the American War of Independence ended in 1783. Over the next one hundred years the land would change so significantly that it would have been unrecognizable to the early Dutch settlers and, by 1883, industrialization and urbanization was increasingly daily. Those affluent members of society, industrialists, railroad tycoons, investment bankers, who lived in New York City, more and more sought refuge in lavish country estates they could retreat to and chose the Hudson Valley for its beauty and proximity. The historian Harvey K. Flad comments on this, writing, “The buildings and the carefully landscaped grounds became a parlor in the wilderness.” The wealthy could have all the comforts of their urban homes in a rural setting and created artificial landscapes in the wilderness of the Hudson Valley in which they lived their dreams of ease and luxury. These rich captains of industry did not just happen upon the Hudson Valley in the 19th century, however; the region already had a reputation for natural beauty which encouraged the more affluent in society to build their estates along the river a century earlier.
The first estate was developed in 1792 when New York’s third governor, Morgan Lewis, built a 25-room country manor in Staatsburg overlooking the river. The 1,600-acre parcel belonged to his wife, Gertrude Livingston, whose family lived north of the village in Clermont. The original house burned down in 1832 and Lewis had a new Greek Revival home built in its place. The house was passed down in the family until inherited by Ruth Livingston Mills and her husband Ogden Mills, a financier and philanthropist, in 1881 who named their estate Staatsburgh. Mrs. Mills was a member of high society and, as a Livingston, felt she should set the standard by which other estates in the Hudson Valley would be measured. To that end, in 1895, she hired the firm of McKim, Mead & White to enlarge the mansion. The great architect Stanford White added two wings to the existing house and a third floor, completely engulfing the previous structure except for the massive central portico with its Ionic columns. The renovation took eighteen months and cost $350,000.000. When White was finished the new home was a mansion in the beaux-arts style of 65 rooms, 14 bathrooms, indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water, and 750 gas lights which were powered by a pump house on the river generating electricity. The historian Conrad Hanson writes, “Predating the Vanderbilt mansion in Hyde Park and the Astor’s Casino at Rhinecliff, no other place in the Hudson Valley at that time could come close to competing in terms of scale or splendor with Ruth and Ogden’s new 65-room palace.”
Among the many ladies of high social standing whom Ruth Livingston Mills wished to lord her new estate over, none would have been as important as Caroline Schermerhorn Astor who was leading the New York Society social scene at the time. Mrs. Astor was related to Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones who, in 1852, built the grandest of all Hudson Valley estates in the nearby village of Rhinecliff. Jones’ estate, known as Wyndclyffe, was a three-story, 24-room mansion on eighty acres of land with a carriage house, boat house and dock, all set grandly on a hill of terraced lawns overlooking the river. Miss Jones had her house so opulently furnished, her grounds so well sculpted, that other wealthy families in the area added adornments and extravagances to their own country homes to keep pace with her; this practice gave birth to the famous idiom regarding trying to match the lifestyle of one’s neighbors: “keeping up with the Joneses”. Even though Miss Jones died in 1876 and Wyndclyffe was less lavish than it had been, when Ruth Livingston Mills decided to re-model her home in Staatsburgh, she would have had it in mind to out-do the fame of Wyndclyffe; and she succeeded. Wyndclyffe’s grand days were already a thing of the past when Staatsburgh was at its peak in terms of high society between the years 1900-1915. Lavish parties were regularly held at Staatsburgh with only the most select guests including writer Edith Wharton (niece of Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones) who would later use Staatsburgh, Wyndclyffe, and the Hudson Valley in her novel The House of Mirth and mentions them in her memoir A Backward Glance.
In addition to the mansion house, Staatsburgh had the previously mentioned pump house by the river, a boat house, multiple out-buildings, and was a working farm on which Ogden Mills raised prize-winning cattle and grew flowers in the elaborate greenhouses which covered portions of the estate’s gardens. A member of The Jockey Club, Mills raced prize-winning horses which won in numerous prestigious events such as the Grand Prix de Paris in 1928. Each Christmas Ogden Mills gave every servant a twenty-dollar gold piece and was extremely generous in his gifts to the village which included stained glass windows imported from Chartres for St. Margaret’s Church, ambulances for local hospitals, and state-of-the-art equipment for the local firehouse. This is more impressive when one understands that Staatsburgh was not the Mills’ primary residence. The Mills only occupied their mansion in Staatsburg September through November or December; they had five other homes including a Paris residence next door to Auguste Rodin.
To the south were the Mills’ neighbors and relatives, the Hoyts, who had their own mansion, The Point, on a high crest of hill with a wide river view. The National Register of Historic Places Inventory from 1978 describes The Point as “An important example of Hudson River Gothic, 2 1/2story bluestone house designed by Calvert Vaux. Slate roof, arched windows in gables and dormer, brownstone quoins and other trim, buttressed stone entrance porch with Tudor arches, and much decorative woodwork.” The house was built sometime between 1852 and 1855 for the wealthy merchant Lydig Munson Hoyt and his wife Blanche Geraldine Livingston. Vaux, best known for his work with Frederic Law Olmstead on New York’s Central Park, positioned the house carefully in accordance with the sweep of the land so it would seem an organic outgrowth of its surroundings and then designed the entire estate to give visitor’s the impression of entering another world as soon as they passed through the gates. Elaborate gardens and wooded glens graced both sides of the long driveway which wound through the forest and up to the mansion. Although the house had only seven rooms it was still considered a grand manor situated on 92 acres of a working farm with greenhouses, stables for the horses, and barns for the other animals.
On the other side of Staatsburgh estate rose the towers of The Locusts which was first developed by Henry Brock Livingston in 1797 and named after the black locust trees which grew abundantly on the grounds. His property included a half-mile along the Hudson River and over a thousand acres of land. In 1871 the successful shipping magnate William Dinsmore bought the property, tore down the old manor house, and built a four-story, ninety-two room Italianate-style mansion on the spot. Like the Mills and the Hoyts, Dinsmore operated a farm on his property and was especially well known for his flowers and exotic plants. The grounds were completely renovated under Dinsmore’s care and he insisted on clover-shaped windows on all his buildings to mark his vast and sprawling estate; a design which can still be seen on existing buildings in the region today.
To the north of The Locusts was the fourth estate known as Hopeland which was first developed in 1859 by Major Rawlins Lowndes and his wife Gertrude Livingston who had Calvert Vaux design their house as he had The Point. In 1907 the architect and tennis celebrity Robert Palmer Huntington acquired the 300-acre property and enlarged the main house to create a 35-room Tudor Revival mansion. Huntington had married Helen Dinsmore in 1892 and the families lived easily as neighbors. As with the other estates, Hopeland was a working farm and it seems as though Huntington was given leave to use the Dinsmore estate’s barns. The Huntingtons raised three children on the estate all of whom married into respectable, and wealthy, families. The eldest, Helen, was married to Vincent Astor (son of John Jacob Astor IV who died on The Titanic) for twenty-six years until they divorced and she married the wealthy real-estate broker Mr. Lytle Hull.
Helen Hull inherited The Locusts (from her grandfather) and Hopeland (from her father) and disposed of them both. At some point between 1940 and 1950 she had the mansion at Hopeland dismantled by local workers who used the windows, doors, and trim in other projects in the community and then had the house destroyed. She retained the land, however, which she eventually donated to the New York State Parks Department. She then had the 92-room mansion of The Locusts dismantled and built a smaller Neo-Baroque manor in its place. With the other estate owners, Mrs. Hull had developed the golf course for private use and now donated it to the state of New York’s Parks and Recreation Department for the public. The Mills Mansion of Staatsburgh, though still standing, was no longer an estate by this time. In 1938 the mansion and grounds of Staatsburgh were donated to New York State for use as a park by one of Ogden and Ruth Mills daughters, Gladys Mills Phipps, in honor of her parents. Only the manor of The Point now remained as it had been at the peak of the Gilded Age and was still inhabited by the Hoyt family. In 1963, when the “master builder” Robert Moses was acquiring green space along the Hudson River for use as public park space, the Hoyt family was evicted and the house seized under eminent domain. The original plan was to demolish the manor and build a public swimming pool but the community objected. Instead, the house was left to decay and the grounds and stables fell into ruin.
Less than sixty years earlier, these four estates were the life blood of the community. The grand hotels which once lined the streets of Staatsburg and Route 9 catered to guests of the Hoyts, Mills, Dinsmores, and Huntingtons as did all of the other businesses up and down the river. Staatsburg once had its own train station, sidewalks with streetlamps, pubs, restaurants, shops and factories, and at least four hotels in the village alone, not counting those along Route 9; today there is only one restaurant in the village and all the rest – including the sidewalks – are gone. The Gilded Age of the very rich passed into memory with the advent of income tax in the United States in 1913 which curtailed how much money the wealthy could spend or, at least, how much they were willing to admit to. WWI, the stock market crash of 1929, and the Great Depression all contributed their own measure to the decline of the estates and descendants of the Gilded Age millionaires either donated their family homes (like Gladys Mills Phipps), destroyed them (like Helen Hull), sold them or, like Helen Hoyt, were evicted from the property to make way for a new paradigm of society in which the estates played no part.
Except for The Locusts, however, one may still walk the grounds and visit the houses which once gave Staatsburg its life. The Point is presently under renovation courtesy of the Calvert Vaux Preservation Alliance and the National Park Service. If you walk down the river path at Staatsburgh, pass by the small beach, and continue on into the woods, always staying on the path and heading upwards, you will find The Point in surprisingly good condition for a house which has been vacant for fifty-two years. One is not allowed inside the house, which is now fenced off, but one can visit and see the outbuildings which were once the stables, the greenhouse, and barn. Leaving Mills and heading north on Old Post Road, you will pass by The Locusts which is today privately owned by hotelier Andre Balazs as a farm and prestigious center for conferences and high-end weddings. One may visit by appointment only. At the northern end of the village, just past The Locusts, the grounds of Hopeland are open to the public as a park. People can still enjoy the grounds, bridges, and paths throughout the estate and the site has become popular with bird-watchers, dog-walkers, and artists. Mills’ mansion of Staatsburgh remains almost completely intact with tours of the home offered Thursday through Sunday and the grounds open seven days a week dawn till dusk. Special “Downtown Abbey” tours are offered as well as talks on The Titanic as the Mills had tickets for return passage on the doomed ship in 1912. A tour of the mansion is a walk through history as the guides take the visitor back in time to the Gilded Age and the era of high society when the affluent of America looked out through the long windows of their parlors in the wilderness and created the world they wanted to see. However one may view the wealthy of the Gilded Age today, they were the celebrities of their time and their weddings, scandals, and grand parties were the talk of the town and the stuff of high newspaper sales. More importantly, though, they provided for the communities which supported their way of life and, after their time had passed, small villages in America like Staatsburg would have to fend for themselves, for better or worse.
END
Plato’s Lie in the Soul: What you Don’t know that you Don’t Know can Kill You (first published by Ancient History Encyclopedia):
The Greek philosopher Plato (l. c. 428-348 BCE), in Book II of his Republic, addresses the problem of how one knows that one’s beliefs are true. His line of thought raises questions such as, “How do you know whether your most deeply-held beliefs are valid or simply the result of your upbringing, culture, environment and religion?” Plato attempts to answer such questions by noting a major stumbling block – the lie in the soul, a falsehood one accepts as truth at a fundamental level, which then distorts one’s interpretation of reality, of other people’s behaviors and motivations, and of one’s own vision of self and truth.
The lie in the soul is so dangerous because, when one has it, one does not know it. The concept can actually be applied to many readers’ responses to Republic itself. Plato’s Republic is most often, naturally, read as political philosophy and has been widely criticized for advocating for a fascistic state in which a benign, philosophical, dictator – who supposedly knows what is best for the people – establishes a strict social hierarchy, censors free speech and expression, and restricts the lives of citizens to conform to said dictator’s ideal of what is best for the greater good.
This criticism routinely ignores the explicitly stated purpose of the dialogue – to define justice – and the pivotal passage of Book II.369 where Socrates suggests that, in order to understand the principle of justice in an individual, they should consider how justice works on a larger scale:
Maybe more justice would be present in the bigger thing, and it would be easier to understand it clearly, so, if you people want to, we will inquire first what sort of thing it is in cities, and then we will examine it by that means also in each one of the people, examining the likeness of the bigger in the look of the smaller. (Book II.369)
In other words, by defining how the principle of justice works on the large stage of a society, one would be able to then narrow down how it operates in an individual. Republic, then, is not simply a blueprint for an ideal society, but a guideline for how an individual masters the various aspects of their personality to become the best version – the most just version – of themselves. A significant step toward reaching this goal is recognizing the existence of the `true lie’ or the `lie in the soul’, what it is, and how one may protect or rid one’s self of it in order to rationally apprehend truth.
Brief Summary
Republic begins with Socrates, the narrator, attending the Panathenaic Festival at Athens with Glaucon (Plato’s older brother) and, afterwards, invited by the philosopher Polemarchus to return home with him. Adeimantus (another of Plato’s brothers) is with Polemarchus and presses Socrates to accept. Once at the house, Socrates converses with Polemarchus’ father Cephalus leading to a discussion on justice which is then taken up by others.
This discussion turns, in Book I, to a dialectical duel between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus, a guest at the house. Thrasymachus insists that justice is defined simply as the interests of the stronger prevailing over those of the weaker. Socrates refutes this claim by proving that the life of the just person is better than that of the unjust.
Book II continues this discussion with Glaucon and Adeimantus taking up Thrasymachus’ claim simply for the sake of clarifying Socrates’ argument. It is here that Socrates suggests they lay out the concept of justice as it would work on a grand scale in a city so that, seeing it writ large, they can better manage the concept on an individual level.
Some of the most famous and influential concepts and passages of all of Plato’s writing appear in Republic including the Myth of Gyges, told by Glaucon, which relates the story of a man who finds a ring which will make him invisible and uses it to his own advantage. Glaucon tells the tale to illustrate how people will always use whatever they can to benefit themselves only. Socrates refutes Glaucon’s claim by, again, proving that the just and virtuous life is always better than the unjust and self-serving.
Books III-IX develop this argument by steadily constructing the ideal society, ruled by a Philosopher-King, and defined by the hierarchy of:
Guardians – the ruling class who recognize truth and pursue wisdom
Auxiliaries – defenders of the state who value honor and self-sacrifice for the state
Producers – those who value material wealth and comfort and labor for the good of the state.
These three classes correspond directly to Plato’s conception of the tripartite division of the soul:
Reason – which seeks truth
Spirit – which seeks honor
Appetite – which seeks physical gratification and material goods
The “state” in Republic – though certainly open to a literal interpretation as a political entity – is figuratively the soul. The individual, Plato suggests, must organize the self in the same way one would structure a social hierarchy. The first step in disciplining the self, however, is making sure one is awake and able to interpret the world and one’s place in it correctly.
Plato addresses this concern directly in Book VII through his famous Allegory of the Cave in which prisoners, chained in a cave, interpret shadows on the wall as reality. One prisoner breaks free, leaves the cave, and recognizes the reality of the outside world and the prison in which he and the others have been kept. The choice is then presented to the freed prisoner whether to return to the darkness of the prison and try to liberate others or to simply bask in the light and warmth of the outside world. Plato strongly suggests that it is the duty of the philosopher, who has seen the truth, to descend back into the cave and help others attain the same level of understanding and break free from their illusions. To free one’s self from the lie in the soul, then, one needs to follow the example of the enlightened philosopher.
Republic ends with the story of the warrior Er (also given as Ur) – commonly referred to as The Myth of Ur (which, significantly, Plato himself never designates as `myth’ but presents as reality) in which a soldier dies, journeys to the afterlife, and returns to the mortal plane to tell of his experience. Plato ends the dialogue with Socrates telling Glaucon:
My counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing. (Book X.621)
Plato and Protagoras
A serious obstacle in following after justice and virtue, however, is the lie in the soul which prevents one from recognizing what concepts like justice and virtue even mean. In Book II.382a-382d, Plato introduces the concept of this `True Lie’. Through a conversation between Socrates and Adeimantus, Plato defines the `true lie’ as believing wrongly about the most important things in one’s life. This concept can be understood as Plato’s answer to the Sophist Protagoras (l. c. 485-415 BCE) and his famous assertion that “Man is the measure of all things”, that, if one believes something to be so, it is so.
In Protagoras’ view, all values were subject to individual interpretation based on experience. If two people were sitting in a room and one claimed it was too warm, while the other claimed it was too cold, both would be correct. Since perception of reality was necessarily subjective based on one’s experience and interpretation of that experience, Protagoras suggested, there was no way a person could objectively know what any alleged “truth” was.
Plato strongly objected to this view, arguing that there was an objective truth and a realm, high above the mortal plane, which gave absolute value to those concepts humans claimed as “true” and confirmed others humans recognized as “false”. For example, to Plato, it would be true to say that the Parthenon is beautiful because that structure participates in the eternal form of beauty which exists in a higher realm and is reflected in the physical structure in Athens; to Protagoras, the Parthenon is beautiful only if one believes it to be beautiful; there is no such thing as objective beauty. Plato would – and did – regard Protagoras’ view as a dangerous falsehood.
The Lie in the Soul
The `true lie’ can be explained this way: If one believes, at a certain point, that eating carrots with every meal is the best thing one could do for one’s health and, later, realizes that excess in anything can be a bad thing and stops the carrot-eating, that realization would have no long-term negative consequences on one’s life.
If, however, one believes the person one loves is a paragon of virtue and then discovers that person is a lying, conniving thief, this discovery could undermine one’s confidence in oneself, in one’s judgment, in other people, and even in a belief in God, in so far as finding out one is wrong about a person one was so certain of would lead one to question what other important matters in life one might also be wrong about.
Plato, therefore, claims the `lie in the soul’ is the worst spiritual affliction one can suffer from and differentiates this condition from the effects of ordinary `lying’ or from `story telling’. When one tells a lie, one knows that one is not telling the truth and when one tells a story one understands that the story is not absolute fact. When one has a lie in the soul, however, one is unaware that what they believe to be true is actually false and so they speak untruths constantly without knowing they are doing so.
To believe wrongly about the most important things in one’s life renders one incapable of seeing life realistically and so prevents any kind of accurate perception of the truth of any given set of circumstances, of other people’s motivations and intentions, and especially, of one’s self and one’s own personal drives, habits, and behavior.
In the following conversation from Republic, Plato claims:
No one wants to be wrong about the most important matters in life
An everyday `lie’ is not the same thing as having a lie in one’s soul
Lies in words can be useful in helping friends or in the creation of mythologies which provide comfort and stability to people seeking the answer to where they came from and why they exist.
In order to recognize the lie in one’s soul one must be able to tell truth from falsehood at an objective level, not simply at the level of personal opinion. In order to reach this higher level, one needs to attach oneself to a philosopher and pursue wisdom. In this pursuit, one will come to understand what one’s lie is and, once it is realized, will be able to leave the lie behind and move on to live a life of truth, honesty and clarity.
The following passage from Republic, Book II, 382a-382d, defines the concept (translation by B. Jowett):
Socrates: Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men?
Adeimantus: What do you mean? he said.
S: I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.
A: Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.
S: The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;–that, I say, is what they utterly detest.
A: There is nothing more hateful to them.
S: And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right?
A: Perfectly right.
S: The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men?
A: Yes.
S: Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies – that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventative; also in the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking – because we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account.
A: Very true, he said.
Conclusion
Plato then goes on from this point to elaborate further on the concept which relates back to the argument concerning justice in Republic Book I and informs the rest of the dialogue through Book X. The `true lie’, in fact, could be said to inform all of Plato’s work in that he insists on the existence of an ultimate truth which one needs to recognize to live a meaningful life. In attempting to refute Protagoras’ subjective view of reality, Plato directly influenced the foundational constructs of the great monotheistic religions of the world – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – and further shaped these systems indirectly through the works of his student Aristotle.
Plato spent his life trying to prove one could find, and hold up for the rest of the world to see, proof of ultimate truth apparent to all. From his first dialogue to his last, eloquent and penetrating as they may be, he never found a way to conclusively prove his conviction and for a simple reason: even if one accepts that such a truth exists, it must of necessity be interpreted subjectively by each person apprehending it – and it is in that act of interpretation that one risks contracting the `lie in the soul’ which distorts that truth. All Plato could finally do was warn people of the danger as he saw it and provide the best advice he could on how to prevent the true lie from warping one’s vision and stunting emotional and spiritual growth.
Sources:
Plato’s Dialogues
Plato’s Republic
Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers – Kathleen Freeman
The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists – Robin Waterfield
Aristotle’s Works
An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy – John Mansley Robinson
END
Plato’s Euthyphro: Piety, Pretension, and a Playwright’s Skill (published by Ancient History Encyclopedia)
The Dialogues of the Greek philosopher Plato (l.428/427-348-347 BCE) have exerted such an extraordinary influence over Western thought and culture for the past two thousand years that readers in the modern day frequently approach his works as philosophical icons. The Republic is routinely taught in college classes as the blueprint for the ideal society, the Apology is the epic defense of freedom of thought and personal integrity, the Symposium defines the true meaning of love, and all the other dialogues have been set and defined for their particular intellectual merit.
These interpretations are all accurate to greater or lesser degrees but, in reading Plato as Plato-the-Philosopher, one misses the nuances of Plato-the-Artist. Each of Plato’s dialogues are dramas in the Greek tradition with an introduction, rising action, dénouement, and conclusion. Republic can as easily be read as the proper way to order one’s soul as how to construct an ideal city-state but, further, can be enjoyed as an account of a party at a friend’s house.
Any reader recognizes that, sometimes, one arrives at a party to find some undesirable nuisance there who is friend to the host but an irritation to everyone else and so it is in Republic Book I when Socrates arrives at Cephalus’ house to find the Sophist Thrasymachus there. Thrasymachus is instantly hostile to Socrates and his friends, insists on his own views as the only valid ones and, when proven wrong, refuses to admit it and chooses to leave instead. Thrasymachus is a fully realized character, all arrogance and bravado, easily recognized by any reader who has ever had to endure the pontifications and posturing of their own “Thrasymachus”.
Plato’s characters are so relatable and skillfully drawn because, before he was Plato-the-Philosopher, he was known as Aristocles the playwright. “Plato” was a nickname his wrestling coach gave him when he was young meaning “broad” because of his broad shoulders and build and the name stuck. Aristocles wrote plays and poetry until he heard Socrates teaching in the market place and, according to the historian Diogenes Laertius (3rd century CE), burned his literary works and devoted himself to the study of philosophy.
His literary skills are apparent throughout all of his dialogues, however, and these works offer a much more rewarding reading experience when approached as dynamic dramas instead of static philosophical discourses. Certainly, in many sections of each of the dialogues, one finds Socrates holding forth on some point while an interlocutor responds with one-word answers but, just as often, there is discussion between two – or more – characters with distinct voices, phrasings, and levels of experience in life.
Even in those dialogues dealing with the most serious issues, such as the Phaedo with the concept of the immortality of the soul, there are light moments of humor and in Symposium, all the way through, there are some incredibly funny passages. These moments all arise naturally from the characters and usually pass fairly quickly as the discussion moves on. In the dialogue of the Euthyphro, however, Plato begins on a serious note and then indulges himself freely throughout the rest of the piece as he openly mocks those who pretend to know what they do not. The Euthyphro is often overlooked and defined as a “difficult” dialogue in that it never answers the central question it presents but, read as an ironic comedy, the piece succeeds completely.
Overview
Plato’s Euthyphro is a dialogue between Socrates and the young ‘prophet’ Euthyphro outside the court in Athens just before Socrates is to go to trial in 399 BCE. Socrates is there to answer charges brought against him while Euthyphro has arrived to bring a case against his father. As Socrates has been charged by the Athenians with ‘impiety’, and as Euthyphro claims to understand piety perfectly (5a), Socrates, sarcastically, asks the younger man to explain “what is piety and what is impiety?” Having at first stated that he can easily define ‘piety’ as well as “many other stories about divine matters”(6c) it soon becomes clear that Euthyphro has no idea what piety is and no clear idea about “that accurate knowledge” (14b) of the will of the gods he boasts of repeatedly.
The importance of understanding the meaning of this concept of `piety’ is impressed upon a reader in that Euthyphro is at court to prosecute a case against his own father for impiety. His father allowed a laborer who had killed a slave to die, bound in a ditch, while he awaited word from the authorities on how he should proceed against the man. Socrates, as noted, is there to defend himself against the same charge of impiety for “corrupting the youth” and “inventing new gods” (3b).
One of the men prosecuting Socrates, Meletus, is presented as being about the same age and having the same poor understanding of piety as Euthyphro does. In questioning the young man on the meaning of piety, Socrates is symbolically questioning his own accuser and, as always, challenging the complacency of accepting easy answers to complex problems by simply repeating traditional rhetoric instead of seeking honest responses for one’s self through philosophical inquiry.
Piety in Ancient Greece
The concept under discussion, translated as ‘piety’, was known as Eusebia in ancient Greece. The word ‘piety’ comes from the Latin pietas and means ‘dutiful conduct’ while, today, ‘piety’ is usually understood as “religious devotion and reverence to God” (Ameican Heritage Dictionary) but, in ancient Greece, Eusebia meant neither of these exclusively and, at the same time, meant more. Eusebia was the ideal which dictated how men and women interacted, how a master should speak to a slave and slave to master, how one addressed a seller in the marketplace as well as how one conducted one’s self during religious festivals and celebrations. In short, Eusebia was a social contract which maintained the established order and made clear one’s position in the social hierarchy and what was considered proper behavior.
When Socrates is charged with impiety (Dyssebia in Greek), however much a modern-day reader may object to the charge as unjust, in encouraging the youth of Athens to question their elders Socrates would, in fact, have been guilty under the law. Young men were not supposed to question their elders and yet Socrates’ young students saw him repeatedly question their fathers and teachers and social superiors in the market place and were encouraged to do the same.
In the dialogue of the Euthyphro, in fact, a reader gets a first-hand view of Socrates ‘corrupting’ the youth of Athens as he tries to lead the young man to the realization that what the gods want is not as easily grasped as conventional wisdom would have it. The question, “Do the gods love piety because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it” (10a) is never fully answered because Euthyphro, mouthing traditional responses, cannot answer it.
Plato crafts the dialogue to impress on a reader how futile and self-defeating it finally is to simply rely on what one has been taught without ever questioning it. At the same time, he provides an audience with a front row seat to the sort of exchange which would have enraged upper-class Athenians who may have felt victimized by Socrates’ method of pursuing truth.
Summary and Commentary
The dramatic situation is established immediately when Euthyphro greets Socrates outside of court and the two of them explain to each other why they are there: Socrates to answer charges and Euthyphro to press them (lines 2a-4e). When Socrates hears that Euthyphro is presuming to charge his father with impiety he says:
But before Zeus, do you, Euthyphro, suppose you have such precise knowledge about how the divine things are disposed, and the pious and impious things, that, assuming that those things were done just as you say, you don’t fear that by pursuing a lawsuit against your father, you in turn may happen to be doing an impious act? (4e)
Euthyphro answers that he has no such fear because he knows “all such things precisely” (5a). Socrates (at this time over 70 years old) then ironically asks to become Euthyphro’s student so that the younger man might teach him the underlying form and pattern of piety and impiety so that he will be better able to defend himself against the charges brought against him (5a-5b). Euthyphro gladly accepts and, when Socrates asks him to define the pious and impious, Euthyphro responds that it is simply what he, himself, is doing at the moment by prosecuting his father for impiety (5e). Euthyphro backs up his statement by referencing stories of the gods and their behavior and how he is only emulating them but Socrates points out that these stories depict the gods warring with each other and often behaving in quite impious ways and so Euthyphro’s next definition that piety is “what is dear to the gods”(6e) makes no sense since some gods seem to value one thing while another something else. Scholars Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West note how Socrates points out that the gods’ love of a concept and their will
Must be directed by that which really is good, noble, and just or else the meaning of human life must be dependent on the arbitrary will of mysterious beings who may not even be friendly to men and – given the multitude of willful authorities (the many gods) – the life of men and gods alike must be a tale of ignorant armies clashing by night on a darkling plain. Further, if the gods are guided by knowledge and do not give merely willful commandments, the guidance provided to men by divine law must be superfluous for one who is wise enough to discover for himself the truth of the good, noble, and just. The wise man has no need of gods. (13-14)
Euthyphro continues his clueless argument, claiming that what all the gods view as just and good is pious but Socrates points out that he has already admitted that different gods have different values. He notes that human beings in court never deny what injustice is (say, murder) but, instead claim they are not guilty of such an injustice (8c). In this same way, the gods do not deny that injustice exists but seem to differ on what kinds of acts are unjust.
Euthyphro, who earlier claimed he could tell Socrates all about the will of the gods and the operation of the universe and what true piety means, now tries to backtrack by claiming that what Socrates is asking of him is “no small work” (9b) – in other words, a proper answer might require more time than he has. He ventures another answer that piety is what all the gods love and impiety what all the gods hate (9e) but Socrates refutes this and asks “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved?” (10a) to which Euthyphro has no real answer but continues to grope for one.
Throughout the dialogue, Socrates insults Euthyphro for his pretension – as in the line “you are no less younger than I am than you are wiser. But as I say, you are being fastidious [in answering me] because of your wealth of wisdom” (12a). Although Euthyphro has repeatedly boasted that he knows all about the gods and their will, when Socrates asks him about the many noble things that the gods produce as gifts to humanity, Euthyphro again complains how “to learn precisely how all these things are is a rather lengthy work” (14b). When Socrates suggests that perhaps what Euthyphro defines as “piety” is actually commerce in which people give worship to the gods and the gods give them gifts, Euthyphro agrees until this answer is also proven inadequate (14c-15c).
During this exchange, Socrates points out how Euthyphro has taught him nothing and their discussion has come full circle to the beginning (15c) which is precisely how Plato has constructed the dialogue. Modern-day readers often find the Euthyphro frustrating in that the same question is asked repeatedly and answered weakly and yet this is precisely Plato’s design: a reader is made to feel Socrates’ own frustration in trying to get a straight answer from a self-proclaimed expert on a subject that “expert” knows nothing about.
When Socrates suggests they start all over and begin again to try to define piety and impiety, Euthyphro says, “Some other time, then, Socrates. For now I am in a hurry to go somewhere, and it is time for me to go away” (15e). Socrates has the last lines of the dialogue, which should be read sarcastically, as he cries out after the fleeing Euthyphro:
By leaving you are throwing me down from a great hope I had: that by learning from you the things pious and the things not, I would be released from Meletus’ indictment. For I hoped to show him that I have now become wise in the divine things from Euthyphro, and that I am no longer acting unadvisedly because of ignorance or making innovations concerning them and especially that I would live better for the rest of my life. (15e-16a)
The humor of the piece is more apparent if read aloud with inflection and, especially, if one understands the basic concepts under consideration and the social structure the dialogue relies on. Even without this, though, any reader would appreciate the absurdity of pursuing a legal case against one’s father when one does not even understand the precepts concerning that case and, viscerally, one feels the frustration of trying to converse intelligently with someone who not only claims to know what they do not but acts willfully from a position of ignorance.
Conclusion
In the Euthyphro a careful reader will appreciate the talent of Plato as comic dramatist. While initially boasting that he knows everything about piety, it becomes clear, after four different definitions of the concept are introduced and refuted, that Euthyphro knows nothing of piety other than the conventional definition he has been taught by others, most notably the very father he is now prosecuting for impiety.
The father of the household was Lord (Kyrios) and had the responsibility of teaching his sons the importance of Eusebia, among other things. That Euthyphro should prosecute his own father for impiety, without fully understanding the concept he is allegedly defending, would not succeed so well as comedy if Plato did not draw the character so carefully and so accurately. Further, Plato chooses the name purposefully for comic effect in that Euthyphro means “straight thought” and the character demonstrates the exact opposite through the twists and turns of his convoluted argument.
One recognizes having known a Euthyphro at one point or another in one’s life: the sort of person who speaks loudly and with confidence on matters he or she does not know and, often, matters no one can possibly know. That Euthyphro’s pretension is so profoundly annoying throughout the dialogue is testament to Plato’s skill as a writer; in this dialogue one meets a young man one already knows, has known, or will know who refuses to admit he does not know what he is talking about even when all evidence makes that clear.
Plato’s Euthyphro is a potent, and absurdly comic, warning against the pretension of speaking – and acting – on subjects one knows nothing about. The work is also easily among the best examples of dramatic comedy from beginning to end in its subtle presentation, characterization, and timing. Plato recognizes when it will work best for Socrates to take a shot at Euthyphro directly or when a more subtle dig will serve. Socrates’ allusions to the tales of the gods all make clear he knows more about religion than Euthyphro even though the younger man insists upon his superior knowledge. It is a testament to Plato’s skill that, at the conclusion when Euthyphro leaves, the reader feels the same sense of relief as Socrates.
Sources:
Plato and Aristophanes: Four Texts on Socrates – Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West
Plato’s Dialogues
Plato’s Euthyphro
Philosophic Classics, Volume I: Ancient Philosophy – Forrest E. Baird
Athens – Robin Waterfield.
An Introduction to Greek Philosophy – Robinson
End
Joshua J. Mark 