Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
PHAETHON; LOOSE THOUGHTS FOR LOOSE THINKERS. 1852.
Templeton and I were lounging by the clear limestone stream which
crossed his park and wound away round wooded hills toward the
distant Severn. A lovelier fishing morning sportsman never saw. A
soft gray under-roof of cloud slid on before a soft west wind, and
here and there a stray gleam of sunlight shot into the vale across
the purple mountain-tops, and awoke into busy life the denizens of
the water, already quickened by the mysterious electric influences
of the last night's thunder-shower. The long-winged cinnamon-flies
spun and fluttered over the pools; the sand-bees hummed merrily
round their burrows in the marly bank; and delicate iridescent
ephemerae rose by hundreds from the depths, and, dropping their
shells, floated away, each a tiny Venus Anadyomene, down the glassy
ripples of the reaches. Every moment a heavy splash beneath some
overhanging tuft of milfoil or water hemlock proclaimed the death-
doom of a hapless beetle who had dropped into the stream beneath;
yet still we fished and fished, and caught nothing, and seemed
utterly careless about catching anything; till the old keeper who
followed us, sighing and shrugging his shoulders, broke forth into
open remonstrance:
"Excuse my liberty, gentlemen, but what ever is the matter with you
and master, sir? I never did see you miss so many honest rises
before."
"It is too true," said Templeton to me with a laugh. "I must
confess I have been dreaming instead of fishing the whole morning.
But what has happened to you, who are not as apt as I am to do
nothing by trying to do two things at once?"
"My hand may well be somewhat unsteady; for to tell the truth, I sat
up all last night writing."
"A hopeful preparation for a day's fishing in limestone water! But
what can have set you on writing all night after so busy and
talkative an evening as the last, ending too, as it did, somewhere
about half-past twelve?"
"Perhaps the said talkative evening itself; and I suspect, if you
will confess the truth, you will say that your morning's meditations
are running very much in the same channel."
"Lewis," said he, after a pause, "go up to the hall, and bring some
luncheon for us down to the lower waterfall."
"And a wheelbarrow to carry home the fish, sir?"
"If you wish to warm yourself, certainly. And now, my good fellow,"
said he, as the old keeper toddled away up the park, "I will open my
heart-a process for which I have but few opportunities here-to an
old college friend. I am disturbed and saddened by last night's
talk and by last night's guest."
"By the American professor? How, in the name of English
exclusiveness, did such a rampantly heterodox spiritual guerilla
invade the respectabilities and conservatisms of Herefordshire?"
"He was returning from a tour through Wales, and had introductions
to me from some Manchester friends of mine, to avail himself of
which I found he had gone some thirty miles out of his way."
"Complimentary to you, at least."
"To Lady Jane, I suspect, rather than to me; for he told me broadly
enough that all the flattering attentions which he had received in
Manchester-where, you know, all such prophets are received with open
arms, their only credentials being that, whatsoever they believe,
they shall not believe the Bible-had not given him the pleasure
which he had received from that one introduction to what he called
'the inner hearth-life of the English landed aristocracy.' But what
did you think of him?"
"Do you really wish to know?"
"I do."
"Then, honestly, I never heard so much magniloquent unwisdom talked
in the same space of time. It was the sense of shame for my race
which kept me silent all the evening. I could not trust myself to
argue with a gray-haired Saxon man, whose fifty years of life seemed
to have left him a child in all but the childlike heart which alone
can enter into the kingdom of heaven."
"You are severe," said Templeton, smilingly though, as if his
estimate were not very different from mine.
"Can one help being severe when one hears irreverence poured forth
from reverend lips? I do not mean merely irreverence for the
Catholic Creeds; that to my mind-God forgive me if I misjudge him-
seemed to me only one fruit of a deep root of irreverence for all
things as they are, even for all things as they seem. Did you not
remark the audacious contempt for all ages but 'our glorious
nineteenth century,' and the still deeper contempt for all in the
said glorious time who dared to believe that there was any
ascertained truth independent of the private fancy and opinion of-
for I am afraid it came to that-him, Professor Windrush, and his
circle of elect souls? 'You may believe nothing if you like, and
welcome; but if you do take to that unnecessary act, you are a fool
if you believe anything but what I believe-though I do not choose to
state what that is.' Is not that, now, a pretty fair formulisation
of his doctrine?"
"But, my dear raver," said Templeton, laughing, "the man believed at
least in physical science. I am sure we heard enough about its
triumphs."
"It may be so. But to me his very 'spiritualism' seemed more
materialistic than his physics. His notion seemed to be, though
heaven forbid that I should say that he ever put it formally before
himself-"
"Or anything else," said Templeton, sotto voce.
"-that it is the spiritual world which is governed by physical laws,
and the physical by spiritual ones; that while men and women are
merely the puppets of cerebrations and mentations, and attractions
and repulsions, it is the trees, and stones, and gases, who have the
wills and the energies, and the faiths and the virtues and the
personalities."
"You are caricaturing."
"How so? How can I judge otherwise, when I hear a man talking, as
he did, of God in terms which, every one of them involved what we
call the essential properties of matter-space, time, passibility,
motion; setting forth phrenology and mesmerism as the great organs
of education, even of the regeneration of mankind; apologising for
the earlier ravings of the Poughkeepsie seer, and considering his
later eclectico-pantheist farragos as great utterances: while,
whenever he talked of Nature, he showed the most credulous craving
after everything which we, the countrymen of Bacon, have been taught
to consider unscientific-Homoeopathy, Electro-biology, Loves of the
Plants a la Darwin, Vestiges of Creation, Vegetarianisms,
Teetotalisms-never mind what, provided it was unaccredited or
condemned by regularly educated men of science?"
"But you don't mean to assert that there is nothing in any of these
theories?"
"Of course not. I can no more prove a universal negative about them
than I can about the existence of life on the moon. But I do say
that this contempt for that which has been already discovered-this
carelessness about induction from the normal phenomena, coupled with
this hankering after theories built upon exceptional ones-this
craving for 'signs and wonders,' which is the sure accompaniment of
a dying faith in God, and in nature as God's work-are symptoms which
make me tremble for the fate of physical as well as of spiritual
science, both in America and in the Americanists here at home. As
the Professor talked on, I could not help thinking of the neo-
Platonists of Alexandria, and their exactly similar course-downward
from a spiritualism of notions and emotions, which in every term
confessed its own materialism, to the fearful discovery that
consciousness does not reveal God, not even matter, but only its own
existence; and then onward, in desperate search after something
external wherein to trust, towards theurgic fetish worship, and the
secret virtues of gems and flowers and stars; and, last of all, to
the lowest depth of bowing statues and winking pictures. The sixth
century saw that career, Templeton; the nineteenth may see it re-
enacted, with only these differences, that the Nature-worship which
seems coming will be all the more crushing and slavish, because we
know so much better how vast and glorious Nature is; and that the
superstitions will be more clumsy and foolish in proportion as our
Saxon brain is less acute and discursive, and our education less
severely scientific, than those of the old Greeks."
"Silence, raver!" cried Templeton, throwing himself on the grass in
fits of laughter. "So the Professor's grandchildren will have
either turned Papists, or be bowing down before rusty locomotives
and broken electric telegraphs? But, my good friend, you surely do
not take Professor Windrush for a fair sample of the great American
people?"
"God forbid that so unpractical a talker should be a sample of the
most practical people upon earth. The Americans have their
engineers, their geographers, their astronomers, their scientific
chemists; few indeed, but such as bid fair to rival those of any
nation upon earth. But these, like other true workers, hold their
tongues and do their business."
"And they have a few indigenous authors too: you must have read the
'Biglow Papers,' and the 'Fable for Critics,' and last but not
least, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'?"
"Yes; and I have had far less fear for Americans since I read that
book; for it showed me that there was right healthy power, artistic
as well as intellectual, among them, even now-ready, when their
present borrowed peacocks' feathers have fallen off, to come forth
and prove that the Yankee Eagle is a right gallant bird, if he will
but trust to his own natural plumage."
"And they have a few statesmen also."
"But they are curt, plain-spoken, practical-in everything antipodal
to the knot of hapless men, who, unable from some defect or
morbidity to help on the real movement of their nation, are fain to
get their bread with tongue and pen, by retailing to 'silly women,'
'ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,'
second-hand German eclecticisms, now exploded even in the country
where they arose, and the very froth and scum of the Medea's
caldron, in which the disjecta membra of old Calvinism are pitiably
seething."
"Ah! It has been always the plan, you know, in England, as well as
in America, courteously to avoid taking up a German theory till the
Germans had quite done with it, and thrown it away for something
new. But what are we to say of those who are trying to introduce
into England these very Americanised Germanisms, as the only
teaching which can suit the needs of the old world?"
"We will, if we are in a vulgar humour, apply to them a certain old
proverb about teaching one's grandmother a certain simple operation
on the egg of the domestic fowl; but we will no less take shame to
ourselves, as sons of Alma Mater, that such nonsense can get even a
day's hearing, either among the daughters of Manchester
manufacturers, or among London working men. Had we taught them what
we were taught in the schools, Templeton-"
"Alas, my friend, we must ourselves have learnt it first. I have no
right to throw stones at the poor Professor, for I could not answer
him."
"Do not suppose that I can either. All I say is-mankind has not
lived in vain. Least of all has it lived in vain during the last
eighteen hundred years. It has gained something of eternal truth in
every age, and that which it has gained is as fresh and young now as
ever; and I will not throw away the bird in the hand for any number
of birds in the bush."
"Especially when you suspect most of them to be only wooden
pheasants, set up to delude poachers. Well, you are far more of a
Philister and a Conservative than I thought you."
"The New is coming, I doubt not; but it must grow organically out of
the Old-not root the old up, and stick itself full-grown into the
place thereof, like a French tree of liberty-sure of much the same
fate. Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid
already, in spiritual things or in physical; as the Professor and
his school will surely find."
"You recollect to whom the Bible applies that text?"
"I do."
"And yet you say you cannot answer the Professor?"
"I do not care to do so. There are certain root-truths which I
know, because they have been discovered and settled for ages; and
instead of accepting the challenge of every I-know-not-whom to re-
examine them, and begin the world's work all over again, I will test
his theories by them; and if they fail to coincide, I will hear no
more speech about the details of the branches and flowers, for I
shall know the root is rotten."
"But he, too, acknowledged certain of those root-truths," said
Templeton, who seemed to have a lingering sympathy with my victim;
"he insisted most strongly, and spoke, you will not deny, eloquently
and nobly on the Unity of the Deity."
"On the non-Trinity of _it_, rather; for I will not degrade the word
'Him,' by applying it here. But, tell me honestly-c'est le timbre
qui fait la musique-did his 'Unity of the Deity' sound in your
English Bible-bred heart at all like that ancient, human, personal
'Hear, O Israel! the Lord thy God is one Lord'?"
"Much more like 'The Something our Nothing is one Something.'"
"May we not suspect, then, that his notion of the 'Unity of the
Deity' does not quite coincide with the foundation already laid,
whosesoever else may?"
"You are assuming rather hastily."
"Perhaps I may prove also, some day or other. Do you think,
moreover, that the theory which he so boldly started, when his
nerves and his manners were relieved from the unwonted pressure by
Lady Jane and the ladies going upstairs, was part of the same old
foundation?"
"Which, then?"
"That, if a man does but believe a thing, he has a right to speak it
and act on it, right or wrong. Have you forgotten his vindication
of your friend, the radical voter, and his 'spirit of truth'?"
"What, the worthy who, when I canvassed him as the Liberal candidate
for ---, and promised to support complete freedom of religious
opinion, tested me by breaking out into such blasphemous ribaldry as
made me run out of the house, and then went and voted against me as
a bigot?"
"I mean him, of course. The Professor really seemed to admire the
man, as a more brave and conscientious hero than himself. I am not
squeamish, as you know; but I am afraid that I was quite rude to him
when he went as far as that."
"What-when you told him that you thought that, after all, the old
theory of the Divine Right of Kings was as plausible as the new
theory of the Divine Right of Blasphemy? My dear fellow, do not
fret yourself on that point. He seemed to take it rather as a
compliment to his own audacity, and whispered to me that 'The Divine
Right of Blasphemy' was an expression of which Theodore Parker
himself need not have been ashamed."
"He was pleased to be complimentary. But, tell me, what was it in
his oratory which has so vexed the soul of the country squire?"
"That very argument of his, among many things. I saw, or rather
felt, that he was wrong; and yet, as I have said already, I could
not answer him; and, had he not been my guest, should have got
thoroughly cross with him, as a pis-aller."
"I saw it. But, my friend, used we not to read Plato together, and
enjoy him together, in old Cambridge days? Do you not think that
Socrates might at all events have driven the Professor into a
corner?"
"He might: but I cannot. Is that, then, what you were writing
about all last night?"
"It was. I could not help, when I went out on the terrace to smoke
my last cigar, fancying to myself how Socrates might have seemed to
set you, and the Professor, and that warm-hearted, right-headed,
wrong-tongued High-Church Curate, all together by the ears, and made
confusion worse confounded for the time being, and yet have left for
each of you some hint whereby you might see the darling truth for
which you were barking, all the more clearly in the light of the one
which you were howling down."
"And so you sat up, and-I thought the corridor smelt somewhat of
smoke."
"Forgive, and I will confess. I wrote a dialogue;-and here it is,
if you choose to hear it. If there are a few passages, or even
many, which Plato would not have written, you will consider my age
and inexperience, and forgive."
"My dear fellow, you forget that I, like you, have been ten years
away from dear old Alma-Mater, Plato, the boats, and Potton Wood.
My authorities now are 'Morton on Soils' and 'Miles on the Horse's
Foot.' Read on, fearless of my criticisms. Here is the waterfall;
we will settle ourselves on Jane's favourite seat. You shall
discourse, and I, till Lewis brings the luncheon, will smoke my
cigar; and if I seem to be looking at the mountain, don't fancy that
I am only counting how many young grouse those heath-burning
worthies will have left me by the twelfth."
So we sat down, and I began:
PHAETHON
Alcibiades and I walked into the Pnyx early the other morning,
before the people assembled. There we saw Socrates standing, having
his face turned toward the rising sun. Approaching him, we
perceived that he was praying; and that so ardently, that we touched
him on the shoulder before he became aware of our presence.
"You seem like a man filled with the God, Socrates," said
Alcibiades.
"Would that were true," answered he, "both of me and of all who will
counsel here this day. In fact, I was praying for that very thing;
namely, that they might have light to see the truth, in whatsoever
matter might be discussed here."
"And for me also?" said Alcibiades; "but I have prepared my speech
already."
"And for you also, if you desire it-even though some of your periods
should be spoiled thereby. But why are you both here so early,
before any business is stirring?"
"We were discussing," said I, "that very thing for which we found
you praying-namely, truth, and what it might be."
"Perhaps you went a worse way toward discovering it than I did. But
let us hear. Whence did the discussion arise?"
"From something," said Alcibiades, "which Protagoras said in his
lecture yesterday-How truth was what each man troweth, or believeth,
to be true. 'So that,' he said, 'one thing is true to me, if I
believe it true, and another opposite thing to you, if you believe
that opposite. For,' continued he, 'there is an objective and a
subjective truth; the former, doubtless, one and absolute, and
contained in the nature of each thing; but the other manifold and
relative, varying with the faculties of each perceiver thereof.'
But as each man's faculties, he said, were different from his
neighbour's, and all more or less imperfect, it was impossible that
the absolute objective truth of anything could be seen by any
mortal, but only some partial approximation, and, as it were, sketch
of it, according as the object was represented with more or less
refraction on the mirror of his subjectivity. And therefore, as the
true inquirer deals only with the possible, and lets the impossible
go, it was the business of the wise man, shunning the search after
absolute truth as an impious attempt of the Titans to scale Olympus,
to busy himself humbly and practically with subjective truth, and
with those methods-rhetoric, for instance-by which he can make the
subjective opinions of others either similar to his own, or, leaving
them as they are-for it may be very often unnecessary to change
them-useful to his own ends."
Then Socrates, laughing:
"My fine fellow, you will have made more than one oration in the
Pnyx to-day. And indeed, I myself felt quite exalted, and rapt
aloft, like Bellerophon on Pegasus, upon the eloquence of Protagoras
and you. But yet forgive me this one thing; for my mother bare me,
as you know, a man-midwife, after her own trade, and not a sage."
ALCIBIADES. "What then?"
SOCRATES. "This, my astonishing friend-for really I am altogether
astonished and struck dumb, as I always am whensoever I hear a
brilliant talker like you discourse concerning objectivities and
subjectivities, and such mysterious words; at such moments I am like
an old war-horse, who, though he will rush on levelled lances,
shudders and sweats with terror at a boy rattling pebbles in a
bladder; and I feel altogether dizzy, and dread lest I should suffer
some such transformation as Scylla, when I hear awful words, like
incantations, pronounced over me, of which I, being no sage,
understand nothing. But tell me now, Alcibiades, did the opinion of
Protagoras altogether please you?"
A. "Why not? Is it not certain that two equally honest men may
differ in their opinions on the same matter?"
S. "Undeniable."
A. "But if each is equally sincere in speaking what he believes, is
not each equally moved by the spirit of truth?"
S. "You seem to have been lately initiated, and that not at Eleusis
merely, nor in the Cabiria, but rather in some Persian or Babylonian
mysteries, when you discourse thus of spirits. But you, Phaethon"
(turning to me), "how did you like the periods of Protagoras?"
"Do not ask me, Socrates," said I, "for indeed we have fought a
weary battle together ever since sundown last night, and all that I
had to say I learnt from you."
S. "From me, good fellow?"
PHAETHON. "Yes, indeed. I seemed to have heard from you that truth
is simply 'facts as they are.' But when I urged this on Alcibiades,
his arguments seemed superior to mine."
A. "But I have been telling him, drunk and sober, that it is my
opinion also as to what truth is. Only I, with Protagoras,
distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion."
S. "Doing rightly, too, fair youth. But how comes it then that you
and Phaethon cannot agree?"
"That," said I, "you know better than either of us."
"You seem both of you," said Socrates, "to be, as usual, in the
family way. Shall I exercise my profession on you?"
"No, by Zeus!" answered Alcibiades, laughing; "I fear thee, thou
juggler, lest I suffer once again the same fate with the woman in
the myth, and after I have conceived a fair man-child, and, as I
fancy, brought it forth; thou hold up to the people some dead puppy,
or log, or what not, and cry: 'Look what Alcibiades has produced!'"
S. "But, beautiful youth, before I can do that, you will have
spoken your oration on the bema, and all the people will be ready
and able to say 'Absurd! Nothing but what is fair can come from so
fair a body.' Come, let us consider the question together."
I assented willingly; and Alcibiades, mincing and pouting, after his
fashion, still was loath to refuse.
S. "Let us see, then. Alcibiades distinguishes, he says, between
objective fact and subjective opinion?"
A. "Of course I do."
S. "But not, I presume, between objective truth and subjective
truth, whereof Protagoras spoke?"
A. "What trap are you laying now? I distinguish between them also,
of course."
S. "Tell me, then, dear youth, of your indulgence, what they are;
for I am shamefully ignorant on the matter."
A. "Why, do they not call a thing objectively true, when it is true
absolutely in itself; but subjectively true, when it is true in the
belief of a particular person?"
S. "-Though not necessarily true objectively, that is, absolutely
and in itself?"
A. "No."
S. "But possibly true so?"
A. "Of course."
S. "Now, tell me-a thing is objectively true, is it not, when it is
a fact as it is?"
A. "Yes."
S. "And when it is a fact as it is not, it is objectively false;
for such a fact would not be true absolutely, and in itself, would
it?"
A. "Of course not."
S. "Such a fact would be, therefore, no fact, and nothing."
A. "Why so?"
S. "Because, if a thing exists, it can only exist as it is, not as
it is not; at least my opinion inclines that way."
"Certainly not," said I; "why do you haggle so, Alcibiades?"
S. "Fair and softly, Phaethon! How do you know that he is not
fighting for wife and child, and the altars of his gods? But if he
will agree with you and me, he will confess that a thing which is
objectively false does not exist at all, and is nothing."
A. "I suppose it is necessary to do so. But I know whither you are
struggling."
S. "To this, dear youth, that, therefore, if a thing subjectively
true be also objectively false, it does not exist, and is nothing."
"It is so," said I.
S. "Let us, then, let nothing go its own way, while we go on ours
with that which is only objectively true, lest coming to a river
over which it is subjectively true to us that there is a bridge, and
trying to walk over that work of our own mind, but no one's hands,
the bridge prove to be objectively false, and we, walking over the
bank into the water, be set free from that which is subjectively on
the farther bank of Styx."
Then I, laughing: "This hardly coincides, Alcibiades, with
Protagoras's opinion, that subjective truth was alone useful."
"But rather proves," said Socrates, "that undiluted draughts of it
are of a hurtful and poisonous nature, and require to be tempered
with somewhat of objective truth, before it is safe to use them-at
least in the case of bridges."
"Did I not tell you," interrupted Alcibiades, "how the old deceiver
would try to put me to bed of some dead puppy or log? Or do you not
see how, in order, after his custom, to raise a laugh about the
whole question by vulgar examples, he is blinking what he knows as
well as I?"
S. "What then, fair youth?"
A. "That Protagoras was not speaking about bridges, or any other
merely physical things, on which no difference of opinion need
occur, because every one can satisfy himself by simply using his
senses; but concerning moral and intellectual matters, which are not
cognisable by the senses, and therefore permit, without blame, a
greater diversity of opinion. Error on such points, he told us-on
the subject of religion, for example-was both pardonable and
harmless; for no blame could be imputed to the man who acted
faithfully up to his own belief, whatsoever that might be."
S. "Bravely spoken of him, and worthily of a free state. But tell
me, Alcibiades, with what matters does religion deal?"
A. "With the Gods."
S. "Then it is not hurtful to speak false things of the Gods?"
A. "Not unless you know them to be false."
S. "But answer me this, Alcibiades. If you made a mistake
concerning numbers, as that twice two made five, might it not be
hurtful to you?"
A. "Certainly; for I might pay away five obols instead of four."
S. "And so be punished, not by any anger of two and two against
you, but by those very necessary laws of number, which you had
mistaken?"
A. "Yes."
S. "Or if you made a mistake concerning music, as that two
consecutive notes could produce harmony, that opinion also, if you
acted upon it, would be hurtful to you?"
A. "Certainly; for I should make a discord, and pain my own ears,
and my hearers'."
S. "And in this case also, be punished, not by any anger of the
lyre against you, but by those very necessary laws of music which
you had mistaken?"
A. "Yes."
S. "Or if you mistook concerning a brave man, believing him to be a
coward, might not this also be hurtful to you? If, for instance,
you attacked him carelessly, expecting him to run away, and he
defended himself valiantly, and conquered you; or if you neglected
to call for his help in need, expecting him falsely, as in the
former case, to run away; would not such a mistake be hurtful to
you, and punish you, not by any anger of the man against you, but by
your mistake itself?"
A. "It is evident."
S. "We may assume, then, that such mistakes at least are hurtful,
and that they are liable to be punished by the very laws of that
concerning which we mistake?"
A. "We may so assume."
S. "Suppose, then, we were to say: 'What argument is this of
yours, Protagoras?-that concerning lesser things, both intellectual
and moral, such as concerning number, music, or the character of a
man, mistakes are hurtful, and liable to bring punishment, in
proportion to our need of using those things: but concerning the
Gods, the very authors and lawgivers of number, music, human
character, and all other things whatsoever, mistakes are of no
consequence, nor in any way hurtful to man, who stands in need of
their help, not only in stress of battle, once or twice in his life,
as he might of the brave man, but always and in all things both
outward and inward? Does it not seem strange to you, for it does to
me, that to make mistakes concerning such beings should not bring an
altogether infinite and daily punishment, not by any resentment of
theirs, but, as in the case of music or numbers, by the very fact of
our having mistaken the laws of their being, on which the whole
universe depends?'-What do you suppose Protagoras would be able to
answer, if he faced the question boldly?"
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 AEschylus 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: