This is an article upon ‘The Attitude of the Student’, which I have
written and am sending to you. Its purpose is to teach you the right
attitude towards your philosophic teacher, now that you are a grown-up
man and are no longer obliged merely to obey orders.
Some young men are so ill-informed as to suppose that absence of
restraint is the same thing as freedom, whereas, by unchaining
[Sidenote: D] the passions, it makes them slaves to a set of masters
more tyrannical than all the teachers and mentors of childhood.
Herodotus says that when women take off the tunic they also take off
shame. It is the same with some young men. In laying aside the garb of
childhood they also lay aside shame and fear. No sooner do they unloose
the cloak which controlled their conduct than they indulge in the utmost
misbehaviour. With you it should be otherwise. You have been told over
and over again that to ‘follow God’ and to ‘obey reason’ are the same
thing. Understand, therefore, that with right-minded persons a coming of
age does not mean rejection of rule, but change of ruler. For the hired
or purchased[44] director of conduct they [Sidenote: E] substitute one
that is divine—namely, reason. Only those who follow reason deserve to
be considered free; for they alone live as they choose, because they
alone have learned to make the right choice, whereas ignorant and
irrational desires and actions give small and paltry scope to the will,
but great scope to repentance.
Note what happens in the case of naturalized citizens. Entire [Sidenote:
F] foreigners from another country will often grumble irritably at their
experiences, whereas those who have previously been denizens of the
state, and have therefore lived in intimate touch with the laws, will
accept their obligations with cheerful readiness. So with yourself. For
a long time you have been growing up in the company of philosophy. From
the first you have been accustomed to a taste of philosophic reason in
everything that you have been taught or told as a child. It should
therefore be in a well-disposed and congenial spirit that you come to
Philosophy, who alone can adorn a youth with that finish of manhood
which genuinely and rationally deserves the name.
You will not, I believe, object to a prefatory remark upon [Sidenote:
38] the sense of hearing. Theophrastus asserts that it is the most
susceptible of all the senses, inasmuch as nothing that can be seen,
tasted, or touched, is the cause of such strong emotional disturbance
and excitement as takes hold upon the mind when certain sounds of
beating, clashing, or ringing fall upon the ear. It is, however, more
rational, rather than more emotional, than the other senses. Vice can
find many places and parts of the body open for it to enter and seize
upon the soul. But the only hold that virtue can take is upon pure young
ears [Sidenote: B] which have at all times been protected from the
corruptions of flattery or the touch of low communications. Hence the
advice of Xenocrates, that ear-guards should be worn by boys more than
by athletes, inasmuch as the latter merely have their ears disfigured by
blows, while the former have their characters disfigured by words. Not
that he would wed us to inattention or deafness. It is but a warning to
beware of wrong communications, and to see that others of the right
nature have first been fostered in our character by philosophy and have
mounted guard in that quarter which is most open to influence and
persuasion.
Bias, the ancient sage, was once bidden by Amasis to send him that piece
of meat from a sacrificial victim which was at the same time the best
and the worst. He replied by taking out and sending the tongue, on the
ground that speech can do both the greatest harm and the greatest good.
It is a general practice in fondling little children to take them by the
ears, and to bid [Sidenote: C] them do the same to us—an indirect and
playful way of suggesting that we should be especially fond of those who
make our ears the instruments to our advantage.
It is, of course, obvious that a youth cannot be debarred from any or
every kind of hearing, or from tasting any discourse at all. Otherwise
not only will he remain entirely without fruit or growth in the way of
virtue; he will actually be perverted in the direction of vice, his mind
being an idle and uncultivated patch producing a plentiful crop of
weeds. Propensity to pleasure and dislike of labour—the springs of
innumerable forms of trouble and disease—are not of external origin, nor
imported [Sidenote: D] from teaching, but they well up naturally from
the soil. If therefore they are left free to take their natural course;
if they are not done away with, or turned aside, by sound instruction;
if nature is not thus brought under control, man will prove more
unreclaimed than any brute beast.
The hearing of lectures, then, may be of great profit, but at the same
time of great danger, to a young man. This being so, I believe it a good
thing to make the matter one of constant discussion, both with oneself
and with others. In most cases [Sidenote: E] we may notice a false
procedure—that of cultivating the art of speaking before being trained
to the art of listening. It is thought that, while speaking requires
instruction and practice, any kind of listening is attended with profit.
But not so. Whereas in ball-play one learns simultaneously how to throw
and how to catch, in the business of speech the right taking in is prior
to the giving out, just as conception is prior to parturition. We are
told that in the case of a hen laying a wind-egg her labour and travail
end in nothing but an abortive and lifeless piece of refuse. So when a
young man lacks the ability to listen, [Sidenote: F] or the training to
gather profit through the ear, the speech which he lets fall is
wind-begotten indeed:
_Sans all regard and sans note it is lost in the clouds and
dispersèd._
He will take a vessel and tilt it in the right direction for receiving
anything to be poured into it, and so ensure a real ‘in-pouring’ instead
of a pouring to waste. But he does not learn to lend his own attention
to a speaker and meet the lecture half-way, so as to miss no valuable
point. On the contrary, his behaviour is in the last degree ridiculous.
If he happens upon a person [Sidenote: 39] describing a dinner, a
procession, a dream, or a brawling-match in which he has been engaged,
he listens in silence and is eager for more. But if a teacher to whom he
has attached himself tries to impart something useful, or to urge him to
some duty, to admonish him when wrong, or to soothe him when angry, he
is out of all patience. If possible, he shows fight, and is ambitious to
get the best of the argument. Otherwise he is off and away to discourses
of a different and a rubbishy kind, filling his ears—the poor leaky
vessels—with anything rather than the thing they need.
[Sidenote: B] From the right kind of breeder a horse obtains a good
mouth for the bit, and a lad a good ear for reason. He is taught to do
much listening, but to avoid much speaking. We may quote the remark of
Spintharus in praise of Epaminondas, that he had scarcely ever met with
any man either of greater judgement or of fewer words. Moreover, we are
told, the reason why nature gave each of us two ears, but only one
tongue, was that we should do less speaking than hearing.
A youth is at all times sure to find silence a credit to him; but in one
case it is especially so—when he can listen to another without becoming
excited and continually yelping; when, even [Sidenote: C] if what is
being said is little to his liking, he waits patiently for the speaker
to finish; when, at the close, he does not immediately come to the
attack with his contradiction, but (to quote Aeschines) waits a while,
in case the speaker might wish to supplement his remarks, or perhaps to
adjust or qualify his position. To take instant objection, neither party
listening to the other but both talking at once, is an unseemly
performance. On the other hand, those who have been trained to listen
with modest self-control will accept a valuable argument and make it
their own, while they will be in a better position to see through a
worthless or false one and to expose it, thereby [Sidenote: D] showing
that they are lovers of truth, and not merely contentious, headstrong,
or quarrelsome persons. It is therefore not a bad remark of some, that
there is more need to expel the wind of vanity and self-conceit from the
young, than to expel the air from a skin, when you wish to pour in
anything of value: otherwise they are too swollen and flatulent to
receive it.
The presence of envious and malicious jealousy is, of course, never to
good purpose, but always an impediment to proper action. In the case of
a student at lectures it is the most perverse of prompters. Words which
ought to do him good are rendered vexing, distasteful, and unwelcome by
the fact that there is nothing which an envious man likes so little as
an [Sidenote: E] excellent piece of reasoning. And note that, when a man
is piqued by fame or beauty belonging to others, he is envious and
nothing more; what annoys him is another’s good fortune. But when he is
irritated by admirable argument, his vexation is at his own good, since
reason—if he has a mind to accept it—is as much to the good of one who
hears as light is to the good of one who sees.
Envy in other matters is the result of various coarse or low attitudes
of mind; envy of a speaker is born of inordinate love of glory and
unfair ambition. A person so disposed is prevented [Sidenote: F] from
listening to reason. His mind is perturbed and distracted. At one and
the same time it is looking at its own endowments, to see if they are
inferior to those of the speaker, and at the rest of the company, to see
if they are wondering and admiring. It is disgusted at their applause,
and exasperated at their approval. The previous portions of the speech
it forgets and ignores, because the recollection is irksome. The parts
yet to come it awaits with trembling anxiety, for fear they may prove
better still. When the speaker is at his best, it is most [Sidenote: 40]
eager for him to stop. When the lecture is over, it thinks of nothing
that was said, but takes count of the expressions and attitudes of the
audience. From those who give praise it dances away in a frenzy; and to
those who carp and distort it runs to form one of the herd. If there is
nothing to distort, it makes comparisons with others who have spoken
‘better and more eloquently to the same purpose’. In the end our friend
has so cruelly mishandled the lecture that he has made it of no use or
profit to himself.
[Sidenote: B] Let the love of glory, then, be brought to terms with the
love of learning. Let us listen to a speaker with friendly courtesy,
regarding ourselves as guests at a sacred banquet or sacrificial
offering. Let us praise his ability when he makes a hit, or be satisfied
with the mere goodwill of a man who is making the public a present of
his views and endeavouring to convince others by means of the arguments
which have convinced himself. When he goes right, let us consider that
his rightness is due not to chance or accident, but to painstaking
effort and learning. Let us take a pattern by it, and not only admire
it, but emulate it. When he is at fault, let us stop and think for what
reasons he is so, and at what point he began to go astray. [Sidenote: C]
Xenophon observes that good managers derive profit from their enemies as
well as from their friends. In the same way those who are attentive and
alert derive benefit from a speaker not only when he is in the right,
but also when he is in the wrong. Paltry thought, empty phrase, affected
bearing, vulgar delight and excitement at applause, and the like, are
more palpable to a listener in another’s case than to a speaker in his
own. It is well, therefore, to take the criticism which we apply to him,
and apply it to ourselves, asking whether we commit any mistake of the
kind without being aware of it. It is the easiest thing in [Sidenote: D]
the world to find fault with our neighbour, but it is a futile and
meaningless proceeding, unless made to bear in some way upon the
correction or prevention of similar faults. When lapses are committed,
let us always be prompt to exclaim to ourselves in the phrase of Plato,
‘Am I, perhaps, as bad?’ As in the eyes of our neighbour we see the
reflection of our own, so we should find a picture of our own speech in
that of another. In that way we shall avoid treating others with
over-confident contempt, and shall also look more carefully to our own
deliverances.
There is another way in which comparison serves this useful [Sidenote:
E] purpose. I mean if, when we get by ourselves after the lecture, we
take some point which appears to have been wrongly or unsatisfactorily
treated, and attack the same theme, doing our best to fill in, to
correct, to re-word, or to attempt an entirely original contribution to
the subject, as the case may be—doing, in fact, as Plato did[45] with
the speech of Lysias. While to argue against a certain deliverance is
not difficult, but, on the contrary, very easy, to set up a better in
its stead is an extremely hard matter. As the Lacedaemonian said on
hearing that Philip had razed Olynthus to the ground: ‘Yes, but to
create a city as good is beyond the man’s power’. Accordingly,
[Sidenote: F] when we find that in dealing with the same subject we can
do but little better than the speaker in the case, we make a large
reduction in our contempt and speedily prune down that self-satisfied
conceit which has been exposed during such process of comparison.
Nevertheless, though admiration, as opposed to contempt, certainly
betokens a fairer and gentler nature, it is a thing which, in its own
turn, requires no little—perhaps greater—caution. [Sidenote: 41] For
while a contemptuous and over-confident person derives too little
benefit from a speaker, an enthusiastic and guileless admirer derives
too much injury. He forms no exception to the rule of Heracleitus that
‘_Any dictum will flutter a fool_‘. One should be frank in yielding
praise to the speaker, but cautious in yielding belief to the assertion;
a kindly and candid observer of the diction and delivery of the arguer,
but a sharp and exacting critic of the truth and value of his argument.
[Sidenote: B] While we thus escape dislike from the speaker, we escape
harm from the speech. How many false and pernicious doctrines we
unawares accept through esteeming and trusting their exponent! The
Lacedaemonian authorities, after examining a measure suggested by a man
of evil life, instructed another person, famous for his conduct and
character, to move it—a very proper and statesmanlike encouragement to
the people to be led more by the character of an adviser than by his
speech. But in philosophy we must put aside the reputation of the
speaker and examine the speech in and by itself. In lecturing, as in
war, there is much that is mere show. The speaker’s grey hairs, his
vocal [Sidenote: C] affectations, his supercilious airs, his
self-glorification; above all, the shouting, applauding, and dancing of
the audience overwhelm the young and inexperienced student and sweep him
along with the current. There is deception in the language also, when it
streams upon the question in a delightful flood, and when it contains a
measure of studied art and the grandiose. As, in singing to the
accompaniment of the flageolet, mistakes are generally undetected by an
audience, so an elaborate and pretentious diction dazzles the hearer and
blinds him to the sense. I believe it was Melanthius who, when asked
about [Sidenote: D] Diogenes’ tragedy, replied: ‘I could not get a sight
of it; it was hidden behind the words.’ But with the discourses and
declamations of the majority of our professors it is not merely a case
of using the words to screen the thoughts. They also dulcify the
voice—modulating, smoothing, and intoning—till the hearer is carried
away with a perfect intoxication. They give an empty pleasure, and are
paid with an emptier fame. Their case, in fact, is one for the quip
given by Dionysius. It was he, I think, who, during the performance of a
distinguished harp-player, promised him a liberal reward, but
subsequently gave [Sidenote: E] him nothing, on the ground that he had
made a sufficient return. ‘For as long a time as I was enjoying your
singing’, said he, ‘you were enjoying your expectations.’ The deliverer
of the lectures in question finds that they represent a joint
contribution of the same kind. He receives admiration as long as his
entertainment lasts. As soon as no more pleasure is forthcoming for the
ear, there is no more glory left for him. The one party has wasted his
time, the other his professional life.
Let us, then, strip aside all this empty show of language, and make for
the actual fruit. It is better to imitate the bee than [Sidenote: F] the
garland-maker. The latter looks for the bright-coloured fragrant petals,
and, by twining and plaiting them together, produces an object which is
pleasant enough, but short-lived and fruitless. Bees, on the contrary,
frequently skim through meadows of violets, roses, or hyacinths, to
settle upon the coarsest and bitterest thyme. To this they devote
themselves
_Contriving yellow honey_,
and then fly home to their proper business with something worth the
getting. So a student who takes his work in real earnest will pay no
regard to dainty flowery words nor to showy [Sidenote: 42] theatrical
matter. These he will consider as fodder for drones who play the
sophist. For his own part he will probe with keen attention into the
sense of a speech and the quality of the speaker. Therefrom he will suck
such part as will be of service and profit. He will remember that he has
not come to a theatre or concert-hall, but to a classroom in the
schools, and that his object is to get his life corrected by means of
reason. Hence he should form a critical judgement of the lecture from
his own case, that is to say, from a calculation of its effect upon
himself. Has it been the chastening of a passion, the lightening
[Sidenote: B] of a grief? Has it been courage, firmness of spirit,
enthusiasm for excellence and virtue? Upon rising from the barber’s
chair he will stand at the glass and put his hands to his head,
inspecting the trim and arrangement of the hair. No less should he,
immediately on leaving a lecture in the philosophic school, look at
himself and examine his own mind, to see if it has got rid of any
useless and uncomfortable growth and become lighter and more at ease.
‘There is no use’, says Aristo, ‘in either a bath or a speech, unless it
cleanses.’
[Sidenote: C] By all means let a young man, while profiting from a
discourse, find pleasure in the process. But he must not treat the
pleasure of the lecture as its end, nor expect to come out of the
philosopher’s school with a beaming face and humming a tune. He must not
ask for scented unguents when what he needs is a lotion or a poultice.
On the contrary, he should be grateful if a pungent argument acts upon
his mind like smoke upon a hive, and clears out all the darkness and
mistiness that fill it. Though it is quite right for a speaker not to be
altogether without concern for an attractive and persuasive style of
language, that should be a matter least regarded by the young student,
at any rate in the first instance. Later, no doubt, the case may be
[Sidenote: D] different. It is when they are no longer thirsty that
persons engaged in drinking will turn a cup about and inspect the
chasing upon it. Similarly during a breathing-time, after taking our
fill of the lesson, we may be permitted to examine any uncommon elegance
in the language. But if from the very first, instead of taking a grip
upon the substance, you insist upon ‘good pure Attic’ expression, you
are like a person who refuses to take an antidote unless the vessel is
made of the best Attic earthenware; or who declines to put on a thick
cloak in winter unless the wool is from Attic sheep, preferring to sit,
stubborn and impracticable, in the thin napless mantle of the ‘style of
Lysias’. Perversities of this kind are responsible for a plentiful
[Sidenote: E] lack of good sense and an abundance of loquacious claptrap
in the schools. Young fellows keep no watch upon the life, the practical
action, or the public services of a philosopher, but make a great merit
of diction, phrase, and fine method of statement, while they possess
neither the ability nor the desire to find out whether the statement is
valuable or worthless, whether it is vital or a mere futility.
The next rule concerns the propounding of difficulties. A guest at a
dinner is bound to accept what is put upon the [Sidenote: F] table, and
neither to ask for anything else nor to find fault. When the feast
consists of a discourse, any one who comes to it should listen and say
nothing, if there is an understanding to that effect. Persons who cannot
listen in a pleasant and sociable manner, but keep drawing the speaker
off to other topics, interposing questions and mooting side-issues, get
no benefit themselves and confuse both the speaker and the speech. When,
however, he invites the audience to ask questions and advance
difficulties, any that are proposed should prove to be useful and
important. Odysseus, when in the suitors’ company, incurs ridicule
through
_Begging for morsels and scraps, and not for a sword or a cauldron._
[Sidenote: 43] regard it as a sign of lofty-mindedness not only to give,
but to ask for, something of value. It is, however, more a case for
ridicule when a hearer poses a speaker with petty little problems of the
kind often propounded by young men, when they are talking claptrap in
order to make a show of attainments in logic or mathematics—for example,
concerning ‘division of the indeterminate’ and the nature of ‘lateral’
or ‘diagonal’ [Sidenote: B] motion. The proper answer to such persons is
the remark of Philotimus to a man who was suffering with abscesses and
consumption, but who had been talking to him for some time about
requiring ‘some little thing to cure a whitlow’. Perceiving the man’s
condition from his complexion and breathing, Philotimus observed: ‘My
good sir, a whitlow is not the question with you.’ Nor in your case,
young sir, is it worth while to be discussing such questions as yours,
but how you are to get rid of conceit, swaggering about love-affairs,
and such-like nonsense, and how you are to plant your feet on the way to
a healthy and sober-minded life.
Especially are you bound, in putting your questions, to accommodate
yourself to a speaker’s range of knowledge or natural [Sidenote: C]
ability—to his special _forte_. A philosopher who is more concerned with
ethics should not be attacked with difficulties in natural science or
mathematics, nor should one who prides himself upon his scientific
knowledge be dragged into determining hypothetical syllogisms or solving
fallacies. If you attempted to chop your wood with the key and to open
your door with the axe, it would not be thought that you were making
sport of these implements, but that you were depriving yourself of their
respective powers and uses. In the same way, if you ask of a speaker a
thing for which he has no gift or training, while you make no harvest of
what he possesses and offers, [Sidenote: D] you not only do yourself
harm to that extent, but you incur condemnation for malicious
ill-nature.
Be careful also not to propound difficulties yourself in too great
numbers or too frequently. This is, in a sense, another way of showing
off. Meanwhile, to listen equably when some one else is mooting them,
shows that you are a clubbable person and a student. This is assuming
you have no harassing and urgent trouble of your own, no mental
disturbance to be controlled or malady to be comforted. It may not,
after all, be (as Heracleitus says) ‘better to conceal ignorance’, but
to bring it into the open and cure it. If your mind is upset by a fit of
anger, an attack of superstition, a violent quarrel with your friends,
or a mad amorous passion which
_Stirreth the heart-strings that should rest unstirred_,
[Sidenote: E] you must not run away from a discourse which searches it
home, and fly to others of a different nature. On the contrary, these
are the very topics to which you should listen, both at lectures and
also by privately approaching the lecturer afterwards and asking for
further light.
The opposite course is the one too generally followed. So long as the
philosopher is dealing with other persons, his hearers are all delight
and admiration. But when he leaves those others alone and frankly
administers some important reminder to themselves personally, they are
disgusted with him for not minding his own business. Generally speaking,
they think [Sidenote: F] a philosopher is entitled to a hearing inside
his school, as the tragedian is in the theatre; but in matters beyond it
they do not consider him in any way superior to themselves. Towards a
sophist their attitude is natural enough; for when he rises from his
chair, lays aside his books and his introductory manuals, and makes his
appearance in the practical departments of life, he ranks in the popular
mind as an unimportant and inferior person. But towards a philosopher in
the real sense their attitude is wrong. They do not recognize that a
tone of earnestness or jest, a sign of approval or disapproval, a smile
or a frown, [Sidenote: 44] on his part—and, above all, his direct
handling of their individual cases—are fruitful in good to those who
have learned the art of listening with submission.
Applause, again, has its duties, which call for a certain caution and
moderation. A gentleman bestows neither too little nor too much of it. A
hearer shows churlishly bad taste when nothing whatever in a lecture
will make him thaw or unbend; when he is diseased with festering conceit
and chronic self-complacency, and is all the time thinking he could
improve upon the deliverance; when he neither makes any appropriate
movement of the brow nor utters any sound to prove that he is [Sidenote:
B] a considerate and willing listener; when he is seeking a reputation
for solidity and depth by means of silence, an affected gravity, and
attitudes of pose, under the notion that applause is like money, and
that whatever amount you give to another you take from yourself. The
fact is that there are many who take up the well-known saying of
Pythagoras and sing it to a false tune. His own gain from philosophy, he
said, was to ‘_wonder at [Sidenote: *] nothing_‘; whereas theirs is to
‘praise nothing’ or to ‘honour nothing’. With them wisdom lies in
contempt, and the way to be dignified is to be disdainful. While, by
means of knowledge [Sidenote: C] and the ascertainment of the cause in a
given case, philosophic reason does away with the wonder and awe due to
unenlightenment and ignorance, it does not destroy a generous
appreciation. Those whose excellence is genuine and firmly seated find
it the highest honour to bestow honour, the highest distinction to
bestow distinction, where honour and distinction are due. Such conduct
implies that they have fame enough and to spare, and are free from
jealousy, whereas those who are niggards of praise to others are in all
probability pinched and hungry for praise of their own.
On the other hand, the opposite type of hearer is the fluttering
feather-head who uses no discrimination, but punctuates with loud cheers
at every word and syllable. While he is frequently obnoxious to the
disputant himself, he is invariably a nuisance [Sidenote: D] to the
hearers. He worries them on to their feet against their judgement, and
drags them willy-nilly to join in the chorus because they are ashamed to
refuse. Thanks to his applause deranging the lecture and making an
imbroglio of it, he gets no good from it, but goes home with one of
three descriptions to his credit—fleerer, sycophant, or ignoramus.
It is true that, when hearing a case in court, we must lean [Sidenote:
E] neither towards hostility nor towards favour, but towards justice as
we best understand it. But at a lecture on a subject of learning there
is neither law nor oath to debar us from granting the speaker an
indulgent reception. The reason why the ancients placed the statue of
Hermes in the company of the Graces was that speaking has a special
claim to a gracious friendliness. It is impossible for any one to be so
complete a failure or so utterly astray as to offer us nothing deserving
of a cheer, in the shape of a thought, a reference to others, the mere
choice of theme or purpose, or, possibly, in the wording or arrangement
of the matter,
_As among urchin-foot or mid coarse broom
The tender snowflake springeth into bloom._
[Sidenote: F] There are persons who, for exhibition purposes, can lend a
fair measure of plausibility to a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, or
even a pot; and surely a deliverance by a man who has some sort of claim
to be thought, or to call himself, a philosopher cannot absolutely fail
to afford a well-disposed or courteous audience some opportunity of
finding relief in applause.
According to Plato young persons in the bloom of life can always manage
somehow to excite a lover’s passion. If they are white he calls them
‘saint-like’; if swarthy, ‘virile’. [Sidenote: 45] A hook-nose is
‘regal’, a snub nose ‘piquant’; a sallow skin is a ‘complexion of
honey’. He uses these pretty names, and is pleased and satisfied. Love
has, indeed, an ivy-like gift for clinging to any pretext. Much less
will an eager and earnest student of letters ever fail in inventiveness.
In every speaker he will discover some grounds for reasonable applause.
In the speech of Lysias, though Plato objects to its want of
arrangement, and though he has no praise for its inventiveness, he
nevertheless commends him for his manner of statement, and because there
is ‘a clear round finish in the chiselling of every word’. [Sidenote: B]
We might find fault with Archilochus for his subject-matter, Parmenides
for his versification, Phocylides for his commonplaceness, Euripides for
his garrulity, Sophocles for his inequality. Similarly one of the
orators has no characterization, another exerts no passion, a third is
lacking in grace and charm. Nevertheless each wins praise for a power to
move and sway us in his own peculiar way.
The hearer, then, has ample scope for showing good feeling to a speaker.
In some instances it is sufficient if, without further declaration by
word of mouth, we contribute a kindly eye, a genial expression, a
friendly and agreeable mood. There are certain things for which even the
man who is a total failure may [Sidenote: C] look, and which are but
ordinary items of common etiquette for any and every audience. I mean an
upright posture in our chairs, with no lolling or lounging; eyes kept
directly upon the speaker; an air of businesslike attention; composure
of countenance, with no sign, I need not say of insolence or
peevishness, but of being taken up with other thoughts.
If in every exacting task beauty is made up of a number of factors
happily combined in a due proportion and harmony, ugliness is the prompt
and immediate outcome of the faulty [Sidenote: D] omission or addition
of this or that one element. And in this particular matter of listening,
not only is there impropriety in a scowling brow, a disagreeable
expression, a roving glance, a twisting of the body, and a crossing of
the legs; but nodding or whispering to a neighbour, smiling, yawning
sleepily, looking at the ground, and actions of a similar nature, are
censurable and should be studiously avoided.
There are some who think that, though the speaker has a duty, the hearer
has none. They expect the former to present himself with his thoughts
studiously prepared; yet, without a thought or care for their own
obligations, they drop casually in and take their seats, for all the
world as if they had come to a dinner to enjoy themselves while others
are doing the work. Yet even a polite table-companion has his part to
play, much [Sidenote: E] more a polite hearer. He is a partner in the
speech and a coadjutor of the speaker; and he has no right to be sharply
criticizing the mistakes, and taking every phrase and fact to task,
while himself free from responsibility for the impropriety and the
frequent solecisms which he commits as a hearer. In ball-play the
catcher has to regulate his movements according to those of the thrower.
So, in the case of a speech, there is a certain consonance of action in
which both speaker and listener are concerned, if each is to sustain his
proper part. [Sidenote: F]
Our expressions in applauding must not, however, be used without
discrimination. It is an unpleasing phrase of Epicurus when, in speaking
of the little epistles from his friends, he says, ‘We give them a
rattling clapping.’ But what of those who nowadays introduce such
_outré_ expressions into our lecture-rooms? The _Capital!_ _Well said!_
and _Very true!_ which were the terms of commendation used by the
hearers of Plato, Socrates, and Hypereides, are not enough for these
persons. With their exclamations _Divine!_ _An inspiration!_ or
_Unapproachable!_ they commit a gross impropriety, libellously making
out that the speaker requires far-fetched eulogies of an [Sidenote: 46]
outrageous kind. Highly obnoxious also are those who accompany their
attestations with an oath, as if they were in a court of law. And
equally so those who blunder in their descriptive terms; for instance,
when the lecturer is a philosopher and they call out, _A shrewd hit!_,
or an old man and they exclaim _Cleverly put!_ or _Brilliant!_, thus
misapplying to a philosopher the expressions used at academic exercises,
where the speaking is not serious but merely an exhibition of
adroitness. To offer [Sidenote: B] to a sober discourse such
meretricious praise is like crowning an athlete with a wreath of lilies
or roses instead of laurel or wild olive. Once when the poet Euripides
was going over a song [Sidenote: *] with an original setting for the
benefit of the members of his chorus, and one of them happened to laugh,
he observed: ‘If you had not been an ignorant dolt, you could not have
laughed while I was teaching you a mixolydian[46] piece.’ So, I take it,
a serious and practical philosopher might very well make short work of
the airs and affectations of a hearer by saying, ‘I presume your case is
one of foolishness or ill breeding; otherwise you would not have been
piping out and jigging about at my remarks, when I was teaching, or
admonishing, or arguing concerning religion, statesmanship, or the
duties of [Sidenote: C] office.’ Just frankly consider what it means,
when a philosopher is speaking, and the shouting and hurrahing inside
the building make people outside wonder whether it is a flute-player, a
harpist, or a dancer who is being applauded.
Meanwhile, in listening to admonition and reproof, the pupil must be
neither insensible nor unmanly. There are some who bear the
philosopher’s reproaches with an easy-going indifference, laughing under
the correction and applauding the corrector, just as parasites applaud
in sheer impudence and recklessness when they are abused by those who
keep them. The shamelessness which such persons display is no proper or
genuine proof of courage. When a jibe containing no insult, and uttered
in [Sidenote: D] a playful and tactful way, is borne cheerfully and
without annoyance, it shows neither a want of spirit nor a want of
breeding. On the contrary, it is exactly what a gentleman of the true
Spartan style would do. But it is different when admonition takes in
hand the correction of character by means of a stinging remedy in the
shape of rational reproof. If a young man does not cower under the
lesson and feel his soul burning with shame, till he breaks into a sweat
and is ready to faint; if, on the contrary, he is unperturbed, gives a
broad grin of self-depreciation, and refuses to take the matter
seriously, then he is an extremely vulgar creature beyond all sense of
shame, a constant habituation to misconduct having made his soul no more
capable of a bruise than a thick callus in the flesh.
These form the one class. Youths of the opposite disposition, [Sidenote:
E] if a single hard word is said to them, turn deserters from philosophy
and run away without a glance behind them. While nature has given them,
in the shape of modesty, an excellent start towards moral salvation,
they are so squeamish and timid that they throw their chance away.
Unable to put up with reproof or to accept correction with spirit, they
turn away to listen to the soft and agreeable utterances of some
time-server or sophist, who charms them with melodious phrases as
useless and futile as they are pleasing. If a man runs away from the
surgeon after the operation and objects to be bandaged, he is submitting
to the pain of the treatment but refusing to put up with its benefit. So
when a lesson has lanced and probed his [Sidenote: F] folly, if he will
not permit it to close and dress the wound, he is abandoning philosophy
after feeling the sting and the pain but before deriving any advantage
therefrom.