{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11025/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11025","id":"gutenberg_11025","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11025","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Christianity","Dialogues","Religion","Truth"],"text":"Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\nPHAETHON; LOOSE THOUGHTS FOR LOOSE THINKERS.  1852.\n\n\n\nTempleton and I were lounging by the clear limestone stream which\ncrossed his park and wound away round wooded hills toward the\ndistant Severn.  A lovelier fishing morning sportsman never saw.  A\nsoft gray under-roof of cloud slid on before a soft west wind, and\nhere and there a stray gleam of sunlight shot into the vale across\nthe purple mountain-tops, and awoke into busy life the denizens of\nthe water, already quickened by the mysterious electric influences\nof the last night's thunder-shower.  The long-winged cinnamon-flies\nspun and fluttered over the pools; the sand-bees hummed merrily\nround their burrows in the marly bank; and delicate iridescent\nephemerae rose by hundreds from the depths, and, dropping their\nshells, floated away, each a tiny Venus Anadyomene, down the glassy\nripples of the reaches.  Every moment a heavy splash beneath some\noverhanging tuft of milfoil or water hemlock proclaimed the death-\ndoom of a hapless beetle who had dropped into the stream beneath;\nyet still we fished and fished, and caught nothing, and seemed\nutterly careless about catching anything; till the old keeper who\nfollowed us, sighing and shrugging his shoulders, broke forth into\nopen remonstrance:\n\n\"Excuse my liberty, gentlemen, but what ever is the matter with you\nand master, sir?  I never did see you miss so many honest rises\nbefore.\"\n\n\"It is too true,\" said Templeton to me with a laugh.  \"I must\nconfess I have been dreaming instead of fishing the whole morning.\nBut what has happened to you, who are not as apt as I am to do\nnothing by trying to do two things at once?\"\n\n\"My hand may well be somewhat unsteady; for to tell the truth, I sat\nup all last night writing.\"\n\n\"A hopeful preparation for a day's fishing in limestone water!  But\nwhat can have set you on writing all night after so busy and\ntalkative an evening as the last, ending too, as it did, somewhere\nabout half-past twelve?\"\n\n\"Perhaps the said talkative evening itself; and I suspect, if you\nwill confess the truth, you will say that your morning's meditations\nare running very much in the same channel.\"\n\n\"Lewis,\" said he, after a pause, \"go up to the hall, and bring some\nluncheon for us down to the lower waterfall.\"\n\n\"And a wheelbarrow to carry home the fish, sir?\"\n\n\"If you wish to warm yourself, certainly.  And now, my good fellow,\"\nsaid he, as the old keeper toddled away up the park, \"I will open my\nheart-a process for which I have but few opportunities here-to an\nold college friend.  I am disturbed and saddened by last night's\ntalk and by last night's guest.\"\n\n\"By the American professor?  How, in the name of English\nexclusiveness, did such a rampantly heterodox spiritual guerilla\ninvade the respectabilities and conservatisms of Herefordshire?\"\n\n\"He was returning from a tour through Wales, and had introductions\nto me from some Manchester friends of mine, to avail himself of\nwhich I found he had gone some thirty miles out of his way.\"\n\n\"Complimentary to you, at least.\"\n\n\"To Lady Jane, I suspect, rather than to me; for he told me broadly\nenough that all the flattering attentions which he had received in\nManchester-where, you know, all such prophets are received with open\narms, their only credentials being that, whatsoever they believe,\nthey shall not believe the Bible-had not given him the pleasure\nwhich he had received from that one introduction to what he called\n'the inner hearth-life of the English landed aristocracy.'  But what\ndid you think of him?\"\n\n\"Do you really wish to know?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Then, honestly, I never heard so much magniloquent unwisdom talked\nin the same space of time.  It was the sense of shame for my race\nwhich kept me silent all the evening.  I could not trust myself to\nargue with a gray-haired Saxon man, whose fifty years of life seemed\nto have left him a child in all but the childlike heart which alone\ncan enter into the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\n\"You are severe,\" said Templeton, smilingly though, as if his\nestimate were not very different from mine.\n\n\"Can one help being severe when one hears irreverence poured forth\nfrom reverend lips?  I do not mean merely irreverence for the\nCatholic Creeds; that to my mind-God forgive me if I misjudge him-\nseemed to me only one fruit of a deep root of irreverence for all\nthings as they are, even for all things as they seem.  Did you not\nremark the audacious contempt for all ages but 'our glorious\nnineteenth century,' and the still deeper contempt for all in the\nsaid glorious time who dared to believe that there was any\nascertained truth independent of the private fancy and opinion of-\nfor I am afraid it came to that-him, Professor Windrush, and his\ncircle of elect souls?  'You may believe nothing if you like, and\nwelcome; but if you do take to that unnecessary act, you are a fool\nif you believe anything but what I believe-though I do not choose to\nstate what that is.'  Is not that, now, a pretty fair formulisation\nof his doctrine?\"\n\n\"But, my dear raver,\" said Templeton, laughing, \"the man believed at\nleast in physical science.  I am sure we heard enough about its\ntriumphs.\"\n\n\"It may be so.  But to me his very 'spiritualism' seemed more\nmaterialistic than his physics.  His notion seemed to be, though\nheaven forbid that I should say that he ever put it formally before\nhimself-\"\n\n\"Or anything else,\" said Templeton, sotto voce.\n\n\"-that it is the spiritual world which is governed by physical laws,\nand the physical by spiritual ones; that while men and women are\nmerely the puppets of cerebrations and mentations, and attractions\nand repulsions, it is the trees, and stones, and gases, who have the\nwills and the energies, and the faiths and the virtues and the\npersonalities.\"\n\n\"You are caricaturing.\"\n\n\"How so?  How can I judge otherwise, when I hear a man talking, as\nhe did, of God in terms which, every one of them involved what we\ncall the essential properties of matter-space, time, passibility,\nmotion; setting forth phrenology and mesmerism as the great organs\nof education, even of the regeneration of mankind; apologising for\nthe earlier ravings of the Poughkeepsie seer, and considering his\nlater eclectico-pantheist farragos as great utterances:  while,\nwhenever he talked of Nature, he showed the most credulous craving\nafter everything which we, the countrymen of Bacon, have been taught\nto consider unscientific-Homoeopathy, Electro-biology, Loves of the\nPlants a la Darwin, Vestiges of Creation, Vegetarianisms,\nTeetotalisms-never mind what, provided it was unaccredited or\ncondemned by regularly educated men of science?\"\n\n\"But you don't mean to assert that there is nothing in any of these\ntheories?\"\n\n\"Of course not.  I can no more prove a universal negative about them\nthan I can about the existence of life on the moon.  But I do say\nthat this contempt for that which has been already discovered-this\ncarelessness about induction from the normal phenomena, coupled with\nthis hankering after theories built upon exceptional ones-this\ncraving for 'signs and wonders,' which is the sure accompaniment of\na dying faith in God, and in nature as God's work-are symptoms which\nmake me tremble for the fate of physical as well as of spiritual\nscience, both in America and in the Americanists here at home.  As\nthe Professor talked on, I could not help thinking of the neo-\nPlatonists of Alexandria, and their exactly similar course-downward\nfrom a spiritualism of notions and emotions, which in every term\nconfessed its own materialism, to the fearful discovery that\nconsciousness does not reveal God, not even matter, but only its own\nexistence; and then onward, in desperate search after something\nexternal wherein to trust, towards theurgic fetish worship, and the\nsecret virtues of gems and flowers and stars; and, last of all, to\nthe lowest depth of bowing statues and winking pictures.  The sixth\ncentury saw that career, Templeton; the nineteenth may see it re-\nenacted, with only these differences, that the Nature-worship which\nseems coming will be all the more crushing and slavish, because we\nknow so much better how vast and glorious Nature is; and that the\nsuperstitions will be more clumsy and foolish in proportion as our\nSaxon brain is less acute and discursive, and our education less\nseverely scientific, than those of the old Greeks.\"\n\n\"Silence, raver!\" cried Templeton, throwing himself on the grass in\nfits of laughter.  \"So the Professor's grandchildren will have\neither turned Papists, or be bowing down before rusty locomotives\nand broken electric telegraphs?  But, my good friend, you surely do\nnot take Professor Windrush for a fair sample of the great American\npeople?\"\n\n\"God forbid that so unpractical a talker should be a sample of the\nmost practical people upon earth.  The Americans have their\nengineers, their geographers, their astronomers, their scientific\nchemists; few indeed, but such as bid fair to rival those of any\nnation upon earth.  But these, like other true workers, hold their\ntongues and do their business.\"\n\n\"And they have a few indigenous authors too:  you must have read the\n'Biglow Papers,' and the 'Fable for Critics,' and last but not\nleast, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'?\"\n\n\"Yes; and I have had far less fear for Americans since I read that\nbook; for it showed me that there was right healthy power, artistic\nas well as intellectual, among them, even now-ready, when their\npresent borrowed peacocks' feathers have fallen off, to come forth\nand prove that the Yankee Eagle is a right gallant bird, if he will\nbut trust to his own natural plumage.\"\n\n\"And they have a few statesmen also.\"\n\n\"But they are curt, plain-spoken, practical-in everything antipodal\nto the knot of hapless men, who, unable from some defect or\nmorbidity to help on the real movement of their nation, are fain to\nget their bread with tongue and pen, by retailing to 'silly women,'\n'ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,'\nsecond-hand German eclecticisms, now exploded even in the country\nwhere they arose, and the very froth and scum of the Medea's\ncaldron, in which the disjecta membra of old Calvinism are pitiably\nseething.\"\n\n\"Ah!  It has been always the plan, you know, in England, as well as\nin America, courteously to avoid taking up a German theory till the\nGermans had quite done with it, and thrown it away for something\nnew.  But what are we to say of those who are trying to introduce\ninto England these very Americanised Germanisms, as the only\nteaching which can suit the needs of the old world?\"\n\n\"We will, if we are in a vulgar humour, apply to them a certain old\nproverb about teaching one's grandmother a certain simple operation\non the egg of the domestic fowl; but we will no less take shame to\nourselves, as sons of Alma Mater, that such nonsense can get even a\nday's hearing, either among the daughters of Manchester\nmanufacturers, or among London working men.  Had we taught them what\nwe were taught in the schools, Templeton-\"\n\n\"Alas, my friend, we must ourselves have learnt it first.  I have no\nright to throw stones at the poor Professor, for I could not answer\nhim.\"\n\n\"Do not suppose that I can either.  All I say is-mankind has not\nlived in vain.  Least of all has it lived in vain during the last\neighteen hundred years.  It has gained something of eternal truth in\nevery age, and that which it has gained is as fresh and young now as\never; and I will not throw away the bird in the hand for any number\nof birds in the bush.\"\n\n\"Especially when you suspect most of them to be only wooden\npheasants, set up to delude poachers.  Well, you are far more of a\nPhilister and a Conservative than I thought you.\"\n\n\"The New is coming, I doubt not; but it must grow organically out of\nthe Old-not root the old up, and stick itself full-grown into the\nplace thereof, like a French tree of liberty-sure of much the same\nfate.  Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid\nalready, in spiritual things or in physical; as the Professor and\nhis school will surely find.\"\n\n\"You recollect to whom the Bible applies that text?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"And yet you say you cannot answer the Professor?\"\n\n\"I do not care to do so.  There are certain root-truths which I\nknow, because they have been discovered and settled for ages; and\ninstead of accepting the challenge of every I-know-not-whom to re-\nexamine them, and begin the world's work all over again, I will test\nhis theories by them; and if they fail to coincide, I will hear no\nmore speech about the details of the branches and flowers, for I\nshall know the root is rotten.\"\n\n\"But he, too, acknowledged certain of those root-truths,\" said\nTempleton, who seemed to have a lingering sympathy with my victim;\n\"he insisted most strongly, and spoke, you will not deny, eloquently\nand nobly on the Unity of the Deity.\"\n\n\"On the non-Trinity of _it_, rather; for I will not degrade the word\n'Him,' by applying it here.  But, tell me honestly-c'est le timbre\nqui fait la musique-did his 'Unity of the Deity' sound in your\nEnglish Bible-bred heart at all like that ancient, human, personal\n'Hear, O Israel! the Lord thy God is one Lord'?\"\n\n\"Much more like 'The Something our Nothing is one Something.'\"\n\n\"May we not suspect, then, that his notion of the 'Unity of the\nDeity' does not quite coincide with the foundation already laid,\nwhosesoever else may?\"\n\n\"You are assuming rather hastily.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I may prove also, some day or other.  Do you think,\nmoreover, that the theory which he so boldly started, when his\nnerves and his manners were relieved from the unwonted pressure by\nLady Jane and the ladies going upstairs, was part of the same old\nfoundation?\"\n\n\"Which, then?\"\n\n\"That, if a man does but believe a thing, he has a right to speak it\nand act on it, right or wrong.  Have you forgotten his vindication\nof your friend, the radical voter, and his 'spirit of truth'?\"\n\n\"What, the worthy who, when I canvassed him as the Liberal candidate\nfor ---, and promised to support complete freedom of religious\nopinion, tested me by breaking out into such blasphemous ribaldry as\nmade me run out of the house, and then went and voted against me as\na bigot?\"\n\n\"I mean him, of course.  The Professor really seemed to admire the\nman, as a more brave and conscientious hero than himself.  I am not\nsqueamish, as you know; but I am afraid that I was quite rude to him\nwhen he went as far as that.\"\n\n\"What-when you told him that you thought that, after all, the old\ntheory of the Divine Right of Kings was as plausible as the new\ntheory of the Divine Right of Blasphemy?  My dear fellow, do not\nfret yourself on that point.  He seemed to take it rather as a\ncompliment to his own audacity, and whispered to me that 'The Divine\nRight of Blasphemy' was an expression of which Theodore Parker\nhimself need not have been ashamed.\"\n\n\"He was pleased to be complimentary.  But, tell me, what was it in\nhis oratory which has so vexed the soul of the country squire?\"\n\n\"That very argument of his, among many things.  I saw, or rather\nfelt, that he was wrong; and yet, as I have said already, I could\nnot answer him; and, had he not been my guest, should have got\nthoroughly cross with him, as a pis-aller.\"\n\n\"I saw it.  But, my friend, used we not to read Plato together, and\nenjoy him together, in old Cambridge days?  Do you not think that\nSocrates might at all events have driven the Professor into a\ncorner?\"\n\n\"He might:  but I cannot.  Is that, then, what you were writing\nabout all last night?\"\n\n\"It was.  I could not help, when I went out on the terrace to smoke\nmy last cigar, fancying to myself how Socrates might have seemed to\nset you, and the Professor, and that warm-hearted, right-headed,\nwrong-tongued High-Church Curate, all together by the ears, and made\nconfusion worse confounded for the time being, and yet have left for\neach of you some hint whereby you might see the darling truth for\nwhich you were barking, all the more clearly in the light of the one\nwhich you were howling down.\"\n\n\"And so you sat up, and-I thought the corridor smelt somewhat of\nsmoke.\"\n\n\"Forgive, and I will confess.  I wrote a dialogue;-and here it is,\nif you choose to hear it.  If there are a few passages, or even\nmany, which Plato would not have written, you will consider my age\nand inexperience, and forgive.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, you forget that I, like you, have been ten years\naway from dear old Alma-Mater, Plato, the boats, and Potton Wood.\nMy authorities now are 'Morton on Soils' and 'Miles on the Horse's\nFoot.'  Read on, fearless of my criticisms.  Here is the waterfall;\nwe will settle ourselves on Jane's favourite seat.  You shall\ndiscourse, and I, till Lewis brings the luncheon, will smoke my\ncigar; and if I seem to be looking at the mountain, don't fancy that\nI am only counting how many young grouse those heath-burning\nworthies will have left me by the twelfth.\"\n\nSo we sat down, and I began:\n\n\nPHAETHON\n\n\nAlcibiades and I walked into the Pnyx early the other morning,\nbefore the people assembled.  There we saw Socrates standing, having\nhis face turned toward the rising sun.  Approaching him, we\nperceived that he was praying; and that so ardently, that we touched\nhim on the shoulder before he became aware of our presence.\n\n\"You seem like a man filled with the God, Socrates,\" said\nAlcibiades.\n\n\"Would that were true,\" answered he, \"both of me and of all who will\ncounsel here this day.  In fact, I was praying for that very thing;\nnamely, that they might have light to see the truth, in whatsoever\nmatter might be discussed here.\"\n\n\"And for me also?\" said Alcibiades; \"but I have prepared my speech\nalready.\"\n\n\"And for you also, if you desire it-even though some of your periods\nshould be spoiled thereby.  But why are you both here so early,\nbefore any business is stirring?\"\n\n\"We were discussing,\" said I, \"that very thing for which we found\nyou praying-namely, truth, and what it might be.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you went a worse way toward discovering it than I did.  But\nlet us hear.  Whence did the discussion arise?\"\n\n\"From something,\" said Alcibiades, \"which Protagoras said in his\nlecture yesterday-How truth was what each man troweth, or believeth,\nto be true.  'So that,' he said, 'one thing is true to me, if I\nbelieve it true, and another opposite thing to you, if you believe\nthat opposite.  For,' continued he, 'there is an objective and a\nsubjective truth; the former, doubtless, one and absolute, and\ncontained in the nature of each thing; but the other manifold and\nrelative, varying with the faculties of each perceiver thereof.'\nBut as each man's faculties, he said, were different from his\nneighbour's, and all more or less imperfect, it was impossible that\nthe absolute objective truth of anything could be seen by any\nmortal, but only some partial approximation, and, as it were, sketch\nof it, according as the object was represented with more or less\nrefraction on the mirror of his subjectivity.  And therefore, as the\ntrue inquirer deals only with the possible, and lets the impossible\ngo, it was the business of the wise man, shunning the search after\nabsolute truth as an impious attempt of the Titans to scale Olympus,\nto busy himself humbly and practically with subjective truth, and\nwith those methods-rhetoric, for instance-by which he can make the\nsubjective opinions of others either similar to his own, or, leaving\nthem as they are-for it may be very often unnecessary to change\nthem-useful to his own ends.\"\n\nThen Socrates, laughing:\n\n\"My fine fellow, you will have made more than one oration in the\nPnyx to-day.  And indeed, I myself felt quite exalted, and rapt\naloft, like Bellerophon on Pegasus, upon the eloquence of Protagoras\nand you.  But yet forgive me this one thing; for my mother bare me,\nas you know, a man-midwife, after her own trade, and not a sage.\"\n\nALCIBIADES.  \"What then?\"\n\nSOCRATES.  \"This, my astonishing friend-for really I am altogether\nastonished and struck dumb, as I always am whensoever I hear a\nbrilliant talker like you discourse concerning objectivities and\nsubjectivities, and such mysterious words; at such moments I am like\nan old war-horse, who, though he will rush on levelled lances,\nshudders and sweats with terror at a boy rattling pebbles in a\nbladder; and I feel altogether dizzy, and dread lest I should suffer\nsome such transformation as Scylla, when I hear awful words, like\nincantations, pronounced over me, of which I, being no sage,\nunderstand nothing.  But tell me now, Alcibiades, did the opinion of\nProtagoras altogether please you?\"\n\nA.  \"Why not?  Is it not certain that two equally honest men may\ndiffer in their opinions on the same matter?\"\n\nS.  \"Undeniable.\"\n\nA.  \"But if each is equally sincere in speaking what he believes, is\nnot each equally moved by the spirit of truth?\"\n\nS.  \"You seem to have been lately initiated, and that not at Eleusis\nmerely, nor in the Cabiria, but rather in some Persian or Babylonian\nmysteries, when you discourse thus of spirits.  But you, Phaethon\"\n(turning to me), \"how did you like the periods of Protagoras?\"\n\n\"Do not ask me, Socrates,\" said I, \"for indeed we have fought a\nweary battle together ever since sundown last night, and all that I\nhad to say I learnt from you.\"\n\nS.  \"From me, good fellow?\"\n\nPHAETHON.  \"Yes, indeed.  I seemed to have heard from you that truth\nis simply 'facts as they are.'  But when I urged this on Alcibiades,\nhis arguments seemed superior to mine.\"\n\nA.  \"But I have been telling him, drunk and sober, that it is my\nopinion also as to what truth is.  Only I, with Protagoras,\ndistinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion.\"\n\nS.  \"Doing rightly, too, fair youth.  But how comes it then that you\nand Phaethon cannot agree?\"\n\n\"That,\" said I, \"you know better than either of us.\"\n\n\"You seem both of you,\" said Socrates, \"to be, as usual, in the\nfamily way.  Shall I exercise my profession on you?\"\n\n\"No, by Zeus!\" answered Alcibiades, laughing; \"I fear thee, thou\njuggler, lest I suffer once again the same fate with the woman in\nthe myth, and after I have conceived a fair man-child, and, as I\nfancy, brought it forth; thou hold up to the people some dead puppy,\nor log, or what not, and cry:  'Look what Alcibiades has produced!'\"\n\nS.  \"But, beautiful youth, before I can do that, you will have\nspoken your oration on the bema, and all the people will be ready\nand able to say 'Absurd!  Nothing but what is fair can come from so\nfair a body.'  Come, let us consider the question together.\"\n\nI assented willingly; and Alcibiades, mincing and pouting, after his\nfashion, still was loath to refuse.\n\nS.  \"Let us see, then.  Alcibiades distinguishes, he says, between\nobjective fact and subjective opinion?\"\n\nA.  \"Of course I do.\"\n\nS.  \"But not, I presume, between objective truth and subjective\ntruth, whereof Protagoras spoke?\"\n\nA.  \"What trap are you laying now?  I distinguish between them also,\nof course.\"\n\nS.  \"Tell me, then, dear youth, of your indulgence, what they are;\nfor I am shamefully ignorant on the matter.\"\n\nA.  \"Why, do they not call a thing objectively true, when it is true\nabsolutely in itself; but subjectively true, when it is true in the\nbelief of a particular person?\"\n\nS.  \"-Though not necessarily true objectively, that is, absolutely\nand in itself?\"\n\nA.  \"No.\"\n\nS.  \"But possibly true so?\"\n\nA.  \"Of course.\"\n\nS.  \"Now, tell me-a thing is objectively true, is it not, when it is\na fact as it is?\"\n\nA.  \"Yes.\"\n\nS.  \"And when it is a fact as it is not, it is objectively false;\nfor such a fact would not be true absolutely, and in itself, would\nit?\"\n\nA.  \"Of course not.\"\n\nS.  \"Such a fact would be, therefore, no fact, and nothing.\"\n\nA.  \"Why so?\"\n\nS.  \"Because, if a thing exists, it can only exist as it is, not as\nit is not; at least my opinion inclines that way.\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said I; \"why do you haggle so, Alcibiades?\"\n\nS.  \"Fair and softly, Phaethon!  How do you know that he is not\nfighting for wife and child, and the altars of his gods?  But if he\nwill agree with you and me, he will confess that a thing which is\nobjectively false does not exist at all, and is nothing.\"\n\nA.  \"I suppose it is necessary to do so.  But I know whither you are\nstruggling.\"\n\nS.  \"To this, dear youth, that, therefore, if a thing subjectively\ntrue be also objectively false, it does not exist, and is nothing.\"\n\n\"It is so,\" said I.\n\nS.  \"Let us, then, let nothing go its own way, while we go on ours\nwith that which is only objectively true, lest coming to a river\nover which it is subjectively true to us that there is a bridge, and\ntrying to walk over that work of our own mind, but no one's hands,\nthe bridge prove to be objectively false, and we, walking over the\nbank into the water, be set free from that which is subjectively on\nthe farther bank of Styx.\"\n\nThen I, laughing:  \"This hardly coincides, Alcibiades, with\nProtagoras's opinion, that subjective truth was alone useful.\"\n\n\"But rather proves,\" said Socrates, \"that undiluted draughts of it\nare of a hurtful and poisonous nature, and require to be tempered\nwith somewhat of objective truth, before it is safe to use them-at\nleast in the case of bridges.\"\n\n\"Did I not tell you,\" interrupted Alcibiades, \"how the old deceiver\nwould try to put me to bed of some dead puppy or log?  Or do you not\nsee how, in order, after his custom, to raise a laugh about the\nwhole question by vulgar examples, he is blinking what he knows as\nwell as I?\"\n\nS.  \"What then, fair youth?\"\n\nA.  \"That Protagoras was not speaking about bridges, or any other\nmerely physical things, on which no difference of opinion need\noccur, because every one can satisfy himself by simply using his\nsenses; but concerning moral and intellectual matters, which are not\ncognisable by the senses, and therefore permit, without blame, a\ngreater diversity of opinion.  Error on such points, he told us-on\nthe subject of religion, for example-was both pardonable and\nharmless; for no blame could be imputed to the man who acted\nfaithfully up to his own belief, whatsoever that might be.\"\n\nS.  \"Bravely spoken of him, and worthily of a free state.  But tell\nme, Alcibiades, with what matters does religion deal?\"\n\nA.  \"With the Gods.\"\n\nS.  \"Then it is not hurtful to speak false things of the Gods?\"\n\nA.  \"Not unless you know them to be false.\"\n\nS.  \"But answer me this, Alcibiades.  If you made a mistake\nconcerning numbers, as that twice two made five, might it not be\nhurtful to you?\"\n\nA.  \"Certainly; for I might pay away five obols instead of four.\"\n\nS.  \"And so be punished, not by any anger of two and two against\nyou, but by those very necessary laws of number, which you had\nmistaken?\"\n\nA.  \"Yes.\"\n\nS.  \"Or if you made a mistake concerning music, as that two\nconsecutive notes could produce harmony, that opinion also, if you\nacted upon it, would be hurtful to you?\"\n\nA.  \"Certainly; for I should make a discord, and pain my own ears,\nand my hearers'.\"\n\nS.  \"And in this case also, be punished, not by any anger of the\nlyre against you, but by those very necessary laws of music which\nyou had mistaken?\"\n\nA.  \"Yes.\"\n\nS.  \"Or if you mistook concerning a brave man, believing him to be a\ncoward, might not this also be hurtful to you?  If, for instance,\nyou attacked him carelessly, expecting him to run away, and he\ndefended himself valiantly, and conquered you; or if you neglected\nto call for his help in need, expecting him falsely, as in the\nformer case, to run away; would not such a mistake be hurtful to\nyou, and punish you, not by any anger of the man against you, but by\nyour mistake itself?\"\n\nA.  \"It is evident.\"\n\nS.  \"We may assume, then, that such mistakes at least are hurtful,\nand that they are liable to be punished by the very laws of that\nconcerning which we mistake?\"\n\nA.  \"We may so assume.\"\n\nS.  \"Suppose, then, we were to say:  'What argument is this of\nyours, Protagoras?-that concerning lesser things, both intellectual\nand moral, such as concerning number, music, or the character of a\nman, mistakes are hurtful, and liable to bring punishment, in\nproportion to our need of using those things:  but concerning the\nGods, the very authors and lawgivers of number, music, human\ncharacter, and all other things whatsoever, mistakes are of no\nconsequence, nor in any way hurtful to man, who stands in need of\ntheir help, not only in stress of battle, once or twice in his life,\nas he might of the brave man, but always and in all things both\noutward and inward?  Does it not seem strange to you, for it does to\nme, that to make mistakes concerning such beings should not bring an\naltogether infinite and daily punishment, not by any resentment of\ntheirs, but, as in the case of music or numbers, by the very fact of\nour having mistaken the laws of their being, on which the whole\nuniverse depends?'-What do you suppose Protagoras would be able to\nanswer, if he faced the question boldly?\"\n\nA.  \"I cannot tell.\"\n\nS.  \"Nor I either.  Yet one thing more it may be worth our while to\nexamine.  If one should mistake concerning God, will his error be\none of excess, or defect?\"\n\nA.  \"How can I tell?\"\n\nS.  \"Let us see.  Is not Zeus more perfect than all other beings?\"\n\nA.  \"Certainly, if it be true that, as they say, the perfection of\neach kind of being is derived from him; he must therefore be himself\nmore perfect than any one of those perfections.\"\n\nS.  \"Well argued.  Therefore, if he conceived of himself, his\nconception of himself would be more perfect than that of any man\nconcerning him?\"\n\nA.  \"Assuredly; if he have that faculty, he must needs have it in\nperfection.\"\n\nS.  \"Suppose, then, that he conceived of one of his own properties,\nsuch as his justice; how large would that perfect conception of his\nbe?\"\n\nA.  \"But how can I tell, Socrates?\"\n\nS.  \"My good friend, would it not be exactly commensurate with that\njustice of his?\"\n\nA.  \"How then?\"\n\nS.  \"Wherein consists the perfection of any conception, save in\nthis, that it be the exact copy of that whereof it is conceived, and\nneither greater nor less?\"\n\nA.  \"I see now.\"\n\nS.  \"Without the Pythia's help, I should say.  But, tell me-We agree\nthat Zeus's conception of his own justice will be exactly\ncommensurate with his justice?\"\n\nA.  \"We do.\"\n\nS.  \"But man's conception thereof, it has been agreed, would be\ncertainly less perfect than Zeus's?\"\n\nA.  \"It would.\"\n\nS.  \"Man, then, it seems, would always conceive God to be less just\nthan God conceives himself to be?\"\n\nA.  \"He would.\"\n\nS.  \"And therefore to be less just, according to the argument, than\nhe really is?\"\n\nA.  \"True.\"\n\nS.  \"And therefore his error concerning Zeus, would be in this case\nan error of defect?\"\n\nA.  \"It would.\"\n\nS.  \"And so on of each of his other properties?\"\n\nA.  \"The same argument would likewise, as far as I can see, apply to\nthem.\"\n\nS.  \"So that, on the whole, man, by the unassisted power of his own\nfaculty, will always conceive Zeus to be less just, wise, good, and\nbeautiful than he is?\"\n\nA.  \"It seems probable.\"\n\nS.  \"But does not that seem to you hurtful?\"\n\nA.  \"Why so?\"\n\nS.  \"As if, for instance, a man believing that Zeus loves him less\nthan he really does, should become superstitious and self-\ntormenting.  Or, believing that Zeus will guide him less than he\nreally will, he should go his own way through life without looking\nfor that guidance:  or if, believing that Zeus cares about his\nconquering his passions less than he really does, he should become\ncareless and despairing in the struggle:  or if, believing that Zeus\nis less interested in the welfare of mankind than he really is, he\nshould himself neglect to assist them, and so lose the glory of\nbeing called a benefactor of his country:  would not all these\nmistakes be hurtful ones?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I:  but Alcibiades was silent.\n\nS.  \"And would not these mistakes, by the hypothesis, themselves\npunish him who made them, without any resentment whatsoever, or\nNemesis of the Gods being required for his chastisement?\"\n\n\"It seems so,\" said I.\n\nS.  \"But can we say of such mistakes, and of the harm which may\naccrue from them, anything but that they must both be infinite;\nseeing that they are mistakes concerning an infinite Being, and his\ninfinite properties, on every one of which, and on all together, our\ndaily existence depends?\"\n\nP.  \"It seems so.\"\n\nS.  \"So that, until such a man's error concerning Zeus, the source\nof all things, is cleared up, either in this life or in some future\none, we cannot but fear for him infinite confusion, misery, and\nharm, in all matters which he may take in hand?\"\n\nThen Alcibiades, angrily:  \"What ugly mask is this you have put on,\nSocrates?  You speak rather like a priest trying to frighten rustics\ninto paying their first-fruits, than a philosopher inquiring after\nthat which is beautiful.  But you shall never terrify me into\nbelieving that it is not a noble thing to speak out whatsoever a man\nbelieves, and to go forward boldly in the spirit of truth.\"\n\nS.  \"Feeling first, I hope, with your staff, as would be but\nreasonable in the case of the bridge, whether your belief was\nobjectively or only subjectively true, lest you should fall through\nyour subjective bridge into objective water.  Nevertheless, leaving\nthe bridge and the water, let us examine a little what this said\nspirit of truth may be.  How do you define it?\"\n\nA.  \"I assert that whosoever says honestly what he believes, does so\nby the spirit of truth.\"\n\nS.  \"Then if Lyce, patting those soft cheeks of yours, were to say:\n'Alcibiades, thou art the fairest youth in Athens,' she would speak\nby the spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"They say so.\"\n\nS.  \"And they say rightly.  But if Lyce, as is her custom, wished,\nby so saying, to cheat you into believing that she loved you, and\nthereby to wheedle you out of a new shawl, she would still speak by\nthe spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"I suppose so.\"\n\nS.  \"But if, again, she said the same thing to Phaethon, she would\nstill speak by the spirit of truth?\"\n\n\"By no means, Socrates,\" said I, laughing.\n\nS.  \"Be silent, fair boy; you are out of court as an interested\nparty.  Alcibiades shall answer.  If Lyce, being really mad with\nlove, like Sappho, were to believe Phaethon to be fairer than you,\nand say so, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"I suppose so.\"\n\nS.  \"Do not frown; your beauty is in no question.  Only she would\nthen be saying what is not true?\"\n\n\"I must answer for him after all,\" said I.\n\nS.  \"Then it seems, from what has been agreed, that it is\nindifferent to the spirit of truth, whether it speak truth or not.\nThe spirit seems to be of an enviable serenity.  But suppose again,\nthat I believed that Alcibiades had an ulcer on his leg, and were to\nproclaim the same now to the people, when they come into the Pnyx,\nshould I not be speaking by the spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"But that would be a shameful and blackguardly action.\"\n\nS.  \"Be it so.  It seems, therefore, that it is indifferent to the\nspirit of truth whether that which it affirms be honourable or\nblackguardly.  Is it not so?\"\n\nA.  \"It seems so, most certainly, in that case at least.\"\n\nS.  \"And in others, as I think.  But tell me-Is not the man who does\nwhat he believes, as much moved by this your spirit of truth as he\nwho says what he believes?\"\n\nA.  \"Certainly he is.\"\n\nS.  \"Then if I believed it right to lie or steal, I, in lying or\nstealing, should lie or steal by the spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"Certainly:  but that is impossible.\"\n\nS.  \"My fine fellow, and wherefore?  I have heard of a nation among\nthe Indians who hold it a sacred duty to murder every one not of\ntheir own tribe, whom they can waylay:  and when they are taken and\npunished by the rulers of that country, die joyfully under the\ngreatest torments, believing themselves certain of an entrance into\nthe Elysian fields, in proportion to the number of murders which\nthey have committed.\"\n\nA.  \"They must be impious wretches.\"\n\nS.  \"Be it so.  But believing themselves to be right, they commit\nmurder by the spirit of truth.\"\n\nA.  \"It seems to follow from the argument.\"\n\nS.  \"Then it is indifferent to the spirit of truth whether the\naction which it prompts be right or wrong?\"\n\nA.  \"It must be confessed.\"\n\nS.  \"It is therefore not a moral faculty, this spirit of truth.  Let\nus see now whether it be an intellectual one.  How are intellectual\nthings defined, Phaethon?  Tell me, for you are cunning in such\nmatters.\"\n\nP.  \"Those things which have to do with processes of the mind.\"\n\nS.  \"With right processes, or with wrong?\"\n\nP.  \"With right, of course.\"\n\nS.  \"And processes for what purpose?\"\n\nP.  \"For the discovery of facts.\"\n\nS.  \"Of facts as they are, or as they are not?\"\n\nP.  \"As they are.\"\n\nS.  \"And he who discovers facts as they are, discovers truth; while\nhe who discovers facts as they are not, discovers falsehood?\"\n\nP.  \"He discovers nothing, Socrates.\"\n\nS.  \"True; but it has been agreed already that the spirit of truth\nis indifferent to the question whether facts be true or false, but\nonly concerns itself with the sincere affirmation of them,\nwhatsoever they may be.  Much more then must it be indifferent to\nthose processes by which they are discovered.\"\n\nP.  \"How so?\"\n\nS.  \"Because it only concerns itself with affirmation concerning\nfacts; but these processes are anterior to that affirmation.\"\n\nP.  \"I comprehend.\"\n\nS.  \"And much more is it indifferent to whether those are right\nprocesses or not.\"\n\nP.  \"Much more so.\"\n\nS.  \"It is therefore not intellectual.  It remains, therefore, that\nit must be some merely physical faculty, like that of fearing,\nhungering, or enjoying the sexual appetite.\"\n\nA.  \"Absurd, Socrates!\"\n\nS.  \"That is the argument's concern, not ours:  let us follow\nmanfully whithersoever it may lead us.\"\n\nA.  \"Lead on, thou sophist!\"\n\nS.  \"It was agreed, then, that he who does what he thinks right,\ndoes so by the spirit of truth-was it not?\"\n\nA.  \"It was.\"\n\nS.  \"Then he who eats when he thinks that he ought to eat, does so\nby the spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"What next?\"\n\nS.  \"This next, that he who blows his nose when he thinks that it\nwants blowing, blows his nose by the spirit of truth.\"\n\nA.  \"What next?\"\n\nS.  \"Do not frown, friend.  Believe me, in such days as these, I\nhonour even the man who is honest enough to blow his nose because he\nfinds that he ought to do so.  But tell me-a horse, when he shies at\na beggar, does not he also do so by the spirit of truth?  For he\nbelieves sincerely the beggar to be something formidable, and\nhonestly acts upon his conviction.\"\n\n\"Not a doubt of it,\" said I, laughing, in spite of myself, at\nAlcibiades's countenance.\n\nS.  \"It is in danger, then, of proving to be something quite brutish\nand doggish, this spirit of truth.  I should not wonder, therefore,\nif we found it proper to be restrained.\"\n\nA.  \"How so, thou hair-splitter?\"\n\nS.  \"Have we not proved it to be common to man and animals; but are\nnot those passions which we have in common with animals to be\nrestrained?\"\n\nP.  \"Restrain the spirit of truth, Socrates?\"\n\nS.  \"If it be doggishly inclined.  As, for instance, if a man knew\nthat his father had committed a shameful act, and were to publish\nit, he would do so by the spirit of truth.  Yet such an act would be\nblackguardly, and to be restrained.\"\n\nP.  \"Of course.\"\n\nS.  \"But much more, if he accused his father only on his own private\nsuspicion, not having seen him commit the act; while many others,\nwho had watched his father's character more than he did, assured him\nthat he was mistaken.\"\n\nP.  \"Such an act would be to be restrained, not merely as\nblackguardly, but as impious.\"\n\nS.  \"Or if a man believed things derogatory to the character of the\nGods, not having seen them do wrong himself, while all those who had\ngiven themselves to the study of divine things assured him that he\nwas mistaken, would he not be bound to restrain an inclination to\nspeak such things, even if he believed them?\"\n\nP.  \"Surely, Socrates; and that even if he believed that the Gods\ndid not exist at all.  For there would be far more chance that he\nalone was wrong, and the many right, than that the many were wrong,\nand he alone right.  He would therefore commit an insolent and\nconceited action, and, moreover, a cruel and shameless one; for he\nwould certainly make miserable, if he were believed, the hearts of\nmany virtuous persons who had never harmed him, for no immediate or\ndemonstrable purpose except that of pleasing his own self-will; and\nthat much more, were he wrong in his assertion.\"\n\nS.  \"Here, then, is another case in which it seems proper to\nrestrain the spirit of truth, whatsoever it may be?\"\n\nP.  \"What, then, are we to say of those who speak fearlessly and\nopenly their own opinions on every subject? for, in spite of all\nthis, one cannot but admire them, whether rationally or\nirrationally.\"\n\nS.  \"We will allow them at least the honour which we do to the wild\nboar, who rushes fiercely through thorns and brambles upon the dogs,\nnot to be turned aside by spears or tree-trunks, and indeed charges\nforward the more valiantly the more tightly he shuts his eyes.  That\npraise we can bestow on him, but, I fear, no higher one.  It is\nexpedient, nevertheless, to have such a temperament as it is to have\na good memory, or a loud voice, or a straight nose unlike mine;\nonly, like other animal passions, it must be restrained and\nregulated by reason and the law of right, so as to employ itself\nonly on such matters and to such a degree as they prescribe.\"\n\n\"It may seem so in the argument,\" said I.  \"Yet no argument, even of\nyours, Socrates, with your pardon, shall convince me that the spirit\nof truth is not fair and good, ay, the noblest possession of all;\nthrowing away which, a man throws away his shield, and becomes\nunworthy of the company of gods or men.\"\n\nS.  \"Or of beasts either, as it seems to me and the argument.\nNevertheless, to this point has the argument, in its cunning and\nmalice, brought us by crooked paths.  Can we find no escape?\"\n\nP.  \"I know none.\"\n\nS.  \"But may it not be possible that we, not having been initiated,\nlike Alcibiades, into the Babylonian mysteries, have somewhat\nmistaken the meaning of that expression, 'spirit of truth'?  For\ntruth we defined to be 'facts as they are.'  The spirit of truth\nthen should mean, should it not, the spirit of facts as they are?\"\n\nP.  \"It should.\"\n\nS.  \"But what shall we say that this expression, in its turn, means?\nThe spirit which makes facts as they are?\"\n\nA.  \"Surely not.  That would be the supreme Demiurgus himself.\"\n\nS.  \"Of whom you were not speaking, when you spoke of the spirit of\ntruth?\"\n\nA.  \"Certainly not.  I was speaking of a spirit in man.\"\n\nS.  \"And belonging to him?\"\n\nA.  \"Yes.\"\n\nS.  \"And doing-what, with regard to facts as they are? for this is\njust the thing which puzzles me.\"\n\nA.  \"Telling facts as they are.\"\n\nS.  \"Without seeing them as they are?\"\n\nA.  \"How you bore one! of course not.  It sees facts as they are,\nand therefore tells them.\"\n\nS.  \"But perhaps it might see them as they are, and find it\nexpedient, being of the same temperament as I, to hold its tongue\nabout them?  Would it then be still the spirit of truth?\"\n\nA.  \"It would, of course.\"\n\nS.  \"The man then who possesses the spirit of truth will see facts\nas they are?\"\n\nA.  \"He will.\"\n\nS.  \"And conversely?\"\n\nA.  \"Yes.\"\n\nS.  \"But if he sees anything only as it seems to him, and is not in\nfact, he will not, with regard to that thing, see it by the spirit\nof truth?\"\n\nA.  \"I suppose not.\"\n\nS.  \"Neither then will he be able to speak of it by the spirit of\ntruth.\"\n\nA.  \"Why?\"\n\nS.  \"Because, by what we agreed before, it will not be there to\nspeak of, my wondrous friend.  For it appeared to us, if I recollect\nright, that facts can only exist as they are, and not as they are\nnot, and that therefore the spirit of truth had nothing to do with\nany facts but those which are.\"\n\n\"But,\" I interrupted, \"O dear Socrates, I fear much that if the\nspirit of truth be such as this, it must be beyond the reach of\nman.\"\n\nS.  \"Why then?\"\n\nP.  \"Because the immortal gods only can see things as they really\nare, having alone made all things, and ruling them all according to\nthe laws of each.  They therefore, I much fear, will be alone able\nto behold them, how they are really in their inner nature and\nproperties, and not merely from the outside, and by guess, as we do.\nHow then can we obtain such a spirit ourselves?\"\n\nS.  \"Dear boy, you seem to wish that I should, as usual, put you off\nwith a myth, when you begin to ask me about those who know far more\nabout me than I do about them.  Nevertheless, shall I tell you a\nmyth?\"\n\nP.  \"If you have nothing better.\"\n\nS.  \"They say, then, that Prometheus, when he grew to man's estate,\nfound mankind, though they were like him in form, utterly brutish\nand ignorant, so that, as AEschylus says:\n\n\n      Seeing they saw in vain,\nHearing they heard not; but were like the shapes\nOf dreams, and long time did confuse all things\nAt random:\n\n\nbeing, as I suppose, led, like the animals, only by their private\njudgments of things as they seemed to each man, and enslaved to that\nsubjective truth, which we found to be utterly careless and ignorant\nof facts as they are.  But Prometheus, taking pity on them,\ndetermined in his mind to free them from that slavery and to teach\nthem to rise above the beasts, by seeing things as they are.  He\ntherefore made them acquainted with the secrets of nature, and\ntaught them to build houses, to work in wood and metals, to observe\nthe courses of the stars, and all other such arts and sciences,\nwhich if any man attempts to follow according to his private\nopinion, and not according to the rules of that art, which are\nindependent of him and of his opinions, being discovered from the\nunchangeable laws of things as they are, he will fail.  But yet, as\nthe myth relates, they became only a more cunning sort of animals;\nnot being wholly freed from their original slavery to a certain\nsubjective opinion about themselves, that each man should, by means\nof those arts and sciences, please and help himself only.  Fearing,\ntherefore, lest their increased strength and cunning should only\nenable them to prey upon each other all the more fiercely, he stole\nfire from heaven, and gave to each man a share thereof for his\nhearth, and to each community for their common altar.  And by the\nlight of this celestial fire they learnt to see those celestial and\neternal bonds between man and man, as of husband to wife, of father\nto child, of citizen to his country, and of master to servant,\nwithout which man is but a biped without feathers, and which are in\nthemselves, being independent of the flux of matter and time, most\ntruly facts as they are.  And since that time, whatsoever household\nor nation has allowed these fires to become extinguished, has sunk\ndown again to the level of the brutes:  while those who have passed\nthem down to their children burning bright and strong, become\npartakers of the bliss of the Heroes, in the Happy Islands.  It\nseems to me then, Phaethon and Alcibiades, that if we find ourselves\nin anywise destitute of this heavenly fire, we should pray for the\ncoming of that day, when Prometheus shall be unbound from Caucasus,\nif by any means he may take pity on us and on our children, and\nagain bring us down from heaven that fire which is the spirit of\ntruth, that we may see facts as they are.  For which, if he were to\nask Zeus humbly and filially, I cannot believe that He would refuse\nit.  And indeed, I think that the poets, as is their custom, corrupt\nthe minds of young men by telling them that Zeus chained Prometheus\nto Caucasus for his theft; seeing that it befits such a ruler, as I\ntake the Father of gods and men to be, to know that his subjects can\nonly do well by means of his bounty, and therefore to bestow it\nfreely, as the kings of Persia do, on all who are willing to use it\nin the service of their sovereign.\"\n\n\"So then,\" said Alcibiades, laughing, \"till Prometheus be unbound\nfrom Caucasus, we who have lost, as you seem to hint, this heavenly\nfire, must needs go on upon our own subjective opinions, having\nnothing better to which to trust.  Truly, thou sophist, thy\nconclusion seems to me after all not to differ much from that of\nProtagoras.\"\n\nS.  \"Ah dear boy! know you not that to those who have been\ninitiated, and, as they say in the mysteries, twice born, Prometheus\nis always unbound, and stands ready to assist them; while to those\nwho are self-willed and conceited of their own opinions, he is\nremoved to an inaccessible distance, and chained in icy fetters on\nuntrodden mountain-peaks, where the vulture ever devours his fair\nheart, which sympathises continually with the follies and the\nsorrows of mankind?  Of what punishment, then, must not those be\nworthy, who by their own wilfulness and self-confidence bind again\nto Caucasus the fair Titan, the friend of men?\"\n\n\"By Apollo!\" said Alcibiades, \"this language is more fit for the\ntripod in Delphos, than for the bema in the Pnyx.  So fare-thee-\nwell, thou Pythoness!  I must go and con over my oration, at least\nif thy prophesying has not altogether addled my thoughts.\"\n\nBut I, as soon as Alcibiades was gone, for I was ashamed to speak\nbefore, turning to Socrates said to him, all but weeping:\n\n\"Oh Socrates, what cruel words are these which you have spoken?  Are\nyou not ashamed to talk thus contemptuously to one like me, even\nthough he be younger and less cunning in argument than yourself;\nknowing as you do, how, when I might have grown rich in my native\ncity of Rhodes, and marrying there, as my father purposed, a wealthy\nmerchant's heiress, so have passed my life delicately, receiving the\nprofits of many ships and warehouses, I yet preferred Truth beyond\nriches; and leaving my father's house, came to Athens in search of\nwisdom, dissipating my patrimony upon one sophist after another,\nlistening greedily to Hippias, and Polus, and Gorgias, and\nProtagoras, and last of all to you, hard-hearted man that you are?\nFor from my youth I loved and longed after nothing so much as Truth,\nwhatsoever it may be; thinking nothing so noble as to know that\nwhich is Right, and knowing it, to do it.  And that longing, or love\nof mine, which is what I suppose Protagoras meant by the spirit of\ntruth, I cherished as the fairest and most divine possession, and\nthat for which alone it was worth while to live.  For it seemed to\nme, that even if in my search I never attained to truth, still it\nwere better to die seeking, than not to seek; and that even if\nacting by what I considered to be the spirit of truth, and doing\nhonestly in every case that which seemed right, I should often,\nacting on a false conviction, offend in ignorance against the\nabsolute righteousness of the gods, yet that such an offence was\ndeserving, if not of praise for its sincerity, yet at least of pity\nand forgiveness; but by no means to be classed, as you class it,\nwith the appetites of brutes; much less to be threatened, as you\nthreaten it, with infinite and eternal misery by I know not what\nnecessary laws of Zeus, and to be put off at last with some myth or\nother about Prometheus.  Surely your mother bare you a scoffer and\npitiless, Socrates, and not, as you boast, a man-midwife fit for\nfair youths.\"\n\nThen, smiling sweetly, \"Dear boy,\" said he, \"were I such as you\nfancy, how should I be here now, discoursing with you concerning\ntruth, instead of conning my speech for the Pnyx, like Alcibiades,\nthat I may become a demagogue, deceiving the mob with flattery, and\nwin for myself houses, and lands, and gold, and slave-girls, and\nfame, and power, even to a tyranny itself?  For in this way I might\nhave made my tongue a profitable member of my body; but now, being\nhurried up and down in barren places, like one mad of love, from my\nlonging after fair youths, I waste my speech on them; receiving, as\nis the wont of true lovers, only curses and ingratitude from their\narrogance.  But tell me, thou proud Adonis-This spirit of truth in\nthee, which thou thoughtest, and rightly, thy most noble possession-\ndid it desire truth, or not?\"\n\nP.  \"But, Socrates, I told you that very thing, and said that it was\na longing after truth, which I could not restrain or disobey.\"\n\nS.  \"Tell me now, does one long for that which one possesses, or for\nthat which one does not possess?\"\n\nP.  \"For that which one does not possess.\"\n\nS.  \"And is one in love with that which is oneself, or with that\nwhich is not?\"\n\nP.  \"With that which is not oneself, thou mocker.  We are not all,\nsurely, like Narcissus?\"\n\nS.  \"No, by the dog! not quite all.  But see now:  it appears that\nwhen any one is in love with a thing, and longs for it, as thou\ndidst for truth, it must be something which is not himself, and\nwhich he does not possess?\"\n\nP.  \"True.\"\n\nS.  \"You, then, while you were loving facts as they are, and longing\nto see them as they are, yet did not possess that which you longed\nfor?\"\n\nP.  \"True, indeed; else why should I have been driven forth by the\nanger of the gods, like Bellerophon, to pace the Aleian plain,\neating my own soul, if I had possessed that for which I longed?\"\n\nS.  \"Well said, dear boy.  But see again.  This truth which you\nloved, and which was not yourself or part of yourself, was certainly\nalso nothing of your own making?-Though they say that Pygmalion was\nenamoured of the statue which he himself had carved.\"\n\nP.  \"But he was miserable, Socrates, till the statue became alive.\"\n\nS.  \"They say so; but what has that to do with the argument?\"\n\nP.  \"I know not.  But it seems to me horrible, as it did to\nPygmalion, to be enamoured of anything which cannot return your\nlove, but is, as it were, your puppet.  Should we not think it a\nshameful thing, if a mistress were to be enamoured of one of her own\nslaves?\"\n\nS.  \"We should; and that, I suppose, because the slave would have no\nfree choice whether to refuse or to return his mistress's love; but\nwould be compelled, being a slave, to submit to her, even if she\nwere old, or ugly, or hateful to him?\"\n\nP.  \"Of course.\"\n\nS.  \"And should we not say, Phaethon, that there was no true\nenjoyment in such love, even on the part of the mistress; nay, that\nit was not worthy of the name of love at all, but was merely\nsomething base, such as happens to animals?\"\n\nP.  \"We should say so rightly.\"\n\nS.  \"Tell me, then, Phaethon-for a strange doubt has entered my mind\non account of your words.  This truth of which you were enamoured,\nseems, from what has been agreed, not to be a part of yourself, nor\na creation of your own, like Pygmalion's statue-how then has it not\nhappened to you to be even more miserable than Pygmalion till you\nwere sure that truth loved you in return?-and, moreover, till you\nwere sure that truth had free choice as to whether it should return\nor refuse your love?  For, otherwise, you would be in danger of\nbeing found suffering the same base passion as a mistress enamoured\nof a slave who cannot resist her.\"\n\nP.  \"I am puzzled, Socrates.\"\n\nS.  \"Shall we rather say, then, that you were enamoured, not of\ntruth itself, but of the spirit of truth?  For we have been all\nalong defining truth to be 'facts as they are,' have we not?\"\n\nP.  \"We have.\"\n\nS.  \"But there are many facts as they are, whereof to be enamoured\nwould be base, for they cannot return your love.  As, for instance,\nthat one and one make two, or that a horse has four legs.  With\nrespect to such facts, you would be, would you not, in the same\nposition as a mistress towards her slave?\"\n\nP.  \"Certainly.  It seems, then, better to assume the other\nalternative.\"\n\nS.  \"It does.  But does it not follow, that when you were enamoured\nof this spirit, you did not possess it?\"\n\nP.  \"I fear so, by the argument.\"\n\nS.  \"And I fear, too, that we agreed that he only who possessed the\nspirit of truth saw facts as they are; for that was involved in our\ndefinition of the spirit of truth.\"\n\nP.  \"But, Socrates, I knew, at least, that one and one made two, and\nthat a horse had four legs.  I must then have seen some facts as\nthey are.\"\n\nS.  \"Doubtless, fair boy; but not all.\"\n\nP.  \"I do not pretend to that.\"\n\nS.  \"But if you had possessed the spirit of truth, you would have\nseen all facts whatsoever as they are.  For he who possesses a thing\ncan surely employ it freely for all purposes which are not contrary\nto the nature of that thing; can he not?\"\n\nP.  \"Of course he can.  But if I did not possess the spirit of\ntruth, how could I see any truth whatsoever?\"\n\nS.  \"Suppose, dear boy, that instead of your possessing it, it were\npossible for it to possess you; and possessing you, to show you as\nmuch of itself, or as little, as it might choose, and concerning\nsuch things only as it might choose:  would not that explain the\ndilemma?\"\n\nP.  \"It would assuredly.\"\n\nS.  \"Let us see, then, whether this spirit of truth may not be\nsomething which is capable of possessing you, and employing you,\nrather than of being possessed and employed by you.  To me, indeed,\nthis spirit seems likely to be some demon or deity, and that one of\nthe greatest.\"\n\nP.  \"Why then?\"\n\nS.  \"Can lifeless and material things see?\"\n\nP.  \"Certainly not; only live ones.\"\n\nS.  \"This spirit, then, seems to be living; for it sees things as\nthey are.\"\n\nP.  \"Yes.\"\n\nS.  \"And it is also intellectual; for intellectual facts can be only\nseen by an intellectual being.\"\n\nP.  \"True.\"\n\nS.  \"And also moral; for moral facts can only be seen by a moral\nbeing.\"\n\nP.  \"True also.\"\n\nS.  \"But this spirit is evidently not a man; it remains therefore,\nthat it must be some demon.\"\n\nP.  \"But why one of the greatest?\"\n\nS.  \"Tell me, Phaethon, is not God to be numbered among facts as\nthey are?\"\n\nP.  \"Assuredly; for he is before all others and more eternal and\nabsolute than all.\"\n\nS.  \"Then this spirit of truth must also be able to see God as he\nis.\"\n\nP.  \"It is probable.\"\n\nS.  \"And certain, if, as we agreed, it be the very spirit which sees\nall facts whatsoever as they are.  Now tell me, can the less see the\ngreater as it is?\"\n\nP.  \"I think not; for an animal cannot see a man as he is, but only\nthat part of him in which he is like an animal, namely, his outward\nfigure and his animal passions; but not his moral sense or reason,\nfor of them it has itself no share.\"\n\nS.  \"True; and in like wise, a man of less intellect could not see a\nman of greater intellect than himself as he is, but only a part of\nhis intellect.\"\n\nP.  \"Certainly.\"\n\nS.  \"And does not the same thing follow from what we said just now,\nthat God's conceptions of himself must be the only perfect\nconceptions of him?  For if any being could see God as he is, the\nsame would be able to conceive of him as he is:  which we agreed was\nimpossible.\"\n\nP.  \"True.\"\n\nS.  \"Then surely this spirit which sees God as he is, must be equal\nwith God.\"\n\nP.  \"It seems probable; but none is equal to God except himself.\"\n\nS.  \"Most true, Phaethon.  But what shall we say now, but that this\nspirit of truth, whereof thou hast been enamoured, is, according to\nthe argument, none other than Zeus, who alone comprehends all\nthings, and sees them as they are, because he alone has given to\neach its inward and necessary laws?\"\n\nP.  \"But, Socrates, there seems something impious in the thought.\"\n\nS.  \"Impious, truly, if we held that this spirit of truth was a part\nof your own self.  But we agreed that it was not a part of you, but\nsomething utterly independent of you.\"\n\nP.  \"Noble would the news be, Socrates, were it true; yet it seems\nto me beyond belief.\"\n\nS.  \"Did we not prove just now concerning Zeus, that all mistakes\nconcerning him were certain to be mistakes of defect?\"\n\nP.  \"We did, indeed.\"\n\nS.  \"How do you know, then, that you have not fallen into some such\nerror, and have suspected Zeus to be less condescending towards you\nthan he really is?\"\n\nP.  \"Would that it were so!  But I fear it is too fair a hope.\"\n\nS.  \"Do I seem to thee now, dear boy, more insolent and unfeeling\nthan Protagoras, when he tried to turn thee away from the search\nafter absolute truth, by saying sophistically that it was an attempt\nof the Titans to scale heaven, and bade thee be content with\nasserting shamelessly and brutishly thine own subjective opinions?\nFor I do not bid thee scale the throne of Zeus, into whose presence\nnone could arrive, as it seems to me, unless he himself willed it;\nbut to believe that he has given thee from thy childhood a glimpse\nof his own excellence, that so thy heart, conjecturing, as in the\ncase of a veiled statue, from one part the beauty of the rest, might\nbecome enamoured thereof, and long for that sight of him which is\nthe highest and only good, that so his splendour may give thee light\nto see facts as they are.\"\n\nP.  \"Oh Socrates! and how is this blessedness to be attained?\"\n\nS.  \"Even as the myths relate, the nymphs obtained the embraces of\nthe gods; by pleasing him and obeying him in all things, lifting up\ndaily pure hands and a thankful heart, if by any means he may\ncondescend to purge thine eyes, that thou mayest see clearly, and\nwithout those motes, and specks, and distortions of thine own organs\nof vision, which flit before the eyeballs of those who have been\ndrunk over-night, and which are called by sophists subjective truth;\nwatching everywhere anxiously and reverently for those glimpses of\nhis beauty, which he will vouchsafe to thee more and more as thou\nprovest thyself worthy of them, and will reward thy love by making\nthee more and more partaker of his own spirit of truth; whereby,\nseeing facts as they are, thou wilt see him who has made them\naccording to his own ideas, that they may be a mirror of his\nunspeakable splendour.  Is not this a fairer hope for thee, oh\nPhaethon, than that which Protagoras held out to thee-that neither\nseeing Zeus, nor seeing facts as they are, nor affirming any truth\nwhatsoever, nor depending for thy knowledge on any one but thine own\nignorant self, thou mightest nevertheless be so fortunate as to\nescape punishment:  not knowing, as it seems to me, that such a\nstate of ignorance and blindfold rashness, even if Tartarus were a\ndream of the poets or the priests, is in itself the most fearful of\npunishments?\"\n\nP.  \"It is, indeed, my dear Socrates.  Yet what are we to say of\nthose who, sincerely loving and longing after knowledge, yet arrive\nat false conclusions, which are proved to be false by contradicting\neach other?\"\n\nS.  \"We are to say, Phaethon, that they have not loved knowledge\nenough to desire utterly to see facts as they are, but only to see\nthem as they would wish them to be; and loving themselves rather\nthan Zeus, have wished to remodel in some things or other his\nuniverse, according to their own subjective opinions.  By this, or\nby some other act of self-will, or self-conceit, or self-dependence,\nthey have compelled Zeus, not, as I think, without pity and kindness\nto them, to withdraw from them in some degree the sight of his own\nbeauty.  We must, therefore, I fear, liken them to Acharis, the\npainter of Lemnos, who, intending to represent Phoebus, painted from\na mirror a copy of his own defects and deformities; or perhaps to\nthat Nymph, who finding herself beloved by Phoebus, instead of\nreverently and silently returning the affection, boasted of it to\nall her neighbours, as a token of her own beauty, and despised the\ngod; so that he, being angry, changed her into a chattering magpie;\nor again to Arachne, who having been taught the art of weaving by\nAthene, pretended to compete with her own instructress, and being\nmetamorphosed by her into a spider, was condemned, like the\nsophists, to spin out of her own entrails endless ugly webs, which\nare destroyed, as soon as finished, by every slave-girl's broom.\"\n\nP.  \"But shall we despise and hate such, Oh Socrates?\"\n\nS.  \"No, dearest boy, we will rather pity and instruct them\nlovingly; remembering always that we shall become such as they the\nmoment we begin to fancy that truth is our own possession, and not\nthe very beauty of Zeus himself, which he shows to those whom he\nwill, and in such measure as he finds them worthy to behold.  But to\nme, considering how great must be the condescension of Zeus in\nunveiling to any man, even the worthiest, the least portion of his\nown loveliness, there has come at times a sort of dream, that the\ndivine splendour will at last pierce through and illumine all dark\nsouls, even in the house of Hades, showing them, as by a great\nsunrise, both what they themselves, and what all other things are,\nreally and in the sight of Zeus; which if it happened, even to\nIxion, I believe that his wheel would stop, and his fetters drop off\nof themselves, and that he would return freely to the upper air, for\nas long as he himself might choose.\"\n\nJust then the people began to throng into the Pnyx; and we took our\nplaces with the rest to hear the business of the day, after Socrates\nhad privately uttered this prayer:\n\n\"Oh Zeus, give to me and to all who shall counsel here this day,\nthat spirit of truth by which we may behold that whereof we\ndeliberate, as it is in thy sight!\"\n\n\n\"As I expected,\" said Templeton, with a smile, as I folded up my\nmanuscript.  \"My friend the parson could not demolish the poor\nProfessor's bad logic without a little professional touch by way of\nfinish.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh-never mind.  Only I owe you little thanks for sweeping away any\none of my lingering sympathies with Mr. Windrush, if all you can\noffer me instead is the confounded old nostrum of religion over\nagain.\"\n\n\"Heydey, friend!  What next?\"\n\n\"Really, my dear fellow, I beg your pardon, I forgot that I was\nspeaking to a clergyman.\"\n\n\"Pray don't beg my pardon on that ground.  If what you say be right,\na clergyman above all others ought to hear it; and if it be wrong,\nand a symptom of spiritual disease, he ought to hear it all the\nmore.  But I cannot tell whether you are right or wrong, till I know\nwhat you mean by religion; for there is a great deal of very truly\nconfounded and confounding religion abroad in the world just now, as\nthere has been in all ages; and perhaps you may be alluding to\nthat.\"\n\nTempleton sat silent for a few minutes, playing with the tackle in\nhis fly-book, and then murmured to himself the well-known lines of\nLucretius:\n\n\n\"Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret\nIn terris oppressa gravi sub Relligione\nQuae caput a coeli regionibus ostendebat,\nHorribili super aspectu mortalibus instans.\n\n\nThere!-blasphemous reprobate fellow, am I not?\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" I said, \"I think that in the sense in which\nLucretius intended that the lines should be taken, they contain a\ngreat deal of truth.  He had seen the basest and foullest crimes\nspring from that which he calls Relligio, and he had a full right to\nstate that fact.  I am not aware that one blasphemes the Catholic\nand Apostolic Faith by saying that the devilries of the Spanish\nInquisition were the direct offspring of that 'religious sentiment'\nwhich Mr. Windrush's school-though they are at all events right in\nsaying that its source is in man himself, and not in the 'regionibus\nCoeli'-are now glorifying, as something which enables man to save\nhis own soul without the interference of 'The Deity'-indeed, whether\n'The Deity' chooses or not.\"\n\n\"Do leave these poor Emersonians alone for a few minutes, and tell\nme how you can reconcile what you have just said with your own\ndialogue.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Is not Lucretius glorying in the notion that the gods do not\ntrouble themselves with mortals, while you have been asserting that\n'The Deity' troubles Himself even with the souls of heathens?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  But that is quite a distinct matter from his dislike of\nwhat he calls Relligio.  In that dislike I can sympathise fully:\nbut on his method of escape Mr. Windrush will probably look with\nmore complaisance than I do, who call it by the ugly name of\nAtheism.\"\n\n\"Then I fear you would call me an Atheist, if you knew all.  So we\nhad better say no more about it.\"\n\n\"A most curious speech, certainly, to make to a parson, or soul-\ncurer by profession!\"\n\n\"Why, what on earth have you to do but to abhor and flee me?\" asked\nhe, with a laugh, though by no means a merry one.\n\n\"Would your having a headache be a reason for the medical man's\nrunning away from you, or coming to visit you?\"\n\n\"Ah, but this, you know, is my 'fault,' and my 'crime,' and my\n'sin.'  Eh?\" and he laughed again.\n\n\"Would the doctor visit you the less, because it was your own fault\nthat your head ached?\"\n\n\"Ah, but suppose I professed openly no faith in his powers of\ncuring, and had a great hankering after unaccredited Homoeopathies,\nlike Mr. Windrush's; would not that be a fair cause for interdiction\nfrom fire and water, sacraments and Christian burial?\"\n\n\"Come, come, Templeton,\" I said; \"you shall not thus jest away\nserious thoughts with an old friend.  I know you are ill at ease.\nWhy not talk over the matter with me fairly and soberly?  How do you\nknow till you have tried, whether I can help you or not?\"\n\n\"Because I know that your arguments will have no force with me; they\nwill demand of me or assume in me, certain faculties, sentiments,\nnotions, experiences-call them what you like; I am beginning to\nsuspect sometimes with Cabanis that they are 'a product of the small\nintestines'-which I never have had, and never could make myself\nhave, and now don't care whether I have them or not.\"\n\n\"On my honour, I will address you only as what you are, and know\nyourself to be.  But what are these faculties, so strangely beyond\nmy friend Templeton's reach?  He used to be distinguished at college\nfor a very clear head, and a very kind heart, and the nicest sense\nof honour which I ever saw in living man; and I have not heard that\nthey have failed him since he became Templeton of Templeton.  And as\nfor his Churchmanship, were not the county papers ringing last month\nwith the accounts of the beautiful new church which he had built,\nand the stained glass which he brought from Belgium, and the marble\nfont which he brought from Italy; and how he had even given for an\naltar-piece his own pet Luini, the gem of Templeton House?\"\n\n\"Effeminate picture!\" he said.  \"It was part and parcel of the idea-\n\"\n\nBefore I could ask him what he meant, he looked up suddenly at me,\nwith deep sadness on his usually nonchalant face.\n\n\"Well, my dear fellow, I suppose I must tell you all, as I have told\nyou so much without your shaking the dust off your feet against me,\nand consulting Bradshaw for the earliest train to Shrewsbury.  You\nknew my dear mother?\"\n\n\"I did.  The best of women.\"\n\n\"The best of women, and the best of mothers.  But, if you recollect,\nshe was a great Low-Church saint.\"\n\n\"Why 'but'?  How does that derogate in any wise from her\nexcellence?\"\n\n\"Not from her excellence; God forbid! or from the excellence of the\npeople of her own party, whom she used to have round her, and who\nwere, some of them, I do believe, as really earnest, and pious, and\ncharitable, and all that, as human beings could be.  But it did take\naway very much indeed from her influence on me.\"\n\n\"Surely she did not neglect to teach you.\"\n\n\"It is a strange thing to say, but she rather taught me too much.  I\ndon't deny that it may have been my own fault.  I don't blame her,\nor any one.  But you know what I was at college-no worse than other\nmen, I dare say; but no better.  I had no reason for being better.\"\n\n\"No reason?  Surely she gave you reasons.\"\n\n\"There-you have touched the ailing nerve now.  The reasons were what\nyou would call paralogisms.  They had no more to do with me than\nwith those trout.\"\n\n\"You mistake, friend, you mistake, indeed,\" said I.\n\n\"I don't mistake at all about this; that whether or not the reasons\nin themselves had to do with me, the way in which she put them made\nthem practically so much Hebrew.  She demanded of me, as the only\ngrounds on which I was to consider myself safe from hell, certain\nfears and hopes which I did not feel, and experiences which I did\nnot experience; and it was my fault, and a sign of my being in a\nwrong state-to use no harder term-that I did not feel them; and yet\nit was only God's grace which could make me feel them:  and so I\ngrew up with a dark secret notion that I was a very bad boy; but\nthat it was God's fault and not mine that I was so.\"\n\n\"You were ripe indeed then,\" said I sadly, \"like hundreds more, for\nProfessor Windrush's teaching.\"\n\n\"I will come to that presently.  But in the meantime-was it my\nfault?  I was never what you call a devout person.  My 'organ of\nveneration,' as the phrenologists would say, was never very large.\nI was a shrewd dashing boy, enjoying life to the finger-tips, and\nenjoying above all, I will say, pleasing my mother in every way,\nexcept in the understanding what she told me-and what I felt I could\nnot understand.  But as I grew older, and watched her, and the men\nround her, I began to suspect that religion and effeminacy had a\ngood deal to do with each other.  For the women, whatsoever their\ntemperaments, or even their tastes might be, took to this to me\nincomprehensible religion naturally and instinctively; while the\nvery few men who were in their clique were-I don't deny some of them\nwere good men enough-if they had been men at all:  if they had been\nwell-read, or well-bred, or gallant, or clear-headed, or liberal-\nminded, or, in short, anything but the silky, smooth-tongued hunt-\nthe-slippers nine out of ten of them were.  I recollect well asking\nmy mother once, whether there would not be five times more women\nthan men in heaven-and her answering me sadly and seriously, that\nshe feared there would be.  And in the meantime she brought me up to\npray and hope that I might some day be converted, and become a child\nof God-And one could not help wishing to enjoy oneself as much as\npossible before that event happened.\"\n\n\"Before that event happened, my dear fellow?  Pardon me, but your\ntone is somewhat irreverent.\"\n\n\"Very likely.  I had no reason put before me for regarding such a\nchange as anything but an unpleasant doom, which would cut me off,\nor ought to do so, from field sports, from poetry, from art, from\nscience, from politics-for Christians, I was told, had nothing to do\nwith the politics of this world-from man and all man's civilisation,\nin short; and leave to me, as the only two lawful indulgences, those\nof living in a good house, and begetting a family of children.\"\n\n\"And did you throw off the old Creeds for the sake of the\ncivilisation which you fancied that they forbid?\"\n\n\"No.  I am a Churchman, you know; principally on political grounds,\nor from custom, or from-the devil knows what, perhaps-I do not.\"\n\n\"Probably it is God, and not the devil, who knows why, Templeton.\"\n\n\"Be it so-Frightful as it is to have to say it-I do not so much\ncare-I suppose it is all right:  if it is not, it will all come\nright at last.  And in the meantime, I compromise, like the rest of\nthe world; and hear Jane making the children every week-day pray\nthat they may become God's children, and then teaching them every\nSunday evening the Catechism, which says that they are so already.\nI don't understand it-I suppose if it was important, one would\nunderstand it.  One knows right from wrong, you know, and other\nfundamentals.  If that were necessary, one would know that too.\"\n\n\"But can you submit quietly to such a barefaced contradiction?\"\n\n\"I?  I am only a plain country squire.  Of course I should call such\ndealing with an Act of Parliament a lie and a sham-But about these\nthings, I fancy, the women know best.  Jane is ten thousand times as\ngood as I am-you don't know half her worth-And I haven't the heart\nto contradict her-nor the right either; for I have no reasons to\ngive her; no faith to substitute for hers.\"\n\n\"Our friend, the High-Church curate, could have given you a few\nplain reasons, I should think.\"\n\n\"Of course he could.  And I believe in my heart the man is in the\nright in calling Jane wrong.  He has honesty and common sense on his\nside, just as he has when he calls the present state of Convocation,\nin the face of that prayer for God's Spirit on its deliberations, a\nblasphemous lie and sham.  Of course it is.  Any ensign in a\nmarching regiment could tell us that from his mere sense of\nsoldier's honour.  But then-if she is wrong, is he right?  How do I\nknow?  I want reasons:  he gives me historic authorities.\"\n\n\"And very good things too; for they are fair phenomena for\ninduction.\"\n\n\"But how will proving to me that certain people once thought a thing\nright prove to me that it is right?  Good people think differently\nevery day.  Good people have thought differently about those very\nmatters in every age.  I want some proof which will coincide with\nthe little which I do know about science and philosophy.  They must\nfight out their own battle, if they choose to fight it on mere\nauthority.  If one could but have the implicit faith of a child, it\nwould be all very well:  but one can't.  If one has once been fool\nenough to think about these things, one must have reasons, or\nsomething better than mere ipse dixits, or one can't believe them.\nI should be glad enough to believe; do you suppose that I don't envy\npoor dear Jane from morning to night?-but I can't.  And so-\"\n\n\"And so what?\" asked I.\n\n\"And so, I believe, I am growing to have no religion at all, and no\nsubstitute for it either; for I feel I have no ground or reason for\nadmiring or working out any subject.  I have tired of philosophy.\nPerhaps it's all wrong-at least I can't see what it has to do with\nGod, and Christianity, and all which, if it is true, must be more\nimportant than anything else.  I have tired of art for the same\nreason.  How can I be anything but a wretched dilettante, when I\nhave no principles to ground my criticism on, beyond bosh about 'The\nBeautiful'?  I did pluck up heart and read Mr. Ruskin's books\ngreedily when they came out, because I heard he was a good\nChristian.  But I fell upon a little tract of his, 'Notes on\nSheepfolds,' and gave him up again, when I found that he had a\nleaning to that 'Clapham sect.'  I have dropped politics:  for I\nhave no reason, no ground, no principle in them, but expediency.\nWhen they asked me this summer to represent the interests of the\ncounty in Parliament, I asked them how they came to make such a\nmistake as to fancy that I knew what was their interest, or anyone\nelse's?  I am becoming more and more of an animal; fragmentary,\ninconsistent, seeing to the root of nothing, unable to unite things\nin my own mind.  I just do the duty which lies nearest, and looks\nsimplest.  I try to make the boys grow up plucky and knowing-though\nwhat's the use of it?  They will go to college with even less\nprinciples than I had, and will get into proportionably worse\nscrapes, I expect to be ruined by their debts before I die.  And for\nthe rest, I read nothing but \"The Edinburgh\" and \"The Agricultural\nGazette.\"  My talk is of bullocks.  I just know right from wrong\nenough to see that the farms are in good order, pay my labourers\nliving wages, keep the old people out of the workhouse, and see that\nmy cottages and schools are all right; for I suppose I was put here\nfor some purpose of that kind-though what it is I can't very clearly\ndefine-And there's an end of my long story.\"\n\n\"Not quite an animal yet, it seems?\" said I with a smile, half to\nhide my own sadness at a set of experiences which are, alas! already\nfar too common, and will soon be more common still.\n\n\"Nearer it than you fancy.  I am getting fonder and fonder of a good\ndinner and a second bottle of claret-about their meaning there is no\nmistake.  And my principal reason for taking the hounds two years\nago was, I do believe, to have something to do in the winter which\nrequired no thought, and to have an excuse for falling asleep after\ndinner, instead of arguing with Jane about her scurrilous religious\nnewspapers-There is a great gulf opening, I see, between me and her-\nAnd as I can't bridge it over I may as well forget it.  Pah!  I am\nboring you, and over-talking myself.  Have a cigar, and let us say\nno more about it.  There is more here, old fellow, than you will\ncure by doses of Socratic Dialectics.\"\n\n\"I am not so sure of that,\" I replied.  \"On the contrary, I should\nrecommend you in your present state of mind to look out your old\nPlato as quickly as possible, and see if he and his master Socrates\ncannot give you, if not altogether a solution for your puzzle, at\nleast a method whereby you may solve it yourself.  But tell me\nfirst-What has all this to do with your evident sympathy for a man\nso unlike yourself as Professor Windrush?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I feel for him principally because he has broken loose from\nit all in desperation, just as I have.  But, to tell you the truth,\nI have been reading more than one book of his school lately; and, as\nI said, I owe you no thanks for demolishing the little comfort which\nI seemed to find in them.\"\n\n\"And what was that then?\"\n\n\"Why-in the first place, you can't deny that however incoherent they\nmay be they do say a great many clever things, and noble things too,\nabout man, and society, and art, and nature.\"\n\n\"No doubt of it.\"\n\n\"And moreover, they seem to connect all they say with-with-I suppose\nyou will laugh at me-with God, and spiritual truths, and eternal\nDivine laws; in short, to consecrate common matters in that very\nway, which I could not find in my poor mother's teaching.\"\n\n\"No doubt of that either.  And therein is one real value of them, as\nprotests in behalf of something nobler and more unselfish than the\nmere dollar-getting spirit of their country.\"\n\n\"Well, then, can you not see how pleasant it was to me to find\nsomeone who would give me a peep into the unseen world, without\nrequiring as an entrance-fee any religious emotions and experiences?\nHere I had been for years, shut out; told that I had no business\nwith anything eternal, and pure, and noble, and good; that to all\nintents and purposes I was nothing better than a very cunning animal\nwho could be damned; because I was still 'carnal,' and had not been\nthrough all Jane's mysterious sorrows and joys.  And it was really\ngood news to me to hear that they were not required after all, and\nthat all I need do was to be a good man, and leave devotion to those\nwho were inclined to it by temperament.\"\n\n\"Not to be a good man,\" said I, \"but only a good specimen of some\nsort of man.  That, I think, would be the outcome of Emerson's\n'Representative Men,' or of those most tragic 'Memoirs of Margaret\nPuller Ossoli.'\"\n\n\"How then, hair-splitter?  What is the mighty difference?\"\n\n\"Would you call Dick Turpin a good man, because he was a good\nhighwayman?\"\n\n\"What now?\"\n\n\"That he would be an excellent representative man of his class; and\ntherefore, on Mr. Emerson's grounds, a fit subject for a laudatory\nlecture.\"\n\n\"I hate reductiones ad absurdum.  Let Turpin take care of himself.\nI suppose I do not belong to such a very bad sort of men, but that\nit may be worth my while to become a good specimen of it?\"\n\n\"Certainly not; only I think, contrary to Mr. Emerson's opinion,\nthat you will not become even that, unless you first become\nsomething better still, namely, a good man.\"\n\n\"There you are too refined for me.  But can you not understand, now,\nthe causes of my sympathy even with Windrush and his 'spirit of\ntruth'?\"\n\n\"I can, and those of many more.  It seems that you thought you found\nin that school a wider creed than the one to which you had been\naccustomed?\"\n\n\"There was a more comprehensive view of humanity about them, and\nthat pleased me.\"\n\n\"Doubtless, one can be easily comprehensive if one comprehends good\nand bad, true and false, under one category, by denying the absolute\nexistence of either goodness or badness, truth or falsehood.  But\nlet the view be as comprehensive as it will, I am afraid that the\ncreed founded thereon will not be very comprehensive.\"\n\n\"Why then?\"\n\n\"Because it will comprehend so few people; fewer even than the sect\nof those who will believe, with Mr. Emerson, that Harvey and Newton\nmade their discoveries by the 'Aristotelian method.'  The sect of\nthose who believe that there is no absolute right and wrong, no\nabsolute truth external to himself, discoverable by man, will, it\nseems to me, be a very narrow one to the end of time; owing to a\ncertain primeval superstition of our race, who, even in barbarous\ncountries, have always been Platonists enough to have some sort of\ninstinct and hope that there was a right and a wrong, and truths\nindependent of their own sentiments and faculties.  So that, though\nthis school may enable you to fancy that you understand Lady Jane\nsomewhat more, by the simple expedient of putting on her religious\nexperiences an arbitrary interpretation of your own, which she would\nindignantly and justly deny, it will enable her to understand you\nall the less, and widen the gulf between you immeasurably.\"\n\n\"You are severe.\"\n\n\"I only wish you to face one result of a theory, which, while it\npretends to offer the most comprehensive liberality, will be found\nto lead in practice to the most narrow and sectarian Epicurism for a\ncultivated few.  But for the many, struggling with the innate\nconsciousness of evil, in them and around them-an instinctive\nconsciousness which no argumentation about 'evil being a lower form\nof good' will ever explain away to those who 'grind among the iron\nfacts of life, and have no time for self-deception'-what good news\nfor them is there in Mr. Emerson's cosy and tolerant Epicurism?\nThey cry for deliverance from their natures; they know that they are\nnot that which they were intended to be, because they follow their\nnatures; and he answers them with:  'Follow your natures, and be\nthat which you were intended to be.'  You began this argument by\nstipulating that I should argue with you simply as a man.  Does Mr.\nEmerson's argument look like doing that, or only arguing as with an\nindividual of that kind of man, or rather animal, to which some iron\nFate has compelled you to belong?\"\n\n\"But, I say, these books have made me a better man.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt it.  An earnest cultivated man, speaking his whole\nmind to an earnest cultivated man, will hardly fail of telling him\nsomething he did not know before.  But if you had not been a\ncultivated man, Templeton, a man with few sorrows, and few trials,\nand few unsatisfied desires-if you had been the village shopkeeper,\nwith his bad debts, and his temptations to make those who can pay\nfor those who cannot,-if you had been one of your own labourers,\nenvironed with the struggle for daily bread, and the alehouse, and\nhungry children, and a sick wife, and a dull taste, and a duller\nhead-in short, if you had been a man such as nine out of ten are-\nwhat would his school have taught you then?  You want some truths\nwhich are common to men as men, which will help and teach them, let\ntheir temperament or their circumstances be what they will-do you\nnot?  If you do not, your complaint of Lady Jane's exclusive Creed\nis a mere selfish competition on your part, between a Creed which\nwill fit her peculiarities, and a Creed which will fit your\npeculiarities.  Do you not see that?\"\n\n\"I do-go on.\"\n\n\"Then I say you will not find that in Professor Windrush's school.\nI say you will find it in Lady Jane's Creed.\"\n\n\"What?  In the very Creed which excludes me?\"\n\n\"Whether that Creed excludes you or not is a question of the true\nmeaning of its words.  And that again is a question of Dialectics.\nI say it includes you and all mankind.\"\n\n\"You must mistake her doctrines, then.\"\n\n\"I do not, I assure you.  I know what they are; and I know, also,\nthe misreading of them to which your dear mother's school has\naccustomed her, and which has taught her that these Creeds only\nbelong to the few who have discovered their own share in them.  But\nwhether the Creeds really do that or not-whether Lady Jane does not\nimplicitly confess that they do not by her own words and deeds of\nevery day, that, I say, is a question of Dialectics, in the Platonic\nsense of that word, as the science which discovers the true and\nfalse in thought, by discovering the true and false concerning the\nmeanings of words, which represent thought.\"\n\n\"Be it so.  I should be glad to hold what Jane holds, for the sake\nof the marvellous practical effect on her character-sweet creature\nthat she is!-which it has produced in the last seven years.\"\n\n\"And which effect, I presume, was not increased by her denying to\nyou any share in the same?\"\n\n\"Alas, no!  It is only when she falls on that-when she begins\ndenouncing and excluding-that all the old faults, few and light as\nthey are, seem to leap into ugly life again for the moment.\"\n\n\"Few and light, indeed!  Ah, my dear Templeton, the gulf between you\nand happiness looks wide; but only because it is magnified in mist.\"\n\n\"Which you would have me disperse by lightning-flashes of\nDialectics, eh?  Well, every man has his nostrum.\"\n\n\"I have not.  My method is not my own, but Plato's.\"\n\n\"But, my good fellow, the Windrush school admire Plato as much as\nyou do, and yet certainly arrive at somewhat different conclusions.\"\n\n\"They do Plato the honour of patronising him, as a Representative\nMan; but their real text-book, you will find, is Proclus.  That\nhapless philosophaster's a priori method, even his very verbiage, is\ndear to their souls; for they copy it through wet and dry, through\nsense and nonsense.  But as for Plato-when I find them using Plato's\nweapons, I shall believe in their understanding and love of him.\"\n\n\"And in the meanwhile claim him as a new verger for the Reformed\nChurch Catholic?\"\n\n\"Not a new verger, Templeton.  Augustine said, fourteen hundred\nyears ago, that Socrates was the philosopher of the Catholic Faith.\nIf he has not seemed so of late years, it is, I suspect, because we\ndo not understand quite the same thing as Augustine did, when we\ntalk of the Catholic Faith and Christianity.\"\n\n\"But you forget, in your hurry of clerical confidence, that the\nquestion still remains, whether these Creeds are true.\"\n\n\"That, too, as I take it, is a question of Dialectics, unless you\nchoose to reduce the whole to a balance-of-probabilities argument-\nrather too narrow a basis for a World-faith to stand upon.  Try all\n'mythic' theories, Straussite and others, by honest Dialectics.  Try\nyour own thoughts and experiences, and the accredited thoughts and\nexperiences of wise men, by the same method.  Mesmerism and 'The\nDevelopment of Species' may wait till they have settled themselves\nsomewhat more into sciences; at present it does not much matter what\nagrees or disagrees with them.  But using this weapon fearlessly and\nhonestly, you will, unless Socrates and Plato were fools, arrive at\nabsolute eternal truths, which are equally true for all men, good or\nbad, conscious or unconscious; and I tell you-of course you need not\nbelieve me till you have made trial-that those truths will coincide\nwith the plain honest meaning of the Catholic Creeds, as determined\nby the same method-the only one, indeed, by which they or anything\nelse can be determined.\"\n\n\"You forget Baconian induction, of which you are so fond.\"\n\n\"And pray what are Dialectics, but strict Baconian induction applied\nto words, as the phenomena of mind, instead of to things, the\nphenomena of-\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I can't tell you; or, rather, I will not.  I have my own opinion\nabout what those trees and stones are; but it will require a few\nyears' more verification before I tell.\"\n\n\"Really, you and your Dialectics seem in a hopeful and valiant state\nof mind.\"\n\n\"Why not?  Can truth do anything but conquer?\"\n\n\"Of course-assuming, as every one does, that the truth is with you.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, I have seldom met a man who could not be a far\nbetter dialectician than I shall ever be, if he would but use his\nCommon Sense.\"\n\n\"Common Sense?  That really sounds something like a bathos, after\nthe great big Greek word which you have been propounding to me as\nthe cure for all my doubts.\"\n\n\"What?  Are you about to 'gib' after all, just as I was flattering\nmyself that I had broken you in to go quietly in harness?\"\n\n\"I am very much minded to do so.  The truth is, I cannot bring\nmyself to believe that the universal panacea lies in an obscure and\nancient scientific method.\"\n\n\"Obscure and ancient?  Did I not just say that any man might be a\ndialectician?  Did Socrates ever appeal to any faculty but the\nCommon Sense of man as man, which exists just as much in England\nnow, I presume, as it did in Athens in his day?  Does he not, in\npursuance of that method of his, draw his arguments and\nillustrations, to the horror of the big-worded Sophists, from dogs,\nkettles, fishwives, and what not which is vulgar and commonplace?\nOr did I, in my clumsy attempt to imitate him, make use of a single\nargument which does not lie, developed or undeveloped, in the Common\nSense of every clown; in that human Reason of his, which is part of\nGod's image in him, and in every man?  And has not my complaint\nagainst Mr. Windrush's school been, that they will not do this; that\nthey will not accept the ground which is common to men as men, but\ndisregard that part of the 'Vox Populi' which is truly 'Vox Dei,'\nfor that which is 'Vox Diaboli'-for private sentiments, fancies, and\naspirations; and so casting away the common sense of mankind, build\nup each man, on the pin's point of his own private judgment, his own\ninverted pyramid?\"\n\n\"But are you not asking me to do just the same, when you propose to\nme to start as a Scientific Dialectician?\"\n\n\"Why, what are Dialectics, or any other scientific method, but\nconscious common sense?  And what is common sense, but unconscious\nscientific method?  Every man is a dialectician, be he scholar or\nboor, in as far as he tries to use no words which he does not\nunderstand, and to sift his own thoughts, and his expression of\nthem, by that Reason which is at once common to men, and independent\nof them.\"\n\n\"As M. Jourdain talked prose all his life without knowing it.  Well-\nI prefer the unconscious method.  I have as little faith as Mr.\nCarlyle would have in saying:  'Go to, let us make'-an induction\nabout words, or anything else.  It seems to me no very hopeful\nmethod of finding out facts as they are.\"\n\n\"Certainly; provided you mean any particular induction, and not a\ngeneral inductive and severely-inquiring habit of mind; that very\n'Go to' being a fair sign that you have settled beforehand what the\ninduction shall be; in plain English, that you have come to your\nconclusion already, and are now looking about for facts to prove it.\nBut is it any wiser to say:  'Go to, I will be conscious of being\nunconscious of being conscious of my own forms of thought'?  For\nthat is what you do say, when, having read Plato, and knowing his\nmethod, and its coincidence with Common Sense, you determine to\nignore it on common-sense questions.\"\n\n\"But why not ignore it, if mother-wit does as well?\"\n\n\"Because you cannot ignore it.  You have learnt it more or less, and\ncannot forget it, try as you will, and must either follow it, or\nbreak it and talk nonsense.  And moreover, you ought not to ignore\nit.  For it seems to me, that you were sent to Cambridge by One\ngreater than, your parents, in order that you might learn it, and\nbring it home hither for the use of the M. Jourdains round you here,\nwho have no doubt been talking prose all their life, but may have\nbeen also talking it very badly.\"\n\n\"You speak riddles.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, may not a man employ Reason, or any other common\nhuman faculty, all his life, and yet employ them very clumsily and\ndefectively?\"\n\n\"I should say so, from the gross amount of human unwisdom.\"\n\n\"And that, in the case of uneducated persons, happens because they\nare not conscious of those faculties, or of their right laws, but\nuse them blindly and capriciously, by fits and starts, talking sense\non one point and nonsense on another?\"\n\n\"Too true, Heaven knows.\"\n\n\"But the educated man, if education mean anything, is the man who\nhas become conscious of those common human faculties and their laws,\nand has learnt to use them continuously and accurately, on all\nmatters alike.\"\n\n\"True, O Socraticule!\"\n\n\"Then is it not his especial business to teach the right use of them\nto the less educated?-unless you agree with the old Sophists, that\nthe purpose of education is to enable us to deceive or coerce the\nuneducated for our own aggrandisement.\"\n\n\"I am therefore, it seems, to get up Platonic Dialectics simply in\norder to teach my ploughmen to use their common sense?\"\n\n\"Exactly so.  Teach yourself first, and every one around you\nafterwards, not the doctrines, nor the formulas-though he had none-\nbut the habit of mind which Socrates tried in vain to teach the\nAthenian youth.  Teach them to face all questions patiently and\nfearlessly:  to begin always by asking every word, great or small,\nfrom 'Predestination' to 'Protection,' what it really means.  Teach\nthem that 'By your words you shall be justified, and by your words\nyou shall be condemned,' is no barren pulpit-test, but a tremendous\npractical law for every day, and for every matter.  Teach them to be\nsure that man can find out truth, because God his Father and\nArchetype will show it to those who hunger after it.  Try to make\nthem see clearly the Divine truths which are implied, not only in\ntheir creeds, but in their simplest household words; and-\"\n\n\"And fail as Socrates failed, or rather worse; for he did teach\nhimself:  but I shall not even do that.\"\n\n\"Do not despair in haste.  In the first place, I deny that Socrates\ntaught himself, for I believe that One taught him, who has promised\nto teach every man who desires wisdom; and in the next place, I have\nno fear but that the sound practical intellect which that same One\nhas bestowed on the Englishman, will give you a far better auditory\nin any harvest field, than Socrates could find among the mercurial\nAthenians of a fallen age.\"\n\n\"Well, that is, at all events, a comfort for poor me.  I will really\ntake to my Plato again, till the hunting begins.\"\n\n\"And even then, you know, you don't keep two packs; so you will have\nthree days out of the six wherein to study him.\"\n\n\"Four, you mean-for I have long given up reading Sunday books on\nSunday.\"\n\n\"Then you read your Bible and Prayer-book; or even borrow some of\nLady Jane's devotional treatises; and try, after you have translated\nthe latter into plain English, to make out what they one and all\nreally do mean, by the light which old Socrates has given you during\nthe week.  You will find them wiser than you fancy, and simpler\nalso.\"\n\n\"So be it, my dear Soul-doctor.  Here come Lewis and the luncheon.\"\n\nAnd so ended our conversation.","title":"Phaethon: Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":17668}