Phaethon: Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers · Chapter 2Part 2
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
A. “I cannot tell.”
S. “Nor I either. Yet one thing more it may be worth our while to examine. If one should mistake concerning God, will his error be one of excess, or defect?”
A. “How can I tell?”
S. “Let us see. Is not Zeus more perfect than all other beings?”
A. “Certainly, if it be true that, as they say, the perfection of each kind of being is derived from him; he must therefore be himself more perfect than any one of those perfections.”
S. “Well argued. Therefore, if he conceived of himself, his conception of himself would be more perfect than that of any man concerning him?”
A. “Assuredly; if he have that faculty, he must needs have it in perfection.”
S. “Suppose, then, that he conceived of one of his own properties, such as his justice; how large would that perfect conception of his be?”
A. “But how can I tell, Socrates?”
S. “My good friend, would it not be exactly commensurate with that justice of his?”
A. “How then?”
S. “Wherein consists the perfection of any conception, save in this, that it be the exact copy of that whereof it is conceived, and neither greater nor less?”
A. “I see now.”
S. “Without the Pythia’s help, I should say. But, tell me—We agree that Zeus’s conception of his own justice will be exactly commensurate with his justice?”
A. “We do.”
S. “But man’s conception thereof, it has been agreed, would be certainly less perfect than Zeus’s?”
A. “It would.”
S. “Man, then, it seems, would always conceive God to be less just than God conceives himself to be?”
A. “He would.”
S. “And therefore to be less just, according to the argument, than he really is?”
A. “True.”
S. “And therefore his error concerning Zeus, would be in this case an error of defect?”
A. “It would.”
S. “And so on of each of his other properties?”
A. “The same argument would likewise, as far as I can see, apply to them.”
S. “So that, on the whole, man, by the unassisted power of his own faculty, will always conceive Zeus to be less just, wise, good, and beautiful than he is?”
A. “It seems probable.”
S. “But does not that seem to you hurtful?”
A. “Why so?”
S. “As if, for instance, a man believing that Zeus loves him less than he really does, should become superstitious and self-tormenting. Or, believing that Zeus will guide him less than he really will, he should go his own way through life without looking for that guidance: or if, believing that Zeus cares about his conquering his passions less than he really does, he should become careless and despairing in the struggle: or if, believing that Zeus is less interested in the welfare of mankind than he really is, he should himself neglect to assist them, and so lose the glory of being called a benefactor of his country: would not all these mistakes be hurtful ones?”
“Certainly,” said I: but Alcibiades was silent.
S. “And would not these mistakes, by the hypothesis, themselves punish him who made them, without any resentment whatsoever, or Nemesis of the Gods being required for his chastisement?”
“It seems so,” said I.
S. “But can we say of such mistakes, and of the harm which may accrue from them, anything but that they must both be infinite; seeing that they are mistakes concerning an infinite Being, and his infinite properties, on every one of which, and on all together, our daily existence depends?”
P. “It seems so.”
S. “So that, until such a man’s error concerning Zeus, the source of all things, is cleared up, either in this life or in some future one, we cannot but fear for him infinite confusion, misery, and harm, in all matters which he may take in hand?”
Then Alcibiades, angrily: “What ugly mask is this you have put on, Socrates? You speak rather like a priest trying to frighten rustics into paying their first-fruits, than a philosopher inquiring after that which is beautiful. But you shall never terrify me into believing that it is not a noble thing to speak out whatsoever a man believes, and to go forward boldly in the spirit of truth.”
S. “Feeling first, I hope, with your staff, as would be but reasonable in the case of the bridge, whether your belief was objectively or only subjectively true, lest you should fall through your subjective bridge into objective water. Nevertheless, leaving the bridge and the water, let us examine a little what this said spirit of truth may be. How do you define it?”
A. “I assert that whosoever says honestly what he believes, does so by the spirit of truth.”
S. “Then if Lyce, patting those soft cheeks of yours, were to say: ‘Alcibiades, thou art the fairest youth in Athens,’ she would speak by the spirit of truth?”
A. “They say so.”
S. “And they say rightly. But if Lyce, as is her custom, wished, by so saying, to cheat you into believing that she loved you, and thereby to wheedle you out of a new shawl, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?”
A. “I suppose so.”
S. “But if, again, she said the same thing to Phaethon, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?”
“By no means, Socrates,” said I, laughing.
S. “Be silent, fair boy; you are out of court as an interested party. Alcibiades shall answer. If Lyce, being really mad with love, like Sappho, were to believe Phaethon to be fairer than you, and say so, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?”
A. “I suppose so.”
S. “Do not frown; your beauty is in no question. Only she would then be saying what is not true?”
“I must answer for him after all,” said I.
S. “Then it seems, from what has been agreed, that it is indifferent to the spirit of truth, whether it speak truth or not. The spirit seems to be of an enviable serenity. But suppose again, that I believed that Alcibiades had an ulcer on his leg, and were to proclaim the same now to the people, when they come into the Pnyx, should I not be speaking by the spirit of truth?”
A. “But that would be a shameful and blackguardly action.”
S. “Be it so. It seems, therefore, that it is indifferent to the spirit of truth whether that which it affirms be honourable or blackguardly. Is it not so?”
A. “It seems so, most certainly, in that case at least.”
S. “And in others, as I think. But tell me—Is not the man who does what he believes, as much moved by this your spirit of truth as he who says what he believes?”
A. “Certainly he is.”
S. “Then if I believed it right to lie or steal, I, in lying or stealing, should lie or steal by the spirit of truth?”
A. “Certainly: but that is impossible.”
S. “My fine fellow, and wherefore? I have heard of a nation among the Indians who hold it a sacred duty to murder every one not of their own tribe, whom they can waylay: and when they are taken and punished by the rulers of that country, die joyfully under the greatest torments, believing themselves certain of an entrance into the Elysian fields, in proportion to the number of murders which they have committed.”
A. “They must be impious wretches.”
S. “Be it so. But believing themselves to be right, they commit murder by the spirit of truth.”
A. “It seems to follow from the argument.”
S. “Then it is indifferent to the spirit of truth whether the action which it prompts be right or wrong?”
A. “It must be confessed.”
S. “It is therefore not a moral faculty, this spirit of truth. Let us see now whether it be an intellectual one. How are intellectual things defined, Phaethon? Tell me, for you are cunning in such matters.”
P. “Those things which have to do with processes of the mind.”
S. “With right processes, or with wrong?”
P. “With right, of course.”
S. “And processes for what purpose?”
P. “For the discovery of facts.”
S. “Of facts as they are, or as they are not?”
P. “As they are.”
S. “And he who discovers facts as they are, discovers truth; while he who discovers facts as they are not, discovers falsehood?”
P. “He discovers nothing, Socrates.”
S. “True; but it has been agreed already that the spirit of truth is indifferent to the question whether facts be true or false, but only concerns itself with the sincere affirmation of them, whatsoever they may be. Much more then must it be indifferent to those processes by which they are discovered.”
P. “How so?”
S. “Because it only concerns itself with affirmation concerning facts; but these processes are anterior to that affirmation.”
P. “I comprehend.”
S. “And much more is it indifferent to whether those are right processes or not.”
P. “Much more so.”
S. “It is therefore not intellectual. It remains, therefore, that it must be some merely physical faculty, like that of fearing, hungering, or enjoying the sexual appetite.”
A. “Absurd, Socrates!”
S. “That is the argument’s concern, not ours: let us follow manfully whithersoever it may lead us.”
A. “Lead on, thou sophist!”
S. “It was agreed, then, that he who does what he thinks right, does so by the spirit of truth—was it not?”
A. “It was.”
S. “Then he who eats when he thinks that he ought to eat, does so by the spirit of truth?”
A. “What next?”
S. “This next, that he who blows his nose when he thinks that it wants blowing, blows his nose by the spirit of truth.”
A. “What next?”
S. “Do not frown, friend. Believe me, in such days as these, I honour even the man who is honest enough to blow his nose because he finds that he ought to do so. But tell me—a horse, when he shies at a beggar, does not he also do so by the spirit of truth? For he believes sincerely the beggar to be something formidable, and honestly acts upon his conviction.”
“Not a doubt of it,” said I, laughing, in spite of myself, at Alcibiades’s countenance.
S. “It is in danger, then, of proving to be something quite brutish and doggish, this spirit of truth. I should not wonder, therefore, if we found it proper to be restrained.”
A. “How so, thou hair-splitter?”
S. “Have we not proved it to be common to man and animals; but are not those passions which we have in common with animals to be restrained?”
P. “Restrain the spirit of truth, Socrates?”
S. “If it be doggishly inclined. As, for instance, if a man knew that his father had committed a shameful act, and were to publish it, he would do so by the spirit of truth. Yet such an act would be blackguardly, and to be restrained.”
P. “Of course.”
S. “But much more, if he accused his father only on his own private suspicion, not having seen him commit the act; while many others, who had watched his father’s character more than he did, assured him that he was mistaken.”
P. “Such an act would be to be restrained, not merely as blackguardly, but as impious.”
S. “Or if a man believed things derogatory to the character of the Gods, not having seen them do wrong himself, while all those who had given themselves to the study of divine things assured him that he was mistaken, would he not be bound to restrain an inclination to speak such things, even if he believed them?”
P. “Surely, Socrates; and that even if he believed that the Gods did not exist at all. For there would be far more chance that he alone was wrong, and the many right, than that the many were wrong, and he alone right. He would therefore commit an insolent and conceited action, and, moreover, a cruel and shameless one; for he would certainly make miserable, if he were believed, the hearts of many virtuous persons who had never harmed him, for no immediate or demonstrable purpose except that of pleasing his own self-will; and that much more, were he wrong in his assertion.”
S. “Here, then, is another case in which it seems proper to restrain the spirit of truth, whatsoever it may be?”
P. “What, then, are we to say of those who speak fearlessly and openly their own opinions on every subject? for, in spite of all this, one cannot but admire them, whether rationally or irrationally.”
S. “We will allow them at least the honour which we do to the wild boar, who rushes fiercely through thorns and brambles upon the dogs, not to be turned aside by spears or tree-trunks, and indeed charges forward the more valiantly the more tightly he shuts his eyes. That praise we can bestow on him, but, I fear, no higher one. It is expedient, nevertheless, to have such a temperament as it is to have a good memory, or a loud voice, or a straight nose unlike mine; only, like other animal passions, it must be restrained and regulated by reason and the law of right, so as to employ itself only on such matters and to such a degree as they prescribe.”
“It may seem so in the argument,” said I. “Yet no argument, even of yours, Socrates, with your pardon, shall convince me that the spirit of truth is not fair and good, ay, the noblest possession of all; throwing away which, a man throws away his shield, and becomes unworthy of the company of gods or men.”
S. “Or of beasts either, as it seems to me and the argument. Nevertheless, to this point has the argument, in its cunning and malice, brought us by crooked paths. Can we find no escape?”
P. “I know none.”
S. “But may it not be possible that we, not having been initiated, like Alcibiades, into the Babylonian mysteries, have somewhat mistaken the meaning of that expression, ‘spirit of truth’? For truth we defined to be ‘facts as they are.’ The spirit of truth then should mean, should it not, the spirit of facts as they are?”
P. “It should.”
S. “But what shall we say that this expression, in its turn, means? The spirit which makes facts as they are?”
A. “Surely not. That would be the supreme Demiurgus himself.”
S. “Of whom you were not speaking, when you spoke of the spirit of truth?”
A. “Certainly not. I was speaking of a spirit in man.”
S. “And belonging to him?”
A. “Yes.”
S. “And doing—what, with regard to facts as they are? for this is just the thing which puzzles me.”
A. “Telling facts as they are.”
S. “Without seeing them as they are?”
A. “How you bore one! of course not. It sees facts as they are, and therefore tells them.”
S. “But perhaps it might see them as they are, and find it expedient, being of the same temperament as I, to hold its tongue about them? Would it then be still the spirit of truth?”
A. “It would, of course.”
S. “The man then who possesses the spirit of truth will see facts as they are?”
A. “He will.”
S. “And conversely?”
A. “Yes.”
S. “But if he sees anything only as it seems to him, and is not in fact, he will not, with regard to that thing, see it by the spirit of truth?”
A. “I suppose not.”
S. “Neither then will he be able to speak of it by the spirit of truth.”
A. “Why?”
S. “Because, by what we agreed before, it will not be there to speak of, my wondrous friend. For it appeared to us, if I recollect right, that facts can only exist as they are, and not as they are not, and that therefore the spirit of truth had nothing to do with any facts but those which are.”
“But,” I interrupted, “O dear Socrates, I fear much that if the spirit of truth be such as this, it must be beyond the reach of man.”
S. “Why then?”
P. “Because the immortal gods only can see things as they really are, having alone made all things, and ruling them all according to the laws of each. They therefore, I much fear, will be alone able to behold them, how they are really in their inner nature and properties, and not merely from the outside, and by guess, as we do. How then can we obtain such a spirit ourselves?”
S. “Dear boy, you seem to wish that I should, as usual, put you off with a myth, when you begin to ask me about those who know far more about me than I do about them. Nevertheless, shall I tell you a myth?”
P. “If you have nothing better.”
S. “They say, then, that Prometheus, when he grew to man’s estate, found mankind, though they were like him in form, utterly brutish and ignorant, so that, as Æschylus says:
Seeing they saw in vain, Hearing they heard not; but were like the shapes Of dreams, and long time did confuse all things At random:
being, as I suppose, led, like the animals, only by their private judgments of things as they seemed to each man, and enslaved to that subjective truth, which we found to be utterly careless and ignorant of facts as they are. But Prometheus, taking pity on them, determined in his mind to free them from that slavery and to teach them to rise above the beasts, by seeing things as they are. He therefore made them acquainted with the secrets of nature, and taught them to build houses, to work in wood and metals, to observe the courses of the stars, and all other such arts and sciences, which if any man attempts to follow according to his private opinion, and not according to the rules of that art, which are independent of him and of his opinions, being discovered from the unchangeable laws of things as they are, he will fail. But yet, as the myth relates, they became only a more cunning sort of animals; not being wholly freed from their original slavery to a certain subjective opinion about themselves, that each man should, by means of those arts and sciences, please and help himself only. Fearing, therefore, lest their increased strength and cunning should only enable them to prey upon each other all the more fiercely, he stole fire from heaven, and gave to each man a share thereof for his hearth, and to each community for their common altar. And by the light of this celestial fire they learnt to see those celestial and eternal bonds between man and man, as of husband to wife, of father to child, of citizen to his country, and of master to servant, without which man is but a biped without feathers, and which are in themselves, being independent of the flux of matter and time, most truly facts as they are. And since that time, whatsoever household or nation has allowed these fires to become extinguished, has sunk down again to the level of the brutes: while those who have passed them down to their children burning bright and strong, become partakers of the bliss of the Heroes, in the Happy Islands. It seems to me then, Phaethon and Alcibiades, that if we find ourselves in anywise destitute of this heavenly fire, we should pray for the coming of that day, when Prometheus shall be unbound from Caucasus, if by any means he may take pity on us and on our children, and again bring us down from heaven that fire which is the spirit of truth, that we may see facts as they are. For which, if he were to ask Zeus humbly and filially, I cannot believe that He would refuse it. And indeed, I think that the poets, as is their custom, corrupt the minds of young men by telling them that Zeus chained Prometheus to Caucasus for his theft; seeing that it befits such a ruler, as I take the Father of gods and men to be, to know that his subjects can only do well by means of his bounty, and therefore to bestow it freely, as the kings of Persia do, on all who are willing to use it in the service of their sovereign.”
“So then,” said Alcibiades, laughing, “till Prometheus be unbound from Caucasus, we who have lost, as you seem to hint, this heavenly fire, must needs go on upon our own subjective opinions, having nothing better to which to trust. Truly, thou sophist, thy conclusion seems to me after all not to differ much from that of Protagoras.”
S. “Ah dear boy! know you not that to those who have been initiated, and, as they say in the mysteries, twice born, Prometheus is always unbound, and stands ready to assist them; while to those who are self-willed and conceited of their own opinions, he is removed to an inaccessible distance, and chained in icy fetters on untrodden mountain-peaks, where the vulture ever devours his fair heart, which sympathises continually with the follies and the sorrows of mankind? Of what punishment, then, must not those be worthy, who by their own wilfulness and self-confidence bind again to Caucasus the fair Titan, the friend of men?”
“By Apollo!” said Alcibiades, “this language is more fit for the tripod in Delphos, than for the bema in the Pnyx. So fare-thee-well, thou Pythoness! I must go and con over my oration, at least if thy prophesying has not altogether addled my thoughts.”
But I, as soon as Alcibiades was gone, for I was ashamed to speak before, turning to Socrates said to him, all but weeping:
“Oh Socrates, what cruel words are these which you have spoken? Are you not ashamed to talk thus contemptuously to one like me, even though he be younger and less cunning in argument than yourself; knowing as you do, how, when I might have grown rich in my native city of Rhodes, and marrying there, as my father purposed, a wealthy merchant’s heiress, so have passed my life delicately, receiving the profits of many ships and warehouses, I yet preferred Truth beyond riches; and leaving my father’s house, came to Athens in search of wisdom, dissipating my patrimony upon one sophist after another, listening greedily to Hippias, and Polus, and Gorgias, and Protagoras, and last of all to you, hard-hearted man that you are? For from my youth I loved and longed after nothing so much as Truth, whatsoever it may be; thinking nothing so noble as to know that which is Right, and knowing it, to do it. And that longing, or love of mine, which is what I suppose Protagoras meant by the spirit of truth, I cherished as the fairest and most divine possession, and that for which alone it was worth while to live. For it seemed to me, that even if in my search I never attained to truth, still it were better to die seeking, than not to seek; and that even if acting by what I considered to be the spirit of truth, and doing honestly in every case that which seemed right, I should often, acting on a false conviction, offend in ignorance against the absolute righteousness of the gods, yet that such an offence was deserving, if not of praise for its sincerity, yet at least of pity and forgiveness; but by no means to be classed, as you class it, with the appetites of brutes; much less to be threatened, as you threaten it, with infinite and eternal misery by I know not what necessary laws of Zeus, and to be put off at last with some myth or other about Prometheus. Surely your mother bare you a scoffer and pitiless, Socrates, and not, as you boast, a man-midwife fit for fair youths.”
Then, smiling sweetly, “Dear boy,” said he, “were I such as you fancy, how should I be here now, discoursing with you concerning truth, instead of conning my speech for the Pnyx, like Alcibiades, that I may become a demagogue, deceiving the mob with flattery, and win for myself houses, and lands, and gold, and slave-girls, and fame, and power, even to a tyranny itself? For in this way I might have made my tongue a profitable member of my body; but now, being hurried up and down in barren places, like one mad of love, from my longing after fair youths, I waste my speech on them; receiving, as is the wont of true lovers, only curses and ingratitude from their arrogance. But tell me, thou proud Adonis—This spirit of truth in thee, which thou thoughtest, and rightly, thy most noble possession—did it desire truth, or not?”
P. “But, Socrates, I told you that very thing, and said that it was a longing after truth, which I could not restrain or disobey.”
S. “Tell me now, does one long for that which one possesses, or for that which one does not possess?”
P. “For that which one does not possess.”
S. “And is one in love with that which is oneself, or with that which is not?”
P. “With that which is not oneself, thou mocker. We are not all, surely, like Narcissus?”
S. “No, by the dog! not quite all. But see now: it appears that when any one is in love with a thing, and longs for it, as thou didst for truth, it must be something which is not himself, and which he does not possess?”
P. “True.”
S. “You, then, while you were loving facts as they are, and longing to see them as they are, yet did not possess that which you longed for?”
P. “True, indeed; else why should I have been driven forth by the anger of the gods, like Bellerophon, to pace the Aleian plain, eating my own soul, if I had possessed that for which I longed?”
S. “Well said, dear boy. But see again. This truth which you loved, and which was not yourself or part of yourself, was certainly also nothing of your own making?—Though they say that Pygmalion was enamoured of the statue which he himself had carved.”
P. “But he was miserable, Socrates, till the statue became alive.”
S. “They say so; but what has that to do with the argument?”
P. “I know not. But it seems to me horrible, as it did to Pygmalion, to be enamoured of anything which cannot return your love, but is, as it were, your puppet. Should we not think it a shameful thing, if a mistress were to be enamoured of one of her own slaves?”
S. “We should; and that, I suppose, because the slave would have no free choice whether to refuse or to return his mistress’s love; but would be compelled, being a slave, to submit to her, even if she were old, or ugly, or hateful to him?”
P. “Of course.”
S. “And should we not say, Phaethon, that there was no true enjoyment in such love, even on the part of the mistress; nay, that it was not worthy of the name of love at all, but was merely something base, such as happens to animals?”
P. “We should say so rightly.”
S. “Tell me, then, Phaethon—for a strange doubt has entered my mind on account of your words. This truth of which you were enamoured, seems, from what has been agreed, not to be a part of yourself, nor a creation of your own, like Pygmalion’s statue—how then has it not happened to you to be even more miserable than Pygmalion till you were sure that truth loved you in return?—and, moreover, till you were sure that truth had free choice as to whether it should return or refuse your love? For, otherwise, you would be in danger of being found suffering the same base passion as a mistress enamoured of a slave who cannot resist her.”
P. “I am puzzled, Socrates.”
S. “Shall we rather say, then, that you were enamoured, not of truth itself, but of the spirit of truth? For we have been all along defining truth to be ‘facts as they are,’ have we not?”
P. “We have.”
S. “But there are many facts as they are, whereof to be enamoured would be base, for they cannot return your love. As, for instance, that one and one make two, or that a horse has four legs. With respect to such facts, you would be, would you not, in the same position as a mistress towards her slave?”
P. “Certainly. It seems, then, better to assume the other alternative.”
S. “It does. But does it not follow, that when you were enamoured of this spirit, you did not possess it?”
P. “I fear so, by the argument.”
S. “And I fear, too, that we agreed that he only who possessed the spirit of truth saw facts as they are; for that was involved in our definition of the spirit of truth.”
P. “But, Socrates, I knew, at least, that one and one made two, and that a horse had four legs. I must then have seen some facts as they are.”
S. “Doubtless, fair boy; but not all.”
P. “I do not pretend to that.”
S. “But if you had possessed the spirit of truth, you would have seen all facts whatsoever as they are. For he who possesses a thing can surely employ it freely for all purposes which are not contrary to the nature of that thing; can he not?”