Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a
prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called
the investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why
a thing is and is created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty
profession; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of
questions such as these:--Is the growth of animals the result of some
decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said? Is
the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire? or
perhaps nothing of the kind--but the brain may be the originating
power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory
and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and
opinion when they have attained fixity. And then I went on to examine
the corruption of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and
at last I concluded myself to be utterly and absolutely incapable
of these enquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was
fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things
which I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; I
forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g. such a fact
as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for when
by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and
whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser
bulk becomes larger and the small man great. Was not that a reasonable
notion?
Yes, said Cebes, I think so.
Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I
thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well;
and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one
was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to
be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to
perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more
than one, because two is the double of one.
And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.
I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause
of any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that,
when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes
two, or that the two units added together make two by reason of the
addition. I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each
of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together,
the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should be the cause of their
becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of one is the
way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same
effect,--as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one
to one was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of
one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied
that I understand the reason why one or anything else is either
generated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused
notion of a new method, and can never admit the other.
Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras,
that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was delighted at this
notion, which appeared quite admirable, and I said to myself: If mind
is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each
particular in the best place; and I argued that if any one desired to
find out the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of
anything, he must find out what state of being or doing or suffering was
best for that thing, and therefore a man had only to consider the best
for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, since the
same science comprehended both. And I rejoiced to think that I had found
in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired,
and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or
round; and whichever was true, he would proceed to explain the cause and
the necessity of this being so, and then he would teach me the nature of
the best and show that this was best; and if he said that the earth was
in the centre, he would further explain that this position was the best,
and I should be satisfied with the explanation given, and not want any
other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go on and ask him
about the sun and moon and stars, and that he would explain to me their
comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, active
and passive, and how all of them were for the best. For I could not
imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would
give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was
best; and I thought that when he had explained to me in detail the cause
of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was
best for each and what was good for all. These hopes I would not have
sold for a large sum of money, and I seized the books and read them as
fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.
What expectations I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed!
As I proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any
other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and
water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who
began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions
of Socrates, but who, when he endeavoured to explain the causes of my
several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my
body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones, as he would say,
are hard and have joints which divide them, and the muscles are elastic,
and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of
flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their
joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able
to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved
posture--that is what he would say, and he would have a similar
explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and
air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the
same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is, that the
Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought
it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for
I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have
gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia--by the dog they would, if they
had been moved only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not
chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running
away, of enduring any punishment which the state inflicts. There is
surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may
be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts
of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do
because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and
not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of
speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the
condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always
mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and
steadies the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as a support to
the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. Any power which in arranging
them as they are arranges them for the best never enters into their
minds; and instead of finding any superior strength in it, they rather
expect to discover another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more
everlasting and more containing than the good;--of the obligatory and
containing power of the good they think nothing; and yet this is the
principle which I would fain learn if any one would teach me. But as I
have failed either to discover myself, or to learn of any one else,
the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have
found to be the second best mode of enquiring into the cause.