To be and not to seem is the end of life.
The Greek in the age of Plato admitted praise to be one of the chief
incentives to moral virtue, and to most men the opinion of their fellows
is a leading principle of action. Hence a certain element of seeming
enters into all things; all or almost all desire to appear better than
they are, that they may win the esteem or admiration of others. A man
of ability can easily feign the language of piety or virtue; and there
is an unconscious as well as a conscious hypocrisy which, according
to Socrates, is the worst of the two. Again, there is the sophistry
of classes and professions. There are the different opinions about
themselves and one another which prevail in different ranks of society.
There is the bias given to the mind by the study of one department of
human knowledge to the exclusion of the rest; and stronger far the
prejudice engendered by a pecuniary or party interest in certain tenets.
There is the sophistry of law, the sophistry of medicine, the sophistry
of politics, the sophistry of theology. All of these disguises wear
the appearance of the truth; some of them are very ancient, and we do
not easily disengage ourselves from them; for we have inherited them,
and they have become a part of us. The sophistry of an ancient Greek
sophist is nothing compared with the sophistry of a religious order, or
of a church in which during many ages falsehood has been accumulating,
and everything has been said on one side, and nothing on the other.
The conventions and customs which we observe in conversation, and the
opposition of our interests when we have dealings with one another (‘the
buyer saith, it is nought—it is nought,’ etc.), are always obscuring
our sense of truth and right. The sophistry of human nature is far more
subtle than the deceit of any one man. Few persons speak freely from
their own natures, and scarcely any one dares to think for himself: most
of us imperceptibly fall into the opinions of those around us, which
we partly help to make. A man who would shake himself loose from them,
requires great force of mind; he hardly knows where to begin in the
search after truth. On every side he is met by the world, which is not
an abstraction of theologians, but the most real of all things, being
another name for ourselves when regarded collectively and subjected to
the influences of society.
[Sidenote: _The true and the false statesman._]
Then comes Socrates, impressed as no other man ever was, with the
unreality and untruthfulness of popular opinion, and tells mankind that
they must be and not seem. How are they to be? At any rate they must have
the spirit and desire to be. If they are ignorant, they must acknowledge
their ignorance to themselves; if they are conscious of doing evil, they
must learn to do well; if they are weak, and have nothing in them which
they can call themselves, they must acquire firmness and consistency;
if they are indifferent, they must begin to take an interest in the
great questions which surround them. They must try to be what they would
fain appear in the eyes of their fellow-men. A single individual cannot
easily change public opinion; but he can be true and innocent, simple
and independent; he can know what he does, and what he does not know;
and though not without an effort, he can form a judgment of his own, at
least in common matters. In his most secret actions he can show the same
high principle (cp. Rep. viii. 554 D) which he shows when supported and
watched by public opinion. And on some fitting occasion, on some question
of humanity or truth or right, even an ordinary man, from the natural
rectitude of his disposition, may be found to take up arms against a
whole tribe of politicians and lawyers, and be too much for them.