_QUESTION I._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT GOD BADE SOCRATES TO ACT THE MIDWIFE’S
PART TO OTHERS, BUT CHARGED HIMSELF NOT TO GENERATE; AS HE SAYS IN
THEAETETUS?[150]
1. For he would never have used the name of God in such a merry,
jesting manner, though Plato in that book makes Socrates several times
to talk with great boasting and arrogance, as he does now. “There are
many, dear friend, so affected towards me, that they are ready even
to bite me, when I offer to cure them of the least madness. For they
will not be persuaded that I do it out of good-will, because they are
ignorant that no God bears ill-will to man, and that therefore I wish
ill to no man; but I cannot allow myself either to stand in a lie or to
stifle the truth.”[151] Whether therefore did he style his own nature,
which was of a very strong and pregnant wit, by the name of God,—as
Menander says, “For our mind is God,” and as Heraclitus, “Man’s genius
is a Deity”? Or did some divine cause or some Daemon or other impart
this way of philosophizing to Socrates, whereby always interrogating
others, he cleared them of pride, error, and ignorance, and of being
troublesome both to themselves and to others? For about that time there
happened to be in Greece several sophisters; to these some young men
paid great sums of money, for which they purchased a strong opinion of
learning and wisdom, and of being stout disputants; but this sort of
disputation spent much time in trifling squabblings, which were of no
credit or profit. Now Socrates, using an argumentative discourse by way
of a purgative remedy, procured belief and authority to what he said,
because in refuting others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the
sooner gained upon people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive
after the truth as well as they, than to maintain his own opinion.
2. Now, however useful a thing judgment is, it is mightily impeached
by the begetting of a man’s own fancies. For the lover is blinded
with the thing loved; and nothing of a man’s own is so beloved as is
the opinion and discourse which he has begotten. And the distribution
of children, said to be the justest, in respect of discourses is the
unjustest; for there a man must take his own, but here a man must
choose the best, though it be another man’s. Therefore he that has
children of his own, is a worse judge of other men’s; it being true, as
the sophister said well, “The Eleans would be the most proper judges of
the Olympic games, were no Eleans gamesters.” So he that would judge of
disputations cannot be just, if he either seeks the bays for himself,
or is himself antagonist to either of the antagonists. For as the
Grecian captains, when they were to decide by their suffrages who had
behaved himself the best, every man of them voted for himself; so there
is not a philosopher of them all but would do the like, besides those
that acknowledge, like Socrates, that they can say nothing that is
their own; and these only are the pure uncorrupt judges of the truth.
For as the air in the ears, unless it be still and void of noise in
itself, without any sound or buzzing, does not exactly take sounds;
so the philosophical judgment in disputations, if it be disturbed and
obstreperous within, is hardly comprehensive of what is said without.
For our familiar and inbred opinion will not admit that which is at
variance with itself, as the number of sects and parties proves, of
which philosophy—if she deals with them in the best manner—must hold
one to be right, and all the others to be at war with the truth in
their opinions.
3. Furthermore, if men can comprehend and know nothing, God did justly
interdict Socrates the procreation of false and unstable discourses,
which are like wind-eggs, and bid him convince others who were of any
other opinion. And reasoning, which rids us of the greatest of evils,
error and vanity of mind, is none of the least benefit to us; “For God
has not granted this to the Esculapians.”[152] Nor did Socrates give
physic to the body; indeed he purged the mind of secret corruption.
But if there be any knowledge of the truth, and if the truth be one,
he has as much that learns it of him that invented it, as the inventor
himself. Now he the most easily attains the truth, that is persuaded
he has it not; and he chooses best, just as he that has no children
of his own adopts the best. Mark this well, that poetry, mathematics,
oratory, and sophistry, which are the things the Deity forbade Socrates
to generate, are of no value; and that of the sole wisdom about what
is divine and intelligible (which Socrates called amiable and eligible
for itself), there is neither generation nor invention by man, but
reminiscence. Wherefore Socrates taught nothing, but suggesting
principles of doubt, as birth-pains, to young men, he excited and at
the same time confirmed the innate notions. This he called his Art of
Midwifery, which did not (as others professed) extrinsically confer
intelligence upon his auditors; but demonstrated it to be innate, yet
imperfect and confused, and in want of a nurse to feed and strengthen
it.
_QUESTION II._